by Sue Wallman
By the time Dad’s home, I’m watching Mom’s favourite soap, a red and orange fruit mocktail half-drunk on the table beside me.
“Everything OK?” he says.
I don’t answer but Mom says, “We’re fine, Hunter, thank you.”
At the dinner table, I pour the water, and Dad fetches the vitamin tablets. I bet Drew is eating a hamburger and fries in his motel tonight. Is he thinking of me?
“I’m upping both your vitamin doses,” says Dad. He looks from Mom to me. “Your bodies have been under a lot of strain, and I’m worried you aren’t fortified enough to recover properly – especially after you skipped lunch, Mae. For the next few weeks, you’ll have two each.”
He watches us swallow them. I resolve to stop taking them as soon as I can find a way. To see if it makes any difference to how I feel. Dad crunches his sweet pepper salad and talks about the bicycles that have been ordered for the cycle track. As if that’s the most eventful thing that’s happened today. As if my heart isn’t in pieces.
SIXTEEN
I can’t get out of bed. I don’t feel anything.
Mom pleads. An orderly snaps at me. Hauls me to my feet. I sway a little. All I want to do is sleep and never wake up. I disintegrate slowly and gracefully, like sand through a timer.
Dad speaks into his radio. His voice is icy cold.
Raoul is in my room, talking to Dad. Has the double dose of vitamins done this to me? Everything feels heavy, especially my bones. Raoul takes my blood and hooks me up to a laptop.
“Nothing wrong,” I hear Raoul say. “Hysterical reaction.”
I’m left to sleep the rest of the day, but Mom wakes me for dinner. For vitamins and vegetable chilli.
Dad frowns at me. “We need order back in this home. You will get up tomorrow and you will do as you’re told.”
I go through my morning exercise without once speaking to Mick. “You’re not even going to ask where I took Drew and his parents?” he taunts in my ear.
I might have been tempted to ask, except I know he’s too scared of Dad to ever tell me.
“Too bad. Anyway, they’ve probably moved on by now to somewhere else.”
There’s something different about the booklet on the desk in the empty office. When I pick it up, I see it’s thicker than usual. Extra pages have been stapled into the middle. Harder questions, in Ms Ray’s spiky handwriting.
I let my body sag on to the chair, and sink my head into my hands. I have no energy, and it feels as if my brain has been coated with something thick. I stay like that for a long time until loud birdsong jolts me. I go and stand against the window frame, watching a gardener neatening the edging along the path. Everything is still and calm. Unchanged. Apart from me.
Eventually I start the booklet. It takes me much longer than usual because of the extra questions. There are a couple of math problems I don’t understand. While I wait for my watch alarm to go off, I practise calligraphy even though I only have a regular pen. I feel my breathing become slow and regular, and I imagine Drew coming to rescue me. He’d storm the gates with a heavy vehicle of some sort, and while he turned it round to face the other way, I’d come running. I wouldn’t waste time grabbing possessions, and I’d outrun everyone.
I plan to leave my booklet inside the door of the schoolhouse but Ms Ray must have been looking out for me because she’s there waiting in the entrance area. Chunks of hair have escaped from her ponytail and mascara has smudged below one eye. I’m not allowed to speak unless spoken to, so I hand her the booklet without saying anything.
“Mae, come in. Close the door.” She takes a big breath. “I’m so sorry to hear what happened. Not that I condone smoking. Not at all. But I wouldn’t expect such a … severe outcome.”
“It was my punishment,” I say flatly. “Dad says Drew was a bad influence on me.”
Ms Ray steps back. “Do you think Drew was a bad influence on you?”
There’s a muddle in my head. “I don’t know,” I whisper.
“This is my first teaching job, Mae,” says Ms Ray. “I took it because there’s time for me to work on my own studies, and because I split up with the person I was seeing and a fresh start seemed like a good thing. But, to be honest, I feel pretty exhausted by it.”
She shouldn’t be telling me this stuff. She should be professional. Embarrassed for her, I gaze at my manicured toenails.
