by Cate Kennedy
Jason pulled himself back into the café. He and Amy had always done the fun things together that a nice mother might do with her daughter, or his kind of mother with her kind of son. He ordered another coffee and sat for a while, stirring the coffee slowly. Amy had always had a difficult relationship with her mother but he’d liked Mrs Griffiths from the very first time he’d met her. He could never say that to Amy, of course. Mothers were to be experienced in certain and specific ways by their children. Friends generally saw only the best of them and that didn’t quite count. He’d been over to the Griffith’s house in Kew lots of times, mostly when Amy needed to pick up something she’d left with her parents—a pot plant that needed to be watered and fertilised when she was on holidays, a hem that needed taking up on a new dress—Mrs Griffiths was very good at sewing and mending. Another time he’d gone with Amy to a Sunday lunch, a birthday celebration that Amy attended as a duty, the real one being with friends a few days later. Her mother’s gift had been a hand-knitted sweater that he’d liked a lot and said so. Mrs Griffiths surprised him a few weeks later with an express post parcel containing a scarf for him in the same wool, dark and soft and red. He wore it to the bar that night and Pete ran his hands along it, hooking it around his fingers and pulling Jason toward him for a kiss: ‘Is this pure wool?’ Peter asked, his emphasis on pure and Jason felt his cock harden impurely, his face flush as red as the scarf. ‘I think so,’ he whispered, his face close to Pete’s ear.
Amy was less impressed with the gift. ‘Emotional blackmail’, she called it. ‘Colonising my friends.’ Jason sent Mrs Griffiths a thank you note anyway and wore the scarf all winter. Then one Sunday evening as he and Amy were crossing the Princes Bridge after a concert at Southbank, Amy pulled the scarf from his neck and tossed it into the Yarra. They’d watched it fall in a long, curious line like a question mark, like it was asking him why it had been discarded like that.
‘I’ve been dying to do that ever since my mother gave it to you,’ she said.
Jason was so shocked he was unable to answer. He just watched the scarf float toward Williamstown, a soggy, dark red streak.
Jason paid the waiter and left, smiling a greeting to the men from homewares as he passed them. He’d go to a movie at the Kino or the Nova, though he hadn’t checked the program of either so didn’t know what was on. Carlton, he decided. It was an easy walk and if none of the Nova’s movies appealed he’d wander the clothes shops. He hadn’t intended spending a Saturday afternoon alone but he didn’t feel like calling anyone about their Saturday night plans. He might call Peter, and then again he mightn’t. He’d been going to poke around the furniture shops of Johnston Street with Amy, walk up to Northcote afterwards and to an early dinner at their favourite Turkish restaurant. Peter. Not Peter. No, he’d better not call him. Sex. Love. Surely Peter wanted both? Oh well, Jason thought, shrugging at his reflection in a shop window. Amy’s words hit him again. ‘You represent my mother.’ He straightened his shoulders.
As he walked he thought about his friendship with Amy. He’d known her for six years. They’d been introduced just after he arrived from Sydney. She’d flirted with him at first, doing that thing he’d seen her do with other available men. She smiled a lot, her conversation sometimes veering toward the nasty. She said it turned men on if women were provocative with them. One day, when she’d asked him home to a special dinner he’d said gently, ‘I can’t that night, I have a date with a man from work’, and the light bulb went on in her eyes. She was okay after that. ‘My sexless friend’, she called him, ‘My gay friend, Jason’.
Had she told her mother? He’d often wondered. He and Amy had done the walk to Carlton numerous times over the years, on their way to films or dinners with friends, arguing, sharing secrets, his early homesickness assuaged by entrée into Amy’s life, and to outings uniquely Melbourne. Australian Rules, Sunday lunches in St Kilda, shopping trolley promenades through the Victoria Markets, eating brunch at a sausage stall— weiswurst, onions on a doughy white bun—serenaded by a busker. There was nothing like it in Sydney, he’d told her, and Amy laughed and said no, there was nowhere in Sydney like Vic Markets.
In Rathdowne Street he stopped outside a second-hand shop, attracted by a tweed jacket which carried a history of wealth in its tailoring. Beside it an old television was showing some news, boats of refugees drowning. He rarely watched TV these days. It was too depressing. There were too many bad news stories about murders and robberies and refugee boats in which whole families died. As he watched this latest group he thought about Sydney Harbour and its yellow and green ferries, the harbour water silky as it brushed against the steps by the Opera House. It wasn’t homesickness exactly, it was more tactile than that. He wanted to take Peter to Sydney so they could experience it together, its water and sandstone buildings and frangipani trees and double-decker trains, and for the first time in ages he really missed his mother.
When he arrived at the Nova he scanned the program and decided on the latest Clint Eastwood film, Gran Torino. He queued with middle aged, middleclass women who reminded him of his mother, girlfriends doing what girlfriends do on a Saturday. He followed them upstairs to wait for the theatre to open and eavesdropped on their conversations. They all seemed to be talking about their kids.
