Mum took Ollie to his friend’s party today, and Dad said he had some people to meet. He never outright says ‘I’m going to the pub’, but it’s always what he means. It’s weird to me that you never went with him. You both love drinking, it could have been a bonding thing. There’s shame mixed up there that I don’t fully understand.
I tried to take a look at the meal-prepping stuff for my Schoolies budget, but the internet was down so I couldn’t look up any recipes. I ended up going to the antiques centre for a bit. It’s kind of my new favourite place. I should probably apologise to you for calling it boring all those times. You were always going on about it, and it annoyed me. I hated it when you dragged me there. I guess I decided not to like it before I’d given it a chance. It doesn’t even matter because I probably won’t even be allowed back.
I wasn’t going to tell you, but in the spirit of being open in these letters, I will. I had a weird run-in with the old guy that runs the place. Your mate. Maybe I should have mentioned you are my brother. Like, ‘Hey I know you’ve just sprung me doing something totally weird, but my brother spends heaps in here on records and other old stuff and you seem to really like him so maybe just let this one slide okay?’
Let me just say, at least I wasn’t expelling bodily waste. I wasn’t wrecking anything, or doing anything gross. I was just enjoying the smell. That’s not bad, right? People do that all the time, at the beach and at the botanic gardens and whatever. It’s only weird because most people don’t enjoy the smell of old coats. I hadn’t even meant to go upstairs where the clothes are, but then I saw the coats and I had to go for a little peek. Or, more accurately, a little sniff. Yes, I should have been more subtle, but smell is linked so strongly to memory, and given everything, and the coats, I guess I lost myself a little. I climbed into the middle of the rack and I sat and I stayed there with my eyes closed, smelling, until it was past closing time.
I probably would have been locked in there overnight if it weren’t for the person who left a heap of clothing in the change rooms. The old guy brought them back upstairs to be hung up and I guess that’s when he saw my feet sticking out from the bottom of the rack and got a fright. It probably was a little scary, in the darkened room when he thought he was alone. He screamed, and I screamed, and it was a whole thing. I think he thought I was trying to stay until after closing to steal something, because he called me a thief even though I hadn’t taken anything. He was more than a little rough pushing me out the front door and he said he would call the police, but if he was really going to try to get me arrested, he probably should have kept me inside, so I think that was a bluff.
That shot straight to the number-one spot on my cringe list. Maybe if I do my hair a little differently and wear something generic he won’t even recognise me next time.
Oh, and by the way, while you’re gone I’m borrowing your old iPod. I’m going to go into your room, even though I know you hate that, and I’m going to grab it and then get out. I won’t touch anything or poke around in there, don’t worry. I’m done with that, you’re too good at hiding stuff now anyway. No one is poking around in your stuff. It’s not like I’m asking permission because letters take so long to be delivered, and who knows if you’re even reading these anyway. I’ll look after it, your iPod. I just need to listen to something that isn’t so sad. I still like sad music most of the time, because it brings all my sad feelings to the surface where I can see them and feel them more clearly.
Your music, with all the trumpets and saxophones, is like children’s music for adults and that’s what I need. I don’t have my work shifts to go to anymore so I have more time for lying in bed listening to music. Mum thinks lying in bed listening to sad music is a bad thing, but she only really listens to music on the radio when she’s driving so she probably just hasn’t ever done it right. I think she’d feel a lot better if she just lay still and listened to some Joni Mitchell.
I’ve got so much homework to do, plus study, but my mind is tired, so I’m taking a brain break and ‘chilling out’. You’re probably falling off your chair right now, reading that. Haha, Erin chilling out. And no that is not me making a joke. Things change, I guess. Next time you see me I could be the most relaxed chiller you’ve ever seen. Probably not, but you never know.
I need to take a leaf out of your book. Wait, that’s not the saying, is it? A page out of your book? A leaf out of your tree? Or am I thinking about ‘turning over a new leaf’? Anyway, I’m going to get your iPod, that’s really all I’m saying. I’m trying music because it’s all I can think of.
Now get your act together and get back to me, all right? I want you to tell me everything in one big go.
Love, Erin
16 August
Dear Rudy,
Mum thinks I should work at Robins, the old-lady shop at the centre that is always playing Ed Sheeran songs too loud, you know the one. I’d have to wear hippy skirts and layered bead necklaces and jewelled sandals. I know I need to get a job in the next two weeks to be able to afford Schoolies, but Robins is not the place. It can’t be. I wish you’d have a word with her about it, Rudy, I really do. Mum has always listened to you. Maybe it’s because you made her a mum, or because you look so much like Pa.
Did you like working at Coles? You were there long enough. The odd hours and slacker camaraderie seemed to fit you just right. Was stacking shelves a relaxing, meditative kind of thing or was it more like slow, agonising torture? I think it could be nice. Maybe I’ll try to get a job at Coles. I wonder if your reputation will be a hindrance or a help. It could go either way. It was kind of a big thing you did, getting that job and paying board before Mum and Dad even asked for it. I should have told you that back then. You could have easily done nothing, and leant into the ‘dropkick’ label that people wanted to stick on you when TAFE didn’t work out. You could have applied for Centrelink and skated more and not even cared. But it’s good that you cared, even if it doesn’t feel like you do anymore. Maybe especially because of that.
Today was a rubbish day at school. My Monday timetable is my worst. I have history with Mrs Wallis, remember her? Then double maths, double biology and a magazine committee meeting after school. I try to break down Mondays into twenty-one twenty-minute sections, so I can tick them off as I go. At least I can sit with Dee in Wallis’s class. We sit up the back, not to be cool or anything but because I like watching my classmates like they’re a documentary. I get to see how they wear their uniforms and what it says about them. Some girls have their skirts taken up to the knee instead of mid-calf where it is supposed to be. My skirt is still mid-calf length. Uninterested boys—surfers and skaters and internet bros, your people—wear their socks pushed down to the ankle and their shirts untucked, ties loose or no tie. I remember Mum getting so mad at you for always losing your tie. They were expensive. The prefects have perfectly polished black shoes and perfect hair ribbons, which I think show off their perfect lives.
Wallis gets offended by talking and laughing in class, which is strange because it seems like for her class is the thing she has to do between cigarettes, not the other way around. Maybe it is because of Dee’s laugh—it does seem like she is being disobedient on purpose. Dee was telling me a funny story about Pointy Kathy this morning, in her usual loud way. If you can imagine Dee’s sing-songy voice and her wild hands gesturing, it will probably make the story funnier for you too.