New Girl

by Carmen Reid

  ‘Don’t you think you should have told me about this?’ she went on. ‘Don’t you think just a little bit of information about how you did at school might have been helpful to me?’

  There was a pause before Lorelei said in her defence, ‘I just wanted to be a really good role model for you.’

  ‘By lying?’ Gina shot back. ‘That’s wonderful – I’ve learned so much from that!’

  ‘Gina! There are lots of things I’ve done well’ – there was a quaver in Lorelei’s voice that Gina didn’t think she’d ever heard before – ‘but nothing’s more important to me than being the best possible mother to you, because . . . well . . . you know . . .’

  Gina realized what her mother was trying to say: until Mick had come into their lives, she had been bringing up Gina all on her own.

  Much of the anger had gone out of Gina’s voice when she told her mom, ‘You are the best. But that doesn’t mean you have to pretend to be perfect.’

  The quiet buzz of transatlantic silence filled Gina’s ear again. She worried that her mother was going to cry – something she didn’t think she’d ever experienced before. Well, not for a very long time anyway.

  ‘So what happened that year?’ Gina heard herself asking, half wanting to know, half dreading upsetting her mother even more.

  After a long pause Lorelei said, ‘It was a really difficult time. My dad was sick and I met this boy who was there for me when I needed someone.’

  ‘Oh.’ It suddenly dawned on Gina that she didn’t know anything about her mother’s first boyfriends . . . had never thought to ask about them.

  ‘His name was Carl,’ Lorelei went on, ‘and he was really cool and nice and really quite . . . beautiful.’ And then out came the story: Gina listened to every word of it, fascinated. She would replay it over and over in her mind for weeks to come.

  Spring term 1980 and sixteen-year-old Lorelei was supposed to be studying hard for her O-levels; instead she’d been falling madly in love with ‘cool and nice and really quite beautiful’ Carl, who was seventeen.

  ‘He was there for me,’ Lorelei told her daughter again, ‘when I needed someone. I could talk and talk and talk to him. I spent all my free time with him, and all the time I wasn’t with him, I was wishing I could be!’

  Then the unthinkable had happened: Carl’s father got a new job in London and the family had to move away in less than two months’ time.

  ‘I know this sounds crazy, Gina’ – Lorelei was almost laughing at herself – ‘because we weren’t much older than you . . . God! We weren’t much older than you at all. But we just couldn’t handle the thought of being apart. We were so obsessed with each other – it says a lot about what else was going on in our lives, doesn’t it? That we just couldn’t face being separated.’

  Then there was a pause, but Gina waited, hoping that the rest would come.

  ‘We made a plan to run away together.’ Lorelei’s voice was low. ‘He had a motorbike and a tent, and we were planning to go to France. I think we were going to pick fruit . . . or grapes, or wash dishes or something. It was so romantic and so totally nuts!’ she added quickly.

  ‘Anyway, I had packed a rucksack and we were going to leave in the middle of the night. I don’t know why we had to leave at night – maybe because we were spending so much time reading Beat poetry or something . . . So . . .’

  Then came a pause and a trembling sigh, which made Gina grip the phone tightly.

  ‘But he crashed his bike,’ Lorelei said. ‘Well . . . some idiot driver didn’t see him at a junction, pulled out and went straight into him.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Gina cried, feeling a lump in her throat.

  ‘Oh, honey, he wasn’t killed,’ Lorelei went on, ‘but he was a mess. He broke a wrist, his legs had to be pinned, his face needed fifty-eight stitches; it was seven months before he could walk properly again . . . and . . . well, when his parents found out the full story, they were absolutely furious. I was allowed to visit him in hospital once and that was it. They froze me – and my newly bleached blonde hair, by the way – totally out and I was devastated.

  ‘So . . . no big surprise that the subjects you really have to study for: chemistry and history’ – there was enough emphasis on that for Gina to suspect that her mom remembered Miss Ballantyne very well – ‘I flunked . . . But they let me back for my A-levels . . . so I’m very grateful to St Jude’s really.’

  ‘You should have told me all this,’ Gina said.

