Sarah pushed herself off the wall. She had bare feet, and her heel knocked against the skirting board. ‘That’s nice to know,’ she said.
‘It’s true. Why aren’t you going to your place, Sarah? Is your mum too busy?’
Sarah started for the dorm room and stopped. She called back to Eve without turning around, ‘I don’t care what you say, Eve, and I don’t care what Meg says.’ Her voice betrayed her with a slight quiver when she said Eve’s name. ‘Meg’s not here, in case you haven’t noticed.’
She shouldn’t have said it. She shouldn’t have said anything about Sarah’s mum. From inside the dorm room, she heard the words ‘Judo 4’, the name ‘Eve’. She banged the back of her head against the wall. It was everywhere. Everyone knew that Rebecca hated her. Everyone knew that she was a liar who thought Judo 4 was real. Then the voices said ‘Meg’. Eve could see all the words floating through the dorm room down the hall, dangling on strings of glee and poison. She let them drop into her head and settle. This was happening because of her friendship with Meg. It was too perfect. Too easy. She had to pay. She remembered overhearing her mum last year, having a cup of Earl Grey tea with a friend in the kitchen, talking about beautiful Leila, the Year Ten teacher at the local Catholic school. She had just been diagnosed with cancer. It was because her life was too perfect, her mum said. The husband, the kids, the job, the house, her beauty: she had the whole package.
‘It’s like she was an accident waiting to happen,’ her mum said, passing some carrot cake. ‘You think someone has the perfect life and then boom!’
Sarah was not Meg. She was going to Rebecca’s house in an hour, being picked up by Jan and driven away in the car that smelt of oranges and mint. Sarah had made her choice. Being with Eve was as good as being on her own, and Sarah couldn’t be on her own. Especially when the choice was Rebecca. Rebecca who was going to whisper in her ear tonight something clever and funny and was going to be all Sarah’s as they sat on the couch watching videos. Rebecca who had chosen Eve first.
When Sarah threw her suitcase into the Thorntons’ car, Eve was throwing her music across the floor of Music Room 11. It was fanned out at her feet, waiting for her to choose who her favourite would be today. She reached down and picked Adagio for Strings, for a moment hearing nothing but the perfect combination of notes being conjured up by her fingertips.
Returning from a long practice session, Eve stopped on the special spot on the stairwell in the boarding house – the step where everyone could see the tiles of Sarah’s house. She rose up on her tippy toes and pushed her neck out to the right to get a really good look out the high window. She had caught Sarah once or twice here doing the same thing, straining on tippy toes, tilting her body to the right, chin up, looking. Sarah had pretended she was checking the weather. Eve stood on the balls of her feet and took in the red tiles of Sarah’s roof and imagined Sarah’s mum and dad down there busy, being really busy. In the kitchen, getting changed from work, watching TV on those big stuffy couches. It’s probably what Sarah does, she thought: uses her X-ray vision to see her parents getting on with their lives without her. Then Eve heard someone coming from below and dropped down to being flat-footed on the hall carpet, comforted for a moment.
‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Ms Waters told Eve several months later, moving two red books with a swish from her chair before she sat down. She had a small office with a small desk and a small couch in the main school building next to the principal’s. There were piles of students’ papers in the corner, a few gaudy statues on a mantle celebrating educational prowess, and her desk had folders stacked on top of slipping folders. Eve had thought that Ms Johanna Waters was a lot neater than this.
Eve sat at one end of the green couch, putting one ankle behind the other and her hands on her lap. Her brown school shoes were huge.
‘So, Eve, how’s it going?’
‘Good.’
‘Mmm.’ Ms Waters turned her chair from side to side. It was late afternoon, and it was quiet. The only girls walking past the window were a couple of boarders coming from the library or girls finishing sport practice. Eve heard two complaining about their netball coach.
‘Lovely piece you played at assembly last month, Eve. I would love to be able to play a musical instrument. Just love it. I wish my parents had made me play, I don’t know, the piano, the flute, anything.’
