Goose

by Dawn O'Porter

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Guernsey

  1: Never Give Up On The Good Times

  2: Who Do You Think You Are

  3: Spice Up Your Life

  4: Too Much

  5: Move Over

  6: Bumper To Bumper

  7: Say You'll Be There

  8: Viva Forever

  9: Headlines

  August 1997

  10: Time Goes By

  11: Goodbye

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Copyright

  For Louise and Carrie, my girls x

  ‘Are you sure you’re ready to get rid of it?’ I say to Aunty Jo as she drives us towards town.

  ‘Never more certain about a thing,’ she says.

  We pull up outside the house and it’s very obvious that there’s no one home. He is probably in the pub, like he always is on a Friday night.

  ‘OK, let’s do this,’ I say.

  We get out and drag Ricky out of the boot. Still looking ravishing in Aunty Jo’s wedding dress, we tiptoe him to the front door. As I open a wheelie bin, Aunty Jo tips him in.

  ‘Leave his feet poking out,’ I say. Aunty Jo closes the lid, making sure that two bony feet hang out over the top.

  ‘OK, quick. Let’s go,’ she says.

  We jump back in the car and spin off. Aunty Jo stops at the first phone box we see.

  ‘Off you go then. Go and do the deed.’

  I dial 999.

  ‘Hello. Police, please. Yes, I’d like to report some suspicious activity. I just saw a grown man throw a human skeleton into a wheelie bin.’

  Guernsey

  April 1997

  1

  Never Give Up on the Good Times

  Renée

  ‘Don’t spend all that lunch money on sausage rolls!’ yells Aunty Jo as I leave the house and walk to my car, my jacket hanging over my right shoulder. My hair is wet, my toothbrush is hanging out of my mouth and I’m holding my skirt up with my hand because I didn’t have time to zip it up properly. My other hand is holding my car keys, my bag and a strawberry Pop Tart. As usual, I am really late for school.

  I open the door of my Fiat 126 and throw everything except my toothbrush onto the passenger seat. Then, still holding up my unzipped skirt, I open the boot and pour into the engine the contents of the bottle of green anti-freeze that I left under my back wheel when I got home last night. When the bottle is empty I slam the boot shut, spit toothpaste into the hedge, get into my car, push in my Spice Girls tape and set off for school. It’s a lovely sunny April day.

  I got my car for twenty-five quid off a friend of Aunty Jo’s who won the local lottery and bought a BMW. If I won the lottery I would probably buy a BMW too, but there is no way I would sell my Fiat. It’s falling apart, the brakes barely work so I have to slow down using my gears, and when it’s cold I have to make sure I park on a hill so I can jump-start it. But I love that car with all my heart. It’s so cute and teeny-tiny. Smaller than a Mini. I did once get six people in it from school, though, and drove us all to town. I had a foot in my face the whole way, but it was fun. And that is what I love about my little car: it’s funny. It makes people laugh. Anyone who gets in it knows they are going to have a good time. It’s fast too – I reached 55mph on the coast road last week. And even though it pumps out green anti-freeze and needs refilling every twenty minutes, you can actually get a long way on the island of Guernsey in that time.

  When I arrive at school the car park is full, but as usual my best friend Flo has parked her car slightly over the line so that only my teeny-tiny one can fit in the space next to it. I park up and adjust my rear-view mirror so I can see my face. I scramble around in my glove box to find some black eye liner, draw once around both eyes, tie my hair into a pony tail, zip up my bag and get out.

  I shudder as I walk past Flo’s car. It’s her brother Julian’s old car, the same car I lost my virginity to him in two years ago. I’ve been in the car since then – Flo learned to drive a few months before me so she’d pick me up in it, but it always feels awkward, because what happened between me and Julian nearly split me and Flo up. Sleeping with – and I’m sure that expression was invented by parents so they never have to actually use the word sex – Flo’s brother is the stupidest thing I have ever done, and even though she has forgiven me for it we don’t talk about my virginity because it involved me lying to Flo and really hurting her. It’s the elephant in the room. Though at the time it felt like there was an elephant in my pants.

  Flo

  I don’t like being in the common room on my own. It’s really intimidating. Renée and I only joined the grammar school last year, and the girls who were already here gave us a bit of a hard time at the beginning. I think they felt like they owned the boys in their year and then we came along and the boys were interested to see what we were all about. It is better now than it was in the Lower Sixth, but when I am in the common room on my own I still feel like they’re all making spastic faces behind my back because they know that I’m a virgin.

  ‘How late am I?’ says Renée, making her usual grand entrance as she kicks the door open. She drops her bag on the floor and gives me a hug. ‘Thanks for saving me my spot.’

  I hug her back. ‘Thank God you’re here. This room gives me the fear so badly.’

  Renée’s eyes narrow. ‘Has someone said something to you? Who? What did they say?’ She jumps into a ninja pose.

  We both laugh. Sometimes I wonder if Renée actually enjoys people picking on me so she can stick up for me and have a go at them. She’s all about being the protective best friend.

