Holier Than Thou (7 page)
‘Yeah. So no kids for Nick.’
‘Oh, Nicholarse.You could quit—’
‘Train’s coming.’
We joined the throng at the yellow line, and his face signalled he was closed to that particular line of conversation.
‘Actually,’ I raised my voice over the din, ‘when I look at the circles under Kristy’s eyes, I wonder whether I could be a mother at all. Kristy says she gets up to settle Ava pretty much every hour all through the night. I could
not
do that.’
‘Well, what’s her friggin’ husband doing, letting her get up eight times through the night?’ Nick shouted back. ‘She’s munted, you can see that from looking at her. He should bloody well take a fifty percent share. I would.’
‘Would you, sweet-cakes?’
‘Damn right.’
We settled down in our usual seats.
‘For me,’ said Nick, ‘it’s when I’m in the supermarket and see some poor mum or dad with a tantrumming toddler and a baby crying in a sling, and I think . . .
I could not do that. I am so glad I don’t have to do that
.’
‘Yeah.Yeah, having kids must suck.’
‘You got that right.’
‘We are ready,’ said Craw to the entire cast and crew, who stood in a big circle that spanned the length and breadth of the school hall. ‘You are a credit to me, to the school, to yourselves. It’s going to be a great show and I’m proud to be directing you. If you can keep up tonight’s energy.’
We had just finished the full dress-rehearsal. It was 9 p.m. on a Tuesday, and opening night was tomorrow. Tomorrow!
After we were dismissed and had changed out of costume, I sat on the bleachers, tying the laces of my school shoes. Liam sat down next to me.
‘When they say he’s . . . when you say
soon
, Holly, uh, how soon are we talking?’ I heard him saying.
I concentrated hard on the laces. ‘Soon.’ I pulled the double-bow hard. ‘Just soon. That’s all they say. I can see it though. I don’t need them to say.’
‘Honey.’ Liam’s warm palm was flat between my shoulder blades. My school shirt was made of very thin cotton and I felt a form of energy pass through it from his hand, into my dermal layer and eventually my bloodstream. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Thanks, Leigh-mond.’
Lara, Abigail and Dan approached and clustered around me in various poses, not knowing what to say but wanting to show their solidarity. Craw came over, too, and patted my shoulder. ‘You were great tonight, Holly. We are lucky to have you.’
Well, it’s a love-in on the bleachers,
I thought a little sourly. I hoisted my backpack up, and grabbed the green enviro-bag that I had taken to carting to and from rehearsal.
‘Let’s go,’ I said to Liam. Ingrid was picking us up from school, because it was so late. And cold.
We walked out of the hall, almost-but-not-quite avoiding the descent of Ffion, who embraced Liam and gushed pre-opening-night whatever.
Love your work!
Then she hugged me too, because my dad was dying and all, but I sensed the emptiness of that hug. I sensed that it was somehow for Liam’s benefit. Ffion’s father was probably already putting the finishing touches on a bitchy hatchet-job-cum-obituary for the soon-to-be late John Yarkov. Man, I wanted to get out of there. We made our way out to the bus shelter on the main road, still busy even after nine o’clock. It was really cold, so I pulled my coat out of the green bag and struggled into it, cursing. Liam stood stoically in his customary black hoodie. Unshivering. Unhunched. He put his arm around me, squeezing my shoulder tight. He had never done that before ‘How does “The Three Little Pigs” end?’ I said suddenly.
‘The—’
‘I can’t remember how it ends. Why can’t I remember how it ends? My dad used to read it to me all the time.’
‘You’ve got a lot on your plate.’
‘They run to the brick house . . .’
‘And the wolf huffs and puffs but he can’t blow down the brick house.’
‘Right. And then what?’ We looked right into each other’s eyes. He didn’t remove his arm.
‘Um . . . maybe that’s it; he just goes away after that.’
‘No way Leigh-mond . . . there’s something else. Something fucked up.’
‘You would think that, Holly Yarkova.’
‘He climbs up on the roof!’ I exclaimed triumphantly. ‘Yes, he climbs up on the roof . . .’
‘He’s going to the come down the chimney!’
