The Following Girls (9 page)

‘
All four of you
?’ Dad hadn’t seemed sure whether that made Baker’s first ever detention better or worse. ‘What are their names, these new mates of yours?’

‘Amanda.’ He thought she was joking until Spam explained.

‘I wanted Jane.’  The strangest look on his face. ‘Jane Margaret. My mother’s names,’ and retreated to his study without another word.

‘Do you reckon she
knows
she’s the Snog Monster?’ Queenie was thoughtfully detaching slabs of chocolate from around a breaktime Mars Bar with her front teeth.

‘Probbly,’ said Bunty. ‘Somebody must have spilled that bean by now; it’s been going on for years. Probbly flattered. There are worse nicknames. Fuckface is worse.’ (Fuckface taught Physics.) ‘Sheepshagger’s much worse.’ (The Australian domestic science teacher.)

‘Hardly any point
having
a name,’ concluded Baker. ‘Only gets changed. My baby cousin was christened Kate: no Katherine, no middle name, no nonsense. Made no difference. Likes to be called Twinkle.
Twinkle
.’

‘If I have a boy, I’m going to call him Bill,’ said Bunty.

‘Billy Bunter-Byng?’ spat Queenie. ‘Don’t be bloody daft.’

‘Yes but it won’t be Bunter-Byng will it? I’ll be Mrs Wotsit.’

‘Mrs Charlton?’ Baker hadn’t meant to join in but she couldn’t help herself. Nick Charlton. The man with the obliging flatmate.

Baker stuck her head round the corner of their playground hiding place to check for passing goons. A mistress and two prefects patrolled the perimeter fence all breaktime and every second or third circuit they were supposed to hike over to the bike shed (not all the way, just close enough to make them all stub their fags out).

The corrugated iron structure was hidden away at the far end of the yard, not exactly
convenient
for the (three) cyclists but then it had been something of an afterthought. Back when the school was first established the sainted Mildred had dreamed vaingloriously of a brave new world in which all of her girls motored to school or flew in personal gyrocopters (the founder was a big H.G. Wells fan). Even constructing something as prosaic as a bicycle shed had seemed a betrayal of the bright future promised.

Julia Smith was one of the prefects on duty (the bloody girl got everywhere). She was heading towards the Mandies’ hideout but doubled back when she saw Baker’s head poke round. Her orange ponytail swinging cheerily as she skipped back down the slope. A self-consciously sporty walk.

‘Xerxes,’ said Queenie. ‘If I have a boy I’m definitely calling him Xerxes.’

‘Boys have all the fun,’ agreed Bunty.

‘Or Atahualpa. And if it’s a girl, I’m calling it Dido.’

‘Dildo?’

‘I want four girls,’ decided Bunty.

‘And wotcher gonna call them?’

‘
Amanda
.’

Even Baker smiled.

‘Yeah, but what if you get boys?’

‘Four boys? No thanks. I shall leave them on a hillside like the Spartacuses. And I’m definitely not having a bloody Dominic. Did I tell you he’s got a girlfriend? Mummy’s furious – jealous probbly. Her darling boy.’

Darling Dominic. Daddy had wanted Dominic to go to boarding school but Mummy couldn’t bear to part with him, instead agreeing to drive the fifteen-mile round trip across London twice a day to get him to and from a school that snobby old Mr Bunter-Byng approved of. Dominic not boarding meant that Bunty couldn’t be made to either. Not that her mother hadn’t tried: ‘You’ll love it, darling. I did. Heaps of fun.’

‘So what’s this girlfriend like, then?’ Queenie asked.

‘Dunno. I was still stuck in the loo when she popped round. Calls herself Soo with two Os, like Sooty’s little friend. Mummy says she’s
common
. Heard her on the phone to Aunt Marcia. Not “people like us”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Calls him Dom, Mummy says – Mummy hates that, she’s such a snob.’

‘Do they have a meaningful relationship?’ nosed Queenie, wasting no time.

‘Probbly. Sounds the type. Lots of buttons undone apparently. “Damaged goods” according to Mummy – this is all to Aunt Marcia. She tells me nar-sing. I was earwigging on the extension. “Damaged goods”, honestly.’

