The Scent of Apples

by Jacquie McRae

  A shrill sound rings out from the end of the room. I look at my watch and see that it is already ten to five.

  ‘Hurry up,’ someone shouts out to me as they pass by.

  I stuff my pens back in their case and join the line of girls. We twist and turn our way to the auditorium. The entrance to the foyer is on the other side of the glass office block.

  I get sandwiched between two girls as we try and get through the doors at the same time. I smile at one of them, who looks more like a woman with her bobbed blonde hair and red lipstick.

  ‘What year are you in?’ she asks.

  ‘Year nine.’

  ‘Well, year nines go last.’ She tuts like I’m some idiot from the bush. I look around at the swarm of girls as they push past me. I have no way of knowing who’s in what year. Many of them have lipstick and mascara on, making them seem way older than me. None of them seem to notice my existence.

  A clap of hands and a ‘That’s enough, girls’ from the front of the hall is enough to stop most of the noise from nearly two hundred girls. Behind the podium stands a tall lady. Her hair is dead straight and clipped back at the base of her neck. Her hairstyle highlights a strong jaw line and a letterbox mouth. Her hands rest in prayer position on the stand. She waits for absolute silence before continuing.

  ‘Good evening, girls.’

  ‘Good evening, Matron,’ echoes back through the hall.

  ‘I am proud to welcome you all here to Hunterview College for another year of positive learning. To our returning students, I trust you are well rested after the Christmas break and ready to settle back in. To our new students, I hope you take advantage of all the wonderful opportunities our school can offer you. I am a firm believer that you get out of life what you are willing to put in.’

  She scans the room, like a predator stalking its prey.

  ‘Tomorrow is orientation day, and then the next day you will be joined by the day girls. Even though school will officially start on that day, tomorrow I expect to see you in full uniform, and the rule of no makeup and jewellery will apply. You will be assigned to your house groups, if you don’t already have one. Tonight you are on free time, but when you wake in the morning, I expect you to be ready for the serious business of learning. Our aim is to have you all leave here with a toolbox full of the right equipment for you to become valued members of society. Dismissed.’

  The racket that two hundred pairs of feet make as they thunder across a concrete floor is like the migration of wildebeest across the Serengeti. I follow people in front of me out of the building and back to the dormitory.

  The rest of the night moves like it has a walking frame. I’m stoked when the lights go out at nine. Girls who are perched on the ends of other girls’ beds scurry like rats back to their own beds. In the dark, whispered words are followed by giggles, and then someone yells out ‘Shut up!’

  The bed across from me remains empty. Forty girls sleep beside me, and yet I feel like I’m the only person on the planet.

  I bury my head in my pillow to muffle the sounds of my crying. I can’t be homesick: the home where I felt safe and loved no longer exists. Pull yourself together, Libby. Stop crying.

  My fingers search among the strands of my hair like they’re seeking an old friend. The promise I made to myself – to not pull one hair out once I got to my new school – I break on my first night.

  *

  I’m still tangled up in my night dreams when I’m woken by the shrill ringing of a bell. Beside me on my pillow are strands of hair. I grab them, throw a dressing gown around myself, put them in my pocket and make my way to the bathroom.

  Girls are already lined up in front of the mirrors. I panic when I see that all the toilet and shower stalls are full. The smell of deodorants and perfume is nauseating. I walk slowly back to my cubicle.

  I tip biscuits from a tin that mum had bought on the way to school into the rubbish. I take the hair from my pocket, place it in the tin, put it inside my suitcase and then slide that as far under my bed as it will go.

  Out my window, I see girls making their way to the dining hall. I grab my uniform and head back to the bathroom. It’s emptied out a little bit. One toilet stall is free. The space is tiny, and I struggle in the cramped space to put my uniform on.

  My blouse falls into a puddle of water on the floor about the same time the ten-minute bell rings for breakfast. I shake the blouse and put it on wet. My fingers shake as I tie my hair into a French braid and place the beret on top. I check my hair in the mirror on my way past, and pull the hat down a little lower.

