Bad Behaviour

by Rebecca Starford

  Back in the open air Ruby leads us towards another track, over more concealed roots and wobbly rocks covered in yellow moss. When I put my hand out I’m shocked at the soft, warm feel of them, almost like flesh.

  Finally we reach the summit, sparse except for a few clusters of trees and shrubs. There’s no wind up here either, just a bleached-looking sun off in the corner of the sky.

  I tramp over to a ledge, getting down on my knees to sprawl across the ground, peeking at the scene below. How small the people are, clustered around the packs. Trees, puffy like dull green cauliflower, blot the adjacent fields, with patches of baked brown earth in between. The sky stretches out past the trees, to the ocean—I’m sure I can almost see it.

  What an exquisitely beautiful place we live in. I sit back, suddenly teary, overwhelmed by this mountain and this dishevelled land. I never expected this—this love. I take a deep breath, the crisp, clean air filling my lungs, and it feels like I’m also washing away all the grit and sweat and dust.

  Several hours later we reach the top of the Sawmill. The air has turned cool and the nearby ranges have been cast in long shadows. While the others wander off for photographs, Simone and I find the last bit of orange sun thrown against a chair-shaped boulder. ‘I don’t think I can ever get up,’ Simone groans, legs stretched out in a V.

  ‘Problem is,’ I say, ‘we’re always biting off more than we can chew.’

  Simone’s head lolls in my direction, her eyes still closed. ‘This coming from the girl with the sausage-and-bread record.’

  ~

  That night we build a fire and cook up a feast. Beef stir-fry, fried salami, Alfredo pasta from the packet. Ruby makes a batch of pancakes with lemon and sugar, singing to herself over the pan. After we’ve eaten, Lou and I boil a billy of cocoa. At about eight o’clock the temperature plummets and we all huddle around the fire.

  ‘So,’ says Ruby, stirring her mug. ‘I guess we should think about the Final.’

  ‘Fark,’ says Simone. ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘Why don’t we have a crack at the Circuit?’ I mumble through another mouthful of salami and cheese. I haven’t stopped eating all evening.

  ‘Dunno. Two hundred and fifty kilometres?’ Simone whistles.

  I stare into the orange flames. At the start of the year, the Circuit was an insurmountable challenge, but it isn’t so daunting anymore—not after today, and not with my group.

  ‘It’s a bloody long way,’ I say, dusting my hands clean. ‘But I think we can do it. We’re a fit group, don’t you think? We’ve been training enough for it.’

  I’m aware of my voice getting louder, but I don’t care. I want to rally them, so we can do this together, as friends. I want to share this memory with them.

  ‘Imagine how good it would feel to finish the Circuit,’ Lou muses, grinning.

  I glance at Ruby, who blinks excitedly.

  Simone leans forward to pierce a marshmallow with a stick. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘that’s settled then.’

  ~

  Back at school classes grind on. Exams are only a few weeks away. Girls are starting to panic about them, but I’m feeling pretty good—my grades are improving and I’ve been doing a lot of preparation. I’m feeling confident, for the first time in a long time.

  One night before lights-out, Portia saunters out to the deck with a can of Guinness. A few of us have congregated there after supper. It’s a warm night and mosquitoes buzz around our heads.

  These past few days Portia has started saving a seat for me at lunch. Yesterday she even invited me to run the crossie with her. I’d made an excuse, and she’d nodded graciously, but today she’s kept me a seat at breakfast and dinner. I wonder what she wants.

  ‘You know,’ she says, taking a swig of beer and handing it to me, ‘the teachers have loads of booze in their houses.’

  I take a small sip of the Guinness and grimace. It’s too yeasty, shooting right up my nose.

  ‘You know Miss Constantine’s away this week?’ Briohny says. ‘On her house rafting trip.’

  Portia strokes her chin, smiling. ‘Is that right?’

  ~

  Portia was right. There were dozens of bottles in Miss Constantine’s kitchen—beer, red and white wine, vodka, bourbon, gin. Portia took six bottles of wine and beer and hid them near the big overturned tree off the utility track. ‘For later,’ she says, her eyes crinkling.

