Chapter 7: The Band is Back Together

Counselling

Wednesday Afternoon, November 24, 1999

Once I had arrived at the apartment, I went upstairs, changed out of my work clothes, then downstairs to the parking garage, and went over to Doctor Sleigh’s office. As I drove through the traffic and across the bridge, I pondered whether I should tell her about Michelle’s actions the other day, and about Cathy’s return. I couldn’t think of a valid reason why I shouldn’t, everything between me and her were in complete confidence. I had found that the more she knew what was going on in my life, the more I told her about what I was thinking about, the better and more applicable her advice to me turned out to be.

Margaret had me sit down on the sofa in her office, and asked how things were going, and how my meeting with Professor Weinstein had gone.

“It was a fascinating discussion, it really filled in a lot of stuff that I never knew about,” I said.

“That’s good; I felt that now you were reconnecting with your religion, I wanted to make sure that your experiences with us didn’t cause a ‘crisis of faith’, or made you question your beliefs in any way,” she said. “Now how have things been going in general?”

“I’ve been feeling good, keeping busy, but there’s been a few issues and problems at work,” I said.

I then told her about the issues at work, plus all the work Angie and I have been doing to the apartment. She told me that there wasn’t much she could do about staff problems at work, and that working with Angie to redecorate the apartment was a good sign, she used the word ‘nesting’, so I guess she felt that meant we were looking to make our living arrangements permanent.

“There have been two interesting developments, though,” I said, and proceeded to tell her about the incidents with Michelle, and Cathy’s return to Sydney.

“I think your assessment of Michelle’s actions is pretty close to the truth,” she said. “In particular, seeing her ex-lover, Garry, who left her because she wouldn’t be able to give him children, and now Garry’s new wife is pregnant. That would be very stressful for her and make her feel that her life was now out of control and that she would never find a partner. You did the right thing, making her feel you still loved and needed her. I’m not sure there’s a real long-term solution to her issues, but that isn’t your ultimate responsibility. Just be there as a friend for her, make sure she knows she can talk to you about anything. Cathy returning to Sydney, I don’t believe she’s wanting to resume a relationship with you, apart from being good friends. I suspect Angie might be concerned about her ‘reappearance’ and now being available; make sure Angie knows that you are no longer interested in Cathy. Now, I believe I set you some homework at our last meeting...”

“To be honest, that’s probably the hardest assignment you’ve given me,” I said. “First, I had to work out what it meant to ‘be content’, I spoke with several my friends, to work out what that really involved. I mean, how can I work out when I was ‘content’, if I don’t really know what being content involves?”

“That’s a good start,” she said. “And what did you discover?”

“Being content, that’s not easy to define. At first, I thought it was something like ‘when you are happy with what you have’. I talked with Angie, and she said her uncle would always say ‘I wish you sufficient’, and she mentioned about one of the US ‘Robber Barons’, when he was asked ‘how much money do you really need to be happy?’, he answered ‘just a little bit more’. People like that are never happy, never satisfied with what they have. There comes a point in one’s life where getting that ‘just a little bit more’ doesn’t give any tangible benefits in return, what you have is sufficient.

“Now, that is contrary to our consumerist society, we have been taught that you always need more, you need the latest car, a bigger house, more money, take an overseas holiday, everything like that. But I’ve realized that doesn’t guarantee happiness or long-term success. I got an interesting insight from Garry, too; I asked him what made him realize that Kate was the woman for him, the one for him to marry. He said that at one stage, he would assume that ‘the one’ would be perfect for him, and then when some issue came up, that destroyed that image of perfection, he would end the relationship. But he realized that there would never be ‘the perfect woman’, and provided things were good enough, any little issues he could live with.”

“I guess that’s one way of defining ‘contentment’,” Margaret said. “What you have is ‘good enough’, and you’re not likely to find anything better.”

