Stories
The Italian
It’s a blustery, cool May 5, 2023. Why did I choose this day to begin this story? Other than it is my sister's birthday, no reason, but I had to start it now. I might not be able to in the future.
I begin at the Bookplate Café in the National Library of Australia. Waiting for a coffee, I hear the conversations of others around me. I see a woman I know sitting not far away. Some people think she’s mad. I don’t. I know her. She’s good value.
On the other side of the café, two 40-something people are sitting together. I admire both. He’s aloof, business-like, maybe Italian. She’s close and warm, at least she wants to be. They look the same. Same age, size, weight, same colour hair, as most lovers, but they’re not lovers. I’ve seen them many times in the library. They are not a couple. They smile, laugh, talk and walk together, but they’re not close, like they should be.
I’ve seen them slowly walking together, out in the sunshine, around the library; walking like philosophers. They sit in the café, deep in their conversations, like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre. They talk, about what I don’t know. But I’d like to know. They look like thinking people. They could be mistaken for lovers; they sit close to one another and listen intently. Outside, they walk in time together like military people, step matching step. They are as one, not like a machine, but as how humans should be with one another. Listening and caring.
When I was in the army, I experienced another form of togetherness. When out on a forced march, to help keep in time, the corporals would make us yell out, “I’m a machine, a machine. I’m not a human being”. They drummed into us the history of the army and the forced march, like “The Sandakan Death Marches” of the Allied prisoners under the Japanese in World War II. Why were we taking lessons from the losers?
Around 10 am, the public servants that work nearby descend on this place like flies to dead meat. Men talk to men and women talk together; they hold their coffees. It’s Friday, they are happy. Any other day, it’s a struggle to raise a smile. I’m not interested in them.
I’m brought my coffee by a young waitress with an elusive smile. Another waitress is floating around, looking at people. I guess inspecting people can’t be helped in her job. Same for me. Maybe she wants me to leave so she can clear my table. But I just got my coffee. I don’t know why she hovers.
The woman who wants to be close to the man who is maybe Italian walks past. She looks at me; it’s the first time she’s ever done that: maybe she’s onto my spying, my reason for being here. You see, I’m stuck for ideas. The words are not coming. The concept of anything new has eluded me for a long time. I don’t know what to do, so I’m here, looking for something. I’m trying to be something, anything that’s not me, because that me is not working out.
I’m 62 and I’ve been creating for over 50 years. How much creativity can anyone have left in them after so many years of thinking, experimenting, trying and editing?
The coffee’s good, it’s extra hot, as I requested. It makes me think as warm things do. Should I question everything, as Socrates suggested? Like, what’s my story? Why am I writing this? More to the point, why are you reading this and what are my words saying to you? If there’s a hunger for enquiry, conversation and connection between people, why are you reading? Reading is a lonely one-person-at-a-time occupation.
There I go, off on a tangent again. Unable to maintain a line of thought for more than a minute.
Back, back to my questions. Why can’t those two over there just get on with it and fall in love? What’s their problem? I wish they would. Maybe they’d spend more time in bed than at the library if they did. Making love is more rewarding than playing games. I wish they’d just be what we are designed to be. Get on with it and stop interrupting my thoughts. And can people please stop coughing: It’s May 2023 and covid is still a thing. I had it a month ago; nearly killed me.
Questions, hmm. Sound thinking music. Are questions answers? Questions are all about the way we live or should live. Isn’t that right, Socrates? But I’m tasked with the hardest of things to do, which is to ask and answer the questions I want answers to. There’s a reason why I have to ask myself.
How would the Socratic method have turned out if Socrates had applied it to himself? Could he have asked and answered his own questions? I think he did.
Questions only get asked by people who already know the answers, and no matter what others say, the question remains the answer. Socrates knew this, that’s why he asked questions. He thought he knew all the answers. The questions of his time were not just relevant to his time. He knew this too. We ask the same questions today but frame them to suit our vocabulary and our sensibilities. Just like Socrates did. But questions, I think, are answers.
For anyone who has lived beyond 30, there is no need to ask a question ever. Your life experience has supplied all the answers you need. It has given you all the answers you will ever require. But I still can’t figure out why that Italian does not fall for this woman he sees every day. He can’t be married.