  Class is about to start, but we’re still in the tuck room. Portia opens a packet of Saladas. ‘It’s not stealing,’ she says. ‘Her door isn’t even locked.’

  Emma leans in the doorway, books piled in her arms. ‘She’s going to know,’ she says.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Miss Constantine, you idiot! She’s going to notice her stuff is gone.’

  ‘And what’s she going to do about it?’ Portia bites down on a biscuit, butter smearing against her lip. ‘Trust me: no one saw us. No one is ever going to think it was Red House.’

  Over the next three days more girls sneak down to the house. It seems Miss Constantine really does have an endless supply—enough for almost half our house to steal.

  ‘We have such a big stash now,’ Briohny gushes. ‘After the Final Hike, we’re having a massive party. Inviting the boys. You know: Rollo and Ed and Tommo.’

  ‘Your boyfriends, Briohny?’ I tease. We’re back in the tuck room. Portia hovers in the corner, by the toaster.

  ‘You can only come if you bring something,’ Briohny snaps.

  I smile. ‘But I thought you had loads?’

  ‘You can’t have it both ways, Bec. You either bring something, or stay Miss Goody-Two-Shoes.’

  I watch Portia scrape strawberry jam all the way to the edge of her toast. She chews—once, twice—then swallows.

  ‘Won’t be the same if you’re not there.’

  When she says this I feel my face flush red. A party with the boys would be a lot of fun. To have my own stash of booze like the others. Then I think of Dad and how I promised to be good. That I must be good. Is breaking into Miss Constantine’s house really worth it? It’s only two weeks until the end of the year.

  I can sense Portia watching me. The others have raided the house several times already. Surely, if we all got caught, they’d get in more trouble than me.

  ‘I’m going once more,’ Briohny says, her back to me at the sink. ‘You can come with me, if you like.’

  ~

  We wait until after lunch, when everyone else is still gathered out the front of the dining hall. Through the trees I glimpse the house, a brown hut with a flat roof flecked with bird shit. I jump at a rustle in the bracken, but it’s only a skink, scurrying towards a hollowed-out tree.

  ‘Relax,’ Briohny says. ‘No one is watching us. Look, why don’t you stand here on lookout. Cough really loud if you see anyone. Can you do that?’

  ‘Maybe I should go back?’

  Briohny snorts. ‘If that’s what you want. No one’s making you do this, you know.’ She stalks away.

  I hover beneath a tree, scanning the area. There’s no one around, of course. The only movement is the faint rustle of leaves, and far away I can just make out the drone of the ride-on mower. I count to ten to calm the roaring blood inside my head then, to distract myself, I try to imagine the holidays—the beach and the salty heat, and going to the milk bar for hot chips and Coke—but it’s all hazy, out of focus.

  Then Briohny is back, bottles tucked under her arm. She waves me over, and we push our way through the bushes towards the overturned tree. ‘There,’ she says, covering the wine with handfuls of dried-out leaves. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’

  ~

  A few days go by. There are classes, crossies and meals. Nobody says anything about the missing booze. Still, I avoid Miss Lacey as much as possible, certain she will see something in my face that will give me away. I don’t see Miss Constantine at all. Maybe Portia was right. Maybe it really was a foolproof plan.

  The next morning at chapel
Mr Pegg stands at the altar. It’s Father Wilson’s spot, and from my seat in the front row I can see how ashen his face is, and my heart starts to thud.

  ‘I have a grave announcement to make,’ he begins, voice booming around the cloisters. ‘Over the past few days a series of extraordinary thefts have taken place on this campus. Someone, or a group of individuals, has systemically broken into a member of staff’s private lodgings and stolen large quantities of alcohol.

  ‘I’m asking those responsible to own up immediately. If the culprits fail to turn themselves in, I will have no choice but to call in the police, and this will become a most serious criminal investigation.’ Outside the chapel a noisy mass of students congregates after the service. I push through the sweaty bodies, spotting Briohny beneath the trees. ‘What are we going to do?’ she wails.

