I now realise that authors and advertising gurus have been plagiarising from the Greeks for almost as long as the Greeks have been naming beautiful things beautiful names.
In February 1986 my Dad and I watched Halley’s Comet. We lived in a little town and my mother was a teacher at the school, so we ‘borrowed’ the big telescope for a few nights and set it up on the front lawn. Dad knocked on my door in the belly of the night and I crept crept creept out. Before I went to bed I was warned by my mother ‘not to wake the boys’. So of course I trod on every chirring board and my little brothers, with a nose for things their sister was going to get to do that did not involve them, had in fact, being playing cars under their bed until they heard creaking floorboard, popped their heads out of their bedroom door and opened their not-so-innocent eyes and Dad said ‘oh, alright, you’re up now’. Mum did not get up. I’d say she enjoyed the hours we were on the front lawn, no little bottoms wiggling in her face, trying to surreptitiously slide in between her and Dad, no daughters crying because of a dragon under her bed (Catharine has an over active imagination was a common comment on my report card.)
I did not see Halley’s Comet. I pretended I did. But I did not. I saw lots of other pretty stars, and the moon, and even a few satellites. I had been hoping for a whoosh in the sky, a ball of white and silver and a trail perfect cosmic dust. Maybe a sash and a crown and Halley stopping for a moment to wave and bow to us, declaring that world peace was her only wish and then she would tell us to be good and kind or she wouldn’t come again in 76 years.
I did not see this comet nor did not see Halley’s Comet. I very much doubt that my little brothers saw it either ‘Dad, Dad I can see it, over there, under the bird bath’ ‘No, Hamish, that is a bird poo. You need to actually look in the telescope to see the comet’
One constellation I see regularly is the Southern Cross. It is my touchstone. I miss it when I am in the Northern Hemisphere. When I loved and lived in the outback I would sit on my little upstairs verandah at night and look at the Southern Cross and imagine it hanging over my parent’s house, back on the farm. I’d picture Mum feeding the dogs late at night having finished her marking and putting away the tea things, and upon discovering a bone in the fridge she would go and visit Linda the Minda up the back, near the chooks, and hoick the bone into her kennel. I could see Mum looking at the Southern Cross and joining the stars and finding north. Just like she taught me to do before I went on my first school camp. In case I got lost.
I loved the isolation of living in the desert, with the dry road and the mail once a week and the laconic locals. And I hated it too.
I don’t have a love-hate relationship with my shoes. I have a love-love relationship with them. I also love my friends. And I don’t mind margaritas. So, a couple of Friday nights ago I went out for dinner with some friends, to a Mexican place, and drank a few margaritas. I had on my usual Friday uniform, ‘Marry my daughter’ jeans, black wrap around top that flattered the good bits, long dangly earrings, and my sueded, peep toe red Thierry Rabotin’s. They have a buckle just before the peep bit. I could run the Mothers Day Classic in these shoes. They have a Maserati look about them, a feminine curve at the arse and a sleek feline nose.
I am writing a novel. One of my characters comes from Scotland. I know nothing about Scotland. Originally my protagonist came from Ireland, but it just wasn’t working and was talking to a friend from Scotland he said ‘why don’t you give him an Irish mother and a Scottish father and have him come from Scotland’. So I said ok. I am not sure this is how one is meant to write a novel, by chance collaboration, but it seems to be working.
So, I am drunk on Friday. I have had a lovely dinner and a few (ish) drinks with my mates who laughed at my jokes and told me I had nice shoes. Life is grand. I cab it home and talk football with the Punjabi taxi driver. I ask the driver to drop me at the end of the street so I can stealthily plan my ambush on Chez Home-Sweet-Home. Without waking my husband. My planned surprise attack on the house fails spectacularly, my keys drop, and my handbag follows suit, disgorging female sediment onto the stoop, I abandon Plan A and hammer on the door shouting ‘you could have left the bloody light on’ and I wake the neighbours tantrumy dog. It is not really a dog. It is a bad-tempered, certifiable Tasmanian devil in a small dog’s costume.
