The Testament of Jessie Lamb (18 page)

I wedged my chair against the door and rolled back on my bed and touched myself. But it wasn't the same. I wanted him. Then the soreness reminded me and gave me that shocked feeling inside again. I was dripping wet. I couldn't stop, I made myself come. After, I felt disgusted. Sex wasn't important. Relationships weren't important. What was important was what I had decided to do.

I went into the bathroom and had a long wasteful shower. When I looked at myself in the steamy mirror afterwards, I looked just the same. Nobody would have known what I had done. I was going to stick to my plan, I wasn't going to let the thing with Baz distract me from it. Anymore than he was letting the thing with me distract
him
from his plans. He'd gone to Chester hadn't he. Who knew when I'd see him again? I wondered again who else he had done it with. I didn't care as long as it wasn't Rosa.

I was drying my hair when I realised my phone was ringing–I switched off the dryer and grabbed it. Unknown caller. It was Nurse Garner from the clinic. ‘Jessie Lamb?' she said. ‘You came to the meeting for volunteers.'

‘Yes.'

‘Sorry it's such short notice, but if you're free Dr Nichol can do medicals today.'

‘Today? What time?'

‘Twelve o' clock?'

‘Fine.' Good. I didn't have to sit there waiting for Dad to have time to talk to me. I dressed and got myself out of the house so quietly the murmuring voices in the kitchen never even paused. Let
them
wonder where
I
was, if they ever had time to notice!

All the way on the bus to the clinic I could feel a pulse beating inside me, deep between my legs. I hoped the medical wouldn't examine me down there. That would be truly embarrassing.

Dr Nichol is a small woman with silvery hair and a dark, quiet face. Dark eyes, black eyebrows, something watchful and far back in the way she looks at you. She has a low clear voice. ‘Well Jessie,' she said, ‘how're you feeling?' She's the kind of person you want to speak honestly to, because you know she's listening with every scrap of her attention. After she'd taken some samples and done my blood pressure and listened to my heart, she asked about my periods and warned me that she'd need to remove my Implanon next time she saw me, if everything went according to plan. She didn't make me undress or examine me there at all, thank goodness. Soon I wouldn't have to think about it.

At the end she shook my hand and said ‘Well done, you're fighting fit.' She smiled at me kindly. ‘But remember, no one will think any the less of you if you don't go through with this.' I wondered how it had been with the other girls, if they were all ‘fighting fit'; I wondered if she believed any of us would really do it. I wanted her to believe in me. I didn't want to disappoint her.

When I came out of the medical room there were two other girls waiting. Theresa, the quiet one from the volunteering meeting–and Rosa Davis! She was dressed in goth-type black and skinny as a whippet, but there was no mistaking her sly smiling face. I was gobsmacked. She hadn't been at school since before GCSE's. Obviously she couldn't have been pregnant, because here she was. We said hello in amazement, and Theresa went in for her medical. Rosa seemed really happy I was volunteering. ‘How did you hear about it?' I asked her.

‘My Mum's a nurse.'

I realised that of course all of us must have some connection to the clinic–how else could we even have heard about the pre-MDS embryos? ‘Are you back at your Mum's?'

‘I'm living with my boyfriend. He's got a really big flat on Deansgate.'

I asked her where she'd been since she left school, and she said loads of places, London, Paris, California. She said she'd been to so many places she'd lost track. As she spoke she kept glancing at me with her eye that meets yours, and the other one that seems to be staring over your head, as if to dare me to say I didn't believe her. Of all the people in the world, she was just about the last one I ever wanted to meet again. She insisted on swapping phone numbers so we could stay in touch through the different stages of volunteering. I told myself it didn't matter, she'd be bound to drop out. As soon as I decently could I told her I had to meet someone, and hurried to the exit.

I had no desire to go home so I decided to visit Lisa. When I got off the bus it had started snowing–big polka dot flakes that were silently pattering a layer of white over everything. It was cold enough for it to lie; the first proper snow of the winter, and it had waited till the beginning of March to fall. By the time I got to the Kids' House my face was wet and numb. No one answered the door but I could hear noise from inside so I let myself in. There was a bunch of lads playing pool in the big room, and rap blasting out of the speakers. It looked better now it was painted white, but there was still something scruffy and echoey about it. I went up and knocked on Lisa's door and she called, ‘come in.' Her room was completely different. There was a row of feathery ferns and plants with dark glossy leaves all along the windowsill. In the middle of the room were two old fashioned armchairs covered with faded Indian bedspreads. Her bed was a mattress on the floor, with a pile of velvety red and purple cushions, and she had a little wooden table and chair in the corner, with her laptop and a glowing lamp. There was a double pile of books against the side of the desk. She'd painted the bare floorboards a dark gloss red. ‘Nice skirting boards!' I said, and she laughed.

‘Yes, very well painted.'

‘You've made it lovely.'

‘It's good to have somewhere that no one messes up.' She went to get us a drink and I looked at the titles of the books around her desk,
21st Century Smallholder, How to Grow More Vegetables, The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency
. I didn't know there was a garden at the Kids' House. She brought us mugs of orange and we sat in the snug armchairs and admired the room. ‘My dad gave me some stuff from home.'

‘Was he alright about it?'

‘He says we're better off without him. But then he cries so I'll feel guilty.'

I hadn't planned to, but I found myself telling her about wanting to volunteer, and about the medical I'd just been to. There was something lovely about being in that room and talking to her, nestled in those chairs with the lamp reflecting darkly off the shiny floor. It felt almost like we were floating, it reminded me of the feeling I had when I wore that blue dress, of being above the rest of the world, in a calm place where things seemed possible.

