I collect our beaker from the tray. It smells nice, like a crisp cider, which it is, kind of. I offer it to Stone Cold to smell.
‘Nah.’
‘Do you still feel sick?’
‘No. I just might skull it all now, since I’m an alky.’
I crack up because that’s got to be a joke. Right? And Stone Cold’s laughing too, so I guess it is.
Mr Young leans on our desk. ‘No jolliness, no fun; this is serious business.’
And he spends the rest of the lesson making alcohol as serious and tedious as he is.
Chem is finally over. Me and Stone Cold are walking down the hall towards the common room. Stone Cold is at the door, about to push it open. ‘I said we’d meet Jez on the field,’ I say.
‘Why do we always hang there?’ Her hand is still on the door. ‘Why can’t we sit in here with everyone else?’
‘It’s cool out there …’
‘Yeah, literally.’
‘I mean, it’s like we’re free out there.’
‘You make it sound like we’re in captivity here.’
I look over Stone Cold’s shoulder through the glass doors of the common room at the rugby heads aping it up on the couches, flinging the cushions around the room like shit – and I raise an eyebrow at her.
‘God, OK.’ She lifts her hand from the door.
‘Besides, you can tan your legs. They’re white as.’ I pretend to be blinded by her legs.
‘That’s because I am white, boonga.’
‘Fuck you …’ I drop my voice because Mrs Lee is back at her office door, arms folded. It’s weird that she’s there again; like she’s waiting for someone …
‘Bugs, can I see you in my office?’
Oh great, she’s waiting for me.
‘I only need you for a few minutes.’ Mrs Lee opens her arms to usher me into my doom – I mean, her room. ‘She’ll catch up to you, Charmaine.’
Stone Cold gives my hand a little squeeze, like I’m a soldier chug-chug-chugging off in a railway car – Be brave! Come back safely to me!
Mrs Lee steps aside to let me in, and then the door shuts the rest of the world out.
A lifetime or a few minutes later, I’m out of her office, but the walls still feel like they’re tipping in, going to crush me. I walk out of the block and there’s a cool breeze, straight from the mountain. I turn to face it, opening my mouth so the pure, cold air fills me and washes into my lungs. I just want it to freeze this feeling. I don’t know – it’s not as simple as anger; it’s more than disappointment. Although I’ve always suspected the world was fucked up, I kind of hoped it would surprise me. I close my mouth because I must look like a real douche, and walk away before my tears catch up with me and someone sees me. I walk past the drama block – although it feels like I’ve just come from the drama block – past the tennis courts, onto the field where the buildings thin out and the trees get bigger. I just want to walk and walk; get Mrs Lee out of my head.
‘Let’s have no distractions,’ Mrs Lee said, lowering the blinds so no one could look in from the car park. ‘Let’s have a good talk.’
Good.
Good.
Good.
‘I’m concerned about the drugs.’ Mrs Lee is straight-up like that. ‘We all are. Mr and Mrs Fox … and your mother. Do you have anything to say?’
It was totally rhetorical, so I just shrugged.
‘I had something to say. I said to them, “No, no, Bugs is a good girl. She wants to be a lawyer; she has potential” …’
If someone lights my fuse.
‘Good girls shouldn’t get mixed up in bad things, should they? But sometimes it’s unavoidable, especially if good girls get mixed up with bad boys …’
Seriously? Bad boys? Yeah, because good girls like me can’t resist them; because good girls like me are simpering clichés; because good girls like me don’t think for themselves.
I looked Mrs Lee straight in the eye. ‘I don’t know who you mean.’
She sighed. ‘You have potential, Bugs. The choices you make now are important. Don’t let a stupid mistake ruin your life. I’ve seen it happen before. Your mother …’
You did not just go there, bitch. Because here I am, my mum’s stupid mistake, staring you down. This is what Jez must feel like – they treat him like he’s not worth it; he’s a mistake that they’ve given up on. Of course he wants to walk away from this; if you’re not welcome day after day, why would you stay?
Mrs Lee couldn’t hack it, and she turned away from me. To be honest, it was a relief not to have to look at her any more.
