Under the covers of his bed in his boxy Thornbury apartment, Patrick twisted and turned in the twilight between wake and sleep. In the place where things are remembered and suffocated but find new ways to creep back up. He woke often, whimpering, each time drifting back into nightmares.
He was roused eventually by an incessant knocking at the front door. He waited for it to stop but it didn’t, so eventually Patrick crawled out from under the duvet and felt around in the darkness for the light switch. He flicked it and nothing happened. He flicked it again, numbed by the post-migraine fug. He groped his way out into the hall and tried another light, but the effect was the same. He felt for the door handle, pulling it open. Where he expected sharp light flooding down from the landing’s fluorescents, he was met by more darkness.
‘Am I dead?’ he asked the shadows.
‘It’s a blackout,’ Seymour’s voice came softly through night. ‘The whole of the north is out.’
Neither of them said anything else and for a moment it was as if neither were there. Eventually Seymour spoke.
‘You don’t get to keep running away.’
‘But I’m so good at it,’ Patrick sighed.
‘No, actually, you’re not. You’re terrible at it. If there was an award for most ballsed-up run-offs, you would fill the podium.’
They found their way into the kitchen, Patrick cursing loudly as he cracked his elbow on the edge of the sideboard, and sat at the kitchen table-cum-desk.
‘What did I just step on? It felt like a laptop.’
‘It was.’
‘Oh.’
‘I would offer you a cup of tea but I’m scared you’ll throw it in my face. Besides, the kettle is electric.’
‘Wise decision. Not the electric kettle. The other bit.’
‘So.’
‘So.’
Patrick waited, hoping Seymour would start. But then he realised that if anyone should start it should be him, because he was the one who had left so much unsaid. He sifted through various beginnings and realised none of them were any good. So he settled on one that was okay and went from there.
‘I wish I’d done things differently.’
He sensed Seymour considering this, turning it over for scratches and dents. ‘Which parts?’
‘All of it, I guess.’
He listened to the silence that followed, how Seymour had left it open for him, and realised that if he didn’t fill this silence, someone else would. And so he told him, because if he was going to tell anyone he may as well tell Seymour. He told him how it had crept up on him stealthily, the nagging feeling that he was wasting his life. That there was more to do and if he didn’t start doing it then he would regret this forever. And that he knew if he let Seymour be a reason not to, then he would regret this too, and this regret would turn into resentment and that was a place couples seldom returned from. It helped too, that the world was crumbling around him, job cuts and voluntary redundancies bleeding the country’s arts departments of their lifeblood. Trivialised and unprioritised, as if the darkening world had no more room for journalism of the aesthetic when there was so much real-life horror in need of reportage. So it had seemed like some kind of sign when the Syria offer came through – made sense that this would be his chance – except that it only made sense if you were Patrick and lived inside the little breakdown he was orchestrating in his own head because where in the world would it be useful for a forty-year-old career arts correspondent to stick a helmet on his head and march off into a war zone in the manner of a Will Dyson etching? But it was all so noble and good, wasn’t it, because he was going to Syria – SYRIA – where he would make a difference and do something important and have an impact on the greater existence of humanity because that was the whole point, wasn’t it? That was why words were created – for history and posterity and justice.
Only, he’d barely got a chance, because he’d got as far as Turkey, where he planned to spend some time with the two and a half million Syrian refugees clinging to the hope that they wouldn’t get pushed back across the border, and then everything had gone horribly wrong. It had been days – mere days – and he’d made the mistake of sending through some images from a tussle between the Turkish police and a small group of Syrian agitators that identified too clearly one of the chief instigators just as the bandana around his face slipped. And these images had appeared online, causing trouble for the unmasked man, who had simply been trying to seek justice for the sporadic acts of violence his people seemed to fall victim to. And a day or so later – not even long enough for his stomach to react to the food – this man had sought out Patrick and he had been angry, because who wouldn’t be, and he had shouted his anger menacingly into Patrick’s face. In his hand was what looked like a knife, only a knife long dulled by use and hardly more than a modest letter opener, and he’d waved it about, making his point. And Patrick hadn’t felt scared, he’d felt guilty. Guilty about his slip-up and guilty about the bruising that bloomed easily across the poor man’s face and torso. And a passer-by had wanted to help, stepping in to calm the raging man and take the knife from his hand, only it suddenly looked as if Patrick was being attacked by these two men, and the police officer who happened to round the corner at that exact moment didn’t want a dead foreigner on his hands – particularly one dressed in an untarnished helmet and flak jacket – so he’d done what he thought was right and hoisted his gun in warning.
