Let Down Your Hair (26 page)

The courtyard at the foot of the Humanities building was filled with stackable chairs. In these, juggling wineglasses and paper plates of food, sat the students and staff of Women’s Studies. Andrea was standing by a trestle table of food, surrounded by colleagues and awestruck young feminists. My body tensed, as if I were a long-paroled prisoner laying eyes on her jailer.

Ryan winked, gave my hand a squeeze, and led the twins to a sunny corner, a bag of books and toys dangling from one arm. I walked slowly toward the trestle table, in chic glasses, an ankle-length turquoise dress and longish, layered hair that hung loose around my shoulders. No one recognized me.

Some yards from Andrea, I heard a familiar voice. Zoe was trotting around the courtyard, loudly counting people’s shoes.

“One, two, free, four.” As she said each number, she poked her small finger into Kate Cleaver-Murray’s boots and her girlfriend’s ballet flats. “Five, six …” She poked Madhu Baghel’s sandals. “Seven, eight.” On “eight”, her finger hit the ground as a pair of clumpy Birkenstocks whipped beneath their chair.

“This is your child?” snapped Hilda Ziehler, indicating Zoe with a menacing jab of her fork.

Zoe reached toward her feet again to add them to her count, and I swept her up before Hilda stuck the fork in her hand. “Sorry, Professor Ziehler.”

Recognizing my voice, Hilda studied me with a dark, affronted scowl. “So.” She spat the word as if it offended her. “You are back. Maybe tomorrow Andrea will give you a lectureship. Next week, a professorship.”

“What’s a pessa-ship?” said Zoe, who seemed fascinated by Hilda.

She reached for the chain on Hilda’s glasses and I hastily backed her away. “Where’s Daddy, Zoe?”

“Over there!” She pointed at Ryan, who was drawing a picture with Lucas.

I lowered her to the ground. “Do you think you can catch him?”

“Yes!” To my relief, she scuttled off to join him.

“Or maybe Deputy Head!” Hilda impaled a falafel with such force that it split in two. “Publication counts for nothing, so a PhD … why bother?”

Andrea must have chosen Madhu instead of Hilda to succeed her as Head of Department. Hilda stabbed one of the falafel halves, shoved it in her mouth and chewed with a festering menace. Seizing my moment, I said goodbye and made my way over to Andrea.

Even on the night I’d walked out, I’d known I’d see Andrea again. Her legacy was too powerful to cut her off without looking back, if only to see how far I’d traveled. I’d fenced off a stage in my mind, where Andrea and I acted out versions of this meeting. In some I confronted her angrily; in others I crumbled—from fear, or from guilt. Yet now that the real Andrea was footfalls away, I was surprised by a faint pang of sadness.

In the years since we parted at the taxi stand, Andrea had aged about a decade. Her iron-gray hair had faded to white, and her once-square shoulders had developed a stoop, as if she’d been carrying too much. She was talking about gendered language to an admiring student, but even on this favorite topic her edge seemed dulled, as though worn by overuse. Unlike her fellow staff, she recognized me straightaway.

“Excuse us for a moment,” she said to the student, who scurried away, leaving me with my grandmother.

Andrea looked me up and down, a tired, diminished echo of the monster in my memory. She took in my appearance, like a general inspecting a court-martialed soldier. I stood without shrinking and let her look to her fill, because I wasn’t her soldier any more. She glanced at my left hand, and flicked back to my face when she didn’t find a ring. Ryan liked the idea of an offbeat, creative wedding, but for me, getting married had felt like a bridge too far.

“Sage,” she said, in a cool, wary voice. “You seem well.”

“Thank you.”

“I hear you’re running workshops on body image for teenage girls.” The same cool voice, but somewhere underneath I heard a hint of surprise. Surprise because I’d finally impressed her.

“Yes. For two years now. They’ve been really popular.”

Andrea nodded, and was about to say more when a platter of finger foods was thrust beneath our noses.

“Professor Rampion!” said a familiar voice that crashed my thoughts into a wall. “Congratulations! I’m
so
freaked out to think of you retiring. Want a curry puff?”

