Sum’s endlessly interesting,so there’s no small talk. She’ll be silent for 20 minutes and then come out with some bizarre,philosophical question like,“What if New Zealand suddenly banned all meat?” She’s a funny,mysterious person – someone you’d meet at a party and follow all night asking questions.
She found a dead rat in the backyard and just taxidermied it. I came home one day and she had gloves on,a jazz record playing,and an inside-out rat on the dining table. I was repulsed,but I loved it as well – this idea that you never really know the person you love.
I have lots of little compulsions and nervous tics and she just doesn’t care. She supports me 100 per cent and pulls me up when I’m being a jerk. I’ve never felt anyone knows me as much as she does – and she still agrees to stay with me. That’s such a gift.
SUMMER: It’s great at parties when there’s a quiet moment and someone says,“How did you guys meet?” It was a strange environment working in that porn place. It’s pretty dark when you’re watching that stuff that gets cut out,so we had to have a jokey,silly atmosphere in the edit suite. We were very honest with each other,so I knew all his grossest stories,even before we got together. I’d never been good friends with someone before drunkenly pashing them,so that first three months when you’re your best self? We didn’t have that.
He’s got the kind of personality you’re drawn to. That warm friendliness is who he is;it’s how he wakes up in the morning. He’s just a genuinely nice person. We’ve created this thing where it’s like,“I’ve got a relationship request. Can you not do this?” And he’s like,“Yep. Okay.” He’s an absolute treat to live with.
Christian’s the biggest animal lover. When we got our greyhound and found out she has separation anxiety five years ago,it wasn’t even a question of whether we should leave her at home and let her suffer. It was,well,let’s just bring her everywhere. He treats her like a newborn baby and even gets up in the middle of the night to put her jumper on.
The only other person I’ve seen as passionate about writing is my dad.The Nowhere Child will always hold a place in my heart because it was the first novel of Christian’s I read. It was gripping;I missed my tram stop multiple times. And it was such a relief that it was good – I didn’t have to lie.
The week his book came out,I think I saw him more on television than I did in person. It was like,what’s happening? Since then we’ve had to renavigate our relationship. The change in status was jarring because working in creative fields you get so used to hearing “no” – and then his no’s suddenly became yeses. And I had to share him with all these strangers. He wasn’t just mine anymore.
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When you succeed that quickly,you inevitably become someone else. You go from people googling your name and nothing coming up,to being the top hit;you’re someone new. It was “Okay,this is who I’m married to” – not a guy who writes every morning and then goes to work in a bottle shop.
It’s a confusing mix of pride with envy and jealousy. Do I wish I had his life? Yeah,sometimes I definitely do. I felt a bit left behind,like,we’re both down in the trenches – you can’t get promoted. He’s incredibly humble – he wasn’t a dick at all – he just couldn’t understand my point of view. But we figured it out.
He’s taught me how to admit I’m wrong. That’s been the biggest change in me since our relationship and I guess that’s humility. He’s taught me that it feels better to not be right sometimes.
We get into bad habits where we watch reality TV shows every night –Love Island,the American version of The Bachelor. We go full trash. Companionship is the biggest thing I get out of our relationship;I feel like I have a partner in crime all the time. Which is why it was so jarring when the dynamics changed – I was so scared I would lose that.
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