Almost perfect, p.37
Almost Perfect, page 37
‘If you wouldn’t mind, I don’t want to be alone.’
‘You don’t have to be, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
Northern Beaches Evening College
Anna walked gingerly up the stairs and along the corridor, clutching her map. She stopped short of an open doorway and checked the number on the door. This was the room. And she was late. Well, not really late. She was on time, but only just. She had hoped to get here early so she could slip to the back of the room and check out everyone else as they arrived. It sounded like everyone had had the same idea. She stood still, listening for noises from inside the room. She couldn’t hear any talking but she could hear evidence of life – coughing, chairs scraping . . .
‘Are you right? Can I help you?’
What she hadn’t heard were footsteps coming up behind her. Anna turned around to face a tall, and it had to be said, not unattractive man looking down at her. He appeared intrigued, regarding her with a curious smile.
‘What room are you after?’ he asked.
‘This one,’ she said lamely.
‘Well, then you found it all right.’ He had very intense green eyes, and his caramel-blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. One of those barely-there goatee beards dusted his chin. He was carrying a kind of satchel on one shoulder. Anna wondered if he was doing this class as well. And he was probably wondering why she was staring at him.
‘You’re here for Introduction to Prose Writing?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘Shall we go in then?’
Anna shrugged, hesitating.
‘Is something the matter?’
‘We’re a little late, maybe they’ve started already?’
‘They haven’t,’ he assured her.
‘I mean I know it’s quiet,’ she went on, ‘but they might be in the middle of a writing exercise and we might distract them if we go barging in now.’
He was smiling at her, in a kindly way. Like she was an idiot, Anna imagined.
‘We won’t distract them, they’re not in the middle of a writing exercise and the class hasn’t started yet.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I’m the teacher,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘Vincent Carruthers.’
Anna shook his hand, dumbfounded. She was an idiot.
‘And you are–’
‘Going home,’ she said.
He smiled again. ‘No you’re not.’
She sighed. ‘My name’s Anna, Anna Mac . . . Gilchrist.’
‘Anna MacGilchrist?’
‘No, Gilchrist, just Gilchrist.’
‘Okay, Gilchrist–’
‘No,’ she smiled despite herself. ‘You can call me Anna.’
‘Okay, Anna, let’s go in and get this show on the road.’ He considered the doubtful expression on her face. ‘Come on, you made it this far. Only a few more steps to go.’
‘Not metaphorically speaking,’ she mumbled, but she allowed him to lead her through the door.
‘Apologies everyone,’ Vincent said expansively, striding across the front of the room and dumping his bag on the desk, giving Anna the chance to slip into a chair at the side, relatively unnoticed. ‘Anna and I got caught up discussing the use of metaphor as an effective exposition of emotion.’
Every head in the room turned to look at her.
‘But let’s not jump ahead of ourselves,’ he said, regaining their attention. ‘My name is Vincent Carruthers and this class is Introduction to Prose Writing. We have to do some housekeeping before we get to the fun stuff, so let’s get that out of the way. I’m required to mark your names off, mostly to make sure you’ve paid, but also should the police come around asking questions, to have proof of where you were on this Wednesday night the twelfth of May, between the hours of seven and nine p.m. So if you are using this class as a front for illegal activities, think about adopting a pseudonym from the start. Oh, and see me later, I am open to bribes.’
During the rollcall and subsequent detailing of emergency exits and procedures, Anna had the opportunity to check out her classmates. Babies, all of them. Barely in their twenties, she guessed. She had thought there would be more of an age spread.
Just then there was a commotion outside the door and a woman burst through, red-faced and panting. She was quite diminutive and she was dressed in purple from head to toe. She looked like an avant-garde leprechaun.
‘Hello! Sorry I’m late, story of my life,’ she chirped.
‘We haven’t started yet,’ Vincent assured her. ‘I’m Vincent Carruthers–’
‘I know,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I’ve got one of your books in my bag for you to sign.’
Vincent was clearly amused. ‘I hope you heard that, class, there’s a sure-fire way to get on my good side. Please take a seat, Miss . . .’
‘No such luck, Vincent,’ she winked, wiggling her wedding ring finger at him. ‘I’m Deb, Deb Pellegrini.’
‘Nice to meet you, Deb,’ he was smiling as he scanned the print-out to mark off her name.
Deb dropped herself onto a chair next to Anna. ‘Hi,’ she breathed out heavily. ‘Made it.’
Anna smiled politely. She seemed a bit over the top, but at least she was closer to Anna’s age.
Once Vincent got underway he was magnetic. He began by reading aloud passages from books they had never heard of, and others they had, but they’d never heard them read like this before. The class was enthralled.
‘He should be an actor, not a writer,’ Deb murmured to Anna.
‘I wonder if he has done some acting,’ Anna mused. ‘There’s something familiar about him.’
Vincent went on to quote from a couple of well-known writers about their difficulties putting pen to paper, and then suddenly, without warning, he ordered them to write.
Everyone looked blankly at him.
‘Pick up your pens and start writing,’ he repeated.
‘About what?’ someone up the back was brave enough to ask.
