OBVIOUSLY, I CAN’T have this fantasy without feeling sad because you are gone and also because it means, in a way, I am wishing to not be pregnant, which means wishing to not have our child. That’s not how I feel, though. I want the baby. It’s only in a very convoluted way that I don’t. Simply put – I do. And obviously I can’t have this fantasy without feeling sad because I’ll always remember what actually happened. Not the part where you die, but before that, when you told me you’d made other plans.
I’M LYING ON MY BACK on the couch. My laptop is resting high on my chest – my stomach not flat enough for this anymore – and my neck is at an unnaturally sharp angle. I’m idly flicking through Travis’s Facebook account, scrolling down his wall and scanning for anything I might’ve missed, when a message pops up on my screen from him. He’s never messaged me before, nor I him.
Hey, what’s your number? I want to ask you something.
I snap the computer shut. He shouldn’t be able to know I was looking at his profile, or that I look at it most days. When I open the computer again, cautiously, his message is still there. It could be nothing. But if it was nothing, he would just ask whatever it is he wants to ask in a message. He wouldn’t need to call me.
I go to the kitchen, take my time pouring one glass of water and then another. Before I write back, I take some deep breaths. I run my hands over my belly, protective, or maybe just reminding myself it’s there. I send only my number, no words. For a long minute afterwards I watch my phone on my coffee table, ominously dormant. Finally, the screen lights up with the call.
‘Hello?’
‘Hey, it’s Travis.’
‘How are you?’
I feel the urge to move, so I stand and walk to my room.
‘Good. How are you?’
‘Yeah, not bad.’ I look at myself in the mirror. My skin is smooth and bright. Despite the fact that I’m always sweating lately, I look healthier than I have for a while. Maybe it’s the meat eating. My belly is higher up now, pointy. I look pregnant.
‘Are you still looking for work?’
‘Yeah, why?’
‘My parents own a winery in the Yarra Valley. They’ve got a batch that’s been bottled and now it needs to be labelled. It’s mundane work but they pay well. I usually take a friend.’
It takes a few seconds for me to figure out why he’s telling me this.
‘It’s not an ongoing gig or anything. I just thought I’d ask you because you’d probably be free and might want the work.’
‘Oh.’
‘They need it done really soon, though. By next weekend. I’m going to drive up tomorrow. Are you free?’
‘Yeah, I’m free.’ I can hear the shock in my voice, almost like I’m irritated. It’s so unexpected I actually forget for a moment that any money would be helpful.
‘It’s two days work. Or you could just do one day if you’d prefer.’
‘I’ll do two.’
‘Great. I’m going to stay at my parents’ place, so you’d need to drive yourself there and back. It’s less than an hour away.’
‘That’ll be fine.’
He gives me the address then rings off.
THERE ARE TWO very similar photos of Pat and Travis together. The photos were both posted in November but several years apart. They’re sitting at the same wooden bench in each picture, surrounded by wine bottles. It’s hard to see the detail of the room they’re in as the lighting is dim. In one, they are both looking at the camera. In the other, Pat is looking at Travis and Travis is looking at a wine bottle in his hands. Pat is smiling, maybe laughing. That’s what I’ve always focused on: the way he is looking at Travis. Now, looking at the photo again, I can see other details. That Travis is running a hand over the surface of the wine bottle. That there’s a reel of shiny white sticker paper on the bench beside them, almost neon in the darkly lit room. Wine bottles stacked in crates in the background.
I usually take a friend, he said. I return to Travis’s profile and scroll through his photos, searching for the barn, the dim lighting, the wine. The only two images like this are with Pat. Did he always take Pat?
Travis said he thought to call me because it was late notice. He assumed I’d be free, which is true, I have nothing else to do. I’m suddenly overwhelmed with appreciation for the gesture and the fact that my life is so empty right now and I start to cry, hard. No warm up, my face is wet in an instant. I rub my bump and try to feel happy for my baby. This might be the closest we get to being with its father.
Eventually I wipe my face and pick up where I was before Travis called. Scrolling, searching, scrolling.
I’VE NEVER HEARD of Kangaroo Ground, but it’s on the way to Healesville, which I have heard of, although I’ve never been there. The route is confusing and I have to keep checking the map on my phone at traffic lights. I’m anxious about being late. Not because this is like a real job, but because I don’t want to look unappreciative. This offer must mean Travis likes me, I realise. Or he doesn’t dislike me, at least, if he’s willing to spend two days with me. The idea of spending more than five minutes alone with Travis makes me nervous. I’ve made a list of questions I want to ask and I rehearse saying them in ways that might sound off the cuff and also in ways that mean he doesn’t have to answer, not if he doesn’t want to.
I know I didn’t know him as well as you did, but I really liked him when I met him.
I was surprised how sad it made me, given I didn’t know him that well.
I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you.
It’s okay to not be okay.
KANGAROO GROUND IS stunningly green with long, winding roads through rolling hills. I stop at a small store, which looks like a cottage, with a red corrugated-iron roof. I buy a salad and cheese roll, suffocated in cling wrap, a thick layer of margarine visible.
