by Jane Rogers
‘Yes. D’you like me?’
‘Idiot,’ he laughed. He sat beside me on the bed and we started kissing again. Suddenly he broke off. ‘What d’you mean, it’s secret?’
‘My volunteering.’
‘Your volunteering?’
I was in a lift up at the top of a skyscraper and then the cable snapped. I was suddenly plummeting towards the ground. ‘Yes. I wanted to explain to you …’
‘Explain what?’
‘Well, d’you remember, I started to tell you about it that night on the swings – ’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You remember, the MDS-free babies?’
‘Injecting them with vaccine and sticking them inside girls who’re going to die?’
‘I – yes – I’ve volunteered.’
‘For that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘No.’ Stupid really, there was no point in replying.
Baz got up from the bed and leant against the opposite wall, facing me. ‘Has he put you up to this?’
‘Who?’
‘Iain. Is this his master plan?’
‘No, of course not. It’s my idea.’
‘He’s brainwashed you.’
‘No! I thought of it, I decided to volunteer.’
‘Why does he know about it?’
‘He came round yesterday and asked – look, that bit’s not important.’
‘But you – you – ’ He was staring at me and his voice had stopped being angry. ‘Jessie, what’s going to happen?’
My heart was hammering. I knew he wouldn’t understand. The more he asked questions, the more I panicked. I started to tell him about Mandy, then I tried to explain about Mr Golding, then about the sea-horses I’d seen with Dad.
Eventually he said, ‘Is it true?’
‘Yes.’
‘You really want to volunteer, and go in hospital, and be killed?’
‘Baz, it’s not like that.’
‘Then I can’t understand why you’re saying this shit.’
‘OK, listen.’ I made myself go through it again slowly, from start to finish. Then I explained about Iain coming round and how random it was. Everything I said sounded flimsy. When I had finished Baz turned and went out of the room. I heard him going into the kitchen, and it was quiet. I got up and followed him. ‘Baz? Baz?’
‘What?’ He was putting on his fleece.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Home.’ He slid his feet into his boots and bent to lace them.
‘But – ’
‘But what?’
‘I – I don’t want you to.’
No reply.
‘Look you can’t just – go.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why are you so angry?’
He straightened up. ‘You want me to stand here and clap and say Aren’t you brave?’
‘No, but – ’
‘Iain’ll do that. Ask him.’
‘It’s nothing to do with Iain. I hate Iain. Stop it!’
‘What d’you want me for? If you’re going to do all this?’
‘I thought you liked me.’
‘I thought you liked me.’
‘I do! I do!’
‘Right.’ He grabbed up his coat and pushed past me, he yanked the front door open and then it slammed shut behind him.
I froze. Surely he would come back. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. I tried to reason it out but every time I was blocked by how hateful he’d been. He didn’t care about me, he didn’t even like me, he just thought I was stupid. He thought what I was doing was shit. The injustice of it took my breath away. How I would feel if I was him? He tells me he’s volunteering for a drugs trial, to help solve MDS. The trial will cost his life. Wouldn’t I think he was brave? Wouldn’t I admire and love him even more? Wouldn’t I want to try and make the best of the short time we had together? Wouldn’t I support him? I wanted to get up and bang about the room and shout and throw things.
But I made myself stay sitting there, hunched at the table. I didn’t allow myself to stir. I forced myself into how I would really feel, like squeezing myself through a tiny crack under a door, into a different room. If he volunteered he’d be saying ‘I care about this more than I care about you.’ For a start. OK. He’d be saying ‘I haven’t trusted you enough to discuss this with you and actually I don’t care what you think, because I’m going to please myself anyway.’ He’d be saying, ‘I’m superior to you because I’m doing save-the-world, while you just go on muddling through, doing stupid little actions like demonstrations.’
