—24—
After that tornado of bad news, I felt balmy relief from solving problems so easily. Until a little thought wafted into my brain with the subtlety of a piano falling on me:
What do I tell Brett? Brett, who I told zat about my launch?
He was remarkably acquiescent.
The launch, he accepted at once. He even smiled! This was fortuitous.
When I explained how the Restonia had changed, he agreed that we should move, and was happy about Prague.
Did he know the clock tower?
Yes, he knew the clock tower.
This was obviously meant to be. My heart soared. But, back to basics. Did he need to pack?
No, he didn't need to pack.
But I did. What could I do with all my clothes? I almost called room service. Fun habits never want to die.
'Could we fit them in your trunk, Brett?' It looked way too small, but being his, it could have any amount of internal capacity.
'Sadly, no,' he said, not trying to be cryptic, but making me so curious, my palms itched.
At that point, only four minutes after Kevin left, he returned with a shirt and trousers. I pulled up the trousers, but they needed something to hold them up. He ripped off his tie, and that had to do.
'And wardrobe cases?' I asked him.
All we could come up with at such short notice was the bedclothes and the curtains. Kevin tenderly laid masterpiece on masterpiece, and tied up each bundle with an enormous bow. The shoes, he wrapped in towels first, displaying a respect for Hazumi's craft that surprised me. Everything, including my exquisite underclothing was packed. Everything except for the violet calf boots, my favourites, which were on my feet.
I would have liked to have said goodbye to Mr Hazumi, but I was ready. Brett was of course ready, so Kevin called for a taxi. At the door to our suite, he took a surprisingly emotional leave of us, till I thought he had gone on enough. I slapped him on the bum. 'Off to your dungeon, Kev.'
'Jane' was at the counter when Brett and I arrived with our bundles. She practically wept on hearing that we were leaving. 'Mizz Borghwick is not here now,' she said. 'Could you please take a seat while—'
'Fraid not,' Brett assured her.
'Plane, you see.' I reassured her.
She wasn't reassured. 'The account?'
'We'll bill you,' I said, and then remembered something. Grabbing the key, I rushed upstairs and took first, the angry parrot from the wall, and then Justin's favourite drawing of Rose.
Back at the counter I tore a page from the register and wrote: 'To Justin Abernathy'.
'Please give this to Mizz Borghwick upon her return,' I instructed Jane, handing her Rose and the note. It is debatable whether she heard. Her mouth was open but her brain had seized.
Justin didn't deserve the picture after his unfaithfulness and secrecy, but I had a soft spot for him. He had lost his ambitious sweetheart for sure, but he could have Rose as long as he could manage to keep her out of the clutches of others, in jail.
I had settled Brett in the front seat with the parrot picture, and was with some difficulty, stuffing the bundles into the back when Kevin ran out.
'I've left,' he panted. 'I'll take them.'
'They're loaded,' I said firmly, sticking out my bum to shove the last bundle in just far enough that I could sit beside it. They were
mine
, not his, but I decided to part on a generous note. 'You can borrow them when we meet again,' I said, taking hold of the door.
Rather hysterically, he sighed.
'Two days only,' I consoled him. Victory is always sweet.
'Two days,' he repeated.
He handed me an enormous tin. 'Your shake. Follow the instructions. Religiously!'
The taxi was on its way when I remembered and grabbed the front passenger's seat. 'Your trunk and bag!'
'Don't worry, my dear,' Brett said. 'They go another way.'
I wish we had.
~
What's the use of hanging out with the Devil if you don't get the perks? I expected Satan Class, a bit of transmogrification, our bags (okay, my bundles and his bag and trunk) jumping over the moon or however he did it—and Bob's your uncle. Before I could say
abracadabra
, I'd be testing the mattress in a luxo suite in Prague. But instead of Satan, we went Hell Class, 'for the experience', he said. Not only that, but he wanted the
whole
experience. Economy Class, laughingly called Coach,
standby
, and here it was already May the bloody first.
'Lucky' he called it, when we arrived at the international terminal to find it buzzing with news of a no-survivor plane crash somewhere over the Indian Ocean. Bonza! In no time (airport-time), Brett handed over our Australian (!) passports (!), and we had tickets. Though we carried no suitcases, my four bundles were designated 'excess baggage'—and their cost? They deserved wine with their meals. Then each was tagged PRG by a jocular attendant (ha ha), and manhandled with grace (ho ho ho) as their fabric wrappings caught in the luggage track and their bulk needed shoving through the rubber-flapped exit. But by the time our seats were organized, the bundles had disappeared.
