Amelia O’Donohue Is So Not a Virgin (5 page)

E
ach day, the girls, the teachers, and the buildings became more and more familiar. By the end of the first month, I could hardly imagine the outside world. Here, everything was simple and everything was decided for you. The only things that could impede study were friendships and homesickness, and I did not suffer from either of them. I politely declined midnight feasts, sneaky cigarettes, and basketball clubs, preferring to work at my desk and get a good night’s sleep. I ate well—no lamb, thank god—and became particularly fond of cauliflower cheese, which I’d not eaten before. The chef said he’d never known a girl to come back three times for vegetables. I felt positive and purposeful. The feeling of dread which used to loom as I neared my croft home had disappeared, replaced by stomach-churning excitement at practice tests for math, English essays, and physics assignments. Throughout that first month, girls continued to come to my room and tell me things, and I didn’t mind, except that some of them smelled funny, and
most of their problems were about missing home and feeling lonely, which I didn’t really understand.

A couple of these sessions stick out in my mind. A girl called Vanessa, with a Mohawk and a nose-piercing, came and said only two sentences: “I’m in love” and “Should I tell the person?”

“If it feels right,” I said, recalling that this girl was the alleged fourth-floor lesbian.

She nodded her head, sighed, and left.

Another evening, a girl called Janey Harris came in and fidgeted nervously on the edge of my bed. “I can’t tell you, no I can’t…It’s too awful.”

“You don’t have to,” I reassured her, but before I knew it she’d lifted her shirt to reveal a hairy lump underneath her left arm. I tried to disguise how sick it made me feel. It was a bumpy fur ball, three inches in diameter.

“It’s my twin,” she said, bursting into tears. “I took it over in Mum’s tummy and I absorbed him…Mum says I should just get it removed, but I can’t do it. They call it parasitic. I call him James.” She stroked it.

Holy fudge, was that a
tooth
?

When she left, I ran to the loos to puke. Gross.

The wee soul.

I suppose I didn’t realize it, but I was becoming pretty
isolated. I called my mother and my father once a week from the phone in the hall downstairs. Once, while I was waiting my turn, a girl called Gillie was talking to her boyfriend. She was sitting on her foot and wriggling, obviously desperate to go to the loo but not wanting to say good-bye (“No you hang up, no you, no you…”). When she finally did, we both saw at the same time that she had poo all over her sock. Later, she came to my room and said, “Thank god it was you, Rachel. Someone else might have told everyone.”

“Believe me,” I said. “I know how important secrets are. I know how destructive it can be to pass private information on. I will never tell anyone about your sock.”

I played guard for Amelia O’Donohue, who did ruder and ruder things each time she met her boyfriend on the fire escape. I peeked every now and then. I don’t know what she saw in him. There was only one stubble-filled inch between his bottom lip and his neck. He made me feel a little queasy, especially when he was saying,
Oh Amelia, oh, oh.

I did toilet duties one day every fortnight, which involved scrubbing slimy showers and toothpaste-dotted sinks and brown-stained loos. Once, I had to wait an hour to clean one toilet. As I waited, I heard a disgusting retching sound. Finally, Amelia O’Donohue opened the door.

“What?” she said, startled that I was waiting outside her toilet door. “You stalking me? Creep.” She rinsed her mouth in the sink. “It’s those bloody abortions.”

On Sundays, I begrudgingly went to the church at the other end of the town, as I had promised my folks. This was the only hour of the week that depressed me. Each time, I almost ran back through the village, across the bridge, and up the welcoming driveway to my new home.

I rang John once. Sat nervously over the phone before dialing, then just tapped in the numbers and held my breath. His mother answered the phone.

“Is John there?” I asked.

“He’s out,” she said.

“Could you leave him a message? Tell him Rachel called. My number’s…”

I started reciting the school telephone number, but she interrupted me.

“I’ll tell him,” she said, and hung up.

I don’t know why I phoned him, to be honest. I didn’t really like him very much. And the thought of him made me nauseated, like bad prawns from the night before. I never tried phoning again. And he never tried to contact me.

