‘Mmm.’ I meet her gaze.
‘Did you really mean what you said?’ Her eyes search mine.
I sigh. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know if you meant what you said?’ She raises her eyebrows.
‘Just don’t know,’ I say, and walk away.
*
I’m getting better at my job, but still not reaching my targets, although I have a nagging suspicion they are designed to be impossible to reach. Anh is constantly on my back, monitoring my call times and timing my toilet breaks. It makes me think that call centres would make good training grounds for anybody interested in a career as a fascist dictator.
It’s bone marrow research today. I figure out that I could be asking for donations to save children from a burning building and people would still think telemarketer and want to reach through the phone and throttle me. Today’s call is a first though.
‘You could go to university, educate yourself and get a proper job. You don’t have to waste your life in a call centre.’
‘So I can’t persuade you to make a donation towards bone marrow medical research?’
‘Sure, why not.’
And he scores!
‘Two dollars is as high as I can go though.’
I lean back in my chair and raise my eyes to the ceiling.
Mina
If I stared at a plant for days I would never notice it growing. I’ve seen Michael almost every weekday since the start of school, and it’s not until today, in the library, that I notice a change in his eyes. When I first met him in class he struck me as the kind of guy who, despite being only vaguely committed to his opinion, wasn’t embarrassed to share it. It’s only now in the library that I see he’s changed. There’s a vulnerability in his eyes that I never noticed before. A conflict that tells me he’s going through a private battle. And I don’t know what’s happened, or what caused it, but something in my gut tells me I have something to do with it.
And call me crazy, but it makes me a little less angry.
*
Mum’s got all her friends coming over for lunch tomorrow and is making me help her clean the apartment. I’m a sucker for pain so I turn the TV on to watch the final episode of Don’t Jump the Queue as I dust the furniture.
‘Mariam’s bringing her sister-in-law, Fariha,’ Mum tells me as she works away in the kitchen. ‘I can’t stand her.’
‘Why?’ I ask distractedly. The credits have started and Michael’s face briefly appears on the TV screen. Incomprehensibly, my stomach kind of goes all funny.
‘She’s a backstabbing, arrogant, judgmental witch, that’s why.’
‘So I take it you don’t like her then.’ I slow down with the dusting as the episode starts. I balance on the armrest of the couch, watching the TV.
‘She told Irfan’s wife that I’ve become stuck-up since we moved here because I rarely visit. Can you imagine? We’ve only been here a few months. Can’t I settle in first? Did she even pick up the phone once?’
I block out the sound of my mum’s voice as she rants on about Fariha.
Michael’s dad is hugging a child, his face a mixture of horror and sadness as he surveys the squalor in a room a bunch of kids live in. I can’t reconcile the image with what he preaches.
‘But of course I’ll have to act all polite tomorrow when she’s in my home – come on, Mina, hurry up, there’s still the bathroom to clean – and of course she’ll be looking every corner up and down . . .’
Michael’s dad is arguing with some of the other participants. I can’t finish the show.
‘Jerk,’ I yell at the TV, switching it off and throwing the remote on the couch.
‘What’s the problem?’ Mum asks, looking at me in surprise.
‘That man!’
‘Okay. No need to get all worked up. He’s on TV. Nobody to us. Don’t forget the cup marks on the TV cabinet.’
I refuse to watch the rest. I don’t need to see a bunch of people crying over refugee camps and struggling in a leaky boat so I can get some perspective. I’ve lived through it. They’ll all return home after the show and eventually life will go back to normal. Even if the ones affected put up a fight, they’ll be ignored and the government will do what it wants. And the kids in the camp will keep on starving and the mothers will give up crying and the fathers will wither away with helplessness and life will go on, even for me, because I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m grateful that I made it to a country that offers peace, but what upsets me is that it offers peace to some and not others. That’s the way the world works, isn’t it? A lottery of winners and losers.
*
I call Maha. It’s been a while. She can always make me laugh. I tell her about Michael and, in her typically understated style, she suggests I find a photo of him online, photoshop a burqa over it, and then wreak social media havoc.
As tempting as it is, I tell her I’ll have to think about it.
She promises to watch Don’t Jump the Queue as soon as it goes online.
‘At least then I can see if he’s a good-looking douchebag,’ she says. ‘Never, ever trust the accuracy of a person’s Facebook profile.’
‘What difference does it make anyway?’
‘Oh, Mina. Isn’t it obvious? It’ll make stalking him online so much more tolerable if he’s at least hot.’
Michael
We don’t have much to do with each other for the rest of the term. Things have shifted for me at school in a small way. I’m spending more time in the Tech lab, or Art room, trying to get on top of all the assignments the teachers have piled on us. Terrence and Fred notice that we aren’t hanging out as often as we used to, but they just assume it’s because I’ve become a nerd.
*
It’s Saturday morning and the premier has called a State election earlier than expected. My parents are ecstatic.
‘Why is it exciting?’ Nathan asks.
‘Because it’s game on!’ Mum says, grinning as she takes a bite of her toast.
‘What kind of game?’
