Mr Carr knelt at her feet. He buried his face in her lap. She wanted to hurt him, to knee him in the jaw, punch him in the face, kick his disgusting balls. No, she wanted to want that. She wished she could hate him.
‘What can I do to make you stay?’
His words were muffled by her skirt, but clear enough. ‘Nothing. I’m sorry.’
She could not believe him. He was upset by the scene with his stupid family. He would calm down, if she helped him. She stroked his greasy hair, wishing she could wash it for him. ‘How long do we have then?’
He looked up at her. ‘You still want to be with me?’
‘Duh.’ She forced a smile.
‘I leave in a month.’
A month was long enough for him to change his mind. More than enough. Sarah held her hope inside. She nodded bravely. ‘Okay. So let’s not waste it with fighting and crying.’
He sobbed and buried his face in her lap again, this time pushing her skirt up first. His stubble scratched her thighs and his tears wet them. ‘Thank you, Sarah, oh my Sarah, thank you.’ She stroked his head and felt strong.
7
For all of August, Sarah remained sure that Mr Carr would stay in Sydney. Their afternoon trysts were more passionate than ever, and many, many times he told her they would be together forever. It wasn’t a question of believing him or not: she felt the truth of it deep, deep inside her. Being with him was like breathing, and everything else was like running under water.
Jamie said she was deluded, but he was too jealous to be objective. Besides, he didn’t know Mr Carr the way she did. He didn’t understand that what Mr Carr said to the class, to his family, to the principal, was just what he had to say to get by. They were public words that went with his public face and his public personality. Only Sarah saw his true self and heard his true thoughts, so only she could know that nothing in the world would keep him away from her.
And then on the last day of school, there was an assembly and he was presented with a farewell gift – a leather briefcase with his initials engraved in the handles – and he made a speech in which he named the school he would be teaching in and the Brisbane suburb where it was located and it all seemed so concrete. For the first time she thought that Jamie might be right. Maybe the reason Mr Carr never talked about any of the details of his move was that it would upset her and therefore ruin their time together. ‘Stop you from putting out,’ was what Jamie said.
But then Mr Carr told her he had a surprise for her, and she felt stupid for doubting him. The surprise wouldn’t be a surprise at all; it would be the announcement that he was only leaving the school, not the state. It would be the declaration that of course he could never leave her.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ he said, squeezing her hands so hard she had to concentrate to stop from wincing. ‘I’ll pick you up at the top of your street at eight.’
‘I get to see you on a Saturday?’ Sarah kissed him. ‘That is a treat. Where are we going? What should I wear?’
‘Where we’re going is the surprise. Wear something pretty. And tell your Mum not to expect you back until late.’
The early morning of Saturday, August 28, 1995 was cold enough to call for jeans, but he had told Sarah to wear something pretty and so she put on a white cotton sundress with butterflies embroidered on the bodice and hem. Mr Carr loved it; he kissed all of the little butterflies and gave her his leather jacket to wear in the car. He didn’t talk while he drove. The radio was on – some adult contemporary easy listening station – and he hummed along to the songs, glancing over to Sarah with a smile every so often.
The drive was short. ‘Surprise,’ he said, pulling up outside the Parramatta Motor Lodge.
‘We’re going to the motel?’
‘Wait here while I check in.’ He jogged across the car park, coming back after a minute with a key attached to a block of wood in his fist. ‘Come on, Sarah, time’s a wasting. Get a move on.’
It was the first time Sarah had ever been in a motel room, but she barely noticed her surroundings. Orange curtains, a chipped mirror and a general dankness were the only lasting memories of the room itself. As soon as she had stepped inside, he ordered her to take off her clothes and then he pushed her to the floor. ‘Today,’ he said. ‘You’re mine.’ She realised that he really was moving to Brisbane.
He spent the first hour biting her legs. He started on her left ankle, moved up to her shin, her calf, her knee, her thigh and then across to her right thigh then back down to the ankle. She cried and kicked him in the face until there was no way to tell which blood was coming from her legs and which from his nose and mouth.
