The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain

by Cath Crowley

I thought he was with me. ‘Then you’ve got your sporty type. That’s me. I had to work hard last year to get in with the right crowd, and it’s all paying off. Then you’ve got your smart kids. People know it. They know it. They keep to themselves. Then you’ve got your loners.’

  ‘Who hangs out with them?’

  ‘Nobody, Dad. That’s why they’re the loners.’

  ‘That’s awful. Couldn’t you hang out with the loners?’

  ‘Dad, you don’t hang out with people you don’t like.’

  ‘You might like them. I bet I could name a loner at school who you would think was pretty cool.’

  ‘Name one then. Name just one.’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Oh, Dad.’

  I know what you’re thinking: Gracie Faltrain, that’s a harsh philosophy to live by. People are people and you can’t judge a book by its cover. Don’t be too hard on me. He’s an adult after all, and I’m just a kid.

  But back to the party. I felt good in my black singlet top and hipster jeans. Casual. Cool. I checked my fly quietly. There’s nothing that’ll spoil the effect quicker than flashing your undies to the world.

  I walked past Nick Johnson slowly. Slow enough for him to stop me if he wanted to have a chat. I was convinced he was going to ignore me when I felt a hand on my arm. Electric. Little hairs stood up all over my skin.

  When Nick talks, it’s like you’re the only person in the room. Imagine a dark stage; his eyes are the spotlights. You can’t move. ‘More like an animal caught in the headlights,’ Jane always says to me, but I know she agrees.

  ‘Gracie Faltrain,’ he said slowly as his hand flicked hair back from his eyes. I swear he waited about ten full seconds here; he didn’t stop looking at me. ‘Hi.’ He leant on the word, his hips tilted forward. We were standing so close that his hair almost touched my face.

  The problem is, Nick talks like this to everyone. The hard part that night was working out if he was just making a passing comment or if he really wanted to have a conversation. If he wanted me to keep talking, then we were having more than a hello. We were having a moment. If it was just a hello it would be okay, but then it was my own moment and that definitely wasn’t as good. The trick was to work out what he was thinking. I tried mental telepathy. I didn’t get anywhere. Step two: try to look at what he’s doing with his hands. I’d read somewhere once that body language can tell you how a person really feels. He was scratching his ear and eating a chip. They weren’t in the book. Step three: just keep talking and hope he’s not trying to think of a way to leave.

  ‘So, ah, what are you doing on the weekend?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing much. Maybe seeing a movie.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Haven’t decided,’ he answered slowly. ‘What are you doing? Maybe –’ And then Annabelle Orion bumped into him and spilt her drink down his t-shirt. Nick went to the bathroom. I went out of my mind. Maybe what? Maybe what?

  ‘Sorry, Gracie,’ Annabelle smiled. Her teeth reminded me of stories I’d read about people swimming outside the flags, coming face to face with dark shapes moving under the water.

  ‘You’re not sorry.’ I breathed hot anger over her. I knew from painful experience that nothing is an accident when it comes to Annabelle Orion.

  ‘Calm down, Faltrain.’ Jane passed me some chips. ‘The year is long.’

  I don’t know about the year, but every moment of that night seemed to move by in slow motion. Every second that Nick spoke to Annabelle and Susan and not me was torture.

  ‘What’s up with you, Faltrain?’ Martin came up behind me, talking through a mouthful of food.

  ‘Mind your own business,’ I said, and got a whack on the back of my head as he walked off. Martin can be really annoying. He’s in Year 11, only a year ahead of me, but he thinks he’s so much older. He’s my captain too, so that means he can tell me what to do on the soccer field and that bugs me more than anything. He treats me like a kid sister and I’ve told him before, I do not need an older brother.

  That night, though, I barely heard him. I kept looking at Nick, willing him to talk to me. I spent a lot of time looking at the back of his head.

  3

  storm noun: a disturbance of the

  atmosphere by very strong winds

  GRACIE

  I’d use my third wish to get Dad home. It feels like he’s been away forever. I tried to remember what he looked like the other day and for a second I couldn’t imagine his face.

