The divine plan seemed obvious on Cephalonia from the get-go. Melis picked me up and drove me from the middle of the island’s east side to his office near the south-western cul-de-sac in which I would be staying.
I had booked my accommodation because it was the only place meeting my requirements: cheap. Cephalonia was a big island, the biggest of the Ionians, with lots of villages and choice of accommodation. I booked somewhere, completely unwittingly, virtually in the next village along from Lord Byron’s, Metaxas. As Cephalonia’s settlements were in clusters with big stretches of undeveloped landscape in between, this was yet another phenomenal confluence.
Just as Lord Byron was assimilated back into English life on that island, the same thing was happening to me—sort of. The island of Cephalonia was still awash with English, for a start, and Tony and Sheila, who owned the B&B in which I would stay, were about as English as they come.
The B&B was hard to find, though. I found the village all right; Melis had been very clear with his directions. As we drove to his office, he pointed out navigational aids: an old ruined castle high on a hill, an old olive tree in the middle of an intersection, a Fiat dealership. When he handed over the keys to my little car, he reiterated his directions—to the village. Melis did not know where the house was either. I reached the village, then stopped and asked directions of a young woman and her father, who was in a hat my dad would have killed for. It was a beaten-up Akubra-style deal with a band of what looked like feral cat fur around the crown. ‘There are some English people up there,’ the girl motioned from the main road to the village proper. ‘We wish we could help you further but we can’t.’
After a while, I wished they could too.
I drove up a tiny hilly road, around a corner, into a cluster of houses and then down a tiny hilly road and back to where I started. I found a handsome silver-haired Greek man with a leaf blower and excellent English. ‘Do you know the Villa Jocomai?’ I asked. This was the name of the B&B. The silver fox looked thoughtful.
‘You know? I think I do. You work enough around the place, you read all the signs, you get to know things.’ I didn’t think he realised exactly how sage that statement was. He directed me back up the first tiny road. Follow it to the church. Go left after the church. It’s a yellow house. I tried this several times. On about the fifth attempt, the silver fox had made his way up to the churchyard, where he was now eating in the shade.
‘Left after the church, simple,’ he reiterated, after I stopped to ask directions again and allowed him his amusement at the fact that I was still cruising the neighbourhood half an hour after our first meeting.
I drove on a short distance until I heard ‘Stooooop!’ The silver fox was running along the side of the church. I slammed on the brakes. He motioned up the goat track behind the church. ‘Go left here!’
That was a road?
I found the Villa Jocomai. Past some crumbled stone ruins overrun with cactus, beyond a tiny old cemetery, then amid olive groves and fields stretching up to the imposing black sweep of Mount Anos was a suburban-looking home, painted, yes indeed, yellow.
Sheila answered the door. She was a tiny, cute, tanned blonde woman in shorts and a bikini top. She invited me in and led me out through the kitchen to the back garden. Her doppelgänger daughter in the same outfit was having a cup of tea and a ciggie on the back porch. Sheila’s husband, Tony, was scooping dead wasps out of the small above-ground pool. Everyone was berry brown. The grandson of Sheila and Tony, a four-year-old with glasses and a spiky haircut, was dancing around me.
This was not the way I normally did things, let alone how I had spent the past several months. It was about as far removed from that as you could get. I was off-balance.
‘How was your trip?’ Sheila handed me a mug of tea. I must have gone into my old pattern, belittling my experiences to make myself smaller, and so, likeable, because the next thing she said was, ‘So you didn’t have a very good time, then?’ as she lit up another cigarette.
I corrected myself. ‘I have had the most incredible life-changing time and I am beyond grateful for it.’
Sheila led me to my room, a small space at the end of a hallway. We were all sharing the bathrooms. The house was not air-conditioned. The sun hit the shutters all afternoon. It was forty-two degrees centigrade.
I left the family scene in search of water, and swam in clear aqua sea, the likes of which I’d only ever seen on postcards and even then, I thought it was Photoshopped. I adore the ocean generally but, mamma mia, this was some ocean to love. I ducked and dived and frolicked like a dolphin.
When I came back, Tony and Sheila’s daughter and grandson had left on their journey back to their home in England. Tony and Sheila were on the front terrace having an evening tipple and fags, Sheila rosé and lemonade, Tony a beer. I joined them for a rosé before heading off to dinner, where I watched the sun go down across a perfect ocean view and listened to Greek music played live splendidly well. One of the musicians sent me over a drink. It was ouzo and Solo and it tasted like dishwashing liquid. It was an appreciated gesture, though. I did think Stella had finally got her groove back.
Back at the Villa Jocomai, Tony and Sheila were still on the terrace. The house was ringing with sixties pop music played loud. ‘We like to listen to the oldies,’ said Tony. Clearly. It was a case of not beating them, but joining them, because even with my new ability to sleep through noise, hard-won from my rounds with Pisa’s garbos, Sheila and Tony’s oldies would have woken a hibernating bear. But they were convivial and lively conversationalists and we stayed up way too late talking about island life, life in our home countries, places we’d travelled, religion, politics and cricket. Pretty much the same ground Lord Byron covered while on Cephalonia too.
