Elsewhere Girls

by Emily Gale

  The silver case is warm in my hand now. Behind my eyes the wooziness has started. My head gently rotates.

  Stop, Cat.

  Watch, Cat.

  No, I’ve got to stop.

  I leave it on the rock, stuff my bag between the rocks and out of sight and make my way to the water’s edge.

  Fan

  The only good thing to come out of losing my races yesterday was Mr Wylie letting me borrow his special stopwatch. When I saw him waiting outside the carnival for Mina, I just burst out with the bold request. I know he only agreed because he felt sorry for me and my poor times in the water, and I had to promise to return the watch today. I would have used it yesterday to time myself after the swim carnival but Ma insisted we go straight home.

  She didn’t know Mr Wylie lent me his watch. She would have said no because she doesn’t like relying on others to provide things we cannot afford. But I am sure that I will swim faster if I can check my times.

  Because I couldn’t tell Ma about the watch, I had to sneak out this morning, and because I needed someone to time my laps in the water, that meant taking Dewey with me. Poor Dewey. She was so sleepy when I nudged her awake this morning, but we needed to leave before anyone in the family woke.

  ‘Penny for them, Fan,’ says Dewey quietly as we sit on the tram, my bag on the seat next to me.

  I look across at my sister and the worry on her face. ‘I need to win, Dewey.’

  ‘You will.’

  I wonder how long my family will remain hopeful. I should be beating Mina by now. She touched the wall before Dorothy in the 100 yards and the 150, which nobody would have expected. I’m sure it’s because she has her own baths to train in, and her own special timepiece to tell her how fast she’s going.

  Dewey slides her hand in alongside my arm and I squeeze it against my body. ‘You will, Fan,’ she says.

  We get off the tram and I hurry up the hill, wanting to make it to the baths with enough time left for a handful of laps before I return the stopwatch and we have to rush to get home to help Ma with the chores.

  Dewey dawdles behind me.

  ‘Hurry, Dewey. I need to train,’ I tell her.

  She laughs and lets me pull her along. ‘Do you ever not want to train?’ she asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never?’

  I shake my head. ‘Actually, that’s a lie. Once. Last year when my chest was gruesome with infection.’

  ‘But you trained that day,’ says Dewey.

  ‘I know—I had to tell Ma I was better. Do you remember? I had to take the stairs three times and not cough before she’d let me go.’

  Dewey bumps against me. ‘But why didn’t you stay in bed? We never get to stay in bed. You could have laid there for the whole day and had Ma bring you syrup and instead you went swimming in the rain!’

  Despite myself, I laugh. She’s right. I could have stayed in bed. Looking back, I wish I had, but only because Ma made me drink the onion remedy that should always be avoided. Although, I know I’d do the same again. Training is everything.

  We’ve reached the sign for the steps down to Wylie’s Baths and I feel my body loosen, knowing that in seconds I’ll be in the cool water, swimming faster than Mina and the others in my head.

  ‘Dewey, take Mr Wylie’s stopwatch. Press this button when you shout go, okay?’

  I hold out the stopwatch to her, showing her the hand that can be started, stopped and reset to tell how fast I’ve swum.

  ‘I’ve never held something so grand, Fan. What if I break it?’

  ‘You won’t.’

  Dewey cups the stopwatch in her hands, like it’s an egg that will crack if she should bump it.

  ‘I want to beat Mina’s time from yesterday. But you mustn’t fib. You must tell me the honest truth about how fast I am.’

  Dewey nods as we head in through the turnstile, and I can smell the sea.

  Cat

  Old people with deep tans lie around the pool like lizards, and the ocean crashes against the back wall of the pool. The water looks clear and shallow. It’s rocky on the bottom and covered in seaweed. Looking from here to the far end I’d say it was fifty metres—perfect for training. I dip my foot in.

  And out! Wow! This is a terrible idea. The water is so cold it feels like teeth. I’m a creature of heated pools. I’m freshwater, not salt.

  But nearby, a wrinkled woman is floating on her back. She looks like a baked potato that’s been left in the oven too long. But she’s smiling. If she can cope with the cold, I need to get over myself.

  I climb down the steps before I can change my mind.

