Christchurch, 1970s – 1980s
When we were children, I didn’t like Skye much. I didn’t like her older brother, Oberon, either. There was something wild about them that made me nervous. They always looked scruffy to me. Their hair was unruly. They never seemed entirely clean. They were loud and domineering. They were the kind of kids I would normally avoid. But once or twice a year, I had no choice but to play with them.
Skye’s father worked with my dad at the Chemistry department at Canterbury University. Every once in a while, a few of the chemistry lecturers and their families would get together – including my family and Skye’s. We would meet at different houses at different times, but Christmas Eve at our house was a regular event.
It was highly unusual for my parents to invite people over, let alone four or five whole families at the same time. Mum and Dad craved stillness and silence. Guests, including hordes of boisterous children, were their idea of hell. Dad must have believed it was in some way required of him as the head of the Chemistry department. Otherwise there’s no way he would have done it.
For me, though, it was all incredibly exciting. I’d been brought up to be quiet. My parents constantly told me not to run inside the house, not to shout, not to jump, not to batter the keys on the piano. Those Christmas Eve parties were the one time I was allowed to let loose.
I remember feeling almost sick with anticipation before everyone arrived. Mum would have spent most of the afternoon preparing canapés, and by the early evening all the delicacies would be laid out on trays in the kitchen, ready to be served. Dad would place bowls of salted peanuts and chips with dip at strategic intervals around the lounge. I would lie on my back on the floor of my bedroom, the surges of excitement running through me almost unbearable. The only dark spot on the horizon was the fact that Skye and Oberon – Obie – would be at the party. But at least I knew there would be plenty of other kids around as well, so the terrible duo would be diluted to a degree.
Then the guests would start arriving – the mothers and fathers with their children hovering nervously around their legs. The adults were all smiles and handshakes with each other, but we children had to approach each other cautiously. Even kids I saw regularly I had to get to know again. We would eye each other from a distance, then make small forays to establish contact. Finally, once we’d determined that the other party wasn’t hostile, we would flee from the boring adults and run up and down the hallway or charge around in the back garden.
Skye and Obie were different, though. Neither of them seemed even slightly shy. From the moment they entered the house, they would march up to the rest of us children and start bossing us about, telling us what games we were going to play, snatching toys out of our hands, even pushing and shoving kids they decided they disliked.
I distinctly remember hating Skye when I was around seven or eight years old. She was my age – just two months older than me – and it would have made sense if we’d been friends. But I couldn’t stand her. If I was playing with another kid, she would rush over and disrupt our game. If I was building something with Lego, she would smash it. Once she pulled the head off one of my dolls. When I started crying and hid under my bed, she just walked away and left me there. She didn’t care.
One time she annoyed me so much we came to blows. It was Christmas Eve and I was bouncing around the lawn on my space hopper. It was dusk and the shadows were filling up the garden. The other kids were running about and screaming. They raced out of the darkness like crazed ghosts, before plunging back into the gloom.
I paused for a moment as my legs were starting to ache from my exertions. Suddenly, something thumped into me from behind and knocked me onto the grass. I rolled over and saw Skye standing over me with an evil smile on her face. She clambered onto the space hopper, bounced a couple of times and then stopped. She didn’t even want to play on it – she just wanted to stop me from playing.
I was outraged. I leapt to my feet and hurled myself at her. But she held up her arm and easily pushed me away. I landed on my backside and grazed my arm on the ground.
Laughing, she said: ‘My dad works with your dad.’
I rubbed my arm where it hurt. My eyes moistened and I fought to stop myself from crying. ‘I know.’
‘Your dad is my dad’s boss.’
‘Yeah, so what?’
She leant closer to me. ‘My dad says your dad is a bastard.’
I was stunned by this brutal statement and by her shameless swearing. ‘No he’s not.’
‘He is. I heard my dad say so.’
I gritted my teeth and charged at Skye. Once again she easily knocked me back. I sat on the grass, trying my best to hold back the tears, while she just laughed and bounced away into the dark.
–––
Mercifully, when I was around nine, we stopped seeing Skye’s family. At the time, no one told me why this was. I just noticed that Skye, Obie, their parents and baby Jade were no longer at any of the Chemistry department get-togethers. It was only later that I found out that the family had moved to Australia. Apparently, Skye’s dad had accepted a post at a university in Melbourne. Perhaps he was glad to get away from my father, the bastard.