Like Lord Byron as he left Italy, I couldn’t help but feel that something had ended. I had found and confronted what I needed to in my heart. However, while Lord Byron was preparing for war on Cephalonia, I’d won my war. I no longer had a desire or need to prove anything.
And so now maybe I could have that holiday. I drove the island’s length, stopping to swim in that ocean when I felt the need. I sat at the little memorial square next to the place where Lord Byron’s house was before it was totalled by an earthquake in the 1950s, and I soaked in the sheer beauty of the view he would have had across the deep blue Ionian Sea, the soft breeze, the profound gratitude I felt for having the opportunity to be there. I was settling into myself. It was a wonderful feeling.
My last night on Cephalonia, Tony and Sheila took me out to their favourite Greek taverna. I got a little excited and drank way too much Greek white wine. But we were high on a hill overlooking that dazzling ocean and rugged island, it had been an insanely hot day and the evening cool was making me come alive. Plus, Tony and Sheila were a hoot. This was life. This was how I wanted it to be. We laughed and sang and clapped along to the Greek music and when Sheila got up to do traditional Greek dancing, I remembered. Joie de vivre, that’s what I remembered.
The restaurant was crawling with kids. ‘You’d be a good mum,’ Tony said as he watched me chat to a bunch of them.
‘Maybe a step-mum one day,’ I said, warmly, optimistically. Not the slightest bit wistful. I had that feeling again of having stepped into life. Of getting on with it.
At 7 a.m. on the morning of my leaving Cephalonia, Melis from Greekstones was waiting for me at his office to take me to the ferry after I returned my car. Driving down the rugged, dry mountain into Sami, Melis said, ‘Look at all the butterflies.’ They were everywhere, alongside us and above us on that windy, rocky road, flying out of and fluttering about the limestone road’s edge that was jagged in cubes like potato salad, garnished by cypress and olive trees.
Ever since my mum died, seeing butterflies in unexpected places has been a sign for me, of love and reassurance, of her presence. I wondered when Melis said that. Then he added, in quite an awestruck tone, softly, thoughtful, almost to himself, ‘It’s very unusual. Rhod
es has a lot of butterflies, but not usually here.’
And then I knew.
I boarded the ferry for the mainland of Greece with butterflies dancing in my heart. After a spectacular three-hour cruise through the Ionians, I got to the delightfully untouristy town of Patras and checked into my hotel where I slept a sound, peaceful sleep.
The next day, I took the bus to Messolonghi. I needed to get a sense of where Lord Byron died. His house had been on the ocean’s edge. I knew it was no longer there so I just headed for the water and sat on the end of a pier.
I settled in with Don Juan and began to read some of his sublime stanzas. I looked up, gazed across the pancake flat water and reflected: in circles I had known, poetry had that stigma of being a naïve undergrad pastime; the pretentious posturing of young blossoming minds with intellectual aspirations—kids who took themselves way too seriously. How I had sold my experiences—and myself—short, labelling the things I loved as a kid ‘phases’ or fancies to be affectionately scoffed at from the grand viewpoint of maturity. I used to draw too and found sweet silence in it. Sitting out the back of my mum’s house, in the garden, focusing on a thing, or copying pictures from the old copies of Life magazine that were stored under the house.
In the turning away from my passions for language, art, spirituality, I had begun to lose myself. And now I had found myself again.
And then I had the urge … for the first time in thirty years. I tried to shove it down, but no, there was no shoving down now. It was the least I could do to honour Lord Byron, here in Messolonghi, where the champion of my heart had died.
I put down Don Juan, picked up my notebook, and wrote a poem.
I didn’t know if it was any good, but it felt good to write it and that was good enough for me. I was different. I could say for the first time in my forties that I felt my age and that was not a bad thing, but a truly accomplished, positive feeling. It filled me, head to toe. I felt proud of who I was, how far I had come, where I was. I was in no danger from me. I was in good hands.
I was in no danger from me. I was in good hands. This was a concept so new it made me gasp out loud when I thought it.
I had spent my adult life not trusting myself to do the right thing. I had spent all this time trying to trust God when I had no trust of myself. I had never seen this before.
I trusted me to fulfil my needs. I trusted myself to create the life I desired. I trusted myself to take care of me. To keep me safe. To see me thrive.
I knew myself. Yes, it felt good.
I got up to go and catch the bus back to Patras, but before I left the pier, I turned and blew a final, grateful kiss into the water to Lord Byron. And to my mum, and my dad. But also, to me.
