Amelia O’Donohue Is So Not a Virgin (8 page)

I
ignored the wheezing for two days running, mostly because my exams were about to begin and it couldn’t be! It couldn’t be that my crap lungs would screw me over when I needed them most. But after two days of breathlessness, of being unable to sleep at night, I knew it wasn’t going to go away and that I needed some medical help.

Nurse Craig came to school each morning and afternoon, to see a long line of girls with ailments either serious enough or not serious enough to be allowed to stay off school for the day. Her room was on the first floor (Left). I walked down the stairs in my pajamas at 7:30 a.m. The girl who’d confessed to having lupus in first semester smiled at me in the queue, as did the girl with the hairy toothy parasitic armpit twin.

“Blow into this,” Nurse Craig said when it was finally my turn. I blew into the cardboard tube. “Again,” she said, and I blew again, as hard as I could, which was pathetically not-hard.

“Any other symptoms?” she said.

I told her my usual symptoms had arrived—flu-like fever, sore everything. She put me on the nebulizer, gave me some aspirin, told me to rest all day, and to come back in the afternoon to see how I was getting on.

Mortified, I returned to my room. I needed to read over my English notes. I needed to make sure my grades were even higher than they’d been for my practice exams. I had no time for rest.

I’d never spent a weekday in the dorms. It was freaky. Quiet. But with noises I didn’t recognize. Washing machines buzzing. Doors creaking in the distance. No voices, just erratic sounds that kept me from reading over my notes and kept me from sleeping. I lay in bed, the steroids from the nebulizer working my lungs, the aspirin working the pain in my head and everywhere else, and tried to get to sleep. Before I knew it I was having the obligatory exam dream.

I’m walking across the walkway, past the dining hall, up two flights of stairs, into the English classroom. Exam papers rest on desks before tired-looking pupils. I walk towards my desk and look at my blank answer sheet. To my horror, I realize everyone has finished. Their papers are all completed. I’m late. I’ve missed English.

I walk towards the window, open it, look out over the driveway, lean forward as if trying to grab something, then fall.

As I fall, I think to myself, You’re not supposed to land in a dream. You’re supposed to wake up mid-fall. You’re supposed to sit upright in your bed, sweating, thanking god that it was just a dream.

I don’t. I fall fast, all the way to the garden bed at the bottom. Bang. I land. Face down, stomach down, and it hurts, like hell.

I don’t even wake up at that point. I lie face down in the garden, in agony.

Still dreaming, I roll onto my back and I look up at the school and the windows are filled with heads, all looking down at me, perplexed. The pupils are dressed in their Aberfeldy Halls uniforms, holding their completed exam papers. And look—John’s there, with an enormous love-bite on his neck. Sammy’s there too, looking worried. Bronte and her baby are there. My mother and my father are there, looking down at me—not dressed in school uniforms, not holding exam papers, but holding their bibles in their hands.

• • •

It was then that I woke up. Sat up. Sweating, as you should after a dream like that.

Feeling confused and disorientated, I eventually found my way, slowly, painfully, to the bathroom, and stood under the shower, dizzy and breathless. I scraped air into my lungs the way I always did at home, then fainted.

When I woke, the shower had gone cold and a crop of goose bumps had come to graze on my body. I stood, turned the shower off, wrapped a towel around me, walked back to my cubicle, changed my sheets, took a second dose of ventolin, seretide, and aspirin, and got back into bed. It was only 12:15 p.m. I would see the nurse at 4:00.

I picked up my revision notes for English.
Macbeth
and Keats and T. S. Eliot whizzed around the page. Nonsensical. A blur.

I needed to sleep.

But I couldn’t. The day noises of the dorms had multiplied into a whir of buzzing washing machines, creaking doors, ticking clocks, and screeching cats. I put scrunched up tissues in my ears to stop the noises and dozed off for a while. When I woke, it was only fifteen minutes later, and the tissue had fallen from my right ear and the washing machine buzz and door creak had stopped but the ticking had gotten louder and so had the cat. An ugly meow. Make it stop!

My breathing was a little better. If I concentrated and tried to relax, I could take shallow breaths and feel the oxygen calm me. On the desk beside my bed, my revision notes sat neatly, ready for one last blast before my first exam, which, unsurprisingly, was English—straight after assembly tomorrow.

I lay down again and put more scrunched up tissue in my
ears. I closed my eyes. All noises but one had disappeared into a light muffled hum, the background for a cat that was so loud it must surely be in the building.

Had to be Jennifer Buckley’s, I thought to myself. I don’t know how she’d managed to keep the poor red mite quiet since September, but I’d never heard him meow, and no one had ever mentioned her stowaway secret.

