The Girl She Was

by Rebecca Freeborn

  On the side of the road up ahead was the sign announcing that we were leaving Glasswater. Thank you for visiting Glasswater Bay, proclaimed a cartoon tugboat in faded multicoloured lettering. Please come again soon! Tears slipped out onto my cheeks as I thought about how many times I’d passed that lame sign. This town had been my home for my whole life, and for half of that I’d been thinking about leaving it. I’d never imagined fleeing in such circumstances, taking all my earthly ties with me. No family home, no friends. No reason to ever come back.

  The sign flashed by and I turned my eyes to the open road ahead. A new life awaited me in Adelaide; a new life where I could reinvent myself, be whoever I wanted to be, find new friends, a career, and maybe, one day, happiness. I wound down the window and the wind whipped my hair around my face, lifted my heart, caught up all my torments in a flurry and tossed them out of the window.

  NOW

  The first thing Layla noticed when she got out of her car at The Knob was the stillness. She inhaled it: the salty tang of the sea; the dry, herbaceous scent of the shrubs that grew along the border of the car park. The air expanded her lungs. It was the first time she’d been here that there was no wind. It felt like a sign.

  Then her gaze shifted to the giant granite outcropping, its contours familiar but removed, in the way a dream left a shadowy memory on the mind. There was a fence around it now: solid wooden posts with tightly strained, braided wire stretched between them. The fence extended along the cliff to a raised decking area with a sign above it: Tor Lookout. She wandered over to the deck and stood, grasping the top wire with both hands, looking down on the curve of the bay far below. For the first time she saw its true beauty, unclouded by the angsty veil of adolescence.

  She’d come here to call Cam, but now she found herself reluctant to break the spell that her return to her home town had cast over her. Dragging her mind back to her life at home seemed impossible. Finally, she got her phone out and dialled her mother’s number instead.

  ‘Layla?’ There was an edge of anxiety in Angela’s voice. ‘Is everything OK?’

  Tears came to Layla’s eyes. ‘I didn’t do it, Mum.’

  ‘Didn’t do what? What do you mean? Layla?’

  But Layla couldn’t get the words out. She’d called her mother to share her relief, but now it occurred to her that the truth might not be as comforting to Angela as it had been to her. Layla’s mistake had uprooted her family and, ultimately, split them apart. Leaving had never been necessary.

  ‘I didn’t start the fire,’ she said. ‘Scott’s accident … it wasn’t my fault.’

  Layla waited, but there was silence from the other end of the line. Then Angela took a deep, hitching breath, and Layla realised she was crying. Tears came to her own eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mum,’ she said. ‘I made everyone change their lives, and it was all for nothing.’

  ‘Oh, Layla,’ came Angela’s jagged voice. ‘I’m so happy.’

  ‘You’re not angry?’

  ‘Of course I’m not angry! I know how much you’ve suffered over this. I never blamed you … I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy.’

  Sweet relief washed over Layla. She told her mother all about the meeting with Jodie, and about the school reunion, and passed on the scant information about the Glasswater Bay residents that she’d gleaned from Renee. And by the time they hung up, there was a tentative warmth between them that Layla clung to with both hands.

  As for Cam, he was overjoyed to hear the news, but when she’d got to the end of the story, there was still an unresolved feeling in the pit of Layla’s belly. All this time, she’d taken it for granted that their problems were tied to the things she’d kept from him, but now that barrier had gone, she realised there was a deeper dysfunction there. And it had always been there; she’d just been too tied up with guilt and shame to see it.

  ‘I’m so glad that’s over with,’ Cam said. ‘Now we can forget about all this and get on with our lives.’

  ‘But …’ Layla hesitated, unsure how to articulate the strange uncertainty inside her. ‘I don’t know if I want to forget about it. It’s part of who I am.’

  Cam gave a short laugh. ‘But it doesn’t have to be. What you’ve thought all this time … it was never the case.’

  ‘It’s not that. The things I did … I may have been wrong about the fire, but I’m still the bitch who ripped a family apart, as you put it.’ The words tasted bitter in her mouth.

  ‘God, Layla, I wasn’t talking about you.’

  ‘But you may as well have been. I know it’s partly because of what happened with your dad, but sometimes your attitudes about women make me uncomfortable.’

  ‘What do you mean? You know I have nothing but respect for women!’

  ‘Yeah, if they fit your view of what a woman should be,’ Layla said carefully.

  ‘That’s not fair, Layla. I’ve never expected you to be anything you’re not.’

  She sighed. ‘But you’ve chosen to believe things about me that fit with what you want to see. The fact is, I slept with a lot of men before I met you.’

  Layla imagined him cringing away from her words, not wanting to believe them.

  ‘You were probably traumatised because of what that bastard did to you,’ he said.

  Layla blew out an exasperated breath. ‘But that’s just it! It doesn’t matter why I did it. I don’t want to feel like I need to keep parts of me hidden from you anymore. Can you understand that?’

  Cam didn’t speak straightaway, and when he did, his voice was shaking. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I should never have made you feel that way.’

  ‘I love you, and I want to be with you. But there are obviously some bigger problems between us than either of us realised. I think we should consider having relationship counselling so we can solve them together.’

