How it feels (33 page)

‘You're a good dad, Dick,' I said, and I left the ward, pocketing a plastic jar of Endone tablets off Dick's side table.

I didn't own sunglasses and it was frighteningly bright outside the hospital. I could hardly see from the glare. But then I recognised Gordon's blue Lexus.

We drove out of Bathurst without speaking. I put the radio on and it was comforting to hear the Australian accents on Triple M, even the ads were nice. We stopped at Lithgow for petrol and he spotted a pie shop across the road. Gordon loved meat pies so we sat inside and ordered two each. I bit into my first one then went to the bathroom and swallowed two of Dick's Endone tablets.

When I came out Gordon was squinting at me.

‘You've lost weight!'

‘Oh, man, yeah. Been riding my bike round town.'

‘You a junkie, Cronk?'

‘No, dude –'

‘
Are
you?'

‘I'm not a junkie.'

‘You look like a junkie. You ate half of one of your pies.'

‘I'll eat it later.'

‘Don't fucking lie to me, Cronk!'

‘I just… I've not been eating a lot,' I said. ‘ We lost a baby.'

‘Yes, I know, I know.' Gordon scrunched up his napkin and then threw it at me. ‘You saw what drugs did to our other friend, didn't you?'

In the car I asked my friend Gordon if he knew where my father was living now, and if so, could he drive me there. I was not ready to see my mother yet and I figured Dad wouldn't notice what state I was in; he never looked at me for long enough.

The drive to Cronulla was surprisingly fun. Now we had got things out of our system we were free to talk and make the old jokes that worked well. The Endone had kicked in and I felt magic. G-Man dropped me at my father's house and I waved my friend off and thanked him emphatically. He said he would call later that night, ‘get some beers'. I would love to have beers with Gordon, and with the sun on my back I decided that it was time to leave the ice alone and maybe hang out here for a bit, freshen things up with salted water and good fruit salads, cold beers, NRL on Fox and normal shit.

My father was still at work, she told me. She was my age and horrible to look at. She was not ugly, she was just severe, and I did not like her one bit. I rarely had such a negative reaction to a person, but she was hard and harried and didn't invite me in. I was not sure what I had done to deserve this from her, so I waited on the front steps for three hours and it was ok, I had a book to read and I was high.

Just as the sun was calling things off my father arrived in his instructor's car, but it was a different one, it said
Cronk/Minetti Driving School
on it. He got out of the car and just stared at me from the kerb as if I was an eleven-foot octopus who'd just loped out of the sea. I opened my arms but he didn't respond, he just stood frozen on the street.

‘Son,' Dad said.

‘Dad,' I said, and I stood up.

‘What are you doing here?'

‘I came home for a second. To see some people.'

‘Who?' my dad asked, and I wondered why he hadn't come to me yet. A handshake or a hug or even a scruff of the hair.

‘Aren't you going to say hello? Haven't seen you in a year,' I said.

‘Where… did you see Loretta?' he asked, keeping his voice down low.

‘Some chick answered the door. She wouldn't let me inside.'

‘She didn't ask you in?' he winced at what he knew was true.

‘What's with the new car? And the new signage?' I pointed at it.

‘Oh yeah, we broke off from ABC. Loretta and I have started our own thing; she runs the business from inside the house.'

‘Wow, right – so that's that?'

‘Look, mate…' Dad moved up the lawn towards me. ‘Loretta's a little funny about things, she –'

‘Why are you whispering, Dad?' I asked. He was in front of me now, I could touch him.

‘She's not quite… she isn't… she's not family-oriented. She just likes things nice and simple,' he said, and I did not know him.

‘Are you asking me to leave, Dad?'

‘Let's meet up for lunch tomorrow, just the two of us,' Dad suggested. ‘She just doesn't like the mess!'

Tears arrived in my eyes. ‘Am I “mess”? Is that what I am, Dad?'

He said nothing, just glanced over my shoulder and through the window at the shadow of bitch-woman inside.

‘Bye Dad,' I said, and walked away from his new house.

I tried life at my mother's but she wouldn't leave me alone to sleep the days through, she kept on at me about the Black Dog Institute, telling me I was depressed and ‘a man can come see you for not a lot of money a visit'. I wanted ice now.

