• • •
Some days, sitting here looking out over the Sanctuary’s manicured lawns, all I can concentrate on are the dead moths turning to dust in the window sill and Haiku Ned’s heavy breathing, but if I close my eyes I’m back in the body of a thirteen-year-old. I can see my legs covered with downy hair and the scab on my knee and my navel puckering in the centre of my once-smooth tummy that’s now covered over with rolls of fat. Then I can feel what was going on inside me. My throat so tight that I can’t get air in, bugs scurrying around in my stomach, trying to get out.
• • •
You’d have thought that Juliette’s treatment at the hands of Bill would have evoked some sort of empathy in her, but it was quite the opposite and it gradually got worse. In our tents, she introduced me to a game called Hamburgers. I’d end up wedged between piles of bedding and clothes, and she’d leap onto my back and stay there until I stopped wiggling my legs. ‘I can’t breathe,’ I’d call out, but my voice couldn’t break through. I have no doubt now that she was trying to suffocate me. One day she took me on a bushwalk, leading me through the scrub until the trail petered out. She told me to close my eyes, and then she ran off and left me there. I tried to find the landmarks we’d passed – the stagnant pools of water, the broken bridge, the tyre looped around a tree branch – but nothing seemed familiar. It was pure luck that another family came across me, perched on a tree stump, sobbing and disoriented. They walked me back to the campsite and Juliette was there with my mum. Her eyes were red. When Juliette saw me, she ran over and put her arms around my neck. ‘Thank goodness! Don’t ever do that again. I was calling and calling you,’ she said. She looked back towards my mum with a faint and slightly exasperated ‘what will we do with her’ smile. ‘That was very silly, Deidre,’ Mum said. ‘When you’re in the middle of the bush, the middle of nowhere, you don’t hide from people, for goodness sake.’
There was no escape. If I didn’t sleep in her tent, she’d be hovering around the smouldering ashes of our campsite in the mornings, waiting for me to get up. Mum would greet her and then she’d give me that look; that deluded ‘aren’t things going well’ look that only parents can give. I ended up getting a dull ache in my stomach whenever I saw Juliette perched on the camp chair in front of our fire.
• • •
I don’t know how long we’d been camping – days felt like weeks – but I had a short reprieve during which there was no sign of Juliette. I relaxed again, playing checkers with Dad and even admiring his whittled-stick collection. We went on family nature walks and collected seed pods with gaping eyes and textured strips of bark. I found myself revelling in wholesome activities that I would have frowned upon as too childish days earlier. I was arranging flora specimens in jars like a botanist when Juliette appeared with a backpack and a striped towel rolled under one arm. She was wearing the swimming costume that matched mine and her face was shaded by a warped slouch hat. My leg started twitching involuntarily. Just down from the campsite was an overgrown track that took us to the beach, but I didn’t like the ocean. My mother’s fierce fear of rips and marauding sharks lapped away in my thoughts whenever I paddled around near the shoreline. For all her usual trepidation, though, on this particular day she agreed that Juliette and I were old enough to have a dip on our own. It was as though being on holiday made us invincible.
‘As long as it’s fine with your parents,’ Mum said to Juliette, looking over my head, fobbing me off. ‘Just keep an eye on her, Juliette; you know, after last time,’ she added.
Juliette smiled and nodded. Around my parents, she had a dependable air about her. Even my mother was caught under her spell.
‘I’ve got pains in my stomach,’ I said truthfully.
‘A little soak in the shallows will help,’ Mum said. Then, more maternally, she brushed the side of her leg, giving me the code for ‘not past your knees’.
‘You should come too,’ I said, the blood in my ears tolling.
‘Deidre, I’m going to tidy up a bit and then your father is taking me into town so we can stock up on a few things.’
‘I’ll go shopping with you then,’ I countered, in a last desperate attempt.
‘Sometimes adults need time to themselves,’ she said flatly, curbing any further discussion. ‘We’re on holiday too, remember.’ She grabbed my swimming costume, which was slung over a chair, and ushered me into the tent to get changed.