“Yes, so I decided to look at my life, and work out when did I feel what I had was ‘good enough’, to the point where it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to make things better, to just accept what I had was right for me. That was too difficult to do for all aspects of my life as a whole, so I broke thing into three parts, my career, my love life, and my main other activity, music. Career and music were easy to answer, well, easier than the love life.

“I realized that I was ‘most content’ with my career back when I was lecturing, once I made full professor, I had achieved what I felt my original aim was. I enjoyed teaching, and I had time for research work, it was very satisfying. Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying my job at the moment, it is rewarding, but given the chance, I would leave it in an instant to go back to the University. Musically, I guess it was when we were playing as ‘The Roberttones and Friends’, playing to some big live concerts, with lots of my friends on stage with me.

“The love life was far more difficult because I didn’t want to try to ‘rate’ or ‘score’ people I had been with. Then I realized that what I had to look at was what made me happy, and the time I was happiest with my love life was when I was married to Lisa. Garry came up with a good question, basically, ‘if I was so happy with Lisa, why were there other women involved in the relationship?’. I told him that for as long as I had been in romantic relationships, it was rarely ever solely ‘exclusive’. That was something that Mary Beth had pointed out to me, years ago. But the reason why other women were involved was each of them added something different into the ‘mix’. Back when Lori and I were a couple, we had Megan with us, and she really taught me so much about how to sing, how to perform on stage, a lot of music theory, how to express my emotions though music. There was also Tracy Mann, she introduced me to acting and performance skills. I could continue, but it wasn’t ‘I want another woman or two in the relationship, just because I want some variety in who I fuck’, if that makes sense.”

“It does, you’ve clearly thought about this,” she said. “So ... what relationship...”

“I was the most content when I was married to Lisa, and we had Fiona as our ‘third person’, which I guess makes sense,” I said. “I think that was because Lisa and I made a great partnership, we complemented each other, and Fiona added that bit of ‘excitement’, she gave our relationship a bit of something that neither of us had. The closest anything else would have come to that was when Lori and I first were together; it was new, exciting, we were really in love – at least that’s what I thought. Then we had Megan move in with us, and I thought that life doesn’t get much better than this!”

“I like how you think things through, you take a methodological approach, you don’t immediately try to jump at an answer, but try to work out what the question really means. That’s good, plus you are talking things over with other people, your friends who know you, and want to help you. One thing that I hope the last twelve months has taught you is the importance of relying on your friends for help and advice, you can’t solve all of your problems on your own. That was something that we talked about very early on in our professional relationship, and you seem to have learned that lesson well, and that has really helped you, not just over the difficulties of the last year, but in your whole life. Make sure you keep that up, it’s so important to you and keeping your life under control and you on a steady path.

“Now, let’s set our next appointment for December 22nd, same time of day, and, of course, you have more homework. You mentioned that Cathy said that Lori is likely to be returning to Sydney in the not-too-distant future. What I want you to think about is how will you react to seeing her again, what do you think you should do to try and rebuild your friendship. I’m not suggesting what you need to do to go back to that romantic relationship that you two shared, just how do you go back to being friends with her. And if Megan Winters was to turn up, how would you handle that? From what I recall, you left both of them in a rather unhappy state – I’m not saying everything was all your fault, but what steps are YOU taking to make up.

“Now whether anything might come from their return or not, that’s not what is important. But both played a significant role in your maturing, in your romantic life, and it’s important to you – and to them – that whatever disagreements and anger remains between all of you gets resolved. I want to know how you will react if they are still angry or upset with you; this is one situation where you need to be the ‘bigger person’, admit that you were wrong, that you didn’t handle the situation well at all, and you have learned and grown a lot since then. Maybe they will admit that they made mistakes and were partially to blame, or maybe not. But don’t wait for them to say they were wrong. Consider it part of your emotional development, if you will.”

“Okay, that’s going to be hard – doing what you say, accepting a major part of the problems that were between each of us, admitting that I was wrong. I’m not saying I can’t do it, or I’m unwilling to swallow my pride and do that, it will just be difficult.”

