by Kat Gordon
Whispers broke out as he swept off the stage. I looked around for Toby. He was sitting two rows behind me with his arm around Edith’s shoulder. Her face was white. Toby looked utterly calm.
Edith tried to speak to me after the assembly; I saw her pushing through people and turned away quickly. I didn’t feel like talking.
I nicked an apple from the canteen and went to the far side of the playing fields. I took my shoes and socks off and dug my toes into the soil. I could hear someone calling my name in the distance but I ignored it; I lay back, shielding my eyes from the sun with one arm, and bit into the apple.
“Jeez, are you deaf or something?”
Starr flopped down next to me.
“Selectively.”
“Well, thanks for making me run after you like an idiot.”
“I didn’t make you run after me.”
I threw my apple core into a bush and lit a cigarette. I tried to make the clouds above me into something interesting, but they just looked like clouds. ‘Lack of imagination’, my grandmother would have said. I blew smoke rings out above my head.
“What’s wrong with you anyway? You’ve been really quiet recently.”
“When’s recently?”
“Don’t be annoying,” Starr said. “I know something’s wrong. You can tell me.”
“I’m late.”
I watched her face, waiting for the realisation to hit her. Her mouth dropped open. “How late?”
“I don’t know,” I said, running my fingers through my hair. “A few weeks, maybe. I was never regular.”
She grabbed my arm. “Who’s the father?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” she said. She looked uneasy. “Maybe not right now.”
“It’s not important.”
“Tallie… ”
“Yes?”
“You’ve got to tell him.”
“No way. You know how it is.”
“Tallie, come on,” Starr said. “Stop being such a fucking hero and ask for help.”
“I’m not being a hero,” I said. I looked back up at the clouds. “My dad won’t want to deal with this.”
“If you don’t tell him then I will.”
“You can’t,” I said, gripping her hand. “You can’t grass on me.”
“It’s not grassing if you need help.”
“You can’t tell or it’s grassing,” I said.
Starr smacked her forehead with her free hand. “We’re not ten anymore, Tallie,” she said.
“Fuck off, Starr,” I said. “You can’t tell him, and you can’t make me either.”
“You can’t just ignore it and think it’ll go away.”
I stubbed out my cigarette and rested my hands on my lower abdomen. It still felt tight; nothing moved. I drummed my fingers on the skin. “It’s fine,” I said. “Everything’s fine.”
I wiped my nose on the back of my hand. An ant or something was crawling up my back. Sweat trickled from my armpit; time for another shower. I put my shoes and socks back on and jumped up, too fast. Everything started to go grainy for a moment, then black. I reached out and my hand touched hedge. I held on to the branches until my eyes started to clear. “Help… ”
“What is it, hon?” Starr asked, jumping up too. That’s why I liked her – she forgave everything so easily. “You changed your mind?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m gonna go to the nurse. Can you come with me?”
“Yeah, sure,” Starr said. “Now?”
“I guess,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, and put her arm around my shoulder, then stopped. “Shoot, I have a careers interview in five minutes. Can we go after that?”
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I can go by myself.”
“You don’t have to do that. Just wait for me. Or I’ll cancel.”
“I’ll wait,” I said. “Don’t cancel.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll go have a shower first.”
“Okay, come find me afterwards yeah? I’ll be in my common room.”
“Yeah.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“I’ve gotta run,” she said. “You okay getting back to the dorm by yourself?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes.”
“I’m a worrier.” She was grinning and I grinned back. “See you later, idiot.”
She jogged off and I straightened up and looked around; my hands were itchy from the prickles on the bush. Boys had gathered in the field next to me while I was lying down and a rugby game had started. I saw a group of girls waving handmade flags – Francis must be there.
I tried to follow Starr and jog around the outskirts of the field, keeping away from everyone. It felt harder than normal, like I was seriously out of shape. I hadn’t been playing netball recently; my PE teacher had threatened to haul me up before Mr Purvis, but I’d still refused. I couldn’t face changing in front of everyone.
I slowed down when I reached my dorm building and went inside. Edith was in our room, making notes from her Latin textbook. “Oh.” She tried to smile. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You forget something?”
“Nope,” I said. “This is my room too.”
I shut the door. Edith put her book down.
“Why are you reading in here during lunch?”
“I had a fight with Toby,” she said. “What have you been doing?”
I shrugged. “Eating lunch.”
She fidgeted. “Tal, do you know anything about… ”
“I didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said. I peeled off my shirt. Edith looked away.
“No, I didn’t think you did,” she said. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
“I haven’t spoken to anyone about it either,” I said. I felt exposed standing there, with the black of my bra showing through my white vest. Maybe my breasts were bigger, I thought. They felt sore around the nipples and fuller, somehow. I picked up my towel from where I’d left it, draped across my bed.
“Okay, whatever,” Edith said.
“Okay, whatever,” I mimicked.
