Chapter 20: Canberra - I

I walked to the front door and knocked. Michiko opened the door – petit, wearing a blouse and dark slacks, smiling.

“You’re here!”

“Obviously.”

“Welcome to our home.” I gave her a hug. “You seem well.”

“I’m OK. It’s been difficult. But the past week or so have seen improvement.”

“Charles will be home in about an hour. Perhaps less, as it’s Friday and as he knew you would be arriving. Let me show you to your room.”

“Should I get my stuff?”

“No. Charles will want to help. It will make him feel as though he’s contributing.”

“Don’t be snarky!”

“I’m being honest. He’s said he’s done nothing for you these past months...”

“I wasn’t in a welcoming or receptive mood.”

“And now?”

“I’m getting better.”

“Tea? ... Or something stronger?”

“Tea would be fine.”

“Let me make you some matcha.”

“Matcha?”

“Matcha is a finely-ground green tea powder, made using the finest Tencha tea leaves. These are rare leaves that are covered by shade in the last month before harvesting. The leaves are then de-veined and then ground between stones. It’s very healthy.”

“I’m sure it will be wonderful. But you know I won’t appreciate it.”

She laughed. “Sit down. I’ll just boil some water.”

I was looking around: it was a strange room, the furniture was western in general, but there was a low lacquered table, and the walls had several Japanese woodcuts and a calligraphic painting on silk. Part Charles, part Michiko.

She came back with a tray with two flat bowls and a bamboo whisk. Putting the tray on the table, she beat the tea into a froth and handed me the bowl, taking the other. “You must drink before the froth disappears,” she said.

“Arigatou,” I responded.

“Not bad for a gaijin.”

“gaijin?”

“‘Outside person’ or foreigner.”

“Oh, I’m yet more outside than you think.”

“That’s why you’re on leave. But you visited Grafton and now you are here. So you are progressively less outside.”

There was a noise and Charles came in.

“Aha! Caught you with my wife, have I? You scoundrel! If I had a horse, I’d have a horse-whip to whip you with. How are you?”

I tried to stop laughing. “Can I offer to buy you a horse? You’ll have to get your own whip.”

“Well, we’ll see. I’m certainly older. Are you any wiser?”

“You know what Jaques says in As you like it? I’m not yet at that seventh stage: ‘Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.’”

“Nor am I. But let’s be more serious. You’re clearly better than I feared.”

“Yes. Michiko and I have just been talking about that. I’m returning.”

“Tea, coffee?” Michiko interjected.

“Black tea, please.”

“Do you know what White wrote?”

“About?”

“I would like to believe in the myth that we grow wiser with age. In a sense my disbelief is wisdom. Those of a middle generation, if charitable or sentimental, subscribe to the wisdom myth, while the callous see us as dispensable objects, like broken furniture or dead flowers. For the young we scarcely exist unless we are unavoidable members of the same family, farting, slobbering, perpetually mislaying teeth and bifocals.’”

“How do you remember things like that?”

“How do actors remember long plays? How do people remember poems or songs?”

Michiko brought Charles a mug of tea. “When you’re done with the questions and have had your tea, get Gordy’s stuff into Al’s room.”

“Yes, dear.”

We got my stuff into Al’s room and I participated in truly idle chatter for a while. Then Charles asked about my trip. I started to itemize things, but realized just what a bore it must be.

“Well, the first interesting thing was about two weeks in. I was in White Cliffs and drove to Paroo-Darling Park. I encountered a former student, working for the N.P.S., and he remarked on the fact that the Paroo was the last free-flowing river in the State.”

“It may be the last in the country,” said Charles, “When it’s actually a river.”

“I then visited the band at Peery Lake and brought them some sugar the next day. The leader asked where I was headed and I told him the Corner Country and then elsewhere. He said he would let other bands know.

“I went to Cameron Corner and then to Innamincka, which I hated. So I went to a cattle station – Epsilon – and met some interesting aborigines. So I went to Nockatunga Waterhole and spent several days with a band and thinking. I thin went to Cunnamulla and back into New South Wales. But I think the three or four aboriginal encounters were very important.”

“Where’d you go from Cunnamulla?”

“Oh. Dubbo and Moree, Armidale and Port Macquarie, Grafton and here. I started out reading Sturt, but then I went back to Upfield.”

“I don’t know how you can read those over and over.”

“Well, C.S. Lewis wrote: ‘I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once’.”

“No arguing, boys. Anyway, it’s time for us to think about dinner.”

“What were you planning, dear?”

“Tonkatsu, soba, some vegetables. But that can be altered.”

“Gordy?”

“Tonkatsu‘s pork chop, right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s fine. I’ve loved it in the past.”

“We’ll do something else, tomorrow. Or go out for dinner,” said Charles.

“We’ve nothing interesting coming up at the Arts Centre,” Michiko said. “I was hoping I could drag you to something.”

“That wouldn’t be necessary. I actually wanted to spend time with you. You’re really my oldest friends.”

“We’re also relatives.”

“True.”

“In fact, Rachel will phone tonight or tomorrow. She generally calls on the weekend. By the way, are you interested in gamelan music?”

“That’s the drums and gongs and stuff? I know little about it. Why?”

“There’s a Canberra Balinese gamelan group performance at Indonesian Embassy next week.” Michiko held up a flyer. “It says ‘Four tunes, including a pendet temple welcoming dance by two young ladies in full Balinese costume, and a topeng bujuh mask dance, in which a bumbling, clown-like character jokes through movement with the audience and the gamelan leader.’ We could go to that.”

“Sure.” Charles paused. “And we can walk out when it’s too awful.”

“Charles!”

Charles and I settled down and Michiko retreated into the kitchen.

“Well, how are you coping?”