I'll Tell You Mine Read online

  Maddy pulls me into a chair next to her. ‘They always do roast on Sundays. Don’t even think about eating the cauliflower – it tastes like sick. And watch out for the gravy too – it’s full of ULOs.’

  ‘ULOs?’

  ‘Unidentified Lumpy Objects.’

  My heart is beating so fast it feels like I’m about to have a heart attack. Damp circles gather under my arms. Someone has carved THIS SUX into the pockmarked wooden table. I run my finger over the grooves and imagine a girl sitting here with a Stanley knife, feeling exactly how I feel right now. I can’t believe I’m about to eat dinner with all these other people. It’s school camp on more steroids than the Holston rowing team.

  The head of the boarding house, Miss Gordon, walks to a microphone and taps on it. The noise tapers off to a few coughs.

  ‘Welcome back, girls,’ Miss Gordon says, looking about as pleased as I am to be here. Her face is pinched and her mouth is pursed like a cat’s bum. She’s wearing a grey wool skirt, stockings and Kumfs, a single string of pearls around her wrinkled neck. ‘I hope you all have a wonderful term.’ She continues with a list of ‘housekeeping’ items, bits and pieces about keeping the rooms clean, maintaining the rosters and making sure we put in our outing request forms and weekend slips, and then announces that we can eat. ‘In an orderly fashion. One table at a time, please.’

  ‘What are outing forms?’ I ask Maddy as the first table stampedes the bain-maries.

  ‘Parents’ permission so you can go to the shops, the city, running around the gardens . . . if you’re into that sort of thing. Personally I don’t like to sweat.’

  ‘Seriously? I have to get permission to go to the shops?’

  ‘I’ve been doing this since Year Seven. Get used to it.’

  I’m almost afraid to ask. ‘Weekend slips?’

  ‘If you want to go to a friend’s house for the weekend, slips have to be signed by your parents and theirs. They have to be in by Wednesday at six.’

  ‘Or you can’t go?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘That sucks.’

  My two best friends will never be cleared for a ‘weekend slip’.

  Annie’s mum lets her do whatever she likes and Nate lives in a rundown share house with four uni students.

  ‘Well. Yeah.’ Maddy shrugs. ‘If you’re not good at forging signatures.’

  She smiles, looking angelic. ‘I sign my dad’s autograph better than he does. It just takes practice. Okay. Let’s go get Salmonella. Or maybe E.coli . . . Listeria perhaps.’

  Maddy hands me a plate and we move along an assembly line of congealing food.

  ‘They’re okay,’ she says, looking at the yellow potato chunks.

  ‘No. Absolutely not,’ she says to the pureed cauliflower and limp carrots.

  Maddy okays the meat, peas and beans and inspects the gravy closely.

  ‘I will allow this today,’ she says, pouring a gloopy brown pool onto my plate. ‘Standards are a little higher because it’s the first day back.’

  I sit with my head bowed over the meal, moving the food around on the plate, taking a few tiny bites. It doesn’t smell like the food we have at home and it certainly doesn’t taste like it. The meat is gristly, grey and dried out at the edges. The potatoes taste oily and overcooked.

  Maddy doesn’t seem to notice – she shovels the food into her mouth, hardly pausing to chew. She tips back her cup of water and drains it in one go. Finally, she finishes the last pea on the plate, running a finger along the edge to scoop up the gravy. She leans back and lets out a deep, rumbling burp.

  ‘You’re disgusting Maddy,’ says Harriet, who’s sitting down the table from us with Jess.

  Maddy holds up a fist and then winches up her middle finger slowly. Then she smiles sweetly at Harriet.

  Harriet whispers something in Jess’s ear. It’s loud enough for the whole table to hear. ‘Slut . . .’

  Maddy laughs and rolls her eyes at me. ‘You gonna eat that?’ she asks, letting the comment slide off her back.

  I look down at my plate – it’s pretty much untouched. ‘Yeah. Have it,’ I say, pushing it over to her. ‘I’m full.’

