Goose (10 page)

I have had to wait until today, Monday, to get the morning-after pill as everywhere was shut yesterday. So in our lunch hour we drive down to town in Flo's car. Apparently you have seventy-two hours before it's ineffective. I know I should have made Dean put on a condom, but he didn't mention it and I didn't want to ruin the moment. He is so experienced I did think he might do the withdrawal technique, but he didn't. Anyway, it's fine. Loads of people take the morning-after pill – the only annoying part is that you have to go into the chemist and ask for it. Apparently they ask you loads of questions and that kind of thing really freaks me out. I have still never, at the age of eighteen, bought a packet of tampons myself. Aunty Jo gets them for me and leaves them in the bathroom downstairs. We never talk about it – she just keeps the supply topped up and I help myself. I know I will have to do it one day, but until then I am putting it off. Flo, on the other hand, is good at this stuff.

‘They will probably ask you when you had sex, if he was your boyfriend and if you used a condom,' I tell Flo. I know this because I overheard two girls in the toilets talking about what happened to them when they needed it last term. ‘Tell them it was yesterday morning, that you are in a long-term relationship and that the condom broke, OK?'

‘Oh Renée, do it yourself. This is crazy,' she says. I agree, it's crazy, but I am who I am.

‘Please, Flo. It's the one thing I can't do. It makes me so embarrassed, I don't know why. Please?' I hold out thirty quid.

‘For God's sake,' she hisses, and snatches the money out of my hand and storms into Boots. I wait outside and light a fag.

After a few minutes, I see Meg walking up the high street.

‘Hey, Renée,' she says, noticing me. ‘I was just on my way to Dean's house. Wanna come?'

My heart plummets. He didn't call last night, and I thought he might. Does he not want to see how I am? To say he had fun?

‘He invited you over?' I ask.

‘Oh, I don't bother waiting for an invitation. He is chilled about me being there.'

I really want to ask her what the deal is with that and why she is always at his place, and tell her how I think it's a bit weird that she stayed there when he was in bed with me in the other room, when Flo comes out and pushes the thirty quid quite aggressively into my shoulder.

‘Sorry, Renée. I can't tell lies,' she says, looking a bit upset. ‘Get your own pills.' Then she notices Meg and goes into slow motion. As pissed off as Flo is, she obviously feels terrible for sharing my secret with someone she doesn't even know. ‘Shit, sorry,' she says, looking at me.

‘You need the morning-after pill?' says Meg, twigging. ‘Don't bother with the thirty quid. Here.' She reaches into her bag and pulls out a pack of contraceptive pills. ‘Just take all of these. I used to do it all the time before I went on the pill. A whole month's worth of pills is the same as the morning-after pill. You might feel a bit sick, but it works. I don't have a baby, do I? Here, you can have these.'

‘Er  …  thanks,' I say, taking the pills.

‘No problem. See you later?'

She walks off, slowly. Flo and I watch her until she is far enough away that she won't hear us.

‘You know you can't take those, don't you?' Flo says, frowning. ‘I don't think it's the same thing as the morning-after pill  …  '

‘They're better than nothing, though. I'd rather take these than have a kid. It will be fine, Meg said she used to do it all the time.'

‘Renée, I don't think Meg knows what she –'

But before Flo has finished I have popped most of the pills into the palm of my hand and am preparing to swallow them.

‘I can't watch this. You can get the bus back up to school,' says Flo as she turns and walks towards the car park.

I don't follow her. The last thing I want right now is a guilt trip about the way I live my life. I swallow the pills and start walking up towards school. Despite what Flo thinks, I'm sure Meg knows what she is talking about.

‘  …  I think I am dying,' I say to Aunty Jo as I am bent double in the phone box trying not to be sick.

‘Where are you?'

‘At the top of the Grange, in a phone box. I'm going to be so sick.'

‘Walk over to the medical practice. It's just there up to the left, you know it. Go in there, ask to see someone and I will be there in ten.'

I pretty much crawl up to the doctor's surgery. How could I have been so stupid to take all those pills? How could Meg have been so relaxed about it? Surely this happened to her too? I think all these things as I run behind a car in the surgery car park and puke up so hard I worry if my stomach is going to follow. I can see some undigested pills in my sick. By the time Aunty Jo's car pulls up I am sitting on the step feeling a lot better. She sits down next to me. We can see Nana in the car, smiling and listening to the radio. I tell Aunty Jo what I did.

‘That was stupid,' she tells me. But of course I already know that. ‘I think it's probably about time you went on the pill, if you are sleeping with this guy, Dean.'

