A New Tense. Jo Day
had taken off and levelled out so I could get another drink, a nightcap. I tried my best to make it last, sipping the beer slowly from the can and looking out of the window with my knees up and my head resting against my rolled-up hoodie. The clouds parted and there were waves of desert with highways cutting across it, highways to massive skyscrapers and high rises. I wedged the can of beer between my knees as I started to drift off, jerking a little through the layers of consciousness.
I was thinking about mum, about when we’d seen each other last. It was about six months after Jones and I moved in with Pete. We were out shopping, Pete had driven us to the supermarket in his old van. I’d gotten into cooking, I was pretty good at it, and Jones and Pete were constantly taking advantage of this. I didn’t mind so much, except that I didn’t do the dishes because I didn’t want to do all the cleaning and they didn’t do it because they were lazy shits. I didn’t want to have to ask them constantly to clean up because I thought it was gendered until I realised that yelling at them for being lazy shits wasn’t me falling into gender roles, it was just not wanting to live in squalor.
I’d seen mum in the refrigerated aisle, just her back at first, and then her profile as she turned to look at something else. I’d wondered about what would have happened if I’d gone up to say hello. I’d lost a lot of weight at that point, better eating and bike riding but also forgotten meals and too much speed. Of course I didn’t know at the time that it’d be the last time that I’d ever see her. I didn’t chastise myself now for not going up to speak to her, because what could I have said?
Hey? How’s it going? Why haven’t you spoken to me in a year? We saw each other when Pete was driving us out of the parking lot. Probably had the same expressions on our faces. We didn’t wave but we didn’t look away, either.
The sleeping tablet I’d gotten from Max was starting to kick in when the German woman next to me asked if I’d been to Melbourne before, and did I know how much the rent was?
I thought of the cheapest place I’d lived in, the first, when I wanted to get out of the Jones’ for fear that I was taking advantage of them. I was only there for one rainy winter, housemates always asleep on the couch, running late for work. Flu constantly on rotation, sniffles and allergies to the dust in the house, we were drunk or high constantly which was fine because we were young. After a few weeks used needles started to appear in the bathroom bin, nestled among the bloody tampons. Nobody knew where they were coming from, or said that they didn’t, and I didn’t care so much. Beer had always gone missing from the fridge, and that was okay, except after a couple of months nobody was replacing it. Our house had always been the party house but now there were strangers sleeping on the couch, and strangers shooting up in our kitchen, and visits at all hours. I started wondering about what it would be like, found myself pissed as a bandicoot on the phone to Jones, telling him about it. Silence on the other end, and then: Jesus, Laurie, get a fucking grip. I’d just been rambling, no real idea of what I was saying. No, you don’t understand what it’s like... Silence on the other end. I’m kidding, I’d said, too quickly. Right, he’d said back. The conversation had ended pretty quickly. When I got off the phone I looked around properly. House messy, but this wasn’t the mess of kids living out of home for the first-time mess, this was serious. Ants and mice and fat spiders that watched the flies buzzing around the rotting dishes in the kitchen, too stuffed to move. Later that night, when we were all stoned or drunk out of our minds on the couch watching RAGE, a mouse had sprinted up a leg of my track pants. I’d yelled in shock and jumped and had nearly given everyone heart attacks. When they realised what had happened, that I hadn’t lapsed into some kind of psychosis (there’d been a few freak outs in that house before) they started laughing, nothing malicious, probably just relief. I’d gone for a shower, and when I was bending down to inspect the little scratch marks on my thighs I saw that there were mushrooms growing under the sink. It dawned on me a little then that the way we were living wasn’t anarchic, or anti-conformist, or even artistic. We were just a bunch of kids, burned out even though we were too young to be burned out, talking about all the things we were going to achieve, things that would always start tomorrow. One day after Jones’d turned up in his beat up old Datsun Sunny, and after one conversation we’d packed my stuff into the car and he was driving me back to his parents’ house. To the woman next to me (blonde, glasses, younger than I was by some amount), I said, in my best British accent, “I’ve never been.”
The Jones'
I only had my carry-on luggage, a big old army backpack, and I passed quickly through customs at Melbourne Airport, I was one of the first people out. The hangover I so deserved had finally kicked in and I was so tired and hungry that I felt faint. As I came out into the international arrival lounge they were there immediately, Calliope and Gary and Jones, and I had to stop myself from double-taking at Jones because he was gaunt, cheeks pulled in, singlet hanging off scrappy shoulders that’d always been so strong.
I went over to them and greetings were said. Calliope put her arms around me in a hug and it was too much. I was covered in cold sweat, my heart was pounding, and spit was pooling in my mouth. I was suddenly aware that I was going to throw up. I looked around for the nearest toilets but couldn’t see any, a bin was the closest thing to me. I mumbled something like an apology to all of them before I went over to it and vomited.
Not much came out of me and thick bile burned the back of my throat. Someone was behind me, rubbing my back. It was Calliope. Good old Calliope. If I had enough hair I’m sure that she’d have held it back from my face.
After a few minutes it subsided, my heart went back to its normal rhythm, but there was still something wrong. I felt disconnected and I couldn’t talk, all my words were coming out strangely. Jones looked worried. He took my bag and didn’t ask me questions, and when I staggered a little coming off the escalator he took my arm and linked it through his, supporting me.
In the car they took pity on me and stopped trying to involve me in the conversation. I sat with my legs drawn up, looked out of the window with hot air blowing into my face, which felt burned despite not having been in sunlight for weeks.
I barely remembered going inside the house but I woke up sometime later in the bedroom that had once been mine. I went out into the kitchen. Jones was in there, sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop open, drinking a beer, and I was so disorientated, was I really on the other side of the world?
“Hey,” he said when he saw me. He closed his laptop. “How’re you feeling?”
“Yeah, better. I’m so hungry though, is there anything to eat?”
“Yeah, there’s a bunch of stuff, mum made it for you.”
“How long was I asleep for?”
He looked at the clock on the wall. “Seven hours.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup.”
“Right. Where are Gary and Calliope?”
“They’re at some family thing.”
I went to the fridge and pulled out all the containers. Beans in tomato sauce, a bunch of different salads, skordalia, spanakopita. I’d forgotten how good the food was here, Calliope went to her parents’ house a lot and cooked big meals, or her parents did alone and delivered them to her. There were beers in the fridge, too. I balanced a bunch of containers on the counter and popped the cap from the beer, drank greedily. It felt small in my hands compared to the longnecks I was used to and I necked half of it in a mouthful. I couldn’t be bothered plating up the food, and ate it straight from the containers, oily beans and fresh vegetables. Jones had opened his laptop again.
Around a mouthful of spanakopita, I said, “Are you working on something?”
“Yeah. But I won’t bore you.”
“It’s okay, I’m used to it. Go on.”
“It’s just some coding for a company.”
“Okay.”
After I’d eaten and put everything away we smoked cigarettes in