My husband is cross with me for waking him up. Quite right too, and sadly he does not want to make me any more margaritas. This is not right. So I have a wee Princess Cranky Pants tantrum about the unfairness of drinking alone. The man of the house stomps to bed and I take down the first bottle of alcohol my fumbling fat fingers can hold. The Zacapa rum. From Guatemala. It is smooth and delicate and orgasmic. But I am drunk, so it is a waste (this will be pointed out to me over and over and over again in the next few days, weeks, months and I suspect, decades…)
I turn on my computer and there is my friend, my Scottish friend, lazing about on MSN on the other side of the world, so I decide it is an excellent time to do some research for my book.
Richie, I type, it is all your fault.
(Here is what actually appeared on the screen: asfkhwe fhry ajrkr fucking wanker)
Miss Redden, did you just swear at me? I am a delicate Scot.
I decide to use Skype, but I can’t remember my pass word. I spy my house phone, but can’t dial the numbers. I am getting a bit cross and look out the window and see my beautiful Southern Cross. It is a little cloudy. I feel for the key to the back door in my pocket and find my mobile. I only need to push one button on here to get Richie, hurray! (Yes, I will get chastised about this in the coming next few days, weeks, months and I suspect, decades)
I can not remember the conversation. The only real proof I have is the wee mobile telephone bill that kindly arrived mid-fight about my shoe budget. Thank you Telstra, for your contribution to marital harmony.
Richie tells me I wanted to show him the Southern Cross, but it was cloudy, so I decided that I could get on the roof and move the clouds and show him. He then says that I decided to use the worm farm as a stepping stone to get to the hot water service and then the final step to the heavens would be easy. He says he tried to dissuade me, but I am not convinced. I can distinctly remember Scottish cackling down the line and wishes for the Skype camera to be working so he could see my fall from grace up close and personal.
There were several flaws to my plan. One, the worm farm is plastic and not used to goddess sized women clambering on it, two it was raining, three our roof has a steep pitch, four, the hot water service is, well, hot. Five would be, as dear reader you have already (correctly) surmised, the margaritas and half a bottle of rum I consumed.
I woke up five hours later, cold, grumpy, facedown on the cement. I dragged my aching, spinning body to bed. Only to be woken at sparrows by a grumpy yell ‘Catharine, you drank half the bloody rum. Catharine we were saving that for a special occasion. Catharine the mother fucking back door is wide open. Catharine Margaret Redden get down here now! (Insert 46 exclamation marks)’
I was hoping for a nice cup of tea.
When I slinked into the kitchen my husband looked at me and dropped his glass of juice.
‘Bloody hell love, what happened to your face?’
I said the first thing that came into my mind, and what I thought to be the truth.
It's mascara
Have you got red mascara?
Yes, is it the new Chanel ‘Vamp’ range, do you like it?
My husband went to work and I got down to the business of tracing my movements and trying to collect missing bits of my memory. And wardrobe. The big problem was my shoes. I could not find them.
Then I felt a cold breeze through the back door, and saw the rain on the tiles.
…
Now, do no panic dear reader. I know what you are thinking ‘water and suede don’t mix’. But, never fear, it is amazing what cobblers can do these days, and I had religiously water proofed my licentious red shoes. So, though I could not see my shoes, I was sure they would be ok.
I searched out the back and found a few missing items: my little black telephone, an earring I did not know was lost, stockings, worm farm lid.
Worm farm lid. Nowhere near the worm farm. So I made to put it back on, and there were my shoes. Ungraciously, wantonly, in the worm farm. Slutting about. Enjoying the company of apple cores and tea leaves and pineapple heads and last weekends Age. The seemed right at home, the little tramps. Sprawled about, making new friends, no regard for me at all. I screamed and scoped them out and sent them to their room to have a good hard think about what they had just done. By-pass time-out. Go straight to the locked cupboard. No supper for you.
There is a nice end to this story of my promiscuous shoes. The diligent water-proofing enabled Joe the wonder Cobbler to breathe life back into my sexy shoes. They are not the same; they are tainted, and a little crinkled, not as sparkly fresh as they were. But we have both grown from this experience and are looking forward to many more years of comfortable, mutual domesticity. But the roof is off limits. As is the Guatemalan rum.
Margaritas anyone?
