Love and Other U-Turns

by Louisa Deasey

  I walk up a bush track and chant lists of little things that I’m going to enjoy, back in Melbourne, to strengthen me for telling Jim the news. Reading in bed while the rain falls outside. A poem in the bath. The smell of Dench bakery. Dinner with Sally. Fresh flowers. A window ledge where I can rest a book, not needing to pack it up the next day. A good night’s sleep.

  Simplicity.

  I get a vision in my head of well-stocked shelves in a pantry, my clothes hanging in a wardrobe, not crumpled and ruined, and a desk in a room where nobody can interrupt me working.

  Holding my vision carries me back to the car, and I pick up the phone and call Jim.

  ‘Jim, I think I’m going to book a flight back to Melbourne.’

  He sighs. ‘I understand babe. I’ve never had the pleasure of freedom – with this kind of love – before.’

  If I needed any confirmation that the universe was waiting for me to make a decision, it comes in the form of an email, ready and waiting, when I log in after my walk.

  ‘Louisa, a friend of mine needs an editor for a health magazine. It pays well, and you can do it from home. Only thing is, he needs you to start in the next few days, if you’re keen.’

  I call the number, lining up an interview with the publisher the next day. I then check my horoscope, seeking an explanation for the horrific weekend.

  ‘The eclipse of the moon on your sun … can represent a dramatic ending. But don’t forget, every exit is an entry somewhere else, according to Tom Stoppard … ’

  Then I book my flight back to Melbourne, and exhale, for the first time in ages.

  For the drive back to Darwin we are talking again, like little kids excited about our lives anew, eager with plans, finally free to love each other without needing to compromise our values in life. It’s a peculiar thing, this insane story we’ve shared. It’s as if we’ve scaled the highest peaks and the lowest troughs possible, and now, we can just move on to other things.

  We stop at a water-hole and I jump in, in my clothes. A sign at the entrance says crocodiles are ‘often’ spotted, but not ‘recently’. I let the pure water baptise me, a new beginning and an end all at once. When I look up Jim’s bobbing head is growing smaller as he swims a mile deeper, risking more, further from the edge.

  ‘Why’d you go so far in, babe? Didn’t you see the sign about crocodiles?’

  He’s panting, almost shining with radiant glory. ‘The risk makes it all the more exhilarating!’

  Knowing we only have a few more hours together makes us bury the pain of the previous night’s drama to relish the last moments in time. We wander through Darwin at dusk, our clothes dried now from the sun, arm in arm, looking for a restaurant to have a final meal together before I fly back to Melbourne on the Red Eye. After I get changed into a dress in the dirty car, we arrive at a candlelit place on the Marina, where the bow-tie-clad waiter guides us flawlessly to a table overlooking the Timor Sea.

  Our Riedel wine glasses sing when we touch them, and our meals arrive, perfectly arranged like works of art. Not only do we not have to clear our own space at a roadside café table, but they bring the food to our table for us.

  Jim looks up at me as if he’s just remembered something.

  ‘Did you know this is the first time we’ve ever eaten in a proper restaurant together?’

  We’ve been together a year.

  Would I trade seeing six states, four seas, countless road gigs, sleeping by the side of the road, and The Wedding From Hell – for a year of restaurants and behaving normally?

  Not on your life.

  As I go to walk up the gangplank at the airport, with tears dripping down my red, blotchy face, Jim hands me a little smooth orange pebble he’s had since one of his walks along the river in Denmark. A visible touchstone of the connecting cord which runs from one half of our continent to another, it reminds me there is no separation between what I love and who I am.

  I hold the pebble in my hand as the plane takes off, its smooth strength in my knuckles a reminder of how quickly things can change, how we make it all up as we go along, how important it is to let go.

  I strap on my seat belt as the wheels rise on the plane, gathering speed. The runway begins to blur and we lift off from the ground.

  Darwin airport, shrinking from my window, becomes a fainter sparkling dot in the night, as I disappear into clouds, letting go of all attempts at understanding this miracle of flight. Once upon a time, I muse, nobody saw how humans could fly. Somebody must have had to be the crazy one, being laughed out of town when they presented the first model of a plane.

  What a funny thing freedom is.

  It never comes in a package that’s graspable, unless you let go of your preconceptions.

  I’ve travelled across the desert and a thousand kilometres and two time zones in a day, worn the same underpants for a week and slept in a shack with a pet lizard, seen snakes, pythons, camels and whales, sunsets like gold and toothless angels like Mole … and all of it came when I let go of ideas of what my life should look like, what love should look like, when I left what I had to find who I was, fled all I knew and hopped into a car with a man I fell in love with the night I met him.

  My stomach lurches with a gulping pang for his familiar energy as I touch down at Tullamarine, realising he won’t be there to meet me. And I quickly replace the vision with the creamy, dreamy latte I’m going to have just as soon as I get to Fitzroy.

  31

  Full circle

  ‘So, you can think on your feet then?’

