Not My Idea of Heaven. Lindsey Rosa

It was noisy and as far as I could see no one was testing their own strength. It was cars doing all the work! I liked it better when Roseanne was on. Or The Cosby Show.

      One Saturday afternoon Natalie’s mum poked her head round the living room door.

      ‘Do you want something to eat, Lindsey?’ She understood that I was in no hurry to leave. In the back garden she was preparing a barbecue for friends. It was really time for me to go home, but I had never eaten a barbecue meal before, and I was always tempted by food.

      ‘Yeah,’ I said happily, ‘I’ll have something.’

      ‘Lindsey,’ Mum said when I arrived home. ‘Dinner’s on the table.’

      I ate two dinners that night. My belly was fit to burst, but I didn’t care. Patrick Swayze put his arms around me and I felt good.

      I was becoming good at being two different people. At home I behaved like a Fellowship girl who listened to Dad reading the Bible and said my prayers at night. Outside the house I took part in the worldly things that my friends were doing without feeling guilty.

      The Fellowship taught me always to expect that God would punish me for my sins, but it also taught me that anyone under the age of twelve was free of responsibility for their actions. As far as I was concerned, I could do pretty much anything and God would forgive me.

      Natalie was older, but often looked to me for what we were going to do. When I was nine and she was eleven I thought it would be a good idea for us to start smoking. We picked half-smoked stubs off the ground, pocketed them and headed towards the school gates.

      I did what I had done many times before, and scrambled over the top of the gates, dropping to the ground on the other side with a heavy thud. There was a gap underneath, but I had found out through bitter experience that, while Natalie could slide gracefully underneath, I couldn’t.

      We legged it up the school driveway and dashed around the corner, onto the field, and over to a thin row of bushes, carefully avoiding the school caretaker as we went. Once we were well hidden we began. It was more a case of inhaling a mouthful of acrid smoke and trying not to cough our guts up when it hit the back of our throats.

      Following that initiation, we smoked on and off for a while, until even we couldn’t overlook the fact that our regular supply of cigarettes came from dirty pavements, and filthy gutters. My habit didn’t last long, and, after that, another nine years passed before I touched another cigarette.

      Soon, Patrick Swayze wasn’t the only man in my life. Everywhere I went I thought I saw the boy of my dreams. The boys of my dreams. At school, in the supermarket and in the museums I visited with Dad. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know them, and never would. I created their personalities in my head and thought I knew them. I watched my worldly friends practise kissing with the boys in the playground and, while they were crying over their breakups, I was kissing the back of my hand and hugging my pillow. I was trying to ensure that I would never be rejected; sometimes, though, I let my guard down.

      The boy I had a crush on, Darrell, was a friend of Natalie’s and lived just around the corner. One autumn evening, Natalie asked me if I wanted to go to a bonfire party Darrell was having at his house. Mum had warned me never, ever, to go out of the road, but I avoided being disobedient by entering his house through the back garden gate, which opened onto my street.

      I watched fireworks shoot into the sky from beside a giant bonfire, which was steadily burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes. I couldn’t count how many sins I was committing, but I knew that Satan must have been in my heart, because that night I went to bed dreaming about Darrell. The trouble was, I think he fancied Natalie, and resented the time I spent with her. I knew she was glad to have me to play with, as she definitely did not fancy him. But, despite this knowledge, I could not stop thinking about Darrell.

      One day I was loitering in the street waiting for Natalie to come out and play, when he appeared in our street.

      ‘All right?’ He half nodded in my direction.

      ‘Yeah, fine.’ I felt myself blushing.

      ‘Want a go on my skateboard?’ he asked.

      No, I most certainly did not, but I said yes, anyway. He handed me the board and I knelt down on it, trying hard not to let my bum show as my skirt rode up. I pushed off with my trailing leg and that was it: I was whizzing along. This felt good. What have I been worrying about? I asked myself, grinning. I couldn’t help thinking, I bet Darrell thinks I look good.