The Best Australian Stories 2013 Read online

  ‘Sorry,’ he said as he sat down, noticing that Ursula had finished her drink. ‘Can I get you another?’

  ‘No. Actually I have to go in a minute. I’m working at Cellarmasters tonight. You know the ropes. Have to make ends meet and all that.’

  Paul knew all about Cellarmasters, one of the refuges for out-of-work actors. He had worked there once, but he preferred waiting on tables to telephone sales. He sipped on his Guinness and made small talk with Ursula.

  But although he tried to distract himself, the elusive condom was still in the forefront of his mind. He could feel his cheeks reddening, even though Ursula could not have known, would never know. He wondered if he’d become the sort of man he despised: overweight, middle-aged, obsessed with sex. He hated all the male stereotypes in circulation – the commitment-phobic bastard, the absent father, the emotional cripple, the power hungry suit. Then again, why worry? Sexual urges are healthy, aren’t they? And surely now that he was past forty he could give up on the Catholic guilt. What he wanted, everyone wanted, especially if they’d been drinking.

  Yet why did he think that Ursula would sleep with him? Either she had someone already, or she was involved with Julian. But she’d never mentioned anyone else. And although she was close to Julian, Paul had a hunch they were friends, not lovers. Paul didn’t know what to think. Ursula had stopped talking and was getting up, he realised suddenly. Must listen better, he reminded himself as he followed her through the bar.

  He caught up with her at the door and made as if to bump into her again.

  ‘Now, now, Curly,’ she said as she strode outside. ‘Thanks. I needed that.’

  To Paul’s surprise, she threw her arms around his neck, hugged him and kissed him lightly on each cheek.

  ‘Give me a ring,’ she said over her shoulder as she hailed a taxi and jumped inside.

  But I don’t have your number, Paul thought, as he watched the amber lights on the roof of the cab cut into the traffic and speed away.

  Paul spent the next week in the studio narrating a fantasy novel. It was tiring work, but at least it was work that was related to acting. He liked the challenge of juggling different voices and maintaining their consistency: the airy lightness of the elves; the gruff, earnest dwarves; the wheedling, sonorous necromancer. It was easy to lose yourself in this world of quests and mortal dangers, Paul said to his producer during one of their eye breaks. It might not be Tolkien, but you could still escape into a story where the ordinary person mattered. No wonder people liked reading these books. The threat and tension was such a contrast to vegemite on toast, the train trip to work, an evening of television. The story allowed you to fly, when normally you had to be content with crawling. The producer gazed at Paul and made a reassuring grunt, but Paul had the feeling that she didn’t get it at all. She was far too young to have experienced a life of crawling.

  Paul was too tired after work to visit Julian or track down Ursula’s number. He stopped at the Canterbury pool on the way home and swam laps, letting the strain of concentrating on the novel’s minute typeface seep away as he battled against the water. He swam in the centre of the lane, over the soothing certainty of the black line. Gliding over its dependability and straightness, he thought about journeys.

  Actors were always talking about their characters’ journeys, but even the journeys of the best-written characters were finite and manageable. The biggest problem for the actor was that you knew the end point before you started. It was hard to prevent that knowledge from infecting the performance. You had to play each moment as if you didn’t know what was coming next, play it without foresight. It was difficult to perform a scene again and again, yet perform it as if you were experiencing it for the first time. The best actors, the ones Paul admired, created their character moment by moment, without any indication that they had done this a hundred times already.

  That Friday just after Paul arrived home from the pool, Ursula rang. He walked around the flat talking to her, running his hand through his wet hair. She told him that Julian wanted to have a barbeque at the hospital and that the nurse in charge on Saturdays had agreed. This seemed to be the reason for the call.

  ‘Have you got a barbeque, Paul?’ she asked.

  ‘Yep. A Weber.’

  ‘Perfect. Can you bring it in tomorrow, around six?’

  ‘Sure. Can I bring some food? Kebabs? Sausages? Fish?’

  ‘No. I’ll take care of that. The barbie’s perfect. Look, I’m working again tonight so I have to fly. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘See you then.’

