How to Be Happy

by David Burton

  ‘Or I could ask her out through a note. I’ve got English with her this afternoon, I could just pass…’

  Why wasn’t this easier? I had convinced myself by this stage that Christine was my one and only. We were perfect for each other. I’d imagined the wedding, the kids, a broad and bright future together. Her holding me at night and whispering, ‘It’ll be okay.’

  Now that I look back on it, it’s odd that I didn’t imagine anything more explicit beyond cuddling. I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t seen enough porn then, or that I didn’t have enough sexual understanding to grasp the idea that we might do other things to each other. I knew I was horny, but that was about as far as my imagination shook. I wanted to be comforted and held.

  After weeks of dreaming and planning, I finally found the words to ask Christine Pennyworth at the swimming carnival. Why then? I couldn’t tell you.

  You see, the swimming carnival wasn’t a great time. I’d never been super comfortable with swimming, but it had really all fallen apart in primary school. I had done my pathetic little twenty-five-metre race, coming in last with everybody patiently waiting for me to get to the end. In the change room afterwards, as I was getting dressed, my fellow male classmates took my clothes away from me and whipped my naked body with towels.

  High school brought up the memories afresh. I couldn’t think of anything worse than getting down to boxers, showing off my pale, skinny frame, diving into icy cold water and floundering around for fifty metres in front of the entire school. I imagined lovely Christine watching on and laughing at me flailing around in the water like a drunk ostrich.

  In the weeks leading up to the carnival, I grew more and more anxious. The head of physical education was a woman called Mrs Darling. She was short, tanned and terrifying. Every week she would get up at assembly and demand FULL PARTICIPATION. Noncompliance meant detention. Supervised by Mrs Darling. The thought of being left in Mrs Darling’s dungeon was enough for me to stop breathing.

  So we all had to participate. At least one event each. Fifty metres freestyle was to be my event.

  ‘It’ll be fun,’ said Simon.

  Fun?! Mrs Darling certainly didn’t seem to think so. God forbid we should actually enjoy ourselves at the carnival. There were so many rules. Get on the right bus. Wear sunscreen. Wear the right kind of hat. Support your house. Cheer. You must cheer. You must participate. Get undressed. Dive into the water. Try not to die.

  My anxiety was great enough for me to complain to my parents. I was so wound up about the entire thing. I couldn’t swim. I’d grown up in inland Australia. I’d splashed around in the surf on the Sunshine Coast, but I’d never shown an aptitude or much of an interest in actually learning to swim. My freestyle was all free and no style. I thrashed about like I was drowning. I quite possibly was, depending on the depth of the water.

  ‘I just don’t understand,’ I said to my parents, ‘why you would take hundreds of young people who feel awkward in their bodies, make them get down to their underwear and then swim in front of each other. If someone asked you to do that now, as an adult, would you?’

  The next day I was in drama, pretending to be a jive-talking tree, when the call came over the loudspeaker.

  It was Mrs Darling.

  ‘David Burton to room 206, please.’

  I’d never been called over the loudspeaker before. The whole class turned as one to look at me.

  I tried not to look afraid. I tried to be casual. Mary gripped my arm, terrified that I was about to disappear into Mrs Darling’s dungeon. I considered briefly yelling my ardent love for Christine right there. I didn’t know if I’d ever see her again. I closed my eyes and took a breath. I tried to convince myself it would all be fine.

  The walk from the drama classroom to room 206 was long. For a moment I considered running out of the schoolyard, but I knew the consequences would only be worse. I thought of Mrs Darling picking up a ruler and hitting me repeatedly. I would take the blows calmly, I decided, then run back to Mrs Coates and show her the bruises. Then Mrs Darling would be fired. And Christine would think I was super brave. And we would live happily ever after.

  I knocked on the classroom door. Mrs Darling was teaching a class of sporty year-twelve boys about anatomy. A bunch of them were giggling up the back.

  ‘TIMOTHY STILES!’ Mrs Darling’s voice bounced off the classroom walls. ‘Would you please stop playing silly buggers and get back to labelling your uterus properly?’

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Darling,’ came a shy mutter from Timothy, and they all went back to work.

  The short Mrs Darling had just whipped a group of hulky seventeen year olds into silence. Her eyes flicked to me.

  ‘You’re David?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Come here.’

  I’d never seen her up close. She had her sunglasses off. I had only ever seen her up the front of assembly, shouting commands.

  She raised her voice to the class again. ‘No talking while I chat with David, please,’ she said. Some of the senior students looked at me. I could’ve died. What was this all about?

  Mrs Darling lowered her voice again and looked at me.

