by Dyan Sheldon
“It reminded me of you,” said Les. “Do you like it?”
It wasn’t a gold heart, but I definitely liked it.
“I love it!” I cried. “It’s the best present I’ve ever had.” I hugged him hard.
But that was the only thing that did get hard that night.
We rolled around on his single mattress, banging our knees against the wall and whacking each other with elbows, but nothing happened except we knocked over the teas.
Les apologized. He said it was because he lived with so many other people. It made him selfconscious. Even though they were away he was expecting one of them to burst into the room at any minute. That’s what his flatmates were like.
I took it in my stride. This sort of thing was always happening on TV.
“It’s OK,” I assured him. “It happens to everyone.”
“You’re wonderful,” said Les. He kissed my forehead. “And very mature for eighteen.”
Maybe I wouldn’t’ve been so mature if I’d known it was going to be our last chance to be together for weeks and weeks.
I’d always liked Christmas, especially when I was little, but that year it was a drag. Everybody went to Charlene’s, as per usual, since she had the kids. And, also as per usual, Nan ended up doing most of the cooking while her daughter and grand-daughters (with one glaring exception, of course) all got sloshed. Every year Dara made us sit through the entire Phil Spector Christmas album at least a dozen times, and every year everyone begged her not to. Hilary spent about eight hours in the kitchen, crying about Charley. Every time I opened the door because I’d been sent to get something she was saying the same thing. “This is really it … this time there won’t be a next time…” and slobbering into her wine. Only she was always saying it to someone different – Charlene, Dara, Charlene’s boyfriend, Justin, Dara’s boyfriend, Mick, Nan, even Drew and Courtney, Charlene’s kids… Once, I actually caught her telling the fridge. Charlene’s boyfriend and Dara’s boyfriend got into a fight about football. Charlene and Dara got into a fight over whether or not Charlene’s children watched too much telly. Charlene’s kids were always fighting. I tried to ignore them all by pretending that I wasn’t really there.
I pretended I was at home with Les. He’d left his mum’s straight after dinner to surprise me. I’d come home on my own from Charlene’s and there he was, waiting for me. He’d bought an artificial silver tree and decorated it with red balls and tiny green lights that looked like wreaths, just like the one I saw in Paperchase. There were about a million presents under it, and they were all wrapped in shiny paper, not the cheap stuff Hilary bought in the market, ten rolls for a quid, and half of them said Happy Birthday or For Your Wedding Anniversary. These were really beautiful and elegant, and they were all tied with real satin ribbons not those plasticky stick-on bows favoured by doctors’ receptionists. Me and Les sipped champagne while we opened our presents. Les was just trying on one of the presents I’d given him – a silk Armani jacket – when I realized that my nan was shouting at me. It was hard to hear her because the telly and the stereo were blaring, and, besides everybody talking and the kids shrieking, Charlene and Hilary were arguing now.
I blinked. “What?”
Nan knocked back her sherry.
“You’re very quiet today. You coming down with something?”
If only I was. Then maybe someone would drive me home and I really would find that Les had left his mother and was waiting for me. At least I’d have some peace and quiet so I could think about him.
“It’s because I’m practically an adult,” I informed her. “Your daughter doesn’t realize it, but I’m not a child any more.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said my nan. “Then you can be in charge of the washing-up.”
Not only did Les not come home early, but he got sick the day after Boxing Day and couldn’t come home at all.
“You’re joking,” I said. “What have you got, the plague?”
“Flu,” croaked Les. “The doctor says it could take a couple of weeks. Maybe more.”
“God…” For me, two or three weeks without Les was like two or three weeks without water. Plus, I’d read of people dying from the flu. “Maybe you should come back to London. I could come over and nurse you.”
Les sighed with pain and fever. His voice was low and strained.
“My mother wouldn’t hear of it,” he said. “Besides, I’ve got the car. There’s no way I could drive.”
I asked him for his mother’s number, so I could ring him when she was out.
“She won’t let me out of bed to talk on the phone,” said Les. “I’m only ringing now because she’s gone into town. And if she knew I was making a long-distance call on her phone… She’s on a fixed income, you know. She counts every penny.”
“Well, give me the address then.” I’d write to him every day. Letters and postcards. Little presents to cheer him up.
“Oh, no,” said Les. “My mum’s back. I’ll ring you again if I can.”
After that call, I talked to Les in my head all the time. I stayed in my room, listening out for the phone, writing him letters and notes that I planned to send when he rang back with the address.
Dear Les, I don’t know how to say this, but I really love you. I love everything about you. Even when you get angry…
Dear Les, Today I had breakfast (toast and cereal and two cups of tea) and went out to the shops, but all I could think of was you…
Dear Les, I hope you’re getting plenty of rest and eating the right foods. You should drink plenty of liquids…
But he never rang back. His mother must’ve been watching him like a hawk.
Either that or he’d died.
Les didn’t die, but he also didn’t come back to London for three weeks. The longest three weeks of my life. I’d forgotten how boring and empty my life had been without him, but it all came back pretty quickly. Some days I felt like he’d never existed. The dumb, dull days stretched into dumb, dull nights. I ate, I slept, I watched TV. I was like a hamster going round and round in its wheel. The same things to do, the same arguments, the same big nothing.
