Good Oil Page 8

  Dad was rather peeved at me, as I recall. He seemed to take it personally. I don’t know why. I’m the one that will have to pay off the HECS debt for the subjects I failed. I suggested at the beginning of this year that perhaps he and Mum might like to pay off my HECS for me up-front like they did for Zoe, so we get the discount. I can’t remember the exact wording of Dad’s response but it was something to the effect of perhaps I’d like to go fuck myself instead.

  Yeah, well, you know. Guess I’ll be paying it off myself then. Assuming that I ever get a real job, that is. Maybe what Dad was really pissed off about was that he has a pansy of a son who is studying Arts instead of Business or Engineering.

  Must go and finish writing my essay on Stalinist Russia. In a surprise cameo by my tear ducts, I felt moisture crowding behind my eyelids the other day when I was reading about the purges. I can’t imagine. I don’t want to.

  11 p.m.

  Sometimes I think the only reason Stuart is angling for Kathy is that he knows I am too. He’s a smooth bastard. All reserve and broad-shouldered strength. He may well be my nemesis. And my antithesis! How about that?

  Harvey out.

  PS I have puny shoulders.

  PPS And I’m okay with that.

  PPPS I’m not really.

  October 5

  Exhausted and a little in my cups. Worked four to nine this evening, training a New Little on the registers. She’s one of the more interesting New Littles out of the bunch they just hired. Her name is Amelia and what a funny little youngster she is. She demonstrates an advanced-level single-eyebrow raise. She’s amusing – all frizzy-haired and fiery. I suspect she can, like, construct sentences and read books. Here’s hoping she will go a little way towards Amelia-rating the vacuousness of her chain-smoking fifteen-year-old cohorts. (Ameliorate – get it? Oh, there’s nothing like your own jokes is there?) She’s a healthy mess of contradictions. Sense of humour? Tick. Very articulate for a youngster. She hasn’t developed the ability to see past her own nose yet – takes everything seriously. Oh adolescence, how much I don’t miss you. She’s smart and has reason to carry herself well. But she has this way of crossing her arms, gripping her elbows and looking down and sideways that screams ‘ill at ease!’ to the world. Maybe all she needs is a good sensei to instruct her in the ways of, like, stuff. Maybe I’m the man for the job. Or maybe I couldn’t be arsed.

  I went back to Ed’s after work. We missed the last bus and had to walk all the way, cutting across the park and freezing our arses off. Living the dream.

  Kathy continues to lead The Field, and I am considering whether to bump sociology-tute Lauren from the list, as I’ve seen her walking around campus holding hands with a guy. Georgia from the deli is still a possibility, and probably up for it, and I may end up rooting her just to get Ed off my back. If he’s so keen for Georgia to be put on her arse, why doesn’t he do it himself?

  ‘Time to break the drought, Chris,’ he said tonight. ‘Do you good.’

  ‘I’m working up to asking Kathy out,’ I protested.

  He gave me the one-eyebrow raise – an advanced practitioner, like Amelia.

  Yeah. The chances of Kathy ever having sex with me are slim to none. Ed reckons he’s going to make sure Georgia comes out with us after work tomorrow night.

  Harvey out.

  Later

  When my sister and I were little, Mum would read us a book called Amelia Bedelia. The title character was a housemaid who kept getting herself into ‘scrapes’ because she was a bit of a concrete thinker. She’d get really upset when she got into trouble, and would run away. Actually, no, I think her employer got really angry at her and sent her away. Eventually and after much adventurous soul-searching she would come home. Her employer would greet her warmly, his earlier wrath forgotten, and ask her to make him some soup.

  October 7

  Last night I drank too much and rooted She’s-big-she’s-blonde-she-works-in-the-deli Georgia at her place. Conversation was slim-pickings afterwards. I asked her if she liked Jeff Buckley. She said, ‘Jeff who?’ Enough said.

  October 12

  The timetable for exams and final essays is out. Six weeks until I’m all finished. It’s going to take a superhuman effort to get all my work in on time and keep the credit average I need to be allowed into Honours next year. Interesting. I’m going to work as many shifts at Woolies as possible over the summer, in the hopes of saving enough money to cut back to twelve hours a week next year. Maybe then I could put a little more time into actual study. Doing Honours and all, it would be nice to give that priority.

