Elsewhere Girls

by Emily Gale

  Then she smiles at me and her smile is light and sweet. ‘Apology accepted,’ she says. ‘Your names?’

  ‘She’s Catherine and I’m Lucy,’ says my new friend.

  Now I know my new friend’s name. Lucy. I like the sound of that. It’s a little like Dewey.

  ‘Catherine, Lucy, please take a seat. We’re talking about Romeo and Juliet,’ says the teacher.

  Unsure of what just happened I sit down at one of the two tables at the front. I’m aware of girls watching me, and of Lucy looking at me strangely too.

  ‘We’re discussing the themes of fate and free will. Has anyone got something to add?’ the teacher asks.

  Various hands spring up and girls start talking. My school was all needlework and cursive writing, not talking about themes. I don’t even know what themes are. I listen as hard as I can to what the students are saying. I’ve never been in a room of people who offer their thoughts up for discussion. Even my boisterous family defers to Ma on most things. It’s almost thrilling watching the classroom of girls getting agitated and outspoken. I wish I could contribute something.

  ‘Obviously they were always destined to die. It was fated in the stars,’ says a girl behind me.

  ‘Yes, it’s all about fate!’ says another.

  The teacher looks at Lucy and me. ‘Catherine, what do you think?’

  I blink several times. I don’t feel ready to speak up. Lucy nods at me, encouraging me to say something.

  ‘Fate doesn’t exist,’ I say. ‘If it did then it wouldn’t matter how much we tried at something.’ I’m slightly giddy as the words come out of my mouth. I don’t know if what I say makes sense but when I swim, I know there’s no fate in winning or losing. It’s all about hard work.

  As the discussion swirls around me, I see Lucy frowning at me. Perhaps this Cat person doesn’t speak up in class. Perhaps she’s quiet and without opinions. Perhaps I’m completely out of my depth.

  ‘Now your teacher left you some work to do on the theme of fate, so take out your laptops and make a start,’ says the teacher.

  All around me girls start opening up silver contraptions. I look over at Lucy. Even she is opening something and there’s a pinging noise and colour and light pour out of the thing in front of her. Lucy starts pressing the little black keys and there is a flash and pictures light up on the thing.

  Terrified I leap up, causing my chair to tumble behind me, and I run out of the room.

  Cat

  11

  Pub

  I sit on a fat stone step in a quiet laneway, with my back against a door. I hope it doesn’t open suddenly.

  What else is in this bag? Maybe some clues. The thin towel I used is still heavy and wet. There’s an ugly sort of shower cap. By digging down I find a purse. Inside there are some big brown coins with a man’s head on one side and a dragon and knight on the other. EDWARDVS VII, REX—I know that word: rex means king!

  But that’s no help at all.

  I keep going over what’s happened, then loop to the beginning and see it all again. I’m stuck in this moment, scared of what to do next.

  Hours pass. The light in the sky has changed and I don’t want to be alone here after dark. The only thing that makes sense is to go back to where I left nightie-girl. I get up and brush the dust off my skirt, turn off Crown Street and walk down the hill.

  ‘Miss! Please, Miss!’ a scruffy boy tugs hard on my sleeve. ‘My sister, Miss. She’s hurt.’ He’s got a dirty face and bare feet. I guess he’s around my real age. I try to keep my feet planted as he pulls me.

  ‘I can’t help you. Let go!’ I snatch my arm away.

  ‘She’s bleeding, Miss!’

  I look for an adult, but then I realise that I must look like the closest thing to this boy—he doesn’t know I’m only thirteen inside. So I follow him towards a side street. Sticking out from behind a wall is a thin white leg. I drop the bag on the cobblestones and run to the little girl. She’s in a filthy grey dress, and curled over so I can’t see her face. There’s a pool of something dark on the stones.

  ‘I’ll get help,’ I say, touching her arm.

  She moans.

  ‘Have you got a phone?’ I ask the boy, ‘Oh no, is there such thing as phones?’

  The boy frowns at me.

  ‘Telephones,’ I say, louder. ‘Ambulance? Er, hospital?’ He grabs my sleeve again and points frantically up Crown Street, so I struggle to my feet in the long skirt and run in that direction.

