Fiction / Lisa Lang

 

:: About Graham ::

            Klee’s phone rang just as she stepped from the car. It was her moth­er, want­i­ng to know did she buy bis­cuits from the supermarket?

            “No,” she told her. “Remem­ber, no more sugar?”

            “What did that doc­tor know?” she replied in Greek. “He should do some­thing about that breath.”

            By the time she fin­ished the call, Dami­an had tak­en their bags into the cot­tage. She gazed around at the Moon­ah trees, the grassy slope and the sand­stone cliffs, the gold­en after­noon sun pour­ing like syrup over it all. There was anoth­er cot­tage next to theirs, with the same white weath­er­board, sash win­dows and cream trim. They were coun­cil-owned, rent­ed out at low cost to artists. Soli­tude, peace, nat­ur­al beau­ty – it was every­thing you expect­ed from an artists’ retreat. But walk­ing the neat gar­den path, she felt a shim­mer of doubt. Was retreat real­ly the solu­tion to a cre­ative rut? Weren’t you just retreat­ing fur­ther into your­self, when you, in fact, were the problem?

            She found Dami­an in the first room off the cor­ri­dor, set­ting up his com­put­er mon­i­tor on a heavy­set, wood­en desk. There was a modem, twin­kling in the cor­ner, and thin­ning car­pet which smelled vague­ly of rice. Through the win­dow she could see a spindly rhodo­den­dron, and the win­dow of the sec­ond cottage.

            “Let’s hope they’re not nud­ists,” she said.

            Dami­an grunt­ed as he bent towards the pow­er socket.

            “Speak for your­self,” he said. 

            Klee found flo­ral sheets in a linen clos­et. They were vel­vety from wear, vio­lets fad­ed to mauve. Dami­an found an assort­ment of cups and glass­es in the kitchen cup­board. He poured two large gins and topped them up with warm tonic.

            “We haven’t even unpacked,” said Klee.

            “I want to go see the water, before it gets dark.”

            They set off across the grass, gin slosh­ing. From the cliff edge they saw the calm, indi­go bay, the water turn­ing clear at the shore­line. There were coloured boats with white sails, like Italy, she thought, though she’d nev­er been. She sipped her gin, tast­ed salt. Rest­ed her glass on the wood­en rail.

            A large fer­ry cut a dot­ted line, white as chalk, motor­ing toward the pier.

            Klee inhaled the sea air, its briny fresh­ness like a promise of renew­al. Dami­an looked towards the horizon.

            “Are you think­ing about Gra­ham?” she said.

            “Why do you think I’m always think­ing about Graham?”

            “Because that would be a total­ly nor­mal reaction.”

            “So if I say no, I’m not normal?”

            “Yeah, that’s exact­ly what I said.”

            They both turned at the sound of tyres on gravel. 

            “It’s the nud­ists,” he said.

            A woman dragged a roller case up the path towards the door of the sec­ond cottage.

            “Hi,” said Klee. “We’re from next door.”

            “I could hap­pi­ly die here,” said the woman. “It’s heav­en, isn’t it?” She spread her arms wide. “I’m Pamela. And that’s my son, Byron.” She ges­tured to the young man lean­ing into the boot of their car. She was around six­ty: dark curls grey­ing at the tem­ples, a large medal­lion worn over her loose, black linen smock.

            “Are you poets?” she con­tin­ued. “I indulged rather heav­i­ly dur­ing my preg­nan­cy with Byron.”

            “No, we’re – Dami­an makes video games, and I –

            “Which games?” Byron hur­ried towards them, swing­ing a duf­fel bag. “Any­thing I’d know?”

            Dami­an, of course, said nothing.

            “Heard of RTW?” said Klee, and watched his eyes grow wide. He was younger than she’d first thought, mid-twen­ties at most.

            “Are you kid­ding me? I frig­ging love RTW!”

            “And what one earth is Arty W?” Pamela tossed her head.

            “No Mum, it’s the let­ters: RTW. Round the World. It’s only like, the biggest game of the last two years.” He then explained, with a ten­der­ness and patience that sur­prised Klee, how it worked. You trav­elled round Asia and Europe col­lect­ing expe­ri­ences. Full Moon Par­ties, Glas­ton­bury, a glimpse of the Mona Lisa. You col­lect­ed as many as you could before the mon­ey ran out. If you got robbed or ripped off, the mon­ey went quick­er. But you could also top up by busk­ing or pick­ing fruit.

            His face was soft, almost yearn­ing. Pamela looked from Byron to Damian.

