Morning. Kitchen. Fridge with his honey and spoon looking all clean-shaven and rearing to go, although he is not in uniform. The colour has returned to his face. The cat has now taken to parading along the bench top mewling and preening. One gets the sense it has pretty much taken the opportunity of iso time to ingratiate itself into the household. Sid would appear to be a distant memory, and Fridge appears to be happy with the turn of events. The phone rings. Fridge puts it on speaker for our benefit.
Banker: Am I speaking to Patrick James Coolley?
Fridge: You are.
Banker: Mr Coolley, this is really just a courtesy call....
Fridge: How so?
Banker: Your wife -
Fridge: Angela McFarlane is not my wife -
Banker: I see...well, we were led to believe....as a condition of this loan application...
Fridge: Yes, I know what you were led to believe......
Banker: I’m sorry Mr Coolley, but I am looking over the paperwork right now, and I can clearly see your signature....
Fridge: (Rubs his chin, obviously weighing up his options. This could end very badly for Angela). Can you send me a copy of that?
Banker: Of course, Mr Coolley.....like I say, this is really just a follow up call......
Fridge: Maybe just send me the pertinent material and we’ll go from there...
Banker: These cases are never easy for us, Mr Coolley.....
Fridge: You are kidding, right? I’m standing in the kitchen of a house I may no longer own...
Banker: We are not gangsters, Mr Coolley. We are not in the habit of tossing people out on the street. Your wi....sorry....Angela McFarlane is still in quarantine I gather?
Fridge: Denpasar....
Banker: Do you have access to her accounts, Mr Coolley?
Fridge: You think we’d be having this conversation if I did?
Banker: Quite. Are you able to contact Angela?
Fridge: Aren’t you?
Banker: Please. The number she gave us is no longer connected.
Fridge: Wow...she’s got a gift, I’ll give her that...
Banker: (Obviously losing patience) Meaning?
Fridge: Meaning I wonder how things would have gone had I turned up at your office with some lame business model and no collateral.
Banker: Mr Coolley, I was not a party to this agreement, and my understanding is that the broker who approved the loan is no longer with us...
Fridge: Just peachy....
Banker: Can I suggest you speak to Angela and -
Fridge: Do your job for you? Yeah, don’t worry, mate..... You know what I had to go through to get this place?
Banker: Yes, I am all too well aware of who you are, Mr Coolley, and what you went through. And I’m sorry, I really am, but my hands are tied until we hear from Ms McFarlane. We would prefer not to make this a criminal matter.
Fridge hangs up, licks the rest of the honey off his spoon and hurls it at the far wall. The cat scarpers. The empty house echoes and then seems to shrug the flash of anger off as though not a stranger to such outbursts.
Cut to Fridge reading some David Sedaris on the couch and casting occasional glances at the mess calcifying on the kitchen wall. This stand-off goes on all morning with a little input from the cat who licks up his fill and then curls up at Fridge’s feet on the couch.
As Fridge is clearing up the mess some time in the early afternoon there is a discreet tap tap tap at the door. Fridge opens it to a beaming Desiree comically rouged and scarved and sunglassed like Dorothy Parker doing her best to attract the attention of the entire population of lunch time lower Manhattan.
Fridge: (Accepting her peck on the check with a puzzled look over her shoulder. The street is empty. The cat curls around Desiree’s gaudily slippered feet). Hey kiddo! You fly here on your magic carpet?
Desiree: (Holding up a bottle of some concoction the earthy colour of something Michelangelo may have soaked his brushes in). Salvation in a jar! (Pinches his cheek like a Jewish mother). Oooo, you......close the door close the door.....(Tosses her coat down on the sofa like she owned it. Curtsies to a still flummoxed Fridge. Pecks him on the cheek again. Pinches his nose to make sure he’s alive). You know how liberating it is, my darling, to be yesterday’s news? No-one cares about me! Ha! I could be dead for all they know. I got a taxi here. You know your Sydney taxi drivers are really quite something. You OK sugar? I hear this virus can really effect men your age....
