by Emily Gale
We discarded my memories like rubbish. And I never felt free.
‘Is that it?’ she says.
The end-of-lunch bell goes. I stay put, hoping she’ll do the same, but she zips her bag and stands up.
‘Hang on, let me ask you something,’ I say. Her face is softer now but I have to tread carefully. ‘Just … I wondered – do you prefer Letty or Juliet?’
‘I’m Juliet now.’
‘Okay.’
She starts to leave.
‘Wait! One more thing, Juliet.’ I open the side pocket of my rucksack. ‘You can have this, if you want.’
She takes the tile and goes.
‘What do you reckon’s going on over there?’ says Matt. Adie and Juliet are sitting under a tree, looking tense.
‘Let’s mind our own business. And please eat this food, people. Lunch is nearly over. I can’t take any of it home and I’m morally against binning it.’
There’s a group of us on the oval, scattered around several plastic tubs. Matt, Billy, Zara, Sadie, Talia, Maya. Wren’s next to me. Then there’s Milo, a fraction off the grid. He doesn’t want any of the food. He often looks like he’d rather be somewhere else.
‘Is your dad a chef?’ asks Billy. ‘This isn’t bad.’
He’s been back and forth between our group and Christian’s this year, but he belongs with us. Everyone’s allowed a small identity crisis from time to time, but there’s no way I’m letting a good one slip over to the dark side without a fight.
‘Er, understatement?’ says Matt. ‘This is magazine-cover food. I’m trying not to plunge my face into this tub and eat like a dog.’
I laugh. ‘Dad cooks to relax.’
‘Mine does that too,’ says Wren, and I resist the urge to shout, See? We are perfect for each other! – because it’s not even in the top fifty reasons why we are.
Instead, I say, ‘The flipside is that it’s really not that relaxing for me to be handed four tubs of food every morning along with a big lecture about my bones sticking out.’
‘I see no bones; you’ve got a fit body,’ says Matt. ‘Luca’s a lucky man. Pass me a dolma.’
Matt is always good for my confidence. Not that I hate myself or anything, but it’s wise to surround yourself with people who agree that you’re excellent and vice versa. Matt isn’t just out, he’s confidently out – loud and happy – which presses all the dickheads’ buttons.
‘Actually, Luca and I aren’t a thing any more.’ That was an amateur move. Matt knows the whole truth about our relationship but not the latest part about us being over. He’ll know we can’t have the truth session now. I wish I’d waited until we were alone. I pop a borek into my mouth, shutting the door on what I let slip.
‘How could you two not be a thing?’ says Talia, who doesn’t know the whole truth. ‘You’ve been together since you were, like, eleven or something equally Shakespearean.’
I shrug and make dramatic ‘who knows’ shapes with my arms, still chewing. Lots and lots of chewing.
‘Are you okay?’ Wren asks. She puts a hand on my knee.
‘Mmhmm,’ I squeak.
Poppy and Scarlet are heading straight for us with purpose. They look spooked. ‘We heard about the fire,’ says Scarlet.
‘What fire?’ I ask.
‘Oh, you don’t know?’ Poppy looks behind her at the tree where Adie and Juliet are sitting. ‘There was a fire at some posh place in Kew.’
‘Uh-huh, but what’s the conspiracy theory?’ says Matt. ‘Cos you two look like you’ve uncovered state secrets.’
‘Her,’ says Scarlet, turning her head slightly as if she can smell something bad over her shoulder.
‘Who?’ says Wren.
‘Adie, the new girl.’
I tug on Poppy’s skirt. ‘Sit down, Ploppy, and tell us what the hell you’re on about.’
‘Don’t call me Ploppy, bitch.’
‘Joking. Sorry. It’s all that talk of primary school earlier. Look, seriously, sit down and eat some food while you’re here.’
They both shake their heads at the tub I’m holding out, but they crouch down noncommittally.
‘Why would you say a house fire has got something to do with Adie?’ asks Wren.
