The skylight windows in the meeting room are open. The two men start their presentation. I don’t hear their voices because I’m listening to other things, like children in the playground on Ziegelofengasse. It’s eight stories below but it’s spring and the air is still. They're all the same, these presentations.
***
I think about the drive I do sometimes to see my brother-in-law. It’s a long drive east to a concrete city. Six or seven hours; five hundred kilometres on motorway; another couple of hundred on country roads. The further east I get on this drive, the fewer cars and trucks there are. Sometimes, it’s like I’m the only one. When I look in the rear view and there’s nothing back there, I start to think I’ve caused an accident and I’m the only one that made it through. On the fence posts are big raptors. Just sat there. Looking out over the fields for a rabbit or a hare. I’m screaming by, but they’re sat still. Mute. Maybe jerking a head a little; plucking at a feather. Around half way, I leave the motorway and drive through a city. All slow, stop-starts. I open the window and smell the river. Back on the motorway, there’s a place I pass. A small town over to the left. Every time I pass, I want to stay there. Rent some room. It’s the last hour or so I like most. A long, single carriageway. I don’t care if I get stuck behind some old truck. My wife is probably thinking hurry up, let’s get there for god’s sake. There are flat plains now. Long freight and passenger trains in the distance. I pass stations with whole families on the platform. Waiting with suitcases. Every few kilometres there’s a village. On a Saturday afternoon there’ll be men in leather jackets with bags of beer and girls all done up and stray dogs. It goes on and on, this road. Maybe my boy will say he’s bored. This is the furthest thing from boring, I say. This is the time to do your thinking. When we get there, there’ll be no time to think. Hello Anthony, I’ll say. Hello Jones, Anthony will say. Let me help you with those bags.
***
The two men are eleven minutes into their presentation. I look at them for the first time. They’re young, nice-looking. Not like me.
***
A few Sundays ago, while I was sat in the yard with my boy, I lied to him. It was cold, but the sun was shining. It was much-needed sun because the winters here are hard. I told my boy I was a writer. Maybe it was because of the sun. It just seemed OK.
***
I look at the two men again; the two boys. Their presentation must be half done. They speak quietly and they’re respectful. The woman next to me, she whispers in my ear: I’m glad I came. They’re very handsome. They’ve dressed up for this meeting. They look like I used to. The shorter of the two, his suit jacket is too big. And where his shirt buttons at the neck, the gap is too wide. Why do you want to work for us, some one asks them? And it’s the same question I’d like to ask because these boys seem like good, ordinary people. My boss likes them. I can tell they’ve won the work.
***
I leave my desk just before five thirty. The outside air is the sweetest smell. The quicker I walk to the station, the more time I get to drink my beer at Orlak’s. It’s right next to the station, Orlak's. I’ve done alright tonight; I’ve got thirteen and a half minutes to drink my beer. The older waiter greets me. At the bar the tall one asks me if it’s a large beer and I say yes and pay, like I always do. I’m standing at the bar. Sometimes I read for six or seven minutes, but mostly I just stand. I watch the chef with the moustache have a smoke. I nod goodbye. I have less than two minutes to catch the S40 to Tulln.
***
I sit opposite a dark haired woman and take out my newspaper. I start reading a story about an art dealer. Another woman sits down opposite. They know each other, her and the dark haired woman. They talk. The new woman, she keeps saying mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It’s a clear, strong sound. People make of you what you make of yourself. I go back to my newspaper and read how this art dealer has built his own gallery. There’s this one sentence. It says that deferring responsibility is his principal gripe, this art dealer. Deferring responsibility. He explains how, in his gallery, in an ‘unmarked’ toilet cubicle, visitors can see exactly how shit happens by watching their sphincters release waste through a four-way mirror. We spend too much time hiding from ourselves, the art dealer says. How do so many people remove themselves from what they do, he says?
***
I'm home. I walk through the yard and open the front door. My boy says something over and over. My wife tells me what it is. It’s pirate speak. I hold him up to the mirror, my boy, and he has this smile that he can’t stop from happening. I put my face in his neck. But then my wife calls bath time, so I put him down. It’s quiet in the kitchen. I open some letters and put them aside without reading. I spoon food from a saucepan onto a plate. In the dining room, I light a candle, pour wine and take out my book. There’s a passage in my book; not even a passage. A small phrase. Hardly a sentence. Cowering in the darkness, it says.
***
It’s morning and I’m on the train again. I look at the river. It’s here every night and every morning. If you catch it right, it’s the same colour as the sky. Now it’s flat and calm. And I think what does the river care what I’ve done?
