Memoirs of a Dance Hall Romeo by Jack Higgins

glanced towards me furtively, then suddenly he cocked his leg to one side and broke wind. Poor wretch, like Dirty George, it was his only accomplishment.
    I cracked completely, opened the old-fashioned desk’s lid and grabbed Slater’s cane. I was across the room and had Hatch by the scruff of his neck and over the nearest desk before he knew what was happening. I slashed him good and hard three or four times across the backside, then threw him into the seat behind his desk, howling his head off.
    A shocked voice said from the doorway behind me, ‘Good heavens, Mr Shaw, what is the meaning of this?’
    By now the door itself was in position. I pointed sternly, and Varley and the others sat down hurriedly and got on with their work.
    ‘Mr Shaw, I asked you a question,’ Carter demanded.
    ‘There’s your answer.’ I waved the cane at the class. They’re working for once. They’re working because I used this. Brute force, Mr Carter. As my old aunty would say it’s enough to make you weep.’
    ‘It is strictly against regulations for a probationary teacher to…’
    I pushed him into the corridor and closed the door behind me. ‘All right, report me,’ I said. ‘Get me the sack. I couldn’t care less. It would suit me just fine to walk out of this place right now.’
    But it wouldn’t have suited him, not by a long chalk, for he hadn’t the slightest hope of replacing me at that time of the year. To get me at all had been a small miracle in the first place.
    He tried to look dignified. ‘There’s no need for that tone, young man. Another thing. I would remind you that you signed a contract. A contract to run to the end of term. As for your insolence, you’ll hear from me later.’
    But I didn’t, not a word, and from then on he left me severely alone.
    Imogene had a small office at one end of the cookery room. When I knocked on the door she asked who it was. When I told her, a bolt was withdrawn and the door opened.
    I went in and found her in the middle of dressing. She was in the process of fastening her bra at the back and wore a wrapover skirt in brown jersey, which accentuated the splendid curves of her hips.
    ‘I’ll only be a moment,’ she said. ‘I’ve just made some tea if you’d like to pour it.’
    I filled two cups and stirred in condensed milk, aware of the rustle of silk behind me as she pulled on her blouse. When I turned, I was disconcerted to find her with the skirt hitched up, adjusting a suspender. I had a brief, heart-stopping glimpse of flesh above the brown nylon stocking, and then she dropped the skirt and pulled on her shoes.
    I sat down and she unwound the bandage. I said, ‘I’d like to thank you.’
    ‘For clobbering that little rat?’ She shrugged. ‘It’s the only way to handle them, you know. They’ll stamp you into the ground if you let them.’
    ‘It isn’t their fault.’
    ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Environment, heredity. You name it they’ve got it, from congenital syphilis to nits. I’m afraid I’m only interested in the situation as I find it, not the reasons behind it.’
    Which made sense. One had to survive in that hellhole after all. She stood with one of her legs between my knees. The scent of her filled my nostrils so that I turned dizzy, and the breasts, which in that position were right in front of my eyes, seemed to grow larger by the second.
    I tried to think of Helen and failed miserably as Imogene swabbed the cut, her leg nudging my hand. I pressed it slightly as if by accident. She did not move away. My stomach churning, I slipped the hand just under the hem of the dress. She moved closer, a slight frown on her face, and reached for a plaster. I took a deep breath and slid the hand up that long nylon flank.
    She frowned again, concentrating as she fixed the plaster. ‘There, that’s better.’ She looked down at me and patted my face. ‘You’re all the same, you men. God’s gift to women in your own imagination.’ She kissed me,