Up The Junction by Nell Dunn (MacGibbon & Kee 1963)

 

Out with the girls

We stand, the three of us, me, Sylvie and Rube, pressed up against the saloon door, brown ales clutched in our hands. Rube, neck stiff so as not to shake her beehive, stares sultrily round the packed pub. Sylvie eyes the boy hunched over the mike and shifts her gaze down to her breasts snug in her new pink jumper. 'Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!' he screams. Three blokes beckon us over to their table.

'Fancy 'em?'

Rube doubles up with laughter. 'Come on, then. They can buy us some beer/

'Hey, look out, yer steppin' on me winkle!'

Dignified, the three of us squeeze between tables and sit ourselves, knees tight together, daintily on the chairs.

‘Three browns, please,' says Sylvie before we've been asked.

'I’ve seen you in here before, ain’t I?' A boy leans luxuriously against the leather jacket slung over the back of his chair.

‘Might 'ave done.'

‘You come from Battersea, don't yer?'

‘Yeah, me and Sylvie do. She don't though. She's an heiress from Chelsea.’

‘Really? You really an heiress?' Jimmy Dean moves his chair closer to mine, sliding his arm along the back.

‘Are yer married?'

‘Course she is. What do yer think that is? Scotch mist?' Rube points to my wedding ring.

Sylvie says, ‘Bet they're all married, dirty ginks!'

‘Like to dance?'

Rube moves onto the floor. She hunches up her shoulders round her cars, sticks out her lower lip and swings in time to the shattering music.

‘What's it like havin' a ton of money?'

‘You can't buy love.'

‘No, but you can buy a bit of the other.' Sylvie chokes, spewing out brown ale.

‘I’d get a milk-white electric guitar.'

‘Yeah and a milk-white Cadillac convertible—walk in the shop and peel off the notes. Bang ’em down on the counter and drive out—that's what yer dad does, I bet . . .'

We were crushed in the toilets. All round girls smeared on pan-stick.

‘I can't go with him, he’s too short.'

‘All the grey glitter I put on me hair come off on his cheek and I hadn't the heart to tell him.'

‘I wouldn't mind goin’ with a married man 'cept I couldn't abear him goin' home and gettin' into bed with his wife.'

‘Me hair all right?’

‘Yeah, lend us yer lacquer.'

‘Now don't get pissin' off and leavin’ me.' Rube pulled at her mauve skirt so it clung to her haunches and stopped short of her round knees.

Outside revving bikes were splitting the night.

‘Where we going?'

‘Let's go swimmin’ up the Common.'

‘We ain't got no swim-suits with us.'

‘We’ll swim down one end and you down the other. It’s dark, ain't it?'

‘Who do yer think's going to see yer? The man in the moon?'

‘Yeah and what's to stop yer hands wandering?'

‘We’ll tie 'em behind our backs.'

‘Here, I’ll never git on there I can't get me knees apart.'

‘Hitch yer skirt up under yer coat.'

‘Help, me grandmother’ll catch cold!'

The three of us climb onto the bikes, each behind a boy. We bum up Tooting Broadway and streak round a corner.

‘I did this bend at eighty once,' he shouts over my shoulder.

‘Ninety-two people bin decapitated on them iron girders, taking it too fast.’ We race across the common, then shudder to a halt under some trees. He wears jeans, black boots with double gold buckles and a fine lawn shirt beneath his unzipped jacket.

‘There are two things I'd like to be—a racing driver or a pilot. But you've gotta have money for that.'