I thought so hard my eyeballs felt like they were being pushed out of my head. He couldn’t love me. No one could love me. What I was going to do was the most selfish thing in the world. I sat there so long I couldn’t tell which was hard wooden chair and which was stiff bony Jessie-bum. I had no right to ask anyone to help me, because I was deliberately putting myself outside their reach.
You can’t go round to his house, I told myself. You can’t go and ask him to be nice; you can’t kiss him and hug him, because he’s right, it’s a lie. You love what you’re going to do more than you love him. It was like I’d stopped being human. If I went on with this I’d be alone. Upsetting Mum and Dad; making my friends angry; leaving them all behind.
Whereas if I stopped – Baz and I could be happy together. I could see Sal, and gradually she would get back to her old self. I could look after Mum and Dad and help them to feel better after all the awfulness of Mandy’s illness. I could love and be loved. But I already knew I was thinking about all that with the sentimentality you feel for something lost. The shock of understanding was cold, like being parachuted into the North Pole. Being alone and knowing it was real, and everything else was playacting. Everything else was a picture of my life, a story. Going ahead to that needle point at the clinic – that was real. I was an arrow fired straight at that, and I couldn’t expect any sympathy or kindness from anyone.
When I finally hobbled off the chair and round the kitchen to turn on the kettle, I had aged a hundred years. Like Rip van Winkle. There was ice in my heart.
Chapter 24
I didn’t see Mandy again. She had what Dad called ‘a bad episode’ in the afternoon and they called the doctor, who sedated her there and then. From that point really, it was as if she’d already gone.
Dad came home the night after she was sedated, and we talked about her and Mum, and then we got out the photo-box and went through the old pictures from when I was little. Pictures of Mand on holiday with us; of Mand teaching me to ride my bike; of Mand laughing and splashing; of her making my sea-horse puppet dance. We picked the best ones for the wall at her funeral. I knew that soon enough, Mum and Dad would have to do this for me. I couldn’t afford to think about it. For the first time, looking at those pictures of me toddling along the beach grinning, or shoving fistfuls of sand into my mouth, I imagined the baby. The baby; my child. I imagined her with Mum and Dad. I imagined the three of them together, and I was jealous and glad and terrified all at the same moment.
Dad told me that a group of women from FLAME were picketing the clinic – as they were picketing clinics up and down the country, wherever there was a Sleeping Beauty programme. Security guards had been placed on the doors, but there was also a rota so that one member of the lab staff was in at work 24/7, in case of any threat to the embryos. He was having to stay overnight once every five days.
In the morning when he’d gone I took three of the bags of stuff from my room, to the children’s charity shop in Ashton. Inside was a depressing sight: heaps of bags still waiting to be unpacked, dumped on the counter, on tables, and on the floor. I asked the woman where to put mine and she shrugged. She told me nobody bought anything any more. People just brought more and more stuff in. Women’s clothes and household goods; they had more than they could handle, they were sending unsorted lorry-loads of it as rags to paper manufacturers. I had a pang at
leaving my beloved possessions where no one would even get any use out of them. Then I remembered it was Mum and Dad who’d have to clear my room, and I was glad I’d done it.
As I left the shop my mobile went. Lisa. She was ringing about her latest plan; she still wanted to move away from the Kids’ House to somewhere in the countryside where they could be self-sufficient. Through someone who knew someone who’d told someone else, there seemed to be an offer of a small-holding for motherless kids. It was in Wales and she was asking me to go with her to see it. ‘I know you think it’s a cop-out,’ she said, ‘but you can still come and look, can’t you.’ She didn’t mention dissuading me from volunteering, but I heard her thought behind the words. It didn’t matter. I was glad she asked me, I was sick of being on my own. We agreed to meet at nine on Friday at Piccadilly, to get the train to Wales. She said to bring my bike because they’d told her it was quite far from the station.
I had one more thing to get through before Friday – my clinic interview. Dr Nichol had texted me to ask how I was getting on and whether I wanted another counselling session. I had texted back, No. Now this was the interview, where – as far as I knew – the final decision would be made about me.
