The Society Game

by H. Lanfermeijer

  ‘Who cares? There’s no point fighting it Ol, we’re stuck here… Sorry mate, can we sit here?’

  James ignored the answer from a person leaning against his girlfriend trying to fall asleep and just sat down.

  ‘Sit here James, next to me – actually no, bugger off. I’ll save our places whilst you go and get the drinks in from that kiosk over there.’

  ‘We have beers at home already paid for so avoiding that eight-hour queue.’

  I sat down in the heat and rolled up my jumper into a pillow to indicate I wanted to lie down.

  ‘Beers it is! I’m off to queue, enjoy your snooze and I’ll be back as soon as I can which is, hopefully, before the concert starts or at least before it ends.’

  He was surprisingly quick, especially as he emerged with a dozen cans. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I still hated beer and instead opened the first in the hope that my thirst would disguise the taste. It didn’t, but I managed to finish one can in between bottles of water by the time the concert was finished. James gave away a further two to the couple next to us and he finished the rest over the course of the concert.

  So, by the end, James was drunk and he wanted to tell everyone how great life was:

  ‘Isn’t it great? Olive, Olive, life’s great and you’re propa sweet Oliviahhh.’

  ‘You’re drunk and we need to get home.’

  I was sober so it was down to me to figure out how to get home amongst the throngs of people enveloping us. James was unaware that he was walking into people and when they made a gesture for us to get out of their way, he told them I was lovely and so were they; remarkably, this worked on everyone he barged into.

  I was James’ walking stick on the initial stages but, the further out we got from the town centre, I became his walking wall as James slouched over my shoulders as a dead weight, dragging his feet behind us.

  ‘Try and stand straight. I can’t carry you all the way back. Seriously James, one leg in front of the other… Oh, and a warning: don’t pee please, I mean it, don’t pee as I’m not clearing you up. You’ll stay in your trousers until your sober-self realises you wet yourself.’

  I was now staggering from side to side bouncing off people like a gumball machine.

  ‘I know I’m proper leathered but you’re proper sweeeeet!…Look everyone at how great she is,’ he shouted. ‘You, Oliviaahhh, you’re awlright!’

  ‘Shut up! Everyone is looking. Look, everyone is staring, it’s embarrassing.’

  ‘I don’t care and you are beautiful, really beautiful.’

  ‘No I’m not, I know I’m not. I have orange fuzzy hair.’

  ‘Nooo, you’re great and sweet. I love yer hair, it’s zingy – you’re zingy like the fruit. You’re a fruit, a tasty zingy sweet zingy fruit.’

  ‘Great my stamp on the world is I’m a fruit.’

  I tugged at his limp legs to remind them to walk.

  ‘You’re more, Olive, you’re beautiful. But the most incredible things about you, are your eyes; your eyes twinkle, there’s something amazing about your eyes. You’re perfect, girl.’

  The crowd cheered and I felt the beautiful showgirl.

  ‘You’re a romantic, thank you.’

  ‘You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met,’ he whispered in my ear, making my heart tickle.

  He rested his head on my head which made him heavier. I strained to keep him close to the side as I could hear a car beeping its way through the crowd.

  ‘You know I’m not Carolanne, but thanks anyway… seriously we need to move to the side, a car is almost behind us.’

  ‘Olive, you’re perfect. You mustn’t look at anyone else. You’re natural and sweet. Don’t go changing. Noooo, don’t change anything about you.’

  I tried to pull him back over to the curb but he broke free. He stood in the centre of the road illuminated by the car that was now crawling behind him, with his audience along the curb. The car headlights were his stage lights and the road his platform, he raised his arms above his head and shouted.

  ‘This woman is perfect the way she is. She’s stunning and I love her, I love her!’

  His audience cheered at his drunken love for me as he stumbled into the middle of the road but as he did so his trousers had loosened themselves to around his bottom line. He tried to grab them but missed and instead stumbled on further up the road. The car behind him was no longer beeping and its occupants were laughing. His trousers slipped further and were now around his thighs and again James tried to grab them and again he missed, so he stumbled on further until his trousers, which had taken his pants as hostage, were now around his ankles. At which point James stopped, the car stopped, and the hundreds along the roadside stopped as James tried to reach for his trousers and pants by bending over displaying his full glory in front of the floodlights for an Adelaide audience. I rushed over to help when all his efforts to rescue his trousers and pants failed. Everyone around us was laughing, including me.

