Paper Alice (4 page)

I stared at him. ‘But,' I started, ‘other –'

Then I stopped. There was something in his voice that didn't invite further discussion.

‘Anyway,' he said with forced cheerfulness, ‘we'd better be getting back.' He patted my knee playfully.

‘That essay awaits!'

I didn't ring or even message Milly that day. Somehow I wasn't in the mood for the big black low that I knew – from the very fact of her not having contacted me – would be starting to mass on her horizon.

By the Monday morning, however, I was starting to feel worried about her. I walked out of a Psych lecture at eleven and, knowing she had a free hour too, messaged her.

Coffee?

I really should have been going to the library and finishing off the assignment that was due in that day at
five, but I figured I could just manage to squeeze it in after my tutorial finished at three.

Back she came, straight away.
Union now x.
Though I knew she would have been hoping that the beeps were from somebody else.

I spotted her straight away across the packed refectory – she'd managed to grab two stools along the bench against the big windows looking out over the lawns. In the hubbub of people carrying trays between the tables and the roar of chatter and laughter rising into the rafters, her stillness stood out all the more. She was sitting there staring out, face in her hands, miles away.

I threaded my way through and tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped and swung around.

‘Hey,' I said, ‘I'll get the coffees.'

I went and joined the queue. When I glanced across at Milly again she was checking her phone. Probably for the umpteenth time that day, I thought, with a little tug of dismay. Closely followed by a surge of irritation. I had my own stuff to think about; I really didn't feel like coping with her woes today.

She must've sensed this because when I finally returned with the tray of coffees and a muffin to share, she turned to me with a bright smile. Which was pointless, as there was no way the topic at hand was going to be avoided.

The silence while we took our first sips, gazing down at the figures below, lasted about three seconds. I glanced at her. She was sitting very still, cup held to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears.

‘Oh, Mill . . .' I put my hand on hers and gave it a squeeze. Despite the sunny day it felt quite cold.

A tear brimmed over and ran down her cheek. She put her cup heavily down in its saucer, then wiped the tear with the back of her hand, but there were more to follow.

I put my own cup down and my arm around her shoulder; gave her a hug.

‘C'mon, Mildy.' A shortening of ‘Mildew' – one of my silly nicknames for her from school. ‘It's OK . . .'

There was no point adding ‘I'm sure he'll ring' because we both knew he wouldn't. Like a moth to a blowtorch, Milly had this unerring and unfailing instinct to get with the kind of guy she'd never hear from again. Anybody who was actually nice, she wasn't interested in. And persuading her to take the initiative by phoning him back had in the past proved just as disastrous as waiting for the call that never came.

Finally I added, uselessly, ‘He's obviously not even worth getting upset about!'

How many times had I come out with that before?

‘You can say that again!' she cried, putting her hands in her face. Someone shrieked with laughter and squeezed between us and the table behind, nudging us with her tray.

‘But it's
not
OK!' said Milly. ‘
I'm
not OK! There's something
wrong
with me – I'm some kind of . . . freak!'

‘Mi-ill! As if!'

There was also no point in delivering a mini-lecture about being too available, or risky behaviour. She knew all that, but it didn't seem to help.

‘D'you think,' I said finally, ‘it might help to
see
someone – talk about it?'

‘What?' She laughed harshly. ‘A psychiatrist?'

‘No! I mean . . . a psychologist, or one of the counsellors here.'

‘And tell them – what?' She picked up her spoon and started slowly scraping the froth off the sides of her cup. ‘That I'm Ms Desperado – queen of the one-night stands? Anyway,' she went on, before I could reply, ‘the worst thing is, I left one of my new shoes there – at his place.'

‘What?' I stared at her, trying to picture what she'd been wearing. ‘Not one of those gorgeous blue ones?'

I'd been with her when she bought them in King Street. They were polka dot, with big bows; retro-looking and very Milly. And certainly not cheap.

She nodded miserably.

‘How on earth,' I asked, ‘did you manage to do that?'

