by Peggy Frew
Anna laughed.
Junie tried opening her eyes again, but it was still no good.
Anna sighed. ‘I actually miss you.’
‘Really? You have a funny way of showing it.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
‘That’s okay. I’m sorry too, for being a bitch. And I miss you too.’
‘I miss myself.’
They laughed. Their laughter spooled out and out. A bird came whirring past; Junie felt its wingbeats. ‘I miss everything,’ she said.
‘Me too.’
‘Where’d you get that joint?’
‘That’s for me to know and for you to find out.’
‘From Hamish Kennedy?’
‘No way! He doesn’t even have drugs, he just pretends.’
‘I wouldn’t have a clue how to get pot.’
‘It’s not that hard.’
‘We should go back down, before they get home.’ Junie forced herself to open her eyes and keep them open until things stopped rippling.
‘Have you had sex?’
‘Anna! No. Have you?’
‘No.’
They inched back to the skylight. Anna went first, so Junie didn’t see, like she had that other time, if her skirt went up, if there were cuts on her thighs. The thought was as bad though; it gave her a choking feeling.
‘So does she have a boyfriend at the moment?’
‘Who?’ Anna leaned her elbows on the bannister and pushed one knee between its slats.
‘Who do you think? Mum.’
‘Oh, her. I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t think so?’ Junie sat down on the top step. ‘Is there a man, you know, that she brings home and sleeps in her bed with?’
‘Not that I’ve noticed. She does have people over, for dinner and stuff, and some of them are men. But I don’t think any of them are, you know …’
‘They probably are. She’d fuck anything that moved. She’s probably fucking them all.’
Anna gave a gasp. ‘Oh no.’
‘What?’
‘Shit! Shit!’ She was swaying back and forth, hands braced on the bannister.
Junie stumbled to her feet. ‘What? What is it? Is it the breathing thing again?’
Anna’s head had fallen forward, her hair a red-gold mess. Her shoulders shook.
Junie put her hand over one of her sister’s. ‘Stay calm,’ she said. ‘Just take deep, slow breaths.’
Anna made a noise. She threw back her head; her face was flushed, and tears glittered at the corners of her eyes. She was laughing. ‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘It’s my knee. My knee’s stuck.’
They both looked down at it, pink and smooth, its sides compressed by the timber slats.
Grunting, Anna worked it free.
‘Oh God.’ Junie collapsed back onto the step. ‘You are such an idiot.’
John stood in the middle of the kitchen with his hands in his pockets while Helen marched around in her heels, taking things from the fridge to the bench.
‘We agreed to continue the discussion another time,’ said Helen.
‘But,’ said John, ‘I just—’
‘Another time. Hello, girls!’ She put down a bowl, kissed Anna, then walked to Junie, arms outstretched. ‘Junie! It’s so good to see you!’
‘Hi, Mum.’
Being hugged by Helen was like being tackled. Junie pulled away. ‘Okay, okay,’ she said.
‘Sorry!’ Helen stood with her hands on Junie’s shoulders, her smile so wide Junie could see molars. ‘How’s things? How’s that biol CAT going?’
‘It’s fine. I’ve nearly finished.’
‘And the maths thing, the what’s-it-called?’
‘It’s done. I told you that.’ Junie extracted herself and fell into the armchair.
‘Did you?’
‘Yes. I told you all this last night, on the phone.’ She pulled her feet up.
‘Shoes off, please.’ Helen went back to the bench. ‘Just leftovers for dinner, okay, Annie-pie?’
‘Don’t call me that,’ said Anna from a tipped-back kitchen chair, but she sounded pleased.
Helen began to tear apart a lettuce. ‘Sorry. John, Junie—why don’t you stay?’
‘Oh,’ said John, taking his hands from his pockets, ‘well, that might be—’
‘No thanks,’ said Junie, getting up. ‘I have heaps of homework to do.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Helen. ‘Just a quick dinner, it’ll take half an hour. Glass of wine, John?’
‘No!’ Junie swept her schoolbooks from the table and shoved them into her bag. ‘I have so much to do, Mum. I’ve got this CAT due next week, and I’m behind in maths, and there’s a practice exam for chem on Friday.’ She thrust one arm through the bag’s strap and hoisted it to her shoulder. ‘And I’ve got a headache.’ This was true—there was a gritty feeling behind her eyes.
