Three Button Trick and Other Stories (20 page)

She cut into a potato and watched the steam rise from its hot centre. She speared a bit of it on to her fork and prepared to put it into her mouth. Before she had done so, however, John said, ‘I told a couple of the fellas about your joke with Selina last night.'

Joanna stared at him, dumbstruck. ‘You did what?'

Her voice was sharp and strident. He shrugged. ‘I know I promised not to but it sort of slipped out.'

She put down her fork. ‘I don't know why I tell you anything. You're totally unreliable. I'm sick of you spreading my business about and sticking your nose into everything. This was none of your affair in the first place.'

He frowned. “Well, why did you tell me about it then?'

She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. ‘I didn't tell you about it, you opened my bloody mail. You have no right to open letters and parcels that are addressed to me.'

He shook his head, confused. ‘You don't have anything to hide from me, Joanna. What's the problem all of a sudden? This isn't like you.'

Joanna slammed her hand down on the table, rattling the plates and glasses and cutlery. ‘I am a woman, John, women have secrets. That's one of the few good things about being a woman as far as I can see. Now that you've told everyone about this thing with Selina she'll be a laughing stock. She's my friend, for God's sake.'

John stood up and moved around the table towards Joanna. His head ached with every twitch of his body. ‘Everyone knows that Selina won't use those things. She's not like that. It was a silly idea in the first place really.'

Joanna felt tearful. She shouted, ‘Well, it seemed like a good excuse at the time!'

Then, grabbing her plate, she marched off into the kitchen, where she threw her lunch into the bin.

John sat down at the table again. He felt somewhat confused.

Felicity Barrow received a telephone call from her friend Janet Street on Sunday afternoon. Janet was extremely excited because she had a bit of amusing gossip to impart about one of the teachers at Felicity's school. Felicity liked to call it ‘my school,' even though she was only the headmistress.

Janet had a rather puffy, breathy, light voice, and the scandal in her news almost extinguished it altogether. She gasped down the phone, ‘Jim told me that Selina Mitchell has been wearing some sort of sexual device to school and using it while she's teaching classes.' Felicity interrupted, putting on her best head-teacherish voice. ‘What on earth are you saying, Janet? And do speak clearly, I haven't adjusted my hearing aid yet.' On concluding this sentence she sipped her tea and took a large bite out of a mint-flavoured Viscount biscuit.

Janet gulped. This noise travelled all the way down the telephone line and into Felicity's ear. Then she whispered, ‘Well, Jim said that it is a sort of vibrating machine which is shaped like the female sexual organs, but convex. It is attached by elastic to the two thighs, I think the elastic goes around the buttocks at the back … anyway Jim says it's very discreet. What happens is that it is battery-operated and it presses into the vagina while methodically rubbing at the clitoris. Apparently after several minutes this stimulates a sexual climax.'

Felicity tried to suppress the impulse to laugh, but finally gave into a throaty chuckle. ‘Janet, I think what you're saying is untrue. We both know Selina Mitchell, we've both known her for years. I was headmistress at Grunty Fen Primary when she was a pupil at the school herself. There has never been anyone in the school whose dignity, discretion and professionalism I have held in higher regard. Just the other day I sat in on her class and assessed her performance. My only advice to her was that I thought her techniques too staid, perhaps a jot unimaginative …'

Janet interrupted. ‘That's all well and good, Felicity, but you know what they say, there's no smoke without fire. She did go away at the end of the sixties, after all. Who knows what sort of habits she picked up then …'

Felicity's initial amused indulgence at Janet's news suddenly evaporated. She snapped, ‘Stop talking such absolute rubbish, Janet. I'd certainly have expected that you of all people would be the last to surrender your credulity to the clutches of vicious and totally unfounded gossip. I don't want to hear anything more about this subject, and if I do hear anything from a different source I will be forced to presume that it originated with you. Do I make myself clear?' Janet answered breathlessly in the affirmative and the conversation ended abruptly shortly afterwards.

