by Freya North
‘Gracious, Sal,’ says Richard, ‘it’s quite bare!’
They regard the pristine plaster of Paris, mostly smooth but dented a little, here and there. ‘We can’t have that!’ he cries as he searches his jacket pockets for a pen. ‘Damn!’ he says.
‘Hold on, I may have one,’ says Sally as she rummages through her bag. ‘Damn,’ she says.
Richard goes over to the bar, but despite his strong ‘Hello?’ there is no sign of the landlord. Undeterred, he leans right over in his quest until his feet are quite off the ground. Sally giggles behind her hand. With a glance to his left and to his right, he nips under the counter and searches furtively among the pint pots and peanuts.
‘Aha!’ he exclaims, holding his trophy aloft. ‘It won’t be an oil painting,’ he explains, brandishing a very thick marker pen, ‘but it’ll do.’
Here is Richard, sitting on a stool opposite Sally. He lifts her leg on to his lap and looks at her face which glows and glints. He thinks her quite perfect. Pen poised, he ponders awhile.
Sally waits.
Richard is ready.
He writes.
Two words. Thick black. Permanent marker. Permanent.
WILL YOU?
As she looks at the shape of the letters which she reads in an instant but has now forgotten, she sees a cine film of her life flash across the white screen of her plaster cast. Childhood, youth, adolescence, young womanhood, now. Here she is and the present tells her all about her future. Here she is and she twists her head this way and that, reading it from every angle though it was quite legible, as it was, upside down.
She looks at Richard gravely and eases her leg off his lap, unwittingly clonking his shin but he neither winces nor does she even notice. Leaning forward, she puts her hand on his face. Her fingers lie on his cheek, her thumb rests over the dimple in his chin. His day-old stubble feels rather nice under her skin, like a coarse velvet. There is no need to clear her throat for it is as clear as her mind and as strong as her soul.
‘Oh, yes,’ she says, ‘I will.’
FORTY
‘She’s back! She’s back.’
‘Have you seen her?’
‘She’s broken her leg!’
‘Wow! Is it in plaster?’
‘Of course, stupid.’
‘Has she got crutches?’
‘Yup.’
‘Poor old Miss Lomax.’
‘Yeah, but at least she’s back.’
‘Too right! No more killer lessons with that Mrs Westford.’
‘Dragon!’
‘Broomstick rider!’
‘Hurray for Miss Lomax!’
‘Shush! She’s coming!’
‘Hullo, Class Five. It’s lovely to see you all, at long last.’
‘Not half as nice as it is for us to see you!’
‘Oh, Marcus, what are you after? Late with your homework?’
Snigger, chuckle. She’s back.
Miss Lomax launched into her lessons with gusto and ease. The children were delighted to have her back again. She instigated a post-mortem of sorts and Marcus and Rajiv filled her in on the missing details of her fall.
‘We were so worried,’ frowned Marcus.
‘Some of us even cried,’ confided Alice.
‘I had to summon the ambulance,’ Rajiv informed her.
Miss Lomax thanked each member of her class and answered their probing questions about chicken pox and breaking a leg.
‘I mean, did you actually hear it go snap?’ gawped Marsha who had chicken pox last summer but had never broken a bone.
‘Oh, yes!’
Thirty gasps of approval filled the room. ‘Well,’ Miss Lomax clarified, ‘it wasn’t so much a snap as a hollow crack. Very loud.’
The children went: ‘Ooh!’
Miss Lomax told them how she waited and waited and was careful not to panic, to keep warm and to sip tea.
‘Why the tea?’ asked Marcus.
‘I’m not really sure, because I wasn’t thirsty. It just seemed a sensible thing to do – and I knew I had to keep my wits about me. Anyway, how often have you heard your mummies or grandmas say “have a nice cuppa tea” when you’re upset?’
‘How did they get the ambulance to you?’ asked Rajiv with a head full of helicopters, mountain rescue teams and St Bernard dogs with brandy barrels on their collars.
