Love...Under Different Skies

by Nick Spalding

  “We’re just going to have to leave,” Jamie eventually admits. “And hope we don’t bump into them anytime soon.”

  “I guess so.”

  Then my blood freezes. “What if Sandra tries to unwrap it?”

  “I don’t know. But if she has trouble and gets Bob involved, it’ll make the worst game of Pass the Parcel in fucking history.”

  “Daddy!”

  We drove away with our tails figuratively between our legs, Mum. The car ride to our letting agents was conducted in silence. There simply weren’t any words.

  That was over three days ago now. We haven’t seen Bob or Sandra since. I spotted the top of Bob’s hat the other day from behind a bush and went and hid for twenty minutes in the outside loo by the swimming pool. Sooner or later we’re bound to bump into them, though. It’s inevitable. I haven’t told Jamie yet, but if I do see them I’m going to blame the incident on his strange bathroom habits.

  If he can lie about my bowel movements to get us out of Grant and Ellie’s house, I can sure as hell convince Bob and Sandra that my husband has a rare kind of OCD where he has to wrap his crap in cling film and leave it lying around the house.

  If they don’t believe that, I’ll just give them all my money and run away screaming.

  Love you, miss you…and if there is a God, can you call him an utter bastard for letting this happen to me?

  Your Bob-dodging daughter, Laura

  xx

  JAMIE’S BLOG

  Thursday 21 September

  Unbelievably, this is an actual conversation I had with an acne-ridden, overweight teenage girl yesterday morning:

  “Excuse me?”

  “How you going?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “What can I get you? We’ve got a special on our winter flavours’ range, including rum and raisin.”

  “Er, I’m not actually here to buy an ice cream.”

  “Okay.”

  “I came in because I saw your advert for part-time staff.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Do you have any application forms?”

  “Yeah…is it for your kid?”

  “My kid? How old do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know. Old enough to have a kid who wants a job in a Baskin-Robbins?”

  “My kid isn’t even four yet. She’d just eat all the stock and then throw up. The application form is for me.”

  “But why would you want one?”

  “Because I’d like to apply for the job here.”

  “You want to work here?”

  “I’m not so sure I’d say want to, but I need a job so here I am.”

  “Okay. I’m not so sure you’re quite what the manager has in mind.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, the rest of us are all…a bit younger. And we’re kind of all, you know, girls.”

  “So? All you need is someone who can scoop ice cream. I can do that.”

  “Yeah, but…it might not give quite the right, you know, impression?”

  “What do you mean? There’s nothing wrong with me working here. Nothing wrong with a man in his thirties working alongside a load of teenage girls who…”

  “You okay?”

  “Not really. I’ve just realised what I’m doing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I sound like a sex offender, don’t I?”

  “A little bit, yeah.”

  “Hmmm. Sorry about that. Can I just have a rum and raisin and we’ll call it quits?”

  I’ve reached a new low, it would seem.

  There are so few jobs around that when I saw the advert scrawled on a piece of cardboard and placed in the ice cream shop window, the sheer novelty of it overwhelmed me, so I went in to apply. I really am at the end of my tether. We’ve been in Australia now for nearly ten months, and I’ve earned roughly what I could have accrued on a paper round back in the UK.

  What work I have been able to nail down has been patchy at best, and if it weren’t for the connections I’ve made over at the youth hostel, work would be completely nonexistent. They liked the first job I did for them so much that they asked me to write their promotional brochure copy for the summer season, which I was more than happy to do. That led to similar work with one of the local surf schools and a pretentious hotel in Rainbow Bay called Aquous that caters to rich idiots who wouldn’t know a tasteful colour scheme if it bit them on the arse. I tried to point out that there was at least one too many u’s in the name of the hotel, but nobody seemed interested.

  And that’s it. In over nine months that’s all the gainful employment Jamie Newman has been able to conjure up for himself and his family. Only $2,500 worth of work in the same period that Laura has earned over fifteen times as much.

  It’s quite pathetic.

  It’s also going to cause a divorce if I’m not very careful about it. Half the reason I made a fool out of myself in Baskin-Robbins was because of the row Laura and I had over the breakfast bar at seven thirty before she left for work.

  It started, as they all do these days, when the subject of money was brought up. It was one of my days to have Poppy, and I wanted to take her to the cinema. Australian movie theatre prices are extortionate and my wallet was feeling pretty light, so I took a deep breath and swallowed my self-esteem by saying the following to my wife: “Can I have some money, baby? I want to take Pops to see that new Disney flick about the singing beavers.”

  If Laura had just nodded, said no worries, gone into her purse, and handed over a few notes, we might have gotten through the emasculating exchange with no further difficulties. As it was, she said no worries, went into her purse to look for some cash to give me…and sighed.

  Now, there are many reasons why a person may sigh. Tiredness, boredom, remorse, loneliness, and self-satisfaction are all good reasons for emitting a noise that sounds like a tyre being deflated. This wasn’t any one of those kinds of sigh, though. Oh no. This was a sigh heavily laden with a cocktail of exasperation, resignation, and pity.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I say in haughty fashion.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t have to. You sighed.”

