But that's no surprise considering the last week.
I've partied. I've crossed boundaries. (Life begins at the end of your comfort zone) I've done life changing turns, again. I've woken as happy as a bird on the wing, poised for take off. And then I landed right back in the cutting cartwheel of Perth.
I'd been having a wonderful time in Sydney. Parties, walks, candelit dinners, sunny lunches and new friends. N, whom I've known for years, and in whose house I was delighted to stay for 6 weeks, became as close as a sister. I fondled my new stock, and customers dropped in often, as happy to walk off with some of my Part One acquisitions as I was to move them on. I made jewellery and I cooked warm wintery meals. I attended a dinner party hosted by P that required a long black dress with Queen Latifa exposure, long black gloves, triple applications of mascara and glittering jewelry. N wore a bustier that made grown men, and women, sob into their serviettes. There was music, and warmth, and a huge roast, and wine, song and laughter. And MrM.
Now MrM is more travelled than I, and that's a lot. He's a right-hand turner, as I am, and that's exciting. He knows the difference between reduction and subtraction, how to hold a fork and use a carving knife; he believes in dreams and suspends disbelief and that's refreshing. He's knows what a metaphor is for, and which side of an s to place an apostrophe. He's been, and he's done, and he's given, and he's received, and he knows there's so much more of everything and he's not afraid to work for it. We filled the night with reciprocal tales and gales of laughter. When we walked out past midnight into the glittering dark, we agreed to meet the following week, this time to cook our own meal for the friends at the table.
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| N and Moi |
The dress code would be hat and tie, in whichever incarnation it could be manifested. N and I cleaned all the crystal and silver, brought out her hand painted crockery, and rearranged her house to suit a bacchanalian feast. MrM and I organised the menu and we shopped via sms. Anchovies, goat, fennell. With many nocturnal messages of literary reference to food. Figs. Dates. Succulent Loins. And Hemingway and Joyce and Lawrence. A welcome antidote to D demanding I send pictures of "my girls". (My boobs). And calling me mean when I wouldn't, didn't and won't.
The Venetians, I told MrM, having rediscovered my favourite cookbook found in Venice many years ago, were the first to use the fork in Roman times, and was associated with excessive, exaggerated refinement. And that there's an expression in Italian: Lui e buono forkette. He is a good fork. Which means he has good manners.
To which MrM replied that he found me excessively interesting.
MrM arrived bearing half his kitchen in a cardboard box - pans, spices, knives, lemons; wearing a haute shirt and tie, and a huge straw hat, fit for a Yee Haa afternoon. He was going to do goat, but time ran out; instead, he made osso bucco with zest; he roasted duck with caramelised onions and berries. I roasted buttered fennel and leeks with cracked pepper. The kitchen steamed up. We prepped, we reduced, we distilled, we supped, we tasted each other's creations. We steamed up. I wore my purple cashmere and jeans and the apron of Italy given to me by Virgilio, my Italian driver. I made my signature chocolate mousse garnished with pomegranate pips, caramelised oranges, I made a tuna pate, and al dente pasta puttanesca, a fiery chilli sauce made by the Italian whores to lure men to their bordellos. We toasted our mutual accomplishments. La dolce vita!
I changed into polka dots, a top hat, and a tie. N wore a yellow net skirt, fishnet stockings, a kimono and a purple wig. P arrived, unadorned, forgetting the dress code. P didn't want anything we suggested she could borrow to wear. P saw MrM and I steamed up in the kitchen, laughing. P sulked.
The table was ablaze with candlelit pomp and glitter. MrM and I choreographed the evening as if we'd done it for years. We presented each course in turn. N at various intervals, draped in yellow net and black stocked, emerged in a Tina Turner wig, a Statue of Liberty wig, a turban. Her beau, in a black fedora, looked like a Sicilian gangster. R wore a bunny ski hat. K wore a red beret. P sulked. I emerged in a black wig that made me look like Coco Chanel. P got her knickers in a knot because she said there was more electricity in the kitchen than just a stove and an extractor fan. Then P stopped eating the food I'd cooked. Then after the mousse she fled in a huff because apparently I didn't "let" MrM sit next to her and she wanted him for herself.
