Take Three Girls

by Cath Crowley

  I hold his gaze and shake my head.

  Ben clears his throat, then changes the subject. ‘Is Kate okay? Do you know Oliver?’

  ‘He’s a good guy. You don’t have to worry.’

  I get a lump in my throat because it hits me, the difference: Oliver and Kate, Stu and me. I feel like an idiot all over again. Why did I have to fall for him?

  ‘Did Kate tell you about Iceland?’ I ask.

  ‘Uh-huh. I think,’ Ben says slowly, ‘there’s some stuff about here that’s not so beautiful. Maybe everyone wants to put you in a box and stick a label on it.’

  ‘Imagine if we could just live how we wanted to live, without having to explain it or fit it to other people’s expectations.’

  ‘What would you do differently?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad about myself all the time.’

  ‘You shouldn’t feel bad about yourself.’ Ben says. ‘You’re great.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I can just tell.’

  How do you know if a boy likes you?

  Maybe because they act interested in you. Or they ask you questions and when you answer they actually listen. Because they smile at you shyly and duck their head and there’s no edge in their voice. Ben’s looking at me like he’s just given something of himself away. He pulls the oars back and we move with a sudden surge. I close my eyes for a few seconds and feel the trees, the sky, the clouds – all of it gently waving us back to the bank.

  Friday 26 August

  We’ve stayed up after everyone else is in bed to have more of Liz’s plum cake, made with bottled plums they grow here. (Kate said, There’s always plum cake, as though it’s no big deal.) The music room is at the opposite end of the house from the bedrooms, so we don’t even have to be quiet.

  ‘It wasn’t even perfect day week, it was retreat, reflect week, but we had a perfect day anyway.’ Clem is lying flat out on the squashy faded sofa with an arm extended to scratch Berry, Kate’s black lab, who is making a happy, yowling noise.

  Clem was having fun with Ben today. Exactly the antidote she needed to fuck-me-but-don’t-tie-me-down Stu. Kate is sitting with her back to the piano. She turns around, puts her fingers on the keyboard, reminding herself, plays the first few chords of Lou Reed’s song and starts to sing it in her perfect, totally in-tune voice. We listen in awe, and then join her in our not-so-perfect voices.

  Clem sings that she thought she was someone else, someone who wouldn’t throw a doughnut at her friend. She chucks a bit of cake in my direction, and it’s snap-caught mid-air by Berry.

  Clem and Kate feel more like friends than my friends do because there’s honesty here, and I’m not being micro-moment-judged. My friends and I have got into such a habit of doing that and it feels like being smothered. It makes you self-censor all the time without even registering it.

  The song yanks me backwards to being little. I remember thinking the orchestral swell of the music sounded ‘important’. We’re laughing now, and Kate makes us laugh more with some hammy pauses and significant looks as she plays. But when the bit about reaping and sowing starts, I start to cry without any part of me warning my eyes it’s about to happen. Clem looks mortified, her eyes shine with sympathy tears, and Kate stops playing, pats my shoulder, and says, ‘It’s okay, Adyadelaidey, no one here but us.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t say that – you’ve had a really shit week,’ says Clem.

  ‘More than you know.’ I stand up, and sit back down. Where am I going to go? ‘My dad’s gone to rehab. For six months.’

  ‘What’s his . . .?’ asks Clem.

  ‘Alcohol. And cocaine.’

  ‘So, that’s . . . good?’ Kate offers. ‘He’s getting some help.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  ‘Has it been bad living with him?’ Clem gives me a tissue she’s fished out of her pocket and I blow my nose.

  ‘I’m used to it. It’s been there all my life. Mostly in the background. More fighting than usual lately. No money, apparently – we are in the shit – I have to leave school at the end of term.’

  Berry comes over, puts her head in my lap and heaves out a big dog-breath sigh that makes me cry some more. Now I have the sobbing breathing that makes its own rhythm.

  ‘Was I too gross – what I said about the up-the-arse post?’

  ‘No way,’ says Kate, indignant.

  ‘Is that what your friends think?’ asks Clem.

  ‘They think what I said was unfair to Rupert.’

