Skeletal

by Lee Hayton

  She trails off and swallows hard again. I am quite touched. And quite relieved. It didn’t sound nearly as bad as it had been to live through. In fact, it sounded like a small thing. A trivial thing.

  ‘I left teaching at the end of that year. I was asked to reapply for my contract, but I couldn’t face it. That poor girl.’ Miss Jenner wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. Another trivial thing. Crying in a courtroom.

  The coroner clears his throat. ‘I realise this is an emotional event to recount, but would you be able to tell us what happened to Daina after that class?’

  Miss Jenner looks up startled and considers. ‘She ran out,’ she says after a while. ‘I went after her once the class had settled, and found her in the cloakroom at the end of the hall. She looked really scared.’

  ‘Scared?’

  Miss Jenner nods. ‘She looked scared. I tapped her on the shoulder and when she turned her face was white and she was shaking. It was awful. I’d thought I’d be able to comfort her, or something like that. Tell her it wasn’t as bad as it looked. But her expression…’

  She looks back down at the floor again, as though the memory was hidden in the grooves and channels of the boards. As though if she looks hard enough she would see through the years to where it was all still happening.

  ‘I couldn’t think of what to say. All my words just dried up in my mouth. She looked… she looked terrified.’ She turns to look at the coroner, shaking her head. ‘I just told her it was okay if she left for the day. She didn’t need to come back into class. I couldn’t…’

  Her throat works as she blinks hard, and then she coughs into her hand. ‘She turned back up at the next class, and I just pretended that everything was normal. I didn’t really know what to do. I’d hoped that the headmaster would come through and do something that would send a message, but he didn’t.

  ‘She attended my class each time until the end of term, and then I never saw her again.’

  The coroner rubs a finger along the side of his nose, pushing his glasses up and down, up and down. The papers in front of him must be going in and out of focus, but he doesn’t care or he wouldn’t do it, would he?

  ‘And how did she seem after that incident? In herself?’

  In herself. How I loathe that phrase.

  ‘I don’t know, really,’ she answers. ‘After that day I tried not to look at her. I’d failed her, you see.’

  She looks at Michelle again, seated in the room as though she belongs there. As though she’d earned her place.

  Miss Jenner, my newfound protector, my secret admirer, the failed heroine of my sad story, stares at her and this time Michelle has to turn away.

  Daina 2004

  Michelle turned around and smirked at me for the third time this period. I mugged back at her, but I was starting to think that something was up, something more serious than her usual hatred.

  Miss Jenner was droning on endlessly about the history of our fair lands, accompanied by some seriously dull portraits and still-lifes which managed to capture none of the supposed excitement of the time. Why did Victorian people always look as though the camera was about to kill them rather than just take their picture? Did that sometimes happen?

  I sketched out a quick pencil scene of the amazing exploding camera causing mayhem in Victorian Canterbury. It wasn’t enough to be in black and white. I pulled my battered pencil case towards me and hunted through for a red felt tip. Success! But it was dried to uselessness. I touched my tongue to the tip and managed to coax a little bit of colour into the scene.

  Vila had just passed me a note under the table when I heard the first muffled laugh. I looked towards Alicia, who was already looking at me and felt my mind shift into another gear. Her face ran wider, wider, until her mouth looked like a giant void and her eyes were stretched into deformity.

  I closed my eyes, opened them, and saw with dismay that instead of correcting my vision it had made it worse. Colours bled into her face: neon pink and orange, Kelly Green and khaki. I turned back to my desk and saw it transform into a wide expanse of wood. A plank a metre by a metre. Then two metres by two metres.

  I looked down at my hands holding the note. They looked gigantic. Like the Kenny Everett preacher who used to scare the shit out of me when I was a kid and snuck downstairs to watch the TV that my mother had passed out in front of, drunk. The nails grew and curled and reached up towards the ceiling.

