White Time Read online

  ‘Hi, Stonehead,’ fat Mike Dargall wheezed when I hit Reception. He had a lot to get off his chest. And his belly, and his hips and his thighs. He had several extra chins to explain away. Even his fingers were loaded down. I was glad I was not Mike Dargall. I was near the end of my stint; I was nearly free to go.

  I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. ‘She wants you, man.’

  ‘Oh, hold me back,’ he said wearily, and began the several-stage process of getting himself out of the chair.

  I didn’t stay to watch. Guys like Mike, I try not to. Who wants to watch people suffocating themselves in slow, slow motion?

  I could smell Dad’s apple strudel baking from out on the street. He was cutting up potatoes into chips when I walked in.

  ‘How was your day?’ he said.

  ‘Pretty average.’

  ‘Sounds a little automatic, son.’

  I looked him in the eye. ‘No, really, I’ve just been talking to Gardi about how average it was.’ Meaning, I have a counsellor for this – I don’t need it from you too.

  He conceded with a nod. ‘Feel like a steak?’

  ‘Bigger the better,’ I said – although for a flicker of a second I nearly said ‘No thanks’. Bad habits die hard. I know it’s got nothing to do with food how much weight you carry, but it just seems logical: the more stuff you put in yourself, the heavier you get – there’s more matter to you. Well, it seems logical to a worried mind. Not that I was worried now, of course.

  I did my homework in the kitchen, to keep Dad company. Whenever I looked up, Mum was looking down at me from the studio photos on the high shelf opposite. They were carefully posed and lit to make less of her weight: a hand propped her chin to cover the flesh there; she wore dark plain clothes, probably with corsets underneath them; the focus was sharp on her eyes and lips, with the bulk of her blurring away into the dark background. There was a photo for every year she’d been away – four in all – and in that time it didn’t look as if she’d lost so much as a milligram. She wasn’t telling anybody anything. She was a proud lady.

  ‘Even for our sakes, Evan,’ Dad once told me, ‘she wasn’t willing to compromise. “Private is private,” she told me, “and I don’t care who knows I think that.” Quite a woman, your mother.’ And he couldn’t help sounding proud along with exasperated.

  The steaks hit the pan and hissed frantically. ‘This’ll be ready in two shakes,’ said Dad.

  I got up and turned my back to the photos, fetching out plates and cutlery.

  Chump was at the depot, gloved and ready for Clean-Up.

  ‘I like your hat,’ I said.

  She grinned. ‘Thought you would. It’s specially dumb, for your viewing pleasure. Chicken’s Ears, I call it.’

  It was the colour of camels rather than chickens, and made of some kind of stretchy felt, all pilled with wear, with felt-and-vinyl earflaps sticking up. It was a very Chump hat. ‘It won’t keep the sun off. Your old hair would’ve been sun-safer.’

  ‘And phooey to you,’ she said. ‘You know me. Style is all.’ And actually she was wearing quite a neat T-shirt under her overalls. A girl T-shirt, almost, instead of her usual floppy cast-offs of bro Tiernan’s.

  ‘Let’s do it, let’s do it!’ She hopped around while I was issued my gloves and bag and litter-grabber.

  We’d assigned ourselves a big Y of streets between the school and our two homes, streets that seriously depressed us, they were so dirty. They were a bit of a walk from the depot. When the novelty of pinching each other with the grabbers had worn off, we slung them in our bags over our shoulders, for speed.

  ‘So what’s with the make-over, Antoinette Louise?’ I said, to slow her down a little. I was thinner than I used to be, but nobody said I was fit.

  ‘What? Oh, the hair, you mean? I just got sick of it.’ And she took off Chicken’s Ears and tousled her hair all up. It flopped straight back; it was un-mess-up-able.

  ‘It looks shinier. Did they do something to it?’

  ‘Nope, just the chop. It’s healthier hair down there, closer to your head. Hasn’t been in the weather as long.’

  ‘And look, you’ve got a neck.’

  She laughed. ‘Hey, what was holding my head up all this time – magnetic levitation?’

  ‘It’s so white; you’ll burn so badly.’

  She shrugged and pulled the Ears on again.

  We got to the end of Coffey Street and set to work. We were thorough; well, when cigarette butts are on the Clean-Up list your eyes do get thorough.

