Have a read of my short story ‘Art and the Mermaid’ first published in Quadrant Magazine. ‘Art and the Mermaid’ and is one of the stories in my collection ‘Stories from Bondi’ (Ginninderra Press), a series of stories set in Bondi Beach.
I hope you enjoy it.
Art and the Mermaid:
Once upon a time it came to pass, so it is said, that an enormous storm swept the coast of New South Wales, doing extensive damage to the ocean beaches – destroying jetties, breakwaters and washing away retaining walls. Mountainous seas swept Bondi Beach and dashed against the cliffs carrying ruin with every roller. At North Bondi near Ben Buckler a huge submerged block of sandstone weighing 233 tons was lifted ten feet and driven 160 feet to the edge of the cliff where it remains to this day.
One day a Sydney sculptor, Lyall Randolph, looked upon the rock and was inspired. The sculptor was a dreamer. Let us, he said, have two beautiful mermaids to grace the boulder. Using two Bondi women as models he cast the two mermaids in fibreglass and painted them in gold.
Without Council approval and at his own expense he erected The Mermaids for all to see on the giant rock that had been washed up by the sea. The Mermaids sat side by side on the rock. One shaded her eyes as she scanned the ocean and the other leant back in a relaxed fashion with an uplifted arm sweeping her hair up at the back of her neck. Their fishy tails complemented the curves and crevices of their bodies.
It so happened that less than a month after The Mermaids were put in place, one was stolen and damaged. The Council held many meetings to decide if she should be replaced using ratepayers’ money. The council had previously objected to the sculptor placing the statues there without Council permission. The sculptor had argued that before placing The Mermaids in position he had taken all necessary steps to obtain the requisite permission.
The large boulder at Ben Buckler, upon which The Mermaids were securely bolted and concreted, he said, is not in the municipality of Waverley at all. It is in the sea. According to the Australian Constitution high-tide mark is the defined limit of the Waverley Council’s domain. The Maritime Services Board and the Lands Department both advised me they had no objection to the erection of The Mermaids.
One Waverley Alderman said he wished both mermaids had been taken instead of only one. Someone else said the sculptor didn’t need the Council’s permission to put them there in the first place and the The Mermaids had given Bondi a great attraction without any cost to the Council. The sculptor said The Mermaids had brought great publicity to the Council. They had been featured in films, newspapers, television and the National Geographic magazine.
The Mayor used his casting vote in favour of the mermaid and she was re-installed.
For over ten years the two beautiful golden mermaids reclined at Ben Buckler, attracting many thousands of sightseers to the beach.
Poised on the huge boulder they braved the driving storms of winter until one day one was washed off. The Council saw its opportunity and removed the other.
Today, only the remnants of one mermaid remain – but not on the rock. In a glass cabinet in Waverley Library at Bondi Junction all that is left of the two beautiful mermaids is a figure with half a face. There’s a hole instead of a cheek, a dismembered torso, part of an uplifted arm, the tender groove of an armpit. And there, down below, a complete fish’s tail.
Have a read of my short story, ”Jean-Pierre’, first published in Quadrant Magazine. It’s one of the stories in my collection ‘Stories from Bondi‘ (Ginninderra Press).
I hope you enjoy it.
Jean-Pierre
This was in a far distant land. There were Pilates classes but no surfing beaches or vegan restaurants. People said to hell with low-fat diets and tiny portions. Charles, who had wanted her to hire his friend Jean-Pierre as tour guide, had encouraged her in yoga class. ‘Look, Zina, you’re a facilitator—you’ve been running those groups—for what—thirty years?’
‘Only twenty, for goodness sake.’ She had turned forty-nine and frowned at him upside down between the legs of a downward facing dog. She had a face marked by the sun, a face left to wrinkle and form crevasses by years of smoking, a face made shiny by the application of six drops of jojoba oil, although the shop girl had recommended she use only three. ‘I love that word facilitator. It says so much.’
‘Twenty. All right. This guy’s not at all your type. He’s a numbers man. He shows tourists around in between Engineering contracts. He can show you how to buy a bus or a train ticket, how to withdraw money out of the wall—get your bearings. You can hire him for half a day. Or, in your case, half a day and half the night.’
‘Very funny,’ she said, stifling a laugh. Now they were on all fours arching their backs like cats, then flattening their spines to warm up the discs. Indian chanting music took your mind off the fact that the person behind you was confronted with your broad derriere. ‘So what’s the story with Jean-Pierre?’
‘Someone I met at a conference in Monaco,’ said Charles on an out-breath. ‘Large-yacht communications. He’s charismatic, let me tell you.’ Charles dyed his hair and beard a rich brown, and in yoga class it stood on end to reveal a circle of grey at the crown. He had paid many visits to this far away country since he started learning the language. She’d never had the courage to have a go herself. She knew how to say good morning, Madame every time she walked into a shop, how to ask for the bill, how to say please and thank you. What else did you need? Charles had moved on to German classes and was planning a trip to Berlin with his wife. They were even taking their two kids. Toledo and Paris they called them.
‘Look, you’re going to the land of endless rail strikes,’ Charles said. ‘You’ll need Jean-Pierre, or you’ll be stranded on train platforms, not knowing what to do or where to go.’
‘Come on now. You’re such an exaggerator. They’re not always on strike.’
They lay on their backs, legs wide open in the air in a happy baby pose. ‘All right, I suppose so,’ she said. ‘You can give me his email address.’
‘I love croissants and baguettes and all of that,’ said Charles, sighing over his shoulder.
The yoga instructor was walking around the room, checking out their poses and had reached the back row. ‘Focus inwards, be in the moment,’ he reprimanded Zina and Charles.
‘Let the soles of your feet reach for the ceiling,’ he said before returning to the stage to demonstrate the cosmic egg. He eased his face between his thighs. ‘Now bury your eye sockets into your kneecaps.’
‘I’m not trying to fix you up with JP,’ Charles whispered. ‘I really hate that kind of thing.’ He twinkled across at her.
‘Lift your hips high off the mat and boom your heart toward the back wall.’
Jean-Pierre was still charismatic, and, on close examination, was still handsome. About sixty, with a splendid head of hair. His face was persuasive, his forehead, his large nose. They ate croissants at Cosmo, the busiest café in the village. She drank green tea infused with fresh mint, the leaves determined to block the spout of the tea pot. Jean-Pierre sipped on an espresso.
He nodded at her tea. ‘English,’ he said with a note of barely disguised distain. ‘The English drink tea.’
She bristled. A racist. A narrow-minded, insular, arrogant racist.
She looked at his intense face as he stroked the black and white head of his dog who peeped out above the zip of his jacket and felt sorry for his preconceptions and a little sorry for herself when she reflected on it, because, really, he seemed to know very little about Australia. Do you have black Africans living off social security? Poor Jean-Pierre didn’t know an African from an Aborigine.
‘No, green tea is not English,’ she said haughtily, giving him the evil-eye, to show him, to show him this: ‘Green tea originated in China.’
Madame?’ said the waiter, reaching for her empty plate.
‘Merci,’ she nodded.
‘Did you fly Business?’ Jean-Pierre said abruptly. ‘Such a long flight from Australia.’
‘Economy. I’m a poor struggling facilitator.’
‘You have to get out there and promote your courses. Then you can fly Business.’
‘We don’t all do things just for the money.’
Jean-Pierre looked down the narrow cobbled pedestrian-only street. ‘There are two things you must watch out for here,’ he said. ‘The motor bikes … and the dog pooh.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, then, trying to be friendly. ‘In New York they say you can tell the tourists from the locals because the tourists are the ones looking up at the skyscrapers and the locals are the ones looking down for the dog pooh.’
He twisted the gold band that girded the blowsy fat of his finger. ‘I was married to a New York lawyer once. Very clever. She read four books a week. I read only one a month. Are you married?’
‘Not currently.’
‘My son speaks four languages,’ said Jean-Pierre. ‘My mother likes to say that anyone can get a Masters, but if you’ve got four languages—rather than three—you’ll be a success in life. I’ve only got three. What about you? Any children?’
Eli had stayed at her place for the week just before she left home. He’d sat in the lounge room, eyes fixed to his iPad. She would sometimes watch on as he played a combat game. He’d build a village, train his troops and take them into battle. She would watch his face deep in concentration, so focused he seemed unable to hear when she asked him to set the table, or unstack the dishwasher. She didn’t like the every-second-week-deal with his father, so disruptive to getting a routine in place. Eli would come with her to the gym sometimes, or they’d go for a jog around the oval. It’s not as if his father did any of those things. She did her best: drove Eli to cricket and footie, helped with his homework, listened whenever he was willing to talk, always made sure there was meat in the house when it was her week “on”. Eli said to her, ‘When you and Dad were together, we always ate with the TV turned off. Now you’re divorced, you and me can eat dinner in front of the tele if we feel like it. Much better.’
