by Cath Crowley
‘Hang on,’ she says. ‘Stay strong.’
As the train moves from country green to urban grit we count the ways of Mercury in retrograde: Ady’s dad and Rupertgate; Stu’s sleaze, my swim-fail, my cold war with Iris; for Kate, it’s all about pressure.
We decide we’re going to counteract it and state what we want to happen.
Me: ‘I want to get over Stu, and along with Iris.’
Kate: ‘I want Iceland and I want my parents to be okay with it.’
Ady: ‘I just want to know that whatever happens I can handle it.’
Ady puts her thumb out and Kate presses hers against it. I bring mine into the mix like we did at the first Wellness class – we laugh at our daggy secret handshake.
When we get to Southern Cross, we’re exhausted, like we’ve travelled through time – and maybe we have, emotionally. We catch the tram back to St Hilda’s, Ady leaves at the gate. Everything is normal, but everything is different. Walking up to the boarding house Kate says, ‘It’s quiet . . . too quiet.’
Old Joy lets us in, treating me to her jowliest scowl. ‘Call your parents, Clem. Pronto.’
I hightail it to my room. Jinx is still at her aunt’s. My phone is plugged in and waiting for me. There are two missed calls from Stu, and a bunch of texts from Mum and Dad. I check the time, then dial their number. I have my line all ready, about how I don’t want to be a competitive swimmer, how I don’t want it enough, and I just want to explore other activities, but I soon realise they’re freaking out about something else altogether.
They pass the phone and it’s hard to keep up.
Mum: ‘You’ve got some explaining to do.’
Dad: ‘Who is this Stu person. What have you been doing?’
Iris told. I can’t believe it.
Me: ‘He’s no-one. He’s just a joke.’
Mum: ‘Tell me why we shouldn’t get on a plane right now and sort this out.’
Dad: ‘What school allows vulnerable girls to roam the streets, to be picked up by ne’er do wells?’
Ne-er do wells!
‘Calm down, Dad. Whatever Iris said, she’s lying. Don’t call the school.’
‘If you think you can take this person to your formal, think again. No formal Clem. You’re not going to Canberra either.’
‘I know I’m not going to bloody Canberra!’
There is silence. Then I’m crying.
Dad gets all uncomfortable. ‘I’ll pass you back to your mother.’
‘Clem?’ Mum says. ‘What’s happening?’
And I start to feel clear, and then I start to talk. I tell her I had a crush, but it wasn’t as big as Iris tells it and I tell her about my bathers being too tight, and how I hadn’t been enjoying swimming like I used to. I tell her I’ve lost my competitive edge but I don’t miss it. I tell her I also felt lost at St Hilda’s, but I don’t anymore, and if everyone would just give me a chance, things could be good again. I tell her I’ll be honest from now on.
After I hang up I get a sense of something. Iris! I tiptoe to my door and yank it open – and sure enough she’s there, caught in the act. She lets out a little meep and starts running back to her room. I call after her with a bounty hunter’s relish, ‘You’d better run!’
But I’m too tired to deal with her now. She can wait till tomorrow.
WEEK 8
MAPS, TAKING STOCK
Week 8: Personal geography
Provocation
A map is not the territory it represents.
Alfred Korzybski
Getting lost was not a matter of geography so much as identity, a passionate desire, even an urgent need, to become no one and anyone, to shake off the shackles that remind you who you are, who others think you are.
Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost
Points for discussion/reflection
Most people are familiar with the idea of maps as representations of geographical information, but map making can tell our personal stories and assist us to understand the world around us and our place within it.
• Are you a planner?
• What do you gain from looking ahead?
• What do you gain from looking back?
• Can you think of a time where being lost turned out to be a positive thing?
Task
‘Map yourself’
Make a map that is not for directions but is a work of art and inspired imagination. Use writing, photography and/or collage, and use memory and emotional landmarks to reveal a journey, past or present.
