After the Blues

by Kathy Lette

  Soula groped under the record player for the skirt she’d discarded earlier in the evening, then scanned the lounge room for her underpants. They were lying scrunched up at the foot of the stairs where she’d stepped out of them. Her mum had refused to show Soula’s messy bedroom to the mothers of prospective husbands. ‘How can you expect someone to marry you if your bedroom’s ano kato… how do you say … pigsty?’

  When visitors called in, a Greek girl scored bridal points for tidiness, serving Greek coffee and cake, and sitting with her legs together.

  ‘Yeah, Gail’s just let herself go,’ Wayne added through another mouthful of sandwich.

  With an air of contrived casualness, Soula dressed, then started to tidy up the room, pausing briefly by the mirror to pat her hair and remove the skid marks of mascara beneath her eyes.

  ‘Yeah, she goes out looking like a dog too. Any day now, she’s gonna start sticking her head out of the car window.’

  Soula fingered her fresh crop of underarm stubble and wished she’d shaved before Wayne’s arrival.

  ‘I came that close –’ he separated the thumb and forefinger of his other hand by a millimetre and squinted as if threading a needle ‘– to bloody well leaving the other day.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ Soula queried airily, with no more emphasis in her voice than if she was vaguely curious about the number of miles he was getting to the gallon. ‘Did you talk to her about it? You promised.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Yeah.’

  Soula looked into his eyes for the first time that night. ‘Have you?’ she interrupted.

  ‘Well … I forgot.’ Feeling suddenly exposed, Wayne fumbled for his football shirt, shorts and socks, then wriggled into them. ‘It’s probably better if I let her, you know, bring it up. She had a shitty time in the school holidays. The whole time we were away in Jindabyne the kids were monsters. Ben threw his new dental plate down the food-disposal unit. And … I mean, face facts, Soula. I’m to blame too.’

  Soula milked the teat of the wine cask into her glass, downed it in one gulp, then refilled it.

  ‘She’s not independent like you.’

  Soula let out a burst of loud, unnerving laughter.

  ‘If I left, there’s no telling what she might do.’ He offered her his homemade bong. ‘Pull a cone,’ he said magnanimously. ‘Calm down.’

  ‘But do you like her?’

  Wayne shrugged. He rubbed his sweaty palms up and down his footy socks. ‘I’m used to her. And in her own way, she’s devoted.’

  ‘But we love each other.’

  ‘It’ll get easier when the kids are older …’ His striped shins were now quite damp.

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘What’s a year or two when we have a whole lifetime together ahead of us? And …’ Wayne focused Soula with his blue but now bloodshot eyes. ‘And maybe beyond that …’ he said enigmatically. The lounge-room window mirrored his handsome reflection. Clocking it now, he tousled his hair and rumpled his jersey into the ‘I’ve-just-slogged-it-out-on-the-footy-field’ look.

  ‘Do you love me?’ Soula asked.

  Deciding to tackle the situation head on, Wayne lunged across the couch and took her by the shoulders. ‘I want to be with you always. I mean, I can really talk to you. I knew when I first met you in the bloody staff room and you were wearing those shoes with the, you know, musical notes on them … that you were, well, different to the other women. I’ve got it off with a lot of chicks spunkier than you and it sucked. They want to take me over.’ He tapped his temple dramatically. ‘You know, owner-occupy. But when I’m with you …’ he struggled, ‘I feel as though I’m with an old mate. You’re ace, Sue. You’re a good sport. I feel as if we’re equals. That’s it! We’re equal. Basically, you’re just like a guy!’ He looked elated, as though he had just scored a try.

  Anastasoula thought about the trunk underneath her bed. Her glory box was big enough to open as a department store. Seventy-five tea towels. Dozens of hand-crocheted doilies. Eighteen vegetable peelers. Quilted bedspreads. Two sets of crockery. Sterling-silver cutlery in large velvet boxes. Coloured Tupperware contraptions for straining, sealing, shredding. For the last two hours she had also been thinking about swallowing a bottle of Seconal, lying down in the glory box and closing the lid.