“You’ve been really weird recently,” Edith said, frowning. She looked at me closely. “How many showers have you had today?”
I shrugged.
Edith pursed her mouth. “You know, sometimes I think you actually have issues, Tal. Like, serious issues.”
“Jesus Edith, pot calling kettle black much?”
She jumped up. “I’m going to go find Toby.” She paused at the door. “You know, if you’re mad at me for going out with him, it’d be better if you just admitted it.”
“Stick it up your arse,” I replied.
She slammed the door behind her. I uncurled my fists; my hands were shaking.
I padded into the bathroom and turned the light on, looked at myself in the mirror, and turned it back off. I couldn’t understand why Edith never said anything about how I looked like a pile of crap – my family certainly would have.
I showered in the dark and dried myself for a few minutes. I felt my breasts; they definitely felt heavier and more fleshy.
“Shit,” I said.
The nurse was temporarily away from her office. The notice said she’d be back in fifteen minutes, but it didn’t say when she’d written it. I rested my head on the door, breathed fog onto its glass, then rubbed it off with my sleeve.
“Bloody NHS,” Starr said, sitting down on one of the orange chairs outside the office.
I sat next to her.
“Chewing gum?” she asked, offering me a stick. I took one and put it in my mouth, scrunching the wrapping up and pitching it into the bin on the other side of the corridor.
“I had to come here once,” she said. “That fucking Melissa Albrecht hit me in the face during a hockey match.” She rubbed her nose like she was remembering the pain. “I thought she broke it, but the nurse said she couldn’t see any difference.”
Starr�
�s nose was as perfect as it always had been.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think Melissa might have cracked your head at some point, too.”
“Ha-ha. Only two more weeks of school left then.”
“Yep.”
“What are you doing this summer?”
“Dunno.” I chewed my lip. “I thought I might go away with the boys, but that doesn’t seem like a great idea anymore.”
“Hon,” she said, looking sympathetic. “Do you want me to put a hit out on that Edith girl?”
I grinned.
“Try not to care about guys,” she said. “If you don’t care, you’re never disappointed.”
“You’re pretty bleak.”
She grinned. “Mum’s homespun wisdom – not mine.”
We were silent for a minute. I wondered if she knew about what our grandfather had done to Aunt Vivienne. Hey, so, funny story…
I stretched my legs out, then shifted in my seat; an ache had started down in my pelvis. I felt fuzzy, like I was in pain, but it was too far away to judge properly.
“You look kinda spaced out, you know.”
“I don’t feel great,” I said. I rested my head between my legs. “I think I’m gonna puke.” I felt my stomach contracting and something rushing up inside me, towards my throat and then out of my mouth.
“Holy shit,” Starr said.
I gasped, drawing air in with shaky breaths. I was on my hands and knees, a pool of vomit in front of me. Starr was standing on her chair. “What the fuck just happened?” she asked.
“I puked, arsehole.”
“Fuck,” Starr said. “That fucking stinks.”
My throat was burning. I wanted water and my bed. I felt something sticky in my knickers. “I think I’m gonna lie down,” I said.
“Here?” Starr asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Right here.” I tried to give her a sarcastic look, but I was finding it hard to focus.
“Okay, okay,” Starr said. She climbed off her chair carefully and took me under the armpits, pulling me slowly to my feet. When I was upright I leant on her shoulder, trying to regain my balance.
“It’s okay,” she said. She patted my back. “I’ll take you to the San.”
“No,” I croaked. “My room.”
“I can’t take you there,” she said, her forehead creasing. “Someone’s gotta see you first, check you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” I said, even as everything around me started to go black.
When I woke up my father was sitting by the bed. My eyes took a moment to focus on our surroundings: a white room with light-green curtains. It wasn’t the San, definitely a hospital ward.
My father had his head cradled in his hands; he jumped when I shifted in the bed, and looked up. “Tallulah,” he said. He seemed angry. “You’re fine.”
“Oh,” I said. It seemed weird that he was mad at me for being fine. I felt like giggling, but something inside me said it wasn’t the time. My mouth felt like I’d been sucking on cotton wool balls. “Where am I?”
“In the local hospital,” he said, and I wondered vaguely if it was the same one my grandmother had been in after her stroke. “The school called for an ambulance after you wouldn’t stop bleeding.”
“What happened?”
“They think, from the symptoms – and a useful piece of information provided by your cousin – that you may have experienced a miscarriage.”
Thanks for that, Starr.
“You’ll have to have a D-and-C, but that’s routine.” He stood and started pacing up and down at the end of my bed. “You’re extremely lucky.”
“Okay.”
His anger was almost physical, pinning me down. I felt exhausted already, although I’d only just woken up.
“How could you have done it, Tallulah?”
“What?”
“How could you have kept this to yourself?”
