Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

‘Anyway, I was frustrated by the banal analysis that was coming out of Western journalism and equally annoyed by the confusion of the left. Euphoria on one side, apocalypse on the other. I was convinced that the reduction of Russian history to a narrative of tyranny and oppression was only one side of the story, that there was an equally important history of dissent and opposition that informed the actions of people like Gorbachev. I worked and reworked and reworked that thesis. It was the best work I had ever done. It will be the best work I ever do.’

We were now all seated around the coffee table, some of us on cushions on the floor, Vince and Madeline sharing the sofa, Marie on the armchair across from them. Antony’s story was making me melancholy as I recalled that period when experience occurred in a rush, when I seemed to be learning something new every moment. There was an elation and excitement to life that Antony had reminded me of: his words were the first premonition I had that it would not always be so, that time had already passed.

‘I got second prize.’ Antony sculled his drink and lit a cigarette. Ingrid let him smoke inside. She too seemed lost inside her memories of that time.

‘I bloody came second and that knob Peter Rothscomb won with a thesis on Menzies.’ Antony’s face was so incredulous that I couldn’t stop myself bursting into laughter.

‘It’s not funny, mate. I was livid.’

‘So what did you do?’ asked Serena.

‘Yeah,’ Vince said. ‘How did you get your revenge?’

It was at this point that Hande grabbed a cigarette and headed out to the balcony.

‘It’s okay, you can smoke in here,’ Ingrid called out to her.

‘It’s alright,’ Hande replied, ‘I can hear everything from here.’

Antony was blushing now. I felt for him. Hande’s reaction had unnerved him and it was clear he was reluctant to continue.

‘Go on, Ant,’ Hande’s voice rang clearly from the balcony. ‘Tell them.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I fucked Sally St John.’

‘Who?’ Serena didn’t know that crowd.

Vince’s laugh was loud and coarse and abrupt. ‘You fucked her? When?’

‘At her hens’ night.’

We all exploded into laughter. Even Hande, her back against the balcony rail, watching us all, even she was trying hard not to smile.

‘Who the fuck is Sally St John?’ shouted Serena.

‘Hon, she was this guy Peter’s fiancée. They’d been together for years,’ Ingrid explained.

‘Since the sandpit,’ Vince and I said simultaneously, which made us collapse into laughter again.

Serena was shaking her head in bewilderment. ‘What were you doing at the hens’ night?’ Her face lit up in delight. ‘You were the stripper!’

‘No.’ Antony was laughing and blushing, stealing glances at Hande, who had stubbed out her cigarette in a pot plant, and now came back inside and sat herself next to Antony. She laid a hand on his shoulder, flicked him gently on the cheek with a long scarlet-painted fingernail.

‘Remember how he used to work at Mietta’s?’ Hande asked. ‘The most handsome waiter in the world? Well, Sally’s hens’ night had their dinner there before they headed out. Sally got wasted and Antony here fucked her behind the garbage cans out on the street while one of the sous-chefs kept watch. Isn’t that right, darling?’

Serena giggled. ‘She sounds like an easy lay.’

‘It wasn’t the first time though?’

It was one of those moments when the sound of the traffic on the streets below seemed to cut out at exactly the point when a track on the CD fell to a close.

‘What do you mean?’ Hande demanded of Vince, her voice furious.

‘It was a question,’ he answered, holding up his hands defensively. ‘I assumed that if she fell into his arms so easily there was previous history there.’

‘There wasn’t, alright?’ Antony growled.

‘I didn’t mean anything by it. I just knew that she and your sister were friends. They went to the same school, didn’t they?’

‘They weren’t friends, they were classmates.’

‘My apologies then. I was only asking.’

The tension that had seized us all was broken by Hande’s hearty laugh. She shook her head and leaned across the coffee table to clink Vince’s wineglass with her own. ‘Well spotted,’ was all she said.

Antony had the good grace to blush, then threw up his hands. ‘Okay, okay,’ he confessed. ‘We might have fooled around as teenagers, but we never had sex. But I knew she liked me and I might have — yes, I might have played on those feelings that night.’ He grinned proudly and began rolling another joint. ‘What can I say? I’m irresistible.’

We all groaned at this and Hande playfully smacked the top of his head with a cushion.

‘Who’s next?’

Serena’s hand shot up at Ingrid’s question. ‘Me, me. I want to go next.’

Serena was one of those people who couldn’t relate a story or tell a joke without falling into fits of giggling. If the anecdote wasn’t funny she would sometimes fall silent in mid-sentence, collect her thoughts and then continue. The result was that everyone felt the need to encourage her when she took the floor; her lack of confidence coupled with her sincerity and kindness meant that we all felt great goodwill towards Serena. It was a relief for all of us that she was willing to be the next player. For one, we knew that her story wouldn’t make anyone uncomfortable as Antony’s story had: she would never deliberately embarrass Ingrid. Also — and I am sure I was not alone in this — I was desperately trying to think of a story to tell which would be sufficiently daring to compete with Antony’s revelations. As a child I once snapped off the head of my sister’s most beloved doll in retaliation for her dobbing on me when I’d accidentally broken a crystal vase playing footy in the sunroom, something which was explicitly forbidden. But that was so prosaic and uninteresting. Should I make something up instead?

‘Who is it?’

Madeline’s question snapped me to attention. Serena was telling us about someone she knew and refused to name, who was a writer and married to another writer. Now Antony was urging her to divulge the woman’s name.

‘I’m not going to tell you that.’

‘So we do all know her,’ he concluded.

Serena, giggling, glanced over at Ingrid, who quickly shook her head.

‘No,’ said Serena with finality. ‘I’m not telling. You don’t know her personally, though you all know her by reputation. Anyway, that’s not important. As I said, she’s older than us, was just about to turn forty when her husband confessed to an affair with a mutual friend. Shell-shocked, as you would be, she decided to accept an invitation to a high school reunion. Usually she would hate going to such a thing but she was feeling shitty, broken-hearted, and the last place she wanted to be was home. .’

‘Had they split up?’

Serena shook her head at my question. ‘No, but her husband had just confessed, and she felt gutted and in no state to make a decision. Anyway, she attends the reunion, gets drunk and ends up sleeping with a man she had a crush on when she was at school.’ Serena took a sip of her wine. ‘From what she told us he was a typical suburban jock, handsome in a blokey way, and now working as a tradie of some sort. His wife wasn’t at the reunion, she was back at home in the city minding the kids, so our friend ends up back at his hotel room and they fuck their brains out for two days before she goes home.’

‘Where was the reunion?’

The tip of Serena’s tongue slipped through her teeth and licked at her upper lip. It was a habit of hers, something she did whenever she was anxious or unsure. To this day this is the image of her I carry with me, the pink tongue worrying at her top lip.