Splitting Apart

By Patrick McGowan

Best described as a discontinuous novel, this is a story told in six parts. Each part is told in first person by a different member of the team in Canberra preparing a report on the international geopolitical crisis of the break up of the Russian Federation. Nev, team leader, is ex-army, with a fixation on language for its own sake, and not real good at politics as it's played in the public service. His number two, Vic, is an ambitious, career public servant who goes after what she wants. When Nev blocks Vic's request for a transfer, she thinks she has some dirt which will put Nev in his place. But Nev falls back into old habits of no-holds-barred behaviour. The story begins with Taz, the youngest in the team, and the most unstable, in hospital after a workplace related injury. We also have Sammy, an F2M transgender, wanting to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, to support her family. Quinn, a former musician who joined the public service by chance works closely with Wes who is dealing with some sort of chronic fatigue syndrome. They all have to work together. They are all living in their own world. These worlds blend together to relate a bigger story of the splitting apart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick McGowan
• Release date: Nov 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9780980367072

Patrick McGowan

I completed a Master of Creative Arts (Prose) at the University of Wollongong in 2011 and have been writing pretty much full time since then. Previously I have worked as metallurgist, health food retailer, government bureaucrat, diplomat and entrepreneur.While my work overseas for the Australian government took me on postings to many places including Europe, Asia and Africa, I like to write about the contemporary Australian experience. I began short story fiction writing in the nineties, had some short stories published, then put my writing on hold as I gave full attention to my diplomatic career.I'm a taiji health exercise enthusiast, an avid jade collector, and I'm also a keen follower of William Gass and his theory of sentence writing, that each sentence has a soul, and that all good literature comes from the well-constructed sentence.I live in Loftus, a suburb of Sydney, and am a member of the South Coast Writers Centre.

Book preview

Splitting Apart

by

Pat McGowan

Smashwords Edition

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Published by:

Pat McGowan on Smashwords

Splitting Apart

Copyright © 2012 by Pat McGowan

Fomelhaut Books, Sydney Australia

isbn 978-0-9803670-7-2

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www.tumblr.com/blog/splittingapart

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‘Splitting Apart’ is a work of fiction. All characters, incidents and dialogue in this novel are entirely imaginary and no reference is intended to any living person.

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To The Public Servant

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Little snubnose, you’ll be the death of me,

Robin Hood and Maid Marion have gone to Greenwood Fair,

They have gone arm in arm and dropped off to sleep,

Little snubnose, you’ll be the death of me.

Josquin des Prez, Petite Camusette

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Taz

The truthful man I believe,

but the liar I also believe..

Lao Zi, Dao De Jing (49)

This is so fucked, being stuck in a hospital bed, my body numbed out from pain-killers, and me staring like a spazzo at the clouds outside my window, over the Brindebellas where I used to go hiking, to shady spots where we’d stand in water up to our knees fly fishing all day long. Times when we could arse about for hours and hours without anyone to jack us. The way these clouds are wheeling around, packing in hard against each other, I reckon it’s going to pelt down soon.

Right now, my body is totally rooted. Two broken legs, a broken arm, three broken ribs and a gallery of cuts and bruises. I’m covered with a suburb of white bandage and plaster, like I’m a parcel tightly wrapped up and addressed to somewhere between ancient Egypt and death. Can’t stand this feeling, being so trapped. But it’s a bite I can’t fight. I’m scared I’ll go crazy. I have to calm myself down. Can’t wait for the day they cut the plaster off. Just want to be free, free to go home and chill, free to crash in my own bed, free to be able to go kickin’ it outside in the pouring rain if that’s what I want to do.

The hours and the days hang forever here. I’ve started this diary in my mind. It stops me from flipping out. I go over and over the lines that I make up, and plan to write them down later. Already two weeks in here. Like a prisoner on a convict island. Time is stuck like the hands on a broken clock. Hands that just won’t move. And the visits of my parents and friends can’t change that.

