I wondered if I had jinxed the day by proudly boasting about the latest change manifested at work that morning. I left work feeling gutted. My team leader had announced to us that as of next week we would be reporting to another manager, and apart from this bringing a premature end to the working relationship I had developed with her already, and aside from the fact that she was my third manager in just over six months, my main concern was the impact this would have on my planned career progression. I was only starting to believe I could make a step forward in a workplace for the first time in my life, and this felt like a kick in the gut.
The Gigolo Aunts’ track Pin Cushion shuffled on as my homebound tram drew out of the CBD through East Melbourne to Brunswick St, and the afternoon sunshine through the window was a perfect match for that song’s shimmering guitar lines. The song took me back to 1994, sitting in my op shop armchair by the window of my flat in Prahran. And that in turn represented a period in my life when I had a sense of freedom, opportunity and time ahead of me. I realised the memory was a tad rose-tinted – there were certainly elements of my life which were lacking at that point – but there was also an undeniable truth to it at the same time.
I was distracted from my self-absorption by a grumpy-looking scenester stepping on in platform heels. She was someone I should have known by name, I knew she had a reputation in the arts scene, maybe she was on the radio. Or maybe she was in fact a rock star of some repute. I had probably seen her on TV, on a music quiz show – and part of me cursed my faulty memory for not being able to put a name to her face. As she gazed dreamily into the middle distance, it looked as if she was imagining a camera on her. The paranoid narcissist in me imagined she was making mental note of the portly middle-aged square pecking on his iPhone across from her on the tram, and I decided she was a Gemini.
I took a mental inventory of my fellow passengers: the guy with a twelve inch Dixon Records bag and empty plant pot under his arm; down the back, a metrosexual lad camp as a row of army tents in Abe Lincoln beard, gold necklace and big bangles too, wearing a low cut tunic, leggings and Doc Martens, chatting enthusiastically with his female companion. Her body language openly positioned herself to him, but maybe I was wrong – does something as subtle as body language still have currency to today’s yoof?
I picked up Littlest Miss H from day care, and had the privilege of walking home with her alone together for the first time. Big sister had spent the day with Mum at home, in preparation for her first day at prep today. The Littlest One and I held hands and she chatted about her day freely, so different to her bigger sister’s temperamental reserve.
My evening consisted of the ritual of getting the girls to bed; brushing teeth, reading stories, then re-negotiating bedtime after they got out of bed for more food – Weet-Bix and Vegemite toast respectively. It was after eight o’clock, half an hour after their regular bed time, and Little Miss H was dancing around giddily, singing LL Cool J’s Mama Said Knock You Out. I popped two Mersyndol and passed out as soon as we finally got them back into bed for good.
I woke around 1:30AM, and knew there was a cure for my insomnia: I had to write it out. I came to my desk and realised I hadn’t paid our car insurance – it had been due at midnight, and I had made a note to pay it, but after my day and evening, it had slipped my mind. I called and was relieved to be answered right away by a live operator – “we’re obliged to give you three weeks to pay,” she told me.
I listened to her fingers clicking on her keyboard in the quiet space of her office, and I could imagine the space; the black of night outside the windows, the stark white neon-lit interior. Maybe just a handful of operators there to answer the low number of overnight calls. I had worked there once, for a day or two, as a temp six years ago, when I returned from a misguided and costly exercise in relocation to my home of South Africa. That quiet, that solitude of night shift work – it was what I had sought (and found) when I worked as a hotel night manager, in my job before my current one. I wasn’t about to get misty-eyed over that time, but one thing it had given me was the chance to write. I was glad I had been able to make that time mine again tonight. Thanks for being here.
