Love and Other Perishable Items Read online

  My glare during the commercial break doesn’t manage to catch either Mum’s or Dad’s eye. My father exhales smoke as he talks about the playwright of the play he is directing at the Brooke Street Theatre.

  “—he comes to almost every rehearsal and watches me like a hawk. Interrupts the actors if he thinks they’ve stressed the wrong word or failed to stress the word he intended. Doesn’t seem to understand that once the play is written and printed, his job is done and mine begins.”

  “Oh dear,” Mum murmurs, nodding slowly as she pulls in another lungful of smoke.

  “In the third act, I’m trying to increase the pace as rapidly as possible, which is in large part achieved through the dialogue. If I follow every last comma he’s put in there, it interferes with the pace. So I tell the actors that increasing the pace and the energy between them takes priority over following the punctuation and italics that this man has obsessively put in. Parts of his script seem to confound what I think he’s trying to achieve. Anyway, he’s up in arms about the dialogue being lost. The dialogue is everything! Well, of course it is to him, but I have to make the whole thing work on a stage.”

  “Of course you do,” Mum says.

  “Good dialogue is everything. Effective dialogue is everything. Not dialogue per se.”

  “Quite right.”

  “After rehearsal last night I had a couple of drinks with the cast in the foyer. He’s looking even more troubled than usual and he corners me and says, ‘Look, Robert, I can’t help but wonder, what do you really think of the script?’ ‘Well, Peter,’ I replied, ‘it strains for a crystallizing moment.’ ”

  “Oh, darling!” Mum shakes her head, ashing her cigarette.

  “Well, what a whiner! I’m being hounded by a twenty-six-year-old with a lot to learn about theater when I have a job to do. He’s holding me back; he’s putting the actors off, and we open in two weeks.”

  “Yes, but why put him off? Why be incendiary? Especially to a man who is touted to become the finest playwright of his generation.”

  “I don’t care what he’s touted as. He needs to let me do my job.”

  “Hmmmmm.”

  Mum’s disapproval is perfunctory, kind of like Dad’s disapproval of the Beethoven Dance. You can tell she likes that he won’t suck up to anyone. Even though if he had been nicer to the right people over the years, he might have scored a cushy residency at a Sydney theater instead of having to travel all over the place, living production to production.

  “Would you like another cigarette, darling?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  That’s it. I stand up, punch the OFF button on the television and stalk out of the room. It was a crap episode anyway.

  “Looks like Amelia got miffed and flounced out of the room,” I hear Dad smirk to Mum. That’s one of his favorite phrases. I give him plenty of opportunity to use it.

  Upstairs in my little bedroom, I sit on my bed, leaning back against the thin plaster wall that separates my room from Jess’s. My clothes and hair smell of smoke. I am still fuming. So to speak. It’s interesting how fuming, or anger in general, is such a physical process, like a wave washing up on a beach and then receding.

  There’s wisdom in not pissing certain people off. It’s plain that neither of my parents really subscribes to that theory. Further to this wisdom, I think, is that cozying up to the right people can get you places that “being yourself” will never get you.

  Or being myself anyway. Take Coles, for example. The ruler of that particular roost is Bianca. She rules socially and also practically, because she is the most senior service supervisor. There is a core group of minions that surround her—Jeremy Horan, Street Cred Donna and a couple of others. They are all in my year or thereabouts. They all adhere to a certain code of flattery, submission, and smoke-break etiquette involving varying degrees of flirtation.

  Being a supervisor, Bianca gets to decide who has to work on the registers and who gets to come off them during quiet times, ostensibly to collect trolleys and put away stray stock, but really to entertain her. Obviously, she favors her minions in this process and they get to spend a lot of time off the registers. They also get to spend a lot of time at Bianca’s parental manor, putting a large dent in her father’s wine cellar. Chris, Ed and Kathy are also “in,” but they exist alongside Bianca, rather than below her, because they are a similar age.

