‘Are you contributing anything?’
‘God no. You know how I am with production. No, I’m too busy making sure we cater to Vince’s whims and fancies. Currently I’m trying to source vegan mock gyros, and there’s a long and painful story of how we got to this point that I shan’t bore you with, but suffice it to say, it all better be worth it.’
‘I’m sure it will be successful,’ Patrick offered.
‘Are you, because I’m not,’ Seymour replied. ‘And if it’s not successful I look like an idiot, and who wants to show their work in an idiot’s gallery?’
Patrick fought the instinct to reach out to him.
‘Uni students and vanity artists?’ he offered.
‘We can only hope,’ Seymour sighed. ‘Because without the gallery, I’m not really anything, am I?’
They sat in silence a moment waiting for Patrick to fill it. When he didn’t, Seymour rose from the table.
‘I should leave you to your work.’
He hovered awkwardly, halfway towards the front door.
‘I could stay?’
They were both surprised by this. Seymour looked around the empty shell of a room. In his eyes Patrick saw a glint of something that could have been pity or love, and he deserved neither of those things right now.
‘You could,’ he replied softly, avoiding Seymour’s gaze. ‘But I don’t think you should.’
After Seymour left, Patrick tried to return to his work but it was futile. All he could picture was Seymour’s face and the almost imperceptible flashes of hurt that had punctuated his visit. And without warning Seymour’s eye became that poor man’s, and his face twisted in a moment of indescribable agony and it was the same look of agony that had set Patrick running, spiralling back to this country because all it seemed he was good for was hurting others. Where he had stood, jet-lagged and shrunken, the sun shining on the polluted river with its corpses and chemicals sunken below, and wept for being home. He stood up, the chair skittering into the wall behind him, and grabbed at his coat. Outside, the cold hit his cheeks first, spreading across his exposed skin, and he shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He walked without purpose, stalking down the high street and along its branches in great pointless rectangles. Eventually he tired, crossing the street in search of somewhere to eat. He passed a young man, eyes and nose peering out from the depth of his scarf and beanie, a clipboard in his hands.
‘Help a child in Syria?’
Patrick blinked. ‘What?’
‘Sponsor a Syrian child?’
Patrick squinted at the young man. He was dressed casually, the clipboard unexceptional.
‘Did you know that there are thousands of Syrian children living without clean water or electricity? Unable to go to school? Unable to access basic medical treatment?’ The young man motioned earnestly at his clipboard.
‘Where are you from?’ Patrick asked him.
‘UNICEF,’ the young man replied cheerily.
‘Where’s your ID?’
‘Left it at home.’ He shrugged, embarrassed.
‘Why aren’t you wearing a UNICEF T-shirt?’
‘In this weather?’ the young man replied lightly. ‘It’s a few layers under my coat.’
‘Show me,’ Patrick demanded.
The young man looked nervous, stepping back slightly.
‘So far it is estimated that recent airstrikes in Aleppo have –’
‘Show me your T-shirt.’
Patrick stepped towards the young man, seizing his lapels.
‘Man, you’re crazy! Fuck off.’
‘Show me your T-shirt!’
The young man pushed at Patrick’s hands. The clipboard fell to the ground, papers fluttering about. A few people had stopped to stare.
‘Show me your T-shirt! This is a fucking scam. People are dying there and you’re fucking scamming people.’
The young man scowled, slapping at Patrick’s hands.
‘Fucking let me go.’
‘You lying little bastard. You should be arrested for this. I arrest you. This is a citizen’s arrest.’
A crowd had gathered around them, fumbling for their phones. The young man grabbed Patrick’s wrists, wrenching them sideways. Patrick held on, his fingers tightening.
‘Let me go!’
‘Never!’
The young man jerked to one side, his coat ripping as Patrick tumbled after him. Patrick righted himself as the young man seemed to pause to gather his strength, then he lunged forward, slapping Patrick across the cheek.
‘Leave me alone.’
Patrick threw himself forward, wrapping the young man in an awkward hold, his arms pinned to his side.
‘Someone call the police!’ Patrick hollered as the young man struggled furiously.
Someone had indeed already called the police, who arrived to find the two men locked in an awkward, unwelcome embrace.
‘They’re fighting,’ someone explained, and the officers looked unconvinced.
‘This is a citizen’s arrest,’ Patrick crowed, before the young man got an arm free and smacked him in the mouth.
Later – and it was a considerable amount of time later – Patrick sat in the passenger seat of Harry’s Mazda outside Preston police station. His top lip had started to swell and his cheek was crimson in the cold.
‘They’re not going to charge you with anything,’ Harry explained, starting the car and turning the heat vents towards Patrick. ‘Or the kid. I had a chat with them about everything.’
Patrick didn’t respond. He felt exhausted. Harry cleared his throat.
‘I know what happened,’ he said gently. ‘Over there. I ran into some guys from the network who were over there too, and they told me. I . . . Here’s a number. Critical incident counselling. They might help, mate.’
