The Idea Groves

They rush into the chippie in the woozy rum hours after 3am, the hours of Formica and kebabs. They gather armfuls of greaseproof paper, pungent and vinegary, with small, scrabbled hands. Wee anteater hipsters, foraging.

They resemble bug-eyed thyroid kids, expressions as huge as fists. Undoubtedly, their nails are dirty and feet unclean. They reek of pollen, the wallowing cherry blossoms of Hillhead Park and the West End.

No one asks their names, and no one gives them bother. Folk know better. That’s the way it is with the Chipshop Darlings.

Once, the kid on dish duty tried to break their fragile poise. He gathered his suds and gestured to one of the girls, with a guttural voice and all-right-darlin air. She gaped at him, eyes widening, tears large and hot like infected wounds.

The papers rustled.

Converse scudded across the lino, doors slammed.

The shop fell silent and strangled as a dial tone, and stayed that way for a week. There were recriminations, wallops from the manager.

No one bothered them again.

…


They work at the Idea Grove. It’s fallen into disrepair these days, but the Chipshop Darlings still nurse the dying plants, try to tend them back to health.

That’s why they need the paper. Nothing nurtures the fragile roots of idea cuttings like the warm vinegar teats of fish&chip paper. It’s best harvested at those small hours too, while it’s still warm with drunken rambling and the thrill-gasp evening adventure smell of still-before-bedtime. That’s what works best for the ideas, keeps them cosy and fresh through all kinds of weather. Keeps them alive.

…

No one else much bothers with the Groves these days. They’ve got synthetics, acrylic ideas that rinse at 60 degrees, alloy ideas that withstand road tests at up to 120mph.

In Switzerland, they’re testing a new metaphysic crafted from atomised nylon that holds firm against ninety-seven degrees of scepticism. They built a long tunnel, and fired Eleatic electrons at it, almost at the speed of light. The idea held up well.

They don’t need the Groves.
No one needs the Groves.
Apart from the Chipshop Darlings.

…

The Groves are pretty old, and this is one reason to have faith in them. Although the ideas there have grown gnarly and wizened with disrepair, they’re not dead yet. This may be because they are quiet ideas too; the synthetic manufacturers don’t feel they need to bother with sabotage.

But the grove ideas are there, worming their way into the earth. Persisting.

…

Sometimes the kids take dares at the Groves. Sometimes the drunks in the district wander home via them and piss through the hedgerows. Young, blossoming inspirations buckle under a streak of urine.

The Chipshop Darlings don’t have time to stand guard all the time, though they always worry about the ideas, camp out in the fertile months.

But it’s terrible.

The kids yank handfuls of ideas out of the earth for an afternoon dare, run them to the schoolyard and present them for inspection. No one ever thinks much of these ideas. They’re picked too soon; they wilt like dandelions in a glass tumbler. None of them makes the afternoon; they’re flung to the fields with derision, and the entertainment turns to thumb wars and peanuts.

The kids still bother, because they once caught a beauty. Billy Slater did. He ran fearless as a gunner right to the centre of The Groves. Of course, that was where the witch lived, the bug-eyed witch who would peel off your skin if you ever came near, wrap it round her roots, and cackle. Oh, she was evil. She reeked of pickled eggs and vinegar, hair as black as rotten teeth. No one went to the centre of The Groves. Except for wee Billy Slater.

He ran in, grabbed a good-un, and pelted for the yard. He heard the yells of the Chipshop Darlings and bombed it right out of there, didn’t stop until he was right inside the gates, heaving and panting like an only-just-victorious gazelle.

It was a beauty. The Chipshop Darlings had been nursing this one, tending it with all the vinegar papers they could find. It reeked of promise, a real diamond, right up there with Socrates ilk. Right up with the Swiss.

In the middle of their circle, it glowed. Everyone felt wiser just looking at it, felt good, all understanding and nods. There was sense. The girls grinned, bit lips, embarrassed by a sudden knowing. The boys jostled, abashed but happy with that hot rush of superiority.

Of course, they all wanted it. The older boys demanded it should be theirs, Billy contested – all hands flung in and pulled pieces to their chests. That sublime idea ended up in pieces. Everyone clutched the empty words they had won but, of course, the pieces were nothing. They tried to tape them back together, PrittStick, stitching, Uhu, putty, nails, hammers. Later, they tried water and earth, planting the broken roots in a window box outside the maths class where they could watch it with impunity, notice if it flourished. Of course, it died.

…

The Chipshop Darlings were sad about that one, but they carried on, delicate fingered and ever-eager. They spent hours in city bookshops, rushed back resplendent with copies of Kant and Schopenhauer from the wee corner shops on Otago Lane. These were tucked deep in the earth and vinegar-nourished. They waited, watched and spoke of propositions. Something was bound to happen soon.

…

As ever, something did.

…

The Groves did not belong to the Chipshop Darlings. If anyone’s, they were the Council’s. The Council did not believe in the Idea Groves. The Council believed in flats and supermarkets and parking meters. The Council sold the Groves to Sainsbury’s, who do three-for-two on sausages and 12-pack beers during major sports events.

