‘I was going to do an essay called “A Day in the Life of a Tea Towel” but I would have needed high-speed film.’
‘That’s pretty funny,’ he says.
‘Then I was going to do an “Elegy for the Apple”, but every time I tried to find an apple, Margaret beat me to it and devoured the poor thing before I could get started.’
I have used the word elegy in the wrong place. I meant something else but can’t think what I meant.
‘How bad’s your insomnia?’ he asks.
‘Very,’ I say. ‘Sometimes I want to die just so I can shut down.’
‘Me too,’ he says, leaving his free hand resting prone on the table like it has fallen from a height.
‘Really?’ I ask. I hope like mad that he is a fellow sufferer but I also suspect he’s lying, and that I might find him out.
‘How bad? How many nights in a week, on average?’
‘At the moment … about five out of six.’
‘What about the seventh?’ I ask.
‘Then I don’t so much sleep as knock myself out.’
‘How?’
‘With stuff,’ he says. ‘But you don’t want to get into that. It’s stuff my mum had to use when she was really sick.’
‘Morphine?’
‘Sort of, but you really don’t want to get into that.’
Tom’s face shows a mixture of not wanting to talk about it and wanting desperately for me to ask him more.
‘Well, my friend,’ I say, pretending to be very urbane and in some kind of cool movie, ‘what shall we do now?’
‘Go home?’
I’d love to be inside somebody else’s house.
‘Could I have a nap at your house, in a spare bed, or something, like in a guest room? I really like sleeping in spare beds, especially in box rooms,’ I say.
‘Me too. I love to nap in other people’s beds.’
‘Really?’ I say. It’s hard to believe that Tom shares yet another of my most personal obsessions.
‘Yep. I used to get my mum to set up beds in all the guest rooms in the house until I was about fourteen …’
‘But eventually even those beds lost their knack?’ I say.
‘Yeah,’ he says and he lunges at me to kiss my cheek.
I am still not embarrassed, but when he finishes kissing me, I look down at the fleshy part of his thumb and think about the way it looks like a toddler’s thigh, to stop myself from thinking too much about what is happening.
‘I used to sleep on the fold-out bed in the lounge-room,’ I say. ‘I could always sleep this way.’
‘It’s a funny beast … insomnia,’ he says.
‘How many bedrooms do you have?’ I ask.
‘You’ll see.’
‘Is anybody home?’
‘No, they’re away.’
My heart kicks like a boot in my chest.
We arrive at Tom’s house. It’s so enormous it makes the Harding house look like a shack. He stops and grabs my arm.
‘Shit,’ he says. ‘I forgot about the char.’
‘The what?’
‘Char. It’s short for charwoman.’
‘As in maid?’ I say, incredulous. I think I know this word from Austen or Dickens, but I’m not quite sure. I just know it. ‘How awful,’ I say.
‘It’s a pretty big house to keep clean,’ he says.
‘I suppose,’ I say. ‘It’s not exactly a cabin, is it?’
‘The second-biggest house in town,’ he says.
‘Who has the biggest?’
‘Actually,’ he says, ‘I think mine is the biggest.’
Leona and Erin would love to do over Tom’s house, and kick him in the shins in a dark alley. They’d call him scum and say that it was disgusting that three people should take so much for themselves.
A few years ago my sisters brought me along as a kind of decoy when they burgled houses in wealthy suburbs. They thought nobody would suspect two teenage girls dragging their little sister around with them.
I wanted to explore these rich houses alone. It was my fantasy to discover that the owners would not be back for a few days and to stay there, so that I could treat the house as my own. I wanted desperately to find an oubliette, a secret passageway or a secret dungeon whose only entrance is a trapdoor activated by removing a book from a bookshelf or moving a bar of soap from one part of the bath to another.
I craved being alone in these big rich houses the same way that I crave being alone in old Catholic churches.
Tom smiles. ‘Tom’s cabin …’ he says. ‘I just got it. That’s why you said cabin.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Uncle Tom’s cabin. You took a while.’
‘I’m a bit slow sometimes,’ he says. ‘We’ll have to come back another time,’ he says. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Doesn’t matter. I think I might go back to class. I have Modern Literature. We’re doing Death of a Salesman.’
‘That’s one of my favourite Arthur Miller’s,’ he says.
‘I like it too,’ I say.
I want to talk about Willy Loman and about Biff stealing the fountain pen, but somehow I don’t want to talk to Tom about it.
‘I might just go for a walk,’ he says. ‘Do you want me to walk you back?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘That’d be great.’
We say goodbye at the school gate.
‘Farewell, my fiend, until next time,’ I say.
‘Wait!’ he yells. ‘Do you want to meet tomorrow, the same place, same time and all that?’
I have no idea what I want. If Tom wasn’t perfect looking, if he had an uglier face, I don’t think I’d give him the time of day. That’s what beautiful people can do.
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘That’d be good.’
When Tom pushes his face forward to kiss me, I respond too slowly and our cheeks collide. He holds my shoulders and we try again and this time our lips meet, not for long, but long enough. We stare at one another for an instant and my body is so alarmed I might as well have flung myself onto an electric fence.