  There was a long silence, and Layla held her breath and clutched the phone tight. Maybe it was too late to mend their relationship. Maybe they were both too damaged.

  ‘I think that’s a good idea,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’

  She let out her breath in a gust of relief. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Are we going to get through this?’

  ‘I think we will, if we do it together.’

  *

  Layla, Renee and Shona picked their way down the stone steps and did the classic Glasswater summer quick-step across the searing sand to the shade under the jetty. Renee spread out the picnic rug in a spot that hadn’t already been taken, and they sat down on it as Jonah and Henry ran to the water. Daniel gave them a small wave and sauntered off after the boys.

  When Layla had got back to Renee’s place, it’d been on the tip of her tongue to tell her friends what she’d discovered, but then she’d decided it wasn’t her secret to share. The realisation gave her a heady sense of freedom. She could let the knowledge slip through her fingers and take flight on the air. Now it was Jodie and Matty’s secret to keep.

  ‘Fancy a wine?’ Renee produced a bottle of riesling from the refrigerated bag she’d brought.

  ‘Hell yes.’

  ‘Ah, shit,’ Renee said, her head in the bag.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I forgot to bring the bloody glasses.’

  ‘Pfft.’ Shona plucked up the bottle and twisted off the screw cap. ‘Did you learn nothing from our high school days?’

  She took a swig from the bottle and passed it to Layla. They laughed as they passed the bottle back and forth between them, watching Renee’s sons thrashing around in the water, splashing each other and laughing with the friends they’d run into.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Shona said. ‘Look who’s coming over.’

  They looked up to see Jodie Wilson picking her way between the towels spread out on the sand, her wet hair straggled over her shoulders. She eyed the almost-empty bottle in Layla’s hand. ‘Liquid lunch, girls?’ she trilled.

  Shona scowled at her. ‘There’s solid lunch in there too.
We just haven’t got to it yet.’

  Jodie twisted the corner of the towel that hung around her neck in one hand. ‘I wanted to apologise for the things I said to you last night, Layla. I guess I was jealous. I haven’t really done anything interesting since high school, and you guys are all successful, so …’

  Surprise fluttered through Layla. It seemed that she’d been closed off from everyone for years, and nothing she’d thought about anyone was concrete. People’s capacity to surprise was consistently dazzling. She smiled up at Jodie. ‘Well, I had a great time. You did a good job organising it.’

  Jodie blushed. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Apart from the music,’ Shona added.

  ‘Do you want to join us?’ Renee patted the rug.

  ‘We’ve almost finished the wine though,’ Layla said.

  ‘Don’t worry, I brought two,’ Renee grinned.

  ‘Thanks, but I was just heading home,’ Jodie said. ‘Thanks for coming last night. It meant a lot to me.’

  They waved as she continued up towards the Esplanade, hot-footing it across the sand.

  ‘I’m going for a swim,’ Shona announced.

  Layla and Renee watched as she took off her white shirt and jogged down towards the water in her hot-pink bikini.

  ‘I can’t believe how great she still looks,’ Layla said enviously.

  Renee looked sideways at her. ‘You’d look great too if you were out there in a bikini.’

  Layla shifted uncomfortably. Renee had lent her some bathers, but she knew she wouldn’t have the courage to strip off her clothes and expose herself to all these people. She stretched out her legs and curled her bare toes into the sand. ‘Well, if there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, it’s that I still fucking hate the beach. What’s with sand? It’s all kind of greasy, but it also makes my skin feel dry and gross, and I’ll still be brushing it off myself in two days’ time. You can wash it off in the water, but then you have to cross the bloody sand again to get out of here, so you’re destined to be fucking covered in the stuff permanently. And what the hell is the point of going to the beach to cool off when you’re just as hot by the time you get back to your car? And even if you don’t dry yourself at all so you can retain some semblance of coolness, your car is like a bloody oven when you get back to it, so by the time you get home you’re sweating like a pig again. I just don’t get it.’

  Renee chuckled. ‘You were always wasted in this town.’

  ‘Still am.’

  ‘Are you going to be OK?’

  Layla met her gaze. ‘Yeah, I think I am.’

  Renee’s smile of genuine pleasure was so delicious that Layla had the urge to hug her.

  ‘Will you come back to visit us again?’

  ‘I’d like that. And you should come to Adelaide sometime too.’

  ‘I will.’

  They sat in silence for a while, polishing off the bottle of wine.

  ‘Come on.’ Renee stood up decisively and pulled Layla to her feet. ‘We’re going for a swim.’

  ‘Oh no, Renee, I can’t,’ Layla protested.

  ‘C’mon, Lay.’ Renee gestured around her. ‘What do you care what these people think? They’re all here to have fun. No one’s looking at you, and even if they did, what does it matter?’

  The slippery eel of shame that had lived within Layla for so long twisted and cringed. The idea of revealing so much of herself with all these people around was like contemplating her own death. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t do it. Renee waited. Then Layla looked around at the people who surrounded them, and realised Renee was right. None of them were paying the slightest bit of attention to her. There was a man not far from them with a huge hairy belly. A teenage girl, her thighs dimpled with cellulite. An old woman, her bathers still wet, every inch of her skin deeply wrinkled. All of them were smiling. There was something exhilarating about their lack of self-consciousness. None of them were grotesque, as she had always considered herself: they were beautiful. Maybe she could be too.

