by Cath Crowley
‘Let’s do this again,’ says Max, turning to head back inside.
I imagine her saying that after doing lots more things together. Let’s do this again.
Like the responsible stylist I am, I have a travel pack of face wipes. Three wipes later, by the time the tram arrives at the stop outside school, Kate is shiny-faced, flowers out, bun down, velvet coat-dress swapped for her black puffy jacket, and looking just about as innocent as usual.
What I won’t be telling Malik about the Look outside your friendship group experience: it wasn’t what I expected.
Kate is interesting and I like her. All that apparent vagueness – she has a whole secret universe in her head. She’s so into this cool-weird music scene, and seems to know heaps about it. If she doesn’t get out much, how does she know it all? She must live online. She maybe likes or maybe dislikes the Sherlock boy; there’s some friction there that could go either way. She is brave. She penetrated the rich bitch facade. She bought me a drink and a taco. She saw nasty stuff on the domestic front, and it didn’t faze her. She introduced me to the first someone in ages I’ve felt has obsession potential.
Clem is interesting and I don’t exactly like her, but I can see she’s more than just a swim-girl. She’s so into jacket guy. I want to know what it feels like to need someone that much. She seems shameless, or maybe it’s fearless. She literally chased him. I’ve always been chased. Maybe if you win that many races you think everything is there for the taking. Or maybe she just wants time as a regular girl as well as a jock. People shouldn’t have to choose between modes.
The Clem and Kate assignment definitely wasn’t what I was expecting on any count.
More unexpected things when I get home. Tiptoeing past my parents’ closed bedroom door, I hear my father crying against the background of my mother’s urgent murmuring. I try to feel optimistic – at least he’s back in their bedroom, not sleeping downstairs – but the sound of him crying is something I’ve never heard before and it is unimaginably terrible.
Friday 29 July
Ady cruises through the door without being asked for ID and I cruise through in her wake. I feel like I’m walking into a new life. I catch sight of myself in the mirror – the same me but different. Me with voltage.
Ady stares a path through the crowd for us, forcing space with her eyes. I try to forget the voices of her parents, her mum yelling at her dad, the sound filtering up as Ady stuck flowers in my hair.
‘Drink?’ she asks, and I give her my wallet. It’s the least I can do. I still can’t believe she lied for me. Ady Rosenthal – Queen Bitch, according to school folklore – let me into her home, lent me her clothes, came with me to a club.
The place is exactly how I imagined. Spinning lights and sound. The stage has as many laptops on it as instruments, and I’m so focused on working out how they’re making the sound that I don’t notice Max until she’s standing in front of me, waving and yelling, ‘Hey. Space girl. I want you to meet someone.’
She takes me by the hand, and pulls me through the crowd. I worry briefly about Ady, but then I remember she can take care of herself. I let Max lead me. She turns and grins every so often, and then turns forward again, her eyes searching through the crowd. I’m imagining who I might meet – a musician like me, a guy, a good-looking guy maybe – and then we stop moving and Max says, ‘Here he is. Oliver, meet Kate; Kate, meet Oliver. Best cellist I know.’
He’s standing in front me, out of school uniform for the first time, wearing a Radiohead t-shirt and black jeans. He hasn’t shaved, and in the light blinking over us from the stage, I see that Oliver has a faint jaw shadow. He’s leaning on Max’s shoulder, looking like this is his local.
‘Oliver? Oliver is playing at the open mic?’
‘You two know each other?’ Max asks.
‘Not that well,’ I say at the same time that Oliver says, ‘Pretty well.’
‘It took me a year to warm to him,’ Max admits to me.
Ady pushes her way through the crowd and hands me a drink. ‘There’s a bit of voddy in there,’ she says, and looks surprised when I drink it. Quick. I’m tempted to take hers and down it too.
‘Why does she keep saying your name?’ Max asks Oliver, and Oliver, who’s clearly enjoying my confusion, smiles and says, ‘I really couldn’t tell you.’