‘Yes,’ she said to Jean-Pierre. ‘I have a son.’
‘It’s different in this country. We’re Catholics. We don’t usually divorce. Not when there are children. Are you a Catholic?’
‘No.’
‘Religious?’
‘Spiritual, but not religious. We could do with less religion in the world, in my opinion. Why?’
‘I was going to suggest I show you the island of Saint Honorat off Antibes, but tourists only go there in order to see the sacred abbey. The thing is, I grew up in Antibes. I know it like the back of my hand. I could hire a car and we can drive to different parts that the tourists don’t see. We can spend a few hours in Antibes, then, after that, if you want, we can have lunch. What do you think?’
‘What would it cost?’
‘Well, there’s the cost of the car, then my time. So … all up, 180 euros.
‘I’ll give it some thought.’
Jean-Pierre lowered his dog to the ground, reached for his wallet, pulled out a ten euro note and placed it on the edge of the table for the waiter.
She unzipped her handbag to pay her share but he patted her on the arm and said proudly, ‘No. No. Put your money away. I’m a Frenchman.’
The second time they met up, they went for a walk into Nice via the foreshore. It was a difficult walk. Eighty sets of steps interspersed with slippery limestone rocks. When she asked why the gate was locked at the end of the walk, necessitating a dangerous climb over a high fence on the edge of a cliff, Jean-Pierre said the authorities probably kept the gate locked because they didn’t want tourists getting washed off the rocks at high tide. It wasn’t a good look.
Now he wanted to have lunch at the Port.
‘Where do you like to eat?’ she asked. She was still thinking about the climb over the gate, when she’d been so afraid that she wouldn’t be able to get her leg high enough and would crash to an early death on the rocks below. She’d needed to sit on the stone wall to compose herself afterwards. It was Jean-Pierre who had acknowledged her courage, had said she’d done well, that she’d even looked graceful when she’d executed the tricky maneuver and swung herself out into the void before throwing herself over the top. Before they’d left on the walk he’d told her he hadn’t followed the coastline into Nice for a long time, and was really looking forward to walking it again. He wouldn’t be charging her his usual hourly rate, as it was something he’d been wanting to do for ages. ‘My wife kept me on a tight leash.’
‘There are plenty of places to eat at the Port,’ he said. They walked down the hill and he leaned in and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. ‘You did well,’ he repeated. She blushed with embarrassment at the intimacy of his gesture. She’d only just met him, after all. And anyway, she was no good at relationships. There were people she knew who were good at them and people who weren’t. She was no good.
‘What sort of restaurant do you like to lunch at back home?’ he said.
‘We mostly don’t have a big meal in the middle of the day.’
‘No? What do you do?’
‘Well, um, we usually jog around the park, then stand in line to order large skimmed lattes.’
‘Ah,’ he said, and put his hand over hers where it rested on the table. She felt her hand go still like a frightened animal. Jean-Pierre’s hand was rough and warm as it lay over hers. Maybe she shouldn’t have drunk two beers in the middle of the day.
On Saturday afternoon Jean-Pierre took her and a group of American tourists by ferry to an old island prison. ‘You’ll find this place worth a visit,’ he said, as they waited on the wharf. ‘An infamous jail for deportees, prisoners convicted of political crimes, such as espionage or conspiracy.’
‘Interesting,’ she said, stepping across the gangplank. She sat down beside Jean-Pierre at the front of the boat. The four American couples filed down to the back row of seats. ‘We can throw Smarties at you from here,’ one of them joked.
Jean-Pierre tapped on her sunshade. ‘You won’t need this. It’s dark in the cells.’ He pulled a map out of his pocket and opened it out, pointing to the layout of the buildings. ‘The locations of the public toilets,’ he said. ‘That’s what every tour guide needs to know.’ He folded up his map and put it in his breast-pocket. ‘I want to give you a quick kiss now, before we get into one of those dark cells,’ he said. ‘I won’t be able to see you in there.’ He turned towards her, and suddenly his face, up very close, appeared at the end of her nose, floating, as she leant against the back of the seat. He shut his eyes and kissed her, soft and probing, and she kept her sunshade on for privacy, lips, mouth, teeth and tongue, his hand moving very slowly up her arm, up to her shoulder and to her bare neck, and hovered there for only a moment, cradling her face, before he moved away, straightened his trousers, and quietly pulled out his map again.
She adjusted herself and stared out the window to the water. Jean-Pierre gave the signal that they were nearing their destination and to prepare for disembarkation.
‘We don’t do things like that in Sydney,’ murmured Zina. She refreshed her lipstick.
‘No?’ Jean-Pierre grinned and levelled out her visor.
‘No, it’s um, all those coffees. You just keep running. Forever and ever. You spend your whole life,’ her hands juggled an imaginary Tai Chi ball—‘on the run.’
Well-kept concrete walkways led up, over and around the island’s hill. Jean-Pierre steered them through a rustic entrance to the old prison complex.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘we come to that part of our tour most likely to give you claustrophobia. The Reclusion Disciplinaire area.’
They stepped up and through a narrow hallway toward the low, dark solitary confinement cells.
‘This is where prisoners were kept in silence and darkness,’ Jean-Pierre was saying. He led the way into the dark of the single-person cells. ‘You won’t be able to see a thing in there.’
She squinted ahead at the front of the group, which had now gathered by the doorway. It looked scary. She took off her sunglasses and shade, but could see nothing as she stepped in. The blackness lay heavily all around, not like a moonless sky, but like a creepy cupboard with stone walls and low roof, a stone tomb. There was something inhuman in the cruelty of the space, a place where the light never shone, hidden, despair-inducing.
‘I’m right behind you,’ Jean-Pierre said, moving close, ‘in case you’re frightened.’ He gave her hand a squeeze, then placed his arm around her waist. She could smell his after-shave—or was it cologne?—feel the warmth of his breath on her neck, and leaned, unseeing and anxious, into his body. She reached for his arm and clutched at his hand where it rested on her waist.
***
When they went to bed together, she almost broke into joyous laughter. He’d drawn her in without even trying. His face, his voice, his eyes. It was a whole-package thing. He made her feel so special. He was more appreciative than anyone she had ever known. He hugged and kissed and even offered to go downstairs and get her cigarettes out of her handbag.
He got out of bed and went over to the piano. He fumbled with some sheet music in the semi-dark, holding each up to the light until he found what he wanted.
‘I play this sometimes,’ he said, in a quiet voice. ‘It starts with a single note, a B natural, growing in dynamic from a soft pianissimo to a very loud fortissimo.’ She listened as he played the one note, building up to full strength. Who was this guy?
When he’d finished, he turned to her and said, ‘Especially for you. I use my music to express my feelings.’
They made love again. Once more he got out of bed and sat beneath the black and white photograph of himself with his mother and his brother. He began to play. After a while he stopped playing and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. When he returned he wore the hand towel looped over his erect penis. She rolled over to have a look and kissed him, his face glowing with pride.
Morning. The bakeries were laying out their breads and pastries filling the air with the mouth-watering aroma of freshly baked baguettes. In the antique shop windows, as the sun struck them, the cleaners hosed the cobbled alleys. Jean-Pierre rose early and walked to the boulangerie.
He laid the breakfast out on a tray and brought it in to her in bed. Outside the window, the sky was a clear faded blue, and patches of sun, geometric designs of light, streaked the doona. He put the tray on the bed, and she sat up and stroked his face, his skin still chilled from the morning air. She pointed at the pain au chocolat.
‘So I need to forget about the diet?’
‘Oui.’ His mouth was already filled with pastry, chocolate oozing between his lips. ‘It’s good for you. Don’t you know that the flour in this country is so good, and so different, that even gluten-intolerant people can eat the bread and quiches?’
Her workshops, as she wrote to Eli back home, were going well. She’d managed to book a space in an old 16th century Citadel overlooking the Mediterranean. And she’d made a new friend. Something had happened to her in an old isolation cell, she didn’t know what exactly. But she had to get back home. I hope you and Dad are getting on okay and he hasn’t had any more nasty blow-ups. It’s a mild winter here. Some people are even swimming and sunbaking on the beach. Love, Mum
They went on the bus to visit his mother, the music of Bach on a score above his head. In Bach there was not only symmetry and logic but more, a system, a reiteration which everything hinged on. His hair was uncombed. His face had the modesty, the unpretentious lips of someone secretly able to calculate the frequencies of the string vibrations. His mother met him at the door and took his dark face in her hands. She stepped back to see better.
‘Your hair,’ she said.
He combed it down with his fingers. His brother came from the kitchen to embrace him.
‘Where have you been?’ he cried.
