I'll Tell You Mine

by Pip Harry

  In the bathroom I go to put my make-up on, poking around at the stuff on the counters. I pick up Lachy’s deodorant – Black Rexona roll-on – and take a whiff of the sticky pine-scented perfume. It makes me miss him, even though he’s just out in the paddocks. His razor is out on the bench, black hairs left on the blade. A can of shaving gel for sensitive skin.

  Maddy keeps her bathroom stuff out of sight. I know she’s on the pill – I’ve seen the tell-tale packet at the boarding house. But I guess she wouldn’t want her dad to see that.

  Usually as soon as I get up I rub my face with white foundation and smear my eyes with black pencil. I wear a little less on schooldays but I always have some make-up on. As I look at my clear skin and snail-coloured eyes I think about what Lachy said.

  You look all right to me.

  Instead, I wash my face with soap and water, tie my hair back with a band and walk away from the mirror.

  I’m squeezing oranges when Lachy rides his mud-flecked bike into the front yard, kicking down the stand with his heel, Bone panting at his knees. I can’t see Maddy or her dad and I realise it’s just going to be us, alone, in the house. The screen door bangs and Lachy barrels in, flushed and sweating, thick socks barnacled with burrs and hay.

  ‘Mornin’ Kate,’ he says. ‘Didn’t think you’d be up. City girl and all.’

  He’s smiling when he says it – straight white teeth with a small chip out of the front one. He throws his dusty cap onto a hook behind the door, hair sticking up.

  ‘I’m knackered,’ he says, pulling out a chair and tumbling into it, legs flung apart, his arms behind his head. ‘We lost a calf this morning. Had to get the vet out but it was too late. Poor bugger. Maddy and Dad are cleaning things up. Ever seen Maddy cry?’

  ‘Only when she was sick,’ I say.

  ‘Well, she was sobbing like a baby this morning. Not as tough as she looks, our Maddy.’ He looks around the kitchen. ‘What’s going on here?’

  My pancake batter is out on the bench.

  ‘Thought I’d cook pancakes,’ I say. Suddenly thinking it was a bad idea. What if I burn them?

  ‘Ripper. Pancakes. That’s the best news I’ve heard today,’ he says. ‘I’m starving.’

  He pats his stomach and stretches, letting out a yawn. I try not to stare at the strip of flesh above his work pants – the line of curly hair growing like a vine up to his belly button.

  ‘Here,’ I say, handing him a glass of orange juice.

  He swallows the sweet liquid in two gulps then puts the glass under the tap and drinks three glasses of water in a row.

  ‘Thirsty?’

  ‘Thirsty work.’

  The stove looks about a hundred years old, like everything else in the house. I fumble with a match, the smell of gas escaping the burners. I feel Lachy behind me, gently easing the matches from my hands. He turns the knobs and deftly lights the flame.

  ‘Temperamental this old girl,’ he says. ‘There’s a trick to it.’

  I swirl butter in the pan and let it bubble gently, then ladle the batter in, trying to make a neat circle. I want this pancake, Lachy’s pancake, to be perfect.

  He settles at the table, frowning at a magazine called The Land. Flipping through the pages with a pen.

  ‘We need a new tractor. The old one’s falling to bits,’ he says, looking worried. ‘Got a new tractor you could loan us, Kate?’

  ‘Course I have,’ I say. ‘It’s red and shiny.’

  My phone beeps and I pick it up. A text from Annie.

  Where R U???

  I smile at the message and put the phone back in my pocket for later.

  ‘Boyfriend?’ Lachy asks.

  Usually this is where I’d mention that I liked someone, thinking of Nate, hoping it would soon be more than just friendship.

  ‘Nuh,’ I say, focusing on the bubbles forming on top of the pancake. ‘Just my mate, Annie.’

  ‘No fellah?’ he says.

  ‘Hard to believe, right?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What about you?’ I ask. I try to act like I don’t care, but I don’t want him to have a girlfriend.

  ‘Used to,’ he says. ‘Jenny. Her parents own the next farm along. We’d been a pair since primary school. Guess I thought she might be the girl I married. Until she dumped me.’

  ‘Why’d she do that?’ I ask, flipping the pancake over.

