by Helen Goltz
I felt someone behind me and turned around, but I was alone; all the hairs on my neck stood up. While I waited for the kettle to boil I read it. Her photo was on the front, she was lovely—athletic, full of life and laughing in the photograph. Inside were tributes and prayers and more photos of her as a child: in a tutu learning ballet, as a lifesaver, a primary school photo, a high school formal shot with a very young Uncle Seb, graduating photos and a beautiful wedding photo of Meg and Uncle Seb. I flicked back to the front page and looked at the date. It was today—today was the anniversary of Meg’s funeral. That was why Uncle Seb was melancholy but he didn’t say anything. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it or maybe he thought I was carrying enough heavy stuff around.
I ran my finger around Meg’s outline and smiled at her. The house howled again; I’m sure it was her. I’m sure she was with Uncle Seb tonight here in the house and I hoped she approved of me. And maybe that’s why I dreamt about rooms in the house when I went to bed an hour later. Maybe I’m in her room now and she is displaced.
Before I turned in, I looked outside again but there was no one below on the beach or the rocks. I lay on the bed for a while, listening to the hum of the ocean and the occasional moan of the house. Aside from the dream, I slept right through. When I woke I rushed to the window—it was nearly five-thirty a.m. and no Jack either. I was so tired from the night before that my body just took over and I slept. I was angry at myself and couldn’t believe that I would have to wait another twenty-four hours now, if he returned to see me. I wonder if he came looking for me last night or if I will ever seen him again.
Chapter 10
HOLLY
We arrived at Ophelia’s place as she was walking down the path to meet us to catch the bus. She sped up and greeted us both. We all waved to Sebastian and the dogs watching from the door.
“Any fights last night?” Ophelia asked.
Harry laughed and told her they didn’t happen every day. The bus was coming towards the corner and we sped up to get to the pick-up point. Harry stood back and let Ophelia and I get onboard first, he was working on his charm, well, attempting to put on a good show in front of Ophelia anyway.
“Do you think Harry knows Peggy is keen on him?” she whispered as she followed me down the bus aisle.
I grinned and turned back to look at her. “Uh, no. I think it’s safe to say Harry doesn’t know what day it is.”
“I heard that,” he said.
“What did you hear?” I asked as he dived into an empty seat on the left hand side of the bus.
He looked sheepish. “Just my name, but I want to know what you were saying.”
Ophelia and I slid into the seat behind him and swapped looks. Ophelia cleared her throat.
“Well, I know someone really lovely, sweet and pretty who likes you,” Ophelia set it up.
“Really?” Harry’s eyes widened with hopeful anticipation that Ophelia was talking about herself. Like I said, he was clueless.
“Really,” Ophelia smiled.
“Well, who?” he grinned.
“Peggy.”
His face dropped. “Oh. Well yeah, she’s nice I guess.”
“She’s lovely,” I tried to raise her importance. “I heard there’s a few guys that like Peggy.”
“Yeah?” he seemed curious.
Ophelia tried a different tactic, lowering her voice and leaning forward. “She thinks you’re gorgeous and is hoping you will ask her to the dance.”
I could see his head swell. “Listen bro, if you want my advice, I’d grab Peggy with both hands. A bird in the hand is better than ... what’s the saying... two in the bush or a fish in the tank? Whatever!”
“Yeah great advice, Sis, thanks,” Harry smirked. “I’ll see what happens ... maybe I’ll ask her to the dance.”.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m surprised anyone thinks you’re gorgeous except Mum,” I told him.
“We’re identical twins!” he reminded me.
“Not anymore,” I twirled a long blond lock of hair around my finger. “Not if I can help it.”
Twenty minutes later as the bus stopped outside our school, the senior girls from the back row of the bus walked past and one of them threw a note in Ophelia’s lap. She looked up surprised, but the girls kept walking and there was no telling who threw it.
Ophelia grabbed it and looked from me to Harry and back at the note. We got up and followed them out of the bus and into the school grounds.
“What’s it say?” Harry looked over Ophelia’s shoulders.
She bit her lip as she unfolded it, read it and shook her head. “It says that I’m a slut and I should keep away from Chayse or else.”
I put my arm around her shoulder. “Ignore it,” I said. “They are friends of Chayse’s girlfriend ... the harem.”
Ophelia sighed and shoved the note in her shirt pocket. “You know, before my folks died,” she stopped as though saying the words took a lot of energy. She continued, “this would have really worried me. But seriously, who cares about this sort of thing. If Imogen or her friends have a problem, they should come and talk with me. I’m not interested in her boyfriend and he’s approached me not the other way around.”
“I’d say she’s threatened,” I told Ophelia.
Harry shrugged. “We’ve got your back, don’t worry about it.”
Ophelia smiled. “Thanks H and H.”
Peggy saw us and rushed over. Harry made a quick getaway.
OPHELIA
Our art teacher’s name was Ms. Nolan, no relation to the famous painter Sidney Nolan she told us. None of us knew who Sidney Nolan was—okay, Peggy and Christopher Kessels did, but that was about it. She insisted on being called Ms. which no one seem to pronounce correctly and every time it sounded like we had said Miss or Mrs. she made us say it again.
