I ugh-ed and shook my head. ‘It’s awful, but it makes everyone else feel better.’
‘You really don’t want to go on to college? After you’ve worked so hard?’
I could feel my chest getting tight. My stomach twisted. But I tried to be breezy. ‘I applied for some courses. Arts degrees. I just don’t think I care anymore.’
‘You know, I’m pretty sure you do. You have goals. Just don’t waste it. Everything’s going to happen so fast,’ he said. ‘Get your education, Addie. It’s your ticket.’
‘I don’t want to be pressured to succeed. I want to see the world.’
‘That’s great. I’m just saying it’s not all about wants. Not all the time.’
‘You do what you want all the time. You travel, you even make a living doing something you love.’ I put my hands on my hips. If he didn’t speak soon I would start saying things I’d regret. Or cry.
‘Hey, yeah, I do love it. It’s a pretty meagre living, though. Would have been nice to have the option of going to college.’ Nick talked about how he felt guilty about not being there when Mum needed him sometimes. How he was trying to work out some kind of compromise, find a way to put his life on a different track. ‘And I did a lot of time in bad jobs, remember?’
I had nothing.
‘What is it you love, Addie? What is it you want to do?’
Still nothing, still just hands on hips.
‘Guess we’ve found your assignment for the day.’
‘Wow, thanks for that, Dad,’ I said, with maximum sarcasm.
‘I’m not your dad,’ Nick replied quietly.
That was unexpected. I’d always said I didn’t see Nick that way. But it still hurt.
I had thought that Nick would be my obvious comrade-in-arms, that he of all people would understand me. He’s an artist! He lives an unconventional life!
‘I’m not your dad,’ he repeated.
‘Rub it in a bit more,’ I said.
He laughed, but put a hand on my shoulder. It was warm and I felt myself relax a little. ‘I mean that I can’t take credit for you. Not your past, and I can’t try to mould your future. But you’ve got so much waiting for you and I just wouldn’t want you to miss it. Keep your eyes open.’
‘What’s going on?’ Mum was carrying an old ice-cream container filled with eggs in from the backyard.
I swung around to face her, pulling off the wet and soapy rubber gloves and letting them slap against the rim of the sink. ‘Do you think I should still be at St Thomas’s?’ I asked.
‘I would never want you to be somewhere you didn’t want to be,’ Mum said firmly. Then she paused. ‘But it was such an opportunity. Such a good place to get an education, to really get someplace in the future.’
‘But I don’t know what I want to do in the future, and I really don’t believe they could teach me that. That school was just full of arrogant, self-important arseholes.’
‘You made friends after a while.’
‘No, I mean the teachers!’
Mum was clearly trying not to laugh. ‘I’m sure they just wanted you to do the very best you could.’
‘Yeah, but they wanted us all do to it their way. They didn’t appreciate imagination or alternative ways of thinking …’
‘It’s school. You just play the game until you’re out of there. It’s kind of like life. You just have to play the game a bit so you can get what you want.’
Nick interjected. ‘Or you have to at least understand the game.’
A rage welled up in me. ‘I don’t have to do anything! I thought we were done having this conversation. I’m finishing school for you, I’m doing what you wanted. And I’m doing just fine – thank you very much.’
I banged through the front door with my rage and soon I was scuffing it along the street. I wasn’t superstitious, but as I walked I avoided the cracks. My natural gait didn’t make for a natural cracks-avoiding stride.
‘What are you doing?’
Jarrod popping up from behind Mrs Dobbs’s front hedge startled me, but I tried not to show it.
I scowled. ‘Living up to my potential.’
He grinned. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Super-dooper. Just swell.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘It’s Nick,’ I said. ‘It’s like he thinks he’s my personal guru or font of wisdom and he winds Mum up.’
‘I thought you liked him.’
‘I do.’ I paused. ‘It’s just … why does he get to have a go at me too?’
Jarrod leaned against the hedge and let me talk and talk. Expectations, five-year plans, dreams. I was scowly and contradictory. I could hear how unreasonable I sounded, but I couldn’t stop. I’d gone too far to back down.