  Wayne emptied the bong bucket into the drooping pot plant, delved into the potting mix, stirred it into the desired chocolate-cake consistency, then smeared his limbs. ‘Hate to eat and run, but I’d better make tracks. Gail’s getting a bit suss of footy training five times a week for an amateur club.’ He yanked on his footy boots then patted Soula’s rump. Gazing lustily at her long legs, he flashed a conspiratorial smile in her direction. ‘I can pop in for … “coffee” …’ He slid open the side alley window and checked that nobody outside was watching. ‘… Wednesday.’ Balancing his buttocks on the window sill, he continued, ‘Around eleven pm.’ With a one-fingered salute, he hurtled into the nasturtiums in the garden below.

  Soula stood gazing after him. Post-match depression set in. She was the losing team, vanquished, left knee-deep in chip and pie wrappers. It was against Greek Orthodox religion to commit suicide. They wouldn’t bury you. It was almost as bad as being an old maid. And what would her relatives say? Aunty Toula, Aunty Voula, Aunty Koula, Aunty Roula? Christemou! As if she weren’t in enough shit with her mother already.

  ‘Soula!’ Wayne’s head catapulted back through the window to deliver a passionate postscript.

  ‘Yes?’ Her heart leaped. Soula had not yet caught up with the 80s fashion, namely, if you wear your heart on your sleeve, wear a cardie.

  ‘Why don’t you watch Dynasty tomorrow night? Then I can think of you while I’m watching it with the kids. Ciao!’

  He’s coming at seven

  He’s coming at seven. He promised. Handle it. Act normal. It’s your personality he’s hot for, you tell yourself as you pumice toes, steam blackheads, razor pits, apply lip bleach and an organic face pack consisting of cucumber, honey, yoghurt and egg whites. ‘One must feed one’s complexion, Deb,’ Julia lectured endlessly.

  6.00 pm. Your face is starting to ferment. You stand anchored in the middle of the room. Ferment … The grog! Julia said that red wine needs untold time to breathe. Gouging out the corky residue, you tell yourself to get your act together. Breathe … but wait, what is it, asthmatic? Whack the bottle near the vaporiser.

  Take a squiz at the label. My God! What if he can tell you bought it on special, that this ‘cheeky little Hunter Valley red’ cost only $4.99 including a complimentary packet of peanuts? Remember how he told you in the lift at work about his geographically attuned palate, which enables him to distinguish the area, the year, the grape, the soil … probably the picker’s name. ‘Most men, Debbie, put the bore into Bordeaux,’ Julie had raved over brekkie, ‘and they all think women have no wine palate.’ You grab your sloppy joe and high-power it to the corner pub. It is only when you try to ask for a nice, dry white and can’t move your mouth that you remember you’re still wearing the face pack. The egg whites have set like cement. Worse than an egghead, you’re a human omelette.

  Racing back home, anxious not to smudge your Malibu Passion nail polish, you accidentally let the Frog vino slip from your hands to its death on the dirty pavement. Half your bloody weekly salary – try to squeegee it back into the bottle with a hanky.

  6.30 pm. Oh well, if the food’s perf, he won’t notice the plonk. After all, it is the way to a man’s heart … although that isn’t exactly the part of his anatomy in which you’re interested. ‘It’ll close up, mate, if you don’t do something. And soon.’ It takes Kerrie a long time to come to the point. But it’s alright for her, she’s got a whole smorgasbord selection of classic spunkrats – though most of them end up being married. It’ll be beaut to finally have a bloke to brag about at the girls’ night out – a sexy, single, intelligent man all of your own.

  You’ve prepared chicken kiev, but decide to give cooking
the flick. It’s other appetites that are making your mouth water. Go squeeze Ortho-Gynol over your diaphragm. It’s tongue-numbing, you know, but once he’s got that far there won’t be enough time to conduct a sneaky safari for his vasso scar. ‘Insertion should be a part of foreplay after cunnilingus,’ Kerrie had crapped on that morning through her Special K. So your diaphragm is left waiting on the bedside table under its foaming white doona of spermicide.

  Deciding to serve nibbles only, you arm wrestle with the garlic crusher over the guacamole. Then, exhausted, you pig out on a bulk bowl of beans. Ugh! Heavily into the gorge, you recall Kerrie’s warning – not to eat anything which will cause intestinal distress. ‘Fill up on water, Deb. Then he won’t see you for the gutsy, greedy pig you really are.’ You vow to eat yoghurt till your tongue starts to curdle. If only you were one of those glam girls in restaurants who pick at lettuce leaves and look as though their minds are on more important things …

  Time to change. With your bottom thrust towards the mirror, you crane over your shoulder. Puke! Ugh! Not only have you got a two-tone tan from lying on your board all day, but your arse is as round as a bowling ball. And if your behind is a problem, what about your mind? Justin’s an intellectual. I mean, the bloke knows the difference between Iraq and Iran! You’ll need scuba gear just to talk to the guy. Talk?! Talk. What about? At Julia’s dinner party the other night, all the guests sat round reeling off work deals, latest theatrical projects, economic theories … The most interesting thing that has happened to you all week was getting your ears pierced.

