Kalgoorlie … and Disappointing Annie

Annie believed that all people were inherently good. She was naive like that and you couldn’t change her. She believed that Mike was a good guy. That he loved her. That he had never cheated on her. She was going to ask him to come to Kalgoorlie with her. She’d always wanted to go, and by train, not drive. There was a concert on called 12 to 12. It went midday Saturday to midday Sunday. Twenty-four hours of live music. On some private property, so it was cool. They could drink and relax or get a little crazy. She wouldn’t be taking E or other party drugs but others might. Could she organise a group of their friends in five days?

Kalgoorlie is a mining town, 700 kilometres away from her life in Perth, a larger-than-life place and for Annie, who grew up in Peppermint Grove and had gone to Presbyterian Ladies College, it was going to be something like she’d never seen before, and why shouldn’t they go, they had nothing on. Kalgoorlie had legal brothels and topless barmaids and miners fighting in the street and now this concert. It was just a matter of convincing Mike.

“Mike, I want to go to Kalgoorlie next weekend.”

“Ah, excuse me, but why?”

“Because every Saturday after having been to a party on Friday night with the same people we went to school with for twelve years, we go to Fremantle for breakfast and drink coffee and get drunk at a party on Saturday night with the same people we went to school with for twelve years. On Sunday we go to Leederville for breakfast and drink coffee and we may go to The Luna, to see a film, and you always tell me that Leederville reminds you of a Sydney suburb that you can’t think of and I tell you it’s Glebe and we sit around on Sunday night doing not much because you have to work on Monday. That’s why!”

“Phew! You’re saying I’m boring and predictable.”

“No, I’m saying that one weekend doing something different, something that we normally wouldn’t do, would be good. And I want to go by train. And this concert is huge. It’s like the Big Day Out.”

“You’ve never been to the Big Day Out.”

“That’s my point.”

“Since when did you like that kind of music, anyway?”

“Mike—The Temper Trap, Mumford & Sons and Lisa Mitchell, they’re all playing. We listen to their music at the parties we go to.”

“Tell me someone else, someone I know that’s going to be at this concert.”

“The Arctic Monkeys are coming from the UK for the Big Day Out and they’re also playing this Kalgoorlie concert. It’s called 12 to 12. It goes midday Saturday to midday Sunday.”

“Where would we sleep?”

“We could pitch a tent but the idea is you don’t sleep.”

“We’d be surrounded by losers on E and GBH.”

“Mike, break out of your comfort zone.”

“Tina and Mark are having drinks at their place.”

“Exactly my point. Boring.”

“But Kalgoorlie, Annie, and by train, are you insane? Maybe, but just maybe, if we drive or fly, not the train.”

“Please think about it?”

“I’m pretty busy right now. I’ll call you back.”

“Oh damn,” she says to no one.

Annie goes to the internet. Finds the website for The Prospector, the train to Kalgoorlie, the Goldfields. She finds out the train can go as fast as 160 kmh and they’d be there in a tick under seven hours. They have personal music and movie channels. You can use your laptop, which is better than on the plane. No, she wouldn’t take her laptop. They mention a buffet. It sounds neat. She checks out some of the stops. It starts at East Perth station. Toodyay, Northam, Meckering, Cunderdin, Tammin. She’s heard of these places. Moorine Rock, Bodallin. Such odd names. She looks up Kalgoorlie on Wikipedia and prints it out.

Annie works for her father. He owns half of Perth. That’s what he jokingly tells people. He’s the biggest real-estate agent in Perth, specialising in the golden triangle. The golden triangle refers to the western suburbs of Perth, more specifically, Peppermint Grove, Mossman Park and Cottesloe and other suburbs close by. Expensive real estate; most expensive tend to be on the Swan River. She’s nominally a property manager but she only goes in two days a week and money just isn’t something she’s ever had to worry about, except perhaps trying not to exceed the daily limit on cash withdrawals at the ATM. That can be so annoying.

It’s Monday, December 12, 2009.

On Tuesday she calls Mike and he says, “No baby; not Kalgoorlie.”

