The Protected

by Claire Zorn

  I found a hardcover edition of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, printed in 1962 – the year my dad was born. It was one of those ones with gilt-edged pages they used to print books on, as if to signal that the words between the covers were important, significant. Useful.

  I sat in the corner, between book-lined shelves and leafed through the book. Whoever had once owned it had treated it as though it were precious. My dad had stacks of books in his study, lots of Hemingway. But I hadn’t seen him with a book in his hands for years. His birthday wasn’t for another three months but I bought the book, cleared my bank account. Merilyn, the shop-owner, wrapped it in moss-green tissue paper. It’s still in that tissue paper, wrapped up and tucked in my bottom drawer.

  I left the store and lingered for a moment on the footpath, near some tables of the café next door. I was trying to fit the book in my bag when a waiter came out to take an order from a table. It was Jensen’s voice that I first recognised. Pathetic, really. (Me, that is. Not his voice, it was somewhere between Hugh Jackman and ultimate fantasy Heathcliff.) The woman on the table said something to him and he laughed, tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. He was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt which, can I say, fitted him quite well. Jensen finished taking the order and slipped his notepad into his back pocket before turning towards me to clear a pile of empty plates from another table. I like to think there’s a chance I wasn’t actually drooling when he saw me.

  ‘Hannah!’ That smile again. Warm doesn’t quite cover it. ‘How you doing?’

  ‘Hi. Good.’

  ‘What you up to?’

  ‘Bookstore. I was in the bookstore.’

  ‘I love that place. Bit dangerous working right next to it.’

  ‘Ha. Yeah.’

  ‘Hey, you want a coffee? I’ll make you one. On the house. Sit down.’

  I sat. He went inside and re-emerged a few minutes later with two squat glasses of coffee. The truth is I had never even drunk coffee before. It was creamy, rich, bitter and sweet all at once. Jensen sat opposite me. Sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck.

  ‘Started at six this morning. Hectic.’

  ‘Ha. Yeah. I hate that.’ This coming from someone who had never even had a job at Maccas.

  ‘You buy anything?’ He nodded towards the bookshop.

  ‘Oh. Um. Yeah.’ Use your words, Hannah. ‘A Hemingway, old hardback copy. For my dad.’

  ‘Lucky him.’

  ‘Ha. Yeah.’

  ‘Been reading a fair bit of Hemingway at uni. We’re getting well acquainted.’

  Seriously, what guy uses the word ‘acquainted’?

  ‘Yeah, Kate said.’

  ‘She mentioned you were into reading. Well, she used the word obsessed, if I’m going to be honest.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess.’

  ‘What you in to?’

  ‘Oh. Me? Austen, the Brontes. If it was written by someone wearing a bonnet, I’ve probably read it.’

  He laughed. ‘What’s your fave Austen? I’ve always been a Persuasion man myself.’

  If Jane Austen herself had come and sat down with us at that point I’m not sure I would have noticed. What guy reads Persuasion?

  ‘How is Kate? I know she’s stressing about doing the HSC this year.’

  ‘The HSC?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He looked at me, a little crease formed between his eyebrows. ‘She’s doing the HSC this year.’

  It took me a beat too long. I wasn’t as good at it as she was.

  ‘Oh, um …’

  The frown progressed. I sipped my coffee. I would have changed the topic except anything more than yes or no answers seemed beyond me.

  ‘Hannah?’ His mouth curved into an almost-grin that didn’t match his eyes. ‘Kate is in year twelve, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s in year eleven. She’ll be sixteen next month.’

  He dropped his gaze to the table. ‘Well, I bet you think I’m just about the creepiest guy in the universe. Fifteen. In my defence, that’s not what she told me.’

  Fourteen was clearly out of the question, in that case.

  ‘No, I don’t think … you’re creepy.’

  ‘Well, I’m starting to … Hey, I’ve got to get back to it. It’s been a pleasure, Hannah. As always.’

  He stood up, gave a quick smile and cleared away the glasses.

