‘But I know when I see him again, he be that boy who make me laugh and I be the girl by the lake trying to do laundry.’
‘Yiayia. You’re not going anywhere for a long time.’ I hope she’s not just sitting around waiting to die, because I am not going to let that happen. She’s too young, too full of vitality. And call me selfish, but I need her. I can’t do this whole ‘life’ thing without my Yiayia.
‘No worry, baby. I have my children, my grandchildren and my great grandchildren. I want to see your children too. When God say is time, is time. Only then.’
Well, I’m just going to have to do some bartering with God.
‘So you just knew? You didn’t have any questions? You weren’t scared?’
‘I sometimes scared, but I trust my heart. You need to trust your heart, Despina mou. You trust your heart and you no go wrong. You trust what Christo say to you.’
‘He says he’s falling in love with me, Yiayia.’
‘You too.’ She’s not asking me. ‘If you no love, then you no keep that purple rose and put in glass to keep forever.’ How did she know about that?
‘I’m scared that I’m going to do something stupid and lose him, Yiayia. I’m scared I’m going to screw this up.’ Why should this be any different from everything else in my life?
‘You only lose him if you no trust your heart. No ask heart questions. No ask heart to think.’
God I wish my grandmother could teach me how to do that. When I was young, she could answer all my questions, solve all my dilemmas, and make all my problems go away. I want what she and my grandfather had (minus the war-torn village of course) but I just don’t know if I can let go like she is telling me to.
‘Now, you toast more sesame seeds. We have cake to make.’ Cakes can make everything seem better, if only for a little while.
----------13----------
‘Come off it, it hasn’t been that long.’ What the hell is Voula talking about? It hasn’t been that long since I’ve been out with them. Chris and I met Voula and the gang at a bar last week. We stayed, had a few drinks and then headed back to Chris’s place. Oh, shit, I get it now. We had a few drinks, and then we took off – the whole concept of it was ‘we’, or ‘us’, not just ‘me’.
Voula has turned up at my house today, unannounced and hungover. Yiayia answered the door and let her in, and I saw the look on her face as Voula flounced up the stairs towards my bedroom. Yiayia doesn’t like her … and I’m now starting to understand why.
The thing is, I was bound to become a ‘we’ again one day. Voula never had any issue with me being part of a couple when I was with Denny. In fact, she was the one who encouraged me to go out with Denny in the first place. And she was the only one who gave me a hard time when we broke up, telling me that I shouldn’t abandon him like his ex-wife did, telling me that I owed it to him to keep working at our relationship.
‘Oh, sure, you showed up with your darling, sipped one drink for an hour then took off again.’
‘Well, I was driving.’ What did she expect me to do, get hammered then jump in my car and take off?
‘You’ve changed, Desi. You used to be out there. You used to party with us all night. You never bailed on us when you were with Denny.’
I was never happy when I was with Denny. That makes all the difference. I needed to be drunk when I was with Denny. It was the only way to forget and not let anyone know what was going on.
‘I haven’t bailed on you, Voula. I’m still the same person. You bailed on me when I met Chris.’
‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’
‘How many times have I called you to get together?
How many times have I left a message and you’ve never returned my call? And when I do get you on the phone you can’t hang up fast enough.’ I’m starting to get fired up now. ‘You’re the one that’s changed cause you can’t stand seeing me happy. You’d rather I was miserable just like I was with Denny because then you don’t have to focus on how miserable your life is.’ Wow, where did that come from?
‘Bullshit, Des. The only thing that’s changed is you.’
What the hell is going on here? Just because I’m not drunk for ninety-five percent of my life, does that make me a bad friend? Does hanging around at the bars all night make me a good friend? Is that all that I am worth to Voula and the rest of the gang?
‘You think that you’re better than the rest of us, now that you have your yuppie Port Melbourne on the fucking beach boyfriend.’
I do not think that I am better, at this moment in time, I damn well know it.
‘Denny was much better for you than this presump-tuous prick. At least Denny knew how to keep you in line.’
Oh, God, I hope she doesn’t mean what I think she means.
‘What the hell are you talking about, Voula?’ Why is she laughing at me? Jesus, she’s stoned off her head. Just what I need. ‘You knew?’ How could she know Denny used me as personal punching bag? I thought I’d hidden it so well. How could she know and not want to help? ‘You knew and you did nothing?’ How many times have I held her hair while she threw up, coming down from her latest high? How many times have I literally picked her up from the gutter when she couldn’t stand? Gotten her straight before she got home? I’ve held her hand through two abortions and a stomach pumping and this is the thanks I get. Nice to know I actually meant something to her.
‘Oh, please, Des, don’t start that whole battered woman bullshit. You deserve a good slapping every now and then. Keeps you real. And if you were still with Denny instead of yuppie boy, you’d still be one of us. When was the last time Connie or Tom, or even Johnny, wanted to hang with you? Not since you sold out?’
Did they all know? Did they all just want me around drunk as a skunk because they knew Desi was good for a few extra rounds when everyone else had run out of money after scoring their hit for the night? Or did they think if we kept at it long enough I would just change my mind and say yes to whatever the hell they were using on any given night? God, I wish someone would stop my room from spinning. I think I’m about to hurl.
