Trip of a Lifetime

by Liz Byrski

  ‘The journey to selfhood, your own journey as an example. As we discussed, Ellis, Head to Heart, rat race to self-actualisation and wholeness. It doesn’t need to be long, just intimate, inspirational, meaningful; and it shouldn’t give away all the secrets – very important. I’m thinking,’ and he raised his hands, waggling his fingers to imply quotation marks, ‘“an inspirational personal story of one man’s journey to maximise his life potential”. That’s just off the top of my head, of course.’

  ‘You don’t think some leaflets –’ Ellis began.

  ‘Of course, but we need a book as well. A small, classy looking paperback. Everyone has a book these days. And the CD, some commentary, perhaps some meditations for change, that sort of thing. We’ll launch the whole package with a series of inspirational talks, and market the book and CD at the same time. And you’ll need a website. Themed images: you in your robes in court and you today, lots of golds and fresh greens there, implying energy and new life, relaxing on a verandah, glorious rural setting, lots of trees. We might add an eating plan – “a regime for mind and body wholeness” – that sort of thing. We can work on the details.’

  ‘Eating? I don’t think I –’

  Luke waved it aside. ‘We’ll find someone who knows that stuff, dieticians are ten a penny. Now, none of this is cheap, of course, but we want to do it properly. I’d say we should run with this from next June.’

  ‘That’s a long way off,’ Ellis said. ‘I was thinking we might kick off some talks early in the New Year. After all, it’s not as though I’m an unknown –’

  Luke smiled. ‘Ellis, you are known as a defence lawyer in Adelaide. While that’s an obvious plus we are now going to build a profile, rebrand you for a much wider and rather different market. You want to be top of the range in this business and preparation is the key, as I am sure it was in the law. We don’t want to go into this half cocked.’ He flicked through the pages of the plan which was ring bound in elegant blue and charcoal plastic bearing the Scriven logo. ‘Take this away, read it all, think about it carefully and give me a call next week,’ he said. ‘And, remember, at this stage it’s merely a proposal and subject to your approval and alterations.’

  In the cab on the way to Heather’s place, Ellis sat with the folder in his lap. Top of the range was right, it was designed for people just like himself. He had hit a winner with Luke Scriven, he knew that now. As the taxi headed out towards Potts Point, he asked the driver to stop at a bottle shop where he bought a bottle of Moët.

  ‘You’re looking very pleased with yourself,’ Heather said as she opened the door. ‘Good meeting?’

  ‘First class,’ he said, handing her the champagne. ‘Absolutely first class. Let’s open this and I’ll tell you all about it.’

  ‘It looks very impressive,’ Heather said as he flicked through the plan. ‘I don’t really know anything about this sort of thing, but Scriven seems to have done a great job, and you’re the expert. If you’re happy . . .’

  ‘Ecstatic,’ he said, ‘and raring to go, even to write the wretched book.’

  ‘And what about the budget?’

  ‘I haven’t gone through that yet. It’ll be hefty but, as Luke says, if you want to be top of the range you have to do it properly. I’ll go through it in detail when I get back to Byron Bay.’

  She refilled their glasses and collected the salad from the kitchen. ‘Come and eat,’ she said, putting the bowl on the table.

  Ellis put down his glass. ‘It means a lot to be able to share this with you, Heather,’ he said. ‘A hell of a lot.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said, turning to him. ‘Meeting you again, Ellis, that’s meant a great deal to me. You’ve helped me more than I can tell you.’ She sighed and looked away. ‘I’ll really miss you when you leave on Friday.’

  ‘I’ll miss you too, very much,’ he said, slipping his arms around her waist and drawing her to him. ‘I guess that’s why I was so grumpy this morning. Sorry about that.’ And as she tipped her head back to look up at him, he was transported to the past. The look in her eyes was as he remembered – trusting, loving, innocent. He laid his hand on her cheek. ‘I’ve always loved you, Heather, you know that, don’t you? Always loved you and still do.’ And he bent his head to kiss her and was thrilled to feel her arms close around his neck and her mouth yield to his.

  ‘I don’t have to go straight back to Byron Bay,’ he whispered softly into her hair. ‘I could make a brief detour to Newcastle first.’

