Avoiding Mr Right

by Anita Heiss

  'Great!' I said, with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. My nose was really out of joint now, but I tried not to show it. 'There are some fabulous shops that I know Shelley can take me to in Melbourne. If you want we can have a look when you come down for Melbourne Cup.'

  'Sounds like a plan! Let's toast to that,' Alice said, raising her glass.

  'Now, what about your ring? When's that happening? I've seen some gorgeous designs in Melbourne.'

  'Actually,' Alice said, reaching into her handbag, 'it's been really hard for me to keep it hidden. But here it is. It was Gary's grandmother's – we had it remodelled into a more modern design. I love it.' And she put the ring on and showed us all the most elegant diamond ring that sparkled like none of the diamonds today. Antique diamonds had something special about them.

  'It's absolutely gorgeous. Why didn't you show us before?' Dannie asked.

  'It's just that Peta is missing out on stuff, so I didn't want her to miss out being the first to see the ring also.' The girls nodded, and I gulped back a lump in my throat. I'd been a little selfish, I realised – tonight was really about Alice, not me.

  'Thank you for thinking of me, Alice. I have been feeling a bit left out because I'm so far away, but now I feel lucky. So who's for the casino? I think I'll be a good luck charm for a high roller,' I said as the waiters cleared the table.

  When Alice and I got back to our room that night, I couldn't stay awake no matter how hard I tried and no matter how much Alice kept talking. I think I fell asleep within seconds of saying, 'Goodnight, Muriel . . .'

  thirty-four

  The hairdresser with heavenly

  hands but a world view from hell

  The winter months and mochas and heavy meals coupled with my weekend away to the Gold Coast had done damage to my liver and my waistline. I needed to do some exercise desperately. I wanted to keep swimming, but couldn't go back to the St Kilda Baths, it was just too relaxing for any real exercise and too expensive to be a regular part of my life. So I went to the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre, or 'MSAC' as it was commonly referred to. 'It's where serious swimmers go,' Josie told me.

  I loved MSAC straight away. The centre was massive and like nothing I had ever seen. There was an indoor comp pool, an outdoor comp pool, a leisure pool, stadiums for basketball, squash, table-tennis and more. I wanted to move in. The MSAC also had a hydrotherapy pool, but I told myself I could only use it after I'd done some serious swimming.

  I started going after work and aimed to swim 1.5 kilometres three times a week. For the first week I stuck to the 'medium' lane. The workout would help me sleep soundly, which had been a problem lately. Alone late at night was when I missed James the most. It was the only time when my head wasn't in overdrive thinking about work.

  I bought a red Speedo, the closest thing I could get to the Baywatch cozzie. My red pout matched my cozzie and the fitter I got, the more I felt like Pamela Anderson.

  The downfall of a completely chlorinated pool, though, was that the chlorine stayed in my pores regardless of how much showering, soaping and moisturising I did.

  The biggest problem was the damage the chlorine was doing to my hair. My hair had always been long, but now it reached right down my back. I was wearing it up most days, but my locks needed some attention from spending so much time in the pool.

  I left work early one afternoon, around three-thirty, and walked into a salon just a short stroll from the office. It looked groovy and had a price list I could survive. A young, fit guy with biceps bulging through his black T-shirt looked at my hair, touched the ends, pushed it off my face and said, 'I'm Benny and I'd love to get my hands on your scalp.'

  'That's one I haven't heard,' I laughed.

  I sat in front of the mirror as Benny lifted strands up and down and fluffed the hair around my face.

  'Do you want a new style? A colour and a cut?'

  'I hadn't given it much thought. I really need a treatment, and probably a trim, but I think the colour's fine.' I had dark hair and didn't need to colour it. It was normally naturally shiny, but the pool had completely dulled it.

  'What about just a couple of pieces, here—' he lifted some strands to the left of my face, 'and here?', indicating the opposing strands on the right. I thought it might be nice to have a change and so agreed. As he painted mahogany dye onto sections of my hair and wrapped them in foil, I read a newspaper article about the government's new immigration policies and the introduction of language tests. The hairdresser looked over my shoulder and tuttutted.

  'Look, I'm not racial, but why can't they just learn to speak Oz-tralian when they come here?'

  'Oz-tralian? There's no such language. I think you'll find you mean English.'

  'Yes, English of course, because that is the language of Australia, isn't it!'

  'Actually, no. There's no one Australian language. Originally there were over five hundred languages spoken in Australia and about forty in Victoria. Immigrants didn't have to do language tests back then, luckily, or your own ancestors mightn't have got in.'

  'It's not the same. My ancestors were British – they weren't boat people.'

