by Ellie Eaton
Finally, the week before the baby is due, my libido recedes. My stomach is taut as a ripe pomegranate, and a brown welt runs from my belly button to my pubis, as if I am about to split open; my nipples leak. The thought of sex suddenly laughable, I wait until Jürgen is cycling, then I take out the Polaroids one last time. They are yellowing at the edges, the penises fading, dreamy looking, somehow less alarming. I inter them in a metal cash box I bought at a thrift store, along with all the other keepsakes I’ve taken from Rod’s attic in England. My Pandora’s box, if you will. A large bundle of letters, a school photo, a five-year diary I find too excruciating to read. Newspaper clippings, including the interview we gave shortly after the scandal, an attempt by the school to limit damage. I cringe at how pretentious we sound, our obsequious flattery of Gerry—her skill on ice, her pluck, her zest for life—so outrageously insincere, so overblown and phony. I scratch my arm, add the clipping to the box.
Finally I sit on the bed with an old striped school scarf folded neatly in my lap. I stare at it for some time, chewing my cheek, hugging my stomach like a balloon. Then slowly I unwrap the scarf. There inside, just the same as I remember, the two halves of Gerry’s broken hairpin, the little sapphire flowers, the sparkling heart made from rhinestones. Sweet sixteen.
I feel an unexpected wave of revulsion.
Toss the hairpin into the box, slam it shut.
Quick as I can, I heave myself up on a chair and, with difficulty, shove the lockbox hard with a broom handle into the farthest recess of the wardrobe, on tiptoes—poking, prodding—until it’s completely out of sight.
21
Lauren wandered around my dorm room like a television detective, only the second time she’d been up there. She picked up the bottles on my countertop, the moisturizers and the spot cream, fingered through my wash bag, sniffed my bottle of scent, turning in a circle and looking around at my walls.
“Look at the size of it, you couldn’t swing a cat in here. The amount you lot pay. It’s fucking criminal.”
It was true. Gerry Lake and I shared a room no bigger than my parents’ larder.
Lauren gestured to the other side of the room. “That where your mate Gerry sleeps then?”
I rolled my eyes.
Gerry’s bunk bed ran in parallel with mine, either side of the window, slightly staggered to give us the illusion of privacy. Our desks were beneath our beds. We spent most of our time with our backs to each other. Likewise, there was an unspoken understanding between Gerry and me that we sleep foot to foot, as far away from each other as possible. Gerry’s duvet was neatly made, her platoon of stuffed toys—mementos from her skating competitions—arranged with military precision on her pillow. An empty side table, which neither of us had claimed, was squeezed underneath the window.
Lauren undertook a similar forensic investigation of Gerry’s possessions, nosing through Gerry’s notebooks, examining each of her ice-skating trophies in turn, the medals and team photos. She swizzled Gerry’s hairpin—her prized birthday present from her coach—rattling it like a cocktail stick against her teeth before she stuck it behind her ear. I wanted to ask her to put it back but I was worried she might make a scene and people would come running. Next she moved on to Gerry’s wardrobe, where she levered the door open cautiously with a pencil, as if she thought it contained body parts. A boot tumbled out onto the floor. We both jumped.
“Oh my god,” I screamed.
“That’s all her skating kit then?”
I nodded and watched anxiously as Lauren began rifling through Gerry’s clothes, listening for footsteps outside. She pulled out one sparkly costume after another, dangling them from her finger.
“What is she, a midget?”
“Pretty much,” I mumbled.
I felt sick. What if we got caught, either by one of my friends returning from the rounders match or, worse, Gerry herself? The room felt increasingly small, the walls pressing down on us. I could hear the incessant footsteps of the First Year still pacing the corridor. I tugged at Lauren’s arm.
“I’m bored,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Lauren shook me off, her face lighting up. From the back of Gerry’s wardrobe she pulled an outfit that was emerald green, off the shoulder. This was a trick of the light; the long sleeves were in fact a sheer, fleshy-colored tan, to give the impression of naked skin. She lifted one foot and then another and attempted to wiggle the costume up over her jeans.
