The Reef Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’m not getting into anything I can’t manage. I just have to watch my money and not be frivolous. When I’m settled inand seen what my workload is like, maybe I can find a job for some extra cash.’
    â€˜You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?’ She paused. ‘And if, just if, you get into this big deal uni in Sydney, I suppose you’re planning to see Vi and Don? Are they in on this?’
    â€˜Mum, there’s no secret about this. I haven’t mentioned it to them. Just in case it doesn’t come off.’ Jennifer turned her face away, hating the swift look of satisfaction that slid across her mother’s features.
    â€˜Well, let’s not count our chickens then.’
    Her mother sat at the kitchen table watching Jennifer take a small tub of ice cream from the freezer. Christina lit a cigarette and slowly blew a jet of smoke towards the ceiling. As Jennifer put tall frothy glasses of Milo milkshake on the table Christina reached out and touched her hand. ‘Don’t aim too high and get your hopes set on something people like us don’t deserve, Jennifer. There’re a lot of opportunities around here.’
    Jennifer didn’t answer. But inside she was yelling, Why don’t we deserve good things in life? Why shouldn’t I set my sights as high as I can see?
    Her mother was feeling cheerful and in control again. Jennifer’s aberration of going to Sydney University would be put to rest.
    Jennifer washed their glasses and went to her room. If only she had someone she could confide in, ask advice, someone who had no agenda but guiding her in the best possible direction. She started to change out of her school uniform.Maybe her mother was right – you were all alone in this world and had to manage your life yourself. She stared at herself in the mirror and saw a young girl on the verge of womanhood: fine pale skin, curves that were still filling out her body, shining golden hair that she cut herself, clear blue eyes and a mouth that was soft and sad. ‘I don’t want to be alone,’ she thought.
    How she missed her father, her big brother. There were no photos of them in the house though she knew about her mother’s photo album in the bottom of a drawer in her bedroom. Jennifer closed her eyes, remembering a laughing boy who’d held her hand, tousled her hair and whispered stories to her when she stole into his bed.
    Sometimes scenes of the sea, that day on the beach, the image of her mother hitting her father in the kitchen, flashed into her mind like a blinking light, but she pushed them aside. It had taken a while but she’d taught herself to make her mind go blank when these uninvited images darted across her interior vision. She swiftly thought of a black night sky. Then small specks of light hovered and she replaced these specks with snapshots that made her happy – brightly coloured fish in pink seaweed, the soft silvery skin of a gum tree beneath peeling bark, a butterfly perched on a leaf about to flutter into sunlight. Then she’d open her eyes and, sighing, return to the moment.

    Jennifer sat on a warm wooden bench at the edge of the university quadrangle gazing at students strolling or sitting on the emerald lawn. Idly, she wondered who else had sat on this old seat contemplating the mellow stone archways and high windows glinting in the sunlight. Much as she loved her university classes and the freedom of being on her own, halfway through her first year at Sydney University she still felt she didn’t belong here.
    Her mother’s belief that she had stepped beyond their boundaries had taken root in some deep place within her. It coloured how she approached everything in this new life. She never felt she wore the right clothes, or knew the same places and people and fads as other students. She felt she had to do her best and get good marks. That she had something to prove not only to herself,