P is for Pearl

by Eliza Henry Jones

  ‘They get good bands in!’ Tyrone said, wounded.

  ‘Go on!’ Martin waved his arms. ‘Get out of here!’

  ‘Goodbye, Martin,’ I said, waving as Tyrone shoved me into the back seat of his car.

  On the way home, Loretta chuckled. ‘You know,’ she said. ‘You’re not quite as bad as I thought you were. I mean, you’re still pretty bad. But not that bad.’

  ‘He is!’ I said.

  By the time we reached home, it was dark and still, and I unbuckled my belt as Tyrone was stopping and took myself across the road to the beach, where I sat in the sand. I heard Tyrone’s heavy footfalls disappearing up onto the verandah and into the house. Loretta was picking her way across the beach to me.

  ‘A boy drowned in the cove,’ I told her. ‘He drowned saving his little sister and brother.’

  ‘That’s terrible, Gwen,’ she said. And I knew she was thinking about Jamie. That we both were. She didn’t sound surprised. Maybe she’d known about the cove all along. Loretta would do a lot to protect me. Sometimes I loved that about her and sometimes it drove me crazy.

  I nodded and sighed. ‘I don’t think I want to run there anymore.’

  Neither of us spoke for a moment. And I imagined I could hear Biddy and Dad and Tyrone bustling around inside the house. Wishing that it was my mum in there, my mum and Jamie. Then I felt really bad because then there would be no Evie. Why couldn’t I have all three of them?

  A big wave crested. ‘Mermaid,’ I said.

  Another wave crested. A flash of white against the heaving darkness. ‘Mermaid,’ Loretta said.

  ‘They could be there,’ I said to Loretta, who sat down next to me and stroked my hair.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, although I don’t think she really understood what I meant. ‘They could be.’

  ***

  FROM THE DIARY OF GWENDOLYN P. PEARSON

  Tyrone started getting pocket money a year after we moved in together. I’d always got pocket money, mostly because Mum didn’t always remember to make my school lunches and Dad was too busy with work. Tyrone threw tantrums and begged and cried for that pocket money until Biddy gave in.

  And a week later, there was an old CD on my bed. It was from the op shop. I could tell from the smell of it. From the scratched case. Mum had loved the local op shop. Most of my clothes, and Jamie’s, too, had been from that big, musty store.

  And the CD was filled with the sound of soaring violin and I would’ve cried, except I’d stopped crying. So, I just sat next to the CD player and shook. And Tyrone peeped into the room, almost shyly.

  ‘He would’ve played just like that, if he’d gotten older. Jamie, I mean,’ Tyrone said, and then ducked back out into the hallway.

  Evie started bellowing somewhere else in the house and I closed my eyes. And I imagined myself away. I imagined myself into a future where Jamie’s fingers had grown up enough to make these sounds, this music.

  From time to time, there’d be CDs on my bed. Always violin. Sometimes classical and sometimes Celtic. Fiddle, Mum’s favourite. As awful as Tyrone was to me over the years we’d lived together, there were always those perfect CDs.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I woke up thinking of my mum’s mother. My grandma. Every part of me crawling like I’d just had a nightmare. She died when I was younger, right before Mum became her most chaotic. I didn’t remember her as being very happy, but Dad always said she was. All things considered, I guess.

  Loretta shifted next to me and opened her eyes. ‘Nightmare?’

  ‘Yeah.’ ‘Nightmare’ didn’t feel like the right word, though. It was like everything I’d been ignoring had suddenly welled up, like a cresting wave.

  Loretta dozily grabbed my bruised hand and squeezed it. I flinched at the tightness of her fingers. ‘Remember the time we were twelve and saw those ladies on the beach who were dressed as mermaids?’

  ‘Yeah.’ It had been Clunes Beach, in the middle of summer. It had been packed and in among the crowds there’d been two ladies kitted up as mermaids, rolling around in the shallows. For a moment, just a tiny, little moment, I’d let myself believe that they were Mum and Jamie. Finally. Coming in from the ocean to collect me.

  ‘I reckon we could make outfits like that,’ Loretta said, her voice thick and sleepy.

  I rested my head on her shoulder. I felt myself relaxing. ‘How?’ I asked. ‘Neither of us can sew!’

