Pursuing Love and Death Read online

  Dedication

  To my dad (and also my kitchen yoga man)

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  1. THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF THEIR LIVES …

  LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL IN GRAHAM’S LEFT INNER EAR

  AND TOGETHER THEY SHOWER AWAY HER FEARS

  ALWAYS BLOODY VELMA

  THE TRAIN STATION LONELY WITH PURPLE PAINT AND A MAN NEARING SERIOUS CRISIS

  MOON-WALKING ACROSS THE KITCHEN FLOOR

  TRANCE-LIKE STATES OF RECOGNITION AND RELATING THROUGH A WRITING PAD

  AND THIS IS HOW GRAHAM BECAME HER MAN

  SO MUCH ENERGY IN THE BUILD-UP

  2. MISSED CONVERSATIONS

  BECAUSE LIFE TAKES US ON THESE JOURNEYS AND SOMETIMES, ON PURPOSE, WE MAKE A WRONG TURN

  IF ONLY THEY’D GET OVER IT

  LIKE A BABY HE WILL WAKE TO FIND HIMSELF ALONE

  AT LEAST THERE IS ORDER IN THE BUILDING SHE LEASES

  WISTFUL WANDERING LONG-WAYS ROUND

  THE LIVES OF OTHERS DREAMED NO MORE FOR THIS IS DARREN AS GULLIVER

  SPIRITUAL POSITIONS AND INDECISIONS

  COMFORT

  THE TRUE AND AMAZING ADVENTURES OF DARREN H SMITH

  HE WAS NAMED AFTER A POET SO OF COURSE HE CAN HOWL

  INSOMNIA BREEDING A PERFECT INSOMNIAC

  3. THE COUNTDOWN AND THE ANGUISHED

  DREAMS COME TRUE AND DREAMS UNDO

  PHOTO FLIPPING

  TWO HALVES SPLIT DOWN THE MIDDLE AND HOPING THERE’S CREAM FOR THE SCAR

  CALL IT SPONTANEOUS; CALL IT RELEASE

  THE ATHEIST IS CLOSE TO PRAYER

  WHAT TO DO WITH A GLOOMY MOOD

  EARTHBOUND HALOES

  IGNATIUS VENDED HOTDOGS SO DARREN GREEDILY GOBBLES THEM UP

  A LITTLE LUBRICATION

  MISSING IN ACTION

  SLURRING THE WORDS TO FORM A SENTENCE

  SETTING THINGS RIGHT

  REPENTANCE FOR THE MISSING HALO

  CONVERSING WITH A PEN

  4. THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM …

  AND SO THE ANGELS SANG THEIR SONG

  PREGNANT BODIES

  TEARS, BEERS AND NO ONE TO CHEERS

  FOR BETTER OR WORSE

  THE MAILBOX THE MAILBOX THE MAILBOX

  FOETAL WAVES

  THE TINY STUFF

  PLAYGROUNDS ON TOP OF HOTELS

  APPLAUDING ALONE IN APPRECIATION

  HALF-AWAKE AND HALF-ASLEEP DESTINY AWAITS

  5. THE STORM THE WEDDING …

  THE MORNING OF THE SMITH FAMILY REUNION: OR (DEPENDING ON WHETHER YOU’RE A DREAMER OR A FATALIST) LUNA AND MARK’S WEDDING

  EMBRACING

  PACKAGES

  NAKED, BRUTAL, BURNING HONESTY

  PREPARATION FOR THE ELIMINATION OF THE BASE ROOT OF HIS HERO

  DIRTY, STINKING, SEXY

  CULMINATION

  6. THE FINAL CHAPTER

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  1. The first day of the rest of their lives …

  LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL IN GRAHAM’S LEFT INNER EAR

  What seemed like an endless past played in his mind as he tried to determine whether he was a good enough man. A clutter of memories like a rainbow of marbles rolling on cement. Spilled suitcases on the floor, crumpled clothes from six decades and warped-bristled toothbrushes. Collages of photos snipped of any superfluous space – some only close-ups of eyes. He decided it was the persistent memories – both the good and the bad, at times complete with sensory detail and crisply recorded dialogue – that must have been the pivotal moments in his life. ‘The grandness of it all,’ he said to himself, staring at the full moon’s suggestion on his ceiling. ‘The pithiness,’ he mumbled, then tried to close his eyes.

