Amy sat down on a concrete step nearby. I wasn’t sure how long she’d been there but she was taking out a cigarette, so I gathered not long. Amy smoked with a tense jaw. She was obviously new to this form of self-destruction.
‘Well? What do you want?’
‘I know it wasn’t you,’ I said.
She flinched and gripped herself tightly. Her stillness was intense. Her eyes searched mine. She couldn’t read me like Eliza could, that much was obvious. I pitied her I think. Somehow I was responsible for this mess. She’d seen me standing outside Eliza’s house and her simple threat to expose us resulted in her own destruction. It was death by social media. It was a pain she couldn’t bear, so she ran away to the supermarket.
‘I want to help,’ I told her. ‘I want to make things right.’
Amy began to cry. I sat next to her, unsure what to do. All I could offer was the solace of my presence. Once, she would have been content to watch me writhe in this kind of pain. But there she was, her anguish exposed. It made me ill to watch.
‘You can’t help,’ she blubbered. ‘There’s no going back. This is it for me now.’
Amy gathered herself and went back to the supermarket. Maybe she’d live out her days in there, slicing up ham and packing shelves with toilet paper? Maybe she’d even run the place one day? Maybe she’d fall in love with the fruit and veg boy and they’d get married and have kids of their own and have all the fruit and veg they’d ever need? Or maybe she’d just end up alone, standing there forever with those little red numbers above her head?
Evening drew over Middleford. The air cooled, ready for day’s descent into night. I liked dusk. Not quite day, not quite night. It was the half time, the time in between. Streetlights came on. Eyes struggled to adjust to the creeping shadows. I was one of those shadows.
I loitered in the street outside Eliza’s house. I didn’t care about Amy anymore. Besides, she was at work. Still, I didn’t dare ring that doorbell and face her father. I could see by the lights inside they were ready for their evening meal. It would be deathly quiet in there. No television, no music, no sounds of laughter would break that silence. Eliza, up in her room, would be silent in her chamber. What she did on those long nights, I couldn’t imagine. Even from out in the street, the silence was unbearable.
I angled off into her neighbour’s property. They had a double carport with a flat roof. I floated up onto it like a cat. I sat a metre or two away from her bedroom window and tapped on the glass with a stick I found in the gutter. Eliza opened the window and peered into the gloom. In the half-light, she couldn’t quite see who was sitting there. She was wary, certainly holding back a little fear, but what surprised me most was how in control she sounded. Eliza commanded the unknown.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Me. Monty.’
She relaxed a little and stepped away from the window. I waited a few moments before I realised this was an invitation. The drop between the carport and her house wasn’t enough to kill you if you fell, but certainly enough to hurt. The gap was less than a few metres, but it’s funny how being up high makes it seem like twice as far. I took a deep breath, concentrated my will to survive, took a running leap and hit the sky. I flew, like a shadowy bat, and landed on a ledge under her bedroom window, stealthily, without a noise. My skinny frame hung to the ledge with ease and I flung myself inside the window. Eliza calmly sat at the end of her bed.
‘What’s wrong with the front door?’
‘Nothing. I just … thought they might ask me to dinner again.’
‘What’s the matter? Not hungry?’
She knew the answer to that already. She had knowledge and knowledge was power. She sat there quietly in her picture-perfect room.
‘I spoke to Amy Fotheringham,’ I told her.
A wry smile passed her lips.
‘I know what you did,’ I said flatly.
I waited for some glimmer of remorse. There was none.
‘Is it true?’
‘What do you want me to tell you, Monty? Was it me in that photo? Well, I guess we’ll never know, will we?’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘Geez, Monty. She saw you coming over here. I just did what I had to do.’
She was right, I guess. It was self-preservation. Amy would have gladly destroyed her. Eliza had just taken a preventative strike, before any damage could be done. It was either Eliza in that supermarket, or Amy. With one click, Eliza ruined Amy’s life.
‘You enjoyed it, didn’t you? Watching her suffer like that?’
‘What if I did?’ she grinned.
What if she did? She was not going to hide it. She’d accepted her nature long ago. It was now up to me to accept the darkness. I’d got her so wrong.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It was my fault.’
