Marsh and Me

by Martine Murray

  ‘What do you care?’ Marsh narrows her eyes.

  ‘I don’t want to be friends with someone who keeps everything secret,’ I say.

  Marsh’s voice is like steel. ‘He who seeks a friend without faults dies alone,’ she says as if preaching doom. I have the feeling it’s another Serbian proverb.

  She’s got it wrong. I never said I wanted a friend without faults. I’m full of faults. In fact, my faults make me feel more at home with other people’s faults. And none of this was what I planned to say. I was going be caring and kind, but Marsh made it like a battle, as usual.

  Maybe she can’t help it.

  Maybe she’s just a fighter. Maybe we can’t be friends. Maybe she’s just too tough and I’m too sensitive.

  Marsh glares at me. I glare back. Between us the air feels hard, too hard to get through.

  I go down the hall, open the front door and leave. I walk along the street. I didn’t plan this either. I shouldn’t have got mad. It always makes things worse. Instead of helping Marsh, I probably just ended our friendship. But it’s true what I said to her. You can’t really be friends with someone you don’t know. They don’t have to be perfect. You just make an unspoken deal: I won’t care about your faults and you won’t care about mine. We’ll just let them be there.

  Besides, it’s not like Marsh didn’t get her fair share of good points. She can sing like an angel. She can imagine whole worlds. And she’s original. She’s interesting. She can draw people towards her.

  I’m solid and steady. Nothing flashy. But I showed her that. I sang to her in my not-good, not-bad voice.

  Now, I wonder why I even bothered? Why would I want a friend like her, let alone a girlfriend? I’ll go home and I’ll forget all about her. I speed up my pace just to give some oomph to my resolve. I’ll call Digby. I’ll see if he wants to go catch some tadpoles.

  But I’m worried about Marsh, even if she doesn’t want me to be. Her dad isn’t looking after her, for one thing. It’s as if some sort of sleeping-beauty spell has been cast, and neither of them can wake up to push past the thorns.

  I slow down. I’m confused again. I wanted to help her but it didn’t work. So, what do I do now? Do I give up?

  Around me, Saturday is unfolding. People are starting their weekend. You can almost hear the frenzy of plan-making in the air. The footpath glints with hard, bright sun. A man in tracksuit pants is watering his pots and a tabby cat curled up on a windowsill watches him. Cars whoosh by with people going to buy bread and eggs and the newspaper, going out for pancakes, going swimming before the crowds of kids take over the pool, going to golf before it gets hot, going to buy some tools or walk the dog or going to the market. Life is a whirlpool of other people’s activities, swirling you towards something you hadn’t decided to head for.

  Life doesn’t wait for you. It keeps going, keeps taking you with it.

  I am heading for my hill. I don’t want to hunt tadpoles. I don’t want to fight with Marsh. I don’t want to go home. I want to be free of everything, and then I want to listen to me.

  The hill doesn’t feel like it used to. Marsh has changed it. It’s not my hill, it’s hers as well. And, since we are fighting, it has the grim look of a battlefield. I don’t go near her treehouse. But I can sense it, and I can sense her in it. The peppercorn tree stands there with a closed-up look. Maybe it is just that the day is hot and still and nothing moves. Even the birds have packed it in and gone home to rest, and that makes it desolate and empty. I go down to the pines, where it is shady, and I sit there a while and try to have a long talk with myself. But talking with myself is like wandering around in a maze. I go past the same places over and over again, but I never come across the way out.

  I’m worried, plain worried, about Marsh. But that’s not all. I don’t even know what I’m most worried about. Maybe it’s that I keep failing. I failed with Marsh. I didn’t hit the big time at school. I failed my dad by being a sporting no-hoper, and I’m hardly a guitar legend. Maybe I’m even failing at being me. Everything I try to do just sort of dives downwards and crashes. My life isn’t an arrow, shining and straight and strong and heading me upwards and onwards, it’s an old ball of string that is always knotting up.