But when I finished she said, ‘It would be a bit mad, wouldn't it?'

‘You think?'

‘I think staying alive's a good plan.' She laughed. ‘Either they'll find a cure–which seems pretty likely, I mean already they've got a vaccine. Or, if they don't, everyone'll get old and die and everything will fall to bits. If that happens–frankly–who's going to cry about it? I mean, the human race has to end sometime.'

‘But how will people bear it?'

‘Everyone who's alive now will have had as much life as they can. Anyone who's not born doesn't know what they're missing. Maybe something better'll evolve.'

It had been getting darker as we spoke, and the sky behind the plants on the windowsill was nearly black now. ‘Our lives won't be worth living if we know there's no future.'

‘Why? There's no future for anyone beyond 80 years or so. Everyone dies.'

‘But we always know there'll be more people. We know it'll all carry on.'

She shrugged. ‘You wouldn't be there to see it either way. So why should you care?'

‘But
you
care what happens, you wouldn't have come to YOFI and done all this work on the house if you didn't. Even if Iain hadn't been there–'

‘Iain,' she said disgustedly. ‘That perve.'

A shiver went through me. ‘Why d'you say that?'

‘He asked Gabe–who is nine years old–to go to his flat.'

‘Why?'

‘Some crap about planning and talking in peace. Haven't you noticed? Iain's thing has always been for younger and younger kids to join.'

‘D'you really think he is?'

‘A paedo? Yes. The whole thing–YOFI–it's a joke.'

‘You've got this house because of it!'

‘I want to move. We're going to get somewhere in the countryside, where we can grow our own food and be self sufficient and not have anything to do with the outside world.'

‘You and Gabe?'

‘There are five of us so far.'

‘But the whole thing of Kids' Houses–'

She shrugged. ‘The idea always was to live separately, and that's what we'll be doing. Getting on with our own lives without expecting anything from
them
.'

‘If you opt out, you don't change anything.'

‘Why should I run round helping to get power for a group of idiots who'll end up just as dangerous as the ones already in power?'

‘You really don't think anyone can make things better?'

‘No. What's going to happen will happen.'

‘What about people like Nat and the ALF? They're not trying to get power.'

She laughed. ‘No, they're trying to set fire to scientists' cars.'

‘Who told you?'

‘Nat was here last weekend.'

After the explosion. Nat and Lisa. A few things fell into place. It was quite interesting, considering how opposed to each other they'd been.

‘At least they're trying to do something.'

‘Trying to close an animal research lab. Frankly Jess, on the grand scale–'

‘You can't think on the grand scale. You have to think on the small scale. Otherwise no-one'd ever do anything.'

‘That's what I'm doing. Thinking on the small scale. Planning the life
we
want to live, instead of joining in with this whole fucked-up mess.'

I left soon after that. She came downstairs through the pool room with me and out into the snow. ‘Jess–don't volunteer. Seriously, I wish you wouldn't.' She gave me a quick strong hug. It made me think of Sal and I felt sad. I got a bus home, it was too cold and dark to walk. I was the only passenger. We rode through empty streets where the snow on the pavements glowed with a bluish light.

I was relieved when my phone rang, happy that someone wanted to talk to me. Until I saw that it was Rosa Davis. ‘Hiya Jess! Isn't it exciting? Are your Mum and Dad really proud of you?'

‘Well, I haven't told them yet.'

‘My Mum's thrilled. She's told all her friends and they keep sending me presents, flowers and chocolate and stuff. They think I'm so brave–it's embarrassing!' She giggled her fake giggle.

‘Does your boyfriend know?'

‘Yes, he's heartbroken. He says he's going to put a red rose on my grave every day for as long as he lives. Are you still friends with Baz?'

I told her someone was calling me and I had to go. I did not want to discuss Baz with her. Baz was none of her business. I couldn't believe they would let her volunteer; as soon as she talked to a counsellor they would realise she was a nutter.

I should have told Mum and Dad that evening. They were both there–Dad cooked tea–and although it felt pretty strained, they were speaking to each other. There was no great announcement about splitting up so all I could assume was Mandy was right and they would get over themselves. But when Dad said, ‘So Jessie, what's this great piece of news you have for us? YOFI ready to assume world command?' I simply couldn't bear to speak. I mumbled something about telling them tomorrow, and slipped off to my room.

I should have taken the opportunity when it was offered. Because it certainly didn't get any easier. I promised myself I'd do in on Monday evening. Then Mum came in quite late (she'd been to visit Mand) and started pouring something out to Dad, I could hear them from my room. I was half afraid the whole thing was flaring up again. When their voices finally quietened I went down to the kitchen. Dad was loading the dishwasher and Mum sat at the table stabbing out a fag as I walked in. I pretended not to notice. ‘I've come to tell you my news,' I said. ‘I've decided to volunteer.'

‘Hi Jess,' said Dad. ‘Can you finish up this fruit salad?'

‘To be one of those surrogate mothers.'

Mum stared at me blankly.

‘You know, the ones who'll have MDS-free babies.'

Dad grinned at me. ‘You still thinking about your sea-horses?'

‘No. I'm thinking about me.'

‘I should go back,' Mum said to Dad, and he glanced at his watch.

‘D'you want me to take you?'

‘I'll get my stuff together.' But she didn't move.

‘Listen,' I said, ‘I'm trying to tell you something. I've been to the clinic to volunteer.'

‘Which clinic?' said Dad.

‘Yours. To Mr Golding.'