• • •

Gradually, my distaste for the island and the adults who’d imprisoned me there made me sick and angry. After four weeks, something seemed to snap. I couldn’t bear to think, hear, or talk about
that
place. So much so that I rang my mother and told her I wouldn’t be home till christmas. With the academic year starting in August, the September weekend was the first proper break from school. When we lived in Edinburgh, my mother and my father used to take me camping on the September weekend, as a good-bye to the summer. We’d get all the gear out of the enormous hall cupboard in our bright forty-foot hall and pack the car to breaking point. It always rained, and we always ended up playing monopoly and giggling in the tent, then getting no sleep ’cause my mother snored.

“But we thought we’d go camping…” she began.

“I have a lot of work to do. I’ll be fine,” I said.

“I want you to come home.”

“Why?”

“I’ll put your dad on,” she said.

“Please come and see us. We miss you,” he pleaded.

“I’m sorry, but I’m too busy. It gets me all distracted. Please understand…”

“We love you,” he said, trailing off, not saying good-bye. I could almost feel the floppiness of his hands and shoulders.

“Rachel…” My mother had grabbed the phone. “I’m ordering you to come home.”

“You can’t order me to do anything. I’m almost seventeen.”

“I’ll say it one last time, Rachel.”

I hadn’t been defiant like this before. It shocked me, and her. But it felt good. Independence and determination had heated to the boiling point inside me.

“I’m not coming home,” I said, and hung up.

And then threw up.

• • •

I decided not to talk to them. I decided not to go to church anymore. I decided to cut them out of my life, for now anyway. Whenever Miss Rose announced over the loudspeaker that there was a phone call for me, I pretended not to hear. Whenever she delivered their letters, I didn’t read them. I put them in a shoebox in my cupboard.

When the September weekend came, girls ran out of school to greet their parents. I watched from my cubicle window as happy families left for happy family holidays.

“Your mother is here,” Miss Rose said. She was standing at my open door.

“I’m not going,” I said.

“You have to talk to her.”

“Do I, Miss Rose?”

“Yes,” she said.

So I walked out of the dorm building, past the offices, and into the driveway. My mother was in her car, crying. I hadn’t ever been away from her so long. She had the same drab clothes on as when I last saw her. The same sad face. But at the same time, she seemed totally new, a stranger.

She wound down her window. “You’re not coming home, are you?”

“No.”

“What have we done to you to make you so hostile, so
closed-up?
”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. I just want to study, that’s all. I don’t want
any
distractions. Please understand.”

“You know we love you. Can you be kind to us?
Give
a little.”

“If you leave me alone for a while.”

“What about mid-term break in October?” she said.

“I’ll be home for christmas.”

She put her hand out of the window, pulled me to her, and kissed my forehead.

• • •

The holiday weekend was really quiet. I worked from 8:00 in the morning till 4:00 in the afternoon, then went
for a walk down the driveway, over the river, and through the village.

One afternoon, I was walking past the curry shop. It was right in the center of the strip, with “Balbir’s Curry House” written in bright red lettering. Inside looked fabulously un-Scottish— warm and colorful and vibrant, the walls covered in handwritten descriptions of the dozens of curries on offer and in bright photos of Indian palaces and forts. A few café style seats covered in velvety orange material filled the small seating area, but it was mainly a takeaway and the cooking was done behind the counter, in full view of the customers. An Asian boy of around seventeen was opening up.

“Hi there,” he said. I only noticed his middle part—large, square shoulders that petered down to a small waist, making an almost perfect triangle. A swimmer, maybe. Boys on the island were not shaped this way. Most of them were at least six inches shorter and had coat hanger shoulders.

I ignored him.

The following afternoon, the same boy was doing the same thing.

“Hi there,” he said. This time I noticed the top bit of him. He had curly dark hair, big brown eyes with lashes that girls use fake-lash mascara to achieve, and a wide, infectious, toothy smile.

I ignored him.

Next time he said, “My name’s Sammy. What’s yours?” I registered his clothes: well-cut jeans, unironed designer T-shirt, freakishly large white trainers. And his voice: second- generation-Scottish, upbeat, sounded like morning birds.

“Rachel,” I said, still walking.

