Peninsula, page 14
Monkeyface suggested law. You were doubtful, read Twelve Angry Men for English, didn’t know any lawyers.
Nicole whose dad had disappeared to Australia said, ‘You need to learn heaps of cases and rules off by heart, then argue all day.’
The class laughed. You wished you could do equations in your head like her. Nicole was like a Teflon-coated butterfly, cushioned from conflict by cheerleaders. She shook her long glossy strands of chocolate chip hair so it rippled. You couldn’t see her as a lawyer.
Back in primary school, the two of you were punted up a class halfway through term. Some discussion must have taken place, parents informed.
‘You girls are special. We want you to be challenged.’ The principal didn’t look at you, gestured to follow him down the corridor. There’s a humming feeling in your stomach, like flies caught in a web. You wanted to ask, what challenge?
One moment you were surrounded by familiar kids and routines, the next, a bunch of strangers. Reading a pecking order was different to reading a book. Nicole’s assigned table was a refuge for the quiet and the docile, her assimilation was seamless. Your desk was down the back – the Rottweiler pack howling with laughter and trying to stab each other with compasses. You looked around checking for the exit, all the while telling yourself you’re not a baby, you won’t cry.
Later, Clive tried to cheer you up by singing ‘I Got You’ by Split Enz. ‘Hate it when you sulk Soph. What if you sang them a song?’
‘They’re horrible wild animals and stupid.’
Clive switched to ‘I Hope I Never’. When he got to the chorus you joined in, couldn’t help yourself. Clive and Nicole surfed sets of tunes to a better mood. You saw the wave too late, got dragged to the bottom, emerged gasping, still clutching your grievances, even as you took a breath.
‘You’re good at debating, Sophey,’ Monkeyface said kindly. He glanced towards the back of the classroom. ‘Rachel’s going to study law.’
You stiffened at mention of Rachel, forced yourself to turn and look over your shoulder. Rachel hunched lower in her chair, avoiding your gaze. You stared through her to the wall then faced the front again, a mix of satisfaction and shame. That biology quiz aside, you got better marks. Your planning self wondered if people who did bad things could still be lawyers.
You practised being a lawyer as you executed your homework at a miniature desk your father made before he got good at woodwork. First you wedged your desk between bed and wall so your bed hugged the line drawn on the floor. Every time an item of clothing or a book of your sister’s crossed the line, you tossed it back, consistent with your zero-tolerance policy. Harriet tried erasing the boundary. You redrew it.
‘Mum, Sophey’s moved her bed into the middle.’
When you heard your mother in the wash house removing her gumboots, you had your evidence ready.
‘Mum!’ Harriet said.
‘Are the spuds on?’ Your mother sounded tired.
‘Yes,’ you called from your desk.
‘What about the chooks?’
‘All fed.’
‘Mum,’ Harriet whined.
‘What’s all this.’ Your mother appeared in the doorway, still in her shed overalls. She smelled of wet calf and sour milk.
You looked up from your wobbly desk. ‘Harriet wouldn’t leave me alone. I need space and quiet to study for School C.’
Mum looked around, your neatly made bed, Harriet’s pigsty.
‘Harriet hasn’t set the table for tea.’
‘Sophey ate all the toasties.’
‘You two stop fighting. When we’re at the shed you’re to behave. Do your chores and schoolwork. Not shriek like banshees. Harriet, set the table.’
‘I was just about to.’ Harriet glared at you. ‘Dad,’ she called.
You heard your father emerge from the bathroom, where he would’ve been washing cow shit off his hands. ‘You heard your mother, set the table.’ He poked his head around the door, surveyed the bedroom, caught your eye, offered a disapproving look then headed for the lounge.
Even Harriet knew not to push it before Dad had his tea. A few weeks earlier you’d all been watching Country Calendar.
‘Be quiet Harriet. I want to hear the programme.’
‘Docking is an animal welfare issue,’ Harriet said. ‘There are other ways to guard against leptospirosis or fly strike.’
