The Truth & Addy Loest

by Kim Kelly

  Oh.

  Suddenly breathless, her chest tightened; her lungs ached as if she’d been running uphill, as if she’d been thumped from behind. She clutched at the shelf beside her, to steady herself. This is only an unfunny turn, she was sure she recognised the sensation. There’s nothing wrong with me. I can breathe, she told herself. I can breathe. Oh, but how it hurt; how the ground beneath her seemed to warp and heave. She knocked one of the combat soldiers off its row with her elbow, and the plastic box containing him thwacked onto the lino with such a force she seemed to hear it through her bones.

  A phone rang somewhere, over in Electricals; a woman in a tan raincoat stood at the central display of plush toys, inspecting a blue gnome – one of the most expensive and the most pointless, its popularity was as inexplicable as Addy’s condition, and should have come with a label declaring it a harbinger for the End of Days. She tried to focus on the woman and the gnome, to still the tide of panic, but just as she was beginning to calm, the piped music sent her the first tinkle-tankling guitar bars of Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Boxer’. Normally, this was a song she liked for its simple, proletarian elegance, one which could even make her feel a fondness for her brother; now, it only brought her a reminder of tomorrow’s match and a foggy recollection of having mentioned it to Dan Ackerman last night. Why would I have done that? Questions swarmed and images flickered. Why was I dancing on the coffee table?

  She wanted to be sick.

  ‘Hi, Addy.’

  She turned, and it was him. It was Dan Ackerman. Of course, she didn’t believe it at first, preferring to think him a figment of post-alcoholic psychosis – rather than have to face him.

  She blinked, but he remained: Dan Ackerman. He was wearing grey overalls, and he was holding a box of fuzzy-felt, the circus set with the prancing horse, ballerina pirouetting on its back, none of which made any more sense.

  He laughed: ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to spring on you like that.’

  ‘Oh? That’s all right,’ she replied, defaulting to polite, obliging, still not trusting he was real.

  He explained: ‘I’ve just finished work – at my uncle Evan’s factory, over in Beaconsfield. He makes gates and railings, you know, fancy ones. I sweep the floor, do as I’m told and all that. One of my nieces is turning three next week and I nearly forgot to get her a birthday present. She’s in Brisbane. I’ll have to post it tomorrow.’ He held up the box of fuzzy-felt. His knuckles were grimy. He was tall, taller in work boots, she smaller in her sandshoes, yet she didn’t feel small in front of him. He was far too perfect to be real. He added: ‘But I … um … I just … you know.’ He laughed softly again, at himself: ‘I just wanted to say hi.’

  You are the most beautiful man I’ve ever met.

  He said: ‘And also, to see what time you need me to get you to Souths Juniors tomorrow night, for your brother’s fight – that is, if you still want me to pick you up. Or whatever …’ His smile lost all certainty; he frowned as though he might have got this all wrong.

  And well he might, for Addy was only just cottoning on that she’d accepted Dan’s offer of a lift – and a Chinese meal, at the club. How this had come about was no longer relevant; she wasn’t going to put him off now: despite every complication, real and imagined, around any and all further interactions with Dan, Addy did not want to catch the bus out to Kingsford, at night, on her own: it was only six or so kilometres away, but it was a foreign country to her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said quickly. ‘Thank you. I’d really appreciate it.’ That’s not what she’d meant to say, or how she meant to say it – like he was a taxi driver offering to help with her shopping bags. She offered him the best thing she could: a bit of honesty: ‘I’m so sorry to sound like such a flake. As I’m sure you noticed, I got very drunk last night.’ Slut. ‘I’m not feeling so good this evening.’