Her look softened and she shook her head in disdain, refusing my apology. A knock on the door startled us.
‘Quick! Get in there,’ she ordered.
I hurried into her bathroom. She closed the door on me and I stood in the dark, trying not to move. Blood gushed through my veins. The noise was a roaring loudspeaker in my ears. I was sure the sound would give me away. Wasn’t there some Voodoo guy in Haiti who could stop his heartbeat, just by thinking about it? Now, that was control. I thought I’d give it a go and held my breath. I concentrated on my heart, willing it to stop, or at least slow down a bit. It didn’t work. I just made myself dizzy.
‘Eliza, dinner’s ready.’
‘Thanks Doreen,’ Eliza replied. ‘But I’m not hungry.’
I pictured the scene in the bedroom. Doreen would have the door open just enough to peer in tentatively. Eliza would be seated on the end of her bed, bolt upright with not a thing out of place. By the tension in her throat, I could hear Doreen was unnerved.
‘But your father won’t like that,’ she whimpered.
‘I don’t care what he likes,’ Eliza said calmly.
The door closed. A few seconds later, Eliza came into the bathroom to find me holding my breath. I gasped. I began to wobble. A floating gaseousness invaded my feet. I reached out for the shower curtain but missed and passed out. I woke to find myself upside down behind the toilet.
‘Why are you such an idiot?’ she asked.
‘Just the way I am,’ I replied.
I pushed myself up onto the loo and cupped my head in my hands, trying to regain some oxygen. My head slowly drifted back onto my shoulders, like a balloon deflating. She helped me up and I grabbed her arms for balance. She recoiled from my touch, as if I’d hurt her.
‘You okay?’ I asked.
‘I’m fine. It’s nothing,’ she said.
She pulled her sleeves down over her arms, ‘Do something for me?’
‘Anything.’
‘Take off your clothes.’
I stood there for an eternity before my brain kicked in with the obvious.
‘Umm … Why?’
‘Because I said so.’
Eliza had already seen every part of me, but that time was different. At the beach, an entire wilderness—the deep, deep blue—had separated us, if ever so slightly. There, in that solitary room, I had nowhere to hide. Cold light shone into every nook and cranny. A harsh silence magnified every sound. My breath rose and fell in stuttering gasps. My body shook involuntarily like I had been tossed overboard on some boat lost in a malicious storm, hypothermic and near death. I took a breath, calmed my nerves, and obeyed. I always obeyed. Eliza watched as I took off my shirt, slipped out of my shoes and slowly dropped my pants. Her eyes betrayed nothing as I slid off my underwear. I stood there, buck naked, shivering under her careful gaze.
‘Get into bed.’
My head threatened to float off to some far-away land of otherness. It took all my strength to hold it back, to keep myself there with Eliza. I begged my mind not to leave. Who knew where I could end up, if I allowed it to go? I could have been found wandering naked in the streets. Confused police would pick me up and ch
arge me for endangering the public order. I’d rant and scream but my words would be jumbled, and they wouldn’t understand. To them I’d look like a wild beast, gnashing my teeth. They’d have no choice but to call in some guy from the zoo with a tranquiliser gun to shoot me in the butt with a dart. I’d slowly fall to earth as the warm, honeyed dream took over and my brain would finally drip out of this world, popping like a bubble in slow motion. That would be it: no big bang, no fiery exoneration, just a quiet, soft pop in the night.
‘Now would be good, Monty.’
I pulled back the sheets. Eliza’s bed was made in perfect lines, pulled so taut it was like sliding inside a straitjacket. The sheets were cold and crisp and smelt of flowery laundry powder. I pictured Eliza between those sheets at night, staring up at her white-walled room, ensconced in that tight cocoon. She’d lay there, silent, her arms over her chest like a vampire. Eliza would never roll over, she would never toss and turn and fight against her dreams. She’d wake up in the same position and begin the day exactly where she left off. Everything about Eliza was precision and control.
‘Now what?’ I asked.
She caught the hopeful look in my eye and let out of sigh of derision.
‘We wait.’
