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‘Okay, Louise, do you want to come to school?’
I sat up in my chair and looked her straight in the eye, arms crossed. ‘Look, I never wanted to come to this school in the first place. I wanted to go to the comp, as it was a better school.’
Ripples of shock round the table.
‘I don’t want to come to a school like this. I never wanted to come to it.’
‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘So how do we keep you here?’
‘You don’t,’ I said with a huge grin. ‘Not unless you lock me up. I’m beyond this. I’m too far beyond this.’ I looked round the table. Six adults. Me opposite. Mr Ink-blot Test was there. No one told me their names. They all looked at me like a specimen in a jar.
‘Oh dear,’ said the woman in pink, sitting back finally, shaking her head. ‘Louise, you will end up on heroin and be pregnant by the time you are sixteen.’
The next day I was thrown out of school: expelled. The letter came and Barbara was absolutely beside herself.
‘I wash my hands of you!’ she screamed. ‘After all I’ve done for you, you ungrateful bitch! You’re going into care!’
She smacked me around the head and face, and I didn’t flinch. I had heard it all before. I just walked out and went into town, and wandered and wandered. I found myself at the Museum of Modern Art and crept in, and there was an exhibition on of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs. I looked at the amazing black-and-white images, feeling sick to my stomach. I wasn’t going to show Barbara or the school anything but inside I was definitely terrified. I also felt as if a surge of volcanic-lava-like rage was building in me: I’m not doing this, I’m not having these people control my life any more, I’m not doing what they want. I didn’t want to stay with Barbara, but I didn’t want to go to another, unknown foster family either. I didn’t want to stay at home all day, but I didn’t want to go to school either. I was churning, fuming, shaking as I went around the exhibition.
As the images hit my retina, I was wowed by them: they were edgy, graphic, angry, violent, beautiful. They spoke to me. I thought, I don’t get any of ‘normal’ life, but I do get this. I understood the photographs and the feelings in them. I wanted to be part of that world – the world that made those sorts of things, so people like me, in the state I was in, could go and look at them and feel healed and understood by them. The pain in some of the pictures reflected exactly the pain I was feeling inside. A brutal, scary, empty, awful, terrified, exhilarated feeling.
Robert Mapplethorpe’s pictures saved my life that day, as did Patti Smith’s Horses album, which expressed exactly how I was feeling. I felt the pictures and music were honest; they expressed raw feelings as I understood them. I didn’t feel anyone else in my life was honest. Nothing was true. I didn’t trust anyone. I thought of Julie and her weird high-pitched giggle and barmaid clothes, and her odd comings and goings. She had never spoken to me directly, or explained anything about how I came about, or why she had given me over to the likes of Barbara. I thought of Barbara and Ian, and the awful spoilt Kevin, who was their ‘favourite?
?, and how they had made my life hell, in every way, every day. I thought of my friend Sandy and other girls at school who were being hunted daily by the seedy men down the Cowley Road; being used for sex because they were so lonely and desperate for affection, drugs and drink.
I felt like getting expelled was a defining moment, when I had rolled up my sleeves and said, ‘Right, you lot, bring it on.’ I felt it with clarity, with every pore of my body. I was in danger anyway, every day. Threatening me with being put into care was the last straw. I wouldn’t stay there. I wouldn’t go anywhere anyone wanted me to go. I would refuse. They couldn’t make me. I was done with being made to do things I didn’t want to. I felt like I suddenly owned my life. I was really on my own now. But I was fighting back!
I left the exhibition and wandered down to the Omni café. I got a herbal tea and sat in a corner, letting the atmosphere seep in. The coloured walls and chairs, the posters of punk and rock bands, the hiss of the coffee machine, the music from the jukebox, the murmur of students and young people chatting and laughing. By now it was ‘home coming out time’ from school. I sat and nursed my cold tea, and watched as a gang of pupils came in from the comp. There were a couple of girls I knew, Jan and Alex, and they saw me and said, ‘Hi’. I nodded and smiled back. They were ‘cool’ alternative girls, with crazy-colour hair, safety pins on their black clothes, ripped jeans, dramatic eye make-up. I liked how they looked; they felt like my kind of people.
