Take Three Girls

by Cath Crowley

  The old building smell reminds me of being in awe and in junior school. In recent years there’s an added layer of let-me-out-of-here.

  I trail a finger along the hand-blocked wallpaper, strictly forbidden, but I can’t resist touching the delicately raised surface of the bronze-painted fleurs-de-lis.

  What was once a formal sitting room, with its ceiling of some arcadia or other, and stained-glass windows, is today the land of the Wellness. We sit in the moss-green corduroy beanbags, which I will forever associate with meditation and sex ed, also held in this room. No friends allowed to sit together, so Dr Malik separates me and Tash by swapping her with quiet boarder, Kate Turner, who is doing some strange finger-tapping on her leg and looking at the ground, so she doesn’t notice Tash push her tongue behind her lower lip like a chimp. Wellness abounds.

  Malik has the dubious honour of being the best-looking male teacher at school. Small puddle, of course – a girls’ school staffroom. People think he looks like an older Dev Patel. You have to really squint to see it, in my opinion. But, then, I’ve got my own handsome boy.

  Malik is happily wittering on, overview blah blah, identity blah blah, more things that unite us than divide us; when we find common ground we find mutual respect; the better we know each other the more we’ll look out for each other. And various other all-very-well-in-theory principles that basically bullshit-out in practice. The bonds of girl friendship can be tight to the point of strangulation, and no one’s going to start trippy skipping from group to group. Teachers don’t get the most basic stuff sometimes.

  ‘Okay, girls, I’m going to ask you to sort yourselves into groups of three according to thumb length,’ Malik says, as though it’s a fun thing to do.

  Lola gives me a solidarity eye-roll as we move about the room, hand to hand with girls we routinely ignore.

  Tash is standing next to me and compares thumbs with swimteam girl Clem Banks, whose thumb is longer than hers, but Tash says, ‘Back off.’

  Clem Banks looks at her as though she will, as though she doesn’t care either way, but then she stops and says, ‘You back off.’

  Tash isn’t going anywhere.

  ‘They look about the same to me,’ says Bec. ‘Maybe you’d be happier with another group, Clem?’

  Dr Malik senses the stand off. ‘Do you need to take a more careful look at your thumbs, girls?’

  ‘Oh, fine.’ Tash stomps off and continues thumb measuring with other people.

  Kate Turner is already standing next to me; both of us have distinctly long thumbs.

  So I end up with those two, Kate Turner and Clem Banks, who is so scowly she’s already got permanent frowners. We are the longest-thumb group. Makes sense, when you think about it – a cellist’s hands, a swimmer’s hands and a tall girl’s hands. But so what? Malik tells us to note our groups for future reference. It reminds me of a kindergarten icebreaker, but at sixteen we’re frozen deeper than he knows.

  So it’s the same old. They can try stuff like this, and we’ll go along with it, but nothing really changes. I zone out again as we resettle in our beanbags. Is it like this for everyone – that school and family are balloons that blow up and shrink? Sometimes school is everything, and I hardly notice what’s going on at home. Other times, like now, family seems to be blowing up. Plus there’s the whole Rupert question.

  Wellness feelies won’t fix the real problems.

  Whatever was happening at breakfast this morning is connected to last night’s parental altercation. Traditionally there’s been a pattern in my family life: fight, fight, settle, fun; fight, fight, settle, fun. Lately, it’s all fight, fight, very little settle and even less fun.

  I went into Clare’s room. She was studying with earbuds in, as always. Mozart is her preferred study music. Classic dweeb. ‘Did you hear that?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’ She removed one earbud, exasperated before I even started.

  ‘Mum and Dad. Something about money.’

  She rolled her eyes, which lit on her noticeboard. Picking up a pen, she crossed one more day off her calendar. Countdown till she escapes to university. The other thing on her noticeboard is a huge printout of her goal ATAR score: 99.75, the mark she figures will get her a full academic and residential scholarship to study medicine at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. She put the earbud back in. ‘Some of us have work to do.’

  She’s turned herself into a study machine for Year 12. She’s more like a hard drive than a sister. I went looking for Charlie instead.