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘I think I was going to,’ her mom began. ‘I think I was waiting until you were old enough to really understand. And I guess you are now . . . First love, baby – it’s just incredible and I hope you enjoy every moment of it, but it always seems to end with broken glass of one kind or another.’

  ‘Did he move to London?’ Gina wanted to know.

  ‘Yeah . . . He sent me a postcard with his new address! But I never wrote back – it was all just too upsetting.’

  ‘So you messed up your O-levels and went to a different school for a year?’

  ‘Yeah, a college in Frankfurt, where Dad was based. He got better and then St Jude’s let me back for my A-level year. Even though I was still way too into hair bleach and eyeliner!’

  ‘And you did really well.’

  ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you get to mess up your first exams!’ Lorelei warned.

  ‘Hey . . . it’s OK. Looks like I might finally do better than you at something! Thanks for telling me, Mom,’ Gina added, holding the receiver right up against her ear. ‘All I want is for you to be honest with me.’

  ‘Ha! Honest?’ Niffy, cramming a large chunk of chocolate into her mouth and stretching her long arms out along the fire-escape railing, couldn’t help laughing at this. ‘Parents are never honest. I don’t know why not . . . Apparently it’s because they’re trying to protect us from the ugly, evil, bitter truth.’

  ‘Yeah, but we usually find out about it anyway and then they just look really stupid,’ Amy added, a significant memory of her own popping to mind. In the holidays she’d walked in on her dad’s ‘business meeting’ in the hotel in Dubai. ‘Oh, that kind of business,’ she’d managed to say to the bare behind in front of her, before backing out of the room and slamming the door shut.

  ‘Why didn’t you just tell me?’ she’d asked her dad in a flood of tears later in the day. ‘Why should I be the last to know?’

  ‘I didn’t know what to say,’ he’d insisted, fighting back tears of his own. ‘I had no idea what you’d think . . . and I don’t ever want you to think badly of me.’

  Well, that at least had been honest.

  ‘But now I think you’re a liar as well as everything else,’ Amy had told him. ‘Can’t you just be honest? With me as well as everyone else?’

  But Amy wasn’t being honest now, was she? She still hadn’t mentioned one word about her father’s new life to her friends. And she’d already told him that she would . . .

  Min took the slab of chocolate from Niffy and broke off a piece. All four girls were out on the fire escape: it was after ten p.m., so they were confined to their dorm, but it was such an amazing evening, the sun still visible in the sky, that they couldn’t bear to go to sleep yet.

  ‘I asked my mum why she was so desperate for us all to be doctors,’ Min told them, ‘and do you know what she said? It totally surprised me – I’d thought it was because she wanted us all to have great jobs and earn good money so that she could be proud of us all – but she told me it was because she and my father still feel guilty that they had such a good education and can afford to give us one too.

  ‘The only way of getting over the guilt is for us to work helping people less fortunate than us. If she’d told me that before, I think I’d have understood it. Instead I just felt this terrible pressure that I couldn’t veer from their course.’

  ‘What about my mum?’ Niffy added. ‘She’s the biggest liar of them all. Apparently she di
dn’t want me to worry . . . she still doesn’t want me to worry. She wants me to stay on here and pretend that everything is just fine!’

  ‘You must be so scared,’ Gina said, rubbing Niffy’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m not as scared as I was when I first found out.’ Niffy broke off another chocolate chunk and thoughtfully nibbled a little corner from it. ‘Why do we not have fags and booze?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re going to live at home,’ Amy reminded her. ‘You’ll have to adapt your vices. Chocolate and chips from now on.’

  ‘I’ll be the size of a house the next time you see me.’ Niffy held her arms out wide to demonstrate.

  But the thought of her managing to alter her rangy frame to anything house-sized just made her friends laugh.

  ‘I won’t be in the hockey team next term!’ she exclaimed, as if this thought had just occurred to her. ‘Bum! Obviously Gina won’t be here either . . . Willow, at least, will consider that a blessing. But what will you do without me?’

  It was obvious that Amy and Min were suddenly too choked to answer this question.

  ‘Speech Day tomorrow,’ Niffy said brightly in an effort to cheer them up a little. ‘Wait till you see me crossing the stage in one of Amy’s poncy frocks. I think we should play Banshee Buzzword Bingo for money – that’ll take our mind off . . . things.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  AFTER LUNCH, NIFFY and Gina went back to the boarding house to change. Speech Day, the final day of the school year, involved a huge gathering in the school hall for pupils, staff and all the parents of the leavers.

