Willa brushed impatiently at the tears on her face, and nodded.
“Now, what about those blue letters.”
Willa shook her head. “They’re nothing to do with it.”
“You sure? Sid reckons they are.”
“Sid? You didn’t tell him?”
“Well, who have I got to talk to, for godsake?” Jolene leaned sideways on the bed and pulled a cigarette packet from her dressing gown pocket. “He’s my best mate. And that’s all,” she said, pointing the unlighted cigarette at Willa warningly.
“What did he say?”
Jolene flicked her lighter and dragged deeply. “Oh, just the usual. You could wring his brains out and be left with a lump of ear wax.”
“Well, what?”
Jolene looked at her and rolled her eyes. “He puts it all down to raging hormones. Mind you, he’s used that line on me, too. He’s still looking for someone to blame. You’re not his image of a dyke.”
Willa reeled at the word. Her, a
dyke?
“He’s just a big lump, love. But he does care about you, and he won’t say anything, I have his word.”
Willa gave a weak smile. Great.
“Now,” said her mother, getting up. “Do you think you might get some sleep? It’ll do you the world of good, honestly.”
“If you take that cigarette out of here.”
It would have been better if it wasn’t the holidays. There was too much time to sit around and brood. Willa took on extra shifts at Burger Giant, and strangely enjoyed her time there. Joan and Deirdre knew she’d “fallen out” with Louie and they’d decided that Louie was to blame. The main reason for their decision was Louies being in Bali on holiday and Willa’s working with them at Burger Giant.
Even Kevin was being nice to her now. He invited her out after work, and once or twice she went with him and Kelly to a mate’s house to watch a movie, or to a bar. They made a big deal of her getting in underage, and Willa just smiled and wondered how they could think she’d find a pub glamorous. One time Keith turned up, so Willa left quickly.
Every day she collected the mail, hoping for word from Louie, and every day she was disappointed. She received two more blue notes. One said:
God sees everything,
the other,
I love you.
Eventually, one afternoon, Cathy rang.
“Can you talk?” she asked. Her voice was thin and high, like a doll’s.
“Yes,” said Willa.
“There’s no one around?”
Willa sighed. “No, Cathy, I’m all alone.”
“I just wanted to tell you—I know it wasn’t your fault.”
“Oh.”
“And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I blamed you for everything.”
Willa stared out the window at the blue wintry sky, a drift of pale cloud like old underwear over the hills. “Yeah, well,” she said finally. “Thanks.”
There was a pause. “You know I still feel the same sometimes?”
Willa didn’t answer. She knew.
“I just want to see you, to be with you. Most of the time I’m okay, but … I miss you, Willa.”
“I miss you too.” It wasn’t really true, but so what.
“And … maybe you could come over?”
“I don’t think so, Cathy.”
Willa heard the tears starting, and sighed. This was such an old pattern.
“Please?” cried Cathy, her voice all whispery. “Not for long, Mum’ll be home by five, but maybe…”
“No, Cathy. It’ll only upset both of us.”
Then she was bawling on the other end and Willa was trying to placate her, trying to reassure her she’d be all right. An hour later, when Cathy heard her mother’s car in the drive, she finally hung up. Willa was exhausted.
It was a long, lonely weekend. She worked Saturday afternoon and studied at home the rest of the time, trying not to think of Louie. On Monday she got a card from Bali. All temperatures and places and Mum, Dad, Nic, Marietta. At the bottom she said
love, Louie,
but then, Mo would write that. Willa moped around the Duke trying to be useful and only getting under Sid’s feet. There wasn’t even any fencing on Monday night because of the holidays, but then Marcus rang and suggested she and Lucan and he get together for a practice anyway.
Willa met them at the gym and forced the poor guys into a workout as hard as any they had on official nights. She beat Lucan twice then let him win since he’d started to sulk, and followed it with a long bout against Marcus which he won in the end. He took off his mask and grinned.
“Whew! What a marathon.”
Willa had lam on the floor to get her breath. He sat down, watching her carefully, while Lucan pulled up the mats.
“You’ve finally discovered some aggression, huh?”
