Array Girl A: Girl A: My Story

Wagging off school wasn’t helping my grades, either, and eventually, around May 2008, I got put on report, which meant having to go to the teacher at the end of each class and get a mark for my behaviour: A, B, C or D. Mum and Dad would go mental if I didn’t get an A or a B.

One particular night they blew up because I’d got a D. It didn’t bother me because Courtney was on report too, and so were lots of other kids. In reality, we were nowhere near being the worst kids in our year – there were girls I knew who were getting drunk in the school toilets and being arrested every weekend. But that didn’t wash with Dad – not that night. ‘Your mates may be scum, but you’re not,’ he screamed. ‘So for God’s sake stop behaving like you are! And stop getting so drunk that you don’t know what’s happening to you. If you’re not careful, one of these days you’re going to get raped or pregnant!’

‘All I’m doing is having a few drinks with my mates,’ I yelled back, appalled that he could think things could ever get so serious. A few seconds later, outraged, I was slamming the back door and heading away from the estate. I could hear Mum screaming at me as I legged it round the corner.

This time I went to Hayley’s, and we ended up camping out under the stars with her latest boyfriend, Danny. We set up his tent in the same field I’d been to with Elliot, and then carried down some quilts and a few bottles of cider.

We’d been drinking for about half an hour when I passed the bottle to Hayley. ‘No, I’d better not, thanks, Hannah,’ she said. She looked momentarily flustered, then embarrassed. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she whispered.

Danny looked a bit shamefaced but then took the bottle, smiled and carried on drinking. Hayley and I discussed the baby and how she felt about it. ‘It was a bit of a shock at first,’ she confided, ‘but I’m getting used to the idea now. And Danny says he’s fine with it.’

I guess for some people being pregnant at fifteen might be a bit of a surprise, but you’ve probably worked out by now that around our way it was not out of the norm. Of course, Hayley freaked out a bit at first, but then she just got on with it. Her boyfriend was standing by her and they actually seemed pretty happy together. A lot of the kids from our school didn’t have much hope for their future, and being a mum was probably one of the better options on offer. At least they could find happiness and love there. And the benefits money was better too.

Sitting in our tent, talking and looking up at the stars, there was definitely celebration in the air – it felt like we were free of any worries. It reminded me of my nights with Dad and Lizzie when we went camping, and it felt like everything was right in the world and your destiny was what you made it. I found myself quickly pushing away thoughts of Dad, knowing him and Mum would probably be worried sick about where I was. And ready to ground me again.

Just to keep them at bay, this one night I had switched off my phone. They’d texted earlier to ask where the hell I was, but I had ignored it. Let them sweat , I thought.

To be honest, I felt a bit jealous seeing Hayley lying there in Danny’s arms, all happy, as we talked about the gang at school, the teachers we hated and eventually, later on, baby names.

Danny didn’t seem that bothered.

‘How about Chelsea, Dan? Or Courtney?’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ he replied, taking another swig of cider from the bottle the two of us were sharing while Hayley drank cola.

Just before we finally settled down to sleep, Hayley and I nipped out of the tent and set off towards the hedge so we could have a wee. In the darkness she whispered conspiratorially, ‘Don’t let on, but I’m not sure if it’s Danny’s baby. He’d batter me if he knew.’

In the gathering silence we both reflected on the fact that Hayley getting pregnant had been an accident waiting to happen. She’d got caught out, just like lots of other girls on estates all over Rochdale and beyond. It won’t happen to me , I thought pensively. Mum and Dad would go ape.

As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered how close I’d come to getting pregnant those times with Elliot.

In the morning we set off home and, when I got back, Mum and Dad, predictable as ever, went mad because they thought I’d been with a boy. ‘Where have you been?’ they said, despairingly. ‘We’ve been worried sick. It’s unacceptable.’

Mum then tried a softer approach. ‘Look, Hannah, we’re your mum and dad and we care about you. We don’t want you to ruin your life. It’s never right to sleep with just anyone, and we want you to save yourself for the right lad. That’s all.’

I could see the anxiety in both their faces, shadows under their eyes from lack of sleep. Now, that image makes me feel guilty. But at the time, my judgement was so clouded – in my eyes I had been with a boy, yes, but it was my friend’s boyfriend. And all we’d done was sit around talking, not even drinking that much. Rather naïvely, I thought if anything, I’d been very well behaved. What was the problem?

Whatever it was, it ended with Dad’s party-piece warning, yelled at full volume: ‘You mark my words,’ he stormed. ‘Carry on as you are and you’re going to end up in serious trouble. Pregnant or raped, it wouldn’t surprise me. And then don’t blame us, because you’ll have been asking for it!’

I think they grounded me for two weeks that time.

Things were getting yet worse at home: grounding me seemed to have less and less effect. My parents would tell me I wasn’t going out anywhere, and for a couple of days I might stick to that, but at some point I’d either just kick off again or else slip away. There really wasn’t any holding me, and I think they came to realise that. Maybe that’s when Dad and Mum finally lost the fight to keep me under some sort of control. I managed to go to Tasty Bites all those times without them knowing – sometimes I’d tell them I was going to stay at one mate’s house, but then go to someone else’s. When I got home Mum and Dad would say: ‘You lied to us!’ Then I would know that they must have checked up on me, and that made me madder still.

The girl who played with Barbies was growing up – so she thought – and my parents didn’t know how to handle her. They’d try to give me extra chores to do, but I’d either just delay and delay doing them, or else flounce off to my room. Either way, they’d eventually just give up and end up doing whatever it was they’d wanted me to do. A typical encounter would go something like this:

‘Will you please take the boys to the park, Hannah?’ my mum would ask.

‘Why?’ I’d invariably reply. ‘It’s you who had them – you go.’ I loved my little brothers, of course, and there were lots of times I’d take them to the park, the shops, sometimes to the river, but there were times, too, that I wanted my freedom.

Mum, of course, would get upset and then Dad would come in and yell at me. Part of me felt guilty, but I wasn’t letting on about that.

Dad seemed to be the one who took this transformation in his little girl the hardest. When I was a child, his face had always seemed so jovial, so serene and confident. Now it was lined most of the time by worry or anger – or both.

To be fair to myself, I did come in mostly on time. It was just what I did when I was out that caused the problems. At the end of the day, I was just a kid looking for laughs – anything to get away from the drudgery of everyday life in a town going nowhere.

I found myself chatting to Ricky more and more than in the early days of wagging school and ending up next to the railway tracks. He wasn’t in my top five, and I didn’t fancy him at all, but he was a laugh and on the nights we wandered around town, I’d often hang back and talk things over with him.