Cointreau, cherries, cheeses, frost on trees. N was off with the fairies, dancing with chairs, I was intrigued by men who cook goats, we were debating micoeconomics in Afghanistan and the relativity of charity. Four a.m. N, now wigless, grabbed MrM by the nuts. "He's got the goods, sister!" she laughed, as MrM froze like a panther in the headlights of a landcruiser. "Take him downstairs to your bed and keep him warm!" Unable to move, MrM nodded compliantly. Petrified like a piece of dead wood, I was grateful for the anaesthetising powers of alcohol.
So. Six Foot MrM slept like a curled questionmark on the two seater leather sofa upstairs, under the doonas I'd whipped from my bed. In the morning I took him a cup of tea. "I hope," I said, as I snuggled up next to him while he attempted to rearrange his crumpled vertebrae into human form, "that this marginally excuses me for not warming you last night." "It doesn't," he said, massaging his damaged sciatic, "but thanks, anyway."
One morning I messaged him. Yes. He replied, what? I said Yes. I said today is my Yes day, and I'm saying YES to everything. I'm giving you first option. At dinner that night, he asked if I was serious about Yes. Yes, I replied. Well, then, he said, I'd like to spend Christmas and New Year with you in Europe. I'd like to take you to Slovenia for New Year's Eve. Yes, I said, absolutely, and we toasted good fortune and the ability to say YES and see where the roads take us. He booked his ticket.
Weeks later, it was MrM's birthday. Over time together we'd talked about everything under the sun; so I decided to treat him to the vision of me in a bustier. When he woke I sent him a text with "Happy Birthday Mr President" and a preamble to that night: an mms of me in a bustier I'd bought on-line that made even me cry into my serviette, and disconcerted him for the rest of the day. I borrowed N's car, filled a black bag with a red and black tutu, fishnet stockings and long gloves, and that bustier, and candles, liqueur chocolates and oysters. He was cooking the Kashmiri goat he'd promised. I parked N's 4WD down his quiet street, safe from harm.
The oysters were sublime. The champagne exquisite. The goat perfect. The bustier didn't get a show. Deep into the night, snuggling in a flickering warm room, MrM asked me about D. I don't want to talk about it, I said. Well, I'd like to know a bit, he said. I told him the smallest bit allowed. I fell in love, I got hurt, that's past, I said. Oh, I was also betrayed big time, I said. He sighed. "That must have been really hard for you to accept." I looked around the room, enveloped in its warmth and beauty. I looked at this man, enveloped in his new friendship. I heard the music, just the kind I like. I thought about how easy and HONEST our interactions are. I hugged him. I thought about the chance of New Year in, where? Slovenia! and that in a few weeks I'd be back in Venice with a family who have already adopted me. I'd be well on my way to tuning my ear to a new language. This is my quantum leap to design discovery.
MrM, I whispered. If anyone were to give me twohundredandfiftythousand dollars tonight, cash, here you are, put it in the bank and stay in Australia until your year is up, I'd refuse the money. MrM. I whispered. Look where I am. Look at what is happening here. Every single thorn on this journey has led me to this moment: absolute, total happiness and freedom, my toe poised on the edge of the world. The power to say YES. The power to right hand turn. Twohundredandfiftythousand dollars isn't much, he smiled. How about a million? No. Not even for a million, would I alter this journey. Money can't give me what I'm getting now.
Hours later, I walked outside to N's car, carrying my black bag of "tricks". Pink and a little ruffled, I laughed to myself at what I'd say to the police if I was knocked down right there, outside MrM's home with my bag of tricks. Sorry, officer, I found this bag on the street and I thought I'd keep it for Halloween? Carnevale?
I reached N's car. Oh No. Oh No. Hand over mouth, I looked again. I circled it. I shook my head. I checked the numberplate to see if it really was hers. The front of the car was mashed and the enormous bumper lay bruised in the road. MrM, I said in a trembling voice into my iphone, please come outside, I need your help. Warm, pink, and a little ruffled, he exited his cave, and when he saw the car, he said Well at least you weren't in it. Shivering in the cold, we managed to free the wheels enough for me to get home.
WHO RAMMED THE CAR?
