by Mel Campbell
‘I get it,’ he said in a low voice. He took a deep breath, and Rose could feel his rib cage expanding. Suddenly she realised how close they were. Her arms wrapped around him. Her hand on his. Her entire body angled around him, from chest to thigh. For a second she wished he would turn around and take her in his arms, holding her the way she was holding him. She imagined him leaning down, his lips parting to meet hers …
But then reality kicked in. This couldn’t happen. Rose felt her cheeks burn, and not just from spending an hour in a truck that had been sitting in the sun all day. She was glad Dave couldn’t see her face. ‘Yes, um, right, so that’s how it works,’ she said, stepping away. ‘Now you have a go.’
Dave continued to saw at the plank, with growing confidence. With each powerful stroke, the blade plunged deeper into the wood. With a crack the plank finally split in two, and the halves clattered separately onto the truck’s metal floor. It was as if a spell had been broken.
He turned to her with a delighted expression. ‘Well done,’ Rose said. ‘That’s probably enough for today.’
‘Are you going to be around later on?’ he said. ‘We’re only filming some couch confessions after this – it’ll take about an hour.’
‘I’m really sorry, but I can’t,’ Rose said. ‘Tonight’s show is the one where they introduce me, and my parents have invited a few friends over to watch it with us.’
His face fell. ‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ he said. ‘I really thought we were getting somewhere.’
‘We are,’ Rose said. ‘You’ve definitely come a long way since this morning.’
‘I haven’t got there yet,’ Dave said. He was still holding the saw; now he reached past Rose’s shoulder to replace it on the hook on the wall of the truck. His face was close to hers. Close enough to kiss …
‘Dave!’ came a voice from back towards the depot. A young, female voice. ‘You’re needed back on set!’ Rose and Dave froze, listening. ‘Are you sure he’s out here?’ the voice continued, seemingly to someone else.
‘Did you hear that?’ Rose said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘You’d better go.’
He was gazing into her eyes. ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ he said.
‘DAVE!’ the voice yelled, closer to the truck this time.
Rose looked back at him. ‘Dave,’ she said, ‘you’re married.’ She ducked under his outstretched arm, walked to the end of the truck, jumped down, and walked away, not looking back.
So much for a quiet TV night with ‘just a few friends over’. There were so many cars parked in Rose’s street that she had to park five doors down. At least it was a nice night for a walk. As she got closer to her house, she was horrified to notice balloons and streamers tied to the front porch. The front door was wide open, and from the house she could hear the steady thump of dance music. Her parents usually listened to classical music.
Warily, Rose entered the house and dumped her stuff in her room. Strangers were conversing in the hall, and a hubbub of voices came from the back of the house. In the kitchen, more people Rose didn’t recognise were standing around Alan, who was prying oysters from a tin and forking them onto dainty crackers. The benchtop was drizzled with disgusting oyster juice.
Rose turned to the lounge room with a mounting sense of horror. She didn’t recognise anyone. She also didn’t recognise the fancy food laid out on the table. Her mum must have got in a caterer. ‘Is that a lobster?’ she said out loud.
‘Bitches be cray,’ Renton said behind her. She turned to find him chomping on a turkey leg, like Henry VIII. ‘The parents went all out. They must really love you.’ He looked sadly at the corner of the room, where his laptop was open on the Backed-Up Toilet landing page. The rest of the room was crowded, but nobody was standing near Renton’s computer.
‘I need you to set up the screen for the projector,’ Renton said.
Rose frowned. ‘The projector? Does it even work? Why can’t we just watch it on the TV?’
‘Mum and Dad want to use the projector. They said it’s a special night.’
Special for them, Rose thought, this isn’t what I wanted at all.
‘The projector doesn’t even work properly,’ she said. ‘This is going to be a disaster.’
‘That was for movies,’ Renton said. ‘I’ll plug it into the amp and the set-top box, so that should be fine. But we need the screen up to test it.’
