He asked me if it had been my mum who’d told me to write a book. Or was it your high school English teacher? Fuck them both, he said, and he made to leave the room. Get a real job and leave my girlfriend alone.
I didn’t ask Ciara whether Rob’s interpretation of her situation was true. I didn’t need to, because I believed her. I also knew that she did not want to ever be married to Rob, since she was only experimenting with what it was like to have a boyfriend.
The next afternoon she and I wandered past one of the three northern petrol stations in the town. Even during the quieter hours of a day, the lanes in the stations wore queues at least two vehicles deep. Each car leaked the sound of the regional commercial radio station, with its buoyant announcers offering free petrol and Subway vouchers.
I asked Ciara why she was bothering experimenting with having a boyfriend. She thought she might have missed a realisation that had come naturally to everyone else – that maybe there was a transformation that everyone knew about, that occurred in everyone else, a turning point so obvious it wasn’t worth describing. Maybe that’s why everyone in the town seemed so unaccountably satisfied, she said. Maybe the routine of partnering up with someone caused the future to be viewed in a more favourable light. She butted her cigarette in the dirt of the nature strip. She had allowed for this possibility, hence her experiment, but as far as she could tell, there was no longer any reason to imprison ourselves.
Anyway, if she were to tell Rob exactly how she felt about the world, and by extension how she felt about him, he would be repulsed. He would try to fix her at first, but then, when he learned it was impossible, he would leave her, but only when it suited him. Rob didn’t have the guts to be alone, Ciara said. He was a pathetic man, scared of any waking moments he found himself in solitude. She wondered what he would do when he realised the world doesn’t care about him. He’s still young enough to think there will always be someone to help. He thinks he’s invulnerable. He thinks that life is all about just getting on with it. He thinks he’s okay because he’s a normal Australian bloke who likes to have a beer or two every night in front of the TV. But his comfort won’t last, Ciara said, and he knows it, just like everyone else secretly knows it, most strongly when they are forced to assess the evidence during those moments they accidentally allow their minds to focus on the matter. Who’s going to look out for him when things heat up a bit? The government wants nothing more than to shed its liabilities, and everyone else will be too busy surviving, most of all the elderly, most of all our parents. The elderly don’t care how happy he is. They only want for him to leave them alone, now that he’s an adult. As long as he doesn’t disrupt them, they are happy to forget him. But he doesn’t yet realise he’s an adult. He doesn’t realise that in as little as three or four years, his drinking will be seen as a problem, not a mark of youth. He’ll soon realise that if he keeps working at the petrol station, he’ll feel inadequate and useless around people who have much better jobs. He doesn’t realise that his childish optimism will soon run dry.
Ciara knew that if she were to tell Rob that she didn’t want children, he would think she was just being a punk. He would think she’d eventually come around to the idea. But she believed that children from now on would not have adulthoods like hers or her parents. They could not move to the city, because that is where things are getting worse faster. People might be wiser to cower in towns. Maybe they wouldn’t be so devastated when the sea water rose. Maybe when everything became desperate, a small town would finally live up to the qualities that everyone believed them to have: namely, that everyone would help one another out. Maybe the town would have tea parties during the apocalypse, while people in the city tore each other to shreds.
But Ciara doubted it. Everyone in the town loved a good fight.
*
No one worried about the holes much until the next town disco. Held on the first weekend of each season, it was the town’s most important regular social event. According to Jenny, young people in the town would become anxious each time it approached, because it was a dangerous disco: any grievances that had fomented over the course of the previous season would inevitably come to a head at the disco, and for many weeks the town was busy with gossip about who would get bashed up, why they would be bashed up, and whether or not the bashing was deserved. Young people went to hook up and to brawl, Jenny said. Everyone knew that was all it was about. It had been like that when she had been a girl, too.
The disco was held in the town hall next to one of the four central petrol stations. Weeks in advance there were photocopied signs hung on street poles around the town, but they were less advertisements than pre-emptive admonishments: they cautioned that no excessive drinking and no fighting would be tolerated.
The town’s disco. First Friday of Winter. Five dollars entry. No fighting and no excessive drinking will be tolerated, the sign warned, decorated with images of cartoon balloons, confetti and treble clefs.
Although I was busy writing my book, and although I mostly kept to myself in the town, it was impossible to avoid the rumours and speculation that surrounded the disco. Everyone spoke about it at the Woolworths, for example, and all of the workers were excited about the potential for an especially charged confrontation between Teresa Mayweather and Stacey Kemp. It was impossible to glean from conversations what had caused the conflict, as explanations were rife with references to many previous conflicts, between entirely different people, for seemingly unrelated reasons. Besides, everyone had their own version of the tale. All I could establish was that Teresa Mayweather had it in for Stacey Kemp, and that Stacey Kemp didn’t understand the fuss but that she would defend herself to the death, and so would her friends, and so would theirs, and so on. Town opinion was split on whether Stacey Kemp really understood the fuss or not – some believed she was faking not knowing. Every detail of the conflict was cause for scrutiny. It was sizing up to be one of the biggest fights the town had ever boasted, according to Jeff at the Woolworths.
