Charlotte was in her room. She watched the 12” disc of black vinyl spinning on the record player as Robert Smith’s voice sang the chorus of ‘The Funeral Party.’ 

She picked up the postcard again. The front showed a group of punks with spiky mohicans in front of a red telephone box with ‘Welcome to London’ written in red, white, and blue below it.  She flipped it over and read it again even though she had already committed the three sentences to memory. 

Hey Charlotte, sorry I didn’t write sooner. Been a mental few weeks. Staying with friends will write again when I have an address. Fiona xx 

She rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She could still remember the last time she’d seen Fiona. Standing in the kitchen downstairs with Charlotte’s Mum in the next room. They’d been too scared to even kiss. 

Fiona had called round to take Charlotte away for the day but was informed that Charlotte was grounded ever since she’d been caught having sex in the living room and wouldn’t be going anywhere. Charlotte had pleaded and begged but to no avail. And now Fiona was off in London getting up to who knows what and was unlikely to even remember the little schoolgirl grounded in her bedroom. 

Since the altercation that first day back, Charlotte had drifted around the school like Banquo’s ghost. She was invisible to all intents and purposes, except to Emma and Deirdre who would go quiet every time she passed nearby. 

Charlotte picked up one of the many university prospectuses that littered the floor. Charlotte’s plan was simple. Get out of Strabane and go to college in London. The ADAR handbook listing all the art colleges and courses in the UK was already well-thumbed. Her art teacher had discussed her options a couple of days earlier and Charlotte had felt a swelling of pride when he spoke about her illustrative skills. He’d suggested she went to Belfast first to complete her Foundation course before applying to the UK colleges but Charlotte was keen to get as much distance between her and Strabane as quickly as possible.

The doorbell rang. Charlotte didn’t move. She knew it wasn’t for her. It was probably someone selling An Phoblacht or some door-to-door salesman. She was surprised when she heard her Mum calling for her and got up and stuck her head out the bedroom door.

“Wha?”

“Emma’s here to see you.”

Charlotte froze. What could Emma want? She came down the stairs warily. It was almost three months since the party and, despite seeing her nearly every day, this was the first time they’d spoken.

“Can we talk?”

Charlotte looked at her Mum, who was hovering by the living room door.

“Is it ok if me and Emma go up to my room?”

Once her Mum had nodded, Charlotte turned and headed up the stairs without a word. She heard Emma following behind. In her room, she sat on the chair at her desk and gestured for Emma to sit on her bed. She didn’t bother turning off the music as it was halfway through the last song on the album anyway.

She looked at Emma who seemed to be focussing on the shoelace of her left boot. She watched and waited. Emma had come here and Charlotte wanted her to explain what she was here for. Finally, Emma raised her head. Her eyes were wet and tears were trickling down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry.”

Emma’s voice could hardly be heard. The cracked whisper made Charlotte smirk.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t quite hear that.”

Fresh tears spilled down Emma’s face. The dark eyeliner was getting smudged already.

“Why?” Charlotte asked.

Emma looked confused. “What?”

“Why are you sorry? What’s changed?” Charlotte demanded. “What’s happened?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Whatever semblance of control Emma had left tumbled at this point. Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed quietly.

“For fuck’s sake,” Charlotte muttered as she snatched up several tissues from the box by her bed. 

“It’s not that big a deal. You can get an abortion if you don’t want to keep it. You’re eighteen now so there’s no problem with your Mum needing to know.”

Emma shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

“Well, if you want to keep it, that’s a whole other game. I’m not sure why you are telling me though. I’m hardly the father.”

She made a stupid smile to show she was trying to be funny, but Emma just stared at the floor.

“Do you know who the father is?”

“Yes, I fucking do,” Emma retorted. “I’m not a fucking whore.”

She stopped and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. It was the night of the party.”

Charlotte nodded as she remembered Emma telling her about the guy in the bathroom.

“Aww for fuck’s sake, Emma. Do you not use condoms?”

Emma just blushed and fumbled with the buttons on her black woolly cardigan.

“Well anyway,” Charlotte tried to be reassuring. “You’ll just need to make an appointment at the clinic and it’ll be all taken care of.”

She put her hand on Emma’s knee.

