Selina shrugged her non-padded shoulders. "I will sew them in eventually, I promise."
Joanna grinned to herself. She looked rather cheery. Usually before, during and after the consumption of a cream cake Joanna panicked about its calory content and moaned about its probable effect on her midriff.
As Selina waited for the inevitable outburst she said, "If we didn"t come to Ely every few weeks for a chat and a break I"m sure I"d go mad. Ely. Imagine! This small, insignificant town has come to symbolize freedom and independence to me. It"s rather sad; it"s like the Americans symbolizing freedom with a sparrow instead of a bald eagle."
She looked into Joanna"s face. Joanna was smiling. It was as if she was listening to a song that no one else could hear. Selina stared at her in silence for a minute or so and then said, "What is it, Joanna? I"m sure you"re up to something."
Joanna"s eyes were vaguely gla.s.sy. Selina frowned. "You"ve not been taking those tranquillizers again, have you?"
Joanna laughed. It was a sort of throaty, gutsy laugh. "Oh Selina, if only you knew. If only! What"s Tom like in bed at the moment? Has it improved since our last little chat?"
Selina shrugged and her cheeks reddened. "Nothing much has happened in that department. Are you enjoying that cake?"
She had finished hers several minutes before, but Joanna was still (uncharacteristically) pushing her cake around her plate. Selina added quickly-to distract Joanna from intimate territory-"School"s been awful. Felicity has been sitting in on cla.s.ses. It"s to do with the new a.s.sessment rules from the education authority. The cla.s.sroom is no longer my kingdom. It"s been taken over by men in little grey suits. Of course Felicity loves it all. She even had the cheek to offer me a few tips on my teaching technique the other day. I"m surprised she was capable of taking any of the lesson in. Most of it she spent fiddling with her hearing aid. Anyway, everyone knows that Heads are incapable of controlling cla.s.ses and that"s why they become Heads in the first place. Maybe I"m just bitter, but the thought of that old crone deigning to tell me how to handle a cla.s.s! She said something like, "Be freer, Selina, be more adventurous, take risks!" I tried to tell her that the syllabus had destroyed all elements of spontaneity in the cla.s.sroom. If the kids want to cope with the workload nowadays it"s all blackboard, chalk and copying."
As Selina finished speaking Joanna shuddered slightly. Selina smiled. "Ghost walk over your grave?"
Joanna shook her head and then giggled furtively. "Look Selina, it"s not that I"m not interested in what you are saying about school-G.o.d knows, my two did well enough under your tuition and they thought you were a great teacher-it isn"t that I"m not interested, but I just must change the subject for a moment."
As Joanna spoke, she leaned towards Selina conspiratorially and her voice dropped to a whisper, "Selina, I"m wearing Dual b.a.l.l.s."
Selina frowned. "What do you mean? Is it a girdle of some kind, or some sort of skin ointment?"
Joanna never ceased to amaze her with her violent enthusiasms with frivolity. She pushed a slightly greying brown curl behind her ear and thought abstractedly, "I must have my hair cut, it"s almost touching my shoulders now."
Joanna"s chair sc.r.a.ped along the floor as she pulled it up closer to Selina. Selina could smell her perfume-something heady like Opium-which flushed through the air like bleach through water. Joanna whispered again, "I"ve got Dual b.a.l.l.s, Selina. I"ve had them in since I left the house. It"s been incredible."
Selina shrugged, "You"re going to have to explain this to me, Joanna. I don"t know what Dual b.a.l.l.s are."
Joanna bit her lip and stared at Selina through her heavily mascaraed lashes for a moment, then she said, "I got them from an underwear catalogue. I ordered them and they came in the post. John doesn"t know anything about them."
Selina cleared her throat nervously, "Are they something rude, Joanna?" Joanna winked saucily. "I should say so. They"re like two small round vibrating grapes. Battery operated."
Selina took a sip of her coffee to try and deflate the tension, then said, "Have you got them in your bag?"
Joanna snorted loudly and several people at other tables turned and stared at them both for a moment. Selina felt slightly embarra.s.sed. Joanna soon recovered from her fit of hilarity and whispered, "They"re not in my bag, stupid. I"ve got them in my f.a.n.n.y."
Selina was not initially so much shocked by the idea of Joanna"s little vibrating grapes as by her casual use of the word "f.a.n.n.y". It was an old-fashioned word. She had once had a great aunt called f.a.n.n.y, a gregarious, light-hearted aunt who had always seemed very old to her as a child; old, frail but charming.
