Apartment 255

by Bunty Avieson

  She recalled their final months together. She had known something was wrong, had known it for some time. How lonely she had felt. She remembered the wretched day he left. The discussion they had that morning, sitting in the little kitchen. She remembered the pain as his words sliced through her.

  ‘Thel,’ he had said. ‘I have to go.’

  There was no explanation, no reason given. He had just said it.

  She had felt herself separate inside. Part of her had shut down, closed over, while the other part had taken charge. The man she loved so desperately, who had cared for her and created with her a happy little world for the three of them, had, with his words, cut cleanly through it all, leaving her vulnerable and exposed. It was as though she had stood outside herself and watched herself, sitting in the old painted kitchen chair speaking calmly to her husband, as if they were discussing what they should do about dinner.

  She showed no emotion as they talked through the details of his leaving and what she would tell Tom. She would grieve later, when she was alone, away from this man who suddenly and inexplicably had become the enemy, deliberately tearing down her world. That part of her that had gone into hiding would come out when she felt it was safe again. So she had been calm. And Hal had left.

  Thel would never forget the look on his face or the sadness in his voice when he had turned at the doorway, the last time she had seen him, and said, ‘The strange thing is, I’m breaking my own heart.’

  His words haunted her for a long time. She never understood them.

  *

  The phone rang twice and the lilting voice Hal remembered so well said, ‘Hi, Thel here.’

  ‘Hello, Thel. It’s Hal.’

  It took a while for each to adjust to the sound of the other’s voice and establish a sense of ease, a comfortable place where they could have a conversation.

  ‘How are you, Hal?’ asked Thel.

  ‘I’m fine, just fine,’ he replied in that deep baritone that resonated within the walls of her memory.

  Thel described her home at Kiama and the work she was doing. Hal told her about his bike dealership. Tom had shared those basic details with both of them but it didn’t matter. Gradually their awkwardness receded and they slipped back into being Hal and Thel again.

  ‘Thank you for our son,’ said Hal.

  ‘He’s great, isn’t he?’ said Thel.

  ‘Oh, yes. You have done a great job. He is a credit to you. You must be very proud.’

  ‘I am. I think he’s wonderful,’ said Thel.

  They talked of Sarah. Hal was fascinated that she had lived with Thel and Tom and relieved that Thel so obviously adored her. He thought of his conversation with Tom and Tom’s unhappiness. He wondered if he should share that with Thel.

  ‘You don’t think they are too young?’ asked Hal.

  ‘We were younger,’ Thel reminded him. ‘I don’t think that has so much to do with it. I think they are perfect together. They remind me of us in the early days.’

  She said it without bitterness. They both paused for a moment, remembering those days at the start of their marriage when they had thought they were the happiest people in the world. Before it had gone inexplicably wrong.

  ‘They were good times,’ said Hal.

  He waited for a response but Thel said nothing.

  ‘How are you really, Thel?’

  What Hal wanted to know was, Are you angry with me? Do you hate me?

  Thel was quiet for a moment, knowing exactly what he was asking.

  ‘Are you happy?’ she asked finally.

  ‘Yes, Thel, I’m happy.’

  ‘Well, okay then,’ she said simply.

  It wasn’t what Hal was expecting. He marvelled at the generosity of this woman. ‘Thank you, Thel.’

  ‘When are you coming for dinner? I’ve got an album full of photos that you must see. Twenty years of our wonderful son.’

  ‘I’d love that,’ he said.

  *

  When Thel was happy, she whistled. Little ditties that bore no relation to anything on the radio. She whistled that afternoon as she stood at her easel, looking out across the ocean, completely absorbed in the changing colour of the water and the gradations of blue in the sky. She focussed completely on her work, leaving no room for conscious thought. It was how she did her best thinking.

  It was twilight when she finished and she looked with satisfaction at the canvas in front of her. It was a mercurial talent she possessed. Sometimes it felt forced, as if she was trying too hard, and at those times inevitably she would end the day feeling frustrated and disappointed. At other times she was able to let go, relax into herself and let it flow. Today had been like that.

  She opened her last bottle of Vasse Felix to celebrate and settled down to watch the moon rise. She raised a glass to the canvas. ‘Well done, Thel,’ she said. She felt lighter than she had for some time.

  She decided to spend the weekend in Sydney. She had earned it. She could deliver the canvas to the businessman who commissioned it and it would be an opportunity to catch up with her two favourite people in the world, Tom and Sarah. She was surprised she hadn’t heard from Sarah to talk about wedding plans and dresses and all that. Perhaps they could spend an afternoon together, browsing through the dress shops. Thel would enjoy that. She would stay with her old friends Charles and Marilyn. For months they had been inviting her to visit their new art gallery in Surry Hills. And she could deliver the painting she had finished for the foyer of the new city library. And maybe she would drop in on Hal’s bike shop.

  CHAPTER 16

  Sydney was bedlam. For days people from all over the world had poured into the city for the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the annual celebration of homosexuality. Half of San Francisco had moved residence for the three weeks of festivities, muscular men of all ages in tight white singlets walking hand-in-hand around the streets. Women made way for men as the beauty salons tried to cope with the sudden demand for body waxing, piercing and hair dyeing. The gyms were overflowing as pecs and abs were toned and buffed.

  Saturday night’s parade was the highlight of the festivities as hundreds of floats meandered around the city streets. The parade culminated in a huge party for 30,000 people. The point of the night was to be as decadent, outrageous and thoroughly wild as you could be without getting arrested. And on that night getting arrested was virtually impossible. Anything goes was the creed. Homophobes stayed indoors while the city celebrated homosexuality in all its cheeky, wanton glory.

  For the parade Tom had scored four highly sought-after tickets to a hospitality stand for himself, Sarah, Ginny and Thel. It should have been a jolly party. But it wasn’t. Sarah and Tom had barely spoken for a week, passing each other on the way to the shower, talking curtly if at all. They tried to put on a happy front for the night out but they didn’t fool anyone. Ginny was alert to every nuance of their behaviour, secretly revelling in their misery.

  Thel was shocked to find them so unhappy. She noticed how strained Tom looked. He was tired about the eyes and his mouth was set in a firm, grim line. He was almost taciturn, grunting if spoken to. Sarah was the exact opposite, speaking at a hundred miles an hour to anyone and everyone except Tom. She was wired, on edge, her pupils dilated and her movements jerky. Thel wondered if she had been taking drugs. It seemed so unlike the Sarah she knew that Thel dismissed the thought immediately.

  But she looked awful. The lustrous long hair that she usually took such pride in was greasy and lank. Her skin was splotchy. Thel had offered to spend the afternoon shopping but Sarah hadn’t wanted to. When Thel had mentioned the wedding Sarah had brushed her off, saying she hadn’t had a chance to think about it. Very strange behaviour for a bride-to-be, Thel thought.

  The four found their seats and Tom and Sarah sat apart with Ginny and Thel sitting awkwardly between them. They were in the front row, and had a perfect unhindered view of the spectacle that was about to unfold before them.

  Anticipation of the first fl
oat started to build as the master of ceremonies, a radio DJ, announced it had left the starting point. It would take about ten minutes to reach them, he told the cheering crowd.

  It was a stinking hot March night, making it impossible to wear anything but the skimpiest of clothing. The crowd lining the roads was a bizarre mix of every facet of Sydney life. Young women wearing Prada shoes and designer handbags jostled for space on upturned milk crates next to mums and dads with their children sitting high on their shoulders. Police officers joked with the crowd, laughing as two men, hand-in-hand and dressed convincingly as policemen, turned and flashed bare bottoms, cut out of their uniforms. They were so close Thel was tempted to lean out and pinch those plump bare cheeks. The atmosphere was of one huge happy party.

  Transvestites, transsexuals, bisexuals, homosexuals. People with a shared history of being shunned and shamed came out to celebrate their sexuality, openly and proudly. And the rest of Sydney turned out to applaud them. Thel was entranced but could not ignore the heavy mood of Tom beside her.

  ‘You look awful. What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing. I’m fine,’ said Tom.

  ‘You’re not,’ said Thel.

  ‘It’s just work. Honestly. I’ve been really busy.’

  Thel would have asked more but the first float, dykes on bikes, drew level and the crowd went berserk. The sound of the cheering crashed over them like a wave, blotting out all conversation. One hundred women in leather cruised their Harley Davidsons and BMWs slowly and deliberately down the street. Butch women, feminine women, some in pairs, some solo.

  The Qantas flight attendants followed, men of varying ages dressed in skimpy lamé hot-pants, mimicking their duties on board the aircraft. They had been rehearsing for months, pirouetting in unison as they offered ‘Coffee, tea or me?’

  Thel put her arm around her son and hugged him to her. He looked at her with surprise.

  ‘What was that for?’ he asked, leaning close so she could hear him.

  ‘I don’t know, but I think you need it,’ Thel replied. She looked pointedly at Sarah then back to Tom. He shrugged and looked away.

  Sarah was aware of Thel looking at her and talking to Tom. She felt a flash of paranoia then anger. How dare they talk about her! She stared past Ginny to Tom but he was, by all appearances, absorbed in the parade. Sarah didn’t believe it for a minute. She was sure he was ignoring her. The gulf between them was growing wider with every minute. She was angry with him, a low simmer that continued to bubble at the back of her consciousness, permeating every interaction she had with him. He was feeling exhausted, emotionally spent.

  She felt he had become so distant, so uninterested. When he was home, which wasn’t much these days, he was busy working on his laptop, searching the Internet for information about steroids. She felt he had emotionally withdrawn from her. She was having so much trouble sleeping she had taken to watching late-night television on the couch, falling asleep in front of the late late movie. Tom no longer said anything when he found her there in the morning.

  Around them was a cacophony of colour and sound. Each float played its own loud music, the beat thumping through the ground, surging up through their bodies. The Olympic swimmers’ float featured dozens of handsome young lads, sweat dribbling down their hairless, muscular chests, in worship and adoration of the country’s gold-medal heroes. The Dame Edna float – a favourite every year – had men in voluminous frocks shouting ‘Hello possums’ and waving gladioli at the crowd. Twenty would-be Kylie Minogues in high heels and miniskirts mimed to ‘I Should Be So Lucky’. Every Aussie icon was parodied with high camp humour and the crowd loved it. Different gay minorities carried banners: ‘Deaf and Gay’, ‘Living with HIV’ and others.

  Sarah watched it all go by feeling edgy. The buzz and energy of the crowd fed her own restless energy. The pulsating beat surged through her, increasing her heart rate. It fed her state of agitation.

  A rousing cheer went up as Proud Parents of Gay Children marched by. They were a group of ordinary-looking mums and dads, dressed as if going to the supermarket on a Saturday morning, walking simply behind their banner, dignified and proud. They stood out against the sequined G-strings and giant blow-up phallic symbols that were cavorting playfully in front of them.

  Thel was unbearably moved by the sight of them. They were mostly her age, her era. She didn’t know any of them and yet she felt she recognised them. She wondered at the personal dramas they had each survived to be there tonight, normally private people happily sharing the road with such flamboyant, rampant sexual expression. Thel cheered them on. She would always applaud courage.

  The four of them – Tom, Thel, Ginny and Sarah – were squeezed closely together, each one’s hips and shoulders pressed hard against the hips and shoulders of their neighbour. The still, heavy heat was oppressive, like a warm, moist towel on their skin. They were locked together and yet the noise and energy of the parade kept them apart, each in their own world. Conversation was difficult and each was preoccupied with their own thoughts as the extravagant display continued past them down Oxford Street.

  Thel was thinking of Hal. Warm thoughts. She gently prodded her psyche to see where it might be tender. She couldn’t find any anger. The pain seemed to have passed. She was left with a lingering, not unpleasant, sense of melancholy and nostalgia.

  Tom was thinking of the body builders he had interviewed that week. As hundreds of torsos that would shame a Greek god marched past, Tom wondered if this was a new angle to be investigated. He had been concentrating on sport. He wondered how much steroid abuse went on in the body-conscious gay community.