Something majorly bent is the shock in my visitors’ eyes when they first see me. It doesn’t matter how they try, they can’t disguise it. They see my messed-up face and body and get hit by how close I came to death, run over by that car outside my office. They can’t disguise their horror. The doctors and nurses aren’t so hung up about it, though they dis me in other ways, treating me as if I’m the only thing between them and their next coffee break. That’s how they cope with winners like me.

I guess Dr Jones who comes in on Mondays is a bit different. She’s the only one here who shows any real interest in me, but she keeps it down low. Maybe she was hot once, but she’s got too many lines on her face now. Calls herself a clinical psychologist. Reckons she’s conducting an assessment. She smiles a lot and uses simple words, but I’m not so stupid that I don’t notice she isn’t fully level with me. She’ll never come out and say she’s checking to see whether or not I’m mad. She only says she’s conducting an assessment. I know I haven’t wigged out. But I can understand why she wants to check. After all, I was so devo when I ran out into the traffic that morning. I’m still not sure who was driving my head at the time.

Witnesses say that, after I got collected by the car, I flew through the air and bounced when I hit the bitumen. I can’t remember. Next thing I knew I was waking up to see two nurses standing at the end of my bed talking. They were so hot, I thought I was in heaven. I could see their bodies moving and hear their cool voices, but I had no idea what they were talking about. Except for the one or two munters, most of the nurses here are hot as. Nothing better, just having a sly perve on them from behind this wall of plaster. It’s like I’m in another non-physical world crowded with my own thoughts most of the time and then someone will burst through with a bolt of words. My Dad told me one night that a sure sign a person has recovered from being sick is when their desire for sex returns. I often think about his words when I’m blissing on one of those hot nurses, they sometimes get close enough for me to feel the warmth of their breath on my face, other times I stare at their norgs and imagine how they must look starkers. It sure does take my mind off all my aches and pains. For a while at least.

The other day I went for my x-ray. I heard that Vic, one of my bosses at work, is also in this hospital. In intensive care. My Mum and Dad said there was a story about her in the paper. I’ve also talked with Jaime, this gorgeous chick who works in another section on my floor. We get on well. She called me yesterday. Nobody’s really sure what went down with Vic. She’s fully paralysed. Can’t move and can’t speak. A vegetable. Of all the peeps in Canberra, how crazy is it that two of us who work in our little team of six are both in the same hospital at the same time?

And Vic came to see me with Sammy, another dude from work, a few days after I got here. I’ll bet she never imagined she’d be laid out here in a worse condition than me less than two weeks later. I’m aching to find out her story. Jaime told me that the police were investigating. It’s a bummer I can’t visit Vic. She’s number two in our team.

Vic and I gel okay at work. I’m the newbie in our team and she did a lot to make me feel welcome when I first arrived. She showed me where to find all the things I needed for my job, like on the group directory. Without her help, I would have spent half my day surfing the LAN network trying to find all the templates and spreadsheets I was supposed to already know existed. At the same time, I know Vic isn’t popular in the office. The guys call her the doberwoman. The way she jumps and barks and bites, I suppose. I’ve already seen her put a lot of the others on the blast. Though she’s never done it to me. She’s a large woman, a bit of a fat bitch but she’s been good to me so far. Jaime said on the phone she’ll have some good goss about Vic the next time she visits.

Dad left a message to say he and Mum will be in at 6pm as usual. They come in to give me some whassup, but Mum’s eyes are always dark and red as if she’s been crying. I asked Dad about this one day when Mum went down to the cafeteria. He told me not to worry about her. He says she’s happy I’m alive and she sometimes cries tears of joy. Dad’s so old school, but he’s a great support. He always has been. He told me I’ll get a lot of money through workers compo for my accident.

‘We may have to put up a fight to get it. But I’m always up for a good stoush,’ he told me.

He’s a fighter. He’s been a union delegate on the local council for over twenty years. A bit of a lifer, but he’s fought many battles in that time. He’s telling us about his dramas over dinner every night.

