Words in Deep Blue

by Cath Crowley

  I don’t understand. I’ve missed her. Even now, when she’s acting like this, I miss her. ‘How can you not have missed me? How is that possible?’

  For a second I think she’s about to admit that she did. She almost smiles. But then she says instead, ‘It’s a complete mystery.’

  ‘You were about to admit it. You were about to say, “I missed you so much I cried at night. I kissed your photograph daily.’’’

  ‘I didn’t take your photograph with me,’ she says, and points across the room to an empty table. ‘Look. I see some friends.’

  I’m watching her sit alone rather than talk to me when Lola walks over. ‘Have you seen her?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘And she was very rude. Nothing like her old self.’

  ‘She was always kind of rude,’ she says.

  ‘No, she wasn’t. She was funny and smart and loyal. A little over-organised, sure, with all those notes she took in class, and the way she alphabetised the books in her locker, but everyone’s got something and it worked in my favour over the years. I still have the notes she took for me when I was sick that time. Everything neatly labelled –’

  ‘Who are you talking about?’ Lola asks, cutting me off.

  I point over to the table, where no one’s sitting anymore. I wonder whether I imagined her. ‘Rachel.’

  ‘I’m talking about Amy,’ she says, and I notice she seems worried. ‘You haven’t heard the news?’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘The bad news,’ she says. ‘The bad, bad, bad news. The extremely bad news.’

  Now I’m worried. Lola’s not prone to exaggeration. In fact, she’s prone to de-exaggeration. ‘All I ask, is that you make it quick and merciful.’

  She closes her eyes and tells me, ‘AmyiswithGregSmith.’

  Because of the way it’s all crammed in together, it takes me a while to separate the words. ‘Amy’s with Greg Smith?’ I repeat when I finally understand. ‘And by with, you mean . . .?’

  ‘Holding hands, kissing. They’re on the other side of the bar.’

  It doesn’t compute. Greg Smith is the kind of guy who thinks it’s funny to steal a guy’s clothes and towel after swimming and then post a picture of him on Facebook while he stands there naked, asking a teacher for clothes. Greg Smith is an idiot of gigantic proportions. Amy couldn’t like Greg Smith.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Lola asks.

  ‘Like I’ve just had every single one of my organs harvested while I’m still alive.’

  ‘Good to know you’re not overreacting. I have to go play. Don’t get drunk. You’re an idiot when you drink.’

  It’s true. I am an idiot when I drink. But if there was ever an occasion to be an idiot, this is it.

  It’s a truth, universally acknowledged according to George, that shit days generally get more shit. Shit nights roll into shit mornings that roll into shit afternoons and back into shit starless midnights. Shitness, my sister says, has a momentum that good luck just doesn’t have. I’m an optimist but tonight I’m coming around to her way of thinking.

  I push my way through the crowd towards the bar and by chance Rachel’s standing there when I arrive. I’m hoping I look so pitiful that she’ll feel sorry for me and end this stupid fight. ‘I’m having a really bad week,’ I say. ‘I’m talking extreme badness.’

  ‘Not interested, Henry,’ she says, and walks off in the direction of the stage.

  ‘Is that the girl?’ Katia, the bartender, asks after I order a beer, which she lets me put on a tab because I tutored her for free in English. I started the year after Rachel left, so she knows all about us. ‘That is the girl,’ I tell her. ‘That’s Rachel, my ex-best friend.’

  ‘The one you secretly love.’

  ‘I don’t secretly love her.’

  ‘You don’t talk about a girl as much as you talked about Rachel if you don’t secretly love her.’

  ‘I love her. I’m just not in love with her,’ I say, and drink my beer fast. I order and drink another one faster because at the moment I would like nothing more than to be a bystander in my life: observing the badness but not feeling it. I order and drink, order and drink and the blur under my skin feels more than good, it feels great.

  Until I turn to my left and see Amy and Greg sitting together on Laundry’s old locked-together chairs, holding hands. She seems so happy. She’s laughing and looking at him the way she looked at me that first night together in Year 12. Completely focused. Leaning close. Red hair falling loose on a long green dress.

