IN FRENCH THIS year we’re reading a short story called Boule de Suif by a nineteenth-century French writer, Guy de Maupassant. The title literally means ‘Ball of Fat’, and it’s about a group of people who flee the German-occupied city of Rouen in a stagecoach during the Franco-Prussian War. Among them is the Boule de Suif herself, a chubby prostitute called Elisabeth. All the other ‘respectable’ passengers look down on her and ignore her until she produces a basket of beautiful food, which she generously shares with them.
The group is then captured by a German officer, who agrees to release them only if Elisabeth has sex with him. At first the other passengers support Elisabeth’s refusal to sleep with him, but as time passes, they put more and more pressure on her to do it so they can leave. When she finally goes to bed with him and they’re allowed back into the stagecoach, the respectable passengers go right on ignoring her and in the end refuse to share their food with her.
Only in French class would the pristine minds of Oakholme College students be exposed to a book about a prostitute who does the wild thing with a German officer for a leave pass. I think that Mrs Green and the other high-ups would be shocked if they knew. I was shocked when I read it over the weekend.
‘What’s this book really about?’ asks our French teacher, Mademoiselle Larsen. She scans the room, looking for shrinking students to terrorise. ‘Tell me – in one sentence.’
A few words about Mademoiselle Larsen – she’s the J-Law of the Oakholme staffroom. She’s a leggy, shapely glamourpuss who rocks a platinum blonde bob, but otherwise doesn’t try too hard. Jenny’s mum heard through the grapevine that Mademoiselle was more or less forced to resign from another Sydney private school because she invited her girlfriend to a musical performance. I don’t know whether it’s true and I really don’t care. Oakholme would care, though, believe me. Religion is a big part of school life. We have several chapel services a week and Christian Studies is a compulsory subject until the end of Year 11. Saucy business, especially if it’s homosexual, is frowned upon, to say the very least.
Mademoiselle Larsen’s great value if you take her in the right spirit. She rules our French classes with un poing de fer (an iron fist), but never raises her voice or punishes anyone. The worst you can expect from her is ridicule or some scathing and probably vulgar comment muttered in French. Somehow that’s even worse than Red Marks or detention.
‘Keli Street-Hughes, you’re looking particularly guilty this afternoon.’
Everyone turns to Keli. She trots out her nauseating gap-toothed grin. In spite of still not being able to speak French convincingly after five years of classes at a very expensive private school, Keli annoyingly manages to maintain her status as one of Mademoiselle Larsen’s favourites. She has a drawling, bogan charisma whose appeal I’ll never understand. The one thing I’ll concede is that her French accent is pretty good. She seems to get by just by pronouncing English words like Inspector Clouseau. Even I grudgingly admire that brand of sass. Very grudgingly.
‘Mademoiselle Larsen, I hope you’re not suggesting that I haven’t read the book.’
Last year, when we were reading Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons), Keli made the mistake of confessing that she’d only ever watched the movie.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it, Keli. So tell me, in a nutshell, what the book’s about.’
‘It’s about a whore’ is Keli’s deadpan response.
Everyone except me cracks up. Even when I think Keli’s funny, I can never bring myself to laugh. I dislike her too much.
‘That’s a literally correct answer,’ says Mademoiselle Larsen, ‘but it’s not very insightful.’
‘You asked for a nutshell. There’s your nutshell.’
Mademoiselle’s withering gaze comes to rest on me. ‘Shauna? What do you think? In one sentence.’
I know I’m not going to get a laugh, but I give it my best shot.
‘It’s about a group of people who consider themselves morally superior to someone unpopular, but when it comes to the crunch they’re they ones who turn out to have lower moral standards.’
When Mademoiselle Larson smiles, her crooked overbite breaks through her painted lips. I know that I’ve delighted her, and that’s almost better than a laugh from the class. Pleasing Mademoiselle is kind of important to me. Possibly it has something to do with my early days in her classes, back when I was a sullen little turkey. I was spectacularly rude, and if there’s one thing Mademoiselle can’t stand it’s bad manners. When I decided to be polite to her, though, it seemed like she’d decided to give me another chance. I suppose I want her to keep her good opinion of me, knowing she doesn’t just hand it out no matter what.
