by Fiona Wood
But Holly and I stayed friends.
I mean, people are not their parents, are they?
sunday 28 october
Annie came in saying, look, for all you doubting Thomas fools: A significant astrological event. See, they’re even teaching it in school now. We are studying it. It’s official. So who’s been totally outed as right? Me. Line up and kiss my Sagittarian arse.
She was waving a piece of paper from class; there’s a big astronomical event (lunar eclipse? I think) coming up that we get to observe, and she thinks for this fleeting glorious moment that they’ve put astrology on the year-ten curriculum.
Astronomy is a legit science, bozo. They’re not talking about star signs, Holly told her. Of course it would be Holly, the one who enjoys pricking bubbles more than anyone else.
Oh, right, Annie said, disappointed. But it’s still stars, right? Constellations and whatever?
You will discover new depths of dumbness even you have not dreamed of, said Holly, being a horoscope.
Annie laughed, but you could see her little feelers were hurt. Plus, she’s genuinely disappointed we’re not studying horoscopes. Beam me up, Fred, any time you like.
I climbed up for a short read before the dinner gong and realized someone had been into my shelf. My heart skipped a beat. My box was locked. Okay. But my books were in a different order. I picked up Perfume, which I’ve nearly finished. She’d wrecked my bookmark. She. Who else would it be except Holly? Mean little red spots liberally applied to my face and to yours. Marker pen all over our zits.
I climbed down, taking a breath, and walked over to her. Why did you do this? I asked. She didn’t even pretend to deny it. Where’s your sense of humor? she asked.
I use it for things that are funny, I said. Not for maliciousness, or vandalism.
I turned away, horribly afraid I was about to blow my cover and cry, when Sibylla came over to me. She lifted up my hand and took my bookmark.
Why did you do that? Sibylla asked Holly. But she looked fed up, and didn’t expect an answer.
Holly shrugged with affected nonchalance.
By now they’ve all speculated about who the boy on the photostrip is. There’s not so much going on that it could be ignored as a major issue for discussion and interpretation. I think the consensus is that I’m still cut up about the breakup with my ex. Good enough.
Pippa came over, too, and looked at Holly’s handiwork. Gee, you’re a bitch for no good reason sometimes, she said. (Is there ever a good reason to be a bitch?)
Wah, wah, lighten the fuck up, kids, Holly said as she strolled to the door and left as though nothing had happened.
I’m sorry about your bookmark, Sybilla said.
Me, too.
Looking at it, I wonder why I didn’t have a thousand copies made and wallpaper a room with them and lock myself in there and refuse to come to the godforsaken wilderness with these tedious people.
Sibylla took the bookmark from me and said, I think I can get rid of the dots.
I sat down. I must have looked as sick as I felt, because Eliza got me a glass of water. I took it and drank reflexively.
Sibylla had a small bottle and a cotton ball. It’s my sticky-goo orange oil, she said. We use it to get sticky stuff off… stuff.
I nodded. She dabbed and gently rubbed. It was working. She was chattering to make me feel okay, to put some normal back into the nasty afternoon. And that was working, too.
After making her way over the whole surface of the bookmark, all that is left of Holly’s red pen are the ghosts of pink smudges and a smell of orange.
I can live with that.
Sibylla smiled and said, The scanner in the art room is really good; do you want to make some backups?
I was using all available energy to get the breathing and the shaking under control, but I managed to say, why not?
It only took the twenty minutes before dinner, and we’ve got a heap of scans of Lou’s photostrip. As much as I’m inclined to like Lou, I can’t say I’m getting to know her. She has an arm’s-length wall around her so strong, I didn’t even ask her about the boy in the photos.
When we come out, there is a commotion of some sort—we don’t realize at first because there was no siren, but parked alongside the assembly hall there’s an ambulance.
And someone is being stretchered out to it from Falkner House.
“Jesus,” says Lou.
