The Attachment Read online

  Because, and don’t take this the wrong way, Tony—sometimes I fall in love a dozen times a day. The grumpy guy who sells me flowers. The girl on the train with the dreadlocks and the tattoo of a bluebird. The old lady practising tai-chi despite her crooked back. The spotty-faced schoolboys in a cluster at the station. The pasty-faced Goth playing football with his little fair-haired sister. The bloke who talks gibberish at me non-stop all the way down Swanston Street. The Italian nonna walking her arthritic chihuahua. The men on the trams, pressed and tied and suited and grey, looking away, into the distance. The old man who smells faintly of mustiness and urine, shuffling his walking frame to get the morning paper. The effort. The work it takes to keep going, to stay in life, in love, while the heart beats on.

  Sometimes I am swept away by a kind of happiness that comes from just being in the world. Seeing a hint of shimmer in everyone. I know that sounds Pollyanna-ish, but it isn’t how it feels. It just feels like I’m seeing them—and maybe wishing for them, though the wish is unspecified. I hesitate to say something as sweeping and broad as ‘happiness’. There is a definition of love that says it is wanting the best for someone else. Well, in those moments, maybe that is what I’m doing, without knowing it. Wishing. Loving. Whatever. I do it rather a lot, and I don’t know why it should feel embarrassing to own up to it, but sometimes it does. As though I am indiscriminate or, God help us, soft. Sentimental.

  Maybe I am, but I wouldn’t trade those moments for all the rational cool on the planet—and I suspect those times, and when I’m walking, are as close to holiness as I get.

  Which brings me back to Louise! I love her with a kind of ardour born of immediate knowing, followed by breaking of and by each other, followed by calm, followed by recognition—and we both know it, speak of it, and understand it for what it is. A gift.

  And so we walked and talked, of people and places and dreams. You were with us some of the time. Maybe a wind gust came south and made me think of you. And I was glad.

  At day’s end we returned to the house and made dinner to share with Peter, who had arrived in his old silver sedan. It was great to feel the leg and conversational muscles twitching then dissolving—even as yours would have been contracting and prancing around the dance floor.

  Sunday brought more gifts. We took the high road to the general store where once per month a group of Spanish speakers meet for coffee and talk. Lou sat and watched me natter in Español, Peter came to pick us up, and we three lunched together, admiring the wood he had cut and the fires that were burning in prep for the summer season. Scary here. The grass is long and drying out fast. They’re predicting another horror of heat, and so circles of safety are being cut before fire restrictions begin on Monday.

  Louise left. I had to change sheets and prep the spare room, because my little sister Amanda was arriving—which she did, bringing her gentle maturity and quizzical smile. She is smart, considered and reserved, and the eighteen years between us is present but never an obstacle. She allows, does Amanda. So we sat by one of Peter’s fires in the field, sipped red, and caught up. And later that night, I stood on the deck in the pitch dark with Peter, looking up at the bazillion stars in the blackness. He does that every night before he turns in. It’s his ritual. Your old Jesuit would approve.

  Yesterday, Amanda and I repeated the high hill walk to the store and then had lunch in their kitchen garden with Peter, the walker’s friend. Then, at Amanda’s suggestion (she understands the need for slow!), she and I had half an hour of reading time before cleaning up and heading into Melbourne. En route, we stopped for Amanda to take some photos at a weird place at the end of the Tullamarine runway where plane-watchers sit in a car park to look at the underbellies of aircraft.

  I was exhausted when I got home. Happy exhausted.

  There was an unusually large pile of mail waiting, but what grabbed my attention was two packages. My father’s distinctive handwriting adorned one, and, with a shock, I realised the other was from Brett, the older of my two brothers. I don’t know why, but it made me crack that I didn’t recognise his handwriting. I felt like I had missed something vital. He’s a big Aussie bear of a bloke, this brother, and yet his letters are classically shaped and clear. They are like his mind—no fancy curlicues, measured, evenly spaced. I can’t say why it made me so vulnerable. We communicate by phone and email, but handwriting . . . well, it holds something particular, doesn’t it? To me, anyway. And I miss it. Something has been lost. And here I am, tapping out this endless email, perpetuating loss.

