He picks one.
Three of Cups. Three women dancing together with cups in the air.
“That looks like a nice one,” he says vaguely.
“It is nice. It’s all about friendship and unity.”
“Then why do you look so worried?”
“I’m not.”
“Do you want to pick the next one?” he asks gently.
I pick and leave it face down on the earth. Another lurch in my stomach. Keep it together, Maeve. Keep it together.
“I guess … I guess I’ll turn it over then.”
Roe touches the card and the world falls away. Yellow and red spots dot across my vision, and I can feel my body fall away from me.
It is happening again.
It is happening again.
Ladies, meet the Housekeeper card. Keeper, meet the Houseladies card. Hades, meet the Lousekeeper card.
I open my eyes, but I’m not in Roe’s head. I’m in my own. I’m in St Bernadette’s, in the toilets. The same toilets where Fiona and I sit on the exposed pipe for warmth. Lily is there. Lily is crying. Lily is crying and yelling, yelling at me, and people are watching. Make them stop watching.
It is thirteen months ago and it is the day before Christmas break. We have had, this term, no less than three talks about groups, peer pressure and the danger of not mixing with one another. We are known as a “cliquey” year. I gather that some girls have felt excluded or terrorized by the rigid hierarchies of St Bernadette’s. There are the blonde sporty girls who play hockey and go to the rugby matches of their older boyfriends, right up at the top. Then the rich girls, who go to New York on the holidays and come back with brown bags that say “Little Brown Bag” on them.
Beneath the rich girls are the party girls, who get drunk a lot and are always betraying one another. And beneath the party girls are the mid-leagues: that’s where Michelle and Niamh come in. Nice middle-class girls who get invited to most things and do pretty well in school, prone to occasional spots but never acne. This is the crowd I am, thirteen months ago, so desperately trying to join. Everything below that is not worth considering. The nerdy girls have an authority of their own, what with their perfect French plaits and bright futures, but I’ll never be one of them. There are a few arty girls on the fringes, who view St Bernadette’s as a thing to survive so they can resume their real lives. This is how I thought of Fiona until she decided, for some reason, to be my friend. But right now, thirteen months ago, she means almost nothing to me.
I don’t have the confidence or the ingenuity to have a rich life outside of school. It is Michelle and Niamh, or nothing.
I need a clique to survive.
I can feel myself telling Roe this, as he sits in my head like a movie-goer who the usher is continuously interrupting with his flashlight.
The teachers have instructed us to branch out, and a Secret Santa has been arranged. The teachers insist that the pairings are random, but it’s immediately clear to everyone that this is meant to be a bonding exercise, pairing high with low. Party girls with nerds. Rich, shallow girls with Fiona-types, in the hopes their depth of character will rub off on them.
I have Tanya Burke. She’s getting a lip gloss set from Boots. Easy. Lily has Michelle. From the moment they’re paired, I am in a state of constant anxiety. I want to protect Lily from Michelle; equally, I want to protect Michelle from Lily.
Why are you so frightened? It’s just a bloody Christmas present.
In retrospect, I know that Lily is just trying to make an effort. She knows that I am trying to become proper friends with Michelle. She wants to show Michelle that, even though they’re different, they’re still capable of getting on.
It’s easy to see Lily’s good intentions in retrospect. But in the moment, watching Michelle unwrap her Secret Santa gift, all I could feel was horror at the invisible line Lily was stepping over.
Roe can see this. Roe is watching.
What is this?
Nothing. Get out. Stop.
Why is Lily crying?
Lily, acknowledging Michelle’s fondness for looking at herself, has made Michelle a portrait. She has made Michelle a steampunk vision: her shoulder a giant cog, her school uniform transformed into a Victorian lady’s gown, with buttons up to the collar and down the sleeves. It is an incredible drawing, one of her best, illustrated with her special watercolours.
“What’s best is that I’m under the ten-euro budget,” she says cheerily, announcing it to the class. “The frame is from Dealz and it was only two.”
I don’t say anything. I know Michelle thinks the portrait is weird.
“Er, thanks, Lily,” she says. “It’s really … uh, yeah.”
Michelle quickly puts the portrait away, and Lily’s face flickers slightly in disappointment. She shrugs it off. She has held up her side of the bargain. She has done Secret Santa.
Why on earth did you want to be friends with these gowls?
I don’t know, Roe. I don’t know.
At lunchtime, Lily comes back to class to find the picture back on her desk. With a word, a word I had once heard someone throw at Jo written on it.
“Well,” Lily says quietly, “I don’t think they mean a river dyke, do they?”
But she keeps her cool. She keeps it together. It isn’t until home time, when she walks into the toilets and finds them emptying her school bag into the sink, that the penny really drops.
“Why are they doing this?” Lily screams at me. “Why do you want to be friends with these … these bitches?”
The white-hot rage I am so bad at containing bubbles up in me again. I am so sick of her shadowing
