All These Perfect Strangers (6 page)

‘After what they did to Max, we need to send a message,' said the other.

Nico nodded. ‘He can't have got far. You start looking for him.' He then walked down to the river and yelled across at the girl who was still sitting on the other side.

‘Alice,' he called. ‘Are you going to come across?'

Lifting her gaze, she shook her head.

‘Walk down to the bridge. I'll meet you there.'

She nodded and he began to run down the path. The rest of the boys headed over the road and up to the oval, on their quest to find Stoner. There were hundreds of people there, dancing between sprinklers shooting a Morse code of silver dashes and dots of water onto the grass. Looking at the crowd, I could see Rachel gesticulating wildly in the middle of them. She hip-and-shouldered the nearest person, who careened into the others, resulting in chaos. Catching sight of us, she came running up.

‘So there you are,' she said. ‘I've been looking for you everywhere.'

She collapsed on the ground next to me. Her red hand-kerchief of a dress was stained and ripped along the neckline, exposing a white bra strap.

‘How are you?' I asked.

‘Oh, average to bad.'

A dark-blue car drove along the road, swerving to miss some drunken revellers, before coming to a stop, letting the occupants chat to a passer-by. It then accelerated off into the distance.

Rachel propped herself up onto her elbows to look.

‘Just Emelia making her dramatic exit,' she said. ‘You know she threw some punch over me earlier.' Rachel gestured at her dress. ‘Didn't matter, because I threw a beer over her. Got her full in the face.'

‘Why did she do that?' I asked.

‘I was getting her back for teasing Kesh.'

I was amazed at her gall at recasting herself as Kesh's defender.

‘What did you say to her?' asked Kesh, who was looking ill again.

‘I just told everyone why she's slumming it amongst the plebs at this university. Did you know, last year her mother left her father, after she found him in bed with their cook?' Rachel paused, pushing her hair back off her face. ‘Their male cook.'

Kesh gasped. ‘Rachel, you didn't.'

‘I did. She's lying low and will transfer back home when people forget.'

That kind of story would have the half-life of uranium in my town.

‘Everyone's got skeletons. Your secrets are what make you different. What make you interesting. She's just pissed off because it's not a secret any more.'

Flexing a numb foot, I thought that all of it was pretty funny.

Next to me, Kesh put her head in her hands and groaned, ‘I don't feel very well.' Ignoring her, Rachel lay back down again, her arms outstretched. A gold disc, engraved with her name, and attached to a chain circling her ankle, caught the moonlight. I watched her warily. There was something feline about her, all purring affection one moment and then clawing the next. It was entertaining as long as you weren't the person getting scratched.

Her right arm was close to where I began to pick at the grass. Silver bangles had worked their way up to her elbow. I noticed, for the first time, a faint glow in the dark. There were white scars on the inside of her arm, near her wrist, as if someone had underlined something important on an earlier page.

Rachel saw where I was looking and immediately sat up. She turned her arm away, pulling down her bangles all at once. I pretended I hadn't seen anything.

‘Truth or Dare,' she said. ‘C'mon, let's play.'

‘I'm going to be sick,' announced Kesh, running into the nearest bushes.

‘Are you all right?' I called after her. She didn't answer. Instead, we heard a gut-wrenching splatter and some loud yells from the bandana boy whose activities she had interrupted.

‘She'll be fine,' said Rachel. ‘Better out than in.'

‘Speak for yourself,' said Toby, wandering up. He was wearing a white singlet, with red sequin shorts, non-matching green and orange socks, and a blue whistle around his neck. He was dragging a large plastic rubbish bin with one hand and holding a stack of paper cups in the other.

‘You're missing yellow,' said Rachel.

‘Darling, I am the Yellow Peril. Now who fancies a drink? I've stolen what's left of the Scullin punch.'

‘What's in it?' I asked.

‘A complicated recipe. Loads of red cordial and extremely cheap vodka. I insist you have some.' He grabbed a ladle from the bottom of the bin, and sloshed liquid the colour of a stop sign into a cup.

‘Drink me,' he said, as he handed it over.

I tried not to think about it coming out of a bin.

