Rosie Dixon's Complete Confessions. Rosie Dixon

might come from two different worlds as far as Mum is concerned.

      “Your father doesn’t play golf, does he?” says Mr W.

      He knows bloody well that my old man does not know a brassie from a brassiere.

      “He used to watch Leyton Orient till they put the prices up,” I say. “I think you’re drinking my vodka, Mrs Wilkes.”

      “Oh. Was that yours? I thought it was my orange juice. I’ll have to be careful, won’t I? I don’t want to get tiddly.”

      I force myself to smile and look round for Geoffrey. He is dancing with the girl who is his mixed doubles partner. She has very protruding teeth and I reckon she has to be careful not to stand too near the net.

      “They move well, don’t they?” drones Mrs W. “Sometimes I wonder if they’re going to be partners for life. Linda’s such a lovely girl, isn’t she?”

      Linda Allcock’s dad has a Rover 2000 so it is no surprise that she is favourite with Ma Wilkes. “Lovely,” I echo.

      “And how’s your sister? She’s such a gay little thing, isn’t she?”

      Mrs W. manages to say “gay little thing” like she means raving nymphomaniac. She is right of course but blood is thicker than water.

      “She’s doing very well,” I say.

      “I always see her with a new boy. She knows how to do the rounds, doesn’t she? Not like you, you’ve stuck to our Geoffrey for years, haven’t you?”

      “You make me sound like a burr,” I say acidly. “Will you excuse me for a moment? I’ve just seen someone I don’t know over the other side of the room.”

      Mrs Wilkes gets further up my bracket than a slim inhaler and I would love to do the dance of the seven veils in the middle of the floor. The trouble is that this is exactly what she would like me to do. Anything that turned Geoffrey off would make her evening. If I wanted to give her a coronary I would get Geoffrey to announce our engagement just before the last waltz. There are limits, though.

      In the end I content myself with ordering two double vodkas at the bar and telling the upper class twit behind it to get Geoffrey to pay for them. I knock them back like a female Humphrey Bogart and hardly remember anything that happens during the rest of the evening. Mrs W. says something pointed about me leading the conga into the gents but I expect that she was exaggerating as usual.

      When I get back to the nurses home it is to find the place in an uproar. Apparently, Penny is with Matron and it is rumoured that she is going to be sacked.

      “What happened?” I say to Labby who, like me, is now off night duty.

      “She attacked a patient,” says Labby.

      “Attacked a patient?” I know the girl has a wild streak but I would have thought that she would have attacked one of the medical staff firSt Most of the rest of us would have done. “Why?”

      “She was trying to rape him.”

      “Rape him!?” I sit down on my bed and try and keep calm. “How can a woman rape a man?” I mean, I know that Penny is no slouch when it comes to flinging woo but this is ridiculous. Most of the patients are not in a fit state to be raped anyway.

      “It was a man called Julian Mayfair. He’s in a plaster cast from the waist up.”

      “What did she do to him!” I shriek. I mean, it’s awful, isn’t it?

      “Calm yourself, Rosie. He was in a plaster cast to begin with. That’s how she managed to rape him.”

      Julian Mayfair? It does ring a bell. I remember Penny mentioning some patient she had a crush on. A crush? It hardly bears thinking about.

      “What happened?”

      “She was potty about the chap but apparently he didn’t want to know. He was only interested in birds. I remember Penny saying that he was repressed and that she was going to liberate him. I heard him crying once when she gave him a blanket bath. Then came night duty.” I suck in my breath sharply. I was wondering what was going to happen when Penny went on nights. “Penny was able to resist him for a couple of nights and then—”

      “Yes, yes.” It is not like Labby to hold back on any dirty details. I already know more about Tom Richmond’s body than he does.

      “I can hardly bring myself to say it.”

      “Force yourself,” I say grimly.

      “I don’t know if I should.”

      “Labby, I’m your friend.”

      “You promise you won’t tell anybody? I don’t want it to get around.”

      I have to fight hard to stop myself from laughing out loud. People tell Cilla Bias things because she is cheaper than Radio Luxembourg.

      “You can rely on me.” If the girl does not spill the beans soon I am going to tear off her arm and beat the truth out of her with it.

      “Of course, quite a lot of people know already so I suppose it won’t matter if I tell you.”

      “Thanks a lot.”

      Labby sits down on the bed beside me and takes a deep drag at her cigarette. “Well, you see, what happened is this …” I am expecting to hear the Archers theme music when the door opens and Penny comes in. Labby looks disappointed. “Oh,” she says. “Well, I suppose Penny can tell your herself, now.”

      “Back to Daddy,” says Penny. “Oh dear. He is going to be disappointed.”

      “Did you get the sack?” Labby sounds almost joyful.

      “Yup,” Penny nods. “Matron told me to go and never darken her surgical swabs again.”

      “How awful!” Labby rushes off to tell everybody.

      “Penny! What have you done?” I gush, once we are alone.

      “I’ve struck the first great blow for Women’s Lib. How many girls do you know that have raped a man? Whilst Greer writes, Green acts. From now on no man is safe. For every one of us that is raped, I’ll rape ten of them.”

      “Penny, how did you do it?”

      “Everybody asks me that. Nobody asks me why I did it.”

      “Why did you do it?”

      “Because I fancied him rotten and I felt sorry for him. I thought he was all shy and uptight. The product of thousands of years of sheltered upbringing and rubber sheets. In fact he was a fink. I realised that when he started screaming. I should have gagged him firSt”

      “Or given him an anaesthetic.”

      “Fat lot of good that would have been. There’s another example of discrimination for you. They can chloroform us and work their filthy wiles, we can’t chloroform them and work their filthy willies.”

      “When did he start screaming?”

      “Soon after I’d mounted him.”

      “Mounted him!?”

      “How did you think I was going to do it? Bore a hole in the bottom of the bed?”

      “But how—I mean—”

      “Darling, don’t be coy. It doesn’t suit you. Robert Flashcock said a few things about you that you wouldn’t like to see pinned up on Matron’s notice board.”

      “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I fell asleep when I went round to his place.”

      “Really? Well, I’ve heard of sleep walking but this was something else by all accounts.”

      Typical, I think to myself. Why must men always justify their unpleasant actions by making up lies? First, those greasers with Natalie and now Flashlot—I mean, Fishcock—I