‘Isn’t it amazing,’ I said, ‘that the city of Cincinnati is built on a foundation of pigs?’
At that moment, the lights dimmed and the band ran onto the stage.
It was after the band had finished performing that it happened.
First, Finnegan went to get drinks for us—I had seen someone at another table with a Coke, and realised that soft drinks were allowed. I was not sure what to do while waiting for him, so I opened my computer and typed up transcripts.
I was so busy typing that I did not hear Finnegan return.
I did not realise he was standing behind me.
I did not realise, that is, until two glasses were placed on the table—and I felt two hands in my hair.
Now, I wear my hair in tightly coiled plaits, pinned to either side of my head.
Finnegan’s hands, to be perfectly honest, were not quite in my hair. They were, however, slowly taking the pins from my plaits.
I did not know what to do.
I sat very still and quiet.
His fingers worked away gently, taking one pin at a time, and dropping them onto the table. He then began unwinding my plaits, pulling them apart.
After a moment, he spoke.
‘What are you always writing on that thing?’ he said, meaning my laptop.
I explained that I like to type transcripts—that I record the conversations of people around me.
‘So that’s what you’re doing,’ he said, ‘when you sit on that seat outside the library?’
I nodded, which was a mistake, as he had a finger tangled in my hair. He apologised for pulling my hair, and I sat still again.
‘I wonder why you like to sit in the shadows,’ he said after a moment. ‘Is it that you prefer to be on the outside, watching other people?’
I didn’t know what to say so I just shrugged one shoulder.
He said, ‘And when you’re on that seat, do you ever hear anything surprising?’
I thought about telling him about the substitute teachers who turned out to be computer programmers, and how useless I had been with the lawyer, but decided I’d bored him enough with the errors of my life, so I shrugged my other shoulder.
He shook out my hair with both hands then, and I felt the flash of his fingertips brushing against my neck. Then he sat at the table.
After the burning in my neck, face and heart had calmed down, I realised that my head felt strange.
Hair was falling on either side of my cheeks. I could feel it on the back of my neck. I never wear my hair out! Except to bed!
‘I hope you don’t mind me doing that.’ His chin tilted towards my hair. ‘I just thought—because it’s your birthday, you might—’ He smiled. ‘Look at the colour, ’ he said. ‘You can’t see that red in your hair when it’s tied up in plaits like you do it.’
And he reached out, touched a strand of my hair, winding it around his finger, and then letting it spring back.
My hair has a natural wave, and it had been plaited all day. Hence, the ringlets and curls.
‘Ringlets,’ I tried, my voice sounding strangled. ‘Another word for a ringlet is a cincinnus. It’s a good word, isn’t it, cincinnus? Like cinnamon. Or cineraria. Huh, that’s funny! It’s a lot like Cincinnati! Isn’t it weird about Cincinnati and pigs? I mean, that pork was Cincinatti’s biggest industry? So, then they used the pork fat to make candles and soap, so that candles and soap became their—’
‘What is it with you,’ said Finnegan, ‘and Cincinnati?’
He touched another curl, and I was dumbstruck.
And so, now, I am home again.
On the drive back, we listened to music, and Finnegan asked which songs I liked best tonight. I mentioned that one song had reminded me of Handel’s Overture to Joshua, then I wondered what was wrong with me. But Finnegan knew what I meant! It turned out he is extremely musical, and plays three instruments (piano, guitar and trumpet), and would like to write reviews of bands for music magazines.
Then I got brave enough to say: ‘Um, and your cousin, was she musical too?’
He didn’t raise his eyebrows at me, or say something cruel like ‘what cousin?’ so I’d have to remind him of what he’d said in FAD in the park. He just started talking about how his cousin was a couple of years older than him so she was the one who first got him into clubs to see bands, but she loved techno and was kind of into drugs and he used to worry about her hurting herself but she always told him to take a chill pill, which really pissed him off, but otherwise she stayed like herself. She had moved to Sydney to work for a year before she went to university, and had this job in computers, and it was while she was riding her bike home from work one day that she got hit by the car that killed her.
