Cloudwish (11 page)

‘Is that like a religious thing? A. . . Buddhist thing, or whatever?'

‘I wouldn't really know. My family's Catholic.'

Billy had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Sorry. Jeez, I'm a klutz. I haven't even asked you stuff like that.'

‘It's fine, we don't really know each other.'

‘But after we share our innermost thoughts on “Daddy” and “Tulips” we're gonna. Am I right?' That smile contained something addictive. The snack equivalent of his smile the cheese Doritos. You always wanted one more.

‘We'll know what we each think about “Daddy” and “Tulips”, which I guess is a start.'

After an hour of being lost in the complicated beauty and anger of “Daddy”, she stretched and stood up.

‘No!' Billy said. ‘We're just getting warmed up.'

‘But I've got to get going. My parents are expecting me home by dinnertime.'

‘Have dinner here – there'll be heaps.'

‘Sorry, I can't.'

‘Can I walk you home?'

‘No! Thanks.'

Billy looked crestfallen. ‘Are you coming to the regatta on Saturday?'

‘No.'

‘Please come – you can see me row.'

It was amazing seeing the whole Billy Gardiner unlimited-confidence phenomenon up close. Who in the world assumed that the rest of the world was ready and waiting to watch them, love them?

‘Oh no. The
I'm unimpressed
face. I guess that does sound arrogant.'

‘I work Saturdays, anyway. Even if I were the fan-girl type, I couldn't come.'

‘I was thinking more “Go, school” than fan girl, but fair enough. Have a peach before you go?'

She shook her head. Peaches were not something she would venture to eat in public. One more inhibition of the kid from another planet. She dreaded being inadvertently loud, messy or unmannerly. She'd seen a table of whities looking askance at her own family happily slurping up bowls of noodles once, and had never quite got over the disapproval you could innocently attract just by eating your dinner.

Billy had no such qualms. He took a huge, dripping bite and wiped juice off his chin with the back of his hand. ‘Oh, man, that's seriously good. You don't know what you're missing out on.'

Vân Ước looked at him, here, in his lush habitat. He was so wrong she thought as she left his bedroom; she knew exactly what she was missing out on.

chapter 22

It went like this:
Make sure the tablets get taken. Be patient. Be nice. Shop. Help with dinner. And in a few weeks things should improve, recalibrate. She was so used to the annual slump, she was almost taking it in her stride, even though this year wasn't shaping up as the big improvement she'd hoped for. They'd had a wobbly start, but having a proper diagnosis and a plan meant there was hope on the horizon. And her mother was sticking with the group therapy, still going, ten weeks in, a big win.

‘What did you talk about tonight?'

‘Things you children don't need to know.'

‘Like what?'

‘I gave them my bá
n
h ch
Æ°
ng recipe.' She shrugged. ‘They know mine's the best. Some of them just buy it.'

Vân Ước knew when she was being diverted with talk of New Year rice cake recipes, but she didn't mind tonight. Her mother seemed in slightly better spirits.

‘Brush your hair, Mama?'

Her mother nodded, and sat down on a kitchen chair. Vân Ước went into her parents' bedroom, breathing in its mingled slightly peppery and warm camphor smell, the ever-present ghosts of her mother's perfume and the Tiger Balm ointment her father rubbed into his finger joints to soothe the aching, and got the hairbrush.

She paused at the wardrobe mirror. When she was very little, two people used to stand beside her reflection in the mirror: a boy, and an old lady. They felt like a benign presence. She'd never told anyone about them, not even Jess, and she stopped seeing them when she was still young, about four; before she started school, anyway. For a while she had pushed her face into the mirror, trying to see them somewhere, at the most distant angle, deep in the speckled reflection, but they never showed themselves again. Now they felt like something she must surely have imagined, though part of her still believed in them.

She stood behind her mother's chair and brushed her hair gently for about five minutes, drawing the brush smoothly from forehead to nape over and over in the way her mother liked. It was the only sustained physical contact she seemed to enjoy. Her usual mode of a kiss goodbye, for instance, was the kiss-and-push-on-your-way. She wasn't a snuggler. No surprise, really, that this acceptable affection came via a prickly implement.

There was an envelope with the school crest on it on the bench. Already opened. That meant Jess's mum must have been in today. Her English wasn't as bad as Vân Ước's mother, and she sometimes read a letter for her if Vân Ước wasn't around.

‘What's the note from school?'

‘A night meeting for information about art. Next week.'

‘Oh, right. You don't have to go to those things. I can pass on anything important.'

‘This one your
ba
wants to go to. We want to make sure there's no more art for next year. It wastes so much of your time. You need to study only sciences and maths for medicine. Everyone knows that.'

