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Georgie can’t get over how cynical her nephew’s become.
Tom leans forward and taps the screen with determination. “Look at his taste in music, girls. You can’t go out with someone who listens to ‘anything from the ’70s, ’80s, or ’90s.’ That’s what he’s written. He has to be more discerning than that. And he’s a swinging voter. Sam would never let a swinging voter bring up his child.”
Georgie stares at him, unimpressed. “So now we’re a Sam fan, are we?”
“At least he’s always been specific about his musical tastes.”
She turns to Bernadette and Lucia, not believing what she’s hearing.
“So who would you choose, Bernie? The faithful guy who listens to ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s music and swings in his voting, or the unfaithful guy who’s into the Clash and the Waterboys and still believes the Labor Party are the true believers?”
“They’re my choices?” Bernadette asks, dismayed. “Can’t I have another one?”
“What does Sam say about this?” Tom asks, eating the cereal from the box with his hands.
“Sam and I aren’t together.”
He points to her belly.
“So you’re giving birth to the Messiah, are you?”
“Why is Sam an issue all of a sudden?” she says angrily.
“Georgie, you’re sleeping with the guy!” Lucia says, laughing with exasperation, looking at Tom. “She’s sleeping with him, isn’t she?”
He stares at them, mid-mouthful. “Please,” he says after he’s swallowed. “It’s bad enough that the middle-aged are having sex, without thinking of my aunt doing it. And I don’t know why someone just doesn’t tell Sam to use a condom instead of impregnating the women of the i
Georgie stares at him, stu
“Middle-aged? What a little dickhead,” Lucia says.
To: [email protected] /* */
From: [email protected] /* */
Date: 25 July 2007
Dear Finke,
Okay, so you’re cranky. I can imagine that if you are reading this now, you look cranky. That crease on your forehead and that stare that can slice the bejesus out of anyone. How is life there? Truly asking. Life here is pretty shitty. Mind-numbing at times, to be honest. Don’t know why I’m even telling you, but Georgie reckons she writes to Joe and sends the letters to his in-box, and that somehow getting things off her chest helps. (She actually has a chest these days, courtesy of a pregnancy.)
This, by the way, is not helping, but I have nothing else to do, so at least it relieves the monotony. I’m working in a hideously boring data-entry place a couple of hours a day, and I’m sure that Francesca and Justine have told you I’m the dish-pig at the Union alongside your new bestie, Ned. I tend to keep to my corner while the troika bond.
Anyway, I’m just going through the motions these days and wake up each day to the same scenario. I can’t begin to tell you how hard it is filling up seven lots of twenty-four hours without the assistance of illicit substances. TV sometimes helps, but Georgie has the most pitiful collection of boxed-set DVDs. I’ve covered Sex and the City (season three is my favorite), as well as Will and Grace and The West Wing. Every time we have an issue, she brings it back to The West Wing. Georgie thinks she’s C.J., who was the press secretary.
Best be going. Don’t want to o.d. on a good thing.
Cheers,
Tom
There is nothing in his in-box the next day. Part of him is relieved. He can imagine her seeing his name and pressing the delete button, and that thought gives him the freedom to hit the keys again. It becomes part of his way of filling up those seven twenty-fours. Between working alongside Mohsin the Ignorer, lying on ugly banana chairs in Georgie’s backyard at night, chatting to Sam, who seems to come by more frequently, or working from five to ten at the Union, his life becomes consumed by the number displayed alongside his in-box. Most times there will be an e-mail from Anabel and one from a mate he met at uni, who sends him the most ridiculous stuff on YouTube or attachments with a plethora of tits or other types of nudity. But Tom decides it’s going to be his mission to keep on writing to Tara Finke. He’s going to aim for the record. He’ll stop at ninety-nine unanswered e-mails. He’s going to wear her down.
To: [email protected] /* */
From: [email protected] /* */
Date: 27 July 2007
Dear Finke,
I can now type fifty words a minute without looking at the keys. As I type, I’m actually looking at the guy on my right-hand side, who persists in speaking to me although I can’t understand a single word that comes out of his mouth. He has a very thick Irish brogue and I feel like Marjorie Dawes in the Little Britain fat-busters sketch, who can’t understand the simplest of words because the other woman has an accent.
On my left is Mohsin the Ignorer and I don’t know why it gets to me that he doesn’t talk, but it does. I think he’s a racist and that makes me sound petty, but that’s the way I’m calling it. Except there’s something that makes me want to talk to him, which could have a lot to do with the fact that I don’t talk to many people these days except for Georgie and Sam and my sister on the Net. Did you know Anabel was living in Brisbane with my mum? Shit, not seeing that kid kills me and some days I feel like just stealing Georgie’s car and driving up to be with them. I haven’t spoken to my mother in eleven months, you know. She sends me a text message a couple of times a week and I know she speaks to Georgie almost every second day. I don’t have the guts to go there, because I’m ashamed. I called her something pretty bad when she left my dad. Don’t worry, because I won’t repeat it in this e-mail. I know how you feel about that word. But I’ll never forget the look on her face.
Except there seems to be other stuff to stress over, like the whole thing with Georgie having this baby. Not even when the Sam betrayal happened or when Joe died did she seem this bad. I think a nervous breakdown is coming and it’s coming fast, and I have front-row seats to it all. Not that I’ll be able to stop it, because I would have no idea how, but in a strange way Sam seems to help. When he’s around, she’s less highly strung and anxious, and somehow she allows him over a lot more because I’m there. It’s like I’m the buffer, so I’m going to allow myself to get buffed for the sake of Georgie’s sanity.
Write back.
See ya,
Tom
He takes to getting to work at the Union earlier each day. Most of it is about boredom, but usually whoever arrives first has dibs on the MP3 player the moment the day shift clocks off at five. Lately Francesca’s been going through the I-miss-Will compilation he burned for her and it’s a whole lot of Bloc Party and Augie March and not quite Tom’s thing, and then there’s what he calls Ned the Cook’s emo music and Justine’s Monsieur Camembert, and worse still, Stani’s talkback.
Today Francesca is in even earlier than Tom, taking advantage of the quiet time until the five o’clock crowd comes in. She’s practicing guitar in the back room and he hears a few of the words but doesn’t recognize them and figures that it’s one of her own.
“Change it to a minor,” he tells her from the doorway.
She pauses for a moment but does what he says. Although she’s got a good ear for music, her bends are dodgy and he stays to listen.
“You bend like a girl.”
He walks over and changes the placement of her three fingers on the neck of the guitar.
“And cut your nails.”
“I love my nails,” he hears her mutter as he walks out.