‘And the pigs are shitting themselves.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then,’ I said, ‘they light a fire in the fireplace and boil up some water . . . ’
‘Uh- [3" thoh.’
‘So when the wolf comes down the chimney, he
burns.
’
‘That
is
fucked up.’
‘And you thought I was just being negative.’
‘Here’s Mum.’ He gave my shoulder one last squeeze and stepped down off the kerb. We threw our bags into the warm car, and scrambled thankfully in after them.
‘Hey hey,’ Ingrid said, with a brightness I could tell was false, as we buckled ourselves in. ‘How’s the show looking?’
‘Good,’ replied Liam. ‘Good. Much better than it was a week ago. Musically speaking. And the acting is good too.’
‘Great. And Holly is a star?’
‘She sure is.’
‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘Ffion and Riley are the stars.’
‘There wouldn’t be a show without you, Hol.’
I grunted.
‘Well, I am looking forward to tomorrow night,’ Ingrid said firmly.
Most of the parents were coming on opening night. The two tickets I had bought for my family were stuck to our fridge at home with a magnet that said,
Cheer up! The worst is yet to come!
We drove the rest of the way in silence. For the first time ever in a car trip with Ingrid, she didn’t ask me how my dad was, or tell me I was such a strength to my mother.
Ingrid started to pull in to our driveway, but braked suddenly because there was a car already in it. A standard issue Corolla with the local health service logo painted on it.Trisha the nurse was there. At 9:45 p.m. Ingrid reversed out onto the street, and found a parking spot outside our neighbour’s house. She switched the engine off and pulled the key out of the ignition.
‘I’m taking you to the door tonight,’ she said. She put her arm around me as we walked.
Mere
and
fils
tonight. One could get used to this. Any time Liam or his mum wanted to put an arm around me was just fine.
Sarah opened the door, looking haggard, before I had even got my keys out. She must have been waiting for me.
‘Hi, Hol. Ingrid,’ she said, and put her arms out to me. I looked over her shoulder while I hugged her, and saw the reaper practising moves with his scythe in the vestibule.
‘Your mum is upstairs with your dad and Trisha. Why don’t you—’ I was already leaping up the stairs two at a time.
‘—join them . . . ’
I threw [="3="0em"
‘No! No! You’re not going to get me! You’re not going to get me!’ he tried to shout at some demon, but only had the strength to whimper.
I put my hand on Mum’s shoulder. She didn’t seem to register my presence.
‘Hi, Holly,’Trisha said grimly, as she washed out the line with saline solution and threw the syringe in the bin. ‘Can you both come over here please?’
She shepherded Mum and me over to Mum’s dressing table, which had been cleared of all make-up, creams and jewellery and was instead covered in ampoules, syringes and giant cotton bud sticks.
‘Now, listen to me,’ said Trisha. ‘I’m going to leave you six pre-prepared syringes, three with a dose of morphine and three with haloperidol. If he doesn’t start to settle soon, give him more haloperidol. If he still doesn’t settle, give him more. Same deal with the morphine if you think he is in pain.’
Mum nodded mutely.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Okay.’
‘I’m on-call tonight, so you can ring the hospice and have them page me if you want to.’
‘Aren’t you . . . ’ my mother managed, ‘aren’t you going to take a look at his bed sore?’
‘Julia . . . ’ Trisha said in a low voice,‘the bed sore doesn’t matter anymore. The only thing that matters, the only goal now, is to settle him. Okay?’
Tears ran down my mother’s face. I felt some pricking behind my eyes, but I tensed my sternum, pushed my shoulders back and rubbed Mum’s arm.
‘Okay,’ I said for both of us.
‘It’s going to be a tough night for both of you,’ Trisha said. She closed her bag and put her coat on.
It was a tough night. By 2 a.m., three of the six syringes had been administered but Dad was still agitated and talking crazy. My mother and Sarah insisted that I go to bed, so I kissed Dad’s mottled forehead and went to my room. It was cold in there. I turned on the heater and put a hoodie on over my PJs. I rubbed my blue hands and wished I had turned on the heater half an hour earlier. I shivered and clenched, under the doona. Mum had set up an air mattress on the floor next to Dad and said she planned to lie down on it soon. Sarah and Graeme were on the sofa bed downstairs. Paddy was apparently asleep in his bed. I left my door ajar so I could hear Dad’s rambling and whimpering as I tried to fall asleep.