Fridge: (Shaking himself awake) Ummmm....
Desiree: Oh dear....you getting a blood clot sugar? I hear men your age....
Fridge: You’re on a loop, Deirdre. Take a seat. You lost weight? (Holding up the jar) What’s this?
Desiree: (Crosses her legs, coaxes the cat onto her knee, shuffles around a bit.) I was on a respirator for a week, Patrick....drip feed and a bunch of fucking Aussie nurses whispering in my ear. Truly. That’s their latest angle on beating this thing. Every time I close my eyes all I hear is your fucking accent! You know how distracting that is for someone like me? You really think I lost weight?
Fridge: (Gazes at her as though she were an alien beamed down from the mother ship. She strokes the cat, arches her back a little primly, fixes her eyes on him and both break out into a round of dry, hungry laughter). Sorry, (Gasping for air at this stage) but who in the flying fuck are you?
Cut to the front verandah a little later. Desiree is sipping a tall glass of something bubbly while Fridge takes tentative sips at whatever that concoction is she arrived with.
Fridge: You know, (He almost seems like he’s convinced himself) this stuff really isn’t as bad as it looks. I can taste the ginger.
Desiree: (Smirking over the lip of her glass) Oh sugar, that ain’t ginger....but trust me you’ll feel like a different man in the morning....
Fridge: Anyway, so that’s pretty much everything as far as the bank’s concerned. Oh yeah, they signed off by saying they’d rather not press criminal charges....
Desiree: Ooh...Ouch! She a woman who scares easily?
Fridge: You met her daughter....just times that by ten....
Desiree: Soooo.....?
Fridge: So.....to be honest I haven’t a bloody clue.....Robert.....
Desiree: Oh yes, Robert riding in on his white steed.....
Fridge: What, you suddenly gone dark on Robert?
Desiree: I’m dark on men, sugar, present company excepted.
Fridge: Some prick dump you while you were in a coma?
Desiree: Got it in one.
Fridge: (Looking understandably incredulous, a question dangling on his bottom lip) No.......who does that?
Desiree: (Arching an eyebrow) My kind of man does that....you see, what you still have to understand about me is that I’m quite a bit older than your daughter.
Fridge: Well, surely not that much -
Desiree: I mean figuratively, jackass. She’s been with Nathan - how long?
Fridge: God, forever....they were are at high school together....
Desiree: Yeah, well I was homeschooled......my maths tutor cornered me first....(Now it’s Fridge’s turn to arch an eyebrow) Oh, there were several, sugar....early bloomer......but he’s the one that really sticks in my craw....he was my mum’s boyfriend at the time, so of course she took his word over mine....
Fridge: Jesus, I’m sorry kiddo....your mum sounds like a real piece of work....
Desiree: She’d have you for breakfast....and that Robert too....
Fridge: (Gazing off to some vague distant point) School was my safe place for the most part....
Desiree: (Gazes at Fridge for what seems to him an eternity, trying to pry something out of him with her piercing blue eyes). Yeah? So, who got to you? Come on, you know what I mean, sugar. Don’t act coy, the face, you know....
Fridge: One of my foster carers. He was an ex-cop, so at first there was this big cover up and they made my life a misery for a few years....but I got someone to listen in the end and I signed up to a class action when I was 20, 21, somewhere there. It’s all a bit of a blur, to be honest.
Desiree: (The warmth returned to her eyes now that she has pried the truth out of him). Oh sugar, I bet. Top up?
Fridge: (Looking at his empty glass with a vaguely puzzled expression). Shit, I didn’t even know I’d finished it. I do feel something....a kind of warm tingly sensation....
Desiree: Great, then it’s working....either that or your’re getting sick again. There’s ground up shark cartilage in there....some sort of root...but not ginger....I’m not good with details. Donovan put me onto it for when the touring got a bit much....
