How it feels (15 page)

The last time I'd seen them all was six months ago. It was Gordon's twenty-first birthday and I had been asked to make a speech. I was surprised at the request, considering the amount of time we had spent apart. It was Courtney's doing. She was the one who'd called me and said, ‘Will you make a speech, Neil? Please!'

As much as I am a creative person and a left-brain thinker, I hate being late. But with Chandra as my girlfriend we were always late. It took us five hours to drive from Bathurst to Sydney that night, because we
had to
drop in on her mother in Castlecrag, her (bestie!) friend in Castle Cove, and pick up a dress she simply ‘had to have' from a friend who owned a boutique in Woollahra. Then we had to drive to Potts Point and wait forty-five minutes for drugs, and then she was hungry, so we had to stop off at Oporto's in Darlinghurst for a Bondi Meal with no chicken (seriously, what is the point of a chicken burger without chicken?). When we arrived at Gordon's party in Wynyard, the speeches were over. Chandra was pretty baked by this point, so she didn't see how much it hurt; I'd prepared something very conservative, funny and sincere, and I never got to say it.

Gordon greeted us but then kept his distance. And as he drank more he drifted further into other patches of people, sharing their snide mockery of me and Chandra, I saw it all. At one point he even commented on my pink leather jacket and I was faced with a wall of guys I went to school with saying ‘Pink Jacket! Pink Jacket! Pink Jacket!' over and over again. Yes, my jacket was pink, but why did they have to remind me in the form of a mantra? Chandra wore a smile and a ‘hello' around all night, making a big effort with my old friends and first love, but Courtney was sullen and closed, following Gordon round like a maid, or a mouse.

On the dance floor Gordon and I had our best moments. I twirled Carmen to ‘New York, New York' and Gordon and I did some shots at the bar, inspiring some old-school rap routines we knew. Busting it to MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, throwing caterpillar-rolls and revisiting the always potent ‘running man' manoeuvre. Two refugee ships desperate to find a common sandbank – something.

‘We've not seen you mate,' Gordon said, by the bar, both of us sweating into our beers. ‘And then fucken all this time goes past!'

I smiled at him as if to say ‘ok', but he just glared at me like I owed him an apology. The whole night I felt like I should apologise but I didn't know what I had done. I mean, I did, but I didn't. You know how that works?

‘I know,' I said. ‘It's insane – life, everything.'

‘How's uni, mate?' Gordon asked, waving to a set of slouching guys.

‘It's amazing, yeah. I'm totally into my work, man, making some really interesting stuff. '

‘What're you going to do with it?'

‘What?' I asked.

‘At the end of the year, what're you going to do after that?'

‘Just… continue to make art.'

‘Who for?'

I felt Gordon snigger. He was waving at someone again, maybe Courtney.

‘Yeah, who for? How are you going to make a living out of it?' he asked, beer foam on his pursed lip.

‘I will survive, man, don't you worry about me,' I said, winking at my friend, desperately trying to find some of that old ease.

‘It's not really a career though, is it? Making fucken… art videos and saying poems and shit.'

‘It makes me happy.'

‘That's what matters.' He barked something under his breath.

‘What?' I barked back over my breath.

‘I'm just saying, it will be good when you finish the course. Get a look at some perspective on things.'

‘Sure, sure, I will see that I do that Gordo.'

‘I hope so.' He still had not looked at me.

‘How's
your
work going, Gordon?' I switched, nailing the warm end of my beer.

‘Yes, very good. Saving money. I'm senior manager of sales now.'

‘Wow! You must really love blinds.'

Gordon was looking at me hard. I had to insult him to get him to look at me, and I had insulted him deep. He looked like he might kill me.

‘Where's your dad?' I asked. ‘Did he call you on your birthday?'

Gordon just glared at me now, his eyes filling with water and rage, and it was at this moment that I knew I had missed something big in his life, and he would never forgive me.

‘Are you still living with Carmen?' I asked, handing him fresh ale and a fresher topic.

‘Nah, man, I moved out a year ago now.'

‘No shit?'

‘We've, um… I've got my own place. I bought a joint on the beach.'

‘No way! You bought your own place?'

‘Yeah, on Wanda Beach. Last Christmas. I told you.'

