All These Perfect Strangers (20 page)

It had been three days since Rachel's death and I had spent each one listening hard to what people were saying around me, and even harder to what they weren't. All the time trying to act normal, whatever that meant in the circumstances. Today, I had decided, normal people did washing.

Toby was on one side of me, smoking a cigarette, and Kesh sat on the other.

‘Time?' said Toby. He was in a tetchy mood.

I looked at my watch. ‘Still got twenty minutes.' I gingerly stretched out my legs in front of me. My foot had been stitched carefully by the university doctor. ‘Nasty cut, but will heal,' she said. I hoped the prognosis could be applied to the rest of me.

Stoner ambled towards us across the courtyard, carrying a large material bag with dark clothes poking out the top. He was wearing a faded black t-shirt with ‘Megadeth' written on it in Nazi-style Gothic. I wondered if this was a deliberate choice given the mood or perhaps the only thing he owned that didn't need washing.

‘Any machines free?' he asked.

‘One's broken, we've got four, Michael has the last one,' said Toby.

Stoner looked at us as though this was too much information to absorb and then said, ‘But there's only three of you.'

‘I separate my whites from my colours,' Toby snapped. ‘Is that a problem?'

Stoner blinked and then almost smiled. ‘Don't own any whites.' As Stoner only ever seemed to be wearing black, I supposed there wasn't much variety in the way of colours either.

‘I could put yours in after I'm finished.' Toby became brisk and business-like. ‘But it'll cost you.' He mimicked smoking a joint.

Stoner shook his head. ‘No can do. Don't have any.'

‘What the fuck, Stoner? First, the Marchies are supposedly out of the business and now you. I heard those bikers supply you and they are supposed to be awash with the stuff.'

‘Stop freaking out,' said Stoner, who was doing a good job of beginning to look freaked himself. ‘It's just a temporary hitch in the supply chain. I can do an IOU.'

‘Redeemable when?'

Stoner shrugged. ‘It's complicated, you know.'

‘No hashee, no washee,' said Toby. There was a hesitation before Stoner began laughing, as if his brain was on time delay and he had only just got the joke. But Toby wasn't joking.

‘OK, OK. It's cool. I'll come back later then.' Stoner picked up his bag, balanced it on his head, and strode away.

‘What was that about?' I asked Toby, who dropped his cigarette and ground it viciously into the dirt.

‘Who knows? Stoner has been raking in the money from selling. What's the bet he didn't want to hand over a freebie, the tight bastard.'

The sun dropped behind the building and the wind picked up, pushing grey clouds overhead. The footballers nearly kicked a ball right on top of Leiza's partly painted protest banner and her angry voice echoed around the courtyard. Looking sheepish, they decided to head to the oval. The girls tried to go inside because of the weather but Leiza wouldn't let them and started collecting rocks to hold down the material.

I got up and walked around the brick laundry. My foot felt bruised with moments of sharp pain, but anything was better than just sitting there. I needed to keep busy.

‘Going to rain soon,' I said, walking back. ‘Supposed to rain all week. What time are you leaving, Kesh?'

Rachel's funeral was scheduled for Friday but I didn't have the guts to attend and had used an essay that was due as an excuse. Toby had also refused to go, convinced that the small town wouldn't welcome him for being Asian, gay or a future accountant. He didn't say which. That had left Kesh travelling by herself with the Sub-Dean.

‘The Sub-Dean thinks if we leave at six a.m., we'll be there in plenty of time.' Her voice was hoarse.

‘Didn't want to fork out for accommodation, the cheap-skate,' said Toby.

The hum of dryers, the thuds and gushes from the washing machines covered up the lack of conversation.

Eventually Kesh turned to us, puffy-eyed from crying. ‘You don't think Stoner gave those drugs to Rachel?'

‘Who knows?' said Toby. ‘Remember how much stuff she was carrying. The Sub-Dean went through it yesterday in the RA meeting. There was LSD, amphetamines, coke, even some heroin. That's serious shit. We're not just talking a couple of Es and some dope. That would be like Stoner's entire kit and then some.'

‘What if it was Stoner's and that's why he doesn't have any now?' asked Kesh.

