Game Girls (9 page)

'How would you tell?' Fern thinks Alix can
hardly go up to strange blokes in the street and
ask them if they want to 'practise' being a
boyfriend with a deer-scared wimp.

'It's to do with another idea I've had. Something
me and Courtney want to try. We're going
to get some guys round and have a bit of fun with
them – and they're going to pay us for our time.'

'Pay you?' Fern grips a tight hold on her
crisp packet, the crisps sounding like tiny
firecrackers as they crush together.

Alix swigs back more Breezer, then wipes
her mouth with the back of her hand. 'It's
more like a social service. We're helping guys
out. And in your case, they'd be helping you
too. Sharpening you up a bit.'

Fern's deer eyes are locked wide.

'It doesn't even need to be – you know – all
the way. Some guys are just happy for
something more . . . ' She tips her head back and
drains the last of her crisps into her open mouth.
'. . .manual.'

Fern isn't sure what Alix means, but she
doesn't want to look any more stupid than she
already is. She sips her Breezer, hating the taste.
She usually has a mug of hot chocolate when she
gets in from college.

Alix leans forward and chinks bottles with
her. 'Look – no pressure. It was just a thought.
You can forget I said it if you want. But if you
ever think you might want to give it a go – just
let me know.'

Fern forces down the last of the Breezer. 'I
need to get home.' She tries to brighten Alix a
smile. 'Thanks – for the drink and everything.'

She walks through the late afternoon, the sky
already darkened. The streetlamps are on and
she thinks they look like eyes. Eyes watching
her. A man passes and she shrinks into herself,
staring down at her feet. She waits forever to
cross the road and then when there's a space she
runs, which she shouldn't do. What if she
tripped? What if she fell?

She thinks about people being scared of her.
Scared of making her scared.

Turning the corner, she reaches the river
path. It's not lit, and there are only the lights on
the boats, and the beacons, and the spooky
silver glow of the moon.

She wants to run, but she makes herself
walk. Slowly. Slowly. Nothing will happen.

She hears footsteps, and hesitates.

'Where have you been?' Mum comes
looming towards her out of the twilight. 'I was
just coming to look for you.'

Fern stops, one hand on her hip, thinking
this is how Alix sometimes stands. 'I've been to
see Alix.' She flicks back her hair.

'Not to see her brother, I hope.'

'He's at university. And anyway, no. Alix is
my friend. Why shouldn't I go and see her?'

She walks on, slightly ahead of Mum, hoping
she can't smell the Breezer on her breath.

'Well, you should have rung.' Mum is
hurrying behind. 'And it's dangerous, walking
about on your own now the nights are drawing
in. Anything could happen.'

Beware.

Be aware.

Fern draws up the image of the cartoon deer
again. The fireworks get bigger, fizzing and
exploding. The deer springs one way, and then
another. Its ears are flat and its eyes bulge.
Somewhere, on the other side of an invisible
screen, everyone is laughing.

The thought jumps into Fern's head that all
of her life Mum has been weighing her down
with warnings. Warnings about strangers. Stray
dogs. Playing by the river. Stand back – well
back – from the train. Don't swing too high, or
too fast. Don't burn candles in your bedroom.

Maybe Mum has done this to her.

She walks faster, leaving Mum behind. There
are tears in her eyes. A storm in her head.
Pushing inside the house she rifles through the
drawer under the telephone table, grabbing a
candle and a box of matches that are kept there
for power cuts or floods and probably even the
end of the world.

She slams shut the drawer and pounds up
the stairs just as Mum hurries in.

'Everything all right?' Dad appears,
shuffling into the hallway from his study.

'No, it's not.' Fern stops halfway up the
stairs and spins back to face them both. Her
voice is shaking. Her nails dig into the candle.
'I'm not going to be a bloody deer anymore.
No one's ever going to laugh at me again.'

* * *

H
E IS A FRIEND of Dale's. The first real
client. When he rang, Alix had thought he
sounded cultured. Upper class.

