5

Night Time Musings of Bindy Mackenzie
Katoomba, Blue Mountains, Saturday, 11.30 pm

Let me tell you how I feel right now.

I feel as if I have erased the pencil marks from my sheet music, ready for a piano exam. So that when I look at the music, I see something familiar yet completely new. Cleaner, whiter, sharper pages than before, the notes blinking brightly back at me.

I see my face reflected in a picture window: brighter, happier, fresher than ever before.

I feel like weeping gently with this happiness.

It is 11.30 pm, and we are in the living room of Try’s house in the Blue Mountains.

I am in a rocking chair in the corner. Sergio and Elizabeth are kneeling at the fireplace. The fire has almost gone out. They have been trying to save it: lighting matches, adding paper, prodding at the wood—and now I see they have decided simply to blow. Side by side, they blow and the charcoals glow.

Astrid is lying on the couch, reading a People magazine— Scarlett Johansson smoulders on the cover. On the opposite couch, Emily is flat on her back, also reading. She twists her wrists now and then, as if to ease the strain of holding her book aloft. Both Emily and Astrid are frowning intently as they read.

Toby and Briony are nothing but sounds: click-clop . . . click-clop . . . click-clop . . . CLICK ‘ah!’ . . . ‘ha ha!’ and so on. They are playing table tennis in the recreation room next door.

We met at Central Station this morning, yawning, clutching pillows, kicking backpacks and sleeping bags around the platform.

Finnegan chose to sit next to me on the train.

He behaved as if there was nothing odd in what had happened last night. We talked about the band. I opened my laptop to show him the transcript I had taken—the bass guitarist and drummer discussing the meaning of life. Finnegan laughed and pointed out that it wasn’t tobacco they were smoking. I laughed too, pretending I knew what he meant. We talked about the rain that slipped languid against the train windows, and about Try’s plans for bush walking all day—and then I fell asleep.

I had only slept an hour the night before.

When I found that old transcript of the computer programmers’ fight, I felt as if my bloodstream were rapids. A sensation of rushing and crashing! Tiny Whitewater rafters squealing down my arms!

I wanted to phone the lawyer at once, to wake him at 5.30 am. I still cannot believe that I must wait until business hours on Monday. Of course, I suspect the transcript will be useless to him—there seemed to be no talk of copyright. (Nor did there seem to be talk of a Polish exchange student— I can almost see why I jumped to that conclusion, but, really, who knew what they were talking about? All those half-sentences: they were talking over each other so I couldn’t hear everything clearly. And that name was not Polish at all! Edna is an Irish/Scottish name. Also an Old Testament name meaning ‘pleasure’ in Hebrew.)

Nevertheless, I would now be able to speak in a voice of pride to that pompous lawyer. I would be able to announce: ‘I know precisely what those women said as they passed me that day.’ Precisely. (Or, at least some of what they’d said.)

At last, I would be praised. I would redeem myself, and move on.

Hence, only an hour of sleep last night.

There are enormous picture windows in Try’s house, and these were full of rain and mist today. (She assures us there’s a spectacular view of the escarpment when the mist clears.) The house has a rustic-yet-cosy atmosphere, with wide floorboards and brightly coloured scatter rugs.

There’s a covered verandah, and Try, Astrid and Sergio barbecued sausages and hamburgers for lunch. I sat between Sergio and Toby to eat, and they talked about how different I look without glasses, and tried to figure out the colour of my eyes. I kept saying, ‘They’re just dark blue,’ and they kept shaking their heads, dismissively: ‘No. That’s not it.’

After lunch, we played games directed by Try, such as getting tangled together and then untangling ourselves. Also, we sat in a circle and massaged the shoulders of the person in front. (I was rubbing Emily’s shoulders, while Toby massaged mine. His hands are steady and firm.)

Dinner was the same as lunch, except that Sergio and Toby did not discuss my eyes. And, as I spooned onions onto my hamburger, I reflected, sadly, on the following: there was, in general, a restrained sort of politeness in the group’s conduct towards me. Perhaps they were a little less cold than they had been, but still this remoteness. I grew depressed. What more could I do? I’d pointed out their positive features, but nobody had even mentioned the memos from me.

It was the same with my Life: Try had never referred to it.

It was just as if I’d never existed. Had I become invisible, a shadow of a person? How could I make my FAD group see me?

After dinner, Try said she was going to leave us some space. We should sit in a circle, she said, and take turns saying how our year is going.

I found myself following Try upstairs. I noticed she was humming quietly to herself, and hoped it wasn’t because she thought she was free of her students for the night. Here I was behind her: a student. She stopped abruptly at her bedroom door and I almost bumped into her. She let out a small scream.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was just wondering if I could ask you something.’

‘Of course!’ She backed into her room, looked around briefly, then leapt onto the bed. She sat right in the centre of the bed, cross-legged, and waved both hands indicating that I should do the same. But I stood, nervous, just inside the doorway.

