‘But what if there is no point in forgiving?’ I ask my boyfriend, the preacher. ‘What if the person who hurt you so much isn’t in your life any more? Rather than forgiving them, you just move on, and don’t bother with them any more. Why forgive people when you can just cut them out?’ I take a Rice Krispie cake from the tupperware box being waved under my nose by Sandra. Her eyes are fixed on Gordon’s face, almost trance-like, but even so she is still managing to channel her need for sugar.
‘You may never see a person in the flesh again, but that doesn’t mean that anger doesn’t burn inside of you every day,’ Gordon says. ‘If there is someone you haven’t forgiven can you tell me honestly that you don’t think about them all the time? As they have gone off to live their life, who is left with the damage of what they did?’
He is right, which is annoying. I am left with the damage, all of it. Sally is off being a mum to the baby who obviously loves her and I still think about the way she used to make me feel every single day.
‘Forgiveness is for you, not a right of passage for them. If you never see them again they will never know you have forgiven them. It doesn’t matter to them, it matters for you. Let’s pray.’
We all put a hand on someone else’s shoulder or knee. Gordon leads us through a prayer.
‘Dear Lord, we ask you to guide us in our quest to forgive those who do us wrong. To lead us from temptation and away from evil. Help us understand those who are good and those who are bad. We ask you to trust that we have devoted our lives to you, and that with your grace we can keep peace within ourselves. We are your servants, Lord. Christ sacrificed himself for us and for that we owe our lives. Amen.’
‘Amen,’ we all say quietly.
‘Is it all right with everyone if I have the last one?’
‘Yes, Sandra.’
In the car on the way home Gordon is playing me the new song that he has recorded.
‘Gordon?’ I say, but he doesn’t hear. ‘Gordon?’ Again, he doesn’t respond. ‘GORDON!’ I shout, pressing eject.
‘What? What, Flo? We were just getting to the best bit.’
‘Gordon, would you like to come into my house when you drop me home?’
‘Sorry, Flo. I need to get home. I have to write a sermon for the kids at Sunday school this week.’
‘OK,’ I say quietly. ‘It’s just that we have been going out with each other for nearly a month now. You pick me up and take me to our Bible meetings, and to church, and you have got me in free to a few of your gigs now, which is really sweet. But don’t you think it’s time you came into my house? Or that we did something else, just us, maybe that isn’t about church?’
I think I worded that OK. Well, I worded it how I feel, anyway. For such a confident person, Gordon is very slow at making moves. He kisses me every time he picks me up and drops me off. But those kisses don’t involve tongues, and they have gone from feeling magical to feeling almost parental. I know I am hardly the world’s most sexual person, but I think we should be progressing slightly in our relationship. He should at least come inside my front door.
‘But I need to get this written, Flo. God might be able to help me in most things, but he can’t do my work for me, can he?’
‘I suppose not.’
He pushes his tape back in and carries on singing. When we get to my house, he gives me my usual kiss and says goodnight. I press eject.
‘Well, what about Saturday night?’ I ask him. ‘My mum will be out and I’m babysitting my little sister. Why don’t you come over? We can order pizza, watch a movie?’
He looks really unsure.
‘Gordon,’ I carry on. ‘It’s normal for two people who like each other to spend a Saturday night in watching a movie, you know,’ I say, getting slightly impatient.
‘I guess it is. Well, um, OK, I suppose it can’t do any harm, can it?’
‘No, Gordon, it can’t do any harm, so will you come? Eight o’clock?’
‘Yes. Yes, OK. I will bring us something to watch. I think I know what you will like.’
‘Great.’
‘Lovely.’
‘Goodnight, Gordon.’
‘Goodnight, Flo.’
He puts the tape back in and drives off, singing his songs.
Renée
‘Jesus, I want you so bad,’ says Dean, throwing me up against his front door. It’s midnight, and we have been in the pub. I fancy him so much I have barely been able to keep my hands off him all night.
