Posse (11 page)

‘Why did she say that?' asks Patricia. She has trouble thinking ill of anyone. ‘She was really worried.'

‘Yeah, worried about herself,' Clare snipes.

‘I knew she was up to something,' says Deb. ‘What a Judas.'

‘What's going to happen to me and Deb?' asks Patricia.

‘Nothing if you keep your mouths shut,' I hiss.

There's a sudden flash of red suit and white teeth and the rabble falls silent. It's Mrs Sproule and she's not glad to see us. Clare's grip on my arm tightens.

‘What are you doing out here, girls? I told you to wait in separate rooms.' She shoots Miss Lackie a dirty look before turning back to face me. ‘You can't even be trusted to do what you're told for five minutes.'

These are the first angry words she's ever spoken to me. Have I cracked her?

‘Patricia, Deborah!' she bellows. ‘Please go and join the rest of your classmates in the mess hall. You're excused.'

Patricia makes some noises about not wanting to leave her friends, but Clare tells them to go. They go, walking past us slowly and glancing back, completely bewildered.

I notice Mrs Sproule has removed her suit jacket. There are long patches of sweat in the armpits of her white blouse. Her bob has fluffed at the back
and kinked the wrong way. Her cheeks and forehead are pink. She clears her throat and runs her fingers over her eyebrows, smoothing them out.

A range of hopeful thoughts rush through my brain. Has she changed her mind? Has she given up? Has she realised that I'm telling the truth? She really seems to be teetering on some precipice or another. But as I quickly discover, it's a precipice that's nowhere near where we're standing.

‘Clare, kindly go back to where I left you.'

‘I'm not giving you a statement,' says Clare. ‘I'm with Amy all the way.'

Mrs Sproule takes a deep breath and then loses it.

‘GO BACK TO THAT ROOM OR I WILL EXPEL YOU ON THE SPOT! GO!'

‘Go,' I tell her.

Clare releases my arm. ‘Don't worry, Amy,' she says as she obeys our headmistress as tardily and churlishly as humanly possible, ‘I won't back down.'

When she's gone, Mrs Sproule removes her reading glasses and her cold, beady eyes fix on my face.

‘And that is exactly why you can't continue at this school. You're a malignant influence and you drag those around you down your path of destruction.'

‘You'd better talk to Clare before you expel me,' I say.

Mrs Sproule pauses to smooth her hair out with her hands. She shuts her eyes and rubs them for a few seconds, as though willing me to disappear.

‘You're going home, Amy,' she says calmly.

Her words resonate in my mind:
You're going home, Amy.

It's all over.

I'm no longer a student at the Methodist School for Girls. I'll never run on the hockey field or sing in the auditorium again. There'll be no laughter during the Lord's Prayer, no skating in socks around the drama theatre, no tubes of paint being squeezed out the art room window. My locker, my
desk, my place on the hockey team – they'll all belong to someone else. Memories – good memories – of that stupid school with its stupid teachers and stupid rules come flooding back.

And Marina. What will I do at a school without Marina? I've finally met someone who understands me, who cares about me, and now we're going to be separated. The thought is unspeakably grim.

I look Mrs Sproule square in the face. I hate her. I've daydreamed about being kicked out of school and having the opportunity to go around and tell people exactly what I think of them. I've imagined myself slapping and swearing at the people I hate, telling them how ugly and stupid they are. Yet standing here opposite Mrs Sproule, with every swearword in the English language at my disposal, it's not insults that I hurl, but sheer, angry truth.

‘I
love
this school,' I say. ‘And I was here before you, when we had a headmaster who cared more about the girls than his own public image. If
Reverend Headlam were still in charge, he'd send me to the school chaplain for counselling …'

‘And look at the good that's done you, Amy. That's just another privilege that you've abused.'

Being interrupted just makes me madder. The receptionist looks up from her magazines.

‘I was loyal to this school!' I'm shouting now. ‘I broke my jaw for this school. You won't find another hockey captain like me.'

