by Ellie Eaton
“Intolerable.” Fat Fran slammed her hymnal on the pulpit. A starting pistol. All around me girls sprang into action; they leapt from the pews and scrambled around the chapel trying to muffle as many clocks as they could find. In the vestry, the pews, behind the kneelers, high up on the crucifix, resting in the crook above Jesus’s shoulder. Pandemonium. Younger years were squealing in excitement, stamping their feet and laughing.
No one was bothered that Gerry Lake was in a coma, her life hanging by a thread. That her pelvis was broken. That, as we’d later read in the papers, she had sustained significant trauma, lacerations to the liver and spleen, possible spinal cord damage. No one cared if she died or not. No one thought of her at all.
46
I look like a crone. Gray haired, haggard, barely functioning after weeks of not sleeping. My friend Audrey offers me her therapist’s details, but I squirm with embarrassment at the word shrink.
“Don’t be so fucking British,” she tells me and texts me a number.
When I ask Jürgen if he thinks I need to get my head examined, he looks around shiftily and tugs on his beard, a man who cannot lie.
“Fine,” I give in.
Instead of contacting Audrey’s woman, I opt for a different therapist I find online, someone anonymous, a man called Dr. Jason. Whether that is his first or last name is unclear. A secretary responds within the hour with an appointment time, attaching a long questionnaire.
Are you currently experiencing anxiety or panic attacks or having any problems sleeping?
I chew my cheek, rattling my fingers on the keypad. I think of my inability to concentrate, the constant dwelling in the past, the irritability, the sudden flashes of violence, the time, for example, I kicked the dog for no reason, or how just this morning, when Lena refused to get dressed, I pinned her to the bed, pressing so hard with my palm that I momentarily left a handprint.
Do you consider yourself to be spiritual or religious? Were your parents present during your entire childhood, yes or no? Which of the following describes your childhood family experience:
It was an outstanding home environment.
It was an orderly home environment.
It was a chaotic home environment.
As I drive along Sunset Boulevard, I begin to regret finding a therapist on Google or even seeing anyone at all. Suddenly I don’t feel like spreading myself out on a rock to have my liver pecked apart. What was I thinking? I pull up in front of the office, which is on the second floor of a minimall, between a dispensary and a beauty salon. I’d be better off getting my nails done. I email the receptionist from the car, hunched low behind the wheel, citing a family emergency.
When I get home, Jürgen is standing in front of the garage scrubbing his bike.
“So? How was it?”
“It wasn’t. I got a pedicure.”
Jürgen squints at my toes quizzically, wondering if this is a joke.
“Where’s Lena?”
He thumbs towards the garage.
“Mama,” calls Lena. “Come, come.”
She is sitting cross-legged on the floor with my lockbox. The tin is empty, the contents—cigarettes, letters, cuttings, the Polaroid photos—neatly ordered around her as if she’s setting up shop.
I shriek. My face pales, my legs seem to empty of blood, I can’t seem to run there fast enough.
“What is it?” Jürgen says and rushes after me into the garage.
Lena holds up a photo of a penis.
“Hundred dollars, please.”
“Mein Gott!”
Jürgen shakes his head at me in disbelief. A vein between his eye and his temple bulges. This is the angriest I’ve ever seen him.
“I can’t believe this. Sephine!”
Then he is down on the floor, snatching up the pictures, ramming them back in the money box.
“Scheiße, Sephine, what the hell, are you crazy? You told me you threw these fucking things away. You ripped them up. You actually used those words. What’s wrong with you?”
“I know. I know. I only kept them because . . .” I stumble over my words, trying to come up with a rational explanation.
Jürgen groans. He draws his hand down his chin, squatting on the garage floor, staring down at the concrete between his knees.
“Enough,” he says quietly. “Enough now.”
He carries the lockbox under his arm to the barbecue, empties it upside down, and douses it with lighter fuel. Lena screams as she watches her entire shop’s inventory go up in flames, flailing her arms, yanking on Jürgen’s shirt.
