We start with the inevitable. Shots. Pretty soon we’re laughing at nothing and rolling around like the subjects of an LSD experiment. Steve is trying to tell us a story, but it’s not making much sense.
‘You did what?’ Jeremy is shocked.
‘I woke up on a rock,’ Steve says very matter-of-factly.
‘You woke up on a rock?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How did you get there?’
‘I teleported.’
‘You teleported. What’s that mean?’
Blake pipes up. ‘It’s when you travel somewhere instantly. You can be transported from one location or dimension to another.’
‘Well, now I’ve heard it all,’ says Jeremy, throwing his hands up in the air. ‘So where was this rock?’
‘You know the rock on our farm that juts out of the hill? You can see it from our rehearsal shed.’
‘Oh, yeah. I know the one.’
‘I woke up on that rock.’
‘Did you go to sleep on the rock?’
‘No, you idiot! I went to sleep in my bed.’
‘Then how did you get to the rock?’
‘I told you – I teleported, man!’
‘You teleported?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard, Steve.’
‘Screw you, Jeremy. You have such a limited mind.’
‘So what? I like the simple things in life.’
‘How did it happen, Steve?’ I’m curious.
‘Well, when I went to bed, I pictured the place where I wanted to wake up. I couldn’t do it for ages. But the other day it worked and I woke up on that rock.’
‘But how does your body get from A to B?’
‘It dematerialises and rematerialises.’
‘Are you for real?’
‘Yes. How else did I get to the rock?’
‘Could you have sleepwalked without realising?’
‘I doubt it. I would have had dirt on my feet and stuff.’
‘That’s pretty full on. It’s kind of like Star Trek, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. It’s similar. Apparently, you can even teleport to other countries. Like if you had a girlfriend living in Paris, you could teleport to her.’
‘Wow. And you get idiots out there who spend money on plane tickets. Tsk tsk.’ Jeremy is still not buying it.
‘Well, people don’t accept that it’s possible, do they? They’re limited by their perception of reality.’
‘You guys, come on,’ Mandy pipes up. ‘This is getting way too deep. Can’t we just have some fun? I mean, it’s great and all that you can travel in your sleep, Steve, but enough, please!’
‘You see what I mean, Stan. People don’t want to know, do they?’ Steve says.
‘Apparently not. Apparently girls just want to have fun.’
Steve, Jeremy and I start singing ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’. Mandy and Susan punch and slap at us playfully.
‘Where are the toilets around here? I really need to go,’ Mandy says.
‘Well, the toilets behind the tuck shop might be open,’ I reply.
‘Can you come with me, Stan? I’m too scared to go on my own.’
‘Yeah, come on. Does anyone else wanna come on this toilet run?’
‘You guys go ahead,’ says Jeremy. I see him wink at the others.
I have trouble getting up. I’m drunker than I thought, and I can feel an unpleasant taste rising up my windpipe. Mandy brings the bottle of tequila with her.
‘What’re you doing with that?’
‘Oh, you never know. We might need to have a shot on the way. It’s a long journey to those toilets.’ And, sure enough, we stop halfway there and have a shot each. Mandy leans into me giggling. ‘You should just forget about her, you know?’
‘Who?’
‘Ms Perfect. Forget her.’
‘It’s hard, Mandy.’
‘I could help you.’
‘How?’
She places her hand on the back of my head and pulls me towards her. I can smell the tequila on her breath. Her tongue is in my mouth, moving around erratically as if searching for some hidden treasure. I start searching her mouth too and we fall on to the grass. I unbutton her shirt, pull her bra back and put my mouth on her breast.
‘Oh, Stan! I didn’t know you were such an animal.’ This statement throws me. I stop what I’m doing and sit back on my knees. I pull Mandy’s clothes back into position. Is this what I’ve become? I’m not an animal.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I’m sorry. I can’t do this.’ I get up and pace around. ‘Do you need to go to the toilet? I’ll wait.’ I walk Mandy to the toilets, and, at her insistence, I check every cubicle to make sure no unsavoury character is lurking there in the dark. After Mandy has a very lengthy wee, we make our way back to the group. On the way, Mandy tries to cheer me up.