Willa liked Marcus. He’d been her first friend at fencing, and wasn’t egotistical about winning, like Lucan. Mind you, she’d never beaten him yet. His dark hair was damp and messy and his upper lip shone with perspiration.
“I needed an outlet,” admitted Willa. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise. You could win the open event next week if you’re still that angry.”
Willa wondered how she’d feel in a week. Louie would be back, but would she have heard anything? She couldn’t even imagine getting through the next seven days.
“You wanna talk about it?” asked Marcus in a mock American accent. “Sorry, physics doesn’t help much with communication skills. But I’m a good listener.”
“It’s too long and boring, believe me.” Willa untied her hair and pulled a brush through it roughly. It crackled with electricity.
“Try me.”
Lucan banged a cupboard shut and came over.
“Maybe some other time. Thanks,” she said, as Lucan picked up their gear, stuffing it in a large canvas bag. He grunted something and disappeared.
“We-ell,” continued Marcus, “speaking of some other time, the film festival’s still on this week. We could go and see a movie, have coffee, you could tell me your life’s problems … no?” he tailed off.
Willa put down her brush and bit her lip. Marcus was kind, gentle, smart, he was even good-looking. But he wasn’t Louie.
“I’m sorry, Marcus. I really like you. It’s just—there’s someone else.”
He nodded. “The one who makes you angry. Lucky guy.”
p.
Louie got home on the Saturday before school started. Willa knew because she saw the lights on at the Metal Petal when she just happened to be walking Judas past, as she did at least three times a day.
She heard nothing. She stayed up, fully dressed and pretending to study all that night, in case Louie came past the Duke. She didn’t show; nor on Sunday. With a stomach full of stones Willa went to school on Monday and saw Louie the moment she opened the door to the seventh form room. Willa was shocked at how thin and drawn she looked, despite the fresh Balinese tan. There were greeny-black rings under her eyes. Vika and Mo were congratulating her on losing weight.
“Hi there,” said Louie carefully when Willa came in.
“Welcome back.”
“Thanks. Hey, um … I’ve got Art History first thing,” Louie pretended to look for something in her bag, “I’ll catch you later some time…”
Willa steeled herself. “Don’t bother.”
Louie looked like she’d been slapped. The others were silent.
“Not unless you’ve got something to say. You’ve made yourself perfectly clear.” Willa turned and left.
p.
They didn’t share any classes, and it was weird how little Willa suddenly saw of Louie. Before, it seemed she just had to walk down a corridor, or into the library, and there she was. Now Willa hardly saw her. Once she was in the canteen queue, too far away to speak, and once she was three rows away in assembly.
Then, one afternoon when Willa was reading in the library she spotted Louie outside. She was walking across the quad in her black jeans and beatnik coat; walking slowly, her feet dragging. As Willa watched, Louie paused at the professional cookery room and tried to look in the windows. When she didn’t find Willa, Louie slumped against the plaster wall, and lifted her face to the heavens. It was enough for Willa. She leapt up and rushed out of the library, along the corridor and out the side door into the cold wind. By the time she rounded the corner, Louie was a distant figure heading slowly towards the school gates. Willa ran after her and was just about to call out when she noticed the sleek white Mercedes parked outside the entrance. She pulled up heavily and watched as Louie opened the door, got in and Susi drove off.
p.
Food disgusted her. Just the thought of it made her stomach bloat and turn over, her throat tighten. When Susi put food in front of her, Louie stiffened and went grey. She nibbled edges of things, placed tiny pieces just inside her lips and tried not to smell or taste them. Susi started to make such a big deal about it that Louie insisted on taking her meal to her room where she promptly threw it out the door into the ferns. She could hardly stand having the dirty plate in her room afterwards, and took it back as soon as possible.
She felt sick most of the time. She really had been sick: vomiting and feverish for about four days after It happened. It was ironic; they nearly didn’t go to Bali after all. In the end it was Louie’s decision that they should. Anywhere would be better than the dark paralysis of her bedroom.
One good thing about Bali was that she could lie on the beach wearing sunglasses and cry without anyone knowing. Her parents left her alone, convinced that time, sun and fresh fruit would do the trick. Instead, she lay awake all night, lay in a stupor all day and stopped eating anything except oranges.