            “And you – what did you say – pro­grammed it?”

            “He did it all,” said Klee. “The nar­ra­tive, the pro­gram­ming – all of it.”

            “Well, that’s real­ly some­thing. I’d love to hear more, maybe over a drink?”

            “Prob­a­bly they’re here to work,’ said Byron.

            “We should let you unpack,” said Klee.

            “I have a some­what lack­lus­tre Neb­bi­o­lo,” said Pamela.

 

            “Come by tomor­row at eight.”

            “You can go,” said Damian.

            Klee float­ed the sheet above the mat­tress, before bend­ing to tuck it in. Dami­an opened one bed­side draw­er, then another.

             “The last thing I need is some RTW fanboy.”

            Dami­an had not made a game in over two years. Before that, he’d spent years try­ing to cre­ate a hit, some­thing to be played in lounge­rooms the world over. But he’d made RTW almost on a whim – a game of nos­tal­gia, for age­ing Gen Xers who stilled pined for a thump­ing Lon­don club, a sexy night on the beach in Barcelona, while they queued for sausages at Bun­nings. And it prob­a­bly would have been anoth­er niche game, if it wasn’t for the pan­dem­ic. The game was released just as nineties nos­tal­gia began to surge, along with case num­bers and restric­tions, its wild suc­cess sur­pris­ing everyone.

            Dami­an opened the last of the draw­ers. Klee picked up a lumpy, syn­thet­ic pillow.

            “Pamela seemed inter­est­ing. Did you see her necklace?”

            Dami­an shrugged. Klee stuffed the pil­low into a flo­ral case.

            “It was real­ly unusu­al. It had these blues and greens sort of flick­er­ing over the metal.”

            “You wan­na get drunk?” he said, clos­ing the draw­ers. “Go look at the stars?”

            Oh yes. Get drunk, look at stars and could they please talk about Graham?

 

            Klee slept late and rose a lit­tle worse for wear. The sun was cloud-fil­tered, pale where it seeped beneath the blinds. She wait­ed for the cof­fee to boil, savour­ing her dry mouth and wool­ly head. Maybe it’s just what they’d need­ed, a lit­tle fun. She car­ried Damian’s mug into the room where he was already at work.

            “Thanks,” he said, face blank with concentration.

            She returned to the kitchen and perched at the wood­en bench with a note­book, a pen and a glass of water. She had all the time in the world. All she had to do was cre­ate a char­ac­ter, a role that could be played by a short, olive-skinned, forty-year old woman. Not the kid sis­ter and best friend roles she’d set­tled for in her twen­ties. Not the moth­er roles of her thir­ties: serv­ing up chick­en and clean­ing toi­lets in cheesy ads. The role of a woman – sub­stan­tial and experienced.

            She felt the press­ing, almost-phys­i­cal need to check the news.

            To phone her moth­er, who may have for­got­ten to take her medication. 

            She remem­bered a swarm of ants on their back veran­da – she’d meant to lay poi­son before they left. Would they be gath­er­ing strength, march­ing into the house, embold­ened by their absence?

            What, she won­dered, made borscht taste like borscht? Was it dill? And why was she think­ing of the Rus­sians, was it because of Chekhov? If only she could chan­nel Chekhov, write one char­ac­ter as ful­ly alive as his.

            She need­ed anoth­er cof­fee. Writ­ing was exhausting.

            When she went into Damian’s room, he was star­ing out the win­dow, where Byron was cir­cling his cot­tage, arms behind his back.

            “How am I sup­posed to think, with Lord Byron out there, act­ing all Byron­ic? What’s he doing, com­pos­ing sonnets?”

            “You can ask him at our drinks tonight.” She car­ried the per­co­la­tor over to his desk and tipped cof­fee into his mug.

            “Did you write?” he said.

            “I wrote a list. Phone Mum, buy ant poi­son, look up recipe for borscht.”

            “So you already have your nar­ra­tive. Daugh­ter feeds poi­soned borscht to unsus­pect­ing Mum.”

            “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this writ­ing caper.”

            “You gave it a morn­ing. No-one can say you didn’t try.”

            “Speak­ing of try­ing, how’s the new game?”

            “It’s – lack­lus­tre. Now shut the door on your way out.”

 

            Klee phoned her moth­er, who com­plained about her new care worker.

            “He smells like a he-goat.”

            “Mum.”

            “I’m not say­ing he’s not nice.”

            “Well, nice is something.”

            “What am I sup­posed to do, put a peg on my nose?”

