Nothing Worth Saying

I fought beside a man called Robert Jordan when I volunteered in Ukraine.

I usually lead with that. I don’t tell them he died until later. First I give them the summer of twenty-twenty-four. Borscht in foxholes. Every now and then they need convincing so I tell them yes, they really serve borscht near the front.

I’ll show them the old bloodstained Australian flag patch in my wallet after I’ve told them about the International Legion. They want danger and adventure. To believe that exciting things happen when I’m around.

Why’d you go? is usually the next question. This is where I show them I’m a man of principle. Fascism is usually enough. I do tell them I felt sorry for the conscripts who didn’t want to be there. The true believers were a different story. I tell them I left Melbourne for Poland and crossed the border near Jarosław two days later. From there, I went straight to Lviv and was on the front a week later. Then I tell them about Robert.

It has been a year since I last brought a woman home. Her name was Tina and she must’ve been fifteen years younger than me. She seemed swept away by my stories. Poor Robert lost his left leg below the knee. Any woman of substance would have been moved. Tina also appreciated my generosity and my taste in music, drink and literature. Most people in this city are the incurious type, their heads glued to their phones rather than admiring the centuries-old beams above them.

She complimented my house and my garden and my bookshelf and she liked what she saw. Hemingway and Orwell and Bradbury and Dostoevsky. The sort of shelf an intellectual could appreciate. She seemed most interested in Orwell. “I’ve never read these ones,” she said, pulling Homage to Catalonia from the shelf. “I know Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, but I’ve never read his other books.” I smiled without speaking, though inwardly I thought, Akh, liuba divchyna, shcho ty budesh zi mnoiu robyty?

“The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London are superior to the famous ones,” I told her eventually.

She was like most people, however. They never bothered to get that far. To her, as to them, Orwell was just the man who put pigs in suits.

I left her by the bookshelf. When I came back from the bathroom, she was gone. For Whom the Bell Tolls was lying face down on the floor, open near the beginning. She probably realised she was out of her depth from the first page. Not that I cared.

For women will come and go, but my stories still stay the same.

Last Thursday I was on my lunch break and passed a table with Chad and Sarah and a few others. They were talking about their recent fishing trip. Chad was the loudest, of course.

“Yeah, mate. The Dhuey went eight-twenty and we picked up a bag of tailor trolling back in.”

Sarah seemed very impressed by Chad. She smiled and laughed and her blue eyes were fixed on his arms. I don’t know when women started liking fishing stories, though if she liked them I had one that Chad couldn’t beat.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” I said. I pulled out a chair and sat beside them. I gave Sarah a wink. Confidence is everything. Women notice men who dominate the conversation, and Sarah noticed me.

“Back when I was running charters in the Whitsundays, I took a dinghy out one evening. Just me. Wanted a bit of alone time. A couple of hours in, I hooked a blue marlin so big that when I finally had it alongside, I had to lash it to the boat.”

“How big?” Chad asked.

“Must’ve been eighteen feet.”

Chad looked at me.

“That’s about five and a half metres,” I said. Obviously I had to clarify it for him.

“You’d think all that blood would attract sharks,” Sarah said.

Clever girl.

“And that’s precisely what happened. They came from everywhere. They tore strips off it, and I had to cut the ropes before they turned me over.”

Chad leaned back in his chair. “My boat is eighteen feet.”

“Then you understand the scale.”

Sarah lowered her head and bit the inside of her cheek. She kept her eyes off me, shy and trying not to smile. I decided to leave before Chad embarrassed himself further. The grin he was forcing didn’t fool me. Almost felt sorry for him.

Sarah thought she wanted Chad. Women confuse excitement with substance. What she needed was a love story.

Mine involved a girl called Daisy. We met one summer years ago in the middle of the city. She had blue eyes that shone brighter beneath café lights. Sometimes you spend your whole life trying to recreate one perfect summer.

Yes I have had my share of flings here and there, but they were all part of the plan. My betterment for her. She came from money, I could tell. She carried herself like someone who never had to check her bank balance. She was well spoken and polite when we first met and I was not yet at her level. Still she let me buy her a coffee and we talked and laughed and became friends. I watched her reject men over the years as I stood in warmth by her side. I watched her take others home as I was left out alone in the cold. It always ended the same. None of them mattered, none of them lasted. Men like Chad never do.

I worked and saved and became someone worthy of her. It took years but I got there. I bought the house next to hers just to knock it down and build a bigger one. My bedroom faced hers and it was worth every cent.

But she didn’t wait for me.

By then she had a new man. He was at her house frequently. He was tall and handsome and next to her he looked seven foot. From my bedroom I saw him in her. Afterwards he would stand naked at the window and look across at me. When Daisy pulled the covers from herself, he told her no one could see.

I see everything.

Sweet Daisy. Names are the least important part of a love story.

I spoke to her yesterday. Sarah, that is. It was just the two of us. I saw her in the café and I asked to sit with her. She said yes.

We got to talking and I told her about my time in Ukraine and Robert Jordan. My years as a fireman and my time running charter boats. I even opened up about Daisy. She kept asking me questions and for the first time in a year I thought somebody had finally understood me. She asked me about the fish I caught in the Whitsundays that the sharks tore apart. So I retold the story. She smiled and we drank coffee in the quiet a while. Soft jazz played low around us. Then she set down her cup.

“Robert Jordan? The marlin? The fireman? Daisy?” She gave a small laugh and I nodded and smiled.

“How stupid do you think I am?”

I kept smiling. I had nothing to say.

“Do you really think I don’t read?” She pushed her chair back. “Tell me one story that’s yours.”

She stood there in silence. The door to the café opened twice.

Then Daisy walked out, leaving a half-finished flat white behind.

I finished mine.

I’ve learnt through the years that women are drawn to great men, and great men don’t live ordinary lives.

If none of it happened to me, then there was never anything worth telling.

Hemingway had his war. Orwell had his truth. Fitzgerald had his Daisy. I only have their books.

But McCarthy holds power.

Today, I reach for Blood Meridian.