  There was the long echo of a laugh. I turned to my side and saw a Cheshire cat smile, snidely stretching. And then another. Another. And then they all closed in. Mouths gaping, teeth glinting, throats reverberating with laugh after laugh after laugh.

  I looked towards the front of the class. Or where the front of the class had been. There was a tiny light shining. I squinted my eyes trying to make out the shadow outlines of it. And then it blew up to the size of a movie theatre. Gorgeous Technicolor. Deep and wide 3D. My bare ass the size of the whole world on the monitor.

  My stupidly large hands covered my eyes, but I could still see the image. The laughter grew and grew and grew until I couldn’t handle the noise of it without bursting. Without busting. I closed my eyes to gather my bearings and ran from the room.

  It was only when I ran full-tilt into a wall that I stopped. My eyes still tightly closed, I put my hands out and felt the cool wood of a bench. When I moved my head to one side, the cold hard metal of a coat hook scratched against my cheek. If I’d run into that a second ago, it would’ve spiked me dead.

  I opened my eyes a tiny bit. The world still swam with colour and I closed them again. I felt for the bench and sat down on it, the cool wood immediately wrapping itself around my legs and encircling my waist in a wooden hug. I brushed at my waist in a rising panic, but my hands met only the cloth of my uniform. The hug of the wood receded and my lungs opened up a little bit more.

  It’ll only last a few minutes I thought to myself in desperation. Like last time, just a few minutes.

  I gripped the bench tight as though if I didn’t I could go flying off. Perhaps I really could. I tried to open my eyes again, and saw the room morphing and changing. Colours running and pooling. I closed them again, but now I could see the random evil shapes on the backs of my eyelids. And after another minute it felt as though I had my eyes wide open despite also knowing they were closed and squeezed shut.

  I heard the sound of running, thumping, heading straight towards me down the corridor and I turned and forced my eyes open to meet this new threat.

  Miss Jenner’s face twisted into the garbled beauty of a Picasso painting. Her mouth was moving, and a minute later words appeared in a steady flow in the air.

  By the time I finished reading them, she was gone. There were a whisper and gargle from the corner of the room. I needed to get out before I saw what belonged to that far more than I needed the comfort of a steady seat.

  I ran my hand along the wall and made my way out into the bright sunshine. Great cubes of yellow spun and danced around me, amid globs of bright, bright blue. I’m going insane, I thought, as I made it across to the science wing, to the safe guidance of a brick wall. My mind has broken and I’ve gone spinning off into madness.

  I turned my face to the brick wall to give my eyes a rest. They felt too hot, too far out of their sockets. My forehead against the rough Summerhill stone felt too cold in comparison. My brain felt like it was leaking out from my ears. Maybe it was. Maybe that was why my world had turned into a Terry Gilliam horror.

  In the end I had to leave. Otherwise I would still be there when everyone left class, and I couldn’t handle that. The world was an awesomely scary place all at once, but an empty one except for me. Other people? I didn’t want to imagine what they would bring.

  My feet walked home by rote. I could see, but what I saw made no sense and couldn’t be relied on for any sort of navigation. There was another moment of panic when I tried to unlock the door and my key didn’t seem to fit. Had I turned up at the wrong house? If I had, I would
just have to collapse on a stranger’s front door and weep until they carted me away. There was nothing left in me that could find my way home if I wasn’t already there.

  And then I pulled at the ranch-slider door and realised my key wouldn’t turn because the door was already unlocked.

  ‘Mum?’ I called out as I closed it behind me. The living room pulsed and swayed, a bewildering hue of brown, ochre, green. ‘Are you home?’

  There was no answer, and when I made the endless trek into the lounge then the kitchen then the bathroom then her bedroom there was no one there.

  She’d gone out leaving the front door unlocked. Open for anyone who wanted to pay a visit. That was a new one.

  The taste of the purple colours in my room was soothing, like caramel, honey, and whipped cream. I lay on my bed and watched a slideshow of insanity on the ceiling. Watched the ceiling and walls watching me.

