Bonus notes.

So I need to post something because I've realised it has been a while. Here's a piece that won't end in the novel final but is an interesting outtake.

-----------------------------

She was hypnotised by her own image in the mirror. She always grinned at herself and made her eyes large and alluring, like an actor practicing their look for a role in an upcoming film. But, to Sean, watching her dance in front of the nude figure in the reflected glass, admiring this figure's body, it struck him how her obsession went beyond pure narcissism. He would often get the impression that she was reacting to a new person in the room. Rachel would sometimes spend upwards of twenty minutes just looking at her face, slowly turning her head left and right with a practiced expression. What she saw now disappointed her and she flopped over on the bed.
"I am so fat. I must be pregnant."

extract from chapter 25. untitled

New content. Thank whichever god or deity you pray to, or whatever polytheistic beliefs you ascribe, - or subscribe, if it's an online newsletter - to, if you do; if you don't, well that's cool too, epic maybe, to use the slang of the time, can't be a snob, you can still read this too. As I consider that it's been a while since posting an extract, I decided to post material that I have only just recently written. But considering that possibly, perchance, perhaps, one of the sections is redundant for the final novel and will be removed, well I don't mind slapping it up, to not borrow from the current day-speak of our youth soon to be slipping away. 

I loathe the word 'just', unless it's used in the context of deriving from justice or you know, whatever. It was a long dilemma for me, minutes, hours, months, to decide whether to remove the one instance of use in the paragraph above. I might still get rid of it.

Please note: Yep, I used the word "Turk." 

************************** 

The street was empty and desolate. On a corner there was a shining beacon: an open bar. Strangely, for all appearance’s sake, it seemed shut. The lights were dimmed. There were no customers and no one was serving. Yet the front door was most certainly open. A sign directed them downstairs for what they needed. They went downstairs.

Downstairs was a tiled, tiny hall with another bar. White tables and chairs filled the hall. The tiles were white. The walls and ceiling were white. The bar was black. The drinks selection was a collection of exotic liquor bottles, the labels all primary colours and promoting names from foreign places. Downstairs wasn’t empty.

Three Turkish men sat at a table. On the table: three conical glasses, filled with black liquid, and a packet of cigarettes. At the bottom of the stairs, there was another sign. Rachel turned right and followed the directions to the toilets. Sean stood, awkwardly out of place.

For a room all white, it was poorly lit and remarkably dim. At the back of the hall, Sean could make out a projector screen. There was also a small stage, slightly raised, and boxes of black equipment.

The Turks watched him out of the corner of their vision. The youngest of the three, in his thirties, wearing a spotless white dress shirt, his face badly marked from acne scars, stood up and walked around the table.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Sean stammered. “No, it’s ok. We just need to use the toilet, well the lady does, she needs to use it.”

The Turk reacted with a slight movement of his head, not really a nod, and leant against the bar’s counter. He was tall and had very broad shoulders. The older men still didn’t acknowledge Sean. There was the noticeable smell of cigarettes.

From hidden speakers a song started to play. In sync with the music, the projector came to life and a video clip lit up the screen. Yellow subtitles underneath prompted the words: ‘She’s a good girl, loves her mama, Loves Jesus and America too, She’s a good girl, crazy bout Elvis, Loves horses and her boyfriend too’

Sean turned away from the bartender and pretended to be very interested in the décor. Plastic ferns in pots lined the walls. He tapped his foot and looked in the direction of the toilets. The doors and lighting fixtures were newer than the rest of the room, almost a recent addition.

A door hinge creaking and rushing water accompanied Rachel’s entry into the room.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” she said. She hesitated and regarded the Tom Petty video clip and the Turkish men who shifted in her seats to look at her. She didn’t feel any compulsion to dance to the music.

“Let’s go.”

“Very good.”

They left without saying goodbye and the men said nothing back to them.

“What the fuck was that about?”

Sean stopped and looked back at the bar’s shopfront.

“Are they dealing drugs in there?”

Rachel laughed. “Let’s go home.”

Sean didn’t argue. The side streets were a winding labyrinth that rose and fell. Only through instinct did they know where they were headed.  

A man stood in the doorway to the street entrance of some hotel. The alleyway was too narrow to see the sign. He wore a grey suit with pink pin stripes, cream lapels and golden cuff links. His hair was grey and thin. When Rachel and Sean came upon him he was holding a cigarette to his mouth and fiddling with a golden zippo lighter.

Rachel eyed the smoke.

“Excuse me?”

The man jumped in shock and stopped what he was doing. He held his unlit cigarette at his lips and took in first Rachel and next Sean.

 “Yes?”

“Can I… uh, may I… like, may I possibly have… one of those cigarettes?”

The wrinkles on his forehead made it impossible to tell if he was frowning, but the narrowing of his eyes told them he was considering his answer. His face broke into a broad smile.

“Why, of course, my dear.”