We glance at each other. I’m thinking about how drunk Adie was the other night at Luca’s house, which is also in Kew. Maybe Wren is too. But Luca said she’d just slept and left early, embarrassed and hungover.
‘It’s something super creepy to do with the portrait of her – that one by her dad that nearly won the prize.’
‘What the hell are you on about, Poppy?’ says Wren.
‘Keep your wig on, Twilight. Basically, some guy bought the portrait of Adie and, the night after he got it home and hung it up, the whole freakin’ house burnt down.’ Poppy stops but no one speaks, maybe because, like me, they think she still hasn’t made her point. ‘Guess what survived the fire when literally nothing else did?’
‘The painting!’ says Matt.
Poppy raises an eyebrow and nods smugly. ‘Everything else was toast.’ She looks at Wren dead-on. ‘How creepy is that?’
‘I think you’re light-headed,’ I say. ‘Eat something.’
‘It’s obviously voodoo or some such freakery that someone like her should know all about,’ says Scarlet, pointing at Wren. ‘Er, hello? The night they hang it there’s a fire? And it’s the only thing that survives?’
Some of the girls start laughing, but I’ve got a queasy feeling that it’s going to morph from a stupid joke into something bigger. Poppy and Scarlet are wannabe journos, spreading fake news around school.
‘It should be illegal to be as stupid as you two,’ Wren says.
‘It should be illegal to have a face like yours. Come on, Scarlet.’
After the girls leave, I offer the food around again, but everyone’s trying to get a look at Adie.
‘Come on, people,’ I say.
Matt shrugs. ‘Spooky.’
Wren gets up, brushing bits of twig and grass from her dress. ‘See you later,’ she mumbles at no one in particular.
Which is fine: I’ll sit here and eat my feelings. Hallelujah for cooked cheese and flaky pastry.
We’ve been kissing in Williams Reserve since school finished. Poppy found a hidden spot between someone’s back fence and a Moreton Bay fig tree. Still, if we were inside somewhere I’d be able to do more. I want to get lost in her. Every part of her has a different smell and it’s driving me to the edge.
‘Can we go back to your place?’ I kiss the side of her neck.
‘We can’t. I live in a small apartment.’ She finds my mouth again, keeping her eyes open. She’s confident – it’s pretty hot. ‘What about yours?’
The thought of bringing a girl home almost kills my buzz.
‘Nah, Mum’s got her … book group.’
‘I thought you had a massive house.’
‘We just can’t.’
Poppy tucks her finger behind my belt and pulls me closer. ‘Have to stay here then.’ First she smiles, but then she’s serious. Our lips connect and we kiss harder. She unzips my shorts, and I finish the kiss to check that there’s no one else around. All clear. Her shirt is unbuttoned to her bra. She reaches into my boxers and my breath catches. There’s only me looking at her, her looking at me, and the blissful sensation in my knob. As she jerks me off, I press one hand against the tree, the other up her back and into her hair. I don’t want to come too quickly or she’ll think I’m pathetic. I try to focus on the canopy of leaves above us, but I’m nearly …
‘Ow! Ben!’
I’m pushed away so hard that I land smack against the fence. Poppy’s holding the back of her head and her face shows intense pain. In my left hand are dozens of strands of dark blonde hair. I try to shake them off, but they’re stuck on and there’s so much of it.
‘You hurt me!’ she yells, and everything about her expression confirms it.
‘Shit. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.’
Poppy smooths her hair with both hands as tears spill down her face. I zip up my shorts, wishing I could go back a few seconds and stop myself.
She takes a step towards me, giving me a look I know. My mum looks at my dad that way.
But I’ve never seen him hurt her. Not like that.
Poppy slides her hands around my waist. ‘Don’t do it again, okay?’
We kiss for a while longer, but it feels like nothing. In fact, it makes me sick to my stomach.
‘I’ve got to go, Poppy.’
‘You said we had ages.’
‘Nah, stuff I have to do.’
‘Oh. Walk me back to my place?’
