by Nick Earls
Sophie’s putting in some Frank-free time out the back. She’s got a large Diet Coke in one hand and she’s leaning on the railing, looking intently up at the windows of the blocks of units on Swann Road.
‘Much happening up there?’ Through the beak I can take the view in only a piece at a time. With my head tilted I must look like a chicken yawning at the hillside, or bracing myself to crow at it and wake the suburb up.
‘Yeah,’ she says, without looking round. ‘But all the usual things. People in kitchens making dinner, TVs on. Nothing really dramatic, not that I can see. But you don’t know, do you? You don’t know what it means from this distance. Some of those dinners might be people’s first together, or their last, and from here it all just looks really . . .’
‘Mundane? It’s like that photo—that series of photos—put together by Robert Doisneau to represent . . . ’ starting to feel like a wanker, pushing on regardless . . . ‘a building in Paris in 1963. With the guy on the top floor having a smoke next to a girlie poster and someone on another floor trying to touch her toes and the old guy downstairs having a blast on his tuba.’
‘Except, when it’s black-and-white photos from Paris, it’s like there’s more . . .’
‘Dignity?’
‘Maybe, but do you always finish people’s . . .’
‘Sentences? No, not usually. I don’t know what’s got into me. It’s being the chicken. It makes me kind of pushy. I’ll have to watch that.’
‘I might have just been going to say “smoking”.’ Now she’s looking right into the beak slot, as if my interruptions should be firmly put in their place. ‘There’s more smoking in Paris.’
‘And maybe there is, but that’s not what you were going to say, so don’t suddenly make out that I was being pretentious. You were going to say “style”, maybe even “art”. In Paris there’s more art to it, living some cheap shitty life in a flat.’
‘More berets. I bet there’s more berets. I don’t know about art, though. I’m not sure how that’d work.’
‘Well, Sartre would have been in one of those places in Paris in 1963. In some cheap shitty flat writing something.’
‘That’s one guy. I bet there were plenty more guys with dirty posters on their walls, and hundreds of people happy just to touch their toes, and not many of him at all. Most evenings in Paris I’m sure people just eat dinner and watch TV. You can’t go out every night. Even Sartre. Don’t tell me Sartre never had TV.’
‘Don’t spoil Sartre for me.’
‘I can’t spoil Sartre for you. I’m only guessing, so I can’t spoil anything. It’s not like I even really know who he is. I know the name, obviously, but I don’t think I’ve read anything he’s written and I wouldn’t have seen more than a couple of his movies. I’m doing media studies, remember, not . . .’ She laughs, as if she’s got nowhere to go . . . ‘Sartre studies.’
‘And I’m doing obstetrics at the moment, so as if I can . . .’
‘And, by the way, you’re a chicken.’
‘So it’s not like I’m an expert. I’m sure he had a TV. How could you not have a TV? How could you make any relevant comment about contemporary society if you didn’t have a TV?’
‘Exactly. So maybe there are people up there on Swann Road living the Sartre life and not even knowing it.’
‘Anguish and sitcoms and supreme pizza.’
‘Family size with free garlic bread and a bottle of Coke.’
‘That Sartre knew how to impress chicks.’
‘Hey, I’ve had far worse than a pizza deal. What’s your worst? What’s the biggest disaster you’ve ever had when you’ve gone out with someone?’
‘Disaster? I’ve had some that have been bad, but I’ve tried to avoid disaster.’ Disaster. Should I tell her that usually they just peter out into awkward silences and after that my calls don’t get returned? Or, even more often, don’t get made? ‘We should probably do the changeover. You know Frank can be trouble if he’s left unattended.’
‘Nice change of topic. You must have had a few bad nights out.’
‘Hey, I haven’t had a bad night out for months. Many months.’
‘A year?’ She’s smiling, figuring she’s got me on the run and that a disaster story might be about to be prised out of me. ‘How about a year?’
