‘Geez, how stoned are ya?’ Paulina interrogated her. ‘Looks like you’ve been crying.’
Oliana sat down and burst into tears.
‘Jesus!’ Jesse looked deeply uncomfortable.
‘Whatsamatter, babe?’ Paulina’s eyes flashed. ‘Pellet break up with you?’
Oliana shook her head, kept weeping. Laurent emerged from the bar, looking pallid and shellshocked. His eyes were as red as Oliana’s.
‘Oi, Pellet,’ Paulina beckoned him over. ‘What the fuck.’
Laurent crossed the beer garden. Slumped beside Jesse. ‘I’m going back to Montréal.’
‘You getting deported?’
He shook his head. ‘It is … canceur. Testiculeur.’
Paulina gawked. Then she burst into tears, too.
‘Please.’ Laurent reached for his beer. ‘You’re not helping.’
‘But …’ Paulina tried to light her ciggie. ‘You’re so good-looking?’
Laurent shrugged.
‘But!’ She sobbed. ‘You can’t lose your balls. You need to pass on your good-looking genes!’
Jesse kicked her under the table.
‘Just one ball.’ Laurent drank. ‘There is a chance of infertility … if I live.’
Paulina looked at Oliana, who nodded tremulously. They flung their arms around each other and sobbed.
‘Jesus, brudda.’ Jesse patted Laurent’s shoulder. ‘That’s … rough.’
‘Yes.’ Laurent nodded. ‘Very rough.’
Paulina stopped crying, whispered in Oliana’s ear. Oliana stopped, too. They stared at each other, whispered some more, before linking hands and rising.
‘Scuse us.’ Paulina sniffed. ‘We need the loo.’
Nodding, the guys stared into their drinks. They were in exactly the same position when Paulina and Oliana returned, cheeks aglow, still holding hands.
‘Loh-rent?’ Paulina smiled bravely. ‘You know Oliana loves you, right?’
Laurent nodded glumly.
‘And you know I love you. As a friend, and an ex-girlfriend.’
He shrugged.
Oliana took his hand, without letting go of Paulina’s. ‘We both love you.’
‘Oh, shit.’ Jesse laughed. ‘Is this what I think it is?’
‘Threesome.’ Paulina took Laurent’s other hand. ‘To show how much we care.’
Laurent stopped looking glum. ‘Err?’
‘We love you!’ Paulina and Oliana chorused. ‘So, so much!’
They kissed, to show him.
‘Wow,’ Jesse marvelled. ‘Just, wow.’
But Laurent was unconvinced. ‘No, thank you.’
Paulina and Oliana broke down, again.
‘Take the threesome, brudda.’ Jesse nudged his friend. ‘How can you say no to those faces?’
Paulina wiped her eyes. ‘You’re invited, too, Jess.’
‘Nay.’ He reddened. ‘Four’s a crowd, eh.’
‘Seurry.’ Slipping his hand free of Paulina’s, Laurent looked at Oliana, only Oliana. ‘She is enough for me.’
Paulina sighed, picked up her ciggie. ‘Well, just so you know. My door’s always open.’
‘Thank you.’ Laurent finally cracked a smile. ‘You’re very generous.’
Jesse lit her ciggie. ‘She’s a psychopath. She’s using your cancer as an excuse to get laid.’
‘Sex and death, babe.’ Paulina blew smoke at him. ‘I didn’t make the rules.’
She almost proved her point in a dark corner of the beer garden, later. But when Jesse’s tongue tickled the roof of her mouth, the beer swelled up in her, the three shots of rum she’d snuck behind his back. She pulled away and spewed under the nearest kentia palm.
‘Jesus.’ Jesse held hair, her shaking shoulders as she cried. ‘Not again.’
‘I’m such a fuck-up. I fuck everything up.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ He stroked her hair. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’
Inside, he made her drink water. They left Wetties together, his arm around her waist so she wouldn’t fall.
She tried to kiss him again, up against the Mazda.
‘Sorry.’ Jesse turned his face away. ‘Your breath.’
‘Tic Tacs!’ Paulina tumbled into the passenger seat, opened the glovebox, poured the whole cannister of mints into her hands and tried to swallow them like pills.
