Holier Than Thou (13 page)
‘Babe, can we do lunch with my folks on Sunday? Mum’s birthday,’ asked Tim.
‘Mmmmm.’ I didn’t open my eyes.
‘
What are yer legs?
’
My eyes snapped open.
‘Nicholarse!’ I hugged him. ‘Steel springs!
Of course
.’
He was wearing dark cords, Converse and a hemp shirt. His dreadlocks were tied up in some sort of topknot that made him look like a modern-day, and very attractive, samurai.
‘You came!’
‘That I did! You must be Tim.’ He extended his hand past me to shake Tim’s. ‘I’m Nick. I’ve heard a lot about you.’
‘Hi,’ Tim said, taking in the hair.
I introduced Nick to Lara, Abigail and Dan. And Averil, who was madly texting. After they had all shaken hands, Averil put her phone away and lurched forward to grab Nick’s hand.
‘I’m Averil. Omigod, look at your hair!’
Shut up, you stupid bitch.
‘Hi Averil, I’m Nick,’ he said with his trademark heartiness.
‘What do you do, Nick?’ she slurred.
I was getting so sick of what everyone ‘does’. It didn’t used to be all about that.
‘I’m an RN.’
‘A whuh?’
‘A Registered Nurse.’
‘Eww, bed pans and, bm" stuff!’
‘Er . . . ’
‘Just kidding! I think that is, like, the sweetest thing.You
help
people. We
need
you. You know?’
She put her arm through Nick’s and he shot me a horrified look. Where the hell was this boyfriend of hers, was what I wanted to know.
Once inside, Averil continued her colonisation of Nick. After another beer from the pitcher that Tim had stood in a line for twenty minutes to buy, I asked Dan what he thought of Rebecca Hulme’s column.
‘It’s alright,’ he said. ‘It’s not all that it could be.’
‘True of so much in life.’
‘Did you know she’s in charge of the letters-to-the-editor page at the moment too?’
‘I did not know that.’
‘I wrote a letter to the editor the other day. Signed it from myself, my address, everything you are supposed to do.’
Dan often writes passionately left-wing letters to the editors on various issues. Then he dons his suit, does his thing, and is paid handsomely for his trouble.
‘She rang me and said, “Nice letter, Dan, but I can only print it if you add that you are a management consultant in the Sydney office of Xavier and Co.” ’
‘What does that have to do with the price of ecstasy?’ I asked.
‘It means that she wouldn’t have me in her paper just as me, Dan Citizen. She wants the pedigree of Xavier. To show that I’m someone.’
‘I see. So what happened?’
‘Well I asked my manager if I could put Xavier’s name next to my letter. He read the letter and said no way, no how. So it didn’t get printed.’
I drained the last gulp of beer from my schooner glass.
‘Is she right about all you “high achievers” feeling trapped in these jobs and crying on the inside?’
‘It’s tough sometimes. But, you know, I won’t be doing this forever.’
‘Why are you doing it at all?’ I asked.
‘You sound like Liam. I’m doing it for the experience.’
‘I miss him so much.’
‘I know, hon.’
‘Do you miss him?’
‘Um="3ight="0em"m, not so much as . . . Well I think I was always a bigger fan of him than he was of me. And you were, like, the biggest fan of all.’
‘I wanted us all to stay together so much.’
‘I know you did.’
‘Like in
Friends
.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Did I ever tell you that Frank Mussett slept with Ffion?’
‘No, but it figures. I did too you know.’
‘You what?’
‘I slept with Ffion.’
‘You Judas! When?’
‘Ages ago. At uni. Maybe second or third year, I forget. And Megan too.’
‘Why does everyone want to sleep with her and not me?’
‘Holly that is simply not true.’
I had to hand it to Dan though. To have risen from a nerdy Year Ten who was withered by Ffion and Megan at every attempt he made, to bedding them both. He had turned his fortunes around.
‘Where do you know him from?’ Dan asked, pointing at Nick, still in Averil’s clutches.
