Perfect Skin (26 page)

I think she said ‘stand'.

I think she said ‘nah'. But nah is good, too. Not everyone gets nah.

Why am I getting a song about a drunken sailor in my head?
Ash says, as Lily keeps wobbling.
And what was that about the flowers?

It was all to do with a misunderstanding. After we had our usual approximately annual conversation a few weeks ago, she emailed me. I emailed back. Then we had
coffee. You know, just coffee. Then suddenly it got out of control. I hadn't given the slightest flicker of interest – I'm sure I hadn't – then suddenly she's got the candles out for dinner and we've got this big misunderstanding happening. So I went over there to clear it up. And I thought I'd take some flowers. She wasn't expecting me, so she didn't have the front lights on. And her cat rushed out, and I stepped on him. Then there's the hole, her coming out, the light going on, and you know the rest.

Couldn't she have misunderstood the flowers, too?

No, there was a card with them.

You were going to give her this on a card, too? A summary of the conversation you were going to have?

No. I was going to leave it on her top step. The flowers and the card.

You were going to just leave them and run off? That's not very brave.

I never said it was an act of bravery. She's a very private person. I thought it'd work better that way.

Ash gives me a look that suggests that a certain lack of bravery is still an issue, and that I could have done better. She moves to sit with her legs crossed and steers Lily into a sitting position on her right thigh, in a way that leaves Lily's pale feet resting on one of her tanned ankles.

There we go. Enough of that standing.
She looks back at me, drinks some of her mineral water.
I'm sure you had good reasons.

Even her sister backed me up on it today. She said face-to-face would have been a mistake. It was part of the difficulty all the way along. Katie never said much, and then she'd spring things on me. And I wasn't saying much because I thought there wasn't much to say. I was
just cruising along and then suddenly, bang, she's got these feelings for me, and she's probably thinking I've got them for her, too. Or at least some kind of feelings.

Why do people do that?

I've got no idea. It's so unfortunate. She's nice enough but, really, it was never going to happen. But I shouldn't be talking about it now, should I?

Why? It sounds as though there's quite a bit of talk going on behind your back. And at least some of it was to do with setting the two of you up, surely. That's what it sounds like to me.

Maybe. She's just – and I know this sounds kind of dismissive – but she's just not my type. We don't have common ground. I really wish it hadn't escalated and ended up how it did – she must feel pretty bad now – but we haven't ever had a conversation that hasn't been crushingly awkward, for god's sake. And, you know, where I come from that's not a good sign.

Were the conversations less awkward before the feelings cropped up?

Yeah, probably. Never easy. Always awkward, but less awkward before.

See, it's that unnecessary complication business again,
she says, and there's more thunder, closer.
You had me worried before. When you called and told me you were out hurting animals and having knives pulled on you. I thought you must have had some dark side.

Yeah, that was it. The call was my other side warning you about the dark side. And the dark side likes to be clear with people on the issue of feelings. If they ignore the cat crushing, they get a horse's head in their bed.

Well, that's something to watch out for.

I'm sure you're quite safe. Shall we order some takeaway before the storm breaks?

I don't know that I'm up to takeaway. I haven't been paid yet. I only started work yesterday.

That's fine. I'll pay.

You shouldn't pay for me.

Why not? I started work ten years ago. I've been paid several times. And I wasn't thinking anything wildly extravagant.

As long as I pay next time.

Sure.

No, I mean it.

Fine, mean it as much as you like. Now, let's have an argument about which takeaway instead. That'd be more worthwhile.

I fetch my folder of takeaway menus without even thinking about it.

Ash laughs.
You file these? Oh my god, you've got them in plastic. They're in individual plastic sleeves.

They're easier to read that way.

I can't believe you.

What's wrong with it? They put these things in your mailbox. They make them all A4 size. Do you think that's by chance? They're practically inviting you to have a system. I think this is smart.

You do, don't you? You think it's damn smart.

Yeah, I do. It may be just a little anally retentive as well, but it's bloody useful.

And I bet you've got particular favourites from each place, haven't you? Things you just reorder and reorder.

Well, yeah. But it'd be chaos otherwise. There must be two thousand meals in this thing.

But isn't spontaneity a part of takeaway? Isn't it spur-of-the-moment? Don't you just make up your mind on the spot?

No. Not at all. Spontaneity is the enemy of clear thinking. The more shit you have to be spontaneous about, the more you use up the limited thinking power of your brain. There's far too much emphasis placed on spontaneity. If every decision in life was treated like a new experience – like the first time you confront a Chinese restaurant menu and it seems to go forever – you'd get nothing done.

Okay. Well, give it to me. I'm going to choose,
she says, and takes the menu.
And it's going to be very spontaneous.
 

But no weird bits of animals, all right? No feet, no noses, none of that.

She picks Indian, and orders more than we could ever eat. Enough that we qualify for free home delivery, so we don't even have to go out to get it. And, without knowing it, she also happens to order things I regularly order.

We drink more mineral water. Ash feeds Lily and I put some laundry on. Elvis trots in from outside, drooping with the heat, and folds himself across my feet in his usual bony-limbed way.

The storm builds and builds, and it breaks right after dinner gets here.

It comes in like a night coming early, black as an eclipse, and the cicadas go wild. The hot air that has waited all day to turn to something becomes wind, slipping in under the guard of the tree canopies, swirling the loose leaves, rushing them, scraping them along the verandah. And from the west a wall of rain comes at us,
with a lumbering sound like a street-sweeping truck, erasing all but the outline of the next hill, collapsing onto the roof. We stand in the kitchen, Ash, Lily and me, wrapped up in this noise and the thrashing rain. Elvis, implacable before in the face of thunder, now stares me down, holds me responsible.

