When there’s nowhere else to Run

by Murray Middleton

  ‘One of his horses ran a place up at Kilmore on the weekend, but other than that, he hasn’t had much luck. His best horse strained a ligament in his foreleg last start.’

  ‘Is that serious?’

  ‘It can be.’

  ‘Well, it sounds like you know the drill, Emily.’

  Another tingle spread through her body when he said her name. The left side of her chest was starting to ache. Maybe this was what having a stroke felt like.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, fine.’ She tried to breathe slowly through her nose, which usually worked when she was about to go on stage.

  ‘Well, don’t worry, I haven’t taken to bludgeoning students in the woods just yet.’ He smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘Let the record show, that was also a joke.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Emily. She was desperate to keep talking to him, but she didn’t know what else to say. She felt her nails dig into the moss again, finding the grit of earth under the chunk she was pulling up.

  ‘It’s a lovely spot, isn’t it?’ he said, shifting his gaze from her and looking out over the lake. ‘I read here every Wednesday and Friday at lunchtime. It’s a great way to escape the feigned niceties of a staffroom.’

  He looked at his watch again and began fastening the toggles on his duffle coat. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I have the delightful year tens.’

  He reached for the style guide. As he was gathering it, his knuckles brushed against her stocking. His touch seemed to linger briefly on her right thigh. The tingling was becoming unbearable.

  ‘Thanks for the chat,’ he said, patting the dirt off his navy trousers. ‘Not that it ever took place.’

  He raised his finger to his lips then set off along the trail, taking measured strides to avoid the puddles. He started whistling just before he turned the bend. Emily realised that she was trembling all over.

  ■

  Marilyn barely touched her plate of lasagne at dinner, but then Emily couldn’t remember her ever having much of an appetite. At least she seemed calm, even when she caught Emily looking at her eye. It was starting to turn purple. Most of the talk was about the play. Emily was already over it. The way the other kids were all such drama queens, taking themselves so seriously, like they expected some casting agent from the city to travel all the way to their hick school and sign them up.

  Her thoughts slid to Mr Whitlock’s touch. His soft knuckles on her thigh. There was no way it was an accident. She’d think about it later when she was alone in bed. She felt too guilty letting herself get excited now, when her family were all sitting around the table, so sad and serious. But she couldn’t help thinking about it. Even a boring family dinner felt somehow different; heightened and strange, like she’d spent the first sixteen years of her life on autopilot, waiting for something like this to happen.

  Her dad went to bed after eating a whole packet of chocolate-covered macadamias. Marilyn didn’t tease him for hitting the hay early like she usually did at Christmas. Emily ran through her scenes with her mum in front of the fire. Her script was dog-eared and covered in annotations. Marilyn sat on the couch nursing a mug of hot chocolate, watching them and smiling. She was wearing a borrowed woollen jumper that swallowed her whole upper body. Every time Emily got to the end of one of her longer speeches or tirades, Marilyn broke into applause and said, ‘Well done, sweetie!’

  While Emily was brushing her teeth, Marilyn asked if she’d like to help her with a jigsaw puzzle. The picture on the box was of eight horses crossing a river, with trees, swirling clouds and snowy mountains in the background. It was called ‘Last of the Wild Ones’. Most of the pieces were spread out across the kitchen bench top. Marilyn had already started forming the border. They bent over it together, figuring out where the sky and the water pieces fitted in. Emily noticed that Marilyn was having trouble connecting the pieces because her hands were shaking and she realised that she was unused to seeing her aunt without a glass in her hand.

  ‘Does the sound of that fridge ever annoy you?’ asked Marilyn. ‘It’s like there’s a boat motor in there or something.’

  ‘I guess I’m just used to it.’

  ‘Do you mind if I turn it off for a couple of minutes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thanks, sweetie; it’s giving me a bit of a headache.’ Marilyn walked over to the fridge and flicked the switch off at the power point. ‘That’s better,’ she said.

