Goose

by Dawn O'Porter

  ‘Wow, you’re like their groupie,’ Kerry says in a weirdly unfriendly tone. ‘Free entry, memorising his lyrics … Next you’ll want to get together with the lead singer.’ She isn’t looking at me, but her body language has completely changed. I could take a guess that Kerry is being so off with me because maybe she’s jealous because she fancies Gordon and wants him all to herself. But I like Kerry and I don’t want to go there. So instead I pretend I haven’t noticed and allow myself to fantasise about going out with a guy like Gordon. I wonder if he’s ever had sex.

  I’m eighteen and a virgin. I’m all right with that – I was never in a hurry to lose my virginity before – but I definitely feel like I might be ready, if I find the right guy. Since going to church and meeting with the group I feel a bit more confident, like I am really part of something. I don’t feel like the saddest person in the room when I am with these people. Like I can trust them. The thing that put me off sex in the past was the idea of a boy getting to know my body before he gets to know me. I overhear so many conversations in the common room where the boys are telling their mates about the girls they got off with, or making fun of girls’ fannies and boobs in some way. It makes me really paranoid. I would rather be a virgin so no one could make those jokes about me than have sex with someone just because I feel I should, and open myself up to that kind of humiliation. The last time I let a boy put his hands in my knickers I forgot I had my period and he told everyone. I’m still not really over it, wondering who knows and who is laughing about me. The thought of someone laughing about how I smell down there or how weird they find my body is too much for me. It’s horrible. A guy like Gordon wouldn’t laugh and joke about a girl’s body, I can tell.

  And there’s something else – I’ve never been hugely sexual, and I don’t think I’m normal. Renée is so comfortable with being sexual with guys that it’s kind of intimidating to talk about it with her, because she doesn’t understand how it feels to not want to share yourself with anyone else. She also masturbates a lot, but I rarely do. I try it sometimes but nothing really happens and I just feel embarrassed. I am generally of the mindset that if you are doing something that makes you feel embarrassed when you are on your own, you should probably just stop.

  The lights dim a bit and people start clapping. Then Gordon and his band walk out onto the stage. He looks different. There is something about his aura that has changed. He looks a bit like a rock star. I get a fizz of excitement.

  ‘Thank you all for coming,’ Gordon says into the microphone. Everyone cheers, and it is obvious that the vast majority, if not all of the people in this room, are already fans of the band. I have only ever been to one gig. It was when Sister Sledge performed at Beau Sejour, the local leisure centre, about ten years ago. It was full of screaming girls under the age of twelve. This is full of seventeen- to twenty-five-year-olds with bottles of beer in their hands. It is not the same kind of gig. Still, I like the atmosphere. When I’ve been to a few more Trinity gigs I’ll probably know how to behave at them. For the moment I am just being an observer.

  ‘I am Gordon Macintyre.’ There is a cheer from the crowd. ‘We are The Trinity. Welcome to St James – is everybody ready to tell the big man how we feel?’

  Everyone in the room shouts yes. It makes me jump. Gordon looks so sexy up on stage. I don’t feel cool, and these people aren’t supposed to be the cool kids, but here, in their world, they kind of are. The band kicks off, a sea of hands go into the air. Most people shut their eyes and drop their heads, which seems a bit odd when you have come to watch a band. I soon pick up the words to the first song.

  ‘I will follow you, Jesus, I will follow you, Jesus, I will follow you, the Lord.’

  The song pretty much just repeats that line with various levels of intensity as it goes on. Everyone, absolutely everyone, is singing along, totally consumed, from the second it starts. They are lost in it. Arms in the air, eyes closed, praying. Gordon looks up the whole time, staying focused on a spot on the ceiling at the back of the room as if he is talking directly to it. In church it’s so quiet that people are subdued in the way they pray. Here it’s different. This is dramatic worship, loud, expressive, confident. I am standing in the middle of it feeling for the first time since I started coming to church that I don’t fit in. This is all a bit much for me. I don’t get it. I look at Kerry. Her head is facing up but her eyes are closed. Her arms are in the air and she is limp. She knows all of the words, and there is even a tear rolling down her cheek. I want to be like that – I want to feel that too. I close my eyes, put my arms in the air and reach up. I try to imagine God above me, watching me, grateful for my love. I want to feel my faith tingling in my fingertips as I connect with him and everyone around me in this other dimension they have all gone into. But I can’t. I feel silly and self-conscious. Insincere and unconfident. I want to ask Kerry to teach me, but I don’t want to disturb her. Plus she’s been sending out hostile signals for the past half an hour, ever since we talked about Gordon. Right now, her mind is somewhere else.

