The Strength of Our Dreams

by Sara Henderson

  Seeing I was touring in the middle of winter, it was decided I would do mostly radio broadcasts to all parts of England and Scotland. This was definitely preferable to venturing out into the country and being snowbound for weeks. There were a few daytrips by train to towns close to London, for a luncheon or signing, but then it was back to London at night. I also had a lovely day visiting Bath. Seeing I’m an Agatha Christie fan, I was delighted to see the town and buildings she describes in her books.

  So I spent most of my tour inside BBC Broadcast House, receiving a smile from the guard inside the front door, even if I came in three times a day, which I did most days in between television engagements.

  I spent most of the time in the regional radio section and the security guard there was a different kettle of fish altogether. This fellow did not utter one word during my entire ten days of comings and goings. I said hello every time I passed through the security point and by about the third day, the silence had become a challenge for me and I was determined to get something out of this fellow, even if it was just the trace of a smile. No such luck. On my last day there wasn’t so much as the twitch of an eyebrow when I said, ‘Well, you won’t see me anymore, I’m off tomorrow. I really enjoyed out little chats.’

  The tour finished with me appearing on Irish television on the night of the 21st. When I arrived in the Dublin studio there was a mega drama in progress and unfortunately it involved the host of my scheduled show. Apparently he had been told this was his last show just before he came on air. To say the man didn’t have his mind on the job is a fair statement. The last thing he was interested in was a book about the Australian Outback, in fact I don’t think he could have cared less about anything! So rather than us both sitting there silently, I told stories about the Outback and it became a storytime segment.

  A few months after I arrived home I received a substantial cheque for appearing on the show which was a first. I had never been paid by any other telelvision station for an interview. Perhaps it was payment for keeping the show going with my storytelling!

  I was staying in a beautiful old castle that had been converted to a hotel on the outskirts of Dublin. Unlike my cocoon back in London, my room here must have been the royal suite a few hundred years ago.

  The day after the interview I was sitting in the foyer, waiting for the car to the airport, dreaming about living in such a castle. The concierge asked me if I would mind sharing my limousine to the airport with another guest whose car had not arrived. I said I didn’t mind at all.

  I sat on the back seat of the enormous car and a very old, distinguished gentleman was helped into the other side of the car. His assistant sat facing us. I smiled welcomingly and the older man let forth a barrage of French in the direction of his assistant.

  I was weary, and a little upset about the way my tour had been handled. I had only ever experienced the complete professionalism of my Australian and New Zealand tours, and, quite frankly, I had expected the same from the English tour. And the fiasco of the sacked host on the last night of the tour—which was no-one’s fault—really dampened my spirits. Now I was sharing my limo with a man who couldn’t even give me a thank-you smile.

  I turned away from them and stared out the window. I would be glad when I left for Austria, maybe they smile there, I thought.

  More rapid French was exchanged and from the few words I could understand, I knew they were talking about me. I turned further away in defiance.

  ‘Excuse me madam,’ came to me in a beautiful accent. I turned towards the assistant with an expression of disinterest. He continued, ‘Thank you for allowing us to ride in your car.’

  ‘That’s all right. There is plenty of room and it was my pleasure to be of assistance,’ I replied and turned back to the window.

  There was more French spoken then an older voice, in a similarly charming accent asked, ‘You are not American?’

  ‘No, I am Australian.’ He then asked what I was doing in Ireland and what part of Australia I came from—was it Sydney? When I told him I lived in the Outback, the entire trip to the airport was filled with questions and the time passed quickly. I couldn’t place this charming man’s face but I was sure I had seen him somewhere.

  When we arrived at the airport he said goodbye and was escorted away. While standing in line waiting to check-in for my flight, his assistant reappeared and said his boss wanted to express to me what an enjoyable conversation he had had with me and that he wished me well with my book.

  ‘And what is your boss’s name?’

  He looked at me in amazement.

  ‘I know his face,’ I added, ‘but just can’t place him.’

  ‘Why, my boss is Stephane Grappelli,’ he said with a proud voice.

  I felt such a fool. ‘Please tell your boss I have enjoyed his music all my life!’

  He smiled and departed.

  What a ning-nong I was, not recognising a great man like that and not being able to tell him myself the enjoyment his music brings.

  I landed back in London ready to leave the next day for Munich. That night I had a phone call from Marlee to say they were having blizzard conditions. Franz and Marlee had a four-hour drive to Munich to pick me up and if the weather didn’t improve they wouldn’t be able to get through the mountains near the Austrian border. It looked like I might have to stay in a hotel in Munich for the night. Another hotel! I could see my Austrian holiday being spent in a hotel in Munich waiting for the weather to lift.

  Luckily the weather did improve and Marlee, Franz and Papa Ranacher met me and we headed for the border and Austria.

  It was my first time in Germany and as we drove along the highway all I could see was cement and signs. I knew that somewhere behind the piled-up dirty snow, cement and signs were picture-book German villages. Hopefully I’ll have time to see these beautiful villages one day, instead of just rushing by on an Autobahn (Freeway).

