“No!” yelled Louie. “No we don’t! We don’t spend nearly enough time together, and you’ve no right to try and separate us. It’s pathetic!”
She was in tears, on her feet, shouting, hardly aware of the shock on her mother’s face. Louie rushed from the room, down the hall, slammed the doors and plunged onto her bed sobbing. “It’s too hard,” she cried into the duvet, “it’s too bloody hard.”
p.
Okay, it was an overreaction of the first degree, but Louie didn’t recover from tantrums quickly. Even when the anger was gone and she just felt drained and numb, she couldn’t face anyone. She played music in her room, and made forays for food when the others weren’t around. Her father asked her if she wanted to go with him to a him festival movie, but she put him off. Marietta pestered her to time her run around the block and she grumped at her sister to go away. Louie badly wanted to talk to someone who understood, but Willa was working until 11P.M. Mo? Louie still didn’t feel easy discussing it with her. Mention of the “relationship” always made Mo go slightly pink. She decided to wait it out and hope Willa turned up after work.
She did. Louie was sitting up in bed pretending to work on an Art History essay when Willa appeared at the ranchslider. The sight of her was such a relief Louie started to cry almost immediately.
“What’s up?”
“It’s stupid. I had a huge row with Mum, about Bali, about you.”
“Uh-oh.”
“No, she doesn’t know anything,” Louie said. As she explained she looked at Willa’s kind, safe face, and wondered how anyone could dislike her. It seemed so simple, so right when she was there.
Louie was so wound up she gabbled about everything for over an hour. Willa listened patiently. Finally Louie was silent.
“Dare truth or promise,” said Willa.
“Truth.”
“You always say truth. Okay, are you afraid that if you go away I’ll change my mind about you?”
“No. Maybe. A little.”
“I won’t. You know I won’t.” Willa’s opal eyes held hers, clear and light.
“Promise.”
“Promise. If you promise to go and enjoy it and come back all brown and beautiful.”
She was right, Louie thought, a trip to Bali was hardly a punishment. But it made her want to hold onto Willa now. She convinced Willa to slip off her bulky winter clothes and hop into bed. “I can’t stay,” Willa said again, as Louie fingered her camisole.
“Where do you get this sexy underwear? It’s very unfair of you to tease me like this. It’s wickedness. I’m sure the Bible says something about naughty underwear being the cloth or the Devil. He’s always in that slinky red satin number…” Louie lay back on the pillow, still talking. Willa’s beautiful face hung above her and her tiny cool hands began to stroke Louie’s forehead. She knew what that meant. It meant she was raving, but if she kept talking maybe she could keep Willa there a little longer.
“You look tired,” Willa said. “Close your eyes and I’ll talk to you for a change.” Louie did as she was told and had just felt Willa’s lips touch her eyelids when the door burst open.
Susi.
“Get out of there.
Get out
”
Her mothers eyes were fixed on Willa and her voice was quiet and shaking.
“When I come back into this room, I want you gone, I want those doors
locked,
” her eyes flicked angrily to Louie for a second then back to Willa, “and I don’t want to see you again. Do you understand?”
Louie looked at Willa, who had jumped out of bed and was holding her jacket around her middle. Her knuckles were white, like her cheekbones, and her red hair hung in ropes. “Yes,” she whispered, and they watched as Susi closed the door and disappeared.
Louie sank under the covers, her hands over her face. Willa was frantically throwing on her jeans and jersey.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” she was repeating in a sort of wail. Louie dragged her hands down her lace until they splayed on either side of her open mouth. She caught sight of herself in the reflection of the ranchslider, looking like Munch’s painting
The Scream.
What could she say? Like the night on Signal Hill when Willa had first touched her, Louie was paralysed. She knew she should say something, something reassuring, but she just watched as Willa grabbed her boots, perched on the bed, changed her mind and sat on the floor to pull them on. She jumped up, snatched her jacket from the ground and threw it around her. Then she turned to Louie.
Suddenly she was there by her side, pulling Louies scream off her face. “It’ll be all right,” she was saying. “It’ll be all right.” Louie still couldn’t answer. She felt Willa’s small hands cup her face, then they were gone. “I love you, Lou.” Her voice cracked and she frowned, leapt up and strode outside, sliding the door behind her.