            Her Muma was a chain smok­er; she doubt­ed she could smell much at all.

            From the win­dow, she watched Pamela strid­ing down the path in bathers and a sarong. It was on the cool side for swim­ming. She had a plush tow­el thrown over one shoul­der like a jaun­ty cape.

            “You could always have anoth­er cigarette.”

            “What?”

            “Noth­ing.” 

            At quar­ter past eight they knocked on the cot­tage door. Klee held a bowl of cashews. Byron answered bare­foot, in jeans and a fad­ed t‑shirt.

            “Hi,” said Klee. “We brought snacks!”

            He ush­ered them through, his ges­tures and nod­ding head like an impres­sion of hos­pi­tal­i­ty he’d gleaned from TV.

            “Um, so here’s the couch. I think Pam’s get­ting the wine.”

            The couch was the same beige fab­ric as theirs, but draped with a soft, green throw. They sat, with Byron tak­ing the wood­en, lad­der-backed chair. Dami­an reached for a fist­ful of nuts.

            “So, are you both artists?” said Klee.

            “No, Pam’s the artist, a jew­eller, actu­al­ly. I just study pro­gram­ming. I’m pret­ty much the family’s black sheep. They’re all super into the arts.”
            “Damian’s a black sheep, too,” offered Klee. “His family’s basi­cal­ly all lawyers.”

            “Com­put­ers aren’t not the arts,” said Dami­an.  “They’re just anoth­er medium.”

            “Exact­ly!” Byron half-lift­ed out of his seat. “Like your game, RTW, that’s real­ly cre­ative. I love it how in the Barcelona sec­tion, you go up the hill to the park to see all those Gaudi’s. It’s real­ly cool how you have to dodge the bag-snatch­ing dudes on motor­bikes. But those Gaudi’s – they’re so beautiful.”

            “You like the art?” said Dami­an. He wiped the salt from his hands onto the thigh of his jeans.

            “Yeah, some­times I don’t play to win, but to see what there is to see. Like that Gau­di Park, there’s all these hid­den mosaics, and the birds’ nests built into the wall.” He laughed, touched his face with his hand. “Which obvi­ous­ly you know all about. Sor­ry.”

            “No.” Dami­an was lean­ing for­ward. “That’s actu­al­ly inter­est­ing. I cre­at­ed those places to be, like, intrin­si­cal­ly reward­ing. You don’t get more points by explor­ing more – I want­ed peo­ple to hang out there because they were beau­ti­ful or what­ev­er. Sort of despite the game. But I’m not sure it worked that way.”
            “No, it total­ly does! Well, for me it does.” Byron shrugged and looked down at his feet. “For what it’s worth.”

            “I was just tan­go­ing with a very stub­born cork,” Pamela swished into the room. She wore anoth­er linen dress – pale this time – and a dif­fer­ent neck­lace, damp hair falling to her shoul­ders. She placed the bot­tle and glass­es on the side table.

            “Drinks?”

            Pam poured then sat back in the deep armchair.

            “So how did you come up with the idea for your game?”

            “Mum,” said Byron. “He prob­a­bly gets sick of talk­ing about it. It’s like if you met Leonard Cohen, and only want­ed to talk about ‘Hal­lelu­jah’.”

            “You know, I actu­al­ly did meet Leonard once?” She reached over for a hand­ful of nuts. “It was back in the eight­ies, when I was trav­el­ling around the Greek Islands. His aura was tremen­dous­ly pow­er­ful. After­ward, I could work with no stone but onyx for a whole year.” She bit down on a cashew. “I was won­der­ing if you were Greek – but the name Klee threw me off.”

            “Yes, it’s short for Kleio.”

            Pamela’s face opened into a grin.

            “I knew it! Didn’t I say she was Greek, Byron?”

            “Mm,” said Klee, rais­ing her glass to her mouth. “But Leonard Cohen – tell us more.”

            Pamela raised a sin­gle eyebrow.

            “Oh, we just sort of crossed paths for a time, you know how it is, when you travel.”

            “No,” said Byron. “My trip was can­celled when the bor­der closed, remember?”

            “Maybe if Byron blocks his ears, we’ll find out a bit more,” sug­gest­ed Dami­an, and Pamela threw back her head, her laugh rock­ing the old arm­chair on its feet.

            “Oh, she’s not hold­ing back on account of me,” said Byron, cross­ing his arms.

            “He’s right,” Pamela sat up. She poured more wine into their glass­es. “Chil­dren need to see their par­ents as ful­ly human. Do you have kids?” She placed the emp­ty bot­tle back onto the table with a sol­id clink.