“Stop it, Daddy, stop it!” Lena cries.
Something in Lena’s hair glints. Gerry’s pin, which my daughter has stuck back together with duct tape. I snatch it from behind her ear and slide it into my pocket.
“Ow, Mama hurt me,” Lena screams. She glares accusingly, her hands on her hips. Stealer. Thief.
47
We were gated, kept under lock and key, like princesses in a castle, Hera on her golden throne. No leaving the school grounds under any circumstances, escorted to meals, under constant surveillance, no telephone contact or visits from the outside world. But by then I hadn’t seen Lauren in over a week and she had long given up calling. After the clock incident in the chapel, I returned to my dormitory briefly, instructed to take only the possessions I needed for those last remaining days of school. A weepy-looking deputy stood in the corridor as I packed. Someone had thought to lock the window by then; the floral curtain was hanging lifelessly, the table turned upright. According to newspaper reports—an anonymous source—this was an accident waiting to happen, the window opening three times the legal limit, ample space for someone as petite as Gerry to drop through. I tried not to look at Gerry’s neatly made bed, the indent on her pillow, her stuffed toys, the photos of her teammates. As quickly as I could I filled an empty duvet cover and dragged it a few feet along the corridor to the single room, traditionally reserved for French exchange students.
We read about Gerry in the tabloids—the life support machine, the coma, the dwindling prospect of recovery, the trainer who’d been taken in for questioning, his collection of Polaroid photos—crowding around a single copy in the San, the only place in school to which we had unlimited access.
“He took the photos? That was him? Rank,” George Gordon-Warren screeched and threw the paper to the floor. “That gorilla?”
I thought of the hairy arm I had seen dangling from an open car window on days he had come to collect Gerry.
“Told you so,” announced Skipper, though she’d never once mentioned the trainer. “Gerry was probably in on the whole thing.”
The twins made gagging sounds at each other and rolled around on the San floor.
The school nurse observed girls for signs of trauma or depression, putting her palm to our foreheads, scrutinizing our behavior. As if what Gerry had might be contagious. I avoided looking the nurse in the eye. I shrunk from her as she fluttered around us, recoiled from the reach of her clammy hands.
Before long we became restless. While for the rest of the school, lessons went on as normal, we were trapped inside the grounds with nothing to do except tidy our school desks and write letters of apology to horrified benefactors. The end-of-year celebrations had all been revoked, the leavers ball and school outings canceled, replaced instead with community service. Painting classroom walls, scrubbing the chapel clean, varnishing pews.
“Oh my god,” George said after we’d tugged free all the loo roll from the apple trees, flopping on her back in the orchard. “If they keep us locked up any longer, I’ll do a Gerry.”
The phrase spread like wildfire that week, taking over from the pistol-fingers-to-the-head gesture, or pencil fingers up the nose. Fucking hell, girls said as they sighed dramatically, flicking their hair, slumping down onto their bunk beds, hands cast over their brows, I’m so bored I’m going to do a Gerry. If we were late for lunch, or our cigarettes finally ran out, or when Dave noticed the period stain on the back of my thin su
mmer dress as I was sweeping the rec room floor, she shoved me in the ribs, don’t do a Gerry. Hollow feeling, mechanical, I forced my cheeks into a stiff smile. Even though I was back amongst my old friends, I felt like an imposter. Skipper looked at me from across the room. She, in particular, was always watching me, judging, a constant reminder of Gerry. As much as possible I tried to make sure she and I were never alone. I showered late at night or in the early morning. I ate my breakfast with Dickie Balfour.
