Clancy of the Undertow (24 page)

‘Sit down,' I say. ‘You'll only catch a minor disease from the chair, probably.'

He says, ‘I'm just glad you're okay. That you're both okay.'

‘Thanks for the flowers. You didn't have to bring them.'

Reeve shrugs. ‘You have to bring
something
, don't you. For some reason I had it in my head that you were supposed to bring grapes to people in hospital, but I don't know if you like them.'

‘Flamin' botoxed sultanas,' I say, recycling a joke from months ago, a slow day at the shopping centre when we tried to think up insults for every item in the fruit shop.

Reeve laughs, finally sitting down. ‘This was the second-cheapest bouquet they had at the florist,' he says, patting the cellophane. ‘I hope you appreciate that.'

‘You know how to make a woman feel special,' I say, trying to flutter my eyelids and probably not succeeding. Reeve's face goes red. I'm an idiot.

‘Listen,' I say. ‘Really. Thanks. For everything. I mean, I'm not the easiest person to get along with.'

‘Yes you are.' He's got the look of someone who's trying to remember an obscure address.

‘No. I'm not. I ran off in the middle of lunch, for one thing.'

‘Well, that's—I mean, it didn't worry me. Why, um, did you though?'

This is a good question. ‘I thought it was…something I had to do. I thought it was important.'

‘And was it?'

‘Not really. I thought it was. But it really wasn't.'

‘Oh well,' he says. ‘Good that you know now, hey?'

‘Was everyone pissed off?'

‘Not pissed off. Not really. Your mum and dad seemed…embarrassed, I guess, more than anything.'

I cringe. ‘Yeah, I'll bet. It was supposed to be this big
together
thing for the family. I put paid to that.' Then, ‘What about Nancy? Was she okay?'

‘I think so. I mean, her mum sort of made them leave. The whole thing wrapped up pretty quickly.'

‘Oh, God.' Carla would definitely not want Nancy being around me now.

‘No, it was fine,' Reeve says. ‘I just hung out with Angus and then got to take basically the whole lasagne home with me. It was amazing.'

‘You had to talk to Angus? Sorry.'

‘Nah, he's cool. I never really hung out with him at school but he's okay.'

‘My
brother
Angus? I'm sure there's a head trauma specialist you could see while you're here.'

Reeve laughs. ‘He's got some interesting ideas, I'll give you that. But he's a good guy.'

I picture—again—the image of the dirt below the observatory, looming up towards me. I feel Angus's grip on my arm, refusing to let me go. ‘Yeah,' I say. ‘He actually might be.'

‘Up on the mountain,' says Reeve. ‘That was something to do with Angus, wasn't it? That's why you were up there. Before lunch he was going on about this
amazing discovery
he was about to make. Wouldn't say what it was.'

There's the other image I can't shake: the black shape I saw in the lightning; the giant, moving muscle.

‘Just one of his schemes,' I say. ‘One of many.' For some reason, I want to protect my brother. I want his secret kept. ‘He owes you one as well.'

Reeve shakes his head, like
nah
. ‘You're the hero of this one, Clance. You're the one who drove back down the mountain. I knew you were keen to get your licence, but man…'

‘They'll never let me drive now. I left the ute upside-down in a field.'

‘No,' he says. ‘It was really…a really brave thing to do. Really brave.'

A fresh wave of exhaustion hits me. ‘Why is everyone being so nice to me?'

‘What do you mean?'

I feel tears welling up. ‘I mean, everyone's acting like I'm this amazing person, but I'm just a weird freak. A crazy weird freak.'

‘No you're not,' says Reeve. ‘You're the best person I know.' He takes my hand, quickly, but his big hands are warm. His mouth is crushed up, like he doesn't know what expression to make.

‘I'm always going to disappoint you. I disappoint everyone.'

‘Why?' His thumb moves gently over the back of my hand.

‘Because I can't…I can't be who you want me to be.' My words are a loosened knot.

‘You don't have to be anyone.'

I stare at the bridge of his nose. ‘I can't be…someone who's with you. Is what I'm saying.'

His thumb stops moving. He takes his hand away.