I must have slept at some stage, because I woke to greyish dawn light, the room overheated from the heater left on, and registered i [ ree slept mmediately that I could no longer hear my father’s moaning. I leapt out of bed and ran down the hall. Mum was seated next to his bed, rumpled in last night’s clothing and clutching one of Dad’s hands that lay gnarled on top of the bedspread. She looked up at me as I crashed into the door frame and hurried over to her.
‘He’s still here,’ she said.
But something had shifted. He lay completely supine, with his eyes half-closed and . . . it was as if his mouth had started to shrivel up into his skull. He looked nothing like my dad. His breaths came in gasps. The clock radio said it was just past 7 a.m. The remaining three syringes on the dresser were gone, I noticed, and we both jumped as the front door bell chimed.
‘I’ll get it,’ I said. I ran down the stairs, my bare feet shrinking against the cold floorboards. Sarah and Graeme were rubbing their eyes in the sofa bed.
I flung open the front door. Dr Sue stood on the verandah, wearing the well-cut houdstooth overcoat that I coveted.
‘Good morning, Holly.’
‘Good morning.’
‘Mmmm,’ Dr Sue murmured, when she was leaning slightly over Dad. ‘Mmm.’
She turned to me and Mum.
‘I’d keep the children home from school today,’ she said to both of us. Then she remembered that I actually was one of the children, and repeated herself just to my mother.
‘Keep swabbing his mouth like I showed you. There might be a little gurgling sound of mucous in his throat. Or not. I think it will be hours. If that. I have to go the hospice now. Call me when he’s gone and I’ll come back.’
Mum nodded.
Sue touched her shoulder. ‘You’ve done such an amazing job, Julia. Really you have.’
And she squeezed my dad’s hand goodbye.
I saw Dr Sue to the door and said good morning to Sarah and Graeme in the kitchen. I explained to them what Dr Sue had said.
‘We’ll brew a pot of tea and bring it upstairs,’ Sarah said, busying herself filling the kettle while Graeme ferreted for cups.
I climbed the stairs again and knocked on Paddy’s door.
‘Pads?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Yeah.’
He was dressed in his school uniform, just pulling his jumper on over his shirt. Mum mustn’t have been in to see him yet.
‘How’d you sleep?’ I asked him.
‘Fine.’
‘Didn’t you hear Dad?’
‘Nope.’
He picked up his school backpack and put it on his shoulder.
‘Pads.’
‘What.’
I took hold of the strap on his shoulder and lifted the bag back onto the ground.
‘We’re not going to school today.’
Sunday morning was usually a happy time for the Espie-Yarkovs of Dulwich Hill. It should have been an occasion for newspapers and coffee in bed, and for snuggling, of course. The tradition of meeting Daniel, Abigail and Lara for café brunch every Sunday had dropped to sort-of monthly.
But on this Sunday morning, I sat on the balcony at 11 a.m., drinking coffee from my favourite mug – a Farside comic showing a white building with flames billowing out every window. The building was floating along a fast-flowing river and about to go over a sheer waterfall. The sign on top of the building read CRISIS CLINIC. It made me laugh every time I looked at it. It made me think of work at Befftown, of us all beavering away on a sinking ship. The sound of Tim whistling in the shower floated out of the bathroom.
I waved forlornly at the Pakistani lady across the way, and watched her toddler butting against the balcony bars on his ride-on. I was steeling myself for lunch with Tim’s family at Manly Golf Club. My tree stood strong and shining in the red-brick jungle, reaching up high above the rooftops, delighting in its own beauty. The sky was a brilliant cloudless blue. The air was chilly but clean and crisp.
‘Shower’s free!’ called Tim.
My phone beeped in my dressing gown pocket. It was Nick. Good luck on the dark side of the force ? and don’t mention the war.
