Borrowed Light

by Anna Fienberg

  At recess I realised that it was all too late. Melanie, Sharon and Morgan had made other friends. They sat with Sally and Jo on the benches, and shared their biscuits. They made a couple of remarks about the ‘brainy bunch’ in the top class; the ‘snobs’. They inched away from me. I looked at them closely. Hadn’t their teeth grown a little? Didn’t their nails look sharper? Perhaps they’d changed into omnivores. This thought was confusing, and threatened to break down my whole classification system.

  My temporary move to the higher realms had created another invisible wall. When they looked at me, I could tell the image was blurred, as if they were looking through tracing paper.

  I ate my sandwiches alone in the shade. My uniform was still too long, but it didn’t matter any more. Other girls had pert little skirts. They sat in the sun and rolled their socks down so their legs would get tanned. They ate Vegemite or ham sandwiches, or sausage rolls. I had tofu and sprouts and avocado on lumpy bread bursting with seeds. I felt like a budgerigar. But I grew a lot that year, and I began to tower over my mother. I hated being so visible. I hunched my shoulders and drooped my neck forward. My bones seemed too big. I felt more and more awkward with all those bones—huge and angular like a giant cassowary. Head down, I went blundering through the bushes.

  (I once saw a documentary about cassowaries, actually. I was surprised to hear that they can be very aggressive. Even if you try not to look at them, they charge ahead and attack you. In the documentary we saw a man with twenty stitches just under his rib cage from a cassowary kick.)

  That summer, when the school year was over and I had turned twelve, Grandma Ruth gave me the telescope.

  It was like a ripe fruit dropping to the ground. I caught it just in time.

  My herbivore/carnivore classification was in tatters. There was no viable escape from Earth—until Grandma led me out into the garden and read the skies. Then I flew up into a world so powerful that Glen Gill and his biros looked about as big as bullants.

  Over the next year I used the telescope constantly. During the day at school I’d be like a nocturnal animal, only barely awake. I was waiting for the night. I began to visit the observatory that sat on a big hill right in the middle of the city. I saw Saturn there for the first time. It was thrilling. Those rings around the planet are the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The guide told us that the rings are made up of millions of tiny particles circling the planet. The light they give off comes from the sun, but it’s reflected like sunlight off particles of ice. So astronomers think Saturn’s rings may be made of little pieces of ice.

  I came home from the observatory that night, bursting with Saturn. Mum was still up, and I told her about the ice and the rings. She was very tired. She smiled at me and said that when you looked at the sky you were looking at the past. I was quite intrigued by that idea, and asked her to go on. But Jeremy started crying then, and she had to haul herself up to go to him.

  Sometimes I think Mum really does belong to the past. Maybe she’s the reincarnation of some nineteenth century medium. When I was in Year 8, soaking up the heavens, Mum was absorbing the Victorians. She read about the spiritualists and their meditative trances, and researched their ideas on amnesia and hysteria. She believed the ghosts of the past flowed about our world—they were as common as clouds. You just had to be in the right ‘state’ to see them.

  A sprinkling of women started coming to our house, and they did experiments together, mostly in the dark. They set up a ouija table. It has a smooth surface strewn with letters and digits cut out of cardboard, set all around in a circle. In amongst them are YES and NO and certain other symbols. A glass is placed in the middle, and everyone puts a finger on it. When I’ve peeped through the crack in the sliding door, I’ve seen the glass move wildly between the letters, spelling out names and messages. It is truly creepy. The living room seems to be inhabited by invisible guests, all rushing around like the wind. My science teacher, Mr West, said that the involuntary spasms of the muscles in the finger are responsible for the glass’s movement. But he hadn’t seen the speed of that glass, or the shock in those women’s faces.

  Mr West was the one person that I looked forward to seeing at school. Sometimes, after a science lesson, I’d stop and tell him about my visit to the Observatory, and what I’d seen. He was always interested. He’d put down his chalk and draw up a stool, encouraging me to go on. Then he’d tell me things that I could talk about with Grandma when we stood with our bare feet tucked into the earth, reading the night sky.

