‘I’ve finished up with Old Steve,’ Rose said, sitting down next to her mother.
Sarah frowned. ‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘I know you said he was a struggle sometimes, but I thought you were going to stick with it.’ She gave her daughter a determined look. ‘Never mind, Rose – we’ll tighten our belts. I can cancel my subscription to Jolly Good Show … even though their top 200 TV series of the decade issue is next month …’ She trailed off.
‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ Rose said, ‘I’ve got a new job. On television!’
‘Oh Rose, I’m so proud of you!’ Sarah said, hugging her daughter. ‘Alan! Rose has got herself on television!’
‘Great,’ her dad said, strolling into the lounge room, ‘I heard they were building new sets for the upcoming season of … you know, that period drama with Dame … whatsername.’
‘It’s Dame Matilda Petersen,’ Sarah said, ‘and the show is called Macarthur’s Park. It’s really quite good.’
‘If you like local dramas,’ Alan said. ‘But good on you for getting a job there.’
‘I’m not working on Macarthur’s Park,’ Rose said. ‘I’m working on The Dock.’
‘Legal drama, is it?’ Alan said. ‘I don’t think I’ve heard of it.’
‘It’s not a drama,’ Rose said, ‘it’s a reality show.’
‘Reality?’ Alan said. ‘Is that like a documentary?’
Rose looked at her mum. Sarah’s face had gone deathly white. Rose reached out to her. ‘Mum?’
Sarah shrugged off her daughter’s touch. ‘Reality television,’ she hissed. ‘We raised you better than that.’
‘It’ll cover the rent,’ Rose said. ‘It’ll pay for the internet.’
‘I don’t care about those things,’ Sarah said.
Rose looked at her.
‘Okay, I do. But I care about you more. And the idea of you parading around on one of those trash shows, flaunting yourself, is –’
‘Mum! I’m not going to be a contestant.’
‘But what else is there to do on a show like that?’
‘I’m going to be helping out the contestants, behind the scenes. I’m not on-camera or anything.’
‘Well, that’s good news,’ Alan said, ‘we won’t have to make any awkward explanations down at Cinémathèque.’
‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s soap opera for dumb people.’
‘“Dumb people” is implied,’ Alan said.
‘Well, I’m sick of sharpening nails and pretending it’s going anywhere,’ Rose said hotly. ‘Why am I the only one in this family who worries about paying the bills?’
‘We all try our best,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s not our fault the personal essay is dead.’
‘Not to mention the rampant casualisation of academia,’ Alan said.
‘And the massive cutbacks to review sections in both broadsheets and tabloids.’
‘I get the idea,’ Rose said. ‘I’m sorry your careers have flatlined. But it’s this kind of “shit” job that’s going to keep this family in takeaway food.’
‘Takeaway sounds like a great idea,’ Alan said. ‘Rose’s new job calls for a celebration.’
Rose gestured to the coffee table, where the boxes of food were laid out. ‘One step ahead of you, Dad.’
Her parents cheered, and rushed the table like starving hyenas. Hearing the commotion, Renton burst into the room. For people who did nothing all day, they sure seemed to have worked up an appetite. Rose barely had time to hand out the plastic forks before her family descended on the food.
Defeated, Rose picked up the pad thai – the only dish left after everyone else had served themselves. ‘So, what’s been happening here?’ she said in a last-ditch attempt at conversation.
‘Big day today,’ said Alan. ‘Did you see the STIFF lineup announcement?’
‘Did I!’ Sarah replied. ‘What is it with all these white American male actors thinking they’re directors now? Retire, bitch!’
‘I see slow-cinema auteur Yuan Yang-yu’s latest effort is on the list,’ Renton said. ‘More like Yawn Yawn-yawn.’
‘Oh, you’ll like this, Renton,’ Alan said, scrolling through his phone, ‘they’re showing a “vengeance film”! This time they’re killing paedophile vets who molest baby animals.’
Renton shrugged. ‘Already downloaded it. Gave it two-and-a-half poo-splosions on Backed-Up Toilet.com. Of course, over at my other review site, Best Movie of the Year, I said it was the best movie of the year.’
‘What about Sharks Don’t Sleep at Night? They say it’s a stunning contemporary fairytale that does for the Pacific Trash Gyre what Orson Welles did for Californian wines.’
Rose stood up. ‘I’m going to leave you guys to it.’
‘But Rose, there’s a Mnmskmo retrospective!’ Sarah said. ‘They’re showing The Hand that Holds the Hammer. You loved that film when you were a kid!’
‘Sounds good, Mum. Depends when it’s on.’
As she padded back down the hall, she heard her father’s voice: ‘Thanks for dinner.’
Rose smiled to herself.
‘And don’t forget the gas bill’s due on Wednesday.’
Rose stopped smiling.
‘And the internet,’ Renton added. ‘It’s meant to be an unlimited plan, but the dark web really burns through the gigs.’
They were still talking when she closed her bedroom door behind her.
Sitting on her bed to finish her tepid pad thai, Rose tried to push down her frustration. She hadn’t meant to end up the family breadwinner at age twenty two. And her parents hadn’t always been this poor. When she was growing up, they’d made a decent living from freelance cultural criticism. But now, the market for their kind of waffle had dried up. They often complained that society didn’t recognise their genius, but from what Rose could tell, there just wasn’t any money in writing 3000-word diatribes about the need for more Transformers of colour.
They hadn’t neglected Rose, exactly. She’d received an excellent humanities-based education. But Rose had a practical mind and a bent for problem-solving. From an early age, it became clear she just wasn’t temperamentally suited to the arts industry. For instance, when they’d all watched Pink Floyd’s The Wall together, Rose – who was eight – had made the mistake of saying she liked the wall.
‘No,’ Alan had gasped, ‘walls are bad!’
‘D’you want to be just another brick?’ said Renton.
‘But I like walls,’ Rose had insisted. ‘They hold up the ceiling, so the books don’t get wet.’
Now, she opened her computer. Renton’s torrent was still in progress. She thought about stopping it, but it wasn’t worth the stink he’d kick up later on. She texted Nicola – can u talk?
She still wasn’t sure of the time difference; how late was it in Tokyo? Nicola had travelled to Japan six months ago for a working holiday teaching English, and Rose really missed her best friend. Nicola was meant to be back by now, but she’d been