He rubs his collarbone, thumb on the side of his neck. ‘This is not a thing.’
‘Except it is, though.’
‘Don’t be so dramat—’
‘Yeah, that’s me,’ I cut him off savagely. ‘Dramatic as usual. Stupid, too, for thinking you’d actually let me in.’
He responds to my waking anger like clockwork, eyes bright and arms folding across his chest. ‘Right now? Yes. You are being stupid.’
I drop the sopping pile of ruined photos on the bench. ‘Right. Well maybe I should go be stupid elsewhere, and you can call one of the many other people you’ve been Not A Thing with to talk about Things That Aren’t A Thing.’
Len unravels that for a second. ‘What other people?’ he demands.
I throw up my hands. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Random chicks from debating. Guys from interschool sport. Willa freaking Stacy.’
We stand in stalemate, breathing heavily.
Then I’m abruptly, blisteringly self-conscious; I yank my sleeves down hard over my knuckles.
‘Don’t,’ Len says finally.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t go.’ He pushes hair back from his eyes. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No!’ he insists. ‘There’s nothing here you need to fix, okay? Just forget it.’
Len steps around me and swiftly sweeps the photos back into the bin. Then he pulls himself up onto the counter so we’re facing each other.
‘The Willa thing …’ His voice is low.
‘Don’t—’
‘I was with her.’
‘Very with her—’
‘Right. And now I’m here.’
My face burns.
‘Okay?’ he asks.
I stare at him for a long minute, then release all the air in me, hoping it’s true. ‘Okay.’
The next morning, I have to rush home to throw on my uniform. We fell asleep talking (and not talking).
I’m tired and also buzzing – with last night, and a heavy fear that’s equal parts what are we when we’re back at school? and how are we already back at school?
Thank God Mum and Dad think I’m responsible, I think as I shovel toast into my mouth and tie my shoes in our empty kitchen before driving back to his house.
Len jogs down the Scott’s Corner front steps pulling his pant legs down over blue-and-pink striped socks. He slides into the passenger seat, out of breath and with his tie undone.
I pick up the end of it, accidentally brushing his hip, then start to thread the knot at his throat, red silk slippery in my hands.
He grabs my fingers to still them, leans in and kisses me. Soft but with purpose. Fearless.
‘What was that for?’ I ask.
‘Cause.’
‘That’s cute,’ I say without thinking, then want to hide in my hands. Forever.
Len raises one eyebrow. ‘That might be the most offensive thing you’ve ever said to me.’
‘Whatever,’ I say, but feel slightly better.
I let Martin do most of the talking in assembly, and it drags. He gives a long spiel about last term, upcoming final assignments and how much he’s going to ‘miss these days’. I say a sentence or two before handing the mic straight back. I’m in no mood for performing; I’m doing enough of that already, pretending not to be searching the seats for Len.
Classes roll by in tepid drips, the teachers still just as half-asleep from holidays as we are. The grades I get back are fine, but school is uncomfortably bright, a black-and-white film that’s been coloured over with a heavy brush. I watch the shapes move – it just doesn’t feel real.
‘Are you okay, Henry?’ Ms Hartnett asks in English. ‘You look far away.’
I look up. ‘Fine.’
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ she says in an exaggerated British accent.
I smile tightly. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Was that meant to be British, Miss?’ Vince cuts in with a filthy look on his face. ‘Because – no.’
Ms H laughs. ‘My apologies, Vincent. Acting school was a long time ago – my voices are pretty rusty.’
‘Acting school?’ I ask.
‘Yeah! Before my Dip Ed. It was fun, just not really for me.’
‘You mean you could have, like, been on Home and Away?’ Ged asks. ‘And instead you chose to come here and spend every day with us?’
Ms H shrugs. ‘I thought acting was what I wanted, when I was your age. But life has a way of pushing you towards the path you’re meant to walk. Whether you know it or not.’
Ged stares at her disbelievingly. ‘That’s fuc— shocking, Miss.’
She laughs again. ‘You’ll see, soon enough. I know everyone’s telling you to decide, saying that you have to know everything – but you don’t, really. That’s part of the fun.’ She winks at me.
At the end of the class we get our Gatsby monologues back. Vince and I get an A+, which he takes full credit for.
‘Hamlet wasn’t sure about the homoerotic stuff,’ he tells Ged. ‘But I insisted on it, for the sake of our art.’
The day isn’t real until we’re away from school, back in his bedroom with the door closed, bodies words thoughts tangled around each other. Until I whisper, ‘Len’ up into the warm air and he says, ‘Yeah?’ like we were already talking.
‘I was just thinking, today …’
‘What?’
‘I don’t understand how I can be all these Henrys at once.’
‘Mmm. I feel like maybe everyone feels that way, a bit.’
‘But which one’s true, though? This one? And what if I forget him – me, this me – without … this?’
‘You won’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because people aren’t like ideas.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They don’t change based on who’s looking at them. People just exist, as they are – it’s what makes them human. You couldn’t love an idea.’
‘Hamlet?’
‘… Yeah?’
‘Nothing.’