  I race along the path to the dining hall, holding on to the top of my hat. I stop to catch my breath before pushing open the doors into the dining hall. The noise inside is deafening. Like the high-pitched sound that cicadas make in the summer when the males are trying to attract a mate.

  Long trestle tables stretch the length of the hall in seven rows. I have to walk the length of the room to the serving area at the top. An assortment of large plastic bowls line the buffet table. Most only have remnants of cereal in them, but one has a few plums floating in juice. I hate canned plums, but rather than look like a dick, I ladle them into my bowl.

  I take the nearest empty seat and disturb several people as I clamber into my chair. I keep my head down and concentrate on spooning the plums into my mouth. When I raise my eyes, the girls opposite are glaring at me.

  Someone clears their throat behind me. I turn to see the girl that had pronounced me weird yesterday standing behind my chair.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I mumble. I wipe away the juice from the plums that has dribbled down my chin. ‘Is this your seat?’

  ‘Duh, yeah.’

  I quickly stand up.

  ‘Why would anyone wear a wet blouse?’ one of them sniggers as I move away. I carry my bowl around the room like a church collection plate before deciding to flag breakfast. I leave it half-eaten on a table on my way out.

  Back in the empty dormitory, I throw myself on my bed. This time I don’t try to disguise my crying. I sob into my pillow. I don’t want to be here. I want to be in heaven or wherever the hell it is you go to when you die.

  Chapter Eight

  The thudding of bags being dumped on the floor announces the arrival of my room mate.

  I’m curled up on my bed facing the wall. I look over my shoulder and see a Māori girl with crazy black curly hair. The emerald green of her eyes doesn’t look real.

  ‘Bloody hell. This place looks like a dump.’ She holds onto the dividing wall and uses it to swing back out the door.

  ‘Yep, number five. This is me.’

  I sway my legs to the side of the bed and smooth out some of the creases in my clothes.

  ‘Hi, I’m Charlie.’

  ‘Hi, I’m Libby.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Libby. Actually, technically I’m Charlotte. Mum got a spot of brain freeze when she had me. All my brothers and sisters are named after some heroic ancestor and I got lumped with a name from a romance novel. I get shit about it all the time.’

  I don’t know what to say. I find myself staring at her like an imbecile, and have to check that my bottom jaw isn’t hanging loose.

  She doesn’t seem to notice as she paces around the room. She bounces on the bed, to check the springs. She pulls open and then shuts the drawers on the side cabinet.

  ‘There’s no way this dormitory matches the pictures on the brochure. We’ve been ripped off, Libby.’

  An attempt at a smile is all I manage.

  For the first time since she got here she stops moving and looks at me.

  ‘Cheer up. This place looks dead easy to run away from. There’s no barbed wire on the fences. It’s not like jail. They can’t make us stay here if we don’t want to.’

  This time I manage a nod.

  Charlie takes some clothes from a well-worn rucksack. They look like they have been stuffed in rather than packed.

  ‘So, where is home if you need to run there?’ s
he says, as she crams handfuls of clothes into the small drawers.

  ‘Not far away.’

  ‘Me either. I live in Whāingaroa.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of Whāingaroa; where is it?’

  ‘Raglan. Where the sun’s always shining and the fish are always biting. I get to fall asleep to the sounds of the ocean.’

  ‘That sounds nice.’

  ‘Yeah, it is. I’d still be there if some dumb-arse teacher hadn’t told Mum how smart she thought I was. If I was smart, I would have failed the bloody scholarship exam that got me sent here.’

  Charlie pulls some things out from the bottom of her rucksack. She tips photographs from a brown envelope onto her mattress and sticks a blob of Blu-Tack on the back of each picture. She stands on her bed and begins sticking photos along the wall, making a snake chain.

  One old sepia photograph, the edges well worn, shows a Māori man with a full moko. Groups of spiralling lines wrap around his cheeks and onto his chin. Separate lines follow the arch of his brow. Charlie takes a step back when she’s finished and admires her handiwork.

  I don’t know how long Matron has been standing at the edge of our cubicle before she lets us know she’s there.

  ‘You must be the new girl? The one who missed our assembly last night?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Sorry about that.’ Charlie is still standing on her bed, and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. ‘It was such a good day for fishing yesterday that Koro and I got carried away. We did go out early, but we got on to a spot just as we were coming in. We figured it wouldn’t matter too much if I came today.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have made everyone turn up yesterday, if it didn’t matter. Charlotte, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yep, but I prefer Charlie.’

  ‘We like to use people’s proper names here. If you had bothered to turn up, one of the things you would have learnt is that we value structure. Knowing when and how to do things keeps people focused. And respect for school property. You can start right now, Charlotte, by getting off that bed.’

  Charlotte jumps from the bed and lands a foot away from Matron.

  ‘We want you to feel at home, but we have to have rules,’ Matron continues. ‘Cluttering your rooms with paraphernalia is not something we will tolerate.’ She nods her head towards the wall. ‘I expect to see one photograph on your wall tomorrow.’ She practically clicks her heels and marches from our room.

  ‘Jesus. That woman could do with a nice cup of poison.’

  I grin.

  ‘I bet you she’s got a copy of Mein Kampf under her pillow.’

  I giggle. Charlie’s arrival is like a warm breeze on a cold day.

  ‘Come on, Libby. Let’s go check on those boundary fences.’ She pulls me up before I have a chance to protest.

  I look at her unmade bed with clothes and toiletries strewn over the top of it, and hope Matron doesn’t come back before we do.

  Charlie zigzags her way across the various pathways. We end up at the southern part of the school. An old villa on the edge of the school grounds houses the library. The rooms, filled with light and the warm smell of rubbed kauri floorboards, seem at odds with the rest of the school.

  I inhale the comforting smell of the books. I’ve always found shelter in between the pages of books. Just lately, though, I’ve noticed that every time I read, I end up pulling my hair out. I lose myself in the story, and my fingers, like traitors, head off by themselves, searching for a victim.

  I sink down into one of the well-worn armchairs, placed by a bay window. The sun streams in and rests on my face. Charlie darts from room to room, picking out books from the shelves and introducing them to me as you would a best friend. I don’t know if there’s a limit on how many times you get to say, ‘This is my favourite book,’ but she definitely goes over it if there is.

  We both leave the library with books tucked under each arm. On the way back to the dormitory, Charlie stops outside the art room.

  ‘I just have to run in here for a minute. Won’t be a sec.’

  Through the window, I watch as Charlie introduces herself. She makes a few wild hand gestures and makes the teacher laugh. She comes out carrying a large piece of white cardboard.

  ‘She’s the first friendly adult I’ve met in the whole place. I seemed to piss off the ladies in the office just by arriving late.’

  I’ve never met anyone like Charlie, who didn’t seem to weigh up her words before she spoke them.

  Most of the cubicles were empty when we left the dormitory, but now noise and girls spill from most of them.

  ‘Hiya,’ Charlie calls out to several girls as she strolls down the centre of the room.

  Back in our cubicle, I stack the books up on the bedside table. Charlie takes down her photographs from the wall. She lays the poster-sized bit of cardboard on the bare floorboards and sits cross-legged before it. She tilts her head from side to side as she arranges her photographs on it.

  ‘This is my Uncle Tai,’ she says, holding up a photograph of a slender Māori guy. His hair, swept back and tied in a pony tail, and suntanned face make him look like he doesn’t have a care in the world. ‘He can’t fish to save himself but we let him on board the boat so we have someone to pull the anchor in.’

  She places the photo on the poster and shows me another one. ‘This is my Aunt Amelia. You can tumble down the hill from our house to hers. She makes the best fried bread, and she always has something boiling on her stove.’