Ash sees the look this time, points to him and shouts at me,
Your fault.

And then, fifteen minutes after it began, the storm is gone, marauding elsewhere, east of here, and the rain tails off and stops.

I pour us wine. Ash opens the food containers and acknowledges her rank over-ordering by saying,
Hmmm, won't be going hungry tonight.

No. But it was spontaneous. Very spontaneous. And that's always good.

We sit out on the verandah in the relative cool. Somewhere not far away, fire alarms are ringing, then there's the sound of sirens.

You feel bad about the person with the cat, don't you?

Yeah, I do. It's not a good situation, even apart from what I did to the cat. It's not as if I haven't had my share of unrequited interest in people. I know what it's like. And it's bad enough just having it, but it's worse when it gets public. You feel like such a loser.

It's difficult, the love business,
she says, and lifts a forkful of lamb rogan josh to her mouth.

Fortunately, I don't think the L word came up in this situation. I headed that one off at the pass.

I meant generally.

Yeah, but when is it the love business? When is something more than just a dumb crush or infatuation? I don't
know where the boundary between love and major enthusiasm lies.

Well, if you're thinking boundaries, it's probably not it. I guess you could maybe think of when it gets you physically,
so
it's sort of beyond reason. When you feel it in the pit of your stomach and you get . . . what's the name for it when your heart goes fast?

Tachycardia.

No.

Well, I obviously wasted six years at uni.

Palpitations. It's palpitations.

Well, close, yeah.

What do you mean?

Tachycardia means fast heart. A palpitation is a sort of subjective thump when your heart suddenly does something you're not expecting it to.

Has anyone ever told you you might be a bit pedantic?

Oh, yeah. But it doesn't bother me. I'm fine with it. And I can control it, you know. Some more naan?

I push the oily brown paper bag her way and she says,
Thanks,
and takes the last garlic piece.
Hey, the CD's finished. Is it your turn to pick one?

I go inside to change the music. It's getting dark again, night this time. I flip through the CDs and settle on some old Go Betweens.

Do you have that thing, I say to Ash when I'm back outside, where some songs get linked to events? Or people?

How do you mean?

Sorry, this is related to the topic. I mean where you're having one of those days when there's a heightened sense of reality – to do with something great or really shitty – and the next song you hear is permanently associated
with that day, any time you hear it, or even think about it. It's like, the first massive crush I had, nothing got to happen. And then suddenly, when it looked like it might, the girl left town. We were going to be doing something that day, and I got a call from her friend to say she'd gone. Some family problem in Adelaide, or somewhere. And she never came back. And I went into my bedroom and turned on the radio, and the first thing I heard was a Phoebe Snow song. And it's now stuck in my mind as part of that day. Fortunately it wasn't her big hit, though, so I'm relatively safe.

Who's Phoebe Snow?

Safer than I thought. But you're right. It's not as though I can even name the big hit any more, is it? Anyway, she probably wasn't such a big deal, really. The girl. Mild tachycardia at the most. No palpitations.

Have you wrecked a lot of songs that way?

A few. I managed a few seething, silent crushes in my time. At school and, tragically, still when I got to uni. After that I had a rather bad phase.

A being-single phase?

No. No, that'd been the easy stuff. I'd had a lifetime of that. Hence the bad phase afterwards. I'd become too good at desperately wanting people to take an interest in me, so I was hopelessly unprepared when they did. And I sort of got into this ‘shoot first and ask questions afterwards' mode of operating, and it's not a popular way to conduct relationships. One way or another, I didn't handle things particularly well. The word ‘thoughtless' comes to mind. And then I was kind of involved with someone I really liked, or thought I might be about to really like . . .

Sounds like you put a lot on the line with that one, if you were thinking that you might be about to really like her.

Yeah. I wasn't exactly big at risking things then. She was an OT, an occupational therapist. And I'd got into this cycle where, in the face of impending commitment, I'd get people to dump me.

Some seriously unresolved Erikson Six issues then?

Really? You mean none of it was my fault?

It sounds like all of it was your fault. It doesn't mean Erikson wouldn't have had a view on why you were doing it.

He's a tough man. But that was it. I was Erikson Five and playing with the Erikson Six crowd. And I hadn't got it sorted out when I met this OT, so I freaked out a bit – probably because of the possibility of some serious liking happening – and she didn't take a lot of shit from anybody, really. So, before I'd thought it through, I was gone. Dumped and suddenly feeling seriously dumped. And after that there was just Mel.

Well, you loved her.

Yeah.

And it catches me like a surprise, someone coming out and saying that. Almost as though it's an accusation, an attempt to catch me off-guard. It's not what people say. People who know ask me if I'm all right, really, and usually they leave it at that.

So what about you?

I think I might have met a couple of guys like you in that postgrad bastard phase.

I'm not sure that I said ‘bastard'. And I didn't know it was a phase. I thought it was just me.

No, I think it goes loser at uni, then postgrad bastard.

I'm sensing you don't approve. I'm sure it's just normal development.

Well, of course you're sure. You wouldn't want to have to accept responsibility, would you?

Never. There's not a crappy act in my life that I can't at least link to extenuating circumstances.

She laughs, and asks me to pass the butter chicken.
Perhaps I'm just oversensitive. I think I've had my share of postgrad bastards. So, now I'm down here and away from all that. Much safer. But anyway, you don't seem like someone who commits a lot of crappy acts to me.

I'm reformed. I think I was getting better, anyway, but it's surprising how having another person depend on you completely makes you think of things differently, and stop always putting yourself first. Last night, I had this horrifying moment when things had just come back under control and I realised I'd left Lily in the car. And it hadn't been for long, and nothing happened, but I'd forgotten about her and that really scared me. It made me scared that I might forget her again sometime. That something might actually happen.