‘Addie,’ Jarrod interrupted me after some time. ‘It’s okay if you don’t wanna go to university. What are you really angry about?’
The fight puffed out of me. I shrugged.
‘Don’t get so bogged down in all this.’
‘How can you be so calm?’
He slung his arm around my shoulder. ‘I’ve got a job, I’ve got a bit of money, I’ve got you. I’m kinda lovin’ being young and dumb.’
Nick had a show in the city and two days later would be getting on a plane back to Texas, so he and Mum and Clover were leaving me behind and going to Melbourne. I’d got over our little fight, but I was still looking forward to a few days without them.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to come up?’ asked Mum. ‘You could hang out with Mia.’
‘Nah. I’m okay,’ I said. ‘She’ll be busy with school and stuff.’
Nick pulled me in for a hug. ‘Look after yourself, Addie.’
I squeezed him. ‘You too.’
‘And if you feel like coming to Austin on your travels, you know you got somewhere to stay.’
I waved from the fence until the car turned the corner and they were gone.
Within hours the house was so empty that I called Jarrod – his ancient old phone had practically died and could only be used now to receive calls. It wasn’t even as useful as a regular house phone! But I called and I asked him if there wasn’t something he’d like to skive off from, because wasn’t it a lovely day?
‘You want me to come over?’ he asked, after a pause.
‘If you want.’ I kept it light.
He didn’t say anything and something like panic or guilt grabbed me and I had to quickly add, ‘Yes! I mean yes! I want you to come over. If you want to.’
He said he just had one more lawn to mow and he’d be at mine within the hour. Except what he said was, ‘Got another job to do. Gimme an hour.’
Truthfully, there were assignments and reading and dreaded study to do, but I had the house to myself for the first time since I’d moved back home and I felt I should make the most of it. After I had put all my obviously dirty clothes in the washing basket and taken everything off my desk, wiped the desk, put everything back on; books stacked in order of size, my laptop centred; all the pens, highlighters, my chipped plastic ruler and the sharp scissors arranged neatly in an old Milo tin, it had been half an hour since I’d called.
Why was I acting so ditzy? Wherefore the butterflies in mine stomach?
I started a text to Mia: J’s coming over. No one else home. Oh! Afternoon delight! I just wanted to tell someone. But I couldn’t send it; it felt too silly and oversharey. Though Mia would probably love that. But I deleted the message and replaced it with: HELLOHELLOHELLO!
Mia texted with a new stealth-shot of Mr Ellis’s still-handsome back-of-head with an attached message: Hope you’re w.o.r.k.i.n.g hard and keeping h.y.d.r.a.t.e.d. Say hi to Jen for me!
I picked up my doona and flicked it high, letting it settle on the bed neatly. When I was little, Mum and Dad would shake the sheets as they made the bed and I wo
uld dive underneath and laugh. I bet that would have been super annoying, looking back on it. But still so tempting and so hilarious.
I got thinking about Jarrod in my bed, the possibilities of it. That was what I’d had in mind when I called him, wasn’t it? When we kissed, those sparks, that thud, the electric-fence feeling would start up.
My stomach tingled.
Who was I kidding? The tingle was definitely lower down.
Did Mia get these feelings with everyone she was with? How could she have them for Mr Ellis, and for Jenny? I tried not to think about Jenny and Mia, and how far they’d got … under the sheets. Did they do it? Surely not. What constituted ‘doing it’?
Mia had been fully prepared to tell me but I’d let her get as far as ‘I just put my …’ before I’d started singing ‘Lalalalala!’ and put my fingers in my ears, closing my eyes for good measure.
‘Hello?’ Jarrod called through the back door.
I rolled off the bed and ran down the hallway. I stopped short, just shy of the kitchen, before sauntering in coolly. Well, with attempted cool. ‘Hi. Hey. Do you want some lunch? Are you hungry?’
‘I’m always hungry.’
