I saw Justin at the bar. The bartender had been to school with practically all the debutantes and didn’t care that we were underage. Justin leant on one elbow and took a sip of beer.
“So,” he said casually. “You and Simon, huh?” He attempted to run a hand through his waxed hair, but his fingers slid off and he tried to disguise it as a fly swat.
“Yeah. Me and Simon.”
He was still in his shiny black tuxedo trousers, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up. He sat his glass on the bar mat. “Abby…”
“What?”
He hesitated. “Do you want another drink?”
I perfected my nonchalant lean on the bar. “No thanks. Simon’s already bought me heaps.” Really, I’d only had a Coke, but Justin didn’t need to know that. He nodded and tapped his fingers against the side of his glass.
“You’re with him to make me jealous, aren’t you?” he said boldly.
I paused, his brazenness catching me off guard. “No,” I said. “I’m with him cos he’s hot like a fox.”
“Why do you keep saying that? You sound like a dickhead.”
I felt my face flush. Justin began to walk away.
“Wait,” I called over the music. He turned back to face me. “If I was with him to make you jealous, would it have worked?”
Justin covered my wrist with his hand and slid his fingers down until they laced with mine.
I swallowed heavily. “Where’s Mia?”
He shrugged. His thumb ran up and down my finger. I stood motionless, techno thudding in my ears. The bass was making the floor shake. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Simon was holding out a pot of beer. He glanced down at my hand, which was firmly linked with Justin’s.
“Fuck you,” he hissed, slamming the glass onto the bar. Foam frothed down the sides. “Fuck the both of you. I should have bloody known. You know I only asked you to be my partner so Rachel would stop hassling me.”
In spite of the situation, it still felt like a kick in the guts.
Justin tugged my hand. “Come on,” he said, his eyes catching Simon’s for a second. “Don’t worry about him.”
I followed him away from the bar. We sneaked up a roped off staircase and came to the empty function room. Large round tables were covered in white sheets and chairs were stacked along the wall. Glass doors led out onto a balcony.
“Are we allowed to be up here?” I asked.
Justin rattled the locked glass door. “Who’s going to know? Come and look. You can see out to the reef.”
I stood at his side. Through the glass I could see over tiled roofs to the shadowy sea. Boat lamps glowed in the darkness. Justin stepped away from the window and pulled me onto the floor beside him. He reached blindly for my hand, brushing his palm over my thigh as he did. I could hear my heart thumping in my ears. It was so loud I was afraid Justin could hear it too. He kissed my fingers. Muted music from the party floated up from the open windows. I could hear laughter in the street. Clinking bottles. Simon’s voice.
Justin took my head in his hands, his palms covering my ears. The noise became muffled, like I was listening from underwater. I could smell the soapy wax in his hair and the beer on his breath. Then suddenly his mouth on my lips and his hot tongue sliding over mine. I shuffled closer to him as we kissed again and again, desperate to make up for years of messing around.
“I’m sorry,” I gushed, between kisses. “About everything. About being so obsessed with my violin. And with getting away.”
Justin just kissed me again.
I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him closer. “Are you going to sleep with Mia?”
He rested his forehead against mine. “Abby, I always thought you would be my first. Not Mia. I don’t want to be with her.” He sat up and stared at me. “I want you, Abby. I always have. I’m sorry I didn’t do the ball with you. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I kissed him softly and slid my singlet top over my head.
“Are you sure about this?” he said.
I took a deep breath. “Yes. Are you?”
Justin nodded. “Hell yeah. I’m sure.”
I stretched back against the warm floorboards. Justin threw off his shirt and lay over me; his bare skin hot and sticky against mine. My heart was thumping. He began to kiss my neck; his lips sliding along my collarbone. He slipped my bra strap off my shoulder. I felt my breathing quicken. Suddenly Justin pulled away.
I opened my eyes. “What is it?”
“It’s Mia,” he hissed. “I heard her voice, she’s on the stairs.” He pushed my top into my hands. “You have to hide. Get behind the curtain or something.”
“What?! You arsehole!”
“Come on Abby, just do it.” He fumbled with his shirt buttons. “Please.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me off the floor. “Over there,” he hissed, steering me into the corner. I heard him open the door to Mia.
“Hey baby,” she sung. I heard them kiss. Justin led her to the glass doors. I could hear their voices as I slunk past them into the hallway.
“What have you been doing up here, baby? Simon told me you were up here.”
“Nothing. Just waiting for you.”
I ran back to the caravan park, tears streaming down my face and my stupid stiff curls sliding free from their hairpins. Shoes in hand, I raced into the lounge and flopped face first onto the couch. I hugged a cushion to my chest and began to sob; my shoulders heaving as I gasped for breath. I reached up and grabbed the blanket that was thrown over the back of the sofa. Curled into a ball and wrapped it around me like a shell. I yanked the last pins from my hair and flung them across the room. They bounced off the TV screen. My sticky hair fell over my eyes. It stank of hairspray and stale cigarettes.
I gulped down my tears and curled up in the stillness of Acacia Beach. Inside, the kitchen tap dripped. Outside, frogs twittered. I rolled onto my stomach and fell into an uneasy sleep.
I woke up as Nick stumbled through the back door and let the fly screen slam.
“What the hell are you doing home?” He collapsed on the end of the couch and jerked me out of my daze. “Big night?”
I poked my head out of the blanket.
“Your makeup’s all run. You look like shit.”
I sat up angrily. “Yeah well you stink.”
Nick pulled the blanket off me and wrapped it around his shoulders. I shuffled onto the arm of the couch and stared at him. His blonde hair was tangled over the cushion. Dark shadows underlined his eyes.
“So what is it?” My head was throbbing. “What are you taking that makes your life so wonderful?”
Nick rolled onto his side so I couldn’t see his face. “Stay out of it, Abby. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Yeah right! I’m the one who has to pick up the fucking syringes you leave on the floor in the toilets!”
Nick sighed. “They’re not mine, okay.”
“Bullshit!”
“Would you shut up!” he hissed. “Do you want to wake her?”
I picked at the hem of the blanket.
“So how was the ball?” Nick asked finally. “I was going to come down to the party but-”
“But what? But you were too stoned to even remember your name?” I shook my head in disgust. “You need to get a life.”
Nick snorted. “You’re an arrogant shit, Abigail, you know that? You know nothing about anything. You’re going to die of shock if you ever get out of this place.”
I leapt off the couch. “What would you know? You don’t know the first thing about me!”
Nick let his hand fall over his eyes. “Yeah and you sure as hell know everything there is to know about me.”
SIXTEEN
Monday morning came in record time. I couldn’t get out of bed. I told Sarah I was sick and she carried on and on about how irresponsible I was for having drunk too much two nights before. I pulled the doona over my head. Post-ball Monday: what a debacle that would be. Rachel jabbering on to Katie over their B
unsen burners. Justin and Mia pawing each other in the canteen line. Whispers and giggles and gossip and lies.
I tried to will myself back to sleep. I’d heard that when you dream, your mind travels to another plane of existence. I’d have happily spent the rest of my life in some alternate universe. Maybe I’d wake up and miraculously be a concert violinist. Maybe I’d find the last seventeen years had been nothing but a bad dream. But I’d slept so much on Sunday that all I could do was thrash around under the sheets and listen to people in the park holidaying without a care in the world. I willed malaria onto them all.
After patches of sleep, I crawled out of bed as the sky was turning orange. The house was quiet. Dust danced in the last blazes of sun. The veranda creaked as I stepped outside and sat beside Nick. The westerly wind had replaced the smell of the ocean with the stench of cows and burning sugar.
“You’re here again,” I said.
Nick sucked silently on his cigarette. I wondered if we were still supposed to be fighting. I stared at my feet. A gecko circled my ankles and I watched it disappear under the house. I looked at Nick. His eyes were closed, like he didn’t have a care in the world. What was going on inside his head? Were his thoughts as tangled and anxious as mine? Or were they peaceful, like his expression suggested? I gulped down a mouthful of his sweet smelling smoke.
