Pursuing Love and Death Read online

  Graham Smith sat down to write. The stream of steam from his coffee mug was like his personal secretary: ‘Hello, Mr Smith, is there something I can dictate for you?’ He wrote this dialogue, or rather it wrote itself, as the bitter taste dog-paddled down his throat and waited its turn in his bladder:

  Him: Your eyes are like the plumpest cut of lamb, roasting so slowly in the oven, and I cannot turn off the oven light because I want to watch you cook.

  Her: Your eyes are like green fire. Like something from a B-grade movie. They’re dangerous. They make me want to die.

  Him: Your lips are like two jelly babies placed on top of white icing, only I cannot finish decorating my cake. I must eat the jelly babies.

  Her: Your lips are sugarcoated as well, only I am a diabetic.

  He stopped typing and took a drink, one that made him cough. One that made the heat and the smell come out of his nose. It was crap. Every word. This was not supposed to be about her. It was supposed to be about him. But could he write about himself without writing about Velma? He laughed to himself through his nose, at the same time clearing it of any residual coffee stings, and said to the impatient cursor on his computer, ‘Could I write about Velma without writing about food?’

  He decided to go with it, crap and all.

  Something about the flow of her scarves seemed planned in a thrown-together way. Tailored in tatters, layered in the sheerness of what-you-will; garments from yesterday, crumpled-in-drawers or draped-over-hat-racks … She was highly visual and shared a secret language with our hallway mirror; it must have told her things I could not. As I was telling her that her eyes were like lamb roasting in an oven, she probably heard the mirror whisper ‘gold’.

  He had a vision of his gold wedding band, which for years had rested in a small jade dish atop the second shelf of his three-shelf bedside table. Why was he still hanging onto it? Could he ever let it go and still consider himself an emotional man? Maybe he needed it by his side. A talisman.

  The morning wasn’t going well. He suddenly needed to throw up. Then it passed. He drank his coffee, letting it do its thing, believing it grounded him in some irrational way. He hadn’t got involved in the cuppa-culture until the children had moved out with Velma. Coffee had become more about me-time than caffeine-time, yet these days it seemed to be about survival. He looked at what he had written. He needed a top-up puff.

  THE TRAIN STATION LONELY WITH PURPLE PAINT AND A MAN NEARING SERIOUS CRISIS

  How far must one man go to distance himself from the world? It mustn’t be a question of geography because then Darren would be at a lookout station atop a snowy mountain somewhere in the Nordic regions. Instead he was sitting on, unbeknownst to him, wet purple paint at the Port Adelaide train station, awaiting his ride to Largs Bay. His plan was to walk the shore on the first rainy day in months.

  In his left hand Darren held a hardbound copy of A Confederacy of Dunces. He had found it at a second-hand bookshop in Alberton, and was unaware of how the novel would change his life.

  He had chosen the book because it was orange. He had felt the shop owner’s eyes upon him and grabbed the first book that visually grabbed him. She was a middle-aged woman, frumpy, with that long, straight, parted-down-the-middle hair from the seventies, and she’d collected so many books she even had shelves on the verandah facing Port Road. It was presumably her house as well as her shop. He assumed that, much like him, she had very little life beyond her books. Darren visited her store once a week, on varying days, and pretended not to notice her noticing him.

  What does she want? I’m going to buy a book; she knows that. I always do. What does she want?

  Darren had considered his options. He could buy a book and go about his business, assuming she always watched him because he was grotesque and inappropriate, or he could talk to her because maybe, maybe, she found him intriguing. But would that then entail an awkward silence? Would he have to ask her on a date because he wouldn’t know what to do with that silence? Weren’t dates reserved for boys and girls who enjoyed cheap beer and cheaper sex? He was too old for both. He liked his beer brewed in his home and his sex … well, he was just too old.

  The man at the Port Adelaide train station who sat next to Darren smelled of cigarettes and mould. Most probably he had Tourette’s syndrome. Kept spitting out ‘bitch’ and ‘cat woman’ and ‘OKOKOK’. He must’ve been in his seventies and had probably come to terms with the fact that he scared people. Darren was sixty-five and had definitely come to terms with it.