‘Bravo, Shauna. Exactement. It’s a critique of French society at the time, isn’t it? The people in the stagecoach are a macrocosm of French society. The political class. The clergy. Business people. They all consider a prostitute to be so far beneath them, but in the end they use her to get what they want.’
Mademoiselle grills a few more girls before throwing a question to the whole class. ‘Consider some unpopular groups from our own society and how they’re used by the media, politicians and others in power to advance their own interests. Can anyone give me an example?’
Jenny puts her hand up. ‘Boat people. Refugees. Every election cycle they’re used as a political football.’
Across the classroom Keli’s gripped by an eye-rolling frenzy. Mademoiselle doesn’t seem to notice. Keli’s sour little flunkpuss, Annabel Saxon, puts her hand up.
‘Yes, Annabel?’
‘What about farmers, Mademoiselle?’
‘I’m not sure about that. Farmers seem to be a fairly popular group in Australian society.’
‘But Greenies accuse us of damaging the environment.’
‘Climate change,’ groans Keli with another eye roll.
‘But if it weren’t for farmers,’ says Annabel, ‘then no one would have food on their table. Greenies included.’
‘They’d be eating witchetty grubs,’ giggles Keli.
‘Girls, you’re on the wrong track,’ says Mademoiselle with a note of irritation in her voice, ‘and I think you both know it. Farmers are a well-loved and powerful group in Australian society. I’m asking you to consider people who are looked down on and discriminated against. Like boat people, as Jenny pointed out.’
‘But boat people come to this country illegally,’ says Keli. ‘They commit crimes and chew up resources. Don’t they deserve to be unpopular?’
Class discussions involving Keli always follow the same path. Everything boils down to her virtuous family and other people like them shouldering the burden of undeserving folk, like Greenies, boat people and moi. I’m getting really sick of it. As if Keli Street-Hughes’s ever worked a day or paid a cent of tax in her life.
‘Keli’s right,’ I say calmly, but inside I’m beginning to seethe. The rest of the class looks at me as if I’ve just lost my mind. In what circumstances would I be on the same side as Keli Street-Hughes?
‘She’s absolutely spot-on about boat people. Just look at the lowlifes, leeches and criminals who’ve landed on our shores since 1788.’
Keli fixes her narrow, yellow eyes at me. I fold my arms, refusing to break eye contact.
‘Maybe we should change the date,’ drawls Keli. ‘Maybe we should change history, change reality, so that some people don’t get their feelings hurt.’
‘What about acknowledging the reality of Australia’s history then?’ I shoot back, my voice tremulous with anger. ‘The decimation of my people by criminals from England!’
‘How dare you call my people criminals!’
‘Girls,’ sighs Mademoiselle, ‘this discussion has gotten completely off track, okay? Please turn to your novels and—’
‘First of all,’ preaches Keli, ‘they were convicts, not criminals—’
‘It’s the same thing!’
‘—and second, without us you’d be starving to death in the dust!’
Jenny grabs my arm and squeezes hard, just as I’m opening my mouth.
‘Keli. Shauna.’ Mademoiselle’s voice is dangerously low. ‘Ça suffit comme ça.’ (That’s enough.)
‘She’s not worth it,’ whispers Jenny.
Keli and I exchange homicidal glares for a good minute after everyone else has opened their novels to page thirty-six. When I look down at my book, my hands are shaking. Why, oh why, do I let this stupid bigot get under my skin?
When the bell rings, I wait until Keli and Annabel have left the classroom before sloping off to the dorms. I walk around in circles for a while, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. Usually I ignore the scrubchooks, even when they’re baiting me, but sometimes they make me so mad I can’t help myself. Now I feel like I need to take a shower, and that’s the problem with getting into a fight with a pig. You get dirty, the pig gets dirty, but the pig enjoys herself.
