I made my way to our College Bar, drunk, and spotted the silhouette of new friend Eve, seated, with a bunch of women. All the women who studied French and Italian (I say ‘all’ – there were four women spread across all four years) were sitting in the little cave-like corner of the bar, drinking. The bar had only one light, right in the centre, leaving the corner buried in darkness. Eve was leaning against a wall, thick black hair pressed up against it.
Walls in our College Bar were rough on the eyes but smooth to the touch, years of history hidden by new coats of paint. Eve smiled when she saw me – carefully painted red lips framing perfect orthodontic white teeth – and gestured that I should join her. Alcohol has robbed me of much of the conversations and introductions that followed. But, of course, I remember meeting Alex. I was struck by her voice, so rich, even velvety, like Baileys or Merlot. There was something so mesmeric about the way she spoke. I was drawn to her subtle Australian cadence, her delicate, almost musical consonants.
There in our College Bar, I drunkenly studied her. Barely-there eyebrows. Dark hair in a constant state of flux as she absentmindedly put it up and took it down during conversation. Three perfect freckles in a line along her arm. Eyes the colour the sky should be – the Australian sky I knew, not this foreign English white. I acknowledged and dismissed that this was an odd thought to have about a stranger or a new friend. Eve and I stumbled back to our adjacent rooms arm in arm, new allies. In the dark hallway:
Eve: I’m not a sentimental person
Me: Okay
I paused.
Me: I think I am
She nodded. I wondered whether this was a bad thing in Eve’s books.
Eve: Yes, I think you are
Me: Why did you bring up sentimentality?
Eve: As a disclaimer
I waited.
Eve: I’m really glad we’re neighbours
She pulled me into a hug, squeezed, then let herself into her room. I drunkenly fumbled with my key as I did the same.
*
I must have been charming, despite my inebriated state, because the next day I received a friend request on Facebook:
Alex:
Hey,
It was lovely to meet a fellow Aussie last night.
It would be really nice if you and Eve came over for dinner one night next week? What do you think?
Alex x
What did I think?
Amalia:
Hey,
Lovely to meet you too!
I’m at a concert in chapel until 8pm on Tuesday (music student duties!) – would after that be too late?
Amalia x
Alex:
After that would be perfect! I’ll message Eve.
X
Eve and I never really discussed the dinner. Tuesday arrived and I attended the concert I’d told my Renaissance Music tutor I’d attend. The chapel was magnificent – gothic and resonant – and the music hit me behind the knees. I was glad to be sitting because music that hits you behind the knees can leave you unbalanced. Five singers stood in a row. The tallest, a man with a boy’s face, sang the solos in a set of Renaissance music and, though his voice was soft and gentle and sweet, the chapel acoustics rubbed his sound warm, inflating it until it filled the ancient space. During a particular Gesualdo madrigal, a balloon of sound lodged itself inside me. I’d never heard music like it before. An ignorant First Year, I’d assumed Renaissance music was too rule-abiding in its harmonies to achieve this intense emotional expression. How could they express such anguish in such simplicity?
‘Io pur respiro’ (‘I still breathe’) – Carlo Gesualdo, 1611
The ethereal introduction morphed into something breathless. Wildly chromatic. Everything began to hasten. Voices overlapping. Faster. The balloon of sound burst. Shivers overwhelmed me then left me raw.
About halfway through the concert, I felt her sit beside me. It was the second time we’d met in all of time and I was struck by how close she was sitting. Very close. The music faded from foreground to background. It was like a concerto where she was the soloist – the scraping of her chair, the shuffling of her feet, the rhythm of her breathing. She whispered to me, accompanied by the music, ‘I smell of herbs and spices. I’m sorry.’ I laughed because she was funny and she did smell strongly of coriander. I love coriander. We watched the rest of the concert together in silence.
I say watched, but suddenly everyone was clapping so I clapped, too, because that’s how clapping works. She was whispering to me again, ‘Oh, but I thought you would be singing.’ I contemplated making a joke, but couldn’t follow through because she really did look disappointed. She smiled when I said, ‘Alex, I can’t think of anything worse than someone seeing me perform before they get to know me.’
*
Alex’s books were stacked in a neat pile beside her desk, which overlooked the college deer park. Alex, Eve, and I sat around a circular table in this, her study. The door to her bedroom was closed. The air was flavoured with chicken and coriander and all the right spices. This was before we both became vegetarian. In the centre of the table was a colourful salad. It struck me that the food wasn’t typically English – starchy or heavy. It was something I would have at home in Sydney.
Alex made me nervous. Not in an uncomfortable way, but I felt I wanted to impress her. University stretched our two-year age difference, so she seemed older, wiser, almost glamorous. I was grateful for Eve’s relaxing company. I found her very straightforward, non-judgemental. She was the first in her family to go to university, but she never made a big deal about it. I wondered how many students found a best friend in their first-year college neighbour.