‘I’m not going to ruin my life, Mrs Lee.’ I said each word carefully, feeling the edge of them with my tongue.
‘I hope not, but what you children –’ Children? ‘– don’t understand is how delicate the balance is. Good can turn bad so easily. One little mistake …’ Mrs Lee pulled up the blinds. The sudden change in light made me squint and my eyes water. She just stood there and looked out into the car park at the ‘children’ milling around their cars, who scattered like rabbits after a crack shot when they saw her.
‘Mrs Lee?’
She turned her head slightly, and her profile was back-lit by the window. She was just a shape then, a cardboard cut-out of a person.
‘You can go.’
On the field the breeze that I welcomed before has worked its way to my bones, and I realise that I’ve left my jersey and my jacket in my locker. I cross my arms again, trying to trap my body heat close.
I can see them by the tree, Stone Cold and Jez. I stop and watch them like I’m hunting them, and they don’t know I’m here like rabbits upwind. I walk softly, so suddenly I’m upon them. Stone Cold is stretched out on her back. She has Jez’s jacket on her head to protect her face from the sun, so she’s all legs and arms and body. Jez sits against the tree as usual. He’s rubbing his arms like he’s cold too. He raises his eyebrows at me, and I throw him one back. They’re talking, so I just stand there and listen.
‘We could trick or treat. It would be fun.’
‘Yeah, fun.’ Jez is smiling because the idea is ridiculous. ‘The best you’d do on my street would be half a packet of 2-Minute noodles. We’re too old, anyway.’
‘Well, then we’ll play some tricks, freak people out.’
I raise my eyebrows at Jez – Should I? – and he nods. I drop down on Stone Cold, pinching her on both sides of her waist.
‘What the fuck?’ She pulls the jacket from her head and blink-blinks at me, and me and Jez crack up.
‘Trick or treat?’
Stone Cold punches me in the arm. ‘Like that could be a treat, Bugs. Shut up, Jez.’
‘She reckons we should go trick or treating, B.’
‘Lame.’
‘Fuck you guys, Halloween is fun. We should just get dressed up.’ She picks a bit of grass and points it at me. ‘You could go as a bunny.’ She puts the grass in her mouth and chews it.
‘Fuck that, I’d go as a hunter.’ I pretend to hold my rifle in my hand. I line her up in my sights, breathe in and out and squeeze the trigger …
Jez makes chopper noises. ‘And get arrested by the Armed Offenders Squad, eh, B?’
Stone Cold rolls towards Jez. ‘What would you go as?’
Jez shakes his head. ‘I don’t dress up.’
‘C’mon, it’s a chance to be anyone else, anything, for a night.’
I catch up to Jez and he’s already shed his Prince gear …
‘I don’t pretend to be anything I’m not.’ Jez is playing with his sleeves.
‘God, you guys are boring. I’d be a vampire.’ That would be about right. Stone Cold kicks me in the foot. ‘What did Mrs Lee want?’
‘Mrs Lee?’ He looks at me, and I look away.
‘Yeah.’ Stone Cold rolls onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows. ‘She called Bugs into the office,’ she says, in that sing-song voice little kids use when someone else is in trouble.
Jez is still
rubbing his arms hard out. I take the jacket from Stone Cold and throw it at him. ‘Cold?’
‘Nah.’ He throws it back at me. ‘Itchy.’
Stone Cold tries to take the jacket back, but I’m already putting it on. ‘What from? You got fleas?’
‘Nah.’
I give him the finger, but the jacket is too big: the sleeves come over my hands so it makes me look like a little kid trying to be hard. Dumb. I sit down next to Stone Cold and start picking at grass. That’s what we all do on the field: pick at the grass. They probably don’t need to mow it at all.
‘So, what did she want?’ Stone Cold is lying flat on the grass now, protected from the breeze by me.
‘Nothing.’
‘Yeah, like she’d call you in her office for nothing.’
She’s lying down so she doesn’t see me and Jez; doesn’t see that he recognises something in me, a kind of defeat. I can’t look at him – I suddenly feel guilty – so I concentrate on my patch of grass, nipping the fresh new blades between my fingernails.