  The largest photo, a grainy black and white one, shows ten children lined up outside the front of a church. Brown skinny legs and grazed knees poke out from under the lace petticoats of two of the girls. The boys look uncomfortable in their collared shirts with the top button done up. Several of the children have the same crazy curls as Charlie.

  ‘That’s my Koro with his brothers and sisters.’

  She points to the smallest one in the group. He has his thumbs in his ears and his tongue poking out.

  ‘He reckons he got in heaps of trouble when they got the photo developed, but I doubt it.’ She picks up another one and strokes the photo as she pins it to the centre of her board. ‘This is my Dad. He drowned on the Whāingaroa Bar, six years ago. A month before my twin brothers were born.’

  ‘Oh Charlie, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’

  I see the tears pool in her eyes. I take the photograph from under my pillow and hand it to her. ‘This is my poppa. He died last year.’

  She studies the photo and then hands it back to me. ‘He looks like a nice man.’

  ‘Yeah, he was.’ I tuck it under my pillow. This is the first time I’ve told anybody that my poppa died, and I’m surprised that I haven’t disintegrated because of it.

  I receive a running commentary on each photograph as they get pinned to the board. Like the books in the library, each person is Charlie’s favourite. Her poster completed, Charlie stands on her bed and hangs it on the wall.

  ‘I hope Matron likes my one photo.’ She winks at me.

  In that blink of an eyelid, I catch a glimpse of what friendship might feel like. I smile back, and the warmth that spreads through me is something I haven’t felt since the day Poppa died.

  Chapter Nine

  Charlie and I both have geography first period. We are dwarfed by the classrooms as we scuttle along the narrow alleyways that link them.

  Whoever did the brochure for the school should receive some sort of award for deception. The room shown in the brochure was filled with light, and had modern work-stations instead of desks. I’ve glimpsed that room through a window. It’s the year thirteen common room, and off limits for every other year. Most of the classrooms still have metal radiators attached to the walls.

  I follow Charlie to seats at the back of the geography classroom. Ms Henrik is our teacher. Her ample bosom wobbles as she scrawls her name on the whiteboard. Her chest also conceals a massive set of lungs. She bellows out to us, ‘The correct pronunciation is Henreek, not
Henrick. Listen carefully, as I’ll be explaining what I expect from you all in the term ahead. Today is the day to ask questions if you have any.’

  Charlie slides a note across to me. I stare straight ahead as I unravel the folds. I glance down and read: Same training school as Matron. We’re over the wall at lunchtime if they’re all like this.

  I grin back as I slip my first note into my blazer pocket. Ms Henrik has a small bell, which she tinkles all through our lesson. We soon learn the system of demerit points. Over twenty in one lesson and the whole class has to come back at the end of the day.

  The rest of my day races by as I run from one classroom to the next. I’m grateful when the three o’clock bell rings, signalling the end of classes. I traipse up the stairs to the boarding house.

  Geography is the only class that Charlie and I had together today. She is already in our cubicle by the time I get back. She lies on the bed with her shoes on and stares at the ceiling.

  ‘That cow took my picture down,’ she says as soon as she sees me.

  I look at the blank wall above her bed.

  ‘She’s such a bitch. I mean, what sort of person has a problem with a kid having a few photos around? I just want to go and punch her in the face. What do you reckon, Libby?’

  I can see that she’s close to crying. I sit down on my bed and take my shoes and socks off while I try and think of something reassuring to say. I’m so used to people not asking my opinion these days that it comes as a shock to me that I might still have one.

  ‘Well,’ I force myself to look at Charlie, and take in a big breath of courage to carry on. ‘I think we can rule out the punch.’

  Charlie lifts up one side of her mouth into a smile.

  ‘She may have removed your family pictures, but the way that you talked about them last night makes me believe that you don’t need a picture to remind you of them. I think you carry them inside you all the time.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. I close my eyes and there they are.’

  ‘Exactly. Matron wants to upset you because you upset her. Don’t let her have that satisfaction.’