Wildlife (18 page)

saturday 10 november

I did not want to overhear, but I didn’t want to say I was there, either.

We were all supposed to be at a fire drill assembly, but I had a headache and was nicely zoned out under my duvet when Holly whipped back into the unit to get her phone. It’s amazing that nearly every single kid broke the “don’t bring your phone” rule, but they are all out in the open now, being used as cameras, and there isn’t any reception up here anyway, so I don’t know why they bother doing the thing of forbidding them. Perhaps they just want to get us away from our button addictions.

That is by the by, but what is not by the by is that I heard what Holly and Tiff were saying. They were talking about Ben. Holly was all very, oh, we’ve got so close up here, he’s my total go-to guy.

He used to be my go-to guy, said Tiff, but then we went out, and you know what they say, you can’t go back. What is he doing with Sibylla, though? That I cannot figure. Like sure there was some novelty value for five minutes with the billboard, but come on, that clueless-virgin act is no act, am I right?

I waited for Holly to defend her bestie, to say that Sibylla
is a sweet girl, a funny girl, a clever girl, that it’s none of Tiff’s business whether Sibylla is or isn’t, has or hasn’t been, sexually active, and why wouldn’t Ben (or anyone) want to go out with her, but Holly didn’t say any of that.

In fact, she didn’t miss a beat, saying instead: I know, right? Where does that come from? No sign she’s planning to put out while we’re here, that’s for sure.

Poor guy. He never signed up for the monastery.

(He did, actually, or at least his parents did. Close to zero sex going on up here from what I can see, no matter how much some people may be thinking about it, or talking about it.)

Yeah, said Holly.

What’s wrong with her? I’d jump him in a second, if I hadn’t already.

So would anyone sane. She has a strange mother, messed-up ideas about sex.

Weird girl. What about you and Ben, Hol? Maybe you should go there.

Don’t want to ruin a good friendship, said Holly.

You and Sibylla?

Me and Ben.

Right.

They laugh.

Holly said: Do I seem like a complete bitch? (Yes.) It’s just Sibylla drives me mad sometimes.

Don’t be crazy! Tiff reassures her. I hate heaps of my friends.

More laughs. (Oh, the fun of it.)

Anyway, Tiff said, your thing with Vincent is totally going to happen. I hear he’s breaking up with whatserface on exeat weekend.

We’ll see, Holly said.

Sibylla isn’t stupid; she knows Holly, but she also believes that she and Holly have a special friendship. She trusts her, in other words.

Holly acts pleasantly enough to Sibylla when they’re together. In fact, anyone would think they were still best friends, but it sounds as though she has jumped ship.

Sibylla gave Holly a free ride to Camp Popular on Ben’s shirttails, from what I can gather, but since Holly has landed, picked herself up, and dusted off, she seems happy to forget how she got there.

So now I have stuff I do not want. And I’m not sure whether I need to, or should, tell Sibylla, Your friend is every bit as mean as she seems, or let it float to the surface all by itself. Like scum.

sunday 11 november

The witching hour.

I’m not scared of ghosts. I long for a ghost.

Sibylla hates anything with even a half-whiff of paranormal to it. Holly is so cynical and skeptical; she’d take a lot of convincing. Eliza is averagely distractible, but not one to dwell in the silly zone. Annie would believe anything. Anytime. And Pippa loves a bit of drama.

So we were primed for something to erupt. We have been away exactly five weeks tomorrow. Everyone is settled. We are learning to rub along together, managing to avoid most fights. People are getting fit.

It was time for a big house-inspection spring cleaning. Kitchen cupboards emptied and scrubbed out, mattresses turned, etc., and unfortunately Annie found the word
Maisy
written on one of the slats of her bed in faded ink, in a very believable-looking copperplate script. She screamed as though she’d seen a cockroach murdered.

We all inspected. It must have been there when we arrived.

I didn’t see it, Annie said.

It’s the marked bed! said Pippa.

Marked?

Whoever has this bed in Bennett will have a special connection to Maisy.

Annie is freaked: But I don’t want a connection. I want to swap, she moaned.

Holly could debunk this by declaiming it as crap at the top of her voice, but I can see her getting in the mood for a little careless evil.

It’s not Maisy I mind so much as the thought of her doll, she said.