‘It's not you, though,' I say. ‘It's not because it's you. It's anyone. Any boy…man. That's not who I am. I really like you but I can't…like you the way you want me to.' My thoughts are in a spiral and I have no way of knowing if he understands.

Reeve's quiet for a moment. Then he nods. ‘I see,' he says. ‘I mean, I understand.'

I'm not ready to tell him. I just can't. ‘You're too nice,' I say. ‘You deserve so much happiness, or wealth, or pancakes. A girl who can make you happier than I can.'

He says, quietly, ‘We all need people who make us feel like ourselves.'

The big, beautiful idiot is making me cry. I've got new tears welling up behind tears and more just behind. Like an army assembling. Like shark's teeth. ‘Why are you so nice?' I say.

‘Don't worry,' he says. ‘I'm awful to you behind your back.'

I laugh. ‘You're going to make beautiful nerdy babies with someone one day, Reeve. And that someone will be the luckiest person.'

He smiles. It's killing him, I know, but he smiles.

43

Angus is discharged from hospital and I'm not allowed to leave with him. This strikes me as grossly unfair, since he fell off a cliff and I just fell over. Turns out I did the most damage slipping over in the rain, then the car crash endangered a random selection of internal organs. Angus just had
clean breaks
and
simple bruising
and other annoyingly straightforward injuries. One of my ribs came close to puncturing my lung, so I had to stay longer
for observation
. Somehow, the thought of being observed seems worse than anything my own body could do to me.

In the afternoons I'm sometimes allowed to come down to what the hospital laughingly calls a garden, which is really just a pot-planted segment of negative space between two buildings. It's not outside, exactly, because it's walled in, but in the afternoon a wafer of light and some fresh air sneak through the louvres.

I'm there in my wheelchair on the Sunday before school's supposed to start, reading a compellingly bad romance novel, when I realise someone is standing behind me.

‘Mum didn't really want me to come,' is the first thing I hear Nancy say. She walks around in front of me. She's wearing her sunglasses, even though it's not at all bright.

All I can come up with is, ‘Okay.'

I try to stuff the book down the side of my chair. The nurse brought around a literal crate of books once I was able to sit up in bed and they were all Mills and Boon. Cheesy and embarrassing tales of initially doomed but eventually hunky-dory boy/girl love. Reading them is like sculling raspberry cough syrup.

Nancy just stands there, and we're both not saying anything, and it's like our friendship is back to square one.

‘So,' I say. ‘Listen.' I drag a blanket across my bare legs. I haven't seen myself in a mirror for a long time but I can imagine how I look. ‘Thanks for coming.' Is this it? Is this the best I can come up with?

Nancy shrugs. ‘I brought you a card. It's from everyone at Nature Club. They were all going to come, but I thought you wouldn't like that very much.' She hands me an envelope. It's homemade paper, pressed with leaves. Everyone's written inside, with predictably insane handwriting except for Olive and Tom's exact cursive. There's no message from Nancy.

‘The paper's nice,' I say. ‘Did you make it?'

‘No.'

‘Well, it's nice.'

‘Uh-huh.'

This is going to go on forever. ‘I'm sorry I was a dick.'

Nancy goes, ‘Which particular time?' which is a fair point.

‘The most recent time,' I say. ‘And the other times. And any future times.'

‘Right from the heart, then.' Nancy starts grinding her teeth. I can see the muscles in her jaw moving.

Bloody hell. ‘I really am sorry,' I say. ‘I just—I feel like all I do in my life is apologise to people.'

‘Maybe there's a reason for that.'

I take a few deep breaths. ‘Why did you even come,' I say, ‘if you didn't want to be here? If your mum didn't want you to come, why bother?'

‘I thought we were friends,' she says. Her voice drops. ‘I thought I'd found a friend.'

‘But I thought—'

‘You told me all that stuff about you. Personal stuff. And then you just disappeared. You went off in some stranger's car and I was so confused and no one knew what was going on and…then you were in this car crash.' She clamps her hand over her mouth like she's stifling a sudden violent yawn. ‘I had to find out from the newspaper.'

‘How was the crossword?'

‘Shut up, Clancy!' She glares at me. ‘Not everything's a…goddamn joke. You nearly died.'

