Later, as she’s clipping on her helmet and mounting her bike, she mentions Noah’s concert again.
‘Oh, yes. You said before. What is it, a charity concert?’
‘Sort of. It’s an alumni event at Newington. Can I put you down?’
‘What about you?’
‘I can’t. My mother needs me on Monday nights.’
I fold my arms, feigning irritation.
‘I hate Noah’s friends.’
Olivia puts her arms around my neck. In that embrace, I know I have lost.
‘You’re a godsend,’ she says.
‘I know.’
‘And don’t forget it’s Noah’s birthday this weekend.’
As she rides away, I turn to shut the door behind me and glimpse my own reflection in the glass panel. For a moment, I think there is somebody inside the house, standing in the hallway waiting for me. My heart stops. And then I step inside, untie my hair. I walk to the bathroom and use the toilet.
Later I check my phone, hoping for a text from Val. I’d sent her three messages earlier in the day, asking whether she’d thought any more about moving in together. I even told her I’d started looking at places, which is a half-lie. On the toilet seat, I scrolled through real estate pages of apartments in the Eastern Suburbs.
My heart leaps at a text banner, but it’s just Olivia reminding me to pick up a present for Noah.
What to get for your best friend’s boyfriend? A book? A sex toy? A subscription to GQ? Nobody reads magazines anymore.
I stare at the phone, willing Val to text me. I’m sure she would never make me go to her boyfriend’s birthday party. She would never make me do anything I didn’t want to do.
13
Noah turns twenty-five and Olivia insists on throwing him a party at his parents’ penthouse in Cremorne, a white wealthy suburb that hugs the shores of Sydney Harbour on the north side of the bridge. His parents are in Croatia for a month on sabbatical, so the place is free all of April. I invite Val as my plus one because she’s relatively new to the city and wants to widen her circle of friends. We arrange to meet at her place to get ready. The sculptor has moved out, she tells me. She still eats out most nights.
Her apartment is on the top floor of a renovated art deco building on Campbell Parade. I knock twice on the metal flyscreen and she comes to the door almost immediately. I follow her into the lounge. There’s a smell of wet cardboard and jasmine. Delta blues play from her laptop.
Her eyes are ringed with heavy black kohl. She’s wearing denim overalls over a white T-shirt, camel-coloured socks with pink spots, black boots, kitten earrings.
‘I thought you said you wanted to get—’
‘I know, sorry. I got excited.’
A lady is singing about her lover who has run away to Chicago.
‘Is this Bessie Smith?’
‘Memphis Minnie.’
We sit on a three-seater, green retro couch in the open-plan living area. Against the far wall opposite, the kitchen is one long bench and a large two-door refrigerator. The furniture is sleek and grey, discreetly expensive. There are framed sketches on the walls; pencil drawings of a man’s face, a typewriter, a willow tree.
‘This place is nice.’
She shrugs, indifferent.
‘The fridge is too big. I don’t cook.’
She says ‘cook’ the way one might say ‘masturbate’ in public.
She walks over to the fridge and opens the two doors. ‘See? Nothing.’
Empty except for a carton of long-life milk, a can of tuna and a bottle of Diet Coke.
‘You weren’t kidding.’
‘I never cook. I don’t know how. Anyway, you still haven’t seen the view.’
I follow her onto the balcony.
The expansive line of blue ocean. Seagulls dot the blush-red sky, wheeling in an invisible wind.
‘Must be nice to live here,’ I say. ‘Why don’t I just take the sculptor’s room?’
She wrinkles her nose. ‘This place reminds me of Damien actually. He was here a lot.’
The gum-snapping scat of Memphis Minnie’s voice jives in the background, a third party to our conversation.
‘Come on, I need to finish my make-up.’ She walks back into the apartment.
In Val’s bedroom, there are jars of scented candles scattered on top of books. It’s a tarot-reader’s room. Lamps in each corner. A large frameless mirror by a bookshelf, a scarf rack.
I sit on her bed and watch her fix fake eyelashes on. She asks if I got Noah a present. I tell her I didn’t have the mental capacity to think about it, so I got him a gift voucher for a music store in the city. She tells me she’s bought him tickets to Boy and Bear. ‘How do you know he likes them?’ I ask.
‘Everyone likes Boy and Bear. Especially nice, white, private school boys. They’re so predictable.’
‘What are these for?’ I point to a bowl of condoms on her bedside table.
‘They stop me from making babies.’
‘Aren’t you on the pill?’
‘Damien is not the only person I’m sleeping with.’
‘I thought you guys broke up.’
She pats her forehead with a cotton ball.
‘Is it an open relationship?’
She doesn’t say anything.
I slip off my shirt and jeans and grab the slip dress I’d brought from my bag.
‘If it’s not an open relationship, isn’t that cheating?’
She walks across the room to tie the back of my dress. I feel her cold fingers brush my skin.
‘I think being in a monogamous relationship is just another patriarchal trap set by men to keep us from taking over the world.’
Only Val can make such sweeping statements.
We take a selfie and she posts it. In the picture, I look uncomfortable, like a teenager off to her first party, anxious and trying to hide it unsuccessfully.
The penthouse is on a quiet street lined with European cars and large fig trees. Lights pulse from the third floor, announcing the location.
As we approach, the door to the apartment block opens. Two men walk out.
‘Hey!’
Noah and I hug awkwardly. His cologne is thick; cinnamon and wood. The scent of affluence embedded deep into his flesh.
The man standing beside him is distracted by the phone in his hand. Face gaunt, cheeks tight below dark eyebrows. He’s wearing dark blue jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt with small aeroplanes on it. Cufflinks. He looks like Christian Bale in American Psycho.
‘This is Mark,’ Noah says.
We shake hands. His cufflinks are 747s. He is older. Maybe ten or fifteen years. He returns his attention to his screen, as if his height and natural good looks demand respect, regardless.
‘We’re just heading out to get more beer,’ Noah says. ‘You guys want anything?’
‘We’ve brought whisky,’ Val says.
‘But I’d like more.’
‘More?’ He looks at me strangely.
‘No, I’m joking.’
Noah smiles, no teeth. He waves as he turns to leave, his friend trailing behind, eyes still fixed on his phone.
We take the elevator to the third floor. The sound of beats muffled by the tiled walls. We emerge to the flesh-throbbing thump of techno slapping us in the face. The door to the penthouse is open and we step inside tentatively. At once the music is killed. A collective chorus of boos thunders across the room. People are squeezed together like sardines in the narrow hallway, drinks in hand, mouths in speech. We push through to the lounge room. It smells of chlorine, citrus and sweat, like a freshly cleaned bathroom at an upscale gym where white towels are provided and Aesop products are freely distributed.