Gracious Good Lord! It is me! Sally Lomax, what on earth have you just done?
I’ve just had rampant sex.
She smiled hugely, winked, said ‘Go for it, girl’ out loud, and flushed the toilet with triumphant force. The phone had begun to ring. Sally gave herself another beaming smile and then sauntered, positively swaggered, to answer it. It was her mother, officious as ever, voice shrill, no time for a greeting.
‘Darling I’ve been ringing for hours, I thought you’d be busy marking essays?’
‘No, I had to be elsewhere, something far more pressing,’ Sally said truthfully.
‘What?’
Oh, you know how it is, Mum. When there’s six foot of beefcake in your bed, more handsome and brawny than in your most incorrigible dreams, great hands, a wonderful mouth and a dick to die for; obviously marking a ten-yearold’s ‘What I did over half term’ rather pales into insignificance.
Taking a sharp bite on her tongue, Sally, however, did not speak her mind. My, how she would have relished the ensuing stunned silence of matriarchal disbelief. How she would have loved to have breezed straight on with mundane enquiries about the health of the cat and the younger sisters (in that order). Today, though, decorum won. The ravaged Rodin was diplomatically replaced by an old friend who would have been quite compliant had she known the circumstances (she was, in fact, holidaying in Tunisia).
‘Daph is a little low, so I’ve been with her.’
‘Darling, did you remember Aunt Martha’s seventieth?’
Sally had forgotten.
‘Is blasphemy really necessary? I suggest you phone her right this minute.’
So she did. Sally, sweet Sally; the prettiest of the nieces, the dutiful, good-natured Sally, chatted to Aunt Martha for a full and enjoyable ten minutes. She was careful not to mention her late uncle, and remembered to ask if the cold was causing the dreaded arthritis.
‘Arthur Ritus comes to us all in old age, it’s to be expected, I’m not one to complain …’ But she was and she did. Sally ummed, ahhed and tutted at the apposite moments and Aunt Martha, as she hung up the phone, took down the silver-framed photo of her husband and declared to it that Sally was a gem and would make a treasure of a wife.
Sally gazed at the replaced handset.
Do I feel guilty? Should I? For what? For forgetting Aunt Martha’s birthday? For lying to my mother? Or for having performed a carnal act of such outrageous proportions? Guilt, show me thy face! I’ll give you three seconds!
Right then, off I go, back to my boudoir, quick-change into my doppelgänger, the temptress, the vixen, the wicked lusting girl. Woman! Hardly a lady, hardly a girl. Today I am suddenly the sort of person I thought I was not and yet today I really feel like Me. Pure and simple, this is who I am.
She entered her room and any purity simply vanished. She flew on top of the knackered male form and kissed it outrageously with a scheming and lively tongue.
ONE
Such a lovely girl, what an angel, isn’t she wonderful, such a good girl. Sally Lomax was adorable and adored. She was extremely polite, tirelessly friendly, always amiable and genteel. She was chatty and respectful to the elderly and a much-loved teacher of youngsters. She kept herself trim, never let the ends of her hair split and always folded clothes away at the end of a day. She cooked well, cleaned well, and although she could not knit, she made enviable things on her sewing machine. When in her car, a spotless if noisy six-year-old Mini Cooper, she was courteous and never lost her temper, never overtook on the inside and slowed down well in advance of pedestrian crossings – even on a deserted Sunday. Just in case.
When Sally was a child, she was angelic in physique and character. Skin as smooth and opalescent as her prettiest Bakelite doll, features and figure doll-like too, her demeanour open and engaging. Sally at six was altogether flawless, faultless. It was as much a pleasure for her parents to invite ageing relatives for tea, as it was for them to venture out of retirement bungalows to be sung to and danced for. At tea-time, Sally never stretched over, never ate with her mouth open, and always asked if she could have some more with a ‘please’. At her birthday parties she never snatched her guests’ presents and was always keen for the entertainer not to show her any favouritism. But Sally was simply everyone’s favourite.
At twenty-five, her skin is still flawless and, though we would be hard-pressed to call the Sally we’ve just met angelic, it took very little hard pressing for the Rodin to deem the ways and wiles of her body thoroughly heavenly.
Well, where do we find Sally today? It is the day after the Big Bonk. She is spending Sunday afternoon by herself, in the one-bedroom flat she rents in Highgate. He had stayed for breakfast-cum-lunch and had thus deprived Sally of her sacred hour with the Observer, so she is reading it now. Her routine is out of sync, she really should be ironing. It will wait a week. Today Sally is not flustered by such a thing, today she is enjoying aloneness. Today she enjoys the self-condoned liberation from the previously self-imposed Sunday schedule. She is very proud of herself and finds she frequently bursts into an ecstatic smile.
What does it mean, this smile, what does it mean?
Her answer is defiant.
I feel wonderful. It was good. It was a good thing to do.
She laughs at the paradox. In the clear light of a November day, and looked at objectively, she had indeed committed a wanton act of slack morals and shameful lust which, justifiably, could be categorized by most as Bad. Yet Sally feels good and can see nothing to be ashamed of. She feels elated, happy and downright proud.
My flesh might be ravaged, my mind sullied, but Gracious Good Lord do they feel the better for it!
Sally knows what she wants, and what she must do.
It’ll be a swift and easy transition, and it must start, quite simply, with a change to my wardrobe. I shall do Ms Collins proud and move with one fell swoop from Laura Ashley to Whistles, from Marks and Sparks undies to none whatsoever. Hampstead here I come, cheque book at the ready.
Should I be ironing?
No.
I should be buying clothes that are Dry Clean Only.
TWO
Sunday in Hampstead, silver winter sun making everybody look beautiful. The Barbour Brigade are out walking retrievers who have never retrieved in the countryside because the Heath suffices. The Young Trendies are here in force, hanging out, hanging about, sipping cappuccino at the pavement café, queuing for crêpes, looking around all the while to catch sight of their reflection whilst spying out anyone good-looking to look good for.
There is a young woman who weaves in and around these two species. She is smiling; it is a smile of energy and ease and it is infectious. She seems simultaneously absorbed in her own world yet aware of, and enjoying, her surroundings. And the shopping, by the looks
