Good Little Liars

by Sarah Clutton

  Thirty-Two

  Marleen

  25 November 1993

  Marleen felt like an intruder – the photograph was obviously not meant to be seen by students. The girl’s puffy dark hair framed the profile of her face. It was hard to see much from here, but it must be his girlfriend. Thank God she’d arrived in time to save Tessa from the embarrassment. None of them had suspected he had a girlfriend. She took a step backwards, confused and annoyed that she was spending her time down here saving Tessa from her own stupid actions instead of doing something useful or spending a few precious hours with her mother before she went back to hospital.

  A sudden scream came from the back of the cottage – short and guttural. A man’s scream. It hit Marleen like an electric shock and sent her reeling backwards. She stumbled back into the small pile of firewood next to the door, catching her ankle inside the edge of the wood box. She put her hands backwards to catch her fall as she twisted, but her ankle cracked painfully as she turned against the box to find the ground with her hands. She landed on her side with a shocking thud.

  Marleen sat up and tested her wrist gently. Then she unlatched her sock from the splintery vice of the wood box. A hot, sharp pain in her ankle made her wince as she stood up and leaned on the doorframe.

  ‘Mr Brownley? Are you alright?’

  She waited, listening to her own breath coming out in gasps, as if she just run a race. She tried to calm herself. The silence inside the cottage echoed and merged with the sound of the wind brushing through the trees behind her. The pain in her ankle was pushing into her thoughts, scattering her attention.

  ‘Mr Brownley – should I come in? Sir?’

  There was no reply. Marleen lifted her foot gingerly and tried to ignore her ankle. She opened the door, fully aware now of the reasons that he didn’t want her in his cottage, why she mustn’t be seen here. But something about the scream hadn’t sounded right. She took two steps into the dim living room and stopped. She heard a voice, low and urgent. Then another, different voice – an angry whisper. She hobbled towards them, letting her good foot take the weight, pain shooting up her other leg with each step.

  ‘Tessa, you cannot be here. This is completely out of line. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea, but you have to go.’

  ‘That’s not what you really want though, Sir. Is it?’ It was Tessa’s voice.

  ‘Tessa, come on – this is not something I intended. I take full responsibility if I misled you, but you have to leave. Seriously.’

  Marleen’s heart sank. She was too late. She sighed, searched her mind for what she should do next. She needed to get Tessa out of here so Mr Brownley wouldn’t get the sack, or worse. She limped into the bedroom.

  Tessa’s mouth fell open. ‘Marleen. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Tessa, let’s just go. Come on. This could get everyone into heaps of trouble.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Part of my job is to make sure we all graduate without getting into trouble. Please Tessa, just come.’

  ‘Don’t be such a pain in the arse, Marleen.’

  Tessa bent down and shoved her feet into her shoes, then busied herself tying a lace. She looked up at Marleen and back at Mr Brownley, tears sliding down her face.

  ‘You take everything from everyone, Marleen.’ Then she mimicked a teacher, waggling her head from side to side. ‘Marleen Maples is so clever. Marleen is so lovely. Why can’t you be more like Marleen and put in a bit more effort? Marleen, Marleen, Saint friggin’ Marleen. Now you’ll be telling Sharpy about this and then she’ll tell my dad.’

  Marleen moved slowly across the room and put her hand on Tessa’s shoulder as she fumbled with her shoelace.

  ‘Please, Tess. I just want you to come out of this okay.’

  Tessa pushed her hand away and let out a sob. ‘Out of what? I didn’t do anything.’ She looked at Mr Brownley and pointed. ‘He’s the one who’s been flirting with me. For all you know he told me to meet him here. Why should I be the one who gets in the shit for this? I’m sick of taking the fall for everyone. He’s as bad as my brother, wanting me to lie to save his arse.’

  Marleen looked across at Mr Brownley. For a moment he didn’t look like a teacher. He just looked young and scared – she’d seen the same look on her own big brother’s face when they’d been told about her mother’s prognosis.

  ‘Tessa, I didn’t tell you that,’ said Mr Brownley. He turned his head between Marleen and Tessa, as if he was in the den of a half-tamed lion and wasn’t sure whether to stay or run.

  ‘Tessa, let’s go. Please don’t say stuff like that. It could get him fired,’ said Marleen gently.

  ‘Really? Good! That’s good then.’ Tessa stumbled forward, her remaining undone shoelace catching as she pushed past Marleen. ‘Maybe I need to be the one to tell Sharpy myself then. He thinks he’s so hot. It’s embarrassing the way he pervs at all of us.’

  She bent down and picked up her school bag from the corner of the room and walked towards the cottage front door. ‘Leave me alone, Marleen.’

  Marleen heard the screen door bang and felt her heart hammering. Mr Brownley looked at her, panic enhancing his beautiful features. ‘Marleen, I promise I had nothing to do with this, but if she spins that story to Ms Sharp, I’ll be out of here. Doesn’t matter if it’s not true. They’d have to investigate and I’d be stood down, pending the outcome. The mud will stick, Marleen. You need to talk some sense into her.’

  Marleen sensed it acutely then. Her responsibility and her power, and the clinging dread that had arrived as she came to realise what it meant when she’d been voted Head Girl of the venerated institution that was Denham House. Duty hung around her neck, as heavy as the birthday cape.

  ‘Please, Marleen?’

  Marleen saw the hope in his face then. The desperate hope that she could be the one to fix this problem. To save his future. She felt her ankle throb painfully. She knew she’d have to find Tessa, but she was starting to feel sweaty and sick with the pain.

  ‘We’d better catch up with her. I can’t run though. I’ve hurt my ankle. Just run after her. Tell her you’re sorry or something – anything to calm her down. I’ll follow.’

  He ran out the door and Marleen limped after him. From the doorway she watched Tessa disappearing towards the oval, Mr Brownley sprinting at a distance behind her. Marleen began a slow hobbling run. With every footstep, pain glittered at the edge of her vision as her left foot met the ground, and as she started across the oval, she wondered why the school captaincy had once seemed like such a desirable pot of gold.

  She let the thought slide by, focussed her mind, blocking out the pain in her ankle until it was only a jarring stab. It was something Marleen had learned to do at night, when she was studying until one or two in the morning and her body was desperate for sleep and the pain in her back and neck threatened to cloud her concentration. She would focus on the discomfort and give it its due. Then she would dissolve inside it, move her attention, order her thoughts, slot the pain away.

  As she neared the hedge, she noticed that the grounds on this side of the oval were eerily empty. School sports had finished for the year. And this part of the grounds was out of bounds due to the building works. As she hobbled past the old administration block, she saw Mr Brownley. He was near the hedge that obscured the building site beside the north gates. He caught sight of her and made two quick scooping motions with his arm. Come on. Then he walked on, out of sight.

  As she rounded the end of the hedge, she saw him again and looked in the direction he was looking. Tessa was inside some safety fencing, leaning casually against a large wooden pallet of bricks right next to a huge hole in the ground. She looked up at Marleen briefly, then down again and resumed picking at one of her nails. Marleen walked over to Mr Brownley.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing. She told me to stay out. I don’t want this to get out of hand while she’s near that hole
. I should go and get another teacher.’

  Marleen looked at the tiny gap in the fencing, where the panels had been moved slightly out of alignment. It must have been where Tessa had slid through. Marleen walked over to it, turned sideways and did the same. She walked towards Tessa leaving Mr Brownley alone a dozen metres away and out of earshot.

  ‘Go away, Marleen.’

  Marleen flinched at the shadow of the huge trench looming out from the earth next to her.

  ‘Tessa, are you okay?’

  ‘What are you, a psychiatrist?’

  ‘Sorry. I just meant—’

  Tessa looked up, then her eyes flicked sideways towards Mr Brownley. ‘It’s no big deal, you know.’

  ‘I know, Tess.

  ‘I’m just so sick of guys thinking they know better than me. Thinking they can tell me what to do.’

  Marleen nodded, unsure of how to respond.

  ‘My brother reckons the police are going to interview me. He told them he was with me last Sunday when some drug deal went down that he was accused of being at. Wants me to say it couldn’t have been him, ’cos he was with me. He’s such a dickhead.’

