Relieved, I followed and closed the door quickly, snapping the bolt into place. I had hoped that Lou might have wandered off but of course she hadn’t. She was still sitting in exactly the same place. ‘Can we give you a lift home?’ Jamie offered.
‘Okay,’ said Lou in a neutral voice, but her eyes were sparkling, betraying her enthusiasm.
‘Didn’t you bike down here?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said quickly, aggressively.
We walked back to the bridge, Lou showing off all the way, talking expertly about lambing percentages and wool prices and even about the weather, the classic farmer’s topic. To Jamie’s discredit, he seemed to find the conversation fascinating. I said nothing. In the car, it was more of the same. Lou talking non-stop, but now it was about cars and what model she’d be buying for her first car. Abruptly, Jamie braked. Both Lou and I were jerked forward. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Someone up ahead. I never expect to see anyone on this road.’
It was Roy. Trudging home. As we approached, it struck me anew what a strange looking creature he was. So tall and lanky, yet stooped about the shoulders as if he was trying to make himself appear shorter. He was wearing an old pair of grey school shorts that made his legs look even longer and more gangly than ever. They seemed hairier than usual too. I cringed back against my seat. Roy should never have worn shorts. He should have kept himself covered up. Jamie slowed down and turned to me. ‘Who’s that? Should we stop and give him a lift?’
I hesitated. I could feel Lou’s breath on the back of my neck as she leaned forward, interested. Roy stopped walking and half-turned, squinting back at us, his head at a quizzical angle. Our eyes met but his betrayed nothing. There was that same deadness in his gaze that used to irritate Arch so much and drive him to bait Roy incessantly, trying to get a rise out of him. He stood there, waiting for something to happen. Slowly, the car idled towards him.
Jamie had turned to Lou questioningly. ‘I’m not sharing the back seat with the Freak,’ she said firmly.
Her window was down. Her voice was penetrating, just like her mother’s. If Roy had heard he gave no sign. Lou’s voice took on a different tone, almost wheedling. ‘Maybe Billy will get in the back with him, and I’ll come in the front with you Jamie. I’ll drive if you like. This is exactly the sort of car I want when I’ve got my licence. How does it handle?’
Jamie chuckled, delighted. The car eased to a halt. ‘Well Billy. Shall we let your cousin drive?’
I couldn’t answer. I hated Lou for being there, for ingratiating herself with Jamie, trying so hard to act like a boy, saying all the things that I had failed to. I’d never heard Jamie laugh the way he laughed when Lou said something, like he was amused and impressed. For a horrible moment I felt that I might cry. I felt so frustrated. It should’ve been just me and Jamie, the two of us. Lou had no right to intrude.
I looked down at my lap, struggling to control my emotions. When I looked up I saw to my horror that Roy was approaching the car. He had assumed that we’d stopped to give him a lift. His blank expression was gone. His face was transformed by a smile which made him look goofier than ever. Involuntarily I half-screamed. ‘No.’
Jamie looked confused. ‘But he seems to want a ride.’
‘Drive on,’ hissed Lou from the back. ‘We don’t want him in here.’
Jamie pressed down hard on the accelerator and the tyres gave a squeal, kicking up dust and gravel. For a moment everything was trance-like; the world had idled into slow motion. Roy loomed up by my side window, his hand stretching out to rest on the roof, grinning like a fool. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to look at him. The car whipped off and I heard the thud of Roy’s hand against the metal of the car as he was left behind in the dust.
Lou let out a whoop. ‘Make the Freak eat dust,’ she crowed.
She thumped the back of Jamie’s seat in approval and started complimenting him on his driving, quizzing him on how he made the wheels squeal, insisting he show her how it was done. I said nothing. I wished Lou would shut up, wished we’d left her behind with Roy. Now Lou’s voice had taken on a threatening tone. ‘The Freak better not have damaged your car Jamie. I’ll give him what for at school on Monday if there’s a dent.’
‘What?’ I said amazed.
‘He punched the car,’ Lou said. ‘You must have heard it. Just before we drove off. You should have seen the look on his face. Evil. Even scared me for an instant.’