Your father grabbed one of your mother’s books and threw it. For a moment you wondered if you’d imagined it, but the book was splayed on the carpet beside Harriet’s chair where it landed, its spine an exclamation mark.
For a few stretched-out seconds, the room was on mute.
‘That was pretty childish Dad. We should be able to discuss things. There is more than one point of view.’ Harriet’s voice sounded shriller than usual, the way it got when she was upset.
‘Tea’s ready I reckon.’ Clive glanced towards the kitchen, got up and poked his head into the dining room. ‘Yeah, it’s ready.’ He retrieved the hardback and returned it close to its original spot, just out of your father’s reach.
‘Thanks Clive,’ Harriet said.
‘Not much of a throw on ya, Dad.’ Clive gave your father a shaky smile.
Your father looked sheepish. ‘People should shut up when they’re told to.’
You, the planning part, wondered if Harriet was too young to know, or had forgotten, the weeks your father was off work with lepto.
The space wars petered out when summer breezed in, its humid breath announcing the end of the school year. The days swelled and arced, each building off the back of the last, yawning at the deep blue sky, a rolling maul of spritzed heat. You melted like a tub of hokey pokey left on the bench. Everyone took to the water, emerging only for bouts of cricket, haymaking and strawberry hunting. In the interlude between School C and University Entrance, the need for schoolwork and lawyer practice evaporated.
With the hay out of the way, your father’s builder mates finally finished fitting out the inside of the Skyline garage. Like waiting for new books, you and Clive could hardly contain your impatience. The garage sat off the veranda, separate from the house. You shared it with your mother’s sewing stuff, your grandfather’s old piano, the freezer and a table tennis table. The building was supposed to be a rumpus room. You didn’t mind. About to turn sixteen, fifteen in Clive’s case, you had your own rooms. Harriet too. Clive’s old bedroom immediately filled with Dairy Exporter magazines, spring bulbs, hockey sticks, ice-cream containers and old clothes.
‘Grandma might need Clive’s room one day,’ your mother said as she stashed cake tins under the bed.
The new bedrooms were intended to fit like matchboxes, but the cheap materials weren’t suited to Northland’s humid climate. The louvre windows warped against the plasterboard. Their best design feature, not widely promoted by the manufacturer, was the efficient collection of spider webs and mould. There was no gap for a desk. You and Clive set yourselves up at either end of the table tennis table. Clive drew the short straw. His bedroom was closest to the sliding door through which people entered. You claimed the back bedroom by the rear exit door, which wasn’t properly hung and therefore barely opened.
Every few days you pulled on gumboots to walk down the road to visit your grandmother. Your jobs were to pick grapefruit and squeeze the juice for her so she could freeze it. She couldn’t squeeze them herself on account of the arthritis in her wrists.
‘Could do with a bit of rain. The garden’s getting dry. What do you think of these ones?’
Your grandmother was working on artificial daffodils now. The yellow matched the grapefruits, so you nodded.
‘How long does it take?’ You were curious despite yourself. Could see she took the job seriously, found it satisfying. Maybe it was because she couldn’t squeeze grapefruit anymore.
‘Few days. Sometimes they aren’t quite right, I have to remove the fabric from the wires and start again. These ones are for Harriet’s birthday next month.’
You tried not to think about the old fake flowers, the ones that she had made with acrylic paint. The ones someone poked holes in. You liked the soothing sound of her voice, the way she didn’t let swollen wrists stop her doing stuff, even if it was weird stuff. You sat with her in the sunroom, ate ginger biscuits and drank grapefruit juice. The juice was as sour as the baking was sweet. You were not required to say anything. You thought about asking your grandmother what people did for jobs beyond Hereford but watching her busy herself all around her house and garden, the words wouldn’t form.
‘Well, I’d better head home Grandma, it’s nearly time for tea.’
Your grandmother always followed you down her path. She pointed out the latest flowers in bloom and the places in her garden where slugs or caterpillars had tried to invade. Although she stopped at her gate you could feel her watching. Halfway down the drive you turned and waved. She waved back. Wandering beside the road, you looked for blackberries among the wildflowers. Your feet slipped around in your gumboots. By the time you got home, your feet were covered in slimy toe jam.