Tim’s immediate family were nice. His father was the Acting Dean of Science at Sydney University, and his mother was doing a PhD in English Literature after a long stint of homemaking. Tim’s younger sister, Lauren, was at uni studying law and still lived at home. Theirs was a lovely house in the harbourside suburb of Cremorne. It was always freshly painted, the leafy garden paved with flagstones. The centrepiece of the garden was one of those terracotta lion water features so popular in that part of the world.
I had no quarrel with Tim’s immediate family. It was his aunt and uncle, though, who had invited all of us to lunch that day, to celebrate their return from a longer-than-usual holiday in Europe. Dee and Tom Espie were members at Manly Golf Club. They liked to play golf. When they were in Sydney, as far as I could tell, they played golf every day, followed by several glasses, or maybe bottles, of wine at the club. Tom ^far even had one of those hats with a tartan pattern and the black pompom on top. They were retired. Obviously. No law against playing golf. I’ve never played it, but it must be pleasant or so many people wouldn’t do it. However. I struggled when I had to go to that place and toe that line and eat that food. I struggled when I had to carry on a conversation with Dee and Tom that didn’t end in me fulfilling my role as the daughter of one of Australia’s most famous pinkos, and them fulfilling their role as a white-as-white, liberal-voting, golf-playing, climate-change-denying, Gough-denigrating, portfolio-holding, unthinking, and – here it is – uneducated North Shore couple.
Even worse than when we went to the golf club was going to their house. I was confronted with their bookshelf (singular) which held several cookbooks, a couple of John Grisham novels, a Jodi Picoult, and a book about the Battle of Britain.
I showered and washed my hair, considering all the mould on the bathroom ceiling and between the tiles of the shower recess. I’d have to get in there with an old toothbrush or some kind of scrubbing apparatus to clean up that grouting. As for the ceiling. Didn’t know what to do about that. And the giant hairball impeding the flow of water into the drain – I didn’t even want to think about it. But I reckoned the hairball had something to do with the fact that there were always big cockroaches in there in the dead of night, that scurried away if I snapped on the light at 3 a.m.
Tim was waiting for me on the new couch, wearing dark jeans, a freshly ironed grey shirt and his newish, black Tiger shoes. I came sauntering out of the bedroom wearing jeans and a black, long-sleeved T-shirt from uni days with the words
Lock up the Liberals, free the refugees
inscribed across the front in white lettering.
‘Very funny,’ said Tim, switching off the Waratahs versus Whoever. ‘Change.’
‘Oh come on . . . ’
‘Change! We’re late as it is.’
I skulked back into the bedroom and put on my blue-and-black checked cowgirl shirt with pearly studs for buttons over the top of the forbidden T-shirt. When I joined Tim again he pointed at my feet.
‘They won’t let you in the club in thongs, Hol.’
‘These are not
thongs
! They’re Birkenstocks! They cost over a hundred dollars! These are even
dress
Birkenstocks – they’re patent leather.’
‘Just put some proper shoes on; it’s cold anyway!’
We glowered at each other.
‘Surely I can wear these into the club . . .’
‘Can we not risk it please? It’s not like we can just nip home and grab some other shoes if you’re the only one who doesn’t meet dress regulations.’
Stalemate.
‘I’ll
bring
my Convers c/iont size="e Stars,’ I allowed.
‘Al
right,
let’s go.’
‘Al
right,
cranky-pants! Jeez, it’s a good job you’re so good-looking.’
Soon we were on New Canterbury Road in the ancient Mazda, heading for the CityWest Link and then the bridge.
Nick delicately re-positioned the square of cardboard on top of his milk-crate before sitting down. We both have a cardboard square, so the plastic stripes on the crate don’t cut into our butts and thighs. I was already seated and holding a coffee in each hand.
‘Thank you kindly,’ he said, taking hold of his mug around the rim.
‘Watch it, it’s hot.’
‘I got it.’
‘You got it?’
‘Got it.’
I let go of the handle.
‘So how was the lunch yesterday, Hollier-than-thou?’
‘The lunch itself? Unremarkable. Seafood buffet.’
‘And did you behave yourself?’