  When I finally go home, Mum seems to have forgotten she told me to be back by lunchtime. She is sitting on the edge of the trampoline playing her ukulele. Opal is lying tummy-side-down across the tree swing, idly pushing herself back and forth. Dad is up on the tree platform with a tin of oil and a paintbrush, oiling the wood. I try to slip inside unnoticed, but Mum sees me.

  ‘Hi, Mouse. How is your new friend? Come here and tell me,’ she calls out.

  Mouse. She still calls me Mouse. I never used to care, but right now I do. A mouse is a scared little creature that cats like to eat. I ignore Mum and go inside. I make myself a cheese sandwich. Opal comes screeching inside with the ukulele in her hand, letting the screen door bang shut.

  ‘Did you see the girl in the tree?’

  ‘That was just a story I was reading,’ I say, half surprised that lies just don’t slip past Opal and half impressed too.

  ‘Did you go to that place? Where the bears are?’

  ‘I’ve stopped reading that story now.’

  I take a big bite of my sandwich and munch it gloomily just to show Opal that I’m not in the mood for talking. She screws up her nose for a moment, then rolls her eyes and snorts like a little pig. She runs outside.

  I go to my bedroom, pick up my guitar and start singing one of the songs Mum always sings on her ukulele. Sometimes songs appear inside you, even when you don’t summon them. I’ve never thought of singing Mum’s songs until now. The sound of the song has a sort of back-fence, kitchen-din familiarity, so it’s something I almost don’t notice, but once I start to sing it, it changes. Now I hear how the words mean something. I hear how the song carries the meaning along with it. The song takes me—I don’t know where, but it’s just great to be taken. I sing it out. Three chords and I’m away.

  I’m somewhere I want to be.

  On Monday I get up early and put some bread, nuts and fruit in a plastic bag, and I go up the hill before school and tie it to a low branch. I don’t climb up. I just don’t feel like it.

  And after school I hurry home. I want to play my guitar. I want to play songs and sing them out loud. I’m still worried about Marsh. I’m still thinking about her. I’m still thinking about the hill, the cloud platform, the dishevelled dad, the Plains of Khazar and the runaway queen on the mountain top. In fact, before I even intend to, I’m making up a little song. It goes like this:

  I know this girl

  She’s a wild girl

  Head in the sky

  Won’t tell you why

  No, she won’t tell

  Heart in her hand

  She’s hiding herself

  In a world of little things…Yeah a world like that…A girl like that…

  It’s not a very good song, but I like it. I walk around at school the next day singing it to myself. I like the way it lives inside me, and any time I like I can get it out and sing it.

  During art class, which I like, even though I’m not very artistic, Digby, who is surprisingly good at drawing the bowl of pomegranates, leans over and whispers, ‘What are you singing?’

  ‘Just a song.’

  ‘Yeah, but you keep singing it.’

  ‘It’s my song, that’s why.’

  ‘Your song?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘When did you start writing songs?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing. That was why I wanted to do something. So I made up a song.’

  Digby nods. Nothing really astonishes Digby, unless it’s a small creature. Even still, he’s okay. He lets people be who they are.

  ‘That’s good,’ he says.

  I look over at his drawing. And then Max shoots a spitball of paper at my ear, which is a declaration of spitball war, which
has to be done under the arty nose of Miss Tertle, which requires a lot of sly behaviour, which distracts me from my song and the drawing.

  For the rest of the day I seem to be distracted from everything except my song. Each time I play it, I change little bits, which gives me the sense that something is happening, or changing, or growing.

  By Wednesday, I still haven’t been up the tree.

  It’s not that I’m holding a grudge, I’m not the grudge type. It’s more that I’ve got an energy inside me that’s going full pelt and helterskelter. It’s as if my bones are pushing at something and something is pushing back at them. Maybe Marsh unleashed it. Maybe the songs did. Maybe just singing your heart out makes your heart stand up and ask to be heard.

  Maybe. Because before I know it, it’s lunchtime and I’m walking up to the music rehearsal room. I’m going to go straight in. I don’t know what I’ll say. I’ll just show up.

  ‘Hiya, Joey,’ says Kenny.

  I’m inside. Kenny is adjusting his snare drum, whacking it every now and then. He doesn’t look shocked to see me there—he looks just like he always looks.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Are you practising?’ I try to sound casual. I’m afraid he might tell me to get out.