Damn him. Because that question does not have an answer, at least not one that I know.
If they won’t supply me with an answer, I’ll make one up. They are work colleagues. No. They are writers. They are at a library. Maybe they are learning a language together, maybe French, but probably Italian. I’ve never been close enough to them to hear them speak. Maybe they don’t even talk in English.
The more I think about this pair, the more unsure I become. Hang on, that’s not supposed to happen. Thinking solves problems, doesn’t it? Well, it does. But I’ve been thinking without the facts. I’m human. The fact is, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I can’t know because I don’t know them.
I sit here in my impersonal world and think I know what is right, at least what should be right. Conjecture is the death of time. Guessing games are something you shouldn’t play with people’s lives. I am most likely wrong about everything I think about them. Human lives are not a game.
I guess I’m trying to be philosophical about them. But I imagine they don’t think they are a philosophical problem to be dissected and solved.
Hang on, maybe they think I’m a problem to be solved. As I write this, the pair come over, and they sit at tables on either side of me. What’s their game? They don’t say anything to each other, or to me. Do they even notice I’m here? I try to sneak looks at their computers to see what they are writing. But my eyes are so bad I can’t make out a word. The documents on both their laptops look the same. Hey, this hardens my theory about them being writers. They could be working on a book together.
She gets up and walks outside the library. Maybe to get warm in the sun, it is only 15 Celsius today. But in Canberra, 15 means feels like 10. She comes back in and looks as sad as anyone who has ever been deeply saddened. She looks dejected and frustrated. She sits at the table next to me and contemplates her thoughts, not what’s on her computer screen. He’s going about his writing business. They are odd.
I finish my coffee and walk away. Not four steps away she rushes to my table and sits in my seat, closer to him. At the door, I look back at them. They are sitting next to one another on different tables, they do not converse, they do not recognise one another. I take back what I said earlier, I don’t admire them. I’m glad I’m not them. It looks like a hard relationship. It’s not how I want to be. But I don’t know them, so I have no right to judge. I’m probably wrong about everything. That’s what happens when you guess at answers.
Maybe they are a question without an answer. They do exist.
If only… If only they could be… Like a child, I ask why. The question is the answer remember. It’s not satisfactory, but it’s all I can know.
The Accidental Alto
After each concert, there was the soirée. Held in a ridiculous mausoleum, the owner was a woman we affectionately knew as The Mother Goose of Montparnasse. She never attended a concert, but she, Gertie, who sat in her seat of command wanted to hear all about what was played, how it sounded and, for a special few, what they thought of the latest Paris musical offering. We mortals always let Gertie speak first.
Tonight’s concert was a recital, Schubert, his Lieder, of course. Gertie demanded to know the singer's name; Alice filled our glasses.
Well, Gertie, Silvia, the owner of that famous bookshop, said, we have brought that wonderful singer back with us, and here she is. Stepping forward, full of bravado and style, announcing herself, I’m Marty, the accidental alto.
Showing no reaction to her quip, what did you think of our accidental alto, Monsieur Reviewer? Gertie asked, looking at me.
I’m surprised you don’t know her, Gertie, I said. She is well performed. She has one of the finest voices in all Europe. I said the word Europe like it was a planet. I’m sure you’ll get to read about it in tomorrow’s journaux, Gertie.
I’m more than a voice Marty said. Us mortals went silent. Like all good artists, I am highly educated and widely read. She spoke about her understanding and love of literature. Gertie’s eyes focused and squinted squarely at the alto.
As she spoke about Sartre, I watched her long angular body, her voice sufficient with perfect cadences, but which betrayed her attitude towards the things she wouldn’t have a bar of, like reviewers. Her long, formless chin, neither sharp nor flat, in a diminished way, stopped short of her mirroring a vulgar or aristocratic signorina.
That’s just not logical, Gertie said, when the Alto stated something about Sartre’s Nausea that confused her.
Of course, it’s not logical, she said. It’s Sartre. I felt her words rub up against the cleft roof of my mouth. Panning her eyes around the room, she picked out her spot and focused; it was me.
