The Sparkle Pages

by Meg Bignell

  MONDAY 17th APRIL

  Oh, dear GOD, I have a terrible, terrible hangover. And a horrible feeling that any inner glow I might have had has been extinguished by champagne. And gin. We are home, and I have banished myself to the wardrobe to face my music and accurately report the events of our dinner date.

  I could blame Hugh for being late. Twenty-five minutes isn’t that long, except by then I’d reached that squiffy stage when every new drink seems like the best idea ever because they are causing SUCH FUN! When he finally entered the room, I leapt out from the reading nook and yelled, ‘ROOOAAAAARRRRR!’

  He yelled, ‘FUUUCK!’ because I really scared him. Must have been the leopard dress. I thought it was hilarious. When he’d composed himself a bit, Hugh said, ‘Hey, look at you! You’re so … wow.’ Compliments are apparently fraught with danger. I tried to give him an encouraging smile but he was looking at all the strewn-about evidence of my vanity. I’d forgotten to pack it up. Blame the gin. ‘What’s all this?’ he asked.

  ‘All this,’ I said, ‘is you and I going on a date, just the two of us. And you, my darling,’ I lowered my voice and opened my stance, ‘are in big trouble.’

  I never call him Darling.

  I’d booked us into Nost, a restaurant in Stanley that keeps getting rave reviews everywhere. It turned out to be waaaaay too hipster for us.

  We arrived at the restaurant twenty minutes past our allocated time but the laconic, man-bunned maître d’ appeared unperturbed. Or on dope. He said, ‘All good hey, Thursey,’ which I took to be some sort of New-Age greeting. I was contemplating giving a peace sign when I heard, ‘Hey, Fezzle,’ from behind me and a bloke with a long beard – presumably Thursey – came past. He was wearing bright green skinny jeans and an Ansett T-shirt.

  ‘Mazza pumping?’ asked Fezzle.

  ‘Midtown. Rippy. Sat out the back and watched the kooks.’

  ‘Niiiice.’

  I gave Hugh a bewildered look. He smiled and sipped some water from what looked like a small Vegemite jar.

  ‘Thank you, Fezzle,’ said Hugh seriously. I held in a laugh.

  ‘What were they saying, do you think?’ I asked once Fezzle had resumed his post at the front door. ‘Who’s Mazza?’

  ‘Mazza’s a beach, I’d say,’ said Hugh. ‘A surf break. Marrawah, maybe? The beard bloke’s been there but the surf wasn’t great. There were rips, and novice surfers probably from out of town.’

  ‘Listen to you!’ I was amazed. ‘How can you decode that exchange?’

  ‘Spent a bit of time with a surfy bloke at Davis Station. We all used to imitate him. It was great.’ He smiled broadly at the memory. The old Hugh smile. Not for me.

  ‘Oh.’ There was a pause with something crackling in it. Not sparks. I felt very midtown.

  ‘Honeyed bespoke pilsner?’ I waved the craft beer list at him.

  He smiled and said, ‘Sweet, that’d be mint.’

  I tried a laugh. And choked. Possibly on a chia seed.

  The coughing and spluttering went on for a long time. I had tears streaming and people staring. Even the laid-back Fezzle seemed a bit concerned, Hugh said later. I had to stand up, thus causing something of a scene. Hugh stood up too. I clutched his arm. He looked embarrassed and I wondered whether he’d quite like me to get on and stop breathing to end the noisy leopard-printed drama. That would probably be the most exciting thing to happen in Stanley since Kate Winslet was here, I thought. I finally caught my breath before anyone felt the need to administer the Heimlich manoeuvre (thank goodness, they would have encountered my shapewear) and, after some worried hand pats from Hugh and me not being able to talk for a good ten minutes, normality resumed. An extreme way to avoid Antarctic awkwardness but it worked. Chia really is a superfood.

  Dinner arrived – spirulina-infused beef with harissa kale chips for Hugh, confit of organic duck with Bloody Mary jus for me. Hugh tried his best to rid his face of its blatant WTF expression but failed. We laughed again and reflected on the near-death choking experience and what to do if I died. (Spend nothing on coffin but lots on large marble statue of weeping angel; ensure children brush teeth, etc.) Then the conversation turned to children and our vacuum cleaner. (Too cumbersome, bit crappy suction-wise despite relative newness. Should we write a letter to manufacturer and should we get a non-shedding dog next time, blah blah blah.) See the problem? We had arrived at Boring Point and it was time to rip off our inhibitions, jump off and go skinny dipping. I closed my mouth over whatever bit of tedium was coming next, stared down at my blurred reflection amid the remnants of celery syllabub and felt suddenly VERY CROSS about being altogether blurry and never ever brave.

