by John Marsden
Well, Trace, I gotta tell you, I’m fair dinkum rapt about your story. You could be bigger than Virginia Andrews. Actually you write a lot better than Virginia Andrews. So, keep on goin ‘till it all stops flowin’, OK? Love you heaps,
Mandy
Oct 12
Dear Mandy
Thanks a lot for your letter. You are good to tell things to. But winning this thing hasn’t been that great. I didn’t tell anyone here, but Mrs McKinnon did. And somehow it gave some of the hacks and even some of the slags — that’s us — the idea that I was going soft. OK, yeah, it’s like you said in your letter. So they started brown-nosing round. And I had to put on an act to let them know I was as big a bitch as ever. So now I’m on PS — Punishment Sheets — and I nearly got worse.
PS (Pure Shit) means you scrub floors and clean toilets and stuff. It can be slack or bad, depending on who’s on. Today was Mrs Neumann, and she’s bad news. She hates my guts. So every job I did, it was like, ‘Do it again.’ No reasons, no explanation, just ‘Do it again.’ I’m stuffed tonight. And at the end she said, ‘Now try writing a story about PS.’ Really sarcastic.
A few months ago she came into the common room. It was Saturday afternoon and we were having our big thrill, our hour of TV. She said she had a phone message for me. We’re not allowed to take calls, but people can leave messages if there’s a special reason. I put out my hand for it without looking at her, and she cracked. Started screaming about how the trouble with me was that I didn’t know my place, and how she was going to teach it to me. She was saying I thought I was King Dick and everything. She said if I wanted the message I had to kneel down. I sat there for about three minutes, then I did it. No-one’ll ever know what it cost me to do that. But Mandy, I’d been in here six months, and no contact from anyone, except your letters. So I did it. Even though it was in front of the others, I still did it.
But that wasn’t enough. She was loving it. No-one was watching TV any more — they were watching me. She said, ‘Hands and knees Tracey.’ Then she ripped off a few more comments about teaching me my place. I was still kneeling, and she said again, ‘Get on your hands and knees if you want it.’
Well, I couldn’t do it. I knelt there, only half listening, then I dived at her. But she was expecting that. She jumped back, some other hacks grabbed me, they chucked me back in my slot for the weekend, and that was the last I heard about my phone message.
Monday I even asked her politely for it, but she walked away. Trouble is, I don’t know if there ever was a message. She could have been faking it, to set me up.
How’d I get onto all this? Oh yeah, explaining what a bitch Mrs Neumann is. So anyway, all I’m saying is that they haven’t exactly been chucking parties here for me.
Mandy, can you do me a big favour? Please? This is the only thing I’ve asked you for (I think). Can you get a bottle of champagne and drink it for me, to celebrate? With some friends, if you want, but don’t say what it’s for. Then write and tell me about it. I really want you to do this.
With love,
Trace
October 21
Dear Trace,
Thanks heaps for the card. I didn’t think you’d remember. It was beautiful — you’re really artistic. That’s at least two things I know you’re good at. Did you write the poem? It was so funny.
It was a good birthday for once. Had about twenty people round for a barbecue. Mum and Dad kept a low profile, Steve sulked in his room (his exams start soon), Katrina was home. So that was all good. We partied till about one o’clock. Adam came, and gave me a beautiful silver chain. He’s getting serious. Mum and Dad gave me a bike — good one too, once I figure out how to use the gears. But it’s got two wheels and a seat and a chain and handlebars and everything, so can’t complain. No, seriously, it’s what I asked for. I want to get fit. Steve gave me a helmet to go with the bike, but Mum and Dad would have paid for it, nothing surer. Katrina gave me two stunning shirts, both from Daniel. One’s black with silver lining, sort of cowboy style, with a big silver star on the left boob, the other’s thin red, white and blue stripes, two pockets, short sleeves, really smart. She’s so nice — she’s always broke herself and these must have cost a fortune. I’ll have to get her something extra good for Christmas.
