by J. C. Burke
Then Polly Pessimistic really did bust out of her shell. She shouted and hollered that Ralph didn’t want me in his car because I’d held the hand of a guy who’d died of AIDS. There’d been more poofter bashings after two hold-ups in a bank. The robber threatened the tellers with a syringe full of what he claimed to be AIDS-infected blood. Plus all over the news was a story about a haemophiliac kid with AIDS who wasn’t allowed to go back to school.
I was certain I’d seen Sonia Darue point at me the other day. Then whisper something behind her hand that had her gaggle of girls nodding like those dolls that hang off rear-view mirrors.
Get it together! I ordered myself. Lock Polly Pessimistic up and chuck away the key. She wasn’t good for anyone.
Right there and then, I promised myself three things I would do. Non-negotiable.
1. Initiate a proper conversation with Ralph that didn’t involve us both sitting in his car.
2. Organise a T-shirt cutting afternoon with Louise to make some midriffs.
3. Start a health kick. The formal was only ten weeks away.
23
WEEKENDS AND NO RUSHING OFF TO THE hospital was another one of those simple pleasures I was learning to appreciate. We had slotted right back to what we usually did.
Mum slept in and then read the newspaper cover to cover. Billy and I watched Video Hits while I ate cereal. I stayed on the couch and Billy, Mr Exercise Health Freak, went off to do laps at the pool.
The GP had him on antibiotics all the time now. The doctor reckoned that if swimming made Billy feel good, then he should keep it up. Mum wasn’t happy about it. I could tell by the way she clicked her tongue each time she saw Billy walk towards the door carrying his goggles and towel.
‘Be back soon,’ he told us. ‘On the way home, I’m going to get one of those famous bread sticks from the new baker.’
‘Hurry up. I’m hungry,’ Mum said. I wondered if she hoped her words would make him ditch his laps and go straight to the bakery.
Billy muttered something under his breath as he closed the door and Mum did another one of her clicks of the tongue.
Mum and Billy had stopped hanging out together in her room with the door closed. It took me a while to notice that now both their doors seemed to be closed. Each of them inside their own room, alone.
But I was starting to figure out why. Billy’d been home the longest he’d ever been since he moved to New York. Plus he was on his own. Usually Saul had been with him. I think they were starting to drive each other crazy. Or at least Mum was driving Billy crazy.
Since he’d been back from hospital this time, I’d noticed that she started to watch him. I’d even spied Mum standing outside the bathroom when Billy was in there, leaning against the door as though she was trying to hear what was going on. When Billy coughed, even just to clear his throat, she’d do this weird thing with her head that reminded me of a bird that had sensed danger.
Mum wasn’t just driving Billy crazy. She was weirding me out too. She had started to light candles in her bedroom, and the other night when Billy was out, I’d caught her standing in his room, staring at the shelves. I stopped at the doorway and said ‘Mum?’ at least three or four times, but she didn’t hear me.
I kept telling myself to ignore her weirdness because I had to be Polly Positive. Not Polly Paranoid, which is what Billy had called Mum when she’d asked him what the spot was on his hand. It was a lip liner he’d been testing out and he hadn’t rubbed it off properly.
No wonder Billy wanted to get out of the house and do laps. When he was at school and training all the time, he told me he liked swimming up and down the pool because it emptied his mind. He said the best thing about swimming was that you didn’t think.
‘Gemma?’ Mum called.
‘What?’ I shouted from the couch.
‘Listen to this.’
‘Hang on,’ I said, rolling myself off the sofa and turning Video Hits down. ‘What’s happened?’
Mum was catching up on the death notices. She’d gone back to reading them and I didn’t want to ask why. Maybe she was simply looking for Uncle Roddy’s name? I’d given up on my quest after discovering Matt Leong in there.
‘Wayne Nathaniel Bradbury of Garrandai,’ she read. ‘Beloved and cherished only son of Noreen and James, brother of Stacey and Bridget. Died aged twenty-one years. Up in the big sky.’
‘Wayne?’
‘That must’ve been his real name.’
