Take My Word for It (13 page)

Somehow, because of the dream I think, I wanted to ring Dad tonight, so I snuck out of Prep seconds before break, grabbed the phone and was dialling the number as the bell rang. It's the only way you can get a phone round here—three minutes later there were kids saying ‘Are you going to be long?' Dad was OK. I was scared he'd be angry because of Lynette but maybe she hadn't said anything, because he was actually in good form, cracking a lot of jokes. He said he had a surprise for us in the holidays—that could be anything from short-sheeted beds to a week at Disneyland. I asked about skiing and he said ‘Maybe for a couple of days.'

A
UGUST
12

We're getting sent to bed for a compulsory early night. They say it's because we're overtired; I always think it's because the teachers are feeling slack. It must be a shocking life for them—having to teach us all day, then put up with us all night. Still, only four days to go, and two of those are weekend.

I am going shopping tomorrow with Cathy and Marina. I know I don't have any money and I'm pretty sure Marina doesn't, so I hope Cathy's shouting. We'll find something to do, though. It'll just be good to get out for a while.

Cathy and I don't have any sport, and Marina never seems to have any—I don't know how she gets out of it, but she does. I think she gets away with quite a lot actually.

Rhys has gone on an Athletics camp for the weekend, so I can't ring him. He's a long-distance runner. I like that. I'm sick of sprinters.

A
UGUST
14

I got really depressed and awful last night, and desperate thoughts came back into my stupid head and are still there. I thought it was safe to go anywhere and think anything. Maybe I'll be haunted all my life. God, if you're up there, keep me safe and alive. Grandma and Grandpa, Nan and Gramps, put in a good word for me.

A
UGUST
15

I had a conversation with Marina tonight that I want to write down so I can remember it. It was after tea and I wandered over to the tree out the front that I used to like to sit in. I haven't been up it for a while. Today was so warm, for winter, and it was still warm after tea, and I felt like being on my own, seeing it's the last night of term.

When I got there, though, I realised I wasn't on my own. Marina was sitting on a stump at the foot of the tree, almost out of sight. But I've seen her there a few times now. So I sat on a rock a bit further around the trunk. ‘I'll go if you want,' I said. ‘Just say the word.'

‘No,' she said. ‘We've shared this tree before.'

I nodded.

Then she said: ‘I'm saying good-bye to the tree, just in case.'

‘What do you mean?' I asked.

‘I might be leaving Warrington.'

‘What? Why? I thought you liked it here.'

She took a long time between each thing she said, as though she were making sure it'd come out right. Finally she said:

‘I like most of it, and I'm glad I came. I'd rather stay here. But my mother doesn't like it. And it is expensive.'

I said: ‘You've changed a lot since you've been here.'

She answered: ‘I don't know if I have. I've started talking, that's all.'

‘You made contact with your father again.'

‘Yes, I had to.'

‘Why?'

‘If I live my life hating him, then I don't have a life.'

‘Don't you hate him? I hate him and I've never met him.'

‘No. If I hate him it's with all of me. And I don't want to be like that.'

I said: ‘But you can't just decide you're not going to hate any more.'

‘No. But I found the more I understood him, the less I hated him. And I realised that he's so like me. If I hate him I have to hate myself.'

I said: ‘You're different from anyone I've ever met.'

She said: ‘I've had more time to think than most people.'

A
UGUST
16

Holidays at last. I thought they'd never start.

I decided to bring this Journal with me but I won't be writing in it much tonight. I'm at Dad's; Chloe's here too, and we're going out in a minute with Dad and Lynette, to Giverny, a new French restaurant.

Dad still says he's got a surprise for us tomorrow, but he won't tell us what it is. I suppose that's logical—it wouldn't be a surprise otherwise.

Lynette, I can't make her out. She seems like she's nervous of me now, like kids at school. I don't want that. I never wanted that. It's OK when other people are around, but if we find ourselves on our own in the kitchen or somewhere, she gets a bit embarrassed and awkward. It's awful. I suppose I should have written more in my letter, but I just don't know what I wanted to say.

A
UGUST
17

I can't believe this day, any of it or all of it. Now at last I feel I understand Marina a little. Dad went out early. He came back at about twelve o'clock and found Chloe and me and told us to go upstairs and put on our very best clothes. He was dressed up himself, and he was being all funny and excited and mysterious. We couldn't get anything out of him, so we did what he said. Chloe was getting annoyed, and so was I. It took me about twenty minutes, I suppose, but finally I could hear him calling impatiently so I hurried and went downstairs. And I couldn't understand what I was seeing. I stood there thinking, ‘I'll make sense of this eventually.' Dad was there, and Lynette—who was dressed like something out of a shop window—and Chloe looking like she was crying and a man in a sports coat and bow tie, carrying a bunch of flowers. Dad said, ‘We nearly started without you' then he laughed and said, ‘Only joking. As if we would. Come here.' I walked over, with my brain completely out of gear with my legs. He said: ‘Now, this is the surprise I promised you. You and Chloe are bridesmaids, so big smiles now.'

I don't know if I smiled or not. But I didn't cry. I never do and I never will. The whole thing only took about ten minutes. The man with the bow tie was some kind of marriage celebrant, so he did it all, and Dad and Lynette said sterile things to each other like, ‘Our love is as strong as the mountains, as wide as the sky, as old as time.' That's about the only sentence I really heard and it nearly made me vomit. I didn't dare look at Chloe but I think she'd stopped crying. I just looked at the floor.

Then we drank champagne, the bloke with the bow tie went, and Dad took us to The Almond Tree for lunch. Then he gave Chloe heaps of money for us to go out to dinner and do anything we wanted afterwards, and he and Lynette went off to the Hotel Winchester for the night, for their honeymoon.

