I spent all of last night going through her Tumblr. I read it all the way back to the beginning, when she was fifteen. I was trying to find some awesome stuff she said so I could put it in a tribute song, but even though I found a bunch of things I could use, nothing would come. I just kept staring and scrolling and stopping at all her selfies and – How can this girl be gone?!
Ms Rao promised us that as soon as any information comes through on the case they’ll tell us. But Marie isn’t a case. Marie is – was – a person. And there’s nothing they can tell us that will fix it, that will magically Frankenstein her back to life. It doesn’t matter whether it was a crocodile or a serial killer or a zombie or whatever got Marie.
She’s still dead.
We’re technically supposed to go back to school after the funeral, but no one does. Phil and Julian disappear off somewhere together. So do a bunch of other people. I want to disappear too, to go home and flop on my bed and stare at the ceiling for a bit, but Tillie wants to hang with everyone else and I’m not about to leave her. We end up at the Saffron Room. It’s that post-lunch period when I don’t think it’s even normally open but Finn goes and talks to his boss and they let us join up a bunch of tables.
It’s the most awkward group of people, honestly. It cuts across all the social dynamics of our year group. But I guess no one’s bothered about politics today.
No one knows what to say. We just all kind of sit there. I think we order drinks at some point, but I’m not really conscious of it until the coffee actually lands in front of me. I suppose I drink it, because I look down and my cup’s empty, but honestly, Tillie could have snatched it from in front of me and sculled it and I never would have known.
‘Maybe we should go around the table,’ Cardy says, ‘and say one thing about Marie that we remember. That stands out. That we don’t want to forget.’
Oh God, Cardy, no. I love you, but no. Do not make me or any of these people talk right now.
‘I’ll start,’ he says. ‘When we were on our overnight excursion to Canberra in Year Six, I let her give me a pedicure. She painted my toenails bright orange and silver and made me promise that I wouldn’t take it off for two weeks. So today I painted my toenails orange and silver again and I’m not going to take it off for a fortnight. For her.’
Next to me, Tillie hiccups. I look over at her and there’s a tear rolling down her face. I would feel so much more normal if that was the reaction I was having right now.
‘You next,’ Cardy says, pointing to Cam, who’s on his right. Cam tells some story about her tripping him over in Year Three, and then Annabel talks about the first time they ever got drunk together and people are laughing and crying as we make our way around the table and I feel nothing, nothing, nothing. Everything. And more nothing.
Tillie controls her tears enough to tell a story about Marie teaching her the word Lego back when they were in preschool and Tillie had just moved from Vietnam and hardly spoke any English, and then it’s my turn. I look over at the piano in the corner and think of how easy it was to express myself there, to sing about love and longing and the future and how pretty the creek is.
I don’t have a language to talk about death. About grieving. I just don’t.
‘The thing I’ll always remember about Marie,’ I say, ‘is when she first met my brother and developed this super-awkward crush on him.’
It’s a funny story. People laugh. Cardy catches my eye across the table and smiles. I smile back. But something inside me feels like it has turned to stone: a cold, grey weight in the pit of my stomach, choking me to death.
Finn is after me. I expect him to be hilariously inappropriate and tell some story from when they were dating – this is Finn, after all – but he doesn’t. Instead he talks about being on the same soccer team as her when they were thirteen and being jealous of how much better than him she was. It’s sweet. I think about telling him so, but I don’t.
Last is Jenny. ‘I didn’t really know her,’ she says, ‘but I’ve been reading all the papers and she sounds like she was a really great person.’
Right, because you can learn so much from articles called Local Girl Taken By Gruesome Killer? and Monster In Our Midst and Croc Creek: Are Our Waters Safe? That really captures the essence of who someone is.
‘Pearl!’ Annabel exclaims.
So apparently I said that out loud. Oops.
‘Look, sorry, but it’s true,’ I say. ‘I’m sure you mean well, Jenny, but I can guarantee you you’re not going to learn a single thing worth knowing about Marie from those articles.’ Especially because Helena wrote some of them. ‘You don’t know anything about Marie and I don’t know what you think you’re doing here.’