Fridge: So he’s OK, this Donovan?
Desiree: He can be a snarly SOB sometimes, but he’s always been there for me. Cuts me some slack when he sees I need it. Absolutely despises my mother! They can’t bear to be in the same room together! It’s brilliant! He’s gay and mum hates gays. Probably because she can’t manipulate them the way she likes. So you’re not going to take her back, are you? Tell me if I’m being out of line.
Fridge: This may sound weird, but I think if I took her mother back Mel would never speak to me again.
Desiree: Doesn’t sound the least bit weird. Mel adores you, she looks up to you. (Runs a pretty finger around the rim of her slowly emptying glass). In fact, I’d go so far as to say that she idolises you. No, don’t give me that look. I don’t get it either, but I’ve seen the way she looks at you, how she laughs at your lame arse dad jokes.....
Fridge: I’m not her dad -
Desiree: I didn’t say you were her dad, I said you were - you are - her hero. And yes, I think she’d be pretty crushed if you decided to play all happy families and took Angela back. What’s that term the nurses use? She’d be devo?
Fridge: Ha! You really have been around us too long. Sure you don’t have some small stake in all this?
Desiree: (Thrusting out her long leg in his direction) Don’t flatter yourself, old man! Now, go fetch me that bottle...
Fridge does as he’s told and returns to find the cat curled up between Desiree’s feet.
Fridge: I hope you’re not allergic. He’s kinda settled in here now. Used to belong to the old guy a few doors down, but to be honest I don’t think Sid even notices he’s gone.....
Desiree: That the old perv touching himself up at his gate?
Fridge: That’s Sid.
Desiree: So, while we’re swapping notes, sugar....how was it for you?
Fridge: How was what?
Desiree: You know, this damn thing we’re all dying of....I guess you heard it was touch and go for me there for a week or so. Had the craziest dreams. You were in one...
Fridge: I’m flattered. Don’t tell Mel, but there were a couple of days there where I had my fingers on speed dial....felt like I was drowning....
Desiree: I was the next stage along, but I guess you heard....my heart stopped for a while... never had a particularly strong heart....
Fridge: (Raising a glass of something clear and fizzy). Well, here’s to us.
Desiree: Here’s to us, sugar. (Takes a sip and then seems to remember something and starts rummaging in her bag) Oh, I almost forgot. Present for you. I ordered it online before I got sick and then forgot about it. Can you believe Donovan had never heard of Fats Waller? I hope you’ve got a record player....
Fridge: (Tearing open the plain brown wrapping.) Ah! The man in all his glory! Thanks kiddo. Yep, there’s a record player in my study. You play chess?
Desiree: I’m a little rusty....(Profers a cheek which Fridge bends over to kiss)....but I reckon I could whop your ass, old man.....
Fridge makes an exaggerated gesture toward the front door and the two disappear into the house as the camera pans back toward the street taking in the warm glow of the softly lit house and Fats Waller’s Ain’t Misbehavin’” telling us all we need to know about how the remainder of the night pans out.
Morning. But not the usual morning honey-and-spoon thing. A shot of the back of Fridge’s rather bulbous head as he stands sipping a coffee at his back door staring out into a still very dark world. The camera pans up close until we appear to be breathing down his neck, and then a little beyond him to focus in on the mysterious house over the back fence. As we adjust to the darkness we can just make out the frayed white curtains in the cracked and grimy windows of the old place being lifted and dropped and shaken around, first one window, then the next along and then back again. This goes on for some time, and the camera turns back to focus on the stern, idly curious face of Fridge blinking into the steam off his coffee and watching the eerie pantomime next door. He seems to be working to reach a decision on what it is exactly he is watching.
Cut to Desiree stirring in bed, blinking at the ceiling for a moment as though trying to make sense of where she is. The camera pans up to where her eyes have fixed on the stucco light fitting and she sighs a little whistfully and grins to herself.
