Cloudwish (10 page)

chapter 20

Vân Ước arrived in
the locker area after pre-school orchestra practice on Monday morning to find Annie in the middle of a heated dispute with Pippa. She listened idly as she got out her laptop and copy of
Ariel
for period one, English.

‘I am too off sugar, you dweeb,' Annie said to Pippa.

‘But you just put about a gallon of honey in your tea in the common room. I was there right next to you, so . . . you're not. Off sugar,' Pippa said, in her patient, slightly trippy voice. ‘You're actually mainlining sugar.'

‘Honey isn't sugar,' Annie said, closing her locker with a bang.

‘But it's
a
sugar,' Pippa said. ‘It's in the sugar
family
.'

‘Listen, sugar is white and comes in a bowl, and, it's like POISON. Honey is a yellow liquid. It's healthy because it's made by bees, who, PS, we would die without, because they pollinate our food.'

‘No one's saying bees aren't like totally good guys and all, but honey
is
a sugar in dietary terms,' said Pippa. ‘Put it this way: if ants like it, it's a sugar, babe.'

Holly walked in with Tiff, and stopped dead when she saw Vân Ước.

‘Security alert – lock up your belongings,' she said.

‘What are you talking about?' asked Annie.

‘Didn't you hear? You know that cardigan Vân Ước had on last week? She “found” it,' Holly said, doing the inverted comma fingers in the air. ‘So, just keep an eye on your valuables.'

‘Oooh, I loved that cardigan,' said Pippa. ‘Where did you find it?'

‘In the Botanic Gardens,' said Vân Ước.

‘What do you mean – it was just lying around?' said Annie.

‘No, I would have left it, if it had been.' Finally, an opportunity to tell her story without Holly's false spin on it. She found an extra shred of courage as she saw Michael arrive.

‘It had a label pinned to it that said . . .' Of course, she remembered – she had proof. She opened her locker again. ‘I've still got it here . . . somewhere.' She pulled out her backpack and felt around inside the front pocket where she'd put it. ‘It
was
here. I must have lost it.'

‘How convenient,' said Holly.

‘I haven't done anything wrong. I found the cardigan, and I know what the label said . . .'

‘And I know a liar when I see one.' Holly ostentatiously locked her locker. ‘But do let us know if you find this non-existent label.' She gave Vân Ước an unpleasant Cheshire Cat smile.

If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.
Huh! Cold comfort. Of course that was the saintly Helen Burns speaking, not Jane Eyre. Jane's rejoinder had been,
No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don't love me I would rather die than live – I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen
. Jane was always spot on the money. Who wanted to be solitary and hated? Who didn't want to be popular and loved?

Ms Norton, who was also another class's homeroom teacher, was running a few minutes late for English, and the whole room was humming with chat when Billy arrived. He came over to Vân Ước. ‘I've been scouted by Brown,' he said. ‘They want me and Ben to row for them.' Vân Ước could see Billy's friends exchanging looks: a few aberrations were becoming a pattern – what was Billy doing talking to that girl
again
? With his full focus on her, she was unable to ignore him.

‘Brown. You mean . . . Ivy League Brown?' she said.

‘Yep.' And as though struck by an important realisation, he added, ‘They have great art schools there, too.' She wasn't the only one giving him the shock bomb. What he seemed to be saying was that she too might like to study in America.

Holly looked at her with open hostility. But Ben made light of it. ‘Actually, they have a whole lot of good universities there. And Robbo says we'll get more offers. Now we just have to ace the regatta this weekend.'

‘I think we'll be okay. I pulled a six twenty-six this morning,' said Billy.

Vân Ước saw a quickly covered spark of annoyance cross Ben's face. Billy was talking about his ergo time. Six minutes, twenty-six seconds. She wondered what his splits were.

Ms Norton came in with apologies, making sure everyone by now had completed their practice session, or had them scheduled for some time that week and had made appointments with her for their first orals.