I have no idea if I am going out with Dean or not, but I think Aunty Jo is right.

‘Go in and make an appointment,' she tells me. ‘You might get one now if you're lucky. Nana and I can wait here for you.'

At reception, I ask if there are any appointments.

‘Do you want a male or a female doctor?' the receptionist asks really loudly. I feel like everyone is looking at me, judging me, like they all know I had unprotected sex.

‘Female, please,' I whisper.

‘Right. Well, Dr Burrington can see you now. We have had a cancellation.'

I go stiff.

‘Dr Burrington? Is there anyone else?'

‘Not female, I'm afraid. Take a seat, please. She won't be long.'

I sit in the waiting area. There is an old man with warts all over his nose, a pregnant woman who looks like she is about to burst and a young girl in a Tudor Falls uniform with her mum. I would run away, but I think I'm going to puke again.

I know Dr Burrington well. She is the doctor who looked after Mum the whole way through her illness. I haven't seen her since I was a little girl, since Mum was dying. I feel seven years old again, but here I am about to ask her to put me on the pill.

Then she calls my name. Her voice catapults me back eleven years to the time I was listening at the door as she told Mum that she would do her best to make her as comfortable as she could during the ‘last few weeks'. Her face sends a flood of emotion through me that launches me forward until I find myself hugging her. I feel the eyes of the receptionist on me, wondering what the hell I think I am doing.

‘Come through, Renée,' says Dr Burrington. ‘It's lovely to see you after all these years.'

It isn't long before I am talking at 100 miles an hour, trying to fill her in on the last eleven years. She knew bits and bobs; that Pop had died, and that Nell had moved to Spain and that I am now living with Aunty Jo.

‘Word travels on a small island like this,' she says, ‘and I always ask people I know who know your family, just to keep updated. I was terribly fond of your mother.'

‘It's so good to see you,' I tell her. ‘Mum really liked you, I know she did.' I realise that I've got tears coming, and I try to hold them back.

‘We were friends too, that's for sure. She was a wonderful woman. You look just like her.'

That's my favourite thing anyone ever says to me.

Dr Burrington looks at her watch. ‘Sorry, Renée. I have been so enjoying talking to you, but I have another appointment waiting.' She smiles. ‘So, tell me, what am I seeing you for today?'

This is where I have to be brave. I think about Mum, and how she never knew me as a woman, but how I am one now. I am a woman. I am eighteen, I have sex and periods and boyfriends. I drive a car that I bought with my own money, I help take care of Nana now, I am doing A levels and soon I will be leaving Guernsey and going off to have my new adventures. I have to stop feeling like a little girl when it comes to my body.

‘I need the morning-after pill today, and I would like to go on the pill too,' I tell Dr Burrington. ‘I had unprotected sex yesterday morning, and a friend told me to take a whole packet of contraceptive pills because I was too nervous to buy the morning-after pill. They made me sick, and now I am worried I might be pregnant.'

She smiles again, a reassuring smile, as if she has heard all this before.

‘If I had a pound for every girl your age who thinks that works, I would be much richer than I am. No one can keep twenty-plus pills down for long. When is your next period due?' she asks.

‘Soon, like any day.' I am surprised how easily I feel I can offer that information.

‘Well, the chances of you getting pregnant at this point in your cycle are unlikely, but still possible. I will give you the morning-after pill just in case. I'll also give you six months' worth of pills. We can see how you get on with those, all right?'

‘Thank you.'

Dr Burrington talks me through when and how I should take the pills. What to do if I miss one and what to do if I don't want to have a period once month. It sounds great.

‘I'll be so in control of my own body,' I say.

She laughs. ‘There is a reason the pill changed women's lives back in the sixties. It gave us a freedom that women never thought was possible, but you still have to be careful. This doesn't protect from STDs, so my advice is that you still use condoms until you are in a serious relationship.'

‘All right,' I say, knowing that I probably won't.

I take the prescription and go to leave. As I get to the door I turn back to her.

‘Dr Burrington?'

‘Yes, Renée.'

‘Thanks for trying to save my mum. I was too young to thank you at the time, but I know now that you made those last few weeks as good as they could be.'

‘It was my privilege to be there for her, Renée. Come see me any time, OK?'

‘I will.'

I leave. As promised, Aunty Jo and Nana are waiting for me in the car outside.

‘All sorted?' asks Aunty Jo.

‘All sorted,' I tell her.

She drives me back to school.

‘Today, let's talk about forgiveness,' says Gordon, sitting on his dad's armchair in his living room. The rest of us are sitting on the floor looking up at him like his disciples.