On Wednesday she invites him over and goes to work on him and he says, “Yes baby.”

On Thursday he calls her and says, “I’m sorry.”

She books her train ticket. No one else would go with her. She doesn’t want to go on her own but she also buys a ticket to 12 to 12. Tries to convince Sally, Heather, Stephen or Corrine to go with her. They all say no. She could kill Mike for disappointing her.

On Friday she’s at the East Perth platform nursing a cup of take-away coffee and smoking a cigarette. She hasn’t had a cigarette for two years. She bought a pack at the newsagent along with some magazines to read on the train. It was impossible to find accommodation so she booked into a pub called The York, on Hannan Street, for $60 a night. It doesn’t have a toilet in the room or air-conditioning. Just a ceiling fan but she liked that the hotel was on the main street and the room looked old-fashioned and she asked for a room facing the street.

She sees a group of seven or eight people arrive on the platform; all look younger than her. The boys are wearing jeans or cargo shorts and t-shirts, the girls in short denim skirts and singlets. They have a beat box playing, Temper Trap. Some of them smoke. A girl kisses her boyfriend passionately, running her hands over his bum. Mike never kissed her like that in her bedroom let alone on a railway station. They separate and the boy starts jumping around like a lunatic and pogo-ing into his mates. They all laugh and the music switches to Hilltop Hoods and one of the other boys pulls his jeans down below his bum and pretends to rap and they all laugh and Annie wonders about all this.

She butts the cigarette on the side of a bin and it sends off sparks and one of the boys in the group yells out,

“Put that out! Total fire ban!” And she gets embarrassed and gets on the train. Ten minutes to departure. She finds a window seat at the front of the second carriage and wonders why on earth she started smoking again. She’s wearing an orange dress with a white camisole underneath, you can see the straps of it beside the thicker straps of her dress. She has black sandals on her feet and for a second she wonders whether she’ll go through with it and a boy is looking at her from the aisle and he says,

“Can I sit next to you?”

She’s flummoxed for a few seconds. He’s good looking. Like the drummer from Eskimo Joe. Mike would laugh and say, What the heck would you know about Eskimo Joe? You know quite a lot about them.

He sits down and you’re not sure whether you should keep reading or try to start a conversation and you say, “What’s your name?”

“Sebastian.”

“That’s a nice name.”

“I’m a nice person. Ha. Not really. Are you going to 12 to 12?”

“Yes.”

“Meeting people there, are you?”

“Oh yes, a big group of people,” Annie says.

“I’m meeting my friend Zack. He’s mad.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen. What about you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“You don’t look it.”

“That’s sweet of you.” And they don’t talk for half an hour. Sebastian calls his friend Zack.

“Zack, I’m on the train. Seven bloody hours. Can you meet me at the station? You’re already at the site. Shit. Are their buses running there? No. That’s crazy, how do they expect you to …” Sebastian says goodbye to his friend and says to Annie,

“How are you getting to the site? To the farm where the gig is?”

“I haven’t thought about it. My friends should have a car. I mean they do, of course, they drove there.”

“Where are you staying tonight? Could I crash on the floor until tomorrow and get a lift out in the morning?” Annie thinks he’s incredibly forward but she likes it. But she’s told him a pack of lies so far and she thinks and puts her hand up to signal hang on and her cell phone goes off and she answers.

“Hi, you’re going on your own. I can’t believe it.” Mike.

“So you won’t meet me in Kalgoorlie?”

“No.”

“That’s it, no.”

“We’re still alright, aren’t we?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t we be?” Mike feels a little nervous and he’s not sure why.

“See you when you get back, then.” She closes her cell phone on him and turns to Sebastian and says,

“My friends just pulled out.”

“So, you’re on your own.”

“Yeah.”

“Me too. Sort of. I mean they’re at the site already. I just have to get there.”

“You can sleep on the floor in my hotel room. I had it booked already and the others were staying too but they cancelled.” She keeps lying to him but doesn’t care and it’s not hurting anyone.

