21

 

 

 

‘Get one of these into you, my friend,’ Vanessa shouts over the party noise, before I’m even up the stairs. She’s standing in the front doorway, ready to meet people with a tray of drinks—green and crusty drinks in plastic cocktail glasses. ‘Frank made ’em. Brizgaritas, they’re called. I’m only supposed to have one. And what kind of birthday’s that, hey?’

She shrugs her shoulders and rolls her eyes at the injustices of the world and its mistreatment of seventeen-year-olds.

In the half-dark room behind her, Status Quo jumps into Suzi Quatro. The dancing in there is bouncing the needle all over a seventies compilation album, and I can’t wait till everyone gets the seventies out of their systems.

Ness leads me out the back, and I realise she’s taking me to the old people’s bit of the party. Frank, AJ, the parents, the neighbours, a cousin or two, Kerry from work.

‘I’ll leave you to it, hey?’ she says, as if my place has been found for me. ‘But I’ll be back later looking for you for a dance, all right?’

Ness has never seen me dance.

‘She’s a good one, that one,’ Kerry says, as Ness rejoins the indoor, interesting non-old section of the party. ‘A good-hearted girl.’

A good-hearted girl who, I now notice, is wearing exactly what she wore a week ago to Freebie Friday. It’s reassuring to know that we had special-occasion status, but maybe that was mainly because of Richie the Rat. Kerry is like a younger, less extreme Zel Todd. At least that’s how she seems to me, but Frank tells me, ‘No way, wouldn’t touch her.’ I don’t ask him why. If there’s some desirability difference between them, it’ll never mean much to me.

Small talk, small talk. That’s the next hour, but at least there’ll be none of last Saturday night’s photos and I’m not going to have to stay up until three to deliver a baby. It shouldn’t be called small talk, it should be called long talk. It’s not the amplitude that’s the problem, it’s the duration. However long it goes, it seems to go too long. And however small it is when it starts, it can’t get bigger. That’s the rule. Small talk can only dwindle into talk that’s even smaller. Unless it’s calm-before-the-storm small talk, and you’ve got photos to bring out, featuring a slightly blurry biscuit. But, no, tonight’s is much more like the talk I’m used to—small talk that’s slowly, witlessly killing time, another Friday night caught in dull company. If only a hundred bats would come along right now and shit on Frank and liven things up a little.

Chris, the carpet layer who lives next door, says, ‘Mate, I wouldn’t even try blue couch if I were you. It’ll never grow under your trees,’ and Dorothy’s brother Ted nods and hmmms, as if it’s a tough serious truth that’s only starting to sink in. Then Chris’s wife Narelle has a go at him about how many lights he left on before he came over and he says, ‘Yeah, sorry love. I didn’t have a free hand because of the beers.’

‘There’d be, what, six lights left on over there,’ she says. ‘What do you think this is—the bloody show?’

Six lights. And even if you scrunch your eyes up tight and block out all the words but let in the noise, you can’t come close to convincing yourself it’s any kind of substitute for one of those party scenes in a Woody Allen film. Witty, awkward balcony conversations, the view along the lights of Broadway. There isn’t, as far as I’m aware, one Woody Allen film that features a discussion about trying to grow grass under a Moreton Bay fig.

In Woody Allen films, No one is so suburban that they own a tree.

There are speeches, which is the Green family way. There are always toasts and speeches. Turn a little older, pass your exams, get a job—none of it goes unheralded. Big Artie asks for ‘a bit of shoosh’, and there’s the rather silly sound of maybe a dozen people tapping on plastic cups to help him get it. Vanessa stands next to him, grinning.