‘Don’t feel bad about what happened between us back there. It’s OK.’
‘Yeah. Sorry, Mandy. I’m just not in the best headspace right now.’
‘I know. It takes time to get over heartbreak. I should know.’
I put my arm around Mandy, knowing that she understands it’s just a friendly gesture with nothing sexual in it.
We sit back down with the others. I’ve lost my desire to drink and talk. To overcome this, I have three generous shots of tequila in quick succession. The others cheer me on. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. I’m ashamed. Even though I’ve drunk myself to the point of inebriation, the disappointment I feel in myself sits at the forefront of my mind.
After a while, I peel myself away from the group, mumbling something about going to take a piss. When I finally reach the edge the oval and I’m confident that the darkness will mask me, I slip under the fence and stagger off down the gravel road and exit the grounds. I’m having trouble walking.
What have I become and why did I stoop so low? The girl I love told me she was leaving town today. She expressed a desire to meet me in the future. And what’s my response to that? To make out like an animal with some girl I don’t even care about. With anger in my heart, I blame Rhonda for what’s happened tonight. She’s abandoning me. That’s the reason why I got rolling drunk and shamelessly pashed my ex-girlfriend. What a hero! Isn’t that exactly the kind of behaviour that I resented in my mother’s episode with the priest? That she threw all caution to the wind and succumbed to lust? I’m no better than her. Is it something that runs in our blood? Are we designed to act like selfish, lustful pathetic excuses for human beings? Well, I want to be better than that. I don’t want to live my life making stupid mistakes.
I know that I’ll never see Rhonda again. She will mature, become even more beautiful and fall in love with some ridiculously good-looking fellow. Good on her. She deserves it. I hope she has a good life; somehow, I know that she will. She’ll be happy and successful – I can feel it and it brings a smile to my face. Perhaps, one day, I’ll pass her on some city street and tilt my hat at her. But I probably won’t be wearing a hat. I’m sure that image surfaced in my mind from the never-ending period dramas that screen on the ABC. This realisation makes me laugh out loud.
It suddenly dawns on me that I’ll be fine. I know I can stand on my own two feet. Bruce is no longer at my side and that alone makes me feel good – that and the fact that my damned stupid nervous twitch has taken a hike too! But he’s gone. Bruce is gone and he’s never coming back. I defeated him. In a weird way, I do miss him. But I’m proud to be confronting the harshness of reality on my own. I don’t know where my life will take me, but I know that wherever I go and whatever I do, I’ll be OK. I’m a daydreamer and that allows me to cope. My dreams allow me to be a little detached from reality. I may be alone on some parts of my journey in life, but I won’t allow myself to be swallowed up by the loneliness. I’ll pick myself up and walk down a road I haven’t walked before. And I’ll recognise the beauty of my everyday surroundings. Not in a con
scious, trying way. It will be automatic. I’ll be present in the moment.
I amble along the footpath and realise that my body is not in a very good state. It’s not completely upright. I’m sort of leaning over on one side and my legs are having trouble maintaining a normal walking rhythm. I’m thinking about it too much. I need to let go and just let my legs lead me home. But they have different ideas. They want to move forward in a time signature that I’m not familiar with. A jazz musician might recognise a rhythm in this chaos. Perhaps if I stop on the footpath and then start up again, I might adopt a more normal walk? I try this. It doesn’t work.
I stop again. Something has caught my eye. I look to the west. What is that? Am I seeing things? There are lights moving in a V-formation across the sky. They are white with colourful tails. They move very slowly. I wish Mike was here. Are these the same lights that he saw? One of the lights separates from the formation; it appears to move towards me. But I can’t be sure. Is it getting bigger? I’m too drunk and I don’t know what I’m looking at. I blink hard, trying to sharpen my vision. I urge the light to come closer. It seems to react to my thoughts. I don’t know if it’s real, but I hope, hope and hope that it is!
