Henry Hamlet's Heart

by Rhiannon Wilde

‘High on life.’

  ‘You are so not drinking tonight, if this is what you’re like now.’

  ‘I most certainly will be,’ I protest. History of being the biggest lightweight to ever live aside, there is no way I’m going to get through tonight without some assistance. I tell him as much.

  Len rolls his eyes. ‘You’ll be fine, Hamlet. Relax. Try to mingle a bit.’

  Most of the guys at North call me by my surname, especially since we studied the play last year. Apparently I’m tragic enough that the moniker suits me better than my actual name.

  ‘Mingle.’ I say it like it’s a dirty word.

  ‘Yeah. Meet people. It’s a party.’

  I glance around; several girls are milling nearby, eyeing Len in his tweed jacket and black suit pants and avoiding me in my T-shirt and jeans.

  Willa Stacy is hovering with them, staring intently through her curtain of strawberry hair. Len was seeing her for a couple of months, but they split up before the holidays. He eyes her back.

  I purse my lips. ‘Is that what you’re gonna do?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  I wave a hand in front of his face. ‘Hello? It’s me, your sister’s invisible plus one.’

  ‘Shut up. I’m gonna go get us a drink, if only so I can monitor what goes into yours. Lacey’ll kill you if you get sick in her car before a three-day drive.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll just be here, looking for cats to befriend.’ I’m only half joking.

  ‘Mingle,’ he commands, and he disappears into the crowd. Willa follows him in a blur of thigh boots, so I know not to expect his speedy return.

  Needing to do something with my hands, I text Emilia. @ The Party. Torture. Tell me ur not busy.

  She replies instantly. WHAT? Take mental snapshots, pls! Revising, soz. There with u in spirit.

  Ems is the only person I know who could possibly find something to revise during the holidays. We went to primary school together, and I don’t think I’ve seen her without a book in her hand since the day we met, on the playground in year two.

  I snap my phone shut. Emilia hates school parties even more than I do, but I feel deflated nonetheless. Why did I agree to this? There aren’t even any cats.

  I make my way into the living room towards a high-backed armchair beside the window. I sit down to wait for Len, but then I realise I don’t know if that’s a thing people do at these things, so I spring up again. (I also don’t know anyone.)

  ‘Henry?’

  I spin around on my heel to see Lily Bassett from debating last year. I grin wide, grateful for the friendly face. ‘Hiya! How are you?’

  (Hiya?!)

  ‘I’m well, since we haven’t versed you guys yet this year.’ She smiles too.

  I laugh awkwardly. ‘Glad to be of service.’

  She looks different out of her uniform. She’s wearing a sparkly top/dress thing, and red red lipstick.

  ‘What brings you here?’ Lily looks around at the crowd, who are badly dancing while Fall Out Boy asks through the speakers if this is more than I bargained for (yes).

  ‘Oh, you know,’ I say airily. ‘Last semester of school, and all that jazz.’

  ‘I’m so jealous you’re almost finished. I don’t know how I’ll do another year.’

  (I don’t know how I’ll leave.)

  I spread my arms, gesturing around us. ‘Yep. I’ll soon be sitting drinking wine in a courtyard somewhere, far too worldly for things like this. So I thought I’d put in an appearance last minute.’

  Lily makes a knowing face. ‘Did you not get invited?’

  I drop my arms. ‘That obvious?’

  We laugh.

  ‘I didn’t either,’ she confesses. ‘My sister dragged me along.’ She points to one of the girls in Lacey’s group.

  Len comes back with our drinks: one of the clear drinks Lacey brought for him, and half a beer in a cup for me.

  He glances at Lily and smiles slowly with recognition. ‘Hey.’

  Lily’s cheeks go pink. Great. The Len Effect. I take my drink from him angrily.

  ‘I’m just gonna …’ He gestures to where Willa is waiting by the French doors that lead to the deck.

  ‘I haven’t seen outside,’ Lily says.

  ‘You guys should come,’ Len responds easily.

  ‘I’m fine here,’ I say.

  ‘Okay,’ Lily says, and follows after Len.