‘Jesus, that’s a choking hazard.’ Jesse saw her reach for her flask. ‘Oh, come on. Don’t.’
‘Fuck you!’ Paulina washed the Tic Tacs down with vodka. ‘My head hurts!’
Then she scrambled over to the driver’s side, tried to start the car.
‘Not happening.’ Jesse jangled her keys. ‘We’re walking.’
‘I already went for my walk today!’
‘This’s tomorrow’s walk. It’s Saturday morning, fuckwit.’
Coming around to her side of the car, he hauled her out.
‘You’re so strong!’ Paulina giggled. ‘Carry me!’
Jesse picked her up, carried her as far as the public toilet block with its mosaic of flowers. There, she grabbed his face and kissed him.
‘You taste like Tic Tac vodka,’ he sighed, putting her down.
Paulina slipped him her tongue. ‘Like it?’
‘Aye.’
They clung to each other, sucking faces, pressing hips. When she tried to lead him into the toilets, though, he sighed again and shook his head.
‘I’m such a fuck-up.’ Paulina’s eyes overflowed. ‘My whole life’s a fuck-up.’
‘You’re alright. Come on.’
Hand in hand, they stumbled up the road.
‘I’m gonna die alone! I’m so fucking old!’
‘Calm down, ulvini. At least you don’t have cancer.’
‘Pellet!’
‘Yeah. Poor dude.’
‘If you get cancer of the balls, we’ll fuck, okay? You’ll let me have your babies?’
‘Yeah, fine.’
‘You have such beautiful lips! And eyelashes. And skin. I want our babies to have all your things, none of my shit.’
‘Um. Okay.’
‘I’m so shit. I’m gonna die alone, Jess!’
‘Can you shut up? You’re bumming me out. Look: there’s your place.’
He pointed at the Great-O White Shark Grill, further up the road.
‘Ohh, Great-O’s!’ Paulina dropped his hand. ‘My great white whale!’
‘Great white shark,’ he corrected her. ‘Shark.’
‘My great white whale.’ She stood on her tippy toes, stretched her hands up to the shark’s wide-open jaws. ‘I love, love, love it!’
Without her having to ask, Jesse lifted her up so she could touch the jagged teeth, trace her fingers over the glassy eyes.
‘I love it so much, Jess! I really love it. You don’t know how much I love it.’
‘I do, but.’ Smiling, he lowered her. ‘You tell me every time.’
She blew kisses at the shark till they turned the corner, started uphill toward Jesse’s. ‘I’m tired,’ she whinged. ‘Camel-ride?’
After a while riding on his back, she complained again.
‘Don’t walk so hard! My head hurts!’
‘Cos you drank too much.’
‘I’m gonna spew.’
She didn’t, though. Only coughed over the grass then lay down and closed her eyes.
‘Don’t, Paulina. You’re getting cow shit in your hair.’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘Come on.’ He patted her cheek. ‘This’s where cows sleep. You’re not a cow.’
‘Am so. Fat cow.’
‘You’re so miggy, I’m surprised you’re not dead yet.’ A note of annoyance crept into his voice. ‘Fucking hell, Paulina. Beer isn’t food.’
‘You’re not my mum.’ She grabbed his crotch. ‘Will you meet my mum?’
Jesse pushed her hand away.
‘Yeah, I said I would. As a friend, though. Just friends, okay?’
‘Sex friends?’
‘We’ve talked about this, remember?’ Sighing, he took out his Camels. ‘Not when you’re like this. If it happens, I want you to be able to remember it.’
‘But I’m always like this, Jess. I’ll never remember.’
‘Yeah.’ He crouched down, lit a ciggie and placed it between her lips. ‘It’s a shame.’
When Paulina woke in Jesse’s bed in just her g-string and his Bauhaus T-shirt, she couldn’t remember how she got there. But her skin was sticky-hot. Her heart scrabbled in her chest like a rat in a burning cage. She had a bad taste in her mouth, a thirst greater than the Pacific.
His arm was around her, warm and tattooed and tanned and hard.