We meet here almost every week now. Gordon likes to lead the sessions. He wants to preach, he tells me. It's quite full on, but then what he says makes sense, and I guess someone has to do it to keep passing on the message of God. From a girlfriend (which I think I am) perspective, though, it's a little intimidating. We have spent more and more time together over the last few weeks, but it's rare that he manages to have a conversation without bringing it back to God in some way. As much as I am really enjoying my faith, I find it a bit much.

‘Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you,' he reads. ‘Colossians 3:13. We all have people who challenge the Lord's command for us to forgive, but we must trust his instruction and forgive by our faith, not follow what our instinct often tells us. That to forgive is weakness, to forgive is as if to approve of someone else's wrongdoing. Forgiveness is neither of these things, forgiveness is acceptance in accordance with the grace of God.'

There is something about this particular session that is troubling me. Forgiveness is a big deal for me. I am eighteen years old and have had to forgive people my whole life. Mum, Julian, Renée, myself. Even Dad, in a funny kind of way. I had to forgive him for letting himself go, for giving up on himself so badly, for getting so stressed, so unfit that his heart killed him as he was taking the rubbish out one Thursday afternoon. I think I have done a good job in forgiving all of these people in my life. But obviously there is one person who makes the concept of forgiveness more challenging for me. The person who is the reason I still doubt myself every day, even though Renée and the church have tried to teach me that I shouldn't. I don't think I could ever – no matter how much my relationship with Christ depended on it – forgive Sally de Putron.

Gordon continues, ‘Not forgiving makes you the prisoner in your own life. Our happiness in ourselves comes from our relationship with God, not with others around us. God is the only one capable of unconditional love. If we take our eye off him, we run the risk of being privy to the corruption of others. Remain focused on God, and remain focused on faith. God knows that all humans are weak, he knows we cannot expect to rely solely on the good of others.'

‘But what if there is no point in forgiving?' I ask my boyfriend, the preacher. ‘What if the person who hurt you so much isn't in your life any more? Rather than forgiving them, you just move on, and don't bother with them any more. Why forgive people when you can just cut them out?' I take a Rice Krispie cake from the tupperware box being waved under my nose by Sandra. Her eyes are fixed on Gordon's face, almost trance-like, but even so she is still managing to channel her need for sugar.

‘You may never see a person in the flesh again, but that doesn't mean that anger doesn't burn inside of you every day,' Gordon says. ‘If there is someone you haven't forgiven can you tell me honestly that you don't think about them all the time? As they have gone off to live their life, who is left with the damage of what they did?'

He is right, which is annoying. I am left with the damage, all of it. Sally is off being a mum to the baby who obviously loves her and I still think about the way she used to make me feel every single day.

‘Forgiveness is for you, not a right of passage for them. If you never see them again they will never know you have forgiven them. It doesn't matter to them, it matters for you. Let's pray.'

We all put a hand on someone else's shoulder or knee. Gordon leads us through a prayer.

‘Dear Lord, we ask you to guide us in our quest to forgive those who do us wrong. To lead us from temptation and away from evil. Help us understand those who are good and those who are bad. We ask you to trust that we have devoted our lives to you, and that with your grace we can keep peace within ourselves. We are your servants, Lord. Christ sacrificed himself for us and for that we owe our lives. Amen.'

‘Amen,' we all say quietly.

‘Is it all right with everyone if I have the last one?'

‘Yes, Sandra.'

In the car on the way home Gordon is playing me the new song that he has recorded.

‘Gordon?' I say, but he doesn't hear. ‘Gordon?' Again, he doesn't respond. ‘GORDON!' I shout, pressing eject.

‘What? What, Flo? We were just getting to the best bit.'

‘Gordon, would you like to come into my house when you drop me home?'

‘Sorry, Flo. I need to get home. I have to write a sermon for the kids at Sunday school this week.'

‘OK,' I say quietly. ‘It's just that we have been going out with each other for nearly a month now. You pick me up and take me to our Bible meetings, and to church, and you have got me in free to a few of your gigs now, which is really sweet. But don't you think it's time you came into my house? Or that we did something else, just us, maybe that isn't about church?'

I think I worded that OK. Well, I worded it how I feel, anyway. For such a confident person, Gordon is very slow at making moves. He kisses me every time he picks me up and drops me off. But those kisses don't involve tongues, and they have gone from feeling magical to feeling almost parental. I know I am hardly the world's most sexual person, but I think we should be progressing slightly in our relationship. He should at least come inside my front door.

