Wildlife (4 page)

Blink

Emollient

Blink

Architect

Blink

Refulgent

Blink

Overnight

Blink

Permeable

Blink

Dandelion

Blink

Immutable

Nine-letter words.

It’s a puzzle in the newspaper every day: how many words can you make from nine jumbled letters in a three-by-three grid, and what is the word that uses all nine letters? And that’s how long it ever takes Michael to see the nine-letter word: exactly one blink.

The only time I saw him pause was over
jugulated
(two blinks) and he said, It’s the only thing it can be, but I’ve never seen it used. And come on, I mean, whoa, Neddy!
Because what gets me is that
this
surprised him: that he hadn’t seen it. I would’ve been surprised if I
had
ever seen it. I will be surprised if I
do
ever see it used. I don’t expect I
will
ever see it. Except in a word puzzle.

He says it’s all about how quickly you read, because we skate and slide over letters all the time and read many words, whole matrices of letters, in a blink. But I think it’s also about how much you read, and what sort of vocabulary you have in the first place, because, honestly, how many people in the entire world do you know who will ever need to use the word
jugulated
in their entire lives? Not many. Fewer than ten is my guess.

Nine,
maybe
.

And I’m trying not to worry that he’s sitting alone on the bus, down in front, right near the teachers.

monday 8 october

Bus did not crash.

Sat with quiet girl called don’t remember don’t care. Drove past a vast lake in which trees were drowning, not waving.

*     *     *

Camp. Looks just like brochure.

The sign says
CROWTHORNE GRAMMAR, MT. FAIRWEATHER CAMPUS, REPORT TO RECEPTION
.

Architect-designed faux-utilitarian; probably truly utilitarian as well. What I mean is: functional, but also concerned with appearing to be functional, or in other words, show-off functional.

Smells like heartbreak. Lemon-scented gum trees and eucalyptus.

Food in mouth chomp chomp chomp. No recollection of what I ate. Food warmer du jour.

Colder, much colder here than in the city.

When I see the blues of further mountains…
I see it for you, too, Fred.

When I see a girl look with secret longing at the handsome boy…

There is some sort of buzzbuzzbuzz around the tall girl, Sibylla. Is she famous for something? Do I care?

There is so much too much written about grief.

Grief counseling is a thriving industry as well as a personal little hell to get through. It is probably immune from global financial vicissitudes. Like the food industry, maybe.

Grief settles comfortably into any host; it is an ever-mutating, vigorous organism with an ever-renewing customer base. It generates a never-ending hunger, a never-ending ache, an unassuageable pain to new hearts, brains, guts every minute, every day, every year.

It is the razor-edge of a loose tooth shrieking to be pressed again and again into the soft pink sore gum.

It’s a one-way tunnel with no proof of another exit.

It is something to be got through. Got over. It is something to hide behind. So wide I can’t… so low I can’t get… so high I can’t… So… it is something to squeeze the lungs, to fill the tear ducts and feed the dark hours that used to be for sleeping. Must not drown in it. Be crushed by its dark weight. Must not swamp me. Must not overcome me. Must work through it, face up to it, must pummel it like putty into something with which the wound can be dressed, spit and chew and press, the heart can be healed, a shield, a salve. It is a place to hide, to howl, to touch private memories like shy birds, like flicking shadows that must not
must not
disappear.

So where does my big bad sad fit here? Where to put it, in this sunny designer room with six bunks and five strange girls, plus me, of course, oh, the strangest of them all. Must find a place for it, a deeper, darker private little corner.

Must try to appear to engage socially and so avoid excess probing by camp counselor, who is
en garde
! Alert to my special needs! Ready whenever I need her! No matter what time of night or day! Don’t hesitate. Don’t.

*     *     *

If you had not died, if you had kept your wits about you, yes, I’m still angry with you, I would not need to have spent time with a woman called Esther who wears bad shoes and directs her gaze delicately to one side as I burn to cry but hold it in, control it with breathing and long pauses, because crying there with well-meaning Esther would have been too hideous. And whatever happened, she must not, no never ever be given cause to nudge that large clinical-issue unpatterned box of tissues in my direction across the dust-free-even-in-sunlight teak coffee table. I was not a good subject, Fred.

But I excel at grief privately.

If only you hadn’t… then I would not need to be preparing my cat-and-mouse game with the camp counselor. Her name is… Jesus, can’t remember, not Esther. Working out the right face for the jolly camp counselor… plausibly grim, of course, after what I’ve been through, am going through, and yet slowly unfolding, slowly opening up to new experiences. Interacting with others. Gradually healing. Yeah. I know the drill. I can pull it off. Can I pull it off?

But in reality, I’m stuck, Fred. Stuck at stage-three grief, or is it four? Hating myself, and angry with you. Maybe there’s also a bit of five, or is it six, in the mix? Depression. But no sign yet of six, or is it seven? Realization. Testing New Reality. No.

Just missing you.

Psychiatrists don’t really subscribe to neat “stages” of grief. I found them myself, printed them out, lost them. The idea of defined hurdles is comforting. Despite not being able to get over any of them.