“Don’t,” I began to say. “Lauren, stop.”
“How do I look?” she asked.
I snorted nervously. It was ridiculous, the gusset tugged stripper high, her T-shirt buckled underneath the nude sleeves. Lauren began to do a figure of eight seductively with her hips.
“Oh my god.” I couldn’t help myself, I laughed with fear. “Stop, stop. They’ll hear us.”
Lauren grinned and made a ponytail with her hair and began to twirl it, strutting up and down the room with the silky green costume riding up her crack. I was buckled, gripping the desk, trying to hold the laughter down so we wouldn’t get caught. I could feel it clawing its way up my chest and into my throat.
“Seriously, Lauren, stop.” I choked out the words.
She swung up onto the desk and then Gerry’s bed, kicking long showgirl legs in the air. I crawled up onto my bed and buried my head under the pillow, rocking with hilarity, drunk on it, weeping with laughter, trying to get my breath back by taking long inhalations and exhalations through the mouth. My bed smelt of polish and wax and disinfectant. Suddenly Lauren went quiet. Outside I could hear the faint sound of Second Years squealing, playing a game of tag. Cheers from the rounders match. A maintenance man—Stuart, I daydreamt—was mowing the lawn. I lifted a corner of the pillow. Lauren was flat on her back, lying on Gerry’s mattress in a death pose, her arms outstretched. Her hair was spread, Ophelia-like, in long silvery strands. Her eyes were open, staring at the yellow ceiling. She jiggled one toe.
“Why d’you lot hate her so much anyway?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do.”
When I said nothing further, she threw one of Gerry’s teddy bears at my head.
“You’re a shit liar, Josephine.”
I looked across to see if she was joking. Lauren continued to stare at the ceiling, her lashes flickering, chasing a beam of light. I picked and picked at the scab on my inner arm. Why was it that Gerry was such an easy target? What was it about her that made us dislike her so much?
“How now brown cow,” I said suddenly.
“Come again?” Lauren sat up.
“We used to get her to say it. Gerry. When she first came to school. How now brown cow.”
“Why?”
“Just to hear the way she pronounced it.”
“Which was?”
“Nothing. Just . . .”
Common, I almost said, but didn’t.
“Different.”
Lauren rolled her eyes.
“Bunch of stuck-up bitches.” She jumped down from the bed, balled the green leotard, and tossed it thoughtlessly into the back of Gerry’s wardrobe.
“I’m out of here.”
I felt sick to my stomach. Why had I just told her that? She might never want to see me again. I looked down at the burn on my arm, wincing when I thought of her telling Stuart. I trailed Lauren out of the room, past the same morose First Year haunting the corridor and down the oak staircase. By the sports hall Lauren turned one way without saying good-bye, just a wave. I climbed the bridge, miserable, tugging myself arm over arm. But as Lauren reached the crossroads she stopped, turned, and curtsied at me theatrically. Only then did I see the rhinestone pin still stuck behind her ear. Forget-me-not.
“Stop,” I called after her. “Lauren, come back.”
“Cheerio, old chum,” she mocked, tipping an invisible hat.
22
I had fantasized about Lauren’s brother so often and in so many forms, sexual and romantic, that when I saw Stuart McKibb
in in the flesh again I thought he was a manifestation of all my nocturnal yearning, the nights spent lusting and sighing and flipping facedown on my bed after Gerry was asleep, my fingers down my pants. The morning after Lauren’s visit I woke before my alarm, desperate for the loo, stumbled into the bathroom, ignoring the Out of Order sign, and did a double take. Stuart was belly to the shower room floor, loosening a blocked U-bend.
“Oh.” I coughed, my voice thick with sleep.
I hadn’t brushed my hair, my breath was rank, and I had hooded eyes, two puffy slits. I must have looked repulsive.
“Pass the bucket,” he said.
Automatically I looked around and picked up a tub by the toolbox and handed it to him.
