Текст книги "Saving Francesca"

Автор книги: Melina Marchetta

Соавторы: Melina Marchetta
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

chapter 30

I TURN SEVENTEEN. It’s on a really bad day for Mia. One of those days that make me think she’ll never get better. Some days aren’t just a step back, they are a mile. This morning she’s crying and it’s painful to hear and my ears ache from the sound of her sobbing. I can hear my father’s voice, comforting her, like it always does. But the heart-wrenching sound doesn’t stop. There’s just so much grief there, and I stick my pillow over my head and wish the day away.

No one remembers it’s my birthday, and I’m glad because I just couldn’t bear putting on a smile and pretending to be happy about being a year older. The Stella girls don’t ring. No one rings. Not my grandparents, not anyone, and the worst thing is that it’s Sunday and I’m not at school with my friends, and it’s the loneliest day of my life.

Birthdays in the past were spectacular. If it wasn’t a thousand presents, it was a dinner out, and the birthday person got to choose. Mia let us have wine and we’d make toasts. People would look at us and I could hear them say, “What a great family!” Were we too smug? Does God punish the smug? Does what we had automatically transfer to some other family who didn’t have it but now do, courtesy of our despair?

My father walks into the kitchen. “Go take Luca up to the Abouds.” No “please,” no softness toward me in his voice.

“And then where do you want me to hide?” I ask snidely.

He stares at me, but I don’t care because I don’t know who he is anymore. I used to see him smile every day, but I haven’t seen him smile for months. People used to always say he should grow up, but a grown-up Robert isn’t fun. Bring on the immaturity, I want to say. He’s still staring, and for a moment I don’t recognize the look in his eyes.

“You blame me for this, don’t you?” he says.

“Luca!” I call out, still looking at my father, straight in the eye. “The Abouds want you to come over.”

“Don’t you?” he persists.

“I don’t need to. You’re doing a better job.”

I walk up the road with Luca and Pinocchio.

You blame me for this, don’t you?

I can’t get the words out of my head, both his and mine. Deep down, when I analyze how I feel, I realize that there is resentment and it’s not toward Mia. It’s toward my father. It’s like this bubble that’s inside me that I keep thinking is going to burst on its own because it’s too weak to withstand. But it’s not. It just builds up and builds up, and every word that comes out of his mouth, every feel-good sentiment, every bit of optimism, makes me want to yell hysterically. And in this whole mess, this whole period of everything aching, it’s thinking this way about him that makes me feel as if I’m slowly bleeding inside.

On Monday, the only thing that gets me out of bed is the fact that I hate this house so much that I’d rather die than stay here.

I spend the day on Ms. Quinn’s sofa. Once upon a time she’d work quietly, put off phone calls while I was in there and not allow anyone to disturb us. Now she’s become so used to it that life goes on around me. The normalcy of routine in that office, in itself, is a comfort.

At one stage I have no idea what time it is. I wake up and Will’s sitting on the floor, his back in front of me, leaning against my sofa.

“Hey,” he says quietly, leaning back so our faces are level.

I can hardly speak but I try. “I was born seventeen years ago,” I tell him. “Do you think people have noticed that I’m around?”

“I notice when you’re not. Does that count?”

I close my eyes again and go to sleep.

When the afternoon bell rings, Justine is standing outside Ms. Quinn’s office, holding my bag. I bet she’s carried it around all day.

Our group of four walk across the park in silence. At one stage, Siobhan bumps me with her hip. It’s one of those are-you-okay bumps. I bump her back. Already I’m feeling a bit better, even though I dread the idea of going home. As we walk through Grace Bros., Justine drags me to one of the cosmetic counters.

“Let’s get makeovers,” she suggests.

“Waste of money,” Tara says. “All we’ll be doing tonight is homework.”

“Francesca?”

I nod. “Why not.”

When it’s over, the four of us rave about how beautiful we look. Even Tara is fascinated with herself.

“I’ve got the best idea for tonight,” Siobhan says. “Thomas is going to watch some band down at Coogee. He said we could come along. It’ll be fun.”

“It’s a school night,” Justine argues, getting that pink stressed tinge in her cheeks.

“We’re celebrating.” Siobhan grabs my face. “It was her birthday. Look how sad she looks.”

I think for a moment. “What band?”

“Some punk band he’s into.”

I look at Tara and Justine hopefully.

“We won’t get in,” Tara says firmly.

“We will,” Siobhan says. “I’ll get us in.”

“The lying’s too complicated,” Tara argues.