Alex told us both about her American boyfriend, Oscar, who was studying for a Master’s in law. I had a vague memory of meeting an American who fit his physical description at some international students mingle evening early on. I remember thinking that he laughed a little like Professor Umbridge: closed mouth, high-pitched. But I decided it couldn’t have been Alex’s Oscar because the man I met was too arrogant, too opinionated. It didn’t make sense to me. Anyway, I’m digressing. The three of us sat on the floor to eat. Within an hour, Eve was lying on her back. She looked in pain, but said nothing. Migraine. She’d warned me about these. I didn’t know how to behave, how to be, which I’ll admit felt unusual for me. This was before I’d read and reread Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be?, an Alex recommendation. Though I’m not sure that would have helped me here.
Me: This chicken is really good, much nicer than eating in hall–
Fumbling, awkward words. Childish. Mundane.
Eve: I’m sure that’s meant as a compliment . . .
Her: Is food something that brings you pleasure then?
For me, the short answer to this question was no. Almost an aggressive NO. Food actually brought me a lot of pain growing up because eating disorders are rife in my family and I’d only just dropped out of the Who Can Eat The Fewest Calories At Dinner competition we all secretly played. I never won.
Eve: I like food, but I’m not sure I’d say it brings me pleasure. What do you mean by pleasure?
I breathed out.
Her: Have you read that pleasure–joy article?
I would come to learn that, among circles of friends, it was kind of a given that everybody had read the same articles and books. They became the common language at most social gatherings. I would also learn that Alex and Eve weren’t really friends. In fact, after that night, Eve, Alex, and I never had dinner again just the three of us. So it was a strange combination of guests at this First Dinner. I’ll let you decide why Alex organised it in the first place.
Eve: No?
Me: What?
Her: Zadie Smith, who I love, wrote this interesting article, which distinguishes between joy and pleasure. For her, pleasures are, like, simple things that could happen every day. I think she uses the example of eating an icy pole–
Eve: A what?
Me and her: Ice lolly
Eve laughed through her nose – I’d never heard her laugh like this and it tickled me – and I think she muttered something like ‘Australians’.
Her: Anyway, joy is something much rarer and more, um, intense? Kind of ecstatic actually. Zadie talks about taking drugs with a stranger and giving birth. Big moments of Joy, with a capital J
In the years to come, I would read almost everything Zadie Smith ever published. I would also know Joy by Zadie’s definition: ‘that strange admixture of terror, pain, and delight’.
Me: So what brings you pleasure?
Her: Definitely not icy poles in this weather
Eve: It’s such a funny image – licking an ‘icy’ ‘pole’. Like, I get it! I can picture it!
Still lying on the floor, she made quotations with her fingers when she said ‘icy’ and ‘pole’. It never fails to amuse me how baffled English people are by the slightest idiosyncrasies in Aussie vocabulary.
Her: I think finishing a good book is up there for me
Eve: I really like running – it makes me happy and I do it often, so I guess that counts?
Her: That definitely counts
Eve: That said, I guess I also use running to combat stress, so it’s not entirely a pleasurable thing
Her: But you use it because it brings you pleasure, right? I still think it counts
I didn’t know what I was going to say before I said it.
Me: I think it would probably be wanting really badly to listen to a piece of music and then listening to that piece of music. Yeah, I guess that’d be mine
Her: So you like when desire is satiated?
She said the word ‘desire’ like it felt good in her mouth. Desire.
I didn’t blush.
Eve: I’m actually in quite a bit of pain. Fucking migraines
Her: Ah, I don’t even have any painkillers to offer you
Eve: No, that’s okay. Thank you for a wonderful dinner. I think I’m going to go
Eve has a funny way of behaving. Once she has made up her mind about something, she will just block everything out and do it, kind of forgetting where she is and everything else. It’s difficult to describe, so I’ll use this dinner as an example. After saying she was going to go, Eve stood, hugged Alex, hugged me, and left.
Me: Maybe I should get going, too
Her: Please don’t feel obliged. I have no other plans this evening apart from getting to know you
Me: And you plan to do that all in an evening?
Her: I plan to start this evening. Yes
The wine had oiled my initial fumbling and I could feel my charisma swell as I surfed the alcoholic wave. I let it swell. I leaned in.
Me: And how do you usually get to know people?
Her: I don’t usually want to get to know people the way I want to get to know you
I didn’t blush.
Her: Besides, I only get to hear you sing once I know you properly, right?
Me: Right. But what if I’m a terrible singer?
Her: You’re not a terrible singer
Me: I could be terrible. Can you imagine? Would you tell me? How embarrassing–
Her: I’ve heard a recording, you’re great!
Me: What recording? How did you–
Her: Not that I know much about opera, but–
Me: Did you look me up?
Her: Sure! You weren’t difficult to find. Don’t you google people?
Me: I do google people
Her: Exactly! I watched a clip of you singing something from Carmen and it was extraordinary
Me: That’s not fair! What’s your secret talent then?
Her: Your opera-singing talent isn’t exactly a secret
Me: Alright, detective
Was I teasing or flirting? What’s the difference?
I paused.
Me: I want to get to know you, too
This is an extract from 28 Questions by Indyana Schneider (Simon & Schuster). 28 Questions is available now at your local independent bookseller.