  When I reach the top of the hill I turn back for a moment and realise something’s not right. The girl is on her feet and she’s got my bag. Now the two of them are sprinting down the hill—it was a trick, she wasn’t hurt at all!

  ‘Stop!’ I yell. I hitch up my skirt and chase after them. ‘My bag!’

  I’ll never catch up.

  The girl looks behind her and as she turns back she collides with a man coming down the steps of his house. She screams and the boy yells, yanking her out of the man’s grip. I come hurtling towards them as the bag flies into the air and the thieves keep running. The bag lands at my feet but I can’t stop in time—I trip over it and land with a smack.

  As the pain shoots up my arms, my head is dark and spinning like I’ve been rattled hard. It’s like the way I felt in the water—maybe this time trap or bad dream is wearing off! But as I blink I can still see the boy and girl far away. A hand reaches down to me. At first I try to get up by myself but this outfit is like a cocoon. I grip the hand and I’m lifted to my feet in one strong pull.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, still breathless.

  He tilts his cap. He’s a tall, Asian teenager with black hair and dark eyes. He’s holding a book against his chest: Verses, Popular and Humorous by Henry Lawson. We’ve got a Henry Lawson book at home. The thought of that and the sting in my arms and the throbbing in my head finally beats me—I cry right there in front of him.

  ‘Are you very hurt, Fanny? Please don’t cry.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I blub, definitely not fine at all, and wishing I could shout My name is Cat for the whole world to hear. He offers me a handkerchief, but I’m not wiping a stranger’s germs on my face. Even if it’s not really my face. I take it though. ‘You called me Fanny. Do you know me?’ I sniff and wipe my face on my sleeve.

  He blinks and then laughs. ‘Very funny. Con’s always saying you could have been on the stage.’

  I suppose I could ask who Con is but he’ll only think I’m joking again. He gestures down the hill so I decide I might as well walk with him. We go over what happened—the girl smashing into him, the screaming and yelling, me flying over the bag.

  He says, ‘You were fast. I didn’t know girls could run like that.’

  ‘Girls can do anything,’ I snap.

  He doesn’t argue, luckily. Then he says, ‘Speaking of fast, I hear you’re an outstanding swimmer.’

  I smile a little. At least that’s one true thing.

  ‘I wish you’d teach me sometime, Fan. I could pay, you know. I’ve never even been in the water.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Caught up with my studies, and scared too, if I’m honest. Far as I get is standing on the cliffs.’ He holds his book out in front of us. ‘Friends may be gone in the morning fair, but the cliffs by the ocean are always there, lovers may leave when the wind is chill, but the cliffs by the ocean are steadfast still. Do you enjoy poetry, Fanny?’

  ‘Uh, sure.’

  ‘Excellent. What is your favourite poem?’

  ‘Let me think…’

  Why did I say I like poetry? I don’t know a single poem. The only thing that comes into my head is the slam poem Lucy and I made up for English. It was called Scholarship Girl. ‘Okay…well’—I clear my throat—‘There is no let-up, not from the moment we get-up, if you’re this good you have to stay that way, never let it get away, scholarship girl.’

  The boy looks stunned but he smiles politely, and I can’t help giggling. I wish I could tell Lucy. I think s
he’d like him. He’s a bit proper and I hope he doesn’t keep quoting Henry Lawson poems, but this is the first time all day that I haven’t felt terrified.

  ‘This is where I leave you, unfortunately,’ he says.

  Maybe he could help me in some way but I don’t have the guts to ask. We’re outside the hotel, the place that I’m supposed to call home.

  ‘Give my regards to Con, won’t you?’ he says.

  ‘Sure. What was your name again?’

  He looks upset. ‘Arthur Gon,’ he replies before he twists on the balls of his feet and walks away quickly. There’s no way for me to explain why I had to ask. I’m still holding his handkerchief but he’s already across the busy street and I’m not stepping in front of a moving horse for him.

  I can’t worry about Arthur’s feelings now. The sun is going down. Mum, Dad and Maisy are so far away that the worry is like knives in my stomach. It’s time to go inside.

  This isn’t like any hotel I’ve been in. It’s a pub bar, jam-packed and loud with crowds of men in shabby jackets and flat caps, no tables or chairs, and sawdust all over the floor. It smells like a stable and sounds like a street riot.

