The Naked Drinking Club (18 page)

Scotty sat on the step, skinning up as usual, holding centre court.

‘Hey, so this guy’s getting on with this girl, yeah?’

We all reluctantly say yes or nod.

‘And he starts proper fucking her, yeah?’

Some of us nod.

‘So he starts getting into it, yeah, and her toes curl up.’

The Danish giggle, Jim and I roll our eyes.

‘So, he’s well into it by now, trying to ignore what’s happening, when her feet start to curl up.’ Scotty dragged it out, being the type of person that can’t complete a joke for laughing at it. ‘So he’s beyond the point of no return when suddenly the entire fucking lower half of her body starts curling.’

Andrea Danish had to cover her mouth up in case she spat out her drink.

‘And finally he says, “What the fuck’s happening?”’ He finished his JD and kept some ice in his mouth, which meant he mumbled during the next bit. ‘And she says, “Ye flamin’ idiot, I’ve still got my bloody tights on.”’ He spat out his ice and slapped his leg, collapsing about the place.

Then Karin asked, ‘What are tights?’

Jim and I started laughing harder than Scotty.

‘Scotty, mate,’ said Jim, ‘I’m afraid you lost the girls on the tights reference.’

‘Say again, mate?’ I could see Scotty was growing tense.

‘Well, you don’t get tights here, do you? And it’s obviously another word in Denmark.’

Scotty tried to laugh it off but he hated being teased by Jim. Jim didn’t let up.

‘Sorry, mate, I shouldn’t laugh but your whole joke was resting on tights.’ Jim spluttered into his schooner.

‘Yeah, well, it was a bloody pommy that told me that joke.’

This only made Jim laugh even more.

‘Poor Scotty,’ said Anaya, stroking his head.

‘Poor Scotty nothing, there’s nothing wrong with me, it’s you lot, you’re too bloody serious.’ Scotty’s face was always red and sunburned but now it was the reddest I’d seen it.

‘Jesus, it’s going to be an interesting trip for you lot,’ said Greg, all slow and half cut as usual.

‘Yes, when would we be back in Sydney?’ asked Andrea, no doubt hoping that everything fitted in with their student plans.

‘The trips last around two weeks, and they are unforgettable, aren’t they, Scotty?’ Anaya brought Scotty back to us, which cheered him up.

‘Oh, mate, I tell you, they are awesome.’

‘Why are they awesome?’ asked Jim, much to Scotty’s annoyance.

‘Just a real laugh and you get to see some nice parts of the coast.’

‘What about that Italian girl, Scotty – will you being seeing her again?’ Anaya leant on Greg and winked at Scotty.

‘Who, Daniela? No way, she was a fucking nightmare.’ Scotty pushed his baseball-hat peak further up his head as though he was overheating.

I felt sorry for Scotty because although he seemed a happy guy who enjoyed life to the full, I could see behind his act. Here was a man who could not stop joking and boasting about his conquests with women, which I doubted in reality had been more than about two. I wondered if I’d find out more about him and what he was hiding. The same with Jim,
and
with Frau Anaya. As for the Danish and Greg, there was nothing more than what you saw on the surface. I agreed with Greg, the trip was going to be very interesting.

‘Hey, Greg, I was thinking that you might want to give Bali a call and order some more unicorns before the trip. Might be lots of non-Aussies along the coast,’ said Jim.

‘Yeah, mate, I just might.’ Greg didn’t turn round. Then he began laughing and spluttering in my direction. ‘Mate, I’ve gotta fucking hand it to you. Once again, you’ve outdone yourself! Four fucking unicorns.’

Everybody laughed.

‘I know, I know, it’s mental, I couldn’t believe it. How does it happen?’ I played along with the shock factor for entertainment purposes. I mean, it was a triumph, but I understood how it happened.

Jim shook his head as he peeled the label off his Victoria Bitter. ‘What’s the most of one painting you’ve ever sold, Greg?’

Greg turned round, sweat pouring from his face, eyes like piss holes as usual. ‘I remember when I first started out, I sold to a company who had just bought some massive office block and I convinced them that they should buy a ton of abstracts for their corridors, and I think I might have sold around twenty, but I’ve never had more than one unicorn sold at a time. That is pretty amazing.’

‘And very strange,’ added Jim.