  WHEN I WAS fourteen, Jeremy went to preschool. The kindy was practically next door to my school, so sometimes I picked him up in the afternoons. I liked doing that. He would run to me with a whoop, his arms full of the paintings and craft he’d done. ‘Look at this, it’s a submarine!’ he’d yell, and hold up a tissue box plastered with bits of material and a toilet roll for a funnel and cotton wool for smoke. Then the other kids would run up too. They’d climb all over me as if I were a sofa and show me their boats and aeroplanes or how fast they could run. It lifted me up, all that joy and welcome. They were so twanging with life, those little ones, and they wouldn’t notice if your skin was black or white or your hem was down to your feet.

  One afternoon I had a surprise for Jeremy. We’d been talking about chemicals, and how they react to one another. For his birthday, I’d given him a science kit. It included a good instruction booklet that told you how to make a volcano. All you needed was a little flour to make the mountain, and something acid to react with something alkaline to sprinkle on top. The fizzing result flowed down the mountain like boiling lava. Just add a drop of red food dye for drama.

  ‘Why can’t we do the volcano experiment now?’ he’d been protesting for days. So I’d asked Mr West if I could use the science room after school.

  ‘I see we’ve got another science enthusiast in the family,’ he smiled. ‘Your grandmother must be pleased. I’d like to see your little brother again—I’ll be present, of course, to supervise.’

  I hoped Jeremy wouldn’t get carried away and fling bicarbonate of soda all around the desks. (That was the alkaline part, you know.)

  Anyway, I went to pick up Jeremy and told him about the surprise. He hardly let me finish before he went scampering off. ‘Guess what!’ he yelled to his mates, ‘I’m going to big school to do an experiment!’ He could hardly contain himself. He kept giving little squeals of excitement all the way down the hall. He did leapfrog over the submarines and went to find his teacher so she would know exactly how fabulous life could be. When he’d told her and everyone else on the premises, including the caretaker who’d come to fix a leaking toilet, we were able to go.

  As we skipped to the comer, I worried about his excitement. How can reality match such enormous expectations? Wouldn’t disappointment be inevitable? I tried to tell him that science experiments don’t always work, but it’s okay because that is how you learn.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, are we nearly there yet?’

  When we stepped into the science room, Mr West shook Jeremy’s hand. Jeremy was suddenly shy and hid behind my legs.

  I got out the ingredients for the volcano. Mr West found a big green tray and told Jeremy he could make the mountain of flour. We made a yellow plasticine crater and nestled that into a small hollow at the top. Mr West was lovely with Jeremy. He gave him clear, simple instructions, then stood back and let Jeremy try. He told him how clever he was with making the crater. I could have hugged him.

  The alkali and acid reaction was very successful. Bleeding with red dye, the mixture fizzed and flowed over the side of the mountain like the deadly lava of Pompeii. Jeremy sprayed his packet of plastic dinosaurs all around the base of the mountain. He laid them in horrifying positions, jaws down in red lava. He made their ghoulish voices as the lava gushed down. Mr West laughed and laughed.

  After about six or seven volcanoes, I needed to go to the toilet. Jeremy said he’d be okay with Mr West. Strolling down the asphalt quadrangle, I kicked
a stone happily along. Good old science, I thought. I shouldn’t have worried about Jeremy being disappointed. You could rely on the miracles of science, which is more than you can say for most miracles.

  As I entered the toilet block, I could smell burning. The hair rose on the back of my neck. Cigarettes. I stood in the doorway, wondering if my bladder could hold on until I got home. Or maybe I’d duck into the boys’ toilets. But a cubicle door slammed and out strode Miranda Blair.

  She was followed by two of her tribe.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t little Miss Science,’ said Miranda in a singsong voice.

  ‘Sucking up to old Westie,’ said Amanda, her first mate. Amanda was drawing on a cigarette. She took such a deep drag that her cheeks collapsed into hollows. Under her eyes were dark circles of smudged mascara. She looked as if she were dying of diphtheria. She blew smoke rings into the stale air like a professional. They reminded me of Saturn’s rings, and I tried to think about them, all shimmering with ice. Amanda stepped closer and blew smoke in my face.

  I coughed. I couldn’t help it.