‘You just passing through?’ The woman behind the counter is middle-aged and blonde.
‘I’m here to see a friend.’
‘They local?’
‘Yes. His name is Travis.’
‘Oh, the Millers. Have you been there before?’
‘No. I have directions, though.’
‘Their street is the second right once you dip down the hill. Number nine – you can’t miss it. Big blue house, beautiful.’
The directions come in handy, as the reception drops out just past the store. The woman was right: the house is beautiful. Big but not pretentious, weatherboards and tall rectangular windows. I’m about to phone Travis when I see the front door open; he jogs across the lawn. He looks different – dressed in cargo shorts and Blundstones, unfashionable sunglasses. It suits him, I think, the country. I wind down my window and he bends to speak to me, one hand on the roof and one on my door.
‘Come up the driveway,’ he says. ‘There’s space for you to park along the side of the house.’
I drive slowly behind him as he walks up the drive and points towards a carport. There are two other cars here already – an old Landcruiser and an expensive-looking sedan. I’m glad to be parking behind these two cars. I’d be scared of pulling in next to one and scratching it.
Travis doesn’t hug me when I get out of the car.
‘Come this way.’ He opens a gate at the back of the carport. I follow him into his parents’ backyard. ‘How was the drive?’
‘It was fine. I’ve never been out this way before.’
‘I love it here.’
The property is huge. There’s a steep slope at the back of the house that leads down to a small dam and a paddock. The grass is a bright, pale green. Travis leads me towards a large shed next to the dam.
‘They don’t grow the grapes here,’ he explains. ‘They have a vineyard over in the valley. They bottle it there too. We’re just labelling. It’s a small batch.’
He turns and smiles at me. For a second, I think I’ve never seen Travis like this, happy and excitable. Then I remember he was always like this when I first met him.
He
unlatches a tall door to the shed and holds it open for me. One side of the space is filled with pallets of wine, stacked high, each stack taller than me. It looks like a big ‘small batch’ to me. There’s a large workbench with some bottles already lined up and rolls of labels sitting ready.
‘Don’t worry. We don’t have to finish all of them.’ Travis is looking at me looking at the pallets.
‘How will we get them all down?’
‘We have a pallet jack,’ he says. ‘We just can’t use it drunk.’ He throws me a quick smile. ‘So, anyway, I’ve already unstacked the first few pallets over that way. The stickers are all here on this table. I’ve done the first few bottles so you can see.’
The sticker has a minimal design. A cream label with an illustration of a grapevine. Basic font, italics.
‘What wines are these?’ I ask.
‘These ones are pinot noirs. Those over there are chardonnays, we’ll do those tomorrow. They won an award for that wine recently. Take some bottles at the end of the day. Save it for next year, maybe.’
‘I’m sure Sarah will drink it before next year.’
I concentrate on Travis’s laugh, try to discern if it’s impatient or affectionate. It’s hard to tell.
He carries a tall stool over to the workbench. ‘I got you this,’ he says. ‘So you don’t have to stand all day.’
It looks like it might be hard for me to balance on, but I don’t mention this. I’m touched he’s so eager to help me.
I get started labelling while he sets up a speaker and puts on some music.
‘Feel free to DJ,’ he tells me.
He removes a few more pallets of wine from their stack and eventually sits down and joins me labelling. ‘Don’t worry if you fuck any up, by the way. That can just be a bottle for you to take home.’
‘What if I fuck up all of them?’
‘Then we’ll soak them in warm water and rub the label off. And then you’ll be fired.’
‘So, do you do this every year?’ One of my rehearsed questions. It almost feels nostalgic, like I’m remembering lines.
‘Yeah, since I was sixteen.’
‘You never wanted to make wine?’
‘My brother does that. I wouldn’t mind holding off on joining the family business.’
‘Classic youngest child.’
This was a comment Renee made about Travis after she broke up with him, when he was incredulous, trying to convince her she was wrong. I’m worried Travis might ask how I know he is the youngest, but he doesn’t.
‘Do you have siblings?’ he asks.
‘No, I’m an only child.’
‘Classic actor.’
We both smile.
Travis is being chatty and friendly, but I realise quickly he’s not relaxed. He labels some bottles, then stands and goes back to the pallets for more, even though we still have plenty ready to label. He doesn’t just leave an album to play, but changes tracks individually. He narrates what he likes about each song, emphasising off-beat notes, subtle background percussion and good lyrics. Some I recognise – Sampa the Great and Nick Cave – but others I haven’t heard before, long-winded instrumentals. Unlike the last few times I’ve seen him, he doesn’t leave silences in our conversation. After two or three seconds he’ll circle back to what we were saying before. He’s manic, in a friendly way.
‘How’s your band going?’ I ask.
‘I still love it. But also I don’t. We don’t make any money. We tour but we have to stay in hostels, get flights at six in the morning. It makes it really hard to hold down an unskilled job when you have to take weekends off all the time.’
I don’t feel sorry for him now, having seen his house, but I resist the urge to point this out. ‘At least people go to your gigs,’ I say. ‘In indie theatre you have to do all the work to get a show on, then you have to perform it to an audience of two people.’
