Wednesday

But Always In The Light

I’m working on a renovation up in Longueville, smashing up old floors and laying new ones. It’s hot, dusty and bright. Cockatoos and kookaburras screeching and cackling in the gum trees, spiders and lizards in the overgrown garden, these leafy suburbs are straight out of the Australian soap operas.
It’s Friday, the boss and a couple of the other lads have gone up the coast for a long weekend, there are only three of us left on site. Me, Ashley, a half-Malay carpenter, and Digger, a dodgy hammer-hand with red hair and a tattoo of a fish hook on his right bicep.
We’ve been working together for a couple of days now and our system runs like clockwork. I cut the boards with the drop saw and glue the joists, Digger lays the boards and calls out measurements to me, and Ashley works the secret nailer, a big air powered staple gun attached to a compressor. It’s hot, splintery work but we’re making it fun, laughing and telling stories.
“-Finished school in tenth grade,” Digger tells us, lighting another Styverson, “Me teacher said to me: ‘Trouble is, mate, you never bloody turn up. Either you re-do the tenth grade or,’” He leans towards us, winking conspiratorially, “‘I could get you a job on the boats if you’re keen. Me cousin owns the biggest fishing company on the East Coast.’ That was on a Monday, by Friday I shipped out of Melbourne and never looked back.”
I grin. Ashley rolls his eyes. He’s been telling stories like this all morning; how he catches goats with his bare hands and spears sharks in the nature reserve. We both like him well enough, but he’s one of those mildly dangerous characters you have to laugh at, if only to keep him at arm’s length.
We break for lunch and sit on the section of floor we’ve just finished, chewing in silence, smoking or pulling splinters from our hands.
“Let’s get this done and bugger off down the pub,” Ashley says.
“Uh-huh,” Digger nods.
“Good,” Says me.
We finish our ciggies and get back into it, bust arse for another hour, then clean up, lock up and pile into Ashley’s battered Ute.

