Annie turned back around to face the front of the queue.
“You’re amazing,” I said to her, and I nearly kissed her with joy. But, I didn’t think that was a very good idea.
Instead, I left her to buy her green tea (the canteen had only recently introduced teas to the menu and it was very trendy with the Year Twelve girls).
During the day, Martin continued to avoid me. It was his loss as far as I was concerned. He went from having one friend to having none. That was just depressing. Besides, he was just being a baby. Surely if I’d been the least bit interested in him romantically I would have done something about it by now. Or maybe that was why he was upset, he was jealous. No, that was impossible.
I avoided the quad at lunch. Instead, I stayed in the darkroom developing the last of my photos. My favourite was still Martin with his controller.
At the end of the day, I found Annie waiting at the bus bay. I wanted so badly to see Peter’s car there waiting for us. We could all drive to the beach. We could all be friends. I wanted that future to be true. I wanted us to all live together. We would eat dinner together on our laps in the living room watching crappy TV. Annie would have her own room and Peter and I would be in the other and sometimes I would sneak into Annie’s room at night and we would stay up late just talking about life.
Annie would bring home new guys that she’d met and we would give her sympathetic looks every time until eventually she would find one who was straight. And we could finally go on double dates and he would like football and Peter could talk to him about the game on TV when I had no idea what was going on. And Annie and I would make food for them and they would do the washing up while we sat at the kitchen bench watching them and drinking beer. Peter would get onto a football team and I would become a photographer for a newspaper or a magazine and Annie would become an editor or something. Our flat would be covered in dripping photographs pegged to strings across each room and those play diagrams they have for football teams would be stuck to the walls and there would be stacks of papers all over the floor and tables that Annie would be reading and fixing.
And there would be a tiny little balcony where we could sit on hot days and Annie would get Peter to quit smoking because she would be more assertive than me. She would get on Peter’s case about leaving his dirty clothes lying all over the place and, in return, Peter would get on her case about making the flat look too girly with her candles and her lanterns. We would go for picnics in the park and Peter would teach us how to play rugby and to my embarrassment Annie would be infinitely better than me. But Peter would ruffle my hair and tell me it was fine because he liked me better anyway.
I should have known I couldn’t have them both.
But Peter’s car wasn’t there and Annie and I sat side by side on the bus like a little old couple doing their grocery shopping. And we held hands even though the other kids on the bus gave us strange looks. But we didn’t care because none of it mattered anymore.
When we got to my house, we sat together on the veranda, each in our own rickety chair with a glass of fresh milk practically straight from the udder.
“So,” Annie said. “What happened?”
I started by telling her about that night at the beach, then I told her the whole story of what happened in the quad. She had been in her Extension 1 English class and missed the whole thing. The account she had heard around the school wasn’t entirely accurate. For starters, there were certainly no knives involved.
She listened sadly, her face similar to the one I had seen that day at the hairdresser’s. The first time we’d ever spoken.
“It’s just not fair,” she said.
“And now Peter is expelled and he didn’t get onto any teams so I don’t know what he’s going to do.”
“We’ll think of something,” she said, ever the positive light in my life.
“I don’t think he even wants to be with me anymore,” I said.
“Of course he does, Hamish. He loves you.”
“He does not.”
“Maybe not in the way he loved Charlie, but you never really love two people the same way. I mean, he worshipped Charlie, but he loves you too. Trust me.”
“How do you know?” I said. “How do you know he’s not just lonely and needs a shoulder to cry on?”
“If that were the case, do you really think he would have stayed around for so long? Do you really think he would have come into school yesterday with a bag full of books? Don’t you think he would have just jumped in his car and driven away? Why has he stuck around as long as he has? There’s nothing for him here; nothing except you.”
“He wouldn’t have left his mum,” I said.
“I dunno, Charlie told me she’s a bit of a monster.”
“Yeah, that’s putting it lightly.”
“So why would he stay for her?”
“I don’t know, why does Peter Bridges do anything?”
She sat back and threw an arm over her face to shade her eyes. “I wish it wasn’t all so hard.”
I sighed. It was. Part of me wanted to just marry Annie and get a house and some cats and live a normal life. But it would never be as simple as that. Because I would never feel about Annie the way I did about Peter. It would never be the same. Annie was cute and everything, and I loved talking to her, but that was it. I didn’t feel any passionate, burning desire to be with her.
She sat up straight again. “We should call Peter,” she said.
“His phone’s been disconnected,” I said. “Weeks ago.”
“Well, let’s go over there then. We’ll visit him, we’ll think of something. If we’re all together, we can work this out.”
But we never went to Peter’s that day because my mum came walking up to the house.
“Annie!” she said, clearly dealing with several conflicting emotions, mostly confusion. “We were wondering when you would pay us a visit again.”
“Hi Mrs Day,” Annie said, smiling that beautiful smile she had. “I just had to come back to taste more of your cooking!”
My mum blushed; it was adorable.
“I’ll have to try and whip up something special. Hamish never gives us any warning when he’s going to bring you over. I don’t know what I can throw together, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Anything is fine with me,” Annie said.
