by J. C. Burke
I stumbled to the bathroom, grabbing my toiletry bag on the way. I turned on the taps full throttle and, almost climbing into the basin, washed my face and scrubbed the inside of my mouth with a toothbrush until I could taste blood.
There was no need to sneak out of the bathroom, because if Billy and Mum were home they sure weren’t making a show of it. Mum’s door was closed and it was one time I could’ve dropped to my knees and kissed the carpet in gratitude and relief. I would die if they had seen what I’d just done.
Softly, I tapped on the door. ‘You guys in there?’ I said, opening it and going in.
Billy and Mum were sitting on the bed sorting through a pile of sympathy cards. It was obvious they’d both been crying. Their red noses were a dead giveaway.
‘How was school?’ Mum asked. ‘Do you have much homework?’
‘Kind of,’ I answered, swallowing a bit of blood that had gathered on the roof of my mouth.
Billy passed Mum one of the cards, saying, ‘That’s a nice one.’
‘For the reply pile?’
Billy nodded.
‘Who are those cards from?’ I asked.
‘From people who wrote to me when Saul was sick and when’ – Billy’s voice cracked – ‘he died.’
I reached over and picked up a card.
‘Don’t get the piles mixed up,’ Mum nagged.
I got comfy on the floor and opened it. It was from Rod and Carl. Not that I’d heard of them before.
Hopefully Saul is sharing a gin and tonic with Wes, Benson and Rick. If he’s not doing that then maybe he’s playing tennis with Frankie and Peter W or skiing with Douglas, Hank and the ever-beautiful Sam. That’s how Rod and I like to think of it. As though there’s a whole new world just as good or even better than this one. But wherever he is and whoever he’s with, Saul knows that in NYC he was loved by so many and especially us. Thinking of you, Billy. Forever in our thoughts, Rod and Carl xx
PS Wish we could spend time with you at Martha’s Vineyard but Rod too weak. Bring me home a piece of Glory’s apple pie!
I handed the card back to Billy. ‘I don’t think I want to read any more. They’ll make me too sad.’ Or they’ll freak the living daylights out of me – that was closer to the truth.
More importantly I needed to find out whose glass that was in the sink. ‘What did you guys have for lunch today?’ I began. It was good to add a yawn in these circumstances. Andrea once told me that it was important to sound bored when you really, really wanted to know something but didn’t want to show it. ‘There was a nice smell in the kitchen,’ I fibbed.
Maybe they hadn’t eaten lunch? There was no way to know these days. Mum had become even more of a clean freak Nazi. Every bit of cutlery or plate or cup had to be cleaned and put away straight after each meal. The dishwasher that Billy and Saul had given Mum was permanently running. I could vouch for that because I was the one who had to unstack it.
There had just been that one lone glass in the sink. Billy was taking so many vitamin concoctions and weird tablets that he’d most likely used it for water to swallow an afternoon dose and forgotten to put it away.
I was starting to feel sick. Could I really get HIV from drinking out of a glass? Billy and I had hugged and kissed. Just on the cheek, so it probably was safe. He’d crawled into bed with me the other night and given me a cuddle. He’d driven the car, helped Mr C fix the front gate and he still cut his nails on the couch while watching TV. He and Mum were always lying on her bed an inch away from each other. Kissing doesn’t kill. Elizabeth Taylor had told the world that and she was an AIDS expert.
‘There’s some yoghurt and plenty of bread.’ Mum was listing the foods to satisfy my supposed appetite. ‘I think there’s some devon left.’
‘Yeah, there is,’ Billy said. ‘It’s in the vegie drawer in the fridge because I moved my Chinese herbs onto the shelf.’
‘Chinese herbs?’ I asked. ‘What the hell?’
Billy started laughing. ‘You wait,’ he said. ‘I haven’t cooked them up yet. That’s a smell you’re going to have to learn to love.’
‘What are they for?’
‘They help boost your immunity,’ he explained.
‘It was very sweet of Mae to bring them over,’ Mum said. ‘That would’ve been hard.’
‘Who’s Mae?’ I asked.
