I stop talking and let Mum fill in the gaps. She tells Ian what awards I was nominated for, which is a much longer list than the ones I won. They talk about the other actor, the one who was in the police drama. It was a depressing show about a woman struggling to cope with her child’s death, like all mothers in stories. They’re either beaten by their husbands or have lost their children to war or disease. No happy mothers exist in fiction.
‘So, do you have anything lined up?’ Ian asks me.
I look to Mum, wondering if she’s going to keep talking for me, but she doesn’t.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Nothing lined up.’
Steak and potatoes, followed by fruit from the garden, sliced and placed atop ice cubes. At the end of the night, as we’re saying goodbye, James’s dad says, ‘Could be a little star you’re cooking up in there!’
I smile, thank him for the dinner. Annie is in the kitchen washing up. I can’t see her face, but I can feel her smiling too.
IN BED I message Fergus.
Ok.
I’VE NEVER BEEN TO A nude beach. I realise when I arrive that the picture I’ve had in my head is a teenage boy’s wet dream from some American movie, I don’t remember which one. I’d imagined blonde bombshells, but the first people I see are a cheery, camp couple who smile at me as they walk along the shore.
‘Nice day for it,’ one of them says, striding ahead.
I’m dawdling deliberately – others might think I’m only here to enjoy the view, like I’ve accidentally stumbled across the beach. I was hesitant to come, but it was the only place I could think of where I could be sure I wouldn’t run into anyone I know. I imagine bumping into James’s parents and have a small laugh to myself.
It’s not a long walk from the main beach and, while it is pretty – a small pocket of sand backed by shrubs, a sprawl of shiny black rocks becoming mossier as they meet the water, gentle waves slopping happily in the inlet – it strikes me as not very private. I know from my Google search that the northern section of the beach is exclusively for gay men. Looking northward, I can’t see anyone’s penis, but I can see well enough to tell they’re naked. The shoreline continues in both directions to other, regular beaches, where I envisage people looking over to us here, judgemental or perving. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I feel exposed.
I spread my towel on the sand behind a beach hut and park myself on it, protected from one side. I don’t get undressed right away, but survey the other beachgoers. There’s one couple sitting side by side on towels and reading. The man is wearing a cowboy hat. Beyond them is another woman on her own, clothed.
It’s much quieter than the main beach.
I slip off my sandals and my beach dress but leave my bathers on for the time being. I feel the sun hot on my skin. It’s probably doing me damage, but I let it for now. I keep looking around at the other people, but nobody seems to notice me, or care. As I settle in, I realise I feel relaxed in a way I haven’t in weeks. I’m mildly nervous about seeing Fergus, who didn’t hesitate before agreeing to meet me here despite it being more than an hour’s drive from the city. But also I’m calm, alone for the first time in a while. Eventually, I slip my bathers off. I take a few deep breaths, like I would if I was running, in and out, even. I’m thankful now to have already applied sunscreen, realising how uncomfortably sexual it would be for Fergus to rub lotion on my body here, even with bathers on. I lie down on my back, raise my arms up and over my head and stretch my legs. I spread them just a little. I urge a breeze to come so that I can feel it in my pubes. I close my eyes. I won’t be able to stay like this for long, the baby’s weight will squash my lungs, but for a few moments at least I relax into it.
‘You look nice.’
I open my eyes and see him standing over me. He’s had a haircut. A clean symmetrical bowl cut, which is fashionable but not summery.
‘I like your hair.’
‘I had it done over a month ago.’
I stare at him, trying to decide if he’s making a point of how long it’s been since I’ve seen him. He stares back, then, after few seconds, he smiles. He drops his towel and lowers gently onto the sand. He surveys everyone here, like I did when I arrived. One of the older men has been for a swim and is now drip-drying. Fergus and I sit together quietly. I exhale loudly, act exaggeratedly relaxed.
‘How did you know about this place?’ he asks eventually.
‘My mum’s partner made a joke about it.’