  So, Honours and then what? Too scary a topic. New paragraph please.

  Mick, Rohan and Suze will be waiting for me at the uni bar. It’s almost dark out here on the lawn. I’d better go soon. I’m getting on quite well with a couple of the newer youngsters at work, both of whose knowledge of fruit and vegetable has blossomed under my firm but fair tutelage.

  Donna is a very old soul indeed. She’s fifteen going on thirty-five and has a pretty fucked-up home-life. Always keen for a drink after work is young Donna. She is Bianca’s new girl-pet; they’re becoming thick as thieves, taking smoke breaks out the back together and all the rest.

  The other one is Amelia. When my sister and I were little, sometimes I would piss her off so much she’d take a few steps back and then rush at me, fists raised. I would stick my hand out and plant my palm on her forehead, stopping her in her tracks. Her arms would flail about, getting her nowhere. She’d keep flailing until Mum heard the ruckus, broke it up and sent me to my room. For some reason I think of that sometimes when I’m talking to Amelia. She wears her entire personality on her sleeve. Upon (uncharacteristic) reflection, maybe I see some of myself in her. Zoe and I seem to have changed roles as we grew older – these days it’s me that tends to flail around and she stands composed.

  Right. Beer o’clock

  October 22

  The new youngster, Amelia, has acquired a bit of a cult following of late. Consisting of, well, me. It’s relaxing to be in her company because there’s no need for guesswork of any kind. I am going to try to push her in Ed’s direction. A girlfriend would sort him out, I reckon, especially one that can read and write, and Amelia can certainly do that.

  This will probably be the last time I write in this notebook until the end of exams. I will hardly have time to scratch myself over the next month; I have so much work due. But then it will be summer break for three glorious months. Consisting of three essential elements: beach, Land of Dreams and beer. See you in December. Provided I don’t die from caffeine-induced heart failure, which, let’s face it, is on the cards. It’s late. If you’ll excuse me it’s time for me to get into bed and look at the ceiling.

  December 2

  Welcome to the other side! I would say, welcome to the summer of love, but that might be a bit of an ambit claim, as will become clear when I get to The Field. Against all the odds I got my essays in and sat my exams, proving for the third year running that there is a God and he loves me. My last exam was sociology – a three-hour corker. When the examiner said ‘Time’ at twelve o’clock, the pen fell from my cramped fingers and I put my head down on the desk almost involuntarily. A curious montage of the year flashed through my mind, including lots of Michaela scenes from various stages of the whole sorry affair, watching Kathy holding court across the library lawn, fighting with my poor sister who always seems to bear the brunt of my late-night seething and, curiously, Amelia in the staffroom at tea break, sitting on the chair with her knees drawn up to her chin, reading a dog-eared copy of Heart of Darkness and sipping tea from a styrofoam cup.

  Then I went to meet Mick, Rohan and Suze at the uni bar. Then I drank a lot. Then I went home and slept for fifteen hours. And here I am!

  Right. Let’s take stock. On the up side, I have three months off uni and it looks very likely that I will get into sociology Honours next year. On the down side, the Search for the Perfect Woman has still yielded no
fruit, and I have no girlfriend with whom to spend the summer. I also have no money and will be working about thirty hours a week at Woolies to rectify this. I will try very hard not to drink all my pay, but make no promises.

  Rohan has finished his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering and applied for a job in Newcastle. It will be strange not having him at uni next year. He won’t be around for most of the summer either because his dad is paying for him to go to Europe, as a graduation present. My dad on the other hand has offered to make a contribution towards the board shorts I want to buy for the summer. A contribution, mind.