  Oh, ah, ee…I can do this.

  My feet search out soft sand but find barnacles and slippery algae. I’m scared of what I’ll step on next under the glimmering water. Lucy would have it all under a microscope.

  I fix my goggles and plunge in. My heart bursts but the hard part is over. I can see dancing seaweed and tiny shells clustering on the rocks. An actual fish!

  Fan

  I’m pushing myself as hard as I can, stroke after stroke, imagining I’m in the water alongside Mina and Dorothy. I reach the end of the baths, my fingers grazing the cold stone, and I leap up, looking for Dewey.

  ‘Stop the hand, Dewey!’ I call.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘And? It felt fast,’ I say, sounding hopeful.

  She looks down at me, biting her bottom lip. I know what her expression means. That my time was slow, and she doesn’t want to say it aloud.

  ‘I’ll go again,’ I tell her.

  She nods. ‘Do you want me to walk down the length so I’m at the other end?’

  The other end is the far end where the waves break across the top of wall that holds the sea out. It’s not safe for Dewey down there. I shake my head.

  ‘I’ll swim down and then I’ll race back to you. Faster this time.’

  She finds a small smile, and I know how much she wants me to beat my best time. It’s almost as important to her as it is to me.

  I swim back to the deeper end where the water is colder. And then slick my hair back from my face. My sister is small in the distance. I kick off from the wall, and I swim.

  Cat

  This is too relaxing, I’ve got to get into training mode. Swimming freestyle, my fingertips graze the bottom. I kick harder. My rhythm feels strange; I never knew that saltwater could feel so different—or that I could feel so different in it.

  When I reach the other side I flip into backstroke—the water isn’t deep enough to tumble turn—and watch the clouds shift over me. I keep lapping, back and forth, down in the underwater world and then facing the sky. Each lap is something new. I still feel dizzy but it’s probably the bright sun and the freezing water.

  I’m into my new rhythm now. I feel fast, I just don’t know how fast. I haven’t kept track of the number of laps and now I’m worried that too much time has passed—I still have to change and get to school. Only it’s so good in here. Give me freedom. Give someone else my place at Victoria Grammar.

  One more, I tell myself, and then I’ll go to school. I still have that buzzy feeling in my head so it’s probably best I get out soon. But for my last lap I try to forget that so I can feel every movement and be part of the water. I stay under, holding my breath, arms by my side and dolphin-kicking.

  I know this pool by now. The wall is fifteen metres ahead.

  Ten metres. I swim even deeper, shivering at the change in temperature. I blow out some bubbles to stay down longer but as they clear something weird is happening. Maybe I’ve been under too long. This doesn’t feel right. I’m so dizzy and everything is blurred. I’m still moving but my body feels numb. I need to make it stop! I need air!

  Fan

  My arms slow like they are dragging sand and my head feels light and strange like I’ve been holding my breath too long underwater. I stop swimming as a shiver flushes through me from head to toe. Pressing my feet into the seaweed, I stand up to take a gulp of fresh a
ir, hoping to lose this odd sensation.

  I blink. My eyes are having trouble seeing, and then I realise there’s something tight across my face. A strange, hard cover across my eyes. I pull at it hard and it comes free. What is this strange coloured cover for eyes? I let it go and it sinks down into the water.

  Holy Mary Mother of God, whose tiny hand is that? Not mine. And what’s that ring? It looks like a little silver star, but I’ve never seen a ring like this in my life. I look down. I can see so much skin! My stomach is exposed.

  This is not my body.

  Heart galloping, I duck down into the water, squatting on the bottom so that just my head is above the surface. Until I work this out, I have to stay hidden. Ma would die if she caught a glimpse of me and I don’t even want to think of what Da would do.

  What trick is this? Whose body is this?

  I sneak a peek at my arms. The skin is so brown. And my hands feel soft, nothing like how my calloused palms usually are. Slowly I pat my hands down my waist and my legs, but it’s not the strong, thick legs that I’m used to. And they are smooth! This is the body of a young girl.

  My long, tangled hair is gone. Now I have short hair like my brothers. Everything else is different too: the day, the light, the coolness of the air.

