Love and Other Perishable Items (22 page)

“Saint Christopher!” he boomed, subtle menace lurking behind his bonhomie. “So, what kind of a job are you going to get next year?”

He asked that question knowing and relishing that it is the most frightening question you could ask a sociology student. When I failed to answer immediately, he turned to Dad and said, “What do you reckon, Rob? What’s your boy going to do next year?”

Dad too appeared flummoxed—no,
shamed
—but thank God for Zoe, who arrived at that juncture with a fresh round of beers. She must have been listening.

Mum’s sister, Sue, showed up with her husband, Stuart, and their eleven-year-old daughter, Brianna. They live somewhere near some hills. Baulkham Hills, Beaumont Hills, something like that. I don’t know why, but Sue loves talking to me at these things. She makes a beeline for me every time, announcing to no one in particular that she’s “going to talk to Christopher.” Sue, bless her soul, has none of Jeff’s menace, but she talks
at
you with this incredible pressure, and any attempt to actually contribute
to the conversation—that is, to break into her monologue—gets ridden over. I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a Hills accent, but there’s something distinctive about the way she talks. It creeps in around the edges. The only example I can think of right now is that instead of saying, “Yesterday the man finally came to fix the washing machine,” she says, “Yesterday the man finally
come
to fix the washing machine.”

She told me about the trip to Europe that she and Stuart took Brianna on earlier this year, and also the aggrieved story about one of Brianna’s teachers, who, several years ago, told her that Brianna had ADHD. Which she doesn’t. I’ve heard both of these stories before. But I don’t mind hearing them again, especially if it gets me out of talking to Uncle Jeff.

Our barbecue is under the carport and a good few yards away from the main hub of the party. I’d thought that manning it might get me off conversation duty for half an hour or so, but oh, how I was wrong. Uncle Jeff saw an opportunity. I was a sitting duck—all alone under the carport, wearing Mum’s apron and tending the steaks and sausages.

He swooped, beer in one hand, fold-out chair in the other, and set himself up next to the grill. I was his captive audience for the duration of the barbecuing. There were quite a few orders for well-done too, so I was fucked.

He sat there, happy as a clam, finding fault with my talents (or otherwise) as a barbecue chef. At one point he stood up and without warning poured his beer over all the sizzling steaks, washing away Mum’s prized marinade.

“Gives ’em a bit of flavor, eh?”

I stood still and considered my options for response. I said nothing.

I was in the homestretch, transferring the steaks onto a platter and keeping careful note of which ones were rare, medium and well-done, when he came out with what he’d been saving for last:

“So, Chris, you got yourself a girlfriend yet?”

“No, I … I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Oh well, that’s all good. Not all young fellas have
girl
friends, you know. And that’s all right, nothing wrong with it. Just the way things are, right?”

I stared down at the heavy platter of meat, considering a range of responses to his insinuation that my girlfriendless existence was due to being gay. I looked down the yard at my dad and saw him laughing with Uncle Stuart, Zoe and my mother.

“This round is ready,” I said to Uncle Jeff lightly. “Dig in. You gotta be quick around here.”

Zoe and I did most of the cleaning up afterward, leaving Mum and Dad to have some downtime. I carted everything in and scraped the dishes. Zoe rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher. She washed up the big platters and salad bowls that wouldn’t fit into the dishwasher. I dried them and put them away. When we were finished, I got two beers out of the fridge and we sat down out the back.

“Uncle Jeff reckons I’m gay,” I said.

“No, he doesn’t. He reckons he can get a rise out of you by implying it. Did he?”

“I ignored him.”

“That’s so grown-up. You could never have done that a year ago.”

“Yeah, well. I didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of making me ruin Dad’s birthday party. That would just confirm his pet
theory that I’m a useless, precocious little bastard. Plus, it’s time he learned that the gay thing just isn’t the insult it used to be.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

“Hey, are you still cut up about What’s-her-face?” she asked.

Ever since Michaela pulled my still-beating heart out of my chest à la
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
, Zoe has referred to her only as What’s-her-face.

“Um, sometimes,” I hedged. “Most of the time. Yes.”

“Amazing. It’s been over a year.”