He found it difficult to concentrate on the film: it was too pat, too neat a fairy tale about redemption. He glanced around the dark cinema at the rapt faces, the air scented with popcorn. The last time he was up in Sydney his mother had offered her own version of a fairy tale. He’d gone over to her flat, the harbour dancing distantly outside her windows, sequinned by the sun.
‘I have something to tell you’, he said. She was making coffee and warming the croissants he’d picked up at the French bakery in Darlinghurst Road.
She smiled and said, ‘I think I know what it is.’
He’d been silenced by that but went on nervously. ‘I’m gay.’
And his mother said, ‘Oh sweetheart, I’ve known that since you were fourteen.’
‘You have?’
She nodded. ‘Mothers do know these things.’
‘But you didn’t say anything.’
‘Why would I? It was up to you to tell me.’
He could hear the accusation in his voice as he said, ‘If you’d let me know earlier I’d have felt easier with it.’
‘Would you, sweetie?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Oh well, we’ve both reached the same place now. Jam and butter or just plain?’
‘Jam.’
‘Raspberry or strawberry?’
‘Raspberry.’
They’d sat in the sunshine and watched the shadows move across the blocks of flats between them and the harbour, like soldiers resolutely marching. She’d touched his shoulder as she got up to take his cup. ‘And is there anyone special?’
It was too early to tell her about Peter. ‘No’, he said, hoping she wasn’t going to give him a lecture about safe sex.
‘What about you, Mum? Have you met anyone nice?’
‘No, but I had a party here last week.’
‘And?’
‘It was lovely. We all drank too much of course.’
He pretended shock.
‘I’m pleased for you,’ she said again. ‘I hope you meet someone you can have a good relationship with.’
What would he tell his mother about Amy? His Mum was just as likely to tell him she’d never liked her, that she’d never have told him that to his face though, because people must be free to be friends with whomever they choose. What would she think of Peter?
The women friends were standing in small groups debating the film. Debating where to go for dinner. He would have liked to discuss Gran Torino with Amy right now. She was so good at deconstructing film narratives and she was up on the latest reviews. She always had an opinion about actors and she talked about them as though they were her best friends. It was disconcerting when she talked about Clint Eastwood like that. Or
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. He walked out into the late afternoon. The sun had gilded the plane trees on Lygon Street and the people sitting at the outdoor tables wore halos of golden light. He stood for a moment debating whether to walk into the city or back to Northcote. Should he ring Peter? Should he play it cool? He mustn’t be too earnest, too determined, too much in love.
‘Jason!’
At one of the tables outside Ti Amo was a group of men and one of them was Peter. Jason walked over slowly, looking carefully at the group.
‘Sit down,’ Peter said, giving him a hug. ‘Have a drink with us.’
All around him the chatter of people, loud boom beats from passing cars, Italian youths claiming their street, kids and old people, crows plane tree hopping. And Jason took a long swig of beer and let Peter introduce him to his friends, thinking how handsome he looked in his crisp blue shirt, his smile so welcoming, hands that would later trace the outline of his thighs, their mouths lip to lip. He was anticipating a good night after all and something to announce to his mother when he called her tomorrow.
Love—there he had called it at last. He would tell her he was in love.
The Edge of the Known World
DEBI HAMILTON
They drew Xs up and down the side of my breast. Someone asked later whether it was biro but I couldn’t say. Then they sent in a specialist who was as professional and reassuring as a fresh sheet. No, wash some of them off, she said. Don’t want the surgeon being confused. She marked the top of my breast with another X and left. The radiographer, a woman after my own heart, wrote HERE just below my collarbone and drew a long arrow to the specialist’s X. They walked me back to another room.
When I woke up the first thing I checked was the territory under the gown. HERE was still there, the arrow pointing, the treasure of my breast still at the end of it. Pain swept in.
I used to imagine, at ten, a hollow space behind my bedroom wall. A cool, dark, rubble-speckled hideout I could dig into, if only the doorway I made could be hidden. Perhaps I read too many gothic novels; perhaps it helped to make a buffer. He was always angry, my father. That’s when he was home, which he wasn’t much. I filled my bottom drawer with stories and treasure maps. I wasn’t sure what you’d do with a pot of gold, or a jar of diamonds and jewellery. I would’ve been happy with a whole packet of biscuits that no-one counted, someone stroking my hair.
I met Carmelita in the doctor’s waiting room two weeks after my nineteenth birthday. I have a photo of her in a red chair in my head, which is silly because no one takes photos in waiting rooms. She is sitting very still, her brown hair framing her quiet face, her hands folded in her lap, her 1980s heels pressed together. She is radiating what I think of as a Spanish beauty, the power of which derives in part from her complete oblivion to it.
It must have been the lunch break—we were the only people there. She made a noise and I looked at her. She was rolling her eyes.
‘I hate this song,’ she said. I hadn’t noticed it—the radio. It was that Cindi Lauper song, ‘True Colours’, full of whiney sugariness.
