He crunched his way down the drive, and turned west on the road, walking in the centre as there was no fear of traffic. Not a single vehicle had come past as far as he was aware. It was clear he was not going to be able to take part in any of the festival, that he would be earning every penny of the six hundred pound fee (unless Dot had misled him about that too?) listening to his class read their terrible poetry. The last one, just before he called a stop, had produced a simile likening motherly love to a long hand-knitted scarf. They all wanted approval, not constructive criticism. They hadn’t a clue what it meant to be a poet. None of them demonstrated a skerrick of spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling. Of any feeling. He had once written on what it meant to be a poet. What is a Poet? he had asked, and answered simply and plainly: a man speaking to men (though Dot had chided him for not including women), a man of sensibility, enthusiasm and tenderness. Above all a man with passions, able to rejoice. He had detected no passion or joy within this lot and their dreary verses. The one man in the class was writing about bushwalking. That was promising, he’d thought, until the monologue he had commenced reading after lunch took them almost to afternoon tea, and as far as Bill could determine it was only about a man sitting in a dingy office thinking of going on a walk. And its metre was enough to cure insomnia.
Tomorrow he would change the rules, get tough. He’d heard of one workshop teacher, somewhere in America, who used to demand his students stand up to read their work, then he’d yell out ‘Stop!’ when he got bored, tell them to sit down, then point at the next victim, without giving a single word of feedback. Some would be commanded to stop before they finished their first sentences. Only those with the greatest fortitude survived, the rest fled sobbing or cursing, and never returned. This was a masterclass. Bill would show them he was the master.
The road turned a bend and the tarmac turned into gravel. He kept walking, enjoying the feeling under his soles. There was nothing on either side of the road, the bare fields, the odd tree. Another bend brought him to what seemed to be a meadow. In the distance was a clump of trees, atop a hill. He turned off the road, stepped over a ditch and wandered across the grass towards the hill, careful of cow pats or other hazards. On the hill a wind developed and he pulled his coat tighter, sticking his hands in the pockets. He turned around and saw the house where he was staying, which he could see now had two chimneys. So why on earth didn’t it have a fire, some decent heat?
He turned back and wandered past the stand of trees, down the other side of the hill. There was a pleasing sight: a little pond or dam at the foot of the slope, with willow trees. Five cows were walking away towards a fence, and in the distance beyond it he spotted a smudge of dark green, and a wisp of smoke curling into the evening sky. The sun was very low by now and he shaded his eyes, but it seemed that there was another house, or a cottage, where the cows were returning to be milked. Someone was home. He made his way towards the pond and there at his feet he discovered a clump of flowers, early spring blooms gently dancing in the cold breeze. He leaned down and cupped one. It was radiant, fresh, a tiny golden spot of glory.
The still, sad music of humanity clanged in his ears all through the long day following. They were doing eight-line exercises, reading key texts by famous authors – luckily he’d thought to bring copies as the house’s only book was an old Webster’s dictionary – reading out each other’s work, closing their eyes and visualising, staring at a collection of objects he’d quickly gathered from around the place – a feather, a sandshoe, the mean sliver of soap from the bathroom – then writing a response in three minutes before he called time and took away their pens. Then he got them to write about body parts. Ears, knees, the nose. Elbows. All the despicable writing class tricks he’d picked up from others in the game, tricks he would have been ashamed to use himself, but which he now clung to like life rafts. He walked around and made them follow him: around the house, out the house, along the road, across to the hill, past the pond, around the cows that stared with indifferent eyes, and then back the other way. Forcing movement, forcing rhythm, finding a line, a phrase, an image. And finding, eventually, warmth. By the end of the day they were all exhausted but at least he was no longer cold. And the spark of joy that had somehow been ignited burst into a small flame when Cameron arrived at five-thirty with two six-packs and a stack of pizzas.
‘Bill, this has been the best masterclass ever,’ said the one man, whose name, Bill now bothered to recall, was Michael. Mike.
‘Yeah,’ Sharon said. ‘For a while there I thought you’d didn’t like us. Weren’t that interested. But today’s been great.’ She took another slice of the ham and pineapple.
‘And when you gave us that daffodil and said we had to write about that,’ Mike said, ‘well, it was brilliant.’
‘Cheers,’ they all said, clicking beers.
‘Have you all filled out your survey sheets?’ Cameron said.
At the boarding gate he discovered the festival committee had upgraded him to business class. He could stretch out as far as he liked. He could order food and drinks whenever he liked. He could sleep! There was no one beside him, no one near him. He settled back in his seat, took off his boots and stretched his legs as far forward as possible. A glass of champagne was presented to him, which he accepted with a smile.
