You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead (30 page)

TO MARIEKE, FOR HER MEMOIR

I'd had some trouble with a younger single female in recent years. She kept me waiting for nine hundred and twenty-seven days for the return of the sex we began with, and came late, or didn't turn up to, a hundred of the writing sessions—in Adelaide, the Adelaide Hills, Melbourne and Sydney—of a film based on her life called
Honeymoon Girl
and didn't turn up to meet the producers, actors and funding bodies either.

So when I learned, six years after the event, that Marieke Hardy had named her dog after me, after I had met her and she had said, ‘You write like Hemingway,' at the 2020, I was attracted to her chest and her intellect—in that order—but feared she'd be like the previous one, a glittering tease.

And when I drove from Gosford to see
Hunger
with her, grope her and force her down on my dick and SHE DIDN'T TURN UP and couldn't be reached on her mobile, this seemed to be true. Her excuse, that I hadn't confirmed it, was either valid or not, but I was very angry, not just because of my geographical inconvenience but because she was, or seemed, exactly like Tracey Rohrsheim in all aspects including beauty, wit and insanity, and I wrote her off.

Things changed a bit with her texts of apology and her continuing public utterance of her adoration of me.

She broke up with her bloke and bought me a superb meal she paid for in three figures, but there were three panes of clear glass between us and it was clear no sex would occur though she was famous for spreading it around, like Jacki Weaver when young, with good humour and great intelligence.

I decided to leave her alone, in every sense. I did this three or four times. Then I thought she might be helpful in getting me on television and kept in touch with her. I gave her a book she hadn't read, and a play she still hasn't read, and a series pilot with a role for her in it she hasn't read either.

What is a coquette?

Well, like Audrey Hepburn, a similar girl with a smaller chest, in
Breakfast at Tiffany's
. What one character calls a
real
phoney.

It would be different if we lived in the same town. We'd be meeting regularly on Monday nights and reading out paragraphs of great books to each other.

But geography, old age, fatness and (yes) intermittent impotence has intervened.

Disappointed? Oh yes. Still keen? Less so. Think she's gorgeous? Yes. And brilliant? Absolutely.

And so it goes . . .

An afterword
by my ex-boyfriend Tim

When I first went to her place, she sat me down with a premixed can of gin and tonic and pulled out a book by Ivan Brunetti—the graphic artist. She said,‘I like how beautiful this is . . . he writes about suicide the whole time.' I looked up at her. How strange it seemed to me to find these things beautiful. Where I was from suicide was sad, dark and troubled, not really associated with beautiful. But this small woman, with deep brown eyes and a cluttered flat that looked like Sherlock Holmes's place mixed with the British Museum, was pulling me into a strange sort of fix.

We fell in love not long after, propelled by a shared interest in the people who railed against and defied the mundane. Writers like Bukowski and Fante, Flannery O'Connor and John Cheever. The ones who write about the sad, the bad, the mad. I certainly was exposed to many things I normally would have missed if not for her—and, I hope, vice versa. We travelled together, lived together, moved houses together, moved interstate together, all for a long while. She is one of my best friends.

We had a sometimes difficult relationship, two personalities that clashed, but I don't want to talk about that here—that is for us. And, though the harder moments were hard, we both knew we had found something very special together and the sweet times will be with me always.

In any relationship, you see people very closely and I had been witness to a lot of her trouble, but the task of writing a book was something I strongly kept urging her to do. And so, stories started taking shape and some were finished, which was wonderful. When talking about this book she was to write, she kept telling me she wanted to write about the truth and the ‘hard' things—again, something we both admired in others' work.

Some things you can only do alone, I guess, and there are secrets inside her, still hidden from me. I have tried to learn not to shy away from her because of that; she has told me so many secrets already.

Late last year, we broke up. It was complicated and tiring—mostly achingly frustrating. I had to go and find someplace else to live. I was through with the thought of perpetual and confused heartbreak. I had to try and move on. Which involved a lot of drinking and it was a sad time. It still is some days.

To see myself in print feels like I'm a ‘character', and that's a strange feeling. Going to Bob Ellis's home was hilarious, probably because we were both a bit nervous. I was in hysterics for the most part. I find the prostitute story very funny too, and I admire the strength of truth in her words.

The potential reaction from friends and family to some stories makes me feel uneasy sometimes, probably because I don't want them to misjudge her. To be brutally honest and frank takes a lot of balls and it's very easy for other people to sit safely on the other side and judge. But it'll be okay. It always is, somehow.

The darkness, I've learnt—after that first time at her joint with Brunetti—is as present as the light, and the mundane and ‘normal' get too much attention. Some things won't go away and they should be celebrated.

Thank you, darling Marieke.

Acknowledgements

Heartfelt thankyous:

Tim, Gabi, Gen, Mitch, Sugar, Fluffy, Booky, Hotman, Slam, Luscy, Sime, Bel, Alice, The Conti, Michaela McGuire, Lee Sandwith, Benjamin Law, Lorelei Vashti, Kirsty Fisher, Dan Kelly, Larky, Claire Collins, Women of Letters, Lindsay McDougall, Edgar's Mission, Ben Ball, Ronnie Scott, First Tuesday Book Club, The Bubble, Jo Lyons, Jane Palfreyman, d.a. calf, The Book Grocer, and a dog named Bob Ellis.

Oh, and Mum and Dad . . . if we're still on speaking terms. x