‘From work. He’s my work spouse.’
Across the circle, Tim was talking to Lara and Abigail. I caught some of the content – the pros and cons of using fabric softener. How the mighty had fallen.
‘I’m going to dance,’ I said to Dan. ‘Want to come?’
Dan shook his head.
I left them all behind and fought my way over to the dance floor and the Weezer song that had beckoned me. I closed my eyes and reflected that dancing was the best therapy.
‘Hey.’
I knew it was Nick before I opened my eyes.
‘Holly, that chick is insane, and she only let me go ’cause I said I had to pee. She’s your friend?’
‘No! I only met her tonight.’
‘Oh good. You know what she told me?’
‘What?’
‘She said her underwear is made of the same fabric as her shoes.’
‘Her
shoes
?’
‘The same pattern, I mean, not necessarily the same fabric . . . anyway they’re very expensive. You have to save me.’
‘Stay with me, Nicholarse.’ I pulled him further into the throng.
‘She touched my shoulders and asked if I work out.’
‘Did you tell her you’re a circus freak? A carnie?’
‘I would if I could get a word in edgewise.’
The music changed to a White Stripes anthem and people cheered.
‘Oh, and she said she hates the music here.’
‘Too bad about her.’
The lights fell on him in shafts of orange. I could see him pulse with every one of Meg White’s strokes. He closed his eyes and I could look at him unimpeded. He opened them and we grinned at each other, singing the chorus loudly along with our tightly packed-in compadres.
I grabbed his arm and shouted near his ear, ‘I’m glad you came!’
‘Me too!’ he shouted back.
I didn’t take my hand off his arm. ‘Do you work out?’
We both doubled over with laughter.
I made it out of bed at about midday the following day, but only to make coffee and pop Panadol. Tim was helping a friend move on the North Side and had left early. Back in bed, I propped myself up on pillows so I could see my tree. I sipped my coffee and wondered what Nick was up to. I felt vaguely libidinous but in an uneasy way. As if there was some thirst somewhere that I knew I wouldn’t be able to locate, much less quench.
At 2 p.m. I got out of bed, showered and dressed in trackies, sneakers and a hat. I would go for a walk down by the river. Get my blood pumping. Think. Try to find the cause of the unseen ill that had not improved with the further two hours of lie-in. I took the garbage out with me, then had to come back upstairs to wash my hands after handling the skanky communal bins.
Maybe I should add OCD to the list of things wrong with me
, I thought, as I descended the stairs for the second time.
I walked up Marrickville Road in the sunshine, soon becoming hot and removing my hoodie. People were everywhere, bustling around shops, churches, restaurants. All with a purpose that I had to admit I lacked. I stopped to buy a second coffee and stood on the pavement sipping it, for some reason not continuing on toward the river. The flags flew gaily in the centre of the road. I realised for the first time that standing at this exact point on Marrickville Road I could see all the way to the huge, transformer-like shipping cranes at Port Botany. Miles and miles away. Maybe one day they would come to life and wreak bloody havoc on our city.
I moved slowly back toward Livingstone Road, picking up my pace a little when I realised where I was going.
They were all out the front of the community hall, the carnies, practising juggling and fire twirling. I saw Nick fiddling with his fire sticks, and he looked up and saw me. He had his topknot again, and black lipstick and black fingernails. He wore a black singlet and Thai fisherman’s pants.
‘Circus freak.’
‘Hollier-than-thou.’
‘Can I see you do some silks?’
‘They’re doing trapeze in there right now, but afterwards for sure.’
Hanging out with Nick had become effortless, had become like a home. A marijuana-addicted, topknot-wearing, black-lipsticked
whatever
had become like home. And now I had seen him hoist himself up gracefully in those silks, with his arms all muscle-popping and his hair falling over his eyes, I was officially in some sort of trouble. If my adrenal glands were to be trusted, it was potentially very bad. I stayed to watch them twirl fire after it got dark at about five. My phone beeped. Message from Tim.
