We mess around in the water for ten minutes or so. Pushing each other under, laughing, grabbing hold of each other’s legs. I’m pretty pumped through all of this. A perfect score. Wow! Can’t do much better than that! I want to find out if Zoe has done well, too. But . . . she won’t have her score yet and, even though the headmistress ringing with the news had nothing to do with me, I feel bad that our pact to wait for the mail has been broken.
Cynthia is the first to want to get out.
‘I’ll go get towels,’ she offers, ‘if you promise you won’t look.’
‘Well, go on!’ Hilda says sharply.
‘Do you promise?’
‘Who’d want to look at you?’ Dot says, making a grim face.
‘Bruce does!’ Cynthia raises her chin defiantly.
‘Bruce!’ Dot is quite open in her disdain for Cynthia’s simple, good-hearted boyfriend. ‘I mean someone who counts!’
When we see Cynthia is serious about staying in the water until we all promise to close our eyes, we give her our word, cross our hearts, hope to die and all the rest of it. Of course, as soon as she’s out and running towards the house we all start screaming and pointing, shouting insults until we’re blue in the face. Generally trying to make it as embarrassing as possible.
‘Had my fingers crossed!’ I yell.
‘Me too!’ Dot screams. ‘And I can see your enormous bum!’
‘It’s huge!’ from Hilda. ‘And really wobbly!’
‘Ever heard of a bum diet, Cynthia?’
‘Liposuction?’
‘I hate the lot of you!’ Cynthia yells back furiously as she disappears into the house. Cynthia is more curvy than the rest of us. Bigger breasts and hips. She’s always had this mad idea that her bum is gigantic, which it’s not, but . . . of course it’s what we tease her about.
She comes back out with a towel wrapped around her head, another around her body and a smug smile.
‘Where’re ours?’
‘Get your own!’
‘Anyone ever told you that you’re a self-centred bitch, Cynthia?’
‘Well, now you mention it!’ she giggles. ‘But luckily it doesn’t worry me!’
So the rest of us have to climb naked from the pool and go for our own towels with Cynthia sniggering insults behind us.
‘I have a name,’ Cynthia pronounces victoriously from the doorway. We’ve been lazing around the pool now for close on two hours, and have drunk two bottles of champagne along with buckets of coffee. Apart from the toilet every now and again, none of us seems able to shift, much less make any decisions about getting on with the day. I suppose we’re waiting for Mum to wake. Every half-hour or so someone goes up to check on her but at midday she’s still out to it. We all agree that one of us should go in, have first shower and start organising a few things. Phone messages have to be gone through. Food needs to be bought and prepared. No one has done shopping for days and we’re getting low on supplies. But still we hang about, soaking up the sun and talking about not much at all. There are coffee cups and bits and pieces of left-over toast, apple cores and orange peel strewn about.
‘It’s a start!’ Cynthia is holding a piece of paper in her hand and is waving it at us. Dot and Hilda are on chairs at the little table under the umbrella, arguing over the crossword. The twins are back and playing happily with some dirt and stones under a nearby tree. They’ve already had a long stint in the pool with Dot and me, so they’re nicely tired out. I’m sitting down one end of the pool, a little apart from my sisters, legs dangling in the water. I suppose it is just the few glasses of bubbly on an empty stomach – none of us has eaten properly – but I’m still feeling pretty blissed out. Every time I remember my score, this incredible, light feeling invades my brain. I’m going to be a lawyer. Yes. Everything else is . . . a side issue. My life is on track, and the surrounding chatter from my sisters and nephews ebbs and flows about my head like a warm, healing bath. I suddenly think of Nat Cummins and wonder if he’s rung. I want to let him know how well I’ve done. Everything is going to be absolutely fine.
‘Who?’ Dot is scowling.
‘Dad’s girlfriend,’ Cynthia says. ‘I’ve got her name.’ We all stop. My wonderful mood simply slides away into a kind of blank sponginess. I look up. At Mum’s open window.
‘Keep your voice down,’ I say sharply. Cynthia moves closer to us. ‘She’s still asleep,’ I say in a softer voice.