I tried not to think about it, I tried to hold my mind entirely away from the subject. I would just go there and they would say ‘Yes.’ In the very edges of my brain, in the peripheral vision you have when someone’s holding their hands over your eyes, I allowed the flickering possibility of them saying ‘No’; of having a life to live again. It seemed remote and frightening.
I fiddled about for ages getting ready for the clinic interview, putting Sal’s clockwork nun in my bag for luck; changing into three different sets of clothes, feeling more and more peculiar. Then I realised I was going to be late and had to run to the bus stop. The weather had changed, it was mild and muggy, and I was sweating when I got onto the bus. I rode staring straight ahead with my bag balanced on my knees, feeling like a statue. When the nurse showed me into a waiting room I’d never seen before, there was a new girl sitting there. We glanced at each other and nodded, I don’t think either of us could remember how to smile. At least it wasn’t Rosa. She was called in straight away. I got my book out of my bag and stared at the page so I wouldn’t have to look at her when she came out. I didn’t want to see her crying or smiling or whatever the interview had done to her. Time passed slowly. When they called me in at last, Doctor Nichol was sitting behind her desk writing. She got up and came round to pat me on the shoulder and lead me to a comfy chair. Then she pulled up a chair opposite. ‘Well Jessie,’ she said, ‘how’re you feeling?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s not surprising,’ she said. ‘It’s a very big decision. What do your parents say?’
‘Well actually, they think they’ve convinced me to wait a year.’
‘Ah.’
‘I’d be too old, wouldn’t I?’
She nodded. ‘Mr Golding’s not taking anyone over 16 and a half. The Sleeping Beauty statistics are showing that every month of maternal age makes a difference, in terms of live births.’
‘Mum and Dad know that.’
‘Maybe you should take your mother to a Mothers for Life meeting,’ she said. ‘The women there are a good support network. They understand the process, they help each other through it.’
I had no desire to raise the topic with Mum again, ever.
‘What about you yourself? How have you been feeling?’
‘Well, I’ve felt a bit confused.’ I suddenly thought, she can see I don’t know what on earth I’m doing. All I have to do is be honest and I can save myself. Until that moment, I didn’t know I wanted to save myself, I didn’t know I had a treacherous bone in my body.
‘Have you been sleeping?’
‘I’ve had some wakeful nights.’ I laughed, so she wouldn’t think I was being pathetic.
‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘It would be very strange if you were calm, faced with such a decision. You know we don’t want girls to come into this with any delusions. You’re choosing a difficult and terrible path, one that people in the future will certainly thank you for, but one in which the only end for you must be death. You need to think about it realistically. After a certain point, there’ll be no turning back, and all the strength of your character will be needed.’
I tried to think but my head was swirling.
‘I want you to take as much time as it takes,’ she said. ‘This is your decision. I don’t want you to say anything now, I don’t want you to decide anything today. I want you to just go away and get on with your life for as long as it takes, until you are completely and utterly certain. If you’re not certain for six months, that’s fine, it means you won’t do it. OK? There’s no harm and no shame in not doing it. You’re not certain at the moment, I know, and there’s no one in the world who’d want to put you under pressure. Just live with it, see how you feel, see if it comes any clearer. OK?’
I laughed, partly out of relief and partly out of annoyance at myself for stringing it out. ‘What happens when I am certain?’ I asked.
‘You can ring me.’ She passed me a card with her number. ‘Here at the clinic, or on my mobile. You can ring me anytime.’
‘But will you select me then?’
‘If and when you know you really want to do it, then we will be glad to have you on the programme.’ I sat there like a lump. I couldn’t understand what the resistance was. I had decided. Surely to goodness, I had decided long ago? ‘Tell me exactly what happens, when I come to you and say yes.’
‘Well, we remove your Implanon. And we give you a temperature graph so we can tell when you’re ovulating – so we know the best time for your implantation.’
