Read Online No Talking after Lights by Angela Lambert - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Angela Lambert
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senior.
In most cases a âpashâ was a safe outlet for adolescent emotion and practice for sexual encounters to come. Charmian and Sheila were united in their mutual worship of Hermione. Others worshipped her in secret, deriving a bitter thrill from denying it.
âSheâs not
that
pretty,â they would say, crossing their fingers.
The desire her beauty aroused was not alwayspassive, for Sylvia Parry was in thrall to Hermione. The taut blue veins at the back of Hermioneâs knees, the concave upward arch below her chin, the triangular breasts that tipped her Aertex shirt into twin points as she moved; these recurring glimpses tormented Sylvia. She would enter the Lower Fifthâs form-room clotted with expectation, telling herself that Hermione was just an ordinary, silly girl, vain and shallow like most sixteen-year-olds, only to be ravished by the rediscovery that she was as flawless as in memory. In class the girl seldom asked a question and, if addressed, would smile abstractedly.
âI donât know, Miss Parry. Shall I look it up?â Someone would thrust a book under her nose, open at the appropriate page.
âOh, yes,â she would say. âHere it is. Do you want me to read it out?â
âYouâre supposed to
know
, Hermione,â Sylvia would admonish, grateful for the excuse to pronounce her name and look directly into her face, gulping down its details as greedily as a pelican, to be regurgitated later for the nourishment of her ravenous heart.
âWhat made you want to teach biology?â Diana asked one evening, shyly curious.
âOh, it was the place. Gower. Not a lot to do there -nearest cinema was miles away - except read books, or go for walks. Lots of wild life, though. Just sort of happened.â
Gower was still Gower, in all its beauty: self-contained, teeming with life under hummocks of gorse and in rock pools. I was wild, too - cantering off on my own, hiding in cliffs that overhung the sea above Wormâs Head or Oxwich Point. I knew they were high and dangerous. My mother would have beaten me if sheâd known the risks I took. Often I scraped myselfagainst the jagged edges of rocks, or fell and grazed my knees until they bled.
âWorse things happen at sea,â my mother would say as she swabbed the cuts with Dettol, and sheâd stump off, leaving my father to comfort me. He would pull me on to his lap and I could smell the sweat of his clothes and the Brylcreem on his hair, and heâd whisper, âWorse things happen at sea,â and laugh into my ear.
I took longer and longer walks. To justify them I would say as I left the house that I was studying the plants and shore-life. I sketched and wrote down the Latin names of what I drew. So the beautiful pink and violet shell was
Gari fervensis
, the big pink scallops were
Chlamys opercularis
, and very occasionally Iâd come across the rayed artemis,
Dosinia exoleta
, a round shell with markings that looked like ancient writing - Sumerian, I thought later. I learned the names of all the crabs, from the fierce, attacking fiddler crab,
Portunus puber
, to the timid shore crab,
Cracinus maenas
.
âOther children collected stamps or cigarette cards; I collected the natural history of Gower, drew it and labelled it. I became more knowledgeable than anyone, even my father, and that, I suppose, is why I am a biologist. Or at any rate, a biology teacher.â
Diana Monk had no idea that Sylvia cherished powerful fantasies about Hermione. It did not occur to her that she had the right to be jealous. She barely acknowledged her own emotions, let alone Sylviaâs. As for the girls, it wouldnât have entered their heads that a member of staff might trespass into their zone; and, indeed, what Sylvia Parry felt for Hermione was not an adolescent âpashâ. Although they sometimes shocked and excited one another with smutty conversations after lights, most girls were
In most cases a âpashâ was a safe outlet for adolescent emotion and practice for sexual encounters to come. Charmian and Sheila were united in their mutual worship of Hermione. Others worshipped her in secret, deriving a bitter thrill from denying it.
âSheâs not
that
pretty,â they would say, crossing their fingers.
The desire her beauty aroused was not alwayspassive, for Sylvia Parry was in thrall to Hermione. The taut blue veins at the back of Hermioneâs knees, the concave upward arch below her chin, the triangular breasts that tipped her Aertex shirt into twin points as she moved; these recurring glimpses tormented Sylvia. She would enter the Lower Fifthâs form-room clotted with expectation, telling herself that Hermione was just an ordinary, silly girl, vain and shallow like most sixteen-year-olds, only to be ravished by the rediscovery that she was as flawless as in memory. In class the girl seldom asked a question and, if addressed, would smile abstractedly.
âI donât know, Miss Parry. Shall I look it up?â Someone would thrust a book under her nose, open at the appropriate page.
âOh, yes,â she would say. âHere it is. Do you want me to read it out?â
âYouâre supposed to
know
, Hermione,â Sylvia would admonish, grateful for the excuse to pronounce her name and look directly into her face, gulping down its details as greedily as a pelican, to be regurgitated later for the nourishment of her ravenous heart.
âWhat made you want to teach biology?â Diana asked one evening, shyly curious.
âOh, it was the place. Gower. Not a lot to do there -nearest cinema was miles away - except read books, or go for walks. Lots of wild life, though. Just sort of happened.â
Gower was still Gower, in all its beauty: self-contained, teeming with life under hummocks of gorse and in rock pools. I was wild, too - cantering off on my own, hiding in cliffs that overhung the sea above Wormâs Head or Oxwich Point. I knew they were high and dangerous. My mother would have beaten me if sheâd known the risks I took. Often I scraped myselfagainst the jagged edges of rocks, or fell and grazed my knees until they bled.
âWorse things happen at sea,â my mother would say as she swabbed the cuts with Dettol, and sheâd stump off, leaving my father to comfort me. He would pull me on to his lap and I could smell the sweat of his clothes and the Brylcreem on his hair, and heâd whisper, âWorse things happen at sea,â and laugh into my ear.
I took longer and longer walks. To justify them I would say as I left the house that I was studying the plants and shore-life. I sketched and wrote down the Latin names of what I drew. So the beautiful pink and violet shell was
Gari fervensis
, the big pink scallops were
Chlamys opercularis
, and very occasionally Iâd come across the rayed artemis,
Dosinia exoleta
, a round shell with markings that looked like ancient writing - Sumerian, I thought later. I learned the names of all the crabs, from the fierce, attacking fiddler crab,
Portunus puber
, to the timid shore crab,
Cracinus maenas
.
âOther children collected stamps or cigarette cards; I collected the natural history of Gower, drew it and labelled it. I became more knowledgeable than anyone, even my father, and that, I suppose, is why I am a biologist. Or at any rate, a biology teacher.â
Diana Monk had no idea that Sylvia cherished powerful fantasies about Hermione. It did not occur to her that she had the right to be jealous. She barely acknowledged her own emotions, let alone Sylviaâs. As for the girls, it wouldnât have entered their heads that a member of staff might trespass into their zone; and, indeed, what Sylvia Parry felt for Hermione was not an adolescent âpashâ. Although they sometimes shocked and excited one another with smutty conversations after lights, most girls were
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