She and Billy were meeting after school on Wednesday. She knew for sure if she looked up he'd be looking at her. She managed not to look up.

chapter 21

On Wednesday, straight after
her oboe class and his training session were finished Vân Ước found herself leaving school with Billy Gardiner. She was side by side on a footpath with him. Billy Gardiner. On her way to his house. To Billy Gardiner's house. She knew from the class contact lists that he lived within walking distance of the school. He'd showered after gym and his hair was still dripping, soaking his shirt. He smelled great. Looked great. She tried not to look, not to smell.

She had told her parents she'd be at a compulsory after-school English session. Her mother didn't even bother asking to see the letter from school. She must have figured out years ago that her daughter was reliable to a boring degree. The benefit of all those years of perfect behaviour was that she had a fair amount of freedom in daylight hours, though rarely anything to squander it on. She smiled. She was acting as though this actually constituted
a transgressive activity, when what she was doing was walking to a real, compulsory after-school English study session. What a loser she was. Even when she was breaking free, she wasn't.

Billy looked at her. ‘It's the
secret smile
. The Vân Ước special.'

She immediately replaced the smile with a neutral expression. He couldn't possibly interpret that any particular way. She thought of Mr Rochester studying Jane Eyre's expressions:
There was much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd
. . .

‘It's the
Vân Ước is giving nothing away
face,' he said. ‘I like that I get the faces to myself for once. Now I can ask you what you're thinking.'

‘You've had since year nine to ask what I'm thinking. You took your own good time.'

‘You came in year nine?'

‘Yup.'

‘Huh. Who knew?'

He looked genuinely puzzled, and fleetingly unsure of himself, as he should, because wasn't he really asking the question,
Why am I suddenly
fascinated
by someone I never noticed before, even though she's been in my class for two years?

He was unlikely to be speculating that his feelings might be nothing more than wish-induced hokum.

But she was.

Billy was quiet for a stretch of at least two minutes – unusual – before they turned into his street, which ran into a road that flanked one boundary of the Botanic Gardens. They stopped at a high brick wall covered in well-trimmed ficus. He unlocked a tall wrought-iron gate decorated with leaves and flowers and ushered her into his world.

On a sideboard crammed with photos of, she guessed, family and extended family and friends, in a forest of silver frames, there was one photo to which she was particularly drawn. Billy's parents, presumably – a wedding-day shot. Straight blonde hair, a simple, collarbone-exposing neckline, thick fabric that stood a little way from the skin, casting a soft shadow. Eye-shining laughter, champagne flutes raised, a toast. The large square diamond. It could be a Tiffany ad. It could not be a more stark contrast to her own family.

She thought, inevitably, of something – not the worst thing, no, not by far – on the list of things she'd never dared to ask her father. On boats, in cases such as her parents', when people sat crammed together like livestock, becalmed and dying, it wasn't uncommon that they would resort to drinking their own urine, or giving sips of urine to their children, desperate to keep them hydrated. She'd dipped the tip of her little finger into a sample she had to produce at the doctor's one day, when she was thirteen. It tasted funky and made her gag. Mouthfuls? No. No way. She would have perished, a weakling.

The sense of excess here flooded her senses. Space! The entry hall was bigger than her living/dining and kitchen area combined. One wall featured a gallery-huge piece of indigenous art. The entrance lobby of her flats featured unpainted red brick walls, a line of missing tiles on the floor right outside the lifts, and a sign that said,
No spitting or hawking. Fine $300
in three languages.

The stuff of which things were made! Curtains in the sitting room fell to sit heavily on the floor, slightly over-long. Windowsills were deep enough to sit on. She thought of Jane Eyre's reading nook. In the library, the windows had solid wooden folding shutters, painted white. The books! They lived here – never had to be returned to a public library. The rug felt densely woven, thick and soft underfoot. Here was a sense of air and light, an environment controlled. Nothing intruded. Nothing unwelcome could find its way in. No cooking smells invaded this area. It had its own lovely smells: the glass vase of flowers, as big as a bucket; a hint of furniture polish, beeswax. But it smelled most of all like – cleanness, and fresh air.

