‘These people.’ His voice is soaked in disgust. ‘They can stuff their exhibition up their you-know-what, because we’re going to have our own party anyway.’
‘Really?’
‘I’ll organise it with your mother. Wine and cheese and the whole lot. I think I’ve got a beret somewhere.’
‘Do you think you and Mum can get along for one night?’
‘You’d be surprised. Your mum calls me sometimes, when she’s in the mood. She’s not always pissy with me.’
‘Okayyy,’ I say, because it’s weird to think about them talking and not shouting. ‘I’d like that. But no one wears berets anymore. They all wear these fisherman beanies.’
‘I can do that.’
‘Dad, I think you were right all along. I should go back to Morrison. I want to transfer back.’
A pause in which I’m sure he’s knocking back beer.
‘That’s fine if that’s what you want, love. But why don’t you let the dust settle a bit? Do you think you can tough it out a little longer? It’s not worth messing up your exams if you don’t have to.’
I say yes, because maybe I can ride it out. Because if I’m being real, I don’t want to go back to Morrison, I just don’t want to stay at Balmoral either.
Much later, when I’m going through my school diary to see if I have anything due tomorrow, I find the envelope Ms Nouri gave me tucked into the cover. Inside is a photocopy of an interview with Bill Henson, titled ‘I’m comfortable with the fact my pictures disturb people’.
Ms Nouri might not have stood up to Mrs Christie, but her message is clear.
I read the interview slowly and marvel at how focussed Henson stays on his work, how little he cares about what people say. How does a person grow an iron skin like that? How do you feel that amount of certainty? Do you have to be a middle-aged white man to feel that way?
I usually don’t care too much about other people’s opinions. If they want to think my body is too big, they can. If they find me too quiet in class, whatever. But this is different. The photo means too much to me.
I showed too much of myself, and now, to my surprise, it turns out I do care what other people think.
DAY 59
Dad picks me up from outside the gym where Marley and I have been taking the class that has you dancing along having a good old time and then suddenly dropping to the floor to do push-ups and crunches until you want to hurl all over your mesh-panel leggings.
‘Does Marley need a lift?’ Dad cranes his head.
‘Nah, she likes to walk. It’s barely a block.’
‘We should take her…’
‘Dad! We’re not babies anymore.’
That shuts him up, but in actual fact I am personally relieved that I don’t have to walk the narrow streets in the dark. Marley, on the other hand, loves this time of night.
‘Good workout, honey?’
I fiddle with the aircon, directing the jets right onto my sweaty face. My body has been full of adrenaline and secrets since I went to that pervert Pulpitt’s house, and then that got mixed into a sludge with anger at Petra, but now stomach-crunching until my abs burned has somehow restored my feeling of reality, of being back in my body instead of in a nightmare.
‘I had a crap day so I suppose it helped.’
‘Crap day? Anything I need to know about?’
‘I’ll tell you at home, I just want to flop for a second.’
I put the radio on loud, Dad turns it down a notch, and we race down the slippery dip of Windermere Avenue, flanked by the biggest, richest, oldest mansions, the kind that have tennis courts and swimming pools and British-sounding house names. I wonder what crimes have happened behind the closed doors of these houses that no one knows about.
When we get home Dad makes me sit at the breakfast bar and pick coriander leaves off the stalks, which definitely counts as child labour.
The benches are littered with gaping spice packets and sticky spoons, the food processor is out and awful ancient Bob Dylan is on the sound system and there are one-and-a-half empty wine bottles and I realise that Dad shouldn’t have been driving the car. Mum is going to crack it when she sees the mess and Faith doesn’t come again until Thursday.
Dad pours himself another glass. He puts rice on to boil and commences chop chop chopping a giant pile of vegetables. Steam gathers around us and fogs up the back windows.
‘You in the mood yet to tell me about your day?’
I shift on my stool, nearly kicking Dylan Thomas, who wends his way around my legs.
‘What do you think about censorship, Dad?’
‘You’ll have to be more precise, honey.’
‘Censorship of art.’ I scroll on my phone for pics of Chloe’s art piece, which I also think of as mine. ‘Remember that art project I helped my friend with at the beginning of the holidays?’
He nods, even though he has no idea. Mum keeps track of me and my schedule, but he has only the faintest idea on any given day. I show him the screen.
‘Is that you, Tal?’
He reaches across the bench and grabs my phone with his greasy cooking hands.
‘I don’t like seeing you like that. Where were you? Why would you agree to that?’
I grab my phone back and wipe it on my top.
‘Forget it’s me, Dad. God, can you just try and be normal for a second? Chloe is trying to make a point about the portrayal of young women or something. And then this dweeb complained about Chloe’s photo, saying she was offended or whatever, and Mrs Christie banned it from the exhibition.’
Even just talking about it makes my hackles rise. I pretend not to feel it most of the time, but Balmoral is a stifling, suffocating blanket, as bad as the boarding school in Picnic at Hanging Rock. It’s not only that Petra thinks
