Our Houses are Full of Smoke

This is the title of a book of poems by Deb Westbury, who taught me in my first year of writing at the University of Wollongong. It sprang to mind when, having taken the lid off the rice cooker prior to serving dinner, and having sat down to consume said dinner, I smelled burning. I dashed back into the kitchen and found the room hazy with smoke, while a small fire was in progress upon the cooker lid. I grabbed a teatowel and whacked it out, whereupon I discovered that I’d left the element on and the entire plastic handle had melted into black liquid. The tiny screws that had once held it to the steel lid had been released, tittering into the sink.

Who was the idiot who ever invented electric hobs? Why did our landlord not install a gas oven? For one can see gas burning, thereby avoiding the melting of implements. And when mummy said, ‘A bad worker always blames his tools,’ she was of course completely wrong.

I opened all the windows and went back to my dinner, thinking of a poem with the line ‘Midnight is the smell of burning.’ From memory it’s about a woman whose husband has left her, and who constantly leaves the elements on and wakes up to burning in the middle of the night. It is a beautiful metaphor for a woman made vacant through loss.

Deb’s only son was killed by a train, and whenever I think of her I wonder how she is. I also recall the poem she wrote for Scarp, the Creative Writing department’s literary magazine, after the accident. In the last few lines she wrote of the cry of a crow, and it seemed to hold all of her sadness.

The theme of smoke and disorientated women has drifted into my own life, this being my first afternoon off in nearly a month, aside from the election weekend, when I was too sick to enjoy myself anyway. I’ve worked nonstop on my thesis and on my research project for a Queensland academic, as well as the usual work at the library. I’m counting the days until Christmas, when H and I go to stay with our friends in the country and I shall be without work, phone or internet (God help me, how shall I live?) for three days. Then there will be a few more days of furious writing, until we fly into the blinding sunlight of Thailand.

Sainsburys Deliver Some Eighty Bananas Unto Us

It’s indicative of how narrow my life has become that the highlight of my week is when Sainsbury’s, for a reason unbeknowest to this author, deliver two bags full of bananas with our usual shopping. Without charge. The delivery man looks at them askance, then I sign his form and he goes away.

‘Jess, where did all these bananas come from?’ H collapses against the door with laughter.
‘ I checked the receipt three times and couldn’t find any record of them,’ I protest.
It must be a gift, like the week of strange cheeses and lamb neck fillets, which are still in the freezer. I loathe lamb, but because of our parsimonious upbringing I can’t bring myself to throw it out.

At first the novelty is wonderful, because I love green bananas, but then they start to go brown. I refuse to eat ripe – let alone overripe – bananas, so H and our flatmate are left to fight the war against them. They lose, and now our house has become infused with a rank, tropical scent. So for those of you who care to see us over the next few weeks, be warned that you shall be plied with baked banana-borne bounty.

A Rather Long Synopsis of my Sojourn in Oz

I am back in London again. I am despondent. How could it only have been a mere five weeks ago that I was trawling the shops of Bath, buying leaf-patterned thermoses for my Oz friends?

I flew into Sydney on a Thursday morning and was amazed, as always, by how friendly, healthy and attractive everyone is at Customs. Normally I arrive on a weekend and am received by the arms of a friend and ferried to Barzura in Coogee to acquaint myself with blueberry pancakes with coconut icecream, decent coffee, and of course, the morning sunlight on the ocean. This time I was met by lovely L, who dropped her boyfriend off at Qantas (he is an engineer making the new Marc Newton themed Oz Airbus) and conveyed me to an excellent café in Surry Hills, mere steps away from her house. This is one of the best things about Oz – good coffee is in abundance. Then L went to work and I had a massage in the afternoon to aid my recovery from jetlag.

The next day I had a hair appointment but, to my utter dismay, Blondes Brunettes and Redheads was no longer extant. Instead I had to make do with Brad Ngata, with whom BBR had merged. I didn’t like the feel of the salon – it had nothing of the intimacy of BBR - so now I have to find a new salon to frequent when I come home. I did have visions of chasing my previous stylist to Ireland, whence he has returned, but I think H would disown me if I did that as I am required (occasionally) to keep my obsessions in check.

In the evening, woozy with jetlag, I staggered to the Good Food Month noodle markets in Hyde Park. Chinese lanterns hung in the trees and there were rows and rows of noodle stalls. I was beside myself: how on earth did one choose? I made a random beeline for a random stall and bought some random pad thai, and then I- and I drank a bottle of wine out of plastic cups from Woolies. I met I-‘s boyfriend, who was sick with a cold and thus thought (as men tend to do when ill) that the entire world was coming to an end. He was a nice bloke though.

On Saturday was E’s wedding. I was picked up by Sj’s boyfriend and M, who I hadn’t seen for 11 years, since I left school. We drove to Katoomba and had a look at the Blue Mountains. I was impressed to find that, below the unprepossessing slabs of rock that were sculptures (for want of a better word) leading to the viewing platform, there were delightful quotes from people who had visited the mountains. The ceremony for the wedding was held in a garden in Katoomba, and then the reception in the revolving restaurant, which had a splendid view of the national park. Once I got over the shock of the realm of coupledom that presented itself when the dancing started, I danced my little heart out (in Collette Dinnigan, of course) and can’t remember the last time I had that much fun. I need to get out more.