You imagined your grandmother standing at her gate, her floral dress, her pink apron so faded it was nearly white. Her hair reminded you of dandelion seed heads, luminous and light. There was a trick, you blew on a dandelion head, the number of attempts it took to demolish the head was supposed to tell you the time. People said you had the same eyes, blue as gravel. Her industry, you were unsure if it kept her free or fenced in. You wondered too if she knew who’d ruined the flowers.
She was right about needing rain. The crescendo of cicada chants, and emergence of black crickets like miniature trolls from the cracks in the parched grass, signalled the end of the holidays. There was talk of drought. Your study habit resumed.
All the studying paid off. You regularly scored top marks. Your parents were surprised, and slightly bewildered. Said you didn’t get it from them. The way they said ‘it’, they weren’t sure what ‘it’ was, or whether ‘it’ was a good thing. Your mother was assiduous about going to parent–teacher sessions. Your teachers must have sung your praise, because she returned satisfied.
‘You know they call you brain box,’ Clive said. He was sitting at the other end of the table tennis table doing some sketches for his technical drawing class.
‘I don’t care.’ This was a lie. You enjoyed the attention, considered brain box an advance on string bean.
‘It’s not much fun for me and Harriet.’
‘Why?’
‘Teachers expect us to get good marks. They’re always saying to Harriet, “You’re Sophey’s sister.” Kids think we must be swots too. Worst is Mum going on about it.’
‘Do you guys get teased?’ It hadn’t occurred to you that high marks reflected on anyone but you. You’d overheard your mother on the phone telling her friends your scores and cringed. It was like she was talking about someone else.
‘It’s worse for Harriet.’ Clive glanced up from his drawing. ‘I know it’s not your fault.’
You made more of an effort to keep your head down. School, the rules were crystal. Do whatever you like under the radar. You avoided telling your parents your marks.
‘I’m going to take debating. Will you do singing?’ you asked Clive.
‘Choir sounds lame. Bet they do Neil Diamond songs. I wouldn’t mind being in a band. Do you think I look like Neil Finn? I should be in the First XI this year. Going to be so good, Jack’s a mint captain!’
‘Jack?’
‘Jack Carlton ya gumboot, he’s in your class, he’s captain.’
You weren’t sure whether Clive meant cricket or hockey. Clive did look a little bit like Neil Finn but you weren’t about to say so.
‘Soph, wanna come and play hockey with us?’ Harriet asked. When you said no, she got Clive to ask. You considered wasting most of Saturday excessive. Harriet was tall, coordinated and confident. She played centre forward, scored the most goals. Jim Carlton, your coach, also trained Clive’s team and provided lifts to games.
‘Sophey, you play fullback first half and left half second,’ Jim Carlton said. ‘Swap with Rachel. You don’t have Harriet’s vision and aggression, but I like the way you never give up. Eldest kids make the best defenders.’
Playing hockey with your little sister, you understood how she felt when exam results came out and people compared the two of you. On the hockey field you were Harriet’s sister.
‘You’d be pretty good if you practised, big sis. You stopped a few goals today,’ Harriet said.
‘I’ve got better things to do than chase a ball round with a stick.’
‘Don’t let Dad hear you say that.’
‘I’m being responsible,’ you snapped.
‘How so? Clive and I do our homework as well. Practice makes perfect.’
‘Really? Could have sworn it made you obnoxious.’
You wanted to tell Harriet she was like a mosquito buzzing and biting. Bugger off and do your own thing. But you thought about your mission and the A you got for your history essay instead.
Your constant mulling on university was interrupted when Grandma fell down her front steps. The kerfuffle that followed was punctuated by a week of tense phone conversations. Your parents would vanish into town, return hours later to growl at you because you hadn’t got the tea on. Clive made toasted sandwiches.
‘Sophey, I want you to visit your grandmother on the weekend.’ Your mother had been in a bad mood all week.
‘I can’t Mum, I have study to do.’