  ‘Oh, Tess.’ Marleen saw the sadness and betrayal in Tessa’s eyes.

  Tessa crossed her arms and slumped back against the bricks again, defeated. ‘If my dad hears about any of this stuff, I’ll be so dead.’

  ‘Tess, let’s get out of here… go and talk somewhere else. I’ll help you sort something with your brother. And I’ll tell Mr B to go home too. I’ll tell him to forget all about this.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’ Tessa rolled her eyes.

  ‘Come on. Please?’

  The wind picked up, brisk and sharp, catching Marleen’s hair, blowing the embroidered floral cape flat across her chest, then making it flap loudly.

  Tessa reached out and plucked at the cape, seemed to consider the detail for a moment. She rubbed her thumb over an intricately patterned daisy stitched in golden-brown thread. She let her hand fall away. ‘Great dress. You should be on the catwalk.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Marleen pulled her lips back in a small smile. She needed to win Tessa’s trust, get her to see straight, see past her embarrassment, see the lighter side. ‘You can borrow it if you like.’

  ‘I’m right, thanks.’

  ‘I wish I’d worn it to the formal now, actually.’

  Marleen sensed a slight relaxation in Tessa’s shoulders then, a tilt towards levity, and she caught something forming in Tessa’s eyes. A tiny iris-shaped rebellion. A shiny pool of mirth, threatening to spill over and drown their carefully nurtured reverence for the quirky school traditions they’d accepted throughout their years at Denham House. The smug, archaic rituals and markers – the floral birthday cape; the colour-coded neck ties denoting status and achievements; the mandatory ‘nudie run’ to the slip house at midnight if you let in the final hockey goal by one of the Ellery Grammar girls, their sworn rivals in everything from equestrian sports to the St Marks boys.

  Tessa’s lips sucked against her teeth, as she tried hopelessly to smother a smile.

  Marleen felt laughter bubbling up in her too. The years of striving to never put a foot out of line. The relentless study, keeping her from social events and family time, even while her mother was fading away before her eyes. She put her hand over her mouth. The absurdity of it. And now, here they were, standing inside a building site – Tessa humiliated, and Marleen with a sprained ankle in a ridiculous floral cape, holding a teacher outside the barrier to ransom. The scandalous, hilarious, unbelievable cheek of Tessa. To break into his house! The front!

  Their eyes met and laughter burst from their mouths simultaneously, fizzing and spreading like spilled lemonade. They clutched at each other’s arms, bent at the waists, loud snorting giggles erupting over and over – a maelstrom of relief. A shared understanding that they stood on the cusp of adulthood with all its dazzling promise, if only they could make it through these last few days of childhood.

  Outside the barrier, Mr Brownley watched them, his puzzled face morphing into a frown.

  ‘Girls, come out. It’s dangerous in there.’ The wind blew at his words, whipping them away towards the oval.

  They looked at each other, a fresh burst of laughter catching Marleen in her chest. She was helpless to stop. Tessa swayed towards Marleen, her back to the trench. She was bent double with the effort of laughing, shaking with it.

  Eventually they caught their breath.

  Marleen was panting, her hand across her chest. ‘Come on, Tess. Let’s just forget about it. We’ll be out of here next week. He won’t even remember you were there tomorrow. He’s got too much marking to do.’

  Tessa rubbed her hand across her eyes, then reached into her tunic pocket and pulled something out. A photograph. She looked at it briefly, then turned it towards Marleen.

  ‘Except I left him one of these to remember me by. I got double prints.’

  Tessa was reclining on a lounge. Her lips parted, dark hair spilling down in front of her naked shoulders. Her breasts sat pert and perfect in the centre of the picture.

  ‘Oh.’ Marlee looked up, wide-eyed. ‘Right.’ The photo on the mantelpiece.

  Marleen thought quickly. He wouldn’t have seen it yet. Maybe they could get it back.

  She wondered whether she’d have to say anything about all this to Ms Sharp. She felt a sudden tiredness wash over her. Her ankle throbbed angrily as she lifted her foot off the ground, the flood of pain making her wince.

