Reluctant Activists

by Helena Phillips

  Now, I thought I might try tapping into the Source. It was like talking to myself. That could be done any time. When Homarta or Flagran went quiet and closed their eyes, it seemed more like they were in conversation with someone. They would come out of it with a decision. What I was asking for was just a small hint to help me find Sandro. It wasn’t too much. Surely if you don’t ask for too much, a character like the Source might be willing to listen.

  I don’t think she or he even recognised my existence, but it had been worth a try anyway. Homarta listened as I recounted my experience of ‘tuning in’, meditating, something like that, and she just smiled and nodded which didn’t help at all, so I rang the Estate Agents and asked them to set up a meeting between me and my landlord. They were very reluctant, but I can be a little like my mother if I want to, and I just insisted they at least ask.

  ***

  The Source

  Friday night Sandro threw a complete tantrum. Since the swim out beyond the bar, his relationship with the Caretakers had shifted. He began to believe they had his back. He could also accepted they were stronger than him, and his sparring with Flagran and power issues with Torrenclar had taken on a new flavour. But this was something extra.

  “Flagran, if you don’t get off that bloody computer, you’re going to find a new home!”

  “And how are you going to make that happen?”

  “Just try me!”

  Flagran sat there deliberately antagonising him. It had been days since he’d felt any desire to play games, but Sandro needed a battle or two.

  Sandro stood behind him stewing. He had few options. Walking out would mean wandering the streets because there was no way he could tolerate company, apart from Flagran’s of course. Attempting to attack the Caretaker was the most attractive option. There was no possibility of winning, but he desperately needed to beat up someone.

  “I’m warning you again,” he said. “You’ve got one minute exactly.” It had been three when the thought first came, but had quickly adjusted to something more realistic. The Caretaker blithely played on.

  Sandro threw himself at Flagran grabbing him around the neck as he twisted him out of the seat, discovering strength he didn’t recognise. This time Flagran was underneath and Sandro, lacking his self-control, began punching him heavily. The first two or three blows landed on his upper body. The Caretaker, putting in a show of attempting to fight him off, allowed them. Punches to the face though were a different matter. Sandro slipped in one or two heavy hits around Flagran’s jaw and mouth before the Caretaker gave him a few in return.

  If he’d been seriously angry, Sandro would have been in trouble, but still, they hurt enough to enrage him further. He attempted to shift backwards out of range relinquishing any vestige of control. His blows rained down on all exposed parts of Flagran’s body. Meanwhile, Flagran was throwing his own body around to avoid them. It wasn’t more than a minute or two before the Caretaker took control tossing Sandro to the floor, and pinning him, prevented any movement. Sandro put in a superhuman effort to escape desperate to free himself. This went on until the fight suddenly evaporated, and he lay still. Silence.

  “Feel better for that?” the Caretaker asked.

  Sandro shook his head, and to his horror felt tears he was powerless to prevent running down his face. Flagran remained sitting on him until Sandro began to gasp and choke at which point he released his grip and shifted to sit beside him. He pulled his friend into his arms while endless wrenching sobs racked Sandro’s entire body; a fountain with a deep well. These were followed by gasps and wails pouring from Sandro in an endless flow. He began to rock him, as a mother with a child, until it worked itself out ending in a shuddering moan.

  “Now you feel better!”

  This time Sandro, examining his feelings, discovered Flagran was right. He did feel as though a huge weight had shifted.

  Flagran tightened his hold, and locking Sandro’s arms, bent forward laying his face against his friend’s forehead. He said, “You’re such a tough guy, Alessandro Minke. Must be why I love you.” He held him there for another minute or two while his companion absorbed this. Then he let go and lifted himself away.

  Sandro lay for minutes retrieving his breath and gathering his thoughts. When he had struggled to a seated position, he faced the Caretaker who had straddled a seat and was watching him.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “Just one of those things,” was the answer.

  “God, I feel good.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Sandro pushed up onto his feet staring down at Flagran who watched him warily. Then he said, “Come here you mongrel!” Sandro was holding out his arms. Flagran’s smile glowed. His hair stood on end while the hug locked them together. Then they grinned at each other. There came a point of course where Sandro squirmed and attempted to pull away, but Flagran grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him easily.

  “Sit down,” he said holding out the chair. He obediently sat, although it was hardly a choice. Flagran grabbed another chair and pulled it to face him.

  “Now, what are you going to do about Bridey?”

  It came like a severe stab to his heart. For a moment there, he’d forgotten. He shook his head wearily. “I dunno Flagran. I’m exhausted. Just leave it. I need time.”

  “You’ve had time, and some more, and then some. What’s the plan?”

  “I suppose I’ll have to go round there.”

  “When?”

  “When I’m up to it.”

  “Now’s good.”

  Sandro stared at him. “You can’t be serious. After all that, you expect me just to pick myself up and make Bridey like me again. Gimme a break!”

  “Check your voicemail.”

  Sandro, alert now, searched around for his phone hoping it hadn’t been in his pocket. But, it was sitting on the bench staring at him. He stared back. “Why, what’s happened?”

