Amelia O’Donohue Is So Not a Virgin (4 page)

T
he dorms swarmed with sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls from exotic places like the west end of Glasgow and Inverness. They all seemed to know each other or have stuff in common to talk about like music and reality television. They all had treats like cupcakes with coconut-covered chocolate icing on top and large allowances to go to McDonald’s on Fridays and to the local shop after school. They all had mobile phones (even though you weren’t supposed to—indeed I seemed to be the only girl at school who’d followed the rules). I wandered round checking everyone out and introducing myself (“Hello, I’m Rachel Ross, pleased to meet you. What do you want to do at university?”).

“One thing at a time, eh Raylene!” said the first. (She was a bit tough and scary up close—had thick eyeliner on and at least two coats of foundation—so I didn’t correct her. Raylene would do for now.)

“Engineering,” said the second, “at Cambridge, but if
it’s St. Andrews, it’s St. Andrews, but I’m confident it’ll be Cambridge,” then she buzzed off to check out the darkroom on the second floor.

“What? I dunno. Got a smoke?” said the third. She’d tried to hide it with cover up, but I could see she’d been crying.

“I’m not going to university until the government down south abolishes fees,” said the fourth in her northern English accent, before placing an antiracism poster on the notice board on the landing.

“Get a life dick wad,” said the fifth, sliding her cubicle door shut.

Oh delicious, eclectic new world!

I finally found Mandy Grogan’s room on the fourth floor (Left) to discover she was next door to her big sister’s best mate’s little sister and that they’d headed down to the woods together.

I walked out of the dorm building and round the back, where huge, thick conifers padded the hills and traipsed along one of the forest tracks. Down at the very bottom was a derelict wooden shack. I could hear noises coming from inside, but felt too scared and too shy to open the door and see if it was Mandy and her new friend. I returned to the dorms to seek out Louisa, who was in the television room on the second floor. Five other girls, including Amelia O’Donohue, were in there with her.

“Hi, this is Rachel,” she said, introducing me to her new friends. “She’s a brain box, and totally the one to tell secrets to…never tell, do you Rach?”

“Hi,” I said, wishing there was somewhere for me to sit. The ads were on, and the girls were talking about cute teachers, Baltyre boys, and what to do in town on Friday evenings. The three sofas were full, so I sat on the arm of the couch Louisa was on. It was very uncomfortable. For a start, Louisa didn’t even move her arm to give me a bit more space. My bottom started feeling numb and I didn’t know where to put my hands.

“What do you want to do at university?” I asked the girl next to Louisa.

“Rachel, not everybody cares so much about university,” Louisa answered. The girl I’d asked hadn’t even bothered responding. The adverts had finished and some show about murders had started. I think she may have even rolled her eyes.

I could feel my arms getting bigger. I decided to fold them. This made balancing on the arm of the sofa quite difficult.

“What’s this?” I asked anyone who might answer.

“
Crime Scene Investigation
,” said Mandy, who was sitting next to Amelia O’Donohue. Amelia was watching the show with immense concentration. “Shh!” Amelia said. “I bet they’re gonna find his DNA on the cheese grater.”

The next few minutes were spent deciding how to leave the room with dignity. Should I pretend I had something exciting to do and tell everyone before flouncing out? Should I say “See ya!” cheerfully, then go? Or should I fidget and sweat, red-faced, before unfolding my arms and skulking numb-bummed out the door? I went for the latter.

If Mandy and Louisa were ignoring me a bit, I didn’t mind. Like me, they were excited to be here. Anyway, I had longer-term goals than popularity and fun in mind. I was at Aberfeldy Halls to pave the way for a lifelong escape from the island.

• • •

It was dinner time. Miss Rose announced it over the intercom:
Girls, the bell is about to ring for supper
. I headed over the walkway and grabbed a seat at one of the huge round tables. Mandy and Louisa joined me a few minutes later.

“Guess what!” Mandy always started conversations this way, and I always made at least seven silly guesses before she coughed up. It was a game we’d played since we were little. This time, she didn’t wait for my guesses (which would have been something like: You found £10,000! Or: Your father is gay!). “This girl Aimee from my floor,” Mandy said, “is like so cool and sweet and she has an iPod with the Jonas Brothers on and a bright pink portable battery-operated dock and we played
it down in the woods in that shack and she brought a whole suitcase of cigarettes and she took one of them down there too. Louisa had three.”

“Did you inhale?” I asked Louisa.

“Aye, course.”

“The telly on second has satellite and Amelia O’Donohue…” Mandy said.

“She is too cool,” Louisa interjected.

