Elsewhere Girls

by Emily Gale

  I nod. ‘I know. Thank you. Don’t be disappointed in me, Coach.’

  ‘You’re young. You’ve got a big life ahead of you. Let’s talk when you’re ready. Now, are you getting in this water today or not?’

  I look at all the squad lanes and I want that feeling that I can only get from a good swim.

  ‘I’m going to work on my breaststroke, if that’s all right with you, Coach.’

  She nods and gestures to the far lane.

  There are only two other girls so I wait for the right moment and start my first lap.

  I chase the girl in front of me and wait for that moment when my body remembers it’s a sea creature and every movement in water feels more natural than when I’m on land. I’m quick and strong. Coming up to the end I take one big breath before diving down and turning over, kicking off the wall sleek as anyone in this squad. I use the underwater kick that I watched Maisy do, which has never been used in my time for racing.

  Why ease a spate…

  It’s the whisper! I gasp for air when I break the surface and plunge back down to hear it again. It didn’t make any sense! Why ease a spate? What does that mean? I hold my breath and pray I hear it again.

  While e’s are straight…

  What the devil? Whisper again, Cat! I don’t understand!

  Wylie’s at eight…

  Oh! Of course that’s what it is! Wylie’s Baths at eight o’clock.

  I’ve got another half a lap to go and this time I don’t care who sees me break into trudgen to get to the end. I have to get out of here and find Lucy.

  Cat & Fan

  33

  Synchronise

  Cat

  I look around the room, thinking: what do I need? But that’s not how this works. Everything here is Fanny’s.

  Kath, Mary and Dewey are asleep. Too bad they’re going to miss the one time I was up and dressed before them, but there are reasons I can’t say goodbye. One is that they don’t know that Fan hasn’t been here this whole time. Another is that my new plan might not work today, or tomorrow, or the next day. But one day it will. I plan on swimming at Wylie’s every morning until it does. Without a sign from Fanny about whether she’s found Aunt Rachel’s stopwatch, or proof that she’s in my place, there’s nothing else I can do but get up at dawn and swim.

  I’ve got Fan’s carpetbag, money for the tram (not stolen this time), the stopwatch, and a shawl in case it’s cold when Fan gets back. If she gets back. I’m fizzing with excitement when I shouldn’t be, but I can’t help it!

  As I sneak along the hall, I peek into Ma and Da’s bedroom. They’re in bed, with Frankie in between them, all fast asleep. I keep going, touching the bedroom door where Con and John sleep, and next to that Mick’s room that he usually shares with his little brother. I found him crying in there last night after we’d found out that Frankie was going to be all right—he’d bottled it all up until then.

  I creep through the kitchen and across the backyard.

  I’m opening the door to the laneway when I hear Ma’s voice.

  ‘Sarah Francis Durack, where d’you think you’re off to?’ She’s standing at the top of the yard steps, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  ‘Just for a walk, Ma.’

  ‘With a bag?’

  ‘Um, I…accidentally took Mina Wylie’s swimming robe after the race. I need to return it to her.’

  ‘What, all the way to Coogee? After the day we had yesterday?’ She starts down the steps.

  I can’t let her drag me back. ‘Ma, I promise I’ll be back soon.’

  When she reaches me, she looks at me with her inscrutable face, then nods sharply. ‘Now, listen here, Fan. I know what you’re sneaking off for. A mother knows. I’ve had my doubts about you and swimming, can’t deny it. But I won’t do or say a single thing to get in your way from now on. Whatever you need, my girl. You got that?’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  A sudden shiver makes my body jolt.

  ‘You’re cold, Fan! Gracious, we’ve been worrying all this time about Frankie and you could have pneumonia yourself.’

  ‘I’m not cold! I promise, Ma. It was just one of those strange shivers.’ I wonder what that shiver means. Could it be a sign? ‘I’ve never felt better, Ma. Honest.’

  She pulls me into her arms and I feel myself melt a little. Strong, hardworking Ma. Who knows what she could have been if she’d been born in 2008, like I was.

  ‘Thanks for everything, Ma. I love you all.’