‘Yes, yes, yes. I just didn't realise you actually bought it.' I punched him lightly on the chest, but it didn't work. It just looked like a shit punch.

‘Yeah, it's pretty spesh.' Gordon sucked on his bottom lip.

‘Who do you live with? Is it a one bedder?'

Gordon went redder and weirder than he was already.

‘You got a girlfriend in there with you, big guy?' I beamed, trying desperately to crack it all open and make it jovial, like it was, like it should be.

‘Thanks for coming down, man. Shame we missed ya big speech.'

‘Why can't you tell me who you're living with?' I pushed.

‘Why does it matter?' Gordon asked, smiling menacingly at me.

‘Who is it? Sarah Kirkwood?' That did it.

‘It's Courtney, actually, mate. Courtney lives with me.'

Gordon was gulping and grinning now. At me. His face was replenished and not flushed at all. He was like a standing-up reptile in the golden sun.

‘We're renovating now, so we're living at Courtney's mum's for a bit, but yeah, should be ready in a month or so, fingers crossed.'

Fuck you, I thought. You fucking thief cunt.

‘There she is.' Gordon swung his reptile eyes south-west.

Courtney was out of the bathroom and sailing toward us, stuffing make-up back into her large green bag. Why such big bags? Do horses eat out of these bags?

‘You remember Courtney,' Gordon said out loud, his big chest puffing.

It was true. The gloating red stocky Pom had stolen my ex-girlfriend. My first love and still in there. When he came to see me was this what he was holding? Were they all the way back there? Of course they must have been. That explains. They were in each other's realm now and she was an inch taller than him and I could feel Saturdays in bed. Video night and football on television. She knew his chicken nugget dick and he knew her many moods. He knew more than I did. He knew ‘pick me up from here and I'll drop you off there'. He knew the kink in her arm and the hair on her birthmark. She knew he lashed out when he was tired, and more when his pride was threatened. She dropped him at kickboxing and she… she lived with him too! She cooked in her pyjamas in his kitchen and he made her feel safe like no one else ever had. Gordon Braithwaite was the MAN IN HER LIFE. I was the fool here, I was the silly solipsist, resting on his big fat laurels while the crowd guffawed and their heads rolled off.

‘Hi!' Courtney said this to me, but then she turned and kissed Gordon, who squeezed her wrist and let out a small noise of too-big triumph. Then they turned to face me as a couple. I could feel my nose ring getting infected. Gordon's grin had a life of its own now. She looked glorious, even in his arms, though she had lost her fashion sense completely. Gone were the PJ Harvey goth-frocks of seventeen, the edgy torn skirts and customised boy t-shirts. Found was the forlorn garb of conservatism. Just as Gordon would like her. Draped in comfortable, ‘feminine' dresses that talked of summer. Gentle pastels and sweet, tactile fabrics. Ribbons in hair and Sportsgirl floral. The unimposing façade. The ‘yes, it's ok' look of the Southern Districts.

‘That girl you brought with you from Bathurst is a piece of work!' Courtney said, a rare scowl taking over her mouth.

‘Her name is Chandra.'

‘Right.' Courtney seethed.

‘What did she do that was so bad?' I was aggressive back; I hated her clothes.

‘She is in there pashing Sarah Kirkwood! Who is blind drunk and cannot stand up. Your friend is mauling her, fingering her in public! Disgusting!'

I laughed out loud. ‘She's just having some fun.'

‘Isn't she your girlfriend, man?' Gordon asked.

‘We kinda got an open thing going,' I said, feeling the immediate need to elaborate. The drugs were in the house now, well and truly. ‘Society created these rules and imposed them on us. Society invented “the relationship”, but we are choosing to define our own union.'

‘Right. Amazing.' Gordon nodded, passive-aggressively.

‘She is off her tits on drugs and really I just want her out of here.' Courtney looked at Gordon, looking for solidarity.

‘Since when have you been anti-drugs, Courtney?' I asked.

‘I haven't had an E since the results party actually. They disgust me, to tell you the truth, Neil.' Courtney made sense in her new clothes.