Ciara said Rob wasn’t going to the disco, on the basis that it would only be attended by people of the town. Rob had told her that he thought the music lame, the town hall lame, and all the people who attend it lame too. The town’s disco was lame.
Ciara invited me to come along with her instead. I agreed, because I wanted to see the brawl.
As we walked along the unusually alive main street, Ciara explained that Teresa Mayweather and Stacey Kemp had been the talk of the town for months, even before I had arrived. The trouble between them had been brewing for several discos, but the main fight that has been going for years involved a dispute between the Brewster boys and Ken Travis. The Teresa Mayweather and Stacey Kemp situation was related to that conflict, but Ciara wasn’t certain how. No one was certain, except maybe the fighters themselves, but she suspected that they had lost track too.
One thing was certain: there was always one major conflict at the town disco. There may have been others, but they occurred between lesser people about whom no one cared. There had been efforts by people unrelated to the Brewsters, the Travises, the Mayweathers, the Kemps, and all their associates, to escalate their own conflicts so that they might be the star attraction of the town disco, but none had ever been successful. The main fight had been going for many years after all, maybe for as long as the town had existed, and no one knew what started it, only that it continued, and that the reasons seemed to change from season to season.
When we reached the hall, teenagers and young adults milled the footpath in front of the disco, slung over vehicles, smoking cigarettes. Most smirked at me because I was not of the town. These teenagers radiated the town from their very bodies, but in the company of Ciara I would not be antagonised. And perhaps she would help me blend in. She told me she was boring to the people at the disco.
We pressed through the crowded foyer into the dimly lit hall. A faded portrait of Queen Elizabeth hung above the entry to the canteen, and a delicately carved list of war veterans w
as bolted to the wall above the counter. Like all old buildings in the town, the hall smelled faintly of dust and cigarette smoke, and it was easy to feel transported to whichever era the town most preferred that day. The young people gathered in cliques, shouting to hear over the music, but Ciara stood deliberately away from everyone else, in a barren corner by the toilets. It was the farthest from the canteen and in full view of the DJ: a bald man standing behind a tower of CD players. Although alcohol was forbidden at the town disco, it was widely accepted that people smuggled their own in, and illicit substances too. The canteen only sold chips, lollies, and canned Coke, the latter sold at a premium because it was only ever drunk as a mixer for rum.
Ciara yelled into my ear that fights generally occurred in the middle of the dance floor. She said there was usually a bit of preliminary bickering out in the smoking area, but if we went out to watch the prelude we’d lose our vantage point and miss the main event.
It was annoying to have to yell over the loud music, so we stood with our arms crossed surveying the room. Red, green and blue lights pulsed, sometimes illuminating a face among the people gathered, and often shining light on contraband liquor flasks. The young people stood in packs at the outskirts of the dance floor, barely moving at all. Some feigned conversation, while others were satisfied to stare at everyone else. From my vantage point, and in that particular room, the town felt like the centre of the world, or at least it seemed held at an impossible distance from anywhere else. The motives implied by each of the townspeople’s expressions seemed driven by desires and secrets that could take lifetimes to parse. The town disco seemed pivotal and they all wanted something out of it. How could the rest of the world not know the town’s disco, and what could be got there?
The music at the town’s disco was typical of commercial radio at the time, and did not hold any secrets as far as I could tell. It was the same music that emanated softly from each petrol station, from the shopfronts at the plazas, and loudly from the fast food shops along the highway to the city. Whether aggressive, sentimental, or sexual, the songs did not seem applicable to the true condition of the town – though what songs would be better I could not say. I supposed the country albums at the library, full of songs about hard work and living off the land, were ostensibly about the town.
The postures of the men and women at the town disco appeared carved by this universal music. No one danced, but they turned their bodies receptively towards the front of the room, allowing the music to shape them in some subtle way. The music was mostly brash and extravagant American pop: didactic, obscene, and colourful. The reality of the music was remote — whole unthinkable oceans away — but it nevertheless appeared to serve its purpose as a frame for their experience. For the people in the town, music did not exist to mirror them, but instead, for the people to mirror it. Or at least the people seemed to try to live up to it, subconsciously, with their bodies turned towards the speakers, and their faces aloof to the strange ambience. They seemed to try, driven by the unacknowledged truth that no songs they listened to were really about the town, or about them, or about the vast stretches of land that buffered them from anywhere and everyone else.
Or maybe they did not try at all, and not trying was the comfort. They might have resigned themselves to phenomena always skipping over them. The brash American music may have been about the world, but how can a slice of world so tiny as the town be a part of all that? It was a miracle the music had travelled this far without losing any of its lustre, or without losing its form entirely.
Ciara and I took turns visiting the smoking area. In the dark alley shrouded with smoke, cliques drank from their flasks openly, stealing glances at all the other cliques. The air was thick with unspoken politics, and each wore their signature gestures, some subservient to others, others entitled to certain liberties. Some apologised profusely when a toe was trodden in the crowded area, while others simply grunted. The smokers appeared even more of the town than those inside, their accents thicker, their faces redder, their gestures and body language more encumbered. I knew they watched me. At moments when I could see through the smoke I saw eyes monitoring me with a bland curiosity, their postures poised to gain prime position for any spectacle I might be at the heart of.