“This one?”
“Christ alive,” he said, looking up. “Sorry, thought you were someone else.”
His hair was tied back with a rubber band. I could see the fresh buzz of his undercut where the skin was whiter, one of the many parts of him I had fantasized about stroking, and the tanned back of his neck, a deep mahogany color from the hours spent outside flattening our tennis courts and trimming the grass. He continued to loosen the pipe, one eye closed, trying to get purchase. Above him I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror and froze. It was worse than I thought. No one had showed me how to pluck my eyebrows back then, and they were as unwieldy as cats, extremely dark in comparison to the mousy hair on my head. That morning one brow had been crumpled in my sleep and plastered upright with what looked like drool. I licked my thumb without Stuart seeing and smoothed it out. I also combed my fingers through my hair to remove the tangles and tried not to breathe in his direction.
He grunted and heaved on the spanner and there was a sudden rush as the joint came loose and water thundered into the bucket. He stuck two fingers up inside the hole and circled them around. One eye on me. I found this gesture excruciatingly embarrassing. I could have moved to another bathroom along the corridor, but instead I stayed there, chewing on the end of my toothbrush, not knowing where to look.
“Can’t get up high enough,” he said.
He inserted a long plastic probe into the pipe and jabbed it a few times, thrusting and grunting. He could see the reaction on my face, the crippling embarrassment of it all, and continued to torture me further.
“Here she comes,” he said, winking.
From out of the black pipe came a globule of hair, which he held aloft for me to see. It was grotesque, the size of a fist. The foul amalgam of all our flicking and preening in front of the mirror. I was as mortified as if I’d just given birth to the thing myself, right there on the bathroom floor. He tossed the hairball into the bucket, replaced the pipe with a few casual twists, and stood up. His blue overalls were folded down at the waist, the sleeves knotted at his midriff.
“All yours,” he said and began collecting his tools without even looking at me twice or asking about Lauren.
“Thanks very much.”
I walked over to the sink but I certainly didn’t want to brush my teeth in front of him, let alone urinate. He hummed to himself and emptied out the foul water in the shower stall as if I was invisible, and I realized, with a sickening blow, he didn’t remember who I was. No doubt Divines all looked identical to him—Skipper, the Pecks, even Gerry Lake—we might as well have been clones. I had never felt more irrelevant. Miserable, my fingers picked at my old cigarette burn. I could hear some of my peers padding down the corridor, getting dressed or leaving for breakfast. Stuart hooked the bucket over his arm with his plunger in it and raised his chin as a good-bye.
“How’s Kyle?” I asked quickly.
What good I thought it would do me, bringing up his girlfriend’s baby, I don’t know. But that was the best I could come up with. It stopped him in his tracks.
“What? Oh, yes.” He pointed his finger at me. “I remember, from the park. You’re Lauren’s new”—he seemed to struggle to locate the right word—“mate?”
His face flashed with amusement. She was townie and I was Divine.
“Lauren says you work here,” I said. “I mean, all the time now.”
“Looks like it. My uncle knew someone.” Stuart moved the bucket from one hand to the other. “He put in a word for me.”
“Wicked,” I said.
“Yeah, wicked.” He raised both eyebrows.
Why couldn’t I ever seem to speak normally to him?
“I mean, that’s great.”
As he gripped the bucket his biceps twitched.
“The money’s all right,” he conceded.
Outside on the lawn two men in blue were stacking chairs ready to be transported into the hall for the start of our exams.
“I better go and lend a hand.”
“Of course.”
There were rules, I suppose, about him fraternizing with the Divine. Probably he wasn’t meant to even be in the girls’ shower on his own. But Stuart didn’t move. He leant a hip against the shower tiles.
“What’s your name again?”
“Joe,” I said, and then corrected myself. “I mean, Josephine.”
It sounded less Divine.
“Jo-sephine,” he repeated; I could have listened to him say my name, separating the two halves out like that, all day.