  One sign kept flashing by at every exit, ‘Ausgang’. After about the tenth sign, I finally asked Franz how big the town called Ausgang was as I had seen so many signs for it. He laughed heartily and told me that it was not the name of a town, but the German word for exit! He told Papa who also thought it was a great joke.

  We came out of a long mountain tunnel into Austria and into the first sunshine I’d experienced since I left Australia! The sunlight sparkled on the white snow in the valley. Ice melted off bare tree branches and the branches of evergreens bowed with the weight of the fresh snow.

  After driving through this fairyland of snow for hours, we arrived in Obermillstatt, a quaint little village nestled three thousand feet up on the side of a mountain and overlooking a frozen lake.

  This is where I finished writing Some of My Friends Have Tails. My room had a big bay window which overlooked the lake and I would often wake from a reverie to realise I had just been sitting in front of my word processor doing nothing but soaking up the magical scene before me. After a few days I did settle down to the work at hand. As I’m used to getting up early, I worked from 4 a.m. to midday every day, and had the afternoons and weekends off.

  A few days after I arrived, I received a frantic call from James in Sydney asking me not to go skiing. He was worried I might fall and break my leg as I had two tours that year, not to mention finishing a book. I laughed and said I was too busy writing. To put his mind at rest I told him I would play indoor tennis instead. As I only had a few ski lessons back in my youth, I already decided I would get the exercise I needed doing something I could do and loved.

  I had a wonderful time playing tennis again, but like all things I do in my life, I went the whole hog and played first with Franz, then with Marlee, playing for an hour and a half almost nonstop. It was obvious to me after a few games that Franz was a natural. And I was sure Marlee would soon be up there with him through sheer determination. Once, that is, I had taught her to hit the ball in the court and not over the fence!

  We had a great afternoon’s tennis and I felt on top of the w
orld after such a good workout. It was my first tennis in five years, and I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed it.

  The next morning told a different story. Every muscle was stiff and very sore. It took me ten minutes to get my clothes on and another five minutes to get up two flights of stairs to make it to breakfast. But being a sucker for punishment, I played tennis again that afternoon, as it was the only way to beat the stiffness. It was another four days before the stiffness was gone. Then the muscles came back to life and the soreness faded. I hadn’t felt that good for years, and found it amusing to think I’d travelled halfway around the world to get some regular exercise.

  Mama and Papa Ranacher had had a few English lessons before their visit to Bullo, but the rest of the family had virtually no English at all. Most of the people in the village were in the same position, so we had more of the funny times we’d had when Mama and Papa visited Bullo.

  Rosie, Franz’s sister, offered to cut and dye my hair. She was a hairdresser so I knew I was in good hands. She called in during the week to ask me what colour dye I wanted for my hair. I had to explain I wanted a mixture of two dyes—chestnut and light brown. There was much laughter as we attempted to sort out the problem. We finally got the light brown part straight, but the chestnut was completely evading us. Finally Mama got out the German-English dictionary and I pointed to the German translation.

  ‘Oh Kastanie, why didn’t you say so!’ was a rough translation of their reply … I think. The most important thing was that I got a wonderful haircut and the colour was just right.

  I found everything about this part of Austria fascinating. We visited villages with nine-hundred-year-old churches and beautiful mountain streams which ran through stone watercourses and meandered through village squares. There were neat houses with flower boxes, empty now in winter, but I could imagine them full of brightly coloured flowers. Woodpiles were a work of art. I am sure some houses had another hidden pile of wood for burning, because the woodpiles didn’t look like one piece of wood had been touched. We also visited Salzburg and Spittal which were nearby towns.

  After I had trouble getting up the stairs after my first game of tennis, I was introduced to the world of the village sauna. Papa suggested a sauna and a massage would speed up my recovery.

  People in Obermillstatt go to the sauna like people in Australia go to the TAB or the local club. Marlee had told me about the village sauna when she came back from Austria the previous year.

  After Marlee and I undressed in the change room, we wrapped ourselves in towels and entered the sauna. Inside the door I came to a sudden halt with shock! Everyone was stark naked, men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes. They were all casually walking around, sitting reading magazines, or sitting at a bar on stools and drinking anything from health drinks to stout. Other people were sitting at tables, deep in conversation while sipping cofee. Marlee was enjoying herself immensely watching my reaction and eventually told me to stop gaping and led me into one of the steam rooms.

  Marlee thought I would be more comfortable in a steam room as it was hard to see the other people. But the steam did clear every now and then before the next blast came in through the pipes, and I could see naked people sitting on benches having very normal conversations. Not one, as far as I could see, was the least bit worried by the fact that he or she was stark naked.

  Having been raised in an Australian society which was uptight about sex, I was completely overwhelmed. I clutched my towel yet no-one even looked at me, other than a few glances that took in the towel and my expression that said ‘tourist’.

  After a few visits I calmed down and started to enjoy the sauna, but never relaxed to the point of shedding my towel.