That set Jamie and her off on another topic of conversation, Jamie claiming he couldn’t imagine that anything would scare Lou and Lou modestly agreeing. I would’ve liked to have challenged her, said bullshit back to her, but I didn’t dare. It was dangerous to provoke her. I muttered it under my breath. I couldn’t imagine Roy ever getting angry about anything. It seemed Lou would say anything to impress Jamie, even make up stories if it provided an opportunity for her to show off.
As we approached Lou’s house, she continued to babble on to Jamie. Finally, I had to speak out. ‘Jamie, you’d better slow down. This is where Lou gets out.’
I could feel Lou’s furious expression without having to see it. Jamie eased off the accelerator. I half-expected her to talk herself into staying in the car, but she didn’t. She hopped out, thanked Jamie for the lift and ignored me completely. ‘See you soon,’ she said, leaning towards Jamie’s window, smiling.
I watched her in the rear-vision mirror as we pulled away, sauntering up the drive to her house. I felt uneasy. It wasn’t like her to smile and to remember to say thank you.
It was only another couple of miles down the road to our place. Finally, it was just Jamie and me, alone together in his car. But I could think of nothing to say or nothing that would sound as confident and adult as Lou’s conversation. We drove in silence. I glanced across at Jamie. With his white singlet highlighting his tan, his wet hair curling up into ringlets, he’d never looked more handsome.
I wished we had further to go and could keep on driving.
2
Chapter 2
I did not like Belinda Pepper. I’d heard all the stories about her and like everyone else never thought to doubt them. I tried to warn Jamie but he wouldn’t allow me to repeat a word. He said he already knew. Everyone in the Serpentine knew about Belinda Pepper. She achieved notoriety young. Expelled from boarding school in Dunedin at the age of sixteen.
It had begun innocently enough. She had complained of a sore throat and been sent to the boarding school doctor. She expected to be told to go to bed and take some time off school. Instead, the doctor took some throat swabs and suggested she wear a scarf outdoors. Several days later, she was hauled into the Mother Superior’s office by Sister Josephine. The Sister couldn’t contain herself and slapped Belinda across the face, declaring her a sinner who had brought shame upon herself and the entire establishment. Neither of the nuns could bring themselves to speak Belinda’s crime aloud. Instead, the Mother Superior pushed the laboratory report across the table for Belinda to read for herself. She had contracted gonorrhoea of the throat.
Belinda was locked in the sick bay for the night. ‘You’re diseased,’ Sister Josephine had hissed at her. ‘Physically and morally.’
Sister Josephine insisted that she be quarantined until her parents could collect her. This suited Belinda perfectly. There was a telephone in the sick bay for the doctor’s use. Belinda made quick use of it, arranging an assignation with the very boy who had infected her. For the first but final time, the two of them had the luxury of a proper bed with sheets. Previously, they’d been obliged to do it amongst soggy leaves in the densely-wooded town belt.
The nuns never thought to offer Belinda any treatment for her problem. Her mother was obliged to take her to the doctor in Glenora to obtain a course of antibiotics. Of course, everybody noticed. They all knew she had been expelled. The doctor’s appointment only served to confirm what they’d all suspected. Belinda Pepper must be pregnant.
‘She’s not pregnant,’ protested Tra
cey Ingham, the doctor’s receptionist, at the pub on Friday night. Tracey had downed several Bacardi and cokes. She felt it was her duty to halt the spread of such a story as efficiently as her employer halted disease. ‘She’s got gonorrhoea of the throat.’
Everyone’s eyes were on Tracey. ‘Whoops,’ she tittered into her drink, realising her mistake.
But it was too late. By Monday morning, everyone knew. Including the doctor. Tracey was fired. A few days later Belinda Pepper called at the surgery to enquire if the position was still vacant.
Belinda had announced to her parents that she had finished with school. The only class she’d attended with any regularity was biology. She preferred to experiment with her clothes and make-up and discover which pubs would accept her as looking twenty-one and serve her a drink at three in the afternoon. To her delight, most would. Belinda had a stature and assurance well beyond her sixteen years.
