She was just a small girl with big dreams and a big heart. Her laugh was infectious and her face was transparent. She was so wholly innocent, devoid of guile, that he hated being around her for fear of tainting all that goodness.
And he was a taint. Make no mistake about that.
His was a touch that tarnished everything it landed upon, from good hearts to good intentions. He killed his mother the moment he was born, which essentially turned his father into an alcoholic, who drove his car into a family van killing two kids and three parents.
When he was a child, he would break toys just because he could. He would steal jewellery from his foster parents just to swap them for more toys he could break. He would tell his foster siblings stories about bad people just so fear would force them to stay awake all night and he could sleep in their warm beds instead.
He was bad, bad for anybody he came into contact with, and it never even occurred to him to try and change that.
And then he met Riley.
And then he met her sister.
If Riley was a refreshing glass of cool water, Gabrielle was the whole damn ocean.
He never even saw her coming.
One minute he is being amused by a young girl with an infectious giggle, making him feel as if he has the ability to be a good person with the potential to be loved, and the next he is looking into the sapphire-coloured eyes of her sister and his whole world is knocked onto its side, as if somebody had lined it up with a softball bat and taken a great big swing. These are the eyes of a girl who knows exactly who she is, who knows exactly who he is and exactly what they could be together.
Perhaps if he’d blinked and glanced back down at the girl wearing the pink dress and the mask of concern he might have taken the moment to put himself aright, to lift his chin off the ground, put his tongue back in his mouth and walk away with his heart intact.
But he never stood a chance. When Gabrielle wanted something, she got it. She wanted him. She got him – end of story.
And so a year passed: maybe two, maybe three in which he was so lost in this girl with the wicked eyes and the knowing grin, with the long blond hair and the devious intentions that he didn’t see the destruction they left in their wake. Every time they were together, he could swear steam would rise. Every time they parted there would be the distinct smell of smoke in the air.
Theirs was a union of lust and manipulation, of fucking and fallacy, where the only pleasure they hoped to gain was in the amount of pain caused. Their love was deceptive, masochistic at best – a brutal game of domination and everyone a loser.
If it hadn’t been for Riley they might have killed each other.
It was the sad eyes that finally made him see. She looked at him and told him how cold he had become, how mean, how angry. Why did his kisses with her sister always leave him frowning, licking his lips to see if he could taste another? Why, if they loved each other, did her sister always go to sleep crying, and why did he always look like he wanted to as well? And most importantly, was he really happy?
It didn’t take him long to find the answer.
Their last fight was the biggest, the most vicious, with lies for bullets and accusation-filled grenades, but it set him free, and for that he would wear his battle scars as souvenirs.
But just when he thought he could leave without a backwards glance, the silent tears of a girl who smelled of apples gave him his first real taste of regret. With her in his arms, both soaked by the rain, he knew he had chosen too early; he knew he had chosen the wrong sister, and he knew for sure how cruel Fate was.
And it was too late. All he had was a full tank of gas and the sweet impression of a kiss on his lips.
Now it is ten years later and she is a warm memory to keep him company on a lonely night. She is the first person he thinks of when he is standing in a queue at his local supermarket behind a girl with the same coloured hair, who drops an orange that rolls to his feet, who bends to pick it up, straightens and meets his eyes … familiar eyes … filled with sudden recognition and mirrored disbelief.
And he hears that infectious giggle again, making him laugh, incredulous at this coincidence and at how wily and fickle a fiend Fate can be, to remind him of the only good in his life and give it back to him when he least expects it.
And he wonders if he is still dreaming.
It is raining the day he leaves her.
If she were ever one to believe the weather could be dictated by one’s moods, this moment would be proof enough – the desolate clouds, a slate-coloured grey; the raindrops, a stabbing cold, piercing and piecing away her brittle inner resolve until she is left a shivering, shuddering mess, soaking wet, standing beside his motorbike, wishing for a miracle.
But he is leaving and there is nothing she can do.
She can’t ask him to stay because she knows he won’t. He won’t ask her to follow because he knows she will, so that just leaves the impasse as it is – her standing in the rain, watching him close the door to his house for the last time, watching him walk down his driveway for the last time, towards her, towards his bike, each step spelling out goodbye.
Her mind goes back three years. It is when she first sees him and realises he, to her, will be so much more than just another boy. It is the first time she hears him laugh and it is like light; it is like breath, and she remembers a movie that begins in black and white until the heroine meets the hero and she sees in colour again.
That is he, to her – colour, breath, light; in a world so bleak that something so simple as a dimple when he smiles makes her smile.
If only he hadn’t met her sister.
She had loved him first but he had loved her sister only, in a love that sizzled and scorched, too hot to handle, eventually burning them, singeing them, leaving a smoking trail of ashes in its wake for those on the sidelines to clean up afterwards. Theirs was a selfish love, a greedy love, a love that couldn’t possibly be love if it could end so easily and so mercilessly – battle scars as burns and no lesson to be learned.
