Losing It
Page 6
It’s different playing A-grade to B-grade the women are bigger older stronger, there’s more of them. It’s your first A-grade game today the coach said she wanted to try you out you’ve been playing B-grade you play for Coburg. You’re the youngest you better make sure you do your best, you kind of feel safe though too, Rosie’s in A-grade and you know everybody they’ll tell you what to do if you get in trouble. Stick to your opponent, stick ready. In lacrosse there’s no end to the field and here at Royal Park the grounds are enormous you could run forever, the sky stretching over everything, curves and fluffs of grey on white with a couple of wispy gumtrees plonked here and there. The whistle blows. Play has started. Everybody is tiny in the centre of the field and the white ball is invisible, you can only see it by following the direction of the nets and who’s chasing who. Your opponent moves. You move with her just by her shoulder, she veers, you block, you stand just in front of her she keeps moving you move with her sensing her, getting to the spot she’s going to just before her you know you’re giving her the shits she’s shouldering you. The pack moves to the far end of the field the whistle blows a goal has been scored but not by Coburg. Play starts again. The pack’s coming closer. You see the ball. Your opponent runs towards them you take off after her, her boots flinging mud onto you, your boots flinging mud behind you. Suddenly she’s away from you she’s got the ball so you run, chasing the ball, chasing her, chasing the distance between you. You run and you run you can run forever the breathing deep into your belly your legs your arms pumping and you go, go. Up the field chasing the ball in the net at the end of the stick that that girl is holding cradling side to side like an easily breakable thing, you chase that thing you’ve got it you smash it that stick that net the hiding ball bouncing out now in the clouds, you slide it safely into your own net at the end of your own stick it’s safe and you turn, running the other way all the way running running breathing deep twisting your way through to the goal circle, you slide in the mud as you pass the ball over the heads and sticks to Pam on the other side of the circle, your face goes hard into somebody’s arm your stick slides wet in your hands, you’re on your knees all awkward a cheer goes up and you know that Pam has scored. After the game the coach tells you that you’ve done really well, even though you lost 8–3, you can play A-grade again next week and Pam and the others pat you on the shoulder or your back and say goodonya little Cregan and Rosie and her best friend Leanne come up to you and squeeze you in a really hard hug both of their sets of arms lifting you up and squashing the breath out of you and you tell them to get lost even though you like it.
You really like learning, you like knowing new things letting them drop into you even if they don’t make sense at first even if they’re not going to be any use to you once you leave school but you like the feeling of knowing the new and today it’s all about atoms. You ask what colour an atom is. Everybody laughs and Wellsy just ignores you but you meant it, you really do want to know what colour an atom is so you ask it again and the same thing happens so then you just keep throwing questions that just keep coming into your mind and everybody just keeps laughing at you. What colour are they? you say, and how come things have colours if atoms don’t? and if you can’t see them then how do you know they’re real? and if everything’s made out of atoms and you don’t know that atoms are really real then how do you know that you’re really here? and if atoms have space all around them how come you can’t walk through a wall and you can bump into things and cut yourself and burn yourself, is fire made out of atoms too? and how are you supposed to believe any of this crap if you can’t even see an atom? Wellsy tells the class to quiet down and calls you up to his desk he’s going to send you to the office you know it so what. You play with the bruise on your arm under your jumper, he asks you if you’ve done your homework you just shrug because you never do it you hate homework. Then he says you’d be one of the top students if you did you know, but without applying yourself you’ll be lucky to pass you’ve got the brains to be an A student. You go all serious suddenly, tears come into your eyes you feel really embarrassed you can’t say anything or even look at him you just keep playing with your bruise digging your fingers harder into it feeling the hurt go into your shoulder. Then you say I meant those questions, even though it’s really hard to get it out. He says I know, this is what I mean, you’ve got a good mind you should use it, his words come into you shining and solid you hear them on top of all the noise of the class, it’s like, it’s okay to think like that it’s okay to follow your mind and all the places that it goes and you fidget you’re still blushing and you say how? and he says by doing your homework for one. In your head you see your dad your bedroom the kitchen, there’s nowhere for you to go to sit be quiet by yourself you can’t even go into the backyard there isn’t anywhere for you to go to let the numbers thoughts equations play around in your head you always have to do something at home there’s always somebody there it’s always noisy and when you’ve got nothing to do you go out. You try to say this to Wellsy but it’s stuck you can’t get it out you’ve just got all the words and pictures tumbling around inside then the bell goes he starts packing up his desk, Sharon grabs your arm and you go to the dunnies as usual.