About the only thing that makes me feel dirtier than confronting Keli Street-Hughes is cyberstalking her. It’s a shameful habit, made only slightly less shameful by the fact that I occasionally do it with Jenny on her smuggled-in phone. Otherwise I do it on my parents’ phones when I’m home during the holidays. It makes me feel pathetic and gross, but for some reason I’m compelled. I guess it’s the thrill of getting a behind-the-scenes glimpse of someone who’s seemingly bulletproof. I know people don’t usually upload bad or incriminating photos, but I’m still hoping for a slip-up, a chink in her Tampon Princess armour. I haven’t found anything yet, just a range of images of her blockish, ginger self pulling trout mouths and jug-jawed grins in various glamorous locations. Keli Street-Hughes in the owners’ box at the Melbourne Cup. Keli Street-Hughes at Tetsuya’s for her nanna’s birthday. Keli Street-Hughes in the Italian Alps at Christmas.
Cyberstalking Keli Street-Hughes is like watching porn. It’s titillating at first and then it just makes you feel sick and bored and like you never want to lay eyes on the real thing again. Yet in quiet and sometimes unhappy moments, when a phone is available, I find myself clicking on Keli’s profiles. Instead of finding social proof of her inherent despicability, I find that she’s got a zillion friends and followers who make overly kind comments about her mediocre looks and abilities. It’s very vexing. And if she ever discovered the level of my online interest in her, I’d never be able to show my face on Planet Earth again.
From what I’ve been able to garner, Keli doesn’t have a boyfriend, but she’s often pictured online in the vicinity of her handsome, boofy-looking neighbour from Coleambally, Matt Adler. Matt goes to St Augustine’s and is often spoken of in Keli’s circles. He’s a rugby hero and I get the impression that it’s cool to drop his name. There are girls who follow the St Augustine’s rugby teams around Sydney to watch their matches, and Keli is among them. I personally can’t think of anything more boring than loitering on the sidelines like that, pretending to be interested in football when all you’re really interested in is boys in little shorts. It’s pathetic.
The bell for the next class rings in the distance, so I sling my bag over my shoulder and head for the staircase, determined not to let Keli or anyone like her get the better of me. It’s ridiculous to care about the opinions of people I don’t even like, let alone think highly of.
Later that afternoon, someone I do think highly of, Lou-Anne, gives an opera performance in the school chapel. She’s practising for her live audition for Opera Australia, which will take place at the Sydney Opera House at the end of the year.
Unfortunately Lou-Anne suffers from stage fright and when she sings in front of more than a few people she gets the sweats and the jitters. This is obviously a problem she needs to get over before her big audition, so her singing teacher, Miss Della, is getting her to practise in front of small audiences first. The ‘small’ audience this afternoon is the whole of Year 12.
Lou-Anne’s so big-boned and her speaking voice is so deep that you’d never think she could sing at such a high pitch. It’s stunning to hear her produce sounds that should make the stained-glass windows shatter. It’s times like these that the existence of God seems beyond dispute. Lou-Anne’s voice is supernatural.
She’s singing from Bellini’s Bianca e Fernando with her back turned to the pews. For the moment, that’s how she’s coping with all the people. But near the end of the song, Miss Della takes her by her big shoulders and turns her around. She grimaces and closes her eyes but keeps on singing.
I can’t help but glance across the aisle to Keli & Co, who are doing their utmost to avoid looking impressed. Arms crossed. Eyes studying the ceiling. Annabel says something to Keli and Keli sniggers. Talentless scrubchooks.
After the final note, Lou-Anne opens her eyes and says in her normal, deep voice, ‘Was that okay, guys?’
The chapel erupts into laughter and applause. Miss Della frantically shushes us.
‘We’re in a chapel, girls!’ she shout-whispers, as if Lou-Anne hasn’t just tested God’s ears and every pane of glass in the building.
The applause fades into murmurs, muted enough for me to clearly hear Keli make this comment: ‘You can see the beads of sweat in her moustache.’
I know that she’s talking about Lou-Anne. It makes me so angry that I want to throttle the lot of them, right here in the chapel. All the awe I felt listening to Lou-Anne sing leaves my body like breath after a good winding. Lou-Anne comes down the aisle, smiling, wiping her face dry with her shirtsleeves. I force a smile.
‘My ears have died and gone to Heaven, Lou-Anne.’