Before he stowed his coat away, he took his leather wallet out of the inside pocket and pulled out the one bloom he had picked from the host of golden daffodils by the pond. It was now flattened. The philosophic mind was hard won, Bill reflected, and life was too short. He would put Riverside and its literary festival behind him and get on with it. He would marry Mary after all. Dot would understand. Dotty would appreciate it. His sister had been nagging him about it for years. He would present her with the daffodil, when he got back, and then perhaps after tea he would read her the little poem he’d drafted out the night he’d got back from his lonely wander and was in his bed again, huddled against the cold and the threat of banal poetry. He would write more new work on the trip back. The flight was long enough. He could already feel something forming in the back of his mind. It was fresh, like a waking dream, something about immortality and joy and finding glory in the flower. They would laugh like children when he told her all about Riverside cultural life, about the cold dreary farmhouse, the bare liquor cupboard, the two per cent milk. They would talk long into the night, he with his brandy, she with a sherry. Fifteen minutes into the flight, he was asleep.
Chance
She watched him as he set off early for the bakery. Despite the rain having stopped, the flat roads, deserted on a Sunday, the lack of any local police, and the utter unlikeliness of mishap, he snapped the helmet fastener into place under his chin and applied his riding gloves. Mock saluting her, he pedalled off.
When he returned twenty minutes later with two wholegrain rolls the size of bath bombs, Gretel discovered she could neither be dismayed nor amused. Instead her feelings hovered somewhere in between, in a new place they had not previously reached in this relationship. It was like shifting into another gear. Or worse: into neutral. She quite honestly didn’t know what to think of a man who made all that effort and took such precautions to retrieve exactly one bread roll each. Was it parsimony, or precision? Thoughtlessness (what were they to eat for lunch anyway?) or intense devotion to the cause, to the moment, to the small sacramental act of their breakfast?
Of course Lance could not be parsimonious. The thought was not possible. He had brought a side of smoked salmon in his esky. She wore his gold chain bracelet, an extravagant present for such a short relationship. He was not a mean man, he was far from ungenerous. And yet there were the rolls, occupying a modest space on the platter, which Gretel quickly filled with a tub of butter, the remaining banana, napkins, knives, anything – too much clutter and condiments for just two bread rolls. She took the platter out to the verandah, steamy and rinsed clean from the rain earlier, placed it down on the wet plastic table, and returned for a towel to w
ipe the chairs dry.
And then there was the helmet, which Lance was now wiping inside with a handtowel (surely he hadn’t sprayed it, surely that wasn’t disinfectant?) and placing on the shelf in the living room. From the kitchen she watched him sideways as she filled the kettle and set out cups, her mind lightly considering the relative merits and shortfalls of being with a man who sweated that much – it was such a short ride – or a man as devoted to cleanliness. Which was worse? Again, she couldn’t decide. She would try to err on the side of hygiene and be grateful. The first thing he had done, after they’d pulled in the day before and unloaded their bags, was wash the car.
Gretel had found the place on the internet. They had decided against the coast because they agreed that it would be too far, the long-weekend traffic would be congested, they would return tired and cranky, and what would be the point. Lance was doing the driving. It was his car. He would bring his bike because the area was flat and he wanted to keep up the program he’d recently adopted. He was now up to ten ks every morning. Soon he’d be doing fifteen.
Exploring the villa had taken no time. One large room was a kitchen that morphed into a dining/sitting room. The main appliances, a stainless steel wall oven unit and a huge plasma TV, seemed like two antagonists, facing each other off over a field of cream berber. The bedroom was small. Though it must have been closed up against the summer heat, the villa was warm and the bedroom hot and stuffy. Gretel had left her bag on the bed and slipped out of her sandals. She pushed the window above the bed as wide open as it would go, wondering about insects later in the night. Off the bedroom was a white on white bathroom with spa. She peeled away her cardigan, soggy under the arms, and left it on the towel rail, splashed water on her face and drank from the tap. Adjacent to the bathroom was a laundry. She inspected the white goods and cleaning products, wondering who would feel compelled to do washing on a weekend holiday.
She was on the verandah with a hand shading her eyes when Lance appeared beside her. His canvas shoes were damp.
‘That’ll do,’ he said. ‘I should give it a proper wash, but at least I’ve got the worst of the dirt off.’
Should she agree that it would do, or that he should give it a proper wash? To be truthful she had not thought the car dirty at all. The drive had been on bitumen, until the last two kilometres. She said nothing.
‘Let’s unpack, sort out who’s going to do what, then have a nap.’
Gretel had only brought a small overnight bag. And as for a nap, she was thinking of heading for the lake. There was a glimpse of it – brittle, metallic – a few hundred metres away through the casuarinas. The water looked blue, grey, silver. Maybe there were canoes for hire.
‘A nap? What about we check out the lake?’
‘Aren’t you tired? I am.’
She risked a joke. ‘Naps are for babies. Or pensioners.’
He ignored it and stepped closer. ‘Then we can stay up late and watch the stars. We could lie out here all night if you want.’ He embraced her, kissed her on the neck. ‘Let’s lie under the stars.’ His voice dropped, pouring directly into her left ear. ‘There’s no one else here. Let’s make love all night under the stars.’
His kisses were sweet and firm. She turned her face to his, met his lips, feeling the familiar, wonderful tug to earth of desire, the desire that ran down her spine and flooded her crotch and made her want to fall, limp and soft and open, yet made her body feel strong and eager at the same time. Her voice dropped too. ‘What about right now?’ she said, pulling him close. Over his shoulder she glanced across. The lake flashed again and again, a semaphore of wavelets and light, more intense out here in the bush, as if the openness inspired the sun to be bolder, more showy. But he was right, there seemed to be no one else around, there were no signs of life in the other villas. She pulled him closer. With his ex-wife’s phone calls and unexpected appearances at his front door, it felt like they were alone together for the first time. But he eased out of her embrace.
