Skeletal (4 page)

I slid into the third stall along. There was some paper clinging damply to the wall of the bowl. I looked away immediately. I didn’t want to see any more. My bladder wasn’t in the mood to fuss.

When I sat, the plastic seat mercifully cold against my rear, I saw a flash of colour out of the side of my vision.

I expected to turn and see graffiti on the wall. I expected it to be a crude drawing or a rude phrase in marker pen. Instead I saw a line of flame.

I jerked back against the cistern, but I was mid-stream and going nowhere. I held out a hand to the flame.

There was no heat. I could feel the wood of the wall through the flames. Could hear my fingertips scraping on the wood even over the crackle of the fire.

Finished, I pulled up my knickers and flushed. The line of flame continued to flicker its strange light. I inhaled through my nose, but there was only the usual strong smell of air freshener hiding the raw bodily odours beneath.

I shook my head, closed my eyes, and reached for the latch of the door.

I flicked it open and walked out, only looking back over my shoulder.

There was nothing there but the toilet stall. Exactly as it should be.

Girls were jostling each other for mirror room at the sinks. Makeup was applied with the careful skill of girls new to the art, but with plenty of recent practice.

I waited on unsteady feet for the sinks to clear. I heard the second bell go, but while everyone else rushed out of the room I stayed. I moved to the mirror and looked at myself.

At first it was my normal reflection. I breathed out, only then noticing I’d been holding my breath.

And then the colours of my face started to run.

They spread out along the surface of the mirror as if they were formed of ink I’d just spilled water on.

My face was a metre wide, two metres. I tried to smile, but a yawning chasm opened up.

I took a step back and closed my eyes. I concentrated on my heartbeat. THUMP-thump-THUMP-thump.

And then I realised I could taste the sounds it was making. Orange and chocolate. My heartbeat, my pulse, it tasted like a giant Jaffa.

My eyes flew open again. The colours were everywhere. Dancing around my head. Spreading out across the floor.

The mirrors were a thousand beads of light reflecting across the walls, the floor, the ceiling. And I was part of it all. I could no longer tell where the floor stopped and I began.

And then I blinked and it was gone.

I looked at the mirror again, and saw only my reflection staring back at me.

I washed my hands and then quickly ran to my class. I was a few minutes late, but that was all.

The entire episode only took a couple of minutes from beginning to end.

***

I didn’t say anything to anyone. I followed Vila to her house after school, not even bunking off. That experience was put right out of my mind.

Vila may have said that her parents didn’t have the money to pay for a tutor, but after seeing her house it was harder to believe. It was huge. Not only huge but full-on opulent. When I walked between the Roman pillars (bloody pillars!) into the two storey entrance hall I felt like I was the downstairs part of ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ and I was out of bounds.

Even the street on the way into the house seemed magical and clean to me. There were concrete walls sweeping their way into the main street,
Northgardens
written a foot high on each side. The light fittings looked like gas lamps from the twenties. Wrought iron with tiny panes of glass.

‘Showhome,’ Vila whispered to me. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but my parents are renting and they got it cheap ’cause half the neighbourhood treks through each week. You should see the list of chores they have to do each day so it looks lived in, but not too lived in.’

I could handle chores.

The kitchen was all shining stainless steel and glassy marble. Beige carpets that no one would ever think about stubbing their cigarettes out on spread out across the floors, dotted with landing pads of varnished wood.

Not like my state house by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t even know if they should have the same noun to describe them.

Vila put some plain biscuits on a tray, along with a couple of slices of some cake heavy with fruit, nuts and chocolate, and then pulled a bottle of coke out of the fridge.

She lifted her eyebrows at some glasses behind a display pane of leadlight glass, and I picked up two and followed her back through the entry area, and then upstairs to her bedroom.

It was also clean and big. Vila spread out a plastic rug on the floor and then put the food and drink down on it.

When I raised by eyebrows, she said, ‘I can’t run the risk of spilling anything. Mum’d kill me. And we’d get kicked out.’

Okay, so maybe not so ideal.

I helped her with the maths questions from the day. We’d started to work through the beginnings of algebraic manipulation, made harder by Vila’s inability to add, divide, subtract or multiply in her head. She whipped out the calculator so often that I started to get confused myself. But when I suggested doing it in her head she just looked at me with a startled expression as though I was talking another language.

‘Vila? I’ve fixed up your kilt.’

We’d left my damaged skirt on the ironing board in the lounge.

There was a tread of feet on the stairs coming up, and I tensed, waiting for a glorious mother from a thousand sitcoms to come through the door and find her daughter’s new friend lacking.

Instead, a mess of curly dark brown hair and thick obscuring eye glasses came through the door. An old cardy in a patchwork of colours that really shouldn’t go together – David Bain anyone? – covered a T-shirt with the neck stretched out and black cords.

‘Mum,’ Vila said as she jumped up, ‘Heard of knocking?’

‘I called out. Who’s this?’

She peered at me, took in my half-naked state and handed across my kilt. I stood up as well, took the skirt, and extended my other hand. Vila almost killed herself laughing and I nudged her in the ribs and pulled my hand back without shaking anything.

‘I’m Daina. I’m in Vila’s class at school.’

She nodded and smiled at me, while Vila apparently decided her privacy had been invaded and pushed her toward the door. ‘We’re doing homework Mum. You don’t want to stop me getting a decent education, do you?’

‘Vila! You know you’re not allowed Coke in your room.’ She twisted aside and picked up the bottle and the two glasses, mine empty, Vila’s still half full. ‘Imagine if you spilled it in here.’ Her voice climbed a couple of notes and a couple of decibels. ‘Imagine the stain. Water only, you know the rules.’

