My stomach drops.
Nick looks at me, runs his fingers through his hair and then returns his gaze to the darkness beyond the window. ‘And the old bloke’s car collides with Jason’s ute.’ He nods his head. ‘They were both killed instantly.’
‘Ohmygod.’
‘Yeah,’ he turns his head to look at me for a moment. ‘So my best friend gets killed in a car accident and Mike the police officer gets called, and the on-call doctor gets called, but nobody calls me. I’m his best friend. His best friend. I have known Jason Wilks since I was two years old. And you know why nobody rang me that day – or the day after, or the day after that – and told me that my best friend had died? Because my dad told them not to because I was in the middle of exam week in Brisbane.’
Nick looks down at the floor and shakes his head. I’m at a loss for words. ‘That’s what Dad told Mr Wilks. He actually told them not to tell me because I was in the middle of exams and I needed to do well to get into Medicine. So the morning that my best friend’s coffin was being lowered into the ground I was sitting in a room in D-Block answering essay questions about The Great Gatsby. Sitting in an exam and later wondering whether I’d have the boarders’ sandwiches for lunch or go and get a meat pie from the tuckshop.’
Nick’s eyes have become glassy pools of water, and I watch as he tips his head back and looks at the ceiling – but the tears run down his cheeks regardless.
‘And I know why Dad did it, you know, I get that. I get that, but he should have told me. He should have told me.’ He glances down at me and I nod my head, pushing tears from my eyes.
‘See? Do you understand now what I’ve been trying to say to you? Life can just be ripped from you. And you know why Jason had gone to Emerald that afternoon? To get me a birthday present. That’s why he was in the car. I am the reason Jason was in the car. And, see, I’ve thought about it and I can’t think of another time when he’s done that before, driven into Emerald on a weekday after school.’
I lean towards him, try to take his hand. ‘Yeah but Nick, you can’t—’
He shakes his hand out of my grip. ‘You don’t get it. You don’t understand. When I came to Brisbane last year I promised him I would keep in touch,’ he says, staring at the wall in front of him. ‘And I didn’t. I didn’t keep in touch. And I’d promised him that I’d go home for the weekend of the Rugby League Grand Final and I didn’t go. I backed out on him at the last minute because Mr Tallon wanted me to attend some pointless leaders’ breakfast.’
‘At Parliament House.’ I remember that breakfast. I was pissed off because I didn’t get chosen to go.
He looks at me and shakes his head.
‘I was just so caught up in all that school stuff – the awards and the grades. And, he was my best friend. And this is the thing, Rachel. Life can just be taken away like that.’ He snaps his fingers. ‘He was my best friend. So all this shit about planning our futures is pointless. Jason was planning his future. He wanted to be a mechanic, own his own garage. He’d already set up an apprenticeship with a guy in Rocky. Fat lot of good that did him. He didn’t get up that morning thinking, I wonder if I’m going to be killed in a freak road accident today. And I was already losing interest in becoming a doctor – I just didn’t have the heart to tell my dad. But this settled it. It made me realise that there’s no point in doing Medicine if doctors can’t even save people when they really need it. There’s no point.’
I don’t know what to say, don’t know how to respond to any of this.
‘And now everyone’s concerned about me. Dad, Mrs Ramsay, Mr Tallon, Mr and Mrs Wilks. Dad thinks everything will be solved if I just go on Prozac. They want to medicate me up to the eyeballs. And they’re all scared, you know, that I’m going to do something to myself.’ He turns and looks at me directly. ‘I’m not going to do anything to myself. I know what they’re saying about me at school but I’ve never even considered it, Rachel. Not for a second.’
This time he lets me take his hand and I nod my head.
But then he’s up, pacing the room, rambling about life being too short, how nothing matters and what a shit friend he’s been.
I try to tell him that’s not true.
‘No, nope, I’ve just got to face the truth, and the truth is I failed my best friend when he needed me most. And that’s just something I’ll have to live with.’
