A Spanking in Time (Bexhill School) (9 page)

With an appalling simulation of a Birmingham accent, the vision spoke.

“’Scoose me, ma’am. We’re condoocting a survey amungst our laidy coostomers to ensure we provoide complete satisfaction. We’d mooch appreciate your ‘elp. Now, first question, could you tell me ‘ow often you and yer ‘oosband ‘ave sex?”

Cordelia turned puce. Linda quickly disappeared down an aisle, doubled over with laughter. Grace’s eyes grew to saucer-like proportions. Tracy’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Only Tweedle Dee found her voice.

“If she’s like Buffy, once a year. After the Hunt Ball.”

After that, things happened quickly.

Cordelia shouted “Blast the lot of you!” and tried to barge through the gate at the till. It wouldn’t budge.

“Open the damn thing!” she yelled. By now other customers were becoming attracted by the commotion. One of them, by chance, happened to be a casual correspondent for the local newspaper. He had voted Labour all his life and didn’t much like ‘toffs’, as he called them. He reached into his pocket for the notebook he always carried with him.

Tracy regarded the struggling, tweedy figure in front of her. She resisted the temptation to press the ‘OPEN’ button which would release the gate. She hadn’t really considered such matters before, but she was – quite independently of the journalist – reaching the conclusion that she didn’t much like toffs either.

“Don’t you want your things?” she asked. “Not even the Durex?”

“I don’t want anything from your bloody shop and I’m never coming here again. Now let me out!”

The crowd was greatly enjoying the spectacle.

“Say ‘please’”, said Tracy.

Cordelia was now apoplectic. “Just open this wretched gate, damn you!”

“Now madam, I don’ like de way yo speakin’ to ma staff here. Please will yo calm down and act civilised.”

“What would you know about civilisation?” the purple-faced matron almost spat the words. “I’m sure it doesn’t exist in whatever jungle you come from.”

Racism, especially overt, is never a good idea. It was an especially bad idea when applied to Grace, who had suffered her unfair share of abuse over the ten years since she’d arrived from Jamaica, hoping to make a better life for herself and her family. She had developed a way of dealing with such situations.

She turned to Tweedle Dee. “Perhaps, madam, yo
’ would like to ask yo’ fren’ to cool down. Maybe she might even want to apologise to young Tracy here. Before I decide whether to call da police,” she added with slow deliberation.

Tweedle Dee could see that things were getting out of hand and that a ‘spectacle’ was being created, that worst nightmare of the upper classes.

“Cordelia dear, why don’t we just put your things in your bag, pay the bill, and go and have a nice cup of tea somewhere?” She started placing Cordelia’s groceries, including the disputed condoms, into her capacious shopping bag. She glanced up at Grace and whispered conspiratorially.

“Poor thing’s a little overwrought. She didn’t mean what she said just now. She’s got nothing against blacks:
why, I even saw her speaking to one the other day.”

Grace’s smile was fixed. “Well dat’s OK den. Tracy, take de lady’s money an’ open de gate.”

Cordelia and Tweedle Dee swept through and made their imperious way out of the store.

Tracy looked up at Grace.

“Thanks, Mrs. Grace. But when did you start using that funny way of talking?”

“Oh, sometimes you have to play the role people expect of you.” She patted Tracy on the shoulder.

The crowd began to dissipate. The journalist folded his notebook and put it back in his pocket. His story, under the headline ‘Commotion in supermarket’, appeared on page 3 of the next edition of the Courier. Johnson discretely hid the paper before Sir Miles or Lady Cordelia saw it.

The ‘condom’ melted away down an aisle,
muttering “See you outside” to Linda.

***

The girls were enjoying their day very much. They walked arm-in-arm down the High Street, replaying the scene in the supermarket and dissolving into fits of giggles at each turn of the story. Suddenly, Sally gripped Linda’s arm. “Look!” She nodded to the window of a café on the opposite side of the road. In the window, Lady Cordelia and Tweedle Dee were sipping cups of tea.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends!” announced Sally, crossing the street.

“You and your Dickens! Why can’t you just speak plain English?”

“And why can’t I choose
literate friends?” Sally pushed open the door of the café. It was warm and full of people, so the two matrons didn’t notice Linda and Sally making their way to a corner table.

“Why have you brought us here?” asked Linda.
“I don’t want to watch those two old frumps stuffing their faces.” Tweedle Dee and her friend were sharing a large slice of Madeira cake.

“Patience,” said Sally, “you told me it’s a virtue.”

They each ordered hot chocolate and blueberry muffins.

“I won’t be a moment. Don’t be in a hurry when our things come.” To Linda’s surprise, Sally slipped out of the restaurant again
, returning a few minutes’ later clutching a paper bag.

“How are Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee doing?” she asked.

“It looks like they’ve just ordered another cake and more tea.”

“Good. We need the place to thin out a bit.”

“Why?”

“Curiosity, Linda, unlike patience, is
not
a virtue.” Sally gave Linda a fake scowl and then busied herself emptying something into her glass of water, which she had lowered below the level of the table. She stirred her hot chocolate and then used the spoon to mix something into the glass. The two girls dawdled over their drinks and muffins, and gradually customers began to leave the restaurant until only half a dozen were left, including Lady Cordelia and Tweedle Dee. Linda noticed that the two women had been glancing in their direction and guessed that they had been recognised.

“Almost time for the show,” said Sally. “Drink up and be ready to leave. Let’s call for the bill.”

They attracted the attention of the waitress and paid the account. Sally left a more-than-generous tip. Linda raised a quizzical eyebrow at her friend.