  ‘I bet.’ His smile returned. It was the smile of a boy who wrote earnest, dope-fuelled love-rubbish; and it was as perfect as the rest of him. He said: ‘I’m no one to judge. I smoke too much. I get nervous all the time, especially before a gig – love the music, hate performing – before I know it, I’m having a smoke every time I have to get out the door. It’s not good. But I promise you, I’m not stoned right now.’ He grinned; it went straight to her knees; he said: ‘I’m going to give it away. Seriously. Did you hear, there was a massive bust at the Jay Club last night?’ The Jay Club was Sydney Uni’s marijuana club, where the coolest of the cool hung out collectively growing their hair in lieu of doing anything socially useful. She shook her head; he explained further: ‘Seventy arrests – my usual dealer was one of them. Much as I love a smoke, I don’t want a criminal record. Dad would kill me – for all kinds of reasons. He’s a doctor, and dirty on any of that stuff. And my grandfather – well, it’d kill him. The cops were pretty heavy-handed, and I don’t really blame them. If I was a cop, I might want to give some of those wankers at Jay a bit of a hard time myself. Anyway, all I mean is that I’m not stoned now, and I won’t be tomorrow night, either.’

  She didn’t know what to say to that; it didn’t seem her business whether he smoked dope or not. She was sure, absolutely sure, that her own wrongdoings were far more deplorable. He was a doctor’s son, a beloved grandson, a young prince of the world of men; she was no one; she said: ‘And I’ll try very hard not to behave like a whore on turps.’

  She’d hoped he’d find the quip witty; he didn’t. He frowned: ‘Um …’

  She tried to make it better: ‘Apologies for anything and everything I did last night that was inappropriate.’ And which might yet be leading to consequences neither of us is prepared for.

  He said: ‘It’s not a crime to get drunk, Addy. It’s not good for you, and it’s not my thing, but it’s not a hanging offence.’

  ‘I know. I don’t mean that.’ She felt her face flush, but she had to say it straight, get the words out in the air. ‘I mean whatever happened in the bedroom.’

  He looked quite plainly horrified at what she was suggesting; he paused for a moment, a long moment, before saying it straight himself: ‘I carried you up to your bed. You were asleep, mumbling something about the Industrial Revolution. Roz came with me – to help you get undressed. I left her to it. I went home. I might be many things, but rapist isn’t one of them.’

  ‘I didn’t mean —’ Oh, can I manage a conversation without insulting him?

  ‘Yeah, I know you didn’t mean that,’ he said, and so gently. ‘But that’s what it would mean. And I’m not like that. Never.’

  ‘Okay.’ Wow. How much of a shitbag can I be? ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, please.’ He tilted his head. How impossibly lovely can you be? ‘What time do you want me to pick you up tomorrow?’

  ‘Time?’ Time. The fight was scheduled to begin at seven thirty; if they were going to eat before it, then they should allow half an hour for that, plus, say, fifteen minutes in case of any delay with the meal; then there was travel time from Chippendale to Kingsford – maybe allow twenty minutes, at least, to account for Friday-evening traffic. She was usually quick at this kind of everyday arithmetic, but it seemed to take her half of forever to work it out. What’s twenty minutes plus thirty minutes plus fifteen? Sixty-five? What is sixty-five minutes? Are you fricken demented? Yes. An hour and five – let’s call it an hour and fifteen, to be safe. ‘Um. Six-fifteen?’

  ‘Six-fifteen it is.’ That smile, that squinted smile, was like something from a real-man, can-cracking beer commercial. She half expected him to wink; he didn’t. Don’t think about beer. He doesn’t drink beer. You’re not having a beer tonight. You’re not having a beer ever again. He said: ‘Do you need a lift home tonight? What time do you knock off?’

  ‘Oh.’ What? No! This was too much. ‘No. Thank you.’

  ‘It’s raining outside,’ he said, in a way that suggested he’d considered she might not have been aware of the fact, stuck as she was up here in a windowless discount variety box. ‘I’m happy
to wait until you finish.’

  ‘Wait?’ NO! PLEASE! FREAK! I just want to get my chocolate and my fried rice and be alone. ‘I don’t want to put you out.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be putting me out.’ His warm, dark eyes were laughing, loving, generous: so beautiful. WHAT? ‘You know I only live up the road, not even five minutes from you, Shepherd Street – stumbling distance from the engineering buildings, too.’ Although she knew the street he was referring to, he might as well have said he lived on Jupiter. ‘But I don’t want you to think I’m a creep, so I should cut my losses now and see you tomorrow, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’ FUCK! WHAT? ‘No. Creep? I wouldn’t think you were —’

  ‘But hey, what’s your phone number there at Flower Street?’ he asked, words racing over and into her own. ‘In case I’m held up or I get kidnapped by a gang of ninja koalas or something.’

