The Testament of Jessie Lamb (17 page)

‘Yes?'

‘D'you think–you know?'

I couldn't help it, I started to laugh, and after a moment he laughed too. ‘I thought you didn't like me,' I said.

‘You liked everybody
but
me.'

‘What d'you mean?'

‘Snogging Danny. Then you kept walking home with Nat, everyone could see how much you fancied him. Then
Iain
–'

‘I
don't
like Iain. Not like that. He did kiss me once but it was horrible, I didn't want him to.'

Baz looked at me like he was gathering a reply, but I couldn't wait.

‘I never liked Danny either, I just snogged him when I was drunk that night. I
wanted
–'

‘Yes?'

‘I came down to your room. But you just played the piano and ignored me.'

‘What did you expect me to do? I'd just seen you with Danny.'

‘I liked Nat but not–nothing ever happened with Nat.'

‘All the girls like Nat.'

‘You act as if
I'm
the one who's been difficult, but what about you?'

‘Me? What about me?'

‘You invited Rosa Davis to that party.'

‘Why not?'

‘And she was helping you clear up, in the morning.'

‘So?'

‘Where did she go to, after that?'

‘How should I know? She has her own reasons for what she does.'

I knew he didn't really like her. She went with loads of lads. There was a rumour she was on drugs. ‘Well…' I could feel a red hot blush spreading over my face like a spilt pot of paint. ‘Do you…?'

‘Yes,' he said. We sat there looking at each other in the most paralysing awkwardness.

‘OK,' I said eventually. ‘Glad we've got that sorted.' It was pure nervousness, I began to laugh again, and we sat laughing at each other like a pair of loons. Then he got up from the piano and came over to me. He sat beside me on the bed, not very close, and picked up my left hand with his right. We both stared at our hands as the fingers slowly folded and intertwined, like creatures that didn't belong to us. Then awkwardly, bumping noses, we kissed. Gradually there was a change of speed. We fell back on the bed and our hands started going everywhere. We were both so hot and firm and close and smooth under our clothes that I could hardly bear it, I wanted to do everything at once, my whole body felt alight and alive. Suddenly Baz froze.

‘What is it?' I whispered.

‘My mum's just come in. I heard the door.' We rolled apart and pulled our things straight.

‘Will she come down?' I asked.

‘No, but–'

I knew what he meant. We made ourselves decent and slowly climbed the stairs. Baz went into the kitchen to find her. I waited in the living room, and after a minute he reappeared shaking his head. ‘She's been to see Dad and she's upset.'

‘Should I go?'

He pulled a face but nodded. ‘I'll call for you later on.'

I let myself out. The fog had cleared, the sun was bright. I floated home as light and happy as a bird. And as soon as I got in I checked my e mail. There it was: a message from Dad. ‘Hi Jessie I'll be back tomorrow to hear all the news. Lots of love, your runaway Dad. Xxx'
Yes!
I did a couple of twirls then texted Mum to let her know. He was OK, he was coming back, he wasn't mad at me. Everything was working out perfectly.

Baz called for me after tea and we walked down to the old rec. It was clear and our breath puffed out of our mouths like smoke in the dark air. We sat side by side on the swings. Even with gloves on it was too cold to hold onto the chains, and I swung gently with my hands in my pockets. We talked about our parents and I told him what had happened with Dad. We tried to imagine what our lives could have been like if there was no MDS. Baz would have gone to Austria on his piano scholarship, he would have become a concert pianist, travelling round the world to all the great concert halls. Maybe he still will. But I–I didn't know what I would have done, I couldn't imagine it at all. And that brought back to me what I was going to do. My warm dark secret, my destiny. I thought about telling him, though I knew I shouldn't. But there would be nothing wrong in talking about it in theory. I asked if he knew about the plan to vaccinate stored embryos, but he didn't, so I started to explain it to him.

‘Sounds like a science fiction nightmare,' he said.

‘It's not. Well, it is for one generation, but once the first set of children are born, women can go back to having babies naturally.'

‘Freezers full of embryos, like frozen peas? Then they're going to vaccinate them–how do they know what effect that will have, on tiny unborn children? Then they're going to put them inside women who'll get diseased and die, and grow them there like–like parasites. Then they'll cut them out? Can you imagine how many things could go wrong! Why can't they just stop mucking about with life?'

‘Baz, listen, real children will come out of it. They'll be normal, like us–like we used to be. And they can forget about all this horrible stuff, they can just lead normal lives and fall in love and have babies together.'

‘The usual scientists' lie.
Just let us do whatever mad thing we think of next, because it's progress
. Is this better than in our grandparents' day?'

‘This is science which can rescue us from extinction.'

‘Right. I can guess who told you that.'

‘People will change the way they live if they can see there's hope. It's like everyone's being given a second chance.'

He laughed and jumped off his swing. ‘You are such an optimist! Come on. She'll have gone out to the hospital again by now.' He stood in front of me and caught my swing as I came towards him. We kissed, and his lips and mouth were hot as cocoa. It didn't surprise me then that he was against the idea; after all, I had been against it myself, to begin with. I knew I'd be able to talk him round.

We hurried to his house and went straight down to his room. As soon as we were there we fell onto the bed. There were so many clothes to pull off! And the more we took off the hotter we got. ‘Have you done it before?' he whispered, and I said, ‘No, have you?'

‘Sort of.'

For a moment I wanted to ask him who, then it passed and we were just two hot slippery sweaty creatures intertwining until it was almost unbearably sweet and then he whispered ‘Can I come in?' He pushed against me and suddenly I was afraid. It was pushing against me, hurting, and I wondered if he was doing the right thing. I froze, and asked him to stop. He pressed his face into my shoulder and we lay still as fallen logs. I could feel his heart pounding against my chest. ‘Baz?' I said. ‘Baz?'