  Charlie is the family’s emotional barometer. When things get tense here he buries himself deeper in his books, and spends more time at the Coopers’, our neighbours over the back fence. Sure enough when I checked his bedroom he wasn’t there. But I did see Snozphant, his most precious stuffed toy, hiding under his pillow, even though he has declared himself ‘over’ stuffed toys and officially retired them to the highest shelf in his wardrobe.

  Clare’s ready to bail and Charlie is more like a Cooper than a Rosenthal these days, so that just leaves me to figure out what’s happening. I’m going to need some after-school time in my wardrobe. Just thinking about that space calms me down. Not that I’d say that out loud. It’s more of a clothes archive than a wardrobe, anyway: a room adjoining my bedroom, lined with shelves, drawers and hanging racks, designed by me. My sewing and cutting table is under the window, and stretches to the middle of the room. I collect clothes. I dream up and make clothes. I refurbish clothes. I repurpose clothes. I love clothes – truly love them. I care for, nurture, praise, pat, wash and iron, and appreciate them. I celebrate them. And when I’m stressed, I smell my clothes. If you can tell me a more calming smell than washed and sunshine-dried cotton, I probably won’t believe it. If you cannot understand the comfort of burying your face in kitten-soft cashmere washed in eucalyptus wool mix, we will probably never be friends.

  At the end of our first Wellness class Malik tells us to write Wellness journal entries whenever we want. We can show him or not. He encourages us to be truthful, to use the entries as an opportunity to take our emotional temperature. He adds that there’ll be no judging of anything we share in Wellness class discussions. Ha ha. He doesn’t know us very well.

  PSST

  Guess what slut put on a show at Jonno’s party? Nice pic, huh?

  sufferingsuffragette: if a guy did that you’d applaud

  hungryjackoff: I did applaud her #uptightbitch

  Feminightmare: #neanderthal

  hungryjackoff: #fuckinguptightbitch

  b@rnieboy: you grls need a good fuck is all give me yr numbers

  skateordie: wtf?? i apologise for these dickheads. they are not representative of my gender

  b@rnieboy: because u r gay

  skateordie: great comeback #predictableloser

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  Thursday 14 July

  Things about St Hilda’s: it runs on fat cheques and fake smiles. It’s like those ladies you see in the moneyed suburbs, the ones who look perfect until you get up close and see how much work they’ve had done. This school has been around for a century; it’s old but remodelled so there are plenty of sharp edges and shiny surfaces. Iris and I have always gone to public schools. At our last one, if anyone had a problem with you, they’d be up front and pop you at the bus stop. Here, everyone’s angst ends up on PSST. It’s not just St Hildans; it’s people from Sacred Heart and St Josephs, Basildon – pretty much any private school within a ten kilometre radius. Parents want to know ATAR scores, but PSST will tell you who puts out, who’s hot, who’s not, a whole host of things I don’t need to know.

  Last week there was a post about shagging odds for the formal. It’s always the cool girls who get named – it doesn’t seem to hurt their swagger. I’m starting to feel a bit panicked about the formal. I haven’t got a dress yet. Or a date. I’m working up to asking Stu, but maybe he’d think it’s just kids stuff. Jinx isn’t taking a date. She’s part of the Feminist Collective and they’
re all going together as a group. She said she might not even dress up. ‘Why should I? Who are we even dressing up for?’

  After dinner I head over to Iris’s for our designated Mum-and-Dad Skype. I have to remind myself about the things I’m supposed to say, the things they want to hear. What they won’t want to hear: that every morning this week I’ve failed to make it to training. I tell Jinx I’ll be there by seven, but I never make it.

  When I get to Kate and Iris’s room, Kate’s just leaving. Her eyes skate past mine. ‘Hi,’ she says. I’m about to say something about hearing her play at the old pool, but she’s gone too quickly.

  Iris is in her usual position in front of her computer, headphones on.

  She nods at me and lowers her headphones.

  ‘Is it working?’ I ask. I don’t know why it’s always so glitchy. Maybe the computer senses our reluctance. Then Mum’s face appears – she’s right up close.

  ‘Hello, my darlings! Hello, hello!’