My mum disappeared inside and the sound of clanging pans filled the air. Without a word, Annie went in to help out and I left them to it. Mum would ask her if we were getting back together and she would respectfully say that we were just friends. My mum would say not to worry, that I would come to my senses soon and realise I had made a terrible mistake. Annie would smile politely and say she wasn’t going to hold her breath.
My dad found me on the veranda when he came in for dinner. He was awkward around me; he’d hardly spoken to me since I’d told them. I knew he didn’t like to think of me with another guy, but seriously, he had to get over it because there were a lot more pressing issues at hand. Like the fact that I had almost been beaten to death and that my boyfriend had been expelled from school and my fake girlfriend was in the kitchen cooking with my mother.
“Annie’s here,” I said. I knew that would make him happy.
He smiled. He probably thought that I was into girls again and the thing with Peter was just a passing curiosity.
We went inside. They had managed to whip up some roast potatoes with crumbed chicken, corn on the cob and onion gravy. It was pretty extravagant for our family, but Mum was trying to impress.
At the dinner table, I was almost ignored in favour of grilling Annie for information about how she was going in preparation for the HSC and what she wanted to do at uni. She was, as usual, the perfect girlfriend. Then she asked about the farm and my dad was able to tell the truth and say that things were looking up due to the rain.
Afterwards I washed the dishes and Annie dried. It was fun. I felt like I could have done that every night for the rest of my life and I
wouldn’t have minded.
“Do you want to stay over?” I said. “You can sleep in my bed again.”
“Nah, thanks anyway, but I need to change for school tomorrow,” she said. “Besides, if you walk me home, we can visit Peter while we’re at it.”
“Okay, good plan.”
But things are never as easy as you think they’ll be. My dad, who had fallen in love with little Annie Bower, said there was no way he would let us walk home at this hour (for the record, it was only like eight) and that he would personally chaperone us in the ute. The suggestion that I drive her home in the ute was met with cruel laughter. We tried to protest but he was insistent so we acquiesced. Annie got the proper seat and I had to squish in the middle. Dad suggested we play Spotto the roadkill, but I thought it was a bit distasteful.
Instead, we talked about Annie’s Extension 2 English story. She was the only one in the school doing Extension 2 English. Basically, all she had to do was write a novel, in a year. She’d already finished it. It was about a snobby rich girl who has to move in with her grandmother and sleep in the attic. Annie hadn’t let me read it yet.
We dropped Annie off at her house and she thanked my dad very graciously for the ride and walked around the back of the house. She made out like that’s what she normally did but I knew she was just waiting for us to drive away so she could sneak over to Peter’s and see how he was holding up.
We drove away and I wanted so badly to follow Annie to his house. I wanted us all to sit together in Peter’s car and come up with the perfect idea for what he could do with his life. But I was stuck in the ute with my dad who, I knew, was about to ask me if Annie and I were back together.
“She’s a great kid,” he said. “You should hold on to that one.”
“I have no intention of letting her go,” I said. “But she’s not my girlfriend anymore, Dad.”
“Oh she’s not, is she?”
“No, she’s my best friend, and yeah I love her, but I’m never going to be her boyfriend.”
He looked awkward again. He probably thought I was going to start talking about my relationship with Peter. He certainly wasn’t ready to hear that.
When we got home, I changed into my pyjamas and mentally crossed off another day before the end of school. Not long now, I thought. Not long now.
The phone rang. Dad answered. It was Annie. He gave me a look that said, “Tell me again how she’s not your girlfriend.”
I took the phone to my room.
“Hamish?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I went to Peter’s house.”
“And?” I was acting calm but I was terrified that he was gone. Left town without a trace.
“His car was there,” she said and I couldn’t disguise my sigh of relief. “But no one answered the door. I stood there for ages banging away, but nothing.”
“Well, he was probably sleeping,” I said.
“At eight-thirty at night?”
“He probably worked all day. My dad goes to bed early when he works all day.”
“Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “Yeah.” “Don’t worry, Hamish. We’ll think of something, everything will be fine.”
“Yeah.”
I hung up. Everything was not going to be fine.
Sometimes I wonder if things would have been different if I had been with Annie that night. Would I have knocked louder? Would I have called out his name? Would I have gone around to the kitchen window and looked in? If I had’ve done, would it even have made any difference? Would we have already been too late? I don’t know if it would have been better or worse that way.
25.
It all ended when a kid died.
Everyone said he was trouble; that he was going nowhere. But I knew different, I knew he was going to get out of that town someday. But he took his mother’s knife from the kitchen bench, which she had threatened him with so many times, and he cut into his skin until he couldn’t see anymore.
It wasn’t fair to expect someone so young to cope with so much.
Anyway, the kid’s name was Peter. Peter Bridges. And he was dead.
I was at school when I found out. It was a Wednesday. Our year advisor gathered us together at the start of the day and told us. He wasn’t crying. He didn’t even look that sad. He just stated the fact like it was part of the daily notices along with the formal ticket prices and the drama rehearsals. Peter Bridges had died all alone and the bastard couldn’t even shed a single tear.