“Wow. You must be pissed off with your friends. Cancelling like that at the last minute when you’re already on the train.”

She smiles at him and doesn’t say anything and they go back to silence again.

At 10.27 a.m. they stop at Merredin for a twenty-minute break and she and Sebastian get off. She offers him a cigarette, he takes it and she lights it for him and then she lights her own. He walks along the platform away from her and she starts to follow but stops herself. He turns back around and walks up to her and says,

“You’re pretty brave continuing by yourself. I sort of had a hunch that you might turn around here and go back.” Annie doesn’t say anything.

“Where do you live?”

“Peppermint Grove.”

“Hmmm. I also had a hunch about that. That you might be well off. You speak so politely and I’m trying to think of the word. Um, yeah, you have this ethereal kind of quality to you.” Annie is a little stunned. That’s the most perfect thing anyone has said to her in while.

“That’s really, um, that is. Thank you. Where are you from? Where do you live?”

“In Double View.”

“Oh, that’s a nice area.”

“Is it? I grew up on the East Coast. Sydney. We lived in Coogee. My mum and me. I went to Randwick High School. Good school. I’m not working at present but I want to get into advertising. All my friends think I’m crazy and they may be right. I didn’t get great marks at school but I heard about this guy, Siimon Reynolds. He quit school at fifteen, didn’t get great marks or anything but now he’s like the king of advertising. He’s famous for that really old ‘Grim Reaper’ advertising campaign about AIDS, plus a whole lot of other stuff. He spells his name with two I’s. So I just thought if he can do it why can’t I? Not yet, though. I want this year to be big, real big. Lots of parties and wild times and then I’ll do it. Go back to Sydney. What about you?”

“Nothing that exciting. I work for my dad in real estate but I don’t know what I want to do.” Annie gives Sebastian another cigarette and they talk a little more, about music and films, and get back on the train.

Annie falls asleep for an hour and when she wakes up she sees Sebastian looking at her and he says,

“You have nice eyelashes, really thick and long.”

“You have to stop giving me compliments, OK?”

“OK.”

“I might watch a movie,” she says.

“Cool. I’m going to read my book.”

“What book is it?”

“Low Boy. It’s about a sixteen-year-old schizophrenic boy who runs away from the mental hospital to meet this girl he loves. Only he did something bad to her and um, they call him low boy because he hangs around in the underground. It’s set in New York.”

“Oh, right,” Annie says, smiling. “I think you’re going to make it in advertising. You talk a lot. After your big year, of course.”

“Oh yeah,” he says, while Annie works out how to put a movie on.

The train pulls into Kalgoorlie station at 2.15 p.m. Ten minutes late but that’s pretty good over a seven-hour trip. They get their bags and get off and Sebastian stands awkwardly beside her as Annie gets herself together on the platform.

“Come on,” she says, feeling brave. “I figured out where the hotel is while I was sitting on the train.”

Hannan Street is the main street in Kalgoorlie. They walk together in the hot dry day. Not talking. At Hannan Street they walk across the road to the hotel. Put their bags down outside. The public bar is right on the street but Annie thinks there must be a separate entrance for accommodation. She can’t see one. They pick up their bags and walk into the public bar; there are a few drinkers spread out along the bar and one girl and one guy serving behind the bar. Annie walks to the side of the bar and can see into a little dining area and there’s a staircase leading upstairs. No desk or anything. Sebastian’s more for putting his foot in it so he says to the girl behind the bar,

“My friend Annie has a room booked.” The drinkers look up and Annie smiles at the girl, who says,

“What’s your surname, Annie? Oh hang on. I think I spoke to you on the phone.”

“Yes,” Annie says. “Are you Carol?”

“Yeah, come on, I’ll show you upstairs.” She looks at Sebastian and says, “It’s only a single room.”

“Oh, my friend isn’t staying.”

Carol opens the door for her and points out the bathrooms and leaves Sebastian and Annie alone together in the small room. He stands awkwardly with his small backpack on his shoulders, his hands dug into his pockets.

“Sit down, sit down.”

