Free The Riders by Tim Winton Page A

Paris.’
    â€˜Paris. Friggin Paris, eh?’
    Scully laughed. ‘Paris.’
    â€˜Is it like the movies?’
    â€˜Not so you’d notice.’
    â€˜I liked them Gene Kelly sorta fillums, you know with the dancin and the umbrellas and the kissin by the fountain.’
    â€˜Well, we did a lotta that, of course.’
    â€˜So what the frig did you do?’
    Scully sighed. ‘Worked me arse off, Pete. I painted and Jennifer wrote.’
    â€˜Painted? You didn’t tell me you’re the artist type.’
    â€˜I painted apartments, mate. Cash money. Worst job of my life, don’t ask.’
    â€˜And the writin?’
    Scully took a pull of the hot, peaty Bushmills. Paris really wasn’t the kind of thing he had in mind on a fun night out. He wanted to forget the damn place once and for all. The long miserable days scraping the ceilings of tight-arsed Parisian skinflints. The desperate scuffle outside the school every morning with Billie, and those evenings of tears and rage when Jennifer’s frustration was like an animal in the room with them. It was a kind of affliction for her. After the early buzz, the heady weeks of hope and excitement, the days she slugged it out in the tiny apartment alive with ideas, and new friends to try them on, she became this thwarted creature.
    Some nights they stayed up and drank too much pastis while he tried to console her but she lashed out like something wildand cornered. It was his fault, she said. He was lazy, under – motivated – he had no ambition, no guts, which struck him as a bit rich, considering his circumstances. He did shit work all day so she could write. And gladly. God how he wanted her to break through into some kind of success, some new version of herself that made her happy.
    But Paris was a black hole, somewhere where Jennifer came hard up against the wall of her limitations while all he could do was stand by and watch.
    â€˜Scully?’
    â€˜Hm?’
    â€˜Tell me about the writing. Are you asleep or drunk already?’
    â€˜Well, I liked it.’
    â€˜What did she write? For certain, she’s the poetical type, takin the bothy the way she did.’
    Scully smiled and passed back the bottle. ‘Actually she’s very businesslike, Pete. Likes things neat and sharp, you know. Comes from a very proper family. Escaped from them really. She’s always thought her parents held her back from doing what she’d like to try. They pressured her into a career in the public service and stuff. She says they made her ordinary when she wasn’t. Safe, dull, that kind of thing, which she isn’t. I liked her because she was so . . . straight, I guess. But she hates that, being straight. Writing was one of those things she always thought of doing. You know, weird, risky things, the kind of things parents hate. All this travelling was her chance. She quit her job, had her heart set on Paris. Paris was poetry for her. And she wrote some nice poems, showed em to people and was kind of . . . crushed. Those bastards, her mates, they thought it was a bit of a joke. Well, fuck them. I thought the poems were good.’
    â€˜You liked them cause you love her.’
    â€˜No, I liked them cause I liked them.’ Scully watched theragged hedges peel by. ‘Anyway, it didn’t work out.’
    â€˜So much for dancin by the fountains.’
    â€˜Yeah.’
    Pete chugged on the whiskey bottle and gasped with pleasure. He steered with his knees a while and hummed theatrically.
    â€˜By God, Scully, you’ve seen the world!’
    â€˜On the cheap, mate, on the cheap.’
    â€˜And what did you do in Greece, lie in the bakin sun and drink them little drinks with hats on em?’
    Scully laughed. ‘No, I worked for a stonemason humping granite up a hill. Loved it. Great place. Greece is like Australia invaded by the Irish.’
    â€˜Good gravy,