The Rotters' Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

unnaturally slow pace, probably because he was too shy to overtake her on the pavement. At this point it would have been hard to imagine that one day they would become friends or even, briefly and unsuccessfully, husband and wife.
    *
    The girl’s name was indeed Claire Newman, and she also had an elder sister called Miriam, who worked as a typist at the British Leyland factory in Longbridge.
    When Claire got home that afternoon she found that the house was empty, and she let herself in using a key hidden in the watering can in the back porch. Her mother, father and sister were all still at work. She dumped her schoolbag on the kitchen table, took some cream crackers out of a biscuit jar and spread them with butter and Bovril. She put the biscuits on a plate and went upstairs. Before going into her sister’s room, she paused on the landing. The house was wonderfully quiet and still. A good atmosphere for mischief.
    Miriam kept her diary hidden beneath a chest of drawers, along with a man’s purple nylon shirt presumably of some mysterious sentimental value, and a good supply of the Pill. Claire had discovered this treasure trove two weeks earlier and was now well up-to-date with her sister’s private life, which had become rather exciting of late. She reached for the diary, put the plate of food down on the floor and sat cross-legged beside it. Impatiently, she thumbed through to the latest page, licking the Bovril off her fingers as she went.
    Her eyes darted across the most recent entry, which turned out to be disappointing. No further progress, then: Miriam’s current amour was still stuck at the fantasy stage. But the details at least were getting more colourful.
    20 November
Went to another meeting of the Charity Fund Committee last night. All the usual people there (including Vile Victor). Mr Anderton not in the chair, this time, but sitting opposite me. I took the minutes as usual. He kept looking at me, just like before, and I kept looking back. It couldn’t be plainer what he was thinking, I’m amazed nobody noticed anything. He is rather old I suppose, but so dishy, I couldn’t concentrate on a thing and must have missed half what was being said. I really, really want him to kcuf me and I know that he wants to as well. Spent most of last night thinking of the ways he could kcuf me and what it would feel like. It would have to be at the factory but there are lots of places like the showers where the men clean themselves off after the shift. I imagined him taking me in there and lifting my skirt and licking my tnuc until I came. Somehow I have got to speak to him and get him to have me but I don’t think it will be difficult, he wants it just as much as I do if not more. I don’t think I will be the first either but that doesn’t matter. It has got to happen soon or I will go spare with fancying him.
    Downstairs, the kitchen door slammed. Claire shoved the diary back into its hiding place and scrambled to her feet. It would be her mother, probably, back from the solicitor’s office where she worked. She would have stopped at the supermarket on her way home. She would need some help with the unpacking.

SPRING
    4
    Some weeks later, on the afternoon of Wednesday, 13th February, 1974, all was quiet at the Longbridge plant. The Bristol Road, normally ribboned with parked cars at this time of the day, was almost empty. Irene Anderton savoured the strange tranquillity as she walked back from the shops, the basket of groceries weighing heavy on her arm. Shifting it from one hand to the other, she waved to the cluster of men standing on the picket line at the entrance to the South Works, and some of them waved back, recognizing her. A proud little fire glowed within her. Her husband meant something to these men; he was a hero to them. If it wasn’t for him they would be lost, leaderless. She walked on up the hill towards the 62 bus terminus, past the rows of prefabs. It was a long walk but sometimes she didn’t