Monday 29 August
How are we travelling? Malik asks. But he’s not really asking. That is, he’s not expecting us to answer. The way of Wellness is to let things percolate. Think now, talk later. He walks around the room, weaving through the beanbag islands. Half the class is absent because of the uber-flu – Iris is back though. She looks pale and depressed. A few times I’ve caught her looking at me beseechingly. She even left me a note apologising, but it’ll take more than that to win me over. I still can’t believe she told Mum and Dad about Stu. Last night I couldn’t sleep. I was picturing interrogation, a doctor’s exam, my relocation to a school for wayward girls. I feel Iris’s eyes on me. I give her the finger.
Malik is talking about ‘personal geography’ – journeys big and small. He puts a memory map up on the board. It’s like a map of his childhood. He talks us through each marker on the map, and each one stands for a story.
‘What I want you to do is make your own map. It can be a map of last year or last week, or your life to date – go back as far as you want. Put down all your defining moments – the “moments of truth” – el momento de la verdad – where things changed and put you on a new or different path. As we explore our life continuum, notice that we move through good and bad. We can’t map the future, and that can make us worry about all the little possibilities, particularly negative ones. But today’s map – this – can be both a record of your past, and a tool for the future, proof that you can get over things, through things.’
‘So . . .’ Malik moves up the front of the room, his shadow blocking the map. ‘What are your markers? What kind of things could you encounter on a map of your history?’
No one says anything. Then Tash puts her hand up. ‘Success and failure?’
‘Right,’ Malik says. ‘But be specific. Traditionally, on a geographical map, we have rivers . . .’ He draws squiggly lines on the board. ‘Train tracks, roads, churches, hospitals . . . So have a think about what kind of markers you might encounter in psychological terrain.’
‘Heartbreak.’ I say this out loud, without thinking.
Malik ignores the murmurs and draws a heart with a crack in it. And the heat of Iris’s stare is too much. I turn to look at her. Die, I mouth.
Malik sets us up with butcher’s paper and coloured textas. He tells us to get comfortable, we’re going to start our maps in class, but he hopes we’ll keep going outside class.
‘Once, people used to imagine sea monsters in the unmapped areas – we still do this now; we have a fear of the unknown. The future is the great unknown, the “unmapped perhaps”.’
We get started. My life is just a line marked with situations that have arisen from external factors. But maybe that’s Malik’s point; we can’t control anything but our responses. When Mum and Dad made their big announcement at the end of last year, what could I have done? The option of staying at our old school didn’t exist. If it had, this whole year would have been different. I chose not to share a room with Iris, but what if I’d gone the other way? Would I have even made any friends? Then there was swimming and Stu. He gave me his number, but I was the one who called it. I said yes and yes and yes. My choices did not lead to roses and happy ever after, but major sads – yet even this is changing. I can see from my map how one thing leads to another, how if I hadn’t found out about Stu, then I wouldn’t have gone to Kate’s, and I wouldn’t have met Ben . . . and he’s already called me. He told me I was p
retty, said he was having trouble thinking about anything else. I asked him for a photo and in the one he sent he’s fully clothed, facing the camera and smiling.
My symbols are a broken heart (for Stu); a wild wind (for the moments where life went south or north or east or west); I have a lightning bolt marking the swim disaster, but then I add a smiley face, because, really, it was that day that led to friendship with Ady and Kate. For our weekend trip I put three smilies on a train. For Ben I draw a little spaceship that has a flight path into the future.
I draw my symbols in a tiny hand because this stuff is private. It’s how I really feel. After a while, I look up to see that Iris isn’t drawing at all. In spite of everything, I feel sorry for her. She’s crushing on a guy who doesn’t even notice her. She doesn’t have any momentoes of her own; she just has a green eye on everyone else’s.
