Trip of a Lifetime

by Liz Byrski

  Daisy craned her neck around the curve of the tyre to see whose car had just turned into the driveway, and in doing so she fell out of the tyre and thudded down onto the grass.

  ‘Bugger!’ she cried, sitting up and rubbing her head. ‘Bugger, bugger, bugger.’

  ‘Daisy, beautiful Daisy,’ a voice cried, ‘did you hurt yourself?’

  ‘Uncle Stefan,’ she said, delighted to see him. ‘I’m okay. Just scraped my leg. Bugger.’

  ‘Daisy, this is not a nice word for a beautiful girl, not ladylike. You don’t say bugger.’

  ‘I think it’s a good word,’ Daisy said, scrambling to her feet to hug him. ‘Bugger, bugger, bugger.’

  Stefan shook his head and grabbed her, swinging her into the air. ‘No, very bad. You say it again, I throw you in the water tank.’

  Daisy squealed with delight. ‘Bugger. No one told me you were coming, Uncle Stefan. Dad’s not here, he’s gone to get something for the car. He’ll be back soon.’

  ‘I know,’ Stefan said, lowering her to the ground. ‘I am coming to take him to rehearsal but your mother tells me she is making pasta and if I come early I get some. So here I am, but really I come to see you.’

  ‘Good, cos I want to show you what I did for art this week,’ Daisy said. ‘We made masks. Mine is a vampire with yellow teeth with blood on them,’ and she took his hand, dragging him towards the house. ‘Mum’s in the kitchen. I’ll go and get the mask from my bedroom.’

  Stefan tugged gently at one of her silky bunches, and she raced off up the stairs two at a time singing out ‘bugger’ with every leap. Stefan shook his head affectionately and wandered through to the kitchen, where Jill was at the sink washing lettuce and spinach for a salad.

  ‘Stefan, how lovely, come on in.’ She dried her hands and went over to kiss him on both cheeks. ‘Sorry about Daisy and her buggers. She picked it up at school this week and she won’t drop it. I think she’s after attention, so I’ve decided that ignoring it might be the best thing.’

  Stefan grinned. ‘She will forget it in a day or two,’ he said. ‘Is a novelty now, soon it wears off, I think. That is children. Daisy is a darling girl, Jill, you know you are very lucky.’

  ‘I do know,’ she said, squeezing his hand. ‘Adam won’t be long. Like a beer?’

  ‘Thanks.’ He took the bottle she handed him and picked up the opener. ‘How are you, Jill?’

  ‘Fine, although Adam’s a bit stressed at present.’

  ‘Ah.’ Stefan nodded and took a swig of his beer. ‘Cheers. His sister. This shooting is very bad. He worries the police don’t find no one and they come back and try again.’ He shook his head. ‘It is hard for you.’

  Jill began to chop radishes. ‘Yes. We’re all feeling it,’ she said. ‘Things’ll settle down when they catch someone.’ She looked out of the window to check that Adam’s car was not in the drive. ‘Stefan, can I ask you something? What do you do when you get home after rehearsals?’

  Stefan shrugged. ‘I watch TV, do gardening, sometimes I go to the gym.’

  ‘You don’t play your cello?’

  He grimaced. ‘Sometimes, if I have to practise, but most days I leave it at work.’

  ‘And you don’t have another at home that you play a lot, on your own?’

  Stefan laughed aloud. ‘No way. I have one cello. I don’t want to bring my work home. And you? You want to do the council work at home?’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  ‘So, music is no different.’

  ‘Do you think so? I mean, is that what most musicians do, leave it behind when they go home?’

  ‘I think yes,’ Stefan nodded. ‘They go in the family, or play sport, do cooking. Arthur, you know Arthur, he is second violin, yes? Arthur is painting watercolours, very beautiful. Me, I listen to jazz, sometimes country, you know, not what we play in the orchestra. Nobody wants to take work home.’

  ‘Adam does,’ Jill said, turning to him. ‘He spends a lot of time in his music room.’

  ‘But for Adam, it is a little bit different. First cello is the one who must mark up the score, organise things, he has responsibilities. For the rest of us, not so much work.’