Don’t, said Annie, really upset. How didn’t I see it? Why did I get this bunk?

You didn’t know the story when we got here, said Holly with fake kindness, you didn’t know what your fate was to be: that you were the chosen one.

The weather was wild. Hard, wailing gusts of wind and furious blasts of rain coming in sideways from the south, dumping a lot of water in a matter of seconds. We threw rain jackets on to go to dinner. It was curries, which is one of the least worst, and a berry crumble, so everyone came back afterward in a good mood.

I was writing letters, and other people were mostly doing homework, which we call prep up here, just to remind us that we are somewhere super special. When everyone was in the middle of stuff, the lights went out. We could see across to other houses, they had gone dark, too, so we knew it wasn’t just us, it was the whole campus. Once our
eyes adjusted, we could see dimly, though the storm was making it darker than usual. Holly took advantage of the blackout, saying, I wonder if it’s a sign?

A sign of what? Sibylla asked nervously.

That Maisy is walking tonight, looking for shelter, Holly said, assuming a fake, monotonous, trancelike voice.

Oh, don’t, Hol. Not when it’s dark, said Sibylla.

It’s just the generator, said Eliza, and I’m late with this essay, so let’s hope they fix it. She was setting up a flashlight on top of a jam jar and trying to continue.

Pippa said, But it has happened in years gone by, you do get some signs of disruption when Maisy is preparing to visit. It’s as though she changes the electrical charge in the atmosphere.

I hate you all, said Annie. Just stop talking about it, or I will literally die of fright.

The wind kept changing direction. Sheets of spiteful rain slapped down hard on the roof. The trees were whipping around loudly with the odd branch cracking and crashing down. The atmosphere was unsettled inside and out.

The lights came back on after about half an hour and stayed on till bedtime, and lights out at 9:30.

Some time in the middle of the night, in a very loud voice, Annie asked: What’s that? Guys! Did you hear that? She was no doubt intending to wake everyone up to lend support if she was about to get a ghost visit.

I could hear a noise; it was a pipe shudder that happens when one of the taps in the bathroom is used.

Did you hear it that time? asked Annie.

Shut up, Pippa moaned, annoyed to have her sleep interrupted.

It’s nothing; it’s the wind, said Sib, clearly unconvinced by her own words.

By now we were all awake and this time clearly heard a rummaging, then a tap going on and off in the bathroom.

Annie looked around. W-who is it… we’re all here. She went to flick her light on. But the generator was down again.

Pippa whispered, Maisy! Even she sounded frightened.

Maybe it came from outside? said Sibylla.

She’s in our bathroom, said Holly in an urgent whisper. You go and check, Annie, you’re the one she wants!

It’s not M-M-M-her in the bathroom?

Who else? said Holly. Everyone else is in bed.

Annie was sitting up, peering around in the dark. Oh, no, she whispered.

Sibylla was hiding under her duvet.

The bathroom door slowly opened in the dark, and Annie screamed as a small figure emerged in the gloom, carrying something in one arm.

Annie was screaming her head off. Sibylla joined in. Eliza shouted, terrified, WHAT? What’s going on?

Annie’s light flicked back on again.

And there was Eliza standing in the bathroom doorway, clutching a hot-water bottle.

Annie started laughing, seeing Eliza, only she was crying at the same time.

Someone should probably slap her face, said Holly.

I’d like to slap Holly’s face.

Sibylla emerged from under the duvet, white and frightened. No sleep for her tonight, I’m guessing. So, no ghost? she said.

By now everyone, except me, was laughing or crying or both.

Nice one, idiot, said Eliza, it’s bad enough having the most shitful period cramps without living in this fucking lunatic asylum. Roll on, exeat weekend! Get me out of here. Can everyone please shut up now so I can get some sleep? I need to run tomorrow.

Our outside light flooded on, and Ms. McInerney barged through the front door (perfect bob still perfect in the middle of the night) and gave us all Sevens the next morning for our SelfishImmatureDisruptive behavior. Don’t we realize that other people have work to do and would like to sleep tonight?

Pippa whispered a little,
Mama, mama,
when we’d all settled, and everyone was soon snorting with laughter again, trying to keep it quiet.

I hate you all; I really mean it, wailed Annie.