• • •
That day the air had a spicy smell that threaded through the bleating cicadas and the rustling coastal grasses. The sky was cloudless and the harsh light glinted against Juliette’s bare shoulders as she led the way. Her backpack bumped against her sturdy back and her hat flapped like a bird. My legs were shaking the way they do when you pull up after a long run. A jittery feeling coursed through me, some sort of innate flight response that made me want to sprint away, but I followed her anyway, the way you trail someone in a dream, thinking you might know them. At the bend in the track she glanced back at me and grinned. It was then that I noticed a boy about our age slouched against a flat rock. He was propped up on his elbows and, when he saw us, he gave me a long languid gaze. His eyes were tealy-blue, framed by dark lashes, and his dark hair was clumped in tight pot-scourer coils. He was wearing orange swimming togs held in place by a white belt. His feet and his chest were bare and he had a small rash, like a cluster of mosquito bites, on his stomach. He had a couple of spots on his face too.
‘Hi Bradley,’ Juliette said, her voice sweet and sultry.
I pictured the two of them in the concrete tunnel, Juliette rolling her tongue around in his mouth.
He grinned, and the look in his eyes, the total lack of surprise, told me that Bradley didn’t just happen to be sprawling on the path.
‘This is Deidre,’ she said. ‘So, now you can see what all the fuss is about.’ She turned back to me. ‘Bradley only arrived yesterday. His mother has already invited me to dinner.’
It was a strange and formal introduction. Bradley jolted his chin up in recognition and then he unfurled like a creature coming out of a long slumber and dragged himself to his feet. His movements were sluggish. When he stood, he towered over us, but his face was babyish and a bit dopey. He didn’t look like he had the energy, let alone the inclination, to do anything to hurt me. We weren’t far from the beach. I could hear the sea rousing up the shore and the echoing squeal of a child. If anything, I felt safer with Bradley there.
‘C’mon then,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. I’m sweating like hell.’
He was too. He put his hands behind his neck. Sparse tufts of dark hair sprouted from his armpits. There was a fine trail of hair in the small gap between his navel and the top of his swimming trunks.
‘Yes, soon,’ Juliette said. ‘First, Deidre wants to play truth-or-dare.’
‘No I don’t,’ I said. My gut was churning. It made a low rumbling sound and I pushed my fist into it.
‘You said so when we were walking, Deidre. You said you wanted to play.’
‘Mm, mm,’ I said, shaking my head. It was a pathetic response but it was all I could muster. I considered turning around and bolting but I thought that would just goad her into hunting me down. It was as if she’d been blooded.
‘Let’s get it over with. Then we’ll go for a swim. Truth or dare, Deidre?’ she said. ‘Come on. It’s not hard. You’re not gonna cry, are you?’
‘No.’ As soon as she said it, I thought that maybe I would.
‘Well, go on, then. Answer. You’re not stupid.’
‘Truth,’ I said.
‘Truth. Good.’ She stood with her legs apart, and curled her fingers one by one into her palms. Above us, the pale underbellies of tree branches twisted around each other. ‘Have you ever kissed a boy?’
I didn’t say anything. I was trying to think.
‘Well? Can’t you remember? Have you kissed so many that you can’t count them up?’
‘No,’ I said. My body tingled and I start
ed to rake my fingers up my forearms. ‘Yes. Well, not a boy.’
‘Who?’
‘My dad.’
Bradley laughed, a big gulping laugh, and Juliette screwed up her face.
‘Not that sort of kiss, you idiot. Or is that what’s wrong with you? You make out with your dad.’
‘No.’
Bradley scratched an angry red sore on his elbow and yawned. ‘Come on, Juliette,’ he said. ‘It’s too damn hot.’
‘Well, Deidre loses with that answer because it’s so pathetic. So, it’s your turn again, dreary Deidre. Truth or dare?’
‘Don’t we take turns?’
‘You lost. I just said that.’ She looked at Bradley. ‘Told you,’ she said.
I glanced between them. They were looking less like friends, and more like conspirators, though Bradley was clearly the protégé.
‘Truth,’ I said again, my voice croaky.