Where she lived, there were pockets that would forever hold the ghost of a thousand ph
ở
s. A lack of proper ventilation meant that their flat held the heat for too long on summer days like this.

The walls here must be so thick. This room was quiet, and cool, despite the breathless heat outside. Maybe there were other people in the house, maybe not. You'd never know.

At her place, every conversation could be heard from anywhere in the flat. Bathroom and toilet noises were all unavoidably shared. And, coming in from either side, neighbours' phone calls, music, arguments, plumbing noises and TV were constant visitors.

Here, she felt like a flower finally in its right environment, her petals opening one by one to absorb the beauty, and then folding back up to protect herself from the fact that this was not her world.

She knew of people who lived like this, from magazines, but seeing at close range the vast span of difference between her life and Billy's almost made her laugh with disbelief at the unfairness of it all. Who had decided that some should have so little and others so much?

She hoped none of this was visible on her face, especially the bit about tasting her own wee.

She turned to Billy. ‘What are these? It's such a pretty scent.' She bent to sniff the big-headed yellow blooms made up of many small flowers threaded with delicate red stamens.

‘Yeah, they're ginger flowers, I think – my mum likes them, too.'

Billy leaned in, smiling. What? Was he going to kiss her? She heard a confused rushing in her ears, and felt a tug of desire so strong it was like being winded. She held the table edge behind her for balance. But he just brushed the tip of her nose softly with his little finger and said, ‘Pollen.' He stayed close, looking into her eyes. Whatever else might have been about to happen didn't, because she sneezed five times in quick succession and had to fish a tissue from her pocket and blow her nose.

Classic mood-breaker.

She gave herself a stern mental shake: nothing was going to happen except her fantasy intruding into reality, an uninvited guest.

‘Does she – does your mum arrange the flowers?'

‘Usually. I think. If she's around. Let's grab something to eat and go to my room.'

She didn't want to leave the beauty, but managed a few muted tap-dance steps to relieve her feelings as she followed Billy.

The kitchen was another revelation. It looked like a glamorous laboratory. Perfect white tiles, stainless steel, and a woman wearing an apron emerging from a doorway. Vân Ước froze. Meet the parents? She wasn't ready for that.

‘Mel, this is Vân Ước. Vân Ước, Mel.'

‘Lovely to meet you.' Mel expertly jostled and slid the contents of the large baking tray she was carrying onto two cooling racks sitting ready on the bench. The oven must have its own room. ‘Cheese and chive scones – help yourselves. And those peaches are ripe.' She nodded at the huge fruit bowl, which like everything around here looked like a prop in a design magazine.

‘Thanks, Mel,' said Billy, loading up a plate. ‘How was your day?'

Who was this Mel?

‘It was wonderful, thank you, William, and if by
how was your day?
you mean
what's for dinner?
it's a Malaysian chicken curry with jasmine rice, fresh mango and mint chutney, and steamed broccolini. And I'm making a lemon delicious, but with limes.'

Billy smiled his wide smile. He looked like the handsome man in the wedding photo, with the champagne, but scruffy. ‘You are my hero,' he said.

Mel pretended to be impervious to Billy's charm, but Vân Ước could see that she liked him a lot. ‘I know it. Don't let him eat it all,' she said to Vân Ước with a brisk, friendly smile.

Vân Ước didn't know who she was, and didn't know what to say. The old dudes did, though.
Look at her/She's pressed the mute button again/Smiling, yes/But does she expect people to read her mind?/Apparently/Winning tactic.

Vân Ước followed Billy up the stairs, a view to the deep garden from the landing, along a corridor and into his room. ‘Who's Mel?' she asked.

‘Our house manager.'

‘What does she do?'

‘She runs the place. The parentals both work and they like things to run smoothly when they're away. And when they're here. They're both pretty much control freaks.' He saw the momentary look of panic on her face. ‘And don't worry, they're away till next week.'

‘So, she . . . cooks? Cleans?'