  It was clear to him that people feared the morbidly obese, and none more so than the morbidly obese person who looked at himself in the mirror. For that reason Darren had always avoided full-length mirrors. Other things he avoided: swim trunks, aeroplanes, sniffy dogs out for walks, early mornings, late nights, parks, pubs, compact cars, crowds, heat and people. What he liked were books, quick dinners that entailed programming his microwave or calling up a delivery person, brewing the perfect beer, his unadorned flat, words, the sound of cars and buses driving past. Somehow traffic noise made him feel he had that distance from the rest of the world. People were busy with their lives. And in his own unique way, so was he.

  When the train stopped in front of him and Darren stood to board, his pants peeled themselves reluctantly off the bench. When he looked back to see what the problem was, a huge bum-shaped imprint with rippled patterns greeted him.

  ‘Inspired,’ he said.

  The man looked at the imprint then at Darren’s pants and said, ‘You win some, you lose some,’ and gave a quarter-toothless chuckle.

  Darren kept repeating in his head, you win some, you lose some … you win some, you lose some, imagining what it would be like with Tourette’s syndrome. Once he was seated on the train, one single seat to himself (always happy his girth denied him seating companions), he decided to say it out loud – ‘You win some, you lose some’ – just to see people’s reactions. The younger under-forties had earphones or mobiles and so ignored him, while the older ones simply stared out the window. Didn’t they hear me? Normally Darren feared any sort of reaction, preferring anonymity, but this time the oblivion angered him. He felt supreme indignation and thought of Ignatius, the hero of the book he was reading. Four pages into the book and it was clear that everyone around Ignatius was ignorant.

  ‘You win some, you lose some,’ he said to himself. And that was that.

  The beach was deserted. The sky was thick grey and the ocean reflected it so well it was hard to tell where the horizon formed its perfect straight line. Darren trudged through the soft sand, knowing this was an opportunity to give his body some exercise. But when he had walked about a hundred metres and the rain had started in with solid thin sheets driven by fresh wind from the south, he turned back and walked to the jetty. ‘Bugger this apocalyptic crap,’ he said to himself, cumbersomely sat where he would be dry under the jetty and opened A Confederacy of Dunces. As the rain settled in to ease the drought and the wind drifted off, Darren read on. And as the rain stalled and the seagulls squawked and his stomach began to grumble for the hot chips the seagulls wanted too, Darren read on and on. And as the rain began again, laughing because it had won, it had beat out the cynics who had been caught out saying ‘I told you it wouldn’t last’, Darren read on and on and on. It was only when the rain had stopped for the second time in two and three-quarter hours that he decided to appease his stomach and head for home with a greasy parcel of chips and a greasier bag of two fried fish.

  He thought of Ignatius during his walk to the train and on the train ride home. He thought of Ignatius during his walk from the station to his own front door. Once home, he sat in his father’s old reclining chair and ate his fish and chips, thinking about Ignatius J Reilly.

  MOON-WALKING ACROSS THE KITCHEN FLOOR

  Op-shopping on Smith Street in Collingwood earlier that morning had been a success. Not only did the faux denim pants and jacket fit comfortably snug to his tightly slender frame, casual yet sexy, bu
t the maroon shirt matched the boots almost perfectly.

  ‘How ya like me now?’ he asked.

  ‘I like you, I like you!’ she sang, standing on the bed.

  The Scissor Sisters filled their two-bedroom flat. It was good dress-up music and they danced as they dressed. Ginsberg struck a pose and growled.

  ‘Wait! You need a hat.’ Kate ran from the bedroom to the kitchen like a child running to get a toy, then ran even faster back and delivered a hat upon his head. It had two yellow feathers.

  ‘Nice one,’ he said, puckering to the mirror, Kate’s thighs framed in the upper left corner behind him as she bounced in rhythm, the springs keeping perfect beat.

  ‘Look look look!’ she said, reaching for the hat. Ginsberg gave it to her. Couldn’t resist. After putting it on and pulling the dress out of her bag and holding it up to her body, Kate said, ‘How do you like me now?’

  Ginsberg put two fingers to his lips and whistled, almost shaking the blinds on the window. ‘I like it, I like it. Try it on.’