  I took a glug of champagne and a very deep breath and said, ‘Why did they want you back at Davis?’

  He put down his fork. ‘Not Davis this time. Mawson. Just for three months. There’s a new supervising engineer who’s very keen to have all the structures checked out. Nothing’s gone wrong, they’re just pre-empting things. There’s such a turnover of staff that old knowledge can go missing. And they wanted someone who’d been before. I know the rosters, how the kitchen operates, you know.’

  I’ll put you on a goddamn roster here if you like, I thought, in a place where there are small people who look like you and a kitchen that you don’t know how to operate. But I swallowed the words down and said, ‘And you really said no?’

  ‘Yep.’

  An apology popped into my head and stopped there, because I wasn’t sorry at all. Then I thought thanks, but I didn’t say that either because how pathetic. Instead I thought about how I’m meant to show interest in his passions, and I said, ‘What does the Aurora Australis look like from Antarctica? The southern light show, I mean, not the boat.’

  He looked at me but through me and said, ‘I was trying to tell April about this the other day and the best I can come up with, I think, is that it’s as though you’re watching the very, very best that nature can offer. It’s kind of crucial, as though if you look away or even breathe, you might miss something. And when it’s gone you feel like you’ve met an almighty presence.’ His eyes connected with me. ‘Does that make any sense?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s as if someone’s told you an important secret, only you can’t quite decipher it.’

  ‘Yes!’ His eyes caught the shine of the industrial-style lights above us. ‘Have you seen it?’

  ‘Yes, briefly, once.’

  ‘You’ve never said.’

  ‘No,’ I said, stepping cautiously. ‘I was a bit pissed off with the whole subject, I suppose.’ His eyes cast down, so (no no, stay with me) I swigged at my champagne again and went on, hurriedly. ‘It was years ago, when I was at school. I was with Ria. She made me sneak out of the house and go to a party. I was so terrified we’d get found out but she bribed me with a Crowded House CD. We had to walk about four kilometres to get to the party, so we only stayed an hour and walked home again. We’d just got to the turn-off into my street when Ria stopped and gasped. There, in the southern sky, were streaks of vivid light, purples and pinks, beaming upwards through the wires of someone’s clothesline. We were silent for a bit, then Ria whispered, “Aurora Australis, licking the corners of the sky,” because we had this English teacher who was obsessed with T S Eliot’s Prufrock so we’d learnt it by heart. Is this boring?’

  Hugh smiled, leaned in a bit and said, ‘Not at all.’

  I went on, gushily. ‘We couldn’t believe our luck. It was cold and we could see our breaths in the air, and Ria said she wanted to put them in a jar so she could keep our happy aurora sighs forever.’

  Hugh laughed. ‘You weirdos.’ This is how he used to talk to me. Fond. Proud of my peculiarities.

  ‘I was so grateful to Hobart City Council for buggering up the lighting on Seaview Avenue, and to Ria for getting me outside in the dark when I was so scared.’

  And Hugh said, ‘Rare solar winds and magnificent universe disturbances can happen when we are brave.’

&nb
sp; Then all those gulps of champagne must have set in because I remember feeling a sort of head whorl, mistaking it for bravery and thinking, I’m going to damn well disturb the universe. I took Hugh’s hand, leaned forward and whispered, ‘Perhaps we could go to Antarctica together. Then we could make passionate love among the penguin colonies. Could they bear to have a woman among the brave frontiersmen?’

  ‘Well, April’s going,’ he said.

  The playfulness in the air went ‘poof!’ leaving me hanging like a giggle at a funeral.

  ‘Is she? When?’

  ‘September,’ he said. ‘I suggested they take her instead of me. She’s really bloody impressive, Zannah. I think we’re lucky to have her. If she can add Antarctic Expeditioner to her CV, then that’s great.’