She didn"t really know how to reply to Joanna, how to disguise her intense unease and embarra.s.sment. Luckily Joanna had other things on her mind. After a few seconds silence she squeezed Selina"s arm and said, "I"m going to nip into the toilets and take them out, then you can have a proper look at them."
Selina"s expression was querulous. Joanna noticed as she stood up, and grinned. "Don"t worry, Selina, I"ll give them a good wash before you have to have any contact with them."
Selina sighed. "Joanna, please be discreet. This is only Ely after all, not San Francisco."
Joanna didn"t reply.
Once she"d gone Selina relaxed and drank a large mouthful of her coffee. She stared out of the window at the cathedral. She thought, "G.o.d, I feel old. Maybe it"s teaching. It just beats all the enthusiasm out of you. I"m sure I never used to feel this way. The kids are no better or no worse than they were twenty years ago. It must be me that"s changed." She sighed and waited for Joanna"s return.
After about five minutes Joanna emerged from the toilets looking furtive but self-satisfied, like a large tom cat on the prowl, about to spray an unsuspecting territory with his rank odour. Selina thought, "This room belongs to Joanna. She doesn"t give a d.a.m.n about anything."
Joanna sat down next to her again and Selina said straight away, "I don"t know where you get these ideas from-or your nerve for that matter-look at you, as bold as bra.s.s!"
Joanna smiled and patted her chestnut perm with one of her bright-pink-fingernailed hands, "Don"t look at this hand, look at the other one under the table."
Selina moved backwards slightly and stared down at Joanna"s other hand which held the Dual b.a.l.l.s like a couple of freshly laid eggs. Selina said, "They"re bigger than I thought they"d be and attached to each other. I imagined that they"d be a sort of flesh colour, not that strange off-white."
Joanna raised her eyebrows, "Flesh is off-white, Selina. Are Tom"s b.a.l.l.s a very different colour to these?"
She smiled provocatively. Selina shook her head disapprovingly. "Tom"s ..."-she couldn"t use the word-"Tom"s aren"t anything unusual, Joanna, and I certainly don"t make a habit of trying to use them like you"ve just used those. Also, his don"t use batteries and they aren"t attached by a small piece of cord."
Joanna smirked. "You wish Tom"s b.a.l.l.s were like these. They"re very effective, and so discreet. I think the thrill of using them is trebled by the fact of wearing them out. It"s so arousing."
Selina grimaced. "Walking can"t be easy with them in. Why don"t they just drop out?"
As Selina spoke Joanna switched the b.a.l.l.s on. She waited for Selina to finish talking and then said, "Why don"t you try them and see?" The b.a.l.l.s vibrated vigorously in her hand. They sounded like a quieter version of an electric razor. Selina was sure that everyone could hear. She whispered frantically, "For G.o.d"s sake Joanna, switch them off." Joanna frowned. "I worry about you, Selina. You"re becoming very old-maidish, very schoolmarmish. You don"t have any spirit of adventure any more."
Selina didn"t rise to the bait. "I"ve never had any spirit of adventure and you know it."
Joanna nodded. "I suppose that"s true. No backbone, no spontaneity. No interest in what"s state of the art ..."
Selina raised an eyebrow. "Where did you come across that little phrase? Something on television, something American I suppose?"
"You wouldn"t have the nerve to wear these out, no way," Joanna interrupted.
Selina smiled. "I"d have enough nerve, Joanna, just too much sense. I don"t need something like those. I think they"re horrible. Now switch them off."
Joanna turned and stared out the window at people pa.s.sing by. An old lady staggered past pulling her shopping trolley. Joanna pointed at the woman, "I bet she"d wear them out. I bet she"s got more s.p.u.n.k in her little finger than you"ve got in your entire body"
Selina almost smiled at this but then stopped herself. "Possibly. Look, the waitress is coming over with the bill. Please turn them off."
Joanna didn"t turn them off, but started instead to lift up the hand containing the vibrating b.a.l.l.s until they were almost at a level with the surface of the table. Selina was excruciatingly embarra.s.sed. "Joanna, switch them off and put them away. You"re embarra.s.sing me."
Joanna was staring at the Dual b.a.l.l.s rather thoughtfully. After a moment she said, "I dare you to wear these when you"re teaching one of your cla.s.ses. Just for one lesson. I dare you!"
Joanna loved dares. This was princ.i.p.ally because she always thought of them and didn"t therefore usually do them herself. "Go on Selina, I dare you!"
