The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

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...' â 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. All the more as she disapproved of the pronunciation of the word, it made her flesh creep, and she plagued Jenny to change her mind and agree that the policewoman had pronounced it properly.
    "A lot of people say nesty," said Jenny.
    "I know, but I don't like them. They're neither one thing nor another." It bothered Sandy a great deal, and she had to invent a new speaking-image for the policewoman. Another thing that troubled her was that Jenny did not know the policewoman's name, or even whether she was addressed as "constable,"
    "sergeant," or merely "miss." Sandy decided to call her Sergeant Anne Grey. Sandy was Anne Grey's right-hand woman in the Force, and they were dedicated to eliminate sex from Edinburgh and environs. In the Sunday newspapers, to which Sandy had free access, the correct technical phrases were to be found, such as "intimacy took place" and "plaintiff was in a certain condition." Females who were up for sex were not called "Miss" or "Mrs.," they were referred to by their surnames: "Willis was remanded in custody...," "Roebuck, said Counsel, was discovered to be in a certain condition."
    So Sandy pushed her dark blue police force cap to the back of her head and sitting on a stile beside Sergeant Anne Grey watched the spot between the trees by the Water of Leith where the terrible beast had appeared who had said, "Look at this," to Jenny, but where, in fact, Sandy never was.
    "And another thing," said Sandy, "we've got to find out more about the case of Brodie and whether she is yet in a certain condition as a consequence of her liaison with Gordon Lowther, described as singing master, Marcia Blaine School for Girls."
    "Intimacy has undoubtedly taken place," said Sergeant Anne, looking very nice in her dark uniform and short-cropped curls blondely fringing her cap. She said, "All we need are a few incriminating documents."
    "Leave all that to me, Sergeant Anne," said Sandy, because she was at that very time engaged with Jenny in composing the love correspondence between Miss Brodie and the singing master. Sergeant Anne pressed Sandy's hand in gratitude; and they looked into each other's eyes, their mutual understanding too deep for words.
    At school after the holidays the Water of Leith affair was kept a secret between Jenny and Sandy, for Jenny's mother had said the story must not be spread about. But it seemed natural that Miss Brodie should be told in a spirit of sensational confiding. But something made Sandy say to Jenny on the first afternoon of the term: "Don't tell Miss Brodie."
    "Why?" said Jenny.
    Sandy tried to work out the reason. It was connected with the undecided state of Miss Brodie's relationship to cheerful Mr. Lowther, and with the fact that she had told her class, first thing: "I have spent Easter at the little Roman village of Cramond." That was where Mr. Lowther lived all alone in a big house with a housekeeper.
    "Don't tell Miss Brodie," said Sandy.
    "Why?" said Jenny.
    Sandy made an effort to work out her reasons. They were also connected with something that had happened in the course of the morning, when Miss Brodie, wanting a supply of drawing books and charcoal to start the