I’m at some kind of school camp: an old commercial kitchen, a dining hall, bunk beds. I go looking for him. I walk onto the rooftop and it’s covered in snow and ice, surrounded by sea—icebergs everywhere. At the edge of the roof a man who is sort of my father, but isn’t, tends to penguins as they play, sliding down ramps of snow on their bellies. In the distance, galleons battle, flying flags the size of tennis courts. I go back downstairs; the sound of penguin chatter and distant cannons mutes as the door closes behind me. Down another level there is a second-hand store. The woman in there burns too much incense and I have to leave, breathless. I stumble into in a hall, set up as an impromptu church. I sit beside him on the end of a pew. The congregation approach the altar for communion, genuflect, open mouthed. He and I stay as they move away from us like a receding wave. We hold each other’s hands in the void between our laps. Our foreheads fall together. He says in his earnest way that’s almost rehearsed, I’ve missed you so fucking much. We kiss, I feel whole, that’s all I remember.
I’m at some kind of lunch for my father—his birthday maybe. I don’t want to be there. It’s in a house in Brunswick—it’s big and old. My nieces and nephews are smoking dope and playing Xbox in a converted garage. I slide open the glass door and leave. I walk down the side of the property and push aside a sheet pegged to a line that is replacing a wall; in my dreams, buildings are often ruins. On the other side of the sheet, it’s his house. I walk down that corridor that I have stumbled drunkenly down so many times. The first door is his; it is missing too, crumbled away. I am invisible. I am a ghost. I watch a brown haired girl I’ve never seen get up to leave his bed—to get dressed. He grabs her arms and smiles—he doesn’t want to let her go. She slips away past me (through me?) to the old bathroom with the hole in the wall where the ivy pokes through. He keeps smiling, knowing she will return. I try to make him hear me. See me. Feel me. I try to kiss him. I scream myself breathless, unheard at the foot of his bed. I am weak, trembling, weeping. I grab the edge of his mattress and shake it and suddenly I am real. He cries out quietly in shock. I turn and leave. He follows me down that broken, drunken hallway, trying to grab at my hands as I pull away. I want to turn and kiss him but my feet keep walking. He calls my name again and again. I push past the sheet that stands in for his front door and burst onto Sydney Road; bright; crowded. Sunblinded, I stop. He takes my hands and turns me to him. Hey,—he says.
I start a campaign of industrial sabotage against Target because their bras never fit me right. It involves throwing homeless people to their deaths from the top of high-rise tenements after force-feeding them Target brand confectionery so the autopsies will suggest it induces psychosis. In one of the struggles, I slip from the roof. Suddenly I am sitting on the gutter beneath the building with my knees up to my chest. I’m wearing that old white jumper—my favourite one from fifteen years ago. My hair is long and loose. I’m crying. He comes up and puts his arm around my shoulders. I’m freezing. I tell him I’m freezing. He tells me that’s because I’m dead. I don’t want to believe him. He squeezes me tighter and says Well lady, what did you expect? I can’t stop crying. He keeps holding me and I don’t get warmer. I realise he’s right; I instantly cease to exist.
It’s late at night and I’m waiting for him to come off stage. I’m drinking alone in a bar—champagne from a jam jar with a bendy straw. Everything is sort of golden; I think it’s the fifties. I recline on a chaise lounge, an empty brass birdcage hanging over my head. My feet are bare. I am wearing a dress, pale blue, crushed silk, full skirt. When he comes up to me, I see it matches his tie. He pins an orchid to the bodice of my dress. We leave together. His friends watch us, wondering who I am. Their eyes make me bristle; I feel inscrutable and fearless. It is a warm summery night, and we walk through lush green gardens near a freeway. I grab his hand and lean into him, and it’s just like that night—our first night together. We share the jam jar champagne as we walk and begin to kiss. He asks if I am sure I want this. I say I know I shouldn’t; I know I’ll pay for it; but I want it more than anything. The streets are almost empty and everything echoes. I squeeze his hand tighter, afraid to look at him in case he disappears. We dash across the freeway and are nearly hit by a cement truck. He slows but I pull him on. We get to the grass on the other side and collapse under a palm tree, lit by a pale blue flood light. He is so warm. The night air on my bare shoulders feels amazing. He tells me he loves me—completely casual, like it’s nothing. I am too bewildered to say it back. I just kiss him. Everything else is a blur.
