My trouble is, I spend too much time sitting on my bum and reading.
My trouble is, having Poll around.
*
‘It’s in your best interests,’ I remember them saying. They said it when they took my clothes off, and when they put me in a dim room and when they tried to show me the screen. I wouldn’t look.
‘There’s no damage,’ I heard the doctor say to the nurse.
There is. There is! I wanted to shout. There’s damage in my head. How can that thing be alive when Mum’s not?
But I didn’t say a word, just bit the side of my hand hard.
In the end they switched the scanner off because I just kept my eyes tight shut and my head turned away. In the darkness I saw:
Him, holding a spray of lilac to my face. Close your eyes, he told me.
I did.
Open your mouth, he whispered.
I parted my lips and he placed something cool and moist and flat against my tongue.
Now eat it.
I chewed, carefully.
Keep smelling the lilac as you eat, he said.
I opened my eyes and saw him holding the apple and the penknife apart, then bringing them together and smoothly cutting another thin slice of white flesh. He passed it to me on the blade.
Do it again, he said.
Why? I asked.
Because I want you to, he said. I want you to experience life.
When they turned the lights back on, there was a crescent of purple teeth marks across the edge of my palm. I put my hand quickly behind my back, but the doctor saw. ‘Have you any questions at this stage?’ he asked me, picking up his notes. The nurse behind him had a face that would have soured milk.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘How did I get to where I am now?’
‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ he said.
‘I mean, this shouldn’t be happening. I want to go backwards. Rewind. Six months ago, I was happy. Now I’m stuck in here and you’re telling me a pack of lies. You can’t keep me here, you know.’
I thought they’d give me my clothes then, but they didn’t. They brought Dad through instead.
‘They’re wrong, Dad,’ I cried. ‘There’s no baby. There can’t be, I’ve not even had sex yet. Honest. They’re making it up.’
But his eyes had gone like glass and he shook his head at me. It was about that time they were wheeling my mother down to the basement.
*
It hadn’t been too hard to conceal my new hobby from Poll, although Maggie caught me once just after a session in the bathroom and gave me a few searching looks. I stayed to ear-wig on the stairs.
‘What’s up with your Katherine?’ I heard her ask.
‘What do you mean?’
‘She looks as though she’s been skrikin’.’ Poll probably shrugged because she didn’t reply. ‘Has Dickie said summat daft?’
I nipped back down and wandered in all innocent, blowing my nose noisily into one of Vince’s large hankies. ‘I tell you what,’ I said, ‘my hayfever’s been terrible since old Rowlands planted all that rape at the bottom of the Brow.’
‘Ah,’ said Maggie. She was sitting by the gas fire drinking her tea from a sugar basin. She’s not one to complain, isn’t Maggie. ‘Now, I’ve summat for you, if you’ll howd on a minute. Fetch my shopping bag from t’ kitchen, will you?’
I brought it in, trying not to snag my tights on the vicious raffia decoration.
‘Here. Try this on for size. I spotted it in Scope and I thought, I know who that’ll do for.’
She handed me a plain brown leather purse with a length of thong wrapped round and round it.
‘What is it?’ Poll squinted and reached for her magnifier. I unwound the long strap and passed it over to her. ‘Hmm. Very nice.’ She mauled it between her fingers, undid the top and sniffed inside. ‘Leather. What do you say?’
‘Thank you.’
‘Well, I still think it’s awful, them rough boys taking your purse belt and throwing it out of the bus window. You did report them, didn’t you?’
I nodded. ‘There wasn’t any money in it.’
‘That’s not the point. You’d think you’d be safe on a bus in the daytime. It’s getting so you can’t go out. Bolton’s becoming a war zone. Over here, love.’ She motioned me to bow my head so she could slip the purse on. ‘You wear it round your neck. And I’ve a picture, see. It was in a magazine at th’ hairdresser’s.’ She unzipped the purse and drew out an A4 page folded into squares. It showed a hippyish model with half a dozen scarves on, plus this purse dangling below her neck, and all sorts of jewellery hanging against her red hair. She looked gorgeous. Maybe it was a magic purse that would make me look like that. ‘You can be really with-it, wearing this. And it’s plenty big enough to fit your bus pass, your keys, all sorts. Kitchen sink, if you want.’
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘You suit your hair back, though, we can see your bonny face. She’s a pretty girl, in’t she, Poll? Hiding behind all that hair. How d’you expect the lads to see your bonny smile if you brush your hair all down like that?’