Ady nudges me, and looks over at Max. I make the introductions and the two of them start talking immediately, moving off to the side a little, which leaves Oliver and me. ‘Are you going to say my name again?’ he asks. ‘I like it when you say my name.’
‘Anally retentive, fuckwit Oliver.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Happy to please,’ I say.
The crowd pushes us apart, and then we come back together again. ‘You said you never come here. You said the sticker wasn’t yours. You lied to me.’
‘I chose not to reveal a part of my life. And in my defence, you had just told me to shut up immediately before you asked the question. You’re always making me out to be conservative or boring and I’m not interested in convincing you of my worth. I’m here because it’s a place to play, not because it impresses Kate Turner.’
It’s not like I don’t know I’ve been uncharacteristically mean to Oliver. ‘You’re always lecturing. It drives me insane.’
‘You’re just as obsessed with music as me,’ he says. ‘Maybe more.’
‘But I don’t lecture you about it.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘You do.’
He frowns at his drink. ‘You look different,’ he says after a while.
I feel self-conscious all of a sudden. As if Ady’s put a costume on me and only Oliver can see that.
‘So how do you know Max?’ he asks.
‘I met her at the record store downstairs. I was cutting class.’
‘Rebel Kate,’ he says, and, in a short space of time, I feel like the universe has flipped and it’s Oliver who’s the alternative one and I haven’t been looking at him with the right eyes.
How do you know Max?’ I ask.
‘Met in primary school. We were at St Martins together, it’s a youth drama centre.’
‘I know what it is.’ I don’t, actually. ‘I’m acting weird,’ I say.
‘Maybe it’s the lipstick,’ he says.
The band stops and the MC calls for The Sherlocks. ‘That’s me,’ Oliver says, and moves onstage to take his positon. It’s been a long time since I’ve been hit with as much surprise as I feel right now. One of Ben’s quotes floats through my head – ‘the precision of naming takes away the uniqueness of seeing’. Oliver has been Oliver so long it’s hard to see him as anything else.
The singer, a girl with long red hair and a bright green dress, turns and smiles at him. He smiles back and I’m hit with envy that’s not all about that fact that he’s on stage and I’m not. Oliver is very serious up there, and the serious is seriously attractive. On stage with him is a keyboardist and a drummer/percussionist, a violin player and a girl on bass guitar.
The singer counts them in with a soft, low voice, that’s a little Bjork, a little Cowboy Junkies. Oliver’s good. He’s concentrating the way he does in orchestra, one eye slightly closed, total focus. But somehow, sitting behind a rock band, his cello plugged into a microphone, playing sounds that ache, he’s mesmerising.
They’re playing ‘Jane Says’, sampling WTF and Know-how, and every so often, a thread of what I’m pretty sure is Chopin runs through. Oliver’s working the tech on stage, his foot on a pedal attached to the laptop. He’s using a laptop? Every now and then he extracts himself from the cello and plays a line of trumpet.
He looks up after the set’s finished, the concentration clearing from his face, and waves at me. Smart arse. After three more songs he climbs back down from the stage.
‘So, what’d you think?’ he asks.
‘It was okay,’ I tell him.
‘Such high praise from someone like you means a lot.’
‘It was go
od. I’m surprised.’
‘Again with the praise.’
‘You just don’t seem . . .’
‘Interesting?’
‘Like you’d play in a band.’
‘You met me in a band.’
‘A band like that.’
He’s about to say something else when a girl walks past him and his eyes follows her onto the stage. ‘Watch this,’ he says.
She’s our age, maybe a year older, and she sits up there with such confidence. She has her computer, like Frances Carter. She bows this harshness from her cello, playing it like a guitar. Her voice is sweet, though, and the mix is astounding. I don’t move. I don’t breathe.
He stays there next to me, not saying anything, and I wish he’d go. Because hovering between us is how I sound in the pool and how this player sounds and how I am nowhere near her standard. I am desperate to play like her.
I stay here, transfixed, until her set ends, and then I go to find Ady.