‘I hate you,’ she said, when he was inside her, his legs chafing against the thousand bites on her own.
‘No, you don’t.’ He pulled out of her with a groan, coming all over her thighs. He rubbed it into her skin, mixing it with her blood. He licked her clean and then kissed her so tenderly she started to cry again. He nuzzled her breasts, sucking on her nipples gently. He called her angel, princess, ohsarahoh. She begged him not to leave her.
‘I have to, but it will be okay.’ He kissed her face all over. ‘If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin encompasses are two, Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th’other doe.’
‘What a load of shit,’ Sarah sobbed. ‘What total and utter bullshit.’
‘Sarah, you have to–’
She slapped his face, hard, one, two, three times. ‘Just shut up,’ she said. ‘You didn’t bring me here to talk, and I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, anyway.’
He took her at her word. There was nothing resembling speech for the rest of the day. There was nothing resembling anything she had ever experienced. The earlier leg biting was nothing. It was like holding hands. She thought she would die and did not care. The beast was fighting for its life and she wanted it to win.
At the end of the day, Sarah could hardly sit up. Mr Carr carried her to the shower and washed her. He cried a lot, but he didn’t talk and neither did she. After all, what was there to talk about after the biting and tearing stopped and the screaming died down? He drove her to the bus stop in silence, and remained silent while she sobbed and dug her fingernails into his unyielding arm. Eventually, too exhausted to go on, Sarah got out of the car and he drove away.
Part Two
1
Jamie made his way through the party, scanning the clumps of people, searching out Sarah. Jess had just returned from a six-month jaunt in Europe with a new boyfriend in tow, and Sarah had promised she would be here. But Jamie had searched the front hallway, the living room, the poolroom and the kitchen and it was too early, even for Sarah, to be locked in one of the bedrooms. He should have insisted on picking her up and bringing her himself; that was the only way he could ever be sure she’d be where she was supposed to be.
Through the kitchen window, he noticed that there were twice as many people outside as there were in. Of course that’s where she’d be. Sarah had a theory that smokers were the most interesting bunch of people at any given function, and since these days smokers were always outside, that is where Sarah always wanted to be. She said that smokers were the coolest because of their blatant disregard for their own health and the middle finger raised to political correctness. Especially at this age. Older smokers at least had the excuse that we didn’t know back then or stoppin’ at this age would kill me. But people of Sarah and Jamie’s generation had no defence. They had endured years of health education and government-funded advertising showing black tar pouring from cut open lungs. From the moment they lit their first cigarette and raised it hesitantly to their lips, the Generation Y smoker knew they were sucking in a lungful of overpriced black death. Sarah had memorised a list of chemicals found in cigarettes so she could recite them to people who told her that smoking was harmful: acrolein, benzene, formaldehyde, nitrosamines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, urethan, arsenic, nickel, chromium and cadmium. On the last syllable she
would press her lips together and hum: cadmiummm. Then she would inhale deeply and say yum. Disregard for personal welfare was very cool. Smokers were very cool. And you could tax them into bankruptcy and send them outside to cower around doorways and they were still way cooler than the pink lunged, fresh smelling, goody-two shoes scrunching up their faces inside. Not you though Jamie, she would say, I know you have asthma and stuff, you’d smoke if you could, right?
But although smoke – of several varieties – choked the backyard, Sarah was not there enjoying it. Jamie checked his watch: 8:49. It was possible she was running late. Likely even. He couldn’t remember an occasion when she had been less than twenty-minutes late. Usually it was more like an hour.
Jamie spotted Shelley and Jess standing with a tall blond bloke by the pool. He got to them just in time to hear the man finish what was evidently a riotous story. Shelley and Jess clutched each other, laughing and shaking their heads. Jamie stood behind Shelley and slid his arms around her waist. She continued shaking with laughter, turning slightly to kiss his cheek.