‘No, you can’t have that. You can’t choose truth twice. Dare.’ Juliette put her hands on her hips. ‘What can we dare her with, Bradley? How about a choice, just to be fair. I’ll give you a race out past the waves; the first one back to shore wins. That’s my dare, and … Bradley? What do you think?’
Bradley didn’t hesitate. ‘I dare her to kiss me,’ he grinned. ‘Your decision, Deidre.’
I’d had swimming lessons, but even in a pool I wasn’t a strong swimmer, always lifting my head too high, taking a gulp of air too soon, my legs never high enough to make fluttery kicks on the surface. Against the whine of cicadas I said I’d take the kiss.
Juliette’s lips turned down and her nostrils flared. Her eyes seemed to absorb the golden light of the bush. There was a flash of movement as Bradley punched his fist into the sky and then he looked at Juliette and reverted to his subdued drooping stance.
‘Fine then,’ she said. ‘Should’ve known you’d pick that. Told you,’ she said to Bradley again.
Bradley looked at me formally, as though sizing me up, the same way Dad examined his whittled sticks.
‘Give us some privacy, Juliette,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you need to keep a lookout.’
‘How will I know if you do it?’
‘As if,’ Bradley said. He nonchalantly rolled his shoulders, but he didn’t take a step, none of us did. Juliette seemed to be drawing out the moment and for once I was glad that she was succeeding. It was as though the day had stopped in its tracks and the three of us were on the brink, not knowing what would happen next, but unable to retreat.
‘I’ll give you some of her spit,’ he smirked.
Bradley moved towards me and took my elbow, the way you hold an elderly person when they need to cross the road. He led me behind the shredded trunks of a cluster of paperbarks. I turned back to Juliette, but she had moved down to the wide sandstone slab Bradley had been sunning himself on. She sat with her back to us, tidily with her legs crossed, sipping from a bottle of cordial and taking bites from an apple as though she were having little lunch in the schoolyard.
‘Close your eyes if you want,’ Bradley said thoughtfully. He stooped down towards me and I opened my lips a fraction. ‘Make it wider,’ he said. ‘Tilt your head.’
It was like going to the dentist. I felt nothing except the sheer weight of inevitability. He put his clammy hands on my waist and I left my arms hanging. He suctioned his mouth onto mine and we stood like that for what seemed a very long time. I was aware of my legs, so stiff they were starting to cramp, and his tongue, like a sea slug, rolling around in my mouth, suctioning onto any available surface. I tried to keep my tongue very still. I thought that if he latched on, he might swallow it. How would I explain that? A bird warbled incessantly and Juliette crunched into her apple. Gravity meant that I was the one collecting spit, not Bradley. I leaned back and started to breathe more heavily through my nose. Bradley finally pulled away and took his hands off my waist. I wiped my mouth. The sides of my T-shirt were wet from where he’d been holding me.
‘You right?’ he said.
I nodded.
‘Want to keep going?’ he asked quietly.
The heat was prickling up into my scalp. I shook my head.
He looked at me in a considered way and then shrugged. ‘Me neither,’ he said, and loped back towards Juliette.
When he stood next to her, she beckoned for him to lean down and she whispered something. Then she raised her arm for him to help her up. She dusted off the backs of her legs and repacked her backpack.
‘Well,’ she said, with something of my mother in her tone, ‘I hope it was worth it, Deidre.’
• • •
Bradley and Juliette walked ahead, an unlikely pairing. Bradley had broad shoulders but the awkward gait of a boy still growing into his limbs. Juliette scuttled along beside him, her flecked shoulders shimmering. She’d taken off her hat and her hair blazed like a sheet of copper in the afternoon light. I followed behind in a daze.
On the beach, Bradley ground his heels into the sand and walked as if on stilts. Juliette made wide sweeping movements with her legs that left the rolling pattern of an unbroken wave in her trail. We walked past tanned bodies sticking out from umbrellas, women reclining on sun lounges, children jumping over clumps of flotsam on the shoreline. A row of teenage girls squatted at the water’s edge and squealed and lifted their legs every time a wave skittled them back onto the sand. Further out, surfers huddled towards the horizon. Just the week before, I’d been digging a tunnel in the sand while my mum and dad walked up the beach; holding hands, they had faded in the hazy salt spray.