‘I wouldn't care if you were captain of every team and club the school runs. I treat every girl equally.'

‘You are the worst thing that ever happened to this school.'

‘Amy, that's enough. Go and pack up your belongings and wait in the car park. You'll receive a letter terminating your enrolment in the mail. Until then you're suspended. I'm sure your mother will be very disappointed.'

‘I know,' I say, lowering my voice and leaning towards her, ‘that you know something happened.'

I stomp out, swearing obscenely under my breath. I hope that's the last time I ever see her. I think I'll kill her if I lay eyes on her again.

As I'm going past the mess hall, I glance through the double doors. On the other side of the hall, near the door that leads out to the verandah, I see Patricia and Deborah sitting at a table with Toni and Joey. Hunched together, they're talking intently. I hope they're raking muck, letting everyone know what's happening to me. They don't see me as I pass and I don't want them to.

I walk back to the empty huts and enter ours. It's stuffy and full of flies. I kick my clothes and toiletries into a pile and push them into my canvas bag. Then I roll up my sleeping bag and stuff it into its plastic cover. I'm ready to go. I think about how my life has changed since I first set foot in this hot little box two days ago. I had a group of loyal friends around me and now I'm alone. I'm between schools, between friends, probably even between parents.

There's a knock at the door. If it's Mrs Sproule,
I vow to strangle her now and face the consequences later.

‘Amy …'

It's Miss Howell. She enters the room slowly, swiping at flies.

‘What do you want?' She's a traitor as far as I'm concerned. She told me I wasn't in trouble – what a crock! I wasn't in trouble as long as I was willing to sell my soul. It turns out that that's what she wants to talk about.

‘Amy, you have to sign a statement retracting what you've said.'

‘Leave me alone.'

‘I'm not going to leave you alone. I care about you too much to let you go over something as stupid as this.'

‘I hate this school. I want to leave. I'd probably leave anyway.'

‘I know that's not true.'

‘You have no idea what's true. You think we're lying about Bevan.'

‘I don't think that, not at all. I admit I found Clare's story a bit surprising at first. Everyone did. It just didn't make sense until you told me yours.'

‘So you do believe us.'

‘Well, it's still one story against another … but Amy, please – keep Mrs Sproule happy. It'll mean you can stay at school. You're popular. Everyone loves you. Your marks are good and you're probably the best sportswoman we've ever had. Don't throw all that away, not out of stubbornness. Do you feel strongly about it?'

I shrug.

‘Then swallow your pride, Amy, or whatever it is that's making you hold out. Look, no one would know about it. No one except the teachers at this camp and your close friends know about it. You wouldn't bear any stigma.'

‘I'm not going to do what that woman wants. I'd rather die.'

‘Give her a statement. Tidy everything up.'

‘I'm not going to lie.'

‘It's not too late. At least think about it.'

And I
do
think about it. If I can make everything go back to the way it was with a flick of my wrist, why don't I?

Because everything won't be the way it was. Jo's betrayed us. If I retract what I've said, if I deny it all, I'm no better than Jo. Even if no one at school knew what a despicable little phoney I was,
I'd
know.

‘I suppose Johanna Harris is the new hockey captain now,' I say. ‘Maybe that was her plan all along.'

‘Oh, Amy. I know that must hurt, Jo leaving you like that. You two were joined at the hip.'

‘You know, she was the one who convinced me to keep playing hockey after I broke my jaw. She said I'd regret it if I didn't. And when Mum wouldn't drive me to hockey games on the weekend, Jo got Mrs Harris to do it. She drove me all over Sydney.'

‘Jo has a lot on her plate for a sixteen-year-old
girl. Her father's reputation at school, in the Uniting Church …'

‘Doesn't make it okay, though, does it?'

‘Maybe you'll sort it out with her one day.'

‘I don't think so.'

Miss Howell helps me carry my bags out to the car park and we wait there together.

L
IZZIE REALLY IS BEAUTIFUL
. I'd almost forgotten. I can see why Mum hates her. She's everything that Mum isn't, and beautiful's just the beginning of that long list.

