About a Girl (9 page)

Chapter Ten

I
REMEMBER ALTERNATING
bouts of angry energy with fits of inexplicable crying.

‘Don't patronise me!' I shouted at Morgan, on one of the occasions when I couldn't avoid visiting my father – it was his birthday, and I did not feel like celebrating with him. I stormed from the house and found myself in a park an hour later, crying my eyes out, my head against the rough bark of a tree.

‘You don't know what I'm really like!' I yelled at my mother, before taking myself off to the bookshop one Saturday. I cried angrily in the back room of the shop for a while and then went out to serve with a stony face.

Customers were such idiots! They insisted on buying crap like vampire books instead of brilliant stuff like
Crime and Punishment
.

‘Has this
anything
to recommend it?' I wondered aloud, tossing one such book into a paper bag and throwing in the obligatory promotional bookmark.

‘Anna, I'm giving you a warning,' said the manager, when the customer had gone.

So I perfected looking down my nose while maintaining a tight-lipped tact. I knew it merely made me look grumpy, but perhaps people expected that of the young.

I skipped classes at uni, staying home to weep in my room. I got into Josh's stash of Southern Comfort, and did find it comforting, for a few hours. I was sick into the toilet during the night and woke up the next morning with a throbbing headache. How could he regularly drink such vile stuff?

I taunted him. ‘You're just a layabout. Do you ever go to that Mickey Mouse course you're meant to be doing?'

‘Do you ever go to yours?'

I flagrantly refused to hand work in. When a tutor asked where was an essay I replied, ‘Nowhere,' and walked off, though I had it right there in my bag, and had in fact laboured on it far into the night.

My mother asked me to help clean up the kitchen one day and feeling suddenly angry for no reason, I swept the whole contents of the bench onto the floor, and laughed and laughed at the expression on her face. I didn't find it funny at all – I was appalled and ashamed at what I'd done, but I just couldn't help myself.

If I had a thought, no matter how stupid or hurtful, I blurted it out at once. It was as though I had no control over my actions anymore.

That was why I stopped going round to see Michael, and when he visited me, found excuses to ask him to leave. I knew if he stuck around for long enough I wouldn't be able to stop myself hurting him.

I found myself waking at three in the morning and crying into my pillow, night after night. I was sad and confused, and I wanted it all to stop.

My grandmother took me aside one day. ‘Anna, I'd like you to see a friend of mine. I think you might be depressed.'

Depressed! Didn't depressed people have no energy? Sometimes I had so much energy I shone with it; I could have lit up suburbs!

‘I hate myself,' I sobbed to the woman my grandmother took me to see. ‘Everyone hates me, and
it's all my fault
.'

I came out with a prescription for some antidepressants and a referral to a psychologist.

But I couldn't bring myself to take the tablets.

That was when I went round to see Michael at last, to tell him what the doctor had said.

‘I'm a loony,' I told him in what I imagined to be a humorous way, holding out the tablets for him to see. ‘If I start taking these, I'll be on them for years and years, and I'll turn into a zombie. What do you think? Maybe I should just throw them down the toilet.'

‘Anna, I can't tell you what to do,' said Michael sorrowfully. ‘But maybe the doctor knows what's best.'

My anger flared up. ‘So you think I'm crazy too? I thought you'd be on my side!'

‘It's not a matter of being crazy. And of course I'm on your side; I always have been.'

‘I tell you what! I
am
crazy, and I have been all along! I'm such a loser! I'll tell you how big a loser I am – my only friend for years and years has been you! How pathetic is that?'

I saw with glee and dismay that I had hurt Michael at last.

‘Anna,' he said, sadly. ‘That's not you saying that. It's the depression talking.'

I flung myself from his room, thumping my shoulder deliberately against the door frame on the way out. And it didn't hurt, it didn't hurt at all. I could have flung myself from the top of a tall building and it wouldn't have hurt, compared to the way I was feeling inside.

In the end, I did take the tablets. It scared me, because what if they made me worse? There were all sorts of warnings on an information sheet that came with them, and some of the side effects sounded awful. I started keeping what I called my ‘Mood Diary', noticing every little thing I felt, keeping it tucked under my mattress so no one would find it.

And after a few weeks, I did start to feel better. The tablets helped me to sleep. I could easily have kept going at uni, but I just didn't want to. I kept up my part-time work in the bookshop, though, and over time, as my mood improved, I started to work full-time. Once a fortnight I went to see the psychologist. I learned new ways to think about my life and interact with people. ‘You should try to do things that give you pleasure,' she told me. So I did.

