9. The Second Kiss

THE POETESS, part 9

At first I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. It was almost as if he was feeling sorry about something, but he couldn’t help whatever it was. His expression had something about it to suggest he might be out of control and needed reining in. It’s an expression that’s haunted me from time to time down all the years since then.

“Do you know my friend, Violet?” he asked, standing there and trying to look as if at least an inch separated him from the lovely girl he was with, and she was lovely though he’d once said that he loved girls with long hair, and hers was short.

“You go for flowers when you pick your conquests then, Roy?” Rosie murmured teasingly.

“You what?”

“I mean, Violet, and I’m Rosie. I like violets, don’t you?” she asked, looking the girl straight in her face, “very pretty, very beautiful.”

“There’s no need to be sarky,” she said, scowling.

“Oh, you think I was being sarky?” smiled Rosie, “I didn’t mean to give you that impression. You’re pregnant, I see?”

It was a wild stab in the dark because there could have been more than one reason for the girl’s swollen stomach. But Rosie had hit the nail right on the head. The look, almost of fear, in Violet’s eyes confirmed it, as if she hadn’t yet realised that her problem showed.

“It wasn’t me!” interposed Roy.

“It wouldn’t be, would it?” smiled Rosie, “nothing’s ever Roy, is it?”

I hadn’t meant to sound catty and the gist of it wasn’t true, but that’s the way it came out. But had Roy been able to read the inside of my head over the months since we’d last met he would have understood. Probably.

“I didn’t intend to get this way,” said Violet, her attitude defensive. “Mr Hardcastle took me out after the “A” level exams at the end of summer term last year. You know Mr Hardcastle? He teaches English, and I was expected to get a good pass. I was the only girl to get what Chaucer was about.”

“I don’t think I’ve even heard of him,” smiled Rosie, truthfully.

“Well, he took me And half a dozen others for a drink at the Sans Chappelle, said it was his treat to us for making him look good!”

“And did you?”

“I suppose we were a good class,” admitted Violet, modestly, “I mean, we were there to pass an exam and get into a teacher training college. I wanted to teach infants. I think I still do.”

Rosie looked at her, wondering what she was going to admit to and probably guessing correctly.

”Well, you’re starting your own class by the look of it,” she said, “so tell me more.”

“We had a Babycham each and then the other girls left, and I was about to follow them out and go home when he came back with another drink for me and a small beer for himself. In fact, we had more than one, and, well, I think I must have got a bit tipsy because before I could think of anything else I was agreeing to go with him to his flat for a coffee before bed. And that’s just what I got: a coffee, and an hour in his bed before I finally got to go home. He gave me a lift, but he also gave me a baby.”

“Oh,” said Rosie, lost for words. “And to think I was led to believe you and Roy were getting married.”

“Engaged, not married just yet,” put in Roy. “Someone’s got to stay in Violet’s corner. Someone’s got to fight for her. Her dad back in the house, says she’s ruined his reputation! I mean, his reputation when it’s her who’s pregnant! It’s nineteen seventy for goodness’ sake, but if you listen to some people you’d think we were living in the dark ages. Hadn’t the stupid teacher heard of contraceptives? You can buy them all over the place, little rubber...”

Rosie nodded. Mildred had helped her, there. She knew about that particular subject. “I know what they are,” she said.

“I thought … good, excellent,” mumbled Roy as if he thought Rosie to be an incurable innocent.

“Don’t you think that Mr, what was his name, Hardcastle, has something to answer to?” Rosie asked.

“He said he’d marry me, but I’m not yet nineteen and he’s getting on for fifty.” There were tears in her eyes as her situation sounded increasingly bleak the way she let it out, bit by bit.

“Anyway,” said Roy, “we’ve told the headmaster and it’s up to him to sort his staff out.”

“Roy was really good about it,” said Violet, “and he’s offered to marry me, to make everything all right, to give the child a father and a name. But he hasn’t done anything wrong and even though we may get married one day if everything seems right, I don’t think any good will come in the future if he marries me because I’m carrying another man’s child.”

“She thinks it might cause rows and stuff one day,” added Roy.

“And if we were lucky enough to have another child, which one would he favour?” asked Violet, who seemed to have gone into her problem more deeply than she need.

“We’re going to have a trial marriage,” said Roy at length, “nether of our parents will have anything to do with us being together, and they don’t believe it wasn’t me who put her up the duff. We obviously can’t be homeless and not even Aunt Mildred will lend us the caravan she let you use. So we’ve decided…”

“At least you have,” put in Violet.

“Yes. Me if you like. We want to go and live in that old cottage down Strong Lane, the one where we sheltered from the rain.”

“And kissed,” Rosie couldn’t help saying.

“And that,” he nodded, sounding reluctant.

“It’s not the sort of place to bring a child into the world in,” Rosie pointed out. “It needs loads of work doing on it, and money spending on just about all of it. I asked a solicitor…”

“You did? Why?” asked Roy.

“Because I want to buy it if I can. And do it up, and live in it. In memory of a cherished moment.”

“What cherished moment?”

“Well, it wasn’t sheltering from the rain,” grinned Rosie.

And that was when everything finally gelled in my silly mind. There was a derelict cottage that I’d filled with romantic fantasies over the months, and here were two people who clearly needed somewhere sensible to lay their heads and have their baby. Well, not their baby, but hers.

“But until then I’ve got a spare room if you’re stuck,” Rosie said, “It’s big enough for two and a cot. But it can’t be for ever. I want to buy that cottage!”

It was embarrassing, was all the gratitude that came my way. I don’t know what they expected me to do, but I’d clearly beat their best ideas.

I could tell by the way they both almost leapt upon me, and kissed me! Yes, both of them, and it was Violet’s tongue that I tasted first. But, as I remember it, it was Roy’s that lasted the longest.

© Peter Rogerson 15.03.21.

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