  We had to really stick together when we first started here. We felt like we were lost among the huge number of people in our year. At Tudor Falls School for Girls there were only thirty-five of us – here there are nearly 150. At first we were in our little bubble, just so happy to be together that we barely noticed anyone else, but when we did, it felt a bit overwhelming.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No one said anything. But that doesn’t stop me thinking they do, does it?’

  ‘You’re so paranoid, Flo,’ Renée says, ruffling my hair like I am a little child. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that you have me now. Who cares what anyone else thinks?’

  I get my books out of my locker and smile. She’s right, I shouldn’t care. But I am plagued with insecurity. It was drummed into me over years of being teased by Sally de Putron that I’m square and not good enough. Sally might not be around me any more, but the constant jibing I had from her means that I presume the worst of people’s feelings towards me at all times. Life would be much easier if I was more like Renée. Having said that, she does care about what people think of her – she is just better at hiding it.

  ‘I can’t believe the exams start in six weeks,’ I say to Renée. ‘It feels like ages since we filled out our UCAS forms. I remember watching you walk away to the post office thinking we had years until we had to think about A levels and here we are, about to do them. I really hope we both go to Nottingham. It looks fun there. Me at the uni, you at the polytechnic … That worked out really well, you still being able to do English even though you failed so many GCSEs … Renée?’ I nudge her. ‘Renée, are you listening? Are you getting excited about going to Nottingham?’

  ‘Urgh,’ Renée sighs. ‘I don’t know. I only applied to do English so I can read books, but there is so much writing you have to do. The idea of writing even more essays when I leave here is not how I want to spend my first few years of freedom … ’ She shakes her head. ‘I dunno. I’ve gone off the idea, to be honest.’

  I stare at my best friend, confused. ‘Gone off the idea? You mean you don’t want to do English?
Maybe you could swap courses. I’m sure if you call them and explain you’ve had a change of heart they might consider you for something else. What about Classics? Or Cookery? You love food.’

  ‘It’s not the course, it’s going on to study at all. I just don’t think I want to spend another three years doing schoolwork.’

  I feel panicky. ‘But … what about us, Renée? What about our plan? That we would go somewhere where I could go to the uni, you could go to the poly, and we would be in the same city so we could live with each other and go away together?’

  ‘I just don’t think we should worry about what each other does. We should just do what we want,’ she says, resiliently.

  I watch her stuff clothes and packets of crisps into her locker and then try to push the door shut with her shoulder. She doesn’t seem at all fazed by what she has just said. I feel a tingling in my nose, which means I am going to cry. Please, no.

  ‘You mean you don’t want to go to uni with me, like we said?’ I ask, my voice unnecessarily high pitched.

  ‘No, I don’t mean that. I just mean if it doesn’t work out then we shouldn’t let it stop us doing what we want to do. We can still see each other, go stay with each other, plan good weekends, that sort of thing. Just don’t worry about it. You’ve been waiting to get off Guernsey most of your life – you can’t let my choices hold you back from going where you want to go,’ Renée says, like the thought of us splitting up isn’t hideously awful.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t,’ I say. Hurt, and with a nose full of that annoying runny snot that comes with tears. I manage to sniff it all back up, which sounds disgusting and makes me feel embarrassed. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Renée grabs my arm and smiles. ‘It really doesn’t. We’ll work it out. Come on, I’ll walk you to your RS lesson. I’ve got Classical Civilisation. Because learning about gods from a billion years ago who probably didn’t even exist is just what every girl needs to arm her against the challenges of the modern world!’

  We walk together down the corridor. Renée talks about what she plans to have for lunch and she doesn’t seem to notice that I say nothing at all.

  I feel nervous, and like everything is about to change.

  Renée

  I walk Flo to her RS class, arrange to go over to hers later on and then amble casually to the Classics room.

  I already know I will probably fail Classical Civilisation, as I have only been to about ten of the classes this year. It’s so incredibly boring, and it is so easy to skive at the grammar school. At Tudor Falls avoiding detentions wasn’t easy. I bunked off loads of lessons and got into trouble a lot, that was just that. But here, all we have to do is sign out. There’s a big registration book by the school entrance where you write your name and the reason you won’t be in school. It’s so easy. And as long as you don’t do it every day no one ever checks. Which is good, because if they did they would think I was dying with the number of ‘doctor’s appointments’ I have been to so far this year. Flo’s a bit weird about skiving and doesn’t like writing in the registration book because she doesn’t like people knowing her business. So it went down like a ton of bricks when I once wrote that she was out for an afternoon because she had ‘agonising period pains’. She went nuts, which is really unlike Flo. She stormed off and everything. I chased after her and made jokes about her being hormonal. It made her even more angry, but she laughed about it eventually. That’s usually how it goes with us.

  Usually.