  MELBOURNE HAS NEVER LOOKED SO beautiful, so unique, and like such a – lady. Like the vision of a place from my dreams, I’m amazed by how clean, healthy and well-dressed everyone looks. Despite being on the far edge of the Australian summer, Melbourne has a familiar chill, and I’m suddenly glad that during my mass cull six months back, I’d chosen to store a sparse few more elegant remnants of my previous existence at my mum’s house.

  Mum collects me from the airport, hands over my fitted black coat, and helps me with my one big suitcase, all I’ve travelled back with, the sum total of my experiences in my head, my heart, my skin and my soul.

  I stay with Sally for the first two nights, a newfound appreciation for the level of comfort and security in her life that I was so quick to shed. We stay up late, talking in the night, and she barely believes half the stories I have to share.

  ‘I kept telling myself you were in outback Australia, Lou, then I’d see a column about a dress that you’d written in the paper!’ she says, shaking her head.

  ‘Do you think Jim will follow you back?’ I shake my head, no. Then I try to change the subject, finding it impossible to describe how the journey’s over, but the love will always remain.

  In the morning, the tram makes its familiar sailing song down Nicholson Street and I pinch myself that I’m safe, in a bed, and free, again. No more sunburn. Libraries aplenty and phone connection. Family, friends and cats roaming the Carlton streets. My town. My tribe. Home.

  Despite missing Jim like a gulp every time I do – anything – I know that I’m not the same person who left this town. I’m determined to keep the feeling of life being a tour, even though I’m safe and sound, back in Melbourne. When you travel, everything unknown is an exciting adventure just waiting to be conquered. So I approach my lack of belongings and accommodation as just that.

  I’ve come utterly full circle.

  Jim calls, with another reminder to replay in my mind when the painful pangs grip me with longing.

  ‘I slept at Pig’s place last night, Lou. We talked road stories and we stayed up until dawn.’ I remember Pig. He drank Bundy and burped a lot. Jim knows just what to say to help me appreciate where I am right now.

  I run to the milk bar on my first Saturday back, and savour the taste of purchasing The Age for just two dollars.

  Hot-off-the-press.

  I meet the publisher two streets away for a quick interview and get the brief on what he wants for the
health magazine.

  ‘Where were you when we spoke, yesterday?’

  ‘Katherine.’

  ‘So, you can think on your feet then?’

  I can finally say ‘yes’ to the invites to theatre shows, dance, performance and the perks of the arts columns, now that I’m home, too. Sally likes dance, so she comes along with me to a New York contemporary ballet performance on the second night. I dust off my one nice top, after pulling it from the bottom of my suitcase. We sip Bollinger in the foyer as regal-looking women doused in perfume swan around us. As the dancers take us away on a visual journey my mind intermittently drifts back to Jim, my missing limb. But this beauty, all that I missed, brings me back. Sally smiles, tears in her eyes from the show, and gives me a hug. ‘I’m glad you’re back, Lou.’

  I’m introduced to one of the benefactors of the dance school and she air-kisses my cheeks and looks up at her eyelids while she bellows to me.

  ‘Oh yes, you do look familiar because I saw that photo beside one of your pieces in the newspaper. Who styled your hair for the shoot?’

  I think back. It was Denmark, just after the Krispy Kremes horror. Someone had demanded a photo be emailed that day and I asked Jim to pull over near a public park so I could plug my hair straightener into the power point. I didn’t even wash my face before he took that photo.

  But he did make me laugh just before he snapped the shutter.

  I feel like I’ve emerged from the most extreme form of Survivor – romance style, so the issue of setting myself up in an apartment again is the least of my worries. Free to spend every day working in hotel lobbies, libraries and quiet cafés dotted across the city, I marvel at how much you can get done when you make your own rules.

  The Wedding From Hell, still on replay in my mind, was stressful simply because I had no control over anything, from mealtimes to sleeping arrangements. Now I’ve got my freedom back, nobody is going to take away the joy of my power to choose how I live my life.

  Sitting on a tram one day, I overhear a girl and her mother, talking anxiously in the seat behind me. The mother is imploring her daughter to pick her first university preferences. The daughter is holding out for a dance scholarship, but the mum really wants her to study law.

  Be what you love, I silently whisper to her. Don’t live to please anyone else.

  Be what you love.

  At the Westin Hotel foyer, I sit in luxury at a glass-topped table while women in heels step around me, the rain falling softly outside. I commission articles for the magazine, conduct phone interviews, scrawl story-lists and juggle commissions from my editors, all while plugged into a nearby power point. The waitress brings me water even though I haven’t ordered anything to eat.

  When the internet disconnects without warning, I look up to see another businessman at his laptop, looking perturbed.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he says, in an American accent, ‘are you connected?’

  I shake my head, no.

  Suddenly, an elegant man sweeps in front of both of us, asking us to follow him upstairs. Wondering if I’ll be found out, I follow anyway, and he leads us both to the ‘business’ room furnished with mahogany tables, lounge chairs, a printer, fax and phone, and of course, free wi-fi. After thanking him we both get back to work.

