Sunday 31 July

I suppose the selfies really started in earnest after the gardens. Just the usual stuff, making faces, posing like stone cold killers – I’ve got quite the collection: the many moods of Stu. But the photos he sends this morning feel like a game changer.

In the first one Stu is staring into the camera, lips pursed. Ten seconds later he sends one with his shirt off – just his chest, but I feel dodgy looking at it, because nudes! His skin looks pale and smooth and not carpet-man hairy, but hairy enough to remind me that he’s a man and not a boy. Then my phone pings again and I am almost too scared to look. This one is just of his lower half – he’s wearing red jocks, like a shot for an underwear company. But he’s stuffed something down the front of them so it looks like he has a mammoth package. I’m lying on my bed giggling while Jinx is packing her stuff for the pool. I hold the phone out for her to see, but she ignores it.

‘What’s up with you, Clem? Are you ever going to train again? Come today. It’s Sunday. It’ll just be us.’

I shrug.

‘Are you sending him photos as well?’

‘Yeah, of course!’

Jinx looks conflicted.

‘Come on,’ she tries again. ‘I can show you the stuff for the routine.’

‘What routine?’

‘The Marlins! Winter Fair! Don’t you care?’

‘Yeah . . . just . . .’ I enlarge the photo, trying to work out what Stu’s stuffed down his pants. Explorer socks, maybe?

Jinx snaps her towel at me. My phone lands on the carpet with a soft thud.

‘You better not have broken it.’

‘I’m sure your precious phone is fine.’

‘Can you please leave? I have some pictures to take.’

Jinx stares at me for long seconds. ‘You know, you’re getting to be really boring.’ She picks up her bags and leaves.

I text Stu: Thanks for the happy snap.

Who is this?

Very funny.

Hey. What are you doing later?

Not much.

You know the laundromat near the corner of Glenferrie and Malvern Rds?

No. But I can find it.

Meet me for breakfast.

I don’t have a pass but I know Iris has chess at ten. She used to ask me to come with her. I’d laugh: Me? Chess? No! Now I poke my head around her door. ‘Where’s chess today?’

‘Sacred Heart.’

Perfect! Sacred Heart is a tram-ride away from Stu.

‘Why?’ Iris wants to know.

‘No reason.’

I run downstairs and check in with Old Joy to see if it’s okay if I go along as a cheerleader. And then I spend the next fifteen minutes selecting then rejecting items from my wardrobe. It’s like all I have is tracksuits or school uniforms. I end up wearing what I wore on Friday. The top’s a bit whiffy but it will have to do. I lay off the make-up this time, remembering Ady’s comment.

When Iris sees me down in the foyer she looks wary.

I rip out a cheer move. ‘Gooooo, St Hilda’s!’

Iris isn’t buying. ‘Since when do you want to be my chess cheerleader?’

‘Since today.’

‘What are you wearing?’

I look down at my chesty top. ‘Clothes.’

‘You might want to cover up.’

‘Don’t slut-shame me.’

‘You sound like Jinx,’ Iris says.

‘You should take a leaf out of my book: distract the opposition.’

Iris makes a face.

Me, Iris, three surplus chess nerds and their tutor, Mr Miles, go in the mini-van to Sacred Heart’s leafy campus. Inside the Barrington building, the chessers are playing in earnest, hitting clocks and smiling smugly at each other, creasing their brows and angsting their pants. Theo’s standing on the other side of the hall. Iris waves to him and he nods back, but he doesn’t make any effort to come over.

‘Theo’s keeping a low profile,’ I say.

Iris bites her lip. She shows me where to sit, but as soon as she moves off, I light out of there. Mr Miles will be too focused on the team to note my absence. As long as I’m back by one there won’t be a problem.

The laundromat is empty, except for Stu. He’s sitting at the table in front of a brown paper bag and the local newspaper. He has two laundry sacks behind him, emptied, and I see two of the larger machines are mid-cycle.

He stands up. ‘Welcome to my office. You look fetching.’

He takes my hand and kisses me, then dips me, making me shriek and almost fall. He waltzes me over to the machines and we continue to kiss and it’s getting quite heated. From the corner of my eye I can see ordinary people walking past, going about their day; surely someone will come in here soon.

Someone does. Stu and I go sit at the table. I look in the paper bag.

‘What’s for breakfast?’

‘Egg-and-bacon toasties.’

We eat, smiling at each other, playing footsies.