I liked art. I wasn’t very good at it, but I liked the history and the study of works and their meanings. Harry was good, Harry was very good. He could capture faces and expressions, his dimensions and angles worked a treat. As part of our assignment we had to reproduce a masterpiece. From what I could see, the art world was going to be pretty safe that none of our forgeries were going to flood the market. I picked Picasso’s Weeping Woman. Everyone thought that was brave, but it was super easy. Everything was a shape and a bright colour and I could cope with drawing a series of triangles ... just.
It was a shame Peggy didn’t take art so she could see Harry’s work, but she was doing Maths I, Maths II, Science and Physics. I glazed over thinking about it. Ms. Nolan glanced over my shoulder, said a few comments about my Weeping Woman—I think it might have been an apology to Picasso—and walked on. Holly gave me a grin ... her Jeffrey Smart reproduction wasn’t a patch on Harry’s work but it was an improvement on mine.
“Oh Harry,” Ms. Nolan sighed as she walked past him. “Magnificent.”
Harry beamed. “Yeah, thanks Ms. Nolan.”
Harry was reproducing the Mona Lisa, what a ham. Josie Clarke who was painting on the right of me was doing Edvard Munch’s The Scream and it was positively eerie.
Holly whispered my name and I looked over at her. She had smudged paint on her face and more on her hands than on her apron. She nodded to the window.
I looked out to see Chayse and a group of senior students doing Physical Education—I was a bit slow to discover him out there, most of the girls in the art class were already distracted. Ms. Nolan hadn’t noticed either. I studied Chayse between my Weeping Woman brush strokes. Why was he bothering with me? Did he do that just to rile Imogen or was he genuinely a friendly guy? Or was it to get back at Adam?
It was then I saw Jack—I drew a sharp breath. I had to look twice, but it was definitely him. What was he doing here? He told me he didn’t go to school around here but he was sitting in the grandstand in dark pants and the long jacket he’d had on the night I met him. Was he meeting someone else? I moved around my painting closer to Holly.
“See that guy over there sitting in th
e grandstand?” I whispered to her.
She squinted and looked out at the grounds.
“The cute one in the cute jacket?” she asked.
“Yes. Who is he?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you think you have enough action at the moment? Adam is obviously keen to show you around, Chayse likes you enough to cheese off his girlfriend.”
“You know that’s so not true,” I frowned at her and she looked again. “Do you know him?”
“No,” she said, glancing out at him again, “I’ve never seen him before. Why?”
I shrugged and moved back to my painting. “I saw him on the rocks out the front of Uncle Seb’s house the other night.”
“Your house,” Holly said.
I looked at her. “Yeah, I guess so, my house.”
When I looked back, he was gone. I looked around the oval, as far as I could see from my easel but he was nowhere. My heart was pounding. I’m sorry Jack, I said in my mind. I’ll be there tonight. I willed that he might hear me. But what was he doing here? Was he angry that I didn’t show last night and was checking up on me? Did he have a girlfriend at this school? I muttered to Holly that I would be back in a minute and asked Ms. Nolan if I could slip out to the ladies.
Out in the hallway, I rushed to the exit and squinted in the full light. I tried not to let Chayse or any of his teammates see me. He’d think I was checking him out, yep, just what I needed. I couldn’t see Jack, thank God I asked Holly or I would have thought I’d imagined it. I turned to go back in and he was right behind me.
“Jack!” I gasped.
He smiled with that boyish charm, ran his hand through his tasselled sandy-coloured hair and said my name like it was spun gold.
“Ophelia.”
Neither of us spoke. I stared into his blue eyes and I felt like he held me in a trance.
“I missed you, I had to see you,” he said, then swallowed and looked away. I don’t think he wanted to miss me.
My hand went to my heart and I could feel my face blushing. It was a new kind of pain—different from the pain of losing my parents, but still a feeling of separation and I don’t know, anticipation maybe.
“I miss you too, Jack,” I whispered. “You’re taking up all my headspace.”
He laughed. “I’m not keeping you up at night though,” he said, softening his backhanded insult.
“It’s because you kept me up the night before that I couldn’t stay awake!” I defended myself. “I’m only human.”
“Yes, you are,” he said.
I looked into his eyes and saw something there—surprise, trepidation—something unexpected.
“Tonight?” he asked. He didn’t touch me despite standing in my space.
Behind me my name was called and I spun around to see a football hurtling towards me. I flinched and then Jack was there, caught it and returned it just as quickly.
“Got to go,” he said, and turned the corner of the building before I could say anything. I looked around and I was alone.
Chayse called out. “You okay, Ophelia?”
I nodded and disappeared back into the building. I didn’t need the cavalry coming to the rescue. I was back at my easel within minutes.
I could feel Holly looking at me, her hand suspended over her painting, blue acrylic paint on the end of the brush waiting to be applied.
“Are you alright, you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” she asked.
I nodded. “Fine, just something I ate maybe.”