She steps out of her silver four-wheel drive BMW, walks to where Miss Howell and I are standing and greets us warmly, pushing her large, dark sunglasses to rest on her head. She is statuesque, with long legs and big breasts. Her dark wavy hair has been pulled into a loose bun, leaving
curly wisps of tendrils to circle her face. She's wearing a beige pants-suit, which is immaculate and stunning in the bright summer sun.

‘Hello, Amy,' she says, smiling quickly, and then turning to Miss Howell she says, ‘Lizzie Dandleby, how do you do?'

She stands there calmly while Miss Howell introduces herself and explains that I'm being expelled.

‘What's the basis of her expulsion?' asks Lizzie.

‘You'll get a letter in the mail explaining it all.'

‘But you must know what the basis is.'

Miss Howell is jittery. She licks her lips and says, ‘Amy knows. She can fill you in on the way home.'

‘I'm asking you.'

Lizzie is intimidating. She doesn't look or sound aggressive. But there's a cold, unflinching insistence in her voice and eyes. I feel safe just standing next to her.

‘I actually don't know the full story,' says Miss
Howell, licking her lips again. ‘It was the headmistress's decision.'

Lizzie smiles. She won that one. And I don't mind at all.

We pack the car and I get into the front seat. I slam the door without saying goodbye to Miss Howell. I do the stony-faced stare-ahead. If I look at her I'll cry, and I'm not doing that in front of Lizzie.

When she gets into the car and starts the air-conditioning, I moan with relief. I feel like I've been in a furnace for two days.

‘Well, that woman wasn't a very good liar,' Lizzie says. ‘Now, what could be so terrible that she couldn't bring herself to say it? What did you do – kill someone?'

‘Thought about it,' I say with a laugh.

‘Cigarettes? Alcohol? Marijuana?'

‘Nothing that exciting.'

‘Boys? Girls?'

I pause for a moment and then I say, ‘Both.'

She raises her eyebrows and smiles.

‘I see. Would you care to elaborate?'

Lizzie's only in her late twenties, but I get the feeling she's seen and heard it all. A couple of years ago she defended a guy who killed his gay lover in the bath and flushed his intestines down the toilet. I remember seeing her on the news. My story's a fairytale in comparison. I lay it on the table.

‘There was this guy, Bevan, one of my instructors at the camp. He took a shine to me. I don't know why, but he did. It started off as a bit of fun, but then I ended up in his room. One thing led to another … we started kissing …'

‘How old is this guy?' asks Lizzie.

‘Old. About thirty. He's going to be a minister.'

‘A
minister
?' Lizzie actually sounds shocked. I thought this muck would glance right off her.

‘Yeah, it sounds crazy. I mean, it is crazy. He pulled out his you-know-what.'

‘What did you do?'

‘I got out of there. It smelled like an old dishcloth.'

‘And that's why you're getting expelled?'

‘No, not exactly. The headmistress, Mrs Sproule, doesn't believe us.'

‘“Doesn't believe
us
”? Who else is involved?'

Explaining this is going to take longer than I thought. It's complicated. I tell Lizzie about Clare and Jo and all the events that led up to Clare's disappearance. She's confused, but seems to believe me. And because she believes me and seems to be on my side, I trust her.

‘This Bevan guy sounds like a real creep,' says Lizzie, her upper lip curled in disgust. ‘What kind of loser preys on sixteen-year-old girls?'

‘Well, at first he wasn't preying on us. It was the other way around. But then it all went too far.'

‘Doesn't matter, Amy. He's the one who should be able to control himself. And he's the one who should be in trouble, not you.'

‘I don't care if he gets in trouble or not,' I say.
‘I just want to go back to school. Maybe I should have signed a statement like they wanted me to.'

‘Absolutely not!' Lizzie practically shouts. ‘It'll be on your record forever. And it could be used against you later in life, if you become a lawyer or a politician. You should never, ever lie in a statement. And you should never, ever,
ever
say you lied about something that you didn't lie about.'

