Summer Undone

By DM Grant

What if there was a reason for all the pain?

'Where did Thomas go when he withdrew like this? Did he hate them? Did he feel judged? Was he angry?'

SUMMER UNDONE follows the lives of two brothers over one Melbourne summer during the recession of the early 1990s. Luke is getting by in the world of shared houses; exploring love and navi

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Grant
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9780645015614

Book preview

Part One

CHAPTER ONE

IT FELT LIGHT at first. Not much more than a gentle tap at his shoulder. A small tug beckoning him to go outside. Out in the car park it grew stronger and became insistent. He had to get on his bike and head south. He walked out past the industrial turrets, mounted his bike and set off.

Signs of the previous centuries economic woes surrounded him. Once magnificent and ornate nineteenth century buildings were falling into ruin. Left with foundation cracks shoddily filled in with cement. Romantic edifices with scrolls, quills, and elaborate reliefs all crumbling. Light purple paint peeling, exposing the cracked and soot-stained bricks underneath. Window frames cracked and glass jammed. The remorseless sun radiating into the brickwork, slowly dissolving the masonry and mortar into sand.

The bike felt heavy. Its frame rusted, severe near the nick that had been cut into it. Safe enough, he thought. He had only started riding and he had sore legs and stiff joints. He didn’t know the scale of this journey. Though he had some sense; some feeling of foreboding. South. Head south. Deep down he felt emotionally flat, under some kind of deadening spell. He rode slowly past the buildings on either side of the lane and turned south into the wind.

It had been a hot year even by Melbourne standards. The scorching sun ever-present. The street ahead of him lay empty and desolate. Around him were the signs of the current bust. Schools sat empty. Sold off. The economy faltering. People hated it but could do nothing. Most parts of the public service were now in private hands. Electricity. Trams and trains. Banks. The big sell-off.

He felt the wind on his face, cool but with a touch of warm; the heat likely to rise up again later on. He felt tired but driven to ride; uncertain about where he would end up. He didn’t just want to go; he felt compelled. He rode past the boarded-up shops near the McDonalds, over Victoria Parade with its tricky tram tracks and then past the Dallas Brooks Hall to the Fitzroy Gardens.

As he pedalled, he rode past the empty shops and reflected on how rooted everything was. All his class had left university and graduated straight onto the dole. The only good thing was that you could catch people at any time of the day or night. But there was nothing to do. Watch crap TV, get drunk, get stoned. Everyone on the dole was scamming for small pleasures: pot, beer and even food. The television news constantly reminded him that a generation of men were dying from AIDS. That grim reality meant that closets were especially deep. Most gays tried to hide or to kid themselves into not having a sexuality at all. All effort spent living under the radar; being invisible.

At the Fitzroy Gardens, he gambled he could use gravity to build up his momentum as he rode along. The park sloped down and, as he sailed down the bitumen path, he felt the ‘woosh’ of the wind and the scenery fly past him in a green blur. He knew the path turned up at the end, like the edge of a bowl, and so he pedalled hard to storm up the other side. He rushed past the towering pines and elms and the dry grass, kept green in places by water boxes especially brought in to keep them alive. He felt exhilarated as he sped through the garden, but he also felt dread deep down.

Once across the bridge at Jolimont, he pelted down past the MCG and up into the mouth of the concrete pedestrian bridge. He fucked up his peddling and lost his momentum. He had to stand on his pedals and use the force of his weight to slowly inch his way up to the peak of the bridge, up over the train tracks. It was slow and painful work. He stopped at the crest of the walkway to get his breath back. Below him the criss-crossed ribbons of the tracks reflected glints of the blue sky above.

A dirty silver Hitachi train bobbed rudely over metal points bent from the heat. He stood there for a while looking at the city and piecing together the journey in his mind. Ahead of him lay unexplored territory. He felt his body ache and he knew he would pay a price for this. But he had to go.

He felt detached, almost automatic. Walking the bike down the other side of the walkway he wondered what he was doing and where it would end. He figured that he would eventually come to the Swan Street bridge. He would have to cross a nasty traffic snarl. Once there, he reckoned he must hit the bike-track running along the Yarra River.

He walked to Swan Street with his bike at his side. As he crossed the bridge, he felt the menacing proximity and smelt the hot metallic stench of the nearby trucks and cars. Mirrors and poles passed around his ears. He was startled by the sudden sound of brakes from a semi-trailer. As he crossed the river he noticed the ironic juxtaposition: Whirring about his ears at his left the busy traffic sewer, and to the right a picture postcard of the city with the still waters of the river meandering gently towards the skyscrapers.

Over the bridge he rode slowly along the river, away from the city. Something was driving him south, urgently driving him, and all he could do was obey.

CHAPTER TWO

BIRTHDAYS SUCK.

Luke sat on the couch twiddling his thumbs, waiting impatiently. Why do people even celebrate birthdays? Especially your twenty-first birthday. Such a bullshit milestone. Twenty-one and how few people you have in your life. How alone you are. He didn’t want to be there. He watched Joy moving feverishly about as she put finger food around the house.

