The First Third

by Will Kostakis

  The anecdotes accumulated and they brought with them an unexpected sense of purpose – like standing on stage and confiding in people I’d never met was something I was meant to do.

  I had always been told about the bright future that lay ahead of me, by teachers, distant relatives and Staple World managers, but that future had always seemed hazy to me. The teachers thought I’d make a mark, the distant relatives thought I’d go corporate and the Staple World managers thought I’d make a really good Staple World manager.

  My future had never been that clear to me. It had never been clear at all.

  I wasn’t directionless. There was a point I wanted to arrive at – a house, a family and financial security. But I’d never felt strongly about a way to get there.

  Until now.

  What started as a means of avoiding being carded by a police officer had, in five minutes, become that something I could spend the rest of my life doing.

  A bell rang.

  There was applause.

  And my future filled itself.

  His name was Dean, the guy who’d raised his glass at Sticks ­earlier. He sauntered over when the house lights came on and told me that he had a nonna just like Yiayia Filyo, but when he slid into the vacant chair beside Sticks, I knew he hadn’t come over to see me.

  Dean was asking questions and Sticks was tearing tiny pieces off his coaster as he answered them. I looked elsewhere. The three judges were deliberating up by the bar, exchanging notes and nods.

  I could tell when they were talking about me. It wasn’t that I was perceptive, it was just that one pointed right at me. It seemed encouraging. There was an awful lot of nodding. They called the MC over. It seemed very encouraging.

  They didn’t talk long. The MC approached our table, he had a clipboard in one hand and was adjusting his bowtie with the other. That was the hand he held out to me. Half a schooner meant it took me ten seconds too long to realise he wanted me to shake it.

  I shook it.

  ‘Congratulations, mate,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  My aspirations suddenly grew – a house, a family, financial security and a tour bus with an obnoxiously large photo of me on the side of it.

  ‘What does he win?’ Sticks asked.

  ‘Well,’ the MC began, ‘there’s the fifty-dollar bar tab.’

  ‘Shots!’ Sticks could tell he was more excited than I was, so he added, ‘Another night.’

  ‘And as regional winner, it means you’re invited to compete in next Thursday’s semi-final.’ The MC placed the clipboard and a pen down on the table in front of me. ‘If you fill out this form, we’ll be in touch.’

  I was careful not to write my real name or age. I had to check the date of birth on Steve’s licence when the MC wandered off.

  Sticks nicked the pen when I was done with it. He turned what was left of his coaster over and wrote out his number for Dean.

  ‘Why not just put it straight into my phone?’ Dean asked.

  ‘This gives you the chance to throw it away,’ Sticks said.

  He smirked. ‘Why would I want to?’

  Sticks didn’t reply.

  The MC returned to collect the clipboard and asked if I wanted him to make a big announcement. Most of the audience had cleared out and one bartender was already rearranging the tables back into their original layout.

  ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  He congratulated me again and made a beeline for the bar. Sticks told Dean to move his feet.

  ‘What?’ Dean glanced under the table. He saw the crutches. ‘Did you hurt yourself?’

  ‘No,’ Sticks said, pulling the crutches out and sliding his forearms in. ‘Nice meeting you.’

  Dean seemed confused. ‘And you too.’

  Knowing he was being watched, Sticks started to stroll leisurely towards the exit. Well, no, you can’t exactly stroll on crutches. It’s not that he hobbled, there was definitely too much swagger to call what he did hobbling. His feet dragged and he threw his body forward as he stretched the crutches out in front. They hit the ground and he leapt . . . That was it. He leapt.

  On the way out the door, I looked back. Dean slid the coaster off the table and scrunched it into a ball.

  Mum was waiting for me on the stairs.

  ‘Where were you?’ she asked, standing up.

  In all honesty, Mum was the last person I wanted to tell about Melbourne.

  ‘I was with Lucas.’ It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie either.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Pretty sure, yeah.’

  ‘And why was your phone off?’

  Sticks had switched it off in Malvern and I hadn’t turned it back on.