Selina laughed. "You"ve got to be kidding. Those horrible little things are having no contact with my intimate body whatsoever."
Joanna lifted the b.a.l.l.s slightly higher than the table and said, "If you don"t accept the dare I swear I"m going to put these into your coffee cup when the waitress comes to clear the table. That should be in about twenty seconds."
Selina saw a couple of people at the nearest table to them discussing something and laughing. She was sure that they had noticed. She said, "Joanna, put them down, please."
Joanna held them even higher. The waitress started to walk towards them. When she was about five steps from the table Selina said, "OK, I promise to wear them, I promise, all right?"
Joanna switched the b.a.l.l.s off immediately. It seemed very quiet without their buzzing.
On her way home Joanna pa.s.sed John in the tractor. He stopped so that she could overtake him then waved his arm so that she would pause for a moment. She wound down her window. "Yes?"
He shouted from his high seat, not bothering to switch off the tractor"s roaring engine, "Did she take them?"
Joanna nodded emphatically. "Yes. It worked like a dream. She was really shocked when she thought that I was wearing them. It was a real effort not to laugh."
He smiled. "You must be a great actress then."
She shrugged. "I did all right."
She crossed her fingers down by the steering wheel. He frowned-although he couldn"t see her hands-"Joanna, you were just acting?" Joanna guffawed. "Don"t be ridiculous. I"d probably have crashed the car if I"d worn them driving ... Of course I wouldn"t dream of wearing them anyway, why should I?"
She winked. He smiled. He obviously believed her. She uncrossed her fingers, waved at him and then drove on.
She negotiated the turn into their driveway with special care; she"d almost driven off the road there on the trip out.
One of the favourite pastimes in Grunty Fen is Chinese Whispers. People whisper gossip like it"s going out of season. They also discuss what"s happened in all of the major soaps and mini-series on television. Mostly though they prefer to gossip because it"s a tiny place and everyone knows everyone else"s business.
John got p.i.s.sed in the local pub on Sat.u.r.day night and told several of his cronies about Joanna"s dare. The men all laughed loudly at the notion of someone as staid and strait-laced as Selina experimenting with s.e.xual gadgets. They knew she wouldn"t do it, but they enjoyed thinking about it just the same. A couple of them went home in their cups and told their wives. The women were shocked, interested and surprised on the whole; a small proportion were slightly jealous.
After Sunday lunch Selina was doing the washing up in the kitchen and Tom was sitting at the dining table in the next room doing the Sunday Telegraph crossword. Occasionally he read out loud to Selina any of the clues that had completely eluded him.
Selina washed the soapsuds from the final plate and placed it with the others on the drying rack. Tom seemed busy and preoccupied so she took this opportunity to clean out the sink and refill it with very hot water and a squirt of bleach. She went and found her handbag and took out the Dual b.a.l.l.s which she had placed inside, wrapped up in a tissue. She opened the tissue and removed the Dual b.a.l.l.s then placed them in the hot water and bleach, still wearing her rubber gloves. As she rubbed the b.a.l.l.s with her hands she felt like a fetishist.
At the sound of Tom"s voice from the next room she jumped guiltily and her heart lurched; then in a split second she had grabbed the washing-up cloth and had dropped it over the b.a.l.l.s, covering them completely. Tom was saying, "Thirty-one across. Vulgar c.o.c.kney squeezes ends of these into tube. Six letters. I think it"s an anagram. Any ideas, Selina?"
At this exact moment, a mile or so away, Joanna and John were still eating their lunch of beef and roast potatoes. John had a slight hangover. Joanna had prepared a meal for four but neither of the children had bothered hanging around for it. This made John even more ill-tempered and grouchy. He kept saying, "It"s such a waste of good food. Those two don"t know what it"s like to do without. You spoil them."
Joanna ignored him. She was thinking about Selina and the Dual b.a.l.l.s. She wondered whether she would use them or not. Selina rarely broke her word, if ever.
She cut into a potato and watched the steam rise from its hot centre. She speared a bit of it on to her fork and prepared to put it into her mouth. Before she had done so, however, John said, "I told a couple of the fellas about your joke with Selina last night."
Joanna stared at him, dumbstruck. "You did what?"
Her voice was sharp and strident. He shrugged. "I know I promised not to but it sort of slipped out."
She put down her fork. "I don"t know why I tell you anything. You"re totally unreliable. I"m sick of you spreading my business about and sticking your nose into everything. This was none of your affair in the first place."
He frowned. "Well, why did you tell me about it then?"