Brett and I were free now to get excited about our new adventure, and to grump about our seats. I told him that this is part of the 'experience' for people who go Shit-arse Class, and he smiled gleefully. We had scored middle of the middle row near the back, which I was sure would not change, all the way to Prague. Did I tell you Brett's height? In feet and inches or centimetres: tall. As I boarded the first leg of the four-leg, thirty-hour journey, I smiled at the thought of it. Adventure when we landed, but in the meantime, Brett's legs would curse him all the way to Prague.
Sweet revenge came so early, my stomach effervesced. I was seated when Brett lowered himself into his own, to find that his knees jammed against the seat in front of him. I looked away. Out of the corner of my eye, I then saw Brett shrug off this discomfort. What a letdown! But only thirty seconds later when he bent over in that habitual action of his, one of his horns caught in upholstery, and I had to help him come loose. Then try as he did, he was too cramped in to lean over and adjust the laces on his boots. He didn't ask, and I didn't offer.
Then, eating, which I always thought was sort of optional with him, had, it seems, some importance as part of the 'experience'. What was he expecting? During the first so-called meal service, he turned to me. 'I'm hungry,' he said.
'Well then, eat everything they've given you, ' I said.
Amazingly, he did. Watching his face was the indigestion relief I needed. So. Hah! I'd told him, 'You don't need this experience,' but he didn't listen.
But the slimebag! As soon as that first meal was collected, he climbed over his obese neighbour and walked out of my sight. At each changeover he stayed by my side, moving along and sitting in airport lounges like the rest of us sheepload of passengers, keeping his thoughts to himself. But once again boarded, he spent most of the flight out of his seat. I had never known him to go to the loo, and assumed that he was hanging around outside one but when I went exploring, I didn't find him.
Finally, on the last leg of the flight, when all the people around us were deep in darkened discomfort, he 'woke' me with a gentle tap to my knee.
'Are you awake?' he whispered.
I swallowed the first answer that came to mind.
'Your uncle Percy...' he said.
I sat up.
'What about Percy?'
'He didn't come to us.'
'Percy Lily?'
'And Percy Pendergast. I wasn't sure. I looked up both.'
'Impossible!'
'I didn't remember him, so I checked the records. He was never recorded.'
'But he was a monster!' Then it occurred to me. '
Great
uncle. You couldn't have looked well—'
'I am a research
expert!
'
'Okay already. But ... Didn't you say "you decide, we abide"? Everyone knew Percy.'
Percy was before my time. Even Mum only knew him by reputation, though I got the impression that when she was a heifer, he was a bad smell, but not yet maggot-fodder.
But surely, by now ... which just proves—
Brett grabbed my wrist and squeezed—as only he could. A blubber came out of me. A spring under my arse sprang. At that, he let go.
'You don't believe,' he whispered, his voice a hoarse scratch. He made his fist flame-ready. A threat, but in his eyes was fright. Of what?
I draped my hand over his fist, 'Yes, Brett, of course I do.'
He looked closely at me. My wrist was already swelling and this seat was sheer torture, but I smiled—apparently convincingly.
'I can understand your confusion, my dear. What did this evil uncle Percy do?'
Do? Memories ...
If you don't pull your socks up, you'll turn into an Uncle Percy ... There's no redeeming him. A regular Percy, he is ... Almost as bad that old bugger, Perce, rot his soul ...
Not everything needs to be said out loud to be understood. All us kids knew—it had to do with sex. And when we were young, we thought he'd put a bun in the oven of some girl living in a lonely station, which made two strikes against him. Firstly, being a man of the cloth. 'Them parsons expect hot pumpkin scones when they
visit
, though all your clobber is dust and cockatoos.' And the second strike against him was the theory of his dalliance. No one bothered about a bastard, but they did in our parts resent like blazes, any sanctimonious washing of the hands after the act. Bastards need care like anyone, or they grow up to be right bastards.
But in the last few years, I had reconsidered Percy's crime, realizing that it was worse than we kids had thought, because 1) The details were never mentioned, and 2) No matter how much we asked, Percy's seed didn't amount to anything that walked and talked, let alone dropped drunk in the dust of Bunwup. No, Percy's crime was one that had no name when I grew up, but did have now.
