Choices Shape, Losses Break

by Nia Lucas

  I yell, “I'M REFORMING!”, saluting back.

  Nico’s laugh is loud, “The fuck you are Lorn. See you around Davies”, with a final wink, hands in pockets, Nico heads off.

  Chapter Twelve

  Monday 11th December 1995

  “What did you write for the essay question Lorna?”, John's voice carries over the quiet pub background noise.

  We’ve just finished our first modular A Level Biology exam of the year, a hideous paper that I’m positive I’ve failed. I grimace at John, a tall, friendly lad with wavy brown hair and give him a summary of my answer. I’m laughing at his horrified expression when I’m distracted by a familiar tall figure entering the bar and a soft Scouse accent that I would know anywhere. My heart does a little twinge from the familiarity of the sound. Dad. He’s with his workmates on some sort of Christmas Do by the looks of things.

  It's easy to forget sometimes that my Dad's office is just round the corner from the school where I now attend Sixth Form. I forget because I’ve not been there for months, I no longer assume that I’m welcome. Dad has never been to the flat and he’s only visited the pub once since I left home, despite it being five minutes from his house. I don’t think about that if I can help it. I see Dan every day at school and he’s at the flat a lot, loving the escape hatch it provides from life under my mother’s reign. To be honest, I spend more time with Dan now than we did when I lived at home.

  As my classmates dissect the exam paper, I ignore my Dad’s unexpected proximity by heading to a quiet corner of the bar where I lean, contemplating my current life challenge. Christmas. See, it's been my plan for a while to make this first Christmas living together, really special. I know that Lee and Shay have never had a 'proper' one, their years at Albion sound grim and without any sort of magic and the flat Christmas' were nondescript and entirely forgettable, no presents for either of them aside from a selection box from Jock. I want to make this one special, I want to try and make up for those years of neglect.

  For Shay's 20th birthday in September, Gill gave me the function room at the pub and the adjacent bar and Brian helped me to contact a load of the lads from the old building crew, including the lad who DJ'd that night at the Garage club. Gill also let me use the skittle alley as a sort of 'bunk house' for the people coming from far away. Han, Chris, Dan, Rosa, Ti, Ellie, Jenny and Nico joined the surprisingly long list of my home and new Sixth Form acquaintances who were invited, the night billed as simply 'a party'. It was amazing, the DJ played achingly cool urban-underground tracks that wowed my rural peers and it was ace, Shay's blinding grin making me teary.

  Lee's birthday in October was celebrated in a more chilled manner. I organised for Jock, Brian and Mrs. Brian to come for a surprise Birthday meal with the boys and an overnight stay at the pub, paying for it all by doing weeks of extra breakfast and cleaning shifts. I cried when I saw Lee's astonished face as he walked into the restaurant and it was a lovely twenty-four hours. Lee smiled for the whole thing, only scowling when I brought out a cake and started singing but we all laughed and took the piss, softening his fury. That night, Lee told me that nobody had ever done anything like that for him, he'd never had a cake or a party. In bed that night, Shay pissing about God knows where, Lee took the opportunity to love me so gently and reverently that I cried.

  Currently Christmas is £300 short of where I need it to be, despite me working all sorts of weird extra jobs (I even did a photo session for Nath for some flyers) but with only a week or so left, I’m worried as I stare at my empty coke glass.

  “Lorna?”, Dad's voice comes from behind me, making me jump. Shit.

  I turn and smile weakly, “Hey Dad, you OK?”

  Dad’s gripping his pint and looking deeply uncomfortable, “Yeah love, just out with the work lot for Christmas lunch. How are you? You OK?”, I nod and tell him about the exam.

  His smile is forced, “That's...that's good darlin', that's great. You're a hard worker. So, er, how are things?”, his raised eyebrow indicates that he's not asking about school.

  I shrug, “Yeah, good. Lee and Shay have been working for the company building the new housing estate on the ring road”

  The silence as Dad nods becomes uncomfortable and rearranging my face into a smile, I nod my head towards my classmates, “Gotta go Dad, I'll, er, I'll see you before Christmas I guess?”, I give him a weak, sideways hug and scurry back to the table of my peers, trying to avoid crying.

  A few seconds later, lost in thought as my peers chat around me, I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn to see Dad right behind me.