The waitress jiggled her platter, shaking back curls from the rosy face of Jess. She was heavily made-up, in a black-and-white uniform with Premium Catering embroidered on the front. Six-year-old memories resurfaced like dead bodies. Her admiration. Her betrayal. How her party woke a fear that I was worthless and contemptible because I didn’t know the right things or wear the right clothes.

I considered saying something cutting and rude, but looking at her wide-eyed expression, I realized I no longer cared enough to bother. “Hi Jess.”

Jess did a double take. “
Sage?
Oh my God, you look
great!
When did you grow your hair?”

As soon as I got home from your awful birthday party
. “Oh, a few years ago. I’ve had kids, too.”

Jess gasped. “Is that cute little girl
yours?
” She looked across the courtyard at Lucas, who was combing his silky hair. It fell almost to his shoulders, because he reacted to haircuts like we were trying to amputate his ears. I located Zoe on Madhu’s lap, being sung a song in Hindi.

“She’s
such
a girl, your daughter,” went on Jess, still looking at Lucas. “Look at her, combing her hair. Does she want to be a princess? My niece
loves
dressing up as a princess.”

I could almost hear Andrea bristling beside me. “Actually, that’s my son. My daughter’s over there, with Professor Baghel.”

“Oh.” Jess blushed scarlet. “I’m so sorry. It’s his hair. And his T-shirt. I think of purple as a girl’s color.”

The purple T-shirt was Lucas’s favorite. He and Zoe were both wearing navy shorts from Molehill; Zoe’s top had red and white stripes.

“You should cut his hair shorter. You know, so people can tell.”

“Um, yeah, thanks for the tip,” I said, conscious that Andrea was ready to erupt. “Anyway, Andrea and I were just talking, so …”

“Oh! I’m sorry, I’ll leave you to it. Let’s catch up
soon
, OK?”

Actually, let’s not
. Jess flounced away with her curry puffs, and before anyone else could interrupt us, Andrea said, “Come with me.”

She led me to the foyer, and we caught the elevator to the top floor without exchanging a word.

The carpet on the top floor corridor was as dense and deadening as ever. Solemn and silent as pallbearers, Andrea and I walked past the sequence of nameplates we both knew by heart. As she took out her keys with a familiar jingle, I saw the nameplate on her door, so new and shiny that the handle beneath it looked tarnished. Engraved on the nameplate was
Professor Frances Mackenzie, Head of Gender Studies.

Andrea chose
Fran
as her successor? No wonder Hilda was furious. I looked at Andrea, a million questions swarming, but she avoided my eyes and strode in.

Both desks were empty, and all that remained of Andrea’s career was the sag in the empty bookshelves and the boxes on the floor. On the carpet where Ryan’s body had landed was the faintest of stains, half-hidden by a box.

Andrea placed another box on the desk that was no longer hers. “For you.”

Inside was my wallet and a handful of books, which I lifted from the box. Underneath was a stack of manila folders. I opened one and everything went so still I could hear the clock in the corridor ticking. Mail from my mother. Everything she’d sent to Sadie Virtanen, in the twenty-two years between the day she left and the night I turned up at the penthouse.

“I always meant to pass them on,” said Andrea in a quiet voice, “when you were an adult, and could think for yourself. It just never seemed to be the right time.”

With trembling hands, I opened the topmost letter. Inside was a photo of Dirk and Emmeline, wearing evening wear and camera-ready smiles.

I put the photo back and closed the box, not sure how to feel. Andrea had shut me away, cut me off from my mother, and put Ryan through the worst months of his life. Yet she’d also stepped in when Emmeline walked out, raising me in a way that she’d honestly believed was right. Despite everything, she was the only real mother I’d ever known.

I looked into Andrea’s weary face, a treacherous sea of history between us. “Would you like to go downstairs and meet your great-grandchildren?”

Her face went rigid, and something glimmered in her eyes. “Yes,” she said unsteadily. “I would.”

The silence as the elevator went down was still guarded, but it felt just fractionally warmer. In the courtyard, Ryan was talking to Madhu, and Jess had put her tray aside and was playing with the twins. As Andrea and I approached, Jess tried to interest Lucas in a plastic truck from the toy bag.

“That’s
Zoe’s
truck,” said Lucas, with a sniff of disdain. He turned his back and picked up his comb.