‘You know Brian’s got a boyfriend, don’t you?’

‘Has she indeed? Meaningful?’

‘Dunno. Tash told me – she gets quite chatty on the bus. Still at the planning stage, she reckons. Snogs and feels but no shags
yet
, she says.’ Queenie nibbled on her chocolate some more. ‘Says she’s giving him her virginity as a seventeenth birthday present.’

‘Christ on a bike. What’s she gonna give him for Christmas? A kidney?’

Spam never spoke about virginity – she wasn’t the ‘little chat’ type. A pack of Dr Whites and a (larger) box of tampons had appeared in Baker’s wardrobe as if by magic about three months before the big day and that was pretty much that, apart, obviously, from Patsy Baker’s increasingly nutty Red Cross parcels.

Stottie’s mother was too obsessed with the grades and certificates earned by her scholarship-winning, smart-blazered offspring to say much about birds or bees, and Mrs McQueen rather felt that the school was being paid to take care of that side of the syllabus, but Bunty’s mother (who was over fifty) had a bit of a thing about ‘damaged goods’. Virginity or (at worst)
apparent
virginity was like the cellophane on a packet of fags or the tiny stamp sealing a deck of playing cards: its loss undermined potential resale value (‘discard if seal is broken’). A still unravished girl like Amanda, who really was quite presentable if she’d only make the effort, ought to be able to take her pick – but of course Mummy hadn’t been told about any of the Chelsea boys. Bunty always said she was going to the cinema with Amanda Stott, knowing full well that it would take a fairly major domestic emergency – another war; cat death; navy knickers in the white wash – for Mrs Bunter-Byng to ring Stottie’s house. The Stott girl was pleasant enough but Mrs S wasn’t really PLU. Queenie’s mother was more her thing: Queenie’s mother had an Hermès scarf knotted around the handle of her bag; Queenie’s mother played canasta.

The Bunter-Byngs had driven past Château Stott one Easter on the way to the airport: one of those terraced dog boxes on the old London road, ugly and made uglier by the nubbly tide of pebble-dash that had backsurged irresistibly through the suburbs just before the war. Cladding was what they all did now. Uglier, if that were possible.

The Stott house (did Mrs Bunter-Byng but know it) was equally nubbly on the inside because Pa Stott had rough-iced the walls and ceiling of the ground floor with Artex decorative plaster. Did it himself (not the best idea he’d ever had). It was painfully rough to the touch, and if by any chance – tiredness, Lambrusco, an unexpected slap in the face – you stumbled against a wall with bare skin, the surface left an angry graze. The ceiling hadn’t worn as well. Pa Stott did that himself too, but hadn’t done whatever needed doing before combing on the gunge so that when Amanda let her bath run over, the sitting room ceiling had come down in one crispy white piece, like a giant table water biscuit hanging from the light fitting. The builder called to fix it nearly died laughing, Stottie said.

‘Here.’ Bunty poked Baker with a chocolate flake. ‘Take away the taste of that detention.’ For all the world as if they were still on speaking terms.

‘Fattening. You eat it.’

‘Please yourself.’

Baker tucked the flake behind her ear. Bunty sighed crossly and began licking the sides of a large, ripe banana.

‘Oh blimey, look at her,’ laughed Queenie. ‘
The Sensuous Female
rides again.’ (Bunty had bought a copy of this at the airport last holidays when Mummy wasn’t looking and they had all borrowed it in turn:
After you have mastered the Penis/Mouth ploy, add the Hummingbird Flick and the Silken Swirl
.)

‘Put it
a-way
, Amanda.’

Baker scowled as she transferred her unwanted chocolate bar from her ear to her book bag. You became an expert banana-licker and then what? Some bloke would see you at it and immediately start chatting you up. All because your winning way with a piece of fruit had told him that sucking people off was your idea of a good time, and then you’d be obliged to deliver on your promise. Practically trades descriptions. Advertising standards.