She looked at his cute full-lipped face, his sleeping eyelashes, and the love was so strong, so at odds with the trash-heap of her body, it instantly flickered to fear. Fight-or-flight.
‘Arsehole!’ She kicked him. ‘Why am I here?’
‘Huh?’
‘Why’d you make me sleep here!’
‘Drunk.’
‘Arsehole!’ She kicked him again. ‘I’ve got work.’
‘Later.’
Jesse curled his arm back around her, as if he couldn’t smell the garbage.
‘Fuck you!’ She rolled out of bed, found her skirt. ‘I’m gonna get fired.’
‘Sick day.’
‘We don’t all work for our dads, Camel-shit.’
‘Shhh. Sleeping.’
‘Don’t shhh me!’ She zipped up her skirt, fanned his T-shirt over it. ‘I’m stealing this!’
‘Mmmm.’ He rolled over. ‘Shh, now.’
Paulina spied his jeans slung over a chair, his Camels peeking out of the back pocket. She nicked them. ‘These, too.’
Jesse covered his head with a pillow. ‘Sleep, now.’
‘Fuck you.’ Paulina paused in the doorway for one last perv. ‘You’re beautiful, Jess.’
In the bathroom, she scrutinised the stains on her knickers, the nicks and bruises on her arms and legs. Her piss was dark and foamy. She drank straight from the tap, splashed her face. It looked older than almost-thirty.
She found her shoes by the front door.
‘Fucksake,’ she grumbled, leaving the cottage and seeing no car in the drive.
It came back to her, step by step. A pine he’d stopped to piss under. A cigarette butt with a tiny camel on it. A barbed-wire fence she’d grabbed. In the pre-dawn air, her sweat cooled and reeked, ripe and beery. She tried to breathe only dew, grass, ocean.
As the world throbbed with new light, she stopped to stare at the valley below, the pines turning from black to green.
Her hands shook, drawing a ciggie from the pack. But, for once, her head didn’t hurt.
She walked a bit more. Stopped. Sat on the hill among the cow shit and, for no other reason than just being there, cried her eyes out.
She was still crying when a lady drove up, a little later. She was about her mum’s age, wanted to know if everything was okay.
‘Yeah.’ Wiping her face, Paulina waved at the valley, the blue sea beyond. ‘It’s just this place. It’s so pretty. I can’t believe I live here, sometimes.’
AULULARIA
Judy took him for a professor, the bloke the next table over with the off-white hair. Then she saw the dictionary he kept checking, his book so heavily annotated it looked like it was bleeding. When she saw the title, she laughed.
‘Sorry.’ Judy blushed when he looked over. ‘Just, that’s the unfinished one, isn’t it? The Pot of Gold ?’
His face fell. ‘You’re telling me I’ve spent hours translating this play and I don’t even get to find out the ending?’
‘Your tutor didn’t tell you? I s’pose she wanted to motivate you to finish it.’
The bloke set down his book. ‘There goes my motivation.’
‘Oh, don’t stop reading because of me! You’ll fail your class.’
‘You don’t have much faith in me, do you?’
‘Sorry.’ Judy steadied her face. ‘What’s it about, then?’
‘There’s this old man. Euclio. He’s a tight-arse.’
‘That’s what it says in the dictionary? “Tight-arse”?’
‘That’s a John Quinlan translation.’ His eyes were very blue, all of a sudden. ‘I’m John.’
Judy knew she should probably introduce herself, but instead she just tapped her name tag. ‘I better get back to the Student Help Desk.’
‘Help Desk?’ His eyes followed her as she stood. ‘I thought you were a professor.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘I was considering dropping Latin and signing up for your class.’
‘Sorry to disappoint.’ Hot-faced, she slung her handbag. ‘But if you ever need to change classes, come see us. We’ll sort you out.’
‘You’ll sort me out?’
She mustered a smile. ‘I don’t think you should drop Latin, though. After all that hard work.’
‘Alright.’ He winked. ‘I like to finish what I start.’
Judy’s cheeks were aglow, walking briskly across campus. By the time she was back at her desk, she’d pushed the reason for their glow out of her mind. By mid-afternoon, she’d forgotten what he looked like. She remembered, though, once he was standing before her.
