by Cath Crowley
He doesn’t know who writes this shit.
Says it’s not fair that it’s always the girl who gets the slurs.
I agree.
And I’m left alone to deal with it.
So – I have to say something at school.
What though?
Eight forty-three. The usual homeroom buzz. I stand at the front of the room, staring down at the teacher’s chair upholstery fabric – turquoise tweed – trying to calm the thudding pulse in my ears. Silence drops like a blanket over the class. Unheard of. I’ve got maybe one minute before Yelland arrives. Winging it, totally. Breathe.
‘It’s all true. Like it up the arse? That, my friends, is the understatement of the century. Rupert and I actually broke up, for anyone who’s so out of the loop they haven’t heard, but when we were together, we were basically never out of each other’s bottoms.’
I look around and see a variety of reactions: blanks, shock and some amusement. Tash’s eyes are round with disbelief.
Making a joke of it is the biggest ‘fuck you’ I can come up with. I hope word gets back to them that I sent the whole thing up – that I couldn’t care less. Which of course isn’t true. I feel undressed, humiliated, disrespected, but I’m not about to show that in public. ‘And, hey – how come we’re not reading that Rupert likes it up the arse, or Bryce is a slut, or that Nick’s a frigid virgin? Why isn’t it about me sharing some “sweet Rupert arse” around? Because, misogyny, that’s why.’
‘Preach,’ says Jinx, as Ms Yelland walks in.
My perfect day? Easy: rewind this week. One, my father is still here and magically doesn’t have his addictions; and two, someone has destroyed PSST and caused great pain and public humiliation to its creators.
I’m going to art first period, but my usual favourite place at school is no longer an escape – I won’t even be here for much longer.
Things are the opposite of perfect for the foreseeable.
5 pm, text from Tash: Call me, lady.
5.03 pm, text from Tash: Like now
8.35 pm, text from Tash: Why the hell did you say that today?
8.38 pm, text from Tash: Adyyyyyyyyyy wtf???
10 pm, text from Tash: I mean it – call me!!! and we can figure out how to minimise damage
11.53 pm, text to Tash: Sorry couldn’t find phone tonight – many panics – in wrong bag ☹ We’ll talk soon, promise, feeling a bit tired and a bit sad and a bit angry still, nighty noodles xxxxxxxx
I haven’t told Tash about Dad being in rehab.
I didn’t talk to her about the PSST post.
She’s still acting as though we’re best friends, and we are, but are we really?
Friday 19 August
I shove the portal door open and escape, heart beating quickly, nervous breaths exploding as I hit the air. I skirt around the parts of lawn that are exposed by emergency lighting. There’s always a moment when I stop for a minute and take it in: the flood of grass rolling towards the gate, the line of darkness that runs along the edges, the strangeness of being the only person out here, awake, in a world that feels like it’s sleeping.
Oliver is waiting at the gate looking unsettled. It’s how he’s looked all week. In orchestra practice he’s been concentrating so hard on playing he’s been making mistakes, which is, as Mrs Davies commented, very un-Oliver.
Our session on Wednesday at the studio felt like a waste. Every time we tried to play we sounded wrong together. ‘You need to relax,’ I said, to which he gave the fair response that it’s hard to relax after someone’s told you to relax. ‘I don’t know what it is,’ he said, as we walked down Lygon Street in the smell of pizzas and garlic our stomachs rumbling. ‘I can’t seem to play.’
‘Maybe the audition’s freaking you out?’
‘I’ve performed all my life,’ he said.
‘You look nervous,’ I say tonight.
‘These are legitimate nerves. I don’t want you getting caught.’
‘Does your dad know you’re out with me?’
‘Yes,’ he says, and we start walking to the tram stop. ‘He doesn’t know I’m helping you escape. He thinks you’re a Max. She has permission to go out at night as long as she has her phone and her parents know where she is at all times.’
‘I’m envious,’ I say, and he wonders aloud if I am.
‘You think I like escaping through the portal?’
He puts his hand out for the tram instead of answering.
I don’t dislike it. I don’t want to get caught, but I like the rush. ‘I like taking control.’