Sharon’s grouse fun to muck around with she always makes you laugh. She’s part Abo but you can’t tell except in some lights, and she’s got the biggest boobs out of everybody at school they’re not gigantic or anything but they’re still the biggest. Her family runs the milk bar in Major Road. You don’t see much of her after school because she usually has to work. She always brings her tape-recorder it’s Rod Stewart today full blast in the girls’ toilets. Tina’s on the rubbish bin that’s been up-ended she’s dancing you push her off and get up, you’re dancing somebody else pushes you off you get up on the sink with Tina and Sharon singing We are sailing waving your arms, Linda and Karen and Terri are up on the opposite sink singing and waving their arms too. Karen and Terri are twins they’re lesos but nobody cares, it’s really easy to tell them apart once you know them even though they’re identical and they really are identical. Deniz comes in through the big grey squeaky door and says teacher! Everybody gets down from the sink everybody goes into the toilet cubicles flushing butts coming out looking innocent but it’s okay it’s Ms Jan she just tells you all to go outside it’s disgusting in here, she never sends anybody to the office. Ms Jan’s great she’s the Science teacher she’s tough but she’s not mean you really like her classes you learn a lot. She and some of the other teachers took you all on a girls’ camp once it was grouse you went to Mt Disappointment there were eighteen of you. You shared a tent with Sharon and Linda and after the first day you all took off your tops and bras it was better without the boys. You were a bit shy at first but not for long and everybody’s tits were different. Linda’s were big Sharon’s were big and round yours were smaller and round, Lisa had nothing Deniz’s tits were really droopy, one was longer than the other. You went on bush walks and night walks and swam in a rockpool high up in the mountain and you saw Ms Jan’s armpits that she didn’t shave she had her top off too and so did Miss McLean and Miss Tobin and Judy Jacobs the Humanities teacher they didn’t shave under their arms either and you got to call them all by their first names and you could smoke in front of them, they asked you lots of questions about where you lived and how many brothers and sisters you had what your parents did and where they were from and what you wanted to do, stuff like that. It was good around the fire making dinner with all your friends from school in the bush, fresh, clear, you could look forever into the trees all different directions going on deep and distant bark dripping hearing cracks echo and whip birds and rustles as you go past all the different greens and greys and reds going into your bones into your belly staying there whole and close. That was last year. You’re not going on the school camp this year you got banned, they said you were a ringleader none of the others got banned even Sharon’s allowed to go and she’s worse than you but you don’t care. It
’d be good if there was a girls’ camp this year you wish you could go into the bush you’ll have to hang around with all the dags except you’re not going to you like being by yourself anyway.
You say hi Ms Jan as you walk out the door she’s holding open she says come on, outside. You all go onto the oval it hasn’t been mown yet the grass is soft and there’s tiny purple flowers with five pointy petals, you go right down to the end where you can smoke without being seen. You all lie around in this big circle, Karen’s head on your stomach your head on Linda’s stomach Linda’s head on Trish’s, Trish’s on Sharon’s Sharon’s on Lisa’s Lisa’s on Terri’s Terri’s on Tina’s on Deniz’s on Karen’s, the grass smelling cool. You can hear Linda’s lunch going down it feels funny and nice and you say boborgamy and Tina laughs and makes you explain. It’s the gurgling sound you say, you don’t know how you know it but you do, you know lots of things like that and everybody starts saying it and Tina says it in this really deep voice stretching it right out and you all get the giggles, your head bumping on Linda’s laughing stomach Karen’s bumping on yours, everybody cracking up the sounds from Linda coming through her jumper into the back of your head Karen’s hair warm through your dress, you love her hair and you play with it, long and fine and fair, without her knowing.
