Page 8 of Wish You Were Here
It’s almost eight o’clock and no doubt Mum and Brian will already have eaten, and they’ll be in the living room, probably watching one of Brian’s foreign docos.
For some reason, Brian will only watch something on television if it’s in a different language.
Hopefully, I can make myself something to eat and then quietly slip into my room.
I have a gig tomorrow, so tonight is all about rest and relaxation.
When I get home, there is a note on the fridge.
Brian and I have gone to an art gallery in Paddington. Brian made a goat curry. It’s in the fridge. Brian said it’s to be eaten with your hands only! See you after ten. Mum x
Of course, Brian made goat curry. Who makes goat curry?
This is the problem when you take a white Australian man and let him spend a month in India.
I definitely won’t be participating in Brian’s goat curry.
Instead, I make myself a cheese toastie in the Breville and take it to my room, where I sit on my bed and reply to Ben’s email.
Dear Ben, asset manager, Clapham, London, England,
I don’t understand the term ‘pebbly beach’.
Please explain. I had a friend who spent time overseas, and her memory of England was that it was very grey and wet.
Do you often feel sad, Ben? Haha, I am only joking.
Of course you feel sad because you can only go to ‘pebbly beaches’ where you are attacked by vicious seagulls.
I, on the other hand, can be at the world-famous Bondi Beach in less than an hour.
In answer to your question, no, I don’t know what an asset manager does.
Manage assets? It’s my best guess without using Google.
OMG! You were attacked with a ball of burrata.
That’s hilarious. Is your ex-girlfriend really crazy, or did you deserve it?
I’ve had a few ex-boyfriends who definitely deserved a face full of cheese!
Although I wouldn’t have wasted burrata on them.
For your information, I am a singer, and I also work in a retirement home.
You see how I am creative but also give back?
What’s that I hear you say? The perfect package? Haha, only joking.
I have seen some pretty big spiders. You get used to it in Australia, probably in the same way you get used to being attacked by vicious seagulls in the UK.
The biggest one I have seen in Sydney is called the Huntsman spider.
You should look it up on YouTube. Terrifying, although not actually poisonous, so basically harmless.
What am I afraid of? I’m Australian, Ben, we don’t do fear!
Although I am afraid of heights, and it sounds silly, but I have an irrational fear of – and I’ve never told anyone this before – gloves.
When I was a kid, Mum bought me a pair of gloves, but I could never work out how to get my fingers in the right finger holes.
I haven’t worn gloves since. Are you laughing, Ben?
I know it’s crazy, right? Afraid of fucking gloves.
I’m also not a fan of birds – too unpredictable. What’s your most embarrassing secret?
All the best,
Saskia, singer/care-worker, Glebe, Sydney, Australia x
PS. I never asked, did you ever locate the real Saskia Conway?
PPS. I take it that having an ex-girlfriend means you are currently single?
I press send and then tuck into my cheese toastie, but as I’m eating, I get the sudden thought that for whatever reason I haven’t searched Ben up online.
I have no idea what he looks like. I begin with Instagram, and there are literally hundreds of Ben Armstrongs.
The same can be said of Twitter and Facebook.
I look on LinkedIn, and I’m sure I find the right Ben Armstrong, but alas, no photo.
Then I Google ‘Ben Armstrong asset manager London’, and I am directed to a business website, and finally I find him.
It’s a very serious looking photograph of a young man in a suit, uncomfortably smiling for, I imagine, a corporate photo, and yet he’s very handsome.
Really, really handsome, actually. Slightly floppy medium brown hair, sexy dark eyes, a bit of stubble, perfectly smooth skin and there is just something about him.
I don’t know exactly what it is, but I am definitely attracted to him.
He looks like he would be a laugh, but also slightly complicated.
He has a quality I find sexy in English actors.
A sort of uncertainty about themselves, always apologising, and yet also with an air that they might be quite good in an emergency.
This is typical because one: I am currently celibate and abstaining from men, and two: He lives on the other side of the world!
It’s ten-thirty when Mum and Brian come home. I am in my room, pondering sleep, when Mum pops her head around my door.
‘Hi, Mum. How was the art gallery?’
‘Oh, right, yeah, you know. It’s more Brian’s thing than mine, love. It was an exhibition of early nineteenth century Indian sculpture. Surprisingly erotic now that I think about it.’
‘Okay. That’s weird and uncomfortable.’
‘Hence the goat curry for dinner. Not because of the eroticism, love. Obviously there is nothing erotic about goats or curry, unless you’re into that sort of thing – no judgements here – but because of the Indian thing. What did you think?’
‘I didn’t fancy it and made a cheese toastie.’
‘Don’t tell Brian. He spent all day making it and sourced the goat himself from a farmer in Bungarribee. Tell him it was good, yeah, or he’ll be crushed.’
‘Fine. The goat curry was delicious!’
‘Thanks, love. How was your day?’
‘Spent most of it knocking back the advances of a man old enough to be my grandad. So yeah, the usual.’
‘I wish you’d find yourself a proper job, Saskia. You’re thirty soon. Time to—’
‘I know, Mum, settle down,’ I say, and Mum smiles at me with a sort of pity or disappointment – it’s hard to say which – before she says goodnight.
I am about to go to sleep when my phone buzzes, and I look at the notification. It’s Ben. I go to my email, and I feel a buzz of excitement that fizzes inside of me.
Dear Saskia, singer/care-worker,
The term ‘pebbly beach’ is simply a description of the sort of beaches we have here in England.
It is a beach where instead of sand we have small pebbles.
I don’t often feel sad, although now you mention it, when it is quite bleak in winter and I haven’t seen the sun for two months straight, I do sometimes wake up crying uncontrollably. Is that a problem?
A singer! Wow. That is very cool. What sort of stuff do you sing?
Also, you work at a retirement home. Perhaps you really are the total package!
Do you happen to also love Englishmen and find deep-seated insecurity strangely attractive?
You are correct about asset managers. The clue is in the title!
If we are to continue whatever this is – email pals?
– then I must insist you stop bragging about the weather and the beaches in Sydney because it just isn’t fair.
Right now I am in my office. It’s grey and dull, and all I can see are dull grey buildings outside.
And they have forecast heavy rain! Hardly fair, like the time I was attacked with the cheese, and no, I definitely didn’t deserve it!
I broke up with her as gently as I could.
She, on the other hand, used ‘find my phone’ which I didn’t agree to, then she tracked me down and attacked me with the burrata!
Have you ever been attacked with a food item? A lamington perhaps? A jar of Vegemite?
For the record, I don’t think being afraid of gloves is silly at all.
What is my most embarrassing secret? Okay, here goes, and mum’s the word.
When I was a kid at school, one day I wet myself in class.
You might think that’s fine until I tell you I was fifteen!
It’s a long story involving an extremely cold morning, a large cup of coffee, and a strict teacher, but anyway, I ended up peeing myself in class.
Obviously, other boys soon found out, and it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
The teacher demanded I leave his class and go to the school nurse, and so I had to get up and walk with wet trousers, stinking of urine, with all the other boys laughing at me.
Fast-forward to now and I still have nightmares about peeing myself at work, or in front of family and friends.
So, I guess I have an irrational fear of wetting myself in public. Is that embarrassing enough for you?
All the best,
Ben ‘quite sad in winter’ Armstrong x
PS. I located the correct Saskia Conway. She lives somewhere called Watson’s Bay.
PPS. Yes, I am currently single. What about you?