by Cath Crowley
‘I’d also like to share that I’m a fan of Tiffany.’ I put a finger to the silver bean on a silver chain that I wear every day. ‘And, coinkydinky, this spoon is by Tiffany, too. So even though my great-grandmother and I never met, I’m pretty sure we would’ve got on. At home, we use this spoon for jam. The end.’
When Malik tells us that sharing significant things will help us to get to know each other, he leaves out the part about it making us more vulnerable, and the part about people, e.g., me, not usually exposing themselves that way.
I realise that I’ve never told Rupert any family stuff, past or present, which makes my brain buzz back around the should-I-end-things-with-Rupert-or-will-things-get-better question. It doesn’t seem fair to stay in what is feeling like a one-way relationship. But I obviously don’t want to break up before the formal. Why can’t I get properly into Rupert? It’s annoying when the perfect boy turns out to be all wrong. Why is life so unsimple? Maybe if we had more in common . . . He’s super sporty, which I find super dull. I’m sure someone out there wants to hear all about the records he breaks when he runs, and the goals he kicks when he footballs, but not me.
While I wonder about the kindest way to dump Rupert when the time comes, mind-directing various heart-wrenching scenarios – he’s a mess, I’m dry-eyed but gentle; I’m crying, and he’s comforting me etc. – girl after girl after girl coughs up an acceptable fur ball. Swim-girl Clem shows off a medal. Iris Banks, another boarder, holds up a photo of herself with a girl, both aged about eight, dressed as Thing One and Thing Two. Turns out the other girl is Clem. I keep forgetting those two are twins. They could not look more different from each other if they tried. I’ve never seen them speak or even acknowledge each other’s existence until now. Clem is giving Iris the evil eye; I guess Iris didn’t clear her show-and-tell object with her twinnie.
*
As we leave Wellness class, Ms Zahir, who is our head of IT, comes to confer with Kate Turner about an IT thing. I realise I’ve seen the apparently vague musician being consulted by teachers about stuff like this before. She obviously has computer superpowers, as well as her music thing. I’m curious and interested, as instructed by Malik.
Kate looks at Zahir’s laptop screen and starts tapping the keys with quiet concentration, appearing to simultaneously diagnose and remedy whatever the problem is, earning a relieved thank you from Zahir and some puppy-love fangirling from Iris Banks.
Oh, Malik, I am, from now on, going to be totally all over this understanding people at a deeper level shit.
Text to Tash: I will respect your confidences about what you think you might want to wear to the formal if you feel like sharing after school today?
Text from Tash to me: I will trust you with that confidence and respect your confidences re formal dress thoughts too. We. Need. To. Shop.
Text to Tash: We can probs be our best selves with hot chocolates at Figgy’s
Text from Tash to me: Deal for real
Monday 18 July
Our show-and-tell Wellness class is not very telling. No one wants to reveal themselves – can’t Malik see that?
Jinx forgot about the assignment but she’s been wearing her Marlins bomber since she got it so just raves about that, then has a rant about disposable fashion and how all the shitty fibres of cheap clothes are polluting the ocean via washing machines . . .
If I was going to show something that was meaningful to me right now, I’d show the seedpods, or my phone. (No phones! Wellness is a tech-free zone.) But in the end I brought in my medal from Nationals. I sit with it squat in my hand. I could just as easily pitch it out the open window. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t feel like anything.
Kate has her laptop with her. For a minute I think she’s going to play some of that crazy music, but she just talks about her necklace, trailing her pinkie along it.
Iris stands up. She’s brought in a photo of the two of us from Year 3, dressed up as Thing One and Thing Two for Book Week. I can’t believe she’s being so open. I don’t want people to know about us – any of it. The photo travels from hand to hand to the soundtrack of snickers and Iris stammering about how when we were little, even though we are fraternal, she somehow managed to convince herself that we were identical. I hear myself say, ‘That photo’s a fake! I’m serious. That never happened. Photoshop much?’
And people laugh, but it’s weird laughter, like when everyone knows something’s wrong, but no one wants to say it. I slump in my beanbag. I imagine myself sinking until the material closes over my head. Maybe I can just stay here forever.
I feel fraught today. I feel guilty about the email from Beaz. Why don’t I just go to training? But, but – my hair is the longest it’s ever been, and I smell like a normal girl, not chlorinated. My skin feels soft. My diet has gone to hell. I can’t seem to stop eating.
Later I’m in my room and I hear footsteps, and see a shadow at the door. Jinx looks at me and I look at her, but we don’t get up. Whoever it is slides something under the crack. It’s the photo of me and Iris – she’s coloured my face in with white-out. I chuck it over to Jinx and she shakes her head and starts to pick the white-out off.
‘What the hell happened to you two anyway?’
‘Nothing.’ I sigh. It’s too much to go into and too hard to explain. because there’s not one big reason but a thousand little ones. ‘We’re just . . . different.’
‘You’re crazy,’ Jinx says. ‘I miss my family more than anything.’ She goes all pensive, puts her headphones on, and I know she’s listening to music from home. I turn away from her and fix on sleep. I don’t know why I feel how I feel or do what I do. Maybe it’s just a twin thing.