He reached inside his jacket – the inset stitching was cream – and procured a green cigarette packet. He pulled one out by its filter and offered it to her.

“Sorry, they are menthol. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Uh, no. Can I, may I – ”

Before she could finish the man flicked his Zippo lighter and held the flame out to her.

“Of course you may.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank you,” said Sean.

“Goodnight.”

The man returned to the hotel foyer with his unlit cigarette. The door locked electronically behind him.

“I was nervous asking him then. I didn’t know what to say.”

They waited for a taxi to barrel down the road and crossed to the other side.

“I was like, ‘uh’ and ‘uhm!’”

She puffed from her cigarette.

“I get nervous talking to old people.”

The footpath overlooked a building site. The ground was being prepared for a skyscraper of some sort. A concrete barricade had been erected to prevent pedestrians from slipping from the path and falling ten stories to the gravel-pit and pipes below.

“Take my photo?” she asked.

“Ok, stand back.”

A streetlight cast a long diagonal shadow through the arches of the barricade. He directed her to stand in the light between the blocks of shade. She stood on the balls of her feet, heel to toe, and delicately posed her hand inches under her chin as she hid the cigarette behind her back.

She didn’t ask to look at the photo.

In the picture, she stood at the end of the long corridor. She was surrounded by darkness. The colour of her dress was washed out. Her face was blacked out and entirely absent.

Extract from 23/24. fashion magazine/marcus graham, a mermaid and a gun

[Update: Added some more to the beginning of the extract].


Holy backflipping porpoises Batman! Has it really been eight months since the last post? Yup. Any reason for the silence? Indifference, possibly. Sure I could have done something, but all too often it feels like screaming into the empty void. 


But obviously that sensation has flown away with the mild Easterly breeze and here we are again. 


Last night, The Dirty Three played at the Astor Theatre. I last saw them play at Kings Park back in 2003. I'd have to say that it was one of my favourite concerts. Surprisingly so, as the bands I usually dig are into bashing each other, and the audience, over their crowns with a guitar head stock. 


Friday night, seven years later, and the high standard of the band's live performances had not dipped. Truly an unique band. However, something different from the King's Park performance and the Astor gig was the audience. What always struck me at the former was how the crowd were calling out requests between songs. As the event went late into the night, it became obvious that the band wouldn't be playing for much longer. So, whenever Warren Ellis introduced the next song, parts of the audience would cry out in anguish that it wasn't what they wanted to hear. The Dirty Three's audience was fanatical, such was their admiration. 


However, at the latter, I noted a very different type of audience. To put it mildly, some sections of the crowd were heckling the band. I don't understand this phenomena; especially not in this context. The band was playing well. There wasn't a bill with large selection of acts; people knew who they were coming to see. Warren Ellis was good natured in his banter. Yet, some audience members paid to turn up, tell the band they looked old, and cheer when informed they were hearing the final songs, amongst other more severe comments. And these assholes still stayed until the very end! 


They heckled, and they stayed! I really don't understand. I must be out-of-the-loop with gig attending etiquette. Now, sure, I can deal with witnessing 'the young kids' shuffle dance when Tangled Thoughts of Leaving played at the Ninja Tunes Label party. But this reaction is entirely, well, something else.


Anyway, in aid of celebrating indifference and assholes, here's something recent I've written. While I may work at the pace of a glacier; there's only one, maybe two, more chapters to write until the first draft of the manuscript is completed. And then shall begin the editing. And what a joyous occasion that will be.


Please note: Marcus Graham is a semi-famous Australian actor.


Please, please note: the following extract contains sexually transmitted, uh, sexually explicit language. 

**************************

He didn’t want to travel with a bag full of dirty clothes. He was making use of the next couple of hours to do his washing. They were apartment bound. She methodically watched the rest of the film shorts on the AFTRS DVDs.

He stopped writing mid-sentence and listened. He sat still, absorbed.

“I’m not your mate, where the fuck do you get off calling me your mate?”

They both favoured baseball caps and hooded sweatshirts. If it weren’t for the pitch of their voices, their sex would have been androgynous.

She was sixteen and pregnant. She was scared of the dark and slept under the bed with her stuffed toy sheep and the rusted springs. When the sun went down, she would go outside and wander the suburbs. The manager of the hostel had warned her about the 6pm curfew but she ignored him. There was anywhere she wanted to be instead of the run-down halfway house.

He had problems at his last stay and had been sent here. All he could express was silence or rage. He secreted a knife on his ankle. He hated the way the manager threatened him with a return to juvenile hall. When he broke curfew, it was for a specific purpose.

The first evening he went out, she followed him.

In a back alley lane-way, not far from the youth centre, he started a fire. It wasn’t hard to do. With his Zippo he lit some kindling and in a matter of seconds the picket fence was in flames. He stood back and admired his work, transfixed, lost in the bright yellows and reds.

From the back porch someone shouted and told him to piss off. He ran.