I moved in with Ioannis, one of the mechanics I'd met towards the end of high school. I tracked him down through Malaki, Stuart's brother, who since Stuart's death had gone all clean living, practising yoga on the beach every morning at five and eating wheatgrass and shit. He shook his head when I asked for Ioannis's number, but he gave it to me. For a second there I could see Stuart in his eyes.

My bed was a pink foam mattress beneath the ping-pong table in Ioannis's garage, which was fine because, well, I was not sleeping so much in that time of skating. On top of the bar fridge was a mirror. I was looking in the mirror at my face. My cheekbones pushed out of my skin, my lips were thin and colourless, my eyes were empty and grey, my skin was blotchy, but it was ok, I could pull this off. I wet my hair and moved gel through it. I combed the hair to the side then I tied my tie. I was wearing beige linen pants and matching jacket over a white button-up shirt and a red-checked tie. My shoes were open and I wore no socks. I'd bought the whole outfit from the Vinnies on Beach Street for $15.80.

A week ago Ioannis told me that Gordon called by the mechanic workshop asking for me. He had heard I was living with Ioannis and gave him a letter and Ioannis passed the letter on to me when he got home. We got a whole swag of ice and cooked it, discussing the intricacies of the letter for six days.

Cronk,
Mate, how are you? Where did you go after I dropped you off three weeks ago? I thought we were going to have beers??

Me and the missus are throwing a barbecue at the (newly renovated!) joint on Saturday from 1-ish. We 'd love to see you, nothing big, just Mum and Albert and Albert's mate Graham and of course us!

So come along if you're not busy, don't bring anything we've got heaps.

Oh, maybe boardies if you want to swim. We've got an in-ground fucken pool, dude!!!

Righto, hope to see ya!

G.

 

Ioannis dropped me a couple of blocks from the beach house. I didn't want him to drop me out the front because then they might ask him in, and I didn't want him with me, his face had tattoos on it and everyone knew he ran ‘all things drugs' in the Shire. But I didn't want to walk either, as it was 32 degrees and I would surely sweat through my linen suit, undoing all the hard work I had put in that morning.

Ioannis squinted over the wheel; the meth fucked his vision completely. Everything went orange and shook, he said.

‘Cronk.'

‘Yep,' I said, smoking out the window.

‘Do you stay in touch with anyone from your college?'

‘Uni?'

‘Yeah. From theatre school.'

Ioannis was always asking me about theatre. I appreciated his interest but at the same time I didn't like talking about it. It all led to Swanna and the baby.

‘No,' I said.

‘What about the lecturer you told me about? The one who loved you?'

‘Dick died,' I said.

‘Did you go to the funeral?'

Fuck off. ‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because I was in the garage smoking crack with you.'

All the houses that led to Gordon's were either brick or fibro, and most of them had a Southern Cross flag in their windows or on their lawns, hoisted up nice and high to catch the ocean's breeze. Many had boats, or half-fixed cars outside, plenty of apple crates, surfboards and balls lying about like monuments of heroic days.

I could see Gordon's place from the corner. It was impossible not to. The two-storey house was enormous and savage with hard lines and plenty of glass.

I heard familiar chatter, took sixteen deep breaths, swallowed five hundred milligrams of Xanax, and made my way up Gordon's path to Gordon. I should've brought something. Even when people said ‘don't bring anything' they still expected you to. I was thinking about walking into town and going to Liquorland or the florist or some joint that sold Darrell Lea when the door opened and Carmen was there, real and alive in her two-piece swimsuit with a golden camisole draped over the top. She had a fruity sun visor on and not-yet-rubbed-in sunscreen on her face and nose. She had lost a tonne of weight but she was still pretty mega, and if I was her, I would have definitely gone with a one-piece and sarong for cover.

‘Come in! Welcome to Club Med!' she said, kissing me. ‘My, what a fabulous outfit. Gordon, Neil is here! Yoo-hoo!'

