by E. M. Reapy
‘You not finding work?’ you ask, almost afraid. You don’t understand his emotions.
‘I got a couple of days roofing last week. See I won’t grovel and the Aussies don’t like me for it. I worked with a few Maori bucks. They jumped in the river on the breaks. Came back shiny wet. “It’s too hot, bro,”’ Patrick copies a Kiwi accent. ‘“You’re all pink, bro. You should join us, bro.”’
He exhales noisily again, blowing the air out of his cheeks. He lights another cigarette. ‘They had big lunches their wives made them. Big lads, sure. I’d no lunch. They gave me sandwiches and I didn’t know what was in them.’
He scratches his cheek. ‘McDevitt Brothers had 248, including the office women, on the books. Another hundred at least off the books. Latvians, Lithuanians and Polish. Sites around Munster. Charleville, beauty. A block in Limerick. Summer cottages in West Clare. I got my own six-bed all ensuite and a balcony outside Ennis. Only myself in it.’
‘Wow,’ you say. He offers you a cigarette but you refuse it. You haven’t smoked in a long while and you don’t miss them. He leans against the rails and sighs.
‘Bondi,’ he says and sweeps his palm across the view. ‘D’ya think I give a shit about Bondi? Women? Drink? Drugs? Sunbathing? Travelling the fucking East Coast?’
You shrug.
‘Fifty dollars a week, for what? Carpet. And a sheet, no blanket or pillow. Living with those wasters inside.’
You glance at the living room through the patio door. The room flashes from fairy lights hung around it. Smoke fogs. Muffled trance music leaks through to the balcony.
‘See, Fiona, it’s simple. If I could get some steady work, I could get on a lease, in a bigger apartment than this, fit even more in. Then I could rent it out, get myself a bed somewhere else. Keep going. It’s just maths. Could get the brothers over, to work for me, I’d be on top, a penthouse suite, overlooking the Opera House, maybe buy some land in the Blue Mountains for a holiday home. Rent that out. If they’d just fucking pick me to work. I’m a great worker. Us lined up like desperate people at a dance. Holding hard hats. Trying to hold our heads up. Waiting to get asked. Waiting. This is supposed to be the place where things happen. My hole it is. Is that what you’re here for?’
‘I don’t really know,’ you say.
You’d spent too long in your bedroom. Malley hadn’t got in touch even though he must have heard that the property place you worked at let everyone go. You lay in bed most days looking into space. You wouldn’t shower or get out of your nightclothes except for when you signed on, collected your dole or at the weekends when you got so drunk you couldn’t name five things that had happened on the night out. You drank yourself into unconsciousness. On Mondays you suffered a black day, where the drink demons left your body and taunted you about everything. You were fragile and guilty.
When Malley got a new girlfriend, it was the biggest slap you’d ever got. How were you such a mess and he was ready to hop inside the next girl?
Every day, the news was riddled with stories of young Irish getting flights to London, Toronto, Vancouver, Dubai, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney. Escaping. You don’t know where you got the will from but you walked to the Credit Union, took out your savings and bought a flight.
A plane flies by, its lights blinking in the sky.
You half-smile at Patrick. ‘I didn’t think things would turn out like this, that’s for sure.’
★
You spend the next few days in a routine. Emma gets up for work early, usually at 5.45 a.m., so you climb into her bed which is still warm from her. When you wake again, you head down to Bondi Beach for a walk, in awe every time at how small it is for such an iconic place. You watch the sporty Australians out running or cycling or swimming. You sit on the the hill overlooking the beach for a little while if it isn’t too breezy. Some mornings, you do the full six kilometre walk to Coogee, looping around cliffs and other little beaches, climbing steps and walking sandy pathways, stopping to read the information signs on the history of the area.
You get the bus to the CBD, go to the Customs House Library near the Harbour and apply for jobs. Though some libraries are nearer to you, this one’s in an old-style three-storey building nestled amongst the towering skyscrapers. The staff are helpful and it’s filled with students, historians, readers and broke backpackers using the free internet to book their next trip or try and get a job interview. It’s filled with normal people who are clean and sober.