  Flagran knew the rules about interfering. He was walking a fine line here. He did pause to check in with me, but I had decided some assistance was in order, so he continued: “Dial the number, you idiot. You’ve missed a couple of messages.”

  Too frightened and exhausted to hope, or indeed resist, he dialled 101, and this is what he heard: “You hav e two new voice messages. To listen, press 1.” He stared at Flagran.“Well go on, you idiot. Press 1.” He pressed 1.

  “Message received 4pm today. ‘Hello Sandro. This is Catherine Mackenzie from Eastern Real Estate. Sorry to disturb you. Your tenant in the Clifton Hill house wants you to set up a meeting with her. I did try to put her off and deal with it for you, but she was insistent. Let us know what you would like us to do for you. Thanks, Bye.’”

  “She was insistent,” Sandro grinned. Then he thought again. “Maybe she just wants to complain about the inside plumbing, or the shower tiles or something.” He looked for assistance, but Flagran was silent. He realised he’d missed the second message when he heard the words

  “...she insists she had your number and lost it. She wants me to give it to her. Can you let me know what you want me to do? Thanks, Bye. Oh by the way we’ll be finished here tomorrow.’”

  Sandro’s heart began to beat in a slow thump. He wondered if he was having a heart attack. He replayed both messages, groaning when he heard Bridey had been trying to contact him since Tuesday morning. He jumped up, grabbed his keys and wallet, slipped his phone into his pocket at the last minute and ran down the stairs to his car. Flagran, watching all this, felt like he he’d done a good day’s work. I agreed with him, wholeheartedly.

  Meanwhile, Sandro had picked up two fines; one for speeding and the other for failing to stop at a red light on the corner of Hoddle and Johnson streets. On reaching the little blue, dilapidated house with the newly dug up and filled in lines for the plumbing, he found Bridey had gone to work and Homarta singularly unhelpful. She was delighted to see him and would have given him a hug if he hadn’t been so restless and urgent about his busin
ess.

  He decided to leave a note: “Picked up your messages tonight. Sorry for the delay. Love to see you, Sandro.” He almost forgot to leave his phone number. Where to put the slip of paper was an issue because the house was locked, Homarta refused to give it to Bridey for him, and it wouldn’t fit under the front door. (This happened to be the only place in the house where something fitted tightly.) He decided on leaving it in the letterbox. It seemed a safe plan as it was his own habit to check for mail every time he returned home. It was the best he could do. He wished he’d asked her where she worked, but the subject hadn’t come up between them. It hadn’t really had the chance.

  Bridey, tired of being unhappy, accepted an invitation to go away with a friend to her parents’ country property in Daylesford. She didn’t return until Sunday night, late. She never checked her letterbox on the weekends because there was no post on weekends.

  ***

  Bridey

  Monday morning arrived, and I made plans for the day. It was hard to think straight about anything. It occurred to me I was I danger of failing my Masters’. It didn’t seem important. Losing the scholarship though, would be a blow and going to Uni was something to do at least. I set off on my bike for my morning lecture around 8.30 hating tackling the traffic during peak hour and every minute expecting some idiot would open a car door on me, or better still, pull out in front of me. At least cutting through the park was safer, except from the other riders who pelted along only occasionally remembering to ring their bell when they passed. Today any accident might have brought relief.

  The lecture was particularly dull which surprised me because the subject was usually fascinating, but the lecturer’s words made no sense, and when she asked me a question it was clear I knew nothing about it, let alone the answer. Surprised, she said nothing. Doing your Masters in Anthropology meant small classes and being known. That had many disadvantages.

  Pretending to work on some projects rattled away another few hours, but nothing went in, and I refused to join my friends for either lunch or coffee. At one point, I went out and rang the Estate Agents again. I had developed a hatred for Catherine Mackenzie. All she would say was she hadn’t heard back from Sandro, and she seemed very surprised I even knew his name. Now, I really was a stalker!

  The fact that Sandro would refuse to even meet with me was surprising. In my head, he was different to what all these rejections indicated. It was hard to get my head around.

  About three o’clock, I unlocked my bike and wheeled it slowly out of the university and onto a bike path before riding. There was no hurry. Pulling the bike in through the front gate, I leant over it to check the letter box. It was bulging with rubbish as usual. In the past, if I’d junked the lot, the electricity bill wouldn’t get paid, so I riffled through it and a piece of odd paper fell out and fluttered to the ground. I bent over further trying to recover it. It was face up. The words ‘love… Sandro’ stood out like the road sign of your own street. I dropped the bike and all the bits of junk mail, scrambling through them to get to the note. Before there was time to read it through twice, he was there beside me.

  We stared at each other. This is awkward.

  “Aahh… sorry… I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to stalk you. I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “Well, I’ve been stalking you for three days.” He grabbed my hand, “let’s go for a walk along the river.” Leaving all the mail and my bike where it lay, we walked away together. He was cautious. When he asked me how I’d been, I said “goood”, as you do, then thought, this is ridiculous.

  “I’ve been miserable.”

  He put his arm around my waist, and we kept walking towards the track. “Me too. I’ve been more miserable than you can ever imagine...” What a ridiculous thing to say. “I’m a complete dickhead, Bridey. There’s absolutely no doubt about it.”

