Outside In

by Chrissie Keighery

  It was just a case of accruing points, really. The more Meredith could make light of the serious stuff, the more points she got. Like life points in a Nintendo game, she could use them up when she needed to. She would be fun. She would not be heavy, sad. The more she practised, the better she got at it.

  At high school, everyone knew she had no mother. But it was Ancient History. There were plenty of other kids with divorced parents, and she didn’t seem that different to them. The neon sign had faded, like one of those glo-sticks you got at a night concert for $2.99. It had lost its glow.

  Meredith no longer spoke about her. She no longer opened the letters, postmarked from Canada. She had become brilliant at steering people away from the topic.

  ‘Anything I need, Dad?’ she asked now, sitting up slightly on her elbow. ‘I reckon a rise in my pocket money is in order. Of course, I will be needing a whole new wardrobe of clothes. And beauty products. Etcetera. Now that I am a W.O.M.A.N.’

  Meredith loved it. How she could make him laugh.

  The door of the gym change rooms creaked behind her.

  Meredith did a little dance, bumping her bum to bang it closed behind her. Cecilia sat, back straight, on the bench next to Lee. Jordan stood in front of her, hands on hips.

  ‘So, what’s up, A.D.D? What’s the big news?’ Jordan smiled her half-smile.

  Meredith giggled nervously. She wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but felt totally … expectant. This was it. There was no-one else to tell. Just her friends.

  ‘I got my period,’ she said in a loud whisper. ‘Last night.’

  ‘Oh, cool,’ Jordan said. ‘Nice one.’

  ‘Oh, Moo,’ Lee chimed in. ‘That’s great. Do you feel OK? Are you getting pains? Because if you are, you could try a hot water bottle. I’ve got a spare one if you need it.’

  ‘I’ve got one thanks, Lee-Lee.’

  ‘Great. And do you have all the other stuff you need? My mum did that for me, prepared a kind of medical kit,’ Lee continued.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jordan added. ‘And my mum tried to give me the whole birds-and-bees talk –’

  Jordan’s voice drifted away. A grimace was exchanged from Lee to Jordan and back again. It was the ‘mum’ word. They didn’t use it very often in front of Meredith. They had forgotten and remembered. Meredith would rescue them like she always did.

  ‘Yeah, I have what I need. Dad bought me these.’ Meredith held up the pads. ‘The packet is pretty, don’t you think? He got the ones with wings.’

  ‘Ah, you don’t want leakage, do you?’ Jordan monotoned. ‘Some days you need the special assurance of Libra.’

  ‘The comfort of Carefree,’ Lee giggled.

  ‘I am a WOMAN!’ Meredith exclaimed, jiggling her hips.

  ‘Well, your body might be. Definitely not your head, though,’ Jordan replied.

  ‘You know, I’ve actually got mine at the moment,’ Lee said. ‘I wonder if our moons will align. That sometimes happens with girls when they are close – their periods start to come at the same time.’

  For a second, Meredith felt a sting behind her eyes, tears that had to be blinked back quick-smart. These girls were so important to her. She wanted them to do everything together. Sometimes she wished she could actually merge herself into one of them. Or all of them.

  Lee’s mum and dad still kissed in front of her. It grossed Lee out.

  Jordan’s mum was still struggling after the split. Sometimes Jordan slept in her mum’s bed, all snuggled up. Jordan would make a joke about being tired because of her mum’s snoring, and that was all she would say about it. But it was enough. It was enough for Meredith to know that Jordan’s mum needed her. That Jordan was wanted.

  She wasn’t so sure about Cec, because Cec’s house wasn’t a visiting kind of house. But she did have a mum, a lawyer mum. But Meredith, well, she needed her friends. All together, they were her Patchwork Mum.

  Meredith scrunched up her face, another of her favourite comic poses, and the moment, the stinging behind her eyes, passed. It always did.

  ‘You know, we could be like a coven. Like the witches in Macbeth. When shall we three … um, four … meet again, in thunder, lightning or in rain?’

  They had been studying Macbeth in Mr Moulton’s class, and the way he said things made them sort of stick inside Meredith’s head.