  It’s not as if he was dying or even contemplating suicide, it’s just that the illness was making him think about his mortality. Clearly he was at a crossroads and about to choose acceptance (acceptance does that for people: allows them to think deeper). So perhaps it was accepting life in an unsuitable way that made him think about death. Could he have been a better man? Certainly he had been the best that he could be but was that good enough? Good enough for whom? Was he the best judge of ‘good enough’? Who the hell is the best judge of ‘good enough’?

  Did his children like him? Not love him; like him. His eyes sprang open as if desperate to see. But why had he never thought of asking the question before? Images of Luna and Ginsberg when they were small, something like six and four, worked their way to Velma, their mother. Could he have saved his marriage? Should he have got married in the first place? The six years he was with Velma were the most passionate years of his life. They were obsessive, full of lust and anger, full of life. Velma, she had to have been his destiny if only for a short time. She was a comet that he hadn’t seen coming and she left an enormous imprint, charred black and still smoking. And a girl, and a boy who had his chin.

  These questions, these revisitings of old wounds and happy days, these wide-eyed, early-hours reflections had made him uneasy the past four nights. He had lain in his bed, dizzy and exhausted from the Meniere’s disease, contemplating death, reflecting on life, and he was fidgety, anxious, morbidly alert, gripped by the prospect of his next task. It was so obvious: he had to write his own obituary.

  If there was one thing he’d been sure about in his life it was that he could write a damn good obituary. For twenty-five years he’d worked as a biographer and, when that had finally run its course, he joined what could be considered the who’s who of Australian obituarists. It is a rare skill indeed to not only render the facts of a person’s life in a matter of so many columns, but to capture the essence of that person for the reader; and, while he found it challenging, he was confident in his ability. The research rarely failed to inspire him too. Occasionally, it haunted him. Delving into someone’s past, someone who had slipped or maybe been thrown to the Other Side (or, even more bizarre, someone who hadn’t even died yet), could feel intrusive. The whole process was very personal and sometimes Graham got shivers. It was only now, as the clock chimed two thirty and stressed the silence of the rest of the house, mocking the vigilance of this man most often described by friends and colleagues as ‘laid back’ and ‘in control’, it was only now that he realised that this would be the most difficult piece of writing he had ever done.

  The more he thought about it, the more rational he became about his declining quality of life. He reasoned with himself that writing the synopsis of Mr Graham Smith in fewer than eight hundred words would be just what the doctor had ordered (if his doctor had stopped consulting books and stats and instead consulted him). It would be cathartic. It would devour his time and reignite a fever in him that hadn’t been felt since the illness hit five months before. It would give him a new perspective on his life. Give him a new perspective on life in general. Perhaps it would help him live with the disease rather than fight so hard to deny its existence. He wanted to throw the covers off and jump out of bed that instant, fire up his computer and fill the blank screen with the tap tap of tapped-out letters defining his enormous life. Would he prove its significance in a single column or would he allow himself a two-page spread? Was he worth the extra space? Was his life significant enough? But he had to sleep. He knew if he let himself get run down, it was highly likely he’d have a full-blown attack.

  The wedding was in five days (or four, depending on your concept of morning and night). He was sure he could get it done before then. And that was motivation too. Perhaps this scrutiny of the self would give him the confidence to face his children, Velma and his brother, none of whom knew a
bout his illness. Because he’d have to tell them. He couldn’t hide something so consuming. Unless they were consumed with themselves, of course, which seemed natural given the circumstances – Luna and her wedding; Ginsberg and that young wife of his; Velma, always so self-absorbed, part of her charm; and Darren, good old Smitty and his hermit-like subsistence. I’ll tell Smitty first.

