Life is a Parallel Universe (4 page)

When you have
nobody to love you, for you; no person who cares about what you
think and how you feel about things, you tend to feel like an
unformed, incomplete thing. This is how Beatrice felt, although she
had no real insight into her own self. She was still a raw, green
and callow young girl: lacking symmetry and purpose. But soon,
pressures would be bear down upon Beatrice and shape her: against
her will.

Scientists may
say that, although it feels to us like time flows: it does not. It
is an illusion. Time is the fourth dimension they say: another
dimension inseparable from space. I cannot tell you whether this is
true. Or not. What I can tell you is, that time and space will soon
appear to collide, so be sure to turn your eyes back and watch and
see what will become of our girl Beatrice.

Outside the
dance, Lisa and her boyfriend Chook were staggering around pretty
drunk; Lisa talking loudly in outrage about how ‘people didn’t
understand what it was like to be pretty’ and how ‘ugly boys should
not imagine that she would go out with them!’

The rest of
Lisa’s gang were sitting on a fence sharing a toke and looking
bored; their hair shining like crowns in the light of the street
lamp. The scene was set as Beatrice and Nola walked past. Then, Sue
Brown and her pack of friends appeared out of the gloom. Without
warning, Lisa, who had been waving her white arms about suddenly,
in her ruminative outrage and without preamble, smacked the walking
Beatrice in the head, mid stride, causing her to fall down: like a
pile of bones. Lisa the ugly drunk.

For a moment,
it seems like time has slowed down; the thump and grind of the
music silenced. Nobody appears to move and the heat just hangs
there. You may be forgiven for thinking that a game is being
played; that the music will commence and everyone will move again.
Eyes from everywhere are aimed toward Lisa. The die is cast.

A cry shatters
the air and Lisa is suddenly sober. Lies begin falling like stars
from her lips ‘it was her…she tried to hit me. Me!’ And, just like
that, everyone believes it. Beatrice half believes it herself.

For Sue, her
finest hour is upon her. She half carries the stricken Lisa away,
sits her down and brings a cooling drink. She even dares to touch
Lisa’s tanned shoulder: to show solidarity. Meanwhile, the night
has returned, the mood swings back toward the merry go round of
fun, as herbal aromas meander far and wide. Not for Beatrice,
though, she finds herself lying alone on the hot concrete footpath,
catty eyes glittering in the dark, focused upon her, and her friend
gone. Nola is carrying Lisa’s shoes and bags like some kind of
Sherpa: without a mountain to climb.

On Monday,
Beatrice found herself alone. A friend no more. She was regarded
with hostility and treated as something charged with evil-intent.
It was familiar ground for Beatrice and yet, still a bitter blow.
Beatrice had tasted friendship and she had liked its flavour.

Things, became
progressively worse, however, and soon the teachers were treating
her with derision. She appeared to be hated without reason and had
enemies without cause. A plague carrier. Few people seemed to know
why she was hated: they only knew she was.

Finally,
Beatrice was released from that hell by the coming long summer
holidays. She decided she would change schools and begin anew. She
would study the arts of friendship and being liked and she would
begin again. Like everyone else, Beatrice acted like the fault was
within her.

In ancient
Greece, a beggar, a cripple or perhaps a leper would be cast out of
the group after some disaster had occurred. In the Bible, an actual
goat, the ’scapegoat’, would be killed or sent out into the desert:
the repository of all sin.

So, armed with
‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ Beatrice began her course
of study. But learning to live easily with others is something that
must be practiced every day. And when your nature is cleaved from
others, when you become the ‘other’, it becomes difficult to grow
and ripen properly. Like a plant: yellow without the sun.

It is not
surprising that Beatrice was attracted toward all that was gothic
and darkly romantic; these call out to the blood of those who are
misguided, maltreated or misunderstood. And, so, she would spend
long hours reading paperback novels with covers featuring
distraught young ladies running from castles or creepy malevolent
looking manor houses. She took to wearing black clothing and
outlining her eyes with dark eye pencil. Like an Egyptian in a
tomb.

One Saturday,
whilst rummaging about in a second hand shop at the seedy end of
town, Beatrice found a small and dusty Pierrot style clown, dressed
in black and white. His clothing was torn and his face mournful. A
mere one dollar saved the life of this dear little fellow and
Beatrice took him home and carefully set about fixing his wounds
and tears. If you look, you will see him still, placed close to
Beatrice’s’ bed; wherever she goes: close to her heart.

