Wildlife (11 page)

monday 22 october (late)

In Paris, there is a wide footbridge called the
Passerelle des Arts
. It spans the River Seine from the Institut de France on the Left Bank to the courtyard of the Musée du Louvre on the Right Bank.

Its wooden boards curve up gently in the middle and slope down again to deliver you to the other side. To keep
you from falling in, there are wavy, crisscross wire panels stretched between old gray-green lampposts.

Like metal scales or petals, thousands of padlocks are fixed to those wire diamonds all over the bridge, love locks.

Each one a love story, a promise, a tribute, a memory…

I could only open my letter from France (yay!) once everyone was asleep.

I hold the key, pressing it hard between the heels of my hands until it’s blood temperature and has left two deep impressions. Don’t want to let it go.

Thank you, Dan. My friend, too. Fellow keeper.

I look forward to sitting with him when he gets back and I am released. We will sit and not have to talk. Or we may talk. If we do, it won’t be to reassure someone who doesn’t feel as bad as we feel that everything is okay.

I can’t remember exactly when Fred started calling me
m’Lou, it was from the nursery rhyme.
Lou, Lou, skip to m’Lou
… I should have written stuff like that down.

Where was the infernal journal when I needed it?

Lunchtime with Mr. Popularity is not as easy to negotiate as you would think. I’m not a clingy type to start with. Sure—this fact has been strictly theoretical till now seeing as I haven’t had a boyfriend not to be clingy with. I still feel shy about the whole going-out thing. Living up here this term makes it too public. So I’m not automatically going to be sitting with him. But Holly has no such scruples, no hesitation, and she seems to think that now we both automatically sit with Ben’s group.

Ben can sit with anyone. He could sit on his own and people would gather as though around a messiah. But he wouldn’t care if they didn’t. It would never have occurred to him to have a moment’s concern about being alone. It’s as though he walks around inside a Ben force field that everyone would like to penetrate.

Holly is always getting annoyed with me about forgetting anniversaries and generally not being observant enough of the whole relationship thing. But even I have
noticed that some of his friends are not crazy about me being inside the Ben perimeter.

All-access pass to the roped-off zone in Ben World. I’ve got it. They want it.

His group is large and multilobed. A mighty social network. I would bet my entire travel fund that Ben has never gone out to eat his lunch with the sinking feeling that he might have to walk a lap and then nonchalantly retreat to the library because his few friends are away from school or have sundry lunchtime commitments that he doesn’t have. Sports. Drama. Debating. These seemingly innocuous things have often rendered me friendless for lunch. I was also rendered best-friendless once when Holly changed groups without notice, and let me know that it was a one-person group move and I couldn’t come, too. But that was to Tiff Simpson’s group in year eight, and it all ended in tears, and with Holly sitting back with me and our other second-social-rung cronies.

But now we’re all hanging out together. Happy days.

Tiff, for example, will not hesitate to look up, smile, and move over if I approach. My new acceptance status is a Ben/billboard combination—the ratio is about fifty-fifty to the girls, and maybe seventy-thirty to the boys. Ben is their principal deity, after all. Only a month ago, I was invisible to Tiff, except as the recipient of an occasional puzzled
Why would someone wear that in public?
look.

The first couple of times these people smiled, or moved over to let me in, I looked over my shoulder, because it
couldn’t be for
me
. And it’s not for me. It’s for some imaginary construction they have made of a new Sibylla Quinn, who isn’t me at all. They’re smiling at the girl on the billboard. Ben’s girlfriend. Real me sits there to one side, watching skeptically, remembering all the mean exclusions and casual put-downs, and preening superiority this group represents to the average kid in our year. New me thinks, They’re really quite nice when you get to know them. It’s fun being on the inside, with them. Real me and new me can’t both be right. Can we? Which interpretation survives if we merge and become one?

Holly acts as though it’s the natural order emerging. But it’s not. It’s double bizarre land—some random social mutation caused in part by me having a particular godmother. And it could reverse out as quickly as it nosed in. Wonder why I don’t exactly feel relaxed with these people?

It’s also one reason I make a point of sitting with Michael some lunchtimes, forcing him to put his book down and play humans with me, although I am guiltily aware that I could do this more often. Not that a library skulk would occur to Michael, either, though he is frequently alone. He always, but always, has a book in whose company he is perfectly happy. And even though he is absolutely aware that his behavior is in the loser, loner, geek terrain, he could not care less. Which actually shifts his category. He is a loner, but no one so self-contained, and so clever, can ever really be a convincing loser.

On this day, this spring lunchtime with air as sharp as an
unripe plum, we are drawn to the sun. We float into it like aimless motes, blinking our morning classes away. Attractive teen people sitting in dappled light on sturdy, rustic benches in our casual sporty uniform separates, various enough to allow us to feel like individuals, similar enough to provide—uniformity. A decent smattering of students from other countries: we are proudly multicultural. We look like a freaking public relations exercise for how wonderful this school is. And it is. And it isn’t. Just like every other school is, and isn’t exactly what it seems to be.

