Wildlife

friday 28 september

After Fred…

saturday 29 september

After Fred died…

sunday 30 september

After Fred died I divided my time between blind disbelief, blank chaos, and therapy.

The psychiatrist, Esther, said, Write a journal, Lou, how about writing a journal, would you consider writing a journal, Lou, give it some thought…

We are in the slowly unwinding transition out of therapy in the lead-up to me going away to school. Who knew: you can't just walk out of therapy. At least it is not recommended that you just walk out of therapy. No matter how many times you might keenly wish to just walk out of therapy.

There will be a formal handover to the school counselor, whose name I don't know yet. I'll be the new girl, starting in term four. Boarding for a whole term, a whole nine weeks, in the wilderness.

I've been angry through the whole therapy thing, which might be a displacement of my guilt/sorrow/depression at the whole Fred thing. We don't use depression in the usual sense, because truly, if I don't have a reason to feel depressed, I don't know who…

It is possible that Esther, who is after all a psychiatrist-with-a-special-interest-in-grieving-and-its-effects-on-mental-health-in-young-people, is right about writing a journal.

So I have decided, well, why not write something down?

If you don't want to write about your Feelings, you can simply write about the Physical World, what you see, what you hear… facts, things, stuff. Jeez, so it's not compulsory to eviscerate myself? To slash myself to a slow death with a million small paper cuts? Thank you kindly.

There are whole nights I do nothing but wait. For what?

You could say I have been spending too much time alone for too long. Perhaps it is indeed time to start talking to an exercise book. The internal, external… infernal, diurnal, eternal journal. It is essentially just more talking to myself, but that is okay because my heart is its own fierce country where nobody else is welcome.

Cut him out in little stars. Hard to believe a man even wrote that; it's so fragile.

I completely get that giddy arrogance, the infatuation. The laugh-and-spin embrace of the absent beloved. If you were writing an essay, you'd probably yarp on about the way in which it can be read as prefiguring Romeo's death. A portent.

I love the staccato it-t-t-teration and the soft fading sibilance of stars. Imagine the words breathed out, written down fast and hard onto thick, smeared paper, the tarry smell, black sputtery ink. Such potent meaning inside so delicate an image feels risky, implosive, cataclysmic.

But if there's no danger, no risk, it's not love, is it?

I've told Esther exactly nothing of any of this.

Fred and I talked about it like we talked about everything, and decided we were too young to have sex. Then we basically went for it.

Because, sure, head was saying, Maybe not such a good idea, but soul was saying, I know you, and body was saying, Come to me. And that's two against one.

Hey, at least we were older than Romeo and Juliet.

Fred did the research. Ever the scientist. The failure rate for condoms mostly relates to misuse, or accidents. We decided we'd go straight to a morning-after pill in the case of an accident. We also decided we wouldn't have accidents, and we didn't. We took it in turns to buy the condoms. Nowhere too near home.

Going on the pill would have meant horrible discussions. My mothers being very responsible and ultimately understanding and tolerant with about three million warnings and provisos. And the family doctor. Gag. I did not fancy the whole gang metaphorically standing at the bedside. A strange doctor would have been possible, but weird, too. I didn't need the lecture.

Condoms sometimes break because someone is being rough, or the girl isn't ready, which sounds so sad. Sounds more like rape than sex to me. That wasn't us. We were all liquid aching and longing. It was fun being beginners together. You only get that once. It took a little while. We were learning a new language, after all.

If we'd ever asked for a weekend away together, all the parents, including Fred's stepmother, would have been frowning and conferencing and counseling.

But all we asked was to do our homework together a couple of times a week, and hang out a bit on the weekend. So it was easy. And we did homework, our nerdiness as compatible as our lust. We were pretty lucky. You'd have to say.

Next week I am heading off to a jolly outdoorsy camp called Mount Fairweather, where you learn to be jolly and jolly well fend for yourselves and run up a jolly mountain and learn which way's north and how to make a fire and incinerate some jolly marshmallows, no doubt.