“If doing things like that were easy, then there wouldn’t be so many broken relationships in the world,” she said. “But I’m sure you can work things out, I’ll see you in four weeks. Take care, Will.”

“Thanks, our meetings are always so worthwhile, and the homework – as challenging as it is – really helps me work things out.”

As I drove home, I pondered the homework exercise that Margaret had given me, just how would I react to seeing Lori, or even Megan, again? Damn, she knew how to get right into the core of things that were so difficult for me to think about. I knew, that once I started to work out how I might react, all those old wounds from almost twenty years ago would be reopened. It wasn’t going to be an easy task, but probably worth preparing for. Could I swallow my pride – particularly with Lori – and admit I was wrong? I guess I would have to, otherwise all that would change is we would still be mad at each other, still have no chance of being friends, the only difference would be we were now back to being in the same city.

Finishing the Redecorating

Wednesday Evening, November 24, 1999

Over dinner, Angie told me what her friend Ros had mentioned about our potential foray into mild bondage with Jenny. She had stressed how important the use of a “safe” word was – a word that as soon as anyone said, the play was over, and that person was no longer comfortable with what was happening. As soon as someone said the safe word, we would all have to stop, and free whoever was tied up or whatever. I didn’t feel like telling her that I had already had some (limited) experience with bondage and discipline; she would probably be able to discern that it wasn’t my first-time doing things like that, but I really didn’t feel like digging back into those old memories.

“So, some word like ‘elephant’, something that wouldn’t come up in normal conversation,” I said to Angie.

“Exactly,” she said. “And we all must know it and agree beforehand. As well, all three of us will have to discuss any limitations too, what we want – and more importantly, what we don’t want. It goes without saying, that we all must agree to that, and respect everyone’s desires.

“There is that shop that specialises in bondage and domination stuff, primarily for women, over in Newtown; you know the one you took Jenny and me to,” she continued. “I can go over there one evening and get some stuff; plus, Ros said that the staff there are really helpful, too.”

“Well, once we go through everything with Jenny, that will be good,” I said. “Now, I have a bondage session with the closet doors; they need to be firmly tied to the walls.”

“Great,” Angie said. “You have done a really good job with those, having them up will be wonderful. I can’t wait to see what the effect of having that scene on the walls will be, I think it will look really stunning. While you do those, I will get the Christmas decorations and tree out; since we are having Sue over for the weekend, we should have things set up for her. The tree can go in the corner there,” she said, pointing to where I had one of the doors standing up. “If you can move that one first, I will make a start on it.”

It took me a good hour to get the hinges fixed to the closet doors, and to have them hung properly so they were aligned correctly when they were closed, and I had to get Angie to help me at times. Getting them aligned with the hinges and putting the pins in was fiddly work, even with the two of us, but we finally got it done, with everything aligned so that the doors were square in the frames, and then lined up properly. All that was left was for me to fit the new magnetic catches on the inside, and put the stop blocks inside the closets. That will be a five-minute task, I told myself.

Angie had made good progress on the tree; most of the baubles were hanging on the branches, and she was now unravelling the tinsel to drape around it.

“I have some lights as well, but I think I will need your help for that,” she said. “They can wait for another day, anyway, it’s the tree that is the main thing.”

Forty-five minutes later, the doors were finished. Lining up the stupid magnetic catches, fixing the wooden blocks to support them, and putting in other blocks to stop the doors closing too far and damaging the catches was a lot more complex than I thought. How can something so simple cause so many problems to install?

When I was finally finished, I stood up and stretched my back. Fooling around inside the closet trying to line up the catches was uncomfortable work, plus I had managed to scrape my knuckles a few times on the doorframes, trying to line up the doors. On several occasions I tried using the magic swear words, in the hope that the doors would listen and somehow align themselves, all to no avail. Once the doors were hung, Angie had diplomatically gone back to the living room, rather than watch me make a fool of myself, and risk bearing the brunt of my frustration.

“Finished?” she asked.

