Once we were through the gate, the cop put me down and grasped my sleeve instead, marching me towards a fleet of small, knackered-looking green-and-white coaches, where ragged queues of angry women were being herded, closely guarded by a phalanx of police. I looked wildly around for Samantha and felt a wave of relief as I saw her being dragged through the gates, seemingly unhurt, howling and swearing at her captor.
I was even more relieved when she was pushed into the same queue as me. ‘Fucking pigs. How dare they!’ she yelled.
‘You were trespassing on Ministry of Defence property. I’m sure you’re fully aware that that is an immediately arrestable offence,’ said the policeman nearest us, his arms folded imperiously across his tunic.
Samantha spat in the grass at his feet. He merely raised his eyebrows. ‘Nasty little dyke,’ he commented, almost conversationally, and I had to pull Samantha’s arm to stop her launching herself at him.
‘Where are they taking us?’ I asked, terrified now.
‘Don’t worry, honey, I’ll be there. It’s no big deal. They just take us to the nearest drunk tank and then let most of us go with a warning. Hell of a headache for them, though.’
We were almost at the head of the queue to get on one of the buses. Two bored-looking policemen were booking everyone in and doing perfunctory bag searches at a small card table near the coach door.
The woman ahead of us was clutching a worn shoebox, holding it to her chest as if it contained her worldly possessions.
‘Hand it over, love,’ said the younger of the two cops, who didn’t look much older than me. He had a blancmange-pale face and looked like he was trying to act more bravely than he felt. ‘We don’t have all day.’
The woman with the shoebox, who had long, straggly pink hair and a baggy fabric bear costume, seemed reluctant. Her friend had already started laughing. ‘Go on, Babs, give it to the little boy,’ she said, and Babs made a show of slowly placing the shoebox on the table.
‘Be careful with it!’ she beseeched. ‘It’s very precious.’
The booking officer narrowed his eyes at her. As he took off the lid I was thinking, Oh shit, what about Pete’s rucksack? And his sleeping bag – he’ll kill me! I’d have to go back for them later.
A foul smell pervaded the air and the officers’ disgusted exhalations brought my attention back to the shoebox.
‘Search through that, then, sugar tits,’ Babs said, the smirk in her voice clearly discernible. The box was full of smallish dark-red objects, meaty and metallic. I thought at first they were corpses of small skinned animals, then Samantha, looking over the woman’s shoulder, started to laugh.
‘Oh my god, that’s genius,’ she crowed, almost hysterical.
I looked closer. The shoebox was full of used tampons. Samantha clapped Babs on the back, and a ripple of mocking laughter went around the captive women. Personally, I thought it was as disgusting as the policemen did, and had to choke back a gag. The smell was unbelievable.
‘Oh for God’s sake, Babs,’ said another officer, climbing out of the bus to see what the furore was. ‘Not again!’ He turned to the young policeman at the desk. ‘She does this every time she’s arrested. Thinks it’s hilarious. Well what I’d say is hilarious is that she has to carry that rank fucking object round with her all day…’
‘You ought to search it, officer,’ said Babs’s companion, putting on a faux-winsome voice. ‘You’d be in terrible trouble if she was smuggling a knife on board, now wouldn’t you?’
To my horror, the constable did actually don latex gloves and have a perfunctory poke around in the contents of the box, his other hand gripping his nose and mouth shut. Our entire queue, plus the queues waiting to get on the neighbouring coaches, hooted with derisive laughter, catcalling and roaring at him. The young copper had gone from white to puce with horror and embarrassment, and I almost … almost … felt sorry for him.
It was horrible on the coach. Freezing cold – I was starting to shiver now, from fear and the chill of recently dried sweat – and with stained velour seats and filthy Formica tables. Three military policemen got on board, one sliding behind the vast steering wheel and two hanging onto metal poles to keep an eye on us all as the engine shuddered into noisy life, the bus’s big windows rattling so hard that I could feel my cheeks vibrating.
One of them, shouting to be heard above the engine noise and the heckling women, made a speech about how we were all arrested and being taken to Reading Police Station, where we would be held until further notice. I looked at Samantha apprehensively.
