The Life You Choose and That Chose You

  Foreword

  Amelia Lester

  Editors' Note

  Odds

  Rosie Cintio

  Firing Squad

  Mark Rossiter

  The Anniversary

  Deborah FitzGerald

  Path

  Isabelle Guaran

  Bend in the River

  Roslyn McFarland

  Close

  Mathilde de Hauteclocque

  Profiling the Profiler

  Howard Shih

  A Modern Package Tour

  Julian Dibley-Hall

  Idol

  Jason Childs

  Hannah's

  Rosanna Beatrice Stevens

  Middle Brother

  Susanna Freymark

  Kamakura

  Amy Paterson

  Down South

  Angus Benson

  EarlyTuesdayMorning

  Anna Nordstroem

  Cutting Corners

  Michelle Troxler

  Lesson in Loving Absolutely

  Jason Childs

  Jumping for Chicken

  Sharon Kent

  Mollycoddled

  Georgia Symons

  With a Little Help from Your Friends

  Benjamin Freeman

  The Paper Factory

  Michelle Troxler

  Routine

  Jacqui Wise

  Things That Remind Me of You

  Rebecca Slater

  Umlaut

  Rebecca Lean

  Performance Anxiety

  Robert Graves

  Josephine

  Popi-Laurel Silk

  Little Lies

  Daniel Rapaic O'Connell

  The Party

  Ellen Tyrrell

  The Last Summer

  Madelaine Lucas

  Wide-eyed

  Aziza Green

  Dancing

  S J Cottier

  Boxes

  Amanda Yeo

  The Interview

  Lucy Holt

  The Mob Can't Hurt You

  Annabel Stafford

  Waiting for Katerina

  Jenny James

  Shadow Shift

  Kit Henderson

  About the Authors

  About the Editors

  Contemporary fiction is a diverse and expansive landscape and selecting a representative collection is no easy task. The magazine at which I work, The New Yorker, undertook such a brave venture last year, naming twenty North American writers under the age of forty as the stand-outs of their generation. The New Yorker's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, described the unifying characteristic of the so-called ‘20 Under 40’ writers: ‘In a culture that is flooded with words, sounds, and pictures, they are fighting to get our attention, and to hold it. They are digging within themselves—and around themselves—to bring us news both of the world and of the human heart.’ In other words, even as we produce and consume more words than ever before, Tweeting and Tumblring our way through the day, the creation and promotion of writing that endures in our imaginations is more vital than ever before.

  The works in this anthology come from a different part of the world, but display the same urgency of purpose as those featured in the ‘20 Under 40’ collection. This does not mean they are preachy or even necessarily political in intent; rather, even as they tell a story, they also reveal something of the time and place in which we live. ‘Down South’ is about ‘not being a child anymore’, the little humiliations of growing up and the alienation that often accompanies adulthood—but it also provides us a glimpse of race relations in contemporary Australia, as well as the uneasy class dynamics that underpin even the most casual of interactions in this supposedly classless society. In ‘Waiting for Katerina’, a young Greek-Australian girl leaves her pluralist home and returns to her ancestral land, only to discover that home is as much an act of imagination as a physical locale. ‘Wide-eyed’ poignantly unpacks a similar idea, with a narrator who also finds herself apart, or at least distant from her family and their traditions, so much so that it seems as though ‘everyone dances like it's a memory they share’.

  Growing up, making a home: these are themes skillfully explored in other pieces, too. ‘Shadow Shift’ follows a young person who is intent on defining herself and her home in opposition to where she came from, who comes to realise that independence is sometimes only gained through asking for help, and that her pride is getting in the way of what she really wants. In ‘Idol’, which also cleverly sets a physical journey against a psychological one, a one-time pop idol goes through a tough rite of passage, gets a new hairstyle, and comes out looking (and feeling) completely different. ‘Odds’ is about a love affair gone wrong, both wrenching in its specificity and awfully universal in its trajectory: Chelsea Jane Hammond's boyfriend doesn't want to use her name—they're having an affair—but by the end of the story, the relationship has dissolved and her name, her identity, is all she has left.