He didn't give her his name, and she didn't
ask for it, but she told him hers. 'I'm
Antoinette,' she'd breathed into the phone. 'I'm
free next Wednesday.'

'Hi, come in.' She stands back from the door
to let him step inside. Courtney walks through
from the kitchen to the front room and gives
him a brief smile, although she doesn't speak.
Alix has stressed it is important that every guy
knows there is someone else in the house –
cultured voices or not.

'Follow me.' She leads the way upstairs,
moving slowly, letting her hips sway with every
step. She bets he's watching. Of course he's
watching. And he looks clean. Well dressed.
She's already clocked the designer jacket and
quality shirt. This pleases her because she
hasn't yet decided what she'd do if someone
really dirty and disgusting turned up. She'll
have to develop strategies. Maybe dirty
disgusting guys won't get the whole deal.
Maybe they'll have to pay extra. Or maybe she
just won't do it with them at all.

At the door to her spare bedroom she stops
and turns to him. 'Are you all right?'

He nods and grins. He has a designer face to
go with the clothes – in another time and place
she'd probably have come on to him anyway –
and she wonders again why someone like him,
and like Dale and Tom, would want to do this.

'I'm fine, Antoinette,' he says. And she
knows that he is.

With one hand on the door handle she lifts
the other up to his face, stroking his cheek. He
has great bone structure. He could be a model.
A film star. A Greek god. 'I'm glad you came,'
she whispers.

He slides his arms round her waist and pulls
her closer, nuzzling her hair. 'I haven't. Yet.'

She giggles, pressing her back against the
opened door and drawing him into the room in
a slow backwards shuffle. 'You will,' she
whispers, nibbling his ear and slipping her
hands up inside his designer jacket. Her nails
raze a slow line down his back, scratching
through the quality shirt. If she can always get
bookings with guys like him, this will be a
fantastic way to earn a living.

* * *

Fern sits in Alix's spare room, on the edge of
the single bed. The quilt is cream silk, the
bedstead brass. She feels sick. It's not an actual
being sick sort of sickness. It's more a slow
tightening in her stomach. She isn't going to be
able to do this. Except Alix and Courtney have
been having clients in here for the last couple of
weeks. And now Alix says she's booked
someone who is 'just the thing' for Fern.

There is a white wood wardrobe where Fern's
clothes are hanging – she's borrowed a skirt and
blouse from Alix for today – and next to the bed
there is a whitewood table with a small white
alarm clock, a box of tissues, and a condom.

Fern wonders if the tissues are there because
she's likely to cry.

She smoothes down her skirt and checks
herself in the mirror. Alix made her open the
top two buttons on her blouse. 'It's more sexy,'
she'd said.

Fern doesn't feel sexy. 'If you don't like it
you can stop,' Alix had said.

Fern knows she won't like it.

She doesn't even know which way up
condoms go.

They did sex education at school in Year
Nine and they all had a go at rolling a rubber
onto a banana and it was funny then. Patti
Hodge collapsed on the floor with hysterics
when Fern's got stuck halfway, but even if that
hadn't happened they'd have all still been
laughing, their fists stuffed into their mouths
trying not to annoy Miss Lymph, who kept
saying, 'Now, girls, that's
enough
.'

It was one of her best memories from
school. She'd felt included. People had thought
she was funny – in a nice way. The whole
session had been funny.

It isn't funny now. Fern wishes she'd taken
condoms home to practise on. Maybe there's
time even now, to grab the condom and run
downstairs. Maybe Alix has some bananas in
the kitchen.

There is a knock on the door.

Fern tries not to do her 'deer' eyes,
straightens her back, and sits with her hands in
her lap. She feels like a schoolgirl waiting for
the headmistress. Or maybe the headmaster.

'Hi.'

'Hi.' Fern is aware of Alix hovering slightly
behind the bloke, and then melting away.