  Paul put the phone down and thought back over the call. She had seemed so friendly at first, so interested in the fantasy novel, the swimming, how he was getting on. He wasn’t making it up, was he, the warmth he heard in her voice, the genuine interest and affection? He had started thinking dates himself, was just about to suggest a movie or a drink, when she brought up the barbeque. It was good to be included, but looking back, had there been one single occasion recently when he had seen Ursula that hadn’t involved Julian? Even the drinks at the Marlborough were straight after a visit to the hospital. Was he being too sensitive? Or just plain jealous? He didn’t know. For an actor who had spent his career playing subtext, he couldn’t read the subtext in his own life. He guessed that there was nothing to do but order fish and chips, have a quiet evening and sleep on it. And then clean the Weber, check the state of the heat beads and see if he needed any Little Lucifers.

  The following afternoon Paul sat on the bus holding the barbeque drum on his knees. He didn’t have a car because cars ate money – it was one of the adjustments he had made to survive as an actor. He had stashed the stand and his bag in the luggage area and grabbed a seat facing the rest of the bus. Holding the Weber was like holding a fat child, except that the Weber didn’t squirm and wriggle. Other passengers gave him odd looks and he stared back at them defiantly. In Bali, people got onto buses with live chickens, or squealing pigs with their hoofs trussed together, or sacks of coconuts that they’d been collecting all day. Paul was only cradling a barbeque. Maybe the first world and the third world weren’t that far apart, after all. He was fond of his Weber. The next time someone asked him that dreaded question, ‘So what do you do?’ he would say, ‘I barbeque. I’m a barbeque man.’ No explanations, no further details. Just, ‘I barbeque.’

  At the hospital, the party was already underway. Julian was sitting up in bed talking to his sister. Ursula was fixing drinks, while an old schoolfriend of Julian’s was setting up a food table. Paul greeted everyone, took the barbeque out onto the balcony and assembled it. He filled the kettle with heat beads, and spread the Little Lucifers out strategically, arranging them like the four points of a compass. The accelerators were easy to light and he soon had them fizzing and spluttering around the beads. It sure beat rubbing sticks together. He watched them take, then put the grille down. Once the beads were hot, he’d be ready to cook.

  Ursula brought him a beer and they stood looking out over the hospital grounds. In the distance the spire of a university college rose into the trees. The sun was sinking slowly, bathing the courtyard in a serene late-afternoon light.

  ‘This is my favourite time of day,’ Ursula said and Paul nodded.

  They stood there without talking. Paul didn’t want to be the first to break the silence. Birds chattered in the trees, a currawong landed on a wire next to a telephone pole. He listened for Ursula’s breathing, but he couldn’t hear it over the whooshing of the traffic. It was enough to stand next to her and not do anything, not think anything, just stand there. It wasn’t an experience he wanted to find words for. He sipped on his beer and stood there until she suggested that they rejoin the party.

  Someone had draped streamers off the curtain rails and a couple of the nurses were blowing up balloons. Paul chatted for a few minutes then went back out onto the balcony to cook the meat. He
started the sausages first – long Italian sausages with an attractive marbled appearance. They were good quality, for the skins held and they browned quickly, only spitting a little. Poorer quality sausages tended to ooze and flare, sending flames up towards your face.

  He liked being close to the heat; he enjoyed the sense of control that standing in front of a barbeque gave him. It was a connection to an outdoor life, to cave men who sat around fires cooking the game they had trapped and killed themselves. It must be in the blood, Paul thought, this thing with fires, it must be some sort of evolutionary link with primeval man. You only had to go to a camping ground to find people gathered around fires, staring into the hot coals and losing some of their pretensions, their armour. Turn the sausages, flip the steaks, let the heat warm your face as you sipped on a cold one. It was the best place to think. When he first started barbequing he had blackened everything, but now he had a feel for timing, he knew how to find the hot spots and the cooler areas. He was at ease with calamari, chicken and cobs of corn. Forget metrosexuals, he said to himself, what every woman needs is a barbeque man.

