Page 41

CHAPTER 41

OLIVIA – B EFORE

I was so naive when I fell pregnant with Chloe. You read about these girls who have sex once and end up with a baby and some people just don’t believe that can happen. Don’t we teach sex education these days? Make teenagers put condoms on bananas? But guess what? I’m here to tell you, you absolutely can have sex just once and get pregnant.

Of course the problem with naivety, by definition, is you don’t know that you are. Worse – you accidentally mask the fact, turning your naivety into a timebomb. People ask you questions that you don’t understand and you cover up your lack of knowing and you lie and you smile. You want to appear cool and grown up and so you dig a deeper hole for yourself. That’s certainly what happened with me and Daniel.

Much later, when my periods stopped and it all blew up, Julia asked me if Daniel forced himself on me. You saying he didn’t use a condom ? Did you actually say – yes? She said that if I didn’t, we could go to the police and he would be charged because of my age.

My father ranted and raged and said the same thing: I want his name and I’m going to the police.

But the truth was not what they imagined. It didn’t feel bad, what happened between me and Daniel. I don’t remember saying ‘yes’ specifically but I certainly didn’t say ‘no’ and so I had to hold my hands up and tell them that it wasn’t like that.

And it really wasn’t.

After that first meeting when I told Daniel I was sixteen, I never took it back. The lie. And I never realised the significance properly until it was too late. I went to see him again the next week like he asked, telling my father that I was doing some research for a school homework project in the library. I’d never bothered lying to my father before because it was so much easier to just go along with his weirdness. But meeting Daniel was like this massive awakening. It shocked me how much I wanted to see him again. And it shocked me how easy – and exhilarating – it was to lie to my father to make it happen.

The religious thing with my father had grown bigger and bigger. I kicked against it at first but that just made him angry. Borderline frightening. So in the end, I just tried not to trigger him. But the older I got, the more protective, weird and suffocating my father became. The prayer sessions and the handwashing got really bad as soon as I moved to secondary school. Sometimes he’d have me washing my hands dozens of times a day. I noticed that there were no tablets on the kitchen worktop anymore. I asked him about that because they seemed to have helped his moods in the past. But he said God had told him not to take the medication.

Meantime his disapproval of Julia also grew and grew. By the second year, aged around twelve or thirteen, Julia started to roll the waistband of her skirt to make it shorter. Everyone did it. I copied her, of course, correcting the length before I got home. But one day, I got caught out and this led to a huge row with my father. Unbeknown to me he’d turned up to pick me up from school instead of me catching the bus. Looking back later, I realise that he was starting to monitor me. Watch me more closely.

He told me to stay away from Julia. Which of course made me want to spend even more time with her. I had a phone but a basic one. My father put some weird software on it to filter out things he didn’t want me to have access to. And he limited the data. He said that social media was the path to disaster . It drives teenagers to suicide. And sin. Don’t you watch the news, Olivia? Understand what social media can do? Every night he looked at the phone to see what I’d been googling and accessing. I simply wasn’t savvy enough to bother to work around all that.

And because he was a teacher in another school, my father had a lot of teacher contacts. Out of the blue, he kept me off school for a few days, claiming I was sick. He wouldn’t say why. But when I returned, Julia told me they’d done sex and relationship education. I challenged my father and we had another massive row.

They talk about it as if it’s all fine. Teenagers having sex. Ordinary. Sex is for after marriage, Olivia. You don’t need to know about all of that at your age. All you need to know is that the Lord says it’s sacred. For marriage only.

Of course I eventually figured out how to google round at Julia’s. We giggled when she told me about practising with condoms in the class I missed, but what I didn’t share was that I was secretly horrified. Sounded so embarrassing.

I wasn’t allowed to school discos. Or outings. Or any activity beyond scouting and sailing classes which my father helped to both organise ... and police.

So the excitement of meeting Daniel and his apparent interest in me was not only unexpected but heightened – and made more risky – by my lack of experience. And lack of knowing. I confided in Julia about him after giving her the record on her birthday and she was thrilled. She was the one to then encourage me to go back there to see him again.

I can’t.

You can.

So the second visit to see Daniel was a Tuesday and I had never felt anything like it. The thrill to see his eyes fixed on me as I walked into the record shop. He was just so relaxed and chatty and happy to see me.

He said that he finished work at five and could I stay so we could go for a coffee or a burger? The shop was walking distance from my house but I knew it would take twenty minutes at least to get home and I couldn’t risk being late.

Then I remembered that my father got home later on a Wednesday. So I switched my ‘library day’ to Wednesdays and started to visit Daniel every week, knowing I had a couple of hours at least. We went for a coffee or a burger after his shift ended at first. We talked mostly. He let me practise my French. We talked about books and the cinema, and to be honest, it was all quite sweet. He kissed me on the cheek when we parted and I definitely got the whole butterflies in the stomach thing so that when he kissed me properly on the mouth on the third week, I was beside myself.

