Forever Is Over (5 page)

School was boring, but school on Fridays was particularly boring,
especially when you were going to a party after school and you just
wanted the day to end in double quick time. First lesson was double
English with Miss Caldicott. Now how was that meant to go in double quick time?
For our
“
O
”
level, we were doing one novel, Jane Eyre, which in my
opinion was the dreariest book ever about the dreariest romance ever,
one book of poetry by John Betjeman and a Shakespeare play, which for
us was
“
Julius Caesar
”
. Betjeman and Shakespeare were boring too. The
other English sets got to do Oscar Wilde, which sounded more exciting,
although Miss Caldicott could have turned a trip to the moon into one
big yawn. Anyway, the Friday of party night was Jane Eyre, so I spent
half the lesson trying to carve my name off the desk with a compass. Just
to explain, in a previous English lesson, I had carved a heart with my
name and Billy McGregor
’
s into the desk and as we were now finished,
it was time to get rid of it.

Billy and I had split up on the previous Thursday. A mutual decision
of sorts. The lack of sex had become more and more of an issue for
him, so much so that I was expecting his head to pop off like a cork
and his body just to fizz out millions of g
allons of sperm like a massive
ejaculating firework. He had just passed his driving test so he had this
newly fou
nd freedom he wanted to exploit,
as well as me. His Mum and
Dad, Mr & Mrs Middle Class, had bought him a Vauxhall Chevette for
his eighteenth, so he had wanted to take me out on the previous Friday
to the Astra cinema in Maghull, to see
“
Beverly Hills Cop
”
. No doubt
he had some elaborate plan to take me to Clieves Hill, or somewhere
equally desolate afterwards, but Vomit Breath put paid to his plan as
she would not let me go, well not unaccompanied anyway.
Vomit Breath, as you could probably guess, was not the world
’
s most
protective mother. If I had told her I was off to play chicken on the M58
motorway, she
’
d have just said,

“
Well, don
’
t you be expecting me to come up to A&E to see you
when you get run over, its quiz night at The Ropers tonight.
”

             
The Ropers is about two hundred yards from Ormskirk hospital.
So, when I asked her on the Wednesday night if I could go to the
cinema on Friday, s
he surprised me when she said,

“
Course you can, love
”
.

I wasn
’
t expecting that. I threw in another line.

“
I
’
ll be back
about eleven
”
.

She just kept dragging away on her Marlboro Lights, unconcerned.
“
No problem, love
”
, her voice
rasped out in between inhales.

             
Shocker! Oh my god, what was
going on!
Then reality bit, small
chunks at first, then bigger ones.

“
Who are you going with?
”

Vomit Breath didn
’
t do niceties. The air was now full of suspicion
and vomit breath. We traded questions
.

“
Billy McGregor. Why?
”

“
Who
’
s he?
”

“
My boyfriend. Why do you want to know who I
’
m going with?
”

“
Is he a nice lad?
”

“
He
’
s OK. Why?
”

And then the answer,

“
Because if he
’
s a nice lad, he won
’
t mind taking Kelly too. I
’
m off
to the Kingsway on Friday night. There
’
s a coach load of us going. We
’
re
getting picked up at the Kwik Save car park at nine. You
’
ve got Kelly.
”

“
I
’
m not taking Kelly on a date!
”

“
Jemma, you either take Kelly with you or you don
’
t go, simple as
that.
”

This was never going to work. How many cool points would Billy
lose if he took his sixteen year old girlfriend and her thirteen year old
sister to the cinema? If he was spotted, it would look bad. Furthermore,
devious plans to go to Clieves Hill or any other
“
Lovers Lane
”
would
be out the window if a thirteen year old was tagging along. I knew next
day at school, crisis talks were needed.

Ormskirk Grammar School in the 1980
’
s, was still stuck in the
Victorian era. Boys and girls were not allowed to play together at break
times or lunchtime. There was a designated area for boys, the playground
and a designated area for girls, the mud and tarmac that divided the
school
buildings! How sexist was that?
That was just one of many
strange rules. My favourite was that girls were not allowed to step over
puddles in case the boys should happen to see the reflection of their
knickers in the water!
Classic! There were plenty of others too, like girls were not allowed to roll up the sleeves on their shirts as this would have
mentally, sexually energised the boys! They were teenage boys, did the
staff not realise they were alread
y mentally, sexually energised?

