Kitchen Sink Drama Read online

  About the Book

  As seen in Good Weekend: one hundred of Paul Connolly’s beloved one-hundred-word vignettes along with Jim Pavlidis’s whimsical illustrations.

  From tempestuous family roasts to the first blooms of young love, from relationship missteps to moments of familial joy, Kitchen Sink Drama reflects domestic life in all its messy, delightful and humorous glory. With characters depicted in nuanced fullness, these poignant, pithy stories capture the truth at the heart of so many of our experiences—each one a glimpse of a whole world.

  Kitchen Sink Drama is a collection of some of the finest writing on the human condition.

  for Abbie and Ada

  CONTENTS

  Cover Page

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Yellow Submarine

  New Life

  Mix Tape

  Salad Days

  Odd Jobs

  Art Appreciation

  The Sleepover

  Tattoos

  Badgering the Witness

  Sunday Lunch

  Millennium Bug

  Love Story 2.0

  Tree Change

  Lucky Man

  Master Chef

  Blank Canvas

  Grapes of Wrath

  Hide and Seek

  Cuckolded

  Handyman

  The Bathtub

  The Boy Next Door

  Dress Ups

  The Secret

  The Visitor

  The Puppy

  The List

  Man Flu

  X

  Pas de Deux

  The Gift

  Proprioception

  Tough Love

  The Shakes

  Manning Up

  Head over Heels

  Boom Box

  The Clock

  Home Truths

  True Love

  The Reward

  The Martyr

  Just Getting Started

  Waterworks

  Summer

  Spaces in Between

  Pillow Fights

  Jellybeans

  Mutley

  Neighbours

  Revolution

  Nits

  Nostalgia

  The Shed

  Funeral

  Back in the Groove

  To Be or Not To Be

  New York City

  Rebellion

  Silverback

  Oh, Baby

  The Hat

  Going Home

  Superman

  An Uncanny Resemblance

  The Power of Wuv

  The Trauma Cleaner

  Walden

  The Hobby

  The Lemon Tree

  In the Red

  Bonding 101

  A Walk on the Beach

  Coup d'état

  Up, Up & Away

  Into the Wild

  The Time Capsule

  High-school Reunion

  Quality Time

  Incurable Pedantic

  Road Less Travelled

  Leaving the Nest

  Deathbed Regrets

  Therapy

  Home Alone

  Dinner for Two

  Lovesick

  Connection

  Leverage

  The Magic of Christmas

  Core Strength

  Fathers' Group

  Summer Rain

  Italophilia

  Little Universes

  Special Occasions

  The Ladder

  Slippers

  Wishful Thinker

  Saturday Afternoon

  Acknowledgment

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Copyright Page

  Yellow Submarine

  SARAH told her friends she’d rather die than go away with her stupid family. She said she’d prefer to make out with some creepy dude with bad breath than endure, for two whole weeks, her brother’s surliness, her dad’s relentless optimism, her mum’s jeans. The morning they pulled out, the sun igniting the dew on their lawn, she stared out of her window and contemplated the vast pointlessness of everything. Thirteen kilometres later, she caught herself humming along to ‘Yellow Submarine’ on the radio, then noticed her father watching her through the rear-view mirror. He winked. She may have smiled.

  New Life

  FIVE hours after his wife, Merissa, had given birth, Eric sat in her hospital room holding—and intermittently smelling—his sleeping, swaddled, as-yet-unnamed son. As Merissa dozed, Eric realised two things with a profound certainty that brought tears to his eyes (although, turns out, he’d be wrong about one of them): 1. For the first time in his life—a life in which his every decision was analysed, agonised over and qualified in every way—he knew the meaning, the feeling, of unconditional love; 2. His son, his beautiful, perfect son, would be named Randy, after his grandfather.