  ‘I love this womaaaan. She’s perfect,’ he shouted to his appreciative audience, still with his pants around his ankles.

  I dragged him to the side then I hauled, pushed and rolled him home. It had been a long day and an embarrassing night but as I lay awake next to a snoring James in the recovery position, I realised I had never felt as beautiful and happy as I did that day.

  A day I relive as often as I dare.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jason

  It was raining in the UK. The whole of the country was soaked. Europe was enjoying a bumper ski-season, Canada and the USA were also experiencing huge snow falls albeit in sub-zero conditions. And even though the extreme cold was proving hazardous over there, I was jealous of their far more interesting weather in comparison to this bland, boring rain, rain and more rain falling on my head. However, the country I was really jealous of was Australia; they had beer-drinking sunshine and, as my newspaper tortured me with every day, the pictures zooming in showed the average Australian enjoying the surf, beaches and beer as if the country was one big luxury spa hotel.

  I stepped off the train and felt a vibration from my phone; I knew it was Sandra, a woman I’d been dating. Unlike James and my aunt’s relationship, every friendship I have with a woman is tainted with boredom of seeing the same sights in my life, be it my work or my house or the pubs I go to. Nothing changes except the face in front of me. Sandra was no exception. I couldn’t be bothered to answer her message or even take it out of my pocket. As I figured, if I saw her without having read it then I could legitimately say I hadn’t received it. But as I walked through the train barriers I felt the phone vibrate again, this time I ignored it in anger. I switched my mind to Australia, to try and forget that my job was eating me alive; my manager stretched every hour to squeeze more reports from me. I was pulled from one project to the next by every limb that he had a firm hold of, and there was no give. So, my spare time was not going to be wasted by a woman whose only interest was herself; Bastard maybe, but an honest one.

  It had been a week since I picked up my aunt’s letter. The last I read, she and James had travelled together from Broome to Cairns.

  In Cairns, Aunt Olive had learnt to dive. She wrote how James had persuaded her to sign up for the course and how he had coaxed her into taking her first breath under water in the swimming pool. She had been terrified of the subsequent three-day boat trip to accomplish her Padi course because, like me, she suffered from sea sickness. James held her hair whenever she was feeding the fishes and stroked her hair whilst she slept on his lap, as the boat bobbed and bobbed and bobbed her fragile stomach up and down.

  He read all the notes so she could pass the written tests and eased her into the water each time she began a new dive. Slowly, her love for this under-water home grew until her enthusiasm for swimming with the Australian fishes surpassed her loathing of the dive boat.

 
After the trip, they professed to each other how they were converted divers; how they were going to become dive instructors and open their own dive shop. These plans lasted from Cairns all the way back down the East coast and back to Sydney. Olive wrote she was excited for her future and enjoyed studying for her next diving course. When they returned to Sydney, they found a back-packers’ hostel in Manley Beach just west of the city. Together they completed their advanced diving course. Olive wrote how:

  ‘…time had slowed down to lazy, sunshine days of reading about where we would dive in the world, what we would see under the water and how all of the secret water gardens would be experienced with my friend whom I had grown to treasure…’

  Olive had forgotten what day, week or month she was enjoying as she lay on the beach or went for another beach dive. But time was ticking and her return date was creeping up behind her. It rudely tapped her on the back when Carolanne re-emerged in the wings at the promised, scripted time:

  Olive

  Carolanne sat on her rucksack in the hallway of our backpacker hostel looking tired and dishevelled.

  ‘Olive!’ she squealed. ‘Oli, I missed you; I’m so sorry I left you alone but please tell me you had a great time, please! I felt so guilty, especially as I left you with James and yes, I know you told me you weren’t interested blah, blah, blah, but seriously, I wouldn’t have left you if I thought he didn’t have a beautiful spirit and wouldn’t look after you. Anyway, I had a great time, ah, I hope you had a great time? How long have you been here? Are you on your own as I’m here now and we can check out Sydney together. Jeez I’m tired, where do I book in?’

