by Lech Blaine
‘So nobody else will.’
On Christmas Eve, Negative Gearing started recording demos of a magnum opus called Dark Side of the Boom, an EP of breakup songs. Vincent convinced me to sing in an Australian accent rather than an American one.
after the party and into the darkness
half-cut but surprised by the starkness
of you pissing in the gutter of a street
on the dour edge of this town
Vincent tinkered with the feedback levels, grinning. ‘Frida’s coming on New Year’s,’ he said. ‘You should call in sick.’
‘Those lyrics aren’t about Frida,’ I said, blushing. ‘They’re about a girl I met in Brisbane.’
‘Sure.’
‘And even if they were about her, there’s no way in hell that Frida’s going to get back with me. I’m a notorious criminal.’
Vincent’s amused expression grew serious. ‘Did you ever ask Frida about her problems?’ he said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
It takes a minor miracle for someone to admit that none of us have a clue what we’re doing.
‘I just think sometimes you are so obsessed with covering up your own shit that you ignore everyone else’s. And for what it’s worth, I think she’d hook up with you in a heartbeat. Provided you weren’t a drunken dickhead to her.’
Crooked Rain, crooked Rain
For Christmas, Queenslanders received a freak weather event. Floodwaters spread north, south, east and west, wiping out country towns. Looters were kept at bay by snakes and crocodiles. The prime minister sent Blackhawk helicopters. Nobody knew if this was truly necessary. Everyone agreed it was a noble gesture anyway.
On New Year’s Eve, I was rostered on until 3.00 a.m. But the Spotted Cow was empty after a week of unrelenting thunderstorms, and the owner let me leave at 7.00 p.m. My licence had been reinstated a few days earlier. So I drove to Vincent’s.
The sky was low and dark. The sound of laughter fluttered up to the balcony and mingled with mosquitoes buzzing above the drying gutters. Spectators watched a mixed-doubles tennis match below. Frida returned serve.
‘Thanks for gracing us,’ said Vincent.
‘I didn’t want anyone to think I was dead.’
We drank vodka punch and complained about the weather like retirees. I heard the word muggy twenty times in ten minutes.
Frida wore a white linen button-up tucked into denim shorts. She won in a tiebreaker, and came up to the balcony, hugging me unselfconsciously. ‘Mr Blaine. Fancy seeing you here.’
I couldn’t think of anything profound to say. Frida touched my arm. ‘Are you having an aneurysm?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think so. But I only want to die in your eyes.’
‘That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.’
Frida and I spoke to other people before picking up our conversation. I didn’t get so drunk that I couldn’t speak in order to lessen the weight of anticipation.
‘I see you reactivated Facebook,’ she said. ‘Sheep.’
‘I have a deep chemical dependency,’ I said.
‘Why did you delete it then?’
‘I was also having an existential crisis.’
‘Who isn’t having an existential crisis?’
Frida was considering quitting the Conservatorium. Starring in small-town orchestras put her on the middle rung of serious musicians.
‘There are pianists a lot better than me,’ she said.
We didn’t run out of things to say, and the phrases we strung together tumbled out urgently, due to the sense that we were being upfront for once.
‘Have you been seeing anyone?’ she said.
‘My psychologist. His name is Christopher.’
I admitted to dropping out of university and moving home, assuming that she already knew the basics.
I can’t remember what song was playing at midnight. Frida and I kissed for the first time since she broke up with me. We were oblivious to any spectators. Life had never happened that spontaneously before.
After another hour or so together, Frida led me to a spare bedroom. ‘I’m on the pill now,’ she said.
I tried not to imagine the previous beneficiaries of her prescription. We grinned at each other’s bodies. She was all ass, hips and limbs. I was skin and bone. Two naked teenagers rushed clumsily to save something that hadn’t begun yet.
‘Do you think that I’m more chilled out now?’ I asked afterwards.
Frida kissed me on the cheek and chin and lips. ‘You’d have to be the least chilled-out person I’ve ever met. But that’s great. Chill people put me to sleep.’