  4

  It’s chaos as the final plates are cleared and we’re all dismissed for the night. I’m hoping to be able to make a call to Annie and Nate before lights out to tell them I’m still alive. Gabby made me sign a mobile phone usage contract. I had to put my name on the dotted line to say I understood having a phone was a privilege and I wouldn’t take advantage of the situation. When we go to bed they confiscate all the phones for the night and put them into a big plastic bucket so we don’t sit in bed texting our friends.

  Maddy lets me in on her secret: she has an old phone that she gives the teachers at night and keeps her real one with her all the time. She uses it to text Steve, her boyfriend back home. She reckons he’s really hot. Built. With a six-pack. She’s going to show me a photo later.

  On my way out of the dining hall Gabby pulls me aside. ‘How’s everything going?’ she asks in her caring, sisterly voice. She’s a close talker. I inch away, feeling trapped.

  ‘Yeah, fine. Thanks. No dramas.’

  She nods, smiling encouragingly. Moves closer. ‘I noticed you and Madeline Minogue are getting along.’

  ‘So what.’

  Gabby leans in like a heat-seeking missile, so close I can feel her warm breath on my face. It smells of pumpkin and I notice she has a little orange glob on her chin. ‘I think it would be a good idea to get to know all the boarding girls. Keep your options open.’

  I can’t believe Gabby is already telling me who I can and can’t be friends with. She’s worse than my parents.

  Last year they tried to stop me hanging with Brent, an eighteen-year-old surf-punk guy I met in the city. He was too old for me apparently and had different ‘interests and agendas’. That’s parent speak for – he wants to screw me, get me pregnant and ruin my life.

  I think it’s the pot calling the kettle black because Dad’s a surfer, and he got Mum pregnant when she was twenty-three and he was twenty-one. Mum was at Melbourne Uni studying law and Dad was a summer romance she had when she spent a weekend at a beach house in Torquay with her friends. They met at the local pub and Dad offered Mum surfing lessons. They did a little more than just surf. When Mum’s parents found out she was up the duff they forced them to get married because it was the right thing to do. And, God forbid, they couldn’t have a pregnant, unmarried daughter. They were far too posh for that. As far as I can tell, my grandmother organised the wedding – right down to the guest list – and Dad just showed up at the Royal South Yarra Tennis Club and went along with it. I’ve seen the photos. They are both so young, just a few years older than me now. Mum said her morning sickness with me was so bad, she spent half of her reception with her head stuck down a toilet, trying not to get spew on her dress. It wasn’t exactly a fairytale from the beginning.

  Eventually Mum got back to uni, finished her law degree and managed to get into politics, which has been her dream since she was elected class captain in primary school. But it was a lot harder than it could have been for her, I think. And sometimes, when I see Mum in her neat power suit and Dad in his ratty jeans, I think maybe Dad isn’t the guy Mum wanted to marry. Did she have a whole other life in mind? Or was she just a different person when they met?

  I peel my back from the wall and take a step away from Gabby. ‘You can’t tell me who to hang out with,’ I say. Gabby’s face gets all sad and confused, like she realises she’s not going to be able to save me from myself.

  It’s hard to find anywhere private to make a phone call but I manage to curl up in a stairwell. It’s damp and dark, a mean draught spiralling up from somewhere, the concrete cold under my bum. I want to speak to Annie so badly but she’s not picking up. Neither is Nat
e. I leave voicemails for them.

  ‘It’s me. I’m stuck in this women’s prison and it sucks. Call me back and I’ll tell you all about it. Are you out tonight?’

  I scroll through some of my favourite old texts from Annie. She likes to use yellow smiley faces and lots of kisses and hugs. Even though small children are scared of her jagged, inky hair and charcoal-stained lips, Annie is all soft, pink marshmallow inside.

  I’ve got savage period pain and the cramps tangle in my back and tummy – a dull thudding ache. I tap my brow – the index finger hitting the skin on the end of my eyebrow. 1-2-3-4-5-6. The soothing rhythm helps to distract me from my reality.

  I try to go to my happy place – that night Annie and Nate and I danced at a Goth club until they kicked us out. We tumbled onto the street as the sun was coming up and got a kebab from a Lebanese guy with a cart on the street. We watched the sun come up over the city, garlic sauce running down our chins.