Me home after my ‘moving experience’. Where you?
Out walking Home soon xxx
I wrote back.
‘I have to go, Nicholarse.’
‘I’ll walk you.’ Nick put on his hoodie and scrabbled around for his Converse.
‘You don’t have to walk me.’
‘I want to walk you.’
‘Well, I don’t want you to be . . . thwarted. Or
frustrated.
’
‘That would suck.’
‘So, you can walk me if you really have the need for it.’
‘I do.’
‘It’s been really nice seeing you so much. You know, over the last twenty-four hours.’ One of us said that, as we walked along Marrickville Road. But which one? One of us nodded in agreement. But which one?
‘Hey, Holly?’
‘Hey, Nick?’
‘Why do your friends call you “Wozza”?’
‘Uh . . . ’
‘I’ve been over and over it, and as far as I can tell there is no logical way that “Holly” could become “Wozza”, so there must be a story.’
‘Yeah, you’eahcome ;re right. Wozza is short for – well, long for – WOS, which stands for Woman-of-Steel. When we were all in the school musical when I was in Year Ten . . . ’
I paused and noticed my heart begin to thud. I briefly considered my options for flight or fight, and chose to stay and fight. I wanted Nick to know this.
‘My dad was really sick, and then just went totally downhill and, um, died on the day of opening night.’
‘Oh, Holly.’ He briefly touched my arm, but knew to not look at me, and to keep walking, so I could continue to tell the tale.
‘Anyway, I was playing Lois . . . It was
Kiss Me Kate
, did I mention that?’
‘Haven’t heard of it.’
‘Are you serious? Cole Porter!’
‘Nuh.’
‘Based on
The Taming of the Shrew
?’
‘The what?’
‘
The Taming of the Shrew
! Shakespeare!’
‘Not ringing any bells.’
‘I wonder if you are kidding me at times like this.’
‘I assure you I’m not.’
‘Anyways . . . I was in one of the lead roles, you know, not like just some face in the chorus . . . ’
‘Hell no.’
‘And there were no understudies so I just, you know, went to school that night . . . left my mum and brother at home . . . and I . . . performed. That night, and for the next three.’
‘That must have been hard.’
‘Mmmm. Anyway, Mr Crawford, the director, said at some point that I was a woman of steel, and it sort of caught on, and got shortened to Wozza. End of story.’
‘I see.’
We paused not far from my building and hugged. I placed my palms flat on the softness of his many-times-washed hoodie. We both procrastinated against the final goodbye.
‘What are you up to tonight?’ I asked.
‘Dunno. I’ll see who’s around. You?’
‘Um, quiet one with Tim, I reckon. I’m in no shape for much after last night.’
‘Holly.’
His tone was very serious and I braced myself for things to come to some kind of head.
‘Mmmyes?’
‘Do you like pop music?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I suspect you like pop music.’
‘I do not.’
‘I suspect that your whole White Stripes/Florence + the Machine/Marcus-Mumford-is-such-a-hottie thing is just a front.’
‘
Excuse
me?’
‘Last night, or early this morning I should say, you said you were going off to the ladies room and I saw you stop dead in your tracks midway there when that Scissor Sisters song came on—’
‘No!’
‘—and you ran over to the dance floor and danced by yourself with a big smile, and a gay abandon that I didn’t think you were capable of!’
‘I was drunk! And is Scissor Sisters really pop music?’
‘Yes! Don’t think you can get off on a technicality. You know, I suspect that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I bet there are all sorts of dirty little pop itches that you scratch when no one is watching.’
‘I do not.’
‘Show me your iPod.’
Shit! Must not ever let him see it.
‘No way.’
‘Guilty as sin, you are.’
‘I have to go now Nicholarse.’
‘How convenient.’
‘Bye . . . ’ I walked down the driveway of my building. He sang the chorus of a Lady Gaga song tauntingly.
‘Holly,’ he called after me.
‘Jah?’ I turned.
‘It was a lovely sight. You getting down with your eyes closed and that big smile.’