His mother had found him, and her screams were heard throughout the street. Sometimes a bitter part of me thinks she deserved that. Sometimes I wish she never even had a child. Most of the time I wish to god that she didn’t have to deal with so much pain in the first place, then maybe Peter could have had a regular childhood.
Once again, we were given a day off school to sit in the staff common room to cry and pass around photos of the dead kid. I walked past the door and the atmosphere was totally different. No one was talking, there weren’t girls crying in the arms of boys. Most people were staring at the floor, I suppose they were in shock or something. I did notice a few footballers in the corner, unable to make eye contact with anyone. One of them was facing the back wall. His shoulders were shaking.
Served him fucking right.
I didn’t go into the staff common room that day. Instead, I wagged school with Annie. We walked to the main road in silence and caught a bus to the beach in silence. The bus driver didn’t ask us why we weren’t in school. He probably didn’t care.
When we got off the bus, we didn’t thank the driver. I always thanked the driver.
I was fine until I felt the sand on my bare feet. Then I started to cry. And Annie, well… She hugged me so tight you wouldn’t believe her little arms were capable of it. But she had no words to offer me, nothing to say that would ever make it better. Peter was gone, nothing could make it better.
“How could he be so fucking selfish?” I said.
“Peter was a lot of things, but selfish wasn’t one of them.”
“How could he leave me like this?”
“He wasn’t leaving you, Hamish, you were the only thing he had left. He’d lost everything else.”
“But I should have been enough for him.”
“I know.”
“Why wasn’t I enough?”
“He didn’t know what to do, he felt trapped, he didn’t want to drag you down with him.”
And, as always, Annie Bower was right.
We walked to my house together. Annie had to tell my parents – I couldn’t find the words. My mother was sympathetic, but she didn’t cry. I probably imagined it, but I thought my dad looked just the tiniest bit relieved. That was probably unfair of me.
I didn’t go to Peter’s funeral. I frickin’ hated funerals. Instead, I went to his house. I broke in, but it wasn’t difficult, so don’t be impressed. The windows weren’t locked and the flyscreen was shot to hell. I couldn’t face the kitchen, so I went to find Peter’s bedroom. I’d never been inside his house before and it was just awful.
When I opened the door to his room, my breath caught in my throat and a terrible silence surrounded me. I can’t remember what my thoughts were, but I started to cry again. Tears welled in my eyes. You can’t imagine how depressing it was in that pokey little room. His bed wasn’t even a real bed; it was one of those shitty fold-out things, like what I had to sleep on when I stayed at my grandparents’ house. And it wasn’t nearly big enough for him; his feet and half his legs would have hung off the end of that thing. There was no other furniture in the room, just a lot of cigarette packets, a few T-shirts and, stuck to the wall, there was a newspaper article with Peter’s picture when his team won the grand final. The caption read, “We can expect big things from Peter Bridges.” I couldn’t help myself but picture him there on that pathetic little bed, listening to his mother yelling at people on the street, looking at that newspaper clipping and dreaming of escaping.
>
There was no evidence to suggest that I had been in his life at all.
I climbed back out the window. Suddenly, I saw Peter’s car parked in the backyard and god, for a second, just a tiny second, I thought he was going to be in it waiting for me. He wasn’t though, obviously.
I felt around underneath the car until I found the hidden key. I opened the passenger door and got in. It smelt like him. Like sand and stale cigarettes and damp towels. I almost couldn’t stand it, but I put my seatbelt on. Most of his stuff was in the car, not in that depressing bedroom of his. In the glove box was a can of deodorant, a beanie and the case for his cassette tape. You know, the one we always listened to. I opened it and read the inside cover: “To Pete, love Charlie.”
And, in that moment, I hated everything in the world. I hated Charlie Parker and I hated Peter and I hated Martin and I especially hated myself and every single other person in that godforsaken school. I couldn’t wait to get out; I couldn’t wait to put as much distance between me and that fucking shithole of a town as was humanly possible. I seriously considered starting the car and driving away. But I didn’t. I was too much of a wimp to do that. Too scared of being pulled over by the police and not having my licence with me. So I got out of the car and opened the boot. That patchwork quilt was still in there. It made me feel sick. I don’t really remember what I did after that, or how I got home that day, but I must have walked. I don’t think I even locked his car again.
For days I hardly ate a thing, but I slept like I was dead. Maybe I was dead. My mother’s idea of comforting me was to book me an appointment with the school counsellor and start looking up psychiatrists in the yellow pages. I was a wreck though, I didn’t blame her. I never went to any of them, waste of frickin’ time. My father didn’t know how to deal with me anymore. He’d hardly even looked at me for weeks.
Annie called me that night, after the funeral. I was lying on the floor in my room. My mother came in and handed me a worried look and the telephone.
“Hello?”
“Hamish? Where were you today?” she asked.
I Had Such Friends Page 20