Crystal Jeans - The Inverts

‘We’re such good friends,’ Margo said, smiling up at her.

‘Of course we are.’

The hand crept higher, finding Bettina’s red-flecked throat. The fingers gently squeezed.

‘They’re all such terrific wasps, the others, such vicious, stinging wasps,’ said Margo. She was looking at Bettina’s mouth. ‘But you’re not. Well, only a smidge, and in the funniest way. I think you’re wonderful actually.’

Bettina smiled foolishly, her eyes focused on Margo’s hairline. ‘I should think so.’ Their bodies were pressed together. She could not meet her friend’s eye, it was bizarre. And she was so terribly drunk – drunker than she’d ever been in her life. And that warm small hand squeezing her throat. Just so.

‘We’re such good friends,’ Margo repeated, in a whisper now, bringing her mouth to Bettina’s ear and softly, so, so softly, kissing the point where jawline meets ear, then a little lower – the neck. Higher – the chin, higher still – moving up with the soft kidskin lips bumping, brushing, rubbing, preceded by little hot breaths – up up up, slowly, clumsily, to her own lips, and beyond that, all reason left her.

Old Roundpenny. Halfway down the stairs. Frozen with one foot on the step below, hands curled in front of her, rodent-like. Such an expression; that of Jesus spying the money-lenders in the temple. Eyes made fantastically huge by her spectacles, and the horror therefore made fantastically huge within.

Margo had her back to the door, and for a long, tormented moment, Bettina’s eyes were locked with Miss Roundpenny’s while Margo’s hand continued its slick see-sawing and her mouth continued its frenzied sucking.

‘Get off, get off,’ said Bettina, pushing Margo’s mouth away from her nipple – dear God it was glossy with spit and sticking up like a peanut – and twisting her hips so as to dislodge her fingers. Margo looked down at Bettina, her mouth slack and her eyes still half glazed, and seeing her expression, turned her head to follow her gaze. A small gasp.

Bettina closed her eyes, wishing for unconsciousness. She didn’t know at that moment what was worse – that they’d been caught, or that they had to stop.

You’re a sick, mad wench, she told herself.

The brandy bottle and the half-smoked packet of cigarettes were placed neatly on the desk in front of Miss Cameron – The Barren One. She was sitting devil-straight with her hands folded on her lap. A mole the size of a sweetcorn kernel was stuck to her jawline and from it grew three curly hairs – a witch, an absolute witch. Her eyes were large and protuberant, the space between brow and eyelid deep and cavernous so that were she to have water tipped onto her face while in a horizontal position, a small moat would form around each eyeball.

Margo wept snottily in the chair next to Bettina. ‘Please don’t tell my father,’ she was saying in a little girl’s voice. ‘Please – anything – but please don’t tell my father. He’ll kill me – literally, he’ll kill me. Please don’t tell my father.’

Miss Cameron picked up the thick leather-bound bible placed in front of her, walked around the desk and brought the book with a slam into the back of Margo’s head. Her face hit the wood. She lifted her head, nose dribbling blood, and stared straight ahead, all emotion wiped away.

‘Have you quite composed yourself?’ said Miss Cameron.

‘I have,’ said Margo, swallowing and nodding calmly.

Miss Cameron placed the bible back in the centre of the desk, poking it until the edges were aligned with the sides of the desk, and re-took her seat.

‘Bettina Wyn Thomas and Margueritte Morgan.’ It was not a question, but both girls nodded.

She picked up her teacup delicately and sipped from it, her eyes never leaving the girls. ‘You understand the severity of your crimes?’

Bettina glanced sideways at Margo. ‘Yes, Miss,’ she said. ‘Yes, Miss,’ echoed Margo.

‘What Miss Roundpenny had to witness…’ She pursed her lips over her teeth. ‘A hideous thing for anyone to look at, but especially someone as tender-hearted as Miss Roundpenny.’

Bettina’s eyes bulged at this. Miss Roundpenny had once cut a girl’s hair off for wearing rouge and she’d smiled while doing it.

‘While I am beyond disgusted – nay, horrified – at this perverted tomfoolery, it is merely the cherry on the proverbial cake.’ She glanced down at the items on the desk. ‘Drinking on school grounds? Smoking? How could you be so stupid ?’

Bettina looked down at her clasped hands. Her sinuses were aching with the beginnings of a headache.

‘All I need do is report this incident to the headmaster and that’s it – you’re finished here. Goodbye, bon voyage .’ Miss Cameron took another sip of her tea and returned it to its saucer, causing only the slightest clink. She stared at the girls down her pore-dotted nose, the nostrils like an extra pair of pious eyes. ‘But I shan’t be resorting to this measure today.’

Bettina let out a thin breath through dry lips. Again she side-glanced at Margo, who sat very still.

‘Instead, I am giving you both a two-month suspension. Miss Wyn Thomas, you will pack your things and leave tonight. I have booked you a ticket for the last train and I will, of course, bill your father. Miss Morgan, you will leave tomorrow on the eight-fifteen train.’ She snarled her lips into something resembling a grin. ‘You appreciate why I am putting you on separate trains?’

Margo nodded. Blood was dripping from her chin onto her bosom – too terrified to make a move to wipe it away, most likely. She looked like she had a pistol trained on her.

Miss Cameron licked her lips with a small darting tongue-tip and picked up her teacup again. ‘Bettina. Miss Roundpenny was looking for you for a reason.’ A long whistling sip, the liquid forced through the gaps in her teeth. ‘I received a telegram from your mother today. A friend of yours, a Master Bartholomew Dawes, has been taken ill with Spanish flu.’

Bettina made a small noise and gripped the desk edge, before quickly returning her hands to her lap.

‘It is quite serious.’ Was that a trace of pleasure in her tone? It was – it bloody was! Witch . ‘He’s been brought home and is supposedly near death.’ She returned the cup to its saucer once more. Bettina stared at it, at the gleaming whiteness of the china. ‘You have my sympathies. Now please, get out of my sight.’

October 1922, Longworth House, Sussex

Bart opened his eyes. His face was pressed into the pillow and he could smell his rotten breath infused in the fabric of the slip. He’d been having the most depraved dream: he was on Brighton Pier at night and overhead turquoise Zeppelins drifted, benevolent as clouds, smiling almost, as if they had human personalities; and behind him, a man he couldn’t see but who he knew to be Lord Kitchener was sliding cricket stumps up his arse, one at a time, one after the other, as if feeding blocks of timber into a wood-shaving machine, and then the stumps turned to sausages, a linked line of sausages. He laughed weakly through cracked lips. Kitchener, of all people. Really.

He felt a hand on his cheek and flinched. His mother. She loomed over him, smiling with glistening, tragic eyes.

‘Mother?’

She nodded. Tears spilled down her cheeks, tracking a clean line through her face powder.

‘Who let you… Mother? Am I—’

‘You’re home, darling.’

He screwed his face up. ‘Rodge was just here. He was just here.’

She shook her head. ‘You’ve been in delirium, darling. I thought you might die.’ She stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers, her clusters of sharp jewels tickling. ‘Dr Spielman said I should prepare myself.’