‘Oh, Mum.’ I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and nestled my head in the curve of her neck. I had chickened out of sending the letter and then it was too late. ‘I wonder what his family thought?’
‘We’ll never know, my darling.’
‘I had to stay with him. But why did it make you cross?’
‘Because—’ she choked. ‘Because no one should have to do that twice.’
Mum’s explanation only confused me. Twice? Was she talking about Zane? It didn’t make sense. But right at that moment, I couldn’t be bothered asking what she meant. It was only later that I’d work it out for myself.
Mum was pinning the bodice of my formal dress around me when Billy arrived home from the pool with two bread sticks that smelled as though they were just out of the oven.
‘… oo were ick,’ Mum said, through a mouthful of pins.
Billy understood Mum’s language too. ‘The pool was a bit crowded.’
‘Don’t they have allocated lanes?’ I asked. ‘You know, slow swimmers, fast lane, that kind of thing?’
‘Must be a lot of good swimmers these days,’ he answered, dropping the bread sticks onto the kitchen counter. ‘We should eat these now. They’re still warm.’
‘Yum,’ I called.
That afternoon was such a normal scene for my little family. Billy sawing through the bread. Me with my arms stretched out while Mum ducked around me, folding and pinning the black velvet to my body. The kettle on, blowing its steam, and U2 playing on the radio. The clean washing piled up on the table waiting to be folded in front of the Sunday night movie. The road outside quiet, the way it always was on weekends.
It must’ve been a moment worth remembering.
The next day at morning recess I was heading towards the bubbler because I’d just scoffed down a packet of salt and vinegar chips. The plan was I’d wash my face, then walk over and say hello to Ralph. I’d bumped into him on my way to first period. He told me he was sorry he hadn’t been able to give me any lifts because he’d been driving Vanessa to auditions all week. So I figured it was my turn to make an effort.
I passed Simon Finkler who was sitting on one of the silver benches, his legs wide apart and his arms crossed – the way he posed in all the school footy photos. Maybe he was watching me, but I took no real notice of him because I was too busy being pissed off with myself for eating the chips. Today was meant to be day one of my pre-formal health kick and I hadn’t even made it past recess.
I was bent over the bubbler, slurping up the water, when I heard, ‘Oi! Longrigg!’ The voice was low and deep like a foghorn. It sounded a lot like Simon Finkler.
I peered up from the bubbler, thinking to myself, Did the Fink just call my name? But my question was answered because Simon Finkler was walking towards me, hands in his pockets and a sneer so fierce his top lip almost disappeared into his nose.
Suddenly I noticed that everyone seemed to have already stopped and were staring at me, aware that something was about to take place in the quadrangle. But I was still straightening my back, putting my hands on my hips, looking around, and wondering what the hell was going on. It was as though I was the only person still moving. The last person to see him coming.
Simon Finkler was standing not even an arms-length from me. I wondered what would happen if he pushed me? Would I fall straight back, smashing my head on the bubbler?
But there was no more time for imagining my injuries, because this is what he said to me, in front of the whole of the quadrangle, ‘I don’t think you sh
ould be drinking from there, Longrigg. Spreading your dirty fag germs around for all of us to catch.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Your fag brother swims in our pool, and now you’re drinking from the school bubbler. You want to spread your poofter disease everywhere?’
‘You’re a pig!’ I spat.
‘What’d you call me, fag lover?’
‘Leave her alone,’ Ralph called. He was running over from one corner of the quadrangle, and I saw Fergus Eames coming from the other. But Simon Finkler didn’t turn around. He was too busy staring at me.
‘What’d you call me?’ he barked.
‘I said, you’re a pig!’ I reached out my hand and whacked him across the face.
I don’t know who made the next move because I was having enough trouble just staying vertical and not passing out. I couldn’t believe what I’d just done.
Suddenly, it was like an explosion. Bodies collided into one another, hairy arms and legs were rolling around by my feet, bones were crunching and skin was slapping.
Then Mr Curtin was there, yelling, ‘Stop it, boys! Stop it!’ And I could see his brown shoe kicking at their snorting, grunting bodies on the ground, trying to make them stop.
Someone had wrapped their arm around me. It was Louise, leading me away and saying stuff that wasn’t making me feel any better, like, ‘You were amazing, Gemma.’
Of course, the incident wouldn’t just disappear the way I wanted it to. An hour later, an announcement came over the loudspeaker telling me to go to the principal’s office. I was either in trouble or they were going to offer me some lame counselling session.
On the way, I passed Mr Curtin ushering Ralph and Fergus out of the sick bay. They both were holding icepacks to their faces. Ralph nodded as we passed each other.
The door to the principal’s office was shut and I really hoped that Simon Finkler wasn’t in there. Maybe the secretary was a mind-reader, because she called out from the desk that the principal was on the phone and wouldn’t be too long.
I hoped he would hurry up. Lunch was only twenty-five minutes away and then the office would be crowded with students. I’d know the glances and whispers behind hands would all be for me: the girl whose brother had AIDS.
So I watched the clock. It was 12.05 p.m. and I found myself thinking about what had been happening at this time yesterday: Billy cutting up the freshly baked bread sticks; Mum pinning my formal dress around me; U2 playing on the radio. And out of everything that’d happened, that memory is what made me cry.
Simon Finkler was suspended and Ralph and Fergus had a week of lunchtime detentions. The principal had telephoned Mum, worried that I wasn’t ‘dealing with the situation’.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to talk to the school counsellor?’ Mum asked when I got home.
‘Mum, I was crying, that’s all. I’m fine.’ I turned to Billy because he was the one who really needed to know that I was fine. I was his Polly Positive. ‘I’m all right,’ I said again. ‘Really. Honestly.’
The six o’clock news was on. Mum was stuffing lemons up a chook’s bum and Billy was icing a cake because it was Aunty Penny’s birthday.
Mum sighed. ‘I just don’t understand people. There’s so much information out there about AIDS. Why is everyone so paranoid and unreasonable?’
‘Can we not talk about it?’ Billy snapped. ‘Penny will be here soon and it’s her birthday. Gemma seems fine to me. Let’s at least try and have a nice night, Maryanne.’
‘Who said anything about not having a nice night?’ Mum began and I could sense another squabble on the horizon.
The phone rang, so I ran to answer it and to escape the kitchen.
‘Hello?’
‘Gemma?’
I recognised the voice straight away. ‘Oh, Ralph, I’m so sorry—’
‘Gemma,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m just around the corner from your place. At the phone box. Can you meet me here? Now?’
I was still in my uniform plus a pair of ugg boots and Billy’s big grey jumper. But Ralph sounded anxious, and considering what he’d copped for me today, it’d be slack to keep him waiting for the sake of fashion.
Still, I had to brush my hair and put on some lip gloss. Then I ran.
Ralph was in the phone box, sitting up on the ledge, his long legs swinging back and forth. It was dark and it wasn’t until he walked out into the street light that I saw his face. Both eyes were so swollen they’d disappeared inside his skull and there was a line of raw, shiny grazes down his cheek.
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘That looks painful.’
‘Only if I touch it.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be. The guy’s an arsehole.’
‘Thank you for’ – I wasn’t quite sure how to word it – ‘coming to help.’
‘It was a bit late,’ he answered. ‘I wish I slammed him before he opened his mouth. Lucky Fergus Eames jumped in, hey? Wonder what that was about? I didn’t think you guys were friends.’
‘Not sure,’ I fibbed.
‘Anyway, lucky for me, or I’d be a slab of meat in the morgue.’
‘Well, thank you,’ I said again.
‘It was a good slap you gave the Fink.’
‘It’s one of my specialties.’
‘Hey!’ Ralph was pointing at the phone box. ‘Is that you and Andrea in there? That little line of messages?’
‘We were in Year 7!’
‘Still sounds like Andrea.’
Now I was wondering why Ralph had wanted me to come down here so urgently. I was quite happy to be here. I definitely didn’t want to be anywhere else. But I had an inkling there was something else.