“Yeah, well. You know my ‘passion for unhappiness.’ How’s What’s-
his
-face?”

Zoe’s boyfriend, Terry, is a fellow commerce graduate. She doesn’t bring him round much. They both have graduate positions in accounting firms. Whenever I’ve met him, he’s had very little to say. But I know better than to try to understand what attracts people to other people.

“He’s good,” she said. “Um, hey?”

“Hey?”

She sounded as if she had something to say.
God, is she marrying him?

“I’m out.”

“You’re out? Of where?”

“Of here. I’ve found a place and I’m moving out soon.”

“Shit!”

She’s leaving me here! She’s leaving me here, the sole loser adult child at 16 Acacia Terrace
.

“Don’t leave me here!”

“Chris, I’m turning twenty-four next week.
It’s time
. It’s beyond time.”

I pondered this truth.

“Where?” I asked lamely.

“Leichhardt.”

“Who with?”

“Sylvia.”

“Have you told Dad?”

“Tomorrow.”

It was nearly eleven. We went inside and watched
Star Trek
:
Voyager
. It was another one where a holodeck program gets out of hand and threatens to overrun the whole ship. Will they never learn?

May 13

I went to Rohan’s birthday party last night, then had to drag my sorry arse into the Land of Dreams for four hours this afternoon. I felt so rotten and tired this morning that I was within a hairsbreadth of calling in sick. But if I start calling in sick because I’m hungover, I’ll never make it in there at all. Slippery slope. Youngster Amelia was the only one who didn’t make a point of telling me I looked like shit.

As for Rohan’s party—well, what can I tell you? Oh, I know! He and the lovely Stella are apparently an item. Completing for one Rohan Levinson the trifecta of a house, a job and a girlfriend. I’m happy for him. For both of them. Really.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that things come pretty easily to Rohan. He’s smart and good-looking; he has a well-off family behind him. He’s the only and much-cherished son. He did well at uni. He has a good job and a string of pretty girlfriends. And all these things he accepts smoothly, as though they were inalienable rights. If it was me, I’d be like a frumpy girl at
the school dance who gets asked to dance by the captain of the football team. Pathetically grateful and not a little bit surprised. I’d be like:

Oh my God! I fill this shirt out nicely. That’s so cool! I’m so lucky to have these nice broad shoulders and dark good looks. What? Money for a deposit on a house? Dad! That is the most meaningful and valuable gift; I don’t know what to say except thank you so much! That’s a huge load off and there is simply no way I could have done it without help. And Stella. Being able to stand here at a party with my arm around you is so special. You’re a beautiful and smart girl and I can hardly believe that you are going to let me take your clothes off later tonight! Thank you! That’s tremendously exciting
.

Anyway, I ate huge amounts of Rohan’s mother’s
burek
, drank beer and fell down. I didn’t fall down at his parents’ place, though; I fell down when we all went into the city afterward. Just like old times—me, Mick, Suze and Rohan. And now Stella.

Right, let’s take stock:

Zoe is leaving me to face my pathetic life-stage limbo at Mum and Dad’s alone.

The Field is very slim pickings at the moment.

I haven’t heard from Michaela since well before I sent the flowers at Christmas. I don’t think I ever will. That’s a sobering thought. With some chronological distance from the whole thing, I can see that it’s likely there will be no further congress between us. Ever. It’s not as if there’s a chance of running into her around here. I have these weird daytime fantasies of running into her in the street ten years from now. Perhaps I have my firstborn child in tow. Perhaps she has hers. Our partners don’t figure in the fantasy, which I have to admit is lifted mainly from the cut scene in
Great Expectations
where Pip and Estella run into each other in
the street years later. Pip has Joe and Biddy’s little boy with him and Estella thinks he is actually Pip’s child. Pip is working hard and doing well. Generally getting on with his life. Estella looks sad. She
is
sad. Her life has been pretty shit on account of choosing to marry some violent prick instead of Pip.