I put my key in the lock, shaking my head.
Tim was supine on the couch, watching the sports highlights, with the electric heater positioned close to him. He grunted in greeting.
‘Takeaway?’ I asked.
‘Definitely.’
I unlocked the sliding door onto the balcony and went out to bring the clothes horse in before the washing got damp from tht deight="0e night air. It was cold, but I didn’t fancy going back inside right away. Hard to breathe in there. Or something.
The Pakistani family’s flat was dark. Below in the love nest, the blonde woman sat cross-legged and alone on the red rug, crying, among several packing boxes. The shelving on one of their walls was missing most of the books. The dark-haired studious one was moving out. Why, why would she do that? Love had been born in their kitchen, dammit; did she think that sort of thing happened every day? The blonde woman sobbed harder, and put her head down on her knees. It was weird, like looking at a reflection of myself. On the rare occasions that I cry, I tend to do it head-on-knees. And always, always alone.
I wanted to run across to their block, rap on the door and comfort her. But I didn’t know the unit number. And there’s always the chance the sympathy of the voyeuristic neighbour would not be welcomed. Poor thing. She was going to be left in that flat to contemplate the lovely rug that they bought together, to wander into that empty bedroom and remember the nights she passed in there.
I struggled back inside with the clothes horse. The washing was only seventy per cent dry after a whole day out there. It takes days for things to dry in winter. I’m over it. I’d buy a dryer if I had anywhere to put one.
‘The love nest is breaking up,’ I said to Tim dispiritedly.
I didn’t think he heard me. I motioned for him to raise his legs and make room for me on the couch, our jointly purchased couch, and collapsed, resplendent in my trackies and unwashed hair.
I tapped absentmindedly on Tim’s shins and pretended to watch the TV, but really I thought about Nick’s slow ascent up those silks to the ceiling. Then, to be quite frank, I thought about having sex with Nick. In detail. No vagueness about that thirst now.
In the morning I dressed in a black-and-red floral skirt and my grey Laura Ashley jumper given to me by my mum. Most winters she motioned me to a shopping bag on her sideboard, where I would find an expensive knit or two, a proper woollen blend. It must be a very motherly kind of satisfaction, dressing your children warmly in the cold. I zipped up my flat black boots and waited demurely by the door for Tim.
‘You look nice, babe,’ he said, pulling on his jacket.
‘We should stop at Marrickville Road and buy some flowers for your mum,’ I said.
‘Good idea.’
He drove to Cremorne with one warm hand on my thigh, and my cold hand on top of it. At red lights he warmed it between both of his.
‘I’m like a lizard,’ I said.‘You know, what’s it called when you’re cold when it’s cold and warm when it’s warm . . . ’
‘Ectothermic.’
‘Yeah, that.’
‘Not really, babe. In winter you’re jyou"Rust cold all the time, regardless of whether the heater’s on or the sun’s shining. You must have bad circulation.’ He kissed my hand and placed it on his thigh.
Finishing Year Twelve had been a blessed relief. Although, having read
Looking for Alibrandi
several times since Year Eight, I was disappointed when Year Twelve did not bring me a handsome, salt-of-the-earth boyfriend and ultimate emancipation from all that ailed my teenage soul. The exams were over, sure, but the only two things that could bring me either a boyfriend or emancipation were a) Liam and Ffion breaking up and b) my mum coming out of her fug.
Neither of them looked likely, I reflected as I walked home from my last exam shaking my cramped fingers. But I’d made sure to apply to the university that Liam went to, so he and I would be train buddies once more.
The thing about my mum in those days was her care factor. The first year after Dad’s death was undoubtedly the worst. The most acute. So maybe I shouldn’t have complained about the care factor.
‘Have a shower, Mum,’ I would say, coming home from school to find her lying on the couch in the same clothes for the third straight day, her hair greasy and streaked with grey. She wouldn’t answer.
‘Have a shower mum,’ I would repeat. ‘Wash your hair. Put on some clean clothes.’
