Page 34 of People Skills

‘I’m not planning to.’

‘What about dating?’

‘Dating!’ He lets out a bark of laughter.

‘Well, will you be bringing people back here?’ I say.

‘Again, I say, who? Eighty-year-old Joan from down the street?’

‘You are sounding very ageist.’

‘I am honestly asking though, who could I possibly date?’

‘There are single people here. I’ve seen a lot on the apps.’ A lot is an exaggeration, but I’ve seen some. I am embarrassed I have admitted to being on the apps. It gives the impression I’m looking when I am absolutely not. I flick through them like I do social media, with a detached interest, a soul-crushing drumbeat of swipe, swipe, swipe, somehow even the no’s giving me the dopamine rush of entertaining my brain with online busyness. Like I am looking through the menu of a restaurant in another city that I will never visit. I never once considered actually contacting or meeting up with anyone. It was an anthropological interest. What is the dating scene here? Very small is the answer. But, honestly, the prospects didn’t look any better or worse than they are in Melbourne.

‘I am not emotionally equipped for the apps. Or for anyone. No dating,’ Xavier says.

‘Good. Because I forgot to say, the program forbids it. And I was saying dating to be polite. I also mean sleeping around.’ He’s only here for a month. It won’t kill him to abstain.

‘I promise I just want to be alone and suffer quietly, like a dog dragging itself under the house to die,’ he says. Then he sees my face and adds, ‘Metaphorically.’

‘Okay. You can be a dying dog under the house here.’

‘Thank you.’

This house is well equipped for that.

13

XAVIER PICKS UP the pizzas and returns, setting them down on the table. I get out plates and cutlery, which makes it feel too formal, I realise too late, and we sit down and face each other at the table. The silence is deafening. It feels like a date, and I need to urgently rid the house of that energy. Music might help but I don’t have any way to play music without my phone.

‘I got a margherita and a capricciosa,’ Xavier says.

I already know this, we discussed flavours, he’s trying to fill the silence.

‘Great,’ I say. ‘They do a good margherita.’

‘There’s only one pizza shop, you have to hope they’re good,’ he says, putting a slice on his plate.

‘Is that a dig at the town?’ I say.

‘In hindsight, yes, but it was unintentional.’

‘You know, too much choice isn’t good for the brain,’ I say. ‘It’s very peaceful having only one of everything.’

Rex jumps onto the table at that moment, and Xavier grabs him and drops him back down.

‘Sorry, he doesn’t normally do that,’ he says.

‘It’s okay. You don’t need to keep saying that every time he does something,’ I say.

‘Okay, thank god, because he always jumps on tables,’ Xavier says.

‘There we go, and that’s okay, no one’s perfect, are they Rex?’ I say to him.

Rex looks at me disdainfully and goes to sit on my couch. I am trying to be neutral and unconcerned about brown cat hair on my red velvet. Rex maintains eye contact with me as he settles on the couch, paddy-pawing it until I get up to stop him. He unhooks his claws and closes his eyes, dismissing me with a twitch of his tail.

I put two slices of pizza on my plate and eat with them with my knife and fork. I don’t know why I do this. Xavier, who was using his hands, puts the pizza down and picks up cutlery.