She watched from behind the bushes, her white eyes peeking from under the cap. 

At the hostel, she couldn’t stop glancing at him. She told him that she had seen him. All he could say was “yeah, and?” She thought it was cool. He told her to shut up about it. She “wasn’t gonna” say anything about it.

The next night he lit another fire. She watched him again.

Voices woke her. From her vantage point she saw his feet. He looked down at her, the expression on his face telling her to keep quiet. The manager informed the cops that the boy hadn’t been at the hostel tonight. They heard the police leave.

He exited her room. The manager saw him and asked the boy where he’d been. He replied that he’d been in her room all night. The lie wasn’t convincing. They started shouting. He told the man to fuck off and pushed him. The man was soft. He held the man on the floor and pulled out his knife. The blade was silver and flashed a reflection of the lights above. The manager squirmed. She screamed. He wouldn’t listen and was ready to strike.

She turned, scanning the TV lounge, frantic, at a loss at what to do. In her pocket she felt it: a lighter. She struck the flint. She held the flame against the couch. The fabric caught alight. The man and boy stopped struggling. The man stood up and ran.

The boy and girl didn’t move. They watched the fire. The couch succumbed to the blaze. The fire spread to the curtains.

Their hands were very close. He brushed the back of her hand with his. They had found each other by burning down everything else left.

The screen faded to black and the credits began to roll.

“Can we watch that again?” she begged.

Sean nodded and Rachel grabbed the remote. 

By his estimation, the first stage of the washing should have been finished. He left her watching the television and exited the apartment. Room service were making their morning rounds. There was an isolated trolley in the hallway. The drawers were filled with fresh linen, neatly folded.

He thought about the disgusting bed sheets, stained in menstrual blood, which they had to sleep on.

When Sean rented out the room he had been sure to stipulate no cleaners. He couldn’t stand strangers intruding in his personal space. That no middle-aged woman on minimum wage would have to deal with Rachel’s and his mess was a small comfort to him.

He made his way to the elevator and down to the laundry. The room was empty. When his machine had finished its spin cycle, he changed over the wet clothes to the dryer. There were only just enough dollar coins.

He returned to the third level. The trolley was still in its original place. He walked by the open door. Inside, a vacuum cleaner idled as a Chinese woman shifted a piece of furniture.

He stopped and waited. The woman hadn’t left the room. When he thought she wasn’t looking he walked slowly, focusing all his efforts into stepping light. He reached out, paused, and grabbed a sheet. 

The Mermaid threatened with a revolver. Marcus Graham called her bluff. She aimed away from him and fired a round into the mirror’s reflection. Marcus startled and grudgingly dropped his pants and drawers. He waddled over to the bathtub and started masturbating.

The Mermaid leant forward. “Do you want me to help?”

“No!”

“Fine!” She reclined in the water and watched, feeling the weight of the pistol in her hand.

Marcus shut his eyes tight and groaned. She frowned.

“Are you thinking about your mother?”

“There is a process!”

He found her smoking by the window. She wore her brown woollen vest and nothing else. The blind had been opened an inch. As she watched, she blew smoke from the corner of her mouth.

“You bad boy. You bad, bad boy.”

Marcus groaned.

“Wait, wait!” The Mermaid pushed an unfertilised egg into the water and pointed. “There! There!”

He measured the lifted linen against the bed. He pulled the fabric along the width’s edge and made a discovery: what he had stolen was for a single, not the queen that they slept in. He sighed and tossed the sheet into the corner of the room, against the wardrobe.

Marcus stared into the camera, his face full of loathing and resentment. “I hope it’s a flathead!”

“The washing should be another forty minutes.”

She looked up at him. One of her legs was folded under her bottom. The vest was wide open. Her small pert breasts and sex were exposed. She arched her back and pushed her pelvis toward him.

“Eat me out?” she asked, grinning.

He spoke before she could continue.

“This is what I’m talking about: You are a terrible liar. You need to figure out how to lie.”

She sat very still at the end of the couch.

“Lying is kind of like acting. When you lie, you’re thinking one thing but saying another. I don’t mean you when I say ‘you’, I mean the royal you.”

She smirked. He motioned at the television.

“Take for example that movie we saw yesterday about the Mermaid and the gun.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Well, Marcus Graham and the girl are acting, obviously. But the characters are acting too.”

“Yeah?”

“Acting, in sense of what the character says and what they are really thinking. So, we have the Mermaid who starts out hating Marcus.

“Yeah.”

“But she doesn’t really hate him.”

“No?”

“No. She wants to be pregnant.”

“Oh.”

“But Marcus doesn’t want to have a baby with her. Neither of them is addressing that issue at the start. He’s threatening her with a gun, trying to get rid of her. She doesn’t want to leave but it doesn’t seem as if she likes him.”

He smiled in delight.

“They’re both lying.”

