It's Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake Read online

  ‘Goodnight Aunty Nono!’ they both squeal.

  ‘Goodnight my darlings, I love you,’ I shout up to them, and they giggle the whole way up the stairs. When Audre started to talk, no was an easy word in her developing vocabulary, and she saw no reason to add the unnecessary i to the second n in my name, so I became Aunty Nono, and it stuck. ‘They’re divine,’ I swoon.

  ‘They are.’ Lindell smiles as he pops the cork on another bottle of prosecco. ‘I can’t remember who came after Shakib and before Graham,’ he says as his head tips to his shoulder, lost in his own memory lane of sexual conquests. ‘I was post-grad.’ He stretches his arms above his head, deep in thought. Lindell’s mum is Papua New Guinean and his dad is from four generations of Australian farming stock, making him all broad shoulders, afro hair, and thick rural twang.

  ‘Was it the double-barrel barrister?’ I ask.

  ‘Oooh! The barrister.’ His eyes light up as he fills my wine glass. ‘Yes! Mmm-hmm. Winterbottom-Smythe.’

  ‘Terrence.’

  ‘Terrence Winterbottom-Smythe,’ he says with a disappointed scowl. ‘What a wanker.’

  We’d been talking about the people we’d had sex with, after I’d filled him in on all the details of my encounter with the firefighter.

  ‘Then who was it for you?’ he asks.

  ‘Europe.’

  ‘Oh, yes, all of that lush Europe boning. Except for that fuckwit bartender who straightened his hair with your hair straightener before he left.’

  ‘Marc with a c.’ I roll my eyes. ‘Gross.’

  Graham joins us again, heading to the fridge to get himself a beer.

  ‘Are we still talking about our conquests?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’ Lindell nods. ‘Tell us your list.’

  ‘Mine is simple…Grace Ogilvie, some guy whose name I can’t remember, Thomas, and then the love of my life.’

  Lindell’s bottom lip puckers and he flutters his eyelashes at me as we both wail sweetly in Graham’s direction and he blushes slightly.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Lindell jokes.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The love of your life,’ Lindell and I say at the same time, laughing and shaking our heads at Graham’s perpetual naivety.

  ‘Can you please tell Graham about dehydrated Debbie?’ Lindell says to me.

  ‘Lindell,’ I say, rolling my eyes, but I know Lindell won’t let up if I don’t divulge. Graham looks at me curiously.

  ‘I fucked a girl named Debbie on a Contiki tour and ended up in an Austrian hospital,’ I say quickly.

  Graham’s jaw flies open. ‘Wait! What?’

  ‘Tell the whole story!’ Lindell is laughing loudly.

  ‘We had sex in a sauna, and I got dehydrated. Really dehydrated. On-a-drip-for-two-days dehydrated,’ I say, sipping from my glass. Lindell and Graham laugh as I shake my head, flashes of memory gripping me with embarrassment.

  ‘And then things slowed down for both of us after that.’ Lindell looks at his own list.

  ‘Yeah, well, you fell in love.’ I smile at him.

  ‘You are welcome,’ says Graham, smiling too.

  ‘I don’t actually think this is the most interesting list anyway,’ I say.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Graham’s beard is covered in the hummus that he’s just plopped onto the kitchen island and smothered on a cracker.

  ‘I think maybe there’s actually a second list.’ I bite my lip and try and gauge their reactions. ‘Like, there’s a companion list, that sits next to this one.’

  ‘And what does this companion list capture, sweet girl?’ Lindell is curious.

  ‘The people who should be on the list, you know?’ I smile. ‘The missed opportunities. The ones that got away. Or maybe not even got away, just the ones that you never, but maybe would’ve liked to…’ I search for the word. ‘Bone.’

  ‘A should-have-boned list?’ Graham laughs.

  ‘I love this idea.’ Lindell smirks and his lips purse mischievously.

  ‘What’s that face?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s me diving into the archives of my past.’ He swills his wine around in his glass and then laughs to himself. ‘Do you remember Karl?’

  ‘You loved him.’ I nod, excited.

  ‘I did love him. Why didn’t I ever have sex with him?’

  ‘Because—’ I stop. ‘I don’t know. Why didn’t you ever have sex with him?’

  Lindell shrugs and I pour myself another glass of wine, the kind of pour where you’d be better off just drinking straight from the bottle rather than dirtying a glass.