  I glare at them both. Neither seems to notice.

  I flop back into the chair and go through the five stages of the Len Effect – jealousy, rage, irritation, resignation and acceptance – in quick succession. He’s always been good with the laydeez; I’ve always been … not. It’s been that way for so long that I barely register it anymore, but tonight I feel particularly needled.

  A few people look at me, briefly, as they walk past. I think about striking up a conversation, but for some reason I just … can’t. Crowds always make me feel even more alone than I do by myself.

  I brood for a bit about the general state of my life, before I get tired of myself and down my drink in one.

  At first I don’t think it’s worked, but then a few songs later the brick wall in my chest starts to lift. I even manage to wave at a few strangers.

  I decide to go in search of more.

  I walk into the kitchen, where there are intimidating bottles of spirits lined up along the bench. I steer clear of those in favour of the smaller bottles in an esky against the wall. I try to find Lacey’s drinks but give up and grab two at random – blue fizzy vodka something or other. They look sugary enough. I unscrew the cap of one and take an exploratory sip.

  Not bad. A bit like cordial, spliced with battery acid. I drink some more. By the time I finish the first bottle, I don’t even notice the aftertaste.

  A little later, after making small talk with two guys from my drama class, I’ve drunk three vodka concoctions. I bump into Ged and I’m so relieved Len and I aren’t the only ones from our group here tonight I nearly hug him.

  ‘Henry Hamlet, as I live and breathe!’

  Ged looks like a pro wrestler, and we have next to nothing in common, but he’s a strangely solid friend. He forced the entire football team to vote for me for school captain.

  ‘Hey, man,’ I slur, buzzed enough not to see looping my arm around his neck as the invasion of personal space it one hundred per cent is.

  Ged untangles my arm, sniffing my sugar-blue breath. ‘Whoa there, my little tiger-peach. Is that alcohol I smell?’

  I nod suavely. ‘I’m being a bright young thing for one night only. They call me cool hand Henry.’

  ‘Do they really?’ He looks at the bottle I’m holding. ‘My mum drinks those.’

  I try to scowl at him. He’s blurry. ‘They’re fun. I’m being fun.’

  ‘Fun Hamlet – I’m here for that. You do look a bit less stick-up-the-arse.’

  ‘Thanksh.’

  ‘Shall we find some of the real stuff, fun Hamlet?’

  Ged grabs a bottle off the table and pours two glasses of sticky amber liquid. ‘Bottom’s up.’

  I knock back what tastes like congealed bleach.

  ‘Shots!’ somebody behind us calls.

  A group forms and it escalates before I have a chance to think about it. Ged turns it into a game that he calls ‘scull’. I throw myself into it and manage to keep up, drinking several tiny glasses, the burn swirling through my chest like smoke. I inwardly congratulate myself – what was I even worried about? I am a champion at this. A hero among men. A—

  I suddenly, desperately, need the bathroom. I farewell Ged and make my way upstairs.

  When I’m washing my hands afterwards, they don’t feel like my hands. I dry them on my jeans and look in the mirror. My face is different too. It warps and bends. The walls seem to be moving closer to me – I
blink my eyes, trying to clear them, which only makes it worse.

  I stumble out of the door and down the stairs into the living room. I can just make out Len’s familiar shoes dangling off the end of the couch: black vintage Converse he got from a second-hand shop for $5.99.

  ‘Hamlet!’ he calls, then pauses. ‘Why do you look weird?’

  ‘Nobody panic, but I think I may be drunk,’ I announce, right before I projectile the entire contents of my stomach onto the floor. It splashes onto Willa’s thigh boots. Not all the way up, but it’s a close call.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she screeches. ‘What is your problem?’

  ‘I’b thorry,’ I splutter weakly.

  ‘Geez, Henry,’ Lily says. ‘You good?’

  I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. The girls rush away. I feel so terrible I don’t even care that everyone’s staring.

  Len sits up, eyes narrowing with concern.

  ‘What’d you have? Not tequila again, surely?’

  I shake my head weakly. ‘Vodka. And something else, I think. They were pretty.’

  ‘Hamlet.’ He looks angry.