  ‘Your mother called me,’ she said.

  Oh, God. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Mum, why?!

  ‘She mentioned you were worried about the carnival.’

  I couldn’t summon words. My face was turning a bright red from shame.

  Then something remarkable happened.

  Mrs Darling smiled.

  ‘Listen, I make a lot of noise up there at assembly, because I’m trying to get the slackers involved, and I know you’re not a slacker. So don’t worry, okay? Just swim your race on the day and you’ll be fine. If you’re worried I can give you some lessons, there’s a bus that goes out after school every Tuesday.’

  She’s suggesting I spend more time on this? No way.

  She wasn’t nearly as scary as she once was. But the message was clear. There was no way I was getting out of swimming at the carnival.

  ‘Thanks,’ I managed to squeak. And I walked back to class.

  I didn’t have an option. Now Mrs Darling knew me. Before I was just an anonymous scared kid. Now I was the boy who got his mum to ring up the teacher. Mrs Darling would be looking for me on the day. I would have to swim the race.

  The carnival day came. I felt like throwing up.

  One of the first faces I saw at the pool was Christine’s. She was in the house next to mine, and we sat across the aisle from each other and talked. She was friendly and bright, and she cheered loudly. Her hair caught the rays of the sun and made my heart jump. Talking to her made me forget the upcoming race for a little while. Mary and Simon were in houses that had to sit at the other end of the stands. I wouldn’t get to speak to them for most of the day. That was fine by me. So far, the swimming carnival was way better than expected. I would be sitting next to Christine all day.

  Simon stepped on the starting block with ease, and I let out a little cheer. He dived perfectly and glided through the water as if humans were born to do it. He swam to the finish. He wasn’t first. He wasn’t last. He was in the middle of the pack. Not
notable in any way.

  I was so envious I could’ve puked.

  Seriously, I could’ve puked. Because my race was next.

  Christine smiled. ‘Good luck,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied. I prayed that she would be too distracted to watch my inevitable death.

  I stood on the starting block. I tried desperately to remember how to dive. My goal was only to finish not last. I didn’t want people to wait for me, to have the whole school watch my pathetic effort. If I could do that, swim a perfectly average race and not be noticed, this would all soon be behind me.

  The gun went off.

  I hit the water like a dinner plate hitting concrete.

  The sharp sting across my stomach was numbed by the shiver of cold that ran through me. My brain was working faster than my body. I tried to recover and began to plough through the water. My arms moved as if they were shovelling dirt. My legs kicked as if they were motorised. I tried to remember to breathe. I was getting mouthfuls of water as my limbs created chaotic splashes all around me.

  It wasn’t long before an ache filled my arms and legs. Surely I was close to the end. The next breath I tried to look around me. I was barely halfway. I could see the others steaming ahead of me.

  Oh, God. This was it.

  I went further, moving past halfway. My arms felt dead. Stars began to blink in front of my eyes.

  I would have to stop. I wouldn’t be able to make it. Mrs Darling would have to dive in and get me out. Everyone would see. Including Christine.

  My head became light. Every breath seemed to come with too much water. I stopped dead, standing up in the pool. I was a dozen or so metres from the end. The last few swimmers were finishing up.

  I heard Mrs Darling’s voice shout out with a laugh, ‘Come on mate, you’re nearly done!’

  The stars were becoming sharper. I’d already stopped for too long. People were starting to notice. I plunged back into the water and moved with the grace of a slug. I touched the wall.

  I’d finished.

  It was done.

  But I felt like I was about to pass out. Mrs Darling was shouting at me to get out of the pool. The next race was already starting.

  I lifted myself out, but then I couldn’t move. I felt weird.

  ‘I think…’ I began, but no one was listening. I tried to walk back to my seat.

  I passed Mrs Coates.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I think I…I’m seeing stars.’

  She sighed. Shook her head. ‘You did a good job, Dave. Don’t worry about it,’ she said.

  I knew she wasn’t disappointed in me. She was disappointed in something else.

  ‘Sit down here. Have some water. I’ll check back in on you in ten minutes. If you’re still seeing stars, let me know.’

  I nodded and sat down. My towel felt like a blanket, covering my hairy, skinny chest. I was suddenly overcome with hunger. I hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours because I’d been so anxious.

  There was a muesli bar in my bag. I ate it slowly, and my body started to return to normal.

  Mrs Coates checked back with me. ‘You okay?’

  ‘I hadn’t eaten,’ I said, smiling.

  Mrs Coates smiled. ‘Take it easy, yeah?’

  I nodded. The races continued.