‘Do you think someone’s been hassling your brother at the pool?’ he asked, moving closer to me.
I’d thought about that exact scenario today. But it didn’t sit right in my head. My brother had always been tall and strong. When he was younger, that’s had what saved him from gay taunts and bashings around the suburb.
Now, I supposed he was one of those skinny blokes with sunken cheeks and a hollow chest. It was hard for me to see him like that because my eyes still chose to see him as the guy he used to be. But maybe to everyone else he resembled an entrant in Mr Puniverse.
‘Billy wouldn’t tell Mum and me if he’d had any trouble at the pool,’ I began. ‘But maybe someone did see him and say stuff.’
‘Simon Finkler?’
‘He doesn’t strike me as a swimmer. Too fat.’
‘It sucks, anyway.’
‘My mum had a bit of trouble with some of her clients whose dresses she was making. They came over and took them away before she’d even finished the hems.’
‘No way!’
‘Their problem. Not ours. That’s the way we have to look at it or we’ll go mad. Or kill someone.’
Ralph and I went and sat on the kerb. Beneath us, we could hear the water rushing by in the drain. I stared through the grates. The same ones I’d crouched next to all those years ago, trying to hear the cries of a missing girl.
‘Do you ever feel old?’ I asked Ralph. ‘Or maybe what I mean is – do you ever wish you were still young?’
‘Sometimes, I guess.’
‘I used to listen down this drain for that little girl, Meg Docker. Actually all the drains along this road. In case I could hear her crying.’
Ralph was nodding. ‘I remember Meg Docker. When she first went missing, Vanessa and I ended up sleeping in the same bed. We were terrified we were going to be kidnapped. We didn’t know her but we cried when the police found her body.’
I gasped. ‘So did I! It was like the worst thing that ever happened. Wasn’t it?’
‘Exactly. I reckon it was about the first time I realised that it could be a really bad world.’
‘Me too!’ I couldn’t help adding, ‘Wow.’
I don’t know what made me do it but just like that, I took Ralph’s hand. It was warm and his fingers curled themselves around mine. Stro
ng and alive.
‘Thanks for getting bashed up today,’ I said.
‘Gemma?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Will you go to the formal with me?’
I started laughing because I had not seen that coming.
Wearing my uniform, ugg boots and Billy’s grey jumper, nothing like what I imagined I’d be wearing, Ralph leaned over and kissed me.
24
9 weeks to formal
RALPH WAS DRIVING ME TO SCHOOL AND driving me home. He said it was safer that way and Mum and Billy agreed. Any feminist aspirations of being an independent young woman who could take care of herself were flushed down the toilet. As if I was going to argue with that plan!
For some stupid reason, I called Louise and Andrea that night to tell them I wouldn’t be meeting them at Nigel anymore. Even more stupidly, I told them how I’d be getting to school. Andrea made ooh noises and heavy panting sounds. Louise just sang through the phone, ‘He’s in love with you. It’s so obvious.’
To both of their very different reactions, I said the same thing. That they were being ridiculous. I didn’t mention Ralph asking me to the formal. Let alone our first delicious kiss, which I hoped there’d be plenty more of driving back and forth from school. I still wanted to keep some of him to myself.
The problem was the coming Friday. On Monday morning, before everything happened with Simon Finkler, I’d ticked the other items off my list and arranged for Louise to come over. We had been discussing making our T-shirts into midriffs for weeks. I’d suggested we do it at my place because my mother had the best scissors. At the time, I thought my biggest problem was Andrea finding out. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to invite her, but I wasn’t sure what my mother would do with her sewing scissors if she found Andrea in our kitchen. I’d suggested Friday afternoon, because I knew Andrea had two hours of netball training.
But would I just ask Ralph if Louise could get a lift too? And if Ralph and I had been getting off in the car every day, then would I just tell him that we couldn’t on Friday because Louise didn’t know that we’d kissed? But then maybe Ralph would wonder why I didn’t want to tell my friends about him and me. Maybe he’d get the wrong impression and think I was embarrassed of him?