  I occupy a certain no-man’s-land at Coles. I’m definitely not in with Bianca and her minions. I could argue that I’m of such pure spirit that I refuse to cozy up. Perhaps closer to the truth is that I just don’t know how to. In truth, a part of me longs to be huddled with them out at the back loading dock to the exclusion of everyone else, smoking and laughing and then off to the pub after work. The only reason that I am not a complete reject at work is because of my friendship with Chris, which is, I suspect, completely mystifying for most people. They skate around me with wary smiles and take care not to be openly rude or dismissive, unsure of the amount of social capital I might be hoarding. Chris doesn’t cozy up to anyone, as such. He just turns on his charm to full voltage and people like him because he makes them laugh and feel good. He’s confident. Where did he get that? Can I get it?

  I’m tired. Tomorrow is Friday. Basketball practice at 7:20 a.m. Double history, double math. Work after school from four till nine. I’ll leave the house at 6:20 a.m. in my sports gear and take the bus(es) to school by 7:20. It’s too cold to walk now that it’s winter.

  I pack my tote bag with my school sweater, white shirt, brown school shoes, skirt and tights. Then I pack my work uniform: black pants, black shoes, socks, red scarf and name badge. I battle to close the zipper, then test the bag’s weight. Ouch.

  I assemble and pack my school folders and textbooks in my backpack: chunky math book, gargantuan history folder, The Great War, calculator, French and English exercise books, French dictionary, Macbeth. I struggle to close that zipper too and end up having to take the history folder out. I’ll have to put the schoolbag on my back, the tote bag over one shoulder and carry the history folder in my arms. I must remember to put my bus pass in my track-pants pocket so I don’t have to put everything down and fumble around in my backpack for my wallet when the bus comes.

  I put my pj’s on, clean my teeth, wash and moisturize my face. Then I pad into Jess’s room to lean over her sleeping form and listen for her breathing. I reposition Prize Teddy next to her. They have never spent a night apart. I kiss her warm little cheek, inhale the delicious sleeping toddler aroma and pad out again.

  Back in my room, I pause in front of the mirror long enough to ascertain that I look the same today as I did yesterday. In bed, I open my bedside table drawer, get out Chris’s letter and run my eyes over his handwriting. I rub my feet together to warm them. Curling up in a ball, I think: Sun rises, sun sets, and still no Chris.

  The Sisterhood

  I don’t know exactly how it happened, but some boys have been turning up where Penny and my group of friends sit at lunchtime. They bring their lunch. They sit and talk to us. Well, not to me, but to most of the others and always to Penny. The boys are all in our year. None of them are the rugby players I have mentioned before. My group would never qualify for a visit from them. I catch a few of their names. Daniel, Leonard, Sam, James. They are headed by a Scott that I don’t like. I’ve seen him doing the rounds of other groups of girls this year. I reckon he fancies himself a bit of a player, something special for the ladies. Some of the boys need a hair wash, some deodorant and some Clearasil. They try very hard to appear relaxed. There is a lot of unconvincing laughter. Some of them nod to Penny as if they know her. She gives a flicker of recognition back.

  “How do you know them?” I asked her in low tones the first day they came over.

  “They catch my bus,” she said, sitting straight-backed and unwrapping the sandwiches packed by her father.

  Scott sits down on the other side of her and they talk for most of the lunch break.

 
I’m not quite sure how to conduct myself when Penny is otherwise occupied. I’m friends with the other girls in our group, but it’s strange not to be part of my usual double act. Disconcerting. I talk to Eleni and Nicola—who are another tight twosome within the larger group—but my mind is not really on the conversation. By the end of the lunch period, there is a spark of anger in my chest that I try to push away.

  I have bigger fish to fry, I tell myself.

  When I arrive at work that afternoon, Chris is already on his register. Kathy is hovering near him, but I can see that the Kathy virus is in remission today, and hopefully for good.

  I open my locker in the staff room to put away my backpack and tote bag. Inside is a folded-up piece of yellow paper that turns out to be several pages covered with Chris’s blue script. I smile and stand still except for my thumb, which moves back and forth across the paper. I imagine holding Chris’s hand—with fingers interlocking, not how your mother used to hold your hand—and moving my thumb across the join between his thumb and forefinger.