            “Dami­an has a son,” said Klee. In the dis­tance, a car­go ship blew its horn, long and deep. “He hasn’t met him though.”

            “Because I didn’t know about him,” said Dami­an. “I’m going to meet him, at some point.”

            “A secret son! Tonight’s tak­ing a bit of a Poldark turn, isn’t it?” Pamela tossed the remain­ing nuts into her mouth, picked up her glass and leaned her elbows on her knees. “Do tell.”

            Dami­an frowned. He took a long swal­low of his wine. Klee cleared her throat.

            “Well, about a month ago, an old girl­friend of Damian’s got in touch and told him he has a son, and the son wants to meet him. Gra­ham.” Klee opened her palms and shrugged. “Graham’s twenty-two.”

            “That’s an awful­ly long time to keep a secret,” said Pamela. “No one noticed a lit­tle Gra­ham run­ning around, and thought to men­tion him?”

            “She moved to Hong Kong before the birth to stay with her moth­er, who’s Chi­nese. I guess she need­ed the help. When she moved back, every­one just assumed the father lived overseas.”

            Pamela laughed.

            “So you have a ful­ly-grown, Chi­nese son called Gra­ham. Isn’t that rather marvellous?”

            “But that’s messed up!” blurt­ed Byron. “To keep his own son from him.”

            “I expect she would have been fright­ened,” said Pam. “Dami­an could have stopped her going to Hong Kong, if he’d known. Legal­ly, I mean,”

            “That’s part of it,” said Klee. “She also says his fam­i­ly looked down on her for being Chi­nese, and she didn’t want her son to have the same experience.”

            “That’s not true,” said Dami­an. “They looked down on all my girl­friends equal­ly. It had noth­ing to do with Jade being Chinese.”

            Pamela brought her fin­gers to her lips and turned to her son.

            “Byron, will you go fetch the good chi­anti? I think they could use anoth­er drink.”

            “I’ll just go use the bath­room,” said Klee.

            When she stood, she felt a slight rip­ple of intox­i­ca­tion. She took a breath and made her way toward the rear of the cot­tage. She sat on the pink toi­let, star­ing at the same pink tiles and grey­ing grout as the bath­room in their cot­tage. They’d told very few peo­ple about Gra­ham, only her moth­er and Damian’s parents.

            It wasn’t so long ago they’d decid­ed against becom­ing par­ents. When Klee hit the crunch time of her late thir­ties, they’d debat­ed the pros and cons of par­ent­hood, land­ing firm­ly on the side of the cons. Then came the bush­fires. Images of black skies and flam­ing kan­ga­roos, grey-faced hol­i­day mak­ers shel­tered beneath their beach tow­els. The smoke had bare­ly cleared when the pan­dem­ic struck. It all seemed to affirm their deci­sion. Cli­mate change! Plague! Home learn­ing! And now Dami­an had become a par­ent with­out her, while insist­ing that noth­ing would change.

            Klee flushed, wor­ried she’d been gone too long.

            In the lounge, Byron had moved to the couch, where he and Dami­an peered at some­thing on Damian’s phone.

            “What is it?” She pic­tured the pho­to­graph of Gra­ham that Jade had sent: a gen­uine baby-face, smooth, round cheeks, with Damian’s crooked smile.

            “It’s a pro­to­type of my new game,” said Dami­an, with­out look­ing up. “I want Byron’s opin­ion on something.”

            Their heads were near­ly touch­ing. Byron mur­mured some­thing, and Dami­an laughed. They could have been boys, the same age, hang­ing out after school. Klee picked up a full wine glass from the table and sat in the hard-backed chair.

            “So Dami­an says you’re an actor?” Pam was stroking the pen­dant with her thumb, dark sil­ver speck­led with green and bronze, like leaves on a pond. Klee want­ed to feel its sur­face, to rub her thumb over the tex­tured metal.

            “I was. Now I most­ly work in my friend’s bookshop.”

            “Why stop?” Pamela tilt­ed her head.

            “Well, there’s only so many sequels they can make of My big fat Greek wed­ding.”

            Pamela smiled.

            “So you gave up. You’re the prac­ti­cal one, he’s the dreamer.”

            “No, I – dream.”

            “And then you wake up.” She shift­ed the cross of her legs.

            “You don’t even know me.” She imme­di­ate­ly wor­ried it was rude.

            “I know peo­ple.” She waived her hand at the couch. “I know Byron could nev­er be an artist because he wants to please every­one. I hope you’re not a peo­ple pleaser?”