  She flopped her head on my shoulder mid-flow of questions. I hugged her and looked around to check James hadn’t heard my original thoughts about him.

  ‘All is good, Carolanne, I learnt to dive and I saw turtles, Hammer-head sharks and…’

  ‘I’m so pleased – did you dump James then? I’m sorry, and if it’s any consolation I dumped the cock that I’d decided to dump you for so, again, I’m sorry.’ She then looked up.

  ‘Oh James… Hi!’

  James beamed his bright welcoming smile with his arms outstretched to grab a hug from Carolanne.

  ‘Oh James, I’m so pleased to see you. I was just saying that you would have looked after my Olive and you have. Oh thank you, thank you!’

  ‘Don’t worry, Caz, Olive can care for herself,’ he said with a slight irritated tilt in his voice, ‘she’s a grown woman. I gotta go, do you need anything, Caz?’

  He nodded a goodbye to both of us and I watched him walk out to buy some more bread and milk for the two of us.

  ‘Are you two together?’ she whispered as if asking about a state secret.

  ‘No, sweetie, no,’ I said firmly.

  I pointed to where she could dump her bags in my room and where she could lay her head on the spare bed. She gratefully took up the offer. Her eyes were heavy but she ploughed on with her questions about James until she was satisfied he was just a friend. I left her to sleep and went to find James but he still hadn’t returned from the shops with bread for my toast. After an hour I abandoned my look-out post and checked on Carolanne. She was just waking when I walked in.

  ‘I’m pleased you had James with you. I genuinely felt guilty about buggering off. I thought Chris was a pure soul but he wasn’t, he was just another cock in a whole line of cocks.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We arrived in Oz alone and we’ll leave alone, so what and where we go and do is not a problem; I really didn’t mind you going.’ I stroked her hand and smiled but she seemed sad,

  ‘Don’t say that, I love being with you. I want to be friends with you always, regardless of where we are, and I hated being with ‘numb-nuts’ instead of you.’ She rubbed her sleepy eyes. ‘Please stay as my friend, don’t go anywhere. Ooh, I didn’t take my mascara off; it’s on my hands now. Is it down my face?’ I nodded and passed her make-up remover. ‘Thanks and you need to know, Olive, you’re too fragile to be on your own; you’re someone who needs to be cared for. You’re like a beautiful china doll.’

  Her eyes looked into mine and I replied, ‘Thank you and don’t worry I’m not going anywhere, I promise. So, what happened to Chris?’

  ‘Aah don’t say that cock’s name. He was such a bell-end. He left me in the middle of Alice Springs for some other girl. When I caught up with him he said I was crowding him and he turned his back on me in the bar he was in – he turned his back! I had only gone there because he wanted to, but I didn’t have the money to get back as I’d spent it on a tour to Uluru or Ayres rock as it’s called now – on his insistence.’

  Carolanne leant in to me. ‘By the way, unless you’re a lemming with a suicide wish, don’t attempt to climb it, except if it’s your only escape from the flies surrounding the rock or the cock Chris at the bottom! I got some good pictures to show off at least.’

  She held my hand and her eyes lifted. We chatted for about another half an hour but my mind kept wondering off to where James could be.

  ‘He’ll be back. He’d never leave you, Olivia’. Carolanne said softly, then she turned on her side and rested her head in her left hand.

  ‘So what is there to do here in Manly Beach? I met some girls who are leaving at the same time as us, in three weeks. They’re really cool and they said there’s a beach party tonight. They’re meeting at Steyne bar. Let’s do that tonight. We can ask James as well if you want him to join us? Where’s the Steyne bar anyway? It doesn’t matter, we’ll find it. Oh, Olive, you have no idea how good it is to have you with me again. Hurry up and get dressed. We’ll leave a note and meet James there.’

  I prolonged the time it took for me to get ready for as long as I could in the hope of catching James. As we left the hostel behind I hunted up and down the road. I discreetly kept searching until we reached the bar. When there, I kept close to the bar door so that I could be the first to grab him and rebuke his tardiness at not coming back to me as soon as he’d promised. There was no sign of him and worry was circling around me.

