When I turn I see the unmistakable silhouette of Renée walking down the high street towards us. What is she doing out and about in town this early on a Sunday morning? She has the most spectacular bed hair, and black make-up is smudged under her eyes.
‘Is she talking to herself?’ remarks Gordon.
‘Renée!’ I call. She looks up and is obviously as surprised to see me as I am her.
‘Flo, what are you doing in town?’ she says, coming closer. ‘Oh my God, did you pull?’
I feel myself recoil as she says it. She couldn’t have picked a worse time to say something like that. Without looking at Gordon, I say, ‘No, of course not. I’ve been to church. This is Gordon, my, er, friend from church.’ My heart thumps with relief that I managed to stop myself saying boyfriend.
‘I thought it might be your boyfriend,’ Renée says, with that look in her eyes that tells me she is winding me up.
‘No. Friend,’ I say firmly. ‘This is my friend Gordon.’ My face explodes with blood vessels and I turn the most fluorescent shade of pink imaginable.
‘Flo, you’re blushing,’ says Renée, teasingly.
I screw my lips up and tilt my head to ask her to please stop embarrassing me. When people comment on my blushing it just gets worse.
‘Ah, you’re the one who’s into woodwork?’ says Gordon. I shake my head at Renée, begging her not to react. ‘God bless you, I have heard a lot about you,’ he goes on, not really taking any part in mine and Renée’s exchange.
‘God bless you too,’ she says back, sarcastically.
‘Anyway, didn’t you have to get off?’ I say to Gordon, needing this moment to end.
‘Yes, see you later.’ He leans forward and kisses me on the cheek. ‘Bye bye,’ he says, as he walks away.
‘Bye bye,’ Renée mimics. ‘Is he even human?’ she asks, when he is out of ear shot.
‘Yes, he is human. And he’s really nice actually. Really interesting.’
‘Flo, he talks like he swallowed a Bible.’
‘All he said was “God bless”.’
‘I know! Who says that under the age of fifty?’
‘OK, well, I like him. Really like him.’ I can’t hide my disappointment at how mean she is being.
‘Oh Flo, I’m sorry. Come on, I’m starving. Let’s go for breakfast and you can tell me all about Bible Boy.’
‘RENÉE!’
She throws her arms around me and leads me back up the high street. She smells weird.
‘ … And then he kissed me,’ I tell her, taking a bite of my egg sandwich.
‘Hang on, back up the truck. There is a rock band that sings songs just about Jesus?’ she asks.
‘Yes. It’s Gordon’s band. They’re called The Trinity. They had a gig at St James. It was really good.’
‘Yeah?’ She orders some ketchup and doesn’t look up at me before she starts to speak again.
‘So, you’re serious about all this God shit then, are you?’
‘It’s not shit, Renée. I didn’t invent Christianity, it’s not some random fad a few people have told me about. It’s religion, faith – it’s always been a part of our lives in some way. I just haven’t chosen to embrace it until now.’
‘What is it you like about it?’ she says, sounding totally unconvinced.
‘It gives me something to believe in. It takes the pressure off me. It gives me guidance, when I am doubting how I should behave. It makes me feel like Dad is within my reach, like I am still connected to him in some way. It makes me feel part of a community, a group of people I can be myself with. But mostly it’s made me feel less guilty, less self-consumed. Less like I am all I have in the entire world and like when the time comes that I leave home and leave this island I won’t be completely on my own. It just makes me feel better, Renée. Is that so bad?’
‘I guess not.’
Her passive tone infuriates me. Why is her way OK, but my way is not?
‘So who were you with last night then?’ I ask. Let’s hear how she is living her life, if her way is so much better.
‘I pulled that guy, Dean, the writer. The one we saw in The Monkey, you know?’
‘Yeah, I know. You’ve fancied him for ages.’
‘Yup, and we got on really well. I just left his before I bumped into you.’
‘Did you have sex?’
‘Of course we had sex, Flo. That’s what normal people do when they pull and stay the night together.’