‘Pearl, stop it,’ someone says.
‘No, it’s all right,’ Jenny says. ‘Pearl’s just upset.’
‘Do not tell me how I feel,’ I snarl.
‘Pearl, none of this is Jenny’s fault,’ Cardy says.
‘I can’t change the fact that she’s dead,’ Jenny says earnestly. Her big green eyes are wide open and she’s lucky I seem to have drunk all my coffee because I want to fling it in her face.
‘No,’ I say instead, ‘but you could at least pretend to care.’
And then I storm away. Outside. Into the rain. Anywhere but here.
I lean my head against a wall and breathe in and out a few times, letting the rain beat down on my head. I know that outburst was immature and unwarranted and I am in general the absolute worst person ever, but I can’t even begin to worry about that right now.
I slam my hand against the wall. I want to yell and scream this stone out of my stomach but I can’t, I can’t, I can’t deal with this.
‘You all right, Linford?’
‘What does it look like?’
Finn just looks at me.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s just – I just –’
‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘I know what it’s like to want to smash your fist into stuff. Trust me. I know.’
‘I’m just so – angry.’
And it’s true, I realise. Somewhere underneath the stone that’s burying all my emotions I am hideously, ridiculously, volcanically angry.
‘I know it’s not her fault she didn’t know Marie, but the fact that she sits around with us and feels entitled to make remarks on this situation she knows nothing about – it just enrages me.’ The words are spilling out of me like I’m overflowing. And of all the freaking people to overflow in front of, it’s him.
‘Don’t apologise for being angry,’ he says. ‘You’re allowed to be angry.’
Of all the freaking people to make me feel even the tiniest bit better.
‘Thanks,’ I say. And then I don’t say anything else, because I don’t know what to say. I don’t have the language to talk to Finn if we’re not sniping at each other about something.
There is a giant black bird perched on the lip of a garbage bin near us. I stare at it so I don’t have to look at Finn. I heard somewhere once that birds like that carry souls away. I wonder if it’s here for Marie.
‘Do you want a ride somewhere?’ Finn asks.
‘Don’t you have a restaurant to look after?’
‘They’ll manage. And I’m not going to just leave you out here.’
I shake my head. ‘My sister works near here. I’ll get a ride from her.’
‘At least let me walk you.’
‘Why do you care?’
He pauses, obviously considering his words. ‘I don’t think you should be alone,’ he says.
I open my mouth to refuse, to tell him I’ll be fine on my own, but something stops me. Instead, I nod.
He doesn’t say anything. I don’t say anything. We just walk. And every so often my hand will brush against his hand or his against mine and I don’t know what it makes me feel but it’s better, so much better, than nothing.
I don’t know whether it’s Finn or whether I’ve finally managed to graduate from the first stage of grief to
the second (that’s denial to anger, right?) on my own, but when I get home, I lock myself away in my room, sit down at my keyboard, and slam out some of the most furious damn music I’ve ever played in my life. I start with covers but too many angry songs are about break-ups and that’s not what I’m feeling right now. The music pours out of me and the lyrics come faster than I can write them down and it still feels so totally, stupidly inadequate.
Disey and Shad leave me alone – they’re really good about giving me space when I need it – but I guess after spending two solid days and nights listening to me alternately sing and scream and sob they decide to call in reinforcements. Phil shows up on Sunday afternoon and physically drags me out into the open air. She takes me to the second-hand bookshop and melodramatically reads the blurbs of old romance novels to me until she makes me laugh. Then she takes me to a cafe and we get hot chocolate and enormous slabs of cake. And she makes me eat every bite.
‘Thanks,’ I say, when the cake is gone and we’re on our third hot chocolate each. ‘I think I needed this.’
‘Hell yes, you did,’ Phil says. ‘You were turning into one of those crazy hermit people who live in caves.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘This must be the last thing you need right now.’