  'Sorry to be the one to break the news, but the First Fleet weren't planes, they were BOATS! The original "boat people", as you say, were British!'

  Benny just stared at me with a look of dumb confusion.

  'Look, I think I'll just read my book if that's okay?' And I opened the latest book sent to the department, one we'd funded as part of a literacy project.

  'Sure, yes, read your book, go for it,' I heard him say, but I was already trying to bury myself in thoughts of something other than this ignorant man whose mercy I was at. The next thing I knew a foil flopped on my forehead and my hair hung right into my face. I didn't know if he had done it on purpose or not. I blew the hair out of my face and pushed the foil away, but it happened again, and again, so I just closed my eyes and waited for him to finish.

  'The clock is on for thirty mins, love, you just relax.' I knew then Benny had no idea that I was pissed off with his ignorance. He continued to fluff around as if we hadn't even had a conversation at all, put the clock on and got started on the woman next to me. She was reading a trashy women's magazine, and while he applied her colour they chatted about Lindsay Lohan.

  I went back to reading The Papunya School Book of Country and History. I loved that more and more kids' books were being published with Aboriginal people involved in the development of the stories and the artwork. I'd been researching illiteracy in Aboriginal communities and a lack of relevant reading material was a big part of the problem. Black kids needed to see their own realities on the page – urban or remote – and they needed to see dark kids on the page as well. Just as boys generally read books about boys, and the same with girls, Black kids wanted to read stories about Black kids. We'd never had books at home when I was a kid, and I was so glad times were changing.

  'Over to the basin, babe.' God I hated being called 'babe'. It was such an annoyingly generic term. Men only used it because they couldn't think of something original or when they didn't want to use your own name. I knew that wasn't the case with James, but I hated him calling me babe too. There just wasn't anything special about it. I much preferred to be called by my actual name – except by Virgin airline staff or racist hairdressers, of course.

  I rested my neck on the towel of the basin and enjoyed the lukewarm water rinsing the dye out.

  'How's the temperature?'

  'Perfect, thanks,' I said in a half-trance. I could've gone to sleep there and then. A shampoo was followed by the best head massage I'd ever had, as Benny worked and reworked the conditioner through my hair with his magical hands. It was so good I momentarily forgot he was a jerk. If I focused enough, I could possibly even orgasm from his hands massaging my head. Would it mean I'd been unfaithful to James? Again, I remembered Liza's advice: 'If either one of you has an orgasm, then it's regarded as sex.' I'd answered my own question.

  'There,
let's get you back to the chair for a cut.' He wrapped my hair in a towel and helped me out of the seat. I was still aroused from the head massage and my legs were shaky.

  I looked in the mirror and even with my wet hair I could see the beauty of the highlights. I wanted this man with the hands and the hair magic in my life – as long as he remained mute. I could still pretend that I was celibate if there was no touching of genitals in any way. I could even just come for a wash and dry once a week, the cost of three glasses of wine. But I had that niggling feeling about him – I couldn't give my money to a racist, regardless of how magical his hands were.

  'So, what do you do for a job?' Benny asked me.

  Oh God. I could feel a cross-cultural training session coming on.

  'I'm the national Aboriginal policy manager for DOMSARIA,' I said.

  'DOMSARIA?' Benny had no clue. Seemed like the years of fumes from the perming lotion had damaged his brain.

  'It's the Department of Media, Sports, the Arts, Refugees and Indigenous Affairs.'

  'Really? Then can I ask you something?' He leaned in close and whispered in my ear. 'I'm not being racial, but why can't Aborigines handle their drink?'

  'Excuse me?'

  'It's just that I was at the pub the other night and there were two Blacks really pissed and they ended up causing havoc.'

  'Oh, right, and so how many white people were there drunk?'

  'About thirty probably, but none of them were fighting.'

  'But have you ever seen pissed white people fighting?'

  'Of course, all the time.'

  'And how many times have you seen Blacks pissed and fighting?'

  'Well, just the other night. But it's more obvious with them.'

  'It's only more obvious to you because they're different to you. There's probably noisy, drunken white people, many of them hairdressers, around you all the time, but you don't notice them cos they look like you. Don't worry about the cut, I'm outta here.'

  'But it's not even dry.'

  'I don't care.' I tore the plastic cape from my neck, shook my head a little and ran my fingers through my hair. There were no knots, he had used so much conditioner and combed it at the basin, so I was pretty much ready to go.

  'Did I say something to upset you?'

  There was no point saying, I'm Aboriginal, because that's not why I was offended. I was simply offended as a human being with a brain. I put the cash owing on the counter and walked out.