‘It’s just a phrase, Nathan,’ she says.
Nathan keeps looking at Mum. ‘What kind of game?’
But my parents are distracted, talking about leaflet dropping in Jordan Springs and helping certain sympathetic candidates in their electorate.
‘It’s a game where you hunt down people, line them up against a wall and then chuck trash at them,’ I tell Nathan.
Mum gives me a look. ‘Cut it out, Michael. What an awful thing to say.’
I grin at her. ‘Selective hearing.’
‘Nathan, darling,’ Mum says, ‘I just meant that now there’s an election, we need to work really hard. It’s kind of like a game. Somebody wins and somebody loses.’
Nathan leans in closer towards me and whispers: ‘So nobody’s hunted down?’
‘Er . . .’ Awkward. ‘Nah, I was just mucking around. Sorry. Bad joke.’
‘Well I hope Dad wins,’ he says.
It takes me by surprise that now I hope he doesn’t.
*
I park my car in a side street, grab my sketchpad from under the passenger seat and walk to Auburn Road. There are roadworks blocking all traffic. I cross the road and see a group of men hanging out together, using the fluro-orange traffic bollards as seats.
I go to a nearby café and order some lunch. The guy who serves me is built like a tank, muscles squeezing out of his too-small T-shirt, a tattoo sleeve on one arm and even a shaved head that looks muscular.
There’s an outdoor table available, giving me a clear view of the street. My eyes follow the men hanging around the bollards. I feel animated all of a sudden and pick up my pencil and start sketching.
Lost in my work I don’t realise that the guy from behind the counter is talking to me. He places my drink on the table and, glancing
at my open sketchbook, says, ‘You’re good.’
Embarrassed, I instinctively cover the page with my arm. ‘Nah, not really.’
‘You are. Can I have another look?’
He peers closely at the page and then nods, impressed. ‘You study art at uni or something?’
‘I’m in year eleven. This is for an assignment.’
He looks at my page again and then looks over at the men. He fixes his eyes on me, his lip curled into a half-smile.
‘You live around here?’
I shake my head. ‘Nope.’
‘I didn’t think so. So why those men?’ He jerks his thumb in their direction.
I shrug. I’m not sure myself.
‘Do you know them?’
‘No.’
‘They’re refugees from Sudan.’
‘Okay.’
His tone is pleasant enough, but I feel I’m being reprimanded. That in his eyes I’ve done something wrong.
‘Imagine I came to your side of Sydney and started sketching the natives there.’
‘What do you mean?’ I say, a little defensively.
‘A group of white women wearing matching Lorna Jane outfits and sipping soy quinoa protein shakes. In watercolour.’
I feel my neck burn.
He smiles. ‘It’s cool. I’m only mucking around with you. Enjoy your lunch.’
I slowly pick at my food. I look at the sketch and close the book. When eventually I’ve finished eating I get up to pay the bill.
‘Hey, sorry if I came across a little agro,’ he says cheerfully as he hands me my change.
‘I didn’t mean to offend anybody,’ I say.
‘People usually don’t,’ he replies, still smiling.
When I get home, I bunker down in my room and start my assignment all over again.
Mina
Me:
Want to come to a Lord of the Rings movie marathon?
Maha:
Where?
Me:
Paula’s place. Didn’t u get my FB invite?
Maha:
Haven’t seen it yet.
Me:
It’s dress up. U have to dress like a hobbit. Or elf. Or somebody from Middle Earth. A onesie will also do. Or anything really, so long as u dress up. See FB.
Maha:
As if.
Me:
I’m serious.
Maha:
It’s the first time I meet ur North Shore friends and u want me to represent Westies in a onesie? Why can’t I dress up like I’m going clubbing? That’s legit. I don’t wear that in the day.
Me:
Yeah. u do.
Maha:
I’ll do it on one condition. No proof. I’m the door bitch. Anybody brings in a phone or camera gets a broken limb.
Me:
Deal.
Maha:
I’m nervous. Will they u know, like, need a Western Sydney interpreter?
Me:
LOL. U speak ur own language, Maha.
Maha:
I know. I’m original like that.
*
Irfan has returned from Pakistan and is over for Sunday lunch with his wife and their two young daughters, Zahra and Shakira. I’m braiding the girls’ hair as we watch Frozen. They know the entire movie by heart and take the singing scenes seriously. Our apartment is tiny and the men are sitting with us, trying to talk over the sound of Disney. Mum needs some fresh air and is sitting with aunty on the verandah.
‘Mohammed was telling me at Friday prayer that there are some new brothers on bridging visas, living in Auburn,’ Irfan says to Baba. ‘How are they supposed to live with no work? The others are helping them settle in. Apparently they’re good cooks. Ehssan wants to offer them some work at the money-exchange place but there just isn’t enough work to justify it. We could help them.’
‘We should,’ Baba says firmly. ‘It’s a long way for them though.’
‘They’re sharing a car. It could work. We hire them Thursday to Sunday, see if that suits them.’
Baba nods. ‘Okay, talk to them.’
