The Near Miss

by Fran Cusworth

  Back home the day after the working bee, Eddy watched out the window, where a man his own age, with long dirty blond hair, waited to cross the road. The man wore boardshorts, a Rip Curl hoodie and thongs, although the weather was mild. He stepped from foot to foot as he waited, a quick step-step accompanied by the shaking loose of his fingers. If it wasn’t for that step-step, and the finger shaking, he might look like any old man of Eddy’s generation who was either a surfer or had adopted that look to express his attitude to life. But the stepping told a different story, the shuffling inside the shell of his loose-fitting boardies and his T-shirt. He talked to himself. His thongs were worn to holes at the heels. Eddy’s heart ached for him. When had it happened, what went wrong? Would the woman waiting on the other side of the crossing notice? Would she shun him as she passed? Did surfing help sustain him through whatever engine failure propelled this frantic fidgeting, or was he frozen in time there, waiting for a perfect wave to surf out of his malaise?

  Eddy sighed and reflected that Sundays were too long. He looked around. His house disgusted him, but there was also a wild freedom in being able to cut his fingernails on the carpet, in letting the spray from his whiskers build up, shave after shave, on the vanity basin, in being able to fart with abandon, or reach down at any moment and do a thoughtful, caressing stocktake of his testicles.

  His phone rang and he stepped across the lounge room to reach it, skidded on a pizza box and knocked last night’s can of beer, luckily empty, off the table. ‘Hello?’ he said, sounding squeaky after his trip.

  ‘Well, hello. Is this Eddy? A female voice, sexy, in a gentle way. Kindly sexy, if there were such a thing. Familiar. But not Romy.

  He steadied himself, reached for a more manly note deep within. ‘This is he.’ He turned down the sports channel.

  ‘It’s Laura here. From the kindy, yesterday?’

  ‘Oh!’ He rescued the image from his mind; the young, nicely plump woman with dark, smiling eyes and dark hair. Had her voice been this sexy, and he just hadn’t noticed? But this woman was a god to forty young children, and a figure of great respect to their parents. She could not be sexy. ‘Oh, Miss Laura!’

  ‘Well, you can call me Laura. It’s really only the kids who call me Miss Laura. Makes them feel like they’re in school.’

  ‘Oh! Well, thanks.’ Now he was thanking her for being promoted from pre-school. He was a buffoon.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling. You did leave your number in case there was a problem with . . . the cubby-house door.’

  ‘Well I was a bit worried those hinges might be a trap for little fingers. You should really get some rubber to put around them. I mean sorry, I know I told you that, I don’t want to go on about it . . .’

  ‘It’s fine.’ A trace of laughter in her voice. A flirtatious being had invaded the body of the kindergarten teacher. He should alert someone, this wasn’t right. ‘Actually, I hope you don’t mind me calling you, but I’m just . . . Well, I’ve discovered I’ve got nothing in the fridge . . .’

  ‘Oh no! Can I . . .?’ Maybe she was poor and hungry.

  ‘Just too slack to shop, I’m afraid. I tend to eat out more than at home. Anyway, nothing in the fridge . . .’

  ‘Oh, me too! I mean, nothing in the fridge . . . and love to eat out . . .’ Could she be asking him . . .? No, surely not.

  ‘. . . and I was thinking of going out for dinner and I was wondering whether . . . I’m sorry, but Grace said you lived on your own . . .’

  ‘I do! I do!’ He almost shouted. That much at least, he knew. Okay, he had an engagement ring, he hadn’t completely given up on Romy, but no one, no one could deny the truth of the fact that he was not married, and he, now, lived alone. He started to face that reality with more anticipation than ever before. ‘Would you . . . maybe I could join you for dinner? I mean, we could go somewhere?’ Oh God, had he got this all wrong?

  ‘Have you eaten?’ she said.

  ‘I’ve had a really disgusting pizza, to be honest.’ Oh no! Why had he said that! ‘But I could fit in a little bit more. In fact, I’m still starving.’ And then he burst out laughing, from sheer terror and hope. Who would have thought? Someone would ask him out. A woman. A nice woman. Asking him out.

  ‘Well, great! Do you know the Italian joint, on Fairbrick Street?’