‘
I
don't know!' she wailed, putting her hands over her face again. ‘I woke up in the middle of the night and saw him there, completely out to it, and knew he just couldn't give a rat's about me. I had to get out of there. And I got dressed – it was pretty dark – but I could only find one shoe. And then he started stirring and I couldn't
bear
to face him, so I panicked and grabbed my bag and took off, out the front door and down the street–'

‘With only one shoe,' I said, suddenly remembering that girl at Baddo's party.

‘Barefoot, carrying it.'

We looked at one another and in spite of everything, burst out laughing. And laughed and laughed, till we almost cried.

‘Thank god,' I cried, wiping my eyes, ‘you managed to save
one
of them! It'll be so, so . . .
useful
!'

Milly gasped, arms around her stomach. ‘P'raps I can still wear it to things – just explain that I lost the other one . . .'

‘Or start a new look – non-matching shoes!'

‘The worst thing was,' she added, when we'd calmed down a bit, ‘that I couldn't get a taxi and there were no buses at that hour, so I had to
walk
, all the way home from Surry Hills – at three-thirty in the morning.'

‘All the way to Annandale – in bare feet?' I was suddenly not laughing. ‘
Milly
– you should've rung me! I could have come and picked you up!'

‘My phone was out of credit. Anyway,' she added with a grim laugh, ‘it wasn't very nice walking down Cleveland Street and then Parramatta Road on my own at that hour of the night – specially without shoes – but I guess it was safer than taking the back streets. These yobs kept slowing down and tooting, and yelling out stuff–'

‘You might've been dragged into one of their cars!' I got a mental image of a miniskirted, barefoot Milly, hobbling along, silhouetted in the headlights. Shoe dangling from her hand, dark hair framing her face. ‘What a bloody stupid thing to do!' I cried furiously.

Milly shrugged. ‘There was no choice. Anyway,' she added, toying with her spoon again, ‘I really, really want that shoe back!'

In a flash I knew what was coming.

‘Well,' I said, folding my arms, ‘You'll just have to knock on his door and ask for it!'

She shivered hugely. ‘No way, I couldn't face it.' Here it comes, I thought, here it comes. Sure
enough, she was turning to me, a look of beseeching in her dark-blue eyes.

‘Al,' she wheedled. ‘Dearest, darling, oldest friend – couldn't
you
knock on the door for me – just this once?' She grabbed both my hands in hers, studying my face. ‘Pleease?'

‘No!' I said. Apart from knocking on the door and having to explain myself, the thought of rummaging around in the dust under a stranger's bed filled me with horror. Particularly that Paul, who I hadn't liked the look of. God knows what might be there. ‘No,' I repeated, ‘I could not!'

‘Well, d'you think Dunc might?'

I tried to picture Dunc standing there scratching his head as someone opened the door.
Oh, hey . . .

I snorted. ‘In your dreams!'

Milly sighed. ‘Oh well,' she said, looking down at her hands, ‘bye bye shoe . . .'

She suddenly looked so sad again that I felt ashamed. How hard would it really be, after all, to knock on the door and ask for the shoe? I'd probably be made to look like a total idiot, but at least I wouldn't have to see anyone who lived there again.

So here we were a day or so later, cruising the streets of Surry Hills, looking for Paul's house.

‘His street definitely ran into one that runs off Cleveland Street,' said Milly, for about the fourth time. ‘Because I remember turning left and then right into Cleveland.'

I glanced at her; our eyes met.

‘I think . . .'

‘Mill–'

I sighed and pulled over into a no-standing zone. ‘Why don't we have a look at the street directory,' I said, putting the gear into park, ‘and see if we can work it out from there.'

The Gregorys, however, was nowhere to be found – not in the door shelves or under the seats. ‘Dad must've taken it to get to one of his job interviews,' I said crossly, twisting round again.

‘How's all that going?' asked Milly, still peering around. The terraces and semis in these narrow streets were tiny, with front doors that opened practically straight onto the pavement.

I shrugged. ‘Not good . . .'

Milly looked at me.