  ‘We’re about to. This is Clive.’ He nods at a guy on electric keyboards. Clive runs his fingers up the keys, butterflies over a few black notes and nods back at me.

  So far, no problems. No one has told me to leave.

  ‘What do you play?’ Clive asks.

  ‘Guitar,’ I say. Now I’ve done it. I’ve really done it.

  Kenny raises an eyebrow. ‘You never said you played guitar.’

  He has every right to be suspicious. How do I explain? ‘Bedroom guitarist,’ I say.

  Kenny laughs.

  ‘Guitarists always start in the bedroom,’ Clive says.

  ‘Yeah, I drove Mum and Dad mad drumming the table before I got a kit,’ says Kenny.

  ‘I actually started on my mum’s uke. It’s small enough I could play it in the cupboard,’ I say.

  They both grin.

  It’s going well. I’m in the bandroom. I’m talking guitar.

  But then their real guitarist arrives. He looks quite the part—shaggy red hair, white sneakers, black jeans, untanned skin, and a guitar case in his hand. He holds out his other hand to me and says, ‘I’m Hamish.’

  We shake hands. He’s relaxed and confident and sort of loose. He flops on a stool and sings while he unzips his guitar case. I feel a little buzzing joy, a secret little buzzing, swaggery joy. I decide it’s best to leave on a high note, not to overstay my welcome.

  ‘Have a good rehearsal,’ I say, as I head out the door.

  ‘Thanks,’ Kenny nods at me, but shows no sign of asking me to stay. Why would he though? For all he knows, I’m not interested in their band anyway.

  When I go home I sing about it.

  The next day my bones are still singing. That probably explains why I’m not only sitting with ‘the guys’, but also talking with them. It happens like this. I sit down on a bench outside to eat my lunch and Pim Wilder comes along and plonks himself next to me. We lament the healthy state of our lunches. Then Kenny Lopez arrives. Max runs up and takes a pretend mark by jumping up Kenny’s back and Raffie Langslow wanders over with a bag of chips in hand, which he offers around. Mia and Sally follow Raffie, because he’s the handsome one. Sally starts talking about the Battle of the Bands and how she and Mia are considering entering the competition. Last year at the school fete they sang a song together. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t original, either. I wonder if I should tell them, but I keep my mouth shut.

  Then Harry Jay runs up with his ball and says, ‘Who wants a kick?’

  My heart dives. Just when I was really feeling like a normal kid who was part of the gang everything shifts to sport.

  But no one answers. Max grabs the ball anyway. And Harry grabs it back. And then Sally says, ‘I will,’ and she laughs because everyone knows Harry Jay won’t want to kick with a girl.

  ‘When is the Battle of the Bands?’ I pipe up, hoping to draw attention away from the proposed ball game. I don’t even blush. I just say it.

  Mia answers me. Mia always speaks with a drawl. She has a long, thick, shiny ponytail and her eyes seem to be always about to close. ‘Three weeks. March 15th. At the theatre. Have you got a band?’ She says it as if I would be the most unlikely kid in the world to have a band, but she looks at me as if she is interested in what I’ll say. In some ways it feels like I have suddenly sprung into existence, and I can’t do anything except keep the momentum going.

  ‘Sort of,’ I say. It’s not so much a lie as a wishful imagining.

  Kenny whistles. ‘You’re in a band?’

  Boy, oh boy. Now I’ve really done it. My mind spins. I open my mouth. ‘We haven’t got a name yet. It’s just a two-piece.’

  ‘Really. Huh. Well if you need a drummer…’ Kenny drums his thigh with his hands. ‘Who else is in it?’ he says.

  ‘Just a girl. Marsh. She’s a singer.’

  ‘Is she the one you were with at the supermarket?’ Pim says.

  I nod. It’s perfect. Pim Wilder is making my story seem true. Not that anyone would even think I was making it up. Why would they? They don’t know what it’s like to feel like a no one.

  Harry, who has no interest in music, chucks the footy in the air and catches it behind him like a real pro. He says, ‘Come on, the bell will go soon. Who wants a kick?’