No answer.
‘Mum! Come on!’
‘What does it matter?’ she’d wail. ‘Nothing matters!’ She would sob and sob and I was powerless to comfort her.
It was horrible. But she got through that stage and eventually resumed going through the motions of washing, dressing and going to work of her own volition. She ate a bit more. She struggled socially though. Watching her interact with visitors was painful. She would rouse herself to have energy for Paddy, but everything else was too hard. She tolerated Sarah. Just. Ingrid came around a few times with food, and I’d ask Mum to come down and say hello but she wouldn’t.
Then there would be sparks of animation. A meal cooked here, the yard swept there. But her care factor, her affect, especially where I was concerned, was a struggle. She wished me luck for my exams and tried hard to mean it. When I got my UAI I saw her try, and fail, to animate her affect just a tiny bit. I bought my own knits for a couple of winters.
As I prepared for university, she had to rouse herself to prepare for Paddy entering high school. He was so tiny and prepubescent, she was worried for him. Remembering those pricks from the demountable, I was too. The regular uniform seemed to swallow him, and he looked ridiculous in the sports uniform.
Liam dropped around one afternoon late that summer, bearing our favourite cherry-and-cheese strudel from the bakery in Summer Hill. No one else was at home, Paddy was at school and Mum at work. I was revelling in the fact that I had all of February off as well. I’d speswallow nt a pleasant morning swimming and lying about at Petersham pool, and I answered the door in cut-offs and my bikini top. I made a plunger of coffee, despite the heat, and we sat on stools at the kitchen bench eating the giant strudel.
‘How’s Ffion?’ I asked.
‘She’s well,’ he replied cheerily. ‘She’s, uh, very busy rehearsing for a play at uni.’
‘Any other news?’
‘I’m dropping Law this year.’
‘What? But you topped your year in Law. You won a prize.’
‘I hate it.’
‘You might regret dropping it altogether. If you just keep on with it, you’ve got the option . . . ’
‘I don’t want the option. I just want to do Arts.’
‘Well. Fine. Good. What does your mum reckon?’
‘Happy enough for me to drop Law, but she is super-stoked that you are doing Social Work. I think sometimes she wishes she could trade me for you.’
‘She’s is such a great mum. You’re really lucky, Leigh-mond, you know that?’
‘Eh.’
‘What?’
‘Meh.’
‘You are such an A-hole sometimes. I know you love her. Wouldn’t kill you to say it.To me, or her.’
I knew there was some piece of the puzzle missing with Liam and his mum. Something to do with his parents divorcing, I suspected. Maybe he blamed her for it. Who can say. He felt so knowable, Liam, and when I was with him I felt that his whole self was available. But every now and again there was a reminder that it actually wasn’t. I’d come up against some unexpected brick wall and wonder what was behind it.
‘
Anyway
,’ he moved swiftly on, ‘Mum’s going away this week and I’ve decided to have a party on Friday night. Just school people.’
‘Great. What can I bring?’
‘A bottle of something.’
‘I can do that. Now I am eighteen I have that power.’
‘Forget that power, Ms Yarkov, soon you will have the power to buy alcohol
on campus
. Between classes! Hell,
during
classes! At your choice of university bars.’
‘That is so cool.’
‘And there’s Donut King too.’
#8216;Thatight="0em"
I stood outside on Liam and Ingrid’s flagstone patio, surrounded by the voices of people I had been through high school with. It was a humid February evening and my feet were bare on the warm, rough stone. A lot of Liam and Ffion’s group were there, full of stories about their first year out of high school. Most of the stories were about university and what went on there. ‘Credits’, ‘Ds and HDs’, ‘Honours streams’. It dawned on me, standing on that patio, drinking a glass of white wine, that my HSC mark was no longer relevant, and would be replaced by a whole new set of academic markers.
A guy called Dave Howarth, who I knew just a little through Liam and
Kiss Me Kate
, stood out from the rest as he was doing a cadetship with an energy company, instead of going to university. He had an income, and did real actual work. He seemed relaxed and happy and as if he’d made the right choice.
