by Alison Booth
Things didn’t stand still. She thought they did because nothing momentous had occurred in her life since the fire and moving to Ferndale. But while nothing much had happened to her, other people weren’t so fortunate and they were affected by what they’d lived through. It was true that Lorna still had the same personality, with the same warmth and humour, and the resilience that she’d always had. Best of all, she’d kept alive some of her joyousness in spite of what had happened. But she was also different in a way that Zidra now struggled to define. She’d thought of this alteration as Lorna growing up, but maybe it was more that Lorna was becoming political. They think they’re grooming the blackness out of us, she’d said. But they’re not. They’re grooming it into us. We have a common cause now.
The sunlight streaming into the room was slowly shifting its focus. Soon it moved onto Zidra’s face and she felt its warmth. This new identity was a good thing for Lorna, she decided at length. Her friend wouldn’t stay in domestic service long. She’d leave as soon as she could and make her way to better things. She was strong and Zidra should focus on this. The bond between them, although less important that it had once been, need never die.
If Lorna had been white, she and Zidra would have stayed together, probably gone to school together. But she hadn’t and would soon be free to follow a different life.
What would she, Zidra, become? If she were unlucky, she would do a secretarial course in Burford and become a receptionist and spend her days travelling to and from Burford by bus, typing dreary letters for the local solicitor or doctor or architect. The Bachelor and Spinster Balls and the picnic races would be the social highlights. In the fullness of time she would marry someone whom she’d meet at one of those balls, some grazier’s son or an articled clerk or a businessman who would inevitably be a member of the Burford Club.
She didn’t want that though. If she were lucky, she’d go to university. Afterwards, she’d have a brilliant career. Writing well and thinking logically must give you a head start in journalism, that’s what Mrs Fox said. Her talents surely made her well suited to that occupation. In spite of her telephone conversation with the social pages editor of the Sydney Morning Chronicle, she wasn’t going to accept that there might be any bar to her choice.
Chapter 34
A taxi was to collect Philip for the free weekend in early March that he was to spend at Hunters Hill. He was so pleased at the prospect of getting away for two days that he was waiting outside Barton House ten minutes before the taxi was due to arrive. It was a surprise when Auntie Susan turned up in the Williamsons’ car instead. She gave him an enormous hug that was witnessed by half the boarders, but that didn’t matter, not with the whole weekend in front of him.
‘I couldn’t bear to think of you travelling all that way on your own,’ she said, ‘so here I am.’
She didn’t know the distances he’d travelled already, on his own if you didn’t count Jones, who had to drive the car just like the taxi driver. Still, he was happier to see her than she could possibly guess.
On the way to Hunters Hill, they took what she described as a small detour to somewhere called Macleay Street. ‘Have to drop a little parcel off,’ she said, ‘for an old friend’s birthday tomorrow. I forgot to get it in the post in time and I just can’t bear to have a present arrive late, can you? It’s never quite the same.’
While she double-parked in the street outside a small block of flats, he raced into the lobby and slid the package into the box of Unit 6. It just fitted through the slot. As he left, he glanced up the street and noticed a tall glass-fronted building looming over the neighbourhood. ‘W-w-what’s th-that?’ he asked his aunt when he was back in the car.
‘It’s the Royal Albion Hotel. Brand new and much too high. You can imagine the outcry when it was built. All the local residents were up in arms.’
‘C-c-c-can . . .?’
‘Can you go up? Yes, there’s an observation deck there. Would you like to?’
He shook his head. He hated heights. ‘Wh-where are w-w-we?’
‘Some call this Potts Point,’ she said, laughing. ‘Others call it Kings Cross. The boundary’s a little elastic.’