  Rohan said he wanted to lend me his (parentally purchased) car while he was away, but his little sister kicked up a huge stink and he has to lend it to her now. I try not to envy Ro – the stuff his parents pay for, like the trip and the car, and the fact that he can spend so much more time studying because he doesn’t work, while I get to take the bus to the Land of Dreams seemingly every goddamn day. I try not to envy him. It’s disgusting to waste time envying those things when whole families, whole tribes, get slaughtered in their thousands in Africa, when leaky boatloads of refugees drown or starve in their hundreds in the open sea, and the children of those that do make it here have to grow up behind razor wire, watching their parents slide into insanity. When houses, families, towns get washed away in a day. I disgust myself when I covet things from Ro’s life. But then we humans have always coveted each other’s oxen haven’t we? In Mod. Aust. Lit. last semester we were doing a unit on short stories and my favourite one was by Kate Jennings. In it she is talking about a fellow writer who enjoys phenomenal success and acclaim way beyond the modest (I assumed) success of the narrator. ‘Envy,’ says Kate Jennings, ‘is a grubby little emotion.’

  Anyways . . .

  The Field is as follows:

  Kathy – look, usually I’d write token, never in a million years, but lately I seem to be gaining some mojo. She’s-big-she’s-blonde-she-works-in-the-deli Georgia has been trailing around after me a bit since the ‘Jeff who?’ incident. The youngster Donna from work seems a bit keen too. It may be completely unrelated, but Kathy has definitely been less withering lately. You never know your luck in a big supermarket chain.

  Donna – token youngster. Yeah, okay, she’s only just turned sixteen but, like I said before, she’s sixteen going on thirty-five. She hangs out a lot after work. She never gets carded at the pub. There’s a certain enduring appeal in a young woman who sports tattoos, holds a cigarette and a glass of Scotch in one hand, lights said cigarettes with a huge-flamed Zippo, wears more pieces of jewellery than you can count and can beat you at pool. Could I consider going out with a sixteen-year-old? It’s a tough question. I’m pretty lonely and pretty desperate. Watch this space.

  Yesterday I was standing at my register looking down towards the service desk at Kathy when Amelia piped up abruptly from the next register, ‘Hey, why does Gatsby love Daisy so much? She’s a superficial skank.’ Then muttered more to herself than to me, ‘She doesn’t love him.’

  She even takes the goings-on of fictitious characters personally. These are the things she thinks about when she is packing groceries.

  December 14

  Prepare for another well-lubricated sob story. It’s that time of night, I’ve come home from the pub and, like Coleridge’s wedding guest, you are as compelled to listen as I am to tell. Or maybe this is just drunken rambling that will never be read by any living soul. Even if my diaries are discovered after the apocalypse, people will trawl through the first few pages and say, ‘Who is this loser?’ then, more importantly, ‘Who cares?’, and chuck them on the post-apocalyptic scrap heap. Either way, I’ve digressed.

  I had an odd experience at work tonight. It was about 8.45 p.m. and pretty quiet. I was chatting to young Amelia on the next register. At some point the chatting dwindled. She was tired. She’d been at school all day and it was the end of the week. She leaned both her forearms on the counter, bowed her head for a moment, then flung it up and exclaimed, ‘I’m starving!’

  Instantly I was somewhere else.

  I was in the one-room cottage in Leura, where Michaela and I stayed last March. Late afternoon, approaching evening. We are lying on the bed, the covers strewn this way and that on the floor. She is lying diagonally across the bed on her back. I’m lying with my head on her belly and one arm flung across her thighs. I listen to her steady breathing and watch the last patch of orange-pink sunlight on the wall fade, casting the room in dusky half-light. I take a deep breath of the skin on her belly, which rouses her from her sleep. She gently pushes my head aside, stretches luxuriously, then sits bolt upright and declares, ‘I’m starving!’ She turns to face me. I push a lock of her teased-up hair away from her face. She bounds out of bed, pulls on her slip (birthday present from me) and sets about making a fry-up. I watch her. I love her.

  Then I’m back at Woolworths, a little disoriented, but definitely back. I’m cursed with an extensive and detailed memory so I’m no stranger to being laid low by a vivid Michaela moment. I try to get them out of my head as quickly as possible and am usually successful. But this was different. It was re-living, not remembering. The sights, the smells, the feel of the linen, the warmth of skin on skin. Real. Immediate.

  Unsettling.

  I’m going to sit out the back with my beer. It’s after midnight so it will be quiet, and there’s a moon tonight.