She looked at figures walking on the beach: beautiful men, beautiful women. She tried to find them attractive; first men, their strong legs and bulky muscles, their tight bottoms and bronze shoulders. She watched them dive powerfully into the crashing sea, she watched them twist at the hips stitching up the waves on their surfboards. Then the women; their long slim legs and neat waists, the flight of their hair, the sway when they walked. But she felt nothing. She failed both tests. All she knew was that when she thought of Willa, her flaming hair and small kind hands, the soft smell of her neck and the gleaming oyster-coloured skin of her belly, Louie’s head swirled and she felt as if she were falling from an aeroplane. She would gnp the sides of the sun-lounger, take deep breaths and force herself to focus on something close up—a shell, a bottle of sunscreen, a coloured towel, and slowly, slowly, everything would stop moving.
She watched Nic, too. He surfed and sunbathed, he drank beer and chatted up women on the beach, he joked with everyone they met, played with Marietta, and charmed the staff at the hotel. Susi fussed over him and Louie noticed for the first time the look in her mother’s eyes as Nic was admired by young women. It was pride, the pride she was missing out on with Louie, but it was something else, too. Louie noticed how Susi liked to touch Nic, drape an arm around him, ruffle his hair, pat his leg.
Nic was kind to Louie. He took her side once or twice when Tony and Susi tried to force her to join them for dinner or dancing or something stupid. “Hey,” he’d said, “she’s okay. She’s just chilling out. Leave her alone.” One day Louie walked with him into the market and bought fruit, earrings and a sarong. It was the best day of all: she liked being around real people, not the glossy hotel crowd. But that night she spotted a look exchanged between Nic and her parents, a pleased nod in her direction. How much did Nic know? The next morning at the beach she was silent again, and when Nic’s quips got him nowhere, he snapped, “Get over it, Luisa. It’s only a girlfriend.” She heard her own scream as if it came out of the earth, and when she ran out of things to throw at him she heaved handfuls and handfuls of sand until she’d dug a hole that she collapsed into sobbing, the world spinning, the ground subsiding again.
The panic attacks continued when they returned home, but by then Louie could hide them better. The worst was when she first walked back into her bedroom. It had a smell—not of Willa, but of Willa and Louie and the room combined—which pierced her chest, turned her legs to dust and left her crumpled on the bed, gasping. In the end she threw open her suitcase and buried her face in the Bali clothes, in their spicy foreign smell, then opened the ranchslider to the bitter air and gulped deep breaths. Even the roll of the ranchslider was now Willa; the loamy smell of the ferns outside was her too.
The next day they all went to Sunday mass, and this time Louie found it vaguely comforting to recite the familiar prayers, to sing the familiar hymns, to be soothed by the careful deep voice of the young priest. He was wearing proper black shoes this time, no Reeboks, and when they stopped to speak at the church door there were no special words for her, no insight into her suffering, just a moment—did she imagine it?—when Susi mentioned the new school term and he placed his hand very, very gently on her shoulder.
Louie dreaded school more than anything. The first morning her entire body shook while Mo and Vika gabbled around her. She knew the minute the door opened it was Willa.
“Hi there,” she managed to force out.
“Welcome back.” Willa’s eyes were frighteningly blue, glittering.
“Thanks.” Louie couldn’t breathe. There was a roaring in her ears. She rummaged in her bag, then stuttered something about seeing Willa later and tried to escape.
Willa’s voice slammed into her. “Don’t bother.” It was a heavy, dull sound. “Not unless you’ve got something to say. You’ve made yourself perfectly clear.”
Louie couldn’t remember anything after that. She moved from class to class, she filled up sheets of paper with writing, she pulled out books and put them away. She thought she had been silent throughout, but sometimes was surprised to hear her own voice chattering to friends, or answering a question in class. At such times she would stop bewildered until someone else filled the gap.
After a few days she found it easier to speak, to laugh, to play the game, but it never seemed real. What was real was the agony of glimpsing Willa in assembly, the cooking room, the cafeteria, and not being able to say or do anything.
On Thursday Susi picked her up from school early and took her to the medical centre. Susi stayed in the waiting room but Louie knew immediately that she’d already briefed the doctor.