  Only after she’d said it did Meredith think about Cecilia. She glanced over at her friend. Cecilia was standing up now. She hadn’t said a word, and looked kind of pale. And honestly, either her school dress was growing, or she was shrinking.

  ‘Don’t worry, Cec,’ Meredith said. ‘You’ll get it soon. If you cut down on some of that bloody dancing and put a bit of meat on those bones. What’s wrong, anyway?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, Moo.’ Meredith watched Cec shake her head. Somehow it looked like she should have been nodding. ‘It’s great, Moo. Really good.’

  ‘Can you check the back of my dress when I get up?’

  Jordan went cross-eyed. ‘I checked it ten minutes ago, Moo,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Meredith moaned, ‘but it feels like a river coming out of me.’ She leant over the desk towards Jordan. ‘Have you and Jack pashed yet?’ she asked. ‘I reckon he’d be a good kisser. He has nice lips.’ She paused, though it was a Meredith pause. A millisecond. ‘Not as nice as Sam’s of course,’ she added jokily.

  Jordan did her raised-eyebrow thingo. Obviously she wasn’t going to answer Meredith’s question. Jordan could be quite annoying like that. All private, private …

  ‘Check my dress?’ Meredith said again.

  On the slope at recess, Jordan seemed a little frozen and Cecilia was still looking distracted. Even Lee didn’t seem herself. They all needed some thawing out. A good time for a game, Meredith decided.

  ‘So, if you had to kiss a boy, who would you choose? Out of anyone on the basketball court? Except you can’t choose Sam, cos he’s taken,’ Meredith asked.

  ‘Geez, Moo, you’re completely obsessed,’ Jordan commented.

  Meredith giggled. Of course she was obsessed. Kissing Sam had been very cool. She totally wanted to do it again.

  The girls were being very unco-operative. It didn’t matter. Meredith could answer for them.

  ‘I reckon Cecilia would choose Dylan. Jordan and Lee would both choose Jack.’

  Meredith bit down on her roll. Lee put down her sandwich as though she had suddenly lost her appetite. But Meredith knew she would come to terms with Jack liking Jordan sooner or later. It was better, kinder, to remind her than to let her go off on some fantasy.

  And Cecilia wasn’t eating anything. Again. It was weird how she kept bringing her lunchbox down to the slope, just about empty.

  ‘Did you forget your lunch again?’ Meredith asked, picking up Cecilia’s lunchbox and showing it to the others.

  Cecilia grabbed it back. ‘I ate before, Moo,’ she answered snappily.

  Meredith rolled her eyes. Shouldn’t she be the temperamental one? After all, she was the one who had her period.

  ‘When?’ Meredith insisted. ‘You wouldn’t have had time between your last class and –’

  The bell rang and Cecilia stood up quickly, cutting Meredith off.

  The vision of Jack and Sam, walking up the slope together, caught her eye. Meredith got up and smoothed down her dress. She was still worrying about the back of it. Just a little, nagging doubt. But everyone seemed to be in such a bad mood she decided not to mention it.

  Sam was so cute. His hands in his trouser pockets. The way he lifted his head up and grinned when he saw her. The way he touched his upper lip when he was nervous. The little nick where he’d shaved. For her.

  Meredith watched as Jack gravitated, magnetised, towards Jordan. She kept watching as they walked off together, up the slope behind Cecilia and Lee. Jack flicked an ant off Jordan’s dress. The two of them were so suited. She wished they would just hurry up and make it official.

  Sam stopped in front of Meredith.
He took a hand out of a pocket, and Meredith held it as they walked together. She liked the way he held her hand quite firmly. Not so tight that it felt like she was being squeezed, and not so soft that it felt limp. If there was a right way to hold hands, this was it.

  ‘What have you got next?’ he asked.

  ‘Art. We’re halfway through the pottery unit. My bowl came out of the kiln looking like a watering can. Holes everywhere. You?’

  ‘Sport,’ he said, smiling about the watering can. ‘So I’ll see you later.’

  She extracted her hand. Jack had taken the pathway to the gym. The girls were halfway up the slope.