‘Pretty much. There were a couple of tense moments, but I managed to get myself back from the brink.’
‘Such as . . . ?’
‘Such as . . . well more comical than tense. Dee was talking about the state election coming up . . . um, who’s running in their seat . . . ’
‘Uh-oh.’
‘And she was talking about the Labor candidate. Jeering, actually, not talking. Something about the Spit Bridge and Military Road being so awful. She topped it all off with saying, “Labor has never given a
damn
about the North Shore.” And I fought the urge to laugh.’
‘Did you say anything?’
‘I just said, “Yes. That may be, uh, true.” I mean, it’s not exactly . . . She’s right in a way.’
Nick laughed. ‘What did she say about the Greens candidate?’
‘
Is
there even a Greens candidate running in that seat? There’s hardly any point.’
I noticed Nick had not lit a cigarette.
‘Aren’t you going to indulge your filthy habit?’
‘Uh, no. I’m trying to cut back. To quit actually.’
‘Really? That’s great Nicholarse!’
‘Yeah . . . well, if I seem cranky that’s why.’
Poor Nick. He looked very uncomfortable. Coffee and a cigarette went together like a wink and a smile for him. I’d have to distract him as best I could, with my charm and disarming candour.
‘Did you do circus things yesterday?’ I asked.
‘Yes! It was great. I’m loving the silks. And some of us stayed after dark to practise fire twirling and some other fire stuff.’
‘Sweet.’
‘You know, you should walk down one day and have a look. It’s only twenty minutes from your place.’
‘I’d love to. So . . . are there any nice young carnie women who do circus with you?’
‘
And now for something completely different
. . .’
‘Just asking.’
‘There are some nice young women, yes, but most of them seem to prefer the pleasures of their own sex.’
‘Most? Not all then?’
‘Oh stop that, Holly Yarkov, you’re only embarrassing yourself.’
‘Alright.’
We were nearing the end of our coffees. And our coffee break.
‘How did you like that Interpol CD?’ he asked.
‘I liked it a lot. It’s not cheery though.’
‘Since when do you like cheery?’
‘I—’
‘You’re not cheery.’
‘I can be cheery.’
‘You are never cheery. Funny, yes. Cheery, no.’
‘I—’
‘You are no one’s little ray of sunshine. You are dour; you see the glass as half fucked-up. And I love that about you. But I’m not about to give you a CD of music about skipping through a sunny meadow singing
tra-la-la
.’
‘
Okay!
’
‘I’m with you, sister, believe me. I can’t stand people who are all like . . .
Look on the bright side
. . . ’
‘Yeuch.’
/div
‘
The sun will come out tomorrow!You can bet on it
’
‘You can bet that one that day that fucking sun will go supernova and kill us all.’
‘That’s what I’m talking about!’
We both laughed.
‘So,’ I said,‘what fucked-up shit awaits us this afternoon?’
‘Um . . . I have a tribunal hearing by video-conference at 12:30.’
‘I’ll help you set up. Who’s it for?’
‘Gerard.’
‘Do you think he’ll come?’
‘Don’t know. Poor bugger. Then we’d better head out to the ’hood.’
‘All roads lead to Jindarra Street . . .’ I quoted the institutional wisdom of Befftown Community Mental Health.
‘For us anyway. I’m sure there are people out there whose working lives do not take them to Jindarra Street.’
Jindarra Street looped through a cluster of dodgy suburbs, making it very difficult to get lost. If you ever found yourself momentarily disoriented, any road you took would eventually lead back to Jindarra Street. The circle of life. Every week at the allocations meeting, Nick and I put our hands up for clients who lived in that ’hood. Even though they were by far the most soul-destroyingly depressing and hopeless cases. I guess it was easier for us to have all our work concentrated in one area. Plus, I suspect that Nick and I both had a soft spot for lost causes. Like Saint Jude.
You’d think watching your father die in Year Ten would give a person a certain insight into the fallibility, the mortality, the essential frailty, of the human animal. That we are all parcels of flesh that will age and die. Or just die. But I didn’t really grasp that until the age of twenty-four, when I was walking through Befftown Hospital, on my way up to ICU where one of my clients had been admitted with a poly-pharmacy overdose and deep self-inflicted lacerations to, oddly enough, his thighs. I snuck in through the ambulance bay of ED and headed out the other side to the main lobby.