“She’ll earn it,” was the laconic reply.
“Ready?”

“For what?”

“The headline may read: ‘Shocking Scenes of Depraved Conduct’”.

“Oh God! Why do I even
know
you!” Linda frowned.

“Here we go then. You take my shopping bag. When we leave the café, you turn left and I’ll go right. Meet you at the bus station.”

“OK.”

Sally stood up, half concealing the glass beneath her jacket. She clutched her stomach.

“QUICK! Where’s the toilet? I’m going to be ill!”

She lurched towards Lady Cordelia and Tweedle Dee
, retching graphically.

“The TOILET! Where is it?” she shouted. “That chocolate drink: much too rich!”

She floundered from table to table, griping and groaning, getting ever closer to her target.

“Too late! I can’t hold it!” She was now right next to Lady Cordelia, who had started to rise from her chair in alarm. Sally turned her back to the two old dears, retched loudly, and deftly emptied the contents of the glass over the neighbouring, unoccupied, table. She placed the empty container discretely on one of the chairs. Linda, who had been rooted to the ground by her friend’s performance, registered that the contents to the glass – to the uninitiated – looked very much like the real thing.

“Wait,” said Sally, grabbing a spoon off the table. “Carrot! I love carrot: shame to waste it!” She swept up a couple of orange discs which floated amongst the general mess, and spooned them down her throat.

Linda, now galvanised, made towards the exit. Too late, she saw the manageress dash to the door and block it
.

“How
dare
you!” the rather formidable lady glared at the two girls. “I saw you,” she directed her glare at Sally, “I saw you furtively mixing up something in that glass of water. What was it?”

Sally looked completely deflated.

“Come here!” she marched over to Sally and grabbed her elbow. “Show me what you put in the glass!” Sally sheepishly produced an empty packet of vegetable soup from her pocket.

“Right! I’m calling the police. Come with me.” She started leading Sally towards the back of the restaurant. “Maria, clean up the mess and please offer all our guests here anything they would like, on the house. Ladies,” the clientele was entirely female, “I apologise profusely for this appalling incident. Please allow us offer you anything you would like as some small compensation.” But the clientele wasn’t having any of it. To a woman, they rose from their seats, stony-faced, and started putting on their coats. The manageress realised that the situation was beyond retrieval. “Naturally, we’ll waive all bills. I am so sorry that your enjoyment has been spoiled.”

Lady Cordelia regained her composure.

“I’ve seen these two trouble-makers before. If it
was up to me, they’d get a damned good hiding. We should never have banned the birch – it’s what they deserve. I suppose the police will just tell them to stand in the corner for ten minutes. I don’t know what the country’s come to.” With that, she and Tweedle Dee stalked out, followed rapidly by the remainder of the patrons.

The manageress twisted round the OPEN sign on the door and turned the key in the lock. The establishment was closed. Maria had fetched a bucket and had begun to swab down the table. Linda and Sally looked glumly at each other.

“Come to my office.” The manageress led the way.

“Close the door.”

She sat behind her desk. The two girls stood in front of it, reminiscent of the many times they’d stood before Mr. Masterson or Mrs. Winchester.

“What on Earth did you think you were doing?”

Sally shuffled uncomfortably. “It was just a joke,” she mumbled.

“A
joke
? Upsetting my clientele with such a ... such a
childish
prank was a
joke
?”

“Sorry, ma’am.”

“You’re certainly going to be sorry when the police get here.” She picked up the telephone.

“Please, ma’am,
please
don’t call the police.”

“Why shouldn’t I? You’ve cost me a lot of money and, even worse, our good name.” She was holding the receiver to her ear; her fingers were poised on the dial.

“Please, ma’am, if you call the police we’ll get taken to court. Then we’d have a record against us. Pease don’t call them.”

Her finger still hovered over the dial. “You don’t think I’m just going to let you off, do you?”

“No, ma’am. But maybe you could let our parents deal with it?”

The manageress looked from Sally to Jenny. She didn’t really want to involve the law. It might get into the papers.

“
Please
ma’am. My parents are very strict. They’ll punish us.”

She put the receiver back on the cradle.

“What are your names and what are your parents’ telephone numbers?”

Sally and Jenny supplied the details.

“Your parents live in town?” the manageress looked at Sally.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll call them first. When I’ve spoken to them, I’ll decide what to do.”

The girls waited uncomfortably as the man
ageress dialled Sally’s house. They could hear the telephone ringing, four or five times, and then a click as someone – presumably Sally’s mother – answered. The manageress explained what had happened. Sally and Linda could hear the occasional shocked interjection at the end of the line. Finally, Sally’s mother said something they couldn’t hear.

“So you’ll speak to the other girl’s parents, will you?
She’s called Linda. You know her?”

There was a short, metallic response.

“Very well, I’ll wait for you here. You know where the cafe is? Halfway down the High Street? Good. I’ll expect you in about twenty minutes.” She rang off.

“While we’re waiting, you two can do some work. Help Maria with the mess you made, and then go to the kitchen. There’s a pile of washing up.”

The girls crept despondently out of the office. Sally whispered to Linda.

“Sorry. I’ve really dropped you in it.”

“We’re in it together, don’t apologise.” She smiled wanly at her friend.

It didn’t take long for a Sally’s mother to arrive. She parked, illegally, right outside the café and stormed in with a look like a thundercloud.

“You must be the manageress. Look, I’m so sorry about what has happened. Naturally, I’ll pay for any expenses you’ve incurred.”

“Thank you, but there’s no need. However, I hope that these two girls will get properly punished. I still think I should have called the police.”