After Wellness I blow off History and go to my room. Jinx is training so I have some uninterrupted me-time. I delete all my photos of Stu. I look at each one for a long time before I delete it. I am building up to there being nothing more of him. He hasn’t called or texted since the weekend. He doesn’t know what I know. I wonder if he’d care. I can’t believe a week ago I was picturing us in our finery at the formal, imagining it like a fuck-you to anyone who ever laughed at me or called me fat. In my fantasy I looked amazing and Stu’s hair was the perfect storm. We stayed at the formal just long enough for everyone to see and then we left for –
But where would we have gone?
There was never anywhere to go.
And now the formal approaches and I don’t even have a pity date. I think I’ll go with Jinx.
The door opens. I look up, expecting Jinx, but it’s Iris.
‘Go away,’ I say.
But she just comes closer. She goes to Jinx’s bed, straightens the already straight cover and sits down.
‘Heartbreak?’
‘How could you tell Mum and Dad about Stu? They want to tell Gaffa. I’ll probably get expelled.’
‘I rang them. I told them I made it up. I told them I was just . . .’
I look at her.
‘Jealous,’ she finishes. She gets up and comes to sit next to me on my bed.
‘There’s nothing to be jealous of,’ I say. ‘It’s over.’
‘What happened?’
‘What’s the point of me even telling you? You don’t get it. You don’t know what it’s like. You’ve never even had a boyfriend.’
I see the hurt crash on her face and I feel bad for a second, but then I go on, poking my finger in the wound, hooking it around the lip, chucking in salt and capsicum spray.
‘I bet you’ve never even kissed a guy.’
‘I have.’
‘Who?’
‘Theo.’
‘Theo!’ I laugh. ‘Well I don’t know how you managed to do it for any amount of time seeing as you’re both such mouth-breathers.’
‘I only came here because I was worried about you.’
‘No you didn’t. You just wanted to feel good about yourself. And the only way you get to feel good about yourself is when you’re watching someone else feel shit. Well, you’re too late. I was heartbroken, but I’ve decided to get over it. I liked a boy. I thought we were exclusive. We weren’t. Map that – it’s a short fucking line.’
‘Oh,’ Iris says quietly. She’s sitting with her hands in her lap, and looking at something – the jar of plum jam Kate’s mum gave us. She picks it up and turns it over in her hand.
‘I’m glad you were sick this weekend,’ I say suddenly. ‘We would have had to explain everything to you because you’re such a freak. You act like you’re smarter than everyone but you’re just a lonely loser.’ I stop, my mouth tastes bitter. Iris’s face – I think I’ve gone too far.
‘Friend-stealer!’ she hisses.
She picks up the jam jar, and throws it hard against the wall. The glass smashes and jam goes everywhere. Iris looks stricken, then she turns and stomps out, slamming the door behind her. My tears come without warning. I full-on sob. I don’t even know why I’m crying. Is this me now? Weepbag Clem. I sob into Stu’s scarf and, even though it’s gross, I blow my nose on it too.
PSST
Ady Rosenthal, the most up herself of the whole Year 10 St Hildarian bitch brigade, is finally being put in her place. About time.
1. Her best friend Tash and ex Rupert are now an item. Suck on that, bitch
2. Her father is a cokehead drunk now in rehab – apparently he said, yes, yes, yes, but not before he lost the family money
3. So her family is headed for bankruptcy and she’s leaving St Hilda’s. No great loss. Enjoy slumming it in public school land, precious
4. She’s a dyke
5. Isn’t that about enough to make her the biggest loser?
B@rnieboy: laughing fit to bust. couldn’t happen to a bigger bitch
sufferingsuffragette: Ady is nice and not responsible for the behaviour of her parents
hungryjackoff: Don’t mind watching her eat some pussy tho – 3way?
Feminightmare: A friendly reminder that sex between women does not exist as entertainment for boys. Enjoy your next ‘3way’ though, which I expect will be you, a fizzy drink and a packet of chips.
load 220 more comments
Tuesday 30 August
Walking into homeroom it’s a gentle crackling, the slightest change in atmospheric pressure, but I feel it. Honestly? They love to see someone fall. Can it really be my turn to get kicked again?