  Anyway, to the evening. I had to deliver something to my neighbour, so went out into the wild wind and knocked. We stood chatting. She’s a great woman—a survivor with a sense of humour and true grit—the Duke again! She asked after my book, and suddenly began to describe the abuse her son had suffered at the hands of the priest around the corner. How he gave boys alcohol when they were not yet teens, and showed them inappropriate movies and . . .

  Well. We know the story.

  Again, as so often since the book came out—amazing how that one abuse story strikes at people—I am standing with someone who has been damaged, speaking in hushed (WHY hushed?) tones, about cruelty and abomination. I felt the wave of nausea it always brings.

  Then there was a moment when we both felt the shift that had been created. I know this now. I can never unknow her sadness. But what to do with it?

  I came home and opened up the computer. A habit. Writing is where I turn if I can’t take a long walk. I found that email from my friend in the army, and wanted to weep. I won’t send the full story. It is too sad. But the wages of war are even more than I’d imagined.

  Then, instead of reading your stories of windswept brides and jazzy families, I made the mistake of opening Dad’s package. Photos, history and a letter. Such a letter. Delving into his own backstory for me. At one point, speaking of a moment of grief, the word ‘We’ was written, then crossed out.

  That is what I mean about handwriting. He wanted to say more but restraint stepped in. No computer can do that. The moment of his loss, somehow suggested by a crossed-out pronoun.

  Then I opened Brett’s envelope.

  In it was the book Mum made for us in her final months. I haven’t read it since she died in 1994. We were a mess in so many ways—from the outside anyway—with divorces and step-siblings etc. But the love. And the loss of it. Of place and people. Ordinary loss. No holocausts or survivors or—thankfully—abuse. Just the loss of love.

  And that, dear Antonio, was when I read your email. It made me try to rise out of my mire, and remember how I feel on the road when the world thrusts kindness after kindness at me. I loved picturing you all amid fields of green for a wedding, and then a party party party.

  I shall think of you next Tuesday night as you and your parishioners attempt to make your way through to something like a glimmer of light in the morass that is ‘the abuse disaster’. Practical love seems to me the thing to offer, though cool heads will be required more. You will combine both beautifully, I know. I have seen that.

  I am intrigued by your ‘pathological unease about religious language’. It makes me want to sneak in and listen to a sermon sometime. Your man—and now my man, I suspect—Richard Holloway talked of preachers as ‘flowers that have the look of being looked at’, and I know something of what he means from the theatre. I’d like to listen to your sermon when you didn’t know I was there, because every person you know ‘out front’ must have some bearing on the words. How not?

  I watched an echidna foraging in the bush for about ten minutes yesterday, and realised how blessed I was that he had no idea I was there. He almost walked across my boots. How rare and remarkable. I’d like to observe your sermon in just that way, so you felt no compunction to offer anything particular in service to a friend. Do you? Or is that an actor memory about having particular audience members in?

  God language. A lifetime with it, and yet you try to hold yourself aside from it. I admire that. We s
o easily fall into the lingo of our world. We in showbiz do it all the time, daaahling!

  Now I must quote you to yourself—‘Excuse the length of this mail—you must be dropping off to sleep reading it.’ I’m really sorry. This is turning from an essay into a thesis and I must let you off the hook. I am your drunk in the police station.

  I’m going to sit with a cup of tea—yes, again!—and open the pages of Barry Oakley’s book, for which so very many thanks. It just arrived.

  No. First I’m going to look at the accompanying note, and print the shape of your handwriting into my memory. How could you have known when you penned it that you’d be satisfying a longing—to reclaim the shape of friends’ hands. I will sit, sip tea, look at your spiky letters, and be thankful. The house is warm and quiet. I have solitude until my 2.30 pm meeting. Chuck this into the trash if you wish, but know, deep down, that you’ve given respite with your friendship. Here’s to leaning towards each other over our broken gates.