And so his charred heart could not find the desire to mend, and her hopeful heart could not find its love returned and there were no more excuses as to why he couldn’t be hers – no blockades in the shape of her voluptuous sister, no red lights as bright as their age difference – nothing but the bleak and positive truth that he just … doesn’t want her.
So why is she standing in the rain, believing otherwise? Is she so pathetic that she can love so entirely and not see reason? Is her love so retarded that it can’t understand rejection when it is staring her so plainly in the face … preparing to straddle its bike and leave her with the smell of exhaust fumes and all her prayers and wishes shattering at her feet?
Not even she can prepare for how high her hope can climb. Didn’t it know that the steeper the rise, the more painful the landing?
But she supposes where he is concerned, hope is all she has. She’d long ago become acquainted with the bitter taste of unrequited love; only it had never before been marinated with the assurance of his absence. As painful as it was to see him with her sister, at least he was still here. At least she could still see him. At least she could still see that dimple and hear that laugh in loud boisterous colour. At least there was an at least …
‘Please don’t leave,’ she whispers, the quiet words barely heard over the millions of raindrops pounding their conviction into the cold cement.
He gazes down at her, his emerald eyes indulgent, his smile forced, his words resolute. ‘There’s no reason for me to stay.’
She could emphatically protest otherwise. There are hundreds of reasons for him to stay, thousands even, all selfishly motivated but reasons nonetheless. She could have given him whatever he wanted, if only he’d asked … if only he’d wanted it from her.
‘Will you write to me?’
She watches his shoulders shrug and his lips curl into the smirk she knows so well. ‘Sure.’
She sputters into helpless laughter and wipes at
her wet eyes with wet fingers. ‘Liar.’
He smiles again; a genuine one this time, and gently pushes a rain-sodden strand of hair behind her ear, and she knows this is it … this is goodbye … this is their last touch, their last words, their last look, the last smile she will see, the last … everything.
‘Will you at least tell me where you’re going?’ she gasps, already knowing the answer but doing anything to prolong his departure.
He sighs heavily, turning away from her, throwing a leg over his bike, reaching for his helmet. ‘You know I can’t.’
‘Ethan …’ she sobs, her resolve finally collapsing, along with her voice. ‘Please …’
She can’t help it. She can’t hold it back. She wishes she could be strong. She wishes she could retain a little dignity. She wishes she weren’t a distraught fifteen-year-old girl making a mess of herself in front of a nineteen-year-old boy who was never, ever a boy; who was never destined to be hers.
She wishes she could be fiery and beautiful like her sister, cunning and elegant like her mother, or cold and distant like her father. Instead she is just a girl – hopeful with a heart full of love and nobody wanting to accept it.
‘Riley,’ he murmurs, his brow creased with concern. ‘Come here.’
He barely finishes the words before her face is buried in the cool leather of his jacket. She feels his arms wrap around her; she feels his lips on the top of her head and she suddenly knows what it is she wants, what it is she can steal. If she can’t give her heart, and he won’t stay, then she just might be happy with one small token. She can bury it among the warm confines of her soul; alongside the gathered pieces of her heart, in the dark place where dreams play and hope seeks comfort.
So she lifts her head and presses her soft lips against his.
It is a kiss tasting of innocence and forever love – too chaste to be passionate, too sweet to be unconvincing, but it is no less intimate than the kiss of lovers. It could have held definite meaning and positive intentions if she were not too young and he had the strength to stay, but as they are never meant to be anyway, she will just have this and hope it will be enough to let the colour linger a little longer.
She pulls away; she licks her lips and stares into his troubled gaze. ‘If I can’t keep you, then I can at least have that.’
It is almost enough to see understanding break dawn in his eyes, as if he just might know how much he means to her and what little she is content with, but she knows there is nothing left to do but bid farewell, and as strong as she thought she could be, she just can’t do it.
She steps back onto the sidewalk, out of his embrace, folding her arms around her body lest she fall apart at his feet, and whispers, ‘No goodbyes.’
He nods slowly and gives one last smile full of agreement tinged with the subtle hint of regret. ‘Then I’ll see you.’
And she stands there thinking to herself, ‘no, you won’t see me, you can’t see me because you never really did, and now you never will because you’re leaving,’ and even as these true, meaningless thoughts are gathering in the back of her throat, preparing to be left unspoken, he has started his engine and it is drowning the sound of her silence anyway.
There are no big revelations as he leaves. No lessons to be learned. No moral to the story. All she knows is that she hurts, hurts: the pain is excruciating. She cannot even imagine love being worth this, and she knows how much of a cliché she is right now – a girl … just a girl, standing in the rain, watching the departure of the boy she loves, hope sinking to her knees, making them heavy, refusing to fall because she may not get back up again.
And as he turns the corner, out of sight, she closes her eyes.
And she wonders about a world without colour.
Are you new here?
I guess.
I’m Riley. What’s your name?
Ethan.
Want an apple, Ethan? I have two.
… sure.