Greatest pain in the world: the moment after waking. Remembering again as consciousness slaps my face in the morning’s first sigh. Nips fresh the not-healed wound.

Should I tell someone about the tangled dreams the sometimes-sleeping pills drag into the not-enough hours?

We are summoned to the dining hall as soon as we arrive for our pep-talk greeting from the principal, Dr. Kwong. Kim Kwong. She’s tiny, brainy, and elegant, so of course she’s known as King Kong. No one is listening—everyone is fizzing with overexcitement, like when
MythBusters
put all those Alka-Seltzers in a confined space, added water, and blew the door out. But there are the usual words like
opportunity
,
responsibility
,
leadership
,
challenge
, and on and on it goes.

House selection happens next. This is what everybody’s waiting for. It’s just like
Harry Potter
, but with brighter lighting and no hat.

When my name is read out for Bennett House, after Holly and Eliza, I say,
yes
, and the girl next to me, Sophie Watkins, says, all sneery, that’s not a good house.

Six people per house, and even our exact bunks are allocated—each one has a number. No arguments, no swapping.

I’m lucky getting a bottom wall bunk. It’s what I wanted. I’m student number thirty-five.

You are supposed to yell out your number while assembled on the oval in case of an emergency. Would it really make the slightest difference in a bushfire or bomb blast? Imagine everyone screaming out numbers at the same time, or forgetting their number. Crazy number soup. As if you wouldn’t have something better to do than yell out a number.

It is one of those systems that this place seems to love. If we open our door after everyone’s security cards have been slotted for the night into the panel next to the door, it triggers a (silent) alarm. They’d implant microchips if they thought the parents would sign up for it.

I see Michael on the way out.

“What’s your number, Sibylla?” he asks.

“Thirty-five. You?”

“Forty-nine. I was hoping for a prime number, but you can’t really ask.”

His grimace makes it clear that he knows this is a dodgy thing to say, and that he’s relieved he can say it to me.

Only Michael could be disappointed at not getting a prime number. He has whole books about prime numbers. If I ever see Michael with a dreamyvague smile on his face and ask him what he’s thinking about, the answer is likely to be prime numbers. When I have that look on my face, I am almost certainly thinking about food. Or Ben Capaldi, after last night. Better knock that one on the head.

If Michael has a worried look on his face, he is likely to be thinking about the complexities of the two-state solution or the nature of existence. If I look worried, it’s usually because I’ve got an awful feeling that I’ve forgotten something very important, or I’ve lost my cell phone or keys or glasses (again), or I’m hungry and not sure when my next food intake is happening.

When Michael looks relaxed, it might be because he has just completed a long and grueling run, or cracked a long and demanding mathematical equation, or mastered a long and complex piano piece. Me looking relaxed will often follow a nap in yoga, a good dreamy read inside a nineteenth-century novel, or the discovery of my cell phone or keys or glasses.

As we step out into the alarmingly fresh air, I feel an unexpected heart-tug to home. We’ve spent weeks planning, preparing, buying strange gear, wondering who our housemates will be—now the nightmare begins.

monday 8 october (later)

Upon arrival, while everyone else was basically squealing with unfettered excitement, I had to try hard not to run screaming down the driveway after the bus, don’t leave me here, please, I made a mistake.

I tried to ignore the
who’s the new girl?
looks, and instead concentrated on my breathing, and took a calming inventory.

I couldn’t have caught the bus if I tried.

Twelve dormitory buildings. Outside, wide, shady verandas; inside, one sleeping area: three bunk beds; one kitchen area: bench, sink, small fridge, big table, six chairs; one bathroom: two sinks, two toilets, two showers, one utility sink; one large walk-in drying cupboard.

A handful of bigger buildings. One for the teachers who live on campus; one classroom building, includes a library and art room/multimedia studio; one assembly hall/dining hall/students’ common room building, includes music practice carrels; one office admin building, sick bay, teachers’ common room/staff room, counselor’s
office, marked with an
X
on my map. There’s one utility building with boiler, laundry, drying room, food and linen supplies storage, and vehicle bays at the side, and a second utility building for gardening stuff, sports gear storage, canoes, bikes, etc. The principal’s house is the only older building, an original cottage, which has of course been restored.

A long path snakes from the main assembly/dining building to an enormous, established vegetable and fruit tree garden, the so-called kitchen garden. It’s hedged, so you couldn’t see it from where they unloaded us. One oval, well manicured.

It is a huge compound on acres and acres of land, and right around the outer perimeter is a large cleared ring road, for fire safety.

The buildings themselves are nestled artfully in well-designed native plantings, strategically placed shady trees, scented shrubs, and winding paths, and all are oriented toward a large central garden area with plenty of outdoor tables and seating and a few attractive stands of trees. We can study and have lunch there when the weather is fine.

Everything is built in timber stained and sealed a silvery gray and, in a sprightly touch, doors are crimson to coordinate with the bottlebrush and flowering gum trees.

Now all I have to do is blend in, zone out, and start crossing off the days on my cell wall.