We hurry over. Pippa is there with the scoop. Cassie, one of the “bulimia for fun” girls, has pulsed out after doing twenty straight coffee shots, also “for fun.”
“They’ve resuscitated her,” says Pippa. “But it was close.”
Pippa folds her arms to impart sister-knowledge. “The ambos are under strict instructions not to use the siren—it happened in Steph’s year, and caused mass hysteria. They were overwhelmed—couldn’t treat all the girls.”
Lou looks at me. “And I was worried about the snakes.”
We head back to Bennett.
sunday (later)
I hate Holly.
I hate Holly.
I hate Holly.
Only fucking therapy insists I am honest, at least to myself.
She doesn’t know anything about Fred.
She doesn’t know anything about the state of my heart.
I can’t have it both ways.
I can’t expect respect for my feelings when I haven’t shared those feelings.
There is a price to pay for privacy, for having secrets. The price is Holly gets to say whatever the hell she wants and I get to shut up.
I know enough about these girls now to know that if I did/if I had/if I do tell them about Fred, they would stick up for me against Holly.
Sibylla and Pippa stood up for me even not knowing how it felt to have someone messing with a picture of Fred.
I’m not even sure that Holly would be so mean if she knew.
Maybe what I hate is my life since your death. And not Holly at all.
Definitely not Holly.
Not Holly.
Holly is not important enough to hate.
Three unusual things happened today. First, I came back after we’d all headed out to the dreaded minibus of horror to find Lou—all packed and ready to go—photographing a big slug of dirty Blu Tack on the back of one of the kitchen chairs.
“Just making my own fun.” She smiled a Baby Bear smile, stowed her camera, and came back out with me.
Second thing was after we got back. I saw Holly slipping out of Cleveland, Ben and Michael’s house. She had a look on her face not too far removed from Lou’s Baby Bear juuuust right look this morning, though Holly’s was nudging into the terrain of the cat who got the cream. What was she doing there? Risking a Vincent visit? There’s something simmering since the Snow Gum Flat party, but she’s not sharing, because I’m in trouble.
The third unusual thing: I had a Ben breakthrough. Not an entirely good one. There was a brief clearing in the hormone fog, and I’m now doubting again that it’s possible for us to “go out” up here.
After breakfast, and before getting ready for our rappelling—“breaking bones can be fun, kids”—activities, Ben and I managed to disappear for a few minutes in the art room.
Oh, to breathe that boy in, to gaze into his eyes, to hold him, to place my hand against the warm skin tight over muscles carved from hardwood; to feel his fit heart beat slowly, to make his heart beat fast. It is poetic and powerful. But it’s also getting so frustrating; there is an element now of picking up where we left off, we go from eye contact at ten paces to raggedy breathing pretty damn quickly these days.
It was time for the talk, but it didn’t quite go the way I thought it would. My script would have included something about never having felt like this before, not being able to imagine feeling like this with anyone else, ever. Wanting—longing—to be somewhere that doesn’t exist in time or space, where we can do what our bodies are telling us to do. With no one around for a long, long time exce
pt us. Maybe a distant servant refilling the cupboards with really good food… but no parents, no teachers, no friends.
Then, ouch! While I was imagining our (tropical) paradise—the not many clothes, the nonstop sex, the excellent food—Ben was biting my neck in a way that felt ravenous and was bound to leave a mark. I gave him a shove. “You’re not auditioning for a vampire movie.”
“Isn’t it about time?”
“Time for the talk?”
“Talk? I was thinking, like, time to do it,” he said, still kissing very persuasively between each word.
“Wow, sweep me off my feet,” I said.
“Come on—you feel the same.”
“How do you feel?” (He feels great.)
“Kinda frustrated—we keep getting to here and stopping.”
“I guess.” So now I’m not about to bring up the nonexistent paradise—there’s turquoise water and a large four-poster bed with gauzy billowing curtains—where we could be alone. Deep breath. Can I even say the word? “There’s always outercourse,” I said.