At night Jean-Pierre began to sleep with one hand resting on her solar plexus, the other curled around her shoulder, as if to shield her from bad dreams.
When she slept against him like that, her life on the other side of the world crumpled into her backpack that hung on a hook behind the door. Could she live the rest of her life in a far-away-country? Maybe she could. Except for that funny feeling in the pit of her. Like a rock in the guts.
On Sunday morning Jean-Pierre took her for a walk up to Mont Baron. ‘You’ll love the view from the old Fort,’ he said. ‘You can see Italy to the left and Nice to the right.’
‘Sounds wonderful!’ she said, closing the door behind them. They climbed the steep steps that led up the hill. The sky was gold with light.
‘Why don’t you come with me to Australia?’ she said.
‘I don’t think so.’
She listened to the sound of water over rocks.
‘No?’ she said.
He was silent. After a moment he said, ‘I can’t.’
She began to imagine she could hear the sound of a kookaburra laughing.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I think I should stay here with you.’ She reached for his hand.
‘No, you can’t. I can see you phoning Eli to tell him you’d decided to stay and him crying, No, Mummy. Come home.’
‘You know us Australians,’ she said, suddenly desperate. ‘We’re like boomerangs. We keep on coming back.’
She went into the bedroom to change her clothes. He started to follow her but sat down again instead. He could hear intermittent, familiar sounds, drawers opening and being shut, stretches of silence. It was as if she were packing.
‘Are you really leaving on Saturday?’ he said.
‘What did you say?’
‘Saturday. Is that it then?’
‘Why don’t you come with me?’
‘I could never live in a country with no European history. But I’ll surprise you one day. I’ll ring Eli early and ask what beach you’re walking on and I’ll just turn up on the sand.’
During that last day she thought of nothing but Jean-Pierre as she packed and cleaned out her little apartment.
‘What do you do, you have a stopover in Dubai?’ Jean-Pierre said, standing next to her at the taxi rank in the early morning chill. A bitter wind blew from the mountains. He had come over to carry her bag down the stairs.
‘I go straight through. It’s three hours on the ground in Dubai, so I walk around the airport then read my book.’
Jean-Pierre looked directly into her eyes. ‘I’ve bought you a little gift,’ he said.
‘You have?’
‘Don’t unwrap it until you’re on the plane.’
She smiled. ‘Okay.” Then she looked at his face, to place him clearly in her mind. He was wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans under a padded coat. She kissed him on the lips, then got into the taxi.
‘Something to take with you,’ he said, leaning in the window. In his hand he clasped a small gift-wrapped box. The sun, still low on the horizon, cast an amber glow on his precious face.
‘Thank you,’ she said. She reached for his hand through the window and then put on her seatbelt.
And she thought about this all twenty-four hours of the journey across the Indian Ocean. She would keep opening the little box to admire the marquisite earrings he’d given her. She would catch a taxi from the airport and at home notice the house smelt musty; she would open all the doors and windows to let the air move through, the curtains blowing and air coming in and out. From a far-away-place, and at night, he would ring to say, resignedly, ‘My mother is living with me now.’ His gift, when she’d take the earrings out of their black box, would remind her of something that had happened to her once.
She felt like someone who she had always known, that old friend of herself, grounded in home, decisions already made, and behind her somewhere, like the shadow of an identical twin, her other self, who must remain in the far-off distance, never to be exposed to the light.
Have a read of my short story, ‘Aunt Helen’ first published in Quadrant Magazine. ‘Aunt Helen’ is one of the stories in my collection, ‘Stories from Bondi‘ (Ginninderra Press).
I hope you enjoy it.
Aunt Helen:
Although she loved her nieces and nephews, it was when she turned thirty-nine that driving young children around in her car seemed to make her nervous—a tightening in the stomach. “Aunty Helen, would you like to take Naomi to see The Muppets? Are you free?” Always these requests from one of her sisters looking tired and desperate—one of her younger siblings, they used to be so close—and Helen would force herself to make the effort to be the good aunty. The responsibility of passengers in her car always made her anxious. She was anxious about one thing or the other most of the time, but wanted to appear selfless and generous-spirited. Her availability, or non-availability, was noted, itemised, either in her favour, or against her. She didn’t want to be labelled self-obsessed. She had entered an era when the nicest thing a person could say to her was, “You’re a fabulous aunty. The kids love you.”
Have a read of my prose poem, ‘Tell Me What Happened On New Year’s Eve’, first published in Quadrant Magazine. Hope you enjoy it.
Tell Me What Happened On New Year’s Eve:
I’d looked out the top-floor hospital window towards Coogee to the night sky lit by fireworks and saw the miserable face of the moon and thought that I’d never felt as detached from life as at that moment. At the same time, I realised that I probably felt so despicable due to the weeks spent lying in hospital and the excruciatingly slow and painful road to recovery. By sheer force of will, I stopped looking at the dark mirror of the moon. No one could have told me how much the distant celebrations, the sound of the explosions and the changing shapes and colours of the fireworks could jolt me into the present and away from the unbearable lethargy, the severed muscles and tendons and the nausea caused by the drugs and pain killers. Was it that I could sense, without glancing up again, that clouds were making their way across the moon and that made me realise: how would it be to feel this would be your last new year?
Have a read of my flash fiction, ‘It’s Pot Luck When You Move Into A Unit’. My story was the winning entry in the UTS Alumni Short Short Story Competition and was first published in UTS Writers Connect.
It’s Pot Luck When You Move Into A Unit:
A nice quiet weekend? the woman downstairs said. What do you mean? I said, through the open back door, a bag of rubbish in each hand. She smoothed her ironing on the board and said, They weren’t around over the weekend—with the baby. She looked happy. I’m lucky living on the top floor, I said. She nodded towards the other side of the building. Jim isn’t so lucky—he’s got the woman upstairs, she said, When he plays the piano and she thumps on the floor. She put the iron back on its stand. She’s heavy-footed, that woman. Bang, bang, bang. I hear her coming down the stairs every morning at six, and the slam of the front door.
That night the wind knocked my vase off the window ledge. I lay awake wondering if the noise of the smash had woken up the people underneath—the ones whose barbecuing sends smoke and disgusting meat smells into my unit. Nothing clings to your furniture like the stink from last week’s burnt fat. Sorry about the crash, I muttered to the floor, It was the wind.
Have a read of my micro-fiction, ‘Undulations’, first published in Quadrant Magazine.
Undulations:
So we’re sitting in Melbourne in a vegan restaurant reminiscing about our school days spent mucking-up in the back row and Jane (her hair still red, short and frizzy, like childhood) remembers daring me to ask our fourth-grade Geography teacher how to spell ‘undulations’. What? “Because I wanted to write her a message,” Jane says. “An unsigned message saying, ‘The way you run your hands over your boobs to demonstrate undulations is disgusting,’ but didn’t know how to spell it. So I told you that if you were my friend, you’d ask her. You know how she always said to speak up if we couldn’t spell something? For some reason she wrote the word down on a piece of paper, rather than on the blackboard. Maybe she thought you couldn’t see properly from our eyrie. So you got back to your desk and passed it to me under the chair. I wrote in my best handwriting, ‘Your demonstrations of undulations are gross,’ blotted it carefully, and placed it furtively on her table after the recess bell had cleared the room. When we filed in after lunch, I saw her open it up.” Jane taps me on the arm enthusiastically. “What happened then?” I say. “Was she angry? Did she think it was me? Did I get punished?” How forgetful was I? Jane had mastered the art of getting the ink from the inkwell to the pen nib to the paper—no ugly blotches—her cursive as good as a professional engraver’s. Even after all this time, she still prefers a fountain pen and has a proclivity for setting wrongs right. “She threw the chalk in the bin, reached for her cardigan and draped it over her shoulders,” Jane says, grinning. “Yes, that’s what happened. And she didn’t demonstrate undulating landscapes on herself or on any of us ever again.”
Have a read of my short story, “Tom”, first published in Quadrant Magazine. “Tom” is one of the self-contained chapters in my novel-in-stories, “The Crystal Ballroom” (Ginninderra Press). “The Crystal Ballroom”: stories of love and loss in the singles dance scene.
Tom:
May Ling steps across the skipping rope. I’m waiting for her with her baby brother, outside the school hall, but she hasn’t seen me yet. Every Thursday when she finishes her Hip Hop class I hang about with the other mothers and grandmothers and carers. It’s a routine I enjoy—walking up here with the baby in the stroller and then chatting with May Ling as we walk home.
May Ling is my son’s daughter. She has straight black hair and brown almond eyes, slim legs and tiny hands. Her hands are artistic: she draws beautiful pictures. In her black strappy shoes and blue-and-white school dress that falls below her knees, she looks very grown-up.