*
The mid-year holidays pass by in a flash. I spend most of my time doing assignments either at home or with Paula at her house.
At senior assembly on the first day back at school, the coordinator, Ms Ham, announces that there’s a gallery of artwork by year eleven and year twelve Visual Arts students on display in the seniors’ common room.
Paula and I go to have a look at lunchtime.
I’m stunned by some of the work. We walk around the room, trying to make our own sense of the different paintings and installations and what they might mean. We don’t have much of a clue really, but it’s fun pretending we’re art critics. We go through different reactions: ‘Ew creepy’; ‘Wow, that’s amazing’; ‘Oh my God I had no idea Adrian could draw like that’; ‘Oh come on, Mrs Darwin’s nose is not that big’.
And then I see it.
It’s a series of five sketches, starting with a sketch of a closed wire bird cage, a key dangling on a piece of string outside the cage and down to the bottom of the canvas. Inside the cage, there’s a man running, a small satchel on his back, a trail of identity papers behind him. In the next sketch, the man is in a room behind bars, still within the cage. The key to the cage dangles slightly higher up though. In the third sketch, the man is pressed up against other bodies in a dilapidated boat on the sea, still trapped within the cage. The key is dangling even higher now, almost at the height of the cage door. In the fourth image, the man is lying down in the cage beside a small Australian flag pitched next to him. He’s extending his arm through the bars, trying to reach the key, which is just past his grasp. In the final sketch, a hand holding a pencil appears out of the corner of the canvas. The tip of the pencil twirls the string upwards, so that the man is able to clasp the key in his hands.
I’m speechless, as much by the images as by the name attached to them.
Michael Blainey.
*
I look for Michael after school and find him before he leaves to catch the school bus home. I spot him ahead of me and quicken my pace to catch up.
‘Hey,’ I call out.
He turns around.
‘I saw your artwork. What’s that about?’ It comes across as an accusation but I can’t help the sharpness in my tone.
He blinks at me. ‘You didn’t like it?’
‘That’s not what I said.’
He smiles broadly. Something about the way he’s carrying himself seems different. There’s a spark in him, something almost joyful about his manner, as though he’s just excavated some insight that’s been buried for some time.
Which makes my irrational anger impossible to understand but too strong to suppress.
‘What?’ I say. ‘You’ve suddenly changed?’
He lets out a short laugh, looks at me with disbelief. ‘Why are you angry?’
‘I’m not . . .’ I pause, confused by my reaction. I feel like there’s cottonwool in my head.
‘So what’s your problem?’
I throw my hands in the air. ‘I don’t get it. One minute you’re all don’t jump the queue, you’re the poster boy for Aussie Values, liking all kinds of racist crap on Facebook, and the next minute your Facebook is cleaned up, you go and do this incredible art—’
‘You’ve been stalking me on Facebook?’ He grins.
So awkward.
I shuffle my feet. ‘What’s interesting,’ I say, hoping really badly that my deflection will work, ‘is your backflip.’
‘You’re so confusing,’ he says, suddenly frustrated. ‘Are you saying you resent what I drew?’
‘Of course not! It’s beautiful.’ My voice stalls.
‘Then what?’
> I stare into his eyes for a moment. ‘What you drew contradicts everything Aussie Values stands for. I don’t get it.’
‘I’m just trying to figure out what I stand for.’
‘That’s . . .’ I pause, and then smile at him. I don’t bother saying anything. I don’t need to.
Paula bounds over to us, a massive grin on her face.
‘Michael, that was amazing!’
‘Is that the best you can do? I would have thought it deserved one of your quotes.’
She grins. ‘Fine. One does not simply grow a conscience without being invited to a movie marathon.’
I laugh.
Michael looks at me. ‘You’re doing the Lord of the Rings movie marathon?’
‘This weekend!’
‘We’re having it at my place,’ Paula says. ‘Given I’m not in the running for any popularity or coolness contests, attending is completely at your own risk.’
‘That doesn’t worry me,’ he says casually.
‘So you’re basically admitting that hanging out with me might ruin your reputation but it doesn’t worry you?’
Michael grins.
‘So you’ll come?’ Paula asks.
‘Sure,’ he says, throwing a glance my way. Then, smiling, he says, ‘Unless of course Mina holds grudges?’
‘I don’t hold grudges!’
He grins.
‘You can bring a friend, but Terrence and Fred aren’t welcome,’ Paula says.
He shrugs. ‘Okay, I get it. Who else from school is coming?’
‘There’s a small geek contingent,’ Paula says. ‘Plus Adrian, Leica, Cameron and Jane.’
‘Okay. Send me the details then. See you later.’
He starts to walk away when Paula calls him back.
‘Yeah?’
‘It’s dress-up by the way. Preferably a Lord of the Rings character, but if you can’t manage that, any other dress-up will do. But no tights. I don’t care how you’re built.’
I can’t help but laugh.
He looks worried. ‘Do you seriously think that with my height I can dress up as a hobbit?’
‘That’s okay,’ I find myself saying. ‘We won’t judge you if you come as an orc.’