‘I’m not interested in boys,’ I said, pulling out the elastic on purpose and shaking my head like the girl in the Pantene advert.
Poll tutted. ‘Tek no notice, Maggie. She’s a lost cause. I’ve given up botherin’, me. Now. Are you stoppin’ for your dinner, cause I’ve a prayta pie and some pickled cabbage as wants eatin’ up.’
‘Hmm.’ Maggie patted her belly. ‘I s’ll be awreet wi’ t’ pie but I might have to pass on the cabbage.’
I buzzed off back up to my room, purse swinging. Boys? Yeah. Right.
*
‘I’ve lost my wife and my daughter on the same day,’ I heard him say as he walked out of the room.
*
Nothing ever turns out exactly like you imagine it. That’s what allows you to play Cheat-Fate, where, for instance, you
imagine
unwrapping your exam results and getting a line of U grades then, because you’ve imagined it, it can’t happen. I play this game all the time, but sometimes I can’t stop myself fantasizing about good things, which is stupid because simply predicting them will prevent them from happening.
What I’d role-played for months was that I’d get put in a General Studies group with Donna French and that, being forced into close proximity to me, she’d suddenly realize that I was OK really and just needed bringing out of myself. Then she’d invite me on a few one-to-one shopping trips or meetings in coffee bars, and she’d quickly come to like me so much she’d decide to have me as her best mate. Rebecca would leave the school, or get herself a new friend, basically find some way of disappearing, as would all the rest of Donna’s gang.
Under Donna’s influence I’d become slimmer and smarter, because she’d find me the right clothes to wear and teach me make-up, and also tell me what music to listen to (at the moment I mainly play Dad’s old 80s cassette tapes, hiss hiss, wurp wurp. All Rebecca ever listens to is classical).
Then, one day, Donna would invite me back to her lovely house, and it would look like a page of
Hello!
magazine. And, in the privacy of her super-cool bedroom, something would occur. A kiss, maybe. An embrace, endearments. Possibly some hair-stroking.
But now it was too late because we would be leaving school in half a term, and I hated her anyway because of the Belt Incident. I’d had Donna killed several times since; once on a ski trip, some kind of collision with a rock; once by a jealous ex-boyfriend who’d waited till she came out of a pub and then run her over in his sports car; and once a good old-fashioned tumble down the stairs in her high heels. The same for Nicky Hunter, too, only perhaps with just the sustaining of major injuries because I hadn’t been in love with her.
Yet there we were on this Wednesday morning, Donna and me sitting at opposite ends of the common room during a midday free, and she was still alive and I was still fat. She was at the far end, half-hidden by the drinks machine, plugged into her Discman, and apparently engrossed in highlighting pages of notes. I was in a corner, covering my face with a book. There were only half a dozen other people around and I thought, if it ends up just me and her left on our own, I shall get up and walk out.
The door swung open and there was Mrs Law. You don’t mess with Mrs Law; she’s Psychology
and
Acting Deputy Head
and
Careers. If she decides she doesn’t like you, that’s your UCAS form down the pan. The Lower Sixth call her Judge Dredd, and she knows, and likes it.
‘I’m looking for volunteers,’ she announced.
Everyone shuffled but no one made any positive movement.
Mrs Law did her lighthouse-flash gaze round the room. ‘Jenny? Lissa? What about you?’ They got to their feet, frowning suspiciously at each other. ‘And you, Sita? Come along; Alex as well. Just a quick job, helping out your fellow students in the sports hall. Won’t take five minutes of your valuable time. Jasmine and Zoe, surely you’re not hiding behind that curtain? That’s it, out you come, a break will do you good.’
I saw Donna glance round and register alarm at the emptying common room. She unplugged her headphones swiftly. ‘I’ll come too, Mrs Law.’
Mrs Law smiled in a surprised way as Donna half-ran across to join her. Then she turned to go and, at the last moment, spotted me. ‘And Katherine.’
I thought you liked me
, I wanted to say. But she only fixed me with her death-ray eyes and held open the door. I laid the book down and got up as slowly as I could, hoping she might walk on ahead and I could peel off and take sanctuary in the toilets till the coast was clear. No such luck. She ushered us all out, then brought up the rear like a collie.
‘God, if we have to do circuit training or something, I’m going to tell her to get stuffed,’ muttered Lissa.
‘She can’t
make
us do PE.’ Alex swivelled her bracelet as she walked. ‘I mean, we’re out of this place in six weeks, forever. What can she do to us, really? Give us lines? I’d like to see her try.’
