Good Oil (8 page)

In contrast, wanting Michaela and not having her, having inhabited a private universe with her, as the song goes, is untenable. So there. And this evening Kathy laughed at something particularly witty that I said and touched my arm. Phwoar. I need a beer. If anyone wants me, I’ll be in the bar, plotting my next Kathy-related maneuver, twirling my imaginary moustache. And studiously avoiding study.

Later:

This afternoon I was in the kitchen making myself a coffee when Zoe came in.

‘Make me one too?’ she said.

‘Sure.’

She sat down on one of the stools opposite me across the bench.

‘You know how I said you are passionate about your unhappiness and you said “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well?”’

‘Yeah.’ I bristled slightly, thinking she was about to launch some renewed attack on my (admittedly) pathetic existence.

‘Mrs Mac used to say that, didn’t she?’

Zoe and I both had Mrs MacLaughlin for second grade at Lucas Street Public School, Zoe two years ahead of me.

‘She sure did,’ I said.

‘Remember when you got sent out of her class because the kid next to you swore and she thought it was you?’ she asked.

‘I do.’

‘I came walking past your classroom on an errand and found you there. I asked you what you were doing and you burst into tears. Made me promise not tell Mum.’

‘The shame, the shame is with me still. And the injustice.’ I stirred both the coffees.

‘I still haven’t told Mum.’

‘Thanks, Zo.’ I pushed her coffee across to her, in the Leunig mug that she favours. We lifted our mugs in unison and blew steam off the hot liquid.

September 22

So much uni work looming. You can only hide from it up to a certain point – beyond which you are well and truly rooted. I was at that point at about this time in first year and vowed I would never return.

Dad was rather peeved at me, as I recall. He seemed to take it personally. I don’t know why.
I’m
the one that will have to pay off the HECS debt for the subjects I failed. I suggested at the beginning of this year that perhaps he and Mum might like to pay off my HECS for me up-front like they did for Zoe, so we get the discount. I can’t remember the exact wording of Dad’s response but it was something to the effect of perhaps I’d like to go fuck myself instead.

Yeah, well, you know. Guess I’ll be paying it off myself then. Assuming that I ever get a real job, that is. Maybe what Dad was really pissed off about was that he has a pansy of a son who is studying Arts instead of Business or Engineering.

Must go and finish writing my essay on Stalinist Russia. In a surprise cameo by my tear ducts, I felt moisture crowding behind my eyelids the other day when I was reading about the purges. I can’t imagine. I don’t want to.

11 p.m.

Sometimes I think the only reason Stuart is angling for Kathy is that he knows I am too. He’s a smooth bastard. All reserve and broad-shouldered strength. He may well be my nemesis.
And
my antithesis! How about that?

Harvey out.

PS I have puny shoulders.

PPS And I’m okay with that.

PPPS I’m not really.

October 5

Exhausted and a little in my cups. Worked four to nine this evening, training a New Little on the registers. She’s one of the more interesting New Littles out of the bunch they just hired. Her name is Amelia and what a funny little youngster she is. She demonstrates an advanced-level single-eyebrow raise. She’s amusing – all frizzy-haired and fiery. I suspect she can, like, construct sentences and read books. Here’s hoping she will go a little way towards Amelia-rating the vacuousness of her chain-smoking fifteen-year-old cohorts. (
Ameliorate
– get it? Oh, there’s nothing like your own jokes is there?) She’s a healthy mess of contradictions. Sense of humour? Tick. Very articulate for a youngster. She hasn’t developed the ability to see past her own nose yet – takes everything
seriously
. Oh adolescence, how much I don’t miss you. She’s smart and has reason to carry herself well. But she has this way of crossing her arms, gripping her elbows and looking down and sideways that screams ‘ill at ease!’ to the world. Maybe all she needs is a good sensei to instruct her in the ways of, like, stuff. Maybe I’m the man for the job. Or maybe I couldn’t be arsed.

I went back to Ed’s after work. We missed the last bus and had to walk all the way, cutting across the park and freezing our arses off. Living the dream.

Kathy continues to lead The Field, and I am considering whether to bump sociology-tute Lauren from the list, as I’ve seen her walking around campus holding hands with a guy. Georgia from the deli is still a possibility, and probably up for it, and I may end up rooting her just to get Ed off my back. If he’s so keen for Georgia to be put on her arse, why doesn’t he do it himself?