The final weekend of the Divine—the very last time our school gates would be open—we were banned from taking the bus to Oxford. We summoned boys from a nearby boarding school instead. They arrived by taxi on Saturday afternoon, already drunk, quarter bottles of vodka hidden in their blazers, whistling for us to sneak them over the fence in broad daylight. Our housemistress and her deputy were, for once, nowhere to be seen, finally beyond caring. We smoked and flicked our hair and one by one couples disappeared into the laundry room or behind the sports hall or the maintenance shed. The last boy left was a short, stout-looking Rupert with a lisp, his bottom lip fat and bee-stung. I was only interested in his vodka. He kissed me sloppily before he prodded his finger inside my pants, circling it around like he was stirring a cup of tea with a pencil. I laughed in his face, an ugly cackle.
“I thought you liked me,” he whined.
“Grow up,” I said.
After Stuart I couldn’t have cared less about a boy like him.
I didn’t care about anything.
“Frigid,” he hissed as I climbed out of the bushes, taking his bottle with me. “Hey, where are you going?”
I climbed the bridge. I wanted to smash something, to tear it to pieces, to yell and shout and scream. I dropped the bottle off the bridge. Saw it explode like a firework on the road below. A car swerved, the driver spouting expletives.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?”
I slunk off the bridge.
Down the school drive.
Out of the gates.
I, myself, didn’t know until I was across the park and walking down Lauren’s street.
I thumped on her door, hammering so hard my knuckles burned.
“All right, all right. Keep your bloody hair on,” I heard her shouting and the thud of feet on the stairs.
The door yanked open.
“Oh,” said Lauren, her face soured. She sucked in her cheeks, crossed her arms, and blocked the doorway.
“What the fuck do you want? I’m getting ready for work. If you’ve come here for that fucking pin, I’ve lost it, all right?”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out, a lump in my throat as if I’d swallowed a large stone. She looked me up and down distrustfully, taking in the red eyes, the bitten lip, the bruised knuckles. Her lip curled up at the edges with scorn. I shook my head.
“Sorry,” I said. “Never mind.”
Stiffly, I turned to leave.
“Jesus Christ, Josephine.” Lauren clicked her tongue.
She nudged the front door open with her heel.
“Where d’ya think you’re going?”
48
Lauren’s father was drinking tea at the kitchen table, the newspaper spread open in front of him. The racing was playing loudly on the portable radio. He watched me over his cup as I came in and didn’t say anything to either of us except for when Lauren switched channels.
“Turn it back.”
Lauren rolled her eyes but did as he said. She filled the kettle, took out the instant coffee, fished around in the sink for some mugs, drying them on her T-shirt. I stood very still in the corner of the room trying not to draw attention to myself. I looked at the white scar under his chin.
Mr. McKibbin grunted at me, rolled his paper under his arm, and got up.
We heard the door slam.
“Wanker,” Lauren said.
Upstairs we sat on her bedroom floor with our cups of coffee. I was on one side of the room, Lauren on the other. Her legs were curled beneath her like a cat—guarded, distrustful—as she waited for me to say something.
“You all right then?” she eventually asked.
“Fine,” I mumbled, though it must have been obvious this was far from true. I was even skinnier than normal. My hair was greasy and limp, my shoulders hunched. I was drunk and miserable.
Lauren sipped her coffee in silence looking at me, but in the end she couldn’t help herself.
“Talked to my brother lately?”
“No,” I said.
This at least was true.
Lauren narrowed her eyes, trying to decide if she believed me. Then she stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry.
“Stuart’s a right slag. Don’t waste your breath on him. Here,” she said, and crawled beneath the bed and pulled out a bottle of Bell’s, sloshing it into my coffee. She licked her arm where the drink had splattered and filled her own. Lauren was trying to make me feel better, but her words had the opposite effect. I hadn’t meant anything to Stuart, I wasn’t special at all. I felt the whisky burn the length of my throat, scalding, clawing my insides. I held out my cup for more.
“You hungry?” Lauren asked.
I hadn’t eaten properly in days, only picking at my school meals, tossing the contents in the scrap buckets before everyone else had barely begun.
“Not particularly,” I said.
“Well, I’m fucking starving.” Lauren got up and pulled my arm.