“I was unprepared for Creek life,” she says. “It’s very strict and controlled. The way I’m expected to teach is … strange. And there are so many ordinary things that you haven’t done, and it’s not because your parents can’t afford it.”
I look up.
“From what you kids say, you’ve never been to a museum, or an art gallery, a concert or the theatre. Not even the cinema. You’ve never been to a supermarket, a place of worship or … I don’t know … walked a dog on a lead.” She sounds exasperated. I find myself thinking of England, of a family I never got to know.
“The outside makes people unhappy. That’s why they have to come here,” I say, but I know I’m only repeating what I’ve been told.
“Happiness. Unhappiness. They’re both part of life. Real life. Being stuck here, for years? Sorry, but I think it’s wrong. And the intense focus on health and exercise is, in my view, obsessional.”
Even after all that’s happened, it’s hard to hear her criticize the Creek. “Greta can do whatever she wants,” I say. “The rest of us have to wait our turn. I’m only here for another couple of years.”
Ms Ray sighs. “Greta’s not been encouraged to spread her wings. She’s still tethered here.”
There’s a flicker of movement by the glass door that leads to the schoolroom.
Ms Ray says, “I thought it might be helpful to know an outsider’s views. One who isn’t as much of a fan of your father as other people.”
How does she know I won’t tell Dad what she’s just said?
Joanie opens the glass door. “Ms Ray… ?” She catches sight of me and grips me round the waist.
“When are you coming back, Mae?”
“Soon, Joanie.”
“When’s Drew back?”
“Never,” I say, because I can’t protect her from that.
SEVENTEEN
As I do my morning exercise, while my muscles burn, and sweat drips down my top, I imagine Drew beside me telling me to be strong. I concentrate on the thought that in two years I’ll be able to find him.
I gasp for air. It’s hot in this little studio. “Need to cool down,” I tell Mick.
He shouts at me for wanting to quit. “On the floor now. Twenty push-ups.”
I’m slow and my eyes hurt. My vision is blurring. Are my eyeballs sweating along with the rest of me?
While Mick inputs my end-of-session readings, I hold my neck. The pins-and-needles feeling has enclosed my entire neck.
“What’s up?” asks Mick.
“I’m tired,” I say.
He prods my leg with his sports shoe. “You’re weak. That’s your problem.”
After the weekend, I have even more pages stapled into my work booklet. One is the step-by-step method to solve the math questions I couldn’t do before. On the facing page there’s another similar question for me to tackle. I want to concentrate, but I can’t. All I can think about is Drew being gone. Tears fall on to the booklet and I don’t wipe them away. I lay my head on the table on top of my arms, and let the sadness out in muffled sobs.
I’m gradually aware of more chatter than usual on the admin floor. Is someone coming to check on me? I need to blow my nose and wipe my sore eyes. I wait a moment, but nobody enters. Carefully, I open the door. There’s no one in the corridor, so I slip along to the ladies’ toilets, noticing the massive flower arrangement on the window sill, the type that’s only done on days when important visitors are expected. As I splash water on my face, I hear someone say, “He’s on his way.”
People are coming down the corridor. I open the door a crack. Dad’s wal
king towards the glass door that you need a swipe card for, with a man who’s wearing military uniform. Earl is walking behind them, glancing around. I stand back and when I hear they’ve gone past, I look again. Earl, one of the top people in the Creek, is acting like some sort of bodyguard for the man in the military uniform. Could that man be “Peter”, who Dad was on the phone to when I was in the medical suite?
After lunch in my room, I sit on the roof terrace and practise some meditation techniques. I’m interrupted by the sound of a truck. It lumbers up to the cycle track. Behind it is the minibus of builders. The Creek has a tranquillity manifesto. It employs a lot of builders to do a few hours’ work from midday rather than less of them working all day.
My next exercise session is tennis. To reach the courts, I walk between the schoolhouse and grounds staff office. Ms Ray is sitting on the swing-chair on the veranda with a pile of paper in her lap and a pen sticking out of her mouth. She waves and calls “Hello!” I nod back. I don’t think she should attract so much attention to herself. No other staff member would shout across the lawn like that.