Picking her words carefully, little by little, her rhapsodic phrases explained why she didn’t have the time to make people feel comfortable. After an interval of silence, I responded. No matter what songbook you sing from my Alto, not everything you say makes sense. Why are singers so highly strung I asked? I plucked up further courage, and without a tremolo in my voice, in front of everyone, I said, people have a simple moral passion for your voice, but clearly, not for everything you say.
You see, I don’t understand much about that, she said. No one can drum out those words and mean them. The two go hand in hand, like a crescendo and diminuendo that naturally follow one another. It’s in the sound of our voices and in the music we hear. If you love my voice, you love me, full stop.
How can anyone love you, I asked? You’re an illusion, an untouchable star.
I didn’t choose to be this thing, this singer, she snapped. I had to be this to survive. I’m not just a voice for people to admire or despise. It’s unnatural to live this way. Endless travelling, constantly performing and the nonstop practice day after day. And to have the dregs of my soul on display night after night, up there on stage in front of a pack of gawking onlookers.
I felt like a fool and apologised.
With emphasis and meaning, she moved toward me and sat on my lap. Slowly, looking up into my eyes, she said, love me, not my voice.
Would I admit it? Could I, in front of all, watching intently? I lowered my head and said, sotto voce in her ear, you are annoyingly right. In a higher intonation, a tone or two above my normal range, I blurted out, in a moderately slow tempo, I’ve always loved you, my Alto.
She grasped my hand, then led me up and over to the door. We said our goodbyes and left together. The night’s coda had just begun.
Drifting Lives
At Liverpool Street train station, faces glided past Eliot. Lives lived by the clock rushed around him in a confused stream of human movement. The whistles, bells and humidity, these were not distractions, but the faces eluded him. The blank and drawn expressions of people that pushed on by going nowhere; they confounded and annoyed him.
But most things didn’t worry Elliot. The dirt and rubbish, the cigarette butt that stuck to his shoe, these were customary. The press of his pants that had to form a straight line down the legs from his belt to his toes, the placement of his hat, the length of his tie, it was these things that were forefront in his mind.
Eliot pressed forward between the rushing people into his carriage. 12B his ticket said, a window seat; how nice. There it was, his place for the ride home from another day’s work at the bank.
From his briefcase, he took his favourite book, Birds of North America. In the overhead rack, he laid his case then sat in his place. There’s nothing more magical than birds, he thought.
Eliot never showed his emotions unless it came to birds. He could bore a fellow traveller to death if someone asked what he was reading. If someone questioned him how his day was, 'the same as yesterday' came the reply.
But ask him about birds, and the words would not stop until the passenger got off or moved to another carriage. The Times were being read by every other man in his carriage. The front page caught his eye; ‘November 14, 1949, locomotive derailment in Bournemouth central station’. He thought about where he was for a moment, but nothing like that could ever happen to him. He noticed a woman in the carriage, sitting with her eyes shut. Must have been a long day.
London wasn't home for Elliot. Northampton, sixty-minutes away, that’s where he lived in his singularly single-story brown brick house, by himself.
Page 79, the Bald Eagle. Now there’s a bird; a mighty creature. Of course, not found in England, outside the stuffed variety hanging in museums, that is. Look at those talons, Eliot said to himself. That uniformed dark brown plumage, the white head and tail. Look at that large, hooked nose and yellow irises. There is no mistaking the bald eagle.
Page 81, the Northern Flicker, a medium-sized bird of the woodpecker family. Amazing. The array of colours, the sleek shape, what perfect design.
Eliot put his book down, resting it squarely on his legs. The woman, still seemingly sleeping, two men talking, the cricket match. He closed his eyes and thought of the day when he could visit America to see a mighty bald eagle in the wild. The females are bigger, he reminded himself.
The train pulled into Watford station. Stopping with a jolt, Eliot’s book slipped from his legs onto the carriage floor. As he went to pick it up, a hand got to it before him. The woman he thought was asleep grabbed it and read its cover. Most quietly she said, I love birds. Do you have a favourite?
