Love and Other U-Turns

by Louisa Deasey

  ‘We’re going to a barbecue at Ned and Soph’s!’ says Jim, excited.

  ‘Um, babe? Do you think I could go back to the hostel and shower first?’

  Ned pipes in, ‘Nah! Don’t worry Lou, just come like that.’

  Jim takes a left turn at the main road, in the opposite direction to the youth hostel. I bite my tongue. I don’t really want to meet a whole new bunch of strangers – like this.

  I’ve run out of water, and the faint whisper of a headache moves to the front of my forehead as we take a dirt road to a house set back on a hundred acres. Sickly looking horses reel up at the truck as we arrive, and I spy Jim’s Mazda caked in dirt next to half a dozen utes. Ned is in the middle of warning him not to try any funny business tonight on him, the night before his wedding.

  ‘We tarred and feathered a bloke once, geez it was a pisser.’

  My headache is growing worse. Tarred and feathered? Why would you cover a man with road tar and chicken feathers?

  ‘What happened to him? How did he get the tar off?’ I ask.

  Ned says it took ‘kero and a scrubbing brush’ to get the tar off.

  ‘Yeah poor bugger died of cancer. They reckoned it was the kero, too!’ Sure, I can take the Aussie larrikin spirit with the rest of ’em, the whole ‘harden up’ idea, but accidentally killing someone for a bucks’ night joke makes me want to be sick.

  We get out of the car to meet the rest of the wedding party. Sophie, the bride-to-be, is wearing a thin polyester dress teamed with thongs, holding her newborn baby while sucking on a Vodka Cruiser.

  ‘Did youse bring booze?’ she says to me and Jim, as a greeting.

  ‘Um … no …’

  She takes my hand and pulls me into the kitchen to meet the other girls.

  ‘Hi Lou!’ says her mum sweetly, instantly warm. I can’t fault their kindness. But there are about three little babies bobbing around while everyone is drinking, and I can’t help but worry about the visuals they are unconsciously absorbing.

  I’ve never really been clucky, except for a few passing urges to hold newborn babies while they are still quiet. But when I see some kitchen bowls and an egg-beater, I get a sudden domestic urge which can probably only be compared to what other girls call clucky. I want to (gulp) nest. I want an apron, dinner at six, the smell of vanilla and nutmeg in the oven. Oh sweet lord, I just want some security, some routine to anchor me in this rapidly startling world of tar-and-feather men, harsh sun and truck kidnappings without a shower. Something mild, to lessen the bleak landscape.

  ‘Um, where’s the bathroom?’ Sophie points up the hall, and I hide in there for ten silent minutes, massaging my temples and trying to meditate away the headache with my eyes closed. Fortified by a few moments alone, I slip out of the kitchen and wander back to Jim, who is entertaining the bunch of mullets out the back, drinking beer.

  ‘I’m going to drive back to the hostel and have a shower. And pick up some wine. It feels rude …’

  ‘Nah Lou don’t fuckin’ go!’ says Ned, piping in. ‘Soph’ll give you somethin’ to wear. SOPHIE!’ he bellows, before I can make a run for it.

  He and Sophie are rocking together, clenching their drinks proudly, looking me up and down but not really seeing me. Ned points his beer at me, sloshing me a bit in the process, and says, ‘Lou wants to have a shower. You can lend her some clothes carntcha? And while you’re at it, give her a drink.’

  Jim looks over in an ‘It’s out of my hands’ look. What he doesn’t say is, See? This is how they express their generosity. Take it Lou, go along with it. Drift, like me. See the real Australia. You wanted to, didn’t you?

  I don’t want to drift anymore. I want a kitchen. An address. A cupboard where I can fold my clothes and know I will come back home and they will be there, clean, not covered in dirt and dust, begging to be washed, packed or unpacked for the thousandth time. Secure. A bunch of coloured flowers on the window sill, my toothbrush in a jar, a movie on a Saturday night. No more sunburn.

  ‘Yeah, righto,’ says Sophie. And that’s that. I’m trapped here, in someone else’s life. Soon, I’ll even be wearing her clothes.

  The night falls slowly outside, while I sit here in my own version of Dante’s inferno. I placed myself here though. Really, who do I have to blame? The only way to bear it is to drink and after three Vodka Cruisers my stomach is a sweet bloated mess, but still, oddly, hungry.