He didn’t remember much about the Williamsons’ house at Hunters Hill. He’d been so angry the day he’d visited with his father that he hadn’t taken in anything much, apart from the piano and the music that his aunt gave him. Their house was old; older even than Woodlands. It was surrounded by trees through which the flickering harbour water could be seen. After they had afternoon tea – there was a chocolate cake and jam tarts – Philip and Auntie Susan walked around the garden together. His aunt didn’t ask questions or seem to mind if he didn’t say anything. She pointed out the main landmarks, but when she began to talk about the plants growing in the garden he stopped paying such close attention to her words. Instead he listened to the rise and fall of her voice, and to the occasional hooting of a tugboat, and to the birds, and to the faint rattling of the leathery leaves of what she said were evergreen magnolia trees.
Afterwards, while they waited for Uncle Fred to come home, Auntie Susan asked him if he’d like to play something on the piano for her. He chose the Sculthorpe sonatina that she’d given him, and she was delighted, or at least that’s what she said. He would have carried on playing if Uncle Fred hadn’t arrived at this point. While he smiled a lot, he didn’t talk much; he didn’t need to, married to Auntie Susan. Later, he said he liked nothing more than to watch television on a Friday night after a long week at the office. Although watching the box was a rare treat for Philip – there was no reception down south and no television in Stambroke College – he managed to stay awake only through the news and then some more, but fell asleep soon after. He didn’t get much continuous sleep at Stambroke. It wasn’t only the bullying, but the anticipation of it that made him nervous and on edge. Auntie Susan woke him up when the program was over, and he went to bed in a room that had been one of his cousins’.
The rest of the weekend passed all too quickly, with a walk around Balls Head on Saturday morning, when his aunt pointed out all the sights. In the afternoon, she took him to see a film at Roseville Cinema, One Hundred and One Dalmations, which he loved, while Uncle Fred pottered in the garden. On Sunday morning, Philip awoke with the usual dread weighing him down at the prospect of returning to school. Once breakfast was over, he practised the piano. Again and again he played Chopin’s Funeral March, stopping only when it was time to head off for lunch at a restaurant near Coogee. Afterwards, they walked along what his aunt called the esplanade towards the southern headland. The apprehension that threatened to overwhelm him seemed to sharpen his hearing. There was no wind, yet the sea made a continuous shushing noise, only occasionally increasing its volume to thump down upon the beach. After reaching the end of the esplanade, they continued a distance along the edge of the low cliff. Here the crash of the surf made him flinch. Sometimes the way a wave broke sounded like the violent tearing of fabric. An unseen bird squealed as if in pain. After a while the sun went behind diffused clouds. The sky became a mottled white-and-grey like the plastic Laminex kitchen benches his aunt and uncle had. They began to retrace their steps.
Soon it would be time to return him to Stambroke College. His depression deepened. He felt intensely alone, although he was walking between his aunt and uncle. The sea was becoming even angrier and occasionally a wave slapped down hard on itself, a warning of what the ocean was capable of, if you didn’t take care. Not that he wanted to take care. He wanted to hurl himself over the cliff edge and into the boiling sea, and put an end to his misery.
But not in front of his aunt and uncle. If he was going to do it, he’d have to do it on his own. Maybe a tall building like the Royal Albion Hotel in Kings Cross, or the Harbour Bridge, would better suit his purpose.
Only now did it occur to him that he trusted his aunt and uncle enough to tell them what his life at school was like. He
opened his mouth to say something but no words would emerge, just a sort of gurgling sound which neither of them heard over the roar of the ocean and the screaming of the gulls. By the time they arrived back at the car, he was feeling so despondent that he couldn’t muster the strength to try again. He knew it was hopeless: there was nothing he could do; nothing they could do.
But he didn’t think he could endure the remainder of the term.
Later, when they were standing in front of Barton House, his aunt gave him such a huge hug that his eyes began to water with silly tears that he rubbed off on the front of her dress. Uncle Fred shook his hand and somehow managed to transfer into it what he discovered later was a five-pound note. After picking up his overnight bag, he headed into Barton House. On the verandah he turned. They were still there, standing up straight next to their car like Mr Jones did when he was on duty. Though Philip couldn’t raise a smile, he waved. They waved back, and his aunt blew him a kiss. This might be the last time he ever saw them, he thought, and his eyes filled with tears.