‘Can I do that now?’
She hesitated. ‘Have you got a boyfriend?’
‘No. No. I don’t need the Implanon. I’d like you to take it out today.’
‘But why?’
‘Because – because I know I want to do it, and I’m driving myself mad. At least if you take the Implanon out I’ll know I’ve taken one step forward. And if – in the end – I can’t …’
‘We can always put it back,’ she finished. ‘Alright Jessie, if you want.’ She made me sit on the hard chair by her desk, and used a little whirring implement on my arm. I felt it for a moment vibrating like a dentist’s drill, then there was a sensation of soreness. She swabbed with something cool and put a neat plaster over it. I had a vision of Mandy hacking out her Implanon with a razor. She knew what she wanted.
Dr Nichol gave me a temperature graph and explained how I should use it. We inserted the date of my last period and she counted to where I should begin. When we shook hands and said goodbye there was at least a crumb of comfort in my sore stinging arm, and the graph folded neatly in my bag.
The first person I saw after I left Dr Nichol’s office was Rosa. She was sitting outside on the steps. ‘Are you still doing it?’ Her face looked a bit funny and I guessed they must have turned her down.
‘Yes. Of course. Are you?’
‘Yes. Within the month,’ she said.
‘Oh!’ I glanced at her again, and noticed that she was wearing really thick makeup. Something had happened to her face. She got up and walked beside me towards the bus stop. ‘Did you go away and think it over?’ I asked her, ‘before you finally decided?’
‘I didn’t need to! I’ve always been 100 percent sure.’
‘So next time you come in – ’
‘It’ll be to stay!’
‘Is your mum really OK with it?’
‘Yeah, I told you. She’s making a video.’ There was a silence then she said, ‘When she wants to make me mad she says I won’t have the guts to go through with it. But I will. I’ll show her.’
‘And your boyfriend?’
‘Oh, I’ve dumped him. Loser.’ She laughed. ‘You should see my page on Facebook. I’ve got hundreds of fans, hundreds of fit men who’d go out with me if they could. All
sending me messages about how brave I am and everything. I don’t need him. I could pick anyone.’
‘You put it on Facebook? That you’re volunteering?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But we’re supposed to keep it secret.’
‘Not for much longer. Soon our faces’ll be known around the world.’
Surely Dr Nichol could have seen through her? I wished she wasn’t volunteering; it tarnished it, as if it was a thing someone flaky might do. Maybe she was lying.
Dad called in at home late that night, he’d been to Mand’s and all was peaceful there. He said if I didn’t mind, he’d go back and stay with Mum, because he thought Mand might not last the night. I told him I was going to Wales with Lisa. There was no point in telling him anything else. The uncertainty now seemed like a puzzle you have to solve before crossing a threshold. I would do it, I knew I would do it; but something had to unlock my tongue so it could say ‘yes.’
In the morning I took my temperature and put a little x in the right place on the graph. It was quite a novelty, getting my bike out of the garden shed. There were lumps of ancient mud deep in the tread of the tyres. It must have been there since I did the towpath marathon with Sal, a lifetime ago, before MDS. The dried mud spattered to the ground as I wheeled my bike to the gate. I cycled to Ashton station on it wobbling like crazy as I tried to get the gear lever to shift down. It was stuck on high.
I was half-expecting to see Gabe with Lisa at Piccadilly. But she was on her own; he’d told her he didn’t want to live some dirty hippy life with no-one but sheep for company. ‘He’ll probably change his mind,’ she said, but I could see she wasn’t happy about it. It crossed my mind that that was why she’d asked me. We swapped news about Wettenhall. Nat had called her from a safe phone saying he was in hiding but nothing more. And I asked what she knew about the airport protest. ‘Well it made it blatantly obvious that airports are prime targets for terrorism. So, a success.’ She hadn’t heard of anyone from YOFI being arrested.