Round the U Bend

From Blushes 39

Amanda froze, had goose-pimples and came out in little beads of perspiration all over when she thought about it. Flushing the loo a second time but it was still obstinately there, mocking her frantic efforts to get rid of it. If an inanimate white rubber balloon-like object could mock you. Mr Philport had just left and her parents would be back at any moment and it was obstinately there rolling about in the frothing water and perhaps seeming live, animate, after all.

‘Dispose of this, would you, Amanda,’ Mr Philport had matter-of-factly said and handed it to her. And then carrying his trousers had himself gone into the bathroom. Leaving Amanda with somehow this horrid dangling white rubber thing in her hand — between the very tips of finger and thumb and at arm’s length as if it might explode or alternatively send frightful crawling creatures swarming up her arm to infest her. Which of course was extremely illogical and silly when this same object had been and very recently in a most intimate part of her person and so if it could do such dreadful things it would presumably have already done them. With Mr Philport occupying the downstairs bathroom and the one upstairs out of action (Mr Bunglow the plumber had been due but not appeared) she had rushed to the kitchen. Thought for a moment of the garbage bag but no, her mother could conceivably find this dreadful object there. And so placed it with shaking hand in the sink. A temporary home. Until Mr Philport came out and left and it could be dropped down in what seemed the only possible place and flushed down into the bowels of the earth to disappear for ever — or perhaps in fact resurface in the sewage works, anonymously, with others of its kind. But it wouldn’t…

Somehow in the frantic carryings-about it had managed to entrap some air. It was thus triumphantly, diabolically, buoyant. Able to withstand whatever fresh torrent of water descended on it. A third flush. A fourth. At which point Amanda heard the unmistakeable sound of the car in the driveway. Her parents. She felt a rising surge of hysteria but somehow… out and into her bedroom, stumbling in her high heels, to grab a coathanger (she couldn’t touch it now.) Back. Desperately fishing for it. And somehow carrying it, suspended and dripping over the end, down the stairs and out through the kitchen as they came in the front door. Out into the life-giving cool evening air of the garden. The toolshed. Her father’s spade. And digging a frantic little hole in the vegetable patch. Oh God. She was shaking, shivering, bathed in a fine sheen of perspiration.

‘Amanda! Your shoes. They’re covered in mud!’

Amanda gave a slightly hysterical laugh. Her shoes did have mud on them and so now did the lounge carpet, but in the context… ‘I… ah… went out for some fresh air. In the garden.’

‘But did you have to walk on the actual garden?’ her father said. ‘I mean we’ve got paths. The lawn.’

Amanda, still shaking, bent to remove her shoes. Her mother came back in with the dustpan and brush. ‘Anyway dear, how was your show? The play. It was so nice of Jim Philport to take you out.’

Amanda gave another laugh that had an edge of hysteria to it. Mr Philport who when he took you out had a packet of those things with him. And, thoughtfully, a little jar of vaseline. And also, in his car… a cane.

She mumbled something about the play. It seemed almost light-years away though, with what had happened since. Mr Philport, the old friend of her parents: how nice of him to take her out. Her birthday. Nineteen. Not today of course: two days ago. But how thoughtful. Thoughtful to pick a matinee so that after something to eat he would have her back here in good time knowing that her parents were going to be out, at the pictures. Thoughtful. And knowing too: as he made clear in the interval. When he let her know that he knew a certain something that made Amanda blush a bright crimson. That certain something that she had thought no one, no one else, knew. Mr Philport smiling like a Cheshire cat: ‘But of course, Amanda dear, I wouldn’t dream of letting it go any further. You know that, don’t you?’

Oh yes. Of course. Mr Philport was the soul of discretion. If…

‘Nineteen now, eh? A lovely age. And you know what they say, there are two things a girl should have when she’s 19. To indicate she has attained the state of young womanhood, I suppose.’

Amanda watched bemused as the particles of garden earth were briskly brushed into the dustpan, and then her mother took her soil-clogged shoes. She could still see the water frothing in her toilet bowl and that dreadful white rubber thing. Refusing to go down. It was now out in the garden with the onions and cabbages but she had the awful feeling that somehow it would work its way up to the surface again. To lie there in wait for her mother’s shocked eyes. Maybe she should nip back out with a torch and check…? I’m going mad, she thought. But then, in the circumstances…

‘Do you know what they are, Amanda. Those two things?’

Sitting there in the lounge, in this very lounge with the coffee Amanda had made. That was Mr Philport’s opening gambit, following up on what he had said in the car. Shaking her head like a dummy.

‘Well, one is the cane, Amanda. A girl at that age needs a touch of the cane. It teaches her discipline. And submission to male authority. Some girls, quite a lot in these permissive days, grow up without ever having had the benefit of proper discipline.’