  ‘Dewey?’ I call out. I spin around in the water, looking for her, but there’s only a grey-haired woman floating on her back.

  ‘Dewey!’ I call again, louder this time, feeling desperate. It looks like Wylie’s Baths, but also not like Wylie’s Baths. People are sitting on big chairs on the balcony and there are men lying on the rocks, just wearing little pants. I look away, mortified—I mustn’t see men like that!

  ‘Dewey!’ I shout in a very unladylike manner. I need my sister.

  ‘You right, love?’ The woman stands up and I see now that she’s wearing nothing on her stomach either. Where is her bathing suit? She’s brown and wrinkled like leather and she’s walking towards me with a worried face. Is she lost too?

  ‘You okay? Didn’t get stung by a jellyfish did you? They have been a bit of a problem lately,’ she says, smiling.

  ‘Jellyfish? What? No. I’ve lost my sister,’ I tell her, but my voice sounds fancy like Mina’s, nothing like mine at all.

  ‘But I saw you arrive, darl. You came alone.’

  I frown. ‘Is this Wylie’s Baths?’

  ‘Are you okay, love? Bit too much sun? Hit your head? Maybe you should hop out of the pool. Have a rest,’ she says in a voice as soft as Ma’s is when she’s worried.

  I let her take my arm but then I realise I can’t get out wearing this. What if Mr Wylie sees me? Or Mina?

  ‘Is Mr Wylie here?’

  ‘Mr Wylie? These baths haven’t been in the Wylie family for a long time.’

  I swallow and turn to look at the woman. She nods, confirming the fact. ‘The last Wylie was Mina, and she died in 1984,’ she says gently.

  I stagger back into the cool of the water, letting it swallow me up. How can that be? Mina’s gone. Mr Wylie. My family. Me? Who am I? And if 1984 is in the past, then what year is this?

  Cat

  I’ve caught my breath but I still don’t feel right. Somehow I’ve lost my goggles and my eyes sting. That woozy feeling I got underwater has never happened before.

  ‘That was a fast one, Fan!’ someone shouts in the distance. There’s no one else in the water but me. ‘C’mon now, Ma’ll skin us!’ Squinting into the sun I see a girl about my age sitting on the rocks. But she’s dressed like she’s raided the old ladies’ nighties rack at an op shop.

  ‘Fan!’ she shouts again. ‘Home time!’ Her accent sounds familiar but not Australian. And why does she seem to be yelling at me?

  Something’s tugging at my scalp—seaweed? No, it’s hair! Masses of long brown hair floating around my shoulders, and—no-no-no—wait, these aren’t my shoulders. What’s happening? These hands aren’t mine. I turn them in front of my face, not believing what I’m seeing.

  This isn’t me.

  I’m wearing something itchy and waterlogged that comes down to the middle of my thighs. Too scared to scream, or move, I pull at the fabric and make a small scared sound at the back of my throat. What is this? I’m Cat. Catherine Isabel Feeney. What else? I’m thirteen, I live in Surry Hills, Sydney, with my dad and my mum and my annoying sister, Maisy. That’s who I am, but why do I look like this?

  A man walks down some rickety stairs. Those aren’t the same stairs I walked down. And where’s the cafe? I crouch with the water up to my chin and my teeth chattering. Even my teeth feel different in my mouth.

  Is this is a dream? But when did it start? I’m freaking out.

  The man yells in my direction, ‘Come along, Miss Durack! Looks like bad rain. I’ll lose my licence if anything happens to you. Not to mention my head when your father finds out—ha! ha!’

  His licence? So he’s the owner of the baths. He sounds Irish and I think that girl does, too. But who’s ‘Miss Durack’? Why are those people yelling at me?

  I can’t just stay in the water. It’s so cold now. I start to swim breaststroke to the other side but it’s not my body gliding through the ocean bath. Oh God, oh God, I whisper onto the surface of the water.

  ‘What’s that you’re muttering, Fan?’ says nightie-girl. She’s come to the edge of the pool along with the man. ‘Praying to God that Ma doesn’t put you on slops duty for being late, are you?’ She laughs. I don’t. I’m even more terrified. She thinks I’m ‘Fan’.