Juliette and Bradley travelled in their own unique way along the shoreline until it was almost free of footprints. I relaxed a little in the sunlight, crunching my toes together to form pockmarks in the long snaking trail Juliette left behind her. With my head down, I didn’t notice that she’d stopped walking until I was almost at her heels.
She twisted around to face me. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she said.
‘Nothing.’ My voice was small, unconvincing even to me.
‘Why are you following us?’
I took a step backwards, then another, staring down towards the foamy water that burbled out of air pockets on the wet sand.
‘I think she wants to kiss you again, Bradley,’ Juliette said. ‘Look at her, following you like a lovesick puppy. It’s what she does all the time. She follows, but she never quite catches up. There’s something wrong with her.’
I tried to make eye contact with Bradley but he was looking past me towards the churning waves. If I’d expected some sort of protection after the kiss, I was off the mark.
‘See, Bradley, she’s looking at you like she wants to do it again.’
‘No I don’t.’
Bradley didn’t look fazed either way. He put his towel down on the sand, spreading out its corners, and then he hitched up his orange trunks and ambled down to the sea. When he reached the water, he hurdled over the shore breakers with lumbering strides and threw himself under the whitewash of a wave. When he came up, he shook his hair and swam away from us towards a pale patch of water. He moved with strong over-arm strokes, pivoting his head from side to side, propelling through the water like a man. In the ocean he was a different creature, and I felt a fleeting jolt of pleasure about the kiss.
Juliette scowled at me. ‘Oh, because you think you’re so much better than us. You think you’re so good. You’re lucky he did it. He didn’t want to, you know. He hates the holes in your face and … and your gammy legs.’
My gammy legs were a new misfortune.
‘He feels sorry for you. You want everything that’s mine. You want my mum. You want my friends.’
‘No I don’t.’ Juliette and the heat were making me dizzy. I sat down in the sand and put my head against my knees.
‘Is that all you can say? What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?’
‘I don’t feel good.’
‘Yeah, you don’t look good either. You need to cool off.’
I fe
lt her hands around my ankles then. I glanced up at her face, her mouth taut with purpose, and then I pulled my legs in, the way a hermit crab drags its claws into its shell. Juliette wrenched at my feet before turning and slotting my legs into the dents of her waist. Her hair streamed down her back, as glossy as tree sap. I thrashed my torso against her and mined my hands into the ground like anchors as she dragged me. The sand trailed through my fingers, as light as air.
When we reached the shuffling rim of the ocean, she held me tighter. Her body was greasy and my calves slithered against her flushed skin. She hoisted me up and pushed through a breaking wave. My scream for her to stop came out like an energised shriek, the same sound she made when Bill suspended her over the lobster pot. If anyone had looked at us, it would have seemed as though we were playing. Two young girls in matching green costumes squealing and writhing in the ocean.
Juliette dragged me deeper and I sculled at the frothy wash with agitated hands. I lifted my neck up and saw Bradley. His shoulders and tapering back were high out of the water and he was pounding his long arms against its surface. I didn’t understand it at the time. I thought the ocean floor only went down, but he seemed to be rising up out of the sea.
When she let go of me in the next wave, I pushed my legs down and my toes skipped along the sandy bottom like spinifex heads. We faced each other, our arms lashing in the surge. Juliette ducked down and when she came up again her eyes were wide and white.
‘It’s deep,’ she said.
I grabbed her around the neck. I pulled my legs up around her waist and squeezed as hard as I could, just as I’d done when Bill balanced me on his bicep. Her arms moiled against me and she gulped at the water and the air.
• • •
I’m still scared of rips and sharks, but I’ve come to appreciate the salt water. I catch the complimentary bus down to the baths and do breaststroke. I wear one of those floral swimming caps and when I’m submerged I feel like a serene and insignificant creature. My capped head glides across the surface like a waterlily.
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