What was Mr Philport talking about? He was talking about caning her, that was what. And he had a cane. As he showed her. Wrapped in his coat and now produced like a magician.

Yes. Mr Philport, her father’s old acquaintance, not a bad sort she had thought though now she recalled that perhaps he had looked at her a bit funny once or twice in the past. But now just telling her this. He was going to use the cane on her. ‘We won’t tell anyone of course, Amanda dear. I’m sure you’d prefer that. Just the two of us.’ Calmly eyeing her across the coffee table. This coffee table. ‘Take them off then, eh? Your knickers.’

He wasn’t joking. And with what he knew: that sweat-inducing thing he had whispered in her ear… No, Mr Philport wasn’t joking and he wasn’t listening to any of her desperate pleas. He meant it.

Over the arm of the settee — this settee — her knickers off and her skirt up round her waist. Three strokes with that cane. Three strokes… the first was bad. The second and third she thought must have cut her bottom in two. Not able to breathe: choking, gasping for air. But the three strokes were over and Mr Philport was helping her up. And then helping her down, onto the seat of the settee this time.

‘We won’t want the knickers for the moment, Amanda dear. Because now we come to the second of those two things. Do you know what that is? I’m sure you do.’

To help her guess if she didn’t Mr Philport obligingly produced his two clues. The little jar of vaseline and the small flat packet. The contents of which, after Mr Philport had left, were to prove so difficult to dispose of.

‘I hope you invited him in for a cup of coffee, Amanda. When he brought you back.’ Her mother so concerned for good old Jim Philport. Yes, Amanda said. Yes she had. And now… she really was feeling… a bit tired. She would say goodnight. But not without first another frantic, furtive, look round. To make sure again there was nothing: no overlooked tell-tale stains on the settee say, or forgotten knickers peeping from under a chair. Although she knew she had grabbed her knickers up already and checked and rechecked for any… stains…

----//----

First thing in the morning she went out to the garden. She just had to. Keeping to the path this time where she could nonetheless observe from close quarters — about three feet — the spot where yesterday she had frenziedly dug and buried… The spot seemed to Amanda’s frantic eyes to stick out as if it were signposted. The obviously newly-dug earth simply inviting someone — her father — to investigate. And anyway was it still in there? The next-door-neighbour’s boy, Simon: how did she know he hadn’t observed her frantic activity? And dug it up. It could be anywhere in the garden now — dangling obscenely from a tree, a bush. It was ridiculous but Amanda couldn’t prevent herself from making a thorough tour…

Mr Bunglow came at ten, after phoned apologies for not making it yesterday. Mr Bunglow was another old acquaintance of her parents, like Mr Philport. Amanda shuddered at the very thought of that name. Her mother was out and of course her father but Amanda, home from college, was there to let Mr Bunglow in. She was still racking her brain about that thing. She couldn’t leave it there, to be dug up at the very least in her father’s autumn dig. But what else…? And what if someone saw her. That Simon. But for the moment there was in any case nothing she could do with Mr Bunglow in the house. Mr Bunglow whom Amanda had been instructed to make a cup of coffee for. Just like…

Mr Bunglow was, as it happened, about Mr Philport’s age. Fifty say. Fatter — although, hotly remembering his weight on her, Mr Philport wasn’t thin. Mr Bunglow and Mr Philport of course knew each other too. And sitting there, as she had with Mr Philport, Amanda had the sudden flush-making thought that Mr Bunglow could somehow also know what Mr Philport had found out.

Perhaps it was telepathy. Mr Bunglow at that point said, ‘Nineteen now then, Amanda?’

Her skin prickled. As she nodded. As Mr Bunglow grinned. ‘Did they ever tell you what a girl needs when she gets to be nineteen? There’re two things.’

She must be dreaming it. A dream, nightmare. If she pinched herself…

Mr Bunglow grinning more broadly. No he couldn’t… But he was going to say… she knew he was. And he did:

‘A little bird told me something, Amanda. Something quite amusing — although perhaps not everyone might think it was amusing. About when you were on holiday last year.’

‘No!’ she shrieked. ‘Don’t…’

Oh, I wouldn’t tell anyone. No. Keep it strictly between ourselves. Now about those two things.’

‘No!’ she yelped again. Mr Bunglow got heavily to his feet. Went out of the room. To the bathroom; to his tool bag? Because when he shortly came back, there it was in his hand. A cane. Just like Mr Philport’s.

‘No, you’re not…’ she squealed. But it was the same as Mr Philport. Did Amanda want that awful business on holiday bandied about? It was bad enough that these two men somehow knew; but if they were to tell everyone…

‘Come on, take ‘em off.’ Mr Bunglow whipped the cane down across the chair back. ‘Just a bit of fun, so take ‘em off. You took ‘em off for Jim Philport as I understand.’