I guess that’s an idea too.

…

Sometime I still see the Chipshop Darlings, silent and wide-eyed in the West-End cafes. They keep window boxes now, and keep quiet.

The Swiss have moved on too.
These days, they’re making guns.

Fucking Bananas

“There’s no banana in this smoothie,” he says, all portly and righteous. “Excuse me! Waitress! There’s no banana in here.” He wibbles his hands at the glass, frowning at his fruitless drink.
Except he’s wrong.
There is a banana.

I know there is because I just took a big fucking yellow banana from the fruit bowl, peeled it, chopped it and blendered it. I know there is because we don’t have a gleaming kitchen of staff at hand, rushed off their whites, cooking up cordon bleu, dashing round the countertops who might (just possibly) forget the banana. Nope. We have me, and a blender, and a wallop of ice cream. And a fucking banana.

“I can assure you there is, sir. I just made it myself.”

Ooh, he doesn’t like that. Hasn’t anyone told this bitch that the customer is always right?

Well yes, they have.
And if she didn’t think doing so could lose her this shitty job, that banana and ice cream debacle would be dripping down your crotch.

“There isn’t. Taste it.”

I don’t need to taste it, I made it. I toy with refusing on the grounds that I’m allergic to fruit. Instead, I smile the classic well-worn waitress smile, all tucked in teeth and quiet snarling.

“No, thank you.”

“Take it back. I’d like another. With a banana in it.”

I take the fucking glass, which I would drink in the back with a slug of rum, but, as I say, I’m allergic to fruit.
And the soggy saliva of wanker customers.

This time he’s watching, sees the peeling and the chopping and the ice cream. He looks satisfied, like he’s got one over me, or managed to cop a feel.

“Ahh, now that’s better. See, that is a smoothie with a banana in it.”

Well, that it is.

There are other customers, coffees to grind and milk to froth, so I leave the Banana Man for a while, leave him to enjoy his drink and his victory. Until he sticks an arm out when I’m trying to squeeze past with a tray.

“I’d like some tea now. Earl Grey, Pot for 1.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Cafés in Sydney are never so clean, especially not Kings Cross way. It’s a city of cockroaches, all scuttling and beady in the corners, dashing out of bins and waiting for Armageddon to take over. You can always find dead ones curled at the back of cupboards, their spindly legs poking in the air. Black little legs, broken off.

You’d be surprised how much they resemble tea leaves.
A subtle flavour.

“Earl Grey?”



The bastard didn’t even tip.

Why are they together and what does she see in him?

Why are they together and what does she see in him?

Well, it started when they got drunk and she slept with him by mistake. No one would have expected them to sleep together. She was very pretty, with very green eyes that gleamed like a jealous mother of pearl. She was also very smart and had read a lot of books, which she could introduce into any conversation intelligently. Her references always fell in just the right place. She didn’t bring them up to sound clever, but placed them purposefully into her speech as if Nabokov and traffic wardens always belonged next to each other on any library shelf, as if they had been numbered just so in the Dewey Decimal of intuition. Anyone who heard her talk wondered why they had never associated them before.

She had got drunk and he had walked her home, and she had fucked him because when she was drunk she really enjoyed fucking. Ordinarily she would take care of her body with a quiet dignity, but when she was drunk she would accede responsibility like an exhausted mother hustling children into the garden to amuse themselves. Like the children, her body would come home grubby and tired, full of the adventures of freedom. In the mornings, she would pick up her responsibility once more.

When they woke up in bed, she felt a little bad. At this point, she didn’t expect that they were going to end up together. She presumed that they would have some coffee and not talk too much, because he was an awkward boy and would be more so in his hangover. Then she would see him to the door and never phone him, and he would feel bad because the sex had been magnificent. He would wonder how she could have such magnificent sex with him and then never see him again. If it were up to him, they would write a book together on the perfect fuck, hold evening classes, chronicle their incomprehensibly perfect fucking in a column in the Saturday supplements. After that night, he believed they fit together like pornographic Lego bricks.

He got up and went to make breakfast. The kitchen was very cold and he hadn’t dressed properly yet, he stood in just a t-shirt, shivering a little. The toaster was broken, so he made toast using the grill instead. It took a long time. She waited in bed, worried that one of her flatmates would wake up and see him standing in the too-small shirt in the kitchen. He would get embarrassed, and when he was embarrassed he stuttered terribly, as if all his words had been plucked out and replaced with newspaper coupons. It would ruin the morning. Possibly the entire day.

He came back to bed with the toast he had prepared, lovingly, under the slow grill. He handed it to her as if it was a cupcake covered with candles on a birthday morning. Suddenly, she didn’t know how to react. She had lived through many interesting experiences in her life, but she had never had a man make her toast underneath a grill before because the toaster was broken. She had no idea what to say to a man who would do such a thing, how to repay such a quiet act of kindness. He looked at her with hot butter and expectancy.

That is why they are together now, even though she has very green eyes and knows how to talk about Faulkner.