LEVEN

This is me, watching a pile of clothes going round and round, round and round. Frothy water bubbling, washing machine humming.

This is me, sitting in an orange plastic bucket chair, in a row of five plastic bucket chairs, sandwiched between two aunties.

They smell like the sausage my ama used to make.

This is me, hanging out with the oldies under the yellow lights, between walls of washing machines and tumble dryers, with a bottle of Kaoliang in my hand.

This is me, face glowing, heart smashing, brain strobing.

I take my phone out my pocket. I poke the screen. Pokey poke poke.

Can’t find Mia’s message.

Right, right, right, I binned it – and her number.

New message it is then. Tap in the number which I remember like my date of birth.

Got into a car accident. In hospital but don’t worry about me.

No kiss at the end, send. In my head, Sean dusts his hands off and pats himself on the back.

Another swig of Kaoliang is a swig of air, so I drop the bottle and it clunks and rolls on the floor. The old aunties don’t even look up from their magazines.

Eyeballs on the screen, three dots appear under my message. She’s typing.

Three dots disappear. She’s thinking.

Eyeballs on the screen. Nothing.

Keypad. Tap in the digits.

Ring ring, ring ring.

Answer machine says, Hi, you’ve reached Mia. I can’t pick up right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks! Answer machine beeps.

Hi, I say. So basically I got run over by a milk lorry. Not sure how long I’ll be in hospital for.

I call again a minute later and I say, The doctors don’t think I’ll be able to walk again. I say, It’s cool, I can be like Stephen Hawking.

A minute later I call and I say, Oh, while they were checking me out, they found a tumour. On my right arse cheek. They think it might be cancer. I say, No playing, just like my dad.

A minute after that, just as I’m about to hit call again, I get a text.

You’re a prick when you’re drunk.

I chuck my phone at the wall of whirring machines in front of me, where it smacks and clatters to the floor.

I immediately regret it and run to pick it up, checking I haven’t broken it.

This is me, back in between the old aunties, swearing at my cracked phone screen.

Booze. Need more booze.

Hey, I say to the auntie on my right, got any booze?

The wizened old girl clicks her tongue and the look on her face reminds me of my mother when I drink in front of her.

You look ugly when you drink, my mum always says. She says, Your eyes go watery and your whole face is red. Then: Thank goodness you haven’t got monolid eyes, a rounded head or a flat nose.

She’s not wrong, I do look ugly when I drink. Which is why I don’t drink all that much back home. But here, everyone looks ugly when they drink, so in that sense at least, I fit right in.

I pick up the empty bottle of Kaoliang on the floor and wave it in front of the auntie’s face.

You know, booze. Alcohol. Speak English?

She shakes her head and buries her face back into the flimsy thin pages of her celebrity magazine.

I try the auntie on my left. No dice: this one is a champion ignorer, just like me.

I would run out and buy another bottle somewhere, but my clothes are still tumbling around inside that washer, getting nice and frothy, and I don’t want anyone to steal them.

For real, leave any of your things unattended and they will get removed from your possession. Trust no one, Mr Mulder.

Not even old aunties who smell like the sausage your ama used to make.

Can’t drink, can’t sleep.

Can’t get Mia out of my head.

Just then, I see a picture of a familiar-looking guy in the auntie’s magazine.

No playing, it’s the dude whose picture I caught Charles scowling at the other night in that apartment.

I tap the magazine a couple times and I say, Who is that?

Movie star, says the auntie, yanking her magazine away from my reach, giving me the side eye.

So you do speak English, you sly old bird.

T

WELVE

Because of the effort, Charles takes off his jacket, then his tie.

He unbuttons his shirtsleeves and rolls them up. His forearms look lean and sinewy.