I noticed there was a guy with them, good-looking with dark hair and fine features. He was wearing a black T-shirt and had slicked his hair all spiky with gel. He had a lovely, intelligent expression and a gorgeous smile when he laughed at a joke one of the girls made. I continued sitting at my table, and then the group mooched over from the counter and Jan indicated the seats round me.
‘Sure,’ I said. The guy sat down and my heart started pounding faster.
‘Hi, I’m Tim,’ he said to me.
‘Louise,’ I said back and smiled. I watched them all talking, and they were discussing their exams. I thought I should go, but continued to hang out at the table, watching Tim talk to the two girls. I thought the conversation sounded very intelligent and knowledgeable. I was aware that my education was limited and I felt awkward about it. But I also felt I was done with hanging out with the ‘townie’ boys from down the Rec. I didn’t want to be identified with the Cowley Road girls either, as the idea that I was going to end up on heroin and pregnant had outraged me. Was that all they thought of me? Was I not good for anything else?
I knew in my heart I wanted to go to art school. It was all I had ever wanted to do, and I knew I would have to find a way to get there. I had been expelled and had no qualifications and, by tonight, I might not have anywhere to live either. Maybe I would be moved to another city? Or go to live with Julie? The very thought filled me with horror – the idea of starting again in another town, with new people. What if they were worse than Barbara? And, anyway, I still had Sean. I couldn’t leave him, as he was my real family. I knew I could always creep in and see Sean. I even slept over at his when I felt I’d had enough of everything, no questions asked. He was still my safe haven in the midst of it all. Eventually the group made moves to go. Tim turned to me, shyly.
‘We’re all going to the Lamb and Flag later, for a drink. See you there?’
I had a curfew of 10 p.m. if I went out, and I had no money to spend, but my heart leapt. I had no idea what I was going to do from this day forward, either. However, I looked into Tim’s handsome face and twinkly auburn eyes and I said, as casually as I could, ‘Yeah, sure. See you later.’
And with that, they were gone.
20
Finding My Hero
When I saw Tim in the pub early that evening with his friends, including Jan and Alex, I felt shy and excited. I hadn’t gone home yet, as I didn’t dare, and I’d no money, but I’d hung out, trying to look like I went there every day. When Tim saw me, he made a beeline.
‘Hi, want a drink?’ I nodded, and we elbowed our way to the bar. Tim was about to go to university to do psychology. He already had his place organised and was finishing up his A Levels. Summer was here and he was getting ready to go.
We stood sipping our beers outside in the balmy evening air, as starlings circled overhead, and we talked about music, art, politics. I was now just fifteen and he was coming up to eighteen. Every time I looked at him my stomach flipped over with a tense excitement. I loved his eyes, his look, and he was warm and easy to talk to.
When Tim went to the loo, Jan leant towards me and said, ‘I think he fancies you.’ I felt my face turn ruby red and I tingled all over. He was very attractive and, in fact, all the girls in our group seemed to find him fanciable. Surely he didn’t fancy me? He was so out of my league. What were the signs? I didn’t know what to look for. However, I was the one he was talking to.
I was dreading going home after getting expelled that day, but I couldn’t tell Tim. I didn’t want to make him think I was a ‘loser’ right from the start. I was trying to make a new me, away from the horror of my home. I really liked him, but couldn’t really tell if he liked me, despite what Jan had said. I really didn’t care either. I seemed to be beyond caring at the moment, beyond everything. I drank my warm bitter and watched the swallows diving over the rooftops, and just enjoyed the moment. I didn’t know what would happen next, but somewhere, deep down inside, I felt a sort of faint hope brewing.