‘Whatever you like,’ he replied.
There followed some dithering and more questions and pleas for direction until Vincent finally said, ‘Just get on with it.’ Then he sat down at his desk, opened a book and apparently began to read, ignoring them all.
Anna sat there, blank as the piece of paper in front of her. She had never felt so intimidated. Would he want to see what she’d written? Worse, would she have to read it out loud to the class while they laughed and mocked her as she fled from the room, never to show her face again? Why on earth had she decided to take this ridiculous class? She didn’t need to put herself through this. What the hell had she been thinking?
She eventually noticed that everyone else was writing, or at least moving their pens across the page and leaving a trail of ink. That was all she needed to do. He couldn’t make her read it out loud. He couldn’t demand to see what she’d written. This wasn’t school, and she was never going to come back again. So fine. She picked up her pen and wrote, ‘I hate this.’
Some time later, Anna had no idea how long, Vincent cleared his throat and told them to finish up. Anna stared at the page in front of her, covered in writing. Then she looked up. Vincent was standing in the middle of the U formed by the desks. He was holding a wastepaper bin.
‘Does anyone want to read what they’ve written to the class?’ he asked. The terror in the room was palpable. ‘Anyone at all?’ he paused, waiting, every pair of eyes studiously avoiding his as he scanned the group. ‘I didn’t think so,’ he said finally, a wry smile playing at the corners of his mouth. ‘Would anyone like to tear up what they’ve written and throw it in the bin?’
There was a sigh of relief throughout the room, a general murmur of assent, followed by the sound of paper being released from notepads.
‘Hold on a minute,’ Vincent interrupted. ‘Let’s not be quite so hasty. If you genuinely feel there is not one worthwhile sentence, one reasonable phrase, even one well-chosen word, then go ahead and tear it up. But look back over what you’ve written, carefully, and take your time.’
Vincent strolled around the room, still holding the waste-paper bin, as everyone became absorbed again in their pages. ‘And when you find that one word, or phrase, or sentence, mark it somehow, circle it, or underline it. Think about why you like it, why it stood out to you. I won’t ask you to share it, it’s for your eyes only.’
Anna looked at her first line. ‘I hate this.’ If she picked up a book and it opened with that, she would have to read on. It was a teaser. It was direct. It was honest, stark, clean. She circled the line.
‘Does anyone want to throw their work out?’ Vincent asked after a while. No one did. ‘Then I’ve been carrying this around for nothing.’ He walked back to the front of the room and left the bin near the door.
‘If you managed even one word you’re happy with after writing for twenty minutes, then you’re doing pretty well,’ he continued, coming back to the centre of the room. ‘Many writers will tell you they’re happy with one good afternoon in a whole week of writing. It’s one of the hardest things to come to terms with. I can’t teach you to write. But I can tell you what it’s like to write, what to expect when you’re writing, what’s the range of normal experiences for a writer. And most importantly this class will give you the opportunity to write. I’ll give you feedback, and you’ll give each other feedback. And you will start to become appropriately critical of your work so that you can discern the one good line, the one good idea, and not throw the baby out with the bathwater . . . or resort to tired clichés when you can’t think of a more original way to say something.’
He went on to encourage them to keep a journal, beginning with a reflection on what they had written that night. He said they should write every day, and if they thought they had nothing to write about, then write about how it really pissed them off when the toast burned. Or why it was so hard to set a toaster to get the toast exactly right. Or about the simple joys of toast. Or about how the beach looked that morning as they passed it on the way to work.
‘Virginia Woolf said something interesting happens every day. Go write about it.’
Anna was hooked.
Small Business Agency
Kath Oliver peered through the glasses resting halfway down the bridge of her nose as she read the resume in front of her. She was a world-weary woman in her fifties, the grey hair and the deep furrows in her face brought about as much by the passing of time as the manner in which she’d passed it.
‘So, is it William, Will, Bill?’ she murmured without looking up.
‘None of the above.’
Kath lifted her head, her eyebrows raised, clearly expecting more information.
‘William’s a traditional family name, I’ve never really gone by that name,’ he explained.
‘So what should we call you, Mr MacMullen?’
He hesitated. ‘Ah . . . Liam. You can call me Liam.’
She looked intrigued. ‘How’d you end up with that?’
‘It’s short for William.’ He smiled faintly. ‘The Irish do it back to front.’
‘Oh,’ she nodded, thinking about it, ‘I never realised that.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Well, apologies for the delay in setting up this interview, Liam, but this is what happens in chronically under-funded and understaffed non-government organisations. We desperately needed to hire someone but couldn’t spare anyone to process the applications.’ She paused. ‘Am I turning you off yet?’
Liam smiled. ‘We’ve only just begun.’
‘Mm,’ said Kath, narrowing her eyes. ‘I just don’t want you to have any illusions from the get-go.’ She sat back, folding her arms as she considered Liam sceptically. ‘For example, are you aware of the kind of drop in income you’re looking at? I figure we’re offering somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter of your present salary.’
‘It’s probably more like a fifth,’ he corrected her. ‘But I’m not actually on a salary at present. I’ve already left my previous position.’