Ms Waters discussed her regret as she left her chair and walked around her desk to sit opposite Eve on a soft stool that Eve thought was reserved for feet. Ms Waters’ mighty body perched on the small, soft stool looked odd. Eve didn’t think that anything she was saying was a question, so she stayed still on the couch.
‘Eve, well, I called you in to see how you’re going. You know?’
Eve didn’t know and said nothing.
Ms Waters leant in and then back on her little stool. She looked out the window. ‘I know you and Meg were very close, and it must be hard with her away.’
‘She’s back soon. In a few months.’
‘That’s great. Great.’
Eve nodded, and Ms Waters nodded, and they both nodded for a while. Eve still kept her hands on her lap.
‘And Sarah? All going well?’ Ms Waters’ voice was extra cheery, as though the answer of course was going to be the shiniest, happiest thing she would ever come across.
What could Eve tell this woman sitting opposite her with the top two buttons of her cardigan done up wrong? That Sarah and Eve spoke about nothing, about Mrs Foster putting a tissue in her bra strap or netball practice being called off, when no one was around? That the one thing Sarah didn’t pretend about any more was that she would speak to Rebecca to sort things out? That Sarah would disappear into the clump of Rebecca’s friends? That Sarah did nothing, Sarah was Sarah, here and then gone, always careful, no fire in her belly, just food and fear, and yet Sarah was still the nicest person to her at school? That Eve had decided a coward as a secret friend was better than no secret friend at all?
‘Yeah. I mean yes. Really well. It’s Sarah.’ Eve said the last bit with as much shiny and happy as she could muster. ‘Biscuit?’ Ms Waters passed Eve a faux Wedgwood plate with a handful of gingernuts lined up on it. ‘Thanks.’ Eve took one and nibbled the hard edge. ‘Well, I’ll get straight to the point. A few of your teachers have mentioned that your grades are slipping, that you’re not … not … on the ball like you usually are.’
‘I just got an A in my theory exam in music.’
‘Music is not the problem. Mr Walker told me you’re using those music rooms at lunch and after school and doing a terrific job. Terrific. So dedicated. He hasn’t seen a girl practise that hard for a long time, he told me. It’s the other subjects, all the other subjects, that I’m talking about.’ Ms Waters placed the plate on the glass coffee table with a ting. ‘Goodness. Any reason, Eve?’
‘No.’
‘Well, Eve, there must be a reason to suddenly slip from very solid Bs and the occasional A to very sloppy Cs. Cs that can just call themselves that.’
‘I don’t know.’ Eve fiddled with her fingers and ate the rest of the gingernut even though she didn’t like it, because she couldn’t put a nibbled-on biscuit back on the plate.
‘Are you sure, Eve?’
‘I’ll work harder.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m good.’
‘Eve, you need to tell me something more than “good”. Is there anything going on you want to tell me about?’
‘Everything’s fine. I’ll do better.’ Ms Waters did an extraction stare at Eve, hoping something might come out. ‘I’m not worried about the grades. You need to be okay.’
Eve uncrossed her ankles. Ms Waters had just said she wasn’t worried about her grades. Eve wanted to cry and could feel the tears coming. She couldn’t do this. She went back into the music room in her head and worked on a piece from lunch: ‘Pavane for a Dead Princess’. Tears were stopped.
‘If something’s going on, I can’t
do anything unless you tell me what it is.’
Eve looked at the woman on the soft stool leaning towards her. She knew Ms Waters was trying. She made a conscious decision to make her voice more chirpy. ‘I’m honestly really good.’ Then she decided she needed to give her a diversion. ‘Sometimes, I get too hard on myself about the cello – if I’ve had a bad week with it or I can’t get something. Eleanor keeps telling me I need to let it all go. I need to work on that.’
‘Okay. Okay then. That sounds wise. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re a lovely girl. We’re all way too hard on ourselves these days. We need to learn to relax a bit more.’
Ms Waters seemed happy with that. Eleanor had said nothing along those lines. She was amazed at how far Eve had come in such a short time. Eve had never shown as much commitment to her music as she had in the five months since Rebecca turned against her, since she had become the contaminated one. She had spent hours and hours in the music room by herself, practising until her finger pads bruised and stung so much she needed to put ice on them in the boarding house. Eve could play the cello. She could play it.