I got lots of little pressies from the people at the party and a book from Cheryl, called Confederacy of Dunces, which looks rad. Mai gave me a beautiful Vietnamese vase, so delicate, with tiny blue flowers on it. And Naomi Barker gave me a Power Without Glory CD that I didn’t have. (PWG — their second one. It’s the one with ‘Dining at the Y’ on it.)
Then Saturday night Adam and I went to a school dance. It was a sort of farewell for the Year 12s. Bit of a joke ’cos I went and Steve didn’t. But what I had to tell you was, on the way there I made Adam pull in at a bottle shop and get a bottle of champagne. Then we went down the river, where there’s lots of space. I’d brought two glasses from home and we sat there for about half an hour talking and drinking. He kept wanting to know what it was for but I wouldn’t tell him. But I drank a toast to you, a silent toast.
So that was your celebration party. Not as good as you deserve but the best I could do. Hope you like it.
You know, that story about Mrs Neumann — I honestly don’t think I’d survive life in there. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I couldn’t sleep, the night I read your letter. Why do people act like that? What makes them do such things? I don’t understand the human race. My dog looks better all the time. I don’t know how you face up to each day.
I know this is another delicate question, and you ignore the ones you don’t want to answer anyway, but is there any chance you’ll be out for Christmas? I thought people got so much time off for good behaviour these days that they never stayed in for long.
Well, thinking of you. Take care.
Love,
Mandy
Oct 23
Dear Mandy,
No, I won’t be out for Christmas. To get time off for good behaviour, your behaviour has to be good. Anyway what do you think I’m in here for — nicking a Mars Bar? Riding the trains without a ticket? Overdue library books?
No offence Mandy, but you seem bloody innocent sometimes.
It’s funny, I go to so much trouble not to whinge about this place when I’m writing to you. I don’t want you to know how bad it is. And I go to so much trouble to be ‘nice’. Don’t want to scare you off. But I guess a bit leaks through.
Thanks for having my celebration for me. I knew I could rely on you. I’ll pay you back one day.
I think maybe they’re right about me and I am getting soft. There’s this new girl in here, Anita Kelly, who’s busting her gut (and she’s got a big one) to be the biggest slag in the whole valley. And to do that, she’s gotta get past me. And you know something? I might let her. I can’t be bothered anymore, somehow. I look at her and think ‘Go for it, Anita. You think you can stand the heat, I’ll even lend you the matches.’ Fair dinkum, she’s the biggest slut you ever saw in your life. I reckon she’s into the golden grommet, and don’t ask what that means. She’s in here for RWV — you might have seen it on the news. It was a bad one.
Well, while I’m in the mood to write about this place I guess I better answer some of these questions you’ve been firing at me again. But there are some things I can’t talk about, OK? All that family stuff especially.
So, first question, when do I get out of here? That’s easy. I get out of here when I’m 18. On my happy eighteenth birthday. Yep, I get out of here — straight across the road to Macquarie Women’s Prison. I stay there till I’m 20 and four months, give or take a few years.
We’re allowed visitors once a week, but in here (Maximum S I mean) they’ve got to be approved, and you have screens between you and all that junk. I don’t have any visitors anyway.
And you asked where I used to live. Well, I’ve moved around a lot. The last place where I lived in a regular house was Jefferis with my Nanna. But my fa
vourite was Mt Vickers. We were there three years, when I was a kid. Geez it was nice. Everyone was so friendly, and everyone knew everyone, and there was this huge lake where we went water-skiing and swimming. I often think about it. That was the happiest I’ve ever been.
The book with my story comes out about June. It’s a long time to wait. It’s going to be called Bits and Pieces, and it’ll have stories and poems from all over. It’ll be in hardback first, then paperback. Mrs McKinnon said I’ll get a few free copies, but not many. I’ll have to sign a contract, or some guardian’ll have to sign it for me. Big time!
The money gets paid into a trust account. In other blocks you can have money — they get canteen twice a week — but not in A Block. We get a hand-out on Fridays — a choice of two blocks of chocolate or two packets of smokes. I usually have one of each. (But if you’ve been on PS that week you miss out.)