Vila coloured deep red and then suddenly shouted, ‘Get out of my room. Get out! Who cares about your stupid rules?’

She started to push at her mother again, but with force and anger this time. Her mother, mindful of the dark-coloured liquid still in the glass moved back to avoid being jolted into staining something herself.

‘Vila! That’s no way to treat…’

The door slammed in her face and Vila screamed wordlessly with frustration.

I stood silent, not sure what I was meant to do. I was used to people behaving in strange and overly emotional ways, but they had the excuse of being drunk. Was this what teenagers were meant to be like? Is this why we got such a bad rap?

Vila sat back down and pushed aside the text book and exercise book. ‘Sorry about
her
. She’s a nightmare. I can’t wait to get out of here and live somewhere on my own.’

I nodded in complete disagreement. If she hated her that much maybe I could suggest a swap. I stepped back into my skirt in case I needed to make an exit.

Vila swiped her hair back from her face, and took a couple of deep breaths. ‘I don’t want to do this anymore, it’s too hard.’ Her face brightened and she looked back up at me. ‘Do you want to go to McDonalds? We could get fries.’

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I don’t have any money so I can’t buy anything.’

‘I’ll shout you,’ Vila said as she stood up. Her voice was openly curious. ‘How poor are you anyway? Don’t you get any pocket money?’

I started to feel uncomfortable and pretended to pat down the front of my kilt while I hid my face.

‘Never have done. If I want money I get told to get a paper round, but there aren’t any available.’ I tried to be open and nonchalant, but at the last moment my composure jumped ship, and I sniped, ‘Not everyone gets things handed to them on a plate.’

‘Oh yeah. Call this prison a plate?’ She headed to the door, then looked back with her fingers on the door handle. ‘Well, come on then, I said I’ll shout you.’

I wanted to say no. I wasn’t hungry, I didn’t need charity. I could just leave and go home.

I forced a smile onto my face and nodded. ‘Thanks, but you don’t need to. I’m full up so I’ll just watch you eat.’

Vila shrugged and headed out the door while I hoped that my expression was set right, and my words had formed the right sentences.

Her mother was in the kitchen and came out as Vila opened the front door.

‘Where d’you think you’re going? It’s almost tea-time.’

‘I’m going
out
. With my
friend
.’

‘No you’re not.’

As Vila continued out the door her voice rose. ‘No you’re not! Come back here,’ she started towards the door as Vila ignored her and continued on her way. I glanced a look of apology back over my shoulder as I closed it behind me.

‘Is your mother like that?’

‘No, she’s not as nice as your mum.’

Vila laughed. ‘My mum’s a nagging bitch. I bet your mother doesn’t get on your back the minute she gets home.’

I laughed and said, ‘She has her moments.’

‘Want to run away and join the circus?’ Vila’s genuine smile was back, her voice light.

‘You betcha. I’d make a good lion tamer.’

She laughed and cracked an invisible whip.

***

Coroner’s Court 2014

Miss Jenner walks over to the stand, and I would close my eyes and groan if I still had eyes. Or something to groan with.

I know what’s coming next.

The room is half-full at the moment. People have wandered in and out all day. It surprised me. I thought that there’d be the few people directly connected with me, and that would be all. But there were people taking notes, people sketching details. Some had identity cards around their necks. I presumed they were press, but they could have been office workers taking a break from the monotony.

Public interest in little old me. Little old me. Little old me that no one gave a shit about at the time, but give me ten years lying in the cold ground and suddenly I’m a person of interest. Is it wrong to feel a thrill of pride at that? Hardly down to me now, was it. I shouldn’t feel pride. I do.

But this isn’t going to be pretty. It wasn’t at the time, and unlike my frail corpse, this isn’t a story that ten years is going to colour any way except embarrassing.

Miss Jenner shakes her head at something on the stand. Her head is a bounty of soft, brown curls that follow the movement with grace. She wasn’t this pretty back then. Not when I knew her. In the intervening years she’s really come into her own.

‘Now, Miss Jenner. Could you tell us about an incident during your class, concerning Daina Harrow? I believe it was touched upon at the last hearing, but we didn’t deem it relevant at the time.’ The coroner smiles an apology. Terrible to drag her into the court twice. Terrible to make her give evidence this many years after the fact, with a memory that wouldn’t grow any clearer with time.

Don’t make her do it, then. You don’t need to hear this. I could just let you know who was responsible, if you can’t guess, and what picture it involved, as if you didn’t know, and we could just move on from there. Move on Mr Coroner Man, you don’t need to bore all these nice people with this rubbish.

‘I used to teach social studies at Northfield High School. During that time Daina Harrow was a student in my year ten class. She arrived mid-term in the third term in the year.’

She looks at the coroner for approval, and he nods for her to continue.

‘Daina was a good student. Her school record was a mess, she’d moved twice before in that one year, but she had consistently good reports. And she had a great memory for facts and figures. We briefly looked at statistics, and I would’ve loved to spend more time with her on that. She had a real flare.’

Oh. Okay. This is nice then. I didn’t know that she’d even noticed me, let alone remembered what my interests were. Maybe she was quiet but observing everything, same as me.

‘In one class I took the pupils through a series of photographs of the area from settlement to modern day. I’d had to put them into the computer.’ She turned to the coroner. ‘They’d originally been on slides, but the bulb had broken in our last projector, and we couldn’t get a replacement anymore. I still had the originals and a camera shop transferred them into a PowerPoint slideshow instead.’