  I still needed a haircut so I called my hairdresser in Sydney as I walked back towards Collins Street from Bourke Street Mall. Prue suggested Paul in Melbourne Central and called him for me straight away. I did an about-face and headed right there. It looked far more bourgeois than I would normally feel comfortable with. It had sleek fittings and the customers were drinking glasses of wine and champagne. But Prue had said, 'He does good hair and good politics,' so it was a done deal.

  I told Paul the whole story. He was sympathetic but said, 'Oh, love, it's worse for me, I get all kinds. But I've learned how to manage it. When one of my clients says something racist, I still do good hair for them, because I have my professional reputation to think of, but love, I charge them a racist tax. I up their total by about eighty dollars, because while I have integrity as a hairdresser I also have integrity as a human being.'

  I left the salon looking and feeling better, about my hair and about my hairdresser. Paul became my new stylist, and he promised me a good deal: whatever he charged other clients in racist tax, he'd take off the cost of my haircut. And that suited me fine.

  I raced to meet Sylvia at 3 Below. We'd agreed to meet up there so she could give me the afternoon's messages, but I also wanted to take my new hair out to a chic drinkery. I needed a glass of red to warm up anyway. It was a blustery August evening, and my gorgeous new hair was being blown everywhere. I had a huge black scarf around my neck which hung down the back of my watermelon coat, but the wind went right through me. I needed some of that thermal underwear that I'd worn in my astral trip to Delphi.

  ♥

  'Hello there, stranger. Not answering calls any more?'

  It was Mike.

  'What do you mean? You haven't called me! Behaving like a typical bloke, saying you'll ring then not delivering.'

  'I've tried calling about a dozen times, but you never answer your phone.'

  'Your name hasn't come up as a missed call once. And you haven't left a message.'

  'Damn!'

  'What?'

  'I have "private number" set on my mobile, completely forgot. I don't know how to turn it off.'

  'Well, that explains it,' said Sylvia. 'She never answers calls from private numbers, do you, boss? She usually makes me answer if I'm around.'

  'Isn't it your shout, Sylvia?' I said. She took the hint and went for another round.

  'Why didn't you just leave a message?' I asked Mike. 'You're not really the shy, retiring type, are you?' Two drinks down and the policeman was looking attractive.

  'I just figured if you didn't answer the phone and you didn't call me back, then you probably didn't want to talk to me.'

  'Not the case, Constable Care. Give me your phone and I'll fix the settings for you, and then you can call me tomorrow, I'll answer the phone, and we'll make a time to catch up properly.'

  'You're not just a pretty face and hair are you?'

  'No, she's not!' Sylvia said with a naughty glint in her eye, as she placed another glass of wine in front of me.

  Mike grinned. 'I've got to go, but I'll call tomorrow. I'll be expecting either one of you to answer the phone. Okay?'

  'Okay!' Sylvia and I said in unison, like two cheeky teenagers propped up on our bar stools.

  thirty-five

  Caring for Constable Care

  'If you were one of the seven dwarfs I'd call you sexy.'

  I knew who it was but I asked anyway. 'Who is this?'

  'It's your Mike.'

  'You're not mine, and vice versa.'

  'Crunch time, Peta, we've gotta make a date for dinner. I've been doing my homework and reading. You promised.'

  'I don't recall promising anything, Michael, but I do have to eat at some point every day – three times a day actually – so I suppose I could be sitting at the same table at the same time as you, if we happened to be in the same vicinity.'

  'I like a woman who plays hard to get.'

  'I'm not playing anything.'

  'Then I like a woman who's just hard to get.'

  'Well, with the pathetic lines you use, I'm not surprised you find it hard to get women.'

  'Yeah, I think you might be right.'

  ♥

  We went to a place called Il Duce Si Diventa in Carlton. It was the strangest, most eclectic drinking hole I'd ever walked into, but cosy too, which was good. Sydney had usually started to warm up by mid September, but the nights were still chilly here. I looked around the room and was fascinated by the cube seats and glass-topped gilded Egyptian-styled tables. There were sculpted busts and torsos throughout the bar under red ceilings and low lighting, and pictures of everything from Rubenesque nudes to posters of Sophia Loren. It was Greece meets France meets Italy, but somehow it worked. The candelabras and chandeliers told me that anything went there. I liked it. I couldn't help imagining what my architect would think of it, though. James liked clean lines, sterile white spaces, uncluttered and formal environments. Although he loved my place and said it had a warm feeling about, it used to drive him nuts that nothing matched, and he often rearranged things to put them where they were aesthetically more pleasing. This bar would have sent him into re-design overload – but I didn't really think it fit the macho cop profile either.