‘Let’s not get bogged down in details.’ She has no idea of the key to my recent perfect record, and that’s how it’s going to stay. ‘Let’s just say there have been no complaints for some time about what I’ve got to offer.’
‘Ha. You’re hiding something. But you’ll keep. For now I’ll settle for a poem, an Elizabethan poem. You were doing some of that stuff out at the lights. I could tell.’
‘Okay. The one I did at the lights?’ That’d be Martha and the Muffins’ ‘Echo Beach’, as far as I can recall. ‘Okay. John Donne’s Meditation Seventeen.’ I strike the pose, and deliver:
‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.’
I do it once in a version that sounds as olde English as I can make it and then, while I’m taking the costume off, I find myself trying it as Brando, then as a race call.
‘Was that a poem?’ she says when I come out.
‘You’re tough. I’m not even sure it’s Elizabethan, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Would you settle for Jacobean? There’s something very wise about it, though, don’t you think?’
‘What if you don’t live in Europe?’
‘Good point. You should talk to him about that.’
I hand her the costume, and she goes in to change.
‘Hey,’ she says, ‘I was talking to Frank earlier and . . .’ There’s a clunk as the beak hits the inside of the door. Her voice becomes muffled as she pulls the chicken head on. ‘. . . and he said he thought we should all go to the Underground after work tonight. He said you guys are going.’
‘I don’t know where he got that idea from. I’ve got a twenty-four hour shift in Labour Ward starting at eight in the morning. Plus, we wouldn’t get there before ten. We’d have to pay the cover charge. There’s no way I’ll be going to the Underground.’
*
On the way to the Underground, Frank turns the radio up and sings loud sinusy words that are all his own, and that he thinks might be comical. Sophie’s lucky that she gets to go there in her own car.
‘I just did a shift in Labour Ward,’ he said back at the World. ‘That’s no excuse for anything. You should be out all night deliberately, to get your body clock ready for tomorrow. I’m doing this as a favour to you, you know.’
So, I’m in his car with his burger box on my knees. He had all the answers. Today’s takings could go under Sophie’s seat, because we take practically nothing anyway. He’s right. Most day’s takings could go in a standard business envelope if you left enough coins for the next day’s change. And he said it didn’t matter if his burgers got cold—they’re always cold by the time he gets home. And it doesn’t matter that the cover charge kicks in at ten. He’ll do the talking and get us in for nothing, then I can buy the first round of drinks to pay him back. That’s the deal.
It was easier just to go with it. Besides, why not?
I can feel the warmth from the burgers on my thighs. I only hope the grease isn’t getting through as well. Frank’s mood is the best it’s been all week. He’s told me he reckons people have a problem if they can’t turn boredom into something a lot more optimistic. Personally, I’ve always found ‘morose’ and ‘introspective’ far easier than ‘optimistic’, but they’re hardly attractive. Frank does morose too, but he plummets there rather than wallows, so that means he bounces back faster.
Frank, Sophie, me and th
e Underground—there’s nothing bad about it (with the possible exception of Frank), so I should go with some of that optimism.
When we’re stopped at a red light, he pulls a handful of fries out of the box and eats them loudly, with his mouth open. For the first time I notice exactly how much he’s taken tonight.
‘Do you really need six burgers and two big buckets of slaw?’
‘Have you seen what we’re getting paid?’ All said through a wad of chomped potato. ‘I’m assuming this is part of the package. And I don’t think you can complain. You seem to be spending a lot of time out the back. It’s like you’re being paid to go out with the boss’s daughter.’
‘We were only talking. I think we’ve established that.’
‘Isn’t that what it’s like when you go out with someone? Only talk? Wouldn’t that be one of your better attempts? Or has something changed?’
‘Hey, I’m a contender. I’m going to the Underground, aren’t I?’
‘Sure. But I don’t want to see you wasting all your time sitting there talking to Sophie. Particularly if you aren’t getting paid to. Spread your charm around a bit. Get up and get a few moves happening. Imagine how they’ll be when they find out you’re a talker as well, not just a dance machine.’
