by John Marsden
But you know Trace, thinking about it later, I’m not so sure about this best friend stuff. Sometimes it seems like you’re not that interested in my life. Especially Steve. I don’t write about him much nowadays — I’m still sensitive about it. But a real friend would try and help more, wouldn’t she? This last week Steve’s been out of control. I think he’s scared about his results. But I’m scared of him. He slaps me, knees me, kicks me. I lock my door quite often when I’m in my bedroom now, that’s how much he scares me.
I suppose being in a place like Garrett must make you selfish in a way, because there’s only you to concentrate on.
Don’t take all this the wrong way. I do feel close to you — that’s the only reason I can say these things. I think true friends keep pushing each other up the ladder — they don’t just sit about at the same level.
Keep on keeping on,
M.
Dec 19
Dear Manna,
I’m still shaking, and grinning like an idiot. It’s only five minutes since I hung up. That was the biggest shock I’ve had in this place.
You know, that Miss Gruber, I was such a bitch to her last week. I called her every name you can think of, plus a few they don’t have at Acacia Park. It was because she turned the TV off two minutes before the end of ‘Hotel for Strangers’. I know it’s not that great a show but I wanted to see the end. Anyway, I’m embarrassed about it now.
So, how’d you think I sounded, huh? Dumb for the first five minutes, I bet. I nearly lost my voice. When she gave me the phone, I thought it’d be the shrink, ’cos she said she’d ring Matron this afternoon to see how I was. Then this little voice said ‘Tracey? It’s Mandy.’ I just sat there with my mouth open. Every time I tried to say something I had to cough instead. Words wouldn’t come out. Must have sounded great to you, but my throat went all tight and sore. And when I could speak I couldn’t think of anything to say at first.
Manna, I don’t understand why you’re so good to me, when I lied to you and all that.
Anyhow, once my throat unlocked and I warmed up a bit, it was great. In fact I felt like I was gabbling, the words came so fast. Hope you didn’t mind. I’m not normally like that, but it was the first time in over a year I felt free to talk. I couldn’t believe it when they said it was half an hour and I had to stop. Seemed like five minutes.
That was good about your softball. Unbelievable in fact. The way you wrote about them, I thought they’d be more like Grandma’s Army than Mum’s. And I don’t care what you wrote in your letter, I won’t be offended. Hope it comes tomorrow but.
Manna, you sound so cool. A sort of laughing, happy voice, nervous at first, but then all husky and nice. Not like anyone in here. They all start to sound the same after a while.
Well, I’ve got to finish this, ’cos the nurse who’s posting it is going off in a minute. See you!
Heaps of love,
Ice-eyes
December 19
Dear Trace,
God, that was exciting. I was so nervous, but once we got going it was great. That silence after I said who I was — I thought it’d last forever. And when you said ‘Mandy?’ you sounded like some ninety-year-old. But by the end I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. I’m glad though, ’cos Miss Gruber said you hadn’t said anything much for weeks. I didn’t realize you were so, you know, out of it. You should have told me.
Ignore what I said in my last letter about being selfish — it was just an impulse.
I never thought Miss Gruber would do anything, when she took my number. I nearly died when she rang this afternoon. But the thing I was scared of was that we wouldn’t be able to talk — that there’d be this long painful silence, then we’d start discussing the weather. I thought it was a big gamble, ’cos it could have wrecked the whole thing. But I also knew that once she’d offered, I had to accept.
So how’d I sound, huh? Sexy voice? You were totally different to what I expected. I thought your voice would be really tough and rough. But you sound so cute. That’s probably an insult in A Block. You sounded like a Sunday School student giving another right answer. It makes me more curious to see what you look like.
You know, we’re heading for our first anniversary. Amazing, hey?
Anyway, get out of the Med Unit fast. And then, why don’t you put in a bit of a try-hard effort and get transferred to an easier block? Is that possible? I reckon you should go for it.
Love always,
M.
Dec 20
Dear Manna,
Well, the letter you’d warned me about turned up today. It wasn’t so bad, but thanks for the warning. I deserve everything you said. Of course this place makes you selfish — you’ve gotta be, or you’re dead. Trust no-one, get everything you can for yourself — that’s how it works. After a while you think about yourself so much — how to get more food, more smokes, longer showers; how to stop people hassling you; how to get the best jobs. And you get sick of everyone whingeing all the time and telling the same stories over and over, so you think about yourself even more.
I suppose they encourage it in a way, with the shrinks and all that. It’s got its good points but. I’ve learnt a bit about myself.
As for Steve. . . well, I’ve tried to say this before. I guess I owe it to you to spell it out. You see Manna, I know there are good families out there. I’ve heard about them and I’ve seen them from a distance. And they fascinate me. One of the things I hoped when I put the ad in was to get closer to one of those families, kind of get inside one. Not that it was any huge deal — I’d forgotten about the ad five minutes after I sent it off. I never paid for it either — I couldn’t. I got threatening letters from them for months. Wonder what they planned to do — arrest me?