Hardly ever conversing with anyone on a train, other than that ticket collector, he seemed taken aback as the train started off again. I love the little budgerigar the woman said. My father-in-law had many in his home.
You mean in a cage, said Eliot. Yes, well, of course, said the woman. Birds are free animals, unlike humans. They should never be kept as pets, my dear lady. Cats and dogs are fine, but birds should not be inside houses. They have wings. They are designed to fly and should not be caged.
She handed him his book and moved back into her seat.
However, said Elliot, leaning towards her, budgerigars, once caged, they cannot be let back into the wild. They won’t be able to feed themselves, and predatory birds would surely attack and kill them. How many budgerigars does your father-in-law have in his house?
I don't know. He’s not my father-in-law anymore. But they were such dear, sweet, delicate creatures. I could watch them for hours. I assume you don’t have birds at home?
I do not madame. Eliot leaned back and didn’t look at the woman again, but she would sneak looks over his way, watching, studying him.
The train slowed for Berkhamsted station. Two men sitting next to Eliot stood, collected their briefcases from the rack and departed. The woman moved and sat near Elliot and questioned him about his favourite bird.
Feeling perplexed, he flicked his book open to page 79, the bald eagle, he said firmly. Magnificent, the woman said. Do we have them here in England? No madame. They are native to Northern America. Have you ever seen one in real life? She asked. Not yet. I am planning on travelling to the United States in two years. To see as many birds as I can. Out in nature, of course.
For the next thirty minutes, they talked about birds. Of course, it was Eliot who dominated the conversation. As the time ticked on, the wedding ring on her left hand got the better of him. He asked after her husband. What does he do? He was killed in the war, six years ago in France. Eliot expressed his deep sorrow.
The train pulled into Northampton station, and they both got up. Do you live here too the woman asked? Yes. Near Dallington Park. I’m three streets from there she said. How is it we haven’t seen each other before? I rarely go out. Except for my monthly meeting of the ornithological society, that is. Eliot slid open the carriage door. My name’s Alice. I am so glad to have met you. Eliot Standish. The pleasure is all mine, madame. She held out her hand, they shook, and she smiled and looked into Eliot’s eyes. He felt intruded upon.
On the platform: Eliot? Yes, madame? Can I come to your get-together, on birds? I’d love to know more about all sorts of birds. Well, yes, I think so. We do receive new members and visitors from other ornithological societies from around England. I think I could introduce you as a visitor.
They walked out of the station as Eliot told Alice about the next meeting. They shook hands again and Alice said, shall we walk together? We are going in the same direction. She held out her arm. Hesitating, Eliot cupelled their arms. Alice brought herself close to him. Together, they walked towards their homes arm in arm.
Twelve months later, to that very day, they walked arm in arm again, out of St Matthew's Church in Northampton, as husband and wife. Arriving back at their new home later that day, Eliot opened the door and Alice heard the chirping of birds. Inside, two budgerigars, one yellow one and one blue, black and white. A male and female, flittering about in a small brown cage.
Just over There
1
There’s a well-dressed woman with no shoes, just over there. She’s standing on a corner, and she’s not a corner person. Her refined style, her off-in-the-distance gaze, like she wants and waits for nothing, doesn’t fool me. She’s lost out here, over there, without her shoes.
Whatever the explanation, I’m sure she’s not willing to give it. People with no shoes don’t talk right; they don’t walk right, and the wind blows them in awkward places. And she’s not one bit interested in listening to the woman standing near her who is having an animated conversation on her mobile.
I can’t approach her; the rules don’t allow for that sort of thing. She’s a well-dressed woman with no shoes, I don’t know why, but let’s leave her like that.
2
A woman is trying to break up with her partner, just over there. She keeps calling him, Michael, insane. He’s probably not listening, and he’s probably not interested. She goes on and on at him, in an endless barrage of everything that’s wrong, according to her.
You see, I can’t hear his side of the story. She’s on the phone, and he’s not getting a word in. He seems to be copping it. She sounds like she’s right. If that was me on the other end of the phone, I’d admit defeat. But remember, it’s only one side of the story.