Sunday I caught the plane to Canberra, and was met by J and P at the airport and taken out to dinner. I stayed with them later on in the week and was entranced by their Burmese cats, despite the animals’ penchant for attacking one’s ankles. I have decided I shall have a Burmese cat when I grow up. For three days I scanned microfilm copies of Nora Murray Prior’s letters to Rosa at the National Library, then I discovered that there was another bunch of archives I hadn’t noticed. I panicked and raced upstairs, and the lady behind the desk was most sympathetic and said that I could bring a digital camera in if I wished, to take photos of the documents. That saved my bacon, for Praed’s handwriting was almost impossible and deciphering it - as well as taking too much time - drove me insane.

Canberra is quite frankly the weirdest city I have ever frequented. It’s basically a number of important buildings shoved out in the bush. Or beside a lake. Any vibe which the place might have is dissipated by the space, and the lack of people with which to fill it. Also, most of those who work in Canberra are white, middle-class bureaucrats and thus there wasn’t much cultural diversity. And because it is mostly populated by people who work in well-paid jobs, the cost of living is inordinately high. Thus I was annoyed to shell out so much money for ordinary food, when that money could have gone to something far more satisfying, such as a piece of lingerie.

The rain followed me from England, which would normally have pissed me off, but the country needs it. A downpour ensued on the Friday that I finished at the library, and people hung about beneath the eaves, obviously expecting it to subside, as has been its wont over the last six years. It didn’t, however, and so they gathered their breaths and dashed out, newspapers held over their heads.

Although I had very much enjoyed J and P’s company, I was glad to leave the city on Saturday morning. The plane was delayed, however, due to the previous day’s storms, and I felt bad for J and P who had elected to get up at 5am to take me to the airport. My sister was also waiting for me at the other end in Brisbane with the kids, having bribed them with the condition that, unless they did a, b or c they couldn’t come to the airport to see Auntie Jess.

They weren’t quite crawling up the walls when I finally arrived, but they were close to it. G broke away from her mother and slammed into my legs with joy, which was somewhat startling, but still delightful. Mention was made of Uncle H, so we had to explain that he was still in London, and we are of course glad that he hasn’t been completely erased from the infant consciousness. B ran enthusiastic zigzags away from us and back again, and I wondered how it was possible for a tiny bundle to have so much energy. I wish I had enough steam to run run zigzags through crowds.

Since I was ready to commit violence for want of a coffee, my sister took us to a waterside suburb, the name of which I have forgotten, to appease me. Docked nearby was an enormous cruise ship, so B was overcome with excitement. There was also free ice cream to be had, although I couldn’t quite cope with the echelons which cruises seem to attract.

Most of my time in Brisbane was spent with my sister and the kids and this, combined with the heat, completely wore me out. However the jacarandas were in bloom and there were thunderstorms, which I always find thrilling, and the Indonesian geckos went clack-clack-clack in the evenings. On the Tuesday I went to the State Library to check a reference which Clarke had used in her biography on Praed. The staff there weren’t as on the ball as they were the last time I went, but they were still very helpful. One good thing about the horrible people who live in London is that they make you respect friendliness and helpfulness when you come across it.

At lunchtime I met up with the delectable SP in the café downstairs, which I love because it has couches outside – what better way to make the best of Brisbane’s beautiful weather? SP knew the name of the golden raintree which was in flower, and on the bridge to the city he stopped a man who looked like a Pacific Islander to check that he’d found a place alright – he’d given him directions earlier on in the day. I thought again, and it was hardly as though I needed reminding, of what a beautiful person he was.

I went home to mum and dad on the Thursday, having got in trouble from H for flying instead of taking the bus and saving my carbon emissions. However the bus took TEN HOURS and time was at a premium. On the plane to Armidale I sat next to a pleasant, fresh-faced country boy, which one could hardly complain about; boys with good manners are always so very pleasing.

At home I did a great deal of nothing in particular, being gripped by that ennui which is peculiar to going home to a country town. I stacked on weight (which must now be removed before I get into a bikini in Thailand), transcribed some of Praed’s letters, read four books, cooked lumberjack cakes and Russian teacakes, walked, slept badly, wrote a bit of my new novel, figured out how to fix a short story which wasn’t working particularly well, half-decided what my thesis was about, drank far more wine and watched far more TV than I am accustomed to and ended up in a car crash, because mum missed a give way sign. That spiced up my holiday no end. However, for the most part I was hugely bored, but that isn’t a bad thing, because it forced me to stop working and to rest.

And then I flew back to Sydney, and haemorrhaged some more money, and went out dancing and ate too much Thai. I was intending to do the Sculpture by the Sea walk from Bondi to Tamarama, but I was too tired, and instead wandered through Centennial Park, in which I used to run, and then lay beneath an old Moreton Bay fig tree and felt the breeze on my skin.