I try to communicate with the light telepathically. Have you come to take me away from this banal existence that a human being must endure? Can you take me away for good and make me one of you? I promise to conform. Don’t just experiment on me and then return me to this god-forsaken planet. Take me away forever!
The light looks to be about fifty metres away. Suddenly, it stops. Is it looking at me? Can lights look? I raise my arm to encourage its approach. In a flash, it shoots away and resumes its place in the V-formation. I watch as the lights continue on their trajectory.
Why didn’t the light take me away? It could have been so good. I could have taught them all about humans. About how humans feel. How we can be happy and then sad. How we can love and hate. And then, in an instant, the lights disappear and I’m left standing on a lonely street in a small town. I stand there for a good while, looking at the space where the lights disappeared, hoping that they might reappear and whoosh me away. The space remains black.
When I start walking again, my advance is more sure-footed. I feel like praising myself aloud, announcing to everyone behind closed doors around me that I can walk in a straight line. I’m sure they’d be very impressed. I’ll have to tell Mike about what I just saw, but I can’t be bothered thinking about it at the moment. Right now, I’m looking forward to reaching my comfortable bed and waking up to a yummy breakfast. Maybe the whole family will have breakfast together. That would be nice. I could talk to my sisters, see what they’re up to. See what’s bothering them. Maybe they’re having boy problems. Boy problems! They can’t be more complicated than girl problems. Nothing could be more complicated than that.
It suddenly dawns on me. I know what I’ll do tomorrow. I’ll buy some koi and make them a decent-sized pond in the backyard. It will have stones and plants and ornaments that they can swim around and hide under. They’ll be well fed and comfortable. They won’t have to worry about a thing. They’ll have a good life. I’ll make sure of it. They’ll have a beautiful life.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my sister, Angela, who read an early draft of ‘Imaginary Foe’ and encouraged me to publish the novel. I will always be grateful to you for your interest, support and advice and for lending me an ear over a glass of wine! Thanks also to my niece, Aditi, who continues to impress me with her sharp observation.
Thank you, Scott, my beautiful partner and my rock in this crazy world! Thanks for believing in me and providing a supportive working environment – thanks for all the coffees and food! Your suggestions and input on certain scenes in the story really helped to sharpen the tension. And more importantly, thanks for being you. Your humaneness will never cease to astonish me.
Thanks to Vaarunika Dharmapala, my editor from Fontaine Publishing. Your painstaking attention to detail was incredible. You polished the work and brought my attention to aspects of the novel that I had not considered. Thanks to all at Fontaine Publishing Group – your service allows writers to realise their dream, and that’s pretty special.
Thanks to Laurie Snell who wrote ‘Drakesbrook Days and Waroona Years – An Illustrated History of Waroona Shire.’ Your book provided an excellent background to the history of Waroona and, in particular, to the establishment of the Alcoa Wagerup refinery.
Thanks to Scott’s dad, Don Simms, a retired pharmacist. You provided insight into whether pregnancy tests were an off-the-shelf or over-the-counter product in the late 80s in rural Western Australia. This history is not documented elsewhere that I can find and so your personal knowledge in this field was very much appreciated.
Lastly, thanks to my family. Thanks to Mum and Dad who raised me in Waroona and provided a loving environment that fed my imagination. RIP dear Dad. Mum, I’m so glad you love books! Thanks for all the interesting discussions we’ve had over the years. And thanks to my brother and sisters – Michael, Angela and Kerry. It was a great growing up with you guys in Waroona. I will always look back on our shared youth and adolescence with wonder. And thanks, Mum and Dad, for having us all so close together!
To order the print edition, find out more about the book or to contact the author, please visit:
www.vividpublishing.com.au/imaginaryfoe
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