What floor was Jennifer on?
I wondered, sitting up, unable to sleep, desperate to placate the cat in order to get some rest and recover in time for my first exam. I wasn’t sure, so I put my dressing gown on and followed the noise down the corridor. It was the loudest cat I’d ever heard. The loudest and the creepiest. Its meow sent prickles of anxiety up my legs and through my body. It stopped my breathing. It stopped my whole body, smack bang in the middle of my floor, the third floor, the bathroom door in front of me, the vast linen cupboards beside. I blocked my ears to stop the noise that was piercing into me, then opened the linen cupboard door.

It was dark inside. The hall light took awhile to make its way inside and when it did I couldn’t find the cat. Only sheets and pillowcases and towels. White fluffy towels. All at the back of the cupboard. Thank god, the noise had stopped. I was about to shut the cupboard door and walk away. But one
of the towels moved. The cat must be underneath, I thought, reaching towards the wriggling lump with trembling fingers.

I lifted the moving towel and held it in my hand, trying to see what had been stirring underneath it. I moved my head closer, my pointless asthmatic breaths the soundtrack for the horror that was about to begin.

Because inside the cupboard, underneath the towel I’d retrieved, wriggling red in its manchester bed, was a baby. A tiny newborn baby boy, its cord freshly cut, its smooth skin covered in warm womb gunk, its dark eyes shining a single bright light into mine, a laser beam so sharp it shot me backwards and onto the ground.

I
f I tell, I’ll go to hell.

The words echoed in my head as I lay on the hall floor, unable to breathe. What first?
The Thing
in the cupboard? Had there really been a baby, lying there, gurgling, its cry answered at last, by someone, but not by the right someone? Or had I imagined it the way I sometimes imagined living in a high-rise flat overlooking lights-lights-lights of city-not-island? Had I been devoid of air too long? My lungs squeezing what it could from around it—images, sounds—if not air? And had these messages bottle-necked their way to my brain to make me see
The Thing
, this red gooey creature that did not really exist?

I needed to stand up, look again, and be sure. But I couldn’t, not without ventolin. Rasping, I made it onto my knees and crawled at snail speed along the hall, counting the twenty doors as I passed, eager to make it to number nineteen. Finally, sliding my cubicle door open from ground level, I saw the blue beacon of life on my desk. The very image gave me the strength to stand.

Oh, sweet ventolin, opening my throat a little, enough for me to contemplate what needed to be done next.

I looked out the windows across to the dining hall. The boarders were queuing for their lunch, talking noisily, unaware. I peeked into the hall I’d crawled along. As before, there was no one there. I counted:
in-two-three, out-two-three
and then walked towards the bathroom, hoping I’d hallucinated, but when I reached the cupboard, opened it, and shone my flashlight towards the back, a now-sleeping baby winced its closed eyes at my light.

I had no experience with babies. I had no idea what to do with it, its face scrunched, its tiny bluish fingers gnarled into fists. I touched the top of its head, soft and squidgy like play dough. Who in this huge old building had secretly given birth? Who was so frightened that they had simply hidden the thing and gone on as if nothing had happened?

I thought hard about what to do. Call Miss Rose? Call the police? An ambulance? What would be the repercussions for the mother? What would she want me to do? What would she be feeling?

When people told me their problems, many of them painful and disgusting and sad, my strategy was to empathize, to try and imagine how I would feel if that secret was
mine. When I considered what to do about the baby and its mother, I found myself thinking about this strategy and recalling one incident in particular. Before now, this had been my biggest secret.

• • •

I was nine. We lived in Edinburgh. My parents had been having a rocky time for several months. My father had been promoted and was always away. My mother was lonely. She and my father argued over the phone all the time.

“All I wanted was you and Rach and another baby, and you’ve abandoned me here. And now we’ve left it too late!” my mother had said.

I recalled she made a new friend at work, which cheered her up a bit. He was shorter than she was, with a tiny nose and unruly ginger hair. He made me feel a bit queasy (“What a big girl you are!” he’d say every single time he saw me). Not that I have anything against gingers.

I recalled finding her and her new friend in the bathtub when I was supposed to be sleeping in bed. His bum was up in the air. It had lines of wet dark red hair on it.

“Now Rachel,” my mother said as she’d tucked me in after drying herself. “I want you to promise me something.”

“What?” I said.

“I want you to promise you’ll never tell Daddy what you saw tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m asking you.”

“Are you getting a divorce?”

“No.”

“Are you going to run away with the little red man?”

“No.”

“Do you promise you won’t?”

“Do you promise not to tell?”

“Okay,” I said quietly, without conviction.

“Pinky promise,” she said.

We curled our pinkies around each other’s. She kissed me and turned off the light.

But I didn’t empathize. I didn’t understand at all. I guess this might be why I didn’t keep my pinky promise, why I told my father, why we ended up on the island waiting to be saved— miserable, regretful, sad.

• • •

Looking at the sleeping child, I vowed I would not make the same mistake I made when I was nine. I would keep this secret. I would help the poor girl who had hidden her pregnancy and her labor.

I gathered my thoughts. What were the facts?