Once on the fourth floor I had to walk through the respiratory ward, which was full of old people, or people who looked old, who were either tiny and shrivelled or morbidly obese. I walked briskly, determined not to look too hard at any of them. I passed the Fort Knox-style security door to the dementia ward, and saw inside a little old lady banging on the door, screaming and being restrained by two nurses. I couldn’t hear her screaming though, or the shouts of the nurses, because the door was soundproof. It was like watching a silent film.
Anyway, I made it to HDU and approached my client; he wouldn’t adm fwo nit as much but was glad to see me.
‘Hey, Ben.’
He glared at me. He was only twenty, and had been quite buff until recently, when his skin had turned scaly and unhealthy and his tummy had grown a paunch.
‘Must feel good to be extubated, huh?’ I looked around, dragged over a plastic chair from the next cubicle and sat down with my handbag on my lap. ‘
Love
being extubated.’
He glared more.
‘Why didn’t you come yesterday?’ he demanded.
‘Well, a) because you were still hooked up and a bit delirious according to some. And b) because you know it’s in your contract that I don’t see or talk to you for at least twenty-four hours when you do this.’
He glared at me like a psychopath.
‘Oh stop it, Ben, you’ll get a permanent mark between your eyes.’
‘Why hasn’t my mum been in?’ he growled.
‘Dunno. Maybe she’s dirty at you. Needs to self-soothe, y’know?’
‘Bitch. She should be here.’
‘Well . . .’ I fished in my handbag.
‘I’ve got thirty stitches in my thighs.’
‘So I hear.’ I pulled out some sheets of paper and slapped them down on his tray table.
‘Here are your homework sheets. See you in group on Friday, if you get out of here.’
‘What if I’m transferred straight to Bannerman House?’ he asked, suddenly meek. ‘What if I’m not out by Friday?
‘I’ll ask Choong to give you special leave to attend, and I’ll come and get you and drop you back. Okay?’
‘Okay. Thanks, Holly.’
‘But it’s Choong’s call.’
‘Okay.’
There was a sudden ominous beeping from the cubicle opposite, and nurses came rushing over, yanking back the curtain to reveal a young Indian woman lying crookedly on the bed and her husband standing next to her holding a baby that could not have been more than a few days old. An emergency bell sounded, soon the crash cart people would arrive.
‘That poor woman,’ I said. ‘That poor baby. And the husband . . . ’ I turned to Ben.
‘Life is precious isn’t it?’
He scowled.
Still no revelation of mortality though, as I said goodbye to Ben and his ward full of patients hovering dangerously close to the light. It was coming though.
Halfway down a long sterile corridor I crossed paths with an orderly pushing a bed with a patient on it. It was a small old woman, hunched under a cotton blanket, staring straight up at the ceiling, but she made eye contact with me for a second as I passed. And then I really did know. One day my taut smooth skin would wrinkle and sag in great folds, all over my body. My glorious D-cup breasts would deflate and flop this way and that. I would no longer unveil my body to anyone and enjoy the seconds of their awed, thankful silence. I would no longer feel eyes moving compulsively over my body.
My sparkling blue eyes would dull and be hidden under drooping flesh. My bones would get brittle; I would no longer rush about on a sports field or leap up a staircase two at a time, confident in my own footing. I would have to wear dentures, and my mouth would sink into my face when I took them out at night. My own body would betray me, in minor, and then major, ways. I might not have anyone around to look after me, or love me. But whether or not I did, the outcome would be the same. I would breathe my last and leave only an empty body. And pretty soon even that body would return to dust.
I stood frozen in that corridor for what could have been moments or minutes. I stared at the backs of my hands, imagining them gnarled, spotted and purplish, and then ash.
Holy fuck
.
‘Timbo!’ I sat in the Health Service car in the hospital parking lot and shouted into my mobile.
‘Hey, sweetie . . . ’
‘Timbo! Do you love me?’
‘Of course I do . . . What’s going on?’