‘Get out, Voula.’ It’s not the room spinning that is making me want to throw up, it’s the sight of Voula standing there, laughing, believing that I deserved what happened, believing that it made me a better person.
‘What?’
Why the hell is she surprised? Did she think I would thank her for this treatment? Did she think I would see the error of my ways and ask her to welcome me back into the fold?
‘I don’t care anymore, Voula. Find someone else to hold your hand when you overdose, to go to the abortion clinics with you. Find someone else who will call your parents at five in the morning because you’re busy having your stomach pumped. Find someone else who will convince them that their angel daughter had her drink spiked and would never do drugs cause she’s a good girl.’
‘You can’t bail on me, Des.’ Is that desperation in her voice?
‘According to you I already have, so what do you care?’ She’s got to be on something pretty strong for her emotions to swing from one extreme to the next like this.
I think she’s had a lot more than her daily start up joint.
‘You need us, Des.’
‘No – I don’t. I don’t need you when you’re like this, Voula. You need to clean up your act. Then maybe one day when you’re clean you can look me up again.’
‘Jesus, Des, look in the mirror. You’ve become everything we hated. You’ve become everything our mothers want us to be. You’ve become a good little Greek girl!’
I can’t believe how angry she is at me. I mean, she’s the one telling me quite clearly that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me unless I’m drunk and single.
She keeps going, on a complete tirade now: ‘We didn’t give in to what everyone else wanted for us, what everyone else thought was right for us – the whole bullshit concept of marriage and kids and the domestic scene. You didn’t want to have a b
ar of the wog scene, and now you’ve bought it hook, line and sinker and sold out on us. You fucking sold out.’
She’s really angry at me. I get it – she feels like I’ve abandoned her, but were we really ever that close? We met at uni and became good friends pretty quickly, but for the last couple of years we’ve only spent time together drinking or cleaning up her drug-related messes. We’ve never shared secrets, real feelings or even a coffee. So now I’m getting angry at her. How dare she lay all this on me? If being happy means selling out then, yeah, I’ve sold out.
‘I didn’t sell out. I grew up, Vouls. And we can still get together. Ever heard of getting together for dinner or a movie or lunch or shopping, or just a coffee? We don’t have to be pissed off our heads to get together.’
‘Sure, would you like us to go pick out furniture for when you and Chrissy-boy marry and set up house, too?’
Stupid bitch. I’ve had just about enough now. I reach for her bag.
‘What the fuck are you doing? Stop going through my bag!’
I’m not going through her bag – I’m dumping everything on my bed. And no matter how hard she fights me, she won’t stop me.
I hold up a little ziplock bag filled with tiny crystals. This cannot be good.
‘What the fuck is this, Voula?’ I feel like I’m in a bad B-grade eighties movie. This is serious shit.
‘It’s just some ice. You should try it. It’ll do you the world of good.’
‘Get the fuck out of here, Voula. Take your shit and piss off.’ No matter how drunk I got with her, I never, ever went anywhere near any shit like this. Alcohol is one thing, but drugs, no way. I saw too many people totally screw their lives up with this sort of shit when I worked at the legal service. I know where it can end up. ‘You’re either going to end up dead or a vegetable if you keep going. I’m so sick of this bullshit from you. I am so sick of holding your hair back while you throw up, picking you up when you can’t walk, having to get you home when you come down from the high. You want to screw your life up? Go ahead. I don’t want any part of it.’
I can’t do it; I can’t help her when she doesn’t want to help herself. And if I let her, she will drag me down with her. Why is it that I was able to say no to all that crap and she couldn’t? We’ve had the same upbringing, the same pressures, the same everything. Why has she, like so many others, turned to drugs? It’s hysterical really, all the kids that Mum talks about being good children are the ones that are so deep in shit that they can’t dig their way out with a shovel. I’m just so glad that I am out of that scene now. I know a lot of it has to do with Chris, but I reckon I would have bailed on that whole scene sooner or later. Maybe it wouldn’t have been three months ago when I met Chris, but it would have happened eventually.
‘Fine, Des, you be a good little Greek girl, with your good little Greek boy. Don’t bother sending me an invite to the wedding – I’d probably throw up over the first course.’
That’s it, her final word and she’s gone. Thank God.
‘Have I changed that much?’ My Yiayia will be honest with me; she’ll tell me the truth. ‘Aren’t I still the same person I was before I met Chris?’
‘Despina mou. You still same girl. You just grow up.’ Maybe.
‘Your Chris make you grow up.’
I realise that in some ways she’s wrong and in some ways she’s right: Chris didn’t make me grow up. He has never, in the three months that we’ve been together, asked me to change anything about myself. But, meeting him did make me realise that although I’d convinced myself that I was happy before, I actually wasn’t. It’s not that I was unhappy being single – that part was fine. It was about how I spent my time and how I used alcohol to numb my pain. Chris didn’t make me stop going to the bars and getting drunk; I stopped because I realised there was just no point to it all. I didn’t even think about it. But after I met Chris, the phone calls inviting me to join Voula and the others stopped coming, and when I tried to call them to get together, they couldn’t wait to get off the phone.