  Only when I start shivering do I head back to the room where it’s warm, at least. Soon it will be time for lights out. I can’t wait to close my eyes and I just pray that I can sleep.

  In the room Maddy is painting her toenails.

  ‘Where are the others?’ I ask.

  She doesn’t look up from her toes. ‘TV room.’

  ‘Why aren’t you there?’

  ‘They didn’t ask me.’

  I flop down on my bed and look up at the peeling paint on the ceiling. On my roof at home there’s a collection of fluorescent stars that Mum stuck up for me when I was little and afraid of the dark. They’ve lost most of their glow, but you can still make out the constellations she carefully mapped out. ‘When you’re scared, just look up at the stars and count them,’ she said to me. ‘When you’ve finished counting you’ll be asleep.’ Usually she was right. It was nice when I still believed everything my parents said.

  I kick off my shoes and curl up on my side, facing away from Maddy. I suddenly feel so tired.

  ‘Are you all right, Kate?’ Maddy asks.

  ‘I’ve got my period,’ I say. ‘My stomach hurts.’

  I listen as Maddy rustles through her bag and then throws a packet of blue pills onto my bed with a bottle of water. I pop two out and swallow them gratefully, waiting for the cool wash of pain relief.

  Maddy’s got the radio tuned to a soppy love song dedication show that nobody under the age of thirty would admit to listening to.

  ‘I just dedicated a song to Steve,’ she says to my back. ‘I hope they play it.’

  A photo drops on my bed, near my face. It’s a shot of Maddy and some bloke I gather is Steve. He’s got his arm around her neck and is flexing his bicep, smiling at the camera with a crooked grin. He’s wearing a VB singlet and a pair of boardies – his body golden brown and sinewy.

  I turn around and return the photo to her side table, propping it up carefully. ‘He’s cute,’ I say. ‘When did you get together?’

  Maddy finishes her toes, lifting her leg up and blowing on the wet polish. ‘His family owns a farm near ours. He said he was waiting for me to get some grass on my lower paddock before he made a move. If you know what I mean . . .’

  I know what she means. ‘Is Steve your boyfriend?’

  ‘He doesn’t like it when I call him my boyfriend. But yeah.’

  I nod. Steve sounds like a tosser.

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ Maddy asks.

  I think about my friend Nate and picture the tiny white scar above his lip, his curly brown hair tied back with an elastic band, the olive-green Maori tattoo wrapped around his slim bicep. The way it moves when he sits with his guitar resting on one knee, plucking at the strings.

  *

  A few months ago we crashed at Nate’s after a concert. Mum was away on a conference and I told Dad I was staying at Annie’s. It was all set. Annie had fallen asleep, drunk, on the couch and I’d followed Nate into his bedroom – both of us stumbling and slurring from vodka shots. We crawled onto his futon and he turned out the light, peeling off his T-shirt and boots. He smelled of sweat – we’d been dancing for hours.

  I got under the covers fully dressed, except for my shoes – every hair on my body standing up. I lay on a sliver of mattress next to him. We weren’t touching but I could feel him. Blurry and thick-headed, somehow my hand was reaching around his hip, dropping down towards his crotch.

  Nate pressed down on me in the bed, pulling up my shirt and kissing my neck. Just when I thought maybe we would do it, maybe Nate would be my first . . . he rolled off and pulled his knees up to his chest, taking big breaths.

  ‘Nah, this isn’t right, Katie. I don’t want to have sex with you.’

  I jerked away from him. ‘Why not? I want to.’

  ‘You’re only fifteen. Nah. We can’t. It would ruin everything. You, me, Annie. We’re family.’

  ‘Sorry . . . Yeah. Okay.’ I felt sick. I needed to get away from him.

  ‘We’re friends,’ he whispered. ‘Just friends, okay?’

  I rolled out from the bed, pushing him away when he tried to reach out for me.

  ‘Where are you going, Katie? Come on. You can sleep here.’

  ‘Just leave me alone.’

  I went into his bathroom, with its stinky toilet, mouldy bathtub and sodden mat, curled up on the floor and cried.

