Letter from a fellow princess
The Neighbours
She has all the warmth and grace of a stonefish. Surveying the room with eyes swimming behind two feet of Winnie Blue soup. This is my neighbour: six foot, built like a brick shithouse (with extensions added), dyed blonde hair thin and wispy fairy threads. Raw face spitting out swear words like grapeshot in the middle of the living room: she will get that fucking wedding dress on if it’s the last thing she does.
“Fuck it, Trev! Help me with this fucking dress.”
From the kitchen comes the gurgling of a bong. A slight guy with lizard eyes and shaved head eventually speaks in perfect Queen’s English: “The dress is too small, Gay. And it’s brown.”
(She is so proud of that voice: “People think he’s a poof because he speaks so well. But he’s not.”)
The frogs – ceramic, plastic, glass – on the walls, next to the bathtub, on the fridge, hanging off window ledges… The mismatched glasses of cask white balancing where they can, plants in various states of rude health everywhere else.
Gay and Trev will be married in a park in two weeks’ time. The reception will be held at the Royal Exchange Hotel in Marrickville. But first she’s got her hen’s week in Melbourne. Once she gets into her dress, that is.
“Maybe we should catch up for dinner on Saturday, when she’s away,” Trev had said to me earlier. Not a happy thought.
But on the Wednesday before, up on the first floor in a Schwebel Street flat, it took three of us to cajole the zipper northwards while Gay swore like a hungover truckie.
God knows how she got the thing off afterwards – I was out of there in a flash.
The Shame
Saturday afternoon hung like a grey greasy dishcloth, occasionally dripping lukewarm rain. I was depressed - Trev had rung me twice in the two hours that Gay had left for Melbourne.
He was on a roll when I saw him in his amphibian-themed crack den: chilling his Seaview sparkling red (“This costs a lot of money, you know. I like fine wine.”), talking about the job interview he’d lined up for the following Tuesday (“It’s inbound sales at the Advanced Medical Institute – you know, I can make so much money from this role, I can feel it. If I drop my CV off to you tomorrow, you can edit and correct it by tomorrow night, right?”) and finishing his third or fourth bong for the day.
How could a Marrickville Princess be anything but bewitched by it all?
Clearly, the very expensive sparkling red shared my excitement as its very expensive cork made a bold effort to escape, narrowly missing a frog.
Trev’s swivelling hips and sandbag eyelids both started in embarrassment but he made a concerted effort to recover his wits (bless his stud muffin heart!), insinuating himself next to me to fill my glass.
In true Princess fashion, I skolled it and got up to leave.
Slither, slither – and is that Frank Sinatra music playing??? - the sound of wine being poured.
I skolled that, too, smiled, gurgled apologies and made for the door like a startled rabbit.
In smoothest Queen’s English: “I wanted to say something to you.”
Shit!
And just then, he attempted to bestow upon me the title of ‘lucky last lady before the wedding’. But I was ready: “Actually, Trev, this is really very flattering but Gay is a friend and I could never do that to her.”
Shazam! Wonder twins activate! Form of a foxy Princess!
“Actually, Gay and I discussed it and she picked you. She said you needed it. I was glad. Remember that red dress you had on the last time you were here? I had an erection for three hours afterwards.”
Squeak.
Scurry.
Herein ends this entry for the Marrickville Neighbourhood Hall of Shame. Suffice to say, I think you can still trace the claw marks leading from the amphibian crack den haunt of the leery lovers to my humble princess abode.
Sadly, I never got to help pour Gay into her brown wedding dress. And so I still don’t know who they took on their Gold Coast honeymoon.