  Clem snorts. ‘Fuck that.’

  ‘Here’s what I think about them.’ Kate lifts emphatic double middle fingers right up at face level.

  ‘And tough, Rupert. That rumour hurt you, not him. And you were right – it’s always girls – we’re always the target.’ Clem rolls off the sofa and sits on the floor, resting her chin on her knees. ‘I really want to know who PSST is.’

  ‘It’s got to be someone from Basildon working with people from a few other schools,’ I say. ‘There were heaps of Basildons at the Winter Fair who could have taken those photos of you, Clem.’

  ‘Ack – it was so crowded, we’ll never know who it was.’ Clem stands up and stretches.

  ‘It’s true about the photos, but some of the posts have information that could only have come from inside St Hilda’s and the other girls’ schools.’ Kate is gathering up our plates. ‘Who would do that?’

  ‘If only we could turn all the hate bombs into love bombs,’ I say.

  Kate opens the door and shoos Berry outside. ‘Yes, if only the world was not the world.’

  Saturday 27 August

  Ben calls early on Saturday morning.

  He tells me to call him back from the treehouse, which means he has something private to discuss and he doesn’t want there to be even a chance that someone will overhear my end of the conversation.

  I wrap a blanket around my pyjamas, and walk quietly past Clem, careful not to wake her. She looks like she’s smiling in her sleep, but I could be imagining it. Out the back door, down the front path, I veer left onto the grass, my bare feet dodging sticks and pebbles, I climb the old wooden ladder into the gum tree.

  Magpies scatter as I settle in on the wooden platform. Dad built it big enough for Ben and me and a third person, which was Mum or Dad in the old days. Ben and I still come up here to look down at the world, hidden by leaves. There’s a view across the paddocks. I let myself enjoy the quiet, enjoy my breath, smoky white as it hits the air, and when I’ve soaked it all in, I call.

  ‘Okay, I’m in position,’ I tell him, leaning my back against the trunk.

  ‘Tell me about Clem,’ Ben says immediately.

  This isn’t unexpected, but now that Ben says it aloud, it occurs to me how complicated this is and how it could end for him. ‘Tricky, ethically,’ I say, buying myself some time to figure out the right thing to say. I’m not sure about what I owe Ben and what I owe Clem in this situation.

  ‘No, not tricky, ethically,’ he says. ‘I was your friend prior to your friendship with Clem. The ethics are clear. Your allegiance is to me. In any case, I don’t want to know anything personal about her. I just want to know if you think it’s ridiculous that I’m thinking about thinking about her like that.’

  ‘Aren’t you already thinking about her like that?’

  ‘Kate,’ he says.

  ‘She was with someone,’ I say. ‘She’s not with him anymore, but it’s still a recent thing. A very recent thing. So you need to be careful.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You’re not going to be careful, are you?’

  ‘She’s worth the chance.’

  ‘You don’t take chances.’

  ‘That’s how much she’s worth it.’

  ‘Clem is great,’ I tell him. ‘Just know you might get hurt.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he says. ‘And what of the world of Kate?’

  I lean back against the trunk of the tree, feeling the reas
suring weight and the oldness of it. I fill him in on the last developments that he’s missed. ‘I’m a disappointment to my parents, to Oliver, to all rebellious teenagers everywhere.’

  ‘You’re not a disappointment to me,’ he says.

  ‘Am I doing the right thing?’

  ‘Courage is how bad you want it,’ he says.

  ‘Muhammad Ali?’

  ‘Joe Frazier. Boxer. Known for his relentless attack. How bad do you want it?’ he asks.

  That’s the question. The problem is the answer keeps changing.

  Saturday 27 August

  ‘So this is Three Rock Hill. I don’t know why they call it that – as you can see there are considerably more than three rocks in the vicinity.’ Kate’s walking with a big stick – we all are – and she uses it to highlight the abundance of consolidated mineral matter.

  ‘It’s when they gave up counting,’ Ben says.

  We’ve been walking for ages, through pale grass into twilight. The rocks closest to us are huge and look like ancient faces.

  ‘Wasn’t it a volcano?’ Kate asks Ben.

  ‘Yup. Feel it. It’s porous.’