I look for Mom through the window of the grounds staff office. She must be out gardening because there’s no one there, but something catches my eye as I walk past the door. A security camera. I don’t remember seeing it before. How long has it been there? Did it – I’m hot with panic – catch me going in the other day? It’s OK, I tell myself, there’d be nothing out of the ordinary about me going in there.
But what if there’s a camera inside the office? I push away the thought; there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’ll just have to be more alert in future.
A flash of neon pink running shoes on the basketball court distracts me: Thet and a few other patients, including Piper and Austin, are doing star jumps. The instructor counts them down from ten, but when he reaches one, Austin keeps going. He springs extra-high, flinging his arms and legs wide, on and on in a steady mesmerizing rhythm. He’s hardly out of breath.
“Wow, Austin,” calls the instructor. “That’s awesome.”
Thet raises her eyes at me through the fence. It’s becoming more freaky than awesome.
Austin’s jumps finally become slower and then he stops. “No,” he shouts to the instructor. “You mustn’t.”
“Mustn’t what?” asks the instructor.
“Keep away from me!” Austin walks backwards, away from the group.
“Easy there, buddy. What’s wrong?” asks the instructor.
Backing slowly into the wire fencing, Austin holds his arms up, as if someone’s pulled a gun on him. “Don’t kill me.” He drops to the ground, cowering behind his hands. “Please. No!” He screams over and over. Please. No! Please.
The instructor shouts. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to touch you.” He turns round and sees me outside the court. “Go to the medical suite. Get help.”
I run to the nurse at the front desk who stands up from her chair. “What’s wrong?”
“A patient. Austin. He’s flipped out on the basketball court.”
She presses the button on her desk and Raoul appears from the door that leads to the treatment rooms. “Code one. Basketball court,” the front-desk nurse says.
Raoul nods, and pats the pocket of his white tunic. “I’ll let you know if I need assistance.”
I follow him as he breaks into a run towards the screaming. Ms Ray and a gardener are also running. Mick is already on the court with the instructor. He’s a few metres away from Austin who’s making horrible squealing noises.
“No one’s going to kill you, man,” says Mick.
A second later, Raoul grabs hold of Austin’s arms. “You’re safe, bro.”
Austin kicks out. “You’re hurting me.” He screams again. “My eyes. What have you done to my eyes?”
“You can’t see?” asks Raoul.
He’s crying now. “I can’t see. Why can’t I see? And my neck. What’s happening to my neck?”
Mick jogs forward, and without seeming to consult with Raoul, he takes over, pinning Austin down so that Raoul is free to take a syringe from his pocket and inject him in the arm. The shriek as the syringe goes in is high-pitched and terrified. It stops abruptly, replaced by silence as Austin goes limp.
Thet has her hand over her mouth. Most people are crying. Piper looks as if she might be having a panic attack.
“What’s going on?” asks the instructor.
“We’ve administered a sedative,” says Raoul. “Go get a wheelchair from the medical suite.”
Ms Ray picks up the syringe which Raoul has dropped on the ground. “What’s wrong with him? It looked like he was hallucinating.”
“As I’m sure you understand, ma’am,” says Raoul, “Austin’s medical history is confidential.” He holds out an official disposal bag for the syringe. “Be careful with that. You shouldn’t have picked it up.”
Ms Ray straightens up, but she’s clearly upset. The instructor comes back with a wheelchair, and Mick and Raoul lift Austin into it. Austin’s big, but they move him easily. Raoul pushes the wheelchair towards the medical suite, and Mick shouts, “Mae. Stop gawping.”
When Mom says it’s just her and me for dinner, I’m grateful. “Your father has an important colleague visiting,” says Mom. She turns down the volume on the TV. “There’s a special dinner for the senior team in the private dining room.” She looks at me. I wait for her to ask me how I am but she doesn’t. I think she’s frightened of the answer.
“Did you hear about Austin?” I ask as I sit on the second sofa.
