by Deb Hunt
*
Next morning I left Ernest some emergency money, first extracting a promise he wouldn’t spend it on the pokies, and I caught the bus to work. The passenger sitting next to me was reading The Sydney Morning Herald, and as I glanced across I couldn’t help noticing an article on the Dalai Lama. He was in Australia, running a series of workshops on meditation for aspiring monks, nuns and students. On Saturday night there was a public talk, ‘Finding Purpose in Life’.
The coincidence that Ernest should be in Sydney at the same time as the Tibetan spiritual leader seemed serendipitous; Ernest had met the Dalai Lama in Canberra and I’d always wanted to hear him speak. When I got to work I booked two tickets. As an afterthought I booked a combined train and bus ticket to get Ernest back to Byrock the following Monday. The path Ernest had chosen – living alone in the bush in search of redemption and cultural knowledge – was not an easy one but it was time he went back to it. A week with an unexpected house guest was long enough.
In the days that followed I took Ernest to dinner at a friend’s house and he endured our fellow guests’ curiosity with good-natured head nodding and quiet conversation. I was finding out that there was no such thing as small talk for Ernest. It was all deep and meaningful: spiritual discussions, visions, Jesus versus the devil, the battle between good and evil. I was relieved to let others spend time in the spotlight of such intensity.
Well, aren’t you liberal, taking an Aboriginal person to a dinner party in Balmain.
Bad spirit, I thought, banishing PK’s puffed-up pride. Go away.
*
Good spirits were there in abundance on the Saturday, led by a portly man sitting cross-legged on a cushion. Ernest sat mesmerised in the audience, head and shoulders above the rest of the six thousand followers gathered in the exhibition centre at Sydney Olympic Park. His long grey beard and dark skin made Ernest look like a budding guru himself, and there were plenty of sidelong glances.
I was glad we’d made the effort to come. After almost a week of full-strength Ernest conversations about the Holy Spirit I’d endured about as much as I could take. I was getting impatient with Ernest’s lack of motivation too, and the kindly message of the Dalai Lama was just what I needed to hear.
The Dalai Lama had none of the ego-driven pride that often comes when an important man addresses an adoring crowd of several thousand people. His Holiness laughed a lot, giggled even, and talked through an interpreter about compassion, kindness, generosity, and finding purpose by helping others. The resident of Balmain who rang the police to ‘report’ Ernest for sitting on a park bench would have done well to take note.
I hoped I wasn’t being unkind by banishing Ernest back to Byrock, but he needed to get on with his life and I wanted to get on with mine.
‘Question what I tell you,’ the Dalai Lama said. ‘Analyse my teachings and see if they work for you.’
‘What’s in the bag you always carry?’ asked a member of the audience. The Dalai Lama chuckled and reached into his shoulder bag. He held up a bread roll.
‘For when I get peckish,’ he said, his face full of mirth.
I reminded myself that Ernest would need food for his journey back to Byrock; money too.
*
I was dozing in and out of sleep early on Monday morning when I heard the creak of a stair tread. I opened my eyes and saw Ernest, one hand on the banister at the top of the stairs, looking at me lying in bed.
‘Can I come up?’ he asked tentatively.
‘NO, Ernest, you cannot!’ I said, banishing him with a Miss Prissy Knickers glare that left no room for doubt.
Later, over breakfast, I reinforced the message.
‘Ernest, I’m not looking for a boyfriend.’
He slowly shook his head. ‘No. I’m not looking for a girlfriend either.’
‘Good, that’s settled then; just as long as you understand.’
*
I got home to find the spare set of keys back in the fruit bowl and the house spotlessly clean. Ernest may not have contributed financially but he’d helped in other ways: chopping vegetables, doing the dishes and now it looked like he’d vacuumed the house (the first time the vacuum cleaner had been used since I’d moved in).
I sent him a silent thank you, kicked off my shoes, opened a bag of chips and curled up on the sofa to watch whatever mindless drivel I could find on television.