Rose looked around. ‘Where are you planning on putting it? The whole problem we had before was that the projector was too powerful to use indoors.’
‘We’ll put it in the window and project out into the backyard. So, just set the screen up along the back fence.’
Rose had built the screen in the first year of her apprenticeship, when Renton had bought the fancy projector online and had it shipped it over from Japan. After the home theatre setup had proven too logistically daunting for her family and they’d returned to the simpler pleasures of their plasma TV, the big screen was now gathering dust in the shed. Which was locked, and her dad had the key.
Back in the kitchen, Alan was now wrapping things in ham and securing them with toothpicks. Slices of cantaloupe; asparagus spears; pineapple chunks; cubes of cheese. Was he also wrapping a pen?
‘Hey, Dad,’ Rose said, ‘how’s it going in here?’
He looked up; he was clearly flustered. ‘Fine, fine, all fine.’
‘So,’ Rose said, ‘can I have the key to the shed? Renton wants me to set up the screen.’
Alan wiped his hammy hands on a tea towel and rummaged in his pocket. ‘You haven’t seen the Plato’s Grave team, have you?’
‘Whose grave?’
‘Plato’s Grave! It’s the most popular film podcast in the country! Their listenership is in triple figures!’
‘What are they doing here?’ Something occurred to her. ‘They’re not doing a live broadcast, are they?’
‘No, your mother and I have been trying to get a segment on their show for ages,’ Alan said. ‘We want to talk about films that were meant to launch franchises but never did. Our idea for a title was, “Don’t Call Back”. But they never called us back.’
‘You don’t need those guys, Dad. You can start your own podcast.’
‘We won’t need to! Once they see you on your show they’ll beg us to come on board. I saw them come in, but I’ve been stuck in the kitchen and I haven’t had a chance to say hello.’
‘I guess,’ Rose sighed. ‘What do they look like?’
‘Ford’s wearing a black turtleneck and glasses. Holden’s got a white shirt, black jumper, and glasses. And Mercedes is in a black-and-white striped top, and wears glasses.’
Rose looked around the room. Most of the people here could fit Alan’s description. ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said, and headed for the shed.
As she was unlocking the padlock on the shed door, her mother waved her over. ‘Darling, a word?’
‘What is it, Mum? I have to set up the screen for the –’
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Sarah said, ‘but I’ve invited a friend along …’
‘It’s nice that you have friends,’ Rose said.
‘A friend for you.’
‘Oh, Mum.’
‘His name’s Tarquin. He runs a bespoke video streaming service.’ Sarah saw the look on Rose’s face. ‘I know you’ve been lonely since Marco left. And Tarquin seems so nice. He’s into television – and you’re on television. It makes sense.’
‘How do you even know this guy?’ Rose said.
‘I met him in a comments thread on a recap of The Sceptre’s Tip.’
‘Are you sure he dates women, Mum?’
Sarah looked offended. ‘I wouldn’t dare presume his orientation! You know how supportive I am of LGBTIQA+ issues. But he did seem interested when I told him about you.’
‘Can you at l
east tell me what he looks like, so I know who to avoid?’
‘No, but he knows what you look like.’ Sarah squeezed her daughter’s upper arm. ‘Just go with it. What’s the harm in saying hello?’
More than anything, Rose felt embarrassed. She was twenty-two: she shouldn’t need her mum to set her up with men. And then there was Dave. The sensible part of her knew there was no real future for her with a married man. And it didn’t really make her feel great about herself that she was putting herself out there for a guy who wasn’t available. She couldn’t deny there was real chemistry between them, and he’d shown he was definitely interested in her. But she couldn’t see a way around the whole marriage thing.
Maybe she should keep an open mind about Tarquin; he was single, at least according to her mum. She decided she wouldn’t run away from Tarquin, but he’d have to bring his A-game. The first mention of The Sceptre’s Tip and she was out of there.
