by Les Zig
LES ZIG
First published in 2018 by Pantera Press Pty Limited
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Text Copyright © Les Zig, 2018
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This is a work of fiction, though it is based on some real events. Names, characters, organisations, dialogue and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, firms, events or locales is coincidental.
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ISBN 978-1-925700-03-9 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-925700-07-7 (eBook)
Editor: Lucy Bell
Proofreader: Desanka Vukelich
Typesetting: Kirby Jones
Author Photo: J C Henry, Lime Photography
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To all my friends over the years who’ve sustained me, encouraged me, and persevered with me.
You know who you are.
Other novels by Les Zig
Just Another Week in Suburbia
CONTENTS
Me
1
2
3
4
5
Julie
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Us
13
14
15
16
17
Pasts
18
19
20
21
22
23
Futures
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Book Club Questions
Me
1
This isn’t a love story.
It involves love, and things related to love. But it’s not neat. It’s not easy. And it’s not straightforward.
Life rarely is.
Love never is—at least not how I’ve known it.
The problem is it’s so easy to get loaded up with preconceptions. Somebody might seem like the sweetest person alive on first impression. Oh, they’re so nice! They could be a serial killer, but they seem nice. People are judged as sweet or kind or arrogant or any number of things based on that first impression alone.
A narrative might even evolve, like with that woman in the booth across from mine—sixty-something, robust, brows peaking in disapproval, and wearing a dress that has a floral pattern better suited to curtains. Just another of the cafe’s everyday patrons.
Opposite her sits a kid, can’t be more than eight, the comical scowl on his round face directed at a forlorn sandwich, a bite taken from one corner.
The woman is stern—probably the kid’s grandmother. Doesn’t do well with children. Her own daughter got knocked up straight out of high school—no, in the last year of high school—and had to drop out. Now, her daughter’s future is ruined and she works some factory job while Grandma has to take care of the kid. And Grandma doesn’t like it. She thought she was done with kids.
A young waitress slinks over, her uniform of black shirt and black pants too tight, an affront to whatever etiquette the cafe requires. Grandma’s face is hard. A smile would see that face crumble until all that would be left is the dilution of Grandma’s life—an accumulation of missteps, failure to take the chances she should’ve, and bundles of regret.
Or that’s what I imagine.
‘That sandwich okay?’ the waitress asks.
‘Could you bring him some ice-cream?’ Grandma says.
The boy sits up straight. ‘Chocolate?’
Grandma smiles. Her face doesn’t break. Years fall from her; the hardness sheds, like a dog moulting a winter coat. ‘Chocolate it is!’ she says.
‘I’ll be right back,’ the waitress says, and struts back towards the counter.
A new narrative takes hold: the woman’s a doting grandma and spoils the kid, much to the chagrin of her daughter.
I lean back against the window. Outside, the afternoon traffic ambles by. Buildings are ripostes of grey, the palette of the city dreary and lifeless. The cafe, Charisma’s, is no different—utilitarian, a strip of booths extending into a promenade with a chequered floor that makes me think of playing chess without knowing the rules. People dock at small, round tables, an array of so many different faces, so many different dynamics: the forty-something blonde in the stiff business suit, with a handsome younger man wearing exquisitely clipped designer stubble; four teenagers, three of them laughing, the fourth with a pimple so big on the bridge of his nose, it’s the dampener on his joviality; a woman with an aquiline nose prattles on to her partner, flab spilling from the waist of his jeans, while his eyes follow the waitress’s hips as she swaggers back with the chocolate ice-cream for the boy. People are everywhere, dashes of colour as the cafe grows louder, every clatter of cutlery distinct, jabbing at my ears, until I become self-aware of the very act of sitting here, over-analysing, and I want to escape from my booth, streak past the counter, and shoot out the door.
‘You okay?’
The waitress—the one who served the boy the chocolate ice-cream. Her face is smooth and unmarked, but her deftly applied make-up fails to camouflage the crescents under her eyes. The flint in her tone and the erect, almost defensive, way she carries herself lead me to think she’s twenty-something—a bit younger than me—but she’s probably only seventeen or eighteen. Her gold name tag identifies her as Nicole.
‘Can I get you something?’ she asks.
‘Could I get a …’ I tilt my coffee cup—mostly empty. I shouldn’t have another; I shouldn’t have had this one. It’s bloated my stomach. I pull the cuff of my right sleeve down over my wrist. ‘Um … a tea?’
‘A tea?’
‘White.’
‘Sugar?’
‘No. Actually, do you have chamomile?’
‘Yep.’
‘Okay, chamomile. No milk, no sugar.’