  ‘Who would be on your other list?’ I ask Graham, and Lindell looks at him pointedly.

  Graham thinks for a moment. ‘Malcolm Bennett is definitely on my other list.’ He smiles. ‘We were friends at uni and I was never brave enough to ask him out.’

  ‘Awww,’ says Lindell affectionately, picking up and kissing Graham’s hand.

  The three of us decide to write down our ‘should-have-boned’ lists.

  ‘Why is it easier for me to think of people for your could’veshagged list, Noni, than mine?’ Lindell asks, looking at me.

  ‘Because you had sex with the people you wanted to have sex with.’

  Lindell cackles. ‘I did, didn’t I?’

  ‘I, it would seem, did not.’ Graham looks down at his own very long should-have-could-have-would-have list with a furrowed brow.

  Lindell looks over his shoulder. ‘Oh babe, that is a lot of names.’

  ‘I didn’t realise I had such a sexually repressed past.’

  ‘I did have to make the first move.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Graham says, and Lindell raises his eyebrows at him. ‘Well, I made the second move,’ he concedes. Lindell raises his eyebrows higher. ‘I’m a very good cook,’ he adds. I laugh as Lindell wraps his arms around Graham’s waist and kisses him on the cheek. I love the love they have for each other.

  ‘Right, who have you got so far?’ Graham says to me as he unwraps Lindell’s hands from around his middle and turns and kisses him on the mouth, before pouring the last of the bottle into his glass.

  ‘Okay, so there’s the guy at the bottle shop, that barista girl at the café near school, my dentist, one guy from high school, a couple of people from uni…’

  ‘Did you put Sonya on the list?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The one who was soooo in the closet it was frightening. Sandra? Sophie?’

  ‘Celia?’ I jot her name down.

  ‘Celia.’ Lindell raises his glass as if he’s toasting her.

  ‘I wish I’d had sex with my high school English teacher,’ Graham offers nonchalantly.

  ‘This is about realistic, possible hook-ups, not adolescent fantasies,’ says Lindell.

  ‘Who said they were adolescent?’ Graham raises his eyebrows.

  Lindell laughs before turning back to me. ‘You could’ve shagged Ben.’

  ‘Yes.’ I nod. ‘I totally could’ve. I think. I think he would’ve?’ I look questioningly at Lindell, who nods reassuringly.

  ‘Ben?’ Graham asks.

  ‘Ben was the guy we scored pills off at uni,’ I say and Graham shakes his head, feigning disapproval but smiling.

  ‘The two of them would always end up on the dance floor sharing lollipops and sucking face,’ says Lindell.

  ‘Sounds romantic. And what were you doing while those two weren’t having sex on the dance floor, my love?’

  ‘Just impressing everyone with my killer moves.’ Lindell gets up and starts swaying his hips from side to side. ‘Like this.’

  ‘Be careful! These are the exact same moves that attracted me to you in the first place.’ Graham laughs.

  I like Graham. He’s the epitome of a good human: smart, considered, polite, passionate, thoughtful, and so loving. He has a complex finance-related job that I don’t really understand and a penchant for football and feminist literature. He’s Lindell’s perfect man.

  ‘There’s Doug. I sh
ould’ve had sex with Doug,’ I say.

  ‘My Doug?’ Graham asks, and I nod. ‘You totally could’ve had sex with my Doug. Why didn’t you?’ He grabs my arm, serious.

  ‘I don’t know, we’d text for hours but neither of us ever quite got around to asking the other out.’

  ‘What? Why didn’t I know this?’ Graham is stunned. ‘You absolutely should’ve. I think he’d be great in bed.’

  ‘What are you basing that on?’ Lindell says.

  ‘Just a vibe.’

  ‘Is he single?’

  ‘Married. Kids. Spends a ridiculous amount of time fishing,’ Graham says.

  Lindell and I both turn our noses up in disgust. It’s weird digging back through your memories and trying to actively search out the missed opportunities. It’s making me feel an odd sense of nostalgia.

  ‘Oooh, you know who else?’ Lindell muses. ‘Jess.’

  ‘Yes. I remember Jess.’ Graham nods, impressed with himself. ‘She loved you.’

  ‘She didn’t.’ I shake my head.