  ‘It must’ve run out of battery.’ Total lie.

  I wasn’t convincing, and now that she was closer, she could smell something on my breath. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  I couldn’t bend that truth.

  ‘One beer,’ I said. ‘With Lucas.’

  She still looked overly serious when she asked, ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘I’ve had beer before, Mum.’

  She softened. ‘You should have called,’ she said. ‘Yiayia’s enough. I don’t want to have to worry about you going AWOL as well.’

  ‘My bad. Sorry.’ Mum had started shuffling away sleepily when I added, ‘How is she?’

  ‘The same,’ Mum said, stopping to look back at me. ‘They’re dealing with the infection and she’ll be fine until the operation. That’s when the complications start.’

  She continued down the hall. Dad’s address was heavy in my jeans pocket.

  The complications had well and truly started.

  I strode down the hospital hallway, clutching a single-serve tub of burnt fig, honeycomb and caramel ice-cream, my grandmother’s favourite. The saying went, ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.’

  I hadn’t slept much the night before.

  What with Melbourne and Flippant, I anticipated having some trouble unwinding. My big mistake was googling Dad’s address. I sat up in bed, staring at his red-brick cottage until my laptop battery died. I should have been able to shake it off. I’d shaken him off years ago. I’d gone most of my life without him around. When my parents divorced, there was a financial ­settlement. Mum kept the house, Dad kept the business. He paid what he had to and then he was gone. I forgot about him. I knew nothing about his life. And it didn’t bother me, but now . . . I was bothered.

  And that bothered me.

  I needed answers. Why had Yiayia sent me to him? Did she think we’d reconcile after I showed up on his doorstep?

  I was going to confront her, but I knew I couldn’t just storm into her hospital room and shoot from the lip. If there was going to be any confronting, it was going to unfold slowly. And there was going to be ice-cream.

  Of course, it all hinged on Yiayia Filyo actually being alone when I showed up. She wasn’t.

  I lunged backwards before anybody saw me.

  Peter had pulled his chair right up close to her bed. His hands were cupped in hers. She said something I couldn’t quite hear and he laughed. I hadn’t heard his laugh in a long time. It was part way between an exhale and a cough.

  I watched them from the hall. Peter’s concrete bravado was gone, and I could see it made my grandmother so happy. Even the creases of her face grinned.

  I was intruding on their moment, but I didn’t want to leave. It was like staring back in time at the brother I’d lost, and I didn’t want to give that up. Even if I knew that it would only take a slight turn of the head for someone to notice me spying.

  Yiayia turned her head slightly. ‘Hello, darling.’

  Peter followed her gaze and his smile flatlined.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  Peter jerked his hands away from Yiayia. He disappeared behind a sneer. ‘I’m going. Bye.’

  ‘Why you leave now?’ she asked.

  He was on his feet. ‘Gym.’

  She turned to me
and explained, ‘Exercise.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked.

  She nodded sagely. Peter charged past me. He kept his head down as he marched towards the elevators. That was the Peter I was used to.

  ‘Karamela?’ Yiayia had spotted the tub and I was reminded why I’d visited. I stepped into the room and took Peter’s seat. Twisting the lid off I confirmed that yes, it was karamela.

  She took the tub before I could offer to feed her. I relinquished the plastic spoon. She shovelled a heap of the melting ice-cream into her mouth, complained about the sensitivity of her teeth and then did it all again.

  Yiayia Filyo had a milk moustache when I asked her how she’d found him.

  ‘Who?’ she asked.

  ‘Dad,’ I said. ‘How did you find him?’

  She licked her top lip and set down the tub, sighing deeply.

  I expected some kind of exhaustive search, years of verifying rumours and alleged sightings.

  ‘Stella’s nephew work for him,’ my grandmother said. It was a little anticlimactic to be honest. She asked the next question. ‘Did you talk?’

  I shook my head. ‘Was I supposed to?’ I asked.

  She shook her head.