In my fantasy, Michaela looks pale and thin and pained to see me—pained because she remembers how amazing we were together and regrets choosing Brad over me. He’s turned out to be one of these totally absent husbands. I break off the conversation first, saying I have to go. I’m meeting my again-pregnant wife for lunch. I kiss Michaela chastely on the cheek and walk off holding my little son or daughter by the hand. I don’t look back. She looks after us with tears in her eyes, clutching the hand of her own child, for as long as she can see us.

I love this fantasy. I replay it again and again.

June 5, 11 p.m.

Kathy is doing a teaching practicum for the next few months, so she has cut down to one shift a week. Stuart Green has resigned. Bianca says he’s got a grown-up job somewhere. Bianca also says he and Kathy are not a happening thing. I honestly don’t care. Bianca is making some not-so-subtle attempts to get me together with some of her youngsters at work—particularly Donna and/or Alana. Both are sixteen, but they seem older. I get on fine with them. Let’s face it, I can get on fine with most people if I need to.

And I am lonely. Really lonely. Even a girlfriend I don’t have any great connection with would be better than no girlfriend at all. And this drought shows no sign of breaking. I have to seriously consider my options.

Then there’s Amelia, who I like better than any of the other girls. It’s about time I wrote that down. But she is young. I’m going to be twenty-two in a few months. I’m hoping to move into some brave new phase of life after university, and I really can’t see myself doing that with a fifteen-year-old in tow. If only she were a few years older. But she ain’t.

Bianca is having a select few over to her house this Saturday night—her parents are overseas again. There’ll be a lot of alcohol directly sponsored by Bianca’s parents, and most likely a lot of white powdered substances indirectly sponsored also by Bianca’s parents. I have to say, I do like the idea of doing a line of speed off their $7,000 granite coffee table, looking out over the harbor at the city lights blinking on the skyline.

June 6

Dad is being all stoic about Zoe moving out, but I think he’s worried and sad about losing his not-so-little
princessa
. It’s strange, this modern life, where kids stay at home for so long. When Dad was twenty-four, he’d just bought a house, married my mother and knocked her up. Zoe’s the same age, but it’s a whole different set of markers. I wonder how much of it is due to changes in education funding and living and housing costs. For most Australian students, there’s no option but to stay at home while you’re studying.

Mum’s putting together a couple of crates of cutlery, crockery and linen for Zoe to take with her. She’s also bought her a toaster and a kettle, both of which are gleaming in their boxes in the front hallway. I swiped a few clean empty boxes from the back dock at work for her to pack stuff in.

“You realize,” I said to Zoe a couple of days ago in a last bid to get her to stay, “that there won’t be cold beer in your new place. Unless
you
buy it.”

“Yep,” she replied smiling. “
My
beer in
my
fridge.”

It’s time
. Bloody oath.

June 10

It’s about midday on Sunday. It’s the first really cold day. I’ve not yet surfaced, but Mum and Dad must have rummaged out some of the heaters because the smell of burnt fluff has seeped under my door. I’m loath to get out of bed because (a) it’s cold, (b) a Sunday morning (well, afternoon now) spent solely in Mum and Dad’s company will reinforce my status as the only
child
left living at home and (c) I am delicate, hungover and sheepish in the wake of Bianca’s party last night.

Zoe moved out on Friday. She’s due to come over for dinner tonight. She’ll bring Dad’s car back and I’ll drive her home in it. On Friday, I helped her ferry several carloads of stuff to Leichhardt and we loaded up the final one at about seven.

Mum and Dad came out to say goodbye. Mum gave her a Tupperware container of Zoe’s favorite “Mum dish”—fish curry—and another of rice.

“For dinner,” Mum said. “And”—she handed Zoe a plastic colander—“I don’t use this one, so you take it.”

“Thanks, Mum,” said Zoe, stowing them carefully on top of a stack of pillows on the front seat.

“And here,” said Dad, “I thought you might like some of this.…” He handed her a bottle of Elliot Rocke Shiraz. Zoe’s special favorite—but extremely seldom purchased—wine.

“Oh
thanks
, Dad. Yum!” She inspected the label, smiling. “I haven’t had this for ages. What a treat. Sylv and I will crack it open tonight.”

A pained silence followed.

“Well, I’d better be going,” Zoe said. “I’ll see you all on Sunday night.”