What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours(48)

“No no, you stay there, we’ll take care of this,” Bettencourt President Rutherford said, adding a meaningful “Won’t we?” to his patently reluctant brethren.

“Yes, yes of course . . .” The Bettencourters had to go forth unarmed, since the frightened women refused to release even one set of ice tongs. Up the stairs they trooped, with no light to guide them (“We’ll just wait in the kitchen,” the waiters said) and they searched each room on the first floor and found no one there. When they filed back into the dining room, however, it was full of uninvited women, each of whom had taken seats emptied by the Bettencourters and were tucking into the platefuls of food the Bettencourters had temporarily abandoned. “Sit down, sit down, join us,” cried Moira Johnstone, number one Homeliest Wench. The Bettencourters looked to Rutherford to see how they should proceed; he decided the only sporting response was a good-natured one, so he and his brethren had another table brought into the room, had the waiters set places at it and sat there and ate alongside all the Wenches. Their plan had been just as you must’ve guessed by now: Earlier that evening the last of the “most attractive” women to enter Bettencourt headquarters had lingered at the door and let the first of the “homeliest wenches” into the building.

As far as we know, the Bettencourt Society never compiled another list of homely wenches. The Homely Wenches Society flourished for a time, and then membership dwindled as ensuing generations of female Cantabs saw little need to label themselves or to oppose the Bettencourters (whose numbers remain steady). The activities of the Homely Wench Society mainly come under the banner of “Laughs, Snacks and Cotching,” but in response to advice from Homely Wenches who’ve since graduated, the society produces a termly journal. Mostly for the purpose of posterity; we have no real readership other than ourselves.

So if you want to join, our questions to you are:

Who are the homely wenches of today?

What makes you think you’re one of us?

Your answer is a key that will unlock worlds (yours, ours), so please make it as full and as bigarurre as it can be.


Hope to hear from you soon,

Willa Reid (third-year History of Art, Caius)

Ed Niang (second-year NatSci, Clare)

Theo Ackner (second-year History, Emma)

Hilde Karlsen (third-year HSPS, Girton)

Grainne Molloy, (second-year Law, Peterhouse)

Flordeliza Castillo (first-year CompSci, Trinity)

and

Marie Adoula (third-year MML, King’s)

—

IT TOOK DAYANG SHARIF (second-year Eng. Lit, Queen’s) days to think up an answer that was full and bigarurre. As soon as she read the e-mail she wanted in—actually as soon as she’d met Willa and Hilde on the train she’d wanted in—but as with all groups the membership hurdle wasn’t so much to do with convincing the Wenches that she was one of them as it was to do with convincing herself. She looked the word bigarurre up and found that it meant both “a medley of sundry colors running together” and “a discourse running oddly and fantastically, from one matter to another.” “Medley of sundry colors running together” made her think of her Director of Studies, Professor Chaudhry, saying: “I saw you with your Suffolk posse, Dayang. A colorful gang!” She’d looked at him to check what he meant by “colorful” and deciphered from his grin that other definitions included “delightful” and “bloody well made my day.”

—

DAY COMPOSED an answer that centered on the evening she’d met Hilde and Willa. She’d got on at Kings Cross with Pepper, Luca, and Thalia, all four of them covered in sweat and glitter—they’d had their Friday night out in London town and now they were ready to get back to Day’s room and crash. Hilde and Willa sat opposite them sharing a red velvet cupcake. Day remembered trying not to fret about two whole girls afraid to eat a whole cupcake each. She didn’t know them or their fears. She noticed Willa’s long chestnut hair and Hilde’s eyes, which were like big blue almonds. She’d never seen them before but nodded at them, and they nodded back and continued their conversation, which seemed to be a comparison between medieval and modern logistics of kidnapping. Pepper and Luca were attempting to address Thalia’s complaints about art school, and Day was about to throw in her own tuppence worth when five boys who looked about the same age as them came swaying through the carriage singing rugby songs. Actually Day didn’t know anything about rugby so they might not have been rugby songs per se, but the men definitely had rugby player builds. They stared as they passed Day and her friends; Day felt a twanging in her stomach when they walked back a few paces and their song died away. She could see them thinking about starting something, or saying something. If these boys said something Luca would fight, and so would Pepper, and then what were Day and Thalia supposed to do—broker peace? Hardly. Day could punch . . . her parents had only been called into school for emergency meetings about her twice, and both times had been about the punching. Not necessarily the fact of her having punched someone, no, it was the style of it. Day punched hard, and when she did so she gave little to no warning. She punched veins. Aside from being disturbing to witness, the vein punching was extremely distressing for Day’s target; the link between heart, lungs, and brain fizzed and then seemed to snap, then the target’s limbs twitched haphazardly as they tried to recover some notion of gravity. Every now and again Day’s sister requested punching instruction from her, but this wasn’t something Day could teach. She just knew how to do it, that was all. She thought it might be connected to anxiety and the need to be absolutely certain that it was shared. And she really didn’t feel like punching anybody that night. She’d had a good time and just wanted to keep having one . . .