Cracked

by Clare Strahan

  Sage disappears, to the kitchen, I guess. Rosemary throws Thyme the hair straightener. ‘Hook up with this,’ she says. She turns to me. ‘Do you want to borrow a dress?’

  ‘No, I’m good, thanks.’ My black hoodie and jeans feel like the only real friends I have.

  It’s nearly half an hour before the boys come barrelling back in.

  ‘Come on,’ says Rob. ‘Party time. Hurry up. Can’t expect us to wait all day.’

  There’s a flurry of girls and phones and we spill out onto the footpath. I have no idea how the girls walk in their shoes. Rob is next to me, his arm jostling mine.

  ‘Carry my Cruisers, Robbo?’ says Thyme, tottering over to us and glaring.

  ‘Sure.’ Rob takes the four-pack, but keeps walking with me.

  ‘Clover’s mummy says she has to go home at midnight,’ says Rosemary, supporting Thyme, I guess. They laugh.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ says Rob. ‘The party will hardly have started.’ But when we get there, he hangs with his mates and forgets I even exist.

  Thyme finds me and says, ‘Jones,’ as if I’m her lifesaver, which, scary as it seems, is a relief, as since we arrived I’ve been standing alone in the corner like a dork. She’s drunk her Cruisers, lost her shoes and hangs all over me, pulling me into the house, through the laundry and out to the back deck. It’s dark because everybody who’s having a good time is around the other side in the partied-up garage.

  ‘I really, really love Robbo,’ she confesses to me, as if I’ve asked. ‘We did it three weeks ago at Pete’s house when his parents went to Sydney for the weekend and he said he loved me. He did. He said, “I love you El.” Like that: “El.”’ She’s all dreamy for a second, then shakes her head like a wet dog, but in slow motion. ‘But now he reckons it was just a hook-up.’ She breathes in my face. ‘If I’d known, I wouldn’t have done it and he’d still be trying to get into my pants.’

  ‘Did you use a condom?’ I ask.

  ‘Nup,’ she says and vomits in my lap.

  In the car, it takes forever to convince Mum that the vomit she can smell is not my vomit.

  ‘But there was obviously alcohol there.’

  ‘Yeah, someone sneaked it in. But I didn’t drink any of it, did I?’

  ‘No, you’re right. You didn’t. Well done.’

  ‘Yeah, hurrah for me.’

  ‘You’d better have a shower and put your clothes straight in the washing machine when we get home. You reek. Have you been smoking?’

  I’m glad it’s dark. ‘No way.’

  When she tucks me in bed she says, ‘Apart from the vomit-girl, did you have a good time, Clover?’

  ‘I think so.’ I spent most of the party outside, with wet jeans, helping Thyme keep the chuck out of her hair. ‘Anyway, it was nice to be asked to go.’

  ‘Mm.’ Mum kisses my head and turns off the light. ‘It is nice to be asked.’

  On Monday morning at school, I drag Keek over to where I’m hanging with the Herbs. ‘Guys, this is Keek.’

  The four of them give him a weak hello. He grunts and rides off.

  ‘He’s such a weird guy,’ says Sage.

  Rosemary smooths her fringe. ‘What’s the hardest thing about being a BMX rider?’

  ‘Dunno, what?’ says Parsley.

  ‘Telling your parents that you’re gay.’

  On the way home, to try and make myself feel better about having laughed, I tell the joke to Keek.

  ‘Hilarious,’ he says. ‘Not. And there’s about a million versions of that joke on Facebook, anyway. Why do you hang around with them? They’re such backstabbers. All of them, footy knobs included.’

  What is his problem? It was funny when they told it. Sort of. The Herbs and their footy-club crew are small-minded, it’s true, and a bit snarky about anyone who isn’t them, though it wouldn’t surprise me if Jason Eldrich is genuinely gay: he’s obsessed with the idea, just in a negative way. But they’re not that bad, not really – it’s not their fault they’re so . . . it’s the way they’ve been brought up. Eventually, when we know each other better, I might be able to broaden their minds. And I hang around with Keek’s friends often enough, even though they ride their freakin’ bikes all the time and practically ignore me. And unlike Cho, Rosemary at least likes me. I think she does, anyway.