  He takes my hand and presses something into it, “I can't do much darlin' but I can do this. Spend it on what you need, eh? It's an expensive time of year. Merry Christmas sweetheart”, and with a kiss to my cheek, he walks off.

  I can feel what's in my hands. It's a roll of notes. A furtive glimpse suggests that I may now have a solution to my budget issue. I close my eyes and feel tears roll down, I wipe them swiftly away but a confused-looking John sees them.

  I smile weakly, “I've gotta go John, I need to catch my brother in the canteen at lunch. Don't sweat the essay question, it was all bollocks mate. See you in class tomorrow”, and with a wave, I peg it out of the pub.

  Dan always buys my lunch at school- somehow he’s convinced Dad that the costs have gone up this year and now has extra cash at his disposal. Dan is unusually fierce about my acceptance of this donation and I like the daily ritual of sitting with him and Han even though I’m not a big eater. Over our lunch catch-up, I tell him about Dad and with a big sigh, Dan confesses that he cannot face a three person Christmas Dinner at home and that he wants to come to the flat with us on Christmas Day. I hug him tight, making him blush in front of his mates and we agree that he will come to mine after breakfast on the big day and he’ll stay for lunch and most of the afternoon. His smile is heartbreaking.

  After lunch, Han and I have our only lesson of the day together; Diploma of Achievement. Sitting at the back, whispering like naughty kids. Han re-does my hair, her skills sorely needed to make me presentable. Life with the boys leaves me with little time for proper girl-grooming. They have to be at work at bloody 7.30am and to save bus fare cash, they drop me at school, giving me all of twenty seconds in the shower in the morning, although Lee convinced me this morning that sharing the shower would save time. It did not. It ended with shagging and Shay threatening to kill us both.

  The teachers at school know that my living arrangements are somewhat unorthodox for a student and as such, I have permission to hang out in the library until the school day starts. I had to meet with my Personal Tutor at the start of term to explain that I live independently from my parents. Their main concern was who to invite to parents events and who would sign trip permission forms whilst my concerns were about paying the fucking rent and having enough money for food. We were hardly in sync.

  With their current job and the early start, the boys come and get me at 4pm, giving us a longer evening together and I love being collected by them. I love that first few minutes of reunion, of hearing about their day, them asking about mine. We have a routine too. Thursday is food shopping at Tesco, done in the two hour slot before I start work for Gill. It's an exercise in complete and total bedlam and each week I fully expect us to be slapped with a banning order from the Store Manager. I can't put into words the things Shay did with the cantaloupe melons last week but Lee and I could not stop laughing for four straight hours. Honest to God, it's like taking toddlers out. Big, fit, funny, gorgeous overgrown toddlers.

  Sleeping every night in their bed has taught me a lot about the boys I love. Shay is still a lunatic, easily distracted, full of energy, loud, vocal and cheeky. In bed, this results in explosive sex, little preamble, the pushing of boundaries and blushes on my part. Lee is a very different kettle of fish. Lee plays with me, like a bloody cat with its prey. Lee has stamina that I never imagined and he loves me in positions and for lengths of time that seem impossible. Our life
together has the unfortunate side effect of regular bouts of cystitis, the price I pay in Cranberry Juice. Using the vibrator bought in jest all those months ago, Shay and I are experimenting, working up to him putting it there. It's a weird sensation but the effect this experimenting has on O'Driscoll is more than a little, ahem, stimulating. Last week, he dragged me to bed at 9pm and didn't let me sleep until after midnight.

  So, here I am, just over ten months since I first laid eyes on Seamus O'Driscoll and Leon Barrett. As Han re-plaits my hair and my poor teacher drones on about Citizenship, I adjust my denim sleeveless cropped shirt and fiddle with the plaid maxi-skirt that’s a good two inches too long. I have a pair of market-stall knock-off Timberlands on and my black puffer jacket sits on the back of my chair. As I look around, I realise that everybody here goes home at night to some sort of family home, however fractured or 'blended'. I don't. I go home to adult life. They daydream about crushes, nights out, bands and friend dramas. Me? I daydream about what I'll cook for tea, what extra work I can do this week for Christmas money, how I can get Lee's cooking to be less deadly and how I can get Shay into college.

  It was a week into our cohabitation when I discovered that Shay can't read or write. I’d asked him to read me some instructions while I built the bathroom shelving. He threw a strop, I lost my temper, we stood in the lounge sniping at each other until we were nose to nose.