Patrick took the piece of paper and shoved it into his pocket. No one knew what happened. Not all of it.
‘Sorry I called you. They wouldn’t let me go without someone coming to pick me up. I . . . there wasn’t anyone else.’
Harry considered this for a moment, stretching his hands wide across the steering wheel. He turned back to Patrick.
‘You probably don’t know this but I studied physics for a semester. First year of uni. Bloody hated it. Too many letters masquerading as numbers. But there’s this one thing that has always stayed with me. Physics 101, this classic Galileo experiment to prove wind friction or something like that. You take a feather and a bowling ball and drop them from the same height at the same time. Normally, because of the air resistance, the feather falls at a slower rate, while because the bowling ball is so much heavier, it’s going to hit the ground faster, right?’
He waited a fraction of a second for Patrick to nod then continued.
‘But if you put them in a vacuum and take away the air resistance, both objects fall at the same rate. Now to me – and I could be wrong because what would I know with one failed physics subject to my name and all – but I’ve always thought that’s pretty neat. If you take away resistance, we all fall the same.’
They sat in silence for a moment before Patrick raised his eyes.
‘Am I the bowling ball?’
Harry gave him a smile. ‘Most of us are, mate.’
Hot air streamed from the vents and Patrick found himself leaning back into a fug of weariness. His eyelids drooped a moment and he wondered if he were to let them close how long Harry would let him stay here. The car came to a stop. Harry reached over and placed a hand on his arm.
‘Is there anything I can do to help? I only want to help.’
The weight of his fingers brought Patrick back to the present and he reached for the door handle. Stop, please, I only want to help.
‘I’m fine, Harry. Thank you for today.’
20
Evan
gelia
Turks and Greeks at Loggerheads
August 1974
Tasty coffee, delicious sweets – there’s a lot to thank those new Australians for! But it’s not all fun and games at the newly opened Consulate General for the Republic of Turkey, with Greeks descending en masse to protest what they refer to as the illegal invasion of Cyprus by Turkish soldiers. The long disputed Mediterranean island is now the scene of chaos and confusion as the United Nations seeks to broker a ceasefire between Turkish forces in the north and the recently installed pro-Enosis government in the south. Bolstered by signs in Greek that this reporter was unable to decipher, protesters donned head-to-toe black as they hurled abuse and rotten fruit at the locked consular doors.
Northcote resident Andreas Georgiou told reporters that the protest was to voice the concerns of Melbourne’s wider Greek community at the treatment of their fellow Hellenes, as reports emerge of Cypriots from both sides being expelled across the buffer zone that has split the country in two since the early 1960s.
‘The whole community is here,’ Mr Georgiou said. ‘My whole family, even the babies. We are here in solidarity with our people.’
A counter protest is rumoured, with suggestions Turkish-Cypriots will stage a similar action against the alleged mistreatment of their own compatriots. With many of the protesters taking time away from their day jobs working the fruit and vegetable stalls at the markets, if there’s one thing this reporter is certain of, they won’t be wanting for projectiles.
Representatives from the consulate office said that services would continue as usual, but to please telephone first.
Evangelia pulled the faded newspaper article closer, squinting at the grainy image accompanying it. She could make out her father, his face grave, and she supposed the infant in his arms was her. A small child grappling with a little Greek flag was most likely Lydia, her pudgy cheeks beaming for the camera in complete discord with the severity of the rest of the group. She recognised a number of people, faces discernible from the muddy waters of her memory, people she’d called aunty and uncle despite them having no real familial ties. Where was she? She scanned the faces again, then pushed herself back in the rickety library chair, her eyes tracking upwards to the great dome of the state library. Her mother was not there.
It had been Carole’s idea to approach the library and seek out any place her mother might be mentioned in the clutter and collections of the state. They’d returned to her with a long list of suggestions: well-known broadsheets, Greek language newspapers, things – so many things – that had been donated by people who, unlike her, had discovered boxes of memories left behind by departed parents. And this, from a university student newspaper, cloistered by articles about controversial lecturers and the unwinding of the Vietnam War. She had spent days sifting through them all, bent over the desk as around her present-day university students jabbed at their mobiles and napped over their textbooks. She had pored through them with an eagle’s eye, but still she could not find her. Her mother was not here. Her mother was not anywhere. Maybe she was out of shot, a slight outlier the camera had failed to capture. Maybe she was somewhere nearby, with the other women, preparing food as Evangelia always seemed to remember. Not quite a part of anything but off to one side, slicing up halva or waiting patiently over a briki. She’d made coffee while the world grew wings, Evangelia thought, but there wasn’t a story in that.
Lydia might know, her memory blessed with the advantage of her slight seniority, but the sisters had not spoken since the meat platter incident and Evangelia refused to be the one to broker peace. They’d set up their buffer zone, somewhere north of Bell Street, and both were abiding by the terms of the dispute. There was no phone contact, no commenting on the Facebook posts of mutual acquaintances if the other had got there first. If they were to cross paths at school pick-ups, they looked away, either to their mobiles or at some distant curiosity, until they were no longer within speaking distance. The children were to follow this protocol too, proxies in a conflict they did not quite understand, though Evangelia sometimes arrived at the school gates to find them huddled together conspiratorially. She would call their mobiles, watching as they shrank guiltily from their cousins in a way that made her feel both vindicated and sad, and she would blame Lydia for this too.
