Back in the
mid-1990s, I was sitting in the back row of my English class, in
perhaps the most un-disadvantaged non-private school in the state. A
school with a catchment so that not just anyone could send their
children there. Where the wealthy (but egalitarian) and
upwardly-mobile bought expensive houses to send their children to an
elite public school subsidised by the less-well-off.
But, being a public
school, there were no fees, and anyone who lived in the catchment
could send their children there. Because there were plenty of rental
properties, and as-yet un-gentrified pockets of houses, the students
attending the school were more diverse than the equivalent pool in
one of the nearby private schools. This diversity manifested as a
general reluctance, on the part of the student body, to conform to
the wishes of the school administration (whether it was uniform,
attendance, homework, drugs, you name it).
Next to me, in the
back row of class, was a girl I thought was pretty good. Sitting
there, the English class passed me by. Perhaps I had reached an age where I
could consider her sexy, instead of merely attractive. I never really
knew what her thoughts were – she was very intelligent: maybe the
smartest kid in class – and had a bit of a detached air that I
liked and was a little intimidated by. Whether it was wishful
thinking, or actual encouragement, I felt like we were a
something.
This went on for
some time, I can’t remember now. English class was a bit of a blur
for me at that point. One day, I remember her laying her head in my
lap and looking up at me – her eyes alive with intelligence, humour
and irony.
But all things come
to an end, and we drifted apart (from whatever it was that we
were when un-apart). It occurred to me at some point that if I
wanted to go to university, I might actually need to do some work
(that, and I really liked English as a subject), or maybe she just
got tired of my juvenile attempts at wit and insight.
By and by, school
came to a close. I learnt some hard lessons about overindulgence in
alcohol. Others were exploring other possibilities, maybe she was one
of those. Either way, I didn’t have much to do with her after our
brief and platonic affair.
When school
finished, I saw her once or twice by chance, but essentially never
spoke to her again. I’ve often wondered about her over the years. I
always knew she was smarter than me, but felt that she had somewhat
squandered her final school years. I also believed that for smart
people there remained options – that she could make something of
her life (whatever that meant to her). I now wonder what might have
happened if I’d had a bit more guts – hadn’t been so perversely
shy of self-exposure. Perhaps it would have only taken a nudge, at
that point, to make all the difference – like the shoe that was
lost for the want of a nail.
I never did find out
what she was doing or how she felt about it.
This year is the
20th anniversary of my cohort finishing school and she was
one of the people I particularly wanted to see – to hear about her
tussles with life, and how she’d coped with some of the bitter
lessons that adulthood brings. But I now know that conversation can
never take place because she killed herself a few months ago and that
door is closed.
All this time, she
remained (I am sure) a friend of a friend of a friend. I could have
contacted her, but never did. It probably would not have helped
anyway to see this long-lost-forgotten person from school settled
into some comfortable stereotype of middle-class suburbia.
I can only imagine,
but not know, what feelings drove her to it. A rapid shutter-fire of
thought-feelings flitted through me -
An emptiness of
unknown, unappreciated and unrecorded days. Of drabness and aloneness
(even in the presence of others), then
That my inaction
could have led to this, then
The ridiculousness of that thought, then
The ridiculousness of that thought, then
What it must have
felt like, standing there at that final moment, then
That such thoughts
are but easy stereotypes, fettering the mind from the complexity of
real life, then
There must have been
some kind of moral miasma, long fermenting, to lead to such a strait,
then
That despite the
finality of death, her life must have contained many pleasures, then
Sadness that I never
attempted connection to realise any such pleasures, then
A re-kindling of an
echo of a crush on the now-dead, then
That the collective
mind-image we, who knew her, hold, is now all that remains -- tethering
her to the world. A tether that time and our own mortality will
eventually sever.