‘I just want to get it right,’ Eve said to finish off strong. ‘But I’m going to ease up a bit from now on. Eleanor said I should too.’
‘Eleanor sounds wise.’ Ms Waters seemed relieved that Eve had a few adults looking over her shoulder and walked back to her desk. ‘Okay, Eve, sounds like a plan. But if you ever need to come and see me about anything …’ Johanna Waters sat down and waved her arms around her messy office. ‘Please come. I’ve got biscuits.’
‘I will.’ Eve knew the ‘chat’ was over and went to the door. When she stood at the doorway, she turned. ‘Thanks, Ms Waters.’
‘I’m always here, Eve.’
But nobody who counts is, Ms Waters.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Eve needed water and toilet paper to do it properly. Lots of toilet paper. She had a system. Everything had to be in place: the razor blade and Band-Aids on the cistern, the toilet paper folded and ready, her limb-ridden body contorted on top of the seat. Then she would slice her flesh and see the skin of her thigh open up, the dark, red drops spreading in the toilet water, making tie-dye patterns. A strong Band-Aid, maybe two, would be pressed down. Then she would flush, check the tiles for blood, wipe them if necessary, listen to see if anyone else was near and tuck the razor blade into her pocket.
As Eve left the girls’ toilets, she would catch her reflection in the long, rectangular mirror over the taps and sinks, which were always in need of a good clean, and startle herself. How long had she been in there? Then she would walk out the door with a sign above the frame that read ‘GIRLS’ bleeding and present. Pain hidden and visible. Contained to one tiny, fleshy spot on her upper thigh.
Why, Eve, why? Why did you have to walk past them at lunch? Why didn’t you go via the language lab? You are stupid. STUPID.
Eve now spent every day avoiding Rebecca. She had to, as Rebecca had a terrific work ethic and never took a day off.
Eve tried her best with plans she devised morning and evening while she waited for her turn to use the sink to clean her teeth. She would arrive to the three classes they had together just before they began and slip in last and then slip out first. When they did sport on the weekends, she would stay back from the group and help the teacher out whenever she could. She had now added ‘crawler’ to her list of sins. When she saw Rebecca in the distance, she would make a facial expression that declared, ‘Oh, I forgot. Silly me. I needed to go this way.’ It was exhausting, turning into nothing.
Everyone could smell her foul odour. Girls who had drawn suns and clown faces on her back with finger dots for eyes when the whole class sat on the floor for library lessons just a year ago now called her a Downie.
‘Sure you don’t have Down’s syndrome, Eve?’
Every lunchtime, Eve now sat with two girls she played alongside in the orchestra. They were the kind of girls Rebecca didn’t waste time sticking pins into. They were so far below Rebecca, so bovine and slow, so red-faced and awkward, that they didn’t count.
Anna had pimples and flaming-red skin, and she carried her flute case really highly when she walked. Karen hardly spoke and was unashamedly obsessed with Emily Dickinson, but she made up the numbers in the triangle on the grass. They would sit together at lunch, and, in between absent-mindedly picking then discarding blades of grass, they would discuss music, hair and who needed to do more practice. The banality was like warm sludge running through Eve’s system. Maybe it was coming out her eyes and that’s why everyone was avoiding her.
It was the same everywhere she went now. Groups dispersed whenever she arrived, or she was met with secret looks and whispers. She was the girl no one wanted to sit next to, the girl everyone rolled their eyes at, and whenever she tried to engage anyone it just made everything worse. Eve tried to ignore the rumours, tried to pretend that girls didn’t deliberately shove her in lines, tried to not notice when they made fans out of paper and waved them furiously in front of their noses, screwing up their faces because of that smell when Eve walked past.