  We worked up the whole length of the Y-stalk, in among the warehouses, before we let ourselves take a break and look behind us.

  ‘We should’ve done this anyway,’ said Chump, wiping her forehead with her glove-wrist. ‘We shouldn’t’ve waited till Clean-Up Day. All this time we could’ve been walking along that.’

  ‘It is kind of beautiful.’

  She tore off a glove. ‘Phoor! Look what this thingum-majigger’s done to me.’

  The grabber had rubbed a red blister up on the side of her finger. She held it out to show me. For a second I thought I was supposed to do something about it – what, kiss it better? I scowled at it in quiet panic.

  ‘Should I pop it?’ said Chump. ‘Are you supposed to pop ’em, or be careful not to pop ’em?’

  ‘You’re supposed to be careful not to get ‘em in the first place,’ I said, suddenly cranky with her. ‘Hold the thing a different way.’

  It was a long morning. We didn’t say much, just picked and picked. The depot was holding some kind of competition for the weirdest piece of rubbish, but nothing here qualified – aged cardboard, chunks of polystyrene blown out of the warehouse yards, snack-food wrappers, a bezillion cigarette-ends.

  ‘I will dream of this tonight,’ Chump said. ‘I’ll close my eyes and see weeds and squashed Big Milk cartons and grimy Chunkit packets.’

  We met some other school people at the park on the end of Hitchin Street; we’d accidentally overlapped our areas, and so we only had to do half the work cleaning up the park.

  ‘This park has never looked so good, fellers,’ said Bri Drury, plunking himself down across the path from Chump, who was sitting fanning herself with her hat. Her hair had been sweated flat; she clawed it up into wet spikes, staring at nothing, blowing out her lips, fanning, fanning.

  ‘What d’you say, Antoinette?’ said Bri.

  ‘Hum?’

  ‘Park look good, or what?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ She stopped fanning and examined her finger. ‘It’s a vision of loveliness.’ The blister was busted now – big and red with a lid of loose skin. I looked away.

  Boy, was I tired. And my head was full of rubbish. I peeled everything off and dropped it all, every piece, in the laundry basket, and stepped into the shower. I pushed my face into the spray and Chump’s face popped into my mind, staring at nothing, her injured hand flapping the hat. Looking tired too.

  I soaped up; I felt filthy all over. Arms, underarms, face and neck, chest—

  And then I felt it. Belly. Just a bit of belly. The faintest, faintest rumour of fat, around my navel, and like the first whisper of a gathering cloud above my hips.

  Oh, man. I rinsed, I looked. I was imagining things. I soaped up again, and … yeah, definitely. Very quietly, I groaned and swore. I felt under my jaw, where it used to show first. I really couldn’t tell; I’d got so blasé about the whole thing, I’d forgotten what normal was around there. Half-soaped, I stepped out of the bath, cleared the mirror, peered in anxiously before it steamed up again. Couldn’t tell. Suspected. Feared.

  I had a hard time getting to sleep that night. I lay there feeling my middle, over and over. Was it different? Was it all going to start over again, with the counselling, with all that weighing and worrying, the conversations graded to go deeper and deeper, all those people, not just Gardi, giving me anxious looks? I remembered the bad old days, when do-gooders would sit next to me on the bus. ‘Tell me about yourself,’ the worst on
es would say, the really lean, gym-hardened ones in those wet-look suits. The ones who weren’t so fanatical said things like, ‘Do you live around here?’ or ‘What do you think the weather will be like today?’ or ‘Does this bus go past the Story Board Building?’ But it was still obvious – they were trying to draw me out.

  I turned over and stared at the wall. I might end up like Mum, taken away somewhere so my body wouldn’t signal to anyone: FAT IS OK. PRIVATE IS PRIVATE. But at least she’d known what she was holding on to.

  Everyone had known: it was Gordie, my little non-brother. She’d got big with him, and he’d died inside her, and he’d come out, but she’d stayed big. And the Story Board people had said it was OK, for a while, for her to hang on to the grief, but after a year or so she still hadn’t slimmed down. And I’d started growing – not just puppy fat to fuel a growth spurt, but serious, sticky kilograms. Even for our sakes, she wouldn’t compromise, Dad said, but really it was for me, for my sake, for my good, that she’d agreed to go to the Health Farms.