  I feel bad about the conversation about uni, though. Because, even though I pretended not to notice, I know she was hurt. The thing is, I have been trying to say something for ages, but Flo is so intense about organising our future. She talks about it all the time. I’m finding it really difficult, because it’s obvious that we are totally different when it comes to what we want out of life. All I want to do is be excited about not having to do what people tell me to do for once, and all Flo wants is to study more and be told what to do for as long as possible.

  It feels like the rest of my life is about to start. In one way it’s been getting harder and harder for me to move forward, but in another I know I’m about to break away, so I feel freer than ever. It’s exciting, and it’s scary too. I know university is the obvious next step but to be honest, if an A level in Classics is too much for me then any degree is sure to make my brain explode. The idea of university sounds like three years more of everything I want to escape. I just don’t want to go.

  But I do want to leave Guernsey, and I can’t wait for that. I just want to know what will become of me, where I will go, who I will meet, what I will do. Life will change so much and that thrills me. I feel like a cannon about to be fired, but until I am lit I have to sit still, and wait. Luckily, inside this barrel I have plenty to do. Guernsey is fun. Since turning eighteen last month I get into pubs. I get off with loads of boys. I have Flo. But the sense that there could always be more is a constant itch.

  I sit at a desk at the back of my Classics class and remind myself to make the most of the next few months. I have to fill it with fun. And why not start now, with the thing I enjoy more than anything else: flirting.

  As Mr Walker, our midget Classics teacher, turns to write something on the white board, I am sat at a desk on the back row in between Pete Westfield and Marcus Smith. They both fancy me but I wouldn’t touch either of them with a barge pole. Marcus has nose hair and Pete is the most blatant virgin I have ever met. I flirt shamelessly with them in this class and then avoid them everywhere else. They don’t seem to have a problem with that at all so I don’t feel bad. It’s all this talk of valiant fighting and goddesses of love that makes us all horny. We also draw lots of diagrams of how we imagine it looks when Mr Walker has sex with a normal-sized person. Needless to say, sex talk is always on the agenda in Classical Civilisation.

  ‘Higher, higher,’ urges Marcus as I hitch my skirt up a little bit more.

  ‘Come on, show us your fanny,’ whispers Pete, panting.

  I lift the hem of my skirt a little higher. We have played this game before, and I am never quite sure if they are joking or not.

  ‘Come on,’ presses Pete. ‘Just show us your lips.’

  OK, too far. Joke over.

  ‘Get lost. I’m not the kind of girl who gets her fanny out just because a boy tells me to, you pair of pervs.’

  They try to act cool and pretend they never thought I would actually show them, but I know otherwise. They were both sitting forward to hide their erections and no boy has their tongue out like Pete did unless they think there might actually be a vagina on its way. Men are so simple.

  I am realising more and more that all boys think about is fannies and tits. Being a teenage girl comes with serious hurdles, but being a teenage boy involves being obsessed with body parts that are not even part of your own body. What a drag that must be.

  Don’t get me wrong, I find myself spending at least sixty-five per cent of my time thinking about boys, but I can shut that down if I need to. And I would rather not think about a penis unless it’s attached to someone I actually fancy. But for boys, it’s all they talk about. At Tudor Falls School for Girls we didn’t think about sex that much. Here, there is sex everywhere. The amount of times I’ve walked into the common room and seen a group of lads huddled in the corner looking at pictures of Pamela Anderson’s boobs is unbelievable. You don’t see girls looking at pictures of men’s willies, do you? Not in public anyway. Weirdly, I think girls are more likely to look at pictures of women’s bodies than men’s, because we’re all so obsessed with what we will look like when we’re grown-ups. It’s not really a sexual thing, though.

  The older I get the more I realise how different men and women are, and how weird it is that we are supposed to find one person of the opposite sex to spend the rest of our lives with. When you break it down, it’s kind of ridiculous.

  Flo

  A-level Religious Studies is so much harder than the GCSE. I get palpitations just befor
e each class because I panic so badly that I haven’t taken enough in and that I won’t be able to now before the exams. What with French and History, I’ve had so much coursework to do. I worry all the time. I just worry and worry and worry, because I have to pass. I want to get off this island, go to uni, get a great job and never have to ask my mother for money ever again. Even though we get on a bit better than we used to, she still makes me feel so guilty every time I ask for anything. I miss being able to ask Dad for stuff. I miss Dad. I don’t know if I’m having some weird delayed reaction to his death, but the thought of him fills my head every second of every day, and I dream about him too. Strange dreams, like him turning up in a white coat and saying he has to operate on me. Or him coming into my room and chatting about really mundane stuff, like gardening, but the vision is so real that I wake up saying things like,‘Yes, we should probably cut back the hydrangea bush soon.’

  I’m sure the dreams are just a phase. I hope so. I guess it’s understandable. But now I’m worried that Renée doesn’t want to go to the same uni as me. I could do without that on top of the stress of everything else. If I fail these exams I won’t be able to leave the island, but if I do leave the island I might lose Renée. Why is nothing ever simple? Why do I always feel like I am about to lose something?

  Well, everything apart from my virginity.