  He looks gorgeous, too, the fucker. The lights are picking up and reflecting the whiteness of his teeth and making his hair look extra shiny. I see myself in the mirror that runs along the back of the bar – my hair is doing that defeated thing and my teeth are the white of an average person. I’m in the clothes I’ve been wearing for the last couple of days – my Bukowski Love is a Dog from Hell t-shirt, and jeans.

  ‘No wonder she doesn’t love me,’ I say to Katia. ‘My whole body looks slept in.’

  ‘Shakespeare, that girl is not for you.’

  ‘She’s my soul mate.’

  ‘Then I am seriously worried for your soul,’ she says, and goes back to serving the other customers.

  It’s not the first time I’ve heard that Amy isn’t right for me. Rachel never liked her. Lola didn’t either. Hiroko politely tells me it’s not her place to judge, but she makes for the door whenever Amy’s around. George isn’t so polite. She says Amy turns up at the bookshop when she’s lonely and disappears when she’s not.

  It isn’t like that, though.

  It’s more like she can’t stay away from me any more than I can stay away from her. I’ve always taken Amy back. I will always take her back. I might tell myself that I won’t, but when she shows up at the bookshop it feels like it’s something that’s out of my control. She’s my destiny. She’s not some total moron’s destiny.

  I stumble through the crowd towards them, trying all the while to figure out what to say when I arrive. The words to get her back exist; I just have to work out the order of them.

  I’ve drunk away my sense of order, though. I’ve drowned it out, so I stand in front of them with nothing. I stare and sway for a while and then I gesture towards their looped hands. ‘This is so . . . disturbing. He’s – it’s – Greg Smith.’

  ‘Henry,’ Amy says, and because Greg stands without letting go of her hand, she’s pulled up with him. They’re looped together when a week ago, Amy and I were looped.

  ‘I don’t understand. He’s a complete idiot. Look at him.’

  But as I say it, I look at him. I take a good long look at Greg Smith. He’s handsome; he’s well dressed; he wouldn’t have had to borrow the last hundred dollars from his girlfriend to buy his round-the-world ticket or run a tab he’ll never pay for at the bar. No doubt he’s paid for Amy’s drink, straight up, with cash. He’s going to university. He’s studying law. He has a life plan to go with his white teeth.

  I think about a lot of things, standing here. I think about how Amy probably hates kissing on the floor of the bookshop; hates that I intend to live there indefinitely with my dad and George. I have a flashback to me dressed in my second-hand suit for the formal, picking up Amy in the bookshop van. She said it didn’t matter, but maybe it did. Maybe a lot of things that I thought didn’t matter actually did. Maybe that’s why she keeps going away and coming back. She comes back because she can’t stop loving me. She leaves because I don’t have my shit together. I need to get my shit together. I need to get a better haircut and a decent life plan. I need substantial money.

  ‘We’re selling the bookshop,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll be able to move out when we get back from our trip.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Greg says.

  ‘I am going somewhere. And Amy, I want you to come with me.’

  Maybe it’s the light, but I don’t think it is. She looks unsure for second. One second of uncertainty tells me all I need to know. I can ha
ve her back if I change.

  Greg pushes me then, just gently; just enough, and I fall backwards into a crowd that instinctively clears a space for me. I look up from my position on the floor at Amy, and she looks back down at me sadly. In those eyes I read something. I read that she wants me to change. If you change, her eyes are saying, I’ll come back.

  I close my eyes to regain some balance and I feel hands pulling me upwards. I think it’s Amy helping, but when I open my eyes, it’s Rachel. ‘You want her back?’ she asks, and I tell her I do – I really, really do.

  She leans in close, like she’s about to tell me the lost secret of love. ‘Then get up,’ she says quietly. ‘And stop being so pathetic.’

  Rachel

  you smell of apples

  I’m definitely not in love with Henry anymore, and it’s a relief. He smells the same – peppermint and cedar and a hint of old books. He sounds the same – gentle and funny. But I don’t get that same feeling. I don’t think about kissing him. I’m not fixated on his hair. I’m cured.

  You’re having a really bad week? I think after I leave him at the bar. A really bad week ends in death, Henry. I don’t know what’s happened to you this week, but unless it involves death, it’s really not that bad.