‘Bugs.’ Stone Cold squints up at me. ‘What did you talk about?’
‘Choices. The future.’
‘God, I’m so over the future.’ She rolls on her back and looks up at the wide blue sky. ‘Choices, fucking choices. I wish I didn’t have to make any.’
Because when you’re well fed, you can resent a crust of bread.
‘Later.’ Jez walks off.
‘Later.’ Me and Stone Cold say together. She’s still looking at the sky, and I watch Jez walk away.
14
Bzzz …
The sound a rabbit makes when it presses down.
Bzzz …
The sound a rabbit makes as it bites.
Bzzz …
The sound a rabbit makes as it works its way under my skin, a black warren protected by a dam of my flesh.
He said, ‘Are you sure you want it there? It will stretch when you have babies.’
When. If, if I have babies, and that won’t be for a long time. A very long time. ‘That’s a fucked-up thing to say.’
He said, ‘You have to think about those things; this is going to be forever.’
That’s what I want: a piece of us forever. Curled up against my hip bone. And if some guy’s little fucker of a baby dares to kick, my rabbit will kick back. ‘I want it somewhere private.’
He said, ‘I won’t fuck it up, B.’
‘No, it’s not that.’ It’s that I want it just to be something for you and me, not anyone else. ‘Mum’ll …’
‘Yeah. Nikki will waste you.’
‘So just do it there. And if I have a baby – way in the future – we’ll deal with it then.’
We. Because when I think about the future, Jez is always there: making tea in our flat, clapping for me as I graduate, giving me away at my wedding.
Jez smiles. ‘Cool.’
He pats the bed, and I lie down. The duvet is covered with a sheet to catch the splatters. I put my arms behind my head; try to stretch out, get comfortable. Jez has pulled up one of those wheelie office chairs and sits next to the bed. He just looks at me.
‘What?’
‘You need to take your jeans off, B.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t work with those on.’
I sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. ‘Are you serious?’
‘How else do you expect me to do it?’
‘I don’t know.’ I tug at my waistband. ‘Pull them down a bit.’
‘Take them off.’
‘Turn around.’
‘B. It’s not like I haven’t seen you in your undies before …’
‘That was when I was like five or something. Just turn around.’ I came dressed to do some painting, so everything I put on is old – T-shirt, jeans and undies. I know that’s weird – like we were ever going to be painting in our undies – but I still didn’t want to risk my good ones being wrecked. The elastic is fraying around the legs on these ones; the purple has washed out and the back is baggy. I lie back down on the bed, and arrange my jeans over my other leg and crotch so Jez can only see the hip he needs.
‘You can turn back around.’
Jez hooks a finger into the side of my undies and flicks the elastic. ‘Jeez, B. Sexy.’
‘Shut up. I didn’t know anyone was going to see them.’
‘Didn’t your mum warn you about wearing clean undies?’
‘They’re clean. Just old.’
‘Right.’ Jez wrings as much sarcasm as he can from the word. He pushes off the floor, coasting his chair across the room. He picks up one of those pink disposable razors from his desk, and crab-walks the chair back to the bed.
‘What are you doing with that, Jez?’
‘I need to shave the area.’
‘You are not shaving my “area”.’ Seriously?
‘I can’t have any hair …’
‘You think my pubes are like all the way over there?’
Jez is hard-out blushing, thinking about my pubes. ‘No, just any hair, even fine stuff.’
‘Fuck.’ I sit up and take the razor from his hand. ‘I’ll go do it then.’ I stand up and try to wrap my jeans around me. ‘Don’t look at my bum.’
I lock the bathroom door, and pull on the handle just to check that it really is locked. I find the plug for the bath and turn on the taps. This is it. This is the time I could back down, change my mind, put my jeans back on and pick up the roller and just say Jokes, eh, Jez? But I want it. Some reminder of him; even a reminder of this shitty place. Their landlord gave them notice: he wants them gone. Maybe so he can let these out over the holidays to rich tourists; who knows? All I know is that Jez won’t have a place any more. Jez said, ‘Time to move on, B,’ and he rolled a big strip of white paint right through our history.