He opens the door behind me and lifts me into the kitchen, putting me down onto the worktop. He kisses me and pushes a hand up my top. I’m in heaven, but then I nearly pull the toaster out of the socket when the light snaps on and Meg says, ‘Oh, sorry, guys. I thought you would be home later. I just had a few hours’ kip in your bed, but I can move over to the couch.’
I pull my skirt down and jump off the counter.
‘Do you ever go home?’ I find myself saying out loud for the first time since this relationship began.
‘Excuse me, Renée, whose house is this?’ Dean says firmly. Making me feel like a dick.
Meg doesn’t answer.
It’s obvious I am outnumbered in my belief that Dean and I should get at least one night in this flat without Meg sleeping on the sofa, but she is always here. It’s not like she is a housemate – there is no spare bedroom. She just sleeps on the sofa under a thin blanket. Almost every night that I stay over they get really stoned and it’s hard to get a conversation out of either of them the more off their faces they get. So I just go to bed and leave them to it. Then Dean and I have sex in the mornings. It’s great sex, fun, exciting, proper grown-up sex. I don’t use a condom like Dr Burrington told me to, but Dean and I have been seeing each other for over a month now. He hasn’t said it yet, but it feels like he is my boyfriend. This is definitely my most serious relationship ever. And with that in mind, I want to ‘make love’ to my boyfriend before I go to sleep, just once, without thinking Meg can hear every single noise I make.
‘Come with me,’ I tell him, as I lead him back outside. ‘Let’s go to my car.’ If I can’t be alone with him here, I will take him somewhere else.
I’m parked on the pier because all the spaces outside his house were gone when I arrived earlier. I lead him by the hand down the hill. ‘I want you to myself tonight,’ I tell him. He seems excited.
We get into my car and I put on the engine to get some heat. I roll my driver’s seat back and tell him that if he does the same, my car is so small it almost makes a mattress. Flo and I do it all the time. Well, we did until we both got boyfriends.
I take my top straight off. The glow of the lit-up town gives just the right amount of light to make my skin look nice. It’s a relief to be topless in front of him without the harsh light of the morning due to his lack of good curtains. I have become very brave with being naked around him, but there is no comparison to how confident I feel when I am not worrying about the marks on my skin.
Having sex in a Fiat 126 isn’t easy, but we manage it. And to be honest, apart from the fact that anyone could walk past at any given moment, I am just relieved to get the chance to feel like our sex life is about us, and not just him and his flat, and Meg.
When we are done, we sit in our seats smoking fags. Dean opens a window to try to de-mist the glass. I notice a footprint on the windscreen and we giggle as it disappears when the air comes into the car.
‘You seemed to know what you were doing there,’ he says, after taking a long drag.
‘Well, you have taught me a lot in the last month. I know what you like.’
‘No, I mean with the car. You had your system down. I take it you’ve had sex in cars before?’
I wasn’t expecting this question. Does it matter? Have I ever asked him about the sex he has had in the bed that I have slept in over ten times now? Why has he even asked me that?
‘I’m not sure that’s any of your business really, is it?’ I say, trying to sound jokey.
&nbs
p; ‘Not my business? Come on, Renée, I don’t judge. I am an artist. People express themselves through other people. I like it. I’ve had girlfriends all over the world. Had sex in cars, on beaches, I’ve even done it in a cinema. You can tell me about your experiences, can’t you? How many people have you slept with?’
I am an open person. Apart from being terrified of buying tampons, not much makes me feel uncomfortable, but this question feels like the most personal thing I have ever been asked. Like telling him would be sharing my biggest secret. No one, not even Flo, knows how many people I have slept with. I find it hard to tell her as her brother is obviously one of the people on the list and we do everything we can to avoid mentioning that. So even though I have told her things I have done with guys, I’ve never told her how many. But if Dean is going to be my boyfriend and we are going to be honest with each other, then maybe the grown-up thing to do is to tell him the truth.
‘Three,’ I tell him. ‘Including you.’
Well, nearly the truth. He was my fourth.