  Mix Tape

  LILY and Xavier’s relationship had run its course. The problem was Xavier didn’t know it yet. But Lily had never been good at disappointing people, so she made him a mix tape, hoping he’d get the hint from her playlist, which included ‘We Breakin Up’ by Chamillionaire, ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ by Johnny Cash, ‘Goodbye to Love’ by the Carpenters and ‘I Don’t Really Love You Anymore’ by the Magnetic Fields. Xavier played it on his long commute to work and was blown away. He had no idea Lily had such diverse musical tastes. It only made him love her more.

  Salad Days

  FRANNIE met Jasper at a rally. Nine years her senior, he was strong-jawed, clear-eyed, ethically scrupulous and, he disclosed, highly sexual. Soon she was hearing his post-coital dissertations on Marxism and cycling and not minding it one bit. But five years later she’d grown into herself: a witty, flexible, unashamedly contradictory woman ravenous for meat and a car. With air-con. Alas, Jasper was still Jasper. She admired his convictions, but every time she saw him sitting, straight-backed, diligently chewing his big salads, she had to fight the urge to punch him in the face.

  Odd Jobs

  NORMAN could never tell his daughter Annie how he felt about her, even when she was much younger. Back then, however, he could at least sit her on his lap. Now, whenever he and Hazel went to visit her, he’d bring his tools and, while the women chatted, he’d stop Annie’s taps from dripping and unsqueak her doors. If he was lucky, he’d find big jobs that required repeat visits: weatherboards that needed painting, fence posts that leaned like drunks. With every swish of his brush and thrust of his spade, he told Annie everything he’d never been able to say.

  Art Appreciation

  JESS knew nothing about art, but she knew what she liked. And what she liked was the man standing next to an abstract piece that could have been painted by a child. She thought about crossing the gallery to approach him, but only in the same way she thought about quitting her job, or winning money. Instead, she studied him from afar—his form, lines, texture—and for a delicious moment she pictured him framed by her bedhead. Then he smiled delightedly and kissed a man flush on the lips, and Jess realised why art was never her thing.

  The Sleepover

  SO excited was she to be at Fatima’s for her first sleepover, Olivia barely flinched when her mother left. But after gymnastics in Fatima’s backyard and hours watching TV and eating the best kinds of wrong food, Olivia felt the first twinge of dislocation. Later, after Fatima fell asleep mid-sentence, Olivia lay wide-eyed on a trundle bed and catalogued unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells. Then the lights went out and Olivia saw that the glowing decal stars on Fatima’s ceiling formed a constellation entirely foreign to her. Her eyes welled. She was further from home than she thought.

  Tattoos

  A party.
A meeting of eyes. An approach. Within hours they’d decanted their souls—and plenty of cheap wine, too. Dizzy with desire, they bolted to her place for a night of lovemaking measurable on the Richter scale. Next morning they set off for a nearby tattoo parlour. Despite her low pain threshold, she had agreed they’d inscribe the other’s name above their hearts. This was no fling, after all. But hang on, what were their names? ‘Jo,’ she said, laughing. ‘Michelangelo,’ he said. ‘Would Mick do?’ she asked. Silence fell over them like the light of the new day.

  Badgering the Witness

  HIS mum said, ‘What do you do in there all day?’ His dad was more direct, albeit with a wink to show he wasn’t judging him. ‘You slapping the salami, mate? Spanking the monkey? Badgering the witness?’ Adrian laughed self-consciously, which they took as affirmation, then he slunk away, shutting his bedroom door behind him. Later that afternoon, after ensuring the coast was clear, he prised up a loose floorboard, reached into the darkness, and pulled out a thick, leather-bound, gold-embossed book. The Bible. Better they think he was a chronic tugger than know about this.

  Sunday Lunch

  SUNDAY lunch began with Phil’s observation that the lamb was tasty ‘but dry-ish’. ‘Thanks for that, Phil, your first contribution of the day,’ his wife, Mary, snapped. Phil shrugged as their son, Cameron, remarked that his mother was overreacting. ‘After the week you’ve had I’d keep out of it,’ she said, leaving the table. Wounded, Cameron stormed off himself. ‘Sorry about him, Mum,’ their other son, Dean, called out theatrically. ‘Don’t be a shit-stirrer, Dean,’ Phil said, pointing his knife. When Dean departed too, Phil was left alone. But he took up his fork. No point wasting good food.