‘For those of you who don’t know me,’ Big Artie says, ‘I’m Arthur Green senior, Vanessa’s father. First, I’d like to thank you all for coming to wish my little girl a happy seventeenth. And I do hope you enjoy yourselves—and make sure you get your share of the dancing and eating and drinking. Now, we’re pretty proud of our Nessie, here. As a lot of you would know, Ness and school didn’t always see eye to eye, but we always knew she was a good’n. She’s now in her second year at Garden City Blooms and her boss Kerry tells me she’s a good worker and the customers have nothing but compliments for her. She’s also blossomed . . .’ pause for wry smile at own carefully planned corny pun . . . ‘into a bit of a sign writer for the food business. So if you’re out Taringa way and passing World of Chickens, that’s our Ness too. And on top of that, she tunes young Frankie’s car, ’cause he’s a lazy bugger and never took much of an interest.’ Pause for everyone to have a bit of a laugh at Frank, Frank to raise brizgarita glass in good-natured acknowledgment. ‘But we’ve got a special presentation for her tonight, and this is more than just birthday. It comes with an announcement. And that is that we’ve had a talk and, starting tomorrow, on weekends and days off from Kerry’s, Vanessa is now officially a member of the family firm, Green Loppers. That mightn’t mean a lot to some of you, but it means a lot to Ness and me. Neville, the shirt please.’

Nev steps forward with a new black shirt, folded as neatly and solemnly as a flag on Anzac Day. Big Artie shakes it open and there, over the logo, is the name Vanessa. Ness’s grin starts to quiver as she realises this is actually happening. She wipes her eyes and takes the shirt and gives Big Artie a hug.

‘Hey, there’s none of that bullshit in tree lopping, love,’ he says, but at the same time clapping a Popeye forearm around her and grinning too.

She shakes his hand and clears her throat. ‘Any chance of putting ‘climber’ under the logo?’

‘Now then. Don’t want you getting ahead of yourself. This is just weekends and days off, you know, for the moment. And we’ll see how it goes. You might not like it.’

‘Dad, watch out. I’m pretty sure I’m going to like it.’ She looks down at her feet, clears her throat again and looks up. ‘Well, this is the big one. Seventeen and a Loppers shirt, and both of them on the same day. You sure don’t get a lot of days like that. Now, there’s a lot of people to thank, but you know who you are. Like Dad said—school? Not my thing.’ She smirks and a few of her ex-school friends laugh. ‘Yeah, righto. Some of you knew that already. But Kerry helped out. She gave me a job and she’s taught me a thing or two, and that’s always good. There’s been a lot of big stuff in the last couple of weeks though, hasn’t there? So I’d like to thank Phil and his team from World of Chickens for giving me my big break and for backing me when I needed it. Which is Frank too, of course, the hotplate chicken chef. Sorry, famous hotplate chicken chef. But Phil’s the one who goes on those management retreats to the movies with Ron, and gets the big ideas happening, so thanks for that. And I’d like to say this has just been the best day. And it’s been the best for the whole day, apart from the middle eight hours when I was at work but even then it was pretty good. But before then, put it this way, guess who got the birthday call from Richie the Rat at the Bs this morning? Yep, it was me. I got the big burping birthday from the Rat Man himself. Thanks very much for that one, Frank. But most of all Dad. I’d like to thank Dad for tonight. Mum and Dad for tonight, but Dad for bringing me onto the team. And I won’t let you down, mate.’

She pulls the black Loppers shirt on over her blue top and the brooch at her neck shows through the undone collar.

‘Good on ya, Ness,’ Nev calls out gruffly, his rollie cigarette still sticking to his dry lower lip.

He starts to beat his hard work-chipped hands together in applause, and everyone else joins in.

‘All right, all right,’ Ness says, looking embarrassed and proud, waving her hands to slow the clapping down. ‘Let’s kill the lights and get the music back on, hey? Remember, Dad said he wanted some dancing.’

I need a new drink, so I head for the table we’re calling the bar. Before I get there, the main light in the lounge room goes off and Supertramp’s Breakfast in America starts to play.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ Frank says, ready to pour.

‘Anything other than one of those brizgaritas. Can’t guess where they would have come up with an idea like that.’