  ‘We could learn.’ Her eyes were closed. ‘There’re classes down at the community centre and there’s this shimmery fabric I found at Craigsville.’

  ‘What colour?’

  ‘They had blue and green. But the green was an olive sort of green, not bright or anything.’

  ‘My mum bought all this beautiful fabric,’ I said, really quietly. ‘It’s in the spare room ’cause it didn’t fit in my wardrobe. And she was going to make me a tail for my birthday, a real mermaid’s tail.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Loretta, her voice slurred and heavy. She yawned. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Can we nap a bit longer? I’m knackered.’

  ‘Yeah, alright.’

  She drifted off and I thought about it, whether we could cut the fabric into the shape of tails. Whether they would need zips. Loretta was still holding my hand as I slowly nodded off back to sleep.

  ***

  By the time I woke up again, it was nearly eight-thirty and Loretta was drinking tea in the kitchen and flipping through a craft magazine with Biddy. They were murmuring about knitting patterns. Both of them loved to knit. It just made me frustrated. I could never work out how to keep the stitches even, how to stop myself from dropping them.

  I sat down at the island bench, which was already chockers with pans and bags.

  ‘We should head off,’ I said.

  Loretta yawned. ‘Yeah, okay.’

  We wandered to Loretta’s without talking and I waited on the porch while she got changed and grabbed her bag, inside. We walked to school side by side, smiling when Glen gave us each an armful of mandarins. Once we were out of sight, we put them into my school bag and I said a silent prayer that they wouldn’t leak all over my school books. Before we got to the gate, Loretta grabbed my hand, her fingers sticky with mandarin juice. ‘It’ll be okay,’ she said.

  ‘What will?’

  She smiled. ‘Everything.’

  Gordon came barrelling up. ‘Let’s go the long way to the lockers,’ he said.

  ‘What? Why? What are you on?’ Loretta snapped, trying to elbow past him. ‘I do not do the long way to anywhere.’

  He whispered something in Loretta’s ear and her expression shifted.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Gordon, too lightly. ‘Let’s just walk this way, okay?’

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Loretta. ‘Just the year-seven kids being stupid.’

  ‘Stupid how?’ I shrugged away from both of them and strode down the hallway of year-seven lockers that was between the school gate and the senior school halls.

  ‘Two people died there,’ one girl was saying. ‘I swear! One was a little boy. Pammy’s family lived there for two months in year five. She swore she saw his ghost.’

  I turned on my heel and started running, dumping my school bag near Loretta and sprinting out the front gates.

  ‘Gwen!’ Loretta roared. Then I heard her yelling at someone to follow me.

  And there were footsteps behind me. And I tried to pull away, but they kept up. Across two blocks of cracked pavement and down a long, narrow street.

  And there it was. Our old house. Weatherboard and concrete and too far from the beach to hear the ocean. I braced myself above the knees and closed my eyes.

  ‘Gwen?’ I felt a hand on my back and jumped away. Running here had felt so vital a few minutes ago, but now that I was here, I didn’t know what to do.

  ‘We need to get back to school,’ I said, wiping at my ey
es.

  Ben was panting and red-faced. He frowned at me. ‘Do you want to talk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is this about the year sevens and their stupid ghost stuff?’

  I didn’t say anything. Furious that he’d come after me. Furious that he kept seeing me during the moments when I was trying my hardest not to fall to pieces.

  We walked slowly back towards the school, but I baulked across the road. ‘I can’t,’ I said.

  ‘Want me to walk you home?’

  ‘I’m fine by myself. You should go. You’ll get in trouble.’ I started walking towards town and I heard him following me.

  ‘I’m still really sorry about the drowning story,’ he said. ‘I wish I’d known. I would’ve kept my trap shut.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘It’s no big deal. It just . . . it just reminded me of some other stuff.’

  I crossed the road to the police station and Ben tensed. ‘What are we doing here?’

  ‘Martin has cookies,’ I said, going inside.

  Martin didn’t look up from his desk. ‘It’s after nine o’clock. You’re a truant.’

  ‘The year sevens were going on about a house being haunted,’ Ben said, coming in after me.

  Martin looked up at me sharply. ‘Lockbank Street?’ he asked me.

  I nodded.

  He winced. ‘You okay?’

  I sat down on the couch. ‘I need biscuits.’

  ‘You need to be at school.’ He frowned at Ben. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Elsa’s nephew.’

  ‘Oh! Of course. Right.’ He scratched his chin. ‘The kids I never run into are always my favourites.’

  ‘You see me all the time,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What a rude thing to say.’

  Suddenly, the door burst open and Loretta appeared, dripping with sweat and panting like she was about to suffocate.

  ‘Are you being chased by something?’ Martin asked her.

  She stumbled over to me. ‘I yelled at them,’ she said. ‘Those stupid year sevens. They’ll never mention it again, okay?’

  ‘How’d you know she’d be here?’ Ben asked.

  Loretta gave him a disgusted look. ‘It’s Martin’s! She always comes here!’

  ‘Technically, it’s the police station,’ Martin muttered.

  ‘It’s not the year sevens’ fault,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts, anyway,’ said Loretta.

  ‘I’m going to get you a drink before you pass out,’ Martin said, heading to the tearoom.

  Loretta grabbed my hand. ‘Besides, if your mum was a ghost, she’d be the poltergeist kind – making things smash and turning the computer on and that sort of thing. Don’t you think?’ Her face was so earnest. ‘Gwennie?’

  I put a hand over my mouth, but I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

  ***

  FROM THE DIARY OF GWENDOLYN P. PEARSON

  When I was really little, I was terrified of ghosts. After my grandma died, I worried she’d haunt us. I worried all the ghosts in the world would haunt us. That they’d wake us in the night. That they’d wail and smother us. That they’d hurt us.

  After Mum and Jamie died, everything changed and I hoped ghosts were real. I’d lie in bed at Biddy’s and close my eyes and wish so hard that my nails dug into my palms. I wanted them to be ghosts so badly. I wanted them to haunt me for the rest of my life.

  But they never came. And so I started imagining them out in the water. It was easier that way. I could always see signs of them, if I wanted to. The waves and froth and the shadows of seaweed and rocks.

  ***

  It was recess by the time we got back to school. A few people looked at us, but most people were tucked up in the library and computer labs.

  ‘I’d better go find Amber,’ said Ben, sounding pretty unenthusiastic.

  ‘There’s something up with Amber,’ I told Loretta, as we settled under the paperbark tree and Gordon sat down next to us.

  ‘Where’d you go?’ Gordon demanded.

  ‘Something like what?’ Loretta asked me, not looking at Gordon.

  ‘Where’d you go?’ Gordon asked, louder this time. ‘I was very lonely. Where’d you go?’

  ‘The way he watches her.’ I swallowed. ‘It’s kind of like how everyone used to watch my mum.’

  ‘Do you think there was something wrong with your mum?’ Loretta asked, very slowly. Gordon moodily bit into his sandwich.

  ‘No,’ I said, really quickly. ‘She was just sad about Jamie. That’s all. But before that, when people didn’t get how unique she was. They’d all look at her the way Ben looks at Amber.’

  Loretta looked at me really closely.

  ‘What?’ I snapped.

  ‘Where’d you go?’ Gordon asked again.

  ‘Gwen and Ben ran to Martin’s,’ said Loretta, opening up her yoghurt. ‘So I ran after them.’

  ‘You did not run to Martin’s! You can barely make it around the oval!’ Gordon scoffed.

  ‘She did,’ I said. ‘She ran all the way to Martin’s.’

  Gordon looked at Loretta. ‘Wow.’

  ‘I can run!’ she said. ‘Don’t look at me like that! I just hate it more than anything else in the world.’

  ‘You hate lots of things more than running,’ Gordon said.

  ‘Do not!’

  ‘Do too.’

  Across the yard, I saw Amber burst out of the computer lab, Ben following behind her.

  Amber spun around on the other side of the paperbarks. ‘I wasn’t!’

  ‘I saw it!’ Ben called. ‘I’ll have to tell them, Amber.’

  She pointed her finger at him. ‘Don’t you dare.’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘I wasn’t doing anything!’ she roared.

  Ben stared at her, looking stricken. ‘I have to tell Elsa,’ he said so quietly his voice only reached us because of the wind.

