CHAPTER 31
Archie’s not the kind of guy who people easily forget.
He’s big. He has a good jaw. He has a bit of a Batman-as-Bruce-Wayne thing going on, in that he’s an athletic guy who wears a lot of suits.
He’s also had two successful, moderately high profile careers.
I imagine that for many people, meeting Archie is significant—a moment they’ll remember and maybe tell their friends about.
I, on the other hand, never had this moment.
Archie and I were never introduced. Instead, we absorbed the knowledge of each other through mutual friends and shared social events.
As I floated through my first semester at uni, I somehow learned that he was in the year above me and played rugby.
People said he was the best player in the whole university.
I saw him often. In the dining hall, the pub, the convenience store where the staff all wore those shirts that said I slurp for Australia.
He was part of the wallpaper of my uni res experience: always there but generally silent, contributing nothing more than a few reluctant smiles at whatever stupid joke his mates were making.
We never spoke, until the last night of second semester.
The air was hot and sticky. My ballet flats peeled against the beer-soaked floor.
The barmat was sweaty under my arm and the suspense of summer lay heavy in the steam that covered the dancefloor.
Exams had finished, Christmas was coming and we were all about to move out of our uni res dorms and head home for the break.
We’d made it through the slog of the uni social calendar.
We’d conquered the pub crawls, toga nights, foam parties and hungover champagne brunches.
We’d watched every inter-residence sports match and cheered at the unsanctioned events too: the boat races, the pub crawl marathon, the famous annual hotdog-eating competition where the master of ceremonies always had to wear an old Sydney 2000 Olympics volunteer uniform that someone found at Vinnies.
After every one of these social occasions, we inevitably ended up at the uni pub.
It was a dark, damp building that stank of stale booze and had nondescript black and white photos riveted to the walls because otherwise they’d be stolen by drunken fools.
There were cheap beers and vodka sodas, short dresses and a DJ who couldn’t be bribed.
It was the only place we’d considered to celebrate our final night of the university year, and on the surface, everything appeared unremarkable. That’s what made it so hard.
I stood at the bar, fidgeting with my phone until a message buzzed in from Jessie.
It’ll be okay, don’t worry. There are so many treatment options.
It took me straight back to the car earlier that day when I’d picked Mum up from the hospital.
She’d tried to smile but I could see the fear in her eyes.
She explained that the biopsy results were due in tomorrow and then she’d work out the next steps with the oncologist. She chose her words carefully: It’s cancer, but we don’t know how bad it is yet.
It made no sense to me. Mum was the fittest of us all.
She looked so strong and beautiful, sitting on the drab grey fabric of my passenger seat, her long legs nestled among the gym bags and empty chip packets in the footwell.
Her arms were tanned and strong. In her tennis whites she looked like an angel.
I tried to focus on the road as I drove her from the hospital to the train station, but I braked too early in front of a pedestrian crossing.
I took too long to accelerate after a red light turned green.
My fingers around the steering wheel felt like misshapen lumps, my feet on the pedals like cumbersome logs.
I took a corner too quickly, and the manila folder of documents on Mum’s lap went flying.
A flurry of A4 sheets of paper careened over my disgusting, messy car, the pages landing haphazardly, like roofs torn off by a hurricane.
The image was seared into my memory: the sheets of paper, my beautiful mum, my revolting car.
I tried to tuck the thought away as the barman arrived at the bar to serve me. ‘Drink?’ he asked.
I squinted at him. Of course I wanted a drink. Why else would I have been there? I wanted to escape. I wanted my throat to burn.
Another message buzzed in my purse. This time it was from Dad.
No, don’t come home. Mum says not to worry.
I felt a presence next to me and when I turned I saw Archie Cohen.
‘Hi,’ he said. He smiled and it shifted the contours of his entire face.
I swung back to face the barman, even more confused than I was before. Why was Archie Cohen saying hi to me? We were not people who said hi to each other.
‘Do. You. Want. A. Drink?’ the barman repeated, enunciating the words as if I were thick.
‘Two vodka sodas, thanks mate,’ said a deep voice. It was Archie—apparently still beside me. When the drinks materialised in front of him, he extended two long fingers and pushed one towards me.
‘What? Why?’ I sputtered.