  And I’d join her there, if I didn’t work out where this little extra blob of me was coming from, what untold thing it represented.

  At counselling, right at the beginning when you’re in with all the other fatties, they get you to visualize. First they show you a video of your blood, and point out the yellow beads of fat floating among the good red cells. Then they get you to imagine Story Bugs whipping through the mix, gathering up the beads like marbles into a bag, tidying them away to your excretory organs. They get you to think of your body as this nifty little society, with you as the team leader, ordering the bugs around any way you want. This was the scary thing now, the feeling that the bugs had run amok, that they were charging around inside me scattering handfuls, armfuls of the rotten beads, gunking up my nice clean bloodstream, turning me back into a wheezer and a lumberer. I should tell someone about this right now. I should go and wake Dad up and empty this into his ears. I was only making it worse for myself, for him, for all of us.

  Instead, I just lay there and made it worse, until I’d worried myself to sleep.

  The phone ringing tumbled me out of bed next morning. It was Bri Drury, of all people. ‘Huh? What do you want?’

  ‘Got a question for you, Stone.’

  ‘Oh?’ I rubbed my eyes ferociously to help them stay open.

  ‘You know that Antoinette Stilling?’

  ‘Mmph?’

  ‘Well, are you and her, like … have you got any kind of … like, are you going out?’

  The sleep started to clear from my head. ‘When? I mean, we go out all the time. Why?’

  ‘No, I mean, are you, like, together? Is she your girlfriend?’

  ‘No!’ Now I was awake. ‘No, it’s nothing like that. We’re just friends, not … girlfriend, no.’

  ‘You know, that’s good,’ said Bri. ‘Because I was thinking, if I made any kind of, you know, any move on that girl, I didn’t wanna be busting into any kinda … any kinda arrangement you guys might have, you know?’

  ‘Right. OK.’ My feet were cold. My free hand was wandering around my waist, pinching, pinching. ‘Well, I guess you don’t have to worry about anything like that,’ I said slowly.

  ‘Good man! Thanks, Stone. See you around, huh?’

  I put down the handpiece and used both hands on my waist. Definitely. Definitely something.

  Antoinette Stilling. It always surprised me that Chump had that other name, that it wasn’t just another joke name between us.

  I was cold all over now, and feeling slightly sick. This did not promise to be a good day.

  * * *

  ‘He asked me out,’ said Chump, chewing on an avocado and alfalfa-sprout sandwich. She gave me an impenetrable look.

  ‘Yeah?’ I pretended to be surprised. Then I changed tack, pulling my elbows in to my waist. ‘Actually, I knew that. I gave him permission yesterday morning.’ Chump goggled, all bright green eyes and half-chewed alfalfa. ‘He rang me up,’ I went on, ‘and asked me, were we, you know, an item.’

  ‘You have got rocks in your head. You’re supposed to protect me from lunks like that!’

  I gave an airy shrug. ‘Well, nobody told me.’

  ‘Aargh. Now he wants me to go to some go-kart place with a bunch of them. Like that would be a great way to spend my Saturday.’

  ‘You going?’ I made the first crunch into an apple. It was a good loud one.

  She pulled faces. ‘Hmm? Go-karts? Who can know?’

  I slipped into Gardi’s voice. ‘I think that would be a very appropriate activity, for a young person. Social, active, plenty of opportunities to externalize.’

  ‘Oh, cut it. What do you think really?’

  I goggled at her. ‘What is this, do you have to ask me for permission too?’

  ‘I just wanna know what you think!’

  ‘Doesn’t matter what I think!’ Chump shot me a warning glance. I checked to see if anyone else had heard. ‘It’s you and him, isn’t it?’ I said more quietly. ‘Up to you two?’

  ‘Well, I guess.’ She kept pulling Chump faces, thinking it over.

  ‘And go-karts would be, well, something new,’ I said, feeling weak, feeling as if Gardi were speaking through my mouth, taking over my voice.

  ‘Something new,’ said Chump, and pondered that. ‘I don’t know, Rock. I mean, Bri?’ And her face scrunched up again.

  I was holding an apple that was gnawed away right down to the core – when’d that happen? ‘Well, Chump,’ I said, sending it on a smooth arc into a bin, ‘it’s entirely up to you.’