Through increasingly irritating laughter, Jess introduced Jamie to Mike, and Shelley tried to recount the story Mike had just finished telling them. It was to do with a local TV personality and a vacuum cleaner and a casualty ward, but the cause of the nearing-hysterical laughter was unclear. Jamie knew that if Sarah was here she would roll her eyes at him, and he would feel brave enough to say he didn’t think it was funny. But she was not here, so he just smiled and waited for the laughing to stop.
But as soon as the girls calmed down, Mike started in with another outrageous story, and soon they were gasping and holding their sides again. Despite hearing the whole story this time, Jamie still did not find it particularly funny. He suspected that if he himself had told the same story, Shelley and Jess would have barely cracked a smile. The fun they were having was clearly due to the man rather than his message. Mike had the weathered skin and sun-bleached hair of a surfer and a voice which would be easily heard over the roar of the waves. He wasn’t a surfer though, not professionally anyway; he worked as a profile writer for a national men’s magazine, which meant he got paid to have lunch with porn stars and drink cocktails with supermodels. It was the ‘off-the-record’ part of these interviews that had provided him with the endlessly uproarious anecdotes.
‘Is Sarah with you?’ Jess asked when Mike stopped talking for a moment in order to light a cigarette.
Shelley visibly tensed at the mention of Sarah. She stepped out of Jamie’s reach and looked sideways at him. ‘Nah, haven’t seen her,’ Jamie told Jess, careful to sound unconcerned.
‘Yes, where is the famous Sarah Clark?’ Mike asked Jamie, who shrugged and wondered why this man he had never met would ask Jamie – who was very much involved with Shelley – about Sarah’s whereabouts.
‘I suppose the famous Sarah Clark is off doing what she’s famous for,’ Shelley said.
It was Jamie’s turn to tense up. ‘What does that mean?’
Jess laughed and punched Mike’s arm. ‘Now you’ve done it. I told you Jamie was Sarah’s White Knight.’
‘I’ve missed something. What are you all talking about?’
Mike slapped Jamie’s back. He bit down on the impulse to slap back. ‘Jess and Shelley were telling me tall tales about your friend Sarah. They warned me not to repeat any of it to you, allegedly because you’d get shitty, but I know it’s really because they’ve been pulling my leg and you’ll ruin the fun by setting me straight.’
Jamie raised his eyebrows at Shelley. She looked at the ground.
‘Every word was true,’ said Jess.
‘We’ll see.’ Mike rubbed his chin. ‘True or False: Sarah lives in a filthy flat with no furniture or food but with piles of books everywhere and an esky full of beer.’
Jamie laughed. ‘That’s about fifty percent true.’
‘Fine,’ Jess said. ‘So maybe she’s got a bed and, like, one chair. I was right about the dirt and the books though.’
‘So I’m guessing the stuff about her working full-time in a restaurant during high school and still topping the state in English is only about half-true also?’
Ridiculously, Jamie felt a rush of pride. ‘Actually, that’s one hundred percent true. She came third in French, too.’
‘Someone owes us an apology, I think,’ Jess said, touching Shelley’s arm. Shelley looked at Jamie and gave him a small, guilty smile.
‘Ah, but I haven’t even got to the interesting stuff yet.’ Mike leant in close to Jamie and dropped his voice. ‘Tell me it’s true that this girl seduces men by reciting poetry?’
Jamie tried to minimise his cringe. ‘She has been known to.’
‘Although usually she just comes right out and tells the bloke she’s taking him home with her,’ Jess added.
That was also true, but Jamie chose not to confirm it.
‘And the French rugby team?’
Jamie glared at Shelley; she had sworn not to tell. ‘It wasn’t the whole–’
Mike clapped his hands. ‘I have to meet this girl.’
‘I don’t think you’re getting a proper image of Sarah from these stories.’
‘But they are true?’
