Chapter 2

They sat in the last rays of fading sunshine in the big park watching some kids shoot down the slide in the nearby amusement park.

"You're very quiet, Lindy," Betty said affectionately. "What's up?"

She'd had it on her mind for two days now and the desire to tell someone was acute. If only she gave someone else the guilty knowledge, got them involved too, she could share the burden. It would immediately lessen what she had to carry.

"It's nothing," she said, however. "I'm just feeling a bit bored with the holiday already. Let's go to the dance tonight."

Betty hesitated. She was a pretty blonde girl, as well-developed as Linda but slightly shorter, which somehow gave her an even sexier appearance. Last time they'd gone to the dance they'd been pestered by Teddy boys who'd made crude remarks to them. She didn't think they even were real Teddy boys, but they dressed in that Edwardian cut and had long side beards, and they strutted about in a conceited way and smacked girls on the bottom, and if they danced with you they held you very close and kissed your ear and pushed their hips hard against yours. Betty had been rather frightened of them and hadn't wanted to go again. But if Lindy wanted to go, then maybe it would be all right. She knew what a loveless home life Lindy had and she liked to give in to her as much as possible.

"All right," she said. "But supposing those Teddy boys are there?"

"So what," Linda said. "I'm not frightened of them."

It was true that, in a sense, her newfound maturity had done away with half the fears she had always had with boys like that who seemed so much older than she.

"Lindy, something's the matter." Betty took her hand.

Linda looked at her and squeezed the hand, then she looked listlessly away to the amusement park. Betty was sweet, her best friend. She was the only one she could tell, if she was going to tell anyone.

"I've had it," she said at last.

"You've had it? What do you mean you've had it?"

"You know it. I'm not a virgin any more."

She went on staring at the kids on the slide, wishing now that she hadn't said anything, knowing that she would tell Betty everything.

She felt the hand on hers tighten, heard the gasp.

Betty didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Her mind went racing over all the boys they knew, wondering.

"Why didn't you tell me? When? Who with? Oh, you didn't. You're kidding!" When she spoke, she didn't know what to say first. She relapsed into silence with bright, eager eyes waiting for Linda to tell her and she was disturbed by her friend's moody silence.

"Lindy, what's the matter with you? Why won't you tell me?" she asked after a few minutes.

"Oh, it's too horrible when I think of it."

And suddenly she had burst into tears and Betty was holding her tightly in astonishment, begging her to stop.

"It was my stepfather," she blurted at last through the dregs of her tears.

Betty released her in horror.

"He made me," she went on, "while the old woman was out. She went to see Aunt Sarah and stayed away a whole night."

"Oh, Lindy, Lindy," Betty was almost in tears herself. "Oh, how awful. What did you do? Did you tell your mother? What a beast."

And Linda told her the whole story in a voice which became more steady and matter-of-fact as she went on.

"It's done me a terrific amount of good to talk about it," she said, when at last she'd told everything there was to tell. It somehow didn't seem so important now and Betty, too, had got over the first shock and was wanting to know the details of what it looked like and how she'd felt.

"No, he hasn't done anything since,' she said in answer to Betty's question, "and I'm almost getting used to the idea that it happened. But if ever she's out again I'm going to come and stay at your place. I couldn't go through it again."

"How terrible," Betty said, giving a sudden shiver of disgusted excitement, wondering how it would have been for her in the same circumstances. She tried to form pictures of Linda being fucked by her stepfather, but they were too vague and incomplete.

"Yes," Linda agreed. "But you know while it's actually happening, you get a helpless sort of feeling and you don't want to stop it and you can't think of anything else."

Betty shivered again. She felt that Linda was definitely ahead of her; she wondered how long it would be before she caught up. But with a stepfather!

"Well you'd better make up your face before we go to the dance," she said. "Should we change? You can come to my house and borrow a dress if you like."

"No, let's go as we are. It's not as if it's a posh place."

The dance hall was in the main street of the London suburb in which they both lived. It was growing dusk when they reached it and the streetlamps had already flickered on. The smell of frying wafted on the night air from a fish-and-chip shop and a number of strollers were out with their dogs or walking arm in arm to stare into the illuminated store windows. A few hundred yards past the dance hall a few people were drifting shortsightedly out of one of the two local cinemas, and a policeman was looking at the stills in the glass screens outside.

There was a small foyer to the dance hall with a little turnstile where the tickets were sold. From there one went along a short corridor into the hall itself.

A number of youths were standing about in the foyer aimlessly. They looked up with interest and one of them whistled as the girls walked in.

Betty paid for the tickets, very self-conscious, while Linda stared indifferently back at the youths.

They walked through the corridor and into the hall where the heat was oppressive in spite of their thin, summer dresses.

On a dais at one end a sextet was playing; at the other end light refreshments were being served over a long trestle table from an inner room. Between these two extremities a row of chairs was pushed against each side wall and about a score of couples were dancing between the gatherings of youths who were sitting on them.

"It doesn't look very exciting," Betty whispered. She began to wish they hadn't come.

The bare room and the lounging youths exuded a hostile atmosphere.

"What else is there to do?" Linda asked. "You never know, it might be fun." She desperately needed some excitement any event that could by its importance or interest help to drive her experience with her stepfather into the background.

They walked down one side of the hall and sat down in a couple of vacant chairs where they remained for several minutes the center of considerable speculative interest. Eventually, a couple of youths came over and asked them to dance.