  Ginny was plotting. She was excited and exhilarated. Tom and Sarah’s relationship was deteriorating before her. She wondered what else she could do. She had the scent of blood. Now she wanted to close in for the kill. She sat very quietly, her hands loosely in her lap, smiling happily, unseeing, at the parade before her.

  Sarah felt uptight and antsy. On the other side of her was a fat woman, taking up more than her share of space. She was loudly and wantonly enjoying herself, forking fistfuls of Twisties into her mouth and spreading herself out for maximum comfort, oblivious of Sarah. Her flabby flesh pressed hard against Sarah’s thigh and shoulder. Where the exposed skin met Sarah’s skin, the two women sweated and Sarah hated the forced intimacy of their rubbing flesh. Sarah recoiled from her, pushing herself harder against Ginny’s thin frame.

  Sarah hated the pudgy woman. She resented her selfishness and was repulsed by her gluttony. She wanted to pinch that flabby bare thigh, make it bruise. Every time the fat woman dug her hand into the Twisties packet she jerked her elbow into Sarah’s side. It was covered in too many layers of fat to be painful but it was annoying and with each nudge Sarah’s blood pressure went up that little bit higher. Usually Sarah would barely notice such a minor annoyance, but with the steroids raging through her system her stress markers had moved. She existed in a state of pent-up aggression.

  The four sat watching the parade go by. Together, yet worlds apart.

  A loud cheer went up for the leather men. A dozen men on the back of a truck rocked along to a Jimmy Barnes song, ‘Working Class Man’. It had become the anthem for the common man. They were dressed all in leather, hotpants, jeans, vests, studded collars, cowboy chaps.

  In the middle, facing out to their side of the road, was a tall, middle-aged man in leather jeans and vest with a peaked leather cap sitting rakishly over one eye. He swayed to the music, holding onto a post to steady himself. He looked perfectly at ease with the music, his mates and the cheering crowd.

  Tom didn’t need a second look. He recognised the man instantly. It was Hal. Unaware of what he was doing, Tom stood up. Thel followed the direction of his stupefied gaze, wondering what was up. She spotted Hal. It had been twenty years since she had seen him but she knew him immediately. The casual way he was leaning, those blue eyes, the blond curly hair, a little less than when she had last seen him and a lot whit
er, but she recognised it all the same.

  Thel felt the world slip away, the noise and the music receding in a rush. It gave her the sensation of being alone in a silent tunnel, with Hal gyrating at the other end. Everything else was a blur. Her mind was in shock, trying to make sense of what her eyes were telling her. Twenty years of pain and confusion welled inside her, propelling her to her feet. The look of stunned disbelief on her face mirrored her son’s.

  Hal rocked to the pounding chorus and his eyes roamed across the cheering thousands in front of him. He was high on adrenalin. This was a significant night for him. It was the first time he had joined in the parade instead of watching and cheering from the sidelines. He felt liberated, he had finally arrived at a place where he could be who he was. And the cheering crowd were there telling him that was just fine.

  He saw Thel and Tom, though he didn’t recognise them at first. They stood out in the happy, energetic crowd, conspicuous by their stillness and intensity. He realised with a sharp shock that it was Tom standing there, his mouth agape. He stopped gyrating, too stricken to move. He noticed the short woman with the long braids, standing perfectly still beside Tom, staring at him. She looked familiar and was wearing a look of such pain and confusion that Hal felt his heart break.

  The float seemed to hover at the stand, a long slow agonising moment that burned the image of Thel’s face onto Hal’s brain. His elation evaporated in an instant.

  Then the float moved, passing along the road in a roar of thumping bass.

  Deep inside Thel, something clicked into place. It was as if everything had transpired to bring the three of them to this spot. She forgot about Sarah and Ginny. She grabbed Tom’s hand and dragged him onto the road. Tom didn’t resist her. He just had no impetus of his own. He was dazed. Thel, with Tom in tow, pushed her way through people lining the street.