  *

  Maddy waits for my answer and I wonder if I can trust her to tell her about Nate. Not yet . . .

  ‘There is someone. But he doesn’t like me.’

  ‘Okay. Want me to do your toes? Might help you get a boyfriend.’

  ‘Got any other colours? Black?’

  Maddy leaps off the bed, dragging a stuffed make-up case out of our cupboard. She spills out dozens of little glass bottles and plucks out a shade of deep purple. ‘Spicy plum. This would look great on you,’ she says. ‘Seriously.’

  Her eyes survey my ratty hair, chewed nails and unshaven legs. She’s thinking I’m a prime candidate for a makeover. Before I went Goth, Mum was always asking me to go to the hairdresser with her to get stupid streaks and foils. It was her way of trying to be my friend or something. Now she just leaves me to do my own dark rinses. In a way, I miss her asking.

  ‘I dunno,’ I say doubtfully.

  ‘Please? I’m bored.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Have you ever had a pedi?’ Maddy asks, peering at my knobbled toes. ‘Obviously not . . .’

  My middle toe is longer than the rest. I used to be embarrassed and wear socks all the time but now I think it’s freaky and cool. When Nate saw it he said that the Statue of Liberty has toes like mine. It’s a sign of royal blood too.

  ‘Nup. Hate that girly stuff,’ I mutter.

  Maddy shakes her head as if I’ve just passed up a slice of glistening chocolate cake. ‘Everyone likes pedis. We should go for one in the city. I know this really cheap place. They put your feet in these little spas. It’s, like, totally relaxing.’

  I smile, imagining the two of us with our feet soaking. Could we look any less like BFFs?

  Maddy glances around the room, as if there might be someone hiding in its corners, and lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘So, why are you really here?’ she asks. ‘Everyone is saying it’s because you got arrested for selling drugs to the Year Eights. Is that true?’

  ‘Really? What else are people saying?’

  ‘That you overdosed and you got your stomach pumped. Did you? I’ve always wondered what that feels like. Does it feel like sticking a vacuum cleaner down your throat?’

  I’m relieved that she hasn’t even gotten close to the truth. I don’t like thinking about the real reason I was sent here and I certainly won’t be talking about it with Maddy or anyone else. I’ll never be able to forget the look on Mum’s face when she saw the blood. When s
he realised what I’d done. I worry all the time that somehow the secret will ooze out.

  ‘I didn’t get my stomach pumped,’ I say. ‘My bitch mother sent me here because we don’t get along.’

  Maddy goes quiet, concentrating on filling in my little toe. ‘You shouldn’t call your mother a bitch,’ she says.

  And then I remember. Mrs Minogue died at the start of the year, from breast cancer. Maddy was pretty devastated. She had to take a month off from school and our teachers talked to us about being nice to her when she got back. I saw her once at the school fete. Her head was wrapped in a bandanna, her body thin and frail like an old person.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Maddy. I forgot about your mum.’

  Everyone says that’s why Maddy is so wild. Because she doesn’t have a mum to tell her what to do and her dad’s too old and tired to chase after her anymore.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she says. ‘I really hate it when people feel sorry for me. Y’know. Poor, poor Maddy. Her mum died. Boo hoo.’

  ‘Are you going to this social on the weekend?’ I ask, trying to break the mood.

  ‘Yeah,’ she sighs. ‘It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do. You have to come.’

  ‘No way,’ I decide. ‘I’m not a punk or a princess.’

  Maddy laughs. ‘That’s the whole point, isn’t it, Kate? To dress up as something you’re not? Go on. It’ll piss Jess and Harriet off. Let’s go and kiss the boys they like. Guess how many guys I kissed at the last dance?’

  I shrug, thinking that it must be a big number and wondering how many guys it’s possible to tongue wrestle at one dance. ‘Three?’

  ‘Nine. It was fun but my lips were sore afterwards.’

  Bedtime is a warped sleepover party. Harriet and Jess talk and giggle for ages until Maddy tells them to shut up or she’ll come over and king-hit them. Even though she’s a little whippet she somehow scares them into silence.