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  Before she could change her mind, she pulled off her clothes, shrinking inside Renee’s bronze one-piece. She felt vulnerable, exposed, as she followed Renee down to the water’s edge. But no one looked at her. Everyone was absorbed in their own fun. The foaming water pulled at her feet; the wet sand sucked them down as if trying to swallow her whole. Renee looked back and smiled at her once, then dived under a small wave and came up, laughing.

  Layla hesitated a moment longer, then waded out further and plunged in. The water was shockingly cold, but she felt her body come alive. She began to swim, striking out towards the open sea. After a few minutes, she stopped and treaded water, watching the families splashing around in the shallows, watching Renee and Daniel kissing like the young couple they’d once been. Exaltation swelled inside her. Now the fear had lifted, she could imagine bringing her own family here for a visit. She pictured Cam carrying Ella on his shoulders; Layla teaching Louis how to swim in the salt-stung surf. The time away from them had made her appreciate what she had, what she could have lost. When she got home tomorrow, she was going to focus on them, on her relationship with Cam. She was going to make it work.

  But for today – just for today – she was going to enjoy this crystalline moment of happiness, this brief flash of clarity, when she could imagine what life might have been if she’d never left.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book would not be what it is today without the people who supported and encouraged me along the way.

  Thank you to my long-time friend and fellow author, Rebekah Turner, for always being the first to hear my unformed ideas and encouraging me to pursue them. It was your idea to throw in a school reunion that got the story back on track when it was faltering. Thanks for coming on retreat with me when I was writing the first draft, for always giving honest feedback on my terrible drafts, and for the many high school memories (especially from our art classes

  – I still sometimes wonder whether Ms Parsons ever found out what a head job was) that made their way into this book. You are a good egg.

  Thank you to the whole team at Pantera Press for bringing my writing out into the world. As always, thanks to my editor, Lucy Bell, for your enthusiasm for this book from the first time I pitched the idea right through to the finished product. You always get exactly what I’m trying to do, and your guidance makes me push myself to be a better writer. Thank you also to Lex Hirst for your thoughtful feedback, which helped me to lift this story just that little bit more.

  Thanks to two women for the wine-fuelled conversation that evening when we shared our stories of the men who used our youth, our roles, our bodies, as weapons against us. It was that conversation that convinced me I needed to write this book. Time’s fucking up.

  When I started writing this story, I didn’t realise its backbone would be female friendship, but now it makes sense, because the small group of extraordinary women I’m lucky enough to call my friends are a constant joy in my life. Whether we’ve known each other for two years or thirty, catch up once a year or often enough to know one another’s menstrual cycles, thanks for the laughs, the drinks, the debates, the advice, and for always being there.

  Finally, thanks, of course, to my family … My husband, George, for always listening and making the effort to understand the female experience, and for helping to facilitate writing time when it seems impossible among the relentless demands of work and a young family. And my kids, Finn, Cael and Lata, for providing endless creative material … and I’m sorry, Cael the Chaos Demon, for accidentally writing you into this book.

  BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS

  1. Discuss the significance of the Hannah Gadsby quote: ‘A seventeen-year-old girl is just never, ever in her prime. Ever.’

  2. One of the main themes in the novel is the issue of consent. Do you think consent is more complex than an age and a simple yes or no? Should the power differential also be a consideration?

  3. Which charac
ter did you connect with the most?

  4. In what ways does Layla’s past affect her in the present?

  5. How would you describe Shona, Renee and Layla’s friendship? Discuss the importance of female friendship in this story.

  6. How would you describe Scott’s behaviour towards Layla?

  7. Why do you think Layla felt like she couldn’t share her past with Cam? Do you think it’s better to know about your partner’s past relationship history or not?

  8. How do you feel about the resolution between Layla and Cam? Do you think their relationship will survive?

  9. What role do you think Matty played in the story?

  10. Do you think Jodie was justified in seeking Layla out? How did their confrontation leave you feeling?

  11. What similarities did Layla share with Jodie?

  12. How was Layla’s relationship with her mother impacted by the affair with Scott?

  REBECCA FREEBORN

  Rebecca Freeborn, the author of Hot Pursuit (2018) and Misconception (2019) has been writing since the age of 12. At her home in the beautiful Adelaide Hills, she writes before the sun comes up. By day, she works as a communications and content editor for the South Australian Government.

  Rebecca lives with her husband, three kids, a dog, a cat and a horse and spends her moments of spare time reading novels and feminist articles and compulsively checking Facebook.

  The Girl She Was is Rebecca’sthird novel.

  Also by Rebecca Freeborn

  Available in all good bookstores or from www.panterapress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, dialogue and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, organisations, events or locales is coincidental.

  First published in 2020 by Pantera Press Pty Limited

  www.PanteraPress.com

  Text copyright © Rebecca Freeborn, 2020

  Rebecca Freeborn has asserted her moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.