  We walk around like we’re on psychedelics, ahhing and pressing our palms against the strangely Styrofoam-y surface of the rocks. Ben lights a campfire in the gully. We share a bottle of damson gin that Kate swiped from her parents’ storehouse. I can feel Ben looking at me. He likes me. I’m flattered, but . . . I don’t get it. I’m wearing my slobbiest clothes and zero make-up. I’m so not scintillating – I’m feeling vulnerable, and too sad to try and hide it. Maybe Kate’s talked me up. Maybe country boys are more desperate.

  The night grows dark around us and the stars are just – there’s so many of them – they make me feel tiny and insignificant, but they also fill me with wonder and an aching sort of joy. Beauty exists, and it has nothing to do with people. We’re just silly, bumbling humans who come and go, all full of ourselves, and really, who cares?

  Kate says the gin is truth serum, so we drink and tell truths. Then Ben whispers in my ear: do I want to take a walk? He shines his torch on the ground and we walk to the top of a hill, and then climb onto the biggest rock and sit cross-legged. Ben turns the torch off.

  ‘So this is an important site,’ he tells me.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘A local guy, Jim Mulready used to come here on December 21st, ten pm, every year for fifty years. He’d set up camp and then he’d climb up this rock and wait.’

  ‘What was he waiting for?’

  ‘Aliens.’ Ben stretches his legs out, so I stretch mine out next to his. His body feels warm next to mine. His jacket smells of wood-smoke. ‘Jim’s dead now. He left behind a whole thesis on his theories, my Dad’s been lobbying to get it put in the library.’

  ‘I wonder what he thought was going to happen with the aliens.’

  ‘He thought they’d tell him how to have a more evolved existence.’

  ‘I’d come back for that,’ I say. ‘My sister says I’m primitive.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s really smart.’

  ‘Book smart or life smart?’

  ‘The first.’

  Ben fumbles for my hand. He finds it and holds it. I let him. ‘Well,’ he says. ‘Sometimes smart people can be really fucking stupid.’

  We sit like that, waiting. And the stars keep revealing themselves to us, and the soft wind stirs the trees. I can hear the others, not so far away. Happiness is someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to.

  ‘I think we’re too early for the aliens,’ Ben says finally.

  ‘We’ll have to come back. Continue Jim’s work.’

  For a second I think that I’ve said the wrong thing, hitched on to his story too soon, but Ben squeezes my hand and it’s like he’s given me something to look forward to, even if it never happens, right at this moment, I’m a third of the way to happy.

  Sunday 28 August

  I wake up early to a message from Max: . I take it as a date invitation and message back: yes.

  Max: It was supposed to be hot chick, not burning penguin btw. Saturday?

  Me: Can’t, it’s our formal. Would you come to the formal with me?

  Max:

  The other two are deep-sleep breathing, Clem cocooned in her doona, Kate with arms thrown out. I slip into ugg boots and puffy coat over PJs and tiptoe out for a wee. I flick on the bathroom light, and I’m looking surprisingly okay for someone who is feeling mildly wrecked. Morning-messy hair is sometimes the best hair of the day; similarly hard to replicate, but also often a good look, is end-of-a-beach-day hair.

  I head for the kitchen, uggs whispering cup of tea cup of tea cup of tea as they walk me along paisley hall runners over dark polished floorboards. Pretty.

  Kate’s mother Liz has just about finished her own breakfast.

  ‘What would you like, Ady – scrambled eggs, omelette, or pancakes?’

  ‘Eggs, please.’

  The stove is a huge Aga, with double doors. This could be a movie set farm kitchen. It’s perfect. There’s even blue and white willow pattern and flowery china. Exciting for me coming from the land of white china as I do. We chat about Kate’s amazing brain power as Liz prepares the eggs, setting the bowl next to the stovetop where she slides a hunk of butter sizzling into the black frying pan.

  ‘Are you sitting the scholarship exam next week?’

  ‘No, I’m not very academic.’ Come on, get used to it. ‘And, actually, I’m leaving school at the end of term.’

  ‘You haven’t been expelled, have you?’ She’s kidding. Not imagining there’s any very bad reason for me going.