Linda went to Stawell for the school holidays she sent you a postcard it’s good getting a postcard you don’t know that many people who go to other places on their holidays. Linda’s card had autumn trees on it. There was a locust plague she said that they could hardly leave their caravan there were that many of them. Big thick clouds of locusts swirling through the air crawling through the grass eating everything green and growing and the big noise the whirring deep sound. When she got back Linda says they made lots of jaffles and played Scrabble and cards all the time and it was really boring she hates going to the country. You never go to the country for your holidays you go to the beach but you haven’t been for ages now the last time you went away was to Perth about four years ago and it was a special trip anyway to visit your Aunty Ruby she’s your real aunty she’s your mum’s sister and no, your father wasn’t coming said your mum. You used to go to Lang Lang when you were really little until you were six and then you moved house from Northcote to Fawkner and went on holidays to Queenscliff every year until you were ten. It was grouse at Queenscliff sometimes 3XY would come down and you could get free things and once you even got your name spoken on the radio and you’d stay at the beach all day and you’d get really sunburnt then you’d peel and then you’d go brown. You had a four-berth caravan with an annexe that’s where your parents slept. You slept in the big fold-out double bed over the kitchen table with Maureen and Theresa top-to-toe, Rosie and Helen had the single bunks. Sometimes at night you’d go fishing down the pier with your dad and catch toadies and throw them back in and once your dad caught a baby shark, it looked really soft light-grey dark-grey but when you put your finger on it it was rough and cold. He cut off the fin and threw it in the water. You wanted to watch it all bloody and sinking by shining your new torch on it the one you got for Christmas but your dad said don’t do that it’ll scare the fish so you turned it off and turned it on again when he went to the other end of the pier, lying on your stomach smelling the big sea smell looking at barnacles hearing the stumps secretly creaking and the little waves slapping. You loved the pier at night everything dark, can’t-see-in-front-of-you dark the water catching light from somewhere, your dad and your two big sisters and you. Your dad lets you sip some of his beer he gives you some of your own in a cup he’s all big and warm and shows you how to cast a line the fishing line thin and slippy, he shows you how to tie a proper knot the fishing line curling and slipping in his fat thick fingers. You have salty fish and chips with lots of vinegar just like him, you’re one of the biggies at night on the pier going fishing with your dad the two littlies have to stay at the caravan with your mum. One time at Queenscliff your Uncle Michael who’s really tall and your Aunty Bridie, the other one with the short dark hair, came to your caravan to visit, their caravan was in Ocean Grove it was Boxing Day. You all got dressed up and went to the Ozone Hotel for lunch it was a cold day the only cold day for the whole time. You were in the big room you were the only ones in there. Your dad and Uncle Michael were playing billiards you wanted to play too your dad would teach you later but for the moment he wanted to have a serious game with your Uncle Mick. Your mum and Aunty Bridie were talking nineteen to the dozen their voices going up and down and all around the room. You were all in that room the big room with the red spongy carpet and great big windows it was raining you were watching the rain and the wind started hooting and howling so madly that it made the rain go horizontal. Everybody stopped. Everybody looked out. Everybody saw. Everybody held together in the stillness of the room like that, silent, watching. Then everybody moved again wow, look! did you see that! the noises started up again and the rain went back to normal sometimes blowing at an angle but never horizontal again, you stayed at the window quiet for ages looking looking hoping it would.