‘Oh really? I think they’re quite the thing on riverboats this time of year. Not that you’d ever get to benefit from that, Speedy.’

‘Better make it a Sprite. Don’t want to loosen my iron-clad self-control.’

‘Make mine one of those green ones,’ Vanessa says, coming up beside me. She holds the shirt-front out proudly, to show it off. ‘What do you reckon?’

‘Looks good. Looks like something you’ll be putting to good use.’

‘That’s right. I wanted you to be here for me getting this. This could be the start of something. I just get that feeling. Bloody flowers, hey? Things are looking up. Thanks, mate. Thanks for everything.’ She reaches out and shakes my hand firmly, then turns back to Frank. ‘Hey, where’s the bloody drink, bozo?’

‘Yeah, righto,’ he says, and pours her one.

‘Ta.’ She takes a mouthful, and dances off.

‘I thought she was only supposed to have one of those.’

‘So parental,’ he says. ‘And where has it got you?’

‘I’m beginning to wonder.’

‘Hey, the shirt, Ness’s shirt. The lopping stuff. You did that, didn’t you?’

‘I was something to do with it. But it’s not like she was hiding her interest.’

‘Well, thanks. I hope it works out. She doesn’t need an awful lot of strength for it, I guess, but look at those skinny arms . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘No, she might just do it. And it beats me climbing for a few hours here and there, and Dad sitting on his arse most of the week. Things, to be honest, are marginal at best. Sometimes, you don’t know what you’ve got right in front of your nose, do you? He’s a dumb bugger. Not exactly like my seventeenth, though. I think, when I was about fourteen, Dad picked someone else’s name off an old shirt with his fingernail and told me to get up the bloody tree.’

‘Which didn’t exactly fill you with excitement, I imagine. As opposed to this, which was more like the footage of Charles becoming Prince of Wales.’

‘Sure. Got that on a plate somewhere. Can’t complain, though. It got me the car, doing weekends and holidays the last two years of school, and it wasn’t a question of saving for half the car either. Anyway, it’s all Ness’s now, if she wants it. Let’s get out of here, away from this table. It’s someone else’s turn.’

He leads me through the party and out to the front balcony. It’s not as noisy here. He takes a mouthful of his drink and looks out across the street.

He leans forward on the railing and says, almost as if it isn’t to me, ‘I’ve got to tell you straight. That money from Zel? I really wanted not to need it so much, but it was a relief to get it. You might have been calling it hooker money, but you’ve been drinking it tonight. My parents’d have to have a long conversation with the bank before splashing out on a bottle of tequila at the moment. And it got me a second-hand Beischer and Mackay.’

‘I didn’t know that. I didn’t know things were like that.’

‘No, well, it’s not the kind of thing you go round talking about, is it? And me bringing in a bit of extra cash looked like a better option than them selling things, their plates and stuff. I couldn’t make them do that. Anyway, It’ll get us through to the holidays, and after that maybe things’ll be working out with Ness and the lopping. She’s never liked that florist job, has she?’

‘No. And I think she’s right. I think she’s going to like this. I really think it’s going to work for her. And, just seeing her in there, it does kind of put us cynical bastards in our place a bit.’

‘You know something? Something about Zel, and all that? Zel Todd is what my parents have never managed to be. Look at them. Look at them in there. Are you thinking style file? It’ll never happen, will it? They’re still battling, and right now it’s worse than it used to be. I have to come home with a box of burgers every shift, and we pretend I don’t. We don’t say anything, but dad reheats them and has them for lunch the next day. And I wanted to be part of something better. Something less hard, that’s all.’ He shrugs, as if the story’s now told. ‘I know it didn’t fit into your moral world, all the Zel stuff, but I never said I would, did I?’

‘No. Would you do it again?’ I’m asking it straight, just as a question, and he knows that.

He thinks about it for a while. ‘I doubt it. Too much in the way of consequences. It was all too hard on you. You poor fragile thing.’