The park is on the bend of the road that leads to the school. There is a sandpit, swings, slippery dip, climbing chains and a rocking horse. We put our things down on one of the wooden benches on the perimeter of the park and sit in the shade of the trees. I unpack the afternoon tea: three apples, two bottles of water, rice crackers, sultana biscuits, peanut butter sandwiches.
The other mothers and carers come over and start up a conversation. What beautiful children. How old are they? What nationality?
‘Their mother is Chinese,’ I explain.
Some women are envious; they wish their own mothers would mind the children when they go to work or play golf.
I’ve got the bucket and spades and the plastic rakes hanging off one of the handles of the stroller ready for the sandpit. I keep them in the boot of the car between visits. Also in the boot is the collapsible stroller, the picnic blanket, the extra booster seat, the beach chair and the Cancer Council tent all folded up tight in its blue bag. I’m prepared for all possibilities.
When we leave the park we stop outside the rose garden of the RSL club so May Ling can pick a flower to take home to her mummy. Sometimes we sing a song from The Wizard of Oz. Today May Ling is chanting, Where’s my daddy? Where’s my daddy? I’d said to her that he might drive past and give her a lift like he’d done once before.
Ingrid said she’s surprised that with all his qualifications he can’t get a job. I said he doesn’t want any job. It has to be the right job, even if it takes him six months—yet again—to find it.
Last week I was standing in the kitchen at his house and he was rinsing the plates on the bench and stacking them into the dishwasher. I told him that May Ling had asked if mummy and daddy were getting a divorce. He laughed and said he would have to tell her to stop telling me things. ‘Don’t stop her from talking to me,’ I said. ‘Everyone fights. I told her that.’
After dinner and when it’s time for him to go upstairs to run a bath, I say my goodbyes. I am not allowed to go up because they all get in the bath together. He gives me a couple of chocolates from out of the fridge to eat on my way home before kissing me on the cheek at the front door.
‘Drive carefully, Sofia,’ he calls out as I head towards the car.
When I’d told him about the split-up with Tom he’d said he could never understand what on earth I’d seen in the man.
Doctor Ross had said that a lot of people continue in a relationship because they don’t want to go through the pain of breaking up. ‘In six months time you won’t feel a thing,’ he said in an effort to reassure me.
I shrugged. ‘The grandchildren won’t be pleased.’
‘Grandma’s broken up with her surfie boyfriend.’ he joked.
*
A seagull, wings flapping calmly and evenly, passes this place where I sit. It’s a crescent-shaped bay on the harbour where a man and a woman walk hand in hand along the beach, their dog running ahead. Tiny ripples on the water drift gently towards the shore.
Tom seemed calm at first, after I said what must have disappointed him, but then he became withdrawn and went into the bathroom. He cleaned his teeth and then came back out. He pulled the sheets back on the bed. He got in and appeared to fall asleep straight away.
‘Good night,’ I said to his back.
‘I thought I said goodnight,’ he said, turning towards me.
‘Goodnight,’ I said kissing him on the cheek.
He turned away again.
I can see now that Tom felt out of his depth at my younger son’s wedding and I feel remorse for hurting him.
Ingrid had counseled: ‘His mother probably said to him, “I told you she’d drop you after the wedding”.’
A row of tall dark cypress trees shield the beach from the road. On one of the wooden bench chairs by the water sits a woman dressed all in black.
‘What’s your mother like?’ I asked.
‘She sits in a corner and does what she’s told,’ he said. ‘I sat up with her last night and we watched a movie. What do you think of that?’
‘I think it’s dreadful—dreadful that you’re still living there with your parents.’
‘It’s very difficult for me. Very difficult. It’s the money.’
‘What do you want from him?’ his mother said to me, unable to hide the hatred in her voice, when I’d called that one time.
I told Tom what his mother said.
He wanted to say to her: ‘Are you pleased—are you pleased now? Have you got what you want?’
So now I am back to how things had been before, alone at nights, and as though he had never existed.
In the school holidays May Ling usually stays for a day or two at my place. One day recently she came running up the steps carrying a drawing and a poster of a horse. I came out to meet her, wiping my hands on the chequered tea-towel. I’m sure my face was flushed from the heat. May Ling’s floral skirt was almost to her ankles as she kicked off her shoes at the back door. I said to her that she looked as pretty as a picture.
‘Do you have the photos? The ones of daddy when he was a baby? I’ve been waiting all day to see the photos.’
‘Yes, yes. Come on in and we’ll get out the album.’
The last of the sun’s light slanted through the blinds as we sat side by side turning the pages. ‘You don’t look anything like you used to look,’ she said.
‘It was a long time ago,’ I sighed. ‘My hair is not the same. Poppy looks very different too, don’t you think?’
She shook her head. ‘No. He looks the same to me. Poppy looks the same.’
‘It must be my hairstyle.’
‘Why did you and Poppy divorce?’
‘I got married too young. I was only a teenager.’
‘Did you have a fight?’
I didn’t answer so she moved the conversation on to the split up with Tom. She’s let me know several times that she’s upset about it and can’t understand why it’s happened.
‘And what about you and Tom and your divorce?’ she asked, rolling her eyes upward. ‘Or whatever you call it. The divorce that isn’t a divorce. Did you have a fight?’
‘Yes, I told you before.’
‘What about?’
‘It was about a couple of things.’
‘What did you fight about?’
‘I told you one of the things.’
‘I’ve forgotten. What things?’
‘It’s very hard to tell you because you’re only six years old and you mightn’t understand.’
‘Tell me and I’ll tell you if I understand.’
‘Well it’s hard to say exactly. Like, can you put into words why you didn’t like that teacher at school, except that she expected too much of you?’
‘Yes. She asked us to draw our favourite place. I said, Port Stephens is my favourite place but I don’t know how to draw it. She said, Just do it, and didn’t give me any help. Miss McDonald used to help us do things. Not, Do this, Do that. So, there I’ve said it. It’s your turn now.’
I was uncomfortable having this conversation with May Ling. Her father has warned me that she will persist and persist and persist until she gets the answers and the more you try to escape her questions the more she persists. May Ling is not like other six-year-olds. Her parents treat her as an equal and she appears to be very mature. She knows I met Tom at a dance. It was a ‘meet your match’ dance and you had to choose a name for yourself from the name cards laid out at the front door when you arrived. Like Batman and Robin, Bec and Lleyton. You chose a card and had to find your matching partner. He selected Tarzan and I chose Jane.
‘Well, I told you the bit about the photo,’ I said.
‘What photo?’
‘When I saw the photo in his wallet. It was a rude picture.’
‘A bare bottom?’
‘No, the top half.’
‘Of a friend?’
‘No. He cut the photo out of a magazine.’
‘Who was she?’
‘No-one he knew. Just someone he’d cut out of a magazine. There was no photo of his sons or of me.’
‘I don’t think that’s so bad,’ she said. ‘What else happened? You said there were two things?’
‘He was a lot younger.’
‘You could have said your birthday came before his.’
‘Well what do you think would be a good reason?’
‘If he found another girlfriend.’
Outside a van rounded the bend of the road and disappeared down the hill with a swooshing sound. After a pause I said: ‘I remember now why we split up. The problem was that I didn’t love him and he said he loved me.’
She frowned. ‘Well, let’s play a game. One of us is Tom and the other one is you and we have the fight.’
‘No, darling. Let’s go upstairs and have a story. It’s late. It’s already past your bedtime.’
‘Let’s do it, Sofia. I’ll be Tom.’ She scowled at me her brows knitted in a triangle. ‘Oh Sofia,’ she pleaded.
‘If you go to bed now I’ll let you choose the story or otherwise I’ll chose it.’
She crossed her arms with a ‘Humph’. Then, ‘Well show me how you used to dance with Tom. You said that’s where you met him.
Taking her hand I said, ‘Come on, darling.’
We went up to her bedroom and she looked through her bookcase carefully for the appropriate story. No Dr Seuss or The Little Mermaid tonight. Instead she decided on Beauty and the Beast: the story of a man who is unable to love someone, so he’s turned into an ugly beast.
*
It was dark in the lounge room, but I didn’t open the shutters. I didn’t feel anything in particular, no hate, no repugnance. I had agreed that he could come when he asked the previous evening. I paid close attention to the sounds, to the light, to the noises in the
park next door that had enveloped the room. He looked at me stretched out on the couch expecting me to speak. I didn’t look him in the face. Didn’t look at him at all.
‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘It will be better this time. Things will be better.’
He removed my shoes, threw them on the floor. ‘So you’ll give me another chance?’
He knelt beside me. Didn’t say any more that he loves me. Said, ‘It’s a comfort to know we’ll keep seeing each other.’
I didn’t answer.