            “I think – there’s a dif­fer­ence between car­ing and pleasing.”

            “Hmm.” She looked right into Klee’s eyes. Who did that? Nobody. Cer­tain­ly not now, after two years of social dis­tanc­ing. But for the first time in a long time, Klee felt entire­ly vis­i­ble. All her sad­ness and desire and wor­ry. Her fears for her mar­riage, her hopes for her work, and the enor­mous, indi­gestible fact of Gra­ham. And she knew exact­ly the kind of char­ac­ter she want­ed to write.

            Dami­an laughed again, and Byron looked like he’d won the lottery.

            “That’s it!” said Pam, bring­ing her palms togeth­er beneath her chin. She point­ed her steepled hands at Klee. “I knew it. You were in that ad. Chick­en in a tick­en, bok bok!”

 

            It was a small gath­er­ing, in the pri­vate room of Klee’s local bar. Dim and woody, with an open fire in one cor­ner, and a sleek white machine silent­ly fil­ter­ing the air in anoth­er. Her Mum sat in the sole, vel­veteen arm­chair, stout and smil­ing in her best jack­et. A table was laid out with mini pies and quich­es, where two of her old friends were laugh­ing with a young actor from the show. The bar­tender hand­ed her a negroni, a glow­ing orange orb to match the fire.

            “Um, sor­ry, but could I get a self­ie? For my Mum? She’s a huge fan.”

            She turned to the bar­tender in sur­prise. She’d been com­ing here for years, long before the show first aired, but he wasn’t one of the regulars.

            “Sure, OK.”

            She smiled into the phone, angling her face to the right.

            “Klee, you’re like, actu­al­ly famous!” Gra­ham bound­ed toward her, then turned his crooked grin on the bartender.

            “She’s not that glam­orous, you know. Not when you’ve seen her in uggies and pyja­ma shorts.” The bar­tender laughed, and Klee felt the rum­ble of inter­est between them, before the bar­tender began to clear emp­ty glass­es from a near­by table.

            “Oh my god, you didn’t tell me YiaYia was here!” He fold­ed him­self in half so that he could hug her Mum where she sat. YiaYia stroked the sleeve of his for­est green blaz­er with approval.

            “You look very nice,” she told him. “Very handsome.”

            “You do,” he said. “What’s this jack­et, Chanel?”

            “This very, very old. Like me,” she replied, beaming.

            “Come on! You’ve been shop­ping online again, haven’t you?”

            “No!” She gig­gled. “I wait for you.”

            Gra­ham some­times used his phone to order her things: plants and kitchen­ware most­ly, and then refused to let Klee pay him back. She reminds me of my PoPo, he would say, mean­ing his grand­ma in Hong Kong. He still couldn’t go see her – not with flights priced through the roof.

            “What are you drink­ing?” said Klee. “Order what you want, there’s mon­ey on the bar.

            “I’ll have an ouzo with YiaYia.”

            “You do know you’re not Greek, don’t you?”

            “Oh my god, you’re so annoy­ing! You’re my step-mum, and you’re Greek, so I prac­ti­cal­ly am.”

            “For­mer step-mum,” she said, soft­ly enough that it dropped beneath the oth­er bar sounds. She could final­ly think of Dami­an with­out the heart-bruis­ing pain of that first year apart, when she’d some­times sobbed into her mother’s lap like a child. It was also the first year of her TV show, Step­ping In. The one she’d writ­ten to give her­self a decent role to play, and then she’d had to play it – the hap­pi­ly mar­ried woman com­ing to terms with her husband’s new­ly dis­cov­ered adult son.

            She watched Gra­ham talk­ing to the bar­tender, their easy flir­ta­tion. Graham’s elbows on the bar, the bar­tender touch­ing bot­tles on a shelf.

            “Klee! Hap­py birthday!”

            Her friend Rose, squeez­ing her in a bearhug. She’d brought a date, and there were intro­duc­tions, and then a quick roam around to make sure every­one was com­fort­able. She didn’t have to wor­ry about the actors, those born extro­verts. But some of her friends were less outgoing.

            “Wowowow, is that me?” said Gra­ham. He was hold­ing a beer with a fan­cy label, tip­ping it toward the actor who played her step­son on the show. “I mean, I’m even hot­ter in real life than I am on screen!”

            “I can intro­duce you, if you like.”

            “No thanks.” He took a sip of his beer and pulled a face. “Even nar­cis­sists have their limits.”