  I lower my arms and I push my way gently through the crowd to the toilets. People smile as I brush past them, but hardly anyone opens their eyes. I lock myself in a cubicle and wait until it’s all over. I feel a bit ridiculous and glad I didn’t wear anything more fancy.

  An hour and a half later the music has stopped. Quite a few people have come into the toilets, knocked on my cubicle door to ask if whoever is in here is OK, and I have shouted back ‘food poisoning’ far too many times. It’s time to brave the outside world again, but I feel so silly. Checking my face for dislodged make-up, I wash my hands and make my way back out to the main hall. There are around half the people in there, and in the middle I see Gordon, his band mates and Kerry all chatting with bottles of beer. I’m certain I have the indentation of a toilet seat on my bum and thighs from sitting on it for so long. Thank God for clothes.

  ‘There you are!’ says Kerry, cheerily. She’s definitely changed her tune. For some reason this annoys me.

  ‘You were so great,’ I say, looking to Gordon.

  ‘You’re here? I was looking for you but couldn’t see you,’ he says, but I am not sure I believe him. When I saw him on stage he only looked up.

  ‘I thought you’d left.’ Kerry seems friendly now. I can’t work out why she’s changed moods so quickly. Maybe she’s got her period or something.

  ‘No, I didn’t leave. I just went closer to the front. I was down there, by the stage, about two from the front. It was brilliant,’ I lie.

  ‘I knew you would get it it,’ says Gordon. ‘You are the kind of person wh—’

  ‘Does anyone want to come to the pub?’ Kerry says, cutting through him. ‘It’s only 10 p.m. We could get a few in before last orders?’

  ‘Not me,’ says Gordon. ‘I’m done after all that singing. Do you need a lift home, Flo?’

  ‘Aren’t you coming to the pub, Flo?’ Kerry sounds like she really wants me to come. What is up with her?

  ‘Well … ’

  ‘Flo looks like she needs some quiet time,’ says Gordon, looking right into my eyes.

  Oh my God, it’s so obvious that he fancies me. I pray my face doesn’t change colour and just say, ‘Thanks, that would be great.’

  I hug Kerry goodbye, but she’s back to being a bit frosty. ‘See you at church in the morning?’ I ask.

  She half nods, half shrugs and turns back to the group quickly.

  Leaving me and Gordon alone together.

  Driving along in Gordon’s car he plays a tape of his own band, and sings along with a song that he wrote. It’s one where the chorus manages to rhyme the word might with Christ. It isn’t very good. He turns down the volume to speak to me. ‘Thanks for coming tonight, Flo. It means a lot to me that you were there.’

  ‘It does?’ I say, wishing I had just said thank you. ‘It does?’ sounds so pathetic and under-confident.

  ‘Yes, it does. To see that you are serious about worship. It’s not jus
t for Sunday church services and a weekly Bible meeting. It’s for all days, with all people. The band gives us a new way to pray, a more youthful connection with God. I feel so close to him when I am on stage singing these songs.’

  ‘Everyone was really into it,’ I say, unsure of what the right thing to say is. I want to impress him, and make him feel like I understood tonight. Even though I spent most of it pretending to have diarrhoea in the toilet. ‘It’s a different thing, though, isn’t it? When the band and the audience are all singing about the same person. Like when you hear a song usually, like, I dunno, when Toni Braxton sings ‘Unbreak My Heart’, she has a picture of someone in her head that she wrote the song about and is singing it to. When people listen to it some of them have a person that they can think about too, but some people don’t. It doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy the song, but it doesn’t mean as much to them as it does to the people who can visualise something. But with your music, on a night like tonight, everyone is thinking about the same person, Christ, so everyone is involved with what you are singing. You, I mean, we were all sharing the exact same experience,’ I say, wishing I would just shut up.

