It's Not You It's Me (15 page)

The show over, we both look around us. Beside us, in front of us, behind us, people are sinking litres of beer at an alarming pace.

‘You want to stay?’ Jas asks.

I shake my head. ‘No, but I’ve got to go to the bathroom first. It’s all too much excitement for me.’

Jas nods. ‘I’ll wait here.’

I start off in the direction of the ladies’, figuring out fairly fast that where Oktoberfest is concerned being vertically challenged is a pain. All I can see is the people directly around me. Finally I reach the hallway that leads to the bathrooms and sigh a sigh of relief. Still, even the hallway is crowded, and I have to pick my way through the people lining each of the walls to get to the bathroom.

‘Hey.’ I whip around halfway down the hall as I feel a distinct pinch on my behind. ‘Ow! Hey!’ There’s another one. And another. I turn, first to my right, then to my left. ‘Ow! Stop that! Ow!’ The guys on either side of me lean in closer. ‘Ow!’ I slap one.
‘Cut that out!’
Slap. Slap.

The Italians. I remember Shane’s words.

‘Don’t touch me,’ I warn one of the guys on my left as I see his arm dart forward. ‘I mean it! Ow! I said I
mean
it!’ Staring me right in the eye, he pinches a nasty little pinch that I just know will bruise. The others jeer and wave at his amazing sexual prowess. I go to turn again so I can leg it out of here, the way I came, but before I can…someone picks me up from behind.

‘Right. That’s it!’ I yell, and the Italians cheer and wave madly. I can’t see who the guy is, but I reach back and slap him on the neck. Then, with all my might, I kick him in his right shin with my heel.

‘Hey!’ he says with perfect Australian English.

‘Jas?’

‘Yes, Jas. Stop kicking me!’

‘Sorry,’ I say, bouncing up and down as Jas whisks me awkwardly through the Hofbräu crowd. As we run past, the crowd claps and wolf whistles. It isn’t until we’re outside the tent that he puts me back down again.

I wait for the ground to settle beneath my feet, my body feeling as if it’s just been through a washing machine. On the long cycle. After a while, my mouth starts moving up and down, but I’m unable to say anything so I give myself a minute and try again. ‘What are you…?’ I start laughing when my voice comes back to me. I can’t complete my sentence. I laugh harder and harder until I stop breathing, croak like a frog, and slowly collapse down to take a seat beside the tent.

Jas watches me as I crumple. ‘What’s so funny?’

Now I really laugh. I only manage to stop long enough to say the word ‘bodyguard’.

‘What?’

I don’t answer. Can’t answer. I’m crying now, gulping for air, big, fat tears running down my face. ‘Just like Kevin
Costner in
The Bodyguard.
That scene in the nightclub.’ I wipe my face with one hand. It’s a struggle to get the few words out and I’m not sure if Jas understands. I’m talking about the scene from the movie
The Bodyguard.
Where Kevin Costner, playing the bodyguard, picks up Whitney Houston, playing a world-famous singer, when she gets into a spot of trouble with her fans in a nightclub. He ends up carrying her to safety and being the hero of the day. ‘Where’s my limo, hey?’ I say, and crack up all over again. I try to get up, fail, and sit back down. ‘It’s a good thing I don’t have a sister, that’s all I can say.’

Jas shakes his head. ‘You should be grateful!’ he tells me, but then starts laughing himself.

I hoot at this, and finally manage to crawl up into a standing position again. ‘The day I can’t stop some Italian who’s shorter than me pinching my butt, I’ll tell you about it,’ I say.

‘Fine.’

‘Fine!’ I repeat back at him. I laugh again and link an arm around Jas’s. ‘Come on, you big dag. I’ll go later.’

‘Come on where?’

Good point, I think. I tug on Jas’s elbow then, and grin. ‘Let’s do something completely stupid.’

‘I thought we just did, according to you.’

I roll my eyes. ‘Sour puss.’

‘Something stupid it is, then. Like what?’

‘I don’t know! Come
on.
Let’s live a little.
Do
something for once.’

‘OK. OK! You pick.’

I stop tugging for a second and glance around me. ‘Um…’ Still looking, I find my ‘something’ then, and my eyes widen accordingly. ‘All right! Wait here.’ I drop Jas’s arm and run over to the nearby stall.

I come back with two big gingerbread hearts on some ribbon. ‘Bend down,’ I order, and Jas bends down. I put one of them—the one with the blue ribbon—around his neck. He pulls it out with one hand so he can inspect it as he stands upright again.

‘Yeah. Blue ribbon. That’s masculine. No one’ll beat me up for having an iced gingerbread heart around my neck now. What does it say?’ He squints as he tries to read the writing upside down
and
in German.

‘It says “Kiss me”.’

Jas makes a face. ‘Now I really will get beaten up. Probably twice over. All the men because I look like a dickhead, and then all the homophobes’ll line up for a second go.’

I don’t say anything, but busy myself adjusting my own gingerbread heart.

‘Thanks. Nice to know you care,’ he adds.

‘What? Oh, no one’s going to beat you up,’ I say, with a wave of one hand. ‘Right. Next stupid thing. Let’s go.’

‘That wasn’t it?’ Jas protests meekly, but I’ve already grabbed his arm again and am pushing through the crowds. ‘This is so corny.’ He shakes his head. ‘You’ll be making me go into the House of Horrors next.’

‘Where?’ I whip around. ‘Where’s the House of Horrors?’ I love those things. But then I spot something even better. ‘Ooohhh. No, I’m not. I’m not going to make you go into the House of Horrors, but I
am
going to make you go in there.’