  ‘That sounds like a very good idea,’ she murmured, kissing his jawline. ‘I was wondering when we might get around to this.’

  ‘I don’t like to rush things,’ Ellis said, thinking that he would actually have rushed at it on day one if he’d thought he could get away with it. ‘Unfortunately, it means that we’ve missed a number of opportunities.’

  Heather ran her hand through his hair. ‘Well, we don’t have to miss this one,’ she said.

  The following morning, sitting up in bed with the coffee Heather had made for him before she left for work, Ellis laced his fingers together behind his head and leaned back. He had so often imagined how it would be to make love to Heather again after all those years. The inevitable merging of past and present, of fantasy becoming reality the previous night, had been almost surreal. There had been an awkward patch when Heather suddenly pulled away as he was about to enter her. She burst into tears and talked about penetration and bullets – for some reason she was linking the shooting with sex, god knows why, but he had made all the right noises. It had annoyed him, though, and he’d had to concentrate on not losing his erection, or figuring out how he’d get it back if he did. Anyway, she got over it, and Ellis thought he’d put up a first-rate performance for a man of his age. The purple pills certainly fulfilled their promise.

  So, it was all working out; once he’d had a shower and some toast, he’d change his flight to go with her to Newcastle for a long weekend. Ellis finished the remains of his coffee, threw back the duvet and swung his legs out of bed. Fantasy was, he thought, part of a successful relationship. Last night he had closed his eyes and imagined making love to the young Heather – it was perfectly natural, he was sure all men did it. In fact, most men probably imagined they were making love to other women, screen goddesses, supermodels; at least he was fantasising about the same person. And it was also natural to feel disappointed when he woke expecting to see a nineteen-year-old and found he was in bed with a middle-aged woman. It was early days, it was magic, and magic was sometimes challenging.

  The women’s toilet at Parliament House was empty and Heather peered at her reflection in the mirror, trying to decide if she looked younger. She thought she did, rather as though she were in soft focus, glowing and slightly blurred. Ten years of celibacy and she was, once again, a sexually active person. It had begun so unexpectedly she hadn’t had time to worry about her body; had she known what would happen, the anticipation would have been dominated by thoughts of cellulite, excess kilos and the fact that she hadn’t shaved her legs. The urgency of Ellis’s desire and the subtle light that filtered in from the sitting room had enabled her to survive nakedness. She had read somewhere that one effect of being shot was that the penetration trauma could be revived at the prospect of a foreign object entering the body; even so, the panic took her by surprise.

  She smiled now, thinking how wonderful he had been, holding her reassuringly until she had weathered the storm. Eventually they had made love with a slow but passionate intensity, as though they were carefully crafting every move, every murmur, every sensation. Dragging herself out of bed and away from Ellis this morning had required a superhuman effort. He was, she had thought as she lay watching him sleep, a man who had improved with age. Confidence, maturity, an assurance of his place in the world, and indeed in her bed, were incredibly seductive. She knew she was in the grip of long forgotten symptoms of love: the heightened sensuality, the desire that destroyed concentration, the sense of having been transformed. His
smell still clung to her as though he refused to be swept away in the shower. The door swung open, disrupting her reverie.

  ‘Heather,’ an Upper House colleague said, ‘I was just looking for you.’

  ‘Well, now you’ve found me,’ Heather said, blushing slightly and turning on the tap to pretend to wash her hands. She wondered again if her changed status were noticeable.

  ‘Yes,’ the woman said. ‘There’s something I need to run past you, but I need to go in here first.’ She opened a cubicle and stepped inside. As she turned to close the door she noticed Heather’s reflection in the mirror. ‘You look fantastic this morning, by the way. What is it, new hair? Make-up?’

  Heather held her hands under the flow of water. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing different, same old me. Just feeling good, I suppose.’

  ‘Excellent,’ the woman said, closing the cubicle door. ‘About time, after all you’ve been through.’

  Heather smiled smugly at her reflection. ‘If only you knew what I went through last night,’ she murmured into the noisy blast of the automatic dryer.

  ‘So she’s gone, then?’ Ed Masefield said, sitting on the step and pulling his tobacco tin out of his pocket. ‘Young Charlie, she’s gone?’

  Shaun watched his father ease the lid off the tin and take out the packet of papers.

