speak of business efficiency. I pat my hair into place, brush some bits of fluff off the front of my skirt and press the front door bell. It is perhaps unfortunate that I notice a speck of dirt on my sweater at the same moment and am engaged in removing it as the door opens. By the time I raise my eyes, those of the door-opener are glued firmly on my breasts and it takes a nervous cough from myself before our orbs make contact.
‘Good morning,’ I say. ‘Is this the Lftslofwt?’
Of course, I know it is but I want to demonstrate my keenness and willingness to adapt to the new language.
The man who has opened the door is small and wiry with wispy black hair that he brushes back from his forehead. He is also swarthy and possessed of several gold teeth which I notice when he smiles slowly like a crocodile sensing feeding time approaching. At a guess I would say he was foreign. ‘No understand,’ he says. ‘Girls for Rio. They go yesterday.’
‘The Learnfast School of Fastwriting,’ I say with as charming a smile as I can muster. ‘I would like to enrol.’
‘Ah,’ says the man. ‘You want Mr Kruger, I think. He come back soon.’
As if on cue, a large important-looking man comes up the garden path behind me. ‘Goodness gracious me,’ says the newcomer. ‘And still they come. No sooner one batch of lucky graduates transported to a new world of pleasure and riches than others flock to take their places. That’s what makes this job so satisfying, isn’t it, eh Sandor? Always new faces, new opportunities. Come inside, my dear.’
‘Do you find positions for your students?’ I ask, stepping over the threshold.
‘Very much so,’ says Mr Kruger, taking off his astrakan-collared topcoat and throwing it at Sandor. ‘That’s what gives us the edge over all our competitiors. If we agree to take you on then we guarantee you employment – and abroad as well. Think how attractive that is nowadays.’
‘Oh dear,’ I say. ‘It must seem strange, I know, but I don’t particularly want to work abroad. I had quite enough of it when I was a travel courier and in the WRACs.’
‘Goodness me,’ says Mr Kruger. ‘You have got around, haven’t you? Well, there’s no need to rush a decision at this point. You’re under no pressure at Learnfast. You can make up your mind in your own good time. Come into my office and I’ll fill out your form.’
I follow Mr Kruger, pondering the exact meaning of his words, and find myself in a pleasant oak-panelled room surrounded by colour photographs of Rio de Janeiro, Port Said and Tangiers – all places I have often wanted to visit. I wonder if I will weaken in Mr Kruger’s presence.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘Let’s get down to business. Take your clothes off.’
‘Take my clothes off?’ I say. Mr Kruger clearly fails to detect the question mark in my voice because he shrugs and starts feeling for the zip at my waist. ‘I mean, why should I take my clothes off?’ I say, starting back hurriedly.
‘Haven’t you noticed how warm it is in here?’ says Kruger as if explaining something to a backward child.
‘It’s not that warm!’ I say. ‘Anyway, you could turn the radiators off.’
‘I’m trying to simulate the conditions you would be working under,’ says Kruger. ‘Alexandria can get pretty torrid, you know. Some of these electric typewriters throw off quite a heat. The less clothes you wear the less hot you get and the less danger there is of large furry spiders getting trapped in them.’ He starts turning a handle underneath his desk and a large furry spider decends from the ceiling. After my first scream I realize that it has been let down on a piece of string. ‘Not very nice, eh?’ continues Kruger. ‘You can imagine what it would be like if you started forward in terror, caught your dress in the typewriter and were sucked into the works. No, it’s not a risk I’m prepared to take with any of my girls. Other schools may push their pupils out into the world willy-nilly but not Honest Jack Kruger.’
‘It is for just the kind of reasons that you have outlined, that I wish to work in this country,’ I tell him. ‘That way, with any luck I should be able to keep my clothes on all the time.’
‘Right,’ says Kruger. ‘On your own head be it. I’m only grateful that there’s time before the course is over for you to see sense. Another class should be starting a week on Monday. Leave your telephone number and five pounds registration fee – deductable when you take your clothes off – and Sandor will confirm the arrangements if he’s back in time from his speech therapist – oh, by the way, do you read music?’
‘No,’ I say, trying to keep up with everything Mr Kruger is saying. ‘Is that important?’
‘It’s a big help with our typing course,’ says Mr Kruger. ‘You’ll find out on Monday week, I hope. Don’t forget to wear a loose, flowing garment.’
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘Because I think it will suit you,’ says Mr Kruger. ‘Good afternoon.’
I think about Mr Kruger a lot in the next few days and it occurs to me that there is something a trifle unusual about him. Something that sets him apart from the normal run of secretarial course directors. Perhaps it is his eyes. The way they seem to be staring right through me. He reminds me of that Swedish mystic with the hat – you know, Sven Whatsit and his trilby. He was able to bend you to his inexorable will by staring into your eyes and playing Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto. Just like Liberace – though of course Liberace was never mixed up in all that unsavoury property speculation around Notting Hill Gate. Anyway, I talk to Penny about it when we meet for lunch at ‘Lettuce Pray’ the new fashionable health food restaurant where everybody is flocking to spend one pound fifty on a thimble full of carrot juice and a lettuce leaf curling up at the edges – probably with embarrassment at the price being asked for it.
As usual, Penny is full of her latest man – an unfortunate choice of words when one sees them lying on the paper, but conveying a very accurate picture of the state of their relationship. She responds to my decision about the Nightguard Babysitting Service with an accepting wave of the hand.
‘Couldn’t agree more,’ she says. ‘The whole thing was becoming a frightful bore anyway. Some of those furnishings were making my taste buds shrivel. I never thought I’d live to see a plastic flying duck with a pair of baby’s booties trailing from its beak.’
‘It was sweet, wasn’t it?’ I say. ‘Look, I’ve just found a caterpillar in my salad. What do you think I should do?’
‘Eat it quickly before they charge you extra,’ advises Penny. ‘You only had the Slim Bean Special with the Thousand Islands Sauce, didn’t you? – on second thoughts, complain. I’ve just seen a waiter I fancy. I think he must be a Cypriot. They’re fantastic, you know. Endless stamina. They—’
‘I think Mr Kruger’s a foreigner,’ I say. ‘He has a faint accent.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with them in their place,’ muses Penny. ‘Stretched out on top of one, driving their enormous parts into the welcoming void.’
The woman with the blue rinse sitting next to us chokes over her banana split and I