The flight back was fine – the last time I’ll have to do the Sydney-London leg thank God – apart from sitting next to a pimply boy from Blackpool, who insisted on telling me about his band, and wanted to follow me around Changi airport, although I fortunately foiled that one. He was an odd person, occasionally funny, but he irritated me immensely because he seemed to take it for granted that I would find everything about him fascinating, and he nudged me in the arm by way of getting my attention, which showed a total want of courtesy. In the end, having told him I was deaf, I just pretended I couldn’t hear him and absorbed myself in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria.

The Incursions of Wildlife

Having lived in London for three years, where the only living creatures I come across are slugs and rats-with-wings, I am always pleasantly surprised by the fauna I encounter when I come home. In Brisbane there are Indonesian geckos which look like albinos, being all white, but are still adorable with their compactness and little hands. They come out in the evening and make a ‘clack-clack-clack’ noise which is startlingly loud for such small individuals. In Armidale, I staggered from my bed one morning to put the kettle on, and through the window I saw a white-faced blue heron hanging about the fishpond. Mum later said that it had been eating the goldfish and left me with instructions that, if I saw it again, I was to throw a shoe at it. Then, as I was vacuuming, I sucked up a piece of bark, only to realise that it was moving, and that I was inadvertently murdering a cricket. Well, I thought, if it was going to look like some bark in the 21st Century, then that was its problem for not evolving quickly enough to keep up with technology. Then there was the neighbour’s black Burmese cat which seemed to spend all its time at our place (but which killed three mice in one evening), and which woke me up at 7am by jumping on my bed twice. I was tired, and thus chucked the cat out the door in a fury. Only my father, in his wisdom, let it back in again, and so it woke me up a third time, after which much swearing ensued. I am not a happy bunny when I don’t get enough sleep, particularly when I’m on holidays, and when I couldn’t go back to sleep after this I decided I would have to walk off my violent mood. This was partially successful, until I got to the park and was attacked by a broody magpie, which scraped my scalp. I’d forgotten about the magpies; they always divebomb around the time of the high school kids’ exams, in Spring. I remember once when H and I were on the farm and I was learning to ride the motorbike, I decided we should visit our cousins. Not being very confident, I drove awfully slowly, with H sitting behind. As we neared a copse of trees, he said something to me but I didn’t hear it. ‘What?’ I replied, still putting along, and he shouted, ‘I’m being bombed by a magpie!’ I revved the accelerator and off we shot.

Backtracking

I am back in the land of the living, holidaying (ostensibly) in Oz. I am enjoying (compared to England) abundant sunshine, although I seem to have brought the rain with me, as there were thunderstorms in Brisbane and now the skies of Armidale keep clouding over. However, one cannot complain because we are in the sixth year of a drought, which has been so bad and so constant that a miniseries has been made about it, starring a girl I used to go to uni with. All those European morons who believe that global warming is good for their climate ought to come to Australia, where one farmer shoots himself every four days.

Now I need to pick up the thread of my last narrative where I left it, viz., at H-‘s trivia quiz night. I only elected to go to this because I wanted to get out of London into the country and, unbeknowest to most I (because I do not broadcast my weaknesses) I am an utter failure at trivia and Trivial Pursuit. It ranks among the games that frustrate me most, second only to Pictionary in which I am always handicapped (yes, literally), because I can never hear what the other team is whispering, thus it takes me twice as long to figure out the picture. Make that three times as long if H is drawing because he is so literal and God forbid if he must draw a human, because it can’t simply be a stick figure but must be graced with ten fingers and ten toes and a willy if it is a man.

The night began well, however, because H and I covered most of the art pictures. After which we sunk into a bemused silence, although I broke out of it into song when I heard H whisper an answer to a question about which children’s TV show was about to be resumed. ‘The Wombles of Wimbledon womble again,’ I sang. I am quite sure that these are not the correct lyrics, but that was always what I heard, and what I always sang, and I was subsequently shushed furiously. I had had more than my customary 1.5 glasses of wine by this point, so I was not to be blamed: the friendly man next to me kept filling up my glass. However, the answer was something like Pokemon, and H- could not get it because she works until late and is never around to watch kids programs and I don’t know why Other Half knew not the answer, perhaps because he flagellates himself with his enormous bunch of keys around this time.

In order to overcome said handicap of not being able to hear questions, or of hearing the question incorrectly and shouting out a totally random answer, which I have been known to do at times, the nice MC gave me five questions at a time on a small slip of paper. Naturally my team took advantage of this and peered at the small slip of paper (seeing as I couldn’t answer any questions, I had to render myself useful somehow), until I noticed the neighbouring table getting antsy and asking the MC why I got the questions.

