‘You didn’t need to do that, Verity.’ Mum had a strained polite voice on, one she didn’t often use. ‘I haven’t cleared the chimney since last year. It might be blocked.’
Usually she and Gran got on really well, but they were being pretty sniffy. I supposed that was my fault too.
‘I won’t stay.’ Gran said, picking up her handbag.
I had to fix this. ‘Please.’ I picked up a plate and gestured towards the food. ‘Stay for dinner.’
They had a lot of questions. I’d known they would.
‘What are you going to do now?’ Ever-practical, my Gran.
‘Did something happen?’ asked Mum.
What could have happened? What scenarios were going through her mind – bullying, abuse? I felt sad that she was thinking these things and that I had, by default, caused her to. I felt so sorry about the way these things could have happened to me, even though they didn’t, and that made me incredibly sad. Overwhelming rushes of feelings often came over me like surprise buckets of cold water.
‘I just couldn’t breathe there. I kept getting stomach-aches and headaches. Um, I thought maybe panic attacks?’ I was sceptical about online self-diagnoses, really I was, but this one made so much sense, made my symptoms real, which made my feelings real too.
‘The nurse never called me.’
‘I never went to see her. I just googled stuff.’
‘Why didn’t you talk to someone?’
This I had no answer to. It was just easier to sit in a corner of the library with a textbook and feign studiousness until the pressure on my chest relieved and I found that maybe life wasn’t going to end right then.
‘You’ve only got the rest of this year to go,’ said Gran. ‘Perhaps you’ll feel differently after the Easter holidays.’
‘I won’t. I don’t want to finish. I just don’t see the point.’
‘But what about uni?’ Mum asked. ‘The law plan? What do you mean, you don’t see the point?’
‘It’s your future,’ added Gran, in case it was unclear.
‘I don’t want to do law anymore.’ I shook my head. I had talked about it a lot after my year-ten work experience. ‘I just need to get out into the world. I feel as though I don’t know what’s real, what’s life.’
‘Life’s not going anywhere, Addie,’ said Mum softly. ‘It’ll be there next year, waiting for you.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to just finish your schooling? You’re so close to the end. And you’ve got such potential.’
‘Don’t say that!’ I burst out.
Gran looked surprised. She reached out her hand and stroked my hair. ‘My clever girl.’
I sat up straight and tried to be open and honest and say the right words. ‘The school says I’m not living up to my potential. I’m probably going to lose my scholarship. My brain has turned to mush, I can’t breathe, they hate me, I hate me and …’ I floundered for words. ‘And I’m not going back there.’
‘So,’ Mum said, pulling her chair closer to mine and reaching a hand out to rub my back. ‘What do you want to do?’
Blank. Just a blank mind. The world started pixelating around me.
They looked at each other. They looked at me.
‘I can’t just let you mooch around here doing nothing, Adelaide.’ Mum said slowly. ‘That won’t help you.’
I felt like a complete loser.
All I could do was stand up and walk out of there. This I was getting good at.
Under a hot shower I sat down on the tiles, my knees knocking over the shampoo and conditioner bottles, and I waited for the tight, heavy pain in my chest to recede. What was I going to do now? Maybe home wasn’t the same, and now maybe I was stuck here. Because where else would I go?
My dad had left Emyvale for university in Melbourne. My mum had left Brisbane, and her family, to move there too. Once they’d met and fallen in love they left the city to create their own family back in Emyvale. Then Dad died, leaving involuntarily and permanently. Soon after I left eagerly with my scholarship and a sense of adventure. I kept leaving after every school holiday, and with each leaving I felt myself distancing from events and friends and even family in my hometown.
After this, things started changing. Nick, a blues musician, came to town and my mother fell in love again. Then, when I was fourteen, Clover was born. Careers counsellors suggested doing law at top universities. Then came the ever-pressing pressure to do my school proud. Soon, the feeling of having no control.
I thought about the space I had left here, if there was a space at all. I sometimes thought that Emyvale was more like a pool of quicksand or custard and that whenever I moved away, the gloop of the town just closed up behind me. Every holiday I came back feeling more like a stranger.
The house was quiet, dark. My grandmother had gone home; I’d watched the car headlights flick on and bob away down the road. I put some old pyjamas on and went down the corridor, schlepping in thick socks, trying to be as pathetic as possible, to peep into Mum’s room. She was reading in bed. I leaned against the doorframe.
She let the book fall against her knees. I don’t know much about other people’s parents. All my friends at St Thomas’s seemed to have old, old parents who wore expensive clothes and drove Volkswagens and Audis. I didn’t go to their houses, but I imagined they all had wings of the house to themselves and their mothers would dress up for breakfast and their fathers would always wear ties or cravats. But my mum looks just like a girl sometimes. Like now, propped up on pillows, wearing one of her old band t-shirts and her hair tied in a big messy bun on the top of her head. Funny to think she’s my mother. Sometimes I feel such a rush of love for her, like I want to protect her.
I lay down on the other side of the bed and wriggled over so I could put my head on her shoulder.
‘Love you,’ she said, as she kissed my head. ‘I’m so sorry you’ve been having a crappy time, my girl. I didn’t know.’
