“I've come about Iris”, said Marsha.
“Yes, I thought you might have.”
“Don't get me wrong. It's kind of you to take her under your wing. However, in favouring her, you make the other kids jealous and they pick on her.”
“Oh, do they?”
Marsha couldn't believe Miss Sampson hadn't noticed. She pointed to the “Bullying: Zero Tolerance” poster that was pinned to the far wall.
“I can't have my child treated badly during the day”, she said. “Iris comes home in floods of tears and now suffers nightmares and cries out in the night.”
“Do you know which students were bullying her? What exactly were they doing?”
“It was Harriet Barker, Samuel Davidson and Sally Robertson. They have been giving her Chinese burns, snake bites and throwing sand into her eyes. It's not fair. If there's no solution I'll have to shift her to another school. Perhaps I could have the phone numbers of the mothers.”
“That would be a little outside the norm.”
Marsha stood her ground.
“This bullying can't continue. I think it best if you don't favour Iris so much and I have a chance to speak to the other mothers. Perhaps those mean children have problems in their home lives that need sorting out.”
Miss Sampson took out a pen and paper and rather reluctantly jotted down a few numbers.
“Okay then”, she said. “I'm sorry that you feel bullying has gone on at my school. Would you like me to ring the mothers and talk to them about the situation?”
Marsha stiffened.
“No no”, she said. “It's perfectly fine. I can manage the situation. I can stick up for myself and my daughter.”
Marsha walked home with the telephone numbers in her pocket. She entered through the front door, sat down in the living room next to the telephone, withdrew the list from her pocket and dialled. The first number she called was picked up after three rings.
“Hello, is that Candice Barker?”
“Speaking.”
“Hello my name is Marsha Lee Henry. I wanted to talk to you about some of the things that have been happening at Chilton James Primary School.”
“Okay.”
“My child is being bullied. It appears that your daughter is one of the main culprits.”
“I find that very difficult to believe.”
“Well, I'm afraid that it's true. Iris says she gave her Chinese burns. Not pleasant in anybody's book.”
“I am sorry to hear that. Come to think of it, she has been getting a little more aggressive with her brother of late.”
The conversation ended.
Marsha called each of the mothers in turn and explained the situation. Some were understanding, some were not. Some listened, others didn't want to know. Two stayed on the line, one hung up. At the end of it, Marsha told herself that at least she'd given it her best shot and if it still didn't work out they'd change schools to one on the other side of town. She took Iris to one side, told her what she'd done, explained the situation to her.
“I'm sticking up for you”, she said. “Since you're too young to stick up for yourself. With time you'll learn. You'll learn how to give as good as you get, or to dodge and avoid, or ask a superior for help, all according to circumstances, but right now you needed my help, so I've given it to you for free, as a mother rightly should.”
Iris, who was too young to fully understand, but still got the gist of it, stood still and smiled and nodded. Marsha gave her a bear hug and an encouraging pat on the back and then sent her off to bed. It was Sunday night. Time to sleep; time to forget. Time to hope that all would be well in the morning.
Come Monday, a nervous Iris tottered through the gates of Chilton James Primary School, let go of Marsha's hand, with encouragement and walked into her classroom. She took a seat in her usual place. Nobody bothered her before class started. A miracle! She was being left alone, left to her own devices. She pulled her books from her bag – two Dr Seuss numbers; Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! And Oh Say Can You Say? At playtime she wasn't bothered and they didn't harass her at lunchtime either. Iris thought her mother must have worked a magic spell on the class to turn their attitudes around so successfully and she was ever so grateful. That evening, when she went home, she gave her mother a great big kiss on the cheek smack! and said “Thanks very much, Mum” and Marsha knew, without having to be told, exactly what Iris was talking about.
