‘So, who’s this dickhead ex of yours? Anyone I’d know?’
‘No, he’s at Queen Mary’s in Mile End. We were at the same school.’
‘You don’t want to get back with him, do you?’
She shook her head. ‘No, actually. It feels weird because I’ve been going out with him for a year. But, no, I don’t want to get back with him.’
Simon’s arms tightened around her and she felt his warm lips on her neck. It flashed through her mind that he was touching her wig. Would he notice? But then he was kissing her on the lips and she closed her eyes and the spinning started again.
She wasn’t quite sure how that snog in the garden had led to them squeezing into her single bed while the party carried on downstairs, but here they were, squished together in the dark. She couldn’t remember walking up the stairs or even getting into bed. The light from the street lamp outside fell on her gypsy skirt hanging over the back of the chair; she didn’t know what had happened to her top, but she was still wearing her bra and knickers. Simon had taken his thick jumper off but he was still wearing his t-shirt and she could feel the rough fabric of his jeans against her bare legs. He was kissing her neck. She was about to push him away when she remembered that as of about eight o’clock this evening, she didn’t have a boyfriend any more. She was free. But did that mean this was okay? She closed her eyes to try to gather her thoughts, but everything was spinning madly out of control and she felt as if she was falling. She opened her eyes again and felt a bit better. Simon was fumbling with the clasp of her bra, and in no time he was sliding the straps down over her arms and tossing it onto the floor. He leant up on his elbow and looked down at her, tracing the outline of her breast with his fingertips and bringing them to rest on her nipple. ‘You look beautiful in the lamplight,’ he murmured, and then she felt his weight on top of her and he was kissing her roughly.
She was aware that things were happening fast, and she hadn’t decided she definitely wanted to sleep with him, but on the other hand he was nice, and she wasn’t tied to Ray any more, so why not?
It was over more quickly than she expected. He hadn’t even asked whether he should use anything, so it was a good job she was on the pill, although she kept forgetting to take it at her usual time – there didn’t seem much point. She knew she’d remembered it tonight, though, because she’d only just taken it when Ray phoned.
Simon pushed back the covers, sat up and swung his legs round so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He pulled a pack of Rothmans out of his jeans pocket and held it up. ‘Oops.’ He smiled. ‘Bit squashed.’ He buttoned his jeans then lit two cigarettes and handed one to her, then he leant over and gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘Must get some water. I’ll leave you to sort yourself out – see you downstairs.’ And he was gone.
She took the ashtray down off the windowsill and lay there smoking for a minute, but then she began to feel queasy so she stubbed her cigarette out. When she stood up, the room started spinning again. God, she must be really, really drunk. She pulled her skirt on, found her top and pulled that on too, then she grabbed her bra and knickers, took her towel off the back of the door and hurried along to the bathroom.
*
After she’d brushed her teeth and washed her face, she felt much better, so she headed back down to the party, picking her way through the couples snogging on the stairs. A remix of ‘I Feel Love’ was playing on the stereo, with a few people dancing drunkenly in the middle of the room. She should find Simon. Was this just a one-off-party thing, or did he want to go out with her properly? Now she’d sobered up a bit, she wasn’t sure that was what she wanted; she wasn’t sure she even fancied him that much.
She suddenly felt desperately thirsty, so she went along to the kitchen for a glass of water. She was about to go in when she recognised his voice. She heard him say, That Eleanor. She hung back in the shadows, half smiling, expecting him to say something nice. But when the other voice said, Isn’t that the one who’s bald as a coot? Wears a wig? Simon replied, in an unnecessarily coarse tone, she thought, You don’t look at the mantelpiece when you’re poking the fire, do you? And then they both laughed loudly.
