I Had Such Friends

by Meg Gatland-Veness

  “But none of that excuses him from what he’s done to you.”

  “I know that!” she snapped.

  I was an idiot. I wanted so badly to hug her then. To throw my arms around her tiny body and keep her with me forever. No one could ever hurt her again.

  “I can’t tell my parents,” she said. “I can’t tell them anything, let alone something like this. How would I do it?”

  I understood. I couldn’t have talked to my parents about something like that either. I couldn’t even tell them when I had broken a jam jar once and they didn’t find out until they discovered the pieces of glass in the bottom of my wardrobe days later. I didn’t know why I didn’t just throw the shards in the bin. Stupid idiot eight-year-old, I was.

  And I was still a stupid idiot.

  “How often?” I asked, but I couldn’t bear to find out the answer.

  “It used to be whenever he came to visit, so, every couple of months I guess, until I got old enough to stay at a friend’s house overnight. Now, unless he makes a surprise visit, I make sure I’m never home when he comes over.”

  “How long since his last surprise visit?”

  “Like, two months,” she said. “But I just called Peter and he picked me up.”

  “Peter? You told Peter?”

  And then the jealousy kicked in. Peter was the one she called in a crisis, not me, her boyfriend. Of course, she couldn’t call me. I didn’t have a car.

  “Yeah. Peter was my friend long before he was yours, you know.”

  “So, how often do you two hang out, then?”

  It was wrong of me to ask; it was wrong to even feel jealous at a time like that. After what Annie had been through, I should have been ecstatic that Peter was there to protect her.

  “Not very often,” she said. “Hardly at all, really. Not since Charlie.”

  “Since Charlie?”

  “We used to spend a lot of time together, before the accident. But he hasn’t really spoken to me since. When he picked me up that time, all he did was talk about you.”

  “About me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did he have to say about me?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual. He said you’re pretty terrible at football.”

  Of course he did. Great.

  So we stopped talking about it. And I tried to stop thinking about a little Annie Bower leaning against her bedroom door, surrounded by her teddy bears trying to keep that man out.

  It went without saying that she was going to spend the night. I let her sleep in my bed and I leant her one of my shirts. It would have been a perfect romantic moment if I didn’t also have to lend her some pyjama bottoms because my shirt wasn’t long enough on her.

  She took her phone out of her handbag.

  “Damn, Mum sent me a message hours ago.” She replied, typing faster than Martin on his computer.

  I slept on the floor using my beach towel as a pillow and the sofa cushions as a mattress. I had to drag them up the stairs. I didn’t need a blanket but Annie gave me the top sheet. She still used the doona.

  “How can you sleep with that thing when it’s so hot?” I asked her. We were both turned on our sides, still watching each other’s silhouettes in the darkness.

  “I can’t sleep without a blanket.”

  Another thing to add to the list of things that made Annie Bower adorable.

  I woke up first in the morning. I hadn’t been able to sleep very well. Annie was curled up in a tiny little ball. She had her hands folded under her chin and one of her legs was on top of the covers. She still looked like that little kid behind the door when she was asleep.

  I entertained the possibility of sneaking her out, but somehow, I thought this could be the one thing I didn’t lie to my parents about. So I waited for her to wake up and we went downstairs together.

  My mum was in the kitchen chopping vegetables. I was embarrassed, but Annie seemed totally comfortable with the situation.

  “Good morning, Mrs Day,” she said brightly, taking a seat at the kitchen stool.

  My mum took a moment to process – she took in the fact that there was a girl in the house, that she was wearing my clothes and that it was Saturday morning. Then she smiled.

  “Good morning, you must be Annie.”

  And the pleasantries began.

  What was she planning on doing after school, what did her parents do, was she stressed about the HSC, did she want to see the farm.

  And Annie was perfect. I could tell why Charlie wanted her as his fake girlfriend, she was a total parent charmer. I could see my mum thinking about knitting patterns for baby clothes as they spoke.

  I snuck outside to find my dad. Not much would drag him away from those cabbages, but the prospect of meeting my girlfriend might have just been enough.

  He was ploughing away and didn’t even notice me waving my arms about for ages because he was so engrossed. Eventually he saw me.

  “Dad, I want you to come and meet someone,” I said.

  “Who’s that, mate?”

  “Annie Bower.”

  “What, she’s here? Did she come for breakfast?”

  “No, she stayed the night.”

  “Oh.”

  I couldn’t tell if he disapproved or if he was proud. Probably both.

  “But nothing happened, I slept on the floor.”

  “Nice. Being a gentleman, I taught you well.”

  He followed me to the house and part of me really wanted to tell him about Annie and have him go over to their house and beat up her uncle. He would fix everything. But I couldn’t do that because Annie had told me her first secret as my girlfriend and I couldn’t go and tell my parents the very next day. Even I knew that was a bad boyfriend move.

  So my dad met Annie and he was even more taken with her than my mother was. She even asked him about his cabbages. He lied and said things were looking up. That was a sign that he definitely liked her. He didn’t want her to think he was a failure as a farmer.