I said, ‘Was the driver drunk?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘the driver didn’t stop. And they never found him.’
At this I became outraged, that a person could hit someone and then drive away. I found myself almost shouting. And the angrier I got, the more he relaxed his shoulders, and loosened his hold on the steering wheel. So I really started ranting furiously, until he reached over and touched my hand. (He touched the middle knuckle of my right hand.)
Then I said, ‘Sorry’, about having been so mad, but I meant sorry about everything: his cousin and everything in the world that is wrong.
We were quiet then until we drove into my street.
‘Happy birthday,’ he called, as I closed his car door. ‘Don’t forget it’s your birthday until you fall asleep.’
Still, I suppose I should get some sleep.
It’s 4.00 am. I have to take a train to the Blue Mountains in exactly three hours.
It is now 5.00 am, and it’s still my birthday.
Something amazing just happened.
I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking through the night. It was like walking slowly through a tangle of spider-webs, hands out trying to shield me, because I was flicking through everything I’d said and done, and anything embarrassing was a spider. The spiders sank their fangs into my heart when I found them, leaving me writhing for a while, but I tried to brush each one away and move on.
And then I came to the image of Finnegan standing behind me, taking down my hair, and I rested at that part for a while because it was like his fingers were pulling spider-webs apart on my behalf, and saying, gently: see, there is nothing to fear.
But when his fingertips brushed the back of my neck, it was like he was holding a match to dry leaves.
I kept replaying the scene, letting it lull me to sleep.
I remembered he had wondered why I like to sit in my shadow seat. Is it that you prefer to he on the outside, he had said, watching other people? But his voice was almost admiring, as if that was something the world needed, people who watched. I thought about the surprising things I hear on the shadow seat, such as the two computer programmers walking by, and I thought about myself typing trans—
It was exactly like that.
I thought about myself typing trans—. The word ‘transcript’ stopped halfway.
Because I was sitting straight up in bed, thinking: was I typing a transcript when those two women walked by?
And right away, I thought: I was!
I got out of bed and I didn’t even switch on the light, I just sat at my desk in the moonlight, opened my transcripts file, found the right period, and started scrolling through.
And there it was.
It seems I have the transcript.
4
FROM THE TRANSCRIPT FILE OF BINDY MACKENZIE
Friday, 3.55 pm
Still on my shadow seat. Two young substitute teachers are approaching, one a redhead, the other blonde—their voices are raised and tumbling together—they speak in half-sentences only.
Redhead: Edna Lbagennif, I mean, for a start, what kind of a pass—but, come on, what are you thinking? You have to—
Blonde: Brilliant. I mean f. . . just spectacular. And you knew this all—
Redhead: You’re being so totally—This has nothing to do—
Blonde: But you knew, I mean, with that trap—she can do anything—
Redhead: Don’t be ridic—as if she—it’s just basic mainten—I mean, right off you know, I’m going to have to say you think—I’ll have to tell Mr—
[The blonde just SLAPPED the redhead!!! I’m going over there!!]
5
Night Time Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Katoomba, Blue Mountains, Saturday, 11.30 pm
Let me tell you how I feel right now.
I feel as if I have erased the pencil marks from my sheet music, ready for a piano exam. So that when I look at the music, I see something familiar yet completely new. Cleaner, whiter, sharper pages than before, the notes blinking brightly back at me.
I see my face reflected in a picture window: brighter, happier, fresher than ever before.
I feel like weeping gently with this happiness.
It is 11.30 pm, and we are in the living room of Try’s house in the Blue Mountains.
I am in a rocking chair in the corner. Sergio and Elizabeth are kneeling at the fireplace. The fire has almost gone out. They have been trying to save it: lighting matches, adding paper, prodding at the wood—and now I see they have decided simply to blow. Side by side, they blow and the charcoals glow.
