Skinner's Mission

30

Alex awoke with a start. The room was hot and clammy from the Cannon Gasmiser, although it was burning only at medium output. The heavy curtains were drawn, and the reading lamp shone over her shoulder, its beam focused on the volume in her lap.

She shook her head, completely disorientated and still slightly woozy, and blinked hard. She looked up at the clock on the wooden mantelpiece, and saw that it showed five minutes before nine.

She stared at the curtained window, her confusion turning into slight alarm. Quickly she put the book to one side, rushed to the window, and threw the curtains wide. She cried out with relief as the light of the Glasgow morning flooded in. ‘Thank the Lord for that. I thought I’d lost a day.’

And then the memories of the night before came flooding back. Supper with her father, the shock of the cine film, his presentation of the trunk . . . and her mother’s diaries.

She jumped as the phone rang. For a moment she thought of letting it go unanswered, but finally she picked it up.

‘Alex?’

‘Andy! Morning, love. Where are you?’

‘I’m at work. I thought you’d have stayed at Bob’s last night. I just called his number, but there was no answer.’

‘No, I decided to come through here.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve got some studying to do, some intensive reading. I thought I’d tackle it in a one-er over the weekend. You don’t mind, do you? If it’s any consolation, I’ve got my period.’

He laughed. ‘After the conversation I’ve just had with McIlhenney and Donaldson that’s a big consolation, believe me. Look the fact is, I’m going to be tied up for longer than I thought. Maybe I could come through there when I’m finished. You’re alone, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, but . . .’ she hesitated. ‘I really have a lot of studying to do. I think I’m better left on my own. You go out with the lads, or whatever you used to do before you had me hanging around. Er, no. On second thoughts don’t do that!’

She heard him laugh. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll get by, don’t worry. I’ll see you when you’re finished.’

‘Okay. Bye. Love you.’

She put the phone down and wandered through to her small bathroom, peeling off her stale clothes as she walked. She brushed her teeth, and gargled with a blue mint mouthwash, before stepping into a lukewarm shower. Under the strong spray, she hunched her shoulders to send the water cascading down her back, then leaning back she pressed her arms together to channel it to where she felt most sticky.

Fifteen minutes later, in a clean white tee-shirt and panties, and munching a micro-heated croissant, she felt more or less refreshed. She settled back into her chair, and picked up the diary which she had been reading when she fell asleep.

It was the second of the fourteen volumes. The entries were meticulous, in a young but clear hand, with not a single day, or, it seemed, detail missed. Alex looked at the page, and remembered at once why she had put the diary down at that point.

April 21.

Sixteen at last, and what a day it’s been. Mum and Dad were good enough - daft enough - to let me have my party on my own. Campbell came round early and gave me my birthday present. I gave him his, on the carpet in front of the fire. (Well, I’m sixteen now!) I timed him with the second hand on the mantelpiece clock while he was doing it. Seventeen seconds. That is not what it says in the books I’ve read.

Campbell is quite nice, but he’s just like a dog panting around me, and frankly he’s hung like one as well. A Chihuahua though, not a Great Dane. The boy Skinner, though, he’s different! Quiet and broody, doesn’t talk much, but those eyes of his say it all for him. He’s supposed to be a bit straight-laced - according to Alice anyway - but I sense hidden depths there.

I sense more than that too. Bob and I had a dance tonight, me in my tight dress and him in his baggy trousers. That wasn’t a gun he had in his pocket. It was a cannon!

Campbell didn’t like me dancing with him, but what happened to him was his own fault. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was so exciting!! Then Bob stopped Big Zed in his tracks, with just that look. What a pity! I’d have liked to see more. I think Bob was disappointed too, the way Zed chickened out. I only just managed to clean up the carpet before Mum and Dad got in. Imagine, sweet sixteen and they’re fighting over me already!!

Alice says she thinks Bob’s a virgin. She should know. He won’t be for much longer, though, if Myra Graham has anything to do with it!

Alex closed the diary, flushed and flustered, feeling slightly embarrassed, slightly guilty. She fought it by thinking back to her own mid-teens. There had been no sex on the carpet on her sixteenth birthday, but with her father’s looming and ominous presence, despite the fact that he had gone down to the Mallard for most of the evening, that would have been unthinkable; even if there had been a candidate around.

But there had been her dreams, her lusting and a certain amount of fumbling in the cinema. She thought back also to some of her conversations with her school intimates, and wondered how different these had been from her mother’s discussions with herself in her diary.

Calm again, she opened the diary and read on. As she discovered, Myra’s campaign to deflower Bob Skinner reached a successful climax after only seven days.