  Mum and Dad have started doing this thing where they talk to me and Iris like we’re adults, which basically means they tell us all their problems. I’d rather they didn’t. I don’t want to know that Mum’s finding the ex-pat scene intellectually vapid, or that Dad’s in a quandary because he’s had to take on more corporate clients and it feels unethical. I don’t want to know how much St Hilda’s costs because implicit in that is how much Iris and I should be enjoying it. Lately I’ve been thinking it’s all a plot. Dad didn’t have to accept that job, the whole move was just to bring me and Iris closer together. As if!

  ‘Tell me good things,’ Mum says. Dad’s head nods next to hers.

  So I tell them my wrist is fine and our new swimming uniforms are cool, and Iris tells them how one of her essays is going to be featured in Hilda’s Herald. We both say how excellent school is, how grateful we are that they sent us here.

  ‘It’s the best,’ Iris says.

  Mum looks teary. ‘You girls,’ she says, ‘We’re so glad you’re looking out for each other.’

  Offscreen Iris flicks my thigh, like she used to at the dinner table when we were kids. I flick hers back and get a sliver of that old kinship feeling, but it doesn’t last. It never lasts. I’m standing even before we hang up. Mum and Dad blow kisses and are gone.

  ‘You’re such a bullshitter,’ Iris says. ‘You’re not swimming.’

  ‘So what? God. It smells in here, Iris. Don’t you ever open a window?’

  ‘I’m working.’

  ‘What on?’ I reach across her quickly and before she can stop me I’ve clicked on her history bar. The last thing she googled was: How do you know if a boy likes you?

  ‘What boy?’ I laugh. ‘You don’t know any boys.’

  ‘Shut up. It’s for an essay.’

  ‘You’re such a robot.’

  ‘Fuck off, Clem.’

  I put my palm to my heart. ‘Oh, Theo!’

  Iris looks like she wants to kill me. Theo Ledwidge goes to Basildon; Iris knows him from chess club.

  ‘Are you hot for Theo? Are you going ask him to the formal?’

  She puts her headphones back on and turns to her screen. She carries on with her homework like I’m not even there. And then, after about a minute, she takes her headphones off again and turns to me, and there’s a glint of triumph in her eyes.

  ‘Actually, I have asked Theo to the formal. And he said yes.’ She smiles without showing her teeth. ‘Who are you going with?’ She dismisses me with a well-aimed finger flick right in the soft cushion of my stomach. ‘Out.’

  Up until we were twelve, Iris and I shared a bedroom. Shared everything. But that was the year that Elise Hardy invited just me to her party, and I went. And that was also the year that Dad had one of his research students staying with us and Iris got a crush on him. I knew because I read her diary, and then I showed her diary to Elise, but it all exploded because our teacher confiscated it. What Iris had written was just fantasy, but the teacher thought it was real, thought Dad’s student was messing with Iris. So much embarrassment. Poor Iris. Mean Clem. She hasn’t forgiven me for that either.

  Back in my room I lie on my bed, eyeing the Kit Kat on Jinx’s bedside table. It’s been there for over a week. How can she be so casual about chocolate? She’s at a Feminist Collective meeting. She keeps telling me I should come, but I don’t go for extra-curriculars – swimming’s enough. Besides, I don’t know what kind of witchcraft they do in there.

  I think about the formal. I can’t believe Iris has a date. The thought depresses me so much that I feel I must appropriate the Kit Kat. While I’m enjoying it I send a text to Stu.

  miss u

  I eat a finger, and wait, and then my phone pings back and it’s a photo of Stu looking tired.

  all wrk and no play . . .

  Then:

  Send nudes!

  He’s added a wink emoji. It’s a joke, but when I read it again, a hot and prickly feeling comes over me. I finish the Kit Kat but there’s no more from Stu. I decide to go to bed early. Getting changed into my PJs I catch a side-on view of myself in the mirror. I look like a truck. How can Stu want a nude of that? Does he really like me? Does he think about me the way I think about him? I lie in bed and zoom in on his photo and stare and stare. I’m doing this when Jinx comes in. She rolls her eyes. ‘Girl! Go have a cold shower!’