  He’s a travelling book salesman, so he’s away a lot. When I was little he took me to the library every Saturday. He showed me books of places we’d never been. I loved the atlases. I remember watching him stretch up to reach the one I was desperate to look at; there was a little bit of his tummy showing between his old t-shirt and his jeans. We sat on the floor together and traced the roads and rivers with our fingers.

  He always tried to be there on Saturdays. I’d come home during the week, though, and hope that I’d find him. I’d walk in the front door and look for his keys in the jar next to the phone. It was a game. If the keys weren’t there I’d think, well, maybe he’s got them in his pocket. He could still be home, right? I’d walk through the kitchen and look for his bag or his tie. I searched every room before I was convinced that there was no chance he was home. Sometimes I didn’t look in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. I’d leave the door closed and just pretend he was on the other side. The house was too cold without him. Even in summer.

  Last year, if he missed a game, he’d be home by Saturday afternoon. When Mum and I walked in after soccer he’d be waiting in the backyard, ready for a kick. ‘Hurry up, Gracie,’ he’d yell, his old runners sticking out from under his trousers. ‘Show me how you kicked the winning goal.’

  I’d take the ball and slam it between the two white lines he’d drawn for me on the fence. He’d cheer. And Mum would shout, ‘Move it, you two, tea was ready an hour ago,’ but she’d be laughing. I remember we’d come in from the back yard, our faces so cold they almost cracked from the heat of the kitchen. We talked all through dinner. Laughed because the next day was Sunday. I loved going to sleep on those nights. When I woke up he was there.

  But that hasn’t happened for a long time.

  MARTIN

  Faltrain looked like it was Christmas today when I told her about the Championships. She was running around and laughing; how could I tell her what the guys have been saying? No one except me wants her on the team anymore. And I don’t think I’m enough.

  Faltrain used to be great when she first started – fast and strong in the midfield. She pushed the ball forward to the strikers. Now she’s too focused on scoring. Sometimes she leaves us wide open in our defence. I don’t blame her – she was made to kick goals. ‘Kick them, Faltrain,’ I want to say. ‘Just don’t make them the only reason you play. And stop pissing Flemming off. The guy has it in for you.’

  I can see why everyone’s annoyed, but sometimes I think they’re mad because she’s better than them. And because she’s a girl. No one says that, though.

  I get the feeling they’re all waiting. They want Faltrain to stuff up. And when she does, that’ll be it. Not even I’ll be able to help her.

  I remember the match that made the guys really angry. We needed to win to get into the finals. There were ten minutes left in the game and the score was 5–5. Something just clicked between us, like we knew what the player ahead of us was thinking. Ross kicked to Ed who kicked to Buckley who kicked to Faltrain who just ran away with the ball. She was too far out to try for goal. She should have passed. Flemming was next in line. She scored an impossible goal with five minutes to spare. We won, but somehow Faltrain left us feeling like we’d lost.

  I went to talk to her after that match; I was all ready to say, ‘Faltrain, every single guy on this squad wants you off. Whether you make the goal or not.’ But when I found her, she was just staring at the field. I’d never seen her stand so still before. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked. ‘Fa
ltrain? Everyone’s gone home.’

  ‘I’m remembering the game, Martin,’ she said. ‘I’m piecing it all together so I can tell Dad everything.’

  She sort of made sense to me that day because after Mum left, Dad stopped coming to watch me play. I’d run home and act out the whole game for him, try to turn the lounge-room rug into the ground, just for five minutes. I stopped when I realised Dad wasn’t seeing the soccer match or the captain of the team. He was just seeing his son on the mat in front of the telly, and really, he’d rather just see the telly.

  I reckon maybe that’s why Faltrain started to play like she did. Maybe her dad just missed out on one too many games. Sometimes I watch her, though, and I think the real reason she plays is for herself, just because she can.

  This time I have to tell her. I’ll say, ‘Faltrain, soccer’s more than just kicking goals.’

  I’ll say it quickly. And then I’ll run.