He turns to me and feigns a sleazy look. We fall back into silence and I watch him watching me, his eyes running over my body.
‘I’m huge now.’
‘It suits you.’
‘I’ve got cellulite.’ I raise my legs and show him the underside of my thighs, deliberately coquettish.
He laughs, asks me how my holiday has been. I summarise what I’ve been doing the past two weeks between sexting him.
‘Are you going to join me?’ I ask.
He drops back onto his elbows, but still doesn’t undress. ‘I don’t know,’ he says.
‘What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘Well’ – he turns onto his stomach, moves his face in close to mine to talk – ‘I don’t think we can get naked together. Like, be a naked couple here. Wouldn’t it be odd?’
‘That couple over there is naked.’ I point to the man in the cowboy hat reading next to his partner.
Fergus looks over to them and then back to me. ‘Aren’t they strange, though?’ he whispers.
We both laugh.
We laugh all afternoon. Fergus is working on a summer musical and he recounts the horridly sexist storyline. He asks me about Mum and Ken and I tell him about my family, even my dad. I ask about his Christmas and learn about his family. He has two younger sisters, which I find hard to picture. He talks about them affectionately and I realise I can hardly imagine him being anything other than desperate to please, the way he is with me.
When we move from the sand to the water he finally gets nude. I can’t help but stare at his penis, which, unlike when I’ve seen it before, is small and dangly. I feel embarrassed, as though I’m witnessing something too intimate. The tide is low and we have to wade out, out, out until we’re covered. Once the water is deep enough we swim circles around one another.
Fergus is more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him. He doesn’t agree with everything I say or try to match his opinions to mine. If there are silences, he lets them be.
I’ve swum out deeper here than I’ve been used to in Mount Martha. Treading water is harder work with my big body. Occasionally I need to rest, wrapping my legs around his torso and letting him take my weight. My protruding belly touches his flat one. He puts his arms around me loosely. Calm, not fervent. It’s the most enjoyable time I’ve ever spent with him. Possibly the only enjoyable time.
Walking from the water back to the sand I feel self-conscious, expecting the other people here to stare, but nobody does. Resting again on my towel I survey the dots of water on my body, glistening in the sun, soon to be absorbed or evaporated.
‘I think I love the nude beach,’ I say to Fergus as I envisage a future as a single, hippy mother, whose child doesn’t want to know she goes nude swimming.
He doesn’t comment.
After three hours that pass easily, we walk back to the car park together. He carries my bag, I have the towels.
‘So, when are you back in Melbourne?’ he asks.
‘We leave in three days.’ I’m walking behind him and he doesn’t add anything else. Doesn’t ask if we’re going to see each other. ‘It’s weird,’ I go on. ‘The next time I see my mum I’m going to have a baby.’
‘That is weird.’ He turns his head back to look at me, but he doesn’t stop, he keeps walking.
When we reach the car park he hands me my bag and I hand him his towel and we hug goodbye and then we kiss, soft and closed-mouthed. Not long, but with a gentle affection.
‘Get home safe,’ he says.
‘YOU SEEM VERY relaxed,’ Mum says to me that evening. She and Ken are watching the finale of the miniseries. On television I’m rigid, sullen in a witness box. In real life I am lying on a couch opposite Mum and Ken. I pretend to be asleep and don’t answer.
THE NEXT MORNING over breakfast I write a message to Travis. I try to write it quickly. Try not to overthink my words. A combination of the same sorts of sentiments I’ve been drafting for months. I’m not telling him anything he doesn’t know, just reminding him that I’m here. I send it without even rereading it.
Afterwards, I sip my tea and look across the back garden that is bright with morning sun. I listen to birds screeching and wonder if I’m anxious for a reply. I guess that I will be eventually, but right now I feel calm.