As for the story being true — yeah, most of it’s true. Close enough. Blue’s name wasn’t Blue, he didn’t have a bike, and he didn’t have a gang, only me.
And I did write the poem on the birthday card. Glad you liked it.
OK, is that all? Can I go now? No, seriously, I don’t mind you asking. Just as long as I can keep choosing which ones I answer.
Catch you later!
Love,
Trace
October 29
Dear Trace,
Thanks for answering so many questions. I’m naturally inquisitive I guess. I don’t mind if there’s stuff you don’t want to talk about. It’s up to you.
But I tell you — I get so scared sometimes. What if I say the wrong thing? What if this gets messed up? And I tell you what scares me the most — all these dark hints you keep dropping about what you did to get put in there. I didn’t know you’d be going on to the women’s prison. That scares me. I guess you did do something pretty bad. You’ve never once hinted that you didn’t do it, whatever it is — like, that you were innocent or anything. So where does that leave me? In a bit of a mess, still thinking that you’re a friend, someone I trust (although you’ve given that a bit of a belting), someone who’s basically, I dunno, good.
But maybe you’re not. Maybe all my instincts are wrong, and they’ve been lying to me. I know I can’t let myself believe that, otherwise the whole world falls apart and I’ve got nothing to hang onto. I have to keep believing in you or I can’t believe in myself. I don’t quite understand that, but I know it’s true. I have to believe that if you did something awful it was because you were off your face or on drugs or you had an unhappy childhood or you were brainwashed in a cult or something. And, maybe most importantly, that now you’re sorry you did it.
I don’t mean, ‘Sorry miss,’ like you say at school, or sorry you got caught and got locked up for so long. I mean sorry deep inside you, so that you’re a different person, better because of what you did. I know when you hurt someone you often can’t repair the damage, so all you can do then is repair as much damage as you can, then go and do something in other areas to make up for it. Like, if I say something cruel to Mum, the way I do sometimes, so cruel that I know she’ll never forget it, then I apologize as much as I can, then I go and clean up the garden or something.
I don’t do it deliberately, it just happens that way. It’s only while I’ve been writing this down that I’ve figured it out.
And — this is the big sentence now — you don’t seem all that sorry when you write. Like you don’t care much.
So here I am, what you once called a real person, living what you called a normal life, wondering how to manage with all this. I’m one of those kids the Human Dev. teacher last year politely called a ‘late developer’ (see, everyone’s got a label for me), and sometimes it seems like a bit too much has happened in too short a time. Guess I just have to cope.
You know sometimes Mum says to me, ‘Come on, Man, lighten up. You seem so gloomy nowadays.’ And it’s often after one of your letters. And in a way I wish I could be a happy innocent little kid again, putting my dolls to bed, telling Mum all the news from school, spending hours doing a beautiful heading for a project. But seems like everything’s serious now — heavy stuff, grim stuff.
I used to look at those wrinkly lines on adults’ foreheads and I thought they were so ugly, and Mum said they got them from worrying. So I thought ‘OK, when I’m big and I get worried I’ll keep my face smooth, and that’ll save me getting wrinkles.’ But now I realize it’s not so easy.
You know the most frightening thing in my life is Steve, and if you were a true friend I’d be able to write to you about him, and you’d understand, and the way you wrote back would show that you understood. But you never wrote back that way. And since I found out you were in Garrett it’s even harder to write about Steve. Why is that? I don’t understand why that is.
Well, I was going to apologize for such a serious letter. But I’m not going to do that. To tell you the truth, while I’ve been writing it I’ve been thinking that I wouldn’t send it. That gave me the courage to keep writing. But I will send it, I think, and without reading it back. That way I won’t psych myself out again.
So — this is the end of the letter.
Be well,
Mandy
Nov 8
Dear Mandy,
It’s taken me a long time to answer your letter. I hope this time it’ll work. All the previous attempts have ended in the bin.