  ‘Yes! I love it!’ Oh, cool it, man, stop leaping down the phone at her.

  ‘Seven o’clock.’

  Eddy consciously lowered his tonal register, took a deep breath and slowed his voice. ‘Great. See you there, Miss Laura.’

  He hung up. Shit. Had he really called her Miss Laura again? Laura, Laura, Laura. He gazed around himself at the pizza boxes, the wobbly piles of DVDs, the beer cans. It all looked different from how it had a few minutes ago. It looked like an offence to his eyes. He had a date! A date! Back in business, he hummed, flinging clothes out of his wardrobe. He ran to the bathroom and turned on the shower, ran back to the bedroom again. Quirky op-shop shirt, nice-boy Pierre Cardin, no, maybe an open-necked business shirt with jeans. God he had to shave. Did kindergarten teachers do sex?

  Eddy met Miss Laura in a small Italian restaurant, where she waited in her faded jeans and sneakers and a T-shirt. She was friendly in an uncomplicated way that unnerved him a little, and at the end of dinner she kissed him on the cheek and said ‘Are you free Friday?’ and he stuttered nervously ‘Sure!’, and she said ‘I’ll call you, we’ll work something out’, and then she smiled and turned to walk home. He watched her go, and he felt good. He was just about to walk away when she turned back and caught him looking, and she laughed in a way that told him she liked him looking. He smiled and waved. Back home, he glimpsed his face in the mirror; he was smiling, stupidly, at nothing. Jesus. He felt happy! He saw he had a text on his phone. From Grace, Tom’s ex, Lotte’s mum. Did she need more furniture moved? He hoped so. It was nice to be needed.

  Hi Eddy, Wondering if you’d like to go out for dinner and a movie this Friday night, just you and me? Dressed For Success is on at the Nova. Let me know!!! xxx

  He looked aghast at his phone and dropped it like it was hot. Dressed For Success? He’d never heard of it, but he hated it already. He could see women in power-suits and female solidarity and some hapless male who hadn’t yet moved out of home, maybe being the subject of a makeover by the power-suits, and possibly there was a musical number involving Greek peasants. And, even more disturbing, Grace? Asking him out? Kiss kiss kiss? He hadn’t felt the faintest pulse of sexual tension between them; in fact, he would have said he irritated her. He distinctly remembered she had crossly slapped a tissue box in front of him when he had sniffed too many times the other night. It was confounding. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had a female advance that was unwelcome to him in his life. He certainly didn’t think he’d ever had two dinner invitations from two women in the one night. Exhausted, he stripped off down to his jocks and went to bed.

  The peal of the phone cut through his sleep later, and he dragged himself upright, and squinted at his clock. 2:43 am. Who on earth. Maybe Miss Laura? he thought hopefully. Eddy, my body is on fire for you. Come over right now and peel my jeans off my hips and lift my T-shirt over my shoulders . . . He snatched up the phone.

  ‘You never let me look after you.’ A woman. Another woman! He was momentarily bewildered. But it was Romy’s voice. Truly her! She must be speaking to someone else. Maybe she had accidentally pressed the automatic home-dial on her mobile phone. He was eavesdropping on a conversation. He sat up and switched on his bedside light. In the mirror opposite, he looked like some squinting old bum. He held his breath, hoping to hear more.

  ‘Eddy?’

  ‘Romy?’

  ‘Why aren’t you talking?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure you were actually talking to me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He sighed and leaned back on the pillow. ‘Well, you sort of skipped a few of the social niceties, like Hi, Eddy, how are you? Sorry I haven’t come hom
e for the past nine months, except for one day when I had to be a rabbit, but I’ve been—’

  ‘You never let me look after you.’ Was she crying?

  ‘Romy, are you drunk? What are you talking about? Where the hell are you?’

  She was either crying or breathing heavily.

  ‘You always wanted to look after me, and I think I just got sick of being . . . the hopeless one. The one who needed looking after.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  ‘It’s not. We felt closest when you were doing things for me, and the more of a wreck I became, the more you rescued me. But it was bad for me.’ Romy gulped for air, and he sat naked on the edge of his bed and stared down at his bare thighs. She went on. ‘I tried a few times to reverse the order, I tried to bring you tea and toast when you were sick. You’d say thanks and then you’d get up and get dressed and bring the tray back out and eat at the table. It just seemed to make us awkward.’

