Confessions of a Physical Wrac. Rosie Dixon
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name of that chap who let me have the sweat bands – OOH!’
I think it must be the first time in my life that I have ever taken the initiative with a man but I cannot allow myself to be robbed of my revenge. I slide my hand up the inside of Derek Tharge’s thigh and continue underneath his shorts until I have made contact with his hot cluster.
‘Uum!’ I say. ‘Nice!’
‘They’re Fred Perry’s,’ says Derek, rising two inches off the ground.
‘Really?’ I say. ‘What’s he going to do?’
‘I mean the shorts,’ says my twitching friend. ‘Oh, I say. Gosh! Jimminy Crickets! Wow!’
‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ I say. It always amazes me – whilst at the same time disgusting me, of course – how quickly a man’s thing can change from being all squidgy and rather pathetic to a deadly love cosh. Derek Tharge’s breaks all records as it races into the ascendant. ‘You don’t want to take it back to the clubhouse in that condition, do you?’ I say.
‘Crumbs!’ says my escort. ‘Well, I suppose I can always whip up an egg in a glass of milk when I get home. It’s difficult to know what to do for the best, isn’t it? None of the tennis books tell you what to do in this sort of situation.’
I tune out his voice and quickly peel off my panties. If I wait for Derek Tharge to take the initiative I could be here until the next Englishman wins Wimbledon. ‘Lie back,’ I say. Tharge’s shoulders meet the ground and I loosen his shorts and pull them down to his knees. His pussy pummeller is swaying like a sapling caught in a cross wind and I steady it with my hand and shuffle forward to put the unpleasantness behind me – I mean in front of me but, at the same time, behind me.
‘Christ!’ says Tharge. ‘I’ve just remembered. I haven’t put my racket in its press. I’d better – Eek!’
With a feeling of relief I tuck Tharge’s bird scarer into my honey pot and proceed to take those measures which unwanted experience has indicated will bring the matter to its speediest conclusion. It is strange, but as I jiggle, joggle up and down, the sensation is not altogether unpleasant. It is as if fate is congratulating me on the stand I have taken and giving me a much appreciated foretaste of the pleasure I can expect when I tie the nuptial knot with my one-day Mr Right and proceed to indulge in those intimate aspects of married life so far denied me.
‘Oh gosh!’ says Derek. ‘Giddy up a ding dong! This is far too nice to be doing me any good. Can we stop before I – eeeeeeh!’
Possibly, I am too intent on taking my revenge but I do not hear the footsteps approaching behind me. ‘Rosie, are you –? Good heavens!!’ I turn round fast – possibly too fast if Derek Tharge’s yelp of agony is anything to go by – and find Geoffrey towering behind me. It is not so dark that I cannot see the horror-struck expression on his face – also the strip of sticking plaster running along the bridge of his nose. Have I, I ask myself, fallen victim of a terrible misunderstanding?
The next morning, I am standing on the steps of the Army Recruiting Office, waiting for it to open. It is not a decision I have come to overnight and the awful misunderstanding of the previous evening is only partly responsible for it. When I find that Penny was merely applying a sticking plaster to Geoffrey’s injured nose and – and not doing what I thought she was doing, then I feel like killing myself. My whole future blighted by sheer bad luck. The cup of romance dashed from my lips. It is all so unfair.
I try to explain things to Geoffrey but he is very unsympathetic. ‘I could understand it if it was anyone else than Derek Tharge,’ he keeps saying. ‘He’s the kind of chap who pees in the shower. He’s always moving his name up the ladder when he thinks no one’s watching and I’m positive he pinched one of my balls. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the chap who left the net up all night on number three court and pulled the uprights out of the ground.’
‘Forget Large – I mean Tharge!’ I implore him. ‘He means nothing to me. He was just an instrument. I was distraught, Geoffrey. I didn’t know which way to turn.’
‘You seemed to be turning in a lot of directions when I found you,’ says Geoffrey unkindly. ‘I was coming to ask you if you wanted a hot pasty, too.’
‘That was very sweet of you,’ I say. ‘Oh Geoffrey. Can’t we pick it up from there? Can’t we take it from the hot pasty and forget that this unfortunate incident ever took place?’
But Geoffrey is not to be placated and we part with him muttering about how I am always blowing hot and cold and he does not know where he is with me. The last I see of Derek Tharge he is inserting some kind of inhalant up his over-large nostrils and enquiring if anyone has any glucose tablets.
I can’t bring myself to reveal to Penny what I thought might be taking place in the tea-room and so I have to brave her fairly foreseeable comments on my actions.
‘I have to hand it to you,’ she says. ‘You don’t let the grass grow under your feet, do you? In fact the grass has a bit of a job growing anywhere within twenty yards when you swing into action. How did this entrant measure up?’
I avoid answering that question and spend a sleepless night wondering what to do for the best. As I said right at the beginning, Reggy’s arrest does mean that I will have to look for another job – this time, preferably, one that pays a salary. I can’t go on living on promises. That, of course, is something that can be said for accepting a job with a government organisation. The money isn’t always good but you do know that you are going to get paid every week.
I don’t want to live at home because, as much as I love Mum and Dad, we do get on each others’ nerves after a while and the same can be said of Natalie, only more so. What I do want is to find some career that offers me protection from men. Now that true marital happiness seems to have been snatched from my grasp by cruel fate, I do not want to find myself drifting back into those kinds of situations which have led to so much unpleasantness in the past. I want to turn my back on men for a bit. A nice, quiet monastic life is what I need. In fact, I have thought about becoming a nun but I don’t think it is quite me. To be brutally honest, I have never really fancied the uniform and I don’t think I possess sufficient religious conviction to stand all the kneeling. The Women’s Royal Army Corps could be just what I am looking for. Regular pay and meals and the companionship of lots of girls of my own sex. Living with them and concentrating on making a go of my new career will protect me from those unsought involvements which have been so damaging in the past.
‘Hello, darling. Hope you haven’t been here long? Hang on to these a minute while I find the blooming key.’ The man with the shoulder-length hair sprouting from his peak cap thrusts a bundle of doormats into my hand and fumbles in the pocket of his khaki uniform with the Sergeant’s stripes on the shoulder. ‘Lovely article they are. Empire made, every one of them. I was lucky to get ’em. There’s a big run on them at the moment. Come about the typing job, have you?’
I step back and take another look at the sign above the window showing the cut-out figures of five laughing soldiers sticking bayonets into a scarecrow. No, I have not made a mistake. The sign says it quite clearly: ‘Army Recruitment Centre.’
‘I wanted to find out about becoming a WRAC,’ I say.
‘Blimey!’ says the man. ‘Well, you came to the right place, didn’t you? Step inside and we’ll see what we can do. All right for pan scourers, are you?’
I am not a little surprised to find that the interior of the room we go into has more in common with the hardware counter of Woolworths than Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. There are piles of dusters, plastic bowls and buckets, nutmeg graters, tea strainers, cheese graters, assorted cutlery and plates.
‘Are you sure I’ve come to the right place?’ I say. ‘This is a recruitment centre?’