  That made no sense. If it hadn’t been her attempt to force our reconciliation, then why did I go? And why didn’t she tell me I was going down to see him? Why the secrecy?

  ‘Billy.’ She tilted her head forward, until her neck rolled into a second chin. ‘I no stupid. If I say your father there, you no go.’

  ‘Of course I would no go.’

  She seemed proud of herself. ‘Then, I no stupid.’

  ‘He has a kid,’ I said.

  She exhaled. ‘Two. He have two.’

  ‘Yiayia, I don’t care.’

  But I did care. Dad had two new kids. Surprising, given he’d been such an outstanding father the first time.

  She considered it for a moment. She swished a pocket of air around in her mouth, as if physically tossing a thought from cheek to cheek.

  ‘To pio spoutheo pragma ine ikoyenia,’ my grandmother said eventually.

  I caught most of it – the most something thing is family.

  ‘Spouth . . . Spoutheo?’

  ‘Important.’ She didn’t pause before piling more Greek on me. ‘Ama to haseis, then boreis na to pareis piso.’

  I knew that one – if you lose it, then you can’t take it back.

  So, she had sent me to Melbourne to remind me of the family I’d lost? I was used to her teaching me life lessons in a round­about way, but that was a bit bleak.

  ‘I am glue,’ she said.

  I didn’t know whether she was delirious or profound.

  ‘Ti?’ I asked.

  ‘Glue. For Easter, you come, your mummy come, your brothers come. We eat. Family. Because of me.’ She meshed her fingers together. ‘Glue.’

  I was starting to see where she was going with it.

  ‘When your papou die, where his brothers go? They disappear with children and wives. When your mummy divorce your father, he go, his mother go, his brothers go, your cousins go. Everyone leave. Family smaller and smaller and now, so tiny.’ She squinted up at me. ‘Tell me, when I go, you think it stick?’

  ‘I –’

  ‘Ela.’ She sat forward and motioned me closer. I was told to reach into the case of the second pillow. When I did, my fingertips found another folded piece of paper.

  I held it out to her.

  ‘No, you keep,’ she said.

  ‘Whose address is this?’

  ‘No address. I want you . . . do some things for me.’

  I went to unfold the piece of paper when she stopped me.

  ‘You look later,’ she said. ‘You do what I say, you keep family happy and you no lose.’

  ‘Glue,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘Glue.’

  Morning visiting hours ended at half-past twelve. I’d intended on sticking around and hanging out with Yiayia when the in-patient wards reopened at three, so I set myself up in the ca­feteria with the other visitors filling in the time.

  Halfway through a surprisingly not-terrible plate of lamb and veggies, I saw her. She was sitting a few tables diagonally to my right, chewing on her hair as she read a book.

  The freckled girl.

  She turned a page and looked down to her left. Her hair fell a different way. She combed it back. I felt it like fingernails tracing up my spine.

  She was beautiful, in an accidental way.

  The girl caught me staring. Her brow furrowed and I froze. I couldn’t look away, it’d just be weird, so I tossed her a half-smile. She swept her book off the table and walked over.

  My left calf muscle had a split-second spasm.

  She stopped behind the chair opposite mine.

  ‘You’re Filyo’s grandson, right?’ Her voice wavered.

  I made an effort to force my voice out deeper when I answered. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Bill?’

  It was almost too good to be real. I wanted to pinch myself.

  ‘That’s me.’

  She pulled the chair out and slid onto it. ‘I’m Hayley. I met your gran yesterday.’

  ‘Ah.’

  She hesitated, then asked, ‘Did she give it to you?’

  I had no idea what she was talking about. ‘Give me what?’ Then, before she answered, I reached into my pocket and produced the piece of paper. I waved it at her. ‘This?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  By the time I’d left Yiayia’s room, the note had slipped from my mind. I hadn’t even looked at it.

  I unfolded the paper. ‘Haven’t read it though,’ I said.

  ‘Well, go on.’

  I started to read, aware that Hayley was staring at me. It was a relatively short list.

