by Luke Horton
For the next few days, he wandered aimlessly in Ubud, or hung around the hotel, waiting for her to come back. Initially, he thought she’d gone to clear her head for a night and would be back the next day. Or for a night or two, he reasoned, when she wasn’t back the next day. She wasn’t replying to his messages, and so he emailed everyone he could think of who might have heard from her: Madeleine, her sister Lena, Emily, Trish. Some of these got back to him, eventually, to say she was okay. They were vague on everything else. Madeleine seemed especially vague, for someone usually so forthright. She was probably staying on for a few days elsewhere, needed space, would get in touch in time … all of it vague, patronising, falsely sympathetic.
He lay by the pool for hours, lay on the bed. Replayed things: that moment in the room when he thought he might talk to her about it, and the disaster later that night at the restaurant, their last night together. Another missed opportunity.
They had gone into Ubud, to a restaurant that was hard to get into, and which they had booked while they were still in Sanur. It donated half of all proceeds to setting up schools for Balinese children, employed local youth in the kitchen, and had solid 8s, 8.5s on the apps.
They were dropped off by the shuttlebus and worked their way through the streets. Ubud was very different to Sanur. The streets there were lined with shining white designer outlets — Ralph Lauren, Nike, Le Coq Sportif — and clogged with tourists. Tom was glad for the change of scene. And pace. The busyness, the things to see meant the quiet between them was less noticeable, and it gave them more reason to talk, in an incidental way.
But he was disorientated by Ubud. It had the feel of a city, but he had no sense of how far the streets stretched, and where they were, exactly, in relation to anything else. Were they in the centre of town, or was this just one of dozens of strips that were repeated over and over until you hit rice paddies and countryside, bypasses and freeways? It was much hipper than Sanur. The restaurants, bars, cafes piled on top of each other down every alleyway were more like the ones at home than they were like those in Sanur, where they were all Rasta or nautical-themed.
The restaurant, when they finally found it, ran over two tiny rooftops, with a landing in between filled with people waiting for tables. Diners were crammed into each rooftop, sitting at bars that ran around the perimeter, overlooking the street, or around tables crowding the middle. They were young people, mostly — ten, fifteen years younger than Tom and Clara — in designer activewear, shorts and tops made out of high-tech synthetic material. Although some were dressed up, with glittering jewellery, expensive watches on tanned arms, and there was a small contingent of eco-tourist types in muted colours, natural fibres, and no makeup.
Tom and Clara stood in a line, quietly, side by side, and waited for a shouting match to play out between a guy in front of them in the line and the maître-d’. There was a wait for tables, even for those with bookings, and the guy had been waiting in line with his date for half an hour. The maître-d’ told them there was nothing he could do, this was the nature of restaurants, especially busy ones like theirs, while the guy was appealing to him with gestures to his date as if the injustice of a young woman standing out there in the heat might convince the maître-d’ to somehow conjure a table for them. After a while, a young woman, a stick-thin American who was half the guy’s height and was behind him in the line, piped up and asked the maître-d’ why take bookings at all if people have to wait so long? And the rest of her group, several other diminutive women, joined in, and the maître-d’s command of the situation began to look less assured.
Just then, a figure appeared above them on the steps, blocking out the lights of the restaurant. With both arms raised in the air, the silhouetted figure leaned down to the crowd, revealing a deeply tanned man wearing an open-necked denim shirt, who was beaming down upon them a perfect, white-teeth smile.
He hollered out above their voices: Hey, hey, hey, hey, HEY!
People fell silent.
Why are we all here? he asked. Huh? Why are we all here?
The rhetorical nature of the question seemed to throw the crowd for a moment, and no one replied. The man let the moment lengthen, but not so long that people had time to recover and say something.
Here in beautiful Bali, on this wonderful day? Huh? he continued. To eat? Yes, to eat. To have fun. To have a great time. Like everyone else. That’s what everyone is here for. All these people before you came here for the same reason.
He gestured to the people behind him and turned back.
They are eating our beautiful food, we are donating a large portion of their payment for this food to people in need here in Bali, and we have a wonderful time. This is perfect, no? Yes! Though we are busy. You might need to wait a little while for a table. But! It is a beautiful night, here in Ubud, we are all here together, and this is a beautiful thing.
He raised his hands high into the air, again, perhaps gesturing to the night sky, looked back down at them with his eyebrows raised, seeming to wonder himself if there was more to come, and finally said thank you and disappeared.
The tall guy at the top of the queue said, This is bullshit, and walked off. His date followed.
Twenty minutes later, Tom and Clara were seated at one of the tiny tables, where they pulled their seats in tight to avoid bumping into the elbows and backs of the diners around them. Despite the limited space on the tables, they were romantically set, with pink frangipanis in tiny vases, artfully folded napkins, and candles flickering in low light. It was cheesy, but Tom thought it would have made for a good time to talk, if it wasn’t for the cramped space and everything else going on in the room.