“Only because you make it complicated,” Siobhan complains.

I can tell that Justine is having a stress attack at the idea of it.

“It’ll be fun,” I say, trying to convince her. “I can tell my dad I’m staying at your place, and you can tell yours that you’re staying at Tara’s, and so on and so forth,” I plead. “You can ask Tuba Guy as well. This is your opportunity to ask him out, Justine. It’s a music thing. It’ll make sense.”

“And how do we sneak back into my house without my parents hearing?” Tara asks.

“I’m the expert,” Siobhan says, clapping gleefully. “Leave it to me.”

Thomas and his friends and Jimmy meet us outside the hotel at 7:30. Tuba Guy has arrived before us and is already being terrorized by Jimmy, who I can tell has just asked him his hundredth question.

“You look great,” Tuba Guy says as we stand around. But he’s mostly looking at Justine.

“It’s just the makeup,” Tara says in her practical tone, because I can tell she’s embarrassed by the attention she’s getting from the guys.

“We know that, Tara,” Thomas says. “We’ve seen how ugly you look underneath it all.” But he is staring at her. Sometimes, I think he has a crush on all of us but it is Tara who makes his heart beat fast, although he’d rather die than admit it.

We walk inside. The place is semi-packed and we try hard to look discreet. The band is set to play in another room at 9:30, so we decide to make ourselves comfortable in the lounge. Jimmy shouts out to someone he knows, and we push him into a booth.

“We’re trying to be inconspicuous,” Justine says.

“Chill,” Thomas says as we make ourselves comfortable. “You chicks get hot and bothered about anything.”

“Why is it that you always sound like someone out of a bad seventies movie?” Tara asks him.

“Because I’m trying to compete with the I-Am-Woman-Hear-Me-Roar image you have, Helen.”

“It’s Ms. Reddy to you.”

We discuss who is going to get the drinks.

“Tara and I will go,” Siobhan says, having already eyed the young bartender.

Thomas puts two fingers together and does a smooching sound.

“Maturity, Thomas,” I warn.

There’s something so exciting about doing something illegal. You feel as if the whole world is looking at you, but no one really gives a damn. When a waitress comes to clear the table next to us, Justine starts babbling about the university degree she’s doing.

“Huh?” Thomas asks. “What is she talking about?” he asks me.

I kick him under the table and Jimmy’s killing himself laughing, very loudly.

When Siobhan and Tara come back with our bourbons, we make a toast.

“To Francesca!”

They raise them up in the air as the waitress comes back.

“On her nineteenth birthday,” Justine blurts out.

“Did she repeat?” Tuba Guy asks, confused.

“So did Trombal give you anything?” Jimmy asks, nosy as usual.

“A compliment. That was enough,” I say, thinking of him in Ms. Quinn’s office.

“Trombal doesn’t know how to give compliments,” Thomas says. “The other day I’m trying to put some work in for you, Francesca, and I’m saying that you look like the chick in the toothpaste commercial, you know, the one with the short dress and the big tits?”

I’m ever so slightly horrified.

“Please don’t assist me in any way, Thomas,” I beg of him.

“Well, Trombal’s like, ‘No. She looks like Sophia Lauren’ or something like that, and I’m thinking, you loser! Here I am trying to pay her a compliment and you can’t even pretend that Francesca’s hot.”

“Did he just insult me?” I ask Justine.

“Yes, but the tragedy is that he thinks he’s paying you a compliment.”

Then something clicks into place. “Sophia Loren?” I say, remembering Will’s father calling me Sophia at the wedding.

“You’ve heard of her?”

“Sophia Loren is, like, the most beautiful woman in the world,” Tara tells him. “She’s an Italian actress.”

“Then why haven’t I heard of her?”

“Because you’re too busy watching toothpaste commercials. She’s, like, in her sixties… .”

“He’s comparing you with an old person? He has no idea.”

“How can we explain this to you, Thomas?”

“He’s not going to get it,” Siobhan says, already bored.

“Let me try.” Jimmy faces Thomas. “From what I can remember from this film, The Boy and the Dolphin, Sophia has big tits.”

“Ahhh,” Thomas says, nodding.

“Is that all you guys notice?” Tara asks, disgusted.

“No. I’m actually a great ass man myself,” Jimmy explains, just to rile her up. “What about you?” he says, turning to Tuba Guy, with that evil/innocent look on his face.

Tuba Guy looks stricken, and Justine looks like she wants to dig a hole.

“The piano accordion thing does it for me,” he mumbles quietly.