  It’s late by now, and the men and women have separated and the women are making the salads. The barbecue doesn’t start up until almost midnight and I’m exhausted, emotional, and trying to hide everything in an effort to be nice to these people who are being nice to me in the way they know how, but only serves to remind me that my tribe is far, far away from here.

  Dolly Parton music fills the air and they talk of people I’ve never heard of, who slept with who, and sing along drunkenly. I nod and laugh, trying to get the idea of the tarred guy’s cancer out of my head and simply relax in the environment, but it’s no use. My Big Dipper emotions are at a low point, and it’s going to take some serious work to dig me out. After we eat charred steaks at midnight, Jim reappears by my side and says we can go back to the hostel now. I feel like I’ve been given a leave pass from jail for a few hours.

  He’s doing a mate a favour with this wedding, so I want to cut him some slack. After spending a fortune on their rental suits, he has a number of jobs to do in the morning before the actual wedding, so I figure I can hang in there for one more day. Then we’re getting out of here. Together.

  It takes me ages to fall asleep after red meat at midnight, and I suddenly panic that I was supposed to pay for another night here. Jim has already drifted off. When I do finally make it to sleep, I dream I’m being tarred and other people’s stories are sticking to my skin. I have to peel my skin off to free myself of their stories, and it hurts like burning. I wake, sweating, sitting up in the bed. I look beside me, at Jim, fast asleep, and flinch, momentarily.

  He looks like a stranger.

  In the morning, Ned knocks on the door early, picking Jim up in his truck and disappearing to do wedding preparation things. The ceremony is at midday, all I know is that I’m to drive back to the farm and meet the family for a lift to the venue. I pack everything quickly, check out of the hostel after trying to pay for another night but they’re full, and drive in my cheap Katherine dress up to the farmlet. Where will we sleep tonight? Already I feel like crying, and the day hasn’t even begun.

  I’ve been to a few weddings in my life. Lavish receptions and smaller, less formal affairs which were nevertheless filled with love where what was missing in expensive décor was more than made up for with family generosity. The chitchat is always slightly reverential about the relationship, no matter the denomination. And the celebratory aspect is the best part. And food? It goes without saying that most celebrations involve food of some description. So I was kind of expecting – I dunno, maybe, a cracker?

  Arriving at the house, I’m hoping we’ll potter about helping the bride do her hair and make-up, have some breakfast, prepare for the day ahead … but I’m in for no such luck. I barely know these people – who am I to question their pre-nuptial choices?

  The Vodka Cruisers are already flowing and there’s no sign of food. Sure, I’m a ring-a-long to this wedding, but I’m bloody starving. And since we’re on a farm sixty kilometres from the nearest petrol station, I can’t exactly stroll down to the shops to pick something up.

  Suddenly, a loud siren wails up the hill to the property, in part ‘one’ of what will forever be known to me as The Wedding From Hell. It’s a truck with a fake police siren, and from the smell of it, one which was once used to transport manure. Sure enough, I discover the couple share an odd quirky love of sirens, so it has sentimental value.

  In we pile, eskies full of alco-pops aplenty and the wedding guests clad in their best flannels. Ned and Jim are waiting, flanked by three other beefy men and a couple of kids, for good measure. The girls pile
on in their wedding day best teamed with thongs, thirstily downing their Cruisers.

  ‘Jim,’ I whisper. ‘How long are we on this truck for?’ My head is pounding, begging for a coffee, and someone’s little boy has just discovered how to turn the siren on and off above my head.

  ‘DING!’ I cover my ears in pain.

  ‘Um … dunno.’

  Then, it starts to rain. The dress I’d bought just the day before is a thin viscose fabric. Splashed with water? It becomes see-through. Jim pulls me closer and I vow to make it through this day, alive. After an hour of this torture, twelve empty bottles rattle around the muddy floor of the truck, signifying full bladders.

  ‘STE-EVE! CAN WE STOP FOR A PISS!’ says someone called Kel.

  ‘YEAH RIGHTO!’ Steve yells back from the driver’s seat.