This is probably the most unfortunate thing about being deaf, particularly as I speak well and I am good at faking hearing (it’s amazing how many people think you’re hanging off every word when you smile charmingly and nod in the right places) – people just don’t know I have a disability until I tell them. And, when I do tell them, they don’t understand how severe my lack of hearing is, nor how difficult it is to cope with it, because I pull off hearing with such aplomb. Perhaps I ought to wear a t-shirt that says, ‘Yes, I’m deaf and have big tits, and I also have nearly four degrees and a published novel so don’t talk to me unless you have read Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower Came.’ Or I could (and this is H’s favourite suggestion) drag my leg around as though afflicted with a club foot. However I prefer to wear my killer stilettos and put up with people’s misconceptions.

And, I am ashamed to say, my almost-four degrees didn’t come in handy this evening, particularly when I was utterly convinced that the Franklin River was in Ohio when it lies, in fact, in Tasmania, and was one of the controversial environmental issues in the history of Australia. Naturally, when I heard the answer, all this came flooding back, and shall remain forever branded in my memory along with H-‘s look of complete incomprehension that I could not muster my own country’s geography. Well, no one can say that Oz isn’t a big place.

The next day however, I engaged in one of my better talents: shopping. I revisited my shoe haunt, Duoboots, and acquired a new pair of black suede shoes, and had to sadly relinquish the red shoes I’d found because they were almost identical to another pair I already own. Then H- did an evil thing and showed me a new shop full of many lovely expensive girly goodies, and I was persuaded to part with an unhealthy number of pounds for a new cardie. Bad, bad H-.

Tube Strikes and Celeb Spotting

Having been swallowed up by a wave of work and socialising, and only recently been spat out, and coughed myself into consciousness, I am just now getting around to writing my first entry for the month. However, many more waves are looming on the horizon and I am frantically digging holes in the sand into which I can place my pate and the water keeps filling up the hole and the sides of sand are slipping in and soon I will be drowning.

Think happy thoughts.
Many happy thoughts.
Think about all the boots you’ll buy when you’re next in Bath.

So, getting a grip. Just when I was commending myself on going for so long without a rant, the London Tube went on strike. Now, my commute has only just become bearable, since the bus route has been extended and I don’t have to walk quite as far to get to the bus stop, and I am reading far more than I ever used to, because somehow one has to fill in the hour it takes to wend through London’s indigested innards. So to finish work at 7pm after doing overtime, and to get to Aldwych and be passed by three buses, all with Londoners breathing against the windows like fish, or spilling out the doors like a catch released on a ship’s deck, made me feel very, very tired indeed. Too tired, in fact, to be particularly angry.

The following afternoon I tried a different tack and caught the bus from Euston. Unfortunately, in my sheeplike rush to get to the door, I failed to see where the bus terminated: just down the road at King’s Cross. Lovely. At King’s Cross I poured out the door with many other unhappy passengers. The next bus that turned up was also terminating there and I thought, fuck it, I’ll just get on the next one that turns up. By this stage I was nearly crying with tiredness and harassment. So the next bus rolled up and I queued, patiently, in the manner for which the English are supposedly famed, but the bus driver wouldn’t open the front doors. He was having an altercation with a man halfway down the bus. I couldn’t hear what was going on, but I assumed the man had got in the back door without a ticket and the bus driver was telling him to get off. I could just see the man’s face, and it said, ‘I’m not going to do what you tell me.’ People in the queue started shifting their weight, and I hung onto the railing, ready to droop, when suddenly a big, burly old fellow sitting beside his elderly wife got up and rushed down the aisle with surprising speed, and barked, ‘Get off the fucking bus!’ The man was so startled he scuttled off immediately - almost with a hop and a skip - and everyone in the bus began laughing, cheering and clapping, and I got the giggles.

Seeing as it took two hours to get home, I only had an hour in which to cleanse and beautify myself for the GQ Man of the Year Awards party. That was irritating, but on the plus side I was too exhausted and busy to be nervous. H and I had dinner with his boss and lovely girlfriend at a fish restaurant near the Opera House, which was very pleasant but I’m not used to eating fish (having grown up 8 hours’ drive from the sea, pretty much the only fish we knew was that in fish fingers) and found it a bit rich.

After dinner we tottered up to the Opera House and found the paparazzi clustered around the red carpet like blowflies drawn to blood, and Jamelia walking out with a bloke on her arm. Then it transpired there was a queue, which annoyed H’s boss, although I wasn’t bothered by it, since the whole thing was all so novel. On the corner were some acquaintances of H’s boss, whom he and his girlfriend didn’t like much, and I could see why. ‘Oh, we don’t do queuing,’ one of the acquaintances said. What a twit.

I was glad I couldn’t hear the conversations of the people around us, because they were inane (H repeated one of them to me later: ‘Oh you know, now she’s going out with Mark, who’s the guy who went out with, you know, Shelly, you know.’). An annoying boy kept asking H’s boss for his lighter, and when I commented on this to H, he said very loudly (as is his wont), ‘Tell him that in exchange for the lighter, he can have some sex.’ I said discreetly that the boy had probably overhead this and H shrugged and replied, ‘Oh well.’