Tara, Siobhan, and I look at him proudly. Justine’s face is just about pink.

The band comes and the music is mindless, but I feel on track with everyone in the room. The whole space is a mosh pit and I sway, courtesy of five hundred other people around me and the alcohol. The world from this perspective is strange, and for a moment I stand in the middle of it and just absorb it. I can smell the dope and the body odors and the beer and the spirits and the puke. I can smell Justine’s perfume as she puts her arms around me and we move to the beat and everything is a strange blur of bodies. I think I imagine it, but this one time when I open my eyes I see Tara and Thomas and I’m sure something’s happening between them, some kind of touch, some kind of look, but it’s gone so quickly and the mirror ball spins and my hair is matted to my forehead. And the way I feel about everyone in my life is so clear. It’s almost like an epiphany.

Later, we pull Siobhan away from the bartender at the pub, who’s just walked off his shift.

“What??” she says, looking at us innocently.

“Can we not go anywhere without you picking up someone?” Tara asks, hailing a cab. We all crawl in.

“Am I hurting anyone?”

“Yourself.”

“How?”

“You’re the one who gets upset, Siobhan,” Justine says.

“Only with the name-calling. Not with anything else. That time at the party, it was the name-calling that made me cry.”

I lean against Justine.

“Did he kiss you?” I ask.

“No. I kissed him.”

We grin at each other.

The taxi driver pulls into Tara’s street.

“Oh God,” Tara says, quickly yanking off her seat belt. “There’s a police car outside my house.” She’s almost in tears. “Oh God. Something’s happened to my parents.”

Siobhan grabs her arm. “It’s my father,” she says flatly. “We’re in for it.”

The taxi stops and none of us move.

“You have no idea how much trouble I’m going to be in,” Justine says.

“What’s the worst-case scenario?” Tara asks.

“Try no weekends for about a month, which means I don’t get to go to Canberra with the orchestra.”

“Canberra’s not that exciting,” Tara says.

“Tuba Guy,” I explain.

She nods, understanding, and we get out of the cab.

“I’ll tell them it’s my fault,” I say. “I’ll tell them the truth. That this morning I felt like crap, like I could have just walked in front of a bus… .”

“Don’t say that!” Justine says, and under the streetlight, I see tears in her eyes. “Don’t ever think that, Francesca.”

“Promise,” Tara orders me.

“Cross your heart,” Siobhan pushes.

I put my hand on my heart. “I swear on the Holy Bible.”

They still look tense, and I smile.

“Chill. You chicks get hot and bothered about anything.”

I get dropped off home in a police car. Siobhan’s father lectures us all the way about drinking. The epiphany is wearing off and is replaced by a blinder of a headache. I walk into the house and my father is sitting in the kitchen, in the dark. I don’t switch on the light because I don’t want to see the look on his face.

“You got a card in the mail,” he says. “It’s in your room.”

I don’t say anything.

“For your birthday.”

That’s all he says and I figure it out. Realizing that they missed my birthday, he would have rung me at Justine’s, and that’s how they would have worked out our ploy.

He doesn’t shout, he doesn’t say anything. It’s as if we’ve got nothing left to say to each other. So I go to bed and I feel so sad that I have to psych myself out of crying. Think happy thoughts, I tell myself. Think happy thoughts.

I think of Sophia Loren.

chapter 31

THE STELLA GIRLS are on the bus the next morning, and they do the same thing they always do when they see me. They’re theatrical and affectionate and excited for approximately fifty seconds, and then their attention is diverted. I don’t feel like being cheerful or upbeat with them because Justine is so down about her parents’ punishment and I feel guilty.

“Where have you been?” they ask. “We haven’t seen you for ages.”

I shrug.

“What did you do to your hair?”

That means they don’t like it. People who ask that question make it obvious how they feel. Funny how they liked my hair when it stayed the same for four years and the moment I change it they hate it.

“Remember in Year Seven when it was cut really short and everyone called you Frank?”

No. I remember Year Seven when my mother would grab my face between her two hands and say, “I love this little face that I now can see.” Or how Nonno Salvo would ask, “Where did those eyes come from?” I remember being called beautiful for the first time.

Why do they always have to remember the pathetic stuff? Why can’t they ever remember something positive being said about me? I remember Jimmy saying that me being pathetic makes him feel good about himself. From him it’s a joke, but for the Stella girls, it’s true.

“Did we ever play basketball with the Burwood boys?” I ask them.

They look confused.

“Remember? In Year Ten we were going to play at the Police Boys’ Club after school.”