  Despite the serendipitous dovetailing of these pieces in subject matter, they are told in an astonishing variety of voices. This is particularly evident in the robust selection of poetry, which ranges from the carefully meditated chaos of ‘A Modern Package Tour’ to the stark, reflective ‘Routine’. Some of the stories are thrillingly vernacular, showcased in the comic notes of ‘Jumping For Chicken’, or the striking verisimilitude of dialogue in ‘The Mob Can't Hurt

  You’. Others are bewitching and ethereal: there is the rhythmic beauty of ‘Firing Squad’, the melancholy timbre of ‘Dancing’. The title of this anthology suggests lives are created through a series of choices. Stories are too, and the writers here have made daring and fascinating ones.

  —AL

  The UTS Writers’ Anthology is an annual publication produced by the writing students at the University of Technology, Sydney. Students from the undergraduate, postgraduate and research programs submit their work anonymously, and a student editorial committee selects and edits the anthology. This year the editorial committee of eight students and graduates, overseen by two academic staff, made its selection from over 300 submissions.

  She knows the rules. She doesn't mind.

  ‘I can't say your name around Tahnee. You shouldn't either. She's nearly at that age—don't want her to come out with it at home. The missus knows you from the club.’

  He'd said her name in full once as he fucked her next to his wife's KitchenAid, Tahnee sleeping in the next room. Chelsea Jane Hammond. It had sounded like a mouthful of bad food and she'd lost her orgasm.

  He comes in on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Tahnee is with him, mouth blue-stained from jelly snakes, her white cat-fur hair matted at the back. He checks the form guide while she hangs off the side of his chair with both hands. Today he lets a pen dangle down from the counter so she can scribble on a race card while he goes to the bar to place his bet. Twenty-dollar exacta on Little Vicky for first and We Betcha for second.

  Chelsea tries to find the courage to hold his eyes a bit longer as she takes his card, but can't. His hands are hard and dark with dirt, and they smell like sex—sweet, salty, of bodies. Something male that drops her back into lying with her knees up, exhausted, sticky belly. Small up against his rough and growl.

  She turns and feeds his ticket into the machine, feels the mechanical suck and click. Turns back to face him, hoping he was watching her the whole time.

  ‘Good luck,’ she says.

  ‘Thanks, sweetheart.’ He chews his words, eyes on the Flemington screen above her. Then heads back to the scratchings and Tahnee, who's standing under the bench, scrunching up betting cards and stuffing them into her nappy.

 
Chelsea watches Roy, ignoring the flash of blood from her groin up through her bellybutton. She scans the backs of all the men in the club, squats under the counter and takes $30 from tomorrow's float.

  After work, she sits on the balcony at home and smokes Donna's cigarettes. Their two-bedroom flat backs onto a roundabout and, beyond that, a park with a bed of woodchips ready for a swing set that never arrived. Behind the flat is the estuary that quietly sucks the water from the sea at high tide. This evening the tide is low and Chelsea can smell the stagnant grey sand, like old egg. It is the coldest November in Currarong since 1964 and the town is quiet. She watches orange headlights pour into the roundabout and out again.

  ‘I'm not going to let him fuck me in front of the kid anymore.’ She tries this sometimes—Girl Talk. Donna spits a jet of smoke over her shoulder.

  ‘You said that a couple of months ago.’

  Chelsea can't remember how Girl Talk goes after the opener. She hadn't really meant it anyway. ‘Yeah, but I'm serious this time. I can't deal with the guilt. I've probably buggered that kid up beyond repair.’

  ‘Might as well keep going, then.’

  Chelsea taps another smoke out of its packet. ‘Just because she can't talk yet doesn't mean she can't bloody see.’ She shakes her head and squints out over the roundabout. ‘Hate to think what's stored in her brain.’ She pictures Tahnee's little head but can't imagine anything inside it but cotton wool.

  Donna shrugs. ‘Do you reckon Chinese tonight? I've got a craving for spring rolls. The ones with shrimp in them.’