  A x

  Never, ever, ever, apologise for your letters. What you sent me is a rare and beautiful gift. If I can find the way to reply with your language and insight I’ll die a happy man.

  Fuller response coming.

  Tony

  Tony,

  Now that will be quite enough about you dying—happy or no. One of the things that occasionally sees me racing to my computer as the day begins is a little voice saying, ‘Is he still breathing?’ Sorry if that sounds like drama queen behaviour. But there it is. An irrational fear. So I’ll thank you to keep the jokes about mortality for your swimming mates.

  Here’s something lovely to balance that nonsense . . .

  I just now learned this.

  Terimah kasih, which means ‘thank you’ in the language of Bali, translates as ‘receive love.’ Isn’t that fascinating?

  So, for being so generous about my interminable rave, here’s a taste of my extraordinary poetic skill:

  Terimah kasih, terimah kasih.

  Terimah kasih, terimah kasih.

  Terimah kasih, terimah kasih, terimah kasih,

  Terimah kasih, terimah kasih.

  OK. So I’m not giving up my day job.

  Now I’m off to prep. Tonight is my last book gig for this year, and I’m going to say TERIMAH KASIH to some writers who changed my life.

  Love,

  Ailsa

  PS For some time now, I have found myself wanting to sign off with the word ‘love’ at the end of these emails. But I hesitated. Why? I use the word with abandon with other chums, so why am I not using it with you? Is it, heaven forfend, a sin to express love to a Monsignor? Well, in my church the expression of love to a friend could never be a sin. And you, Antonio, are most definitely a friend, one who makes me expand. People speak of falling in love, but our friendship makes me rise, so I want to sign off as I feel, when I feel it. I hope that’s not a problem for you. If it is, I suppose you will just have to squirm and bear it.

  Ailsa,

  Signing off with ‘love’ doesn’t bring on the smallest of squirms. The word has been battered around in so many ways, but I really like your notion of ‘rising in love’. Impressive new insight for me.

  That response really is coming.

  Thanks.

  With the most sincere and respectful affection,

  T

  Tony—

  So is Christmas!

  Seriously, how can it be December?

  No rush. Really. I’m such a gabbler.

  Love,

  A

  Ailsa,

  Let me go back and try to deal with things in chronological order.

  I’ve been reflecting on that horrific story of your neighbour. The monster of sexual abuse seems to trail you like a bloodhound. I feel for you.

  Nor is this monster very far from my own thoughts and feelings. When it’s sheeted home to fellow priests, it tears me apart, and leaves a feeling of sickness in the pit of my stomach. It drains my confidence in the ideals of care and compassion which we are supposed to represent. It’s an ugliness which is part of a mutilated world.

  You know, I’ve no idea how many parishioners might come on Tuesday to express their confusion and raw emotions. There might be ten. There might be a hundred. There’s no great complexity about such a meeting—just giving people with all of the hurt and distress they carry a safe place to express their real feelings.

  Parishes are primarily about healing—first-aid stations for the spiritually wounded. Only hope that such a meeting, or continuing meetings for that matter, might provide a small step in that direction.

  Wish me luck.

  Now this is in no way a competition of who can write the longest email. You can reply to this in three short lines. When I start to write what’s going on in my life—I must say there turns out to be a lot I want to tell you. I know it might be hard to convince you, but I am actually holding back.

  Your letters, which you’ve dismissed as too hasty, too fast, skimming over the surface, are some of the most substantial letters I can recall ever receiving.

  If that is surface stuff, my dear Ailsa, I’m not sure I could handle you at your most thoughtful philosophical best. The deep water.

  There is a phrase that is bandied about called ‘emotional intelligence’ which I have never entirely understood. But if it means what I think it means—you are a person of exceptional emotional intelligence. Which I have to say I find intriguing and compelling.