  ***

  Sixteen

  Katie’s role models (from pictures stuck on her corkboard):

  *Tavi Gevinson

  *Vivienne Westwood

  *Kurt Cobain

  *Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)

  *Kate Moss

  *Alexa Chung

  *Our mum (I’m not sure I believe that, she probably added Mum’s picture to make herself seem less superficial)

  I know she’s gone, of course. But it’s those little reflexes that get me. Scanning for her face on the bus after school, or expecting the bathroom door to be locked for ages in the mornings while she did her hair and make-up. I can only imagine what it’s like for Mum. When she actually cooks dinner she always makes enough for four. I’ve seen her standing at the sink after dinner, staring at the remaining portion on the bench, like she wants to cover it in clingwrap and put it in the fridge for Katie.

  Anne asks me to tell her what exactly the Clones used to do to me. I tell her how the graffiti about me being a lesbian went on for months and months, then everyone got bored with that and found new ways to hate me. It was still going at the start of year ten. Once you’re targeted like that it just sticks. I guess every year group chooses someone to heap their crap on. They chose me.

  ***

  The morning that changed everything started out like every other. Katie and I left home to walk to the bus stop at twenty to eight. She was pissed at me because she thought I had told Mum she hadn’t eaten any breakfast.

  ‘You’re a suck up.’ She walked up ahead, yelling at me over her shoulder. ‘Like it’s any of your business, anyway.’

  ‘Katie, I swear, I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘Yeah? How did she know I threw it out? She was upstairs. You think she went through the rubbish?’

  ‘Katie, I didn’t say anything.’

  She stopped walking, turned around.

  ‘Listen, you want to screw up your life by being a suck? Go for it. Just don’t sabotage me while you’re at it.’

  ‘I didn’t. But, you should eat breakfast, Katie.’

  ‘And what would you know, lard arse? You know, she’s going to sit there from now on and watch me eat it. Because of you. Coach says I should slim down. What do you want me to do?’

  We both knew that was bullshit. Her expression had changed from one of fury to something else, something softer. Really, I should have guessed what was coming next.

  ‘Look. You have to cover for me with Mum and Dad. I’m not going to school.’

  ‘What?’

  She dropped her backpack and released her hair from the clip that was holding it up, shook it out over her shoulders. ‘Jensen’s picking me up.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yeah. Don’t look at me like that, Hannah. He’s picking me up. You’re going to write me a fake note next week and say I was at the dentist. Thanks. So I’ll see you this arvo, okay? I’ll meet you here at the bus stop. I’ll walk home with you.’

  I stood alone at the bus stop until the bus came up the road. When I got on there were only a few seats left up the front. I chose one, stowed my bag on the floor, by my feet. The bus doors closed and we lurched onto the road.

  The bus drove down the street and rounded a corner. It pulled into another stop. Amy got on, her pixie hair newly bleached, tiny pearl nose-stud. It looked like a ripe pimple, not that anyone would ever say that to her. She looked at me and smirked as she walked past, down the aisle. She w
as followed by Jared, the year twelve guy whom Tara and Amy seemed to share between them. He casually stooped down and picked up my backpack as he went by and carried it with him up the back of the bus.

  ‘Did you try asking for it back?’ my mum would ask later, exasperated. As if Jared had picked it up by mistake. I didn’t ask for it back, if you’ve ever been in a situation like mine, you would know that. I stared straight ahead, the leaden swell of dread growing in my stomach. Maybe they would give my bag back. Maybe they would just drop it on the ground when they got off the bus, maybe they wouldn’t go through my stuff. Maybe if I just concentrated hard enough I could squeeze my eyes shut and just cease to exist altogether.

  There was laughter from the back of the bus.

  ‘Awwww, gross!’ said Jared loudly. I made the mistake of turning around. Jared had opened my bag and was holding up a packet of Libra pads. ‘You got your period, Lezzo?’ he asked. The whole bus cracked up. Jared put the packet back in my bag, zipped it up. ‘Don’t worry, Pig Dog. All safe and sound.’ He gave my bag a little pat.

  When we got to school everyone filed off the bus. Jared, Tara, Amy and the little back-seat posse were the last to get off. I stood next to the bus, waiting for them; maybe they would just give me my bag back and be done with it. Amy, Tara and Jared got off. Jared held my bag high over his head as he went past me. Another bus had pulled in and was spewing out students. The bus bay was crowded and Jared had successfully made sure all eyes were on him. He and Amy started their walk up the path, towards the gates, ahead of the pack. I could see him, still holding the bag up, reaching in, grabbing each item one by one and tossing them on the ground by the path.

  I trailed along after them, picking everything up. Science textbook, Science exercise book, pencil case (contents scattered), school diary, History textbook, History exercise book, wallet, mobile (screen shattered), keys, lunchbox (contents scattered). There was too much to carry. Things slipped from my arms, falling back to the ground. I didn’t cry. Maybe it was like when you go into shock after an accident and can’t feel any pain. There was no feeling inside of me.

  They hadn’t left my bag so I had to carry all my stuff to the school office and ask the office ladies if I could have a plastic bag. I told them mine had broken. When I arrived at my locker, there were all the pads, opened, stuck all over the locker door. Aside from the humiliation, I was left with a practical problem. My period was heavy that day. In my mind I saw a picture of me, blood all over my skirt and my seat. Maybe then they’d all stop the crap about me being a guy.

  I peeled all the pads from my locker and put them in the bin.

  I was in the corridor – after Science, on my way to English – when I passed Charlotte. (I had just finished explaining to my Science teacher why I hadn’t done my Science homework. I didn’t tell her my Science homework had been spat on and was now on the path to the bus bay.) I didn’t even bother looking at her as we passed, but she grabbed my hand and pressed something into my palm, so fast that I barely understood what had happened. I turned and saw her walking away amongst the stream of students without a look back.

  I went to my English class and took my seat. When I opened my hand I saw that she had passed me a tampon.

  At lunchtime – in a toilet cubicle with ‘Hannah McCann has a dick’ written on the walls – I tried to remember the instructions I had once read in Dolly magazine.

  ‘Try to relax, otherwise it will be more uncomfortable.’ Otherwise it will be more uncomfortable. Otherwise it will be more uncomfortable. More uncomfortable.

  And the pain was the sharpest thing I had ever felt.

  ***

  Seventeen

  My role models:

  *Jane Austen

  *Charlotte Bronte

  *Emily Bronte

  *Miles Franklin

  *Virginia Woolf

  *Mary Shelley

  *Elizabeth Bennet (do fictional people count?)

  If I could change one thing, just one, what would I change?

  It’s the question that keeps me awake at night. I can’t even be honest with myself. The answer should be so obvious.

  What kind of person does that make me?

  *

  Lunch. I am sitting on the veranda down at the ag plot, same as usual. The air is oven-dry. The cicadas are going nuts and I can’t even drown them out with Katie’s iPod. Today I am listening to song number five-hundred and thirty-eight, The Cure, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ while I contemplate a particularly unappealing sandwich.

  Ten minutes later I feel the vibration of the veranda moving. Josh wanders around the corner, drops his bag next to mine.

  ‘Afternoon, Jane.’

  ‘Hello.’ I pull an earphone out.

  ‘Jeez, what have you got there?’ he asks, eyeing my ham sandwich. ‘That looks delicious.’

  The butter has seeped into the bread and dried to a pus-yellow. I’m pretty sure the ham is almost a week old. Josh pulls a juice box from his bag, tosses it in my direction. The swirly purple writing declares the juice to be ‘The Taste of Summer’. I thank him, pierce the straw through the hole and take a sip.

  ‘I already had a pie with my mates. You should come sit with us. Not all guys, there’s girls too.’ Josh picks up a pebble, squints, pulls his arm back and pelts it into the paddock. ‘Hey, haven’t seen you at the pool for PE. You been wagging?’

  ‘No. I had something else on.’

  He frowns.

  I hesitate. ‘I have to … um, I have to go see the school … the school counsellor.’

  ‘Ohhhh, because you’re crazy … I’m joking. That’s a fair excuse.’ He picks up another pebble, pitches it towards the paddock. It arcs high into the sky and lands in the grass without a sound. ‘You ever caught a yabby?’

  ‘Can’t say I have.’

  ‘There’s a dam down there,’ he nods towards the gully. ‘Full of yabbies.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s common knowledge amongst truants. Some say the success of the yabby population is due to the dedicated feeding of the yabbies by the truants.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘We should go catch some.’

  ‘Truants?’

  He laughs. ‘Yabbies. You can catch them with string.’

  ‘And do what with them?’

  ‘Nothing. Just catch ’em.’

  ‘The bell’s going to go in five minutes. I’ve got History.’

  He makes a face and puts on a ridiculously high voice, ‘Oh no! I mustn’t miss History class. Oh! Oh!’

  I throw a twig at him and miss pathetically. He stands up and lifts his bag over his shoulder.

  ‘Well, see ya, Jane. I’m goin’ a yabby huntin’.’

  Without even a glance at me he jumps off the ledge of the veranda and begins to stride away, towards the taut wire fence of the paddock. He ducks down, swings his legs through, keeps walking.

  ‘Wait.’ I stand up. ‘I’m coming, okay? I’m coming.’

  ‘Hurry up then,’ he yells over his shoulder.

  It is cooler down amongst the trees. And shrill with the sound of cicadas. March flies, their backs gleaming purple, dot the clay banks of the dam. Dragonflies dip at the surface of the flat milky-brown water. It’s only when I hear the bell sound that I remember how close we still are to the school.

  ‘You still got that sandwich?’ Josh asks, taking a length of string from his pocket.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Perfect, can I have it?’

  He makes a loop in the end of the string, holds his hand out for the sandwich.

  ‘Are you going to catch yabbies with my ham sandwich?’

  ‘We’ll see. They might not go for it. Wouldn’t be surprised.’

  I hand it to him, he fiddles with the string and then tosses the bait out into the middle of the po
nd. He crouches down at the water’s edge, the end of the string between his thumb and forefinger. I sit down further back from the bank. Josh niggles at the line. He has very long fingers with clean, clipped nails. I can imagine him making things, sanding wood.

  ‘I’m supposed to go up and stay with my dad next holidays, he lives in Queensland.’

  ‘How long have your parents been divorced?’

  ‘Two years. Dad lives on the Gold Coast with some woman called Sonia. Total bitch. I don’t see them much, but. Last time I went up I totally pissed Dad off and he told me not to come back.’

  ‘He probably doesn’t mean it.’

  ‘He totally does.’

  He doesn’t say anything for a minute, but his ears turn pink. We sit in silence and watch the water.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he says eventually. ‘Sonia is an absolute bitch. Like, literally a total bitch.’

  ‘Literally? Your dad’s girlfriend is a female dog?’

  ‘Ha. You know what? You’re a smart-arse.’

  ‘Literally?’

  He throws a pebble at me, grins. ‘Get stuffed.’

  A cool breeze winds up from the bottom of the gully, dislodging stray gum leaves. They sail down to the ground, speckle the dam.

  ‘My sister’s been dead a year next week,’ I say, without really knowing why.

  Josh pulls at the line ever so gently. He hooks a stray lock of hair behind his ear. ‘Must feel weird,’ he says.

  ‘It does. It feels like a really long and a really short time. I don’t know how that works.’

  ‘I’ve never known anyone who has died. Even my grandparents are all still kicking on. Guess I’m lucky.’

  ‘Your parents got divorced. That’s like somebody dying. I think, anyway.’

  He looks at me. Green eyes. He nods. ‘You know, you are exactly right. No one ever says that, though. They just spin you all this bullshit about how they’re actually splitting so you’ll be more happy.’

  The string in his hand tugs and goes taut. Slowly Josh stands up. He starts to reel it in, eyes on the water. ‘Were you hurt, in the accident?’

  ‘Whiplash, a broken ankle. I was in the back.’