Archie didn’t reply. He just lifted one shoulder then brought his glass to his lips.
I turned back to the bar, assessing the concoction before me. The clear glass, the fizzing soda, the broken blocks of ice, the pale green wedge of lime.
Another text buzzed in from Dad: Mum says you should celebrate the end of your exams. Distract yourself! We’re going to sort this out.
‘I need a straw and I need a distraction,’ I announced to no one in particular. The barman definitely wasn’t listening.
Archie Cohen held out a paper straw. ‘Did you read the Quarterly Essay on political greenwashing?’ he asked.
‘What the hell?’
‘You want to be a political journalist, right?’
My stomach clenched as I took the paper straw.
How did he know that? We weren’t friends.
I mean, yes, we were technically in the same broader friendship group, but it was huge and we were at opposite sides of the circle.
It wasn’t even a circle, really. It was a giant, shape-shifting amoeba, punctured and bloated in different places depending on the day, and on what had happened at the pub the night before.
‘Did I get that wrong?’ he asked.
I took a sip of my drink, still bewildered. Archie floated around with a pack of guys who looked like a poorly disguised SAS battalion. They were all testosterone and bravado. They didn’t talk to girls. Or at least, not ones like me.
‘Why are you talking about the Quarterly Essay?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t you need a distraction?’
‘Oh,’ I exhaled as the realisation blossomed.
There was only one reason Archie Cohen would be talking to me.
The guy may not have been a conversationalist but it was common knowledge that he picked up—a lot.
And if he’d decided to talk to me on the last night of our university year, one could only assume that it was because he’d already churned through every other single girl on campus.
‘No thank you,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You can save your breath. I’m not interested.’
Archie coughed. ‘Okay?’ From his scrunched-up expression, it seemed I’d been disastrously presumptuous. He clearly hadn’t been trying to hit on me.
‘And I’m not your type,’ I said, now attempting a counteroffensive to disguise the colour magnifying across my cheeks.
Archie frowned. ‘What’s my type?’
I gestured vaguely to the girls—some of whom were my best friends—dotting the room like bejewelled fairies. ‘Petite, sparkly, Tinkerbell laugh, great in bed.’
‘You’re saying you’re not great in bed?’
My blush deepened. ‘I’m saying I’m tall.’ I motioned to my legs which were quite obviously out of proportion with the length of my skirt.
His eyes flashed down to my thighs. ‘I’m tall,’ he said.
Somehow, my brain heard: We’ll fit.
We’ll fit?! I tipped half the vodka soda down my throat in one quick motion.
What a messed-up thought to be having on such an insanely shitty day.
Was this what people called ‘grief horn’?
The hormonal response that compels people in movies to have sex after funerals?
Oh god. I felt an anguished throb in my throat.
I did not want to be thinking about funerals.
Archie’s shoe jiggled relentlessly against the footrest at the bar. ‘State or federal politics?’ he asked.
My eyebrows lifted. ‘I like both.’
‘Print or broadcast?’
‘Both.’
‘Undercover reporter or prime-time anchor?’
‘If the options are wearing trackies and eating donuts in the car or being a prime-time news anchor with heels so spiky they could bayonet small rodents, then I choose … both.’
His laugh was a deep rumble. It was generous.
It invited you to join in, like it somehow contained all the same notes as your favourite song.
On a greyscale day it made the dim-lit pub appear momentarily brighter, as though someone had fleetingly shifted the camera dial to super vivid.
It made no sense. He never sounded like this when he laughed at his mates’ dumb jokes.
‘Why journalism?’ he asked.
I twisted my straw between my fingers. ‘I like understanding things, trying to make sense of the world … and I’m told I’m easily distracted. A different story every day would suit my personality.’
‘But you need extra distracting today?’
I don’t know what made me say what I said next.
Maybe it was lingering shock. Maybe it was the fact I knew about Archie’s dad, the rugby league hero who died in the tragic car crash, leaving behind the wife and baby son.
Maybe I mistook his intrigue for concern.
Whatever the reason was, I can’t remember it now.
‘My mum’s got cancer,’ I said. ‘The biopsy results are coming back tomorrow but based on her scan results, the oncologist said he’s ninety-nine per cent sure.’