  Millennium Bug

  HE’D never tell Mabel, of course, but despite the wonders of the Louvre, Arthur realised he’d rather be back at the hotel with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. At a dinner party weeks later, Mabel’s holiday snaps circumnavigating the table, Arthur pictured The Girl who Played with Fire splayed on his armchair and longed for everyone to leave. And last night, as Mabel shockingly guided his hand to somewhere it hadn’t been since the Hawke government, he managed a wistful glance at The Girl who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest on his bedside table, before Mabel hit the lights.

  Love Story 2.0

  ‘HAVE you ever seen a bigger bunch of bastards?’ were the first words Rhiannon said to Karl, while motioning to her workmates. From that fleeting moment by the office photocopier, he knew she was the one. He was never sure how she felt, however, for she always answered his invitations for coffee and lunch with responses like ‘S’pose’, ‘If you want’, ‘Nothin’ else to do’. She always acquiesced, though, even when he proposed: ‘May as well’. Thus the pattern of their lives was established. It wasn’t like the storybooks, but it was good enough.

  Tree Change

  THE kids went straight to the TV while Donna pulled the esky from the luggage and uncorked a Riesling. ‘Cold enough,’ she announced. Ken stood at the glass doors overlooking a deck and vast gully of bushland. Opening them, he was assailed by a chorus of cicadas. Jesus, the racket! It took him back—to a boyhood spent plucking cicadas off trees, feeling their humming bellies between his fingers, the clinging of their claws on his T-shirt. Then an unexpected memory: drowning an ice-cream container full of them in his neighbour’s pool. With shame surging through him, he shut the doors.

  Lucky Man

  ALTHOUGH he was approaching fifty-five, Harvey went through life thinking he still stood a chance with the drifts of young, beautiful women who passed in and (eventually) out of view. Had he been cursed with self-awareness he would have known this was nonsense. Just as he would have known that he wasn’t particularly clever, artistic, witty or well-endowed. But Harvey was lucky. As his ex-wife Emma often told her friends, without bitterness, Harvey was an idiot, steeped in ignorance and powered by groundless optimism. It’s what gave him the spring in his step.

  Master Chef

  THEY met at his restaurant and dated three times before Megan told Bruno she had a kid. Children made Bruno anxious, but he’d fallen hard. The day Bruno moved in, the boy, in his bedroom, listened to the repeated slap of the screen door. Hours later, he was called for dinner. ‘Shrimp jumbalaya!’ Bruno trumpeted. ‘Get fucked!’ the boy shouted back. ‘Beef carpaccio!’ Bruno announced the following night. ‘Shove it up your arse!’ And so it went. ‘Pork loin!’ ‘You’re not my dad, pervert!’ ‘Duck liver parfait!’ ‘Cock!’ But then, one evening: ‘Beef Madras!’ A pause. ‘With paste or from scratch?’

  Blank Canvas

  WHENEVER Melissa slept over at Sam’s, or he at hers, she’d keep her make-up on and undress in the dark, then rise early to shower and groom before he stirred. After months of this, and feeling he’d never truly seen her, Sam told her, gently, that she needn’t hide herself, that his love was truly blind. So one morning, with great trepidation, Melissa emerged from the bathroom and stood before him unvarnished and raw. Sam caught her eye and arranged his mouth into something resembling an approving smile. Which seemed only fair: he was no oil painting himself.

  Grapes of Wrath

  AFTER the cacophony of the city had finally worn them down, Ricky and a newly pregnant Natalie enjoyed their move to the suburbs. By the time Jasper was born, however, the drive-thru blandness of life was driving them nuts. Then someone—their neighbour, Sol, they reckoned—sprinkled weedkiller all over their yard, probably in retaliation for their cat’s peripatetic toileting routine. Two nights later, dressed in black and pumped with adrenaline, Ricky injected his own urine into the grapes that hung from Sol’s rear pergola. Natalie was horrified, but Ricky had suddenly found suburban living strangely invigorating.

