by Lee Hayton
‘Did you talk to Rachael about what the school had said?’
‘Well no. Not at the time. I had Billy and Judy with me, so I couldn’t just wait around until Rachael got home. Daina said she’d inform her about everything, and I trusted she would. She’s a good girl. And it was hardly like she was going to lie to her – a bit difficult to hide the fact that you’re home from school for three days, isn’t it?’
Not really.
‘But you phoned her later to check?’
Dad shifts his weight and shakes his head. ‘It didn’t occur to me at the time, and later I just thought it would all have been sorted anyway.’
Yeah, right. Later, like just now.
‘And did the school contact you again?’
‘What? No. No, that would always usually be handled by Rachael. I guess this was a once off and they went back to checking with her again.’
I thought how he looked that afternoon when he dropped me off and went back to his car. He’d come with me to the door, Billy hanging off one side, Judy clinging onto his hand on the other. There had been an expression of shock when I’d tried the door and it was locked. The relief when I’d produced a key and said Mum must be out.
He’d headed back to his car, shoulders higher now the burden of me was lifted. His duty was discharged. He didn’t have to take me home or engage in awkward conversations.
When he’d belted Billy into his car seat, he’d ruffled his hair and kissed him on the cheek. More affection in a two-second period than I’d had in my life from him. And then he’d backed down the drive, attention on the road, attention on his other children, attention on the journey home.
I remembered waving to the car as it turned into the road. Dad hadn’t even turned to look. Gone from his thoughts already.
#
There was a hefty knock on the door soon after four o’clock. I stiffened at the noise, then relaxed as I realised mum still wasn’t home. I was expecting to see a salesperson or a Mormon couple at the door. Even the dread thought of a debt collector flitted through my mind.
Vila was standing there instead. ‘Heard you got booted out,’ she said as she pushed her way inside. Susie stood behind her and waited until I nodded before coming in.
‘It’s only for a few days. They haven’t excluded me or anything.’
‘Why are you suspended anyway? We saw Michelle get called to the office, then she was back, and it wasn’t till Susie had a word with Ms Pearson that we realised you were behind it.’
I turned to the kitchen, ‘Do you want a drink of something?’
‘No, I want to know what happened.’
‘I’ll have a glass of lemonade if you have it,’ Susie said and came up behind me. ‘Why d’you have all the curtains pulled?’
‘You can open them if you like. Mum usually wakes up late so she doesn’t want to see the sun much.’
‘She work nights?’
Vila snorted. ‘She’s on the DPB. She doesn’t work at all.’
‘She’s a night owl,’ I said with a bristle of annoyance. ‘Always has been.’
There was some lemonade in the fridge, a mixer left behind. A supermarket brand. I poured out a glass and watched a few bubbles form with grim determination on the side of the glass.
‘Here you go,’ I handed it over. ‘Vila?’
‘I’m good thanks.’
She’d opened up all of the curtains, revealing the stained remnants of a dozen parties. There were cigarettes still ground into the carpet where an ashtray had overturned and people had kept on traipsing through, oblivious.
Vila wrinkled up her nose, but continued back through to the lounge and opened it up to let the sun reveal the extent of the damage in there as well. She brushed crumbs of god-knows-what from the couch and sat down with prissy precision.
‘So what happened? You know I’m not going until you tell me.’
Yeah, I had figured that. Oh well, safety in lying wasn’t there. ‘I told Mr Fitzsimmons about what you’d told me. About Michelle and Mr Bond.’
Susie spluttered and a mouthful of lemonade sprayed out of her nose. ‘I told you that in confidence!’
‘Don’t worry, I didn’t say that I’d heard it from anyone. I just said I’d seen it.’
‘And what then?’
‘Well, it doesn’t look like Mr Bond came into any kind of trouble, does it?’
Susie frowned and put her glass down. ‘Did they prove you hadn’t seen something?’
‘They asked Michelle to the office and she denied it.’
Susie still looked unhappy. ‘I thought they’d have to do more than that. I mean, she’s underage and stuff isn’t she? Don’t they have to report anything like that to the police just to be sure?’
That had been what I’d been expecting to happen. It was good to know that someone else was on my wavelength. Bad that it was nobody of any influence.
‘Well, you just know how to make friends all over the place, don’t you?’ Vila said and stood back up. Susie looked surprised for a moment, but after a long look from Vila she got to her feet as well.
‘We’ve got to be going, homework you know. I’ll catch up with you when you’re back in school.’
I nodded and showed them to the door.
Susie grabbed my upper arm and squeezed. ‘You going to be okay?’
I nodded and tried to smile. It was the closest anyone had got to caring about me in a while, and I felt stupid tears trying to make an appearance. Self-pity, Mum’d call it.
Vila was almost to the footpath when she turned again. ‘Oh, I forgot,’ she yelled back to me. ‘We’re gonna have a small party in the park tomorrow. After school. Want to come?’
Friday. In the park. I tried to think if I had any other plans. ‘Sounds good.’
‘We’ll pick you up around five. See you then.’
‘See you.’