  Friday 15 July

  I wake to the sounds of a storm building – no rain yet, just a dry wildness – and my first thought is I need to be outside. I need to record the sounds, not to mix them with songs, but to recreate them on the cello.

  I’m at the pool by six-thirty, rugged against the freezing weather with coat, scarf and fingerless gloves, holding a mic to the sky, trying, unsuccessfully, to capture the force. It’s pointless. The mic can pick up the crackle, but it can’t pick up the atmosphere. It can’t pick up the feeling I get as I stand under all this grey. Mics can’t record nostalgia – how this morning reminds me of winter at the farm, standing under a buckling sky, hands out, face upturned.

  I put down the mic and close my eyes, feel the sound I want to make with the cello.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  I know the voice belongs to Oliver before I turn. He stands there under his black umbrella – it’s not even raining yet – and looks impatient. ‘Iris wants you. She sent me. To remind you that we have practice this morning. And you’re late.’

  She’s reminding me because on Wednesday, I missed half of our tutoring session with Gregory. I told her I’d forgotten what day it was but I knew it was Wednesday. I knew it was maths and science hour. I knew I should be in the library with her and Gregory, working on calculus, but I’d just downloaded the new Tune-Yards album and I wanted to listen to it.

  I pack up my computer, put it away carefully with the mics. My cello is already in its case, under shelter, protected from possible rain. I’ve never quite worked out how to walk fast with the cello. It’s such a cumbersome thing. Another body. An attached friend. Fly with it, and you need an extra seat. Travel on trams and you need the same. My case is hard and it doesn’t have wheels but I have a way of hoisting it on my back and then collecting everything else up.

  Oliver sees I’m struggling and takes it from me. He swings it easily over his shoulder while still holding the umbrella above our heads. He’s elegant. The thought arrives uninvited. I push it out, and speed up, but he widens his strides and keeps my pace.

  While we move, he fills me in on what Iris has told him about me. How I’ve been forgetful lately – forgetting it was Wednesday, forgetting my graphics calculator, forgetting my pencil case. I hadn’t realised she was keeping such careful track.

  ‘I’ve had other things on my mind,’ I say.

  ‘Like?’ he asks, as we reach the auditorium.

  ‘Like none of your business,’ I say, taking back my cello. I check my watch and hold it out to him. ‘Not late. Early. See?’

  We walk inside and Iris looks up from her music. ‘You found her
then?’

  ‘I wasn’t lost.’

  ‘She’d forgotten,’ he says.

  I’m not a forgetter. I remember everything. I remember in that first week, before I knew anything about Oliver, I saw an ORION sticker on his cello case and I thought maybe I’d misjudged him, that maybe, maybe, he might be a friend. Then I found out he’d inherited the cello case from someone who didn’t have a stick up his arse. I remember how he told me he had heard of Orion, but it wasn’t the kind of place he’d go. I had the urge to take my bow and whack it, wood side, over his knuckles.

  I have the same urge today.

  ‘Did you remember we’ve got the excursion this morning?’ Iris asks. ‘To the Botanic Gardens?’

  She gives me a smile when it’s clear that I had forgotten. It’s a kind smile but I still don’t want it. I’m preoccupied and obsessed, not stupid. ‘We get on the bus after homeroom,’ she says.

  ‘A morning off school. Excellent,’ I say.

  ‘Some people work hard for this opportunity,’ Oliver replies.

  I lean on my cello and motion for him to continue. ‘Go on, Oliver. Tell me what you really want to say.’

  ‘Just that,’ he says. ‘Your technique’s hit and miss, probably because you’re not being classically trained –’

  ‘I am being classically trained –’

  ‘You were being classically trained. You dropped out of private lessons.’

  ‘How do you know I dropped out?’

  ‘I listen to you play,’ he says, pausing just enough before he says the words to give them maximum impact.

  Sarah Watford, the quiet flutist, snorts with laughter. She’s staring at Oliver like he’s some kind of god. What’s god-like about him? My brain immediately supplies the answer that he’s got incredibly serious dark blue eyes, navy eyes really, navy eyes that are as full of music as mine. Shut up brain. Shut completely up.