‘It's really depressing, actually.' I sighed. ‘Dad's just so . . . not himself. Everything's kind of . . . weird at our house at the moment.'

And disorientating, I thought. It almost felt like homesickness. I remember the awful feeling from a few times when I was little, when I had to go and stay at a friend's house I'd never been to before. And Dad had always been the constant in my life, cheerful, forever the same. Like home. Now he'd changed and so had everything else.

Including Mum, particularly over the last four or five days . . .

Milly patted my hand. ‘It's so unfair – your dad's such a sweetie.'

I nodded; we were silent for a moment. Over the rooftops the sun was sinking low in the sky; a reddish, wintry kind of sun that glowed and caught fire in a row of front windows.

‘How're things at your place?' I asked.

Milly shrugged, staring through the windscreen.

‘Same.'

I glanced at her. Even though things weren't too good at the moment, I'd still rather be in my family than hers, any day. She lives with her mum and her younger brother Toby. And even though her parents split up years ago – her father lives in Western Australia and they hardly ever see him – her mother always seems so . . . angry, somehow.

An old woman in mismatched clothes and slippers was shuffling up the narrow footpath towards us. I'd never really thought about the term ‘bag lady' before – her two or three bulging green supermarket bags certainly didn't contain groceries. There was a tattered blanket hanging out of one, and a shoe and a frying-pan handle sticking up out of another. A tiny chihuahua-type dog trotted at her heels.

Milly nodded at her.

‘Look, even the homeless people have gone green.'

The old lady launched into a raucous song which definitely sounded like her own composition – more shouting than singing. As she went past I could see that there were only a few brown stumps of teeth left in her mouth.

I sighed.

‘Poor old thing.'

‘I dunno,' said Milly, with a short laugh, ‘she sounded pretty happy to me. And at least she had her little friend.'

I smiled and nodded. We were silent again.

‘Well,' I said finally, ‘this isn't getting us anywhere. It'll be dark soon and Mum wants the car tonight.'

A business-suit wearing couple was marching down
the other side of the road, briefcases in hand. Looking a bit like virtual office workers from a computer game, they turned suddenly and wheeled into a gate.

‘Are you sure,' I asked suddenly, ‘it wasn't on the other side of Cleveland Street?'

Milly nodded. ‘Yep, positive. I remember walking downhill to the lights, not up.' Suddenly she leant forward, pointing to the cross street going off to our left. ‘Hey – we haven't tried that bit, have we?'

‘I wouldn't have a clue.' I glanced at the arrow sign. ‘But anyway, it's one way.'

‘
So?
' she cried. ‘We can reverse down it!'

I gave her a withering look.

‘Oh go on, Al – I'll help you! Otherwise we'll have to go right around – it'll take us ages!'

As usual, giving in to her against my better instincts almost ended in disaster. I failed my Ps the first time around because of my reversing, and judging from the performance that followed I hadn't greatly improved.

‘Whoops!' cried Milly, as I arced gracefully round to the left and mounted the kerb with a thump. I thought about the wheel alignment on Mum's new Mazda and groaned.

‘Slow down a bit!' she added cheerfully.

‘
Thanks
, Mill!' She didn't even drive; I felt like hitting her.

On my next try I missed a parked car by millimetres, only because Milly screamed ‘
Stop!
' in the nick of time. We sat there, panting, the Mazda at a strange angle between the two lines of cars.

‘Bugger this,' I said finally, my palms becoming sweaty on the steering wheel. ‘We're going home!'

For once Milly didn't argue. With a strange little
moan she'd suddenly shrunk right down, so far that her stomach was practically horizontal to the seat.

‘Sim,' she gurgled, her chin in her chest, her eyes wide with horror.

I stared at her.

‘
What?
'

‘S'
him
,' she hissed, putting her hands to her face. ‘
Paul!
Coming towards us . . .' Adding in a little scream: ‘Don't look now!'

Too late, of course. I was already goggling at him open-mouthed as he sauntered down the footpath, bag slung over one shoulder. Any second now he was going to look our way . . .