The Dark Part of Me (14 page)

‘This speech’s been going for bloody half an hour. I came to see the boy, not this idiot drone on about bloody funding. If anyone needs funding it’s me after paying for him to
come here.’

‘Sssshhhh. Don’t be so rude, Bill,’ chides Mrs G. ‘He’s the head chief of the university and a damn sight smarter than you.’ She arranges her face in a
perfect show of concentration and turns back to the stage. I do likewise but Mr Greenwood’s got ants in his pants. He jabs me in the ribs, narrowly missing my left breast.

‘So, when are you two love-birds going to tie the knot, hey?’ He pats my linened thigh. Mr and Mrs Greenwood were childhood sweethearts, growing up on adjacent farms west of Ipswich.
They got married when they were both just sixteen and Mr Greenwood still thought it was the norm. ‘Christ, when I was the boy’s age—’

‘Sssshhhh.’ Mrs Greenwood shoots him a death stare as the chancellor finishes his speech with an apology for the broken air-con.

Mr Greenwood nudges me in the side and whispers, ‘He’s got some silly idea about going travelling with that no-hoper mate of his, Bomber, but I’ll set him straight. He’d
be a complete dimwit to leave a pretty girly like you behind. Don’t you worry, love, I’ll have a word with him.’
Scott is going overseas with Bomber.
He winks at me and I
force a saccharine smile while Mrs Greenwood’s special lasagne does backflips in my stomach. Excusing myself, I squeeze out through the tightly packed aisles and dash outside, as up on stage
they start calling out the graduates’ names in alphabetical order.

I miss Scott getting his degree. For the rest of the ceremony, I sit on the lawn, not caring about the grass stains on my white linen bum. You see, it was me and Scott who were meant to go
overseas. We had a pact. We’d made a plan. I wrote everything down in a special notebook – Scott’s number one destination was Amsterdam, mine Paris – and we had a date of
departure, in four years’ time, after I’d finished my degree. That night, after talking it all through, we were so excited that we made love for hours in the dark. We did it slow and
gentle because my arm was still in plaster. At first light we drove up to Mount Coot-tha to watch the sunrise. We stood looking out over the city, my feet wedged between the railings with Scott
behind me, his arms around my shoulders. There was something about the puny skyline, winking lazily in the pink light, which gripped me with an intense longing to escape. I leant my head against
Scott’s chest and said, ‘We’re too cool for this place,’ but he just laughed and said, ‘Take it easy, babe. We’ve got a few years here, yet.’

They are coming out of the hall, a sound like swarming bees from the quadrangle. Mr and Mrs Greenwood appear, squinting in the sunlight. Scott goes up to them, hugs his mum, slaps his old man on
the back. All I want to do is talk to him so I know it’s not true. I spot Bomber and Muzza sitting on a bench a little distance from the crowd, watching Scott with his uni mates. Pushing up
off the lawn, I head towards them, but Mrs Greenwood’s coming up to me with a frown. She leads me by the crook of my arm a little distance from the main gathering.

‘Are you alright? You’re white as a sheet.’ She presses a palm against my forehead. ‘And you’ve got a bit of a temperature. Were you sick?’ She scans the
grass for incriminating evidence.

‘I’m OK. Really.’ I glance across at Bomber and Muzza, busting to go and interrogate them. Mrs Greenwood stands there gripping my arm, searching my eyes. I can see where
she’s painted her fuchsia lipstick beyond her actual lip-line.

‘You’re not… ’

I look at her blankly.

‘You know… ’ She bends her head closer to me.

With a nervous laugh, I tell her I’m not pregnant. Mrs Greenwood turns to see Scott having his photo taken with his year. She is so chuffed with him getting a degree; the first Greenwood
ever to go to university. He’s not smart, like me, but still he’d scraped through and there are heaps of jobs for personal trainers. The western suburbs are stuffed with rich,
overweight housewives desperate to loose excess flab, or so Scott was always telling me.