‘We’re going to die, both of us! We’re going to age and die. Or just die. Things will get bad. I’ll be organising your funeral or you’ll be organising mine . . . ’
‘What?’
‘And I’ll get ugly, but that’s not even the worst of it. There is no way to avoid this happening.
There is no way to get out of it
. It’s a dead cert, Timbo, a dead cert.’
‘Holly, what are you going on about?’
‘We will age and die. Do you understand that?’
He was silent. I could hear the voices and phones ringing in his office.
‘Um . . . well, yeah, I guess, but it’s a long way off; why worry about it now? Just enjoy yourself.’
‘
Enjoy myself?
Enjoy myself! How can I enjoy myself? What is the point of enjoying myself? That’s not going to stave it off! Don’t you see, it doesn’t! We may not even make it to old age . . . We could be mown down in our prime, or diagnosed with kiag yo some horrible illness next week . . . ’
‘Oh, babe, please try not to think about it like that. How can I make you feel better?’
‘Just . . . just come straight home from work tonight and fuck me.’
‘But hon, I’ve got futsal tonight with the guys from work. Semi-final.’
‘Then come home straight after futsal.’
‘But we usually get a beer afterwards.’
‘Then come home straight after the beer, but make it snappy and be good and damn ready as soon as you walk in the door because your woman will be
eagerly
anticipating your arrival.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Don’t be drunk and tired.’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Ready for action.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Bye.’
I hung up and considered whether to call Lara, Daniel and Abigail in that order to tell them that we were all going to die. I decided against it. I was overdue at the community centre and it was almost lunchtime. Despite, or perhaps because of, my newly realised mortality, I was absolutely starving. I dialled Nick’s number.
‘Nicholarse!’
‘Hollier-than-thou . . .’
‘Where you at?’
‘I am just finishing up at a home-visit in Guthrie Hill. You?’
‘I’m at the hospital . . . I’m all fucked up!’
‘Because of Ben’s overdose?’
‘No! Because we are all going to die! And
sag
. And stop getting any!’
‘Uh-oh.’
‘And I’m ravenous.’
‘Okay. Okay. I will go via Habib’s and get us some manoush for lunch . . .’
‘Cheesy manoush.’
‘Cheesy manoush for the lady . . . You go back to the centre and put the coffee machine on. We’ll meet on our crates in twenty minutes for a full debrief.’
‘Deal.’
At lunch, I gave Nick the full spiel, the same one I had given Ti k ha’m.
‘I know,’ he said.
‘It’s fucked up.’
‘I know.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Ahh, how do I know? Well, for one thing I’m a few years older than you. And I’m a nurse, obviously—’
‘Obviously.’
‘And I did a longish stint in an end-of-the-line old folks’ home before I escaped to mental health. So . . . I know.’
‘How do you deal with it?’ I pressed.
He swallowed a large mouthful of manoush.
‘I smoke a lot of pot. I do circus things . . . that focuses me on the here and now and makes me feel strong and aware of my body and kind of like I am immortal when I am up in those silks. Er . . . well I suppose I just accept it when all is said and done.’
‘I don’t. I don’t accept it. I hate it.’
‘I hate it too.’
‘I mean, why can’t it be like in
Brave New World
where you live your generous allotment of years looking and feeling buff, and rooting around like mad, until
pouf
you are turned into a little cloud of steam?’
‘Is that a movie?’
‘
Brave New World
?’
‘Yeah.’
‘
Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley?’
‘Ah, a book then?’
‘A book. Have you never heard of it?’
‘Nuh.’
‘But . . . but it’s famous . . . one of those futuristic nightmares, and all, like, if we take away the possibility of illness, unhappiness, emotional pain . . . then we lose our humanity. We can never fall in love, never have that moment when you read a poem or listen to a few bars of music and your soul soars.’
‘Sounds interesting. Us western-suburbs nurses,’ he affected a western-suburbs twang, ‘haven’t heard of much, darl.’
‘Well . . . I guess Huxley is saying the “buff until pouf ” thing is wrong too. Everything has a price, anyways. So, uh, tell me, Sister Campbell, what have you western suburbs nurses heard of, if not of
Brave New World?
