Not many people turn up to the party, but if Leah minds she doesn’t show it. Alex loiters on the edge of the back patio, next to the sagging trampoline. He swigs his beer and watches Leah. She cradles her wineglass, her face alight with laughter and pleasure. She doesn’t look at him. Alex slips his hand inside his jacket, fingers the joint secreted there. He tries to catch Tom’s eye, but Tom is busy chatting up Leah’s childhood best friend Jamila, a striking arts student with thatches of armpit hair and fervent opinions. Nobody notices when Alex slips away. He goes down the side of the house onto the front nature strip, where a bougainvillea scales the bluestone wall. The sloping street is empty save for parked cars. The sun has gone down, the last touch of colour in the sky a sprawling purple bruise. Alex lights up and inhales, feels the dope like a warm hug from the inside.
There you are.
Leah materialises out of the shadows, her white blouse glowing in the half-light. Alex hides the joint behind his body and then takes it out again. Leah’s cheeks are flushed from the wine, the dark rings around her irises more vivid than usual. She has goosebumps on her arms. They stand looking out into the night, where house lights spill across the valley.
This is a breakthrough, Alex says.
What?
This.
Alex waves his hand in the air, tracing a ring of smoke around Leah’s person.
It’s the first time I’ve seen you in public without that hairy chest beside your head since a couple of months into last year.
Leah crosses her arms over her body. A distant vehicle does a burnout.
Tom told me about the cricket incident, Alex says. Did Amir really ask the guy to cut off a bit of his hair?
I’m glad you find it amusing, Leah says.
I spoke to him about it, Alex says. I told him it was a stupid thing to do. It’s archaic; he hasn’t evolved with the times.
What did he say?
He told me to fuck off.
Leah laughs then, a surprised yelping sound. She looks over her shoulder at the lit windows of the house.
Give me that, she says, reaching for the joint.
Late in the evening there’s an exodus back to Melbourne. Leah arranges with Tom to get a lift in their car. Alex is more drunk than he intended to be, so Tom drives. Jamila takes the front passenger seat and, whether by accident or design, Alex finds himself in the back with Leah. They drive out the Geelong Road, past the twinkling lights of the refinery. The night outside is thick like syrup. In the front, Jamila and Tom argue.
They drive out the Geelong Road, past the twinkling lights of the refinery. The night outside is thick like syrup.
If you insist that our whole society is built on a patriarchal structure, Tom says, you have to acknowledge the good that’s come of it too. You can’t just dismiss all the technological and medical advancements that have come with civilisation as we know it.
Yeah, right, Jamila says. A civilisation that’s fucked nature and subjugated women’s bodies.
I think that’s a naive and limited perspective.
You would say that. As a white man from a wealthy background, you sit at the very apex of patriarchal privilege.
Leah and Alex grin at each other in the darkness. The air rushing through the stuck window whips Leah’s long hair around her head. Strands catch in Alex’s mouth.
Halfway up the highway, her hand finds his. Delicate bones and fluttering pulse, like a bird in his palm. They arrive back at Tom’s house in Hawthorn. Jamila and Tom have veered from argument to rampant flirtation. Alex has sobered up and no one bats an eyelid when he says he’s going to drop Leah home. Leah hugs Jamila and gets into the front seat of the Honda. They drive back to Carlton. The air is cool and electric. At the traffic lights, Alex rolls a cigarette. He drives and smokes one-handed, the other hand in Leah’s lap, winding her fingers in his. They park the car outside the cemetery and run across the four lanes of traffic to the squat, brown brick college building, through the foyer and the courtyard and up two flights of stairs. Halfway along a drab corridor, Leah turns a key in a lock and opens the door to her room, small and neat, with Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin posters on the walls. She closes the door and turns to face him. Her eyes are shining. The space between them compresses. Her mouth is soft and purposeful. They tear at each other’s clothes, two small buttons from her blouse sacrificed in their haste. He picks her up, her body warm and yielding, pressing skin on skin, slender limbs, surprising strength. Her skirt twists up around her waist. Onto the bed, a tumble of knees and elbows. She slides out of her underpants and lies back, waiting. He spits in his palm and wets his cock. An unguarded noise in her throat as he enters her. Her eyes flick open. Their bodies are a perfect fit. He’s never felt so vulnerable. He thrusts inside her. The skin on his back dissolves, his matter sucked into infinite space. He surrenders.
Halfway up the highway, her hand finds his. Delicate bones and fluttering pulse, like a bird in his palm.