  That night Graham Smith came to the decision to begin writing his obituary directly after a good night’s sleep and a breakfast of egg and Vegemite on sourdough rye. He’d top it with mushrooms, onion and chopped garlic sautéed in Worcester sauce, crumbled feta from the market and sprigs of parsley from his own garden. And for the first time in five months, he didn’t fall asleep to the sound of the whooshing in his left ear; he fell asleep to the ticking of his brain.

  AND TOGETHER THEY SHOWER AWAY HER FEARS

  Luna watched Mark as he slept. But it wasn’t one of those gazes of amazement because she’d finally found her one true love; in fact it was not even a gaze at all. It was a quizzical look, because she could not make heads or tails of the man who’d been sharing her bed for seven hundred and fifty days. An anniversary of sorts and, truth be told, Luna knew it. The morning after their first night together, as she’d watched him sleeping, gazing in amazement, she wrote herself a note – He’s the one – and she dated it, drew a little tiny heart. She’d placed it in a bright round box she had bought in Peru, which sat on top of her dressing table.

  And so began the falling in love. The fluttering obsession with two lips melting together, two bodies morphing into one. The intrigue of it all. Learning about Mark had been intoxicating: his family, his memories, the big, the small, the quirky, the dirty, the hilarious. Then the planning. The amalgamating of the CD collection. The travels, the fights, the expectations and disappointments, the tolerance, the dreams, the proposal and the ring. Now here she was, watching him sleep, asking: Who are you?

  It was early. The alarm wasn’t due to sound for another thirty-four minutes so Luna moved softly, careful not to wake Mark. She wanted some time to herself, to look at that piece of paper.

  The page had softened over time. She thought about time, looked at Mark. He was forty-nine now and she was thirty-seven – in eleven years he would be sixty and she would still be in her forties. Was that significant? Did thinking about her age in relation to his highlight her everlasting youth? But wasn’t she getting old? Wasn’t she old and this was it, all or nothing, the wedding, the babies, the years until death (and surely he would die first)? Had he suddenly aged before her eyes?

  He’s the one.

  When she wrote it she’d only known him for ten hours. It was an intuitive moment and an impulsive action because she liked the way he made her feel: passionate, intelligent, sexy, worthy, normal, extraordinary, tingly. She’d felt safe next to him, watching him sleep. Now, again in her bed, this time not aflutter with an unfamiliar heat, but rather with a quiet panic, Luna wondered if she had written her destiny in haste.

  The wedding was happening. In four days she would be his wife. Whose wife? she thought.

  Her parents had split when she was only little. Surely they’d thought they had a chance. Of course they got married because they had thought they could do it as well as any two people could. So what happened?

  She thought about calling her dad, seven minutes to six am. She rarely rang him, and certainly not for life-changing or -affirming advice, but this time she thought she could ask him how things had got so bad between her mother and him. Was it because they hadn’t known each other well enough to make an informed, bias-free decision? Was it because people grow and they grow individually and eventually they grow apart? Was it having children together? He would never tell her if it was. His life was private. Luna momentarily envied her father his right to privacy. She hadn’t yet earned the right to demand to be alone. She had to pay her dues first. Is that what partnering entailed? Hard yards and morning dishes and craving momentary solitude? Was she getting completely ahead of herself?

  She thought about picking up the phone and speed-dialling her mother’s number, waking her, asking her what had gone wrong? How could she walk out on a marriage? But she couldn’t ring. It would be emotional – because it always was with Velma – and her life was already hectic enough. Things weren’t totally sorted with the wedding. They were, actually, but Luna felt that something was amiss. Something had been forgotten or was out of place or was probably set to explode.

  She folded her paper back into fours and placed it in the Peruvian box then grabbed the writing pad and felt-tipped pen from her bedside table drawer and she began once again:

  licence

  celebrant

  dress

  flowers

  music

  bridesmaid – dress

  – gift

  – etc?

  seating

  food

  bar

  punch

  cake

  Wild Horses

  the honeymoon suite

  At ten past six, the alarm sounded. Mark had been dreaming about climbing trees, jumping from them, landing on his feet and then moving on to the next; anxiety was not a major issue, if it was an issue at all. He opened his eyes. His bottom lip was drooping and askew. His arms were spread in different directions. He looked frankly at his bride-to-be, smiled crookedly, drowsily, happily, said, ‘Hello, darlin’,’ in a sleepy-sounding Big Bopper way.