            “I said meet him, you don’t have to snog him.”

            “Like he could resist.”

            They watched the actor talk­ing to Rose, his charm and self-dep­re­ca­tion evi­dent even from across the room.

            “How’s Dami­an?” she asked. She resist­ed the urge to ask about his new wife and daugh­ter. Gra­ham screwed up his face.

            “Ugh, his mid-life cri­sis is just so het­ero­nor­ma­tive, it’s embar­rass­ing. But who cares – tonight’s about you.” He reached into the pock­et of his blaz­er and pulled out a small box of cor­ru­gat­ed black card­board. “Hap­py birthday.”

            She took off the lid and saw, nes­tled in black tis­sue paper, a pen­dant. Dark sil­ver, dap­pled with green and bronze.

            “This was sooo expen­sive, you bet­ter like it,” he said. “But you can change it if you want, I kept the receipt.”

            “No.” She ran her fin­ger over the met­al. It was rougher than she’d imag­ined, almost grit­ty. An arte­fact from anoth­er life. The one where she thought her career was over and her mar­riage was strong. “It’s perfect.”

            Gra­ham touched her sleeve.

            “He actu­al­ly looks real­ly ter­ri­ble. Kind of squidgy and middle-aged.”

            “Thanks,” she said, and drew him into a hug. Then the lights went out, and Rose was walk­ing towards her with a cake, and a sin­gle, fizzing sparkler. Like a bril­liant star, or a car­toon dia­mond. If they renewed Step­ping In for a sec­ond sea­son, she could wear the pen­dant on the show. It was all still up in the air. The net­work peo­ple want­ed her on-screen hus­band to leave her for a younger woman.

           Too cliched, she’d argued. She knew what they real­ly want­ed: to bring in a hot twen­ty-some­thing to boost the rat­ings. We need a com­pli­cat­ing fac­tor, they said. Sea­son one, the com­pli­ca­tion was the son, George, but by season’s end the Step-Mum and George are get­ting along, so we need a new complication.

            Did they think she would just give in, that she was some kind of peo­ple pleas­er? That she’d sur­vived a pan­dem­ic, a divorce and her own use-by date, just to be pushed around by a bunch of suits?

            “They sold out of gluten free,” whis­pered Rose, set­ting down the glis­ten­ing choco­late cake. “Sor­ry.”

            They sang hap­py birth­day, the actors mak­ing it sound half-decent with­out quite drown­ing out her Mum’s tune­less shout. She would deal with the net­work on Mon­day. Tonight was a time to cel­e­brate, to drink negro­nis, to watch flirts in their nat­ur­al habi­tat. Who knows, she might even eat some gluten.

 

            Klee met with Dan and Sam from the net­work in a light-filled tim­ber café, the walls hung with hes­s­ian cof­fee sacks. It was lull time – after the morn­ing rush, but still too ear­ly for lunch. Sam was eat­ing a muf­fin, a cumu­lous of flour and berries over­spilling its paper cup. He was maybe Graham’s age, the colours of a bicep tat­too show­ing through the sheer white of his shirt. Dan was old­er than Klee, shrewd, blue eyes emerg­ing from some seri­ous under-eye bag­gage. Klee was ide­al­ly caf­feinat­ed: her words pep­py and bright, but not gushy.

            “So get this. The com­pli­cat­ing fac­tor isn’t a young woman. It’s not a love inter­est at all.” She paused to smile, hop­ing there were no lin­seeds stuck in her teeth. “No, it’s an old­er woman. Forth­right, opin­ion­at­ed, blunt. Some­one whose words can poke at the fab­ric of their mar­riage, all the fray­ing bits. But also, a per­son inter­est­ing in her own right. An artist. Maybe the one-time lover of Brett Whitely.”

            She saw the slight dim­ming of Sam’s lumi­nous face. He had no idea who Brett White­ly was.

            “Or maybe, um, Hugh Jack­man.” Which made no sense, age-wise. “I mean, a Hugh Jack­man type.”

            “I don’t mind that,” said Dan. His large fin­ger tapped the rim of his cof­fee cup. “I don’t mind that at all.”

            Klee swelled with the sense of her own com­pe­tence. She could do this, this busi­ness stuff. Not only could she act, and write, she could speak net­work speak with the best of them, too! Dan raised a fin­ger at the pass­ing wait­ress, point­ed to his emp­ty cup.

“The prob­lem isn’t the char­ac­ters,” he said. “It’s the fact you’re being sued by your ex-husband.”