The kitchen was open to them, and, not far away, there were flashes of flame and clouds of steam as water was poured into woks, the sting of chilli wafting over. But overpowering all of this, dominating everything else in the room, was a huge flat-screen mounted on the wall above them. It was playing Coldplay, live in concert at Madison Square Garden or wherever, and it was loud and bright and flashing. Fireworks exploded, the camera panned across a sea of fluorescent dots — wristbands held aloft, it turned out — and, as Chris Martin sang one last ‘Para, para, paradise’, the music dropped out, and the crowd carried the final line by itself, ‘wo wo oh wo-oh oh oh oh’. Then Martin, in close-up on huge screens either side of the stage, let his hands drop from the piano keys, raised his head, and closed his eyes, breathing hard into the mic.
Tom tried to ignore the film, but it was impossible — the swooping cameras, the magnitude of the whole thing, the spectacle, all the carefully orchestrated moments of communion and pathos. The audience filling every breakdown, every moment of quiet with a roar. Clara watched, too, and chuckled quietly at it, but Tom was annoyed. He had felt superior to the whingers in the queue, unable to wait for their seat, who were being, like the man had implied, petty in the face of such good fortune — the good fortune of being alive and in such a place and having nothing else to worry about but a table at a restaurant in a town full of restaurants — but now he was losing his cool. It was very hot in Ubud, hotter, it seemed, than in Sanur with its sea breezes and open spaces, and it was especially hot and humid in this cramped space. The close proximity to the kitchen probably wasn’t helping, and it was crowded, but he was most annoyed about the video, the noise of it, and the sentimentality. It made him feel embarrassed by the idea of attempting anything like a serious conversation about what had happened to her or about their relationship or whatever … Plus, and he hated himself for it, he was becoming increasingly worried about their shuttlebus. It did rounds, the shuttlebus, and would pick them up from the rendezvous spot at eight-thirty pm, the latest of its rounds, which was now only fifty minutes away. What would happen if they missed it? Catch a taxi of some sort, he imagined, but he didn’t know, really. And the drive had taken a while — that could be expensive, and they’d been spending much more than they’d expected on the holiday
so far. But he was fighting that, telling himself to stop worrying about the fucking shuttlebus, they would be fine, and who gives a shit about the noise, the video, fucking Coldplay.
But then the deeply tanned man reappeared. He had a microphone in his hand now and was turning the film down on the flat-screen.
Hello, my friends! he said. As it is Friday night, I will do what I do every Friday night and thank you all for coming and making it another great week at School Kitchen, serving great food to our customers and saving money for young Balinese people in need.
He waited for applause, which came, weakly. The man was standing very close to Tom. As he spoke and rocked in time with the modulations of his thoughts, his expressions of gratitude and blessedness, his right hip brushed the back of Tom’s chair, and, a few times, he lent further in so that his hip rested on Tom’s shoulder. Tom lent away, surreptitiously, and spent the rest of the man’s speech in an uncomfortable hunch over the right side of his chair, feeling his shirt stick and unstick from the slick of sweat down his chest, while doing his best to appear to be listening as the man’s gaze roamed around the room and locked on the eyes of his guests.
The man singled out a few people to ask where they were from, they were good sports, and he wound up his speech with some stats. This much saved over this many years, this many young people now educated as a result of their work. He then proposed a toast to the waitstaff and the kitchen, mostly young men and women, who looked up briefly and nodded or waved as people clapped. Then he turned Coldplay back up, propped his cordless mic on the countertop, and surveyed the room. He began making his way around the tables, chatting to the diners.
By the time he had made it around to Tom and Clara they were finally being served their food, with about half an hour left before pick-up. If it wasn’t for this fact, Tom would have fled to the toilets, both to wipe himself down, and to avoid the man’s meet-and-greet, but he badly needed to eat, hoping that maybe it would help. His heart was now racing.
The man knelt down between their chairs and, examining their faces, asked them where they were from. Tom gave him quick answers as he shovelled prawns and rice into his mouth. He didn’t care about the shuttlebus anymore, he just wanted to get the hell out of the restaurant.
After a moment, the man said: You’re a stressed-out little guy, aren’t you?
Tom forced a laugh, and, wiping sweat from his temples with the back of his hand, explained about the shuttlebus. The man did not respond to this, but continued to look closely at Tom and nod his head ever so slightly, as if confirming something about him he had already suspected. Then he got up from his crouch, patted Clara on the shoulder, saluted Tom, and left them alone.
Tom returned his attention to his food. He wasn’t calming down. And now he felt deeply ashamed, too. He couldn’t look at Clara. He was probably only a few minutes away from having a full-blown panic attack if he stayed any longer in this restaurant.
Clara, finishing her food, put down her chopsticks and drank the last of her water. She was not watching him. He wondered if she knew not to, when he was like this — pulsating, sweating. No doubt he was a mess. He knew how he could look when he was anxious. Like he was on drugs. Pupils dilated, the colour gone from his face. Although right now his face did not feel drained, it felt extremely hot. She turned to make the sure the man was no longer nearby and then did look at him.
