Less Than Perfect (7 page)

‘I've made up my mind, Dad. There's no point in talking about it anymore.'

‘What are you going to do if you're not going to study?' He was at a loss. It was unimaginable to him that people could have lives and careers without an academic qualification.

‘I'm going overseas.'

‘Where to?'

‘Australia.'

I'd chosen Australia for distance more than anything else. My parents wouldn't be able to ‘drop over' to see me and neither would I be expected to ‘drop home' for a visit.

I got to my feet. There was no point in staying a minute longer.

He looked up, his face weary and strangely vulnerable. ‘Is it because of me?'

‘Partly,' I replied harshly. Though our paths rarely crossed these days, I knew he was there in the background, somewhere on campus, be it his office, a lecture theatre or the canteen. And I couldn't stand it.

But of course it wasn't just him. There were many, many reasons. I would never feel safe again, not in Clonmegan or Belfast or anywhere in this country. I was sick and tired of religion and politics and their sheer divisiveness across every aspect of daily life. I'd had enough of the flags and threats that lurked around every corner. The low, grey skies left me claustrophobic and
barely able to breathe. If I didn't get away I feared that I'd completely crack up.

I closed my father's office door behind me and for a moment it was just me and his secretary. She was stacking papers on her desk and I waited for her to look up. ‘Can you remind him of Mum's birthday next month?' I hated to think of Paula sad and lonely on her birthday, without even a token gift from her husband.

The secretary blinked her cornflower-blue eyes. She was quite pretty; it was a rather odd time for me to notice this fact. ‘I always remind him of birthdays. He's generally too preoccupied to remember …'

I nodded and left.

Outside the sky was lower and greyer than ever. Drops of rain started to fall before I left the campus. I quickened my pace and didn't once look back at Queen's University. As far as I was concerned, that era of my life was well and truly over.

Melbourne, February 2009

I slide the cue back and forth between my thumb and forefinger until it's steady. Then, with a fluidity that originates from a completely different time and place, I strike the white at its centre. It smashes into the other balls and scatters them around the table. One rolls into the bottom left pocket. I'm on stripes.

Derek's a silhouette at the far end of the table. He holds his beer bottle by its belly and his tie has long since been abandoned. There's no outward sign that he's in charge of the fastest-growing division in Telelink, a telecommunications giant in Australia.

I pot a second ball, the purple, and I can feel rather than see his patronising smile.

‘Luck of the Irish, eh?'

I shrug. ‘What do you think I should go for next?'

‘Try the blue.'

This isn't good advice. There's no shot to be made with the blue and Derek knows this. I get him back by freezing the white against the wall.

I swig from my glass as Derek surveys the table. I should go home; I've had more than enough to drink. But I need to play Derek along a little bit further before calling it a night. He's one of my more difficult clients, his ego oversized and unpredictable. He regards his multimillion-dollar budget as a statement of power, and he spends it with a great deal of self-importance and flamboyance. I'm a good match for him, though, and I'm confident that I can channel his ego and budget into the single biggest order ever placed with Learning Space, the company I work for.

Derek balances the cue and leans forward. He has a nice arse, I think offhandedly, but he's not my type. He's too full of himself, too arrogant. I'm not his type either, with my fiery hair, pale skin and eyes, and faded freckles smattering the curves of my cheeks. I look Celtic through and through and Derek's taste in women, if his current girlfriend is anything to go by, runs more towards exotic.

He strikes the red in the wrong place and it stops short of the pocket. ‘Close,' he says with a wry grin.

It's not close at all.

I gulp down more of my drink before taking the cue from his outstretched hand. I draw a mental line between the white ball and the one I'm aiming for, the green. It goes in, rolling along the underneath of the table with a satisfying rumble.

‘Well done,' he says condescendingly.

I'm perfectly lined up for my next shot and it goes in just as nicely.

Derek, embarrassed that I'm better than him, looks around to see who's watching. ‘Where did you learn how to play pool?'

‘From my brother and his friends.'

‘With pints of Guinness lined up on the sides of the table and Irish ballads playing in the background?' he sneers.

‘Something like that.'