‘But I need to get this written, Flo. God might be able to help me in most things, but he can't do my work for me, can he?'

‘I suppose not.'

He pushes his tape back in and carries on singing. When we get to my house, he gives me my usual kiss and says goodnight. I press eject.

‘Well, what about Saturday night?' I ask him. ‘My mum will be out and I'm babysitting my little sister. Why don't you come over? We can order pizza, watch a movie?'

He looks really unsure.

‘Gordon,' I carry on. ‘It's normal for two people who like each other to spend a Saturday night in watching a movie, you know,' I say, getting slightly impatient.

‘I guess it is. Well, um, OK, I suppose it can't do any harm, can it?'

‘No, Gordon, it can't do any harm, so will you come? Eight o'clock?'

‘Yes. Yes, OK. I will bring us something to watch. I think I know what you will like.'

‘Great.'

‘Lovely.'

‘Goodnight, Gordon.'

‘Goodnight, Flo.'

He puts the tape back in and drives off, singing his songs.

‘Jesus, I want you so bad,' says Dean, throwing me up against his front door. It's midnight, and we have been in the pub. I fancy him so much I have barely been able to keep my hands off him all night.

He opens the door behind me and lifts me into the kitchen, putting me down onto the worktop. He kisses me and pushes a hand up my top. I'm in heaven, but then I nearly pull the toaster out of the socket when the light snaps on and Meg says, ‘Oh, sorry, guys. I thought you would be home later. I just had a few hours' kip in your bed, but I can move over to the couch.'

I pull my skirt down and jump off the counter.

‘Do you ever go home?' I find myself saying out loud for the first time since this relationship began.

‘Excuse me, Renée, whose house is this?' Dean says firmly. Making me feel like a dick.

Meg doesn't answer.

It's obvious I am outnumbered in my belief that Dean and I should get at least one night in this flat without Meg sleeping on the sofa, but she is always here. It's not like she is a housemate – there is no spare bedroom. She just sleeps on the sofa under a thin blanket. Almost every night that I stay over they get really stoned and it's hard to get a conversation out of either of them the more off their faces they get. So I just go to bed and leave them to it. Then Dean and I have sex in the mornings. It's great sex, fun, exciting, proper grown-up sex. I don't use a condom like Dr Burrington told me to, but Dean and I have been seeing each other for over a month now. He hasn't said it yet, but it feels like he is my boyfriend. This is definitely my most serious relationship ever. And with that in mind, I want to ‘make love' to my boyfriend before I go to sleep, just once, without thinking Meg can hear every single noise I make.

‘Come with me,' I tell him, as I lead him back outside. ‘Let's go to my car.' If I can't be alone with him here, I will take him somewhere else.

I'm parked on the pier because all the spaces outside his house were gone when I arrived earlier. I lead him by the hand down the hill. ‘I want you to myself tonight,' I tell him. He seems excited.

We get into my car and I put on the engine to get some heat. I roll my driver's seat back and tell him that if he does the same, my car is so small it almost makes a mattress. Flo and I do it all the time. Well, we did until we both got boyfriends.

I take my top straight off. The glow of the lit-up town gives just the right amount of light to make my skin look nice. It's a relief to be topless in front of him without the harsh light of the morning due to his lack of good curtains. I have become very brave with being naked around him, but there is no comparison to how confident I feel when I am not worrying about the marks on my skin.

Having sex in a Fiat 126 isn't easy, but we manage it. And to be honest, apart from the fact that anyone could walk past at any given moment, I am just relieved to get the chance to feel like our sex life is about us, and not just him and his flat, and Meg.

When we are done, we sit in our seats smoking fags. Dean opens a window to try to de-mist the glass. I notice a footprint on the windscreen and we giggle as it disappears when the air comes into the car.

‘You seemed to know what you were doing there,' he says, after taking a long drag.

‘Well, you have taught me a lot in the last month. I know what you like.'

‘No, I mean with the car. You had your system down. I take it you've had sex in cars before?'

I wasn't expecting this question. Does it matter? Have I ever asked him about the sex he has had in the bed that I have slept in over ten times now? Why has he even asked me that?

‘I'm not sure that's any of your business really, is it?' I say, trying to sound jokey.

‘Not my business? Come on, Renée, I don't judge. I am an artist. People express themselves through other people. I like it. I've had girlfriends all over the world. Had sex in cars, on beaches, I've even done it in a cinema. You can tell me about your experiences, can't you? How many people have you slept with?'