Who could tell the order in which things happened next? There had been yelling and hands waving, and the passer-by had shouted, Stop, please, I only want to help, and the poor man hadn’t been trying to stab Patrick in the face, it just looked that way, and so the collection of bullets deposited in the passer-by by the skittish police officer had been completely without reason. And it had smelt, suddenly, like blood, and Patrick’s whole world had collapsed in every way imaginable, and what he should have done at that point, after he’d stumbled away from the police station where the Syrian activist remained in a cell, was to contact head office – ask to be debriefed, seek support from the employee assistance program, allow them to send him home. Instead – and here in hindsight was where he’d gone wrong – Patrick had gone rogue. Disappeared off the radar, telling no one and nobody where he was. Got on a bus, then another bus, and took it as far as he could until it deposited him somewhere far from one border and at the edge of another. And he had hidden for as long as he could, until the need for food forced him out of the guesthouse and into the world, and this was where he had found the painkillers – mild opiates, he suspected, but who was counting –
‘And you brought them through customs?’
– and he’d brought them through customs, and this little coastal town was where he had tried for a haircut to pull himself back into the world, only it had sent him running from the glint of the razor, stumbling through the streets into a group of rowdy young Australians dressed for some reason in the flag of their shared country, clutching merrily at their bottles of raki, and they’d pushed him – or he’d pushed them – and at the age of forty, having never participated in a fight in his life, he had decided to fight them, including the embarrassing moment when he’d been caught on a camera phone in a lofty and misguided ‘don’t you know who I am’ type declaration which of course had ended up on the internet. And he had looked deranged – raving – his face full of shaving foam and his eyes wild with rage, and the only saving grace was that he may have gone viral if not for a Kardashian breaking the internet again that week, and the fact that barely anyone outside of a small group of people did indeed know who he was. One of these, unfortunately, was his employers – who by this point suspected him kidnapped – and they had thought it best to sever their relationship. So that was pretty much that for both his career and his dignity, and he’d eventually returned to Australia because the temporary visa he had never got round to extending was set to expire and he couldn’t face deportati
on amid everything else going on.
‘That’s what happened to you? My god.’
Not quite. There was also the cock-up with the television report, a moment that was meant to simultaneously be some kind of repentance and a second attempt at seeking absolution. And god only knew how unbearable it would be if he found out that it had in some way contributed to any of those poor people having their visas rejected. So there was that debilitating guilt too. And that more or less brought things up to speed.
‘Jesus. How have you been managing any of this?’
Patrick shrugged into the darkness.
‘I just figured I’d pretend none of it happened.’
‘And on a scale of one to ten how much is that strategy working?’
‘I believe the answer is quite evident.’
Patrick said this last part with a doleful chuckle, then buried his face into his hands, collapsing forward on the table.
‘I just wanted to do something that mattered,’ he whispered. ‘But I couldn’t even do that. And I figured that the least I could do was write about it – about him – but I couldn’t. I can’t. And I couldn’t face you after. I couldn’t face anyone.’
Seymour said nothing for a moment, shifting audibly in his seat.
‘That’s the problem with art, isn’t it? Sometimes it can’t capture what we need it to. Sometimes life is too much, too harsh, too indescribable to convey. And I guess that’s why we just keep trying. Failing, but trying anyway.’