Coroner’s Court 2014
Susie doesn’t look as good as she should on the stand.
For some reason, maybe a lifetime of teasing, she’s dyed her beautiful red hair mid-brown. It may stop the references to Gingas, but it does little for her appearance.
Her diminished height is emphasised with the weight she’s gained. It’s not much more than a stone over what she weighed in high school, but given her body’s limited capacity to spread it out she looks like she’s wearing a truck tyre’s inner tube for a waistband.
She’s still sweet, though. She still looks concerned that she’s doing everything right.
Her life really deserved to work out better than it has. A supermarket career doesn’t have much room for elevated growth, but she’s always been too kind to hand in her resignation and leave them in the lurch.
She reached the exalted heights of duty manager at eighteen, and there she’s stayed. She should’ve gone to university; she was certainly bright enough, but I guess no one ever bothered to tell her that.
I certainly hadn’t.
‘You were involved in the incident in the park on the…’ the coroner consults his notes before continuing, ‘On Friday 14th November, is that right?’
Susie nods, and then leans forward to the microphone. ‘Yes, that’s right.’ She looks like she’s expecting to be arrested at any moment if she gets something wrong.
‘Can you tell us what happened that night?’
Susie fidgets on the stand. She looks down into her lap where her hands are clenched together tight.
‘We’d been invited to a party in the park. Just a get together, you know.’
The coroner nods in encouragement.
‘When you’re fourteen it’s hard to go anywhere and do anything. They start charging you as an adult everywhere, but you don’t get any of the other privileges. So we used to hang out in public spaces, restaurants.’
Susie had moved so far back in her chair that her voice stops being amplified at all. She leans forward again so her voice is caught by the sensors.
‘Unless someone’s parents were happ
y for a troupe of teenagers to invade their home we couldn’t have a party. You don’t get left alone at that age the same way the older kids do.’
The coroner nods again, a little more impatient this time.
‘Anyway. Daina had been suspended from school for a few days. She’d missed out on the invite so we went around to her house to tell her.’ Susie pauses and then adds another layer of truth. ‘And to find out why she’d been suspended. No one told us anything at school.
‘I thought it would be a nice night out.’ She giggles at a memory. ‘I wore some ridiculously high heels. I could barely walk in them. We met up at Vila’s house beforehand to eat something before we went off to the park.’
Susie stops talking for a moment. She leans her head further forward, her hair covers her eyes like a curtain between her and the full benches she’s facing.
‘I thought it was going to be a nice night out. I didn’t realise that Michelle had something planned.’
Daina 2004
Given a full day to contemplate what to wear I managed to work myself into a tizzy. My clothing options were limited but as most of them were separates I could combine and recombine them into an ever-growing number of inappropriate outfits.
My hair was midway between short and long so that apart from a bejewelled hair clip there was little I could do. Unless I contemplated colour – and I didn’t.
But what did you wear to the park? Was it a party? Was it a gathering? Would they be dressed up or dressed down?
Mum came home halfway during deliberations. ‘School’s over is it, love?’
‘Teachers only day.’
She nodded and sloped off to her bedroom. At the door she turned back to me, ‘I might have company tonight. Don’t get in the way, right?’
‘I’m going out.’
‘Good. Make sure you remember your key. I’m not getting up in the middle of the night.’
‘I will.’
‘Wear your silk shirt. It’ll look nice with that skirt.’
‘I don’t have a silk shirt.’
She disappeared into her bedroom then came back out holding a blouse in one hand and the portable iron in the other. ‘You’ll need to be careful with this, low setting. It’s on the side.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Got a boy in mind?’
‘Mum!’
She laughed and poked at my waist. ‘Well, why else are you going out? Unless,’ she paused and cupped her chin in one hand. ‘You know if you’re a lesbian it’s okay to tell me, right? It won’t make any difference to me. I love you unconditionally.’
‘Nobody in that way. And I’m not.’
‘Keep it in mind. Sometimes it takes a while to tell. And a bit of experience to know.’
She wandered away.
I ironed the blouse on the top of the table with a few tea towels under it for padding. It had never been mine. Mum must have been confused. The fabric had a sheen to it that caught the light and then threw it merrily around the room; diffracted. When I put it on top of my old black jeans, with tears that had been placed on the knee and then genuinely worn through, it lifted them into elegance. It made accidental rips look like designer construction.
Even second-hand, or third-hand, it was nicer than anything else I owned. I went back upstairs and pulled a black cotton skirt with a crochet panel out of the wardrobe. It would be better still. Someone might even mistake me for a girl. Picking out an outfit ahead of time, I might even mistake myself for a girl.
‘You look nice. You should dress up more often,’ mum said as I walked into the kitchen later.
I rubbed the front of my right foot against the back of my left ankle. Mum gave me a short one-armed hug and then sat down at the table. A glass and a bottle were in front of her. Both half-full. Or half-empty.
‘Where’re you going?’
‘Just to the park. Some sort of picnic, I think.’
‘You be careful. Some weird people hang out in parks.’
I laughed. Some weird people hang out in our living room. ‘I’ll be careful.’
‘Who’re you going with?’