Eleanor, 18 December 1982
She wanted to get a head start on the books for next term, so she’d planned on reading Things Fall Apart on the journey, but as soon as she was settled in her seat she realised she was in no condition to read, even though they hadn’t started moving yet. She wasn’t even sure how she’d managed to pack her stuff, get to the station and get herself on the train. She was probably still hung-over, but she suspected the nausea and slightly dazed feeling had more to do with what she’d overheard last night. She couldn’t seem to think about anything else. She sighed and put the book back in her bag. Simon was in at least one of her seminar groups; how was she going to be able to look at him across the room, knowing what he thought of her? After she’d heard that horrible conversation, she’d turned and run back up to her room, climbed into bed and cried herself to sleep. She woke with a humdinger of a headache, and when she went into the kitchen in search of aspirin, she found Wendy and Kathy sitting at the kitchen table nursing mugs of tea and smoking Diane’s Russian cigarettes. Wendy stood up and moved towards the kettle. ‘Tea and painkillers?’
She nodded. ‘Please.’
Was it one of them who’d blabbed about her hair? Or was it Diane or Joy? When she’d asked them to keep it to themselves, every one of them had immediately muttered something like, Of course; and, Goes without saying. And she’d trusted them.
‘So.’ Kathy grinned. ‘I saw you canoodling in the garden with that Greek god.’ She pretended to swoon. ‘But I think I must have passed out after that. Did you get off with him in the end? Come on, spill the beans!’
‘Not really. He’s a bit of an arsehole when you get talking to him.’
‘Is he? How come?’
She’d stood up then, told them she’d decided to go home a day early and was off to pack. They were clearly surprised by her change of heart – it was no secret that she hadn’t been looking forward to Christmas at home, but there was no way she could risk bumping into Simon. And she didn’t think she could face spending time with her housemates either, not now she knew that at least one of them had betrayed her trust and friendship. She felt a lump in her throat and tears prick her eyes. Don’t cry, she told herself; think about something else. She huddled down into her coat and tried to blink away the tears as the train started to move off. She was vaguely aware of a hippyish-looking boy in an afghan coat settling himself in the seat opposite, but she kept her face turned firmly to the window. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that he was doing exactly the same. Good. The last thing she wanted was to get into a conversation.
She was trying very hard to stop thinking about Simon, but then she kept wondering which of her so-called friends had blabbed about her hair. And if she managed to stop thinking about that, she started worrying again about how she was going to cope with Christmas at home with her mum. It wouldn’t be so bad if they’d been going upstairs for the day like last year, but Peggy and Ken were spending Christmas with Ken’s parents this year, up North somewhere, so they wouldn’t be back until New Year. Her stomach was in knots. How on earth was she going to get through this? She couldn’t possibly tell her mum about what had happened last night, even if she left out the sex bit. Her mind zipped back to that look on her mum’s face the last time she’d seen her, the morning she’d set off for Reading. She’d still been in bed, her head uncovered, when her mum had come in to say goodbye before she went to work. Eleanor hadn’t missed the double-take, the way her mother’s eyes fluttered in embarrassment while trying not to look away. There was no avoiding the fact that a bald head first thing in the morning was a shocking sight.
She was doing her best to get used to the way she looked now, and some days were worse than others. This morning, when struggling to confront her own reflection, she’d remembered not only Simon’s vile comment, but als
o her mother’s expression that day, somewhere between embarrassment and revulsion. As she’d forced herself to look in the mirror, she was reminded of some of the things she’d heard about in history or English at school, and more recently in the reading she’d been doing for her degree, stories of women whose hair had been shorn as a punishment, usually just before they were strapped into a ducking stool and drowned for being witches.
Conscious again of the boy sitting opposite, she bit her lip in an attempt to control her misery, but every so often a tear or two ran down her face. She wanted to wipe them away but that would draw attention, so she kept her tissue scrunched in her hand, ignored the tears and hoped the boy wouldn’t look in her direction. After a few minutes, she noticed he was sniffing quite a lot, then she caught the movement of his hand up to his face. She risked a glance. It looked like he was crying! She tried to concentrate on looking out of the window, but then, without moving her head, she turned her eyes towards him again. He was younger than her, sixteen, maybe, possibly seventeen, and his face was red and blotchy – he was definitely crying. She didn’t want to embarrass him, but his sniffing was hard to ignore and the next time her gaze crept towards him he caught her eye. Her own face was probably equally blotched, she realised. ‘Sorry,’ he said, wiping his eyes one at a time with his thumb. ‘A right pair we are, aren’t we?’ He sniffed again, and felt in the pockets of his coat.