“Because she – ”

“I mean, it’s pretty obvious, because almost as soon as the short starts, she’s got him wanking into the bath.”

“Hah.”

“But, there’s a big moment in the film when – wait.”

He found the disc and loaded up the film.

“Here, Marcus is post-coital, she’s lying in the bath, relieved maybe? Then Marcus says: ‘Are we done?’

“Are we done?”

“We’re done,” replied the Mermaid.

“And the credits roll. But when he says that line, he doesn’t mean are they finished with impregnation. He’s asking if their relationship in general is finished.”

“Well, yeah.”

“That’s subtext. It’s when what the character is saying, taken in the sense of the underlying understanding of the plot or the story’s motifs or leitmotifs, or both, means something totally different.”

He pressed rewind.

“But watch the Mermaid’s face when he speaks.”

“Are we done?”

“We’re done,” she snapped in reply.

Rachel shook her head. “She looked sad.”

“Sad, compared to?”

“At first she looked… relieved, happy. Then her face dropped and she looked sad.”

“She was sad to hear that they were ‘done.’”

“Yeah.”

“But if she didn’t like him, why would she feel sad?”

Rachel smiled.

“Because when she was shouting at him, bribing him into impregnating her: reminding him that he knew “what she wanted”; all the time she still wanted to be with Marcus.”

He held his gaze on the screen for a moment and turned to face her.

“Pretending to do one thing when you believe something else. Sound a little like lying?”

She nodded in earnest. “That’s like, like Nicole and the Drover.”

“Like what?”

“You know, when he’s talking to her and she’s really nervous. At the campsite, when it’s dark?”

“Oh, Australia. You mean Nicole Kidman and Hugh – ”

“Yeah, him. And she’s like, talking back, and she’s really nervous and doesn’t know what to say.”

“Yeah.”

“But what she’s really saying is: ‘why don’t you fuck me!’ Even though she’s saying something else. And he knows it too, but he isn’t saying it.”

“Right.”

“It’s like when you’re going to meet up with a boy.”

“Yeah, I know all about that.”

“No it is!” she laughed. “It’s just like when you have a boy to meet in the evening. Like, you’ve arranged a date. And you know you’re going to have a sex and you have a feeling. You know, a feeling in your stomach? Like, you don’t know if you should go for a run around the block or if it’s just because you’re excited.”

“How… how does that relate to subtext?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying, I’m just trying to talk to you.”

Extract from chapter 5. broken condom

An extract from earlier chapter. This is the introduction to the start of chapter 5. Maybe it's more raw than the style I've been slowly cultivating. Hopefully it's interesting to read. Yes, I am fully aware that each extract mostly doesn't contain the reference in the chapter's title. Once the novel is finished, in twenty-five years time, I will almost certainly remove the epithets. If anything, I use 'em as signposts for when I'm writing; almost like a mini thesis, something to keep me on track. Broom broom, vroom vroom, and all that.

Please note: there is some mild sex talk in this extract. Don't blush. 

************************

It was the start to his second week of working with the Reference Librarian. He had to construct a bibliographic list on the sub-genre of Mockumentary. It was purely an exercise in definition. The Reference Librarian was swamped with work and had passed the task onto Sean, so as to give him something to do during his stay at the library. As much as he enjoyed the distraction of the token work, his thoughts strayed back to Rachel. He focused on the excessive spending of the weekend and felt angry with himself for being tricked and used by a girl who wanted his money. He purely put it down to an expensive experiment that was now over with and a chapter in his life to learn from.

He made sure to leave his phone switched off during the day, partly so that he could focus on the work matter at hand but mainly to avoid her if she did ring. With no little anxiety he powered up the device at lunchtime but there were no messages waiting when he did, neither were there any voicemails for him with he finished at five o’clock. Sean had long given up on Sydney’s public transport at peak hour and made the long walk home. When he arrived in Darlinghurst he stopped at the bottle shop at the corner of the tributary road that led to where he lived. Sean was unaware of any of the name brands of wine in NSW and therefore settled for a six-pack of the flagship drink produced by a local whisky distillery. It wasn’t cheap in a fiscal sense, only in the matter of taste. Sean swung the heavy plastic bag from his side and slowly made the descent to the hotel.

From his vantage point he could sight her, sitting outside the Frisco Hotel on the corner of the block, two addresses down from the Woolloomooloo Waters. Rachel was smoking a cigarette and sitting at a table with a group of men. He wished for the earth to swallow him up and hide him. Rachel saw him immediately, and with no goodbyes walked over to him at a quick pace. She was still wearing the same dress he had purchased for her on Saturday. He considered whether she was homeless. He knew that to be a false thought, he had been to her apartment the first time they had met. Sean wondered why she would be wearing the same clothes for three days straight and whether she had been back to her house since the Friday. He held himself from sighing.

“Hi!”

“Hello,” he replied, in measured breaths.