  I needed to get to a doctor. I needed to find out what on earth was going on. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do until mum got home. I didn’t have the money to go on my own, and I doubted that she would either. Even at the reduced rates that her community services card would command I doubted there was much money in the house at all now. And if there was it wouldn’t be spent on me. Not when my mother already had a prescription lined up at the bottle shop.

  The sound of waves crashing on a beach filtered through the walls. Calm, peaceful. Perhaps whatever episode I’d had was now fading enough that I could go back to being normal. I’d never be able to go to school again, obviously. But maybe a bit of my brain would be left intact and I could start again.

  Maybe I could get a nice job at the supermarket. Stacking shelves, serving little old ladies who wanted to have a chat. Maybe I’d be good at it. Maybe I’d be so good at it I’d be able to get a raise. Move on altogether. Move not only out of this school, but out of this house, and maybe even out of this life.

  Perhaps there was something out there waiting for me, and this was the sign from God that I needed to move on and reach up.

  Or maybe my brain was sick, the random senses a final swan song, and in the morning I just wouldn’t wake up.

  That was the comfort that sent me to sleep.

  #

  I woke up to the front door being slid open. I listened for a few moments, and then when I heard footsteps followed by the thump of someone sitting down hard on the couch, I let my breath out and sat up.

  The world was a very different place than I’d left it. All of the objects were the same size as they appeared. All of the colours appeared to be stayfast. All of the things that were visible were just visible. I couldn’t hear, smell, or taste the pattern or colour of anything.

  When I got to my feet, my stomach growled a complaint. After having scoffed another of Susie’s offcast sandwiches at lunch, I hadn’t given it a thought. Of course, I’d had other things on my mind - and my eyesight, and my body.

  ‘Daina, you in?’ came a call from downstairs.

  I ran down the stairs with ease, liking the way they stayed exactly where they should be, and exactly the same size they should be, and didn’t have teeth. ‘I’m here. Is there anything for tea?’

  ‘Nice to see you too, daughter,’ she teased back at me. The fading twilight of the day caught her auburn curls, shooting them through with fire. A thousand times prettier than the sunset. ‘There’s some stuff on the table. I couldn’t be bothered cooking.’

  I laughed at that. My mum’s idea of cooking at its best was heating something up in the oven. That was posh, after all. Not like sticking it in the microwave.

  There was ham, tomato, lettuce, potato salad and crunchy fresh bread from the supermarket bakery. I cut an inch-wide slice and spread it thick with butter, and then draped an assortment of tomato and ham on top before biting in.

  ‘Would you make me one too, dear?’ she called out from the lounge, and I only took one more bite before obliging.

  ‘Potato salad too please,’ mum added as an afterthought. I spooned some onto a large plate and put the open sandwich down next to it. Then took it and the remnants of my own through to the lounge.

  ‘Oh, thanks. I’ve been starving all day. There’s some coke in the fridge as well if you want it.’

  I did. I loved the sweet taste of cola, the slight kick of the caffeine. But only when it was ice-cold and full of bubbles. The usual offerings around the house had lids left off and long hours to raise them to room temperature. It made it taste more like the cough mixture and general health tonic it had started out to be. Flat as a pancake, and too, too sweet.

  I snuggled in next to mum, and after she’d finished with her salad, she put her arm around me, drawing me in for a quick peck on the forehead. Her breath smelt of sweet sherry, and I relaxed even further. There wouldn’t be any parties tonight, then. And sherry was a trouble-free drink for my mother. Not like when she was on the gin and I would be pulled into soggy embraces while she recounted every sad life story she could think of or makeup. Or vodka, when she would sit still while she grew her fury, and then unleash it all at once on whatever or whoever happened to be available.

  Sherry also meant that she must have run through her money even quicker than usual. There definitely wouldn’t be money for a doctor then, but I couldn’t really care less. I just wanted to have her sit next to me, and feed me, and look after me.

