Please Forgive Me

1

The scorching Australian summer is all but over in Adelaide, yet the long hot days of March remain stifling. Days like these, I'm glad to be inside the air-conditioned lecture theatre, listening to Scott Williams drone on about social injustice in developing countries. Despite the topic, it's better to be at university than in the old miner's cottage I rent with Nick, where we have no air-conditioning and only a couple of pedestal fans to cool us.

When I think back to the day Nick and I got the keys to the rental, all I remember was how excited we were. Two kids, barely out of high school moving out of home and making a life together. We felt so grown up. Little did we know how much being "grown ups" would change us. In our stubbornness we didn't bother to invite either of our parents to view the house, so we didn't think to look out for things like air-conditioning, a leaking roof, crappy water pressure and peeling paint. Of course, we were just excited that the realtor chose us to take over the lease, so we figured we could compromise. Some things have been easier to acclimatise to than others.

It's the heating and cooling that really affects us. This past summer, when the first of the heat waves hit and the mercury rose into the high thirties, Nick bragged to his band mates about how cool the house was staying. The thick double brick walls of the 1882 built cottage acted as insulation to begin with, locking in the cool air. But by the fourth consecutive day of heat, when all of the leaves on the Japanese Maple in our front yard turned a crisp orange and fell to the ground, unable to withstand the harsh Adelaide summer, the double brick insulation turned against us. Suddenly instead of keeping the heat out, it was trapping it in.

I tried everything to make our sleepless nights more bearable. I would soak four hand towels in water and then place them in the freezer for an hour before we went to bed, so we could sleep with the cold compress covering our overheating heads and chests.

I bought cheap pedestal fans and set them up a foot away from the bed. We kept them running during the day when we were home and all night, in the hope that they would circulate the air enough to cool the room down. In those long, hot days there was no breeze, no cool air to relieve us, so the heat would simply be pushed around the room becoming stale and dry. I'd toss and turn in bed, kicking off the sheets only to be harassed by the constant buzzing of a mosquito that had found its way through an open window and was determined to draw blood from every exposed limb on my body. So if not the heat, the niggling itches would fuel my restlessness.

I'm expecting it'll be like that at home tonight. The house has few windows, which are blocked by iron security bars allowing only a small crack of an opening for little breeze to come through; meaning that even when the weather does cool down, it will take twice as long for the house to cool than it did to heat.

"This is possibly the most boring lecture I've ever come to." Tabitha leans into me as she whispers behind her notebook. We're at the back of the lecture hall, so it's unlikely that Williams will notice us chatting, but I lower my voice to respond.

"I know, and I really need to leave early. I have a shift at The Edge tonight." I glance at my watch calculating how long it might take me to walk from the Adelaide university campus to The Edge; a small dive of a cafe-cum-bar just off Hindley Street where I work nights, in order to pay my half of the rent and bills with Nick.

"Do you think Williams will notice if I sneak out?"

Tabitha looks up from the notepad she has been casually doodling in rather than taking notes, drawing swirls that climb out from each corner of the page. Her eyes wander around the huge lecture theatre and she shakes her head.

"You'll be fine, I'll note down anything important."

I raise an eyebrow and motion to her notepad. We both smirk knowing its unlikely she'll start noting anything of value down now. Her focus has almost entirely shifted to tracing those vine-like inky swirls down the margin of her page. I silently pack my notepad, pen and Intergovernmental Relations and Public Policy text book into my satchel and creep along the row of seats, careful not to disturb anyone or make noise.