'Brett, I'm surprised I have to tell you. Percy was a paedophile.'
He was just going to say something when the lights went on and all around us people groaned and rubbed their faces.
I sprinted for the loo.
Did I golden-shower Prague? I don't know. But the seatbelt light went on just before I flushed.
—25—
I was ready to kill Brett.
Kevin would kill me.
How could they lose four enormous bundles? It took professionalism.
Brett was useless.
He
didn't know where they were, though his own stuff would pitch up at his command like a faithful dog.
I was ready to leave the baggage carousel when an old man in a uniform appeared, just like Santa Claus, with one of my bundles held in his arms, its white embroidered flowers now tyre-marked. I was going to thank him till he threw it disrespectfully on the carousel. I grabbed it and as I lifted, the torn and filthy contents fell out of the bottom. They were the bedclothes and curtains that Kevin had used for bundling
in
.
~
Yes, I found an office and no, I didn't lodge a claim. I wasn't dressed to intimidate. I hadn't slept or washed since I could remember. I hadn't locked my luggage. And finally, the form I was given to sign was suspicious in itself. It was probably an admission of guilt.
After my initial panic, I reconsidered. Oh well, I thought. Kevin will just have to make everything again. And now I had nothing to lug. A change is as good as a holiday, and I was looking forward to Prague. Brett knew Prague, so now I could just sit back and enjoy the ride.
He seemed disoriented in this big new airport—fair enough. So I led the way, up the escalator, at which he balked, then out to the front of Ruzyne Airport, where I looked to him. It wasn't a place to linger. Like blowflies around a sheep's tail, the place was a crowd of touts, each working individually to pick off individual tourists, while pickpockets milled amongst the confusion, doing a great business.
'Do you know of a place to go?' Brett asked.
'But you said you knew Prague!'
Why this made me think of the tin of oestrogen shake, I don't know. But then it was that I remembered putting it in an overhead compartment on the plane in Sydney.
Now Brett was looking to me to lead us toward shelter and comfort. I was clueless, and this mob made me want to run back into the airport.
'Would you like these gentlemen to help?' he asked, kicking backwards. I heard a satisfying yelp, but that only exacerbated the problem.
Brett was depending on me, and I wasn't up to this. We had to choose one of these parasites to help us, and hope for the best. At that point, I broke into an ugly hawking sob.
'Come, my dear,' he said, the only good thing I'd heard since when was it? It felt like years, yet was just over a day, by earthly hours.
He put his hand on my shoulder ... and we were somewhere else.
~
Cold! How cold? The snot in my nose was gelato! Strong arms held me—Brett's. His teeth chattered in my ear. 'Antarctica?' I guessed, knowing already (the fuckwit!). I opened my eyes, dreading ...
In spite of the cold, he blushed! No wonder. We hovered in a freezer room between shelves stacked with cartons marked McDonald's. All that 100% beef made me ravenously hungry, but first we had to get out of here.
'You're lost, aren't you?' I asked sympathetically.
'This was a castle when—'
'Hey,' I grinned. 'No worries, mate. Can you get us out of here?'
'I don't know where—'
'Can you let me down at least?'
He lowered us. There was a big red button by the door.
Open sesame!
We walked out into the blessedly hot and breakfast-hassled kitchen.
I grabbed at a burger on the grill, but it was too hot. I heard a curse behind me, but we were already on our way to the happy side of McDonald's, and out.
We strolled down the street and hadn't gone a block when a girl who should have been in high school—or maybe she was already a model—rushed up to Brett. 'Please,' she said, handing him a pen. She turned her back and pointed to her pink backpack.
I giggled. 'She thinks you're somebody, Mister Clueless.'
He didn't understand. 'What do I do?'
'I be singer,' she said to Brett.
'Well, Ell Oh Ell,' I laughed. 'Sign your name, Brett.'
He signed slowly, ending with a surprising flourish of the
n
's tail.
She took off the pack and held it to her chest. 'Kiss?' Presumptuously, she leaned forward, lifted her face and puckered up. Her eyes closed!
This was getting tiresome pretty awfully fast, and he just stood there. 'Ooooh,' some inanity giggled.
'Brett blossom,' I whispered in his ear. 'Come on.' Looping my arm through his, I stepped forward, accidentally touching her shoulder.
