6
It’s our last ever English lesson. That’s it now until the exams. This is the moment I have been waiting for. The end of school is so close. I don’t have to get up in the morning as my first exam isn’t for ten days. I am free, but I don’t feel it. I feel more trapped than ever. I haven’t spoken to Flo in nearly a week, and I don’t want to. I don’t want her telling me who I should be – but it’s strange. In two years we have hardly ever gone more than a morning without contact. Is that really it? Is our friendship actually over?
I watch Meg from across the room. What is she all about? I used to think she was so cool, so chilled out and interesting. Now I realise she’s just a tag-along. A drifter. Dean always brushes it off when I ask him why she is always there, why she sleeps under that little blanket on the uncomfortable couch in his flat. But then I guess by the time Meg goes to sleep every night she is so stoned she doesn’t notice small details like that.
It does explain how she is so well read, though. I rarely see her at his place without a book in her hands. ‘Weed makes me me absorb more,’ she tells me often. She says that she ‘inhales books’ when she is stoned, and that schoolwork is way easier when she has had a few spliffs. I still haven’t managed to have more than three drags without passing out myself, so I don’t really know what she is talking about.
But the weirdest thing about Meg is the way she is with Dean. What is that relationship all about? She stays there all the time and is completely unfazed by my arrival into the equation, and he just acts like it’s completely normal to have an eighteen-year-old girl living in his place. She is always really nice to me. Really non-judgemental about the fact I slept with Dean so quickly. She makes me tea when I go round, she is as lovely to me at school as she ever was, she doesn’t seem to be jealous of my relationship with him and she certainly doesn’t seem to have a problem with me being there. I can’t work it out. Maybe it’s me that needs to chill out, but it’s so weird. When I ask Dean about it he says, ‘She isn’t a pain to have around.’ So I just have to accept it as part of the deal. There is me, there is Dean and there is Meg. It’s bizarre how you can think someone is the coolest person ever, then you get a glimpse of their reality and realise they are actually quite tragic.
And what does it say about Dean? I’m not ready to think too much about that right now, though. I’ve got enough in my head as it is.
‘Have you all checked the timetables? The exam dates are up,’ says Mr Frankel. ‘Your first English exam is May 23rd. We can meet and discuss the texts if you want to, but otherwise, this is where I leave you. Any questions?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got a question,’ says Maggie, rough as ever. ‘Where’s Emma?’
We all look up from our books and look around the room, even though we know she isn’t there. It was the question we have all been wanting to ask for the past two weeks. Mr Frankel looks uncomfortable.
‘Emma won’t be coming back for the exams,’ he says.
‘What? Why? She didn’t cark it, did she?’ barks Maggie, meaning to sound sympathetic but not managing it.
‘No, she didn’t “cark it”, Maggie. She just needs to be somewhere that people can take proper care of her. We are working on a way for her to take the exams at home. It’s no secret that she isn’t very well.’
I feel happy about this. Happy that Emma is getting the help she needs. Nell should have had that. And I miss Nell these days, I miss her so much I want to run out of the English class and run to Spain to see her. I hope she is all right, that Dad is nice to her. That she is happier than she was with Nana and Pop.
I suddenly realise that this is the moment Aunty Jo was telling me I would have one day. A natural moment where I realise that my sister is one of the most important people in my life. I will call her tonight, and I will make a plan to go and stay with her in Spain this summer. It’s the right thing to do.
The bell rings and we all gather our things.
‘I’ll miss you, Mr Frankel,’ I say, not feeling at all silly.
‘And me,’ says Maggie.
‘Me too,’ says Martha.
‘I will miss you all too,’ he says. ‘You’ve been a great class and I know you will all do great in the exams. Hopefully I will bump into you in town one night and you won’t have to ignore me, because I won’t be your teacher any more.’
We all laugh. I love how unprofessional he is. He’s just such a nice man. I do hope our paths cross again – I think he’d probably be really fun to get drunk with.
We leave our English room for the last time.
At home, something is wrong. Aunty Jo is sitting on a bench in the garden, her head down. A shovel is next to her, with blood on it. Oh my God.
‘Aunty Jo, what happened? Is it Nana?’
