Why not indeed? In fact, that was an idea I suddenly realised could be applied to an even larger problem. I took Lissanne to the hallway, opened the door and said, ‘Maybe we could do the same thing here.’
In front of us was stacked five years’ worth of scripts. There would have been over two hundred of them, each thirty pages long, in chronological order, all laboriously hole-punched and filed into ring binders. I had spent hours and hours diligently ordering those papers. They took up an entire metre and a half of shelf space.
‘Yes,’ said Lissanne. ‘First and last. The rest, piff.’
And just like that, I threw away half a decade’s worth of memorabilia. I’d been so obsessed with those scripts, thinking that one day they might be worth something, or they might come in handy if I ever needed to refer back to a specific episode of a particular show. But I’d never gone through them; I’d just glanced at them every time I opened the wardrobe and vaguely resented the amount of room they took up. That was the thing about some of my stuff; for some reason I felt that I had to keep it, not that I wanted to keep it. The scripts were a classic example of that. Now, I was carrying them all out to the recycling bin, relieved to finally have them out of my life.
It took just three hours for Lissanne to cut a swathe through the formerly impenetrable jumble of bills, scripts, notes, newsletters, stationery, bank statements, receipts and keepsakes strewn over, under and in my desk. Not only was there now room for my laptop and printer, there was even an empty drawer. The speed with which all of this had happened was breathtaking.
In addition to the desk and the shelf, another two boxes had been shrunk down to one document wallet and, outside, one 240-litre wheelie bin was filled with rubbish and the other was full of paper for recycling, thanks mostly to those scripts. Lissanne left with four boxes and two large bags for charity. I’d never eliminated in such bulk or with such speed. I had finally stood on the edge of that precipice and leapt off.
I sat down in my armchair and mentally picked over myself, looking for telltale signs of distress or panic. They didn’t seem to be there. In fact, I didn’t seem to be feeling anything at all. I rang Adam.
‘Hey, sweetpea. Are you all done? How do you feel?’
‘I don’t know. Sort of like I’ve had all my hair cut off. I think I’m in shock. Both of my bins are full.’ I was sitting still, staring at nothing.
‘But you haven’t gone downstairs and rescued anything from them, have you?’
‘No. And I’m not going to. It’s just . . . maybe it was the speed of it.’
‘You’ll be fine, it’s just going to take a little getting used to.’
I picked at an imaginary bit of fluff. ‘Yeah.’ Then I snapped out of it. ‘Hey, can you imagine what those people on those lifestyle shows go through? You know, the ones where some TV presenter invades their house and drags all their stuff out onto the lawn and then throws it all away? The producers should go back again a day later. I’ll bet you anything they’d find those poor people curled up in the foetal position on the floor.’
‘But you’re not.’
‘No, but that’s because I learnt to let go first. If all of this stuff had been wrenched from me before I had sorted myself out mentally, you would now be looking for a psychiatric hospital for me.’
‘Who says I’m not anyway?’
I laughed. ‘I love you, Adam.’
‘Love you too, baby. Mwah.’
I looked around my flat. There was so little left to do now. One drawer here, half a box there and it would all be over. I couldn’t believe it. I was so close to achieving my dream of living unburdened.
And yet, like before, something still didn’t feel right.
I got up from the armchair and walked carefully around the apartment, staring my things in the face. There was something in here that was haunting me, I could feel it. I checked out my bookcases. Nothing in there made me feel guilty or miserable. Nothing on my desk made me feel bad either. I walked past the framed poster that Thomas had given me and into the bedroom. I searched under the bed. Nothing. I opened the side of the wardrobe in which I kept my clothes. Nothing. I was just about to close it again when the edge of something caught my eye. It was the mirror Thomas had given me. After the painful way things had ended, I had stashed it in the wardrobe, not wanting to see it anymore.
Now I knew what the problem was.