  Hide and Seek

  ONE wet Sunday afternoon, Mario agreed to play hide and seek with his children. Figuring it would be condescending to overlook their pathetic hiding, he found them quickly. On his turn he folded himself, impressively, into a tiny space in the linen cupboard. Five minutes later, Daniella shouted, ‘Daaaad? Where are you?’ Ten minutes after that, Paolo implored, ‘Come out, Dad! You win!’ Then silence. He may have drifted off then, for the next thing Mario heard was the clink of cutlery and his wife’s laugh. Ha! If they thought they’d flush him out so easily they were kidding themselves.

  Cuckolded

  ON the morning of her twenty-ninth birthday, Emily was surprised to find downstairs a shiny red bicycle adorned with a comically large bow. Upright, with a leather seat and whitewall tyres, it was beautiful. Though she hadn’t cycled since childhood, she was instantly smitten. The jealous and possessive type, Darren soon regretted his gift. At first Emily just tootled around to the shops, ringing her bell joyously as she left home. Before long, however, she started embarking on lingering day trips. To Darren, her parting bell became a taunt, to say nothing of her saddle soreness the following day.

  Handyman

  CURSING a busted heater and dreading the repair cost, Roger googled the problem. ‘I fixed it myself!’ he boasted to his family later that day. He googled everything after that: how to build shelves, how to pirate a movie, how to cut your own hair, how to remove a skin tag on a dog. He succeeded every time, though the dog bled more than expected. When his son, Archie, sliced his foot open on some rusty tin, Roger researched his biggest challenge yet. ‘Shouldn’t we go to hospital?’ Archie fretted. ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ Roger reassured him. ‘I got this.’

  The Bathtub

  THE water tumbled, the bathtub filled, an ocean-holding beast of a thing. Nicola had once miscarried in it, James fainting onto the bathroom tiles after responding to her cries. Twice she’d given birth in it—Violet and Josh, like seals pulled from an oil slick. She’d sat on its edge and sobbed the day her mother died. She’d bundled Josh into it the night he came home staggeringly drunk, caked in vomit. This bathtub. Slipping into it now, she made an island of her face and, in the silence of the underwater world, listened to the still-strong beat of her heart.

 
; The Boy Next Door

  JOEL knew the chances of Swedish swimsuit models moving in next door were slim, but he was nevertheless disappointed when the new residents of No. 35 ended up being a family much like his own. Actually, he soon reconsidered, better than his own. The father, Derek, had hair and a job, and the mum, Scarlett, had a waistline. Their son, Cooper, meanwhile, was Joel’s age but a head taller, tanned, muscular and popular. As Joel soon discovered in the bushes behind their houses, Cooper was also an amazing kisser, a fact that confused and moved him in equal measure.

  Dress Ups

  HEIDI had a rich fantasy life, Aaron discovered after they married. ‘I’ve got you a fireman’s outfit,’ she said, giving him a lascivious wink. Where did this come from, he wondered. But he happily went along with it and that night, after he rescued her, she thanked him with gusto. Over following nights he was, by turns, a policeman, a soldier, a stripper. But then it got weird. ‘You’re a priest,’ she said. ‘A mortician.’ ‘An accountant.’ Then: ‘You’re my ex—Brad!’ Aaron played along gamely, but he was beginning to take much less pleasure in Heidi’s cries of ecstasy.

  The Secret

  SITTING in her office, Coco tried to think of something notable she was passionate about, but nothing came to mind. Every job, relationship or hobby she’d ever started petered out because her heart wasn’t in it. People assumed there was something wrong with her. After all, wasn’t everyone trying to—how did the magazines phrase it?—‘unlock their potential’, discover ‘the secret’? Well, not her. Coco’s greatest pleasure and single ambition was to spend the day in bed with a good book and a bottomless cup of tea. If that made her a so-called failure, she could live with it.