‘I’m not fucking remedial, you know.’
‘Sure. I’m just saying, give it a shot.’
‘I’ve done okay in the Underground before.’
‘Sure,’ he says, far from sure. ‘Sure you have. You could have some of those fries if you wanted.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re a contender.’
‘Yep.’
I eat a couple of fries and look out at the dark hills slipping by us, wooden houses mostly with their lights out, closed shops, the Night Owl convenience store (open for business twenty-four hours). Sophie sticks close behind us all the way to the Underground and we park in the street, not far from the entrance. It isn’t looking like a busy night.
‘Just go with me on this one,’ Frank says as we walk up to the head of the short queue. ‘Look happy and go with me.’
There’s dance music coming out of the doorway, and the smell of cigarette smoke and spilt drinks, like always. People pushing in and out, showing the stamps on their wrists, a clump of girls who are too young and overdressed and waiting to try their luck. The last word I hear Frank say is ‘Mate’ as he approaches the guy on the door, using his best one-bouncer-to-another voice.
Sophie looks at me, as if I’d know what’s going on.
‘There’s a plan,’ I tell her. ‘Apparently. I think we just have to hang back and look interested but not too needy.’
‘At least we don’t look like we’re going to the school formal. Do you think they’ll let me in without babies’ breath in my hair?’
Frank’s pointing back to the two of us and the door guy’s looking. I nod and smile, but in a way that’s appropriately measured. He’s smiling too, more than I am, and he waves us to come in.
He takes hold of my arm on the way past and he says, ‘Congratulations, you two,’ like someone in on a new secret. ‘You have a good night.’
I thank him, and I tell him I’m sure we will. We go through the open door and we don’t stop until we’re several steps into the darkness of the corridor beyond.
‘Told you,’ Frank says to me. ‘Looks like you’re buying.’
‘Sure. What were we being congratulated for?’
‘Getting in for free, I suppose. There’s a knack to it, and I have to say the two of you carried it off pretty nicely. Now, drinks. I could go a couple of rum and Cokes.’
‘A couple?’
‘I’ve got two hands. Might as well give ’em both something to do. Soph, Philby’s buying. It’s a rare thing. What are you up for?’
‘Oh, maybe just a lemonade. I’ve got to drive to Carindale later.’
‘Oh, come on, one drink. Hit his wallet a bit harder than that.’
‘Okay, let’s have some vodka in it then,’ she says, as though it’s a wild act for a Thursday.
She tells us she has to go to the Ladies. Frank says we’ll meet her inside, in the side bar since it’s smaller and we’ll be easier to find.
The corridor is lined with people, heads together in what might be conversation. The music’s louder when we turn the corner, and the dance-floor lights make it down this far too, patches of light moving across drinks and hands and faces, the occasional chambray-shirted rugby legend, blonde private-school girls who managed to sneak by the bouncer and are standing against the wall, wide-eyed and in taffeta and wondering what happens next.
I got talking to a girl like that once at Cafe Neon and, when her friends started referring to me as ‘the doctor’, I knew I’d erred. It turned out that she was sixteen, though she looked far older (now, there’s an observation that never stacks up in court).
Frank cruises down the corridor with the pure confidence that owns nights like this, and this whole world. But I own it now almost as much as him. It’s not a bad feeling. We’re not the desperate kids at the door who won’t get in without a lot of luck.
‘So what did you tell the door guy?’ I shout out to him as I’m pushing up to the side bar with a twenty dollar note in my hand.
‘That you two had just got engaged. And I said you met here, round about last September when you were down on your luck.’
I shout the drink order across the bar and Frank leans in closer to tell me more.
‘I said you’d got engaged tonight, and that I thought it’d be good if you could stop in here for a drink on the way home.’
‘And he believed that?’