It was really good going on holidays it was always hot going there packed up sleeping bags and suitcases and the barbecue hotplate and everything else, the car stuffed and the roofrack heavy and you all sang songs and counted cars and road signs and played I Spy With My Little Eye and Helen always cheated. On Christmas Day there would always be five big green garbage bags full of presents and everything would glow and be definite and colourful and you’d do things together rockpooling and swimming and showers and totem tennis and just things. You wish you could go on holidays you wish you could go to the beach now with the hot sand and the noise of the water always there. You’re sick of it here you’re sick of them you don’t want to go to the baths you always go to the baths. You look really fat in bathers you’re going to start a new diet tomorrow Linda reckons it really works.
You end up going to the baths anyway at least it gets you out of the house. You take the short-cut way today, the back way around corners hot streets walking in the road you can dawdle counting the steps from house to house looking at the gardens sniffing roses. The house with lions perched on either side of the gate. The house with grapevines like a jungle. The house on the corner with the big cactus and stones all around, lots and lots, beige and cream and soft-looking. There’s an old grandma who’s out there sometimes standing in the stones with a scarf over her head and socks and thongs just standing there still, dark eyes with a shine on them not looking at you. Once you heard a sheep bleating behind the back fence you think it was a sheep you’re not that sure you didn’t know what it was, it was a hot shimmery day and that noise like a baby but not coming from behind the back fence eerie in the heat. You told Linda, she reckons it must have been a sheep what else could it have been? they would have killed it they don’t buy meat from the butcher’s they do it themselves they’re Muslims. She reckons the grandma’s a witch. You wish you had a grandma. You’ve never had one. Your mum’s mum went up the shop one day and a big black Rolls Royce that didn’t even stop knocked her over and killed her, your mum was only fourteen that was in Newtownards in Ireland and your dad didn’t have any parents he was brought up in an orphanage in Liverpool so you’ve got no relatives on his side. It’d be good to have grandparents you could go and visit them for a holiday get presents from them at Christmas money on your birthday and you could learn how to knit. Linda’s nanna who’s really a nonna is teaching her how to knit. You wish Linda was going to the baths too but she’s going with Sylvio now and she’s over at his place today but she might show up later. Things are different since she’s been going with him instead of Rocka you don’t see that much of her except at school mostly. You don’t like Sylvio not since that time you were coming home from the baths and he drove by in his station-wagon and stopped and said he’d drive you home. He didn’t drive you home he drove down to the horse paddock instead and said it’s all right we’ll just smoke a joint. You said come on take me home and he said relax ha
ve a smoke. He passed you the joint so you had some even though he’d pigsucked. So are you missing Dave? he said. I’m not going with him any more, you told him, you know that Sylvio, and you looked out seeing the grass noticing how it’s not green really but bits of yellow and lilac and blue waving about. Yeah he said I know but are you, you know, missing him? You saw the thistles, all different browns pointy and smooth and still in the paddock and then you went yeah, I miss him, because it’s true you do, you really do and when Sylvio passed you the joint again his fingers touched yours and you rolled the window down blowing smoke outside. Sylvio said why don’t you relax? you look nervous, you went I’m not nervous and he leaned over and you went get lost willya! and he said I’m only putting the seat down so you can relax so you went oh, right and he put the seat down a bit but you didn’t like it lying down so you went to put the seat up and he said what are you doing? just enjoy the smoke do your window up it’s better and you went I can’t breathe and he said what’s the matter? and you said I can’t breathe, you’re shouting, stop shouting it’s okay it’s only Sylvio. Sylvio said Dave used to talk about you a lot you know, I bet he’s really missing you now that he’s in prison. You looked at Sylvio then in the eye and said I’d like to go home now. He said relax relax and you went I am relaxed just take me home all right? and he went hey, cool down willya and you went just take me home. He took you home driving really slowly talking about that night you all went out together and he said that he and the boys still talk about it and you should all go out again another night and you made him drop you off at the corner and then you wished you hadn’t because you know he’s parked there watching you walk down the street. You didn’t tell Linda about it but you told Sharon the next day at school and she reckons she gets paranoid too smoking dope sometimes.