Feeling Sorry for Celia (28 page)

All we do is replay.

The Instant Replay Society

Elizabeth,

As we just explained, all that we do is replay. We can take a GUESS that the two vital voices proceeded to the far right of the backseat. They were, after all, the only spaces still free. We can also guess that the words were spoken by Quiet boy and Grunge boy. We can take that guess for you, Elizabeth, yes.

But we cannot process the information.

All we can do is replay.

Here. A complimentary replay:

You’re a legend, you know that, don’t you?

High speed if you like:

You’re-a-legend-you-know-that-don’t-you?

Even faster? Sure:

You’re a legend you know that don’tyou?

In slow motion:

You’re

. . .

a

. . .

legend,

. . .

you

. . .

know

. . .

that,

. . .

don’t

. . .

you?

In reverse? Sure:

? – you – don’t – , – that – know – you – , – legend – a – You’re

In black-and-white, in colour, in 3-D, if you like, however you like, Elizabeth, we can replay.

But we simply cannot tell you which PERSON spoke those words.

Understand?

Sure you do.

The Instant Replay Society

Dear Elizabeth,

Okay, this isn’t fun anymore. Renee’s home from hospital and the family won’t leave. We’ve got house guests coming out of our ears. Turn on the tap for some water and a house guest lands in your glass. Open a packet of Smiths Crisps and a house guest climbs out of the bag along with a salt and vinegar chip.

You know how I said before I had no space for thinking – I mean, specifically for thinking about Derek? Well now I need more because I have to make a decision fast and I’ve got even less space than before. For crying out loud, my bedroom’s been taken over by great aunts and I’m sleeping on the kitchen floor.

The thing is that Derek basically told me today that he might be interested in Katrina Ecclehurst. She’s the girl who’s been twirling her ponytail in his face and calling him Dezza? I don’t think Derek’s ACTUALLY interested, but he’s kind of reached the point where he thinks: why not? If
he wants to move on, she’s making it super easy for him – the way she’s acting she might as well strip naked, lie on her back and say, ‘Take me, baby, I’m yours’.

So today Derek comes by my desk in the science lab, does casual conversation while he’s spinning petri dishes together, and happens to mention, ‘Katrina wants me to go out with her this weekend.’

So I say, ‘Are you going to?’

Derek looks me right in the eye and says, ‘Should I?’

Then Rattlesnake is behind us, telling Derek he has to go sit in his special-no-distracting-the-class position at the front and I say, ‘I don’t know’.

And Derek says (as Rattlesnake is herding him along like he’s an escaped cow), ‘You let me know, okay?’

So now I need time to make up my mind, and I have to make it up real fast.

I don’t even have time to write to you. And I’d really like to spend some time with you; like hang out together for a while. And J**** wants to meet you. Oops. I just wrote his name. Wait while I scribble over it. Anyway, your mystery admirer wants me to set up a meeting with you if you’re interested. He said he likes you too much to keep being nervous and imagine if you float out of the bus window like your fairy princess friend did. He said he had a dream last night that you were on the bus and you stood on the seat, put your head out the window and started flapping your arms like wings. Next thing his dream changed location and he was zooming down a highway in a high speed car chase with a very cool acid jazz soundtrack playing, but in the back of his mind was this tragic thought: Elizabeth has flown off to the moon!

So he has to act fast before that happens.

Plus he said he’s seriously going to die if he doesn’t get to have a conversation with you soon.

I told him you probably never want to be in the same room as him because you were so mad about the Black Cap incident.

But are you interested?

Gotta go but I’ll just look at your letter, and let me say right away that you’ve got to be kidding. I’m seriously NOT supermodel beautiful and I ought to know because I see myself in the mirror every day, and I have to struggle not to throw up. Your brain must have been mixed up.

I can’t BELIEVE that English teacher of yours. Giving you the best marks in the class. Bastard. Positive reinforcement like that should be against school regulations. You’d better stop going to his classes.

I’ve got heaps more to say about Celia and Saxon (the loser – he’s probably a reincarnated poodle; they’re the most pathetic dogs) and your parents, but I HAVE to go, and we HAVE to get together. (Stop having coffees with your dad and have one with me?)

Love,

Christina

Dear Elizabeth,

So Mystery Boy wants to meet you.

Nervous?

We are.

The Young Romance Association

Dear Elizabeth,

We hear Mystery Boy is dying to meet you.

Nervous?

So are we.

