Girls in Love Read online

  ‘The nerve of it! He says he won’t go to a stupid Year Nine baby birthday party because his mates would give him stick about it if they found out – after he made me go to that night of Ultimate Embarrassment at that nerdy Adam’s place! I told him where to get off. Or words to that effect.’ Magda grins. ‘So now I haven’t got a boy either, Nadine. We’re a right pathetic trio. One totally absent boyfriend, and two exes.’

  ‘Well, we’ll go to Stacy’s party just the three of us, like we planned originally. Let’s make it a real girls’ night out,’ I say. ‘You two come back to my place and sleep over afterwards, yeah?’

  Magda agrees enthusiastically. Nadine doesn’t look as if she agrees at all, but she can’t summon up the energy to argue.

  ‘I am seriously worried about Nadine,’ Magda whispers to me in class. ‘Ellie . . . how far did that Liam get with her?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I know he made her do all sorts of stuff, but I’m not sure about actual sex.’

  ‘You don’t think . . .? She couldn’t be pregnant, could she?’

  ‘Oh, Magda!’

  ‘She looks so pale.’

  ‘Well, she’s always pale.’

  ‘Yes, but now she looks like death. And she’s so droopy.’

  ‘That’s because she’s missing Liam.’

  ‘How can she now she knows the truth about that creep?’

  ‘Maybe she’s missing him even so.’

  ‘What? Look, I don’t get all this moping-around lark. I’ve just given up Greg and yet I’m not an old droopy-drawers.’

  ‘Yes, but you were never really that gone on Greg, were you?’

  ‘How do you know Greg wasn’t the love of my life, the passion of my girlhood, the flame of my bosom, the fire of my loins—?’ We are both shrieking with laughter by this time.

  Nadine stares over at us but she doesn’t even ask what we’re laughing at. I look at her tense white face and the dark circles under her eyes. I start to get scared. Could Magda really be right? What if Liam has got Nadine pregnant, just like that other girl?

  I know there isn’t any point asking her outright, not at school. I’ll have to talk to her privately, without Magda.

  So after tea this evening I tell Anna I need to borrow a textbook for homework off Nadine. Anna’s in a bit of a flap herself because Dad’s late home again.

  ‘He’ll be in a meeting. Or helping some student with a project,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry, Anna. I’m sure he’s not . . . He’ll be in any minute, you’ll see.’

  I feel mean leaving her but I have to go round to Nadine’s. Nadine’s mum asks me how I am and her dad calls me Curlynob as always, but there’s something guarded about their welcome.

  Natasha is her usual prancy poisonous self: ‘Hi, Ellie! Look, do you like my new knickers? They’ve got frills, see?’

  I can’t help seeing as she’s got her dress hoiked up to the waist. Why are all little kids such exhibitionists? If we carried on like that we’d get locked up – and yet we’re the ones who’re meant to be sex mad.

  ‘Natasha, darling!’ says her mum fondly.

  ‘Where’s your brother Eggs then, Ellie? Why didn’t you bring him round to play with me? I like Eggs,’ Natasha gushes, making her eyebrows waggle.

  ‘You little saucepot,’ says her dad, pretending to smack her frilly bottom.

  Nadine says nothing at all through all this. She stays hunched on the sofa, barely looking at me.

  ‘Nadine! Aren’t you going to offer Ellie a drink of Coke or a juice or anything?’ her mum hisses.

  ‘It’s OK, thanks. I’ve only just had my tea. I’ve really just popped over to borrow that History book for homework, Nadine,’ I say awkwardly.

  Nadine stares at me, as we don’t even have History homework this week.

  ‘Let’s go up to your bedroom,’ I say.

  Nadine gets to her feet like it’s a huge great effort.

  ‘For Heaven’s sake, buck yourself up, Nadine,’ says her mum. Then she looks at me. ‘I’m sorry, Ellie, but I’m really going to have to stop Nadine going out with you and Magda so much. I think you girls must stay awake half the night when you’re sleeping over at each other’s houses. Nadine’s been like a limp rag just recently and it’s really not good enough. Just look at the state of her!’

  ‘Yes, I know, I’m sorry,’ I mumble.

  When we’re out in the hall Nadine raises her eyebrows apologetically for using me as an alibi. I follow her upstairs. The midnight tone of her black walls and gentle spiral of her hanging crystals make her room a soothing bolthole from the aggressive rose wallpaper and pink Axminster on the landing.

  Nadine flops down on her bed. I sit beside her, fingering her black quilt. She’s sewn it with silver stars.

  ‘Nadine?’ I delicately trace the star shapes with my finger, trying to get up the courage to come out with it.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Naddie, look, I wanted to see you, just you and me. To ask . . . to ask how you are.’

  ‘You can see how I am,’ says Nadine, turning on her side.

  ‘Well. I know you’re feeling pretty fed up.’

  ‘That’s the understatement of the century.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m making a muck of this. It’s just – oh, Nadine, I can’t stand to see you like this. We thought, Magda and me, that maybe . . . maybe . . ?’

  ‘Maybe what? I wish you and Magda would quit discussing me. Aren’t you both happy now?’ Nadine says bitterly. ‘You can both say I told you so because you’ve been right all along about Liam and I’ve made an utter fool of myself.’

  ‘Oh, Nad, we don’t think that. It’s just you said you did all this stuff with Liam and I couldn’t help wondering – well, if you went the whole way with him and if you could possibly . . .’ I lower my head so I’m whispering right into her ear. ‘. . . possibly be pregnant.’

  Nadine lies still for a moment. I hold my breath. Then she looks up. Her eyelashes are spiky with tears. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No, I didn’t. And no, I’m not. I wanted to, just to show Liam how much I love him, but whenever he tried to I was suddenly too scared and I went so tense we couldn’t. So he said I was frigid.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Nadine! That’s the oldest and dirtiest trick in the book.’

  ‘I know. But I just wanted to please him. So on Saturday he gave me this stuff to relax me. We were going to go on to his mate’s place afterwards, where we could have a proper bed, because Liam thought it was maybe doing it out in the open that was bugging me. But then you and Magda came over. And then I heard those girls . . .’

  ‘Well, I know it must be awful for you, but at least you know what he’s really like now.’

  ‘But – but I got to thinking – I mean, what if those girls were talking about some other Liam?’

  ‘You have to be joking. They saw him. Your one.’

  ‘Or maybe they were making it all up because they were jealous because they wanted him themselves.’

  ‘Nadine, you can’t believe this crap!’

  ‘Well, that’s what I started telling myself. So I thought I ought to see Liam just to find out.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘And so yesterday after school I went looking for him, and when I found him with a whole crowd outside the video shop he wouldn’t even speak to me properly. He just said he never wanted to see me again after walking out on him like that in Seventh Heaven. He said I was a tight bitch, so cold that going with me would be like bonking a bag of Bird’s Eye frozen peas, and all his mates laughed, and this girl started hanging on his arm and cuddling up to him and sneering at me . . .’

  ‘Oh, Naddie, Naddie!’ I put my arms round her and held her tight.

  ‘Don’t tell Magda, will you?’

  ‘I swear I won’t.’

  ‘I feel so stupid. And ashamed. He was so awful to me, and yet – yet I still feel I love him. Do you think I’m completely nuts, Ellie?’

  ‘No, of course not. It’s him who’s the really vicio