She gives me a strange look. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you know . . . Julian.’
‘You are a million times easier to hang around right now, trust me,’ she says. ‘You having an emotional explosion and becoming a musical shut-in I can deal with. That’s, like, every second Tuesday for me. Boyfriend dealing with complicated feelings about dead ex-girlfriend? Way harder.’
‘How do you feel? About Marie, I mean. Putting aside me and Julian and everyone and their issues. Just you.’
She sighs. ‘I don’t think I’ve really had time to figure it out yet.’
‘You are a warrior,’ I say. ‘Seriously, Phil, you’re a rock, and it’s like we’re all these waves breaking over you, and you take it, and you never complain.’
‘Maybe that’s the advantage of coming from such a deeply and incredibly repressed family,’ Phil says. ‘Our insistence on breaking the hyper-emotional Greek stereotype has left us with the ability to become rocks.’
I reach across the table and grab her hand. ‘When you want to switch places, let me know. I am totes happy to take a turn being the rock if you want to be the wave for a while.’
She smiles and squeezes my hand. ‘Noted. Now let’s talk about something that’s not Marie and get our minds out of all the sadness and badness and madness for a while.’
We start talking about The Vampire Diaries and keep talking about it until they kick us out so they can close. We walk down the street debating the relative merits of Caroline’s various love interests (I’m Team Klaus, Phil wants her to get back with Matt) when suddenly I stop.
‘Pearl?’ Phil says.
There’s a black cat crossing the path ahead of us. I stare at it. It turns its head and I swear it’s looking right at me. Or right through me. Or right into me, like it can see something inside me.
A car horn blasts to our left. ‘Hey, Linford!’ Finn yells out of his window. ‘Come here!’
But I can’t stop staring at the cat. I look at it and it looks into me and –
The horn blares again. ‘Linford!’
‘Sorry,’ I say to Phil, and jog over to Finn before the fact he’s stopped to yell at me in the middle of Haylesford’s main street causes some kind of accident or traffic jam or something. ‘What?’ I say.
‘Do you remember what the assignment in history was?’
Sigh. Clearly that new-and-improved-sensitive-Finn act he pulled the other day was a one-time-only deal and regularly scheduled programming has recommenced. ‘Since when do you care about homework?’ I demand. ‘Since when do you do homework?’
‘I know this might be difficult for you to believe,’ he says all serious-like, ‘but I don’t want to fail. Do you know what the assignment is or not?’
‘The questions at the end of chapter six,’ I reply. ‘Is that what you actually wanted to say to me?’
‘No.’
‘Well, spit it out, then!’
He’s quiet for a moment. ‘I like the way you’ve done your hair today. It’s sexy.’
Oh, FFS.
I get woken at 5am when my boss calls me. ‘Dave’s out sick again,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what he’s got, but he sounds like hell.’
I agree to come in – I can always use the extra money – and drag myself out to the kitchen. Shad’s eating leftover pizza at the bench wearing flannelette pyjama bottoms and no shirt. ‘You’re up early, Pearlie,’ he says.
‘Boss just called. Can you give me a ride to the pool before you go to bed?’
‘Sure thing. Hey, nice job on the kitchen, by the way.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I ask, putting bread into the toaster.
‘Didn’t you clean it? Disey said she didn’t do it. Everything’s all organised. It hasn’t been this tidy for about twenty years.’
I pull out the cutlery drawer, which has been a mess for as long as I can remember, and sure enough, everything is sorted and organised and polished to within an inch of its life. ‘Not me,’ I reply. ‘I fear cleaning. You know this.’
‘Helena must have done it, then,’ Shad says. ‘She’s a tidy type. Or maybe the cleaning fairy is real after all. I always wished it, but I never dared believe it was true.’
The pool is even quieter than normal. I float on my back in the deep end. I try to conjure up a Cardy fantasy but it doesn’t work. Even when I relax the iron wall I usually keep around my Finn fantasies during the daytime it doesn’t work. Whatever magic Phil worked on me yesterday has obviously worn off. I feel awful for thinking about anything but Marie.