  “I just needed you to tell me what I needed to do next, you fucking twat, that was all”

  “I CAN'T FUCKIN' READ IT, BITCH”, his eyes went wide when he realised what he'd admitted.

  Shay is massively dyslexic (“When Jock said it at school, I fuckin' thought he was telling the woman I had a massive dick.....I thought, 'How'd you know, you perv?'”). Jock says that the energy that Shay has had to put into developing masking and coping strategies for his limitations, actually take up a lot of his concentration.

  “Even Brian didnae know lassie. He's far more cannie than he lets on, our Seamus. Sharper than he comes across”, Jock sounded proud as he talked.

  Last week, the boys asked me what I wanted for Christmas.

  So I told them. “I want you both to start evening college in January. I want Lee to do that electrics course that Brian said he should do and I want Shay to do Adult Literacy. If you want me to, I'll do it with you both, although I'll be no use at electrics. That's what I want”. I’d stared at the TV, not looking at either of them, too nervous about their reaction.

  They didn't say anything but three days later, I found the college prospectus in the car and the flyer from the library about adult literacy classes in Shay's pocket when I was doing the washing. Lee told me last night that Jock's got him a place on the course. Shay later mumbled something about needing me to go to 'the fuckin' library to see some woman'. Sheila is the Head Librarian in the town library. She does the literacy classes. I kissed Shay for so long that I burnt the tea.

  The bell goes for the end of this lesson and Han heads off to music, a hug and a promise to catch up this evening because she's coming for tea. I head over to the sports hall, to the dance studio. My space. Having discovered this place upon my arrival at the school, I come here at least a couple of times a week, making full use of the 'Free Hire for Students' offer. It's got an incredible sound system and a lighting control panel that allows me to dance in the near darkness of a club, inspiring me. It's important that I keep practicing because, well, because I might need some new moves in the future.

  Justin did come back from Ibiza, his hippy romance having ended and he has five months to kill before his employment on the White Isle starts again. He's temping at an Ad Agency in Shoreditch and renting a little room in a shared house in Hoxton but Justin has brought back with him a spectre from the sunshine which makes me nervous. My lovely, elfin, funny friend is enslaved fully by a cocaine habit which robs him of all his money and artificially amplifies a personality that was very lovely on its own, no amplification needed. When he's sober and it's just me and him chatting, he is his usual, lovely, acerbic self and I love him. When he’s coked up and hyper, he's hard fucking work and best treated carefully. That aside, he lets me and the lads stay on his lounge floor after work every Saturday night since October, his house mates raising no objections as we leave a pack of beer each week as our thanks for their hospitality.

  Justin offered me a dancing job in Ibiza this summer and it's a genuine offer. If I buy my plane ticket, he can guarantee me at least two nights a week work at his club from the opening parties in May through to the closing parties in September. He’s got a friend whose Grandmother owns a small flat in Ibiza Town and she looks for a reliable, sensible tenant for the entire summer. Justin thinks I'd be perfect. The rent is dirt cheap, the location is run-down but handy and Justin would be there to hold my hand and help me secure other work to fill the weeks.

  Cuddled up on his bed one Sunday morning, Justin and I were chatting, “Sweets, I can’t offer the Two Pricks work in Ibiza. Moody-knickers scares the punters and he says he won’t do the podium stuff any more. As for Irish Hot-Stuff, he’s a fucking liability and he doesn’t have a passport does he? Lor, it’s you I want out there love. I’ve got loads of work for you but I’ve got nothing for them”, Justin had patted my hand and smiled sadly.

  I’m reluctant to consider it without a job for the boys, I have no clue how or why I would want to be away from them for four months. I also have no idea how I would miss eight weeks of my A Level studies. Justin had just patted my knee and told me that he needed an answer by February as that’s when he recruits.

  This afternoon in the dance studio changing rooms, I strip down to my silver hot-pants and bra-top, my body starting to relax from the familiar feel of Lycra against my skin. Since my ejection from my family home, dance has become even more important to me, more precious. Dancing makes me block everything out, it's become my meditation, my safe space. Whether I’m in the depths of the club or on my own in the studio, I don’t think about anything other than the music, the effect on my body, the sparks in my finger tips and neural pathways. I don't go somewhere else in this blissed-out state, I just go.