  As Kate undressed and dressed herself, Ginsberg sauntered to the kitchen. This called for cocktails and he had the perfect concoction: peach schnapps, orange juice and rosé spritzers. One small carafe for him, one large glass of just juice for her. Tuesday arvo was soon to be atingle.

  Kate, in the doorway, from some other era, some other country: ‘So glad we’re not at work.’ She smiled, because this was simply too much fun.

  Ginsberg handed her the orange juice. ‘Here’s to one classy chick.’ The clink of the glass signalled a change of CDs. Kate did a little dance to Barry White.

  ‘Classy and sassy,’ she corrected, swaying her hips and raising her arms.

  ‘My my, woman.’

  ‘I got you something else.’

  ‘Did you now?’

  ‘I did.’ Kate widened her eyes and raised her shoulders, unable to contain her excitement, then turned and walked briskly down the hall.

  True, it was good to be home from work, the two of them ridding themselves of anxiety. So much energy in the build-up and all that. It was good to be on holiday before the holiday began. To have one day to themselves before the shit hit the wedding-white fan. Ginsberg predicted insanity. Someone in the family would lose their mind and for all he knew it might be him.

  Kate came back holding a black sequined party gown. ‘For you,’ she said, bowing as she handed him the frock.

  Ginsberg looked longingly at the dress before he’d connected it was his. Gratitude for Kate’s acceptance and praise for her appreciation. He touched his hand to his face, acting the part of Golda, his alter ego. ‘Why, Kate darling, whatever do you mean by giving me such a gift? Are we going out?’

  Kate bit her tongue to stop the laughter. ‘Not a chance.’ She took a drink then rolled her eyes in total approval of the orange juice. It was the simple things they appreciated and all the more now, just as things were about to get complicated.

  TRANCE-LIKE STATES OF RECOGNITION AND RELATING THROUGH A WRITING PAD

  At home Darren sat in his chair. It was his reading chair, his writing chair, his eating chair and his TV chair. Along with the television, two metal shelves from the old shed and some dishes from his childhood, Darren had got the chair from his father’s place after his father went into the nursing home. Of all those things, he liked the chair the best. It was big and warped in the right places. It reminded him of family.

  Confederacy sat on the side table next to him and, after three minutes had passed, he realised he’d been staring at it. What in Christ’s name have I been thinking of? He couldn’t decide if he had blanked out or if he had been thinking about so many things at once that he went into a state of Zen. He looked incredulously at the book. After having read three hundred and sixty-three pages, Darren knew it was the book he had always needed to write, only someone else had beaten him to it.

  Though he’d never say it to Graham, Darren was convinced he was the real writer in the family. He was the serious novelist. The fact that he’d never had anything published was beside the point. He was honing his craft in his quiet manner and someday, when he’d written the book, he expected all the world would envy him his genius.

  There were nineteen unfinished manuscripts on the fourth and fifth shelves of one of his father’s workshop storage units. They were eye level. Darren looked at them every day. He dreamed of writing the beginnings, middles and ends but never got around to all three of the one story. He thought about them, though, and he didn’t think that pointed to failure; Darren thought thinking was eighty-five per cent of a serious novelist’s work.

  He wondered if he could adapt one of them into something like Confederacy. No, he’d have to start from scratch. He’d have to create a whole new character. Could this character live in a parallel universe or in the very distant future? No. He’d have to change genres. He couldn’t write sci-fi or fantasy this time. He’d have to write something literary. He’d have to use metaphors and maybe make his sentences longer than usual. He’d need a setting. Something real. Something he could see. Port Adelaide? Yes, a novel set in the Port about an unlikeable hero. It had to be sad. And funny. Satirical. He wanted the world to cry with his character while laughing at his character. He needed a journal. He probably needed two. John Kennedy Toole had written Confederacy on paper and that’s how he would write his novel.

  Though his mind was working quickly, his body worked slowly. He was determined to buy his journals at once, as soon as he got up from the chair. The chair held him down, warmed him, hugged him, pleaded with him not to leave. Darren often succumbed to its pleas and ended up sleeping the night in it but this time he was resolute. He had to get started on his novel.

