Zigzag Street (30 page)

Yeah.

So maybe I won't get all the answers, and maybe I won't need them. And maybe there are some questions I should just stop asking now. Some spaces that can be left as spaces if I can't fill them. Some things I don't need to know any more. Other things that I might know instead, that I might discover slowly.

We came here to paint, and we don't. I'm still stalled two and a half verandah railings into the renovation, but the story's very different now.

I go into the kitchen to make coffee.

Rachel says,
Hey
,
albums
,
vinyl. Can I put on some music?

She sorts through the pile and plays
The Queen is Dead
. Leaves her fingerprints on some other part of my past. Turns it from a story and back into an album again. And one day maybe I won't recall who gave it to me, or if I do, I won't give it a second thought.

And I want to go into the lounge room now with her coffee and tell her. Tell her now. You remind me of no-one.

This is, of course, a work of fiction. There are, however, a number of people with a vested interest in some of its parts, I thank them for their generosity (and foolhardiness) in allowing me to borrow the things they've said, done and been that I've taken, given to fictional characters and put into this story.

Thank you Alison, Alison, Alison, Amanda, Anna, Dean, Dicka, Doug, Ermana, Fiona, Gerard, Greg, James, Jane, Jeff, John, Jon, Lydia, Matthew, Matthew, Michael, my parents and grandparents, Natasha (and her house), Nick, Paul, Purvis, Sarah, Simone, Tara and Veny. The bits that aren't yours I made up.

Thanks also to Baan Thai for consistently excellent
panang nua
, to the staff and clientele of Le Chalet for their tolerance on the night of Jon's thirtieth, to everyone who was involved with the aforementioned videos, bands and world record attempts, and to Fiona, Laura and Bernadette for making this happen (and Nick for understanding the dilemmas surrounding the Swiss Army knife).

The author thanks Stuart Glover for use of material in the creation of this work.