Mum was right when she called him a slob. In fact, I might be feeling some of the things she’d felt years ago, when she still loved him enough to be disappointed. I saw now that she’d given him up, for good.
My timid, blind love was finally slipping away. I didn’t mourn its going. In an arid way, I was relieved.
If you think I stopped feeling guilty, you’re wrong. I had even more to be guilty about now, and it was sicklier and more complicated. But I just buried it deeper, where it did more damage.
A few weeks later I visited Gwen at the kennels. I hadn’t got a Saturday job, of course. The £40 had stopped that. He’d given me another £20 the next week, too, so I knew I couldn’t try.
The dogs barked at me, flinging themselves against the wire. I was standing in one of the pens, leaning against the netting. I wore my suede coat. Heavens, I felt grown-up in it . . . The tight, buckled belt around my podgy middle, and around my chin that furry sophistication. I ate too much because I was unhappy; it was all stodge because we were poor. I was going to lose weight. I was going to get out of all this. My coat had helped me make this decision.
‘Let’s go up the Sheraton tonight.’
‘What?’ Gwen leaned on her broom and stared. ‘Why?’
‘Pick up a couple of millionaires.’
She gaped, then her face relaxed. ‘Gosh, Porks. For a moment I thought you were serious.’
She went on with the sweeping. I was serious; at least, now I’d said it. I was wearing my cream high heels, which pinched. I shifted on to the other foot and watched Gwen ducking through the door and pushing out the straw. Her jeans were muddy, just like my Dad’s trousers; the floor was wet, with tan streaks. The kennels was a gloomy place; at least I thought so. It was hidden from the road by evergreen trees and woven fencing, mostly broken. It reminded me of home. Between the pens ran a concrete path; it was slimy with moss where the water butt leaked. The animal stench was familiar.
‘All this for a fiver,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you go somewhere nicer?’
Gwen lifted her face; it was radiant. ‘I love it.’
‘It’s filthy.’
‘I like a wallow.’
If she weren’t so busy she might have added: no wonder you don’t like it. At your place it’s wallow, wallow, all the time. Gwen said things like this; she thought she was allowed to, being my best friend.
Thinking this made me angry, even though she hadn’t said a word. She was untying the lead of a hefty brown poodle. It started passionately licking her face.
‘You’re such a goody-goody,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to go with Sandra instead.’
‘Go where?’
‘The Sheraton.’
She turned, her face blazing. ‘I’m not a goody-goody. Mum and Dad wouldn’t let me.’
‘Why should they know?’
‘Would yours?’
‘No.’
‘Wouldn’t they mind?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said quickly, hoping they would.
‘Darling Bennie.’ The poodle was standing on its hind legs now, showing its bald underparts. Its woolly arms were around her neck. ‘Who’s a lovely boy-boy?’
‘Go on. Say you’ll come.’
‘Who loves his Gwenny-Wenny, then?’ His pink tongue slurped over her smile. ‘It’ll be full of old men.’ She gazed at the dog’s face. ‘Won’t it, Bennie? You know what they’ll be after . . . Only one thing.’
‘So’s Bennie, if you ask me.’
‘Porky! You’re getting awfully coarse. You never used to be.’
‘I’m just facing up to the facts of life.’
‘You didn’t even know them, two years ago. Hey steady on, Ben.’ She struggled with the arms. ‘Remember Yvonne? Us two little innocents?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anyway, it’s Sue’s party tonight. Remember?’
I followed her as she collected dogs down the pens, opening one gate after another. Four large dogs bounded ahead, dragging her along. Through the side gate, a cinder path led down towards the canal. I hobbled after her on my high heels. On one side lay the school sports ground; on the other lay the riding-school field, with jumps made from oil drums. The dogs howled with joy; a piebald pony lifted its head and lowered it again. It had never crossed my mind to take our dog for a walk; none of us ever had. Gwen laughed as the dogs pulled her along.
‘I can’t keep up!’ I shouted.
‘See you tonight!’ she called. ‘I’m wearing my blue midi.’ Her voice grew fainter. ‘Can’t wait to see Nick’s face.’