Vân Ước took a calming breath. Whatever happened she had to be allowed to continue with her art. Unfortunately, this early in the term, it wasn't too late for her to change subjects if her parents made a big enough fuss and the school listened. If her parents, for instance, told the school that Vân Ước had implied that art was just for this year alone, and not a two-year course, which it was, she could be in trouble.

An even worse scenario would be if her parents went to the information night and met Ms Halabi and she gave them the big encouragement-talk about how Vân Ước's folio plans looked good, and she could be confident about aiming for art school – something that normal parents might be thrilled to hear.

‘They don't expect scholarship parents to attend, Ma. And they don't like scholarship parents telling them what they should do. I told you: they want us to do a wide range of subjects. Not just science. That's what IB is all about. If you complain about art, they will think you don't understand the IB.'

Ack. She felt awful pulling the ‘scholarship parents' line. She'd used it before. She kind of relied on it.

She knew it was cheating to soothe her conscience with the fact that her mother didn't need any extra stress just now, but she always came to a dead end when she imagined how to breach the gap between her parents' land of study hard, make money, be eternally secure, and her dream destination: artist, probable low income, no security. So, for now she had to keep a handle on the information flow.

When her father returned home after his game of cards, and her mother was safely in bed, Vân Ước decided, again, to try to find out some ‘things you children don't need to know.'

‘
Ba
, we read at school that Vietnamese refugees from when you and Mama came out were mostly “economic” refugees. Is that right?' Not strictly a lie, because she had read it in the school library, but a mention of school in the question might mean her father would be more prepared to talk.

Her father looked at her for the longest time, as though deciding whether to talk, what to say.

‘If they mean the war was over, that's right,' he began. ‘But things were very bad. Your grandfather had served in the army; he was in a re-education camp. Everything we owned was confiscated. I was put in jail for no reason, for being “a person of suspicion”. We had no future there. No life at all. But, yes, I suppose if they say it, we were economic refugees.' He shrugged. ‘The communists certainly took away any chance of making a living.'

‘Can I ask you about how you got out? The boat trip?'

‘Is this also for school?' He was obviously becoming impatient, and she took her cue to back off.

‘No,
ba
, just me wanting to know.'

‘We made it. We got here. Now don't go upsetting Mama with your questions. She's told you she doesn't like to speak about it.'

‘But why?'

‘It was hard for her. Now no more questions! Time for some study, or sleep.'

chapter 23

The next morning, as
she left the flats early to be in time for Baroque ensemble practice at school, she tried to stop wondering about her father's words,
it was hard for her
, and took a moment to breathe in the cool morning of what would be a melting-hot day. The sun shining at a low angle through the deserted playground, the damp grass, the stand of gum trees that, if she framed her eye line just the right way, could make her feel that she was back at Mount Fairweather.

Matthew, setting out for a run, minus beret, whipped past her, giving her plait a playful flick, a habit that had riled her seriously in primary school and still did, in a watered-down way.

‘Hey, wait,' she called.

‘What's up?'

‘What's with Nick? Why's he being such an idiot?'

‘Code of the bros. Can't talk.'

Vân Ước rolled her eyes.

‘Yeah, okay, I know. He's doing nangs and pills and not much schoolwork.'

‘Have you said anything?'

‘I've said stuff, but he's not listening. He's pretty much hanging with River and those dudes now.'

‘God.'

‘Yeah.' Matthew shot her a
but what are you gonna do about it?
look, and ran off.

As she walked out the gates, she was distracted; no one liked seeing someone they'd known since little-kid days take a turn for the stupid.

She looked down, focusing on one of her silver discs embedded in the footpath. She had just squatted down to examine it, hoping there would be some unclouded morning light for photography this weekend so she could get a shiny, east-side-lit image, when a large shadow created an annoying obstruction. She looked up. If she were ever to swear aloud, this was a classic WTF moment.

‘Why, Billy?
Why
are you here?'

‘Walk you to school?'

She stood up and stalked past him, angry.

He caught up, trying to relieve her of her turtle-like backpack. She yanked it away and tried to walk faster than him. Not easy. He was a boy with a long stride. She looked back at the flats anxiously. Someone would be seeing this, for sure.

‘How did you even know what time I'd be leaving home?'

‘You've got Baroque ensemble rehearsal.'

She stopped and turned to face him. ‘Let's recap . . .'

‘It's
not
Baroque ensemble rehearsal?'

She pinned those baby blues with her most penetrating look. ‘Just yesterday, you acknowledged that you didn't know I came to Crowthorne Grammar in year nine?'

‘Yeah . . .'

‘So, I was there, but you couldn't see me . . . or you didn't notice I was there.'

‘I guess.'

‘Last term we were both at Mount Fairweather – could you even tell me what house I was in?'

Billy looked at the sky. ‘Nope.'