  By the time I reach her, my eyes are stinging with tears. ‘Excuse me…who’s Fan?’ I stutter. But that’s not my voice, it’s Irish too.

  The girl giggles and rolls her eyes. ‘It’s true what we say about her, Mr Wylie. She could have been an actress if she wasn’t such a good swimmer. Come on, Fan, out you go.’

  I lean on the side, trying to stop myself from passing out.

  ‘Have you hit your head, sister?’ she says.

  Sister?

  After I manage to climb out, I cross my arms over my chest because I’ve suddenly got the boobs I thought I wanted—and now I really don’t. This body is strange: taller than nightie-girl, older than thirteen. I flinch as the girl puts a thin towel around my shoulders.

  ‘Fan, what is it?’ She sounds worried.

  What can I say? ‘Thanks for the towel.’ That’s all I can manage.

  I notice the man put something shiny that catches the light in one of his pockets, and then he starts to leave. ‘Right then, business to attend to. Hope the stopwatch was useful to you, Fanny. Don’t be so hard on yourself—your times are competitive and your commitment is—well, swimming on a day like today? I rest my case. See you soon, no doubt.’ Then he nods at nightie-girl. ‘Good-day, Dewey.’

  ‘Mr Wylie,’ says the girl, and bobs her head at him.

  Wylie? The sign said Wylie’s Baths.

  A sudden crack of lightning makes us jump. Nightie-girl pulls me towards the stairs, telling me a storm’s coming. But it was a perfect day when I got into the water. This is the weirdest dream I’ve ever had. I’ve never wanted to hear Maisy’s chicken alarm more than I do now.

  ‘Hurry, Fan, you’ve got to get changed.’

  Yes, changed back into Cat. I need to wake up.

  There is no cafe. There are no old people lying next to bottles of sunscreen and takeaway coffees. We get to a changing room but there is no sign of my clothes.

  I stand there, stuck and speechless.

  ‘Come on,’ says nightie-girl, as if nothing is unusual. She tries to rub my arms through the towel so I step back and turn away from her. Next thing I know, she’s passing me clothes. What choice do I have?

  I take off the water-logged costume, still shaking. She hands me white baggy knickers and a cotton top like summer pyjamas. Then she puts a stiff top on me and ties it at the back. I think it’s a corset; it feels like I’m being winded. Next she hands me stockings that look like they’ve been worn all week, a long-sleeved shirt with a collar t
hat chokes me, and a skirt so long it’s like wearing bedding.

  ‘Here, Fan.’ She gives me a delicate cream hairbrush. The hair is heavy and wet down my back, and a feeling builds inside: I’m not me anymore and I’m terrified. With a yell I hurl the hairbrush at the wall and it breaks.

  ‘Fan!’ she says, in shock. I turn from her again and then I hear her go to pick up the pieces. ‘This isn’t like you.’

  Fan

  I can’t stay in the water forever, but I can’t let anyone see me like this. I spy some coloured material hanging on the edge of the stairs and make a dash, as fast as if one of my brothers was chasing me, to grab the material and wrap myself as well as I can.

  Then I take the stairs up to the changing rooms. I’m terrified that somebody will catch me running like this, which makes me run even faster. I have to dash through the middle of some people who are talking loudly, their voices strange. I notice two ladies sitting on orange chairs. They look like no one I’ve ever seen. One has bare arms with a painted snake wound round and round her skin, like a sailor. Her hair is very short on one side and then I notice that it’s blue. Perhaps she’s a performer from the theatre. Then her friend cusses and laughs, and I sprint through the middle, heading for safety.

  My heart is galloping as I reach the changing rooms. There are no cubicles for me to hide in. And it’s open to the skies and to the world. But at least it’s empty. I rush to the mirror by the sink. But it’s not me blinking back. It’s another face. The mouth drops open. I will it to close. I screw my eyes shut. Not my eyes—someone else’s eyes.

  I count to five like Ma says I should when I’m trying to stay calm before a race.

  But I’m still not me. My long dark hair has gone. I’m younger. Smaller. My nose is straight. My teeth are white. There’s nothing left of me.

  Except I’m me on the inside. But a stranger on the outside.