Pervert, says Stephnie Landman.
Ja, says Douwlina, His inner self is suppressed. It’s people like that who end up at the Gilbert and Sullivan society.
Then they reach the corner and thick Elsbet says, I wanna be a golf ball. And then they turn left.
I don’t walk past. I stay at the fence till he reaches climax. He does it with a rattling movement, then the birdseeds fall on his head and when he’s finished he just hangs there like an attractive baboon with dandruff.
Then I run, because it’s four minutes to seven. That’s why I never sing the scales at choir practice, because I’m out of breath. Me and Mr Fazakas. But he has the fun, I just watch.
Choir Practice
I belong to the choir that sings “Abide with Me” the falsest in the world.
At the back there’s a row of men, we sing sharp. At the front there are two rows of women, they sing flat.
And at the organ is Miss Wilna, the pale person. She’s one of those people you never find in groups, there’s always just one in every town. They’re completely white and when they make quick movements, parts of them turn pink. She can’t be very good, otherwise she wouldn’t have to teach in this town and have this choir. But still, she must know something about music if she finished her degree. So it must be tough.
Sometimes I think she uses cocaine to give her guts, because then she makes us sing without the organ. And that’s something unbelievable.
When it’s very false, I get a hard-on. It’s like when you know something is wrong or it’s really bad, but you can’t get enough of it. It turns me on so much I go crazy.
The best part is when Miss Wilna gets up to conduct.
Miss Wilna is single, so she doesn’t come to practice in her day clothes.
She dresses up in different outfits that she makes every week. Nobody knows why she does it, the choir has only got married men and me.
When she conducts, it starts slowly. First she makes triangles so we get the beat, and then she goes up and down for loud and soft, and then comes the hand thing for emotion. That’s where the bosom starts.
Miss Wilna has got two of those incredibly round breasts that very pale people have. So when you look at it you can’t ever look away again because you’re trying to figure out where the nipples would sit but that could be anywhere, so you become hypnotised completely.
And the more she conducts, the wilder the breasts become until you think they must be looking for the nipples too, because they’re all over the place and then you’re so hypnotised, you just stand there, producing this mass of loud noise that’s so bad, Miss Wilna turns pink and goes completely crazy till eventually that bosom heaves the choir to heights of falseness that would be unthinkable in bright daylight.
And it’s every Tuesday. It’s like we can’t get away from it. We’re just there, stuck inside all this noise, and we just stay there. It’s like Miss Wilna is this farmer who gets hysterical because the rain is coming and he wants to plough his fields but the tractor starts singing and the more the farmer tries to get the tractor going, the louder the tractor sings, and nothing happens.
And the whole time I’m horny.
The Glove
The one Tuesday night we were practising for the end-of-year thing, Miss Wilna took out all these pencils and white paper and said we must trace our right hands before we leave.
Stephnie Landman said she’s not tracing anything and Miss Wilna mustn’t think we think only black people and Greeks are perverts.
Miss Wilna went all pink in the neck and put the papers in a file.
Next week we all got gloves. White gloves for the finale. We sing “Minstrel from Heaven”, then we raise our hands for the chorus.
Stephnie Landman said she’s not waving no white glove like a lesbian speed cop, can she go stand at the back.
Miss Wilna just changed colour and said we must take the gloves home.
At the flat I didn’t take off the glove, I watched TV with the glove.
I kept looking down at the glove, it didn’t look like my hand anymore, it was like it was somebody else’s hand and it was on my leg. I was getting all hot inside and I loved Miss Wilna for making the glove.
The glove moved up my leg.
I said, Don’t do that.
Up went the glove.
I said, If you do that, it’s not right. We just sit here, then it’s nice.
The glove squeezed my hand. My hand was sweating but it did nothing. It just went with the glove.
Just pretend you have a visitor, said the glove.
Visitors are not like this, I said to the glove.
How the hell would you know? said the glove, You don’t go for tea with the others after practice. You don’t sit with anybody at work.
I don’t have to, I said.
But you want to, said the glove, Miss Wilna doesn’t look at your tits, you look at hers. And tonight you couldn’t take your eyes off Blignault’s ass, he wasn’t looking at yours. And what’s this?
The glove took my hand to that place.
I didn’t know what was happening. The glove was saying all these terrible things and doing the most wonderful things. But it felt wrong, in the flat like that, with the TV on and everything.
Don’t! I said to the glove.
You like it, said the glove.
Still, I said, We should go to the bedroom.
The Ad
I quit singing in the choir just before the end-of-the-year thing. I didn’t think it was appropriate anymore and I didn’t want to give the glove back.
The Tuesday night I watched Mr Fazakas till four minutes to seven. Then I walked to the corner and turned right. I walked three blocks till the sign said Accommodation and Ladies’ Bar.
By the time I realised I was trembling and I’ve never been so scared in my life and are you off your head, what the hell are you doing here, it was too late. I was standing inside a new world, four blocks from choir practice.
I sat down at the first empty table. But my left knee doesn’t bend when I’m nervous, so I kicked the table and the ashtray fell on the floor and ev’rybody looked. I knew people don’t usually blush in bars, but I did, full face, till I was glowing like a bulb and then a black man with a tray said, Ev’ning, Sir.
I knew I couldn’t run because my knee was still locked. So I said softly, Can I see the menu, please.
The man looked at me like a blind person who’d just been healed. No menu, he said.
I suddenly remembered a TV program. Scotch, I said.
On the rocks, he said, Or with soda?
I thought, If this man brings a rock, everybody’s gonna look again.
Soda, I said.
Then he left and I picked up the ashtray. I looked at the people.
There were three men at the bar and men with women at the tables. They were talking to each other but their eyes went all over the place like they were looking for somebody.
In the corner a man and a woman both sat at the same side of the table. The man had a red face and red hands and he was putting it all over the woman. The woman had a straw