How could he do this to me after thirty-five years of marriage and two kids? How could he just up and leave?
Granted, a part of Lyndon had always been inaccessible to me, but he was a good husband: funny, good looking, and a good provider. We’d met when we were both so young. But I had never regretted our youthful marriage or the decision to have children early on. A family was the only thing in life I had ever wanted. And I knew Lyndon wanted that too.
I had always known that his job meant a great deal to him and that he was terrified by the chasm of change into which he’d been flung. And I also knew, which the children did not, that aging felt increasingly like a road race run on spavined feet and the words “weight-bearing exercise,” simply meant making the effort to stand up. This was why I had suggested the trip. And yet it hadn’t only been for Lyndon’s sake but for mine as well. Did Lyndon think getting old was easy for me? Wait, Lyndon’s motto was, Don’t think about it, remember? Just don’t think about it. Like that would fix everything. But I was a thinker. I thought about everything and I’d thought that this trip would be good for Lyndon and me. It would shake us out of our little Oakville lives and kick-start us into a new future together.
All I had wanted was to feel the optimism of having something to look forward to. To know that there were new adventures in the world that would push bone density scans, middle-age hearing loss, and weakening vision to the back of my mind. I had wanted to feel alive, not decrepit. And now Lyndon had thrown me into a terrible limbo where time and place lost all meaning.
I picked up a paperweight at an outdoor market stall in Paddington. A blue peony lay unfurled in the round, solid clear glass. Somehow the weight of thing in my hand reassured me. It was a ridiculous purchase, this irrelevant heavy glass ball, but I needed it. The weight made me feel grounded. As long as I held onto it, the fragments of my mind wouldn’t scatter into the wind like so many dandelions gone to seed.
I clutched the ball in both hands and held it against my belly as I walked. A semblance of calm replaced the floaty restless fever of my confused railings at Lyndon and cleared the way for a quiet, white-hot, seething fury.
8. LYNDON
WE WALKED THROUGH The Anarchist’s Tattoo Parlour and Barber Shop, and I was amazed. This had to be the coolest place in the world. The front half of the store was a barber shop and the place was filled with men being foamed and shaved and trimmed. The barbers looked like fashion models, all buff, lithe and beautiful. Of course, they were all covered in tattoos. And no one was over thirty. The décor was black, white, and silver; the floor was checkered and huge mirrors lined the walls, along with black-and-white photography of impossible male musculature. Next up was the reception area of the tattoo parlour, filled with hanging boards displaying hundreds of designs, against a backdrop of red, bordello-style wallpaper. Jason led me past three tattoo artists who were all concentrating hard. One man was having a sports club logo tattooed onto his thigh; a woman was face-down while angel wings were etched onto the span of her back; and, a woman who looked to be in her early seventies grimaced as the finishing touches to eternity were tattooed on her shoulder.
We took the stairs to an apartment above the store where Jason showed me to the kitchen, and I stared past my reflection in the window. “Pretty black out there,” I commented.
“The bay,” Jason said. “You’ll be amazed in the morning. If you look closely now, you’ll see ship lights, but that’s it. Sometimes, we get storms. I love them.”
He waved me to a chair at the round, white table. “How long have you been in Australia?” I asked.
“Twenty-four years,” he said, getting out a rose-covered china teapot with fluted edges and gold trim, which I found a bit unexpected. “Came when I was thirty-five. I had an early mid-life crisis and decided I needed to find out who I was and what I wanted to do with the rest of my existence.”
I was uncomfortable. Adam was thirty-five and he’d just had his self-realization or whatever it was, and I had let him down badly. True, his wasn’t a mid-life crisis so much as a turning point, an acceptance and acknowledgement of who he really was, but regardless, I’d let him down.
“What are you thinking about?” Jason asked me, putting the kettle on and handing me a box of custard creams.
“That I let my son down. Not that that’s anything new. But never mind that, you came to Australia when you were thirty-five?”