‘No, no, Renée,’ she says quickly. ‘It’s Clara. She was killed by a dog this morning. It ran into the garden and straight over to them. Before I could do anything it had poor Clara by the neck. Freddie is heartbroken – look.’
I look over into the area where the geese live and see Freddie, sitting still as anything, his beak down, in a way I have never seen him before. He was always so tall, so proud to protect Clara.
‘He looks so sad.’
‘There is a breeder up the road who says he has a female, but the deal would be I would have to take two. I was thinking about getting some more pets, so I guess having three geese would be all right. I’m sure you’ve got revision to do, but you couldn’t come with me to pick them up, could you? I think Freddie needs some new love in his life, and quickly.’
‘Of course,’ I say, happy to do whatever I can to get Freddie back to his usual self.
‘It would help me out enormously if you did take the two,’ says the man with the geese. ‘I have another lot that have just hatched and I need to shift these ones or it’s going to be a very overcrowded garden.’
‘Yes, that’s OK,’ says Aunty Jo. ‘I am sure Freddie will be delighted with two new girlfriends.’
After a lot of squawking and flapping we manage to get the two female geese into the back of Aunty Jo’s car. ‘I’ll be scraping shit off those seats for the rest of my life now,’ she says, laughing at the squelchy splat sounds that keep coming from the back seats. ‘Freddie had better appreciate this.’
Carrying a bird each, we head back to the goose enclosure at the end of the garden. Freddie hasn’t moved.
‘That’s the exact spot I found her,’ Aunty Jo tells me. ‘He hasn’t moved from it once. He even has her blood on his feet.’
‘It’s so sad,’ I say. ‘Poor Freddie. Do you think we can just replace her? Can the love of your life really just be replaced by someone else?’
‘I hope so, Renée. Or Freddie and I are doomed!’
We gently put the birds down inside the gate. They spread their wings and shake their heads, rearranging their feathers to how they looked before Aunty Jo and I messed them up. They eat some of the soggy bread that Freddie hasn’t quite managed today and start to explore their new home. Freddie pushes himself up to his feet.
‘There you go,’ says Aunty Jo. ‘Now he sees he has two new lovely ladies to play with. That should cheer him up.’
But Freddie doesn’t walk towards Feather and Flapper – the names that came naturally to us to call them – instead he clumps slowly in the opposite direction, his head never reaching up, his beak almost scraping the ground as he walks. He plods around the side of the little house he goes into at night and right around the back and out of sight.
‘Let’s give him some time to get used to them,’ Aunty Jo says. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine tomorrow.’
As we walk back up to the house, the impulse to speak to my sister is as strong as it was earlier.
‘Is it OK if I call Nell?’ I ask Aunty Jo, thinking I already know the answer.
‘Oh yes!’ she says. ‘Use the phone in my room and stay on it as long as you can. Give her my love!’
‘I will,’ I say, running up to the house. ‘I will.’
Come on, Mum, time to go. Now.
It’s seven thirty and my mum is faffing about before she goes on her date. I get her coat and try to put it on her myself. ‘Go, you will be late.’
‘Flo? What is wrong with you?’ says Mum, wrestling with the coat sleeves, finally getting it on. ‘I won’t be late –’
‘Mum?’ I tell her, opening the front door. ‘Go and have fun.’
The door slams behind her and the smell of cheap perfume is left lingering in the hall. I hope it doesn’t put Arthur off her. I like him. She’s been about fifty per cent less hard work since he’s been on the scene.
With Abi all tucked up in bed nice and early, it’s time to get ready for Gordon. Tonight is the night. I want to move on to the next level of our relationship. Well, maybe just past that actually, as the next stage would literally be just kissing with tongues. But I think I want more than that with him – I am ready. I want us to be a proper boyfriend and girlfriend. At the very least I would like to kiss him properly. Renée was right about one thing – it is normal for people to be sexual.
I run into my bedroom and put on a little bit of blusher and some lip balm. I brush my hair and take it out of the scrunchie it’s pulled into, and I spray some deodorant under my arms.
Next, I order some pizza. I thought it might be quite cool to have already ordered pizza so that it arrives shortly after he does. I presume he likes manly-type pizzas, being a man and everything. Renée eats like a man and she always orders the spicy meat feast, so I got him one of those and a ham and pineapple for me. I wonder what she is doing tonight, but then I get the thought of her out of my head. I have to get used to not thinking about her.