‘I thought we could have a picnic.’
‘A winter picnic?’
‘It’s technically spring. Plus it’s a nice day!’
We looked in the fridge and the pantry for picnic foods because what I said was true: the sun was out, the sky was blue, hardly a breeze and it felt like the cold weather was being gently pushed out of the way. A perfect day for a picnic! Here is what we found:
A loaf of bread – seedy
A container of spicy capsicum dip – mostly full
Some cheese – fancy
Three bottles of beer – chilled
A jar of olives – home preserved
We sat down by the back fence, in the spot that had a view of next-door’s dam, and ate our hotch-potch picnic. For some reason it tasted more delicious than any other meal I had ever had – the way that food always seems to taste in Enid Blyton novels.
‘We’ve been reading The Magic Faraway Tree to Clover,’ I said. ‘Well, Mum has mostly. They always eat such great-sounding foods, like pop biscuits and treacle pudding.’
Neither of us had eaten olives before, except accidentally on pizza. They were so salty and fleshy and when I licked my lips it felt like I’d been swimming in the ocean and, when I said so, Jarrod said he felt the same.
We guzzled water from the garden hose because it was closer than going back to the house and we were so warm, lying on the rug on a slight slope, Clover’s pony Tim grazing by us, huffing when a grass seed went up his nose. We smelled all the smells. At least I did – I couldn’t speak for Jarrod.
‘I reckon real, proper spring is just around the corner,’ he said. ‘Smell that?’
I once read a book about a girl who jumped into a river just because she felt like it, because she wanted to see what it was like.
I couldn’t help jumping.
In the movies it’s so romantic, in the books it’s so awkward and funny. Taking your clothes off while someone else takes their clothes off and you both see each other with clothes off, it’s actually really awkward and so, so silly. We couldn’t stop laughing. We might have set new speed records for getting undressed and as we laughed and laughed we bumped our naked bodies together accidentally due to all the laughing.
On the bed, we curved our bodies in on each other and it felt so weird – and so exciting.
‘Have you done this before?’ he asked.
I thought about lying for a moment. But then, ‘Yes.’
He seemed to get a bit worried or cold, then, and he lay and looked at the ceiling for a bit.
I wanted to say something, but what would I say? ‘So, you’re a virgin, country boy?’ or, ‘It’s okay to be a virgin’. Both of which being true and fine, but I didn’t think would make him very happy or feel very good about himself in this moment. I sat up a bit so I could look at him.
He opened and closed his eyes, and I thought I saw some kind of emotion or thought flash across them – is this possible? It happens in books. What really happened is that we were lying super close, our faces almost touching and our breath was all warm and moist and all those romance-novel words.
I pressed a finger against the little dark curls on his chest and moved it in small circles. ‘Just once. He was my sort-of boyfriend. Don’t worry about it.’
‘I’m not worried.’ He looked worried.
I made a gesture with my hands. ‘You know where everything goes,’ I said, trying to be light and hilarious, while at the same time reassuring.
He slapped a hand over his eyes. ‘Gross!’ But at least it got him laughing.
He smelled like cut grass, and a little bit like two-stroke oil. I inhaled him and kissed his lips, put my hands in his hair and kissed him more.
‘I really like you.’ I wanted to say l.o.v.e. But it was too scary for now. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’
‘Me too,’ he said.
I felt like I had to make the first move, being the ‘experienced one’ (how ridiculous). I wriggled closer and our skin met and as I kissed him, my breasts pressed into him and he put his arms around me. I pushed my body against his as I kissed him again. We were soft and hard at the same time. Our skin was hot.
We made noises and spoke in half sentences, in broken and whispered words. It was dark under the covers, in my dim room. It was overwhelming. So different, so new. We were a team, we were the only people in the world, we were in it together – all these things, plus more.
But it wasn’t difficult, and it wasn’t embarrassing, and I think Jarrod was a bit surprised about that, because once we’d done the condom thing, and had slowly fitted ourselves together, he breathed out in a rush and then looked down at me. He was smiling, but his eyes were kind and soft. He looked at me like I was the only person he wanted to see.