She bounced a little and the bed creaked quietly. ‘What can I do you for?’ she exclaimed, her accent reminding me of the mid-westerners in Fargo.

‘It’s about that project I did for you over the holidays,’ I explained. ‘Bindy Mackenzie: A Life? I was just wondering if you ever got a chance to—look at it—and if you thought there was anything—if you noticed anything you wanted to—’

‘Oh!’ She bit her lip. ‘No, I read that ages ago! It was great, Bindy. Really—useful. I learned so much about you! I’m sorry, I should have said something to you. I’m hopeless! You wanted—a grade? I’m such a terrible teacher.’ She was scrambling off the bed. ‘Here, look, I even carry it around with me!’

Her blue basket was on the dresser, and she drew out my slightly crumpled Life, winced at the crumples, and tried to smooth them out.

‘I’m hopeless,’ she repeated, pressing the Life into my hands. ‘I’m really sorry, Bindy.’ Now she was solemn. ‘I should have given this back sooner. You go downstairs now, okay? I’ll bet that your FAD group are missing you.’ She rested her hand lightly on my arm, looked into my eyes—were there tears in her eyes? Her gaze moved down to my hands, and my glittering, ragged-edged fingernails.

‘You should stop biting those,’ she murmured, distractedly, and turned away.

Downstairs, the others were already strewn about on couches in the living room, looking at each other, maybe embarrassed to be following Try’s instructions while she was upstairs in her room. I sat on the floor and put my Life on the carpet beside me. I was completely confused: I hadn’t wanted her to mark my Life, nor to give it back. So what had I wanted from Try?

Astrid was talking. She was having a bad year, she said, because of her parents’ divorce, and she’d never told anyone this but her father had walked out on her mother while he was in the middle of waxing her legs. Her mother was lying flat on her stomach on the bed and her father said, ‘I’ll just go reheat this wax on the stove. It’s getting gluggy.’ And he kind of like never came back.

You could see people trying not to giggle at that.

Astrid said that she was grateful to two people, Emily and Sergio, for being such good friends to her this year? And they were always, like, giving her hugs when she needed them?

At that comment, Emily threw her arms around Astrid, Astrid cried, and I caught Finnegan raising his eyebrows at me.

Hmm, is what we were both thinking, was Sergio just being a FRIEND to Astrid when I saw them together in Castle Hill?

After Astrid had been comforted it was Elizabeth’s turn and she said she was also glad that Sergio had been around, and a good friend, because she’s been thinking about breaking up with her Brookfield boyfriend, but they’ve been together for almost two years. But he never seems to understand that she needs time apart to train; it’s like he wants her to choose between running and him. But she really loves him. So it’s been hard. And now, she’s finally done it, she broke up with him yesterday. Sergio looked startled at this news, and he moved closer to Elizabeth.

I glanced at Finnegan again, and he was sending me a very small smile. I returned the smile.

I had not seen betrayal in Castle Hill! Sergio had not been cheating because he was not yet together with Elizabeth! (But perhaps soon . . .)

But, as I smiled my relief at Finnegan, I thought: he looks tired. And seconds later he announced that he was going up to bed.

I wondered if I should mention that he’d been out all night, but I didn’t say anything.

I felt a thudding disappointment at Finnegan’s departure.

Also, however, I felt a strange relief.

We went back to going around the group.

The strangest thing happened when it got to my turn.

I’d been planning to say something like: ‘I feel lucky that my parents are still together, and that I don’t have relationship troubles. Overall, my year has been fine.’ Then I was going to nod my head at Briony, beside me, for her to take a turn.

I had the nod rehearsed inside my mind.

‘I feel lucky,’ I began. ‘I mean, my parents are together— but I guess it hasn’t been such a great year because I crashed my uncle’s car and I’m kind of sick all the time and I think I’m going to fail Year 11.’

My head tried to catch up with my voice. What had I said? I looked around the group, tried to smile with nobility, and nodded at Briony.

But Briony did not speak. Nobody spoke. There was silence—and then a deluge.

‘You crashed a car?’

‘What do you mean, you’re sick all the time?’

‘You’re failing Year 11?’

I turned to Astrid who had asked this last question. ‘I haven’t done any homework for weeks,’ I said. ‘I’ve got seven overdue assignments and five overdue essays.’

‘Seven overdue assignments,’ she whispered.

At which, I burst into tears and began to blather: ‘And I wrote you all memos! But you still won’t forgive me! Except Astrid! I didn’t write a memo for—! But the green ribbon! But the Name Game! I couldn’t! And I was unforgivable! So how can I—? And Sergio, I can’t believe I—! I was never coming back! But Mr Botherit! And someone moved me! And the nail polish! And I felt so guilty! And I’m 50, 50 sorry!’