I have Cokes in the fridge, and also beers if Gordon and I feel like drinking. During my lunch hour today I ran down to Blockbusters and rented Dirty Dancing. It’s perfect, because it’s a really beautiful love story, but there is a sex scene that I think is the perfect level of sexy for tonight. The main character, Baby, loses her virginity to Johnny, played by Patrick Swayze. It’s her first time, but it seems to go really well. It’s how I hope my first time goes. It’s also a really good one to watch with Gordon as it isn’t too explicit, so won’t make us feel silly watching it together. Hopefully it will just get us in the mood to do whatever it is we end up doing. If I do think it’s going to be awkward, I can just go and make us a cup of tea when the sex scene is coming up. I’ve seen the movie four times so I know exactly when to leave the room, should I need to. I am terrified but also really excited. This is what boyfriends and girlfriends do, this is normal, this is what should have happened weeks ago. My mouth feels so dry. I also feel a bit sick. The door bell rings.
‘Hello, Flo,’ Gordon says formally as he passes me a bottle of ginger beer and kisses me on the cheek.
‘Hello, Gordon, come in. Can I take your coat?’
‘Er … thanks,’ he says awkwardly. But instead of letting me take it, he shrugs out of it and keeps it bunched up under one arm.
‘OK.’ Odd, but OK. I start to show him around.
‘This is the living room, this is the kitchen, this is the downstairs toilet and up here is my –’
‘We don’t need to go upstairs,’ he says, quickly. ‘It’s nice down here.’
‘Yeah. Of course,’ I say, suggesting we go into the living room. I sit on the sofa, he sits on the armchair. ‘I ordered pizza and got some movies. I presumed you’d like the spicy meaty one so I got you one of those, and Dirty Dancing to watch. It’s a love story.’
‘Oh, sorry Flo, I’m a vegetarian. And as a matter of fact, I brought a film with me. Chariots of Fire. Have you seen it? It’s a classic, a must-see for people like us.’ He holds out a VHS of the film.
‘People like us?’
‘People of God.’
Christ!
‘I’ll just change the order,’ I say, gutted that I got it wrong. I run into the hall and call back the pizza place. I catch it just in time.
‘I was thinking that maybe, before the movie and the pizza, we could get to know each other a bit,’ I say as I go back into the living room, feeling proud of myself for taking control. ‘We’ve spent so much time with other people, and talking about God and the Bible, that I really don’t know very much about you. I didn’t even know you were a vegetarian. What else should I know about you?’ I say, sitting by his feet.
He puts his hand on my head, his hand on my head, and says, ‘My life is dedicated to Christ. He died for us and I will spend my entire existence on this earth expressing my gratitude for his sacrifice. What else would you like to know, Flo?’
This is hard work. Jesus is like a drug to him. Even in the small amount of time I have known Gordon he has become more and more obsessed. Surely I can distract him from God, for just one night?
‘Well, I’d quite like to know the other things about you, not just the stuff related to your faith.’
‘Everything about me is related to my faith,’ he interjects. ‘My life is dedicated to my faith.’
I need to word this differently.
‘Yes, but there are other things you like. I mean, do you like sport? If you are a vegetarian, what’s your favourite vegetable?’
Did I seriously just ask him what his favourite vegetable is? If we get from cauliflower to kissing over the course of the next three hours it’ll be a miracle. Come on, God, I know you are on both of our sides. Help me out with this one, please?
‘Flo, you are being a little strange tonight. Is everything all right?’
Strange? Why strange? I am just being interested in him. It’s him that’s being strange. His body language is so closed. He seems nervous, so unsure of himself compared to usual. It’s a very different Gordon to the one who preaches and sings to all of those people. One-on-one Gordon, outside of the confines of his own car, away from God, is quite a different story. But I still want to kiss him.
I stand up and sit back down on the arm of the chair. He jumps up so fast the chair flips to the side from my weight and I land in a heap on the floor with the chair on top of me. When I look up, he has left the room.