Helen had turned from the bench. ‘Oh, okay then. I understand. Poor Junie, I didn’t know you were under so much pressure.’ She came closer, but Junie sidestepped her, adjusting her bag.
From out of the headache a mean impulse sprang. ‘Anyway,’ said Junie, ‘isn’t it Anna’s turn to cook?’
‘What?’ said Anna.
‘It’s Wednesday,’ said Junie. ‘I thought Anna cooked dinner on Wednesday nights. I saw it, on your agreement.’ She went to the telephone table and slid out the piece of paper. From the corner of her eye she could see Anna glaring at her.
‘Yep,’ said Junie. ‘Wednesday, Anna cooks. Also Monday. What did you cook on Monday, Anna?’
Anna flew from the chair, sending it crashing. Her face was white, her fists clenched. ‘I just don’t get you!’ she shrieked. ‘What were you being all nice to me for? Why would you do that when you obviously hate me? Just fuck off, Junie, you fucking bitch. You cunt!’ She ran to the stairs and up them, and the slam of her bedroom door rattled the windows.
‘Anna!’ John started across the room, but Helen blocked him.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘It’ll just make things worse.’
‘But she can’t get away with that,’ said John.
‘I’ll talk to her later,’ said Helen. ‘She’s tired. She hasn’t been sleeping well. It works better if you give her a chance to cool off.’
There was a pause, during which something happened to Helen’s face. She dropped her gaze and her mouth and the skin over her cheekbones sagged. But then there was an adjustment, and when she lifted her chin the stretched beam of her smile had returned. She rolled her eyes. ‘Teenagers, hey?’
‘Can we go?’ said Junie to John. ‘Please?’
At the flat Junie had a desk in the bedroom. It only just fitted, and was in fact wedged between the wall and the foot of the spare bed, the bed that had been Anna’s, which now held piles of Junie’s clothes and books.
She put on the desk lamp, got her maths stuff out of her bag, and worked for a while in a half-hearted way, every now and then stopping to draw a horse on a spare bit of paper.
In the kitchen, John sang, ‘Strangers in the night, dah-dah-de-dah-dah …’
It was dark outside now, and getting cold. Junie took off her school dress and put on tracksuit pants, Explorer socks and a jumper. Taking her maths book she went into the main room, where the gas heater was.
John was at the bench, slicing something. Chops spat in the pan. ‘Dinner’s nearly ready,’ he said, and then, at the click-click-whump of the heater: ‘Put a jumper on, if you’re cold.’
‘I have.’ Junie lay down with the open book. On the carpet nearby was a stain, faint reddish-purple, a long oval shape, and on the skirting board there were a couple of deep red splatters. This was from a glass of wine Anna threw during an argument, the last time she had come to John’s.
They ate at the little round table, with the TV on, for the news. Jeff Kennett gave a speech and John said, ‘What a goon.’
Afterwards Junie washed up in
the tiny sink, and John stayed at the table with his second glass of wine and the cryptic crossword. Every now and then he sat back and spoke.
‘It might’ve been nice if we’d stayed for dinner. I would’ve liked the chance to spend some time with Anna.’
Junie scrubbed at burnt chop fat with steel wool, her fingers red in the hot water.
‘It’s very hurtful to me that she doesn’t want to come here any more. My own daughter!’
Junie lifted the pan and angled it to get its other half into the sink.
‘I’ve said that before, haven’t I? Ha ha, sorry, Junie, I’m like a broken record.’
Junie sloshed and scrubbed.
‘But I just can’t help it. I’m very upset about it. I don’t understand why she doesn’t want to see me.’
Junie lifted the pan, balanced it on top of the sink and ran clean water into it.
‘I mean, I don’t expect you girls to be angry with Helen for what she did. I think it’s important you know what she did, and that’s why I’ve told you about it. But I don’t expect you to be angry.’
Junie tipped the pan out and put it in the draining rack.
