How it feels (2 page)

Stalling, I cupped Courtney's breasts, recalling the advice Stuart had offered me so freely. As I started counting to ten I realised how stupid this was – I had permission! I had more than permission; Courtney was gagging for it… I just hadn't told the boys that. I mean, I'd vaguely told them of long heated sessions of ‘69' and explained that she was ‘almost ready', but I hadn't told them the exact truth.
I
was the reason why Courtney and I were still in
Adrian Mole
world not
Debbie Does Dallas
.

Gasps of hot air jetted out of Courtney's mouth as I teased the edges of her southern place. She liked this, how I'd duck and dive, threatening to finger her deep, then not. I was a performer, using performance to hide the frightening monster that sex was to me. It was now, I thought, in this golden afternoon on results day, that I would finally ‘get there' and be able to call my two friends and say ‘It's done, ok?' But those eyes, those big green eyes of hers, they bore right into me with crippling force. She wanted it too much; the space Tommy left in her, she wanted me to fill it. And I couldn't. She looked too young and too scared, almost like she didn't really want it either, she just needed it. I couldn't stick it in and fuck her pain away. I did not know how to fuck at all, let alone as therapy. Those eyes, pleading dumbly at me from below, saying ‘just do this thing so it is done', they were too loud. She didn't want me, she didn't even want this, she just wanted it over. My dick went soft and my girlfriend knew it was gone again.

Courtney and I had met at the corner of Burraneer Bay and Gannons roads at 8 am that morning, kissed by the swings, bought two takeaway cappuccinos and made our way down to the post office to open our HSC results. To open up the rest of our lives with a rip. Courtney, being a complete brainiac, had nailed 4 unit maths, French, legal studies and 3 unit English, scoring a blazing 99.1 Tertiary Entrance Rank, whereas I, spending most of Years 11 and 12 smoking and reading Metaphysical Poetry, scored a modest 74.45. Courtney and I had discussed it and set our plans in stone. I would apply to do a Bachelor of Arts at Sydney Uni, or UNSW, or even Macquarie out in Ryde, and she would go for law at one of the same. We would live together in Glebe and cook and fuck and make interesting friends on campus. Planning my future with her was the most fun I had ever had. Courtney was incredible, and her future would be the same. Given what she had
been through
I imagined her as some sort of legal counsellor, helping those in need. Her mind was brilliant but her heart was the true phenomenon.

The only thing was, I hadn't discussed it with Gordon yet, and I still had no idea how to. We hadn't been apart for more than a day since we'd met five years earlier in Year 8, and the idea of going our separate ways dropped so hard neither of us could even speak of it. So we didn't.

I rolled off Courtney and she pulled up her undies. ‘What is so wrong with me that you do this? Am I that ugly?'

‘No! We'll do it tonight!' I said. ‘Tonight at the party… your mum's just outside.'

Courtney did her bra back up. ‘I can't believe this!' she fumed.

‘I want it to be special,' I said.

‘It feels really fucking special now!'

‘I'm sorry, Courtney. I just want to make it something we'll never forget,' I said, kissing the dent her glasses had left. She smiled and nodded. God knows how much more she could put up with.

‘Look at your funny penis.' Courtney flicked my cock, the culprit. She'd forgiven me, again, but I could see in her eyes that she was getting pretty bored of the prevarication and I felt for her. I wanted it bad too, but the weight of it always won out. The vagina, to me, was like one of those national parks the teachers led you into on orienteering day. They give you a compass and a hat and you're on your own. I had no sense of direction and the woods went deep and curved endlessly into themselves.

Courtney kissed me full and open on the mouth, swirling her tongue around the back of my teeth as she gripped the middle of my chest with a threat and promise. ‘Tonight… or else… '

She disappeared into the bathroom with the flash of a sky-blue Cronulla Sharks towel, leaving me squashed against the corner of her bedhead where I met with the fifteen ceramic elephants that stood on her bedside table. The elephants were from all sorts of places and people; whenever it was time to give Courtney something everyone thought ‘elephant'. Courtney loved elephants; she said they had a ‘quiet grace' about them, and that if she was an animal she would want to be an elephant. I adored this in her, but today they were no longer my friends, today they were judging me, having witnessed my failure at the edge of the river bank. So I rolled over and away, where I was met with a blu-tacked bit of poem I had written her a week after Tommy's funeral.