‘I don't tell lies,' I say, quietly pleased that she agrees with me. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to take a stance. I look out the window and smile.

We drive a little way in silence and then Lizzie says, ‘So what are your plans, Amy?'

‘I'll go to another school, I suppose.'

‘I mean for today. Where am I driving you? To Beecroft?'

‘You've got to be kidding. I can't go back there.'

‘You're going to have to tell your mother sooner or later, Amy.'

‘I don't have to tell her till Friday. And it's
Wednesday today. I was hoping to crash with you and Dad for a couple of days.'

‘Well, that's fine, that's fine. No, I don't have a problem with that.' I can tell by the quick way she says it that she
does
, at least a little. ‘So we're going to Dural.'

‘To Dural.'

Lizzie rings Dad on her mobile. She puts him on speakerphone so I can hear him. He already knows I've been axed – she must have rung him before – and he wants an explanation.

‘It's not her fault,' says Lizzie. ‘The whole thing stinks to high heaven.'

‘Have you rung your mother, Amy?'

‘No. Can you ring her?'

‘I could ring her solicitor, but I think you should ring her yourself.' He pauses and clears his throat. ‘Lizzie, what's the position with the Family Court orders? Can Leone come down on me like a ton of bricks if Amy's with us?'

‘She can bring a contravention application,
I suppose. But Amy's sixteen now. And the wishes of a child her age are paramount. I think it's basically up to Amy. We could apply to vary the current orders.'

‘What do you want to do, Amy?' asks Dad.

‘Well, Lizzie says it's okay if I stay for a couple of days …'

‘If that's what you want to do. We'll talk about it when I get home.'

‘When will you be home?' asks Lizzie. She's probably uncomfortable at the prospect of spending the whole day alone with me. I would be.

‘Early,' he says. ‘I'll knock off here as early as I can.'

We say goodbye and hang up. I haven't spoken to Dad in a long time. We've been sending each other little bits and pieces in the mail over the last two years, but hearing his voice is strange, heady.

‘Do you know I haven't seen you and Dad for five years?' I say to Lizzie. ‘Not since I was eleven.'

‘I know. I nearly didn't recognise you. It's certainly been a while.'

I think about the last time I saw them. It was at their farm at Dural, just after they'd bought it. It must have been summer. I remember all the purple jacarandas and citrus trees around the house. There was a big covered deck with a table and chairs and you could look out over the paddocks from there.

I remember Mum sitting in her car out the front like she always did. She'd sit there writing in her bloody diary. Maybe she'd leave to get a drink and some lunch or something, but she'd always be back. Dad and Lizzie hated that – she'd sit there for five hours at a stretch. I remember Lizzie looking out the window and saying, ‘She's still there.'

And so Dad went out there and confronted her and they screamed at each other for a while. Lizzie and I were in the kitchen. She kept pacing about, offering me food, and I kept refusing. Then Mum
came barging into the kitchen and started dragging me out of the house.

‘She's never coming back here, Brian,' yelled Mum, barging past Dad on the lawn.

‘You have to learn to share,' said Dad.

‘I'll see you in court,' said Mum, by now red-faced and spitting. ‘I've got statements from nurses you used to work with. Everything's in court, ready to go.'

Then Lizzie ran out of the house with this big, curved blade I'd seen her use to cut grass for her horses.

‘You are a psychopath!' she screeched, waving the blade at Mum.

Of course, we got out of there as fast as we could and after that I didn't want to go back. I remember seeing a child psychiatrist and telling her that I was scared of Dad and Lizzie. Mum probably used that against him in court.

Mum was so down on Dad and Lizzie for so many years that I can't remember ever actually
wanting to see them or wondering what they were doing. But I did wonder why Dad didn't want to see me, why he didn't fight harder for me. That's something I still don't understand. Mum always said it was because he didn't care about me and because Lizzie didn't want me in their house. This, of course, made me hate them even more. Sitting here now, so many years later, I still feel angry about it.