Sarah never joined in. She never did anything. Eve had stopped fighting it long ago; all her energy was going into shutting herself down before she entered a classroom or bracing herself for the next. Sometimes, late at night, when they were by themselves, Sarah would offer Eve words, and Eve was so grateful for them it made her angry. Despite her hidden fury, she clung to them, knowing that she wouldn’t be with Sarah until the next night or the next. Until it was dark again. Sarah was cleverer than Eve had imagined.
When she hopped on the bus for a joint excursion to the Art Gallery with the boys from Mitchell College and Rebecca read aloud a poem Eve had written for an English assignment – about how the music in her head was a friend – and everyone screamed with laughter and Eve went red and the teacher down the front didn’t look up once from marking papers during the forty-five-minute drive, even though everyone started yelling out ‘I’ll be your friend, Evie’, ‘What a loser’, ‘Forget the music, grow some tits, then you might get a friend’, and a multitude of other one-liners that were obviously amusing to the crowd, Eve did nothing but stare out the bus window.
Eve was, at least, learning her lesson about limiting opportunities. She shouldn’t have asked a question about menstruation in Personal Development, for example – then she wouldn’t have put a hand in her school bag two afternoons later and pulled out a blood-soaked pad and heard Rebecca and Amelia shriek with laughter again.
She shouldn’t have told a teacher why she was crying after biology. ‘Everyone hates me,’ Eve said between sobs.
‘Eve, c’mon, don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. You’re at Hetherington,’ Ms Bennet sighed. ‘We’re not producing silly girls here. We beat the boys at maths and chemistry. Do you think the boys next door would cry over a few names? Take the higher ground. Walk away, Eve.’
Eve was always walking away. She wished she hadn’t cried, or she had at least cried and Ms Waters was the teacher on duty. Then she thought better: Ms Waters would just make everything worse. She would want to talk to Rebecca. Better still, she wished that Rebecca still hated Emma Cleary. Last year, no one liked Emma, and they would all imitate her pigeon-toed walk. It was another gift that Rebecca possessed: spotting losers who didn’t know they were losers yet.
On a clear August morning, a month before Meg was due back at school, and about six months into Eve’s contamination, Eve was trying hard to forget that she was a slut. That she liked it up the arse. She sat, thighs flexed, over the toilet cubicle near the far wall. She wanted Meg. None of this would be happening if Meg was here. Meg had left her.
This time, parents were called, teachers had meetings and girls were in various states of rapture in feeling sorry for Eve. Hetherington conducted an exhaustive enquiry but were unable to find the offenders. They couldn’t prove it was anyone from either school. Perhaps it was someone from outside the school who just happened to
pick up a hat that said Eve Hardy on the inside brim and went to work on the toilets one weekend.
It had been brought to the attention of the principal that the boys’ and girls’ toilets closest to the sports ovals at Mitchell College had been graffitied over the weekend. The graffiti had one subject: Eve Hardy. Scrawled across toilet doors, walls, tiled floor, the long mirror was the story of Eve Hardy the desperate slut in drawings and words. Both schools had never seen such a thing.
There were stories of her conquests. There were pictures of her bent over like a dog being penetrated with a cricket bat from behind. There were arrows pointing at her small breasts and ‘MIA’ written close. There were cocks in her mouth and there were testimonies to her sexual prowess, agility and willingness in bubble writing. It was a modern-day Egyptian tomb dedicated to fourteen-year-old Eve Hardy and her smelly cunt.
Eve’s mother drove down to Sydney to talk.
‘Eve, everyone knows it’s rubbish,’ Hillary said over hot chocolate at a cafe near the school. ‘The school assured me they would keep an eye on you. So did your brother – he’s very upset and says he doesn’t think the boys did it. They don’t know anything, he said. Or they’re saying they don’t know anything. It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable. What is happening in the world? Eve, it’s rubbish and words by some very sick and sad people. Tell me what to do. What do you want me to do, Eve?’
Eve said nothing.
‘Has anything like this happened before, Eve?
‘No, Mum.’
Hillary, who didn’t grasp the extent of the graffiti, as she simply did not possess the imagination or knowledge needed to in that area, was shaking as she leant forwards to grab her daughter’s arm. ‘Do you know why this happened? Do you know who did this?’
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