Her skirt raised and her knickers down and kneeling on the top of the low coffee table: that was how Mr Bunglow wanted her. It was if anything worse than Mr Philport, if that was possible. Searing her poor bum.

‘Lovely,’ Mr Bunglow said. ‘A bit of all right.’ And whipped the cane in even harder. ‘Yes, this is what a girl needs all right.’

And then the other. Afterwards.

‘No!’ Amanda squealed, her bottom burning from the five devastating strokes Mr Bunglow had delivered. ‘No, I won’t. Not that…’

But Mr Bunglow like Mr Philport had come prepared with one of those little packets. And he was now unfastening the bib of his overalls.

‘Don’t be silly, Amanda. Just a little friendly one. To show we’re nice and friendly and mum’s the word as they say.’

On the settee. Again. With this time Mr Bunglow. Who was heavier. Amanda’s poor raw bottom rubbing painfully against the cloth as Mr Bunglow thrust vigorously in and out. And at the end of it. After he had pronounced, ‘Ah. That was nice. A bit of all right.’ Yes. The same. Holding it out to her. ‘Here. Find a home for this can you, Amanda.’

Somehow she suppressed the hysterical scream that wanted to force its way from her mouth. This dreadful thing in her hand again. Or another one. What could she do with it? There was only one place. The vegetable garden again.

Was that Simon in, next door? Peering through the fence? But she had to do it. Before her mother got home at lunch time. Dig again in that same spot. He was out somewhere, he had to be. That Simon. There wasn’t anyone about. And the other thing was still there. Looking horrible, disgusting, with dirt sticking to it. Surreptitiously slipping this second one in the hole and frantically covering it up. No there wasn’t anyone around, there couldn’t be.

----//----

‘Did Mr Bunglow come?’ her mother asked she when got back. Yes, Mr Bunglow had come all right. And yes he had fixed the loo. Mr Bunglow had got that done before he proceeded to items of his own pleasure: that cane and what could possibly be described as that other plumbing job.

There was a third one. Mr Singley who had the corner shop. He delivered some weekly groceries and whether by chance or design he came the next day when Amanda’s mother was out again. (Well it had to be design.) Mr Singley more or less invited himself in — and remarked that he wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee. Did that cause Amanda’s nervous antennae to start buzzing? The other two had had coffee. And this Mr Singley… well he was the same sort of age as the others and certainly well acquainted with them. Amanda had this sudden dreadful vision: they were in the pub — the Duck and Drake. The three of them. And Mr Philport was telling the other two…

Whether or not the Duck and Drake was involved Mr Singley was… shortly… saying… What the other two had said. And he had with him, out in his van, now brought in, under his coat, a cane. Maybe that same one. The little packet was tucked in down the side of her mother’s grocery box.

----//----

That meant there were three out there in the hole in the cabbage patch. Three of those horrible objects. No one discovered them. But almost. It was her Aunt Julie’s terrier, Jack. When Aunt Julie and her Uncle Ted came round at the weekend. ‘Where’s Jack?’ her mother asked when they were all in the lounge. Aunt Julie and Uncle Ted sitting on the settee where all three of those dreadful men had gruntingly achieved their climactic pleasure — and then handed over the sordid remains.

‘Oh he’ll be outside,’ Aunt Julie said. ‘He’s a bit of a digger I’m afraid.’ Amanda didn’t wait to hear any more. And outside there he was. For some reason drawn to that very spot. Digging enthusiastically away…

Almost hysterical she drove him off. Filled it in. But he kept wanting to come back to it. To start digging again, it was the only spot that seemed to interest him.

‘Oh let him have a dig,’ her mother said.

Amanda was almost out of her mind but she managed to prevent it. Late at night she dug them up. All three disgusting looking objects. Dropping them in a plastic shopping bag and screwing it up. In the morning she took it out, on her bike, in the country. Hid it. Though with the sweat-making thought that someone was watching.

----//----

At least it was only the three of them. Or seemed to be. ‘They wheedled it out of me,’ Mr Philport later said. ‘But don’t worry, it won’t go any further.’

At least for the rest of the summer vacation this seemed to be true. There weren’t any more callers. But those three: Mr Philport and Mr Bunglow and Mr Singley… well naturally they weren’t satisfied with just the once. They wanted more. Repeat performances of what a girl has to have. ‘Not at our house!’ Amanda hissed hysterically. Each time.

But there was just once more in their house. Mr Singley insisting when he came with the groceries. And Amanda did what she had so desperately tried to do that first time. Dropped it down the loo. It went down, no air trapped in it this time.

But it came back up. Later. It must have got into the U-trap and stayed there and… come back. And it was Amanda’s mother who found it. A sort of shriek from the bathroom. And then… ‘Amanda!’