The Testament of Jessie Lamb (9 page)

Compared to YOFI, it felt serious. There was something almost deadly about it. The woman running the meeting was called Gina, she was quick and fierce and she never smiled once. She talked about the war against women. She said the introduction of MDS is the logical outcome of thousands of years of men's oppression and abuse of women. Women's sexuality disgusts men and they're jealous of a mother's ownership of an unborn child. That's why they want to marry virgins and keep women subservient, because they can never be certain that a child is their own. And women used to just be men's possessions, and only men could inherit, and no one wanted daughters. Millions of baby girls have been killed or aborted. She kept bringing it back to having babies. How it used to be women's business, helped by wise women, and then men said these midwives were witches and insisted on male doctors. And when some women couldn't get pregnant, male scientists started working out ways to make babies outside women's bodies. Which was what they'd always wanted to do, so
they
could own the mystery and power of creating babies. She talked about the first test tube babies and men stealing control of the process and turning women into passive cows. ‘Mad cow disease is no mistake, believe me, that's what we are to them.' She called MDS the atom bomb of the sex war. ‘By turning pregnancy into a death sentence they can take it away from us forever. They can insist there is no other way but the man-made child.'

I glanced at Sal but she was intent on every word. Another woman talked about sex, and how men prefer to have sex with other men but they were obliged to have sex with women in order to make children. She said that was at the root of religious laws against homosexuality, because it was in the interests of religion to create as many new babies as possible, to boost membership. But now sexual reproduction was over, all those old commandments against homosexuality were melting away and millions more men were coming out.

Other people broke in, talking about how men are treating women like lepers because of the disease. Sal was staring straight ahead but her eyes were glittering. I gently put my hand on her arm and she didn't take it away. I remembered that carful of lads and the one who spat on me. I thought about Sal sitting in the lavender-scented bath scrubbing at her skin.

Then they talked about the way MDS women had been treated across the world, how some had been left to die in the streets like dogs, or how they had been rounded up, misinformed, pushed about by police–how none of this would have happened if the victims had been men. They argued that if the disease had hit men, scientists would have found a cure by now. I sat there with these awful things swirling round in my head like leaves in a storm. I couldn't quiet it. What they said about men preferring to be gay reminded me of college.

The thing is, there
was
a change. Back before MDS, if you said a boy was gay, it was an insult. Everyone knew there were gay people, and that it was legal and everything, there were loads of gay celebrities on TV. If they met a gay couple in real life of course they'd be fine and act normally, but still in school it was an insult. If they called a boy
gay
it meant he was pathetic. And the boys and girls who really were gay kept it hidden. In fact, you wouldn't have known that anybody was. But in the months after MDS, that changed. It happened so gradually you almost didn't notice.

Boys started to cluster together with boys, and girls with girls. Some girls became frightened of boys–even though we were all on Implanon it was still a terrible thought, especially for those girls who knew a woman who'd died. Sex didn't seem worth the risk. And the boys–well, I didn't really know what they were thinking, but the atmosphere changed. They got more involved in their own conversations, and less interested in trying to make us laugh. In a way they were more shy with us. It wasn't everybody; there were people who behaved exactly opposite. Like the gangs, where you often saw boys and girls together–or even, like Sal and Damien had been at the beginning. People bounced from one extreme to another, as if we couldn't find out the proper way to behave.

But I was remembering one particular sunny afternoon, soon after the beginning of term. I had a free period before French. I stuck my nose in the library and it was like a greenhouse with all those floor-to-ceiling windows. There was no-one there but the red-faced librarian, her hair stuck to her head with sweat. I went out the back, thinking I'd find somewhere to sunbathe while I revised my vocab. I was just going to sit on the steps behind the gym, but looking across the playing field I could see bodies sprawled on the grass along the line of the hedge. I hoped there might be someone I knew, and it would be a sheltered spot to soak up the sun. The playing field had been mowed that morning and the smell of freshly cut grass lured me on. As I walked across I was scanning the sunbathers, but when I got closer I realised they were all boys. They'd taken their shirts off to get a tan. I started to feel embarrassed; I kept my eyes on the corner of the field I was aiming for, and walked as fast as I could, as if I hadn't noticed they were there. I lay on the grass facing away from them, with my vocab book open in front of me. I could hear whispering and laughter. They were urging someone on, trying to get them to do something. I concentrated on my book and when a shadow fell across the page it made me jump. I looked up and there were two boys holding hands, silhouetted against the sun.

‘Excuse me,' said one, and the other laughed. ‘This is private sunbathing.'

‘Gay boys' beach,' said the laughing one.

‘No girls allowed,' said the first. I could hear the others laughing. As I picked up my things I couldn't help glancing towards them, and seeing their mocking faces and their bare chests pink in the sunlight, and a glimpse of bare legs and buttocks too. I marched back across the playing field wishing the earth would swallow me up.

A strange thought crept into my head. About Baz. About why nothing ever happened, through I always thought it would. But then why had he asked if Iain had kissed me? Why would he care?

On the bus home Sal told me she'd decided to join FLAME.

‘They're a bit extreme,' I said.

‘Don't you think it's time to get extreme? Millions of women dead and still no cure. If we don't get extreme now, when will we?'

I thought of telling her about the women doctors who work at my Dad's lab, and about all the infertile women who used to go to the clinic, who were
glad
about IVF, who
wanted
it. The thing is, I could hear my Dad's voice in my head, arguing with every single thing Gina had said. I didn't think anything she'd said was true. But maybe it was. Why did I always have to believe my Dad?