He wipes his eyes and sits back down. ‘Jase’d be calling me the biggest girl and giving me so much shit if he saw me now.’ He gives a half-laugh.
‘So tell me about Sam,’ I say. ‘How does she fit in to all of this?’
‘Right, right,’ he says, nodding his head and looking at the floor. ‘Sam is Jason’s little sister. That first time she called was a bit of a shock because I’ve barely spoken to her since the accident. But now I tell her to ring whenever she wants. Your parents said it was okay, and most of the time she just wants to talk about Jase. What he’d be doing today. Like watching “M*A*S*H”. Or hogging the Atari. Or building those stupid model planes that he was so obsessed with. Tonight she dreamt she saw Jason sitting at her desk. Apparently Jase had reminded her to keep training Tads, their border collie, to shake hands, because pretty soon he’d do it. And he told her that he was sorry for leaving her. And that it was nobody’s fault. And that he was with her, watching over her, watching over all of us, all the time. That’s why Sam called at eleven p.m. She’d wanted to tell me about the dream.’
‘Wow.’
For a moment we sit in silence. Eventually I turn to him and say, ‘Do you believe in God?’
His eyes narrow for a moment and he stares at me for a while. Stares in a rather intense way like a doctor looking at a troubling X-ray. Then he looks out the window, and says in a voice like shattered glass, ‘Only in storms’.
We stay up till three a.m. talking about Jason and Sam and school and parents. Talking about expectations and careers and Party Hostess titles and life after school and life after death. We talk about how someone ends up with ‘Dog’ as a nickname. How Nick’s father broke the news to him about Jason on the drive home from the Emerald airport at Christmas. How Mr McGowan just wants Nick to ‘reach his potential’.
We don’t come to any real conclusions that night. We don’t have any epiphanies about the meaning of life or why we’re all here. We just agree that life is random and hard. And sometimes it can feel like you’re barely treading water.
Monday doesn’t go the way I expect. When I get up I look for Nick. I feel closer to him now, and I want to see him and acknowledge what happened last night. But Nick has gone. Already left for school.
‘He got the early bus,’ says Mum, folding some laundry. ‘The German excursion bus was leaving at seven a.m. Now whose black sock is this?’
I walk through the gates at eight-thirty a.m. – just in time to see a certain Zoë Budd saunter through the front gates wearing dark sunglasses, loudly cursing the sun’s excruciating glare. During English she complains – loudly – about having a headache. During Modern History she shooshes people and asks Mrs Finemore if she could keep her voice down. Mrs Finemore responds by telling Zoë that she will not keep her voice down, and that she will confiscate her sunglasses if she does not take them off immediately.
Zoë – allegedly – has a hangover from the party on Friday night. A delayed hangover that has taken three days to kick in. A hangover on time-lapse.
During morning tea, sitting out on the grass, I tell Zoë that she is being ridiculous. She cannot possibly have a hangover on a Monday from a party on Friday night. But it’s hard to tell if she’s listening because she’s lying down, with her head in my lap, and an eye pillow on her eyes. As soon as I start talking her left hand signals me to stop. So I sit there, leaning against the wall of the Science Block, thinking about Nick and last night’s revelation.
By eleven-thirty a.m. the school is buzzing with news that
Zoë Budd has a three-day-old hangover, and that Sally West had a party on Friday night that got kind of out of hand.
By one p.m. people are asking me if it’s true that I ‘got with’ Nick McGowan in Sally West’s study.
By two p.m. the word is out that Nick McGowan saved somebody’s life.
Nick’s at the front door, searching his backpack when I walk up the driveway.
‘Hey. Can’t find my keys.’
I hold up mine. ‘Anyway, looks like Mum and Dad are both home.’ I nod my head towards the garage. ‘You should’ve just knocked. Which bus did you get? I didn’t see you on the bus.’