‘Oh my God,’ he says, and this seems like the right thing to say.
I turn and walk away.
After dinner I write a note to Margaret.
Dear Margaret,
I have caused you too much pain and anxiety and I feel totally rotten for it. I am very sorry. This stupid note won’t make up for anything, but maybe telling the truth can’t hurt. I love living with you and I love the way you are. I love that you are so at peace with yourself and maybe you’d understand me better if you knew that I am not. You are an excellent, smart and humorous person and I’d be so sorry if you hated me.
I am sorry about smoking in my room. It will never happen again.
Your secret, apologetic and far too silent admirer,
Lou
In the morning, when James and Bridget are getting into the van, Margaret kisses me on the cheek. She’s wearing one of five almost identical navy suits, all spick and span and creaseless and smelling as though soaked in perfume overnight; cleaner than any of my clothes could ever smell.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
‘You’re welcome,’ I say.
‘But you don’t need to write me. You can talk to me anytime,’ she says. ‘I’m available for you at any time. If you want to talk.’
The thing is, I have lost the desire to talk to Margaret. I don’t want her to put her hand soothingly on my arm, or sit too close to me and grab at my eyes with hers, or clean her reading glasses with a serious face and talk at me like a kindergarten teacher.
In American History class I find out that Yvonne has left to live in another state. It occurs to me that I haven’t thought about her once since we met and it really makes no difference to me that she’s not here any more. I’ve never really missed anybody and probably never will. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to miss somebody. I would. I’d like to miss somebody very much. I simply never have.
At lunchtime I write a note to Brid
get in which I tell her that I dreamed she was a surgeon and that she won an extremely prestigious award for her work in a Third World country. I tell her that in this dream she gave such a beautiful speech that it was played on every TV station in the country. Although I didn’t really have this dream, it sounds right.
Tom doesn’t appear and I feel sorry for having spent the whole day feeling sick with nerves: sorry that I haven’t eaten since we parted and that the saliva in my mouth has become flocculent and gluey with hunger and fear.
I stick the note in Bridget’s locker five minutes before the end of lunchtime and she finds me at my locker at the end of the day.
‘I just want to say thank you for the note,’ she says. ‘You’re very sweet.’
‘That’s all right,’ I say. ‘My dream might be a sign about your future.’
‘Maybe,’ she says, blankly. ‘Maybe not.’
Suddenly she leans across to kiss me on the cheek. But again, I move forward too quickly. Our faces collide and it feels as though my nose has poked her eye. She puts her hand over the left side of her face.
‘Sorry,’ I say.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ she says. ‘Anyway, I have to go to basketball practise now. I’ll see you tonight.’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘See you.’
It’s a ridiculous thing but I almost say I love you, as though the words are waiting – like a bee – to land on somebody.
After dinner, I write a note to James, borrowing heavily from the sentiment in the card to him from Isabella.
Dear Southpaw,
Do you remember our conversation about left-handed boxers? I haven’t forgotten about that or anything else we’ve talked about and one day I’ll find out why it’s not ‘Eastpaw’. You are one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met and I think you should write comedy or do something else that calls on a brilliant wit and fast mind. If I don’t always laugh at your jokes, it’s because I’m a bit jealous or too nervous. I’m very glad you’re my host-brother. And I hope we’ll always be friends.
Yours,
Lou
Several weeks pass. Instead of watching TV at night, I lie on my bed and compose notes. I am at peace doing this, in my lovely room, which seems to have friendly feelings towards me again.
Sometimes I draw pictures or compose stories for my letters; funny stories or detective stories in which Margaret, Henry, James and Bridget feature as characters. My notes are flying all over the house and although I have never received a written reply, I suspect that the Hardings are now sending notes of their own to each other. The house has become quieter; has a new atmosphere. We don’t sit together at night, or borrow videos, or eat out at family restaurants or talk in the kitchen.
Margaret and Henry say they are reading more books. Margaret says she hasn’t read a big book in years and might even try reading War and Peace. She and Henry go straight to their dens after dinner and James and Bridget go to their rooms to study.
At weekends, the Hardings are rarely in the house. When I go to the lounge-room, they are never there. I don’t go with them to their concerts and charity fundraisers and picnics, not because I think they don’t want me to, but because I prefer being alone in the house and want to give them some time to get on just the way they were before I came along.
14
It’s lunchtime on Monday and Tom turns up. It’s too cold now to sit outside, so I’m in a study room, reading a book.
‘Hello,’ I say.
‘Sorry I haven’t been around,’ he says. ‘My mum had to have some blood tests and I was feeling a bit blue.’
‘That’s okay,’ I say, thinking he is the worst liar in the world. ‘I guess sometimes a person just needs to be alone so they don’t have to explain how they feel.’
‘That’s right,’ he says, sitting down and putting his arm over my shoulder. ‘You’re really incredibly perceptive.’
I saw Tom two days ago with a girl, arm in arm, coming out of a Journalism class. She was his female equivalent, extremely good looking and tall, with a loud, sure voice.
‘Thanks,’ I say, and find myself wondering what I look like.
‘Hey, wanna come to my place? I’ve just picked up my new guitar. I can sing you some of my songs.’