  We showered, not together, and Annie put yesterday’s clothes back on. My mum lent her a towel and said next time she should come over early enough to have dinner. Annie said she’d love to. I walked her home around lunchtime. We stopped on the way so I could take a photo of Annie as proof she didn’t need to spend hours getting ready to look absolutely perfect. I got her to sit on a fence and look wistfully into the wind. The picture turned out really nice. Annie made sure I took one of her good side (but trust me, that girl was only good sides).

  When we got to her house, her uncle’s car wasn’t there, so she said she was safe to go in alone.

  I walked back home and tried to think about anything else. My thoughts strayed to Martin. Sometimes I missed him, and that was the truth. But, and I hated to admit it, a lot of the time I forgot he even existed.

  18.

  Days passed as I tried to curl my brain around the surplus of new knowledge I had encountered. I didn’t really get anywhere.

  It was a Friday evening when he called me. Maybe he thought a week was enough time to let me process. Maybe he didn’t think that much about it. The latter was probably more likely. He called my house after we’d eaten dinner. My dad was already getting ready for bed and my mum was sorting the clean clothes upstairs.

  I answered the phone even though I was in the middle of doing the washing up. I had soapy hands. We couldn’t afford to buy rubber gloves. They were a luxury. I was worried about getting electrocuted. Peter sounded the same as he always did. But of course he did, why wouldn’t he sound the same? I was overanalysing.

  “Hey mate, you busy tonight?” he said.

  “Nope.”

  “Want to go to the beach?”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “I know, payphone right? See you there.”

  He hung up. I wondered if maybe he was offended that I didn’t ever want him to come to my house. I wished that my parents would trust me enough to make my own decisions, but as it
was, there was no way in hell that they would have let me out of the house if they saw his pile-of-shit car pull into the driveway. I’m sure he was used to it; Charlie’s parents were probably the same. But having said that, they did let him move in for a while. I doubted mine would have allowed that, even if he were dying.

  I didn’t know what lie to tell my parents this time. I couldn’t use the Martin excuse again, so I pulled the girlfriend card.

  My mum came down the stairs in time to see me hang up.

  “That was Annie, we’re going to see a movie if that’s okay?” I said.

  Lies came much easier than truth.

  “Sure,” she said, happily, proudly, which only made it worse. “I like her, Hamish.”

  “I know, Mum. I like her too.”

  “Bring her around again sometime, but warn us so I can be a little more prepared.”

  “Deal.”

  And I was back at the payphone again in my board shorts and Peter pulled up in his shitty old car that I was beginning to see as a sort of second home.

  “How did you get away?” he asked.

  “Told them I had a date with Annie,” I said, putting my seatbelt on.

  “Lying to your parents.” He smirked. “What a rebel.”

  “Mate, you don’t know the half of it. I’m struggling to remember the last time I actually told them the truth.”

  He smiled as he chucked a U-ey and took us back towards town.

  “So, how are things going with that girlfriend of yours, anyway?”

  It was the first time he had asked me about Annie and I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Fine.”

  “Got anywhere yet?”

  Somehow I felt like he already knew the answer.

  “Not really.”

  “Tough break.”

  “Well…” I shrugged. “What are you gonna do?”

  I was trying to sound cool, but really, I was willing to wait if she was. I was too nervous to do anything other than that.

  We got to the beach and Peter took a case of beer out of his boot. The patchwork blanket was still there. I didn’t know where he got the beers from, I knew he was spending every last cent he made on groceries and bills. Peter was eighteen, so it wasn’t illegal for him to be drinking. I, on the other hand, was still seventeen, but don’t judge because everyone else was drinking years before that. I guess there wasn’t much else for them to do.

  We sat on the sand near the car park because no one was around that time of night.

  “Do you want one?” he asked, twisting the cap off his first.

  I hesitated. I had never even tasted alcohol before. My parents had offered me a sip of wine a couple of times but I’d always thought it smelt too disgusting to drink. The beer smelt even worse.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to sound casual, trying not to make it obvious that this would be the first time I had ever had a beer in my life.

  He handed me one and, after I struggled with the lid for a while, he took it back and opened it for me.

  The first sip was like drinking piss. Honestly. It smelt gross, it tasted gross and I never wanted to have another sip as long as I lived. Contrariwise, Peter had already half finished his. Somehow, he seemed to enjoy it.

  I took another, timid sip.

  I tried to swallow it as quickly as I could without tasting it. I was fairly unsuccessful. My taste buds were ready to pack up and leave me.

  “Like it?” he asked.

  I could have lied, but really, what was the point? He could see by my face that it was the most disgusting thing I’d ever tasted.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty revolting, I’m not gonna lie.”

  “It will get better,” he said. “Trust me. I didn’t like it the first time either.”

  I almost asked him when that was, but I stopped myself. No use feeling even more inexperienced than I already did. Besides, he probably couldn’t even remember.

  I remembered seeing Peter and the other footballers out drinking on the beach one afternoon. They must have started drinking early because by the time I’d got there, Peter was drinking beer straight from the esky. I had been in the car with Martin and his mother who had suggested we spend the day at the beach. Martin’s mother was wearing a big floppy hat and linen pants. They didn’t notice us as we went past, but I noticed them. I saw them all pour their beers in the esky and hold it over Peter’s head so he could drink it in one go. He did it too. The kid was a frickin’ legend.