He stopped pacing and gripped the rail at the end of the bed. “It was incredibly dangerous, especially with the symptoms you had. You could have had some serious complications.”
I closed my eyes. “But I didn’t?”
“No.”
“Okay then.”
“It’s not okay, Tallulah.”
“Can we just forget it?”
“Forget it?”
“Please don’t do the parenting routine now,” I said, opening my eyes. “You can pretend you care when we’ve got witnesses.”
My father shook his head at me, his mouth puckered in disapproval. “Don’t you pull the teenage abandonment routine,” he said. “I sent you to a school where you should have been stimulated and encouraged and kept safe, but it’s clearly not worked out that way.”
“She needs rest, Dr Park,” a nurse said from the doorway. “Perhaps you should wait outside.”
“I’ll just be a minute,” my father said. He looked back at me, calmer now. “What you did was very irresponsible,” he said. “Frankly, I’m disappointed in you, Tallulah. But I’m more disappointed in the school for not keeping a better eye on you.”
“I guess they didn’t want me any more than you did.”
“After all the trouble you’ve caused you should be grateful they haven’t expelled you. That would look much worse on your record.”
“Grateful?”
“Yes, Tallulah, grateful. A lot of people have put themselves out for you over the years; gratitude should be much easier for you than it seems to be.”
I swallowed, and felt the urge to giggle again. I’m losing my mind. Going cuckoo.
He sat down, looking tired. “Nevertheless. It’s obviously quite a shock, what you’ve just been through – that’s why I’ve decided to withdraw you from school and place you in a remedial college.”
“You’re joking, right?”
My father frowned. “No.”
“I don’t get a say in this at all?”
“I thought you’d be glad to leave. You always wanted to before.”
“I wanted to go home,” I said. “To Grandma’s or somewhere.” I felt my eyes fill in frustration and I swallowed again. “I don’t want to go to a remedial school.”
“Well, I’m afraid the Headmaster is in agreement with me on this one,” my father said. “You don’t have a choice.” He passed his hand over his eyes. “I’m taking you home for a week to recuperate. But then you’ll be starting at your new college.”
“Can’t I just get a tutor?”
“I’m sorry, Tallulah,” he said. “If you’re to have any chance of passing your exams you’ll need an intensive learning environment over the next month or two.”
“They’re just GCSEs,” I said. “They don’t mean anything.”
“They’re important,” he said. “So we’ll see how you do this summer and take it from there.”
“Please,” I said, gripping my blanket.
“You’re only sixteen,” he said eventually. “I know it’s hard to understand. I know you think I’m pushing you on this. But it’s for the best. It’s really the most important thing you can do – educate yourself.”
“Mum left school at sixteen.”
“Your mother lost both her parents and had no support network.”
“Where’s my support network?”
“I’m here,” my father said. “Looking out for your welfare, as I always have done. Frankly, I think I deserve to be treated with more respect. I know your mother would have been sad to see you turn out so self-centred.”
I snorted. “Don’t talk about Mum like you knew anything about her.”
“Pardon me?”
“You probably never cared about her either, did you?”
“You’re clearly feverish,” my father said, coldly. “I’ll get the nurse to come and take your temperature.”
“Why can’t you do it?” I said. My skull felt like someone had it in a clamp. I dug the heel of my palm into my temple. “You spend all your time at work, looking after other people, but you’ve never looked after us
. I can’t work out whether you’re a shitty doctor, or just a shitty dad.”
My father was shaking his head. “I know what you’re really talking about here, Tallulah, but you’re wrong.”
“How am I wrong?”
“You were a child. And you didn’t see how it happened.”
“I heard you talking about it.”
“There was nothing I could do to save her. Believe me, Tallulah, you can be as unpleasant as you want, but it can’t make me feel worse than I already do.”
“Because you know it was your fault.”
“Because I couldn’t do anything.”
“You didn’t want us around, you were so mean to us. I know you were fighting with each other. You could probably have done something and you just pretended you couldn’t.”
My father went purple. “You can’t honestly believe that.”
“And as soon as she was dead, you packed me off to boarding school.”
“Tallulah. That isn’t funny.”
“And now you pull me out of school and send me to some remedial college where I have no friends.”
“I’m taking you out of the extremely expensive and desirable boarding school I sent you to because you’re failing at your subjects and you… ” He stopped, looking at me.
I wanted to punch him. “I what?”
“You got yourself into trouble,” he finished, and paused again. “I thought you were smarter than that.”
“I was raped.”
Now he went white. “You’re making it up.”
“You think I’d lie about that?”
He jumped up and started pacing again. “When did it happen?”
“About a month ago.”
“Why would you wait until now to tell me? Why wouldn’t you tell the police or the school?”
“Why is it always my fault?”
“I don’t understand,” my father was saying. “I don’t understand how that could have happened. It’s impossible.” He came forward and gripped my shoulders. “Tallulah, if you’re lying you have to stop it right now.”