“I know loads of people who’ve had one and it’s over in a couple of hours.”

Emma took a breath.

“I can’t… you can’t… no one can get an abortion in Northern Ireland. It’s against the law.”

She burst into tears again.

“Fuck... but… how?” Charlotte was so confused. If Northern Ireland was part of the UK, why could you get an abortion in Edinburgh or Liverpool or Leeds but not Belfast or Strabane?

She slid off her chair and sat beside Emma on the bed.

“Emma,” Charlotte whispered. “Why are you telling me?”

Emma raised her tear-stained face and looked pleadingly at Charlotte. 

“I can’t tell anyone else. My Mum would kill me. Fiona’s gone to London and now Deirdre’s decided she wants to be a nun, she’d probably tell my Mum to stop me even looking about an abortion.”

“So I’m the last resort?”

Emma nodded and sobbed again, her face in her hands. Charlotte took a deep breath, raised her eyes to heaven then hugged Emma.

“It’s ok. We’ll sort something out.”

Charlotte gently stroked Emma’s hair while the girl just whimpered “I’m sorry” like a mantra, over and over again.

Finally, the tears stopped and Charlotte found out just how fucked up Northern Ireland could get. 

Deirdre, Emma explained, had been swayed by the presentations and arguments put forward by SPUC, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child. They had been in the school last year to warn of the dangers of abortion. Emma explained that the little badge of the two feet that Deirdre wore on her pinafore showed the size a baby’s feet were at the time of an abortion. When Emma told her about the 30cm rulers they gave out with measurements detailing the size of the baby in weeks, Charlotte got really cross. 

“But that’s just sick. How could the school let it happen.”

“Let it happen? The school invited them in. One girl got suspended for asking when the pro-abortion people would be coming in to talk to us.”

“Jesus Christ, what a fucking country. What about a woman’s right to choose?”

“She can still choose. If she has the money, she can choose to get the boat to England and get an abortion there.”

“OK. We’ll do that then.” Charlotte smiled.

Emma shook her head. “I’ve no idea how you go about that. I don’t know who to ask. And even if I did. How am I going to pay to get to England, let alone pay for the abortion?”

She slumped, defeated, onto Charlotte’s bed.

“We’ll work something out. I promise.”

Emma nodded and for the first time that evening, Charlotte saw her smile.

After Emma had left, Charlotte lay on her bed and tried to work out what was going on. One half of Charlotte questioned why she would help Emma at all, given what a bitch she’d been but the other half just wanted her friend back. Finally, the forgiving, helping side won out and Charlotte crawled into bed. 

“You’re such a needy little bitch, aren’t you, Charlotte?”

She opened her mouth to ask how Fiona had got into her room when she realised she was tied to the bed. Fiona straddled her. She moved her gaze from Fiona’s face to her breasts and back again, and again. Fiona had such suckable nipples. Hard and pointed with dark pink with dimples around the areoles. 

Charlotte nodded. 

“You’re such a dirty little slut, aren’t you?”

Charlotte nodded again. 

“Say it,” Fiona ordered. There was a steeliness to her voice. 

“I’m a needy little bitch.”

“And?”

“And I’m your dirty little slut."

“Not just mine though, are you?”

“No, she’s been fucking everyone she comes across. Anything with a pulse, the fucking slag. She even fucked the drummer and broke up the band.”

Charlotte turned her head to the side. Emma was standing there, wearing a little black dress and caressing an enormous bump in her belly. 

“At least she used a condom, unlike some people.”

Charlotte’s mother sneered, looking down her nose at Emma’s bump.

“Mum?” Charlotte whimpered. What are you doing here?

Charlotte tried to move but Fiona had tied her wrists to the bed. She bucked her hips up, trying to push Fiona off. 

“What’s wrong, Charlotte, scared your mother will discover her darling little girl is a muff licking lesbian?” Emma giggled, looking at her Mum.

Fiona pressed her dripping wet pussy into Charlotte’s face. 

“She eats pussy ever so well,” Fiona gasped. “Do you remember how embarrassed she was watching ‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’ with you? You didn’t know she was a lesbian then but look at her now. No shame.”

“I’m not Mum, I’m not.”

Fiona ground her pussy into Charlotte’s face, smearing honeyed juices over her mouth and nose and chin. 