Birthdays suck. He thought it again and imagined the word ‘suck’ in his mind. He sat on the couch, leaning forward to grab his ankles, trying to relax. His gut felt tight and he could hear the small wheeze under his breath. Asthma. He sat in his new lounge room with a big ball of dread building in his stomach. He held on to the couch with his sweaty hands while he waited to be discovered as a fraud. He felt the building pressure of the first social event at his new house. What will Joy do when she realises I have no friends? He wheezed and began to freak out as he pulled out his puffer.

The house had been lightly tidied up and Joy had made an earlier effort to make sure the floor had been swept and the place was presentable. This didn’t mean everything had been put away properly, just shoved under the couch or in corners. Just out of sight were wigs and optic fibre lamps and other assorted fuzzy and shiny things Joy loved. He reckoned Joy knew what to expect from a big birthday party. She was a lot older than Luke. She told him proudly she had her Barbara Streisand super tape ready to go. He knew some of the songs but wondered about its sacred status for her. At any rate, they would be listening to it together. Just the two of them. Joy was itching to play it.

She wore a comfortable summer dress and whistled as she got the nibbles ready. Joy looked across at Luke acting like a vegetable on the couch. Sensing her, he looked up. He hadn’t been her first choice in a housemate; she told him that she had preferred another person. Luke had come second. But the preferred girl had got another place. Luke was next on the list and so he got the room. He had no hard feelings about being the runner up. He reckoned that at least he had somewhere to live and the rent was pretty cheap. Joy came into the lounge room and rattled a bowl of chips in front of Luke. He reluctantly took one. He wasn’t hungry.

Joy had a homely feel about her, with a short and round body, thin white skin and short henna coloured hair. She didn’t wear make-up which made her eyes seem small. She had a sprinkling of red freckles on her face that matched her hair. She generally preferred getting around barefoot in a garden dress. Luke heard her swearing in the bathroom when she had to wear any type of office outfit. It had been happening quite a bit as she headed out to job interviews every other day. She was looking for work like everybody else. Looking for jobs that didn’t exist. She had a friendly personality that made people feel comfortable. She had a talent for being able to gently coax people to share their deepest secrets without them even noticing. He had found that out first-hand at the house interview when he told her his reasons for moving, and about his brother.

Their house was a small workers cottage in a small pocket of dry flat land in Collingwood, in between Hoddle Street and Smith Street. The neighbourhood was ant infested, and the little black dots were constantly scurrying out of holes in the sandy dirt and forming lines to the kitchen. Joy put out poison and poured boiling water into their nests when she found them. They would disappear for a while and then Joy would be boiling the kettle for another ‘cleanse’.

The neighbourhood was quiet, which was odd considering the constant traffic swarming around the edge of it. The street they lived on was Easey Street, a place of infamy since the 1977 murders of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett, stabbed to death in a crime that still remained unsolved. A dodgy street. A place that certainly didn’t feel like an easy street for Luke.

The wooden cottage had a simple floor plan. The corrugated bullhorn verandah facing the street was the only adornment. Inside, the house comprised a lounge room at one end with a small kitchen built off its side. With all the brown wood panelling, Luke thought the kitchen looked like a sauna. The kitchen faced straight out to a concrete yard hemmed by a skinny garden bed no more than thirty centimetres wide. Just enough space for weeds and some grape vines to grow.

Concrete was the dominant material in the yard. Joy had given it a good watering that morning. Watering concrete was a ritual Joy had proudly brought with her from Broken Hill. In his short time there he observed that Joy loved watering the concrete in her bare feet in the morning. November had just come, and the weather had already started to warm up. When he asked her why, she told him it was a spiritual thing ‘from my ancestors.’

Brown wooden bowls sat stuffed full of chips and there were plastic containers of dips placed randomly here and there in the lounge room and on the upturned milk crates in the courtyard. Joy had draped the crates with tea-towels to make them look like small tables. A slab of Victoria Bitter stubbies chilled in the fridge. All that was needed now were the people. Luke slowly lifted himself from the loungeroom chair and moved to the kitchen, moaning and making a face. He picked up a corn chip and put it up to his mouth.

‘Cheer up,’ said Joy. ‘It will be over before you know it. It might even be fun.’

He looked at her unconvinced and slowly chewed. He was clearly not making a good impression. Luke was thin and he was quite tall standing up. He had a thin face, an aquiline nose and hair peroxided blonde with dark roots showing. He had green eyes and wore army pants and a flannelette shirt with the arms rolled up. On his face he had a wispy goatee that never really grew. It gave his long face a fledgling look; more baby bird than man. He moved from the kitchen and rolled himself into a ball on a milk crate near a puddle on the concrete while he waited for the day to be over.

‘Will anyone come?’ he wondered. He felt sick knowing the answer was probably ‘no’.

‘Why don’t you get yourself a beer,’ said Joy. He could tell she felt flustered by his moaning. She popped open another bag of potato chips and poured its contents into a nearby empty bowl.