WEEK 3
FRIENDSHIP
Week 3: Friendship
Look outside your friendship group
Provocation
Without friends the world is but a wilderness.
Francis Bacon
Points for discussion/reflection
• Who are your friends?
• How arbitrary or serendipitous might the start of a new friendship be?
• Opposites attract, so to what extent is it necessary to have things in common with people to maintain a friendship?
• How mobile are friendship groups at school? Are people open to making new friends?
• What are some of the things that make friendships work?
• Can broken friendships be repaired?
• What is a toxic friendship? Can friendships be good or bad for our self-esteem?
• Is it okay for friendships to end? How do we manage that?
• How can we monitor our friendships and check that they are healthy?
Task 1
Organise a social outing with your thumb compatible comrades from Week One.
Make a note of a couple of things you find out about them.
Task 2
Make a diary note to organise a second social outing with this same group in a month.
Thursday 28 July
At the pool this morning before orchestra, I call Ben. We’re on speakerphone, our voices echoing around my secret well, and I’m listing for him all the pros of going to Orion tomorrow night. The only con is getting caught.
‘The signs all week have been telling me to take a chance.’
‘You believe in computer code, not signs.’
‘I’m changing in ways I cannot explain or entirely understand,’ I say, peeling back the wrapper on my breakfast bar and licking at the honey that’s trapped on it.
‘Tell me the signs then,’ he says, and I go through them.
‘There are five so far. One: in Wellness class this week, everyone seemed to be showing something that meant nothing. No one was giving anything real away. It felt pointless.
‘Sign two: I was working in the computer room at lunch on Tuesday, running some tests for Ms Zahir, when she said I was wasted in science and I should really work in IT. It’s a small sign, but I’m listing all of them.
‘Three: I’ve dreamed about the portal four nights this week. In all but one I’ve escaped and returned undetected.
‘Four: I finally finished a piece yesterday. Wait. I’ll play it for you.’
I balance the cello between my knees, rest the body against my chest, the neck and scroll against the left side of my head. I go through the routine I learnt long ago, conscious of technique. I relax my wrist, drop my fingers into place, and with my foot, hit the pedal that’s connected to the computer to start the backing track.
It’s not an original composition. Last night I recorded myself playing Sonata No. 3 in G Minor for Cello and Harpsichord, the one I performed before the start of orchestra last week.
I looped the recording of myself, over and over, and then mixed in the sounds I captured from the storm. I wove through a recording that I found online – a soft, soft, heartbeat. When I’d finished, there was something missing so I added in Oliver’s question reply – What are you doing? You’re recording the storm.
I don’t close my eyes this time. I play looking at the smooth blue walls, imagining I can see the sound bouncing back at me. I think about my old teacher telling me that she felt like the interpreter for her cello, that it had a voice and she was the one who could set it free. My cello’s voice today is thick and rich. The word ‘cavern’ floats through my mind and drifts out again.
When I stop, the air feels static with song, and I have this thought that years from now I will have left the ghosts of music in the pool. I am becoming a different Kate, and I love it.
‘I’m speechless,’ Ben says. ‘Or I was. I was speechless. That never happens to me.’
‘Is that a good thing, or are you speechless because it’s bad?’
‘It’s good,’ he says.
‘Hey, did you join the chess club?’ I ask.
‘I did, in fact, and it went as expected. I humiliated myself as I can’t play chess.’
‘Did you meet anyone?’
‘Also as expected. I met a lot of people who can play chess. I have decided to put myself into suspended animation until you come home for the long weekend.’
‘I don’t think that’s a great solution.’
‘No, but since your solution was the chess club, and you’ve decided you believe in signs, I’m no longer listening to you.’
‘These are all fair points.’
‘What’s the fifth sign?’ he asks.
‘Oliver,’ I say. ‘Whenever I think about not going to Orion I think about how repressed he is. Every practice last week he tried to teach me something, or he told me I really should take some more classical lessons, or he asked me not to drink my coffee near his cello, and did I know that caffeine is bad for cellos? Every time he says something like that I ask myself: Do I really want to be as anally retentive as Oliver? Do I really want to be as repressed?’ I’m thinking too much about Oliver, which annoys and interests me. But I can tell Ben anything. He doesn’t assume or tease.
I hear a cough and turn around.
‘Hello,’ Oliver says.
‘Is that Oliver?’ Ben asks.
‘It’s Oliver,’ Oliver says.
‘Don’t hang up,’ Ben says, before I hang up.
He’s standing on the side of the pool, staring curiously into the deep end where I’m sitting with my cello and my computer, at the pickup mic, and the cords.
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Long enough,’ he says, leaving me wondering what the end of that sentence is. Long enough to hear I think he’s anally retentive? Long enough to know that I’m thinking about him? Long enough to hear me play?
‘I like the acoustics,’ I say, in answer to his unspoken question of why I’m playing in an empty pool. The other day I was on the side of it, so he hasn’t seen me in here before.
‘The leaves don’t deaden the sound?’
‘A bit. I like it.’
He nods and points at the computer. ‘It’s you on the track?’
