Further Than You Think

Chapter Seventeen

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Lathering my skin with soap in the shower, I look at the bruises jumping up. There’s a bruise on my wrist where Richard clutched and bruises over my hips where he straddled me. I know I would be bruised elsewhere had I gone through with what I wanted.

I would regret it. Big time.

After my shower, I find Mum. I find her in the same place that I found her on our first weekend together – sitting on the porch. She doesn’t look as casually elegant as she did back on that morning. She wears old track-pants and a jumper, both covered in lint and clutches a mug of cold coffee in her hand. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her face is pale and I wonder if she slept at all last night.

I pull up a chair and sit down carefully, cringing as the pain behind the bruises makes itself known. Mum looks at me through the corner of her eyes. ‘With the way you’re walking about, it looks like you did it last night.’

‘I’m not like that.’

‘I know.’

We’re quiet for awhile. It’s cold this morning and not even the birds are singing. It’s just eerie quiet and I don’t like it. I know we’re thinking the same thing and as the silence moves into just plain, uncomfortable silence, I know I’m the one who’s going to bring the subject up. ‘How do you know Richard and why did he kiss you?’

Mum breathes out deeply, before turning in her chair and looking at me front on. ‘Do you love him?’

I think carefully. I don’t even know what he is to me. I love him like how I love Dad. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Did you want to have sex with him?’

‘No.’ That, I know. Then it occurs to me and I adopt Mum’s stance. ‘Did you… and him…?’

‘A long time ago.’ Mum smiles sadly and I wonder if she wants to remember it or not.

‘I didn’t love him, either. Do you know who he is?’

I’m about to tell her that no, I don’t know, but then I think. Way back on the first train trip he was telling me all about angels and he was got as far as ‘guardian’ last night before Mum burst into the room which, for the rest of my life, I’ll thank someone that she did. ‘He’s a guardian angel, isn’t he?’ Mum nods. Something about the nod annoys the Hell out of me and I explode. ‘He can’t be one! They’re not even real!’

‘He was pretty damn real to us last night.’

I look down and close my eyes. It’s not fair. ‘I feel stupid.’ I feel like bawling my eyes out again but I’m not going to, so I’ll feel stupid instead.

‘You’re not the one who slept with him.’ I open my eyes again and I look at her. We’re both tired. She goes on anyway. ‘He comes when someone needs him. Usually that person has lost someone and they have a tough time ahead. He comes as someone who looks like the lost person and takes care of the one that needs him until they’re ready to move on again. Then he disappears.’ The sad smile reappears. ‘Richard looked too close to your father for comfort.’

Suddenly it makes sense why Richard seemed to look like Dad. ‘When did he come to you?’

Mum doesn’t answer for some time. Instead, she looks down the backyard, watching the trees, watching the little blades of grass sway with the wind. Finally she speaks and when she does, she’s still watching the grass. ‘Lexie, you can understand how it feels when the person that matters most to you packs up one day and disappears and you never see them again. I hoped to God that your father would come back. That the divorce never happened. I hoped, I prayed and then one day I woke up.’

I open my mouth to speak and Mum raises a hand, to shut me up. I do as I’m told. ‘And then one day I woke up. I realised that he was never coming home, I realised that my career was becoming non-existent and you… I just didn’t know you. Then Richard came. He didn’t do anything and I hardly knew who he was but he acted like your father and that’s all I cared about. And I had the strength to put things right for the world to see.

But Richard was too much like your father. He still is. I didn’t love him but instead he was my rebound man. The morning after, he told me who he was, what he does and why he does it, left and never came back. Until last night.’

I pull my chair close to hers, so the arm rests touch each other and put my head on her shoulder. Her head rests on top of my head. I don’t want to talk about last night. I want to talk about seventeen years ago. ‘Did you want him to come back?’

‘Truthfully, no. And I didn’t want your father to come back either. I loved him, I still love him now, but if he somehow came back and showed up on my doorstep, I’d slam the door in his face.’

The tone in Mum’s voice is so bitter and cold that I pull my head out from under her head and look at her in surprise. ‘Why…?’

‘Do you want breakfast? I’m hungry.’

My eyes narrow. I’m tired of everyone trying to get away with not telling me anything about what happened with the divorce. Dad’s told everyone to shut up and I suspect that I was to never know. I know there has to be more than what the rest of the world knows. I won’t be given the Robert-and-Laura-simply-went-their-separate-ways speech. ‘Mum. Tell me. Please. I’m not a little kid.’

Mum looks at me, biting her lip. Her eyes show me that she’s fighting a war. ‘I can’t… I really can’t tell you…’

Because I’m afraid.