20
School takes over us again. Even though these grades won’t change much in terms of our final results I hear the word ‘maintain’ so much it makes my ears bleed. When I tell Mum I’m going over to Scott’s Corner to study, it’s usually the truth (usually).
English this term is a film study of 1984, and modern history is pre-1940s Germanic political structures, so I’m bogged down in reading. Len’s juggling his art project and trying to stay top of two sciences. Even Ged knuckles down, because he’s sitting on a C- in several subjects so this term is make or break.
Preparation for Gran’s wedding starts to mount too. It’s not until November, nor is there that much to actually do, but that doesn’t stop her and Mum from letting it consume our lives.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s exciting, and everything. But the two of them, to use a Gedism, ‘fight like dogs on the roof’ every time they have to make a decision.
The latest is the cake. Third week back at school is all about it. To fruit or not to fruit?
‘Bill, I’m telling you – fruitcake tastes like frozen sick. Everyone loves brownies.’
‘But, Mum, it’s tradition! Goldie and I just thought some might be good. For older relatives, et cetera.’
‘It’s not your wedding!’
‘It is hers, though!’
‘Whose?’
‘Goldie’s? Your future wife?’
‘Hmph. Well, she knows what she’s getting into. I want brownies. Brownies, or nothing.’
And on it goes.
Len and I mostly stay out of the prep stuff. He’s quiet the next few weeks. Sarah-distant.
(It’s coming up to three years. Last year it
was worse – he went away, and I didn’t see him for ages.)
(I understand – that I can’t understand. But I try.)
I ask him to go through Gran’s Rilke with me, reciting words I don’t know out loud to test them for romance factor. Len follows it better than I do, never rushing or stumbling over phrases to try and force meaning.
He comes back briefly, for those afternoons. Laying with his head in my lap and the book held up, refusing to let me just settle on one of the first bits I find.
‘There.’ He points to a passage eventually.
‘Really?’ I lean down, wrinkling my nose. ‘Isn’t that a bit corny? Or – a lot corny.’
Len looks up at me brightly. ‘Yeah. Perfect for you. It is you.’
I knee him in the back of the head.
He’s gone again the next day, here-but-not-here in home room.
I follow him silently to the lockers. His shoulders are rigid with more than just blazer.
‘Hey,’ I say quietly.
Len slams his locker shut. ‘Hey.’
‘I’m – I’m here, okay?’
His eyes slip away, down the hallway. ‘I know.’
But when I text him – every afternoon, when we’re in the same room, right before bed – he doesn’t reply.
That Friday night, he picks me up at dusk with a weird look on his face.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask as he turns right at the end of my street instead of left.
He doesn’t answer, just drives towards the city with his eyes on the road, accelerating so fast down the big hill that my insides jolt.
It’s just before six and traffic’s banked up. He swings around angrily, taking a shortcut through the factory district until we hit the deserted showgrounds.
The red-brick old museum stretches up to a white sky; he pulls to a sudden stop across from it, jerking the handbrake up.
Len steps out of the car, slamming the door behind him and leaning against it.
I do the same, and try to read his face. ‘What’s up?’ I ask, worried now.
‘Nothing,’ he says, tapping his foot. ‘Can’t I just want to see you?’
‘Yeah. But … you seem preoccupied.’
Len inhales, and I look out at the city for a bit.
‘Lacey is up again for the weekend.’ He looks at me. ‘She wants to do a dinner tomorrow night, for … Mum. She wants you to come.’
‘Oh.’ I keep my mouth in its shape after I finish the word, head swimming. ‘Um. Should I?’
Len’s eyes flick down. ‘You don’t have to.’
‘No, it’s not … I just mean, will your dad want me there, if it’s like a family thing?’
Len shrugs, face closed off but blazing like the sunset on top of us.
‘Um. You don’t need to invite me just because Lacey did,’ I offer. ‘Like, if you don’t …’
‘Hamlet,’ he says. ‘I want you there. But it’s your choice.’
‘Right. So then I’ll come,’ I say, still feeling uneasy. There’s something vibrating in him.
‘Okay.’
We drive back to my place.
I get him alone in my room – to try and talk to him. But he’s very good at distracting me from the fact he won’t talk back.
When I get to Scott’s Corner on Saturday all the lights are on, spilling sickly white across the front lawn. Len opens the door with one hand and takes mine with the other, pulling me through the kitchen to the formal dining room.
John is front and centre in a white-blue shirt, plucking ornate glasses out of the liquor cabinet in the hall and setting them on a tray.
‘Henry,’ he greets me, gold cufflinks catching the chandelier light. ‘Wonderful.’
I can’t tell from his tone whether it is or not, but I accept the drink he pours me.
‘Grandma’s tumblers?’ Len questions.
John turns around exaggeratedly. ‘Problem?’
‘Mum never used those.’
‘Yes, she did,’ John says, his voice as close to impatient as it gets. ‘She used them all the time.’
‘No, she didn’t. She never used them. They’re the special ones.’
John turns his back again and pours more liquid into his glass, then faces us and does a long sip-and-ah routine. ‘It’s an occasion, isn’t it? Saintly Grandma Hazel’s hardly going to materialise to chastise us, is she?’