‘But, they’ll all want to fuck you,’ I’d say.

‘So long as they pay me,’ he’d tease.

I’d punch him in the arm. ‘That’s not allowed. Besides, they’ll all be fat and disgusting.’

‘Not when I’ve finished with them. They’ll be super-toned and terrific. Then, only then, will I let them sleep with me. I’ll be their reward.’

I break off and head towards the guys, my jaw clenched with foreboding.

‘Are you going overseas with Scott?’ I ask Bomber straight out.

‘What’s it to you?’ Bomber’s dark-brown eyes are defiant and his chest is puffed up like a rooster in an oversized Chicago Bulls singlet. Muzza says nothing. I wonder why
they are here.

‘It means a fucking lot to me.’ I glare back at Bomber, hands on hips. ‘So tell me or I’ll tell Kirstie you’ve been rooting around.’

‘Give a fuck? She’s with the programme but it makes no difference,’ he says. ‘With a cock like mine she ain’t going no-where.’ He grabs at his crotch and,
through the baggy fabric of his shorts, jiggles his balls. ‘No other nigger can satis-fy the bitch like me. Nice and hard up the arse. Yeah-yeah, you know it.’ He punches the air with a
rapper fist.

‘Are you going, too?’ I ask Muzza, struggling to keep my cool.

‘Nah, no moula.’

‘That’s fucked, Muzz. You think me and Woody do?’ says Bomber. ‘We’re gonna find jobs soon as we get to London. If that fails, Woody reckons we should hook up with
some rich pommie bitches we can scum off.’ He flashes me a challenge.

‘Crap,’ I fight back. ‘Scott would never say that.’

‘You better believe it, baby. Woody’s goal is to root a bitch from each different country we visit. He’s already taking bets. Isn’t he, Muzz?’

Muzza snorts.

‘He’s calling it Woody’s Worldwide Rooting Quest, kind of like a spell-a-thon except it don’t matter if the bitches can’t spell!’ Bomber slaps his thigh.
Muzza grins, sheepishly. I tell myself that it’s just stupid mates talk which means nothing.

‘So, when’re you off?’ Muzza speaks to Bomber as if I’m invisible.

‘Next Saturday,’ says Bomber.

‘Yeah right,’ I scoff, disbelieving. It can’t be true. He’s lying. But my guts have turned to mush.

‘Yeah, we got our tickets last week.’ He turns to me. ‘Guess now the cat’s outta the bag.’ He slouches back against the bench, his arms stretched out along the top
railing, his legs spread wide. A smile of victory infects his face.

‘You’re so full of shit, Bomber,’ I say.

As I head down the grassy embankment, Bomber’s voice carries on the still air. ‘What a fucking psycho-bitch! He’d dump her ’cept he says she gives awesome
head.’

After the graduation, everyone goes to the R.E. Scott’s in the thick of it, sculling beer with his uni mates. Somehow I have to grab him and get him to tell me the truth. It isn’t
easy. The sporty chicks from his year want a piece of him, too. Tall and tanned, they hang off him like flies. They hate me for nicking the best-looking guy on their course and I hate them for
being sluts. Everyone knows that Human Movement chicks are the easiest roots on campus.

‘Scott.’

‘Hi, babe.’ He swaggers over, tipsy but not yet wasted, and kisses me with a hot, beery tongue.

I take a deep breath. ‘Are you going overseas without me?’

Scott rubs the back of his neck, looks at his feet. ‘Babe, let me explain. It’ll only be for a while, a few months or so. Six months max.’

I shove him hard in the chest. He stumbles backwards. His beer sloshes over me as I push past him, tearing through the crowded public bar. He shouts after me but I’m already outside on the
pavement. I hail a taxi and get in.

I yawned and opened my eyes to a low, flaky ceiling which was strange and yet familiar. Overhead, someone crossed the floor with quick, efficient steps. A toilet flushed,
followed by the groan of rusty pipes. I sat up in bed. Scott’s bed. 8.53 on the alarm.