You think he’ll keep on liking you when he speaks to you in person? You think he’ll ever want to see you again when he knows what you look like close up, when he hears your mixed up sentences, when he sees you trip over your own ankles?

Yours with very little hope,

COLD HARD TRUTH ASSOCIATION

And what if he wants to kiss you, Elizabeth? What will you do about that?

Sincerely,

The Association of Teenagers

Dear Elizabeth,

Okay, cue spooky music.

This is your ‘brother’ speaking, Elizabeth, and it’s nice to meet you finally. But something seriously WEIRRRRD is going down around here.

Questions that spring straight to the cerebral cortex:

There are a couple of other burning questions, but I don’t think I should ask any more right now. I think we should chew them over out aloud, over a coffee maybe. What do you reckon?

The supernumerary weird thing is that I was staying with friends a couple of k’s away from your home address last
weekend. Spooky, no? So I kind of know the area, and which trains and buses I need to take to get there. Why don’t I drop by some time and see you and work stuff out? I guess you know Dad’s home number? Give us a call if you like.

Hope I get to meet ya.

Your brother,

Ricky

PS I get what you mean about trains, rocking you till you feel philosophical. Think about a 500 watt stereo next time you want to be truly rocked – and in the comfort of your own home. Okay?

PPS No, I don’t think you’re crazy for writing. I think it’s extremely excellent.

ELIZABETH!!!

I’M SEEING A CLIENT BUT I’LL BE BACK FOR DINNER. PLEASE OCCUPY YOUR TIME UNTIL MY RETURN BY CONSIDERING THE MERITS OF SOCKS THAT ARE COVERED WITH TINY AUSTRALIAN FLAGS. WOULD YOU LIKE SUCH SOCKS? IF SO, WHY?

ANOTHER WAY YOU COULD OCCUPY YOUR TIME IS CHOPPING ONIONS, CAPSICUMS AND MUSHROOMS, AND CRUSHING GARLIC CLOVES, AND THAT WAY WE CAN HAVE A RISOTTO FOR DINNER HOORAY!

LOTS OF LOVE

FROM

YOUR

MUM

Mum,

I’m going for a run; back in time for dinner. Have chopped etc. (Yes, hooray.) No thank you, I would not like socks covered in Australian flags at all. Even if I was bare foot in the Himalayas and my toes were about to drop off from frostbite I wouldn’t want them. Thanks all the same.

About the risotto. Could we share it with someone? Like a guest? What about if the guest happened to be my stepbrother?

It turns out that Dad did bring his family along with him to Australia after all – so the Other Woman we saw at his place must be the Wife and not an affair. And now Ricky wants to come by and see us, and I’ve invited him to dinner. Okay? If you are seriously opposed I’ll call him and cancel. But aren’t you dying to meet him? I am.

Love,

Elizabeth

Dear Christina,

SERIOUS CRISIS in my family. Okay, it’s a minor crisis compared to your overload of house guests’ crisis, and it’s also minor compared to your choose-Derek-or-not-you-have-five-minutes-to-make-up-your-mind crisis. But still, it’s unbeLIEVable.

And all caused by me.

Wait and I’ll tell you what happened.

Ages ago I wrote a letter to my stepbrother in Canada for no real reason except that my dad was annoying me.

Yesterday I get a letter from my stepbrother saying he’s right here in Sydney with his mum and my dad and he wants to come by.

Anyway, my mum and I were both, like,
‘What
is going on here?
Why
did Dad never mention that his son is in the country? Which one of us is he ashamed of? Does he not want us to meet the son because the son is a drug-dealing gangster? Does he not want the son to meet us because he thinks we’ll bore him to death? And another thing,
what
if this risotto doesn’t work out absolutely perfectly????’

(For some reason it was VERY important to Mum and me that we really impress this guy.)

So, a perfect stranger knocks on the door and we all stand in the front hallway and kiss each other’s cheeks. He was about my age, and dressed like a normal person, not like a gangster, just in jeans and sneakers, so we were relieved about that. And he was polite, saying how he’d always wanted to meet us, and he hoped it was not an inconvenience, blah blah blah.

Then we all pretended nothing strange was going on and sat down to eat the best risotto ever created by human beings. And we talked about nothing really – just the differences between Toronto and Sydney and how ridiculously cold it is in Canada so WHY are people actually LIVING there, ha ha ha.

And then suddenly, while Mum was reaching into the cupboard to get some tinned peaches for dessert, the Guest of Honour said: ‘So. You didn’t know that my mother and I were in Double Bay with Dad?’