  She holds me at arm’s length and gives me a suspicious look. ‘I think the shock of yesterday has turned you soft, Fanny Durack.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ I reply.

  I’m stepping onto the Coogee tram when I hear a shout.

  ‘Wait for me!’

  Dewey jumps on and plonks down next to me. Her eyes are shining and she’s out of breath.

  ‘Couldn’t…let you go…alone,’ she says, panting.

  ‘How did you know? You were fast asleep when I snuck out.’

  ‘You’re noisier than you think. And you were talking in your sleep again. I heard you in the night so I knew you had a plan.’

  ‘What was I saying?’

  ‘“Wylie’s at eight.” Over and over. I can’t believe you were going to go without me.’

  ‘I don’t even know if it will work, Dew. I might have to do this every single morning for…years.’

  Dewey shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so. I had a feeling when I woke up that Fan was coming home today. And you know I’m good at feelings—I figured you out.’

  ‘True,’ I smile. But I feel sad in a way, thinking about Fan and Dewey seeing each other again. Before this happened, I felt so alone in my thoughts. As if I was stuck inside them. Am I going back to more of that?

  I shiver again, my arms and legs jerking like a puppet.

  ‘What was that?’ says Dewey.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe just a shiver, maybe a sign?’

  ‘Da says a big shiver like that means someone’s walked over your grave.’

  ‘I don’t have a grave,’ I reply with a frown.

  ‘Well, Da doesn’t know everything, I suppose.’ She links her arm in mine and squeezes closer.

  Fan

  Lucy is where Lucy always is. In the lab, white coat on, hair up, and looking serious. I watch her from the small window as she leans over the microscope, lost to another world.

  ‘Morning,’ I say pushing open the door.

  ‘What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be training?’

  ‘I’ve got somewhere else I need to be, and I wondered if you’d had any luck with that stopwatch.’

  Lucy reaches into her lab coat.

  ‘Oh, this stopwatch? You will never believe what I did.’

  ‘Tell me!’ I try to snatch it but she laughs and holds it out of my reach. ‘Lucy!’

  ‘All right, but listen. I spent all night studying the Issus coleoptraptus.’

  ‘The insect that has cogs like a watch.’

  ‘Exactly. Humans have always believed that cogs were invented by the Greeks in the third century, and that’s how we ended up with anything that uses gears, including clocks. But this insect uses cogs to make it jump. So I studied how that works to work out a way to undo the cogs.’

  She stops, and has a look in the microscope in front of her.

  ‘And?’ I say. ‘Lucy! Did it work or not?’

  ‘Not,’ she replies, and looks up again. ‘But, on the way home, I dropped it and…look.’ She holds it out. The long timer hand is sweeping around the face anticlockwise!

  ‘You did it!’

  I grab the watch and kiss her on the cheek.

  She wipes it off, laughing. ‘Well, lots of scientific discoveries happened by accident.’

  ‘I’m so grateful, Lucy.’

  ‘It was the weirdest request I’ve ever had, but I’m happy if you’re happy.’

  I take a longer look at the stopwatch, and find it difficult to look aw
ay. I have thoughts half-formed in my mind that I want to tell Lucy, but I’m transfixed by the hand spinning backwards. Even after I start to feel dizzy, I keep looking.

  ‘Cat?’ Lucy puts her hand over the watch face.

  ‘Sorry, I was just…having a strange moment.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m grand. I have to go. I need to…do an experiment.’

  She scowls and clutches her white lab coat tighter as if it’s keeping her safe from my strange ideas. ‘Right. I have double maths first and I categorically cannot be late.’

  I pull out a chocolate honeycomb bar that my new mother gave me from her travels because we didn’t have time to make lunch this morning. ‘Here,’ I say holding it out to her.

  ‘You know how I feel about honeycomb.’

  The thing is I don’t even know how I feel about honeycomb because I’ve never had it before.

  ‘Bye, Lucy,’ I say.

  ‘See you at recess. Usual place?’

  I nod and smile as I push open the lab door.

  Cat

  The water looks like ink from up here. It’s a cloudy morning, not much wind, no sun.

  ‘It’s nice to think that these baths will still be here in more than a hundred years,’ says Dewey. ‘Does it look the same?’