Mooning around the floor with her partner, whose hand moved nervously on her back and whose conversation lapsed after a few commonplaces, Linda felt nothing but irritation. She, too, felt the dull lack of excitement about the place. She wondered what her partner would say if she suddenly told him: "You needn't try any kid stuff because I'm not a virgin, let's just go and do it in the park." She gave a little laugh and the boy looked at her in astonishment.

"What's up with you?" he asked in an offended tone.

"I just thought of something funny."

He grunted and continued to push her around the parquet floor to the uninspired music of the orchestra.

She looked over his shoulder and caught Betty's eye. Betty raised her eyebrows in a bored gesture and she grinned at her.

They were still dancing silently when there was a general glancing of eyes towards the entrance. Linda stared over, and saw a couple of the Teddy boys had just come in. She didn't remember them from last time; they looked older and were quite good-looking in their way. She couldn't understand why people deplored the way they dressed: if they didn't make the shoulders of their black suits too spivy they looked quite elegant with their old-fashioned sideburns and the tight trousers that gave a slim beauty to their legs.

She watched idly as they strolled down one side of the hall and then up the other, staring at the seated spectators. They turned inwards and she watched their eyes roving over the dancers. Inevitably, as the eyes flickered over each of the women and her partner, she found herself staring straight at one of the young men, saw his eyes drop as she turned, felt them sizing her up, examining her figure. He continued to look at her and after a moment she looked away.

Their partners wandered off at the end of the dance as if they didn't quite know what to do next and Linda and Betty sat down in the seats they'd originally occupied.

"Do you see those two Teddy boys looking at us?" Betty said nervously. "Don't look now."

Linda looked, however, and both youths were now staring over at them and chatting quietly from the opposite side of the room. The one who had been looking at her while she was dancing grinned and, after a moment's hesitation, she smiled slightly.

"They look all right," she said to Betty. "Better than these other wretches."

"They're supposed to beat people up sometimes," Betty said. "And usually they go around in gangs. I don't like the idea."

"Don't be such a baby."

With a shuffling flourish the music started up again with a quickstep and a few couples got up immediately to dance.

"They're coming over," Betty whispered in some agitation.

Linda watched them come across the floor, dodging between the couples, hands in pockets, confident. They reminded her unexpectedly of her stepfather, but she thrust the thought from her mind.

"Like to dance?" said the one who'd stared at her.

"All right."

For some reason she'd expected him just to glare at her and jerk with his thumb, or some sort of Apache approach like that. She was pleasantly surprised that he treated her with some politeness and that he chatted easily as they toured the floor. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Betty was dancing with his friend.

"Not much of a hole is it?" he said.

"It's very dull." She would have felt bound to agree even if her sentiment hadn't been similar to his.

"You like a bit of excitement, eh?"

"Depends."

"Oh, sure like me."

He looked down at her. So far he hadn't attempted to bite her ear. She wasn't sure if she was pleased or sorry.

"Jim and I usually drive up into town, but we thought we'd look in here tonight first."

He had a car. That was a further surprise.

"What do you do in town?" she said, still looking up at him.

"Varies," he said with a grin. "Sometimes we dance or just have a drink in a bar or two; sometimes we go to a party. There's a party tonight. Maybe you'd like to come."

"Oh, I'm with a friend."

"The one Jim's dancing with ? She could come too the more the merrier."

"Well, I'm not sure. I'll have to ask her."

"Oh, sure there's no hurry."

She decided she liked him. He was easygoing and pleasant and there was an unstraining command in his bright blue eyes which went so strangely with his dark hair and the mobile dark eyebrows which he could raise separately in such a fascinating way. His long, square face with the wide mouth and straight nose fitted well with the Edwardian haircut. Yes, he certainly was handsome and not gauche like most of the youths there who pretended to be so big.

The youth who had first danced with Linda came across the floor towards them with a fixed expression. He tapped her partner on the shoulder.

"Excuse me."

Her partner looked around in surprise, continuing to dance. A grin came into his eyes. "We're dancing," he said.

"It's an excuse me," the youth complained. "Too bad. You'd better find someone who's willing."

They danced away and the youth went back to the edge of the room scowling.

"Hope you don't mind," he said to her.

"Delighted. I danced with him first. He was a bore."

"Couldn't be much else; I don't suppose he's old enough to have been around."

"You've been around."

"Sure."

The music crooned to a stop and they walked back to where Betty and Jim were talking.

"Mind if we join you?" Linda's partner said, and they all sat down.

"I thought we'd go on to Sam's place later," he added to Jim.

"O. K. by me Des."

Des short for Desmond, Linda thought, a nice name.

Later they danced again and had coffee and a sandwich and the two girls excused themselves to go to the toilet.

There they engaged in an animated discussion. They had both been asked to go to the party in town.

"Do you think we can trust them?" Betty ventured.

"Trust them? What do you think they can do to us?"

"Well they might expect..."

"Probably would. Don't you want it?"

"I don't know. It frightens me."

"Well, they might not anyway. They seem too nice and polite to insist imagine having a car."

"Yes. How old d'you think they are?"

"Probably about twenty. They seem pretty old."

"And how would we get home?"

"They'd bring us back of course."

"But they might not come back until late."

"God, anything else you can worry about? We were out until 4:30 on Guy Fawkes night." "Your mother doesn't care, but mine might be worried."

"Well, I want to go," Linda decided. "Are you coming?"

"All right if they'll bring us back."

They made up again hurriedly, ran a comb through their hair and went back into the bare hall, where the dispirited music was still dragging on, to tell their new escorts they'd like a bit of excitement.