Mum, there’s nothing to be afraid of.

That’s what you say now.

‘I’ll tell you one thing, but if I tell you it, you have to understand that I can’t talk about anything else to do with it again, okay? We can talk about your father, but we can’t talk about the divorce.’

I exhale. I don’t know if it’s fair but I take a chance on it. ‘Okay.’

Mum’s voice is so serious, so deathly serious that I look straight into her eyes and the information goes to my heart. ‘One day, you’ll find out who your father really is. And I can bet you that when that day comes, you’ll wish that you never wanted to know about the divorce.’

So why does that make me even me determined to find out?

‘Now hop into my lap.’

I look at her in surprise. ‘What?’

‘Hop into my lap.’ Mum repeats herself, now smiling softly. ‘I bet you a thousand bucks that you used to sit in your father’s lap all the time. Now I want you to sit in my lap and I don’t care if you’re seventeen or seven.’

I think about the stuffed bunny and when I came out to Dad, sitting on his lap and interrupting his lyric writing, looking for a cuddle. Or all those times when Dad would be fast asleep and I would wake up in the middle of the night and drag my bunny and doona and whatnot and curl up under his covers and fall asleep before James would come looking and gently pull me out from the bed, saying Dad needed his sleep and that I should stick to my bed. And then they’d say when I kept on doing it, ‘I think you’re a bit old to be doing this now.’

I hop into Mum’s lap and wrap my arms around her waist, her chin resting on top of my head. I am never too old for this.

‘Mum?’ I ask after a few minutes of quiet, a thought suddenly occurring to me.

‘Yes?’

‘You said in the note that I was sleep walking last night. I’ve never done that before.’

‘Maybe you never had to do before.’

I turn slightly and look at Mum. ‘Never had to? Why would I have to sleepwalk?’

‘Some people sleepwalk when they’re stressed.’

She doesn’t speak any more on that subject. As I think about it, I realise I don’t need to, either.

Mum moves her leg and I move up, then she moves her leg back down and back up again. I grin. The horse rides from when I was a kid. Eventually Mum’s leg goes too high and I fall off, and I crack up laughing when I hit the wooden floorboards.

And then we’re both laughing and it feels like we’re never going to stop laughing. And that feels good.

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I get through my mid-year exams pretty well and surprise myself, considering everything. I get Bs for everything but psychology, in which I get an A. Mum and Carrie are ecstatic and Nancy says I should’ve tried harder. I say to her where she can shove her thoughts and the two weeks of winter holidays seem to drag on forever with her.

Mum spends our winter weekends wrapped up in a heavy coat and knitted scarf, with a cold. I don’t know if I quite believe that she has a cold. She doesn’t seem to shake it off and medicine doesn’t seem to make any improvement. I ask her about that last doctor trip and she said it was a routine check-up. I tell her to go back and she does, but won’t tell me anything until I ask and even then it’s, ‘he said it was just a cold, nothing to worry about’. There’s a wheeze in her breathing.

She thinks I don’t see the pathology appointment hiding behind work notes on the fridge. I can’t make out what she needs it for.

I don’t see Richard at all in the holidays, but I don’t think I need him right now. Maybe I’ll feel too ashamed if I did see him.

I’m grateful to go back to school. Miss Marsden knows about the day I skipped school and I didn’t get in trouble for it. I went back to see Sue instead and nothing changed.

Nothing changes with the kids at school until Luca Margaritia arrives at the beginning of the third term.

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Luca’s Italian and this seems to make things turn against him at school. It takes awhile for me to realise this and eventually I realise that he’s the only Italian kid in the whole of year eleven. Back in Lorne, which seems a decade ago now, we were all mostly Australian and there weren’t really any other cultures, which I found somewhat sad. Here at this high school, you’re Australian, Asian or Indian. Or you speak French. Everyone seems happy to forget my British blood and I won’t remind them, not that it’ll make much of a difference in how I’m seen by them.

But now both Luca and I are different.

I find him sitting in the chair directly next to mine in Homeroom on the first morning. It’s the only spare seat in the whole classroom. There’s only another couple of people here so far and they’re all staring at Luca with the same curiosity that I got when I came. He’s listening to a Discman so I have to tap him on the back in order to get his attention. He sees me, moves his chair in and goes right back to listening to his music.

I sit and watch him. Luca’s hair is dark and thick like mine, down to his shirt collar and falls lazily across his eyes. His eyes are shut as he listens and when he does open them, they’re dark chocolate brown. His foot taps against the chair in front of him and I wonder just how tall he is.