Fucking Greg and his office story topping my triumph. I looked over at Anaya, who was watching me the whole time Greg was talking. What the fuck was her problem with me?

‘I told you this business is fascinating, really bloody fascinating; you learn so much about people.’ Greg turned back to putting the prawns on a plate.

‘Is that why you’re in it, Anaya?’ I asked, really pushing it.

‘Maybe, yeah, why not?’ Anaya was floundering and began helping Greg distribute the food to take the heat away from her.

‘Do you ever wonder about the people that paint the shit we sell? Do you think that they might be having a beer somewhere, laughing like we are about it?’ Jim was still picking at his label, searching for the deeper meaning as usual.

‘Oh mate, nah, nothing much goin’ on there. Just normal people, trying to make a buck without doing too much, just like you and me.’ Scotty picked more stray tobacco out of his mouth and offered his joint around. Greg accepted.

‘You reckon?’ asked Jim, unconvinced.

‘Fuck, yeah.’

‘Maybe some of them are really brilliant painters, maybe they hate having to do this shit. I mean, they can really paint, can’t they?’ The truth was I had often wondered about the people who supplied us with all our artwork or, more to the point, who supplied us with the names signed at the bottom. I’d asked Greg and Anaya, and they insisted that the names were genuine. Although the only clear one was Peter Stuger.

‘It’s a simple operation, they do what they do best and we do what we do best.’ Greg drew in the joint then passed it to Anaya.

‘Exactly,’ she said, inhaling and then blowing it out.

‘Why don’t we toast the painters?’ I said, standing up and lifting my bottle.

‘And the unicorn,’ said Andrea.

Jim, Scotty and I stood up; we all moved over to Greg and Anaya beside the barbie. I cleared my throat.

‘OK, raise your drinks, folks, to Peter Stuger and the other signatures we’re unable to read.’

‘And the unicorn!’ shouted Karin.

We all clinked bottles to various mumbles of ‘Peter Stuger’. Anaya and I clinked each other’s last and with some considerable force.

The evening turned into drunken dancing. Jim was the only one reluctant to join in. I tried to drag him up a couple of times but he just wasn’t having it.

‘No, fuck off! I’m really not a dancer, OK?’ He stood against the wall watching me and Scotty throw each other round in an attempt to do some kind of jive to ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’.

‘No one really is. Come on!’ I tried grabbing both his hands.

‘It’s not going to happen.’

Karin came over and grabbed his other hand, helping me to try to drag him up. Eventually he gave in.

‘OK, OK, but it won’t be pretty.’ He reluctantly got to his feet and swayed around making a figure of eight with Karin and me dancing beside him. Scotty danced with Andrea, and Greg and Anaya were pressed up to one another even though the music was fast.

I took off my vest and danced in my bra and denim shorts. Scotty clapped and whistled using his two fingers. Andrea did the same, then Karin. Anaya looked over at us, took off her T-shirt and threw it behind her, causing it to land on a branch in the tree that hung over from the adjoining wall. A fairly poor portable stereo that mostly stayed on the kitchen worktop supplied the music. I ran inside and turned it up as far as it would go so that the sound distorted badly, but I needed all it could give. When I got back outside, Scotty had taken his T-shirt off, and Andrea was attempting to remove his long baggy surfer shorts. Jim was avoiding the entire thing by sitting back down on the step, picking at a new label and drinking fast. The Danish and Anaya began dancing round Greg, who looked gross thrusting into Anaya. I removed my bra and threw it towards Anaya’s suspended T-shirt. Anaya removed hers next and she switched partners to dance with me. Some chart-topping shit belted out, and then changed into Rainbow’s ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’, which caused an upsurge in madness. The Danish were topless too and began a double pelvic grind with Greg, who was far too out of it to notice anything.

Anaya and I danced round one another shouting out the chorus and playing air guitar. Then she pushed into me, rubbing her tits against mine. Scotty cheered and poured beer over himself. I put my hand round on to Anaya’s arse and pulled her into me. We stayed like that for the duration of Rainbow, checking out Greg every so often just to make sure things were OK. We looked right into each other. She had the most piercing blue-green eyes, and her blue eyeliner was slightly smudged, making her look damaged and fucked up and even sexier.

‘I see you,’ I said dreamily.

‘WHAT?’ she bellowed.

‘I SAID, I SEE YOU!’ I immediately regretted shouting it.

