Rosie Dixon - Confessions of a Physical Wrac

‘Phew, I never thought we’d get out of that so easily,’ says Penny after Nuttley, true to his word, has released us and we are scuttling down the steps of the police station.

‘Easily?’ I say, trying to stop a note of hysteria from creeping into my voice.

‘Yes,’ says Penny. ‘I thought the only thing that would work would be a sweetener. That’s why I tossed in that bit about Gary Cooper. I thought it might get him going but he didn’t bite.’

‘He didn’t bite you!’ I say, feeling the side of my neck which must look like a piece of uncooked steak.

‘Rosie! You don’t mean –?’

‘Yes, dear! You dropped me right in it. He thought I was the one who fancied him. I had to bear the brunt.’

‘Bare the what –?’

‘The brunt, Penny! Do listen. I had to bare the other thing as well but that’s not what I was referring to.’

‘I bet he had a big one,’ says Penny.

‘Is that all you can say?’ I scold. ‘After what I’ve just been through. “I bet he had a big one”. Is that all the sympathy you can dredge up for a close friend who has given her all to get you out of prison?’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Penny. ‘I just wanted to see if I was right, that’s all. Did he have a big one?’

‘I didn’t really look at it,’ I say.

‘So you didn’t go down on him?’ says Penny losing none of her interest for the unspeakable details.

‘Penny!’ I say, feeling my cheeks redden. ‘I’m not certain I know what that means, though I’m certain I don’t want to find out.’

‘I was referring to a blow job,’ says Penny as I might have guessed she would. ‘Otherwise known as “chewing the fat”, “gnawing the nunga”, “slurping the gherkin” or “pork without talk”.’

‘Please!’ I say. ‘I can assure you that nothing so uneatable – I mean, unspeakable – took place. To answer your first question, my tortured senses do suggest to me that the base member was one of the larger variety. Now let us leave the subject alone!’

Penny shakes her head ruefully. ‘You’re a quiet one and no mistake. There I am, trying to find something worth reading in a back number of the Police Gazette , and you’re getting outside another champion marrow arrow. Tell me, what is the secret of your success with men?’

‘I wish I knew,’ I say. ‘Then I could do something about it. You don’t think I seriously get any pleasure out of all these awful things that happen to me, do you?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Penny. ‘You puzzle me. I’ve never met a girl quite like you. You seem innocent but –’

I wait hopefully but nothing happens. ‘Go on,’ I say.

‘Well,’ says Penny. ‘It’s not easy to put my finger on – not like some other things – but I think you sort of ask for some of the things that happen to you. Maybe it’s fate or something like that.’

‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘I think you’ve hit on it. Without really knowing it. I’ve been crying out for a permanent attachment and my senses have got all jangled up.’ I can see Penny looking bewildered and I start talking faster. ‘But don’t worry, I’ve sorted myself out now and I think I know what I should do. There’s a boy at home called Geoffrey Wilkes, I don’t know if I’ve talked to you about him?’

‘From what you said he sounded a bit of a drip,’ says Penny.

‘If that’s what I said then I wasn’t being very fair,’ I say. ‘He’s not fantastically exciting but he’s got lots of good qualities. He’s dependable and – and –’

‘And what?’ says Penny.

‘And he’s awfully good at tennis,’ I say, after racking my brains. ‘He won the mixed doubles at the Eastwood Lawn Tennis Club last year.’

‘All by himself?’ says Penny. ‘My, that’s what I call an all rounder.’

‘You can sneer,’ I say. ‘But I think that his homespun values are what I’ve been looking for all this time without really knowing it.’

‘So it’s wedding bells, is it?’ says Penny. ‘A sit-down lunch, two weeks at Horridmelinos and a semi-detached in Chingford.’

‘West Woodford,’ I say, responding just as Mum would have done. ‘I don’t know, but it’s what I’d like at the moment. Anyway, I’m going home to see if he’s still interested. We used to be quite close at one time.’

‘I remember,’ says Penny. ‘You had it off when he came down to our place on that course, didn’t you? I knew I’d seen him somewhere. Carroty-headed feller with big hands.’

‘Burnished rust,’ I say. ‘And all his bodily extremities are well-developed.’

The moment that the words have passed my lips I realise that they may have been ill-judged and Penny is swift to prove me correct. ‘There you go again,’ she says. ‘You can’t help giving yourself away, can you? Socking great helpings of steaming male tonk, that’s what turns you on, isn’t it?’

‘Rubbish!’ I say. ‘Come back to Ching – West Woodford and meet Geoffrey properly before you say things like that. Who knows? You might find that there’s something missing from your life.’

These words, thrown down in anger rather than in a genuine attempt at an invitation, do in fact lead to Penny agreeing to accompany me home for a short visit. Apparently her father is about to separate from his latest wife and she always likes to be out of the way when this is happening. Of course, this kind of experience is a million miles from my own and I always think that Penny considers that there is something slightly strange about me because I am still living with the same mother and father as when I was born.

‘What do they find to say to each other?’ she says. This is the kind of question that opens one’s mind to aspects of family life that one has never properly considered before and I begin to wonder whether Penny’s visit will be as mutually rewarding an experience as I had hoped for. It certainly does not start off very well.

‘Gosh,’ says Penny as we take a prohibitively expensive taxi from Buckhurst Hill Station. ‘Look at those ghastly little houses. Can you imagine living in one of them?’

Before I can answer, the cabby shoves on the anchors and we squeal to a halt outside number 47 Pretty Way. ‘Here you are, Miss,’ he says. ‘That’ll be eighty pence please.’

‘It’s lovely,’ says Penny. ‘It’s got a completely different character from the rest of the houses in the street. I love those gnomes trying to fish the milk bottle tops out of the refuse pit.’

‘That’s the pond,’ I say. ‘A lot of stuff blows in from the people who are waiting at the bus stop.’

Penny and I make a big thing of paying for the taxi and spill the contents of our purses all over the pavement as we struggle to get the money out first but there is no doubt that the damage has been done. The situation is not improved when sister Natalie opens the front door. She is wearing her pink velvet lounging pants and a lilac green transparent blouse that reveals every inch of fabric on the black bra nearly covering her over-developed breasts. I don’t know how she put on her make-up but it looks as if somebody fired it at her out of a cannon – Mum should take her in hand, I have said so, many times.

‘They’re here, Mum,’ she says. ‘Rosie and her posh friend.’

Penny gives Natalie a smile slightly more deadly than cyanide of potassium and pushes into the interior of the house. ‘What a pretty sister you have, Rosie,’ she says. ‘She’s going to look really lovely when her spots clear up. Have you thought about seeing a specialist?’

I might have guessed that Mum would appear flustered and with flour all over her hands and it is no surprise when she tries to shake hands while she is apologising about the state of the house, covers Penny in flour, tries to rub it off with a cloth that has jam on it and – oh! I can’t bear to go on. By the time Dad comes back, says ‘pleased to meet you’ to Penny, tucks his serviette in the top of his collar, sits at the table with his knife and fork bolt upright in either hand and informs everybody that he is looking forward to Coronation Street I am determined that we must get out of the house at any cost.