The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the Girls of Slender Means, the Driver's Seat, the Only Problem by Muriel Spark

Author:Muriel Spark [Spark, Muriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781400042067
Google: L2SkWbXLOSgC
Amazon: 1400042062
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Published: 2004-04-06T05:00:00+00:00

Towards the end of the Easter holidays, to crown the sex-laden year, Jenny, out walking alone, was accosted by a man joyfully exposing himself beside the Water of Leith. He said, "Come and look at this."

"At what?" said Jenny, moving closer, thinking to herself he had picked up a fallen nestling from the ground or had discovered a strange plant. Having perceived the truth, she escaped unharmed and unpursued though breathless, and was presently surrounded by solicitous, horrified relations and was coaxed to sip tea well sugared against the shock. Later in the day, since the incident had been reported to the police, came a wonderful policewoman to question Jenny.

These events contained enough exciting possibilities to set the rest of the Easter holidays spinning like a top and to last out the whole of the summer term. The first effect on Sandy was an adverse one, for she had been on the point of obtaining permission to go for walks alone in just such isolated spots as that in which Jenny's encounter had taken place. Sandy was now still forbidden lone walks, but this was a mere by-effect of the affair.

The rest brought nothing but good. The subject fell under two headings: first, the man himself and the nature of what he had exposed to view, and secondly the policewoman.

The first was fairly quickly exhausted.

"He was a horrible creature," said Jenny.

"A terrible beast," said Sandy.

The question of the policewoman was inexhaustible, and although Sandy never saw her, nor at that time any policewoman (for these were in the early days of the women police), she quite deserted Alan Breck and Mr. Rochester and all the heroes of fiction for the summer term, and fell in love with the unseen policewoman who had questioned Jenny; and in this way she managed to keep alive Jenny's enthusiasm too.

"What did she look like? Did she wear a helmet?"

"No, a cap. She had short, fair, curly hair curling under the cap. And a dark blue uniform. She said, 'Now tell me all about it.'"

"And what did you say?" said Sandy for the fourth time.

For the fourth time Jenny replied: "Well, I said, 'The man was walking along under the trees by the bank, and he was holding something in his hand. And then when he saw me he laughed out loud and said, come and look at this. I said, at what? And I went a bit closer and I saw . . .' — but I couldn't tell the policewoman what I saw, could I? So the policewoman said to me, 'You saw something nasty?' And I said, 'Yes.' Then she asked me what the man was like, and . . ."

But this was the same story all over again. Sandy wanted new details about the policewoman, she looked for clues. Jenny had pronounced the word "nasty" as "nesty," which was unusual for Jenny.

"Did she say 'nasty' or 'nesty'?" said Sandy on this fourth telling.

"Nesty."

This gave rise to an extremely nasty feeling in Sandy and it put her off the idea of sex for months.

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