Fury (20 page)

He gave me the answer when he was talking about things being over and about monsters being stopped. I thought he was talking about Aardant. When we found out the next day about Neil’s suicide, it was then I realised that he was also talking about himself. He had said to me,
trust me, I can tell.

“I am done,” I say to the doctor. “Take me back to my holding cell. I want to get some sleep. I’m exhausted.”

I sleep well that night. Maybe it does do you good to tell someone else your secrets. It’s not only my truth—it is Lexi, Marianne and Neil’s truth too. I just couldn’t tell it earlier. I guess I wanted to show that we are people. That sometimes people can make horrible mistakes.

I don’t think I can look at Dr Fadden again. I have opened myself to him. I am scared he is going to be able to look into
my eyes now and see who I really am. A person I have been trying to hide all my life.

That’s why when the door of the cell opens in the morning and he appears beside me to beg for more information, I don’t want to talk to him. I roll over in my bed and face the wall.

“Eliza. Come on, Eliza. I know you don’t want to sleep anymore. Talk to me.”

“I have nothing more to say.”

Marianne never got to sit the exams. No one will ever see her fresh and smiling face in the paper being proclaimed the state’s top student. Explaining her handy study tips for next year’s budding high-achievers and her plans for her very bright future. No one will ever believe that Lexi can be a role model to anyone. She won’t be applying to do that volunteer year overseas in Laos.

As for me, I don’t know. Maybe I lose nothing by not being special, after all.

“Thank you—for last night, but—”

Dr Fadden sounds excited. And desperate. I don’t need that.

“I need you to help me, help yourself. Talk to me, Eliza.”

“I just want to rest.”

“Look, Eliza. I am going to be very blunt with you.
When this goes to court, you’ll see how hard they come down on you. They’ll tow a no tolerance line. You just watch.”

“What can I do about that? I told you. I stabbed him. That’s it.”

“Eliza—”

I sit up on the bed and turn to face him. He’s sitting there with his notebook on his knee.

“I know what they are on the cover of your little book. They’re the Furies. The goddesses of vengeance. They’re responsible for those that commit crimes against women and remained unpunished.”

“They’re not real,” says Dr Fadden and his face darkens. He looks really fed up and tired. “I’ll tell you what’s real. I’m not here to try and defend you, I’m here to find the truth. I have it in my finding that the force of the stabbing would have been sufficient to kill Alistair Aardant if you had walked away and left him there. He would have suffered a very slow death, but he would have died. The question is, do you want to behave now, or do you want this to be told to the court?”

I shrug. “Let me tell you what I know about
you.
I think you ought to talk to your girlfriend Michelle, the one that gave you that notebook. She’s wearing a pair of two thousand dollar designer heels. You should ask her who bought them for her, since it’s not you, is it? Goodbye Brian. I hope you get a promotion. You deserve it.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. ’Cos I want to see my mum now.”

They make me wait back in the interview room. I’m so bored. So I play a little game. I sit really still so that the only things that I move are my eyes. I roll them to either side of me and take in the painted brick walls. I roll them toward the ceiling and stare at the dark patch above me again. It looks like a black cloud. I could be a little cartoon sitting underneath it with a speech bubble that says,
Why does it only rain on me?
This is amusing and I smile.

Do you ever get so stressed sometimes that you go
uh-oh I think I’ve gone beyond it,
and then start feeling strangely calm? That’s when I can really think. That’s when I can actually see myself. Make-up, fake-up free, and sort of pretty. That’s when the honesty comes.

I think about Richey Edwards from the band, Manic Street Preachers. One day he checked out of his London hotel and a week later his car was found parked near the Severn Bridge. He was never seen again.

Neil said we could rent a car. We’d have to get our licences first, but it would be okay ’cos they drive on the same side of the road as us; it would be like a reward for passing the first time. We could drive to the Embassy Hotel. Then we’ll take the exact route to the bridge; we’ll do Newport bus station, King’s hotel, Blackwood—all the last sighting hotspots. Then finally we will stand on the bridge and look down. Neil will
grab hold of my hand if it is windy. Otherwise I might blow away like a flower. When my hair gets tangled up by the wind this time, he reaches up and tucks it back behind my ear.

I’m playing the being really still game again. This time I roll my eyes toward the ceiling, not because it amuses me, but to keep the tears inside. But they come anyway.

If I was hiding myself in any way, I can’t now. I have been stripped of whatever dignity I had and I am naked for the entire world to see. I am opening up like a flower. It is good to be open. Because honesty is a virtue. And the tears come.

When my mother arrives, I try not to look at her. She is immaculately dressed in a black Armani suit and I don’t want her to tell me that I look a mess and that I’m a disgrace to her reputation.

I didn’t expect her to cradle my face in her palms and kiss me hard on the forehead.

“You’re not wearing a skirt,” I say cautiously, not wanting to let my defences down. I think about all the mean things I’ve ever said about her dress sense.

“Pantsuits are in this season,” replies my mum and she self-consciously smoothes the fabric over her knees. “Let’s get you out of here soon as possible, shall we?”

She doesn’t mention anything about how I turned her away yesterday or the day before that. Inside I feel bad.