Even the Spiggs noticed how depressed I was.
“It’s not like you to look like that in the holidays,” she said over supper one night.
“Like what?” I asked, thinking of words like “tragic” and “heartbroken” and “stricken with grief”.
“Like you’ve got a life sentence with hard labour,” said my mother.
I gave her a meaningful look. “I have.”
Les got back on a Friday. He rang me as soon as he walked through his front door.
Hilary and Charley still hadn’t made up. She was only a few feet away in the kitchen, descaling the kettle, her ears up like a hunting dog’s.
I turned my back on her.
“Oh, Amie,” I said, in a bright, casual voice. “What’s up?”
“Amie?” said Les. “Lana, it’s me. Les. I just got back.”
“Oh, you poor thing…” I said. “Are you feeling better now?”
“Oh, I get it,” said Les. “You can’t talk. Yeah, I’m still weak, but I’m much better.” He lowered his voice. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
Fudge sauce flowed through my veins.
“Me, too,” I said. “A lot…” I smiled into the receiver. “Maybe we can go to a film or something. Now that you’re better.”
“Not tonight,” my mother shouted. “You’re going shopping with me. Remember?”
How could I forget something as exciting as that?
“I’ll have to see what’s happening,” said Les. “I’ve been off work a while.”
It was times like these that convinced me that once I’d had my family, I was going to have a great career as an actress. There wasn’t a shred of disappointment in my voice as I said, “Oh, of course. I know you’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
“And I missed all the holiday parties,” said Les. “I’ve got some people to see.
”
I almost said, “And what am I? Sliced bread?” but I didn’t have to. Les, as per usual, knew how I felt.
“Tell you what,” said Les. “Why don’t you come round to the shop tomorrow? I’m on nights.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
“And wear those boxer shorts you wore that time,” said Les. He laughed. “Just so I know.”
I smiled, drowning in fudge sauce. He really had been thinking of me.
The winter slogged on, dull and grey. My life was pretty dull and grey, too. Hilary was usually at home in the evenings and Les was usually working. Because Shanee lived with her mother, her two little brothers, her one little sister (who shared a room with her), two cats, a dog and an assortment of other small mammals – and had less privacy than a traffic light – she’d come to mine more than I’d gone to hers since we started secondary school, but now that changed.
With the ointment of my love clogged with dead flies, I had nowhere else to go. I wasn’t seeing much of Les because he was so busy and Hilary had cemented herself to the couch. The Tylers’ was like a madhouse with all the keepers on their tea break, but it was better than solitary confinement with a prison guard who never stopped nagging you about your homework and how much make-up you were wearing and where you were going and when you were coming back and who you were going to see.
“God…” I shouted over the noise from the television, Shanee’s brothers and the radio that was blaring from her bedroom. “I really miss it sometimes, you know?”
I looked over. Shanee had her eyes on the film we were watching. Her brothers were sitting on the floor in front of us, impersonating an air strike and throwing crayons at each other.
“You really should try it,” I went on. “It’s so cool.”
Shanee nodded. “I know,” she said, still watching Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone snogging passionately. “I intend to try it. Eventually.”
I hugged myself. “Sex…” I sighed longingly. “There’s nothing like it.”
To tell the truth, I kind of enjoyed talking about sex with Les more than I’d actually enjoyed doing it. I mean, it was all right – it was great – but it wasn’t the big deal everyone made out. The kissing and stroking was nice, but it didn’t last that long, and the deed itself was over almost as soon as it began. I’d nicked a couple of sex manuals from the library, so I knew that these things can take time. Practice makes perfect. If you have anywhere to practise – which we didn’t.
Shanee clicked the remote control and got to her feet.
“I’m going to get something to drink,” she announced. “Anybody else want anything?”
They all wanted something, including the dog.
I followed Shanee into the kitchen, still discussing sex, the way women do.
In many ways, she was the perfect audience, since she had no personal experience whatsoever and I could tell her anything I liked without worrying that she’d know better. The closest Shanee’d ever got to a boy was when one bumped into her on the street.
Shanee opened the fridge and looked inside.
“So, when are you seeing Les again?” she asked, cutting me off in mid-sentence.
“I saw him yesterday.” I took five glasses from the draining-board. I’d seen Les at work again, but it was a busy night and I didn’t stay long. “But not, you know, intimately.”
“So I gathered.”
The disadvantage of Shanee as an audience was that, having no personal experience, her interest wore off pretty fast.
“It’d be a lot better if you had a boyfriend, too,” I complained. “Then you’d want to talk about sex. This is like trying to describe Miami to someone who’s never left the Hebrides.”
Shanee re-emerged from the fridge with two cartons of juice. “Miami and Disney World aren’t the same thing,” she informed me.
I stared back at her. I had no idea what she meant.
Shanee sighed. “So how long has it been?” she asked.