  I grab her clammy hands, somehow calm. ‘Let’s go back to the house,’ I say. ‘We can’t talk about it here, in front of everyone.’

  But she shrugs me off. ‘No!’

  I grit my teeth. ‘What do you mean, no?’

  She edges away, stumbling in the gravel. Her hair frizzes wildly from her ponytail and her eyes are shiny. ‘I’m telling him,’ she shrieks suddenly. ‘I’m going down there right now and I’m telling Mr Pegg what happened. I’m telling him about you, Bec . . . It’s not fair if you get away with it. It’s not fair!’

  People are staring. Through the crowd I glimpse Miss Lacey standing near the wall, a hand raised to her throat.

  ‘Briohny,’ I say, ‘think about what you’re doing.’

  But she isn’t listening. She has already taken off down the hill, her bottom quivering with each violent stride. I watch her for a moment, then trudge back up towards the house.

  The crowd around the chapel is dispersing. Briohny is now just a blur of pink and blue. I stop at the top of the path. There’s a honeyeater on a branch, and for a moment our eyes meet as I bite on the inside of my lip until the flesh gives.

  When the air starts to feel heavy I head back to the campsite and hunt around for wood. But everything is damp, or too hollow, and thrashing around in the long grass, dressed in my leather boots and Paddington coat, I feel more like an amateur than ever.

  Eventually I gather enough kindling to build a skeleton of a fire, which I fill out with pieces of newspaper from the boot of my car. But I can’t get the flames to take—the paper just smoulders beneath the bark and sticks—and I slump back in the foldup chair, smoke stinging my eyes. Everyone else’s fires are roaring and I curse myself for thinking I could just return to the bush and morph into some kind of Ernest Hemingway, fly-fishing for dinner and wrestling bears.

  I’m about to put out the smouldering mess when the man from the nearby site approaches, his enormous dog trotting along beside him. He’s holding out some firelights and proper wood.

  ‘Here,’ he says, ‘thought you might need these.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I say, almost weak with gratitude. He nods, glancing from the car and back to me. I wonder if he thinks it strange, me camping out on my own.

  When the fire is roaring nicely I make a strong brew of tea in the billy. I grab my bag from the back seat of the car and pull out the wad of letters my family sent me while I was away at Silver Creek.

  The first letter is from Archie. He writes in an oddly formal way, proudly announcing that this is the first thing he has ever written on a computer.

  The next letters are from Dad. They’ve mostly been written on his school letterhead. It’s fatherly correspondence, full of news about how Australia played in the cricket and what work he’s doing in the backyard. At the end of one he writes: I think about you a lot and wonder how you are going. A few staff say I am more grumpy with you away . . . Still missing you and I still think you’re the greatest.

  I read through more of Dad’s letters until I come to the last one, from September:

  I know there have been some difficult times but I am very proud of you and have great confidence in you, your character and your strength. Please know you will always have my love and support in everything you do, and everything you want to do.

  I take a sip of tea. It’s gone cold, but I drink it anyway, trying to push down the thick feeling in my chest. Though the light is getting bad, I still reach for the next wad of letters, this time from Mum. I feel nervous, all of a sudden. I have no memory of these letters: what feelings they might describe, what news. I had wanted to find clues in them, like pieces of a puzzle. Now I’m not sure if I want to read them.

  Like Dad, Mum writes about the week at home and at work. Her letters are breezy, almost jolly: updates on Archie, news from the street; in particular, our next-door neighbours whose surround-sound television system kept her and Dad awake until all hours. She asks about Red House, concerned about me not liking Miss Lacey—She’s doing her best you know, darling. She always signs off with love, with a postscript about how she misses me. In one of the final letters she tells me how much she is looking forward to me coming home at the end of the year.

  I read this page twice and start to cry. I sit like this for about half an hour, my throat raw, my eyes smarting from the smoke. I feel wretched, but also comforted by finally letting some of these feelings out. I have been worried about this moment all day—alone, camping by the river, reading over these letters. I was worried about what they might unleash in me.

