I moved aside my curtain of hair and peeped out. Donna’s shoulders were jerking oddly but I couldn’t see what she was doing.
‘All right?’
‘Shit,’ she said, without looking at me.
I turned back to my rolling.
‘Katherine?’ she said in a tight voice. ‘How do you get these bloody things off?’
When I looked again she’d turned round and was holding her arm away from her body, and it was all stripy red round her cuff with scratching. A black cable tie bit into the skin just below the bone of her wrist and you could see the purple flush as the blood built up.
‘I can’t get it
off
,’ she hissed. ‘
Fucking
thing. The more I try, the tighter I make it. It’s agony. How do you undo it?’
‘I’ll ask those girls.’ I glanced over. Still writing.
‘No, don’t! I feel such a div.’
‘Well, you can’t undo them once they’re on, they’ve these little notches, can you see—’
‘My hand’s about to drop off—’
‘Hang about.’ I felt around in my purse and drew out my nail clippers between two fingers. ‘You might be able to use these to shear through the plastic.’
She took them off me and I saw her hands were trembling. She squeezed them experimentally near the flesh but she couldn’t get the angle. ‘Oh! Shit.’ The clippers flirted onto the crash mat, then bounced onto my shoe. I scooped them up and handed them back. She had another go and this time nicked herself properly. ‘Ow, fuck, look at that. Hey,’ she said with an effort, ‘can you do it?’
Putting my skin on hers, even though it was only fingertips on a wrist, made me want to die. I concentrated totally on the cable tie, and she might even have closed her eyes. Any moment now, I thought, Mrs Law’s going to glide over and ask us what we’re playing at. I wondered what the observation team were putting in their notes:
Subjects went into what at first appeared to be a consultation huddle but within minutes had developed into lesbian-style groping. They made very little progress with their polyhedra.
The tie pinged off and Donna yelped with relief. ‘Christ. Thanks,’ she said, rubbing the dark line where the notches had dug right in. ‘God, I’m so stupid. What a bloody bloody stupid thing to do. I’m always doing stupid things. Mum calls me Little Miss Dizzy. I just dive in, I never stop to think—’
‘Have you got any struts made yet?’ I asked quickly.
‘Too busy mutilating myself. Sorry. What can I be doing?’
‘Well, I’m nearly ready to make the pyramid. I might need you to hold some pieces in place while I tape the others together.’
We got into a kind of rhythm: peel, roll, stick, bend-bend, and I sneaked glances at her while we worked. Her hair was so sleek; different shades of blonde fell across each other, then back into place when she moved her head. Her thighs were so slender that even when she sat on her haunches, they hardly spread at all. There were light freckles on her heart-shaped face. I watched her till it hurt.
Donna had started talking like a radio DJ, rattling off questions and laughing a lot. ‘That’s such a neat pair of clippers, where d’you get them? I’ve never seen ones with a violin on the front. Cute. Hey, look at Lissa’s group, they’re making hexagons. Should we be making hexagons? Don’t you need hexagons for the dodecawhatsit? No? Shall I tell them? Won’t it be funny when they realize they’ve done it wrong. Hey, you could use those tie things if you were a criminal, bind your hostages up, they’d never escape. Shall I tear off some pieces of tape for speed? Oh, ow,
ow
. My God, look at that, I’ve taken all the hairs off my forearm. I bet you could use this stuff instead of waxing, bloody painful though. Mind you, so’s waxing. Can you believe there’s women who pull their own hair out, for kicks? I mean, on their heads, so they go bald? Mental.’
We got two shapes completed before the bell went for dinner, so technically we beat everyone, although none of the Lower Sixth said that. They didn’t even tell us what they’d been observing.
As we filed out of the gym, Donna was saying, ‘We won, didn’t we? Didn’t we win?’
‘You are so sad, Donna French,’ said Alex, but in that way which means it’s only a friendly thing to say and not bullying.
‘Sad yourself, loser. Look, I’ve made myself a victory wreath.’ She was stringing cable ties together into a large-looped chain. ‘Smart, eh? Might wear it tonight, essential clubwear.’
‘Looks a bit spiky to me,’ said Lissa. ‘You’d have somebody’s eye out if they came up for a snog.’