‘Was it good sex?’
‘Amazing.’
She goes quiet. She always does when we talk about sex. She thinks I will mention the fact she slept with my brother, but I will never mention that ever again. I made that decision at the time. But she isn’t telling me something, I know.
‘Are you all right, Renée?’ I press. ‘Did something happen?’
She doesn’t say anything, but I know she is thinking about whatever it is.
‘Flo?’ she asks, after a few minutes. ‘You know how I get really embarrassed buying tampons?’
‘Yeah. For someone as confident as you I find it really bizarre.’
‘Well, I think I have another fear.’ She puts down her knife and fork and takes a gulp of orange juice. ‘Would you mind going to Boots and getting me the morning-after pill?’
She has to be joking.
Renée
I have had to wait until today, Monday, to get the morning-after pill as everywhere was shut yesterday. So in our lunch hour we drive down to town in Flo’s car. Apparently you have seventy-two hours before it’s ineffective. I know I should have made Dean put on a condom, but he didn’t mention it and I didn’t want to ruin the moment. He is so experienced I did think he might do the withdrawal technique, but he didn’t. Anyway, it’s fine. Loads of people take the morning-after pill – the only annoying part is that you have to go into the chemist and ask for it. Apparently they ask you loads of questions and that kind of thing really freaks me out. I have still never, at the age of eighteen, bought a packet of tampons myself. Aunty Jo gets them for me and leaves them in the bathroom downstairs. We never talk about it – she just keeps the supply topped up and I help myself. I know I will have to do it one day, but until then I am putting it off. Flo, on the other hand, is good at this stuff.
‘They will probably ask you when you had sex, if he was your boyfriend and if you used a condom,’ I tell Flo. I know this because I overheard two girls in the toilets talking about what happened to them when they needed it last term. ‘Tell them it was yesterday morning, that you are in a long-term relationship and that the condom broke, OK?’
‘Oh Renée, do it yourself. This is crazy,’ she says. I agree, it’s crazy, but I am who I am.
‘Please, Flo. It’s the one thing I can’t do. It makes me so embarrassed, I don’t know why. Please?’ I hold out thirty quid.
‘For God’s sake,’ she hisses, and snatches the money out of my hand and storms into Boots. I wait outside and light a fag.
After a few minutes, I see Meg walking up the high street.
‘Hey, Renée,’ she says, noticing me. ‘I was just on my way to Dean’s house. Wanna come?’
My heart plummets. He didn’t call last night, and I thought he might. Does he not want to see how I am? To say he had fun?
‘He invited you over?’ I ask.
‘Oh, I don’t bother waiting for an invitation. He is chilled about me being there.’
I really want to ask her what the deal is with that and why she is always at his place, and tell her how I think it’s a bit weird that she stayed there when he was in bed with me in the other room, when Flo comes out and pushes the thirty quid quite aggressively into my shoulder.
‘Sorry, Renée. I can’t tell lies,’ she says, looking a bit upset. ‘Get your own pills.’ Then she notices Meg and goes into slow motion. As pissed off as Flo is, she obviously feels terrible for sharing my secret with someone she doesn’t even know. ‘Shit, sorry,’ she says, looking at me.
‘Yo
u need the morning-after pill?’ says Meg, twigging. ‘Don’t bother with the thirty quid. Here.’ She reaches into her bag and pulls out a pack of contraceptive pills. ‘Just take all of these. I used to do it all the time before I went on the pill. A whole month’s worth of pills is the same as the morning-after pill. You might feel a bit sick, but it works. I don’t have a baby, do I? Here, you can have these.’
‘Er … thanks,’ I say, taking the pills.
‘No problem. See you later?’
She walks off, slowly. Flo and I watch her until she is far enough away that she won’t hear us.
‘You know you can’t take those, don’t you?’ Flo says, frowning. ‘I don’t think it’s the same thing as the morning-after pill … ’
‘They’re better than nothing, though. I’d rather take these than have a kid. It will be fine, Meg said she used to do it all the time.’