“I made you something,” he said, running after me with a carrier bag. Inside, was a plastic takeaway container. “My world-famous chicken bhoona. No offense, but you look like you need meat. If I could, I’d put you on a mince drip. You’re not a vegetarian?”

“No,” I said. “And thanks.”

• • •

There was something sunny about this boy Sammy. He wasn’t like John, who seemed cloudy and vacant, who’d never managed a conversation with me (other than to ask me to do more than kiss). He was a waste of space. Boys were a waste of space.

Was Sammy?

That night, after I’d read one of the novels for English, I went to the small kitchen on my floor, took the lid off the plastic container Sammy had given me, and put the curry in the microwave. It looked pretty ordinary, like the ones we used to get in Glasgow—all thick and lumpy—but when I
took it out of the microwave, several separate smells danced their way from my nostrils to my brain. Garlic, onions, ginger, coriander, tomatoes—each solid, comfortable, and independent, but even better together. I put my fork into one of the large pieces of chicken. Before heating it, I hadn’t been looking forward to the meat. I craved meat about as much as I craved the Sabbath. But now, my brain told me there was no time to waste, no time to sit down. I had to taste it. It was unlike anything I’d ever eaten. The chicken was softer than meat should be. It opened itself out, nothing to hide. I ate it slowly, eyes closed, making embarrassing sexual noises as I savored and swallowed. Ahhh. I would think about this for a long time. I would want it again very soon. In fact, I needed to know it was possible.
Now
. I walked out of the dorms, down the driveway, over the river, and into the curry shop.

It was very busy. A line of politely queuing customers waited against the wall and a middle-aged man packaged curries and handed them to the next in line. I could see Sammy’s back as he cooked over the burners. He was whistling while cooking. A smiley happy boy, working hard, producing something he loved.

“Can I speak to Sammy for a moment?” I asked the middle-aged man at the counter. He was bald, and the right kind of
overweight: soft but not fat. He yelled something in Hindi (I think).

Sammy fiddled with the controls on the cooker, and turned around.

“Hey, Rachel. How was it?” he asked.

“It was…hard to believe. I came to say thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he said. “Dad, you mind if I take ten?”

The middle-aged man, obviously his father, probably named Balbir, said something in Hindi (I think), which made Sammy laugh, take off his apron, and open the trap door on the counter. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

I was like, “There’s no need.”

“Of course there’s no
need
,” he said.

Before we got out of the shop, Sammy had asked me to tell him three surprising things about myself.

“My name’s Rachel.”

He made a honking sound. “Doesn’t count. Not interesting.
And
you already told me that.”

“Okay, I come from an island up north…” I was honestly stuck. What was interesting about me? “I can’t think of anything else,” I said. “You tell me three things first.”

“Once I ate a small bowl of red chilies for a dare and had to go to hospital. My first kiss was with Maria Jamieson from
Comrie—she used her tongue and I didn’t. And I failed all my standard grades.”

We’d reached the driveway.

“Well, Sammy…”

“Sharma.”

“Well, Sammy Sharma. You are very forthright. And a very good cook. Do you sell that particular curry all the time?”

“That and many others which are just as good.”

“I don’t do lamb.” I didn’t mean this to sound like an order. Or did I?

“Got it. No lamb.”

“Well, you’ll be seeing me then. But for now, I have to go.”

He was like, “You’re not getting away that easily. Three things.”

“I’m good at keeping secrets. I never lose my temper. And I want to be a doctor.”

“Honk! Boring and elusive.”

“I am not elusive.”

“You’re more bottled up than ketchup. If you weren’t so cute, I’d have given up already.”

“It was nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his warm hand and walking up the driveway.

As I made my way towards the school, a bright green convertible stopped beside me.

“Excuse me, do you know when the girls get back?” a boy of around seventeen asked. I recognized him—it was Amelia’s asymmetrical-haired fire escape boyfriend. He didn’t know me.

“Any time before nine,” I said.

“Cheers.” He pronounced it chairs. What was Amelia thinking? Blah. I bet after they did it he said things like: “Now woman don’t try and tell me you won’t savor that for weeks” or “Damn, I forgot to tell Jeeves our Harry can’t abide vodka.” To add to the whole disgusting ensemble, he had brown goggle eyes and overworked designer stubble.