Inside, H and his boss’ lamps were lining the walkway leading into the bar area. Unfortunately, the overhead lights were on which meant that you couldn’t really see the way the lamp diffused light as it moved up and down. However, there was another lamp in the dark bar where Godiva chocolate was being dispensed, and there it worked beautifully.

So in we walked, and there was Lily Allen barking on her mobile phone in a floor-length bright red gown which I thought was rather boring, but H liked it because it stood out. As we sank into the crowd, we saw Elle Macpherson, Helena Christiansan and the beanied Edge, whom I knew nothing of, until H explained he was the drummer from U2. Later, I saw him again and said to H, ‘There’s that man in the hat who’s in that band,’ thus revealing my complete and utter want of knowledge regarding popular culture (thus I will be attending H-‘s trivia night for the Literature questions only). Then I glimpsed Orlando Bloom’s cheek (and my heart fluttered, even though he’s a brainless boy and has nothing on Tony Leung), and H saw Jude Law, although I sadly missed him. But perhaps the most exciting part of the evening was when I was waiting with H at the bar for another free cocktail and I made eye contact with Elle Macpherson. Oh, sad creature that I am, I was happy to be noticed by not only a star, but someone I respect and admire because she’s a brilliant businesswoman.

For the most part the eye candy was disappointingly dull. The men were good looking and well dressed, but they all looked like clones. Likewise the women were young and anorexic and dressed in the latest fashions, but no-one really had an individual style. Which made me think that money isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. It was a fascinating evening, but I would hate to live among such superficial people; one would die of boredom.

... the mice will play.

This week’s entry (if we do indeed now count my entries by the week, though I don’t think that wise as I am constantly losing the time amidst pages of research on botany or spiritualism) is not another discourse on pink-eyed, nimble-footed furry vermin, but rather a pointer to H-‘s blog, which I besieged – ever so politely, of course - over the weekend while H and I were dogsitting. Not only did the lovely H- allow us to reign over her wine cellar, the contents of her fridge and her chocolate-coated Labrador, she also left her computer up and running. Naturally, being an inquisitive girl, I worked out that one could also gain access to her blog, and proceeded to abuse my privileges thereof. I contemplated allowing H to write his bit, but not being bound by the parameters of good sense and breeding like his sister, I finally deemed this unwise and would not allow him near the computer.

Suffice to say, a lovely time was had by all in Bath, despite my carrying some variant of the 1918 Spanish flu which consigned me to the now-famous cream couch for much of my stay. I have to confess I was up one night vomiting, like my brother (see here), but naturally made it to the toilet basin in time, rather that floundering in the far reaches of the living room. Needless to say, this was not on account on the imbibing of too many substances, but rather a reaction to my flu drugs. If anyone knows anything about why one's left eye should be stinging and weeping whilst vomiting, please let me know, as I am somewhat concerned.

I even managed to burn a portion of my legs upon the roof, which was amazing as they have scarcely seen the sun this season (I refuse to call it ‘summer’), and then, arising from my deathbed, I made it into town to purchase a gorgeous pair of green suede boots, and felt as though I had reached nirvana, which surely had nothing to do with my semi-conscious state.

Rattus

This is the name H* gave to her resident vermin when she moved into her new flat. I was reminded of it as I examined the jar lid full of dead slugs at the back of our cupboard. But there were little white pellets scattered about, and the paper of the flour bag had been eaten again, so I shall have to put out more snail bait.

And I have been thinking of rats in general, because lately I have felt like one becoming fused, Deleuze-like, to its wheel. I work at the library, then work at home, and have one afternoon and one day off a week. I’m fixing up my Salzburg paper because it’s been accepted for publication in a book, then (over the long weekend) I have to rewrite the paper for a non-fiction competition, then I must redo my Heidelberg paper for possible inclusion in another book, and on top of all that I have to write 20 000 words of my thesis before I am released from my shackles for a trip to Oz in mid-October.

Little wonder, then, that my body has rebelled and cast me into bed with a very bad flu. I’ve spent the day staggering from my desk and into sleep and back to my desk again. Then I gave up and finished Diana Souhami’s Mrs Keppel and her Daughter which is the most brilliant and gripping piece of non-fiction I’ve read for ages. It’s a biography of Alice Keppel, mistress of Edward VII (the eldest son of Victoria), and her daughter Violet Trefusis, who was a lesbian and passionately in love with Vita Sackville-West. What makes the story interesting (aside from the excellent writing) is the intricacies of aristocratic society and how Violet’s relationship with Vita threatened the foundation of that society: marriage. It was a tempestuous and heartbreaking affair, especially because Vita chose conformity over Violet. She wanted to stay with her husband Harold, for her life with him represented calm and stability, even though Violet roused in her violent emotion and happiness. I was irked by Vita. Although I could understand her desire for conformity, I was angry that she shunned Violet for sleeping once with her husband (Trefusis), even though Vita had chosen to stay with her man. In addition, she often dangled the chance of happiness before Violet like a bait, and always withdrew it. Violet was constantly cast as a dangerous seductress and marriage-breaker by those caught up in the storm of the affair, even though her only crime was Othello’s – that of loving not wisely, but too well – and of wanting recognition of her love in an era which would never permit it. I was in tears by the time I got to the end of it and read the following extract from Vita to Violet, written after years of separation:

We simply couldn’t have this nice, simple, naïf, childish connexion without it turning into a passionate love affair again … You and I can’t be together. I go down country lanes and I meet a notice saying ‘Beware unexploded bomb’ so I have to go round another way. The unexploded bomb is you (275-276).

