6

A Portrait of Briony Atkins
It is Wednesday lunchtime, and soon I must join the FAD group on the bus to Castle Hill.

I missed last week’s session because I was not well. (My mother and her crazy notion that I have glandular fever! She insisted that I take the day off. She and Auntie Veronica are always on my case.)

For now, I sit at a window desk in the Year 11 wing, watching Briony Atkins.

She stands at her locker.

On the floor, to her right, is her schoolbag. To her left stands a black umbrella. It is leaning against the lower lockers and it puts me in mind of a crotchet or a semi-quaver.

Briony’s uniform falls neat and straight. Her shoes, I see, glint under the lights above—so does her short, brown hair with its auburn highlights.

Now I can see inside her locker. She has pressed the door open, and is crouching down to reach inside her bag.

The inside of her locker is so neat! Her books and folders line up, side-by-side, in a row, as if on display! They are not helter-skelter atop one another as mine are!

Now she is standing again and her fingers are running along her neat row of books.

An image comes to mind: my mother ironing the pleats of my netball skirt, back when we lived in the same house. I remember how she would pause now and then, set down the iron, run a finger along the pleats—

Now Briony has found the folder she wanted, and is gone.

I turn to the book that I like to carry these days—one that Maureen gave me on etiquette—and I open it at a random page.

And there, if you can believe it, is the answer. The reason that Briony troubles me; the reason she has always troubled me. I will type out the lines:

‘A shy person will throw a restraint over a group of people, and cause the most sparkling conversation to flag; it is impossible to become friendly and chatty with such an individual.’

How do I find the positive light within such a person as that?

Late, Wednesday night
Went to Eleanora’s tonight. Still no sign of the baby. I asked to see a photo and Eleanora looked at me in panic, I’m sure. ‘But my hands!’ she said, ‘I can’t get the albums out!’

FAD was also intriguing.

It turned out that Emily and Astrid had secretly offered to run a session of their own. They had followed my lead! I suppose that is flattering.

The nature of the session was not, however, clear to me.

It seemed to consist of a series of questions, which we were supposed to discuss. Here is an example:

Okay, let’s say there’s a piece of machinery in a factory. If you get your sleeve caught in this machinery, your fingers will be mangled. But, okay, let’s say it’s not switched on, but it could be switched on at any moment, would you put your hand in it? Why? Oh, okay, why not? No, seriously, why not?

 

This set of questions was asked, with intensity, by Astrid, who looked at us in turn, and we looked at one another, perplexed, then tried, half-heartedly, to answer.

‘No,’ we said, ‘because we like our fingers.’

At which, Astrid turned hopefully to Sergio and said, ‘But you would, right? Because of your adrenaline thing?’ And Sergio said, gently and kindly, ‘But Astrid, I’m not a COCKLEBUR.’

‘I don’t really like that sort of language,’ said Try, absentmindedly.

But Astrid was nodding, slowly. She tilted her head towards Emily and stage-whispered, ’Em, what was our point?’ Emily shrugged and they both collapsed in giggles.

Other questions included:

Do you think staircases go as high as they could? No, seriously, don’t you think they should go higher?

Also:

Do you think we could fly if we truly believed in ourselves?

‘Elizabeth already flies,’ Sergio said, ‘when she runs.’ He gazed at her as he said this, and Elizabeth laughed, embarrassed.

I was trying to focus on Briony and yet she is so easy to forget.

Such a silence!

When one remembers, one finds the silence exasperating. A black hole in the armchair constellation.

I tried to dispel this notion, to focus on the positive. But I could not explain this: Finnegan and Elizabeth both tend to be quiet, yet neither of them has the same effect. Their eyes, faces, gestures participate. They are one with the group. Now and then they speak, and no-one is surprised.

Briony is not one with us at all. She is separate. She sits awkward, her shoulders tense.

And I have noticed over and over: she only ever speaks three times.

Except when Toby is tossing the ball to her, forcing her to speak, Briony speaks three times.

Once her quota of three is used, she reacts even to questions with nothing but the murmur of a smile. Her eyes dart away. She hangs her head, unwinds the bandaid on her thumb and presses it back down.

Thursday, 2.00 am
Shall I say that Briony is a sweet white rabbit or a mouse? But she might not like that. I feel such curious tingling in my arms and legs these days, as if a mouse were chewing gently on my flesh.

Thursday, 8.00 pm
Curious.

Today we had Biology and I became conscious of some kind of fanfare across the room. It turned out that the teacher was lavishing praise on Briony. Something about her assignment.

(I must do that assignment myself some time. It’s some kind of environmental case study, I think.)