  ‘Romy, are you somewhere safe?’

  ‘When we came home from places, I couldn’t even get my house key out before you. You would bring the shopping in before I could, you’d get to the steering wheel before I could. You were always the strong one. You disempowered me. You made me into a . . . child.’

  ‘Is that so . . .’ Eddy shook his head. He wasn’t sure whether he should feel grateful she’d called, or affronted at these claims that he had been too, as far as he could understand, nice. ‘Romy, you just take off, all your stuff is here . . . Are you ever coming home? Can I come and pick you up from somewhere? I could come now?’

  She was crying again, talking over him. ‘Just once, just once I wished I could have held you while you cried, told you that everything was going to be alright. But you could never give me that, could you?’

  ‘I’m sorry Romy . . .’ He was crying, his nose blocked, his eyes streaming, his body aching and feeling like he had swallowed a rock. Just as he suspected, it had all been his fault. He hadn’t been lovable, had done everything wrong, he had made her run away. ‘Romy . . .’ he wept, but she had gone; just a dial tone now in his ear. He put down the phone and curled up on his sheets, touched his forehead to his knees and cried.

  The next morning he texted Grace and said tersely that he had prior commitment that Friday night. He wasn’t sure he had ever said no to a woman in his life.

  ‘Librans, you may be feeling uninspired at present due to the weak position of your ruling planet. But this is an opportunity for you to think deeply about what it is you want. If love is your goal . . .’

  Melody glanced over at a monitor, and there was her reflected self, reading a script, a miniature figure in a long crimson dress. It was an Alannah Hill, the wardrobe woman had said, whoever that was. And this gorgeously fluid dress did feel like that mellifluous word: alannahill, yeah. They had spent forever getting her ready; twitching at the dress, pushing her pale breasts up to expose more of them in the low neck-line. ‘Do ya mind if I just . . .?’ wardrobe had said, prodding at Melody’s small cleavage as thoughtfully as an obstetrician checking for cancerous lumps. The hair man said ‘Ooooh’ when he saw Melody’s dreads, and he had to try a few things, like a child with new play dough. Coiled up on her head? No, no, no. Part pulled to the back, princess-style? Impossible to evenly separate at the roots, Melody could have told him. Finally, he sprayed some pomegranate-scented mist to gloss them up, arranged them fussily around her shoulders, and propped a couple of plastic reflective stars on one side. Makeup lady muscled in and painted her up, wet brushes stroking over her cheeks, alongside her nose, gently pushing the skin. Melody remembered crouching with Skip in the Tuntable River, painting each other’s faces with fingerfuls of wet ochre. Hair man hovered at the side, murmuring bits of advice to makeup lady, who sighed heavily each time he did and said ‘Yes. Thank you, Kevin’ in a louder voice than his. Behind her, a large screen was lit blue, and speckled with planets and moons.

  Anthea Schulberg stepped forward to interrupt. The crew exhaled as one, turning away to check mobile phones, whisper among themselves and gaze longingly in the direction of the network canteen. Hair man leapt towards Melody’s dreads and waited on alert.

  Anthea smiled. ‘Okay, we’ll have a go on-camera now. See how you look in the great eye. Try using your hands a bit, maybe even pointing your finger for emphasis. Not aggressively, but just like you’re persuading, or making a point. Like you really mean it.’

  Melody nodded. This was one of the more surreal experiences of her life. Round Up had sent a limousine to bring her to the audition. Which was lucky, because she was short of cash to refill her train card and had calculated a ninety-minute walk to the studio.

  ‘Like I really mean it. Sure.’ There was something about Anthea she warmed to, despite everything. The woman had a golden, slightly fizzy aura, and the spiritual path before her gleamed. She had great karma; much bounty would fall on that gleaming destiny, and she would share her gifts with everyone around her, Melody sensed. The crew members watched the producer pass respectfully, as if they felt it, too, waiting there beside cameras and microphones. Hair man reluctantly stepped back, adjusted his bow tie and stroked his own wing of hair, as if reassuring a small animal.

  ‘Lights. Three, two, one . . .’