Eleanor held out a travel pack of tissues.
‘Cheers.’ He took one from the pack, wiped his face and then blew his nose. ‘You must think I’m such a wimp, blubbing like a kid.’
She shrugged. ‘Happens to us all.’
‘But it’s not so bad if you’re a girl, is it?’ A look of panic flashed across his face. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, it was sexist. My mum would kill me if she heard me.’
‘It’s okay. It doesn’t matter, does it? I don’t know why people get so annoyed about things that don’t even bloody matter.’
He was looking at her closely. ‘Are you all right?’ he said. ‘You look quite upset.’
‘So do you.’ She hadn’t meant it to sound like some sort of accusation. ‘I mean, are you all right?’
‘Yeah. At least, I will be. Parent trouble.’
‘Oh. Have you had a row with them, or something?’
‘Just my dad. They split up. I usually live with my mum, but for the last couple of months I’ve only been with her at weekends and in the holidays, because she’s . . . oh, it’s complicated. Anyway, I’m on my way to see my mum now.’
‘So you’re with your dad but he—’
‘No, I don’t live with him. Thing is, he doesn’t think Jill – that’s my mum – should do what she’s doing. And even before that he didn’t like where we were living.’ He sighed, and it still sounded a bit shaky, as though he’d been crying quite a lot. He looked nervous. ‘We’re not weirdos, right? But we live in a commune. Well, I do, anyway; my mum’s at Greenham Common at the moment, helping out at the peace camp. I’ve got O levels in May, so I need to get to school or I’d be there myself. Until they chuck me off for being a bloke, anyway.’
‘Your mum’s at Greenham? What, you mean she’s one of those women who camp there?’
He nodded. ‘For a while, anyway. She says she’s going to do six months, then come back to the house. It’s this massive old place in Camberwell, and there’s usually nine of us, including my mum, and twelve if you include the kids. There’s Andrew, he’s ten, Tom, who’s nine, and Dawn, she’s only three. She’s my sister. Her name’s really Misty Dawn, but I call her Dawn. I’m Alex, by the way.’
‘Misty; that’s an unusual name. Pretty, though. There was girl at my old school called Rainbow but she made everyone call her Ronnie. So why doesn’t your dad live with you?’
‘He did at first, but they kept having rows. Jill says he was only interested in the “free love” side of it, and when he realised it wasn’t an excuse to screw everyone in sight . . .’
‘Your mum told you this?’
‘Yeah, she tells us loads of stuff; I wish she wouldn’t sometimes.’ He paused. ‘Do you mind me telling you?’
‘No, not if you don’t.’
‘So, anyway, my dad said he was fed up with sharing stuff and wanted to go back to it being just the four of us. But Jill said no. See, my dad’s a lazy bastard. When we lived with him, he never did anything to help Jill, just expected her to wait on him hand and foot. But it’s not like that at the house. Everyone shares everything. We care more about people than things. And it’s like, you realise that all this bourgeois shit, right, it just doesn’t matter.’ His voice had gone a bit strange, and she suspected he was repeating something someone else had said. ‘D’you get what I mean?’
‘Yes, I definitely get what you mean.’
‘I go to his flat sometimes, but today he was in a really bad mood and he was saying all this nasty stuff about Jill and Lisa – she’s one of the other mums from the house who’s at the camp with Jill. Dad said they’re all a load of lesbians, and if I want to live with them he doesn’t want to see me or Dawn again. And that’s shit, because Dawn hasn’t done anything wrong and she isn’t even old enough to decide things.’
Eleanor sighed, her own tears now at a safe distance. ‘That sounds horrible,’ she said. ‘I bet he doesn’t mean it, though. Perhaps he’ll change his mind when he realises.’