“Nah, I’m alright. Might check out the balcony.” He opens the old-fashioned door handle and steps out onto the balcony and says, “It’s really cool out here, you can see the whole town almost.”

Annie steps out onto the balcony and they look straight across the big, wide, open street to the markets and to a Brumby’s Bakery. They stand tight together and brush hands and Annie smiles, leaning into him slightly because it feels good. The hot air and the handsome boy and tomorrow 12 to 12. And he says,

“Maybe we can ask the girl behind the bar about getting out to the concert. Maybe there is a bus. I know it’s early but I feel like a beer too. How about it?” Annie smiles, glad that Mike disappointed her. This is fun.

They go down to the public bar and Sebastian says,

“I might get a pie from across the road, line the stomach, you want one? My shout.”

“Alright, I’ll wait in the bar,” Annie says and she does. The other drinkers have left and it’s just Annie and Carol, and Annie asks her,

“Are you a local girl?”

“Yes, I left here when I was eighteen about two years ago. Went to Perth and then overseas for eighteen months and came back. Missed the stupid bloody place.”

“I could see how that might happen. It’s quite charming.”

“I don’t think most people would agree with that. Charming. More like bloody mad.” Annie smiles because she thinks it’s charming that Carol says that.

Sebastian walks in and hands her a pie and smiles, says to Carol,

“Two beers.” Annie takes the pie and the bag is hot and she nearly drops it and puts it on the counter next to the beer. Hops up on a stool and she and Sebastian both ask together,

“Are there buses going out to 12 to 12?”

“Oh, you’re both here for that. Of course. Um, I don’t know. My brother and I are driving out together tomorrow. You can come with us if you like. I think we have room.”

“That would be great,” Annie says, taking a gulp of beer and smiling. Things are working out really well.

Sebastian and Annie have another five beers and Annie feels drunk and more than a little tired. She wants to go and have a sleep but doesn’t want to make Sebastian feel bad so she agrees to another beer and then almost wilts and says,

“I need to have a sleep. I’m not used to drinking during the day.” Sebastian just smiles and says,

“No worries.” And he stays in the bar for another couple of hours until it’s time to eat again. He goes back to the room and knocks on the door and Annie opens up, looking groggy from her sleep, but manages a smile.

“Hi Seb. Do you mind if I call you Seb? I’ll call you Sebastian when you piss me off, alright?”

“I think Kalgoorlie might have infiltrated your mind when you were asleep. Seb? Piss me off? Girls from Peppermint Grove do …” And he sees she doesn’t think it’s funny and saves the situation by saying,

“You were about to call me Sebastian cos you’re, um, pissed off with me.” Annie shakes her head and sits back down on the bed. Seb has to sit on the bed too, nowhere else to sit, no chairs or even a small desk, so he sits.

“I’m going to have a shower,” Annie says and picks some clothes out of her Adidas bag and a towel and leaves the room. Seb lies down and feels like sleeping.

Annie comes back in and he has fallen asleep. She makes a coffee and takes it out to the balcony with her cigarettes and lights one up and draws in the smoke and it feels good. She looks up and down the street, the sun still hot, people ambling, not hurrying along. Looks back to Seb curled up tight on the bed. Wishes that tomorrow could be as good as today. She never drinks beer, let alone in the middle of the day in the public bar of a pub in Kalgoorlie. She hopes tomorrow won’t disappoint her. Seb seems to have forgotten her lies; maybe he has lies of his own.

He wakes up at 8 p.m. and they decide to order Thai take-away, going to be a big day tomorrow, no need to get plastered tonight Seb told her, and he was right. They borrow plates and knives and forks off Carol and her brother Ned, and sit together on the bed and eat with the plates on their laps in the small upstairs room. Annie takes the dirty plates downstairs, asking where she can wash them, but Carol tells her she’ll fix it and smiles at her. Annie says,

“It looks like Seb is going to spend the night. I can pay you whatever extra cost there is.”

“Don’t worry so much. We don’t mind plus there are no double rooms anyway.” Annie almost begins to tell her that they’re just friends but stops herself.