If you want a fascinating take on the tangled threads of class, passion and sex, read this book.

On Wednesday I had to work at one of the medical libraries because they were short staffed. After the hour and 45 minutes it took to get there in the vile weather that supposedly constitutes Summer, I was regretting having volunteered. However I’d gone because I wanted a change of scene, and it was vaguely interesting to employ the same processes in a new place. The only unsettling thing was being hit on by a doctor who gave me his mobile number and email address within five minutes of meeting me, when all I did was crack a joke, be friendly and helpful and smile when I took his money for a photocopy card – in short, be good at my job. H said he probably mistook all that for interest, since the usual expectation of customer service in this country is to be spat upon or grunted at.

Tomorrow we are off to Bath to dogsit Henry, which I am very much looking forward to. Not only because of Henry, but because I can go shopping in Bath’s lovely shops, drink some coffee and watch the people, and walk in nice parks, and generally see something other than the four walls of my room. It is supposed to be hot, so I am carefully deliberating over which of my many unworn summer outfits I shall pack. I also have to take my wheel with me, but at least the change of scene will do me good.

New Worlds

Beloved readers, I am back from Germany. I am on a diet. This says everything that needs to be said about German food, but I shall continue. It is vile (as M- wrote, whoever thought of having cheese for breakfast?); everything is fried (as M* found, looking bemused at a plate of fried schnitzel and fried potato croquettes) and most of it contains cream. At one dinner a girl ordered a ‘salad’ and was handed a pile of cubed potatoes and meat. The only leafy greens were those in the forests, not on a plate.

But I digress from the fascinating topics of archives, media and narrative, which we were my reasons for visiting Germany. I was sent there by the Consortium, along with 5 other boys (to whom M swiftly began referring as my ‘harem’), with all expenses paid, to a conference titled ‘Ways of Worldmaking.’ So although I hate conferences, it would have been silly to turn it down.

Monday saw me getting up at 4.30am, to be picked up by a greasy-haired taxi driver and taken to Heathrow. It was actually a beautiful morning - the sun glinted off the spire of a church, the sky was still streaked with pink, and then it became so bright I could almost have been in Sydney. We flew into Frankfurt and were conveyed to Castle Rauischolzhausen, near Marburg. It was a very beautiful place, but much newer than it looked - the building being completed in 1875, but designed in the Gothic style. To an Australian, it still seemed pretty old. In the gardens was an arboretum, and, on Wednesday afternoon, when I couldn’t bear another conversation on someone’s thesis topic, I took myself into the grounds and walked through the trees, and became much calmer.

I hate meeting people en masse. I’m fine with a few at a time, because then I can recover the energy needed to listen and to enquire, but to do this hour after hour, for 6 consecutive days, was terrifying and exhausting. To make things worse, nearly everyone who spoke at the conference had an accent, which meant that hearing was even more difficult. There were people from France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Spain, as well as one little fellow, probably feeling even more adrift than I, who was from Chile. As an end result, I took in very little of what was being said. By the time I had figured out the words the person was using and put them into sentences, I didn’t have time to then piece them into an argument; it was all just too fragmentary. The paper I can recall most clearly, apart from that by S, my supervisor, was by an English guy who’d moved to Giessen University (who was hosting the conference) to study W.G. Sebald. His voice was so clear, and his delivery so charming, that for the first time in days I relaxed and listened well.

Having said that, I didn’t get quite as tired as I expected, and I did meet some lovely people. We were taken to nearby Marburg for a tour while at the castle, and a nice fellow asked me how I was going with hearing the tour guide. ‘Not very well,’ I told him, and added that usually, if I wanted to find things out, I just looked them up later on the internet. He said I wasn’t missing much, and I asked, jokingly, how long it would take him to repeat it all to me, and he said, ‘Two minutes. Actually, no, make that one, because I’ll forget half of it,’ and I started laughing.

The boys that I was with were fun, when I could hear what they were saying. S was a nice bloke, but I could never hear him because he mumbled. M spent half the week deliberating what to get his girlfriend, until there were jokes about needing a three-day seminar in the matter. Eventually, on the last evening, he went into a tourist shop full of tat and came out with a small plastic beer mug, which we looked upon with subdued horror and amazement. Each to his own, however, and I didn’t do much better, getting H chocolates at the airport. They had pictures of Mozart on the front, which was confusing as Mozart hailed from Salzburg, but I bought them because they looked so awful they had to be good. They weren't, as it transpired, because they had marzipan in them, and we both hate marzipan. However, I wasn’t prepared to make much of an effort, as the last place I’d got him a present (well, before the nice eggs I got in Salzburg) was in Istanbul, and I’d trudged halfway across the city with a tragic hangover to get him what I thought was a very nice print from the markets, only to receive a fairly noncommittal response.