‘Oh, hello,’ she stammered. ‘You’ve got an enquiry?’
‘I’ve got an enquiry, yes.’ He sat. ‘Can I take you out to dinner?’
Judy forgot what he looked like again, in the time between when he asked her out and when they met, two nights later, outside the library. ‘There you are!’ He appeared out of the shadows, grinning like a ghoul, taller than she remembered, hair yellowish and semi-transparent in the streetlights.
‘John.’ She flinched. ‘Sorry. I forgot what you looked like.’
‘That explains the look of horror.’
‘No! I just mean … nice jacket?’
John dusted off his sleeves. ‘Covered in cat hair.’
‘You have a cat?’
‘Three.’ Her face must’ve done something. ‘Not a cat person?’
‘Well.’ She laughed weakly. ‘Three’s better than thirty.’
They started across the dark campus, pace slow, height difference awkward.
‘I thought, this Italian place—’
‘You told me.’ He smiled. ‘I made a booking.’
‘Oh? Lovely.’
‘How was your thing?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Wednesday. You said you had a thing.’
‘Oh, yes. Volunteer work.’
‘Really? Where?’
‘A suicide prevention hotline.’
‘Really?’ John looked impressed. ‘Must be hard work.’
‘I seem to have a knack for it.’ Judy picked up her pace. ‘My daughter, Paulina. She … had trouble.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me too.’
Judy kept her eyes down, hoping he’d get gastro or remember he had to feed his cats or something.
‘I’ve got four,’ John piped up. ‘Daughters.’
‘Four daughters,’ Judy repeated. ‘Three cats.’
‘No sons. No dogs.’
‘Wives?’
‘Two exes.’
‘Do they hate you?’
John laughed. ‘You don’t pull any punches.’
‘Sorry,’ Judy mumbled. ‘I don’t know why I said that.’
‘They tolerate me.’
‘You’re tolerable, then?’
‘You’l
l have to let me know later tonight.’
It was too warm and bright inside the restaurant, the air bready and fragrant with tomato and basil. Judy felt like a scientific specimen, unwinding her scarf from her neck.
‘You look stunning,’ John said. ‘I meant to tell you.’
Judy waved her hand, pretended to peruse the wine list, though she couldn’t read a word without her specs. John took a pair from his pocket; they aged him another five years.
‘Should we get a bottle?’
‘Good idea.’
‘Barolo? Nebbiolo?’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘Sangiovese?’
‘Really, I have no idea.’
‘Neither do I.’ He looked sheepish. ‘I hoped you did.’
The waiter who brought their bottle was distractingly handsome, with pants so tight Judy didn’t know where to look. He stood very close as she sampled the wine.
‘Yes.’ Judy swallowed. ‘Good.’
When he tried to pour John’s sample, he held up a hand. ‘I’ll take her word for it.’
‘Have you been?’ John asked, as she stared after the gorgeous waiter. ‘Italy?’
‘Gawd, no. I’ve never been anywhere, except—’ she faltered. ‘I’ve never travelled.’
‘Never wanted to?’
‘Not really.’ She laughed. ‘I sound like a rube, don’t I?’
‘Don’t ask me. I’m a cultural wasteland, according to my daughters.’
‘That’s why you’re learning Latin? To get some culture?’
‘That.’ He shrugged. ‘And coming to terms with my shitty Catholic childhood.’
‘Oh, I had one of those.’
‘Come to terms with it yet?’
Before she could answer, the waiter returned with his notepad. ‘Um,’ Judy hazarded a guess. ‘I’ll take the gnocchi?’
John frowned at the menu, glasses perched on the dry, reddish tip of his nose.
‘Rigatoni, please.’ Once the waiter was gone, John removed his glasses. ‘You could’ve borrowed mine, you know.’
‘Sorry?’
‘My specs. Or I could’ve read the menu to you.’
Judy took a deep swallow of wine. ‘There wasn’t much to come to terms with, really. I had an easy time. I was the baby.’
‘I was smack in the middle: two brothers, two sisters.’
‘Sounds crowded.’
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