“Can I have a drag?”
Nick sighed. “Fuck, Abby. No. No way.”
“Please,” I said, my voice flat. Nick closed his eyes.
“One,” he said finally. I tried to inhale deeply the way Nick had. Instead, I just coughed and spluttered. He took the joint away from me.
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
I lay back on my elbows and tried to disappear into carelessness. Smoke circled around us like mist off a lake and I willed it to carry me away. I stayed where I was, pathetic in my crumpled tracksuit bottoms and sneakers; my hair tangled, t-shirt stained. I had never felt further from the concert hall.
“Don’t come down to my level, Abby,” said Nick. “It’s no fun down here.”
“It’s no fun anywhere. I need to get out, but I can’t.”
“Least you’ve got a hope. You got talent.”
“Shit.” I rubbed my eyes.
“What?”
“I have a violin lesson. I nearly forgot.”
Nick stretched his legs. “So? Don’t go.”
“I have to,” I said, standing up and wobbling slightly. “I have to have a hope.”
I scratched through my sonata and dropped my bow despondently.
“Beethoven on grass,” said Andrew. “Classy.”
I ignored him.
“This is bullshit, Abby!” he said suddenly. “How could you put me in this position?”
“What position?” I snapped. “What’s it got to do with you?”
“You come over all messed up, smelling like pot and I’m supposed to just ignore it? I’m your teacher, for God’s sake.”
“You wouldn’t rat on me.”
“You think?” He looked angry.
“I just want to play, alright?” My voice was tiny. “I’ll do it again. It’ll be better this time.”
Andrew sat on the piano seat and folded his arms. “What the hell’s going on, Abs? You’re better than this.”
I stared at the floor. “It’s nothing.”
“Did something happen at the ball?”
“I said, it’s nothing.”
Andrew didn’t reply.
“I just want to play,” I said again, sharper.
“Fine. From the top. Less vibrato. It’s not elevator music.”
Tears blurred the score into a page of disoriented black shapes. I tried to wipe my eyes on my shoulder. I felt ashamed and snotty. Where the hell was that it’s-all-going-to-shit-and-I-don’t-care apathy Nick had?
Andrew reached over and touched my shoulder. “Abby, I’m really worried about you. Why won’t you talk to me?” He looked at me expectantly; all sucked into the beach life in his shorts and Quicksilver t-shirt, sunglasses on top of his head though it had gone dark an hour ago. And how the fuck, I thought suddenly, could I talk to you, who chose to be here? You had everything I long for and you gave it up.
Suddenly I was furious at Andrew. Pretending his love for music was as deep as mine. But what kind of musician gave up their career to live in this place? A place where the closest thing to a concert hall was the rotunda on the foreshore some hammered tourist had climbed onto one New Year’s Eve and belted out the national anthem.
“I have to go,” I said. I raced out of the house, not slowing until I reached the beach. In the pit of my stomach sat a fear of seeing Justin, but the sand was dark and empty. I gasped, desperately trying to fill my lungs with fresh air. The humidity seemed more stifling than usual. Dampness squeezed me like a hot cocoon.
I longed for escape. Longed for cold weather. Snow, sleet and an overcast grey city. All the things I had only ever imagined.
Ahead of me stretched a black ocean, unbroken but for the island lights speckled on the horizon. Brisbane had given me a glimpse of what was outside Acacia, but I knew there had to be so much more.
I ached for the world in Hayley’s travel stories and Lily’s Paris daydreams, for the places we had created in childhood and for the world out past Justin’s dad’s boat. Places where I could disappear and never come back.
I opened my case and lifted the violin to my shoulder. Played into the darkness with the slow, soulful Romanze of the Elgar Sonata, determined to claw my way out of Acacia Beach one way or another.