  ‘Well, I guess that makes me a backstabber too, then?’ I say.

  ‘No,’ says Keek. ‘It makes you a homophobic backstabber,’ and he rides off.

  Wire fences festooned with Keep Out signs have been erected at the bottom of the reserve to keep us away from the new roadworks. I stare from behind the wire. From here, the creek is concealed, like a secret. Soon it’ll be hidden forever. It’s as if the trees are holding their breath.

  Keek rides up, stops a few feet away and stares, too. ‘Nothing’s happened yet,’ he says.

  We’re joined by a big invisible rubber band – stretched tight – that’s going to bounce us back towards each other, or snap altogether and send us flying off into the ether.

  I feel his eyes on me. ‘So, I didn’t get to ask, how was your party?’

  His face is mercifully free of mockery. ‘It was all right.’ I look back to the pensive trees. ‘Would’ve been better if you were there.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Coz then Thyme might’ve spewed on you instead of on me.’

  Keek moves towards me with a suitable mixture of repulsion and delight. ‘What happened?’

  We turn our backs to the fence and I tell him all about it. Well, not all; nothing about Rob.

  Mum stands in my bedroom with a tin in each hand.

  ‘It’s a collection,’ I say.

  ‘A collection of aerosol cans. Do you think I’m a fool?’

  I’ve gradually transferred the ones from the musty old cardboard boxes in Keek’s garage to my bedroom and I have a whole drawer full, though a few are empty, and there are more hidden under my bed; my prize possessions: Monstercolour classics with the proper caps that Keek helped me buy.

  ‘You get a discount if you order them online but pick them up from the shop in the city,’ he told me, but I was too chicken to go down there, so he had them delivered. But I love the look of Uncle Andy’s cans too. They’re like works of art themselves.

  Mum doesn’t agree with this point of view. ‘Criminal damage – that’s what they call it,’ she yells.

  ‘They, they? You crap on about freedom and resistance, but when it comes down to it, you’re just as conservative as everyone else,’ I yell back. ‘Is Banksy a criminal?’

  Mum shakes the tin at me. ‘So they are for street graffiti?’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  She plops on my bed and stares at the cans. ‘Darling, it’s not as simple as you think. I agree that graffiti is possibly the last peaceful challenge to notions of property and ownership – especially since they crushed the Occupy movement – and I absolutely do believe we are here on earth to transform the world and ourselves through art,’ she takes a breath, ‘but down at the community house I’ve met kids who’ve not only been fined a fortune but locked up for criminal damage – just for graffiti. Good kids.’ She looks up at me, stricken. ‘I couldn’t bear for that to happen to you.’

  ‘Mum, stop panicking. No one’s going to lock me up.’

  ‘You have so many other beautiful ways of expressing yourself, Clover.’

  ‘Drive me to the bowl?’ I say. ‘Please?’

  Mum stares at the stretch of painted concrete. I think for a horrible moment she’s going to cry.

  ‘It’s not hurting anybody,’ I say.

  ‘God,’ she says at last. ‘Please don’t get yourself into trouble. You won’t do anything stupid will you?’

  She grabs me and hugs me. ‘I can’t stand the thought of you being crushed by a train.’

  ‘Nah. I’m not that hardcore, Mum. It’s safe down here. Nobody cares.’

  Mum doesn’t mention it again, but gives me Banksy’s Wal
l and Piece for my sixteenth birthday.

  ‘I love it Mum, thanks.’

  ‘Penny Jones!’ says Aunty Jean. ‘That’s monstrous. Do you support vandalism?’

  ‘She’s not scrawling “I love Michael Hutchence” over every available surface like some people I know might have done, Jeannie. She’s an artist, aren’t you, Clover?’

  ‘Con artist, more like it,’ says Aunty Jean. ‘But here you go: knock yourself out,’ and gives me an iPod and a rude birthday card.

  I stifle my disappointment that it’s not an iPod touch and give her a hug. Turning sixteen isn’t as big a deal as I thought it was going to be. Eighteen is better. Everyone does everything when they turn eighteen.

  I open Wall and Piece and am taken to another world. I think it’s love.

  Yamouni is leaving.

  ‘This is my last day,’ she says as we sit in our circle, outraged and depressed.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ says Mark.