Jamie shrugged. There was not much point defending Sarah’s honour when she herself would be telling these stories – and worse – if she had bothered to show up. It was just if she was here – if Mike could see her little bones and hear her rounded vowels and her deep, low laugh – he would understand that you could hear any number of scandalous stories about Sarah, could spend a day and a half listening to them, but you wouldn’t come close to knowing her. Sarah Clark was not translatable.
‘See? Told you so! I expect a full apology, mister.’ Jess tickled Mike’s stomach and he swatted at her hands then grabbed her around the waist and kissed her. Jess giggled and pressed into Mike, and then it was like they’d forgotten they were in the middle of a conversation.
‘Ah, new love,’ Shelley said. ‘I remember when we were like that, back in the olden days.’
Jamie forced a laugh. He and Shelley had been together six months; Jess and Mike almost three.
‘Oh, I want to be punctuating every sentence by pushing my tongue down your throat, it’s just I know if I start kissing you here, I may not be able to stop.’
Shelley took his hand. ‘I may not want you to.’
Jamie could not help noticing that Mike had pushed Jess up against the pool fence and that both her hands were on his backside. God, Sarah would love this. She would be kicking herself when he told her she’d missed seeing Jess finally abandon her primness.
Jamie kissed Shelley, because he knew she expected him to, and then he kept kissing her because – as always – he found that kissing Shelley was much nicer than he had remembered. She really was a great girl, and they did make an excellent couple. Shelley liked it that he was studious and softly spoken; she said she couldn’t wait to see him finish uni and set up in his own accountancy business, that she dreamed about being his office manager and also his lunch lady and personal masseuse. She cut his hair for him because she said she couldn’t bear the thought of another stylist getting her scissors on his precious sandy locks, and he didn’t want anyone else doing it because Shelley pressed her breasts into the back of his neck while she was cutting and told him funny stories about all the filthy haired, lecherous men she usually had to cut for.
‘Okay, stop.’ Shelley smiled up at him. ‘No, not stop, pause. To be continued in the near future in a more suitable location.’
He nuzzled her neck. Over her shoulder he saw that Mike and Jess had disappeared. ‘We could go inside. Find a nice, private room.’
Shelley giggled. ‘Or we could go back to my place. Mum and Dad won’t be home till after midnight.’
Jamie hesitated for too long. Her smile faded. She stepped out of his embrace. ‘You don’t want to come to my place?’
‘No, I do. Of course I do.’ He tried to pull her closer, but she resis
ted. ‘I was just thinking that I don’t want to wait that long. If we went inside–’
‘You could screw me and then come back out and moon around waiting for Sarah to arrive.’
‘That is so fucking unfair.’ He couldn’t believe how unfair it was. For once – yes, he admitted, it was only for once – he had not been thinking about Sarah at all; he genuinely had been thinking that he’d like to have sex with his girlfriend in one of the unfamiliar rooms of this unfamiliar house whose owners he did not know.
‘This jealousy thing is getting old, Shell.’
‘What’s getting old, Jamie, is you acting like you’re just killing time with me until your precious Sarah comes to her senses and gives up her mega-slut life to settle down with you.’
‘I’m not going to listen to this shit again.’ He started to walk away, stopped and turned back. ‘Sarah is my friend. When you disrespect her, you disrespect me.’
Shelley laughed, shrill and loud. ‘Oh, please, as if it’s offensive to call Sarah Clark a slut. It’s practically her official title.’
Jamie walked inside. He checked the living room, kitchen, lounge room, hallway. He went back outside and shuffled around the perimeter of the yard. She definitely wasn’t here. And Shelley was right about Sarah. So right that it felt like she had crept inside his head and walked around and taken notes.
Mike reappeared, looking dishevelled and happy. He told Jamie that he and Jess had seen Shelley crying in the hallway and that Jess was in there now, comforting her. ‘You’re in the shit, heh?’
‘Yeah. I guess I better go and make it up to her.’
‘Sometimes it’s better to let them cry themselves out.’