‘Two wonderful women happened to come across me, Mary and Isla – I’d seen them earlier in the day – walking in the wilds wearing skirts, I ask you! Well, Isla sat with me and Mary went for help. There was a farm nearby and a big, burly chap – rather like you Sam! – called Fraser drove a tractor and trailer as near as he could. He then gave me a fireman’s lift over to it and they trundled me back to the farm on the back of the trailer. An ambulance picked me up from there and I was plastered up and back at my aunt’s two hours later. Here, would you like to see my X-rays?’
What a question! The children could not leave their desks fast enough.
X-rays! A broken leg! Wow!
‘Cor!’ said Marcus.
‘Blimey!’ said Rajiv.
Miss Lomax held the X-rays up to the light and thirty pairs of eager eyes admired the spliced bone. Some were secretly quite envious and made sure that they fell as dramatically as they dared when playing football at break-time.
‘Now, children, back to your seats. We really should do some work, for heaven’s sake!’
They groaned and moaned and slouched back to their places.
Miss Lomax felt even less like doing any work than her class, so, with a furtive smile, she told them to close their books and take out their atlases instead.
‘See, here’s Mull.’
‘But it looks tiny!’
‘Well, it is, comparatively. But turn to page ninety-four.’
‘It looks huge!’
‘My aunt lives right – here! And this is where I broke my leg.’
‘Why is everything called “nish”?’ enquired Marcus, and the children pored over the map, finding as many as possible. Quinish. Fishnish. Mornish. Mishnish. Treshnish. Miss Lomax told them of the Magic Beach, only she called it the raised beach and the children were utterly rapt. They talked about the sea, the tides and time. Only the entrance of Miss Lewis crying, ‘Sal! You’re back!’ brought them back down to Highgate again. Blimey! Break-time already! Twenty-nine children scampered out. Marcus hung back. Miss Lomax and Miss Lewis questioned him with their eyebrows.
‘Miss Lomax,’ ventured Marcus. Miss Lomax raised her eyebrows and cocked her head. ‘It’s just that – well do you think I could sign your plaster?’
Miss Lewis and Miss Lomax smiled.
‘’Course you can!’ said his favourite teacher as she heaved herself on to her desk, stretching out her leg and raising her skirt to her knee. With his red felt pen held aloft, Marcus sucked his lower lip contemplatively.
Miss Lewis’s mouth had dropped open.
‘What’s “Will you?”’ Marcus asked.
Miss Lomax smiled at him fondly and avoided catching Miss Lewis’s bulging eyes.
‘Why, Marcus,’ she said, ‘it means will-you-sign-my-plaster?’
‘What’s “Will you?”’ whispers Diana, desperate not to squeal.
‘Why, Di,’ Sally says, ‘it means, will you forgive me for being such a thoughtless and ungrateful old trout!’
‘What’s “Will you?”’ threatens Diana, hands on hips.
Sally catches Diana’s face in her hands and kisses her firmly on the lips.
‘And I said yes!’ she laughs.
FORTY-ONE
0181 348 6523.
Richard stretched out his wrist to check Cartier time.
She must be home by now, it’s Blue Peter.
He rang off and played Solitaire on the computer. Sandra popped her head around the door to enquire whether ‘taking an early’ would be all right.
‘Of course. Away with you! Somewhere nice?’
Sandra really did not have the t
ime – nor now the inclination – for a chat with Mr Stonehill so she said, ‘Theatre. Yes. Really should go,’ and offered a quick wave in farewell.
Good for Sandra. I think she had eyes for me once. Wasted!
0181 348 6523.
Richard mimicked the ringing tone and, with the receiver hooked under his chin, started another round of Solitaire.
Come on! Where are you, girl! Oh, Christ. Diana – quick!
‘Di?’
‘Stonehill!’
‘Where’s Sally? Did you take her home? I can’t seem to get a reply – I tried during Newsround and before and after Blue Peter. Dear God let things be fine? Di?’ Diana cleared her throat.
‘I dropped that Lomax woman back at her flat just in time for Jackanory.’
Richard’s sigh of relief whistled down the phone line into Diana’s room.
‘You’re right – I’m an old hen. I just worry, you know? After everything – after all.’ He laughed. ‘See you soon, Di. And thanks.’