‘Sorry.' I am truly the worst. ‘I don't know why…' But I know exactly why. Stupid jokes mean I don't have to think about the image of the smashed sunglasses or the Beast of Barwen or Sasha's face as she pulled away from me.

‘Forget it,' says Nancy. ‘Enjoy the card. Enjoy your life.' She walks past me.

I ram my wheelchair backwards, blocking the door.

‘Please move,' she says.

I say, as quickly as I can, ‘It was the girl. In the car. The girl I told you about.'

Nancy squints at me. ‘The girl?'

‘The girl I like. Sasha. We'd organised a…we were going to hang out. But not then. She wasn't supposed to show up then.'

‘Oh.' Nancy takes off her sunglasses. I can see she's been crying.

‘I was…I thought she liked me. She didn't, though. She really didn't. That's why. That's why I left. It was so stupid.'

Nancy's face fills with confusion. ‘You should have told me.'

‘I didn't know she was going to show up. I didn't think.'

‘And you'd walk out on your family as well. Without telling anyone. People don't do that. You can't just leave.'

There's something in her eyes, behind the brimming tears. I recognise the familiar rage of white-hot embarrassment. ‘Are you okay?' I say. ‘Why don't you sit down?' There's a bench by the other wall that people only ever use to stand next to and smoke.

Nancy says, ‘I should probably just go, I think. I hope you feel better. She pushes her sunglasses down and goes to move past me.

I move my wheelchair back further. ‘You're not leaving,' I say.

‘Get. Out. Of. My. Way.'

‘Just five minutes. Please.'

She stares at me.

‘If you want to leave,' I say, ‘you'll have to knock over an injured girl in a wheelchair. Do you want that on your conscience?'

She sighs. She walks over to the bench and sits down, pulling her legs up underneath her.

I take my time. I tell Nancy the whole sorry story properly. No confusion. No dancing around the issue. This is who I am and this is what I did. I tell it properly. Me, Sasha, the skate park, the roadhouse, the hideout, the date, the observatory, the kiss. Buggs, the car, the graffiti. It feels horrible to relive my humiliation, but maybe telling it to someone makes it slightly better. Sunlight weakens and the afternoon lingers.

All throughout, Nancy just stares at the ground. ‘This is like what happened before,' she says eventually. ‘At my old school. I trusted someone. This girl in my grade. I thought we were really close.' She scrunches up her face. ‘My dad,' she says. ‘He's not overseas. Or, well, he might be. I don't know.'

I grab her hand without thinking. Squeeze it.

‘He left a few years ago. Didn't really give a reason, at least not one that Mum told me. It was so awful.'

‘I'm really sorry,' I say.

‘Yeah, well…I started feeling really bad.
Really
bad. Just awful, dark thoughts. I told this girl—my so-called friend—about it. I didn't know who else to talk to. Then the next week everyone's looking at me like I'm on fire. Drawing red lines on their wrists. Pretending to choke. Making jokes in chemistry about keeping the acid away from me. Just sneaky, awful things the teachers wouldn't notice.'

‘Bloody hell.' And then, ‘If I'd known…'

‘It's fine,' she says through a stream of tears. ‘It is. I just really need people to like me, apparently.' She laughs, even though it isn't at all funny.

‘It's screwed up,' I say, ‘isn't it? When you need to talk to people but you can't talk to people. Like, if we'd told each other this stuff earlier…'

‘Neither of us would've though.'

‘True.'

Nancy leans forward and puts her head in her hands. I stroke her back. Just two broken peas in a pod.

‘When are you coming back to school?' says Nancy, eventually, from behind her hair.

‘They think I'll be out some time next week. Not exactly looking forward to going back, but Mum'll kill me if I don't.'

‘So will I. I'll have to sit with Glenn at lunch.'

‘Dear God.'

‘He's fine. He's harmless. But I'm in serious danger of becoming interested in World of Warcraft.'

‘It can't be any worse than this world. Man, the shit I'm going to cop for the Sasha stuff…'

Nancy sits up. ‘Do you think it'll be that bad?'

I give her a look like
Really?
‘She'll probably say I attacked her or tricked her or something. She'll want to turn the story her way.'