‘That’s all I want,’ he said. ‘Just to know I’m going to see you.’
He unzipped my jeans.
‘You know it will end again,’ I said.
‘Not too soon though. Will it?’
Slowly. Slow, patient. With my eyes shut. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I’m prepared to take the risk,’ he said. ‘I want to. I don’t want to not see you again.’
I stroked his hair.
He pulled off his T-shirt. Undressed himself.
A seagull, wings flapping gently and evenly passes this place where I sit. He skirts the line of the beach between water and sand and finally comes to rest on the top rung of the railing that defines the path to the beach.
‘Sex is good for you,’ the female doctor had said, moving back to her desk. It was a routine examination.
‘Us women need the testosterone,’ she added with a little smile.
I’d wanted to end it again, it must have been for the fifth time. After the phone call I felt angry and wanted to tell him not to come. I was letting him visit against my will, since I was still angry. The next night and for several nights after that I wanted to tell him not to come. He’s conducted himself in a way that disgusted me. He denied he’d had a couple of drinks and said he was tired, that no, he hadn’t been drinking, he was just tired.
I was silent at first, after he said what repulsed me, but then he sensed my lack of warmth and said he’d call again before the weekend. He asked who I was going out to dinner with and I say it was a married couple, some friends who had invited other friends of mine but I didn’t want to include him in the invitation because he’d feel uncomfortable with these people and this would make me ill at ease too. He could come on the Friday.
‘You were waiting for him to grow up, but he hasn’t,’ Dr Ross had said forcefully, with intention, as was his way. ‘It won’t work. You’ll get bored with him again. You don’t like the uncertainty. You’re in control in this relationship. You’re the adult. He’s the child. It’s your call—your choice. I just try to give you support.’
*
The wind blows from the south. The waves soften at their edges. May Ling is playing in the sand with her red bucket. She’s looking for schools of fish to catch, the white plastic ice cream container full of shells and sand and seaweed. Her small fingers rearrange the pieces of her collection. A seaplane labours against the wind, not quite balanced between sea and clouds.
‘May Ling,’ I call out. ‘Look at the seaplane.’
She looks up through the brim of her black eyelashes then walks up towards me.
‘Look what I’ve got,’ she says, opening her fingers.
‘What sugar plum?’
‘Shells.’
‘Have you ever collected shells before?’
‘No.’ She puts them into the plastic container filled with seawater and sand. ‘A fish tank,’ she says proudly.
‘Do you like this beach?’
She shrugs. ‘It’s not too bad.’
She walks back to the water’s edge, tiptoeing between the rocks and the flotsam and jetsam that the waves have left on the shore, skipping across the moss-covered stones.
‘Sofia , can you come in with me?’ she calls out. ‘Come into the water and help me catch some fish.’
There is the sound of the waves lapping the shore. Butterflies—mostly turquoise and black—more colour than the birds, flit between the branches and flap in front of the harbour. The sea plane finishes its circling and lands not far from the beach.
‘There’s something so wonderful about watching the waves,’ Tom had said. ‘Especially when you’ve just been out there, and come back in. Afterwards I always like to just sit on the sand and watch the waves.’
May Ling comes back up to where I sit under a tree on the grass. ‘I’m hungry,’ she says. ‘Did you bring anything to eat?’
I reach for the cooler bag and unzip it. ‘What would you like?’
May Ling looks in at the food and frowns. ‘Is that all?’
She reaches for a small carton of apple juice and sips quickly on the straw before handing it back.
‘Isn’t it any good?’
She smirks. ‘It tastes off.’ She turns around and walks back towards the sea.
‘It tastes fine to me,’ I call out.
She yells from the water’s edge: ‘Sof, can you come in?’
The water is all green and slippery shimmering in the sunlight.
*
Yesterday I had lunch at a Japanese restaurant after a visit to the gym. It was not unusual for me to be there at that time, no more unusual than all the other people sitting alone on bar stools as the small containers of food did their revolutions. Jason, a friend I hadn’t seen for a long time was manipulating his chopsticks with great intensity. He was greying, confident, but struggling to attract patients to his new psychology practice.
‘They can see value in spending money on a massage,’ he complained, ‘but not in a visit to someone like me.’
After we talked about our work and our families and our lives in general under the glare of the fluorescent light, he raised his eyebrows and gave his opinion on the relationship with Tom.
‘I have to be honest. I feel very angry. If it was a man in the same situation people would say, dirty old man. But for a woman it’s okay. Someone that age has a prick that’s ready morning, noon and night. I’m more interested in a mature woman—someone I can really talk to. I’m not interested in young women. They might have great bodies but that doesn’t do it for me.’
*
‘What do you think, Sofia, do they look okay? Is this what you’d imagined I’d wear to the beach—Sofia? Do I look all right? Is this what you’d imagined me wearing when you said we’d go for a swim this weekend?’
‘I hadn’t imagined you on the beach,’ my irritated voice had answered from the bed. ‘I hadn’t thought about what you’d be wearing on the beach.’
He’d been preening himself from side to side in front of the mirror opposite the sun-drenched rosy pink chaise lounge—pale against the warm tones; but when he walked back towards the mirror, he turned bronze again from head to foot, in his shiny black swimmers. His fine body hair covered his legs and arms.
‘Usually I don’t wear a costume under my wetsuit,’ he said, ‘so I bought these Speedos and a pair of board shorts. Which ones do you think I should wear to the beach?’
‘You can wear both. Wear the Speedos under the board shorts.’
He was standing in front of the sliding mirrored doors that framed the wardrobe opposite two windows, looking at the reflection of a very boyish, very attractive figure, not very tall or very small, with blonde loose curly hair like that of a cherub. He pulled on the cord of his swimming costume, puffed out his hard freckled chest, curved like a suit of armour; and the whites of his hazel eyes and his white regular teeth glowed through the apricot warmth of the room.
‘It’s fine, Tom,’ I reassured him. ‘They look fine. You haven’t got any white marks from the wetsuit. Either costume looks fine. Whatever you feel comfortable in. You can wear whatever you want.’
He grinned. ‘I’ve never owned a pair of Speedos. I’ve watched blokes on the beach in their Speedos walking up from the water.’
‘It’s fine.’
He laughed to himself, unable to disguise the pride in his voice: ‘They call these swimming costumes budgie smugglers. That’s what they’re called now.’
‘Ingrid’s eyes will pop out of her head when she sees you at Nielson Park today.’
Tom, motionless in front of his own image, laughed again to himself. ‘I know so well not to wear the wrong thing when I’m with you.’
*
‘I thought you were using your head instead of …’ Ingrid said, unable to hold back the intensity of her disapproval. She had been showing me the latest photos of her new dog. She is very happy with Skippy and has said that he is good company and that he sleeps on her bed.
Before telling her I was back with Tom again I’d said I had something say, but please don’t pass judgment. She spat the words at me.
‘It’s not that,’ I said. ‘That’s not the motivation. It’s for the companionship.’ ‘Companionship? You can have that with girlfriends. Tom has no conversation.’
‘But he’s easy to be with. It’s nice to go out for a meal or to the movies.’
‘Movies are good. You don’t talk and there’s something going on.’ She sipped her latte then added, ‘He’s not the answer.’
‘There is no answer. It’s the loneliness. I can’t stand the loneliness.’
She nodded then sat more upright in her chair. ‘We’re all different. It’s a long way for him to travel though.’
‘Three hours either way.’
‘Must be worth his while.’
‘It might last a week, a month, a year, who knows. If you get the big C diagnosis you could be dead in a few weeks.’
She shrugged. ‘We all make our decisions. That’s why I bought my little
Skippy.’ She put his puppy photos back into her handbag.
The ocean must be calm today. No energetic crashing coming from the direction of the sea. This morning I’m inside protected from the heat behind heavy curtains. I can’t see the water.
‘Messenger boy.’ he’d laughed, referring to himself, on an overcast Saturday morning, after he’s brought me a cup of tea in bed and was about to go up the road to buy the newspaper.
‘Having you just completes my life,’ he said when he finished reading the sports pages. ‘I can’t think of anything nicer than sitting on the bed with you on a morning like this. After the weekend I’m going to go back feeling so good. Thank you so much.’
He stretched himself out on the chaise lounge that was under the window next to the bed and said: ‘Everyone’s got someone. Why shouldn’t we? Who cares what anyone else thinks? It’s between you and me.’
‘What did your parents say when you said you’re coming to Sydney this weekend?’
He grinned. ‘Nothing. When I said goodbye Dad said to Mum, Just let him go.’
‘Did your mother say something?’
‘No.’
‘How do you feel about your parents going away for two months on Monday?’
‘Okay.’
‘Last time you were worried before they went away. But you know now how to use the washing machine.’
‘I’ve got it all written down. I’ve got it written it in a book.’