I am this thing

I am this thing that needs to go

I love my sister and my sport

Love the way the water feels

But I am this thing

I am this thing that needs to go

From the darkness

Beneath the surface

From the spaces

You don't swim in

It's not your thing, sister

Your thing is living

You glorious thing

Two things struck me as I read the poem: (1) I had stolen the style and structure from one of Leonard Cohen's
Book of Mercy
poems, and (2) I had arrogantly assumed the position of first-person narrator – ie Courtney's dead brother. Artists can be such cockheads.

The smell of chopped fruit flowed from the kitchen where Courtney's mum would be hacking into pineapple and kiwi with a cleaver. I knew Courtney would be more than five minutes in the bathroom so I started to wank, thinking in montage about Courtney in the shower and Nina in the kitchen. It was always better this way and not like orienteering at all.

Since the sudden and theatrical suicide of her fifteen-year-old son Tommy, Nina Gonzales had got way into making fruit whips. Something about the whirling mess of colour, the slutty integration of flavour, or perhaps the dull, thudding vibration of the blender made her stand there for hours on end pushing orange, pineapple, kiwi and mint deep down into the tall glass cylinder, then flicking up the metal lever to violently whip fruit into beverage. We all knew how weird it was, but no one dared stop her; hell hath no fury like a woman blending.

Tommy was a super-bright kid who had been named Student Leader in Year 7, 8, 9 and, finally, 10. He was loved by every teacher and student who came into contact with him, and his English essays were always so opinionated and cool that kids would talk about them in the playground. Tommy also volunteered at Special Education twice a week, reading Roald Dahl novels out loud with such warmth and diction.

But outside school was where he really came alive; Tommy could surf big waves, kick a conversion from the sideline (in the rain), and when he'd cleaned up a six-pack or two of cold tins he could do a reckless, gravelly cover of The Offspring's ‘Come Out and Play'. He was famous for it.

Fourteen weeks, four days and eight hours before Tommy died he met a girl named Bianca. Tommy had already lost his virginity to Year 10 Captain Angela Chapman, but everything from before disappeared when Bianca took position.

Courtney hated Bianca from the outset. She knew she was trouble and she was right. ‘Something rotted inside her,' Courtney told me, on our first walk after the funeral. Bianca had such a strong effect on Tommy that he no longer surfed, his grades plummeted and the Special Ed kids were left to read
The BFG
on their own.

Then one overcast Friday close to school break, Bianca met Tommy at ‘their spot' by Lilli Pilli Baths and broke up with him. She had ‘found someone else' or said something about ‘the wrong head space right now'. Tommy was never fully capable of explaining it, apparently. Then he was gone.

The following Saturday Tommy hanged himself from a tree in Lilli Pilli Park. He called Nina from the phone booth half an hour before, telling her what he was about to do and how it wasn't her fault, or Courtney's, or their dad Eric's; he just couldn't go on without Bianca. As soon as Nina realised the finality of the phone call, she wrote on a bit of calendar with texta and Eric read it and jumped in the Subaru with Courtney beside him screaming to go, and go faster. But they arrived too late, Tommy's brilliant frame already swinging in the morning air.

Making my way into the kitchen I was struck by the way Nina's buttocks shook in her black leggings as she gripped the thick glass of the Breville blender.

Nina was way fit for her age, a taller, yet almost identical, ‘vintage' version of Courtney, her skin slightly darker from the weekly home-tanning sessions (another thing she'd picked up since the death of her son) and her eyes, though slightly smaller than Courtney's, were the same deep green. Her good breasts pointed out and up from within whatever they were within, and her voice was low and husky. Stuart would often smack me in the neck, jibing that I had chosen the
second
-hottest chick in the Gonzales family, and he wasn't far wrong.

‘Hi, Mrs Gonzales.' I moved through the tall foyer, skimming my fingers on the exposed-brick wall. Nina instantly buttoned off the blender and turned to greet me, wet-eyed and frantically still.