As he passed through the doorway into the entrance hall that seemed so dark after the glare outside, he almost bumped into Keith Macready. With a couple of other boys, Macready was blocking the way to the stairs. Dave Lloyd pushed Philip, and Macready put out a foot, so that he stumbled and might have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed hold of the post at the bottom of the stairs.
At this point the housemaster came out of his study and said, ‘Welcome back, Chapman. The boys will be pleased to see you. They’ve had a bit of a quiet weekend. Not as lucky as you, eh? Jaunting all over the city, I expect.’ He laughed loudly but none of the others joined in.
Only now did Philip realise that Macready was one of the boys who had nowhere to stay in Sydney for the free weekend. This would provide his tormentor with yet another reason to hate him. After picking up his bag from where it had fallen, he raced up the stairs two at a time. ‘Run, pretty boy, run!’ Macready hissed after him, but the housemaster didn’t hear, engaged as he now was in welcoming back the next arrival.
From that time on, Keith Macready intensified his campaign against Philip. It began slowly. Often during meals, Philip caught Keith’s glance, his eyes as green as the name of the town from which he came, Emerald. He guessed that Keith’s hatred of him had now turned into something more. The only word he could think of to describe it was obsession. That was the word that his father sometimes used to describe his son’s love of music. Love and hatred, that’s what Philip felt for his parents, both feelings so muddled up that sometimes he couldn’t work out which was which. But he knew that what Macready felt towards him would only be hatred.
Day by day Philip’s anxiety grew and he waited each night for something to happen. That it didn’t only increased the tension. The Thursday night following the free weekend, after lights were out, he thought there was something afoot. While his own dormitory was quiet, apart from the odd snuffling and snoring noises of the other inmates, from the corridor came sounds of whispering and the odd barely suppressed giggle. He crossed his fingers under the blankets and prayed: Please God, may it be for someone else. The sounds stopped and he heard the hall floorboards creaking. After a moment it seemed as if whoever it was out there had moved away in the direction of the bathrooms. Just someone going to the toilet, that was it. Though he began to breathe more easily, he still didn’t dare to move. If he kept very quiet, he could direct all his attention to trying to work out what was happening outside the dormitory. Whoever had been out there had gone to the bathroom, but they hadn’t come back past the closed door yet and he wouldn’t be able to rest until that had happened. He started when one of the boys in the furthest bed called out in his sleep, a distressed sound like a sheep caught in a fence, but the boy didn’t wake up. After this, all Philip could hear were the syncopated snores and clicks and whistles of eleven sleeping boys, and the occasional rattling of one of the blinds moving in the faint draft from the open windows. Still the footsteps hadn’t returned from the bathroom. His own bladder began to feel uncomfortable. He would like to have got up to relieve it but that would mean leaving the dormitory and he didn’t dare do that, not until whoever had gone to the bathrooms returned. He rolled onto his side but that made him feel the need to take a leak even more urgently, and soon he turned onto his back again.
So quiet was the house now that he began to wonder if he’d imagined he’d heard those noises in the corridor. But a moment later he heard the dormitory door click open. He sat up in bed, his stomach churning and his palms clammy. Three figures crept in. He could see their shapes against the hall light that was kept on at all times. Yes, they were coming towards his bed, and one of them had to be Macready.
‘Shut up or we’ll kill you.’
He recognised Dave Lloyd’s voice. Of course they wouldn’t kill him, but there were things almost as bad that they might do. He didn’t feel brave enough to shout out though, and anyway, what could the other juniors do? They were as frightened of Keith Macready and his gang as he was. Rigid with fear, he felt rough hands grab hold of his arms and legs and lift him out of bed. Out of the dormitory they carried him, and along the hall towards the bathrooms. ‘Pretty boy, pretty boy, arse-licking pretty boy,’ they chanted. So frightened was Philip that he lost control of his full bladder, and felt the warm urine trickling through the fabric of his trouser bottoms.
‘Yuck, he’s wet himself,’ Lloyd said.