‘Renée, I don’t think Meg knows what she –’
But before Flo has finished I have popped most of the pills into the palm of my hand and am preparing to swallow them.
‘I can’t watch this. You can get the bus back up to school,’ says Flo as she turns and walks towards the car park.
I don’t follow her. The last thing I want right now is a guilt trip about the way I live my life. I swallow the pills and start walking up towards school. Despite what Flo thinks, I’m sure Meg knows what she is talking about.
‘ … I think I am dying,’ I say to Aunty Jo as I am bent double in the phone box trying not to be sick.
‘Where are you?’
‘At the top of the Grange, in a phone box. I’m going to be so sick.’
‘Walk over to the medical practice. It’s just there up to the left, you know it. Go in there, ask to see someone and I will be there in ten.’
I pretty much crawl up to the doctor’s surgery. How could I have been so stupid to take all those pills? How could Meg have been so relaxed about it? Surely this happened to her too? I think all these things as I run behind a car in the surgery car park and puke up so hard I worry if my stomach is going to follow. I can see some undigested pills in my sick. By the time Aunty Jo’s car pulls up I am sitting on the step feeling a lot better. She sits down next to me. We can see Nana in the car, smiling and listening to the radio. I tell Aunty Jo what I did.
‘That was stupid,’ she tells me. But of course I already know that. ‘I think it’s probably about time you went on the pill, if you are sleeping with this guy, Dean.’
I have no idea if I am going out with Dean or not, but I think Aunty Jo is right.
‘Go in and make an appointment,’ she tells me. ‘You might get one now if you’re lucky. Nana and I can wait here for you.’
At reception, I ask if there are any appointments.
‘Do you want a male or a female doctor?’ the receptionist asks really loudly. I feel like everyone is looking at me, judging me, like they all know I had unprotected sex.
‘Female, please,’ I whisper.
‘Right. Well, Dr Burrington can see you now. We have had a cancellation.’
I go stiff.
‘Dr Burrington? Is there anyone else?’
‘Not female, I’m afraid. Take a seat, please. She won’t be long.’
I sit in the waiting area. There is an old man with warts all over his nose, a pregnant woman who looks like she is about to burst and a young girl in a Tudor Falls uniform with her mum. I would run away, but I think I’m going to puke again.
I know Dr Burrington well. She is the doctor who looked after Mum the whole way through her illness. I haven’t seen her since I was a little girl, since Mum was dying. I feel seven years old again, but here I am about to ask her to put me on the pill.
Then she calls my name. Her voice catapults me back eleven years to the time I was listening at the door as she told Mum that she would do her best to make her as comfortable as she could during the ‘last few weeks’. Her face sends a flood of emotion through me that launches me forward until I find myself hugging her. I feel the eyes of the receptionist on me, wondering what the hell I think I am doing.
‘Come through, Renée,’ says Dr Burrington. ‘It’s lovely to see you after all these years.’
It isn’t long before I am talking at 100 miles an hour, trying to fill her in on the last eleven years. She knew bits and bobs; that Pop had died, and that Nell had moved to Spain and that I am now living with Aunty Jo.
‘Word travels on a small island like this,’ she says, ‘and I always ask people I know who know your family, just to keep updated. I was terribly fond of your mother.’
‘It’s so good to see you,’ I tell her. ‘Mum really liked you, I know she did.’ I realise that I’ve got tears coming, and I try to hold them back.
‘We were friends too, that’s for sure. She was a wonderful woman. You look just like her.’
That’s my favourite thing anyone ever says to me.
Dr Burrington looks at her watch. ‘Sorry, Renée. I have been so enjoying talking to you, but I have another appointment waiting.’ She smiles. ‘So, tell me, what am I seeing you for today?’
This is where I have to be brave. I think about Mum, and how she never knew me as a woman, but how I am one now. I am a woman. I am eighteen, I have sex and periods and boyfriends. I drive a car that I bought with my own money, I help take care of Nana now, I am doing A levels and soon I will be leaving Guernsey and going off to have my new adventures. I have to stop feeling like a little girl when it comes to my body.
‘I need the morning-after pill today, and I would like to go on the pill too,’ I tell Dr Burrington. ‘I had unprotected sex yesterday morning, and a friend told me to take a whole packet of contraceptive pills because I was too nervous to buy the morning-after pill. They made me sick, and now I am worried I might be pregnant.’
She smiles again, a reassuring smile, as if she has heard all this before.
‘If I had a pound for every girl your age who thinks that works, I would be much richer than I am. No one can keep twenty-plus pills down for long. When is your next period due?’ she asks.
‘Soon, like any day.’ I am surprised how easily I feel I can offer that information.
‘Well, the chances of you getting pregnant at this point in your cycle are unlikely, but still possible. I will give you the morning-after pill just in case. I’ll also give you six months’ worth of pills. We can see how you get on with those, all right?’
‘Thank you.’
Dr Burrington talks me through when and how I should take the pills. What to do if I miss one and what to do if I don’t want to have a period once month. It sounds great.
‘I’ll be so in control of my own body,’ I say.
She laughs. ‘There is a reason the pill changed women’s lives back in the sixties. It gave us a freedom that women never thought was possible, but you still have to be careful. This doesn’t protect from STDs, so my advice is that you still use condoms until you are in a serious relationship.’
‘All right,’ I say, knowing that I probably won’t.
I take the prescription and go to leave. As I get to the door I turn back to her.
‘Dr Burrington?’
‘Yes, Renée.’
‘Thanks for trying to save my mum. I was too young to thank you at the time, but I know now that you made those last few weeks as good as they could be.’
‘It was my privilege to be there for her, Renée. Come see me any time, OK?’
‘I will.’
I leave. As promised, Aunty Jo and Nana are waiting for me in the car outside.
‘All sorted?’ asks Aunty Jo.
‘All sorted,’ I tell her.
She drives me back to school.
5
Move Over
Flo
‘Today, let’s talk about forgiveness,’ says Gordon, sitting on his dad’s armchair in his living room. The rest of us are sitting on the floor looking up at him like his disciples.
We meet here almost ev
ery week now. Gordon likes to lead the sessions. He wants to preach, he tells me. It’s quite full on, but then what he says makes sense, and I guess someone has to do it to keep passing on the message of God. From a girlfriend (which I think I am) perspective, though, it’s a little intimidating. We have spent more and more time together over the last few weeks, but it’s rare that he manages to have a conversation without bringing it back to God in some way. As much as I am really enjoying my faith, I find it a bit much.
‘Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you,’ he reads. ‘Colossians 3:13. We all have people who challenge the Lord’s command for us to forgive, but we must trust his instruction and forgive by our faith, not follow what our instinct often tells us. That to forgive is weakness, to forgive is as if to approve of someone else’s wrongdoing. Forgiveness is neither of these things, forgiveness is acceptance in accordance with the grace of God.’
There is something about this particular session that is troubling me. Forgiveness is a big deal for me. I am eighteen years old and have had to forgive people my whole life. Mum, Julian, Renée, myself. Even Dad, in a funny kind of way. I had to forgive him for letting himself go, for giving up on himself so badly, for getting so stressed, so unfit that his heart killed him as he was taking the rubbish out one Thursday afternoon. I think I have done a good job in forgiving all of these people in my life. But obviously there is one person who makes the concept of forgiveness more challenging for me. The person who is the reason I still doubt myself every day, even though Renée and the church have tried to teach me that I shouldn’t. I don’t think I could ever – no matter how much my relationship with Christ depended on it – forgive Sally de Putron.
Gordon continues, ‘Not forgiving makes you the prisoner in your own life. Our happiness in ourselves comes from our relationship with God, not with others around us. God is the only one capable of unconditional love. If we take our eye off him, we run the risk of being privy to the corruption of others. Remain focused on God, and remain focused on faith. God knows that all humans are weak, he knows we cannot expect to rely solely on the good of others.’
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