When I went to bed I found a note resting on my pillow. It was a heartfelt thankyou note – nothing untoward or suggestive in it, but even so I felt uneasy. If Ernest had left it on the dining room table it would have been sweet and lovely. Putting it on my pillow, in my bedroom, was wrong.
*
Ernest rang a few days later to let me know he’d arrived home safely.
‘You shouldn’t have left that note in my bedroom,’ I said.
‘I just wanted to say thank you,’ he said, sounding hurt. ‘Did I do the wrong thing?’
‘No, it’s just . . . oh never mind.’
‘When are you coming to visit my camp?’
‘Work’s very busy. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get out to Byrock.’
‘Maybe I could visit Sydney again, in October or November.’
That was still another four months away; I might even have gone back to England by then. I took refuge in polite English manners. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’m glad you got home safely. I’d better go now, goodbye, Ernest.’
Two days later Ernest turned up on the doorstep, with no money in his pockets at all. Did he even go back to Byrock? I bought him another train ticket, the earliest I could get, and sent him packing after a fractious twenty-four hours. It’s fair to say we parted on bad terms.
A week later there was an apologetic letter, a heartfelt missive with references to the Holy Spirit and Jesus, only this time there was a twist in the tail.
I just needed to let you know I’m sorry for the way things have turned out between us . . . I’m 99.9% sure that you wanted to have sex with me . . . and I’m letting you know that if you want, the next time we meet we can make love all day and all night, no strings attached.
Crikey. Somehow Ernest had picked up on the sliver of momentary curiosity I’d experienced in the kitchen and turned it into a ninety-nine per cent slab of certainty that I wanted to sleep with him. I will never know how he did that but I did know we wouldn’t be seeing each other again.
He rang to see if I’d received the letter and Miss Prissy Knickers answered the call. ‘Ernest, there will be no next time. I don’t want to sleep with you, I told you that. I told you I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend!’
‘I know. That’s OK. I’m not looking for a girlfriend either.’
*
Over the next few weeks I fielded several calls from Ernest. His behaviour hardly amounted to stalking – it was more like wilful persistence in choosing to interpret the friendship I offered as an indication of something else – but it was a sobering reminder of my own behaviour. How often had I done that, and in ways far more devious and sneaky than Ernest’s?
When A3 said all he could offer was friendship, I agreed. Then I schemed and plotted and desperately hoped for something else. Why not simply accept the situation? Was my self-esteem so low that I needed to prove I could ‘make’ someone fall for me? Was I happier to live with fantasy than deal with reality? If I needed fantasy I should have looked no further than Alice in Wonderland – say what you mean and mean what you say. I said nothing, not out loud. Internally I could argue, split up and then get back together with A3 (with any of the As – in fact with most boyfriends I’ve ever had) without ever speaking a single word to any of them. I’d locked my feelings away for so long that I could no longer voice them and relied instead on interior monologues so vivid and intense it was easy to forget that no one else was taking part in the conversation. And it was easy to ign
ore the fact that I was stalking A3.
Looking back, I’ve witnessed several stalking episodes. Early one Friday evening I was sitting on a bench in a crowded shopping centre in West London, reading a book and waiting to meet my close friend, Helen, when a well-dressed woman in her early twenties sat down beside me.
‘I want to apologise,’ I heard someone say. ‘I want to apologise.’
I looked up and an older man was standing in front of the young woman sitting beside me. He was dressed in jeans and a navy polo-neck jumper, with greasy black hair dragged into a ponytail, and he was staring at the girl in a way that spooked me.
‘I want to apologise,’ he kept repeating. ‘I want to apologise.’
‘Go away,’ she whispered.
There was something so menacing about the situation I felt compelled to step in. ‘I think she wants you to leave her alone,’ I said. The man ignored me.
‘Do you want me to call the police?’ I asked the girl, loudly enough for him to hear.