Astrid is lying on the couch, reading a People magazine— Scarlett Johansson smoulders on the cover. On the opposite couch, Emily is flat on her back, also reading. She twists her wrists now and then, as if to ease the strain of holding her book aloft. Both Emily and Astrid are frowning intently as they read.
Toby and Briony are nothing but sounds: click-clop . . . click-clop . . . click-clop . . . CLICK ‘ah!’ . . . ‘ha ha!’ and so on. They are playing table tennis in the recreation room next door.
We met at Central Station this morning, yawning, clutching pillows, kicking backpacks and sleeping bags around the platform.
Finnegan chose to sit next to me on the train.
He behaved as if there was nothing odd in what had happened last night. We talked about the band. I opened my laptop to show him the transcript I had taken—the bass guitarist and drummer discussing the meaning of life. Finnegan laughed and pointed out that it wasn’t tobacco they were smoking. I laughed too, pretending I knew what he meant. We talked about the rain that slipped languid against the train windows, and about Try’s plans for bush walking all day—and then I fell asleep.
I had only slept an hour the night before.
When I found that old transcript of the computer programmers’ fight, I felt as if my bloodstream were rapids. A sensation of rushing and crashing! Tiny Whitewater rafters squealing down my arms!
I wanted to phone the lawyer at once, to wake him at 5.30 am. I still cannot believe that I must wait until business hours on Monday. Of course, I suspect the transcript will be useless to him—there seemed to be no talk of copyright. (Nor did there seem to be talk of a Polish exchange student— I can almost see why I jumped to that conclusion, but, really, who knew what they were talking about? All those half-sentences: they were talking over each other so I couldn’t hear everything clearly. And that name was not Polish at all! Edna is an Irish/Scottish name. Also an Old Testament name meaning ‘pleasure’ in Hebrew.)
Nevertheless, I would now be able to speak in a voice of pride to that pompous lawyer. I would be able to announce: ‘I know precisely what those women said as they passed me that day.’ Precisely. (Or, at least some of what they’d said.)
At last, I would be praised. I would redeem myself, and move on.
Hence, only an hour of sleep last night.
There are enormous picture windows in Try’s house, and these were full of rain and mist today. (She assures us there’s a spectacular view of the escarpment when the mist clears.) The house has a rustic-yet-cosy atmosphere, with wide floorboards and brightly coloured scatter rugs.
There’s a covered verandah, and Try, Astrid and Sergio barbecued sausages and hamburgers for lunch. I sat between Sergio and Toby to eat, and they talked about how different I look without glasses, and tried to figure out the colour of my eyes. I kept saying, ‘They’re just dark blue,’ and they kept shaking their heads, dismissively: ‘No. That’s not it.’
After lunch, we played games directed by Try, such as getting tangled together and then untangling ourselves. Also, we sat in a circle and massaged the shoulders of the person in front. (I was rubbing Emily’s shoulders, while Toby massaged mine. His hands are steady and firm.)
Dinner was the same as lunch, except that Sergio and Toby did not discuss my eyes. And, as I spooned onions onto my hamburger, I reflected, sadly, on the following: there was, in general, a restrained sort of politeness in the group’s conduct towards me. Perhaps they were a little less cold than they had been, but still this remoteness. I grew depressed. What more could I do? I’d pointed out their positive features, but nobody had even mentioned the memos from me.
It was the same with my Life: Try had never referred to it.
It was just as if I’d never existed. Had I become invisible, a shadow of a person? How could I make my FAD group see me?
After dinner, Try said she was going to leave us some space. We should sit in a circle, she said, and take turns saying how our year is going.
I found myself following Try upstairs. I noticed she was humming quietly to herself, and hoped it wasn’t because she thought she was free of her students for the night. Here I was behind her: a student. She stopped abruptly at her bedroom door and I almost bumped into her. She let out a small scream.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was just wondering if I could ask you something.’
‘Of course!’ She backed into her room, looked around briefly, then leapt onto the bed. She sat right in the centre of the bed, cross-legged, and waved both hands indicating that I should do the same. But I stood, nervous, just inside the doorway.