Nick came home in the middle of dinner the next night. We were eating in silence, the clinking of forks against plates echoing in the still house. Nick charged through the back door and threw up in the kitchen sink.
Sarah stared at him. “What in God’s name have you been doing?”
Nick held his head under the tap. The rest of us watched in silence.
“I don’t suppose you want that,” Sarah said icily, pointing to his untouched dinner plate. “It’s probably stone cold by now anyway.”
“I’m not hungry.” Nick reached for a glass and knocked a pile of dishes into the sink. The crash made me jerk in my seat.
“I’ve had it, Nicholas!” cried Sarah. “You can’t keep coming home in this state! Tell me where you’ve been!”
Nick slammed his glass onto the sink. “I don’t have to fucking tell you anything! Stop treating me like a child.” He raced out of the kitchen and disappeared upstairs. His footsteps thumped above our heads.
“Do something about your son, David!” yelled Sarah. “Look at him! Just do something will you?”
“What would you like me to do?” said Dad. “Slap him on the wrist and send him to bed?”
“You don’t even care do you? You’re gutless when it comes to him! You’re gutless when it comes to all three of them!”
Dad didn’t answer. I watched him chase the peas around his plate with his fork, eyes down. Gutless, I thought. My dad was gutless; a slave to my mother. Anger simmered under my skin. I threw down my fork and stood up suddenly.
“Sit down, Abigail,” snapped Sarah. “Finish your dinner.”
“Shut up!” I blurted. “Just shut up!” I hurled my dishes into the sink, surprised at my own outburst. The room was silent.
I ran upstairs and sat cross-legged on my bed, jaw clenched, hands angry fists. On my corkboard I’d pinned the Arts College application form. Each year I sent for one and each year it ended up hopelessly in my desk drawer; everything filled out except my parents’ permission. I could feel anger knotting the muscles in my neck. Do it, I told myself, squeeze out some tears and twist this nightmare to your advantage.
SEVENTEEN
I held out the letter. “I got in.”
“You got in where?” Andrew took the letter and skimmed over it. “Melbourne Arts College?” His face broke into a smile. “God Abby, that’s fantastic!” He ushered me inside. “Your parents are letting you go all the wa
y to Melbourne?”
“Not exactly,” I admitted. “Dad signed to let me send them an audition tape. He wasn’t happy about it, but he finally backed down. The College is taking me for year twelve on full scholarship. My parents don’t need to like it. I can do it without them.”
Andrew tossed the letter on the bench and kissed my cheek. “Congratulations. I always knew you’d do it.” He threw open the fridge door. “Grab me two glasses from the cabinet,” he said, his head buried between a watermelon and a carton of skinny milk. He pulled out a half empty wine bottle and I handed him the glasses. “I don’t have any champagne on hand. This’ll have to do.”
He handed me the wine and clinked his glass against mine.
“I haven’t even told my parents I’m going,” I said. “There’s going to be hell when Mum finds out Dad signed the permission form.”
The guilt had almost outweighed my happiness.
“Please, Dad,” I sniffed. “Just sign it. Just let me audition. I can’t stand it here anymore.” I knew he couldn’t bear to see me cry. “She’s right, you know. You are gutless. If you really loved me you would have done this years ago.”
I wasn’t proud. Just desperate.
Andrew sat opposite me on the couch, plucking a chunk of Lego out from underneath the cushion. “What are you going to tell them?”
I shrugged. “Does it matter? I’ve got a scholarship. I don’t need them.”
He gave me a short smile. “I don’t want to get you down, Abs, but what happens when the scholarship ends? Will you be able to work enough to support yourself and fit in the hours of practice?”
“I’ll do whatever I have to do,” I said. “Anything. I’m so excited. You have no idea.”
He returned my smile. “You’re making me jealous!” He bent the legs of the Lego man between his fingers. “Why did you apply for a school in Melbourne? Why not Brisbane?”
I tilted my glass so the shiny yellow liquid ran up the sides. “I wanted to get a long way away from here.”
Music From Standing Waves Page 9