Waking Up with Strangers
(an excerpt)

by Daniel Gloag

1.

The great Australian nothingness rushed past out the window of the bus. Rohan leaned his forehead against the brown tinted glass; it bounced and jarred but didn't hurt him. The gesture was more of an affectionate one, emblematic of the love he bore to the country. Posts stuck up from the tarmac, behind them was dry scrub and the stretching figures of gumtrees. It all dashed past as a smear in the night.

Rohan also bore a terrific smell, the result of his big body unshowered in the summer heat for three days. Beer and kebabs were on his breath. His short black hair was unkempt, his Saxon face unshaven. A broad grin stretched the skin on his cheeks. The smile provoked caution in the other passengers. They looked upon his back with curiosity. Subconsciously they felt through their handbags for credit cards, money.

All night from Melbourne to Sydney Rohan didn't sleep, despite once trying to curl into the double seats like a wombat. What had made him so happy?

The next morning he astounded all the labourers at the building site. 'Haven't slept a wink,' he said. They'd come to expect this sort of thing from Rohan. He was known as good value. A top bloke.

'Weren't you going down to Melbourne mate?' asked one of his colleagues, pulling on his steelcaps.

'Yeah, I was visiting my aunt. Aunty Fitzgerald.'

'What's she feeding you, raw coffee?'

Rohan just smiled. 'Nah, better than that.'

'You've been on the chems then, they've kept you up.' said the same colleague, now reaching for his hard hat, already realising that this time at least, Rohan was on a peculiar natural high.

'No, this has to do with a lady.'

'Oh right, good on you,' the workmate said. It was notable that there would be no boasting about this one, no mateful exaggerations, no salacious details.

With a grin on his face, Rohan was already striding up the stairs, to where blue sky shone through a square hole in the concrete.

 

2.

That evening, early spring, he loped west from the walls of Central Station. All along the street people were making eyes at each other. Checking each other up and down. Making furtive glances at pantses. Adjusting their eyelids in certain ways to insinuate 'see you in your dreams baby', moving the eyebrows to say 'you're cute, next life then'. Everyone was smiling at one another. Rohan even paused to let cars go by before him and looked in on the drivers. The look he sent was one of total benevolence. It was a 'thanks for playing, but I'm not today' sort of look.

Then he was stepping up the brief grey stairs to the house and bounding in through the open doorway to the lounge. The sun was beginning to set and a desert-hot wind blew in from the yard, rustling the leaves of the neighbour's arching fruit trees. The floral print curtain which hung vertically along the window rose in the dry gust like a beckoning hand. The room was dark. The paint-smattered carpet was dusty. Simone sat on the couch, munching into an iceberg lettuce. Her big eyes rose to meet Rohan's. She was in a delicate mood. He didn't notice.

'Guess what!'

'Uh?'

'I've met someone.'

'I've met someone too.'

'Really! Wow! Our stars must be aligned or something.'

He paused and strutted mischievously about the room, savouring the moment. Simone mused that his profile was slightly reminiscent of Napoleon's. He had the demeanour of a constipated child that was incongruously happy. It was obvious that he wanted to break out and talk, but still he clung to a sense of dignity. Simone had only to proffer her words like a pin to a balloon. Then the words would gutter up through his hoary throat. She put the lettuce down on the table.

'Okay tell me.'

'Have you been to Melbourne? It's niiice. The weather's a bit of how yer doing, not like here, but they have beer in cafes. Not like home but still, right good set up I was thinking. And the women. Well they ain't so snobby as Sydney.'

'I thought you were visiting some long lost relo. You were dreading this.'

'Of course, fuck, that was terrible. The old girl was a real spook, but I could see she was needing to be relieved of some dough. I sat through tea and classical music with her. We went out to dinner in the posh bit of town. Half the time I was thinking, will she, won't she, then, at the last moment, she lays two hundred dollars on me. She says, if you're ever in real trouble Rohan, come down and see me. I couldn't believe my luck.'

'Well, you don't need to beg money off her. You're completely capable.'

'But I want to get settled see? And now I need all the dough I can find. I'm on the up Simmy.' He paused. His nostrils flared.

'Oh go on, tell me.'

'There was this cafe, right. Near the station. I went there on the way in and out. There was a real good thing going on there, music, beer. And the waitress was all upon me. I couldn't believe it! I think it was the tales that won her over, you know how you said about me having good story telling abilities? She said, okay, come back in tomorrow if you want to see me. Next day we walk all around the river, she pointing out all the best stuff cos I haven't been there before and we walked into the gardens and sat there all afternoon. She even likes Premier League!'

'Rohan, I'm so happy for you.'

'And then we went to see a band in this bar which was all purple and had old seats. She has dark hair which bobs around, and her buttocks, wow.'

'Yeah happy Rohan.'