“Yeah. Went to Sydney first. Bunch of stupid wankers. I went to Melbourne next and liked it better. I found this place by luck. Back then, it was just a barber shop and nothing like it is now. The old geezer who owned it was dying, and he took a liking to me. So, he sold it to me for a quick thousand, which paid for a fancy coffin for him. Dark cherry wood with a red velvet interior and a comfy mattress. He said he wanted his tired old bones to have a good thick mattress upon which to rest. He had his gravestone all done up, and he’d bought his little piece of land in the cemetery. And he asked me to make sure he got to his resting place in good style.”
“You took care of his burial? Didn’t he have any family?”
Jason gave me a look. “There are lots of us wandering the earth who don’t have family,” he said. “We take care of each other. I made sure he was all taken care of and that he got buried right and I got this place which I take care of.”
“How sad,” I said. “That he didn’t have anybody.”
“He had me when he needed me,” Jason said, and he filled the teapot with boiling water and covered it with a cheerful yellow crocheted cozy.
“Here we go then,” he said, and he reached for two teacups in a cupboard. The cups matched the teapot. They were delicate, elaborate china, with scarlet, pink, and apricot-coloured roses with the same gold leafing on the scalloped edges.
He arranged the custard creams on a matching plate and sat down. “I’ll be mother,” he said, and I wanted to smile because the whole thing was so odd and yet so right.
“Can I take Queenie out of her box?” I asked,
He looked startled. “Of course, pardon me, I should have said. We’ll get her a box and some kitty litter later. In the meantime, I’ll put down some newspaper.”
After he laid down a few sheets of newspaper, I took Queenie out her box. She chirped and trilled and batted her head against my hand. I fed her and scratched her head as she ate.
“Jason,” I asked, getting up slowly, aware of my aging knees, “from what you said, do you think I’m going to stay here? I mean if you are making kitty litter plans and things.”
“Well, it’s not like you’ve got any other place to go, do you, sunshine?” he asked, and he poured the tea, adding half a cup of milk and four teaspoons of sugar to his. “I’m used to helping strays from time to time, and you definitely have the look of a pup who ran away from home. We’d need to get you some new clothes though to start.”
“Where would I stay?”
He gestured to a stairway to my right. “There’s a guest bedroom there,” he said, gulping his tea and sighing with obvious satisfaction. “You can think of me as your guardian angel for the time being. I’ve got no idea how you made it this far with that flashy stolen car, not to mention the cat.”
“How did you know about the car and cat?” I asked, and took a cautious sip of my tea. It was the colour of caramel and was tart and strong and abrasive, but I liked it.
“Police scanner. Better than a TV set for entertainment. They tied the car theft to you, by the way. Canadian tourist causes a stir, then a car is stolen in the neighbourhood where he vanished, and some ninety-year-old lady said she saw you jump into the car and speed away like Steve McQueen.”
I laughed. “Yep, Steve McQueen. That’s so me. And how is my wife?” I asked though it was hard to get the question out.
Jason laughed. “I am many things, but I am not psychic. How would I know?”
“I thought maybe it was
on the police scanner?”
“Nope. Only that she thought you had fallen into the Sydney Harbour, and that she wanted them to search the water. Kicked up a big fuss. That’s when they saw you on the camera, getting off at Kirribilli and disappearing into a park. The New South Wales Government’s transport authority has to report any suspicious activity to the coppers. Terrorism and all that. So, you just left your wife?”
I put my head into my hands. “I can’t talk about it now,” I said. “I can’t think about it.”
“That’s quite all right,” Jason replied, and he leaned over and patted my shoulder. “Drink your tea. Couple of hours time, I’ll heat up a fantastic tofu curry I made yesterday, and we’ll play a game of Scrabble. But first, my friend, it’s hot shower for you and a bar of lye. You’ve had a long couple of days.”
To my astonishment, I burst out laughing. Maybe some of it was hysteria, but I really laughed, a deep belly laugh that reached right up into my lungs.
“There you go, you see,” Jason said with satisfaction and a slightly bemused expression, “life can have its better moments.”
9. MARGAUX
I NEEDED TO FIND a cheaper place to stay. Helen and I had planned the hotel budget carefully, and if this episode of Lyndon’s mid-life crisis was going to necessitate a longer stay in Sydney than we had planned, I had to get organized, so as not to go bankrupt in the process.
Sydney was viciously expensive. I weighed my options and threw hostels into the mix. I could get a single room for less than forty dollars a night. I’d secretly always wanted to have a backpacking adventure, but I then met Lyndon and it never happened. I felt a tiny glow of excitement at being able to do it now, but to my chagrin, most of the hostels had an age limit of thirty-five. On a very good day, I could pass for fifty but that was it. The tiny glow of happiness was extinguished by a bucket of ice-cold water. I had to face the facts. Who wanted an old fogey in the midst of young folk in the prime of their lives?
I picked up my peony paperweight and lay down on the bed. Lyndon. Look at the mess you’ve dragged me into. And I have to clean it up. Me, me, me. I wanted to throw my glass flower at the mirror and do as much damage as I could, but I couldn’t afford to lose my temper—literally—like that.
I’d had a temper second to none when I was a kid. As a teenager, I had routinely destroyed the contents of my bedroom and scored my arms with a razor blade, trying to release my inner scream of rage. But having to pay for the damage, and my parents’ policy of zero tolerance for such behaviour, taught me restraint. That, and the fact that my mother had sent me to a therapist for half a dozen years. I hadn’t felt that terrible anger in decades. Lyndon’s calm demeanour, his unruffled reliability, his way of making a joke out of things, had helped me. And I loved the kids. While Adam drove Lyndon nuts, the kids brought me joy, pure and simple.
But now the anger had returned, full force. I wanted to smash my computer, slash my arms with the ballpoint pen, shatter the mirror, and trash the room.
I had to get myself under control. I forced myself to continue looking for a place to stay and found one that had potential, only it was in Kings Cross, the red-light district in Sydney. I decided to check it out in person and assess how dubious the area was. It was also a hostel so, they might not even take me.
It took me an hour to walk to the hostel and, on the way, I picked up a slice of sourdough toast with jam and a large coffee. I hadn’t eaten in days, and wolfed the food down, hardly chewing.
I stood outside the hostel and tried to summon the courage to go inside. It was still early in the morning and really, all things considered, Kings Cross didn’t look too bad. A bit grimy, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
A bunch of excited young folk piled out of the hostel and clambered into a minivan. They were so carefree, and I wished I was one of them.
I pushed myself forward by sheer will and opened the door to the hostel. A bell sounded, like wind chimes and I jumped, on edge. I was a mom from Oakville, Ontario. What on earth was I doing here?
Inside, the dark blue hallway was shadowy, lit by a single lamp on a small red table. Tiny twinkling lights lined the banister railing. I recognized a poster of the seven-headed, ten-horned wild beast of Revelation, only it was pink and yellow and crazy, with meowing lion heads. I couldn’t help myself; I had to see who the artist was. Bob Motown. It was titled, “Beast of the Sea” and the kind of pop art I loved and Lyndon hated. I studied the poster for a while, lost, not sure what to do next.
“Can I help you?” A deep voice materialized out of the darkness at the end of the tiny hall and I pressed back against the wall. If I closed my eyes and wished hard enough, maybe I’d find myself back in my high-rise luxury hotel room. This was too grassroots, too close to the ground.
I opened my eyes. I took a step forward and another and then I stopped. A man moved into the light. He didn’t look the way his voice sounded. I had expected, I don’t know, a middle-aged balding man who was tall, lean, close-shaven, tidy, slightly biker-like perhaps. And this man was nothing like that. He was huge, like an older Marlon Brando, obese, with a wild lion’s mane of shaggy white hair. His skin was the colour of white flour and his eyes were black raisins set deep into his face. His mouth was a slash of black and his nose was tiny and elegant. This man was a study in black and white.
I couldn’t speak. I just looked at him. I was frozen.
“Chickadee,” he said, and he sounded kind, “I can’t help you unless you talk to me. Come on over. I don’t bite.” His voice was deep and beautiful, and I started crying.
“I am sorry,” I said, digging in my purse for a Kleenex. “I’m here on holiday with my husband and things have gone a bit wrong.”
“Canadian, eh?” he asked, and he came out from behind the reception counter at the end of the hallway. “I’m from Saint John, New Brunswick. Not to be confused with St. John’s, Newfoundland.”
“I know the difference,” I told him. I blew my nose and didn’t care when I honked like a goose. I couldn’t pretend things were fine anymore.
“Come and have a cup of coffee with me,” the man said, and he moved his bulk gracefully into the kitchen where a group of kids studied maps and planned their days. Unlike the hallway, the kitchen was bright and breezy, and there was a bookcase filled with leftover reads from long-gone travellers: paperbacks, maps, brochures, and magazines.
“Sit down,” the man gestured at one of the two armchairs that faced out into the garden. The garden was filled with more hostellers, eating breakfast while studying brochures or scrolling through their laptops.
“Latte?” The man asked.
I was startled. “What?”
“Would you like a latte?”
“I would love a latte,” I said, and relaxed for a second. Then I remembered I shouldn’t be relaxing while Lyndon was out there, absent without leave. I took out my phone and studied it. Still nothing. I put it away.
“Sugar?”
“Yes, please. Two.”
He handed me the latte and when I took a sip, an insane happiness flooded my body.
“Maybe I could just sit here and drink lattes and be happy for the rest of my life,” I told the man.
He laughed. “I do make good coffee,” he said. “But your life must be pretty bad if a latte is make or break. What’s going on with you? I am Tim.”
Tiny Tim, not, I immediately thought, and he laughed again.
“As in not so tiny,” he said, and I flushed. How could he have known what I was thinking?
“Everyone thinks it,” he said as he wiped foam from his black lips. Why were his lips so dark? He must have weird pigmentation issues. I tried to stop thinking about it in case he tuned into that thought too.
“Tiny Tim. But you can just call me Tim.”
“How long have you lived in Australia?” I asked.
“Twenty years. I
was on the police force and got shot when I was fifty-five. Was pensioned off, which was fine by me. Had enough of the winters by then. I came here for a holiday and decided to stay. I had enough money so the Aussies didn’t kick me out, and I’ve been here ever since. I bought this place right off the bat.”
I did the math. “You don’t look seventy-five,” I told him, and it was true.
“Seventy-six this year. And thank you.”
“And what about your wife? Did she come too?” I blurted out the questions without thinking, and he laughed.
“Chickadee, I’m gay. Although I do make a beautiful woman. You should come and see me.”
“I’d love to,” I said, and then I remembered my plight. I’d been enjoying myself, and I’d forgotten about Lyndon for three seconds and the mess he had created.
Tim saw my expression change and leaned forward.
“And now, what can I do for you?” he asked.
“I need a room. A single room. Just me. And me and my husband’s suitcases. He’s run off. I don’t know where he’s gone. I haven’t heard from him and need to stick around for a bit. He stole a Jeep in Kirribilli with a cat in it. Please tell me you have a room.”
“I have a room,” he said, as he patted my knee.
My eyes filled with tears. “I must stop crying,” I said.
Tim shook his head. “Cry as much as you like,” he said. “What happened?”
I told him the whole story. He listened and didn’t say anything.
When I finished, he looked at me. “Let’s go and get your stuff,” he said. “I’ll put a boy on the front desk. Come on, where’s your hotel? I’ll drive you there.”
The Occult Persuasion and the Anarchist's Solution Page 6
