The Attachment Read online

  To be perfectly honest, I approached the chosen Chinese restaurant with a wee touch of apprehension. Confronted with an aged cleric who had introduced himself to her by a series of emails, would this young pilgrim be flexible enough to deal with the cold reality of white hair and wrinkles?

  My anxiety dissolved before we finished our salt and pepper prawns. The conversation was lively, the food delicious, and a glass of Tasmanian Riesling kept the boat nicely afloat. With the other guests, a prodigiously gifted actress and a Catholic nun of keen intelligence, the conversation was both zippy and spirited. Anecdotes about the theatre, the day’s political news (asylum seekers were in the headlines again), that always pleasing discovery of identifying mutual friends, even arcane subjects of theology were explored. I found myself occupying the role of listener. This, I must quickly admit, might not be the recollection of others. Memory and imagination, as I have already observed, are slippery critters.

  One of the oddest connections unfolded when I told Ailsa that I’d been unable to sleep in the early hours of that same day, and had listened to a fascinating story on radio about a gritty New Zealand psychologist running a program of rehabilitation among the most hardened prisoners in his country. My distinct feeling had been that I must have been the only person in this country listening to radio about such an odd topic at such an unfashionable hour. To my utter astonishment, Ailsa had been listening to the same program at the same ungodly time—and she had shared my excitement about what we’d heard. An amazing connection.

  What are my other enduring memories of meeting this new email friend of a short three months? Instantly engaging, vivacious, hardworking, and intensely committed to the task, whether it was walking, acting, directing, or writing across several quite different genres—such as adapting the text of a 17th-century play, crafting a radio script, or recounting her pilgrimage of carrying the sins of others across Spain. All of this while maintaining rich and frequent contact with an unimaginably vast network of friends living in every corner of the world. I felt I was swimming in waters just a little out of my depth. Ailsa’s enthusiasm and joie de vivre were apparent in both her book and the letters we had exchanged, and they shone out in her welcome. To that date my only image of Ailsa had been a blurred and rather sketchy photograph on the inside flyleaf of her celebrated Camino memoir. The publisher should be sued. The reality was so different—in focus, she was bright of eye and wide of smile.

  Another twist in this long lunch turned to Ireland and the magic of storytelling. After nourishment, shelter and companionship, the Irish believe stories are the thing we need most in the world. Our individual recollections of that meeting might not perfectly match, but one thing we both remember was a story I told. Don’t know when I first heard it or even where it came from. All I know is that it had been floating around my memory bank waiting to find a mooring. Allow me to expand the story here, as I did that afternoon.

  In some far-off age, within every Irish village, the three most highly regarded figures in town were the priest, the policeman and the keeper of the story. (I’m not even sure that was the precedence, but I’m the one telling and I’m sticking to that order of things.) The storyteller enjoyed the colourful Irish name of ‘the shanachie’. As I vigorously interrogated my lunch companion about the stories she had written or performed—had to beat it out of her, if the truth be told—my memory began to stir about the organisation of this Irish village. Here I was in the presence of a living, breathing modern day shanachie. She spoilt it, of course, by having the unmistakably Scottish name of Ailsa and genes that go back to the rocky west coast of that ‘land o’ the leal’, but sticking to details never has nor ever will distract me from a good tale.

  So here we all were sitting over the San Choy Bau. We had the shanachie and the priest, but alas neither of our two other charming guests could be vaguely mistaken for a police officer. Perhaps one of them may have had some odd member of the constabulary tucked away in the family tree but they kept mum about it.

  Although I must admit that I lack watertight evidence for the veracity of this Irish legend, I can claim to have once met and been entertained by a genuine and contemporary shanachie. The place was in the wild north-west of Ireland, in the little Donegal village of Derryveagh. It was the birthplace of my father’s father, whose family had been forcibly ejected from their tiny cottage by a rapacious landlord named John Adair, who in April 1861 evicted 250 tenants from his property.

