Checkers

by John Marsden

  ‘Um, that does sound pretty weird,’ I said, immediately trying to bite the end off my tongue for saying something so dumb. I was scared that Esther would go into a frenzied fit, foaming at the mouth and trying to kill me.

  But she just smiled and said, ‘Exactly!’

  ‘What’s it like?’ I asked. ‘Having it in there, I mean.’

  ‘It’s quite nice, really. It probably sounds terrible. But I just feel that it’s there, curled up all warm and nice.’

  I didn’t say anything. I was trying to imagine how it would be.

  ‘Sometimes it moves,’ Esther added, ‘and I feel that, feel it wriggling around, squirming into a new position, to get more comfortable. And sometimes it makes noises.’

  ‘Noises?’

  ‘Mmm. Sort of whimpery noises. Little yelps and cries. I guess it’s the noises that put me in here.’

  ‘They did?’

  I gulped. I was scared I was getting in too deep.

  ‘Mmm. The neighbours heard the noises and they called the cops. You see, I guess the noises must have been coming out of my mouth.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  She laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I know I sound like I’m totally out of my tree, and I probably am, but you look like you’re expecting me to jump up at any moment and attack you with a pair of scissors.’

  It was exactly what I had been thinking.

  ‘What happened with your mother and the cancer?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s fine. She’s in remission, has been for a while now. But Dad’s still living with his mum. I don’t know when he’ll be coming back. I don’t know if he’ll be coming back at all.’

  We sat there talking till Hanna came along and shooed us off to our rooms so she could turn the lights out. This place is so hung up on routine—meals, medication, Group, bedtime—everything’s got to be at the exact time or the world will fall off its axis and we’ll all be thrown into space.

  So now I’m lying awake thinking about Esther. It was good to talk to her; easier than talking to almost anyone I can name, except maybe Oliver. I don’t know why I was so relaxed. You wouldn’t usually choose to have a conversation with someone who thinks she’s got an animal in her head. I still didn’t say much when I was with her but I felt comfortable.

  I think it’s because she didn’t seem like she was ready to criticise, to judge me and find me guilty every chance she got. That’s the way a lot of people have always seemed to me, including some of my so-called friends from school. Girls like Shon. The day I said Kylie Becker was my favourite singer—and I still do like her—God, it was like I’d committed social suicide. Shon didn’t let me forget that for a month. Just because I didn’t choose someone they’d decided was cool . . . It made me wonder if I was allowed to have my own opinion on anything.

  I’ve always been like that—afraid of doing the wrong thing, of making a fool of myself—but it’s been a thousand per cent worse since everything happened with Rider Group. I’ve written about some of that already, of course. The first things that went wrong weren’t my fault, nothing to do with me. That company in the Bahamas, that was the first problem. And Mrs O’Shea, the Opposition backbencher asking questions in Parliament: she made her reputation out of Rider Group. She’s a shadow minister now.

  But again, that wasn’t me. How could it be? I didn’t know what was going on.

  In fact after the TV show things quietened down again. I’d almost forgotten about it by the time the next wave came. It was a monster wave though, a dumper. I opened the paper one morning to get the TV guide. Dad had gone to work early again, Mark was having breakfast with me, Mum wasn’t up yet. And all across the front page was Rider Group. We were bigger than royal divorces. I choked on my Coco Pops and suddenly couldn’t eat any more. I had a horrible feeling that things were getting out of control. I read the front page and the continuation of the story on pages six and seven, trying to hide it from Mark. There were three main points. One was that over the last four months the company in the Bahamas had sent two million dollars to a company in London. And among the directors of that company were Mum, and Jack’s wife Rosie.

  The second point came from a document supposedly leaked from the Commission. It was a handwritten note that the newspaper said was in the Deputy Chairman’s writing. It said: ‘Rudi rang again, insisted it must be R., said P. was “waiting impatiently” on our decision.’