I was hanging at the back of the group when Donna turned to me. ‘You are so fucking clever, though. You deserve this.’ She draped the plastic chain over my hair. ‘Honest,’ she turned back to the others. ‘You should have seen her. Dead organized, worked out how many struts we needed for each shape before we started, had a proper strategy, no, stop laughing, to finish each shape before we started the next because that was quicker—’
I was half-smiling in case it was a piss-take, to show I was in on the joke.
‘No, seriously,’ Donna went on. ‘If you’re ever in desperate need of a paper polyhedron and time is of the essence, Katherine’s your girl.’ She raised her palm to me.
I gawped for a second, then it clicked what she wanted and I slapped her hand. ‘Yo,’ she said.
‘Actually, it’s Kat,’ I said. ‘My name. Kat. I’ve changed it.’
‘Miaow,’ said Alex.
Nicky appeared round the corner and Donna let out a squeak of joy. ‘Nicks, Nicks, wait up.’ She broke into a run. Nicky held her arms open for Big Hugs.
‘See you then, Kat,’ Donna shouted over her shoulder.
*
I don’t know how long I was there. Time’s different in hospitals. I don’t even know if it was another part of the same building, or a different place altogether. There was still that giveaway smell of cleaning fluid and canteen. There was still nowhere to be private, people asking you questions constantly and putting needles in your arm. I didn’t take much notice. I kept my eyes closed a lot of the time because it was better in my head.
The night before we did it, he took me to a playground and sat me on a swing. He swung himself like a maniac.
‘You could launch yourself off into the sky, it’d be easy. Lose yourself in all them stars,’ he shouted as he swished past me. ‘Go higher. See if you can go right over the top bar. I bet you could if you got enough momentum up.’ His hair flowed round his face, then back, blown tight away from his hairline. I slowed down to watch, saw the chain links shift, heard the creak of the giant bolts.
Then, without warning, he jumped right off in mid-swing, legs flailing. He landed hard and staggered, but didn’t fall. ‘Hit the ground running, that’s what they say. That’s the secret,’ he called across the darkness.
He strolled over and stood close in front of me, gripping the chains near my hips. ‘There’s no need to be scared. I’ll show you something.’ He drew the swing seat towards him and held it for a moment, then let me fall away. ‘Come on.’
I remember scuffing my shoes hard into the grass to stop myself, and the whole metal frame shuddering around me. He took my hand and led me over to the roundabout.
‘We’re at the centre of the universe, you and me,’ he said.
I laughed.
‘No, we are. I can prove it. Hop on.’
The roundabout was a solid cylinder shape with bright tube handles intersecting the top into cake-slices. We each sat in a slice and he pushed hard on the ground with his foot to start us moving.
‘Lie back. Go on.’
I rested my neck on a cold handle.
‘No, don’t close your eyes. Look up.’
Orion whizzed round, Ursa Major wheeled from one edge of my vision to the other.
‘I told you. The stars revolve around you. You’re the centre of everything. We are. Us.’
A nurse came in. ‘You’ve got visitors,’ she said brightly. ‘Shall we have these curtains open, let a bit of sunshine in?’
I wriggled myself up in bed, heart beating in case one of them was Roger, or Dad. I knew it wouldn’t be Dad, though, really. ‘You’d have broken your mother’s heart with all this,’ he said, the last time I saw him. ‘You were everything to her. Whatever made you do it?’
‘Love,’ I told him.
‘You don’t know the meaning of the word,’ he said, and started crying.
‘I do!’ I shouted. ‘Roger loves me. He wants this baby.’
‘Does he heck. He wants shut of you.’
‘He says he’ll look after me.’
‘He’s too busy looking after himself. Drunk on his own charm. Well, you go your own way from now on, it’s nowt to do with me. You’ve made your choice as far as I can see.’
‘Are you decent now?’ asked the nurse. ‘Come here and let me put a comb through your hair. Have you any cologne?’
The door opened and an elderly woman in a black and purple shell suit walked in, followed by a grey-haired man in a patterned sweater and baggy pants. I turned to the nurse in confusion.
‘Who are they?’ Because I didn’t like the look of them at all. Especially her.
‘I’m your rescuer, that’s who I am. I’m family. My name’s Pollyanna Millar, and this is Vince. We’ve come to tek you home.’
The invitation was in my pigeonhole on the last day of term.
Skool’s Out
Summer’s Here
and Donna’s 18!!!
Come and get slaughtered before the results!!!
The time: 7th August, 9pm –1am
The place: Steem
Dress: Bad Girl!!!