  ‘How’s your new school working out love?’ she asked me later while she stroked my fringe back off my face.

  ‘It’s fine.’

  She waited for a while, and then prompted, ‘It’s fine, and…’

  I laughed. ‘And some of the teachers are really nice. There’s a mad English teacher who made me play-act as Lady Macbeth the other day. And I met a really nice group of girls. I’ve been around to one of their houses to go over some maths homework.’

  She turned her big blue eyes on me, her brows creasing together in a frown. ‘Are you having trouble with maths?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, but she is. I thought if I helped her out with that, she might return the favour in some other classes. Since I missed the first half of term, I’m not really sure where everyone’s at.’

  The slight jibe bounced right off her. ‘That’s a good idea. Make sure she doesn’t take advantage, though. If you’re not getting anything in return, then you make sure you charge her for your time.’

  ‘I will. But she’s not like that.’

  She nodded, and turned back to the book she was reading, still cradling me in under her arm. ‘You’d be surprised what people are really like sometimes,’ she said a good ten minutes later. As though the conversation had just kept on going inside her head.

  #

  When I arrived at school the following morning, I went straight to the counsellor’s office and put my name down on her sign-on sheet. There was a school nurse that also made visits, but it wasn’t her day and I didn’t want to wait any longer or I might never get around to telling anybody what had happened. The details were already sketchy in my mind.

  It was probably just something stupid. Probably had too little to eat, or got dehydrated, or became stressed out, and it triggered something weird that would never happen again.

  Or it might be brain cancer.

  It was the first appointment of her day, and she was due to arrive only ten minutes after my home room would start, so I just sat outside her office and waited.

  ‘Have you got a pass?’ Ms Pearson asked as she walked by me. She didn’t even stop to check, just carried on through. Like an automaton hall monitor set to fast forward.

  When the bell for homeroom rang out, the halls emptied and I waited alone. Thank goodness. I still couldn’t work out how much of yesterday had been true or not, how much had been some weird brain fart, but given that Michelle or one of her skank-crew had taken a photo, it seemed reasonable to believe that part. Given that a teacher had chased me down a hallway to see if I was all right, rather than just reporting me to the headmaster, it seemed reasona
ble.

  Mrs Aiello arrived on the dot of late.

  She moved with the slow grace of a large elephant, and her motion wasn’t where the similarity ended. Fabric strained in all directions as she sought to cover her forty-year-old flesh with her thirty-year-old clothes. One of the seams was starting to unravel, space showing between the interlocking threads. I wondered if she’d even noticed. I wondered if anyone had pointed it out to her. I wasn’t about to, so I guessed the answer might well be no.

  ‘Harrow? Is it Harrow?’ she asked, squinting at the list on the door. Apart from an appointment in the late afternoon which I was fairly sure was a gag, there were no other voluntary signatures on the sheet.

  ‘Daina Harrow, Ms Aiello. Daina.’

  She smiled at me as she juggled her handbag, her satchel, what looked like a knitting bag - if there even was such a thing – but certainly a container that carried needles and wool - and her office keys, or what turned out to be her car keys.

  ‘Let me get that for you,’ I said and jumped forward just as the whole caboodle started to make a break for the floor.

  ‘Oh, thank you, thank you. I’m sure I’ve got my keys in here somewhere, I remember putting them in last night when I locked up,’ she beamed a smile at me and then turned her attention back to her bag.

  ‘Have you lost something, Ms Aiello?’ Ms Pearson said, standing in her own office doorway.

  ‘No, no we’re good,’ she responded and turned back to the lock with a business-like posture.

  As soon as Ms Pearson retreated back into her lair Ms Aiello picked up her bag with both hands, opened the lip as wide as it could go, and recommenced squinting. She tossed the whole conglomeration of items nestled inside as though she was tossing some hot onions in a frying pan.