  This wouldn’t have meant anything to me, but the newspaper helpfully translated it. They said Rudi was Rudi Koneckny, a researcher on the Premier’s personal staff. They suggested P. was the Premier himself, and R. was Rider Group. And they made it pretty clear that if they were right about that, there would be shit flying round in a big way. The Premier had always been so definite that he wouldn’t be involved in the selection process, that it had to be totally impartial, independent, honest.

  The third point was that the other two main bidders for the contract were claiming that their bids were higher than Rider Group’s but, as the Commission, the Government and Jack were all refusing to say how much the winning bid was, it was hard to tell whether that story was true or not.

  I took the paper into Mum. Her head was somewhere under the pillows. I threw the paper at her and said, ‘There’s some nice news to wake up to,’ and stormed off to the bus. I felt like my life was going to become complicated and bad, and I was right on both counts.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  By the time the six o’clock news rolled around everyone had his stories ready. The Premier said Mr Koneckny had assured him there was no truth in the morning newspaper’s report, and he himself had not interfered with the tendering process in any way. He had met Jack only a couple of times at social functions, the last one of which was the Derby two years before, and he had never met Dad. The story was just another media beat-up, and typical of the Advocate’s bias against the Government. The Deputy Chairman of the Commission said he had never been approached by Mr Koneckny in a manner that could be seen as prejudicial to the Commission’s proceedings; the Commission’s deliberations had at all times remained confidential and impartial; the Commission had had no dealings with Jack or Dad apart from their appearances at the hearings. The story was just another media beat-up, and typical of the Advocate’s bias against the Commission. Jack and Dad issued a joint statement saying that they had no prior knowledge, that they had at all times acted properly, and that the last time Jack had spoken to the Premier was two years ago, in a crowd at the Derby. Dad had never spoken to him. The story was just another media beat-up, and typical of the Advocate’s bias against the business sector.

  I watched it until I felt sick. Mum wasn’t home, and neither was Dad, of course. Mark watched it with me, but when I tried to talk to him about it he wouldn’t answer, just went off to his bedroom. So I took Checkers out to the park again.

  Somehow, even Checkers doing canine aerobics from one end of the park to the other didn’t make me feel any better. People say dogs are sensitive to their owner’s moods, but I don’t think Checkers was too tuned in to mine. Or maybe he did know how nervous and depressed I was feeling, and deliberately did idiotic things to cheer me up. One thing’s for sure, he was even madder than normal that day. He stole a jumper that a man had left lying on the ground while he pushed his little daughter backwards and forwards on the swing. Checkers, for no reason at all, grabbed the jumper and trotted away proudly holding it in his mouth. I gasped, then shouted: ‘Checkers! Bad dog! Put it down! Checkers! Come here!’ The man saw what was going on, and he started chasing Checkers, who thought this was a great new game. He accelerated. For about five minutes the two of us, followed by the little kid, chased Checkers around and around. Even though his feet got tangled up in the jumper a few times, he was too fast and too smart for us. When we got close to him he showed the whites of his eyes and charged through the gap. Twice I touched on a back leg, but I couldn’t get a grip, and away he went again. I felt frustrated and embarrassed that I couldn’t control him, and
angry that he was making me look stupid in front of the man and his daughter.

  I don’t think the man was very amused. He didn’t chuck a tantrum or anything—he even made a couple of half-jokes about it—but he didn’t look too happy. Finally he grabbed Checkers’ hindquarters as Checkers scuttled past, and we were able to wrestle the jumper out of his mouth. It had a few holes in it, but it wasn’t too bad. I kept apologising and grovelling, while the little girl clung to her father’s legs and looked at me like I was a serial killer. I suppose to her I was just another big scary stranger. Worse, I was a big scary stranger who owned a savage killer dog.

  They went. I was too depressed to be mad at Checkers. I sat on the swing while he romped around me, trying to get me to play. After a while he gave up on me and went off and started sniffing the rubbish tins.