‘So, what is it?’ Hilda asks. She and Dot have forgotten the crossword puzzle now. Like me, they’re riveted on Cynthia.
‘Cassandra,’ Cynthia declares. ‘She’s in her thirties and . . .’
Hilda gives an angry sigh before covering her face with her hands.
‘Poor Mum,’ she moans, without lifting her face. The others murmur in agreement.
‘And she’s a lawyer!’ Cynthia declares as though that too has heavy meaning.
‘What else?’
‘Nothing else . . . yet,’ Cynthia sits down next to me, ‘but give me time.’
‘Cassandra,’ Dot murmurs, a vague dreamy smile spreading over her face. ‘Well we know what happened to her don’t we?’
‘No,’ I speak for the others.
‘She got done in.’ Dot’s voice is spiky with venom. ‘Well and truly.’
‘Done in?’
‘Butchered by Clytaemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon!’ Dot declares triumphantly. ‘Oh boy, did she cop it!’
‘Really?’ I say, interested in spite of myself. Dot’s regular forays into ancient mythology usually drive the rest of us nuts. But I’m hungry for clues on how to think about Dad’s girlfriend. I have to admit that I already hate her and the very idea of her being ‘done in’ in appallingly violent circumstances is extremely appealing. I know it’s insane but I can tell my sisters feel the same.
‘Agamemnon brought Cassandra home as his new woman, and his wife, Clytaemnestra, didn’t appreciate it.’
‘Oh yeah?’ We all start laughing.
‘Yeah.’ Dot is smiling, now that she has our attention. ‘When they got there, Cassandra was smart enough to know something was up. She didn’t want to go into the house, said she could smell blood. But Clytaemnestra stays very cool and entices them both inside. Then she hacks Agamemnon to bits with an axe and chases Cassandra through the house until she finally runs her down!’ Dot makes fast chopping motions in the air, her face tight with concentration. ‘And with the same weapon, kills her. Neat, eh?’
We stare at Dot’s beautiful, animated face. This stuff is so real to her! Then we all look at each other and start laughing like gleeful maniacs.
‘So no mucking around, eh?’ Cynthia says when we’re all quiet again. ‘She just got in there and did what had to be done?’
‘A bloodbath,’ Dot agrees calmly.
‘Did she . . . go to prison or anything?’ Hilda is the only one who seems a mite disturbed by this twist of conversation.
‘Are you kidding?’ Dot snarls. ‘Why should she be punished?’
Of course I should intervene at this point. After all, I’m the one who is going to be a lawyer. But I can’t bring myself to ruin her moment, and this story is so attractive. Normally, we just yawn and wait it out when she rabbits on with this stuff. So I laugh along with them, as though I think butchering someone is a perfectly reasonable response to marital infidelity.
‘I want to get her!’ Cynthia suddenly says, vehemently.
‘And do what?’ Hilda says in alarm.
‘I don’t know,’ Cynthia growls. ‘Let’s just get her!’
‘Yeah . . . let’s capture her,’ Dot whispers.
‘And do what?’ Hilda asks again.
We go quiet thinking of the possibilities.
‘Hack her to bits!’ Cynthia thrusts an imaginary axe into Dot’s neck. ‘Straight through the spinal cord.’
‘Excellent idea!’
‘You’re the doctor,’ Dot grins, ‘so you can have first chop.’
‘I’m serious,’ Cynthi
a murmurs, frowning, as she stares into the shimmering blue pool. ‘Really, I am! I want to kill her.’
‘Oh shut up!’ Hilda says and pushes Cynthia into the water. Inside, Hilda’s mobile phone rings and rings.
‘It will be for you,’ Dot says to me, before diving down and pulling Cynthia’s legs from under her. ‘Probably Dad.’
‘He’ll leave a message,’ I say lightly. ‘I’ll ring back.’
Dad can wait. I haven’t seen him since the day he left, and we haven’t actually spoken since the night before, on the stairs after the party. Somehow it wouldn’t seem right to hear him say congratulations just yet.
Amid the howls of protest, giggles and shouts I realise that I’m suddenly wolfishly hungry.
‘I’ll go and pull some lunch together?’
‘Oh, yes, please!’ They’re all enthusiastic. ‘What took you so long?’