  Lola and Hiroko are onstage. I focus on them to take my mind off Henry. They’re playing a cover of Cat Power’s ‘Good Woman’. They’ve made it their own with Lola’s blue gravel voice and the sweet steel of Hiroko’s percussion. Hiroko’s taller than Lola, not shy but quiet. They finished each other’s sentences in Year 9, but tonight they’re speaking separately – their lines of music circle and add to the other. They’re starring in a dream up there, and I’m happy for them, but I can’t help wondering why some people get what they want and why some people don’t.

  I take a photograph and send it to Rose; I send it to Mum, too, because a text means I can get away with not calling her tonight. She’ll be at the beach by now, and I don’t want to hear the ocean in the background. I turn off my phone and get lost in the music and the light-spattered club.

  The set ends after a while. Lola and Hiroko climb down from the stage. Lola takes Hiroko’s water bottle, drinks from it, and hands it back to her. ‘Thank you,’ Hiroko says.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Lola tells her, then turns to me and points at the bar. ‘Henry’s drinking.’

  ‘He’s having a bad week,’ I tell her.

  ‘Amy dumped him and now they’re not going overseas and she’s here somewhere with Greg Smith.’

  ‘Amy dumped him?’ I ask.

  ‘Amy’s always dumping him,’ Hiroko says, and Lola confirms it’s a regular occurrence.

  ‘We’ve got more sets to play,’ she says ‘so you need to look after him. If you still want me to forgive you, that is.’

  ‘I feel like I’m being manipulated.’

  ‘That’s only because you are,’ Hiroko says.

  They get back on stage to talk about the next set, and I push my way through the crowd. Henry’s gone by the time I get to the bar but I look around and locate him stumbling across towards Amy.

  ‘I think Shakespeare might need some help,’ the girl behind the bar says, and puts out her hand. ‘I’m Katia.’

  ‘Rachel,’ I say, slightly distracted by her sheen of pink hair.

  ‘I know. Shakespeare told me about you,’ she says, opening and closing her hands, imitating Henry’s mouth going on and on about me. ‘He missed you,’ she tells me, and I like the thought. I really like the thought of him telling Katia just how much he missed me.

  ‘Amy’s no good for him,’ Katia says as we watch him rambling on in front of her and Greg. ‘He’s a nice guy. He tutored me for free in English.’

  Henry is a nice guy. He might be hopelessly in love with a girl I don’t like. He might have been a coward three years ago. But apart from not knowing what to do when I confessed my love for him, he’s never actually let me down.

  Greg pushes him. It’s more of a tap, really, but it’s enough to send Henry backwards to the floor. It’s hard to watch, so Katia closes her eyes for a second. I keep mine open. When it comes down to it, even after everything that’s happened, in a fight between Greg and Henry, I’m on Henry’s side.

  Get up, I think. Get up and walk away from her. Tell her she’s not worth the ground you’ve fallen on. He doesn’t. I don’t think he can. He’s too unsteady on his feet.

  Before I can change my mind, I cross the room. I tell myself it’s what any person would do for another person, whether they’re fighting or not. I’d planned on it being a quick exercise. I’d planned on heaving him up and leaving. He’s too heavy, though, and he’s not helping himself.

  Greg and his friends are laughing, Amy’s laughing too, so I lean in and say quietly, so only he can hear, ‘You want her back?’

  ‘I do. I really, really do,’ he says, and I resist the urge to kick him into an upright position. Instead, I lean close to his ear, and say firmly, ‘Then get up and stop being so pathetic.’

  He frowns, but he puts his arm around my shoulder and together we manage to get him in a standing position. I help him to a chair, but he’s in no state to walk, so I look around for someone to help me carry him home. Lola and Hiroko still have at least another couple of sets before they’re done.

  I’m not asking Amy. I’ve decided to ignore her. It’s been a long time since the conversation in the bathroom, a long time since Henry chose her over me, a long time since I’ve loved Henry. It’s none of my business if he’s still making an idiot of himself over her.

  But then she says, ‘Nice hair, Rachel.’

  It has been a long time, but it turns out I do still have some things to say. I leave the hair comment for now, because I couldn’t care less what she thinks about the way I look. I skip straight to the point. ‘Guys might like you. Many guys might like you. But you’re not good enough for Henry. You have never been good enough for Henry.’