*
‘What’s the resolution of the story?’ May Ling asks, sprinkling grated cheese on her pasta.
‘How do you know these things?’ I say. ‘Who tells you?’
‘At school.’
‘In First Class at school they teach you about the resolution of a story?’
‘In the library. What is the problem that starts the story?’
‘Do you know what resolution means?
‘It means how things turn out in the end.’
I look to my son and daughter-in-law: ‘What will they teach them in Year Twelve if they learn this in First Class already?’
‘You haven’t answered me,’ interrupts May Ling. ‘I’m listening,’ she says with a hand to her ear.
‘It’s very hard for me to explain these things to you,’ I say yet again.
‘What are the complexities of the story?’ she asks.
I turn to my son for help.
‘The story is about a woman who is looking for love,’ he says to his daughter.
‘There are many kinds of love,’ I apologise. ‘Not just between a man and a woman. Love for children … grandchildren.’
A quiet still morning. Water trickles down through the rocks after last night’s rain. Several different bird calls in the gully. Intermittent hammering in the unit above. The large heavy curtains barely parted to keep out the eastern heat, but open enough to see the leaves of a tree rustling in the morning sea breeze that blows across my feet.
Tom and I had stood at the window and looked through the bare branches and realized that now we could see all the way to the horizon at Bondi. The ridge blocked the line of the horizon but we could see the clouds that hung just above it. We’d loved watching the sky.
‘I’ve seen the sky looking like this before,’ he’d said, putting his arm around my waist.
‘What do you mean?’
‘So still. A winter sky.’
At the back door before he left he said: ‘So you think there’s still heat in the furnace?’
I’d laughed and nodded.
‘That’s what the expression is, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t heard it. Heat in the fire? It probably feels like a furnace to you.’
‘It works well being casual like this,’ he said. ‘We don’t have to deal with each others problems.’
I asked Ingrid what she thought he meant by that. She said it was probably something he’d heard someone else say.
‘I’ve been thinking about it—wondering what he meant.’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘He didn’t mean anything. He just says things that he hears other people say.’
‘I’m very proud to be seen with you,’ he’d said. ‘A younger man with an older woman. I’m not ashamed to be seen with you.’
Now, I sit by the water until the sun goes down. Then walk back home.
Have a read of my prose poem, “The Backpack”, first published in Quadrant Magazine. “The Backpack” is one of the stories in my collection, “Stories from Bondi” (Ginninderra Press). “Stories from Bondi”: the foibles of human nature, with all their pathos and humour, are laid bare for the reader.
The Backpack:
What can a man who meets you at the station and offers to carry your backpack mean to a woman traveling the world alone?
I was scared, like anyone who has no sense of direction. The journey was a series of stops and starts. Whether to use the Eurail pass or post it back home and ask the kids to get me a refund. Giovanni appeared one European winter, thick padded jacket, woolen beanie, scarf and gloves, tall and imposing, I’ll carry your bag.
I was small, the backpack the length of my spine, the zip-off bag on one shoulder, the daypack positioned in front like a nine-month baby bump. That evening, as we climbed the steps of the Corniche – the wind bitter across the Mediterranean, the metal stairs covered with slippery ice, the railing melting beneath my hand. Soon it would become my railway platform, my steps, and Giovanni my landlord.
We walked there in the crisp night air. My own place. It didn’t cost much. No-one yet knew I was here. I could ask Giovanni if I needed any help. I knew my children would be pleased I had a base. I didn’t want them to worry. It was the thing I wanted the most secretly, studying maps, absorbing travel books. To be safe, a desire whispered to the moon that moved behind my shoulder at night. If you guide me to a safe haven I promise to be happy. And the moon listened. I did my best.
The winter sky closed down and the spring began its flowering. I took photos and painted and rang the children every week. Watch your money, don’t talk to strangers, be careful walking at night – you know the drill. The pebbly beach, the weekend markets, it was all there for the exploring. A glimpse of the sea between terracotta roofs – a vision in turquoise. The cobbled streets could show which way to follow – and none of them wrong. A room at the top of the stairs – till June I stayed reading the English books Giovanni had left in the bookcase, shopping for food, telling my kids and friends they should come for a visit.
Where had the months gone? Almost two years on the road. Summer approached. The rents would go up and the tourists arrive. Time to move on. I could only take with me what I could carry on my back. A Jewish gypsy they said. One more step into the unknown. Pack up, give away what I couldn’t manage, but keep the palette knife and miniature easel. There was stuff happening back home. The boys were grown and earning a living. Their sister turned twenty-one. People were reinventing themselves all over the place then coming back home. A thousand train rides later, my mother nearly eighty. I won’t be around much longer, she cried.
His was a helping hand in a world that says, but what are you doing there? What are you doing?
I am sitting in a café across the road from a Sydney beach. This stretch of road has a whole row of cafes side by side facing the sea. This is my favourite kind of writing place: one where I can sit comfortably for a long period of time and where the owners of the café know me and welcome me. This café is owned by a Brazilian man and his wife and has comfortable upholstered bench chairs with a direct view of the Pacific Ocean. For my two-hour writing session my choice could be a traditional Brazilian dish such as Coxinha, Feijoda or Moqueca. Or a cocktail like Caipirinha or Caipiroska. I must order something and it must be more that a Long Black, because I plan to be here for some time. I want the owners of the café to know I appreciate the time and the space they are allowing me.
However, today I’ll be very boring and order poached eggs on gluten-free bread
Why go to all this trouble to find a place to write? Why not just stay home and work? Because it’s good to get out and have a change of scene. I find I need to be happy and relaxed when I’m creating on the page and sitting in a café with a pleasant vibe works for me. Other writers need silence in order to concentrate, but I need to feel I am out and about in a beautiful place having a good time before the creative juices flow.
Strangely, working in a café can help to increase concentration. The busy café atmosphere keeps the sensory part of you occupied and content, so that the hidden, quieter part of you that composes and focuses is allowed to do its work. It is something like being cunning when trying to get a spoonful of food into a resistant toddler’s mouth . You pretend to be an aeroplane with all the sound effects and movements before landing the food-laden plane inside the child’s mouth. Mission accomplished.
What about you? Do you need to be at your desk in total silence in order to write, or do you like to experience the swell of humanity around you—to be surrounded by other human beings? Or at home listening to a particular kind of music?
Have a read of my short story, Around Midnight, first published in Quadrant Magazine. The story is part of my short fiction collection Stories From Bondi published by Ginninderra Press (2019).
I hope you enjoy it.
Around Midnight
‘When are you open?’ Anny asks the woman on the telephone.
‘We have a party twice a day. Every day. Twelve thirty to four thirty and seven thirty to midnight.’
‘Oh. Every day? I thought it was Saturday nights only.’
‘No darling. Every day.’
‘So what’s the setup?’
‘$120 for a couple. Nothing if you come on your own. What’s your position. How would you come along?’
‘On my own.’
‘It would cost you nothing then.’
‘But what do you do? I mean, I know what goes on there.’
‘You’ve been here before?’
‘No. A friend told me about it. What do you wear? What’s the setup?’
‘It’s all up to you love. If you fancy a gentleman you invite him into one of the rooms.’
‘What do you wear though? My friend said something about robes.’
‘Towels. They’re towels love. You wear whatever you like. Normal clothes.’
Anny is sitting at a café at North Bondi having breakfast with her friend Dita telling her about it. Anny has ordered the scrambled tofu and Dita is having fried eggs and bacon.
I’m dying to know how you went, Dita says, pulling her chair closer to the table.
Well, Anny says, this is what happened.
It’s eight thirty on Saturday night when I approach a big steel gate with a street number in bold letters. I open the gate and go up the lane way beside the Thai restaurant and follow the fairy lights upstairs. There’s nothing else to indicate what goes on inside this three-bedroom apartment on a busy road in Bondi. I follow the fairy lights along a corridor until I come to a wooden front door with no number on it. I hesitate not knowing whether to knock or just walk in. I open the door.
Inside, draped around the room, are about ten men and women in various stages of undress sitting on stools beside small bar tables – the men bare-chested, the women topless or wearing bras. Some of them are giving each other neck and shoulder massages. And they’re all wearing towels. Not a very attractive sight in my opinion – a man in a towel.
It’s a large room with a pretend-bar, a kitchen on the right and sliding glass doors that lead to a covered balcony with an above-the-ground spa pool. Standing by the door are two Japanese men in black jeans and black tee-shirts. I walk over to the kitchen which acts as the Reception area.
The only other fully dressed people in the room are the man and the woman who run the place. She’s Czech, young and very attractive in a green lace figure-revealing dress. Her blonde hair cascades down her back. She’s in the kitchen and doesn’t exactly greet me but asks me what I’d like to drink. A glass of wine would be nice, I say. She goes to the fridge and from a cask on the bottom shelf pours me a glass. With drink in hand I stand near the door and look around.