‘I just can’t really see how it is that I’ve become the villain here. You know, I cared for you kids, when you were little. More than Helen did. You wouldn’t catch Helen getting up in the night for a kid with nightmares, with asthma.’
Junie wiped the bench.
‘You don’t mind me talking like this, do you, Junie?’
Junie shook her head. Anna minded—that was why Anna wasn’t there. (The flying glass, projecting a red tongue of liquid, its round, bursting shatter, Anna shouting: Shut up, shut up, shut up!) And Junie used to mind, but not any more, not now. When John spoke like this it gave her something, an importance, and she didn’t know yet that it was the wrong kind.
BODIES
Helen in a dress with small flowers, blue on yellow. A long dress, her legs under it are bare, are nice, are sturdy. Junie loves these legs. Hidden beneath this flower dress is a cotton bra and cotton undies, plain and white. When Helen lifts Junie up Helen’s hip is a seat, pressing firm into the split of Junie’s legs. Helen’s arm is strong at Junie’s back, her fingers wrap around Junie’s thigh. Helen holds Junie and Junie fits onto Helen.
This is when Junie is small. Before things changed. Or before Junie changed, in the way she saw things.
Helen in the bath at Avoca Street. Her body is lush, is greedy, is shameless. Opening in the water, taking up all the space, hair and lips and flesh. Junie hates this body. Junie doesn’t want to see it but it’s always there, a hungry soft monster wanting sex. This is when Junie is older. When she can’t not see things.
Helen has creams she rubs into her body, she has make-up and stockings and lacy red underwear and condoms and lube in drawers. If you go into her room you can find them, all you have to do is slide out the drawers and look. She doesn’t hide things properly.
Helen crying is monstrous. Pink and wet. Loud. Everyone has to know about it. Sometimes she says it is happy crying, but that is no better to have to watch.
Sex should be private, but Helen’s body doesn’t keep it private. Sex oozes out of Helen, it waves at people, it has no shame. Or does it? Or is it just that Junie sees the sex and only the sex, even imagines it when it’s not there?
Teenagers at the island, on the beach. Girls with fluoro bikinis, brown skin. Painted fingernails. They arrive with men, in panel vans. They drink UDLs and wrestle with the men in the water. A man snatches at a girl’s bikini top and pulls it off. Shrieking. Bobbing white breasts, slapping waves. Junie hides in the ti-tree and watches. Dune grass tickles her bare thighs. Something throbs in the thin, hot air, over the brown bodies wrestling in the greenish water, over the yellow sand, over the spiny grass and into Junie. An ache between her legs, a swelling feeling.
When the panel van girls and their men get too loud, when there is too much wrestling, when the bikini tops come off, Nan makes Junie and Anna go back to the house. Junie, then, is often difficult, sullen. The swelling has gone and she feels restless and hollow. This is when she is twelve, thirteen, and everything has changed and she wishes it hadn’t.
Anna in the bath, at the island. Flat chest, little indent where her ribs meet under her breastbone. White lines, the ghost of her bathing suit. Remains of zinc cream smudged over freckles. Blue veins around her flat child’s nipples. Skinny arms, skinny legs. This body hardly takes up any space. This body is simple and blameless. Junie wants this body. She wants to take it from Anna and have it for herself.
Junie in the shower. Soft new flesh. She digs her fingers into her thighs. She hits her woman’s flesh, kneads it, punishes it. She hates this body. It is disgusting.
But also Junie’s body is sexy. In mirrors it plumps, it runs in smooth lines, it dips into hollows and erupts in nipples and hairs, provocative, tender, surprising. Junie admires this body, but she is afraid of it.
This body, disgusting and sexy, is now separate from Junie, from her true self.
This is when Junie is twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Fifteen, sixteen … all the way to her mid-twenties, to Paul, and children.
Anna climbing through the skylight. Long pale legs, tendons jutting at the backs of her knees. Up high, where her school dress lifts, red marks like braille. Under her school dress are breasts and hair that Junie has not seen, not since there was less of them, not since Anna started locking the bathroom door.