I went back out to the lounge room. Here was the framed poster he had given me, here was a limited-edition book, a novelty pencil and an atlas, here was a collection of wine from a trip we had taken together, here were the kitchen knives and screwdriver set that had belonged to him and that he’d given me when I moved out on him.
Adam was right after all; I hadn’t moved on. I looked around the house again. Thomas was everywhere. Guilt was everywhere. Some of the things he’d given me when we were still together, many of them he’d given me after I’d left him. This was what was haunting me, no doubt about it. I sat down in the armchair again and allowed myself to cry, just a little bit; Thomas had been my friend and I had loved him. The ending of our time together deserved to be mourned properly.
Then I stood up, gathered everything he had given me into a pile, and started deciding who was going to get what. Finally, I was ready to let go.
Part 5
When It Was Done
Chapter Nineteen
‘Sold! To the woman sitting in the gutter.’
Is that real estate agent looking at me? I think he is. I’m definitely sitting in a gutter. I definitely put up my hand when he said, ‘Are there any other offers?’
It appears that I’ve just bought a house.
I nodded casually to the crowd, stood up, brushed myself off and walked into the little two-storey brick cottage that I apparently now owned. The real estate agent smiled at me expectantly. He was holding out a pen. I really hadn’t meant to do this, I was just passing by. I’d only seen the interior twenty minutes before and I’d only spent ten minutes looking through it. I didn’t recall seeing a bathroom. I pushed my sunglasses up to the top of my head, smoothed down the cruddy old tracksuit pants I was wearing and took the pen from the immaculately suited man in front of me.
‘Thanks. Just one thing before I sign . . . does it have a toilet?’
The real estate agent’s smile faltered.
For two months I had been unsuccessfully house-hunting. After I had packed up the last remaining items Thomas had given me, I had spent a delightful few days passing them on to friends. My cousin received the antique mirror, another friend was given the framed poster and I invited myself to Adam’s house for dinner and we shared an incredible bottle of deep red wine that I had bought with Thomas on a holiday when we were still together. Everyone was delighted and surprised by the things I had given them, and I was delighted and surprised to discover how much fun it was to give them away.
And yet, unbelievably, something was still wrong. There were three empty shelves in my cupboards, two empty drawers in my desk, I could easily sift through my clothes and there was nothing under the bed. My house was almost unrecognisable, I had conquered my stuff. So why was there still this oppressive feeling every time I unlocked the door and stepped into my flat? I wondered this aloud to Adam one afternoon as we sat in his backyard, trying desperately to soak up the feeble sunbeams of early spring, eating fish and chips and fighting over the sauce bottle.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong. I’ve virtually got everything under control but I’m still having nightmares. I still feel like there’s something breathing down my neck waiting to lunge out and attack me.’
Adam licked his fingers. ‘Where do you live?’
‘Don’t be an idiot, Adam, you know where I live.’
‘No, where do you live?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘In a flat.’
‘That . . .’ Adam was rolling his hands at me, encouraging me to finish his sentence.
‘ . . . has four walls and a roof. Where the hell are yo
u going with this?’
‘Okay, we’ll start again. Where you do you live now?’
I sighed. There was no point in arguing with him when he was like this. ‘I live in a one-bedroom flat over there.’ I waved over the fence in the vague direction of my place.
‘And where did you live before that?’
‘In a hellhole on the edge of reality.’
‘And before that?’
‘In the same little flat I’m in now, but with my ex-boyfriend . . . oh my GOD!’
Adam laughed hysterically as I stared at him, open-mouthed with horror.
‘I’m hoarding a flat? Oh my GOD!’
I started flapping my hands like they were covered in something disgusting.
‘I’ve got to get out, I’ve got to get out. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Would you have listened?’
I stopped flapping. ‘No, I wouldn’t have. I would have offered you a whole lot of excuses. I would have been in complete denial.’
‘And now?’
‘And now I am moving out. As soon as I can.’