And wonder what I’ll do next.
The two Japanese men avoid eye contact with me. They obviously want to keep to themselves. I don’t particularly want to join the group of men and women on the stools as I don’t intend to take any of my clothes off.
I ask the woman who runs the place to show me around. She shrugs without much enthusiasm then leads the way along a narrow hallway. The first bedroom on the right has a double bed with a bedside light on a table and white lace curtains on the window. She looks out between the lace peering around outside before pulling them closed. She shows me another bedroom at the end of the corridor with an en-suite bathroom. We stand at the door looking in to the empty bed but she doesn’t show me in. And then she leads the way to the third bedroom back along the corridor towards the front door.
This is the Orgy Room, she says from the open doorway.
I avert my eyes but I can see from the corner of one eye a double bed and several naked bodies doing things to each other. Backs and thighs and bums exposed. Not very becoming. It all seems tacky and I begin to doubt my wisdom in coming to a place like this. I clutch my handbag across my body and find myself a seat in the front room with my back to the wall.
There are corn chips and an onion dip on a platter that the women in the group hand around. I decline the chips and the dip. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s the smell of onion breathe. A woman in a white lace bra and a towel around her waist stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray in front of me and asks if I’ve been here before.
No, I say. And you?
I come here all the time. What do you do for a living? She continues.
A bit of this and that.
She nods knowingly.
What do you do? I ask.
I’m a psychologist at a clinic at St Leonards.
I’m very surprised. For some reason I thought women with important jobs wouldn’t come to a place like this.
A man edges over towards me and tries to get in on our conversation. He asks the same things as she does. Do you come here often? What do you do for a living? In the old days, or, rather, in the olden days, as my children like to say, when I used to frequent bars from time to time, I’d answer the first question with “only in the mating season” and the second question with “I live off the income from my investments”. Both replies would be met with a stunned silence or an impressed “ah” or, sometimes, “is this the mating season?”
The man keeps smiling at me and I avert my eyes but somehow he is able to maneuver himself around so he’s constantly in my line of vision. It gives me the shits.
Not your type? Dita puts in.
No. Absolutely not.
What did you wear in the end? Dita asks.
Only four items of clothing.
Something you could take off quickly?
Yes. And no jewelry. Apparently the men have to shower and put on a towel as soon as they arrive. Although one woman kept saying to me, where’s your towel? She wanted me to get undressed and hang about in a towel like everyone else.
Another woman tells me I should leave my bag locked up in the kitchen with the man and woman who own the place.
You don’t know these men, cautions the woman. Lock up your bag.
I decide to keep my bag with me although I’ve left my umbrella beside the door. Another man edges his stool over towards me and we have a conversation. At least he’s got a brain in his head and got something to say for himself. He tells me he’s Dutch and he’s here in Sydney on business.
It’s my first time to this place, he says. But I’ve been to others in other cities in the world. I travel a lot for business.
We talk a little about travel and countries we’ve visited.
He lets me know in a non-threatening way that he’d be willing to go into one of the bedrooms with me. I feel embarrassed knocking him back seeing as we’ve had such a nice conversation and I don’t want him to be wasting time with me if he wants to be chatting up some other woman.
I’m not ready, I say politely. Maybe later.
The other man who’s been trying to catch my eye, the pain-in-the-bum-persistent-dag who listens in to my every word, leans over towards me and says, When you’re ready would you go into one of the rooms with me?
No thanks, I say. Sorry, I smile at him hoping all the same that I haven’t hurt his feelings.
The Dutch man tells me there’s no need to apologise.
A few new people wander in. A man and a woman, a couple, a few single men of various ages and shapes and a fat girl draped in layers of chiffon. Then two very well-proportioned young men. I remind myself that I’m the one meant to be doing the choosing here. One of the very well-proportioned young men is quite cute actually. The other young man is not very tall, a bit too muscle-bound for my taste, and has that short spiky hair almost- shaved-at-the-side that I find most unattractive. The two of them are younger than both my son – but that’s nothing new.
One of the women ushers them out into the back bedroom to shower and put on a towel. They don’t return to the main room where I’m sitting jammed up between various men and in front of me a blank video screen high up on the wall. The fat girl does some sort of disco dance in front of the wall under the video screen. She dances in time to the music but nothing special. Then the woman who owns the place uses her remote to turn on a video.
I’ve never seen such an explicit porn video before, Dita. I can’t watch but I glimpse the extreme closeups of women’s genitalia and pierced intimate body parts and things being stuck in and up and it’s all too horrible.
Why didn’t you go home then? Asks Dita.
I thought I’d wait just a bit longer. It had taken such an enormous effort of will to get there.
The Czech blonde who runs the place with her Indian husband enjoys the video immensely.
Look at that, she keeps saying.
I have nowhere to turn my head. In front of me the video, to my left the persistent dag. To my right is the smaller young muscley man who now also keeps trying to attract my attention but I’m claustrophobic and I just want out of there but for some reason I’m stuck to my seat. I don’t want to stand up and have everyone look at me – anything that moves is closely observed in this room. I look at the floor, at the space between my stool and the spa area, and the floor towards the front door. I’m willing myself to stand up, to walk into the spa room away from these men, or straight out the front door.
So that’s how come I end up talking to the young Italian muscley bloke. He reaches his hand out to me and invites me to sit in the spa room with him away from the noise of the video. I use his hand to stand up but then remove it from his grasp before walking outside to the balcony. I don’t want to look as if I’ve been claimed.
I tell the muscley Italian man that the men here are too predatory and I’m feeling guilty because I keep knocking them back and then find myself apologising. You don’t have to apologise when you knock someone back, he assures me. But I’m finding him intimidating right now wedged up beside me and I don’t know how to get rid of him.
We sit on the black vinyl lounge, me squashed in the corner beside him. The tang of chlorine from the empty spa assaults my nostrils.
Can I kiss your cheek? he asks.
No.
Can I hold your hand? he says.
No.
I wedge my hand that lays beside him under my thigh making sure he can’t hold it.
His friend, the cutie, comes out through the door and sits beside us. We smile at each other.
I was very nervous before coming to this place, he says to me. I nearly didn’t come.
I look into his open face and his nice round eyes and thick head of curly hair.
It was the same for me, I say.
When I came in, he says, I saw you sitting there and that woman in the green dress and I thought this looks all right and so I came in.
She’s very attractive, I say. That woman in the green dress.
I asked her husband if she participates but he said no.
Do you think it’s good value for money here? I ask in order to keep the conversation going. I mean it’s concerning me that the men have paid $180 each to come into this place and it’s free for me.
No, he says, I don’t think I’ve got good value for money. Not so far.
His friend puts his hand on my leg. I consider removing his hand but think it may seem churlish of me so I don’t. And anyway if I’ve come to a place like this what am I doing knocking all the blokes back?
What does it cost to have sex with a hooker? I ask the cutie.
He looks at me with horrified wide eyes. I don’t know. I’ve never had sex with a hooker.
I was just trying to do a price comparison. A value for money price comparison.
How many women have you had sex with tonight? I persist.
Two. One on arrival. A woman started massaging me when I had a shower and then we had sex. And then a second one almost straight afterwards. The fat girl.
How was that? I ask. How was the sex?
She had big bruises all over her body as if she’d been bashed up or drugs or something. Her arms and legs were all bruised. It was awful. I wished I was unconscious.
I nod with sympathy.
I noticed you go into the bedroom with the fat girl, I say.
He smiles at me and extends his hands towards me, palms upturned. I could give you a great massage, he says with enthusiasm. I’ve got very strong hands. I’m trained in martial arts.
Mm, I say breathing out with a sigh.
But the problem is I can’t get rid of his bloody friend. He’s latched on to me and has territorial control with his bloody hand resting on my thigh.
There are six of us in the spa room now. The cutie, his friend, a middle-aged Maori couple and the Indian husband of the Czech woman. I’d noticed some of the girls flirting with the Indian husband and then laughing. He stays close by the side of his wife. Now though, he chats to us.
We’ve only had this business for eight weeks, he says. We took it over from the previous owner who’d been here for six and a half years. It costs us $1000 a month in rent and $1000 for advertising on the web, in the Telegraph and in the Wentworth Courier. It isn’t easy to make money.
We talk about business and making money for awhile then he leaves us to it.
Do you think some of those girls are being paid to be here? asks the Italian.
Prostitutes?
Well, why would a single woman come to a place like this? says the cutie who’s disappointed there aren’t more women here. A single woman can go out any time and pick up a bloke at a pub.