  ‘I know that,’ Jill said. ‘But Adam actually spends a lot of time playing that old baroque cello.’ She felt guilty suddenly, as though she were telling tales, but she couldn’t stop, compelled as she was to try to understand. ‘Mostly he plays the Bach suites, the ones for unaccompanied cello.’

  Stefan nodded. ‘Of course, very beautiful. It is an interesting story, you know. Pablo Casals discovers this music in an old shop.’ He snapped his fingers, searching for a word. ‘Not antique but . . .’

  ‘A second-hand shop?’ Jill suggested.

  ‘Yes, thank you, second-hand shop. He is only a teenager and he takes the music and practises it. For years he practises and then performs them – more than thirty years, I think, before he records them and makes them very popular.’

  ‘I see,’ Jill said. She had abandoned the salad and sat down opposite him at the table. ‘So why are they so special? I mean, I enjoy music but I didn’t have a musical education. Why would a cellist play these suites in particular?’

  ‘Ah, yes, it is the emotional range, it is very large, and what we call voice interactions, the conversations . . .’ He paused and Jill saw him searching for the right words.

  ‘Intimacy,’ he said finally, grasping the word with satisfaction. ‘Yes, intimacy. And they demand much from the musician technically, so these suites they are making for perfection. But intimacy most, I think, this is the special quality.’

  ‘Intimacy,’ Jill repeated, ‘really? Do you like the orchestra, Stefan?’

  He took another drink of his beer. ‘Oh yes, they are very nice people, very friendly. When I come from Kosovo, I am a stranger, you know, I struggle with the language, but they make me very welcome.’

  ‘No, I meant do you love it, do you love being the third cello in the orchestra?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s a job, like any other job. It’s okay but you have the composers you like and then you spend weeks playing the ones you don’t like, no room for improvisation. It is frustrating, boring, you must play every note, sometimes it pisses off –’

  ‘That is very rude,’ said Daisy from behind a hideous black, red and yellow mask. ‘It’s much ruder than bugger.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Daisy,’ Stefan said, reaching out to draw her closer. ‘But neither is nice for you, nor for this vampire. Vampires, you know, they say bad words and they lose their power. These teeth, they fall out.’

  ‘Really?’ Daisy said, impressed by the potential of her new vocabulary.

  ‘Really,’ he said. ‘Better to watch out, Daisy. Now, let me have a proper look at this wonderful mask you make.’

  ‘So,’ said George from the top of the ladder, ‘do you want to hear about my plan?’

  ‘Love to,’ Barbara replied, ‘but preferably at ground level. I’m not at all sure you should be up a ladder at your age.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ George said, chucking down the last clump of rain-soaked leaves that had been clogging the gutter. ‘And anyway, it’s our age, not just mine.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Barbara said, picking up the leaves on a spade and loading them into the wheelbarrow, ‘I know, but come down, please. I don’t think it’s safe. I wish I never told you I was going to get someone in to clean the gutters.’

  ‘No point paying out good money when you’ve got an able-bodied handyman next door,’ George said, stepping off the bottom rung. ‘Now, that should fix you up for a while.’

  ‘Well, I’m very grateful,’ Barbara said. ‘Shall I make us some coffee?’

  George washed his hands in the laundry sink and wandered out into the kitchen, drying them on a towel.

  ‘D’you want to have a guess at my plan? You’ll never get it, but have a go. If you get it, I’ll buy you lunch at Savannah.’

  Barbara poured water into the plunger. ‘All right . .
. um . . . I know, you’re going to take up hang-gliding.’

  ‘Nope. You’ve got two more guesses.’

  Barbara, who would far rather that he just told her outright, racked her brains. ‘Golf then, you’re going to learn golf.’

  ‘Much better than that,’ George said, a large smile spreading across his face, which was spattered with blotches of muddy water from the gutter.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I don’t know. Are you having milk or is it one of your black coffee days?’

  ‘Milk, please,’ he said. ‘Go on, last chance, one more guess.’