‘Oh come on, you are way too experienced for it to just be three.’
‘No, I mean … I have been to bed with and done other stuff with more guys. I presume by sleeping with you mean sex? Well, I have had sex with three guys, and yes, one of those was in a car.’
‘This car?’
‘No, his car.’
‘When?’
‘Two years ago.’
‘Was that your first time?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you lost your virginity at fifteen? Wow, that’s young.’
‘Well, I didn’t plan it. It just kind of happened.’
‘I’m sure it did. You sexy minx, I bet you were gagging for it.’
I start to feel really trapped by my honesty.
‘No, I wasn’t gagging for it. It’s actually not something I am particularly proud of, so can we not talk about it?’
‘Sure, I am happy to not talk about it. But four people and you only just turned eighteen? You’re racking them up!’
Dean is making me feel bad. Is it really that many? It’s barely two a year – is that so bad? It’s not like I always have sex the first time I kiss someone, like I did with him. I just went with that because he is so much older than me, I didn’t want to appear young. I wanted to behave like the other people he has probably slept with. I wanted to be a woman.
‘Well, how many have you slept with then?’ I ask, hoping to balance this out.
‘More than that, but it’s different. I’m older than you.’
‘How many had you slept with when you were my age then?’
‘More than you. Much more, but it’s different, I am a guy.’
‘How is it different?’
‘Because men fuck and women get fucked, babe. That’s why. Women can’t behave like men when it comes to sex. It’s just the way it is. Come on, let’s go back to mine. I fancy a spliff.’
He might as well have called me a slag and been done with it. I don’t know what to do with myself.
‘I’ll drive up,’ I say. ‘The booze has worn off now, and I saw a space.’
He puts up a little bit of resistance to me driving but it’s only up the hill, and he wants to get home. We don’t speak again until we pull up outside his house, where I tell him I think I should spend the night at home tonight.
‘But what about the morning? I love our mornings,’ he says, trying to persuade me with a hand on my thigh and his nose in my neck.
‘I’d better get home.’
We kiss and he gets out. I watch him walk in. Meg appears at the kitchen window to wave goodbye to me. I don’t wave back.
I drive slowly, knowing that I am way over the limit and that I should not be in my car. As I get to the top of the Grange I think I should have just stayed at Dean’s and left early tomorrow morning, but what he said really upset me. ‘Men fuck and women get fucked.’ What a horrible way to put it. It made sex sound so brutal, so one-sided. All those times we have had sex was he just fucking me? What happened to making love? I am lost in thought and realise that the car has completely steamed up again and a perfect footprint has reappeared on the windscreen. Despite everything, the symbol of my wild, sexy adventures in my car makes me laugh. I swerve slightly out of control and the car crosses onto the other side of the road. I correct myself quickly, and then I see a blue light flashing in my rear-view mirror. Shit, shit shit shit shit shit. I pull over, search my bag for a piece of chewing gum and wind down my window.
‘Is this your car?’ asks the policeman as he comes up alongside me. He is oldish, with a grey beard. He is shining a torchlight into my face.
‘Yes, it’s my car.’
‘And where have you been so late?’
I am aware that my breath smells of booze, and I am genuinely frightened. I don’t want to get caught drink driving. It’s so grim. People hate drink drivers, even if they don’t kill anyone. It’s just a really stupid thing to do. Shit.
‘I’ve been babysitting,’ I say, having a stroke of genius. ‘The parents didn’t get home until really late so I am so tired. I have school tomorrow and my exams start soon. I spent the whole night revising and now I can barely keep my eyes open. I only live around the corner, so I am nearly home.’
I do the best big yawn I can without blowing alcohol breath anywhere near the policeman and wait a very long twenty seconds before he says, ‘Well, you must get your sleep if your exams are coming up. That wasn’t right of them to stay out so late. Drive safely. I will follow you home to make sure you get back OK.’