  I think back to the day the swap happened. Walking down the concrete stairs, dropping the money in the tray. The cafe, the people. The statue of a girl looking out to—oh! I’ve realised who that statue is. It’s Mina Wylie! It makes sense that it’s her as this is her father’s place. But I wonder if that means that Mina Wylie is the one who becomes a famous swimmer and not Fanny. So I don’t mention the statue to Dewey.

  ‘Almost the same,’ I reply, and I feel the shiver again.

  ‘Another shiver?’ Dewey asks. ‘Maybe that means my sister is here too.’ She looks down at the baths as if Fan might appear. ‘Come on, let’s try,’ Dewey says. She is so sure, and I wish I could be too.

  In the changing rooms, Dewey starts to strip off as well. She catches me frowning.

  ‘Don’t worry, I know I can’t come to your time. I just want to watch it happen. I won’t get into the water until we’re sure. Please let me be part of it.’

  ‘I want you there, Dew. It’s just that I was alone when it happened before. Wait, no, there was an old lady in the water at the same time.’

  ‘Maybe she was an enchanter,’ says a wide-eyed Dewey, making the Catholic sign of the cross.

  I laugh. But I’m not positive she’s wrong.

  The water’s so cold that I make funny noises getting into it. Dewey has the stopwatch and she’s standing at the edge, exactly where she was the first time I ever saw her.

  The next shiver is a huge one. I float on my back and try to feel at home in the water.

  ‘Tell me about that day again,’ says Dewey.

  ‘Well, I was angry with everyone. I wanted to escape.’

  ‘Is that how you feel now?’

  ‘I’m not angry with anyone. Here or there.’

  ‘Did you think you wanted to get away from everything for good?’

  ‘I wanted to escape some of my life, but not all of it.’

  ‘And now you want to escape 1908, even though you will be sorry to leave some of it behind.’

  I nod, and bite my lip.

  We’re quiet for a while. Ssshhh, goes the ocean. I dip my head right back in the water and feel the weight of Fanny’s hair as I stand up again.

  ‘It’s time, Cat,’ says Dewey.

  Fan

  The bus jolts to a stop near Wylie’s Baths. I reach up and press the button, alight from the bus and hurry across the road. My heart is tripping over itself to reach the water, and I hope I’m not misreading these shivery moments.

  I rush down the stairs to the baths. There’s no sign this time stopping me from entering, and I dig in my pocket for coins to place in the turnstile. It’s like I’m about to swim a race in front of Da. That’s how excited I feel.

  The place is almost empty, except for a couple of lizard-looking men sunbaking in their little pants. I go to the exact rocks where we found Cat’s bag, and there I undress, taking a moment to fold up Cat’s tracksuit. Then I sit down and take out the stopwatch.

  Watching its unwinding hand is like being entranced. I feel so giddy and slow I don’t know if I can stand up. I’m sure this is it.

  I put the stopwatch on Cat’s folded clothes and lower Cat’s goggles over my eyes. I want to see the dancing coloured coral and the darting fish as I try to swim home.

  Climbing fast down the metal ladder, I push off into the coolness of salty clean water hoping that somehow Cat is doing the same.

  I swim trudgen—my stroke—and stare down into the depths, still seeing that unwinding hand in my mind’s eye.

  Cat

  My heart rate is as rapid as if I’m in a race. Calm down, I tell myself. I open my eyes cautiously and find they can take the saltwater. Four kicks in, I’m ready, and I come to the surface to begin freestyle.

  I slip into it easily, and think of yesterday when I was swimming through the waves to save Frankie. Stroke-stroke breathe, stroke-stroke breathe.

  ‘Good luck, Cat!’ Dewey calls.

  Good luck to you too, I think. And to Arthur, and Mary and Kath and Mina, little Frankie and Mick, lovely Con and unfun John. Ma and Da.

  But what if…

  What if…

  What if I can’t…

  I keep my head down. It’s dark ahead—I wish I could see the wall.

  Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

  I hold my arms in front of me and kick as hard as I can.

  Fan

  My fingers graze the hard grey stone.