She smiled at him with unwashed, yellow teeth. Her unkempt hair hung loose, down to her hips. After small talk she followed him upstairs. He didn’t know why he found it so hard to tell her to leave.

“Let’s have sex.”

“I’ve just finished work,” he whined. “Let me sit down for a half hour and relax.”

“Is that beer?”

“No, it’s bourbon and coke.”

“Oh.”

She didn’t ask for a bottle and he didn’t offer. She grabbed the bedding and stripped off her dress, socks and shoes, and then spread out on the couch naked.

“Take my picture.”

He grudgingly took a snap of her. She covered her breasts with her crossed arms. After clicking a single shot her arms fell away and she continued watching the television, pacified. Sean had a long pull from his drink and tried to think. He unbuttoned his blue business shirt, feeling self conscious in the presence of her slim, white body. She didn’t acknowledge his actions.

“You know what I think we should do?”

Sean looked at her.

“We should, like go to Club 77 and listen to our own music on a music player. And we can dance to different music to what everyone else is hearing.”

“Bit early in the week for that.” Sean raised his eyebrows.

“I didn’t mean tonight.”

“That’s good.”

“When we do it we can use your iPod.”

“I don’t have one,” he paused and thought as to whether she had been searching the apartment.

“I thought that was a charger for one.”

On the table was the battery apparel for his laptop.

“That isn’t for an iPod, it’s for a laptop.”

Her face was blank to the lies he was telling her.

“Do you have your laptop here?”

“No.” He thought fast. “I leave it at work, they have a charger. I don’t want to drag it there and back every day.”

“Oh, right.”

He had assumed that Rachel hadn’t been paying attention to anything other than herself. They sat on opposite ends of the couch and pretended not to look at each other.

“Let’s have sex.”

“Alright.”

“You’re not even hard.”

“That’ll change in a moment.”

Sean was glad for the change of topic.

She was hypnotised by her own image in the mirror. She always grinned at herself and made her eyes large and alluring, like an actor practicing their look for a role in an upcoming film. But to Sean, watching her dance in front of the nude figure in the reflected glass, admiring this figure’s body, it sometimes struck him how her obsession went beyond pure narcissism. He would often get the distinct impression that she was reacting to a new person who had only just entered the room. Rachel would sometimes spend upwards of twenty minutes just looking at her face, slowly turning her head left and right with a practiced expression. Tonight, what she saw disappointed her and she flopped over on the bed.

“I am so fat. I must be pregnant.”

“You’re not fat.”

Rachel stared into a distance deep within her mind. Sean lay next to her and stroked her hair.

“You’re worrying about nothing.”

“I am fat,” she looked into his eyes and didn’t blink.

“No, you’re worrying about nothing,” he repeated as a statement of intent. “And this worry about nothing is turning it into something,” Sean continued.

“This means you’re thinking about something, which is nothing, and that isn’t a good thing to do. Because by doing that you’re creating dead space inside your mind. A space that could used on thinking about something which really is there, instead of nothing which is not, and not good, and not something that you should worry about.”

As he breathed his spiel into her ear, he wondered if she realised what rubbish he was talking.

“I’m going to tell you I’m pregnant, so you’ll run away.”

“Yeah, I will.” He smiled at her joke.

“I told my good Jewish boyfriend I was pregnant and he left me. Boys are scared of pregnant girls.”
“You’re not pregnant.”

After they stopped kissing and he had laid on top of her and pushed his cock into her pussy, right before they started fucking in earnest, she moaned out at him with complete sincerity: “I’ve been gagging for this!” 

Extract from chapter 19. Two little piggys

A special treat for a special day: Saturday! Quite possibly - if you're a special bee - I will do the "you-know-me" and update the zippity-zoopity-zee with some more free free free. Yes, it's a teaser, all out of context, designed to wet your lips, and make an attempt to add the missing pieces together to form the entire whole. "Where to get these pieces?" The pieces exist; I got 'em, all written down, all ready to be connected. 

For the purposes of prior sense making - the snow globe contains a facade of the film institute building. A spoiler, I know!


[Update: Sean has a bag filled with presents from the company he was working with.]

************************

By the time he had walked back up the hill and onto Oxford Street, the thunderstorm had stopped as quickly as it had begun.  The shower had not washed the grit away from the gutters. Steam rose from the road. Shell-shocked and unaccustomed to the humidity, Sean turned down a side street that seemed to lead to Woolloomooloo. The descent overlooked the suburb in general. He refused to look into the bag hanging limply from his side and focused his attention on the surrounding proceedings. The homeless had disappeared to a locale unknown. On tired feet he staggered along the broken cobblestones. When the road flattened out he realised where he was. He redirected himself in the direction of the hotel. Cars blasted by on the Eastern distributor.

For wont of nothing else to do he looked around. On the corner there was a terrace house. On the balcony a door opened.