  ‘She went backpacking in Europe with her best mate. That burned. We’d planned on travelling together one day. She got itchy feet I guess. Didn’t handle Mum’s death very well. She just about bolted in the end.’

  He smiles, but there’s bruised hurt in his eyes and I don’t want to be talking about his ex-girlfriend. I wish I didn’t even know her name. Jenny. I picture a petite brunette wearing a flannel shirt and blue jeans, draped all over Lachy. It makes me jealous. Which is stupid. I hardly know Lachy. I slide the pancake off the pan onto a plate.

  ‘Honey?’ I ask.

  ‘Nah thanks, you’re sweet enough,’ he says with a wink.

  He’s the kind of guy who can get away with such a bad joke.

  He hands me a palmful of strawberries from the fridge. ‘Picked yesterday,’ he says.

  I bite into the most perfect, sweet berries I’ve ever eaten.

  Lachy is on the verandah pulling on his work boots. The fog has burnt off and it’s sunny out. He’s wearing a thin white T-shirt so I can see the hard, muscular curves of his body. Maddy and I are reading magazines and lazily drinking cups of tea. Bone has his paws resting on Maddy’s thigh, sleeping.

  ‘Good pancakes this morning, Kate,’ he says, smiling. ‘Reckon they’ll keep me going for a while.’

  A blush spreads across my neck.

  Maddy looks at me and rolls her eyes. ‘See what I mean? Weird,’ she says to me. ‘Later, stinky,’ she says to Lachy.

  Lachy stands up, pulls a faded cricket hat down over his face. ‘See you, stick insect,’ he fires back as he starts up his bike and roars off into the bush.

  And I remind myself, this is Maddy’s brother. I’m not allowed to like Maddy’s brother.

  I’m wandering down the long driveway, rugged up in an old fleece jacket of Lachy’s that Maddy said I could wear. It smells like him. I wrap it tightly around myself, feeling protected and calmed, burying my hands in the pockets for warmth. The sky is the lightest rosewater pink, fringed by the scribbly black outlines of gum trees. It looks like an old watercolour painting of the bush. It’s beautiful here.

  Today we’ve just mooched around on the verandah reading old magazines, eating, talking and listening to music. I’ve gone for a walk while Maddy starts dinner. The telly is busted and phone reception comes and goes. All that’s here are trees, paddocks and quiet. It’s easier somehow, having no options. I can breathe easier and my brain is less crowded.

  Halfway down the road an engine interrupts my tranquillity like a leaf blower on an early morning.

  It’s Lachy on his motorbike. He slows down and stops beside me.

  ‘Hey,’ he shouts, taking off his helmet and resting it on his knee. ‘Want a ride? Maddy needs cream for dessert. There’s a little shop down the road.’

  I consider saying no. I’ve never been on the back of a motorbike and it scares me. But then I think about sitting close behind Lachy and letting him take me away.

  ‘Okay, but I’ve never been on a bike before.’

  ‘You’re in good hands,’ Lachy says. ‘Mum had me on a Pee Wee 50 when I was six.’

  ‘What about a helmet?’ I ask.

  Lachy pulls a small bike helmet out of a box on the back, throws it to me. I catch it and put it on, clicking the strap tightly under my chin. He raps me on the head with his knuckles as I clamber onto the bike. I try to keep some polite space be
tween us, gingerly holding onto the sides of his jacket. He reaches back and pulls my arms all the way around him so I have no choice but to slide up behind him on the seat. It’s weird to be pushed up against someone I don’t really know. There’s no air between us – my chest is flattened against his spine, legs gripping his hips. I’m sure he can feel my heart beating.

  ‘Hold on!’ he says, kicking the bike into gear, the seat vibrating. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yes!’ I shout into his helmet, even though I’m terrified.

  The ground whizzes underneath my feet in a blur. The bike feels thin and ready to topple over. At every corner I think we’ll skid and I’ll be sent flying. But after a while I realise the bike is designed to stay upright and Lachy knows what he is doing. Trees whip past us, the sunset is now streaking the sky with gelati pastels, a faint circle of moon appearing. I relax my grip on Lachy so it’s a little less like a python squeezing the life out of its prey.

  When we get off the bike, my legs are wobbly and I’m breathless, but I can’t stop smiling. I take off my helmet and shake out my hair with my hand.