  Carolanne was annoyed with me as I wouldn’t head further inside the crowded bar. It would have been easy to get to the bar as Malibu Barbie could part any crowd as long as the occupants were men. She didn’t have any money on her so she needed to slowly make her way through to catch and reel in an unsuspecting wallet attached to a gullible man.

  ‘He’ll be here, he’s probably already inside. Please Ol, I promised we’d meet some girls I’d met. You’ll really like them I think we have the same spirits.’ She was staring inside the bar as she was speaking to me.

  ‘Why don’t you go in and I’ll wait here for James. If he’s still not here by the time you’ve found them, then come and get me,’ I offered.

  ‘I shouldn’t leave you on your own, but okay.’

  And off she darted into the crowd. No more than five minutes later she re-emerged with a beaming smile smothering her face.

  ‘I found them and we’re all leaving for the beach now. They’ve managed to pick up some blokes who are bringing the beers so we’re all sorted.’ She grabbed my hand and pulled me from the bar entrance just as a group brushed past me heading for the beach.

  I sat on a rock in front of a beach fire next to a woman called Tatiana, drinking from a carton of wine.

  ‘You don’t seem to be enjoying the vintage? Only joking. I’m a bit disappointed as they were supposed to have bought bottles but this is the rubbish they brought along. Uh, it’s cheap – but at least it’s alcohol,’ she began.

  Tatiana swigged from her plastic cup and surveyed her party. Her hair was long and straight and she stroked and tossed it from side to side every time she moved her head to scan the clientele around her. If her eyes rested on anyone looking her way she would include a ruffle of her mane, and if that person happened to be male, then her straight red mouth would pout. However, if this man
was not to her taste then her eyes would dismiss his obstinate gaze by purposefully looking in the opposite direction, but if they were to her liking then she pouted a little more. It was an effective dance which brought many lucky men drooling towards her over the many years I would subsequently know this lady.

  Tatiana had long, slim, brown legs which ended in stiletto mules. I was curious as to why she’d be wearing them on a beach, let alone why she would have even packed them to go travelling, but they complemented her limbs and exaggerated their length so my question was answered before it was asked.

  ‘Sorry, it’s not the box of wine, thanks anyway, but I was supposed to be with a friend of mine who hasn’t turned up,’ I replied.

  I hid my inferior shoe-wear from sight; by now all I had left for my feet were trainers and a pair of well used black flip-flops.

  ‘Aah yes, Carolanne, or Carebear as I will call her, mentioned about James but if he can’t be bothered to turn up then you have to dump him, friend or not. Only joking. Anyway, look around, there are loads of guys here and you know what, little lady, you’re really pretty, so don’t feel bad that some loser guy has dumped you. Instead feel good that you’re pretty and you can replace him.’

  Her pout had turned to a rigid insincere grin; it didn’t last long before it sank back into a pout. I felt honoured by her appraisal, causing my mouth to involuntarily pout in gratitude.

  ‘It’s not like that; he really is a friend. We’ve travelled most of Australia together and he’s my dive buddy. We hope to one day open a dive shop together. I’m not sure where yet but at the moment we’re thinking about Egypt…’

  ‘Uh, little lady, stop, I don’t dive. I did it once and the instructor said I was really good, a natural even, but I don’t see the point – plus, it’s really bad for your hair and you have gorgeous red hair, which you don’t want to ruin. Seriously, I know for a fact that the deeper you dive the greater the salt content of the sea and salt dries your hair out. If I took up diving I think my hairdresser would have a fit and insist I gave up.’ She fluttered her hair and continued, ‘Plus, all the fishes live near the surface so it’s better to go snorkelling. That’s what we do most days just over there by that hut with the sign ‘snorkelling gear for hire’. You can join us tomorrow if you like? You don’t need to go diving anymore, plus, I think it’s too boring for you anyway and remember ‘no – no for hair’. So, yes? You’ll come? Good, all sorted. Aah, there’s Sandy, Hi Sandy!’