Out of vague interest he watched. A girl in frilly green lingerie, replete with belt and garter, followed by a second in black, exited the door. The first was sweating profusely and waved the air under her chin. The girl in black was covered in dark tattoos, a butterfly on back and matching sparrows on biceps. Sean slowed his step. Another girl – in pink, similarly dressed – joined them, followed by a young lady in white. He strained to look, trying to discern their individual features. The inside of the house was dark. Men’s voices sounded. Strains of music, too quiet to discern as any one band, floated out of the door when it opened. The girls hung back, all pretty young blondes and brunettes, and chatted amongst themselves, fanning their bodies from the heat inside. The girl in green sucked in a breath and composed herself. The door opened and she walked inside. The other ladies followed in order, in a line. The building gave the impression that heat rose off it. Sean slowed on his way down the street and stopped by the entrance. Outside, a sign advertised that he was passing by the Twin Peeks Restaurant. Seats were by booking only. 

He was surprised at how late it was in the afternoon when he arrived at the Woolloomooloo Waters. That Rachel should not be there was another matter entirely.

He kicked off his sodden shoes and laid the bag on the writing table. He unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt. He removed the AFTRS book. The white hard cover was finely misted in condensation. The pages were untouched.

There were no missed calls or text messages when he checked his phone. He dialled her number. He wasn’t sure if her phone would have any charge. She answered regardless.

“Hi. How are you?”

“Hey. I’m good. How are you?”

“I’ve got so many people in Woolloomooloo who want to be nice to me.”

He paused and stared at his reflection in the mirror as he forced out the words.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at a friend’s.”

“Right. Well, I’m back at the hotel.”

He pulled at the wet shirt that clung to his back.

“So, I’m back. Are you coming over?”

“I’ll be ten minutes. I’m really close.”

“Ok,” he snapped, “See you.”

“Bye. Bye!”

He couldn’t think of what he should use to dry the book. He ran a hot shower instead.

Sean waited on the front steps of the Waters, dry and in fresh clothes, and searched for a sign of her. The time was long past the ten minutes she had told him. Her absence was closer to an hour. The grey clouds hung overhead the drably coloured buildings and patchy rain splattered the paving bricks underneath. He chose not to step into the street so as to avoid the drizzle.

He was unimpressed with the old jeans and plain black shirt he wore and jerked at the frayed pants. The long trip home, with its resulting poor weather, had ruined his chosen attire for the pool competition and possible winnings to come. He imagined how many players would be there tonight. He knew he could beat them all. He was unsure as to whether he would make it to the Jackson’s on George entertainment complex that evening. Her nonappearance was a source of annoyance to his plans. It was his last few days in the city. He didn’t want to spend the time inside, waiting.

A figure appeared in the distance. He peered through the murky precipitation.

The woman in question wore her raver gear: pink jeans, black and white striped shirt, and dyed blonde hair cut into a trendy bob. She slowly slunk with a beige handbag slung over her shoulder.

He hung at the steps and made a move towards Rachel. She grinned at him, oblivious. Out of pure impulse he reached for her shoulder. The fabric of her clothes was soaked to the bone. Her grin grew wider, exposing her full smile: all white teeth stained yellow and a colour not dissimilar to that of tobacco. Her hair was slicked flat. He motioned to the hotel’s foyer doors and she led him inside.

She told him a story as he unpacked the rest of the gifts on the table.

‘Someone’ had been stalking her. They waited outside her apartment. They called out her name from the street below when she was with other boys. She could hear them over the noise of the traffic that kept her awake. She loathed sleeping there. The tires and engine were so loud that she never slept at home. She would have to stay at other houses, in other beds. The best way to sleep would be to stay awake for two or three nights in a row. That way the slumber would be so deep that she wouldn’t hear anything. Sometimes, ‘Someone’ followed her in the streets of Surry Hills, shouting out to her. All the people close-by would hear ‘Someone’ and look at her.

While she recounted this anecdote to Sean, Rachel’s voice was unmoved by emotion but he could sense that there was an underlying annoyance in what she said.

He paused whilst listening, his arm inside the bag hidden up to his wrist. When she had finished, he played the slow reveal. He turned his hand and exposed the film institute’s promotional snow globe to her.

She seized the item off him. She looked at the fake snow flakes, freshly shaken and floating around the cardboard building in an ersatz storm. Assuming that the gift was for her, she opened her knapsack and the globe disappeared.

From inside her ‘sack she produced the tiny tube of tooth paste, the same one that had been on the edge of her bed sit sink. The tube had been strategically left on top of her bag’s contents and she held it out for him.

“You didn’t need to bring your toothpaste. I was going to buy some this afternoon.”

She frowned at him, taken aback.

“You keep it.”

The toothpaste went to live with the snow globe.

Chapter 19. Untitled.

Not much to say. I've been non-posting for a while, but now here's a new section. As the last entry was chapter 17, obviously I've been writing in the "away-time". I have the feeling that this is barely a first draft - particular sentences and some turns of language are rubbing me the wrong way, but I'm right in the middle of writing so no time to edit and redit - but the clash of characters I find interesting. Maybe you will too? 