“All right, Josephine, I hope you’re not getting my sister into any kind of . . . trouble.”
Again, the knowing smile that kicked up the corner of his lip. He rubbed his mouth with the heel of his wrist. I realized the view he had of me was quite different from the reality. He thought I was the troublemaker, the leader, the renegade. Lauren the sheep. He winked. I felt my heart clench.
“Um, excuse me” came a haughty voice from the corridor. “You can’t be in here.”
Skipper. Dressed in only a towel.
How much she had heard I wasn’t sure.
Stuart picked up his toolkit, his eyes still on me, barely looking in Skipper’s direction. Then came another wink as if we’d shared a private joke.
“Ladies first,” he said but she’d already barged past Stuart towards the shower cubicles.
He bowed, exiting like a butler.
“Bye, Stuart,” I said.
Skipper whipped the shower curtain shut.
There was only a thin skin of material slung between her naked body and me. I leant against the sink slowly brushing my teeth. Condensation hugged around me, the mirror misting slowly. I thought about Stuart, replaying our conversation. The smile. The wink. I didn’t even care that Skipper had interrupted us; in fact, I was pleased. That I was talking to a boy, right there in our school bathroom, I was sure would impress her.
I continued to brush my teeth, waiting for Skipper to finish showering, when, above the hiss of the water, she shouted through the curtain.
“So what the hell were you talking to that pleb for?”
I froze, completely paralyzed, my hand gripping my toothbrush.
“Bye, Stuart,” she mimicked.
I loathed Skipper in that moment. A girl who not long ago I would have done anything for: crawled over hot coals, lied, stolen, spilled my guts to. I thought about switching on all the cold taps so that scalding water eviscerated her skin. Or scaring her so that she slipped and hit her head. I squeezed the handle of my toothbrush like a switchblade.
“Shut up,” I hissed quietly.
Skipper tugged back the curtain, steam billowing out; I could see everything, from her hairless legs to her dripping pubic hair.
“My god, darling,” she snorted. “Oh please. A townie?”
23
There was only so long before Gerry Lake would realize that the hairpin, her precious lucky charm, was missing. I had to get it back. Lauren shrugged indifferently the next time I saw her, scrunching up her nose at first as if she couldn’t remember what I was talking about.
“Oh my god,” I moaned. “You haven’t lost it, have you?”
“Chill out,” Lauren said. “All that shitty plastic jewelry she’s got, she won’t even care
.”
It was true that at first Gerry seemed not to notice. Preparing for some important competition, she seemed even more preoccupied with training than normal. I saw very little of her during that period. She frequently arrived late, climbing out of the beige Ford Escort, waving good-bye to the driver in the red cap, often an hour after lights-out because training had run over. Later we questioned if Gerry was even on the ice at all.
A few minutes afterwards our door would open. If I was still up reading, Gerry would frown and say a terse hello, undress, and climb up onto her bunk bed. There she sat at the top of the ladder and began the gruesome ritual of massaging her feet, kneading her heels and ankles with ointment, bending her toes back so they doubled under, tugging on each one in turn, cracking them like chicken bones. Gerry’s feet, disfigured from years of skating, were increasingly repellent to me. I balked at the sight of her dry ankles, the ingrown toenails—yellowed and crustaceous looking—the blisters and bunions and corns. There were, I remember, small divots on Gerry’s fingers from her habit of continually tugging her bootlaces tight, bruises the size of tennis balls on her hips and arms, which Gerry had sustained, or so we speculated, not from an accident but shagging her coach in the back of his Escort.
Once or twice at night I heard Gerry yelp in pain as she was tending to her feet, holding in a sob. Perhaps it wasn’t her toes that were the problem; perhaps she had lost, or fallen, or the routine hadn’t gone well. Maybe she’d had a fight with her sugar daddy. I didn’t want to know. I could have asked Gerry what was the matter, offered her some words of comfort or advice; that would have been the charitable thing to do, I knew. But I was a teenager, self-obsessed, too caught up in my own narrative to care about anyone but myself.