Bullets from Paradise - Christmas 1999

December 25
Found a message from Monica on the answering machine this morning, asking me to go to a party, but that was last night. Also, a message Samuela left after I’d fallen asleep at 10 p.m. yesterday. But I was too tired from my eight-hour train trip to see my grandfather yesterday, to check the machine. I just dragged my tired ass into bed and crashed. My brother John also called to tell me he and Anna are expecting a baby. That makes me an aunt twice in less than six months. This morning Marino called; obviously concerned about me being here on my own today. We used to spend so much time together before he was married. “Glad to have the time to myself, actually. I’ll spend the day writing.”

Who am I kidding? It’s the last Christmas of the century and I’m all by my self. Don’t panic! This doesn’t necessarily make me a loser, does it? I must have been doing something wrong with my life, to be all alone today. Is my mother right? Am I being punished for being a horrible human being? Alone but not lonely, right? I can take care of my self. So why do I feel like crying?

A base riff is thumping upstairs – someone’s Christmas present. Instead of turning on the computer as I’d planned to do, I sit at the kitchen table reading the week’s papers that have accumulated in a monstrous pile. This is a good way of spending a day off I reckon, I need the rest. After all, it’s just another Saturday; except all the shops are closed, the church bells keep ringing and none of the people I call are home. It’s started to snow, I was hoping for a white Christmas.

I turn on all the electrical appliances, just to liven the place up a bit. I set the timer in the kitchen, turn on the radio and put the television on mute, turn on the oven to re-heat a loaf of bread gone stale. No Christmas lunch or dinner, no presents, no cards, no e-mails today. Not even from my family; to think I spent over two hundred bucks on Christmas greetings this year. I’m more alone than an orphan. I doubt whether I’m even good enough for soup handouts at the Sacred Heart. I should have a pet. It’s my first Christmas alone and all I’ve got is too much time to think. I can remember in exact detail what I did every previous Christmas for the last ten years. Visiting my divorced mother in Queensland or my ex-defacto’s family in the Western suburbs. Everyone in the world complains about having to spend today with their family because they have no idea what it’s like to have no one boring to waste the day with, at least it’s something. Better than nothing.

Maybe I’m over-dramatising, my ex always used to say I was a bit of a drama queen. Monica once spent Christmas on her own, although that was while she was engaged in a humanitarian mission in Guatemala. I have no such noble excuse. What happened to me is: I left Melbourne where I spent the last twelve years of my life and came to Europe. My family are all over the place, scattered to the four winds: from northern Europe to the Mediterranean south, from Australia to Northern America. I’m from nomadic descent.

It’s four o’clock and no one’s returned any messages. I think I should get to work, but now that I finally have the time to write, I don’t feel inspired. I draw a cue card for inspiration. It says: “It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.” I sticky tape it to my VDU and re-check my e-mail account for the ninth time today, the same message reappears: “unable to locate lc1.law5 server try again later”. I pull out my sowing kit and sit cross-legged on the couch. Time to fix the tears in my life. Meanwhile there’s a Woody Allen rerun on the telly, Take The Money And Run.

At five thirty p.m. I’ve mended whatever I was able to and decide to run a hot bath. While the water is running, I cut myself a large slice of Pand’oro that I eat without a plate. The icing sugar flies away and lands in a white dusting over the floor and on the red fabric pouf in the living room. Just like the snow outside. It’s getting dark. I switch on the fairy lights that I’ve strung throughout the flat, wrapping them around the pot plants and the television set, letting them hang from the bookshelves and architraves, then I pull out the vacuum cleaner and vacuum the icing sugar and the peanut shells, which were still stuck under the rug from last week’s house-warming party.

I wonder if condensation is bad for the portable phone lying by the sink. In the tub I stay still, my head underwater. It’s almost foetal. Wish You Were Here is playing on the radio, I turn it off pointing the remote. Danny read the first half of my manuscript and liked it. Shall I shampoo my hair? Not if I’ll go swimming tomorrow, Sundays is my pool and sauna day. But what if I decide to go out tonight? I’ve been neglecting my appearance, I’ve lost weight though, that’s one good thing about depression, it curbs your appetite for everything. I hold the make up mirror up to my face, the side with the enlargement glass. Eek! It’s time I did something about those eyebrows. And I must get out of this track-suit-pants-mentality and start thinking about style, after all, I work in Fashion. At last I fit into all the clothes that were too tight before. Besides, I bought a whole lot of funky new gear at Kookai, I just don’t get out enough to get excited about being sexy. I’m turning into a social recluse; going shopping has become a form of outdoor exercise.

I wrap my damp hair in a towel, in the kitchen I fill a tumbler with one part Vodka one part tomato juice. Who said writers are all alcoholics? I cut a lemon and squeeze a half into the cocktail, some cracked pepper, a dash of Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. Ice. Merry Christmas! At the back of the stereo cabinet I find an ancient King Crimson album, once my favourite: Discipline. As the familiar music plays, I sit at my desk in the studio, before the computer. With a flick of the mouse I close Netscape and click on a file called New Stories. Yes, merry Christmas, I’m going to write, that’s what writer’s do.

Bullets from Paradise - December

December 12
Christine thought about Nicholas in winter, when the puddles along country roads were sealed with sad scabs of ice and mud.

Every day at noon she walked along the dirt road, breathing in the crisp wintry breeze, an antidote to the office air turning stale inside her lungs. Fists in her pockets and careful not to splash any dirt on her clothes, with tiny steps she walked forward. Every step brought her further away from her desk; a desk like all the others set in rows on the third floor. The Airspace Building was the last of a conglomerate in the North-South industrial zone that she reached by train every morning. Her best friend Sad Julia worked close by, she assembled components for electronic equipment. The factory was only a couple of hundred metres away but they worked different shifts and never managed to spend their breaks together.