Cut to her bare feet making their way through the house with the the cat in tow, and coming up behind Fridge. When she touches him gently on the shoulder he flinches ever so slightly.
Desiree: You get any sleep, sugar?
Fridge: (Thumbing at the couch over his shoulder) Managed a few hours. You?
Desiree: Depends what time it is....
Fridge: Early. Maybe four. I don’t know.....
Desiree: Everything OK? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.
Fridge: (Feeling for her hand and coaxing her gently to where he is standing). You see that house? (Points out back) Notice anything unusual?
Desiree: (Squints but can’t make anything out) I can just make out the moonlight on the roof. I’m a little night blind, sugar. The diabetes. Something wake you up?
Fridge: Yeah....didn’t you hear it? Must have gone on for about a minute. Real high-pitched squealing. For a while I thought it was you singing in your sleep....
Desiree: Ha ha.....(Friendly slap on the arm) fucking clown....So, maybe it was just alley cats or something?
Fridge: (Shrugs) Yeah....I don’t know....something’s not right with that house. Think there might be some crazy old loon squatting in there.
Desiree: (Shudders involuntarily). Ooh sugar, you’re gonna catch your death standing there. We’re not out of the woods yet, you know. Come on....the bed’s big enough.....I promise I won’t try any funny stuff.
Cut to the two of them climbing under the covers a little awkwardly and quietly turning their backs on each other. Desiree shuts her eyes immediately, but a close up of Fridge shows him lying there gazing at the wall barely blinking.
Cut to the same vast empty warehouse as at the end of the first episode. A young man lies huddled up on his makeshift bed blinking into the darkness that thunders with an angry persistent pounding. Something is on the other side of the tin desperate to get in. It is an angry primeval grunting and snarling and banging that gets louder and louder until Fridge wakes up with a start. Desiree is sitting cross-legged beside him in bed with the cat purring in her lap. She is gently stroking the side of Fridge’s head with the back of her hand and whispering soothing sounds. The first light is breaking through the curtained window.
Cut to our two mysterious Chinese friends in their apparently stolen car. The car is revving on some lonely back road while the driver considers his options. A cigarette dangles precipitously out of the corner of his narrow thin-lipped mouth as he eyes off a roadblock about 200 metres further along. The young kid in the back keeps pressing his elbow into the whimpering mass of humanity tied up in the sack on the seat beside him. He loves this little game and asks his companion in Mandarin why he doesn’t just fire off a few rounds. His companion doesn’t even look around while he thinks. Neither seem particularly perturbed by their predicament. The man then turns and tells the kid officously to push the bundle out the door. The kid recluctantly does as he is told with one last nasty elbow pressed hard into the mass of whimpering humanity. The man then tells the kid to drag the sack around into the middle of the road and when this is done to the man’s satisfaction the kid throws himself back in like someone off on their summer holiday. The man then throws the car into reverse and spins around in a cloud of burning rubber and speeds away. The cops begin to give chase but stop when they catch sight of the writhing whimpering parcel left behind.
Morning. Proper bright sunny morning, but no kitchen bench and once again no honey and spoon. Angela appears to have lost her hold over our reluctant hero. This is the kind of triumphant valedictory morning of two people who have survived something and are laughing into the light of a new dawn. The cat purrs loudly. The camera glides by it to stand at the back door filming Desiree in denim overalls wielding a tiny plastic cricket bat rather awkwardly while Fridge tosses a few innocuous underarm deliveries in her direction. She manages to get hold of one and almost lands it on the roof. That shy shared laughter of discovery. She insists on trying her hand at “bowling”. Proper bowling. He shows her the rudiments. The slightest frissant and then she is hurling down bent armed torpedoes at him that almost take his head off. Suddenly Fridge leaves off laughing and stares gaping past Desiree’s shoulder. It is old Sid from three doors down.
Fridge: Mate, you can’t be here...