Esther says it will be good for me. She says it will do me the world of good. But where is the world of good? I'm pretty sure it's not stuck up a mountain with a bunch of private-school clones.

Dan and Estelle and Janie are all on exchange in Paris. They left last week. More tears. More scattering.

Dan's shrink said it would be good for him. Maybe he said the world of good. Perhaps Paris is the world of good.

I do try to live in the moment, but it doesn't work particularly well.

In the wall is the window. On the window is the curtain. Through the window is the moon. You can even write gibberish in the journal if you like; it still connects you to the page, to the idea, at least, of communicating. Apparently.

Sometimes I'll write to you, Fred; sometimes I'll write to me. Sometimes I will just write what I see, because when I see a fingernail moon in fading sky… I see it for you, too.

It took a whole lot of persuading—mostly of Mum—to get me from the living room floor up onto that billboard. Beeb knew her so well. The four things that clinched the okay were:

The first three were for Mum and Dad, the fourth was really for me. My parents are notoriously unmotivated by money. Not me. I can't get enough of it. And the fee was huge—it's a global campaign. (I'd have to babysit the current clients into old age to earn that much at twelve dollars an hour.)

My travel account has been going forever. Years ago I negotiated that in the summer break between school and university, instead of going to Byron Bay for senior week, I get to house-sit Beeb's apartment in New York (Upper West Side, two blocks from Zabar's, so I won't starve) while she is here in Melbourne. But so far with babysitting and working during school breaks and having taken out certain essential amounts, I've only ever got about three hundred dollars, which is a fraction of the airfare.

Even when Mum had said okay, she wasn't exactly in love with the whole billboard plan.

When I came home with my hair dyed—and it looked great, by the way—she nearly had a conniption.

Beeb joked her out of it by talking in headlines:

"New Study Reveals Hair Dye Does Not Chemically Neutralize Political Awareness."

"Feminist Survives Professional Eyebrow Wax."

"Makeup—It Washes Off!"

"These things were serious crimes back in the day," Beeb said to me by way of explanation. As though I haven't heard every feminist rant under the sun and am not a proud feminist ranter myself, when warranted, and when I can be bothered.

"And PS, Mother, I am the only person in my grade who doesn't have dyed hair," I said.

"Not anymore, you're not," she said, eyebrows up.

There was a big preproduction meeting at the photographer's studio where Beeb "consulted" the art director, who "consulted" the makeup artist, who had a colorist on "standby." To hear them, you would think my hair was of global significance. But whatever they did, it sure did not look like any other hair I'd ever seen.

They talked about "layering" the color, and "textural" color, and "variegated" color. And the amazing thing was that even though it had about ten different colors in it—all individually painted and put in foils—it still looked like my hair, but as though it was walking along with its own set of glamour spotlights.

Getting it done was outlandishly boring. It took a whole day to do hair and the makeup "tests." But I would have put up with it ten times over to see Charlotte turning green when I got home.

"You don't even look like yourself," was the best she could come up with as she huffed off to sulk in her room.

After pretending like it was no big deal, I went upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom. I actually could not stop staring at myself in the mirror. I looked awesome. It was mesmerizing. And Charlotte was right for once in her scurvy little life: I looked nothing at all like myself. It was me with a work of art stuck right onto my face.

I kept blinking at my reflection. One minute I could see myself, the next, just the beautiful mask. Which looked five years older than me. If I were in a scary movie, this would be the perfect moment to first experience psychosis. Maybe the mask would talk to me. As my now-crazy older self. From the future. I shuddered. I was freaking myself out. I stuffed my hair into a ponytail and turned on the taps.

The shoot was right before the end of third term, and the billboard was up on the last day of the holidays before we left the city for our fourth term, boarding at Mount Fairweather, which is Crowthorne Grammar's outdoor education campus.