To continue. B turned out to be one of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever met, second only to SP. But where the latter is all sunlight and golden skin, B had a stark Byronic streak, with dark hair and a 5 o’clock shadow, and with eyes that were fringed with long lashes, like a deer’s. He was studying Wordsworth, and I said to H that I didn’t understand how someone so attractive could be so obsessed with Wordsworth, but I found the contradiction amusing, and appealing. The only drawback was that he chainsmoked and he was ruining his lovely teeth.
R won me over by accompanying me in my stupid (but cute) shoes in Marburg. Normally they’re quite comfortable, but not, it transpires, when the town is full of cobbles. At the end of the day we had to walk up a steep hill to get to a castle where the restaurant was, and I found it so difficult I just took the shoes off and went up barefoot. Then, on the last evening in Heidelberg, he laughed at me in despair when I insisted on wearing stiletto sandals (they weren’t very high), and could barely negotiate the cobbles. ‘What were you thinking?’ he asked.
‘I want to feel like a woman!’ I protested. ‘I’m sick of wearing jeans, I wanted to put on a skirt and sandals.’
However the skirt (which was tight, but nothing out of the ordinary – I frequently wear it to work) had ramifications, because the waiter, who had been insistently trying to catch my eye all evening, dropped some coins down the back of my chair and had to slip his hand down there to get them out. R was indignant on my behalf, but I had thought it was an accident, and even if it wasn’t, it was still so pathetic a gesture that it didn’t even register on my radar of contempt. Later, R said to me, ‘Well, if you dress sexy, that’s what you get,’ and I corrected him, saying, ‘No, I have the right to wear what I want without being assaulted.’ H pointed out, when I repeated this incident to him, that if you wear provocative clothing then you haven’t the right to be affronted. I said that it was hardly provocative, and I was wearing minimal makeup, and if I’d wanted attention I would have worn something with a plunging neckline, and what did he expect me to do – wear a hessian sack? Honestly, this is the argument they try to use against women in rape cases – she was dressed inappropriately, therefore she was asking for it. Aren’t I allowed to be a woman, and to dress like one, without fear of reprisal, or at least without some fuckwit trying to get his hand near my arse?

After a few days of the boys’ company, however good, I sorely needed some women to talk to, and made friends with an Irish girl who lived in Sweden. She had one of the most beautiful, lilting accents I’ve ever heard, and told me that women doing their PhDs in Sweden actually get paid for maternity leave! Clearly I am in the wrong country. On another evening, when I couldn’t bear to face another plate of Fried Something in a loud, crowded room, I came across a lady to whom I’d mumbled a few words at breakfast (not being a morning person, that was the best I could do), and who later said she’d liked my paper. She was sitting on a bench, trying to figure out how to get to the designated restaurant for dinner, although she didn’t really want to go, and I asked her to come out for a drink and dinner with me. She turned out to be a barrel of laughs, and I was really glad that I’d met her.

On the Thursday we were taken to Heidelberg and the pace relaxed a bit. We did some sightseeing, and were taken to the ruined castle overlooking the town. Half of it was unfortunately covered in scaffolding, but it was surrounded by some pleasant parks. On the final day, Saturday, we walked up a hill, through some beautiful, dappled forest. It was amazingly green, and the light so soft. I didn’t talk to anyone really, because by this stage I had given up completely and just couldn’t muster any more energy, or even the inclination, to communicate. At the top of the hill was an amphitheatre which had been used by barbarians for their corroborees, and then the Third Reich came along and got their poor serfs to renovate it, brick by brick. Beyond this, further up the hill, was a crumbling monastery, with lots of rooms exposed to the elements. A family was picnic-ing in one of them. On the way down we stopped by a pub and had some apple wine, which was like cider and water, and didn’t even make me drunk, at which I was heartily pleased. When the light shone through the glasses, it seemed like they were holding gold liquid.

So all in all it was good, but I was a little disturbed by the infinitesimal amount of information my brain retained, compared to all the stuff that was going into it. I got one good idea for my thesis however, from Herbert Grabes’ master class, so that made it worth it.

The White Family Circus - Part 1: West Green and Salisbury

My parents rarely take the conventional route when doing things, and thus it was that I found myself escorting them to King’s Cross, and then on a train to the sticks, where we were picked up by George’s mate and taken to George’s place in order to hire George’s car. I am not by nature a leader; I either tag along or do my own thing, so to be burdened with one’s parents made me so pale with stress that George asked me how long I’d been in London, clearly not understanding how an Australian could be so white.

George was about 70. His daggy shirt, left unbuttoned at the chest, was tucked into his Speedo shorts, which were held up with a bootlace.