And so we did: ten, twenty, thirty excruciating minutes ticked by. Eliza sat at the end of her bed and looked at me. I looked at her. Eventually Eliza tired of this game and her eyes began to drift. I was wrong. Eliza wasn’t all precision and control after all. Her mind wandered too. Sure, maybe it didn’t actually get up and leave like mine did, but she certainly thought of other things. What other things, I wondered. What delightful, dreadful things?
Eliza’s attention drifted to the pile of my clothes at the end of her bed. She kicked at them and flipped over my underwear, as if inspecting something gross with the end of her shoe. Her nose curled up into a tight ball of revulsion as the scent of teenage boy assaulted her nostrils. I was embarrassed: I stank. I caught her glancing back towards her perfect, now ruined, bed. I realised Eliza would tear off those sheets and disinfect them in the washing machine as soon as I left. Why the hell did she ask me to lie there?
A thunderous rapping at the door jolted my senses. Eliza sat bolt upright, and turned to await her fate.
‘Come in,’ she said.
‘Doreen’s waiting for you to come down …’ boomed Derek as he entered, his sentence drifting away into a snake-like hiss as he discovered me: a boy, that hideous boy, in Eliza’s bed. He looked down to see my clothes, including my underwear, on the floor. Derek’s face threatened to ignite as a fierce red billowed up in his cheeks. Simmering, his eyes darted to meet Eliza’s. She remained resolute under his accusing glare. On the face of it, Eliza was nothing but eternal calm. She defied him with her silence: dared him to accuse her.
‘Get out,’ he mumbled, ‘Get dressed and get out.’
The door slammed shut with such force little chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling and drifted down over us like tiny, white snowflakes. I would have found it pretty, if I hadn’t feared for my life.
‘I better go.’
Eliza waited in the bathroom as I dressed. We walked down the stairs together and I passed the dining room to see Derek and Doreen sitting at the dinner table, waiting. Derek’s beetroot-red face was buried in his hands in silent prayer, or silent curses, I wasn’t sure which. Doreen simply stared, dumbstruck, as I continued to the front door.
After I was gone, I knew Eliza would take her usual place beside them at the dinner table. She would calmly say grace, diligently eat her meat and vegetables, report on her schoolwork then retire to her room for the night. And not a word would be mentioned of the naked boy in her room.
Chapter Eleven
Alias: @The Full Monty
Date: Thursday July 24, 4.20AM
How can you tell if you ever really know somebody?
@Gutentag
This is absurd question. Impossible this knowing.
@The Full Monty
You know me.
@Gutentag
I do of not.
@The Full Monty
Sure you do. You know me better than anyone. I tell you everything.
@Gutentag
Maybe I do not want to know.
@The Full Monty
Who are you?
*
Winter seemed to drag on in Middleford forever. The whole town seemed greyer, if that was even possible. I longed to go back to the beach, but it was just too cold now. If you went in the ocean at this time of year, you’d turn into an iceberg in seconds. I thought about floating off up the coast like that, frozen solid, with my head bobbing above the waves. I’d be a human icicle and go from port to port, visiting new lands, until I eventually hit the tropics and would melt onto a warm, sandy beach. There had to be a place like that somewhere, I hoped. An oasis.
I skulked into the school, practising my art of camouflage. I lurked from shadow to shadow, expertly avoiding attention. After I realised that I stank, I devoted myself fully to Eliza’s washing regime. I had washed my face, brushed my teeth, shampooed and combed my hair. It wasn’t in an effort to please anyone; Eliza just helped me to discover that’s what most people did. I had even taken to washing my clothes.
Usually, the washing at our house would pile up until it reached critical mass, tip over into the hallway, and block our path to the toilet. Only then would the dirty clothes be noticed. My mother would reluctantly pick up an armful and run them through the washing machine, more in an effort to keep the toilet door clear than to have clean underwear.
I had what I thought was a stroke of genius and made a system. I called it the dirty clothes basket. It was a revelation. The dirty clothes went in and, when it was full, you’d wash them. Brilliant. I could have made a fortune out of this, I thought. I could become one of those billionaire teenagers whose only worry in life was all the people queuing up to claim they had the idea first. Of course other people did have the idea first. The dirty clothes basket had been around since people first had clothes. Still, I liked that little basket. It was simple. It had a clear function. More importantly, I had worked something out for myself.