  They went on assembling the border pieces in silence. Every so often Marilyn glanced up at a framed picture on the kitchen wall. It was of Emily’s dad and his old strapper standing next to Jubilee Mile outside the Seymour Racing Club, smiling broad, contented smiles.

  ‘This is actually fun,’ said Marilyn.

  ‘I know,’ said Emily. ‘It’s a great way to keep my mind off the play.’ She was dying to get to her room and she felt bad for lying. ‘Are you coming tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course, sweetie. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  Marilyn had missed Antigone the year before, even though she’d promised to come.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ asked Emily after a while, keeping her eyes glued to the sea of tiny cardboard pieces in front of her.

  ‘No, I can hardly feel it anymore,’ said Marilyn. She pressed two fingers against the bruising on her upper cheek. A yellow tinge had started to form around the purple. ‘I’ve got a fractured eye socket. They took an X-ray today. Apparently it’s called an orbital fracture.’ She gave a small, dry laugh. ‘See, I learnt something new.’

  Emily couldn’t tell whether Marilyn wanted her to laugh too.

  ‘Once the swelling goes down, they’re going to make me have surgery. I hate needles, so I’m trying not to think about it.’

  ‘Needles aren’t that bad,’ said Emily.

  ‘I know, I know, but every time I see one go in on the telly, I have to look away or cover my eyes.’ Marilyn shivered and then sighed. ‘I look a bit ghastly, don’t I?’

  They both laughed this time. Emily’s mum walked into the kitchen in her dressing gown and glanced at them as she rinsed a mug in the sink. She usually let four or five mugs build up in the bedroom before bothering to wash them.

  ‘Don’t stay up too late,’ she said to Emily on her way back to the bedroom.

  They returned to the jigsaw puzzle and linked up the shallows with the riverbank.

  ‘I miss Dan,’ said Emily, surprising herself with her impulsiveness.

  ‘We all do, sweetie,’ said Marilyn, leaning in sideways and rubbing her shoulders.

  ‘He was my favourite,’ said Emily.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Why did you break up?’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting an interrogation,’ said Marilyn wryly. ‘Your poor aunt is in a very fragile state.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m kidding. I always like talking about Dan. He was such a cutie, wasn’t he? I used to call him “cutie pie”, but he hated it. I think in the end we just wanted different things, that’s all.’

  Marilyn started playing with the pile of pieces in front of her. Her hands had finally stopped shaking.

  ‘It doesn’t always have to be a big, dramatic ending, even when two people love each other. You’ll learn that. Sometimes people just grow apart or want different things, and if you accept it instead of fighting against it the whole way, it isn’t always such a horrible thing for everyone.’

  Emily didn’t really feel like Marilyn was in any position to be giving relationship advice. ‘Have you seen him around at all?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I haven’t seen Dan in years. I know he’s got kids now, which is great, because it’s what he always wanted.’

  Emily found the last piece of the border. ‘This morning in class, for some reason I was thinking about the time I busted you and Dan at the stables.’

  ‘Busted us doing what?’ asked Marilyn.

  ‘You know, it was after Jubilee Mile’s famous race.’

  Marilyn squinted w
ith her bruised eye and shook her head.

  ‘I’m pretty sure you guys were in the middle of . . . Hang on, do you really not remember what I’m talking about?’ asked Emily.

  ‘I’ve honestly got no idea, sweetie.’

  ■

  The boys from the junior campus got on the bus at the stop opposite BP. One of them, a scrawny redhead whom the others called Ferret, had lost his ticket. He rustled around in his pockets and in his backpack for change, but he couldn’t find any. None of his friends had any change, either. The driver shrugged and grumbled, ‘No ticket, no ride.’

  ‘I’ll pay you back tomorrow,’ pleaded Ferret. His voice still hadn’t quite broken. ‘Please, I’ve got a science test first period.’

  The driver shook his head.

  ‘I promise I’ll pay you.’

  ‘You’re making me late,’ said the driver, raising his voice. ‘It’s time to step off the bus now, mate.’