Mom rubs one eye. Is she crying? “Poor kid. It’s easy to forget, living here, how troubled a lot of these kids are.”
Noah’s face flashes in my mind, and I find myself wondering once again about how paranoid and troubled he really is. I’d like to talk to Mom about what’s happened with Austin, but I couldn’t bear it if she brushed it off and told me to trust the medical staff to make him better. Instead, I ask, “Who’s in the senior team?”
She scrunches her face as she thinks. “Your father, of course. Karl. That therapist – Abigail. Mick, and Raoul.”
I try to tread carefully, so I don’t scare her off answering. “What does he do, this colleague?” I ask.
“Oh, I don’t know, honey. Nobody tells me these things.” Mom seems clearer-headed today but still as out of touch as ever.
“What’s his name?” Is it Peter? Does he have a military title?
“I don’t know,” says Mom. “But I heard an extra chef was brought in by helicopter.”
There’s a landing pad a couple of miles along the road to Pattonville. Extra-rich or important people land there, but I’ve never heard of a chef arriving that way.
Mom’s made a special request for pizza for the two of us tonight. I’m surprised I’m allowed it because I’m on zero privileges, but perhaps the kitchen staff are distracted by the visitor. The base is speckled with wholewheat flour and piled high with green vegetables.
I fetch the vitamins from the sideboard and I know this is it: the first time I’m going to pretend to take them. The bottle is labelled with our names, but no other identification. I shake out two for Mom. Then, as the image of Austin’s face, contorted with panic, flashes through my mind, I fake-swallow mine.
It feels like a victory.
I’m woken in the night by laughter. It confuses me because Mom and Dad never laugh together. I sit up. There are two male voices.
“I’ll override the shutter system so you can see the whole place floodlit from the roof terrace, Peter,” I hear Dad say. “Not many people get to see it for obvious reasons. Hang on. I’ll locate my whisky.”
Nobody from outside has been invited back to our apartment before. Alcohol is banned. What’s going on? I creep towards my door so I can hear better.
“Sounds good to me,” says Peter. He sounds jovial and relaxed. A couple of minutes later, he says, “You’re running everything very well, Hunter. I’m pleased, and the data is looki
ng promising. That boy today. It was extremely interesting, I thought. Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” says Dad. “Fascinating.”
EIGHTEEN
Is denying your talents ever justified? Discuss.
I read the essay title that’s been handwritten at the top of a sheet of blank paper and placed in the middle of my booklet.
If Dad knew Ms Ray had crossed out all the printed questions and written out this one, he’d fire her for sure. She must know that. It’s hard to believe that encouraging me to write more challenging essays is worth the risk. That title though – it’s aimed at me. She thinks I’m not making the most of my talents or working hard enough, and maybe she’s right, but it’s not my fault the lessons I’ve had up until now have been rubbish, apparently. I chuck the booklet back on the desk and go to stand by the window.
I watch the sun emerge through a gap in a large puffy cloud and wish I’d understood more of Dad and Peter’s conversation last night. But I heard enough to feel uneasy.
At the desk, I rub my eyes and think about how I can churn out a few paragraphs about talents and denial. I’m tired and hungry, and I just don’t feel like doing this. But once I start writing, my hand and brain work together, forming an argument, explaining the risks of pushing people too hard and idolizing talents. Well-being is more important than anything. And I’ve heard patients say that denial isn’t always a bad thing – that it can protect people against pain and anxiety. As I write faster and my handwriting becomes messier, it comes to me that it depends on who is doing the denying and the reasons for justifying it. Maybe the balance between physical and academic doesn’t have to be the same for everyone.
The door handle makes a clunking sound. “Mae?”
I don’t turn round. I have a sentence in my head that I need to write down and I don’t want to engage with anyone right now.
“So. I heard you were caught smoking.”
Spinning round on my chair, I see Greta. Hands on hips. She’s had her hair highlighted since I last saw her. It makes her look older. Harsher.
“How are you managing without Drew?” Greta walks across to the window and leans against the window sill. There’s mockery in her tone.