‘Gordon?’ I say, pushing the chair off me and following him into the kitchen. ‘What’s the matter?’ I don’t ask him why he didn’t bother to help me up, even though I can’t believe he just left me squashed under an armchair. I need to sort this out.
‘Sorry, Flo, it’s just you are coming on so strong,’ he says nervously. ‘You seem so … so desperate. I haven’t seen this side of you before.’
‘Desperate? How am I desperate?’
‘Well. The pizza, the sexy movies, the conversation. It’s like you’ve become obsessed with … with sex. The reason I was so attracted to you was that you seemed so, I don’t know, not into all that … sort of innocent. Unsexual.’
UNSEXUAL??
‘Gordon, you say you are my boyfriend, but in six weeks you have never even properly kissed me. We have never walked down a street holding hands. We should be at third base by now – that would be normal.’ I’m not really sure what I mean by ‘third base’.
‘Flo, I believe in chastity before marriage. You need to know that and respect it.’
‘You what?’
‘I follow the word of the Bible. Sexual purity. No sex until marriage. All of this, this seduction, is just so predatory. It isn’t about love, or the sanctity of marriage, or the word of our dear Lord Jesus Christ.’
‘NO, it isn’t to do with any of those things. It’s about an eighteen-year-old girl who has never been laid who should at least be allowed to see her boyfriend’s penis if she feels like she might be ready to do so!’
Oh my, did that just come out of my mouth? God? Did you make me say that? I didn’t even know I was capable of saying something like that.
We stand in total silence for about two whole minutes.
‘I think I had better go,’ he says.
‘I think you should too,’ I say crossly, not bothering to walk him to the door.
No sooner do I hear the front door shut than the door bell rings, almost instantly.
Gordon has come back! I run to the door and open it, ready to be ravished.
‘Pizza?’ says a little man wearing a bike helmet. He’s only holding one box.
‘I ordered two pizzas.’
‘Your friend took his.’
‘Great,’ I say, handing over some money. ‘That’s just great.’
‘Do you believe in God?’ I ask Dean as he lies next to me in bed reading Trainspotting. It’s our usual Sunday-morning routine. I have been plucking my eyebrows in my hand mirror for a while. Is it just me or do eyebrows grow more when you’ve been drinking?
‘I’m spiritual,’ he says. ‘I got quite interested in Buddhism when I was in Thailand, but Christianity is bullshit to me. Just a way to make humans feel guilty for being human.’ He carries on reading.
I dig away at a short hair above my left eye that is starting to drive me a bit mad.
‘I just don’t get it,’ I say. ‘Why people have to focus on a story. It’s just a book of children’s stories. Imagine if a guy turned up on Guernsey now and started saying he was the son of God. We would all think he was mad. I think Jesus was just a madman who was really convincing. He gave people something they needed to hear, an explanation of our existence, but he made it up. He was just a loony who was talking bollocks. But he was probably really handsome, so everyone just fell for it. They still fall for it.’
He lowers his book. ‘OK, what brought this on?’
‘It’s my closest friend, Flo. She’s turned to God. She lost her dad a few years ago and I think it’s about that, but it’s freaking me out.’
He puts his book on his belly. ‘Flo? You haven’t mentioned her before. Who is she then?’
‘She’s my best friend. At least she was. Have I really never mentioned her?’
And it strikes me – Dean knows nothing at all about me. It’s been six weeks and he has never asked me anything about me but I know so much about him. I read his work, I know who his friends are, where he grew up, where he has travelled to. He has even told me in tiny detail about some of the women he has slept with. I acted interested even though I didn’t really want to hear it, but when I tried to tell him about my past he just dismissed it like it was unimportant, because ‘that kind of sex was meaningless’, and that making love to him for the first time was when I really started to understand how a man and a woman are supposed to connect sexually. It isn’t that I disagree with that entirely, but I don’t like brushing off my past as ‘meaningless’. It all meant something to me at the time.
We have sex a lot, much more than we talk. He is a bit obsessed with sex. Everything turns him on. He wants it all the time, and I find it quite hard to keep up, if I’m honest. I used to get really horny and crave sex, but now I barely get the chance. He decides he wants it, and before I have got in the mood, we do it. I miss working up to it in my own time. I rarely get the chance to instigate sex any more, because he always gets in there first, and that means a lot of the fun for me has gone. But I guess this is just what having a proper sexual relationship is like. It’s more functional. And there is a lot more sex than chat.