Well, he’s a cunt, she said.
Tom was so taken by surprise he almost choked on his food. He laughed, for real this time. Then he remembered his beer, saw it as if for the first time sitting in front of him on the table, and downed it all in two long gulps.
He marvelled at her.
He had been prepared to accept all this as just another entry in his catalogue of shame, the archive he would revisit endlessly, forever, for the rest of his life. Another moment of exposure, penance, humiliation: being intimidated by an arsehole; dissolving in front of him. But then, Clara. He was so grateful for her. For her tact, as much as anything. That she understood, that she took his side, yes, but also that she didn’t need to go into it, that that was all she needed to say. She knew all about him, he felt, then, in that moment. She knew everything. About how bad it got for him, about how humiliated he felt. About how close he was to the edge. All the time. And she knew just what to say, what to do. Knew that he didn’t need sympathy in that moment, didn’t want concern or any kind of attention. He just needed time. But he did need to feel she was on his side. And she gave that to him. It had such an immediate effect. He felt a release of tension through his body like a wave, as if every muscle in his body simultaneously unclenched itself.
Tom, she said now, her voice changed. She was gathering her things, again not looking at him.
Yes?
I’m obviously not actually jealous of you and Emily.
No, he said. I didn’t think you were. Really.
I don’t know why I said that.
No, neither do I.
I think I was just looking for something to get angry about.
It’s okay … good to get it out, he said, cheerfully. Too cheerfully. He stood up from his chair and hitched up his shorts. He felt himself grinning at her, stupidly.
She smiled back at him, less fully, and, he thought later, in hindsight, perhaps a touch pityingly — but he never could tell with Clara.
He wondered if he should say more, then. It was another moment slipping by. And she was talking to him. Really talking. Or, almost she was. But he didn’t know what he would say if he did, or how he would say it, and he needed so badly to get off that rooftop, so he didn’t say anything. Instead, he paid the bill, and together they descended the stairs and rushed through the streets and made it easily in time for the shuttlebus back to the hotel.
And he was feeling profoundly relieved. Even pretty good about things. Like the bad things were behind them now and everything was going to be fine, somehow. He knew it was irrational — it was adrenaline, endorphins — but he always had moments like this, when the panic was over. Moments when this irrational optimism, even euphoria, overwhelmed him, as if everything in the world was fine now, because he was no longer panicking. He thought stupid things, like they were going be okay, like they should have children after all, like he loved her. That he would start talking to her from now on, properly, tell her things, try harder to reach her. And listen to her, too.
Or, at least, that was how he remembered it. Later, when it became important. When it became, for Tom, their last good moment.
Acknowledgements
Like most books, The Fogging could not have been written and published without the kindness and hard work of a lot of people.
I am extremely grateful to everyone at Scribe for publishing this book and doing it so brilliantly. Especially during such a difficult time. A special mention goes to Laura Thomas for designing such a great cover, and to Tace Kelly for all her work publicising the book. But extra special thanks go to my editor, Anna Thwaites, who is not only a gifted editor, but an unnervingly patient and kind person, too.
Thanks to The Fogging’s first readers, Dom Amerena, Coco McGrath, Nick Tapper, and David Winter, who either read very early versions of the book or read it when it had been highly commended for the Victorian Premier’s Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and I was trying to figure out what to do with it next. Their early feedback undoubtedly made it a better book.
The judges of the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Award for an Unpublished Manuscript played an important part in getting this book finished and published. I want to thank Jaclyn Crupi, especially, for her advice and her belief in the book. Big thanks also to my agent, Grace Heifetz at Left Bank Literary, for guiding me through the new and strange process of becoming a published author.
To Léa Antigny, Chris Currie, Jennifer Down, Alaina Gougoulis, Chad Parkhill, Oliver Reeson, Chris Somerville, Laura Stortenbeker, Veronica Sullivan
, Alan Vaarwerk, Rebecca Varcoe, and Jack Vening: thank you all for your support and distraction through the hard times and the good.
Thanks also to all the other friends who have helped in one way or another over the last few years — Duncan Blachford deserves special mention here — and to all the writers I have met along the way whose friendship and solidarity has been so invaluable.
In the final stages of writing and revising this book, I was lucky to be offered a residency at Jacky Winter Gardens. It was a beautiful place to work, and I thank Lorelei Vashti and Jeremy Wortsman for the opportunity.
Finally, much love and gratitude to my family for all their support. I owe my love of books and writing to my parents, to their bookshops and their passion. This book serves in part as a dedication to the memory of my mother. Without her, there would be no book. This is true of my father also, so thank you, Dad.
To my sister, Jess, and her partner, Simon: thank you for everything you do. To Antonia: your love and support, and your insight and notes, have been more important to this book than it is possible to say. You have informed and improved it in countless ways, and I could not have done it without you. And, lastly, to my daughter, Albertine: thank you for all the joy you have brought me while I have wrestled with this story. I couldn’t have done it without you, either.