We’d only ever really done it once but Shanee didn’t need to know that. We had tried a few times but something always seemed to go wrong. The first time was when the Wicked Witch went to Hastings to see my nan. But we were so excited to have the flat to ourselves that we finished off her Christmas port and the sherry. Most of what I remembered involved throwing up in my wastepaper basket in the middle of the night. The only other times we’d tried were in the back of his car and once in the shop after it was closed. It was too cold in the car to actually take any clothes off, which was just as well since we’d just got into a serious clinch when a police car pulled up beside us. And I couldn’t undress in the shop, all those videos made it hard to get in the mood.
“A week,” I lied. “A whole, excruciating week.”
Shanee nodded towards the cupboard over the sink. “There’s crisps and biscuits up in there,” she directed.
I reached for the snacks. “I don’t know how much longer I can last,” I confessed. “I really miss him.”
“My mum hasn’t had a boyfriend since my dad left five years ago,” said Shanee. “She doesn’t seem to mind.”
“That’s ’cause she’s old. It’s different when you’re in your prime.”
Shanee started filling the glasses with juice. “Physical exercise,” she decided. “You should take up cross-country running or some—”
I looked over at her. She was staring at me with her head to one side, as though she’d just noticed I had four arms or something.
“What?”
Shanee gave herself a shake. “Nothing.” She turned back to the glasses. “I was just wondering if those were the jeans you got at Brent Cross with me in September?”
I put the biscuits and the crisps on the counter. “Yeah. Why?”
She shrugged. “I dunno. They look different.”
I tugged at the waist. “They shrunk,” I told her. “She can’t even wash a pair of jeans without ruining them.”
“That must be it…” She glanced over and smirked. “Or did you hit the Christmas goodies a little hard?”
“God, no! I hardly ate the whole time. I was lovesick, remember?”
Shanee was still studying me like I was one of her science project plants. “Your face looks fatter.”
I picked up the crisps and two of the glasses.
“It’s all the kissing,” I assured her. “The muscles swell.”
I didn’t feel like sitting with my mother the moaner, so I spent most of that night in my room, pretending to be doing my homework while I listened to the radio and imagined me and Les going away together on holiday in the spring, to celebrate our six-month anniversary. To Ibiza, or Greece, somewhere hot and romantic. We found a secluded cove where no one else ever went. The water was as blue as a swimming-pool and the sand was as soft as feathers and as white as Nivea. We put our blanket near the water. I unhooked my bikini top and lay on my front while Les knelt over me, rubbing sunblock into my back.
But I couldn’t fall asleep. Every time I closed my eyes and tried to stop thinking about our holiday, I’d see Shanee looking at me with her head to one side, telling me my face was fat.
As soon as I heard Hilary snoring next door, I crept into the living-room to watch telly. I didn’t like lying in the dark on my own. It made me nervous. I’m a person who likes light and noise.
There was a pretty funny film on Channel Five. Funny enough to take my mind off my fat face for a while. Normally, I get something to eat or drink while the ads are on, but after what Shanee said I didn’t dare go near the kitchen in case I really was gaining weight. I was sitting there, humming along with the jingles the way you do, when the Tampax ad came on. This girl all in white was running around in the sunshine.
Yeah, right, I thought. Like she never leaks even a little…
And that’s when it occurred to me that I hadn’t had my period yet that month. I tried to shove the thought away, but it kept coming back.
I know it sounds mad that I had n
o idea when I’d last had one, but it isn’t that mad. It wasn’t always regular. Sometimes it was late, or I missed a month if I was dieting or if she was giving me a really hard time. It’d never bothered me if it didn’t come when it should. But then it could never’ve meant that I was pregnant before.
I was still sitting there, staring at the screen, thinking about the last time I’d had my period when the film came on again.
Not this month so far. Not in January. Not in December.
That can’t be right, I told myself. That’s three months. It can’t have been three months.
I concentrated on December first. My period usually came towards the end of the month. But at the end of December I’d gone to Les’s that night when no one was home, and I hadn’t had my period then.
I tried January next. I must’ve had it at the beginning of the month, instead of at the end of December, that’s why I’d forgotten.
But I hadn’t forgotten. At the beginning of January, Shanee and I took her sister Mabel to the water slides as a birthday treat. We’d gone in the water. I didn’t use tampons; I couldn’t have gone in the water if I’d had my period; everyone would’ve thought they were in Jaws.
I sat very still. I couldn’t be pregnant. You can’t get pregnant the first time, everybody knows that. I had living proof that it takes more than sticking a penis in you to make a baby straight away. My sister Dara had to be on her nine millionth time and she still wasn’t pregnant. But if I was pregnant it had to have happened the first time, because we’d only ever really done it once. Plus, I hadn’t had an orgasm, and I was pretty sure that you couldn’t get pregnant without one. Besides, I wasn’t throwing up every morning, was I? No, I wasn’t. I felt absolutely fine. I didn’t want to eat gherkins and chocolate ice cream either. I only cried when I argued with my mother. And my breasts weren’t bigger. I didn’t feel pregnant: I felt like me.
I tried to remember something – anything – from our sex education classes that would give me some clue about being pregnant. But I could only remember one thing: always use a condom.