He looked at me like I’m a fruitcake, or a pervert. “Or… I can get condoms when we do community service stuff in Hartsfield next week.”
“We’re going straight to condoms?”
“Is it a problem?”
It? Depends what “it” you mean. These tricky small words it, this… “This would be a bit of a first for me,” I began.
“Yeah,” he said. Of course he knows. Every single person in our year could accurately draw a chart of the whole grade’s dating and sexual history. Things like that become public fast. I’m a straight-up “good” girl. No form. No boyfriends. No party action even. Until Ben.
“Well, maybe this isn’t the ideal setting for us to start that sort of relationship.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Roll away,” I said. “I’ve got to go rappelling. You can let me know if you want to talk about outercourse.” I kind of perversely enjoyed saying it—it sounds so wrong, so unapologetically stupid. I like to imagine it as pronounced by an American sexologist from the 1960s.
“And PS, that doesn’t include oral sex. It’s strictly hand jobs. Plus there may be something about… feet. Or perhaps elbows?”
“Great,” he said. Another eye roll.
Yeah, great. Does everyone else get to that point of breathless hands in pants without talking about it? Just using instinct, and perhaps a few mime skills? Going with the flow? Am I the only person in the whole world abnormally over-influenced by that early instruction, “use your words”?
The great outdoors is constructed of nonstop handy metaphors. As we geared up for the rappelling, I hardly needed the experience. The sheer rock face was inside me, I was already sliding and looking for a foothold, scared of what comes next. Where were my toeholds, the little safe shelves providing some connection between what I was feeling and what Ben was feeling?
“So, did you have the talk?” Holly asked.
“You and I are barely talking—how do you know anything about the talk?” I said, tetchy.
“Oh, come on, he’s my friend, too, and it’s pretty obvious to everyone here what’s going on. Or what’s not going on.”
Right now is an example of when I could use some time in a well-padded screaming cell.
For four weeks I have—against the grain, but with unexpected increasing tolerance—rappelled, canoed, mountain biked, and run long distances twice a week. I’ve had one real and one fake two-day hike. We’ve been civil to one another most of the time in Bennett House. I’ve had several breathtaking close encounters with Ben. And one falling-out with Holly.
Talking to Michael and Lou about Othello is the best non-Ben fun I’ve had in a while. And I’ve been invited to Lou’s cave. It’s an honor. Are we warming up to be friends?
We are writing about poor Desdemona—classic innocent victim. It seems such a hopeless thesis: the reward for innocence is… death. Another bad deal for a female character, and after a promisingly feisty, father-defying start, too.
How ruthlessly Iago uses Desdemona—imagine creating a character so heartless. “So will I turn her virtue into pitch, and out of her own goodness make the net that shall enmesh them all.” But Iago is the best thing about the play. A pure villain. A wonderful manipulator, “he publishes doubt and calls it knowledge.”
No matter what you start talking about with Othello, it always comes back to Iago. Why is it so oddly satisfying to spend time in the pits of Iago’s mad, bad world?
“We love a good bad guy because we’re intrigued by our own shadow selves, the wickedness that resides in each of our hearts,” Lou thinks, slowly chewing a toffee stick, breathing clouds of raspberry chemicals into the air.
“And life, real life, is so gray and ambiguous and nuanced, so a ‘good’ versus ‘evil’ morality play is relaxing, notwithstanding its extremes; like kindergarten, not that I personally found kindergarten to be relaxing—I found it stressful and often dull—but it is generally thought to be a time of innocence and an absence of complication,” says Michael.
Shakespeare gave himself carte blanche for crazy-faced turnarounds, and an all-time unhappy ending by creating in Othello “a jealousy so strong that judgment cannot cure”… Any amount of bleak havoc could be wreaked.
And why would we not enjoy wallowing in some unmitigated misery when we’re all enmeshed in the public life of relentless school niceness up here. Hi… Hiiiii, how are you? How’s it all going?… Great!