FOR OUR LAST night in Mount Martha we have booked dinner at a restaurant on the Esplanade. We order seafood platters for the table. Crunchy tempura crab and flaky white fish. Everyone but me knocks back oysters, ordering a dozen more and then a dozen more. After dinner we go to a wine bar. It’s upstairs and has a balcony that overlooks the street. It’s expensive, but acting bohemian. We sit on cushions on the floor and drink from large, stemless wineglasses. I drink fancy lemonade with homemade ginger syrup and rosemary. Our parents comment on how nice the bar is. Annie, James and I spy on the people on the street below. Annie and James are on their third wine and getting silly.
I manage not to think of Travis for the whole evening. I forget about the message I sent him until I get home and am idly scrolling on my phone before bed. I reread what I wrote:
I know we’re not very good friends, but I am here for you if you would like company or to talk and you think it might help. I am also very sad. I know I wasn’t as close to him as you were, nowhere near, but I thought he was a really nice guy. These things affect everyone. Feel free to ignore. I hope you’re ok.
Maybe I should’ve added a ‘Happy New Year’ or ‘Belated Merry Christmas’. Although, on reflection, it’s probably better I didn’t. He probably hasn’t been feeling that festive.
THE RENTAL NEEDS TO BE cleaned before we leave. I waddle around with the broom, struggling to sweep, and Mum tells me to sit. I lie on the couch while she and Ken work around me, and feel more like a child than ever. Afterwards they drop me at James’s parents’ place. Annie and James are driving me home while Mum and Ken are headed straight to the airport. Mum hugs Annie goodbye and they’re giggly.
‘Next time we see each other there’ll be a little baby!’
‘I know!’
On the drive home we ring Sarah. She got back from the Sunshine Coast a week ago, which was the first time I heard from her since we dropped her at the airport. She sent me a text:
I read about a CEO whose baby didn’t like breastfeeding, or bottle feeding, so she jellied her breast milk.
No hello. No context. I replied:
That’s gross.
I think it’s beautiful.
So do I.
After that, she messaged every day. Bored, impatient for us to return. We invited her to come to Mount Martha, but she refused the offer and continued to tell us how bored she was each day.
Now her voice complains through the car’s speakers. We listen to her talk about Queensland. I realise that when Mum moves, I’ll have no reason to go back there. I feel little sadness about this and it makes me feel old.
Sarah tells us about going out to a club on the Gold Coast. Partying with schoolies kids and sleeping with one of them. He called her vagina her ‘minge’. We haven’t laughed this hard in weeks. I’m worried for my delicate bladder. And yet, like boiling water taken off heat, something inside me settles.
I USED TO GRAZE TRAVIS’S socials looking for you, but lately I’ve been expanding. Yesterday I spent an hour looking through an album of a holiday he went on without you, a road trip through Victoria and New South Wales. He slept in a swag that he strapped to the roof of his car between destinations. Another boy and two girls were on the trip. They had a cast-iron jaffle maker that one person is holding in the fire in almost every shot. There’s a particular photo of Travis I keep returning to. He’s sitting on a log beside the camp fire. One of the girls on the trip is seated next to him and it looks like they’re talking. Her expression is serious, staring at the ground. Maybe she was just studying a bug there or she was telling him she hates her job, she doesn’t know what she wants to do with the rest of her life. Travis is bent forward, elbows on his knees. His face is turned towards her, trying to look into her eyes that are fixed on the ground. I think at first that maybe she’s upset and he is trying to cheer her up. I laugh to myself when I imagine being isolated in the bush with Travis. Maybe she is tired of him and he is bustling for her attention.
In the next shot only their heads are visible above a body of water that is bursting with reflected sun. You can’t see much detail, everything is over-exposed, but you can tell they’re both laughing.
TRAVIS SHARES PETITIONS to stop Adani. He shares articles about how all cops are bastards. He asks people to come to his gigs using memes: men playing saxophones in cafes, a slug holding a flute. He shares the video of the koala drinking from the water bottle. There are photos of him with friends standing on rocks with views behind them, beers in hand.
