The Soul of John Barton

Summary: Who was John Barton? The real John, friend of Josie Alibrandi and, according to his father, future Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister. The Higher School Certificate defines who you are – if you're up to the challenge. Based on the film "Looking for Alibrandi"

Rating: M

Warnings: Suicide, Language

The Higher School Certificate. My life rides on the final exams that make up the final two years of my life. My family expects so much, my father wants me to be the next Liberal Party Leader and future Prime Minister. Says he's looking out for my options. Josie told me that I'd make a great primary school teacher.

Josie, my friend, my equal. She could be the only girl I can really have a conversation with. Carly Bishop, the daughter of one of my father's supporters, is the airhead that she is portrayed to be. All she talks about is the social circles she belongs to and what is in fashion. Josie is nothing like that, we understand each other despite our different backgrounds.

Josie's grandparents are Italian, and even though she won the English scholarship to Saint Martha's Ladies College in Rose Bay, she still gets labelled with the stupid 'wog' term by Carly and her plastic friends. Josie explained to me that being called a 'wog' by your friends is not as insulting as being called one by someone as racist as the Bishops. Mr. Bishop runs a radio talk-show – a "shock jock" – and during the Christmas holidays he tackled the issues of "wogs on handouts". Just shows the kind of people the Bishops are.

My father likes Josie for her intellect. "The third speaker on the winning team," he said when I had introduced her. Josie is a keen debater who's future ambition is to be a barrister. Things like that impress my father – the Premier of New South Wales. Ambition is a cold, cold word with an even colder reality.

I go to Saint Andrews' College where I am school captain. Josie was voted captain of Saint Martha's but had the privilege knocked back to vice-captain for her "mischeviousness" – according to the principal, Sister Louise. True, Josie has had her fair share of wagging school and getting suspended for various misdeeds that included her friend Seraphenia Conti, and the unwilling Anna Selicic. I feel sorry for Anna, her shyness is not a good mix with the boldness of Sera and the smartness of Josie.

I attend Saint Andrews' with Josie's second-cousin Roberto – the "treasured grandson" and soccer freak. Even if he plays rugby union, he's playing it like soccer. Roberto is tall and weedy – not suited to the rugby field where guys are three times his weight, even if the same height. I wish I could be more like Roberto and Josie – carefree and passionate. I can't with the future my father wants for me. I need to be scandal free so that I can succeed in the eyes of the Australian public. I couldn't give a stuff.

I'm 18-years-old, I should be getting trashed in pubs with my mates, driving souped up Holden's and hooking up with the girl I love. I just don't want to hurt Josie with what I'm about to do. I'm probably going to go to hell, they'll preach about the evils of unnatural death whilst they worship my life and wonder why someone as perfect as I am wanted not to live.

I'll tell them why: I don't want to follow in my father's footsteps, in the footsteps of my grandfathers. I don't care about politics, they make me sick to the stomach. I want to be free to travel, to be the man that Josie would want me to be. A man that would have time for his family and enjoy life. I cannot enjoy life if I cannot be free to be me.

Josie has my soul on a piece of paper that she called "Catholic therapy". The idea is that you write down your feelings, tape up the paper and give it to someone you trust. Once an agreed date is reached, you open them and see if you feel the same. I've already read Josie's soul – how she's torn between her mother and her long-lost father, and how she can't stand the "Alibrandi curse" that her grandmother insists that she, Josie's mum, and Josie all share. She has also written about her feelings for me, and I know that they are true and sincere.

I'm sorry, Josie, but I have to go. I can't be here anymore, not if I can't be the man you need. That Jacob Coote of Cook High seems more than a match for you, even if he does seem a bit rough. Really Josie, I don't mind, Jacob Coote will look after you, I know you won't betray me. You won't give up, even when I am gone and they have scrubbed my sheets clean and have cleared every memory of me. I can trust you to keep my memory alive.