'Okay. Okay. You tell me yours now.'

'What?'

'You said you'd met someone too.'

'I meant I'd met someone in my life. Not in a romantic special thing.'

'Righto then. Want to go to the pub? I've got money!'

'Nah, think I'll just go out for a bit of a wander hey.'

'Oh look, look, look. I'm sorry! Just because there's a new lady in my life, doesn't mean I don't still love you too.'

Rohan beamed at her squeamishly from the opposite side of the room. He was tall and folded his hands behind his bum. Suddenly he appeared very camp.

Angular, boyish Simone put a corduroy jacket around her shoulders and walked affectedly from the house. She felt a surge of relief at the sight of the lush Sydney dusk with its backed-up traffic and red tail lights on cars. They gleamed narcotically in distraction. It was a temporary emotion. She began to think about Rohan and his new girlfriend. What a drag.

 

3.

Simone wandered the night city streets. She passed the illuminated monstrosity of the golf driving range by way of a grassy knoll and went down through the avenues of Surry Hills to stand outside the Hordern Pavilion. She walked long distances quite often at night. She liked to walk around alone and do things that girls didn't always do, like piss in bushes and talk to strangers. Tonight however, she was more thoughtful.

Simone had never been in love, and she was starting to think that the whole thing was a hoax. She'd never had a romance, she only had things which she imaginatively dubbed as 'faux-mances'. They generally made you bewildered and melancholy, but had the same kind of shape as the stuff that went on in the movies.

The most recent faux-mance involved a younger man named George. Simone and George had engaged in a Chinese dinner at the salubrious Singapore Gourmet, followed by cocktails which neither of them could really afford at Kuletos. George lived in a recently designed apartment complex beside Southern Cross drive. The walls ran plushly down to the carpet which still smelt of the factory it was produced in. The plain kitchen bench was adorned with candles, two gerberas and a laptop computer. Now that she was here, Simone was eager to be somewhere else.

He decided to watch television. George asked her politely which channel she preferred. She liked none. He began to watch Channel Ten. It was showing a late screening of the Poseidon Adventure, starring Gene Hackman as the courageous priest. Whenever the ads came on they showed naked women stretching their legs above pay-by-the-minute telephone numbers. George edged a little closer on the sticky vinyl lounge.

Not that things would have been much different on a date with Rohan. He had a good raw energy, and she was glad to live with him. But to see him so obviously smitten made her feel left out. There was no shortage of people who liked Simone, but none inspired the feelings of consummation that television had led her to believe one found in love. The latest admirer was Rasha. Rasha was a university girl who dressed ostentatiously, wore a shaved head and was angry.

Simone leaned against the knobbly trunk of a fig tree in the darkness, wishing vaguely that she was still hooked on nicotine. Then she could roll a cigarette and have something to do. If only there was a sign to give her direction! She began walking home. An hour or two of isolation was usually cooling off enough. She was twenty-two years old and had no idea what she was going to do with her life. The apprehension regarding her future was nothing new. Her gambling genius father had discussed it with her several years ago. Together they'd made some sort of pact (or was it a bet?) that by the time she reached age twenty-three she'd have to have something to show for herself. She'd have to get serious then. They'd both agreed on this, and drunkenly went out to get the cursed number tattooed on her ankle. Now the impossible deadline was only four months away: January 2000.

Simone had inherited from her father her love of risk. She closed her eyes as she took a pedestrian crossing. When she reached the other side she opened them again. No speeding drunk driver had killed her. She did wish these things would happen sometimes. Then her friends would flock morosely to her funeral wearing their best clothes. Rohan, she imagined, would care enough to bring along some of her favourite music. Little Zachary would be dressed in purest black. Someone would get up and make a speech about wasted talent.

Or maybe they'd have the sense to cremate her. Then there wouldn't be any burial with the common folk in some run of the mill cemetery. They'd take her urn to the cliffs above Waverley and let the ashes blow out into the ocean. Afterwards there'd be a wake at which everyone would drink heavily. Maybe the Prime Minister would call a day of national mourning.

 

4.

Theirs was not the most striking terrace on Algernon Street. It was neither in the best nor worst condition, neither the prettiest nor the ugliest. It was however, the most amiable abode. There was usually a disarray of bicycles shackled to the iron fence and a couch with the springs failing pushed up against the wall. Above the couch, tea cups and an ashtray nestled between the bars of the window ledge. The brown door had been painted many different colours, and the surface never prepared. Where the brown was flaking off, green was revealed beneath it. Before that it was red. A faded sticker denouncing the Gulf War was beginning to peel from the letter box.

The railings upon the balcony had been replaced by wooden beams. Up here was a white double door. The stone walls beside it were the colour of metal. Plants might be visible from the street below; sometimes they were green, sometimes dead. The roof was corrugated iron, and rusting. Thick black electricity cables ran from one corner.