‘Matt’s mum,’ Billy answered. ‘You know, Mrs Leong.’
‘Mrs Leong came over here?’
‘Let’s put the kettle on,’ Mum said. We all got up and Billy and I followed her into the kitchen like she was our Girl Guide leader.
Before Mum touched the kettle she went straight to the sink, picked up the offending glass and put it in the dishwasher saying, ‘I hope Mae got rid of that headache. It sounded like the beginning of a migraine to me.’
‘Did you give her some Panadol?’ I blurted out. ‘Did she take it with a glass of water?’
‘Yes, Nurse Gemma.’ Mum was looking at me like I’d lost it, and in a way I had. In the span of half an hour I’d been humiliated by the boy I thought I loved but now hated, and imagined the sympathy cards that Billy and Mum would receive when I died of AIDS and joined Douglas, Hank and the ever-beautiful Sam.
‘Tomorrow I’ll buy a new saucepan for my Chinese herb brew,’ Billy was telling Mum. ‘And I’ll also try and make an appointment with that acupuncturist that Mae was telling us about.’ Billy leaned over and gave Mum a peck on the cheek. ‘You okay?’ he asked her softly.
Mum did one of her quick nods back that actually meant she wasn’t okay at all. ‘I just really feel for Mae,’ she said after a little while.
‘Did she just turn up on the doorstep?’ I asked.
‘No, she called first.’
‘But can she speak much English?’
‘Her English has really improved,’ Billy told me. ‘Matt was always bugging her to take classes and she must’ve.’
The mugs were out, the teapot and milk in the middle of the table; it was our call to take our seats and begin on whatever topic was loitering in our kitchen. This afternoon it was Mae Leong’s visit.
That morning Mrs Leong had called completely out of the blue. Billy answered the phone and minutes later Mum left the sewing machine and rushed to his side when she heard his sobs.
Less than two hours later, Mrs Leong was sitting at this kitchen table.
I had to ask if Mrs Leong still wore her hair in a tight bun and had pencilled-in eyebrows like upside-down ‘C’s. Billy started laughing and told me how when Matt and he were going out he’d fantasise about doing a makeover on her. I was glad we had that light moment because then Mum told me Mae’s story about how Matt got a cough that kept getting worse, and within a week he was dead in hospital.
That night it took me a long, long while to get to sleep. Five words kept me awake. Died after a short illness.
12
21 weeks to formal
THE NEXT WEEK, ANDREA WAS BACK AT school, standing at my locker like she would’ve been on any ordinary day. My brother had HIV but she was still there waiting for me. I ran into her arms and spun her around with joy.
‘Have you lost the plot?’ Andrea said, wrestling herself out of my hold then running her fingers through her stupid spiked-up fringe.
‘I’m just happy to see you. Arrest me for my crime!’
‘Which one?’ Andrea mumbled.
Still that didn’t burst my bubble because Polly Pessimistic had prepared herself for this. Louise and Justin seemed to be fine about my brother being HIV-positive. Andrea, on the other hand, was going to take a while to get used to the idea.
It was still too early for me to even think about how Deidre might take the news. Saul always said, ‘One hurdle at a time.’ Well, I had a whole field of hurdles ahead of me and some of them were going to be easier to jump than others.
‘Can I just say something,’ I began. ‘I know that was big, big shit that I told you about Billy and Saul. And I get it if you need a bit of
time to digest the—’
‘Let’s not talk about that!’ Andrea answered, waving her hand in my face as though she was about to swat a fly. ‘That’s not for school.’ Then she launched into the subject of her choice. Herself. And, to be honest, that was fine with me. ‘Why does everything happen to me on the way to school when you’re not there, Gemma?’
‘Because I walk and you’re lazy and catch the bus.’
‘I swear I am not catching the bus again,’ Andrea told me. ‘From today on, we are meeting at Nigel every morning and walking together.’
‘What happened?’
‘Derr, one big guess, Gemma.’
‘Martin and Sonia?’
‘Plus the Fink.’
‘Simon Finkler acts like their minder.’
‘He has the worst breath you ever smelt.’