I checked Rebecca’s pigeonhole to see if she had one too, but it was empty, spotless. Everyone was clearing out. Lockers were being moved, ancient pieces of food and forgotten books being unearthed, while Mrs Law barked instructions across the common room and handed out binbags.
‘We want
no trace
of you by twelve o’clock,’ she yelled above the noise of the radio. ‘Anything left at the end of the day will be
thrown out
.’
I stuffed the invite in my purse. Obviously I wouldn’t be going, but it was nice to have got one. The last party invitation I’d had was completely bogus. It had come a week after my birthday and had looked like a proper card from a real person.
PULSE invites you to rave the nite away with your mates
, the gold ticket said. ‘It’s a con. They get your name off th’ electoral roll,’ said Poll, destroying my last vestige of hope. ‘It’s a computer as sends ’em out.’
‘Oh, that,’ sniffed Rebecca when I showed her Donna’s card. ‘I heard them twittering on about it yesterday. Her dad’s paying for the whole lot, you know. Club hire, drinks, everything.’
‘Are you going?’ I asked, madly.
‘No, of course not.’ Her eyes bulged at the idea. ‘Anyway, I didn’t get an invite.’
A little thrill of mean pleasure went through me.
‘She probably thought you wouldn’t like it.’
‘Which I wouldn’t.’
‘Hey, you could come as my guest, though. It might be a laugh.’ I tried to keep my voice light, as if I might be joking.
‘You’re not really going, are you?’ She stopped ramming folders into carrier bags for a moment and goggled at me.
I considered for a second or two, and this is what went through my head:
‘I’ve got a recital that evening, anyway. You’re welcome to come to that if you’ve nothing else on.’
‘I’ll have to check,’ I said, which was polite speak for Even if Poll allowed me out after dark, I’d rather watch Maggie knit dishcloths.
*
‘I’ve been invited to a party,’ I told Cissie, for something to say.
We were tucking into crumpets and jam and I’d crammed down four, on the grounds that they’d be making a reappearance later.
‘Ooh, how lovely. Whose is it?’
‘A girl at school. I don’t know her so well, she’s inviting all sorts. Loads of people. She’s in Badminton Club and Choir and Dram Soc, one of those types with a hundred close friends.’
‘And will it be at her house?’ Cissie’s always keen to hear reports on how other people keep their homes.
I shook my head. ‘It’s going to be at Steem.’
Cissie looked blank.
‘That big building opposite W. H. Smiths. The one that got set on fire.’
‘Used to be Ethel Austin? I’m with you.’ Cissie was disappointed. ‘Funny place for a party. I tek it they’ve put a roof on now. You’ll need to watch your purse, there’s thieves everywhere.’
‘I’m not going.’
‘Why ever not?’
I let a huge lump of jam drop off the spoon and kept my eyes on it while I answered.
‘It wouldn’t be fair to leave Poll on her own at night. She’s not been well.’
‘First I’ve heard of it. What’s up wi’ her?’
I took a bite of crumpet while I thought of something. Do you ever wish you’d not started a conversation?
‘She’s had pains.’
‘Where?’
‘In her legs.’
‘Pains in her legs?’
‘Her feet, really. She’s having trouble with her ankles swelling. And she gets bad headaches from straining to see.’
Cissie narrowed her eyes. ‘She’s had those a while. She teks her tablets and they soon shift. Are you sure she’s not trying it on? I mean, we all get swollen ankles at our age. Look at that.’ She pulled her pleated skirt over her knee and twitched a slipper at me. ‘I used t’ have beautiful ankles, me.’
‘You still do, love,’ shouted Ally from the door. ‘Put ’em away or you’ll cause a stampede.’ She waddled in, chuckling. ‘She’s a minx, your aunty. We have to watch her, you know.’
‘Great-great-aunt,’ I muttered, seeing the sleeves strain across Ally’s upper arms as she stacked crockery. I stuffed the rest of the crumpet in quickly to clear the last plate. Then I sat for a minute with my jaw working like a cow because you have to chew stuff well, otherwise it’s hell to coax back up.
Cissie was admiring Ally’s new ring.
‘It’s a belter, in’t it?’ said Ally. ‘Alan give it me last time I was in Leeds.’ She lowered her lashes and put her head to one side as if she was posing for a photograph: the Thoughtful Bride.