She repeats at him, into him, like she’s on automatic; he’s been a very bad boy. How can one person do so many things wrong in one life, but I guess I know how it can be done. Finally, she presses the red button on her phone, hard. He’s out of her life, soon out of her phone. A man rushes over to her, and they kiss.
3
The sky is falling; no, the water is rising, people are dying. But I’m here, in a pub, watching the floods on TV. In Queensland and New South Wales, so many things are coming to an end; so many look at the water and say, we’re OK, we’ll be fine for the next few years.
Beginning and endings are all about perception.
4
I have a non-visual perception that can see inside words. My inner vision thinks it can think. But just over there I see a man reading who knows, selective sight’s not a good idea. What does it achieve and where can it get me, if this gift fills me with phenomenal disbelief?
What fills my vision when I close my eyes, it’s hard to describe, or why it’s there. But its colours, shapes and sometimes people, people I don’t know. And sometimes in my mind, eyes are watching, they’re not mine.
My non-visual perception won’t leave me alone. It sees where you go and what you do, and it makes me love you, even more.
5
I’m sitting on the roof of a crooked building. But on closer inspection, it’s just the roof that’s crooked. I’m leaning back against the city, my view is on a slant, I feel like I’m falling. It’s time to get off my crooked disposition. It’s time to get back onto some firmer, flatter ground.
Downstairs, I’m being swept away by the wind. Gone is one of the pages I was writing on. It’s gone on the wind to pollute the city; maybe someone will pick it up, read it and throw it back down, maybe they’ll keep it forever. Today’s words are tomorrow’s history if they get that far.
I look back at just over there. Up to that crooked roof, but you can’t see its curved, warped or twisted disposition. I wonder, can you see mine?
6
I’m in an art gallery, and just over there, is a stuffed bird, a plastic turd and a woman I once made a poem of. The turd’s actually walking around, it’s someone I don’t like. Once he was walking toward me, one day in the street, he saw me, and ducked into a doorway, pretending to be on his phone. As I walked past, he looked up in surprise and kept talking.
This was a few days after we first met. I was going to write an article about his art, but needless to say, after such a strange reaction, the article still waits to be written. Until I figure out what that was all about; such a strange reaction from someone I barely know. Just goes to show. I know nothing.
7
There’s no light where the moon should be, and just over there, a man alone, sitting in the middle of a park bench. Time is running out for him. Then it’s raining, as hard as can be, death stirs with every drop. He’s out here, on his own, surrendering to minds and gamesmanship, quoting himself, hard.
I’m standing cross-legged, in the moonless night. I walk over to the bench, where the man sits alone. I sit beside him. He looks at me for a while, then he cries and tells me, “I can’t write.”
8
Just over there, a frozen ladder leads me to my inescapable world, where there’s only one way in and no way out. I’m trying to win, to beat this thing, but its claws are long and deadly. So, I’m at war with yesterday. I can’t beat it or defeat it. I must build my own ladder, my own way out.
I can’t change it or rearrange it; it has collected all my things. It travels my river, looking to invade and control. The war with yesterday won’t leave me alone. Do I have to wait until it un-writes itself?
9
Shadows stretch over the dark house, just over there. I hear a rustling behind a wall. Are the cockroaches set to eternal vigilance? I heard once that in this dark house, there was a crime of horrific proportions. There was a committed disorder about the house, there was an unfolding of shapes that didn’t fit in.
A door blows open. I can’t help myself. I take a tentative step inside. I’m forced to rush upstairs; something is pushing me on. In the corner of a dusty, dirty room, there’s an old white cat. She looks at me and explodes into a fit of sneezes. A voice says inside me, what the hell is this all about?
10
Walking home, near home, just over there, I see a water pipe has broken. The water, unlike in Queensland, is only gushing out a bit. I stand and watch it for a while; no cars or bodies are floating past, nothing but a waste of water and money.
I get home and turn on the tap. Naturally, there’s little pressure, not enough for a shower. I don’t dare to drink it, that’s the modern person in me. I’m scared of the water that comes out of my tap.
I ask a neighbour if they have a problem with their water. She says no, then rushes to check. Later she tells me everything is fine. For once, nothing was going on, just over there.