‘You come here often?’ I ask.

‘Blue House washing. Sorting the sheets from the tea towels and whatnot.’

‘Sexy.’

‘You are.’ Stu grins.

I can feel myself going red. Am I?

‘So,’ he says, ‘I’ve been trying to work out where we can go. You know, to –’ He whistles and winks.

‘What about the Blue House – when you stay overnight?’

‘You don’t want to go there.’

I look at him. It’s on the tip of my lips: I’d go anywhere.

The machine stops with a clang, and Stu wipes his hands, gets up and starts transferring the wet sheets and tea towels and whatnot into the dryer. I’m buzzing from the idea that he’s thinking about a place, and then I remember.

‘We have a long weekend coming up. Most of the boarders go home. But my parents are in Singapore. I was going to stay with Jinx’s aunt . . .’

‘Mmm-hmm?’

‘I could just say I’m staying at Jinx’s aunt’s – if we had somewhere to go . . .’ My face is flaming, combustible, and the sound of the tumble dryer is primal, matching my pulse. Oh! Hot, damp, thumping world!

‘So, great,’ Stu claps his hands together like a broker at a business meeting, ‘I’ll find somewhere.’

He grabs me and kisses me. ‘I’m going to make you feel so good, Clem.’

Back at the boarding house, Old Joy has set up a crafternoon. We’ve been making bunting for the Winter Fair, personalising little cloth triangles. The fair is a big fundraiser for the school – it’s all fuss and jostle and parental involvement.

I sit in a hub with Jinx, Iris and Kate. Iris isn’t speaking to me. Kate’s in her own world. Jinx is making me laugh by decorating her bunting with vulva-esque motifs.

Old Joy strides around with her hands in her poncho pockets.

‘Lovely, girls, lovely. I’m seeing patterns, and inspirational quotes.’

A morose-looking girl puts her hand up.

‘Miss, I can’t think of anything to draw.’

‘Just draw what makes you happy.’

I raise my hand.

Old Joy comes over. ‘Clem?’

‘Can I use a photo as a reference? It’s on my phone.’

Jinx groans. Iris is glowering at me.

‘Nice try,’ Old Joy says.

After ten minutes it’s like a calm bomb has descended and we’re absorbed in our sketching and colouring. Stu does this sort of stuff at his work – creative therapies. He told me he had one client, a teenage boy who had violent outbursts, couldn’t stand being touched, and was a whole packet of trouble, but if he had paper and pens he’d draw amazing unearthly worlds. Stu said they were crazy beautiful.

Stu is crazy beautiful.

I’m trying to draw his face from memory. I should be able to do this, but my hand and mind aren’t communicating. His brow’s too big and his chin’s too small. His head looks like an alien’s egg-shaped dome and his lips are pushing up a sinister moustache. I cover the mess up with swirls and add his initials and mine, entwined. I’m obsessed, I know. If I don’t stop thinking about him I’m sure I’ll explode from repressed desire.

‘Hey.’ Jinx leans on me. ‘Are you getting excited about Canberra?’

‘I guess.’

‘When are you going to come back to us?’

‘What’s she talking about?’ Iris says peevishly. ‘Are you still not swimming?’

Kate paints tiny dots. ‘Does she have to swim?’

‘Yes,’ Jinx says. ‘She’s good.’

Iris is staring at me. I refuse to look at her.

‘I don’t get you,’ Iris says in a small voice. ‘Swimming’s your thing. You love swimming. What’s going on?’

‘It’s about a boy,’ Jinx says.

‘What boy?’ Iris wants to know.

‘Jesus!’ I snap. ‘Stop sticking your nose in it. My life has nothing to do with yours. And don’t even think about telling Mum and Dad.’

‘What boy?’ Iris persists. ‘Is that where you went today?’

I get up and take my bunting with me. It looks shit, so I chuck it in the bin on my way out. I go up to my room, find my old pilled bathers and put them in my bag. I take the key to the new pool from Jinx’s drawer, and head down there. It is true that the water feels like an old friend; I remember at once the pleasure of slipping under, the dreamy darkness when I close my eyes, submerged. I swim by myself, up and back, up and back until I can’t feel anything but froth and churn and my heart feels too big for my rib cage, and my throat is tight and my legs feel like sandbags, and when I finally get out it’s late. The night seems to press against me. I thought swimming would make me feel better, clearer, but in the end, all I feel is exhausted.