Her voice was shaky and I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want to feel guiltier than I already did.
‘I love you too.’ I had calmed down but could still feel that current of determination running through my veins. ‘Everything will be fine. Truly, it’s like a weight has been lifted, Mama.’
‘That’s good.’
‘I can just get on with living on my own terms, with no one trying to push me in any particular direction, not being force-fed ideas.’ My voice became a bit ferocious towards the end. I shook it out. ‘So now I just have to figure out what I want to do with my life.’
‘You’re going to live a spectacular life,’ said Mum and she tweaked the ends of my hair. ‘Whatever it is you end up doing.’
‘Maybe first I’ll find out how to get some money.’
‘Well, there are these things called jobs.’
‘Har. Har.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Okay. I’ll find something.’ Loads of people had jobs. I could get one.
‘And then what?’
I threw my arm in the air, theatrically. ‘Whatever I want!’
‘You duffer.’
My cheek smooshed against the hard bone of her shoulder.
She put her arm around me and held me tight. ‘It’s really nice to have you home, actually.’
That damn near broke my heart.
The next day – the first day of my new life – I tried on all my clothes to check which ones still fitted me. It felt hilarious to wear all the things I’d left behind in Emyvale, stuff I’d clearly decided wasn’t for me – or at least wasn’t for the boarding school, city-cool, St Thomas’s version of me. Old clothes, frumpy clothes, hand-me-downs and pilfered gems from Mum.
I found a pile of books down the bottom of the wardrobe. Library books, labelled with St Thomas’s stickers and covered in clear contact. Whoops. Guess I wouldn’t be returning them.
I was lying o
n my bed, trying to remember the comfiest spot and cracking the spine on one of those thieved novels, when I heard a car on the gravel. Grandad.
I went down the hall towards the kitchen, keeping way to the right and brushing my arm against the wall, in an effort to dawdle. Through the window I saw Clover, in her puddle suit, chase a magpie and then burrow under a bush. She was growing up a wild child!
‘Hello,’ called Grandad, in the short, chirpy way of his.
‘Hi, Clive,’ said Mum, and I heard her smooch a kiss onto his cheek. ‘Come to give Adelaide the walloping she deserves? Don’t be too hard on her.’
I stood up straight and checked myself out in the hallway mirror. I practised smiling in a way that was respectful and restrained but also just a little bit cheeky. But I think all I managed was a high-chinned defiance. Oh well, what can you do?
‘There she is.’ When I finally drifted into the kitchen, Grandad looked rather stern.
I couldn’t quite get a greeting to come out. Suddenly I felt really ashamed of myself. Even though I obviously didn’t regret a thing. Not one thing. Mostly. Well, some things.
‘Hello,’ I squeaked. I don’t think I have ever squeaked before. I thought that only happened in children’s novels where the animals wear clothes.
Grandad jangled his car keys. ‘Come for a drive, young Adelaide?’
This was even worse than I’d thought. It was as though I was going to my own execution.
Grandad drove to begin with. We tootled down the main street and turned down the road that led out of town. ‘So what happened?’ he asked, just as the silence was becoming companionable.
‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged, not that that would convince him. ‘I just don’t think I was the kind of student their institution desired.’
‘But you weren’t expelled?’
‘No. They would have called Mum. I just left.’
‘You just left?’
‘Yep.’
‘Were you failing?’
‘Not failing … did you see my last school report?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Um. Well, it’s been harder … harder to do well. And the teachers kept treating me as some little project, their personal success story. It made me feel gross. But I don’t think I was doing too badly, really. Except English. I …’ I looked out the car window. How to explain this? ‘I had a little problem.’
‘Oh yes, about what?’
We drove along the river. I told him about how there didn’t seem to be any scope for individual opinion in class, the texts the school chose were dull and irrelevant. ‘The assignments were all so limited! Like there was only one right answer and only one way to write the essay!’ I kicked my foot against the underside of the glove box. ‘We all ended up writing the same thing.’
‘I think the problem with school, Addie, is that it’s all a game. That’s what they don’t tell you.’
‘A game?’ I kicked the glove box again. ‘I don’t want to do things just because it means I can get into a good university.’ My words started to run over each other, butt into each other in their rush. ‘What does that even mean? What is a good school versus a bad school, what’s the difference?’ Kick. ‘Do they really want us to succeed or is it just to make the school look good?’ Kick. ‘Why is there only one way to be successful in their eyes? What if I don’t want that kind of life?’ Kick. Kick.
‘Stop. You’ll break something.’
‘And then I got dobbed in by some so-called Good Samaritan for being at a women’s rights protest in my school uniform. I got a weekend detention for that. They are so closed-minded, so archaic.’
‘Well,’ said Grandad, ‘you could have got changed.’ He cut the engine and got out of the car. ‘You take it from here.’
Yes, I could have got changed. But what effect would that have had? They would never have put our picture in the paper if we hadn’t all been lined up like the very essence of Catholic schoolgirls, our hair in braids and curls, holding our banner.
I took my time putting up the L-plates. But I had to climb in behind the steering wheel at some point, and I banged my knees when I did. Ouch. I rubbed them dramatically for longer than was necessary.
