The Full Catastrophe

by Rebecca Huntley

  Just as things seem to be getting somewhere in the general vicinity of mutual pleasure, he rolls over me and lies back with his hands behind his head, then gestures in the direction of my laptop – my iTunes is playing – and announces, ‘I’m listening to Bob now.’

  We lie there for a moment, him in silent reverence in the church of Bob Dylan, me imagining shooting lasers out of my eyes at him until his skull begins to crumble before bursting into flames.

  ‘Wow,’ he says, his tone about as far from the dictionary definition of ‘wow’ as you can get, ‘you’ve got a lot of deep tracks on this playlist.’

  ‘No shit, drongo,’ I feel like saying. ‘I was a professional music critic for thirteen years.’ But I just mumble something like, ‘Oh, yeah.’

  A couple of hours later, his phone alarm goes off to remind him to move his car before the parking conditions change at 6 am. ‘Are you going to come back after you move the car?’ I ask, in a Golden Globe–worthy impression of someone who wants someone to come back after they move their car.

  ‘No.’ He sniffs, as though I’d just asked him to meet my parents.

  I consider leaping out of bed to kick the door shut after him, yelling, ‘And stay out!’ Instead, I roll over and start playing Bejeweled.

  It is, I vow, the last time I will ever have sex in Los Angeles.

  Months later, at San Diego Comic-Con, I run into a former Tinder match at a party on a pirate ship. He was a journo who, despite a few promising dates, couldn’t seem to find the time in his 24/7, eight-days-a-week lifestyle for a relationship or anything resembling one.

  Our little moment on the pirate ship is like something out of a rom-com: I’m busy trying to catch Henry Cavill’s attention by the bar, and then I turn, the crowd parts, and I see my former match across the … floor? Deck? We’re too far apart to talk, so he does an exaggerated mime that seems to imply he feels stupid for not making a go of our burgeoning relationship. I make a face that says, ‘I agree, I look hot as shit.’ (I do; I’m wearing elf ear tips.)

  Smash cut to forty-five or so minutes later and we are making out in the concrete garden of the Gaslamp Hilton. I mention something about having soooo much stuff to bring back from San Diego to LA on the train and he says, in an incredibly hot bit of dirty talk, ‘I have a car and I’m driving back solo, my friend’s ended up staying longer. I can take some of your stuff back, if you like?’ It’s 2.45 am and I’m ready to marry a workaholic games journalist.

  The next morning, he pulls up outside the Hilton and I meet him with a few boxes filled with Game of Thrones and Lord of The Rings costume ephemera, including a large swathe of swords I advise him not to keep visible while driving, you know, because of cops. We have an awkward kiss and he agrees to drop my costumes and props around at a convenient time when I get back.

  I stroll back to the hotel via Starbucks, where the barista writes my name as ‘Cleam’, and I’ve never felt happier. After nearly two years in LA, things seem to be working out. I’ve finally met a guy who knows that the quickest way to a girl’s heart is to offer to transport her 47" Anduril replica sword up the Pacific Coast Highway!

  As soon as I arrive back in LA my dream of a spousal visa crumbles as I realise that my 47" Anduril replica sword is now being held hostage in the trunk of a workaholic games journalist’s car. He’s too busy to come over today, or tomorrow, or most of this week. Actually, how’s two weeks from now for me?

  Like sands through the hourglass, the next few weeks slowly stretch on until, miracle, he has a few hours in which he will be able to deliver my Comic-Con gear to my apartment.

  When he eventually arrives, I’m wearing my pyjamas and eating a plate of pita breads smeared with Vegemite. He shuffles into my studio apartment, leans the swords and costume boxes against the wall, and seems to be motioning me to give him the grand tour. I oblige, taking him into the tiny kitchen where earthquakes jiggle the fridge power cord out of the wall socket, and where one day huge chunks of white plastic (and … other things) started belching out of the sink because my upstairs neighbour had used Drano after a ‘big night’. I showed him the bathroom, the adjoining wall of which was thin enough that I would hear my neighbour vomiting uncontrollably at all hours.