  Every girl leaving the school that year crossed the podium in a dress of their own choosing, had a little summary of their academic and sporting achievements read out by the Banshee and received a handshake, a book and a round of applause for their efforts.

  ‘You look really nice,’ Gina assured Niffy, who actually just looked uncomfortable in the borrowed red summer dress, admittedly a little short at the waist and the hemline. Niffy put her feet into flat red pumps, bought specially for the occasion so she didn’t have to wear riding boots again.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m leaving,’ she confided. ‘I keep telling myself it’s just for a short time – Mum will get better really soon and I’ll be back . . . But what if it isn’t? What if this is it? I spend the next three years of school somewhere else, and Amy and Min . . .’ Niffy couldn’t finish the sentence because her voice was breaking.

  Gina went over and put an arm round her. ‘Shhh,’ she soothed. ‘Your mum is so strong and so optimistic, I just know she’s going to be OK. You’ll be back; you’ll be back really soon, and even if you’re not, Amy and Min will be your friends for life. I totally believe that.’

  ‘What about you?’ Niffy put her hands to her eyes and rubbed briskly. ‘Are you going to miss us?’

  ‘Of course I’m going to miss you!’ Gina said, without the slightest doubt. But California was calling. She wanted to wake up to blue skies and a dazzling ocean view every morning; she wanted pure, hot, unadulterated sunshine. She wanted to drink root beer by the pool. She wanted to hang out with Mom, Menzie and Mick. She wanted to see all her old friends . . . But she didn’t like to think about how much she would miss the dorm girls.

  ‘You’ve got to promise me that you’ll stay in touch,’ she insisted, ‘and that you’ll definitely, definitely visit.’

  ‘In California?’ This thought seemed to cheer Niffy up a little. ‘Are we all allowed to come and visit you in California?’

  ‘Of course!’

  Min, Amy, Niffy and Gina sat together in the Year Four row listening to the Banshee’s summary of the past year.

  All four of them had pencils and little white scorecards on their knees. At the top of the cards they each had ten words: words which were a dead cert, like achievement, pride, excellence and strive; higher-scoring words such as example and illustrious; then everyone had two mad bonus words chosen at random – tartan, penguin – that kind of thing. These were a hundred points apiece.

  ‘Have you heard about Llewellyn?’ Niffy whispered at Amy, just loud enough for Penny to turn round and glare at them.

  ‘No!’ Amy shook her head. ‘Please tell me Penny’s been dumped?’

  ‘Better than that!’ Niffy insisted. ‘He’s been arrested for shoplifting!’

  ‘Noooo!’ Amy looked at Penny and smiled. ‘Goes against the communist principles a bit, doesn’t it?’ she couldn’t help asking her rival.

  ‘Property is theft!’ Penny hissed back.

  ‘No, I think you’ll find shoplifting is theft . . . Well, that’s how the police will see it anyway.’

  ‘Your father must be delighted,’ Niffy added.

  Penny flushed and looked away.

  ‘When she thought she’d get her dad to meet her boyfriend, she didn’t think it would be in court, did she?’ Amy whispered as loudly as she could get away with.

  A note was heading down the line of seated schoolgirls towards them. It had started with Willow, and as Min passed the small blue envelope to Gina, she saw with surprise the words Gina the daffodil from California scribbled over the front of it.

  Although Gina could feel the glare of their form teacher burning into her back, she held the envelope down in her lap and opened it as quietly as she could.

  She felt her heart speeding up a little, her throat drying as she considered what this little envelope could be.

  Could it be . . .?

  Could it really . . .?

  Did this mean . . .?

  She carefully unfolded the single sheet of blue paper.

  Although the writing was scribbly, she could just make it out: Gina, you’re not allowed to go back to California without saying goodbye. Please! Yrs Dermot. Two big kisses had been added at the bottom, along with a mobile phone number.

  ‘Dermot?’ Amy guessed at once.

  Gina’s blush confirmed this.

