A young woman walks into the room holding a stapler. Her hair is bleached blonde, witch-like, her eyes the only giveaway to her ethnicity.
‘You an artist here?’ she asks.
I look at her nose ring. Single white stud. ‘I’m Mike and Jacob’s housemate.’
She nods coolly. ‘I’m Val. You look like someone famous.’
Her Drew Barrymore mouth is painted blood orange. She smells expensive, a blend of musk and jasmine.
‘I played the violin well once.’
She stares at me, tiny head stilled. I’m tempted to tell her I know who she is, regurgitate all the things Mike and Jacob have let slip about her in my presence. She’s the latest artist to sign a six-month lease on the spare room at their studio. She graduated from the Victorian College of Arts last year and moved to Sydney to be with her boyfriend of seven years, only to be dumped a few weeks later. Her mega-wealthy parents live in Shanghai and got her an apartment in Bondi Beach.
‘So, you’re shit at the violin now?’
‘My teacher might say that.’
She lets out a blunt laugh, lifts the stapler in her hand, presses it to my shoulder.
Mike shouts from the other room, ‘Oi, Valerie Li! Watch it. That girl needs her shoulders!’
‘My fingers weren’t on the trigger, Mike, chill.’
She’s wearing a white T-shirt with FUCK ME SAFE printed in the middle, in block caps.
‘Nice T-shirt.’
She pulls her hair in a bun and asks me if I know who she is quoting.
‘No.’
‘David Wojnarowicz. A New York artist. He died of AIDS in the early nineties.’
She bends down to pick up staples off the floor and inserts them into her stapler.
Jacob calls out from the other room; he is struggling to adjust the ceiling lights. I go to help.
When I return to Val, the room is punctuated by the sound of her thunder-clap stapling. CLAP. CLAP. Pause. CLAP.
‘Why’s there no music playing?’ I ask.
Val pinches her nose. ‘Music takes me away from myself. I don’t want that when I’m painting. It’s such a distraction, no offence.’
‘But you’re not painting.’
‘I’m working. It’s the same thing. I got out of an abusive relationship with music years ago. It’s too persuasive. My parents made me play the piano. Could you pass me more staples?’
I want to please this girl, though I’ve only just met her. Is it because we’re the only Asians in the gallery?
I pass her the staples.
‘So, if I play Debussy right now …’
‘Please don’t,’ she says. ‘I’ll have traumatic flashbacks to art school. Our teacher used to put on Chopin and expect us to paint flowers and lakes.’ She makes a retching sound. ‘Mozart used to be interesting. Until he wasn’t.’
‘And if I play AC/DC?’
She twists her wrists in circular motions, looks up at the ceiling. ‘Don’t even.’
At 7 pm, a crowd amasses. A group of five enters. Then couples trickle in. I go to the bathroom to splash my face with cool water. When I return, the crowd has poured out onto the street, smoking, holding wineglasses, talking, laughing, some looking serious, like they are talking about the famine in Yemen. When I wedge myself into one of these serious-looking conversations, I find them instead discussing the merits of living in Paddington versus Woollahra. Noah and Olivia drop by. Olivia is wearing a black dress with white heels, making her a head taller than me. In ballet flats we are the same height.
‘It’s our anniversary,’ she announces. ‘We’ve got a booking at Tetsuya’s at eight so we can’t stay long.’
‘Congratulations.’
Mike slaps Noah on the back. ‘Such a good boyfriend. Maybe he’ll propose tonight?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Noah says.
Olivia smiles at the floor. ‘We’d better not be late.’ She pulls on Noah’s jacket sleeve, waves us goodbye.
Later, Mike makes a speech. People raise their glasses as he begins a long list of acknowledgements. I’m standing to the side near the speakers, holding a bottle of beer by its neck, scanning the faces in the crowd. Mike has just cracked a joke when a savage noise outside punctures the space, redirecting our attention. There’s a screech of tyres and a voice yells something obscene. Cunt or fuck or dick. I can’t hear the word, but I register the tone.
Then the eggs start coming. The first one cracks against the front window, a second and third smash against the door. Then they start landing near the feet of those who had spilled out onto the footpath. There is screaming. Some of the men shout, take off after the car. Women scuttle inside. The car disappears down the dark street.
Later, inside, Mike and Jacob are hunched and small in the back corner of a room.
‘Are you okay?’ I put an arm around Mike and rub Jacob’s arms, which are crossed in front of him. ‘The important thing is that nobody was hurt,’ I say.
Val inserts herself between me and Jacob. ‘This is bullshit. We should call the police.’
‘No,’ Jacob says. ‘I don’t want this in the papers. My mother would kill me.’
‘But think of the publicity,’ Val says.
Mike shakes his head. ‘We want it for the right reasons. Not because we got egged.’ He extracts a Juul, and begins inhaling deeply.
‘At least we weren’t bombed.’
Jacob stirs. ‘Mike, I’m Jewish.’
As we’re cleaning up, Val takes her phone out and snaps pictures of the cracked eggshells swimming in pools of yolk.
‘Hashtag real art. This’ll be my ten thousandth post.’
She invites me back to her apartment in Bondi Beach. We take an Uber. She is currently subletting to a Chinese artist, an old friend, though she doesn’t think he’ll last long. The man is a sculptor. He hires models and sleeps with them after. After the art. Or maybe the art is the intercourse. She laughs as she tells me.
‘The apartment smells constantly of wet clay, and in the evenings I can’t eat my dinner without the sound of a woman being pleasured. Which is why I’m always eating out. I can’t cook either. Which reminds me, I should probably start looking for a new place. Or rent out that room to someone else.’
She looks over at me, she can tell there’s something on my face I’m not expressing.
‘You’re tired, huh?’
‘Yeah.’
She takes my phone and texts herself. Yo. Val here.
‘Driver, can we just do a detour and drop off my friend here?’
She turns back to me and clasps my shoulder. ‘You can visit me some other time.’
The driver drops me off in Newtown. It’s just past midnight, though I feel awake and alert. I close the front door behind me and go to my violin. Thirty-three days till the audition. I can fit in another hour of practice.
11
The following evening, I make miso bolognaise for the boys. Mike comments on the unusual mix of Japanese flavouring and I tell him my mother showed me how to make it when I returned from Wayne. She was a good cook, but never had time. And she liked cleaning too. Typical feminine activities. Part of me was disgusted that she’d be talented at such simple, ordinary things.