Sarah Quigley

having words with you

Amber isn’t talking to Thea isn’t talking to Dominic. That’s the way it goes.

Amber thinks she’ll never be forgiven. Thea thinks she’ll never forget. Dominic thinks they’ll get over it.

There’s always a letter. Wherever there are two girls and a boy or two boys and a girl, there has to be a letter. Think of all those letters in Shakespeare that get into the wrong hands, or get into the right hands and are read at the wrong time, or don’t get read at all. It makes you tired.

Thea is tired of it all. Thea is angry at Amber for making her play a stereotype. She doesn’t appreciate being made to be stereotypical. Because, actually, she’s one of a kind.

She’s angry at her parents for making her be a Thea for the rest of her life. In the beginning, Dominic used to call her The. She used to like it: The Thee Thou Thine, that’s the way it went. But now she’s not Thine any more, she doesn’t like it.

She gets drunk fast on self-pity. The: the amputated version of what she used to be. She’s stumped. How does it go again? Amber → The → Dominic. She’s just an article joining two characters, introducing A to D. A boring goddam functional article in a life sentence.

Tequila tears are in her eyes. She spends the night sitting at home making up bad con-DOM jokes and painting her toenails every colour but amber.

It’s ten years ago. She spends the lunch-hour sitting in the girls’ cloakroom reading The Changeover. It’s her favourite book, she’s read it about a million times.

No one has talked to her all day. It’s like she’s got the plague, when really it’s just that a) she’s only been there a morning and b) she’s from a place they can’t pronounce. She already knows the importance of names and the power they have, so she’s rechristened herself from her grandmother’s Oxford Dictionary of Saints. She’s always wanted Anne but she feels mean when she thinks of her parents so she keeps the same initial. She’s picked Theresa, but she’s still waiting for wisdom. In the meantime, she needs more than spiritual sustenance, and she gets peanut butter on page 20.

Nigel Butterfield (nickname Peanut Butter: an uncanny coincidence) flops up to her. He’s too fat to be counted as a boy so he’s not out of place sitting under Hannah’s peg. He looks sideways at The Changeover (page 21) and offers to get it signed by the author.

Theresa is suspicious, but Nigel tells her that Margaret Mahy is his mother’s best friend. He tells her that they’re going to Christchurch next week and will be driving out to see Margaret Mahy in her house above the sea. Theresa is filled with unholy covetousness. She gives the book to Nigel Butterfield.

Next week Mr Fraser announces that Nigel Butterfield and his father and mother and brother have moved to Taranaki to live. Theresa becomes Thea and realises angrily that Margaret Mahy would never be friends with such a NIGEL.

Amber and Thea are talking again but only so they can hurl abuse at each other.

Thea starts by hoping Amber gets BSE or CJD. Guilt sneaks up on her: she knows Amber has acronym phobia.

Amber shouts at Thea to speak English.

Thea shouts okay she’s a mad cow.

Amber shows her incredible lack of world-awareness (which for some reason is attractive to the opposite sex) and shouts that Thea’s a dumb mole.

Thea laughs scornfully. Hasn’t Amber even heard of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease? She has a moment of panic: has she said it right?

It’s eight and a half years ago. To go with her name Amber has the most beautiful golden eyes. Tawny tussocky tigerish. Thea thinks she could fall in love with Amber’s eyes.

Thea and Amber dress in tutus and dance to Swan Lake. In an excess of agony, Amber strips to the waist and falls to the floor. Half-blinded by tears, Thea sees the window is also misted up. She chases out the door to find Dominic Winters on tiptoe, spying on the death throes.

Secretly, Thea understands why he wants to spy on beautiful naked Amber but outwardly she is outraged. She and Amber call him Dom Dom Peeping Tom for the rest of the year.

She feels sick. She was only going to repossess her Beautiful South tape and go, but she couldn’t help reading it. It was just lying there, pretending to be one of Dominic’s Things Not To Do Today lists.

She’s stunned. She’s just lost her best friend and her boyfriend in one sentence.

I said you said I said he said. Amber blames Thea blames Dominic blames Amber. They circle like blowflies.

Amber says that Thea stole her letter to Dominic.

Thea says that it was purloined. Her vocab is huge after Stage Two French. Purloin, loin, far away = where Amber should be.

Amber looks nervous: she’s a number person.

Thea looks nervous: can she use purloin as a participle?

She eats Milo off a spoon. It’s gone lumpy because SOMEONE’s left the lid off the tin again. Her chocolate mouth is bitter-sweet.

She decides Amber’s eyes are orange, and realises Dominic has a stupid haircut, i.e. they’re perfectly suited. She should go to bed. She keeps eating. She hasn’t felt this betrayed since the Mahy incident.

Amber comes in. Her eyes are red. She tells Thea it’s over with the bastard. They hug and tell each other that their friendship’s stronger than ever. They sit with their boots in the kitchen sink while the night frays away into a new phase of their lives: A.D., Anno Domini, After Dominic.