On New Year’s Day, Frida and I rehydrated with mineral water in the kitchen of her empty manor. ‘Honey, I’m home!’ the hostess shouted to the ghost of her parents. They were yachting across a foreign body of water. Outside, the sky was grey blanket. I synced my iPhone with the universal speakers and played Pavement’s ‘Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain’.
‘Let’s go for a swim!’ said Frida, ditching a black bra and panties on the gate. We skinny-dipped before the deluge, doggy-paddling and kissing through the chlorine.
‘What’s your New Year’s resolution?’ she asked.
‘To get super, super ripped.’
Frida snorted loudly, throat seizing up with glee.
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ I said. ‘What’s yours?’
‘To lose five kilos while eating and drinking like a pig. Which is more implausible than you getting buff.’
Lightning creased the sky. We rushed back inside. In the shower, I watched droplets of water magnify the mole on Frida’s cheek.
‘I love your eyes,’ she said. ‘They change colour.’
For afternoon tea, Frida slapped together a platter of vegetarian snacks. Spinach quiche with zucchini relish. Hummus and sourdough. Sundried tomatoes and pickled olives. Cheeses rippled with mould. It was a world away from my childhood staple of a Four’n Twenty pie.
I asked if the material on my fat-free cracker was apricot jam. Frida assumed I was taking the piss. ‘It’s quince paste, you dickhead,’ she said.
I mocked myself in a thick drawl. Irony was a defence against the fact that my ocker accent was largely authentic. ‘What do ya call this, darl? ’
Frida squinted at me suspiciously. ‘Arancini balls.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But it’s what you do with them!’
Frida hadn’t seen The Castle, so the joke went over her head. She picked one up and threw it at me.
‘I’m feeding you out of politeness,’ she said. ‘Not playing your sick fantasy of a housewife.’
When we finished, I stacked the dishwasher and wiped down the benches. Frida’s guardians watched me like hawks from the Kelvinator door. I wondered if I could morph into their sophisticated future son-in-law.
‘Do you want something from the fridge?’ asked Frida.
‘No. I’m just admiring. It’s an absolute ripper!’
‘You are passionate about the most niche details.’
‘That’s where the magic is at,’ I said.
Midnight kisses and skinny-dipping at midday. The niche details don’t deserve ellipsis. They are lifesaving.
Rain fell so thickly it looked digital. Frida stood at my bedroom window, one of Allan Langer’s grass-stained Queensland jerseys hanging past her immaculate ass.
‘What if it doesn’t stop?’ she asked.
I furrowed my brow and said, ‘It’s gonna stop,’ pretending at conviction. But there were no gaps in the vista, just panel after panel of grey. Backyards were turning into channels of liquid and debris.
Our evacuation to my granny flat had been triggered by the arrival of Frida’s parents. I resented that she still hadn’t introduced me to them. Frida seemed irritated I wasn’t taking the flood warnings seriously enough.
‘We might need to leave,’ she said.
I raised my arms behind Frida. ‘I refuse to flee from a sinking ship
! I will stay until the last home is taken!’
Frida’s brow furrowed.
‘We live on a mountain,’ I said. ‘It’s not going to flood.’
‘And what if it does?’
‘I’m not leaving for anything less than a tsunami.’
Frida let my confidence hang for a few crucial beats. ‘I’ve noticed,’ she said. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’
‘You’d rather watch the news.’
‘I’d rather have sex,’ said Frida. ‘But most of the time you’d rather read a novel than fuck me.’
I was offended, not just for the searing critique of my libido, but on behalf of Don DeLillo’s best sentences.
‘I’d be more carefree if I grew up in Rangeville,’ I said.
‘How many pubs has your dad owned?’
‘Not enough to buy me a new VW.’
Her bright eyes turned black. ‘You’re a private schoolboy from Toowoomba,’ she said. ‘Not a Sri Lankan refugee.’
I smiled despite the prickle of self-pity in my throat.
Frida linked conciliatory fingers between mine. ‘What’s up?’ she asked.
