12. A KISS IN THE PARK

Half way through secondary education Wallace falls for a girl in his class.

Wallace’s life was blossoming, and for that credit must be given to the English teacher who, two or three weeks earlier, had implied that he might have a crush on Penny Ashton. In actual fact, his feelings for her were as much like a crush as a mountain resembles a molehill. They dominated many of his waking thoughts. The sight of the girl was enough to make him forget everything else and just concentrate on her presence, the way her grey school skirt moved when she walked, the tumbling beauty of her hair, the absolute perfection of everything to do with her.

And the greatest glory of all was the fact that, having had his tendency to glance her way more often than would be normal pointed out to the entire class, Penny Ashton started paying him a modicum of attention. She would pass little verbal messages to him, ask vital questions of him, such as had he finished his English homework? In short, she treated him as if he was there rather than as a piece of flotsam that had somehow drifted into the classroom, and it elevated his heart until it challenged the stars for height.

Then, one day, she did the absolutely most vital thing she could have done and asked him if he wanted to walk home with her.

He knew where she lived, of course. He’d ascertained that ages ago near the start of his obsession with her, and it wasn’t exactly the same direction from school that he lived. But, the invitation having been given, there was only one answer he could make even if he did arrive back at his own home too late for tea.

“Of course,” he said, “I’d love to...”

“You’re not like other boys,” she said, “you don’t do sporty things, like football.”

“Can I carry your bag for you?” he asked, boldly, ignoring the sporty reference because, in all truth, he’d not liked football since the Junior School when the teacher in charge of the football team had decided he might make a useful goalkeeper and had tested him out by kicking a wet leather football at him until he had learned to be really good at dodging the thing and thus proving to be of no use when it came to stopping it.

“That’s kind of you,” she said, and handed him her bag with a dazzling smile. At least, Wallace saw it as dazzling, and her teeth were as white as nineteen fifties teeth could be, and they were even.

“It’s nice being able to chat on the way home,” he said, weakly, knowing he was making conversation out of nothing at all and aware that it sounded almost meaningless.

“Yes,” she said, and then she did the impossible: he was carrying two bags, his own and hers, and as neither was particularly heavy he hung them over one shoulder in order to be closer to her, and out of the blue and quite unexpectedly she took him by the other hand and gently squeezed his fingers.

“Come on, then,” she said, and led him off in the direction of her own home, which he knew to be about a mile away.

“I know a secret,” she said, furtively, “do you want me to tell you?”

“Oh yes,” he managed to splutter.

“You know what the Hawkesbury was saying about Smith and Pratt the other week?”

He remembered only too well. And he remembered that she hadn’t reported the two miscreants to the Head, out of kindness he assumed, because if she had he knew the punishment they would receive as a consequence would, indeed, be dreadful to watch.

“Ye-es,” he replied, not sure where she was going with this conversation.

“Boys do that sort of thing to each other,” she told him, “I’ve seen it all the time.”

Wallace had never engaged in the kind of activity that he assumed she was referring to, and what’s more none of his friends seemed to either, and by this time he was above half way through his secondary education and he knew enough of the other boys to have experience of the habits of a fair spectrum of teenage lads.

“Well, I don’t,” he said.

“I didn’t think you did. I wasn’t accusing you,” she said, glancing at his face.

“Oh.”

“The thing is, Wallace, I saw the Hawkesbury at the weekend. She didn’t know I was there, in fact she didn’t know anyone was there, she was walking along that path in the park that goes behind the tennis courts, and it was starting to rain. I hadn’t even got a mac, so I sheltered under the oak tree near the gates, and the Hawkesbury walked along, going the other way, and she was with somebody.”

“Oh.” What else could he say? If he saw a teacher at the weekend it certainly wouldn’t form the substance of events to be recounted in a situation when he was holding a precious girl’s hand on the way home from school. Holding hands with Penny was much more important than tales of Miss Hawkesbury!

“The Hawkesbury and her companion paused when they came to the end of the path, and turned to each other and kissed! The Hawkesbury kissed that person, and that person was another woman!”

“Another woman?” he repeated, suddenly interested.

“I’ll show you how she kissed that other woman if you like, Wallace. Just stop a minute. That’s right: she put her mouth right next to the other woman’s mouth, and their lips touched… like this...”

And suddenly Wallace was on the very steppes of Heaven, surrounded by an invisible choir of angels singing, while the one and only true love of his life briefly passed her lips over his, touching his with their smooth perfection, and then pulled away.

“Like that,” said Penny, “and I saw it! When the rain stopped and I could carry on my way they were out of sight, but I know what I saw.”

“Two women kissing...” The thought formed inside Wallace’s head and it seemed exotic, the sort of thing mysterious Eastern ladies dressed in saris and with long black hair might do. It seemed just right, a perfect vision of desire, but one of them was Miss Hawkesbury, and she wore glasses and a severe worsted skirt, not a sari.

“Miss Hawkesbury...” he gasped.

“The Hawkesbury,” she nodded, “and it explains everything, don’t you think?”

“It does?” he asked.

“The Smith and Pratt affair, how she let them off for fiddling in each other’s privates at the back of the class! They should have been caned for that, you know, good and hard to teach them a lesson, but she let them off with lines! And the reason she let them off is because she is like that herself. She kissed another woman. In public, behind the tennis courts, in the rain! She’s one of those ladies that fall in love with other ladies!”

“I’d never have thought it,” he muttered, “a teacher doing that sort of thing.”

“Teachers aren’t always perfect,” she told him, “sometimes they’re … human.”

They carried on along the road, he deep in thought and she still holding his hand, when suddenly she pulled him to a standstill.

“I don’t believe it!” she whispered, “look! There she is again, the woman the Hawkesbury snogged! It’s her, I swear it! She’s wearing the same coat! Once seen and not forgotten!”

The woman she was referring to was walking determinedly towards them, and she smiled when she saw him.

“Wallace!” she said, “this is the oddest route home! I see you’ve got a girl with you...”

“Mum...” spluttered Wallace, “What? Where? How?”

“I’m on my way to your school,” replied Mrs Pratchett, “to see an old friend of mine, my best ever friend when I was ten, Edina Hawkesbury. Do you know her?”

© Peter Rogerson 08.06.19