Free The Naked Drinking Club by Rhona Cameron Page B

often, but once in the first week Andrea had a sale fall through. It was frustrating and worrying to wait for these transactions to clear, but I guess I saw them as savings to put towards my journey. I kept a notebook of money owing to me, and the paintings I’d sold. So far, I was in the lead with ten paintings in my first week. I had earned myself four hundred dollars, around two hundred pounds. With rent money knocked off, that left me with a total of three hundred and twenty dollars, or one hundred and sixty pounds.
    Karin was in second place with eight sales, and then Andrea with six. Scotty made the odd sale to keep things ticking over for him, but mostly he drove and sorted out the painting stock. Jim supervised everything, and liaised with Greg over areas and routes. When it got busier Scotty would take another team out, but for now he stayed with us.
    I’d made more of an effort to settle in at the flat. I bought some groceries, although most days I ate breakfast out at a café on the corner. I’d also done some laundry and tidied up my tiny room, putting up a Bruce Springsteen poster that came with Sydney’s
City Limits
magazine, and a photo of my granddad in an effort to make it more homely. I bought a pack of airmail letters, and had already written two and sent them off. One to my grandfather and the other to Maggie, a friend of mine back home who was looking after my records while I was away.
    The mornings and afternoons were quiet. We often ate burgers together in a greasy type café a few blocks away, before we left for work just ahead of the rush hour, heading out to the suburbs. Sometimes I would lie sunbathing in the yard out the back from lunchtime onwards, reading a paper, scribbling thoughts in my notebook, or making little sketches of the others as we lay around. The rest of the time I would lie in my room, looking up and wondering when I would do something concrete about my search, and not understanding why I didn’t. The late mornings were spent watching terrible yet addictive American soaps on TV. There was a whole new world out there, but I just didn’t seem to care.
    Apart from the non-selling-night blip, I was being good, and had drunk very little more than the others each night. But by the following weekend I was growing restless again, as usual, and the all-too-familiar empty feeling was beginning to set in. On the Friday night, I started to drink a bit more, and made efforts to look for Mac whom I’d seen very little of since our night out together, as he’d been in Perth working. I was disappointed with his absence, as I had hoped we could hit King’s Cross together again, or something similar.
    Plus Anaya had been on holiday down the coast visiting people since the weekend before, and I found the company of the others limited, especially while trying to adhere to moderate drinking.
    On the Friday night I was looking forward to Anaya being back, and getting paid what was owing to me. I showered after we got back from selling and put on some make-up, and a top I thought I looked good in. But neither Anaya nor Greg showed their faces in the bar, preferring instead to have dinner together somewhere in town, according to Scotty, and then have an early night. I wondered how much Greg loved Anaya, and how Anaya could possibly love Greg, before sinking too many Jack Daniel’s to care.

CHAPTER EIGHT
----
    I WAS GROWING tired of my introduction already and would have to find another one soon. I was having difficulty switching on my usual patter, and had forgotten to smile, due to my head vagueness and drowsiness from the JD the night before.
    I was in – what I was told – a mostly Greek area, late Saturday afternoon. The houses were older than most of the ones I had visited so far, and surrounded in white fencing. A woman answered a door.
    ‘Hi there, my name’s Kerry and I’m from Scotland. I’m travelling around showing some people my artwork.’
    ‘Yes, my husband will talk.