And yet I don’t want to think about Marie. I did enough thinking about Marie in my forty-eight-hour song spree of rage and grief. And thinking about her isn’t going to bring her back. So that leaves me with sleeping for a hundred years until everything goes away. Or making mental lists of all the things I don’t want to think about. Fun.
I’m so busy thinking about not thinking that I don’t even notice someone’s dived in right next to me until waves splash over me and I get water up my nose. ‘Hey!’ I manage to splutter.
He doesn’t hear, of course. I watch him as he swims the entire length of the pool underwater then turns around and swims back, not once taking a breath. I’m amazed. I can make it one length of the pool underwater if I put my mind to it (having a singer’s breath control really helps) but there’s no way in hell I could make two.
He seems to sense me watching him and emerges. I get the strange feeling that if I hadn’t been looking then, he would have swum three, four, five lengths underwater. ‘Did I splash you before? I’m sorry,’ he says.
‘Yes, but it’s all right,’ I reply. ‘What you did just then – swimming so far without taking a breath – that was amazing.’
‘I like the water.’
Up close, he seems younger than I had originally thought – nineteen or twenty maybe, with brown hair slicked back from his face by the water and huge dark eyes set far apart. He’s not especially attractive, but he is weirdly compelling. I don’t want to take my eyes off him. ‘Are you a swimmer?’ I ask. ‘Like, competitively?’
‘I’ve been swimming all my life,’ he replies. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Pearl.’
‘You can call me Kel.’ He smiles at me. His teeth are very white, like a toothpaste commercial or something.
‘Do you live nearby?’ I ask.
‘Near the creek.’
‘I’m on the creek side of town too. It practically runs through our backyard. It’s so beautiful. And it’s gorgeous to swim in in summer.’
‘You should be careful.’
I blink. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Aren’t they saying that there’s something bad in the creek? That girl –’
‘I wouldn’t swim there in winter anyway,’ I say. Images of Marie and blood and black water dance through my mind. I force them away. ‘So I guess you don’t go to school. I haven’t seen you around.’
He smiles his wide white smile again. ‘No. But my sister does. Maybe you know her?’
‘Maybe. What’s she called?’
‘Jenny.’
Oh, spew.
‘Yeah, I know her.’
‘I think she likes it there,’ Kel says.
Of course she would like it there. What normal person wouldn’t like a school that racks up a body count in your first week?
‘She’s in my year,’ I say. That, at least, is not a lie. ‘I showed her round school when she started.’
‘I remember her mentioning you,’ he says.
So there’s this crazy bitch who went off at me for doing nothing, nothing, I swear! I imagine her saying, fluttering her stupid eyelashes. ‘I’m memorable,’ I say sourly.
‘She talks about her new friends a lot,’ he says. ‘Do you know Cardy? I think she likes him the best.’
Whoa whoa whoa whoa WHOA WHOA. Hands off, Jenny. ‘Cardy’s a good friend of mine,’ I reply. ‘He’s a great guy.’
‘And Finn? Do you know Finn?’
UGH JENNY, YOU ARE THE WORST. ‘Everyone knows Finn,’ I say, ‘but I wasn’t aware that they were, like, tight.’
‘Maybe he’s like you,’ Kel says. ‘Memorable.’
Well, there’s no arguing with that. Finn is a lot of things, but ‘memorable’ is definitely near the top of the list.
I think of how he looked in the rain the other day, his dress shirt soaked through and clinging to his ridiculously perfect chest. Clearly there is enough room in my brain for Finn fantasies after all. Stupid brain.
‘Tell me about them,’ Kel says. ‘Cardy. Finn.’
Hmmm, is telling Jenny’s brother about the two guys she obviously has her eye on so he can get all big brotherly and protective really what I want to be doing with my morning? What a fun time that sounds like.
Valentine Page 6