  ‘I think you’re perfect, Noni,’ Lindell mimics Jess. ‘That’s what she sent you that night, remember?’

  ‘I wonder what would’ve happened if either of us had just gone for it. We got along so well, and we’d go on these perfect dates, and every time I’d wait for her to make a move and she never did. So, I never did.’ We pause for a moment, like a ten second silence is appropriate to honour what could’ve been.

  ‘There was that girl who moved to Melbourne,’ Lindell adds, after a moment.

  ‘Yes.’ I nod.

  ‘And there’s Molly.’ I know he’s watching my face to see how I’ll react.

  I bite my lip at the mention of her name. ‘I knew you’d bring her up.’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t bring her up.’ He stares at me, smiling. ‘What’s she doing?’

  ‘She’s overseas, managing a bunch of backpacker hostels all over Europe.’

  ‘Who’s Molly?’ Graham asks.

  ‘Molly is quite possibly the one that got away.’ Lindell sculls his wine.

  ‘No, she’s not.’

  ‘How would you describe her then?’

  ‘I dunno. Our timing was never quite right.’

  I look down at my list. Molly should technically appear after each of the names I’ve added so far. We grew up together, except she was two years younger than me. We both did debating, and we had expert banter. She’s one of the funniest people I know. When I finished school she wrote a vague note in my yearbook that said: ‘You. Me. You and Me. If only things were different…’

  Years later, we were both at the same party and we ended up having an intensely passionate kiss. It was one of the best kisses of my life—the kind of kiss that feels like so much more than just lips pressed against each other. The kiss had history, possibility, passion, and bellies full of cheap beer and abandon swirling around in it all at once. That night we went back to my place and she held my face in her hands and said, ‘Let’s wait. Let’s wait until we’re sober.’

  ‘Okay,’ I told her.

  ‘I really, really like you, Noni. We don’t have to rush, do we?’ I shook my head, and we fell asleep in each other’s arms. And when we woke up the next day, it was like she’d forgotten about it all, or at least she pretended like she had, and so did I, and so life resumed as normal.

  Every now and then we’d text each other these long, glorious, flirtatious exchanges and agree to meet up. But then we never did. We lived in different cities and we each had different priorities. Our lives would simply move on like nothing had happened. Each time we saw each other we’d end up in bed, but we never had sex. This happened four times in total and every time she’d say she wanted to wait. I assumed it was because she was a virgin.

  When I was in Europe, sometimes she’d text or call me at night, but it’d be my morning. She’d leave me incredibly romantic but very drunken voicemails, or I’d wake up to sweet texts.

  I’ll wait for you.

  That’s what she’d texted me. I’d stood in the middle of Marks & Spencer at 9 a.m., reading it over and over again, feeling amazed that there was a woman halfway around the world who wanted to wait for me.

  But not long enough.

  When I got home we tried one more time to make it happen, but she got so drunk she passed out.

  And then I met Joan.

  3

  The following day, Lindell and I wander through the park as the kids ride their scooters ahead of us. I sip my coffee and smile as three elderly women in activewear power walk past us chatting loudly.

  ‘All three of those women had camel toes,’ Lindell says.

  ‘I think they were fully aware, they just didn’t give a shit.’ I giggle. ‘Why don’t they tell us that that’s what aging is actually about?’

  ‘Camel toes?’

  ‘Not caring about camel toes.’

  ‘It’s ’cause the god-damned patriarchy is a—’ He stops and shouts across the park, ‘Audre if you take that helmet off again I swear to god I will superglue it to your head. Do you hear me?’

  Audre stops and stares at us. Lindell has now ceased parenting with his voice and instead his body does all of the parenting for him, and he means business. Audre knows this too because she whacks her helmet on her head and gives us a thumbs-up with a grin. I laugh and Lindell shakes his head, smiling.

  ‘That kid, she’s wild and she does whatever she wants. As a human, I love that about her, but as her parent…’ He sighs, shaking his head before he smiles. ‘I hope she doesn’t lose that.’

  ‘She won’t. Look at you.’

  ‘Yeah, but we all lose it, Nons. We have to, that’s what our adolescence is for.’

  ‘And our twenties.’

  ‘And our thirties for some of us.’ He looks at me pointedly and pokes my arm.

  ‘Shut up. I’ve gotten better.’