  Thursday 14th December 1995

  The Sixth Form Christmas party tonight is being held at a bar-cum-nightclub that I've never been to before. I'd got into a rare and unexpected row with Lee when I told him that I would be going solo as non-Sixth Form partners are not allowed to come.

  Shay, as always, took Lee's side, ”You ain’t fuckin’ serious ‘bout going are ya Little Red? Lee’s right y’know, it’s fucked up tha’ you wanna go when we ain’t allowed in”

  My shock at their reaction turned to anger and I slept at Han's that night two weeks ago, furious with them both. When they collected me from school the next day, we just didn't talk about it, pretended it hadn't happened.

  I am going though and as I get ready in the electric blue body-con dress that I borrowed from Rosa when I saw her at the weekend, I’m treated to more sulking. The dress is bloody lush and Rosa is gutted that the colour really doesn't work with her skin tone.

  I eventually locate Incredible Sulk One and Two fuming in the pool room of the pub, “Hey, I'll be home about 2.30am...I've left you a spag bol, you just need to turn the hob on for the spaghetti until it goes soft....er, bye then?”, I trail off, the pair of them clearly ignoring me as they shoot pool.

  My hands clenched in fists I try desperately not to blurt out that I'll return their secret Christmas Present Playstation if they don't grow up but I restrain myself.

  “Oh fuck you both. Have a nice night you moody twats” and I storm out, my hair swinging in fury.

  With Chris similarly forbidden from attending, a solo Han looks brilliant and I note that she gets checked out a lot at the party, a fair few of the lads eyeing her up like prime steak. I tell her about the morons sulking.

  She frowns, “Oh fuck ‘em Lor, you’re always doing stuff with them and it’s only one night. Jesus, you’ve got your own life too AND you’ve been spe
nding every spare minute working extra shifts at the pub to earn money. It's your night off, fuck ‘em”, she nods fiercely and I shrug, taking her hand as we shimmy onto the dance floor.

  We’ve been on the dance floor for a couple of hours when feel a pair of arms slip tentatively around my waist. Boggled, I turn to see John-from-Biology behind me, his smile sloppy from what I presume is alcohol. I smile warily and politely step away but he reaches for me again, this time, lowering his head and sloppily colliding his beer-tasting lips against mine. I shove him away hard enough to make him stumble and I swivel around looking for his mates to deal with him but a rapid movement at the edge of the dance floor catches my eye. With a roaring tide of fury, I realise it’s them. They’re here where they are not supposed to be and they’re going to do something stupid judging by the speed of their movements.

  With a shout of, “No!”, I run forward and stand in between them and John, looking up into their furious faces, my hands on my hips.

  Shay starts, “I'm gonna fuckin' kill him Little....”, but my fury silences him,

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!”, my screech is loud even over the sound system.

  Lee's hand is on my arm, “Lookin' out for you Shortie and it's a fuckin' good thing, eh?”, he nods towards a baffled-looking John

  I shake him off and yell, “OUT! NOW!”, and with anger-fuelled strength, I grab both of their shirts and drag them out of the club to the street outside.

  Their posture is defensive, arms crossed, eyebrows cocked. Mine is incredulous, arms thrown wide, face a question mark. We row. From inside the club, the scene unfolds in mute through the glass of the window as Han watches. All five-furious-feet of me rears up against their six feet plus apiece. Lee steps forward to placate me, I snap at him and he steps backwards looking sheepish. Shay does the same, I step towards him yelling, he retreats looking chastised. They look at me balefully as I rage at them, foot tapping, body vibrating. I walk off, Lee grabs me. I push him away, I walk off again. Shay grabs me, I push him. They turn and walk off, I huff and start walking towards them, wagging my finger more and making them stop. We stand, arms crossed staring at each other. Lee is the first to crack, a sly smirk crossing his face. I turn my head away, petulantly, as he slowly creeps towards me, his hands reaching for my waist. I turn slowly and roll my eyes, as he pulls me into a kiss. Han says that with little preamble, she saw me dragged off, out of sight from the club windows and the doorway. When I came back ten minutes later, I looked drunk, my hemline was askew and the boys looked like they'd been wrestling something. We were all smiling. Over lunch the next day, Han describes it to Dan as if it was the plot of a Shakespearean farce, whilst laughing hysterically.