She’s at the bar with Max doing tequila shots. I join them for a while, and then we go outside and try to soak up the alcohol with a taco. Oliver walks over. He kisses Max on the cheek, nods at Ady, and holds his hand out to me in a strangely formal way. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ he says.
‘You didn’t,’ I say, my cheeks cold but my face weirdly hot.
‘He’s not as arrogant as he seems,’ Max says. ‘He’s awkward.’
I try not to think about him on the way home. The lights go past. I open the tram window and cup my hand at the air, trying to catch it for later, so it’s what I take home from the night, not how Oliver made me feel.
Ady takes out some face wipes and before I get off the tram, she removes my make-up and takes out the flowers from my hair.
I feel like I’ve been pushed from a dream.
Iris is awake when I get to our room. She’s sitting up in bed, glasses on, reading. I open our window. ‘I’m cold,’ she says, and I close it a little as a compromise.
‘So?’ she asks.
I hadn’t gone into detail with Iris about my plan. I lied, actually. I knew she wouldn’t like it that I was planning on using my Wellness outing with Ady and Clem to escape – she hates Clem, and she’s not fond of Ady – so I told her Mum and Dad had given me the pass.
But now I’m too tired to lie. I sit on my bed and come clean with her.
‘You asked Ady?’ she says.
‘She’s actually okay.’ More than okay. ‘I like her. You would, too, if you got to know her.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Iris says, and pauses as if she’s thinking about whether or not to tell me something, then decides to go ahead. ‘Gregory’s worried about you falling behind. He asked me to give you some extra help.’
I think about Iris and Gregory talking about me in the tutoring sessions I’ve been skipping and turn over to face the wall, acting like I’m asleep. ‘I’m not falling behind in Maths or Science.’
‘You don’t concentrate in class.’
‘I’m getting good marks.’
‘You don’t get perfect marks anymore.’
‘I don’t need perfect marks.’
You do if you want the scholarship, I can hear her thinking, but she doesn’t say.
I lie awake, thinking about the club, about The Sherlocks, about Oliver, about that girl on stage, applauded by the audience but lost in her music, lost somewhere inside herself.
Before I moved to the city, the scholarship meant everything to me because it was the way to the future. I didn’t want to be a doctor. I wanted to be in the city. The only reason I want that scholarship is that it stops me having to go home. How much does staying in the city mean to me? Everything.
Sunday 31 July
I suppose the selfies really started in earnest after the gardens. Just the usual stuff, making faces, posing like stone cold killers – I’ve got quite the collection: the many moods of Stu. But the photos he sends this morning feel like a game changer.
In the first one Stu is staring into the camera, lips pursed. Ten seconds later he sends one with his shirt off – just his chest, but I feel dodgy looking at it, because nudes! His skin looks pale and smooth and not carpet-man hairy, but hairy enough to remind me that he’s a man and not a boy. Then my phone pings again and I am almost too scared to look. This one is just of his lower half – he’s wearing red jocks, like a shot for an underwear company. But he’s stuffed something down the front of them so it looks like he has a mammoth package. I’m lying on my bed giggling while Jinx is packing her stuff for the pool. I hold the phone out for her to see, but she ignores it.
‘What’s up with you, Clem? Are you ever going to train again? Come today. It’s Sunday. It’ll just be us.’
I shrug.
‘Are you sending him photos as well?’
‘Yeah, of course!’
Jinx looks conflicted.
‘Come on,’ she tries again. ‘I can show you the stuff for the routine.’
‘What routine?’
‘The Marlins! Winter Fair! Don’t you care?’
‘Yeah . . . just . . .’ I enlarge the photo, trying to work out what Stu’s stuffed down his pants. Explorer socks, maybe?
Jinx snaps her towel at me. My phone lands on the carpet with a soft thud.
‘You better not have broken it.’
‘I’m sure your precious phone is fine.’
‘Can you please leave? I have some pictures to take.’
Jinx stares at me for long seconds. ‘You know, you’re getting to be really boring.’ She picks up her bags and leaves.
