The Decision: Lizzie's Story (13 page)

The lady looked at me. Her expression was vacant, almost like a small child’s. Though she had seen me many times in the past few days, she regarded me as if she had first laid eyes on me. She said nothing.

“Please, have them.” I said.

The lady made no move to take them from me. Not sure what else to do, I stepped even closer and thrust the bouquet into her arms. “Well, goodbye.” I said.

Still the lady said nothing. But she smiled.

Finally I was discharged and Mum took me down to the car. Dad had taken the other girls back to the house in the hotel van, she said; I could have some peace and quiet on the way home. Getting in the car, I wanted to ask her so many things.
Had I done the right thing about Mike? How could I feel cheated and relieved at the same time about the pregnancy? Would I ever feel “normal” again?
But I was so tired and I knew there would be time for that later.

As Mum’s little car travelled back towards home, I felt the tell-tale vibration of my mobile in my coat pocket. I hadn’t looked at it in days. It had been left behind when my father had dashed me to the hospital and returned to me only by default when he’d brought my coat to me that day. I slid the handset out and looked at the LCD, surprised at the number of text message and voicemail icons on the LCD. But before I could open or listen to any of them, the mobile rang in my hand.

“You going to get that?” Mum said, not taking her eyes off the road.

I looked back to the screen. On it, a name blazed: SHONA...

SHONA

“… Hello! Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”

The demand cut through the fog in my brain and I opened my eyes. For a moment, I had thought the words were one of my sister’s; Amanda possibly, shaking me awake to tell me of her exploits the night before, unable to keep them to herself . But then I realised I was alone. I was standing in those marketplace toilets again, the phone glued to my ear. The warm summer air felt stale and I caught sight of my reflection in the aluminium mirrors next to the hole-in-the-wall sinks, my expression impossible to read. At some point I must have kicked off one of my flip flops: the grimy tiles felt cold underneath my bare foot, the shoe nearby. My bag lay on the counter, its contents spread everywhere. Lip gloss; a pocket dictionary; a half-eaten bag of crisps; a crumpled ball of receipts; various pens, most leaking; eye liner; chewing gum; a cracked compact mirror; a box of tampons (
Won’t be needing them
… a tiny voice in my head piped up). And finally a notebook, two words written in capitals at a diagonal and underlined multiple times its message written ages ago, yet fitting now: OMFG.

“What?” I said, confused.

“Honestly Liz, you are unbelievable.” Shona said, with her habit of elongating any word with more than two syllables, always heavy on the stress:
unbelIEEEVable. ExCCCEPTional. HilAAARious.
I could see her in my mind’s eye, sprawled on the bed in her Emo black and purple room, the blinds permanently drawn, rolling her eyes at me. “Are we on for tonight or not?”

“Tonight?” I said, gathering my thoughts, but nothing else seemed to get through. What were we doing tonight? Whatever Shona – my best friend - and I had
agreed, I didn’t care. I stared at the pregnancy testing stick in my hand, the extra line that denoted the result:
positive
. Only that existed.

It was not the first pregnancy tester I had ever seen, but it had been the first that was mine. Before it had been Shona’s, just a few months’ previously: “I can’t do it.” Consumed with dread, Shona turned over and shoved the duvet over her head. She wouldn’t even look at the kit I offered. I sighed. It had been up to me to buy it for her in the local pharmacy and face down the inquisitive looks with a nonchalant glare, hoping no one who knew me – or more importantly, knew Mum or one of my sisters – saw me.

“You have to.” I insisted.

Snorting, sighing, the very epitome of teenage stereotype, Shona rose at last from her bed. She snatched the kit from my outstretched hand and swept into her en suite bathroom, slamming the door behind her. I heard the toilet seat lower, then just as quickly she was back at the bathroom door again.

“I can’t go.” She said.

I traipsed into the bathroom and turned the tap on. “There.”

Shona just stood there. “I’m not going in front of you.” She snapped.

“You’re not going at all. Apparently.” I countered.

A loaded –
pregnant?
– pause passed between us. I regarded my best friend, my arms folded, determined not to back down. I had never stood up to Shona before: always it was her lead, her ideas, her desires we followed. Yet that day, the tables turned, just for a short while, as she and I faced up to each other.

Shona pursed her lips. “Bobby Kingsmith.” She said, finally.