Are we all friends? Yes. Are we a community? Yes. Are we getting along? Yes. Could we strangle one another at a moment’s notice? Hell, yes. Will we? No, probably not. Hiii. Mwah.
We have more or less figured out what we are going to say in our presentation, fifteen minutes to stimulate the broader class discussion. So we play some sounds-like, doesn’t-sound-like.
It’s not as though there’s a punch line for this game, or even that it’s a game as such. There’s no objective, no winner or loser, although there are heated disagreements from time to time.
“Lucent,” for instance, is a bone of contention between Michael and me. For him it’s a sounds-like—bright, shining, clear; for me it’s a doesn’t-sound-like—I think it suggests soft, dim twilight or moonlight.
It is not about onomatopoeia, although it can be that, too; it’s about the vibe.
I go first. “Liminal—because it sounds like it is lapping or shimmering from one state to the next with its repeated soft vowels and humming consonants.” Michael is happy. (I love liminal; it doesn’t just have to be about light, or landscape, or elements, or metaphorical transitions, doorways. Would you care for a glass of Liminal, my salty sweet sour beverage?)
Michael is next. “Temerity—because it bristles—its tail is up; it has attitude.”
“Whisper,” says Lou. “It’s soft. It promises secrets.”
I say, “Luscious—totally a big, wet, licky mouthful.”
“Betrayal,” Michael offers. “Sounds like a noose, or like wind blowing; a rusty rattling through bars.”
Before we get to doesn’t-sound-likes, Lou remembers something. “Ooh, the thing,” she says to Michael.
He says, “Of course. Sibylla, Louisa and I have decided we need to break the law. You are welcome to join us.”
Michael scrabbles around in his backpack and pulls out a fat Sharpie. Lou clears her throat. “This is kind of a family tradition, I guess. You know my mother was at school here? And she told me that none of the place-name signs use an apostrophe of possession where it would be appropriate to do so. She did a bit of apostrophe adding—but all the signs have been replaced since those days.”
“So, we have taken to carrying our weapons of media with us. We intend to deliver the joy of grammar to wanderers in the alpine region.”
Lou shows me “before” and “after” photos on her phone—what was Byrons Trail is now Byron’s Trail.
“Are you in?” asks Michael, showing me another photo. Dylans Trail is now Dylan’
s Trail.
“It’s an unofficial mountain-life project,” says Lou.
“Never leave home without it,” says Michael, handing me the Sharpie.
I take it, looking at them, with their together-hatched plans, and feel a pang of exclusion. A ripping away of something with Michael. And a petty wish that Lou had chosen me to like, not Michael. But my better self swallows that and smiles. How could I not want to be part of such a nerdfest activity?
Lou stays to read, and Michael and I head back to camp.
Holly is weeding the path when we get back. “Where have you two been?” she asks with an insinuating tone.
“We have been in the land of reason,” says Michael. An answer, in its deliberate obtuseness, guaranteed to annoy Holly.
“You’re a wanker, you know that, right?”
Michael looks at her, declines to answer, and goes to put on his running clothes.
tuesday 30 october
Two letters.
One unsent letter missing: potential major problem brewing.
Michael wrote his letter to Sibylla. His loving, I’m-a-bit-obsessed, get-it-off-your-chest letter. Omitted crucial step of destroying it. Cannot find it. He did seal it in an envelope. He thinks.
He lives part-time in cloud-cuckoo-land, so it is possible he has mislaid it. He’s also worried there is a chance he has mailed it to his parents. He doesn’t like that idea much, but it’s marginally less appalling than someone up here finding it and reading it.
It’s flipped his switch slightly, and he has reacted by upping the running.
He is already clocking unimaginably high distances and has been reprimanded for running too late in the day, at the liminal time, when light is fading or darkness is deepening, and ankles may more easily be broken. He knows he is addicted, but he calls it a safe addiction. He is used to dealing with his obsessions.