‘It was Reynolds. So, close quarters for a whole term, only one quarter of the year level there, and you couldn't have located me if you needed to. And yet now – out of the blue – you're virtually stalking me.'

‘I wouldn't use that word.'

‘Last week you followed me into the
girls' toilets
, Billy. What would you think if you were me? Honest answer.'

‘I'd be thinking,
Can this be a mortal, or is it a god of rowing, recently scouted by Brown, walking next to me, trying to carry my backpack against my will?
'

‘That is pretty much on the money, if you replace “god” with “stalker”,' she said.

Hmm,
stalker of rowing
, majorly dumb comeback. Luckily, he didn't seem to notice.

She was a patient girl, someone with all too much practice at delaying gratification, but she was getting really sick of not knowing what was going on.

‘Given this agreed-upon reversal from complete lack of awareness of my existence formerly to annoying over-focus on me now, would you agree it's reasonable for me to wonder why?'

Unless he was a great actor, and she'd seen no evidence of that to date, Billy was surprised at her vehemence.

‘I don't get why it's a problem.'

Was it possible that someone could go through life assuming the whole world loved him? Expecting to be welcome wherever he happened to turn up?

‘Our class does a group double take when you speak to me. Haven't you noticed that people are a little surprised? Why are you speaking to me? Following me around at school? Coming to my place at dawn?'

‘I don't know. I really liked hanging with you last night.'

‘That was homework, not hanging.'

‘It was a homework hang.'

She couldn't help smiling. This was, after all, her number-one mew boy, giving a very good impression of bending over backwards to be nice to her.

‘And we had
food
. That really takes it from homework to a hang in my book,' he said confidently. Because of course his book would be
the
book.

They walked on. She would have given a great deal at this moment to spend sixty seconds inside his brain.

‘If you're smiling, does that mean I can hold your hand?'

She reapplied the frown. They were walking along Albert Street, her usual route to school, where there were countless people who might report back to her mother by lunchtime today at the latest; despite the fact the street was almost deserted at this hour, she knew the windows had eyes.

‘No!'

She stopped and turned to face him. ‘Just tell me what changed.'

‘What what?'

‘Exactly when did I go from being invisible to being visible?'

This was his cue to say that he'd gradually been noticing her over the last year or so – he hadn't wanted to be obvious in his attentions, but he knew by now that, though quiet, she was smart; though shy, she had a sense of humour; though not a self-promoter, she was a dedicated, passionate artist . . .

Billy smiled. ‘It was that class – the first week back, when the visiting writer came. The one with the pink hair?'

Vân Ước stopped dead. It took a huge effort to retain her cool, but she managed it. Just. ‘Yep. Yep, I remember. So, what was it that made you notice me?'

Billy nodded and looked into the middle distance as though he was trying to replay the scene in his mind. He looked puzzled. ‘It was like you suddenly had a spotlight on you.'

‘So, just to be clear: it was a sudden thing more than a gradual thing.'

‘Can't answer that – because who knows what's been going on subliminally and for how long? Am I right?'

God, of all the annoying times for him to become reflective. ‘Billy, just concentrate on that particular class – what else did you notice about me, if anything?'

‘The best way to put it, I guess, is that it was just blindingly obvious that you were the most interesting person in the room.' Billy smiled the addictive smile. ‘Apart from me.'

She felt sick to the pit of her stomach. She had to force herself to breathe in to avoid a footpath vomit. She needed to sit down, fast, and put her head between her legs.

It was like being pulled apart with no chance of reconnecting the two halves again. Wasn't this proof that her most ridiculous, improbable fantasy was being delivered to her on a plate? But how could she –
she could not
– believe in the means by which the fantasy appeared to have been delivered? A little glass vial? A wish being granted? This was not a phenomenon of the real world. She knew it as well as she knew her own name.

Her name, Cloudwish, could that have anything to do with anything? Of course not! Things inside her head were hectic and preposterous.

A tram stop seat saved her from falling in a heap. ‘
Shazbat
,' she said as she sat down, slipped out of her backpack straps, and dropped her head between her knees.

‘What the fuck's a shazbat?' Billy asked fondly. ‘Are you okay? Did you have breakfast?'

She lifted her head. ‘
Shazbat
is an alien swearword from an antique American sitcom called
Mork and Mindy
that Jess's parents got in a DVD collection of old TV shows. I'm fine. I had a humungous breakfast.' She dropped her head again. Circulation normalised. She re-engaged with her backpack and stood up.

‘Are you really okay?' Billy asked, touching her shoulder gently.

‘Yup,' she said, and risked giving him her first unguarded smile. She had to figure all of this out, but, hell, why not enjoy the aberration while it lasted?

Billy appeared to be appropriately dazzled, and she widened her smile in response.

Bizarro world, I'm moving in, she thought. Who knew for how long?