down sterile corridors. Another Sunday visit to the familiar pastel walls and pungency of whatever chemicals they use to clean up after the dying. I’d received no warning that her left lung was giving out, that each breath was such an effort. I didn’t know this was the last time I’d ever take that long walk down sterile corridors.
and my complexion—powdery, pimply, more than my share of eczema—and I look like the kind of stooge who would tell a group of norps what’s what about computers then freeze to death simply by walking outdoors. I almost wish I needed glasses, just to round off the cliché.
Only a few steps from the courthouse someone calls my name.
‘ Jason. ’
It’s Perry, beaming through his sharp white features. While the rest of us are Siberian exiles cowering against the day, scurrying to overcrowded cafés or enduring the wind for the sake of a sad cigarette, Perry is fluid, even bouncing.
‘We’ve adjourned until Monday. Apparently Chapman and his team are going into talks after lunch. I think they’re going to settle.’
And I’m like, ‘Great.’
‘You got pretty nervous on the stand, didn’t you.’
And he fucking smiles at me.
‘It’s not nerves.’ I peer down to Spencer Street for a tram. If we’re adjourned then I can go home.
‘Didn’t I say you needn’t worry?’
‘No likelihood I’ll be called back?’
‘I’ll wager these proceedings are done. I’m surprised we’ve come this far. Poor old Chapman got his bubble burst with everything you had—’
He pulls from his robe a mobile phone, flashing silent yellow.
‘I’ve got to answer this. Look, Gary and the whole Revue cabal want to shout us out to lunch. I’ve suggested Nick’s. You’ll come, won’t you?’
‘Umm…’
Perry answers the phone.
‘Hello, Sarah? Just a tick.’ He lowers it to his chest. ‘Come on. This is all thanks to you, especially after such a wobbly start yesterday. They’re only going to shine your shoes for an hour while we eat.’
I picture it: a well-heated hugbox of posh food and warm red wine, the flattery and the back-slapping and the pride at carrying out the most crushing own of my career. Admiring fathers huddled and smiling, jockeying to bask in my genius and me the vital centre of it all…
‘I can’t. I’ve got a lunch meeting.’
In a flash his interest is gone. I am of no further use, and he and I will never meet again.
‘Right. See you.’ He turns and brings the phone back to his ear.
Moments later I’m still longing for a tram and the black-clad Melbourne lawyers are still bustling to their lunch spots when I see the mother and her boy come through the doors. He’s in his stroller now, blanketed in cotton; she moves as if obeying the instructions of some unseen hypnotist, tense with cold, wheeling the boy back to their ordinary life, partnerless and fatherless respectively.
I change trams at Swanston Street, take the 57 to Racecourse Road, get chips from the place near my flat, clutch them tight for their warmth and chew on a few as I hike up the driveway, bathe in the hikikomori relief of coming home for the last time today.
5
Marnie hears me as I approach, the way she always does. It’s not like she sits and listens for me to come home, but I’m saying she might as well do that. The door to her flat swings open, the one across the stairs from mine, and she steps out with her tallness and her hair coloured deep red and the usual quizzical smile like it’s weird how I even exist.
‘Hiya, Stevey.’
‘Hey, want a chip?’
Marnie waits tables for a living. At first I was only friends with Marnie because scorning your neighbour is like scorning your waiter: it’s gruesome to imagine the ways they might exact their revenge. Also, I thought more eyes on my flat would be added security for the hardware I’ve got inside. But over time we’ve become friends. Even good friends. Whenever she says ‘Stevey’ I feel a flutter in my stomach.
and my complexion—powdery, pimply, more than my share of eczema—and I look like the kind of stooge who would tell a group of norps what’s what about computers then freeze to death simply by walking outdoors. I almost wish I needed glasses, just to round off the cliché.
Only a few steps from the courthouse someone calls my name.
‘ Jason. ’
It’s Perry, beaming through his sharp white features. While the rest of us are Siberian exiles cowering against the day, scurrying to overcrowded cafés or enduring the wind for the sake of a sad cigarette, Perry is fluid, even bouncing.
‘We’ve adjourned until Monday. Apparently Chapman and his team are going into talks after lunch. I think they’re going to settle.’
And I’m like, ‘Great.’
‘You got pretty nervous on the stand, didn’t you.’
And he fucking smiles at me.
‘It’s not nerves.’ I peer down to Spencer Street for a tram. If we’re adjourned then I can go home.
‘Didn’t I say you needn’t worry?’
‘No likelihood I’ll be called back?’
‘I’ll wager these proceedings are done. I’m surprised we’ve come this far. Poor old Chapman got his bubble burst with everything you had—’
He pulls from his robe a mobile phone, flashing silent yellow.
‘I’ve got to answer this. Look, Gary and the whole Revue cabal want to shout us out to lunch. I’ve suggested Nick’s. You’ll come, won’t you?’
‘Umm…’
Perry answers the phone.
‘Hello, Sarah? Just a tick.’ He lowers it to his chest. ‘Come on. This is all thanks to you, especially after such a wobbly start yesterday. They’re only going to shine your shoes for an hour while we eat.’
I picture it: a well-heated hugbox of posh food and warm red wine, the flattery and the back-slapping and the pride at carrying out the most crushing own of my career. Admiring fathers huddled and smiling, jockeying to bask in my genius and me the vital centre of it all…
‘I can’t. I’ve got a lunch meeting.’
In a flash his interest is gone. I am of no further use, and he and I will never meet again.
‘Right. See you.’ He turns and brings the phone back to his ear.
Moments later I’m still longing for a tram and the black-clad Melbourne lawyers are still bustling to their lunch spots when I see the mother and her boy come through the doors. He’s in his stroller now, blanketed in cotton; she moves as if obeying the instructions of some unseen hypnotist, tense with cold, wheeling the boy back to their ordinary life, partnerless and fatherless respectively.
I change trams at Swanston Street, take the 57 to Racecourse Road, get chips from the place near my flat, clutch them tight for their warmth and chew on a few as I hike up the driveway, bathe in the hikikomori relief of coming home for the last time today.
5
Marnie hears me as I approach, the way she always does. It’s not like she sits and listens for me to come home, but I’m saying she might as well do that. The door to her flat swings open, the one across the stairs from mine, and she steps out with her tallness and her hair coloured deep red and the usual quizzical smile like it’s weird how I even exist.
‘Hiya, Stevey.’
‘Hey, want a chip?’
Marnie waits tables for a living. At first I was only friends with Marnie because scorning your neighbour is like scorning your waiter: it’s gruesome to imagine the ways they might exact their revenge. Also, I thought more eyes on my flat would be added security for the hardware I’ve got inside. But over time we’ve become friends. Even good friends. Whenever she says ‘Stevey’ I feel a flutter in my stomach.