Reformatory Girls Ch. 02

But it is there, and Tina's arms are tired, and she's not sure now how she should continue. Because the last thing she wants is to add frustration to the list of Clare's woes.

So she stops, and she goes back round to the other side of the bed, where she feels safer, closer to her own bolt hole.

"Does that feel any easier?" she asks, placing her hand on Clare's head.

Clare, still on her stomach, turns her face towards her: her forehead is creased: she is clearly still in pain.

"You are an angel," Clare says.

"Am I?" says Tina. "Nobody has ever called me that before."

Clare tries to smile: but it is a weak, suffering smile.

"Shall I carry on?" Tina asks.

"No," says Clare: "that was so nice - but I don't think it can help any more."

"Is there anything I can do?" Tina asks.

"Will you stay with me?" asks Clare. "Stay with me and distract me?"

"Of course I will," says Tina.

"Do you think," asks Clare, "you could turn me onto my side? My tits are feeling squashed."

As gently as she can, Tina takes Clare by the shoulder and knee, and testing out every movement carefully manages to turn Clare onto her left side. Then she slides into bed, facing Clare, and pulls the covers over them both.

They are lying so close Tina can feel Clare's breath on her face.

"Talk to me," Clare whispers. "Tell me about your life."

So Tina, in a whisper, tells Clare about her family: her three younger siblings, her canteen-worker mother and steelworker-father who leave her at home most nights whilst they get drunk. Things are not good: there is never enough money: but for Tina, the younger children would never get fed or sent to school on time.

Then her mother becomes ill with a liver complaint: and after she comes out of hospital goes to a rehab clinic. Her father takes to drinking more heavily than ever.

One night he staggers back from the pub. The children are in bed: Tina herself had gone to bed, then gone downstairs to the kitchen to get a drink.

"Then he came into the kitchen," Tina tells Clare: "walked straight up to me and put his hands between my legs. I was so shocked I didn't know what to do.

"'Don't be afraid lass,'" he said - he always called me 'lass'. 'I shan't hurt you.' 'Dad,' I said: 'what are you doing?' 'Your mum's away,' he said. "You'll have to take her place.' I started to protest, but all the time he was pushing me up against the kitchen units, groping under my nightie. 'Come on lass,' he said. 'No fuss now - let's have these down.' Then he had my knickers off, and it was like in a dream, he led me into the living room and I didn't know how to stop him, and he wasn't shouting or bullying, he was sort of being kind and coaxing, and I just followed him and did as he said, and had had me on the living room carpet.

"Then he passed out, and I had an awful job getting his trousers back on and getting him onto the sofa - I didn't want any of the children to find him - and I just shook my nightie down and went back to bed. In the morning when I got up he had gone to work. He never said anything to me about it.

"Then it started happening more and more. Always the same: he would come home drunk - I always made sure everybody was in bed before he got back - and come to my room. 'Come on lass, be a good girl,' he would say, and: 'a man has needs you know' And whether I tried to stop him or not he would end up having his way with me, and then next day I would have to go to the chemist and buy one of those pills that stop you getting pregnant.

"And it was so strange, because I hated it, of course I did - but a small part of me was flattered: that my dad thought of me as a woman, that he found me attractive enough to want to have me in that way. I'd never though of myself as attractive you see.

"One night I just couldn't face him - it was my period and I didn't want any man inside me let alone my dad - so for the first time I said: No. He looked hurt. 'Well if you're not going to be cooperative,' he said, 'I shall have to see if your sister is more obliging.'

"I was eighteen, but my sister was only fifteen. There was no way I could let her be molested like that, I'd have fought him like a tiger if he'd tried. So I said all right, just get on with it, but I warn you you'll be covered in blood.' He didn't get it for a moment, he thought I was threatening to knife him or something: then he just laughed, told me there was more than one way to skin a cat, and pushed me onto the bed face down. Next thing it felt like my arsehole was being torn open: it was horrible, horrible. I'd never had anyone up my arse before, and my dad was a big man in every way, and - oh, you can't imagine, I felt dirty and humiliated apart from the pain. Never again, I told myself, never again. So after that night I got quite good at heading him off: taking his trousers down and handling him, bringing him off in my hand or in my mouth before he realised what was going on. And that was better because at least I didn't have to spend money we didn't have on those wretched pills.

"Clare, I've never told anyone about this before, and now I'm worried you'll hate me for going along with him: but it was easier to go along than to stop him. And most of the time he was nice to me, telling me what a sexy daughter he had, and how it was my duty to take my mother's place, and I was so mixed up, and what with wanting to protect my sisters and brother and everything..."

Tina trails off, waiting now for Clare to say something, to give her some reassurance. And Clare whispers:

"I'm so, so sorry."

And their foreheads gently touch together, they can feel each other's breath on their faces, and Tina sighs and continues:

"Then I took that purse. I told you about that. It was just an impulse, I though there might be ten or twenty pounds in there for some extra food. But there were banknotes galore, and credit cards, and...and... Well you know the rest. I've ended up in here. But it could have been worse: I was terrified that my father would start on my sister, but the day before I was sent here my mother came home. So I can't be sure, but I have to believe things are back to normal at home."

Clare has been so caught up in Tina's narrative she has almost forgotten the pains in her arms and legs. This is a world so different from her own, a world where the sorts of things she only reads about in the newspapers happen for real. She doesn't want to patronise Tina with her sympathy; but she wants to show Tina that she cares.

"I can only begin to understand what you felt," she says. "But I don't think badly of you, not in the slightest. Goodness knows what I'd have done in your place."

"You don't think I'm a slag?" asks Tina. "Plenty of people would."

