I celebrated a new millennium by breaking free of everything I knew. When I stepped off the plane in Melbourne into a jumble of shuttle buses and multi-level car parks, I felt as if Acacia Beach had been nothing but a bad dream. After nearly eighteen years, I was finally waking up.
The Saint Mary’s boarding house was a small, round building behind an old church. The dorm rooms were tiny, with two beds pushed against the cracked white walls. Opposite the beds was a tiny bathroom: a sink, shower and toilet squeezed into the space of the bathtub in my parents’ house.
“The hot water system here is pathetic,” my roommate Clara told me. “It keeps turning cold in the middle of your shower, almost like it knows when you have shampoo all over your head.”
Clara’s hair was long and the most beautiful shade of dark red I had ever seen. “It’s natural,” she assured me. “That shampoo in the bathroom for colour-treated hair just gives it extra moisture.”
Clara had brought a redwood dressing table with carved legs that slotted in between the two beds. On the table she kept her alarm clock, hairbrush and a photo of a young boy; his round eyes staring broodingly into the camera. He reminded me of Oliver.
“Is that your boyfriend?” I had joked. Clara raised her eyebrows and I kicked myself for being immature.
“He’s my nephew,” she said as she arranged her violin music into categories on the bookshelf. “Isn’t he gorgeous? My sister was a model, you know. He looks like her.”
Clara could have been a model too if she wanted. She was tall and thin and moved her hips when she walked. She was stunning, but in a scary way. Her blue eyes were cold and her features sharp. The snow queen.
“So what about you?” she asked. “Brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews…?”
“Two brothers,” I told her. “No nieces or nephews. My brother doesn’t have kids. He doesn’t even have a girlfriend. I don’t think he really wants one.”
Clara bubbled with laughter. “Of course he does. He’s obviously just covering. He just doesn’t want everyone to know how lonely he is. That’s what people do.” She turned back to arranging her music.
What would you know?, I wanted to say. I thought about Nick a lot. I couldn’t shake my guilt for leaving him.
“Hey do you play this piece?” Clara called, dropping a copy of a Handel sonata on my bed. I was yet to decide if it was a good or bad thing living with another violinist.
“Maybe I can give you some tips,” she had suggested. “Just to help you settle in to the College, you know, get used to your new teacher…”
I opened the music. “I’ve never heard it,” I admitted. “Can I borrow it?”
Clara tutted. “It’s kind of my piece,” she said, sliding the music back into the bookshelf. “You know how it is. I played it for my AYO audition. That’s why I wanted to know if you played it too. I’m kind of glad you don’t.”
I nibbled my thumbnail, wondering if it was possible to make it through the year without ever having to play in front of my roommate.
The church in front of the boarding house had been turned into the dining room. It was a long hall with a high arched ceiling and polished wood floor. Long tables filled the room, meeting stained glass windows on either side. A stone carving of the crucifixion stared down at us.
Clara handed me a tray. “You’re lucky. It’s chicken casserole tonight. If it had been their disgusting spaghetti bolognese you would have been on the first plane back to Queensland, believe me.”
“It smells great,” I said. The nerves from my first day were beginning to settle and my stomach was grumbling. We sat opposite each other at the table, Clara not acknowledging the other students around us. I tried to flash a few casual smiles.
“I’m thinking about changing boarding houses,” said Clara between mouthfuls. “My dad says he’ll pay for me to stay at Trinity if I want.”
“What’s wrong with here?”
“Give it a few weeks. You’ll get sick of the slops for dinner and the cold showers. You can come with me if you’re worried about being left alone.”
“I have to stay here,” I said. “It’s where my scholarship was for.”
She put down her fork. “You got the scholarship?”
I nodded uncertainly.
Clara sliced her chicken into minuscule pieces. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I didn’t realise it was such a big deal.”
“Oh it’s not.” She stabbed a carrot and began to chew slowly. Put her fork down and wiped her mouth with the corner of her serviette. “I guess it was like a charity thing for you, right? You needed the money to get down here?”
I paused. “Yeah. That’s probably what it was.”
She nodded. “So did they hear you play first?”
“They heard my recording.”
“And was it you on the recording?”
I laughed. “Of course it was me! You have to sign this declaration and everything.”
“Don’t laugh!” Clara snapped. “Do you really think that stops people from getting their teachers to do it for them?”
“People do that?”
“Sure, if they want to get in badly enough. Of course it all comes crashing down when they get in and can’t play to save themselves. It happened to this flute player the year below me. She got kicked out and sent back to, like, Darwin or somewhere.”
“I didn’t do that,” I said.
I lay in bed that night listening to Clara’s heavy breathing. Footsteps sounded up and down the corridor. Hushed laughter came from the room next door. Cars zoomed past the building, headlights flashing through a gap in the curtains. Bells sounded as trams rattled into the nearby city. I rolled onto my side; eyes wide with nervous excitement. Acacia Beach seemed half the world away.
The day before school started, Rachel called. We hadn’t spoken since the going away party she had thrown a few nights before I had left. She had invited all of our school friends and they had gotten drunk on blue Curacao until tipping cows became the highlight of the evening. I’d slunk home to bed without anyone noticing I was gone.
“How’s the big city?” she asked. “Do you miss us heaps?”
“The city’s good.” I climbed onto my bed and craned my neck towards the fan. The Melbourne summer was blazing. Hotter than Acacia Beach. “How is everyone? Tim and Hugh and-”
“And Justin?” Rachel finished. “Justin’s really pissed at you for leaving.”
I didn’t answer.
“Why won’t you tell me what happened between you two? I’m not stupid, you know. I can tell something did.”
“Just forget about it,” I snapped. “Nothing happened.”
“Sure,” said Rachel. “And in a totally unrelated subject, Justin asked me to tell you how sorry he is.”
“Whatever. He didn’t even come to my going away party.”
“Actually, Abby, he did. He came late because he was working on his dad’s boat. You had already disappeared.”
I sat up. “He did?”
“Yep. Don’t you feel bad that after everything you guys had, you left without even saying goodbye?”
I lowered the phone for a moment. I did feel bad. Terrible even, but I wasn’t about to admit it. Besides, why should I feel terrible?
“Don’t you, Abby? Cos you should… Hey are you still there?”
“Look,” I said. “I don’t feel bad at all. I never want to speak to him again after what he did to me.”
Rachel snickered. “I thought nothing happened.”
I hung up as Clara burst into the room, her long hair wet and tangled from the boarding house pool.
“Who was that?” she asked, running a towel over her hair. I rolled onto my side and pushed my head into my pillow.
“Just someone from home.”
“One of your country-bum friends,” Clara teased. She perched on the edge of my bed, her bikini leaving a damp circle on the doona cover. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” I sat up.
“Have you found out who your violin teacher is yet?” she asked.
“John Glass. I got the letter yesterday.”
Clara paused. “Ohhh.” She climbed off the bed and buried her head in her wardrobe.
“What?” My stomach twisted. “Why did you do that?”
She reappeared with an armful of clothes and vanished into the bathroom. “No reason,” she said, her words disappearing behind the closing door.