  He continued to enthuse (perhaps, I wonder now, to soothe his own regret) but I wasn’t really listening. My impressions of the earthy April were glitching around with images of a young Jane Goodall – all adorable focus and unheeded beauty. The upward-tilted chin of someone who’d never dream of setting down their camera or packing up their drafting desk because their painfully divided heart insisted they go to watch their children in their school cross-country event.

  A young couple glided past our table and I wished I could stand, take the girl by the shoulders and say, ‘Look out, beware! Hazards ahead! Relentless emotional labour with invisible results! Don’t be fooled by apple pies and dancing. They turn out to be fish fingers and drudgery. You won’t be able to glide anywhere any more. Run, run, take your unrumpled face skin and go and build a building, paint a picture, save a whale, close the door, keep safe your hands and your whole, light heart.’

  But I didn’t stand. Some things are just ineffable, especially with alcohol added. So I said, ‘Oh, that’s terrific for April,’ in a voice that reminded me of an old Fisher-Price phone we had once, bright and plastic.

  ‘It is.’ And then – after a beat – he raised his glass. ‘Here’s to you, Susannah, for “Starlit Sonata” and Pollyanna and bringing us all here – thank you.’ It felt like an end point and for a lucid moment it seemed like a very good idea to just go back to our sumptuous manor house, watch a film and see if lovemaking happened before sleep. Like the normal Susannah and Hugh would. But the woman in the leopard-print dress thought, You are so predictably half-hearted, Susannah, had another drink and asked Hugh to list his sexual fantasies.

  Half an hour later I was reciting more T S Eliot (something about forcing moments to their crises). Forty-five minutes later I was asking Fezzle and Thursey back to Brynkirra for a castle party. (‘We have Pringles. So much better than your horrible discomfit of orgasmic virgin Mary duck.’) Fifty minutes later Hugh was trying to get me home amid slurred protests. (‘But we never did get to the bottom of your sexual fantasies – oh, wait, perhaps bottoms are your sexual fantasies. They don’t call it DATE night for nothing!’)

  An hour later I was being sick in a wheelie bin.

  Hugh had to pretty much carry me back to Brynkirra, where we were greeted in the entrance hall by a silent and shrouded figure. I screamed. The apparition laughed.

  ‘Hello, Frannie,’ Hugh said.

  Mum and her flannel nightie appeared from under the sheet. ‘We’ve been having a lovely time with Eloise and Valda’s ghost stories,’ she said. At that moment, two small giggling ghosts scuttled past us, along with a bounding Barky, who hasn’t bounded for years and was clearly having a brilliant time. Then Valda wheeled her chair along the corridor wearing an armoured helmet. She said, ‘Woooooooo’. From somewhere in the house there was a clattering noise and a child’s scream.

  ‘Laurence is being a poltergeist,’ said Mum, her eyes twinkling. ‘He’s really come out of his shell this weekend. We’ve been doing quite a bit of haunting in Alison’s general direction. That’s what you get when you opt for an early night. Susannah, you look a bit tipped up, darling.’

  ‘You look like mutton dressed up as a leopard,’ said Valda.

  ‘Mummy, have you had a lot of beers?’ asked Mary-Lou, peeking out from under her sheet.

  ‘You should be in bed,’ I said slurrily.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Mum. ‘It’s not ten yet and Rodney’s coming over for a midnight feast. He’s bringing Iced VoVos.’

  Then (because of course) Alison appeared with a glass of water and an expression of disdain. She pointed the expression at me, laughed and said, ‘Oh, dear dear dear.’ Which was probably justified, but I was suddenly hot with fed-uppery so I spat back, ‘Alison, how is it that you’ve kept your heart so HARD all these years? Do you mix cement in with your porridge?’ And then suddenly my feet were taking me wonkily along the hallway towards the stairs. Perhaps they were marching me deservedly to bed, or perhaps they realised before I did that I was going to be sick. Because I was. Into a large marble urn on a plinth.

  The next morning, there was another strange apparition looking back at me from the mirror. It was like a newly evolved species of human, complete with stained lips, black-rimmed, bloodshot eyes, matted hair that seemed redder than it should (it was probably embarrassed) and the imprint of a waffle blanket on its cheek. Homo regretto-mortifi: she stared at me from the toilet with a startled expression. (Why they put full-length mirrors right in front of the loo I’ll never understand.) I groaned, gave myself the bird and put my ruined face in my hands.