But when I go into the kitchen, I discover we’re out of a lot of things. Most importantly bread and milk.
‘I’m going down the street to get stuff,’ I yell at my sisters. ‘So don’t discuss anything important while I’m gone!’
‘Hey Rose!’ Cynthia yells. ‘Stop by the hardware and buy an axe!’
‘Shall do!’ I laugh as I head upstairs to shower and dress, thinking how bizarre it is that the story about Clytaemnestra giving Cassandra what was owing seems to have lightened everyone’s spirits.
‘So you’re the chick who bashed up my sister?’ Nat sounds baffled.
‘That’s right,’ I say, cool as ice.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘Ask her,’ I say sarcastically, ‘you’ll get a more . . . creative answer.’
I am standing in the street outside the local supermarket. In one hand I have the bag of groceries I’ve just bought, and in the other, this small, plastic, remarkably realistic-looking axe that I saw in the local opp shop window and bought for Cynthia for a lark. Now I’m feeling unbelievably ridiculous, trying to meet Nathaniel Cummins’s full-on stare while pretending I’m not holding a weapon as we talk about me bashing up his sister. The timing is, as they say, impeccable.
Just as I was leaving the supermarket, I felt a hand on my arm. I turned and, much to my shock, it was him, looking down into my face, not smiling. Needless to say I’m now freaking completely. Not that I show it. I’m very good at closing down when I’m in a sticky situation.
I consider chucking the axe casually into the gutter – pretending that I just picked it up out of curiosity – but I decide it would only draw attention to something he hasn’t even noticed yet. Maybe he won’t ever notice it. But what if he does? I decide I need to get away . . . badly.
‘I remember, you nearly got kicked out of school, didn’t you?’ he says.
‘Yeah.’
‘My parents were really dark, until Dad realised that he knew your father from university.’ He laughs wryly. ‘Then it was all okay. Apparently Dad stayed a few times with your grandmother down in Port Fairy.’
‘Really?’ I ask, pretending I’m interested, looking over at the cars pulling up at the red lights. Right next to us is a neat European sporty number. Why aren’t I in one of those? Speeding off to somewhere with loud music blasting and my hair flying?
Nat looks great in his old jeans and sweatshirt, hair still wet from a shower or a swim. I’m not about to ask which. I decide he is altogether too great for me. I know I was kissing him only a few nights ago, but that all feels too weird now. I’m in this tatty old dress of Dot’s and I smell of chlorine and I have no idea what to say.
It’s true, anyway. Embarrassingly true. In Year Ten Alisha Cummins started giving Zoe the nasty treatment. Zoe has a good singing voice and when she won a part in the school musical over one of Alisha’s friends, they began to pick on her, big time. There were snide comments about her weight and notes in her locker about her clothes, that kind of thing. I took up Zoe’s cause with a vengeance and, well, ended up punching Alisha a couple of times. Big mistake! Of course, I got into a heap of trouble. There were meetings. My parents were hauled up to the school and I had to write apologies to Alisha and her family and . . . all the rest of it. Mum and Dad were amazingly cool about it all. Looking back, I think they were secretly amused. I wasn’t. It was excruciatingly embarrassing for me. Even though it’s a long time ago, I don’t exactly relish being reminded of it.
‘I gotta go,’ I say, turning away.
‘So I take it you had second thoughts about the other night?’ he says coolly, not moving, looking down at his feet. I can’t very well walk away when he’s asked a question like that, so I stop, and look at my own feet. He is wearing old thongs, too, and one of his big toenails is painted blue. I almost comment, but don’t, it seems a way–too-obvious ploy to change the subject.
‘How do you mean?’ I shoot back in my best snooty voice.
‘Well, I rang and you never got back.’
‘Did you?’ I say, still not looking at him.
‘Don’t bullshit me!’ he snaps. ‘You know I did.’
‘No. I don’t, actually!’ His anger sparks my defence mechanisms. I forget, momentarily, about feeling so awkward.
‘What? You never got the message?’ he sneers disbelievingly.
