Dreaming of Amelia (30 page)

Amelia, by the side of the pool. I couldn't touch her.

Later that day, I'm walking with Amelia.

We don't say a word about the night before: how she disappeared into the dark.

We pass classrooms. At each desk, a flat-panel computer. Chairs are ergonomically designed. Lighting is curved so it won't distract the eyes. A smartboard at the front of every room. We pass the library: a flat-screen TV huge against the wall. World news all day. I once heard a librarian say, ‘You see, they're not cloistered here. At any point, they can pull up a cushion, watch the news, be part of the real world.'

The real world.

And now I realise this: I've never once heard these people talk about the axe murder. It happened just down the road. A crazy person kills another crazy person with an axe, and they don't care. These shadow people sitting on their cushions and their ergonomic chairs.

I reach out and take Amelia's hand.

One last thing.

Juvenile records are sealed.

Ashbury knows what we put on the scholarship application — that we stole from a petrol station, got caught and put away.

The truth is sealed, bricked up.

You never know what ugly things decay behind brick walls.

Progress Meeting — The Committee for the Administration of the KL Mason Patterson Trust Fund — Minutes

6.00 pm — 10.35 pm, Wednesday 16 July

Conference Room 2B, the KL Mason Patterson Centre for the Arts

Participants

Constance Milligan (Ashbury Alumni Association)
Patricia Aganovic (Parent Representative 1)
Jacob Mazzerati (Parent Representative 2)
Lucy Wexford (Music Coordinator, Ashbury)

Apologies

Bill Ludovico (Ashbury School Principal/Economics Teacher)

AGENDA ITEMS

Agenda Item 1: Preliminaries
Welcome Back, Constance

Once again, the group welcomed back Constance Milligan (Ashbury Alumni Association).

Constance did not attend the progress interviews of our scholarship winners, which took place at the end of Term 1, and was absent due
to illness from the progress meeting at the end of Term 2. It is now Term 3, so we have not seen Constance for some time!

‘Ahoy there, folks!' Constance beamed.

Minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes of the previous meeting were circulated for comment.

•   Constance Milligan declared that we were a ‘pack of fools' who had all been ‘damned to hell' for we had ‘struck a deal with the devil — no, no, worse, with a pair of demons'. She ‘bid adieu' to our souls.

•   There was a startled silence.

•   Eventually, Roberto Garcia (Chair) spoke: ‘Ah!' he said. ‘She means the agreement we made with Amelia and Riley. To overlook their absenteeism if they signed up for the Ashbury-Brookfield Drama Production.'

•   Everybody laughed with relief.

•   No, no, we explained (laughingly) to Constance. That was in no way a deal with the devil! Nor was it blackmail . . . bribery . . . corruption (nor various other words that Constance threw at us). It was just a tactic. By getting Amelia and Riley to join in a school activity like the drama, we would help them to integrate. And that would make them less likely to skip classes! It was pure genius (we explained).

•   ‘I might point out that
I
was opposed to the idea,' Lucy Wexford (Music Coordinator) told Constance, ‘but they shouted me down.'

•   ‘You should have shouted louder then,' Constance said tartly.

Agenda Item 2: Financial Report

Roberto Garcia circulated the latest Financial and Audit Reports.

•   Everybody looked at the reports for a while.

•   Jacob Mazzerati (Parent Rep 2) wondered why Bill Ludovico (Ashbury School Principal/Economics Teacher) never comes to any meetings.

Action points

•   We will stop looking at the Financial Reports until Bill starts coming to meetings again.

Agenda Item 3: The KL Mason Patterson Centre for the Arts: Progress Report

Chris Botherit (English Coordinator/Secretary/me) circulated the Structural Engineer's Report on the KL Mason Patterson Centre for the Arts.

•   Everyone was delighted to read that the building is ‘safe'. It turns out that the distant cracking/creaking sounds are temperature changes affecting the wood. The cracks in the brickwork, meanwhile, are most likely a result of the foundations settling under the weight of the new additions.