Sid: (Dressed relatively tastefully in sagging jeans and a t-shirt emlazoned with the name of a pub mothballed long ago). She’s here.....
Fridge: She’s my plus one, mate. You’re my ticket to a three thousand buck fine....and the rest...
Desiree: (Curtsying in a manner surely designed to confuse the old bastard). Hey Sid. I’m Desiree.
Sid: (Bobbing a finger at her while addressing Fridge). Yeah. I know who you are. Black limousine. Long legs on the tele.....
Fridge: Sid, if it’s about the cat....
Sid: Yer cat pissed on me carpet, Coolley, and yer kid’s up to her old tricks over there.....
Fridge: (Following the old man’s quaking finger to the derelict house out back.) Sid, for a start that’s your cat pissing on your carpet, and my kid is 24 years old. Her days of mucking around in derelict houses are well gone, if they ever existed....
Sid: (Still holding up his quaking tar-yellowed finger). Yeah? So, who’s that then?
Fridge starts to follow the old man’s marble-eyed gaze back over the fence, but is more than open to the distraction Desiree seems to offer.
Desiree: You wanna throw some ball, Sidney?
Fridge: (Grimacing at the Americanism). You know you can’t be here Sid......
Sid: (Curling his thin nasty bloodless lip at a hapless Desiree). Sydney’s a fucking city, moron...
Desiree: Hey sugar...
Fridge: You know I’m gonna have to call the cops in a minute mate. You can’t be here.
Sid: Sweet little deal you got going here, Coolley. (His eyes get that empty glazed over look of the old and badly haunted). Pussy here (flicking a thumb at an incredulous Desiree), and a bit of pussy out back...
Fridge: Sid -
Sid: Fucking little sicko.....could never help yourself could you....wha wha wha to the papers and we’re all living in your filth.....
Desiree: Hey mister! Fridge? Fridge?! (Fridge is stood like a man with his feet set in concrete). OK buster, you’re outta here...(Grabs old Sid by his rather frayed collar and hustles him to the door like a - well - someone who earned her dues in some dodgy bars. Returns in due course theatrically dusting off her hands to find Fridge stood there with plastic cricket bat dangling from his limp hand. That dry, hungry laugh again that she’s not quite so ready to respond to this time around.) You keep a girl amused, I’ll give you that...
Fridge: (As though talking to the ground). Thanks...
Desiree: So....who the fuck was that exactly?
Fridge: (Breathless). Sid......
Desiree: Sugar....when did I become your mother? Sid who? Who’s Sid? Why’s he talk like that?
Fridge: (Putting on an Australian accent out of some Hollywood sitcom). Cos he’s Orstraylian mate...
Desiree: (Crouching down now as he crouches down. Sits on the grass and taps him on the forehead with the rubber ball) OK....so that Sid.....is your ex-cop? Your class action? Oh, sugar! (Waves her arm around in the lovely autumn light, straightens her dancer’s back, takes a deep breath. Something briefly catches her eye over the back fence but she shrugs it off.) And you decide to buy a house.....three doors down.....from Sid......oh sugar......
Fridge: Yep....money makes you do weird things, doesn’t it?.....coffee?
Cut to a montage of daytime tv. Not that the tv is on in Fridge’s house. It is seldom on, but the world seems to want to know where Desiree is. As though Desiree possessed the cure to the global pandemic.
The Earnest Square-jawed and Fakely Sun-Tanned Anchor One: So now there’s finally a lowdown on the lockdown...
Anchor Two: So now there’s light at the end of the tunnel.....
Anchor One: Where’s Desiree?
Anchor Two: I mean, she can’t have gone anywhere right? (Canned laugher). So I ask again..
Anchor One: I mean, is it just some kind of publicity stunt? I think we have a right to know......
Some Late Night Career Smirk: I mean, dude, is it one rule for the rest of us and another for Desiree? Her management aren’t taking calls, so I ask again: (Gazing all Fox-like shiny and earnest straight into the cameras). WHERE IS DESIREE? (Reverb off into the windmills of the hive mind.)
