friday on my mind

Friday’s on my mind after five days without a minute from my job, The gods smile, cancel the nine o’clock meeting I’m attending in North Melbourne.

I wake at five fifteen—damn cat licking the back of my head, can’t find the will to rise till nearly eight. Dog tired. I set up the work laptop on the dining-room table, inbox pinging the moment I turn it on, four days’ worth of messages to respond to or delete.

I ring my parents just after nine. No answer. I read The Age on the iPad. The week’s footy drama centres on my club’s “ruthless” dismissal of its “embattled” coach. This morning’s fodder is his “dignified” farewell press conference. Where is this eloquence over the past five years?

Carol rings. I have a small fruit knife I’ve promised her. We arrange the hand-over. She’s a just-walking medical conference: lupus. She has a rheumatologist, cardiologist, needs a hip replacement, is about to have a pacemaker fitted to go with the artificial valve that whooshes in her chest. What a wonderful chest it was.

She’s 60 in January, fears death with every operation. I take the chance to thank her for 22 years of on-off relationship, buoyed by our mutual appreciation of each other’s sexuality. I tell her I consider myself extremely lucky to have enjoyed her for so long, so hard, so often. She agrees. It’s good to be able to say it.

The emails keep coming, personal and professional. I ring my parents again. No answer.

I shop: oranges, lunch, cat litter, a swivelling fluoro for above the desk.

After lunch phone calls. Finally I speak to my mother. She’s not at her best, has a painful back, been unable to walk for a few days. I speak ever so briefly to my daughter, tell her my train times for Monday. It’s Nerri’s second birthday and I’ll be with them in Bendigo for two hours.

I ring my sister: yes, I’ll come to lunch for my father on Sunday. I don’t ‘do’ father’s day; never have. Commercial crapola. I can’t help but feel that this might be my father’s last.

I tell my sister I’m meeting my good woman tomorrow, to talk. In telling her this I realise I have nothing much to say, no idea what outcome, if any, I want from the conversation.

“She’s a such a nice person,” my sister says, meaning make it up with her.

“I know. It’s not about nice people. It’s about a relationship that isn’t working. Nice people isn’t enough.”

I’ve sorted it in my head, dragged my heart along for the party. I know now why it stopped working; I’m not sure if I can see it working again. The sadness I’ve not felt for a week descends like a fog around me again.

Rock on.