Felicity had been headmistress at Grunty Fen Primary for almost thirty years. The time had come and gone for her to retire but she had ignored suggestions from various departments—chiefly from her husband Donald, who was several years into retirement himself—and had carried on giving her all to the young children of the district.

She took her vocation very seriously. Her main problem was that she couldn't be convinced that anyone else she knew would be suitable for her job. The ideal candidate would be a woman—she thought that women made the best Heads because they were much more frightening than men—and preferably they would originate from Grunty Fen or the surrounding area. She believed that Fen children had to be taught by people who were familiar with the various interests, problems and subtleties of their character. She knew that Selina Mitchell was keen for promotion. She had been coolly vetted for a favourable reference from Selina herself on several occasions, but nothing had come of it.

Felicity put her feet up on to her foot-stool, took out her hearing aid, leaned back in her chair and took another bite out of her biscuit. She had resented Janet's news because she felt that anything bad said about her staff reflected badly on the school and ultimately on herself. She was rather proud and vain but disliked these qualities in other people. Selina, she believed, was far too proud and vain for her own good. She was too closed, not sufficiently free-thinking. Felicity found her distant and arrogant. Selina found Felicity interfering and arrogant. Neither side would bow down to the other. They weren't destined to be good friends, but Felicity often regretted that they had never even managed to become formal friends.

She took another sip of tea and decided to call Selina into her office for a serious chat first thing in the morning. She picked up a copy of the
People's Friend
and ran her finger down the list of contents, muttering. ‘No smoke without fire, indeed!'

Selina didn't dare carry the Dual Balls to school in her teaching bag in case any of the children poked around in it looking for a pencil or a book and came across them. Instead she wore a smart blue blazer with a deep inside pocket in which she carefully placed the Dual Balls before breakfast.

On arriving at school she went straight into her classroom to enjoy five minutes of quiet contemplation before the start of the day. She was keen to avoid Felicity and other members of staff, who on a Monday morning always seemed to try extra hard to be sociable and community spirited. Selina hated all that ‘bonding' business. It wasn't her style. She rarely went out for drinks on a Friday night with her colleagues; even so, she always saw them over the weekend because Grunty Fen and the surrounding areas were so sparsely populated that a trip to the shops usually meant a trip to meet everyone from your past, your present and your future that you were keen to avoid.

She sat at her desk and put her hand into her inside pocket to feel the Dual Balls. They felt cold and smooth; highly unerotic. She looked around the classroom and thought, ‘I'm so bloody sick of this routine. I'm sick of teaching. I just wish that it was heading somewhere or that something would come of it, but nothing will. I've vegetated, stultified.'

The room smelled clean but of chalk and paper and dust. Her mind turned to Joanna and their conversation at the weekend. This raised a smile. She thought, ‘Of course she's right. I don't have any real spirit of adventure.'

The bell rang and the day began.

Felicity had popped into the staff room at the beginning of the day to ask Selina into her office for a chat. Unfortunately Selina didn't materialize so Felicity had to content herself with the idea of meeting her during lunchtime. She checked the wall chart in the staff room to make sure that Selina wasn't on play or dinner duty.

It was a hot day. After several hours Selina became uncomfortable in her blazer and took it off so that she could cool down, hanging it carefully over the top of her chair and keeping a firm eye on it. The morning droned on and eventually it was time for lunch.

All morning she'd had half of her mind on the Dual Balls. A part of her really wanted to fulfil her dare and show Joanna that she was a woman of her word. Another part of her baulked at the idea of using the balls in principle. They were crude and revolting. Secretly she was rather interested to know how they would feel, but only in a silly, inquisitive way that took no account of what was right or for the best.

As the last child left the classroom Selina made a firm decision. She resolved to go and ‘try on' the Dual Balls and to try them out for several minutes in the privacy of her classroom at the beginning of her lunch hour. Then, if Joanna asked, she could say in all honesty that she had in fact worn the balls at school in the classroom.