‘Don’t you dare hang up, young man!’ Her bellow hit Richard in the solar plexus and rendered him incapable of speech, let alone manoeuvres with telephone receivers. ‘Richard? You there?’
‘Here,’ he answered in a small voice.
‘Would you please,’ said Diana, ‘per-lease, explain the precise meaning of “Will you?”’
Richard’s face broke out into a smile so infectious that Diana caught it at once. They sat in silence, grinning inanely for a moment or two.
‘Whaddayathink!’ Richard laughed.
0181 348 6523.
Last chance before I call the police.
Let it ring, Richard. Ring right through.
‘Hello?’
‘Sal?’
‘Hey!’
‘I’ve been ringing for ages – you had me worried.’
‘So it was you, was it? Have you forgotten a small matter of an enormous, unwieldy plaster cast preventing swift access to phone – or anywhere else for that matter?’
‘Oh, Sal, say “unwieldy” again.’
‘Unwieldy.’
‘God, I love it when you say “unwieldy”.’
‘Richie Stonehill, you’ve rung three times in half an hour, haven’t you? And I’m bashed and bruised because of it. I’ve knocked over a lamp, dropped a dictionary on my good leg, whacked my arm on the door and bashed my good ankle with my bloody plaster cast.’
‘Bashed and bruised?’
‘All over.’
‘Kiss it better?’
‘That,’ said Sally, covering her joy with a douse of teacher’s sternness, ‘is the very least you can do, Stonehill.’
Sally hobbles across to her Lloyd-Loom and eases her leg on to the upturned wastepaper bin which she has taken to carrying around with her.
Let’s see, I reckon about an hour. And then he’ll be here. It seems so long since he was here, in my little flat, with me. When was the last time? Was it calamine night? Was it really then? I think it was.
It was indeed.
Seems a world away. My spots have practically gone now, apart from these faint ones on my arms. Shame about my hair, I know it’ll grow but it’s taking an age.
It’s been less than a month, Sal. Since the faint, the pox and the fall.
Tell me Jean-Claude wasn’t the last person I slept with?
Sorry.
But never again. Just Richie now.
If you say so.
I say so because I now know so. Because it’s all that I want. I think, actually, it’s all that I’ve ever wanted. Gracious Good Lord, there! Out in the open. At last.
At last.
Richard thought of very little as he negotiated an infuriating belated rush hour. He listened to The Archers for the first time in his life and made a mental note to catch the omnibus on Sunday.
It’s not bad!
Richard Stonehill!
Sally listens to it avidly.
Oh, well then!
He hummed the theme tune with gusto as he sat in traffic on Hampstead High Street.
Nearly there. At last. Nearly there. Poor Sal, bashed and bruised and all my fault. My God I feel horny. I wonder if we could?
She’s no longer contagious.
But logistically – with that unwieldy plaster cast. Oh, God, just five more minutes and she can whisper ‘unwieldy’ to me!
Red light, Richard. You’ve gone through a red light.
The doorbell rings. Sally positioned herself nearby five minutes ago so that she can answer it as elegantly as possible without causing herself further injury.
I’ll let it ring, though. Woman’s prerogative and all that!
Richard dutifully rings it again. He flips up the letter-box lid. He can see one leg bare to the knee, the other incarcerated by the now much-grafittied plaster cast. He watches their careful procession towards him.
Sally opens the door and finds Richard crouched, looking up at her with those impossibly alluring eyes.
‘That’s what I like to see!’ she coos. ‘On your knees, boy!’
With a slight creak, he pulls himself upright and plants a kiss passionately, deep into her mouth.
‘I think you’d better come in,’ says Sally whose neck has reddened and whose voice is hoarse.
Richard’s lust is momentarily subsumed by intense relief that he is at last back in her flat and that, finally, she is by his side. She is holding his hand, she is pulling him right into the room. Welcoming him back.
Stay. Stay.
I’m not going anywhere.
Neither am I.
‘Tea?’
‘Please!’