Back home afterwards, I lay on my bed in a sort of trance, worried that I hadn’t done it right. The kissing. That he would realise it was the first time I’d ever kissed a boy. But he didn’t say anything. He just asked if maybe I would like to visit him at his little studio flat the following week. He offered to make me a meal instead of a burger. A proper French recipe that was a family favourite. Of course, I said yes – no clue what I was really signalling yes to. I was naive, remember. Fifteen, going on twelve.

So I went straight to his little studio from school. It was sparse and surprisingly tidy, with posters on the walls and a huge collection of vinyl along one long shelf. And he really did cook for me. Chicken in a rich sauce with a salad. Plus wine that I wasn’t used to. And here’s the thing. I thought we’d just do more kissing. But when we did kiss, I got my first and overwhelming experience of true lust. This powerful feeling deep in my gut and then down below. He pushed his body against mine and I happily pushed back. The whole thing overwhelmed me and the truth is I just gave in to it.

He asked me if it was OK to move to the bed. He did ask. Are you sure? He also asked me if it was safe and fifteen-year-old me didn’t understand the question. I thought he meant – would anyone find out. I thought he was worried that my dad might suddenly turn up, looking for me. Naive me did not realise he meant contraception.

So the truth is I sort of gave consent because I got carried away and I didn’t realise where it would all lead. I was one of those people who assumed you couldn’t get pregnant the first time you had sex. Looking back – yes; Daniel was pushing his luck. Taking advantage? But he was genuinely shocked by the blood on his sheets. You never done this before? You should have told me you had never done this before. You are on the Pill ... yes?

I said I was fine. A lie. I was shell-shocked. One little part of me was excited that I’d managed to have sex before Julia. Most of me was just numb. It had hurt. And once it started hurting, the lust diminished immediately because I was too embarrassed to tell him it hurt. Instead, I shrank inside myself until it was over.

He had a little en suite shower room. Absolutely tiny. I had a quick shower and said I needed to get home. He asked to see me the following week but I said I had exams, which was another lie.

I remember how flustered he was . Kept raking his fingers through his hair. Agitated. Are you going to be OK?

My period was supposed to start about two weeks later. I was like clockwork. When it didn’t come, I hoped it was just stress. Julia said her dates were all over the place around exams.

Looking back, I think I realised quite early on that I might be pregnant. I knew that periods stopping was the first sign. But a bigger part of me just thought it was impossible. One time. Really? I felt OK at first. Just a little tired. And so stupidly I played ostrich. Let the weeks roll by.

By the time I finally started to feel sick and also to show, my dad challenged me. The showdown was horrible. A blur. A lot of shouting. Absolute fury on his part. Absolute shock on mine. I tried to defend what had happened, shouting back at him, but he slapped me hard around the face. I was stunned by how much it hurt. Then he marched out the front door, slamming it behind him and I just sat at the kitchen table crying.

He came back about half an hour later with pregnancy tests from the chemist. He told me to do one. Then a second one to confirm. And then when both tests were positive, he just took over. Barking questions and demanding answers. He said the Lord would forgive me but he was only human and would take much longer. My princess. You were my princess and now look what you’ve done.

He demanded details and stupidly I told him. I said that Daniel was a decent person and it wasn’t his fault. I had this ridiculous notion that Daniel would stand by me. That maybe I would move into his little studio flat and we would become a little family.

Absolutely . . . ridiculous.

My father went to see Daniel. He was gone a long time. And when he got back, he was just quiet. Sort of depressed. He said that Daniel swore he thought I was older and that I implied I was on the Pill. He was too young to take on the responsibility of a baby. He wanted me to have an abortion and had offered to pay for it.

What kind of person says that? my father asked. A bad person, Olivia. That’s who.

Daniel then texted me about having an abortion. Said he would take me secretly to a clinic if that was what I wanted. I didn’t reply. I waited a long time before I finally worked up the courage to go to the record shop to see him.

But the owner was behind the counter. He said Daniel had suddenly let him down. Also his landlord. Quit the job and the flat and disappeared back to France.

The owner stared at my bump as if it all suddenly made sense. He said he didn’t have Daniel’s address. Only knew that it was in the Paris suburbs.

I looked for Daniel on Facebook and other social media a few times but the ridiculous thing is I didn’t know his surname and I was too embarrassed, standing there pregnant in front of the record shop owner to admit that and ask. So I never found him.

When Chloe started asking questions about her father, I was always vague.

Too ashamed to admit it was my fault. That I’d messed up. And her father had done a runner.

I have grown to love Chloe so much that I don’t ever want her to see herself as a mistake.

An accident – yes. A product of my ridiculous naivety. My first crush.

But never a mistake.