The day was very still and warm. She opened the top button on her shirt to let the air circulate more freely around her throat then strolled to her chair and put on her blue blazer. It felt heavy and made her skin feel sticky. She felt ridiculously tense and strung-out. Luckily the toilets were close to her classroom. She worried about walking with the Dual Balls in; Joanna hadn't cleared up that little chestnut during their coffee and eclairs.

The toilets were empty. She chose one of the two cubicles and locked herself in. She was glad that she had opted to wear a skirt and sheer stockings for easier access.

Inserting the Dual Balls gave her a feeling of youthful mischievousness, as though she were one of the children in school doing something secretive and wrong like puffing on a cigarette.

The Dual Balls felt cold, bulky and stupid. She pulled the string that switched them on. In her hyper-sensitive state the buzzing of the Balls seemed like the violent crashing of cymbals. Although the toilets were empty apart from herself, she coughed loudly with embarrassment to try and hide the initial shock of the sound.

After a few moments of acclimatization Selina rearranged her clothing and stepped out of the cubicle. The balls felt like an inordinately large blue-bottle whizzing around, lost inside her knickers. She took a few experimental steps around by the sinks—where she fastidiously washed her hands—and the Dual Balls stayed firmly in place. She breathed a sigh of relief, then steeled her resolve and nerve as she headed for the door.

Once out in the corridor, surrounded by screaming, sweaty, excitable, break-enjoying children, Selina was able to relax. She felt less furtive and guilty out in the public sphere. She reached her classroom without misadventure; though her variation on a John Wayne swagger may easily have aroused interest in any but a child's mind. She pushed open her classroom door and went in.

Her heart sank. Sitting in the front row of desks, dead centre, was Felicity Barrow.

Smiling broadly, Felicity said, ‘Oh good, Selina. I was just about to give up my search and return to the staff room.'

Selina's entire body felt stiff and immobile; only the Dual Balls continued on moving naturally inside her. She tried to negotiate the walk to her desk as freely and casually as possible. To distract Felicity's attention she said, ‘Lovely day isn't it?', and pointed towards the window. Felicity turned towards the window and stared out through it at the blue sky. ‘Yes, it is lovely.'

She was pleased that Selina was trying to be friendly. Selina took these few seconds' leeway to trot over to her desk and plop herself down on to her hard wooden chair. She noisily cleared her throat so that Felicity's silent contemplation of the day's glory wouldn't emphasize the jubilant buzzing of the Dual Balls. Felicity's gaze returned to Selina's face. ‘You're looking very well, Selina, if I may say so, very bright.' Selina smiled. ‘I think I'm actually just a bit warm. Perhaps I should take my blazer off.'

She performed this simple action with as much ‘involved noise' as possible, concluding with the scraping up of her chair closer to the table. Her hands were shaking slightly, so she took hold of a pencil and tapped out a tiny, slight rhythm with it on the table top.

Felicity watched these adjustments very closely, then said, ‘You seem unusually tense today, Selina, any particular reason?'

Selina shrugged. Inside she was boiling with embarrassment and unease but she endeavoured not to let this show. ‘I don't know, Felicity. I feel all right really, just a bit, I don't know, a bit frustrated, rudderless …'

She didn't really know what she was saying, but after she had said it she felt as though she was talking about sex, as though she was an actress in a dirty blue film. She pinched herself and blinked her eyes, then looked over at Felicity.

Felicity was still smiling at her. ‘Maybe you're upset about all that ridiculous gossip that was circulating this weekend?'

Selina was still recovering from the tingling pain of her self-inflicted pinch. The pain seemed rather arousing, and the discomfort too. She asked automatically, ‘What gossip?'

Felicity's cheeks reddened slightly. She had hoped that Selina would have been willing to make this conversation easy and un-embarrassing. She cleared her throat and to hide her discomfort adjusted the position of her hearing aid in her ear. ‘Apparently someone has been spreading a rumour about … about your purported use of sexual stimulants during school time.'

Selina's face flushed violently and her jaw went slack, ‘I … I don't know what to say Felicity. What can I say?'