He nods.
Oliver is quiet.
I like Oliver’s quiet.
It’s not really quiet. It’s a pause.
There are only two seats on the tram, facing each other. Things I’ve learnt about him this week: he is as obsessed with the Iceland scholarship as I am. He isn’t anally retentive, but precise when it comes to music. He concentrates. He wants to be as good as humanly possible. When he plays, he sees colour beneath his closed lids. His mother gave him his first lessons, and eventually he got a teacher (David) who is the most serious man I have ever met. He was at Oliver’s house when I arrived on Tuesday night. They’d just finished Oliver’s lesson and David, on Oliver’s request, showed me how to really play the double stops.
Oliver watched from the sidelines, grinning, as David informed me of the finer points of stops, gently adjusting my technique with his soft voice, eyes intent on my hands, taking in tone, movement.
‘Good,’ he said after thirty minutes of playing, and I knew why Oliver strove so hard to hear that word from him. Oliver isn’t anally retentive. Neither is David. They’re serious about their craft.
I study Oliver’s reflection tonight – his eyes look straight through himself to the world outside the window. He’s off somewhere in his head – in a piece of music, thinking about his mum, maybe – I want to know where he is.
Without warning, his eyes shift, and stare at the eyes of my reflection. I stare back.
We are crossing lines. I don’t know what they are exactly, though. Or where they lead.
*
The queue for Orion is long, but we walk straight past it. ‘We’re not going there,’ Oliver tells me, and before I can protest, he pulls out two tickets. I read the front of them. Frances Carter, Concert Hall. ‘I can’t afford this ticket,’ I tell him.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘You can’t afford this ticket,’ I say.
‘I don’t have to,’ he says.
Turns out it’s Oliver’s birthday and he asked his mother for tickets to Frances Carter. ‘For me?’ I ask, and then immediately feel like an idiot. These tickets were bought months in advance. I guess his mum couldn’t make it home.
I think about that in the dark, as Frances Carter plays. I think about a lot of things. That I am learning even still. That I thought there was nothing more to the world than St Hilda’s and then when I got here I thought there was nothing more to the world than Orion. The world keeps opening up more, note after note, unfurling. Sitting here tonight, the cello aching in my chest, surrounding me, I am filled with the thought that there’s nothing more thrilling than all those things in your future, waiting to be known.
We can’t go straight home after the concert. We’re too full of cello.
‘Coffee?’ Oliver asks, and he leads the way to a small shop, hidden in an alley, with dimly lit small rooms that run off each other, an open fire, red chequered table clothes that could be cheesy but aren’t.
‘You think we’ll get better in time for the audition?’ I ask, while we wait for our order – coffee and Portuguese tarts.
‘Can we maybe not talk about that tonight?’ Oliver asks. ‘Let’s talk about other things.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as anything. Such as your week, as it does not pertain to music.’
‘You have an odd way of speaking.’
‘I play better than I speak. Usually.’ He leans
back to let the waiter put our tarts and coffee on the table.
‘You look disappointed,’ he says.
‘They’re small.’
‘Try them.’
‘Okay,’ I tell him after I’ve taken a bite. ‘No longer disappointed.’
‘Your week?’ he asks.
‘It’ll lower the tone of the conversation,’ I say, and when he indicates he doesn’t mind, I tell him I’ve been thinking about PSST and who might be running it and how I might bring down the site.
‘How’s Ady?’ he asks.
‘Are Basildon guys talking about it?’
‘Pretty much nothing else. First the post, and then Ady in class.’
I don’t want to talk about Ady, not even with Oliver. It feels disloyal. But I want to know if he has any thoughts on whether it’s Basildon boys.
‘Maybe,’ he says, picking up the last bits of pastry with the tip of his finger and eating them. ‘But it could be anyone. You can’t stop it, so ignore it.’
‘Ignoring is not an option and I am stopping it.’
‘By?’
This is obviously the problem. ‘It’s someone who knows Rupert and Ady, right?’
‘A lot of people know Rupert and Ady. They’re like the King and Queen of private schools in the area.’