  Raffie gives in and Sally follows. Mia stares at me once more as if she’s trying to adjust her idea of me so that it fits her idea of a guy in a band, and then she shrugs and wanders off too, and the gang disperses. But Max is still sitting with me, after everyone else has gone.

  ‘I never knew you had a band, Joey. Maybe you should call your band Dark Horse.’ He laughs at this and helps himself to some of my roasted almonds.

  ‘Why Dark Horse?’ I say.

  ‘It’s something my dad says. It means someone who is in the race, who no one even knows anything about or expects to win, but who wins anyway. Dad likes to think of himself as a dark horse.’ Max chuckles at this. Max’s dad runs the book shop, but he is also a part-time banjo player.

  ‘We’re not planning on winning,’ I say.

  Do I tell Max the truth? We aren’t even a band. Max would laugh. I start to feel my little performance tighten inside me, like something that is about to fling itself forward and reveal what it really is—just a dream I want to believe in.

  When I get home, Opal has my guitar and is trying to play it. I laugh at her.

  ‘Here, give it to me. I’ll show you some chords.’ I try to take it from her.

  She swings it away from me. ‘No. I can do it,’ she says. ‘Listen.’

  She can’t do it at all. For a small moment I even enjoy watching her not being able to do it, like she enjoys watching me not being able to do a somersault on the trampoline. But she doesn’t care. She doesn’t even seem to realise she can’t do it.

  I’ve soon had enough. I put my hands over my ears. ‘That sounds awful.’

  Opal glares at me. ‘It doesn’t sound awful.’

  ‘Yes, it does, because you’re not playing a chord. You’re just strumming nothing.’

  She strums even louder. It’s even more awful.

  ‘Opal, can I have it now?’ I shout.

  ‘No,’ she shouts back at me.

  I frown at her. It’s hard to fight with someone smaller than you. ‘Okay, you have it,’ I say and I stomp into the kitchen to Mum.

  Mum doesn’t like being umpire. She looks at me with that look that says, You should know better.

  ‘Joey, if you just let her show you something, then she will be done with it.’

  That’s all she says. She is listening to something on the radio and I can tell that’s all I will get. I am desperate to get my guitar back so I’ll try anything. But if it doesn’t work, I’ll resort to brute force.

&nb
sp; I return to Opal.

  ‘Opal, teach me your favourite song.’ I sit down, ready to be serenaded.

  Opal smiles victoriously. She even looks coy. She strums quietly now, and carefully, and then she begins to sing softly too. She is making it up as she goes along, I can tell. The more I listen, the quieter she becomes. It’s actually quite sweet in a tuneless way. Suddenly she stops. She thrusts the guitar at me. ‘There. Your turn,’ she says.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘That was a great song.’

  Opal grins. Now she folds her arms across her chest. She reminds me of Marsh for a moment.

  In fact, as I head off into my room to play my guitar in my imaginary band, something comes to me. If Marsh is like Opal, if she is always going to be too proud to accept help, then the way to help Marsh might be the exact opposite of how I had been trying. Maybe when I offer to help her that makes it seem as if she needs help. And that makes her feel ashamed. And then she gets mad at the person who made her feel ashamed—me. So maybe I should treat her as if she doesn’t need any help. In fact, I could go even further and act like it’s me who needs help. If I asked her for help, or confessed I’ve got some problems, confidence problems for a start, she may feel like she could at least stop hiding hers. I’ll tell her how I have really got myself into a pickle because of bragging about a band I don’t have, but secretly want. In fact, this plan could also help me not lose face at school.

  I start to sing.

  She’s so closed up,

  I’m getting fed up

  waiting,

  for her to open the door…

  And let in the sun.

  By the following day, I have my plan. And a new song. And with both of these brimming in my heart, I go up the hill again. And the hill feels like it’s all mine again. Which is not to say that it isn’t also the snakes’ and rabbits’ and woodpigeons’. And Old Grey’s and even Marsh’s, too. But I am in a very caring and sharing mood and I feel as if the hill is all of ours and that we are all a team on the hill. I get near the treehouse and call out.