‘I’m just going to freshen up.’
He had probably meant to say, Come with me, lie with me, let’s organise our stuff, have a nap. Take a shower together. Instead he dropped her arms slowly, walked back a step, turned and entered the villa.
‘Well, I might just wander over.’ Gretel spoke to his back. ‘To the lake. Won’t be long.’
Lance waved, a half wave, really, his arm dropping again quickly. It could have been a dismissive flick. She imagined he would walk into the bedroom, set his duffle bag on the bed and unpack underwear, shorts and T-shirts into the chest of drawers, before stowing the bag in the wardrobe. He was methodical like that. She would return to find his razor, comb, toothpaste and toothbrush placed in a soldierly row on one side of the shelf. There would be all sorts of unnecessary products and tools, for a weekend away. Nail clippers. Men’s moisturiser, whatever that was. He used more products than she. Her bag was not much bigger than a handbag. She had brought a change of clothes, a book and her perfume, which she always carried. Chanel Chance. She did not care for No 5.
She should not have come in her bare feet. Except the sand, when she reached it, was cool and firm underfoot. She walked carefully to avoid the nut-sized casuarina cones. There were no canoes, despite certain claims on the resort’s website, though there was a small timber jetty. She walked along to the end where an aluminium dinghy was tethered. At the end of the jetty the water was still only a few feet deep. The shore was wide and clear. The dinghy could have been left there, but it seemed to her that only to justify its claims of recreational water sports, had the resort owners supplied the jetty. It was little more than a long duckboard. Somewhere to dry your feet before heading back to the villas. She sniffed at the idea of resort. The place consisted of a few villas – perfectly comfortable, she could see that – all well spaced out for privacy, and the lake. Resort to Gretel rather inevitably suggested pools and spas, beauty treatment parlours and sporting activities, like windsurfing or scuba diving. And bars, several of them, including one by the pool. With palm trees and lithe waiters bearing tall drinks sporting coloured umbrellas. The place was advertised on the dating site where she and Lance had met. His profile had been up for three months when she sent the first kiss.
The water was so clear, so still, she could see down to the bottom. Farther out, the reeds thinned and across the lake there seemed to be a small disc of an island. It might have been a huge mat of waterlilies. She shaded her eyes but couldn’t really tell; birds were landing there and taking off, herons or gulls, she didn’t know what. She was not good with bird species.
She didn’t know why she returned to the site. Of course, they had both deleted their profiles after the third date. She hadn’t told Lance that she still checked it now and then. Only a couple of times, late at night after he had fallen asleep and she was unable to settle down in his place. She padded through his flat without turning on the lights and opened his laptop in the kitchen where he always left it, in between the landline and the toasted sandwich maker. Once she had been reading through the profiles to find that of a previous disaster, the man who called himself Take A Chance On Me! Who turned out to be called Ken. Wide awake, she read through the entire profile. He hadn’t changed a single detail, not even his age. He was still claiming to be thirty-seven. He was still after a casual relationship. Right from the start Ken had made it clear to Gretel that they might be in a relationship, but would not be girlfriend and boyfriend. The first time he had initiated intimacy was on his sofa in an otherwise bare and chilly room of his house, while his recent partner (not girlfriend) was away, following their break-up. This Gretel learned soon afterwards was a lie. The partner was only overseas for work, returning within three months. And in any case, on her next visit when she peered into the bathroom cabinet and spotted the half-used box of Meds, the lipsticks and bottles of face products, it was clear that, semantics aside, this was a relationship of a serious sort.
Ken brushed aside her initial questions. Under
neath his jokes and good humour and breezy demeanour, even regarding his own name, was a hard and serious devotion to the pursuit of his own interests and pleasures. Kissing, for instance, was not something that interested him.
On his sofa, an ugly thing, Ken delighted to practise contortionist sex, bending over its arms, or draped along its side, or kneeling before it, but Gretel found its peacock blue brocade cold and slippery and unsexy. The room contained not even a painting or bookshelf that she could gaze at to take her mind off the tedium of his mechanical thrusts and regular groans, which was what sex with Ken quickly amounted to. She might have assumed it was second-hand, except it was matched by two wing chairs in opposite corners of the room, and besides, Ken had expressed disdain for anything second-hand: cars, clothes, antiques.
After the first few weeks she looked beyond the nights out at boutique hotels that served antipasto and oysters, beyond the flowers, the cards, and began to notice what hope, optimism and perhaps generosity had suppressed. That his teeth were rather prominent and abutted against her mouth. That when purporting to kiss he seemed unable to do anything else but bump his mouth against hers. And yet all the time he teased and joked about her kisses as if she were the one doing the wrong thing. She suffered in Ken’s awkward embraces that focused on kisses that never quite worked out.
Letter to George Clooney Page 9