“Yes, thank God,” I replied. “Come in and have a look.”

The doors did look very good, and from the far side of the bedroom, it really did seem as if you were looking out from a stone window in the wall over a hillside towards a grove of olive trees.

“That is fantastic,” Angie said. “You have done a great job with that; it is even better than I thought it would be. Let me get you some ice cream and pie for a special treat.”

“You have done a great job with the tree, too,” I said to her. “It really looks like Christmas is coming.” I looked at the packets of coloured lights Angie had got out, they wouldn’t take too long to put up, I thought.

“I can put one set up over the windows here if you want,” I said.

“That will be good,” she said. “I think that may be enough, we don’t want to overdo the lights. Otherwise, it will look like someone has vomited Christmas everywhere in the apartment!”

The lights went up quickly, I strung them in some loops above the sliding doors leading out to the balcony, and down each side. I plugged the little controller into the power outlet on the wall and set it to give random flashing patterns.

“They look great,” Angie said, bringing two bowls of dessert into the room.

As we sat out on the sofa, we got back to talking about what we could do over the Christmas period. I would have to remain in Sydney, close to work, right through the Christmas / New Year time.

“Did you want to see if we could get out on the Harbour and watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart race on Boxing Day?” she asked me.

“We could, depending on the weather,” I replied. “Although I don’t know how many entries they will have this time, not after last year’s race.”

The race in December last year had been quite bad; a huge storm had swept through the fleet as they raced down the coast; quite a few boats had been sunk, and several competitors had been killed. There was even talk of the race being scrapped; not that people would seriously consider that, but various inquiries had been held into what had caused such loss of life.

“If it is a nice day, we could either try to get up to South Head and watch it, or maybe see if we can get out on the water to see things close up,” Angie continued. “I have done that quite a few times; it is always exciting to see all the action as they get ready to start.”

“I saw my first start back in 1973,” I said. “That was before the days of the huge maxi yachts, but it was really exciting back then, too. It would be good if we could get out on the water, do you know anyone with a suitable boat?”

“Well, Ros’s husband has a decent motor cruiser, she mentioned it to me when I spoke to her this morning,” Angie replied. “If you are interested, I will call her back tomorrow and let her know.”

“Yeah, why not,” I answered. “That sounds like fun.”

“Now, if you have finished your dessert, would you like a massage to ease the tension in your back?” she asked.

“That sounds lovely,” I said. “I still feel all cramped up.”

“Ok, give me your bowl, and go and lie on the bed,” she told me. “I will find some massage oil for you.”

I undressed and lay out on our bed, waiting for her. After a minute or two, Angie came into the room, and turned the lights right down.

“That dimmer is good, too,” she said. “Now, I want you to relax completely; put all the thoughts about work, closet doors, magnetic catches and hinges out of your mind.”

She knelt next to me on the bed and poured a little of the oil onto my shoulders. As she started to massage my tired muscles, I closed my eyes, and thought about the first time I saw the start of a Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

High School Reminiscing

Thursday, November 25, 1999

I woke up, still feeling quite tired from the events of last night. Angie was also a bit tired, so we lay in bed for about twenty minutes, it wouldn’t matter if I were a bit later getting into work.

Eventually, we got up, had a shower, and got dressed. Over breakfast, we talked about the Christmas tree and various family traditions.

“In our family,” Angie said, we would all pile our presents up under the tree, and on Christmas morning, all come to the family room, and open them all up. What did your family do?”

“Well, we wouldn’t even see anything until Christmas morning,” I said. “On the night of Christmas eve, we each had this pillowcase with our names on it at the foot of our beds. Then, sometime in the middle of the night, my parents would take them, put our presents in each bag, and put them back at the foot of the bed. Then, when we were awake, we would take them out to the living room where the tree was and open them. But not all at once, we started with the youngest, and each would take their turn to open their presents.”

“That sounds fun,” she said. “Did you ever catch your father putting the presents out?”