1. Obviously, the mother did not want anyone to know about this.
   
2. She would be terrified of getting into the most massive trouble imaginable.
   
3. She’d be in pain.
   
4. She’d need help.
   

I wrapped the sleeping baby in a towel and carried it to my cubicle. First things first. I had to make sure it was okay and find a safe place to hide it.

The bell rang. I watched as the dining hall emptied and girls exited for their afternoon classes. I could see Amelia O’Donohue walking towards the school building. I could see the girl with the ponytail who’d kissed the gym teacher and my ex-best friends Mandy Grogan and Louisa MacDonald. I could see Miss Rose chatting with the chef.

It was still asleep on my bed. From my biology studies, I knew enough to understand that the mother had obviously taken care of the placenta and umbilical cord. I checked the baby’s pulse, which seemed normal. The baby was a healthy color. Hence, there seemed to be no immediate health issues to
deal with. But it would need milk soon and, most worryingly, it would eventually wake up and cry. Which meant I had to find a safe place to hide it quick.

I
remembered the darkroom on the second floor (Right). In the months since I’d arrived, increasingly bizarre suggestions for its use had been listed on the sheet on the door (smoking room/backstabbing room/hopping room), but nothing had been decided. It hadn’t been decorated or changed in any way.

I put the swaddled baby on some towels in my plastic laundry basket and carried it downstairs, praying that no one would see me en route.

“How you feeling?” Nurse Craig made me jump. She was looking up from the first floor landing. What was she doing there?

“A bit better,” I said, terrified that my washing would wake up and howl. “I thought you were only here mornings and afternoons.”

“I’m doing some research work on the side. My husband’s not working at the moment so it’s much quieter here. You don’t look well at all. Come at five to four, beat the others.”

“I will. Thanks.”

“And get back to bed.”

“Okay,” I said, not getting back to bed, but walking with my hamper onto the second floor.

Someone else must have been off sick on the second floor. The television was on. I tiptoed to the old darkroom. It was the same size as my cubicle, but with sturdy, reasonably sound-proof, full-height walls. Thankfully, the key was still in the door. I unlocked the door, relieved to find it as abandoned as it had been at the beginning of the school year. Inside was a trestle table with photographic paper, trays, chemicals, staplers, and other stationery. At the other end of the room, was a hefty built-in cupboard. Locking the door behind me, I placed the hamper on the floor, looked inside to check that the baby was still sleeping and thought for a moment.

I opened the built-in cupboard at the end of the room. Taking several towels from the hamper, I made a soft bed, placed the wrapped baby on top, and closed the cupboard door, careful to leave a crack for air. I then stepped outside the darkroom, locked the door, and hid the key in my dressing gown pocket.

• • •

I’m clever. I have to admit.

Nurse Craig answered the door as soon as I knocked.

“I know I’m early. But I’m out of ventolin,” I said. “Please can I go to the chemist before the crowds descend?”

“Are you sure you’re well enough to walk?”

“I am. The fresh air might do me good.”

I changed into my tracksuit then wrote on a large piece of paper: newsflash:
If I Tell Clinic Now Open.
tonight, alo.
Rachel Ross’s cubicle, Third Floor (Right).

It was worth a try, I thought, as I walked down to the ground floor and pinned the notice on the board.

The chemist was next to the curry shop. I was wheezing like mad by the time I made it there. I had terrible trouble walking, but eventually I found myself inside the bright, crammed store.

“Hi,” I said, placing nappies, wipes, a baby monitor, long-life ready-mixed formula milk, and a bottle on the counter. Before the fifty-something assistant could look at me strangely, I added. “My aunty had a boy! She’s bringing him to show me after school.”

She was like, “Ah, what’s his name?”

“Sorry?”

“The baby. He
does
have a name…”

I went blank. I couldn’t think of a single name. Not one. After a while, the word Rachel went through my head, but that was my name.

“Are you all right?” The woman asked.

“Asthma. Sorry,” I said. “Can I get a ventolin? Nurse Craig said she’d ring ahead.”

“Ah yes, she did. Just a moment.”

By the time the bagged ventolin made its way to the counter, I’d thought of a name.

“It’s Sam,” I said.

“Oh, that’s lovely. Sam boy or Sam girl?”

“Sam boy.”

“That’s £34.56,” she said, putting the baby stuff in the bag.

I handed her the £50 my parents had given me for treats etc., asked for a second bag so no one could see what was inside, tied it securely, and left as fast as I could.

“Oy!” someone yelled.

Bugger, it was Sammy.

“Are you okay? Why are you off school?”

“I’m fine. I can’t talk now,” I said.

But he was like, “You’re sick! Can I help you?”

“I’m fine!” I snapped, not looking back.

I am clever, I thought, as I headed back to school with the
strangest bag of shopping ever. If I hadn’t fainted before I made it to the dorms, I’d have continued to think I was the cleverest person in the entire universe.