Twenty-Seven
WATCHING RUGBY UNION is probably at the end of my list of things I’d like to do on a Sunday afternoon before exams, but my cousin Robert was playing and I had promised to watch his grand final.
Stupidly I had taken my economics book with me thinking that I would get a few minutes of reading, but every time someone scored, one of the hysterical people around me would hit me on the back and send my book flying.
“You’d do anything to beat me in the HSC, wouldn’t you?”
I looked up in surprise at seeing John Barton and moved over for him.
“Thank God for another sane person. Everyone’s gone berserk,” I said.
“What are you doing around these mad people?”
“My cousin bribed me. If I came to this he’d take me to the St. Anthony’s graduation.”
“Oh yes, where only the privileged can attend. I promised Ivy when we were about twelve, I think.”
I laughed, thinking for the first time that I wasn’t envious of Ivy.
“You two are very similar, you know,” he said, taking the economics book out of my hands. “I wish you could be friends. I really want you to be there for each other, okay?”
I shrugged, confused. “We’re very different, John.”
He shook his head, tapping me on the head with the book.
“I’ve known her since I was five. I thought she was the most confused being until I met you. Maybe that’s why I get on with both of you.”
“Because you’re confused?”
He shook his head at the thought and laughed.
“No confusing talk, okay. We will be gay and lighthearted today,” he said theatrically.
I liked John this way, but he was different. There was a euphoria about him that was catching. We were loud and obnoxious throughout the whole game, standing on the seat and singing the St. Anthony’s anthem.
After the game I stood around while the boys threw beer in their hair and all that macho stuff they do when they win a game. Robert, I’m proud to say, won Man of the Match, and when it was all over, John walked me home.
“So how is my competition at Cook High?”
“Jacob Coote?”
“Still with him?”
“Most certainly am,” I said proudly.
“Can you try not to be offended if I tell you something?” he said, looking at me earnestly.
“Please don’t tell me that Jacob and I aren’t suited, John,” I pleaded.
“No,” he laughed. “Don’t be so paranoid. It’s just that I had a big crush on you in Year Ten. I wanted to ask you out, but I was scared you’d say no.”
I laughed and hugged him.
“I had a bigger crush on you.”
“Really? I’m touched,” he said, grabbing my hand and swinging it as we walked along.
“Jacob’s a bit funny about you and all. He’s got his own demons in a way, but you’re a friend, John, and we’re probably going to be in the same university taking the same classes and I want you to always be my friend.
Which means that you and Jacob will have to be friends. If we survive the HSC, let’s all try to go out together. Maybe even Ivy, if I can stomach it.”
“If we survive? Are you planning on dying or something?” he asked as we stopped at the Parramatta Road lights.
I turned to him and he was looking at me questioningly, his forehead creased.
“I just want it to be over. I want this year to be over, but another part of me is so petrified. God, John, we’re never going to be at school again. We were top dogs here in a way. At university we’ll be nobodies.”
“Just make your decisions and follow them through, Josie. That’s what I’ve done. I’ve got my whole future planned out the way I want it to be and there is nothing anyone can do to take that away from me.”
“You’re not going to follow in your father’s footsteps?”
He grinned, shaking his head. “No way, Josie. My father lived his life his way. I should have the same choice. The future is mine, to do whatever I want with it.”
He hugged me, swinging me around, and I thought that all I needed was Jacob to drive past and see us.
“You’re a psycho today, John,” I laughed as we crossed. “I wish I had your attitude. I’m almost there, but I don’t think I’ve come to my emancipation yet.”
“Good word. ‘The Emancipation of John Barton,’” he said, looking pensive.
“So what will the emancipated John Barton do with his life?”
“Anything he wants, Josephine,” he said, looking straight through me.
“Anything he damn well wants.”
I couldn’t help thinking that everything was working out well with our lives, which had seemed so complicated at the beginning of the year. We chatted all the way to my place, and by the end of our walk I was feeling as optimistic and positive as John.
“Look after yourself, Josephine,” he said, hugging me.
I felt relieved walking up the stairs. The thought of law didn’t scare me so much with John there, and I knew that he and Jacob could be friends, hopefully.
I rang Jacob that night and we stayed on the phone for two hours. I even told him about being with John that day and he didn’t go crazy. He just said that educating him wasn’t going to happen overnight, so I had to be patient.
Thinking of the six years ahead of me at university, I figured that patience was something I was going to need plenty of, but somehow, having John and Jacob, Michael, Mama, Nonna and my friends, I couldn’t possibly go wrong.
So I slept without having nightmares that I was reading an HSC paper I knew nothing about, or that Dante’s Inferno was no longer written in Italian but in French. I slept with the knowledge that my life was going somewhere good because of good people around me. And no HSC failure could take that away from me.