‘Right,’ I say, ‘I didn’t get the message.’ I’m frantically trying to think of what to say without telling him about our family drama. How do you say to someone, Oh, my father did a bunk for another woman the day after I fell for you, so the rest of us didn’t get around to stuff like phone messages . . . I can’t, somehow. I’m ashamed. And I feel raw, exposed, as though I might burst into tears. The truth is, Dot wrapped our house phone in an old blanket and stuffed it in a cupboard under the stairs. I saw her do it. She has always had a bizarre anti-phone stance – she is the only person I know without a mobile. But Mum wouldn’t take calls, and Cynthia just groaned whenever it rang, then walked out of the room. The sound of it ringing was starting to drive me nuts too, so I didn’t object.
Nat looks away, shakes his head and shrugs. I can tell he doesn’t know whether to believe me or not.
‘So, you’re walking home?’ he asks at last.
‘Yep.’
‘I’ll walk with you?’
‘Okay,’ I say. We head through crowds of kids just out of school, and then cross the road. Neither of us speaks again until we hit the side street leading up to our house.
‘Did you get your results?’ he wants to know.
‘Yeah.’
‘Do well?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well enough to get into . . . Law?’
‘Yeah,’ I nod.
He turns to me with a small smile.
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Alisha did very well too.’
‘Oh good,’ I say, because I’m operating on automatic pilot at this stage. ‘What course does she want to do?’ I’m expecting he’ll say Art or Design. Alisha is really gifted in that area. It used to make Zoe and me puke to see her stuff pinned up around the school corridors, but, once we’d blanked out who did those paintings and clay sculptures, we had to grudgingly admit her stuff was streaks ahead of anyone else’s. She’s talented, much as it pains me to say.
‘Same as you,’ Nat says.
‘What?!’ I can’t have heard right. ‘You mean . . .?’
‘Arts/Law,’ he says shortly, as though it’s nothing.
‘But . . .’ I can’t keep the outrage out of my voice, ‘why?’ I am truly horrified by this piece of information. He shrugs as though he couldn’t care less.
‘Dad’s influence,’ he says, glancing at a car that has just pulled up. ‘It’s sort of a family thing.’ He grins. ‘I’m the big disappointment doing Veterinary Science.’
‘She’ll do it at Melbourne?’
‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘assuming she gets in.’
I say nothing, but I’m suddenly so . . . unbelievably flat. Law? So where is the big deal in it? It suddenly doesn’t
seem anything special at all. In fact, it seems boring and predictable. Me and Alisha. Two little private school girls doing Law like our daddies! Yawn. Hiss. Boo. What’s interesting about it? Absolutely nothing.
‘Hey Rose?’ He stops. We are a block from my house and I am so dying to get away that I almost walk on and leave him there. There is no point to him and me anyway, so why drag it out?
‘Get over it, why don’t you?’ he says.
‘What?’ I turn around and look into his face.
‘The thing with my sister.’ He shrugs and gives me one of his charming open grins. ‘It’s in the past now,’ he goes on, ‘forget it. I know she has.’
Suddenly, that careless, handsome grin seems so contrived. Like the one his sister used to throw about when she wanted something to go her way. That kind of ploy runs in families, I reckon. Pretty boy! He knows he’s gorgeous. I make up my mind then and there that I’m going to be the one chick in his charmed, predictable life who isn’t going to fall for it! It takes me a moment to realise what he has just said. Get over it. I know she has.
Oh yeah? I think darkly. Like bloody hell she has! What about the party? Staring at me through those slitty, knowing eyes? She hates my guts. There are a few moments of awkward silence.
‘Don’t lecture me,’ I say in a low, sharp voice.
‘Whoa!’ I’ve taken him by surprise. ‘Hang on! I’m not lecturing.’
‘You’re telling me what to think!’
There is a stand-off for a few moments. Then he sighs and shakes his head and smiles like he’s a bit baffled.
‘Listen, Rose, I know she’s difficult but . . . she’s my little sister.’
‘Yeah, I understand that.’
‘So I can’t, like, disown her, can I?’
‘I know that,’ I say shortly, thinking, Why not? I would if she was my sister.
‘So what’s with the axe?’ he grins. ‘You planning on doing someone in on your way home from the shops?’
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