  ‘Charlene? Yes, she’s gone.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘She’s at her mother’s place now, but she’s going up to the Gold Coast next week. Denise got her some temporary work in the resort.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Ed said, teasing out the tobacco threads and laying them carefully on the paper. ‘She’ll like that, fit in well up there. Nice girl but not right for you.’

  Shaun rolled his eyes. ‘You always say that.’

  ‘Because you haven’t found the right one yet. You will, eventually, although the rate you’re going you’ll be lucky if you find her before you draw the pension.’

  ‘Well, thanks, Dad,’ Shaun said, putting down the spirit level and unscrewing a bottle of water. ‘That’s very encouraging.’

  Ed shrugged. ‘True, though. Did you give her the heave-ho or did she go of her own accord?’

  Shaun turned away. ‘It was a mutual decision.’

  ‘I take it that means you kicked her out, like the last one. I could see it coming. I said to your mother not so long ago, that one’s for the heave-ho, you mark my words. Wondered where she was, and then when I went in the bedroom to fix that skirting board just now I saw that bloody awful dressing table had gone.’

  Shaun nodded, said nothing and swigged his water.

  ‘When’d she go, then? Coupla weeks?’

  ‘Four.’

  Ed nodded. ‘Met someone else, have you?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Ed rolled the cigarette paper and licked the edge with the tip of his tongue. ‘Trouble with you, Shaun, is you’re all in your head. It’s all right doing up the house, yarning over politics with me and working all hours, but you need to get out more. We used to go dancing. That’s how I met your mother, dancing.’

  ‘It’s different now, Dad,’ Shaun said. ‘Dancing is in clubs, lots of booze, drugs, very loud music. There are no ballrooms or girls in long dresses with chaperones and dance cards.’

  ‘Get off,’ Ed said, flicking his lighter without success. ‘I’m not that bloody old. Rock ’n’ roll, Bill Haley, “Rock Around the Clock”, the twist. That’s my era.’

  ‘Just winding you up.’

  ‘You should move on, y’know,’ Ed said, finally getting a flame and drawing on his cigarette. ‘You’ve been in Heather’s office too long. You want to go somewhere where you’ll meet more people. Women, I mean.’

  Shaun laughed. ‘I thought I was supposed to meet them dancing.’

  ‘Yes, but you won’t go dancing, will you? How’d you meet Charlene?’

  ‘At work,’ Shaun said. ‘Her mother volunteers at the office, and Charlene came with her to a sundowner one night.’

  Ed removed the cigarette from his mouth with his thumb and first finger, the lighted end turned inwards towards his palm. ‘Well, you want to go somewhere where you’ll meet women who like the same things as you. That other one, the one before Charlene – Tanya, was it . . . ?’

  ‘Teena.’

  ‘Yes, Teena, very nice girl, very pretty. Daft as a brush, though.’

  Shaun sighed. ‘Yes – apart from not getting out enough, I don’t seem to be very good at picking them when I do go out.’

  Ed flicked the ash off his cigarette. ‘It’ll happen eventually. Always does, you just need to get out more.’

  Early in the evening of the day that Adam and Stefan had played in the vineyard, Jill got home and realised she had forgotten to switch on the washing machine that morning, and clothes they all needed for the next day were still unwashed. She’d had a really dreadful day at work and now she would have to stuff everything through the dryer tonight. She switched the machine on, and considered what she and Daisy could eat. Toby had gone from school to Bree Adams’s house and would have to be picked up later. Adam would probably just want a sandwich when he got in. She opted for beans on toast, and then found they had run out of baked beans as well as Daisy’s favourite tinned spaghetti.

  ‘Scrambled eggs or fish fingers and oven chips?’ Jill asked her.

  Daisy sat at the table contemplating the options as though considering the fate of nations.

  ‘Eggs, I think,’ she said eventually. And Jill got them out of the fridge and cracked the first two into a bowl, at which point Daisy changed her mind.

  ‘You asked for eggs,’ Jill said irritably.

  ‘But I didn’t really mean it,’ Daisy said in her most infuriating wheedling tone of voice. ‘I thought I meant it but then I found I didn’t mean it. What I really meant to say was fish fingers and oven chips, because you see, Mum, I really do love oven chips, and the best thing in the world would be oven chips with tinned spaghetti –’

  ‘Daisy, shut up!’ Jill said. ‘We’re having eggs.’

