Always MacKenzie

  ‘He’s Mackenzie Woodrow’s boyfriend,’ said Georgia. ‘Ted Rathbone. He’s a sweetie.’ She whispered in my ear, ‘I’ll tell you something later.’

  When we were on the plane and safely buckled, she leaned close and murmured, ‘Rosie and Mackenzie are sharing a room, right, and so are Ted and his friend Gus. Well, Rosie thinks they should swap rooms.’

  I stared at her. ‘No way! They’ll all be expelled in two seconds if they get caught.’

  Georgia shrugged. ‘Ted and Gus are like Mackenzie and Rosie, you know? Ted tries to keep Gus in line, like Mackenzie does with Rosie.’ She peered at me cautiously; she didn’t talk to me about Rosie these days. She thought there was still a danger that I might explode unexpectedly. Seeing it was safe, she went on. ‘So normally I’d say it wouldn’t happen, no way. But, you know, Ted and Mackenzie are together, so maybe they won’t be able to resist.’

  ‘They’d better resist or all hell’s going to break loose,’ I said flatly.

  ‘Mm,’ said Georgia, and flinched as a paper pellet hit her on the ear. St Andrew’s boys were flicking them up and down the plane. Even if it was only an hour, it was going to be a long flight.

  I wasn’t sick, luckily. And Georgia was wrong, I did have time to read. But for the last part of the flight I put my book away and gazed out at the banks of cloud that drifted past the window. Other people didn’t seem as fascinated as me, but I couldn’t stop staring. It was extraordinary, miraculous, to be so high, to see the parched earth spread out below and the sculptured clouds floating by. From the ground, they seemed two dimensional, painted flat onto the sky, but up here they were towering, three dimensional, magnificent.

  I was still feeling dreamy when we landed, and even through the tumult and flurry of collecting bags, having our names ticked off, lining up for buses, I felt as if part of me was still suspended in the sky, detached from everything. It was amazing enough to see the earth from the height of an aeroplane. What must it be like to see it from space, a perfect marble, so separate, so self-contained?

  Hadn’t I had a discussion about this once before . . .?

  That night on Mt Emmaline with Mackenzie. Of course. Stupid that after all these months that memory was still painful. I didn’t want to think about Mackenzie.

  So I heaved my bag on my back and queued for the bus with everyone else, and forced my mind elsewhere.

  The hotel we were booked into was nothing flash, but it was clean, and hey, it was a hotel. Lord Peter Wimsey was hardly ever out of hotels, but I didn’t stay in them with the same regularity; this was an adventure. Jessica Samuels and Rosie Lee complained that it was a dump, but it was thrilling for me. It was exciting to claim a bed, and figure out how the TV worked, and exclaim over the little bottles in the bathroom (the little bottles in the mini-bar had been removed), and throw open the curtains and crane for a view. Okay, there wasn’t anything to see, but the square grey office building opposite was a Sydney office building. We were in Sydney, and somewhere out there was the harbour, and the bridge, and the Opera House, and the Mardi Gras, and the Blue Mountains . . .

  ‘The Mardi Gras is in summer, isn’t it?’ said Georgia.

  ‘It’s still Sin City. Corruption and hedonism on every corner, waiting to seduce us . . .’

  ‘We’re more likely to get seduced inside the hotel,’ said Georgia. ‘With all these boys around.’

  Even though the St Andrew’s boys were on a different floor, we could sense their presence: muffled feet like distant thunder overhead, croaky voices, far off howls and shouts and thumps. And when we went down to the restaurant for lunch, there was a faint sweaty odour in the lift.

  Lunch was not exciting. On the other side of the restaurant, Mackenzie pulled a face as she forked through what was allegedly a beef salad, but tasted more like boiled shoe.

  ‘The lettuce is slimy.’ Bec shuddered; she hated all forms of slime.

  ‘Good practice for Oxford.’ Iris chewed stoically. ‘The food there will be inedible.’

  ‘Good practice for this afternoon,’ I said. ‘Charles Le Tan will probably be pretty slimy, too.’

  ‘Careful,’ said Bec. ‘Was that a public comment?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Cheesecake!’ Georgia nodded to the dessert table, where the boys of St Andrew’s were clustering like flies on a carcass.