“Why do you ask?”

It’s not that I think they’re mean. I just don’t think they notice when I’m not around.

“Oh my God,” Michaela says, clutching my hand. “Your birthday!”

I shrug.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing,” I say.

I don’t want to share it with them. I realize at this very moment that if I never see these girls again, I wouldn’t care.

I glance at Justine and she looks hurt, and I’m confused until it hits me that she misinterpreted my answer. It’s our stop and she gets off the bus without a word.

“Wait,” I call out to her, but she’s already gone.

The Stella girls are looking at me, surprised.

“Do you hang out with Justine Kalinsky?”

I nod. “Worse. She has to hang out with me. Poor thing .”

I decide to go and see Will before school starts. I’ve had it with this waiting business. I can cope with another woman, but I can’t cope with being ignored when there’s nothing in his way.

I knock at the prefects’ office door and one of the others answers.

“Will, it’s for you,” the guy says, smirking. I stare him out and he stops smirking and excuses himself.

“Are you okay?” Will asks, standing up.

I nod.

We stand facing each other and that stupid, looking-at-Will heart-thumping starts. Get over it, I want to tell myself. He’s just a gawky guy with a cowlick, not some stud.

“Don’t even think about it, Will.”

“Think about what?”

“Think about what you’re thinking about.”

“Why do you have to do that?” he explodes. “Why do you have to take a perfectly logical mind, with a touch of so-called intelligence, and turn it into mush?”

“You’re about to kiss me, Will. I can tell because I’ve been kissed by you enough times to see the signs. Your face goes all pinched, as if you’re in battle, and you almost grit your teeth. What am I? A nightmare for you?”

He resigns himself to the fact that I’m not going away too soon and sits down.

“You’re like these trays,” he says. “In-tray, out-tray. Unexplainable. You’re unexplainable.”

“You’re comparing me to stationery?”

“I’m comparing you to … rugby and … my voice breaking … and everything I love but don’t understand.”

“To the failures in your life.”

“No. I’m comparing you to all the things I love doing best and I just can’t have when I want them.”

I pull up a chair and sit down in front of him, our knees touching. I take his hands, squeezing them.

“Ask me out, Will. Because if you don’t, I’ll have to ask you out, and I have a feeling that you’re going to analyze why you can’t go out with me and it’ll make you feel like crap to say no.”

He leans forward to kiss me, but I shake my head.

“It’ll be easy,” I tell him. “Next year I’ll be here, you’ll be at college… .”

“I’m not going to be here next year,” he says, sounding frustrated. “I told you that at camp.”

“But you had to sort out the plan priority.”

As usual, I get the full impact of his stare, and it’s all there in his eyes. The whole truth.

“So the plan without me won?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not about you … actually it is about you, but for all the right reasons,” he says.

“You go out with some girl and you’re so torn about going overseas, but the moment I’m interested, it becomes so clear to you that going overseas is a fantastic idea. Thank you very much, Will. Welcome to the people who have made my week such a great one.”

“It’ll only be a year.”

“How can it be so easy for you to decide?” I cry.

“I can’t believe you think that!” he shouts.

“What am I supposed to think? You spend all your time trying to stick your tongue down my throat, and the moment I want something more, you decide you need to go away.”

“This isn’t about you. It’s not personal,” he says.

A cold fury grips me, but my heart’s already sunk before I can save it.

“Everything to do with me is personal,” I say, hardly able to get the words out.

I walk out.

I need voices of reason and of hysteria and of empathy. I need to have an Alanis moment. I need advice from Elizabeth Bennett. I need Tim Tams and comfort food.

I need to find the girls.

Tara’s the only one in homeroom when I arrive, and I’m kind of relieved. She always looks at things to do with other people’s lives objectively.

“You did nothing for your birthday, did you?” she snaps, furious.

At first I’m confused. Too much has happened since this morning on the bus. I realize that Justine’s told her about my conversation with the Stella girls.

“I didn’t want to talk to them—”

“Why does someone who gives so little think she deserves so much?” There’s a pinched anger in her face. It’s not that bitchy look I remember from the Stella girls when they were picking fights. It’s pure anger, and it’s all directed toward me. I see Siobhan making a beeline for us from the other side of the room, and I’m relieved that there is going to be some kind of reprieve.

“You’re a bitch, Francesca,” Siobhan says when she reaches me. “Why don’t you just go to Pius, where your ‘real’ friends are?”

I sit down at my desk and slowly take out my books. Justine walks in and sits where she usually does, next to me. I look at her, but she won’t look at me. I can tell she’s miserable.