She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. "I didn"t tell you about it, you opened my b.l.o.o.d.y mail. You have no right to open letters and parcels that are addressed to me."
He shook his head, confused. "You don"t have anything to hide from me, Joanna. What"s the problem all of a sudden? This isn"t like you."
Joanna slammed her hand down on the table, rattling the plates and gla.s.ses and cutlery. "I am a woman, John, women have secrets. That"s one of the few good things about being a woman as far as I can see. Now that you"ve told everyone about this thing with Selina she"ll be a laughing stock. She"s my friend, for G.o.d"s sake."
John stood up and moved around the table towards Joanna. His head ached with every twitch of his body. "Everyone knows that Selina won"t use those things. She"s not like that. It was a silly idea in the first place really."
Joanna felt tearful. She shouted, "Well, it seemed like a good excuse at the time!"
Then, grabbing her plate, she marched off into the kitchen, where she threw her lunch into the bin.
John sat down at the table again. He felt somewhat confused.
Felicity Barrow received a telephone call from her friend Janet Street on Sunday afternoon. Janet was extremely excited because she had a bit of amusing gossip to impart about one of the teachers at Felicity"s school. Felicity liked to call it "my school," even though she was only the headmistress.
Janet had a rather puffy, breathy, light voice, and the scandal in her news almost extinguished it altogether. She gasped down the phone, "Jim told me that Selina Mitch.e.l.l has been wearing some sort of s.e.xual device to school and using it while she"s teaching cla.s.ses." Felicity interrupted, putting on her best head-teacherish voice. "What on earth are you saying, Janet? And do speak clearly, I haven"t adjusted my hearing aid yet." On concluding this sentence she sipped her tea and took a large bite out of a mint-flavoured Viscount biscuit.
Janet gulped. This noise travelled all the way down the telephone line and into Felicity"s ear. Then she whispered, "Well, Jim said that it is a sort of vibrating machine which is shaped like the female s.e.xual organs, but convex. It is attached by elastic to the two thighs, I think the elastic goes around the b.u.t.tocks at the back ... anyway Jim says it"s very discreet. What happens is that it is battery-operated and it presses into the v.a.g.i.n.a while methodically rubbing at the c.l.i.toris. Apparently after several minutes this stimulates a s.e.xual climax."
Felicity tried to suppress the impulse to laugh, but finally gave into a throaty chuckle. "Janet, I think what you"re saying is untrue. We both know Selina Mitch.e.l.l, we"ve both known her for years. I was headmistress at Grunty Fen Primary when she was a pupil at the school herself. There has never been anyone in the school whose dignity, discretion and professionalism I have held in higher regard. Just the other day I sat in on her cla.s.s and a.s.sessed her performance. My only advice to her was that I thought her techniques too staid, perhaps a jot unimaginative ..."
Janet interrupted. "That"s all well and good, Felicity, but you know what they say, there"s no smoke without fire. She did go away at the end of the sixties, after all. Who knows what sort of habits she picked up then ..."
Felicity"s initial amused indulgence at Janet"s news suddenly evaporated. She snapped, "Stop talking such absolute rubbish, Janet. I"d certainly have expected that you of all people would be the last to surrender your credulity to the clutches of vicious and totally unfounded gossip. I don"t want to hear anything more about this subject, and if I do hear anything from a different source I will be forced to presume that it originated with you. Do I make myself clear?" Janet answered breathlessly in the affirmative and the conversation ended abruptly shortly afterwards.
Felicity had been headmistress at Grunty Fen Primary for almost thirty years. The time had come and gone for her to retire but she had ignored suggestions from various departments-chiefly from her husband Donald, who was several years into retirement himself-and had carried on giving her all to the young children of the district.
She took her vocation very seriously. Her main problem was that she couldn"t be convinced that anyone else she knew would be suitable for her job. The ideal candidate would be a woman-she thought that women made the best Heads because they were much more frightening than men-and preferably they would originate from Grunty Fen or the surrounding area. She believed that Fen children had to be taught by people who were familiar with the various interests, problems and subtleties of their character. She knew that Selina Mitch.e.l.l was keen for promotion. She had been coolly vetted for a favourable reference from Selina herself on several occasions, but nothing had come of it.
Felicity put her feet up on to her foot-stool, took out her hearing aid, leaned back in her chair and took another bite out of her biscuit. She had resented Janet"s news because she felt that anything bad said about her staff reflected badly on the school and ultimately on herself. She was rather proud and vain but disliked these qualities in other people. Selina, she believed, was far too proud and vain for her own good. She was too closed, not sufficiently free-thinking. Felicity found her distant and arrogant. Selina found Felicity interfering and arrogant. Neither side would bow down to the other. They weren"t destined to be good friends, but Felicity often regretted that they had never even managed to become formal friends.
