Monday, 19 March 2035
Things That have Bloody Annoyed Me Today:
Sabrina Corbett for being a whiny little bitch in netball. It didn’t even bleed for that long.
Chloe Dantzer, for continuing to be the most beautiful girl in the world.
Rhiannon Lewis. Who is still abandoning me.
The inventor of vodka.
Australia.
I was still deeply into Book Two – how could I not be?
It was literally all about me. Me in the womb, me trying to be the voice of reason in Rhiannon’s messed-up psyche as she kept trying to kill people.
Me even threatening to self-abort (wtf?) if she didn’t do as I said. Me missing my dad, even in utero.
… I looked on AJ’s Facebook to see if there were any more videos of him and found one of him playing a guitar and singing ‘Never Tear Us Apart’.
His audition tape for Australia’s Got Talent.
The Doppler beats grew louder again. It was unmistakeable.
And as AJ sang, my tears rushed at me, all at once, before I could hold them back.
‘You love your daddy, don’t you?’ I said into the darkness of my bedroom.
No voice came back. It didn’t need to. I played the singing again and again and listened to the beats multiply each time.
‘I’m glad you loved him. It means you’re not like me …’
I couldn’t find the video clip anywhere but I downloaded the song and played it on repeat the whole way to school on the bus.
I wanted just that in my ears and nothing else – not the bus chatter, not the engine noise, nothing.
It had a strange, calming effect on me. The amount of vodka I was swigging back might have been helping too.
I could get used to this, I thought, as the bus bumped towards school.
Vodka and blackcurrant disguised as Ribena in a Stanley Cup.
Compassionate leave was up, and I was allowed back in for the last week before Easter so I could hand in my artwork, attend choir and pick up the libretto for my crappy role in Cabaret.
Today, with the edges of life all fuzzed over with alcohol, I could handle everything better.
I wasn’t afraid of the constant adverts for Rhiannon’s forthcoming TV interview that Sky was running on a loop.
I wasn’t afraid of waking up to a house without Mum.
I wasn’t afraid of the paps camped outside our home or the man in the woods outside Heather’s – the one who’d been watching me since I moved in. The same one who caught my bus today.
He sat at the back, raw dogging life with no phone or book or bags, just hooded up, silent and scary.
Except I wasn’t scared of him today. Even as he sat there at the back with his feet up on the seat, watching me.
I knew he was watching me because I’d occasionally turn around and catch him.
At one point, I didn’t care if he got up, walked over and stabbed me to death right there on that bus.
I thought about shouting at him, striding over and yelling right in his face, pushing him out of the top window or kicking him along the aisle and back through the bifold doors.
But I didn’t. The vodka quietened my anger and lulled me into feeling nothing – like when you’re in a swimming pool and you float and just let the water take you to the surface and you lie there, inert. I wanted to be inert for a while.
He didn’t come anywhere near me, as it goes, and when I got off the bus outside school, he stayed on it and he watched me as I walked away. There was ulterior motive in that stare, but at that moment I was too pissed to work out what it meant.
On the lamppost across the road from the bus stop there was a bill post for ‘St Emily de Vialar School Players Presents … Based on the stories of Christopher Isherwood. The 1920s are coming to an end and in a Berlin nightclub, a dazzling Master of Ceremonies welcomes you to forget all your troubles and enjoy all your troubles at the CABARET. Musical numbers include “Willkommen”, “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” and “Mein Herr”’.
I scanned the cast list: Kerry Didsbury-Purves as Sally Bowles, Jennifer Sampson as Clifford Bradshaw, Chloe Dantzer as Emcee and Sascha Clothier as Fr?ulein Schneider.
My name wasn’t even on the poster. Why would it be – I was only in the chorus.
I’d be a Kit Kat performer or a nameless, faceless member of the Hitler Youth at best.
‘Bastards,’ I said too loudly, as a couple of mums walked behind me with some kindergarteners. ‘Ssssorry,’ I slurred. I had to get it together, and quick.
My drinking continued throughout the morning, but I interspersed it with water so I didn’t lose myself completely. It had been just under a week since I’d been back at school but my hiatus had done little to stop tongues wagging. I cared a lot less about what they were saying today though.
As it turned out, I’m much better at maths when I’m pissed – go figure!
Better at maths but worse at PE. I smacked Sabrina Corbett in the eye with a netball, accidentally of course, but when she started crying I couldn’t stop laughing.
