Jeremiah lent again the wall of the coffee house, and tucked his chin into his coat. It was so cold that his eyeballs hurt, and his breath came out of his nose in steamy draughts. Fortunately Carly had gone over to Samara’s to study tonight, so he was free to roam the streets as he pleased. It didn’t feel like such a great idea now though. It was dark, and anyone with any sense was walking quickly home, or towards an intimate restaurant dinner. The waves danced against the dock in rhythmic blackness, oblivious to the anxiety and pursuits of others. He watched the moths humming around the street lights, and kept waiting.
A tug of his elbow brought him out of his icy trace. Adrienne stood there in a forest green duffle coat, her red hair ruffled by the wind. Her cheeks were mauve and her made-up features were sunken with cold. They walked inside and moved the cumbersome wooden chairs to sit opposite each other. Adrienne removed her fingerless gloves, laid them on the table and gave Jeremiah a friendly smile as they both started to thaw.
There was a naked pause. Jeremiah’s mind shriveled with panic as he tried to think of something to say.
“Did you book your holiday to Brazil?” Adrienne’s tone was polite, if not slightly unconvincing. Jeremiah rolled his eyes and chuckled. Surely this was not a line of conversation they needed to pursue with any seriousness. Her facial expression remained quite solemn. This was her occupation after all, and he’d been wasting her efforts for some time.
The conversation lurched along awkwardly. Adrienne was named after Adrian Zach, a famed seventies philanthropist that her mother took a fancy to, and had apparently met at a Governor’s Afternoon Tea. No relationship or fling there though, Adrienne just bore his name from a passing admiration. Not to be deterred by her disappointing origins, Jeremiah probed further. If only to cover any pause in conversation.
Her parents were still married and had always lived in Melbourne. Her father had been in an industrial accident which hurt his back about ten years ago and now lived on compensation payments. He sounded to Jeremiah to have one of those existences entirely complete with just a television - mainly cricket and golf, and a fussing wife. Her mother owned a plant nursery but only worked part time these days, and cooked and cleaned religiously for her household in her spare hours. How can some people’s purposes be entirely spent, save for the passive commitment of parenthood? Jeremiah could not imagine his autumn years in barely consuming occupation, with an ageing, silly partner, while his children pursued love and establishment for the same outcome. It all seemed so sedentary and…tired. To be gored by a bull at a rodeo in Portugal, he thought instantly. That was a colorful, spectacular exit of which he could feel proud. Posthumously.
Adrienne was not studying either, which brought him some comfort. She had been working at the travel agent for three years and had no plans to leave. Was she saving towards anything special? She had bought a block of land, which Jeremiah realised was part of one of those dreadful artificial villages complete with lagoon on bare, flat land in outer West Melbourne. She was building a house, no doubt one of six possible beauties which exactly complemented the rest of the budding township.
The coffee was sipped slowly and the cake mashed into forks. Organic, vegetarian desserts always tasted slightly stale to Jeremiah, as if being displayed and consumed gradually for several weeks added kudos. He paid reluctantly and they walked out.
Adrienne needed to drive home, so they sat in the front of her rusting silver Datsun to keep warm while the evening reached a end. The seats smelt sour and the upholstery was crusted from years of use. Their breath mingled against the windscreen and both stared out at the streetlights and approaching mist. This was painful. Jeremiah couldn’t believe this meeting had retained the awkward chill from her place of employment - he just thought she’d be different when they struck up a friendship. He stared at her, moved closer until darkness obscured their sight, felt her cold nose against his.
Her mouth tasted like yoghurt icing and polenta, thin lips which held their poise and small, smooth teeth. He breathed deeply and pushed against her to increase her hunger, but she sat collected, firm. Jeremiah held his mouth against hers, moved the folds of her coat aside and grasped her boyish body. His hands reached under her soft jumper to find thin, smooth skin under which ribs jutted awkwardly, a small lacy teenage bra which cradled the hint of breasts. He moved his hips off the seat, across the gearstick, and moving the seat horizontal, laid his body awkwardly over hers. He was aware he was breathing too hard all over her face from the effort. Adrienne cleared her throat and calmly closed her eyes.
This felt so wrong, a shrinking regretful wrong. Jeremiah studied her face in the cool light from the street, looking for a sign, a response.
“I should probably get going… I have a girlfriend and she’s probably wondering where I’ve got to.”
This was probably the only honest statement Jeremiah had made to them both in the time they’d been acquainted. He was aware that it made him look like a fool, that he’d pursued this woman for little reason, initiated sex with her and had now mentioned his partner. He felt like a teenager, a child who had a girlfriend who wanted to marry him.
“Ok, well…it was really nice to see you again. Come in and say hi if you’re ever nearby.”
Adrienne’s cordiality upset him. She held a mystery in her guardedness, but he sensed that the escape, the adventure with her had never started. Jeremiah moved back into his seat, feeling the warmth from her body quickly drain from his legs and torso. He kissed her on the cheek and opened the car door.