‘Winning doesn’t only take strength,’ he reckons. ‘You need to be smart about it as well.’

He’s pissed with the Labor Party. He reckons it doesn’t matter who’s in power, you have to fight for justice and fairness these days. I haven’t got his fighting spirit, but I can listen to his stories. Only the other morning I read in a Canberra Times article about how Dad was mentioned in the reinstatement of some sacked council workers. He’s the puff man in his union. This is why he wants to get involved in my case. When I started my job last year, I didn’t want to join the union but I couldn’t bear the thought of Dad hounding me every day until I showed some gratitude for all the gains made by the unions over the past hundred years and so I joined. They say I’m even named after some famous Australian unionist. How could I ever dis my father like that. After all this happening to me, I’m so glad I joined. It could make a big difference with my compo payout. Jaime told me she’d heard there wasn’t much chance for me to get any money because I was away from the office without permission and so wouldn’t be covered.

When I told Dad that, he just went, ‘Phff! There was justifiable reason for your being away and so that rule doesn’t apply.’

Even if I win, I’m not sure if I ever want to go back there to work. I’ve got the feeling they don’t like me. Inside me I know I want something big from that place. I’ve got an idea it’s a way for me to see the world, working for the government. One day I’ll travel. And this is the only way to travel. But it’ll be so uncomfortable facing them all again after what’s happened.

I’m still trying to work out what got into me that Monday morning. It all started when I heard our boss, Nev, an old guy with a pommy accent, called an important meeting for first thing in the morning. The meeting started at 9am. I only got to work at 9.30am and so missed the first half. The meeting was about an urgent report we’d been asked to write for the Minister about the split of Russia that was in the news over the weekend. I know a fair bit about Russia because I watched every game of the World Cup in Moscow last year on the box and there were lots of things about Russia I learned between the games. The idea at work is that what happens over there is supposed to be important to Australia. I don’t understand politics. My Dad said it’s come down to gang warfare, but you can say that about all politics. It doesn’t really mean much to say that to me about Russia.

After I was told about the 9am meeting I was dev, felt I’d let the team down. I was the only one who didn’t attend. We have flexitime and can start work any time between 7am and 10am so it wasn’t really my bad. And if they’d told me on the Friday about an early meeting on Monday morning, I could have made it in on time. But the problem was that the situation in Russia flared up over the weekend and Nev only got the email from the Minister’s office at 7.30am that morning. He wanted to get started asap because the deadlines for the report were so tight. I wasn’t feeling good about being left out and I wanted to tell Nev that.

Nev has a big office. It’s in the corner of the building and so has lots of windows where you can look out in two directions. You get a great view of the Canberra CBD from there. He has to shut the blinds on one side in the afternoons to keep the sun out. The office has a small conference table and chairs for six. This suits us just right.

I entered the office just after 9.30am. I slowly pushed Nev’s door open. All five of them turned to me. ‘Come in and sit down, Taz,’ Nev said in mid-sentence. He was obviously in the middle of one of his long, rah-rah speeches he lays on us so often. I was soon seated with my notebook open, leaning forward, waiting for my chance to speak.

When Nev paused to read some scribble marks he’d made on the printout of his email from the Minister’s office, I began. ‘I’m sorry I’m late, Nev.’

Nev turned to me with his fat bulldog face as if to ask me if I’d forgotten who was boss. He fixed his gaze on me like he hated me. ‘Taz, don’t interrupt me. We can talk about that later.’

I was still leaning forward. I thought maybe he hadn’t heard me properly so I continued. ‘I just wanted to say I’m sorry I’m late. Nobody told me about this meeting till after I got here.’

Nev continued to stare at me. I was squirming under his aggro eyes. Like he was willing me to turn into nothing and slide me under the table. At that moment, Vic slapped her hand on the table and spoke up. ‘Taz, we hear you and I’ll tell you later all about what you missed.’