Nicole drums her notepad with her pen. ‘You don’t drink chamomile with milk or su
gar.’
‘Just making sure.’
‘One chamomile coming up.’ She steps away from my table.
And that’s when I see her.
I missed her coming through the door, so it’s not like the cafe lights up with her entrance; she doesn’t saunter in slow motion, blonde hair glowing through some golden nimbus; our eyes don’t lock, so there’s no connection that sears across the cafe; there are no harps, the ground doesn’t shake, Cupid isn’t hovering above my head where I could swat the fucker. There’s nothing in the moment other than one tiny detail that draws my attention.
Her tattoo.
As she leans against the counter, the hem of her pink halter and the waistband of her faded blue jeans—torn under the pocket of her right buttock—part to reveal a splotch of colours low on the right side of her back. She lifts her head to read the menu above the window to the kitchen, then places her order with a balding barista. The barista’s expression is probably meant to be suave, but comes across constipated. He seems enraptured with her. Once he finally trundles away, she leans forward to grab a sugar sachet out of a cup on the counter, her figure slight, butt swelling in her jeans, halter hiking up to reveal the paleness of her skin, and the arch of her back.
She straightens, glancing about, sugar sachet trapped in her fingers. Her blonde hair is tied in a girlish ponytail, face a Japanese anime character with absurdly large, doleful blue eyes that give the impression she’s perpetually startled. The barista slides her coffee across the counter. She smiles, and that startled look washes away into joy.
The waitress, Nicole, blocks my view again as she sets the tea down on my table. I peer around her just in time to see the girl with the butterfly tattoo walk out. That’s what I’ve decided her tattoo is; she’d have something delicate, but beautiful, like a colourful butterfly.
‘Will that be all?’ Nicole says.
I can’t tear my gaze from the door.
Nicole checks over her shoulder, then leans towards me. ‘Hey!’ she says.
I nod. ‘Thanks.’
2
The wind dishevels me as I step from the cafe and scatters my idolisation of the girl with the butterfly tattoo. I hug my arms around myself, notepad clenched to my ribs under one elbow. People bustle past, not even aware they’re on autopilot. The buildings now aren’t just drabs of grey, but towering sentinels that dwarf me into insignificance. There’s nothing like working in the city when you don’t want to, but sometimes, there’s not much of a choice.
The walk back to work is only a couple of blocks, but my feet grow heavier with every step. My office building might’ve been a mental institution or something once. The bricks are a ghastly tan and some of the windows on the bottom are barred. There are two elevators. Both screech to get started, rattle in their shafts, and creak when they halt, and one—the one I’m currently in—smells like somebody took a piss in it.
The elevator screeches, then hiccups—or perhaps it gulps, uncertain of itself. Then … silence. Finally, the doors grind open and the noise hits—insane, unsynchronised chatter that swells into a cacophony as every individual sound tries to barge into the elevator first.
The floor is expansive with worn carpet that protects a creaking floor and walls that have yellowed with age. I pick my way through the labyrinth of cubicles, hearing the other operators pitch. None of them acknowledge me—I’m a foreigner to them. But it’s only a few turns to my neighbourhood, with the window that overlooks the city on one side, and the kitchenette on the other.
Boyd, the supervisor, watches from the corner. He could be mistaken for a mannequin if the setting was right; his royal blue suit might be straight off a hanger, his pinstriped shirt so crisp it might still have the pins in it, his features sculpted, and his hair almost plonked on like a helmet. He grins, this big toothy smile exposing teeth that are so white they’re almost fluorescent. I hold up a hand. Boyd nods, and retreats into his small corner office.
I continue through the labyrinth, past Ronnie, his shirt tails dribbling from his pants, his hair—although shorter—messier than my own. He watches porn on his computer in a minimised window, emboldened by the cubicle walls that provide cover, and the fact that the rear of his computer faces Boyd’s office. A small model of the original starship Enterprise sits on Ronnie’s desk. He covers the microphone of his headset. ‘Hey, August, Doctor Who marathon Sunday evening,’ he says. ‘You in?’
‘I’ll see.’
‘You’re in.’
‘Let me—’
‘Consider it your birthday present to me.’
I frown, searching my memory for when Ronnie’s birthday is. ‘That’s not this week,’ I say. ‘That’s next week.’
‘And I’ll be doing drinks, too, so block that out in your calendar. But let’s start with the good doctor, huh?’
I shrug noncommittally.
‘I’m holding you to it!’ he says as I move on.
Sam, his grin easy and wide, uses his computer to check beach holidays. He seems too big for his chair, lanky and pointed, like a kid who’s had a growth spurt and the rest of him is still catching up, although he’d be around my age. He points a finger at me, leans back in his chair and lifts his feet onto his desk, yet doesn’t miss a beat of his routine.