  ‘They didn’t feel like anything at first!’

  ‘Yeah, well, vodka’s a cruel mistress. Come on, we’ll go.’

  ‘I just … need to lie down for a second.’

  He frowns, but obediently kicks off the couple kissing at the other end of the couch.

  When I’m sure my stomach is settled (for now) I lie down, shifting uncomfortably on the too-short couch. Why do rich people always buy such impractical furniture? I adjust my pillow, pushing it up against Len’s leg.

  ‘Are you right?’ He wriggles underneath me. ‘You smell like blueberry-flavoured manure. Let me up.’

  My vision is starting to fuzz at the edges. I close my eyes against the pounding in my ears.

  ‘God, your head is heavy,’ Len says. ‘No wonder – it’s full of rocks.’

  I ignore him. It’s warm here, and the room can’t spin if I can’t see it.

  ‘What am I meant to do, then?’

  ‘Watch for opportunistic dick-on-the-face drawers,’ I mumble.

  He huffs in reply.

  ‘I’m sorry I ruined your night.’ My words slur together.

  ‘You’re a public menace.’ Len shifts again.

  ‘Joke’s on you, then.’ I yawn. ‘That I’m your number one friend.’

  ‘More like a compulsory full-time job, at this point.’

  I know he’s trying to irritate me into moving. I start to think of a snarky reply, but everything goes dark.

  We’d never say it, but we look out for one another – especially since Sarah. Except for right now, apparently, because in my half-asleep state I can feel him using Lacey’s kohl pencil to draw a meticulously detailed dick and balls down the right side of my face.

  2

  When I come to in the morning I’m in my own bed, looking over at Len’s addition to the décor of my room. Collaged newspaper letters shellacked and stuck to the far wall that spell out:

  (Don’t tell me what to do.)

  My room is my favourite part of the house. It’s in the attic and is painted a dark blue colour Dad mixed when I was nine. The window takes up one wall, and makes a postcard picture of Brisbane if you stare at it and squint.

  The wall directly next to my bed houses all my books. The Old Man and the Sea from my Hemingway phase, weird crime thrillers, obscure artist biographies from Dad, Gran’s old Selected Poems of Keats, well-loved books from childhood with their worn rainbow spines, Emilia’s Twilight I keep forgetting to give back: a tomb of past Henrys, stacked together in no real organised order. I kind of read everything.

  I sit up slowly because my head feels like it’s inside a nutcracker. Someone’s been in under the cover of darkness and replaced all my blood with sand. My stomach roils and I run to the bathroom, but nothing comes up.

  Everything in there must have deposited onto … Willa. Shame trickles down my back. Shame and sweat – that would be the name of my eau de toilette.

  I stumble back to bed and throw a hand over my face. Sunlight streams through the window, baking my face insistently. Brisbane’s great and everything, but sometimes I wouldn’t mind just a couple of mornings without chipper lemony warmth shining in and judging me. A bleak sky would be more fitting today.

  I check my phone. Two texts from Emilia asking what happened last night. Then a photo of me passed out in my driveway from Len, and another from Lacey of them rolling me to the door. There’s definitely balls on my face. She’s captioned it best going away present x

  I groan and cover my face.

  There’s a knock on my door and I groan again.

  ‘My son, the drunkard,’ my mum sings, as she swings the door open.

  I part my fingers sheepishly. ‘Am I grounded?’

  Mum snorts. ‘Today will be punishment enough. Plus, I lived through the eighties. Grounding you for pretty much anything would be hypocritical. Though, I do think you need to work on your concept of moderation.’

  I wince.

  She sits on the edge of my bed. ‘I was worried for a minute that I’d have to take you into work to pump your stomach, but Len said you’d already taken care of that.’

  Mum’s an obstetrician at the local hospital. I screw up my face at the thought of her having to explain that one to her boss.

  She laughs and pats me on the leg. ‘Hungry? Dad made pancakes.’

  I consider the state of my stomach: tolerable – mostly sick in an empty way. It’s my head that’s killing me; it feels like it might fall off.

  ‘Yeah. Just need some aspirin first.’