  Peter had already finished his first beer and was opening a second. I looked at the bottle in my hand. I had hardly made a dent. Peter leant back on his hand.

  I was worried that it would be awkward, that knowing what I did would make me feel strange around Peter. But he was still the same guy. He was still just as surly and uncommunicative as he ever was and I didn’t feel uncomfortable. That was nice. I didn’t want to go back to being the loser with only one friend.

  “Have you thought any more about what you’re going to do after high school?” I asked.

  “Not really. I haven’t got much hope of uni or anything with my shitty grades and my track record for not showing up to school and training.”

  “But surely they accept you based on how good you are, so you’ll have no trouble.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Couldn’t you just try out for a team?”

  “They wouldn’t take me. I’m too young, and I don’t have references or experience at anything other than the fucking school team.”

  I tried to think of something else he could do. There weren’t many options. And, as with most things, he didn’t really seem to want to talk about it.

  Somehow, I managed to drink all of that first beer. By then, Peter had finished three and the last one he skulled. I didn’t ask him to, but he did it anyway. He opened the last two bottles, one for each of us, and I almost cried thinking I would have to drink another when I had only just managed to make it through the first one. I wondered if he would notice if I poured some of it into the sand. Instead, I decided to drink it as fast as I could and try not to think about it. I coughed and spluttered quite a bit trying to get it down and Peter laughed at me. It was a heavy, throaty laugh. Different from his normal you-dipstick laugh. I guessed that was because of the alcohol. I succeeded in finishing bottle two a lot quicker than the first. I started to feel like I was swaying back and forth. Although, looking back, I probably was swaying back and forth.

  Peter was broody. He was too sullen to enjoy watching the first time Hamish Day had ever been drunk and it made me grumpy. Also, my face felt really hot, like I was sunburnt.

  “What’s up?” I asked him.

  “I miss him so much, Hamish,” he said. And, just like that, he was crying again. Not serious crying, like before, this time he just sniffed and wiped the tears away as they fell. He looked like a little kid so I hugged him like a little kid. I bundled him in my arms like I used to whenever Paige cried.

  And then he kissed me.

  I couldn’t tell you exactly how it happened. It was so quick, such a natural progression from the hug that, for a moment, I didn’t even realise it was happening. But, as soon as I did, I pulled away from him. He looked hurt when I did that. But I was so confused, I didn’t know how to handle the situation. No one had ever tried to kiss me before. Not even my girlfriend. And it wasn’t at all what I had pictured my first kiss to be like. For starters, I could feel the stubble on his face and it was scratchy on my practically prepubescent skin. Peter always had stubble. Yet another thing he had that I was jealous of. I seemed to only be able to grow one hair at a time on my face whereas Peter would have needed to shave every day. Not that he did, of course. I think he just trimmed it with scissors, probably in class. Also, he smelt like beer and cigarettes, neither of which were particularly pleasant or romantic. He was also a guy. That was probably the biggest difference.

  He turned away from me. I could tell that he was embarrassed and I didn’t want him to be. But my h
ead was swimming. It’s a terrible cliché, but I felt like I was under water. I couldn’t believe that the beer would have that much of an effect on me so quickly. I’d only had two, for god’s sake. But I started to weigh up in my mind all the things we’d learnt in Health about alcohol and I realised a number of things. Firstly, I was very skinny; secondly, I hadn’t eaten much that day; thirdly, I had finished both beers fairly quickly; and lastly, this was the first time I had ever had alcohol and I was seventeen.

  And then something amazing happened. I started to laugh. Honest to god. I laughed, and my laugh sounded stupid and ridiculous. I hadn’t heard it in such a long time that it sounded like a little kid’s. It was a frickin’ giggle of a laugh. And I found my laugh so amusing that I laughed at that too. And Peter turned back to face me again and he wasn’t crying anymore because he was laughing too. And it felt so good to laugh with someone again.

  I then suggested we go for a swim because my face was boiling hot and he said that probably wasn’t the best idea and that maybe I should just sit down for a while. But I was so determined that I took my shirt off and I tried to get up. Then, somehow, I sat down again very quickly. And that made me laugh. And I started to wonder why I had never had alcohol before when it made me feel so good about myself and made it so much easier to do everything. Except, perhaps, walk. And Peter put one of his huge hands on my shoulder.

  “Try not to get up too fast again,” he said and his voice sounded wet. How weird was that? How could a voice sound wet?

  I continued to sway a little and Peter watched me with bemusement in his eyes. At least, I think it was bemusement. I tried to sneak off to the water by crawling, but Peter dragged me back before I could get very far. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to swim. I thought I was being very brave; the sharks come out that time of night, you know.

  Eventually we did swim, but not for very long because the water was cold without the sun shining on it and, also, I was drunk. We didn’t go in deep, so we could stand up. Peter was adamant that I had to be able to touch the bottom or he’d carry me back in if he had to.

  He didn’t try to kiss me again, which was good. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings a second time.