‘None. Di Randall’s mother dropped me here. They live on Chapel Hill Road.’
‘How was the excursion? Where’d you go?’ I turn the key in the lock and push open the front door.
Mum and Dad are standing in the kitchen. Waiting for us. And there’s a plate of choc-chip cookies staring at me from the bench.
‘We know what you’ve done,’ says my dad. ‘Do you want to start explaining?’
‘Not really,’ I say, in a jokey tone, but neither of my parents smile.
‘Clearly there has been some sort of cover-up going on.’
I look at Nick. He looks at me. Suddenly he starts talking.
‘Mr and Mrs Hill, Rachel had nothing to do with it. It was my fault. I just ah, I don’t want to do Medicine anymore and so I decided that the only way to get through to him – you know, my dad – was to drop down to Maths in Society. There was a consent form. So I forged your signatures. And Rachel, I swear, knew nothing about it.’
My mum looks confused and says, ‘I’m lost.’
Dad says, ‘What has this got to do with the huge scratch we found today on your mother’s car?’
And then I look at Nick and say, ‘We’re dead.’
Dad goes on and on about how disappointed he is in both of us, how Nick’s father and the school will have to be informed.
Nick’s on the phone for the rest of the night. To his dad. Then to Mrs Ramsay. Then to his dad again. I barely get to see him to ask him why he took all the blame for the forged form, and to thank him. Instead, Mum and Dad pile me up with chores and Nick stays in his room, on the phone.
As I clean out Gipper’s cage, I silently ask God to not let him leave – that if He lets Nick stay, I’ll promise to start listening in Chapel every morning. And that I’ll do the 40 Hour Famine every year for the rest of my life. But it’s hard to tell if God’s even listening. Or cares. I begin to wonder if I’d have more success consulting Zoë’s Psychic Lettuce. I do the washing-up alone wondering if Nick is downstairs packing.
‘Can you zip me up?’
I look up. Fiona Curtis is looking over her shoulder at me while at the same time struggling with the back zip of her rainbow-striped polyester clown top. ‘These tops are just so ugly. We look like human beach balls.’
I smile weakly and zip her up.
‘Thanks,’ she says, strapping on her red nose. ‘Are you okay? You seem kind of distracted.’
‘I’m just . . .’
‘Worried about how we’re going to manage twenty eight-year-old kids? Me too. But with two of us in charge, I figure we’ll be alright. I’ll just go and get the placemats. Your wig’s crooked, by the way.’
I watch her go – the human exclamation mark. I can’t believe I’ve been rostered on to do a party with my nemesis. And they haven’t even told us who won the Party Hostess Title – although Vivian Woo reckons we’re finding out on Thursday. I stand and look at myself in the mirror. Fiona Curtis is right. My wig is crooked. But I don’t care. I don’t want to be here today, right now, doing this stupid party with these stupid kids. I want to be with Nick.
I rip open a packet of short red birthday candles and start to jam them, one by one, into the multi-coloured ice-cream cake that Fiona has brought out from the freezer. I haven’t seen Nick since last night. He didn’t get the bus with me this morning. And today he hasn’t been in class. Zoë reckons that at midday, when she walked past Mrs Ramsay’s office window, she saw Nick inside with some old, fat bloke who might have been his dad. And I just want to know what’s going on, what everyone is saying – whether they’re going to expel him, or suspend him. Or just move him to another family where the father’s signature is a little harder to forge on forms and where the daughter isn’t a willing accomplice.
And that’s when it occurs to me, that the truth is I’ve gotten pretty used to having Nick McGowan around.
I put the cake back in the freezer. Fiona walks back into the room with a big grin on her big clowny face and says, ‘They’re here. We’re on.’