You try to stay in the library as late as possible because the flat is always pumping except for morning time when they drowse off for a little bit in between partying. You can tire yourself out in the city during the day, wander through the malls and streets in Bondi Junction. In the evening, you pick up a sushi roll or cheap noodles for dinner. Try to avoid the drunk workers and Irish going to the Tea Gardens. Pass massage parlours and shoe shops and late night pharmacies. Walk around Coles and calculate how expensive everything is compared to Ireland.
When you’re worn out, your legs tired, your eyes droopy, you can go back to the flat and go straight to bed.
You’re beginning to feel okay here even though you still sleep in fragments. Nightmares sometimes. Other times, just an overwhelming need to wake yourself and make sure you’re not in Fletchers. The girls in the garlic factory hostel had said it was worse than if you were shagging in the room, the amount of twisting and turning and moaning you did in your sleep.
You try to get comfortable on the lilo. It hurts your hips and back and sometimes, you just sleep on the ground instead.
★
You watch the rugby on the Saturday but don’t drink. When Ireland win, an Aussie sports fan at the bar turns around and screams that rugby is a shit sport that Australia doesn’t care about.
The All-Ireland is between Kerry and Dublin but you don’t watch that. You don’t care about either team and coverage begins from midnight. A non-stop twenty-hour party takes place in the flat after it, only dying down late into Monday night. You’re pretty sure that no one kipping in the flat is from either county but something about watching it gives them a hyperness and homesickness that they need to drown.
You go into the sitting room after the shouting and loud music dies. People sleep on the sofas, on the ground, on each other. You plug out the stereo and the TV.
The stale fumes from the drinking, sweating and old smoke give the room a cloudy feel. You go to the kitchen and boil the kettle. Your feet are sticking onto the floor. You make a green tea, drink it out of a yellow bowl, the only clean unbroken thing you can rummage from the presses. You sit on the counter beside the sink.
The front door clicks open and someone comes into the flat but avoids the kitchen. You can hear them cough and use the bathroom. They go to the sitting room and it’s silent again.
You finish your tea and wash the bowl, put it back into the press and flick the light.
You notice him in the corner, lying on top of a sheet and with a fleecy jacket covering his body. Ear plus jut out of his ears. His work clothes are folded, laid in front of his feet along with dusty, steel toe cap work boots. He does the same thing as you in the evenings, avoiding the flat and trying to just be here to sleep.
‘Night, Patrick,’ you say to him but he doesn’t respond.
★
Emma’s changing when you wake. She has wet hair and puts concealer under her eyes. She wears a white-striped blue shirt, a navy pencil skirt and she mouths, ‘morning’ when she notices you looking at her. You get ready to crawl into her bed. Your phone rings though and you grab it quick before it wakes the other girls in the room.
It vibrates in your hand as you dash to the balcony and close the sliding door behind you. It’s your home house number from Ireland.
Why are they ringing you so early?
‘Hello?’ you say.
‘Fiona, mo ghrá, are you okay? We got a phone call,’ your dad says.
‘Yeah, I’m grand. What do you mean a phone call?’ You pick
sleep pus from your eyes.
‘A woman called Dorothy rang, extremely worried about you.’
Shit.
‘What? Why?’ You already know that this is going to turn out bad.
‘She said you had disappeared from your job and hostel and they couldn’t get in touch with you. Nobody knew where you’d gone. She was going to call the police, but she wanted to get in touch with us first. She got our phone number off her bill.’
You feel bad for not even thinking to say anything to her or Geoff and all the kindness they had for you. But you’re annoyed too. Why did she go and contact your parents?
‘Dad, I’m grand. I just left. Wasn’t working out. I told ye in an email I was in Sydney.’
A common myna lands on the balcony. It’s easy to identify him from his brown body, black-hooded head and the bare yellow patch behind his eye. He flutters about and his yellow beak pecks at the ground.
