Heart of Glass (7 page)

This is for all the lonely
people

Thinkin’ that life has
passed them by…

America

I hated living so far away
from Ben and never having him near but our phone calls became a
regular occurrence that was the highlight of my week. They were
what sustained me when I was all alone. I looked forward to them, I
looked forward to the sound of his voice and the cute way he
flattered me. It made me all warm and fuzzy inside. It made our
parents extremely cross. The phone bills skyrocketed into the
stratosphere.

The phone calls happened at
precisely 9.01pm every Thursday, after Ben got home from training.
The long distance rates were less then, but even when I offered to
pay my share of the bill, my mother’s reprisals never
ceased.

I could always tell how Ben
was feeling by the way he spoke.  Even on the phone. He was
hopeless at hiding his feelings or I was good at reading them and
as soon as I answered the phone that night, I knew they something
was wrong. Ben’s voice sounded different, somehow
distant.

“
Hi,” I said cheerily,
“what have you been up to?”

“
Oh, you know, school,
footy, that sort of stuff.”

“
I missed you on the
weekend. Didn’t you come down for State training?” Ben and Paul had
been in town every weekend for the past month.  Being selected
as part of the State Under 20 football squad had meant many extra
hours of training. It’d been odd that he hadn’t called on the
weekend. We had been spending every spare minute together when he
was in town.

“
I was sick. I didn’t
go.”

My lip curled. It wasn’t
like him to be so short with me. “Is everything okay.”

He was silent for a moment
and then, out of the blue, a floodgate opened. “Oh Bella, it’s so
hard.”

“
What is?”

“
Being without you, I’m
hopeless without you. I miss you so much. I’ve even dream about
you.”

My mouth curved against the
mouthpiece. “You do?”

“
Mmm. Last night I dreamt
we were making love on a beach. Why can’t we be together? I want
you so much. You make it so hard when you knock me back all the
time.” I felt the warmth flooding through me as he spoke, it was
comforting to hear his voice and he sounded genuine when said that
he had missed me but something still wasn’t right.

“
You know I’m not ready. I
thought you understood.”

Ben sighed.  “I don’t
think you’ll ever be ready.”

“
When are you coming to
town again?”

“
Not for a couple of weeks.
The National Titles start next week - that’s in Darwin - and when I
get back, the athletics season begins. I’m the Captain of St
Michael’s this year so I really want to win. Plus, I’ve got a
shitload of school work to catch up on before that.”

I suppose he was busy but it
sounded as if he was trying to get rid of me.

“
I miss you,
Ben.”

“
Me too.”

“
I wish you were holding me
now.”

Ben was quiet for a moment.
“Don’t talk about it, Bella. It’s too painful to think that I might
be without you for even a day. I wish we didn’t have all this shit
keeping us apart. I just wish we could be together without everyone
else getting in the way.”

“
I feel the same
way.”

“
Put your fingers on the
mouthpiece and close your eyes.” His voice was like a whisper in
the night and even though it was a weird request, I did as he
asked. “Can you feel it?”

“
What?”

“
My fingers. They’re
touching yours.”

The tears fell softly down
my cheek. I could feel him there, with me, touching me. “Oh Ben.
Please come soon.”

Little did I know, but I was
going to need him in the next few months. He would be all I
had.

***

The ‘big freeze’ began after
the fight between Lucy and I, coinciding with a cold snap in the
weather that saw the already freezing temperatures plummet even
further. I could see the girls gathered in our spot in the common
room as I ran in, dreadfully late, my cheeks rosy from the hike
across the quadrangle in the subzero cold. They were huddling
close, their hands covered in grey gloves and their necks wrapped
in woolly scarves, as they tried to keep warm.

“
Sorry,” I said, pushing
into my usual place, “Mr Wilson kept us in, he’s such an ogre.” I
took a sip of my chocolate.