  We go back into the bedroom–living room, me holding my last Vegemite pita. He tells me he’s had a bit of a cold that he hasn’t been able to shake since Comic-Con. I weakly joke about ‘con flu’. We both stand there for a few more minutes in silence, aside from my air-conditioner rattling in the window. Suddenly it dawns on me that he’s waiting for the internationally recognised currency for transporting LARP weapons in a sporty hatchback: human sex.

  Soon after that moment of realisation, we are on the bed, having sex, and all I can think about is the Vegemite pita I abandoned on the side table for this express purpose. He feels clammy and cold, and I wonder if con flu is considered a sexually transmitted disease. The sex is so bad. It’s bad in a way that is ultimately crushing: almost silent, plodding, the bare minimum two human beings can give each other in the way of intimacy and a show of erotic frisson.

  Seconds stretch on like hours and eventually he peels his body away from mine. The transaction complete, he gathers all his things and leaves.

  After I take a shower and scrub off the con flu, I retrieve my last Vegemite pita, not yet stale, from the bedside table. I take a seat at the kitchen table, open my laptop, and eat while investigating how much it would cost to ship my entire life back to Australia, and vow never again to live in Los Angeles.

  Vows, Wows and Woes

  Annie Nolan

  IT WAS AROUND the time that I found myself standing in a redbrick public toilet block, between the ceremony and photos, in a giant white gown, with my legs apart and my friends assisting me to insert a tampon, that I wondered again if this whole marriage thing was right for me.

  I already had three children with Liam, our assets were tied, we already knew we loved each other, and I wasn’t going to be taking his last name. Nothing was really going to change for us after marriage. And that highlights my privilege, as marriage has been used to oppress women for millennia – seen as objects going from our fathers to our husbands. Many sisters across the globe don’t have a choice to enter into it like I did. I felt a pang of guilt as I felt a pang of uterine cramping.

  They say that young girls often fantasise about this ‘special day’. I was never that little girl. I often felt let down by the fairytales I loved because they almost always ended with the lead female character being ‘saved’ by an egotistical prince, and the couple kissing on their wedding day. Those princes really do have a ridiculous saviour complex, especially when the forest and ocean animals in most Disney movies did much more to help the women than they did.

  But there I was, not super keen on the institution but hypocritically adorned with ring on finger and in a gown so large I was unable to navigate to my nether regions. It did have pockets though.

  Where on Earth was my prince when I needed to make sure I didn’t get blood on this restrictive white gown?

  ‘Aren’t you on the pill, Annie? Why the hell wouldn’t you skip your period on your wedding day?’ My bridesmaid laughed, holding up the dress like a blanket fort we once made as children.

  ‘As if I planned this! After everything that’s happened today, are you really surprised?’ I groaned back.

  I think the reason I wanted to wed all came down to my inability to control my love of parties, a dash of internalised Catholicism from a childhood raised in the Church, and my incessant need to make my family happy.

  Oh, and love too. Bloody love.

  Having a party was a huge factor in us picking New Year’s Eve for our wedding date. However, the date proved to be an issue when it came to finding a caterer the day before the wedding, when our original caterer became unwell. As the caterer was being taken to hospital and his staff hadn’t been briefed on what to do, the deliveries of fresh food were arriving. My family stepped in and took
charge. I had aunties, uncles and cousins preparing food and coming up with new recipes in the kitchen. Although I really thought we should just have a barbecue and not worry about it, I was extremely grateful to my family for playing ‘Ready, Steady, Cook’ and putting on a feast with the random ingredients they had. On the day, the caterer was much better, so I ended up inviting him to the wedding and he helped out as a waiter. But my mother also nearly needed hospitalisation after the ordeal.

  Things really didn’t go to plan for Mum. She insisted that she didn’t want to burden my make-up and hair people on the day so found a ‘lovely lady down at the shops’ to do it. A great idea, until she stormed through the door where the bridal party was getting ready asking, ‘Do I look shit?’

  Everyone looked at one another to see who was courageous enough to tell the truth. I don’t like to criticise someone’s appearance, but I could only assume that the lovely lady somehow hated my mum. Because, indeed, she looked shit. Her lips were over drawn in fluorescent pink, the woman had used heavy blue eyeliner, and Mum’s eyelashes were so large they went over her eyebrows and could possibly take flight. Her hair was so tightly curled to her scalp that even Shirley Temple would say those curls needed to be brushed out.