•   Chris Botherit said that the students would be disappointed. ‘They like to think that the sounds mean there's a ghost in the building,' he said.

•   Much laughter about the sweet simplicity of youth.

•   Discussion of the fact that it seems to be mostly Year 12 students who believe in the ghost. They are not so sweet nor youthful as they once were. Aren't they practically grown-ups? Shouldn't they have moved beyond childish fears?

•   Roberto Garcia shook his head slowly. ‘Year 12s? They are the most hysterical of them all,' he said. ‘Blind with panic about the future, they run like the devil to the past.'

•   A thoughtful pause.

•   Then, Lucy Wexford joked that if the fund were ever running short on cash we could hold ‘ghost walking tours' of the building!

•   Patricia Aganovic (Parent Rep 1) said she'd heard (from her daughter Cassie) that ‘word on the street is the ghost is a former student who fell to her death from a window back in the 1950s'. Did we think this was true? Could that be the ghost?

•   ‘I've heard it was a tennis player,' Jacob Mazzerati said, ‘looking for a lost tennis ball.' Patricia raised a single eyebrow at Jacob. He raised both eyebrows back. A dimple flashed in his cheek.

•   ‘Oh, piffle,' said Constance. ‘The ghost is undoubtedly Sir Kendall. He is distressed by the way we are spending his money on all these
joint
activities with that dreadful
Brookfield
school. He loathes poor people. And he rather suspects that the word
joint
has direct associations with the underworld.'

•   Everybody looked at Constance. ‘I said to him, I said, “
Kendall
, do you know you are right? I believe it's something to do with that marijuana?” And Kendall said, “Not forgetting, Connie, it's another word for prison.”'

•   Everybody looked harder at Constance. ‘This was in a dream,' she explained. ‘Kendall and I converse quite often in our dreams.'

Agenda Item 4: Scholarship Winners — Progress Report

Roberto Garcia said he believed he spoke for us all in expressing his ‘mind-exploding happiness' about our scholarship winners. Their schoolwork continues to impress their teachers. Their performances at rehearsals have been ‘astonishing beyond the point of human endurance'. (Roberto has to lie down after rehearsals, to recover.) Riley's contribution to the Ashbury-Brookfield Art Exhibition was universally admired. (Opinion was divided on whether it was better than the other favourite, the controversial multimedia work by Brookfield student, Seb Mantegna.) Amelia, meanwhile, had continued to swim her way up through the ranks.

‘We have unleashed a pair of gods onto the world,' Roberto concluded.

•   A round of applause, cut through by —

•   Constance murmuring, in chilling tones, ‘I see that the demons have cast spells of evil enchantment upon you all. That my glorious Ashbury should be so sullied! Is it safe to be in a room with such people as
you
who have —'

•   But Constance's murmurs were cut through by —

•   Lucy Wexford announcing, in ringing tones: ‘I hereby move that Amelia and Riley be stripped of their scholarship immediately and expelled from the school.'

•   Sharp intakes of breath; a strangely beatific smile settled on Constance's face —

•   ‘They stole a set of castanets,' Lucy declared.

•   Her words seemed to rebound around the room. They echoed for some time. (Lucy is a music teacher so perhaps she is trained to project her voice in this way.)

•   Then, a clamour: why haven't we heard anything about these stolen castanets before? (cried all the teachers in the room); are you sure? (said the parent reps, looking concerned); can you remind me what castanets are? (said somebody) (possibly me).

•   ‘We knew we were taking a risk giving them the scholarships,' Lucy continued. ‘We knew they had been locked up for stealing. We trusted them when they said they planned to stop. Why? That is what I cannot understand! How did they lull us into that false belief?'

•   Everybody waited for her to go on.

•   ‘One day the castanets were there,' she said. ‘Amelia and Riley were in a class with me — I distinctly saw them standing very close to the musical instruments — the next day the castanets were gone.'