  1. Find your mummy husband.

  2. Have Simon girlfriend in Sydney.

  3. Fix Peter.

  It sounded like Yiayia Filyo, but the handwriting definitely wasn’t hers.

  ‘She asked me to write it down,’ Hayley said. ‘I wondered whether I should or not, but I realised she would have probably gotten someone else to do it.’

  I read the demands again. They were a little bit ridiculous.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  She pulled her head back. It wasn’t the reaction she was expecting. ‘Oh, okay, that’s . . . Whoa, I would not be handling this as well as you.’

  ‘Why not? It’s nothing.’

  ‘No, it’s something,’ she said. ‘That’s a bucket list.’

  ‘It’s a what?’

  ‘You don’t know what a bucket list is?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Seriously? Um . . . Okay.’ She took a moment to choose her words. ‘It’s a list of things a person wants to accomplish before they kick the bucket. Bucket. List.’

  It was kidney stones. Yiayia wasn’t going to kick the bucket. I said so.

  Hayley recovered quickly. ‘Of course not.’

  Yiayia was up there in her room, acting like she was at a rejuvenation spa. There was no bucket in the process of being kicked.

  ‘She won’t.’ I was almost daring Hayley to contradict me.

  She didn’t. ‘You’re right.’

  I read over the demands again. They seemed just as ridiculous, only now, there was a dull ache in my guts.

  I said I had to go. I left my lunch and walked out of the ca­feteria. As I passed through the doors, I broke into a run.

  Sticks had dragged his stool around to the kitchen-side of the counter for a better view. I was doubled over in my seat, heaving in and out, trying to catch my breath.

  ‘Keep going,’ Mrs P said, opening the fridge. ‘You’re not half as dilated as you need to be.’

  Sticks chortled.

  I had run straight from the hospital. It wasn’t even that far but my body had gone into shock. Everything hurt.

  ‘I like this new look, by the way,’ Sticks said.

&
nbsp; He was talking about the patch of mud on my shirt. It was still wet from the morning’s rain and I may have slipped and landed smack-bang on a nature strip.

  Sticks’ mum placed a bottle of chilled water down on the counter in front of me. ‘Sip it,’ she instructed. ‘I’m going to the shops. And, mister,’ she added to Sticks, pointing to the espresso cup in his hand, ‘don’t think I don’t know how many of those you’ve had today.’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ he droned.

  Mrs P lingered. ‘Love you.’

  ‘I know, Mum.’

  ‘Love you.’

  ‘Love you too,’ Sticks mumbled.

  That satisfied Mrs P and she disappeared down the hall. After the front door clicked shut, Sticks asked if I wanted a coffee.

  He wasn’t addicted to espresso coffee so much as he was addicted to making espresso coffee.

  I scowled at him. ‘No.’

  ‘Hey, don’t look at me like that.’ He took a sip from his tiny cup. ‘I’m distinguished.’

  ‘Your espresso machine has toilet rolls for horns,’ I said flatly.

  Sticks had asked his parents for a white machine last Christmas, so that he could stick bits of black contact paper to the sides and make it look like a cow. Her name was Betsy.

  ‘So, Yiayia gave me this today,’ I said, producing the sliver of paper and sliding it across the counter.

  ‘What is it?’ Sticks asked.

  ‘You tell me,’ I said, unscrewing the bottle cap and gulping a whole lot of water.

  Sticks lowered his cup and squinted down at the paper.

  I wanted him to tell me that it wasn’t a bucket list.

  ‘Oh my god.’ He looked to me. ‘This is a bucket list.’

  My heart sank. It was the confirmation I didn’t want.

  The dull ache in my guts intensified. Yiayia was considering what had to be done before she died.

  ‘But,’ Sticks continued, ‘nobody dies from kidney stones.’

  ‘And yet, funnily enough, there’s a bucket list.’

  ‘Yeah, but most people just want to jump out of planes and see Uluru and junk.’ He cocked his head to one side as he inspected the paper, as if that would make everything clearer. ‘Wait, she gave this to you why?’

  ‘She wants me to complete it.’