  I had travelled there with an Australian film crew that was visiting the village to research and record the history of this now quite famous eviction. Half a dozen villagers directed us to the keeper of the 140-year-old story, who turned out to be an ancient Donegal widow—probably 90-something—with the name of Kitty Duddy. ‘Kitty will sing you the story. Her own mother did and her mother before her.’

  I sat at Kitty’s kitchen table in front of a fuel stove and a heating kettle, and she sang the story of ‘The Ballad of Cruel John Adair’ as the camera rolled. Kitty had no pretension about her voice, she had no sense of stage or lighting, she just sat on the kitchen chair and sang. For me it was mesmerising. It was the sacred scripture of my family’s life, and from then on the indispensable role of the storyteller was etched in my mind.

  Stories, indeed, are life itself. They bring together the elegant dance of memory and imagination in all of us. Of all the fun and frivolity of that first meal with Ailsa, and the connections that surfaced between us, it was the power of story and the sheer joy of shared tales that linger with me. That was the fuel that motivated our continuing exchange of letters. It still does.

  Happy days.

  Tony

  DEAR READER ,

  I just went to my computer’s image folder to find a particular photo from the day I met Tony. In the shot, I’m wearing Melbourne black from head to toe, a pair of red patent boots, and a crimson scarf is slung around my shoulders. We are under the colonnade of the walk to the Opera House. I’m in profile, laughing at something Tony has said, my hair out of control in the wind. He’s wearing a navy jacket and a grin. He looks rather like a cheery pirate.

  I couldn’t find the image. I searched and searched to no avail. Then I realised—it doesn’t exist. There is no such photo! And yet, I recall that picture as clear as day. It’s etched in my memory; we’re held in time, framed.

  Memory and imagination are, as Tony says, slippery little suckers. It’s easy to convince yourself that something is fact when it has been viewed by the mind’s eye. That particular retina loves to embellish and gild. I remember all the things he describes, but my imagined snapshot distils them into smiles, primary colours and laughter. Breezy and bright. That was the tone of the day.

  Tony might also claim that my propensity to exaggerate was what made me tell him, when we met, that I felt I already knew him. He still finds that a bit wacky, but my sense of deep knowing wasn’t made up, and my memory of it is entirely accurate. When I first saw him, I remember thinking, ‘Ah! There you are.’ It was as though I had been waiting a very long time.

  I’ve felt this before. Once, out on a Camino road in Spain with a fellow pilgrim. Effortless connection. Instant trust and knowing. I’ve also felt it with one or two of my intimate friends. I have vivid recall of those meetings as a kind of homecoming, long before we’d uttered ten words.

  Funnily enough, I didn’t feel that when I met my husband, Peter. That encounter was all newness and discovery, curiosity and fascination—even though I’d seen and admired him as an actor. Although we fell toward each other in a rush, and decided to get married within weeks of meeting, in some ways, mystery still categorises Peter for me. It may seem curious to say that after more than 27 years of shared life, but perhaps it’s why we came together: to learn about, and from, each other. I believe relationships are our greatest teachers, and the more they evolve—via attending or arguing, sharing or diverging—the more we expand as human beings. And that’s one of our main jobs in life, I reckon—to help one an
other to grow.

  I couldn’t have known at any of the meetings I’ve described how vital those people would become to me, or how much I would change as a result of knowing them. I simply had to leave myself open to my instincts, and trust. Which is the thing I felt with Tony. Trust. Not because he was a priest—that was more likely to induce expectations of piety or remoteness—but because he listened without judgement and, as time progressed, he did the hard yards. So, regardless of the instant relief and recognition that is my abiding memory of our first face-to-face meeting, he didn’t rest on laurels. He worked at the friendship. He still does.

  There are two other things I recall from that day. Firstly, he didn’t ’fess up to it being his birthday until he insisted on paying for our lunch, and secondly, he seemed to know half of Sydney! Every group coming through the door of the restaurant greeted him. Or am I making that up?

  Memory . . .

  It’s hard for a storyteller to be completely honest when dealing with memory. The thing is, dear Reader, I want you to feel the possibility I felt at that meeting—to sense the whirl of the conversation, the spice of the food and the amazement at the rapport. I want you to understand how pleasing it was that the real person was exactly the person I’d met in our letters. I want you to be there with me, captivated by the sparkling water outside and the sparkling words inside.

  The others at the table were equally compelling, I should say. Sandy’s connection to Tony was another coincidence that amazed us. She is a brilliant actor and a woman of gravitas, humour and heart. I am indebted to Peter for her presence in my days. They were actors together in their twenties, and the stories of those times, touring rural Australia on trucks and in buses, always make me rock with laughter. Sandy met Tony when he was an adviser on a TV series called Brides of Christ decades ago, and they remained friends. Patty Fawkner, who was the other guest, is a great friend of Tony’s and a woman of penetrating insight. She challenged my schoolgirl notions of what the word ‘nun’ meant. About my age, and possessed of a razor-sharp mind, she made me laugh and left me curious.

  One of the things I remember best, though, was Tony’s tale of the shanachie, the priest and the copper in the Irish village. It enchanted me. Now, when I think of those three people, they don’t live in some boggy village in Donegal. They inhabit a world of glistening water, Chinese food and ferries. They live at Circular Quay.

  Sydney is the place I chose when I left Perth, back in 1982. It’s where I was living when I met Peter, in 1986. He proposed to me by the harbour in Rushcutters Bay. Sydney is also the home of some of my oldest friends, so regular visits north were part of my life in Melbourne from the time I moved there, in 1987.

  Places have layers. They are overwritten with our stories. The harbour holds many of mine, though I will never have as many watery stories as Tony. His memories of Sydney Harbour are endless—and often on repeat! I enjoy them all, though I suspect some of them are more the work of imagination than memory. No matter. They always gladden me, like the shimmer of sun on salt water, or the first drops of rain on parched red earth.

  Ailsa

  Dear Tony,

  So, your birthday is done for the year.

  What a sly dog you are! Why didn’t you mention we were meeting on such an auspicious day? I feel so lucky to have celebrated with you—but remember, there has to be another lunch so I can treat you next time. You did promise.

  Thank you for the warmth of the welcome into your life; for the conversation, which feels like it could extend so far; for the breadth and depth of your knowledge, shared so easily; for the twinkle in your eye and the spring you put in my step.

  I hope your trip to Africa is uplifting and restorative—it sounds such an adventure.

  I will think of your big brother and walk with him in my heart. I hope his health will improve. Would love to hear more of your childhood together. It sounds idyllic to this desert-born woman.

  I send great swathes of gratitude, and the hope that we can continue this conversation for a long, long time. Thanks for such a happy, celebratory first meeting. Or was it a first meeting? I do feel I’ve known you forever.

  Travel very safe.

  Ailsa

  Ailsa,

  It was good, wasn’t it?

  Not so much a surprise for me. You have shared a little of the dimension of your mind and your heart in writing—so generously. So I was prepared for what turned out to be a delicious meeting, even though I was somewhat under the weather.

  The most intriguing moment, as I think back on the lunch, was Nigel Latta and his book Into the Darklands and Beyond. I couldn’t believe anyone on Planet Earth would share my enthusiasm for what he had to say—a man who went into prisons to deal with serious sexual abusers, and set himself parameters regarding those who he believed could be rehabilitated and those who, he said (in the bluntest of language), could not. I cannot remember ever listening to the Law Report before—5.30 am no less. And then I struggled out of bed to scribble his name down.

  So to have you recognise what I was talking about and to have remembered him was eerie. I don’t know where you fit that into your philosophy of coincidence, O Horatio, but for me—I come from a long line of Celtic witches who understand such things.