Dean and I hardly chat at all.
We go to the pub, but Meg is usually there, and when she isn’t Dean usually just tells me about ideas for plays that he has, and articles he needs to write for the Globe, and how he is waiting for the ‘perfect story’ to break him into the real world of journalism. Then after the pub we come back to his. He and Meg stay up and get stoned, I go to bed, and in the morning we have sex, then some more sex, and then he reads and I usually leave. And I feel horrid when I leave, because ever since he said that thing, ‘Men fuck, women get fucked’, sex feels so one-sided. Not to mention how he made me feel about the amount of people I’ve slept with. There is a shadow over me now, a feeling of guilt about the way I have behaved before. I was always so confident sexually, and now I feel so self-conscious about it all. And that seems unfair, seeing as he is quite open about the fact that he has shagged his way around the world. I worry he has ruined sex for me now. I can’t get his words out of my head while we do it – he’s taken the fun out of it.
The routine of spending Sunday mornings with him, then not having any contact until around Tuesday, then him calling me and asking me over so we can do it all again is such an odd thing to do with a person who knows nothing about me. I have mentioned Aunty Jo numerous times, but he has never asked me why I live with her, or if I have sisters or brothers, or where my mum is, or my dad. So maybe this is my moment, this is the next step of our relationship. This is the moment I can tell him a bit about who I am. Maybe if he knew more about me, the sensitivity would come back to the sex. Maybe he would care about me more.
‘I’ve never really told you anything about me, have I?’ I say, starting slowly. Trying not to sound upset that he has never asked me anything.
‘No, but I have worked out what you like, haven’t I?’ he says, running his hand up my inner thigh.
‘No, not just sexually. I mean about me, my life. Don’t you want to know a bit more about me? I mean, you don’t know anything.’
‘OK, if you need to tell me stuff, tell me.’ He lies back flat and moves his book to the floor.
‘OK, well. I used to live with my nana and Pop with my mum and my sister, but my mum died of breast cancer when I was seven.’
He doesn’t react, though I thought he would say something. I carry on.
‘After she died my sister Nell and I carried on living with our grandparents. Oh, I forgot to say that my mum and dad split up when she got ill. My grandpa basically made him leave. He lives in Spain now and has a new wife and two other children. Nell got really anorexic a couple of years ago and ended up in hospital. All she really wanted was to be with Dad, so when Aunty Jo, my mum’s sister, came back to Guernsey after her divorce she called Dad, because my grandpa hated him, and arranged for Nell to go out and be with him. And now Nell lives there. We never really got on and haven’t spoken much over the last few years, but recently I’ve been missing her, and we spoke on the phone the other night and it was actually really nice. I think I might go to Spain for a few weeks this summer after the exams. But it will be scary, because I don’t have a relationship with my dad. When I talk to him it’s awkward and I just don’t feel like he knows me. But it’s OK because I live with Aunty Jo now and Nana lives with us too. Pop died last year. Nana has dementia and is getting madder by the day. Dean? Are you listening?’
He is so still I wonder if he has fallen asleep. But his eyes are open, so he is awake. Good, I didn’t want to have to say all that again.
‘Christ, it’s all a bit depressing, isn’t it?’ he says, sighing. ‘It’s bringing me down. Do we have to do this on a Sunday morning?’
Bringing him down? What a cruel thing to say. If he feels brought down hearing it, how does he think I felt living it? And what has it being Sunday morning got to do with anything? Am I supposed to choose when I offer him nuggets of real-life information to fit in around his down time? I hoped he might commend me on how together I am after experiencing all of that stuff. Which, I have to admit, sounds pretty horrific when explained in one go.
‘Yeah, I guess so, but I am not depressed about it. It’s just the way my life has been and I –’
He cuts me off. ‘Well, I guess it explains a few things.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, why you’ve put yourself around a bit. Must be about the attention, I suppose.’
I have to stop myself from panting like a dog. It feels like he stabbed me in the lung.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ I manage to get out.
‘I mean, it’s pretty textbook behaviour for a girl who wasn’t loved by her daddy. Literature is full of those characters.’