“I know…anyhow she recorded the whole second series of
CSI
and we’re all gonna meet up after lights out and watch them and see who can guess whodunit first.”

“Who’s
all ?
” I asked.

“Amelia, and Ally from Wick—she is so funny. And a group from Glasgow who all know each other already from this nightclub they go to.”

“What’s the shack like?” I asked Mandy.

“Unreal. There’s writing all over: Jennifer pulled Mick here 20-03-2005, drawings of boys’ bits, stuff like that. Someone’s left condoms in there. Under an old mattress. Apparently people shag there all the time. Oh guess what?” I opened my mouth to guess, but there was no time…“Aimee’s gonna have a midnight feast in my room! Knock three times, very quietly…”

To my surprise, Amelia O’Donohue sat down opposite me.
She was so stunning that everyone at the table stopped talking. We were in the presence of tremendous beauty, humbled by her eyes and by her expensive designer puff skirt, thick belt, and very unbuttoned silk shirt. We all deferred to her, waiting for her to initiate conversation, hanging on every word she said. In the end, all she said was: “This food is disgusting,” and “This place is like a prison.”

The two choices for dinner were a large, round, tomato-soaked meatball (I heard Amelia O’Donohue calling it an abortion as she asked for two extra), and a large pasty. The chef, a good-looking forty-something, served the main course onto our plates. Miss Rose chatted and giggled with him as she garnished the plates with a selection of vegetables. They looked good together, I thought, but any ideas of matchmaking were ruined by the gleaming wedding ring visible on the chef’s finger. I chose the meatball, but I couldn’t eat it after the nickname Amelia had given it.

• • •

That night, I was hanging my clothes in the built-in wardrobe with my flannelette pajamas on, when my door smashed open to reveal Amelia O’Donohue (in a pink silk teddy- style nightie).

“I need your help,” she said, sliding the door shut.

“Okay.”

“My boyfriend’s on the fire escape,” she said.

“Oh my god!”

“Shh! God’s sake…I’ve rigged the door so the alarm doesn’t go off. But you cover for me, yeah?”

“How?”

“Don’t let anyone go out to smoke and don’t let anyone in my cubicle. If anyone asks, say I’m asleep.”

I didn’t get a chance to say anything. She’d already checked her hair in the mirror and left.

I could see the fire escape from my window. There were no external lights on, but the hall lights lit it up. I opened my window a tad and looked out. A boy of about seventeen was leaning against the metal banister. He’d obviously spent a long time on his asymmetrical light brown hair. Each strand was placed with perfect, edgy randomness. Amelia came out from the fire escape door and joined him (still in her teddy!). Can I say/think/write what happened next? Is it too rude? Too rude to hint that Amelia must have had very sore knees afterwards?

“Amelia!”

Oh no. Someone was looking for Amelia.

I slammed my window shut, ran out my door, and shielded Amelia’s room with my arms.

“She’s asleep!” I said.

The girl was dressed in the same nightie as Amelia but in a different color. She had perfectly flat, highlighted hair. And makeup. At bed time! Glittery gold eye shadow, at least three thick coats of mascara, which made her short lashes clumpy to be honest, and bright pink, clown-like blusher that Mandy had told me was “the thing” these days. She turned up her lip and said, “Who are you?”

“Rachel Ross. Amelia asked me to make sure no one interrupts her. She’s exhausted.”

“Since when are you friends with Amelia?” she said, looking at my pajama ensemble.

“Dunno.”

She was like, “Whatever, tell her Tanya needs to talk to her urgently.” (Tanya with a poncy aah…Taahnya.) Obviously from the city. She probably ate avocado and pine nuts with multicolored lettuce.

The lights went out at 10 p.m., and Amelia had still not come back inside. I lay in bed waiting for the fire escape door to clink shut, for hers to slide open, to hear her lying down in her bed, her head only centimeters from mine though the thin wall dividing us.

Finally, must have been an hour after lights out, the fire
escape door clicked. There were footsteps, then a door sliding open. But it wasn’t Amelia’s. It was mine.

“Anyone come looking?” Amelia said.

“Just Taahnya. Said she needs to talk to you urgently.”

“Slap my cheek then pull my nose then say:
If I tell, I’ll go to hell
.”

I was like, “What?”

“Slap my cheek then pull my nose then say:
If I tell, I’ll go to hell
.”

“I never tell people’s secrets. I promise. I have a reputation for it back home. Ask Mandy and Louisa, they’ll tell you it’s true.”

“Who the fudge is Mandy and Louisa?” Crikey, she was so cool she said fudge like all the time and made a point of not remembering nobodies. “Slap my cheek then pull my nose then say it.”