He gazes after her, his head faintly bobbing in sync with her hobble. A quick recce tells him that everything is in its place. Nothing has changed though everything has changed. He hears her singing softly, tra-la-la-ing as she coaxes the kettle to come to the boil. He cannot see her for she is tucked out of sight around the corner but he knows exactly what she is doing. She is singing the theme from The Archers, tweaking leaves off the poinsettia, her back turned away from the kettle so that it will come to the boil.
Tea for two. Sally hands Richard cup and saucer and perches herself on the edge of the settee in which he is so comfortably ensconced.
He looks so right.
This feels so comfortable.
Tea for two but not a drop passes their lips. Sally has hovered out her leg and rotates it slowly through 180 degrees. Simple physiotherapy really, but its effect is quite astounding.
‘Do you like my plaster?’
‘Most artistic!’
‘But somewhat unwieldy …’
‘Oh, Sal!’
Tea for two can wait. Richard lunges for Sally and pulls her on to his lap. A look of hunger etches its way across his face; slightly, ever so slightly, demented. She wants to giggle and to say something witty but the urgency of Richard’s kissing distracts her at once. She lets her body melt and sinks herself deep into the crook of his arm. Her eyes are closed but she is wide open.
He can have me all. Every little bit of me. There’s nothing to hide. It’s all for him.
She kisses him hard and bites him squarely on the lower lip. He drops his mouth to her chin and sucks it. And bites her sharply. She winces in delight and cradles his whole head between her outstretched hands. His breathing is fast and her heart is racing. His eyes are on line with her breasts so she gives a little heave or two which drive him wild. As he fondles and kisses them, he appears to be unaware of the Aran-knit jumper which hides them from view.
‘Off,’ Sally whispers. ‘Take it off!’
They wriggle her free and pull at his shirt. It’s toasty in the flat and the curtains are drawn. Sally looks in awe at his chest. She deems it spectacular and gazes on it as if she is seeing it for the first time. And yet she knows it so well: she knows that if she places her hand just here, and strokes just there, his pulse will go into overdrive. She does both and Richard moans. He is wearing button-fly jeans but the strength of his er
ection makes unpopping them an easy task. In fact, the one in the middle has popped all by itself already. Sally looks triumphant, Richard looks glazed. He feasts his eyes on her pretty breasts and realizes he had forgotten just how alluring her nut-brown nipples are.
They have to be kissed. Eaten.
‘Skirt,’ says Sally huskily. ‘Take it off!’
They pull it over her head not wishing to disturb their lower limbs, now so comfortably entwined. They press against each other, rub and twist into each other. They are getting hot and are now quite wet around their faces.
I want to taste her eyelashes again.
I want to lick his sideburns.
Give me your nose.
I’m going to chew your earlobe.
Richard is wriggling out of his jeans but Sally is keeping her thighs clamped around him.
Ten years of ballet had its uses, you know.
He forgot that he still had his shoes on. Laced neatly, of course. Socks from Dunhill. Of course. He has kicked his jeans down to his shins which is far enough for his purpose. Sally grabs at his legs and wriggles herself ecstatically over their muscular form.
My Rodin.
Hands travel everywhere, all over each other’s bodies as well as over their own. Richard finds her hand inside her knickers and covers her fingers to discover what they’re up to.
Let me try.
‘Off,’ gasps Sally, ‘take them off.’
They discover that, in the height of passion, removing a pair of knickers is not as easy as it should be. Especially when a plaster cast is involved. The elastic wraps itself taut around Richard’s hand and threatens to cut off the blood to his little finger.
‘Off!’ shrieks Sally. ‘Rip ’em off. Like in the films! Quick!’
How do they do it? In the films? It doesn’t work. In real life.
Sally’s knickers are now at her knees but Richard is loath to stop kissing her and yet his right arm will not stretch to her ankles and beyond. Sally crooks her good knee up and between them they manage to wrestle the fabric free. It has, however, caught over the top edge of the plaster cast and pull as he does, Richard cannot budge it. Sally has arms clamped about his neck and refuses to let go.
Never, never again.
She is chanting: ‘Off! Off! Off!’ With an almighty tug, the fabric tears free and Sally’s plaster cast springs across and thwacks Richard on the funny bone.