Frida knew nothing about me, not really. I didn’t want her to think that I was an oversensitive dickhead. I laid my insecurities on the table. ‘I’m just a little bit hurt that we had to come back to my place. As soon as your parents got back. Like you’re hiding me from them.’
Frida was irritated, then amused, then sorry for her amusement. ‘Is that why you’re pissed off?’
‘I know I’m not the boy next door.’
‘The only reason I haven’t introduced you to my parents is because you’ve never introduced me to yours.’
‘Frida,’ I said. ‘My dad took off two years ago. Mum was an alcoholic. Is an alcoholic. Dry at the moment. She was committed to a psych ward six weeks ago.’
Frida used my chest as an armrest. Her dark arms were covered with freckles and mosquito bites, souvenirs from summers past and present.
‘I didn’t know all that. And I’m sorry. But that doesn’t mean you should keep her hidden away like dark secret.’
‘It’s humiliating.’
‘I can deal with it.’
Frida recited a litany of family secrets, a tangled web of infidelities and addictions. She admitted to a general sense that she’d never be flawless enough for OCD parents and competitive frenemies.
That day, Frida performed an incredible act of mercy: she killed any fantasies I still had that she could fix me.
Frida and I spent Sunday night apart for the first time since New Year’s Eve. I texted her. Missing me yet? When she didn’t respond, I assumed the worst.
You’re not going anywhere, Frida had said.
I needed to do something besides working at a pub and drinking Blend 43 with a recovering alcoholic. That’s why on a monsoonal Monday afternoon, I slipped proof of my mother’s disability pension into a plastic sleeve and set out for Centrelink. I was applying for Youth Allowance so that I could return to Brisbane.
Streetlights shone at lunchtime. Roads gushed with rain. The shriek of fire engines had sounded less pressing as the wet weeks became inundated months.
I reached East Creek. Mud-coloured floodwater lapped at the bumpers of bureaucrats. I retreated, parked beside Hog’s Breath Café and ran towards the sliding doors of Centrelink.
Henry’s mother, Melissa, was behind the queue-less counter. Although I knew she worked there, I was still winded by seeing her.
‘How are you, Lech?’ she asked.
‘I’m good,’ I said.
Melissa checked that I’d filled in the forms correctly.
‘I saw you deleted Facebook,’ she said.
‘I reactivated it the other day.’
‘Good. I like to know what you’re up to.’
I provided Melissa with a truncated version of my recovery from major depression, and the fresh decision to move back to Brisbane for university.
‘What will you study?’ she asked. ‘Politics?’
‘English literature,’ I said. ‘Maybe creative writing.’
‘You should go for it. Henry always said that he thought you’d be some kind of writer. “You should see the books in his room, Mum! All of us are looking at Zoo magazine. Lech’s too busy reading poetry.”’
The sound of Henry’s name punctured my numbness.
‘He really loved you, Lech. I hope you remember that.’
‘I know. He made me feel good about myself.’
‘Well, you deserve to feel good. We all do.’
I submitted the application and kissed Melissa goodbye. Outside, matching fire engines wailed past. Bystanders cocked smartphones towards an uprooted tree. I retreated to the car.
Two thunderstorms had converged above the Pacific Ocean. A supercell flew inland so rapidly it outflanked warning systems. The wipers gnashed against the glass, unable to keep up. Red lights blinked. Police blocked traffic. I inched through white-knuckle gridlock. My iPhone still hadn’t vibrated with a reply from Frida.
Once home, I rushed inside to watch the live disaster. During an ad break, my mother grabbed me a towel so I could dry off.
‘Baby,’ she said. ‘Thank god you’re okay! I was trying to call. The network must be down.’
I realised that Frida hadn’t received my message, and that she probably hadn’t left me for a rugby union player.
The anchor kept referring to an inland tsunami. I looked outside, but I didn’t see any tidal waves. A reporter waded through a flooded street, umbrella in shreds.
Cars parked beside East Creek rammed against each other like dodgems. Antennas peeked from coffee-coloured froth. Water tanks, letterboxes, wheelie bins, metal containers and showroom furniture joined a street parade of submarine rubbish.
‘That could’ve been me,’ I said.