She said nothing back, just laughed for the first time ever.

I was completely fucked again. It had been a slow, steady climb since the daiquiri way back in one of the first houses to the fiery shots with the Jordanians to the VBs here. Fuck the prawns, I thought, as I pressed into the warm sweaty groin of the woman I hated but wanted. Scotty had paired off with Andrea and was dancing behind her, his hands on her hips. The song finished, I swung Anaya round to find an empty step where Jim had sat.

I pressed my forehead against the door in the phone booth, convinced that I was making sense but finding it hard to remember the last sentence the nurse had spoken to me. I only had eight dollars in coins and had already used half saying God knows what.

‘His name is Joe. Joe Swaine, don’t call him Joseph, he hates it, it’s Joe, yeah?’

‘Kerry, we know his name is Joe, and I appreciate that you are far away, but there really is nothing to worry about …’

‘He hates it there, not-there, that-he’s-like-that-there, you know?’ I caught myself slurring.

The nurse sighed. ‘The last time you called up, you were drunk and abusive to the staff.’

‘FUCKSAKE!’

‘I won’t tolerate bad language. Perhaps you should call back. I’m going to terminate the call.’

‘Terminate? Come on, look.’ I had a point to make but couldn’t remember it. ‘OK-OK-OK, OK, listen, when it’s late at night here it’s the right time there, so that’s why I’m like this, you don’t like me calling the other time I’ve called.’

‘We can’t accept calls all of the time, we have to organise meals and that uses all the staff.’

I could hear her whispering my name to someone else in the background.

‘Like a fucking zoo, feeding time,’ I mumbled under my breath.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Nothing.’ I sighed and pressed my whole face into the door. ‘I need to speak to him, he’s my only family left.’

‘That’s not true; your mother has been here to visit your grandfather.’

‘I don’t talk to her. I want to talk to him, why can’t I?’ I heard Radio Forth come on in the background, seeping through from the inmates’ lounge to the warden’s office.

‘We don’t have the facilities to do that but we can pass on a message.’

‘Do you have the facilities to change the station or at least put it on one properly?’ I laughed entirely through my nose.

‘I’m going now, Ms Swaine.’

‘Please, please, when can I speak to him? He needs me.’

‘If you call back another time when you are sober, between our hours of nine and ten am we can perhaps come to some arrangement—’ The beeps went but I’d used all my dollars and the line went dead. I stood there for a while, blowing out through my mouth, before calling it a day and going back inside to bed.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

IT HAD BEEN
a baking hot day, perhaps the hottest I had experienced since arriving in Sydney. It was 1st October, the start of the Australian spring. The time had moved so quickly since I began selling paintings, and I was starting to feel more settled than at any other time in my life. However, the fear of never achieving what I’d really come here to do in the first place was beginning to eat me up. I had called Hank a couple of times, but he’d had no luck. He told me I could call any time and just talk about things, but I backed off. I was also worrying about my drinking, which was starting to feel like a monkey on my back. I was growing tired of managing it, of watching it, of measuring my abstinence from it on the odd occasion when I would try turning over a new leaf. I had promised myself that once I had found what I was looking for, I would quit drinking for good, which would automatically stop me sleeping with so many strangers. One day the strangers would have to stop, and turn into one person.

But I didn’t feel that I could move on in any shape or form until I found her. Then, when I thought deeply about it, I came to the conclusion that I only looked for her when I really wanted to, when it felt pressing. The rest of the time I was just following the course of my life, whatever that was. Anyway, I was convinced that things happened for a reason; thinking the whole thing over panicked me, then the emptiness would set in again, and I would have to push it down for my own survival.

I had additional practical worries to consider as well; my work visa would run out in two months and then I would have
to
make some serious decisions. I didn’t know if I could sell paintings long term, I needed to have a proper career somewhere down the line. My money passed through my hands each week, my plan to save amounted to nothing as usual.

I rested my head against the back-seat car window and looked up at the Sydney sky, disappointed in myself as a tourist. We passed the green and white road signs leading us out of the city. The car was quiet, the Danish were snoozing. Karin had drifted off, causing her leg to lean against mine, which was making me sleepy. Scotty sat up front, his baseball cap covering his eyes, his head way back against the headrest. Jim was at the wheel, and had hardly spoken a word all afternoon. I leant forward and massaged his shoulders.