Down the Coast

I go see mum, she is sitting in one of the upright chairs in the foyer when I get there. We sit and chat about stuff generally. Of course, it comes up about her going home. My brother, Will’s, words about the doctors not allowing her to go home, come into my head. I try it. It’s still not working, she just arcs up like a bitch.

"I’m not going to die here!" she says.

You know, it breaks my heart.

The day drifts away. I grab my Aztec coat, well it's cold and my backpack and head to Tim and Nicholas’s about 3pm, by foot.

It’s driving lessons for Nicholas in the form of a country drive down the coast. We drive to Newhaven, just over the bridge on Phillip Island and stay at Helen’s cute as hell house overlooking the water.

We eat at the San Remo pub. The meals are expensive, but huge, matching the track suit pants of most of the women there.

The first person Nicholas meets is his drug deal, of course, who offers him pot and a joint. He turns both down, because it’s his weekend driving, after all. You know, zero blood levels for learners. Would you believe? So, there was absolutely no need for me to buy cigarettes and smoke the whole time, but I did. At least, I could have blamed it on the dope. This way? I’m just piss week. I’ve smoked cigarettes two weeks on and two weeks off. I last smoked for a night last Thursday, but hadn’t smoked since then. I have to stop tomorrow, my reflux is playing up. You see, not only am I as weak as piss, but it’s actually causing me pain. How stupid am I?

We go home and watch 101 Dalmatians and get plastered on wine.

Mark calls around midnight to ask where I am? He and Luke have been to Guido’s and are speeding off their heads and are heading out for the night.

I tell him I’m at Philip Island. Mark asks why a couple would want to take me away on the weekend with them, how nana are they? I explain that it is Nicholas’s country drive as practice for his licence. Mark asks why Sam wasn’t with me. I tell him that Sam is a little disappointed not to have come away and Mark agrees.

“I don’t blame him, I’d be disappointed too.”

“But Tim and Nicholas don’t know him. It was Nicholas’s thing really, not so much a weekend away.”

They say they are at my place rolling joints.

I stay up late and watch From the cradle to the Grave. Just because there were hot men in it, I have to admit. It was crap, but it was shiny and slick and pretty.

Sam text me through the night.

I think about him the whole time. You know, warmly, sexily, nice that I’m missing him, kind of thoughts, rather than wishing he was there. I don’t want it to move too quickly and burn out too fast. It's nice to feel that space, you know, so you can appreciate the person who normally fills it.