‘It’s not optional. You’ll get your backside down the road on Saturday. The rest of us have sport. You don’t have to stay there all day, just check on her.’
Your grandmother was set up in the sunroom. The walking frame beside her chair made her look small. You had to squeeze past it.
‘Hello dear, I wasn’t expecting anyone. I thought you’d be studying.’
You didn’t know what to say, what your role was. It was a familiar feeling, although you didn’t usually experience it with your grandmother.
‘Shall I make you a cuppa?’
‘I don’t need any tea thank you. ‘
She looked like a worn-out dishcloth. You wanted to go home.
‘Shall I get your magazines?’
‘They’re right here, child. There’s biscuits in the tins, help yourself.’
In the kitchen you were surprised to see a few unwashed dishes. You rummaged around in the tins. Selected a couple of your favourite gingernuts, put them on a plate. Then, thinking maybe your grandmother wanted some as well, added a few more.
‘Bicky?’
‘Thank you.’
Your grandmother rested a gingernut on the arm of her chair. Gave you a faint smile. Her arm was bandaged.
‘They were your grandfather’s favourite too. Used to dunk them in his tea.’
‘Ha, yeah I remember.’ And you do remember the elaborate afternoon teas, plates of biscuits and cakes all over the table. Salty crackers with lumps of rock-hard Tasty cheese chiselled from a kilogram block bought from the dairy factory. Tea that tasted like soapy water, sculled when it was cold to wash away the lumps of sugary paste that clung to your teeth. Your parents only let you have one biscuit for afternoon tea. Your grandmother let you have as many as you wanted. There was always a telling off to be had when you got home and had no room for dinner.
When you’d eaten the gingernuts, you thought about escaping. You should have brought your books down. You could have studied here, kept an eye on her, except your grandmother didn’t seem to want company.
‘Will you be okay if I head home Grandma, do you want me to get you anything?’
‘I’m fine. Maybe those pills on the kitchen table, and a glass of milk.’
You found the medicine, Meloxicam, read the back of the pack. It was for osteoarthritis.
‘Here you go.’
‘Thanks, dear. You better head home. Get on with your studies. Your mother said you’re going to university next year, clever girl. Got your whole life ahead of you.’
You blushed and stood, unsure how to exit.
‘Off you go. I might just stay here. The walker’s a bit hard to get up and down the steps. Your father’s going to make me a ramp.’
You dawdled down the garden path. Everywhere weeds taunted the flowering plants, spoiling for a fight. They didn’t have the numbers yet, but unless someone intervened it was only a matter of time. You wanted to stop and grab handfuls of them, imagined wrenching them out and hurling them over the fence while yelling ‘Get in behind’ like your father did with his dogs.
You fiddled with the gate, wondering if your fingers would go numb. When you turned around to pull it shut you searched for your grandmother and waved. She was watching of course. She didn’t wave exactly, more a slow lift of the hand that wasn’t bandaged, halfway up, and a surrender. You turned and trudged home, glad nobody was there to see you, because if they asked you why you were crying you wouldn’t have been able to say.
How could you forget? Debating, weekend hockey, learner’s licence test, your planning self dropped the ball. Anxiety prickled your arms, leaving a pink rash. You sat beside Carole, who tried to talk about the upcoming debate. You flicked through the textbook, hoping Larson the new biology teacher would skip his weekly quiz. You weren’t the only one.
‘Mr Larson, I forgot. Could we, like possibly, do it next week instead?’ Nobody had to look to know that Vanessa, who had a reputation based on her pashing rather than her marks, was batting her eyelashes and deploying her most devastating smile.
A glimmer of amusement ruffled Larson’s face. He was young, tanned the colour of kelp, rumoured to have taken the job because he was into surfing. His head shook.
‘Actions have consequences, Vanessa. Everyone else is prepared and anxious to take the quiz.’
Breaths were sucked in. A low-level murmur spread around the classroom. You thought about the driving test. You and Clive had driven quads and tractors for years, but you needed car practice. Having a licence would mean you could drive to exams.