Obsession with Katherine
Helen Waaka
It was Miss Barrett who introduced me to Katherine – years ago, when I was still a teenager. She tried her best, I can see that now, but at the time I was preoccupied with other things – like Bill Tāwhai, the college hunk, who had eyes with no pupils. He stared at you from behind two deep wells of melted dark chocolate. Bill stopped me at the college gates one Friday afternoon. He gave me a cross on a silver chain, then asked me to the five o’clock pictures the next day. Kissin’ Cousins was on. I never liked Elvis but I told Bill yes, I’d meet him there, even though I knew I wouldn’t. My sister and I were never allowed anywhere without our father’s permission, and I knew he wouldn’t let me go. It wasn’t even worth asking. He always had the last say in anything we did. Mum had no say at all. There were other distractions too.
That same Friday afternoon, my sister Ruth and I got home from college to find our mother sprawled on the couch – a half-empty flagon of sherry on the floor beside her. The black and white TV flickered without sound in the corner. The curtains were partially drawn and a sunbeam of dust particles tried its best to pierce the depressing staleness of the room. Flies crawled over the curling crusts of a half-eaten tomato sandwich on a plate by the sherry bottle. I wet a flannel from the bathroom, wrung it out and put it across my mother’s forehead, the same way she did for us when we were sick – and she was sober. She opened her eyes briefly and mumbled something about cooking tea. I told Ruth to start peeling the potatoes. I opened the fridge and found five grey sausages, two shrivelled carrots and an onion. I chopped the carrots and onion, covered them with water and added a teaspoon of vegemite. I put the lot in a casserole dish in the oven. I went into my bedroom then, opened my satchel and pulled out the poetry book Miss Barrett had loaned me for the weekend. I lifted it up to my nose and ran my fingers across its hard, embossed cover. I could smell the Blue Grass perfume she used and that unmistakable musky book smell that altered my perception of the world, blurring my vision and causing a light-headedness that almost made me faint. Poetry was an escape for me. I became someone else when I read poetry. I wrote poems too. I could write how I felt in a poem, but not in an obvious way. You could read into poetry what you wanted to.
I always sat at the front in Miss Barrett’s class. I remember one afternoon listening in on a whispered conversation she was having with Mr Ellery, the principal.
‘Which one do you think I should send in?’ I heard her whisper. She stood with her back to the class – not a hair on her head out of place. ‘They’re all good, but these two stand out.’
She was talking about the Form Three poems. The Waiapu Times wanted a school poem for an Arts feature they were doing. Mr Ellery was silent for several minutes while he read the pages she’d handed him.
‘This one’s very good,’ he said at last, thrusting the pages back at her. ‘Who wrote it?’
‘Rowena Bramley,’ Miss Barrett whispered. I looked up.
‘She wrote the first and second choices. I can’t decide which one to send in,’ I heard her tell Mr Ellery.
‘That one,’ he said. ‘Definitely that one.’
Miss Barrett looked up then and caught me staring.
‘Get on with your essays, class,’ she told us in her pearls and twin-set voice. Then quietly to me at the front, ‘Your poems are very good, Rowena.’
The poem Mr Ellery chose for the paper was ‘The White Room’. I stole the title from a 1960s song by Cream. My poem was about a room you could escape to that was completely safe and white and clean. No darkness or dirt anywhere.
Miss Barrett made me read my poem out to the class. I was scared at first standing in front of everyone, the second-hand, knitted cardigan I wore quivering against my legs. Halfway through, I forgot the class was there. My voice and knees stopped shaking. I looked across at Miss Barrett. She had a soft smile on her face. Everyone was looking at me, but for the first time in my life it didn’t matter. It was after that Miss Barrett started giving me books to take home from the li
brary, and sometimes books from her own bookshelf: mostly poetry books. I spent hours at night with a torch under the candlewick bedspread with Miss Barrett’s books, pulling without thinking at the black and pink coloured wicks until there were more bald patches than candlewick. Miss Barrett’s nickname was ‘Polly Parrot.’ After she started lending me books I got teased and called ‘Polly’s pet’. We weren’t supposed to take library books home. They had to stay in a locked cupboard in the classroom and be read in free period. Too many went missing, the principal said. But Miss Barrett got them out in her name and gave them to me. I took them home in the side pocket of my satchel. That way they didn’t get marked with soggy leftover jam sandwiches or moist half-eaten apple.
It was while I was reading Miss Barrett’s Book of New Zealand Verse one night that my father came into my bedroom. He smelt of stale beer and cigarettes, even though he didn’t smoke. He sat at the end of my bed, the naked bulb in the hallway shining behind him, hiding his face in darkness.
‘What do you want?’ I asked, holding the candlewick bedspread up to my chest, feeling for the familiar smooth, bald patches.
‘Just sitting here,’ he hiccupped. ‘Watching you.’ The outline of his body had a weird glow against the hallway light. If I stopped looking at the edges of his silhouette I could see the blur of his features, but not enough to show me his expression. I was glad of that when he reached out and put his hand on my knee through the bedspread.
‘Piss off,’ I shouted in a whisper.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Don’t be a spoilsport. Your mother’s asleep.’ His other hand reached for my breasts.
Huia Short Stories 9 Page 25
