Thinking about my fucked-up family makes me think about Oli, one of the few with Harris blood in his veins who approaches something like normal. Our semi-regular conversations help me feel less like a bad brother, and bad son, and all-round bad human.
I take the Telstra SIM card out of my mobile phone and replace it with my old Virgin SIM card so I can find Oli’s number and write it down. Then I have to put the Telstra SIM back in, because they’re the only provider with reception up here. I make so few phone calls I shouldn’t have bothered getting it — but it came in a package with my wireless dongle, and without wireless there’d be no internet, and without internet I’d be back to conjuring my own sexual fantasies, surely a violation of some human right that has always existed since it was discovered by a group of UN lawyers and pronounced immanent and immutable.
I head out to the only bit of lawn at Spinifex City. I dial Oli’s number. It rings.
“Hello?”
“Oli, it’s me. How you doing?”
“Nicko! Hey man. What’s up?”
“Oh, just saying hi from prison.”
“What? Shit, man, did you get in some sort of — ”
“No, shithead, refugee prison. The detention centre.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. Hey, listen, I’m driving so I’m gonna chuck you on speaker phone. Hold on.”
A moment later I hear the fuzz of ambient noise.
“Yep.”
“Jen’s in the car, too.”
“Hi Nick,” says a familiar voice.
Jen is Oli’s fiancée, but I haven’t been around to get to know her as well as I should. I think she has a perception of me as some fringe-dwelling crazy, but a friendly fringe-dwelling crazy. Anyway, I like her. She’s good to Oli. And she’s got a sense of humour.
“Hi Jen. How’s things?”
“Good. We’re on a date. So, what’s it like persecuting refugees?”
“Pays well. Besides, they’re not refugees. They’re clients. I’m actually in the service industry.”
“Is that so?” says Oli. “Hey, maybe after this you can start a bed and breakfast. What do you think, Jen, can you see Nick in his little white picket cottage putting mints on pillows?”
“I can see a customer asking for an extra pillow and I can see Nick telling his customer to go fuck themselves,” says Jen.
I laugh. She’s probably right.
“So what’s it really like there? Is it as bad as the stuff we see on the news?” asks Oli.
“No, it’s not really like that. It’s weird. It’s actually really low-key and cruisy most of the time, and the detainees seem to be pretty good value. I wouldn’t say it’s a nice place to be, though. I mean, it is what it is: a low-security prison in a desert. But I’m not risking my life or anything.”
“You going to stick with it?” says Oli.
“You mean, am I going to quit like I always do?”
“No, I didn’t — ”
“Look. When I want a job, I get a job. When I don’t want the job any more, I leave the job. That to me sounds like a rational model for living your life.”
“If you have no possessions and no kids and no commitments,” yells Jen, presumably because she thinks I can’t hear her, but I can hear her fine.
“You know what? That’s pretty much a perfect description of me. But anyway, I’m not quitting. The money’s too good. I’m gonna be rich.”
“Whoa, Nicko, rich? Have they been brainwashing you?” says Oli.
“No. But they have been paying me two grand-plus a week.”
“Far out. That’s more than I make.”
“Yeah. I figure I stick it out for six months and I’ve got enough cash to pay off all my debts, and enough for a trip to Eurasia. I’m thinking Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan.”
“Basically all the Stans, hey?” says Oli.
“Maybe even Iran.”
“Yeah? Westerners are allowed in?”
“Apparently.”
“You’ll have to grow a beard. Oh, that’s right …”
“Yeah, fuck you. Anyway, you should come. You too, Jen,” I call out.
“Gee, thanks, Nick. Invite me to a place where I’m considered property and have to cover my face in a veil.”
We chat and banter for a while, talking about my job, my trip to South America, about Oli and Jen’s plans for an extension to their little cottage in Melbourne. Then there’s a brief silence and I hear what sounds like Jen whispering something to Oli. Then I’m pretty sure she hits him.
“Hey, so, Nick,” says Oli, “you should call Mum.”
“Umm, yeah. I will.”
“No, really, you should call her.”
“Ok.”
“Promise me you’re going to call her.”
“I’m going to call her,” I say.
“When?”
“Fuck, dude, when I feel like it.”
“How about soon as you get off the phone with me?”
“Why are you on my arse?”
“Well, when’s the last time you spoke to Mum?” Oli asks.
“I dunno. Not that long ago.”
“Nicko, it was January. Almost a year ago.”
“Was it? I’ve been sending postcards.”
“Just call her. She wants you to call her.”
“Did she say that to you?”
“Not in so many words. But she wants you to call her,” says Oli.
“All right. Jesus. I’ll call her.”
“Good. Good. Hey, we’re pulling into a carpark, so I better get off the phone. I love you, man.” Oli is a lot more sentimental than me.
“All right. I’ll talk to you. Seeya guys.”
I hang up, and almost immediately remember I was going to say Merry Christmas or Happy New Year or some shit, but forgot. It doesn’t matter. They’re bullshit days anyway. It’s probably a good thing that at Curtin the management is — calendrically-speaking — completely unprejudiced. Every day is the same up here, and that’s fine by me.
I pace the lawn, juggling the mobile phone in my hand as I contemplate what to do next. Calling one’s mother should not be this hard. I tell myself that it’s all in my mind. Mum wants me to call. If Oli says so, it’s true.
But I’ve conjured all these recriminations. Barbs that no person will ever stick me with. They don’t need to. I’m a practised self-flagellator. Ultimately, it always seems easier in the moment to push it away, yet the more I do the worse it gets.
It’s been five years in the making. At first I kept in touch with phone calls every few weeks, then every few months. I started sending postcards instead. That way I never had to hear about the others. I never had to hear about how some Harris was destroying their own life and managing to drag everyone around them into their misery, and I didn’t have to think about my place in it all. I just don’t want to deal with it, any of it.
Regular contact gradually frittered down to what it is now. Once or twice yearly. Yet when I do call, she never judges me, never asks me to come home, never mentions how much my absence hurts her, and somehow all of that makes me feel so much worse till now … going back seems impossible. Even calling seems impossible.
But at least I send postcards.
I tell myself I’ll call Mum tomorrow, or maybe on my next day off. I head back into my tin shed, lie down, switch my lamp off and close my eyes. I can still get maybe an hour’s sleep before having to get ready for night shift. It’s going to suck.