Nick was her so-called boyfriend this term. I watched her from the back. The sun caught her hair clips. A smaller figure now, she half-skipped, half-ran. She wore her usual Saturday gear – dirty, Snoopy-patched jeans. I felt empty inside. I felt this most of the time nowadays. I watched Gwen, skipping down her sunny path.
Back home Dad said, ‘Where’ve you been, then? I been worried.’
Dads should say this, of course, if you’ve gone off somewhere without a word.
‘All dressed up,’ he said.
‘I went to the shops, then I went to see Gwen.’
‘All dressed up and looking so pretty. Let’s see my girl.’
His hand was on my buckle. Dad’s hands were the ones that always undid my coat. Too big, his hands; too wrong. Gwen, who had bought her coat too, said that Nick tried to unbuckle it in the bus shelter but she’d slapped his hand and said, ‘Naughty, naughty.’
‘Dad, don’t.’ I was pressed against the fridge. ‘Got to unpack the shopping.’
‘Oh, Heather.’ His voice was already hoarse. ‘Give us a hug.’
He was humped against me, trembling. Lately he’d become more urgent.
‘I can’t. Where’s Teddy?’ See, we admitted this now.
‘Still with his little mate . . . Heth, my love, I’ve been waiting here.’ His breath was hot on my face. ‘Waiting for my darling girl. Just sitting here on my ownsome.’ His hands ran up and down my jumper.
‘You been having a drink?’ I was the only one who could ask this, and only when we were embracing like this and he daren’t be angry.
‘Just the one, Heth.’ He was speaking the truth, I could tell by his manner. ‘Waiting for my girl.’ He pushed up my jumper. ‘Waiting for my Heather-flower to come home.’
His hand stopped. ‘What’s this?’
‘What’s what?’
‘This thing here.’ He nearly touched my bra with his finger, and stopped.
‘I told you, I’ve been shopping.’
I gazed down at my new brassière. It was black.
He paused. ‘Don’t know I like this.’
‘It’s not yours to like.’ I kept my eyes on the black, lacy cups. ‘It’s mine. I was bored of white.’
‘That’s for bad girls. That colour.’
I didn’t reply: but I am a bad girl, and who made me it? I said, ‘I am fifteen, you know.’
‘You been a bad girl, Heth? You been naughty?’ He clenched himself against me, his voice muffled. ‘You been doing something you shouldn’t?’
Him daring to say that – it took away my breath. How could he? Head buried, he was fumbling with the new bra clip.
‘You got a boyfriend, then?’
I shook my head. He was still fumbling; the bra was a front-opener, but I wasn’t telling. I felt buzzingly blank. I’d bought my bra for all sorts of reasons, but not to make him talk this way. He was kissing me more roughly than usual; inside my mouth his tongue pushed round, thick and muscular. I’d wanted to change my bra before I saw him but I hadn’t had time. I’d wanted it to be a new secret, just for myself. On second thoughts, perhaps I’d bought it to put him off, so he’d realize I was grown-up now.
Oh, I don’t know why I bought it . . . I just wanted it. Now he was spoiling it like he spoiled all my clothes.
He was moving me towards the door. ‘Come and give us a kiss,’ he murmured. ‘You big bad girl.’ Still clenched together, my black breasts squashed a
gainst him, we were edging towards my bedroom.
‘There’s a party tonight. Must wash my hair.’
‘Just five minutes,’ he moaned, as he always did. ‘Just a little five minutes.’
As we sank on to my bed, I realized that I wasn’t feeling entirely blank. Something was stirring.
It was disgust. Disgust that he wasn’t shocked by my bra, as he should be, but aroused. What had I hoped for? Wasn’t I stupid, still to hope?
Later that evening, when Mum and Teddy were back, I asked him to give me a lift to the party. Such an ordinary request never sounded natural, when I asked it. The words had an edge, as if we both knew he had something to pay. Driving me a couple of miles was scarcely an equal bargain, but now I was older a threat hung in the air: dare not to. Of course he never dared refuse.