  I was the one who had to tell her.

  ‘I knew it! I knew it. I haven’t even seen myself properly yet.’ She huffed despairingly as she walked up the hallway. Then seconds later, she screamed when she saw herself in the mirror. ‘I look like one of those blow-up sex dolls!’

  Kindly, my hair and make-up artists cast their magic and made Mum look herself again.

  Moments later the flowers arrived. Flowers for another person’s wedding that we didn’t order. It wasn’t a big deal to me, as I find it hard to get too upset about plants. My bouquet was redone with lovely roses, but yeah, I suppose it’s unusual to have lots of bright gerberas as the wedding flower. Colourful though!

  After that, and only minutes before the wedding, my children accidentally poured water onto the laptop from which I was going to read my vows. The bridesmaids were so stressed about it they’d wrapped a pillow around it and weren’t going to tell me, hoping the laptop would miraculously dry out before the ceremony. It’s hard not to look suspicious carrying a pillow to a wedding though, so I swiftly asked why they were planning to take a nap. My best friend broke the news to me.

  The vows were just about the only thing I deeply cared about on the day. I was more organised about writing those promises to Liam than almost anything else at the wedding, and as I have poor eyesight I was going to read them off the laptop with zoom. I had been relatively calm up to that point, but this rattled me a little. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes and I tried ever so hard to keep looking up and suck my tongue to the roof of my mouth, so I didn’t blink and let the tears shoot down my face.

  By a stroke of luck, another friend had a computer and the vows were able to be retrieved from my emails. The laptop never worked again and even as I write this, I’m finding myself yelling, ‘Stand back!’ to my kids. I often wonder what my best friend was going to do when I found out in the middle of the ceremony that the laptop was broken.

  Mere milliseconds after the laptop debacle, drivers from two different bus companies turned up to take us to the venue. (You read that right, bus companies. I told you I love partying – I couldn’t stand the thought of missing out on something if I were to travel in a fancy car to the wedding instead of with my friends.) Unfortunately, there’d been a miscommunication, so we had arguing drivers out the front of the house. What happened there is a blur, but it was clearly resolved as I was ushered onto the bus and driven to the church, albeit a tad late.

  Did I mention it was a record high temperature day? Over 40°C in Ballarat – a place known for always being cooler than the rest of the state.

  I cringe as I write this, as these are terribly superficial issues to those facing genuine hardship. Going out to visit my younger brother’s grave after the ceremony to place my bouquet on it, I was reminded that being alive but a bit stressed was, in itself, a gift.

  Nevertheless, I have sympathy for the unfortunately named ‘Bridezillas’. Though weddings are meant to be about two people, it’s one of the rare, socially acceptable times when women are allowed to be demanding, unapologetic, in control and in the limelight. To prioritise their happiness and set expectations high.

  This was the day when I’d find out whether I had an inner Bridezilla, as things continued to fall off the rails.

  Especially when I saw my two-year-old twins dragging each other across the dance floor at the reception and smiling with blue mouths. There was only one thing being served with blue colouring at our wedding: daiquiris. I marched over to the kids’ table and, to my horror, I saw glasses of blue drinks. Many of them nearly empty. My grandma, who had offered to care for the children, defended herself. ‘Well who serves blue iced drinks that can’t be enjoyed by kids on a hot day? That’s just cruel.’

  After a quick assessment by my relatives who work in medicine, the kids were given the all-clear to party on. But the little girls’ continuous compliments – ‘You look so beautiful’; ‘No, youuu look so beautiful’; ‘You’re my best friend’; ‘Well, you’re myyyy best friend’ – did remind me of conversations I’d overheard in the women’s toilets in nightclubs.

  After emergency catering, unwanted flowers, my mother’s drag look, laptop failure, the chauffeurs’ fight, suspected drunk kids, record-high temperatures, and an unexpected period, the wedding was drawing to a close and I was optimistic there would be nothing else that could go wrong. It was 3 am after all.