I scan the table. I could set up the last three balls, but that would piss Derek off even more. It's a fine line with him: he has to admire me, respect me; a little hate is good too, so that I can push him, like I'm doing now. But there is a line.

I clip the yellow and leave it deliberately shy of the middle pocket.

He puts down his drink. He has a purpose now: to regain dignity. He struts around the table. Squats. Measures. Bends over and gives a group of girls standing close by a tantalising view of his nice arse. He makes the shot and gets it in but he isn't lined up for the next one. This doesn't stop him from being inordinately pleased with himself.

‘Hold on while I go to the bar.' He's gone before I have the chance to stop him. I'm tired by now, my body aching for rest. I've been playing to his ego all evening. Over dinner. Over drinks. This game of pool. Now more drinks. Still, though, if this is what it takes …

Derek re-emerges through the haze, tall and confident. People move out of his way. He hands me a bourbon and Coke.

‘Did I ask for this?'

‘Just drink it.'

Sometimes he's domineering and possessive with me, as though I'm his girlfriend, which I'm not and never will be. This do-it-or-else attitude is his way of flirting. He knows that I have
his measure, that I will only allow him to act like this to a certain degree.

I don't like bourbon but drink it anyway. It tastes of my determination.

‘Blue or orange?' I ask.

‘Blue,' he replies.

The blue is in a slightly better place but it's still a challenging shot. I get the bridge and sit on the side of the table.

‘One leg's meant to touch the ground,' he states with ill-disguised competitiveness.

‘That rule's for people who are more than five feet tall,' I retort and cut the blue on the side. It spins into the pocket. The white draws back perfectly and I'm able to send the orange into the same pocket. I slide down off the table, not missing the look of annoyance on his face.

‘So, Derek,' I begin as I size up the yellow that I left hanging by the middle pocket. ‘Do you have firm dates for the training rollout?'

‘It's scheduled for May,' he replies, mollified by my question: I'm seeking his business; he has the veto, the power.

‘Do you have a better idea of numbers?'

‘Approximately three thousand employees.'

‘Do you still think the program will fit into two days?'

‘At a push.'

‘How about two long days?'

‘How long can you make a day?'

‘As long as you need it to be, Derek,' I say matter-of-factly. ‘In fact, we can train your people through the night if that's what's needed!'

He hardly notices when I sink the black. He looks as though he's seriously considering it: training through the night.

The game is over and I nod to the group of men whose gold two-dollar coin rests on the edge of the table. ‘It's all yours.' I smile at them, and then turn to Derek. ‘Why don't we say 8 am till 7 pm, five rooms running concurrently?'

‘How long would it take in total?'

‘Three thousand people would go through in about eight weeks.'

He nods, suddenly looking impatient to go. He slings his suit jacket over his shoulder and I put my bag on mine. Outside it's warm but the sun has long gone.

‘I expect a big discount,' he states.

‘Of course.' I hide a grin.

‘I mean it!'

‘Don't worry. I'll take care of you.'

‘When can you send me a quote?'

‘Next week. I'll show the discount clearly.'

The quote will spark more haggling, maybe even another dinner and drinks. But it's close now, very close.

Derek spots a taxi and raises his hand. ‘I'll talk to you soon,' he says as he gets into the cab.

He leaves me on the pavement to find a taxi of my own. Next week, or the one after, he'll be handing me a five-million-dollar order; apparently this exempts him from everyday manners.

I turn and begin to walk down the street. I'm not ready for a taxi just yet anyway. I want to stroll, clear my head, savour the moment, the city. The pubs have spilled onto the streets, there's a party under the stars, rock music swirling with conversation,
laughter and a sense of excitement: Melbourne on a Friday night, the working week over, a long sunny weekend ahead. God, I love the atmosphere of this city, the distinct lines drawn between work and leisure, what's serious and what's fun. Everything so clear-cut and in its place, with no undercurrents of religion or politics. No history or past injustices to undermine the happiness of the present moment.