When I reached the entrance of the clear standing space, I was told I couldn’t stand there. A woman pushed me firmly, and then pointed down as every smoker watched. I was standing at the edge of a hole. Everyone casually flicked their cigarette ash into it, like it was a newly installed facility. The woman warned me not to say anything to anyone about it, because if the managers knew about the hole they’d clear the smoking area and no one would be able to smoke.
Back inside, I told Ciara about the hole. It’s likely someone will fall into it tonight, I said, because the smoking area was so densely packed that people balanced treacherously at the hole’s edges. She didn’t really care, though. Wherever the hole lead, it must surely arrive back. Besides, she said, we’ve got more important things to think about. She pointed out the door at a figure who was now smoking in the smoking area. That’s Steve Sanders.
It was difficult to see his face through the wall of smoke, but he appeared to have lost weight, and in a standing position seemed taller than I had estimated at the Railway Hotel. He wore a similar outfit, but instead of a football jumper with an upturned collar, it was a dress shirt with an upturned collar. All these months I had been monitoring my field of view for evidence of a shorter, plumper man, and I had been wrong.
Steve Sanders already knew I was there, because Ciara had seen him spot me. She thought that it was a fine idea to let the bashing happen – the most sensible thing was to just get it over with. But not at the disco – it wouldn’t be good for it to happen at the disco because if there was a dispute at the town disco, follow-up disputes were inevitable. By being bashed at the disco I risked becoming the talk of the town, and once I became the talk of the town, I was doomed to an eternal revisiting of the situation.
Before I had a chance to weigh up my options, the shrill beginnings of a fight could be heard over the music. The crowd outside churned in its direction, carrying Steve Sanders out of my line of sight. Ciara held my wrist to stop me from joining the swarm, though I’d never intended to leave our vantage point, for fear of being bashed.
They’re having their preliminary argument, Ciara yelled over the noise. For ten minutes it would be nothing more than name-calling and threats. Then one person would storm off through the dance floor, pretending to be above the spectacle of a fight, prompting the other party to chase and punch their foe from behind. Someone always got punched or tackled from behind, Ciara said. That was how it always started. That was the routine of it.
Soon enough a frazzled girl stormed into the hall towards the foyer. Another sprinted in pursuit and tackled her to the ground. The room converged on the event, and so did we, though it was soon obvious only a privileged few would see the fight blow-by-blow. Splinter fights sparked out of the struggle as we pressed our way towards the central conflict, many relishing the opportunity to flail their limbs anonymously. Those not involved in any specific dispute looked ecstatic, eyes bulging and mouths gaping wide, malicious voyeuristic smiles grinning at the audacity of it all. Ciara was not aloof to any of this. She blended in with the crowd, pressing her forearms against the bodies in front, and I saw her jeering too.
Three elderly men with tucked in polo shirts stalked the periphery of the crowd, dragging boys and girls out at random and pushing them away into the foyer. The lights poured on, dousing the flushed red faces in a clinical white, and the music stopped. Muffled screams emanated from the centre of the brawl while the spectating men droned their incitements. I was kicked in the face somehow, and I had no desire to discover who did it, keen as I was to keep pressing forward in the hope that it might happen again. The languor of the town had lifted, and no one wanted to waste the opportunity.
Someone yelled that one of the girls was biting the other,
and the pushing intensified.
I was having no luck reaching a prime viewing position, and Ciara had drifted away. Men and women palmed me in the face as they staked their claim on my ground, and as I renewed my efforts to gain a vantage point I felt the tide of the fight carry us away, far from the dance floor and towards the smoking area. I had blood on my left hand and I did not know to whom it belonged.
The fight poured through the smoking area’s doorway. Standing back, exhausted and elated, I watched as the townspeople tried to barge through the chokepoint. For those that remained inside, the transformation had already occurred and that alone would have to be enough. Circumstances had rendered them innocent.
For those who did succeed in making it outside, it was only because they were victors of their own lightning-quick and brutal fights, showdowns to determine who was strong enough to stay with the horde. It quickly became impossible for anyone else to stand in the smoking area. Men and women took to climbing the people closest to the doorway. There was so much adrenaline in my body that I considered doing the same, until I saw Ciara curled up in a ball by the empty canteen.
She smiled as I tried to help her, pushed me away, dusted herself off, and punched me hard in the collarbone. I took her shoulders and shook them gently, and then shook them much harder. She punched me in the chest, ran towards the smoking area, climbed the human barrier, and disappeared. I hesitated only for a moment before following her.
No one was surprised or angry that we climbed across their heads and shoulders, and it didn’t take long before we reached the edge of the crowd and could mount the roof of the hall, where at least a dozen spectators sat with their legs dangling over the edge. More tranquil groups sat on the slanted corrugated iron roof, arranged in circles sharing cigarettes and rum, seemingly numb to the action below. Even from that high vantage point it was hard to find the Teresa Mayweather and Stacey Kemp fight, so packed was the crowd.
The Town Page 10