  “So what?”

  I cross my arms and sit up ramrod straight. “If you don’t want to give me any of your blo—blooming money, Laura, then don’t. I’ll just take Poppy to the swings again.”

  “Oh give me a break, Jamie,” Laura says and shakes two twenties at me. “Just take the money, will you?”

  “Nope. You’re obviously not happy about handing it over, so you keep it.”

  “I don’t mind giving you cash, Jamie,” Laura hisses from between teeth now firmly clamped together.

  “Really? That sigh says otherwise.”

  “Oh for fu—fudge’s sake. I didn’t even realise I was sighing.”

  “No. I bet you didn’t. Says a lot, though, doesn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You think I’m a loser.”

  “What?”

  “You think I’m a loser because I can’t get any work and need to come to you for handouts.”

  Yes, I’m well aware that I sound like a spoiled housewife right now, but you have to understand that this wretched display on my part is the culmination of nine months of constant frustration. If I’m honest with myself, it also comes from a place of deep insecurity and jealousy at the level of success my wife is experiencing in her career. My situation is not Laura’s fault, and I’m being very unfair. Hell, it’s not my fault either, but when you feel like your back’s against the wall, you have to lash out at someone, and my poor Laura is the only target within shouting distance who isn’t three and a half years old and watching cartoons.

  “I don’t think you�
�re a loser,” Laura rebuts and gets off her stool in an attempt to end this silly conversation.

  “Yes you do!” I snap, following her over to where she’s retrieving her jacket from the cupboard. “You hate the fact that I haven’t found a proper job yet, I can tell. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.”

  “I bet you have.”

  “You see! That was another dig!”

  “Oh God, I’m sorry, Jamie. I just—”

  “Just what?”

  “I just wish you’d find something. Every morning I have to get up and go to work, while you just stay here in your pyjamas.”

  “You think I like it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you do? Even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself, it might be why you haven’t found proper work yet.”

  “Because I like sitting around on my arse doing nothing!”

  Laura throws her hands up. “Oh, I give up!” She storms over to Poppy and gives her a kiss.

  “Are you and Daddy mad at each other?” our daughter asks, her earnest little face drawn into an unhappy frown.

  I hate having a child around when I’m building up a head of steam. When all you want to do is rant at someone, it really puts you off your stride when somebody else empties a full bucket of guilt over your head.

  “No honey,” I say in a soothing voice. “Mummy and Daddy are fine. We’re just talking about things a bit too loudly because Mummy has a lot of wax in her ears.”

  Laura throws me a look that would have chopped my head off if I hadn’t ducked in time.

  “Yes, that’s right Pops. Mummy has waxy ears,” Laura is forced to agree to maintain the fiction. “That’s why we’re being loud. Now watch your cartoon and ignore us.”

  Laura stalks back to the front door. “You’d better stop blaming all our problems on things that are wrong with my body, Newman,” she says as she throws it open. “Otherwise I’m going to do something to a part of your anatomy in the middle of the night that really will give you an excuse not to go out and find a fu—fudging job!”

  The door closes loudly before I get a chance to respond.

  I trudge back over to the breakfast bar and the two twenty-dollar notes crumpled up next to my half-eaten bit of toast. I don’t want to pick them up and put them in my pocket, but I do anyway.

  Poppy enjoyed the animated flick about the singing beavers. I really didn’t. There was one song called “Giving It Your Best,” which just seemed to be mocking me throughout. I don’t need a bunch of pixels rendered into the shape of a grinning beaver to remind me that I’m not living up to 100 percent of my potential. By the time the main beaver had learned a valuable lesson about hard work and trusting your friends, I wanted to smash his big stupid front teeth in and burn down the family lodge.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to entertain my daughter and thinking of ways to apologise to Laura when she got home.

  To tell the truth I wasn’t feeling all that apologetic, but anything for an easy life, eh? Laura took the apology with good grace I think, though the kiss I got that night before we went to sleep was perfunctory at best and cold at worst.

  I lay next to her for a good twenty minutes before I drifted off, hating myself, hating her, hating Worongabba, hating Australia, and hating myself again just to sandwich my bile in self-loathing.

  You can imagine what kind of mood I was in when I woke up this morning. Not only did I have yesterday’s fun and games to mull over, I also had the unlovely prospect of an entire day on my own as Laura was taking Poppy to Surf Tots.

  Nine long hours of strangling out a few paragraphs featuring the Boobatrons, dolefully walking through the town centre looking for work, and masturbating bitterly in the bathroom while the washing machine cleans the underwear I was wearing last time I’d cracked one out.

  Laura and I didn’t argue before she left for work, but the kiss was just as abrupt as the one she’d delivered the night before, and even Poppy didn’t seem all that bothered about not spending the day with her daddy. I can’t blame her. Even at the age of three you know that yet another day with a depressed parent is going to be a right downer. The choice between that and occupying yourself drawing all over the face of another toddler with a marker pen is a no-brainer.