  ‘Oh, er . . . I know, China,’ she said flippantly. ‘You’re going to take a slow boat to China.’

  ‘How the bloody hell . . . ?’ George looked affronted. ‘Of all the things I could be planning to do, of all the places I could be going, how come you guessed it’s China?’

  ‘Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve wanted to go to China,’ Barbara said. ‘Are you really going?’

  ‘Yes, yes I am. Dammit, I owe you lunch now.’

  ‘Cleaning the gutter will do nicely, thanks,’ Barbara said, carrying the tray out to the deck. ‘Come and tell me about the slow boat . . .’

  ‘Not a slow boat, just China,’ George said. ‘Have I always said I wanted to go there? I thought it was only in my head. Didn’t realise I’d talked about it.’

  ‘Constantly,’ Barbara said. ‘So, this is exciting. When are you going?’

  ‘Well, not just yet,’ George said, picking up a chocolate brownie. ‘The plan is a bit more complicated.’ His surprise that Barbara had guessed right turned to pleasure in allowing the rest of the plan to unravel slowly. It was important to get the reaction he wanted, so he took his time over the brownie, watching patiently as she poured the coffee. Barbara was the light of his life and, as he often told his son and daughter-in-law, without her friendship and her company, his life as a widower would have been a miserable affair.

  George tried not to look smug. ‘Complicated, but I think you’ll agree it’s a good plan.’

  ‘A or B?’ Barbara asked with a grin.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m joking. You know – is it plan A or plan B?’

  ‘Ah, you see, it started as plan A, but then when I thought about it more, I developed plan B, which is infinitely preferable.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Well, I’ve always wanted to go to China –’

  Barbara rolled her eyes.

  ‘Yes, okay, you do know that. But the thing is, I’m not very good at holidays. I want to go and stay there for a while, a few months.’

  ‘Can you do that?’ Barbara asked. ‘Visas and things, is it possible?’

  ‘This is where plan A begins,’ George said, warming to his task. ‘I kept thinking to myself, if I manage to buzz off there for a while, what would I do? It’s probably not the most comfortable place to live, and how will I get to know people? All that sort of stuff. And then it dawned on me – get a job!’

  ‘A job? What sort of job? I mean, you don’t speak Chinese and . . . I don’t want to be rude but you are seventy-five. Who do you think will employ you?’

  ‘Quite a lot of people, it seems,’ George said triumphantly, picking up his mug. ‘People who run language schools, and who want to employ English teachers.’

  ‘But you’re not an English teacher, you’re a retired industrial chemist.’

  ‘Right, but I am about to become a teacher of English as a second language, and apparently when I do that, even at seventy-five, I will be quite a valuable commodity in teaching English to Chinese industrial chemists.’

  It had come as a surprise to George to discover how keen the Chinese might be to have someone of his experience. He had gone in to the language school to enquire about the course and had a very interesting conversation with Robert Sachs, the director, who had taught in China.

  ‘Plenty of opportunities,’ Sachs had said. ‘Especially for someone with your experience who just wants something to do. Not full time or anything like that, and not teaching kids, but running some classes for industry. You get your teaching certificate and you bring all that industry language as well. I don’t think you’d have a problem.’

  ‘I don’t speak Chinese,’ George pointed out.

  ‘You don’t need it. The teaching is conducted entirely in English, and in any case your value is not in teaching beginners, but industrial chemists who already have some knowledge of the language.’

  ‘And my age?’ George had asked.

  ‘I don’t think it’s a problem, you should be able to pick up a few classes, but I’ll make some enquiries and get back to you, if you like.’

  George did like, but he was a bit nervous about the course.

  ‘Four weeks intensive,’ Sachs had said. ‘Bloody hard work; relentless, really. Grown men end up in tears and there’s quite a high dropout rate. The program is very tightly packed and after the first day you learn a technique one day and you practise teaching it the next, under observation by your peers and your instructor. When you leave here after the classes you write lesson plans for the next day and work on assignments.’

  ‘Practising on real live students?’ George asked in surprise.

  ‘Real but not fee-paying,’ Sachs replied. ‘Don’t underestimate how hard it is, especially if it’s some years since you’ve learned anything new.’