Sensing my reluctance, Toby said, ‘It could be worse. I could have stolen Maggies' punch.'

‘Vodka and . . .?' I asked.

‘Milk,' Toby answered. ‘Known as a Pale Mary.'

My stomach curdled at the thought.

‘Scull for Scullin,' Rachel said, as we ceremonially rubbed the waxed cups together. After a night of drinking too much beer, it tasted as though I was gulping down medicine, syrupy sweet with a ferocious after-burn.

‘You interrupted us playing a game of Truth or Dare,' said Rachel. ‘I'm going first.'

‘Good, what do you pick?' said Toby.

‘Truth,' she said.

‘Lucky for you. I was going to make you go skinny dipping in the river. Those Marchie boys gave me the idea,' said Toby.

‘Who are they?' I asked.

‘Marchmain Club. Wear white, drink champagne and beat teddy bears with hairbrushes. So of course they take a mountain of drugs. Nico, in particular, is a total mad fucker. He always has the best stuff though.'

‘So there's Maggies and Marchies, and tonight they are both wearing white.'

‘Yes,' said Toby. ‘But tomorrow the Marchies will still be wearing white and open for business. But, back to the matter in hand. What to ask Rachel?'

Shaking my head at the nonsense of it all, I stretched out on the grass and gazed up at the sky. I was managing to stay on the right sight of being pleasantly unselfconsciously drunk and the moon seemed to be smiling down on it all.

‘I can't be bothered to come up with anything good,' said Toby. ‘Tell us the most recent bit of scandal that you've heard.'

‘Well, I did hear a bit of juicy gossip about our new Master.'

‘About Marcus?' asked Toby. ‘Fabulous.'

‘It was in his last job, when he was acting Vice Chancellor. This kid was charged with plagiarism or something and Marcus tried to hush it up but instead made everything much worse. There was an investigation into it, and they found that Marcus had previously stopped him from getting kicked out of college for drug use. And then they also found Marcus had been overspending on his expenses account, giving money to the boy. So he was forced to resign before he got the sack and that's how he ended up here. A bit of a step down from his fancy sandstone university.'

Thinking the information over, I asked, ‘Was Marcus having a relationship with him?' It seemed that every male around me suddenly had the potential to be gay.

Instinctively, both Rachel and I turned to Toby.

‘Why are you looking at me?' he asked.

‘Well, you are the expert in these matters,' said Rachel.

Toby pulled a mock serious face. ‘Marcus isn't gay.'

Rachel frowned. ‘He must be or that story makes no sense at all. Anyway, Pen's turn next.'

‘All right,' said Toby. ‘Who do you fancy at college?'

Rachel snorted. ‘That's obvious. She was making eyes at Rogan over dinner.'

A denial caught in my throat as I sobered up quickly. I couldn't believe I had been that transparent.

‘No, Pen has to tell us the worse thing she has ever done.'

‘Hang on,' I said, getting my voice to work. ‘I didn't get a chance to pick.'

‘Pick truth,' said Rachel. ‘You look so innocent but life in a small town is so incestuous and twisted. Lust bubbling under the surface.'

‘Dare,' I said firmly.

‘Boring,' said Toby.

‘I'm sure we can make this fun,' said Rachel. ‘You have to kiss the nearest boy . . .'

‘Done,' I said, relieved that it wasn't worse and moving towards Toby.

‘That isn't Tobias,' she finished.

‘This is so high school,' said Toby. ‘What's next, spin the bottle? Who's the nearest?' He looked about us.

‘Well, whoever is in the bushes is otherwise engaged, so that means it's the floor bore, Michael,' said Rachel.

‘Ssh, Rachel, he'll hear you,' I said. ‘Besides, Michael's OK.'

‘Have you talked to him? Social skills none. Must be from an all-boys' school.'

‘Watch it, lady,' said Toby. ‘I went to an all-boys' school.'

‘Still, that's the dare,' said Rachel.

‘I think I better check on Kesh,' I said.

‘No,' said Rachel firmly. ‘Toby's her RA. He'll check. You can't be a welsher. Besides, it will probably be the first time Michael has ever been kissed.'