Briony has done something brilliant about contaminated water in Bangladesh. Something superb. (Briony’s name looks a bit like Biology. I wonder if that gave her an advantage?)

Later, I saw Toby in Economics and I mentioned Briony’s success. Just to see his face.

It lit up like a Christmas tree.

And then I could not help myself.

‘Toby,’ I said. ‘Have you noticed that she always speaks three times?’ The Christmas lights dimmed. Disappointment etched itself in lines around his mouth.

‘I’m not criticising her,’ I hurried to explain. ‘It’s just something I’ve noticed in FAD. It’s never more or less than three times. If she can help it.’

Now Toby breathed in slowly: the sigh you breathe when a child asks for a foolish favour.

And then he said, ‘You know how we had to give challenges to our buddy?’

I nodded.

‘And Briony is my buddy?’

I nodded again.

‘Well. I challenged her to speak three times at FAD each week.’

I clasped a hand to my mouth.

‘If I hadn’t,’ he said, ‘she’d never say a single word.’

Later today, while quietly shelving books in Maureen’s bookstore, I realised this: Briony always speaks three times.

But this time I realised in a whole different way.

That is: as far as I know, she has never once failed to meet the challenge.

And Toby was right: without that challenge, she would not say a word.

What must it mean to her to force herself to speak three times? Someone as shy as Briony? To do that every week.

She was so much more than a rabbit or a mouse!

Then, too, there was that day when Toby threw the ball to Briony. She began to relax. She turned into somebody playful and almost fun. She was no longer a black hole. She was simply herself.

Which means, of course, that normally she is not herself.

Imagine the loneliness of that: never to be yourself.

I flicked through the pages of a paperback, pretending to read, while meanwhile, I felt my face burning.

For Briony had met her challenge but I had not. Finnegan had asked me to take a kickboxing class. Such a simple challenge yet the moment I saw that I would not excel—that I might look foolish in that class—I dropped out!

Well!

And look, too, at this simple challenge I set myself! That I would come into Maureen’s shop late one night, and give it a thorough clean. A surprise gift for a friend! And yet I had not even had the courage to take the key!

I decided I would do it. Maureen was chatting with a customer, so I walked (brazenly) behind the counter and took down the key.

And now, home again, I feel a little better when I touch the cold metal in my pocket. I have put it on my starfish keyring, to keep it safe.

For now, though, I must think of Briony again. I turn to my etiquette book, and flip through the pages. I’m not sure what I seek . . . but there it is.

‘The person who is shy . . .’ begins the book:

‘. . . needs the most delicate sympathy. He should be encouraged to talk, but it must be done in so careful a manner that he will not be conscious of your intent, else will his pride take alarm, and he will retreat from the field.’

 

I turn a page and the book recommends that boys and girls who are shy should be taught dancing, gymnastics and boxing.

I will see what I can do.

A Memo from Bindy Mackenzie

To:	Briony Atkins
From:	Bindy Mackenzie
Subject:	YOU
Time:	Friday, 11.00 am

Dear Briony,
Once, I may have suggested that you were a sea-cucumber. I may have whispered this in your presence.

(Indeed, I may have written the words SEA-CUCUMBER across a large photographic poster of your face.)

That was wrong of me.

You are in no way a sea-cucumber.

(Even though your mother is a marine biologist!)

No, Briony, I was mistaken.

You are a Fly River Turtle.

Like a Fly River Turtle, you appear to be timid—you dive under a rock at the hint of a stranger—but, in the right company, you are playful and at ease. You may seem gentle and vulnerable, but you carry a shell that is resolute and hard as rock.

I hope you will forgive me for mistaking you for a sea-cucumber

And please accept this complimentary set of personalised memo stationery.

Very Best Wishes,
Bindy Mackenzie

PS Also, you may like to know that I am a member of the Castle Hill Gym. Lately, I’ve been going regularly, and sitting at the rowing machine. If you’d ever like to join me, I have some visitor passes. They have classes inaerodance, aqua-gymnastics and kickboxing. I wonder if these might interest you?

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Monday morning, early
Yesterday, at the gym, I sat as usual in my rowing machine, and I rowed.

As I rowed, I saw this: a personal trainer with three plump people. He was showing them around, pointing out changing rooms, equipment, and weights—and the three plump people, dressed in jackets and jeans, looked nervous, awkward and self-conscious. They glanced at us—they glanced at me—and what they saw were members of the gym, people in sports attire, pushing and pulling at various pieces of steel. Occasional grunting and groaning. (I even grunted once, a little, myself.) They glanced at us with respect, and I realised, as I watched: they are tourists. They are tourists, but I belong.

The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
And then I realised this: I have never felt like this before.

I have never, to the best of my recollection, thought to myself: I belong.

So that was a shock.