My first few years in Australia were tumultuous, a succession of different jobs, friends and places to live. I arrived in Sydney not knowing a soul and for a while I revelled in my anonymity. Living in a hostel and working casually, I gradually met some people, mainly backpackers in transit to somewhere else, and formed the kind of friendships that last until one or the other of you moves on, the kind that have no history and are based in the present only, and where you make a conscious decision what, if anything, you reveal about yourself.

After the hostel, I lived in an apartment in an old-style building in Bondi Junction. The apartment came with three bedrooms and two wild flatmates who clubbed and partied from one week to the next. I got my first permanent job, selling credit cards over the phone. It was hard work, cold-calling strangers, trying to persuade them they needed more credit, and nine times out of ten people hung up on me. It was useful grounding, though. It taught me how to make a good first impression, how to close a sale, and it was the first step in establishing my career.

A year later I moved to Brisbane where I started over with a new job, friends and flat. Another year saw my return to Sydney, this time to the north side of the city, and nine months later I moved to Melbourne. Melbourne instantly felt like a better fit. It
had the right mix of foreignness and familiarity, of excitement and safety, and it was where I finally settled, or at least stopped running so hard and swinging so wildly from one thing to the next. I found a job that had good prospects for future promotion. I found an apartment that I could see myself staying in for longer than a few months. I found friends who were more than just drinking buddies.

Those first few years have morphed into a decade, ten whole years since that final scene in my father's office and everything that had gone before. The pain and loss and grief have reduced exponentially with each passing year, and now Clonmegan's just an ache deep inside me, so far embedded that I've learned to live with it and carry it around as I go about my life. Time is like a winter morning's mist, shrouding my memories of the dormered house where I spent the first eighteen years of my life; the bedroom I shared with Maeve, with its sloping roof and lavender-coloured walls, their exact shade becoming murky with the passing of time; the specific dimensions of the other rooms in the house, the ornaments on the mantelpiece, the pictures hanging on the walls and other small details, hazy and distorted; the smell of rain in the air, the sagging skies, the bright green grass in the garden. But some things I choose not to even try to remember, because I fear that my memories won't be blurred at all, but all too vivid to cope with.

Strangers often smile and ask where my accent's from.

‘Ireland,' I respond with a reciprocating smile yet a touch of brevity in my voice.

Sometimes they persevere. ‘What part of Ireland?'

‘The North.'

At this, the subject is quickly dropped. Australians are too polite to talk about religion or politics, and the North of Ireland involves both.

I walk on, past more pubs and people, and though I'm tired and feeling the effects of all the alcohol, I'm buoyed by a sense of happiness and belonging. There's nowhere I'd rather be than in this city. I love its diversity, its beat. I love the ever-present and eclectic smells of food, the labyrinth of hidden laneways and alleys, the blend of old and new, east and west. It's easy to become lost in Melbourne, to be sucked so far into its way of life that you forget who you are and where you come from. And that's what I like the best.

I yawn deeply as I wait for the tram. It's early on Monday morning, only 7 am, but there's a sizeable crowd waiting at the stop. Most of them are dressed like me in business suits and sunglasses, and hold fresh coffees in their hands. It's a beautiful morning in St Kilda, neither hot nor cold. The sun is coming up behind the skyline and when its full force is unleashed the temperature will rise to the high twenties.

The tram appears in the distance, covered in advertising pictures and slogans. Coffees are slugged back, empty paper cups tossed into a nearby rubbish bin. Handbags are unzipped and tickets located. The tram rocks in and the crowd, primed and impatient, surges forward to greet it.

I find standing space, smile at a man and woman who are so close it would be rude not to acknowledge them, and the tram takes off, gliding, clunking and squeaking. This never feels like
a journey to work. Sometimes I feel like a kid on one of those trackless trains at the zoo, or a tourist, gazing single-mindedly at the passing scenery as though I've never seen it before. There's something very basic and unpretentious about riding on the tram: hanging on to keep your balance, the jerky cornering after smooth stretches, the claustrophobic lack of space. But there's something cosmopolitan and urbane about it too: whirring through the streets to the heart of the city, standing close to strangers and seeing the colour of their eyes and the pores of their skin, and feeling as though you are part of the city rather than merely an onlooker.