  ‘Oh she’s so pure,’ sang Amanda, ‘there’s just no cure.’ The three girls did a little dance on the dirty concrete floor. The smell of old urine mixed with the smoke. My heart was pounding so hard that my head began to feel light and floaty.

  ‘Teacher’s little pet,’ said Miranda, and ground the butt of her cigarette into the concrete. ‘Do you do it with old Westie? Hmm? What’s he like?’

  Her voice was black as Vegemite. She smeared it all over me.

  Just then Amanda gave an excited grunt and pulled out her lighter. There was a moment when I could have run. But I didn’t. I’ve always wondered why. I couldn’t take my eyes off those girls. A powerful force field throbbed around them. I was like a captured asteroid in their belt. Amanda swung out, past Miranda, and flicked her lighter at me. It was yellow. I can still see it.

  She set my hair on fire.

  The girls ran. I could hear their black school shoes pounding up the asphalt. I slapped at my hair. I pulled my long uniform up over my shoulders and tried to smother it. I leapt about with the skirt wrapped tight over my head. I screamed a lot. I kept wishing that person would stop screaming because the noise scared me more than anything else.

  After a few minutes I stopped. The smell of burnt hair was putrid. I crept over to the cracked mirror above the sink. I kept my eyes down, studying the grey porcelain of the bowl, the brown stain around the plug. Then I looked up, into my face.

  I had been very lucky, really. The right side of my hair at the front was a good four centimetres shorter than the left. But the line was quite neat, except for the wiggly frizzed ends that had gone a yellowy brown. At least I wasn’t bald. I sang that out into the mirror, ‘I’m not bald, I’m not bald! I’m still alive!’ I felt a sudden rush of elation, as if I’d been saved from the jaws of death. I wasn’t scarred or mutilated. I even felt a glow of gratitude—those girls could have killed me, and they didn’t! I wasn’t in my right mind. Or, as my mother would have said, I was in the second half of my personality—the one we don’t normally meet.

  I put my hair back in a ponytail so it wouldn’t show so much.

  As I trudged back to the science room, I tried to work out why those girls hated me. They were older than me—they weren’t even in my year. I hardly ever saw them. I just didn’t understand it. Perhaps my height annoyed them. Or maybe I was just so naturally irritating I could annoy people even at a distance.

  Whatever it was, it was scary, because if you don’t know what it is about you that annoys people, then you can’t fix it up.

  THAT WAS WHEN I decided that if this was war, then I’d better get serious about camouflage. I didn’t stop and chat with Mr West any more after school. In science, I pretended that I hadn’t done my homework and I wouldn’t know Jupiter from Pluto. I said, ‘Wot?’ every time a teacher asked me a question, and they sent me to the school nurse to have my hearing checked. I finally took my uniform up myself. It was so short that every time I bent over, you could see my bum.

  I was getting ready to become a borrower. But you have to be in the right ‘state’ before you can attract the light. You have to be reduced to a cinder, have nothing left. Then the light-givers take you up, making you their creature. They flick you off into space, watching you glow with gratitude.

  I REMEMBER A new girl coming to our school. She was Finnish, and she couldn’t speak much English. She was plump and white and tender-looking, like a new egg. She smiled and said ‘yes’ to everything, just in case. She wouldn’t have hurt a fly.

  Minna was put into my maths class. I could have been her friend. I explained a little about numbers being to the nth power. She nodded eagerly and touched my hand, thanking me.

  One day, in the playground, Miranda Blair sat down next to her on the benches. Minna turned to her with a smile. Miranda swiped Minna’s lunch, just like that, and doled it out to her friends. She was chief wolf feeding her pack. Minna sat there waiting. She kept that smile on her face for ten minutes, I don’t know how. She looked frozen, like a wax model. Her jaws must have been aching. But Miranda didn’t give back the lunch, or offer any of hers. She and her pack ate every crumb, smacking their lips.

  I stood on the opposite side of the quadrangle, watching. I could have helped. I could have gone over and snatched back the lunch. I could have told Miranda what a nasty bitch she was. I could have walked over and taken Minna’s hand. Comforted her. But I didn’t. I just watched. Standing there, like some creepy voyeur, I felt so ashamed of myself. I wondered what Minna must think of this country, where people step on each other like ants. I had a bitter taste in my mouth all day.

