Zigzag Street (17 page)

The
Westside Chronicle
is in the mailbox when I get home.

And a photo, of course a photo, the photo I had expected, with Kevin and his gleeful menacing teeth and
loosely-slung guitar and me looking as though I am straining in some re-enactment of uprooting the stump or fighting against my worsening constipation. I read, and look, as though I'll go through life with short back and sides.

I eat Tim Tams in the car on the way to tennis. And I play the worst tennis seen since at least the 1520s. Tonight, people would rather have a disease than have me as a partner. So Jeff is stuck with me.

Why
? he asks.
Why? Why
?

I don't travel well, I tell him.

But you only went to Sydney
.

It was a rough trip.

I slow down the game in order to find form. In fact, I slow it down so much that my shots all sound different to everyone else's. My serve becomes almost silent, and is referred to as the Stealth Serve once it is realised that it crosses the net undetected even by radar. I ace Gerry with a serve that actually stops. It sneaks over, plops onto the ground, bounces twice, rolls and stops. He shakes his head, says,
Fuck
, under his breath several times and kicks it back under the net.

And this is the high point. Other than that my serve is so poorly controlled that Jeff tells me I am turning tennis into a game akin to hitting a wet sock with a slack hammock. And that that game never became at all popular, for very good reasons.

Afterwards I am full of apology and the others are quieter than usual. I offer to buy all the drinks but they tell me it doesn't matter. We sit on the benches outside the tennis centre and I eat my Ice Graffiti Icy Pole.

You poor boy
, Gerry says.
Love has really done you harm
.

And I can't tell him that right now he can't imagine the harm. For some reason tonight he can't just leave
Love has really done you harm
as a passing remark, and a round table discussion about love evolves over cups of Gatorade. And I'm so out of this I even have a problem
with Gatorade now. I'm sitting there beginning to feel incredibly tired, focussing on the Gatorade logo on one of the cups and watching it peel off like a T-shirt. Right now my every muscle feels too heavy to lift, and love seems impossibly elusive.

Of course
, Gerry says,
we argue about this all the time. The basis of our relationship may be love but that doesn't mean we think it's the same thing. I think it's something glorious. Freddie's hopelessly pragmatic
.

You make me sound as though I treat it like a transaction. Whenever you get into this stuff
.

Hey, if the EFTPOS fits
… And Freddie just glares. Gerry goes on, when perhaps it would be smarter not to.
Mister Strong Silent Type here always gets shitty with me when I talk about it in public
.

But only because you make me out to be emotionally bankrupt. You've got some quite impractical ideas. They're lovely some of them, but they're complete bloody fantasy. I think it's wonderful that someone like you can survive in the real world
.

The real world? Since when have I sought any association with the real world? Haven't I got your big strong arms to protect me from the real world?

Always
.

So they're smiling at each other now. They've made it into a joke, maybe even a joke at themselves, and it's as though any glaring never happened. Gerry turns back to me.

Look, I don't know what Anna wanted, and I don't know what you want, but I hope to god you find it soon. You just look so bloody miserable
.

At home I microwave my leftover
panang nua
. I can't believe how much has happened since the first half of this meal, how different things feel, and not in a good way.

So how do I deal with this?

When I was just a trashed person I at least knew where I stood. I was wallowing maybe, but now I look back on that almost fondly.

Is Hillary telling Peter now? Right now as I'm sitting alone eating the re-heated half meal of a more innocent man is she struggling through the drugs and telling him everything? If she isn't, why isn't she? And if she does, what happens then? And if she doesn't?

This is what I hate most. I'm not letting go of last night. I'm telling myself it was a huge mistake, but I'm not letting it rest at that. I seem to be trying to nurture the tiny possibility that it was only the beginning of something. That she'll call me any time and say,
It's over with Peter
. Etcetera, etcetera. I run through the fantasy that when she tells him he unburdens himself about the affair he's been having, and they agree to part amicably. Beyond this point, the fantasy rages totally out of control, Hillary and me, and Daniel even, this house, my safest place, the white wooden cottage with the red roof and flowers of all colours. My grandfather's dream dreamt somewhere outside Winton in 1923. As though this is some legitimate end, justifying means, even though I'm not at all sure it's what I want. But there were some things about last night that felt great, even though, in
any rational mind, it could be seen only to have done harm to all involved.

So maybe this is what I'm telling myself, that last night is okay if I hold some sincere feelings for Hillary. Because if I don't it looks like a pretty awful thing. So I'm telling myself it couldn't have happened if we hadn't both wanted it to. And she wouldn't have wanted it unless there were big problems with Peter. We didn't mean it to happen, we didn't expect it to happen, so it just did. And I'm feeling all the guilt I said I wouldn't.

I don't sleep.

I lie in bed but I don't sleep. I walk around the house. I pace up and down eating biscuits until I run out of them and it's still no clearer.

The phone does not ring.

The sun rises.

I shower and shave and dress for work. I feed Greg and go. I've paced enough. By seven-thirty I'm at my desk. Sitting, waiting. Fiddling around in a document waiting for the sound of lift doors opening.

For an hour it's just me, then Deb arrives.

Hey babe
, she says.
How was Sydney? How did the two of you go
?

What do you mean?

Well you weren't sightseeing were you? How were the meetings
?