‘Dad,’ Lacey calls from the kitchen, ‘I need you to carve for me.’
John knocks back the rest of his drink and walks out.
I touch Len’s back, unsure of what else to do. He leans into it for a minute, before shaking me off and snapping the cap off one of the beers on the side table.
‘Are you sure I should be—’
He gives me a look, and I drop it.
‘Never mind.’
We sit down spaced apart. The lamb is underdone. We bravely hack into hunks of angry pink and slip mint sauce over the top. There’s a giant flickering candle nearby that smells thickly of blackberry and bay leaves and salt.
Things get a bit better while we’re eating, mostly because of Lacey. She talks a mile a minute about uni, friends, boys, politics. She occasionally throws the ball to me, and between us we get most of the silences filled.
‘What about you, Lenniekins?’ she teases over a glass of wine before dessert. ‘What’d you end up putting for preferences?’
Uh-oh. Danger zone.
ABORT MISSION, I try to tell her telepathically. TURN BACK. But it’s too late.
Len stretches his legs out, slipping down in his chair. Delaying.
‘Fine Arts,’ he says flatly after a minute. ‘Photography.’
‘Oh! That’s good,’ Lacey says, neatly hiding her surprise. ‘Isn’t it, Dad?’
John reaches for a toothpick, and chips away at the space between his front incisors before answering. ‘Is it?’
Lacey widens warning eyes at him. ‘Yes, because it’s what he wants. More people should take the time to figure out what they’re actually good at, I say. The world would be a much better place.’
Len’s expressionless, but his cheeks are flushed.
I put my open hand on his knee under the table. He takes it softly.
‘And I suppose practical considerations don’t factor, then?’ John asks smoothly, still addressing Lacey. ‘In this utopia of yours?’
Lacey exhales. ‘Meaning?’
John drums the tips of his fingers on the table. They’re long like Len’s, but ghostly pale.
‘Money,’ he says. ‘Security. Of course, those things can happen, if the artist is actually any good. But generally …’
‘Dad!’ Lacey admonishes.
‘I’m just saying,’ John continues, and sips his scotch. ‘If he wants to fart-arse around looking through a lens his whole life, that’s his prerogative. I just prefer the notion of actually contributing to society.’
There’s a spot of sauce stuck to the stubble on his chin. I stare at it and think about punching him in the face.
‘Sure.’ Len comes to life suddenly beside me, tilting his head. His eyes are bright fires. All or nothing. ‘Because ripping people off every day so you can drive a wanker car and feel like a man is so useful.’
‘Oh, that’s it,’ John says. ‘Tell us how you really feel.’
‘What’s it?’ Len demands. He sits up straighter and squares his shoulders, chair squeaking on the wooden floor.
I squeeze his hand, but he doesn’t squeeze back. Gran says grief makes people crazy, but this is something else. I’m watching everything that’s been buried between them get dug up and flung like knives around a twelve-piece oak dining set.
John tops up his drink. ‘Let’s see. Wrecking your mother’s family dinner.’ He lists it off on his fingers. ‘Making a scene. Making
everything about you – just like it always was. Because you’re a spoiled, selfish child.’
‘Dad!’ Lacey says again, her eyes filling with tears.
Len tips up his chin. ‘Don’t pretend you ever cared about family, John. Or anyone. You’ll just embarrass yourself.’
Lacey scrapes her chair back hard. ‘I’m going to get dessert, and then we are going to stop talking about this.’
I stare after her, trapped.
‘What did you just say to me?’ John hisses at Len when she’s gone, his eyes narrowing into slits.
Len downs his beer. I want to tell him to slow down, but he pulls his hand out of mine just as I notice it’s shaking.
‘Do you need me to repeat it?’ he throws at John. ‘Seeing as you never actually went to university.’
John is … very drunk. I realise when he tries to stand up and can’t. He’s just been holding it well.
He and Len glower at each other.
It’s a speeding conductor-less train I can’t stop.
‘And how would this little artist lifestyle play out for you without my money? Should I cut it off, and we can see?’ John asks.
Len hisses, unfazed, ‘I don’t need you.’
Everything slips into slow motion. One minute we’re all sitting opposite one another and the next John’s standing huge and straight. He staggers, knocking the drinks tray so hard across the table that it flies off, and hits the wall behind Len.
Glass shatters and sprays everywhere; the tumblers scream as they break apart. Their pieces splash, shrapnel-like, all over the floor. Scotch drips down the wall in the cruel quiet that follows.
Lacey comes back into the room, running and sheet-white.
John looks at her, briefly, then leaves.
Len stares down at the fractured shards of glass under his feet.
21
Lacey and I clean up the mess.
Her phone buzzes on and on, insistent.
After a while she checks it. ‘Hotel,’ she says. ‘He’s meant to be flying to Singapore tomorrow anyway. So …’ She’s still crying.
I don’t know what to say, so I scrub harder at the wall.
Once we’re done, I find Len in his room looking out the window.
I put a hand on his shoulder and he jumps.
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