‘Pretty boy has bladder problems, eh?’ said Keith, laughing. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know what we’ve got in store for you, pretty boy? Going to be something really good. Something you won’t forget in a hurry.’
Heart thumping wildly, Philip squeezed his eyelids together. He couldn’t bear to look at the expression on Macready’s face and see again the cruelty there. He felt the boys swinging him violently as they struggled along with him. When they stopped he would fight them though. He would form his first and middle fingers into a V-shape and aim for their eyes. But then he might break his fingers or his hand, and he had to look after his hands, had to keep them perfect for playing the piano. He felt his gut clenching as if he might be getting the runs.
Dave Lloyd let go of Philip’s right arm, and laughed as his body twisted and his elbow hit the floor. ‘Watch out for your hands, pretty boy. Got to keep them nice for whatever pansies like you get up to under the sheets after lights out.’
The others sniggered. Philip knew they meant wanking, but they didn’t have the brains to guess what he was most worried about. But he was proved wrong when Macready said, ‘Now there’s an idea. We can give his fingers a bit of a work over. You or me or the piano, eh?’
With one hand Lloyd grabbed hold of Philip’s arm again, and with the other hand seized his fingers and bent them right back. It wasn’t so much the pain as his fear the bones would snap that made him whimper.
‘Did you hear that, Keith? Pretty boy doesn’t stammer when he moans. Maybe we’ve found the cure for stuttering.’ Dave Lloyd laughed as he bent Philip’s fingers back again.
This time Philip kept his lips tightly together, although tears coursed down his face. After shutting his eyes, he took a deep breath and waited for a bone to snap. To his astonishment, Dave let go of his fingers and a moment later dropped his arm as well. He soon discovered why.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Philip opened his eyes just as Keith and his bully boys dropped him to the floor. In front of them stood Jim, in red and blue checked pyjamas. Though Philip’s right hip hurt where he’d landed on it, he hardly noticed now that he’d been rescued.
‘Back to bed, the lot of you,’ Jim said.
Philip struggled to his feet and stood behind Jim, while the other boys arrayed themselves in front of him. At this point Macready made a move towards Jim, his fists raised.
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ Jim said, his arms hanging loosely by his sides, as relaxed as if
he were having an everyday conversation rather than a confrontation.
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Macready jeered. ‘You’re only a bloody prefect.’
‘You punch me and you’ll be out of here so fast you won’t know what’s hit you. So have a go, why don’t you? We might all be better off.’
‘You won’t be better off if I smash your stupid face in,’ Macready hissed. His face twisted in anger, and Philip’s stomach started to churn again.
‘Just you try,’ Jim said. His voice was cool although Macready still had his fists raised.
For an instant Philip wondered if he should dash off for help. If he could escape down the corridor behind him, he could run to the housemaster’s suite before Jim was bashed up. But before he could make a move Dave Lloyd said, ‘Don’t do it, Keith. Can’t you see he wants you to? Just let it go.’
‘Do what your friend says. Let it go.’ Philip started in surprise, and so too did Macready. This was Eric Hall’s voice, and how he’d crept up behind them without them noticing was anyone’s guess.
Jim took a step towards Macready who lowered his fists and backed away. A second later it was all over, and Macready and the other two boys were swaggering down the hallway to their dormitory at the far end, as if they’d won instead of lost the battle.
‘He was about to slug you one, I reckon,’ Eric said, ‘regardless of the consequences.’
‘Can’t tell you how glad I was to hear your voice. But if he’d punched me it would have got him expelled all right.’
‘Might have spoilt your good looks though, and we can’t have that. Anyway a hospital spell would keep you out of the eights and then we’d be sunk for the Regatta. What was up, anyway?’
‘They were tormenting young Philip here. Going to give him a cold bath.’
But it would have been more than a cold bath, Philip knew. Sprained fingers, possibly even broken fingers. And no more music, the only thing that made his life bearable. Unfortunately Jim Cadwallader wasn’t aware of a fraction of what went on at Stambroke, and Eric was even less clued up. Philip would never be able to explain to them what really happened here.