Читать книгу War/Peace - Matthew Vandenberg - Страница 18

‘You look lost.’

I smile: ‘Don’t know why I’m here. I know where I am but I don’t know why. So I guess you could say I’m lost.’

‘So where are you then?’

‘Coniston.’ – I turn to the camera – ‘Boring old Mount Drummond as some might know it, or South Wollongong. So it’s basically part of Wollongong I guess, if you got blurred vision and a bird’s eye view of the place. But I got no idea why I’m here, in the middle of nowhere.’ – I turn to face the girl again – ‘Guess I’m real bored, just waiting for a girl to come up to me and tell me I look lost.’

‘You look lost,’ another girl says, crossing the road, walking away from the small corner store that stands on one shy corner of Coniston like a sweet little oasis: they sell Weiss bars and it’s usually pretty damn hot here. ‘You also look familiar.’

I look again into the camera lens: ‘This is when it hits you: you’re an ambassador now for the north. I used to wander through these south streets like a stray dog, wondering whether the people around me could tell I was from up north: did I look different, dress different, smell different, talk different? I used to hope so. I’ve always longed to stand out. That’s why I want to travel overseas. And I can totally tell that these girls know that I’m a north-side writer from the north-side strip. They know I’m not from the ‘Gong. I saw the collective glint in their eyes just before they caught my gaze. I heard the beating of their racing hearts, loud as though a motorbike passed between us. I caught in my attention a lock of hair as it ran, streamlined, through a corridor of air, firm and fine like a waving branch of a prime palm perched on this southern plain.’

‘We’re your sisters,’ the first girl states. ‘We’ll come into your story soon. Once the people from the south side begin to write.’

‘Sisters?’

‘Think about it. Coniston’s practically the sister city of Point Clare. It’s just a stop away from a large town. It’s one stop south shy of a large southern town while Point Clare is the nearest southwards suburb to a large northern town.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, nodding. ‘But I'm from Gosford. Say: do you go to Bondi much? I figure that’s the place where south-siders and north-siders meet to mingle. I’ll have this club there soon. Not too many people know about it.’

‘We’ve heard of it,’ the girls say in unison.

I wink at the camera: ‘Perhaps I could describe Coniston as the mirror image of Point Clare in every respect, and Coalcliff as the mirror image of Terrigal, but the mirror’s foggy, wet, and cracked so that it has white veins that look like the froth that frames ocean waves. But then instead of talking to these girls I would have to be merely staring at their reflections, instead of studying their pupils merely studying the freckles on their shoulders, instead of standing on a footpath merely sitting on a seat in a tired, moaning train, and instead of offering one outstretched palm to one girl, merely bending one palm until it’s the shape of a branch of such a plant – and the shape of the single, small pen resting between my fingers -, and bending it some more so that my fingers can grip the pen better, and then writing.

‘You have?’

‘You’ll see us there. One day. Just promise us all eyes will be on us. Can you give us your word?’

I nod.

‘Bye then.’

I sprint to Wollongong station, watching the fields roll by, like soft, green cars strolling down a highway lost in thought, bored, tired, hungry, depressed, in a suburb south of Central.

‘I never thought I’d ever need to place a large writer’s block in a field at the center of a suburb, but I have no idea just what these people are thinking and I need to know, so I really have no choice.’ – I shrug – ‘Fuck it! I’m heading back north.’

Then sitting on the bench at Wollongong station, waiting, wishing, I’m watching the people, the girls, as they slink by like cats: curious felines with bodies like film stars, poster girls for the south side. Two more wander towards me: one so bright just behind the other. Since they say you should not gaze at an eclipse I resist the temptation to look. In fact I focus my gaze on my cell, on the text: “i98FM”, and listen intently to the song playing on the popular south-side station, staring at the screen of my phone as though it’s a 98th edition iPhone and I’m the first to get one so I’m showing it off, directing others’ attention towards it with my gaze.

Under the influence of an advertising spell, on this overcast day, sitting on a platform that’s practically a stage where girls have been over cast, my life far too perfect, I decide I truly am bored. I decide that I need to create a problem so that I can offer up a solution, one as ripe and raw, perhaps, as a beach house: a juicy apple dangling from a tree which Sydney-siders can bite into with lust and vigor, a delicacy pristine, a forbidden fruit, a fruit that grows on a tree situated inside a demilitarized zone – one where lovers from opposite sides of warring factions gather to frolic at risk of death or humiliation.

I decide to pretend that a DMZ lies not between North and South Korea, nor between Northern and Southern Ireland but, rather, between North and South Sydney. However, perhaps this separation is not necessary. Perhaps cross-Central relationships are the solution – such as those which might develop in a beach house situated in the Central Sydney area.

‘It’s time to go to war,’ I say, a glint in my eye. ‘The world needs another Romeo and Juliet.’

‘Train fares are gonna rise,’ a girl says. ‘This is so annoying.’

‘For you guys they’re rising,’ I say with a shrug.

‘Hey: you’re that north-side writer aren’t you?’

‘Jackson. Nice to meet you,’ I say. ‘But I gotta tell you: the fares are risin’ for you guys because you’ll be payin’ a percentage of the fares for north-siders. You see: there are more north-siders and hence more voters in the north. The state politicians in power know that if they can keep fares low for the majority of Sydney-siders then they’ll still get the majority of votes come the next state election. We north-siders just have it better it seems. Cleaner air too.’

‘You know what!’ an elderly lady shouts. ‘You north-siders bug me. Why do you even come to the south-side if the south-side is so bad?’

‘Gotta let you guys know how bad you got it. So maybe you’ll all move to Hobart so that the state Government can spend more money on Northern Sydney.’

‘Little prick! We ain’t movin’! You north-siders should piss off to the Northern Territory!’

‘Oh! We ain’t goin’ nowhere! North-siders outnumber south-siders 5 to 1!’

‘Go back to the north then. Get on the train already. We don’t wanna see your type down this way again.’

‘South-side suckers!’ I yell. ‘Fine. But it’s on. It’s so on!’

******

References

1 When I Come Around – Green Day

2 White Knuckle Ride – Jamiroquai

3 Empire State Of Mind – Jay Z and Alicia Keys