Portraits of Celina (22 page)

“Come on,” says Oliver. He threads his fingers through mine and strides up the bank. He takes a few steps, then stops, gathering both my hands in his, bringing them to his chest. “Bails, you’re shaking. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I croak.

Oliver brushes my hair off my face, and slides it under my scarf. “You seem kinda sick – like you did the other night when you were here. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yep, I’m–” The curtain in the front window parts in the middle slightly. I imagine Bud in there, watching, and it terrifies me. “What about your pop?” I say.

“Pop?”

“The note – to stay away from me, remember?”

“I told you that I’m not going to listen to that. He can’t tell me what to do.” He pulls me up the grassy slope to the main house.

Loud music with a strong beat blares out at us as Oliver slides open the glass doors. Annie is sitting on a kitchen stool, giving a guitar some kind of violent workout, throwing her head back with a flourish. When she sees us, she stops mid-strum, and the ginger cat curled at her feet mews in disgust.

“Hi there, Bayley.” Her nose wrinkles as she smiles and reaches for the iPod dock on the bench and turns it off. “
El porompompero
. I love that piece. Get a bit carried away with it sometimes.”

Oliver slips into the kitchen area and starts filling a backpack with bags of chips and lollies, a large block of chocolate, and a couple of cans of drink. A health food feast.

“Fried chicken in the fridge, Ols,” says Annie.

“Ta,” says Oliver, head in the fridge.

My eyes flit around the room, half-expecting Bud to materialise through any one of the doorways. I fold my arms, tucking my hands up under my armpits, in the faint hope that I can stop them from shaking.

“Feeling fit?” Annie says to me, making me jump. “It’s a long way up there.”

I have no idea if she is teasing or not, but as long as “up there” is far away from “down here”, I really don’t care.

There’s the sharp clap of a door shutting and echoey footsteps on tiles. My fingers dig painfully into my armpits, and a tremble starts in my legs as the footsteps get closer. I study the shininess of the white tiles beneath my feet.

“Hello, Bayley.” The gravelly voice of Bob.

“Hi,” I manage. Bob’s smile is friendly but it doesn’t quite mask his face full of questions.

“Haven’t seen you since the hospital,” he says, and I am sure he is thinking about what I had blurted –
Together forever, sweet pea
– the words I shouldn’t know. “How’s Seth doing?”

“Fine. He’s fine. Totally. Totally fine.” There’s a large photographic book about Chile on a side table in the lounge area. I direct my attention to it, not wanting to make eye contact with Bob for fear of blurting out that his father’s a killer, the one and the same who killed his precious Celina and, in truth, for fear of my own emotions. The thought of how I was attracted to him before – even if it was Celina who was driving it – fills me with shame. “Thanks for helping us out and everything,” I mumble to the book.

“No problems. And you? Are you–”

“Fine. All good.” The blood drains away from my face and I become light-headed.

“Let’s go,” says Oliver, to my enormous relief. He slings the backpack over his shoulder and bundles me out of the house, Annie’s vigorous guitaring chasing us out the door. Oliver points north to a gate in the far paddock.

We climb over the gate and then over another gate and onto a track – a fire trail perhaps – leading steadily uphill into the bush. Each step I take is filled with the weight of my anxiety. I imagine Bud behind every bush, every rock.

“Come on, slowpoke,” says Oliver.

“Does your pop come up here much?” I say, cursing myself for giving voice to the thought.

“Jeez, Bayley. Forget him. I wish I hadn’t told you.” He forges on ahead.

This is absurd. I jog to catch up. “Where are you taking me, Mr Mystery Man?” My attempt at being cheerful. “Should I be worried?”

A cheeky glint lights Oliver’s eyes. “Maybe.” And he takes my hand.

The more twists and turns in the track we put between us and Lakeside, the better I start to feel and by the time we’ve made it to the top of the first rise, the eucalypts towering over us, a ribbon of blue sky above, I am feeling almost normal.

A steep ascent and then one last bend in the track and we come into a small clearing where grasses and low shrubs chase down to a cliff edge. It looks out over the gorge and the surrounding farms and properties. Below us, the creek is a thin grey worm wiggling its way to the lake. I had no idea we’d climbed this high.

Oliver’s face says it all: he loves it up here. He stands behind me and wraps his arms around my middle, rests his chin on my shoulder. “Well, what do you think?”