I don’t say anything. I don’t say it’s probably safer here than to take a stranger home or to go back to his place in the middle of nowhere. And what are you meant to do anyway if you don’t have a boyfriend?
He complains that when he rang up to make inquiries they told him there is a huge spa that fits twenty people. They could fit about eight people in this spa, he says. And even then it would be squashed. Twenty people – they’d all be on top of each other.
I must say that when my friend Richard, who told me about the place, mentioned that there is a large spa I did imagine a Grecian-type setting with women and men reclining and relaxing around the edges of the water.
If he was a good businessman, says the Cutie, he’d offer to give us our money back at the door. That’s how you do business. Keep the customers happy.
There’s no privacy in the rooms here, says the Italian. People walk in all the time. The Japanese men paid $50 each just to watch.
We had to jam towels up against the door to stop people walking in, says the Maori husband.
Now that the Maori couple have joined in the conversation I use the opportunity to ask them how they’re going. What they’ve experienced so far. I’d noticed them come out of the bedroom at the end of the house.
The wife tells me in a quiet voice that they went into the room with another woman to have a threesome. But it didn’t work out, she says. He couldn’t do any good, she says indicating with a nod her husband’s lap and the area between his legs. We don’t like it much here. We’ve been to other singles clubs where it’s all couples. Much better. Not with all these men hanging around staring at you.
Why did you come here? I ask.
He wants to have sex with other women. So coming to a place like this, he’s not doing it behind my back. I know what he’s up to and I’m included.
Her husband glows smugly.
Why did you come here? I ask the cutie.
Curiosity. Why did you come here? He asks me.
Curiosity. We all came here for curiosity, I say summing up the conversation.
The Italian muscle-man gets up to go to the toilet.
Save me that space beside you, he instructs me. Promise, he adds loudly.
I nod.
When he leaves the room I ask the cutie if he’s been into the Orgy Room.
No, he says. What Orgy Room?
It’s up the hallway. I had a look around when I arrived. But an Orgy Room isn’t something I’m interested in trying.
Me either, he agrees.
I’m just waiting for him to finish with you, he says indicating the empty seat between us, and then I’ll be next.
I lower my eyes discretely and suppress a smirk.
The Italian returns from the toilet and takes his seat between us.
The cutie turns to me and says: You can give him a massage, indicating his friend, and I’ll give you a massage.
I laugh.
The Maori couple encourage me from the sidelines.
Go on, says the Maori husband. Give it a go. If you don’t like it, leave.
Sure, I think to myself. As if I’d be able to leave after going into a bedroom with two men and taking off all my clothes. Although I wouldn’t mind going in to one of the rooms with the cutie, if I could lock the door that is, and if it wasn’t so late already.
I giggle nervously. I have four people on my case now trying to pursuade me to go with the two young men, as if it’s my responsibility to keep everybody happy. Hoping they’ll understand and lay off I tell them I’m laughing because I’m nervous.
Would a drink calm you down? says the husband.
No thanks.
His wife smiles at me. In a gentle voice she says, Would you like me to calm you down?
Thank you very much, but no, I say, feeling guilty as usual.
Her husband makes some more noises along the lines of the two of them could help me out with my nervousness problem.
I sigh and then stand up brushing the hand off my leg. I walk over to the side of the spa where the Cutie is standing.
I ease two fingers into the water as if to test the temperature. Warm, I say.
Not warm enough, he says.
I move towards him then lift the corner of his towel to just above his knee. I dry my fingers.
His friend jumps up from the lounge and moves in front me with his bare hairy back just inches from my face.
My back is cold, he says. Warm me up, he commands.
I hold out one hand and lay it briefly on his shoulder, then take it away.
Let’s go for a walk, he whispers to me.
No thanks.
Give me your phone number and we’ll meet up another time then.
No.
Why not?
I don’t want to.
I laugh nervously. How I hate these situations I find myself in.
I’m now wedged into the corner of the spa room. My eyes fix on the door. I hesitate wondering whether I should be polite and say anything to the Maori couple. But I feel the need for haste. I’m worried he’ll follow me although a man in a towel isn’t going to get very far outside on the street.
Dita adds butter and a sprinkle of salt to her turkish bread and then mops up the remains of her egg yolk and the slimy gleam of the bacon fat.
And then?
That’s it. I leave.
There was a full moon. The silver glistened and vibrated on the sea as she neared the northern end of the beach on her walk back home that night. She passed the Bondi RSL club, the Bidigal reserve and the single Bondi sandhill up on her left. There weren’t many people around at that hour. Heading along Campbell Parade, it was quiet. The pub and the cafes were closed.
The surf was big, the waves crashed dramatically over the rocks, the reef and the swimming pool at the south end of the beach. In Notts Avenue she stopped at the surf viewing area just before the baths and watched the rising swell of the ocean for a few moments. She continued along Bondi Road walking fast up the hill pleased the steepness doesn’t faze her, not panting, managing it nice and easy, even in her high heels. She crossed at the lights near the pub on the corner.
A cold wind blew and then it began to rain.
She passed the laneway on her right and was heading for the shortcut home. She planned to cross the open car park of the block of units, and then down through the little park that leads to the hole in the fence that usually gets her home in no time. It was not until she was in the empty car park that she heard her own footsteps squelching on the wet surface and realized that there was another set of sounds behind her. Her shoes made a squench, squash noise and that’s why she didn’t realize at first what the other sound was – and that the sound has been there for some time.
“The man has a gruff, heavily accented Australian voice, his face was masked with a dark balaclava and he wore dark-coloured tracksuit pants – the same description given by his first two victims. His threats, including that he was armed with a knife, were similar to words spoken in the first two attacks and appeared well rehearsed. After each attack he casually walked away.”
Anny veered left as she changed course and retraced her steps without turning towards the footsteps. After moving some distance away and towards the safety of the lights of the units and a door that she could bang on in case of emergency she turned around to see if the person was still there. He was there all right. In joggers, tracksuit, medium height, average build. He’d stopped at the point where she veered left and was looking down into the empty park.
Sorry, she thought she heard him say as he looked over towards her.
She turned and hurried back towards the road and the street lights leaving him behind. She walked on the side of the road towards the on-coming traffic just like she does when she’s on her solitary travels in Europe and the man receded into the distance.
Dita’s plate looks so shiny clean now after her mop up with the Turkish bread it’s as if the plate has come straight out of the dishwasher. Anny tells her that before she went out that night she’d worried that she’d feel tacky when she got home.
You would have if you’d gone against your instincts and allowed those people to talk you into doing something you didn’t want to do, Dita says.
I feel bad though that this whole sex thing is such an issue for me when there’s all the killing going on in Israel and the Para Olympians in wheelchairs on the television every night.
You’re not going around complaining. You’re doing something about it. It’s better than those singles dances. I only went to a couple but I felt like a lump of meat being looked up and down.
But I’m such a wimp, Anny says.
No, you’re not. You went. You’re not a wimp if you can go.
I’m a wimp when it comes to getting rid of guys. Some boring man always latches on to me and I end up leaving just to get rid of him or some man attempts to follow me home.
Anny breathes out heavily and tells Dita that Richard was the one who’d told her about the place.
You know Richard, the one I met on the internet.
You met him in a chat room?
No not a chat room, Anny says sensing Dita’s disapproval. There are all sorts of loonies in chat rooms. No. A singles web site. Richard said the women at these clubs do the choosing and there’d be lots of young men for me to pick from and plenty who’d want to give me a massage. In fact I got so excited about the idea of me doing the choosing that I’d look at the men in the gym and sitting on the train and I’d think: would I choose you if you were there. Richard offered to come with me as my partner but why would I want to pay $120 to go as a couple when I can go for nothing. And anyway, I wouldn’t want to see Richard with another woman.
It wasn’t very complimentary to you that Richard offered to go with you, Dita says, a harsh satisfaction in her voice. Anny can see Dita is pleased somehow telling her this about Richard – as if Anny doesn’t know it already.
Dita pouts her lips to apply a tangerine lipstick to her mouth. The lipstick matches her perfectly manicured toenails that are revealed at the end of her stiletto sandals. She puts the lipstick away in her handbag, sits back and looks out to the ocean, then twists her wedding ring around her finger.
It’s a can that I’ve always wanted to open, Dita says. To see what goes on in these places.
She stands up decisively and pulls her tee-shirt down at the sides accentuating the waisteless bulge of her torso that protrudes for some distance from her body. She slides her hands up and down over her stomach like a proud pregnant woman, but Dita isn’t pregnant.
She thrusts her shoulders back and her chest out. Who cares if my gut hangs out, she says proudly. I’ve got a gorgeous husband, two mortgages, two kids and a great business. What more could a girl want?
Anny feels depressed. But she won’t tell her that. She’s said enough already.
Libby Sommer, Author 