In my lunch hour I sunned myself in the park. With the money I earned I bought heaps of
CDS
, and spent more time listening to music. I threw out all my black clothes, and looked for ones that I really liked. That's when I found the spotted red dress that was destined to be worn the first time Flynn invited me to her place. I hesitated over it in the changing room, but the shop assistant told me it suited me. I went to op shops and found bangles and handbags that went with my new clothing. Not wanting to ask Morgan to cut my hair again, I went to a hairdresser and had the style repeated.

And after almost a year, I began to feel that I was back to normal, if the word ‘normal' could ever be used to describe me. The big thing that did make me sad was the rift between Michael and me. At the start of my illness (and it was an illness, I can see that now) I kept pushing him away until he'd stopped trying. I didn't try to heal our lapsed friendship. After all, I reasoned, he now had the other Anna.

I told my doctor I wanted to come off the antidepressant tablets, and she agreed that I should. I had felt fine for a long time. If I ever had a troubling thought I let it drift away, like a wisp of cloud detaching itself from a mountaintop.

Mostly I felt like the old me, but sometimes the medication just made me too tired, and I couldn't be bothered with anything. I was sick of feeling empty.

Coming off the tablets was as scary as going onto them. For two weeks I took a tablet every second day instead of every day. Then for the next two weeks I took a tablet every three days. I watched myself: every feeling, every reaction.

And then I was on my own.

I anxiously waited for the monstrous, angry Anna to reappear. But she stayed away. There were no tears. I slept well. I felt that I'd been learning to fly a plane for the first time and had touched down smoothly and safely.

Before Christmas I had some holidays due, and my mother said, ‘Let's go away up north. You and me and Molly.'

‘A holiday!' I said.

‘That's what they call it!'

We hadn't been anywhere since my father had left. I remembered us once all piling into the station wagon and heading up the coast, camping overnight in national parks, spending occasional nights in motels so we could have a proper shower, eating fish and chips while watching the sun go down over the sea.

‘Let's do it,' I said.

This time I shared the driving with my mother. Not long before, with money I'd saved, I'd bought myself a small used car, but we took hers. It was wonderful being away from routine. Even though memories of those other holidays tugged at me all the way up the coast, as I'm sure they did with her, we were determined to enjoy ourselves.

On the way back we spent two days in Lismore, heading out to wander in the rainforests, and I loved the place. Driving along narrow winding roads like green tunnels through the trees, cresting a hill to be surprised by an unexpected view … it was all so different to the south, where we came from.

Looking through the local paper late on our first afternoon there, I idly scanned the employment ads, and saw the bookshop job. For some reason my heart leapt. Here was something I hadn't even thought I'd wanted.

‘Look at this,' I said to my mother, my voice quick with excitement. ‘I have all the experience they want. What do you think?'

‘I think you should go and introduce yourself tomorrow morning, if that's what you want to do.'

We were heading home the next day. The manager asked me to send in a formal application when I got back. She interviewed me over the phone. And when the call came a day later offering me the job, I was surprised how much I longed for it. I was almost nineteen, and I wanted to get out and manage on my own. I saw myself wandering along the white northern beaches, meeting new people, shedding the layers of old Canberra skin.

‘Do you think I should take it?' I asked my mother, with tears in my eyes.

‘When do they want you to start?'

‘Two weeks after Christmas.'

I knew that I would go.

Brushing aside my mother's offers to come and help me set up, I drove myself north with a few belongings, and stayed in a bed and breakfast till I found a flat.

And then I met Flynn.

PART THREE

Chapter One

T
HE NIGHT THAT
I went to Flynn's place, the night after my mother and Molly left, we had the flat to ourselves.

If someone had stood in the street outside, they'd have seen a soft light, as if from a shrouded bedside lamp. The window stood open, and at some stage a dark-haired girl, a kimono flung round her shoulders and coming loose, appeared and stood for a while looking out. She turned, and said something to a person unseen, and then moved away from the window.

Much later, towards dawn, a girl with short red hair, dressed in the selfsame kimono, made her way gingerly onto the roof to retrieve a teapot. Later still, a cat jumped up from inside the room and perched on the sill, swishing its tail and looking out at the street, and then down into the room.

From the cat's vantage point, the room was strewn with clothes hastily discarded, and a tray with teapot and sugar bowl lay on the floor. An arm reached out from the bed to place a teacup onto the tray. A plate with toast crumbs soon joined it; the cat jumped down to lick up butter and crumbs.

Soon grey light crept over the back of the building, followed by yellow sunlight, which lit up the old red bricks. The dark-haired girl, naked, walked past and closed the curtains.

A shower hissed, and steam issued from another window. Someone sang, and someone else laughed.

They were happy, those girls who shared a kimono.

Chapter Two

I
HAD TO
go to work that day, and I could not remember having slept. I served customers with my head blurry, gave the wrong change, crashed a pile of books over onto the floor and made a baby in a pram cry, and thought about Flynn every single moment.

I went over every little thing about her. There was so much to think about: the way she looked different up close, a new person altogether, but still Flynn in some mysterious, indescribable way. I remembered her newly browned skin, and a smile that I felt sure she'd never bestowed on anyone else. I had tenderly watched over her as she slept.

She was a couple of years younger than I was, but in many ways she seemed older. She knew so much about her own body, and what gave it pleasure, that I felt I was being taught both about Flynn and about myself.

A little while before noon she came into the shop, her hair loose and unkempt; she was so beautiful that I was immediately filled with desire. I went to go towards her, but she warded me off with a warning, smiling glance, and continued to saunter among the shelves, picking up a book here and there, every now and then glancing flirtatiously towards me. I stood mesmerised at the counter.

I knew that she had to go to work in the café at midday, so I went there for lunch. Someone else at the counter took my order, but Flynn delivered it. She didn't say a word, but brushed her hand as though accidentally against my shoulder. It was a delightful game. I thanked her casually and smiled down at my plate. Flynn returned moments later with a cloth, and leaned close to me, needlessly wiping the already clean table. All without a word exchanged.

I finished work before Flynn did, and after shopping for food, went home to my flat to meet her, as we'd arranged that morning.

A little after six the knock came at the door and, with my heart pounding, I let her in.

She carried her guitar – held it by the neck, its slim, white body hugged close to her.

We were both nervous. I remembered that morning, the sun streaming onto her satin kimono tossed over the back of a chair. The thud of the cat as it jumped down into the room from the windowsill, the spidery cracks in the ceiling of her room. And now this: the actuality of her again.

‘Have you met Louise?' she asked, holding the guitar up in front of her like a shield. She looked bright and hot; her eyes shone as though a fire was burning inside her.

‘I don't believe I have,' I said. She hadn't told me that her guitar actually had a name.

‘Well, Louise is my best friend and bosom buddy.' She spoke glibly, as though she often said this, and placed the guitar carefully onto the sofa, where it reclined, looking almost human.

We stood awkwardly. The ease we'd gained the previous night and this morning had dissipated by our being separate for the entire day. It seemed that each time we met we had to reinvent how we were with each other.

She went over to the window. Outside, it was still the bright light of a summer day. I wanted it to be night, stars overhead, the wingbeats of bats, creatures rustling in the pawpaw trees outside my window, everything secretive and unknowable. I didn't yet know how to be with her in the daylight.

Flynn turned round to look at me, and her face was luminous yet hidden, the way the moon appears to get caught in the bare branches of trees before tearing itself free. Her eyes were unreadable and clouded with thought. I'd seen that look before – she wouldn't look at me, but somewhere over to the left, where she saw something only she could see. I thought of the way she had come into the shop to flirt with me, and later at the café. She was so changeable – would I ever know where I was with her?

But hadn't I wanted this? Wanted someone with whom falling in love would be a risk? All along, since I'd seen the diaphanous girl in the car park, I'd known I wanted someone
not
predictable,
not
ordinary, and the problem with dangerous girls was that you might never be certain of them.

‘What are we going to do, Anna?'

Her voice sounded so lost and plaintive; perhaps she was already regretting coming back to me. There were dark rings under her eyes. Neither of us had had enough sleep. I felt tears well up, because I had no answer. As far as I could see we were in unmapped territory. Unmapped enemy territory. There were no street signs for what we were doing, and I saw that it would be easy to lose our way.

It was too much to think about right now. I was immediately aware of being tired and hungry.

‘I think we should cook dinner,' I said. ‘An army marches on its stomach.'

We set to work. I'd bought thick lamb chops, and new potatoes. I put these on to cook while Flynn constructed a salad, making a game of all the things she discovered in my refrigerator. She threw in everything – snow peas, lightly blanched French beans, capers, tinned baby beets.

‘Pomegranate molasses?' she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘What on earth do you do with pomegranate molasses?'

‘My mother bought that. She puts it in Middle Eastern stews. Or on ice cream. Not a salad thing.'

She put it into the salad dressing anyway.

We ate in the dusk sitting out on the wall overlooking the town. Ravenous, we used our fingers and tore the meat with our teeth. The grey cat appeared and cadged scraps. Replete, I sighed and licked my fingers.