  I was done. I was alive. And nobody seemed to care about the fact that I’d taken so long. I went back to my seat. Christine was just returning from the food stall.

  ‘How’d you go?’ she asked.

  Oh, thank God. She hadn’t seen.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, shrugging.

  The gun went off again. Christine and I stood up and cheered together. It was the most genuine cheer I’d done all day.

  Everything was okay. It was all over.

  I don’t know what explains my state of mind as the day drew to a close. Maybe it was the simple elation of relief, or the fact that Christine and I had talked for most of the day. It felt like we had survived something important.

  I asked.

  I dropped the question in casually, as we were packing up. Like it was nothing.

  ‘Did you maybe wanna go out with me?’

  She was startled, and she turned to see if I was serious. I shrugged, and smiled. I would’ve said something if I’d had the words, but all of my clever little stupid jokes that had managed to make her laugh all day had flown elsewhere.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  I nodded, and my voice came out a high, ball-busting shriek as I said, ‘Sure, yeah, you know, whatever.’

  She turned me down very gently the next day, with a maturity and a kindness that was beyond her years and possibly a script written by her parents.

  ‘I’m very flattered,’ she said, ‘but I think we should just be friends.’

  I laughed jovially, as if the whole thing was hilarious.

  ‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I was joking anyway.’

  Crazy Drama Dave didn’t do heartbroken.

  4

  Self-sabotage

  Christine was a no-go. I’d blown it.

  I’d never kissed anyone, and with each passing birthday I began to wonder if I’d ever get the chance. I was fifteen. FIFTEEN. And no kiss. I may as well have been a monk.

  But my attention was soon to be taken elsewhere. I can’t remember when I first noticed that Mary had changed. I don’t think there was any great revelatory moment, but rather a slow and gradual knowing.

  Mary had marks on her wrists. Thin, red, angry scratches, ruled with mathematical precision.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  She pushed her sleeves down to cover the marks. ‘Oh, I was cut by a rose bush.’

  But the marks were still there a few weeks later. In fact, they looked fresh. When I asked her again, her face turned pink and she turned away. She was lying. I’d seen her lie before. I realised that I was beginning to pick at a darkness that I had known was there but was unable to comprehend.

  Mary’s moods became black and indecipherable. Mum tried to explain incomprehensible concepts like cramping and PMS, but it was all lost on me. I just knew that my friend was changing in unpredictable ways.

  When I finally came to understand what the scratches were, I dared not tell anyone.

  Mary was doing it to herself.

  I was confused, and scared.

  Mary promised that if I told her mother, my mother, a teacher, or even Simon, that she would finish herself off. She would kill herself.

  This wasn’t me thinking I would die from embarrassment at the swimming carnival. This was real. I took Mary seriously.

  I was the only person who knew. I set about trying to stop her from her slow mission to self-destruct.

  The wrong word at the wrong time would send her hurrying to the girls’ toilets with a blade from a pencil sharpener. I had managed to steal the scissors she had brought to school, but didn’t think of the tin
y blades in those cheap, harmlessly colourful bits of plastic.

  I tried to follow her into the toilets, but I was met with odd looks and plenty of jeering from the football jocks.

  ‘BURTO’S A GIRL!’ they’d scream.

  Their wit was so impressive that I would have had to pick myself up off the ground from laughing, but I had other things to worry about.

  Simon and I could be found hanging around outside the girls’ toilets at lunchtime, waiting for Mary to emerge. Her eyes would be red, her face tender and freshly washed from tears. I would make her laugh and we wouldn’t talk about it. But despite my best efforts, it seemed there was nothing I could do.

  I kept trying.

  It was only a matter of time before Simon worked it out. And Mary got worse at hiding it. Her long-sleeved jumpers in the height of summer left her sweating and dizzy, but she refused to take them off. She seemed out of control and dark.

  ‘You know I think you’re amazing, right?’ I’d offer when she was down.

  Her face darkened with rage. ‘You don’t understand,’ she’d say.

  Why did giving her a compliment make her angry?

  One afternoon we were perched on the sharp embankment that looked out over the oval. Simon was practising for the upcoming athletics carnival. Mary and I had been silent for a long time.

  ‘I wish you’d stop doing this to yourself,’ I said, quietly.

  Her face was pale. Her eyes didn’t move. They were staring into empty space.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘It helps.’

  ‘But it must hurt. It can’t be good for you. I don’t know why you’d do that to yourself.’

  Nothing. Only more silence.

  ‘You’re hurting my best friend,’ I said. ‘And I don’t like that. You’re a good person. You’re worthy of love and respect. Not pain.’