Closeness

‘I'm seeing Elisia,’ he volunteered. ‘It's not love but we keep each other warm some nights.’

Settler and Claudine, the woman he considered his closest friend, were standing with their heads close together, as they often did, at the wide bright window of his almost-empty apartment in Leichhardt. Outside, winter was ending, daylight saving was about to begin and people in his narrow street were planning parties. His apartment was one storey up and looked across to the long central park in Leichhardt, on Norton Street, the main street that ran through the centre of the old Italian enclave of Sydney.

It was still cold far too often for me. I've always been a woman who liked the warmth. 

I said, ‘But don't you like her?’

‘Of course I like her. I just don't love her. No, that's not true. I do love her. I'm just not in love with her.’

‘But she's a nice woman.’

’You're a nice woman, too.’

’So, you like me as well.’

‘I don't like you. I love you. No, I'm in love with you.’

She turned away exasperated. He always exasperated her in one way or another. But she liked him a lot. He made her laugh when he was in a good mood — and he always entertained her. She thought, I suppose that's what friendship is — a balloon that you blow up until you can't blow any further. If you leave it for too long it starts to deflate and if you blow too hard it bursts in a noisy, final bang, leaving only shreds. She smiled at the thought.

She was about to be married. She had met someone who she thought was suitable and they were going to be married. It was all planned. They had met each other's respective parents and the respective parents had met each other and everything was moving ahead with the steady pressure of inertia. Onwards to tomorrow.

Inertia: the tendency of a body to maintain its state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external source.

She was determined to get married. She had decided and she had found the right person. It was inalterable.

Still, there was Settler. A friend she considered closer to her than anyone — even her husband-to-be. She didn't quite know where to put him in this new arrangement. Only six months before he had finally separated from a woman he had been involved with for far too many years and lately he was becoming too erratic for her liking. She sensed an open window rattling shakily in a sudden rush of wind.

It's not about sex you know. It's all about love. Everyone wants to be loved. That's what everyone is looking for. Sex is just a metaphor. Just another way of saying love. Love.

When does friendship jump the fence and run naked onto a football field, looking for a different kind of affection? Sometimes he lost sight of where one boundary stopped and another started.

Acceleration: the rate of change of velocity, expressed in centimetres per second per second. Negative acceleration = retardation.

The women he loved always seemed to leave him, in different ways and at different times in his life, on his most significant birthdays. He loved a woman once. He loved the way she spoke to him. He used to light up when he saw her walk towards him. He wanted to speak to her every day — about the biggest things in life and about the smallest. About those tiny moments in your life when you want to share the humour or the intricacy or the detail of everyday life and the way people live it.

On his thirtieth birthday, they sat down to a carefully detailed dinner that he had prepared for them both. Over a rare and expensive bottle of wine she had bought for him with her limited disposable income she told him she could no longer live with him, that she needed to move out and had already started to ask around amongst her friends for somewhere to stay.

‘Stop thinking about it,’ she said.

‘I bury my dead.’

‘But she's not dead.’

‘She might as well be.’

‘Don't be ridiculous. You're being far too dramatic and self-indulgent. Listen to me, I'm you're friend. That's what friends are for — to tell you when you're being stupid. Just stop thinking about it. It's all in your head.’

He often thought that, for the first half of your life, you're just finding your feet, learning how to fend for yourself, how to string words together, how to laugh at yourself and with others. By the time you get to the second half of your life you can tie your shoelaces, speak openly without fear, take the time to look at things more than once and not rush into futile judgements. You can brush your own teeth, thread a needle, possibly cook for yourself and therefore avoid starvation, vacuum a floor and recognise feelings of love when they brush past your shoulder like rush-hour traffic on Broadway.

The second half of life beckons invitingly.

The phone rings more than once.

‘Claudine speaking.’

‘Always a pleasure.’

‘Let's go see a film this afternoon.’

‘What, is the husband-to-be too busy?’

‘I want to catch up with you. I haven't spoken to you for weeks.’

How do I love you, he thought, let me count the ways. But he was too old to do a bad paraphrase so he said nothing. He thought: there are so many ways to communicate with someone in the late twentieth century but so little to say. Then he thought: I've got to stop thinking in cliches.

If he piled all the letters he had written, phone calls he had made, answering machine messages he had left, faxes and e-mails he had sent he would become weighed down at the immensity of it all. All the parties to which he had invited other people, all the missed conversations on the bus or ferry. He thought: let me count the ways, let me live my days. ‘I do go on,’ he thought.

The neighbours kept arguing downstairs.

At the end of the day, he kept up a long-established habit of sitting up late, staring out the wide glass windows at the blue of the midnight sky, lit up by the reflection from a Sydney grown large and bloated. When the city began steadily to warm up it was at its best. As the temperature soared everything spilled out — flowers and their smells, the barking of dogs, angry voices. The nights were for sitting. He loved his afternoons for doing things.

They came back to his apartment after the film, talking quietly the way she liked, almost murmuring to each other, like lovers head by head, sharing a common pillow. Enjoying the way they could make each other laugh about the most unlikely things. They walked along the bare, polished floorboards of his hallway, almost tiptoed, hearing the timber creak underfoot. They sat side by side on the couch. It had been a long walk back from the cinema and they were feeling generously happy from the shared afternoon.

I had been on about it to her for ages. I wanted to run my hands down her sides and feel the soft skin and the fine muscles of her arm. She was a swimmer and she had the firmness of someone used to cutting her way through water.

I told him I didn't want to

We were friends, did he want to ruin that?

Maybe it would get it out of his system. Once would be enough and then he'd stop pestering me. Then I'd stop pestering myself.