‘You are the luckiest boy alive,’ said my mother.
We were interrupted by the jingle of breaking news. Footage showed a family marooned on the roof of a Mercedes-Benz at a familiar intersection. A 43-year-old woman and thirteen-year-old boy had been swept to their deaths, leaving an eleven-year-old boy behind. I blinked at the image of a drenched survivor clinging to a street sign. He would become the global face of a catastrophic summer.
‘Hey, Lech,’ said my mother. ‘Are you all right?’
I told her about running into Henry’s mother at Centrelink, and my decision to study literature.
‘What’s stopping you writing for a living?’ she asked.
‘There’s no money in it,’ I said.
‘There’s also no money in being unhappy.’
Later, when my mother went to bed, she kissed me goodnight, no trace of rum on her breath.
‘Sleep well, baby,’ she said. ‘I love you.’
——
It became the wettest week in Queensland history. The politicians declared a state of emergency. Bunnings ran out of flashlights and Swiss Army knives.
My mother’s Meals on Wheels were delayed indefinitely. At the nearest shopping centre, squads of survivalist retirees jammed car boots with milk, eggs, bread and toilet paper from a ransacked Woolworths.
I filled a trolley with baked beans, chilli con carne and Four’n Twenty pies. Luckily, the one unloved dessert still in the freezer was Black & Gold Neapolitan, Mum’s favourite. I bought her two tubs, a block of Cadbury Fruit & Nut, and a carton of Pepsi Max.
A black VW was in the carport when I arrived home. Two women were deep in conversation beside the mobility scooter. My mother wore a t-shirt, tracksuit pants and pluggers. Frida was in activewear and pink Asics.
‘Your lovely girlfriend was just describing all the nice things you’ve told her about me,’ said my mother.
Frida laughed. My cheeks reddened.
‘Sorry, darling,’ Mum said. ‘I just meant your friend who happens to be a girl. Where have you been hiding her?’
‘G’day, Frida,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘I wan
ted to make sure you were alive!’
‘She baked a carrot cake,’ said my mother.
‘To celebrate our survival,’ said Frida.
We shuffled inside. I unpacked the supplies.
‘Frida’s neighbour said the range could be closed for months,’ said my mother. ‘You might have to keep living here.’
Frida saw the portrait of ten-year-old me on the fridge in a blue-and-white St Mary’s uniform.
‘You were cute!’ said Frida. ‘And gigantic.’
‘He wasn’t much of an athlete.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said.
Frida and I retreated to the granny flat. I turned on the television. The flood that flattened Toowoomba had travelled at high speed to Brisbane. Reporters chanted the words DEBRIS! and UNPRECEDENTED!
The township of Grantham had been obliterated. News crews filmed police choppers saving families from rooftops. Gutters sank underneath a mudslide. Twelve people had drowned.
We made out with the gravest possible concentration.
‘Nothing like a flood to get the pulse racing,’ I said.
‘Now you want to discuss the floods,’ said Frida.
The human race will be saved from extinction by horny teenagers fornicating in the face of death.
Frida climaxed. I couldn’t. ‘Is this good for you?’ she asked.
‘It’s fantastic!’ I said. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘It’s been taking … a long time. Which I’m all for. But say if there’s anything I can do. I won’t be offended.’
‘I think it’s a side-effect of my antidepressants. But it doesn’t matter if I don’t come.’
Frida synchronised my body to the bedroom with lips and fingertips. She guided me inside from behind.
‘Don’t think about anything,’ she said, ‘except how good this feels.’
My orgasm felt better than a million piss shivers.
‘That was the best thirty seconds of my life,’ I said.
‘I can’t be having all the fun,’ said Frida.
Frida didn’t cure my depression, but she opened my eyes to a few little beauties that persisted in the wake of death. Watching someone cut up carrot cake for dinner while humming Pavement songs in nothing but cotton underwear. Falling asleep next to a warm body after slow sex. Making a person smile with their eyes shut in the grey light of a dawning day. Frida proved that I wasn’t excluded from these saving graces due to the painful things that I’d seen and done and dreamed.