‘Didn’t you get a TV slot straight out of uni?’
I watch Travis delicately lining up a sticker on a wine bottle, placing the corners in exactly the right place, then smoothing his hands over the label. I don’t know what to say. I’m stunned, having been presented with this mundane fact about my life from a person I thought didn’t know me that well. I wonder if his concentration on the bottle in front of him is feigned, if he’s avoiding looking at me, but realise I haven’t watched him label any others so I can’t be sure. I realise now that it’s possible Travis has invited me here for the same reason I agreed to come: he suspects Pat might be the father of my child and he wants to get information about me, about my baby. I stand from my stool and steady myself at the workbench.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
‘I think I need a break.’
‘We can stop for lunch now if you want.’
‘It’s pretty early.’
He smiles. ‘First lunch.’
I follow him to the house. We go up the stairs to a large, square verandah and through glass sliding doors into the kitchen, which is simultaneously modern and not. A large island bench with a stainless-steel counter that matches the splashbacks, and wooden cupboard doors with chipped white paint.
Travis opens a fridge and takes out a bottle of cold water, pours me a glass. ‘Is there anything you can’t eat?’
‘Like, everything. But don’t stress – it’s okay if I eat things occasionally. Also, I bought lunch at the general store.’ I take the salad roll from my bag.
‘Oh, their rolls are the best.’
‘Sorry – I should’ve bought you one.’
‘Tomorrow.’ He keeps smiling at me after he says things, pointedly, like a parent trying to keep a child happy.
I take a sip of water. He takes a bag of bread rolls from the cupboard and starts unloading ingredients. Salad, different kinds of cheese, avocado and spreads – Vegemite, jam, peanut butter. He also takes out crackers and a few tubs of dip. He makes himself one sandwich and then another. When I finish my roll from the store I eat some biscuits. He asks me about being pregnant and I’m wary at first, but he doesn’t talk about the father, or even about my not having a job. He wants details of weird physical sensations. Can I feel the baby in there? What body parts does it have already? Can I feel where those are? I keep my answers short, but I make sure to smile and meet his eyes.
After lunch we get back to work. We turn the music up and I choose a few of the tracks – Cash Savage and Sharon Van Etten. We’re much quieter than we were this morning and I’m pleased that he feels comfortable in our silence. Occasionally I take breaks, stretching my arms and standing from the stool. At four Travis calls it a day. We’re nowhere near halfway through the labelling.
‘We still have a lot to go.’
‘It doesn’t matter if we don’t finish it,’ he says. ‘My parents will do some themselves. Are you right to get home?’
‘Yeah.’
He leads me to the carport and waves me off from the gate. As I back out of the drive and am trundling slowly down the street, I wonder what he’d have done if I said I wasn’t right to get home. Would he have driven me himself? Or invited me to stay? As I drive, I dissect everything he said over the day, wondering at any deeper meaning.
It’s peak hour and even though I’m travelling against most of the traffic, it’s still excruciating. I take my phone at red lights and search for Travis’s band. They’re called Working From Home. Travis does vocals and guitar. It’s a lot dreamier than I’d expected – slow rhythms with a lot of synth and keyboard. In most tracks I can’t actually hear any guitar, but usually Travis is singing. Most of the lyrics are vague and open-ended. Things like: ‘I get lost with space.’ The band released an EP last year that had six tracks much like that. There’s a new single, released more recently, that sounds different. Bare, plonky keyboard notes playing a simplistic melody. I almost go to double-check it is still Travis’s band, then I hear the vocals.
‘I hate you.’
I almost laugh when I hear his voice, breathy and overly earn
est.
‘I used to love you, but I fucking hate you. I wake up and I think of you. I go to bed and I think about how much I fucking hate you.’
I look at the date of the release – a little more than a month ago. The song must be about Renee. I wonder if she knows about it. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever heard and I play it twice.
THE NEXT DAY I arrive and let myself into the backyard. I have salad rolls from the store for each of us. When I enter the shed I see Travis has already started, a large dent made in the wine bottles from yesterday.
‘I couldn’t sleep last night, so I just kept labelling.’
I’m not sure what to say so I just smile.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll still pay you the same amount.’
Still not sure, still smiling.
I get to work labelling and let the silence stretch for a bit. He has the radio on today. A meteorologist is explaining that the temperatures recorded this month are hotter than previous years. He makes predictions for the approaching bushfire season. Talks about incineration as an inevitability. I really want to change the station and can’t believe Travis doesn’t. Here where his parents live is so green. In summer it must be so dry. My skin feels hot and uncomfortable, like clothing that doesn’t fit.
Eventually, when there’s a break in the broadcast, I ask if I can put music on.
‘Oh, sure.’ He sounds dazed, as though he wasn’t even listening. Or maybe he’s dazed because he was. I try to find something light and happy on my phone, which takes a while.
I ask Travis his plans for the rest of the week, then the weekend.
‘I’m not sure.’ He’s fixated on a label and for a moment I think he is going to stop there, but eventually he continues. ‘I might stay here. Have a weekend in the country.’
Small Joys of Real Life Page 10