“Mum,” I say. “I just want to tell you … thanks … for
taking care of me since Dad went. I just want you to know, that’s all.”

My mum stops unpacking her briefcase and she freezes. A tear rolls down her face and she quickly swipes it off her chin.

“What brought that on?” she says.

“I remembered what a really smart friend said to me once, and I reckon he’s right.”

There are only two ways out of East Rivermoor. Through the double gates or by the water, which takes you out to the ocean, eventually. Most of us never leave. The ones who do are the ones who choose to.

I wish I’d grabbed hold of his hand. It’s always windy on that bridge. So he
wouldn’t couldn’t shouldn’t
have gone.

Neil. I sorta kinda really need you. Needed you.

My mum pulls a face. Her mouth turns down, crows-feet gather around the corners of her eyes and a frown appears on her perfectly smooth forehead. Another tear falls down her face and it smudges her mascara. She suddenly looks so ugly. And yet she is the most beautiful I have ever seen her.

“I have something for you.” She chokes on her words. From her carrier bag, she pulls out a flame-coloured dress and places it gently into my lap.

“Aurelio Costarella!” I exclaim and hold it up. I can’t even remember the last time I saw decent clothes. I wonder if I can change into it straight away.

“It’s your size, honey. It’s a gift. In fact I can’t stop them
from sending stuff. But I guess you have to look nice for the media circus outside.”

“Media circus?”

“You don’t know? They’ve come to try and catch a glimpse of you.”

My mum pushes something across the desk. It’s one of those trashy women’s magazines she buys religiously as soon as they hit the stands.

It’s got the same stuff on the front as usual. So-and-so are still dating and what’s-her-face apparently had another drug overdose. The only thing different about this issue is that it’s got my mum right smack on the cover.

I read the headline.
Glamour Lawyer Speaks Out: My Daughter’s Painful Murder Shame.

I stare at my mum with my mouth open. I don’t understand … I can’t believe it. How could she? And so fast? The magazines must have really considered it the scoop of the century.

“You’ve gone national?” I ask in disbelief. I know she, like, makes the social pages in the
East Rivermoor Eye
all the time but…

My name is Eliza Boans and I am a murderer. I
know.
It’s pretty shocking huh? I want to grow up and do something cool with my life, such as build an orphanage in a third world country like a saintly Hollywood celebrity. That or, like, cause
a scandal and become mega-famous. Everyone knows that’s how you get noticed these days.

I quickly flick the pages to check out the “exclusive six-page photo spread”. In the first photo my mum’s leaning against an outrageously hot male model and is wearing a red Ruth Tarvydas dress slashed all the way to the thigh. She could pass for a twenty year old. She looks … amazing.

“I
so
have to borrow this dress,” I say.

“It’s
so
not in your size. And you can’t wear chicken fillets in that honey, you actually need boobs,” replies my mum and she laughs and cries all at the same time.

“That’s fine,” I shrug and I laugh a little. “I’ll just ask you for a pair for my seventeenth birthday.”

For the first time since I’ve been here, I smile for real.

It hurts to do so. I have pins and needles all through my body, my brain and all inside my heart. The pinpricks are too small to see, but I am bleeding, drop-by-drop. But I try to think of all the good things. Like my new dress and my own bed and my room and all my nice things. Nice things Mum bought for
me.

I guess it isn’t that bad being Electra Boans’ daughter. My mum, come to think of it, is smart, beautiful, tough and a survivor. Like me. I reckon we’ll have a lot of things in common to talk about when I get outta here.

In my head I can see the gates of East Rivermoor opening
as my mum and I walk through them together, hundreds of cameras around us going POP. I look to either side; there is Lexi and Marianne, and they run up to give me a hug.

I know it’s not really about whether I can go back; it’s about whether I
want
to go back. And that is hard. Right now I only want to think of the easy stuff. Like this beautiful dress sitting in my lap that I have been told is definitely mine—that is a nice, simple truth for me to hold onto.

In my head I can see the gates of East Rivermoor shut on me. But they say
this is not goodbye; this is just see you later.

So I say,
see you for now.
I just don’t know how soon is now. I sit in the middle and I wait.

Thank you to The Trinity—EeVon Loo (BetaGirl), Kim Wisniewski (CritterBoy and maker of Cups of Tea) and Olivia Osment (whom without, Priory would not exist). Melissa Keil (Editor Extraordinaire) who found me, and to Andrew Kelly, who took a chance on me.

Shirley Marr is an accountant by day and a masked writer by night. That’s when she becomes her true self—Writer Woman, with her trusty sidekick, BetaGirl.

Despite being blasted for writing an avant-garde short story completely in dialogue in Year Eight, and being fired from the Yearbook committee in Year Twelve for being disruptive, she still loves to write things her way. This type of behaviour led her to be the only person she knows who has ever been kicked out of a bookstore. Shirley wishes to keep living this rock-and-roll lifestyle.
Fury
is her first novel.

Visit Shirley at:
www.shirleymarr.net

“Once upon a time there was a girl called Scatterheart, who was selfish and vain, with a heart as fickle as the changing winds…”