I text Stu: Thanks for the happy snap.
Who is this?
Very funny.
Hey. What are you doing later?
Not much.
You know the laundromat near the corner of Glenferrie and Malvern Rds?
No. But I can find it.
Meet me for breakfast.
I don’t have a pass but I know Iris has chess at ten. She used to ask me to come with her. I’d laugh: Me? Chess? No! Now I poke my head around her door. ‘Where’s chess today?’
‘Sacred Heart.’
Perfect! Sacred Heart is a tram-ride away from Stu.
‘Why?’ Iris wants to know.
‘No reason.’
I run downstairs and check in with Old Joy to see if it’s okay if I go along as a cheerleader. And then I spend the next fifteen minutes selecting then rejecting items from my wardrobe. It’s like all I have is tracksuits or school uniforms. I end up wearing what I wore on Friday. The top’s a bit whiffy but it will have to do. I lay off the make-up this time, remembering Ady’s comment.
When Iris sees me down in the foyer she looks wary.
I rip out a cheer move. ‘Gooooo, St Hilda’s!’
Iris isn’t buying. ‘Since when do you want to be my chess cheerleader?’
‘Since today.’
‘What are you wearing?’
I look down at my chesty top. ‘Clothes.’
‘You might want to cover up.’
‘Don’t slut-shame me.’
‘You sound like Jinx,’ Iris says.
‘You should take a leaf out of my book: distract the opposition.’
Iris makes a face.
Me, Iris, three surplus chess nerds and their tutor, Mr Miles, go in the mini-van to Sacred Heart’s leafy campus. Inside the Barrington building, the chessers are playing in earnest, hitting clocks and smiling smugly at each other, creasing their brows and angsting their pants. Theo’s standing on the other side of the hall. Iris waves to him and he nods back, but he doesn’t make any effort to come over.
‘Theo’s keeping a low profile,’ I say.
Iris bites her lip. She shows me where to sit, but as soon as she moves off, I light out of there. Mr Miles will be too focused on the team to note my absence. As long as I’m back by one there won’t be a problem.
The laundromat is empty, except for Stu. He’s sitting at the table in front of a brown paper bag and the local newsp
aper. He has two laundry sacks behind him, emptied, and I see two of the larger machines are mid-cycle.
He stands up. ‘Welcome to my office. You look fetching.’
He takes my hand and kisses me, then dips me, making me shriek and almost fall. He waltzes me over to the machines and we continue to kiss and it’s getting quite heated. From the corner of my eye I can see ordinary people walking past, going about their day; surely someone will come in here soon.
Someone does. Stu and I go sit at the table. I look in the paper bag.
‘What’s for breakfast?’
‘Egg-and-bacon toasties.’
We eat, smiling at each other, playing footsies.
‘You come here often?’ I ask.
‘Blue House washing. Sorting the sheets from the tea towels and whatnot.’
‘Sexy.’
‘You are.’ Stu grins.
I can feel myself going red. Am I?
‘So,’ he says, ‘I’ve been trying to work out where we can go. You know, to –’ He whistles and winks.
‘What about the Blue House – when you stay overnight?’
‘You don’t want to go there.’
I look at him. It’s on the tip of my lips: I’d go anywhere.
The machine stops with a clang, and Stu wipes his hands, gets up and starts transferring the wet sheets and tea towels and whatnot into the dryer. I’m buzzing from the idea that he’s thinking about a place, and then I remember.
‘We have a long weekend coming up. Most of the boarders go home. But my parents are in Singapore. I was going to stay with Jinx’s aunt . . .’
‘Mmm-hmm?’
‘I could just say I’m staying at Jinx’s aunt’s – if we had somewhere to go . . .’ My face is flaming, combustible, and the sound of the tumble dryer is primal, matching my pulse. Oh! Hot, damp, thumping world!
‘So, great,’ Stu claps his hands together like a broker at a business meeting, ‘I’ll find somewhere.’
He grabs me and kisses me. ‘I’m going to make you feel so good, Clem.’