Michael hadn't moved from where he had been sitting in front of the willow tree. He gave no outward sign he had heard any of this, though he clearly was within listening distance.

‘Yes,' said Toby. ‘Don't be a wet blanket.' He shooed me away.

I got slowly to my feet. My numb foot now had pins and needles. Stumbling, I walked up towards Michael and sat down next to him, deliberately in the shadows, on the far side from Rachel.

‘Hello,' I said, feeling uncomfortable. I'd never talked to Michael properly before and didn't really know anything about him, other than he studied Science. ‘Having a good night?'

He gave me a look which said he had heard every word of our conversation, ‘OK, I guess.'

Voices rang out behind us, and a group of people, all barefoot and flowing dresses, came down from the oval. I watched them walk past. A girl with a wild untangled mane seemed to have something large and white moving in her hair.

‘It's a rat,' Michael said, following my gaze. ‘She lives at Chifley. I met her earlier tonight.'

‘She lives with a rat in her college room?' I asked. ‘That's disgusting.'

‘Apparently, rats are quite easy to care for. She told me one of her friends had a rabbit, but it nibbled the light cord and was fried. Rats are smarter.'

I couldn't really think of anything to say at this, so I turned back towards Rachel. Kesh had joined them again and was sitting there looking wan. Rachel was peering over at me, an amused look on her face.

‘Um, Michael . . . I don't suppose you heard what we were saying before. You see, we're playing . . .'

‘I heard.'

‘Oh, good. So you understand that I'm supposed to . . .'

‘Do what Rachel says.'

‘Well . . . there's more to it than just doing what Rachel says.'

‘Really? She told you to wear that dress tonight, and you did. I heard you talking about it with Toby.'

He had a point.

‘About that, thanks for stopping Joad. I should have said that first off. It was kind of you.'

His round glasses reflected in the moonlight. ‘I thought university would be different. That you could be yourself here and people would appreciate that. Instead, there are lots of people like Joad and everyone's too busy being fake, pretending to have a good time, pretending to be something they're not, doing what they're told. I don't understand why.'

‘That girl with the rat?' I asked, not really sure what he was getting at.

‘Yes, her. And those Marchmains. And this whole Rubik's Cube thing. It's all fake.'

A yell from Rachel, ‘Tongue included,' and then I heard Toby and her start to chant, ‘Why are we waiting? W-h-y . . . are . . . we . . . w-aiting?'

‘OK, Michael, I agree.' I was really only listening to Toby and Rachel, desperately hoping their chanting didn't attract a bigger crowd. ‘But now what I want to do is kiss you, if that's all right with you.'

‘Only if you want to, not because Rachel said.'

‘No, I really want to.' And I did, justifying it to myself as the equivalent of a non-verbal thank you. I felt exposed next to Michael, like I was out of the circle and on my own. I wanted to get back to the safety of the pack and watch Rachel demand dares or truths from other people.

So we kissed.

There were loud whoops from the onlookers.

Behind the lens, his pale irises looked as though the colour had been washed out of them.

‘You're different, Pen. You don't have to be like the other people here. They're not important.'

‘Maybe I'm not that important either,' I said, standing up. ‘Thanks though for before. I owe you one.'

As I walked back towards the others, a long rainbow conga line of people came streaming down from the oval. Rachel jumped to the front of it, blowing on a whistle, as if she was leading the army band. It snaked past me, people attaching themselves to it. Kesh, a pale blur in the middle, held out her arm, which I grabbed with the desperation of a drowning person without a backward glance at Michael, and we clumsily shuffled our way along the river bank, across the road and up towards Scullin. As we snaked our way up towards the entrance, I saw someone watching us from one of the rooms on the second floor of Page Tower. It looked like Marcus, but just then Kesh stumbled and I almost fell over. By the time I turned back, the room's light was switched off and the person was gone.

*

Frank is all smiles today, nodding encouragingly. Maybe he didn't think I'd start writing. It's a fortnight since he told me I had to do it. I tried to get an earlier appointment so I can get this over and done with but Ivy, in her usual passive aggressive way, has scheduled me in every second Tuesday morning. It's payback for cheeking her last time.

‘How did you feel when he kissed you?' asks Frank.