“But you can’t send me to hell and anyway I don’t believe in it.”

“I’ll make your life so crap you’ll believe in it. Do it.”

So I closed my eyes and slapped her right cheek.

“Ow! Not so hard.”

I opened my eyes a bit and slapped her other (not red) cheek more softly and then pulled her nose for three seconds…

“That’s long enough! Jeez…” she said.

I let go and said, “If I tell, I’ll go to hell.”

Amelia nodded then left my room.

I
set my alarm clock for ten to twelve and woke up wondering where I was. After a couple of seconds the wonderful truth dawned on me. I wasn’t with my misery-soaked parents in the middle of nowhere, the sea crashing against the rocks across the road, the wind howling through the emptiness of our treeless farm. I was in the wondrous Aberfeldy Halls. I got out of bed and tiptoed along the hall and up the stairs to the fourth floor. I counted the cubicles as I made my way to Mandy’s room for our midnight feast, then knocked three times very quietly on the fourteenth on the right. I could hear two girls giggling. Eventually, the door slid open.

Mandy, Louisa, and a girl called Aimee were sitting on the bed eating cupcakes.

“You’ll never guess what we heard,” Mandy said.

“You can’t tell her,” Aimee said.

“This is Rachel Ross,” Mandy said, “the most trustworthy girl in the world. No matter how hard you try, she won’t tell you a
thing. It’s abnormal, actually. I’ve told Rach absolutely all my juicy secrets and she’s never told anyone.”

“Really, like what?” Aimee said.

I didn’t say anything.

Aimee was like, “So you really keep secrets?”

“There’s no need to tell me if you’d rather not.”

“Oh, but you’ll die! Y’know the girl who wears the same clothes as Amelia O’Donohue?”

“Aye, Taahnya…”

“That’s the one. Taahnya Scot. Posh bitch from Edinburgh. Anyways, guess what she had…”

I didn’t guess.

“An abortion!”

My lack of response didn’t please them.

“Can you believe that? Her big sister told my big sister that’s why her parents sent her here.”

“Can I have a cupcake?” I said.

The girls told me loads of other gossip. There were lesbians on their floor, apparently. With nose rings. Squelchy noises had been heard at around 10:50 that very night. The culprits were called Vanessa and Jill.

Suddenly, a door slammed somewhere close by. The three of us shut our mouths and stopped breathing, listening as
footsteps pounded past the cubicle, then back again, then back again, then stopped dead, then the door slid open slowly.

It was Miss Jamieson, the fourth floor matron. Each floor’s matron slept in full height lockable cubicles situated beside the bathrooms.

“To bed now, girls!” she said, more calmly than I’d have expected considering her grim demeanor. She had a very thin face and cheeks that caved into an unfortunate jaw.

“I understand your excitement tonight,” she said, “but I catch you again you’ll be on toilet duties for a month.”

There were toilet duties?

I hardly slept that night. ALO (Dorm speak for After Lights Out), girls quieted down for a while, before coming to life again, confident that the matrons would be asleep. They tiptoed into each other’s rooms to eat, chat, giggle. They snuck down to the television room to watch scary movies on low volume. They smoked on the fire escape. All of which contributed to a hum of ad hoc noises that made sleep impossible. To make things worse, the clock beside the cupboards made an eerie buzzing sound every hour, and I found myself waiting for the next one, hour by hour, till Real Radio played at 7 a.m. to wake us for breakfast.

“Morning, Miss Rose,” I said as I walked back from the shower room to my cubicle.

“Morning, Rachel,” she said, smiling. Poor thing, living in a dorm full of girls. It must get lonely, I thought.

Ouch. Taahnya had grabbed me by the arm as Miss Rose turned to walk away. She was dragging me down the corridor and into my room.

“What are you doing?” I asked when she pushed me down onto my bed.

She was like, “What did Amelia tell you about me?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m going to count to three and if you haven’t told me, then I’m going to punch you on the arm till you do.”

“She hasn’t told…”

“
One…
”

“Me anything…”

“
Two…
”

“Really!”

“
Three.
”

“Ow!”

She’d kept her word and had punched me really hard on the arm.

“Now tell me or I’ll punch you twice this time.”

“She hasn’t told…”

Punch. Punch.

“jesus!”

“One more chance, then I’ll just keep punching.”

“One…Two…Three…”

As she punched, I tried to tell her that I was being completely honest…Amelia had said nothing…

“What about the other girls?”

“No one’s told me anything…” I said, sacrificing honesty for discretion.

It was killing me. My arm was numb.