            “What did you say?” She felt the curved gloss of a lin­seed, wedged against her incisor.

            “You’re ex-hus­band. Dami­an. He’s suing for a share of the prof­its. Says you col­lab­o­rat­ed togeth­er on the show’s concept.”

            “No, that can’t be right. It doesn’t even sound like Damian.”

            Dan slid his phone across the table­top. Klee reluc­tant­ly picked it up. On the screen was a legal doc­u­ment. As she scrolled through the pages of legalese, she spot­ted a famil­iar name, the best friend of Damian’s Dad, a fel­low lawyer. Of course, it wasn’t like Dami­an, it was just like Damian’s fam­i­ly. She remem­bered how her for­mer father-in-law had refused to meet Gra­ham until he’d tak­en a pater­ni­ty test. Dan coughed into his hand. She watched a dol­lop of phlegm land near his thumb, and forced her­self not to recoil.

            “I can sort this out, leave it with me. It won’t be a problem.”

            She drove straight to Damian’s house. It was the same sin­gle-front­ed Vic­to­ri­an they’d lived in through­out their mar­riage, only with a clam-shell sand pit in the front yard. She stared at the bright blue plas­tic and rang the bell.

            When Dami­an came to the door, he looked much like he always had. Gra­ham had called him squidgy, and there was a cer­tain soft­ness to him, most­ly around the hips. He stood unshaven, in track­suit pants.

            “Has some­thing hap­pened?”
            “You mean, apart from you suing me?”                                                                                “Oh, that. Yeah.” He turned and she fol­lowed him down the nar­row cor­ri­dor. The bed­room door was closed, and while the house still had the musty breath of hid­den damp­ness, it was over­laid with some­thing sweet. Baby pow­der, or youth. But it was still cramped and gloomy, at least until they reached the back end, which had been trans­formed into some­thing impos­si­bly love­ly and bright. Open-plan every­thing, flow­ing seam­less­ly into a court­yard froth­ing with jas­mine. All the sev­en­ties pok­i­ness and dark nook­i­ness was gone. Gone too, was the dan­ger­ous oven that occa­sion­al­ly burst into flame, the lou­vered tim­ber pantry and orange tiling. There was an island bench, a daz­zling cof­fee machine.

            “Mac­chi­a­to?” he said.

            He picked an emp­ty pack­et of pods off the bench, then flat­tened it with his hand.

            “The thing is, Becky can’t work right now. She has post-natal depres­sion. And my last game didn’t sell. We’re in a pret­ty tight spot, to be hon­est, with the kid and all.”

            So maybe get a job? Wasn’t that the solu­tion cho­sen by mil­lions of peo­ple who also need­ed mon­ey to live?

            She thought of the sev­en years she’d worked in Rose’s book­shop. The end­less, sleepy bore­dom of Mon­day after­noon. The brood­ing boys in cardi­gans who bought Sartre and Camus. The con­de­scen­sion of mid­dle-aged men. The tantrum throw­ing chil­dren with their ner­vous, appeas­ing grand­mas. She’d thought she’d be there for­ev­er, that one day she’d be sell­ing those Camus boys Good­night Moon.

           “Let me get this right,” she said. She placed her palm on the cool, mar­ble bench­top.  “You left me for a younger woman, who you then got preg­nant. And now you’re suing me because you can’t afford to pay for the kid?”

            “Well, it sounds bad when you put it like that.”

            He rubbed a hand across his eyes, his shoul­ders slumped.
            “I bor­rowed mon­ey from my par­ents to fix this place up. Before the baby came. Becky said it wasn’t safe, and I thought I could pay it back once the game sold.” He glanced at the clock, it had just gone mid­day. “Lis­ten, do you want a beer?”

They sat in the court­yard, on stripy, padded lounge chairs. The mild air was tinged with the jas­mine that cov­ered the whole back fence. She placed her emp­ty bot­tle on the paving where it teetered on the uneven brick. They had talked, through one beer, then anoth­er, most­ly about Gra­ham. He was bare­ly talk­ing to Dami­an, had shown lit­tle inter­est in his new sister.

            “Don’t you think it’s weird that he prefers to hang out with your moth­er than me?” Damian’s fin­ger traced the ridge of moss grow­ing between two bricks.

            “Don’t wor­ry about Gra­ham. Graham’s a top kid. He’s the best.”

            “He thinks I’m a douche bag.”

            “And he doesn’t even know you’re suing me.” She smiled. “Yet.”

            She clocked the look of dry amuse­ment on his face. It was so famil­iar, so Dami­an. They’d been the best of friends.