My mother was on some committee developing or approving sex ed (life education) programs when I was thirteen, and as soon as I found out I made her swear that she would nevernevernever come to my school with a “fun facts for teenagers” presentation, which I knew would include all her hits and classics:

• that oral sex is SEX, kids (featuring ten easily transmissible diseases), and not just a pants-zone kissing activity,
  
• that girl genitals are as individual-looking as people’s faces, and so are boy genitals, that pornography bears (bares, lol) no resemblance to lifeography,
  
• that people should not get their girl fur blitzed in the Brazilian fad, because (a) why should women be infantilized, (b) you’ll feel all bald and breezy when the full bush is back in fashion, and have to buy merkins, look it up, and (c) there are physiological reasons for the hair, but I can’t remember what they are—that is me not remembering, not her,
  
• that it is never a good idea to take or send, or let anyone else take or send, photos of you or your friends or your enemies in any form of undress, or drunk, or drug-affected, or hooked-up,
  
• that whatever contraception people choose it should always, but always, include a condom, because you only get one chance to look after yourself and your reproductive health and your sexual health, and even though god knows
  the last thing you want right now
  is a pregnancy, one day you might and you don’t want to find your tubes are clagged and scarred because you didn’t or you wouldn’t or you forgot to use a condom, and you got PIDs left, right, and center,
  
• that straight is normal, gay is normal, lesbian is normal, bisexual is normal, transgender is normal, but if you’re worried about anything, talk to someone, visit these websites, here’s a help-line number, etc.
  
• that if you are a boy you should encourage your parents to get you immunized for HPV, because it’s not just for girls,
  
• that no means no, drunk means no, off your face means no, and I don’t know/I’m not sure means no,
  
• that you can also get STIs from the ball sac, human not sporting, so you’re never completely safe unless your partner is basically wearing full fishing waders and rubber boots as well as having a condomed penis (if your partner has a penis)…
  

And—never forget, kids—sex is a joyful, integral expression of being human. It’s fun!

Yep, I know it by heart. But, in her defense, I can’t
imagine she would have okayed the word “outercourse,” or the term “sexual organ.” And she would never, in a million years, condone the use of “pleasure” as a verb.

monday 12 november

Brian is losing it because we want to listen to Triple J and he has the bus radio tuned to a really annoying country music station, as usual.

The bus is an automatic war zone: us versus Brian. Sometimes he loses it because people are singing along too loudly. Sometimes it’s because people are late back at the departure point. Other times because kids yell out the window and he thinks he’ll be the one who gets into trouble.

When we’ve pushed him too far (I use “we” loosely; I’m usually sitting there reading) he will inevitably say, I didn’t fucken sign up for this. And then everyone (most people) says, ooo-oooh swearing, and he says, I’ll deny it, so don’t bother, and we all say, what
did
you sign up for? And he says, I said I’d drive the fucken bus. Finito. The things you do for love. Then everyone says, finito, the things you do for love. And he calls us disrespectful. That is not inaccurate, but he misses the point that it is not really personal.

People are just frantic to break out. They’d complain about whatever music was being played, to whoever was driving the bus. They’d demand something different just to flex their muscles. They’d impersonate whatever came out of the mouth of whoever was the unfortunate chosen to take us into and haul us back from the land of faux liberty.

To start with we had ten free minutes. This was notional shopping time. Our chance to spend pocket money buying stuff we mostly didn’t need.

Girls buy tampons and sample the three pathetic cosmetic brands at the pharmacy. We flip through the maximum and buy the minimum of magazines at the newsstand. We can buy a small amount of candy, but we are not supposed to bring any back with us.

Today, Ben and Holly headed to the pharmacy with Eliza and Gabi trailing after. Pippa and Sibylla were lingering at the newsstand.

I dragged Michael into the milk bar, where he bought a slab of Kit Kat and some dark chocolate. I needed new supplies of raspberry toffee sticks. I bought and tested one before I committed to a bulk buy. Phew. It snapped. You don’t want a bendy toffee stick, they are utterly pointless; you want a snapper.

We sat outside on a bench under a plane tree on the grassy median strip that was like a little park, and I broached the subject of the missing letter to Sibylla. He
still hasn’t found it. It definitely hasn’t turned up at his parents’, and he is convinced that he must have left it lying around, and even though it may innocently have disappeared during a general house cleanup, it may equally be in someone’s possession. He’s got the little tic in the corner of his left eye; I’ve seen it before when he’s tired.