That made me feel better. ‘As long as you know it wasn’t my fault for not arriving at 9am.’ Dad has always told me I have to be heard, I have to get my opinions on the record. I have got to stand on my own feet. His idea is that if you want to be a wimp who keeps their mouth shut, then you’ll get bullied for the rest of your life and become one of those ‘consume, be silent and die’ types. But I was beginning to get nervous as I wondered whether to stay quiet or say one more thing. It bugged me that I was being kept out of a secret and so decided it was better to make my point. ‘I just want this to be on the record. I would have come in earlier if only somebody had told me.’

All the heads at the table turned to me at the same time and said together, ‘Taz, leave it. We’re nearly finished here.’

It’s almost six o’clock. This lush nurse, real slim with great legs, is in my room, yanking the curtains together. It was so messed up watching those last glimpses of the storm, behind the spray of water against the window. The curtains muffle the mongrel wind. And no more outside light. Just safe fluoro, in a room without shadows, a room off limits to ghosts and their modern relatives, whatever name we give them, germs and things that breed and grow in dark spaces to become monsters which, if we don’t knock them out, will grow and grow, eating up all the people in the hospital, and the hospital itself, until it becomes a collapsed ruin of stainless steel and concrete in the middle of a vacant block.

The nurse, the lushie, snatches the remote from my bedside cupboard and turns on the news like it’s part of my medicine. I’ll do whatever she wants. Sadly she is soon out of the room. The pictures without sound are good to stare at when I get tired of my parents fussing about me. I can already hear Dad’s voice out in the corridor razzing a nurse. I recognise their footsteps. Right on six o’clock. Dad, a big man, many would say overweight, is first in the door, his short hair is still wet after his shower and change of clothes after work. He’s carrying a shopping bag. It’ll be filled with protein health bars and apples. He reckons I need lots of protein during the recovery phase and he’s worried the hospital food isn’t giving me enough. The apples are to help me shit. Mum follows through the door with her handbag and another green shopping bag. That’ll have a copy of the Canberra Times, maybe a few magazines, and probably a book. She wants me to use my time well while I’m here.

‘Geeze, you’re lucky you’re indoors today, mate,’ Dad begins.

I give a simple nod. ‘Looks maggot out there.’

‘It’s pissin’ down.’

Mum puts her bags on the table and sits in the chair. She rubs her hands together. ‘It’s so cosy in here.’

‘What’s on the idiot box tonight?’ Dad asks.

‘Same old clowning around.’ I can’t be bothered looking at the program. I just use the box to zone out. Those police and drama shows are all bunk.

Mum pulls out a book. ‘Taz, the lady in the bookshop put me onto this. It’s a biography of your Minister. You might find it interesting seeing as you work where you work.’

‘That’s great, Mum. I’ll get onto it tomorrow,’ I say, looking at Dad. Reading is way down on our list of things to do.

‘Any news?" Mum asks.

My impassive face speaks. ‘Nah. It’s been a quiet day. They say I’ll have another x-ray soon.’

Dad can’t help himself. ‘I’d say about two or three more weeks and we’ll be out of here.’

I grimace.

Mum holds my hand. ‘Oh, it must be so hard for you.’

‘I want to get out. I‘ve had enough.’

Dad’s smiling at me. ‘Come on, son. This type of thing is good for your character. Something to tell the grandkids.’

The thought of grandkids. Yeah, that’s what they want. It could be a long while yet. I have two older brothers who better deliver because I won’t. Not for now, that’s for sure. Or marriage. I see them at work, these guys hammering and sawing away at their family empires. And I see women who want a guy with an empire. I prefer those stories of people who are just busy with their own lives, without thinking much about it, and their lives keep moving because something good is happening without them killing themselves to make it happen. So much more natural. This empire thing that Dad has drives me mad. Can’t stand it. I had a steady girlfriend at uni, the sister of one of my soccer mates. We made the most of it. After we went our own ways at the end of our degree, she told me she missed me. I told her to talk to me when I’m thirty and we’ll see how our lives are then. That’s years away. I’m still only twenty-two.