As I climbed into the cab I thought of the twenty other girls; I knew them all and they all thought they knew me. All of them were being given lifts by their Dads; they wouldn’t have the first idea, not in a hundred years, what I meant by repayment.
‘You’re the smart one tonight.’ He looked at my dress. Afterwards we always acted normally together, even when we were alone, as if nothing had happened. ‘It’s nobody special you’re meeting?’
‘Just the same old crowd.’ I rubbed the cinders off my heel.
In fact Jonathan was there, as I knew he would be, and he was fetching me a rum and Coke, as I knew he would.
‘You look glam,’ he said, sitting down beside me.
‘Couple of these and I’m anybody’s,’ giggled Gwen, plonking herself on the arm of the settee. This was a blatant untruth. She was nobody’s except Nick’s, and hardly his at all. She let him do her homework for her; he was much cleverer than she was. She let him kiss her, at the suitable moment, and hold her hand. The rest of the time he sat around while she cleaned out her guinea pigs and parked herself for hours at her dressing table, asking him rhetorical questions about her looks.
Jonathan, my one, was incredibly tall and narrow. He was Nick’s best friend and both of us, I suspected, felt an air of obligation about getting together. He’d already held my hand in the pictures, when the four of us went together. Tonight we were due for our first kiss.
There was a special room for this, of course. Sue had got rid of her parents and turned off the lights in the lounge, where the snogging was already in progress. Jonathan and I were dancing to the Bee Gees – this was two years before the Sex Pistols and anyway we were an old-fashioned bunch, you’ve seen how we hadn’t known the facts of life until we were thirteen. We jiggled about, wooden-faced like the others, avoiding each other’s eyes. The lounge door was near us; when the record stopped we could hear the dark, concentrating silence within, and somebody choking on a cigarette. After the third dance, though we’d hardly worn ourselves out, he said, ‘Phew.’
I’d caught him pinching his digital watch, to see the time. We all knew that Sue’s parents were coming back at twelve.
‘You whacked?’ he asked, looking down from his height.
I nodded. He took my hand and led me into the lounge.
‘Ow!’ said a voice.
‘Sorry,’ he said, and squeezed my hand.
We stood still for a moment. The bodies in there made it stuffy; it smelt of smoke and everybody’s different perfumes. It was pitch dark.
‘Laurie!’ someone whispered. ‘Don’t!’
Somebody else giggled.
Jonathan leaned down and whispered, ‘That’s Janet.’
‘Wasn’t it Yvonne?’
‘Nobody on earth giggles like Janet.’
‘That’s true.’
He shifted his hand, lacing his fingers through mine, and squeezed. We stayed standing there; we felt, rather than heard, the room creaking and sighing around us. It was like being in the middle of a hedgerow. Those faint, scratchy sounds were girls, in their micromesh tights, rearranging their legs.
Jonathan leaned down and whispered, ‘Shall we get out?’ He paused. ‘Do say if you want to stay – it’s difficult because I can’t see your expression.’
‘No, let’s get out.’
‘What a relief!’ He started edging through the bodies, towards the french window. ‘Hold on tight. I don’t want to lose you.’
I gripped his hand as we felt our way round the armchairs, and the warm bulk of the humans in them.
‘Whoops,’ said Jonathan. ‘Sorry.’
We arrived; it was easier to see here, because of the street lights beyond the gardens. He fiddled with the catch and opened the french window. We stepped out. We stood on the chill, dewy lawn. He breathed deeply, then he whispered,
‘Blessed is thy silence, oh night, after all that snapping elastic.’
The garden was bathed in a dim, white light. Behind us stood the house, packed with people; music thumped, as if its heart were beating. We stood silently, breathing the sharp winter air, then he crooked his arm.
‘Ready, darling?’ he drawled. ‘Let’s inspect the dahlias.’
I put my arm through his and we scrunched slowly down the path.
‘Useful chappies, gardeners,’ I said. ‘What ho.’
‘What ho indeed.’
He stopped, and plucked something from the wall. ‘Have a peach.’
I opened my mouth and he pretended to pop something in. My lips brushed his fingers.