Zoe hurried over and snatched the truck from Jess. She plonked it in the grass a few feet from her brother, her face affronted under her springy dark hair.

I laughed and glanced at Andrea to see her reaction, but she barely seemed to have noticed. Her eyes were on Zoe, who was using the truck to bulldoze a small clump of daisies.

“Do you think you’ll raise her as a feminist?” said Andrea.

I hesitated, thinking of how Andrea had raised me. How she’d sheltered me so completely that I never learned to question what she said. How she’d taught me to fear men, and look down on women who weren’t her sort of feminist. How she’d made me into a figure of ridicule and pity among my peers.

Then I thought about what I’d seen since. Emmeline, and her boob job and succession of sugar daddies. The shivering models at the photo shoot. The men at the strip club. The classes and classes of teenage girls, barely able to live with the shape of their bodies. And my children. My daughter, bold and full of energy, who hadn’t yet been taught that women are only worthwhile if they’re “hot”. My son, reserved and sensitive, who hadn’t yet been taught that men are meant to be emotionless sex machines. I found myself wishing for something to help them grow up strong enough to find their own voice. Not a tower to protect them, but a weapon they could fight with. I wasn’t sure if I’d call that weapon feminism. But I knew that Andrea would.

I watched the twins, conscious of Andrea beside me, waiting for an answer to her question. Zoe abandoned the truck and ran to Ryan, who waved at us to join him. I waved back, and as I led my grandmother to my children, I turned to her and answered “Yes, I will.”

Many, many people gave me valuable assistance with
Let Down Your Hair
. I’d first like to acknowledge the staff at PWE, where I had the idea for the novel. Thanks especially to Tracey, who gave excellent feedback on my first, clumsy chapters, and to Sherryl, who whipped later ones into line, together with Demet and Lucia, the other two Big Fish. Thanks also to my beta readers, Marie, Misha and Justin, whose input on my first full draft was immensely useful. Maries deserves a second mention, for returning to tweak a much later version, with her fellow Pendragons, Andrew and JJ. As promised, Chapter 43 is dedicated to the Pendragons in honour of your excellent workshopping!

Beyond the actual writing, there are many further people who provided significant help. Thanks to my agent Jacinta, who found me an excellent publisher in Haylee Nash at Momentum. Your painful advice to cut out 25,000 words was just what the manuscript needed! Thanks also to Jake, who gave me the room and time I needed to get the novel finished.

I’d also like to express my appreciation to everyone who helped with the surprising amount of research I had to do. Mandi explained how a security guard would behave in the situation I set up. Ambulance Victoria and Brendan the Gold Coast paramedic took me through what they would do with a patient who’d been hit in the face and sprayed with capsicum spray. Richard and James from Victoria Police gave me an overview of relevant police and court procedures. Steven fielded a series of strange questions about waxing and hair extensions. Hannah took me through what typically happens for fashion models at a shoot. Last but not least, Olivia volunteered to be my bodyguard for my own field trip to the red light district.

To these people, and to the Mighty One, my father and everyone else who’s supported me through the last couple of years, I greatly appreciate the part you played in getting
Let Down Your Hair
published. I hope you enjoy it, and will get to enjoy further novels from me in the future!

Fiona Price has a lifelong passion for words. She has studied multiple languages, talks too much, and spent her teens exchanging long letters with penfriends all over the world. After declaring she was going to be a writer, aged six, she began work on her first masterpieces: a novel about a wild pony and an incisive satirical song called ‘Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep’. Since then, she has attempted just about every form of writing, from bush verse and screenplays to elegies and academic articles.

When not writing, Fiona uses her storytelling skills as a cross-cultural trainer and public speaker. She runs workshops on cultural diversity issues, is a member of Toastmasters, and was MC at the 2014 Chinese New Year Dinner for the Museum of Chinese-Australian History. Her non-fiction book
Success with Asian Names
was published in 2007, and she was a co-author for the HarperCollins
International Student Survival Guide
in 2014.

Fiona is plotting further novels based on fairy tales, and is currently working on a fantasy trilogy for young adults. She has an Australian father and a Chinese mother, and she lives in Melbourne by the sea.