He hadn’t come home.

I found my clothes in a tangle on the floor and got dressed, telling myself he’d probably crashed at Bomber’s. I made his bed, tucking the sheet in tight and folding down one corner
like in a swish hotel. From the pocket of my skirt, I pulled the Baci chocolate ‘kiss’ I’d stolen from work as a treat for him. I placed it on his pillow, in the dip made by my
head during the night. Then I sat down at his desk to write him a note:

I slipped the note under the chocolate and snuck out barefoot through the rumpus room. Mr Greenwood was mowing the back lawn in a pair of paint-splattered stubbies, so I ducked
low under the window sill so he didn’t see me, and snuck out through the side door. As I walked along the pavement, the boughs of the poinciana trees sagged in the heat. The sun passed
through my thin shirt, warming my nipples. There was a Sunday smell in the air. Across the road, the lawn-bowlers were out in force, dressed in whites. Bending and stooping. The lovely
‘chock’ of balls colliding. Gentle clapping. I scanned up the road for my car. It was still there, under the shade of the leopard tree. Another car was parked a few metres in front.
Passing by, I shielded my eyes from the glare and glanced in. There was someone slumped in the driver’s seat looking dead, like I always thought people sleeping in cars looked dead. I stopped
and peered closer. It was dark inside the cabin, the tinted glass cutting out most of the sun. The window lowered with an automatic hum. A blast of ice-cold air-con hit me. A dark face appeared. I
jumped back in shock.

‘Danny?’ His face was covered all over in brown stuff like boot polish or mud, camouflage-style. ‘What the hell have you got on your face? What are you doing here?’ I
hopped from foot to foot, the bitumen searing my feet. Startled, he rubbed his eyes, brown coming off on his fingers. He stared at himself in the rear-vision as if he had no idea who he was. He
turned to me, dazed. His lips were blue. He was wearing the army coat and I wondered if he was naked underneath. He clenched the steering wheel with both hands.

‘Where am I?’ he said, squinting up at me.

‘At Scott’s.’

‘Oh.’ He shook a clump of black hair out of his eyes and looked across at the house.

‘Are you stalking him?’ I half-laughed. Last night’s sneak-in was pretty bunny-boiler, too, but part of me felt uneasy, like there was something major I didn’t know
about.

‘Does he know I’m here?’

‘Nah, he’s still asleep,’ I fibbed, waving towards Scott’s bedroom window.

‘Good.’ He turned the key in the ignition. Opera blared from the multi-track. ‘Hey, Rosie.’ He beckoned. I bent forward, my arms resting on the sill. ‘Don’t
tell Hols about me being here. She’ll freak.’

I nodded.

‘Or Scott,’ he added.

‘OK. Sure.’ I reached in and touched his arm. It was cold. ‘Are you alright?’ He looked so freakish, yet so vunerable with his face all blacked up. It took me back to the
times when we were kids playing aborigines in the cave.

‘I’ll be fine.’ He revved the engine into an excited purr. I jumped back and he shot away from the kerb.

It’s near the end of the Christmas holidays. We are all in the cave. Hollie, Danny and me. Outside, it’s bright, boiling sunshine but inside it’s dark. Hollie
strikes a match and lights a candle. Our shadows rise giant up the walls, stooping backwards across the low ceiling. An arc of light flickers over the hand paintings, orange and white and yellow
aborigine hands. The baby skull sits on top of the egg rock.

Hollie stands naked in the middle, her pale, boy-body caked in dirt. We rub more mud into our faces, up our legs and arms, and apply our markings, taking turns at the orange paste we’ve
made from water and crumbly ochre. Hollie grins. Her hair is knotted and full of dead leaves and twigs. She begins to chant in pretend aborigine. She claps and stamps her feet, filling the cave
with dust and strange echoes. I join in, hopping from one foot to the other, singing and waving my arms above my head.