  ‘It's Melbourne Cup this Tuesday.’

  Donna rolls her eyes. ‘Great. More old men at the club.’

  ‘I'm rostered on. Roy says he's going to help me pick a winner.’ She swells a little, saying it.

  Donna snorts. When Chelsea first started having sex with Roy, Donna had shoved a tray of dirty schooners in her arms and told her not be such a slapper. ‘You can't afford to fuck married men in Currarong,’ she'd whispered, looking over Chelsea's shoulder to the bar. ‘Name one bloke whose wife's never come in here to drive them home or pull them off the pokies. What are the odds that someone from the CWA will see you? Or that he'll get pissed and tell his mates? Or something?’ She'd paused to take a race card from a man at the bar, then turned back to Chelsea and lowered her voice again. ‘You're being retarded. Come with me into Nowra this Friday night and find a guy your own age.’ Chelsea had flinched at the thought of boys with pupils like saucers and pink sweaty hands. But she'd gripped the glasses and walked away, saying, ‘Yeah, I know. You're right.’ Donna had taught Chelsea how to bleach her hair without it going orange, how to insert a tampon, how to drink a whole bottle of Passion Pop without stopping.

  She listens to the long whinge of seagulls over the empty estuary and wonders what the odds are.

  He reaches over her in the dark for a glass of water. Chelsea wants to get off the bed and pee, but she likes this part too much—the lying down afterwards. Through the baby monitor she hears Tahnee snort and shift.

  His mass rises and the clammy doona peels itself off Chelsea's body. ‘Going downstairs to get a bottle for Tahnee. You want anything?’

  She tries to think of something dirty to say. Her head swims and Roy moves off the bed to leave her.

  ‘How long have you lived in Currarong?’ she asks.

  His shape pauses. ‘Ten years or so. Moved up from Albury when I lost my job. Had a mate here doing labouring. Suits me, road works around the Shoalhaven never dry up.’

  ‘I've been here all my life.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He stretches. She hears his spine pop.

  ‘Yeah. My mum shagged a friend of hers the day before he moved to Turkey, or something.’ She finds her belly-ring in the dark and tugs on it as she talks. ‘A little bit after that she got up in the morning and walked out of the house in Sydney she'd lived in with her boyfriend for ten years. She moved down to Currarong to get clean, again.’ Her voice sounds like a marble rolling around in a tin, but Roy is still in the room so she keeps talking. ‘Anyway, she went to the doctor a few months later for really bad reflux. Doctor told her she was pregnant. She said no, I tried to have a baby for ten years, my ovaries are empty. The doctor gave her some pills to help her stop using, and six months later I was born. Ten pounds. She said I nearly broke her back.’

  Her story falls into the sweaty dark and Roy moves towards the door, chuckling, saying, ‘I forget how young you are sometimes.’

  ‘You cleaning the windows today, Chels?’

  Jim takes a grey sock out of his pocket and tips a handful of silver change on the bar.

  ‘Nope. Did them yesterday.’ Chelsea counts out the coins and waits as Jim leafs through the form guide.

  ‘How much I got there?’ he asks.

  ‘Four dollars.’

  ‘Righto. Buck-thirty each way on She's a Shame. Fill the card out for me, will you love? Got my bad glasses on.’ He grins through loose teeth. ‘Too bad you're not cleaning those windows today. Like you better when you're not behind the bar.’

  Chelsea processes his bet then turns her back on him. She'll have to clean the windows tomorrow. Even in winter, salt makes a damp film over the glass, building in the corners. If you let it go for too long, lumps of grey scum form that can't be scrubbed off.

  A minute later, She's a Shame is scratched and Jim slaps his hand on the bar. On the television screen in the corner, Chelsea watches men in stubbies wrestle the cancelled horse out of the stalls. It bucks and kicks and thrashes its long blinkered head around in the little white box. Jim sighs into his beer and makes a note on his form guide. ‘Got a bleeder there. She won't race again.’

  ‘A what?’

  He doesn't look up from his paper. ‘Bleeding from the lungs after running. Second time, she's banned for life.’