‘Time to break the drought, Chris,’ he said tonight. ‘Do you good.’

‘I’m working up to asking Kathy out,’ I protested.

He gave me the one-eyebrow raise – an advanced practitioner, like Amelia.

Yeah. The chances of Kathy ever having sex with me are slim to none. Ed reckons he’s going to make sure Georgia comes out with us after work tomorrow night.

Harvey out.

Later

When my sister and I were little, Mum would read us a book called
Amelia Bedelia
. The title character was a housemaid who kept getting herself into ‘scrapes’ because she was a bit of a concrete thinker. She’d get really upset when she got into trouble, and would run away. Actually, no, I think her employer got really angry at her and sent her away. Eventually and after much adventurous soul-searching she would come home. Her employer would greet her warmly, his earlier wrath forgotten, and ask her to make him some soup.

October 7

Last night I drank too much and rooted She’s-big-she’s-blonde-she-works-in-the-deli Georgia at her place. Conversation was slim-pickings afterwards. I asked her if she liked Jeff Buckley. She said, ‘Jeff who?’ Enough said.

October 12

The timetable for exams and final essays is out. Six weeks until I’m all finished. It’s going to take a superhuman effort to get all my work in on time and keep the credit average I need to be allowed into Honours next year. Interesting. I’m going to work as many shifts at Woolies as possible over the summer, in the hopes of saving enough money to cut back to twelve hours a week next year. Maybe then I could put a little more time into actual study. Doing Honours and all, it would be nice to give that priority.

So, Honours and then what? Too scary a topic. New paragraph please.

Mick, Rohan and Suze will be waiting for me at the uni bar. It’s almost dark out here on the lawn. I’d better go soon. I’m getting on quite well with a couple of the newer youngsters at work, both of whose knowledge of fruit and vegetable has blossomed under my firm but fair tutelage.

Donna is a very old soul indeed. She’s fifteen going on thirty-five and has a pretty fucked-up home-life. Always keen for a drink after work is young Donna. She is Bianca’s new girl-pet; they’re becoming thick as thieves, taking smoke breaks out the back together and all the rest.

The other one is Amelia. When my sister and I were little, sometimes I would piss her off so much she’d take a few steps back and then rush at me, fists raised. I would stick my hand out and plant my palm on her forehead, stopping her in her tracks. Her arms would flail about, getting her nowhere. She’d keep flailing until Mum heard the ruckus, broke it up and sent me to my room. For some reason I think of that sometimes when I’m talking to Amelia. She wears her entire personality on her sleeve. Upon (uncharacteristic) reflection, maybe I see some of myself in her. Zoe and I seem to have changed roles as we grew older – these days it’s me that tends to flail around and she stands composed.

Right. Beer o’clock

October 22

The new youngster, Amelia, has acquired a bit of a cult following of late. Consisting of, well, me. It’s relaxing to be in her company because there’s no need for guesswork of any kind. I am going to try to push her in Ed’s direction. A girlfriend would sort him out, I reckon, especially one that can read and write, and Amelia can certainly do that.

This will probably be the last time I write in this notebook until the end of exams. I will hardly have time to scratch myself over the next month; I have so much work due. But then it will be summer break for three glorious months. Consisting of three essential elements: beach, Land of Dreams and beer. See you in December. Provided I don’t die from caffeine-induced heart failure, which, let’s face it, is on the cards. It’s late. If you’ll excuse me it’s time for me to get into bed and look at the ceiling.

December 2

Welcome to the other side! I would say, welcome to the summer of love, but that might be a bit of an ambit claim, as will become clear when I get to The Field. Against all the odds I got my essays in and sat my exams, proving for the third year running that there is a God and he loves me. My last exam was sociology – a three-hour corker. When the examiner said ‘Time’ at twelve o’clock, the pen fell from my cramped fingers and I put my head down on the desk almost involuntarily. A curious montage of the year flashed through my mind, including lots of Michaela scenes from various stages of the whole sorry affair, watching Kathy holding court across the library lawn, fighting with my poor sister who always seems to bear the brunt of my late-night seething and, curiously, Amelia in the staffroom at tea break, sitting on the chair with her knees drawn up to her chin, reading a dog-eared copy of
Heart of Darkness
and sipping tea from a styrofoam cup.