On the way, she keeps putting her head on my shoulder and telling me I’m sweet for taking her home. I’m not sweet – it was her idea. Whatever was between us is finished.
I just want to start again with someone different.
‘Where are you, Ben Brearley?’ Her fingertips on my jaw; she presses me to look at her. ‘I’ve lost you.’ I kiss her head. She says, ‘Let’s get a drink here. I’m not ready to give you up.’
I force a smile. I’ll have to ghost her; I’ve done it before.
I sit at a small table outside a cafe and Poppy goes in to order our drinks. At least there’s no one I know around here.
She comes out with two iced chocolates topped with cream and chocolate sauce and I reach into my pocket for some money. I wave a ten-dollar note at her.
‘It’s on me,’ she says. ‘Look, I was reading an article about your dad’s friend and that fire.’ Poppy holds up her phone.
‘Let me see.’
‘That’s the girl in my English class.’ She enlarges a picture of the portrait of Adie and passes me the phone.
It says that, since the fire, people have been writing in to the paper with similar stories. Portraits of Adie surviving disasters, or households that started to crack up as soon as they’d hung the painting. People saying they felt haunted ever since the day they brought a picture of her into their homes. That accidents started to happen and the only conceivable trigger is the presence of a portrait of Adie in their house. Not just here – in Europe too. I shake my head, thinking how hysterical they all sound. ‘Come on, Poppy, this is stupid.’
‘Did you even read it? More than twenty people have reported a house fire or some other disaster that involved a painting of Adie,’ she says. ‘And I bet more will come forward now. That can’t be a coincidence.’
‘It is pretty freaky when you put it like that.’
‘She’s pretty freaky.’ Poppy takes her phone off me. ‘I’m not sitting in class with her.’
I sip my drink and try to figure out if this changes the way I think about Adie. I don’t buy the story, but it kind of adds to what I already thought about her: she’s one of a kind.
I feel better already.
In the distance I see Milo walking along by himself. I stand up and wait for him to see me.
‘What are you doing?’ Poppy says.
‘Ssh, nothing.’
Finally, Milo looks over. Face like a scared bunny, he runs into a side street. I smile and sit down again. Not today, mate.
On the tram back to my place, I get my phone out of my bag. It’s been on silent and there are missed calls from Mum and a few texts from Noah. They’ve gone full stalker on me. But as I listen to the messages, my heart starts pounding. This ancient tram rattles along and Mum’s voicemails sound increasingly desperate but she never says why. Noah’s texts say ‘Get home’, ‘Hurry, Ben’.
I pull on the loose wire over and over, and when the tram stops I jump off and start running. My mind is a black hole but I’ve never felt so much adrenalin in my legs. I’m mechanical, taking the bends and tearing down the straights.
I take the front steps three at a time and find the door’s ajar. Mum and Noah are at the foot of the stairs with bags at their feet. Dad’s standing on the right and I can tell he’s just finished yelling. My lungs are on fire.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Ben, your mother’s been trying to call you.’ Dad comes towards me, breathless. But the tone of his voice is casual and he’s almost smiling. ‘She’s going away for a while and she’s taking Noah.’ Calm. Matter-of-fact.
My heartbeat steadies as I get my breath back. Taking Noah.
‘Grab a bag, Ben, and put some clothes in it,’ says Mum. There’s a telltale wobble in her voice.
Dad moves between us. ‘Your mum’s upset, she needs some time.’
‘Come with us, Ben,’ says Noah, his face grubby with dried tears.
Us. Mum and Noah. She’s been trying to tell me that something was wrong and I didn’t want to hear it.
I want to go with her. But there’s Dad.
‘No need to go through any upheaval with school and training,’ he says. ‘You and me have always been great, haven’t we, mate? This will be sorted soon. Your mum knows I adore her. It’s going to be fine. Stay here with me.’
‘Ben, I’ve got a place,’ Mum says softly. ‘I want you with me.’
‘Please, son,’ says Dad.
Mum sighs and picks up the bags.