  My fingers! They are my fingers. My hand. My hair hangs long and thick over my face. I pat my skin. It’s me. It’s my strong muscled body and I’m wearing my baggy heavy bathing suit.

  ‘Fanny? Fanny!’

  My name. I look up to see who is calling me. There’s a girl standing at the other end. It’s my Dewey.

  I squeal out her name and she calls mine again.

  I swim towards her, the saltwater stinging my eyes, and my legs heavy as they kick. This body hasn’t been training hard. I can feel it in my muscles as I pull through the water.

  Dewey is pacing back and forth at the edge, like she’s about to hurl herself in. Does she know that I’ve been gone?

  I rush for the stairs and Dewey is there, at the top, with her arms out, and her face lit in the broadest of grins.

  ‘It’s you,’ she says. She knows. I bury myself in her hug, and I’m home.

  Cat

  I stand up when I feel a tightness around my face.

  Goggles!

  I whip them off and touch the short hair at the back of my neck.

  I’m me!

  Squinting into a low morning sun, I can see Coogee Beach in the distance, a surfer on a wave. The hills rise up behind the beach and there are high-rise apartments, dozens of rooftops—a helicopter! Yes, I’m back.

  I look behind me and there are about a dozen people all getting ready for a swim, but no one yet in the water. And no one I know. It’s so strange. I’m alone, but I’m home, and that feels amazing.

  Straightaway I see my stuff—it’s piled neatly on the same rock where I left my bag that day. Someone must have done that for me. Was it Fanny Durack?

  I spy the stopwatch and pick it up. It’s tarnished and dented and the face isn’t as pristine as it was in 1908. The hands are completely still, fixed on the nine and the four, looking like a diver.

  Fan

  34

  Home

  Dewey’s favourite stories are the ones I tell her about living above a shop and eating lollies and potato scallops and worms in sauce from a tin. She has funny stories for me too, about Cat and her strange ways.

  Cat saved my brother, and for that we’ll be connected forever. She left me a note that was hard to read because of her handwriting. B
ut Dewey and I worked it out together. Dewey smiled at the thought of Cat liking her. I told her nobody could ever not like her.

  Dewey has more questions for me every day and I never tire of answering them. It keeps a part of my time in the future alive inside me, that little part that reminds me that one day women wear whatever they like, and work wherever they like, and swim for their country. And that all that will happen if women like me, here and now, go into battle to change things.

  I wonder about Cat and Maisy, and if Cat has decided to stay in her squad and be a swimmer after all. I wonder about Lucy and her fight to get a place on the science course. But mostly, I wonder about my future. Will I swim for my country? Will Da ever watch me race? Will things change?

  ‘Fanny! There are rabbits to skin, stop daydreaming,’ yells Ma from the kitchen.

  One thing that will never change is Ma yelling orders.

  ‘I’m here, Ma,’ I say. ‘I have to train later but I can start on dinner before I go.’

  She sighs and I wait for the grumbling to start about swimming, but she just hands me the rabbit knife and the board.

  ‘Need any help, Fan?’ Dewey asks, dropping a load of wood near the fire.

  ‘No, dear Dewey. I’ve missed skinning rabbits!’

  My sister laughs and gets started on the potatoes.

  ‘No larking, you two. I want this on the cooker by the time I’m back,’ Ma says.

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  ‘You look nice today, Ma,’ I say, noticing that she has colour on her cheeks and her hair off her face.

  ‘I’m going into town.’

  ‘Alone?’ Dewey says.

  Ma scoffs, like the idea is ridiculous. I want to tell her that in the future she could go to work and Da could do the cooking, but she’d probably whisk me off to hospital for having daft notions.

  ‘With your father. We’re meeting his cousin,’ says Ma, brushing down her Sunday coat.

  ‘Have fun, Ma!’ I call as she leaves, and Dewey gives me a sharp look because I’ve done it again, used words from the wrong time. But Ma’s too preoccupied to notice and we hear her best shoes clip and clop down the stairs to the pub.

  ‘Tell me the story about the party in Rebecca’s house and the raw fish,’ Dewey says quietly.

  ‘Again?’