The Naked Drinking Club (7 page)

‘Such as?’

‘I have a job.’ He set up another game, intermittently looking me up and down. I felt good; I was getting a tan and my legs looked good in my denim skirt.

‘Well, what do you do?’ I persisted.

He stopped before he hit the ball and looked up at me; he made me wait for everything. ‘Well, I’m a sports journalist for the
Sydney Morning Herald
.’

‘You don’t strike me as very sporty.’ Now it was my turn to laugh.

‘I cover the horses, the track. Have you ever been to Harold Park?’

‘No.’

‘Well, maybe I’ll take you one time.’

‘What, if I’m good?’ I felt like playing around with him now that my beer was kicking in.

‘That’s right, if you’re good.’

‘And what if I’m bad?’

He was leaning over the table; he dropped his head onto it and laid it there for a moment. Then he looked up and belted another ball, which slammed off the end of the table and bounced up in the air, landing on the floor, causing the barmaid to shout over, ‘Mac. I’m warning you!’

‘Well, answer my question. What if I’m bad?’

‘Then you’ll be sent to Dundee, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.’ He took a packet out of his pocket and lit up his last cigarette.

‘I’ll have one, thanks.’ I said, putting out my hand. He slammed some coins onto the table; Val threw him a new packet from behind the bar.

‘Tired of pool,’ he said, drawing up two barstools. I joined him, lighting up the cigarette he gave me. I looked over at the others and waved to them. Scotty waved back.

‘Is that your boyfriend?’ Mac sniggered.

‘No, it is fucking not!’ I was embarrassed, quickly turning the questioning back towards him. ‘Where do you live?’

He pointed to the ceiling.

‘Here?’

‘Yep, upstairs.’

‘Why do you live here?’

‘What do you mean, why do I live here? Because it has everything I need, and I don’t have to go far to get here, do I?’ He tapped the bar. I liked him; I didn’t know why because he wasn’t exactly friendly. I knew he was dangerous and slightly attractive, if beat-up looking around his face now that I examined him closely. I also knew that his difficult and evasive manner was down to years of boozing and being alone.

‘Are you married?’ A predictable question, I thought, just as I’d asked it.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think you were and now you’re divorced, and you spent so much time in this bar during your marriage that after you left it, you thought you may as well move in. Am I right?’

‘What are you, a fuckin’ detective?’

‘I love the idea of being a detective. Can I see your room? If you showed me it, I could tell you things about yourself by looking around at the things you own. I’m good at that.’

‘You won’t tell me anything I don’t know already, and I don’t have much stuff.’

‘I could still tell you things.’

‘OK, one time I’ll show, but it’ll be a warning to you.’

‘What?’

He didn’t answer. He just looked at me again for long enough to make me feel uncomfortable. I decided that then would be a good time to show off my trick. I jumped down from my seat and went to the pool table. I put my hands on the end of it, gripping the edge, and leant forward taking my weight on my arms and chest, and lifted my legs slowly up until my body was perfectly horizontal.

‘Look!’ I shouted, getting the attention of almost everyone at the bar.

‘Very impressive,’ said Mac sarcastically.

‘I’m strong, you know?’ I said, pleased with myself.

‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said.

I lowered myself back down, winked at him and headed to the toilets. I felt buzzy and warm and fairly happy. I was carving out a life in Sydney, having only landed a few weeks before, and felt pretty pleased with myself. I had a way of making cash with no need for an alarm clock (one of my main aims in life) and some people to drink with, plus my interest in Anaya to keep me from getting bored. I could perhaps settle in Sydney, making trips away every once in a while to continue with my investigation. Who knows, maybe I’d stay for ever. I could marry someone and get a passport. Fate had led me here and it would all take shape eventually. I felt confident and relaxed about my journey, untouchable, unreachable and numbed by the drink.

I sat on the toilet wondering about things, and whether I wanted to have sex with Mac or not, and what he was to me. I had only just met him, but had those feelings I’d had before with various others, of accelerated intimacy despite very little conversation or time together. I had been close to an older man in the past; he was a newsagent I had worked for as a teenager. At the time he’d acted as a bit of everything for me, particularly when my useless father was absent from our lives. But it hadn’t lasted long.