  ‘Like it?’ Lachy asks, smiling.

  ‘Yeah!’ I say, more loudly that I expected.

  Lachy nods. ‘Good, you can ride home.’ I frown and he laughs at me. ‘I’m kidding, Kate.’

  Lachy buys Maddy’s cream and two drinks, handing one to me. He sits down on a bench out front, and opens his with a fizz.

  ‘You’re a good rider,’ I say.

  ‘Thanks. I used to ride with Mum out in the bush,’ he says. ‘We’d find fire trails and bomb around on them. Camp overnight and cook dinner on a portable stove. She was crazy about bikes. All kinds. Dirt bikes, road bikes. She could ride rings around Dad.’

  ‘What was she like?’ I ask.

  ‘Not your average mum, put it that way. Dad met her at a B&S. Said she drank him out of Bundy, then passed out in his swag, wearing gumboots and a formal dress. You should have seen her muster cattle, deliver calves, shear sheep. She knew how to get things done.’

  ‘Must have been weird when she got sick,’ I say, chewing on my straw.

  ‘Yeah, at first it was okay. She had chemo and got all these crazy wigs – called them names: Doris, Marilyn and Electra. But even after she jumped through all the hoops – a mastectomy, more chemo, radiation – the doctors still found more cancer. At the end she couldn’t even tie her shoelaces. Dad had to carry her around. She lost her spark. Being sick didn’t suit her. She loved to stir things up, Mum. She was like Maddy in that way. She was the only one who could pull Maddy into line. They were both trouble-makers.’

  ‘She sounds cool,’ I say. And I mean it. ‘I wish I could have met her.’

  ‘She would have liked you, I think,’ says Lachy. ‘She liked people who were a bit different.’ Lachy means different as a compliment, not an insult. It’s a nice change.

  ‘What’s your mum like?’ asks Lachy.

  ‘She’s a politician.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s just what she does. What’s she like?’

  ‘Stressed out. Cranky,’ I say.

  But that’s not all she is. I think of the nose piercing Dad told me about and an old photo of her that hangs in a dusty corner of the kitchen. She’s climbing up a crumbly ruin in Central America. She’s about eighteen and wearing a Greenpeace T-shirt, her nose sunburnt and her smile wide. I’ve looked at that photo lots of times. She was that girl once. Adventurous and young. The kind of person who would have ridden a motorbike. Maybe someone I could be friends with.

  ‘She’s really smart and she used to be funny . . . before she got so busy.’

  If we could just get back to normal there are things I want to tell her. Just her. Stuff about Lachy, the boarding house. I miss her advice. The little stuff she taught me. Like how to shave my armpits and avoid cutting the top off the little brown mole on my left pit. How to slice a mango and use a camera.

  ‘We don’t really get on at the moment,’ I say, crushing my drink can.

  Lachy nods and he looks out at the road and the thick scrub.

  ‘You know what I really hate?’ he says, just when I’m starting to think he’s stopped speaking for the night. ‘When people say my mum has gone to a better place.’ He looks up at the sky, which is starting to darken. ‘No better place for her than right here, I reckon,’ he says, and it’s all I can do not to lean over and hug him. He sounds so broken. ‘Here is where her family, her friends are. Y’know?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. But I don’t really know what it’s like to lose someone I love. And I guess that makes me lucky.

  *

  Maddy shakes my shoulder and pulls back the doona.

  ‘Come on,’ she whispers. ‘You still want to come, don’t you?

  I struggle to open my eyes and feel confused for a minute. Where am I? What’s going on?

  Maddy shoves clothes at me.

  ‘Get dressed. The boys are waiting.’

  Maddy goes ahead and I hear the door slam.

  My teeth chatter as I change into a pair of baggy jeans and a soft work shirt. I feel my way out of the dark room into the hall, following the velvety morning light out to the verandah. Lachy is behind the wheel of the ute with his dad in the passenger seat. Maddy sits on the tray on top of a pile of hay. They look at me expectantly. I clamber up looking for a place to sit.

  Maddy points to the edges of the ute. ‘Hold on,’ she says. I wrap my fingers around the steel but I still don’t feel secure.

  ‘You sure you’re going to be okay. Aren’t you allergic to hay?’ asks Maddy.