  Who are you? She was too stupefied to laugh.

  He’d made a sensible request, however; she should respond to it sensibly. She turned to the shelf behind her and opened the stock book, retrieving her own little book from it, flipping past the pages of her scribblings with her well-practised secrecy. She wrote:

  Addy Loest – 318 0407

  Another prime number and one she liked the look of, except for the way she often slightly misjudged the second 0 so that it could have been mistaken for a 6; this one was all right, though. Her pen hovered by the number, wanting to add more, leave more, a smiley or —

  Just give it to him.

  She tore off the page and handed it over, and the warmth in those warm, dark, thoughtful eyes of his was something a bit criminally lovely as he took it, folding it into the hip pocket of his overalls, confessing: ‘It’s pretty creepy that I stole the note you wrote the other day, the one you left on the piano, and then I followed you, up to Newtown. That was a bit nuts, sorry. But you know … I just … you know. Now I’ve got two – of your notes, I mean.’ He shook his head at himself, laughing and not laughing at all; he was awkward, boyish: sincere. ‘I should go before I make a complete goose of myself. If you’re not at home tomorrow night, that’s cool, I’ll understand. I – yeah. See ya.’

  Some heartstring seemed to slip from her after him as he walked away, some glimpse of something golden. She watched him disappear down the escalator, glancing back at her once, a small wave with the box of fuzzy-felt; and she apologised again, silently: You are way too beautiful for me. She picked up the combat soldier that had fallen to the floor, and she put him back on the shelf.

  ‘Good evening, my young friend,’ Mr Lim greeted her as she stepped into his small, bright takeaway. ‘Large fried rice for you?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Addy smiled the smile of nearly fried rice, nearly home; it no longer mattered that she was exhausted and freezing from the rain and the gale-force wind outside.

  Mr Lim shouted through the kitchen hatch to his invisible cook, words she couldn’t understand but which were part of the comforting ritual as well.

  He turned back to her, and then shouted again on seeing her more clearly: ‘Look at you – you are all wet! It’s a cold night, you wait by the fire.’ He pointed at the large radiator on the floor beside the counter, behind the two tables that comprised the eat-in option. ‘You get warm – here, here, get warm.’

  She did as she was told, sitting down on the chair nearest the radiator, careful to keep her shopping bag full of chocolate and bananas and fizzy away from the heat, and while she waited, he told her about his two sons, as he always did if it was quiet like this, one of them having almost finished medicine, the other just begun; he said: ‘You make your father very proud, too, yes?’

  ‘I try,’ she lied, but still she smiled.

  Mr Lim brought her order over to her, in its blue-and-white-striped plastic bag; he said: ‘Here, you have some chicken soup tonight with your rice. From one father to another. Don’t tell anyone I give to you for free.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Addy told him, with the instant happiness that only another’s true good wishes can ever bring. ‘I’ll be warm for a week on your kindness alone.’

  She was already toasty warm, warmer than she’d ever been. She was falling in love, for the very first time. In love with a boy called Dan Ackerman. She melted now every time that heartstring wrote his name across the vast page of sky that was her soul.

  But through every beautiful feeling, every new hope and dream, an evil whispered steadily: You’re not good enough, Addy Loest. You’re not good enough for him.

  LOOSE BALLOONS & THE TELLING OF UNTOLD TALES

  Happiness is never whole, ever tinged as it is with longing, or sadness, or worry of some kind, and only more so as time goes by, but the following morning, that Friday morning, Addy was as contented as it was possible for a semi-permanently distraught almost twenty-year-old to be. She even slept in a bit. She didn’t even panic when her internal clock screamed: You have a Dispute Resolution lecture at nine! Because she was no longer a law student. And that was fine. Or it would be, once she found the courage to tell her father, and today she felt capable of even that, sort of.

  No Name stretched in a patch of milky sun behind her knees, and she imagined Dan Ackerman, one day, there, somewhere, possibly not behind her knees, but in that general space. At her back. With her.