‘Neil, hello, would you like a fruit whip?'

‘I'd love one!' I am not a massive fan of fruit-driven drinks, but I'd happily guzzle a gallon a day if it made Nina happy.

‘Congratulations on your results, Courtney told me you got enough for arts or communications. You and Courtney can get the train in from Sutherland station – big uni students travelling together!'

I leant on the marble counter. I felt strangely comfortable in Nina's presence, sometimes even more comfortable with her than her daughter. Relating to Nina came without all the expectation and fear that were so abundantly present with every look, word or touch involving Courtney. With Nina everything was just so cool.

‘Yeah, not a bad result, I guess, Mrs G.'

‘Not bad? You topped drama and 3 unit English! Your mother must be over the moon.'

‘I haven't told her yet. She's still sleeping off the night shift.'

Nina poured the smoothie into two tall metal milkshake cups she kept cool in the fridge. ‘How is your mother?'

‘Oh yeah, she's ok, thanks. Still working graveyard at the hospital.'

Nina popped a sprig of mint on the top of my orange-pink drink and handed it over.

‘You're ok though, aren't you, Neil?' Nina took some of the counter herself, her eyes cracked and meaningful.

‘Yeah, generally I'm pretty ok. Glad school is over. Is that what you mean, Mrs Gonzales?'

‘Yes. No. I guess. With your parents being apart. Not being together.'

‘Um…'

‘It's ok. You don't have to say anything. I just wonder how you go… how kids go… in that situation.'

Well aware of the strain Eric and Nina's marriage had been under since Tommy's death, I did my best to stay cool and play naive. This kind of real-life performance was something I really enjoyed. I was good at it. She went on.

‘Eric doesn't talk to us anymore. He just waters the garden or sits on his chair in the garage listening to the horse races on the radio.'

‘I'm not that into horse races.'

‘I just worry about my daughter.'

I had several speeches in mind, all of which would work in this situation, so I chose the simplest and most positive. ‘At first I was pretty devastated when Dad left, but then after a while I realised it was kind of cool.'

Nina snapped, ‘How can it be
cool
for a teenage girl
not
to have her father around when she needs him the most?'

Man, did I wanna reach out and kiss Nina, hug the fuck out of her with my whole body, like I would when someone in my Year 12 drama class had opened themselves up, divulged something, or exposed vulnerability. Or even if they'd simply nailed a scene or improvisation exercise. But this was not drama class, and this was not an exercise, this was a house with spikes in it.

‘Well, you become friends with your parents is how. I meet Dad for coffee some Saturdays up at Miranda Fair. We might go shopping for shaving equipment or buy a bike pump or go to the movies. And we'll talk about our weeks and he'll ask me about school and Courtney and Mum a bit. He doesn't really
listen
that well, my dad, but you know, he rolls up, which is cool. I guess what I'm saying, Mrs Gonzales, is that you develop a relationship with your parents that you somehow can't when you're sharing a roof. And you know, the Sutherland Shire is pretty conservative; it's just
divorce
but still everyone tiptoes around me as if I'm some abuse victim or I've lost my ability to see, when I really haven't suffered at all. I was just relieved that the yelling had stopped, and I could finally get some sleep. And anyway, Mrs G, you can visit me and Courtney in Glebe, stay over even – we're going to have the coolest place!'

Nina's heart lifted up into her neck and eyes, burning the inside of her forehead. She had obviously never considered an empty house. With nothing but the memory of the three
gone people
. One who left her for a rope, the other who left her for horses, and now her daughter, who would leave her for study and fun in the city with her boyfriend. I'd fucked up. Of course Courtney hadn't filled her in on our plans yet, the woman was as frail as quail bones.

‘This is a beautiful fruit whip you made me, Mrs Gonzales.' I smiled.

‘You're a good kid, Neil.' Nina inched closer, and as she always did after I finished a fruit whip, ran two fingers across my face and said, ‘So like Tommy in this light.'

I didn't mind. Whatever helped. But a minute passed like this, and I heard the shower stop, so I thought I should wrap it up.