He swallowed softy, and the muffled sound thudded across the darkness.
‘The gallery isn’t doing that well. I never told you that. You never asked. If this show doesn’t do well I’m not sure what will happen. And that was the one thing I was meant to be good at. I know that this pales in comparison to what you’ve been through but perhaps there is a semblance of comfort in that.’
Then Seymour started crying too, and they both sat together crying in the darkness, which was a lot more comforting than crying alone. Eventually Patrick straightened his shoulders, rubbing the tears from his cheeks with the heels of his palms.
‘I honestly thought myself stronger than this. I just wanted to do something worthwhile.’
Then there was silence, stillness, in which their collective failures and worries coalesced in the night and tentatively wove themselves back into a familiar shared fabric. In the darkness, Patrick felt Seymour reach for him, placing his hands across his own.
‘What’s not worthwhile about this?’
26
Evangelia
There were more flowers on her father’s side of the grave so Evangelia took a handful and slid them into the vase on her mother’s side. Now both vases looked depleted, the flowers leaning awkwardly in the space around them. The little cemetery shop would have closed by now. Oh well. She’d have to bring more with her next time. Evangelia opened the delicate glass doors at the base of the headstones and refilled the oil candles, lighting each one before returning them. Then she dusted the headstone with her hand, her fingers carving the shape of the letters on her father’s side and brushing the smooth empty expanse of her mother’s. She sank onto the marble, pulling her feet up under her, and leant against the headstone. It was cool and solid against her forehead, and she closed her eyes, picturing her parents. She tried to find a memory without Lydia in it, but there weren’t many. They were still not talking, over two months since the cured meats incident, and a week since the awkward nine-month mnimósino when they had sat on either side of the church flanked by their husbands and children, pretending the other didn’t exist. They had ended up one before the other in the long line for communion, ignoring each other up the carpeted aisle as they accepted the wine, and once more as they collided at the andíthoro table. They had each grabbed a handful of bread, offering a quick respectful cross as they continued to blank the other. Nick and Xanthe had wanted to play with their older cousins, to hang off them with a reverence that now outright aggrieved Evangelia, but she had insisted they were late for their family brunch. If it was a family brunch, why couldn’t their cousins come? the children had whined. Evangelia had explained that family came in varying degrees and sometimes it was important to do things with only the closest members of your family. But they were the closest members, the children had pleaded. They loved their cousins more than anything in the world, including sometimes their parents, so why couldn’t they come to brunch? Evangelia had looked to Peter for help and Peter, eager to be done with all this family business and get back to the café, told them, ‘Because I said so,’ and that seemed to placate them.
Evangelia opened her eyes. It was getting dark. The cemetery would be closing soon. She pushed herself upright, taking in the headstone. The half-hearted vases bothered her but there was nothing she could do. She traced her hands again over the empty face of her mother’s tombstone. Her father’s was full of kind gold-plated words: loving father, cherished husband, adored papou. And then her mother’s – bare and undecided as if no one wanted to claim her. Evangelia tried to think of what her mother would want here, which version of herself she’d have chosen to peer out for all eternity, and what epitaph would capture her worth. But she still didn’t have this answer, even though she’d given up trying to write her mother’s story weeks ago.
It had been unbearable, watching the others’ successes. Sita and Gwen had an almost complete first draft and a meeting with the Mayor to pitch its publication. They read from their manuscript each week, the trials and triumphs of their turn-of-the-century glass ceiling shatterer, each week growing stronger and more confident under Carole’s steady hand. And Terry . . . Bloody Terry had gone and got himself a publishing deal off the back of the first chapter of what he called his ‘lady spy’ biography, which in itself should have been reason enough for him not to, but there you go. And the following week, after his announcement, Evangelia had left home fully intending to attend class but had found herself driving past the TAFE car park and out through the suburbs, ending up outside the cemetery not far from closing time. And once she was there, it had made far more sense to sit with her mother’s blank headstone than in the classroom with the embarrassment of her own blank canvas. She hadn’t told Peter, and each week now she had been making this journey, sitting in the stillness of the cemetery and watching its solemn restfulness. There were so few visitors, even when she came earlier in the day. Maybe a handful of people, often alone and hurried, who hovered a few moments over their loved one, preened and dusted a little, then scampered off without a second thought back into their busy living-lives.