Alright, just once. Let's do it just once.

In his large bedroom: a bit awkward. On either side of his mattress. It was flat on the floor, all he managed for a bed. I had to do something so I reached down and pulled my jumper over my head. He stood looking at me, I would almost say with his mouth gaping — it was close enough. Somehow a bit irritating, though. I pushed the thought away. I took off my bra. Dropped it on the floor. He was really staring now. The shiver on the skin. The sound of breathing.

He said. Then I said. And he said. No I said. I said. She said. Then I said. Alright she said just once just the once. Just once. Just once.

I can never remember the details of these conversations. Conversations across the bed on the floor. The bed, the only thing in the room that was laid back.

Rubbed the back of his hand across my bare shoulders. I touched his arm. I moved away and lay down on the mattress. He moved down next to me, a bit clumsily, kissed me on the lips and lowered his head and put his lips on my breast. Wet and hot. I was so cold. I wish he had vacuumed. I wanted to sneeze. Bare legs half on the mattress and half on the ghastly mottled beige carpet.

He was more and more agitated. Something drastic was about to happen. My skin felt damp and bright light was in my eyes. I could see my reflection in the antique wardrobe directly opposite his bed. I had often admired it. Now all I could see was our two bodies, bare and spread out, trying to mesh with each other.

With a slow, slow creak the wardrobe door swung open, all flashing mirror and smooth dark timber. The light from the window reverberated around the room. Awkward and open, like an unlatched front door pushed tentatively by an unexpected visitor. Accidentally intruding on a short and messy affair.

I laughed. What else could you do? I laughed. It was so stupid. Lying together, no clothes on, thinking about doing something we would probably like but inevitably regret. Even the mirror couldn't look at us. Going with a moment, putting the rest of your life, every little detail of your past and your future, on hold, the pause button of a stereo accidentally clicked on.

When does closeness spill over into something else?

She just laughed. Can you believe that? I was trying so hard. I was so serious. I'd been waiting for this for a long time — ever since I'd met her.

She laughed.

I was laughing. Moved back on the mattress and my arm caught the cord on the alarm clock bringing it crashing to the floor. I couldn't stop laughing now. Laughed and laughed. I wanted to stop but I was out of control. Everything was out of control. I put my head on my arms. Couldn't look at him.

He stood up, all soft and puppy-like. I think the urge had gone out of him. Even looking down at me, sprawled stark naked on the mattress, didn't seem to work now. I still couldn't stop laughing. I wrapped my arms over my breasts. It was getting colder and my nipples hurt. I wanted to go home.

He moved to the kitchen bench, packing away his domestic objects. Unravelling a life. He was moving on, packing his bags as he went.

‘So you're going to move, are you?’

‘I think I've decided, yes.’

‘Where to?’

‘Don't know. I feel like I'm shrinking. I'm worried I'll disappear entirely and no-one will remember me.’

Claudine frowned. Then her face lightened.

‘You'll be fine. Just give it more time. When do you move?’

‘Soon. Very soon. I'm almost packed.’

‘Well, don't leave me completely behind.’

Settler smiled. Claudine laughed.

© Stephen Cassidy, 1997

Commended, Bauhinia Literary Awards 2003

For more information about the author see Writing biography.

See also

I smoke baby cigars
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Cut back to black
‘Cut back to black, thin chill drizzle mid-winter – infinite regression on petrol’. Also called ‘Revhead heaven’, Cut back to black.

Coming back to these stones
‘Coming back to these stones – in the sandy dry reaches of the Coorong in South Australia’s South East birds flicker across the flat water like beads of run-away mercury’, Coming back to these stones.

Landscapes in a rear vision mirror
‘Heading at a moment's notice into Broken Hill, breaking several traffic laws on the Barrier Highway, in the rear vision mirror the land kept switching colours’, Landscapes in a rear vision mirror.

Stopping by Lake George

‘Lake George is a vast stretching freshwater lake, with no outlet. It is only diminished by evaporation. Many stories are told about Lake George, a still point of the turning earth, with all the quiet of the eye at the centre of a hurricane’, Stopping by Lake George.See other work from the Conversations group exhibition, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, 2004 – a collaborative exhibition of writers and visual artists.

State of origin
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The lost art of conversation
Installation, developed with visual artist, Deborah Faeyrglenn, on words, meaning, reflection and infinite (or at least, partial) regression. Three tall thin vertical mirrors stand against the wall, covered in bursts of words. Three matching paper shadows flow out from the wall along the floor. Words on the mirrors flutter and blur into shadows, The lost art of conversation.

balloon
A fictional narrative work in the form of a website, the website as writing. About the adventures of a refugee from the big city who sets up the High Country Thought Balloon Company. A series of brief vignettes about the characters, situations and stories which intersect the path of the balloons as they soar across the skies of the Southern Tablelands and Snowy region. It is about changing perspective, balloon.

Malacoota Inlet
‘Shutdown in a flat, wet land, the line beween sea and sky where grey meets grey, where stricken yachts come in’, Malacoota Inlet.

Sitting on twigs
‘Sitting on twigs in the flat lands, in a piece of country loaded with meaning, like a tightly coiled spring’, Sitting on twigs.

Signature of water
A series of artworks as part of the Waterworks exhibition at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery responding to the shared task of facing up to life on our dry continent. It ranged from short, minimalist animations, using cartoons, to hyperfiction drawing on the styles of crime novels. It was a mix of poetry, storytelling, images and sounds which were heavily influenced by the styles of popular culture and the urban and rural landscapes around us, Signature of water.