  Mum stands up. ‘I’ll get it.’ She pauses in the doorway and looks back at me.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m just making sure I remember how you look right now, so I can think of it next time you try to claim the moral high ground with me.’

  I throw my pillow after her.

  Once I’m dressed and aspirined, I make my way downstairs, squinting against the daylight like a vampire. Dad’s standing at the stove completely covered in green paint; he cracks up as soon as he sees me. Big, loud guffaws.

  He keeps doing it as he dishes up two pancakes with butter and maple syrup. Ham is sitting on a stool at the island and joins in laughing, confused but committed. I ignore them and start regally assembling a bite with optimum pancake/syrup ratio. It slides down my throat with sickening slowness. Ergh. I stop for a second, hand over my mouth.

  Dad claps me on the back. ‘Welcome to adulthood, kiddo.’

  ‘So, it starts, not with a bang or a whimper, but with projectile vomit?’

  ‘Pretty much, yeah.’

  I meet Emilia at the café down my street just after eleven for emergency affogato. Len’s already inside in his work uniform: white T-shirt and black pants rolled up over his Oxfords and yellow geometric-y printed socks. He managed to persuade the café to put him on as a casual after doing work experience with them in year ten. Another example of the Len Effect.

  ‘You look almost as much of a disgrace as I do,’ Ems says by way of greeting. She gestures to her outfit: leggings and a faded Killers T-shirt with her hair pushed back by her glasses.

  Emilia looks like a young Kate Middleton, all heart-shaped nose, big blue eyes and billows of dark hair, but soft round the edges. The fact that she’s beautiful is something I’ve always thought of as just a part of her. It’s never changed things between us – I mean, I love her madly, but not that way. She’d kill me if it were that way.

  She sits down and steals my newspaper. A waitress Len dated briefly before breaking up with her in record time (even for him) reluctantly takes our order. I get Len’s specialty, dubbed The Lethal Weapon (three espresso shots poured over a vanilla pod and a bed of ice cream). Ems gets a chai latte, whi
ch I immediately mock.

  She holds up a hand. ‘You don’t get to make fun of my beverage today, my friend. Not with your own life choices in such turmoil.’

  My eyes still feel like someone’s rubbed the backs of them with a toupee. ‘It was hardly a life choice.’

  ‘I beg to differ. You chose, and you chose wrong. And you, a pillar of the school community.’ Her face is mock-stern.

  ‘Har har.’

  She imitates our old Head of Primary. ‘You think doing the alcohol is cool, do you?’

  ‘No, Miss.’ I put my hand on my heart.

  ‘I knew a boy once, about your age, good prospects – he did the alcohol. Thought it would be fun, he said. Just a little sippy time with some mates, he said. Well, would you believe it, once turned into twice, then thrice – thrice! Before he knew it, he was addicted.’

  ‘To the alcohol.’ I try to keep a straight face.

  It’s rare we just act stupid like this anymore, but it used to be our thing.

  ‘The next time I saw him,’ Ems intones, ‘I’m sorry to say that he was even engaging in sins of the flesh.’

  ‘Surely not, Miss!’ I pipe up. ‘That’s us boys’ worst nightmare.’

  We’re still laughing when Len comes out with our drinks.

  ‘What are you doing hanging around with this mess?’ he asks Ems.

  She waves a hand dismissively. ‘Oh, you know – charity work. Gotta give back, and all that.’

  I glower at them both over my soupy coffee.

  ‘What even happened?’ Emilia asks curiously. ‘Henry won’t tell me.’

  ‘Because it’s a boring story,’ I insist.

  Len leans against an empty table behind him. He tilts his chin at me, amused. ‘You look deservedly rough.’

  I rub my bloodshot right eye. The world is too bright. ‘Don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I turned my back on him for five minutes,’ he starts, looking at Ems.

  ‘It was longer than that!’

  ‘Five minutes,’ he continues, ‘and this prize fool you see before you managed to drink all of Sam Heathcote’s sister’s drinks, and be stupid enough to do shots with Ged.’

  Emilia giggles, but pats me on the arm sympathetically. ‘Oh, Hen.’