  Talking to you about my brother and how tough he is doing it at the moment, and of the Lane Cove River, had me recall a memory which goes right back to the age of five. Dostoyevsky wrote—‘One good memory may be the means of saving us.’ Let me tell you one of mine, since you asked.

  Something I’ve not told you is that I swim in the harbour every morning. If the truth be told, I’m more of a swimmer than a walker. It was over 75 years ago—you weren’t even a glint in your mother’s eye back then, sunshine!—that I learned to swim. This is how it happened . . .

  Sunday mornings in January were so hot that you could almost hear the gum tips crackle in the sun. My father, my skinny older brother and I would trek through the bush with my little rubber swimming ring, picking our way carefully in single file along a scarcely identifiable track, alert for the rustle of a snake, or perhaps a blue-tongue, even the occasional goanna. Our destination: the baths at Tambourine Bay. I struggled to keep up. In this dense bush, you never knew what critter would attack you.

  On the track, there was dark mystery. Half-overgrown with lantana and tick bush was a square hewn out of sandstone, filled with fetid, slime-covered water known as ‘the convict pool’. Why was it there, what purpose would it have served, who were the convicts who shaped it? All unanswered questions to feed a five-year-old’s imagination.

  After the lurking dangers of the bush, and struggling over slippery rocks, the sight of the baths was sheer relief. The rickety wooden structure had solid planked decks at both ends, a springy diving board, and wooden ladders to help swimmers back to the safety of the deck. Sun-splashed water lapped just below the deck.

  My brother and I raced each other to get out of our clothes and into the water. But the contest was grossly unfair. I couldn’t swim. Dad had to inflate the rubber ring for me, then secure it carefully with a stopper. Infuriating delay, every time. The skinny one always beat me to the water.

  There is a moment in life—never to be dismissed lightly—when we have to leave the ring behind.

  One day, I jumped.

  I took a deep breath and let go—thrashing around in the water, flailing arms and legs inventing some sort of primitive dog paddle, mouth full of Lane Cove River, and a desperate feeling of sinking to the bottom, lost forever.

  A skinny arm reached out and grabbed me.

  A never-to-be-forgotten moment.

  My brother gave me my confidence in the water. My freedom. Every day when I dive into the harbour, he is with me.

  Thanks for taking me back to that summer. Dostoyevsky was right.

  Blessings on Sandy for introducing me to such a rich, searching and thoroughly delightful pilgrim. Or have I here another Celtic witch?

  Tony

  Dear
Tony,

  Now I’m crying. I feel life is a continuous attempt to let go of rings, don’t you?

  It’s a lovely tribute to that skinny older brother, now carried on your emotional shoulders—or so it seems to me.

  I note your confession that you are more of a swimmer than a walker. My confession is that I actually can’t swim! Well, I manage a kind of timid breaststroke, a gasping dog paddle and a flat-on-my-back kickalong. Pathetic, I know. But I did grow up in red dirt, you’ll recall. Water was a novelty in the Gascoyne. One of my few actual childhood memories is of tottering down to the creekbed with my ever-patient paternal grandfather. We would sit in the sand and dig down with our hands until the hole began to fill with sweet-smelling water. It’s such a particular scent, water rising through river sand. Wish I could dab it behind my ears, that smell of stillness and possibility.

  Anyway, your story made me ponder how we are formed in childhood, and I offer this anecdote by way of a pointer to my infatuation with walking.

  My maternal grandmother, known as Ning, was a mixture of misty Irish softness from her parents and Aussie bush resilience from her surroundings. She was also something of a tracker. Out on the red earth she could decipher meanings in a squiggle, the message in a cracked twig. As an illustration of this, my mother, writing an account of my life for me just before she died, told of one occasion when, as a three-year-old, I escaped the watchful eyes of all my minders and set off on a grand safari with Mitzi the fox-terrier.

  Noticing my absence, a panic-stricken group began to search, but it was Ning who picked up the tracks of the adventurers and caught up with us. Mitzi was in front, while I followed, collecting Everlasting daisies.