Prue hoisted her ample
bottom closer to the bank heater. “The heating in this school is
abysmal. You’d think with the fees our parents pay, the nuns could
provide us with at least basic heating. It’s appalling.”

“
What’s more appalling is
the fact that you’re hogging all the heat, move your butt over!”
said Lucy, squeezing her slim form in between us and shoving me out
of the way.

Jen took off her gloves
revealing red, swollen fingers. “Look at my hands, these chilblains
is disgusting. How will Tim ever love me with hands that are so
ugly?”

“
If he loves you, he won’t
care what your hands look like.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “God,
can’t you ask him out? Your obsessing is so irritating.”

I agreed. “It’s a good idea.
Tim might be too shy to ask you.”

Silence.

Jen continued to examine her
sausage like fingers and Lucy turned her back, barking an order at
one of her servants. I could feel the tension hanging in the air,
as certainly as if I had rubbed my thumb on a cheese grater. I
stood, watching and listening, waiting to see what they were up to
now. The room was quieter than the hall at exam time.

“
Do you think I should call
Ben?” I blurted, “I haven’t heard from him for a while and I know
he’s back from Darwin.”

Since our phone
conversation, I’d heard no more. We hadn’t made any plans and the
weeks had ticked by. It was odd after such a romantic phone
call.

Jen and Prue looked at their
feet. Lucy started talking to the other girls, ignoring my
presence. What was going on?

“
Should I ring
him?”

Prue looked at Jen, raising
her eyebrows in a gesture of helplessness. It was so embarrassing.
Why weren’t they talking to me?

“
I don’t think you should,”
she answered, ignoring Lucy’s glare. “In some ways, I think I agree
with what Lucy told you. Ben was only after one thing. I mean, you
told him you wanted to slow down, and since then he’s never made a
single plan to see you.”

“
But he told me he doesn’t
mind, that he’ll wait till I’m ready.”

“
I…” Lucy kicked Prue’s
shin with the accuracy of the striker for Manchester
United.

“
Ouch.”

Prue was silent.

I didn’t know what to do. I
had no idea what was going on but Lucy seemed determined to make me
suffer and everyone else was too scared to override her. Prue, out
of all of them, would never stand up against Lucy and now she was
the meat in the sandwich. She was the chicken between the sliced
bread. The big fat roast chicken.

***

As the days wore on and the
winter ground burst into the glorious colours of the early spring,
the ‘big freeze’ of St. Brigid’s College continued, no heed paid to
the splendour of the bulbs sprouting in the courtyard or the
blossoms budding on the trees outside the chapel door. I was in a
quandary. My boyfriend had done a Houdini vanishing act and my
friends were acting as if I had leprosy. I wished someone would let
me in on what was going on. It was very confusing.

At lunch times, I was
relegated to the group of Wannabe’s outside the circle. It was
where I belonged, anyway. I didn’t know what ever made me think I
was part of the ‘in’ crowd. Day after day, I sat forlornly on the
bench seat and tried to engage in conversation with a bunch of
girls I hardly knew. They were nice girls but it wasn’t the same.
We had no history at all. Still, it made me see that perhaps our
behaviour, as the cool group, had not always been as accepting as
it could have been. There was no reason why we couldn’t get
along.

Jen and Prue were cemented
to the orange lounge, casting sorry glances in my direction but
doing nothing to appease the situation. I wanted to make clucking
noises to show them how chicken they were but contented myself with
pretending they didn’t exist instead. They were led by peer
pressure, unable to make a decision for themselves. It wasn’t their
fault they were weak, or was it? It was possible, however, that
they had a great deal more sense than I did. I had stuck up for
myself and look what had happened. My new ‘friends’ tried hard to
lift my flagging spirits by confessing further facts that had come
to light from other girls in our class. They thought Lucy Roberts
was a snotty stuckup cow and on that point alone, I could have been
their best friend for life. Nobody had ever made a stand against
her before.