  I remember conversations I’ve had with another actor friend—actually, you met Paul when he came to dinner at your place—about the training regime that drama school graduates go through. The intensity of dealing with your own identity, the pursuit of self-awareness, trying to distinguish between what some scholars call the ‘true self’ and the ‘false self’ and all that stuff. And I came to realise what bloody hard work it can be.

  The interesting crossover is with the training we went through in the seminary—for something they called ‘the spiritual life’. Very similar dynamics. Not sure the methods and procedures we were introduced to worked too well. They had a hard edge to them. Was it the all-male environment we lived in? The celibacy? The isolated nature of our life tucked away in the seminary? Dunno. Perhaps I should have gone to acting school.

  The idea of ‘true self’ and ‘false self’ I think is pretty central for anyone who seriously wants to develop a more spiritual life. Searching to be a more authentic person requires hard work. Talking simply, I guess it’s our fears that create the masks we construct to hide our real self away from the gaze of others. Correct me if I’m wrong but I always think our most effective actors seem to be able to take on the role of another person if they are at home with themselves. The people who model a mature spiritual life for me seem to enjoy that same ‘at homeness’.

  Thanks for telling me about Louise and the delight you enjoy in one another. For the walking and talking and laughing and storytelling—I was hit with the conviction that women have more fun. Although on reflection I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate. Perhaps a different shape to their fun. Whatever about these flights of fancy—I felt a tiny bit of jealousy, or perhaps envy is a better word (or even a mixture of both). I think you were talking about the same thing to me—sharing friends etc. Whatever about all of that—would love to meet her sometime.

  Conversation—well, relationship, I guess—is a great mystery at times. I mean, who you feel comfortable opening up your life to, and who leaves you tongue-tied and guarded. The puzzle, for me at least, is that sometimes I feel more at ease with chance acquaintances or even total strangers than those I am closest to.

  My brother Peter, the skinny kid in the rubber ring story I told you, is six years older than me and was always my hero and model in so many ways. But often, my adult conversations with him became jammed in some totally frustrating and strange way. Not unlike many Australian men, we would degenerate into stories of the most recent sporting news. I’m not suggesting the problem was simply on hi
s side, though. Some deep sibling demon would frazzle my mind, leaving me with little to say. Strange stuff.

  Recently, as he has been suffering from dementia, I’ve developed the habit of taking him for a Saturday drive, and to my utter delight something has loosened up in our conversation. It has became expansive, intimate and real. An absolute gift, given all that is being lost.

  Last weekend, we drove down to Tambourine Bay. Aside from our swimming adventures, it was a favourite area of exploration for us as kids. Wading in mangrove mud up to our waists. Bird nesting. Catching locusts. Navigating an old and leaky tin canoe.

  As we sat looking across to where the baths used to be, we were kids again. The years fell away like leaves in a gentle breeze. Each fought to get into the conversation. We reminisced about past sporting glories, told the inevitable lies, and boasted outrageously without fear of offence—or of anyone contradicting us. It was like a dam bursting its walls. We laughed until our eyes were wet.

  I will hold onto that memory, because we’ve been having very disturbing days with him lately. He’s in hospital after a fall. Tough time for us all. He is such a rock for me—my hero brother. Strange how you never throw off the roles of childhood, no matter how ancient you become. With Christmas looming I suppose the family will be celebrating with the ‘hats and the pudding’ in the aged care place Pete’s in. That’ll be a first. Not quite sure how I’ll handle it. I feel a strong responsibility to make it right.

  How do you pronounce TERIMAH KASIH? Are there Indonesian phrases in your box of tricks? Spanish, Italian, French, Balinese—what is this uncommonly gifted woman yet capable of? I’m trying like crazy to keep up with the ‘new steps’, as Baz Luhrmann would say. Did I ever tell you I was on the radio once with Tara Morice? Couldn’t help myself asking her for a dance as I whistled ‘Time After Time’.

  No more nonsense. Love showing off. Don’t think any less of me. I simply should have been a really bad actor—but somehow stumbled into another profession.