'You!' she of the pink backpack screeched, pointing to me and turning an innocent pronoun into a curse. And she followed that up with a finger sign that has no innocent meaning anywhere.
Two can play at that game. Instead, I tossed her my best catwalk smile, took a firmer grip on Brett, and strode—past her and through what had become a crowd.
He
was
tremendously spunky in a
someone
way. With us linked arm-in-arm, perhaps my slept-in men's wear and necktie-belt would be the next cool look for girls.
A funny situation, though our over-all situation wasn't. He was clearly disoriented, and I didn't know Prague. Kevin did, but we wouldn't meet him for another—I checked my watch—twenty-eight hours. It would have been nice to stop and think, but now that was out of the question. We walked.
Brett frowned at a Dunkin' Donuts, yet nodded at a towered gateway. I had confidence in him. This city was known for old stuff.
He stopped at a medieval house-front. The doors were shut but that had never stopped him in the past. What did was the sign at the door, or rather, some glossy photos and a press clipping stuck behind glass..
Gargantuan medieval banqueting served by buxom Hell's Angels in a cavernous remake of the set of
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
. Tankards of ale slapped down in front of you until you scream, 'When!' and indulge your Ivanhoe fantasies. Book early or take a battering ram.
'Such a nice house once,' he sighed. 'My dear...'
Patting his hand, I let him know that I forgave him. And truly, this has always been my experience with travel guides. I remembered Bali, when I ripped pages out of my
Lonely Planet
and jumped on them, wishing they were heads ...
But we couldn't roam. I needed food, shelter, rest. And the aimless crowds of this tourist city were oppressing my sense of space. I took over the navigation completely now, and led till we reached a square with a Grand Hotel.
'Go get us a suite,' I told Brett, resting my hands on my hips. There was no place to sit.
He returned faster than I expected. He hadn't made it past the doorman. The fool!
'Stay!' I commanded. I'd have to brash this out myself.
I ran towards that doorman, then veered so I could watch.
He was a shoe man. No man went past him who didn't have wimpy, shined leather shoes. A simple problem, easily solved.
'...so we just have to find you a shoe store,' I explained, tugging Brett's arm.
'No,' he answered. 'I'm not changing.'
Oh, this was too much trouble for one morning!
Then some idiot jogged my shoulder, and suddenly Brett whirled away from me.
'Merdat!'—a bravura falsetto.
'Hovno!'—the deep, close voice of Brett. He held his arms out in front of him. Between them dangled a skinny, shit-smelling pimpleface. Brett had him by the ears, one of which was shish-kabobbed by Brett's stiletto fingernail.
A wad of money fell from the boy's fingers. I picked it up.
'Hrvo crampit glukskon,' (or something like that) said Brett, one word at a time, into the boy's face.
'Flsttrrukchtrch ch ch ch,' he answered, all bluster gone.
'What?' I asked.
'I told him to take us home, and ... uych vrno bumpit!' (or something like that) he said to the boy, shaking him.
'Hey, that's rude,' I said. 'Speak English.'
'I no home,' the boy said.
I believed him. So, apparently, did Brett. He dropped the boy, who crawled and then ran, holding his bloody ear.
We had drawn a crowd. Someone clapped. And then a woman in a Sydney Olympics T-shirt walked brazenly up and took Brett's hand. 'Thank you,' she said. 'If more men would do that, this place would be a great city for us single women.'
'You're most welcome,' Brett smiled—the Boofhead!
'Brett blossom...' I reminded him, as I led him away. 'We must concentrate our mind.'
My soft violet boots weren't meant for walking, but that's just what they'd done for the last couple hours, on cobblestones. We reached the entrance to an alley and I steered us into it. We were blessedly alone.
'Try again,' I urged, and closed my eyes.
Much better! If you don't mind mothballs, the place was perfect.
It had been a manor house and was now a museum, closed for repairs till October. Judging from the dusty floors, no one had been here for some time.
Brett landed me squarely on the manor's biggest bed, which was dressed for visuals. However, it was easy-peasy to go through the back rooms, where lots of stuff never saw the light of day. In no time, I had a Princess-and-the-Pea bed without the pea, and I didn't even have to pinch myself to know that this was real. After I made the bed up, I remembered to check with Brett that he didn't want it. No, he didn't he said. There was another small bed in the room, and I had thought that would be his answer.