  The staff room is suddenly filled with the chatter and shrill laughter of Alana and Kelly, who have also just arrived from school and smell of cigarettes.

  “Hi,” I say, but they don’t hear me, or even seem to see me. I head out to the registers. Bigger fish to fry, I tell myself again.

  “How the hell are you, Youngster?” Chris greets me warmly as I take the CLOSED sign down from the register next to his. “Did you get your little something?”

  “Indeed I did. I’m looking forward to reading it.”

  “How was school today?”

  “Well,” I say. “There are boys sitting with us at lunchtime.”

  “How exciting!”

  “Nah, it’s not exciting. They’re nothing special.”

  “Go easy on the fifteen-year-old boys, Youngster. They’re doing the best they can.”

  “Well, I wish they’d do it somewhere else.”

  As if on cue, Jeremy Horan walks by on his way to the staff room, his gaze firmly averted from Chris and me. Actually, probably just from me.

  “Hello, Jeremy!” Chris calls, with dangerously false heartiness.

  There is nothing for Jeremy to do but look over and mutter, “Hey, Chris.”

  “And you remember Amelia, don’t you?”

  Jeremy glowers at Chris. “Yeah,” he manages. “How’s it going?”

  “Exceedingly well, thank you, Jeremy.” I beam and suppress a giggle.

  “Off you go then, tiger,” says Chris. “You’d better not be late to your register today—Bianca’s not working.”

  Jeremy stalks off.

  Chris smiles at me. “The way he carries on, it’s as if your special moment never even happened.”

  “I know!” I fake incredulity. “Maybe … maybe it wasn’t that special!”

  “Now, that’s just crazy talk.”

  I throw my hands up.

  “Poor Jeremy, Alana and Kelly,” says Chris as we watch the three of them slink back past us. “When Bianca’s not here, they actually have to do some work.”

  “It’s very, very sad.”

  “So sad. I wonder if Amnesty International is aware of it.”

  “How’s your thesis going?” I change the subject.

  “Oh, that old chestnut. I haven’t really got a handle on it yet. But I have been conducting a very interesting experiment this week.”

  “Hypothesizing?”

  “Hypothesizing that a twenty-one-year-old male can be indefinitely sustained on an intake of black coffee, red wine, organic dates and Tylenol.”

  “Hmm.”

  “It’s already Wednesday and here I am, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

  I study his face closely. The smudges under his eyes are darker than usual; his lips are dry and ashen, similar to the rest of his face. It’s been a while between haircuts. Two days’ worth of stubble. He’s beautiful.

  I hurry home when work finishes at nine, periodically checking that the letter is still in my pocket. The house is quiet. Dad is at rehearsal and Mum and Jess are in bed. There’s a note from Mum informing me that my dinner is in the oven. I retrieve a foil-covered white bowl from the oven. As I remove the foil, a flurry of steam escapes and burns my wrist. I yelp and peer into the bowl. Noodle stir-fry with pork and vegetables. It smells great and I’m starving. Thank you, Mum. I sit down at the dining table with a fork in one hand and the letter in the other.

  Greetings, Youngster!

  Today I come to you from a lecture on the Bay of Pigs fiasco. At least, according to the course outline it is supposed to be a lecture on the Bay of Pigs fiasco. I actually have no idea what the lecturer is talking about, and I am amazed that any human being, let alone one who is supposedly a professional communicator, could achieve such a level of unintelligibility. If I’d known it was this guy lecturing, I’d have gone straight to the uni bar. But no, I came skipping into the lecture theater and took a seat in the middle of a center row. I can’t get out without climbing over at least fifteen people and drawing all kinds of attention to myself. I’m stuck here for another forty-five minutes.

  I was thinking about what you said that time we went for pizza, about how your mum is getting screwed by this, our modern age. From your (somewhat simplistic) vantage point, feminism has earned her the right to work full-time, do the housework, bear the children and look after them. I’m still not sure where feminism fits into it, but you are right about her getting screwed. I’ve read a lot of articles in the Herald about how workforce participation for women has grown steadily over the last thirty or so years but hasn’t been accompanied by a rise in the share of domestic duties taken on by men. I believe it. My mum does most of the cooking and cleaning in our house. Always has. My dad feigns incompetence. At least, I assume he is feigning it.