He had found a flat to rent only last weekend. When he hadn’t heard from the Small Business Agency he was unsure about whether to stay in Sydney. He thought about travelling, or going back to Melbourne, or moving somewhere new altogether. The house was sold and he and Anna had divided up their belongings. There was nothing keeping him here, but something was making him stay.
And that something was probably Georgie. He missed her dreadfully. Every single day. It was so bad at first he used to drive past the shop and try to catch a glimpse of her, but he never had. He had, however, almost managed to drive up the back of another car on one occasion. He’d felt like some kind of pathetic stalker that day, picturing the scene out the front of her shop if he had had an accident, Georgie coming out, seeing him there.
So he stayed away, but he couldn’t leave Sydney. Not yet.
‘I imagine you were swamped with offers once it got around you were leaving Morgan Trask,’ Kath was saying. ‘I’m intrigued as to why you would choose to work for an under-resourced, decidedly unglamorous NGO for a fraction of your previous salary.’
‘There have been offers,’ he acknowledged. ‘But I’m not interested in that kind of work. I left Morgan Trask because I’d been feeling restless for months. Right now I can’t see myself ever working in that kind of environment again.’
‘Be that as it may, I need to be sure of some level of commitment on your part, that this isn’t midlife angst and as soon as the going gets tough, you’ll get going.’
He was beginning to find Kath Oliver’s attitude galling. If working in this environment made you bitter and twisted, perhaps he was better off elsewhere. Or perhaps she was. He wasn’t giving up that easily.
‘If you’re asking me where I’ll be in ten years time,’ said Liam, ‘I can’t tell you that. But as you operate on a tied government grant and you can’t guarantee my position beyond three years, you can most certainly count on me till then.’
‘You’ve done your homework,’ she admitted grudgingly.
‘Do you think I’d take this on lightly, on some kind of a whim?’ he returned. ‘I’ve worked on some of the largest corporate mergers in the Australasian region over the past decade. It was my job to make sure I knew all there was to know about the stakeholders, the risks, the gains, everything.’ He paused, taking a breath. ‘I know you have a permanent staff of twelve, plus a fluctuating army of volunteers, primarily law and commerce students. Your funding is tied to demonstrating you have achieved stated outcomes, and you have been able to do that for sixteen years now. Predecessors in my position have typically handled a bottomless caseload and have significantly altered or reversed tax department decisions, not an easy thing to do, in an impressive percentage of those cases.’ He leaned forward in his chair. ‘I believe I have skills that could be useful to your organisation, but more importantly from my perspective, I’d like to feel I was doing something worthwhile.’
‘Very noble,’ she remarked. ‘No need to get tetchy, Liam, this interview is only a formality. If I don’t hire you, the committee will have my head. I’m merely interested to know what brought about your change of heart from big business to this.’
Liam thought about it for a moment. ‘Maybe I just want to be able to sleep at night,’ he said quietly.
‘That’s as good a reason as any,’ said Kath. ‘How soon can you start?’
Northern Beaches Evening College
Anna walked into the room to find she was the first one there this evening. She sat on the side like last week, but a little further back, and was occupied finding pens and paper in her bag when Deb appeared in the doorway. Anna looked up and smiled politely. Deb headed straight over.
She sat down next to Anna. ‘So you came back?’
‘You too?’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Deb grinned. ‘Did you start a journal?’
‘Yes, I did actually,’ she said, a little wistfully. ‘Made me feel like a teenager again.’
‘Speaking of teenagers,’ Deb muttered as a group of their classmates spilled into the room, laughing and talking amongst themselves. They didn’t notice that Vincent was at the tail end of the group until he broke away, veering towards the desk at the front of the room.
Deb and Anna watched him as he removed books and notes from his bag and arranged them on the desk.
‘I bet he’d be great in bed,’ Deb murmured.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘There’s nothing like the brooding sexuality of the intellectual. And he’s one damned sexy man.’
Anna glanced at her. ‘Aren’t you married?’
‘Yeah, but I’m not blind.’
She smiled. ‘He reminds me of somebody, it’s been bugging me all week.’
‘Ooh, he’s coming over,’ Deb hissed like a schoolgirl.
‘Evening Deb,’ Vincent nodded, settling himself on a desk in front of them. ‘You’re back, and on time.’
‘I am,’ she smiled, chuffed that he remembered her name.
‘So it wasn’t too painful last week?’
‘What do they say, no pain, no gain?’
He laughed lightly. ‘And what about you, Anna Gilchrist?’
Anna’s eyes flew up to meet his. ‘You have a good memory.’
‘Yeah, considering it’s been over twenty years.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ he said, smiling down at her.
She regarded him curiously. ‘To be honest, I thought you looked familiar. I was just saying to Deb that you reminded me of somebody. But I can’t place you.’
‘You lived in Meredith Street and we lived around the corner in Carrington Parade.’
Anna was listening, intrigued.
‘You went to school with my sister, Bronwyn.’ He paused, watching her face. ‘Bronwyn Carruthers.’
Anna’s eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open. ‘You’re not!’