  ‘I knew it!’ she whispered. ‘He could never keep his eyes off you.’

  ‘But I always thought he was flirting with Niffy!’ Gina whispered back.

  ‘That was just because he was so in lurve with you he could hardly even say your name!’

  ‘And what about the girl?’ Gina asked.

  ‘What girl?’ Amy replied.

  ‘You know, the girl . . . the one he was . . . Oh!’ With a rush of embarrassment, she realized it must have been her!

  ‘You!’ Amy made the connection at the same moment.

  ‘Oh shut up!’ Gina said, but her face was flushed pink and her eyes were sparkling. ‘You are so embarrassing.’

  Amy laughed, but Gina saw that she had taken hold of Niffy’s hand. Their fingers were linked together and squeezing each other’s hard. They’d been friends since they were ten; they’d always had each other at St Jude’s. Gina couldn’t help wondering how Amy was going to survive Penny without Niffy by her side.

  ‘I think we can all agree’ – up on stage, the Banshee was drawing to a close – ‘that this has been a wonderful year. We are bursting with pride at our achievements.’

  Min added two ticks to her card.

  ‘Nothing stands in the way of our girls. They drive through every obstacle set before them like snowploughs cutting through the drifts.’

  ‘Result!’ Niffy circled a bonus word – snowplough – and punched the air. ‘One hundred points! One hundred points!’

  ‘And now I’d like to invite all the leavers to come and wait backstage so we can let them appear in turn and congratulate them on their achievements at the school.’

  During the loud applause, Jenny, Niffy and Gina shuffled out of the Year Four row.

  ‘I have to go to the loo,’ Gina whispered to Niffy. ‘I’ll catch up with you backstage.’

  ‘Luella Nairn-Bassett,’ the Banshee began as Niffy stood and smiled at the edge of the stage.

  ‘Oh no, she’s put on her boots!’ Amy hissed. ‘Why has she taken off her pumps and put on her boots?’

  ‘Th
ey look good,’ Min countered. ‘They’re very Niffy.’

  ‘I lend her my red Emporio Armani and she wears it with riding boots!’

  ‘Luella is a boarder who joined us when she was ten years old.’ The Banshee was smiling kindly: clearly all thoughts of finding Niffy in the herbaceous border and her shoe in the records room were far from her mind. ‘She’s been captain of every one of her year’s lacrosse, hockey and tennis teams, so we’re going to miss her sporting prowess terribly. Luella is going to be schooled closer to home for the foreseeable future due to family illness.’

  She nodded and Niffy took her cue to walk across the stage while the audience clapped.

  Only Min saw the silent tears dripping from the end of Amy’s nose onto her long-forgotten scorecard.

  ‘And now Gina Peterson,’ the Banshee began. ‘Gina?’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  GINA WAS THE last girl left in Daffodil dorm. School had closed at twelve noon, and after a sandwich lunch at the boarding house, everyone else had taken taxis to the airport or train station or been picked up by their parents.

  Amy’s dad – ‘Head-to-toe Versace, Dad: you are so embarrassing!’ ‘Hey, I’m a Glasgow boy and proud of it!’ – had arrived with his partner, Gary Livingstone.

  ‘Business partner?’ Niffy had asked Amy quietly, wanting to clarify.

  ‘No.’ Amy had played it extremely coolly. ‘The other kind. Can’t you tell? They’re wearing the same shoes. They must have been shopping together, which is kind of sweet.’

  ‘Very,’ Niffy had agreed, taking it completely in her stride, but then she’d had to ask, ‘Why do we know nothing about this? You’ve obviously known since . . .’

  ‘Dubai,’ Amy had told her.

  ‘Were you worried about what we’d think?’ Niffy had asked in surprise.

  ‘No,’ Amy had replied. ‘I was too busy worrying what I thought about it.’ She’d taken a deep breath, then smiled. ‘And I’ve decided it’s OK.’

  ‘Of course it’s OK! It’s totally fine. Cool. Look, your dad is introducing Gary to my mum,’ Niffy had observed.

  Both girls had watched as Mrs N-B, whose social training had begun in toddlerhood, shook Gary’s hand, then declared, ‘Oh really! Lucky you! He’s been on the shelf for far too long.’