Sheryl's Last Stand Read online

  He left the next day.

  Sheryl felt sorry for the young man. Being caught in the act is undignified enough, but when suspended from a slightly dodgy four-poster bedpost, wearing nothing but a union jack g-string and clutching a pair of crutch-less pantaloons between his teeth, dignity didn’t come near it.

  Sheryl would squirm uncomfortably as the other members of the class mulled over the gory detail of Ardennes’s sex life, some wishing it was themselves who had been suspended from a bedpost.

  But Sheryl didn’t; it was not that long ago she was known as the girl who put sex into Scottish dancing. She knew, because Mr. Rugby had been in the Argyll and read the walls in the gent’s toilets.

  It was all thanks to Mavis, who ran the post office. Martin owned the post office. He also owned the flat above, which Sheryl lived in. Mavis had walked in on Sheryl’s version of Scottish country dancing, and spread it about Lochgilphead that Sheryl was not only doing a line with a married man, but did it suspended in mid-air like some acrobatic prostitute. The things I did for Martin, Sheryl thought, no wonder I’m good at belly dancing.

  ‘Strictly speaking, this ain’t no belly dancing move, but as my Rodger would say, a bit of spice never harmed anyone.’

  The class sighed. After two weeks in Turkey, Nefertiti had suddenly become an expert on all things Middle Eastern. She claimed belly dancing worked ‘Miracles down below’, or her ‘Flower of Scotland’, as Rodger liked to call it.

  ‘Six weeks of belly dancing, luv, and you’ll be able to laugh and stay dry,’ said Nefertiti, tilting her padded bra.

  Sheryl wondered about her own neglected ‘Flower of Scotland’, and Martin, and wished she cared less.

  George placed his hand on the table. At first, he was confident until he caught the familiar gleam in Beatrice’s eye. Plying her with whisky had been an expensive mistake. He had spent the best part of an evening watching his small pile of coins disappear. He knew what was coming next, gloating by Beatrice and more drink; all from his bottle, of course.

  He smiled to himself, she was so damn predictable.

  Sheryl rode her bike home from class, all the time thinking about sex, or as in her case, the lack of it. It had been ages since she had had any. In fact, she had forgotten what it was like to wake up with a smile on her face and someone warm close by. She stood by the gate of her house, and looked up at her mother’s bedroom window. Beatrice was in bed, the television light was flashing through the curtains and Sheryl could hear wrestling. She opened the gate, left her bike by the shed, and walked inside.

  ‘It hardly seems fair,’ said Sheryl, trying to shut the bedroom window, she looked at the lock and jiggled it a bit. ‘All those years he never wanted a baby, and then SHE comes along…’

  ‘You going to be long with that? Johnston is on soon.’

  Sheryl tugged harder on the seized lock, but it refused to budge. ‘I’ve decided I don’t need a man,’ she said.

  ‘Women usually say that when they haven’t had their hole for ages, and there is no hope on the horizon. It makes them feel like they have a choice,’ said Beatrice, while watching the TV.

  Johnston stood in the centre of the ring. The only thing that covered his six-foot dark frame was a pair of tight leather underpants cut high around his backside.

  Sheryl sprayed WD 40 on the lock and gave it a sharp pull.

  ‘You never did like Martin, did you?’

  ‘Well, no mother likes to see her daughter hitch up with a married man; it means he is used to lying!’

  ‘I told you, it was an open relationship.’ Sheryl tried the lock again ‘It was all above board.’ The handle came off in her hand.

  Beatrice turned up the volume of the TV. Johnston ran from one side of the ring to the other before climbing onto one of the corner posts and holding his arms in the air. The crowd cheered and began throwing knickers.

  Steel Ice entered the ring. He had a tight butt, which he chose to show off in a pair of leopard print leggings. He picked up one of the underpants from the floor, rubbed it under his armpits and tossed it into the audience. The crowd booed.

  Steel Ice and Johnston circled the ring. Johnston’s back foot slid on a pair of lacy knickers. Steel Ice grabbed his leg and bent it backwards, Johnston put on a good show of pain

  ‘You were still second best.’