‘Ben!’ says Noah, like I’m letting him down.
‘Ben,’ says Dad. It’s a deep sound that spreads through the matrix of my bones. ‘You’re my boy.’
When Adie walks down a corridor now, there are whispers. People draw back from her – either seriously or as a joke. I’d like to tell them how disappointing their grasp of logic is to me. Not because I like Adie all that much, but because a poor grasp of logic is kind of offensive. I mean, why should my quirks be the object of so much derision when their blatant stupidity is allowed to roam the school freely?
Some news outlets run a different story about it every day. Even though loads of the comments under the articles say there’s no logic to it and that the whole thing is a joke, this tiny minority of scaremongers feel much more powerful than they should.
I hate seeing someone painted in the wrong light.
Wren and I are walking towards the Science block. She’s been so quiet lately. It’s as if the minute I thought about changing things between us I drove her away. Now all I want is to get back to what we used to be. I won’t walk slower or talk louder or try any more of those magazine tips that have nothing to do with why people really like each other.
‘Earth to Wren. Come in, Wren.’
‘There’s no chance that there’s anything to it, is there?’
‘Anything to what?’
‘The painting. I know! I know what you’re going to say, Milo. Hear me out. It’s just confusing when so many examples of similar things happening keep cropping up. I mean, it distracts me from reason. I can’t help thinking, How?’
‘Wren, the probability of the fires and accidents being related to the portraits of Adie is zero.’
‘Zero. Zero is good. I get zero.’
‘People are looking for a pattern where there isn’t one. It’s what gamblers do. It’s why most of them lose. Say I flip a coin three times and it’s tails every time. What’s the next flip?’
‘Heads, but you’re going to tell me that’s wrong, aren’t you?’
‘Well, the odds are still fifty-fifty. Still as likely to be tails. Everyone’s trying to find a single source of bad luck. They want a villain and they hate it when there isn’t a good explanation. Same with lucky charms. They only work because the people who carry them have a false sense of good outcome – it makes them try harder, work for longer, because they believe the result will be good. Like artists – they say the Muse is with me, or the Muse has left me. But it’s attitude and circumstance. Art isn’t magic.’ I look at Wren, and I think I lost her with that last sentence. ‘Art is still amazing. But there’s nothing unlucky about a painting.’ We arrive at the point where we have to split up to go to different classes. ‘See you at the tree when the bell goes?’
‘Not today.’
‘Why not?’
�
��The art shop asked me to help with their stocktake for a few bucks. Talk to you later.’
It doesn’t matter what I say, I keep losing her.
Walking out of the main gates after school, I see Juliet and wind my way through the crowd on the footpath to get to her. She smiles when I catch up to her, but we don’t speak. We walk slowly, letting other groups overtake us.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask her when the street has cleared. She shrugs, looking straight ahead. ‘Want me to leave you alone?’
She shakes her head.
‘Can I show you my long-cut? It’ll take us almost home and it’s really beautiful down by the river, just half a kay longer.’
‘That sounds good.’
We make our way to the river, over the bridge and through the trees to the narrow path that runs along a ledge. You have to step carefully here because the riverbank is steep, but it’s rare to pass someone coming from the other direction. The canopy of white gum trees keeps the sun off our backs. Juliet walks behind me, and when I look around at her I can tell this was a good idea.
‘Like it?’ I say, to make sure.
‘It’s great. We’re not going to get lost in the bush, are we?’
‘I know this place like the back of my hand. Trust me.’
I point out critters and birds as we go, and it’s nice thinking that Juliet will remember everything.
‘What do you think of the whole Adie thing?’ she says.
‘I feel bad for her. People are going to feel pretty stupid eventually.’
‘Maybe. She says she remembers me now. She says her dad never talked about the past, so it got locked up in her mind. Do you think that’s true?’
‘Well, there’s a lot of stuff I’ve locked away. And there are things my mum and dad remember that I can’t picture at all. And what about that story you told me about Miss Brodie? All I remember from that is my picture of a bear.’