Was I going to have sex with Mac? I wondered. I wasn’t sure but thought it was inevitable at one point. Then I thought about the group and put them in order of shagability. That fucking annoying Anaya would be up the top for some reason that I couldn’t work out, and Scotty down the bottom. I put Jim in second place, but knew I felt something different for him than the others. I flushed and left the cubicle.

Tonight I wanted to get absolutely bladdered. I wished Anaya had stayed and drank with me. Perhaps I could have told her why I was here, though why she would possibly be interested, I had no idea. But I just felt warmth for everyone when I had a drink in me. Warmth and hope. It was, after all, hope that I’d find the answers that I was looking for that kept me going. If I thought about it too much, I would sink down, and I didn’t want that. I was in a world full of strangers, so I would take what I could get, and right now I wanted to get
shit-faced
with someone interesting and willing. Money was tight, but it had never stopped me before.

I saw a Tampax machine on the wall. I opened the door to the toilets and checked that no one was coming. I had to be quick. I was breaking one of my rules: don’t shit on your own doorstep. If this was going to be my local, then this was going to have to be the one and only time I do this here. The coast was clear, so I got underneath the machine, then pushed it upwards with my shoulder until it came off its hinges. I carried it into the cubicle and locked the door. I put the toilet seat down, resting the machine on top. This had to be done quickly in case Val were to come in and notice it missing from the wall. I turned it over and placed my two middle fingers into the plastic drawer at the bottom where the money rested in and nudged it upwards. I shook the machine until dollar coins spilled out into my hand and onto the floor, coughing to cover up any scattering noise, then, when it was as empty as I could possibly make it, I stood it up on the toilet as I scrabbled about on the floor picking up the change.

I put the money in my pocket and took the machine out of the cubicle with me, wedging my foot against the outside door as I hooked it back on the wall. It had been a while since I had done a machine and had vowed to give it up in Sydney, but fuck it, tonight was one of those nights.

I went back out to the bar where Mac was chatting to Val. She left when I approached him.

‘Fancy a whisky, Mac? My round.’

‘Rum, thanks. I don’t fuckin’ drink whisky.’

‘Suit yourself.’ I leant one foot on the bar stool and counted up my money: I’d got nineteen dollars from the machine. That would be about seven pounds at home. The Australians have slightly less in their Tampax machines than the Scots, I thought, as I clicked my fingers to get Val’s attention.

CHAPTER
SIX

MAC HAILED A
cab on the corner of William Street.

‘Where you taking me?’ I was excited and giddy, hanging onto his arm; the street and traffic a soft blur.

‘To a decent fucking bar in the Cross.’

The cab driver played Indian music.

‘Turn it up!’ I shouted.

King’s Cross was dirty and full of junkies sitting in doorways. Mac stopped at a newsagent to buy some cigarettes. The man behind the till served people while threatening someone on the phone and he had a baseball bat beside him. I didn’t care, I liked everything. The night was full of possibilities. I felt in love with Mac, and sure we would be partners of some kind or another. We walked along King’s Cross Road into Earl Street. There were junkie trannies everywhere, and teams of lads coming and going in and out of strip joints. Mac walked ahead of me, saying hello to people every so often.

I hadn’t been to the Cross district before. At first, when I was in Annandale with the electrician from the plane, I ventured down to Bondi for an occasional swim. Since my brief stay in Glebe, I’d moved straight to Woolloomooloo to the company flat and I hadn’t been on any tourist jaunts. I would take in all the sights eventually but I wasn’t in a hurry, and I wasn’t here as a tourist.

We took a left off Earl Street into a small opening. Blondie’s ‘Atomic’ blasted from a bar called the Star. We went in. A woman with very short hair and a painted-on moustache was taking money at the door. She waved Mac and me in and we headed straight for the bar.

‘OH MAN, THIS IS GREAT. I FUCKING LOVE THIS MUSIC!’ I shouted after Mac, who was making his way through the crowd. The bar was tiny. On the counter, in the corner, a dog slept on a blanket. Mac nodded at a man with pure white long hair and a dramatic black hat; he waved back then spoke to the barman. We positioned ourselves at the end of the bar. Mac hadn’t spoken to me for ages. Two beers were sent across to us from the white-haired man via the barman, and Mac toasted him, and he toasted back. The bar was full of an assortment of characters, no particular types, but there was a distinct absence of regular Aussie-guy types in shorts and baseball hats. There were fewer women than men, and few people, if any, around my age group.