Tash rushes up, excited, though trying not to be too rabid. You never want to look eager for blood. ‘Babe, I didn’t know it was that bad. You should have told me.’
‘You’re really leaving school?’ Lola wants to know. ‘Isn’t that a bit extreme?’
Tell me about it.
‘Can’t your gram bail you out?’ Bec asks.
They’re speaking in important overlapping whispers to acknowledge the disgrace and ensure that everyone will look our way.
I answer each in turn. ‘It is. I am. Extreme is the new black in our family: all the grown-ups have to act like grown-ups. That means no more bailing out by Gram.’
I stand up. ‘This time it really is true. The bottom feeders got their facts right. I am in the middle of a family crisis. I am leaving the school. My father is in rehab. I am seeing a girl: early days. That is all. No flowers by request. Any queries can be directed to my press secretary.’
I’m acting super nonchalant. What other way is there to be at a time like this? Inside, I’m shuddering and crumbling. Was I wrong about my friends being above all the PSST bullshit? Could Tash have been dripping poison on me all this time?
Only they – and Clem and Kate – knew about most of this stuff. Surely those guys wouldn’t have blabbed, would they? I try to think who else, but only they knew about me and Max . . .
But here they are, their faces looking the way I’m not letting myself look. Sad and worried. Kate holding her hand out, touching my shoulder. The large silence. Clem growling, ‘What are you all staring at? Announcement over.’
Tash walks in front of them. ‘Come on, Ady, we really need to debrief. A girl? What girl?’
I stand with Kate and Clem. ‘No time for debriefs – we’ll catch up later.’
I turn away – how right that feels – and walk to English with my thumb-compatibles. Maybe it was one of Clare’s friends doing the blabbing about my dad. It could be any kid in the school whose mother is a friend of my mother. There’s no real possibility of containing information anymore. That’s not the way things work now we are living in the hate days. Now, because someone anonymous posted this stuff on PSST, the whole world knows all the new and private things about me before I’m even used to them myself, and there’s not a single thing I can do about it.
I’m in a pretty significant low here. Malik comes to mind. Wellness wisdom. An anonymous foe is beneath contempt. Not worthy of your attention. True, but an anonymous foe can still mess things up
, and you have to deal with that.
‘It’s just – everything at once,’ I say, tears threatening. I breathe them away.
‘I know,’ says Kate.
‘How would they know about me and Max?’
Clem gives me a shoulder squeeze. ‘It’s probably just a random insult – in their fucked-up view of the world.’
‘We’re going to deal with the haters,’ says Kate. ‘This is shitting me to death.’
Tuesday 30 August
Laundromat, 4 pm?
The easiest thing would be to not go, but I can’t help it, I have to see him. I need to say something – if he’s sorry well, I’m not going to go back with him, but maybe I can believe he’s a good guy. If he’s not, at least I’ll know. I’ll know that all the things I thought were good were actually bad. All the things I thought were romantic were actually sleazy.
Ady says life’s not black and white like that. ‘And I should know.’
I slug from class to class feeling drained. It’s not just about Stu; it’s Iris. I haven’t seen her since our fight. I keep going over what I said to her. I’ve been trying to map back to the start of our troubles, and I think it might be me. I might be the evil twin. I was the one who wanted to move away, to separate, cut the cord, whatever.
When the last bell goes I check in with Kate.
‘Seen Iris?’
‘Not since this morning.’
‘How was she? We had a fight.’
‘Come to think of it, she was kind of quiet – I thought it was just because she missed out on the weekend. Don’t worry. She’s pretty thick-skinned.’
‘I don’t know. I used to think she was, but I don’t know if she is.’
Kate tilts her head at me. ‘How are you?’
