She’d find out soon enough. If I’d not been such a gawby forgetting about maggots she might not’ve believed them, but she’d believe them now, certain. And it’d be Delton that told her. Katie Carmichael. How I had to quit my schooling when I was sixteen on account of trying to rape her in Wetherill’s formroom.
She never pressed charges. A court case would’ve messed up her exams, poor girl, though bugger knows why her exams were so important, she was only third year, and I didn’t know why there should’ve been a court case anyhow because I didn’t rape her, as it happened, and even if Wetherill hadn’t come back for his fags I wouldn’t have done, neither. We won’t press charges so long as that monster is taken out of school, was the trade. And they said I was lucky, because I’d forced her against her will, but I didn’t know what was lucky about missing my GCSEs and having to work the farm with Father. I’d have bobby-dazzled them and all–I got the best marks in class for the mock exams, not far off. There were some proper nimrods in my class, mind.
You’re Sam Marsdyke, aren’t you? she said to me. That set it off, her speaking to me, for I’d have sloped past otherwise, just a quick gleg at her, sat on the window sill in her skirt. I am, aye. I scanned up the corridor to see if there was a bunch of them round the corner, all giggles. I’ve been sent out of class, she says. That right? I say, fumbling in my pockets, what’s she doing talking to me, is she pulling my string? Do I stand here like a doylem or do I get on? But I stay put because she chelps away, all she did was she drew a picture of a cat in her textbook, it wasn’t even in pen, that’s hardly a crime is it? I don’t know why she’s telling me this. Probably thinks I’m right impressed at her getting sent out. I don’t mind, though, for next thing I’m sitting down with her on the sill close enough I can feel her leg touching against my own.
She talks on at me, this, that, the other, it’s not the first time I’ve been sent out of class. Isn’t it? I say, and then I tell her about how the first time I was sent out was for throwing four pencil cases out the music-room window and she thinks that’s proper funny, she does, and I knew that we were going to kiss because we’d moved closer and my leg was getting warm where it was pushed up. We talk some more or she talks, anyhow, as I’m not sure what to say, but it doesn’t matter for next thing I’m pressing up on her and her neck smells of soap and I’m kissing her and our teeth clank together because I’m not in the knowledge of how to kiss a girl proper. Wait on, I tell her, Wetherill’s out his room, let’s go there. No, she says. Don’t worry, it’s all right, and I’m holding her by the forearm, it’s only the next corridor. We go in the room shut the door it’s cold inside someone’s left a window open, but we’re not bothered about that. I kiss her on the neck, soap gusting up my nostrils, a proper stalk I’ve got on now kissing her like that and her spread on the table. But then Wetherill comes in, he’s left his fags in the desk. What’s this? Marsdyke! and he’s reaching for the blackboard eraser so I step back and he puts it down.
If Wetherill hadn’t bust in when he did everything would have gone different, it wouldn’t have looked so bad as it did, they wouldn’t have said I planned raping her. You forced her against her will. Sod off, against her will. Yes you did, they said, and you’re lucky she’s not pressing charges because there are bruises all up her arm, what more proof do we need?