‘Yes please,’ she whispered.
I called the local police station, making sure the man could hear what I was saying. He didn’t move. While we waited for the police to arrive the young girl told me the stranger had broken into the residential college where she was studying, and he’d been spotted several times lurking behind the stacks in the library. Each time he was ordered to leave. The last time it happened he doubled back, broke into her student accommodation through a bathroom window and hid in the wardrobe. When she found him, several hours later, he ran away.
She had sensibly taken out a court order warning him not to go within fifty metres of her, yet here he was, standing less than a metre away. He clearly had no idea he was a stalker because when the police arrived he made no attempt to leave. ‘I just want to apologise,’ he said, as they led him away.
Then there was the time I had a small role in a Bertolt Brecht play, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich. I was cast as a woman who cried a lot. (Easy.) The cast included Samuel, a confident guy in his mid-thirties with a broad cockney accent and a live-in girlfriend, and Astrid, a nervous kitten in her early twenties. Astrid would always stand with one leg in front of the other, toes pointed at a forty-five degree angle, front leg slightly bent, like a catwalk model waiting to be photographed. She once confessed she thought it made her look slimmer. (It did.) She was a beautiful princess, as silent as a statue, and it was obvious that something went on between Samuel and Astrid during the play’s run.
After the final performance, when most people had gone home, I was sitting outside the theatre, finishing my drink, when Samuel appeared, trudging along the footpath with his head down and his hands in his pockets. Astrid was following a few paces behind. Every time Samuel stopped, she stopped; he turned, she turned.
‘Leave me alone,’ he said. ‘I’m going home and you can’t come with me.’
He turned. Astrid followed.
‘Astrid, go away!’
Astrid said nothing, she just stood there. Samuel pleaded with her, first politely then with growing desperation, but nothing he said drew any reaction. The moment he walked away, Astrid followed. He shooed her away like a dog and she stopped, but as soon as he walked on she followed.
Samuel gave up trying to go home and walked over to me.
‘Astrid won’t stop following me!’ he declared.
‘Why?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.
He sighed. ‘Because I slept with her. But it was only once and now she won’t leave me alone!’
The thought of his long-term, live-in girlfriend’s reaction was clearly troubling Samuel (a shame it hadn’t troubled him earlier, but there was no point arguing with him now).
‘You have to let him go, Astrid,’ I said. ‘It’s over.’
Astrid gave no sign she could hear me. She just planted herself next to Samuel with a sad look on her face.
‘Astrid, can’t you see? He’s not interested. Leave him alone. Go home.’
Samuel walked away and Astrid followed. He turned; she turned. Without warning, I flipped.
‘Stop it, Astrid! You’re an idiot! He’s not interested and we’re all bored with your bloody stupid behaviour and we all want to go home so just stop it! Leave him alone, for God’s sake!’
It broke the spell. Astrid slumped down beside me and burst into tears; Samuel legged it. I don’t blame him but I was left trying to comfort the distraught Astrid, who couldn’t get over the fact that Samuel was only after a good time and had no intention of dumping his long-term girlfriend in favour of her, no matter how elegant she might have looked standing with one leg slightly bent or how alluring she might have looked lying naked in his bed.
And what about that case in Holland of a Dutch woman who called a man 65,000 times in one year? That’s an average of 178 calls a day, never mind the emails and text messages she must have sent. She had several mobile phones at home and saw nothing wrong in it.
My own behaviour seemed timid by comparison but it was stalking all the same and I should have spotted what I was doing and stopped it. Know thyself, said the great Socrates. Easier said than done.
If I’d been more honest about what I wanted from A3, if I’d communicated more openly, would I have stood a better chance of success? Who knows? I certainly wouldn’t have wasted years stalking someone who wasn’t interested.
chapter twelve
Here’s where I have to admit that I haven’t been telling you the whole story.