  It was over. Exhausted, sweaty and cramping, I piggy-backed my inebriated new husband to our hotel. I swiped the card to get in and it buzzed back at me. I looked at the card, assuming I had done it the wrong way around, but when I tried again the lock buzzed back at me once more. We were locked out. At this point I deliriously laughed an ‘Of course we are’ laugh. As it turns out, the cards used to get into the hotel reset each year, and as we got married on New Year’s Eve, our cards were invalid. Together we slowly walked to my parents’ house, where they answered the door in a fright, as they weren’t expecting us. They kindly gave up their double bed and lay on single mattresses next to us on the floor. Consummating the marriage was never going to happen on our wedding night.

  I rolled into Liam’s chest and couldn’t stop giggling. I whispered to him, ‘I bet you didn’t imagine our first night together as a married couple would be in my parents’ bed?’

  But being together to laugh, no matter our relationship status or hurdles, meant we were fortunate. We had gone through far bigger issues than the series of events we’d faced on our wedding day – deaths, our children being born micro premature, illness. Perspective was a gift we had in our relationship. It made us love and appreciate every moment together, even when our grand plans were disrupted.

  ‘I will love you until the moment I take my last breath, my heart beats for the final time and my brain is able to think of you no more. And if my soul is lucky enough to live on, I will search for you just to let you know one last time, that I still love you,’ I said in my vows.

  I look back and I can see I was right, not much did change for us. But I now know that I love being married to him. I’ve even come to the view that our wedding, in all its hot mess, was symbolic of the life we share together and was indeed perfect for us.

  I now also know that New Year’s Eve is the hardest date to get a babysitter for an anniversary.

  I’ll Be a Real Man

  Robbie Buck

  I’M BLESSED WHEN it comes to catastrophes; indeed I feel my cup runneth over, especially in my love life. Particularly in my teenage love life. So here is my catastrophic quest for love. It’s my Homer-like Odyssey set in an ancient land.

  This quest began in Birdsville, a small town and pub in far western Queensland, near the border with South Australia. The character in this quest is mini me, an eighteen-year
-old art college student with shoulder-length hair, there with some of his art student friends to document the legendary annual Birdsville Races. But our hero has something else on his mind. Something more important than the races. He feels, no he knows, that he’s in love. He’s in love with a woman he hasn’t seen for months and he’s pining. And this woman is only about 1000 kilometres due north. Earlier on that year he’d had a very short fling with this glorious young woman from Sydney (our hero lived in Brisbane). They’d started a correspondence and began to realise that maybe they had a thing for each other.

  Epic love is never easy. And it had grown harder when our young lovers were separated even further. She’d gone to live at Canobie Station, a vast cattle station up in the Gulf Country. And our hero was feeling that maybe being this close – only about 1000 kilometres away – perhaps he could go up there to see the love of his life.

  You know our hero is me, so let me now reveal my love was Elizabeth. And nothing would sway me from being with her. I had an image in my head that I’d turn up at this cattle station and, a bit like a Mills and Boon novel, she would come out from the homestead and I’d be there at the gate. She would see me and she’d have the wind in her hair and she’d look out and there would be the love of her life. We’d have our arms out and we’d run towards each other and embrace. This vision made me brave.

  Most people fly into Birdsville, so I thought it would be easy to get a lift in a plane to Mount Isa. From there I could hitch to see my girl. So on the final night of the Birdsville Races, after a few schooners, I went around to everybody in the pub and said, ‘Are you leaving tomorrow in a plane and are you going to Mount Isa and what are the chances of getting a lift with you?’

  Now what was amazing about this was that I was offered a lift to Adelaide, a lift to Brisbane, a lift to Perth; I was offered a lift to pretty much every part of the country, but I wasn’t offered a lift to Mount Isa. Until finally the last fellow I spoke to said, ‘Look, I’m going to Mount Isa tomorrow, but I’m not flying. I’m driving.’ I didn’t even know there was a road to Mount Isa but he assured me there was, and while it was only open about three months of the year, it was open at the moment. My noble new friend slurred, ‘It’s going to take me two days, but if you are serious, meet me at my tent at 6 am tomorrow and if you are there you get a lift.’