Back at N's in the morning, I made her a cup of tea and sat on her bed and said, I have some bad news for you. Someone rammed your car last night. She looked very sad. "I had to put my cat down last night". We cried. Over two different things, but they fortunately cancelled each other out. It was only money, after all, and of the best adages I ever learned about money is that you only ever need enough to get out of the next jam.
WHO RAMMED THE CAR?
I paid for the car. The cat was buried. Mr M was supposed to take me to the airport, to fly to Perth, but he didn't turn up. In a mad panic, as I couldn't get a taxi, the Marvellous Ms M chugged me to the start of the next leg of the adventure. I still hadn't heard from MrM and I was furious that he had let me down.
A day later he called to apologise and tell me he'd lost his phone. Well, he hadn't actually lost it, it had been confiscated when he was arrested. ARRESTED? Why? For what? How? Where? When? There were too many cloaks and daggers flying, in between the silences and pauses and trying to remember truths around untruths, to make sense. When the police found his phone, he said, er, when they had it after he was in custody, they went through his messages and saw the photo of me in my dinner getup, and then they winked at him and said ... PHWAARGH!!! What a sexy chick you have there!!!!!!!!!!!!! Though while it was lost, he said, er apprehended, he was more worried about my cleavage making the centre-spread of Hello magazine. But your phone wasn't lost! I interjected. What truths aren't you telling me, Mr Truthteller and Giver of Secrets? I'll make it up to you, he promised, remember we have Slovenia ahead in a few months. But I still didn't understand the arrest or the confiscation of his phone, and all my sensibilities were rattled. Luckily, though I'd bared my soul, he'd never seen me naked. And I had life to get on with. But my inner shackles were prickling like a domestic cat seeing an Alsatian on its territory.
WHO RAMMED THE CAR?
Moments after I landed in Perth, D called, wanting to see me. After 6 months of him trying to edge closer to a possible reunion - I saw it as an inexpert drover trying to reign in a terrified, bolted horse - and just an hour an a half away from the designated meeting after 8 months of being torn apart, I wanted to see him, and I needed him to apologise. I've moved on, and I don't want that relationship, but I wanted an acknowledgement of the unhappy past and his role in it so that perhaps there'd be room for a friendship. He said, why don't you say this to my face? I said, can I? Thank you, that would make a big difference to me. He said but make sure you are standing near a cliff. A cliff? Or a jetty, he said. Why, I asked, every hair on my body erect. So I can push you off it, he replied. That's not funny, I said. I 'm not joking, he said. Why would I want to see someone who could say to this me, I said. He said, his voice filled with rage: Are we seeing each other tonight or not?
No, I replied. Not Ever. Never.
I hung up. Punto e basto. What a ride. I spent an hour composing various indignant, pleading, sorrowful, pitiful, angry, disgusted, tear fulled, fear fulled rage texts, then deleted them all. Punto e basta. Finished and Klaar. Via! Testa di Cazzo!!!!
I went to visit my daughter, who announced her engagement. In between hugs and kisses and jumping ups and downs, I asked when the wedding is scheduled. February! February? But I'll be in Italy, in the middle of Carnevale.
I'm so thrilled and delighted for her, for them. She's wanted to be a bride for a long time. But all I can think about is losing Venice. Which I have wanted forever. I feel a terrible traitor. To my daughter, for not being the mother who could say without blinking, okay I'll cancel this gig. To my dreams, for contemplating not following through with them. To myself for being a terrible mother who earlier wouldn't consider exchanging two hundred and fifty thousand imaginary dollars for this gig, but is now faced with a trade-off between my daughter's big day, and my big adventure. To my new Italian family who would understand about a daughter's wedding, but would also understand about secondary compromises and promises made on a handshake. To breaking these promises and the consequences. To Slovenia and the power of Yes. And back again to my daughter, with whom I really want to spend the prenuptial months preparing her for her greatest journey.
Which would mean giving up mine.
All the while trembling with the thought: someone I once loved a great deal has just threatened to throw me off a cliff. Petrified now to walk the streets of Perth. Fearful at every white station wagon that slows past me. I feel quite sick, helpless, vulnerable and angry.