Deirdre squeezed between Charlotte’s mum and Emma and gave them both a cheery sign of the cross before letting her habit fall from her shoulders and, wearing only her veil and a black lace bra and a pair of knickers, knelt between Charlotte’s spread thighs.

Deirdre ran her tongue along Charlotte’s slit, lapping at the juices oozing out. Despite the audience, Charlotte felt her orgasm building. Deirdre crossed her first two fingers and screwed them into Charlotte’s pussy. She cried out as the knuckles stretched her walls. 

“Look at her, look what a little slut your daughter is. She’s fucked boys, girls, she’s had them all. But God will forgive her, he hears her beg to him every night when she cries out, 'Oh god, oh god, oh god,' like a dirty little whore.”

Charlotte whimpered, begged, and pleaded for them all to go away but couldn’t make herself heard as Fiona smothered her face, riding Charlotte’s tongue as hard as she could. Charlotte could hear Deirdre’s fingers squelch as she fucked her harder, faster, and deeper. 

With a muffled howl, Charlotte came. 

She opened her eyes and sat up. The room was empty. The grey light of dawn was peeking in the gap in the curtains. 

Her heart was pounding and she felt her nightdress sticking to her. She let her head flop back into the pillow. She could smell sex. Her pussy tingled and when she ran her fingers along her slit, she was soaked. That was so fucking weird, Charlotte thought to herself, shaking her head to get rid of the remaining fragments of the dream  

At lunchtime, Emma silently mouthed the word ‘later’ when Charlotte went to sit beside her. She rapidly changed course and sat at an empty table further down the canteen. She glanced across at Emma and Deirdre, blushing as she remembered her dream.

She decided against going to the school library and headed into town to the public one after school. She’d told Emma to meet her there and to lose Deirdre somehow. 

She browsed from aisle to aisle until Emma turned up, then headed to the desk. 

“Hi, sorry to bother you but we’re doing a school project. We have a debate coming up on abortion and we’ve been lumbered with the pro-abortion side.”

“You mean pro-choice.”

Charlotte smiled. The lie had rolled off her tongue and the librarian had fallen for it. 

“You won’t find much here but Woman’s Aid will have all the information you need.”

She handed Charlotte a leaflet and gazed into her eyes. 

“Good luck with it all,” the librarian whispered and Charlotte blushed as the realisation of what the librarian suspected dawned on her. 

“No, it’s not what you think,” Charlotte stammered but the librarian just ssh’d her and told her she’d be ok and to remember that it was a woman’s right to choose, no one else’s. 

Charlotte and Emma started to walk away when the woman called them back. 

“You know if making a phone call in private is an issue, you could use the telephone here.“

She gestured to the back office. 

Charlotte nodded and asked if it would be ok to use it now. The librarian let them into the back office and closed it behind her after telling them they wouldn’t be disturbed. 

Emma shook her head when Charlotte handed her the phone so with a sigh, Charlotte dialled the number. 

The woman on the other end of the phone was so nice and soon Emma had squeezed beside Charlotte and the two of them listened as the woman explained Emma’s options. 

“I don’t have any options,” Emma cried. “I can’t keep it. My parents can’t know.”

The woman then outlined what she’d have to do. She’d need to travel to England and have the procedure in the clinic. It would be best to stay overnight in a hotel rather than travelling home that evening in case of complications. Emma was going paler by the minute. 

“I can’t afford that. And how can I just fly off to London? What would my parents say!”

Charlotte suggested she could stay with Fiona, use the excuse of visiting Fiona but Emma shook her head. 

“I can’t let Fiona know,” Emma begged. 

“How much is the clinic?”

“The clinic is £200. Payable on the day before the procedure happens.”

“How can I get £200,” Emma sobbed. “It might as well be a thousand. “

Charlotte thanked the woman who said they could arrange everything once Emma confirmed she could pay but that she only had a couple of months to raise the money as there was a 28-week limit on abortions in the UK and she would also be starting to show soon so it would be best to have it done sooner rather than later. 

Charlotte walked back along the road with Emma. Neither said anything until they reached the junction of Emma’s estate. 

“We’ll think of something,” Charlotte whispered as she leant in to hug her but Emma just nodded and turned and ran. 