  George had come away from the meeting thrilled by the possibilities but still anxious about the course. He could easily afford it, but could he stand the pace? Could he pass? He might be the only old fogey in a group of youngsters. On the other hand, what had he got to lose? And, as Sachs had pointed out, even if he didn’t pass he would still have learned the teaching techniques, and some schools and employers in China didn’t demand the formal qualification anyway.

  A couple of days later, George got an email from Robert Sachs telling him that his age wouldn’t be a problem.

  ‘And so the next course starts in November,’ George told Barbara, ‘and I’ll be on it.’

  ‘Good on you, George,’ she said, ‘you’re so enterprising. Of course you’ll pass the course.’

  ‘Who knows? But by the time I recover from that and get my act together, make contact with a few possible employers, I reckon I’ll head off in the New Year, three months, six maybe. That should get it out of my system. It’ll probably be bloody cold, uncomfortable living conditions, but what an experience, eh?’

  ‘It sounds wonderful, and I can see you doing it really well,’ she said. ‘But if that’s plan A, what’s the infinitely preferable plan B?’

  ‘Ah,’ said George, rubbing his hands together and hoping that he had made it sound sufficiently inviting. ‘Well, I just happened to mention to Sachs that I had this very good friend who had been an editor and publisher of academic books, and he got very excited about that. It seems that this is also an area where the Chinese would consider an experienced older person who can teach English very valuable. So plan A is A for alone, and plan B is that you come along and take this terrible course, and we pop off to China together. Plan B is Barbara comes too. Now, don’t you think that’s a much better plan?’

  SEVEN

  Heather had never been so tempted to wag it as she was at the end of the first parliamentary sitting. She had been in Sydney for two weeks and there was a one-week break when she really should go home to Newcastle before returning to Sydney for the following fortnight. The shooting had thrown her life into the air like a pack of cards but now, in less than a fortnight, Ellis had assumed the role of comforter and sounding board. And Heather, unaccustomed to the presence of a constant supportive companion, marvelled that when fear and grief struck, when the pain in her shoulder and the limits on the use of her arm frustrated her, and when an unfamiliar sense of loneliness threatened, he was there.

  ‘I could wag it next week,’ she’d said to Ellis on Saturday morning when they met for breakfast by the fountain. ‘Stay on here. I’m coming back next we
ekend anyway.’

  Ellis shook his head. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate at the moment, Heather,’ he said. He took her hand in his. ‘I’m so happy that you’ve enjoyed our time together, but if you start ducking out now you’ll feel guilty, and all that good will be undone. I’ll stay on here. You’ll be back next weekend and we’ll talk some more. I’ve arranged to hold on to the apartment until the end of the next two sitting weeks. After that I really will have to get back to Byron Bay.’

  Heather toyed with her yoghurt. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said. ‘But you don’t have to stay on here for me, you know.’

  ‘But I’d like to,’ he said. ‘If you want me to.’

  ‘You know I do. You could come to Newcastle with me for the week, if you like,’ she added hopefully.

  ‘Not this time,’ Ellis said. ‘You get back to your electorate office, concentrate on your work. Why not come back on Friday evening instead of Monday, then we’ll have the weekend before you have to go back to parliament?’

  Heather’s disappointment was countered by his reassurances about wanting to spend the weekend with her and by the way he looked at her. She had forgotten how it felt to be looked at in that profoundly personal way by a man. For the first time in more years than she could remember, Heather felt desire; she longed for sex with an urgency that she had never previously known. The longing gnawed at her, destroying her concentration, flooding her with heat, and as each day passed and Ellis seemed happy just to be with her, she wondered if she were misreading him. Perhaps it really was only friendship he wanted; perhaps he just wanted to help.

  The following morning she flew back to Newcastle, and Shaun met her at the airport and drove her home. He looked drained and exhausted, and Heather knew immediately that it would have been grossly unfair of her to have stayed on in Sydney. For almost two months he had carried the responsibility of the electorate office, and the effect was obvious. Well, at least she had the satisfaction of having done the right thing.