“
You’re so brave to stick
up for yourself,” Rachel said, one day, as we sat under the huge
oak tree that stood sentinel on the edge of the oval reading “To
Kill a Mockingbird”. I turned my book over on the grass and smiled
at her, glad to have some company.

“
You think so? I was under
the impression I was some sort of idiot savant. They hate my
guts.”

She put her hand on mine.
“Well, they do, but it’ll pass. Those bitches’ll forget about it
soon and find someone else to have a go at. Believe me, I know.
Lucy is spewing, though. She didn’t like being called a liar and a
slut in front of everyone.”

“
Guess the truth
hurts.”

We sat crossed legged in
silence for some minutes, our backs propped up against the stringy
bark of the tree, until Rachel spoke again.

“
She’s been telling
everyone that you’re self-absorbed and stuck up because you have an
older boyfriend. She said the girls were tired of your bragging
about Ben James.”

“
But that’s not true; I
haven’t bragged about anything!”

“
I know, but Lucy told Liz,
who told me, that she wanted Ben for herself. She asked him out, to
get back at you. Some of the St Peter’s Year 12’s saw them together
at a party. He was really drunk and she was all over him and rumour
is they had sex in the back of his car. Anyway, when she rang him
again, Ben fobbed her off for some bizarre reason, so maybe he does
like you. She didn’t want us to know about it but he told one of
his friends and now everybody knows.”

“
How could she be such a
bitch?”

Now I knew the reason for
the odd phone call from Ben a few weeks ago, and the ensuing
silence. He was feeling guilty. Lucy had proven her point. Ben did
only want girls who put out and I was a silly little
twit.

***

Into its epic fourth week,
the feud showed no signs of abating so I decided to get on with my
life without my friends. The pain they had caused ran deep within,
welling up like a volcano waiting to spew out its dangerous
contents but I kept the hurt in check, not letting them see what
they were doing to me. I had plenty I wanted to say and one day the
time would be right. I was strong; I would fight back.

Unfortunately, for me, Lucy
wanted to fight too. She had whipped off the gloves and was at the
ready, bare fisted. It was amazing how vindictive one girl could
be. She wanted to annihilate me, to pulverise what little dignity I
had left and because she held the power at school other girls
listened to her stories and spiteful remarks. Then they formed
their own conclusions. I was branded a slut; any girl who gave head
on the first date was bad news. (Lucy had heard it straight from
the horse’s mouth, so it must be true). Now nobody wanted to know
me.

With each day, my misery
grew. I sat alone, reading a book. Even the Wannabe’s left me for
dead, not wanting to be tarred with my dirty brush. I was as
popular as the pageboy haircut Mum had made me get in Year 7 when
everyone else had the Farrah Fawcett Flickback. But worst of all it
seemed that Ben had deserted me too. There had been no phone call
for over a month. I may as well have been dead. The best I could do
was to forget about Ben as he had forgotten about me. After all, he
was the cause of all this trouble.

Chapter 7

IS THIS LOVE?

I wanna love ya, love and
treat ya right

I wanna love ya every day
and every night

Bob Marley

Ben and Paul were standing
at the door of the darkened hall, their eyes squinting against the
throb of the strobe light as they attempted to locate their own
group of friends. School discos were a nightmare. It was impossible
to find the people you were looking for and if you did, you never
let them out of your sight, or they would be forever lost in the
abyss that was known as the dance floor. But saw them a long time
before they noticed me. I saw them and my fickle heart began to
pound.

The fog machine was doing
its intended job of hiding teenagers from the view of the adults in
charge well. Sweaty bodies moved in the darkness and lights pulsed
over the heads of the throng, changing the colours of their hair
from blue to red and back again. It was no wonder these dances were
highly recommended amongst the ‘cool’ crowd of fifteen to eighteen
year olds, as being the place to be on a Friday or Saturday night.
There was nowhere else so dark and adolescent that you were likely
to score.