The party is a shock to me. Not because it’s mayhem, as you’d expect with twenty eight-year-old kids all high on Coke and ice-cream cake. It’s a shock because of how smoothly it runs. And, as hard as it is for me to admit, it’s all thanks to Fiona. As I hand out the burgers and fries and fetch the drinks, Fiona has the kids wrapped around her little finger. She tells them jokes and makes them laugh and remembers all their names. Just when the kids are getting bored with Simon Says, she whips out a tape deck, puts on some Ratcat and plays a dancing game called Bob and Freeze. The kids love it. I love it. Fiona Curtis is like some kind of freak Mary Poppins clone dressed in a clown outfit.
When the kids are busy eating their burgers I turn to her and say, ‘I thought I was good, but you’re incredible. These kids just love you. How do you do it?’
Fiona laughs and shrugs and says, ‘Dunno. I want to do primary-school teaching next year. I always just loved being with kids.’
That’s when I find myself saying, ‘You deserve to win the Party Hostess title. I really hope you win it.’
Fiona Curtis smiles at me. ‘Thanks.’
Some freckly kid asks for another lemonade.
‘I’ll fetch it,’ I say to Fiona. ‘You stay here and entertain them.’
I move to leave, and then stop and turn around to face Fiona.
‘Is it true that you’re related to Mrs Westacott? That she’s your aunt?’
Fiona looks suitably horrified. ‘What? No, she was our neighbour at Brookfield, but that was years ago. Now we live in Moggill.’
‘Right,’ I say and go and fetch more drinks.
Fiona is hugging all the kids goodbye when I’m wiping down the tables. And that’s when I look up and see Nick McGowan sitting on the restaurant fence outside, watching me through the window.
I walk outside.
‘You never told me you were a twin,’ he says, glancing over at Fiona. ‘It’s so cute how you two dress the same.’
I roll my eyes and pretend to laugh and say, ‘Yeah, very funny. Actually FYI, that’s Fiona Curtis.’
‘Really?’ He takes another studied look at Fiona, who is still hugging kids goodbye. ‘So did you whip her ass? Is the Party Clown Crown yours?’
I shrug, ‘Dunno. Probably not. I don’t really care anymore. She’s actually very good – better than me. Imagine that.’
He laughs, ‘Imagine that.’ And that’s when Nick McGowan jumps down from the fence and stands in front of me.
‘I didn’t see you at school today.’ I give Nick a playful punch in the arm.
‘Yeah, well, that’s sorta why I’m here. There’s trouble in Denmark.’
I feel sick.
‘What? What do you mean?’
‘Dad’s here.’ He glances over at a Yellow Cab waiting in the car park. ‘He got the first plane down here this morning, and now he’s taking me back home. The school have been really good. They were prepared to let me stay, but Dad and Mrs Ramsay think it would be better if I went back with him. To sort some stuff out. Do a bit of counselling. You know.’
I nod my head and look down at the ground not wanting Nick McGowan to see the tears filling my eyes.
‘The good news is that
I think my dad finally gets that I don’t want to do Medicine.’
I nod, and mumble, ‘That’s good.’
‘Yeah. Yeah it is but I, ah, told Dad that I couldn’t go without saying goodbye to you.’
I laugh and sniff and wipe the teardrops from my face. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m really glad you came to live with us.’
And then Nick McGowan shoves a badly wrapped present in my hands and kisses my cheek and whispers, ‘I really wish I’d kissed you at that party.’
And the next thing I know he’s walking away, towards the cab. Nick McGowan turns back around and says, ‘Best free feeling in the world: changing schools one week before the compulsory five-kilometre cross-country!’
He laughs and waves, and I watch as he gets into the waiting cab.
With the taxi out of sight, I open the envelope first. It’s a picture of a freaky circus clown. Inside the card Nick’s written, ‘You in 20 years? Rachel, you’re the beetroot on my hamburger. Nick.’
I rip open my present and find two bright pink washing-up gloves. And Nick’s recipe for beetroot and hommus dip.
I laugh out loud.
The Year Nick McGowan Came to Stay Page 12