  Our backyard is pretty unsightly and uninspiring, but on a brightly moonlit night even the rusty tin roof on the garage seems to gleam, and Eastlakes bathes quietly.

  December 20

  Work is getting crazy. Four more shopping days until Christmas. I had better get off my arse and do my Christmas shopping. I am tossing up whether to send Michaela a Christmas card or present or anything. I saw a pair of earrings that she would love in the window of a shop called Kashgar. Are you crazy, Chris? The bitch barred you and broke your heart and hasn’t even called you for months! Sure, that might have something to do with the way you said – nay, snarled – something to the effect of ‘Don’t you ever call me again, bitch’ last time she called, but surely she realised that it was just the bleeding red mess of my heart talking?

  Anyways, I’m off like a bride’s nightie to meet the gang in the city for Rohan’s farewell. He flies out tomorrow night.

  December 21

  I did a bad thing. I got home last night stinking drunk and singing the Romeo and Juliet song, rang Interflora and spent $400 on sending a huge arrangement of flowers to Michaela, in Perth mind you, with a very alcohol-induced Christmas greeting.

  And all on my sleeping mother’s credit card. When I came to this morning I had vague recollections of doing it, but hoped that it was just a dream. The credit card on my bedside table next to the phone indicated otherwise. I paid my mother back today, which leaves very little in my bank account. Fuuuuuuuck. Chris, it is high time you got over this girl.

  December 24

  Whillikers! It’s almost midnight. Just got home from work, which was insane. Why do people always leave things to the last minute? I did too. Of course. I was in Go-Lo today in my lunch break buying crappy little gifts for my family with what’s left of my money. I have very little remaining in the way of brain cells. What’s everyone else’s excuse?

  As testament to this, dear reader, I did something this evening that I cannot account for. I finished my shift an hour before closing time and hung around for a while wishing people Merry Christmas and the like. I seized my chance to kiss Kathy on the cheek. She didn’t slap me or anything, which was nice, but that’s not the unaccountable thing. I was chatting to Vic as she was marking down some bunches of flowers and sticking the Reduced for quick sale stickers on them. I looked over Vic’s shoulder and saw young Amelia, who was up on register seven. While I was watching she stopped scanning for a moment and wiped some sweat away from her temple with the outside of her wrist. The bloody aircon is broken. That’s another story.

  ‘Hey, Vic,’ I said, ‘I�
�ll take one of them.’

  I wished Vic Merry Christmas. Then my legs took me down to register seven where I gave the flowers to Amelia. When I say gave, I mean I kind of threw them at her, mumbled something and bolted.

  Go figure.

  Anyhoo, Mum, Dad and Zoe are all out on the patio, having some relaxing ales after the frantic all-day Christmas preparations that I successfully avoided by being at work. Thank you, Land of Dreams! I’m going to go out and join them for what could be a rare moment of togetherness.

  Merry fucking Christmas.

  Harvey out.

  January 15

  The weeks are starting to blur. They consist of going to the beach with Mick and Suze, going to work, sinking a few coldies out the back with Mum or Zoe of an evening, playing the odd game of tennis with Dad, reading my coursework texts for uni, reading the paper, staying up late watching crap TV, losing entire days to the cricket and brain cells to the accompanying steady stream of beer. My dad and I live the cliché that men can’t relate to each other on an emotional or interpersonal level so they do it through sport. When we are playing tennis we are comfortably absorbed in the game and the finger-nail-scratching-down-blackboard-who-the-hell-are-you suspicion that we usually regard each other with is gone. Because he is so much better at tennis than me there is no destructive competitiveness. We both enjoy letting him give me pointers and he is chuffed when they lead to a slight improvement in my play.

  Similarly, we can watch the cricket together all day in companionable silence. No pressure to attempt conversations that are doomed to crash in a ball of flames. No speech whatsoever. We ask each other if we’d like another beer with either a grunt or a gesture. We quite happily occupy the living room together all day, day after day. If one of us has to leave the room or carry out some task around the house he’ll periodically call out for a progress report from wherever he is.

  ‘Score?’

  ‘Seven-fa!’

  ‘Aaaahhgh.’

  ‘Clean-bowled!’