Louie drew up her legs, hugged her knees, and stared at the place where Willa had disappeared. In the dark glass doors she saw a girl in a white bed, sheets drawn around her. She was trapped in the cold, black glass, she was somewhere else, not on the other side, but inside the glass, in a thin layer of ice and you could only see her from one angle, otherwise she disappeared.
There was a soft knock at her bedroom door and Susi appeared. She sat on the side of the bed and gave her a hot drink. She murmured words of reassurance, she smiled like a mother, she patted her arm. She made noises for a long time; once she sounded stem and forced Louie to look at her, but it hurt Louie’s eyes. They were hot and burning, so she looked back into the icy glass where it was cool and there was no reflection of a mother.
After a long time Susi tucked things around Louie, locked the ranchslider, pulled the curtains and turned out the light. As soon as she was gone Louie got out of bed and drew the curtains apart. The black ice sighed and invited her in properly. It was deeper now, it moved like water, like oily seaweed and its patterns mesmerised her.
She hung around outside the house until she saw Louie’s light go out, then trudged back to the Duke. It was freezing. She didn’t cry, not this time. She worried.
All was quiet at the pub. At least that meant Mrs. Angelo hadn’t rung Jolene. Willa hugged Judas on her bed, and lay awake worrying about Louie, wanting to phone, wanting Louie to phone her, knowing neither would happen.
Early in the morning Willa went back to Louie’s street to meet her going to school. She hid behind some trees across the road, and watched Tony Angelo leave in the Mercedes, with Marietta. There was no sign of Louie, or of Mrs. Angelo. Eventually Willa went to school, where she fretted and panicked every time a message came to the class. Nothing happened.
Nothing happened that night either. Willa checked, but Louie’s ranchslider was closed and there was no light. She didn’t dare go any closer.
As the days passed Willa felt colder inside. This was the last thing she’d expected—no word. She went to work at Burger Giant and was asked to take over Louie’s shift. It seemed someone had called Kevin. The official line both there and at school was that Louie was sick, and Willa had no idea if anyone knew otherwise. When Mo asked her, Willa told the truth—she hadn’t seen or heard from Louie for three days.
“She’ll probably see the term out, I s’pose. Only two more days.”
Willa nodded. “I guess.”
Willa was prepared to do anything for Louie, but she had to know. Each day she arrived at school expectant, fearful, hoping and dreading to see Louie. When the last day of term passed with still no sign of her, Willa could take it no longer. She stood outside the Metal Petal that night, Judas by her side, clenching and unclenching her hands, only partly to keep them warm. The frost had already settled on the few cars on the street and Willa’s careful steps seemed to echo in the stillness. It was 1A.M. Finally Willa threw a small stone at Louie’s rartchslider. It missed by miles. She tried again and hit the wall. A third tinkered against the glass door and clattered on the steps. Willa ducked down quickly out of sight, her heart rapping. There was no response. She was just considering whether or not to try again, when she saw the door slide sideways, and Louie standing there.
Willa slid through the ferns and slipped on the mud of the garden, then she was there, panting white breaths. Louie was silent.
“Hi,” said Willa, suddenly stuck like clay to the spot.
Louie looked tight and pale, her eyes round dark shadows. “Hi.”
“I just wondered—if you were all right.”
Louie gave a weak laugh and looked desperate.
“Like, I don’t know…”
There was a long silence while Willa felt the cold seep through her. Louie was quivering, she suddenly realised. Every time Willa met her eye, Louie would smile wryly, and shake her head, look to the sky, rub the back of her neck with a shaky hand. Her starling-black hair was flattened and dull, like a dead bird. In the end she said, “Willa—”
“Yeah?”
Louie shook her head again. “I’m okay. I just need … time out.”
Willa felt her stomach contract. Time out.
“Time to think, to work stuff out. I’m not—” her voice was ragged and trembling. “I just never had time, you know? To think about it. It happened so fast, and…” she shrugged. “I don’t know what I want.”
Willa had stared at her, trying to understand, willing Louie to say the words she needed to hear. They never came. The words that came were horribly like ones she’d heard before. Judas lay down at her feet and Willa stared at him instead in silence.
“Please don’t hate me,” said Louie.
“How could I hate you?”
“I’m going to Bali, it’ll … give me time.”
Yeah, with your family, thought Willa. She nodded, and swallowed. “Enjoy yourself, eh.”
Louie snorted and looked at her in such pain that Willa couldn’t bear it. “I love you, Louie,” she said, starting to cry though she’d promised herself not to.
“I know.” Louie’s voice sounded ready to snap in two. “I love you too,” she said, at last, at last. “But that’s not the point, is it?”
“Isn’t it?”
They stood and looked at Judas for a bit, then Willa sniffed. “You know where to find me, if … well.” She looked away and tried to stop the tears but it was too late. All the stress of the last few days caught up with her—and she wrenched herself away, stomped through the mud and ferns back onto the street and ran this time, ran with Judas beside her, and to hell with the ringing of her boots on the pavement.
All the way down the hill she choked on great sobs which were forced out of her every few steps. Near the bottom was a park bench and Willa skidded onto it, racked with sobbing. Judas nosed her hand worriedly, then jumped up on the bench to lick her tears. She buried her face in his fur and hunched over, crying.
She’d really believed Louie wasn’t like Cathy. With Louie, Willa had thought there might be a future, a chance—she’d trusted her. But it was exactly the same. Sicko Willa, corrupting poor straight Louie. That’s what her family would tell her, that’s what Louie would believe, and maybe, maybe that was the truth?
p.
Jolene knew something was up. She knew better than to force the issue, but when your daughter is crying herself silly in the next bedroom night after night, you can’t ignore it. Often Willa didn’t come home until hours after her shift was finished at Burger Giant. Jolene wasn’t particular about that sort of thing—Willa was sensible—but the suffering in silence routine broke her heart.
Finally one night, she went into Willa’s room with a pot of tea.
“Here, this can’t go on. You’ve got to talk about it, love.”
Willa looked up in surprise. Had Jolene known all along?
“Did Mrs. Angelo ring you?”
She shook her head and laid the tray on Willa’s desk.
“Oh. I can’t talk, Mum,” she whimpered. Then she cried again. “It hurts too much!”
Jolene wrapped her arms around her daughter and rocked her. “It always does, love. It always does.”
“What’s wrong with me?” Willa choked out.
“Nothing. There’s bloody nothing wrong with you.”
Willa pulled herself out of her mother’s arms. “Yes there is! First Cathy, now … this. Why can’t I just be normal?”
Jolene shrugged. “What’s normal?” she smiled. “Anyway, same thing happens, whether it’s a boy or a girl. A broken hearts a broken heart.”
Willa wiped her face with the tissues Jolene handed her. “You knew all about it, didn’t you?”
“Look, I made a pot of tea. It’s a flaming cliché, but it works. You never feel as bad after a cuppa.” Jolene stood up and turned on Willa’s bedside lamp. It immediately made the room warmer. Willa’s clothes came to life, hanging along one wall from a wooden rod.
Willa blew her nose and took the cup her mother poured. Jolene fetched a woollen shawl and wrapped it around her daughter’s shoulders.
“Now, what’s that silly beatnik been up to?”
Willa told her. The bit about her and Louie in bed together when Mrs. Angelo came in made her go bright red.
“Oh god almighty,” breathed Jolene. “You didn’t do it there?”
“We weren’t doing anything!” snapped Willa, then sighed. “Well, you tell me where we can go? I mean, there’s nowhere, eh, just to be together.”
Jolene bit her lip. “Guess not.”
“And there are all our friends, with guys hanging out every weekend, every party—god! Just an hour together for us is almost impossible. Anyway, that’s not the point.” And she heard in her head Louie’s voice.
I love you. But that’s not the point, is it?
“So, what now?” asked her mother.
Willa put down her cup and saucer and hugged the shawl tighter. “She needs ‘time.’ Which means she’s changed her mind, just like Cathy.” She sniffed. “Why?”
Jolene rubbed her daughter’s shoulders. “Well, maybe Louie’s not ready. Maybe she has changed her mind.” Willa’s heart sank. “But don’t judge her too soon, eh? She only said she needs time. Give it to her.”
“But her mother hates me. I’m not allowed to see her again!”
“Well, mothers can grow up too, you know.” Jolene grinned at her. “I didn’t like that business with Cathy.”
That business.
“But then, I’d never had to think about it before. I hope I’m more understanding now, love. You know whatever happens, I still love you.”