Shit, have
I
made the right choice?
I worried. I
mean, they put the UAC form in front of you and you have to tick some boxes ... But are they the right boxes? Can I change my answer?
Dave looked handsome, in addition to relaxed and secure in his life choices. He was tall and buff in a non-pretentious, non-beefcake way and had dark hair that fell around his face.
‘So how have you been, Holly?’ he asked, as if we were old friends.
‘Fine thanks, Dave, yeah, um, just enjoying the last of the summer break.’
I wonder if he has a girlfriend?
‘How is your mum?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your mum . . . Just, I remember when your dad died, you know, when the show was on . . . and it must have been really tough on your mum.’
‘Um . . . yeah.Yes.’
‘And you.’
‘Er . . . ’
The still air filled with the crash and shatter of glass. Ingrid’s glass platter had slipped out of Liam’s hands as he offered me and Dave a cheese-and-spinach triangle.
Cries went up, and at the same instant that I realised I had bare feet, a pair of arms encircled me from behind, picked me up and whisked me inside.
When I was released onto the safety of the cork tiling, I realised that my rescuer was unfortunately not Dave Howarth but Sam Hart. I knew Sam alright. He had asked me out again and again after Frank Musset had suddenly realised that he did not, as he had pre-coitally believed, love me.
Sam had materialised to pat me on the back throughout Year Eleven after that sorry episode. He always made sure to tell me all the horrible things that Frank said about me. He also alerted me to the fact that Frank rolled his eyes and made other pained expressions whenever I stopped at the loppl the ow wall to say hi to that group on my way to the canteen.
‘What a bastard,’ Sam would commiserate, as my eyes filled, once more, with tears. ‘Want to go to a movie this weekend?’
We did go out a few times, but I was singularly not attracted to him and knew I had to let him know before he thought we were an item. I think I was a bit late on that score though, because I showed up to Town Hall steps and he was sitting there with a single red rose and poem he’d written. I cringed.
‘That’s okay,’ he’d said, after I’d blurted that I just wanted to be friends and I was sorry I couldn’t be what he wanted. ‘Friends is fine. And just so you know, I’m still planning to ask you to the Year Twelve formal.’ I perked up a bit at that. An invitation to the year above’s formal is always a bit of a thrill, isn’t it? But as the year drew to a close, no invitation arrived.
Ffion and Liam were going together obviously. Dave Howarth asked Ffion’s friend Megan. Lara was going with Alex Richards, a Year Twelve guy she knew through Dan’s Free East Timor rallies. Frank Mussett asked Abigail, which threw me completely. And she accepted. Threw me even further.
Sam Hart, I heard through Liam, only a week before the formal, had asked some friend of his from band camp. So, I was not going to the Year Twelves’ formal. Neither was Dan. He and I went out to the movies on the night. We would
not
join them at the after-party, we swore. Fuck them. Who needed ’em? Dear Dan. A cross word had never passed between us. Except for that time in Year Ten when he’d pashed one of my Year Seven peer-support girls at a school dance. He was so unrepentant.
I had heard little from Sam Hart since he didn’t take me to the formal. But now he had saved me from getting shards of glass in my feet. Like lightning. One more microsecond and I’m sure Dave would have picked me up in his strong, townie arms. I looked through the glass and saw him helping Liam to sweep up the wreckage of the broken platter. Ffion stood barefoot on a chair, damsel in distress.
‘Do you like Black Russians?’ Sam was saying.
‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure what that is,’ I replied politely.
‘It’s vodka mixed with Kahlua.’
‘Really?’ I wanted desperately to get back outside and keep talking to Dave, but I couldn’t remember where I’d left my thongs and it would be plain rude to desert Sam so pointedly.
‘I’ll make you one,’ he offered.
‘Okay.’ I saw Dave resume his seat, crisis over, and the seat next to him was filled by . . . Abigail. Dammit!
‘So how’ve you been, Holly?’