‘How do you …?’ I stopped mid-sentence because there was an ugly picture forming in my head. ‘Andrea! You didn’t?’
‘Of course I didn’t!’ Andrea squealed.
‘So what happened with the Fink, then?’
Through the locker room and amid the sound of banging metal doors and kids shouting and running up and down stairs, I strained to hear the details of what had happened to Andrea on the bus.
We walked out into the crisp May air and across the quadrangle and Andrea was only up to the part where Martin Searles and Miss Prissy Sonia Darue were going for it in the back seat of the bus. Simon Finkler hadn’t even appeared yet. Probably because Andrea’s description of Sonia’s black lacy undies climbing up her bum went on for about five minutes.
Down the wind corridor towards the Science labs, and the Fink had finally entered the scene. Quickly, checking over her shoulder as though it was a state secret she was about to divulge, Andrea pulled me into a doorway and whispered, ‘Suddenly he was almost sitting on top of me. He was panting in my face saying, “I hear you like it hard,” and he was pressing himself against me and he had, you know …’ She mouthed, ‘an erection.’
‘Did anyone try and stop him?’
‘What do you reckon, idiot?’ she squeaked. ‘If they painted the Fink green he could stand in for The Incredible Hulk.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I will be because I’m not catching the bus ever again.’
‘I promise I will meet you every morning at Nigel.’
‘And walk home with me in the afternoon?’
‘Deal.’
‘I don’t know what was going through Louise Lovejoy’s head when she got off with the Fink,’ Andrea said. ‘She should’ve just left him to Bronnie Perry. He’s seriously off!’
The end of May was only a few days away, which meant the start of winter. If every calendar in the world had been destroyed you’d still know it was coming because the sun had lost its power. It was like an old woman who’d once been beautiful. There was a trace of heat but mostly it was underwhelming. Still, we stretched out our limbs and, apart from Justin, hitched up our skirts to soak in the last of the rays.
Lunchtimes had returned to feeling like the old days. Not that I was sure what or when the old days actually were. But the old days hadn’t been around for a while, that I did know.
Maybe the old days were before Saul died and Billy came home? Or maybe I should think of them as the simple days? Anyway, whatever it was, life felt normal again. We were sitting up on the roof of the gymnasium; Ralph and I were back to not talking; and Justin and Andrea were arguing. Today it was about whether a tunnel under the harbour was a good or a bad thing. Louise watched them like she was watching a tennis match, with me adding a comment every now and then just to stir things up.
Andrea would never back down, even though her facts were usually wrong to the point of made-up, and Justin’s brain seemed to be growing by the day. Anything he didn’t know about wasn’t actually worth knowing at all. So their debate reached the usual stalemate and then there was a blissful silence.
I heard myself sigh, because for the first time in weeks, I really felt my body let go. Perhaps I was feeling lighter because I was accepting the situation at home? Perhaps my family and I could be okay, even though my brother had HIV? Apart from Billy going to a clinic on Fridays, you’d never think anything was wrong with him.
Suddenly Andrea disrupted the peace. She sat up and declared at the top of her voice, ‘Louise, you seriously must’ve been off your face when you got off with Simon Finkler. How anyone would actually volunteer to touch that thing needs their head read.’
Silence. Ear-piercing silence. But Andrea was acting like she was deaf, because she didn’t seem to notice it. ‘What was going through your head? Because, no offence, you can’t honestly have thought he was a spunk? I mean, only a—’ I dug the heel of my shoe into Andrea’s ankle. ‘Ouch!’ she squealed. ‘What did you do that for, Gemma?’
‘Accident,’ I muttered. Andrea’s skin was thicker than I’d thought. ‘Sorry.’
‘I mean, I’m no fan of Bronnie Perry.’ Andrea kept talking. ‘But that poor thing, being stuck with him for so long. If I was her I would’ve broken up with him the day after we’d got together. No, correction, five minutes after. Even that would be too long.’
Louise was sitting up now. ‘Maybe she couldn’t,’ she uttered. ‘Maybe it’s complicated.’ That’s when I sat up, because I knew what that line meant. ‘Things aren’t always what they seem.’