‘Did you listen to anything I just told you?’ I ask him, wondering if he heard the bit about how I lost my mum, how my sister nearly killed herself, how I live with my aunty now. I told him so many things and the only one he thought to mention was my sex life?
‘Oh come on, don’t get upset. I’m just saying that for a girl of your age to have slept with all of those people, there had to be an underlying reason.’
‘What about all the people you have slept with? What is your “underlying reason”?’
‘Babe, I told you. I am a guy, it’s just different.’ He tries to pull me towards him. ‘Come on, what you need is some sex to take your mind off all that stuff.’
‘Why would you want to have sex with someone like me?’ I ask, meaning it, if he thinks so lowly of me.
‘Because I like girls who are a bit fucked up.’
I know that I will regret forever not telling him that he is the fucked-up one, not me. But I don’t seem to have the confidence to say it.
He runs his hands over my body. I feel lost as to what to do. How can someone who makes me feel so guilty for being sexual then want me to be so sexual?
We have sex. I hate myself for it. I have never felt so self-conscious. To be enthusiastic makes me feel like a slut, to be unresponsive makes me look hurt, and I don’t want him to think I am hurt. I also don’t want him to think I am a slut.
Why, after I told him all of those things about my life, did he think sex was what I needed today? What I really needed was acknowledgement, a conversation.
It dawns on me then. Dean doesn’t care about me at all.
Clearing out my locker in the common room for the last time, I feel like crap. Why did I have to pick a bigger virgin than me to be my first boyfriend? Even though I know Gordon not wanting to go further with me isn’t really about me, the rejection is still making me feel horrible. I believe in God too, but I do want to live a normal life. I want a boyfriend who fancies me, I don’t want to wait until I get married to lose my virginity. I find myself thinking about sex more than ever, it’s all around me at the grammar, with the boys here too. I feel like I want to know now – I want to have it. I think. Oh maybe I don’t … I would probably be crap at it anyway – my coordination is awful.
There are plenty of people I know who have sex and who go to church. You don’t have to abstain the way Gordon does. Look at Madonna. She has sex all the time and never shuts up about God. How come she’s allowed? Are there two Bibles?
Having a relationship with someone like Gordon would be impossible. There would be three people present at all times. Him, me and Him. I don’t think I want to be with someone who can’t put me first. I’m probably better off without him.
‘Kerry!’ I shout as I see her come in on the other side of the room.
I go over to her, but she doesn’t smile. She glares at me in fact. I just don’t get it. What’s her problem?
After a couple of minutes of really awkward silence I decide to clear the air.
‘Kerry, I thought we were friends, but for weeks you have acted like you regret inviting me into the group. Did I do something to offend you?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she says blandly, but then she clocks the expression on my face and looks softer, like she’s realising she is being unfair.
‘Oh Flo,’ she says, shrugging. ‘You didn’t do anything. It’s me, not you.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask, confused.
‘I’m –’
She is cut off by the sound of Bernadette’s voice, who has crept up on us and cornered us at the back of the common room.
‘What’s up with you two? Arguing about which disciple you are most like? You look like a Peter, Kerry. Yeah, definitely a Peter. And Flo Parrot? Are you a God-loving virgin too now? Well, you definitely look like a Paul, with your big nose.’
Bernadette finds this hilarious and she and her two ugly friends start laughing and one of them says, ‘You crack me up, B. So funny.’
‘Just ignore her,’ says Kerry. ‘She will go away.’
‘What is her problem with you?’ I ask, but before Kerry has the chance to answer Bernadette is up close in our faces and obviously has more to say.
‘Jesus can’t help you with being a little lezzer, can he, Kerry?’
‘You can’t call her that,’ I say, wanting to stick up for my friend.
‘Oh, hasn’t she told you? She’s a dirty little lezzer. And don’t go telling me you’re not her girlfriend. You look like a lezzer too, with your weird clothes.’
Bernadette is now right up in my face. She is so mean. I want to fight back to her, stick up for me and Kerry, but I can’t. She catapults me back to the old me, who let Sally put me down. I feel incapable of self-defence and do nothing to stop her saying what she wants to say. I’m still as pathetic as I ever was.