The William Wallace is an old, two-storey building on the corner of two narrow lanes with a wraparound terrace and an aging dog tied to a lamppost. It’s as dilapidated as the rest of the suburb, but homely too.
People smile as we walk in. Ashley and Digger seem to know everyone. I buy the first round and drain a good quarter of my beer before walking over to where the others are sitting, the condensation-frosted glasses cold in my hands. I sit back and look around: pool table, open fire, dirty carpet, old men at the bar, a peeling mural on the wall depicting the pub almost as it is now, but with a leopard skin carpet and a tiger skin by the pool table.
“When did they get rid of the leopard skin?” I ask.
“-Never had one.” Ashley tells me.
“It’s a tiger skin.” Digger says.
I start to protest that the carpet is actually leopard skin but a group of Northern Irish guys join us and I shut my gob. They’ve been rendering on the Longueville house, five Irish guys: beer bellies, football shirts and the kind of eyes that smile because they know you but look granite at anyone else, big lads with heavy paws and even heavier pasts, brown and happy here. Their leader nods and winks at me and I grin, the others smile too. As soon as they’re settled Digger turns to one of them, a smaller, shyer man of about forty, with dark, curly hair.
“Hey there John,” he says, then turns to me. “You know John don’t you, Wil?”
I nod, keeping it cagey though, Digger’s up to something.
“John’s what I call a Sex Liar. He told us about this Welsh girl he shagged- snorted coke off her tits and rooted her in the arse and stuff.”
John grins sheepishly, the others go quiet and watch, smiling too. Digger goes on:
“Well, it turns out she never bloody existed- Turns out it was just the same old tart he’s been rooting for years.”
We laugh and John laughs too.
“There’s nothing I hate more than a Sex Liar.”
He’s enjoying himself now, there’s a nastiness coming into his eyes.
“-Almost worse than a rapist. Imagine if that poor girl walked in here and we were all looking at her, thinking that he’d done all those things he said. It’d be almost like she’d been abused without having the fun actually being abuse.”
Our laughter’s a bit halfhearted now, and John’s beginning to look uncomfortable.
“That’ll do now.” The big Irish leader says, the twinkle still in his eyes.
Ashley gets up to go to the bar and I walk outside for a ciggie. The pub’s fuller, mostly tradies now, all with that same smiling granite look. Even in my six feet of bone and muscle I feel a bit small, but I keep my eyes smiling and my shoulders back, any fear I have tucked well out of sight.
I stand on the pavement next to the tethered dog and watch the landlady watering her flowers. Digger and a few of the Irish lads join me, a couple of Aussies I haven’t met yet. We’re introduced and we talk about work and the weather. Then Digger starts again, this time on me. His attitude is softer though, as if he hasn’t quite worked me out yet.
“Imagine, Wil,” he says, “If you woke up in the middle of nowhere with a condom full of spunk hanging out of your arse. Would you tell anyone?”
I smile at him and keep quiet, looking from one eye to the other. The others giggle. He shrugs and says:
“You’re supposed to say ‘no’, then I say: ‘Do you want to come camping with me this weekend?’ or, if you say ‘yes’ I say: ‘I’m not taking you camping then.’”
“Very good,” I say, laughing along with the others, feeling like I’ve passed my stupid test.
We troop back inside after that and the beer flows steadily, the laughter grows in volume and Digger’s nastiness does likewise. Eventually, when someone turns up with a bag of coke and John the Irishman’s nearly crying, I swill the last of my beer, smile, nod to the men and leave.
As soon as I’m back in the sunshine and out of sight of the pub I feel better. I love a few beers after work and I love the company of dodgy characters, but that kind of nastiness, that bullying banter makes my skin crawl.
I ride the bus back to Town Hall, then catch a train to Bondi Junction, feeling tipsy and still a little dark inside. Meg calls when I’m still on the train.
“Where are you?”
The sound of her voice makes me feel even darker, almost as if I’d been cheating on her lightness, her clearness of spirit. I try to keep my tone upbeat:
“Nearly in Bondage. Where’s you?”
“I’m in Woolworth.”
“Hang on five minutes. I’ll come and find you.”
I hang up and crowd off the train with the rest of the rush hour traffic. I have to almost force myself not to barge through them all. I feel aggressive and disdainful of these sheep, these homogeneous clones. On the escalator I have a word with myself.
‘Be nice, Willy, don’t be a prick. Be kind and gentle.’
I’m drunk though and I can feel the battle slipping out of control.
In the massive, five storey mall I walk fast and swagger a little, in my steel toecaps and work clothes. Then I manage a full five minutes of upbeat, hyper chit-chat with Meg before the cracks start to show.
We’re walking past the pet shop on the third floor, surrounded by shiny things and heavily made-up salespeople, tinny mall-music and nauseating perfume, and puppies in glass boxes in the window.
“I can’t stand this fucking pet shop,” Meg says, frowning with righteous anger, “They leave them in there at night. I heard them crying once when they were closing the mall.”
“They do it on purpose,” I say grimly, “So you feel sorry for them and get your wallet out.”
“It makes me want to cry.”
Instead of empathy, blackness comes out of my mouth:
“You can’t let it upset you Meg. What about all the poor buggers who made all this worthless crap for us to spend our money on? What about the millions of dying kids and AIDS victims and war zones? If you start feeling sorry for one thing you have to feel sorry for everything. You might as well just shut up and consume like the rest of ‘em.”
I bite my tongue and force the other 99 per cent of my rant back down, scowling at a dollybird in hot pants who tries to hand me a flyer. Then I catch Meg’s sad look and I sigh.
“Sorry Meggie” I say, softening, “I don’t mean to be a nutter. These places…”
She’s pissed off, angry at me for yelling. I shut my gob and follow dutifully, occupying myself with an imaginary assault rifle and a bag of dynamite, blowing up coffee shops and banks, picking off business men and senseless shoppers. I know I’m being a twat, but I can’t stop myself. The calm voice has been crowded out by advertising and special offers, only the militant remains. At least he has the good sense to keep quiet and push the trolley, instead of taking it all out on Meg.
On the way to the bus stop I try another apology. This time Meg forgives me. Then, on the bus, I try to explain:
“I just hate all this braindead consumption, these zombies shuffling from one array of worthless crap to the next. It’s all just so…”
“Are you going to be like this all night?”
That shuts me up. For the sake of both our sanities I go into sulk mode and press my face against the bus window. The calm voice is battling its way back in:
‘What the fuck are you doing, Wil? You know she hates that crap almost as much as we do. It’s not her fault. Stop being such a prick.’
The bus stops and we get off. Meg ignores me. I hang back and let her stalk off. Then I call her phone and tell her I’ve got to get some Tally-Hos from the bottlo. On the way home I breathe and relax, and the darkness seeps away.
Then we sit on our bedroom floor and argue for a minute.
Then we cling to each other and cry.
“It’s not your fault Meggie,” I tell her, “I’m just tired and nasty and full of stored-up work crap. I know you don’t need this shit from me, you work so bloody hard s well.”
“Oh Willy,” She whispers and strokes my head. “It’s not your fault either. I know you’re a weirdo. That’s why I love you.”
“I may be a weirdo,” I tell her, laughing now, “but when the shit hits the fan, this weirdo is going to take care of you no matter what.”
“What if it never does?” She’s laughing now too.
I think for a second.
“Well I’ll just have to take care of you anyway.”

No comments: