Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 01 - Cocoa and Chanel (3 page)

After lunch we had physical education. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all, but at least I wasn’t dreading it like Susie. Nastacia was stretching when we showed up at the gym. I watched her for a while and then started to copy her, hoping I looked like I knew what I was doing. Susie joined me, leaning as far forwards as her stomach would allow, stretching her fingers optimistically towards the ground.

Nastacia looked over and rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to pull a muscle,’ Susie replied.

‘The only muscle you’re ever going to pull is your tongue.’

I walked over to her and said, ‘That’s not very nice.’

‘I don’t know why you’re bothering either,’ she said, eyeing me up and down. ‘Why don’t you just go home and look pretty.’

‘Pardon? What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s obvious all you care about is how you look.’

‘That’s not true at all,’ I said. It wasn’t. I cared about a lot of things: my Mum, Cocoa, world peace.

‘So why do you want to be a police officer?’

‘To make the world a better place.’ I’d said it so many times I was almost starting to believe it.

Nastacia obviously didn’t buy it. She snorted and turned her back on me and continued her stretching.

‘All right Miss Smarty Pants,’ I said, ‘why do you want to be a police officer?’

She stopped and looked at me with steel grey eyes. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Try me,’ I said, instead of my preferable alternative of ‘bite me’.

‘My father was a police officer, as was his father, and his father before that.’

‘So…. it’s a family tradition?’

‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’

‘What’s there to understand? You’re trying to make them proud of you. I don’t see how that is any better than our reasons for being here.’

She shot me a venomous look, but before she could retort someone called us into the gym. That someone was riot squad Rick.
Hmmm
, maybe this physical education wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

An hour later I lay on the ground, sweating and panting and wishing Rick had gotten me to this state using a totally different form of exercise. It was official. P.E. sucked big time. The only person more unfit than me was Susie. She’d thrown up half an hour in and been sent to the first aid section for rehydration. Nasty had breezed through the one hour torture session with a smirk on her face.

The only positive thing about the whole experience had been watching Rick demonstrate the exercises for us. That man was a serious chunk of hunk.

***

Susie was looking better when I caught up with her after class, but she seemed glum. I tried to cheer her up through dinner by telling her how disgracefully I had performed for the last half of the exercise program.

‘What’s up?’ I finally asked when we were sitting on my bed after dinner.

A lone tear rolled down her plump cheek. ‘I’m never going to be a policewoman.’

‘Of course you are,’ I said. ‘In eight months.’

‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘they’ll fail me.’

‘You can fail?’

She smiled sadly. ‘Of course we can dummy.’

It was a sobering thought. ‘Well you still haven’t told me why you’re going to fail.’

‘I’ll never pass the physical exam.’

‘There’s a physical exam?’ Well that bit of news had balls on it.

She shook her head and said, ‘Oh Chanel, did you read the course information at all?’

I shifted uncomfortably. ‘I started to, but I fell asleep.’

She chuckled. ‘Chanel, why
do
you want to be a police officer?’

I was about to rote my standard answer of making the world a better place but I stopped. I liked Susie and I didn’t want to lie to her, so I told her the truth, about Lenny and Hickery.

She sighed wistfully when I had finished and said, ‘What are we going to do?

‘We are going to train.’

‘Really?’

‘Yup. After dinner. We’ll go to the gym and work out.’

She sat upright with a hopeful look on her face. ‘We could, couldn’t we.’

‘I promise,’ I said, putting my hand on my heart, ‘that I will get you through your physical.’ The words were out of my mouth before my brain had time to edit them.

‘Do you? Do you really promise?’

‘Of course,’ I said, looking down to see if my nose had gotten bigger.

God I hoped I wasn’t telling a porky. As things stood unless the physical exam consisted of a fast food crawl followed by a movie marathon she was going to fail. I would do my best to help her, I really would, but there’s only so much a barely five foot munchkin was capable of. If we were required to do something ridiculous like climb over a three metre wall we were going to need divine help. I just hoped Susie’s hotline to heaven worked better than mine.

