Read Online Rebuilding Coventry by Sue Townsend - Free Book Online Page B

known to have blackened her face in terrorist
fashion before battering Gerald Fox to death.’ He warned, ‘She could strike
again.’

 
     
     
     
     
    11
Coventry Tittie
     
    Around midnight on
Thursday, I had a rush of optimism to the head. Perhaps he’s alive. How could a
silly plastic doll kill a six-foot overweight man? I pulled a newspaper I’d
never heard of out of a litter-bin, the Standard. There was no mention
of me murdering a man; perhaps the London press was not interested in
provincial murder, though they had reported other violent deaths: people
crushed by farm machinery, trapped inside burning lorries, drowned in quarries.
    After I’d
finished reading the paper I shoved it inside my sweatshirt where it served
two purposes: it kept me warm, and acted as a nipple guard. I haven’t mentioned
it before but, dirty and badly dressed as I was, I had been propositioned by
many men as I trudged along the pavements. All of the men looked respectable
and ordinary. Some had opened car doors and invited me into the passenger seat.
Some of the cars had baby seats in the back. I wondered why such men should try
to pick up a smelly stranger, when most of them would surely have a fragrant
wife at home. But then I remembered that my figure was outlined clearly by the
clothes I was wearing. I was a collection of female hormones on the move, and
served to remind men of their basic biological needs and desires. Nobody ever
takes a beautiful woman seriously, apart from herself.
    My good
looks have always been a source of shame to my parents. When I was a child they
deliberately brutalized my appearance. My blonde curls were hacked off or
hidden under unflattering knitted caps. My body was clothed in an over-large
school uniform during the week, complete with clumpy lace-up shoes. At the
weekends I wore shrunken cardigans and floppy pleated skirts.
    I was a
freak at an early age. My breasts started to grow at an alarming rate when I
was twelve. One moment I was running around playing games in the school playground
and, it seemed, the next I was huddled in a corner with my back stooped and my
arms folded over my chest. During the hottest summer I wore a cardigan; games
became an ordeal; showers were torture. I ran through the steaming room with my
eyes closed. It was a tall, thin, jealous girl called Tania Draycock who first
changed my nickname from ‘Coventry City’ to ‘Coventry Tittie’. By the age of
fifteen my breasts were enormous; even harnessed and bound they protruded
through my clothes. They affronted people. Teachers flicked their eyes away in
alarm, strangers stared in fascination.
    My
relations were plain people who didn’t believe in hair ribbons or coloured
shoes. Their clothes were chosen for camouflage rather than adornment. So at
sixteen, when I became a beatnik, the attraction was not intellectual but
practical. Beatniks wore huge bosom-concealing sloppy sweaters and
duffel-coats. For the first time in years I was able to relax. I stopped
stooping and unfolded my arms and started to read the books that I had been
carrying around under my arm as part of my uniform.
    Sometimes
my looks were helpful. They got me a job as an office junior in a cardboard box
factory. I had no other qualifications. ‘Take your coat off, dear,’ Mr Ridgely
said. ‘It’s ‘ot in ‘ere.’ I was young and trusting. I took my coat off …
folded my arms. Mr Ridgely’s brow became covered in sweat which he patted dry
with a maroon handkerchief. ‘I tell you what, would you mind standing on my
desk and opening that top window?’
    I had
no experience of men. I stood on the desk and was surprised to find that Mr
Ridgely had not moved from his chair. I leaned forward to open the window, an
icy wind rushed into the room and blew papers about. Mr Ridgely was looking up
my skirt. Our eyes met, the maroon handkerchief came out again.
    ‘Yes,
you’ll do,’ he said. ‘Start on Monday.’
    For the
next two years I continued to