Even in her school uniform she had looked unbearably provocative, despite the regulation that the school kilt was not to be worn higher than three inches above the knee. Three inches was quite enough to tantalise those who stared and then imagined what lay beyond for themselves. Belinda was an authority on grooming and make-up. She wanted to be a model. Unlike most girls her age, this wasn’t an idle fantasy, but a serious career plan. She had enrolled at Dunedin’s only model agency at age thirteen when she was sent to boarding school.
Belinda put into practice everything that she learned there. She dyed her long dark hair jet black. She had an exercise program especially designed to accentuate her curves and maintain her body tone. She kept to a strict diet for fear of pimples, not that a solitary one ever marred her complexion. She was prone to them on her bottom, an unsightly problem, given that Belinda began sexually experimenting young.
It was her walk that posed Belinda her biggest challenge. Yvonne from the model agency had shrieked that she had a ‘farmer’s gait’ when she’d attended her first class. It had taken Belinda three years to perfect the ‘confident, elegant stride’ that Yvonne demanded of her students. Her rural influence was almost entirely exorcised. It only resurrected itself if she drank too many glasses of Chardon.
By sixteen she’d had a number of older lovers. She treated these men as lessons. She was intrigued by what they could teach her. The girls in her dormitory were equally intrigued. Belinda used to breathlessly narrate her adventures to them after lights out.
Belinda was impatient, impetuous. She wanted to be twenty-one and wasn’t prepared to wait five years.
When her mother came to collect her from school, Belinda asked to be taken to the airport. ‘I’m going to Auckland to become a professional model,’ she said dreamily.
‘The only place you’re going is back to the farm where I can keep an eye on you,’ her mother replied sharply.
Belinda sulked all the way home and then pretended her throat infection had rendered her speechless. Her mother forced Belinda’s head under the bathroom tap and tried to scrub her mouth out with the brush she used on her own dentures. Belinda soon began to shriek.
Marcia Pepper felt totally humiliated. She could forgive her only daughter almost anything, except when it was illicit and everyone found out about it. Marcia couldn’t bring herself to go to bowls and face the other lady bowlers for the rest of that season. She knew it was the talk of the club house and would be lingered over for months. Marcia longed for some other girl to scandalise herself and seize all the attention.
Alf Pepper blamed what had happened on city living. He’d never trusted it himself and was almost pleased to be proved correct, even though it was at the expense of his daughter’s reputation. ‘Home on the farm’s where you belong, girlie,’ he said, and set Belinda to work.
Belinda had no choice. Jobs were scarce in Glenora. ‘You’ve no skills, dear,’ the doctor’s wife had kindly told her when she enquired about the position.
‘But I’ve got a helluva reputation,’ Belinda retorted, executing a perfect turn on two-inch stilettos and stalking across the waiting-room linoleum to the door.
From there she went to the hairdresser and had her long hair cut off into a pageboy style. Belinda felt so trapped. She had an urge to do something shocking. The locals had never seen such a hairstyle before. It was the latest fashion. The style accentuated Belinda’s charms – the impish mischievous cast to her face, the eyes that couldn’t resist mocking, and the mouth that constantly curled into a crooked bemused smile. Belinda was forever laughing off her own follies and misadventures. She seemed to be in a constant state of amusement at her own appeal and the haphazard consequences it provoked.
To everyone’s surprise Belinda settled down and began working for her father without any fuss. What they didn’t know was that she had talked him into paying her an extravagant salary, which would shortly see her on her way to Auckland, if she could only be disciplined enough to save some of it. The other thing that kept Belinda content was Rodney. He was their neighbour’s son. She had been meeting him in the hay barn near the border of their two properties since the age of twelve. Their liaisons had been resurrected whenever Belinda returned home for school holidays. Now that she was home permanently, they became a daily ritual. Belinda felt a fond attachment to Rodney. They had lost their virginity together, her on top of him, barking instructions as to how it was supposed to be done. Rodney was now twenty, engaged to the dentist’s daughter, and had developed quite a penchant for doing it on the top of haystacks. His fiancée was scared of heights.