‘Vila and Susie.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know any of your friends anymore,’ she said. ‘You’re growing up and away.’ Her voice cracked on the last word, but she swallowed and smiled at me. ‘I thought you’d stay little forever.’
I kissed the top of her head. ‘No, you didn’t. You’re one smart cookie.’
She laughed and squeezed my hand. ‘Sure.’
There was a flurry of knocks on the door, and I pulled away and went over to open it.
‘Be careful,’ mum called out again, and I turned in surprise. I was going to the park. Not to a war zone.
I nodded and opened the door. Vila pulled me through and looked me up and down with a critical eye. ‘You look nice. I’ve never seen you out of uniform.’
‘You haven’t really seen me out of school.’
Susie had on a pair of ridiculous shoes. High-heeled wedge patent leather sneakers. In white. She saw me looking and shrugged. ‘I thought, what the hell. When else am I ever gonna wear them?’
‘You’re insane,’ Vila said, laughing. ‘We’re going to the park, after. The park.’
‘What do you mean after? I thought we were going there now.’
‘Hell no. Girl’s gotta eat first.’
I had a flash of worry. I didn’t have any money to go somewhere to eat.
‘Mum’s put together a little assortment. She made me promise we’d eat at home first. She thinks we’re going to the park to get blind drunk and she wants me to have a lining in my stomach first.’
‘She thinks you’re going to get drunk and she’s still letting you go?’ Susie asked, incredulous. ‘My mum would lock me in my room if she thought that’s what was going to happen. What about you, Daina?’
‘I think she’s only worried there are going to be boys there and I’ll end up pregnant. Compared to that she’d probably welcome me drinking.’
‘Carry on the family tradition.’
I laughed, but I had to bite back a retort. I didn’t make fun of my mother, and I was the one who had to live with her and her bullshit. Damn if someone else should be able to make fun of her.
Susie gave her a slap in reprimand as well. Vila was acting more and more snotty with me, and it made me uneasy. If she didn’t want me to hang around, then she didn’t have to ask me. It wasn’t fair to invite me places and then treat me like shit.
Half a street further and Susie started to hop on one foot then the other as she took her shoes off. ‘They felt a lot more comfortable in the store.’
‘You mean when you were sitting down?’ I asked. I grabbed her arm to steady her as she seemed about to topple.
‘Something like that. Lucky I wore thick socks. Why do you live so far away Vila?’
‘I don’t live so far away. You and Daina live so far away. If you lived closer to me, then we would be at my house by now.’
‘Oh yeah. You make it sound so reasonable,’ Susie retorted. ‘But since Daina and I live close together I think you’re in the wrong.’
‘Are Tracy and Melanie coming?’ I asked.
‘They’ll probably be sitting at my house making small talk with my mother the speed of you two. Race you.’
She shot off ahead. I looked at Susie’s feet and then caught her eye. She shook her head and I nodded. We continued on at our leisurely pace.
‘Vila’s hyped up about something,’ she said after a minute. ‘She’s been acting weird the last couple of weeks. Most of the time she’s fine and then she’ll go into full bitch mode.’
‘I’d noticed.’
‘I think there’s something going on with her Dad, but she won’t talk about it.’
‘How’d you mean?’
‘Something at his work. I think she’s worried they may have to move. Like really move. To another city, maybe even country.’
‘What does her dad do?’
‘He’s some sort of research doctor or something. I don’t really know. He depends on funding, though, and if he can’t get that here, then he’ll have to move on.’
‘Shit. I’ve been moved around enough, but I’ve never had to go overseas or anything. Just stayed in Christchurch. That’s hard enough.’
Susie nodded. ‘I haven’t even done that much. I’m still living in the house I was born in.’
‘Home birth?’
She pushed me away, laughing. ‘Shit, you know what I mean.’
‘Imagine if she moves to a country where they don’t speak English.’
Susie shuddered with theatrical exaggeration. ‘She has a hard enough time understanding what goes on when everyone talks English. Can you imagine her trying to keep up in class if they were speaking another language?’
‘Or she’d end up in one of those schools with all the army brats where they’re from all over and the only thing in common is their language.’
She nodded, and then fell silent.
‘Thanks for telling me, though,’ I said after another half block. ‘I’d been thinking it was something to do with me.’
‘Self-obsessed teenager,’ Susie said rolling her eyes. I gave her another push and then screamed as someone jumped out at us.
Vila shrieked with laughter and then grabbed us both around the necks. ‘You two are so slow. I thought a bit of adrenalin would help matters.’
‘Christ’s sake Vila, we’re almost there. Calm down will you. Nothing’s gonna happen if we’re a few minutes late to your damn house.’
‘I wish I had a car.’
‘You can’t drive, can you?’ I said. ‘What good would a car do you?’
‘If I couldn’t use it to get places quicker, I could use it to knock down slowcoaches.’
She ran down the rest of the road to her house, and then leant against the front door pillar looking pointedly at her watch. ‘I told my mother we’d be here at five o’clock,’ she yelled back to us. ‘You know how I don’t like to disappoint my mother.’