  Maybe it’s a generational thing. Our mums got screwed because they’re a generation who could get into the workplace, earn an independent wage and occupy their minds outside the domestic realm. It was only once they got there that they realized that full-time workers really need a wife to run the home and look after the children. But women don’t get one! Hey, wait a minute! You mean I have to do it all? Yes, they have to. In fact, they are expected to work and earn money now, because the days of a household and a mortgage being sustained on one wage are OVER Red Rover.

  Perhaps subsequent generations will change the pattern. But I don’t think so, because we’ve all grown up watching our mothers “having it all,” and hence doing it all, while our fathers watch TV and wait to be called down for dinner. When you grow up, Youngster, and shack up with some guy, he’ll be used to not doing housework and you’ll be used to the woman doing it, ’cause that’s what you both grew up with. There’ll be periodic fights about it, you’ll say it’s just not acceptable and that it won’t do, and he’ll nod solemnly and promise to make a change. For a few weeks after a fight you might come home to find the bed made, the dishes washed and your best glad rags ruined in a giant, indiscriminate, well-meaning load of laundry. But sometime in your mid-to-late twenties you’ll realize that consistent, equal contribution to household duties is just not programmed into his system and you can either break up with him or put up with it. Who knows what you and the lasses of your generation will choose.…

  But when I started to write this letter, I wanted to tell you more about feminism. I was impressed that your teacher gave The Feminine Mystique to a class of fifteen-year-old girls. You said that Betty Friedan was part of what is known as second-wave feminism? Did you know that it was preceded by first-wave feminism (duh!) and followed by third-wave feminism? Has your crazy English teacher taken you there yet? All this you will learn when you come to university to go for a liberal arts degree like me. Allow me to give you a short tutorial. You must have seen Mary Poppins as a child. You may even have watched it over and over like my sister Zoe did, and, well, I was in the vicinity. From the children’s father’s first song (what a jerk!) we gather that the year is 1910. T
he mother sings her opening song as she is arriving home from a day of lobbying for women’s suffrage, or the right to vote. She’s wearing her suffragette’s sash. She’s singing about all the suffragettes casting off the shackles of yesterday and marching shoulder to shoulder with their sisters into the fray. Then there are cries of “Votes for women!” and talk of a fellow activist who has been arrested for her efforts. Generally speaking, these sorts of movements are thought of as first-wave feminism, or the first wave of “Fuck this!”

  In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some women were writing and protesting about how they were second-class citizens. They didn’t have the vote, they were widely discriminated against and they were essentially the property of men, especially in marriage. Then, in the 1960s, the second wave of “Fuck this!” began, where the floodgates of feminist scholarship were opened and there was prolific writing and lobbying for women’s rights in education, the workplace, the legal system, the health system and, well, etcetera. Heaps and heaps of strands of feminism were born here, which you will learn all about when you come to university.

  There are some especially interesting feminist analyses of marriage, which would be very pertinent to your observations of your parents’ marriage. Even the liberal feminists see marriage as a major tool for maintaining patriarchy. Anyways, then third-wave feminism came along, beginning in the 1980s, and pointed out quite rightly that the “oppression of women” descried by the first and second waves referred mainly to middle-class and somewhat educated white women. Who had every right to do so and made many valid points, but they used the terms women and feminism as if they applied to every woman in the world regardless of class and ethnicity.

  The thirdies are conscious of the differences among women and the different “vectors of oppression” and inequality across societies. What we Western scholarly types had always called feminism is actually a feminism. Does your head in, huh?

  My favorite writer is called Kate Jennings—mention her to your wacky English teacher, Youngster, I cannot recommend her to you enough. She will tell you what you need to know about life. She will not gild the lily or beat around the bush. She will tell it to you like it is, and while sobering you up completely, she will also make you laugh. She belongs to no one and she’s not afraid. Here is a taste of her take on second- and third-wave feminism: