Cross Roads

Picture this. A weatherboard miner’s cottage in the middle of nowhere in particular. Warm orange light glows from the dirty, thin window panes and the open door. Somewhere between the front door and the pumpkin furrows sit four people around a campfire.

Three adults perch on wooden fruit boxes turned on their sides. A little girl with long blonde hair and deep blue eyes lays her head on the woman’s lap and with half-closed eyes she listens to the sound of the muted conversation, not bothering to understand the words. They were adult things and unimportant to her. Instead, the tone mixes with the cool night air and the warmth from the fire. All is lyrical and comforting and peaceful.

The old man, bony and leathery weathered skin, heavy khaki shirt with sleeves rolled up to biceps, clean but worn moleskin trousers, and heavy black gumboots, smokes thoughtfully as he leans his forearms on his knees. The younger man is holding court in a way. He is very self-assured and is telling the old man a thing or two – hard to say who is in charge though, the one asserting his knowledge of modern life, or the older, experienced country gent.

The woman occasionally makes some comment and the group laughs. She absently strokes the child’s hair.

——

I am a great believer in vapour trails from the essence of our souls or existence or something like that. The theory, very basically, is that where ever we go, what ever we do, we leave elements of ourself behind, and every now and again, when we cross those trails we are taken back to that time.

It’s far more poignant than simple memory or reverie. It’s a part of our existence that we reconnect with. For places we frequent, the feeling is not so distinct because the vapour is so thick and subconsciously we tune it out. But on paths occasionally travelled or left behind a long time ago, the history wafts over us like a barely perceived perfume.

——

It was hard not to fall into this reverie on Sunday afternoon. The situation, in essence, was an echo of the campfire memory. For a very brief time it was a comfortable place to be. I attribute that state in part to a mental inability to filter sounds and understand conversation clearly when the soundscape becomes complex. And so I make do with the atmospheric mixture of interconnecting souls.

But the elements were all present. There was the fire, a wood heater behind me even though the day was not cold, but I could feel the gentle glow on my back. There were people happily greeting each other, sharing their creativity and emotion (the latter a very real and agonisingly difficult gift to share, making it all the more valued). There was no real rush, no agenda it seemed, and modern life was somewhere else, perhaps denied entry to the Wesley Anne by some cosmic bouncer.

I pondered all of this afterwards as I walked to my car for the trek home. My head cleared in the open air and the irrelevant, cacophonous city noises, but my demons began to descend and I remembered what happened after the campfire memory. It was no great tragedy, just disillusionment as my father, irritated at the child hanging off her mother, sent me to the car to sleep. Perhaps he wanted to discuss things that a child should not hear – it wouldn’t have mattered to me because I had not been listening anyway, and so banished to quilt and pillows in the Austin 1800, I cried myself to sleep.

Instead of turning left and heading back the way I had come into town, my auto pilot had other ideas and I drove towards North Fitzroy. At the intersection with Michael Street, I remembered the terrace house, my sister and her boyfriend Bruce (who eventually dumped her for another man – my boyfriend! And who, very tragically, died a decade later from AIDS after living for a year in London – Jen and I still miss him).

I remember sitting at that very intersection one afternoon when a huge blanket of red dust, covering the state, blew over the city, bringing everything to a grinding halt. You couldn’t see five feet in front of you. I was trapped at that intersection for an hour until the cloud lifted enough for everyone to see again. All that topsoil blown from farming paddocks, courtesy of a drought and high winds.

I also remember my 20th birthday spent alone in that terrace house, with a huge chocolate Bavarian birthday cake Bruce gave me before he and my sister went out for a night on the town, and me waking the next morning covered in ant-bite-sized hives. That day I decided never to celebrate my birthday again. It was there that I received the amazing news that I had been accepted into university and so I packed up and left for Geelong.

The lights changed green and I turned down Smith St and past the former Gas and Fuel building, empty and up for sale. There were lots of memories there – I didn’t work at that site but visited often.

At the end of Smith St, intersecting with Victoria Pde, (I think) is the Freemasons. My daughter was conceived (and implanted) there six years ago. Nothing terribly romantic unless you’re into barber-chair arrangements with stirrups. The procedure had been somewhat problematic involving a test tube, the rather alarming chair, forceps with TEETH and hanging upside down for 45 minutes. The most striking thing I remember on THAT day was the yellow tie the obstetrician wore, a view that had been framed by my ankles. Yellow ties make me feel somewhat exposed and uncomfortable now, but also partly happy.

The traffic conspired against me and I turned down towards Docklands. On the corner with Exhibition St, there is a Telstra building. Way back in my murky past, after dropping out of university through illness, and unemployed for six months, I had taken the public service exam (in the Exhibition Buildings with a thousand others). I must have done well because Telecom (as it was known back then) along with two other government departments, suddenly decided they wanted me. I remember that particular building because it was the first time I had undergone a job interview, sitting on a chair in the middle of a large room, with a table of 10 people firing questions at me. The only thing missing was the bright light in my face.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, or neither, I was also offered a journalism cadetship in the country and despite the crappy pay compared to the government jobs, I took it.

I’ve never had choices like that since! I didn’t appreciate that I had such choices at the time. Do we ever?

Through Docklands and up to Footscray, then right into Ashley St. Why, oh why did I go that way? Halfway along Ashley St is an industrial/commercial estate. It used to be an airforce base. At the intersection with Barclay St (I think) there used to be a Vampire aeroplane mounted on a pedestal. As a kid, I was inspired by the plane, as much by its two fuselages as its name! And somehow there was a connection between the plane, that site and my dad, who was in the airforce at 18 when he lost his arm and both legs. Even now, with the base gone and the plane gone, I still feel the connection.

But that’s not why Ashley St makes me shiver. At the end is the Ashley Hotel. My ex hates pubs. But he went there one night – a work send off for him; a liaison with a female work mate, a grope in the car, a sharply scored line in our marriage. It didn’t cut through that time, but that deep line in the fabric of our relationship never, ever faded.

I almost see their vapour trails and I have to force myself not to stare if ever I pass that spot.

From there on home, my trails become a lot thicker, too numerous to fix on any one thing. The memories flit in and out with no real impact, no current connection. And at this point the demons go to work on those things remembered, magnifying the hurt, discarding the healing, making irrelevant connections to my present.

I arrived home tired. When asked by my daughter’s father if I enjoyed myself, I am non-committal. He doesn’t understand why I go to these things because he does not see them as important if they don’t provide me with great joy. Nor does he understand that I can’t explain their reality because the way I feel about the present is complicated by the past and befouled by irrelevant ponderance.

“Moody bitch,” he says and that makes me laugh, honestly and happily because he states it as fact rather than maliciously.

I guess the point of all this is that I apologise if I seem disconnected. I am easily distracted by self indulging vapour trails.

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memory and anecdote