When he has walked away I breathe out and pant like I just came up for air. Thank God. But shit, home is actually about another ten minutes away. He will know that I lied, and I am not sure I can drive straight all that way. I do feel really tired.
I have an idea.
Flo
Surely not? I think, as I lie in bed and hear the pebbles being thrown at my window. My heart does a leap. Gordon?
I rush to my window like Juliet rushing to the balcony. Did she even rush to the balcony? I can’t remember. Anyway, I tear across my bedroom ready to embrace my love’s romantic gesture with open arms. The idea of such romance is overwhelming for me. I have never had a guy come to my house, let alone throw pebbles at my window. It’s so, it’s so, it’s so …
It’s Renée.
‘What are you doing?’ I say in a loud shouty whisper out of the window. I see a police car drive past my house slowly, and she turns to give them a wave. What on earth is going on?
‘I need to stay here tonight,’ she shouts up. ‘Let me in!’
Fifteen minutes later, with cups of tea and pyjamas on, Renée and I sit head to toe in my single bed.
‘We haven’t done this in weeks,’ she says.
‘It’s because we have boyfriends,’ I tell her.
‘It changes everything, doesn’t it?’
‘It really does.’
We think about that for a moment. We used to do this all the time, sit in bed for hours and hours drinking tea and talking. Now I don’t know what we have to talk about. We are so different all of a sudden.
‘So how is Gordon?’ she asks, a silly smirk on her face.
‘He’s good. We get on really well, I like him a lot. How’s Dean?’
‘Yeah, Dean’s great. Such a laugh, and it’s getting quite serious. Really good. So nice, I’m really happy. Really, really happy.’
‘Great.’
‘Great.’
We drink some tea and pretend that things don’t feel awkward. I’m sure it’s just because we haven’t seen each other in ages that’s making things feel weird.
‘Have you been doing any revision?’ I ask her, thinking that might warm us up a bit.
‘No, but it’s OK. I will do some last-minute cramming.’
‘The exams start in two weeks, Renée. You’ll fail everything again if you don’t –’
‘All right, Flo, don’t go on. What are you, my mum?’
&nb
sp; ‘Jesus, I was just saying,’ I say, shocked by how snappy she is being in my bed.
‘Jesus? I thought that was blasphemy?’ she says, like a smart arse.
‘OK, so you’ve still got issues with me believing in God, Renée. I know you think it’s a fad, but it isn’t, OK?’
‘It’s just a distraction from the actual stuff that’s going on in your life, Flo. It doesn’t make you stronger than being the kind of person who deals with stuff properly, like you used to be, does it?’
But that’s the thing, I think. I didn’t used to deal with stuff properly. I used to hate myself, I used to think everyone hated me. Since going to church I feel far more solid, far more secure. How can that be a bad thing?
‘Let’s go to sleep,’ I say, turning off the light. She is just in a terrible mood. Hopefully by tomorrow she will have calmed down.
In the morning Renée drives us to school. She obviously hasn’t come to terms with my choices at all.
‘I just don’t see where it’s all come from,’ she says suddenly.
‘I know, you’ve made that very clear.’
‘What about other people at school? Do they know you are part of the church now?’ I hate the way she says ‘part of the church’. It makes it sound so culty. But I think that’s how she sees it, as a cult.
‘In the book I am reading for English, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,’ Renée goes on, ‘the main girl’s mum is a crazy religious woman who makes her study the Bible and won’t let her read books. And the church is like this horrid institution that people like the mum get obsessive about and judge people who are not in it. And they don’t like sex and they don’t like freedom, basically. And I thought that was what we are all about at the moment, freedom? And how we are about to break free from school and live our lives in a way we haven’t been able to yet. And just as we are about to do that you join the church, which is more controlling than school ever was, even Tudor Falls.’
‘Firstly, Renée,’ I say, ‘the church is nothing like the way it is described in that book you are reading. That’s a really extreme example of it. And as far as us being free goes, we will be. If we get into Nottingham then we will have so much freedom. I can do History, you can do English and we will be really happy, like we said.’
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