‘WHAT’S THE SCORE HERE, THEN?’ I asked Mac, getting slightly frustrated at his lack of communication.

‘There is no fucking score, for fuck’s sake. Why do you have to ask so many questions?’

‘Because I’m younger than you.’

Mac shook his head and downed his beer; he was getting really drunk by now and his eyes were narrowing. I didn’t know how long Mac had been smoking at the rate he was tonight, but I was amazed that he was still alive. I had already noticed the way he shuffled along the street, an indication that the cigarettes were affecting his circulation.

The music had switched to early Beatles; it was so loud there was no point in trying to talk any more.

A man with no top on leant over me at the bar and gestured to the barman to kill the music. His armpit stank and was directly over my head. The music faded slightly.

‘Mr Wilson,’ said Mac, cigarette in hand, thumb resting behind his front teeth.

‘Mr Mac,’ said the topless man.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, sick of armpit.

‘I’m afraid you can’t be excused, you’ll have to stay until you’ve made a complete arse of yourself,’ said the Wilson character in an extremely upper-class English voice.

‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ I said back.

‘Excellent stuff, highly amusing.’ He winked and turned his attention back towards the bar.

‘Who’s he?’ I said to Mac.

‘He’s all right,’ Mac said back. He’d enjoyed my exchange with his friend.

The Wilson man moved away from the bar back through the crowd, carrying two schooners of lager that were spilling all over the place. I turned round to watch him, which was difficult because in the short time since we’d arrived there, the place was packing out even more. I realised I could see his bare arse jostle through the crowd. He was completely naked except for a pair of Blundstone boots which I’d noticed on almost every Australian man I’d seen.

‘Who the fuck is he and what is he doing?’ I asked Mac. He laughed and laughed, which went into a cackle then some kind of serious bronchial episode. I banged him on the back.

‘He runs the club,’ Mac said, spluttering. ‘Oh fuck, that’s funny.’

‘It’s not that funny. Jesus, you’re going to have a fucking heart attack.’ Mac was just laughing at anything now, he’d lost it. ‘What club?’

‘This one.’

‘What one? This is a club?’

Just then I heard a PA cranking up and a microphone being tested. Mac nudged his head towards the back of the room. I turned round to see Wilson standing on a chair in a tiny carved-out DJ pulpit area. The Beatles stopped.

‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Firstly, I’d like to point out that you’re all a bunch of cunts who deserve none of this.’ The crowd cheered and various people shouted for him to fuck off. ‘Secondly, I’d like to welcome you to The Naked Drinking Club, and I’d like to add that if you’re not naked now, then you fucking will be.’ The crowd went mental again. ‘If this is your first time here, then you’ve only got yourself to blame. Now then, I’d like to point out that we have provided a paddling pool to my left here on the dance floor, should you require it for vomiting purposes. Right then, let’s kick off with some of your very own shite. You should be so fucking lucky.’

Kylie Minogue’s ‘I Should Be So Lucky’ piped out and was appreciated with irony by most of the crowd who started
dancing.
Wilson, a big public-school type, towered over everyone, and jokingly pushed others out of his way in order to maximise the dance floor for his own ludicrous dancing, which nobody seemed to mind.

I loved this place. I loved the atmosphere. Nobody cared about how anyone behaved, it was friendly and perfect, and had none of the pretensions that had put me off going to clubs before. I felt into my pocket and examined my change.

‘Let’s get some tequila slammers,’ I said to Mac, getting close to him. I could have kissed him but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure yet how I felt about him, and I wanted to jump up and down with the music. Mac just watched me in that way I was growing used to. Either he was very interesting or just a boring old fucked-up drunk, but he’d brought me here and I loved it.

‘Mmm. Shall we?’

‘Your call.’

‘Yee-es.’

I ordered a couple of tequilas from the white-haired man who was helping out behind the bar; he poured and Mac and I slammed. I went to the dance floor and started dancing near Wilson, who seemed to have an assistant of sorts. The woman, with the short hair and painted-on moustache from the door, had joined him in nudity and similar carefree dancing. Wilson grabbed me.