“Justine, I didn’t—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Francesca.”

I nod, and I feel tears welling up in my eyes and my lip trembling. I haven’t been friends with them long enough to be able to withstand a test. You pass tests like this five years into a friendship. But I think, this is it. This is going to be like in Year Seven. One day they’re going to say, “Remember how we were friends with Francesca Spinelli for two terms in Year Eleven?”

Or worse still, one of them will answer, “No. Who’s Francesca Spinelli?”

I can hear them talking about Justine’s punishment from her parents because of last night. Her parents won’t speak to her, on top of everything else. For Justine, that’s the worst thing.

The bell rings.

I’m numb. I walk the corridors in a daze and then there’s the exit sign and I just walk out. I go past the secretaries, past the front gate, past everything. Through Hyde Park, through the city, down Market Street, over the Anzac Bridge, and up Johnston Street.

I sit in a café in Booth Street and just stare into space until, after a while, I feel someone standing next to me and I look up and recognize Sue, Mia’s colleague from work.

“Thought it was you,” she says. I force a smile and she sits down.

“How’s Mum?” she asks gently. I just shrug, not really interested in lying.

“She gets out of bed sometimes,” I mumble.

“You know what I think?” she asks.

Just what I need. A theory from one of Mia’s friends.

I shrug again.

“The last eighteen months have been tough for her, Francesca, and with your grandfather dying and starting at the university at the same time as the miscarriage … Mia needs a vacation.”

She keeps talking but I no longer hear what she is saying. My head is reeling from just one word. Miscarriage.

My mother had a miscarriage? Mia lost a baby. We lost a baby. I can’t work out a word Sue is saying. It’s garbled and in another language. A language spoken by those who just don’t understand.

I stand up blindly and do what I’ve become an expert at today. I walk away.

I’m dead inside and I feel as if the world’s ending and I need to get home and I walk faster and faster because the people across the road will wave to me and only then will I know everything is fine but when I get there, they’re not there like they are every afternoon and every morning and every night and I want to know why because they have to be—because if things aren’t normal with them, things aren’t normal with me and I want to run over and bang at the door and tell them to come outside and eat their dinner on their laps or lean over the fence and speak to their neighbors and I want things to be exactly the same as they always were because if they are, the world is still turning and at the moment I feel as if it’s stopped turning and I can’t stand feeling this way and I go inside and my father is standing there.

“What are you doing home, Frankie?”

I don’t know who he is anymore. I don’t know who anyone is.

“Why didn’t you tell us about the miscarriage?” I ask.

I see him stiffen for a moment and he doesn’t answer.

“Hello?”

“Don’t hello me, Frankie. We didn’t want to upset you.”

“Well, I’m more upset by the fact that you kept it from me.”

“It was over a year and a half ago.”

“I know exactly when it was. It was what I was trying to ask you about the other day, but you lied.”

“There was too much going on and we didn’t want to—”

“Did you ever talk about it with her?” I interrupt.

“She didn’t want to talk about it.”

“She always says that. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She’s said that a thousand times.”

“And I respect that.”

“But it means that she does want to talk about it!”

“I know Mia. I know more—”

“No you don’t,” I snap.

“What are you trying to say?”

“She’s not part of you. She’s part of us.”

“Don’t you dare say that.”

“You know nothing!”

“I’m not going to have a fight with you.”

“I bet she wanted to talk about it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

His shouting makes me jump, but I don’t back down.

“Yeah, but maybe she did. And maybe she wanted to talk about Nonno dying, too. And maybe you didn’t let her. You do that all the time. You blow everything off.”

I’m hysterical. I don’t know what I’m talking about. But I can’t stop.

“You keep her all to yourself. You think you can fix everything by forgetting about it, but you just make things worse. It’s all your fault. You’ve kept her sick, because you don’t know how to handle it. Because you’re a weakling. Everyone says you are, and I believe it and Mummy could have done better than you and I don’t know why you just don’t fuck off now before you make it any worse.”

The look on his face is so devastating, but I don’t care. I want to hurt him.

I turn to walk out but my mum is at the door, looking horrified.

“Don’t you ever speak to your father like that again.”

I run out of there, to the people across the road, and I bang at their door over and over again, but no one answers and I keep on banging until there’s blood on my knuckles and then I run up the road as fast as I can because I need to find them.

But I don’t.

They’re gone.

I hear my father calling out my name, but I keep on running.

Everyone’s gone.

And I need to find them.