day in companionable silence. No pressure to attempt conversations that are doomed to crash in a ball of flames. No speech whatsoever. We ask each other if we’d like another beer with either a grunt or a gesture. We quite happily occupy the living room together all day, day after day. If one of us has to leave the room or carry out some task around the house he’ll periodically call out for a progress report from wherever he is.
‘Score?’
‘Seven-fa!’
‘Aaaahhgh.’
‘Clean-bowled!’
‘Ooraahhgh!’
And so on.
January 21
Got a postcard from Rohan. He’s on Mykonos. Having a ball. Just as well I am at a point of maturity whereby I’m happy that he is having a good time, rather than resenting his good fortune. He’ll be back at the end of the month and has to start looking for a place to live in Newcastle – he got that graduate position he applied for. Of course he did. Some people seem to have their lives sorted out and are going about living them. And you know what? I’m happy for them. Really.
January 25
The work days are long, especially when it’s sunny outside. Ed and I have set ourselves the target of making up a new in-joke at the beginning of the week and having it instituted across the casual staff by week’s end. Young Amelia is the quickest of the lot, by a long shot.
There’s this egotistical little shit of a checkout operator by the name of Jeremy. He’s all of fifteen or sixteen and doesn’t he reckon he’s a player. He holds court down at the service desk on Thursday nights to a seemingly unending stream of private-school girls. Sells them cigarettes, no doubt, and flirts like it’s going out of fashion. Bianca flirts with him shamelessly, which fuels his ego even more.
I always thought that being completely superficial was mostly the realm of girls. I can see that Bianca, Celene and, in my rare moments of lucidity, Kathy, are pretty plastic when you get down to it. Jeremy is their male equivalent. I can’t stand him. He doesn’t have a pair of breasts to redeem him. After work I see him hanging around the food court with his skanky minions, wearing a baseball cap backwards – no shit.
Amelia is Jeremy’s opposite. She’s real. She’s literate. I like her a lot. Or maybe I just like the idea of her. Because she’s so young that she’s out of the question, I can mentally make her into the Perfect-Woman-in-Waiting. Is that what I’m doing?
Moving swiftly on.
Yesterday morning I started work at 7 a.m., helping out in Perishables until the store opened at 8 a.m. I worked through till close at 9 p.m., by which time I was climbing the walls. At five to nine, I was minding the service desk while Ed was out for a smoke. Bianca was busy making some careful adjustments to Jeremy’s bow tie and gestured to me to do the closing message over the store PA system. It usually goes a little something like this: ‘Attention customers, the time is now five minutes to nine and this store will cease trading in approximately five minutes. Please conclude your purchases and make your way to the checkouts. Thank you for shopping with Woolworths, the Fresh Food People.’ I sometimes wake up at night saying it. Anyway, I picked up the microphone and instead of doing the closing message, I started belting out Khe Sanh . I got as far as there being no V-day heroes in 1973 before Bianca wrestled the microphone from me and spat chips.
While she shrieked at me with Jeremy smirking behind her, the PA crackled to life again and Ed’s voiced boomed through the store. He continued where I had left off for a good few lines until someone wrestled the back dock mic off him. Ed and I are as one.
It turned out there weren’t any customers left in the store.
January 30
Rohan’s back from Europe. Going to the pub with him, Mick and Suze. Now.
February 8
Uni resumes in three weeks. Rohan has found a flat in Newcastle and we are going up for his house-warming party next week. He starts the new
‘Score?’
‘Seven-fa!’
‘Aaaahhgh.’
‘Clean-bowled!’
‘Ooraahhgh!’
And so on.
January 21
Got a postcard from Rohan. He’s on Mykonos. Having a ball. Just as well I am at a point of maturity whereby I’m happy that he is having a good time, rather than resenting his good fortune. He’ll be back at the end of the month and has to start looking for a place to live in Newcastle – he got that graduate position he applied for. Of course he did. Some people seem to have their lives sorted out and are going about living them. And you know what? I’m happy for them. Really.
January 25
The work days are long, especially when it’s sunny outside. Ed and I have set ourselves the target of making up a new in-joke at the beginning of the week and having it instituted across the casual staff by week’s end. Young Amelia is the quickest of the lot, by a long shot.
There’s this egotistical little shit of a checkout operator by the name of Jeremy. He’s all of fifteen or sixteen and doesn’t he reckon he’s a player. He holds court down at the service desk on Thursday nights to a seemingly unending stream of private-school girls. Sells them cigarettes, no doubt, and flirts like it’s going out of fashion. Bianca flirts with him shamelessly, which fuels his ego even more.
I always thought that being completely superficial was mostly the realm of girls. I can see that Bianca, Celene and, in my rare moments of lucidity, Kathy, are pretty plastic when you get down to it. Jeremy is their male equivalent. I can’t stand him. He doesn’t have a pair of breasts to redeem him. After work I see him hanging around the food court with his skanky minions, wearing a baseball cap backwards – no shit.
Amelia is Jeremy’s opposite. She’s real. She’s literate. I like her a lot. Or maybe I just like the idea of her. Because she’s so young that she’s out of the question, I can mentally make her into the Perfect-Woman-in-Waiting. Is that what I’m doing?
Moving swiftly on.
Yesterday morning I started work at 7 a.m., helping out in Perishables until the store opened at 8 a.m. I worked through till close at 9 p.m., by which time I was climbing the walls. At five to nine, I was minding the service desk while Ed was out for a smoke. Bianca was busy making some careful adjustments to Jeremy’s bow tie and gestured to me to do the closing message over the store PA system. It usually goes a little something like this: ‘Attention customers, the time is now five minutes to nine and this store will cease trading in approximately five minutes. Please conclude your purchases and make your way to the checkouts. Thank you for shopping with Woolworths, the Fresh Food People.’ I sometimes wake up at night saying it. Anyway, I picked up the microphone and instead of doing the closing message, I started belting out Khe Sanh . I got as far as there being no V-day heroes in 1973 before Bianca wrestled the microphone from me and spat chips.
While she shrieked at me with Jeremy smirking behind her, the PA crackled to life again and Ed’s voiced boomed through the store. He continued where I had left off for a good few lines until someone wrestled the back dock mic off him. Ed and I are as one.
It turned out there weren’t any customers left in the store.
January 30
Rohan’s back from Europe. Going to the pub with him, Mick and Suze. Now.
February 8
Uni resumes in three weeks. Rohan has found a flat in Newcastle and we are going up for his house-warming party next week. He starts the new
Similar Books