It’s true. But I ask Oliver to keep his eyes and ears open at Basildon and to pass on anything he knows.
‘What would you do?’ he asks. ‘If you found out.’
I tell him exactly what I would do, and his eyes glaze over halfway through. ‘Okay, I understood nothing of that. You would what with a what? How did you get to be this smart?’
He has a small piece of pastry on his chin. It looks lovely. I’m disappointed when he brushes it away. ‘Why did you lie to me about the Orion sticker on your cello case?’ I ask, and he acts as though he’s giving it quite a bit of thought.
‘I don’t know,’ he says in the end. ‘I wanted to tell you all about it, and then, in that moment, I decided not to. Max has a theory.’
‘Which is?’
‘Ridiculous, so I’ll keep it to myself.’
I resist the urge to text Max right this second to ask her.
Saturday 20 August
Detention goes like this:
Me, Kate and Ady, laughing, swearing, delirious, armed with hot water and suds, and super-sized garbage bags. Our task is to clean up the old pool, but our rubber gloves are so big they’re useless for anything other than surrealist mime. Ady’s brought snacks. Kate’s brought portable speakers. She plugs her iPod in. Out here we can be as loud as we want to be. The music spills out, wild beats and street swagger with an infectious disco sample. It makes me want to dance, so I do, and soon, we all are. If Iris could see us her lip would curl. Her mouth would sling itself open, like, Huh? You and her and her?
Detention shouldn’t be fun, but this is easily one of the best mornings I’ve had all term. I feel free. Like I don’t have to explain myself to anyone, like I don’t have to try. I can just be Clem. We work fast and demolish the snacks. And we talk.
How we talk!
We talk about Wellness and boarder micro-aggressions; we talk about bests and worsts: movies and books and rumours and personal disasters;and we talk about PSST, who might be behind it.
‘Anyone with a computer could be,’ Kate says. She starts up with the tech talk but after a bit Ady and I are rubbing our foreheads.
I say, ‘No wonder Iris loves you.’
‘She doesn’t love me anymore,’ Kate says. ‘I’ve ditched our study sessions in favour of Oliver. She thinks I’m distracted.’
‘You’re sixteen,’ Ady points out. ‘You’re supposed to be distracted.’
‘True enough.’
It takes forever to clean the pool, but it’s a nice kind of eternity. When our talking subsides I feel hit with a feeling that’s something like ‘homesick’. Homesick for life before St Hilda’s, life before high school, the kingdom of childhood. Maybe I’m mourning swimming.
‘Earth to Clem!’
Ady throws her sopping sponge at me. I scream and throw mine back at her. Kate moves onto the grass to do some hard-looking yoga positions.
‘My back is killing me,’ she says.
‘I thought you’d be strong from lugging your cello everywhere,’ I say.
‘I am strong. But there’s a limit.’
‘Someone’s phone’s ringing,’ Ady says.
It’s mine. It’s Stu. I know it. My phone is in my jacket pocket – but where is my jacket? I find it too late. Missed call. When I try calling back his line is busy. A voicemail message pops up, and then I hear him. He says there’s a house-wrecking party, his band is playing, do I want to meet him there, and he tells me the address. I can bring people. The more the merrier . . .
I put my phone back in my pocket and do a little happy dance.
‘Wow,’ Ady says. ‘Is he that good?’
‘He’s amazing.’
‘But you haven’t . . .?’ Kate’s voice trails off.
‘I’m dying to, but there’s nowhere to go.’ I tell them about our plan to rendezvous on the long weekend.
Ady’s frowning.
‘What?’ I say. ‘He’s not dodgy.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Nineteen.’
She’s still frowning.
‘What time is it?’ I ask.
Ady checks her watch. ‘Ten to four.’
I look at the pool. ‘You think this is finished? I bet they make us come back.’
‘I don’t even care,’ Ady says. ‘What the fuck. It was fun.’
I grin. ‘What the fuck. It really was.’ Then: ‘Hey, what are you doing tonight?’
Kate says, ‘Well, I’ve got a pass. Officially, I’m staying at Ady’s.’
