Forever Young

by Steven Carroll

  It is late in the afternoon, or early evening. She can’t decide. And while yesterday this time of day felt flat, today it doesn’t. Rita is sitting in one of the small cafés on the main square, watching the changing colours in the sky and on the walls of the buildings as the sun sinks — and watching the people, some from her group who wave as they pass, as well as those who have come for the festival. But the locals are out too. It’s that time of day, she’s noted during the trip, when they gather in squares and cafés for their drinks. There’s a word they have for their drinks, but she’s forgotten it for the time being. It’s that time of day when, she imagines, the square is at its busiest and everybody mingles.

  And at the same time that she’s observing all of this she’s wondering again what Vic would have made of it. But as much as she tries to imagine him sitting on the other side of the table, she can’t. Or, if she can, she can only see him with that sour look on his face (that sour look that so often turned to a sneer), the sour look that always said, why have you gone and dragged me here? I never wanted to come. I said it often enough. But I came. And here I am. Dragged here. Are you happy?

  No, she’s better off alone. She’s also beginning to realise that she could have been here years before. When she was younger and everything would have been different. And when she sees the young girls travelling round with nothing much more than their backpacks, she envies them. What it must be to be young and see these places for the first time. To have the memory of seeing these places with only a backpack over your shoulder, then bringing that memory with you as you grew and returned; your pack, with age, becoming a suitcase. What it must be to have familiar places made different each time you see them because you would always be that much older and different every time you returned.

  She reminds herself that nobody travelled then because nobody had the money. At the same time the nagging thought that she could have been here years before, but didn’t travel because Vic wouldn’t, won’t go away. How much of their life worked like that? How often did she not do something because he wouldn’t, and she couldn’t bring herself to do it alone? And why? Because she always thought in terms of ‘him’, and, when Michael came along, ‘them’. Not her. Because to think of herself would have been selfish. Not that Vic would say that — she would. She was, throughout those years, always ready to pass judgement on herself. And did. For as long as she can remember it was always ‘us’ and ‘them’ but never ‘me’. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ were good. ‘Me’ was bad. And even when he was gone, when he’d left and gone up north, it didn’t change. Even when he died it didn’t change. For the habits of a lifetime don’t change just like that. And as much as she might, even now, tell herself that she was only ever happy living the life of ‘us’ and ‘them’, she’s also asking what might have become of those parts of her that never fitted in with the ‘us’ and ‘them’, and which never had a life.

  Suddenly she’s tired of dragging Vic around with her. And she never imagined she’d think or say that, but there you are. She is. She’s said it. If only to herself. Thirty years. It’s a lot of years, a lot of living to throw off. Even if it’s only the memory of him (and why only the bad memories at that, most of the time?), she’s tired of dragging him around. And she’s also beginning to wonder if, throughout those thirty good, bad and nothing much years, they might have only ever been in love for a short time, after all. How do you measure that?

  She rises from the table and begins wandering around the square: the wine shops, the grocers and gift shops. Eventually, and after great hesitation because she’s still wary of stepping into these tiny shops in case somebody speaks to her, she goes into a stationer’s. She is drawn to the writing pads and envelopes, to the rich, decorative writing paper of this area. Something out of another time. Little works of art. The way these people attend to the small, the little everyday things that are so easily overlooked because they’re just little and everyday — she likes that.

  Outside in the late sun she decides to write a letter. But who to? This is the problem with buying writing paper. It is meant to be written on, not just looked at. But that means having someone to write to. Her few friends (and she’s never been good at making friends) don’t even know she’s away. So she determines to write to Michael and returns to the café she just left.

  At first when she sits she is thinking only of what to write. Then, gradually, she becomes aware of a conversation at a table nearby. And only because the conversation is being conducted in English. Not Italians speaking English. No, they are English speakers, but where from? And then she realises they are Australians. The accent is there, but only slightly. You have to be listening, and she is. And she is content simply to listen. She has no great desire to seek out her fellow countrymen; there will be enough of them when she returns. So she plunges into the letter, noticing as she does that the sun is sinking behind the green hills around the town and that the air is turning cool.

  At some point, and she’s not sure how long she has been writing, she looks up and notes that the two men are still there, and they look like they’ve been there for a long time. Talking, she concludes, the way old friends talk. Old friends who haven’t caught up for a long time. She stares at the man facing her, his hair parted and combed back in that forties matinee style. The way Vic combed his hair. For they are of the same generation, Vic and this man. And it is while she is staring at him, deciding that it is a handsome face in that ageing matinee style (the hair longer to accommodate the times), that she realises with a jolt that she knows that face. Not the man himself but the face. How can that be? She is sitting in the main square of a small town in Italy. One table removed from where she sits, two men are talking in faint but distinct Australian accents. And she knows one of them. How can that be? And it is while she is contemplating that puzzle that the name from that list of artists at the festival comes back to her, the English-looking name that stood out and seemed oddly familiar. And then she puts the two together, the face and the name, and she suddenly realises why she knows him.