•   ‘It's not at all surprising,' Constance chipped in. ‘They need to steal frequently, you see. It's in their nature. A sort of addiction. And they have to pay their dealers.'

•   Roberto Garcia pointed out that there had never been any suggestion that Amelia and Riley have drug-abuse problems. Or dealers.

•   ‘How far does a set of castanets take you with a dealer these days?' Jacob asked mildly.

•   ‘These were
very fine antique Spanish castanets
!' Lucy exclaimed — and with that she produced a set of castanets, and ca-clicked them above her head like a triumphant flamenco dancer.

•   ‘Ah,' said somebody (possibly me), ‘that's right. Castanets.'

•   ‘How did you get them back?' Jacob asked.

•   Lucy explained that the castanets had turned up themselves, the following day, behind a tambourine.

•   There was another stunned silence — then Patricia Aganovic said, ‘Are you saying that you have no evidence that Amelia and Riley even
took
the castanets?' and Jacob Mazzerati added, ‘They might not have been stolen at all, just misplaced?'

•   Lucy began to answer but —

•   Roberto launched into a tirade about second chances, redemption, reform and so on, leading (unexpectedly) to convict times — specifically, when Macquarie was governor and thousands of convicts recreated themselves as law-abiding citizens with bakeries of their own. ‘The bread they baked was the foundation of Australia,' he said, fixing a fiery gaze on Lucy.

•   ‘Some wouldn't even taste the bread!' he cried. ‘Some believed those people should be cursed forevermore!! That anyone who has a criminal record must surely be
demonic
!!' (Now the fiery gaze shifted to Constance.)

•   Then he explained that the convicts did other things besides baking. Could not keep up with him but he said something about girls who'd been pickpockets or street walkers in England and Ireland ending up as landowners, dairy women, shopkeepers here — I think he might also have mentioned bonnet-making. He went on a lot.

•   Lucy spoke through Roberto's rantings to say that it might
appear
that the castanets had just been misplaced, but that she herself had no doubt Amelia and Riley had stolen them, and that her own speech about the ‘long arm of the law' had spooked them into returning them in secret, and —

•   Roberto was suddenly silent. His silence silenced Lucy. He shifted his body towards her, tilted his head, smiled quizzically. (Tried to study the technique to use on difficult students in my own class, but I suspect you need to start by being Roberto.) Lucy tried to hold his gaze (as a difficult student would). Her eyes dropped. I believe her cheeks turned pale pink. She was silent for a moment then —

•   She complained: ‘Well, Amelia and Riley
do
still miss my music classes sometimes, and I rather thought that . . .' Her voice wilted; she was quiet again.

•   Roberto asked if there was any other business. If not, he said, it was time for us to go back to Jacob's.

Agenda Item 5: Any Other Business

•   Jacob said that everyone was welcome at his place.

•   Constance and Lucy declined.

•   A rather tense pause then —

•   A distant moaning sound drifted into the room, a sound uncannily like the sound of a young girl weeping, but which was, of course, the wind, and just as we were all frowning and blinking at that sound, the lights flickered, and —

Meeting Closed (abruptly): 10.35 pm

BOARD OF STUDIES

NEW SOUTH WALES

 

HIGHER SCHOOL CERTIFICATE

EXAMINATION

English Extension 3

QUESTION 1

Write a personal memoir which explores the dynamics of first impressions. In your response, draw on your knowledge of gothic fiction
.

 

 

 

 

 

[ANSWERS CONTINUED . . .]

 

Tobias George Mazzerati
Student No: 8233555

2 February 1803

'Tis as fine a night as a heart could wish — the moon round and bright in the sky — and ‘Phillip,' says I to my friend, Phillip Cunningham: ‘Phillip,' I says, ‘it's fond I've grown of the birdsong here, to be sure.'

‘Tom,' says Phillip, and he takes a thoughtful drag on his pipe. ‘Tom,' says he, and he squints through smoke — ‘the devil himself has taken up abode in the throats of the birds of this godforsaken land, and you say that you're fond of their song?'