Usually, I walked into the school expecting the worst but something had changed. When someone caught my eye, nothing happened. There was no outright revulsion, instead only straightforward recognition. Once my presence was noted, their gazes shifted back to whatever it was that they were doing at the time. I’d been ignored. I had been seen, then ignored. This was a massive achievement.
I went to the toilets and realised what had brought about the miraculous change. I peered at myself in the mirror. I looked good. My hair still looked neat from Eliza’s haircut, and my zits had disappeared. My yellowed teeth now looked white from bushing and my clothes were fresh and clean. I appeared almost … normal.
That was it! It wasn’t recognition after all. People just didn’t know who I was.
I walked back down the hall, taking in more glances than I’d done in years. Every single one turned out to be a non-event. People would look, note my existence, and turn away again. I was part of the horde.
In science class, Mr Rooney explained the concept of Brownian motion. One fantastic leap forward in our understanding of the universe was discovered by some guy with the extraordinary name of Mr Brown. A man with a name like that could never be a teacher, I thought. Anyway, the basic idea was to look at tiny specks of pollen darting about under a microscope. They bumped and jiggled among the chaos, as if they were alive. Apparently Mr Brown was a tad bit freaked out by this because everyone knows inanimate things are not actually alive.
I peered into my microscope and looked at the pollen bits under the light, focusing until the image was sharp. The pollen certainly darted about, seemingly at random. They jiggled and bumped across life’s little stage before me. It was like some kind of mad dance. Mr Rooney explained it remained a mystery until a guy by the name of Einstein realised the pollen bits were actually moved around b
y water molecules, proving the existence of atoms. The invisible stuff of our world was on show.
We were split up into groups of two for the assignment, which meant spending time with another student out of school. Usually when this sort of thing happened I was always last to be picked: this time, so was Tony Papadopoulos.
He fiddled with his microscope. His fat thumbs were too large to turn the dials properly and he still hadn’t been able to see what all the fuss was about. His friends didn’t do science, they were way too thick for that, and at that time of day were busy rounding up sheep.
The school had two sheep: Marilyn and Monroe. Jordan and Rhys looked after them in Agriculture Studies—which was code for trying not to get killed. Marilyn and Monroe were mean old beasts that only existed to teach kids the finer points of headbutting. Those sheep harboured a deep grudge. Perhaps it was their names. They were named as a joke by the teacher, Mr Hobbs, who by the way had a comb-over so extraordinary it stood up sideways in a good wind and flapped around like some kind of hairy sail. Marilyn and Monroe were actually male sheep. Or were. After it was discovered they were boys, not girls, Mr Hobbs had their boy bits removed. The poor guys were neutered. Mr Hobbs strapped a rubber band around their testicles until the life was squeezed out of them and they just fell off. Unlike their testicles, their names stuck. I think those sheep secretly despised their names. To this day, whenever anyone went in their pen, Marilyn and Monroe kept their backs to the wall, and headbutted anyone who came close.
Tony Papadopoulos was left unpaired. Nobody wanted to go near him. Everyone knew that being paired with Tony meant doing all the work. He consistently had the lowest scores in science. Nobody knew why he didn’t just go play with the sheep. Oddly, Tony was enrolled in science, history and higher mathematics. He was flunking all three. Mr Rooney pointed to the two of us. I guess I was it.
I sat on a stool that Tony had spent the last two months colouring in with a blue pen. That was the sum total of his efforts in science, to colour in that stool. It was tattooed with swirls and patterns and intricate mazes that bent in on themselves. It was actually quite beautiful. I shuffled around so I could get a better look at it. Then it hit me. Tony was a genius. In those seemingly random doodles, I could see Tony had actually been listening to everything Mr Rooney had said for the last year. That stool wasn’t just some kind of random daydream. Deep in those blue patterns were artistic impressions of Young’s Double Slit experiment, the Doppler effect and even Newton’s third law of motion, all intertwined in some sort of majestic dance.
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