Read Online Less Than Perfect by Ber Carroll - Free Book Online Page B

that I could see myself staying in for longer than a few months. I found friends who were more than just drinking buddies.
    Those first few years have morphed into a decade, ten whole years since that final scene in my father’s office and everything that had gone before. The pain and loss and grief have reduced exponentially with each passing year, and now Clonmegan’s just an ache deep inside me, so far embedded that I’ve learned to live with it and carry it around as I go about my life. Time is like a winter morning’s mist, shrouding my memories of the dormered house where I spent the first eighteen years of my life; the bedroom I shared with Maeve, with its sloping roof and lavender-coloured walls, their exact shade becoming murky with the passing of time; the specific dimensions of the other rooms in the house, the ornaments on the mantelpiece, the pictures hanging on the walls and other small details, hazy and distorted; the smell of rain in the air, the sagging skies, the bright green grass in the garden. But some things I choose not to even try to remember, because I fear that my memories won’t be blurred at all, but all too vivid to cope with.
    Strangers often smile and ask where my accent’s from.
    â€˜Ireland,’ I respond with a reciprocating smile yet a touch of brevity in my voice.
    Sometimes they persevere. ‘What part of Ireland?’
    â€˜The North.’
    At this, the subject is quickly dropped. Australians are too polite to talk about religion or politics, and the North of Ireland involves both.
    I walk on, past more pubs and people, and though I’m tired and feeling the effects of all the alcohol, I’m buoyed by a sense of happiness and belonging. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than in this city. I love its diversity, its beat. I love the ever-present and eclectic smells of food, the labyrinth of hidden laneways and alleys, the blend of old and new, east and west. It’s easy to become lost in Melbourne, to be sucked so far into its way of life that you forget who you are and where you come from. And that’s what I like the best.

Chapter 9
    I yawn deeply as I wait for the tram. It’s early on Monday morning, only 7 am, but there’s a sizeable crowd waiting at the stop. Most of them are dressed like me in business suits and sunglasses, and hold fresh coffees in their hands. It’s a beautiful morning in St Kilda, neither hot nor cold. The sun is coming up behind the skyline and when its full force is unleashed the temperature will rise to the high twenties.
    The tram appears in the distance, covered in advertising pictures and slogans. Coffees are slugged back, empty paper cups tossed into a nearby rubbish bin. Handbags are unzipped and tickets located. The tram rocks in and the crowd, primed and impatient, surges forward to greet it.
    I find standing space, smile at a man and woman who are so close it would be rude not to acknowledge them, and the tram takes off, gliding, clunking and squeaking. This never feels likea journey to work. Sometimes I feel like a kid on one of those trackless trains at the zoo, or a tourist, gazing single-mindedly at the passing scenery as though I’ve never seen it before. There’s something very basic and unpretentious about riding on the tram: hanging on to keep your balance, the jerky cornering after smooth stretches, the claustrophobic lack of space. But there’s something cosmopolitan and urbane about it too: whirring through the streets to the heart of the city, standing close to strangers and seeing the colour of their eyes and the pores of their skin, and feeling as though you are part of the city rather than merely an onlooker.
    I get off at Collins Street and walk towards my office, falling in step with other striding commuters. The women wear tailored clothes, pencil skirts, fitted dresses and straight-leg trousers, mostly in black. Black is the unofficial uniform, the common