"I told you earlier," says Clare. "I think you're an angel. No: that sounds cheesy: I think you're the most loving, caring, big-hearted girl I've ever known"

Tina reaches out to hug Clare - at which the pains in Clare's back and knees kick in again, with renewed vehemence, so much so that she winces and groans.

"I'm sorry," whispers Tina: "Here I am going on about myself, and you're in agony. Shall I rub you again?"

"Just my back," says Clare. "And maybe my knees."

Tina tries to massage away the pains, but now the stresses in Clare's muscles have set in, consolidated. Where there were islands of pain, surfacing and sinking again, there is now one solid landmass of pain.

"I don't think I can bear much more," whispers Clare.

"Talk to me," says Tina, her hand reaching down and stroking the backs of Clare's thighs once more: "Tell me about your life."

"I'll try" says Clare: "though it's boring as anything. But can I ask you one more thing first?"

"Of course," says Tina.

"When your father..." she hesitates, not sure whether to use the word 'rape'. "Were you a virgin?"

"No," Tina smiles, and Clare feels she has said something naïve. "I'd had a few boys. But no-one special: no-one I ever loved."

Not the way I love you she wants to say, but is not quite bold enough to say. Because the last few hours have confirmed what Tina has suspected for a while. Lying here, so close and secret, feeling useful and valued, bathing in the warmth and sympathy and acceptance of her friend, seeing the poise and the dignity with which Clare has met the most painful and humiliating experiences, she knows that she is deeply, passionately, head-over-heels in love with Clare.

So Clare tries to talk about her life, which compared to Tina's has been one of privilege and decency: good schools, music and dancing lessons, holidays in France and Italy, parents and grandparents who cared. It bores her to talk about it, she does not realise to Tina it is exotic and fascinating.

She stops suddenly, and lets out a tiny yelp as a pain like a stabbing needle shoots through her left knee. It passes, but leaves her gasping, unable to talk any longer, feeling she needs every ounce of her concentration to cope with the pain.

"You should go now," she tells Tina softly.

"Yes," says Tina. But she doesn't move. And the two girls look into each other's eyes, their faces so close together it is difficult to focus without going cross-eyed, and Tina's heart is thumping and she takes courage and asks:

"Can I kiss you Clare?"

And Clare fights back the pain and says:

"I can hardly stop you, can I?"

So Tina moistens her lips and touches them to Clare's lips, and begins to explore her with her tongue. It is awkward at first, because Clare cannot move her head easily, they make several false starts; until Tina takes hold of Clare's head, and now they are able to engage their lips and tongues fully, and for several minutes explore one-another, until Clare is forced to pull away because of the pain.

"That was lovely," Clare whispers: "But go now before you have me in tears."

Tina gives Clare a last kiss on her forehead then slips away back into her own bed. The sheets feel cold on her skin, and she draws up her knees: but inside she is glowing. For the first time in her life someone has told her, without flattery, without just wanting to get in her knickers, that she is - what was it? Loving; caring; big-hearted. And whilst part of her is suffering agonies for her friend, she is also happy, deliriously happy, in fact more than happy - what she is experiencing, in the middle of a chilly night in a Reform School Dormitory, is nothing less than joy.

And feeling now that nothing can harm her, she slips out of bed again, on the side furthest away from Clare, and feels her way carefully up the long aisle until she comes to the bed one from the top on the opposite side. There she lays a hand on the sleeping figure and gives it a shake. The figure stirs, half-wakes and seems about to sink into sleep again.

"Donna," hisses Tina. "Donna: wake up."

The figure shrugs itself awake and grimaces at Tina;

"What the fuck?" it says.

"You've got to come and untie her," says Tina. "Her knees are breaking: she's going to be crippled for life."

Donna's first instinct is to take Tina's arm and twist it viciously for disturbing her sleep. Her second is to tell Tina to fuck off. But there is something sobering in the girl's demeanour: Donna, once she is awake, realises this is not just another pathetic request for leniency, but that something more serious is afoot.

"All right," she says gruffly.

She reaches for something under her pillow, plants her feet on the cold floor, and follows Tina back down the aisle, trying to stifle a sense of uneasiness, a fear that she has gone too far.

She finds Clare whimpering soundlessly into her pillow.

"All right, get back to bed," she tells Tina. And to Clare:

"You look like you've had enough."

Clare can barely form the word 'yes'.

Swiftly Donna hauls back the blankets then sets to work. The knots, which proved so intractable to Tina's fingers, yield easily to the hairgrip Donna has brought: soon she has them loosened and is gathering the string and winding it into a small ball.

"Move your arms and legs," she tells Clare.

I can't," replies Clare.

Donna curses under her breath, takes first Clare's left foot then her right, and works them up and down, straightening them from the knees and bending them again, trying to work some life back into the muscles, trying to get the blood to flow. Then she does the same with Clare's arms, extending them, rotating them, bending them at the elbows. She rolls Clare onto her back and continues to manipulate her, until gradually, gratefully, Clare starts to feel her movements return. Whilst Donna is hold and raising her legs she flexes her hands and fingers, her ankles and arms, painfully but rapturously welcoming this amazing gift of movement back into her life.

"All right now?" asks Donna.

"I think so," says Clare. "I mean, I think I will be."

It's a strange and uncomfortable intimacy, Clare lying almost helpless, her night-dress up to her waist - and her enemy holding and soothing and manipulating her naked limbs. And perhaps Donna is aware of it too, for she looks down at Clare, and for a moment there is a flicker of something like empathy, a fleeting bond between victor and victim, between hunter and hunted.

Then Donna grunts and says gruffly:

"Don't fart in class again."

Then she is gone and it is over.