"Deadline tighter than a fish's arsehole," as Beeb said.

She swears like a mad thing. She says it comes from spending too much time with crews.

As soon as the billboard went up, it was all over Facebook. Holly was posting it before the paste was dry. In one keystroke I went from being a year-ten "nobody" to a year-ten "unknown quantity."

Once it hit Facebook, Holly applied some pressure, and I got the event invite to Laura Jenkins's party, which was on that very night. Holly had told me about the party a couple of weeks ago. She understands that I prefer to know when I'm being socially outcast. I pressed Attend (what the hell—I didn't have anything else on) and shut my laptop as Mum walked in to check that I was packed, which I more or less was.

"Sibbie, what is this?" She was looking at my supersize, multi-gadget, bloodred Swiss Army knife. "You're taking a weapon?" She frowned, no doubt running a mental checklist of some of the miscreants in my grade.

"It's optional. But, yeah, I'm going totally gangsta."

She laughed.

"I feel like I'm sending you back to the Stone Age."

"You might as well be." I gave my cell phone a hammy kiss. "Farewell, my heart, my life."

"No texting for nine weeks! Your thumbs might drop off."

"They'll get axing exercise."

"Known as 'chopping' in some circles, I believe."

"Yeah, that."

"Promise you'll write lots of letters?"

"It's compulsory. But I would anyway. And everyone says the Letter Home is all that stops you going crazy on the solo overnight hike."

She cast a doubtful eye over my bags and the surrounding mess. "You don't want some help?"

"I'm supposed to be self-sufficient for the whole term or your money back, so I think I'll be okay."

"Have you packed undies?"

"Mum!"

She laughed as she went out the door. "Just saying."

There have been certain trips on which I've forgotten certain essential items. But no big deal, right? You can always supplement when you get there. Anyway, this time there was a list.

Leonie came over to me—he always gets anxious when there's luggage out—it usually means the nice man from the doggy kennel is about to pick him up. I gave him a reassuring back scratch, feeling a bit guilty to be offering last-minute affection. I take him for granted these days, i.e., ignore him heaps.

He wagged his stumpy tail agreeably. Dogs are lovely—they don't even know the meaning of grudge. Twelve years ago, Leonie was the most beautiful name I could imagine. A mixture of my friend Leah and pony. Mum asked if I knew it was usually a girl's name and our puppy was a boy. I pretended I knew, to maintain my four-year-old dignity. I was pretty sure Leonie wouldn't care either way. In the spirit of male solidarity, my dad has always called him Leo.

Before burying my phone in a pair of thick socks to pack it—conveniently not thinking about the contract signed in good faith pledging not to bring phones to camp—I texted Michael: Skype?

Michael, my oldest friend, my strangest friend. He prefers Skype to phone because he says the role of voice in conversation accounts for fifty percent or less of communicating. He also counts Skype as a social outing, which means he's off the hook for organizing an actual social outing. He was there by the time I got to my desk.

"Are you jet-lagged?" I asked.

"A little."

"How was Rome?"

"Ancient."

"What did you watch on the plane?" I give Michael pop-culture viewing suggestions for long flights.

"Friday Night Lights. You were right."

"So, the billboard went up."

"I saw it."

"Large, isn't it?"

"Extra extra large. Livin' large."

"Livin' large. At least it'll be down by the time we get back."

"They've captured an authentic Sibylla look, though."

"It's the unfocused gaze, because I'm wishing to be somewhere else."

"Which obviously translates nicely into…" He was casting about for the desired message of the ad.

"I smell good, I guess."

"You nailed it. Will you do any more of this 'work'?"

"I was only allowed to do this because it was Beeb. You can imagine the lecture—my mother is still fifty percent horrified. And speaking of horror—I've said I'll go to Laura's party tonight."

"Celebrity life begins. Don't you want to go?"

"Yes/no."

"Because it will be good/bad?"