  Writhe into control-top panties and size-eight jeans. Try to brainstorm possible topics of conversation. Your head swivels over the other shoulder to gawp into the mirror once again. Why? Why were you born with a big bum and a low brow? You nicked off from school when you were nearly sixteen, so you’re not so much an eminent as an imminent intellectual. He is an Arts graduate with a degree in journalism. The only Shakespearean quotes you know are off a desk calendar. You have a PhD in desk calendars.

  The tight jeans have now cut off the circulation to both denimed legs. Your last boyfriend, a cone-head computer geek, broke it off ’cause he reckoned you were an illiterate waxhead. Frantic, you begin rehearsing spontaneous dialogue. The Nicaraguan situation? The storage safeguards for nuclear waste? Pressurised fluorocarbons?

  Handle it. Get a grip. Who cares what boys think? You’re not illiterate – after all, your olds were married when they had you.

  6.45 pm. Hide your surfboard, wetsuits and dope plants under the bed. Don’t want him thinking you’re a bong-brain. You notice the house plants have more or less carked it. Julia reckons you should talk to your pot plants. Shit! Nearly seven o’clock. Tell your plants just to talk amongst themselves.

  7.00 pm. Why bother cultivating house plants anyway? There’s untold alien vegetation sprouting, untended, behind the toilet. Ricochet around the flat, hiding and tidying. Scoop out the dead goldfish with a tea strainer and flush them to a disinfected grave down the dunny. Plan to make off-the-cuff quips about your domesticity being limited to brewing trouble and sewing wild oats.

  7.05 pm. You notice there are two toothbrushes in the cup with your name on the side. Some male wombat from a long-ago one-night stand left this grungy, chewed-up dental memento. God! Mr A-Grade Journo will think you have Another … Or others! Then he’ll wonder what they have that he doesn’t. Like herpes. Chuck the toothbrush in the bottom of the bin.

  7.06 pm. Put cellophane on the overhead fluorescent to give the room a rosy glow. Sip your second gin and tonic. Sigh. Yes, things are looking much more romantic. But wait a minute …

  Disease … You’re not deadset diseased. But what about him?! How to bring it up subtly? Julia warned you that all blokes should be examined carefully before attempting anything carnal. Breaking away from a passionate embrace and spreading his legs with a ten-battery-power torch could dampen the romantic ambience somewhat … You unwrap the overhead fluorescent and collapse back into the beanbag.

  Deep breaths. Stay calm. Ommm … Ommm … Ommm. Think of clean, clear surfaces. Empty spaces. Nothingness … Nothingness! Your eyes trigger open. Gaze at your living room as if for the first time. What does it say about you? It says clean, clear surfaces. Empty spaces. Nothingness. Why can’t ambience and charisma come in a spray can?

  7.30 pm. Go for it. Grab an armful of Julia’s academic books and scatter them about. Whack some poetry in the loo to convey sensitivity. Some psychology by the phone to suggest depth. On the coffee table, some learned tomes to hint at the unusual, in fact, full-on uniqueness of the Real You. (If you’d bothered to examine the titles you’d have seen they read Taxidermy Your Budgie and What Your Navel Says about You.)

  Not that you want him to think you are a pure, full-on egghead. A brainiac like him would only appreciate a woman with a love of aesthetics. Jesus bloody Christ … You rummage through Ro’s end of the record collection. He is coming at seven. He promised. If you’re quick, he’ll arrive to find you casually listening to Gluck’s twenty-first symphony for triangle and Renaissance toenail harp.

  8.00 pm. Mr Punctuality-plus … Must’ve been held up at the newspaper. Yes! He’s complained in the canteen that some office girl had got the files out of order. Don’t be a dag. Control the impulse to call. Slurp your G & T and flick through a coffee book on Angora goat pasturing. A glance around the room renders you panic-stricken. What if what you see as compellingly eccentric, he sees as full-on certifiable? Catapult around the flat collecting all the planted books. Drill yourself in Meaningless Drivel: who’s up who at work, for example – practise rolling the sides of your tongue inwards.