“That’s who it was?” I said, unable to contain my surprise. Of all the boys I had guessed Shona might have been with to prompt this pregnancy scare – and there
were many - Bobby was not even on my radar. Bobby was short, nerdy, the type of guy who tucked his shirt into his jeans and brought sandwiches and a thermos flask to college. Bobby kept to himself, mostly sitting alone at college at lunch, even in class, jealously guarding his work from prying eyes. An all-rounder, Bobby was a brilliant student and was expected to fly into any university of his choice. Bobby’s almost-guaranteed success was not just because of his grades either, but because of his tireless volunteer work. He worked in the local hospital’s radio station five nights a week, playing golden oldies for the Geriatrics ward. On Saturdays he could be found at school fetes and country fayres, covering them for the local rag. The eldest child of a single parent family, Bobby helped his mother out wherever he could: I’d seen him race off to do the weekly shop in-between college classes and he delivered his younger sister and brother to school in the mornings so his Mum could make it into work on time. Where could he have found the time to squeeze sex with Shona into his busy schedule?

Shona’s face crumpled. “Yes.” She replied and suddenly she was crying. At first I thought it was shame. I expected her to tell me she hadn’t set out to have sex with Bobby. I waited for her to tell me she had been drunk: when wasn’t she, when chasing boys into bed? I even wondered if she would tell me it was a bet she hadn’t felt she could lose face on or something equally far-fetched… Something simply more
Shona
. But she sat down on the bed with the still-unused pregnancy stick, her lip quivering: “This will ruin everything for him.” She said.

My mind reeled. Shona actually cared what Bobby might think or how an unplanned pregnancy might affect him? “You… know him?” I said, trying to get a handle on the situation as it turned ever more strange. Shona nodded, almost imperceptibly. “When did this happen?”

“It was after Joe McIntosh’s party.” Shona said in a small voice.

“Bobby wasn’t at Joe’s party.” I replied. I didn’t have to try and remember this fact. Bobby never went to parties. Bobby was always too busy. Except when he wanted to have sex with Shona, apparently.

“I went to see him afterwards.” Shona sighed.

“Why?” I was genuinely confused. “How?”

The only time I had ever seen Shona interact with Bobby was on a maths project in Year Eight and she had sulked the entire time, speaking to him only when strictly necessary. Our teacher, Mrs. Moss had decided it would be “just great” if everyone could partner with someone of the opposite sex. Of course no one wanted to and so she’d forced us all. I’d got Simon Kitchen (“…who sleeps in the kitchen!” as we’d always chanted at primary school). Simon was a thin, willowy boy who won the four hundred metres every school sports day and smelled perpetually of the lemon fabric conditioner his Mum used. I could remember little else about him, except the fact he died in a car accident the summer before we began Year Ten. No one ever spoke about him after that, as if to do so would invite death upon us next. Instead, there had been an assembly where the headmaster had talked in a low voice about how tragic Simon’s “passing” was (he never used the word “death”). Next had come a bench dedicated to Simon in the school quadrangle, the little brass plaque the only testament to him ever being part of our lives.

“I got to know him, alright?” Shona said defensively. “I don’t spend every waking moment with you, you know.”

Shona’s words stung a little. Perhaps I really had thought, whilst I spent my time with Mike, Shona waited patiently in her dark bedroom. “You… love him?” I said, the words feeling odd and unwelcome in my mouth.

Shona grunted noncommittally. “I don’t know.”

I felt betrayal pierce my heart. I had never had any real interest in Shona’s boyfriends. Before now, she had always chosen walking clichés: bad boys with piercings and tattoos and attitude problems. The kinds of guys who would have Shona in tears in the pub and nightclub toilets we’d managed to get in, underage. There, in-between sessions of drunken puking, I would hold her hair back as she urged and cried over the bowl. Poor messed-up Shona. Good old dependable Lizzie. It was the two roles we’d always played. Now here was good boy Bobby from the left field –
was he going to take my place?

But Shona’s pregnancy test – when she’d finally taken it hours later - had come back negative. Shona’s relief had been huge, but mine more so: had Shona been pregnant by Bobby Kingsmith, she would have been tied to someone other than me. Shona was the only person in my life I could call truly “mine”. Friends since primary school, we’d shared everything to the exclusion of everyone else: sleepovers, clothes, nights in and out, cigarettes and alcohol. I didn’t have to share Shona with my sisters like I did my mother. My Dad didn’t belong to any of us. I had repeated history, copying Mum, for Mike was just like him.
But Shona belonged to me.