* * *
Natalie was eighteen years old and at the National ballet championships in Auckland. She had been into ballet since she was five; it was her life. She stood in front of the mirror, preening and prancing, admiring her own reflection. She was a mirror hog; she would not give anybody else a turn. The top of the vanity was taken up with all her trophies and awards. The other girls all talked about her behind her back. Natalie cared but she pretended not to. She pretended to rise above it all, taking it all in stride. Deep down, however, she was very affected by their bitching. One of the other girls, the demon in disguise, Bridget, asked for a turn in front of the mirror.
“What's the point in you trying to look good,” said Natalie. “I've got this competition all sewn up anyway.”
Bridget marched over to the trophies, grabbed one of the larger ones and threw it into the mirror. The mirror shattered; fragments of glass flew everywhere and one caught Natalie in the eye. Natalie fell to her knees, clutching her left eye. A silent scream escaped from her lips. A thin trail of blood trickled down her cheek and ran down the side of her mouth. The other girls froze in horror.
“Quick”, one of them said. “Call an ambulance.”
Natalie was taken to the hospital and anaesthetised. Emergency surgery was done to extract the glass from her eye. Unfortunately the eye could not be saved and she was given a glass one.
When Natalie awoke and found out the news she was mortified and she never looked in a mirror again. Her mother and father tried to console her, but she did not dance another step. Her ballet career was over.
Back in hell the devil ticked off pride in the checkbox next to Natalie's name.
“Well done Bridget”, he said, praising the demon although she was nowhere in the vicinity.
* * *
As her disease progressed, sewing became too difficult for Marsha and she said goodbye to Lucinda and the factory, gave up her job and stayed at home during the day, casually attending to the housework and preparing meals. This lead to depression and she began drinking during the day, gin and tonics mostly, which lead to further depression until she took to her bed and wouldn't budge from it except for to pour herself another drink. Don was aware of the situation, but wasn't quite sure what to do about it. Up until this point in time Marsha had been a soldier. Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva had been her battleground. Don took on the role that he had known, when they first met, he might have to take – that of caregiver. He brought Marsha meals in bed, which she simply picked at. Her jaws had begun to fuse together. He tried to talk her into getting up, into facing the world. She had become too afraid of damaging herself, of further ossification. The bed was a safe place, she reasoned, a cocoon, a haven. A place where no injuries could occur. Don knew she was on a slippery, downwards, agoraphobic slope. He tried to coax her out of her budding alcoholic hiding place but she would not be budged. She took to ordering bottles of gin and tonic online, the empty bottles building up besides the bed.
Two of her friends from the factory visited. They came together, Doris Heywater and Patricia Halwell; they came bearing flowers and a basket of fruit. Ignoring the empty gin bottles, they sat down together on the end of Marsha's bed and kept talking to her until she emerged from beneath the duvet. She looked a fright; her hair was matted and unkempt and hadn't been washed in two weeks. She was in her nightie. Doris and Patricia did not care. They did not mind, they simply talked on, figuring that their stream of chatter would help to lift Marsha out of the doldrums. It worked. Marsha emerged from her squalor and said “Right then, that's e
nough of that. I'm sick of wallowing.” She picked herself up, dusted herself off, had a shower and with the help of Doris, dressed in some of her best clothes and the three women went out to lunch at a nearby café.
* * *
Iris's first boyfriend was Jimmy Hallsworth, who she met at intermediate school. Jimmy was short for his age, with buck teeth and braces, but she liked him anyway. He had a good sense of humour and was always clowning around to make Iris laugh. He also did her favours to make her life easier; carrying her textbooks to school for her, lending her pencils when she had forgotten them, offering her a sandwich if she left her lunch at home by accident. Their first kiss was shared (like many first kisses are) behind the school bike sheds as a group of smokers gathered nearby. Minor fireworks went off inside Iris's head. She saw small golden stars. Jimmy, a more down to earth sort, rocked back and forth on his heels in mild delight. They were ever so slightly smitten with each other. It was sweet love, first love, a pure and innocent love, love untainted by jealousy or greed. Jimmy bought a small ring from Habitson & Habitson, a local jewellery store and slid it onto Iris's finger.