She took another sip of tea and decided to call Selina into her office for a serious chat first thing in the morning. She picked up a copy of the People"s Friend and ran her finger down the list of contents, muttering. "No smoke without fire, indeed!"
Selina didn"t dare carry the Dual b.a.l.l.s to school in her teaching bag in case any of the children poked around in it looking for a pencil or a book and came across them. Instead she wore a smart blue blazer with a deep inside pocket in which she carefully placed the Dual b.a.l.l.s before breakfast.
On arriving at school she went straight into her cla.s.sroom to enjoy five minutes of quiet contemplation before the start of the day. She was keen to avoid Felicity and other members of staff, who on a Monday morning always seemed to try extra hard to be sociable and community spirited. Selina hated all that "bonding" business. It wasn"t her style. She rarely went out for drinks on a Friday night with her colleagues; even so, she always saw them over the weekend because Grunty Fen and the surrounding areas were so spa.r.s.ely populated that a trip to the shops usually meant a trip to meet everyone from your past, your present and your future that you were keen to avoid.
She sat at her desk and put her hand into her inside pocket to feel the Dual b.a.l.l.s. They felt cold and smooth; highly unerotic. She looked around the cla.s.sroom and thought, "I"m so b.l.o.o.d.y sick of this routine. I"m sick of teaching. I just wish that it was heading somewhere or that something would come of it, but nothing will. I"ve vegetated, stultified."
The room smelled clean but of chalk and paper and dust. Her mind turned to Joanna and their conversation at the weekend. This raised a smile. She thought, "Of course she"s right. I don"t have any real spirit of adventure."
The bell rang and the day began.
Felicity had popped into the staff room at the beginning of the day to ask Selina into her office for a chat. Unfortunately Selina didn"t materialize so Felicity had to content herself with the idea of meeting her during lunchtime. She checked the wall chart in the staff room to make sure that Selina wasn"t on play or dinner duty.
It was a hot day. After several hours Selina became uncomfortable in her blazer and took it off so that she could cool down, hanging it carefully over the top of her chair and keeping a firm eye on it. The morning droned on and eventually it was time for lunch.
All morning she"d had half of her mind on the Dual b.a.l.l.s. A part of her really wanted to fulfil her dare and show Joanna that she was a woman of her word. Another part of her baulked at the idea of using the b.a.l.l.s in principle. They were crude and revolting. Secretly she was rather interested to know how they would feel, but only in a silly, inquisitive way that took no account of what was right or for the best.
As the last child left the cla.s.sroom Selina made a firm decision. She resolved to go and "try on" the Dual b.a.l.l.s and to try them out for several minutes in the privacy of her cla.s.sroom at the beginning of her lunch hour. Then, if Joanna asked, she could say in all honesty that she had in fact worn the b.a.l.l.s at school in the cla.s.sroom.
The day was very still and warm. She opened the top b.u.t.ton on her shirt to let the air circulate more freely around her throat then strolled to her chair and put on her blue blazer. It felt heavy and made her skin feel sticky. She felt ridiculously tense and strung-out. Luckily the toilets were close to her cla.s.sroom. She worried about walking with the Dual b.a.l.l.s in; Joanna hadn"t cleared up that little chestnut during their coffee and eclairs.
The toilets were empty. She chose one of the two cubicles and locked herself in. She was glad that she had opted to wear a skirt and sheer stockings for easier access.
Inserting the Dual b.a.l.l.s gave her a feeling of youthful mischievousness, as though she were one of the children in school doing something secretive and wrong like puffing on a cigarette.
The Dual b.a.l.l.s felt cold, bulky and stupid. She pulled the string that switched them on. In her hyper-sensitive state the buzzing of the b.a.l.l.s seemed like the violent crashing of cymbals. Although the toilets were empty apart from herself, she coughed loudly with embarra.s.sment to try and hide the initial shock of the sound.
After a few moments of acclimatization Selina rearranged her clothing and stepped out of the cubicle. The b.a.l.l.s felt like an inordinately large blue-bottle whizzing around, lost inside her knickers. She took a few experimental steps around by the sinks-where she fastidiously washed her hands-and the Dual b.a.l.l.s stayed firmly in place. She breathed a sigh of relief, then steeled her resolve and nerve as she headed for the door.