“Well…I suppose you are telling the truth,” she said, shaking her red hand and leaving the room.

• • •

I loved my uniform, even though my mother had ordered it secondhand from some scabby shop in Perth. The skirt was long, pleated, and thick: a blue and maroon tartan. White shirt, blue tie, maroon cardigan, maroon blazer, tights, black shoes. I looked
official
. Posh even. When I got to breakfast, I was surprised at how different the girls could make a standard uniform look. Amelia O’Donohue had fashioned her tie into a loose, short, massive knot. Her top two buttons were undone. Her collar was up. Her white shirt hung undone from underneath her tight V-neck jumper, and she’d discarded the mandatory blazer.

While I queued at the huge, round, toaster, which the chef oversaw, Miss Rose at his side, I realized word had somehow gotten around that I was
the
person to tell stuff to. I was waiting for my whole-grain toast to be handed over when a girl with a ponytail and a really short skirt whispered, “I fancy the gym teacher, Mr. Burns.”

“Really?” I whispered back, not sure what else to say. I’d never met the girl with the ponytail, nor Mr. Burns. But when I did—my third lesson was PE—I understood. He was quite young—around 25 perhaps—with dark curly hair, stubble, large muscles, and a nice manner.

“Does anyone want to be an Olympic athlete?” he asked.

A few girls put their hands up, including the girl with the ponytail.

“Good. And why not? Live your dreams. Be the best you can. Now ladies, three laps of the field! Except the girls who put their hands up…you do five…”

“Mr. Bu…urns,” the girl with the ponytail flirted.

“Now, now, Olympic athletes never moan! They embrace!” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder and pushing her off with a smile.

Every period excited me. The classrooms all had interactive whiteboards which communicated with electronic pens and our own personal laptops.

My English teacher, Catherine (she asked us to call her Catherine!), began by writing two lines on the whiteboard…

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit

“What do you think this means?” she asked. Unlike in my old class, almost everyone put their hands up. Back home, questions had been answered with the communal sliding of bums down chairs.

“It means poetry is more than words.” This came from a girl called Viv Metstein, an unruly chubster with scuffed shoes.

“Good, Viv. Anyone else?” My head, hair and all, had suddenly become boiling hot.
I know the words on the board are fantastic
, I thought,
but I dunno why. God, what does it mean? Don’t ask me. Please.

“I think it means you can almost taste a good poem.” Louisa said this. Louisa was good at English.

“Totally!” Catherine said, before glancing around for her next genius. “It’s Rachel, isn’t it?” She smiled directly at me. Oh shite. How had she managed to remember our names already? “What do you think?”

“Um…” The heat was now having a throbbing party on my
cheeks. “Is it like, tempting, delicious, beckoning?” Was this correct? Was this silly?

“Yes! Outstanding. Girls, this year I just know we are going to have a love affair with words.”

I blew out the heat with a loud sigh, then beamed. I stayed like this all day.

Teachers who loved teaching! Pupils who loved learning! It was everything I hoped it would be.

Biology was particularly fun. The teacher—Mr. Kaw Sharma from Kashmir—was passionate about his work, and he made us buzz as he talked about how oxytocin stimulates uterine contraction during childbirth. I was so engrossed that I didn’t notice Amelia O’Donohue leaving a note on my desk that said: “You’re on watch again tonight.”

After school, we returned to the dorms for a wee rest and our first study period. I was just in the zone with trigonometry when two girls knocked on my cubicle. The first, a thin pale girl called Lucy, burst into tears when I told her I was indeed trustworthy and if she needed to talk, I would be happy to listen. Turned out, her aunty had tried to kill herself in the summer. She was worried she might try again. And succeed. Could she turn to me if this happened? The second girl was a rosy-cheeked, Girl-Guide type called Roberta. “I don’t want anyone else to know,”
she chirped, “but Mum says it’s a good idea to have a friend to talk to about it. I’ve got lupus, see. I’m being eaten alive.”

“I’m Jennifer Buckley,” said the next girl in line.

“Hi, Jennifer, and what seems to be the problem?” I had taken to doctor-speak like a duck to water.

“I miss my cat,” she said, showing me a photograph of a ginger tabby then bursting into tears. “She licks my toes and I know it sounds gross but it makes me feel better. Without Mercy I feel like crying all the time.”

If people wanted to tell me things, should I try and stop them? Should I stop them unloading? Leave them to ferment? Or should I ease their burden by taking at least part of it and hiding it inside me? Did I have a choice? It seemed to me that I didn’t. It seemed to me that I was the only person who truly believed that if you break a confidence, if you let loose a dangerous truth, you may indeed be damned forever.