  ‘For the love of GOD!’ shouted one of the commentators.

  Sheryl looked at the handle in her hand then went downstairs to her toolbox.

  Steel Ice crashed down on Johnston’s leg with his knee. When Steel Ice stood up, Johnston rolled over and slid under the ropes and out of the ring. Steel Ice followed, picked up a chair and ran towards Johnston.

  ‘Where is his wife now?’ Beatrice yelled. ‘She’s in his house, well set up.’

  Sheryl stared at her father’s box of tools; she picked it up along with her drill and walked back to the bedroom.

  ‘Why did you have to fool around with HIM for? You’ve got nothing now.’

  Sheryl turned on the drill.

  ‘I’ll get by somehow,’ she yelled over the noise.

  ‘Get by? How will you get by? You were working for ‘hands on Martin’ remember, not much reference that.’

  Sheryl pulled apart the old lock and tossed it in the bin. Her thoughts drifted to Martin.

  The first time she had met him was in the Argyll. Martin had just opened an underwear shop called Peek-a-Boo in Lochgilphead, everyone thought he was mad. Lochgilphead was a small town. Small enough to be satisfied with a Co-op the size of newsagents, and an even smaller Spar, how could an underwear shop pay? But Martin had ideas; he wanted to move up in the world and underwear with a difference was the way to go, that and some adult toys.

  He walked into the Argyll and saw Sheryl knocking back the whisky, and singing Dolly Parton songs to Shifty. Shifty was trying to shut her up by offering her a cigarette. Martin at the time had a passion for big ballsy women, and Sheryl with a drink in her was ballsy, and big. He sidled up beside her and tapped her on the shoulder. Sheryl, still singing to Dolly Parton, spun around on her stool and skidded onto the floor. Martin was in lust.

  ‘Run my shop for me,’ he said, helping her to her feet.

  Sheryl looked in to his puffy face and thought, Why not?

  Those were the days, thought Sheryl, pulling the new lock out of its packet. She started her drill again.

  It took Martin a couple of weeks to get past first base with Sheryl, but once she let his small round body into her bed, she was hooked. Martin pressed all the right buttons, and on a good day, he made her laugh. What did she care what her mother or anyone said. Martin made her happy, in the beginning.

  But there are only so many ways you can flog a vibrator, and Martin began to look elsewhere to make money. He bought a shop in Oban and turned it into an art gallery. ‘Tourism, not sex, is the answer,’ he had said, and hired Imogene the calligrapher to run the shop, then Martin went all arty-farty.

  The crowd on the TV were cheering louder, baying for Johnston’s blood. Steel Ice crashed the chair on Johnston’s back, and he fell to the floor; Johnston didn’t move.

  ‘What the hell do women see in Martin? I mean, what sort of grown man drives a sports car in Lochgilphead?’ said Beatrice.

  ‘HE LIKED intelligent women,’ Sheryl muttered, checking the lock one more time and than closing the window.

  ‘He just said that so you wouldn’t notice him staring at other women’s tits.’

  Sheryl looked at the TV; Johnston’s beautiful black body was being carried off on a stretcher. ‘His new woman has a body that defies gravity!’ she said, ‘He’ll not be looking elsewhere now.’

  ‘The baby will see to that!’ snapped Beatrice.

  Sheryl said nothing; she had seen his new ‘piece’, as Beatrice liked to call her, and thought it would take more than a baby to dislodge her assets. She stared at the TV, waiting for Johnston to return.

  George parked his red Merc by the librar
y ramp and jumped out. He walked around to the back, pulled the wheelchair out of the boot, unfolded it and then wheeled it around to Beatrice’s side of the car.

  Beatrice glared at George. ‘Why do you insist on driving me about?’

  George opened the door.

  ‘I mean, I’m not a bad driver, there are only a few dents on the car.’

  George motioned Beatrice to slide onto the chair.

  Beatrice inched her small bum into the chair, then switched on the controls. George moved behind to push. Beatrice, however, dismissed him with a wave and jolted the chair into first gear. The chair, not sufficiently warmed up, jolted, spluttered, then moved forward. Beatrice rammed it into second gear, then third, by the time the chair had hit the library door, it was in fourth gear and she had made her familiar crash entrance.