Anyhow, when you started dropping hints about an off brother I was curious, of course. So I pestered you to tell me. But when you did, I felt sick. It was like the same old thing again — violence. I felt like I’d been born into that, grown up in it, breathed it and eaten it. I needed to know that there were families where it didn’t happen; I didn’t need to know about another one where it did. Now I’m on the verge of going further than I meant to; further than I should. I can feel it. If you’ve got any sense Manna, don’t read on. No, I’m not about to tell you my life story — I don’t think I could ever do that. But I’ll tell you a chapter or two. And like I said, be smart and stop reading now.
OK, if you’re still reading, you asked for it. I know now my father was what they call violent. I’ve only realized that lately. We never thought of him that way; we didn’t have names for it. Sometimes he’d be angry and he’d hit us and we’d be scared and try and keep out of the way, and we’d walk quietly and talk quietly. Stay in our bedrooms. See what I mean? Like if someone’s an alcoholic, their kids probably wouldn’t think that, they’d just hate it when their Mum or Dad was drunk. You don’t think of it as a condition or an illness or anything. And we were only little.
And yeah, he’d hit Mum and we’d hate that and cry and try to fight him off. Just like you see in the movies. I’ve had to walk out of some movies, like Abbie and Cry Baby Cry.
By the way another thing I’ve never told you. There were only two of us kids. My brother, Simon, who’s three years older, and me. The only relatives we had were Nanna, who was Mum’s mum, and an aunt and uncle in Scotland, who I don’t know much about. I don’t remember Mum’s dad. Dad’s parents died when he was little, and he was brought up by an uncle.
Anyhow, one day when I was about eight, Nanna suddenly told me I’d be living with her for a while. I was quite pleased, but a bit puzzled. I remember asking her if Simon was coming too, and she said no, which I thought was strange.
Nanna was old then, so it wasn’t as much fun living there as I thought it would be. After a while — could have been a couple of months, I can’t remember — I asked if I could go back home. That’s when she told me that my Mum had died and my Dad had gone away. And when I said ‘What about Simon?’ she sai
d he was being looked after by some other people.
It didn’t sink in for a while, but when it did I started to go a bit funny, I think. I don’t remember that period clearly but I know I did some stupid things, like sleeping under the bed, and crapping in cupboards at school. I always seemed to be in trouble, which was a good joke, because I’d been one of those super-suction kids up till then. Never went over the lines when I was colouring-in.
Anyhow, I got worse and worse. I ended up known as the local slut, head-banger, low-life, all of which didn’t bother me. But the good thing was, Nanna didn’t know much about it. She was pretty weak by then and couldn’t do much for herself. And I kept getting quite good marks, without doing any work.
Then one day I came home real late and she wasn’t there. I was so scared. Then the lady next door came in and told me Nanna had been knocked over by a boy on a bike and had her hip broken and was in hospital. But this lady didn’t waste any words telling me — she thought I was such a hard case that I didn’t deserve any consideration. What the hell, she was probably right.
She sure hung it on me for being so late home though. See the thing was, if I’d been there on time, I’d have gone to the shops instead of Nanna and the accident would never have happened. Any kid tried to run me over, I’d be wearing his balls around my neck on his bike chain.
Well then it went pretty much like in that story I sent you. When she came out of the operation Nanna was a space case, and after a while she died. I knew I had to get out of town fast then, or Community Services would get me. I’d cleaned the whole house up while Nanna was sick, so it was easy to pack what I wanted. I rang Raz, then got clothes and money and food and stuff, and put it all in a couple of bags.
Then I got some papers out of the bottom of Nanna’s wardrobe, where I’d seen them while I was tidying up. They were these envelopes, stuck up tight with sticky tape. They were the only papers in the house. I’d been hoping they were money. I didn’t touch them while Nanna was alive, but now that she was dead I thought it’d be all right. So I opened them.
It was just newspaper clippings, so I was disappointed. But I flicked through them anyhow. Then I saw a photo of my father. I recognized him straight away, even though it had been so long. The headline said ‘Police Praised In Murder Trial.’ I thought maybe my father had been a policeman, which surprised me a lot. Then I started reading the article and found it was my father who’d done the murder. Then I read a bit further and found he’d got 18 years. Then I read to the end and found it was my mother who he’d murdered.
A bit later Raz came round with his panel van and we went up north.
I still don’t know where Simon is. And I don’t know where my father is — probably still in the Q. Although 18 years never means what it says.
Anyhow, wherever he is, I guess he’d be proud of me, following in his footsteps. Seems like some things do run in the family.
All I can say, Manna, is I hope you stopped reading back on the first page, like I told you.
See you,
Tracey
Dec 21
Dear Manna,
Just to tell you that the parcel got here. God you’re a dickhead, but thanks a lot. I asked them not to give it to me till Christmas Day: if there’s anything illegal in it there’s more chance of getting it on Christmas Day. It’s a good time for bargaining.
This’ll be my second Christmas in here. Last year wasn’t too cheerful — a girl offed herself on Christmas morning. She did it with one of those flex cords from an electric jug, that she’d knocked off from the dining hall.
No-one gets too excited about Christmas here, though a lot of them have visitors. The food’s good though.