‘Well there's a turnaround,' I said, trying to keep my buzzing face from releasing the news of the two ecstasy tablets I had dumped not forty minutes ago. Courtney wasn't wearing a bra so I could just make out the top half and middle of both her breasts. They looked older, longer and less pale. But still I wanted to reach out and touch them, to put one in my mouth even and show her everything I knew. It wouldn't be like Sarah Kirkwood's party this time. I could take her to a hotel and show her the whole cabaret now. All the weird, wild and unfathomably gentle things I had learnt about the art of pleasuring women.

‘I told your slut friend to get a hotel and that Gordon's aunties and his aunties' friends shouldn't have to come in here… to the
toilet
. . . and see two dykes mauling each other!' Courtney was going full tilt now.

‘And then your friend
Chandra
turns to me and calls me “homophobic”! I mean, me? Homophobic? My uncle runs an interior decorating shop in Rockdale.' Courtney took a deep breath. ‘Then Sarah Kirkwood passed out in the sink and your fucking slut whore girlfriend starts painting the word “cunt” on the wall with her lipstick, she is a fucking idiot, like if that's the people you choose to hang out with Neil, then…'

‘Where is she now?' Gordon asked, pushing me aside with his elbow. ‘I'll throw the bitch out.' And off he went to throw the bitch out. Then my E kicked in tsunami-style.

‘Seriously, Neil,' Courtney said, turning to Gordon's beer.

‘Seriously, Neil,' I mocked her, grinning insanely as she sipped.

I reached out and touched Courtney's earlobe, the bit beneath her earlobe, and then the bit where it corners in and goes neck. She quivered in her skin but she did not stop me. Both Es were crashing together like two enormous waves. I want to fuck you, Courtney, and be fucked by you. Let me show you how great I am at sex now. Let me take you from here, let me breathe life back into your clothes, your tits, your cunt, your mind, your soul, your cunt again.

‘Take your hands off me, Neil.'

I had one hand on her breast and one finger on her mouth. So much so quick I didn't even see. Everyone watching!

‘Take your hands off me!' Courtney screamed, but it was just her and me.

I had called Courtney half-a-dozen times over the separate years. Usually, well mostly, actually, always when I was drunk. Once, when she answered, she was drunk too and we spoke like old and excellent friends. We compared university tales and observations, and she was particularly dry and hilarious as she described some of the more earnest law students she was studying with. Often I called and got Nina. Well, I nearly always got Nina because Courtney was always ‘out with friends' and now I knew why. Nina was always so happy to hear from me she would put a reggae album on and pour herself a scotch. I could hear the clink-ice chink away, every time she filled and refilled it. The last time I called I got Courtney and she said, ‘You are bad,' and yelled at me for never calling Gordon. I told her I still loved her and she said something horribly clichéd like, ‘You've changed, Neil.' I may have said, equally clichéd, ‘I just got out of the Shire is all.'

Upside down. Gordon had Chandra by the throat. She was laughing, smeared in lipstick, as he dragged her across the dance floor. The party was torn between looking at me and Courtney, or Gordon and Chandra. Gordon had a great suit on too, may I add. A grey pinstripe number with a mauve shirt and flamboyant vintage tie. He really looked handsome that night, especially when he was dancing – the suit seemed to shimmer. The suit was moving through light. The suit disappeared with Chandra into the elevator shaft.

‘Come with me!' Courtney took my hand and led me away from the ogling aunties, grandmothers, uncles and all those peers I used to have Winfield Blues with on the oval. She led me into a dining room that could have easily been a 1940s film set. The chairs were creamy leather, and the chandelier twinkled in a subdued way.

‘May I have this dance?' I asked, stepping over a chair onto the floor.

‘Neil, you have to go now. There are some stairs at the back of the restaurant. Go now before he comes back.'

Courtney was pushing at my shoulder blades, looking back at the party, which was burning bright with the garrulous many.

I could see what a great lawyer she would be, the split focus and the hard intent – the all-seeing, all-knowing eye.

‘Why do I got to leave, sugar tits?' I lifted up my mohair vest and scratched at my torso.

‘Neil, please – you're so wasted.'

I sat down and bellowed at her. ‘What did I do? What did I do to you people?! What did I do to make you see me like this?'

There was a space in time in which neither of us spoke. Then Courtney started to cry. She wiped her eyes with the sharp of her wrists and then she looked at me like I was a boy she was looking after – after school.