James McClure - The Caterpillar Cop

The southern cross marked the spot where Jonathan Rogers laid his dinner jacket and prepared to lay Penny Jones. Stretched out side by side, just their elbows touching so far, they could see the constellation framed directly above them by a small, wavering gap in the wattle trees surrounding Trekkersburg Country Club. And it seemed somehow so much more romantic than the moon.

That was the secret of the thing, after all-making out this was the Big Romance, soon to be filmed in fabulous Technicolor on a wrapround screen. Even if you, for one, knew nobody would be out fooling with a glass slipper come morning. Even if you were doing it only because they said it had never been done before. At least to Miss Jones.

Jonathan found her hand, gently broke its clasp on a paper tissue, and mated his fingers with hers. Then he had his thumb describe tight, tickling circles on the moist little palm.

“Don’t!” she whispered.

Instantly he went limp as a scolded spaniel.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was just I-”

“Never to worry.”

“No, honest. I don’t want you to be cross.”

“I’m not.”

“Promise?”

“Take your time, Pen.”

She squeezed and sighed happily.

But don’t take all night about it, darling-they had put a deadline on this one. The singles play-off would begin at nine sharp and the team were expected back in town at the hotel by midnight. Jonathan lad, they had said when they fixed him up with her, Jonathan lad, we give you until eleven-thirty, okay? They were a good bunch of blokes in the team, but never liked having any of their traditions broken. In fact, it was considered an ill omen if they were not all gathered together again for a final round before leaving. And as the law dictated that no female might venture into a South African bar, it meant Jonathan would have to get it all over and done with outdoors. Pronto.

He set his thumb to work again.

“What’s it like?” she asked timidly.

“Hey?”

“Being a tennis champion.”

“I’m not really that.”

“You will be, though-tomorrow.”

“Going to watch again?”

“Of course!”

His turn to give a squeeze, sigh, and say nothing. It worked.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you want me there?”

“Got to keep my eye on the ball, haven’t I?”

She laughed.

“You say you’ve seen me spectating all last week?”

“Gave me a hard time of it, you did.”

“Where was I sitting, then?”

He gave it a pat.

“Jonathan!”

Silence-the kind judges use before calling for a verdict.

“Now you’re cross, Pen. Aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“I’m not.”

“Can I kiss you then?”

“If you want to.”

He tried another. It was no better than the first half-dozen; her lips were soft enough but they parted wrongly so their teeth clinked together and she had pretty hard teeth.

“Oh, Jonathan…”

He sat up slowly and looked about while he wondered if he dared risk his tongue.

It was surprising how bright it seemed inside the forest once your eyes had adjusted from the fluorescent blaze of the ballroom. He could see very well, in fact. The wattle trunks rose quite distinctly above the bracken ahead of him. He could even pick out spiders’ eyes glinting in tiny clusters on the invisible webs strung between them. And a strip of rag left on a sapling as a marker in some cross-country run. The moon was lurking about somewhere, that much was obvious, and doing its best to curry favor. Only he was impatient for it to edge its way through the trees and do miracles with a pair of bare, if otherwise unremarkable, breasts. He closed his eyelids to see what his imagination could find to project onto them.

That was the moment, as he so often said later, when he should rather have glanced back over his shoulder into the undergrowth. Just a quick glance and everything would have been so different. Horrible, of course, but not in the same way. Then he would shudder and think of Miss Jones, while his friends would try to make of their embarrassment a silent tribute to her memory. Poor old Penny Jones, spinster of the parish. Forevermore.

“What’s the matter?”

He kept his eyes shut and his slight smile turned away.

“Nothing.”

“You’ve gone all funny, Jonathan. Why are your eyes closed?”

“I was listening.”

“Oh? Is there someone…?”

“I told you we’d be all right here; there’s not a wog for miles. It’s something else-can’t you hear it?”

“Music?”

“Yes.”

“It’s coming from the clubhouse.”

“That’s right. And the tune?”

Trust old Steve. Every team had its funny man and he had the ability to be funnier than most. Right now he was up on the bandstand doing a takeoff of Sinatra, belting out a ballad, and making damn certain it would reach his doubles partner in the woods. No doubt the rest of the crew were falling about the place busting a gut.

“Don’t know it. But I never listen to the radio much, just the ‘Hit Parade’ when my sister’s got it on.”

Which was as well, perhaps. Steve was giving with the oldie “Have You Met Miss Jones?”

“It’s our tune.” Jonathan chuckled.

“Really?”

More than that: it was a challenge. On court or off, the lads depended on their captain to boost morale by doing the impossible. There was no going back now with his shirttail between his legs.

Jonathan began peeling the bark from a fallen branch, slyly twisting his body so that she could see nothing but his back. He waited. The singing petered out. He waited some more.

“There is something the matter!” she said.

He shrugged.

“You must tell me. What is it?”

“Hell. I suppose it’s because you’re different.”

“In what way?”

“Just different, that’s all. Not like the others.”

“Who?”

“The girls at these dances for us-you know what I mean.” “No, I don’t.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then you must have a very sheltered life. Haven’t you heard why most of them come? It’s like being a pop star. You know.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

Count to ten slowly.

“No, you don’t. I’m not talking about that. Not exactly.”

“Oh?”

“Pen, I think I love you. Isn’t that crazy?”

One, two, three, four, five, six-“Why should it be?”

“Why should it be?”

Seven, eight, nine, ten.

Seven, eight, nine, ten.

“So you don’t think it’s crazy? Even if we only met tonight?”

“I–I cut your picture out of the paper last year.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re different, too, Jonathan. I’ve told everyone that.”

“How could you tell?”

“I know.”

He flipped the branch away into the bracken.

“Are you going to lie down again, Jonathan?”

“No.”

“But you said-”

“You’re different, Pen. Different. It makes me scared.”

“What does?”

“The way I still want to-kiss you, and that.”

“Perhaps I’m like them.”

“Don’t be sick! I told you the way I felt. Never happened to me before.”

“I meant… I love you, too, you know.”

“It’s a bloody mess.”

Her hand stirred from the leaves at her side.

“I’ve taken them off, Jonathan.”

Hell. Without her spectacles, Penny Jones looked suddenly very unlike a trainee schoolmarm. Now her thick, long lashes came into their own and so did the pert nose with its dusting of cute freckles. Myopia lent the finishing touch by introducing a wide-eyed, trustful innocence.