After the first week at the Academy our training fell into a rhythm. Parade, lessons, lunch, more lessons then P.E. After dinner Susie and I went to the gym and tried to train. The problem was neither of us had ever worked out before so we weren’t sure what we were doing. But after the first couple of weeks Susie stopped throwing up during P.E. so I figured we were doing something right.

I had two big problems – Sergeant Moores and Nasty Nastacia. (Well three if you considered not being able to get Riot Squad Rick alone a problem.)

Sergeant Moores was just doing his job – I think. As I’d never been exposed to bastardisation before I wasn’t sure what was acceptable and what was not. I couldn’t do anything right. Even my ugly shoes became too fancy for him and I resented the money I had to spend on ones that could only be described as homely.

During room inspection my room was too dirty, untidy or dusty. My clothes were too crushed, too short, too tight. After a few weeks it began to wear me down. My theory that he was just doing his job was flawed by the fact that he didn’t pick on the others with the same level of ferocity. It was becoming obvious that I should never have mentioned the egg yolk.

And Nasty? Well the name said it all. Mostly she just smirked as Sergeant Moores picked on me or made snide comments when I spoke. But a few things happened that made me suspicious that she was sneakier than she looked.

Firstly, three spiders found their way into my room. I’ve never been a fan of spiders. And that’s probably the understatement of the year. I once sat on my bed for two hours waiting for Mum to come home from the shops to save me from a hair ball I’d thought was a Daddy-long-legs. You can imagine how excited I was to have three of the little darlings in my room. And these weren’t your ordinary garden variety of spider. These were huge with visible fangs, and they were hairy. I’m not sure what it is about the hair that makes them extra creepy. I mean, I’ve dated a few hairy men in my time and that didn’t seem to bother me, but when it’s hair on a spider, all bets are off.

I noticed them lurking near my door as they decided which part of my room they were going to inhabit. Given they had cut off my escape route I did the only thing possible. I stood on the bed and screamed until help (Susie brandishing a broom) showed up. I had no proof but I was pretty sure Nasty had been instrumental in the spiders’ choice of which door to crawl under. I had seen her lurking in the corridor when I had gone to the toilet, and it seemed a little coincidental that there were three of them. I mean since when did spiders start travelling in packs?

And then a pen appeared in my bag with its end missing and emptied its ink all over my study books. Initially I thought it was my own stupid fault but the pen’s hot pink logo had the outline of a topless woman and the words ‘We want you to come inside’. I know there was no way I put that pen in my bag. I would remember a pen like that.

But the sneakiest, the lowest, the most damning of them all was the pair of men’s undies that was shoved into the bottom of my wardrobe. If I had spent more time tidying up before room inspection I may have noticed them. But I didn’t, so it was a huge shock to me when Sergeant Moores dragged them out on the end of his stick and waved them in my face.

It was against Academy rules to have persons of the opposite sex in our rooms, so I stood there staring straight ahead, while Sergeant Moores yelled till his head resembled a giant, saliva flecked tomato. More embarrassing though, I was summoned for an interview with the head of the Base, Superintendent Wolfe. Now
that
was an interesting conversation. I am sure that Nasty thought she had seen the last of me, but I managed to convince him that I wore men’s underwear to prevent chaffing, and it all went away after that.

It certainly wasn’t a high moment in my life, and between that and Sergeant Moores’ bullying I found myself questioning my urge to join the Police Force. I mean, why was I trying so damned hard when it was evident I wasn’t wanted?

I was in silent contemplation, lying on my bed in the few minutes before lunch officially started, when I was once again summoned to Superintendent Wolfe’s office.

‘For goodness sake,’ I grumbled to Susie as I climbed off the bed, ‘I wonder what I’ve done this time.’