***********************

“I think you liked it. When we had sex and I was talking to you.”

“Yeah, I guess?”

“You were excited,” she answered for him.

She stopped and leant against the wall of a house, catching her breath. She produced the Drum pouch and searched for a paper.

He juggled the DVDs he was carrying, stacking the boxes into a neat, straight pile.

“How long are you going to be?”

“Not long, I only have to give back the movies. I’ll call you.”

As he waited, Sean read the blurb to Belle De Jour.

“A young Paris housewife, Séverine,” he pronounced the name with a flourish, “grows bored with her stable husband. When she learns of the presence of a high-class brothel in her neighbourhood, she quietly goes to work there – but only during the day, until five o’clock in the afternoon.”

“What?”

He spoke in a bad French accent.

“It is Bunuel’s Belle De Jour! Catherine Deneuve in her most famous role ev-er!”

He waved the case before her eyes and she grabbed it off him, scrutinising the package.

“That’s me! Can we watch it?”

“Bit late now, I have to return them today.”

She ran her hand over the reproduction of Catherine’s icy, blank face.

“This film is good too. It’s about a girl who suffers from schizophrenia. She starts to see doubles of everyone she knows, such as her boyfriend, and other apparitions. No one else can see them.” 

“What is it?”

“Images. Robert Altman. And because seeing these doubles is making her distressed, she decides the best way to get rid of them is to… well, kill them off. She blows away a couple with a shotgun. There’s a really good scene where she’s happy to have shot one, and she’s skipping over the dead body, which is blown to bloody bits, and she’s whistling and singing.”

Rachel became both more excited and agitated as she listened.

“But at the end she stuffs up and accidentally kills the real version of her boyfriend, husband. Meaning she’s left with the evil double.”

“Can we watch these?? I really want to watch them!”

“They don’t work in the DVD player?”

“Oh yeah.”

He handed over the other films. She shuffled the DVD cases, absorbed in the images of movie stars and sets and different locales and eras, the cigarette long forgotten.

“I want to watch all these!” She stopped at the final DVD. “Well, maybe not that one.”

The film in question was Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. The front cover was a photo of the entire female cast, their amply endowed, naked bodies covered in a collection of fur jackets. Sean retrieved the box from her.

“This one is about big tits and drugs,” he commented brusquely.

He read from the dust jacket:

“Lance Rocke! Greek god and part-time actor. See how well he performs… The golden hair, the bedroom eyes, the firm young body. All are available for a price...’”

He smiled, remembering the scene of Lance lolling on a duvet, as that piece of narration played.

“I love that line: the bedroom eyes.”

He tried to make his eyelids as droopy as possible.

“How are my bedroom eyes?” he asked her.

“Terrible.”

“Must be why my film career hasn’t taken off,” he joked.

“I was in a short film… as a Venetian princess.”

“Really.”

“Mmmhmm.”

She reached out for him and he lent a hand to help her up off the pavement. He stacked the DVDs neatly again. She weaved her arm around his elbow. When they parted company at the lights, he was glad in the thought that she wouldn’t be with him at the Institute library.

When Sean entered the library, no greeting was forthcoming from the staff member manning the front desk. He dumped the DVDs in the return slot and walked through the security gates.

The girl working was the less plump of the two library assistants. He guessed that she was in her mid-twenties but wouldn’t have been surprised to find out she was closer to her early thirties. She struck him as nice, in a harmless, middle of the road, cipher-of-a-person sort of way. Books recently returned had attracted her full attention. She sluggishly scanned the items back into the system. He strained his mind to remember her name.

“Hey, Renee,” he guessed.

“Hi!”

She looked up from the books and paused, staring at him. She always wore a grin, and for his tastes, too much makeup for someone so plain.

“Hey.” He scanned the lounge area of the room – all modern libraries had them, it was akin to a waiting area in an airport – and returned his attention to her. “How’s it been today?”

“Good!”

“Been busy?”

“Oh, you know!”

He nodded and drummed his fingers on the counter. There were no patrons browsing the shelves of the collection. A sole student from the dance academy across the road sat in front of a computer, adding Facebook friends.  

“I have to pick up some stuff… do I need a key card to get into the staff room?”

He had asked the question already knowing the answer.

“No, just go round the back. Someone will buzz you in.”

“Great. Thank you so much.”

Extract from Chapter 17. Christmas Tree.

My dearest apologies for the delay between drinks. I don't really have anything major to post that I'm currently happy with. But, I thought, so as not, to leave you, hanging, I would stick up a little something to sate your thirst. If you didn't already guess (if you even were) this is from what I've been recently working on. Remember: first draft, work in progress, I can't spell good, blah blah blah, poop poop poop.


