The room is deathly quiet at once.
“For a long time I have tried without success to see Bridget’s death as a tragedy,” the saxophone teacher says. “Finally I believe I can see it in that way.”
She looks down at the floor to gather her thoughts.
“When Bridget arrived at jazz band on Wednesday,” she says, “the Wednesday next that never was, the Wednesday she never saw, she would have been a celebrity. Pale and stringy Bridget, always the girl of small information and small ideas, always the girl shadowing her righteous flat-soled stalking mother, always the girl a few seconds behind the joke, would have found herself armed with something to offer and something to say. She would have been surrounded and petted and prodded as she relived her brief six minutes of conversation with Mr. Saladin at the video store for everyone to hear. Everyone would have listened. The room would have been utterly still. And she would have been warmed by the first narrow shaft of lighted pleasure she had ever really known. She would have been popular, for an instant, because she would have had real information for the first time in her short unhappy life. Bridget was robbed of this small pleasure. It is for this reason that we can see her death as tragic.”
The mothers are nodding.
“Poor Bridget,” the saxophone teacher says softly. “It is a cruel thing.”
Julia and Victoria are among a drowsy handful of seventh formers sitting in the common room, all of them unfurled and limp in the lapping heat of almost-summer. The lease of their high school years has all but expired, and it is with a fond kind of nostalgia that they look around them at the world that they will so soon leave behind. Through the window comes the sound of laughter and shouting from the girls on the playing field.
Gradually the common room empties, one by one, until the door clatters shut behind the last of them and only Julia and Victoria remain. Julia is bent over her end-of-year clearance form, and Victoria watches her for a moment from across the room.
“Did you have a thing with my sister?” Victoria says suddenly. Her voice is thin. “Earlier this year. Did you two like hook up or something?”
Julia looks up and studies the other girl with an impassive look. “Is that what everyone reckons?”
“Well,” Victoria says, sounding abashed. “Yeah.” She looks smaller than usual. Her lip is thrust forward in a way that makes her look, for the briefest half-second, a little like her sister. It is as if the image of the younger girl flashes across her face for a moment, like a ray through a cloud.
Julia watches the image of Isolde flash by and disappear, and then she says, “Why don’t you just ask her? If you really want to know. Why don’t you just ask Isolde?”
It sounds too intimate, Isolde’s name in Julia’s mouth. They both notice it, and blush.
“I was waiting for her to come to me, I guess,” Victoria says. “I was waiting for her to tell me. Before I had to ask.”
“And she never did.”
“No.”
Julia turns away. “So what’s everyone saying?” she says, with her face turned toward the window and the wall.
“Only that you kissed her, one time.”
“Is that all?”
“And someone found a Fuck-me bracelet in the drama closet, and it was broken.”
“Is that all?”
“Yeah. That’s all. So what happened?”
Julia says nothing. Victoria sits and waits. She has an eager coaxing look on her face, and she is leaning forward slightly so it looks as if her whole body is hoping for an answer. Her eyebrows are up.
Julia is still looking out the window. Outside the girls on the hockey field are cheering and cheering.
Finally Victoria sighs and says, “Julia, I’d be happy if you told me just enough of the facts so I could imagine it. So I could re-create it for myself. So I could imagine that I was really there.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My profound thanks to Denis and Verna Adam.
To Damien Wilkins, Jane Parkin, and Fergus Barrowman, thank you for your advice, encouragement, and wisdom.
To Stephen Pike, thank you for your mischief, and for your zany idea about life insurance. Thanks also to Lolo Pike and Emily Nyberg for your love and hospitality.
To Charlotte Bradley, Tane Upjohn-Beatson, James Christmas, Jane Groufsky, Jemimah Walker, Claire Bramley, Nathan McLoughlin, and Gemma McCabe, thank you for sharing ideas and listening. Thanks also to everyone at Tennyson St. Studio—Chloe Lane, Lawrence Patchett, Joan Fleming, Sarah Barnett, Amy Brown, Pip Adam, and Asha Scott-Morris. Your enthusiasm means a lot.
Love and thanks to Felicity, Jonathan, and Sebastian: thank you for sharing your home and easing the fever.
To Caroline Dawnay, Olivia Hunt, Jessica Craig, Lettie Ransley, and Zoe Ross, a heartfelt thank you for everything beyond New Zealand. Your acumen, your patience, and your many kindnesses continue to amaze me.
To Reagan Arthur, and everyone at Little, Brown and Company, thank you for taking a chance on me. Thanks also to Marlena Bittner, Peggy Freudenthal, and Andrea Walker for all your energy and support.
I also owe thanks to everyone at Granta Books (UK), in particular Philip Gwyn Jones, Sara Holloway, Pru Rowlandson, and Amber Dowell.
Love and thanks to Mum, Dad, and Will.
My biggest debt is to Johnny Fraser-Allen: thank you for believing.
Примечания
1
Antonin Artaud.