  Rosemary reaches out and squeezes his giant shoulder with her manicured, fake-tanned hand and that, more than anything, makes the fracture rumble and spit like it’s full of lava.

  Yamouni uncrosses her legs and stretches them out in front, leaning back on her chair. ‘You know what? It isn’t fair. But your VCE work is up-to-date and we’d be moving on to another unit anyway. And I think, for me, it’s meant to be. I’m not cut out to be a teacher.’ She wriggles her feet.

  There’s a swell of discontent at that, but she waves us down. ‘No, I mean, it’s not the teaching, it’s the whole “being a teacher” thing. You guys don’t know the nonsense we’re put through – and that’s before we even set foot in the classroom. And the meetings!’ She’s exhausted, just remembering them. ‘I’m an artist and I’ve already been teaching for eleven years. I thought maybe a change of school – but it’s no good. It’s time I did something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I’ve saved some money. I’m going overseas.’

  ‘To Iraq?’ Mark’s chins wobble with worry.

  ‘Well . . . maybe on the way home. No, I’ve got the opportunity of a residency, at a place called the Goetheanum, in Switzerland, to study and to sculpt.’

  I know the place she’s talking about. ‘That’s a Steiner thing,’ I blurt. ‘That’s where my mum reckons I should go when I leave school. To study art.’

  Yamouni smiles at me. ‘Maybe I’ll see you there, Clover? I’d love that.’

  I want to tell her that I’d love that too. More than anything. But I can’t.

  I can’t speak at all.

  A week later, Sutcliff introduces our new art teacher at school assembly. He’s got short, silvery hair and wears jeans, heavy bike boots and a black leather jacket.

  ‘He’s got a Harley,’ Trung whispers to Alison.

  ‘What’s that?’ she whispers back.

  Kids around them laugh, and Jason says, ‘What a dweeb.’

  I feel the sting of unfairness: everyone knows Alison Larder’s the smartest kid in our year level.

  Trung doesn’t laugh either, and when he smiles gently and says, ‘A motorbike,’ the red subsides from Al’s face.

  She smiles back at him and says, ‘Oh, yeah.’

  Sutcliff glowers towards the noise and her eyes land on me.

  It’s Sutcliff who lets us into the art room. ‘Mr Jardine won’t be long.’ She pulls the key from the lock and bestows one of her admonishing glares. ‘I expect you to respect the room as if Ms Yamouni were in it.’

  We haphazardly gravitate to our customary circle and suddenly Jardine’s there, between Thyme and Rosemary.

  ‘Hello everyone,’ he says. His voice is friendly, but I feel a resistance well up, a hatred towards him, as if somehow that will bring Yamouni back – or punish her for leaving us. By the look of Thyme, she feels it too.

  ‘So . . . what’s going on?’ he asks.

  There’s a bleak pause and then Mark claps twice and says, ‘Mark’. We teeter on the brink of apathy, then join in. Jardine looks surprised, or maybe it’s confused, but follows along – his name is Craig.

  When we’ve gone twice around the circle with ‘whatever comes’, Thyme says, ‘It’s just this thing.’ She almost smiles. ‘This thing that we do.’

  Jardine is slightly bewildered. ‘Well, fine,’ he says. ‘Now take a seat.’

  He takes off his jacket and hangs it over the back of Yamouni’s chair, then surprises us by taking off his boots and socks as well. He pulls a pair of crocs from his backpack and puts them on.

  ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘That’s better,’ and turns to us as if he’s just remembered we’re there. ‘Righto, attention please.’

  People stop talking and stare. Craig gestures to the walls, where prints of the masters hang along with our studies. ‘I agree with Mrs Sutcliff that you’ve done terrific work in this class and there’s plenty of talent, but to be frank, you lot probably know more about the old masters than I do, so hold on to your hats because we’re in for a change of pace.’

  After Yamouni it seems scandalous that a teacher should admit to knowing less than us, and it’s hard to imagine Sutcliff singing our praises, but my interest quickens as he outlines his plans for the module. A silhouette first, and then screen-printing, and we can make our own simple stencil design for a garment.

  ‘What kind of garment, Mr Jardine?’ asks Thyme sceptically.