‘How would Rachel have ended up with Stoner's stash?' Toby asked. ‘You think she nicked it?' There was a pause where none of us said what we were thinking – that it sounded exactly like something Rachel would have done.

‘Do you think she was supplying, like Marcus said?' I asked. I had been so sure he had made that up.

Toby looked uncertain. ‘She was talking a lot about drugs, saying there was a drug war happening right under our noses.'

‘War on drugs?' Kesh asked, confused.

‘War for drugs, the way she told it,' Toby said. ‘The Marchmains versus those bikers who supply Stoner. Like some commerce case study, all about market share and monopolies. Think about it, it would be worth heaps. Biggest single site for dealing in the city by a long way. Anyway, it's over now. Once the Marchies lost Nico they fell apart and now those bikers are in charge.'

‘But what has that got to do with Rachel?' asked Kesh.

Toby pushed his sunglasses up onto his head and I could see black circles under his eyes. ‘I don't know. But she didn't get warnings for drugs. We all knew when she got in trouble over smacking Joad but I never heard about any others. RAs are supposed to be told about that sort of stuff.'

‘You think Marcus was lying?' I asked, thankful for someone else to be raising questions that had been bothering me.

‘Maybe he just doesn't want to look clueless in front of the police.'

‘So many people are lying,' said Kesh.

I tried to pretend that I wasn't, and made a pathetic attempt at deflecting my guilt. ‘Including Rachel herself, I guess.'

Kesh took the bait. ‘I just don't understand that. I mean, we were her friends, weren't we? You tell your friends the truth.' An unconscious echo of what Rachel had said to me that night.

The dead get summarised like an epitaph on a head-stone. Hero. Victim. Murderer. And according to most college people, Rachel's would have been Liar. People had been angry when they found out the truth about her background, and pretended the two were connected. That if she hadn't lied about who she was, she wouldn't be dead. It was all her fault. While the hypocrisy of Rachel hiding her own background while trying to discover mine wasn't lost on me, I didn't have the energy to get angry about it. What did any of us really know about each other? I was busy reinventing myself at university. Most other people were as well, I guessed. All of us trying to present varnished versions of ourselves to the world. Rachel had gone a step further and reinvented her past.

‘Fuck it, Kesh, we all lie,' Toby said, watching the movement in the courtyard. ‘When I go home, I take out my earring and put away the sparkly shorts. And when Mum asks me if I've met a nice girl yet, I smile and say “one day”.'

‘Did you know about Rachel's background?' I asked him.

When he turned to look at me, his eyes were liquid. ‘Maybe at some level I didn't buy the international jet-setter life, but really I just didn't care. She was a laugh. I mean, I know she lied, but you know she never belonged in some country shithole, not really.' He pushed the sunglasses back down over his eyes but not quickly enough to cover the tear that had slipped out.

Guilt stuck in my throat like a fishbone. I had to find something else to do, something small and practical to get through this. I glanced at my watch, saying, ‘Washing nearly finished,' then sat back down, grabbing Toby's cigarettes and lighter. ‘You mind?' He looked up, puzzled, but nodded all the same. I pulled one out, stuck it in my mouth, focusing on holding my hands around the lighter.

It had been years since I had smoked a cigarette. Taking a drag, I was hit by memories more than by the nicotine. Tracey and I used to steal them from my mother and smoke them up around the back of the town swimming pool. My stomach lurched.

I was rescued by Leiza marching towards us. An arm-swinging sergeant major. Behind her, the girls on painting duty were beginning to pack up. ‘Have you got the buckets out of storage yet?' she asked Toby.

‘What buckets?' replied Toby, making a quick retreat into his shell of who-gives-a-fuck. He scowled up at Leiza.

‘The glue for the protest posters. All RAs agreed to help. You're plastering the Science block.'

‘Says who?'

‘It's for the march. It was discussed at the RA meeting you missed. I thought as a friend of Rachel's you would want to be involved. We need to demand that her death be investigated properly, that this screwdriver lunatic be caught, plus more security patrols around the bar at night and better lighting.'

‘I'll help,' said Kesh.