At the end of
1989, without warning, as the residents relaxed in that cooling off
period between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the earthquake struck
15km south-west of the town of Newcastle. This noble town was left
shuddering and crumbling as people in agitation poured out of its
shattered heart.

In 1990 the
girls were in year 10. They were almost young women now, perhaps
thinking about jobs and soon learning to drive. The future: close
as it had ever been.

In the hallways
at school, Lisa and her gang would shimmy and swagger along pushing
others aside; looking down their noses at those less fortunate and
blooming. Thinking that they were each Madonna in the flesh. The
moves of that herd, for anyone watching closely, could be described
as ‘Vogueing’. How full of confidence they were, how they thought
they had it all: knew it all. Scientists looking on at these
scenes, on any particular day, may have muttered something about
the Dunning-Kruger effect: that illusionary sense of
superiority.

‘There's clowns
to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am, Stuck in the
middle with you.’

A sixteenth
birthday was arranged for Lisa at her home. The whole school year
was invited, but the unpopular outsiders knew that this did not
include them. They would arrange their own darker themed
entertainments.

Mrs and Mrs
White spent weeks before the big night, arranging a DJ, hiring
caterers and bringing gardeners and cleaners to ensure that the
brick veneer was dressed to impress. Lisa, at this time, scoured
the shops with her favourite sidekick, an orange haired blonde, who
already had a hairdressing apprenticeship lined up, named Abbey.
The pair was in search mode for weeks, before they finally
discovered the perfect, slutty supermodel dresses, at a shop in the
town mall. Teetering on dangerous stilettos they planned to make
their debut at the party, drinking elaborate fruit cocktails and
pouting seductively toward anything remotely male.

That sultry
Saturday night the Sparkle pool did indeed sparkle. Tables were set
up bedecked in glossy white tablecloths and waiters stood to
attention with pristine towels draped over arms. The White family
stood, titivated and arranged, waiting for guests to arrive. Billy
Joel’s ‘We Didn't Start the Fire’ bellowed its message into the
suburban air: flavoured with chlorine and BBQ.

Looking down
upon the Whites, you may think at first that a chess game is about
to commence; a game with two queens and a king: the pawn in the
game elsewhere.

A growing group
of teens had spent hours before the party drinking and carousing in
Hudson Park. Already, party dresses were askew and pressed shirts
were sweaty and stained with lipstick. But, finally, it was time to
trudge and wobble up to Madison Drive: the highest part of the
Heights.

Lisa’s gold
cross glittered in the floodlights. She had taken to wearing one
recently: after all, Madonna had made the look fashionable and it
also allowed Lisa to feel a bit of faux religiosity. Like she was
the Madonna herself, glowing, blue dressed and blue-eyed with a
fashionable halo. Sometimes, lately, she also quoted Buddha or at
other times, something New Age like ‘everything happens for a
reason’. She was learning about the power of words, how they could
make you feel reborn and new. Or not.

The night went
off like a fire cracker. Alcohol was not evident, but it was
everywhere under cover. The music boomed, and vast quantities of
‘gourmet’ sausages were consumed; romances, or at least lust,
detonated in corners and the Sparkle pool was alive with girls in
Sea Folly bikinis’ and boys in Billabongs’. The White’s party was a
success.

Perhaps you are
trying to catch a glimpse of our heroine, Beatrice. We will return
to her in due course. But, first, let us catch up with our other
protagonist, Sue Brown.

Sue was a guest
at Lisa’s party; she was part of Lisa’s outer group these days, as
she sat with Sue in English class. None of Lisa’s actual friends
were in her English class and a girl has to sit with someone!

Under the
gazebo, perfumed with Aeroguard, Sue spent much of that magical
evening with eyes locked on Scott Smith. She told him of her plans
to get a ‘safe’ job in the council; he told her about how his mum
dreamed he would become an electrician. And, they were both equally
delighted to find that they shared a history of family holidays at
the Entrance; albeit in different caravan parks. But still. Sue
whispered that her favourite song was by Michael Bolton and her
voice became even softer as she said ‘How Am I Supposed to Live
Without You’. Eyes aglow, Scott whispered back, soft and sibilant
‘it’s mine too’.