She'd told Fern she would deal with
everything – even the money. 'All you have to
do,' she'd said, 'is the deed.'

Fern stares at the bloke she is going to be
doing 'the deed' with.

At least he's young; not sun-dried like Khaki
Steve.

She's probably supposed to slink across the
room to him and pull his head down to meet
hers, kissing him passionately.

He's going to be disappointed. He's going to
ask for his money back.

'Ah'm no' really sure why I'm here.'

His accent is Scottish – a bit like Gramp's.
Fern loves Gramp's voice, the way it lilts and
sings.

'You . . . you don't have to stay. I mean – I'm
sorry.' She can't look at him and drops her
head, her hair swinging forward to cover her
face.

'Ah just – ah don't do stuff like this. Not
normally.'

She shakes her head, whispering, 'I don't
either.'

'Could we mebbe just talk?' he says.

'Talk?' She makes herself look up then,
straight at him. He is still by the door, and
squinting across she tries to get a sense of what
sort of person he is. He is medium height,
medium build, and has brown hair down to his
collar. His fringe is swept sideways across his
forehead and she tries to think about him
washing his hair, combing it across like that,
worrying how it might look.

The idea of him doing these things softens
something in her. 'Do – do you want to come
over and sit down?'

He walks across, not looking at her, and sits
on the bed. They wait in silence, both staring at
the wall. Fern wants to be home, in the
boathouse, making figures out of clay.

'I'm sorry,' she says again.

'Ye don't need to be.' The lilting voice is
awkward. Shy.

She risks a glance at the clock. Seven
minutes gone already. Alix said it should take
twenty. There can't be too much time left. 'So
where are you from?'

'Scotland.'

'No – I didn't mean that.' She forces out a
giggle. 'I mean where in Scotland?' Not that
she knows one end from the other, but it's
something to say. She should, at least, think of
things to say.

'Glasgow.'

'I know where that is.' She feels stupidly
pleased to have found this common ground.
'My gran and gramps live near there. Just
outside. I've been there for holidays.'

'Did ye like it?' He shifts slightly, edging
closer.

'Yes. It's cold though. Or it always is when
we go.'

'Aye. That's Scotland fur ye.'

She realises, touched now with a different
sort of cold, that he has put his hand on her leg.

Her head races with questions to ask about
Scotland. Anything. Anything.

'Is this OK to touch ye like this?'

She stares down at the hand. It's a pale
hand. Slightly freckled. She doesn't want it to
start touching her anywhere else.

And then she gets a rippled memory of
trying to learn to swim. She'd been terrified
that day too, her tummy in knots for the whole
car journey to the pool. The changing rooms
rang with strange echoes, the tiled walls scaring
her with their endless whiteness. She had to use
a foot-pool, and a shower where the water
rushed out too cold and made her yelp. The big
pool itself boomed noises, people splashing and
shouting. Sometimes screaming.

Her lesson was at the shallow end. 'It's all
right,' Mum had whispered, leading her round.
'It's not very deep. Your feet will be able to
touch the bottom. I'll be watching from those
seats on the other side.'

Fern stood, awkward and skinny in her
angelfish swimming costume, at the end of a
row of chattering children. The teacher asked if
she wanted armbands or a float. Fern glanced
sideways at the others. She was older than all
of them, and not an armband in sight. 'Float,
please.' Her voice came out all shaky and
small. The teacher smiled and picked out a
float from a huge basket. Fern took it, gripped
it, her fingernails cutting into the pale blue
polystyrene. The teacher said, 'OK, let's do it.
In your own time – everybody in.' There were
whoops and shrieks and splashes like
explosions and Fern dropped the float and ran,
back through the foot-pool and past the
showers, huddling in the white-tiled cubicle
with her head pressed down onto her knees.

'Oh, Fern.' Mum had come hurrying to find
her. 'Come on. We live by a river. You've
got
to
learn. It'll help keep you safe.' But she never had.