  ‘Hardly any of the girls are going up,’ I said.

  ‘They don’t want the boys to think they’re pigs,’ said Georgia.

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said, and I marched up to the table and loaded a plate. Iris and Bec weren’t far behind; Georgia hesitated, but finally she came too. The desserts were beautiful. Jess Casinader and Sara-Grace Fratelli cast wistful eyes at our plates, laden with chocolate mousse and raspberry pavlova and some kind of hazelnut cream meringue thing, and I was intensely grateful that I wasn’t the kind of girl who cared what boys thought of her appetite. Rosie Lee didn’t care either, it seemed; her plate was piled nearly as high as Bec’s.

  The irony was that none of the boys were paying attention to the girls anyway; they were too busy stuffing their own faces. Soon it was time for the staff to herd us back on our buses to go and hear Charles Le Tan. They looked exhausted already; we could tell they were glad this excursion only lasted till Sunday afternoon.

  The stadium was massive. It was one of the venues for the Olympics, and I remembered seeing it on TV as a kid, filled to the brim with cheering, roaring spectators. It was nearly filled to the brim now. Apparently not everyone in the world shared Mackenzie Woodrow’s disdain for the Inspiration Guy; in fact, it seemed there were thousands of people willing to pay a hefty sum to hear his words of so-called wisdom.

  The fact that Mackenzie’s dad was such a big fan prejudiced me against him, I must admit. I don’t think Mackenzie’s dad and Robin Hood Jem, champion of the powerless, would agree on much, actually.

  That was a joke. Kind of. I’d tried being a rebel and look where it got me! My rebellious days were over. Blink and you’d have missed it.

  We all filed into the stadium murmuring and shuffling our feet, unsure whether we should behave as if we were in a cathedral or at a football match. Just the fact that there was such a huge crowd gave the stadium an amazing atmosphere, and all the other people were buzzing, yet reverent, too. It was a solemn thing to pay that much money to hear one man speak; there was anticipation in the air. As well as the lingering odour of the St Andrew’s boys.

  At one point I thought I felt someone staring at me, and I swung around, but no one was there. Well, several thousand people were there, obviously, but none of them were looking at me. I glimpsed Ted Rathbone a few rows back, but he was gazing off to the left, toward Mackenzie. We’d all been told to switch off our mobiles; a lot of people hadn’t, but the golden twins had been obedient, so they were signalling to each other, nodding and smiling and gesticulating with their hands. Like the mating ritual of a pair of exotic birds. I swung round in my seat again.

  Georgia stiffened beside me and stood abruptly. ‘I have to go to the toilet.’

  ‘Again? You just went!’ I squeezed back to let her past, then it occurred to me that I should probably go myself before the show started, so I hurried after her down the steps and out into the echoing concrete concourse. ‘Georgia, wait!’

  She didn’t hear; she disappeared into the nearest ladies loo and I followed.

  It was surprisingly empty; everyone else must have finished their last-minute rush already. Georgia and I were cutting it fine; I could hear a voice rolling through the stadium, Charles Le Tan’s warm-up guy. A couple of doors were closed; one of them must have been Georgia.

  I hurried into a cubicle and did what I had to do, but when I came out there was no sign of Georgia. I washed my hands. From the stadium came a muffled roar of laughter and the amplified chuckle of the warm-up guy.

  Then I heard another sound: the noise of someone throwing up.

  ‘Georgia! Are you okay?’

>   Georgia shot out of a cubicle like a rocket. ‘I’m fine.’ She glanced nervously behind her.

  The retching noise was repeated, then a muffled voice from inside the closed cubicle said, ‘Piss off, Martinic.’

  ‘It’s Rosie,’ hissed Georgia unnecessarily.

  ‘Is she okay?’ I whispered back.

  The toilet flushed, the door banged open and Rosie Lee appeared, wiping her mouth on some toilet paper. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. She threw the wad of paper into the toilet and fished in her pocket. ‘Mint?’

  I was nonplussed. Rosie seemed very cool and collected for someone who’d just been chucking her guts up. ‘Do you want a drink of water? Fresh air?’

  Rosie tossed back a couple of mints and clicked the packet shut. ‘How about you mind your own business, Jem? Though that’s not something you’re very skilled at, is it?’