  Just before leaving — and it feels like ages ago now — she went to an art exhibition. Not that she goes to exhibitions all that much. Only from time to time, and usually when they bring images of faraway gardens and shuttered houses. But this was an exhibition of an Australian painter’s work. A famous one. At home and abroad. Introduced to the wide world, although Rita doesn’t know this, by the very toff she was watching on the television the day before. He is one of those who left and never came back because fame found him. But she didn’t go to see his paintings that midweek day before she left because he was famous. Or because he was Australian. Or for any of the usual reasons. No, she went because of one painting in particular. Years before, when she and Vic and the weight that would become Michael all lived in a small, industrial dockside suburb, this painter, who sits only one table removed from her right now, painted Vic’s aunt. And, for the moment, Rita is both seated at this café table and simultaneously seated in the kitchen of that long ago timber cottage as Vic’s aunt Katherine burst through the door complaining of a cheeky young man with a paintbrush.

  How do these things happen? Something takes place thirty years ago, lives brush up against each other then go their separate ways until something brings them back together again. A bus winds down through the hills to a town below it. Two men sit at a café table in a town square, talking of old times late in the day. The bus parks, a woman steps onto the square … Like the opening of a story: but it’s not a story, it’s life. Except that’s the funny thing about life. Sometimes it’s more like a story than stories. What is that phrase? You wouldn’t read about it. And perhaps you wouldn’t.

  But, all the same, here’s this painter from just a few weeks before and all those years ago, sitting facing her, one table removed from her. The cheeky young man who disturbed Katherine all those years before. Aunt Katherine, with her wild, white hair, who lived in a tent on the land that became theirs and who always frightened her
. For that is the way she always seems in recollection. Like a force of nature. Katherine, who died in her tent on the land that became theirs; Katherine, who died in that tent but continued to shake her fist at the world after death in art galleries like the one Rita visited just before leaving to come here — to sit at a table, to write a letter to Michael, to pause, to look up and see, seated one table removed from her, the faded matinee figure who was once that cheeky young man. No, you wouldn’t read about it.

  So what does she do? Her impulse is to leave it at that. To silently acknowledge the coincidence, finish her letter, and leave the two men to their conversation. All the same, life has gone to a lot of trouble to bring them together again. And it seems to her that if life can go to all that trouble then she really ought to acknowledge the moment with something other than silence. And so, in deference to life’s efforts (for it seems to her that something with the intricacy of a clockwork mechanism has been set in motion), she puts her letter aside, places the carefully selected paper and envelopes back in her bag, and rises from the table. And, without knowing just what to say when she gets there, Rita approaches their table as the two men look up.

  ‘You’re Australian!’ she bursts out, and feels as though the whole square heard and is listening. The man with the grey goatee beard looks away across the square, as if dismissing her from his vision as he would also dismiss her from his presence, and the other one stares back at her, his expression one of resignation to what may follow. As if having been in this situation many times before, such is the burden of having a famous face.

  ‘Mind you, I had to listen. You’re good …’ she adds, as if commenting on a fine forgery.

  There is a long silence and Rita looks at the painter with the ageing matinee look, clearly bored and annoyed, and wishes she hadn’t bothered.

  ‘We’ve met,’ she continues, but mechanically, her heart no longer in it.

  He leans forward, studying her face, as if she were a model and he were about to paint her, then leans back, silent and puzzled.

  ‘More or less. Well, not really …’

  She is the only one speaking. They haven’t said a word and clearly have no desire to. They’re just staring at her, waiting for her to go on, so she can finish and they can be rid of her.

  ‘You painted Katherine.’

  And it occurs to her that she should really explain who Katherine was, but who cares?

  ‘She lived in a tent. There was a big picture in the paper. Very embarrassing, well … she thought so. You probably don’t remember.’

  It is then that the painter stares at Rita as if seeing her for the first time and speaks to her with a sort of puzzled wonder.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  Rita half-smiles.

  ‘Of course. Nobody forgets Katherine. And it wasn’t just the tent.’

  The other man with the grey goatee, who has either been staring vacantly out over the square, wishing her away, or looking at her with a bored, blank expression until now, breaks in.

  ‘You knew her?’

  Rita nods.

  She could go on and tell them she was Vic’s aunt and all the rest of it. But she can’t be bothered. It was a big mistake. And it is while she is thinking this that she looks across the square and sees some of her touring party — those that she’s decided she likes right enough — and notes, in that instant, that she’s never been so pleased to see them.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, relief in her voice, ‘I’ve got to go.’ But she quickly turns to the painter and adds, ‘You met her, did you? We were never sure. Katherine told tales.’

  And the painter, suddenly animated, nods.

  ‘Yes. Of course. Twice.’

  ‘So you didn’t just paint the photograph in the paper?’