I walk past the gathering Ben fan club—it’s three days after our anniversary, so I don’t think I’m transgressing any rules of the going-out universe—over to where Michael has found a sunny spot in which to devour his selection of food that looks like itself. Like Ben, and Eliza, too, he puts away a huge amount of fuel. Runners. His lunch is a quarter of a roast chicken. Two hard-boiled eggs. Two whole-grain rolls. An apple. A tangelo. A large bowl of salad. Two pieces of fruitcake. It barely fits on his tray. I’ve made myself a chicken and salad roll with two types of chutney, and also have an apple and a piece of chocolate cake. A wasp with designs on my chutney is buzzing lazy circles around us.

As I walk past the mob, someone says, “Man, yo’ ho—where’s she going?” Ben smiles his lazy smile and gives me the backward nod. Even though it’s still hard to believe, I know that I could go over and the Red Sea would part and let me into a spot by his side, but I’m already heading Michael’s way and not about to detour.

Lou arrives at the same time as me. “Why do they think it’s okay to say ‘ho’ like that?”

Ben smiled? Did he hear
yo’
? Did he hear
ho
? He’s okay with me—or anyone—being spoken about like that?

I poke all the ingredients inside my roll so I can close it up properly for a bite. “I don’t know. Blame rap.” I’m trying to make light of it, but I’m annoyed because I hate that whole pimp/ho thing. Particularly when it comes from the mouths of little middle-class white boys.

“No context,” says Lou. “Why do they think they can use language like that?”

Michael looks at me. “Why didn’t you say something?”

And why didn’t Ben say something? “Is it really worth it?” I pick up lettuce and shredded carrot bits migrating from my roll to my lap and transfer them into my mouth, feigning indifference.

Lou sighs. “Trouble is, if you say nothing, you’re really saying you’re okay with it.”

“True,” says Michael.

“I’ve spent years saying stuff. Nothing changes.”

“But maybe it would have been even more severely unchanged—if you hadn’t said anything,” says Lou.

Michael smiles. He likes Lou. I can’t remember the last time he added anyone to his “like” list.

Holly comes over with a bustle of importance. “Did you guys fight?”

“Me and Ben?”

“Duh.”

“No.”

“So what are you doing here?” she asks.

“Eating my lunch.”

She looks at Michael and Lou, as though she can’t quite figure out what I’m saying. “Well, you missed out on working with Ben on the
Othello
assignment. He said he’ll go with me and Tiff.”

“I wouldn’t want to anyway.” But I’m feeling a small gut punch that he didn’t try to persuade me, or even ask me.

“Work with us,” says Lou.

Michael nods. “We can have three.”

“You’re not pissed off because I’m partners with Ben, are you?” says Holly.

“It’s not ‘partnering’ if there are three of you,” says Lou.

“ ‘Partner’ implies two people,” says Michael at exactly the same time. Pedantry compatibility. Not that either of them looks interested to note it.

“Jeez, okay—so long as we’re all happy,” says Holly, giving me the
your weird friend
look.

So now I feel triply left out. Boyfriend, best friend, oldest friend are all paired up for an assignment and not one of them asked me first.

I’m shoved off-balance by a rogue wave of homesickness. It is such a petty grievance; the sort of item I would only ever share with my mother in a private after-school whinge session, during which she wouldn’t judge me, after which she’d give me a hug and a cup of tea and I’d feel as better
as I did when I was little. Or if she wasn’t home, I’d have a comfortable sook into my own pillows, a sulky burrow into my own duvet. I’m so sick of acting like every little annoying thing up here is just fine. There’s no end of the day to unpack all the shit. The day goes into the night goes into the day. Over and over, and I’m so over it. I’m overstuffed with trivial irritations that build in the absence of home, my decompression zone. Maybe that’s why everyone is running through the mountains like maniacs. Getting stuff off chests. Maybe I should run more? Even considering that is a worrying sign.

tuesday 23 october

I told someone.

I told Michael.

I was in the cave, and he came to find me. He said, Knock, knock—ha-ha, no door. He said, I was wondering if you’d like to talk about jealousy, manipulation, betrayal, and murder? For our
Othello
class paper.

I said, As luck would have it, jealousy, manipulation, betrayal, and murder happen to be my favorite topics of conversation. Come on in.

My cave is warm and dry, as all good caves should be, but many are not, with plenty of room for visitors.

He said, I love what you’ve done with the place.

The Lost Estate
was sitting next to me, and he saw it. He said, I really enjoyed this. Are you enjoying it?

I’ve read about half and said, Yes, a friend recommended it, and I like it very much.

The bookmark you made was visible in the book, and he said, shyly, because he is not at all intrusive, This friend?

I nodded. He looked at us in the photos, and he looked at me.

He said, I wondered where this part of you was. I thought it must be in there somewhere. He gave the wry/apologetic smile that shows he’s used to people thinking that whatever he says is often the wrong thing to say.

However I looked, his next question was, This person, he’s not around anymore?

I shook my head. I couldn’t talk. But my eyes were full. Full of you being gone. Full of tears. Full of the still impossibility of saying the words. And my mouth did the uncontrolled wobble that is trying not to cry.

He said, Oh, Louisa. I am sorry. I’m so sorry.

And he did not flinch, Fred. He could take it. He picked up my hand, and he held it between his warm hands. And sat there with me, holding my hand and my hurt. I could feel the sympathy transfusing, and I was thirsty for it. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to let someone in.