  I said to Georgia, ‘What’s going on?’

  Georgia’s eyes flickered to Rosie. ‘Um – too much cake?’

  ‘Tell your friend to get lost, Georgie,’ drawled Rosie.

  The possibilities whirled through my mind. Pregnancy? Some mysterious illness? Drugs? Then at last I got it. ‘Bulimia,’ I said under my breath. ‘Great. Like you haven’t got enough problems.’

  Rosie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Aren’t you clever. But you’re the one who’s got problems, Martinic.’

  ‘Rosie . . .’ Georgia faltered. ‘Maybe we should go outside . . .’

  Rosie ignored her. She stepped towards me. ‘You want to know the real reason you nearly got expelled? You want to know what Mackenzie’s been saying about you?’

  My mouth was dry. I couldn’t speak. From far, far away, there came a roar of applause and stamping feet and the voice of the warm-up guy reached a crescendo: Cha-arles – Le – TAN!

  Rosie stood close to me. ‘Mackenzie told everybody you’re a lesbian. She said you were making moves on her at camp. She said you couldn’t wait to get into her pants. Everyone knows: the staff, the Head, everyone. That’s why she had to stop hanging out with you. She just wanted to be friends, but you wanted more.’

  I opened my mouth. I looked at Georgia. She said faintly, ‘There is a – a rumour. There’s graffiti in the second floor toilets.’

  I felt sick.

  ‘Mackenzie went to the Head, after you tried to get me thrown out for bullying – remember that?’ Rosie sneered. ‘Mackenzie told her not to believe a word you said, because you’re just a frustrated dyke. That’s why you’re on a bond. The Head doesn’t want you at the school. Bad influence, get the school a bad reputation. She thinks you’ve got no self-control. If you weren’t such a brain, you’d already be gone.’ Rosie snapped her fingers and I jumped. ‘What do you think of that then, Miss Clever Jem?’

  I found a croaky voice at the very bottom of my throat.

  ‘It’s not true. No one thinks – and they wouldn’t care—’ ‘Hah!’ said Rosie. ‘So you admit it.’

  I turned back to Georgia, but her eyes slid away. She bit her bottom lip.

  I forced myself to sound calm. ‘Mackenzie wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘Wanna bet?’ said Rosie. She tilted her head and blew me three hard, contemptuous kisses. She and Georgia watched as I turned away.

  Very slowly I dragged myself back along the curving, empty concourse. The sound of my footsteps was drowned by the roar from the stadium. I climbed the concrete steps, each foot like lead. The crowd in the stadium was hushed, and on the brightly lit stage a man strode up and down, as small as an insect. I could have squashed him with my thumb. His huge voice reverberated through the arena. The sound washed through me, lifted me and carried me away.

  I was drifting in space; the earth was very far away. I stared at the stage, but I saw nothing; I heard the huge voice echo and thrum, but the words were just noise, the static hiss of background radiation. I drifted, spinning in slow motion, in the cold, cold vastness of the universe.

  Everything was coming apart. Every particle, every fragment of existence, drifting and expanding, further and further, until nothing touched, every last contact severed. I was all alone, and it was very cold out there.

  The voice of the inspiration guy fell from a shout to a low, clear murmur, and suddenly it was as if he were speaking just to me, in that whole crowded stadium, as if he were reaching out and touching me.

  He said, ‘You decide who you truly are. You decide. Not me, not your family, not your friends, not your spouse. Every day, every minute, you are becoming the person you choose to be. This is what you have to ask yourself: Is this who I choose to be?’

  Then his voice raised again and he turned away and he was shouting something about making a difference, and choices, and being positive, but for me it was as if time stood still. I sat there in a daze for an hour and a half. I stood up when everyone else did, I sat when they sat. I shouted when other people shouted, I was quiet when they were quiet. But I didn’t hear another word.

  I thought about all the choices I’d made, all the actions that made me who I was. I thought about Bec and Iris, and the way I’d hidden beside them, invisible and safe, for so long. I thought about saying yes to Richard Patel, and saying no. I thought about Heathersett River and the touchy-feely night, and the night Mackenzie and I held hands and sang to the stars. I thought about trying to help Georgia and how it had all gone so horribly wrong. I thought about calling the Head a bully. I thought about Grandpa Darko and the Nazis.