When I started reading your letter I got so mad I could hardly finish it. I felt like you let me down. It was like you were lecturing me. I thought, ‘Who the fuck is she, my rehab counsellor?’ And it was like you were saying that I’m wrecking your life.
I got so mad I chucked your letter away. I wasn’t going to write to you ever again.
Then, next morning, I was cleaning out my slot for inspection, the rubbish bag came round, and at the last minute I pulled your letter out. I thought maybe I might want to check up on something before I threw it out finally.
I kept it two days, then at the weekend I was so bored and mad with nothing to do that I read it again. It still got me fired-up, but at least when you’re fired-up you know you’re alive. And it was better than watching Anita Kelly swing her tits around the place.
But now, even now, this far into the letter, I’m stuck to know what to say. I don’t want to lose you Mandy — you’re my mate. People don’t like me too much here. They’re scared of me but they don’t like me. It’s hard to write this but it’s true. And the thing is, I could say, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry about what happened, about what I did, but it was basically Raz’s fault and I didn’t know it’d go as far as it did, I thought it was a joke at first, and yeah I was on the nod somewhat, as a matter of fact,’ but the thing is Mandy, I don’t want to suck you in any more, I want to keep it straight between us. And somehow I don’t know what the truth is. You’re confused? I’m confused. I don’t know why I did it. You think I haven’t thought about it? I’ve thought about it. And I still don’t know.
And another thing is I don’t know if I’m sorry or not. I’m too bloody mad to be sorry. I’m so burned-up at being in here I can’t think sorry. I don’t want to be in here. I want to be on a street. I want to be in a bus. I want to sit down the back of the bus and crack jokes and swap ciggies and stir the grannies and the gays and the drunks and the little kids. I want to eye off some hunk with an ass like a couple of rock melons. I want to turn on TV and watch any junk I want. I want to go out to this riding centre with a boyfriend I used to have and ride this beautiful big bay horse called Dillon, who always knew me and recognized me and remembered me. I want to know what happened to Marvin, my cat, the only pet I ever owned, and who’s got him now, or whether they had him killed, or what happened.
I want to know where it all went wrong. How come I’m in here for four more years, when I should be having four years of freedom, being outrageous and jigging school and getting felt-up by guys and trying to decide if I should get a tat or not and having THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE. Mandy, I came
in here as a fucking fifteen-year-old and I’m gonna go out as a middle-aged fucking woman, just about ready to get married and have kids.
I know I should be sorry and I am, but then I start thinking about all this stuff and I get too confused and mad to be as absolutely truly sorry as I should be.
Well, I hope we can keep writing. But I’ll understand if you don’t want to. I’ll hate it if you don’t, I suppose I’ll sort of hate you a bit, even though that’s not fair to you. Not many people would have stuck on this long. So it’s up to you. And if you want to write about Steve, write about him. I know I was stupid the way I ignored what you said before. But I’ve learnt a bit since then. I’ve met a few Steves in my time. I think Raz was a bit of a Steve — maybe that’s another reason I didn’t want to hear too much about your brother.
So, see you, be hearing from you, I hope.
Tracey
November 14
Dear Trace,
Got your letter Monday; like you, I’ve spent a couple of days trying to write an answer.
Seems like each letter takes us a little further, you know what I mean? Not just in facts — like your mentioning this guy Raz — but in the other ways too.
I do want to keep writing to you. The only thing I’m a bit scared of is that one day you’ll break out of there and turn up on my doorstep in a stolen car wanting food and a bed and some plastic surgery. Or that you’ll get out early because of some big reduction in your sentence and you’ll want to move in and live with us and be my best friend. You see, I’m being honest again now, even though it hurts. I know the first one’s not too likely but I guess the second one’s possible. And what would happen if it turned out that you were 200 kilos and covered in tats, with a ring through your nose and all your teeth missing? OK, so I’m a snob, but I wouldn’t like that. And my parents would freak out. They lead a quiet life.