‘Why are you here?’ I ask.
‘You’re late again. I’ve been waiting. We’re all waiting.’
He turns abruptly and walks towards orchestra. There’s something in the straightness of his back that gives me the solution. I don’t need to look for signs. I might not be repressed like Oliver but I am as determined. Ben’s right. I’m not a signs person. I assess the problem and find the solution. When someone brings me their computer and they’re crying because it’s midnight and they’ve lost their assignment that’s due the next day, I stay calm and go through the problem logically.
I don’t need to take a risk to go to Orion. Risks are not really my thing. I need to find someone who will lie for me so that I can get a pass. I go through all the people I’ve helped with computer problems in the last few weeks, but there have only been boarders, really.
Wellness.
When the thought comes, it’s obvious.
It’s not without danger. Ady Rosenthal is intimidating, to put it mildly. But there’s something about her . . . I think back to class, see her lounging, listening, dreaming at times. I think about her at the Botanic Gardens, telling me to go: The light is green, Kate.
The light is green. The sixth sign, if I want to believe in signs.
I can tell Old Joy that I’m going to Ady’s house after our Wellness catch up. I just need Ady to tell a small lie for me. And Orion is go.
PSST
ONE-PARTY WHORES, DESPERATE DATES,FUCK-BUDDY BY MIDNIGHT . . .
Because we’re here for a good time not a ‘relationship’
1. Hallie Saxby
2. Rachel Dunlop
3. Cat Bongiorno
4. Jess Bishop
5. Olivia Currie
6. Samira Prentice
7. Jodi Bennett
8. Grace Reddy
9. Sophie Christou
10. Tamsin Llewellyn
Ericsonic: Good list here, I can confirm 3, 7 and 8 from personal experience, easy hook ups, no follow up calls required
Catbong: lmao Ericsonic, that was not sex, that was you falling asleep next to me on a sofa drooling. Must have been a great dream.
sufferingsuffragette: More heinous idiocy. It’s possible that none of these girls wants to encounter you more than once. Did that occur to you?
Ericsonic: dumb slut
Feminightmare: I think you really do mean relationship, not ‘relationship’. Dipshit.
Bizjiz: I might work my way through this lot, thanx for deets – anyone got addresses for these sluts?
j0yful0ne2: if anyone publishes addresses here I will report this site to the police
PSST ADMIN: Please forward contact info via DM only
b@rnieboy: yr not 2 happy j0yful0ne2 – did you get left off the list? Or are you on it?
j0yful0ne2: I object to the list regardless of who’s on it
PSST ADMIN: Objection noted, now fuck off
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Friday 29 July
Jinx,
I’m doing that first date for Wellness tonight with Ady & Clem. Not sure how late it will go. If I’m not back by curfew can you cover for me? I’ll use the portal.
Love ya,
Clem
I take the tram to Richmond, dressed as sexily as I can manage: tight jeans, low-cut top, lashings of make-up. I bought a copy of Fuss for their smoky-eyes tutorial, and now I’m reading an article called How to Hook Up: ‘OMG mind-blowing oral sex’.
Suggestion: guys love it when a woman uses her mouth and hands on their package at the same time.
I try to imagine doing this stuff with Stu. Just reading about it makes me feel so embarrassed.
Suggestion: don’t ignore his balls.
I giggle and look up. There’s a guy in a suit staring at me. I purse my lips and stare straight back until he gets uncomfortable.
Suggestion: be enthusiastic! Never treat a blow job like it’s a job.
When I arrive at the cafe Ady and Kate are already there, sittin
g out the front having what looks like a pretty tepid conversation. I don’t apologise for being late. I just angle my chair so I have a better view of Rockland Studios. It’s four-thirty-two. Kate and Ady are both staring at me, and I take this as further proof that I look good.
I edge my chair a little further away from them.
‘So, how are we supposed to do this? Should we play twenty questions?’
‘We only need to know two things,’ Kate points out.
I stare at the studio door as if I can make it open through mental force and see Stu inside. I only know what the inside of a studio looks like because of TV. I’m picturing a gnarly-looking dude behind a panel of buttons, and Stu saying, ‘More foldback. More bass.’
The waiter is waiting. I order a latte. Kate asks for tea and Ady surprises me by ordering cake. I don’t imagine girls like her get to be girls like her by eating cake. Maybe she pukes it after. I pretend to take a note for Malik. Kate drinks tea and Adelaide likes cake.
I could talk about swimming, the Canberra trip, Beaz’s hopes and dreams for next season, but it feels false. Ady’s cake comes with whipped cream – she does not approve, actually sends it back. Kate sips her tea; she looks as if she’s on the verge of saying something interesting, but the words don’t happen. So I see if I can coax some.
‘I heard you play the other morning. At the old pool. You’re really good. I mean, I’ve never heard music like that before.’
‘Thanks.’ Kate sits up, her eyes bright. ‘It’s something new I’ve been –’
‘Wait –’ The studio door has opened. Stu is walking out. He’s wearing jeans and a khaki jacket. He’s with an older guy who has so much hair he looks more wolf than man.