Time’s passing slowly at the moment. You don’t like classes much when they’re on, but they leave a hole when they finish. We’ve invented this new game called Points. There’s a few little balls of Blu-tack around, each one with a drawing pin in it, right? (Both the Blu-tack and the drawing pins are illegal, needless to say.) And whoever’s got one hangs onto it until she sees a good target — another slag, that is. When you see someone you chuck it at them as hard as you can, so it sticks in them. If they cry out, or make any sound at all when it hits, they lose a point. If they stay silent they get a point.
Some people are on minus five already. Ice-eyes here’s on plus three and going nowhere but up.
Well, it helps fill in the hours.
I’m reading this book at the moment called A Place Like Home. It’s by this woman who was brought up in an orphanage in Sydney, in the 1920s, with her sisters. Geez it’d break your heart. What those kids went through. The way they got treated, you wouldn’t think anyone would get away with it. When they went on a holiday, just once in their little lives, it was like they’d been given the universe.
It’s a true story and I swear Manna, you’d love it. You ought to try and get a copy.
Hope this arrives by Christmas. If so, have a really good time, OK? Get into the grog, pig out on the food, make Adam crawl for everything he gets, and think of me.
Happy Christmas.
Love,
Tracey
December 21
Dear Trace,
Got your letter a few minutes ago — funny it was so like mine. I’m glad you liked talking — like I said, it seemed such a massive risk. But I still smile when I think about it. And thanks for what you said about my voice.
Think I told you most of my news on the phone. We’re having a party for Rebecca New Year’s Eve, a farewell. It’s at Angelo Bouras’ — he’s been with Becca for quite a while. In fact he’ll be cut to ribbons when she leaves.
Cheryl, Mai Huynh and I went round the seconds shops yesterday. I got this great outfit at Battle of the Sexes: you can get some good stuff there, but it’s still expensive. Buying that, plus all the Christmas shopping, has cleaned me out — hope I score some cash for Chrissie. And I’m still hoping to get a job mail-sorting in January, but Katrina said they don’t confirm it till about two days before you start. Dad’s working a late on Christmas Day, so well go to Midnight Mass Christmas Eve and have Christmas dinner early: about 11.30 or 12. It’ll only be like half a Christmas Day really. But it should be fun. All the rellies are coming over Boxing Day, including the lovely Uncle Kevin and Aunty Sophie, and Justin the Dentist. I’m hoping Adam will come too, meet the in-laws, ha ha. Or if he can’t come here I’ll try to go there, although the way my parents are about family reunions, if I do go I’ll probably never be allowed back home again.
That’s a joke by the way.
I gotta tell you too that Steve’s getting so weird even Mum and Dad are having to face the fact. They’re talking about his seeing a shrink, but no-one’s talking about it to him yet. He spends most of his time in his room reading gun magazines, and when he talks to anyone it’s only a mutter, or it’s some riveting comment about a new Canadian howitzer that disembowels babies or something. He used to have this mate Tim, but when I asked about Tim the other day he went sick at me and told me to shut my fucking mouth, and said I’d been talking to Tim about him and how it was Tim’s fault he was going to fail Year 12. It was weird. I think he’s heading for the drop zone. What really scares me is that he’s got this .22 and a shotgun that Grandpa left him. He uses them for rabbit-shooting, although he hasn’t been for a while. But he spends a lot of time cleaning the guns and taking them apart.
I wish Mum and Dad would take them off him. I think they’re illegal anyway — aren’t you meant to have a licence?
Anyway I’d hate to be in a McDonalds if he walks in one day.
So, this’ll be the last letter from me before Christmas. That’s if it gets there in time. It should though — Katrina was saying how they have extra deliveries before Christmas, and two on Christmas Eve. Trace, I know Garrett on Christmas Day isn’t likely to be the happiest place on the planet but I hope it’s a good day anyway. Hope my parcel gets there too. Lots and lots of love and hugs, for a good Christmas and even better New Ye
ar,
Your friend,
Manna
PS: Mum just came home, and she said to say Merry Christmas to you too. She paid the postage on the parcel, and she said she snuck some chocolate in.
Dec 25
Dear Manna,
I’m not very good at thanking people but maybe that’s one of the things I need to learn. So here goes. Thanks for the presents — I can keep everything. The pen’s fantastic — so good. I’ll have to guard it with my life here, I swear. And the soap smells so great I don’t want to use it — I’ll keep it just for the smell. And they let me have the chocolate — I told you this is the best day for sleazing. Please tell your Mum thanks from me. And also, thanks for the Christmas letter, which came yesterday. And finally, thank you for being such a good friend all year. I didn’t know what I was getting when your first letter came, but it’s really been something.
To tell you the truth, I hate being in anyone’s debt. I hate it. But if I’ve got to owe anyone favours, I’d just as rather it was you. And one day maybe I’ll get the chance to pay you back — I hope so.
The bad news is that Miss Gruber’s been transferred, to Abbotsville I think. She came round Saturday to say goodbye. She was quite burned-off that they gave her no warning, but that’s the way they seem to do it round here.