  My expectations had been zilch, but that was a surprise. His body moved closer to mine. On reaching the river path, we began to pass others out for strolls or runs. It was the last week of April, and the sun was shining in that beautiful way it has in late autumn Victoria. The sun shone on my face as all the pain was melting. At a little path, a detour into a bunch of bushes close to the river’s edge, he turned towards me urgently bringing his body up against mine and burying his face in my hair.

  We stood like that for too long. Impatient, I stepped back slightly, and he stopped me. “Let’s talk about all that stuff later.” But I shook my head and put my hand up behind his neck to pull his head towards me. The surge of heat from his body was immediate, and the kiss reminded me of how stupid we’d been over the past weeks. When he stopped, I stared up at him with yearning eyes, and the next kiss was faster and more desperate.

  Pashing in the bushes was not my thing, even when I was sixteen, but I couldn’t stop. My body was pinned against his and his hands were roaming all over me. It made no difference where they landed as long as he didn’t stop. He was beautiful. All his moves were, and as he knew exactly what he was doing it made me melt. There are advantages in this, because sex was always a little awkward, exciting when you were in the mood and then embarrassing afterwards. But with Sandro it was exquisite; which made me jealous of all the women he’d been practicing on. Just when I’d worked myself up into a completely desperate mess of longing and excitement, he stopped.

  Had I been making a fool of myself? What had I been doing? I’d lost myself inside him and the moment. His eyes were questioning, his face glistening with sweat and his breathing unsteady. A space had developed between us and was letting in the breeze, but I didn’t close the gap. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No, of course I’m not okay!” It was said without thinking. His face took on that locked expression, and I hastily recovered. “Just a bit worked up.” That was untrue. “It’ll settle.” Which is not what’s needed.

  “Little boys throwing balls into our space,” he said. The ball was red. Sandro picked it up and returned it to the hovering, clearly anxious child. “It’s alright,” he grinned at my horrified expression. “It only just happened.”

  The moment was over, and the sweat cooled against my skin. Happiness, excitement, frustration and many other feelings vied with the idea that I could wait. Well, it seemed possible!

  “What shall we do now?” It was odd. Sandro hadn’t asked me that before.

  “Do you need to get work done?” I looked up at him, horrified. Surely he wasn’t thinking I could concentrate after that!

  What does one do just after they’ve made up with someone they didn’t have a relationship with in the first place? I moved closer into him. He held me confidently, and it was natural for our bodies to curve into each other; although neither of us is curvy. He waited.

  “I think I’d like to know some more about you. You know, some real stuff, not just the landlord thing.” There, it was said. His body tensed while he considered it. A wave of hunger came over me. “Let’s eat,” I said. It was comforting to know he could afford to pay, and that was little enough for him to do after all the shit he’d put me through.

  He kissed me again and again, all over my face and neck. I was beginning to think he had a different kind of eating in mind, when he resurfaced. “I’m absolutely ravenous. Eating was difficult.” Goodness, for Sandro not to be looking for food, things had been awry. “If I’d gone away to get food, I might have missed you finding my note. Couldn’t risk it.”

  “How long were you waiting?” There’d been no thought to how he’d managed to be in exactly that spot at the right moment.

  “Oh, hours. Days if you include the weekend.” At my horrified expression, he grinned. “It’s alright. It was coming and going because you were clearly away. Friday night was the worst. I waited until sunrise, ready to kill him if you came home in some other guy’s car.” He laughed, and I put my arms around his neck and kissed him, refusing to let go when he tried to come up for breath. He picked me up and physically moved me away from him. “Come on, l
et’s celebrate.” That was the first sign that this guy’s self-control was way more developed than mine.

  We drove to a cafe Sandro chose because it had a courtyard out the back, and the day was beautiful. We ordered from the all-day breakfast menu. “I must take you to meet my mother,” he said. I was speechless. Surely that was a bad joke. “You’d love her, and she will love you.”

  “I don’t know. Mothers are not really my thing.”

  “She’s one of those Italian type mothers who feed you and love you and listen well, as opposed to the ones who insist you come every Sunday after Mass for a massive dinner. You’ll love her.”

  Everything seemed to be happening in the wrong order. “How about we exchange phone numbers first?”

  “You can go home and get mine off the path if you like.”

  “No, seriously Sandro, we are doing this now.” I pulled out my cracked phone on which texts had become largely unreadable and gave it to him. “Now!”

  He took the phone obediently asking, “When did that happen?” The earthquake’s effect on my brand new IPhone made him wince. There were bad memories for us to get through. But it wasn’t as though Sandro had caused that earthquake! Others maybe. I became tough.

  “Just put your number in there and send yourself a text!”

  “Yes, Bridey.” His meekness sent a flood of excitement and sexual tension through my body from top to toe. He was attractive when he was strong. He was gorgeous when he was pretending to be obedient. He was absolutely delightful when he spoke about anything intelligent, and I loved the guilty part of him. Overall, I wanted to jump across the table. “Now, now,” he said. “We’re in another public spot. And I’m starving.”