About three months into the relationship, Jimmy began becoming possessive, constantly quizzing Iris about where she was going and who she was going there with. Iris hated this; it made her feel suffocated, choked, boxed in. Although she was only thirteen she was her own woman, used to living her own life and Jimmy's constant quizzing felt like restrictions he was placing upon her, as if he was trying to limit what she could do and when she could do it. She politely asked Jimmy to 'give her some space' in the parlance of the day, but Jimmy did not back off. Iris felt confined, trapped. She tried to tell Jimmy so, but he would not listen. Eventually she was forced to send him a letter.
Dear Jimmy,
I am sorry I don't want to be with you anymore. You are far too clingy, like a barnacle. I wish you luck for your future dating.
PS can I please have my Katy Perry CD back.
Kind regards,
Ingrid.
Jimmy was distraught. He stole a bottle of liquor from his parent's cabinet and drank it all. He got behind the wheel of his parents' car and tried to start driving. He crashed the car into a power pole. The car was a write off and so was Jimmy. The police found him with the Katy Perry CD still blaring from the stereo.
* * *
Iris grew older and Marsha grew increasingly frail and progressively trapped in bone. Iris enrolled at Hutt Valley High School where at first, she was popular with the lads, and a little less so with the ladies due to the green eyed monster rearing its head in her life once again. Being older, Iris lived in fear that her mother would march down to the school to sort things out as she had done when she was young (O the embarrassment!) She took her mother to one side and had a word and stated that she was not under any circumstances to venture down to the school to fight Iris's battles now that Iris was older.
“I'm big enough and ugly enough to fight my own wars now Mum”, Iris stubbornly declared.
Shortly after her thirteenth birthday Iris was befriended a group of the more popular girls, led by Bessie Hawkins. They would forge lunch passes and go into town at lunch time to suss out the booty. Bessie was the Queen of the Gang. She never got caught. Unlike some of the others, the novices. She'd give the orders and wait outside the shop, nonchalantly looking at her nails. She'd wait for the other girls to do their pilfering (lipsticks, mascaras, expensive perfumes, scarves, the odd handbag) then pile the lot into her empty schoolbag, to be sold to the highest bidder at that afternoon's four o'clock auction held behind the school bike sheds. Nobody messed with Bessie. Iris felt privileged to be part of a gang; she was just new to the school and had not yet made any other real friends. There was a real excitement to be had from hanging around with the wrong crowd so she didn't bother too much about the consequences.
After two or three sessions as an apprentice Iris was now on her own with a list of items that she had to procure. She went into Wellington on a Friday night, telling her mother that she was buying a birthday present for her friend. After catching the bus into town she met up with Bessie and two of the other girls. After an initial briefing they decided to split up and meet back at the bus station in two hours' time. After an hour's effort, Iris was feeling confident. She had managed to procure most of the items on Bessie's list and was about to head back when she saw out of the corner of her eye a pair of gorgeous Jimmy Choo shoes in a shopping mall just begging to be taken, $1200 price tag and all. Iris couldn't resist. Why not? she thought. After all, she was flying high, on a roll; she had really mastered this art. She unobtrusively picked up the shoes and put them in her handbag, then waltzed casually out the door.
Just as she stepped through the doorway, a firm hand came down upon her shoulder.
“Hello there Miss. Would you please accompany me back into the store?”
Iris felt sick to her stomach. Her mind raced. What the hell was she going to say? What on earth could be her excuse? She was taken by the arm upstairs into an office where they proceeded to ring the police. Shortly after the plain clothes detectives arrived and started questioning her. He also asked her to empty out all the contents of her bag on the table. There lay the incriminating Jimmy Choos along with Bessie's booty. Iris, who was a good girl at heart, was petrified.
“What have you got to say for yourself?” asked the detective.
“I'm sorry”, she said. “I just fell in with a bad crowd for a short while. I haven't even known them that long. I thought they seemed okay at first, then they got into shop-lifting. I just went along with the flow. I'm not the ringleader, honest.”
She froze. Had she said too much?
“So, who is the ringleader of this little racket then?”