‘Dirty little lezzers, both of you.’
We all jump as the door of the common room swings open. Renée bursts in. It couldn’t be more obvious what is happening. I feel instantly relieved. Bullies like Bernadette are nothing to her. She is here to stick up for her best friend.
Or maybe not.
Renée takes in what is going on, looks me right in the eye, then turns around and leaves.
It’s all the confirmation I need. Our friendship really is over.
‘Go on, lez off,’ instructs Bernadette, forcing us out of the common room. She shouts, ‘Lezzers!’ after us one more time, just for fun. We leave to the sound of her cackles.
‘You never told me you were a lesbian,’ I say to Kerry as we walk across the car park, realising that I have never, to my knowledge, met a lesbian.
‘It’s not something I shout about.’
‘So what’s Bernadette’s problem with you? How does she know?’
‘I guess you could say, she’s my ex.’
Wow. I was not expecting that.
‘She used to come to our church. We were best friends. Then it turned into something else, something deeper. Bernadette was never at ease with it though, never able to admit who she really was. Then one day her mum caught us in Bernadette’s bedroom together and she made Bernadette stop coming to the group, and the entire family started going to another church. Ever since then Bernadette has been vile to me. It’s just an act, she knows that I know the truth about her. But she is full of so much fear that she has to live her life being someone else. I feel sorry for her in some ways.’
I try really hard not to react too strongly to what Kerry is telling me. Instead I turn the conversation back to us. I’ll process the other stuff later.
‘And what about me? Why have you been so off with me?’
We stop by my car.
‘I like you, Flo. I’ve watched you in RS all year. When you helped me that day I thought you felt the same. You seemed to go out of your way. Then you started going out with Gordon and I didn’t know what you were playing at.’
‘Wait, you thought I was gay?’
‘I guess we all get it wrong sometimes.’
‘Why? Why did you think I was gay?’ I feel bad for making this about me, but I am really insulted and need her to clarify.
‘The way you dress, the way you were with Renée. I just presumed you were in love with her but that she didn’t feel the same way, so if I stepped in you would want to be with me instead.’
How is it possible to feel so offended, but at the same time so happy that one person on this earth finds me desirable?
‘Well, I’m not a lesbian, and I’m not in love with Renée. I wasn’t then and I certainly am not now. Not after what she just did.’
‘You can’t blame her for not coming over. Bernadette isn’t exactly inviting,’ says Kerry, not quite getting what happened.
‘No, you don’t understand. Renée isn’t ever afraid of people like her. She didn’t come over because our friendship is over. She doesn’t care any more.’
Suddenly, explosive tears come out of me. The realisation that I have lost Renée, that boys don’t fancy me and that girls think I am a lesbian is all too much.
‘I’m going to go home,’ I tell Kerry. ‘I’m sorry you thought I was gay. I’m not.’
‘I’m sorry I’ve been off with you,’ says Kerry. ‘It’s not easy being eighteen and the only “out” lesbian in a year of 150 people.’
I am starting to wonder if being eighteen and anything is easy.
I’ve done loads of stuff I’m ashamed of, but I think walking away from Flo when she was being bullied might be the worst ever. What kind of person am I? I can go on as much as I like about why I think religion is a load of bullshit, but at least all she is doing is trying to be a better person. What am I doing?
I just couldn’t bring myself to go over and stick up for her. I couldn’t back Flo up this time, I wouldn’t have known what to say. I couldn’t think of a single way to stick up for what she believes in. But I feel like total crap and really hate myself right now. I am a shit friend, Dean thinks I’m a slut and I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life. Good one, Renée. Good one.
Over in the lay-by it’s just me, Pete and Marcus. They’re being their usual pervy selves.
‘Been getting any lately then, Renée?’
‘Oh fuck off, Pete. Is that seriously all you think about?’ I snap.
‘All right, Period Face, calm down. It was you who told us once that you think about sex eighty-five per cent of the time, so don’t get all narky because we believed you.’
Pete’s right. I did say that. WHY did I say that? I ask for all the shit that comes my way.