She bounced a little and the bed creaked quietly. ‘What can I do you for?’ she exclaimed, her accent reminding me of the mid-westerners in Fargo.
‘It’s about that project I did for you over the holidays,’ I explained. ‘Bindy Mackenzie: A Life? I was just wondering if you ever got a chance to—look at it—and if you thought there was anything—if you noticed anything you wanted to—’
‘Oh!’ She bit her lip. ‘No, I read that ages ago! It was great, Bindy. Really—useful. I learned so much about you! I’m sorry, I should have said something to you. I’m hopeless! You wanted—a grade? I’m such a terrible teacher.’ She was scrambling off the bed. ‘Here, look, I even carry it around with me!’
Her blue basket was on the dresser, and she drew out my slightly crumpled Life, winced at the crumples, and tried to smooth them out.
‘I’m hopeless,’ she repeated, pressing the Life into my hands. ‘I’m really sorry, Bindy.’ Now she was solemn. ‘I should have given this back sooner. You go downstairs now, okay? I’ll bet that your FAD group are missing you.’ She rested her hand lightly on my arm, looked into my eyes—were there tears in her eyes? Her gaze moved down to my hands, and my glittering, ragged-edged fingernails.
‘You should stop biting those,’ she murmured, distractedly, and turned away.
Downstairs, the others were already strewn about on couches in the living room, looking at each other, maybe embarrassed to be following Try’s instructions while she was upstairs in her room. I sat on the floor and put my Life on the carpet beside me. I was completely confused: I hadn’t wanted her to mark my Life, nor to give it back. So what had I wanted from Try?
Astrid was talking. She was having a bad year, she said, because of her parents’ divorce, and she’d never told anyone this but her father had walked out on her mother while he was in the middle of waxing her legs. Her mother was lying flat on her stomach on the bed and her father said, ‘I’ll just go reheat this wax on the stove. It’s getting gluggy.’ And he kind of like never came back.
You could see people trying no
t to giggle at that.
Astrid said that she was grateful to two people, Emily and Sergio, for being such good friends to her this year? And they were always, like, giving her hugs when she needed them?
At that comment, Emily threw her arms around Astrid, Astrid cried, and I caught Finnegan raising his eyebrows at me.
Hmm, is what we were both thinking, was Sergio just being a FRIEND to Astrid when I saw them together in Castle Hill?
After Astrid had been comforted it was Elizabeth’s turn and she said she was also glad that Sergio had been around, and a good friend, because she’s been thinking about breaking up with her Brookfield boyfriend, but they’ve been together for almost two years. But he never seems to understand that she needs time apart to train; it’s like he wants her to choose between running and him. But she really loves him. So it’s been hard. And now, she’s finally done it, she broke up with him yesterday. Sergio looked startled at this news, and he moved closer to Elizabeth.
I glanced at Finnegan again, and he was sending me a very small smile. I returned the smile.
I had not seen betrayal in Castle Hill! Sergio had not been cheating because he was not yet together with Elizabeth! (But perhaps soon . . .)
But, as I smiled my relief at Finnegan, I thought: he looks tired. And seconds later he announced that he was going up to bed.
I wondered if I should mention that he’d been out all night, but I didn’t say anything.
I felt a thudding disappointment at Finnegan’s departure.
Also, however, I felt a strange relief.
We went back to going around the group.
The strangest thing happened when it got to my turn.
I’d been planning to say something like: ‘I feel lucky that my parents are still together, and that I don’t have relationship troubles. Overall, my year has been fine.’ Then I was going to nod my head at Briony, beside me, for her to take a turn.
I had the nod rehearsed inside my mind.
‘I feel lucky,’ I began. ‘I mean, my parents are together— but I guess it hasn’t been such a great year because I crashed my uncle’s car and I’m kind of sick all the time and I think I’m going to fail Year 11.’
The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie Page 24