The guy at the bar checks that I want two of each and I give him an exaggerated nod to make it clear.
‘Sure. Why not?’ Frank shouts, practically in my ear. ‘It’s a level of bullshit above the usual, and that’s all it takes. Have you heard what people say to that guy to scam their way in? Mostly it’s just pissed chicks, crying and going “but my friend’s already inside” or “but the other guy said”. It’s not hard to pitch it a level above that. You just need enough story.’
‘That’s surprisingly complicated.’
‘Hey, I’m full of surprises. It’s just that some of them are less obvious surprises than others.’
I pass him his two rum and Cokes, then take the other two drinks and my change. He leads the way to a table in the far corner.
Engaged. I make him agree not to tell that to Sophie when she turns up. I don’t think I’ve got too close to getting engaged to anyone I’ve met at the Underground (not that that’s ever been the aim). Usually you just end up in a corner of the dance floor at the edge of a big clump of people you already at least half know, squeezing out some pretty average moves to Duran Duran, wishing you had better clothes and limbs. Or maybe that’s just me.
I managed to pash a foreign girl in an alcove once, but she wasn’t behaving like a person with a lot of judgement. She was spilling drinks all over herself and, when she started dropping the glasses too, the bouncers pulled her out and put her in a cab. I tried to talk them out of it, of course.
‘Mate,’ one of them said to me. ‘Once they start smashing glass there are issues of public safety.’
Which made a lot of sense, since he was built like a bouncer and I’m built like me.
We only come here because there’s nowhere else to go. The music’s the same every week, but there’s a certain comfort in that. And Frank tends to try a lot harder than I do, but he usually strikes out as well. So I don’t mind this place.
Frank waves when Sophie walks in, but she doesn’t see us straight away. She pushes past the bar crowd, checking out the tables, then she notices his flailing arms and waves back. I push her drink across to her on a coaster when she sits down.
Frank tells us he’s up for a dance, but Sophie shakes her head and says she hasn’t even tasted her drink yet. He finishes his first rum and Coke, puts a couple of ice cubes in his mouth and shimmies o
ff among the tables.
‘I think,’ Sophie says to me, ‘that you were about to tell me the story of your worst night out before work rudely interrupted.’
‘And I think we remember the conversation a little differently.’
‘This is going to be good.’ She’s treating me the way you treat a person who’s hiding something, someone who’s clutching onto a story they want to have weedled out of them, but don’t want to give up too easily.
‘No, it’s not. It’s not going to be anything, because there’s nothing much to say. All it could be now is anti-climactic.’
‘Go on, give it a shot.’
‘Really, there’s . . .’
‘Okay, we’ll do a trade. You go first, then I go. And, trust me, mine’s pretty bad.’ She curls up her hand and looks through it at my face, winding the other hand in circles beside the first in a mime of an old-time movie camera. ‘You’re the movie man. We’ll do it like a movie if that’s easier. Using that technique when they cut from the main story just to a head talking to the camera.’
‘That’s a pretty sophisticated technique, even though it looks easy.’
‘I know. Pretend I’m Woody Allen,’ she says, still winding away.
Pretend she’s Woody Allen. Winding, winding with the hand. Four girls I’ve gone out with since I started uni, maybe five, and not one of them’s mentioned Woody Allen. Stop, I want to tell her. I want to pull her camera hands apart and say, ‘Does Clinton appreciate this? This Woody Allen stuff? I hope so.’
‘Go for most excruciating,’ she says. ‘If there were no actual disasters, I’d settle for most excruciating. The time when you most knew it was going wrong.’
And then I can’t say No any more. It’s not much of a story, but I have to tell it, and it’s excruciating enough.
She puts her camera hands down when I get started. She drinks her vodka and lemonade, she listens and she laughs when I know she will, she blows on the palm of her hand when it’s appropriate and she calls me an idiot when I explain the physics. Then, as promised, she pays me back with her scene, staring down at the table in front of me while she tells it.