I felt ashamed, as if Sal was older than me and knew more, because of what had happened to her. As if I didn't have the right to argue or stop her. I knew she knew how I felt and was furious about it; she didn't want sympathy or anxiety, she simply wanted nobody to know what had happened. She was angry with me for knowing, but we both knew that wasn't my fault. Neither of us could behave normally.

What the FLAME women said seemed to burn itself into my brain, like when I used to wake up and hear Mum and Dad arguing. You can't ever unknow things once you've heard them. They become part of you, they work inside you like yeast in the dough Sal and I made one weekend. You leave it on a board with a tea-towel over it, and it starts rising and changing its shape. It swells until it's become something else altogether.

Each time he comes into the room he looks at me expectantly. As if he imagines I will have changed my mind.

I've decided to stop speaking to him. When he brings food or drink he says things like, ‘Come on Jess, stop it now,' and ‘Let's talk the whole thing through again, shall we?' And I either look away or stare at the top of his head, like we used to at school when we wanted to really annoy a teacher. This time he says, ‘You know this makes it easier for me? you behaving like a sulky kid. I can just play at cross Dad.'

I am itching to retort, ‘You do that anyway.' But I won't give him the satisfaction. When he goes out he stops on the landing and listens to see what I'm doing. I sit very still, listening to him. I hope he is ashamed.

He always turns the light on when he comes in, and when he goes out, I shuffle over and turn it off. Without the light on, the room is bigger, with shadowy edges, and the soft grey that falls through the window can even make a paler rectangle on the floor. It shifts as the day passes, from near my sleeping bag, across to the middle of the carpet. My eyes adjust to the dimness. I feel as if I'm drawing on whatever rays of light there are out there, sucking them in greedily; using them, like a fire sucking in air to feed its flames.

I know everything in this room. The dry wooden boards down the right hand side, where the bed and wardrobe used to be. (The bed has left imprints of two of its feet in the dusty rose carpet. The imprints are deep and rectangular, and the carpet there is dark pink like inside your mouth.) In the doorway the carpet is worn nearly bald, to the yellowish weave underneath. The light-bulb dangling on a brown flex in the middle of the ceiling is an old fashioned energy guzzler. When it's off I can see the metal attaching bit is speckled with age and rust. I thought they only lasted a few months, but it can't have been changed for years.

Above the window there's a white plastic curtain rail. I wonder why Mum took down the curtain. I remember it had a pattern of little pink and yellow flowers. What did she do with it? I wish she had left it here.

The wallpaper is a faded creamy colour, once it was yellow. It has a faint blotchy pattern which you can't really make out. But this morning for a few minutes the sun shone, and then the pink carpet and yellow walls really glowed, and I thought, my prison is beautiful!

The obvious way out is to lie. That's what I keep thinking. Next time he comes in, say, ‘OK. You win. I won't do it.'

Obviously, embroider it a bit. Sound regretful, or as if you've just had an epic revelation, or as if you're heartbroken but resigned. Simply persuade him you've changed your mind–and he'll let you go. And once you're free, well, you can do what you like.

I keep turning it over in my mind and I don't know why I can't do it. Is it because I know he'd see through me? Like when we used to play
Lie Detector
. Sometimes I would look on Wikipedia for outlandish facts; a silkworm's cocoon contains one thread a kilometre and a half in length. True! A snail travels at 15 metres an hour. False! (Too slow). Father of Wisdom knows all the answers. But he knew things there were no answers to; I've just eaten a chocolate cupcake at Sal's. False! He could tell when I was lying.

I'm not a child anymore. I could make a lie convincing.

But I don't want to. As soon as I try to make myself plan it, in detail, something stubborn blocks me. I don't want to lie. Why should I have to lie? If he forces me to lie, he's winning. I want him to
understand
what I am doing, and agree with me.

I go round this loop as often as I shuffle round the walls, from window heading left to the corner, along the wall where the darker yellow outline of the old mirror stands like a second ghostly window; round the corner to the door and the grubby light switch, avoiding bumping my toe again on the plug socket in the skirting board, and on to the bare boards; round that corner and shuffle more carefully in case of splinters, down to the next corner and round onto the carpet and towards the window and the radiator again. I shuffle round as much as I can, to keep my blood moving and so I'll be capable of making a dash for it when I can.

Why is it alright to run away, but not to lie?

I shouldn't
have
to lie. It annoys me. I hear him unlocking the front door and going out. His footsteps on the paving stones of the little front garden. The clank of the gate. It is so quiet here, and still. In a funny way he's preparing me. Slowing me down; restricting me; forcing me in on myself.

Maybe it's necessary. That's an underlying thought. Maybe it's necessary for me to go through this, maybe it was meant. So that I actually do everything in full knowledge, instead of rushing into it pell-mell.

Maybe I shouldn't struggle or resist at all, but just accept each stage as it happens, and trust where it's taking me.

I came home from a college science evening to find Dad telling Mum all about a wonderful new breakthrough. I could hear their raised voices as I opened the front door, Mum was saying it wouldn't work and he was saying she didn't understand. There was wine on the table, he offered me some.

‘Have a glass with us to celebrate, Jesseroon!'

‘Celebrate what?'

‘There's a vaccine!'

‘But it's no use–' broke in my Mum, and he said ‘Shush' to her sternly. She burst out giggling and after a moment he joined in. I didn't like it when they were drunk and I told him he could explain it to me in the morning. As I went upstairs they were laughing like a couple of hyenas.

In the morning he was still happy. Mum had already gone off to early theatre, and he was dancing around the kitchen with a porridgy wooden spoon. He gave me a bowl of porridge and said did I want to hear the good news? They had discovered a vaccine against MDS.