‘Don’t worry,’ she repeated. ‘It’s going to be fine.’ She held my hand and I gripped hers tightly, unspeakably relieved that she was there.
‘How many times have you been arrested?’ I asked, and she looked skywards, counting off on her fingers.
‘Four,’ she said. ‘And never charged.’
That made me feel a little better.
‘It’s my birthday today,’ I announced, as the coach rumbled through the main gates onto the Newbury Road.
‘Oh WOW!’ said Samantha, kissing my cheek effusively, like we’d known each other for years. ‘Happy birthday, gorgeous girl! Eighteen?’
‘Seventeen,’ I said sheepishly, and she blanched slightly.
‘Jeez. Listen,’ she leaned into me and whispered in my ear, ‘when you’re booked in, for God’s sake don’t tell them you’re underage.’
I was surprised. I’d been planning to milk it, in the hope they’d take pity on me as a child.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the whole thing will take ten times longer! I’m serious. There was a sixteen-year old kid last time, and my God, the hassle. They had to get someone in to be an appropriate adult for her, and it took hours.’
‘Oh. Right.’ I mentally rehearsed my fake year of birth in case I was asked: 1965, not 1966. 1965, 1965, 1965…
Half an hour or so later, we arrived at Reading Police Station. I was dying for a pee, having not been since the train, but dreading what the arrangements would be. I’d seen Porridge on TV, the steel toilet in a corner … I couldn’t.
All sixteen of us were escorted into the station and herded up to the desk. The young arresting officer (whose face had returned to milky white again) announced to the custody sergeant: ‘These ladies were caught at twenty-one nineteen on April the first, trespassing on MOD property, contrary to Section Five of the military defence law, and brought here to be detained…’ I tuned out after that, still fretting about Pete’s rucksack, my swelling bladder and my parents’ reaction when I rang them to admit where I was. But then I heard him announce that we were all to submit to a full body search.
Shit! No. I felt my bowels turn liquid, and I clutched Samantha’s furry sleeve. ‘I can’t do that!’ I said, in a small panicky voice.
She hugged me. ‘It’s fine, really. It’s over real fast.’
I was so glad she was there, but it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better.
We shuffled forwards to be booked in, and when it was my turn, I stared into the custody sergeant’s weary bloodshot eyes as he cautioned me: ‘You’re entitled to a solicitor free of charge, and you’re entitled to have someone informed of your arrest. Do you want us to inform someone?’
As advised by Samantha, I shook my head, but I couldn’t prevent tears of longing rolling down my face at the thought of Mum and Dad coming to my rescue. It would be worth all the inevitable shouting, the disappointment, the grounding, just to be home tucked up in my own bed – after a long sit on the toilet, in my own bathroom…
But she’d told me not to let the police tell them, and I trusted her.
I signed my acknowledgement of the caution – which, Samantha said, meant I’d be released sooner – then joined another queue of women waiting to be searched by two WPCs. We were being taken one by one into a room. The door was shut, I noticed, which was a relief – at least there’d be privacy, I thought. The women emerging again wore a variety of expressions from weariness to grumpiness. Nobody seemed traumatised though. My turn came, and I was ushered into the room, which was empty except for a desk with an overhead projector and two bored-looking female officers. My stomach was churning.
‘Oh look, another teddy bear,’ said the taller of the two – a woman with a ferocious, blonde Vera Duckworth perm. ‘Slip that off for me, love.’
I unzipped the front of my bear costume and let the furry shoulders drop to the floor so I was standing quivering in my bra and pants. It was cold in here, and I felt goosebumps sweep across the bare skin of my chest and stomach.
‘Good girl. Just pull your pants forwards; let’s have a quick check.’
It was the most humiliating moment of my life. Even worse than when I got my period as I walked into town wearing white jeans.
I hooked my thumbs into my flowery M&S knickers and pulled them away from my abdomen, staring hard at the ceiling tiles and trying very hard not to cry. But it was a) painless, b) over in a second, and c) neither of the women donned rubber gloves and stuck their fingers inside me as I’d feared they might, so that was a win. They were the first people ever to see my pubic hair.
I told Samantha that later, in a blurt of confession, and she laughed, which made my heart leap.
‘Funny old world,’ she said affectionately, in a mock-British accent.