There are tiny spots of white paint all over my skin, like reverse freckles. I’m a messy painter, but fast. Sometimes I was rolling so fast that when I’d lift it up, it would keep going, spraying paint around like a Catherine wheel. I painted quickly so I wouldn’t have time to regret – time to remember – but when I got to that stupid rabbit, that stupid old tag of mine, I just couldn’t wipe it out.
‘Can’t we just keep this?’ I framed it with my roller, boxing it in with paint.
‘Why? I can’t take it with me.’
I turn off the taps. The bath is about halfway up with water. I take off my undies and my top, but leave my bra on, because it feels weird to be totally nude for some reason. I lower myself into the bath, kind of just dipping myself in, and then stand one foot in the bath and the other on the side of it, lathering soap between my palms.
‘I just think we should save something.’
‘But that?’
‘I know it’s kinda stink, but don’t you like it?’
‘It’s not stink, just a bit rough, eh?’ Jez took a Vivid and with a couple of lines curved the back; kicked out the legs like the rabbit was in full gallop. ‘There. It’s worth saving now.’
I rub the lathered soap into my hip and rinse off my hands, then shave, bending to pull the skin in the hollow of my hip taut. I use my other hand to pull the skin of my thigh so the hair stands proud, waiting to be sliced clean off. The length of the hair clogs the razor, so I have to clean it. I go over the spot a couple of times to get it really clean.
‘Check it out, B. A tattoo gun.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘I’m gonna be an artist.’
‘Most people just get a canvas and some paint.’
‘Then you can’t take it with you, or someone takes it away.’
‘How much did it cost?’
‘I dunno, a couple of hundred. It’s on tick.’
‘How are you gonna pay for that?’
‘I’ve got a commission.’
I sit back down in the bath and wash off the hair that sticks everywhere – on my thighs, my belly, my hands. The hair floats on the surface of the water: little islands of curly b
lack pubes. I look down and it’s weird – one side clean, the other a bit rough, so I stand and lather again, just to even it out. I shave until there’s just a strip in the middle, but that looks so porn star, so fuck it – I’ll shave it all off. Now it looks even more porn star, but it’s too late. I sit down again and pull the plug, letting the water run out around me. I like the feeling of sinking. My pubes stick to the bath and to my legs, so I run the cold tap and squat down, splashing water on my legs and on the sides of the bath, and finally the last hair is pulled down the plug hole. I bin the razor – there’s no way in hell that will cut anything again. There is one ratty towel on the rack. I pat myself dry and slip my undies back on. They feel weird now, the fabric rubbing against my bare skin. I don’t remember this from when I was a little girl. But it was normal then. It’s nowhere near normal now. I use the towel as a wrap.
It’s weird to walk through the flat in my undies. I’m not a bikini-bottom kind of girl: I like to wear shorts over top. That’s why I gave up swimming at school. They made the girls take their shorts off, saying they’d make it hard to swim. Double standard, because apparently it is not too hard for the boys to swim in their shorts. I pick my jeans up and head back to Jez’s room.
‘Ready?’
I nod, and lie down on the bed.
Jez has traced the rabbit from the wall; it looks bigger now that it’s lying on the bed. I must look worried, because he says, ‘This is just for reference. I’m going to draw it on you first, make sure it fits.’ I nod; stare up at the ceiling, framed by the newly white walls. It’s strange: it feels like this is an entirely new place, although I’ve stared at these walls forever. He flicks my undy elastic again. ‘It would be easier if you took these off.’
‘I’m not taking them off. Just pull them … Not that far up, you dick!’ Nice, wedgie camel toe.
‘If you want to put it there, I have to get to it.’
‘Fine.’ I drape the towel over my crotch and wriggle my undies down under it. The waistband stretches across my thighs; the elastic cuts into them a little, so I will have a red mark across them later. I fold the towel so that Jez can see the dip between my hipbone and the curve of my belly – nothing more.
Bugs Page 19