“No, even though I tried to stay awake,” I replied. “What do you want to do here? I kind of like the idea of putting presents under the tree.”

“We can do that,” she said. “I will have to start buying some, first!”

“Same here, although I have started to get some for my family members,” I said. “Plus, I should put up some string to hold the Christmas cards we get, too.”

“I wonder how many we will get,” Angie replied. “This time we will have cards from your friends and mine.”

“You remember that Garry and Kate are coming around for dinner again, Garry and I have a practice session scheduled,” I said. “I’ll get stuff to cook for dinner, maybe try an Asian prawn stir fry.”

“That sounds pretty tasty,” she said. “I’m looking forward to that, plus hearing you two play and sing for Kate and me.”

We took the train into the city together, and as I kissed her goodbye outside her salon, I reminded her I would be getting home early to start the dinner for Garry and Kate.

When I arrived at work, Michelle was there before me, and made a remark about my later than usual arrival.

“Big night last night, was it?” she asked me.

“You wouldn’t believe just how big,” I said. “I lost count of the number of times...”

“You liar,” she said to me, laughing. “You’re just saying that to try to get me jealous.”

“Well, if you are going to be like that, I won’t tell you about it,” I replied. “And what about your tally with your Irish boy the other week?”

“Well, boys are ok for a quickie,” she said. “But I would prefer someone older, with more experience.”

“Hmm,” I replied. “You’re not suggesting anything are you?” I replied, winking as I did.

“Me? Suggesting things? Never!” she declared, and we both smiled.

I went into my office and ploughed back into the report writing. About ten, I went out to talk over a few matters with Len and David, and when I got back to my desk, I saw Cathy had sent a reply to my email from yesterday.

From: Cathy Parsons <parsonsc@treasury.fed.gov.au >
To: Will Morris <will.morris@itsd.nsw.gov.au>
Date: 25/11/1999 9:55:23 AM
Subject: Re: Thanks for Everything

Hello You,

Sounds like you are having fun with your report – that is always the worst part of a project, writing everything up justifying what you did.

Thanks for all the info on apartments, too – I can see I will need your expert advice when I start to look around myself. The prices don’t seem to be as bad as I had thought they would be, which is something. I also contacted the U-Stow-It place, they have a unit that I can use for a few months, so I can bring everything up over Christmas and put it straight in there.

I got a reply from Lori last night, too – her email address is TTearlybirdlori@hotmail.com, and I think she would like to hear from you, at least for you to say that you are not mad at her, and apologising for whatever it was that came up – it never hurts to say you were sorry, even if you think it wasn’t your fault.

Talk to you later on,

Kat

I copied Lori’s address into my email address book and put in a reminder to send her a message later. The rest of the day progressed uneventfully; and I left at 4 pm to go home to start on dinner. On the train home, I realised that I had forgotten to reply to Cathy’s email; I had been putting off replying; not sure how to tell her about what had really caused the rift between Lori and me. I wasn’t even sure how to phrase the email to Lori, either; without somehow opening old wounds, or sounding insincere. I would really have to think through those. I guess that’s why Margaret assigned me my latest homework.

Once I got home, I went up to the shopping centre and purchased the food for dinner – half a kilo of fresh tiger prawns, and some barramundi fillets. I picked up a decent apple pie for dessert as well. Angie arrived home just as I was starting the preparation; I had peeled the prawns for the entrée and was just about to cut up the vegetables for the stir-fry.

By the time Garry and Kate arrived, we had straightened up the apartment, and closed the curtains to the balcony (not that we expected a performance from the woman in the next building, but better to be sure). I started cooking the barramundi (wrapped in foil with a lemon butter sauce and put under the grill) and the Asian stir-fried vegetables. After showing them around the apartment and having Kate rave over the décor in the bedroom, I started to serve up dinner. Fortunately, we had four stools to put around the breakfast bar – once again I made a mental note to see about getting a suitable dining table and chairs. Garry had made himself busy; opening the bottle of wine he had brought – a Semillon from a Western Australian winery that I hadn’t heard about before. Garry had a good taste in wine, and always seemed to find something new and interesting. As usual, his choice was excellent.