  The truck driver pulls up at an abandoned warehouse and we run, in the rain, me in high heels, over slabs of broken concrete and mud, to the decrepit toilet. I look in the mirror. My dress, purchased the day before, has now popped two buttons. In the bathroom mirror, my hair is straggly and drenched, drowned-rat style, my nose is pink, and my throat is hollow and sore, like I’m coming down with the flu. My life feels as tacky and valueless as this sweat-shop dress I’m wearing. It’s Saturday, I think, staring at the back of the toilet cubicle door.

  If I was in Melbourne, I think, I’d be able to get the paper. Have a coffee. See my friends and family, head to a movie, have a run. Never have I felt so sure of where I wanted to be.

  As if I’ve been kidnapped, I wonder, quite seriously, if I’ll ever get to see that place again.

  Back on the truck, we endure another hour of going round and round in circles in the rain until, mercifully, we stop at a patch of bush near a swamp for the reception. Aside from the shivering, hungry, cold, tired, coffee-craving aspect, the ceremony is quite nice. They profess their love for one another in front of a crowd and then a song plays. I’ve always loved that part of weddings.

  I gaze at Jim, standing handsomely in his suit, looking decidedly out of place in an outfit so ‘structured’. Looking at him from my place on the damp muddy ground, I’m hit with a sudden flash: he will never change. Do I want him to? No, because then he wouldn’t be the man I fell in love with. But I don’t think I can continue scrounging for a bed each night and sitting in trucks, filing fashion columns from the road.

  Oh God. Is this really how it’s going to end? At a wedding?

  Jim has given me his camcorder to record the ceremony as a gift to Ned and Sophie, but because the batteries haven’t been recharged in so long, the flashing red light marks the end of the taping just before they say ‘I do’. Perfect timing.

  Shania Twain’s lyrics mark the end of the ceremony, and I stand around shivering with people I don’t know, will probably never see again, and can’t remember the names of, while Jim witnesses the wedding register and poses for photos.

  ‘Do we have to get back in that truck?’ I ask another girl. I’d noticed she was the only other one who refused the Vodka Cruisers, and we bond over our mutual dislike of alco-pops before midday.

  ‘Only for a short trip. We’re going to a winery now!’ she says, chirpily. I picture tables set with flowers and candles, a three-course meal, maybe our troubles are over, the pay-off for the pain is about to commence?

  The truck rounds a corner to a – brewery. Or – better described – a hut in the middle of a paddock.

  The wedding party doesn’t care – beer starts being poured and I bandy with my new comrade, hunting down snacks to line our stomachs before the orgy of alcohol commences. To top it all off, the function ‘room’ is outside, unheated – and it’s still pouring!

  ‘What about some snacks? Potato chips?’ I’m begging the bartender. It’s 2 pm now. I haven’t eaten anything all day.

  ‘Kitchen doesn’t open until six. We can make youse some pizzas then if youse want.’

  I relent. Order two glasses of wine, one for me and one for alco-pop-less girl. Then I sit myself in a corner and pray for this to be over, just as Jim appears from doing some ‘best man’ job and sits next to me. ‘You okay Lou?’ Mosquitoes are now relentlessly biting me. My two red wine glasses are drained. I forgot to give the other one away.

  ‘No, I’m not okay. I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m dirty, I’m cold! My dress has popped two buttons, and my boyfriend keeps disappearing to do favours for someone who thinks giving a man cancer is funny!’

  Jim gets the spacey look on his face. He’s disappearing. ‘You’ll be right Lou. I’ll get you some chips.’

  The crowd of thirty gets drunk quickly, which isn’t a surprise, so when it comes time to do the speeches they don’t even look up from their drinks at Jim, who has painstakingly prepared a whole series of romantic-sounding gags about Ned and Sophie. Some strangers from another function at the other end of the room are the only ones who pay any attention, heckling and laughing. Then one of the groom’s friends tries to start a fight.

  ‘What do you expect?’ I say to Jim, when he comes off stage. ‘Who doesn’t serve food at a wedding, with a smorgasbord of alcohol? It’s just asking for trouble.’ The friend is removed by the police, after making his girlfriend cry and vomiting in the paddock.