  The phone rang. He didn’t want anything to break his train of thought so he let the answering machine pick up. It was his brother.

  ‘Smitty, it’s me. Listen, just thinking about driving to the wedding. Can’t do it. I’m feeling sort of … hazy, I don’t know. I’m just going to make my own way up there. Hope this doesn’t put you out.’ The beep beep beep of the hang-up.

  So his concentration was broken. The wedding. The inevitability of it hovered over him like a cold, black cloud about to piss down hail, not unlike the rain that had soaked him so thoroughly at the beach that morning. The idea of him being at a celebration after all these years made him anxious. Aside from his brother Smitty, he’d been able to avoid contact with people for some time now – pretty much since his retirement from the postal service three years back. The thought of all those people, the dancing, the speeches and the schmaltz, the people watching him get his food from the buffet, the stares, the people who talked to him because they felt sorry for him, those who ignored him (and he knew there was no way they could just miss him), the church pews – No, it’s in a town hall, yes – the heat and him in a dark-coloured suit. His suit. Could he still fit into it? The thought of the detested place card on the table, the dinner-table crapping on, the clink clink clink of the spoon on the glass and the coquettish kisses – Spare me, please – his having to kiss Luna as a sign of best wishes, his having to kiss Velma, the way she did the cheek kiss twice, the thought of the people drunk and laughing. He gagged three consecutive times with two fingers entering the space of his open mouth, put his hand on his belly and swallowed the urge to purge the fish and chips he’d devoured two hours earlier. Funny how some food stays with you long after the consumption.

  So he’d lost his momentum for the procurement of the journals. What once was frantic had become simply another job that would take him out of his warm place, and he tried to keep those to a minimum at all costs.

  But never mind. He gradually made it to the computer shop just around the corner and bought himself ten legal writing pads. They carried no journals (had he heard the sales clerk correctly? Did he really say ‘you win some, you lose some’?) and though this initially jolted him, he’d remembered that his literary hero, Ignatius J Reilly, wrote his many manifestos on writing tablets. The leg
al pads would not only do, they’d do nicely.

  Back at his flat and five pieces of pizza later, the sun had disappeared. Darren had switched on his reading light next to his reading chair and powered through page after page of A Confederacy of Dunces. If he was going to write – and he was going to write – he had to finish the book first.

  AND THIS IS HOW GRAHAM BECAME HER MAN

  Graham was doing kitchen yoga. With both knees bent and back long, shoulders pushed down, head growing tall from the spine, Graham slowly drained the black beans from the stout in which they were cooking. Their texture was enviable: neither soft nor crunchy, but slightly springy. He bent over to check the oven, lifting one leg and focusing on his core. The tray he retrieved held one very large zucchini, sliced in half down the middle, then sliced in half again, cross-wise, the centre seeds scooped out. The vegetable came from his garden and was the size of his forearm. Graham mixed the beans with the spring onion and diced ham, legs now straight and back still straight but bent from the hips to a forty-five-degree angle. He then added the mixture to the boat of his zucchini and breathed deeply, caught his balance, and went down to open the oven again. This time, as he placed his tray on the top shelf, he lifted his other leg and straightened it. There had to be balance in kitchen yoga. When it was time to slice the feta for the final topping of his creation, he sucked his navel into his back, clenched his pelvic floor muscles and simply concentrated on his breathing.

  Kitchen yoga had become his routine since he’d discovered chronic dizziness. Because cooking was his favourite hobby, because he loved to create and nourish his body, he wanted to have some control over his balance so that the Meniere’s wouldn’t ruin his most treasured moments of the day. Of course balancing was difficult and sometimes he tipped over and threw his ingredients at the wall, but for the most part he was finding that it worked. The more he practised it, the easier it was becoming to focus on the food and not on the inner-ear imbalance disorder, inappropriately named a disease. Would he have followed this seemingly silly spiritual routine in front of an audience if his family were still living with him? Of course not. He knew the absurdity of such a performance. He was a grown man contorting his body around white goods and blenders and there was no how-to video playing for him on the bench, no yoga master demonstrating for him on the kitchen table. It was nothing more than a man and his domain, a limited body and its possibilities.