  ‘You don’t care about me,’ Amber said, stalking off. ‘You say you do, but you don’t!’

  Ben stared after her, running his hands through his hair and then headed stiffly back towards the computer labs.

  ‘Yeah, I think you might be right about Amber,’ Loretta said to me, shoving a giant spoonful of yoghurt into her mouth. ‘Running makes me so hungry.’

  ***

  We walked home the long way along the beach. Loretta walked with me, but she was listening to this weird rap music that I didn’t like, so we didn’t talk.

  In the distance, I could see Ben’s aunty on her big grey horse, heading back to Songbrooke.

  I elbowed Loretta and she grunted and pulled out her earphones. ‘What?’

  ‘Do you know anything about her? Ben’s aunt?’

  ‘Nope.’ She put her earphones back in. ‘Mum says she’s really nice and that her wife’s nice, too. That’s about it.’

  I nudged her again. ‘Are you sure she didn’t say anything else? Nothing about her niece or nephew or some sort of huge secret or anything?’

  ‘Yes! I’m sure.’ She blew me a kiss as she headed into town.

  At home, Biddy and Tyrone were out and Dad and Evie were building some sort of weird cityscape of icy-pole sticks. ‘Wanna play?’ Evie asked. I shook my head and made myself a coffee.

  ‘Dad?’ I said, half-holding my breath, ready to ask him all the things I couldn’t stop thinking about.

  ‘Hmm?’ He didn’t look up at me from the icy-pole sticks.

  ‘Dad!’ I said.

  ‘What?’ he glanced up and then quickly down again. ‘Careful, Evie,’ he said.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Shoot,’ he said.

  I steeled myself. ‘I found a clay mermaid I made for Mum at an op shop.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Where’s Mum’s stuff?’ I decided to be blunt.

  Evie prodded at the icy-pole sticks and the whole lot keeled sideways. ‘Evie!’ Dad snapped. ‘Don’t prod it like that!’

  �
��Dad!’ I said, raising my voice. ‘Are you even listening to me?’

  ‘Of course I am! You found a clay mermaid at the op shop. It reminded you of your mum’s stuff,’ he said, frowning as he tried to fix the icy-pole-stick building. ‘Evie, what am I going to do with you?’ He sighed. ‘I think we need to start again.’

  I left the room, half-hoping he’d follow, but he didn’t.

  ***

  Early the next morning, I got up and went for a run along the beach, secretly hoping to run into Ben or Elsa on her big grey horse. My hand was bruised and aching and I ran with it tucked up under my other arm. The beach was drizzly and empty, though. I sat for a while on the dunes, thinking of mermaids and Mum and Jamie and staring out at the frothy, dark water. I imagined myself out there on a board, like Tyrone, and shuddered.

  ‘Hey,’ said a voice. I jumped and looked up. It was Ben with his school bag slung over his arm and his school shoes all messy with sand.

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  ‘You’re going to be late for school,’ he said.

  I swore and bounded to my feet.

  ‘Do you want to go for a run tonight?’ he called after me as I sprinted towards the house.

  ‘Okay!’ I yelled over my shoulder, gritting my teeth against the pain in my hand.

  As I yanked my shoes on, I watched Biddy moving around the kitchen, muttering to herself. Tyrone was probably lying about Biddy saying my mum was a whacko. I’m sure there were plenty of other people who’d say the same thing. And if Biddy had said anything, it would have been a lot truer than that. Something about my mum being unique or seeing the world differently. Something like that.

  ‘I found a handwritten recipe for quiche in your mum’s old cookbook. It looks like her writing,’ Biddy said.

  ‘Can I see?’ I asked.

  Biddy fiddled around with an old cookbook and handed me a folded piece of paper.

  I opened it, hoping for more than a quiche recipe because I always did, when I saw Mum’s handwriting. I hoped for something that would make things better. Something that would explain everything.

  ‘Yeah, it’s hers.’ I shoved it back at Biddy.

  ‘Would you mind if I used it?’

  ‘Do what you want,’ I said. It came out sharper than I’d meant it to. I didn’t stick around to see if she’d been stung. I marched off to get my school bag and then I ran to school.