And it's like that now. If she doesn't learn how
to put her hand on a boy's knee, to unzip his fly,
to roll a condom down onto his banana, then she
never will.

And she'll stay that stupid, pathetic, deer-with-a-firework
person forever.

Bracing herself, forcing herself, she slides
her hand across to touch him. It's clumsy and
uncertain but at least she's doing something. At
least she's putting a toe in the water.

'Ah'd like to kiss ye,' he says. 'If ye don't
mind.'

She tilts her face backwards slightly and
closes her eyes, letting his mouth press down
and move across hers. His hand moves from
her leg, finds her breasts, and then slides down
to her leg again. There is fumbling and he
shifts, leaning away. Opening her eyes, she
realises he is undoing his trousers. She battles
against fresh panic. That desperate run back to
the changing rooms. 'This,' she manages to
squeak out, reaching to the table for the
condom. 'We have to use this.'

She struggles. He helps. They are both
clumsy. Both flailing about in the shallow end.
When it is on, she remembers Khaki Steve and
the way he made her hand move. She does this
now, hoping she's getting it right. The Scottish
Banana Boy is sighing, the sound still lilting.
Almost a song.

And then it is over. Before time. Ahead of
time. Looking at the clock she can see there are
still minutes to go.

He stands up, his eyes not meeting hers,
zipping his fly back up and holding out the
condom like a limp sort of apology.

Fern understands now what the tissues are
for.

* * *

'You're great.' Courtney makes herself whisper
the words. 'I like you.'

'I like you too,' he whispers back.

She'd told him her name was Isadora and he
had said, 'Isadora – I adore ya.' She'd kept her
cringed response hidden. She isn't allowed to
ask his name and she's glad about that.
Knowing his name would make him a person.

They are lying together in Alix's spare room
– the 'love nest' as Alix is now starting to call it,
and his hands are all over her and her hands are
all over him too but her hands are mechanical
hands. All metal and batteries and wire. He
pulls at her hair. Pulls at her clothes. Her
mechanical hands keep working on him. They
have been designed well and they always know
exactly what to do.

He is the fifth one now and she is trying to
think of it as a job. Like stacking shelves or
going round Easi Shop with the price gun. Or
maybe just staying calm and not letting herself
care when the queue by the till gets too long
and people start making long breathed-out
sighs and glancing at their watches.

'Sexy baby,' says the bloke with no name.
'God I want you, sexy baby.'

'I want you, sexy baby, too,' she says.

She has learnt to talk back. To move against
them or under them or whatever it is they seem to
want. They're not her first, of course. She's had
real boyfriends – lots – and she's let them do what
they wanted to do too, but she didn't feel anything
then and she doesn't feel anything now.

The curtains in Alix's love nest have floral
stripes running down in vertical lines from the
top. Courtney decides that her mum must have
chosen the curtains. Alix isn't a floral stripes
person. She counts the stripes, moving from left
to right. She has to calculate the bits where the
curtains hang in folds. Three stripes to a fold,
she decides. So that's nine stripes she can see,
and another twelve in the folds. Twenty-one
stripes on each curtain. Forty-two stripes all
together. But what about the actual flowers.
There are thirty-two to a stripe. Sixteen lilac,
and sixteen yellow. So that means that,
altogether, there are . . .

The bloke with no name gives a long
breathed-out sigh and at last lies still.

He feels heavy on her.

Courtney eases herself out from under him.

He doesn't look at her now and she has
noticed this with the others. They often don't
look once it's finished.

She wonders if they're ashamed. She
wonders if she's ashamed.

Once he's gone she'll have a shower. She'll
make it fire hot and stand right in the middle,
trapped in the steam, angry spits of burning
water scorching her skin. And once she's
showered she'll rub herself dry, rubbing and
rubbing and the towel will begin to feel
scratchy-rough; rubbing and rubbing as if she
could somehow graze away her whole surface
and be a brand new person, born again,
stepping back out into the world.

* * *