  And I thought about Mackenzie. I stared at the back of her golden head and I remembered every conversation we’d ever had, every look, every gesture. It was like peeling off skin, digging at my flesh; it hurt so much, and I knew I shouldn’t do it, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. And I knew that whatever Mackenzie did, whatever she said, however she’d betrayed me, I had to believe that the brief window of our friendship was precious, even if it was gone, even if it was destroyed forever; I had to believe it was real, because I had made it, I had chosen it, just as much as she had. It wasn’t a gift she’d bestowed on me: it was both of us, holding up our cupped hands together to the stars.

  When at last the lights went up I felt weird and shaky as if I’d run a marathon. I was exhausted, from thinking and from the effort of trying not to cry. But then I saw that heaps of people had been crying – grown women, with smudged mascara, even grown men looking suspiciously red round the eyes. People held each other’s arms for support, dazed, as they tottered out onto the concourse.

  I craned around for Georgia, but she hadn’t come back to her seat. Then I saw Mackenzie; she was scanning the crowd, searching for Ted I guess, or Rosie, and when she saw me our eyes met and locked for a second. I don’t know what kind of expression came over my face, but I saw her face change before I turned away. I couldn’t look at her for long. It was the difference between picking at a scab and jabbing a knife into your arm.

  I shoved my way past the shuffling, muttering crowd toward the exit. The noise, the heat, the press of the crowd, were all making me feel faint. I even started to panic, like on my first day of school, that I wouldn’t find the bus, that I’d be trapped here and never get home.

  ‘Jem! Jem, wait!’

  It was Bec and Iris, running up behind me. We were outside the arena now, pushing against the crowd around the perimeter toward the buses.

  ‘Jem! What did you think?’

  ‘Yeah, it was – Have you seen Georgia?’

  ‘No.’ Iris grabbed my arm; her face was glowing. ‘Jem, listen, I’ve got something to say to you.’

  ‘Me too,’ chimed in Bec. ‘But Iris wants to go first.’

  I stopped. They looked – odd. Radiant. I don’t think I’d ever seen Bec or Iris radiant before. ‘Okay, what?’

  Iris said, ‘Charles Le Tan – he’s right. You know that thing he said? It’s absolutely true. What will it matter in fifty years? What will it matter?’

  ‘Um . . .’ I hadn’t heard him say that, so I didn’t feel qualified to comment.

  ‘Th
at wasn’t the important thing!’ Bec said. ‘The important thing was about negativity, how it holds you back, distorts your life. That was the main thing. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Well . . .’ I said slowly. They seemed to have heard a different speech from the one I’d heard; possibly two different speeches. Maybe Charles Le Tan was like the Magic Pudding, and everyone came away with a different taste, different words of wisdom. Besides, I wasn’t so sure that a little negativity was such a bad thing. A nip of sarcasm, a sprinkle of scepticism, that was what made Bec and Iris who they were. That was why . . . I realised it with a jolt. They were better friends with each other than they were with me because they suited each other better; they were a better fit. It had just taken us four years to work it out. And we could all still be friends; just not best friends. And that was okay.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Iris. ‘I’ve decided to forgive you.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Bec. They beamed at me as if we’d all just won the lottery.

  I literally did not know what to say. They forgave me? Who decided I was the one who had to be forgiven?

  But then – they both looked so pleased. So excited at the idea of being proper friends again. If I said something cutting now, if I walked away, that would be the end. Did I really want to lose Bec and Iris forever, my second-best friends, over some paltry pointless quarrel?

  It flashed through my mind that the really honourable, gracious, noble, superior, Wimsey thing to do would be to accept their forgiveness, to forgive them, without even telling them. Let them think they were forgiving me; they’d feel good. And the truth was, I didn’t actually care that much about the rights and wrongs of it all. The choice was up to me.

  ‘Okay,’ I said at last. ‘I accept your forgiveness.’

  Bec’s smile wobbled, as if she wasn’t quite sure whether I was taking the mickey (maybe I was, just a smidge). But Iris’s grin grew wider, if possible.

  Far away in the distance, beside the bus, Ms Wells was shouting.

  ‘Quick,’ said Bec. ‘We have to hurry. Like Charles Le Tan said, time’s running out.’