‘You don’t drink the water in London, do you?’ he demanded of me, once he’d found out that I’d been here for 2.5 years.
‘Uhmmm … yes.’
‘The water’s full of chemicals. It’s got heavy metals, lime, God knows what. You mustn’t drink the water. And don’t go to the doctor either. If you go to hospital, you get sick. Tell you what I do, I buy those big bottles of water, wash under my armpits. You buy those bottles, don’t drink the water.’
I struggled to maintain an expression of beatification, whilst resisting a terrible impulse to laugh, the way I do when I’m in a church service and I start laughing precisely because I’m not supposed to.
George had got mum and dad’s arrival time wrong, thinking we were to turn up that evening, and so we were driven by his son and the bloke who’d picked us up to the town where the car was. I couldn’t hear much of the conversation, though I could tell from their tones that they were nice guys. At least until I heard one of them say, ‘I’m not a racist, but …’ and I had to resist the urge to laugh again. Later, mum told me that they’d said that lorry drivers have to drive around and around Paris without stopping, otherwise the immigrants jump on the back and wing it into England. I think that says it all.

We picked up the car, which was a delightful vomity colour, and drove to West Green House gardens. These had been restored by an Australian, Marylyn Abbott, whose garden at Mittagong is the most visited in Oz. Naturally, since summer finished in April, it was raining on and off, so we couldn’t sit outside on the lovely red tables and chairs, but had to eat inside, along with a crowd of Australians whose bus had broken down. They didn’t seem too fussed about it. Later, as we drove out, we saw the track marks in the mud and a tractor next to them; it had obviously been bogged and needed the tractor to get it out. The gardens were quite good but, always a stickler for neatness, I found them too untidy. Also half the grounds were flooded on account of the rain, which was a bit disappointing because the bridge over the pond, which looked very pretty, was out of bounds.

Once we were done, we sat in the car, mum and dad poring over out the map. Then dad said, ‘Jess, look,’ and pointed out a ute driving across the adjacent field. There was a wheelbarrow stuck underneath it, and the driver didn’t know. This time I was laughing, and hard. The driver parked on the other side of the field, and it wasn’t until he tried to set off again that he realised something was wrong. He found the wheelbarrow under the ute and wrestled it out. Then, looking somewhat sheepish, he carried it back across the field to the shed like a newborn calf; it obviously couldn’t be wheeled.

We drove on to Salisbury and had difficulty negotiating the city. Dad stopped at a service station and was given instructions by a boy with two hearing aids, then again by a lady at a shop that sold kid’s clothes. That was more helpful. H had found us rooms at a very nice old pub, except that the window didn’t close properly, the shower was so vigorous that it created a veritable flood each time you turned it on and the pipe for the portable heating system fed, inexplicably, directly out another open window. God knows how that was supposed to be effective in winter.

We had fish and chips for tea, and the chipperier was a very friendly man. When he found out I was from London, and that mum and dad had been there for a few days he asked, ‘Have you been to Camden Market?’ I replied, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t take them there, they’d get knifed!’ This was obviously not the right thing to say, as he looked a bit taken aback, then retorted with something that I didn’t hear, although it sounded humorous. Later, I repeated this conversation to H and he said how weird it was to ask if you’d been to Camden Market, rather than the London Eye, or the British Museum.

The next morning mum and I had a look at the cathedral, dad having been the evening before while we were reading. The wording about the entry donation was obscure: you didn’t have to pay to get in, but they’d phrased it in such a way as to suggest that you were obliged to. Mum and I walked in, the man reading behind the counter looked at us smarmily, then we kept on going through the sliding doors.

It was very convoluted inside – all buttresses and alcoves and partitions – or at least it appeared to be to a girl who is used to small country churches, and I couldn’t see a correlation between the architecture and the religion, which had always seemed to me to be straightforward. But then, I had never paid it much attention. Still, I liked the old tombs with the figures resting on them and the small animals on their feet. I’d once read in an article on Chaucer’s The Book of the Duchess that men usually had lions at their feet, for courage, and women usually had a dog, for fidelity. You can imagine how well that went down with this writer. At the end of the tombs of Sir Edward Seymour and his wife Katherine, sister of Lady Jane Grey (queen for nine days), I think there were both lions. Mum asked a volunteer nearby about them, and although he forgot half his text, it was still a very sad story. Edward and Katherine had married in secret, but while Edward was away, Katherine lost the piece of paper proving their marriage. When Queen Elizabeth found out, she put Katherine in the Tower of London, and then Edward as well, when he returned to the country. The volunteer said Katherine died of a broken heart, which was probably an embellishment, given that the stress of having a child of out of wedlock in 1561, and in the Tower of London, was possibly more paramount.

After that we saw the Magna Carta, which was thrilling, and then we had to go as Parental Unit were getting neurotic about the parking ticket and I was savage for want of a coffee. The lines at Starbucks didn’t move quite as fast as they were wont to do in the city, so I gave up with waiting and went to Costa instead. That was my last decent coffee for 9 days.