This arrangement between Belinda and Rodney was proceeding nicely, until one day, their bucking and squealing disturbed a duck who had burrowed a nest for itself inbetween a couple of hay bales. It flapped up out of its hiding place in alarm, startling Rodney terribly. He shot off the top of Belinda and fell backwards off the haystack, landing awkwardly. Belinda had enough good sense not to touch him but to run immediately to the house to call for an ambulance. By not moving Rodney, Belinda undoubtedly saved him from becoming a cripple for life. She didn’t save herself from further disgrace. Rodney had to be carefully transferred onto the stretcher with his pants around his knees. No one needed to ask what had happened.
Rodney was confined to a wheelchair for six months. The dentist’s daughter broke off their engagement as soon as the scandal hit. She expected that he would now marry Belinda. When it became apparent that Belinda had no intention of marrying Rodney or even visiting him with some homemade ginger crunch (his favourite treat), the dentist’s daughter baked a batch herself and steeled herself for the visit. She placed the tin of ginger crunch in Rodney’s lap (a little more forcefully than was necessary), but then broke down and began to weep all over his poor redundant legs. He munched away, leaving a confetti of crumbs in her hair.
She emerged from the visit, triumphantly engaged once more and with a malicious vendetta against Belinda Pepper. Soon the ladies at the bowling club knew all the intimate details of the incident. It was discussed at a special meeting: was Marcia a suitable vice-president for the club? Meanwhile, Marcia was tearfully berating Belinda and claiming that she could never play bowls again.
It was at the height of this scandal that Belinda received the offer of a job. Julie, the manageress of the only ladies’ boutique in Glenora, had shrewdly noticed that almost half the girls in town were now wearing their hair in the same style as Belinda’s. The hairdresser had never been so busy. Julie wanted a piece of the action. She suspected that Belinda had the attitude and figure to make any old garment look something special. They were the only sales skills she would need.
Belinda moved out of the farmhouse and into her own flat in Glenora. Within a week, Julie was proved correct. All the girls from the Serpentine Area School flocked into the shop wanting a pair of jeans or earrings just like the ones Belinda was wearing. Belinda was notorious, with an image that was highly alluring to all those small-town girls. They wanted to emulate Belinda’s style. They wanted to look like her. But that was as far as
it went. They wanted nothing else to do with her. On the street, they’d ignore her. They preferred to talk about her, rather than to her.
The local boys had no such scruples. There was always some member of the rugby team ambling into the shop on the pretext of looking for a present for someone. Julie recognised the potential of this situation and began stocking a range of men’s underwear which Belinda sold to these browsing shoppers effortlessly. They all desired Belinda. The gossip fuelled her allure. In a town where a facade of respectability and virtue was expected, Belinda broke all the rules. In the city she would have been just another adventurous, wayward young girl. In Glenora, she was highly exotic.
Much to my annoyance, Jamie became fascinated by her. I told him that she was dissolute, a word I had heard Aunt Evelyn use to describe Belinda. Jamie had to look the word up in the dictionary in the study. He came back to me chuckling. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘she is dissolute, but that’s what makes her irresistible.’
I refused to admit I was jealous of Belinda. I merely considered her unworthy of him. He was so handsome, so cheerful, so much fun to be with. He deserved better. There were several other local girls who were eminently more suitable. Even though Belinda was undoubtedly the sexiest girl on the Serpentine plain, everyone agreed that she wasn’t girlfriend material. She came into a category all of her own, a category the guys snickered about over their beers.
It was the talk of the district when it became apparent that Jamie was ‘going out’ with Belinda and not merely after ‘the one thing she was good for’. Diana Drake, captain of the Glenora hockey team and darling of the district, was inconsolable. She’d had her eye on Jamie ever since he first strolled into the milkbar where she worked and ordered a sausage roll. She was incredulous that she’d lost him to Belinda, who she considered to be in a league worthy only of contempt.