  The front door closes with a slam—my absolute least favourite sound in the world these days—and I stare at the wall contemplating my next move. This only takes up about three seconds of my time, so I decide to go for a lengthy and satisfying crap.

  Half an hour later I’m sitting at the laptop trying to think of a way to get Max Danger out of his current predicament in the novel I’m still trying to piece together. He’s backed up against the wall of a Moroccan hashish den by three heavily armed Smegma agents with nowhere to go. He’s either going to have to shoot the light out above his head to plunge the room into darkness and make his escape, or kick that enormous bong full of water at his enemies as a distraction before shooting all of them dead.

  I never got on all that well with marijuana when I was a teenager, so I elect for the blackout option. Max’s bullet is finding its target successfully when I hear a knock at the door.

  Fabulous. Just when I’m building up a head of creative steam, someone has to come along to interrupt my genius. With a huff, I get up from the table and walk over to the door. I fully intend to give whoever is on the other side the royal stink eye for their dreadful timing.

  My prepared look of disgust disappears when I open the door to find the happy, open face of Mindy, the twenty-year-old letting agent beaming at me from the corridor.

  “Hi, Mr. Newman, how you going?”

  “Hi, Mindy. Fine thanks.”

  Though I’d be even better if you could take your cute blonde head away from my door so I can get back to the tricky business of saving Max Danger’s life.

  “Stoked!”

  I remember that this means “good” in Mindy’s odd parlance.

  “What can I do for you, Mindy?”

  I’m expecting her to tell me she needs to inspect the apartment or that the rent is late again. The banking system in Australia is mired in the nineties and the direct debit we have set up has been late on no less than three occasions in the time we’ve been living here.

  “Just wondering what you were up to today.”

  “Er, not much. Just doing a bit of writing.”

  “Cool! What are you writing about?”

  “Um…it’s a novel. A thriller.”

  “Wow, that sounds great!”

  I wish Mindy would tell my wife that. The only reaction I’ve had from Laura about Max Danger and the Boobatrons is a look of ambivalence and some brief noncommittal remarks that are obviously designed to humour me.

  “Thanks very much.”

  “You think you’ll be doing that all day?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so. I usually just write in the morning.”

  “Oh right. You fancy coming for a swim in the pool later?”

  “Sorry?”

  “I just get a bit bored when there’s nobody else around, and I know you work from home so I thought I’d ask…”

  “Ah. I see.”

  Well this is all very strange. I’ve barely said two words to Mindy in the past few months. For her to come up to the apartment and ask me something like this must mean the poor girl is even more bored than I am. If your main source of potential company is a moody Pom in his thirties, it might be time to think about changing careers. Still, what the hell else am I doing today?

  “Okay, sure. Give me another hour and I’ll meet you after lunch at one.”

  Mindy’s bright, tanned, and youthful face lights up. It’s nice to see I can put a smile on at least one female’s face today. “Great! I’m stoked! I’ll bring a couple of beers along if you like.”

  “Fine by me.”


  “Okay, I’ll see you later, then…Jamie.”

  “You will indeed,” I reply, a bit taken aback by Mindy’s sudden informality.

  She bobs up and down on the spot for a second before turning and walking quickly back down the stairs.

  I close the door again in a slightly better mood than when I had opened it. It’ll be nice to have some adult human company for a while. Well, nearly adult, anyway. Mindy wouldn’t be my first choice of a conversation partner, but as the only other choices I have are the acne-ridden girl in Baskin-Robbins, the homeless guy who sits on the boardwalk feeding the pigeons, and the Customer Services Department at the National Australia Bank, I’m happy to while away an hour or two in her company. Besides, she’ll be wearing a bikini, and with any luck I can occupy my time in the mental pursuit of erection avoidance if the conversation does dry up.

  With a slight spring in my step, I return to the laptop and the thorny problem of Max Danger’s escape.

  In the end I just went for brute force, and in the half-light streaming from one shuttered window I had Max kick all the enemy agents in the knackers. Not the most subtle of tactics, but massively effective I think you’ll agree.

  My waistline suggests I should have a light lunch, as do the old wives’ tales about not swimming on a full stomach. But to hell with it, I’m a married man and never believed in anything an old wife has had to say, so I make myself a monster double-bacon sandwich with eggs, mushrooms, and enough cholesterol to poleax a rhino.

  With that disposed of, I throw on board shorts, fling a towel over one shoulder, grab the iPhone in case anyone rings about a job, and make my way down the stairs to the pool area below.

  Mindy hasn’t arrived yet, so I stick the towel on a chair, drop the phone onto the small table next to it, step out of my flip-flops, and dip a speculative toe in the water.

  Today is a bright, sunny, hot one so the pool’s heater hasn’t been turned on. This means the water is just about cold enough to be uncomfortable. Not freezing, per se. Certainly not chilly enough to prevent a swim, but still cool enough to make the process of entry into the water a tentative and unpleasant one, especially when the waterline reaches your testicles.