  Hugh was watching from the bedroom. The bathroom was partitioned by glass, but it was transparent unless you chose to press a button to make it opaque. What kind of gimmicky, interior-stylist bullshittery is that? In a manor house? Even the most passionately hot and horny couple need a spontaneous private wee. Don’t they? Or do they just wee on one another? Sigh, I have so much to learn.

  ‘You right, Zannah?’ he called out, because I guess it was pretty bloody CRYSTAL clear that I wasn’t.

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Not by a very long shot.’ And then I found the stupid opaque button and poked it grumpily. And then I suppose Hugh watched the apparition go misty and disappear.

  ‘I’ll give you five minutes and then I’m coming in,’ he said, which was sweet, I suppose, given he’d glimpsed what I’d become. I had to negotiate fifteen, though, as my bowels had started to rumble and I needed time to deal with that. Hotel rooms aren’t always as romantic as one hopes.

  Hugh ran me a huge bath, helped me into it, sat on the edge and informed me that the children spooked themselves so much they had to sleep in our bed. Even Eloise.

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘We rented this magnificent, eight-bedroom house, went on a romantic date and ended up sleeping with all of our children?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Hugh. ‘Barky and I slept down the hall a bit. Not enough room for us.’

  I went under the water for a moment, then came up again, spluttered and said, ‘I hate myself.’ He gave me a washer and squeezed my foot. ‘Just very socially excited. You had a very good time.’

  We were quiet for a minute while I washed trashy Susannah away. A clock chimed. He got me Panadol and a glass of water and went for the door. ‘I’ll go down and make sure there’s Vegemite toast.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I called, then covered my face with the washer.

  ‘And Zannah?’

  I peeked out as Hugh’s face came back around the door. It was, I realised, disturbingly fresh. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nice wax job.’

  He left again and I laughed, then blushed.

  Sometimes it’s hard to move between functional partnership to friends to lovers. And back. Confusing. Would it be easier to let the sparkles go and just be friends?

  Some eyelash fibres were floating in the bath.

  At breakfast, I whispered an apology to Rodney for being sick in the urn. He just nodded as if I’d said something about the toast. Mary-Lou said, ‘Mummy ate some bad things at the restaurant. She bomited in a wheelie bin too.’

  ‘We don’t talk about disgusting things at the dinner table, thank you, Mary-Lou,’ said Alison, bri
efly side-eyeing me.

  Mum came in, looked at me and said, ‘Oh, dear. Someone won’t want a banana smoothie this morning.’

  And Valda laughed and said, ‘Rodney, I think Susannah would like sardines on her toast, please.’

  ‘We’ve all been there,’ said Laurence. ‘Everybody leave her alone.’ And his words were so unexpected that everybody did. (The Laurence shell is indeed open, or at least ajar; the weekend evidently wasn’t a complete failure.)

  Rodney quietly brought me a glass of lemon barley water.

  I am very pleased to be home. Even without reading nooks and gold curtains. No ghosts here. Even Eloise Driscoll is gone.

  FRIDAY 21st APRIL

  I talked to Ria today. ‘How are you?’ I asked and she said, ‘Tits deep in a new commission – the musical version of I Capture the Castle.

  ‘Oh my GOD. Tell me you’re not joking. How perfect.’

  ‘Come over and help. It’s killing me.’

  ‘I can hear Cassandra’s Midsummer’s Eve song already.’

  ‘Pack your bags. I’ll book the flight.’

  ‘You’d have to bring in some panpipes for the beautiful, enigmatic Topaz. I love her. And I love that you’re giving these characters a musical adaptation, they truly deserve it. Some don’t, you know – some characters.’

  ‘I’m very serious, Helen. I’ll fetch you over myself if I have to. I haven’t slept properly for weeks, I need you. And you, your character needs a musical adaptation. Another one. Come on.’

  ‘Stop, Ria. Please …’

  ‘But just think,’ said Ria in an exaggerated English accent, ‘what Cassandra could do for you. She said it, didn’t she? If you make yourself write, you might find out what is wrong with you. We could do Jane Eyre too one day.’

  ‘Shut up, Gloria, or I’ll tell everyone your real name.’

  To distract her, I told Ria all about the Brynkirra trip. About Fezzle and Thursey and elderly ghosts and Rodney and the painted albatross. She laughed her head off and said, ‘I bloody love Tasmania. This sort of shit doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. Hilarious.’