Leiza gave her the sort of look a crocodile gives a chicken. ‘Excellent. You can make the glue. Just go with Toby now and he'll get the buckets for you. We're heading out around midnight. Arts could do with an extra person putting posters up. Then I need someone to hand out flyers this week.'

Toby held up a hand to stop the flow. ‘Fine, fine, I'll do it if you stop talking. C'mon Kesh, before she enslaves you for life. Pen, put our clothes into the dryer. I don't want to come back and find them all over the floor.'

Holding the cigarette in my hand, I nodded, waiting to stub it out the moment his back was turned.

As Toby and Kesh headed inside, Leiza took the seat next to me. ‘Christ, I could do with one of those.' She pointed at the cigarette.

I gestured mine at her. ‘Barely been used.'

She shook her head. ‘This whole thing is a nightmare. That girl Alice is maimed and Rachel's dead but still no one wants to do the work to protest that women's lives are important. I waste all this time checking people are actually doing what they said they would do. They never are. Then I have the Sub-Dean questioning the appropriateness of the rally – “How will I ensure crowd safety? Surely there are better ways, Ms Parnell, of making your point than organising a rabble. I hope your studies aren't suffering from this extra-curricular distraction.”' Leiza screwed up her mouth to mimic the Sub-Dean's peevishness.

I stubbed the cigarette out on the seat next to us. ‘Why do it then?'

‘Because it's even more important now. The university wants to forget about the attack on Alice, sweep Rachel's death under the carpet so that it doesn't put off prospective students and their parents. I was no fan of Rachel but she doesn't deserve that. You're going to be at the rally, right?'

‘I guess.'

‘No, really. It's crucial we get as many people on it as we can, or else nothing will change.'

‘OK.'

She nodded. ‘Now, there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about.'

I waited for her to tell me about the lack of women's representation at the student council or how far off women were from achieving equal pay, but instead she said, ‘The night Rachel died . . .'

Immediately, I could hear my heart beating.

Rogan had left college the morning afterwards and still hadn't returned so I was the only person available for the handful of ghoulish ambulance-chasers who wanted to know all the details, but even they had stopped when I just stared them down and refused to answer. Most people had left me alone. Out of embarrassment, kindness or perhaps even a lack of interest, it was hard to say.

‘What about it?'

‘Look, if it was me, I'd want to know. You see, I saw her.' Leiza pushed back her hair, hooking it behind her ear, and looked straight at me in her disconcertingly forthright way.

‘Rachel told me about that,' I said, speaking quickly with relief. ‘When you came out of Joad's room.'

‘Not then,' said Leiza, and she looked embarrassed, which I thought was impossible for her. ‘She told you about the bet?'

I nodded my head. ‘Joad's a pig.'

‘And then people told me what he said on the Academic Night about rape and Alice's attack. Disgusting. He thinks he can get away with that, but I'll show him.' She shook her head. ‘Anyway, that wasn't what I meant. I saw Rachel later on that night.'

‘How much later?'

‘I was going into town. She was about to head into the bar when she saw me. I think she wanted to find you.'

‘So before . . .,' I began, trying to work out how worried I should start feeling.

‘Yeah, before she took whatever she is meant to have taken . . . I mean, she was a little drunk perhaps, but she was fine. Came right up to me and made a few cracks about Joad but then she mentioned you.'

‘Me?'

‘I wasn't really listening to her because I was still so angry. But I'm certain she said something along the lines that if you knew what she was going to do that night, you'd be even madder at her than I was. And this is the bit I remember clearly, “Pen would kill me.”'

‘Kill her?' My voice sounded shrill, even to me. ‘Are you sure? What else did she say?'

Leiza nodded. ‘That was it. It was because I wanted to kill her that I remembered it. I said something like, “Pen and me both,” and walked off. I just thought it was a bit . . . odd . . . in light of what happened. Look, she didn't seem scared or anything. More that it was a joke. You know, typical Rachel.'

There was a movement behind us, and I sprang up too quickly. My foot spasmed in pain. Michael stood in the doorway, with a plastic basket of freshly washed clothes.

Leiza looked at him and then at me. ‘Oh, hello, Michael,' she said in her official welcoming kind of tone.