  ‘There you are, Fan!’ yells a deep voice from behind the bar. As petrified as I am, I try to make my way over there but I’m trapped in a huddle of men with missing teeth and red faces. I hate the way they’re looking at me, but then I remember that I’m taller and stronger in this body.

  ‘Excuse me!’ I say and I ram my way through, sending a few men stumbling backwards.

  ‘Blimey, who’s she think she is?’ slurs one.

  ‘She’s Tommy Durack’s favourite daughter. That’ll be your last drink in here if you’re not careful!’

  If she’s his favourite, I wonder if Tommy Durack will realise that I’m not actually her. What’ll he do if he does? I need to pretend I’m her now more than ever.

  At the bar I find a man who looks as old as my grandpa.

  ‘Where’ve you been all day? You’ve got a face like a pickled egg.’ He has an Irish accent, of course.

  ‘Uh, sorry…Father.’

  The man barks a short laugh that makes me jump.

  ‘Father? What’s happened to Da?’

  ‘Sorry! I mean Da.’

  Luckily he’s too distracted to notice how much I’m shaking. He pours beer and glances at me. ‘You’ve got a funny look about you. Hey!’ he yells down the bar, ‘Look at your sister, Con. She look funny to you?’

  So that’s Con, Arthur’s friend. A teenage boy peers through a fringe the colour of shiny copper as he pulls on a beer tap.

  ‘No funnier than usual, Da,’ he yells back and they both laugh but not in a mean way. They really believe I’m her.

  I watch Tommy Durack hand drink after drink to the men. He takes their money—the same big brown coins I found in the purse—and talks to them in a serious, gravelly voice. He looks at me and winks. Behind him, pinned all along the wall, are newspaper cuttings—it’s hard to see from here but I can make out the words LADIES SWIMMING RACE.

  ‘Go on upstairs, darlin’.’

  ‘Okay,’ I reply. Then I panic in case okay hasn’t been invented yet, but he doesn’t react so I head towards some wooden stairs.

  I come to a dingy hallway: floorboards covered with a worn-out carpet runner. There’s a musty, gassy smell but it’s also hot and stuffy. Up here the noise from the bar is muffled. There’s a pendant light but it’s so dim it might as well be a candle. I can hear clanging pots in one of the rooms off the hallway.

  A woman pokes her head out of the room. ‘There you are!’ she says, crossly. ‘We were about to send out a search party. Where on earth have you been? As if I didn’t know. Help me with the tea, right this minute, everyone else has their hands full.’

  My heart’s thumping. This must be Fan’s mother.

  The room is a kitchen. It has a long table in the middle with a bench on each side. The woman shoves a poker in the door of a cast-iron oven to move some hot coals around. Saucepans and cooking utensils that look like instruments of torture hang on the wall, and in the corner there’s a bench covered in a pale-green embroidered cloth. My eyes are drawn down the cloth to where there’s something sticking out.

  A tail!

  ‘Aaarrrgghhh!’

  ‘What in heavens?’ The woman spins round with the poker.

  I jab my finger at the corner of the room.

  ‘Oh grand, got one did we?’ she says cheerfully. ‘Don’t stand there all day, Fan, get rid of it down the back stairs.’ She uses her foot to kick the thing out from under the cloth. It’s a huge dead rat in a trap. Its eyes are open and there’s blood everywhere. I’ve had enough of blood today; I’m almost a vegetarian!

  A boy bursts in, dark hair sticking out in all directions.

  ‘Fan looks strange, Ma.’ He peers up at me with big hazel eyes and licks off a milk moustache.

  ‘There’s a rat in the trap, Frankie,’ says the woman. ‘Be a good lad and deal with it. Fanny, stir this while I make the rest of our tea.’

  She hands me a wooden spoon from a huge pot and turns to the table to knead some dough. I thought she meant tea as in a cup of tea, but she means dinner. I stir carefully, trying to look like I know what I’m doing. I’m a terrible cook but this beats picking up a dead animal. To my right there’s a jug with a gauzy cloth over it weighted down with beads. Flies are buzzing around the top. There’s a sudden sourness up my nose. I think it’s off milk!

  ‘Lucky I was here to save you,’ says the boy, Frankie, dangling the rat by the tail.