"Pretty much."

He nodded.

"What are you reading?"

He smiled apologetically and held up Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Of course he's reading Thoreau as we head into the wilderness: he's Michael.

"Michael, you rock."

His eyes shine. "Sibylla, you—tall tree."

"I can't ask you what I should wear, so I guess I'm just here sharing some nervousness."

"I hope it turns out to be more good/bad than bad/good. Here, have some Thoreau." He found a page in the book and read to me, "'I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.'"

"Hmmm, so if I substitute party for woods… I'm already feeling less ambivalent about it."

He smiled, said good-bye, and left, so it was just me on the screen holding up my good-bye hand and contemplating the most immediate essential fact of life: what to wear.

I finished packing and had time to try on five or six variations of "very casual" for the party. A last-minute invitee can't look like she's tried too hard.

That party is how I came to kiss Ben Capaldi, the most popular boy in our grade, someone I never thought even had me on his map. What am I talking about? I know I was never on his map. I was never in the same room as his map.

Maps were on my brain because I'd been worrying about getting lost, aware that I have no sense of direction and was about to be in the zero-landmark, everything-looks-the-same-to-a-city-girl, no-buildings, no-signposts, map-dependent… wilderness.

sunday 7 october

All packed. Every item ticked.

Ask sadness, How about staying here, sadness?

I know. Dumb question.

Sadness packed.

Bags zipped.

Compose reassuring demeanor for last dinner at home before camp.

Small smile.

Parties are uncomfortable events for me. I do want to get invited. If I'm not invited, I feel sad, and it is horrible hearing befores and afters you've had nothing to do with. Smiling and pretending dog-eared experience is enough. But when I am invited to a party, I straightaway start dreading it.

As soon as I'm confronted with shrieking, giggling, drinking, loud music, random hookups, uninhibited dancing—I feel glum. I don't have fun. I'm not "fun." I'm serious. I'm responsible. I worry about my friends getting drunk, getting their drinks spiked, getting hurt, getting messy, getting used, getting pregnant, getting sexually transmitted diseases, and drowning in their own vomit.

On top of that I never know what to wear.

And I don't like drinking, but I have to pretend to drink, so I at least appear to be "fun," and to be having "fun."

I used to like dancing until a boy—Billy Gardiner—told me I looked like a spastic tarantula. So now I can only dance if it's crowded enough and dark enough that nobody can see me.

So a typical party for me usually involves trying unsuccessfully to talk to people who are drunk, hanging around the food, speaking to the parents, visiting the bathroom, hoping that by the time I come out more people I know have arrived, not dancing, finding a kitchen or garden through-road position to prop so I get passing traffic conversation, and later on patrolling to check that my friends are okay to get home. Holly says I'm more like a party monitor than a guest.

But post-billboard, the script for this party ran differently. For starters, some people looked at me rather than around me when I arrived.

After Holly's "hiiiiiiieee mwah mwah," she pulled me into a huddle with Gab and Ava, and started making a big deal out of the billboard thing. Usually it would make me uncomfortable being the center of attention, but because I'd told Holly everything and she'd had three cranberry vodkas, it was more like she was the center of attention, which suited us both just fine.

Hours later when Ben Capaldi, apparently off his face, staggered into focal range and said (to me!), "Your pulchritude defies belief," I was—speechless. I may have lifted one sober eyebrow. I've perfected the one-eyebrow lift in the mirror, never in a million years thinking I'd get to use it in a social situation. I smiled and turned away. I could not think of one thing to say. But as my heart flipped like a hooked fish, I was wondering if a girl like me had ever turned away from a boy like Ben.

Was it wrong to feel a little thrill when I caught his look of surprise? This handsome boy? This boy the whole world loves? It might have looked like muscle-flexing on my part, turning away like that, but it was unadorned panic. A when-in-doubt-stick-your-head-in-the-sand move. Nice work.

And he thought I didn't know what pulchritude