by James Roy
Then the pool party. There was so much to choose from, but in the end she chose three, after a deal of hesitation. It was grubby putting a photo of herself in a bikini on the Netbook profile of this man. She felt like a low-rent centrefold model, who would rather the distant, third-hand, anonymous ogling than working in some seedy club. But she went through with it. Motive and means, and a clear and present opportunity.
As she selected some of the more outrageous porn from John’s extensive internet cache, Anonymity began to relax. At first she’d worried about being caught. She’d hardly dared breathe, and had stiffened at every sound that came from outside that room. But as she slashed her way deeper into the jungle, she was taken over by a strange and righteous calm. Even if she was discovered now, the evidence had been found. And – she hoped – all her sneaky, clandestine digital espionage, as lacking in remorse as it might have been, would be nothing in the face of the grubby, tawdry secrets she’d exposed.
Yes, that was how she might expect it to go, but with recent events, how could she possibly predict anything? She was losing faith in her own judgement, but shoving that thought aside, she pushed on.
At last the album was complete, with twenty images that mapped some of the deeper, darker reaches of John’s imaginings. She clicked through them one by one, smiling as she pictured his growing rage, or the building disquiet in any of his contacts who might discover, bit by gruesome bit, the truth about their friend.
Finally she went to his Netbook account details and made two changes, very small, but with the potential for terrible and delicious consequences. First she turned John’s contact email into something utterly random. Then she changed his password to something that he would never guess, and that she could never guess or remember either – a spidery rambling of letters and numbers gathered randomly from all corners of the keyboard.
She logged out, powered down the laptop, heard the whirr, click and silence of the hard drive, then returned to her room. Again sleep was slow in coming, but only because she always found it hard to sleep when she was excited.
Monday. Before she left for school, Anonymity checked her email. Some spam, a couple of Netbook status updates, and an email from her father.
Hi honey. I’m sorry everything’s so crap for you, but I’m sure you weren’t as stupid as you claim. You can tell me about it some time, and we’ll compare stupid things we’ve done. I bet I win...
I miss you too. I’m enjoying what I’ve seen of New Zealand so far, although it is a bit lonely. I’m heading down to the South Island in a couple of days, and I’ll be driving right down to Milford Sound and Queenstown. In a campervan. By myself. Yay. Still, I might actually get lucky and ‘find myself’.
Anyway, hugs to you and Sam. Wish you were here with that camera of yours. We’d have such a blast.
Dad.
She told no one about what she’d done to John’s computer. Not even Tina, who seemed to be attempting to broker some kind of truce between them. But she did tell Tina about the excursion to the gallery.
Her friend threw back her head and laughed, which caused several boys in the vicinity to brighten significantly. ‘You seriously thought it was date? With a teacher?’
‘Voice down. And yes.’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Anonymity, with a small shake of her head.
‘Did he make you believe?’
Anonymity grimaced. ‘More like he let me believe. Which is almost as bad, I think. But it was mostly my fault.’
But then, during her library period, immediately before lunch, she made a discovery that changed everything.
It was a website, which she found when researching photography. More specifically, when researching colour photography. It was a highly technical site, and much of it she skipped over, but what she did see there raised enough suspicion to send her searching through her notes for the catalogue from the photography show, and the number of Mark, the photographer.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Viera, who was at the next desk.
‘For now. But I think it’s about to get ugly,’ she said, taking out her phone, dialling in the number, then heading to one of the study rooms in the far corner of the library while it rang.
‘We met at the gallery the other night,’ she explained to Mark, once she’d introduced herself. ‘I was in the group that Chris Moffat brought along to the opening.’
‘Oh, right. The photography students.’
‘That’s us. I liked your pictures, by the way. Your photos, I mean.’
‘Images.’
‘Yeah.’ Stupid, fumbling idiot. ‘Your images.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sure.’
‘Is it hard to develop colour images?’
A pause. ‘Not hard, but very fiddly. And expensive. You’ve got to get water temperatures just right. You need special equipment. Everything has to be done in the dark. Everything. You can’t use a red light like you do with black and white.’
‘You can’t?’ This was confirming what she’d read on the website, although the realisation didn’t make her feel any better.
‘No, developing colour is very different. You have to do everything in complete darkness, right up to the point where you fix the image. That’s why I send all my colour stuff to a professional lab. It’s heaps simpler and cheaper. In fact, I take my stuff to the same lab as your teacher.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes. Which is why I’m a little surprised by your question. I’d have thought Chris would have known all this. Did you ask him?’
‘Not exactly. But I will. Thanks for your help.’
‘Oh. That’s it?
‘That’s it. Thanks.’
‘No problem. Was I helpful?’
‘Oh yes, very.’
She ended the call and stood for a moment tapping the phone against the tips of her fingers. A fly was trapped behind the blinds of one of the high windows, and she closed her eyes, willing it to sit still or die. It did neither, so she left.