‘Why didn't Dad want to see me?' I ask.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, I haven't seen you or Dad for five years. Why not?'

‘Because the Family Court made orders that you live with your mother and spend every second weekend with your father, but only if you asked to. As far as I know, you never asked to.'

‘I guess I didn't. I didn't know I had to ask.'

But was it really as simple as that? I mean, the reason I didn't ask was because Mum went on and on about what a womanising creep Dad was and
how he didn't care about me. Shouldn't Dad have corrected the record? Shouldn't he have tried to contact me?

I explain this to Lizzie and ask why Dad didn't try to change my mind.

‘You have no idea what your mother was like around that time. She made it impossible for us to contact you. She changed all her telephone numbers, intercepted presents and letters. She was so difficult. Your father used to drive past your Nanna's house occasionally to see if you were playing in the front yard, but your mother tried to get an AVO. Do you know what it cost to defend that AVO application? $30,000. Plus all the money we spent in the Family Court. We spent $100,000 trying to get you back, Amy, and I bet your mum spent about five times that trying to keep us away.'

‘Wow, that's a lot of money,' I say, but I'm still not satisfied, and Lizzie knows it. She starts talking – and driving – very fast.

‘And then there was all the defamation. She
made up all these stories about your father, that he was – God, it's so disgusting that I don't even want to say it – sleeping with all these women he'd never actually met. And she told people and the Family Court that I was a slut and on drugs. It was just outrageous. I mean, calling
me
a slut after what
she'd
done! She used to screw senior surgeons because she thought it would help her career along. Nothing but one-night stands, mind you. They were always married and not interested in anything but a one-off encounter. I doubt they actually helped her at all. She never got anything out of it but genital herpes … which she gave to your father …she never warned him, you know.'

Suddenly realising how fast we're travelling, she brakes.

‘I'm sorry I said that last thing,' she says, breathless. ‘I shouldn't have said that about your parents. You should never think of them like that.'

‘That's all right,' I say. ‘I already knew. I read her diaries.'

‘Oh, the diaries, of course! She used her diaries to prove allegations she was making in the Family Court. In my opinion, all they did was show everyone how deranged she is.'

‘I didn't realise it was so bad,' I said.

‘Look, I don't know if she's like that any more.'

‘She is. If anything, she's worse.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that, but it doesn't surprise me. Your mother had a very weird upbringing. Your nanna was a child of the Depression and she developed some very distorted views about money and men, which she passed on to your mother.' She blinks hard and draws a deep breath. ‘Your mum's a strange woman, Amy. When you were a baby, she wouldn't let your father kiss you on the face, in case people thought it was sexual. How could anyone think that kissing a
baby
was
sexual
? She's always been bent on keeping the two of you apart. So if you're looking for someone to blame for the fact that you haven't seen your father for five years, blame
her
. We always wanted
you. We tried to get you. We did everything we could short of kidnapping you and moving to Morocco.'

‘Oh … I don't blame you. I was just wondering, that's all.'

We don't say anything for the rest of the trip to Dural. Then as we're pulling up in the driveway Lizzie says, ‘I'm sorry if I said anything to upset you before.'

‘You didn't upset me,' I say. ‘I asked you a question and you answered it. It's been bugging me for a long time and now it's not. Don't worry about it.'

‘All that rubbish caused a lot of trouble between your father and me. We nearly broke up because of your mother. I still feel a lot of angst about it. Obviously. And you've just appeared out of nowhere. I mean, I'm glad to see you …'

‘Thanks for picking me up,' I say.

‘It's my pleasure. It's good to see that you've turned out so … normal.'

‘Gee, thanks.'

‘You know what I mean. You have a sense of humour.'

I decide that I don't mind Lizzie. She treats me like an adult. When I was a kid I had Mum pouring poison into my ear about her, so I didn't think much of her. But now I can make up my own mind about her, and about a lot of other things. I had no idea that Mum made it so difficult for them to see me. It's hard to believe she actually wanted me to grow up fatherless, but I don't know what other conclusion to draw.