  Tessa watched her and seemed to wither. Her face became child-like, imploring. As if she knew her consuming struggles could be solved by Marleen, who had today become an adult, after all. Marleen Maples, Head Girl, who could fix anything. Tessa’s fingers turned slightly upwards, offering the photo, a gift that Marleen didn’t want. She just wanted to go home. To her mother. She was so tired.

  It was the hesitation that caused it. A brief, terrible moment where Marleen’s hand stopped in mid-air, as she considered the kaleidoscope of possibilities flickering through her head – the same moment that Tessa decided, irretrievably, to let go of the problem and hand it over to Marleen. The wind, sensing the release of Tessa’s fingers on the photograph, broke through the camellia branches like a thief, tossing the photograph up into the air.

  Tessa let out a cry. Marleen’s arm shot up and outwards to grab at the photograph, just a millisecond later. Except the photograph had flown away, across the other side of the fencing, and Marleen’s hand caught Tessa’s chest, hard and straight on. Tessa stumbled backwards. Then, just as she found her feet a metre from where Marleen stood, her left shoe found itself in a battle with the undone shoelace of her right shoe, so that when she tried to lift it to take one final steadying step at the edge of the trench, her foot didn’t follow. Sick horror pushed Marleen forwards, her hands grasping as she watched Tessa’s arms swinging once, twice, grappling with air. Then gravity and momentum took over and Tessa’s terrified face was there, then it wasn’t.

  Marleen heard her own scream like a distant church bell – ringing and insistent. She fell to her knees. Mr Brownley was suddenly beside her. He knelt and peered into the depths of the hole.

  ‘Tessa! Tessa – answer me!’

  Marleen felt faint, fearful that she would topple forward. She put her shaking hands on the ground beside her and leaned in. She could see Tessa lying awkwardly, in the shadowy pit, staring back at them.

  ‘Tessa! Are you alright?’ Marleen knew as she said it, between her own jerky breaths, that the question was disingenuous. Tessa looked strange. Her neck was tilted to one side at an unnatural angle. As they watched, a trickle of blood slid down from one of her nostrils. It was shadowy down there though. Marleen couldn’t be completely sure what she was seeing.

  ‘Tessa, say something.’ Marleen grasped at Mr Brownley’s shirt sleeve. ‘Sir, she’s hurt… really…’ Marleen was panting as the sick reality turned her mouth to a dry sludge. The words wouldn’t come out. ‘Sir… ambulance.’


  Mr Brownley’s eyes flicked back and forth.

  ‘Right. Right…’ He stood up, twisted, turned back. ‘I’ll go. Or maybe I should…’ He was staring down into the hole. It was impossible to get down there.

  ‘Sir, quick!’ She shook his arm hard. He needed to run. Run. Marleen leaned over the edge of the hole again. ‘Tess, we’re getting an ambulance. They’re coming.’ Tessa’s eyes stared back blankly.

  Mr Brownley was looking into the hole, then around at the building site, dazed. His mouth hung open.

  Marleen saw the panic rising in him, watched him slam his palms into his forehead. ‘The stupid girl! There’ll be no way out now. She’s dead, can’t you see?’

  ‘Sir. Stop! Just get an ambulance. I’ve hurt my ankle. I can’t run. You need to go!’

  Suddenly, a figure was beside them. A small, well-dressed woman appeared from nowhere. Her face was taut with questions. Marleen’s brain was spinning. She knew her. How did she know her?

  ‘What’s happened?’

  The woman’s tone was clipped and authoritative. She was so familiar.

  Mr Brownley grabbed at the woman’s arm.

  ‘Oh God! I shouldn’t have let this happen. What have I done? What are we going to do?’

  Marleen followed the woman’s profile as she leaned towards the hole and peered over, then she realised that neither Mr Brownley nor the woman were moving or speaking. She squeezed her fingernails into her palms and summoned every bit of remaining energy in her chest, forcing out words in a boiling rush of fear and dismay.

  ‘You need to get an ambulance. Please! It was an accident. You need to get it now!’

  Thirty-Three