Chris Moffat was locking the art room door. ‘Hey,’ he said, dropping the keys into his pocket and flattening himself against the wall to let a group of younger, louder, less hell-bent kids run by. ‘You OK?’
‘Sure.’
‘Really? You’ve got that look.’
‘What look?’
‘The same one you had on Friday night. The hurt look.’
‘I’m not hurt.’
‘You’re not?’
‘No.’
‘Good, because I’m on lunch duty. Walk with me.’
‘I’m not hurt, but I am a bit pissed off.’
‘Oh.’ He paused. ‘About?’
‘Being treated like an idiot.’
‘We talked about this on the night.’
‘No, we didn’t – not this. You might think we did, but we sure didn’t, trust me.’
He glanced around, lowering his voice. ‘Do we need to talk about this right here, right now, or can it wait?’
‘We could talk about it in there,’ Anonymity said, nodding at the art room door.
‘I told you, I’m on duty. And I’m late.’
‘Oh, or here’s a great idea! We could talk about it in the darkroom!’
He frowned. ‘I’m not sure that that’s–’
‘But it’s not really a darkroom unless you turn off all the lights, is it? All of them, I mean, including the red one.’
Realisation, appearing on his face like a Polaroid. ‘Hey, now listen–’
‘So is it true?’ Anonymity chuckled, but without amusement. ‘Did you actually pretend to develop a photo?’
‘It’s really not that simple.’
‘No, it is that simple. God, I can’t believe you’d try to fool a photography student about something like that! Did you think I wouldn’t find out? You must think I’m the dumbest photography student in the world!’
‘Listen, I
wanted you to have that print, and I wanted you to feel special about me giving it to you. But that’s all.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re my best student.’
‘Oh, please! Don’t patronise me!’
‘I’m not. I’m being serious. The others ... Look, I shouldn’t say this, but they’re all such try-hards. Honestly. The questions they ask, and the nonsense that comes out of their mouths, trying to impress me, and each other. But you...’
‘I’m more mature? Is that it?’
‘I don’t know. Probably.’ He looked pained. ‘I just thought that if you believed I’d developed it especially for you, it might ... I don’t know ... inspire you, or–’
‘Help me find my true potential? Something like that, maybe?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Or were you showing off? Were you just being a boy?’
She could see that she’d hit the mark, using that word. He said nothing. He simply shook his head, as if a reply would give the very idea some kind of legitimacy.
‘You know, I would have been just as impressed and inspired if you’d just handed me the thing instead of pretending to develop it for me,’ she said. ‘Although you wouldn’t need to get me into a darkroom to hand me an envelope, would you?’
‘Now look here,’ he replied, his pained remorse morphing into anger, pinned down by the webbing of its wings. ‘I don’t like what you’re suggesting. I never did anything, nor did I ever intend to do anything. And you shouldn’t forget that it was you who called me the other day, whining to me about what happened with your uncle.’
‘He’s not my friggin’ uncle – he’s my mother’s boyfriend! Were you even listening?’
‘Of course I was listening! You needed a friend, so for some reason you called me, and I did what none of your other friends seemed able or willing to do – I listened. Against my instincts, I might add.’
‘Whatever, OK? You didn’t have to take me on some kind of crazy-arsed campfire picnic in a secluded place. That was beyond weird.’
His face was reddening, his words squeezing past clenched teeth. ‘You wanted to talk, I thought I could listen. That’s all!’
‘Tell me, were you ever anything other than my teacher?’
‘I was your friend.’
‘Besides that. In your head, I mean.’
Again he was silent, his mouth working as he sucked on his cheeks.
‘But you thought about it, didn’t you? You imagined it.’
He took a moment to form a response. ‘Thinking about something isn’t the same as doing it. And I never did anything. I never touched you.’
‘How was it?’ she asked. ‘When you imagined it – was it good? Was I good? Was I skilled?’
He shook his head sombrely. ‘This whole conversation is bullshit.’
‘This isn’t over.’ Anonymity turned, and as Chris grabbed her arm a sudden fury surged through her. A teacher grabbing her was bad enough, but this teacher!
‘Wait,’ he was saying. ‘What do you mean, it’s not over? What’s not over? There’s nothing to be over. It never started!’
‘That’s not what I meant. I meant that I’m not done yet.’
‘What are you planning?’ he asked.
Anonymity twisted her arm free. ‘Watch this space, Mr Moffat,’ she snarled.
‘I’ll deny everything, because there’s nothing to tell. You’ve got nothing. I did nothing.’
‘Just so you know, I never delete my texts until I have to,’ she said, and watching his face change yet again was becoming something of a guilty pleasure. She lowered her voice until it was little more than a hiss. ‘And that’s like forever.’
She went. It was lunchtime, but she left school, after dragging her bag from her locker and stuffing some books into it. Tina came around the corner just as Anonymity slammed the locker door so hard that it sprang open again. ‘Hey girl, chill,’ Tina said.
‘Piss off.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘I did, but I’m not sure why you’d say that. What have I done? Is this still about the movie the other night?’