  ‘He thinks I am,’ she says.

  ‘Even smart people get it wrong sometimes.’

  ‘You still like him,’ she says, and it makes me angry, but not for the same reason it did three years ago. I don’t like him anymore, not like that. But he doesn’t deserve this and I don’t need it. ‘He’s my best friend,’ I tell her. ‘And I have a job in the bookstore as of today, so from now on I’ll be looking out for him.’

  I turn around to pick him up and take him home, but he’s gone.

  I do a few loops of the club but I can’t see him. Despite my changed hair, some people from school recognise me and I’m caught talking to them. Emily, Aziza and Beth want to know what I’m studying. I don’t admit to failing because that will lead to the bigger story that I don’t want to tell. And even if I did end up telling it, I wouldn’t want to be shouting the news about Cal over music in a club. Instead, I tell them I’m taking a year off to save some money, but yes, I got into university and I’m going to major in science with a view to becoming a marine biologist. Their lives have gone as planned – Emily’s studying the stars, Aziza’s interested in environmental law and Beth is thinking about pre-med.

  Before the conversation can go any further I tell them I’m looking for Henry and ask if they’ve seen him. They haven’t, so I keep moving. I walk fast, avoiding people I recognise or people who look like they recognise me.

  After about half an hour I give up, thinking Henry must have stumbled home. I make a last stop in the bathroom before leaving, and I’m washing my hands when I hear drunken poetry being recited from inside the end cubicle.

  I walk down, push open the door, and there he is, lying on the ground, his head between the wall and the bowl. ‘Do you mind? I’m having a private moment here, Rachel.’

  I crouch on the floor beside him. ‘Here’s a tip for a private moment: don’t have it on the floor of the girls’ toilets.’

  He looks mildly confused.

  ‘The added extras didn’t give it away?’ I ask.

  He lifts his head and squ
ints at the unit in the opposite corner. ‘Not a mailbox?’

  ‘Not a mailbox, Henry,’ I say, as I try, unsuccessfully, to haul him into a standing position.

  ‘Leave me here. I’m dead.’

  ‘You’re not dead, Henry.’

  ‘You’re right. Dead would be better than this. Amy is with Greg Smith. The love of my life is, as we speak, kissing a moron.’

  ‘Henry, if the love of your life is kissing a moron, it’s probably time to reassess whether or not she’s the love of your life.’

  He makes a little head movement to indicate I may have a point, and then takes my hand and struggles himself into a standing position. We stay here for a while, holding each other, while he gains his balance.

  ‘You smell of apples,’ he says.

  ‘Don’t smell me, Henry.’

  ‘You know, Amy always smells, just faintly, of washing powder. She breathes her fringe up and it drifts back down like a tiny parachute. Years from now, washing powder and documentaries on sky divers will still give me a hard-on.’

  ‘Don’t feel you have to talk. I’m really very comfortable with the quiet,’ I tell him as we walk out of the toilets and towards the exit.

  ‘Sleep it off, Shakespeare,’ Katia calls on our way past, and Henry gives her a wave. Before we leave, I see what he hasn’t noticed: Amy on the other side of the bar, watching the two of us. I’d bet any money that Henry looks more attractive to Amy the second he’s with someone else.

  ‘You’re an idiot, Henry,’ I say, and he refuses to answer on the grounds that he might incriminate himself.

  The night’s still warm, the heat trapped in concrete as well as sky. Henry’s leaning on my shoulder with all his weight, which would have been fine ten months ago, when I was fit enough to swim two kilometres in the ocean, but now my arms are aching.

  It’s Friday night, and there’s no clear break in the traffic, so I have to walk us the long way to the bookstore, via the pedestrian lights. Henry talks to every local he sees. He’s got quite a lot to say about Amy and The Dickhead. I try pulling him away but there’s no moving Henry when he’s in the middle of a rant, so when he starts on about Amy to a couple walking their Great Dane, I sit on a bench and wait while he gets it all out. His arms spread wide to demonstrate the size of his love for Amy and narrow to demonstrate the size of Greg’s brain.