‘No, we've got cleaners. She cooks. She shops. She pays bills, coordinates other staff, like cleaners and gardeners, supervises homework – well, she used to – and does any picking up and dropping off of us kids when we need it . . . I mean, my sister's not here, she's at university now – I don't know, shit like that. She gets everything organised. She's lived with us since I was five.'

Billy was gazing at her again.

‘Okay, well let's get on with it,' she said in a matter-of-fact tone that she hoped concealed how overwhelming she found him and his world.

‘Scone?' he asked, backing into his bedroom, holding the tray. The room was huge, on the north-east corner of the house. There was a double bed, drum kit, windows on two walls, sofa, cluttered desk, over which was a pinboard with a montage of photos – a few she could see were of crew members, including Billy, standing side by side, huge grins, index fingers thrust upwards in triumph, holding up medals, expansive book shelves . . . and no visible pile of dirty laundry, despite all the training gear he must go through every day.

She took a scone, and bit into it. Oh, god. It was an explosion of great flavour, light, cheesy, flaky, with fresh basil as well as chives. ‘Wow. You realise you live in the land of Take What You Want?'

He laughed. ‘I know. Mel is, like, the best.'

Vân Ước sat at Billy's desk, and he sat on a comfortable-looking tub chair that he pulled close. They opened their laptops.

‘Let's look at the session transcripts first, so we know what we're supposed to be doing,' she said. She'd already read them the night before, but she was prepared to go through the motions of being a regular, non-obsessive workaholic student.

This meant that she was at liberty to watch Billy as he read. He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. She could see he was skimming and not particularly interested.

‘Poetry. It's, like, there's only so much you can say about so few words. Am I right?' He glanced up. ‘Sorry, I'm wrecked from training. I'd rather sit here and continue through the catalogue of the Vân Ước facial expressions collection.'

‘You'll see pissed off soon, if I end up doing all the work.'

‘Woohoo! The feisty face.'

She ignored him. Billy Gardiner might be Billy Gardiner, but nobody was going to stop her doing the work. ‘I think one of the things we are expected to do – if we look at this – is to help shape the discussion. We're not just answering questions.'

Billy looked at his computer glumly. ‘Yeah. Okay, let's go through and highlight some more of the requirements, and then we'll talk about the text?'

‘Deal.'

‘So, there's also this thing – some allusion to criticism, and some personal responses.' He looked up. ‘Do you have personal responses?'

‘I love Plath,' she said. ‘I have more responses than they'll want. I just don't like talking.' Oops. She'd said it.

‘Uh-huh,' Billy said. ‘I've noticed that. How come?'

‘Shy, I guess.'

‘I don't like talking in class either.'

She couldn't help laughing. That was absurd. He did nothing
but
talk in class.

‘I mean, I can't be fucked talking about the work. But I know – I know this is the year to knuckle down.'

‘You've managed without any knuckling so far?'

‘Yeah, but my parents will kill me if I don't get serious about study this year.' He sighed. ‘I've kind of been dreading it, to be honest. This is officially the end of fun times.'

He looked – grave, a look so uncharacteristic that she had to ask. ‘Why the pressure? You get okay results, don't you?' She had him placed in the top ten per cent, top two to three per cent if he bothered working, but she didn't want him knowing she'd watched that closely. He was a brainy slacker.

‘I need better than okay to get into medicine. I'll be a fourth-generation doctor. I have a
contribution
to make! Supporting Panadol sales when I'm hungover isn't enough.'

She was dying to blurt out:
Me too me too me too, my parents want me to study medicine, too
. ‘Is that a problem? You don't want to do medicine?'

‘I don't know. Probably not. Who knows? I don't know what I want for breakfast tomorrow. Okay, that's a lie – I mean, I eat the same shit every morning – but, you know,
no
. I don't have a fucking life plan. Jesus, I'm seventeen.' He shut his laptop. ‘Sorry. You don't swear much, do you?'

‘Not particularly.' Not out loud.