‘No, I don’t think so. He’s always been like this. I put up with it because he’s my dad, but I’m not going to any more. I think that’s why I got so upset. Before now, I’ve always thought something would change, but when I walked out of his flat today, I sort of knew I wasn’t going back. Do you get what I mean?’ He was looking at her intently.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I think I do.’ She felt a sudden pang for her own dad, how he used to call her Ellie-belly and ruffle her hair when she was little. Maybe if he were still around, things with her mum would be easier.
‘Anyway, shit – I’m sorry,’ Alex was saying. ‘You’re upset too, and all I’ve done is go on about my own problems. How you feeling? Are you okay?’
She nodded. ‘Funny how someone else’s problems can make you forget about your own. Sorry, I didn’t mean “funny” in that way.’
‘I know. You meant funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha.’
She smiled. Peggy said that sometimes. She felt another wave of sadness as she remembered Peggy wouldn’t be there for Christmas.
‘So, what are you upset about?’
She sighed. ‘It’s all a bit complicated.’ She certainly didn’t want to tell him the whole story, but he seemed nice, and he’d told her why he was upset, so she gave him an edited version. She found it surprisingly easy to tell him about her hair, maybe because she assumed she’d never see him again after today. She saw his eyes flick up to her scalp. ‘This is a wig,’ she explained. And then she told him that she’d split up with her boyfriend over it, and then soon after had overheard someone at a party making a nasty comment. And what was more, she was now on her way home a day earlier than planned to spend Christmas with her mother, who didn’t really want her around, and she was dreading it.
‘Shit, man. That’s really, I mean it’s—’
‘Yeah, like you said, it’s shit. I haven’t even phoned her yet to tell her I’m coming today instead of tomorrow. I’ll have to phone her from the station.’
He nodded. ‘Where do you live, anyway?’
‘Lewisham.’
‘Lewisham? But . . . you’re going the wrong way for London.’
She looked at him. ‘What?’ She looked out of the window and then back at him. ‘Isn’t this the Paddington train?’
‘No, this is going to Bedwyn.’
‘Bedwyn?’ She didn’t even know where that was.
The train started to slow. ‘This is me.’ Alex stood and picked up his rucksack, and at the same moment a ticket inspector appeared at the other end of the carriage.
‘Shit! Do you think he’ll m
ake me pay?’
‘He might. Why don’t you jump off here with me?’
‘But where are we?’
‘Newbury. Quick.’ He glanced towards the ticket inspector and then reached up to the luggage rack for her suitcase.
‘Tell you what,’ Alex said as she stepped down onto the platform behind him. ‘If your mum isn’t expecting you, why not come up to the camp with me instead of going straight back? It’s a bit of a walk, but you could have a coffee or something. Then you can meet Jill – I mean, my mum. She’s really cool.’
Eleanor’s mind was in a whirl. Thank goodness she hadn’t ended up in Bedwyn, or wherever it was. She’d still have to get back to Paddington somehow, but if she went with Alex now, she wouldn’t have to worry about that until later. ‘Okay then,’ she said.
Marjorie, December 1982
On the morning of 12 December, when they were due to get the coach, Peggy rang down on the extension to say that she felt like death warmed up and could barely lift her head from the pillow. Marjorie made her a cup of tea and hurried upstairs with it. Peggy was still in bed, her face pale and waxy-looking. There was a sheen of perspiration on her forehead.
‘You’d better get going,’ she told Marjorie.
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ Marjorie frowned as she looked at the thermometer. ‘It’s a hundred and two – I can’t possibly leave you on your own while you’re like this.’
Peggy closed her eyes and gave a small, dismissive wave before her hand fell limply back onto the covers. ‘I’ll be fine, honestly. It’s just a cold.’ Her teeth chattered as she spoke.
‘Are you feeling shivery?’
‘A bit, yes.’
Marjorie pulled the quilt up and tucked it around her bare shoulder. ‘It’s probably that flu that’s been going around. I’ll stay here. You need looking after.’
‘I’ll be fine, Marje, honestly. I’m not planning to do anything other than lie here and feel sorry for myself. And Ken’s due back tonight, anyway.’
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