  I sat there a long time. I had some childish idea that if I sat there long enough they’d miss me and come and look for me. They didn’t, of course. After an hour or two it got so cold I had to go back. By then even Checkers was sick of the park and was lying near me, watching from under his eyelids, waiting to see when I’d make a move. It always cracked me up when he did that. His eyes looked so intelligent, peering out of that crazy checked coat.

  Lately I’ve started to feel too safe, too comfortable in this hospital. No, not comfortable, just secure. Like I’m getting scared to leave, to go back to the outside world. The real world, everyone here calls it, as though this is an unreal world. Of course it is in a way; everyone on drugs, everyone depressed or crazy, no-one working. Even the few things here that are meant to be like the outside world—school and the kiosk and the bank—aren’t like anything I’ve seen before.

  But in some ways this world is more real than the one outside. In here the masks are off, people don’t pretend so much. We still fake it when we can, but most of the time we don’t have the energy or the strength. We’ve all hit the rocks or we wouldn’t be here; when you’re drowning you don’t worry so much about how you look or what you say or whether you’ve got a nice swimming style.

  I keep a mask on even here though, more than just about anyone. It’s a different mask to the one I wore outside. That was the coolness mask, trying to look cool, dress cool, say all the right things, never putting a foot wrong. That failed me and I ended up in here. Now I have the mask of silence: my cold frozen one, where I don’t risk showing anything. It’s a kind of non-mask mask. Talking to Esther, two nights ago, talking to Oliver occasionally, they’re the only times I’ve opened up a bit. I don’t risk it much with the therapists, even Dr Singh, and I never risk it in Group.

  When I think about the other kids, though, I suppose most of them do still keep some sort of mask here. That is, when they’re not crying or talking honestly about their lives, their problems. Cindy’s mask is to be tough and aggressive sometimes, whiney and pathetic other times. Emine’s is to be sweet and kind to everyone. Ben, well, his is pretty obvious, keeping on the move, being stupid, never staying in one place long enough for anyone to get to know him. Oliver, he’s sort of polite and reserved: a bit like me, only I’m colder. Daniel, I don’t think he has a mask. He just keeps away from anyone he thinks might be cruel to him. Oh wait, yes, I guess he does hide stuff. He usually acts pretty laid back, making witty jokes about everything, but I know from things he’s said in Group that he’s not very happy inside.

  Guess none of us are happy, no matter how much we pretend, or we wouldn’t be here.

  Esther, now she really doesn’t have a mask. I used to think she was too crazy to bother with one; too crazy to put one together. But now I think it’s more that she’s a very honest person. From the way she describes her family—the way they used to live—I’d say they just weren’t into the fakery that’s an everyday thing in my life, my world.

  That’s what I like most about dogs. They don’t wear masks, ever. Checkers never had a mask. What you saw was what you got. When Checkers felt sad his tail drooped, his head drooped, his ears drooped. When he felt guilty he walked past you quite quickly, on his toes, keeping a safe distance and looking at you out of the corners of his eyes. When he was happy, which was most of the time, he sparkled around the house, whooping and yelling with joy, tail out of control.

  In Group today, Marj tried to get Emine to say more. I mean to really say something. Emine talks plenty in Group, but it wasn’t till Marj started working on her that I realised Emine’s comments are always about other people. It’s like when the spotlight is focussed on her she grabs it and quickly turns it on to someone else. Marj is pretty smart at times. Emine is school phobic, something I’d never heard of before. When I did have it explained to me, by Oliver actually, I thought it was a joke. I mean, doesn’t every kid have school phobia? Oliver didn’t think it was a joke, but he never quite succeeded in convincing me.

  When Marj put the heat on her today, Emine got pretty upset. At first she sounded as sweet and natural as ever, but gradually her voice dropped and her head went down and her beautiful dark skin got even darker. She said she didn’t know why she had been put in hospital, there was nothing wrong with her. Well, we’ve all said that sometime in here. The stupid thing about psych wards is that one of your symptoms is you think nothing’s wrong with you, and that’s a very serious symptom. So probably the whole population should be in here, because most people think there’s not too much wrong with them. I got that from Catch-22.