  ‘I’ll be fine, that was like a million years ago.’

  I don’t want to be hopeless, wheezy Kate today. I want to be helpful and strong.

  Maddy shrugs.

  ‘Okay, but I’m not giving you mouth to mouth,’ she says. ‘Lachy might though.’

  Lachy takes off down the bumpy road and I shove my feet under the hay to keep from toppling out. My cheeks sting and my eyes water from the wind, but I feel alive and awake. Lachy stops at a wire paddock gate and Maddy looks at me.

  ‘Want to get it?’ she shouts.

  I jump out and into a mud puddle that splatters my jeans.

  I undo the lock and swing the gate open confidently, running back. I guess I don’t have to run but I want to.

  Lachy leans his elbow out the window.

  ‘Thanks, Kate,’ he says, smiling. ‘Nice to have another pair of hands.’

  My heart sings.

  We get to work, grabbing the hay bales, snipping the string open and letting the straw float free behind us for the cows to eat. It’s slow work but there’s a knack to it and I pick it up quickly. I’m sweating, working hard, and it doesn’t bother me. I love this. I love it here. I don’t ever want to leave. When we finish my arms are aching and I’m wheezing a little bit but I feel happy. Insanely happy. I can’t stop myself from smiling.

  Maddy and I stand up in the tray as we drive back to the house, letting our knees take the impact of each bump, looking out over the top of the hills, the wind blowing through our hair. It feels like flying. If I was sure I wouldn’t topple backwards, I’d spread my arms out like a bird.

  *

  I sit cross-legged on an old stump with my notepad resting on one knee. At first I sketch things around me. A funny little brown bird that skitters around the grass, Bone sleeping on a broken chair in the yard. I look back to the house and outline it too. The slightly crooked, sunken roof line and the wisp of smoke coming out of the chimney. Lachy’s motorbike propped out the front waiting for him to come back and ride it. I add a rough sketch of him sitting on it, me behind him in my helmet. Then I flip the page to my graphic novel idea. I read it to myself and think it’s not too bad. I want to finish it. Before I have a chance to change my mind I rip out the rushed outlin
es I did in class, take out my thick black sketch pen and open up my serious notepad with the rich, heavy white paper. It’s precise work and I have to concentrate to get the outlines just right – the tip of my tongue touching the top of my lip. I add dashes of shading and make sure the font in the speech bubbles is perfect.

  My character is a Gothic superhero, G-Girl, Nate is her love interest but he has a girlfriend, and Annie is her sidekick. I don’t use their real names but I know it’s them. I do bursts of ‘Kapows!’ and ‘Take that’s!’ It’s old-school kinda Manga. It takes me two hours of sitting nearly still, my eyes narrowed and my fingers working. My arm is sore when it’s done. I look at it – happy – when I feel Lachy’s breath on my neck. My first instinct is to slam the pad shut and shove it into my bag. But it’s Lachy and I don’t feel like I have to hide anything from Lachy. So I leave it open. ‘Wow. That is amazing,’ he says. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a graphic novel,’ I say. ‘Well, more of a novella, it’s not very long.’

  ‘Is that like a comic?’

  ‘Yeah. Pretty much, just with more of a story.’

  ‘Can I read it?’ he asks eagerly.

  And again I would normally say no. It isn’t finished. Instead, I just hand it to him.

  ‘Sure.’

  When he’s finished he grins at me.

  ‘It’s funny. These are such good drawings too.’ He points to the G-Girl with her cape flying. ‘Is that you?’ he asks shyly.

  I look at G-Girl’s fierce black eyes and flying fists.

  ‘I think it used to be.’

  Maddy’s dad takes us out to dinner in town.

  I sense they eat out rarely and he makes an effort to clean up – showering, shaving and putting on a clean shirt.

  ‘You look nice, Dad,’ says Maddy.

  He pats down his shirt, ‘I’ve got two gorgeous women on my arm tonight. Can’t let the side down, can I?’

  I’ve made an effort too, washed and dried my hair. I even let Maddy straighten it. I put my foot down when she wanted to dress me.

  ‘No way,’ I said, looking at her selection of tight, revealing clothes.

  ‘Yeah,’ she agreed, ‘you’ve got your own Emo thing going anyway.’