  ‘But I hate eggs,’ Daisy wailed. ‘I just remembered that I really hate eggs. If I have to eat them I’ll probably be sick.’ She pulled a face and made retching noises.

  Jill put one hand on the side of the sink, closed her eyes and thought of her friends. She thought of Renée, married to a corporate executive, childless and moderately wealthy, sipping champagne at a town-twinning reception that Jill was missing because neither Adam nor Kirsty was available to babysit. She thought of Elise, the same age as her, whose children were in their late twenties and scattered at comfortable distances around the world. And Stella, a year younger than her, whose two children, although still living at home in their early twenties, were civilised grown-up university students like Kirsty. She pictured Stella and her husband, Grant, side by side on the sofa, watching SBS with a bottle of red while the students studied, emerging occasionally to have intelligent conversations in which there was no mention of tinned spaghetti, Harry Potter, or whether they were allowed to watch Australian Idol.

  ‘Okay,’ Jill said eventually with a sigh, unable to face an argument. ‘Fish fingers and chips and that’s it.’ And she covered the eggs with cling film and put the bowl in the fridge.

  ‘Brill,’ Daisy said, ‘and then after dinner –’

  ‘After dinner we’re going to collect Toby, and you are going to have a shower. You can watch TV for half an hour and then it’s bed.’

  ‘No, we have to do my insects project,’ Daisy announced. ‘I have to finish it for tomorrow.’

  ‘What insect project?’

  ‘I have to draw six insects, and write about their habitats and their feeding habits,’ Daisy said. ‘It’s for tomorrow.’

  Jill shook a packet of oven chips into a tray. ‘And how long have you known about this?’

  ‘Um, last week, I think,’ Daisy said, ‘or it might not be.’

  ‘You mean it might be longer?’

  Daisy, avoiding
eye contact, opened a box of coloured pencils. ‘It could be longer, I think. Mum, what is a habitat?’

  Jill had heard experts say that when children told their parents ‘I hate you’, in that moment they really meant it. She wondered if the experts knew that when parents stared at their children and thought the same thing, they also really meant it. She slammed the baking tray into the oven and told Daisy to fetch the nature encyclopaedia.

  When she got back from collecting Toby, there was a message on the machine from Adam to say that he and Stefan had broken down on the Pacific Highway and were waiting for the NRMA. Just after ten he called again to say the problem was fixed and they were mobile again but were stopping to get something to eat on the way home.

  Toby and Daisy were in bed, and Jill flopped down in her favourite chair, hooked one leg over the arm and flicked through the TV channels with the sound on mute, thinking she’d probably just go to bed. Every night since she quit the bedroom she’d considered going back and knew it was essential if they were to re-establish any meaningful dialogue. She imagined herself walking back into the room clutching her pillow like a repentant child. How would she cope if Adam rejected her, or behaved as though he’d prevailed in some sort of battle? But Adam wouldn’t be back for another hour, probably more, and the easiest thing was to be in bed when he got back. It would seem natural, reassuring, but not necessarily repentant. And maybe, just maybe, Adam would be smart enough not to say anything. He might even be smart enough to give her the very big hug that she so desperately needed.

  The morning after Diane flew home from the Gold Coast dawned as grey and overcast as her own mood. Dragging herself out of bed and into the bathroom she stared at her face in the mirror. She looked really terrible. She had cried all the way home despite the efforts of the Virgin flight attendant who plied her with tissues, chocolates, magazines and the offer of aspirin. There were dark shadows under her eyes and the wretched little lines that were clustering around her mouth seemed deeper than ever.

  Through her tears she had noticed a woman board the flight and sit a couple of rows in front of her. She must have been in her early seventies, and she was wearing beige cotton pants, a white shirt and a brown velvet jacket. Her hair was grey, and cut close to her head in a neat crop. She wore no make-up and had a pair of glasses slung on a cord around her neck. As the woman walked down the central aisle, Diane was so fascinated by her that she almost stopped crying. She appeared entirely happy and completely confident about being herself, being her age, untroubled by efforts to look younger or more attractive.