  ‘Flo, you are so right. That was spot on. I knew you would see it.’

  We drive up the road to my house. ‘This is me,’ I say, and he slows down. I undo my seatbelt slowly, not really knowing if I am supposed to get out or stay put. Will we kiss?

  He turns off the engine and shifts to face me.

  ‘I can take you further into faith than you ever imagined, Flo,’ he says, looking me right in the eye. I wonder if this is meant as a euphemism, and hope a kiss is on its way. ‘I think God has asked me to embrace you.’

  ‘He has?’ I say, shyly. ‘Embrace me, then?’

  I reach my arms across to his seat and try to hug him, but his arms don’t move. He just lets my head rest on his chest and he pats it. ‘There, there,’ he says.

  There, there?

  I look up at him. Maybe he’s being gentlemanly and respectful. Should I show him that I want him by kissing him first? My lips are underneath his – it’s obvious what I want. And then he does – he kisses me. Just off my mouth and no tongues, but it was still a kiss. Then he pushes me gently back over to my side of the car. Was that good? I really can’t tell, but I want to say all of the right things, so I lie.

  ‘That made my fingers tingle,’ I say, hoping he wants to do it again, this time properly.

  He smiles. ‘I know that feeling well. It’s how I feel when I sing my songs to God. It’s like he runs through me.’

  I want to tell him that God had nothing to do with it, but I think better of it. I don’t want to ruin the moment, or to be rude. I liked the kiss, kind of. It was better than no kiss. And in a way I much preferred it to the horrid, sloppy, beer-smelling snogs I have had in The Monkey on the nights when I have got so drunk I thought I might as well.

  ‘Goodnight, Flo,’ he says.

  ‘Goodnight, Gordon.’

  I get out of the car, and before he sets off he pushes in his tape again and turns up the volume. I can hear him singing along to it as his car drives out of sight.

  It wasn’t exactly a passionate encounter, but it’s a start.

  Is it possible that I, Flo forever-the-virgin Parrot, have a boyfriend?

  As I walk into the house I hear noises coming from the kitchen. Mum is still up and she obviously isn’t alone. Her date must still be here. Usually I do everything I can to avoid anything to do with her love life, but her laughter stops me going upstairs. Because my mum never laughs, at least not like she is now. It’s not the fake, sexually charged laughter I have heard her do around boyfriends before, but more natural-sounding.

  ‘Mum?’ I say, opening the door.

  ‘Flo, you’re home.’ She looks a bit flushed. ‘This is Arthur.’

  Usually when meeting Mum’s blokes I brace myself to have either my hand shaken or my cheek slobbed on, but when I look at Arthur, I am happy to have my hand shaken by him. He is tall, with dark brown hair, small glasses and a nice suit.

  ‘Hello, Flo,’ he says. ‘Lovely to meet you. Are you desperate to get to bed or would you like to join us for a glass of wine?’

  Mum and I both look at each other strangely. Us? Have a glass of wine together? That’s the weirdest thing I have ever heard. But before I have the chance to say no he has poured me one and put it in my hand. I then do something I thought I would never do – I sit up until the early hours of the morning laughing and joking with my mother and her really nice new boyfriend.

  Renée

  I call my boss at about 5 p.m. to say I have been feeling sick all day, and I can’t work tonight. He says, ‘Sorry to hear that,’ but in an annoyed voice, which means he knows I am lying, but nothing is going to stop me from going to see Dean’s play.

  I drive into the youth theatre car park and see Meg and Dean standing outside smoking. I quickly put some make-up on using my rear-view mirror. I’m wearing blue jeans with a light blue jumper, a black bomber jacket and Converse boots. I think I look quite cool. Getting out of my car I am careful to look like I don’t care if Dean is watching, but I do, I do – I want him to be watching me so much. As I walk over to them my heart is pounding, but I am determined to be confident and not show my nerves. I have been such a nervous idiot around so many boys, but this time I am not doing it. Cool, I am going to be cool.

  ‘Hi guys, you all right?’ I say, like I have been coming to plays on Saturday nights for years.