  ‘You have.’

  ‘I genuinely give fewer shits now. But can you imagine what my life would’ve been like if I was the woman I am right now in my twenties?’ I let that really sink in. ‘Everything would be completely different.’

  ‘Oh god!’ He laughs. ‘Can you imagine if I was the person I am now in my twenties? It would’ve been fucking disastrous.’ He pulls an amused face and I laugh loudly. ‘I think aging is actually just about getting used to yourself, you know? Getting used to the way you are, the way you work, the way you process things, the weird things that make you unique. I think we spend so much time early on figuring that out.’ He stops for a moment. ‘Or fighting against it.’

  We sit on a bench at the edge of the playground. The kids are already at the top of a rope pyramid, laughing at each other.

  ‘I don’t hate myself like I did back then,’ I tell him.

  ‘I’m glad, because thirty-six years is an exhaustingly long time to hate something, Nons.’

  I smile. ‘And no matter how much I try, I just can’t seem to get away from myself. Or you for that matter.’

  ‘Yes, you’re stuck with both of us.’ He nudges me and I smile. We watch the kids play. Julius gets to the top of the rope pyramid and stands on the ledge, dancing for us. We cheer.

  ‘I think the stakes lessen and we just give fewer fucks,’ Lindell says. ‘And if we feel this way now, imagine how we’re going to feel in our fifties?’

  What an amazing thought. ‘I can’t wait to wear my camel toe with pride in a park with you,’ I tell him.

  ‘It’ll be whole sack out for me, babe, and I can’t bloody wait either.’ Lindell laughs and I snort so loudly the kids look over at us quizzically.

  I think about this conversation for the rest of the day. I think about it while I run boring life errands like getting the car washed and navigating the complicated task of trying to sustainably food-shop for one. I think about it while I sit on my couch, eating a cheese platter for lunch. I call it a cheese platter so it feels sophisticated, but it’s actually just a wheel of cheese, a box of crackers and an apple I
don’t cut. I don’t even use a plate. I think about it while watching a shitty romantic comedy instead of doing the three loads of washing that need to be done. And as I think about it, I realise that the biggest thing that has happened to me as I’ve gotten older is that I’ve started to shut up and listen to that voice, that instinct, that knows best. It was that voice that told me repeatedly for years that Joan and I were over. It was that voice that told me to finally go to therapy instead of crying on Lindell’s couch every night. It told me to own up to my mistakes and it told me to cut myself some slack. It told me to have sex with the firefighter. The voice isn’t new. It’s always been there. I think I’ve just finally started listening to it. I don’t regret anything that has happened in my life, except maybe that I was a shitty listener. And I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened, what choices I would’ve made, what heartache I would’ve avoided, what things I would’ve said, if I’d just listened. That same voice is now telling me to take everything that Lindell and I have discussed and at least try. It is telling me to find the people on the list.

  I grab a pen and write down the names on my ‘should’ve boned’ list again.

  1. Bottle-shop guy

  2. Barista girl

  3. Kennedy, Damien and Grace from uni

  4. Dentist

  5. Ray from high school

  6. Closeted Celia

  7. Ben

  8. Doug

  Next to Doug’s name I write married and into fishing, as the ultimate deterrents.

  9. Jess

  10. Melbourne girl

  11. Molly

  I stare at it. I could have sex with these people. Some of these people. Leaving room for the statistical probability that some of them are in new relationships, or just not interested in having sex with me anymore, I could absolutely go back and right at least some of the wrongs of my past. Be the woman I wish I was then, that I think I am now. Live out some of my lavish fantasies. I could have my own mini, very structured, very safe, pseudo time-travel sexual revolution.

  I grab my laptop. Fuck it. There’s no harm in doing some research, is there?

  Within two hours my research has turned me into a post-it-wielding, mystery-solving, tangled-in-red-wool, no-one-can-come-into-my-lounge-room, stalker-level wild woman. I know who has moved away, who is married, who has kids, who is divorced, who is living overseas. I’ve gone down a long and winding social-media rabbit hole reading posts by ex-partners and friends about pregnancy announcements, gastric bypass surgery and new jobs. I’ve become way too deeply invested in Jess’s cousin’s small business venture, having read twelve months’ worth of posts about her ‘journey’ and her dream to open a brownie bakery.