“It’s … it’s …” I am lost for words. “Awesome.”

“Like you.” It’s barely more than a whisper, but those two words sizzle through me.

His chin nuzzles into my neck. “You should see it at sunset. It’s even more awesome.”

“What’s this place called?”

“Top of the World,” Oliver states.

“Original.” I grin. “You Mitchells have a talent for naming places.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you call the lake?”

“Ah, the lake.”

“And the circular lagoon?”

“The Circle. What’s wrong with that?”

I giggle. “And what’s the name of your house by the lake?”

“Lakeside.”

“I rest my case!”

“Well, Miss Anderson, at least our house has a name.”

“So does mine. Karinya: place of peace.” I feel like a thief, as if I have stolen the name from someone else’s life, and I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. I step out of Oliver’s arms and gaze down into the dark depths of the gorge.

“Karinya. What kind of weirdo name is that?” Oliver says and sits himself down on a boulder.

“At least it’s original,” I say softly, but my insides are quivering. The wildness of the gorge, its steep plunge to the rocks below, the deep shadows lurking at the bottom are all making me feel strange in the head, dizzy almost. There is something ominous about it. I step away.

Oliver leaps up. “Whoa. What’s up? You’ve gone all white.” He pulls me to him and holds me tight. I welcome the strength of his arms. “Hey, you’re shaking again. What gives?”

The concern in Oliver’s voice does me in. “Why do you put up with me?” I blurt tearfully.

“Bails, what are you talking about?” He scrunches his nose, like Annie does, and shakes his head, bewildered.

Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut? “I’m so flaky,” I try, terrified that I am over-sharing. “I’m worried you’re going to think ‘what the hell?’ and take off.”

“You’re the one who takes off, remember?” He lifts my chin with two fingers. Our eyes meet. “I know you have a lot to deal with at the moment. But I’m here for you. I want to help you through it.”

“I don’t want to be looked after.” But even as I say it, I know it’s a lie. I desperately want to be looked after, especially by Oliver.

“Not like that, Bails. I just want to be with you and I don’t care if sometimes you’re a little flaky. I like that you’re different. I even like those stupid things you wear around your head. That you wear blankets instead of hoodies.”

“Ponchos,” I correct him and laugh.

“Ponchos then.”

I snuggle into his shoulder, crazy with emotion, but before I can even start to unravel my jumbled feelings or process what Oliver has said, Oliver unfurls me from his embrace, grabs my hand and takes off at a run down the track we’ve only just climbed up. “Come on,” he says, grinning.

“Where are we going?” I stumble behind him, confused.

“You didn’t think I brought you up here to gawk at the view and eat junk food, did you?”

“Well … ye–” I don’t get a chance to finish.

“Got to earn it first.” Oliver drops my hand and diverts off the fire trail and onto a narrow winding path through the bush. “Keep up, slacker.”

“What the–?” I follow, tearing over leaf litter, leaping across fallen branches, ducking under low ones, and all the while climbing steadily back up the hill until we have reached the top again.

But that’s not the end of it. Oliver touches the boulder he was sitting on before and takes off at a sprint all the way back down the hill again.

“What are you doing?” I say, copying his actions and tagging the boulder also.

“Cross-training!” he yells over his shoulder. “Thought you wanted to get fit.”

Breath heaving, I chase him down. This is ridiculous. But ridiculously, it is also great and we are all madness and squeals and laughter, until after about four circuits, Oliver surrenders and collapses on the ground beside our packs. He gulps down several large swigs of water, then passes the bottle to me. I am so thirsty, I devour what’s left and flop beside him, my face flushed, my lungs burning. Without speaking, we dive into our cache of junk food, relishing the immediate rush of a sugar high.

I rest my head on Oliver’s stomach, munching on a musk stick, stretch my legs out and watch stringy clouds scud across the sky then disappear behind the foliage. I acknowledge with some satisfaction the burn in my thigh muscles, savour the laughter ache in my cheeks, and for the first time in forever, I finally remember what real happiness feels like. And this is it.

“This is so great,” says Oliver, putting voice to my thoughts. “It’s a bugger that school will be back so soon.”

“Yeah,” I agree.

His fingers stroke the side of my face, tracing a line from my forehead to jaw. It’s so sweet and loving; if I was the ginger cat, I’d purr. “It’s going to be cool,” he continues, “having you at Tallowood – we’ll be able to see each other every day. Catch the bus together and stuff.”