Initially I had only wanted to rent something new. I wanted a little house with two bedrooms not because I wanted space for storage but because I wanted a room to turn into an office. I also liked the idea of having a little backyard. This time, it would be fun to find somewhere new: I wasn’t constrained by ridiculous needs for excessive storage.
I pored over my budget and figured out I could afford to pay one third more in rent than I was currently paying. What I had failed to notice while I was happily sequestered away in my little flat—enjoying the same rental rates I had been shelling out since the time Thomas and I had shared the place—was that the market had gone completely crazy. While I had been living in fairyland, a housing shortage had been growing around me. Renters had become so desperate they were bidding for properties. People were offering twelve months’ rent in advance, they were signing over their firstborn children and proffering their kidneys in lieu of bond money. There were so many people and so few houses that everyone had lost their minds, including the landlords. Places far worse than the hellhole were now raking in the kind of money I would have associated with a penthouse suite that came complete with a live-in high-class hooker.
I spent every weekend for a month wandering through slums, enduring the teenaged real estate agents who stood out the front, imperiously waving clipboards and acting like door bitches at exclusive nightclubs. I half expected to have to pay a cover charge just to cross the threshold. Every house I walked into Ate A Dick. There were places next to building sites and factories, and places that smelt of mildew and rotting fruit. They often had no heating or cooling and, in one, a non-working wood stove in what appeared to be a bedroom was described to me as a ‘rustic kitchen’. Another place, which was advertised as having a second bedroom, was actually referring to the space between the ceiling and the roof. They’d put a ladder up to the access hole and I supposed you saved on bedding by sleeping on the insulation batts. I was back in the same situation as when I’d left Thomas.
I had no desire to repeat history. This time when I left, I was going to leave for something better, and if I was going to spend an obscene amount of money on a place to live, I decided, then I may as well buy something. That way I could hammer in as many picture hooks as I liked, I could paint the walls, put up shelves and dig up the garden. I was also sure I had read somewhere that if you were a landowner and the next-door neighbours held a party that went until dawn, you were allowed to pour burning pitch over their heads.
I sat down with a calculator. Once I pooled all my savings and emptied my term deposit, I would have a relatively substantial deposit. Now I was getting excited. I started fantasising about Victorian terraces with enormous backyards, entrance halls and bay windows. I imagined having a study with wall-to-ceiling bookshelves, chesterfield lounge suites and a hand-hewn dining-room table. There would be a stove with room for a fish kettle (whatever that was), a stainless-steel fridge that dispensed ice cubes, and a claw-foot bath in the oversized bathroom.
I started looking in my suburb and it became apparent within five minutes that I couldn’t afford anything close to that. If I was lucky I might manage an apartment slightly bigger than what I was renting now and, if I was even luckier, it might be an apartment with windows.
I adjusted my expectations.
A week later, I found a place in a block of flats I thought I could live in. The next-door neighbours appeared to be normal and the building didn’t smell like anyone was cooking up drugs in their kitchen. There were windows and new carpet, there were built-ins in the two bedrooms and a little balcony overlooking the busy street below. It even had city views if you climbed up on the kitchen island, stood on tiptoes and employed a telescope. The auction was in two weeks’ time. I quickly arranged a building and pest inspection, gathered all the paperwork together and gave it to a conveyancer to check over. Everything seemed fine. The flat was even advertised at well below what I could afford to pay. I allowed myself to get a little bit excited.
My only problem was the auction. I had never bid on anything before, not even at a charity event. Buying lotto tickets scared me. There was no way I could risk doing this myself; I knew I would panic and forget to put my hand up even once. Then, luckily, I was introduced to a friend of a friend. His name was Julian and he had bought two houses for himself and had bid on behalf of nearly everyone else he knew. He seemed friendly enough and, although he had a disconcerting habit of looking away whenever he was speaking to me, he knew a dizzying amount about the auction process. If there was such a thing as an auction nerd, I had found it.