I could tell by the look on her face that she was worried. I, however, was getting to the point where I didn’t give a damn. I think that was what had Susie so worried.

‘You promised to get me through the physical,’ she whispered as I opened the door.

I stopped and sighed. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll behave myself,’ I finally said.

I childishly dragged my feet all the way to his office, but I still got there way too soon for my liking. His assistant told me to have a seat and asked me in a kind voice if I wanted anything.

Oh Boy
. The assistant was being sweet. That’s it, I was a goner!

I sat and stewed and tried to work out on what grounds they would kick me out. I was doing well in my exams. Maybe I wasn’t the most coordinated when it came to marching, but I was exercising and studying hard, and trying hard to clean my room enough to satisfy Sergeant Moores – something I had begun to suspect was impossible. I didn’t know what else I could do to make them happy. I sighed. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

By the time Superintendent Wolfe finally called me into his office I had already mentally dealt with being kicked out of the Academy and moved on to deciding what I was going to do with my life. I was having trouble with that part.

He sat me down across from him and apologised for keeping me waiting. Why was he being so nice? Was he trying to let me down gently?

‘I have some bad news my dear,’ he said.

I sighed.

‘It’s your mother.’

‘My mother?’ I stood up in surprise.

He gestured for me to sit back down. ‘Don’t be alarmed. She’s fine.’

‘Fine?’

‘In a stable condition.’

Now I
was
scared. ‘What happened?’

‘She was mugged on her way home from work and broke her leg.’

‘They beat her up?’

‘No. She chased the perpetrator and was hit by a car.’

Christ
. My mother had been hit by a car. I felt sick.

‘Seeing as this weekend is a long weekend I thought you could have a few days off to go and visit her.’

I was still too stunned to speak.

‘Chanel, are you all right?’

‘I think I’m in shock,’ I said. My mother mugged in Hickery? The town was so quiet it almost didn’t need a police station. ‘When can I leave?’

‘Right away.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, standing.

‘Oh and Chanel,’ I paused in the doorway and turned back to look at him, ‘she’s still in hospital. Sounds like she will be for a while.’

I threw some clothes into a bag and with Susie’s, ‘Drive safely,’ in my ears I headed for my car. I had been tempted to pack all my stuff and not come back, but Susie had been watching me like a hawk.

The temperature in Goulburn had plummeted in the last week and it wasn’t till I opened the door to the chilly air that I realised I had left my coat in my room. I debated not taking it, but the heater in my car didn’t work very well, and I was going to need it. I placed my bag in the car and went back up to my room for my coat.

Everyone had gone to the mess for lunch and the building was eerily empty. If it hadn’t been, I probably wouldn’t have heard the whispered voices coming from Nastacia’s room through the slightly ajar door.

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

I froze, fascinated by the conversation. Nasty in love?

The speaking stopped for a while and I could just make out the sound of skin moving on skin. A low moan and then the kiss broke off.

‘I have to go.’

Shit.
I was standing right outside the door.

‘I know. When will I see you again?’

I started to walk towards my room, but the door pulled opened a fraction more and all of a sudden I was staring right into Nastacia’s grey eyes. I saw them widen in horror. She froze in the doorway, but the person behind her, not realising their danger, reached out and pulled open the door.

I don’t know which part shocked me more. That Nasty was in love, or that she was in love with another woman? Of course as soon as I saw the brunette, her large green eyes and her perfect red lips both rounded in shock at the sight of me, several things clicked into place.
That
was why Nastacia never joined us in our perving on the Riot Squad Boys.
That
was why she kept to herself. Poor thing – I bet being gay didn’t fit into her family’s traditional plans for her.