As we started to eat the prawns, Garry commented on the passing years.

“You know, next year it will be twenty-five years since we finished high school,” He said. “A quarter of a century; it hasn’t seemed that long.”

“I expect there will be another reunion party, later on in the year,” I replied. “I should check with Martin next time I see him; I think he is involved in organising that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, it’s always interesting to see what has happened to people,” Garry continued. “You know, what made me think of it was running into Sarah on the weekend, down at our local shops. She is back in the area now, working at a local private hospital.”

“Really?” I said. During the last two years of high school, Garry and Sarah were inseparable. “Actually, I heard from Cathy Parsons; she has broken up with her lover and looks like she will be moving back to Sydney. Davo is still down in Canberra, and loving it, though.”

“So, Cathy will be back here and single?” he said. “Now that was one thing I could never understand, how you let her get away from you; sometimes, mate, you do some pretty stupid things. But she wasn’t any good for you, she caused you all sorts of problems. Maybe you had some premonition that things wouldn’t work out between the two of you, it wouldn’t work out, and subconsciously, you wanted to end it before you got even deeper involved with her.”

“Yeah, well, that’s just how it goes, I guess,” I replied. “Plus, I heard that Lori is likely to be moving back here to Sydney.”

“And there’s another good one you let slip away,” he continued. “Just don’t let Angie get away from you; I guess you should know, Angie, Will has made a habit of having the most ideal women fall head over heels in love with him, and somehow he manages to stuff it up; make sure for my sake he doesn’t do it again.”

“No chance of that, Garry,” Angie replied. “At least, not if I have my way, believe me.”

“And I can assure you,” I said to him, “Angie always seems to get her way!”

“Well, I can’t really talk about managing relationships well,” Garry admitted. He certainly couldn’t; Kate was his second wife. “But at least we have both learned a lot since high school, that’s for sure.”

“I hope so,” I replied. “Though sometimes I wonder, you know, life did seem much simpler back then.”

I cleared the plates away and went into the kitchen to start serving the main course.

“Was it?” he asked. “I mean, was it really simpler? We look back, and say ‘oh, life was much simpler back then’, but we are looking back with an extra twenty-five years’ worth of maturity and experience. The problems may have seemed simpler, but we knew so much less about life then.”

“You’re right, you know,” Kate said. “I mean, when I was that age – sixteen, seventeen, eighteen – the hardest things to work out were relationships and sex – particularly sex. Like, ‘do I let him feel my breasts’, or ‘should I go all the way’, stuff we probably don’t think twice about now.”

“So, you go all the way with anyone you meet?” I said to her, jokingly.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she said, blushing a deep red.

“Don’t be mean, Will,” Angie said in her defence. “She’s right; back then when we were in our teens, sex was the big unknown. You know, ‘what would it be like’, ‘will he respect me if I let him do it’, even, ‘God, how do I get that in my mouth without choking?’ the really important questions.”

We all burst out laughing at that last one.

“I don’t know about you, Angie,” Kate said, “but I still haven’t worked out that last one!”

“Well, I could give you some tips,” she said to Kate. “But seriously, they were huge issues then, because we didn’t understand about love, and sex, and relationships, and everything like that. Not that I am saying we know everything now, but we don’t think they are such a big issue, because of what we have learned and been through since then.”

“I guess you are right,” I said, as I placed the barramundi fillets on the plates. “I know that twenty-five years ago, I felt way out of my depth with all of that – no, not the one about getting it in my mouth without choking,” I said to Garry, anticipating his smart-arsed remark. “Now we have jobs and money and writing huge reports that probably no one will ever look at twice.”

I arranged the vegetables on the plates and put a few sprigs of parsley and mint on the side. When we played at the Crystal Ballroom, we would sometimes help the servers in the kitchen, and I quickly picked up some good tips on how to arrange and present food on plates.