But Chloe and I, the original party animals, didn't feel like going anywhere. We just came back here and watched TV for a bit. Then, on impulse, I rang Rhys. And to my surprise he came over straight away. It was good to see him. We went up to my room and as soon as I closed the door he said, ‘What's wrong?' So I told him. It was funny, I didn't tell him about Dad and Lynette, like I thought I would. Instead I found myself telling him about the terrible time in my room here, that night over a year ago. It seems strange, thinking about it now, as if the pain has gone and it's just a story—even though it's still uncomfortable to remember it. I didn't go into all the gruesome details, how night after night I'd been there on my own, because Dad was always out and Chloe was staying with the Barbers. It was the first holidays since Mum and Dad had separated and I missed ‘Connewarre' so badly. Finally, without really thinking about it, I swallowed Dad's tranquillisers. I'd just had enough. I didn't want to fight any more. I couldn't think of anything to live for, and there didn't seem to be any hope of things improving, so I took them.

I read somewhere how when people jump off the tops of buildings or bridges to kill themselves, the ones who survive say that as soon as they jump they start wishing they hadn't, thinking that they've given up too easily. I think now that I'm glad I survived. But I didn't think that then.

Anyway—I did tell Rhys this bit—the big joke was that no-one ever knew what I'd done. I slept for about 24 hours, woke up feeling the worst I've ever felt, and no-one even noticed. It took me ages to work out what day it was—that was bad, switching the TV from channel to channel, trying to match the shows with the TV guide. I guess Dad must have come home late, gone to bed, gone out early in the morning, came home again the next day, and by then I'd been up for a few hours. I even had dinner ready for him. Can't remember what I cooked but I'm sure it was nice.

Later on, before I went to stay at Mum's, I put some vitamin tablets in his tranquilliser bottle. I hope they gave him some good nights' sleep.

Rhys was pretty shocked I think. I don't blame him for that—I've been in permanent shock for a year about it. But he was good. He said I have to stop being so strong and admit that there are times when I need help. He made me promise to ring him if I ever feel like offing myself again. He said he sees the counsellor at his school sometimes, when things get too much, 'cos of course his family's pretty stuffed.

Doesn't he realise I'm Superwoman?

Nice guy though.

We talked for hours. He went about one thirty, then I started writing this. It's three o'clock now and I don't seem able to stop. It's funny, I haven't read this Journal back since I started, apart from the occasional browse. But I remember how at the start I thought it was such an annoying idea. Especially when I realised Mr L wasn't going to be reading them—I couldn't see the point, even though I realised later some people had arranged for him to read theirs. I've changed my mind quite a bit since then, I admit. I suppose it's the way schools make you, that you don't know whether your work is worth anything until a teacher tells you it's OK or not. Especially with things you write. So different to life on ‘Conne' where you noticed something that needed doing and you did it and you knew by the end whether you'd done a poor job, a good job or a great job.

But, overall I'm glad I kept this Journal. I just counted and found that I've written in it about 120 times. That's quite a lot. It's helped me, I think. I understand myself better now, and I understand Mum and Dad and Chloe and Marina and Cathy and Kate and Sophie better. I'm slowly getting used to the idea that I've lost ‘Connewarre' and that Mum and Dad have split up for good (Dad certainly proved that today). Writing about those things has been good for me.

There are two things I've found very hard to think about, let alone write about though. One's the magazine article about Mrs Aston and Miranda that I showed Mum—seems like years ago now. Boy that was a dumb thing to do. ‘Gee Mum, how come Mrs Aston doesn't come and stay any more? Doesn't her daughter look like Chloe? Isn't that funny?'

Yeah, real funny Lisa.

The other thing's those tablets. It scares me to think I could have done that.

When I'm older I'd like to have some kind of job with people who feel like they're stuck on a roundabout, no hope of things working out. Be a counsellor or something. Help them to realise that those sick awful feelings might end—'cos you think they'll go on forever, even though they don't.

Well, now, somehow, I've got to get used to the idea of Dad being married to Lynette. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I think it's more than their being married, though. It's getting used to Dad being so irresponsible and immature. I hate using those words about him, but they're true. It's not all that long since he was my biggest hero. He could do no wrong. I've learnt a lot the last couple of years. Guess it's called growing up.

I wish I could believe that Lynette'll help Dad grow up.

It's four o'clock. Chloe must have gone to bed hours ago—it's all quiet down her end. I might ask her to come with me to the movies or something tomorrow. We need to be friends, not just sisters. Today proved that.

Maybe I should wave a bit more often. ‘No man is an island.' We did that in English. No woman either.

Oh well, time to catch some Z's. Goodnight Ms Journal, my good friend.

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Letters from the Inside

Dear Tracey

I don't know why I'm answering your ad, to be honest. It's not like I'm into pen pals, but it's a boring Sunday here, wet, everyone's out, and I thought it'd be something different
. . .

Dear Mandy

Thanks for writing. You write so well, much better than me. I put the ad in for a joke, like a dare, and yours was the only good answer
. . .

Two teenage girls. An innocent beginning to friendship. Two complete strangers who get to know each other a little better each time a letter is written and answered.

Mandy has a dog with no name, an older sister, a creepy brother, and some boy problems. Tracey has a horse, two dogs and a cat, an older sister and brother, and a great boyfriend. They both have hopes and fears . . . and secrets.

‘John Marsden's
Letters from the Inside
is, in a word, unforgettable. But this epistolary novel deserves more than one word. It is absolutely shattering as it brings to vivid life two teenage girls and then strangles your heart over what happens to their relationship . . . John Marsden is a major writer who deserves world-wide acclaim'

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