  Meredith was fully conscious of her body as she moved towards them. She was a woman. She had arms and legs. Boobs and bum. She knew she was being watched. She wondered if this was how Jordan felt all the time.

  It was nice, the feeling. It carried her up the slope like she was hanging onto a helium balloon.

  She couldn’t help it. She stopped and took one tiny glance back at Sam. When she looked up again, the girls had disappeared. At the top of the slope, the land flattened out. She saw them now, under the breezeway. Jordan and Cecilia had their backs to her, Lee was facing her way. The smart new chick from English was hovering around the pole on the other side, doing up her shoelaces or something.

  Meredith crept over. She liked to surprise them. It was one of her specialties. She was a couple of steps behind Jordan and Cecilia when something made Meredith stop.

  Jordan was talking. ‘So, Jack asked me to stay behind after school. I think I have some idea why. It’s so … I don’t know … kind of amazing. I’ve never actually felt like this. If he asks me, I’m going to say yes.’

  Meredith noticed that Cecilia had her hand on Jordan’s back, as though she was giving her strength. Meredith could tell by Lee’s expression that she was going to put her own feelings aside so she wouldn’t ruin things for Jordan. Her friends really were the best.

  Meredith was about to leap in. Maybe make a crack about double-dating with Jack and Sam?

  ‘Can you guys not tell Moo about it yet?’ Jordan whispered, but a whisper wasn’t quiet enough. Meredith had heard. And despite Lee shaking her head, narrowing her eyes in warning, Meredith would hear more.

  ‘Just, you know how she is. Nothing is serious for her. Everything’s a joke. And I just want this not to be, OK?’

  It was a king hit. Meredith was winded.

  The pad between her legs felt like it was twisting as she ran. The wings had come unstuck.

  She heard Lee call her name, but Meredith kept going. Kept running. Out of the gates. Out of the school grounds. From what she thought she knew.

  Into nowhere.

  Her throat ached. Her heart thumped painfully in her chest. Meredith slowed down. She understood now why the teachers would exempt you from sport when you had your period. The pad had worked its way forward. She was sure it wasn’t catching the blood anymore, wasn’t doing its job. No safety.

  She didn’t even have her school bag. Or the bathroom bag tucked inside it. She had been in too much of a hurry to escape.

  The closest toilets were in the park, next to the lake. Meredith felt like she was waddling just to keep the pad inside her knickers.

  Two ducks walked in front of her as though they were demonstrating the technique. She was almost grateful for the diversion. Couldn’t think about the other thing.

  How to Waddle 101.

  The toilet block was cold, concrete. There was a tiny, grotty basin and a syringe container. It was a toilet for junkies and desperates and Merediths. The toilet had no seat. Everything was stripped back to minimum requirements.

  Meredith lifted the flap of the sanitary bin and deposited her pad inside. The toilet paper came out in little pieces, more paper than tissue. Miserly. She counted seven squares. Seven should be enough, shouldn’t it?

  There was a boulder inside her chest as she stood up. A giant rock, pressing against her heart. Stalagmites reaching down into her chest. Or was it stalactites? Sam had tried to explain it to her in geography but she hadn’t got it. Maybe she didn’t get anything?

  The sunlight was blinding when she stepped outside. Normally, she would hurry. She always had something to do, someone to call. Her mobile was back in her bag, inside her locker. Anyway, she had nowhere to hurry to. No-one to call. She wouldn’t tell anyone about this. Not anyone.

  An old man sat on the bench, pointing at a life-sized chess set. He was wearing suit pants and a vest. He even had on a cap, like something out of an old movie.

  He clapped his hands and Meredith noticed another man moving his queen. Then he took a pawn and lifted it to the side of the board. There was an ease between them. When they spoke, she didn’t recognise the language. Their laughs, though, she understood.

  The man on the bench saw her. He took his cap off and nodded. Meredith waved quickly, and walked towards the pebbled pathway. Any kindness right now, however small, was dangerous.

  Her legs were heavy as she stepped up from the pebbled pathway onto the spongy grass. She thought of Sam, hugging her. Taking some of her weight.

  One foot in front of the other. That was how you walked. She had to remind herself to just continue. Walk and don’t think. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about what Jordan said. Don’t quote her words back and forwards. Don’t let them settle in.