  Ferret obeyed. He was left standing on the wet grass in front of the shelter, staring at the bus.

  ‘Sorry, rules are rules,’ said the driver, catching Emily’s eye in the rear-view mirror.

  She knew what he meant. As long as he was behind the wheel, the bus belonged to him and it was his right to decide who got to go on it. For all the things he didn’t have a say in, this small bit of power was entirely his, and if he gave in, even just once, the kids would use it against him forever. Not that any of them probably gave him a second thought once they stepped off the bus. The only thing the driver had in his favour, thought Emily, was that unlike Marilyn, he wasn’t pretending everything was rosy all the time.

  She’d always assumed that people were where they were by choice and that they had got there by going down a carefully considered path. Her parents seemed happy enough with their life, always smelling of hay and grain and selling nuts at the farmers’ market every second Sunday. Had they made compromises too? It was frightening to think that adults’ lives might be full of mistakes and regrets, and that so many of them might feel unhappy when the lights went out at night. Maybe even Mr Whitlock had dreamt of bigger things than standing in a classroom in his early thirties, being worshipped by small-town students.

  She kept replaying his words: ‘I read here every Wednesday and Friday at lunchtime.’ They had to be an invitation. There was no other reason for him to mention it to her. He knew what he was doing the whole time at the lake and he knew what he was doing to her inside at the moment. He had to feel something too. Why else would he have pressed his finger against his lips before walking away?

  She couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like if she turned up at the lake tomorrow. He would be sitting on the rock, waiting for her. The intensity of his gaze would make her tingle. He’d crack some self-deprecating jokes to put her at ease. His first touch would be tender, understanding that she was shy and that she hadn’t done any of it before. Finally he’d kiss her. The toggles on his duffle coat would press against her chest and his hand would start running up her stockings.

  All of a sudden Emily was wrapped up in a big hug. She doubted that the driver approved of Maddie’s over-the-top greetings.

  ‘You look like shit,’ squealed Maddie.

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  ‘It’s not that bad, you’ve just kind of got these bags under your eyes.’

  Emily had still been lying awake when her dad got up to feed the horses.

  ‘I’m so looking forward to the after-party,’ said Maddie, elbowing her in the ribs. ‘You’ll finally get to see what Sam’s bedroom looks like.’

  Emily rolled her eyes. ‘I bet there’s footy posters everywhere.’

  ‘You never know. There might be dirty magazines in his drawers.’ Maddie smiled, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her braces.

  ‘Do you think he’s going to shave that awful thing on his face off before the play?’ asked Emily.

  ‘You’re so mean! I think it looks good.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yeah, it makes him look rugged, like a woodchopper or something.’

  Emily had always played along with such talk because she was scared of the consequences of seeming uninterested. But she now understood how someone’s whole mood could depend entirely on their interactions and imagined interactions with just one other person.

  ‘You had Mr Whitlock last year, didn’t you?’ she asked, as if it was a random passing thought. Even just saying his name gave her a thrill.

  Maddie nodded. ‘Yeah, we had him for English.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘I don’t know, he was okay. Everyone else loved him. He was always crapping on about what book we should read next. It kind of got a bit annoying. Plus he’s got a crap sense of humour.’

  ‘What’s wrong with his sense of humour?’

  ‘He’s one of those people who thinks he’s funnier than he is,’ said Maddie. ‘But none of the jokes he makes are actually funny. I couldn’t even figure out when he was joking and when he was being serious.’

  Maddie flicked her hair out of her face and it fell back again in exactly the same place. God, she was dumb. She pulled an open packet of salt and vinegar chips out of her backpack and held it out. Emily took a chip, but felt sick once she’d swallowed it.

  ‘Why do you care, anyway?’

  Emily shrugged, being careful not to overdo it. ‘I’m worried I might get stuck with him next year.’

  Maddie smiled and put her hand in front of her mouth. ‘I heard he smoked a joint with the year twelves on muck-up day last year,’ she said.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘One of my brother’s friends. Mr W. busted them smoking behind the footy oval, but he didn’t give a shit. Then someone offered him the joint and he took a turn on it.’