A neighbourhood cat would bring dead minor bird nestlings to this doorstep more frequently than other houses on the street. From this house, the most enticing and original music would be heard; the songs were never the same. In front of this house would be the strangest objects for community collection. The most unlikely combinations of cooking smells would waft from the doorway. If ever a homeless tramp or wanderer happened along Algernon Street (and they did), it was often their house, number twenty-three, which they gazed at the most longingly.

Inside the house there were four bedrooms, plus a loungeroom, a kitchen, and a laundry and bathroom in one. There was also an attractive stair closet. The first bedroom was on the immediate left, looking in past the front door. The other three were all upstairs, with their doors all adjacent by the top of the stairs. The master bedroom was large and fronted onto the balcony. The middle upstairs room was very small and narrow and the last was medium size with a view of apricot trees.

The house had been occupied by students and young people for a very long time. The evidence was in the form of poorly thought-out repairs. Most of the walls had holes in them where nails had been bashed in to hang pictures. The owner of the house spent most of her time travelling outside of Australia. She had completely forgotten about this particular piece of property. And the real estate agents took things easy. They never paid for repairs and never upped the rent. So the house was just passed on from tenants to tenants.

 

5.

Rohan came from Bristol, England. At the age of three, Rohan was almost savaged by a pit bull terrier. The resulting tabloid features brought him fame and notoriety in the playground, accompanied by the nickname 'Pit Bull'. After some years it was forgotten that it was Rohan who was battered by the dog, only the 'Pit Bull' remained.

His two sisters married stockbrokers, and Rohan's mother arranged for him to study at art school in London. 'You just need to pick up your grades a little. alright a lot.' That someone had been arranging plans behind his back infuriated him. He was in fact running with a team of petty thieves and was having his hair peroxided the next morning. Rohan had minimal aptitude as an artist, but it happened that this plan made him eligible for student benefits.

London was different to what the young Rohan had expected. He lasted only a short time in art school, due to his penchant for crudity. He presented a mobile of small dead animals for his first exhibition, along with the outlines of an intention to move into dead mammals and fish. His teachers laughed at him, and he was forced to leave the school. Several years later he was remembered in the wake of new exhibitions appearing at the Tate Modern. 'Perhaps,' they clucked over tea in the staffroom, 'he was actually a visionary!'

He'd left the school quietly, but angry on the inside. Several days after his failure the front windows of the gallery were put in with cinder blocks. The oafish frame, countered by a beguiling smile that was to characterise his appearance for the rest of his life, was already prominent. He was fully grown, bigger than average and had a fag hanging from his mouth. His student benefits were cut off and he was waiting in line at the Department of Social Security.

Rohan was now enamoured with the London squatting movement. He advertised his breaking and entering abilities on cafe noticeboards and was responsible for the opening of many new squats. He thought that this was helping people, thought that he'd found his environment, until he became too involved in drugs.

Squats were supremely convenient for drug dealers. It was all about the Jamaicans, Italians and the Dutch, everyone selling and buying hash, crack, smack, acid, amphetamines and ecstasy. Rohan stopped indulging in the smorgasboard of chemicals and started selling them (in theory). Within a year or two he fell in with violent criminals for whom he had no strategy. He was paranoid and afraid for his safety.

He wrote and telephoned his now distant family in Bristol, asking for money and advice. He envisaged himself on his knees in one of those ghastly country homes his sisters lived in.

They were prepared to buy him a plane ticket enema. To the Antipodes in fact, where there was an Aunt Fitzgerald to accommodate him. Hopefully his crushed pride would be obscured by the vast distances involved. Rohan began polishing his convict jokes.

Farewell to old England forever, farewell to my rum culls as well.

With the exception of some predictable expeditions into France and Holland, it was the first time that Rohan had been, as they say, abroad. He decided to visit a friend in Sydney first off, an old drug-dealing partner who was living in Kings Cross.

The city glowed in a way that he had not expected, even in winter. Sunlight illuminated every surface of the street and enriched every colour with brilliance. Metal posts gleamed, even the shadows were rich chocolate. The sky was an unfamiliar wistful blue, the clouds enormous and tattered at their edges by a wild, sprightly wind. The days mesmerised him. The Kings Cross friend put up with Rohan for three days, then ejected him. By now Rohan was in love with Australia, and a pain in the neck to look after.

He hardly slept. He dashed about. He gave up smoking. He ate fruit, became libidinous. One afternoon he was walking down King Street marvelling at the species of human the city sustained and displaying a particular fascination for the females. Wrapped around a pole that was already burgeoning with posters and flyers was an ad for a room to rent. The flyer took him to Algernon Street. He thought that the house was something perfectly in line with his new personality.

 

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