‘Yeah, I'm going for a
Miami Vice
-type thing, with the linen,' I said, moving through the tiled foyer and out towards the pool. I could see Gordon flipping snags on the barbecue by the ferns. He was wearing short black football shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, a blue terry-towelling hat and shiny silver Ray-Bans. He waved at me with his tongs, sipping on a Crown Lager perched inside a Cronulla Sharks cooler which was shaped like a player and fitted a stubby in it perfectly.

‘Haven't you heard of summer?' Gordon asked.

‘I thought I'd dress up,' I said. ‘It's not every day you get asked to a place like this!' I gestured to the house.

There was no sign of Courtney and I should never have come. All I wanted to do was get back to my mattress in Ioannis's garage and smoke up some meth for lunch, but instead here I was at the family pool party in a suit feeling like something out of the Dada movement: a figure in an incorrect landscape. I hadn't eaten for a long time, I was not sure I could take a sausage or a steak in my mouth, the blood and tissues. Everyone would see this, my inability to do the simple human things, everyone would know, everyone would laugh, by the beach they would mock me, by the beach I would come undone.

Albert was in the pool with a beer. He looked browner than he should be, like someone had smeared shit on him then fixed it with varnish.

‘Can I get you a drink, Nelly?' Carmen asked.

‘I didn't bring anything,' I said, embarrassed.

‘I didn't ask that!' She laughed, tapping her sunglasses back up her nose.

‘Beer would be great, thanks, Carmen.'

Carmen had more than embraced her new life, bouncing back up the deck and into the open-plan kitchen with an invisible stack of new dynamite lodged between her wobbling buttocks.

‘Come over here, mate,' Gordon said, and I did.

‘So, wow, man,' I said as a burning, hot oil sensation passed behind my eyes and down into my throat, locking up my larynx and airway.

‘The house?' Gordon asked, mock surprised. ‘Yeah, it's not bad, eh?'

‘It's fucking massive,' I whispered, unable to talk very loud.

‘ Ya bring yer togs?' Albert called to me from the deep end.

I shook my head because I was not sure I could reach the deep end with my voice, and also, if they saw me in swimming trunks my body would say too much about it all.

‘The view is off chop,' I whispered to Gordon, and it was, Wanda Surf Club directly across the road.

‘Yeah, it's fucken heaven, mate. We bought the whole block, knocked down both houses – then Al and Gra built all this from scratch.'

Albert winked at me from the steps. ‘We'll make a tidy coin if we ever sell it, I fucken tell ya!' Albert raised his beer at us like the secret was out.

‘You want the tour?' Gordon asked me, but he was already off inside, flinging the tongs at Albert.

On my way in Carmen handed me an icy cold bottle of Crown Lager and, even though I didn't favour the Foster's line of drinks, I thought if I could slam down six or seven of these quite quickly, I might be able to stabilise just enough to pull this function off and get back to Ioannis's garage for a pipe before my soul inverted itself.

Norah Jones's ‘Come Away with Me' floated through the kitchen, Carmen on backing vocals pumping Paul Newman French Dressing into the IKEA bowl stacked with cos lettuce, spring onions, half an avocado and one punnet of cherry tomatoes. Under instruction, I took my shoes off.

‘Kitchen, for the ladies,' Gordon said, leading me down the hall.

I glimpsed the garage, laundry, TV and media room, study, ‘possible nursery' and the door to the underground wine cellar and then we were away to level two.

The stairs were soft beneath my feet, thick, almost shagpile carpet stretching up between my toes. Gordon seemed in a rush to have the tour over, weaving in and out of rooms before I got the chance to really see them, although his pride burst when we reached the upstairs bathroom. He paused, resting against the door.

‘Look at that shitter! The seat has a foot pedal. And that bath has jets in it, and look, the trimming is all vintage. Courtney had a lot to say about this room, she loves a good bathroom – chicks, y'know?' Gordon raised his eyebrows at me and before I could say ‘yeah' he was out of there and across the hall. I lingered in the big green bathroom, staring into the metallic bathtub, wondering what would take place in there. Love making? Dual bubble baths? The washing of little ones? I wished I could lie in it now, in my suit, with no water running.

‘Come check the master!' Gordon blasted and I went.

The master bedroom was wide and long with ocean views and a large walk-in wardrobe. Gordon patted the king-size bed with his hand. ‘Workbench,' he said, winking at me.