  ■

  Emily tried not to blink while Maddie applied her eyeliner. All of the other girls were putting on their own, but Emily had never learnt how to do it. She hated wearing make-up; it made her feel so unnatural. Plus it was a pain in the arse taking it off before bed. But when Maddie finally stepped away and let her look in the mirror, she wasn’t quite as put off as usual. Her eyes seemed more defined and she was surprised by how much older she looked. The fact that she looked nothing like Oriel Lamb no longer seemed to matter.

  Fifteen minutes before the play was due to start, she peeled back the curtain to take a peek at the audience. The basketball markings were covered by plastic chairs, most of them still empty. She saw Ferret sitting in the front row with his parents, who seemed to confirm that he was the product of inbreeding. Sam Kowalski’s dad was sitting alone. The principal was standing near the entrance to the gymnasium, shaking hands. Emily spotted her mum and dad in one of the middle rows, near the emergency exit. Marilyn was sitting on the end of the row, wearing sunglasses.

  There was something she loved about the lull when the lights dimmed and everyone—cast, stagehands and audience—realised that a performance was about to begin. She could feel the intensity of the silence and the sense of expectation in the air. The only experience that came close to it was the tension she used to feel as a child when she watched one of her dad’s horses entering the mounting yard before a big race. The main difference now was that the outcome was in her hands.

  By the time she made her first entrance onto the stage, most of the chairs had been filled. Even though it was a frenzied opening scene—the near drowning of her son Fish—she felt herself drop effortlessly into character. Once she’d blurted out her first maternal cry, thumping her son’s waterlogged chest, Oriel Lamb seemed to flow through her. She became this scarred, unrelenting woman. Sleeves rolled up. Fists drawn in to her ribcage. Corns and bunions on her feet. It was a piece of cake. She even found herself prevailing over the comic overacting of the boy playing Fish.

  She enjoyed her onstage fights with Sam Kowalski. She channelled her repulsion towards him and his ridiculous moustache to show Oriel’s exasperation with her husband. He played off it to perfe
ction, bowing his head at the appropriate moments and protesting pathetically as only Lester could. He even had this weird way of stooping so that he looked timeworn. They reached her favourite scene in the play, when Lester was trying to convince Oriel that their pet pig could talk. Sam delivered his lines with just the right naïve excitement, creating the opening for her to belittle him and milk laughs from the audience.

  Then, just as their dialogue was about to reach its climax, she caught sight of Mr Whitlock sitting behind Sam’s dad. He appeared to be watching like everyone else in the audience, absorbed in the marital tension, but his eyes were fixed on her. His expression didn’t change when her eyes met his. It pierced her concentration, taking her outside of her character and causing her to lose the arc of Oriel’s emotions. Sam was in the midst of an uncharacteristically bold protestation, so she had enough time to remember her next line, but she felt the tension and the believability ebb away. She stumbled through the remainder of the scene, trying her best to regain the measure of her character. But she no longer believed it herself.

  ■

  There was something comforting about the foggy windows, the crunching of the gravel underneath the tyres and the puffs of dust in the high beams. The car was nice and toasty. Emily’s dad yawned and checked the time on the digital clock. It was already three hours past his bedtime. Marilyn wasn’t wearing sunglasses anymore. Emily was looking forward to winding down by working on the jigsaw with her once they got home. Marilyn had already finished the sky and the clouds and was now working her way down from the tips of the mountains.

  ‘You were incredible tonight, sweetie,’ Marilyn was saying. ‘I was so proud watching you up there.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘How did you even learn to act like that?’

  Emily felt herself flushing with pleasure. ‘I don’t know, I guess it’s just practice.’

  ‘You were so convincing. I actually believed you were that grumpy woman.’

  ‘Oriel,’ said Emily’s mum from the front seat.

  ‘That’s the one: Oriel. It felt like you were really her. I can’t believe I’m related to someone so talented. I hope you want to be an actress when you grow up.’