Anna in the shower, at Avoca Street. This is before the skylight, before the locking of the bathroom door. A haze of steam. Falling silver water in morning sun. Shoulders, thighs, firm flesh brightly flushed, the slightest of swellings under puffs of nipples, nascent scraggle of blonde-pink pubes. Head down, not hearing the door open. Greenish hair flattened, wet and shining.
Junie doesn’t want to see this body. Junie grabs her toothbrush and the toothpaste and runs downstairs and cleans her teeth at the kitchen sink. Junie doesn’t hate this body but she is repulsed by it, by its softness, its vulnerability. She pities it. A sucking hole of unwelcome pity opens in her.
Anna, fourteen, cuddling with Helen on the couch at Avoca Street. Anna’s face in Helen’s neck. Anna’s fingers in Helen’s hair. Anna’s too-long legs trying to get onto Helen’s lap.
Helen’s head tipped back, Helen’s eyes closed. Helen’s face peaceful. Helen’s fingertips trailing up and down Anna’s bare arm.
Junie goes outside. She slams the door on them.
Junie having sex. To do this she melts herself with booze. Her brain melts into her body, and then her body-brain melts into the other person. When she comes there are no thoughts whatsoever, she always has her eyes closed and she sees space, crackling, white and empty.
This is when Junie is eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
June pregnant. This body is urgent and full and sore. This body takes over. It does not require melting. It wants things, sharply, strongly. June is relieved and dazed. When she has sex in this body she feels monstrous, and fearful. She laughs during sex, helplessly, and Paul laughs too.
Would she say this is her true self, this brain in this body? No, she would not. The true self, or the idea of the true self, will always belong to the time before Helen began to ooze sex, before the panel van girls, before Junie’s hateful, disgusting-sexy body and Anna’s pitiful, defenceless, pubescent one. But of course that isn’t June’s true self either, the child self, the innocent. That particular self is just a part of her that—because she felt it was smothered by Helen’s sexuality and John’s sadness; because she didn’t get the chance to leave it behind, to outgrow it—June can’t stop mourning.
AVOCA PARK
Every few years there was a whole-school photograph, an epic event involving a temporary scaffold and raked benches and the assemblage of every kid in the school, from year seven through to year twelve—hundreds and hundreds of them. Out to the oval and up they went, in raucous, elbowing blue-and-yellow rows, half-wild with hormones and a sens
e of escape, leaving behind classrooms that resembled evacuated disaster zones with their splayed books and dropped pencils and crookedly abandoned chairs.
It seemed always to be windy. In the background the school buildings spread their grey arms, flew their flags. The vice-principal, suit coat flapping, sent threats through a megaphone to a deaf wall of chatter. There was usually some stunt, or mishap: mysterious hand gestures appearing suddenly on the photographer’s count of three; an attack of vertigo forcing a senior to sit, cross-legged and shamefully enormous, on the grass down the front with the year sevens.
The morning after one of these, Ryan found his mother at the kitchen table, filling in the order form.
‘What’re you doing?’ he said. ‘It costs thirty-five dollars.’
She didn’t respond, but went on forming careful letters inside the boxes.
Ryan went to the fridge. On its door was the letter confirming his scholarship, which his mother still refused to take down, even after six years. The paper was flyspecked now but still thick, the school crest in dull gold. He took out the milk and leaned on the door to close it.
‘Mum? We can’t afford it.’
Without looking up she said, ‘It’s your last year. We can afford it. And don’t drink from the carton.’ She folded the bills, twenty, ten and five, inside the form and put the form into an envelope. She held it out to Ryan and the pink light caught the sleeve of her terry-towelling robe, its fringe of loose threads like the legs of spiders, the roots of tiny plants.
Junie Worth’s younger sister Anna was at the tram stop. Smoking, at eight-fifteen am. Thighs skinny and goose-pimpled below her miniscule skirt. Ryan semi-looked, and thought of Melanie Geare, the brown of her legs as she went up the stairs to the assembly hall. The time he went to his locker late, after training, and Melanie was there, just her and her legs, and she smiled at him.
The tram came and all the office workers got on, and then Ryan. Anna Worth left it until the very last moment, swinging in as they took off, one hand on the rail, one foot on the mounting board, flicking her cigarette away. The dark road flying past her shoes, her narrow white shins.