  And the more you complain that you’re fine, the longer they’re likely to keep you here. Catch-22 again.

  For a long time this morning Emine was saying she was happy at school, happy at home, loved her parents, had lots of friends . . . Then gradually she started being more honest. Seems like her parents wanted to control every aspect of her life. They were so strict and made her dress so conservatively that she felt conspicuous at school. She was embarrassed to talk to other kids because their lives seemed so different. She couldn’t ask anyone home because her family lived in such a traditional way that she thought they’d look like freaks . . . even though there were quite a few students from other cultures at her school, and quite a few of them lived in traditional ways at home. But at school they acted like their lives were episodes from an American sitcom.

  That was one thing her school had in common with mine.

  Emine went to an all-girls’ school, same as me, except that hers wasn’t a private one. But there was a girl there, Turkish-Australian, same as Emine, who had a brother who’d seen Emine at the bus stop, and he really liked her. I could see why: Emine is one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, with her long black hair and dark eyes, like chocolate, dark chocolate.

  The brother wanted to ring Emine, but Emine knew that wouldn’t work, because her parents screened her phone calls and would never allow her to talk to a boy. So they agreed the other girl would ring up and ask to talk to Emine. She would say they had to discuss some homework. When Emine was given the phone the girl would put her brother on.

  It worked the first two times but then it fell apart. Emine was talking to the boy when her father got suspicious. He lifted the extension phone to listen. As soon as Emine heard the click on the line she knew what was happening, but the boy was talking and did not hear it. He continued to talk on happily as Emine stood there trembling. When Emine’s father heard the male voice he stormed in and cut off the call. He started hitting Emine around the head as she backed away, screaming. Her mother ran in. When she realised what Emine had done, she was horrified, scandalised, but at least she wouldn’t let her husband beat Emine, which was what he wanted to do. But all evening they shouted at her, telling her how she had disgraced them, shamed them.

  Emine said the worst thing was that both of them, but especially her mother, assumed that Emine had been meeting the boy, doing awful things with him. They told her she was a slut.

  I thought that anyone less like a slut than Emine was hard to imagine.

  This was the worst thing because up till then Emine and her mother
had got on well, had supported each other when her father was being especially outrageous and unreasonable. Now her mother turned on her and made it clear that she didn’t trust her at all.

  After that, Emine found it more and more difficult to go to school. She imagined that everyone knew about her disgrace, that they were all talking about her. She was embarrassed to tell her friend that the brother could not call any more, even though the girl, coming from a similar background, seemed to understand. But to Emine, every other girl at school seemed to have such a free and easy life, able to go down the shopping centre after school, go out at nights, talk freely to boys, even choose their own boyfriends.

  ‘I started getting sick,’ she whispered. ‘And I couldn’t go to school. It was terrible. I had stomach cramps, I was vomiting, I got these awful headaches.’ She missed a day or two a week, then three or four days a week, till she was hardly going at all. Gradually the counsellor at school, then doctors and social workers, got involved. Things built up to a point where one night, when the doctor was talking to her, Emine became hysterical. That’s the night she ended up in hospital.

  For Emine, like for all of us in one way or another, coming in here wasn’t the end of our problems. In some ways it was just the start. Emine’s parents freaked out. They couldn’t cope. They thought it was more shame, more disgrace for the family.

  One of the things Emine found hardest in Group was talking about her parents. She felt it was disloyal to criticise them in front of us. She felt it was disloyal to criticise them at all. Even though she was so nice to Cindy, in Group and out of it, she was shocked at the way Cindy spoke about her parents.

  I’m a bit like that too. Most of us are, I think. Writing about stuff in here is easier than saying it out loud in Group. It’s especially hard when my father’s been in the news so much. I don’t want to make things any worse for him than they are already. I’m scared that if I say stuff in here it might get out to the papers or on TV or something. I feel that the other kids, and even the staff, are too curious about our family, wanting to know how much of what they read was true. I feel I’ve done enough damage already.