The girl/boy divide was not really a deterrent to seeing Billy though
as he was in Sixth Form and they were handed special privileges. These
included not playing out at break times and just hanging around the
Sixth Form block. The block was pretty much slap bang in the middle
of the girls designated area, so it was easy for me, at Thursday morning
break, to get a message to Billy via Liz Malthouse, who had nipped out
for a sly fag in Coronation Park, that I wanted to meet him outside the
Sports Hall at one o
’
clock.

One o
’
clock came and went. No Billy.

Ten past came and went. No Billy.

Twenty past came and went. No Billy.

The bell was due at half past and I needed to see him, so I just
marched into the Sixth Form, which was
“
Out Of Bounds
”
to Fifth
Formers. We were easily spotted by teachers as we had to wear a proper
uniform, Sixth Formers just had to dress smartly, but this lunchtime,
thankfully, no teachers were around.

I pushed past a few of the plebs in the cloakroom and there, sat in
the middle of the Common room, was Billy McGregor playing poker
with about four mates. I was livid.

“
What are you doing?
”

“
What does it look like I
’
m doing? I
’
m playing Poker.
”

“
I wanted to meet you at one o
’
clock.
”

“
I didn
’
t want to meet you.
”

“
Why?
”

“
Cos we
’
re finished.
”

“
I know we are. That was why I wanted to meet you. To tell you it
was over
”
. I lied.

“
Too late
”
.

“
Tosser!
”

Out I stormed. Turns out the smoke signals about Kelly playing
gooseberry had reached Sixth Form. Kelly had told her mate, Jenny
McManus and she had told her Sixth Form sister, Georgina McManus
and she had probably blabbed to everyone, including Billy McGregor,
who was no doubt trying to maintain his reputation as universal
heart throb by finishing with me. Billy had decided credibility was
everything. So, Friday night was spent babysitting Kelly, rather than
being felt up by Billy McGregor, which was probably a better option
anyway. Good looking lad but he had dirty, jagged fingernails.

When she was thirteen, Kelly was great. I could already tell that
she was going to break hearts when she was older. My eyes are pale blue
and lifeless but Kelly
’
s are really green and sparkle like diamonds. She
has really long eyelashes too. Even at thirteen, she was stunning and
I knew if she was all dolled up, she could get away with being sixteen.
Her hair was a bit mousey but I told her I
’
d pay for blonde highlights for
her once I was working full time. I knew she
’
d be even more beautiful
then. She was intelligent too and was mature enough to have an adult
conversation too, unlike Billy McGregor. The Friday of the cancelled
date, we had a great evening. We stuffed our faces full of Maltesers and
watched loads of great stuff on TV like Cheers and The Word.

By the time that Friday night was over, Billy McGregor was out of
my system. I tended to categorise people into two teams, those I loved
such as, Kelly, Rob Lowe, Amy Perkins, my best mate and those I
hated, Miss Caldicott, most of the girls at school, Vomit Breath,
“
CC
”
- Deputy Head at School, real name Miss Turnbury, Tut and Billy
McGregor. I vowed that when I was older and rich and famous, Billy McGregor would watch me on the TV and think,

“
if only I
’
d met her that time outside the Sports Hall and taken her
and her sister to the cinema!
”

Actually, I realised it would probably be Kelly that was famous,
I thought maybe Kelly would be a famous model and I would be her manager and Billy McGregor would think,

“
I could have taken both of them to the cinema, if I hadn
’
t been
such an idiot!
”

Vomit Breath was a nightmare that weekend. In the early hours
of Saturday morning, I heard her stumble out of the taxi. I looked out
my window and there was some fella with her and he was probably intending on coming in to see what he could get (VD probably!), but
when she zig-zagged out the taxi, took four steps and threw up, he was
back in the taxi before you could say
“
gonorrhoea
”
.

So, on the Saturday, my mother well and truly lived up to the
“
Vomit
Breath
”
title and a
“
Bear with a Sore Head
”
was putting it mildly! She
didn
’
t get up in the morning, so I took Kelly into Ormskirk to have a
look around the market, but there was
nothing that took our fancy. I
did bump into Amy though. She was off to Dorothy Perkins with her
Mum. Amy was my best friend at school and, if I
’
m honest, probably
my only real
friend. She was one of those girls that everyone likes,
unlike me, because she was very tactful and would not say a bad word
about anyone (again unlike me!) They say opposites attract and Amy
was definitely a calming influence on me. Her surname was Perkins so
I asked her if she was going to Dotty P
’
s to keep the business in the
family, but she looked confused so I had to explain.