‘Could she remember being twenty-one’, he wondered. ‘How shit it felt?’

‘The main thing to remember is, this is your party. If you feel nervous have a drink. It’s your birthday. To be honest I always have a few before any party. It always helps settle the nerves.’

Joy opened the fridge and grabbed them both a bottle of beer. Luke felt reassured by that. He could drink beer and block it all out. When Joy found out, it wouldn’t matter so much. They’d be pissed by then. The bottle felt ice-cold and he saw condensation forming on its side. A small clear bead streamed down the side of the glass and landed on his toe. The freezing cold liquid was bitter but also delicious. He savoured the taste and felt the cool liquid hit his stomach. He breathed out and relaxed a little.

‘How many people are you expecting?’

‘I think about four or five,’ Luke lied.

He looked sideways and took another swig. He wanted her to stop asking questions. What will she do when she realises no-one is coming? He had burnt too many people. Bad timing for his birthday party.

Suddenly the doorbell rang and Buffalo, Joy’s big black and white cat, who had until then been lurking around Joy’s wigs and skirts in her bedroom, came bounding down the hallway passage and scrambling out into the courtyard.

‘There you are Buffalo!’ said Joy, scooping him up for a cuddle.

The cat lay placid on its back, safe in his mother’s arms. He looked around the sky for birds.

‘Your first guest. Go on, get it!’

Joy gave him an excited look. She took a sip of her beer and stood up to reinspect the dips and look out for ants. Luke made his way sheepishly to the door. He could see someone peering through the wire mesh. As he made his way towards the door he called out meekly.

‘Hello?’

He reasoned with himself that maybe someone had got the wrong address or that it was some Jehovah’s Witnesses that had come to harass him.

‘Happy birthday!’

It was Ivy in a bright red dress with a bottle of champagne. Luke opened the door and gave her a peck on her cheek. She smelt fresh and looked gorgeous. He hugged and thanked her, quickly leading her into the house. Internally he squirmed as he felt her looking around and making private judgements about the house.

‘It’s a small place but the rest is ok,’ he said.

Ivy was a silent movie devotee. While quite short, she worked a twenties Hollywood look that was all legs. Unkindly, Luke thought it made her look like a frog. She wore patent leather red pumps and, together with her red dress and white powered makeup she looked like Clara Bow. The dark makeup around her eyes made her eyes look huge.

‘What are you talking about? This place looks great,’ Ivy said.

Ivy had previously told Luke she lived in a squat in Berlin with her socialist boyfriend. They had kissed when the Berlin Wall came down. Now she was back in Melbourne to get her degree.

‘Joy, this is Ivy,’ said Luke introducing the two women when they made it to the kitchen.

He watched them size each other up. Joy taking Ivy in, her first reaction to become stiff and wary. Ivy also stiffened up, smiling, but looking a little put off. Polite, but distant, perhaps even frosty.

‘Do you have any champagne glasses?’ Ivy asked, looking around the kitchen with a hint of discomfort. She looked blankly around at the chips and dips that were placed everywhere, including the small gift of a savoury shape that Joy had dropped on the floor for the cat while Luke was at the door. The cat sat crouched over it, licking off the salt with his pink tongue. Joy was perplexed by Ivy’s question. She went foraging about in the kitchen cupboards making all kinds of clattering sounds before jubilantly announcing that she had found one.

She proudly handed the glass to Ivy. It had been at the very back of the cupboard and a light film of dust covered it. Ivy held the glass askance as Joy headed outside, taking a Cheezel from a bowl and popping it in her mouth. Ivy took the glass to the sink and rinsed it under a steady stream of hot water before polishing it with a serviette. Ivy and Luke headed outside.

‘Would you like me to open your champagne bottle?’ Joy asked.

‘Yes ok,’ said Ivy warily.

Joy grabbed the bottle.

Pop! The cork flew into the air.

Champagne in hand, Ivy came and sat next to Luke on the upturned milk crates.

‘So, how does it feel to be twenty-one?’

‘It’s ok. A little bit older. A little bit more weary I guess,’ Luke said.

She laughed.

‘Wait till you get to my age and then you can complain about being weary.’

Luke knew Ivy had skipped a few years of uni when she was in Berlin, and that she was older than him. He had the sense not to ask her age. He changed tack.

‘So, have you got your final essays in?’

‘I’ve got most of my essays in. I just have one German exam next month.’

Ivy leant over and picked up a piece of celery.

‘Are you going to do Honours?’ Luke asked.

Ivy finished a sip of her champagne and looked out at the vines at the edge of the yard.

‘Maybe. It depends. I’ve applied to get into screenwriting school. If I get in I’ll do that.’

Luke held his beer and reflected. He’d been at university full-time straight out of high school. He couldn’t imagine another year of lectures, tutorials, and aimless walking around. Whatever his results, his plan was to get out.

He had gone to university as a way to escape the suburbs. Unlike most people he had