Shona never mentioned Bobby again. I never knew if their relationship – if that’s what it even was! – continued, or if he was cast by the wayside, the latest in Shona’s long line of conquests. I chose to believe the latter. For some reason though, I knew Bobby was different for her. The fact I had not been trusted with this information burned me up inside. Looking at the positive pregnancy tester in my hand, I felt a surge of resentment again. Shona got a “near miss”, yet here was I, pregnant?
It wasn’t fair!

Back in the toilets, at the end of the phone, Shona was talking again. “I said we’d meet them at seven in The Moon.”

“Shut up.” I said suddenly, finding my voice from nowhere.

“What did you say?”

For a moment, I delighted in the shock in Shona’s voice. Shona was the leader, she always had to be centre of attention: it was always about her, what she wanted. Well there were two people in this friendship and I was pretty sure my news would trump anything she had under her belt.
For once.

“I’m pregnant.” I said. Whatever I expected from Shona now, it wasn’t silence. But that’s what I got. “Hello?” I said, thinking I might have been cut off.

“Yeah I’m here.” Shona said at last, in a curious flat voice. I waited another few moments as Shona attempted to pick her words carefully. “… Herself’s gone out. Come over here,” Shona instructed, “we have to talk.”

“Herself” was Shona’s mother and the least offensive of the tags Shona assigned to her. Some of the cleaner versions were “Doormat”, “Zombie” and even “Saddo.” In all the years I had known Shona, I suddenly realised I had no idea what her Mum’s actual name was. To me, she was always one of those names Shona called her – or perhaps Mrs. Talbot. Whatever her name, I realised with a jolt I’d never seen Shona’s Mum as a real person, but a kind of ghost, floating through Shona’s house and our lives, barely making an impression. No wonder Shona’s Mum was so depressed: no one ever took any notice of her, not even enough to learn her name.

Shona’s house was at the back of town. A real showpiece of master building, it was part of a majestic red brick and sandstone estate on the clifftop. Each home was identical and haughty, like the cliques of girls at school who’d lounge on the low wall near the refectory. Those girls would never eat, but instead take tiny sips of bottled
water to preserve their designer lipgloss, passing judgement on anyone who didn’t look or even seem like them. Once upon a time, I had badly wanted to be one of those perfect-seeming girls. I had wished initially I could live in a house like Shona’s too, instead of the ramshackle, mouldy and occasionally flooded rented cottage I had grown up in. Yet as the years passed, I realised Shona’s house was not a real home, just as I had seen the panic behind each of the cliquey girls’ eyes at the thought of being found out as a fraud.

Shona came to the front door before I could even knock, spiriting me to her dingy bedroom. My earlier confession hung between us like the stale cigarette smoke inside: several overflowing ashtrays balanced on books and shelves, in-between half-finished glasses of orange that smelt like vodka to my well-trained nostrils. I noted only some had Shona’s blood-red lipstick around the rim. Had she had Bobby back here, smoking and drinking with her? I could imagine Bobby trying to impress her, coughing his lungs up and swaying round the room, unused to alcohol. He must have thought all his Christmases had come at once!
Beauty and The Geek
. I almost smiled at my ingenuity, before remembering I had far more important things to worry about.

“What are you going to do?” Shona demanded, the bedroom door locked.

“I don’t know.” I replied truthfully. That loaded silence fell between us again, just like had done all those months ago when Shona had been in my place. Only it had worked out for her, hadn’t it? “Say you’d been pregnant…” I began.

“… I wasn’t though, was I.” Shona deflected hastily, as if even the thought could make it come true.

“Say you were.” I insisted. Shona rolled her eyes, as if she had been asked to do something particularly distasteful, like clean up dog sick. “What would you have done?”

Shona opened a baccy tin and rolled a cigarette deftly with one hand, licking the paper. For the first time, I wondered who had taught her to do that. Perhaps I had been wrong about Bobby. Could it have been him? Shona had only been smoking the last seven or eight months, unlike most teens I knew who’d begun in Year Seven and already wanted to quit. Though I had objected – I hated the habit, having endured my mother’s chain-smoking my whole life – I had not thought to ask why she had just started.
Shona was just… Shona.