Grandad just buckled his seatbelt and sat there, looking straight ahead.
Fine.
I put my foot on the clutch, pressed it to the floor and put my other foot on the brake. I remembered everything I’d learned last school holidays. Okay, so I bunny-hopped a little as I pressed down on the accelerator even though I tried to take my foot off the clutch slowly.
But soon we were roaring along Farm Road with me at the wheel. Like a pro.
Grandad rarely said anything during our driving lessons. Sometimes he would give a few comments like, ‘Keep the revs up before you change up a gear.’ This time, after about five minutes of driving in silence, he spoke. ‘Is there anything we can do to get you to go back to school?’
I wouldn’t take my eyes off the road, I decided. I’d be calm. Unflappable. ‘No.’ I looked into the rear-view mirror and saw a big, shiny-new 4WD approaching fast. ‘I know it’s a big deal. But I just can’t do it.’
‘What about the Emyvale High School? That could work.’
It became hard to swallow. ‘No. It wouldn’t work.’
Grandad was quiet a moment. ‘You’re making things very hard for yourself, you realise?’
The 4WD overtook us; I think it was Sam McElliot’s dad. ‘Yes,’ I answered automatically. Then I added, ‘Wait, why?’
‘Adelaide, don’t be dense.’
‘It’ll be fine. I can get a job. I might save up some money and figure out what I’m going to do next. Maybe travel! I’ll be absolutely fine.’
‘I bet,’ he said in a way that sounded as though he wouldn’t bet a single dollar on me. ‘I think you’ll find it’s not quite that easy.’
We flew past the Dears’ place and I saw Jenny’s horse, Pepper, in the front paddock, looking at us over the fence. She looked old and doleful. Jenny and I did pony club together when we were in primary school. I loved jumping and she liked the ‘quietest pony’ competitions.
Grandad just sat there, even as I drifted off into nostalgic reveries. Stoic man.
I slowed the car to a bumpy stop. We’d almost reached the highway, where we always turned around. It took all my willpower to not gun the engine and speed us out of town like bats out of hell. But how fun would that be with Grandad in tow? And there was still the problem of school, and money, and, and, and … I flicked the indicator on, stalled as I tried to take off again, restarted the engine, then chucked a slow U-ey and headed home.
It wasn’t until lunch, and even then not until after the pumpkin soup and Gran’s homemade bread had been finished, that the real clanger arrived.
‘I want you to come and work with me,’ Grandad said. He was semi-retired from farming and now ran the local historical society, heading a gaggle of old folk who set up sad little displays of various creaking, ancient bits and bobs. He knocked his knuckles on the tabletop softly.
‘What?’ I felt myself looking from one expectant face to another, as though taking in this whole scene at once would answer my question. It just made me a bit dizzy.
‘We could use the extra pair of hands around the place. You could come in a couple of days a week. Two, maybe. Or a few arvos.’
There’s that expression ‘my blood ran cold’, yes? That. ‘Why?’
Behind him, Mum frowned at me, shaking her head as she reached around to clear the plates. A mostly chewed piece of bread fell out of Clover’s mouth and Mum deftly cleared that away too.
Below the table I pinched the lacy tablecloth hard between my fingers; my chest was tight. Judas! I thought, as I tried not to glare at my mother.
‘I know you could use the money.’
That sounded suspicious
. ‘You would pay me?’ I was pretty sure the society was volunteer-run. Red and white patterns formed on my skin with the pressure of the lace.
Grandad nodded slowly. ‘I thought we could pay you a small sum each week. You could start saving up. For whatever you decide to do. Rent in the city, travel …’ After a moment’s silence, he continued. ‘And maybe we could discuss a way for you to finish year twelve.’
‘I’m not going back to school.’
‘We know,’ said Gran, cutting me off. ‘Clive and I are going to the city tomorrow to settle all that.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘So …’
‘We just want to make sure you do the best thing for yourself. If we can help you do that, this might just be the ticket.’
So it was bribery, a ruse to make me do what they wanted. At once I felt furious and intensely embarrassed. I folded my arms across my chest. First of all, even just thinking about that musty, dusty museum made me want to chew my own face off. But more importantly, now I had escaped from the strange ‘institution of learning’, I had hoped we could all just relax and trust that my natural smarts would see me through.
But, still, I could see the benefits here. A job in this town of no jobs, some money.
‘Starting when?’ I asked.
‘Tomorrow?’ Grandad suggested. ‘In a few days?’
This would be okay, it would. I would be fine, fine, fine.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘And year twelve?’
‘I’ll think about it.’
They had always told me I could do anything I wanted.
Saturday mornings were busy at the salon – everyone needed their hair done for their exciting weekend activities, apparently – and so I agreed to look after Clover for a few hours while Mum went to work. ‘Your grandmother will love the break,’ she said.
While Clover played an intense game of run-through-the-big-puddle in the backyard, I tried to get my bike out of the shed. There were pots and sheets of plastic and half-empty bags of potting mix all higgledy-piggledy, blocking the bike in. Eventually I managed to haul it out, smashing my hand against the shed door.
Untidy Towns Page 2