  ‘Hi Beatrice,’ said Steven, not even looking up from the reception desk.

  Beatrice grunted and continued on to the staff room. There were three people in the library that morning, and not one looked up. Not one was surprised as she crashed by in her wheelchair, and all three expertly moved their feet out the way, like they had done a million times before.

  ‘Coffee, Steven? That’s if this old crock can manage a hot kettle.’ Beatrice paused and looked at the familiar faces now watching her, then crashed her chair through the staff room door and put the kettle on. ‘Two years ago, I was a vegetable,’ she muttered. ‘Couldn’t even wipe my own arse.’ She looked at the empty coffee jar. ‘TEA, STEVEN? They had me for dead; tell me I can’t drive.’ Beatrice crashed two cups onto the bench.

  It had been two years since Beatrice had had her stroke, and she was proud of what she had achieved, she even had her old job back in the library.

  ‘MINT OR NORMAL?’ yelled Beatrice.

  Steven muttered something about mint.

  Beatrice crashed through the staff room doors with a cup balancing on each arm of the chair. Steven watched the liquid move with the motion of the chair, almost but not quite spilling. ‘Or whatever you got,’ he said.

  Beatrice wheeled herself behind the desk as Steven gingerly lifted the cups from the arms of the chair. She took up her usual place behind the desk, and surveyed the library like a captain at the helm. She liked to think she ran a tight ship and that poor old Steven would be lost without her. She berated the young mothers for making too much noise, and did her best to scare off any children she considered “badly behaved”. She dealt with pensioners with an extra loud, “Are you stupid as well as deaf?” voice, and snapped at any students who dared to ask for an unavailable book. And as for those who brought in a late return; they never did it twice.

  Steven, who had been working in the library for a year, had still not convinced Beatrice that it was he, and not her, who was the trained librarian and had the final say. He spent his time placating customers not used to Beatrice’s gruff ways, and soothing young mothers whose children refused to go near the “Crabbit old lady in the wheelchair”.

  He also read “How to write a novel” manuals. He was secretly working on a murder-cum-western story, loosely based around a gun slinging redhead, just like Sheryl. He pictured his heroine standing behind some bar, wrapped in taffeta and lace, with a tiny pistol strapped to her thigh. Sheryl had no idea. She just assumed he looked at all women in a peculiar way.

  Sheryl stood in the middle of the Community Centre badminton room, practising her hips circles, the motion felt good, she closed her eyes and moved to the drums.

  ‘Good, Sheryl,’ said Nefertiti. ‘You should think about gettin' a costume. Come see me later, I know what works for big ladies.’

  Sheryl opened her eyes and looked around the room; there were ten big round bums covered in brightly-coloured coin belts just like hers, and not one of them looked out of place.

  Beatrice pulled out four DIY books from the shelf, hid them underneath the desk in the reception, and then began to write a list. Frances walked in and placed a ‘Beat the Pros at Poker’ book on the returns desk. Beatrice looked at it and sniffed. Frances picked up the list and read it.

  1. Unblock drain outside kitchen.

  2. Replace rowan outside your window.

  3. Replace slates next chimney.

  If wet -:

  Fix washing machine AGAIN.

  Change lock on my bedroom window; they don’t match.

  ‘This is for Sheryl?’ asked Frances.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Beatrice, busy with returns.

  ‘Do you not think she needs pampering?’

  ‘Hard work is what she needs.’

  ‘She’s been working for months at your place, and she still looks as miserable as the day Martin dumped her.’

  Beatrice threw her a look; she liked to think she knew what was best for her daughter; plenty of hard work and, of course, Mr. Rugby.

  Beatrice had a theory, which she would tell to anyone who stood still long enough. ‘What a dumped woman needs is the chance to turn down the advances of another man,’ she would say, and Mr. Rugby was nothing if not persistent. The fact that he had just had his eightieth birthday and had a hygiene problem meant little to Beatrice.

  Others would argue.