Mrs Crossley sent me inside for a time-out – I had a piano lesson anyway at 4:45 a.m. so there wasn’t much she could do about it.
I headed up to the Prince Building music room to wait for Miss Deacon.
Accidentally walked into a door on my way there, but by this point I was feeling no pain.
Then I found myself fingering the box of vinyl.
And picking out a record.
And easing it from its sleeve.
And locking the music room door.
I narrate this from inside the head’s office, after the event in question.
‘Why did you lock the music room door?’ Christensen asked through gritted teeth, standing behind his desk like even his asshole was too angry to sit. ‘ANSWER ME!’
‘I was waiting for Miss Deacon to come for my piano lesson,’ I slurred. ‘I don’t even want piano lessons. My mum wanted me to learn cos she never.’
‘That’s not what I asked. Why did you lock the door?’
‘I don’t know. I was just waiting for Deacs. And I thought I’d lock it.’
‘Miss Deacon,’ he corrected, straightening his manky blue tie.
‘Yeah. Deacs,’ I laughed again. For some reason that word was funnier than ever. ‘Deacs.’
‘Was the record player on when you locked yourself in?’ he seethed.
‘No, Mr Chrissstensssen.’ God, that’s a hard word to say when you’re pissed.
He didn’t seem to notice, amazingly. Or maybe he did but it was like one-at-a-time kind of thing. ‘So you turned it on?’
‘Yes, Mr Chrisssstensens.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘I was bored, Mr Christensen. She was half an hour late.’
‘You were bored.’ He nodded. ‘Indeed you were. So after you switched on the record player, what did you do then?’
I shrugged.
‘If you shrug once more, I will expel you on the spot. This is your last chance. Tell me what you did after you turned on the record player.’
‘I found … Cabinet – Caberrrret. The play we’re doing …’
‘You found Cabaret. Were you permitted to put on Cabaret? Had Mr Wagstaff given you permission to root through his records?’
‘I didn’t exactly root. It was the first one I saw.’
‘So you found the record and you put it on, and then what did you do?’
‘I danced.’
‘You. Danced,’ he spat.
‘Yes, Mr Christing-ten-sen.’
I relived it all inside my mind. The slow start to the song.
The Emcee announcing Fr?ulein Sally Bowwles!
And me turning the lock on the door all seductively, prowling around the room, pulling up all the blinds at the windows, gradually gathering speed as Liza sang, faster and faster.
Kicking the cymbal on the drum kit on all the right beats.
In my mind, I was magnificent. I was on that stage at the end of term, ceiling lights dimmed.
Footlights blinding. Playing to the one-hundred-and-fifty-strong crowd of stunned parents and teachers, seducing all the dads.
And then the clothes started coming off. I didn’t realise what I was doing at first. Not till the second sock, I think.
Then off came the burgundy V-neck.
And the black tunic, button by button, burgundy blouse, button by button. No prefect badges, obvs.
Then a shoe. Then the other shoe. Both socks.
And by this point I was down to my bra and pants. I stood still, rocking my hips gently to the music. Wagstaff was now stood at the window, so was old Deacs mid-menoflush. I caught sight of their appalled faces as I twirled about.
‘Farewell, mein Lieber Herr!’ I shrieked along to the music.
Then the music got faster and louder and something took over; took my brain to a whole new paradise of happiness and freedom without the shackles of school around my ankles and off came my bra.
Loads of girls had appeared at the windows too and Wagstaff and Deacs were doing their best to shoo them away from the glass.
Someone was rattling the door handle. Lots of wide-eyed expressions, laughter, even some applause.
Like a load of fish in the tank, flapping their fins.
This was when I took my pants off.
So there I was, leaping around the room, butt naked, tits akimbo, jumping across chairs like the teenagers in The Sound of Music, and there were even more faces at the windows, multiplying like bacteria, straining to see in.
There was banging and glass tapping and shouting, but I ignored it, turned up the volume knob to ten, and allowed the music played on.
Then the needle scratched to a stop and I jumped down and pushed it back to the start.
And I danced it again. Wagstaff was desperately trying to find the right key to the lock but it was no use.
I had time to do the whole song again. Four times.
I sang it a lot better than Kerry Didsbury-Purves too.
They finally got the door unlocked by the time I’d got to Toodle-oo on that fourth time. When I’d been forced to re-clothe, my pants still hadn’t been discovered. I think I’d stuffed them inside one of the euphoniums.