It was his sister’s fault really. I mean, what else was he going to do when Cat asked him to empty those bottles of Grolsch? Pour them down the sink? Use them for snail bait? In his garden, no amount of beer was enough to rid him of the pesky gastropods. Better to slug the pale lager himself, he thought. Cat didn’t drink beer herself. She just wanted the empty bottles for her jun concoction.
“Jun?” he said.
“Oh, it’s the champagne version of kombucha”, she said. “Good for intestinal health”.
Ant rolled his eyes.
It was a Saturday and he’d just driven Cat’s car home from the hospital where she had driven herself to the emergency department the day before following 36 hours of abdominal pain that she naively attributed to gas, despite the absence of any windy evidence. This was reminiscent of her last visit to the same emergency department six months prior where, after 36 hours of pain, which she also attributed to gas – sans the usual associated flatulence – she was rushed off to surgery with acute appendicitis. A pattern was starting to emerge and Ant suspected that Cat probably attributed any bodily pain with gas. Sore toe? Must be gas. Headache? Must be gas. Plantar fasciitis? Must be gas.
Cat was now laid up for a week with sigmoid colon diverticulitis. Clearly, the Jun wasn’t working for her. Nor the psyllium husks that she was a fan of and so annoyingly promoted at family dinners. His sister’s gastric woes were sufficient enough confirmation that he had no need to change his beer-swilling, lager-loving lifestyle and become an aficionado of hipster home-brew Jun. With a psyllium husk chaser.
Ant let himself into his sister’s house and found the Grolsch, picked up 3 bottles, headed out into the backyard, through the rear gate bordering the local park, and sat down to watch the cricket on the Bonbeach playing fields. He opened the first bottle. He wasn’t sure what he enjoyed more: that strangely comforting first pop of the swing top or the downing of the chilled fizz. Either way, it was a hot day – over 30 – and the three bottles were finished quickly, as did the game. Nothing remarkable about the performance of the men in white with their red-stained groins. No Viv Richards, Murat Koli, or Garfield Sobers amongst them. And, well, he wasn’t exactly sober either. But the excited calls of ‘howzat’ coming from middle-aged men thrashing willow bats and cork-cored balls around made for a relaxing Saturday afternoon.
Bugger, he was tired. Didn’t feel like going home. However, he had a party to attend that evening down in Mornington that would involve a lot of alcohol. That in turn, would require an expensive taxi trip there and back. He barely knew the bloke who was celebrating his official entrance into middle-age, that is if the bloke in question – Bazza – were going to live to 80. Ant calculated that there was a rather large discrepancy between the value of the friendship and the cost of a taxi. Bazza was only worth $7.50, yet the cost of two taxi trips – there and back – was probably around $60. An earworm consisting of a single word, ‘dammit’, started humming through his head. On the positive side, ‘dammit’ was a far less irritating earworm than Boutros Boutros-Ghali which, for some inexplicable reason, was the default word in his mother’s earworm lexicon.
Cricket game over, Grolsch bottles empty, he walked down Bondi Road and along Nepean Highway until he reached the Longbeach Hotel. Perched on a barstool he met a couple of acquaintances and the taste for Grolsch was replaced with the taste of local craft beers, heightening his sense of humour. Everything was funny. Particularly the paper napkins which he folded into fan-like arrangements that he captured, instagrammably, to send to Cat as an MMS message. It was a thing they did. Down at the pub Ant, after a plate of spiced pumpkin hummus, would fold paper napkins and send happy snaps to Cat. It was a salute to the folded paper napkins their mother insisted on using to decorate the covered billiard table at family dinners, courtesy of Marianne von Bornstedt’s and Ulla Prytz’s 1968 edition of the Swedish bestseller ‘Folding Paper Napkins’.
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. The earworm spoke to him again, reminding him of Bazza’s $7.50 worth of friendship. The mountain of energy required to concoct a last-minute non-attendance excuse seemed insurmountable compared to the energy required to just go through the motions of turning up and faking $100 worth of mateship. Ant dragged his feet out of the Longbeach Hotel, crossed the road, and got on a Frankston-bound train at Chelsea.
It was quiet in the carriage. He was the sole commuter on board. Except for a lonely bicycle, forgotten, probably by some amnesiac drunkard. The cure for the silence came in the form of his phone’s ringtone, Rod Stewart’s Da Ya Think I’m Sexy, the melody which was actually stolen from Tom Jobim, a Brazilian musician who sought and received financial restitution for Mr Stewart’s lack of independent creative thought. This vindication pleased Ant, a man who lived and played fair and detested injustice. The ring tone wasn’t the only one on Ant’s phone. But this one was assigned to Hottie Jane of Seaford. As opposed to Who Let The Dogs Out, assigned to Hottie Shazza of Noble Park. And NWA’s OPP for his mate’s ex-wife. Don’t Cut Your Mate’s Grass. Ant looked at his phone. It was a text message from Jane, strangely enough asking if he knew anyone with a bicycle. Ant chuckled, in the way only a man with a belly full of Grolsch and craft beer and his eyes on a wayward Shimano-geared Malvern Star can do.
The train arrived at Kananook Station, where Ant and Jane’s new bicycle alighted. He walked past the wannabe-cops-but-we’re-not-good-enough Protective Services Officers and on to Wells Road where, like an illicit-substance affected Lance Armstrong, he and his lager-filled belly pedalled past the new and used car sales yards up towards Nepean Highway via Overton Road. It was an easy ride to Jane’s house, where he left his thoughtful and well-timed gift on the front nature strip. It was now after 10pm, too late to be knocking on Jane’s front door and so he left, and sent her a text message of his own saying: “I feel in a very giving mood today.”
Dammit. That earworm returned. Damn you $7.50 Bazza. Ant dragged himself back up to Nepean Highway and flagged down a taxi.
“Mornington Hotel, mate?”
“Righto.”
It was a nice taxi, clean. And the driver knew where he was going. Ant sniffed at his armpits. His speedy velodrome-inspired ride to deliver Jane’s gift had caused him to build up a sweat. Dammit. No time to go home for a shower.
“Aah, mate,” he said to the driver with the boldness of a desperately sweaty beast, “you wouldn’t happen to have any deodorant I could use?”
“Sure, here”. The driver flicked open his console and pulled out a spray can of Lynx. “Go for it maaate.”
Ant dowsed himself in artificial pheromones. By the time he arrived in Mornington, he smelled good and the afternoon of Grolsch and craft beers had lightened his mood.
…to be continued…
Cate Uí Néill 