  Chelsea turns her lip up at the term. ‘What's it meant to do if it can't race?’

  Jim's eyes leave his paper as he thinks her question over. Then he shrugs and continues reading.

  Chelsea lines up coasters and tries to breathe through the feeling in her chest—fat and bulging, like something is misshapen in her. She presses her hands on the bar to steady herself. But sometimes it lasts all day, and she knows she's teetering, knows she might tumble out of herself like the wheels of a train unlocking. She checks Jim's eyes are on the screen behind him, snaps the till open and stuffs a $50 note into her bra. She squares her shoulders and feels her feet on the ground.

  Chelsea knows the beach will be empty after work, so she walks down there and sits in the hard yellow grass above the sand. It feels more like July, when the wind throws cold salt in your face and no-one comes for holidays. The sea is sharp and grey, like dirty glass.

  She hates the beach most of the time. The warm dead smell of seaweed and the flesh-coloured crabs that sneak between your toes. But in the evenings when she gets home from the club and falls into her bed by the window, she wonders what the odds are that she could go to sleep without the low applause of waves on sand, steady and slow like her heartbeat.

  She ducks her head between her knees to keep her ears warm and imagines Roy on Melbourne Cup Day tomorrow. Leaning over her from behind to show her the special lift-out that comes in the Telegraph. They will pick the winner at 30 to 1. They will take the money and live on his fishing boat until they find a nice place to dock and start again together. Chelsea will get a job at a make-up counter in Westfield. She will get her eyebrows waxed every week and buy lacy underwear to surprise Roy with when she comes home at night.

  The club is wide and low and flat. Hospital-green Colorbond, red bricks and closed blinds. Chelsea is there by two o'clock. She stands at the fence, dragging her fingers over the chicken wire. She watches a dog run across the bowling green and thinks that if she wins today, she probably won't come back.

  There are more people there than usual, although most have gone into Nowra to watch it on the big screen. Tom from the video shop hunches over the paper with his bro
ther; Shirley from the bottle shop sits alone, wearing a fascinator; her husband Greg stands at the bar with his back to her, studying the scratchings with his mates. Roy isn't here yet.

  Donna is already pulling her jacket on. ‘Can I run down to the beach for a sec, Chels? There's a baby whale stranded.’ She rummages in her handbag as she talks. ‘So sad. Only a few weeks old, apparently.’

  Chelsea shrugs. ‘Okay. Don't you want to stay and watch the race?’

  ‘No, I know how it goes.’ She heads for the door.

  Fifteen minutes later, Chelsea leans her elbows on the bar and tries not to hear the looping whine of poker machines. Roy still isn't here. She crouches for the third time to count the cash she has brought in, tucked safely into the waistband of her undies. On a muted television in the corner, Channel Nine shows a concerned-looking blonde with a microphone, and words scrolling across the bottom of the screen: Developing Story: Baby Whale Beached on NSW South Coast.

  Jim looks up from his paper. ‘Poor little tyke. If they don't find the mother in the bay, they're gonna put it down with poison.’

  Pulsing blue graphics frame a map of the coast with an arrow pointing at Currarong. The image flips over and shows the inlet leading to the beach—brown water and wind and hovering seagulls. The whale is no more than two bodies long and it bashes its meaty tail in the shallows. Men in raincoats shove their weight up against it and tip buckets of water over its head. Blood leaks between the rocks. Chelsea can't make out an eye or a mouth on the pockmarked bodyheaving its useless weight around in the same spot.

  Greg pays for a steak lunch. Chelsea rings up the price of a beer and pockets the rest. More people clatter in though the club's front doors, hair sticking to their faces in salty hanks, saying things like, ‘Oh, it's windy!’ and ‘So cold for November!’ Chelsea wonders if she is meant to say something back. Two girls in summer dresses and dirty white stilettos trot over to the bar and put twenty dollars each on the favourite.

  ‘Have you heard about the whale?’ one asks Chelsea.

  ‘I cried,’ the other chimes in.