And it is decided: Kate, Ady and I are going to the house-wrecking party.
‘We’ll do it for Wellness,’ Ady says. ‘Our second date. You guys . . .’ she raises her eyebrows ‘. . . things are getting serious.’
Saturday 20 August, later
Ady kicks a heel against the tram floor. ‘Whose house is this anyway?’
‘Danny. He plays music with Stu. He’s super-hairy.’
Kate perks up. ‘What kind of music?’
‘Stu calls it “noise”.’
I don’t tell them how old Danny is. I don’t want to put them off.
It takes a while to find the house. It’s on a massive block, with a wild, overgrown garden.
‘I’m going to wait for Oliver,’ Kate says.
I zoom ahead of Ady down the long driveway. In front of the house is a bonfire stack. People are lugging the furniture out and breaking it up, adding it to the pile. I stare at it, transfixed, until Ady catches up.
‘Hey, girls, are you lost?’ A guy wearing jeans so slashed you can’t even call them jeans comes out from behind a tree. His eyes are wrecked. He’s carrying a puppy. I worry about that puppy. He doesn’t wait for an answer, just wanders off into the house.
The front door has already been dispatched to the bonfire pile. The first thing we see as we go in is a man with a screwdriver taking down another door.
‘Burn, baby, burn,’ he says with a wink.
‘Okay . . .’ Ady looks after him warily.
I head for the band and just assume that Ady’s following, but when I see Stu everything else falls away.
He looks grungy, like he’s slept in his clothes. For some reason he has bare feet and a hairclip in his hair. He’s playing guitar, but the sound can’t be what he’s aiming for, because it’s like ear torture. The other people in the room are all older, black-clad, not dancing. The smell of dope fills the air. Dope and beer and apathy. I stand in Stu’s eye line, waiting for him to see me, but he’s lost in his noise.
Finally he looks up. He stares at me blankly for a moment – a terrible moment – and then he smiles and triumphantly sends more unearthly sounds into the ether.
Seconds are swallowed by minute
s. The trouble with Stu’s music is that it has no end point. Every time I think we’re close, Danny steps in and plays something on his saxophone and they’re off again. I’m getting sore feet from standing around. I can’t not notice the girl from the pub is here, watching Stu. And I can’t not notice there are other girls, too. When he finally, finally finishes, it’s like there’s a pool of us, offering things: a drink, a word, a hug, ourselves – but he slings his arm around me – me! – and kisses the curve between my neck and shoulder. He stoops so that his eyes meet mine.
‘Let’s go someplace quiet.’
His eyes flash. I can read my future in them.
We try the upstairs rooms first, but one is barricaded and the other is occupied by the puppy guy, shirtless now and looking even more wrecked than before. Stu steers me to a small room with an open window. He climbs out the window. I stick my head out. He’s on the roof of the garage – it’s flat, pebble-dash, someone’s had the foresight to drag a couch out there.
Stu dusts the couch off. ‘After you.’
From where we’re sitting we can see the lights of the city and the dark ribbon of the river. Our breath makes clouds in the cold night air.
Stu’s lips are soft. His hands are fast and fervent. My cardigan is off, my dress pushed up, my tights and undies down. I’m trying to arrange myself so he can’t see my fat bits. He takes his jeans off. He lies on me, warming me up, and the couch creaks under us.
‘Uh . . .’ I stop. I’m feeling . . . overwhelmed. Overpowered and blocked and chaotic, like the world is tilting, like I’m falling or maybe flying. Things are happening too fast. What about the weekend? What about finding a place? Is this our place? I want to stop but I can’t say it – it’s like there is no room for words – there is only kissing and touching and –
‘Okay?’ Stu’s breath is hot. He’s tussling with a condom. And I want to laugh, but that’s just nerves. He’s gone all strategic – eyes unfocused, hands downtown. Then he’s pushing – for a moment I think it’s not going to happen, but then it’s in. And it hurts. Stu stops. Starts. Stops. Repositions. I don’t know if I’m supposed to move or what. He doesn’t speak or look at me, and over his shoulder the sky is black and the stars seem not like fixed points, but a wild swirling.