  My worst moment in the sauna came on my second visit—I was still nervous—when Marlee left me to go to the toilet. I quietly pleaded with her not to leave me alone. She told me to sit down, read a magazine and relax and she would be back in a minute. I decided she was right and was looking for somewhere to sit when a naked man walked straight up to me and started speaking to me in German. Talk about total panic. All my old-fashioned upbringing came rushing at me like a tidal wave. I couldn’t believe I was standing in a sauna face-to-face with a naked man! My eyes darted everywhere in a vain effort not to look at him. My habit of looking down when I was thinking threw me into greater panic and had me throwing my head back in the air, looking at the ceiling and making strange sounds!

  My brain sifted through the few German words I knew, but could only come up with, ‘please’, ‘thank you’, ‘yes’ and ‘no’. I knew that except for ‘no’ these were all very dangerous words to reply to a question a naked man had asked me!

  I finally stuttered out one word, ‘English.’

  Whereupon he said, ‘Oh good, so am I.’

  This upset me more, as somehow I thought it was alright to talk to a naked Austrian but not to a naked Englishman! And so up went the etiquette register!

  It turned out he was looking for the exit, so I gladly told him, happy to have this knowledge.

  Marlee walked up and jokingly chided me for talking to a naked man. I told her he just wanted the exit.

  Upon hearing this she said, ‘Mum! He had to get in here, so he knows the same door gets him out. Besides, he was naked! I don’t know, I leave you for a few minutes and you get picked up by a naked man!’

  I didn’t live that one down for a long time and Marlee told everyone the story with glee.

  One of the most appealing things I came across in Austria were the cattle. In the winter all the animals are kept in barns or long sheds. I visited the Ranachers’ five cows in their ninety-year-old barn. They were standing in a row contentedly chewing on their feed in a wooden box. Each of the cows’ tails was held up by a piece of string which was connected to a spring, so when the cow sat down its tail could comfortably come down with it. The tail was elevated so it wouldn’t get dirty if the cow sat down after it had deposited a pile of dung on the ground or fling it everywhere when it swished its tail. Dung was cleared away daily, but the cows often sat down and rested so it was expected that they regularly sat in dung or urine.

  To stop the cows getting any skin problems during the winter months indoors, the animals were brushed every night. So you can imagine some of the amazed expressions on people’s faces when they asked, ‘And how many cattle do you have?’

  When I replied ‘Ten thousand’, they would look at me with a dazed expression for a few seconds as they tried to visualise the sheds required to house this many cattle. Not to mention the staff, time and brushes required to brush them every night!

  Mama and Papa live in a newly built house and Franz’s brother Peter, his wife Guneula and their children Michael and Manuel now live in the four-hundred-year-old family home. Papa still uses the workshop in the old house for his hobby of making beautiful handmade shoes. Entering the workshop is a journey back in time. It looks just like I imagine Santa’s workshop does.

  As much as I would have loved to explore everything about this fascinating country, the writing of the book took top priority. I had very little time when I got home to Bullo to put the second half together with the first half, which was being typed in Darwin by a typing agency. But I told myself, next time Vienna and the rest of Austria then on to Italy, France, Switzerland, Norway … the works!

  Franz, Marlee and I left Obermillstatt together for Munich. They were flying home and I was flying to Frankfurt to meet my Qantas flight to Johannesburg to start my South African tour.

  When I stepped on board the Qantas jumbo at Frankfurt I felt immediately at ease. Surrounded by the wonderfully familiar Australian accent, I felt at home for the first time since January.

  CHAPTER 8

  April 1995

  I was looking forward to my first visit to South Africa, or any part of Africa, for that matter, as it has always held great fascination for me. I thought this would be a pleasant time, with only five days of touring in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town
and a day off in Cape Town before I flew back to Johannesburg then home to Australia. What could go wrong? What indeed!

  I arrived at nine o’clock at night looking forward to a nice early night and a good sleep in a bed.

  But no. I was met at the airport by a hired publicity agent who belonged back in the days of the British Empire. She had the indomitable spirit that brought Britain through World War II. Bed at 9 p.m. at night? Good heavens, what was I thinking! No I had a three-hour radio show. I checked the three hours bit with her several times, but I had heard correctly. And there was no time beforehand to go to the hotel to have a quick shower and change. I didn’t dare ask what was happening after the radio show for fear there might be something! Besides I didn’t get a chance. There was a running commentary happening on everything I needed to know about the rest of my tour.

  We arrived at the radio building and heading for security parking under the building. As we approached the steel-barricaded entrance a nervous-looking guard was ordered to raise the screen. The car started to move into the building, but stalled. The screen reached the top and started to descend on the car. In the confusion that followed I gleaned the car was not the publicist’s. There was high-level panic and chaos for the next twenty seconds as she issued orders to the guard at high ‘C’. It turned out this was the guard’s first night on duty and he didn’t know how to stop the screen. The car wouldn’t start, so the only thing I could think of was to jump out and push it. The guard and I were having great difficulty doing this, and I was screaming over the top high ‘C’ orders, ‘Take off the bloody brake!’