‘Don’t you wish women would sing more ballsy love songs?’ she said.
I agreed, although I hadn’t known it until this minute.
She was there to have a blister on her foot treated. I was there to ask the doctor about the Pill, although I didn’t tell her that.
Carmelita, Carmelita. There. I like to think her name. If you want to hear a love story I can write you one. If you want a story in which someone breaks someone else’s heart, this is the story for you.
Our first flat together had purple shag pile carpet. Carmelita stood in the middle of the lounge room in her velvet brocade jacket. It must have been winter. Her jacket was rusts and golds and it was an assault to see her on the purple shag pile. She had created a tropical garden I was to be invited into. The real estate agent went to check something in the kitchen and Carmelita raised her eyebrow at me.
‘Shall we take it?’
Of course we did.
Our first year settled around our shoulders; our first year beyond our family homes. A year of learning five lazy ways to prepare vegetables. A year of negotiating over the scrubbing brush, the vacuum cleaner. A year by the end of which the purple shag pile had come to seem so normal we were alarmed when guests did a double take at the door. Did the tuna mornay smell bad? Had one of us left a bra on the back of a chair?
I worked in the ambulance service, but only doing clerical work. I made a great cup of tea, knew where everything was in the filing cabinets, and was the first to tackle the computer system when it came along.
She was a social worker for a youth service. For a while there we had to laugh at ourselves. She dated men who didn’t want to grow up. I dated adrenalin junkies who drank too much. But I never picked them mean. I couldn’t bear to be in the same room as a temper.
We kept a wine cask under the sink, so no-one would know how undiscerning our habits were. On a quiet night we’d fill our glasses and empty them, sitting on opposite ends of the couch, our legs comfortably entwined.
‘You should paint your toenails,’ she’d say. Hers were bright red—little sirens on her feet. I thought I could see the faint scarring where her blister had been.
‘Can’t be bothered,’ I’d say.
She’d tickle my feet, which I hated and loved.
‘Stop it! Stop, stop!’
‘Not until you tell me all about Brad,’ she’d say. I was never game to tickle her back.
So I’d tell her about Brad and how he’d love me all night and then rise before dawn to go surfing while I slept. He’d be at work a few hours later, laughing, eyes dark with the pleasure of himself.
‘One morning he left me a map,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘A map. Of the coast, with an X where he was going to surf.’
‘What did you do?’
I was embarrassed. ‘I got up and drove down there.’
‘Then what?’
‘He wasn’t there.’
‘What happened?’
‘I drove home again and when I saw him at work I said what was all that about? Where were you? And he just laughed and said I should learn to read maps.’
‘Arsehole,’ she said. Actually, I had to agree, but it didn’t change anything.
‘Anyway, you should talk,’ I said.
Matt had had her hooked for six months. A thirty-eight-year-old Peter Pan, he went clubbing with people twenty years younger, refused to learn to cook or figure out how a bank account worked or ever, ever talk about where a relationship might be going.
‘He pleases me,’ she said, ‘and that’s all I want for now.’ She was so self-contained, so apparently relaxed about it that I wasn’t prepared to push it any further.
We were served a notice to vacate. We had no idea why anyone would want to reclaim the purple shag pile, but we found another flat. It was bigger and more tastefully decorated. Brad and Matt changed names and faces but came essentially from the same store. Somehow, they never stayed over.
‘I don’t think I could stand someone else’s man at breakfast,’ she said. I suspected her feelings weren’t only about a man labelled ‘someone else’s’.
We still talked, end to end, on the couch. We graduated to bottled wine.
Once, near the end of a bottle, she said, ‘I don’t know about this whole man business.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, sex is fun and all…’
This was a subject we never handled with our gloves off.
‘But what then? Can you imagine the same guy’s dirty socks under your bed for years?’
‘No, since you put it like that. I supposed I just thought one day someone might make me change my mind.’
‘But why? And how? Maybe what we’ve got now is as good as it gets. We share the housework without all that his work/her work crap. And we never argue.’
That brought me up short. We hadn’t. Argued. One or other, and sometimes
both of us, had been irritable sometimes, but that was it.
‘Maybe we just haven’t grown up yet.’
She snorted and grabbed my foot.
‘You’re not wrong there! When are you going to make your feet look nice, eh?’
She looked tired but I didn’t know whether or how to say something. Instead, I got up to put the kettle on.
About a month later we were installed in our usual way on the couch.
‘Let’s have another bottle,’ she said. This was new.
I’d never been this drunk.
‘I’ve never been this drunk,’ she said.
I looked at the second empty bottle. Was it a mindreading elixir?
I got into her bed with her. The room was spinning so much neither of us wanted to be dizzy alone.
We talked for a few minutes—what time do you have to get up? Do you want the window open? I waited for sleep. It didn’t come.
An hour later—I know because I could see the bedside clock— her arm came around me. Her hand cupped my breast. Perhaps she was asleep and thought I was Matt/Nathan/Jerry, whoever.
