CHAPTER 13
AFTER A MORNING of not enough talking and then far too much and far too loud talking, lunch is a welcome Goldilocks situation.
Apparently we’ve all remembered how to behave in public and make light, innocuous conversation.
Although not all behaviour is entirely appropriate.
Arthur and I tactfully ignore hands disappearing at strange angles beneath tablecloths.
I think I’m numb to it now. Our waitress looks vaguely nauseated; we should probably leave a decent tip.
Arthur and I sit next to each other, with a view of the whole restaurant.
I spy the influencers, enjoying some off-the-menu degustation.
Enjoying might not be the correct word. Each course is a tiny burst of colour presented on an equally tiny plate, accompanied by a chef to explain this newest work of edible art.
Sparkle Influencer immediately pops the food in her mouth the moment it hits the table, while Red Gown Influencer takes photos before picking at it for several minutes.
She refuses to move the plate closer to her and drops crumbs all over the table.
Between courses, they sit hunched over their phones, only looking up to look at something on the other’s screen when it is offered.
With each course, the chef’s fucks diminish.
At first he describes in rich detail (many grand hand movements) the origin of the ingredients (all local, or so I gather from my rudimentary lip-reading) and the preparation.
By the sixth, he stays only a short moment, presumably to give a vague description of the dish (steak with green sauce).
By the fourteenth, he sends a waiter out with the food. The influencers don’t notice.
Our lunch is far less memorable, and it could be argued that this is by design.
I can’t remember anything about it beyond my new parasocial connection with the influencers, but that might have something to do with the wine-tasting that follows it.
I can see Arthur smirking each time I choose to knock back the generous pours instead of using the spittoon.
I think the cab sav is my favourite, but that might just be because it’s the last one I taste and so I’ve lost all sense of aroma, body, notes… space, time…
I like it enough to buy two bottles to take back to the house.
Probably should look at prices before I commit to buying things, but it’s just way too awkward to do a wine-tasting and then not buy something, so I didn’t really have a choice.
I can see Bee giving me a little side-eye while they place my bottles in a paper bag tied at the top with a ribbon.
Can’t pay rent but you can pay $42 a bottle? Sure.
The drive from the winery is just as silent as the journey to, but more in an after-lunch-stupor way.
When Arthur veers off the road onto what could only be very generously termed a dirt track, however, I am jolted alert.
He looks weirdly calm, and I wonder if this is how I die, the final act of some convoluted murder plot.
Then I see a house. Okay, never mind.
It’s a tight squeeze getting into the narrow drive up to the house with branches and twigs scratching along the sides of the car.
I don’t envy the reverse job Arthur will need to do tomorrow when we leave.
The house stands on stilts and is covered in fibro panelling, with a late-addition ramp leading up to the front door.
If I were a more chilled person, the overgrown garden of chaos would be charming, but I’m mostly worried about the spiders and snakes and bushfire dangers.
What’s wrong with a nice manicured lawn where there are no surprises?
It takes a few goes for Arthur to wrestle the door open, his bag slipping off his shoulder and catching on his elbow, and then we go back in time.
I don’t think this place has been touched since the seventies.
To the left, the kitchen, with the inexplicably low glass cabinets over the benchtop that I see myself bumping into more than once tonight.
The lime green linoleum floor that clashes with the blue benchtops leading to the fluffy orange-brown patterned carpet in the living area.
Retro vinyl chairs around a shiny metal dining table.
A mismatch of a holiday-home graveyard where furniture and knick-knacks go to meet their eternal rest. I love it.
But I really need to pee.
Arthur points me towards the toilet, which has a curved crochet mat around the bowl and a creepy-doll toilet-paper cosy resting on the cistern. It’s the kind of doll that will pick up a knife later and come to murder us all. Or at the very least haunt my dreams.
Why is the room swaying slightly? This isn’t a houseboat is it? And then I hear screaming. Am I imagining the screaming? Is the houseboat sinking?
‘What are we going to do?’ Bee shrieks, and I move as quickly as I can on unsteady ground to get out of the bathroom to find her.
I don’t have to go far—they’re all crammed in the hallway right outside the door. Lucky I wasn’t taking a shit, because they definitely would’ve got an earful. ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.
‘There’s only one bed!’ Bee sounds distraught.
I look at Arthur. ‘For all four of us?’