  ‘Because I’m a girl?’ I snap.

  ‘No, Fan, cos you’re squeamish.’ He heads down a stairwell, flashing me a smile.

  Behind me, Fanny’s mum starts chattering fast. ‘Tough as old boots is our Fan. Right, my girl, it’s wash day tomorrow so I’ve a job and a half getting the food done because, as I don’t have to tell you, we won’t be able to stop to scratch our backsides. Now then, did you remember to thank Mr Wylie for all his encouragement, Fan, because I won’t have anyone thinking the Duracks don’t have manners.’ Her voice goes up and down like piano scales.

  ‘Yes, Ma,’ I say quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry you didn’t win your race yesterday, Fan. Truly. It’s a blow for you, I know. Is it really the sort of thing a young woman in your position should be doing? Well, I don’t know, daughter, to tell you the truth of the matter…’

  She goes on like this for a long time. The gist is that Fanny shouldn’t be devoting time to swimming when there’s more important stuff to be done. I don’t know what that stuff is yet. School? A job? I still don’t even know how old I’m supposed to be. This is a lonely and terrifying trap to be in, whatever it is. Not even Fanny’s mum suspects that something completely wild has happened to her own kid. I picture my own mum and almost start crying again, but I can’t wimp out.

  Ma stops kneading and yells out the doorway. ‘Dewey Durack! Get your backside in here, girl!’

  Dewey! That’s her name. I knew it was somethingooey! When I hear her footsteps I turn around, the spoon dripping stew on the floor, and smile at her for the first time. She smiles back, luckily, even after the way I treated her earlier. I feel relieved to see her. She was there when this thing happened. That has to mean something. I need to find out exactly what she saw at Wylie’s Baths this morning.

  Fan

  12

  New Home

  My day has confounded me. After fleeing the classroom I sat on the dusty floor of the corridor and choked back tears. I am not a crier. Sarah Fanny Durack does not cry. Not when I lose in the pool. Not when my toenail peels off with infection. Not when I had measles. I don’t cry. But today I nearly did.

  Lucy found me. She told me it didn’t matter if I’d left my laptop home because I could work with her. I have no idea what a laptop even is, but I couldn’t tell her that. Lucy is almost as sweet as Dewey.

  Everyone stared when I came back in, but I pretended I was fine. I’m
good at acting. I won prizes for cakewalking before swimming took over, but that was just funny faces and clowning around.

  I didn’t let Lucy out of my sight after that. She’s very smart and knows things that even my older brother wouldn’t and he’s the smartest person I know. She shared her lunch with me. It came in a series of metal tins each filled with different foods like tiny red tomatoes that popped seeds into my mouth when I bit them and salty crackers covered in cheese, and I had trouble stopping myself from finishing both hers and mine.

  Now I’m sitting next to my sister, whose name I think is Maisy because it’s written on the tag on her satchel. We’re on the bus, which is nothing like the trams I’m used to. It keeps stopping suddenly and it’s jerky and crowded and the seats are covered in soft padded fabric. Maisy has little white things stuck in her ears like the woman I saw in the street. They seem to be making noise and she’s ignoring me.

  I need to talk to Maisy because she might have answers for me. Without thinking, I reach across and yank the white string connecting to the thing in Maisy’s right ear. She yelps and glares at me.

  ‘Cat!’

  ‘Sorry. I just want to talk.’

  ‘I’m listening to music,’ she says sharply.

  I think of how keen Dewey is to talk to me, and how often we lie in bed whispering late into the night. But then Maisy reaches over and pushes the thing into my ear and I hear singing that’s sweet and gentle and female. Maisy smiles at me, and I take it as an apology of sorts and I lean closer, listening to the melody. I’ve never heard a song like this. And it’s going straight into my head.

  ‘How is this possible?’ I say.

  Maisy shushes me. ‘Too loud, Cat,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  She touches the small flat rectangle thing in her hand that I think is a ‘cheap phone’, and the music stops. ‘You’re yelling. Just talk quietly,’ she says.

  ‘Oh. Sorry,’ I reply with a smile, wanting to know what the magical thing is and how it glows with light like the flame of a candle. But I can’t think of a way to ask.

  She rolls her eyes at me, but it’s warm, and I think that maybe I’m growing on her.