Michael and Sibylla and Pippa and I were on the roster for our second visit to the old people’s home. Other people went to the kindergarten to help wrangle kids and poster paints, to the library to mis-shelve books, and to the Historical Appreciation Society to do minutely slow restoration work on crusty old bellows and saddles under the nervy supervision of Mr. Rattle.

No one minds it because wherever you end up at least it’s a break from the bucolic-idyll meets gladiator-outdoor-skills-training meets all-your-usual-school-work life.

The old people’s home is called the Dorothy and Randal Hayes Retirement Center. The building is a large and spectacularly ugly 1960s cream-brick block with concrete paths, pink geranium flowerbeds, and white-painted window frames. It was purpose-built; inside everything is wipe-downable, polished linoleum floors, ramps, and laminated tabletops. Such areas that are carpeted are covered with prickly “tiles” of carpet, easily replaceable in the event of nasty accidents.

Super-spacey residents are propped in a circle of saggy vinyl-covered recliners in front of a television that stopped
making sense to them long ago. The whole place smells doddery. Cabbage, urine, and pine air freshener. But if you breathe through your mouth, you can’t smell a thing.

Pippa brought makeup this time, making good on a promise to glamorize Dolly. They chattered away like old pals, and Pippa learned the secret of lovely skin at eighty (no sun and Pond’s).

Michael’s guy, Lindsay, has advanced dementia, and Michael thought reading aloud to him would be the best thing to do. Lindsay would ask Michael every now and then, when’s Roy coming? Michael replied politely each time, he’ll be in tomorrow, I think, to which Lindsay said, tomorrow, of course, as though remembering, and sat back happily, sucking on his dentures, for a bit more reading.

Sibylla and I were allocated time with Betty and Maureen, two old demons who shamelessly cheat to beat us at carpet bowling. Maureen has lost a few marbles along the way, and gets cranky if she doesn’t win, so it was our job to try to make sure she won at least every second round. Last time we visited she had to be escorted back to her room for some “time out,” and we didn’t want to revisit that shame upon her.

They brought food in for us, but we all said we’d just eaten. The food was depressing. It was all cooked, warm, watery, and smelled of instant gravy. Pudding and main course were on the same tray. Today’s pudding was a cracked baked custard, sprinkled with nutmeg, that looked
like it would bounce. It makes me feel ashamed of all the complaints we make about our prison mess; it is gourmet heaven compared to this.

Lindsay has to be fed, and Michael braved up for the job when the usual caregiver offered. He takes the community service responsibility seriously. Nearly everyone else is happy to do the bare minimum.

Lindsay’s skin is stretched tightly across the bones of his face, mottled and blotchy. He opens his mouth like a baby bird, but does not always remember to close, chew, or swallow, so there is a bit of leakage. One of the nurses tied a kitchen towel around his neck, which I guess is marginally better than an actual bib. His eyes stay fixed in a place somewhere between vacant and terrified. Everyone he ever loved is dead, and he isn’t far behind, so no wonder.

By the time Michael had fed Lindsay, he was as somber as I’d seen him, and he’s never Mr. Smileyface.

As we leave, Pippa, who has been the picture of shiny goodwill and smiles during the whole visit says, can one of you guys please shoot me in the head if I ever get that old, I’m not even kidding, and walks back to the bus alone.

Michael gave me a quick squeeze in the elbow region to acknowledge that the casual mention of death might have upset me. But it didn’t. What upsets you when death has been on the agenda is when it doesn’t get mentioned.

He wants a magazine (
New Scientist
) at the newsstand before the bus leaves, and I drop back and walk with Sibylla.

He does it hard, she said. The rest of us are there thinking
the place smells bad, and when are we getting out of here, and trying to remember to be pleasant, but I know Michael would have been sitting there with the weight of mortality bearing down on his shoulders, becoming more and more concerned about the idea of losing his marbles one day. She was right.

Has he ever gone out with anyone? I asked.

No, but he likes you, she said.

I’m not in the market, and let’s be real, it’s you he likes.

Yes, but only in theory.

And we both know he’s a guy who’s big on theory.

She had the honesty not to deny it.