‘Cheer up, Renée,’ Pete says. ‘Let’s play chicken. Come on, I want to see that little Fiat of yours racing towards me at – how fast does it go? Ten miles an hour?’ They fall into stitches. Apparently the fact that I have a car that comfortably trots along at the Guernsey speed limit of thirty-five miles an hour is hilarious.
‘I’m not playing chicken, you idiots. It’s such a stupid game,’ I say, feeling like I don’t really want to do anything but smoke hundreds of cigarettes and mope around being sad about Flo.
‘I’ll play it,’ says a voice behind me. It’s Matt Richardson, in his school uniform.
My instinct is to tell him to bugger off, but then I think of Flo, and how I just abandoned her, and that Matt is her friend, and I think maybe, if I make friends with Matt, then that would be a respectful thing to do for Flo. It would make my apology, which she probably won’t even want to hear, much easier and more sincere. So I turn to him and hope he isn’t one of those religious types who doesn’t shut up about Jesus.
‘Hi Matt, how are you?’ I say.
He looks stunned.
‘Me? I’m fine … ’ He hesitates, presumably stumped for any kind of conversation that doesn’t involve Jesus or cars. ‘So, shall we play chicken? I drive my uncle’s car around his field at the weekends, I can drive a manual fine. If I don’t go on the road and we just stick to the car park then we’re not breaking the law. Can I?’
‘You’re not old enough to drive though,’ I say. ‘And my car doesn’t have any brakes.’
Pete sneaks up behind me and whispers in my ear. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all for show. Just make sure he keeps driving straight, I will turn off.’
So there IS a system? It’s basically wrestling for cars. It’s all planned beforehand.
‘Please?’ asks Matt again.
Oh God. Chicken really is my worst nightmare. I get so scared when other people are driving, I scream all the time thinking they are too close to the kerb. But I’m still thinking that if I bond with Matt, I might stand a chance of winning back Flo. And that’s all that matters.
‘OK. But I have to come in the car with you to teach you how to stop.’ I throw him the keys.
He drives me around the corner to the big empty car park of the sports field. To be fair, he does know how to drive a car. ‘OK, Matt,’ I say, ‘shall we go to Flo’s house after this? We could pick her up? Go have a cup of tea and some chips at the Vazon caff?’
‘Sounds great,’ he says vaguely, more focused on driving than he is on me. I am happy. This was a good idea. Flo will forgive me, she forgives everybody.
He drives all the way to the end of the car park and turns around. Pete and Marcus are facing us about a hundred feet away.
‘Pete always turns off, OK? So you just keep going straight, no matter how close they get, just keep going straight. They will think you are really tough and cool if you have the balls to keep going straight, but Pete will turn. I know he will. When they have passed, take your foot off the accelerator and I will talk you through slowing down using the gears. My brakes don’t work, OK?
‘OK.’
I have a horrible feeling about this. But Pete knows what he is doing, he has done this a thousand times. And as long as Matt keeps driving straight then everything will be fine. Deep breath. I am playing chicken to save my friendship. This is good. I stick my arm out of the window and give a thumbs-up, and Pete does the same. We’re off.
‘Remember, just keep going straight,’ I remind Matt. Then I roll my eyes, this is so stupid. ‘Oh, and don’t bother putting your foot to the floor straight away. You pick up more speed if you do it slowly. My car has its own rules.’
He does what I say and we start creeping forward. Before long we are at 15mph, which feels fast in a car park. Pete and Marcus are racing much quicker towards us, both their faces like melons with teeth. They’re so excited. This, for them, is living. The speed feels frightening now, I don’t like it. I want to shut my eyes until they have turned off and Matt has driven past them, but then Matt panics. It’s like he doesn’t trust the game. His right hand pulls down the steering wheel.
‘Matt, NO! What are you doing! They will turn. They always turn!’
But he doesn’t trust me. He turns sharply to the right at exactly the moment Pete turns to his left. I reach for the steering wheel and try to push it back, but it’s too late. He looks at me, I look at him. There’s a loud screech. I don’t know if it’s Matt, or the brakes, or me. Then a slam, so loud it feels like a punch in my head. More screeching, a creak of a door. I feel like I’m under water. The red of Pete’s car is too close – is that what is on my hands too? I’m too trapped to move. My head is too heavy and I can’t find my voice.
I have to sleep.