  Soon Paul took a full tray of meat inside. He served Julian a rare steak, picked out a charcoaled sausage on request and added some salad and a slice of bread. Everyone else got up to help themselves. Paul sat down at the foot of the bed and listened to the conversation.

  ‘I can’t believe that Howard’s won four elections,’ said Julian’s friend. ‘It’s enough to make you want to emigrate.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ replied Chelsea, one of the nurses. ‘There’s nothing for it but to party and party hard. Things will only get worse, so I’m going to enjoy myself while I can.’

  Paul ate his steak, mopping up the oozing blood with a slice of bread. He wasn’t as disappointed as the others, for as far as he could see politics didn’t affect his life. They couldn’t legislate away the taste of potato salad, they couldn’t stop him from picking out the blackest sausage, wrapping it up in bread and smothering it with tomato sauce. He enjoyed listening to passion though, habitually making a note of people’s excited expressions and rising inflections in case he ever needed to act out a similar scene.

  ‘The steak’s great,’ Julian said when the whingeing had run its course. ‘Actually I think it’s probably the best meal that’s been cooked on the premises. Thanks Ursula, Paul, and everyone else who had a hand in it. I’m glad you could all come, for I’m going home in a day or two.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re well enough?’ Ursula asked. ‘Maybe you should go to a nursing home first.’

  ‘I’ll manage. I’ll be back once they’ve found me a new liver. Actually, as soon as I’m out I’m going to pop into DJ’s and put one on lay-by. I’ve always been a big fan of lay-by.’

  Typical of Julian, Paul thought, to turn everything into a joke. If Julian was afraid or angry he never showed it. He seemed to be able to get on with it, to accept his illness and avoid wallowing in despair or self-pity. Though maybe like everyone else he did have his moments, those times when everything seemed hopeless and beyond repair.

  Once the main course was finished, Ursula cut up a lime and coconut cake and distributed the extra slices around the ward. Paul went out onto the balcony to dismantle the barbeque. He wasn’t looking forward to carrying it home on the bus and was relieved when Ursula poked her head through the door and offered him a lift.

  The party was breaking up and people were saying goodbye to Julian. Tomato sauce and meat juices had been spilt on the sheets. ‘I’ll sleep well tonight,’ Julian said, pointing to the stains. ‘This place smells better already, less antiseptic, less like a morgue.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Ursula replied.

  Julian laughed. ‘Don’t worry. They might have wheeled me in here, but I’m planning on walking out.’

  Paul hugged Julian goodbye, then picked up the Weber and his backpack. He followed Ursula to the lifts.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll cope on his own,’ she said, as the doors closed. ‘I can help for a while, but I’m off touring in February. Still it’s only December now … All I want for Christmas is a new liver.’

  As the doors opened at the next floor, Paul said, ‘Hearts, lungs, new and used livers.’

  ‘If only it was that easy.’ Ursula sighed.

  Walking to the car, Ursula talked about how Julian had deteriorated. She was investigating nursing options and herbal remedies, and had suggested to Julian that he visit a faith healer, though he hadn’t shown the slightest interest in the idea. You have to make miracles happen, she said as they searched for her car.

  When they finally found it, Paul loaded the barbeque into the boot.

  ‘Join me for a drink?’ she asked, as he slid his seatbelt on.

  ‘Sure, I don’t have to be anywhere.’

  ‘My flatmate’s away for the weekend and I don’t want to be alone. Not at the moment.’

  Paul couldn’t help but register the use of the term flatmate, but he stopped himself there. He wasn’t going to indulge in any more wishful thinking; his last performance before the condom machine had been enough. He had this feeling that Ursula would talk and talk and it would be his role to listen.

  Her flat was on the third floor of an art deco redbrick building. It was at the back of the block, away from the street, with views over a park and the river. The door opened into a living room with polished floors and hardly any furniture. The only sign of clutter was on the walls, which were crammed with theatrical posters. A TV cabinet sat in the middle of one wall with a yellow couch placed directly opposite it.