I followed Lauren downstairs where she looked into the fridge, and when there was nothing there that seemed to satisfy her, she made me walk with her to the fish and chip shop. We sat there with the fish spread out on the table between us. Lauren salted the chips.
“Red sauce?”
I nodded.
The smell of the chip fat, the hiss of baskets as they plunged into simmering oil, the great big slabs of fish, all made me feel nauseated.
The man at the table next to us was reading a copy of the local newspaper, the headline fanned out towards our table. Lauren glanced at it and shuffled a chip around the white paper, nervous, or was it only my imagination, reluctant to look me in the eye. I turned and stared out of the window. Outside the sky looked curdled, the sun a sickly yellow. The chippy was unbearably hot; I remember there was a light overhead humming, and my head ached. When the first specks of rain began to hiss on the hot pavement, townies ran for cover, and the door began to jingle nonstop. Men jogged to the bookmakers across the street with newspapers over their heads. Two girls with g-strings showing raced their pushchairs. A large posse of King Edmunds, shrieking loudly at a thunderclap, came ducking in through the doorway, Kappa jackets over their heads, tight ponytails, wide shiny foreheads. Lauren pretended that she hadn’t seen them. Her jaw jutted out, she speared a chip but didn’t eat it. Some of the King Edmund’s girls turned to look at us in the corner and began sniggering and elbowing the boys they were with, who turned around to look at us too. Lauren’s hair was loose, a long white cape down her back. I was deathly pale, grim looking. We made a ghoulish pair, I suppose. An easy target.
One of the group, I recognized, was the girl from the park who had ordered me to get down on my knees and polish her shoes.
“Jade Dockett,” muttered Lauren under her breath. “Slut.”
The KE girls sucked their teeth.
“Jade, did you hear what that minger just called you?”
“Fucking cheek of it.”
“Nasty little bitch.”
“Cucumbers,” another shouted, which I presumed was meant for me. “Lezzers.”
The boys snapped their fingers in the air and fell about laughing.
“Just ignore them,” I said.
I scrunched up our leftovers and tossed them in the bin.
I pulled Lauren to her feet and slipped my arm under hers, as if she was Divine. The boys, dressed in tracksuits and big baggy jeans, stamped their legs under the table, red-faced toddlers with their trousers nearly falling down. I felt something vicious and ugly hamme
ring inside my rib cage, clawing to get out. Silently I dared one of them to do something. Go on, try it. When we walked past, I stared unflinchingly at their table, but no one spat in my face or shoved me or tripped me up.
“Oy, McKibbin,” one of the boys shouted.
He made a V with his fingers and lizard flicked his tongue at us, which made the girls all squeal in disgust. The girl from the park sniggered loudly.
I slipped free of Lauren, marched back to the table, singling her out in particular.
“Bugger off,” I said and sent her Coke flying.
She screamed and leapt to her feet. The boys stamped their feet even harder; we could hear them snapping their fingers and howling hysterically as Lauren and I walked arm in arm out of the door.
Lauren stopped in the road.
“I can’t believe you just did that. To Jade Dockett.”
“What?”
“Bugger orff,” she mimicked.
I lifted my shoulders as if it was nothing. As if my heart wasn’t pounding. As if my fists weren’t knotted in balls.
She repeated it again, in awe.
“Bugger orff.”
She gave me a peck on the cheek to thank me.
“Gayer,” I joked.
She shoved me hard in the hip. I smiled. She reached her arm around my waist and hooked me back in.
“Let’s get pissed.”
49
We got drunk on a cheap bottle of vodka and a pint of milk from the corner shop, bought with the last of my allowance money. The man at the register looked at Lauren’s boobs and didn’t bother asking for an ID. From a phone box she called her boss at Woolworths and told him she was too poorly to work. Sitting cross-legged in the park bandstand, Lauren emptied out half the milk and topped it up with vodka, shaking it like a cocktail waitress.
“White Russians,” she said with a shrug when she saw my expression.
She passed me the carton, chin glistening, wiping it on her sleeve.