‘Okay,’ I say.
Tom shows me through the downstairs rooms of his mansion then takes his guitar out of its case. We sit cross-legged on the couch in the vast lounge room, and talk. The guitar leans against the wall, and I suspect that he doesn’t know how to play.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asks.
‘No, I’m too happy.’
‘How come?’
I tell him how much I like to be in other people’s houses. I tell him about the time my sisters and I broke into houses.
‘Christ, how old were you?’
‘About thirteen,’ I say.
‘Wow!’ he says again, trying to hide his disapproval, trying to sound impressed.
‘Anyway,’ I tell him, ‘one of the houses we broke into had a tennis court and swimming pool. It was during the summer holidays. I played the outgoing message on the answering machine while my sisters were upstairs looting the jewellery and the message said the exact date that the occupants were due back. Two weeks more. I told my sisters I wanted to stay in the house by myself for a few nights and to tell my mum and dad I was staying with a friend. They couldn’t care less so they let me.
‘I stayed for three nights, slept on all the beds, watched movies on the wall-mounted TV screen, read some books and ran up and down the spiral staircase with the stereo blaring through speakers that stuck out in the corners of all the rooms.
‘But the best part was raiding the big double-door fridge, eating their food and using their microwave. One day I got a tub of chocolate ice-cream out of the freezer and ate all of it while lying on an inflatable bed in the swimming pool.’
None of this is true, but I have daydreamed the story so often and so vividly that its details are as known to me as if it happened, not once, but many times. My sisters, on the other hand, have robbed houses; I tell them I despise them for it, but sometimes wish that I could be part of it just to see inside the houses.
Tom stretches his arm out over the back of the couch.
‘I feel a bit like that when my parents leave me alone in fancy hotels,’ he says. ‘Especially in Europe.’
Especially in Europe!
My heart folds up and puts itself away like a deckchair in winter. How dare he be that rich? How dare anybody be born so stinking rich.
I look at the top of his head: his shiny, clean curly hair. I look at his pure wool jumper and his clean blue jeans.
‘I’d better get going back to class,’ I say.
He has me by the hand and is staring hard, his eyes in tensely focussed, a dart player eyeing the dartboard. I let him hold my hand because I’m not so good at hurting a boy’s feelings when he wants to be affectionate. I’m usually too busy being surprised that he wants to touch me at all.
‘Hey,’ he says, ‘it’s not my fault my parents have money.’
I look at the home-entertainment unit, which takes up almost one half of a vast white wall, and say nothing. My hands are sweating a kind of depressed and sticky syrup. Tom lets go, puts his head down and rubs his forehead.
‘Hey, man,’ he says. ‘There’s no point walking around the rest of your life with a chip on your shoulder just because you’re not rich.’
If he weren’t so good looking I’d have hit him by now.
I look at the guitar, and wish people didn’t have to speak at all. I wish that it were dark as pitch, and we, with only a candle to guide us, could have played the guitar and sung some songs.
I look at him, will him to say something better so that I can give myself an excuse for liking him.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Wanna hug?’
‘I’d rather you played the guitar,’ I say. ‘That was the original plan, wasn’t it?’
‘
Yeah,’ he says, smiling his beautiful smile. ‘I should keep my trap shut more often.’
‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘Maybe not.’ And then, just because he has an exquisite face and I want to be the boss, I kiss him. Then I put my hand on the back of his head and pull his hair.
‘Ow!’ he says, and for no real reason, this makes me feel better.
I laugh.
‘You are the best kisser ever,’ he says.
And because I feel better, I say, ‘I could do that all day. All week. All year.’
We stare and stare, locking eyes to see what kind of feelings this conjures, and, surprisingly, it does conjure intensely good feelings.
‘Guitar,’ I say.
‘Cool,’ he says.
Tom stands and lifts me off the couch. There is something about being lifted that makes me sad and happy at the same time.
We go upstairs and Tom brings his guitar with him. He stops on the landing.
‘There’s a spare room just in here.’
‘Show me,’ I say.
The room is perfect. Huge windows open onto a balcony. A four-poster bed with blue curtains, tied at the corners. An ensuite and a walk-in wardrobe.
‘This isn’t a spare room.’ I say. ‘Spare rooms are dingy box rooms without a window.’
‘It’s for my dad’s parents when they stay,’ he says. ‘Come on, I’ll show you my parents’ room.’
He holds my hand hard and tugs me along.
His parents’ room is twice as big as the one we’ve been in, but too opulent. There’s a bathroom attached to the bedroom with a spa so big that midgets could hold their Olympics in it. The taps are brass and the floor and bath are marble and the walls are mostly mirrored. It’s a bit pornographic.
‘God,’ I say. ‘What’s your room like?’
Tom smiles, grabs my arms and pulls me towards him. We laugh, our eyes averted, nervous and unsteady on our feet. After a brief collision, we kiss.
Tom tastes of gum and tea and his lips feel soft and inflated like teething rings. We stop kissing for a moment and look at each other’s faces. I wish that we were lying down; that it were night and that the curtains were closed.
How the Light Gets In Page 13