The drive home seemed a lot shorter than it had getting to Goulburn; mostly because I had a lot to think about. I was worried about my future, I was worried about what form Nastacia’s payback would take (a plague of rodents?), but mostly I was worried about Mum. And then I remembered Cocoa.
Ah crap.
Who was going to look after Cocoa while Mum was in hospital? My only friend that lived in Hickery was Becky and her landlord had prohibited animals after her Shetland pony had eaten the kitchen. All my other school friends were from surrounding towns, none of those towns being big enough to warrant their own school, and to be honest I hadn’t stayed in contact with them over the last few years. I tried not to think about it and concentrated instead on staying awake while I drove.

When I got to Hickery I went straight to the hospital. My attempt to arrive before visiting hours were finished was vindicated when I pulled up in the parking lot at 6.30pm. If I was lucky I’d be able to steal Mum’s jelly.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting but I was relieved when I entered the room and saw her sitting up in bed. Sure, her leg looked a little scary; its cast suspended by ropes from the bed frame, but apart from that, she appeared to be in one piece.

‘You’re okay,’ I said, giving her a hug.

‘What do you call that? Chopped liver?’ she said, gesturing at her leg.

‘Sorry, it’s very impressive. I mean apart from that you’re okay.’

We paused while a nurse brought her dinner in. Tough roast beef and over cooked vegetables. Yummy.

‘I was lucky,’ she continued.

‘How was getting hit by a car lucky?’

‘The man who mugged me was carrying a gun.’

Icy chills ran over me at her words.
A gun?
I shivered and reached for her jelly. She slapped my hand and moved the little container to the far side of the plastic tray.

‘Why did you chase him?’ I asked.

‘He took my handbag.’

I would have chased him too;
especially
if he’d stolen my Louis Vuitton. It’s not that people didn’t have guns in Hickery, they did. Shooting was a favourite pastime for some. But they shot foxes, rabbits and pigs – not people. And their guns weren’t the sort you could hide in your pocket.

‘So they got him?’

‘The car hit both of us. I survived.’

‘He’s dead?’ It seemed totally surreal.

She nodded as she peeled the top off her jelly. I sighed and sat back in the seat. Guess I was going to have to fend for myself in the food department.

‘Who was he?’ I asked.

‘Who was who?’

‘Did you hit your head as well? The mugger.’

She licked the jelly spoon clean and lay back into her pillows. ‘They don’t know. He didn’t have any identification on him.’

‘Hopefully his finger prints will I.D. him.’

‘Oooh,’ she said, ‘listen to you – quite the little policewoman. How’s the training going?’

I contemplated telling her about Sergeant Moores and Nastacia but as the sentences were forming in my head I realised how lame they sounded.

Looking at her, lying under the crisp white sheets, her leg hovering above her, made me want to get through training even more. If I could stop just one mugger from hurting someone like my Mum then I
was
making the world a better place. All those times I had told that lie, only to realise now I had been telling the truth. For the first time in my life I knew what I wanted. I did want to make the world a better place. I did want to try for world peace. And I wanted to be a policewoman. The rest would sort itself out.

***

Cocoa was as excited to see me as I was him. I pressed his soft body to my chest and breathed in his doggy scent. Then we rumbled on the floor for a while, wrestling and tug-o’-warring, before settling down on the couch to watch television and await the arrival of our pizza.

I had rung Becky as soon as I got home but she hadn’t answered. I was tempted to run down to The Brimstone to see if she and Bobby were there but I didn’t feel like answering questions about Mum or my training. I had spoken to her the week before and she’d sounded stressed. She and Bobby had finally announced their engagement and already they were having trouble with the relatives. Both sets of parents wanted to host the wedding on their own farm. Plus his mother didn’t like her mother and the rivalry between the two was just warming up. I felt sorry for her and wished I could help in some way but all I could do was be there to listen.

Mum was much the same the next morning. We tossed around possibilities for people who could look after Cocoa but couldn’t come up with anybody. They were either on holidays, had allergies or phobias, weren’t allowed animals, or didn’t like me. I was going to have to beg Becky to stay at Mum’s for the few weeks she needed to stay in hospital.