And lo! Medieval luxury with modern convenience. Tucked away beside the office, a lovely little shower and toilet, towels and lily-of-the-valley soap.
Although I was starving, the shower beckoned more.
Ahhhh. The waterfall shower pounded me till I was limp as a noodle. The fairy-tale bed beckoned.
'I'll just have a little nap,' I announced, climbed up into my cuddly tower, and passed out.
~
'Wakey, wakey!'
Brett's voice broke through a delicious dream. I was swaying down the catwalk in my lilac-sprigged trained skirt, my hips rolling as if my pelvic joints were oiled, my movements made more fluid by the gaze of a thousand eyes.
The interruption was unwelcome.
'My dear,' Brett's voice insisted. 'Ten minutes to meeting with your Kevin.'
'Shit!' I panicked. I was trapped in featherbedding. The more I struggled to get out of it, the deeper I sunk.
'Well then. If you're worried, we'll rush.' A hand clamped hard over my forehead.
I felt an elevator's pull, and then I was landed horizontally, with only a small bump of my head, on cobbles.
'You can open your eyes now,' he said, and as I did so, he added, 'You'd better!'
He pulled me up, and just as I was getting to my feet, he pushed me away from him so hard that I fell against the kerb and tore a gash in my hand. Just behind me, a car sped past.
I looked around and saw Brett, running a hand over his head. 'You used to be able hear horses coming!'
Nothing like having a guide from another eon.
At least he knew the way to the clock tower.
The crowd was so thick with camera-toting tourists, pickpockets and trinket sellers, that I wondered how Kevin would find us. It was a brilliant place for us to meet, as no one would notice us. If no one noticed Brett, that is.
Brett liked the clock, I was surprised to see. He said at one point when my attention waned at the saints and Death procession, 'Wait for the rooster.'
Indeed, the clock on the tower was just a kitschy cuckoo timepiece, until the rooster crowed.
The show ended, and the crowd broke up. 'How did you know about the rooster?' I asked.
Brett puffed out his chest, rubbed his nails against his shirt and smiled, a set of movements I had only seen in vintage movies.
Had he made a deal with the maker, I wondered, till I remembered the angry parrot. I had left it in the airport in Sydney.
I bit the back of my hand in a rush of anger at myself, and loss.
~
'Where's your Kevin?'
It was now half past noon.
We waited for another hour, and then wandered away. International flights!
Anyway, I
had
to eat. I led us by smell to a place where we shared a table with two men in Lederhosen. I pointed to what they were having, and soon I was happily bogging in. It was fatty as hell, but god, it was good. A huge sausage thick as a shearer's arm. I didn't bother with the rye bread or sauerkraut, and only sipped the beer. It was meat I wanted, and a lot of it.
Brett wasn't peckish, he said, but was happy to watch me.
He did watch, annoyingly so.
'What's up?' My mouth was full, but he could understand.
'Isn't that what you call "red meat"?'
'Mm. Wadaboudit?'
'You didn't used to eat meat.'
'No. I was a vegetarian.'
'But you ate squids and octopuses almost every day.'
When would he ever learn the fine points? I put down my fork, but cold sausage congeals. He would have to live with the mystery. Instead of trying to explain, I shrugged. He could understand that.
We walked back to our hideaway. Even though it was such a short distance and I'd slept a whole day already, I was dragging my feet by the time we got back, so went straight to bed.
The next morning, from the sounds on the street, I had slept late. Fine. I didn't want to get up.
Brett was settled as comfortably as a 1950s man-'o-the-house in a Lazy-Boy ad, but Brett was in a pre-ergonomic chair (one of those hardwood-jobbies where a griffin pokes it beak into your bum). He was reading a paperback.
'Don't you want to go out sightseeing till noon?' he asked.
Nice of him to think of what I would like to do, but I shook my head. It was such a silly reason, but it was a reason. I pulled up the covers more around my face. My stale clothes were on the floor beside the bed.
'It's elemental!' Brett exclaimed. 'Would you like to get some clothing? Is that it? And a toothbrush, and...'
How humanly thoughtful of him.
I craved having clean clothes again. And I craved ... Oh, what was the use.
What a wuss
I yelled at myself, but I didn't want to listen.
Brett flew up to my bed and hovered beside me. 'You are not ugly, you know.'