She found the screen stashed along the wall of the shed. It was sad to see dust coating the wooden frame she’d spent so long carefully measuring, sawing, nailing and gluing. Rose had designed it to fold up like an accordion for easy storage, with fold-out freestanding legs. The canvas screen was rolled up at one end. Now, she hefted it over one shoulder to carry into the backyard.
Rose found a clear spot in the yard and began to set up the screen. She folded out the legs and clicked them into place, then attached the metal eyelets at the free end of the canvas to the matching hooks on the far end of the wooden frame. Briefly the screen reminded her of the sails on the boats at The Dock. She wished she’d had a chance to work on the rigging.
‘And this must be the woman of the hour!’ said a voice behind her.
Rose turned. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘All this is for you, right? You’re Rose?’
She exhaled, sounding more frustrated than she’d intended. ‘That’s right.’ She looked down at her T-shirt; she was still wearing the one from work with her name on the chest. ‘Good guess.’
He held out a hand. ‘I’m Tarquin. Your mum said to say hello.’ He paused, and smiled winningly. ‘Hello.’
He was better looking than Rose had expected. Perhaps he was in his late twenties, casually dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and a hoodie that looked like a deliberately chosen outfit, not a bunch of garments grabbed from a bedroom floor. His hair was wavy, collar-length, and flopped artfully over his eyes. He was wearing round tortoiseshell-framed glasses.
‘Do you want to help me with the screen?’ she said. ‘Just hold this end steady while I fold it out.’
With a smile, Tarquin obeyed. Rose quickly extended the frame to its full length and secured the second leg. The screen unfurled, and Rose briskly hooked the rest of the eyelets around the top and bottom until the canvas was stretched taut. Its smooth, painted surface still looked fresh; she’d coated it with several layers of very pale grey paint. Rose had done paint-chip tests to discover the precise shade that would best display colour contrasts.
She sneaked a look at Tarquin. He was no Dave, but he scrubbed up okay.
‘I made this,’ she said to him. ‘Three years in the shed and it still looks good.’
‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘It’s not quite front row at the Royal Regal, but it’ll do.’
‘Do you go to the movies a lot?’ Rose said. He clearly wasn’t impressed by her handiwork.
‘When I can. I watch a lot of stuff at home these days.’
‘Yeah, Mum says you run a streaming site.’
‘It’s more like an online community,’ Tarquin said. ‘We celebrate screen culture in all its forms. I curate hard-to-find rarities and present a selection of lost and forgotten classics …’
Rose was already tuning out. ‘Reality TV doesn’t exactly sound like your cup of tea.’
‘Yes, well … your mother can be quite persuasive.’
‘I mean, I don’t even really watch TV myself.’
Tarquin took her by the hand. ‘Oh, TV’s incredible! There’s so much out there to see,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait to show you the world.’
‘Yeah …’ Rose said, taking her hand back, ‘I don’t know how much of the world you can see looking at a screen.’
‘My screen is a window to the world. I get to see so much more than I would doing …’ He frowned, clearly struggling to work out what it was that she did for a living.
She allowed herself a tiny smile. She wasn’t about to let him off the hook in a hurry. ‘Doing … my job?’
He pointed at Rose’s work boots. ‘Well, I assume you do something outside?’
‘I’m a cabinetmaker,’ she said.
‘You make cabinets? You mean, like, for videogames?’
‘Wooden furniture. And any kind of built-in storage. Cabinets, cupboards, wardrobes, vanity units, drawers, bookshelves …’
‘There’s not much call for that kind of stuff though, nowadays,’ Tarquin said with great authority.
‘You’d be surprised,’ said Rose. ‘Kitchens, bathrooms, entertainment units, commercial fitouts, caravans, boats – one of the shows I worked on was about boats, and –’
‘But surely that’s just your day job.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s more to life than work.’
‘Of course there is,’ she said, ‘but I like my job.’
‘Don’t you ever get bored, though?’