“I’m……really sorry if I…”
Sorry. Just disappointed. He closed the door and walked home.
Carly’s face was illuminated blue near the table lamp as she played computer cards. She glanced at him but the interest wasn’t there.
“Chris and some of the guys from work went down the road to play pool so I hung out with them for a while.”
Jeremiah studied the instant memory of his lie…too much detail? Awkward tone. Said too soon. He leant again the wall of the front door hallway and watched Carly thinking, moving her cards about. She showed no sign of having heard him so he continued down the hall towards their bedroom. Their bed felt different, no longer natural and inviting, but cold, definitely cold. Like a friend who starts to blank you in the street and spread snide rumours. Carly still wasn’t in bed when he finally succumbed to sleep, but this wasn’t unusual. She often stayed up reading, aimlessly researching strands of online interest deep into the night.
The next day was Jeremiah’s day off. This meant that Carly would expect them to spend most of it together, and although neither of them ever intended it, there would be a fight. Jeremiah and Carly often talked at length about what they wanted to do together when they both had the time, but when the hours lay starkly laden with expectation ahead of them, the motivation crumbled and it was easier to burden each other with disappointment.
Today seemed different however. The sun was gently pressing again the aging architecture, and several people were jogging along the promenade in tightly banded thermals. The coffee house was cluttered with friends, smoking and sipping with elaborate gestures, immersing themselves in a post-Winter buzz. Jeremiah and Carly had a comfortable stride along the morning footpath, a pair who knew each other’s rhythm. The fresh, metallic taste of cleansed Melbourne air was exciting, foreboding and delicious.
One street surrendered to a sprawling market on this day every week, the smell of kebabs, potatoes and furniture oil on bookshelves and chopping boards. The overhead sunproofing sails hugged the assortment of stalls, making the browsing feel intimate and secluded. Carly ran her fingers across tendrils of plastic beads, smiling appreciation at the store owners. She picked at rings, and bought one, a silver alloy with a large bulb of pale quartz which immediately adorned her thumb. Jeremiah watched her as she roamed, transfixed by jewellery which was transporting her mind to India, Phuket or some other bohemian eden. He waited, not impatiently as she wandered and touched, flipped through pirated cds, lifted up metal sculptures made of forks. Her calm concentration was engaging, the way she considered the wares of the store owners and cackled supportingly at their jokes. Carly’s long mousy hair was tucked behind her small ears, from which swayed elaborate jade earrings. Her face disappeared behind her mouth when she laughed, and Jeremiah could see most of her teeth and her pierced tongue. She was tall for a girl, and had an awkwardly slim physique, as though her top half wasn’t properly joined to her bottom. She wore a layered plum skirt that Jeremiah hated. He knew from her stories that a former boyfriend had bought it for her during a latin street festival and they had danced, shimmied a summer away on his roof terrace listening to Nina Simone and Carlos Santana. Bastard.
They sat together on a bench and ate plump grey German sausages and onions. Jeremiah was getting tired, his feet feeling heavy, his back aching. His gaze skimmed over the heads of the crowd until one sight almost forced the lunch back up his throat. A puff of red hair, a green coat trickled through the throng of people. Jeremiah started breathing deeply, quietly. He turned and fixed on Carly, giving her a grimy sausage kiss on the cheek and rubbing her back. It was almost enough to distract him from looking back…but he glanced up quickly and the red hair had vanished.
“Let”s get. The hell out of here.” muttered Jeremiah. This mood always irritated Carly, whenever they were outdoors and he wanted to go home quickly. It happened a lot and he was not open for questioning about why. She scooped up her trinkets and marched in the direction of home, expecting Jeremiah to reach and maintain her pace. He arrived alongside her and reached for her hand, but she pulled away. This gesture signaled the onset of a common condition between them, a distancing fog which neither wanted to clear. It was at these times that Jeremiah thought about her fantastical ideas for a wedding and a baby, and how she should probably be with a hairy ape man who would celebrate her zeal for the natural world. They could raise a naked family on a diet of plants in far North Queensland.
“Why aren’t you ever interested in just hanging out with me, at the markets, or down at the coffee place. Why do you want to go home all the time, but when you‘re there, you just spend it on THE COMPUTER?” Carly’s anger spilt over, and her darkening expression signaling the onset of something far from civilised.
Jeremiah sighed. This was a boring, boring line of questioning, and no answer would be acceptable. He had enough to think about at the moment, images of cold, ungainly kisses and a appalling effort to fuck someone coursed fresh through his mind like a migraine.
The argument was kicked and tossed between them over the afternoon as they arrived home and resumed their habits. He made fruit toast, sat down and ate, and made more, even though he had no appetite and the richness of the butter made him feel sick. Carly was right. He didn’t particularly want to spend mindless time with her. That sort of activity was only suitable for one person on their own. A consuming grip on a set of punishing mental images, and a desperate need to know what had gone wrong.
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