Read an extract from We Could Be Something by Will Kostakis.
The one night I haul my arse to sleep before ten, I’m woken at ten-thirty by my father rummaging through my wardrobe. He’s getting up me for how many red shirts I own.
It hurts to open my eyes wider than a squint. ‘Huh?’
‘Red shirts,’ he says, like any of this is making sense to me.
I blink. The orange glow of the hallway lamp is hitting him like a spotlight. He’s dressed. Fresh fade, designer stubble, knitted jumper, too-tight pants, boots, duffle bag open at his feet . . . He’s going somewhere.
He drops two red shirts onto the bag.
‘Ba?’
He ignores me. He’s fixated on the shirts. ‘I’ve counted seven.’ He runs his thumb down the stack. ‘Eight.’
‘Ba.’
‘This one’s nice.’ He waves a V-neck at me before letting it fall. ‘That’s three.’
‘What are you doing?’ I ask.
He smacks his lips. ‘If you had to go an indefinite period with a reduced wardrobe, how many red shirts would you need?’
‘Me?’
‘That’s what you means.’
He’s packing my bag. ‘What have I done?’
‘Just tell me how many.’
Kinda putting me on the spot here. ‘No idea. Five?’
‘Tough. Three’s enough.’
‘Then why did you ask?’
‘You can wear one on the plane. That’s four.’
Right. I’m wide awake now. ‘I’m getting on a plane?’
Ba’s moved on to shorts. He plucks out a striped pair and instinctively checks the crotch for holes. Bingo. Two of them. He discards that pair and checks another, cream-coloured, and to his delight, no holes. He lets the shorts fall onto the bag.
‘Hello?’ I ask. ‘You’re gonna need to give me some—’
‘I’m leaving your father.’ He says it as if it’s some big revelation, as if I haven’t clued into the fact that they low-key hate each other.
They groan and bicker, and for ages, I’ve been wishing they’d get on with it. Have the big fight. Say the horrible thing they can’t take back. Split up. Move on. It’d be rough, sure, but they’d be better in the long run.
I figured they were too chickenshit. But they’re doing it. Ba’s leaving.
Wait. He’s packing my bag. I’m getting on a plane.
‘I’m coming with you?’
He groans. ‘Yes, Harvey.’
I’m in bed. ‘Now?’
‘Right now.’
‘Sydney?’
He nods.
‘For real?’
I must light up, because he tells me not to look so happy about it.
I fix my face.
My mates and I have a pool going. Ten bucks each in the kitty; the first one to bail on school without being expelled or imprisoned gets the lot. Dropping out in Perth is tricky, unless you wanna suffer an apprenticeship or some shit. In Sydney, all you have to do is turn seventeen, and I’ve done that.
I’ve had zero luck convincing my parents to let me move east, but that’s what’s happening now, right? Ba’s fleeing and he’s taking me with him.
‘Now, Harvey.’ And he’s out the door with the duffle bag.
I stare after him.
Now, Harvey.
I kick off my doona. I throw on the closest shirt and shorts and follow Ba as far as the spot in the hallway where Dad’s loitering. There’s nothing to suggest he hasn’t been there the whole time, looking like a shot of depresso between two framed family portraits. In 2014’s, we’re sailors on the pier. In 2019’s, a choir on the vineyard.
I lean against the opposite wall. Dad shrugs. He’s dressed after-dinner casual – singlet, trackpants. I’m itching to ask how a night implodes like this.
He reads my mind. ‘The manure,’ he explains.
Oh, they’ve graduated from bickering over trivial shit to bickering over literal shit. That tracks.
‘The bag has been sitting in the laundry for eight days, Jeremy!’ Ba calls from the master, where I assume he’s packing his own luggage. ‘You promised it would be sorted over the weekend and it’s Wednesday.’
Dad exhales and asks me if I’m okay.
‘I’m fine.’ I sound too fine, so I exhale in solidarity. ‘How are you? Do you want me to stay?’
He shakes his head. ‘Go to Sydney with your father.’
I tell him I don’t have to.
The answer comes from their bedroom. ‘Harvey doesn’t have a choice,’ Ba says. ‘He’s coming. I’ve bought the ticket.’
Dad doesn’t protest. ‘Try east-coast life on for size.’ He conjures a reassuring smile. My parents have always been a united front when it comes to Sydney, but I had an inkling Dad was open to the idea of me dropping out. ‘You never were built for school.’
Vindication. ‘Exactly!’
‘What time’s your flight?’ he asks.
‘How should I know?’
Dad sputters a laugh. He isn’t talking to me.
‘Soon,’ Ba calls.
‘Have you booked a taxi?’
No response. Dad raises both eyebrows. The silence perseveres.
‘I’ll drive you,’ he says eventually.
Ba is adamant. ‘You’re not driving us.’
Dad’s phone syncs the moment he starts the car. I dunno what song he’d choose to soundtrack the breakdown of his marriage, but a Nicki Minaj banger about starships and their propensity to fly probably ain’t it. I cackle before I can stop myself. Dad scrambles to kill the track.
‘You didn’t have to drive us,’ Ba insists. His voice sounds brittle.
Dad lets the indicator do the talking. Two ticks warn any oncoming cars, then he pulls out of the park.
The air in here is thick.
I watch the constant stream of streetlights, half-expecting Ba to renege on the break-up by the time we reach the Shell on Thomas Street. The right turn onto the freeway. Swan River. He holds firm.
They’re doing it. They’re finally doing it.
And I get Sydney.
I post a GIF in the group chat, this brick shithouse of a man accepting a gold medal. I tell them to pay up. Owen’s always tethered to his computer keyboard. He asks for details, then adjudicates my win. No school rules flaunted. No laws broken. Fifty dollars to my bank account.
It’s not how I pictured it, but I’m glad I’m slinking off into the night. Makes for an easier goodbye. No build-up. No half-slurred two a.m. speeches. No pretending we’re more than what we are. When I mute the group chat, I’m not twisted up about it. We’re not friends like that. They’re good fun. That’s all. They’ll react in the morning, then they’ll carry on, share memes, bitch about the usual teachers, and me not responding will become so normal, they won’t even notice when I quit the group.
At the airport, Ba can’t get out of the car fast enough. Dad says goodbye and asks me to text him when we land. I feel like I have to reassure him. I tell him Ba will come to his senses somewhere over South Australia.
‘That’s sweet of you to say.’
I yawn. The gentle rumble of the cabin is doing its thing. Only a matter of time before I’m dreaming. I look to Ba across the narrow aisle. We were assigned either side of an emergency exit row. I try to read his expression. He can be a ridiculous man and this is him at his most ridiculous. ‘Manure, huh?’ I ask.
He doesn’t face me. ‘It was more than that.’
But he won’t say.
He massages his bare ring finger. The cabin lights dim. He becomes a dark silhouette. And I catch myself feeling . . . Um. My parents are splitting up and I’m actually sad for them.
I let my eyes close and the rumble lulls me to sleep.
We Could Be Something
by Will Kostakis
A wonderful emotional rollercoaster of a novel about two young men, each on a journey of discovery. It's part coming-out story, part falling-in-love story, part relationship breakdown story, part extended Greek family story.
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