‘You ‘just left’ a job without telling anyone, Fiona? That’s not very good manners,’ your Dad says and breaks your concentration.
‘You don’t understand. I had to go.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ you pause. ‘I did.’
You shoo the bird away by stamping on the ground.
‘Are you in trouble out there? If you are you need to tell me and not have me and your mam killed with worry.’ He says killed like kilt.
‘Dad, leave it, okay. I’m fine. I’m in Sydney. In fact, a few days ago I was out with some really well off Irish people and they probably have good contacts for jobs.’
‘But didn’t you like the last job in the factory?’
‘I did yeah,’ you say. ‘I just had to go.’
‘Fiona, your mother wants a word,’ he says and passes the phone over. You roll your eyes up to the new pale blue morning sky. The clouds are pierced with chemtrails.
‘Fiona, hello,’ your mam says. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing, Mam. I’m fine. Jesus. Will ye give me Dorothy’s number and I’ll call her to tell her I’m okay? I didn’t think she’d panic. I thought she’d have forgotten about me.’
‘I’d a good chat with her, Fiona. I don’t know what exactly is happening but my gut is telling me something’s off. She said you were ‘at risk.’ Why would she say that?’
‘What’s her number?’ you ask, getting a pen from the balcony table and writing it on your hand as she calls it out.
‘Fiona, what’s going on? You better start talking, miss. Don’t be trying to fob me off like you do your father.’
‘Mam,’ you pause, ‘what? What do you want me to say?’
‘Tell me the truth, now. What’s going on? Why are these Australian people so scared? I could hear it off her. She was crazy worried.’
You don’t want to talk but she waits silently on the other side.
‘There’s nothing going on, Mam. I don’t know why she was worried. I’m grand. I’m in Sydney, I’ve met loads of rich Irish ones and so it’s okay.’
‘Fiona, there’s no way that woman would have called me and spoke the way she did if there wasn’t something. She seemed like a good person.’
‘Jesus Mam, she is a good person, I’m not saying she’s a bad person. Why ye hassling me? I sent an email. Everything is great. I’m great.’ You can’t control the bitterness in your voice.
‘Fiona.’
‘Mam, what? What do you want from me? Why are you pushing me? Everything is fine. How many times do I have to say it?’
‘Don’t take that attitude with me.’
‘D’ya want me to tell you I’m in trouble and everything’s gone to hell here? Is that what you want to hear?’
‘No but you’re better off spitting the truth out now instead of it spitting on you.’
‘I’m not in trouble, everything’s fine.’
‘Fiona, what’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ you say really slowly.
‘Fiona—’
‘Mam, it’s all fucking sound now. Everything is okay.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing, Jesus. It was nothing.’
‘What was?’
‘Look,’ you say, your blood singing in your veins. ‘I ran out of money. Okay.’
‘And then?’
‘Mam, don’t push me. Don’t. You don’t want to hear it.’
‘What is going on, Fiona?’
You run your fingers through your hair and take a breath through your nose. ‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s all over now.’
‘What is?’
‘What happened.’
‘What did you do, Fiona?’ She asks, her voice raises with the question.
‘I didn’t go through with it. I didn’t. I ran away.’
She softens again. ‘Listen, we’re your parents. We’re worried. We have the right to—’
‘Well fucking worry about something else.’
‘Fiona—’
You hang up on her.
★
You take a seat on the ground in the corner of the balcony, looking at Patrick McDevitt’s cigarette butts crushed and overflowing in the glass ashtray. You lean your head on the wall.
You didn’t have sex with them, you got no money. But Jett Fletcher’s fingers were in you, he sucked on your breast and you had felt something. You had been aroused. For a moment, your body wanted it. Your skin tightens with the memory.
They’ll try to pool the funds for a flight home. Your mam sobbing and asking the priest for money, asking why did you let this happen, why didn’t you ask for help. They’ll look at you differently, your parents.