  It wasn’t working. Meredith found herself walking to their rhythm.

  ‘Can you guys not tell Moo about it yet? Just, you know how she is. Nothing is serious for her. Everything’s a joke. And I just want this not to be, OK?’

  They thought they knew her back to front and inside out. They thought they did. But they didn’t know. They were just using her, really. She was the one they looked to have a laugh with. The one who entertained them, made things fun. And that was all good when it worked for them.

  At least now she knew they were locking her out. They thought Meredith couldn’t keep a secret. That everything was a joke to her.

  Yeah, right.

  There was a spare key in the backyard. Inside her brother’s runner, squidgy from last night’s rain. Meredith let herself in and wandered around. The light on the answering machine in the hall was blinking. She pressed the button.

  ‘Rhonda here, from the general office at 2 o’clock. Meredith hasn’t returned to school after the lunch break. Could you please get back to us ASAP? I’ll try your work number.’

  Meredith put her head in her hands. It was 2.30 p.m. Her dad would have been contacted by now. He would be worried. She would have to make something up. He didn’t need this, had enough on his plate. She would ring him. Think of something to say.

  She was already arranging something in her mind. Already tucking down the bits of anger, the hurt. She would make out that her problem was physical so he could deal with it. It would be cramps, and overflow, and she’d forgotten to let anyone know before she left. She would save him from all the emotions. She would…

  Meredith wasn’t ready, though, for his key in the front door. So soon.

  ‘Meredith? My God. What’s going on? You look terrible. Moo? Honey, what is it? What happened?’

  What happened? Jesus. What had happened? Jordan hadn’t wanted to confide something very special to her because she thought that Meredith would make a joke of it. And the scary thing … the really scary thing … was that she would have made a joke out of it. She probably would have.

  ‘Moo? Baby, talk to me.’

  ‘I hate her.’

  Meredith didn’t know where it came from. Somewhere she didn’t think she had contact with anymore. But there it was. And there she was. Still in their kitchen, with the bone-handled knives and the souvenir teaspoons from different countries. In the air they breathed and the chunk out of the wall where she’d thrown a vase. In the gaping holes, the chunks out of their lives.

  ‘I hate her. She should be here! How can a mother not be here when her daughter becomes a woman? How can a mother just l
eave … and not look back … and let her daughter get so screwed up that even her friends can’t talk to her because she covers up every little bit of pain! It’s her fault I’m like this. She’s a bitch and I hate her. ’

  She’d never sworn in front of her dad. Not like this. He flinched, but he didn’t correct her.

  Meredith was wracked with sobs as her dad pulled her close. He stroked her hair like he used to when she was little. She couldn’t see his face but she knew his brow would be furrowed, his eyes would be sad. And she’d caused this. She was guilty. She shouldn’t be behaving like this.

  But she was behaving like this. She hadn’t cried forever and it felt like the tears would never stop.

  ‘It’s OK, Moo. Be angry,’ he said finally. His voice was surprisingly clear. ‘You can be angry. You don’t have to be strong all the time. You don’t have to cover all the pain.’

  Meredith kept crying, her throat aching and her nose running.

  The telephone rang, again and again. First Sam’s voice, and it was soothing to hear his voice, though she wasn’t listening to his words, wasn’t up for words yet.

  Then Jordan’s voice and then Lee’s and Cecilia’s.

  They were all calling her, her friends. And she wanted to talk to them. Not yet, not right now, but she did want to explain. She wanted them to help her change. She couldn’t carry it all around anymore.

  It was too heavy, making light.

  She was a shell, a husk, when she finished. But the boulder on her chest was gone, and there seemed to be more room inside her now.

  He made tea, and stirred in sugar with one of her souvenir spoons. It was the one with the Dutch girl in clogs, a windmill behind her. The girl’s yellow plaits each side of her head were like sideways question marks.

  ‘So,’ her dad asked calmly. ‘You want to tell me what’s going on? Warts and all?’

  Drama is supposed to be an elective. But I have been conscripted because, as usual, I came to this school halfway through the term when all the other electives were filled.