They lie on the bed together talking until finally Seb says,

“I can just sleep on the floor beside the bed. Just don’t crush me if you have to go the toilet in the middle of the night.” Annie doesn’t say anything and they lie together not talking for an hour or so and then Annie turns and looks at Seb and kisses him. He kisses her back and they both turn to face each other and kiss again and then Annie says,

“I’m going to sleep now.” And she turns away from him and almost instantly falls asleep, and Seb does too a few moments later.

In the morning they’re in the back of Ned’s white ute and Carol has already passed them two cans of VB each. Annie’s never had this much beer in her life. The road is corrugated now as they get closer to the festival site and Annie can hear music. It’s Florence and the Machine singing, “Dog Days Are Over”. They’re not playing here so it must be a CD. Then they see the tents everywhere.

“Tent city wipe-out!” Sebastian yells and Annie laughs and she stumbles in the back of the ute and Sebastian hold her close to him and she smiles and he reaches into his pocket and takes out a small, clear plastic bag, with two little yellow pills. Annie knows what it is and smiles nervously. She remembers what Mike said, We’ll be surrounded by losers on E and GBH. And she laughs out loud and Seb takes one pill out and shows her, there’s a little black cat stamped on it. He tells her his friend told him they last twelve hours, and it’s 11.45 a.m. now.

“Come on,” he says, “12 to 12. Take it.” Annie takes it but before she swallows it she says,

“You have to look out for me, if anything goes wrong, if I go stupid or get paranoid.” Sebastian, the old hand, says,

“You might feel anxious at first but it won’t last. Just ride it out and then you’ll go crazy and we’ll dance and hug strangers for twelve hours.” Annie laughs again and thinks, what the hell, and she takes it and Sebastian takes his and Sarah Blasko is singing “All I Want”.

Carol and Ned and his girlfriend go to try and find their friends. Annie and Sebastian, they forget the lies they told, they’re sticking together. There are people everywhere and music getting louder and louder and they have three stages. Sebastian says,

“Let’s go to the DJ set. I just wanna dance,” and Annie’s following his lead and she just gets this rush of something, like nothing she’s ever felt before, she’s floating and dancing and Sebastian turns to look at her and he looks so beautiful, she hugs and kisses him and he holds onto her and says,

“12 to 12. Let’s do it!” And they both laugh as they get closer and closer to the stage and at exactly twelve o’clock the DJ starts his set. Huge speakers pump music and the DJ is in place behind the decks and Annie and Sebastian are lost in the wonder of it. Dancing wildly together.

They stick to each other through the whole day and into the night. Sebastian meets people he knows but they pass by them and they go to the band stage and see The Temper Trap come on at midnight and play for two hours and they move back to the DJ stage and drink water and keep dancing. At 4 a.m. Annie finally says,

“I think its stopped. The E has stopped.” Sebastian smiles at the way she said it, not what she said. And Annie’s coming down and feeling exhausted. Nothing bad, just tired and Sebastian agrees and says,

“Hey, I think I can find Ned’s ute, maybe we can sleep in the back.” And that’s exactly what they do. At 9 a.m. they wake and hear the music still playing madly and they move to the food stalls and eat bacon-and-egg sandwiches and Annie says,

“I don’t feel hung-over or anything. Is it always like this? On E I mean. Everything so happy and blissed out. I just totally lost all my inhibitions.” Sebastian thinks about that for a while and says,

“A couple of times I’ve felt anxious, like I told you, but only for a short time. Look, some people freak right out when they take it, so … there’s no answer.”

“It was enough for me, just to find out what happens,” Annie says. “It’s not me, it’s not who I am.”

“Maybe you’re not that person any more.”

“I have a boyfriend.”

“Well, why isn’t he here?”

Annie doesn’t say anything. She wants to go back to Kalgoorlie, to the big, wide street, looking down from her hotel room and to lie down with Sebastian next to her and they would kiss for hours on end and talk and laugh and then they’d get the train back to East Perth and never see each other again and she’d go back to her life in Peppermint Grove.

But is that what happened? What did Annie do?