  ‘Renée, you came,’ says Meg, in her usual laid-back and slightly stoned way. ‘This is Dean. You guys haven’t met properly yet, have you?’

  Rather than shake my hand, Dean kisses me softly on the cheek. ‘I feel like I know you,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen you around for years.’

  Flattered, I feel I should reciprocate. ‘Me too. I love your work. I read the piece you wrote in the Globe about the controversial right turn up in Torteval. I thought it was really great.’

  ‘Ha! That’s very kind. But I hardly get to flex my creative muscles in the Globe. Guernsey is hardly the epicentre of gripping news stories. Tonight, though, you’ll get to see some of my real work, the stuff that makes me tick. You should go in – curtain up in five. I’ll see you two afterwards.’

  ‘He’s so nice,’ I say to Meg as we take our seats.

  ‘Yup, and such a talented writer. His stuff is really deep.’ The lights go down and two actors come on. They are half dressed and look intense. Meg turns to me and smiles as if I am about to experience something wonderful. I see Dean sitting down in the front row. He must have seen this a thousand times, if he wrote it. I am excited. Coming to the theatre feels so grown-up.

  I spend the next hour and a half trying to follow what’s going on, but I just don’t get it. Two men, speaking in low monotone voices, using modern language but really long and complicated words that nobody in real life would ever use. The basic plot is that one of the men slept with the other man’s wife, and that they are trying to work out who should have her. In the end they decide they both should but just not let on to her that they know. I didn’t realise it was possible to feel so sorry for a fictional character that wasn’t even in the play. That poor wife. When the lights go up, the thirty-two (I counted) people in the audience clap, and we go outside. Dean is already at the door and people are congratulating him as they leave.

  ‘That was so great,’ drawls Meg, hugging him languidly.

  ‘Thanks, babe.’ Dean looks to me. ‘What did you think, Renée?’ he asks.

  ‘It was really interesting,’ I reply, taking note from Aunty Jo, who told me that if you can’t think of anything to say about an artist’s work, you should always just say it was ‘interesting’.

  Dean obviously likes what I said. He smiles and I see his eyes start to wander down my body. I try not to look too ecstatic about that. Which I am.

  ‘Shall we go into town?’ suggests Meg, who seems oblivious to the electricity between me and Dean. ‘I think you
probably want to get drunk, don’t you, Dean?’

  ‘I certainly do. The Ship and Crown?’

  ‘Oh no, I can’t go there tonight,’ I say quickly. ‘I am supposed to be working and I did a sicky. I probably shouldn’t go into town at all. If I get spotted I’ll lose my job. You guys go.’

  Dean frowns.

  ‘I tell you what, fuck The Ship. Why don’t you two come back to mine? I have loads of booze, and some other treats. It’ll be fun.’

  A very high-pitched and annoyingly girly squeal is released into my brain, but I manage to contain it and just say, ‘Cool. Sounds great!’

  ‘And I think we should go in your car, Renée. Looks like a laugh.’

  We all pile in. Dean in the front, Meg in the back. Dean laughs at the way I have to pour anti-freeze into the engine before we can leave, and I warn them that there is a good chance they’ll have to bump-start me if the engine doesn’t start. But it’s OK. My little car is on my side for once.

  ‘I live in the Canishers,’ he says, ‘just above The Royal Hotel. On the far side of town. There should be plenty of parking down there.’ He pushes in the tape that’s currently poking out of my stereo and I prepare to cringe, but Dean laughs when he realises it’s the Spice Girls.

  ‘GIRL POWER!’ I shout, though neither of them shout it back. I must remember that I can’t act the way I do with Flo with everyone else.

  When we arrive at Dean’s flat it is obvious that Meg is a regular there. She goes straight into the kitchen to get some drinks from the fridge. As she clanks around getting glasses, Dean and I are left alone in the living room.

  ‘So I liked your dance the other night. They were some moves you were throwing.’

  ‘It was the routine Madonna does in the ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ video. I wanted to put on a bit of a show for you.’ I laugh, letting him know I don’t take myself at all seriously.

  ‘Well, you succeeded. I couldn’t stop thinking about you after that.’

  ‘Really? I saw you at the bar with Meg and thought you guys were together.’