Rose felt resentment rising as she struggled with how to explain her complex, satisfying job to Tarquin. Her skills in planning, design and assembly. The power tools and workshop machinery she knew how to use. The time she’d spent learning the properties of different timbers and boards, glues and fittings …
‘Well,’ she said eventually, ‘am I right in thinking that watching TV is, like, your job?’
Tarquin nodded. ‘Yeah, but it’s the critical engagement with it that’s –’
‘So, you watch TV all day,’ she continued, ‘and don’t you ever get bored? Because there’s more to life than work?’
Tarquin’s face fell, but at the same time he was looking at her with new interest. Didn’t think I actually had a brain, eh? Rose thought. She let him hang for another second. ‘No offence, that doesn’t sound very demanding to me.’
‘Well, it is,’ said Tarquin, ‘because I’m exercising my mind.’
Ugh, she thought, he knows nothing at all. ‘Really? By watching TV?’
Tarquin shrugged. ‘Television is society. It’s culture. It’s meaningful. Carpentry is just … work.’
‘Not to me,’ Rose said. She was annoyed she’d even tried to justify herself to him. ‘Well, see you, Tarquin. Hope you find it meaningful watching me at work.’
Yet another man who thought he knew more about her life than she did. Dave’s strong, chiselled face appeared before her, unbidden. He’d never once made her feel bad about herself or what she did. He saw her as someone he could learn from, not lecture to. But men like Tarquin just wanted her to slot into their lives without complaint, ditching the parts of her they weren’t interested in. He wasn’t even interested in finding out what she might have to offer.
She might not have a future with Dave, but he’d helped her realise what she did want in a man. Which was pretty much exactly what he was offering. Grrr, she thought, why did he have to be married?
Dusk was falling, moths beginning to flit through the spring air, as Rose headed back inside. She checked her watch; nearly 7 p.m. The Dock started at 7.30. Renton had better get the projector working by then.
‘Looks like the crayfish is finished,’ she overheard someone saying. ‘And the bar’s nearly empty.’ Rose turned in time to see a man in a black turtleneck holding up what she recognised as her father’s prized bottle of 1997 Châteauneuf-du-Pape. ‘I found this behind a bookcase, but I think that’s it.’
‘When that caviar dip’s done, we’re ghosting,’ said a woman wearin
g a striped top. This, Rose realised, must be the Plato’s Grave crew.
‘Don’t bother with the fridge,’ said a man in a white shirt – the one Alan had said was named Holden. His black jumper was shiny with grease stains. ‘It’s cleaned out.’ He burped.
‘Such amateurs,’ said the woman, Mercedes. ‘Everyone knows that when you invite the media, they gotta feed ya.’
‘That doesn’t even make sense,’ said Ford, the turtleneck man.
‘I’m still finessing it for the podcast,’ she snapped.
Rose began to walk over, intending to take the bottle of wine back. But she felt a hand on her arm.
‘Let them have it,’ Alan whispered.
‘But Dad, you bought that bottle the year I was born!’
‘We need to keep them here until the show starts. The projector is really going to wow them. But I guess we underestimated how much these media people eat. They’re insatiable!’
‘Dad, how much did you and Mum spend on food and drink? Can we afford this? I haven’t even got my first pay cheque yet.’
He looked at her fondly. ‘Nothing’s too expensive for my girl.’
‘This party doesn’t really feel like it’s for me,’ she said quietly. Part of her felt angry that they’d turned a quiet night of television into this farce; part of her was sad that her parents thought this circus would somehow solve their problems. She still loved them, but sometimes she wished they lived a bit more in the real world. She sighed: how much worse could tonight get?
A heavy thunk noise drew Rose’s attention to the other side of the lounge room. Renton had just turned on the projector, a sleek black slab of plastic. From a lens as big as a grapefruit, it was throwing off a visible beam of white light that reminded Rose of the old-fashioned klieg lamps in the 20th Century Fox studio logo, which she’d seen at the start of a thousand childhood movie nights. Perhaps the same image also came to mind for her parents’ film-buff friends: they began to wander outside, where Sarah had been setting out chairs and picnic blankets.