Liam leaned his broom against the wall and helped Ffion jump down from her chair. He kissed her tenderly on the mouth. The back gate opened and Frank Musset appeared holding the hand of some giandt srlfriend. I looked away from the smorgasbord of insults in the back yard and accepted a shot of Black Russian from Sam Hart.
‘Thanks . . . um, I’ve been fine, fine enough. Glad that whole HSC thing is behind me.’
‘Cheers to that.’
‘Dan! Dan! My man!’ I jumped down from Ingrid’s couch where I had been dancing and flung my arms around Daniel. It was just after midnight.
‘Where have you been?’ I jumped up and down while I hugged him. ‘This party is
going off
!’
‘Why are you dancing with that guy?’ Dan hissed in my ear, glaring behind me at Sam Hart, who had been gyrating very close to me while I danced. Actually, up against me.
‘Whuh? Oh, I dunno. Where’ve you
been
?’ I chucked both his cheeks. ‘I missed you!’
‘How much have you had to drink?’
‘Answer my question, Danny Boy!’
‘I’ve been with Annie.’
‘Oh,
really
?’
Annie was some random private-school chick he met through . . . actually I had no idea how he met them. ‘And . . . ?’
‘And . . . ’ he leaned in close to my ear. ‘We . . . ’
‘You . . . ?’
‘
Had sex
.’
‘You
had sex
?’ I mimicked him.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Dan! You are off your V-plates!’
‘Thank god.’
I hugged him. ‘This calls for a drink! How was it?’
‘Er . . . alright I guess. The cuddling afterwards was better.’
‘You are a sweet, sweet heart, Daniel Pryde, you . . . ’ I trailed off and looked around the room. ‘Where is she?’
‘I took her home.’
‘You took her . . . Sorry, when did you, you know, do it?’
‘About an hour ago.’
‘And you took her straight home afterwards?’
‘Yes.’
He looked a bit pale.
‘You didn’t think to bring her here?’
‘No.’
‘Hmmmm.’
Sam appeared and handed me another Black Russian.
‘Hi Dan,’ he said.
‘Hi.’
Sam melted away.
‘I don’t like that guy,’ Daniel said.
‘Well, you need a drink. Let’s get you one.’
‘Yes.’
‘Dan, are you okay?’
He really did look a bit shell-shocked.
‘Hol . . . there’s blood in my bed.’
‘Blood?’
‘It was her first time and . . . she bled a lot . . . all over my sheets and . . . I don’t know how I’m going to get this one past my mum. I pulled the doona over it, but . . . ’
‘Sweetie,’ I hugged him. He held me tight and I swear I felt a little sob. ‘Hey, don’t worry. You can stay with me tonight, and tomorrow when your mum’s at work you soak them and wash them.’
‘I don’t know how.’
‘Soak them in cold water, it
has
to be cold to get blood out . . . I’ll show you. Okay? I’ll show you.’ I put him back to arms’ length.
‘Thanks, Hol.’
‘Anytime.’
He looked at the ground.
‘Anytime you want to deflower someone,’ I tried to lighten the mood, ‘or, er, sacrifice a small animal in your bed, I am
your woman
for stain removal.’
‘Great.’
‘Hey, when did Dave Howarth get so hot?’
‘When you got pissed.’
‘No . . .
before
that.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘You know, he has, like, a real job?’
‘Good for him.’
I lost track of things after that; I lost track of myself, at some point in the night.
But I knew, somewhere in my addled brain, that Sam Hart’s tongue was in my mouth. It was dark. Where were we? In Liam’s house. But where? And something very hard was pressing against me. I didn’t seem to be able to move. Maybe too drunk. Or maybe Sam’s weight was pinning me. I tried to speak, but my mouth was completely covered by his. I tried to move again but I couldn’t.
I heard male voices, Dan and Sam, seemingly far away, and the weight on top of me was lifted.
What the fuck/She’s fine man/Just fuck off/Hey!/It’s okay Hol, I’m here.