  ‘I think your clappity-clap has established that you can all call me Craig,’ he says. ‘A T-shirt.’

  She huffs, disappointed.

  Rosemary says, ‘Can we, you know, like, alter it?’

  ‘After you’ve printed it and I’ve assessed it . . .’ he stretches his shoulders back and cracks his neck from side to side, ‘you can, you know, like, do whatever you want to it.’

  I’m paired with Mark for the silhouettes. We’re allowed to go outside to find walls to tape up our paper. I position Mark so his shadow casts in the right place, ready for tracing.

  ‘Are you sure the paper’s big enough?’ he says.

  I don’t know if it’s wrong or not, but I shave a chin or two off Mark’s silhouette.

  By the next week the silhouettes are done, mounted and pinned on the walls. It’s fascinating to pick who’s who. How quirky and different we all are, even the Herbs, who often strike me as similar. Craig asks us to drag the tables into one big central table and half-a-dozen kids help him lump in the wooden frames with their screen-printing mesh from the storage room.

  ‘Keep to simple geometric shapes for now and later we’ll introduce text. And careful with the art knives – any mucking around and you’re out,’ he tells us sternly. ‘Each colour is a separate process.’ He puts bottles of screen-printing ink on his desk. ‘We’ll only use these.’

  We’re back to the primaries: yellow, red and blue – and a fourth colour Yamouni never encouraged: black.

  Over the next weeks we design our stencils and practise with paper and paint before Craig hands out the white T-shirts and stiff T-shirt-shaped cardboard to stick them to. We use a hair dryer to dry the ink between printing – ‘flashing off’, Craig calls it, which makes us snigger. It takes weeks to finish them all and it’s fun, like a factory, with various groups going in turns and everyone helping each other.

  I’m glad I chose text – the plain geometric shapes look a bit clunky and arbitrary to me. With Craig’s help to nut out the black-on-orange, I’ve managed to make a sort of word-search puzzle:

  I overhear Rosemary and Thyme snarking over how they don’t get it.

  After the last screen-printing class, a few of us stay behind to wipe down the tables with citrus cleaner.

  ‘You’ve got a good eye, Clover. Good balance,’ Craig says, giving us a hand. ‘When it comes to registering the colours, you can just see it – you could have some fun with print design, if you wanted to.’

  Encouraged, I ask, ‘How do you stencil on walls?’

  Craig wipes his hands on a rag. ‘It’s just a different application.
For a vertical surface you’d need a flop stencil – exactly like it sounds: you flop it up against the wall and roller it, or spray it. Airbrush templates are just another kind of stencil.’ He chucks the cloth at the sink. ‘The stencil is simply a tool. It’s the vision of where you want to be, how you use the tool, that’s where the artistry comes into it.’ Craig pulls his jacket off the back of his chair. ‘Deconstructing images can be a good place to start. Anyway, I’m off.’

  He passes Keek coming through the art room door. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m looking for Clover.’

  ‘Righto.’ He turns to me. ‘Make sure the lock’s snibbed when you go, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure, Craig.’

  ‘Craig?’ says Keek, when he’s gone. ‘Righto. You want a dink to the reserve?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘But I think I’ll go straight home.’

  He shakes out his curls, suspicious. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I reassure him. ‘But I feel an obsession with flop stencils coming on.’

  Keek says, ‘God,’ and backs away. ‘See ya later, CB,’ he calls from the corridor.

  At the end of our next class, Craig gives us back our artwork from Yamouni’s last module.

  Mum is chuffed with my A+ and shows off my folio to Aunty Jean, who’s uncharacteristically serious while she sifts through my work, spreading it out over the dining-room table.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Clover,’ she says at last and gives me a big squeeze. ‘What a clever clogs!’

  Yamouni has left messages in my art journal and I keep going back to them, but it’s hard to believe that nothing is a highlight unless there’s the dark to make it shine when on Saturday morning the roar of destruction drags me outside to find my mother standing in the street in her pyjamas, shouting at the neighbours across the road.

  Intensely embarrassing she may be, but I’m right there, at her shoulder. The old gum they’re chopping down shudders as another branch rattles to earth, guided by men with ropes. The tree-loppers ignore us. The neighbour across the road tells my mother to calm down.