“Or something you didn’t,” she said. “Lunchtime, you’re going to conquer a sandwich!” She turned back to her painting and started dabbing the blue paint into her almost completed sky in the Jeffrey Smart imitation painting.
I sighed. It was nice to have friends that cared but what was Jack doing at my school and how did he get to that football so quickly? Why did I feel like he was reading my soul when no-one else had reached that depth. Freaky.
Chapter 11
OPHELIA
Adam went to bed first, then Uncle Seb and the dogs—I thought they never would! I watched as eventually, the light spilling out from under their doorways disappeared. I didn’t check to see if Jack was there for me on the beach—on our rock—I just wanted to be there. I grabbed my jacket and slipped it around my jeans and pullover. It was a cold night, even chillier when the sea spray hit me. The front door resisted me opening it; Uncle Seb said it swelled and tightened with the salt air. I looked upwards at the ceiling asking for permission and the house gave in and let me out. I quietly closed the door behind me and bolted across the road to the beach.
The cool sand felt wonderful as my toes dug in. I didn’t look too far out to sea—the thought of what might lie beneath terrified me. But when it came to meeting Jack, I didn’t feel any fear, just the opposite. My heart was playing its own beat, the ocean breeze made me feel alive and awake for the first time in months and soon, he would be here.
Then I saw him. He was sitting on the rock, our rock, where he had led me the first night we met. It looked like he commanded the ocean from there, the moon placed squarely in front of him, the waves lapping the rock in gentle adoration. Then he turned to face me and a slow smile spread across his face. Was he ever in doubt I would come?
JACK
I hated that I needed to see her. I haven’t had that before, I’ve always been in charge and ... well it doesn’t matter, but with her it is different. I sensed it right from the start. I felt her presence before I saw her, and turning, saw she was there watching me. I rose and went down the rock to meet her.
“You came,” I said.
She blushed and smiled, her hair floated on the ocean breeze and her eyes were as full as the moon, pale blue, too large for her little face. I extended my hand to her and she placed her hand in mine. I guided her up the rocks to our spot. She was a sure-footed climber, but I felt her eyes boring into me, studying me.
“We won’t get washed away here, will we?” she asked with a nervous glance out to sea.
“I hope so,” I answered which made her laugh. I read her thoughts then, she agreed. I guess when you lose everything, it takes a while to rejoin the living.
We lowered ourselves to the rock; I didn’t let go of her hand. We sat there in silence for a short while, smelling the salt air, feeling the closeness of each other, and how alone we were. It was magic. It was a strange sensation to feel so intensely for someone so quickly. Sure, I’ve felt attraction before—I thought it was love—but this was different, this was like greed. I was worried about her, I wanted to protect her, keep her ... I just wanted to be with her all the time even if we just stayed here like we were now, forever.
OPHELIA
I couldn’t look at him because I desperately wanted to kiss him and I didn’t want it to happen too fast ... I want to remember every moment of it. My first kiss, my first real kiss that wasn’t Christian McDonald in year eight pinning me against the wall and claiming he loved me.
Without even touching my lips, Jack sucked the air from my lungs, I could barely breath beside him and the chills I felt I was sure weren’t from the ocean breeze. I thought I should say something or we might not talk all night, which could be a little weird.
“The waves, that is the tide, it seems higher tonight if that makes sense?” I looked out to sea.
“They are bigger than usual,” Jack agreed.
“Why? How is the tide created?” I asked just so I could hear him talk really.
Jack smiled. “Simply put, the earth and the moon are attracted to each other. The moon tries to pull everything on the earth closer, like a magnet. The earth doesn’t let it. Except when it comes to water, the earth has trouble holding on to it because it is always moving. So each day the tides rise and fall at the moon’s whim I guess you could say.”
“That’s kind of romantic,” I said. Everything was romantic around Jack, I was hopeless.
“We’re the earth and the moon, attracted to each other, me pulling you i
n and hoping you will stay,” he teased.
I smiled at him and held his gaze until he broke it. Again, we sat in silence for a while.
“Why were you at my school today?” I asked without looking at him.
He stretched his legs out on the rock in front of him and leaned back, supporting his weight on his arms.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I shrugged.
“It wasn’t another girl,” he said.
“I know,” I looked at him. I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to let on that I would be shattered.
He smiled at me and sat forward again. “I missed you, I told you that.”
I frowned. “So you figured if you just showed up and sat on a bench in the grandstand, sometime during the day you might see me?”
“I knew exactly where you were and that you could see me from your classroom,” he said as he looked at the ocean then directly at me.
“How?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Okay,” I shut down. We sat again in silence for a while.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to ... well, I’m out of practice. I wasn’t stalking you, I just wanted to see you.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I wanted that answer. I stammered in my hurry to assure him I felt the same. “I wanted to see you too. I was worried that you might not return.” I stopped, I didn’t want to say too much and put him off.
He rub my hand with his thumb—his hand was so cold—sending a chilled volt through me, but I turned my hand up to wrap my fingers around his. I wanted him to kiss me now, right now. I wanted to feel his fingers on my neck, on my skin, touching my face. I wanted to drink in his kiss in this perfect setting and I would never forget it.