  ‘My parents owe the school too many back fees to let me stay.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’ Liz looks so sympathetic that my eyes well up and I almost start blubbing. But this is good practice. Find the steel. I’ll have to say this lots of times.

  She pours and the eggs hit the pan with a gulping hiss. ‘Your parents aren’t alone. It’ll make a huge difference to us if Kate gets a scholarship for the last two years of school. Tough times for farmers, these days . . .’ She serves a soft pile of scrambled eggs on buttered toast and puts the plate in front of me.

  ‘Okay – enjoy that. There’s juice in the fridge. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the vegetable garden.’ She takes a bucket of scraps from the bench, pulls on gumboots at the door and heads outside.

  Later, when I’m reading the paper and having my hundredth cup of tea, Kate and Clem come into the kitchen. When I look up I have a leap of intuition that the three of us are going to be friends for keeps.

  Clem sits at the big table with me while Kate rustles up teacups and bowls for them.

  ‘Do you know yet where you’ll go to school?’ Clem asks.

  ‘MCA – if I get in.’

  They say it at the same time: ‘You’ll get in.’

  It makes all of us feel better if we can assume that.

  ‘You’ll overlap with Max for a term,’ says Kate. Max is in Year 12.

  I’ve told them every single other personal thing in my life, so I take a big breath.

  ‘Max and I – kissed – at the party. I think I really like her.’

  ‘I’m so glad. Max is lovely. And so are you.’ Kate fills the kettle.

  ‘You should ask her to the formal,’ says Clem.

  I smile. ‘Tick.’

  Sunday 28 August

  I get up early again on Sunday to talk to Mum, to test if I have the courage to tell her. Since my conversation with Ben, I can’t stop asking myself how badly do I want it? The answer still hasn’t arrived.

  Ady is talking with Mum and Ady needs a little comfort, so I let her have that. I stand in the hallway, giving them time, listening to Mum explain how she and Dad are depending on me getting the scholarship because money is scarcer than it’s ever been. She says how proud they are, and how she doesn’t mean that I have to get the scholarship, that’s not what she means, they’
ll find the money somehow, but it’ll be a huge load off their minds when I do.

  Ady gives nothing away. She tells Mum about the intimidating nature of my braininess, and Mum laughs and admits she’s been intimidated by me since I was about two. ‘There’s a genius a few generations back on her father’s side, and I’m pretty sure that’s where it comes from.’

  I want to go into the kitchen, sit next to Mum, and be that girl who had such firm and achievable ambitions, but I can’t. I want to go back to my bedroom and reply to Oliver and tell him that I’ve told my parents everything, but I can’t do that either. So I just stand here on the warm floor, in my bare feet, on a small island of sun, till it moves into shadow.

  I hear my phone ringing from my room, and I run back to answer it before it wakes Clem.

  ‘So are you having fun?’ Iris asks, sounding so sick and lonely that I feel like I need to give her something. I tell her I wish she could have been here. ‘We’ve basically spent the time cheering up Ady. There’s bad stuff going on with her family. She might not even be able to come back to school.’

  ‘That sucks,’ Iris says after I’ve explained, and I’m reminded again why I like Iris. She’s harsh on the surface, but not underneath. In some ways, she’s not unlike Ady.

  ‘So we’ll be back soon,’ I say.

  Later, lying with Clem and Ady near the river, after we’ve exhausted the subjects of Ben and Oliver and Max, I ask Clem about Iris and why they don’t get along.

  ‘We did a long time ago,’ Clem says. ‘We do still, actually, in some ways. It’s hard being a twin.’ She takes a piece of grass and splits it down the centre with her nail, then shows it to us, as if she can’t put into words what it’s like.

  Sunday 28 August

  On the train on the way back to Melbourne a woman comes and sits in our empty fourth seat. She has rings on every finger and a hacking cough and home hair-dye.

  ‘You know, girls,’ she rasps, ‘Mercury is in retrograde.’

  We look at her blankly. She explains that when Mercury is in retrograde the world falls into ominous chaos and we can’t expect any gifts or resolutions until after October. At the next stop the woman stands up to leave.