Cut to Fridge’s study. He and Desiree stooped over the board like a couple of old men playing boule. One obviosuly lazy move and she snatches his knight heavy lidded but already confident of maybe three moves along. Lassus is playing. Maybe the piece for five voices. Desiree lifts her glass and Fridge taps it with his glass of an equally dark liquid. It is only as he has a little lunge that the viewer realises Fridge has been drinking, and perhaps for some time for the first time in a long time. He does not, however, seem, like many lapsed drunks do, unhappy, weighed down or barbed in his state. He seems, on the contrary, light, although vaguely puzzled by his inability to beat this pop star half his age at a game of chess.
Fridge is old enough to still pay for a land line. It is ringing. Prripp prripp prripp. The most annoying insistent sound that very few of us miss, even in these strange upending times. Desiree arches her eyebrow at the gratingly nostalgic sound and then turns her attention back to the game like a soldier accustomed to days playing chess under fire.
Desiree: (Going for a move, thinking better of it. The old boy isn’t quite that beat) Well......(shuffling a few pieces)....she’s a persistent SOB, I’ll give her that. Checkmate....
Fridge: (Making a show of looking over the board). Shit, that was quick....this is why I don’t drink....So you wanna talk about this guy?
Desiree: What guy?
Fridge: This idiot who dumped you while you were on a ventilator.....
Desiree: (Shrugs). Just some random. Friend of Kanye’s. Dimples. Nice laugh. Big....
Fridge: Hrrmphhh.....
Desiree: (Gazing at him archly but affectionately). ....house in the Hamptons....Fuck it honey...this is our time....I don't wanna talk about that loser! (Slides out Melody Song’s record from deep down in the pile) Ooh...you been hiding this from me? (Slips it on the turntable with consumate ease considering she’s probably been drinking for quite a few hours. The sun appears very low in the west by now, but then I’m a writer not a weather girl).
Fridge: (All glassy-eyed with childish mischief and glee). Oh, no don’t Des, what if she comes home?
Desiree: She wouldn’t be a little chuffed you had it playing?
Fridge: I just thought she might think - you know, we were taking the piss....
Desiree nods at the bottle, arches her immaculately tailored eyebrow again.
Desiree: Yeah, well that’s another negative thought right there sunshine....go on....drown those dark thoughts.....
Fridge: Des, I don’t think you have my best interests at heart....
Desiree: Dude, stop waving that fucking glass around and drink! You’re daughter’s music or the whisky? (Arches another eyebrow as she lowers the stylus and starts to dance with a sense of disjointed sentiment to Melody Song’s smoky voice). OK OK (Swinging her arms in absolute mum-free, drunk, plague-surviving glee), set up your Robert game.....I know you got it written down on that scrap of paper over there, sugar....I wanna think like a Robert for an hour....
Fridge unravels the scrap of paper, squints, sets the pieces, shakes his head, squints at the paper again. It is really painful to watch. Desiree decides to lose herself in her dancing for a while. The music is really very good.
Desiree: Wow, I’ve really gotta pay more attention to my support acts......
Fridge: (Still struggling to make sense of the diagram on his screwed up piece of paper) Yeah, I know....(squinting at the paper while he talks). I still remember the first time she brought tears to my eyes....I’d taken her and her mum out for her twelfth birthday....they’d just officially moved in and Rebecca....she was still Rebecca then....the sweetest shiest little thing....you wouldn’t recognise her Des....Robert wasn’t around...the kid was just lost deep down in herself....I was a goose around a kid like that...no fucking idea....just platitudes...all I could do was feed her Chicken Chow Mein and hope she felt better somehow....
Desiree: (Snatching the paper out of his hand, her patience exhausted). Gimme that....