  ANDREW FLEMMING

  Yeah, I want her out. She was different at the start. She showed us she could play and she listened to us. She was great in the midfield. Now she doesn’t care if we win as long as she does.

  I remember this one game, the score was 5–5 with ten minutes left. Ed took the ball off their striker and started this chain reaction. It flew from one boot to the next. It was magic, until it got to Faltrain. It was too far between her and the goal. It was too easy to miss. Everyone on the team was shouting at her to pass it to me. I was right in front of the goal. She just ignored us. She made it, but if she’d missed we’d have lost our chance at the finals. One day she will miss and I don’t want it to be at the Championships.

  MARTIN

  Reckon your problem might be that she’s a girl, Flemming?

  FLEMMING

  You know what the problem is with her. She doesn’t listen to you or Coach or anyone else anymore. You’re just too busy thinking about her because she is a girl. That’s your problem. Start thinking with your head or we’ll lose the Championships.

  MARTIN

  Shut up, Flemming. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

  ROSS SINGH

  I can see a lot from down in defence. I remember the game Flemming’s talking about. It was close, so close I didn’t think we’d make it. I watched Faltrain score that goal. I saw her fighting to get that ball. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her play like that either. Sure, she made the shot, but the thing was, from the other end of the field it looked like she had to fight both sides to kick it. And that sort of playing only wins you games for so long.

  GRACIE

  When Martin tells me about the Championships I just keep thinking, I hope we win. Please let us win. And please let Dad be there to see it. I race Martin to the bus stop and keep my eyes on the concrete. If I don’t step on one crack then Dad will be home when I get there. Maybe if I wish hard enough he’ll be home for good.

  But Dad’s coat isn’t in the hallway when I walk in. Mum’s home early from the nursery but she’s forgotten to put the heater on. It’s colder inside than it is on the street.

  It’s so quiet as we eat that I can hear the rattle of the fridge. The clock ticking.

  ‘I’ll call Dad after dinner, Mum, to tell him about the Championships.’

  ‘Sounds like a good plan.’

  ‘How good would it be if we won it? Mum? Martin says that we have to practise on the weekends now. I’ll practise more if I have to –’

  She cuts me off: ‘How much is it going to cost?’

  ‘Three hundred dollars.’

  ‘Gracie, I don’t think we can afford it.’ Her hands reach across the table, dirt from the nursery ground into the rough lines around her fingers.

  I fold my arms. ‘But it’s only three hundred dollars.’

  ‘Gracie, if I had the money I’d send you. It’s just that business isn’t so good at the moment.’

  I look out of the window at the faded lines of Dad’s goalposts.

  ‘I can’t even afford to keep Sam on, Gracie.’ I hate that her voice is pleading. Sad. It belongs to someone else. Someone I’ve never met.

  ‘If Dad were here he’d let me go,’ I whisper.

  Clouds roll in over her face, and not the harmless ones you yawn over in science, like the cumulus. My mother is quickly becoming the twister cloud formation, capable of picking up whole couches and throwing them across the room with a look.

  ‘Well, he’s not here, Gracie Faltrain. I am. I am here to wash your socks and your undies . . .’ (It’s a low blow when they bring up your underwear in a fight.) ‘I am here to listen to you talk about your day . . .’ Her voice is dropping in pitch and volume when it should be rising. ‘And I say we simply do not have the money to send you to New South Wales.’ And then she starts to read the paper, the pages shaking slightly in the wake of her storm.

  I sit in my room. And then I cry. ‘Gracie Faltrain pushes her mother over the edge’, I imagine the headlines saying. I get up for a drink once and see her, sitting in the dark, still looking at the paper. I turn the light on in the kitchen and go back to bed.

  Crazy dreams fill the Faltrain house that night. I’m in the sea and it’s stormy. Mum is bailing out water but all the time I’m calling for my dad. Where is he? The water levels are rising and I’m shouting, ‘There’s a fin, a fin.’ I wake to feel my mother cradling me, stroking my hair. I fall asleep with the buttons of her dressing gown gently pressing half-moons into my face.