Clever Justin had the sense to stay horizontal. Now Andrea was leaning towards Louise, her head cocked, her forehead folding like an accordion mid-note.
‘What do you mean, Louise?’ she asked.
Louise shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But why did you say, “Things aren’t always what they seem?” ’
I was the unadorned meat in the sandwich. No lettuce or tomato on either side. Just me, smack bang in the middle of Andrea and Louise. I didn’t know which way to look.
Louise knew something about Simon Finkler, she just wasn’t going to tell us. I’d been suss for a while, but now I was convinced.
‘Why are we wasting our time talking about the Fink?’ I asked them. ‘He’s not worth it. Let’s talk about something else.’
‘Okay,’ Andrea agreed. ‘Should I get my hair cut?’
We dissected the pros and cons of Andrea getting her hair chopped less than five months before the formal. But out of the corner of my eye, I couldn’t help noticing Louise’s fingers, the way she was knotting and twisting them to the point that it must’ve hurt.
That afternoon, as Andrea and I walked home from school, I started to tell her about what had happened with Ralph. She wasn’t saying much back, just making lots of hmms Andrea’s hmms usually meant that she didn’t like what she was hearing, and today they were making me nervous. So, what? She didn’t like the fact that Vanessa came over so Billy could cut her hair? Or that Ralph remembered that I’d had an argument with Mrs Bryce and now I owed him five dollars? Was Andrea cross that both times I hadn’t called her up straight away to tell her what’d happened?
She let out the longest hmm when I told her that Ralph knew about Saul dying. And I stopped then. I stopped because Saul had died and all Andrea was doing was making a stupid sound. I wanted to slap her across the face again and tell her that I wasn’t going to meet her at Nigel the next morning.
‘So Ralph knows about Billy too?’ Andrea asked. ‘Did you tell him?’
‘What? That Billy has H-I-V?’ I stretched my lips over each letter. ‘Can’t you say it? H-I-V?’
‘I’m just asking, Gemma. Don’t bite my head off! I can’t help it if I’m not good at saying the word.’
‘You’re not going to catch it just by saying it.’
‘I know that!’ Andrea opened her mouth again but quickly closed it. I wished I hadn’t noticed but I had and now I needed to know what those swallowed words were.
‘Tell me,’ I said.
‘Tell you what?’
‘What you were about to say.’ I paused because now I desperately wa
nted to slap her. Instead, I sucked the air in through my nostrils and calmly said, ‘Please tell me what you were going to say, Andrea. I really need to know. If you don’t tell me then I’ll start imagining all the things it might have been.’
‘I just …’ Andrea hesitated. ‘I just feel a bit weird. It’s kind of a big deal Billy having AIDS.’
‘HIV,’ I corrected.
‘How do you know everyone at school’s not talking about it?’
‘I don’t. Anyway, how would they know?’
‘Aren’t you scared of catching it, Gemma?’
‘No,’ I lied. ‘You catch it through bodily fluids. Like how could I get any of Billy’s bodily fluids on me?’
‘Yuck! Okay.’
‘I get that you feel weird, Andrea. But it doesn’t have to be a big deal.’
‘Will Billy have to wear gloves when he does our make-up?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘I’m just a bit scared.’
‘Well, don’t be,’ I answered and I knew my delivery was blunt.
For a while we walked in an uncomfortable silence.
‘So …’ Andrea started, ‘what else happened with Ralph?’
My story about Ralph hadn’t finished. But it had for Andrea. No way was I going to share Ralph’s clanger. The line that made me turn from love to hate in less than a second. AIDS in the burbs. Not everyone’s going to like it. I would keep that to myself.
So I answered, ‘Nothing. That was it.’
We didn’t talk anymore. We just kept walking.
I’m not a mind-reader, so I don’t know what Andrea was thinking, although I’d guess her thoughts were along the same lines as mine. That AIDS was scary and that I didn’t even know if I could catch HIV from doing something like drinking out of the same glass as Billy. Nothing was clear anymore. How would I know if everyone was secretly talking about me? And would Billy have to wear gloves if he was touching our face and hair?