‘That Voula just jealous because she loser.’ How can Yiayia see through people so easily? Even people she has only met a few times? I wish I had her gift.
‘It just seems that some people liked me better when I didn’t have anything special in my life, when all I did was party all night. Why can’t she just be happy for me because I’m happy?’
Why can’t it just be that simple? Why can’t people just be happy for each other? Am I naive to expect that from my friends?
‘She have too many drugs in her stupid head to care about anyone.’
How did Yiayia know that? God she’s good.
‘Fredericki is happy for you, no?’
Yes, Ricki is happy for me. She’s over the moon that things are going so well with Chris and I.
‘And rhat Michael Turk boy happy for you?’
I love the way Yiayia always throws something in about Michael being Turkish when she mentions him. She likes Michael though; she knows he is a good friend.
‘Pity he no have real religion though.’
‘Yiayia, we’re not talking about Michael okay, but, yes, he’s happy for me.’ He’s happy that he doesn’t have to be my rent-a-date anymore when I get invites to non-family things that say Desi and Friend. I roped him into so many of those things that he must be planning the ultimate revenge on me.
‘Despina, the people who love you is happy for you. The people who jealous of you want to make you cry. You no need them. You have your Chris, you have your family and you have your real friends.’
She’s right. It’s just sad that all I was to Voula was someone to get drunk with and to scrape her off the gutter on a regular basis.
‘I do have my Chris, don’t I, Yiayia? He does make me happy.’ I feel like I’ve been floating on air these last three months. I just don’t want the bubble to burst. I’m afraid that sooner or later something will happen, something will go wrong and I’ll end up just as unhappy as I was before I met Chris.
‘No be scared, Despina mou. No be ’fraid to love Chris.’
‘I am a little bit scared, Yiayia. I can’t help it.’
‘No worry my love. One day, you no be afraid to say you love Chris and your heart will be so happy. You love him. I see in your eyes how happy he make you. I see him the one to give me more great-grandchildren.’
Okay, we have to stop this conversation right now. ‘Relax, Yiayia, I’ve only been going out with him for three months! I’m in no rush to get married and have babies.’ Although, if we had a boy and he looked like Chris, what a little spunk he would be! What the hell am I thinking? I think my Yiayia is getting to me.
‘He the one. When you bring the boy home?’
I don’t think so! No way am I unleashing my family on Chris. Besides, that would be like making an announcement to everyone and I do not do announcements. My mother would be picking out wedding attire if I brought Chris home and Yiayia would start singing all the traditional wedding songs in preparation for it all. No way. I am just taking things one day at a time and keeping my family and Chris very separate. If he met my family he would probably run in the other direction anyway. And I don’t think I would blame him in the slightest.
‘Not yet, Yiayia. I’d like him to stay in my life a little bit longer, not meet the wogs from hell and run screaming out of here. And, Yiayia, I’m sorry but I have to go – I have to meet Chris in half an hour.’
We’re going to Katerina’s place to spend some time with the baby. She finally popped a boy out about two months ago. My little godson Billy is so cute. Okay, so I’m still unofficially his godmother until we have the ceremony but I still have to spend my fair share of time with him; make sure he’s used to me before I have to spend the whole hour at the church preparing him for that big dunking in holy water that he’s going to cop.
‘Where you go tonight?’
She’s just as nosey as my mother; luckily, I’m meeting Chris at his place tonight so Mum won’
t strain her neck staring at me through the curtains.
‘Just to one of Chris’s work drink things. But before that we’re going to Katerina’s to see the baby.’ What’s the bet she’s going to read something into this as well?
‘You see, he the one for you.’
Why is she laughing at me? If I didn’t love her so much I’d be annoyed right now.
‘Des, you were such a natural. I mean the way you handed Billy back just before he bought up his milk was priceless.’
He can tease me all he wants, but there was no way I was going to meet Chris’s clients with baby chuck all over me.
‘How did you know he was about to bring it up?’
‘Four nephews and nieces, all raised at my place. I can spot a reflux baby a mile away.’ Still, my little godson is very cute – even when he has guzzled more than any baby his age should. Katerina swears that he was born with the appetite of an eighteen-year-old. She doesn’t care – she’s just happy that her family is now complete and she can close the doors on the baby factory.
‘I swear, I thought you were going to handball him like a football when he started gurgling. But that was the only time you gave him up all night.’
Well, the kid has to get used to me before we get to the church and make my status as his godmother official. It’s a pretty traumatic experience for kids; they’re taken from the safe haven of their mother’s arms and handed over to the godparent for the whole ceremony, and right in the middle of it they’re stripped in front of a church full of relatives and friends that they have probably never met and dunked into a cauldron of water. Then they get slathered in oil. I don’t want my godson squirming out of my arms or crying because he doesn’t recognise me.
‘You’re just a big softie, Des. First you maxed out your credit card at Toys ‘R’ Us, then you read the girls story after story and you fed the baby. You’re clucky.’
There is a huge difference between being the cool aunt or godmother and being clucky.
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