Evangelia glanced at the headstones again. The near-empty vases were really bothering her now. And then she was back in a time decades ago, clinging to her mother’s hemline as they zigzagged between the graves. Her papou, long dead, was buried somewhere nearby and her mother could never quite remember the best way to find him. They would weave and wander, a mother duck and her baby, and it must have been the year Lydia first attended school because she wasn’t part of this memory. Which meant it was the year of the back injury, when her mother had demanded her way into the factory, so it must have been one of the few days her mother was not hauling bricks in and out of the kiln. They had rounded a squat weathered obelisk and suddenly her mother’s face broke into a smile.
‘Yassou, Baba.’
They tidied the stone, dusting it with their hands and tracing the letters to edge out the dirt, then her mother struck her forehead with realisation.
‘Ta louloúthia!’
The flowers were sitting on the kitchen table at home, exactly where Evangelia had forgotten them. Realising her mistake, she had curled her lips, a sob forming in her little chest.
‘Nothing to cry over,’ her mother had soothed her, taking her cheeks in her palms. ‘Papou would hate to see you cry.’
Then her good church-going mother had peered around the quiet cemetery, before leaning into a fu
nny little stoop and darting from tombstone to tombstone, grabbing a single flower from each. Evangelia had laughed at this, her eyes still wet with tears, overcome with how funny her mother looked in her panicked half-run. Her mother arrived back, panting, a hasty bouquet now in her hand.
‘Good young, good old.’ She’d winked at her daughter, and they had set the flowers in the vase by her papou’s headstone.
Evangelia remembered this now. ‘Good young, good old.’ Her mother used to say this all the time, her measure of someone’s worth. Evangelia smiled, her eyes filling with tears. Stop that, she thought. Mama would hate to see you cry. Dusk was creeping into the edges of the day now and the cemetery would soon close. She pulled herself to her feet, dusting off her trousers. She turned to leave, but before she did there was one more thing that needed doing. When she walked out through the cemetery’s heavy iron gates, each vase at her parents’ grave was crammed with vibrant, mismatched flowers.
Usually Evangelia would drive to class, but her car was being serviced so she took the train instead. It was a hassle, but she needed to maintain the illusion that she was sitting in her writing class instead of wandering the north in the dark. After a few stops, she got on a tram heading east and alighted after a short time. This was the other thing she had been doing. The old brickwork was faded, but inside, the factory had been renovated to form a dozen apartments with a little café at the front. She hadn’t realised this when she’d first ventured out this way, searching for the factory that had supported her family during those six difficult months after her mother had demanded assistance. A small part of her had hoped it would still be operational, churning out bricks, while the rest of her suspected it would be empty and derelict, most likely housing squatters or long-dead machinery and hazardous chemicals. She’d been surprised by its new character, and amazed to find the café housed in what had once been the foreman’s quarters. Named, helpfully enough, The Foreman’s Quarters, the café was open well into the evening with a little sign at the entrance explaining that this had been where the foreman sat at his great wooden desk, watching over the workers as they loaded the kilns. Evangelia had wandered inside, her eyes drinking in the masonry and steel frames. This would have been where her mother had stood and demanded she take on her husband’s work. When this realisation hit, Evangelia had collapsed into tears, large and profound as they cascaded down her cheeks, and a worried waitress had rushed over and asked if she needed anything. She had needed her mother, but because this was not an option, she instead ordered a chardonnay and had sat quietly in the café until it was time to go home.
The Book of Ordinary People Page 29