The bell goes, Luca turns off his Discman and we all look at the teacher, awaiting the inevitable This Is The New Kid speech:

‘Everyone, we have a new student. This is Alexandra Jones. She comes to us from Lorne Girls’ Grammar in Lorne. She is the daughter of the singer Robert Terrace and the actress Laura Terrace. Please make her feel welcome.’

Luca’s introduction speech is only slightly different in that Luca’s parents are not mentioned:

‘Everyone, we have a new student. This is Luca Margaritia. He comes to us from St. Michael’s in Brisbane. Please make him feel welcome.’

Whoever designs these speeches must not think very hard. At least neither one of us have to get up and introduce ourselves to the class, like I had to do in grade one.

Luca doesn’t get spoken to by anyone but the teacher. I feel bad that I don’t talk to him but I haven’t got anything to say. I watch him walk out of the classroom after homeroom, listening to the Discman again. He’s interesting.

My lunchtimes here are a lot different than they were at Lorne. At Lorne, Jocelyn, Melanie and I would get food from the dining room then walk outside to sit near the wire fence which separated Lorne Boys’ from Lorne Girls’. Minutes later, Anton and his buddies would appear on the opposite side of the fence to pester us (behind their school shed, where they weren’t supposed to be) and if no teacher was in sight, they’d leap down over the fence onto our side, where they also weren’t supposed to be. Here, I go to the canteen, eat quickly then either go to the library or soccer field to watch the year twelve boys practice. Always on my own.

I eat lunch and walk out onto the soccer pitch to find no one in sight. Then I remember that it’s an away game for the year twelves today. I keep walking until I reach a large tree that sits on top of a small hill, figuring I’ll continue the daisy chain that I work on and I leave hanging from a branch.

Well, I would if someone hadn’t gotten it and torn it down. I look at the daisies littered around the base of the tree and wonder if I can be bothered to repair it.

‘You’re that Alexandra chick, right? From homeroom?’

I turn around to see Luca at the bottom of the hill. Without his Discman. ‘That’s right. Luca?’ I ask his name as if I’ve forgotten.

He nods, leaps up the high with surprising agility and stands next to me. He’s at least a head taller than I am. ‘What are you doing out here?’

‘I was going to work on my daisy chain but someone’s wrecked it.’

‘Exciting. Where’s your friends?’

‘Haven’t got any.’

‘That’s pretty sad.’

‘What about you?’

‘Same.’

I snort. What a hypocrite. Luca glares at me, but not one that means he’s seriously wounded. ‘I’ve only been here since this morning. What’s your excuse?’

‘Since March.’

Luca drops down to sit on the grass. Sits right on the daisies. I don’t feel sorry for the daisies as I don’t think I was going to repair the chain anyway. ‘You haven’t found one friend in all that time?’

I lean against the tree, drawing circles in the grass with the toe of my shoe. ‘They don’t like difference here.’

‘What makes you any different to the next person?’

‘You heard of Robert Terrace? Laura Terrace?’

‘Oh yeah, that singer and that actress. Kind of cool, she’s hot. Didn’t he die or something?’

I have never heard of Mum being described to me as ‘hot’ before. I’d have to tell her that one. ‘Yeah, he did. They’re my parents.’

‘Shit. Tough break.’ And he goes right back to staring out across the soccer pitch. I stare down at him. Luca already seems to have forgotten that fact. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all. And it doesn’t bother me that it doesn’t bother him. In fact, it feels great.

Then I notice the soccer ball that Luca’s brought with him. ‘You play?’ I ask, mentioning towards the ball.

‘Yeah. Doesn’t anyone else play?’

‘They do, well, the year twelve guys do, but they’re at a game today.’

He gets back on his feet and picks up the ball. ‘You wanna play then?’

I look at him in surprise. ‘I’ve never played.’

Luca shrugs. ‘First time for everything. Come on, lets see if you can be a goalie. Go down there to the goals. What you have to do – ‘

‘I know what a goalie does. I’m not that stupid.’

‘Well go there then. Go on, scat!’

I roll my eyes but walk off down to the goals. Behind me I can hear him yell, ‘And don’t come crying to me if you break a nail!’

Demented.

I stand between the goals and see him waiting with the ball halfway down the pitch. ‘Now, you can block with your hands, your legs – ‘

‘I know! Just kick the damn ball!’

Luca does so and it’s a great kick. As it comes hurtling towards me at a thousand kilometres per hour, the old me would’ve ducked.

I catch the ball before it even has a chance.

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TBC