“Sorry I can't say. I've said to much already.”
“Right then. Like that is it. This is a serious offence, missy. We're going to have to refer you to Child, Youth and Family. We'll take you home and talk to your parents.”
Iris was swiftly escorted to the detective's Mondeo and they sped off in the direction of Iris's home. Marsha was just finishing cooking the dinner when the door opened and Iris appeared with the shadow of the detective behind her. Marsha peered out into the evening gloom, trying to see who was accompanying her daughter. Was it a new boyfriend? No, too old for that. The detective stepped forward into the light.
“Good evening Mrs Henry. I'm Detective Sargent Craigson. I'm afraid to tell you that your daughter was apprehended shop-lifting in a Wellington mall this afternoon and she had over $1500 worth of goods on her.”
Marsha's hand flew up to her face.
“Oh my”, she said. “Oh Iris what's been going on? This isn't like you.”
Iris burst into tears.
“I'm sorry Mum. I just went along with the others. I just wanted to fit in.”
“So what's going to happen now?” Marsha asked the detective.
“She will be referred to Youth Justice for Child, Youth and Family. A family group conference will be called which will involve the parents, the school, her family, social worker and the police. This will be a preventative measure to make sure this kind of thing never happens again. She may also be banned from that mall for a specific period of time. We would also like to dissuade her from hanging around with the same group of people. We will be visiting the school to find out who the others were.”
Iris slumped into the chair, head in hands. She'd been on such a high, invincible, the incredible thieving woman and now she lay in ruins about to take the others down with her, unbeknown to them.
The following Monday Iris, filled with dread, tried to get out of going to school, but Marsha wasn't wearing a bar of it.
“You'll face up to your misdemeanours”, she said. “It's part of being an adult. You'll thank me for it one day.”
Yeah right, muttered Iris under her breath.
She packed her bag and, with a sick feeling in her stomach, caught the bus to school and wished for a cloak of in
visibility. She entered the classroom and Bessie was the first one she saw. Bessie beckoned her over.
“What happened to you on Friday night then?”
Iris wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole. She decided that the best course of action was to confess.
“Look,” she said. “I got caught shop-lifting at the mall and was taken home by the cops.”
Bessie's face clouded over, then became hard.
“You'd better not have dobbed me in otherwise watch yer back.”
The morning bell rung, for which Iris was thankful, and she scurried to her desk.
She spent the rest of the day avoiding Bessie but knew that sooner or later she would have to face the inevitable. She was walking to the bus at the end of the day when she saw Bessie and a couple of the other girls loitering by the school gate, smoking. She tried to walk past them with her head down but one of them pushed her into a nearby hedge.
“Been dobbing us in eh? Should've known you were too good to be true.”
“New to the gang and not to be trusted”, chimed in another.
“That bloody detective was on my case because of you”, said Bessie. “Should've kept your big trap shut.”
Iris said nothing – to speak up in her own self defence seemed futile.
“You better keep out of our way in future, we don't want narks like you hanging around.”
Shaken, Iris headed for the safety of the school bus, breathing a sigh of relief as she climbed the stairs.
* * *
Don became Marsha's caregiver. He took on the role willingly and did not act begrudgingly towards her. Marsha became more unstable and unsteady on her feet and falls became increasingly common which lead to further damage and bone growth. It was a vicious cycle she was trapped in. However, she continued to face the world with bravery and did not take to her bed or the bottle again. Marsha couldn't cook or clean anymore, but she read a lot; from Byron to Bronte, from Bukowski to Barnes, she took to devouring books with a vengeance and Don was glad that she was still improving her mind as her body quickly deteriorated. Her friends from the factory proved themselves to be true and visited her once a week, often bringing home baking or flowers to cheer her up. If it was not for this, hers would have been an isolated, solitary existence, shut away from the world and locked up in bone, her face turned away from the sun, inclined towards the pages of a book. She was losing herself in literature. Like many before her, she was seeking solace in words when the world, and her own body, had let her down so badly.
Marsha's Deal Page 3