  These days I catch up with Dad and Archie regularly, but I can’t remember the last time I saw Mum. We don’t really talk much anymore. I suppose we are estranged, and I cringe at the word, the shadowiness of it. Though she knows where I live—she could call me or drop by the house if she wanted to. She just doesn’t, and neither do I, and now time and the wordlessness hidden inside it has stretched out so far it feels almost impossible to cross.

  I draw out another envelope. The address is inscribed in my hand. I pull out a single sheet of floral writing paper and it takes me a few moments to recognise it’s the letter I wrote to myself on the night of the Solo camp-out.

  Dear Rebecca,

  Well, you are a year older and hopefully wiser after the great Silver Creek year. I hope you also found it the best year of your life.

  At the moment, I love school and schoolwork, hiking and running. I love the boys and most of the girls. Our House is the best.

  We are also known as the naughtiest house in the school. We have had the first hayshed, Stonely Roads, kitchen det, first girls in tents, maybe first Queen Rivers. So we are pretty naughty. So far we’ve done the first Bell Run of the year, first dorm raid, first yelling abuse at teachers and many other things.

  But another look at Silver Creek. My personal side of it. I think it is something I must capture and enjoy the most I can. Sure, there are ups and downs, but I can’t afford to lose time over it. It is only one year. Already it is nearly a quarter over and it feels like I’ve just started here. It’s scary . . . When I first came to Silver Creek I felt a little under pressure to enjoy the year because of what Mum & Dad have put into it. But I know I will love it so much and I hope Mum and especially Dad will be glad I came.

  I’ll stop now. Leave the rest of my thoughts until I read this in a year’s time. I love Silver Creek. In a year’s time, I hope I still do.

  Love,

  Rebecca Louise Starford (Red 12)

  Folding the letter over, I start laughing, desperate to hug my fourteen-year-old self. Did I honestly believe I might be able to trick myself, reading this letter at the end of the year? Did I really think that if I recorded these thoughts they might overwrite the other unpleasant experiences?

  Isn’t Rebecca good? That’s what parents always used to say, year in, year out. It was true: I had always been a studious and well-behaved child. And after everything that happened at Silver Creek I worked tirelessly in senior school and got excellent grades, believing I needed to make it up to Mum and Dad. I won a place at a top university. I was even offered my first job before I graduated.

  But it all
seems irrelevant whenever I think back to that dinner when I told my parents about Cate. Because I can see that it was then that my relationship with Mum started wearing away, like water against a rock. It was then that I began to believe that my sexuality had eradicated every good thing from the past and every good thing that was to come in the future, that I had disappointed them, beyond repair. And it has taken me a long time to understand how complicit I have been in this shame.

  When I broke up with Alexis, I really wanted to talk to Mum about it. For her to understand that I was in pain; that I was crumbling. But one night, as I cried at the dinner table, she had simply stood in the kitchen and said, ‘I hope you don’t expect me to be unhappy about this?’

  That, I think, was the hardest thing to hear. To understand that I would have to carry this grief around with me on my own. I stopped going to the house for a long time after that, and that impacted on my relationships with Dad and Archie. But I still felt it, from afar: Mum’s denial growing harder, calcifying.

  It’s exhausting, always trying to fix this unfixable thing. There may well come a day when I throw my hands up and say, Enough, but not yet. It’s still there, the resilience, and I smile, remembering that Outdoor Education lesson. I did manage to take it away with me, after all.

  The trees shudder in a sudden breeze. It’s getting cold now, really icy. I wipe my eyes. It’s now too dark to read anything more. I tuck the letter back inside the envelope. Then I sit back and stare at the fire.

  I don’t want to lie anymore. I don’t want to live a half-life. I don’t want to keep carrying this shame around, like a dead weight. How is anyone ever going to love you, Alexis once said, when you don’t love yourself? She was right about that: I want to be proud of myself and who I have become, and to do that I have to let go of some of the past.

  And what about Mum? I still miss her, of course—sometimes I can feel her absence, like an ache inside of me. But lately, whenever I think what I would say if she did pick up the phone and call me, my mind always goes blank.