Then I went to meet Mick, Rohan and Suze at the uni bar. Then I drank a lot. Then I went home and slept for fifteen hours. And here I am!

Right. Let’s take stock. On the up side, I have three months off uni and it looks very likely that I will get into sociology Honours next year. On the down side, the Search for the Perfect Woman has still yielded no fruit, and I have no girlfriend with whom to spend the summer. I also have no money and will be working about thirty hours a week at Woolies to rectify this. I will try very hard not to drink all my pay, but make no promises.

Rohan has finished his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering and applied for a job in Newcastle. It will be strange not having him at uni next year. He won’t be around for most of the summer either because his dad is paying for him to go to Europe, as a graduation present. My dad on the other hand has offered to make a contribution towards the board shorts I want to buy for the summer. A
contribution
, mind.

Rohan said he wanted to lend me his (parentally purchased) car while he was away, but his little sister kicked up a huge stink and he has to lend it to her now. I try not to envy Ro – the stuff his parents pay for, like the trip and the car, and the fact that he can spend so much more time studying because he doesn’t work, while I get to take the bus to the Land of Dreams seemingly every goddamn day. I
try
not to envy him. It’s disgusting to waste time envying those things when whole families, whole tribes, get slaughtered in their thousands in Africa, when leaky boatloads of refugees drown or starve in their hundreds in the open sea, and the children of those that do make it here have to grow up behind razor wire, watching their parents slide into insanity. When houses, families, towns get washed away in a day. I disgust myself when I covet things from Ro’s life. But then we humans have always coveted each other’s oxen haven’t we? In Mod. Aust. Lit. last semester we were doing a unit on short stories and my favourite one was by Kate Jennings. In it she is talking about a fellow writer who enjoys phenomenal success and acclaim way beyond the modest (I assumed) success of the narrator. ‘Envy,’ says Kate Jennings, ‘is a grubby little emotion.’

Anyways
. . .

The Field is as follows:

Kathy – look, usually I’d write
token, never in a million years
, but lately I seem to be gaining some mojo. She’s-big-she’s-blonde-she-works-in-the-deli Georgia has been trailing around after me a bit since the ‘Jeff who?’ incident. The youngster Donna from work seems a bit keen too. It may be completely unrelated, but Kathy has definitely been less withering lately. You never know your luck in a big supermarket chain.

Donna – token youngster. Yeah, okay, she’s only just turned sixteen but, like I said before, she’s sixteen going on thirty-five. She hangs out a lot after work. She never gets carded at the pub. There’s a certain enduring appeal in a young woman who sports tattoos, holds a cigarette and a glass of Scotch in one hand, lights said cigarettes with a huge-flamed Zippo, wears more pieces of jewellery than you can count and can beat you at pool. Could I consider going out with a sixteen-year-old? It’s a tough question. I’m pretty lonely and pretty desperate. Watch this space.

Yesterday I was standing at my register looking down towards the service desk at Kathy when Amelia piped up abruptly from the next register, ‘Hey, why does Gatsby love Daisy so much? She’s a superficial skank.’ Then muttered more to herself than to me, ‘
She
doesn’t love him.’

She even takes the goings-on of fictitious characters personally.
These
are the things she thinks about when she is packing groceries.

December 14

Prepare for another well-lubricated sob story. It’s that time of night, I’ve come home from the pub and, like Coleridge’s wedding guest, you are as compelled to listen as I am to tell. Or maybe this is just drunken rambling that will never be read by any living soul. Even if my diaries are discovered after the apocalypse, people will trawl through the first few pages and say, ‘Who
is
this loser?’ then, more importantly, ‘Who
cares?
’, and chuck them on the post-apocalyptic scrap heap. Either way, I’ve digressed.

I had an odd experience at work tonight. It was about 8.45 p.m. and pretty quiet. I was chatting to young Amelia on the next register. At some point the chatting dwindled. She was tired. She’d been at school all day and it was the end of the week. She leaned both her forearms on the counter, bowed her head for a moment, then flung it up and exclaimed, ‘I’m
star
ving!’