  And now it’s time to get up. She rose quickly, leaving that thought there in the bed; she’d never actually had sex sober, except once, sort of, and she could never let herself think about that. It was too awful, the unsafest place she knew. She also knew Dan Ackerman wasn’t like that. She knew he was a person of genuine tenderness, as though she could smell it and touch it, but the thought of any intimacy was still too overwhelming. Too difficult.

  She luxuriated in a long, long shower instead, uncaring of the water usage, thinking about the day ahead. Fridays used to be a mad squeeze of most of her law subjects; now, she realised, she’d be able to take on an extra shift at Town Hall Variety; she could start to put some money away, save for a plane ticket. Everyone was saving for a plane ticket, but she had no yearning to follow the pack – to London or Los Angeles or Paris or Jaipur. She wanted to go to Berlin: she could see her little desk by a window overlooking the River Spree, writing and writing and writing there, like Brecht or Kafka, even Mark Twain. But would it be too sad today, she wondered, with half of its city patrolled by Stasi death squads, trapped beyond the Iron Curtain, and all its old grandeur pocked with bomb craters? Would it be too sad for words? She knew the town in which her father had been born was not far from Frankfurt, but Frankfurt had been bombed to smithereens. She knew the town he was from was called Lindenfels – and that was just about the extent of the information she had eked from him, when she’d lied about the faculty of law needing his place of birth on record when she’d first enrolled at uni. She knew where Lindenfels was in every geographical sense, from maps she’d looked at, but she didn’t know what she might see there today, if she could go there. To Germany. Deutschland. Das Land der Dichter und Denker, land of poets and thinkers. Was that where she belonged? Would her father be too sad if she left to go and look?

  ‘No – I will not allow it.’ She could hear him forbidding her from mentioning it again, as if the very thought was cursed.

  She sighed: I’ll just go to London, then. Sneak across while I’m there. He’ll never know.

  And it wasn’t a possibility that could eventuate anytime soon: it would take her at least a year to save the fare. Less the twenty-four dollars left on the lay-by for that garden frock. She smiled from the inside out at that thought, for a new frock was as good as a holiday – especially a new old frock like that one. This was what she would be doing today, primarily: putting another six dollars down on that masterpiece of tulle and applique, and then probably spending the rest of it worrying about what to wear that night, to the boxing —

  Don’t spoil the morning with all that.

  Don’t spoil the morning with anything at all.

  ‘I can’t wo
rk you out sometimes, Addy.’ Roz was standing at the kitchen bench plastering a piece of toast with raspberry jam, and Addy was standing at the kitchen door in not a small amount of astonishment. The whole kitchen was as spotless as could be; when she’d crept in last night with her plastic bags full of comfort, she’d not turned on the lights before grabbing a fork and spoon from the drawer and skulking dozily up the stairs to her room, but now, here was the fruit of her anger and resentment, the sweet and the bitter, Roz telling her: ‘Harriet’s making noises about moving out, and you know what a pain that would be – she owns more than that food processor. The TV, the stereo – the cutlery. Why couldn’t you have just talked to her?’

  The echo of Harriet’s dismissive laughter returned, her condescending disbelief that Addy should have any ambition to be a writer; and so Addy could only shrug at Roz with the most basic defence: ‘Harriet and I don’t speak the same language.’

  Roz replied with a heavy, both-sides sigh, those creamy crests of her bosom spilling over the cups of her black bustier – the costume of her Fridays and Saturdays, her days of hard labour at a theatre restaurant called Fancy That, playing a bawdy wench, where the tips alone sometimes paid her rent. A penny dropped for Addy here, though: no matter what costume Roz put on, no matter her company or her circumstance, she knew who she was: she was a suburban girl with the world at her feet; she wasn’t especially pretty or clever, but her zest, her embrace of all life through thick and thin and every weather in between, made her far more than merely attractive. She was the kind of girl other girls wanted to be: confident. Even her heritage was forthright, cheerful and clear: her parents were modest yet irrepressibly hopeful shopkeepers, with a hardware store at Miranda Fair shopping centre, having emigrated here from Devon when she was three, wanting to raise their children under a brighter sun. Roz Watkins was an English rose – she was, in fact, a bawdy wench.