’
‘Ahhh, we just like drinkin’, smokin’ . . . spittin’.’
‘Night-time is the right time.’
‘’ken oath.’
We sat in silence for a while. Niah from Drug Health came out the side entrance and paced back and forth, conversing on her mobile in low desperate tones.
‘She’s getting it on with someone in the building.’ I said, suddenly forgetting about my mortality.
‘Really? How do you know?’
‘I heard her talking on the phone. Bet it’s Anthony Pearce.’
‘No way,’ said Nick
Anthony Pearce was the director of the whole Community Health Service, not just Mental Health but all of the other freaks we shared the building with. One of those men who studied Social Work, but advanced to the top level of health bureaucracy without ever having to practise it. He couldn’t have been older than thirty.
‘Why not?’
‘He’s gay.’
‘He is? How do you know?’
‘I,’ said Nick, ‘have a finely honed sense of these things. He lights up when I’m around.’
‘But when are you around?’ I asked. ‘The only time Anthony speaks to us is when one of us parks in his parking spot. And even then he’ll just send a snippy email.’
‘He seeks me out.’
‘I have never seen him seek you out.’
‘It’s always when I’m alone.’
‘Is that right?’
‘I have many secrets.’
‘I’m getting that.’
We walked to the train station together that afternoon, which was a Wednesday.
‘What are you doing tonight?’ asked Nick.
‘Um . . . I’ll brood on the balcony for a couple hours. Drink alone. Look at my tree. Until Tim gets home at ten. Then I will seek meaningful congress with him.’
‘I have a better idea.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘Just to fill the time until Captain Tim gets home,’ he added hastily. ‘But it’s a surprise . . . and you’ll have to get off at my stop. It’ll take your mind off being mortal.’
‘ ke=" stop.Well, I won’t hate that.’
We got off the train at Marrickville and walked up the hill to Nick’s apartment building.
‘I just need to get something,’ he said. ‘Want to come up?’
‘Okay.’
‘Avert your eyes from the mess.’
‘Okely dokely.’
Nick’s place smelled like boy. A mixture of men’s deodorant and of towels that have been used and then not hung up to dry properly. Terry was out. Nick busied himself in the kitchen, packing beer I figured as I heard the clink of glass bottles. I peered through his open bedroom door. There was a large poster from a Cirque du Soleil tour hanging over the unmade bed. The bed. Enormous. At least a queen size, and it took up most of the space. It was a four-poster bed too, oddly enough, and really high. Someone of my height would have to climb up into it.
‘Why such a huge bed, Nicholarse?’ I called.
‘I need room to work!’ he called back. ‘Can’t make the magic happen in cramped quarters.’
‘I guess not.’ I felt a bit fluttery in my tummy and, oddly enough, my thighs, and hurried to join him in the kitchen.
‘Ready?’
‘Ready. We’ll need to take my car.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Not far at all.’
We got into Nick’s ancient Civic and drove to the end of his street. We passed the enormous Marrickville RSL and entered the multi-storey commuter car park next to the train station. Up and up and up until we reached the top level in open air. It was virtually empty.
‘You know, I’ve never been up here,’ I said, and turned up the radio as a song by The Strokes came on.
‘Well . . . check this out.’
He drove to the northern end of the car park, weaving from left to right in the absence of any other cars, and parked, leaving the radio on. We got out and approached the railing. Beyond it, Sydney. All the suburbs between Marrickville and the city were laid out in the fading light. The CBD skyline was milky from the haze of the evening peak hour.
‘Wow . . .’
A 747 dropped lower and lower in front of us, its engines roaring in a higher and higher pitch, minutes from landing at Mascot.
‘You’re not cold are you?’ asked Nick.
‘Umm . . .’
‘The k3"ontre’s a duffle coat in the boot you can wear.’
‘What about you?’
‘I don’t feel the cold.’
‘Thanks.’
He handed me the coat and I waited as he wiped down the bonnet of the Civic with a towel. I fished out two beers from the little esky and we clambered up into a sitting position on the bonnet. It was warm, even from such a brief drive.