  Shit, he’s such a morning person. And it wasn’t annoying because she wasn’t; it was annoying because she was. They would have to have breakfast together because they’d both be up, every day of their lives. They’d chat and plan shared free time before kissing each other goodbye. What if she wanted some Luna-time in her mornings? Wasn’t a full-time working mum allowed at least that? God she wanted to get pregnant.

  ‘Shower?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, as if it had already become routine and lost the excitement and thrill. But wait, stop, it was routine. They showered together at least three days out of the week. Luna suddenly realised that the drama queen who entirely possessed her mother, the same one she, Luna, had tried to suppress her entire life and (she was certain) been utterly successful at doing so, was trying to come out. It was peeking its little crown out from under Luna’s hair, ready to take over. Get back, she subconsciously thought, then thoroughly affirmed that having a shower together isn’t about sex. It’s about getting clean; starting your day, and with that confirmation strong in her mind and her morning’s anxiety pushed out of her way, washing down the drain with Mark’s morning urine, she kissed him hard and turned that goddamn shower into sex. She’d decided she knew him and she loved him so she blew him and loved him that little bit more. Mrs Luna Highland. And she smiled, feeling herself quiver as Mark reached his peak.

  ALWAYS BLOODY VELMA

  For days there had been clouds. Piles of them for miles, varying in shades of white and grey. They surrounded his domestic space and he felt that somehow he had a handle on them for the very first time in his magnificent existence. Did it matter that he’d just smoked a joint? Can’t a man connect with nature without the assumption it’s just the drugs?

  Drugs made him feel less dizzy. Perhaps because they made normal people feel a little bit dizzy. So if he was a little bit dizzy to begin with, then smoking a joint made him feel like a normal person who was a little bit dizzy because he was high, not because he had Meniere’s disease.

  So on this day, bathrobe tied tightly round his skin-and-flab stomach, little or no sleep having the counterintuitive effect of stimulation to the nerves, the clouds made sense to him. The sound in his ear was hurrying fast but as he looked at the promise of a long and steady downpour, he imagined that the sound belonged to the skies, not to his ear. The muffle was the clouds soaking in the roar; the rush was the clouds’ containment of the water. The dizziness was the sheer enormity of focusing on the assurance of rain.

  The garden drooped and the rainwater tank w
himpered, fearful of its nearing emptiness. The month of heat had been oppressive; his brittle grass could tell you as much. He had dripped sweat on the upholstery of his fairly new couch and had sworn because, these days, the most inconsequential things made him swear. He had discoloured the armpits of some of his shirts and, rather than spritzing them with stain remover and washing them in cold, he had simply thrown them away. He had taken to going without jocks and realised it was about bloody time. Finally, three weeks into autumn and still with thirty-plus temperatures, in came the clouds. Loud sounded the angels of global-warming reprieve. Clear was his mind for this momentous morning. He had promised himself that he would not cry.

  Throughout this journey, he promised himself he would not cry. And what but nature in all of its long-awaited glory makes a man fearful he’ll spill forth salt-seasoned tears onto his dry and cracked and age-old skin? Don’t even think it was the drugs.

  The smell was stale but the wind carried with it a faintly ubiquitous eucalyptus green so it made him want to breathe in deeply. And that is why he was standing in his backyard at seven thirty in the morning. He wanted to breathe. Writing his obituary wouldn’t be easy. He could not just sit down and type away, taking breaks only for his savoured morning coffee and possible top-up puffs from his pipe. He could not begin at the place of his birth and end in a far-too-big four-bedroom cottage sixty-two years later. He needed to soak something in and he wasn’t quite sure how it would feel floating around in his blood. He only knew he needed to breathe.