Oh, good, fine. Yeah, good actually. Of course, it only means I've got more work to do.

I try to focus hard on the manufacture of normal conversation, and she can see it's an effort. I tell her I played tennis till eleven when I got back, so I'm tired.

And you're still not doing too well, are you babe? You're still not sleeping well. That Anna, she makes me so mad, you know. What she's done to you
.

Hillary's still not in by nine.

I'm sitting, looking out my door, looking for any sign of her. My screen saver keeps telling me, Remember the Three Part Resolution and I have some recollection of
the concept (it was something to do with the government) but not any of its three parts. I make myself another cup of coffee.

Hillary arrives just after nine-thirty looking really bad, and she's careful not to glance my way. I watch her talk to Deb and then go into her office. The door shuts.

I open my vertical blinds a little and see only a back view of Deb. Nothing seems to be happening on the whole floor. In bad movies, this is the moment before ambush when someone says,
It's quiet out there, too quiet
. Here it stays quiet, and there's enough ambushing going on in my head.

I sit back at my desk and drink my coffee. I play Sammy the Snake, but my heart's not in it. I call Deb on the phone.

Hillary in yet?

Yeah. She's in her office
.

Okay.

Did you want her for anything
?

No. Nothing specific. I was just wondering if she was in yet.

This goes nowhere and I can't say anything more. Soon after, Deb appears at my door.

She's looking really tired
, she says.
She was up all night with Daniel. She said she thought he was unsettled with her having been away the night before
.

She goes back to her desk. I call Hillary.

Hi.

Rick.

How are you?

Fine
.

Fine?

Well, what do you think? And thanks for the drugs too, by the way
.

I didn't tell you to take three tablets.

Yeah
.

So what's happening?

Nothing's happening. I feel like shit with this hangover
,
or whatever it is, and Daniel kept waking up during the night
. She pauses, and allows it to become clear to me that some issues are, for the moment, slipping away.
And we've got a lot of work to do for Monday
.

Yeah.

So the conversation ends.

I try to look at the work, starting with the list of questions raised in Sydney. In twenty minutes I've contemplated only the other Sydney issues, then Hillary walks in. I want to tell her things straightaway. Seeing her for the first time since yesterday I want to tell her this meant something to me.

She turns to Deb and says,
We've got to do some work on this thing for Monday, so we shouldn't be disturbed unless it's an emergency, okay
? And she shuts the door, sits down.
About Monday
, she says. Stops and nods, looking past my right shoulder.
About Monday
. Another pause.
Peter said he missed me. That it made him realise he'd been taking me for granted, that having Dan around had meant he'd focussed on him. He said he hadn't been fair to me
.

So what did you say?

Nothing. I didn't know what to say. I don't know what I'm going to say. I think I've hurt all of us
.

It's not that simple. But let's not have that conversation again.

Rick, you've got to know, I've got to be honest, I was having a bad time there, and maybe I should have handled it differently, but the way you've treated me has made me feel good. That's not how it's supposed to be, but it's how it is. And I hope I'm not missing the point here, I don't want you to be hurt by this. I don't know what you're thinking at the moment, but I think we both know that what happened shouldn't have
.

Yeah.

And that's it. That nothing else will happen
.

Yeah.

I think we both know that
.

Sure.

I have no idea how to say what I think I'm trying to say here. Two things I suppose. We've got to put it in the past, that's the first thing. And I don't think it's fair if this hurts you in any way. You've been hurt enough. Am I missing the mark here? Is this all stupid? Are you not thinking any of this at all
?

No. You're not missing the mark.

I don't want you to think you don't mean a lot to me. You do
.

Thanks.

I think it's fair to say we both had feelings for each other
.

Yeah.

And that this didn't happen lightly
.

Yeah. Hillary, you don't have to say all this stuff. I don't think this could have happened lightly for either of us, okay? But obviously we have to move on, I think we've both worked that out.

Yeah
.

So do you think you'll tell Peter?

I don't know. It's really not that easy. I think I should. But even when I try to think what would be the best for him I don't have the answer. Does that sound like I'm rationalising my way out of telling him
?

I don't know.

I go out for a walk, since the coffee and the crap in my head and a night spent pacing seem to combine to have me hovering in a very ineffective state between awake and asleep. I don't know where I walk and I don't care. It's a hot day, so I sweat till I stink, and I keep walking till I end up back at work and realise I should be doing some.

I forget to get out of the lift at my floor, and at the next floor Barry Greatorex gets in.

Hi
, he says, as though doing so makes him sweat too. As though doing so might reveal something. And he looks nervously around the lift.

How are you Barry?

Good. Why
?

Just asking.

Right. How are you
?

Good.

Good. How's that thing
?

Fine. What about you?

Oh, good
.

And now we're both looking nervously around the lift. Barry reaches into his pocket for a handful of chocolatecoated coffee beans and crunches on them, his eyes all the time flicking from one thing to another as though there might be danger.

It's only when several people have come and gone that I realise neither of us has pressed a floor button.

Which floor Barry? I ask him.

What? Oh, doesn't matter. Oh, sixteen I suppose
.

So I get off at fifteen and leave him in the lift alone.

And Deb tells me Hillary's gone out to lunch, with Peter.