Goose (3 page)

As Mr Frankel finishes reading the first verse of John Donne's ‘The Flea' to our English class, he puts his book slowly onto his desk and says, ‘So, who can tell me what Donne is talking about in this poem?'

There is silence as everyone thinks before Meg pipes up and confidently says, ‘Sex, sir. He is trying to persuade whoever he is with to sleep with him.'

‘That's right, Meg. Thank you,' confirms Mr Frankel. The rest of us read over the poem and make ‘Oh yeah' and ‘Of course' type noises. It's always Meg that works stuff out first.

‘And what do you all think now you see that?' Mr Frankel asks.

‘I think he sounds like a bit of a sleazebag,' offers Maggie Torrode. We all laugh. He really does, when you realise what he is up to.

I love English. We all do. Mr Frankel is cool, I really like him. He's kind of geeky, and wears trousers with large checks on them, quite tight shirts and colourful ties and big thick-rimmed glasses. He is tall and skinny, but sexy, I suppose, in a nerdy kind of way. He is a great teacher because he doesn't act like a teacher, he just acts like a person who knows way more about English literature than us, but rather than be pretentious with that, he genuinely wants us to know as much as he does.

He has character, which is more than can be said about most teachers. I bet Mr Frankel has a fun social life too, and a girlfriend who does something interesting for a job. He's no ‘spring chicken', though, as Nana used to say. I think he's probably about forty, but possibly one of those people who looks a lot younger than they are. He's just fun and quirky, which makes a nice change, because a lot of people in their forties in Guernsey seem quite dull.

There's just the eight of us in Mr Frankel's class and there's a real mix of characters. There is Meg, the cool, stoned brainbox who's read every book on the planet. Penny Mayor – she's head girl – Phillipa Jeffries and Paula Young (best friends and quite geeky) and Martha Hemsworth, the one I am most nervous of; in the Lower Sixth I snogged her boyfriend and she has never forgiven me for it. There is also Maggie Torrode, who speaks with a really strong Guernsey accent. The local Guernsey accent sounds like something between cockney and South African and it mainly involves going up in pitch towards the end of every sentence and saying ‘Eh?' at the end of everything. Maggie is funny because she has no filter and just says everything she thinks, but I am terrified of her because she is the kind of person who would punch you in the face if she thought you dissed her. She is surprisingly clever, though. And even though she words things a little differently from how Mr Frankel would probably like, she is usually right.

Also in our class is Emma Morden, the anorexic. Emma is so thin and so ill that it's a surprise to me every time she makes it to class. Sometimes she isn't there, and we all know Mr Frankel already knows why because he never questions where she is. No one mentions it, but we all wonder if she has died. In all honesty, she has looked like she is about to die since the beginning of the sixth form, and even before I came to the grammar I used to see her wandering around Guernsey High Street all skinny and unwell. She has been like this for years. She wears really tight dresses that cling to her body, and I always wonder why she does that to herself when she thinks she is so fat. I don't know if I feel sorry for her or not – it's a tricky one – but it's hard to see a skeleton walking around in a mini skirt without feeling concern.

Anorexia feels really personal to me because of my sister, Nell. Before she went to live with our dad in Spain she was hospitalised because of it. The good thing for Nell was that Aunty Jo came home and my family fell back together – just in time probably. God knows what would have happened to Nell if Aunty Jo hadn't stepped in. She would probably have died.

Maybe Emma will die.

Nell is fine now, so I hear. She speaks to Aunty Jo on the phone every couple of weeks, but I avoid the calls. We never really got on, and even though when she left we cried and hugged, it's still difficult. I think if I saw her it would be OK, but talking on the phone to someone who you have only ever argued with is hard. Conversation doesn't exactly flow, so Aunty Jo passes messages between us. I know that one day we will have to face up to talking, but I don't think either of us are up to it yet.

The eighth person in our English class is me. I often wonder how the other seven would describe me if they had to. ‘Loud and full of herself' probably, but I'm not really. It's rare that I walk into a room and don't presume that most people in it are better than me in some way. That isn't to say I hate myself, I'm maybe just a little less confident than I let on. But I don't want to be one of those insecure types who seems unsure of herself and nervous. I don't want people to think I am sad.

It's an all-girl class so everyone feels quite relaxed – apart from Emma, who couldn't look relaxed if she tried – and our discussions can be really heated and fun. It reminds me of the best bits of being at Tudor Falls. Apart from the odd exception, girls are definitely better, and funnier, and sometimes cleverer, when boys aren't around. It's annoying but true. I often wonder, when I am in my English class, why men and women have to be together at all. They seem to bring the worst out in each other.

‘He's gagging for it,' blurts Maggie.

Mr Frankel chokes a little, but then we all laugh. I laugh mostly because I worry that if I don't Maggie will throw a book at me.

‘She should tell him to do one. It's always the men who are begging for sex,' she continues.

‘Not always,' says Martha. ‘
Some
girls can't help themselves and throw themselves at boys.' She shoots me a deathly stare and confirms she is most definitely not over me getting off with her boyfriend in the Lower Sixth. I pretend I didn't hear her and suck my pen.

‘What do you think, Mr Frankel?' I ask. ‘Is sex always led by men?'

‘Stereotypically, maybe. But as always this is down to what an individual wants, and what they are willing to be convinced of by someone else. Do you think it sounds like he is going to get what he wants in the poem?'

‘I think the fact he had to write a poem about it probably means he should just stop,' says Maggie. ‘But it's really difficult to stop a guy with a raging hard-on!'

There is a group gasp and Mr Frankel realises he probably should have made this a more formal discussion from the start. But then he cracks a little smile and moves the discussion gently on.

‘OK, ladies, now to
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
,' he says. ‘I would hope you have all read it by now. Who would like to read some out loud for us?'

A sea of hands shoot up into the air, including my own, but I can't stop thinking about what Maggie said. It really is hard to stop a guy with a raging hard-on, this much I know.

As usual on Friday afternoon Renée and I hurry into town after school to get chips from Christies. It still feels very grown-up. We used to go to a chippy and eat our chips in fields – now we sit in window seats in posh brasseries and eat our chips off a plate with a swanky brand of mayonnaise that is a little bit more yellow than the one we have at home.

We get bowls of chips and hot chocolates with mini marshmallows on top and I smile at Renée as she shoves about fifteen chips into her mouth at once, then blows through them to try to cool them down.

‘What? They're hot,' she says, realising she is being watched. I take one and fuff it before dunking it in the mayonnaise and eating it.

‘We've come a long way, you and me,' I say, instantly regretting it.

‘All right, Grandma, why are you talking like we are in the war?'

‘I just mean we've been through a lot, haven't we?'

She eats another chip. Processes what I have said, and then smiles back. ‘We really have. I still can't believe we went to school together for ten years before we became friends. If we had only just said hi to each other once or twice then maybe we could have become friends earlier and not been so unhappy for so long. I just find it so weird that two people who are obviously meant to  …  Flo?'

I have frozen.

‘Flo, what is it?'

Unable to speak or move my eyes from where they are fixed, I guide her head around. As it turns I can feel her beaming smile.

‘Sally de Putron,' she confirms. ‘Look at the state of her.'

‘Shit shit shit!' I say as I launch my chair back and swoop my head underneath the table.

‘Flo, no! Not after all this time. Get out from under there. She has no hold on you any more. Sit up, let's just wave.'

She is right. Of course she is right. I suffered years of bullying by her until I eventually found the courage to tell her to get lost on the day we got our GCSE results. I am so above her now, so beyond the weak moron who used to let her control me the way that she did. And here I am, sitting eating posh chips with my best friend, and there she is, pushing her kid in her pram. I sit up properly on my chair. I will not hide. No matter how much I want to.

‘Look at her. She looks like shit,' grins Renée. ‘She's put on so much weight, and where are the fancy clothes? That tracksuit looks like it hasn't been washed in a month. She looks like shit.'

Sally does look exhausted, and a bit fat. She has no make-up on and her clothes are frumpy compared to the trendy ensembles she used to wear. I can't deny it's a bit satisfying to see her look so bad. I feel a smile start to appear across my face, which turns into a stifled laugh as the child in the pram, a year or so old and at a guess a boy, starts screaming and writhing uncontrollably. We can hear it cry through the glass that separates us. An ugly baby, the kind of baby you see in a cartoon who has a massive red face and looks evil. It absolutely looks like the kind of baby I would expect someone like Sally to have. Miserable, needy, mean.

‘What a horrible baby,' says Renée, echoing my thoughts.

Sally stops her pram right outside the window where we are sitting and huffs and puffs as she unhooks the straps holding down her very unhappy child. She leans into the pram, gets her ugly baby out and starts to bob it up and down. She is close enough that I can see her skin. It's pock-marked and broken. Renée is right – she does look like shit.

Renée is laughing. She is loving every second of Sally's struggle and ‘lack of freedom'. I have to admit, I feel much the same. Seeing her looking so hideous is vindication for all the bitchy things she did to me. I don't even feel sorry for the baby. I just presume they are two miserable people who deserve each other.

But then something changes.

Sally looks up and sees us. I feel my stomach plummet a hundred feet and turn to stone, but Renée raises her hand and waves sarcastically, elbowing me to do the same. I summon the courage, but just as I do Sally turns from us to concentrate on her crying child. It's as if she hasn't seen us at all. She's too busy kissing her baby's face and stroking his hair. She bobs him up and down and says ‘shhhh, shhh' into his ear. And soon his grimace turns into a smile and he looks at her and he smiles back at her and he isn't so ugly any more. She kisses him again on the nose, and when she is sure he is calm she stuffs him back into his pram and walks away without even looking at us.

‘That was amazing,' says Renée. ‘That totally made my day. Imagine having a kid. She has no life. Ha, amazing.' She eats a celebratory chip.

But that isn't what I saw. I saw the worst person in the world being loved and unconditionally relied on. Sally will never be alone. It's made me realise how disposable I feel. Like everything I have could disappear at any minute, and that it probably will when school is finished. I feel even more insecure. I wish I had never seen that.

‘Let's get the bill,' I say to Renée. ‘I want to go home and watch
Neighbours.'

‘Really? I want to get drunk and celebrate. That was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life.'

‘I want to go home,' I say again. ‘And I have to babysit tonight.'

Renée and I walk down the high street together and say goodbye outside Town Church. ‘I'm going to run before the time on my car runs out,' she says. I hug her, we say ‘I love you' and she goes. I watch her walk away, wishing she could see what I saw. I stand for a few moments until I realise how close the weather suddenly seems, and just like that it starts to rain so heavily that I am soaked through in seconds. I run into a phone box, but to my horror there is someone else already in it that I hadn't managed to see. After some embarrassing screaming and apologising I run across Town Square and into the dry calm of the church. This is better. It's lovely in here.

Like, really lovely.

I tiptoe to the back of the church and take a look around. There are a few people there, and it's quiet, but not totally silent. There are happy whispers as people laugh about getting out of the rain, but even with that it feels so peaceful. Like I walked through the wardrobe into Narnia. Like another world.

I am not sure I have ever been into a church for no reason. I have been to weddings, Abi's christening, school services and Dad's funeral, so I've never really liked church – it's either boring or sad. But this doesn't feel boring or sad, this feels nice.

I sit on a pew.

At the opposite end there is a woman kneeling on one of the little tapestry cushions. Her head is down, and she has a small smile on her face. I wonder what she is praying for, who she is talking to when her lips move. How nice, I think, to be able to connect so comfortably with someone even though they are not there. I have prayed so many mornings of my life and felt nothing, but who does in a school gym surrounded by classmates and teachers repeating the same words every time? It's so formulaic it's easy to forget that it's supposed to feel spiritual. In RS classes we read about how people pray all the time. People talk to God, they just chat away and ask for answers and signs to help them through life. So she must be doing that, she must be chatting to God.

I slip down onto the cushion in front of me and drop my head. I look around to make sure no one is watching but realise that for once I don't really care if they are. I close my eyes and without even trying to create it, the clearest image of Dad comes into my head, as clear as the dreams, but I know I am awake. He is standing in front of me in his favourite navy suit that he used to wear to work. He looks so happy. Happier than he has looked in any of my dreams. In my dreams there is always a sadness or a simplicity that makes him completely devoid of any of the personality that I used to love about him. But here, as clear as anything, I see my dad at the best he ever was. I look at him and smile, he smiles back and walks away, and then the impetus to start speaking takes over me, and I start to pray.

It could be no less than forty-five minutes later that I open my eyes and stand up. I feel like I have taken a nap, but the reality is that I couldn't have been more awake the whole time. I told him everything, God, I went through it all. And it felt good.

Looking at my watch I see it's seven thirty. I must go home quickly as Mum is going out at eight o'clock and I'm babysitting Abi tonight. The church is completely empty. A part of me doesn't want to leave.

As I make my way to the door I see a noticeboard.

Sunday-morning service at 10 a.m.: all welcome
is written on a laminated, yellow page of A4. I make a mental note.

Outside the air is cold but the rain has gone. I walk home feeling different – relieved is a good way to put it. I don't know how it came to be, but I think I just found God.

Or maybe he found me.