  HELEN FALTRAIN

  I read somewhere that spiders can spin silk strong enough to hold the weight of a thousand trucks. I tried to imagine those lines of silver, thinner than air, stronger than steel. Sometimes I think that a hundred webs, invisible gossamers, connect Gracie and me. They coat our bodies, tie our limbs together, link our hearts. They can stretch across cities, countries – even anger. Unbreakable. I felt them that first time I watched her play soccer.

  She needed to win so badly. I watched a new Gracie crack out of her cocoon that day. Grey, moth-like, she seemed covered in a dust that let her take to the air. Fly. They’re beautiful things, moths, with their dark patterned wings hooking on wind to push them forward. You have to be careful with them, though. Brush them just lightly, and they can’t fly anymore.

  I know how important soccer is to Gracie. She found a piece of herself during that match that was so real, so tangible, that she’s been able to carry it with her ever since. It’s her talisman, protecting her against all the hard times.

  ‘Hold it close, Gracie Faltrain,’ I whisper to the dark before I sleep. You’ll need it soon. I can’t tell you why yet. But you’ll need it soon.

  4

  lost adjective: no longer to be found;

  verb: that one has failed to win

  GRACIE

  Mum sleeps through the smell of coffee the next morning. Toast burning. Eggs cooking. I ring Dad’s mobile and leave a message: ‘Call me, Dad. It’s urgent.’ I have to get to New South Wales. I mean, I can’t be the only one not there when we win at the Championships.

  I go to Jane for advice. Her front door is open; I walk through the hall, stepping over cricket bats and washing folded in piles at bedroom doors. I love going to her house; it’s warm and messy and comfortable, like an unmade bed on a winter’s day. Mrs Iranian is in the kitchen drinking tea when I arrive. ‘Go on through, Gracie,’ she says without looking up from her paper.

  I curl up next to Jane and tap her until she wakes.

  ‘Faltrain, what time is it?’

  ‘Ten o’clock.’ I tap again.

  ‘You better have some serious problem to be waking me up at this time.’

  ‘Mum can’t afford to send me to New South Wales. The nursery isn’t making enough money.’ It seems better just saying it to Jane. ‘She can’t even afford to keep Sam on, the guy who works at the nursery.’

  ‘Why don’t you work for her? You could save her some money.’

  ‘I kill plants, Jane.’

  ‘If you really want to go to New
South Wales, then you need to learn quick,’ she says, and puts her hand on my shoulder. There’s something about the way it’s resting there. It’s like she’s holding me up.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Mum and Dad told us last night. Dad got the job in England. We leave in a week.’ Her voice is clumsy, tripping as she speaks.

  ‘A week?’ What were her parents thinking? My mum takes longer than that to decide we should go shopping. Jane was going to the other side of the world.

  Jane and I have been friends since Year 1. She walked into our classroom on her first day and everyone stared at her. It wasn’t because she was new either. She was taller than everyone else, and she had this look that said, nobody – nobody – mess with me. Everyone saw it. Everyone but Rebecca Jackson. She put her hand up and asked, ‘What’s a grade two doing in our classroom?’ Jane looked her right in the face, glanced over her short hair and answered, ‘What’s a boy doing in a dress?’ I grinned at her. I had short hair too, but I knew she wouldn’t laugh at me. I just knew it. Jane was best friend material. Without her I’d be lost.

  She couldn’t leave. It wasn’t right. Wasn’t there some sort of parenting manual that said they couldn’t do this?

  ‘You knew it might happen, Faltrain. I told you Dad had applied for the job.’

  ‘But a week?’

  ‘The people at Dad’s work already found us a place to live.’

  ‘But what will happen to your house?’

  ‘We’re renting it out, with all our stuff, just till we see if we like it in England.’

  I tried to imagine another family in the kitchen, cooking dinner with the Iranians’ pots. If I dropped in on Sunday morning, a family I’d never met would be eating off Jane’s plates. There would be another person sleeping in Jane’s bed.