I stopped talking and simply sobbed, wrenching sobs— and then something happened. I sensed the strange, sweet melodies of comfort. A careful shifting of people towards me. Somebody’s hand gently stroking my hair. Somebody’s arm, hesitantly, patting my back.

Warmth and relief overcame me. I did not want it to stop, this comfort, this touching, and so I kept my head buried and cried on.

Eventually, I had to look up. The stroking hands paused. They were all around me, watching carefully, confusion like giant spotlights in their eyes.

‘Bindy,’ said Toby, in the sweetest voice, ‘what the FLAX are you talking about?’

I laughed shakily. It was Toby’s hand on my back. He kept it there, and feeling its warmth gave me strength.

I took a great breath and told the story of my year.

I began with the first Name Game. I know it by heart. I recited all their comments, how upset I’d been, how I’d chosen poisonous animals as revenge. I told them how it had gone too far, and how guilty I’d felt, and how I’d planned to leave, but Mr Botherit had said someone moved me into this FAD group. I said someone from FAD gave me nail polish. I told them how sick I’d been, about my strange dreams and hallucinations and insomnia, how I’d stopped doing school work and somehow didn’t care. That I thought it would fix things if I gave them good animals. That I didn’t understand why it hadn’t worked.

Once I had finished, they were all thoughtful and quiet for a few moments.

Then someone asked what the doctors said about my health.

I had to admit that I had refused to see a doctor. The confusion lights switched back on.

‘I think it might be glandular fever,’ I whispered. ‘If a doctor thinks that’s what it is, I’ll have to take weeks off school. I can’t do that, especially not now I’m so behind. Besides—’ I avoided Astrid’s eyes. ‘I don’t believe that glandular fever exists.’

Now Astrid became very professional about my symptoms. She fired rapid questions at me, and actually felt the glands in my neck. ‘Trust me,’ she said, ‘glandular fever exists. I used to want it until I like got it? Cos I thought you’d just watch tv and that? But you feel like SPURGE. YOU can’t even watch tv, you feel, like, so SPURGEY. And you’re not supposed to kiss anyone for, like, a year, but I ignored that bit.’

Everyone else wanted to check my glands, too, and there was disagreement about whether they were swollen or not.

‘I didn’t throw up when I had glandular fever though,’ Astrid said. ‘Plus I didn’t get those hallucinations you’ve got? Maybe you’ve got something, like, fatal?’

‘Have you got an eating disorder?’ said Emily. ‘Why do you keep throwing up if you haven’t got an eating disorder?’

‘Whatever’s wrong with you,’ said Briony, ‘you should go to the doctor. What if there’s just one pill you need to take to get better? And if you don’t take it, you’ll get worse and end up having to take even more time off school.’

Everybody agreed.

‘Plus,’ said Astrid kindly, ‘how do you know you’re not contagious? Maybe you’ve got, like, typhoid or that FOXGLOVE chicken flu, whatever it’s called, and you’re giving it to all of us? No offence.’

But the others doubted I was contagious because I’d been sick for such a long time without anyone else catching it.

‘Anyway,’ Sergio said, shifting subjects, ‘you’ve got to get a doctor’s certificate so you can give it to your teachers and get extensions for the overdue assignments.’

They all agreed about that, too, and assured me I would not fail. All I needed, they said (knowledgeably), was a doctor’s certificate. They were pleasingly dismissive about my school work worries.

But then they moved into the more difficult territory of my attitude towards them.

‘Okay, so you’ve been feeling sick and that,’ said Astrid, ‘but it’s kind of like no excuse for slagging us all off, and like putting posters up with our names on them, and what you said to Sergio and that?’

‘I guess she’s been delusional,’ Toby pointed out.

‘And the Name Game,’ Elizabeth said. ‘If people said all those things about me, I’d be upset, too.’

‘Well, the Name Game,’ Emily leapt in. ‘I wanted to say something about that. How you said what everyone said about you? Like you’d figured it all out. Well, there’s an injustice there, because I didn’t write what you think I wrote. That you have long words in your huge head. I wrote that you can’t help who you are and maybe you’ll change. And I said, “Good luck with Year 11. I think you’ll change.” Something like that. Which was meant in the greatest and most compassionate sense and was my effort to be kind, Bindy, as you know that we hadn’t got on well in the past, but I wanted to start fresh.’

‘I’m the one who said you have long words in your head,’ Briony confessed. ‘Sorry. But I was just trying to make it funny by talking about your big head. I was really just praising you, Bindy, for having a good vocabulary.’

‘Yeah,’ said Astrid. ‘And I was just praising you, too, Bindy. I just said you wear your hair weird which means you’ve got guts, and I actually meant that about taking guts, cos a lot of people, like me, for example, kind of like choose clothes that are fashionable? And I admire people that don’t. Even if it hurts my eyes to look at them. So, that wasn’t that bad of a thing to write, was it?’