Catch the bus together – just like Celina and Robbie
. My inner warmth frosts over at the thought. Bristling, I rally against it.
Rack off, will you!
I am so weary of Celina.

“Hey, what’s up?”

I sit up and brush an unwanted tear from my cheek. “Nothing. Sorry. I’m okay. Really.”

“Is that what the thought of catching the bus with me does to you?”

“Don’t be a dick.” I nestle back into his arms, wrap my own arms around his chest and cling to him, like I’ve never clung to him before, trying to regain that beautiful sunshiny feeling of moments ago. And as I do so, the way forward illuminates with breathtaking clarity, as if I have broken free of the pack in the eight hundred metres and the finish line is shimmering before me.

And my decision is made: if I have to choose between a ghost and Oliver, I choose Oliver.

Celina can go to hell.

Marco Moretti is Oliver’s best mate in Tallowood. He is into dirt bikes, indie music, plays guitar and has a good singing voice, so Oliver tells me on the drive to Marco’s place, as he gives me the lowdown on the “gang”.

“There’s Tina and Katie,” he says. “You know, the horsey ones – neigh when they do and you’ll be fine. Ricko – we call him Thicko, though no one can remember why. He’s actually v-smart and is going to ace his final exams, the scammer. Ignore Paul; he’s a dickhead and a hanger-on. But you’ll like Darsh. He’s heaps of fun, a bit of a joker. And Jess Rogers-Weston – she’s pretty hot – but-not-as-hot-as-you,” he adds quickly. And the list goes on.

I try to absorb it all somehow and commit it straight to memory. I so want to make a good impression – especially after my embarrassing bolt out of the Bowlo that night.

Marco’s place is a modern-looking double-storey brick house on a wide street on the outskirts of town.

“His parents are loaded,” Oliver says as an afterthought, pulling into the driveway. “Own most of the town, plus a couple of farms round the place.”

I raise my eyebrows in response, taking everything in as I steady my nerves. Tonight has a turning point feel to it – like it is the first day of the rest of my life. Not just because the “gang” that I am about to meet is Oliver’s gang, so I need them to become my gang too, but also because next Tuesday – only four-and-a-bit short days away – school is back, and these guys all go to Tallowood. And with Amelia still intent on dropping out, a few friendly faces will make all the difference to my time there.

I climb out of the car, pull down the legs of my shorts and tighten the scarf around my head – much like Seth’s cape, Celina’s scarf is perversely becoming my security blanket. It’s a bit of a risk, wearing it tonight, but Oliver assured me that it was only a get-together and it didn’t matter what I wore. But what would he know? He’s a boy for heaven’s sake. What I wear tonight could seal my fate for the next two years of high school.

A large black ute climbs up over the gutter, onto the lawn and stops beside us. Two girls bound out – high-energy types – both in grubby jeans, T-shirts and muddy ankle boots, and immediately I feel that I am dressed far too city and far too beachy.

“Hey!” shouts the taller of the two.

“Katie and Tina,” Oliver whispers into my ear. “Remember, just neigh.”

“Neigh,” I say. “Hi!” I add quickly.

“Takeaway Chinese,” says one of the girls. She swings two plastic bags in front of us, not appearing to have noticed my gaff. Regardless, I am dying a thousand deaths.

Oliver introduces us, and both girls give me an enthusiastic hug, before almost bouncing inside.

Be cool
, I tell myself.
Be yourself. Nah, scratch that, channel Loni
.

Oliver and I walk up the stairs, hand in hand, through a wide open doorway and into a dim entry foyer.
Channel Loni. Be sparky. Confident
. The thump of loud music and party voices waft up from a short staircase at the end of the foyer. A door opens and a couple of guys and a girl race up the stairs towards us, laughing.

They stop when they see me.

“Hey, guys,” says Oliver with ease, his grip tightening. “This is Bayley. She’s moved into the old O’Malley house by the lake.”

There’s a flurry of enthusiastic
heys
and
g’days
, and a warm and welcoming hug from the girl – the oh-so-hot Jess – and I do my best to respond with some Loni spark.

But as I return Jess’s hug, my eyes lock on a huge artwork hanging on the wall behind her. One of Bud’s. I let go of Jess, and stare at the painting. It is one of his dotty ones. A striking bushland scene.