  Anthea lowered her arm towards Melody like she was casting a spell, and Melody slid her eyes to the camera. She felt calm. Playing the spiritual seer was not difficult. In truth, it just meant going to her happy place and taking a deep breath. These were not her horoscopes, but then this was just an audition. If she did get the gig, she would write authentic horoscopes; precise divinations of the constellations with the power to help thousands of television watchers. Maybe this was what the universe meant her to do. Maybe this was why it had brought her to Melbourne and dragged her through the muck of televisual and kindergarten-mother ignominy. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Let me remind you not to look outside yourself by taking on the victim role or pointing the finger of blame. Take full responsibility for your own actions and thoughts.’ She read from the teleprompter and stared into the eye of the camera, drawing the unmanifested deep from within that black pool and, as Anthea had asked, spreading her open hand towards the viewer. Come. She would imagine someone. Grace maybe, who had been so grumpy that morning, and claimed she was weak from not eating meat. Who said she was fed up with legumes and couldn’t think of a single idea for a vegetarian meal that interested her. Who said children living without television would miss out on valuable cultural socialising experiences, and be isolated by their peers, and that she, personally, was sick of having to go down the road to Anna’s house to watch Farmer Needs A Wife.

  Now, Melody imagined Grace before her, and summoned all her inner forgiveness and love. ‘Continue to delegate your tasks if you have the opportunity to do so in your workplace,’ she told her friend. ‘This will free up an immense amount of time and give you a chance to do what you do best. If you’re at home, you need to put your foot down and demand that others play their part in contributing to the household chores.’ Who had written this atrocity? Since when did the stars mediate over whose turn it was to take the rubbish out? But she held the gaze of the camera’s eye, as if pressing a loving question to the sulky Grace. Off to the side, Anthea nodded enthusiastically, raising her fist in a silent cheer. She was nailing it. Hair man templed his fingertips together as if in prayer, and whispered to makeup lady. Makeup raised her eyebrows and nodded, her expression saying Although I generally think you’re a fool, hair man, you’ve got an indisputable point there. They beamed at her. Maybe they all had jobs riding on this. Obviously the Grace thing was working, so Melody stuck with it. She leaned forward and focused on her invisible friend, talking to her as if she were handing down the tablet of Moses from the Mount.

  ‘Leo. You have forgotten some of your best talents and what it is that made you great,’ she admonished, lowering her voice a little to sound mysterious. Husky. Wild waves of approval from Anthea; hair man turned aw
ay helplessly and touched his fingertips to his forehead, as if she were just too divine for human eyes. Makeup lady smiled smugly as if watching her own best work. This was an absolute hoot. Melody experimented with another hand gesture, this one a sort of opening and spreading of both hands, as if to invite Grace inwards. She was owning this studio; there was not a soul in it escaping her spell. ‘Think back to a time when your power was at its peak. If you’re run-down, low in spirits or even diminished in self-confidence, recollecting the past will be of great value to you today.’

  God, Skip would go crazy when he saw this. Was the universe really going to dump a telly job right in her lap?

  But Melody already knew the answer to that, even as she kept reading. ‘. . . Taurus, you feel confronted by challenge, but rest assured, you can do it. You will be amazed at your own strength . . .’ She glanced over at Anthea’s triumphant face. When the take was finished, and the bright lights were turned off, the crew burst into spontaneous and genuine applause, a slow clap, and Melody blushed and arranged her face into a disingenuous question: So, how did I go? But she didn’t need a horoscope to tell her what was coming her way. A big, fat gift from the universe, bless its complicated and generous soul.

  Chapter 16

  Eddy sat in a city restaurant, and watched the world go by down on Swanston Street. Outside his first-floor window pigeons wheeled around a canyon between city buildings, as if marking out territory. They flew at the height of his window, sometimes so close he could see the black gleam of an eye, and hear the swish of feathers.

  Eddy sliced his kofta, speared a piece on his fork and patted it in eggplant chutney. His dahl and scented rice awaited him, as did a lassie. He raised the kofta, chewed and swallowed, and felt so full he put down his cutlery and rubbed his stomach. He was reminded of a post-birth friend who said she ate one lifesaver during a twenty-four-hour labour, and felt like she had stuffed in a three-course meal.