I look up his parents’ winery and browse photos on the website. Expansive shots of the orderly grid of a vineyard, close-up shots of the tightly coiled tendrils of a grapevine. There are photos of Travis’s father and his brothers making wine and then there’s a photo of you. I hadn’t been looking for it and it knocks me from within. It’s possible to be winded by grief, I’ve learned. You’re with Travis, walking between barrels in a large dark warehouse, both wearing aprons and tall, sturdy work boots. I’m not sure if you’d worked there or the photo was taken to make it look like you had.
I save the photo and shut my laptop. The purpose of looking at this stuff is to learn more about you and yet each time I do I feel indignant, hurt by even the tiniest facet of your life that surprises me.
February
IT’S ANNIE WHO TELLS SARAH I’m going to move. It just makes sense; we can’t live together with a baby. She tells her when I’m not there and then later the three of us have dinner – mussels in a tomato sauce, James’s dad’s recipe. We drag our kitchen chairs close together, crowding around one corner of the dining table. The laptop is open and together we read ads on rental websites, people looking for rooms. Sarah won’t live with anybody who likes sport or describes themselves as active. Also, she won’t let anyone who has a cat or a dog move in.
‘I can’t trust someone if they have a pet, but not a home.’
We look at places for me. Annie says I need a new bathroom and a small courtyard. ‘If you don’t have a backyard you’ll get postnatal depression.’
It feels like online shopping for a new life. I picture myself in these flats, a version of me who has a job and dusted windowsills. And a baby.
OUR FRIEND GINNIE moves out of the Clarke Street house and Sarah takes her room. I find a small one-bedroom. Mum has to apply to go on the lease herself, because I don’t have a job. There’s a moment where we wonder if she will be accepted. She’s at an age when most people retire. Annie says if Mum is rejected she will apply for me, and I feel at once like the luckiest and the most pathetic person in the world.
Sarah and I start bumping out our home. As she’s moving to a house already set up, she lets me keep the furniture.
‘Also, you need it,’ she says. I suspect Annie has told her to let me have it. To show I’m grateful I do as much of the packing as I can. I’m slow, but at least with no job I have entire days to fill boxes, which is about how long it takes.
My back hurts, my heart burns and my feet keep swelling. I have terrible acid reflux. This is because my muscles are relaxing, I’m told. It’s the reason why my back hurts and my posture is out of whack. I picture the muscles around my stomach, oesophagus and pelvis drooping over my skeleton like pancakes, the image so divorc
ed from how I feel – trapped in pudgy armour. I’m sweating all the time. At night I wake up drenched.
SARAH AND I do laps of the empty house before we leave. We pat the walls and vanities the way people tap a newly purchased TV set or the boot of a car before it drives off. I feel like I’m walking around a bare stage, the set either yet to be built or just stripped down.
I hire a van, not a removalist, and Annie and James help me move. They arrive early in the morning and the first thing Annie does, without even saying hello, is tell me to get changed.
‘It’s going to be hot today. Don’t you think you should have short sleeves on?’
She’s like this for the rest of the day. I go to lift something and she’ll stop me. ‘I’ll get that.’
I can’t even make a cup of tea without her telling me to do it her way. It’s excruciating, but I can’t tell her to fuck off because I need the help.
Since I can’t lift things into the truck, I insist on driving. I’m only moving around the corner. About four streets north, the other side of St Georges Road. A small block of five flats. I’m worried about moving to an apartment with a crying baby. ‘What if my neighbours hate me?’ I say to Annie.
‘What are they going to do? Call the cops?’
This is a rather Sissa thing to say, I point out. Annie looks at me, shocked, but then she smiles. We both do.
Sarah and I never knew our old neighbours. When we first moved in, we were still young enough to stay up all night drinking, even on weeknights. ‘It’ll be easier if they hate us,’ she’d said. ‘We won’t have to try to please them.’
I think now how I will make an effort to knock on my neighbours’ doors and introduce myself. This feels like a very adult thing to do, until I admit to Annie and James I’m embarrassed about being pregnant and alone.
‘They’ll wonder where my partner is.’
‘Maybe you can go with her, James.’
Small Joys of Real Life Page 15