Fridge: (Taking another sip of his whisky) Anyway, we get home after one of the longest 2 kilometre drives in human history. I’m thinking the kid can’t stand me, Ange and I are fucking history, because I wasn’t getting one without the other, you know?....so anyway, Ange and I are stood back at opposite ends of the kitchen over there....each of us holding a bucket of wine wondering what the hell comes next, when out of her room pops Becky - Mel - with the guitar Robert had bought her for her birthday the year before....and then she starts playing this song....Radiohead......can’t remember the name.....something obscure, but man I thought my heart was gonna burst.....
Desiree: (Looking a little happy-sad) Radiohead....yep, I hear that.....
Fridge: (Takes another sip). Anyway, done deal after that.....
Desiree: Damn, sugar! Where were you when I was twelve?
Fridge: (Passing himself over with a graceful if drunken sweep). Right here, honey, I have always been here....
A round of laughter, music and drinks. Maybe a little dancing. Then there is a loud piercing squeal that neither really rates at first, as though it were coming from inside their heads. But after a minute or so even in their inebriated state both have to concede they are hearing something out of the ordinary.
Cut to the back patio where both stand side by side gazing out at the dark moon-kissed yard. Apart from a lone dog barking the neighbourhood is quiet, but they both seem to hear a faint shuffling sound out there somewhere. Fridge goes to take a step towards it but Desiree grabs his elbow. So they stand and look and listen as the night fills with one tiny random sound after another like a pot slowly coming to the boil. When Fridge decides to cast a sideways glance at his young companion he notices fat tears rolling down her cheeks.
Fridge: You OK, kiddo?
Desiree: (Her lower lip starting to quiver). Must be the whisky, I guess. (Forcing a weak smile)
Fridge: You’re safe here kiddo. You want I can lock all the doors....
Desiree: (Hunching into him like a little kid trying to burrow right in). Everything’s different. Sadder.
Fridge: Yep.
Desiree: (Casting a curious look over him as though seeing him for the first time). You lose anyone?
Fridge: Yep.
Desiree: I’m sorry. I guess I have, over in the States. I mean, other than Rinaldo who let’s face it isn’t exactly a loss. Yeah, I went out with a guy named Rinaldo, (nudges him with her hip) don’t look at me like that. You never glance at the gossip pages? I’m almost scared to switch on my phone.
Fridge: Yeah, I was gonna talk to you about that. They’ll think I’ve been holding you here against your will. I’ve already got the cops sniffing after me...
Desiree: Yeah well, (nudges him with her hip again) you got one cop sniffing after you, sugar, and it’s most definitely your arse she wants....
Fridge: (Looking down at her archly). Everything’s sex with you, isn’t it. Hey cat!
Desiree: (Crouches down to say hello but instantly springs back up with a slightly terrified look on her face). Honey, what’s that on his back? Is that blood?
Fridge: (Coaxing the cat with some difficulty into the dimly lit alcove). Yep. (Sniffing as he parts the cat’s fur takes a quick look around before the cat has had enough and sidles away to the kitchen where all the good stuff happens). Not his.
Desiree: Honey, would you think me a New York princess if I asked you to lock up?
Fridge: Nope. Only stopped doing it since Ange has been away.
Almost on cue the landline starts ringing. And ringing. And ringing.
Desiree: Well, that’s kinda creepy....You sure she doesn’t have a few secret cameras hidden around the place?
Fridge: That would involve a certain degree of planning and that aint Angie’s strong point...
Desiree: She’s not gonna let you go easy, sugar....
Fridge: Yeah, I know. (Directs her to the sofa in the living room and goes to fetch the bottle). I reckon her mum will actually make things a little easier for me for once...
Desiree: (Accepting her top up with all the poise she can muster at this late hour). Yeah, well if her mum’s anything like my mum, which it sounds like she very much is, then I gotta warn you she may just end up doing the opposite thing purely out of spite....
Fridge: (Looking once again incredulous). Really?
Desiree: Oh sugar, I get the feeling you like woman. ALOT. But you don’t really understand them...What the hell you poured me here anyway?