I step into my cubicle, put my headset on, and bring up my call list. A familiar weight builds in my chest. Four hours left in the work day. That’s it. I need to do what I have do. I take a deep breath, and close my eyes. And see a splotch of colours.
A butterfly tattoo.
I hit the first number—my heart thumping through the melody of the number dialling—and listen to it engage. I open my eyes. The name on the computer is Harold Weekes. I see a gruff man in his sixties, hair slick with Brylcreem, face so hard the lines in it seem etched in.
‘Hello.’ The voice is gruff.
‘Hello,’ I say, and while the word should peak at the end of the first syllable, implying overt friendliness, I croak, so it probably sounds like, Huh-OH. ‘Mr Weekes, please?’
Distrustfully: ‘Speaking.’
‘I’m calling on behalf of the Heart Disease Research Foundation and I was hoping I could impose on you—’
‘No, get fucked.’
I glance at Ronnie (opposite me) and Sam (to my right), but they continue their calls obliviously. This isn’t the first rude response I’ve had. I swivel, see Boyd sitting in his office on the phone himself. There are different ways to handle this—Ronnie would toy with them; Sam would apologise magnanimously until he overawed them; my chest tightens until it’s hard to breathe.
‘It would only be a couple of minutes of—’ I try to salvage the situation.
‘Don’t you listen?’
‘I’m—’
‘I said, don’t you listen?’
Most aggressors would hang up. This is a game to him. Some people play me, although good-naturedly, or they set the phone down while I unroll my spiel. I even had somebody give their phone to their four-year-old, who babbled at me while the parents laughed in the background.
‘Get fucked,’ Harold Weekes says again. ‘Get fucked, over and over, and over and over—’
I hang up. I should strike his name from our call list, but since he didn’t specifically request it, he can stay on it. Let his courtesy be rewarded with future solicitations—well, as long as they’re not from me.
I hit the next number. Close my eyes.
And smell perfume—something delicate, almost undetectable. Lavender? I don’t even know what lavender smells like. This is gentle. Lisa wore abrasive perfumes. They weren’t always, but that’s the way they became—they stung my nostrils until my sinuses burned.
‘Hello?’ An old voice, tinny, even querulous.
I open my eyes and check the computer: Abigail Hartley. The perfume’s still in my nostrils. But nobody’s close enough that I should be smelling perfume.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi,’ I force out. ‘Mrs Hartley, please?’
‘Speaking.’
‘I’m calling on behalf of the Heart Disease Research Foundation,’ I sweep on, ‘and I was hoping I could impose on you for a couple of minutes. Our records show you’ve given to us in the past, and we’re very thankful for your generosity. We’re calling because we’re currently holding a raffle to raise money for research into heart disease. If you have a moment, perhaps I could tell you about some of the great prizes we have on offer?’
‘That would be nice.’
As I mechanically recount our offers to Mrs Hartley, I try to pinpoint the scent. Maybe I’m remembering what the waitress wore at Charisma’s, although that was something garish. It could be the girl with the butterfly tattoo, although she wasn’t close enough to smell. This is the way I imagine she would smell, just like I imagine she has a butterfly tattoo.
Hi, I’m sorry for disturbing you, I’d say.
She’d look at me, guardedly—after all, I’m a stranger.
I don’t know how this works; I’m not good at approaching beautiful strangers in a cafe. But I really wanted to meet you.
I cringe—both at the tackiness of that, and also Mrs Hartley’s commitment to buy a book of tickets. She sounds old—a lovely sort, I’m sure, but also a lonely sort, who probably listened to my spiel and bought raffle tickets because it filled some emptiness in her day. I wonder where her partner is, if she has one, if their relationship is good and lasting, if she has kids and where they are, and whether I can back out of this call gracefully so she can avoid the financial obligation.
Instead, I take down her personal and credit card details, thinking about the life this woman might’ve led, and the lines she might’ve heard. How do lines work? With everybody else I’ve known, meeting someone has been easy and natural. My sister Gen bumped into her partner, Pat, at a bar when they both tried to order the same drink (a gimlet) at the same time. They apologised to each other, then kept talking. That was five years and their baby Oscar ago.
I thank Mrs Hartley and hang up. I have to stop this infatuation with the girl with the butterfly tattoo. But the scent remains. Phantom smells are a symptom of brain tumours. Maybe that’s what’s going on, and that’s why I have this infatuation; maybe the attraction isn’t physical or emotional or even pheromones, but some sort of brain anomaly. Maybe that’s all attraction is.