“For fucks sake,” Charlotte muttered as she watched Emma go. “I’m just the social pariah except when it suits you now.”

That night, as Robert Smith sang that boys don’t cry, Charlotte thought about how easy it’d be if she still lived in Liverpool. A girl in her class had had an abortion last year. She was in and out in a day, with no charge. Just a lecture on family planning and a couple of boxes of condoms to take home. 

She glanced at the calendar on her bedroom wall. How could they just head off to London during term time? They only had a couple of months. Then her eyes fell on the prospectuses littering the floor. Central Saint Martins, Goldsmiths, Slade, Chelsea. She picked up the Goldsmiths one and saw there was an Open Day for prospective students in four weeks' time. 

All she’d have to do was convince her mum and Emma’s mum to let them go to London to check out the college and courses. And pay for the trip. 

Sorted, Charlotte thought to herself.
 

She was woken up at five o’clock the next morning by shouts and bangs outside. She looked out her bedroom window and watched as soldiers kicked down the door of a house further down the street. Everywhere was swarming with soldiers and more jumped out of the Landrovers to guard the search party. The soldiers who had entered the house came out a few minutes later, dragging a middle-aged man between them. The man was wearing only a vest and pyjama bottoms and was bleeding from the side of the head. A small boy of about six years old was jumping on a soldier’s back and screaming to let his Daddy go. Charlotte watched the soldier pull the child off his back and thrust him into the arms of his mother, who was screaming abuse at the soldiers as they threw her husband into the back of the Landrover.

The soldiers who were covering the streets and houses with their guns jumped back into their Landrovers and the convoy drove off at speed. The whole thing had only taken a couple of minutes. Charlotte watched until the woman shepherded her children back inside and left the door hanging off its hinges.

She heard noises from downstairs and realised her dad must be up getting ready for work. She decided to go down and see him since she didn’t feel like going back to sleep and needed to get up soon enough anyway. 

He was sitting at the kitchen table eating a slice of toast. 

“Good morning Charlotte.”

She loved his smile. Despite her teenage bravado, she knew she was her Daddy’s girl. 

“So what got you up so early?”

“The soldiers, and now I can’t sleep.”

She took a breath as an idea suddenly came to her. 

“Do you miss Liverpool?”

“Aye, a bit. I know it’s been hard for you but in another year you can be wherever you want to be.”

“I know. I was thinking of maybe going to art college in Liverpool or London. I already know what Liverpool’s like but there’s an Open Day in London soon. I’d really like to check out the colleges and different courses and get an idea if I’d like to live there.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” her dad smiled. “You mean you want to go somewhere far away so your mother won’t expect you back every weekend?”

“Maybe,” Charlotte blushed. 

“Do you think I could go to the Open day?”

“I don’t see why not. You were only grounded from going out socialising, not educational things. When is it anyway?”

“It’s in four weeks. I thought maybe me and Emma could stay with her sister, Fiona.”

“Ah, yes. The Fiona with the spiked hair.”

He glanced at his watch. 

“Well, I’d better be going. Those knickers won’t make themselves. Let us know how much it’ll cost for this London trip and me and your Mum will think about it.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Charlotte whispered as she hugged him. 

Charlotte called into the travel agents after school. She quickly found out that flying was out of the question. It was one hundred and fifty pounds to fly from Belfast to London but it was only twenty-nine pounds to go by bus. The bus left Strabane every evening at 6 pm and arrived in London at nine o’clock the next morning having crossed the sea by ferry and driven through Scotland and England. 

She called into Emma’s on the way home. She was relieved when Emma opened the door and motioned for her to come on upstairs.

“So where’s Sister Deirdre today?” Charlotte asked when they were cocooned in Emma’s room.

Emma shrugged and suggested that Deirdre was probably studying. 

“You know you can’t keep the fact you’re friends with me a secret. I’m not helping you if you’re going to ignore me at school.”

Emma nodded apologetically. 

“I’m sorry. I won’t.”

Charlotte outlined her plan. Fiona wouldn’t even need to know. She’d have the abortion during the day whilst Fiona was at college and then they’d stay the night and travel home the next day again with no one any the wiser.

All they needed to do now was convince their parents to pay for the trip and somehow find the two hundred pounds for the abortion.