  I don’t remember eating. I don’t remember dancing on a table, or slurring bitterly about the West Australian newspaper to a man’s face, or falling over on my way to the toilet, but Jim tells me later. I do remember noticing that all five buttons from my dress had fallen off and all you can see is my slip. When I ‘come to’, we’re in the Mazda. It’s night, and we’re on a dark road. Jim is gripping the steering wheel. Looking panicked.

  ‘LET ME OUT OF THE CAR!’

  He grips the steering wheel, ‘NO! I’m not letting you out in the middle of nowhere!’ then grabs my wrist hard as I try to open the passenger door.

  ‘STAY IN THE CAR LOU!’ His voice breaks.

  We’ve been driving around Katherine for hours. It’s not raining, but it’s mighty cold. I’m still in my popped-button dress. I have a vague memory of stopping at a caravan park and lying down on a floor in an empty room, in what must have been the office. When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see Jim. And that was when this fight began.

  ‘I had my eye on you, Lou! I was watching you the whole time! Nothing could have happened!’

  ‘No you weren’t! I was alone, on a floor, in wet clothes, in tar-and-feather land!’

  I’m shrieking and hyperventilating now with the memory of it. He’s still gripping my wrist.

  ‘Let me out of this car!’

  I don’t remember the crack, or even the feeling of resistance from the windscreen, but a few moments later the car has stopped moving and Jim is looking at me, incredulously, shaking his head. It’s the first time I’ve seen him slightly angry. Like I’ve crossed the line and he’s had enough.

  ‘Do you see what you just did?’

  The heel of my stiletto had sent a splinter-like crack through the entire windscreen.

  Now when I look at the road ahead it’s covered in nothing but lines.

  30

  Eclipse

  ‘The eclipse of the moon … can represent a dramatic ending.’

  WHEN THE SUN COMES UP I feel worse. The only time I can remember feeling so terrible in such a physical, blow-to-the-soul way is when my dad died. I often envied other kids when I was growing up. They still thought they had the power to change things, but when you experience death at such an early age you learn quickly that some things are irreversible, and all you can do is accept it.

  It’s a death, pure and simple, and that’s why the grief hits me with waves even though Jim is still living and breathing beside me. To this relationship, to the free-wheeling love we’ve enjoyed for so long, and to my delusions that I could live like this for an unlimited amount of time.

  We spent the night sobbing and gripping each other in agony, painfully aware that we’d reached the end of our journey together.

  ‘Yo
u’re the love of my life,’ Jim said, before a little sob escaped his lips and he stared at the crack in the windscreen.

  ‘But we can’t do this anymore, can we?’ I love him. Painfully. But I’m not him.

  In the morning he leaves to check on Ned, and I go for a walk to the gorge. Alone in the national park in Katherine, grieving for something gone too soon like Dad, I remember Mum’s comforting behaviour, the gracious simplicity of life going on which always, faithfully, carries you through to the other side.

  Mum was the reminder that life, and taking care of yourself, are the only actions to take to carry you out of the pit of despair. Fresh, healthy and dressed, coordinating our lives. Handing me a buttered piece of toast. Fixing dinner, planning our futures. Taking care of our basic needs. Planting flowers, painting a new house.

  In the cafeteria toilets, I assess my body: exhausted and shaky, with puffy, swollen pig-eyes from crying, a husky voice from screaming, and a body wracked with guilt at the windscreen. I vow to be as self-sufficient and productive as my mum was, making choices and decisions which create a better future. Focusing on what remains. Planting flowers, to replace the ones that have just died.

  It would seem obvious that it’s time for our story to end, but I’m not ready to let Jim go. It’s impossible for my brain to reconcile that this man I love is someone I need to leave. So I sit at the cafeteria with my biro and my notebook, and write a list of all the things I love about travelling with Jim, and all that I miss in Melbourne. The Melbourne column fills the entire page. Jim gets simply: Love, adventure and laughter. Under ‘cons’, I write: No freedom.

  How funny, that the reason I set about on this trip, was to feel free. But now, his Mazda has become like a jail cell and I no longer have the keys to get out.

  It’s time to go home.

  I’ve always had an ability to get joy from the little things, no matter how sad I am. A good cup of coffee. The smell of cooking. A stranger’s kindness. A dog appearing from the middle of nowhere, asking for a pat. The sun just before it sets, casting brush strokes in the sky.