‘Are they treating you okay?’ Mum asks.

‘Fully,’ I say.

Dad pulls a thermos flask and two cups out of his bag. Next he crunches open a packet of Arnott’s. I love the music of cellophane. They’ve got their hospital visit down to a routine. ‘Hey, it’s 6.30, let’s put on the world news. See what’s going on in the world.’ As Mum moves over to pick up the thermos flask and unscrew the lid, Dad grabs the remote and changes the channel. He also pushes up the volume. They’re soon drinking tea as they follow the latest on the standoff in Russia.

Mum interrupts. ‘You heard anything about your boss?’

‘Vic? Nah. No change at all.’

Dad puts his cup down. ‘You know, I hear her family come in here and sit by her every day. Maybe we should go and pay her a visit for you. Would you like that?’

‘Cool. I heard that the cops are investigating. You hear anything about that?’

Dad’s eyes open wide. ‘Hell. There must be a bit of a story behind it. Who told you?’

‘Jaime, this chick from work who called me.’

‘May take some time, but sooner or later we’ll get the whole story.’

‘I’m hoping Jaime will visit me soon. She reckons she’s heard a few things.’

Dad’s expression changes. ‘You want to be careful. Don’t get too involved. You don’t want to get caught up in stuff that’s not your business. Better to stay out of it so nobody can point the finger at you if things go wrong.’

Once they tell me what I should and shouldn’t be doing, I go absent. This is the problem of living with your parents. Though leaving home doesn’t always solve it. They just can’t snap out of the parent gig. Telling me at twenty-two who I should and shouldn’t be talking to. It shits me up the wall.

The rain is as sick as ever. As I wait for sleep, I tune into the wind rampaging in from the south-west. I go back to that morning. The way everybody turned around to me and spoke at the same time made me suspicious. I began to think they were keeping me out of something important. I felt so much pressure just to shut up and wait till the end of the meeting.

Nev finished the meeting by saying that this was the biggest test our section had ever faced. A grip of school talk. He wanted quality work and he wanted us to come in before the deadline. Blah blah blah. Nev makes it clear when a meeting is over because he uses some military words like ‘to the battlements’ or ‘all hands on deck’. One by one members of the team left the office and filtered back to their workstations. Vic moved more slowly. She picked up her notebook and papers, tapped their end on the table to straighten them and took a deep breath. Vic’s not so much fat as she has big bones. And she has flowing red hair and very fair skin. That tone of the skin on her face contrasts with her heavy brown eyes. They can be kind and they can be murderous. They have only been kind to me. She looked at me and said, ‘Good morning, Taz. Did we have a good weekend?"

‘All right,’ I began.

Still looking around, Vic was heading out of Nev’s office. ‘Here, come with me and I’ll put you in the picture.’ She spoke over her shoulder on her way to her workstation. There was a spare chair next to hers.

As she sat down to check her emails, I watched Sammy, the weird dude, the man who was a woman, glide back to his desk. He still looks girlish to me with his feminine eyes. But Sammy’s good to work with. He’s just into a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. Already Wes and Quinn are in deep conversation on how they’ll proceed with the report. They’re the backbone of this team. Those two dudes do most of the work and then it seems others either add information here and there or they spend their time frilling it up before it goes across to the Minister’s office. I get a lot of confidence working with those two. They know how to laugh the stress down.

Vic put her hand on my arm. ‘Taz, I just remembered. I need to hurry down to another floor to clear something up. Be back as soon as I can.’ Vic is often like this. She gets all dramatic and says we need to hold a meeting to sort out some important issue and then something else more important will crop up and the original meeting blows over, never to be mentioned again. ‘It’s a fast changing environment,’ is the way she often puts it.

‘Coo,’ I say and get up to go back to my seat. I haven’t even unpacked my bag from when I arrived. As I walk past Nev’s office, I get the impulse to stop.