  ‘How is a persistent old man sprouting a variety of growths on his face going to cheer Sheryl up?’ said Frances. ‘She was dumped, she came home to find her possessions stuffed in bin bags, the locks changed and the worst Dear John letter I’ve ever read. Mr. Rugby’s groping is hardly going to take away that pain.’

  But Beatrice was adamant.

  Chapter Four

  Sheryl left the Community Centre, drove into the main street of Lochgilphead and parked by the Spar. On the passenger seat was a pamphlet Nefertiti had given to her along with everyone else in the class. On the front was a picture of a huge woman dressed in an amazing costume, with the heading:

  BELLYDANCING GOES LARGE

  Inside was an article about Kelly, the huge woman in the amazing costume.

  OUTSIZE KELLY OUTCLASSES THE REST

  Being a size 20 doesn’t stop our Kelly from pulling in the crowd!

  Some of the class members took offence. Sheryl felt inspired.

  She pictured herself dressed in Kelly’s amazing costume. She pictured herself dancing in front of someone sexy like Johnston. She decided to make herself a costume.

  Beatrice began to go through the returns pile, underneath lay Steven’s notebook, as it fell to the floor, Frances picked it up.

  HOW THE WEST WAS WON

  BY

  STEVEN PIPER

  Was written on the front. Frances opened it and the two women, after a small amount of protesting by Beatrice, began to read.

  Sheryl was the type of woman hard to forget; a gun-slinging barmaid who made the West a safer place. She held no prisoners. With a tiny pistol strapped to her succulent thigh, and a smile that would melt the proverbial, Sheryl was the DOG’S BOLLOCKS.

  Beatrice turned the page....

  He took one look at her flowing hair and ample bosom and decided one look was not enough. Lust stirred in his loins. Sheryl was everything he dreamed of and more. She even pulled the perfect pint!

  Beatrice looked at Frances, ‘I had no idea. I just assumed he looked at all women that way.’

  Sheryl worked the bar like a pro. ‘Keep ‘em coming,’ he yelled as he eyed her voluptuous hips. She turned; caught his eye…she knew what he was thinking. ‘Skull your whisky, Porter,’ she said ‘it’s your last!’

  Little did she know that Porter was already on her side!

  Steven wandered past the desk and picked up the mail. Beatrice slid his notebook under the shelf, ‘Alright then?’ she said, with a small cough.

  Frances flashed a smile. ‘Hi Stevie,’ she said sweetly.

  Sheryl left the main street with a decent pair of scissors for sewing, a handful of cotton reels and a bag of old jewellery from the Bosnia shop. She jumped in the car and drove to the library; maybe they would have some sort of book about belly dancing there. She p
arked by the ramp and walked into the library, then she remembered it was Friday, fish and chips night.

  Every Friday night over a fish supper, Beatrice went over her list of jobs that needed doing around the house. Sometimes, Sheryl wondered if she could ever look at a piece of battered cod again without thinking of drainpipes and handy foam. But tonight was going to be different. Tonight over her fish supper, Sheryl intended to plan her costume.

  Without looking at her mother, she walked past the reception desk. Steven looked up.

  ‘Can I help?’ he asked.

  Sheryl said nothing; she knew where the Middle Eastern section was. She pulled out a couple of volumes of Turkish Embrace, a small book called Eastern Rhythms, and then with the agility of a yoga teacher, she sat on the floor to read.

  Beatrice watched her daughter and wondered which charity shop she had got her outfit from.

  Steven watched and wondered about offering to help.

  The first time he had met Sheryl, she was pushing Beatrice up the library ramp, the chair battery was flat and she was getting the blame. She pushed like a powerhouse with a face he reckoned hadn’t smiled, let alone laughed in weeks. From that moment on, he dreamt of making her smile.

  Sheryl walked back to the counter and plonked her books on top of the list. This weekend, she was going to do something nice for a change.

  Steven studied the books. ‘Sheryl’s a belly dancer,’ Frances told him. He opened Turkish Embrace Volume One and came face to face with a photograph of large pregnant woman circling her bare bump under the sun.