  ‘Time to chill out,’ Ursula said. ‘I feel like a G and T. Do you want one? I don’t have any beer.’

  ‘Sure. I’m partial to gin. I haven’t had any for yonks. And I love the taste of quinine. If I had malaria I’d overdose on quinine.’

  ‘Have a seat and I’ll fix them.’

  But Paul didn’t sit down. He walked around and studied the posters. Plays, an occasional film, musicals and cabaret. He hadn’t realised how much work Ursula had done. Name a theatre company in Australia and she had worked for them, right round the country. Black Swan in Perth, Smiling Gecko in Cairns, La Boite in Brisbane, Playbox and Griffin, as well as the mainstream ones in the southern capitals. And such an impressive body of work: Angels in America, Night on Bald Mountain, Titus Andronicus, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore. He was standing in front of a poster for Top Girls when she returned.

  She handed him the glass and stood next to him, looking at the poster. ‘I played Pope Joan in that. One of the best monologues I’ve ever delivered. Do you know the play?’

  ‘Yeah. Doesn’t she get pregnant to one of the cardinals and have a baby?’

  ‘That’s right. She’s stoned to death during a procession, just after she goes into labour. I loved the first act. This manager gets a promotion at work. She breaks through the glass ceiling and invites six famous women to dinner to help her celebrate. We sat there on stage, eating fabulous food off white porcelain and white tablecloths, talking over each other, as you do. But the play peaks too early and the second half’s a let-down. Who’d have thought back at NIDA that one of my favourite roles would have been Pope Joan?’ Ursula put a hand on his head and made the sign of the cross over him with her gin glass. ‘Go my son and sin no more.’

  ‘I feel like a new man,’ Paul said.

  ‘Come on,’ Ursula beckoned, ‘let’s sit down.’

  Paul sat on one end of the couch. Ursula gave him her glass to hold and went to fetch a small table. She placed it within easy reach and sat down. They drank and talked about the plays they’d been in, the directors they’d worked with, the highs and lows of acting. It was easy and comforting, talking shop.

  Paul encouraged Ursula to talk. She had this way of holding the glass out in front of her as if she was going to drink, her forearm and wrist turned towards h
im. She’s not capable, Paul thought, of doing anything that isn’t graceful. When she drank she drank lustily, and was soon onto her second, then her third glass.

  She drained the last of her gin, put the glass down, draped her arm along the couch and wriggled close. Paul hadn’t been expecting this. Her breast pushed into his shoulder as she leant over and kissed his cheek. He turned towards her and she took his chin in her long fingers and kissed his lips. Paul could smell the alcohol on her breath, but he kissed her back. Should I say something? he thought. Should I suggest that she’s a little drunk and might regret it later? No, don’t be an idiot. When a chance like this comes along, you take it. There might not be another.

  And with that thought he put his hand behind her head, feeling the heat of the skin there, below the hairline. Outside a car door slammed and a bird called curragh, curragh, kwong. The last sound leapt in pitch and pealed like a bell.

  His fingers slipped down her neck, inside her shirt. Her eyes were closed, her kisses greedy. What was that line of Slessor’s? How Sydney girls were angry-tongued. Or was it Tahitian girls? Or was it both? Didn’t I recite it at NIDA? For voice class. In front of Ursula and Julian and everyone. Damn, there I go again. Can’t seem to get rid of the idea that this is about Julian, that somehow I’m an escape for her, a crutch, a replacement. That she really wants him and not me. Amazing really, how you can kiss someone and not even be thinking about them, how your mind can be in one place and your body another. Except every time she moves her hand I’m wondering where she’ll put it next, I’m willing it lower, I’m starting to wish she’d undo my shirt or invite me to undo hers. I’ve always loved undressing, I hate it when women rush that stage. It should be slow, with plenty of kisses and maybe a little ripping. Though not my best shirt. This is the longest kiss. I like her tongue, it’s angry alright. Angry is the right word for sure, as angry as … what? Can’t think. Can’t think anymore. Just her name. Just think Ursula and remind yourself you’re not dreaming …