“Tell me some­thing.” She tapped the arm of his lounger. “What’s it like being with some­one who doesn’t remem­ber the nineties?”

            An ant wan­dered onto his hand and began to climb his knuckle.

            “Fan­tas­tic. Nostalgia’s overrated.”

            She knew then that his mar­riage was in trou­ble. It was intu­ition, or the way he couldn’t joke about Becky, even for a sec­ond. She looked back into the house, at the gleam­ing oven and stove­top. It was too clean, like a film set. She shift­ed in her chair.

            “They won’t green­light the sec­ond sea­son with a law­suit hang­ing over the show. They might even can­cel it, decide it’s too hard.”

            “You could lose the show?” He frowned and picked at the label on his beer.

            “Maybe.” She shrugged. “I hope not. I’m not sure I can start again, again.”

            In the silence, she could hear a dog howl­ing. It sound­ed tru­ly bereft. Would she real­ly not be able to start again? She was only 44. But you didn’t get too many chances in tele­vi­sion. She thought about being on set, the intense cama­raderie of the actors. The sin­gu­lar, grat­i­fy­ing pride of hav­ing her very own show. And there was some­thing else, too, the way her late suc­cess made sense of her life, gave it nar­ra­tive cohe­sion, all her fail­ures mere steps on the long road to tri­umph. She reached for the strap of her hand­bag and stood. She would not cry in front of Damian.

            “I bet­ter be off,” she said. “I have to take Mum to the fruit shop.”

            “She still refus­es to buy her veg from Coles?”

            “What for I give Mr Coles all my mon­ey?”
            He laughed, and there it was, a tiny catch in the fab­ric of her heart.

            “You know, I’m not going to sue you,” he said. “But I did give you the show’s con­cept. Remem­ber that weird artist’s retreat we went on, with that kid Byron, and his Mum?”

            She wedged her bag beneath her arm and nodded.

            “You were freak­ing out about Gra­ham,” he con­tin­ued. “About being a step-Mum to a grown-up, and I said, that’s what you should write about.”

            Is that how it hap­pened? She actu­al­ly couldn’t remem­ber. Was it real­ly his idea, after all?

            “What will your par­ents say?”

            He waved a mag­nan­i­mous hand in the air.

            “They can sue Becky’s doc­tors. They gave her the wrong med­ica­tion when she went in for rhinoplasty.”

            “Ok, then. Thanks, I guess.” She stepped over the emp­ty bot­tles. “Take care.”

            “Could you um, do me a favour, though?”

            She stopped, sure he would ask her to speak to Gra­ham, to put in a good word on his behalf.

            “Becky real­ly wants a Becky char­ac­ter on the show.”

            “You want me to write Becky into my show?” She shift­ed her bag to the oth­er arm.

            “Yeah. She doesn’t like that your char­ac­ter and mine are still married.”

            She resist­ed the urge to laugh out loud.

            “Tell her it hap­pens in sea­son three.”

            She turned and walked quick­ly back through the kitchen. Only when she got to the hall­way did she allow her­self a grin. She opened the front door. The plum tree across the street was so full of blos­som it looked like a cush­ion had burst. She walked towards the car. The nud­ists, she thought. That’s what we called them. But she couldn’t for the life of her remem­ber why.

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

This sto­ry was writ­ten dur­ing a res­i­den­cy at the Point Nepean Nation­al Park on the south­ern tip on the Morn­ing Penin­su­la, Vic­to­ria, Aus­tralia. It was the first time I’d trav­elled since the lock­downs of 2020 and 2021. I swam with wild dol­phins and found the odd echid­na trundling across my front yard and enjoyed sun­set drinks with oth­er artists. But I was also check­ing in on my Mum, who I’m a car­er for, and every taste of free­dom was tinged with wor­ry for what she was doing and how she was cop­ing. The sto­ry was writ­ten with this dual mind­set. I was con­scious that while care­giv­ing might fea­ture in sto­ries, it wasn’t often in the back­ground, the way oth­er types of work is. I want­ed the care­giv­ing there, infus­ing the sto­ry with its anx­i­eties and plea­sures and insights, with­out being the actu­al story.

Lisa Lang is a writer from Naarm (Mel­bourne). Her nov­el, Utopi­an Man, was a win­ner of the Australian/Vogel Lit­er­ary Award. Recent sto­ries have appeared in Jake and the Four Faced Liar. She works in a library to keep her toy poo­dle, Sap­pho, rolling in mackerel.