14. STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Isaabel finds herself growing up after a disaster of a concert on the park.

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

14. A Concert in Isabel’s Bed

Isabel thought she recognised the boy. He was dressed fashionably in what they called drain pipes on account of the way the material clung to what might have been scrawny legs. Her eyes flickered over the region of his crotch, and she sighed. He was clearly moved by what he saw when he looked at her in the tight-waisted and full-skirted dress that she’d made herself out of a length of material bought cheaply from the market. It was pretty, though, and she’d done well in sewing at school to know what she’d been doing when she made it. The teacher had said she had a good eye for details, which summed her up rather well.

The boy was Ricky Shepherd, and when she’d been eleven he’d said he wanted to marry her. Now she was sixteen and at the local college studying shorthand, and in the five years that had passed he’d become a twenty year-old lad with a broken voice and an apparent worship of old Edwardian fashions. Her mum had scorned him back when Isabel had been a child and no doubt she would scorn the very sight of him right now.

But she didn;t.

Daisy came up to her daughter and smiled at Ricky.

“What a fine young man you’ve got, darling,” she whispered, “so handsome and good looking.

“Hiya, Mrs Parfitt,” he said with a familiarity that passed her by. “Do you remember me? I’m Ricky. Ricky Shepherd, and I’ve always had an eye on your lass here.”

When I was a scrawny little eleven year-old with matchstick legs and no bosom, thought Isabel.

“I’ve got a couple of tickets for a concert by Bango Finnison tonight, and no-one to go with,” smiled Ricky.

“Bango who? I’ve never heard of him!” exclaimed Isabel, “what does he do?”

Ricky looked uncomfortable. “They’re mates of mine really,” he said awkwardly, “sort of skiffle like Lonnie what’s-his-name, Donegan. But they’re great and this is their first concert, on the Brumpton park bandstand. How do you fancy sharing my tickets? It’s going to be fun!”

“You can go if you like Issy,” put in Daisy, “there are things I might have done when I was young, but dldn’t, and now it’s too late. A girl wouldn’t go out so often back then. It wasn’t thought proper. Girls weren’t supposed to enjoy themselves. I suppose they thought we might be getting up to all sorts of bad things.”

“I’ll come then, Ricky,” nodded Isabel, “”before my own mother pinches my ticket!”

Brumpton Park had an old Victorian bandstand that was usually only used by local brass bands and the occasional local choir. And now it was a venue for an unknown group of youngsters who claimed to play the latest in popular music, skiffle, Bango Finnison, though very few had heard of them.

It was already getting dark when the band were due to start their raucous show. They’d spent most of the afternoon setting the stage for their performance, and had retired to The George Inn when they were happy that everything was just right, and proceeded, after a bevy of good beers, to forget why they were there. By the time a council employee (the bandstand belonged to the council) located them giggling over a third pint they were in perfect condition to render their own joyful take on the Donegan classic Does your chewing gum lose its flavour on the bedpost over night? All would be well, but half way through the time allocated for their concert three of the quartet needed to dispose of some of the beer they had consumed and returned to the George Inn and its men’s room.

By that time Isabel was fed up. Not only was their rendition of skiffle favourites not very good at all but their absence from the stage, leaving just the drummer banging away hoping that a prolonged drum solo would satisfy the handful of fans who remained, made it obvious how much respect they paid to their audience.

“I want to go home,” she said to Ricky.

“They’ll get better,” he told her.

“No they won’t, and I’m half way through an Agatha Christie that I want to finish reading,” she told him firmly.

“Then I’ll walk you home,” he promised.

And letting him do that was her mistake, because walking her home included him popping into her place for a cup of tea because her mother would be in bed by then (early as it was, and she always was early now that she had fewer pills to keep her going), to him listening to her reading about Miss Marple solving an insoluble problem, to Ricky carefully climbing into bed with her as if it was the most normal thing for a man to do, to being discovered half naked by her brother Brian who needed ten shillings for keeping quiet, to losing her virginity in the most romantic way imaginable, with her reading the book out loud and Ricky humming about chewing gum losing its flavour on the bedpost over night before him reacting to the rhythm of a prolonged version of the song and exploding in a chaotic orgasm and thus arousing a sleeping Daisy in the next bedroom. All that from one casual decision!

“What on Earth are you doing, Isabel?” asked Daisy when she poked her head round the girl’s bedroom door.

“Reading,” replied Isabel, truthfully enough though failing to explain what her underwear was doing on the floor.

“Come with me, young man,” ordered Daisy, and Ricky sighed his regret, apologising to the new darling of his life that their little session should come to such a premature end before he was led by Daisy into her own room where she started by asking who he was and what he thought he was doing in her house.

“You know who I am, Mrs Parfitt,” he replied nervously, “I’m Ricky.”

“I saw you, you know,” she said, “I saw you with my daughter. In her bed. With her. Are you cold or something?”

“Possibly,” he replied, already lost.

“Then, you poor boy, I’ve not suggested this for a very long time now, but you might as well warm up with me in my bed.”

He wanted to shout out No way, Mrs Parfitt! But he didn’t. The woman was clearly eager for some action and who was he to deny her?

Next morning, at breakfast, the atmosphere was somewhat strained, to Brian’s never-ending joy because there was an extra body at the table and he had a few questions he needed to ask before he forgot. But Isabel asked one for him.

“Didn’t you go home, Ricky?” demanded Isabel. “Why are you still here?”

“I’d like to know that too,” said Daisy, “I thought you were going to a concert with our Isabel. To some musical thing. Shouting, maybe, on the park. They don’t sing these days, you know, they shout!”

“They got drunk, mum,” explained Isabel, as briefly as she could, “and I’ve got to go to college so I’ll say goodbye, and mum, don’t worry.”

“And I’ll come too,” volunteered Ricky, “shall I see you again, Mrs Parfitt?”

“Me? You want to see me again? Why ever should you want to do that?”

“I dunno,” he replied with an unknowing smile, “but it was fun, wasn’t it?”

“What was?” asked Daisy, and to his credit he couldn’t find the words to answer that question even though she’d found the wit from somewhere to ask it. After all, he was twenty and she was on her way to being sixty, and the whole idea of what had occurred last night after he had been drawn into the older woman’s bedroom made him shiver.

She didn’t know what she made of it.

But a little group of Ricky’s spermatozoa lost in the intricacies of Isabel’s inexperienced flesh might have volunteered some idea had they the wit or wisdom or even the mouth to verbalise such a thing.

© Peter Rogerson 09.03.23

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