Free The Good Girl by Fiona Neill Page B

risks and downside. All addictive behaviours and substances involve the release of dopamine. Addictive
pathways get laid down and so it’s more difficult for teenagers to change addictive habits.’
    ‘You blow my mind, Harry,’ said Loveday. ‘That’s wild.’
    ‘It’s just science,’ said Harry enthusiastically.
    The front door banged and the children returned. Luke and Marley came back into the sitting room and leaned against the bookshelf, feigning nonchalance, but Ailsa could see from the red glow of their cheeks and the easy banter that the sullen teenage posturing was just that. Luke was taller than anyone else in the room, Ailsa noted, as his shoulder nudged the bookshelf and one of the Ukrainian eggs rolled alarmingly close to the edge. Ben shuffled in last. His fringe was frozen with snow like an Exmoor pony’s. His teeth were chattering and his bare feet had turned a gentle shade of blue.
    ‘Why does the hair on your arm stand up when you’re cold, Dad?’ Ben asked.
    ‘It’s a reflex inherited from our much hairier ancestors to try and keep warm,’ Harry explained.
    ‘Come, stand by the fire, Ben,’ said Loveday, dragging a beanbag seat over to the hearth. ‘We’ll thaw you out.’
    The conversation stalled and atomized. Ailsa listened to fragments of other people’s talk like a dog chasing different scents. Deodorant. Could be a killer. Reading Festival. Luke had come back to find someone had done a shit inside his tent. Rapeseed oil. The new wonder food. Could also be used as fuel. The price of fuel. Fracking. Rachel confessed to Loveday that she was
dating someone much younger. Loveday approved of the match by pointing out that their sex drives would be perfectly matched. Ailsa heard Rachel whisper that they hadn’t had sex yet. That surprised her. Rachel questioned Loveday about depilation. How much was enough? What would the average twenty-seven-year-old man expect?
    ‘It depends how he’s been conditioned,’ said Loveday.
    ‘What do you mean?’ asked Rachel.
    ‘If he’s twenty-seven that means he was fourteen when the Internet hit the mainstream so I would say less is definitely more. There’s a chance he might never have seen a fully grown muff. They’re practically endangered.’
    ‘That’s so true,’ agreed Rachel. ‘A teacher at Ailsa’s school told me that when he showed a film on childbirth several of the boys asked what the women had between their legs because they had never seen pubic hair. One of them who’s doing Shakespeare for A-level English thought it was a merkin.’
    It suddenly occurred to Ailsa that this was something Matt Harvey, her recently recruited head of Biology, must have told her sister. Rachel and Matt had met for five minutes in her office three months earlier when Rachel had come to meet Ailsa for lunch. She had left them alone for all of thirty seconds while she had a brief discussion with her assistant about the agenda for a governors’ meeting. When she came back he was asking Rachel about where she had spent her summer holiday. They couldn’t have talked about his Sex Ed class then.
They must have seen each other again. Ailsa frowned as an idea took shape.
    ‘What’s a merkin?’ questioned Loveday.
    ‘A pubic wig,’ Rachel elaborated. ‘The teacher blamed Internet porn. That’s where they learn about sex, and all the women are completely bald.’
    Loveday agreed.
    ‘What do you think, Harry?’ Rachel asked drunkenly. ‘What would the expectation be?’
    ‘How would I know?’ he replied.
    ‘You must come across lots of young students,’ she said.
    ‘Enough, Rachel,’ said Harry. Rachel stopped but only because she had cleaved another groove. ‘Even the ancient Egyptians liked to wax.’
    Ailsa checked Ben. To her relief he was playing cards with Luke and Marley. They were playing for money. Letting Ben win.
    ‘Landing strip. You can’t go wrong with a landing strip,’ recommended Loveday.
    ‘But it’s the commitment. A