‘You really think that’s what I’m angry about, don’t you? Jesus, Tina, you’re so friggin’ adolescent.’
‘Look, I don’t know what I’ve done, but I really don’t like the way you’re ... Where are you going, anyway? Home?’
‘Well spotted.’
‘We’ve got modern next.’
‘No, you’ve got modern next. I don’t have anything next, because I’m going home.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve got stuff to take care of.’
‘You’ve got stuff to take care of here, too. Double modern, for example.’
‘Oh, is it a double? I forgot. In that case I’m definitely going home.’
She strode past the front office and headed straight through the car park at the front of the school, noting that Chris Moffat was doing part of his lunchtime patrol nearby. He didn’t call out to her or try to stop her, but she saw his furtiveness, even from a distance, and she saw it by employing little more than a sidelong glance.
One of the pretty young teachers from the junior school was at the front gate, chatting with a delivery driver, and she called out as Anonymity marched by.
‘Excuse me – where are you going?’
Anonymity didn’t slacken pace. ‘I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.’
‘For...?’
‘I think I might be pregnant.’
The teacher’s mouth tensed.
‘Oh, it’s OK, though – I brought a note from my mum. I handed it in at the front office.’
The teacher turned slightly, half-facing the admin block, uncertain.
‘It’s OK,’ Anonymity repeated. ‘The father’s a good guy. Good stable job, like yours,’ she said, now including the delivery driver in the conversation. ‘Did you get a good look?’ she asked him.
She knew that by the time she reached the corner and was out of sight, the pretty young teacher would be in the front office, standing at the desk, twirling her hair around one finger while she waited for one of the crabby desk bitches to ask her what she needed. And by the time Anonymity had turned the next corner – the one with the roundabout and the little shrine of dead flowers – the teacher would be leafing through the early departure slips, searching for the letter from Anonymity Jones’s mother.
By the time the teacher realised that there was no note, and that in all likelihood there never had been, Anonymity would be boarding a train. And by the time the young teacher caught the attention of one of the desk bitches to get Anonymity’s home number so she could call her and tell her to get herself back to school before she took this any further, Anonymity would be sitting by the window of a train heading in exactly the opposite direction, towards the office where her father once knocked a lava-lamp paperweight onto the floor while he writhed and sweated on top of a sales rep who would eventually leave him for an emergency physician who wasn’t even a guy.
The train was pulling in as she stepped through the ticket gate onto the gum-spotted platform, and as it slowed she saw a couple of girls from her school standing at one of the doors. They were deep in conversation, and probably hadn’t seen her waiting there as they slipped by, but she played it safe and walked towards the last carriage. Then, when the doors opened, she forgot her manners and boarded the train before any of the waiting passengers had stepped off.
‘Hey!’
‘What?’
A woman had an issue, was almost quivering with rage. ‘Do you mind?’
‘About?’
‘You’re meant to let passengers who are already on the train get off before you get on.’
‘I’ll remember that.’
‘Make sure you do. You know, sometimes I wonder–’
‘So, are you getting off or not?’ Anonymity asked, and the woman grunted and stepped off full of muttering, wrestling briefly with her s
hopping bags as they threatened to trap her in the closing doors.
Anonymity took a seat in the first section of the carriage. A businessman sitting opposite regarded her sombrely over the top of his newspaper.
‘What?’ she snapped.
His eyes sank below the top of the page.
It took less than fifteen minutes to reach her destination. She slipped through the train doors before they were even fully open, and hurried down the tunnel, under the platform and out into the mid-afternoon sunshine. There was an internet café across the street from the station, and without bothering to walk the fifty metres to the pedestrian crossing, Anonymity jogged across the road between the cars that had stopped for those other pedestrians, fifty metres away.
She ordered a cappuccino before taking her internet voucher down to the last computer in the line, near the back of the shop, past a couple of Korean students with headsets and mop-cuts. By the time her coffee arrived, she’d completed the last of her research, so she sat back and enjoyed her cappuccino while watching viral videos of cats falling off things. And when the last of her coffee was gone, leaving a thin slurry of coffee grounds and undissolved sugar granules in the bottom of the cup and a thin tide-line of froth around the top, she slipped her notepad away, slung her bag over her shoulder and went past the Korean mop-heads, heading for the bank two doors up.
She slid her card into the ATM and requested a statement. With her father’s birthday money and what she’d saved towards her new camera, the balance was higher than she’d expected, so she tugged the card from the slot, turned and headed into the bank.
She stood in a queue behind a woman with a walking stick and a young man in torn-off shorts. Over by the wall, a couple of kids hunched over deposit slips, scribbling in the spaces and the boxes as their mother tried to keep one eye on them and argue with a teller at the same time.
When Anonymity’s turn came, her teller was a young man in a short-sleeved shirt and a tie, who seemed impossibly bored with his job. She slid her card across the counter. ‘How much do I need to keep in that account to make sure it stays open?’ she asked. ‘Would ten dollars be enough?’