‘I didn’t say you were a bit too smart, either,’ Elizabeth put in. ‘I said you’re a fast typist. Which you’ve got to admit, you are. I don’t know who wrote that you’re a bit too smart.’

‘I did,’ said Sergio, and then, to me, defensively, ‘but you are.’

Toby sighed deeply. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I did write that you talk like a horse. It was a humorous reference to the way you say “nay” all the time. You know, neigh. Like a horse. But your voice is just fine, Bindy, it’s not like a horse. It’s a very nice voice.’

‘Well, except when she gets, like, hysterical, I guess?’ Astrid chatted. ‘Toby, you’ve gotta admit, sometimes Bindy goes off and then her voice has this scre—’

Sergio interrupted, changing the subject. ‘You said you crashed a car?’ he prompted me.

But I had to take a moment to look from face to face, and readjust my views of each of them. Except for Toby and his talks like a horse, none of them had written what I thought they had. And the way they explained themselves now: maybe the comments weren’t as serious as I had thought? Maybe I’d over-reacted? I began to smile a little.

‘You crashed a car?’ said Sergio, hopefully.

So I described my driving lesson, and how my uncle had told me to be one with the car—and as I spoke, I remembered.

‘My piano teacher said that too!’ I exclaimed. ‘She said I wasn’t one with the piano! I’m not one with the piano or the car! Because I drove straight into a parked car! I’m not one, I can’t be one with anything—I don’t—I just don’t belong.’

Suddenly, I was crying again.

‘See, that’s your fault,’ Astrid said. ‘Because when you act like the teacher you can’t be part of the class? If you want to be one with us, you’ve got to—’

But Sergio was talking over Astrid’s voice again.

‘You just crashed straight into a parked car?’ he said. ‘That’s it? You drove out of your driveway and hit a parked car? Forget about it.’ (He used his mafia accent at the end.)

Then he described the three accidents he’d had. He included squealing-tyre, shrieking-brake and crunching-metal sound effects. Next thing, almost all of them were telling car-crash stories. Running over letterboxes. Putting the car into reverse instead of drive. ‘The road took a right-hand bend,’ I heard Toby say, ‘but the car did not.’

I looked around, astonished.

‘See?’ said Emily. ‘We’re all the same. None of us can drive!’

‘Well,’ said Sergio slowly, ‘maybe some of us can dr—’

‘If you want to be one with us,’ Astrid repeated, ‘you’ve gotta stop acting like you’re better than us.’

‘And you’ve gotta try to learn the difference,’ said Sergio, thoughtfully, ‘between an animal and a human being.’

Astrid stood up and left the room.

Toby put his arm around my shoulder. ‘And look at your beautiful indigo eyes,’ he murmured. ‘All red now with your crying.’

‘Indigo,’ scoffed Sergio. ‘Indigo mean purple. Her eyes are not purple. They’re midnight-blue.’

They argued mildly until Astrid returned with a tray of hot chocolate for everyone.

And as I looked down at the little white marshmallow bobbing about in my hot chocolate, I thought: this is what it’s like to have friends.

It soon emerged that Astrid had put Kahlua in everyone’s hot chocolate. I have never really drunk alcohol before, so I believe it had an effect on me. In fact, I found myself accepting her offers of more alcoholic beverages. Tall alcoholic beverages in glasses! Colourful alcohol! Alcohol mixed with soft drinks! They were all surprisingly delicious.

Everyone was drinking, and some people even smoked marijuana! Not I.

Someone put music on, and it was a song I recognised from the hip-hop class. Forgetting myself, I stood up and tried out some of the ‘hip-hop’ moves I had almost learned in the class.

At which, Astrid and Elizabeth began to do the same moves! They did them beautifully—those girls can dance! Only, they did not seem to be trying to show me up. Oh no, they did not seem to judge me for my inabilities! They were just happy, they said, to be reminded of those dance moves. They had forgotten them!

Now everyone was dancing!

Even Briony! (Toby made her.)

Everything was music, shouting and leaping!

Try appeared at the door, dressed in her pyjamas, rubbing sleepy eyes. We looked at her, guiltily, and somebody turned the music down. Try simply smiled, turned, and went back to bed.

And that is why I am here now, in this rocking chair, typing at my computer. (I felt such a wave of creativity! Such a desire to write!) Now we are all quiet—we are all reading, blowing on flames, playing games.

And there is my reflection in the mirror, sharp as a musical score.

There am I, one with this room.

One with this group of people.

And there is something about crying,

About dancing, and drinking,

About talking

That makes me feel so very

Happy so very

Tired

And now I might fall asleep

I might just

Fall

Asleep

On this

Nice Typewriting

Pillow here

This nice

Keyboard

Coloured

Pillow

Here

f4 f5 f6 calling to my forehead