  ‘And how was today?’ Gardi closed the door and sat opposite me.

  ‘Today was fine. I talked to Chump a lot, to Bri Drury, to my dad this morning.’

  ‘You look a little tired.’

  ‘Yeah? I feel OK.’ Then I remembered my late-night worrying. I should say something about that. Actually, Gardi … No, I couldn’t face it. I didn’t want things to change, couldn’t face that super-calm air Gardi would start to exude: Well, Evan, this is quite a serious concern, isn’t it? And her getting out the pinch-testers and the charts – I couldn’t stand it.

  ‘That’s a nice shirt you’re wearing,’ Gardi said. ‘Quite fashionable – if you don’t mind my saying so.’ She was smiling – she knew my attitude to fashion.

  ‘You like it?’ I’d worn it because it was just the tiniest bit loose. I didn’t think I was visible yet, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  ‘It suits you. You should acknowledge these things. Remember how we talked, about the age you’re at now, and how there’s a lot of change associated with that?’

  ‘Oh no – the talk about girls. Do we have to?’

  She laughed softly. ‘Not if you feel it’s inappropriate.’

  ‘I do. Inappropriate for me. Now. Yet.’

  ‘I just want you to be prepared, when those changes start happening—’

  ‘I’ll be prepared. You prepared me. Dad’s prepared me—’

  ‘Don’t keep any important story inside. Let someone know. Your dad. You can even come back to me, if you want.’

  I nodded. Then I heard her. Back to Gardi? ‘I beg your pardon?’

  She was smiling again. ‘I’ve got the forms here for your release from Youth-Tell, Evan. How do you feel about that?’

  I gulped, and she laughed.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I feel you’ve done very well. That big blockage you were experiencing about your mother is under control – we understand the stress of that, don’t we?, and we’re not harbouring any untold grief or resentment towards Gordie. You’re a healthy size and you offer story very readily. You can raise concerns without hesitating, and you can even perform the occasional Leap Without Looking, those spontaneous confessions that are so good for the body. I’m very pleased with you.’

  ‘You are?’ Why was my stomach churning, then?

  ‘I know it can be difficult to let go. But this programme mustn’t become a crutch for you. We talked about the tra
nsfer, remember? These next few weeks, you’ll have to make sure you get everything out to Antoinette and your dad, those primary confidants. I have faith that you can do that. Do you think you can, Evan?’

  ‘Oh. Well, I suppose I can. I’ve come this far … Are you sure about this?’ I was sitting forward. The waistband of my trousers was digging into me, just a little, just pressing a bit uncomfortably.

  ‘Absolutely sure.’

  I watched her fill out the forms. I should stop her. I should tell her about the weight. Or it could all happen again.

  But I didn’t.

  ‘All right,’ said Gardi, slipping the form into the Story Board envelope. ‘I’ll send this off today. As from this moment, you’re cleared from the programme. Free to go.’

  ‘Well. That’s wild. Good, I mean …’

  ‘It is good. But just remember,’ she said, getting up, smiling for me to get up. ‘No person is an island, Evan. Any time you need to confide and your primaries fall through, come to me. I mean that. It’s important for all of us. We don’t want to be weighed down by individual issues, do we?’

  She showed me out to Reception. ‘If I’d known, I would’ve bought you a bunch of flowers,’ I said dazedly. Through the glass dividers I saw Mike Dargall struggling out of the lift.

  ‘Buy yourself some flowers, Evan,’ Gardi said with a laugh. ‘You deserve them. You’ve worked hard, and achieved a lot.’

  I have? ‘’Bye then, Gardi. And thanks. This feels strange.’

  ‘Nice little Leap there. You’ll do well, Evan, I’m sure. Goodbye now.’

  I lay low and ate almost nothing all week.

  ‘You OK, boy?’ said Dad on Thursday night. He was doing risotto al funghi; I was sitting over Folktale Tropes Level 4, droning answers to Exercise 4.11(b) onto the page.

  ‘I’m OK.’ It’s the rest of the world that’s screwed up.

  ‘You’re slumping a little, that’s all. And you’ve been pretty quiet, this week. This week of all weeks. I feel concern about that.’

  ‘You do?’