Fridge: (Looking all whistful). Home-made ouzo. You asked me if I’d lost anyone, well I lost my mate Stavros amongst others. Drove for as long as I’ve been with the company. Trained me up all those years ago. He made his own ouzo. Careful, it’s got quite a kick.
Desiree: (Leaning over to give him a warm peck on the cheek). Oh sugar, here’s to lovely Stavros. (Throws it down in one gulp). Whoooa! Kicks like a mule! Top me up sailor! Then I promise to switch on my phone.
Fridge: You sure that’s such a good idea? A couple of these and we’re liable.....
Desiree: I aint facing the world sober, sugar, and you aint my dad.
Fridge holds up his hands in mock surrender.
The cat in the meantime has been licking the blood off its paws and haunches and starts mewling persistently like it hadn’t been fed in a week. Fridge goes over to pat it but it arches its back and starts hissing, fixing on a point back behind the two of them somewhere. This goes on for no more than 30 seconds and then the cat is all fur and pur again.
Desiree: OK, now that was creepy.
Fridge: Yep.
Desiree: How old you say this place was?
Fridge: I didn’t. Probably because I have absolutely no idea. 50, 60 years old maybe?
Desiree: Yeah, well I don’t care how it looks, sugar, we're sharing my bed tonight.
Fridge: (Flicks on the tv as a last resort to instill some semblance of normality into the evening). Fine by me. You mind if I take a selfie?
Desiree: Hardy har har....you and your lame old dad jokes. Come here (Patting the couch beside her). You still get Oprah here? I wanna snuggle with some Oprah....
Fridge: Too late for Oprah, sorry. There....we got Kimmel.....oh, and you......
Desiree: I guess I better switch on my phone...(Switches on her phone and it is soon pipping away like a caged bird)
Fridge: Yeah, I really should have nagged you about that. Not much of a grown up, am I.
Desiree: Yeah, well I’m not exactly a kid, old man. (Putting on a whiny little girl’s voice). Where’s Desiree? Where’s Desiree? Like there wasn’t a fucking global pandemic to worry about.
Fridge: (Switching through the channels. Most are news items on the carnage in New York and London. A shot of lower Manhattan with the streets empty bar a long line of trucks piled high with coffins). I’ll keep surfing.....
Desiree: (Stopping him with her hand). No, hey that looks like....shit I had a loft near there....Maybe two streets over.....(Lets out a deep sigh and the tears start to roll down her cheeks again).
Fridge: (Starts surfing again as she removes her hand from his to wipe away the tear). There. Ted 2. You feel like a laugh? Come here.
Desiree: (Answering his call to snuggle up and laugh at the foul-mouthed bear. The phone pips away in her hand forgotten for now). Can I just make out like those Chinese goons kidnapped me and I just hole out here in disguise?
Fridge: (Casting her a terrified glance). Shit, don’t say that! I’d forgotten about those jokers. I wonder what the hell they’re up to....
Cut to the middle of the night on some lonely back road. Our two bandidos are tearing along at high speed firing off rounds into the dark. Kangaroos appear and just as quickly scatter at the sound of guns blazing. Sadly, they are all too familiar with the sound. The little kid has a pistol as well, although his is slightly smaller, maybe a .22 in deference to his age and size. The driver soon tires of the game, however, and pulls over much to the kid’s disappointment. One can’t help the feeling these two are rather aimless and easily distracted. The driver gets out and goes back around to the boot, digs out a can of petrol and rummages through the heaps of crumpled jeans and t-shirts. He comes around with the can of petrol and a few choice articles and shows them to the boy, explaining in Mandarin what he has in mind.
Cut to them once again tearing along some dark country road while the boy sets alight to little bundles of petrol-soaked rag and tosses them out the window. His little face pinches up in paroxysms of gleeful laughter. A kangaroo hops away into the darkness with a spot of bright flame on its tail.
The End
© Justin Lowe 2020