On the morning the apartment was to be sold, I sat a little further up the road at a café with my friends Gerard and Katharine. My mobile phone and a plate of uneaten poached eggs sat in front of me. Julian told me he would only call if things got tight and he needed me to decide on any further bids. Adam rang from his holiday in Sydney to ask me how the auction was going and I almost yelled at him to get off the phone and stop clogging the line. He laughed and hung up. Then the phone rang again. Julian sounded excited.
‘You hear that?’ In the background I could hear the auctioneer calling out numbers two hundred thousand above the advertised price. That could not possibly be right. I frowned.
‘Where are you, Julian? Please don’t tell me you went to the wrong auction.’
‘Nup. I’m here. It’s gone crazy.’
It felt like I had been done an injustice. Someone—definitely not me—was responsible for needlessly getting my hopes up.
‘That’s ridiculous. Who would pay that much for a flat?’
‘It’s two guys in suits. I think it’s less about the property and more about the size of their dicks. The rest of us are just standing back and watching.’
I listened to the rest of the auction by phone. In the end, the little apartment I thought would be mine went for the price of the mansions I knew I could never afford. I stared glumly at the eggs congealing on the plate in front of me.
‘Looks like there’s a property boom on!’ Julian sounded thrilled.
My suburb was now way out of my reach.
‘Not to worry, you can always try again a little further out.’ Julian hung up before I had a chance to start swearing at him.
I didn’t want to try ‘a little further out’, I wanted to live here where I knew everyone. I knew Steve who ran the fruit and vegetable shop, Alex who owned the cocktail bar, Dolores who owned the deli and Sebastian at the flower shop where I bought bunches of jonquils I didn’t want because he was cute and had an accent. Gerard lived in the next street along from me. Katharine lived a ten-minute walk away. My friend Fahey and her two hilarious children were my regular Monday lunch date. Adam was only two tram stops from my house. I had found a little community within a big city and I didn’t want to leave it. Those years in the hellhole, far from my friends and completely on my own, were still painfully vivid. As nice as ownin
g my own place would be, it wasn’t worth losing everything that mattered to own one thing that might.
However, the reality was undeniable: I couldn’t afford to rent and I couldn’t afford to buy in this suburb. My only other option was to stay where I was, living in the same flat I had shared with my ex-boyfriend and lying in bed at night feeling him seeping out of the walls. I shuddered at the thought.
I reluctantly started looking in a suburb a ten-minute drive further north. I drove out to look around the area and, to my surprise, I didn’t mind it too much. The streets were lined with blossoming trees, all the houses had rosebushes out the front and I didn’t see one abandoned shopping trolley. And everything was quiet. I had lived surrounded by noise for so long that I’d forgotten that most people don’t live in places where they need earplugs just to get a good night’s sleep. I bought a newspaper and started circling likely properties.
That weekend, on my first round of open houses, I found a place that I instantly loved. It was a beautiful two-bedroom Edwardian, with a climbing rose over the front verandah and a little study built on the lawn out the back. It had ducted heating and polished floorboards and a big tree in the yard. The front bedroom had an open fireplace and was filled with sunshine. I wanted to live here more than I had ever wanted to live anywhere. Adam was with me and I turned to him to ask what he thought of the place. He was leaning against the bedroom door with his eyes closed.
‘Adam!’
He jumped awake. ‘What, I’m here! Oh, yes, lovely. Hmmm.’
The day before, Adam had agreed to come house-hunting with me. He had then put on his best clothes and headed out to a friend’s birthday party. When the last bar closed at 10 a.m. that morning, he walked out of it and straight to my place. He looked like a junkie and smelt like he had taken a nap on a toilet floor.
Now he was leaning against the doorframe, half asleep and trying to look apologetic.
‘Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have come with you today. I think I smell like a department-store Santa.’
Lessons in Letting Go Page 19