‘Scrumptious?’ he asked. ‘Spiffing?’
‘Sooper-dooper, darling. Here.’ I copied him, plucking air from the wall. Against my fingertips his mouth felt warm.
I put my arm back into his. We proceeded around the garden. It was so small we had to go slowly, or we’d arrive back at the french windows.
We stopped at a row of canes, with dead stalks still clinging.
I touched them. ‘Not quite ripe.’
‘You mean the grapes?’ he drawled.
‘Quite so.’
‘Do hope they’ll be ready for when the Duchess comes to dine.’
I sighed. ‘Oh, this social whirl.’
He stopped and picked a cabbage leaf, rolling it up and slotting it into the buttonhole of my dress. I did the same for him, poking one into his jacket.
‘Let’s give them the slip,’ he said. ‘What a spiffing wheeze. Let’s hop on the yacht.’
‘Madeira, yet again? . . . What about Majoorca?’
He squeezed my arm.
Suddenly he lunged off to the bottom of the garden. A garage stood there. Against its wall was a heap of bricks. He climbed to the top and held out his hand. I climbed up. He hauled himself on to the garage roof and sat there, panting. Then he hauled me up. In his normal voice he asked,
‘You all right? Tights OK?’
I nodded.
‘My little sister climbs like a monkey, you should see her. She’s only eight.’
‘What’s she called?’ I asked.
‘Maxine. Awful name, isn’t it? She hates it too. You’d like her.’
‘Do you climb with her?’
‘When nobody’s looking. Are you freezing?’
I nodded and he put his arm round me. We sat hunched, looking at the lighted windows of the houses.
‘Have you ever had an Advent calendar?’ he asked.
‘No. What is it?’
‘Little windows and doors; you open each one and it’s the most magical sight . . .’
We gazed at the assorted yellow windows.
‘I’ll buy you one before Christmas,’ he said. ‘It’s not too late to catch up.’
We sat there in silence. I hardly dared breathe, in case I let out my joy. He touched my nose.
‘Hmm, as I thought: icy.’
I touched his. ‘So’s yours.’
He tilted my head round and kissed me, terribly gently. I don’t know how long it lasted. I heard the wind soughing through the garden trees, miles below.
Finally he drew back.
He said shakily, ‘I’ve been longing to do that for two terms.’
I couldn’t repl
y straight away. I said, ‘Have you?’
‘Haven’t had much practice, though.’
‘Haven’t you?’
‘In fact, none at all.’ He rested his head on my shoulder. ‘Zero.’
‘Why not?’
‘Never met anybody else I wanted.’
There was a long silence.
‘Girls are more experienced than boys, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘I mean, being mature earlier . . .’
I stayed rigid. I couldn’t reply.
‘One of the things about you . . .’ he began, and stopped.
He wanted me to speak. At last I whispered, ‘What things?’
‘You don’t seem like most of them . . . sort of brash and giggly . . . pretending to be all experienced.’
At last I said, ‘Don’t I?’
‘No. You seem – well, innocent. Proper. Just right . . . as if you don’t have to pretend anything.’ He stopped. ‘You’re shaking. Here.’
He was struggling out of his jacket.
‘Don’t!’ I said sharply.
He stopped, one arm in and one out. ‘But your poor teeth are chattering. Listen.’
‘Please don’t!’
He stood up. ‘I’d hate it if you caught pneumonia. Your parents would never let me see you again.’
I stood up too. Inside me, something screamed: stop this! I can’t bear it! It made me desperate, hearing him talk this way. Didn’t he understand . . . couldn’t he see? Couldn’t he tell that underneath my clothes my nipples were sore from my Dad rubbing them?
Just then he took something from his pocket and knelt down. It was a piece of chalk. On the garage roof he wrote, swiftly, in huge childish letters: I LUV HEVER. He stood up, then he dropped to his knees again and added: FOR EVER AND EVER.
Back in the house I told him that I was going to powder my nose. He said he’d make me a hot rum, and went into the kitchen. Perhaps he just thought I was too frozen to speak. I paused for a moment, looking back.