‘No,’ he starts. ‘There’s…’
‘It’s fine, babe. We’ll make it work.’ William is rubbing his hands up and down Bee’s arms. ‘I can sleep on the floor, if you’ll just give me one of the pillows.’
Bee’s hand comes up to rest on his chest. ‘No, we can’t do that. Think of your poor back. You take the bed.’
‘What kind of gentleman would I be if I allowed that?’ William scoffs.
Sheer confusion has trapped the words between my brain and my mouth.
‘Maybe…’ Bee trails off. ‘Maybe we can share?’ Whatever look she sees on William’s face makes her grin.
‘Yeah,’ he replies. His voice sounds husky and inappropriate for a public setting. ‘We can put a wall of pillows between us.’
‘I promise not to ravish you,’ she says. Then they walk into the room and shut the door. I think they forgot we’re even here.
I turn to Arthur, whose pursed lips are the only thing holding back a cackle of laughter. ‘So, do you have, like, air mattresses or something? If I’d known, I’d have brought the one from our house. Those couches in the living room are only two seaters, there’s no way you’ll fit…’
He puts an arm around my shoulders and leads me all of three steps to the door next to the One Bed. It’s…another bedroom. With two single beds.
‘My dear Gertie,’ he says, ‘they just didn’t give me a chance to finish the tour.’ He places his bag on one bed and mine, which I didn’t realise he was holding, on the other. ‘I had planned to give you ladies the big bed to share, but clearly the lovebirds have other plans.’
I lean against the doorframe watching him place pillowcases over the pillows. ‘Overly generous of you as the host to take the single bed.’
‘My mother taught me how to be a good host.’
‘My mother only taught me how to overstay my welcome. I’m not sure she meant to, but I definitely learned it.’
‘You could never overstay your welcome here,’ he says.
But sincerity and wine fog do not mix: change of subject needed. ‘Side note, why are they so worried about there only being one bed? She stays at his place constantly.’
He considers for a moment. ‘Maybe they haven’t done the deed yet?’
‘Those two? Who were feeling each other up all through lunch?’
‘Good point. Perverse attempt at foreplay?’
‘I think that’s what the whole argument was about.’
‘Yeah. Roleplay kink?’
‘God, I hope not. I felt all right before you suggested that.’
He chuckles and starts back down the hall.
‘I don’t understand a bloody thing they do.
I’ve stopped trying to figure it out. Come on.
Let’s put together the charcuterie I brought while they…
settle in.’ He raises his eyebrows suggestively, and I mime gagging.
His expression becomes slightly panicked, so I guess I look more intoxicated than I feel.
I glance back as I walk past him. ‘A photogenic platter is the best way to lure Bee from their scene. Play your cards right, I’ll teach you how to make little roses out of prosciutto.’
‘Oooh, promise?’
They do eventually emerge as Arthur is putting the finishing touches to his crumpled-paper prosciutto, and the evening is easy, time passing through the slow emptying of my two expensive bottles.
We sit on the deck out the back, facing an equally chaotic back shrubbery complete with a rusted-over bird bath or maybe a sundial, I can’t tell from this distance, in one thicket, a broken slide in another, a black and spent fire pit in the middle.
Through the trees, I can see a hint of ocean.
I can feel the salt in the air pricking my face.
Once the sun sets and the mosquitoes come out, we head inside to the retro table. When we run out of things to talk about, we call it and go to bed.
It feels a little bit like school camp when Arthur and I snuggle up in our single beds, facing each other with the blankets pulled up to our chins.
If I’m being honest, I’m quite glad for the blankets, because when he walked into the room, freshly showered and clad only in his undies and an old, and very thin, T-shirt, it was all a bit overwhelming.
‘Goodnight,’ he says, giggling a little. I say it back, and he turns off the lamp between us.
Silence.
Then:
Thump.
Thump.
Thump thump.
A long, drawn-out moan. A quick whispered ssssh, followed by a muffled yes!
After a few minutes, the sources of the noise seem to forget about even these paltry attempts at keeping it down. I squeeze my eyes shut, cursing myself for trying to be properly social by leaving the noise-cancelling headphones at home.
The lamp turns on. I look over at Arthur, who is wincing with each thump.
‘Feel like watching a movie?’ he asks.
‘Oh God, yes!’ I reply in the same tone as what’s happening next door.