  8.30 pm. It is fashionable to be late …

  9.00 pm. Not that fucking fashionable. How long does it take to flick through a pile of files? An organised filing cabinet just means you lose things alphabetically. Leap up from the chair. Jesus! You don’t want to be just vegging out when he arrives. He mustn’t be allowed to think that you don’t have bulk other things to do. Or bulk other people to do them with. You rush back into the bathroom and retrieve the shaggy toothbrush from the bin. Justin’s a real rager with a big by-line. He would like his women wild. Mull up. Rub some dirt back onto the toilet tiles. Dishevel the bed.

  Kerrie warned you that the first time in bed with a new bloke is always a bummer. Well, how premature could ejaculation be? He wasn’t even here yet … There’s a smell of something burning. Under the hot bedside lamp your diaphragm has melted and blistered into a pale rubber pappadum.

  10.00 pm. You sag as though you are part of the beanbag and contain nothing more than little polystyrene baubles. What’s so hot about being an intellectual anyway? It sucks. You’re pissed off with dinner party dialogue you need an encyclopedia and a dictionary to decipher. Since you moved into Darlinghurst and Julia scored you the journo’s job as surf reporter, your conversation’s been limited to full-on vocal genuflection. ‘Deadset?’ ‘Amazing!’ ‘Incredible!’ But, you address the ice cubes in your glass, fuel formulas for Exocet missiles and the names of toxic molecules located in tubercular calves’ lungs do not come naturally.

  The answer is suddenly obvious. Julia’s friends swat for dinner parties. They feed themselves thesauruses intravenously. ‘The jeremiad has definite iconographic, epistemological and solipsistic innuendoes.’ Intellectualising – you turn to lecture the guacamole – is about saying more and meaning less. Wrench off your jeans. In size eight you can either look trendy or breathe, you can’t do both. Justin’s the yobbo. Not you. Contorting out of your control-top panties, you decide to quit dieting and just have one of those operations to cut the excess arse off. You know, a lobotomy.

  10.30 pm. Rehearse some new conversation topics: suicide statistics for single women; radical celibacy; lesbianism. Put on a Tammy Wynette country and western song about being unloved and all alone. Using your hairbrush as a microphone, you mime into the mirror. ‘He hasn’t even rung,’ you croon an ad-libbed chorus to the song. ‘And
the goldfish didn’t even flush.’ There they are, floating forlornly in the toilet bowl.

  11.30 pm. There is a certain irony to it all, you tell your tenth gin and tonic. A wrought irony, you tell your eleventh. An over-wrought irony, you address the carpet, where your body has found accidental sanctuary.

  The hands of the clock hinge on midnight. He was coming at seven. He promised.

  Dial his home number. Don’t be naive. Prepare yourself for the voice of Another Woman – no doubt his wife. You’re just as pathetic as Kerrie and Soula, waiting around for some married man.

  But the voice that answers is male. ‘Yes?’ he says, sleepily.

  ‘Is Justin there?’

  ‘He’s asleep … We both are. Justin?’

  You picture him being prodded awake by the man who is sharing his pillow. Idiot. It is the 80s. In Sydney – gay capital of the world, where all the women are marooned by the pretzels at parties, playing ‘Spot the Hetero’. These days, behind every successful man is the Other Man.

  ‘Yes? Justin speaking.’

  At the sound of his sleepy voice you start to giggle, tipsily. ‘There’s, there’s only one thing … you need to know about Iran …’ Pause to burp. ‘It’s going from Iraq to ruin.’

  More or less married men – Girls’ talk

  The Darlinghurst terrace was filled with the paraphernalia of five single girls. Ailing pot plants, posters and piles of magazines were crammed amongst Kerrie’s collection of Aussie kitsch – they poured their tea from a china kangaroo, ate their eggs from Ayers Rock eggcups and rested their drinks on kangaroo-fur coasters. The permanently erected ironing board, rusted into a state of rigor mortis, doubled as a coffee table. Washing withered on a makeshift line in the bathroom. Above the kitchen sink hung a map of Australia from which right-wing Queensland had been cut off and set adrift towards the flaking ceiling. The fridge door was smothered with appetite-deterring photos of magazine models with mocking smiles.