After a moment he said, ‘It's OK. It's because you're a virgin. Do you want me to use my fingers?'

I wanted it to be like it was before. Now it felt like an operation or something, all the lovely feelings had gone. I wanted it to be proper, like what Sal had told me, with both of us moaning in ecstasy. ‘No,' I whispered, ‘no.'

‘I'm going to try again. I'll stop if it hurts you. Oh, Jessie–' and he kissed me and stroked me, his breath coming in quick panting gasps which somehow transferred themselves to me so that my breaths started racing too and rays of heat were darting up from my vagina, then he was butting his head against my shoulder like a baby lamb trying to get at its mother's teat. His head was butting and he was pushing into me and it was sore and hot and fiery as if we were going into meltdown and then he gave a sudden sharper jab and I could feel him sliding properly in like a fish slipping into water and he cried ‘Aah!' and his head came to stillness on my shoulder. It was as if I'd been stabbed with a knife, I wanted him to take it out of me. But at the same time I was desperately wanting him to carry on; the deep swimmy wetness almost made me swoon. He lifted his head.

‘Are you alright?'

‘Yes. Yes.'

He reached down with his fingers and then brought them up to show me. Blood.

‘I didn't hurt you?'

‘Not much. I feel–I feel…' We lay quietly for a while.

He began to kiss me again. And to move as slowly and gently as a little pink earthworm when you pick it up from the garden in the palm of your hand. And the sweetness came back, sore and sweet, sweet and sore, climbing and climbing till I could hardly get my breath and we were rocking together in the most perfect fit, and then clutched in a spasm of pleasure.

Afterwards we lay sprawled on the bed with just our fingertips touching–too hot for anything else. I was glad but I think I was in shock. Every part of me was tender. Then I remembered that Baz was going away, to help Nat and the ALFs, and I thought I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear to be left on my own, I was so sensitised I needed him to keep his arms around me at all times. It was like I had been peeled. When he asked, ‘What is it?' I told him, and he hugged me and said he'd be back soon. But I couldn't help it, and I cried. ‘Stop it,' Baz whispered, ‘stop it, stop it,' and he licked the tears off my face like a dog until I couldn't help laughing, and he called me an idiot. We talked about him going to help Nat and he promised not to do anything dangerous. ‘But don't try and phone or text me–we'll have to stay out of contact for a few days, Jess; so the police can't trace us.' It was fine, everything was fine. Part of me wanted him to stop talking and just start kissing me again, my blood was fizzy and it made my whole body tingle. But another part of me wanted to have my clothes on and be outside in the cold night walking home, breathing the dark air and letting the thinking bits of me catch up with the feeling bits. We heard noises upstairs so it was definitely time for me to go; Baz said he'd walk me.

We went upstairs to find his mother vacuuming the curtains. She turned the vacuum off for a minute to hear where he was going and to say goodnight to me, then carried on with her task. As we walked back to my house with our arms wrapped round each other I felt terribly sorry for her. The sky was full of stars. We stood for a while in the shadow of a fir which blocked the streetlamp, and looked for the constellations either of us could name. Then we walked back to my house holding hands and not talking, feeling as if we owned the night and everything in it; moon, stars, the dark shapes of trees, the crouching quiet houses. We knew we would never be stupid in the ways our parents were stupid.

It was the sound of the car in the drive that woke me. Dad was back! I pulled on my dressing gown and ran downstairs to meet him. His big grey coat, his purple scarf, his monkey face and grey floppy hair all seemed brighter than usual, larger than life, more vivid than I had remembered. He gave me a big big hug.

‘Where were you? Didn't you get my texts? What's happened to your phone?' I heard Mum come downstairs behind me.

‘Hello Joe,' she said.

‘We need to talk,' he replied quietly.

Mum nodded. ‘I'll make some tea.'

‘I wanted time to think,' he said to me. ‘That's all. I just needed some time on my own, to think things through.'

‘But you could have texted!'

‘No, it was better to keep it switched off.'

‘But Dad we were worried, we didn't know where you were–'

‘Well I'm home now. Listen Jess, your mother and I need to talk. Give us some peace, alright? There are things we need to sort out.' He followed Mum into the kitchen and shut the door.

I went slowly back up to my room. I had news to tell him, had he forgotten? I sat on my floor and listened to the ups and downs of their voices, they were both keeping them low, a running murmur. What were they sorting out? How to get divorced? How to divide up the house and the car and the furniture and knives and forks, how to divide me?

Mandy was right. I should ignore them. They caused all this distress and disruption because of their argument, so that I had to lie awake night after night worrying, and now they didn't even apologise! For all they cared, I was perfectly irrelevant. I imagined marching downstairs and telling them–‘OK, put your big splitting-up drama on hold and listen to me for one moment. I've been to see Mr Golding, and this is what I've decided to do…' I would tell them, and they would both stand staring at me, then I'd say, ‘OK. Now you can go back to your self-obsessing.'

But really, there was no point in telling them. If they hadn't got time for me, then I hadn't got time for them. It was none of their business anyway.

I remembered Baz, and heat crept into me. I could feel my nipples tight against my t shirt. I squeezed my hands against them. The feeling was so–so–oh, I don't know, I can't describe it, for a moment I was petrified. I thought, if I could do that every day of my life I wouldn't even care about anything else. Not the planet, not the future, nothing. I'd be like Sal was with Damien at the start–just a one track mind. If Baz really liked me surely he wouldn't go away, how could he? Even for a week? Nobody had told me. Nobody had warned me I would feel so–so–like this. Like a sex maniac.