  But I couldn’t afford to annoy anyone again.

  ONE AFTERNOON MR WEST asked me to wait after class. He asked me at the beginning of the lesson and I was so anxious, I couldn’t hear anything he said after that. I fooled around on my desk afterwards so that people would think I was just being slack tidying up. When everyone had gone, I looked at Mr West.

  I hadn’t really seen his face properly for weeks. I felt a wave of affection. Then guilt.

  ‘Are you all right, Callisto?’ he said gently. His tone was so kind. His voice lay on the air like a soft blanket. You could sink into that voice and be wrapped up, safe.

  He asked me if I were on drugs. My attitude had changed, he said. I was so thin. I never said a word any more. Could he help?

  I remembered the way he’d been with Jeremy. How he’d put down his chalk whenever I dropped in. I wanted to tell him about the war, and explain that sometimes you just have to choose sides, and that it was nothing personal. But I knew he would question me and ask for enemy names and it would just mean suicide. So I said nothing.

  I kept looking down at the floor so I wouldn’t have to see his face. But at the end, when I heard him stand up and scrape back the chair, I caught the disappointment in his eyes. They weren’t warm and understanding any more. I wanted to tell him that what he offered was very kind, but what I needed was twenty-four-hour protection. And a man in his position couldn’t possibly provide it.

  When he left the room I felt lonelier than ever.

  I WISH YOU COULD live in brackets. You could take whoever you want inside with you, and the rest of life would wait outside, politely looking the other way. When you popped out of the brackets, life would go on as before. There’d be no consequences, and the walls would be where you needed them for once. Easy peasy. If only.

  When the doctor told me I was pregnant, I did consider talking to Mr West. He wasn’t family, and he wasn’t too close. He might still care about me. I knew he had a son, so he probably understood about kids. I thought he might also show an unemotional, scientific approach to the problem—being a scientist and all. It could be comforting to step inside a bracket with him.

  But when I mentioned this to Tim, he went into a total spin. ‘Are you crazy?’ he hissed, too shocked to even raise his voice. ‘Tell a teacher? No, he�
��d go and tell the principal and your parents. Think, Callisto! You know how the world works!’

  I supposed he was right. There were no brackets except in books. And the world spins on consequences.

  10 February

  Caroline Herschel Cook

  Caroline Cook

  Herschel Cook

  Caz Cook, Hersh or Hish?

  No matter where you put ‘Herschel’, it ruins everything. It sounds like something hairy, masculine. I think Mother would have preferred a boy.

  twinkle twinkle mamma cook, how I wish you’d close that book

  I DIDN’T KNOW MY mother’s middle name was Herschel. God, how dreadful. That entry was very old, judging by the yellowed paper in the diary. There was no year. The paper was all dimpled with fingerprints. I was so interested, I tried to find a way to talk to Mum about it. She wouldn’t elaborate. Her mouth went all dried-pearish again, so I didn’t insist. Herschel. It made me think of Hershey chocolate bars, and I had a sudden urge to go down the street and buy one.

  I had developed quite a few strange food urges lately. I always thought that was a myth about pregnant women asking their husbands to go and buy beetroot or something at three o’clock in the morning. But me—I had an obsession with parsley. I couldn’t get enough of it.

  I observed these symptoms with a kind of detached fascination, as if it were all happening to someone else. It had been a week since I’d known for sure, but there was still the numbness, like at the doctor’s. Whenever I forced myself to sit down (on my bed) and think through my Problem—list my options, the consequences of those options etc., a fermenting panic crept along my skin. I got as far as imagining my father’s reaction: instant shockhorror, and an epilogue of eternal judgement. He would dismiss me forever as ‘that’ kind of girl—a chaotic sluttish female, devoid of moral backbone. Nothing I did after that would bend the bars.

  Sometimes, sitting on my bed (I didn’t actually lie on it any more because sluttish girls don’t deserve to be comfortable), I imagined being hugged by my father. I saw his eyes smiling warmly at me, open wide, listening to my torrent of words. His eyes didn’t change as I talked—they stayed open and uncritical like a blue lake in the sunshine.