One vertical cut up each arm, deep to leave a steady flow of blood on the incessant white sheets that mother insists on using. A swig of whisky nicked from father's entertaining cabinet stocked with wines and spirits. He won't miss this one, Mr. Jack Daniels will see me through.

Ah, sleeping pills, how I still loathe thee. White pills forced down my throat because I refused to sleep. How ironic that I have the whole bottle without the force.

Oh Josephine, my Josie, smart Josie, how I love you with all my heart. I'm sorry to hurt you this way but I have no other way out. Not even if I be who you want me to be, who I want to be. Saint Josephine the Wise, my Saint Josephine. Ah, more whisky… How I love the burn sliding down my throat.

I need to write. Goodbye Josie, how I love thee, how I wish that I could've been what you and I wanted, all my love, John.

Goodbye, sweet dreams, delirium, death. Death follows soon and no one will understand the feeling of freedom.

10 years later: Josie

A decade you have been gone, John. I still don't understand why, except that you couldn't be what I wanted you to be. John, I didn't ever expect anything other than what you are… what you were.

Jacob made me understand death in ways I never thought I could've. His mother died when he was little, and I had thought that he was just a selfish guy. I'm still that old stupid girl that you knew me as.

I'm a solicitor at the moment, working in my father's Sydney office. He's back in Adelaide, going about his business. Jacob loves being the househusband with the mechanics business attached on the side. He's not you, but he understands. Jacob is Jacob, and you are John.

If you were alive now, you could've become the godfather of our first child. He's due in three months time, I already know that he is a boy and we are going to call him John – after you. He'll be John Marcus Coote, Marcus after my real grandfather.

I never got to tell you the story about nonna and Marcus Stanford. How nonno Alibrandi was away in the sugar cane fields and left nonna without a friend in the world. Then along comes Marcus who understands her, even if he didn't speak Italian. He taught nonna English and they had a little relationship that produced my mother. Of course she couldn't have been nonno's child, he was sterile from the mumps and never told anyone. No wonder he hated her. No wonder he hated me and nonna.

The curse is broken, John. I became the first Alibrandi to go to university and have a say in my life, and my mother was no longer the outcast of the family. Father was allowed to see us and we kept the contact. Mama even decided to go back to uni to study Literature and to write poetry. I am still very proud of her. She can't wait for her grandson.

I am twenty-seven years old, and life is going fine. Maybe one day I can understand you, John. The cryptic message you left me engraved on your desk, and covered in your blood still makes me wonder about the real you. You gave me your soul, fully trusting me to remain myself, not to cry or be sad. I was, John, I was sad and angry and confused.

I passed my Higher School Certificate a lifetime ago now, and got into law at Sydney Uni. I lived the dream that I had told you that day in the rain when we walked around campus to see if we liked it. You were distant. Maybe you had already made up your mind to end it all, maybe it was still a distant thought.

Happy tenth anniversary, John. I'm off to live my life to the fullest for myself, for you, for mama, father, nonna, Jacob and our child. Maybe one day, I will understand what you really wanted for your life.

Author's note: "Looking for Alibrandi" was written by Melina Marchetta and was published in 1992. It has since been a part of the New South Wales HSC (year 12 certificate exams) in the compulsory English component. The film was released in 2000.

My inspiration for the fic came from John Barton's funeral in the film, and I explored John's mental state during his last few hours of life. There was always room to wonder if he loved Josie romantically or just as a friend. I also added Josie's view after the events.

My other inspiration is from my current status as an HSC student taking the final examinations so as to finish high school and gain entry to university. The HSC is a very stressful part of a student's life in NSW, with many students suffering from varying illnesses, stresses and even in rare cases death and disappearances.

For the majority of us, it is just a part of life that we do get through with a rewarding feeling at the end and a well acknowledged leaver's certificate.

Good luck, it is almost over. Then it's party time!

Lyndal, 25/10/06