  ‘No.’

  He then stands and invites her to sit at the table, pointing to a vacant chair.

  ‘Please, join us. Sit down.’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Sorry’.

  ‘Must you go?’

  She nods. All she wants to do is go. Michael was right not to speak to this painter when he had the chance, for he has told her about attending the same exhibition, seeing this painter talking to the leaning tower of Whitlam, and deciding whether or not to speak to him about Katherine — and eventually deciding not to. Yes, he was right. These things are best left alone. And just as she is about to leave, she glances at her group, now waving to her, and turns again to the painter.

  ‘She died in that tent. She was there for three days. An old farmer found her.’ She pauses, now confident, knowing she is leaving. ‘Vic, my husband, she was his aunt. He grew up with her. He always said you got her in one go.’

  The members of her touring party are now calling and she waves back. After all, they’re more her people than these two.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ she adds upon leaving.

  ‘But, you haven’t …’

  As she walks away she doesn’t look back at the two men because she’s had enough of their staring faces. But, if she did, she’d see the painter with the ageing matinee look staring, eyes wide, face almost blank, following her retreating form as she joins her group, his hand still gesturing towards the vacant chair, the offer to join them, although sadly declined, still open.

  Rita joins her travelling companions, disappears into the twilit square (the green hills surrounding the town now black), and the two men resume their places. Life went to a lot of trouble to bring them together, but Life, Rita muses, strolling along the now chilly colonnade of the square, needn’t have bothered.

  What did they make of her? And what does it matter? The next morning she’s back on the bus, winding through green hills stitched with grapevines. Every view a postcard. Not quite real. But all she can think of at the moment is what the painter and his friend thought of her. And she’s put in mind of the toff on the television. Did they see her the way the toff would? Probably.

  They pass through little towns like the one they’ve just left, Rita still dwelling on the previous evening and wishing she’d never approached them. And it is while she is brooding (for, like Vic, she is a good brooder), that she suddenly realises the woman beside her is speaking. Happy to be distracted, she turns to her and listens.

  It’s the hanging baskets she’s talking about. The baskets hanging from the flats and houses of the town through which they’re passing. And while Rita is happy to be distracted, she’s also in no mood to be discussing hanging baskets. Why are they so bright, so colourful? this woman is asking. And she’s not asking Rita in particular, or anybody else, for that matter — she’s just struck by the brightness of the flowers. Like the greenness of the hills. Why is that? Or does it just look that way because everything’s so new to her?

  The woman’s name is Nellie. Not a name you hear all that much these days. Not many Nellies left in the world. But they’ll come back, and the Nellies of the world will be new again. Rita has spoken to this woman before and has learnt something of her. Her children have all grown and gone. Her husband left the world all too young. The children are gone and she’s all she’s got now. Suddenly, she’d said to Rita, you realise you’re on your own. Rita now learns she’s a florist. With a little shop. Nothing much, but it does nicely. So she notices flowers. People like flowers, she says. They like to bring them into their houses. Something to marvel at. People need that. Takes them out of themselves. So they buy flowers because you can’t wrap up a rainbow and take it home.

  The woman falls silent and turns her gaze back on the view. Did she recongnise a fellow brooder in Rita? And was she speaking to Rita because she was trying to take her out of herself with talk of hanging baskets?

  As the bus winds down the hill into the outskirts of Florence, the city itself spread out beneath them, the great orange dome in the distance, Rita eyes the woman briefly, her gaze now fixed on the city below, as if it were one vast vase of marvellous things. And, for that moment, Rita is conscious of looking at things throug
h somebody else’s eyes and asks herself if we all see different worlds: to Rita it is a cause of wonder that Florence exists; to the bus driver it is a place of congested traffic before he hits the open freeway; and to Nellie it is a vast vase of marvellous things.

  A bus winds down through the hills. A bus winds down. The people inside the bus look out; the people outside the bus look in. What do they see?

  From Florence the bus turns north to Venice. Morning gives way to afternoon, the sky clouds over and soon the whole bus seems to be sleeping, and Rita leans back and enters that dreamy half-sleep of the afternoon doze, as if in her armchair at home. An armchair traveller, after all.

  What is it about this place? So far away, but so familiar. What is it? Rita is standing on the footpath at the front of her hotel contemplating the familiarity of this place that’s not Venice, but … what do they call it? Mestre. They will go into Venice in the morning, but tonight, and the following night, they’re stuck here. Out on the edges. Grey apartments. No hanging baskets brimming with life here. The sun is gone but it’s still light enough to see. Dusk. And getting darker by the second. For the moment, though, she has a good view of the apartments around her and the street upon which they sit. People are living here, but these apartments have the look of places that nobody really wants to be living in. Not if they could choose. No hanging baskets, no postcard views — just the everyday life behind the postcards. And, once again, she’s dwelling on why it should not so much look familiar, as feel familiar.