I didn’t see Skye for almost two years, until Skye’s mum, Liz, showed up at our house with her three children in tow. Obie was fifteen at that point and, to me, so old he was virtually an adult. I remember he had long, unkempt hair and his face was dotted with pimples. Skye and I were both ten, soon to be eleven. Jade must have been six. She was no longer a baby, but still seemed little more than a toddler to me.
I particularly remember Liz’s appearance. I was just starting to be aware that clothes could have more than a purely functional purpose, and I could tell that Liz’s bright green kaftan, masses of jangling bracelets, and huge sunglasses were unusual. My mum certainly never wore such flamboyant outfits.
It turned out that Skye, Obie and Jade were going to stay the night at our house. I never found out exactly why, although I assume now it was something to do with the fact that Liz and her husband were divorcing and Liz had recently arrived back in Christchurch. I do remember that Liz seemed frazzled and agitated, and I also recall her thanking my mum profusely for looking after her kids.
This invasion of my house was unwelcome. I was an only child and not accustomed to sharing my space with other children. Obie, at least, was entirely uninterested in me, or anyone else. He was given the spare room, and spent most of his time in there, only coming out to eat tea and watch TV for a while. Mum doted on Jade and kept her entertained with a few of my old toys, which were buried in a box in the laundry. That left me and Skye to fend for ourselves.
I studied her suspiciously when we were first left alone together. I still remembered the incident with the space hopper, and all the other times she’d upset me. I steeled myself for some new attack. But, in fact, Skye seemed different now. She was much calmer, and was even subdued some of the time. She didn’t have any interest in bullying me. Mostly she just wanted to watch TV. After sitting with her in the lounge, I eventually drifted through to my bedroom. She followed me and gasped with delight when she saw the pad of cartridge paper and assortment of pens and pencils on my desk. I found out she was just as keen on art as me, so I gave her a piece of paper and we lay on the floor drawing.
I was obsessed with Anne McCaffrey, Ursula Le Guin and the Narnia books at the time. Most of my drawings were therefore of fantasy creatures and I prided myself on my dragons. When Skye noticed what I was sketching, she decided she was going to draw a dragon as well. I was a little irritated that she was copying me, but I was also certain that my effort would be much better than hers.
I spent a long time on my dragon, painstakingly adding shading to each scale. But whenever I glanced across at Skye, I was dismayed to see how good her picture was. She finished long before me and the result was amazing – good enough to be in a book. Her dragon was more stylised than mine, but it was full of life. She seemed to have caught it in the act of moving. Light gleamed on its scales. Its wings were unfurling, its jaw open in readiness to blast fire.
I wanted to be annoyed with her, but I couldn’t be. I was jealous, for sure, but mostly I was just enthralled by what she’d created.
That night, Skye slept in my room, on a camp bed set up by my father. This irritated me. I was growing tired of having Skye around and wanted to be alone. But once the lights were out she started whispering jokes to me and making silly sounds. I couldn’t help laughing. Eventually my dad shouted for us to be quiet. This made the two of us laugh even more, and we had to hold our hands over our mouths to stifle the noise.
After that we were silent for a while and I thought Skye must have gone to sleep, but then she hissed: ‘Want to hear something really freaky?’
‘What?’
She sat up in her bed. I could see her outline in the faint light filtering through the curtains. Her eyes glinted.
‘I heard about this singer,’ she said. ‘In a band, you know. He wanted to be famous. He was already quite famous, but he wanted to be really famous. So he decided to do the most crazy thing he could think of. He killed himself on stage while the band were playing. He put his head in a noose and then jumped off a chair. He died and the whole crowd was watching.’
A chill crossed my skin. I felt slightly sick. This was the most revolting story I’d ever heard. Even in the darkest corners of my imagination I would never have dreamt up something like this.
‘Is that true?’ I said.
‘Yeah. All true. I heard about it.’
I lay back on my bed. I thought that killing yourself was bad enough, but to do it as a way of getting attention, as a form of entertainment even, seemed unbelievably horrific. I shut my eyes and tried to block it out. But in my mind I could see the singer up on the stage in front of a huge crowd. A noose dropped down from above. He stepped up onto a chair, put the rope around his neck, then raised his hands theatrically and jumped.
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