We said no we didn’t know, and that Dad had said he was leaving his family in Canada.

‘Dad told
us
we could never meet because you guys hated us,’ he said.

Then all three of us spent some time over peaches and ice-cream, making up crazy reasons why Dad might want to keep us apart. You know, anxiety that we would get together and talk about how awful his toenails are. That kind of thing.

Then my stepbrother looked at me and said, ‘Weird, isn’t it? That we’ve never met? Seeing as we were both created by the same guy?’

For a moment I thought he meant God or something, but then I decided he was not the religious type and he was actually talking about my father.

I said, ‘Well, not really.’

Mum said, ‘Well, not exactly.’

He said, ‘Albert Clarry is your father, isn’t he? And he’s my father too – so . . . ’

And Mum said gently, ‘Is that what they told you? Oh dear.’

And Mum and I were like, ‘oh gosh, how awful’ to each other, and this guy’s sitting there going, ‘Uh, I don’t think there’s any mistake. I think I know who my father is.’

And then Mum suddenly climbs onto her chair and shrieks, ‘My God! The Clarry ears!’

And we both looked straight at his ears.

And she was right.

He has exactly the same ears as me, and I have exactly the same ears as my father.

‘How OLD are you?’ my mother demanded.

It turned out he’s about three months
younger than
me. He was really embarrassed, apologising, saying he didn’t
realise that we didn’t know, and trying to cover his ears with his hair.

‘Well, how about that?’ my mother said, very calm and friendly, ‘Albert was getting somebody else pregnant right around the time I found out I was pregnant. What do you know?’

Then my BROTHER apologised again and said he should probably call a cab and go home.

So that’s the story.

My father’s family has been here the whole time, and he could never let us meet because he had this wicked secret. He didn’t meet someone with a kid, fall in love and leave my mum and me. He met someone, got her pregnant, and left my mum and me.

And it turns out that I’ve got myself a half-brother.

Anyhow, after my brother left, my mother went slightly mad. She started tipping furniture upside down and cleaning out the laundry cupboard, and when I said, ‘Mum, take it easy’, she burst into tears. Then she was calm for a moment and said it all happened fifteen years ago and she’s completely over my father, so why would it bother her now, and she’ll just have a glass of wine to calm down, and then she threw the glass of wine against the wall.

Next she phoned my father and had a private conversation. She came out practically shouting, ‘That CHILD of a man. That weak-kneed, yellow-toe-nailed, pathetic, piddling, chicken-clucking COWARD of a man!’

Then she decided that she wasn’t going to let a chickenclucking, yellow-toe-nailed coward get to her, and that she was determined not to have a nervous breakdown. She made a few phone calls and next thing you knew she’d
arranged to go on a Short Retreat from the Riots of Your Life. It’s something she had set up for Celia’s mother, but now she’s taking her place. (Celia’s mother was having doubts about it anyway because it didn’t seem to have ‘quite enough of a mystical component’ for her. No magic crystals and no tarot card reading.)

So that’s partly why I’m writing to you now. My mum is leaving tomorrow and she’ll be gone for this weekend and she said I should have some friends over on Saturday night, and I think you should be one of the friends. She’s worried I’ll just spend the next 48 hours training since the half marathon is a week away and she thinks it’s tragic for a teenager to spend a weekend jogging. So, why don’t you come? We could have a video party or something, and I’ll invite Celia and Saxon too, and you can bring your cousin Maddie and her boyfriend along.

I’m sending this right away so maybe you’ll get a chance to reply before you go home today. PLEASE say you can come.

Love

from

Elizabeth

PS And if you want to, you can ask your friend to the party on Saturday night – the Anonymous Note-Writer boy from the bus. Anyway, he can come if he wants to. If you think it’s a good idea. I’m too nervous to meet him on my own.

Dear Elizabeth,

I can’t BELIEVE the story about your brother. Your life is full of amazing stories.

I’m writing fast to get this to you before you finish school today. I really want to come on Saturday night. FANTASTIC. I’ll check with my mother because she might not like me leaving her with all the relatives. But I think it’ll work out – less people sleeping in the house means more room for air mattresses. And Mum will be happy because of Maddie and her boyfriend coming along. They’ll definitely want to come – Maddie’s dying to meet you because I talk about you all the time.

And I just asked your mystery admirer if he wants to come (I hope you really meant that) and of COURSE he wants to. Who are you kidding?

I’ll call you tonight. Or you call me. And we have to talk more about your brother/mother/father. Family scandal, huh?

Love,

Christina