Christine walked slowly but with certainty. Her gaze scraping the white sky, her eyes thirsty for pale sunlight. Slowly she walked leaving behind her the VDU display, the client database and any sense of duty for the company that she hated. The walked away, turning her back on the office to spend her lunch outdoors, her ears aching from the cold.
The road she walked along was a service road that lead from the industrial area where the office building was, to the airport. The road ran between the small airport runway and a concrete canal in which a shallow watercourse, choked by thriving waterweeds, flowed in a straight line. All around lay frozen fields; at one end a huge dung heap spread its malodorous scent, she pinched her nostrils closed when she walked past.
Meanwhile, aeroplanes took off and landed continuously. The small jets gleamed high up in the sky, she felt a stab of envy for the airborne planes, which only reminded her of how heavy and earth bound she was.
In the airport car park a street vendor sold roasted chestnuts. They were hot and wrapped in a paper cone. She shelled them without taking off her fingerless gloves, her fingertips turning black from the coal, her tongue rolling the hot food in her open mouth. She sat on a concrete bench and raised her eyes to watch the steam rise up in to the grey sky where the aeroplanes soared.

December 3
Just wondering which PJ's you're gonna bring along: the combat variety or, perhaps, the little Teddy Bear number? I just bought a pair that has a print of a girl asleep, drifting on a cloud ... Hope you're enjoying your holiday, sigh! Think of me some time, working hard. And try to write more often if you can. Knowing you're thinking about me gives me that extra boost to get everything ship shape!

December 7
I left seven months ago and if feels like yesterday. I’ve been here seven months and if feels like forever.

December 9
If you bring your purple sleeping gear you’ll be totally coordinated with my purple silk sheets! But tell me, how ARE you these days? You must be getting a little bit excited about your trip? Me, I have days I can’t wait and days where I panic. My flat has really come together, it’s comfy, cosy, kooky. You’ll even have your own wardrobe and bathroom. By the way, since you said that the amount of money you’ll collect from the sale of your Prelude will determine the duration of your visit, I’m enclosing an approximate price list of your most commonly expected weekly expenses. Got to dash, now. The spring/summer eyewear collection has just arrived and I’ve got to take a peek! By the way, Monday 6 was a special day in Switzerland. We celebrate St. Nicholas; it’s the day that by tradition, people buy a Christmas tree and decorate it with burning candles. Another weird coincidence I just discovered is that the part of town where I live belongs to the church of Saint Nicholas! Well, got to go. Please be kind enough to let me know when I can reach you over Christmas and New Year as I’d love to catch up with you before you go to Lake Eildon. Think of me, unlike you this year I’ll be working over the holidays - saving my annual leave! Oh, I almost forgot: on Thursday we’re having our annual company dinner at Dolce and Gabbana’s restaurant in Milan. Needless to say it’s the in place to be seen, all the fashion crowd and wannabes hang out there. Of course the food is going to be terrible - never eat at a top model’s restaurant!

December 19
Funny you should mention J.B. and Stevie, as a matter of fact we were dancing to these funky brothers right here right now, at my official house warming-come-Christmas party, last night! Seems that in spite of living at opposite ends of the world we still manage to do things in sync: see the same movies, listen to the same tunes... uh, uh. Yes, my party was a blast! Out of the 40 people I invited, everyone showed. I even had my very own gate crushers, two mysterious young dudes in baggy trouser and woollen caps who just spent the evening sitting in a corner rolling joints to the delight of my guests...

At 2:00 am we pumped up the volume and got down and boogied, moving some serious air... Feeling a bit shaky today as a result but in good spirits (ha, ha). Though, as I strutted my stuff dancing with Julian, who not only is a very handsome interior decorator (he said he absolutely ADORED my eclectic decorating style!), but also one of the best dancers I know, I was thinking about you. Since this one was such a success maybe I'll throw another party when you get here, so you can meet all my groovy friends AND I'll have someone here to help me clean up the mess!!!

You can always tell a successful party by the debris the following morning. But where on earth did I get the idea of filling huge bowls with peanuts? The peanut shells were all over the joint, in piles on the sink and the tables, in ashtrays. Like strange little pyramids of food left behind by some tribal people... Oh boy, what a mess! And the floors! I made four champagne and brandy punches and bought a brick of Tuborg Special Christmas Beer. We drunk it all but in the end, I still ended up with a whole heap of presents too! A huge pot plant, bottles of wine, champagne, cognac, oriental tea and a bunch of coloured balloons that are rolling around everywhere, on the TV set, under the chairs, on my desk next to the keyboard...

I love being popular but most of all I love having special people in my life. I reckon I'm a fortunate chick, for all the excellent people I have around me and when you come and be part of my life for a while, life is going to be absolutely perfect!!!

PS: I sent you my parcel of special gifts, which you should have by Christmas and I'm enclosing a very special X-mas card, I made just for you, to this e-mail so you've got to click and have a look. Enjoy!!!

December 20
It’s Monday morning at the office, and I hope you had a good long sleep and are feeling on top of the world again. I hope you’ll check your e-mail box before Tuesday so that you won’t have to call me at four a.m. as we had agreed. I think it’s silly, though you are welcome to call me any time at all but since you’ve been partying hard, I think you really need you beauty sleep. Why don’t you call me later in the week, say on the weekend or after you get back from the cricket on Boxing Day? In the meantime I look forward to an e-mail with your flight details.