‘I look weird. I just look weird.’
‘It only old Japanese men. Old squinters. They not gonna touch you.’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
Svetlana raised an eyebrow. ‘We don’t understand? Hey, Irina, baby, we don’t understand.’
‘No, really,’ I said. ‘You really don’t understand.’
You don’t have to understand sex to want to do it. So say the bees and the birds. I was the worst combination you could imagine ignorant of the nuts and bolts and as fascinated as the day is long. Maybe it’s no wonder I got into trouble.
At first the doctors tried to get me to say that it had been a rape. Why else would a girl of thirteen allow five teenage boys to do something like that to her, if it hadn’t been rape? Unless she was crazy, of course. I listened to this with a sort of dreamy puzzlement. Why were they focusing on that part of what happened? Was that part wrong too? In the end I’d have saved myself a lot of problems if I’d agreed with them and said it had
50
been rape. Maybe then they wouldn’t have gone on and on about how my sexual behaviour alone was evidence that something was very wrong with me. But it would have been a lie. I’d let them do it to me. I’d wanted it maybe even more than the boys did. I’d welcomed them into that van, parked down the country lane.
It had been one of those misty summer evenings where the night sky stays an intense blue in the west, and you can imagine all sorts of astonishing pagan dances happening just over the horizon where the sun has gone. There was new grass and a breeze and the sound of traffic in the distance, and when they stopped the van I looked down into the valley and saw the ghostly white smudges of the Stonehenge monument.
In the back was an old tartan blanket that smelt of grass seed and engine oil. I took all my clothes off and lay down on it and opened my legs, which were very white, even though it was summer. One by one they got inside and took their turns, making the van creak on its rusty axle. It was the fourth boy - sandy haired with a lovely face and the beginnings of stubble - who spoke to me. He pulled the van doors closed behind him so that there was no light, and the others sitting out on the verge smoking cigarettes couldn’t see us.
‘Hi,’ he said.
I put my hands on my knees and opened my legs wider. He didn’t move towards me. He knelt there in front of me, looking between my legs, with an odd, uncomfortable expression on his face.
‘You know you don’t have to do this, don’t you? You know nobody’s forcing you?’
I was silent for a while, looking at him with a puzzled frown. ‘I know.’
‘And you still want to do it?’
‘Of course,’ I said, holding out my arms. ‘Why not?’
‘Didn’t anyone talk about protection?’ The nurse who didn’t like me said that this just went to show how diseases like herpes and gonorrhoea and syphilis were spreading round the world, through the lack of control of disgusting people like me. ‘Don’t tell me that
51
out of all those five boys not one of them even suggested using a contraceptive.’ I lay in my bed in silence, my eyes closed. I wasn’t going to tell her the truth, that I didn’t really know what a contraceptive was, that I hadn’t known it was wrong, that my mother would have died rather than talk to me about these things. I wasn’t going to let her go on and on about my stupid ignorance. ‘And as for you! Not even trying to stop them.’ She’d lick her lips then, a sound like legs slapping together in the dark. ‘If you want my opinion, you’re the sickest person I’ve ever met.’
The doctors said it was all about control. ‘We all have impulses, everyone has urges. They are what make us human. The key to a happy and balanced life is learning to control them.’
But by that time, of course, there wasn’t much I could do to put things right. You can’t mend something without practising, and you only had to
‘It only old Japanese men. Old squinters. They not gonna touch you.’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
Svetlana raised an eyebrow. ‘We don’t understand? Hey, Irina, baby, we don’t understand.’
‘No, really,’ I said. ‘You really don’t understand.’
You don’t have to understand sex to want to do it. So say the bees and the birds. I was the worst combination you could imagine ignorant of the nuts and bolts and as fascinated as the day is long. Maybe it’s no wonder I got into trouble.
At first the doctors tried to get me to say that it had been a rape. Why else would a girl of thirteen allow five teenage boys to do something like that to her, if it hadn’t been rape? Unless she was crazy, of course. I listened to this with a sort of dreamy puzzlement. Why were they focusing on that part of what happened? Was that part wrong too? In the end I’d have saved myself a lot of problems if I’d agreed with them and said it had
50
been rape. Maybe then they wouldn’t have gone on and on about how my sexual behaviour alone was evidence that something was very wrong with me. But it would have been a lie. I’d let them do it to me. I’d wanted it maybe even more than the boys did. I’d welcomed them into that van, parked down the country lane.
It had been one of those misty summer evenings where the night sky stays an intense blue in the west, and you can imagine all sorts of astonishing pagan dances happening just over the horizon where the sun has gone. There was new grass and a breeze and the sound of traffic in the distance, and when they stopped the van I looked down into the valley and saw the ghostly white smudges of the Stonehenge monument.
In the back was an old tartan blanket that smelt of grass seed and engine oil. I took all my clothes off and lay down on it and opened my legs, which were very white, even though it was summer. One by one they got inside and took their turns, making the van creak on its rusty axle. It was the fourth boy - sandy haired with a lovely face and the beginnings of stubble - who spoke to me. He pulled the van doors closed behind him so that there was no light, and the others sitting out on the verge smoking cigarettes couldn’t see us.
‘Hi,’ he said.
I put my hands on my knees and opened my legs wider. He didn’t move towards me. He knelt there in front of me, looking between my legs, with an odd, uncomfortable expression on his face.
‘You know you don’t have to do this, don’t you? You know nobody’s forcing you?’
I was silent for a while, looking at him with a puzzled frown. ‘I know.’
‘And you still want to do it?’
‘Of course,’ I said, holding out my arms. ‘Why not?’
‘Didn’t anyone talk about protection?’ The nurse who didn’t like me said that this just went to show how diseases like herpes and gonorrhoea and syphilis were spreading round the world, through the lack of control of disgusting people like me. ‘Don’t tell me that
51
out of all those five boys not one of them even suggested using a contraceptive.’ I lay in my bed in silence, my eyes closed. I wasn’t going to tell her the truth, that I didn’t really know what a contraceptive was, that I hadn’t known it was wrong, that my mother would have died rather than talk to me about these things. I wasn’t going to let her go on and on about my stupid ignorance. ‘And as for you! Not even trying to stop them.’ She’d lick her lips then, a sound like legs slapping together in the dark. ‘If you want my opinion, you’re the sickest person I’ve ever met.’
The doctors said it was all about control. ‘We all have impulses, everyone has urges. They are what make us human. The key to a happy and balanced life is learning to control them.’
But by that time, of course, there wasn’t much I could do to put things right. You can’t mend something without practising, and you only had to
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