‘She could stop us sitting our exams,’ said Jenny.
‘What, for saying no to this lark, whatever it is? I
don’t
think so.’
Jenny shrugged.
We did as we were told.
When we got to the sports hall we saw there were four sets of equipment waiting for us. In each corner there was a short row of chairs, a stack of clipboards, a crash mat, a pile of newspapers, a roll of parcel tape, a ruler and a small polythene bag containing strips of black plastic. It looked as if we might be going to play some sort of hideous party game. A little group of Lower Sixth came forward to greet us.
‘This is my psychology class,’ said Mrs Law. ‘They need you to help them with an experiment.’ I saw Alex roll her eyes and slump against the wall bars, arms folded. Mrs Law mustn’t have seen because she carried straight on. ‘Emily, do you want to explain?’
A stocky girl stepped forward. ‘Hiya, thanks. Thanks for helping out.’ There were no answering smiles. ‘Yeah, well, what it is, is we want to set you a competitive task. We’re going to observe the different strategies people use to deal with it, the task, and evaluate which one is the most successful.’
Bollocks, I thought. Psychologists
never
tell you what they’re observing.
‘So we need you to get into pairs.’
No one moved.
‘Chop chop,’ said Mrs Law.
Alex sighed and slouched forward, pulling Sita by the hand. ‘Sooner we get this started, sooner we can get back. To our A LEVEL REVISION,’ she finished, glancing back over her shoulder at Mrs Law. Jasmine nodded at Zoe and I thought, oh fuck, I can see where this is headed.
‘Jenny, do you want to go with me?’ I asked, in an utterly crap, pathetic way. But Jenny and Lissa were already turning to go, together, which left –
Donna’s head was well down. ‘I feel sick, Mrs Law,’ she mumbled. ‘Need to go and get some Paracetamol.’
‘Paracetamol won’t help with nausea,’ said Mrs Law briskly. ‘What you need is to take your mind off it. Get cracking now; you’re holding the others up and I don’t believe they’ll thank you for that.’
Donna and I trudged across the slippery gym to where our knot of Lower Sixths were seated, holding on to their clipboards. Donna flopped down onto the crash mat and lay full length on her front, as if she was sunbathing, while I stood above her, chewing my nail and feeling like hell.
‘Right,’ said Emily. ‘I need you all to watch this carefully.’
She peeled a page of newspaper off the pile nearest and began to roll it up diagonally so it formed a long, thin tube. A Lower Sixth assistant handed her a bit of parcel tape and she stuck the final corner down so the tube couldn’t unravel itself. Then she took the ruler, held it against the middle, and bent the tube down at both ends. ‘You need to make each central strut exactly thirty centimetres long,’ she explained. ‘Do you see? Mand, can I have those ones I did earlier?’
Assistant Mand scrabbled under the wall bars and pulled out a bundle of other tubes, all with their ends bent over.
‘Now, what you’re going to do is use these struts to build three regular solids. A tetrahedron, a cube, and a dodecahedron.’ Mand started rooting in some binbags that she’d hauled out from behind the benches.
‘Come again?’ said Alex. ‘I quit maths after Year Eleven, you know.’
Emily wasn’t fazed. ‘Like this.’ She held out her arms and Mand handed her two finished shapes, well-jointed with parcel tape and plastic ties. They were pretty rigid considering they’d been made from paper. ‘Can you all see? A tetrahedron, like this, is a
four
-faced solid, and a cube, here, has
six
faces, and a dodecahedron, that’s what Mand’s holding, has got
twelve
.’ Silence. ‘OK? Great. And because this is a competition, we don’t want you to talk to any of the other couples, or ask us anything either. We’re here to observe. Ignore us. We’re invisible.’
‘Is there a prize?’ Alex again, just this side of insolent.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Law. ‘A beautiful box of Belgian chocolates for the winning couple.’
‘Oh my God, really?’
‘No. Emily?’
Emily shouted, ‘3-2-1-
go
,’ as if it was a proper race. The competitors exchanged disgusted glances, but started anyway.
Two minutes in and it looked as if Donna and I were going to be winning a category all of our own; the only team to complete the task without actually speaking. We sat at opposite edges of the crash mat with our backs to each other, while the clipboard girls scribbled away. I started rolling up tubes and taping them, because I’d worked out we only needed six to make up the tetrahedron and it seemed sensible to start with the easiest. Then, when I got to the fifth, Donna said, ‘
Shit
,’ under her breath. ‘Shit shit shit.’