I am an open person. Apart from being terrified of buying tampons, not much makes me feel uncomfortable, but this question feels like the most personal thing I have ever been asked. Like telling him would be sharing my biggest secret. No one, not even Flo, knows how many people I have slept with. I find it hard to tell her as her brother is obviously one of the people on the list and we do everything we can to avoid mentioning that. So even though I have told her things I have done with guys, I've never told her how many. But if Dean is going to be my boyfriend and we are going to be honest with each other, then maybe the grown-up thing to do is to tell him the truth.

‘Three,' I tell him. ‘Including you.'

Well, nearly the truth. He was my fourth.

‘Oh come on, you are way too experienced for it to just be three.'

‘No, I mean  …  I have been to bed with and done other stuff with more guys. I presume by sleeping with you mean sex? Well, I have had sex with three guys, and yes, one of those was in a car.'

‘This car?'

‘No, his car.'

‘When?'

‘Two years ago.'

‘Was that your first time?'

‘Yes.'

‘So you lost your virginity at fifteen? Wow, that's young.'

‘Well, I didn't plan it. It just kind of happened.'

‘I'm sure it did. You sexy minx, I bet you were gagging for it.'

I start to feel really trapped by my honesty.

‘No, I wasn't gagging for it. It's actually not something I am particularly proud of, so can we not talk about it?'

‘Sure, I am happy to not talk about it. But four people and you only just turned eighteen? You're racking them up!'

Dean is making me feel bad. Is it really that many? It's barely two a year – is that so bad? It's not like I always have sex the first time I kiss someone, like I did with him. I just went with that because he is so much older than me, I didn't want to appear young. I wanted to behave like the other people he has probably slept with. I wanted to be a woman.

‘Well, how many have you slept with then?' I ask, hoping to balance this out.

‘More than that, but it's different. I'm older than you.'

‘How many had you slept with when you were my age then?'

‘More than you. Much more, but it's different, I am a guy.'

‘How is it different?'

‘Because men fuck and women get fucked, babe. That's why. Women can't behave like men when it comes to sex. It's just the way it is. Come on, let's go back to mine. I fancy a spliff.'

He might as well have called me a slag and been done with it. I don't know what to do with myself.

‘I'll drive up,' I say. ‘The booze has worn off now, and I saw a space.'

He puts up a little bit of resistance to me driving but it's only up the hill, and he wants to get home. We don't speak again until we pull up outside his house, where I tell him I think I should spend the night at home tonight.

‘But what about the morning? I love our mornings,' he says, trying to persuade me with a hand on my thigh and his nose in my neck.

‘I'd better get home.'

We kiss and he gets out. I watch him walk in. Meg appears at the kitchen window to wave goodbye to me. I don't wave back.

I drive slowly, knowing that I am way over the limit and that I should not be in my car. As I get to the top of the Grange I think I should have just stayed at Dean's and left early tomorrow morning, but what he said really upset me. ‘Men fuck and women get fucked.' What a horrible way to put it. It made sex sound so brutal, so one-sided. All those times we have had sex was he just fucking me? What happened to making love? I am lost in thought and realise that the car has completely steamed up again and a perfect footprint has reappeared on the windscreen. Despite everything, the symbol of my wild, sexy adventures in my car makes me laugh. I swerve slightly out of control and the car crosses onto the other side of the road. I correct myself quickly, and then I see a blue light flashing in my rear-view mirror. Shit, shit shit shit shit shit. I pull over, search my bag for a piece of chewing gum and wind down my window.

‘Is this your car?' asks the policeman as he comes up alongside me. He is oldish, with a grey beard. He is shining a torchlight into my face.

‘Yes, it's my car.'

‘And where have you been so late?'

I am aware that my breath smells of booze, and I am genuinely frightened. I don't want to get caught drink driving. It's so grim. People hate drink drivers, even if they don't kill anyone. It's just a really stupid thing to do. Shit.

‘I've been babysitting,' I say, having a stroke of genius. ‘The parents didn't get home until really late so I am so tired. I have school tomorrow and my exams start soon. I spent the whole night revising and now I can barely keep my eyes open. I only live around the corner, so I am nearly home.'

I do the best big yawn I can without blowing alcohol breath anywhere near the policeman and wait a very long twenty seconds before he says, ‘Well, you must get your sleep if your exams are coming up. That wasn't right of them to stay out so late. Drive safely. I will follow you home to make sure you get back OK.'

When he has walked away I breathe out and pant like I just came up for air. Thank God. But shit, home is actually about another ten minutes away. He will know that I lied, and I am not sure I can drive straight all that way. I do feel really tired.

I have an idea.