★
You spend the morning on the balcony, crying. You let the phone ring out every time they call back. They give up when it’s past midnight in Ireland. Patrick comes out for a smoke before work holding a box in one hand and his white hard hat in the other. He looks at you as he draws a cigarette out.
‘You okay?’
‘I’ll be okay.’
He holds his unlit cigarette in his hand, puts his lighter to it, looks at you again, in your nightclothes still, your face puffy and wet, your hair in a heap. He puts his lighter down and dramatically checks his watch.
‘Shit, look at the time, I’m supposed to be lining up for work. I’ll smoke this on me walk.’
He tries to give you a smile before he goes back inside through the patio.
‘Cheers for the support,’ you say.
★
You are nothing. You’re a stupid, pathetic girl. You’ve shamed yourself. Worse, you’ve shamed your family. You should have just slept with the Fletchers because it’s the same, the action and the label. It’s all the fucking same.
You cry so hard bile comes and you spit it out onto the red tiled ground.
You look down over the balcony, the people like moving dots. The cars are dinkies. The city is loud. You hear far off sirens and the engines of morning traffic caught at lights. If you jumped, just did it, you’d be saving a lot of people a lot of worry in the future.
What’ll you do next, Fiona? You’ve no cop on. You’re a fucking mess. What if you jumped? What if you did it? Jump. Splash yourself off the footpath. Who’d even give a shit?
★
Your phone vibrates and you think about throwing it over the balcony. You don’t want to talk to them. You flick a glance at the screen.
It’s Tommo.
He’s relentless and the phone rings for many counts. He isn’t hanging up.
You take a massive breath and try to free the shudder out of it. You sniff and clean your face with your pyjama top.
You answer but don’t speak.
‘Hi, Fiona?’ Tommo asks, ‘You there?’
You cough and swallow. ‘Yeah, I’m here.’
‘Howya. Just wanted to say hello, see how you’re doing? Ya still hanging with me old comrade Mitchell?’
You laugh. ‘No, Tommo. I’m in Sydney.’
‘Sydney?
Fuck off with your Sydney. Did ye see the matches?’
‘The Ireland game? Yeah. The All-Ireland, nah. I didn’t wait up.’
Tommo gasps. ‘Wha’? Jaysus. Best weekend of sport ever so it was.’ He makes some tutting noises. ‘But come here to me, I’m across in Alice Springs, with me cousin and her boyfriend. They’re dead sound but – you know – they’re a couple. We’re renting a campervan. Driving to Darwin then around to some of the Northern Territories’ National Parks. D’yeh wanna come with us? I’m not getting the second visa, I decided that day I gave meself the chop. So I’m flying back to Ireland next week. This is the last hurrah for me in Oz.’
You think about Tommo. He met you in the factory and became your friend because he thought you were nice. He didn’t have to do that. He wouldn’t have bothered if he didn’t like you. You saw what he was capable of when he didn’t like someone.
‘Will you come? We’ve loads of room. I can’t be watching Romeo and Juliet smooch and fight and feed each other and have sneaky sex when they think I’m asleep. I need a buddy. I want someone smart to talk to. Will you come? The campervan’s paid for, we’ll be doing it on the cheap. Come on. It’ll be great craic. It’ll be like the factory times except without all the garlic and wankers around.’
‘I’m not sure. I’m not in great form, Tommo. Don’t want to wreck it on ye,’ you say and frown.
‘A trip will cheer you up. Come on, you’re me favourite buddy I’ve met in Oz. I’d love to see you. Come on with us. You can piss off if you’re not having fun,’ he said and paused. ‘Don’t think I’m a bleeding soft muppet but I miss you.’
You feel like crying again but from a better place. You look up at the sun. You scratch your face and pace around.
Tommo once quoted somebody saying that insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
You can’t let this side of yourself drag you down. Get over yourself.
★
You go in through the sliding doors and open a laptop that’s on the couch. You book flights to Alice for late that afternoon; shower, change, pack. You leave fifty dollars rent for Yasmin under her pillow and a quick note to explain things to Emma.