Epilogue
And so. Three months after my return to Australia, here I am in Byron Bay, this new version of me, about to go on this date. I walk out the gates of the apartment complex and two large black butterflies dance across my path, so close their wings almost touch my nose. These butterflies let me know I am supported. I cross the road to the beach, kick off my shoes and walk slowly along the sand from Belongil to Byron township. The sun is softer as the evening settles in and people are out walking dogs, body surfing, splashing in the shallows. It is idyllic. Everything sparkles. I feel like even I am. Then it hits me for the first time: I am meeting this man in the most aptly named place possible, Byron Bay. And I am meeting this man whose name is Gabriel, the name my mother was also christened, in the feminine form, Gabrielle. And now I think about it, in the photo I have seen of this Gabriel, he has long dark curly hair, thick lips and a cleft chin, not at all unlike Lord Byron himself.
Now I am getting a bit silly with the signs. But the thing is, I hadn’t gone on that dating site looking for someone. That was not my expectation. Getting on there was more an act of affirmation: an ‘if you build it, they will come’ exercise. You’ve got to be in it to win it. And there he was. And there I was.
Whatever this was, it felt full of possibility, full of goodness.
I thought back to my conversation with Angie earlier at the apartment. ‘Of course you’re feeling nervous,’ she’d said. ‘But you have to get yourself out there. You have to take a chance with your heart. You’re nervous because this could be something good. And even if it’s not, what’s really good is that you’re ready for this. You’re nervous because whatever this is, it’s a new beginning. This is the moment. It’s the difference between giving up and saying you deserve it. Saying you deserve to have someone in your life who gives a shit about what kind of day you had.’
She had me teary again then.
‘Now, go put some perfume on.’
And suddenly, I am in a blue dress and Acqua di Parma, waiting for a man called Gabriel in the beer garden of the Beach Hotel. He comes from the direction of the Norfolk pines with the cooling evening eastern sky behind him. He is looking for me. I walk towards him. He sees me and he grins. And I keep moving towards him. I keep moving forward because it is all I can do now.
Coda
For the curious, for Lord Byron, who would no doubt consider me a coward if I didn’t publish this, and for the sake of completion—here is that poem I wrote in Messolonghi.
I AM NOT FLAWLESS, BUT PERFECT AS IS
Stanzas on Self
I
I am not flawless, but perfect as is.
I am God’s ideal, this truth life’s basis.
What once I believed to be heresy
I understand as the divine mercy.
II
My mistakes shall lead me to what is right.
The only way through may be a dark night
Of the soul. Oh, blessed blackness. I bow
Humbled. How great the knowledge you bestow.
III
Loneliness shows me how much I am loved.
In a breath’s drawing all that I covet
Is revealed, a pause perchance to listen.
Angel’s wings beat. Truth is all that is, then.
IV
All are growing pains, rips in the tissue
Of the spirit. Let then God’s work ensue.
Imbuing self wholly in the feeling,
I receive greater strength from the healing.
V
I have love to give. Let the world have it
Now. No longer a slave to decrepit
Notions of needing the one to endow
It to, I set it free, my flow, its flow.
VI
I am puzzle in progress, not finished
Even when, brightness dimmed, this skin is shed.
Pieces yet to be formed count infinite—
To mind mystery, to soul intimate.
VII
There can never be too much me. Who said
I laughed too loud? How I elicited
This notion, well, there’s no need for the how.
From less than myself, here, all of me, now.
VIII
At the end I can say I gave my life
My heart. Not always. It’s true I have been rife
With doubts that debilitated gravely.
Proud then, by grace, that I’ve risen bravely.
IX
I am far from fearless, but not afraid
To face my fear. In the endless parade
Of dreaded demons, all my creation,
Marches truth, marches God and salvation.
X
God is all I need, all I ever am,
Ever was, will be, ad infinitum.
May I keep God close and so close keep me,
His image, my life its epitome.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Colette Vella, Kay Scarlett and Elizabeth Cowell at Pier 9 and Murdoch Books; Selwa Anthony, agent; Anouska Jones, editor.
Diana Stainlay and Terry Mooney at Singapore Airlines, Florence Pasquier and Alexis Darne at Rail Europe, Luke Starr and ICG Hotels for kindnesses without which I could not have followed Byron so.
In Greece, Tony
and Sheila Curtis.
In Italy, Alessandro and Dario Dal Corso, Cinzia Fanciulli, bellissima Nina Fiorenza, Rosanna Genovese, Paola, Luciana and everyone at A Casa di Paola. And of course, the makers of gelati artigianale. Long may you scoop.
Special thanks to my family for the unique perspective and for loving support, Quentin, Marg and Liam, Dale, Damien, Regina, Sinead, Paul, Sean, Vera, Claryssa, Orien, and lovely Erin, whose story is my story in many aspects, and Bernadette and Andrew who go to the barricades for me time and again and without whom I wonder whether I would have survived.
A big thanks to Michelle Singer, Angie Kelly and Sarah Maguire for encouragement, friendship and purchase orders.
I’d like to acknowledge all the biographers of Byron whose work fuelled this journey. It was a joy to read you. A particular suggestion for further reading is Fiona McCarthy’s brilliant Byron: Life and Legend, John Murray (Publishers) Ltd, 2002.
And thank you George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron, for sharing your light, even when it seemed the whole world was trying to smother it.
Me, Myself and Lord Byron Page 22