***********************

She sat in front of one of the sales clerk computers at the Vodafone shop. The chairs were bolted to the floor and he stood at her side. 

“I need phone credit.”

“Oh, really.”

“I can’t make calls on my phone.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Can I get some credit?”

She spun on the stool and fiddled with the computer mouse. A clerk served some real customers in the corner. Sean scanned the walls covered in mobile phones and mobile phone accessories.

“Let’s get some credit!”

“I don’t need credit. I’m on a plan.”

“But I need credit!”

“Buy some then.”

“I don’t have any money?”

“You use my phone all the time. I’m not buying you credit. It’s the principle of the matter.”

The sales computer required a password. She tapped on the keyboard and pressed enter. The machine unlocked. She opened an Internet Explorer browser. The connection was taking an age to load. She clicked refresh several times and stared out onto the street at the passing traffic.

“So, are we here for any other reason?”

“Do you know what the password was?”

He waited.

“Faggot.”

Rachel needed to use the toilet and they went to the MacDonald’s near the Old Soup Kitchen. The George Street store had a set-up akin to a military barracks. The room was divided into two columns of six long rows of tables and benches. The arrangement of the seating enforced a sort of communal engagement amongst the patrons. He sat on the end of a table and waited for his lover.

He wasn’t too sure how long the Soup Kitchen had been shut. He knew it hadn’t been open when he was in Sydney earlier in the year. He could still remember when he was there nearly five years before and the electric mix of jazz groups he had seen over a succession of nights.

Sean looked around the room at the people eating their takeaway. There was the expected contingent of gangs of youths, and young Mums and Dads treating their kids. He also noticed several people using computers. He didn’t know how patrons could justify using the free Wi-Fi connection as a compromise for placing their laptops on the disgusting tabletops rarely cleaned. The thought of eating a Big Mac over his MacBook filled him with mild horror.

“Hi!”

“Hey, all done?”

“Are you having anything? Let’s go.”

“Nah, I don’t eat that shit.” He wasn’t hungry regardless.

He had half-expected to see her chatting up one of the younger male patrons.

Chapter 16 In the hallway.

Hi y’all. After four beers, I’m on my second whisky for the night, and to celebrate such matters, I thought I would share with you this funny little chapter I wrote over the last week and have been toying with for a while. It’s maybe more like that slip that resides between chapters, a secret chapter more so. Who knows if this will make the final cut; this is one of the points in what I’ve written where the voice changes from one character to another. Because I have employed such a technique infrequently in the writing to date, it’s possible that I’ll change it all back to the narrator’s voice in the editing stage. Being very fond of Graham Greene’s work, ever since I read Brighton Rock, I’ve wanted to implement that very subtle shift he employed in my own work. Because this tiny section is the “odd man out” it could quite possibly disappear all together. Regardless, enjoy this one off.

(Please note: Entirely uncertain about the use of italics. It feels like lazy writing to use them. To experiment I’ve included one usage.)

(Please, please note: Yes, the spelling of a name is different. That is intentional. Not sure if the trick works.)

**************************

He first felt her skinny arm pressing against his chest. Next he heard the voices and music outside. She opened her eyes and squinted, her face set in a tired heavy frown. The sound slowly registered to her.

“What’s that?”

She leapt out of bed and opened the apartment door. He found some underwear and peered over her shoulder. The party apartment was receiving a visitor.

“Look, we’ve had some complaints!”

For such a tall man, the manager – with his male pattern baldness shaved head, sour mouthed pout, pock marked face, coke-bottle lens, and thickset Neanderthal brow – was an unassuming cipher.

“Other residents have complained. Turn the music down! This is your last chance. There are people in this hotel who live here. Turn your music off and go to bed.”

A very drunk Maori swayed before him.

“Aw, mate! It’s not that bad!”

The manager sighed and leant against the doorframe, observing the destruction of the apartment inside.

“Go to bed! This is the last time. I will call the police.”

Sean pulled Rachel into the apartment.

“You’re naked! They were looking at you!”

It was that hour in-between days. Not that it was difficult to tell if it was Saturday or Sunday. It was more so a question of the only thing that mattered was the person lying next to you. Time didn’t move because it didn’t exist. She wasn’t sure how long they had been awake.

“Sometimes you really annoy me,” he said in a measured tone.

Upon hearing his voice she stirred violently.

“What?”

Through the walls there was still the sound of music and faint voices. He scratched his stomach and looked at the ceiling, non-committal in reply. She looked at him as a wave of indeterminate guilt washed over her. She tried to focus on the background noise.

“I’m good to you,” he said when he finally replied. She rolled over and looked at him.

“I’m good to you,” he said and paused. “And you just treat me like shit.”

“Don’t say that!”

“But it’s true.”

“Oh my god, you sound like Philippe!”

“I’m not Phillip.”

“Don’t say that then!” she exclaimed. He lay silent, no explanation forthcoming. She stared at him, not exactly sure who he was.