Afterwards, we lay together and we looked at each other. We were quiet and serious, and thrilling at each other’s touch. We looked and looked, as though trying to read each other, or figure out a magic eye puzzle.
‘Hi,’ he said softly.
‘Hi,’ I said back.
Days later, I could still smell him. It was the strangest thing. It made sense when it came to sheets and pillows, but even when I was outside, surrounded by things he hadn’t touched, I got a waft of him. It was startling.
I was reading Wilfred Owen for school, trying to memorise quotes, trying to analyse metre and meaning in the lines. Then there was this boy, this boy who’d once told me he’d thought about going into the army and who could shoot rabbits in the dark and hardly miss one, this boy who’d sat on my desk chair as I lay on my bed and read to me from my English textbooks and brought the poems to life for me.
It made my heart ache.
I loved how much he got poetry and how much he loved it, even though he didn’t seem to realise that he loved it.
Jarrod would read slowly, conscious of getting the words wrong and he could make the sentences go the way I felt sure the poet would have wanted.
Mum busted us doing poetry the day she and Clover got back from Melbourne. ‘You’ve got a good ear,’ she’d said to him.
Jarrod had gone quiet, but I saw him smile.
I’d fallen, and fallen deep.
But now I was at the musty brown desk in the historical society. There, with a delicate china cup of milky tea, thanks to Mrs Dobbs. There, not far from this fine lady, who on this particular day was wearing a sturdy A-line corduroy skirt in navy blue and a floral blouse underneath yet another soft and fluffy jumper – this one was aquamarine with a peacock brooch, with an actual peacock feather in it.
I had to focus, keep the flashbacks out of the workplace.
I took photos of the staff for the website an
d made them pose in different corners of the museum. ‘You’d fit in with all the city hipsters,’ I told Mrs Dobbs. ‘Watch yourself, they’ll be coming to rob you of all your clothes and accessories.’
She gave an amused and slightly dismissive laugh and toss of the head. The week before she’d been wearing green and blue tartan pants with a round-collar blouse underneath a thick red woolly cardigan that had fancy little gold buttons.
‘Seriously,’ I said.
‘What’s old is new again,’ she mused.
I couldn’t tell if she was humouring me or if she just didn’t give two hoots. I felt the urge to wear her outfit. I’d been dressing in jeans and jumpers like a uniform since I’d come home, pretty much, but was now feeling the urge to go through the cupboard and try something new. To impress an old lady? I was going bananas.
Because I was on a quest to explore the ways to live your life, and already knew that surely it was more important to enjoy it. If you just did something that paid enough to pay the rent, that covered the costs, then you could spend the rest of the time enjoying yourself, being happy, being in love, enjoying the company of others.
I could be a receptionist – it wasn’t so bad. I liked sitting at the desk and making things neat and tidy around me. I enjoyed ruling up the visitor book and answering the phone in my best professional phone voice: ‘Good morning, Emyvale Historical Society and Museum.’
The curtains along the windows at the front hung heavy and stiff, discoloured slightly with age. ‘I’d love to take them down,’ I said out loud to whoever would listen, leaning over the glass case that held the not-so-artfully displayed contents of a little leather brown satchel that belonged to a little boy in the 1890s. A school reader, a stubby pencil, an old-fashioned game, fashioned out of wood.
There was a name tag, too. One that made me think of scones and afternoon tea in a faded kitchen.
I cycled to his house on my way home and knocked on the door. Felt a flush of guilt from not coming by to visit before now.
‘Are you related to William Cairn?’ I asked when he opened the door, feeling myself become weirdly excited.
Mr Cairn looked thoughtful and gazed off into the distance. People always look into the distance when they’re thinking hard, looking into their memories. When they’re trying to remember facts, they might squint down at the ground, at their shoes. Or they might scrunch up and tilt their chins to the sky. But memories – I reckon that’s always pensive middle-distance.
Untidy Towns Page 13