  I make calls to fashion designers and ask for photos for the paper, speaking of publication dates and juggling calls. A steaming coffee appears next to my laptop as I wind up a phone conversation and when I get out my wallet to pay, the hotel representative smilingly shoos my hand away.

  ‘It’s on the house.’

  I marvel at the outfits we all wear – jobs, houses, suburbs and behaviours. We really are all the same. But place someone in a certain locale, and you assume … all sorts of things. The staff here have no idea the hotel where I sleep is a little less clean. And it certainly doesn’t have any stars.

  Mum brings me fresh daffodils, to brighten the room at the Royal Derby. We laugh that I’m editing a national magazine from the bed of a room in a pub. Besides, what I like about staying here while I work on such big projects is that it reminds me of how nobody – myself most of all – should be taken at face value. Don’t judge a person by their temporary situation. Their home. Their clothes. Their position. Anything can change in the blink of an eye.

  And it always does.

  By the following Saturday, I’m letting myself into a beautiful apartment, on the ground floor of a block, just streets away from where I used to live.

  I sleep on the floor for the first few days, revelling in the pure white simplicity of an unfurnished flat. I’m not worried about it being empty, for now. I know, from experience, how easy the accumulation is. It’s the letting go that’s the tricky part.

  In the buzzing auditorium by the shimmering docklands, the bustle of excitement before a year’s worth of struggling to create a parade of fantasy is about to commence. A waiter stops, smiles, offers me a tray of smoked salmon canapés, another pushes a Kir Royale into my hand.

  ‘Thank you.’ The room is sparkling and alight with the popping of camera shutters. Reflections of the water catch on chandelier light in a kaleidoscope of possibility.

  The publicist for the fashion awards spots me, rushing over in her couture finest to introduce me to two actors who have been flown in from LA to glamour up the Melbourne Fashion Festival. I introduce myself, smile warmly, drink up the music and settle into my seat for the first show. When the usher appears, I hand across the gold-papered ticket with my name on it.

  People behind me crane their necks to see who is important enough to get a seat in the front row.

  Exactly a year ago, I was sitting in a pub in Kalgoorlie with a skimpy called Paris serving me soup. And I felt just as lucky as I do now, getting to see such things. Lives. Landscapes. Experiences. Worlds that aren’t mine, but which still allow me a front-row seat.

  The music starts and the show begins. A petulant-looking model stops and poses in front of me in a see-through dress just like the negligee Paris wore. I study the cut, the stitching, the fabric. I even catch the seam of some sticky tape, stopping her nipples from showing through the viscose.

  No, the dress isn’t very different at all. And neither is the girl. She’s just standing in a different landscape.

  My hand instinctively falls to Jim’s pebble, ever-present in my pocket, and I wonder where he is on the road map of Australia tonight. I realise, suddenly, that I don’t miss him with the ache that had at first frightened me with its intensity. I feel him in the contented smile which spreads across my face. I’m doing what I love, and so is he. This is all we ever wanted from each other, and from the relationship.

  That night, I sleep deeply, and dream Jim has given me the keys to his Mazda, because he doesn’t need it anymore. This time it’s me who waves farewell and hops into the driver’s seat, ready for a new adventure.

  When I start the car, I see that he’s left me a first-aid kit in the centre console, under a plastic balloon rose. I open it up and see that all it contains is a small scrap of paper. Written in my own handwriting are just two words:

  Let Go.

  Acknowledgements

  WRITING AND PUBLISHING THIS BOOK has been as wild a ride as travelling with Jim, and many people have played unwitting roles in an incredible journey. So here is a short thank you for blessings and encouragements, large and small, which showed me I was on the right track.

  Firstly, to Ayala, who has always believed in me and delights in my successes. And for cycling over Soothers and Lemsip when I’d written so much I made myself sick! I’m so incredibly blessed to have a sister like you. And to my brother Dec, who eats tigers for breakfast and has always scoffed at the word ‘impossible’; you inspire me to do the same.

  To Jim’s family, particularly Robyn and Camille, for osso bucco, kindness and unconditional love. To Jacqui Tonks, ma souer adventureuse on this wild ride called life. To Kate Forster, for dream interpretations and a life-saving book of Rumi poetry. To Ma
gda Hoszko, for snail mail in Kalgoorlie, Marios in Melbourne, and a perspective that takes away my headaches. To Christina Martini, for ten pages of enthusiasm from Seattle. To Sarah Darmody, who knows a thing or two about plants, life, and the power of words.

  To Margaret Ambrose, for sharing your knowledge about the book writing process. To Claire Isaac, for that first perfectly timed feature commission. To Mystic Medusa, for ridiculously fated connections and emails! To Louise Thurtell, for a phone message which wiped out a lifetime of doubts, and to Jude Mc Gee, whose first friendly email encouraged a whole book out of me.

  And to everyone Jim and I met on the road; I’ll never be the same, and I’m glad about that.

  This book would be so different had I not bumped into my kindred writing spirit David Crynes, who so generously analysed my original manuscript, and taught me to take it seriously. I couldn’t have done this without you, Dave.