It was strange, this not talking to each other, and for the first time since she could remember Evangelia felt something like freedom. For hadn’t she always been there, Lydia of the raised eyebrows and judgemental lips? Stabbing a finger at all the ways Evangelia was getting things wrong. The way she’d worn her hair as a child, the fear that kept her from shaving her legs well into high school. All the things her mother had loved in her, but that made her too embarrassing for her elder sister. Lydia who had somehow succeeded in having her last name changed on the school roll so that she was Lydia George, exotic and gregarious, and nothing like stubby little Evangelia Georgiou, whose name confounded everyone and whose moustache sparkled in the schoolyard sun and who couldn’t shake the woggy accent everyone teased her for. Who kept the lunches their mother made for them instead of throwing them in the garbage bin like Lydia did each morning. Who said somethink instead of something and practised her kalamatianós by herself in the backyard while Lydia was off pretending she wasn’t related to them. Who had spent weekends helping pickle olives and turn the buckets of backyard tomatoes into saltsa while Lydia was off at university learning from textbooks how exciting it suddenly was to be multicultural, then returning home to tell them how they were doing it all wrong. That they were meant to be having parades and linking arms with all the other cultures of the city instead of shuttering themselves away in their diasporic little community and failing to learn the language properly. Who had never quite been exactly the person Lydia expected her to be because this person changed, constantly, and she could never work it all out even from the youngest of ages. Who had woken night after night as a child to the sight of a dragon, ferocious and startling, slithering through the bedroom towards her, only to disappear into the shadows when her shrieks sent their mother scurrying into the room again and again. And there had been Lydia, laughing in the bed beside her, taunting her sister about her nightmares. The matáki her mother strung up above the bed didn’t seem to work and each night the dragon returned, silent and serpentine, its eyes on Evangelia alone. That Evangelia – that Evangelia felt free and she felt angry and she couldn’t for the life of her work out where the hell her mother was supposed to be.
Evangelia collected her things and walked to the photocopier to make copies of the article. At least she would have something to report back to Carole and the rest of the class, proof of the gaping nothingness of her mother’s life: a vacant newspaper clipping and a fraction of a factory story. She laid the page face down in the machine, closed the lid, then watched it spit out the reproductions. The pages shot out of the machine, and each time, her mother was still not there.
21
DB
Dear Jonesy,
I have of late found myself perusing the online biographies of life’s great men: Weary Dunlop, Whitlam, Mawson and the Ice Men. And what fascinates me is the obvious connecting strand – and one I see in myself, and you – of a benevolent sense of command and restraint. Of control and serenity. A mastery of
There was a hammering on the toilet door.
‘Other people in this house need to use the bathroom too.’
DB saved the draft email on his mobile and hastily pulled up his pyjama trousers. He opened the door to find Sylvie dancing about like a child, her knees clenched together.
‘Are there not other toilets in this house you could use? I distinctly remember this being a selling point when we picked this place.’
Sylvie ignored him, pushing past. ‘This is our toilet.’
The door slammed shut and DB stepped into the adjacent bathroom. He stood for a moment washing his hands, working the soap arou
nd the joints of his fingers and under his wedding band. As he did, he leant forward, peering into the bloodshot eyes reflected back in the mirror. He’d hit a rough patch of insomnia of late, his mind poring over the details of the pro bono case as the court date drew nearer. And of the terrifying potential fallout from losing. There was much riding on it – Old Man Williams had made this clear at Malcolm’s wake and in the smattering of exchanges they’d had in the elevator since. And the thought of letting him down – of letting them all down – well, it didn’t bear thinking about. But he wouldn’t, of course. He was onto it. They were onto it, he and Nell. Madeline was working on a second affidavit. A better version. So it would all be fine. And he believed her, didn’t he? And thus things would all be fine.
He raked his fingers down his cheeks, catching the sharp overnight stubble. It was all fine, all going to plan, on course for a win and that plum new office. Chin up, game face on, off we go! DB twisted the tap then leant forward to splash his face with water a few times. As he emerged, he noticed Sylvie’s contraceptive pill packet sitting amid the clutter of toiletry items strewn across the vanity. He was peering at it as she came in, nudging him aside to wash her hands. When she was done, she reached for the packet, popping a pale yellow pill and swallowing it.
‘That was Saturday.’
‘What?’
‘Saturday,’ he replied, pointing at the writing above the pill casing. ‘Today is Thursday.’
‘Oh, that?’ she said dismissively. ‘They don’t match up.’
She reached past him for her toothbrush. DB continued to stare at the packet, his brow furrowed.
‘But how are you meant to know?’
Sylvie brushed this off.
The Book of Ordinary People Page 23