You see, while Miss Prissy Knickers was ‘earnestly’ shoring up her defences against a possible breach of security, someone else was making his way across the outlying wasteland that surrounds Fortress Frosty. Like some crazy escapee from a World War II film, unwittingly tunnelling in the wrong direction, he seemed oblivious to the threat that lay ahead.
Maybe he didn’t realise he was heading for danger? Maybe he didn’t spot that he was placing himself directly in the line of fire? Either way, Captain Considerate, Fearless Adventurer, Slayer of Dragons and Saviour of Middle-aged Spinsters, mounted an assault when the troops were busy elsewhere.
He snuck under the wire, crossed the frozen wastes and breached the walls of Fortress Frosty before any defence could be mounted. When he tried to claim his prize he found Miss Prissy Knickers snarling at him. Lesser men would have given up and gone home, but Captain Considerate calmed and soothed the She Devil until she gave in.
How the hell did that happen?
Persistence, PK, sheer bloody-minded persistence.
*
Captain Considerate asked me to have dinner with him, in that old-fashioned, polite way people used to before Facebook and text messaging took over. The note arrived on my desk at work. ‘Would you like to have dinner with me?’ his note said – his handwritten note.
I wondered what a normal person would do. I know that sounds crazy but with a relationship history like mine I had no idea what normal looked like when it came to men. I phoned Kate.
‘I’ve been invited out to dinner.’
‘Great.’
‘Yes, but what should I do? I mean, what does the note mean? Is it a date? Should I accept? What would you do? I don’t even know if I want to go on a date with this man. And what if it’s not a date? Why is he asking me out to dinner?’
Kate stepped in before the twisted rubber band of my anxiety could snap. ‘Go and have dinner with him,’ she said. ‘That way you’ll find out.’
Part of my anxiety stemmed from the fact that the note came from the CEO, the cycling fanatic I’d met in Broken Hill. Extensive cellulite crammed into too-tight cycling shorts and lack of any demonstrable skill on a bicycle hadn’t deterred him. Let me say now that Captain Considerate was not my type, not remotely. There wasn’t one thing about him that made me think, ah yes, he’s the type of person I fancy. He was tall, for one thing, and skinny, whereas I prefer bulk; give me a w
arm pillow of flesh I can snuggle into any day. He also had all his own hair and I have a thing for bald men – always have, ever since Yul Brynner in The King and I. (I hate to admit this, but even Kojak did it for me.) Captain Considerate also had nothing to do with theatre or the arts, both of which I love.
So even if I hadn’t been pining for lost love, nursing a broken heart and grieving over a man I couldn’t have, there was no danger I would fall for Captain Considerate. I accepted the invitation.
*
‘I thought you’d enjoy the view,’ he said, drawing a patio heater closer to our table. It was an unusually cold night and we were the only people sitting outside the café on the strip leading from Circular Quay to the Opera House.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely.’ In fact, I was shivering. My choice of what to wear had been limited by the colourful summer clothes I’d brought from England (the thought of winter in Sydney hadn’t crossed my mind). I’d opted for wide hippie pants, with a pink and blue flower embroidered at the ankle, a sky blue singlet top and a thick green Marks & Spencer cardigan. I must have looked like an ageing leftover from an anti-war demonstration.
Captain Considerate wore a white shirt and striped tie, navy slacks (no other word for them: they were slacks) and a navy double-breasted blazer with gold buttons. With his grey hair parted on the side he looked to be somewhere in his mid-sixties. What anyone would have made of us, God only knows, although CC did remind me of my uncle Jim, which in retrospect was no bad thing since I really liked my uncle Jim.
The magnificent view was lost on me because I wasn’t seeing too straight, having downed a couple of glasses of wine before I’d left home to calm my nerves, then ordering a gin and tonic as soon as we’d met. Captain Considerate was sipping a lemon, lime and bitters.
‘Would you like white or red?’ he asked, squinting at the wine list in a way that made me think he normally wore glasses.