‘You’re making a rod for your own back. It’s like learning shorthand: if they find out you know how then they’ll make you do it.’ Baker was very careful not to address this to anyone in particular and her eyes avoided the banana-munching Bunty.

‘And then he’ll tell everybody,’ said Queenie, ‘or write it on the side of the bus stop. That’s what my big brother did. Toe rag.’

‘No! Who was it?’

Queenie frowned. ‘Someone in the Lower Sixth if you must know – and before you ask I’m not telling. Bad enough Nigel telling bloody everybody. Poor cow.’

Queenie went back to the remains of her Mars Bar and there was an awkward silence with all three of them wanting to know but not wanting to ask, all three of them slightly shamefaced at Queenie coming over all mature about telling. Too juicy not to (you’d have thought) but she didn’t. You had to admire that – but you didn’t have to like it.

Bunty caved in first. ‘Bet it was Moggy Giles. Dominic got off with her at his last school dance. Access all areas, Dominic says.’

‘I’m saying
nar-sing
.’

‘Her sister’s nearly as bad. Only in the Upper Fourth.’

‘It’ll be the whore moans,’ said Baker, pulling
The Female Eunuch
from her bag and reading out the bit she had marked:
‘
“Irritability, nightmares, bed-wetting, giggling, lying, shyness, weeping, nail-biting, compulsive counting rituals, picking at sores, brooding, clumsiness, embarrassment, secretiveness.
”
’

‘Yup,’ nodded Queenie, tearing cautiously at a hangnail. ‘Yup. That about covers it. Apart from the bed-wetting – though I’m sure that will come.’

Stottie was unconvinced. ‘Yeah, you
say
that, but our Stephanie’s showing no signs of any of it – apart from the compulsive counting lark,
ob
-viously – does a lot of that. Counts Smarties.’

‘Counting Smarties is
normal
,’ insisted Bunty. ‘She’s definitely got the spots though. Does she count those?’

As Bunty spoke the bell rang for the end of break and the girls in the playground below the bike shed began funnelling back inside.

‘Did you do the German homework?’

‘
Am Zahnartzt
. Who in their right mind would go anywhere near a German dentist? They never teach you anything useful; grown-up courses are miles better,’ said Stottie
‘
“Two more gin and tonics and a pack of your finest rubber johnnies.
”
’

‘Spam’s firm are talking about sending her on a Spanish course,’ said Baker. ‘She can’t wait, but Dad says she’s wasting her time, says they all speaka di English anyway and you could learn the important bits on the plane from a phrasebook: “This shower does not work; this wine is undrinkable; these vegetables are not cooked.” Dad
hates
hotels; doesn’t matter where we go: it’s never “what a lovely room” or “this is delicious”.’

Tuesday’s German lesson was spent revising the dative while the German mistress ran back and forth to the staff room in search of the lead for the overhead projector so that she could show them some slides of the Schwarzwald (which was going to take time as the missing cable had been wedged down the back of the radiator).

‘How come we haven’t got a dative?’

‘Cutbacks.’

‘It’s like the goose step: they just do it to make life harder,’ said Queenie. ‘Character-building.’

‘
Aus
,
ausser
,
bei
,
mit
,
nach
,
seit
,
von
,
zu
,
gegenüber
,’ parroted Baker, unanswerably.

‘Two can play at that game,’ whispered Stottie. ‘Please remember every day, neuter plurals end in A.’

‘In March, July, October, May, the nones fall on the seventh day.’

‘Father Christmas goes down an escalator backwards,’ trumped Queenie.

‘Do what? You’re making these up,’ hissed Baker.

‘Am not. Something to do with musical keys? Or Chemistry? Might have been Chemistry.’

‘Thought you gave up Chemistry?’

‘
Zackly
my point.’

‘
Why
did you give it up?’ asked Stott, who had already whizzed through the dative exercise and was drawing an elaborate Greek key pattern all round the cover of her rough book.

‘It became necessary.’

Queenie was still in the proles when she developed her loathing of the periodic table, reacting first with blank disbelief then with blind panic to the news that she was expected to commit this seemingly random sequence of numbers and initials to memory.