Of all the things I thought I’d hate about being up here—too much sporty stuff, crap food, the great outdoors—one thing I hadn’t properly considered was privacy. Like try having a poo when there’s no one around. Or squeezing a pimple. Everything is way too open.

I’m used to my whole-world double bed, spreading out and keeping my mess where I want it—laptop, books, magazines, plates, clean laundry that I really will put away one day… I
hate
this single bed. It’s like a prison bed (I imagine). I keep waking up when I turn over and hit the wall. There is one crappy little cupboard for your clothes and a big shared gear cupboard for boots and packs.

The built-in shelves behind the bed are the only territory that’s really mine. My shelf has three pieces of beach glass. Three shells. My iPod. Books. A photo of the family. The photo of me and Mum that Beeb took. Some flowers—Mum’s idea to pack the little vase. I thought it was stupid, but it’s cool. And I brought a Taylor Kitsch poster so I can say good night to him every night.

After everyone has freaked out about it for months, house allocation was actually okay. We are Bennett House. We got the new girl, Lou. So far she doesn’t talk, or show the
slightest interest in anyone. Her facial expression ranges from generalized boredom to specific boredom. She is fiddling with her camera. She puts it down and starts rolling up balls of Blu Tack, with great concentration. Definitely antisocial. Possible fruit loop.

Holly is doing her nails, iPod in, listening to Sia, emitting an occasional out-of-tune drone-along.

Pippa is reading about ten pounds’ worth of French
Vogue
, and calling it homework,
bien sûr
.

Annie, who has no concept of an “inside” voice, is in the bathroom insisting on rescuing a spider that Eliza is urging her to kill. Eliza is saying, “They’ve got friends, you fool. They’ll breed, they’ll come back, and drop on us from the ceiling. It’s okay for you, but I’ve got a top bunk.”

Pippa moves from
Vogue
to a Sun Signs book, saying, “Omigod, it’s so true… it’s scary… you won’t believe this… it is so accurate… it’s like looking into a mirror of my soul… oops, wrong sign… here’s me… omigod, that is even more accurate!”

Annie, who would be a large Labrador if she were a dog, comes out of the bathroom and asks Pippa to read out Sagittarius, but doesn’t stop to listen, too busy complaining about having a bottom middle bunk, warning all of us not to treat it as a communal sofa, warning Eliza (miniature whippet, star long-distance runner) not to step on it on her way up to her more fortunately positioned, prestigious, upper-level accommodation.

*     *     *

There’s a big emphasis on fitness and outdoor life here. I’ve got nothing against fresh air, but surely it’s overrated? Just a tiny bit? I ran the first compulsory three-mile circuit yesterday. Afterward my face was exactly the same shade as beetroot-meets-tomato, which Holly was very amused to point out to everyone. We do two of these runs, minimum, per week, for the whole term. Today every muscle tendon sinew is howling in complaint. My entire self is aching.

Holly told me today she’s had laser hair removal in preparation for coming here. She kept that six-treatment (!) regime pretty quiet. I thought we were going to be wild women up here. Apparently that’s just me now. She could have told me earlier.

It is freezing in the mornings. Our (terrazzo-tiled) bathroom floor feels like ice. Each house has an open fireplace. We have to cart our own wood but not chop it anymore after an accident at the end of last term—some idiot chopped his own foot.

Bennett House is on Slushy for the first week. Then we rotate to some other foul task. The others are Grounds (weeding), Vego (kitchen-garden duty), Community (going to do community service work in Hartsfield), and Maintenance (checking firewood supplies, painting, fence mending, cleaning the chicken coop). House is ongoing—an everyday list of tasks related to keeping our own spaces tidy, laundry done, kitchen clean, beds made, etc. Our house
gets inspected for “cleanliness” and “tidiness” every morning after breakfast, which is the one meal we can have either in our house or in the dining hall.

Slushy is disgusting and possibly a health hazard. First you have to set up all the tables—that’s the okay bit. But at the end of the meal, you have to scrape the plates—bleugh, which is a total biotoxic pile of spitty food mess—and as you do it, you divide off the vegetable scraps to compost and the meat scraps to rubbish. Holly just scraped everything anywhere and sulked when I told her not to.

Guys and girls are not allowed to touch each other—it’s a written rule—and we are fully forbidden to have any “after dark” mingle time. We have classes and meals together, but houses and hiking groups are segregated, which oddly ignores the whole gay and lesbian question.

Outside classes, I’ve seen Ben at close range only once. He gave me what I would call a distant or reserved smile. So, looks like it was a random hookup. Which is fine—exactly what I expected. Not a big deal. Holly said he was staring after me when I walked past. I find that hard to believe. She’s just trying to make me feel better.

I’m too tired and a bit too sad to write home just yet. I miss them, even Charlotte. Who’d have thunk? I don’t think I fully appreciated how relaxing it is having someone I can be really mean to. It’s going to be so hard being nice all the time.

The one facility they don’t have here is a well-padded cell where we can go and scream.

Maybe that is what the bush is for. As well as generating oxygen and providing wildlife habitat.