I pay for us to go into the sideshow and we’re both ushered into a little amphitheatre and seated. Even though it’s dim inside, it doesn’t take Jas long to work out just what kind of sideshow I’ve dragged him into. It’s a circus. But not any kind of circus. There certainly aren’t any lions or elephants here. The main ring is more like a tiny stage, and
everything on it—a soccer field, a country village—is made on a miniature scale. And I’ve read and heard about these things, but I never thought they were real…

It’s a flea circus.

An actual, real, live flea circus.

Speaking of fleas, I notice then that we’re only sitting a metre or so away from the ring itself. I start to frown then. I’ve heard something else as well—don’t fleas jump? Like, really, really long distances? Kilometres in flea lengths, even? Or am I just being stupid—maybe the fleas aren’t even real? You know—like at flea markets? I look over at Jas.

‘Freakshow,’ he whispers.

‘That’s quite a comment, coming from you, Mr Z,’ I reply.

Jas and I wait for the other few seats to fill up and they do—far more quickly than you’d expect. The ringmaster—fleamaster?—a woman, comes over after a bit and talks to us to fill in the time.

‘So, how does this all work?’ I ask her. A good generic, I’m-not-an-idiot sort of question.

‘It is a family secret,’ she says, waggling her finger at me.

I check it for fleas. Nothing. The fleamaster, thank God, is clean.

‘You must be pretty busy,’ I continue. ‘Don’t fleas live only a couple days, or weeks, or something?’

The fleamaster shakes her head at that. ‘This is one of the biggest misconceptions about fleas.’

I try not to laugh when she says that. People have misconceptions about fleas? I thought it was simple. They live on animals, they bite, they suck blood. Where do the misconceptions fit in? I start to wonder if there are things about fleas I just haven’t heard about. Maybe there are fleas who’ve gone on to have long and illustrious careers singing opera? In banking? Diplomacy?

She continues. ‘It takes six months or so before they are ready to be trained, then around three months to train them. For three months after that they perform in the circus.’

‘Then what? You put them out to pasture on the back of a nice hairy dog as part of their retirement plan?’ I joke.

She turns and stares me down. ‘No. Then they die.’

Right. OK.

With the amphitheatre full now, the fleamaster leaves to begin the show.

And what a show it is. By the end I am a flea-believer, because I see it all. Fleas playing soccer. Fleas riding a train. Fleas pulling in a chariot race. They must be the happiest little fleas on earth, those fleas.

‘Well,’ I say when Jas and I are back outside again. ‘I, for one, will never flea-bomb the house again. Think of the work they could be doing for me! Cleaning, ironing, doing the dishes. I’ve been mad, killing them off all these years.’

Jas laughs. ‘Could’ve saved a packet giving up our cars and being pulled around in little chariots.’

‘We’ve been fools,’ I groan. ‘Fools.’

We turn at exactly the same time.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ we say in unison.

And I couldn’t agree with either of us more.

I
n the same way Jas had run me out of the Hofbräu tent, we run again now. Wildly, arms flailing, not caring who sees. We keep right on running—out of the festival grounds, past one street, and another, and another—until we’re completely breathless. It’s only when we can run no further that we stop and lean up against a brick wall. I giggle, and a middle-aged lady wearing fur gives me a look.

‘Well, hello,’ Jas says, smiling at her sassily. She huffs and walks off.

We collapse into laughter once more.

‘Man, I’ve had it,’ Jas groans.

I’m still breathing so hard I can’t reply. Instead, I slide down the wall and sit on the footpath. When I recover a little, I open up my backpack that’s been resting in front of me and search around. There it is. I pull out the guidebook.

‘Any ideas on what you want to do?’

‘I made a few notes. What about you? Anything you really want to see?’ I open up the inside front cover, where
I’ve jotted down the sights that I thought I’d be interested in. I start to read them. ‘Oh,’ I say, before Jas has a chance to answer my question.

‘What?’

‘I’ve just remembered. There
is
something I want to do.’

‘What’s that?’

‘There’s a piece of Mum’s sculpture in an art gallery here. I thought I’d go take a look.’ I leaf through the pages to find the location map for the gallery. ‘Here.’ I pass the book to Jas.

‘Brilliant! That’s not far from here.’

We grab a sandwich and a hot chocolate each before we start for the art gallery. It’s only a few streets away from the warm coffee shop we’ve just eaten in, but as we walk over I’m grateful I took a second hot chocolate with me on the way. It’s freezing out, and I warm my hands around the cup as we go, jacket done up and scarf wrapped around my neck.

‘Well, this is it,’ I say to Jas as I throw my cup into a bin at the bottom of the gallery steps.

‘Yep,’ he replies as we start the short climb.

It’s as we reach the top that I realise this doesn’t feel right. I turn and look down the steps, then back up at the gallery, then at Jas. ‘Um…’ I say.

‘What is it?’ He stops.

‘I feel really awful, but would you mind if I went in and saw it alone?’

Jas shakes his head. ‘Course not. I understand.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

Despite Jas’s words, I still pause.

‘I mean it. Here—give me the guidebook and I’ll have a read. There’s some seats inside the entry there.’

I look. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Go!’

‘OK, but only if you pick out something for us to do tomorrow. Something special. Your choice.’

‘Done deal.’ Jas shakes my hand.

We enter the building together and I leave Jas sitting on the wooden seats. When he’s settled, I keep going. Right up to the man at the information desk inside the next set of doors.

‘Hi,’ I say.

He grunts, not moving his eyes from the counter. ‘The Rubens is down the first hall on your right, turn left, third painting on the left of the doorway.’

My eyes widen. ‘That’s, um, great, but I don’t want to see the Rubens.’

He looks up now.

‘I want to see the Notting.’

‘The Notting?’

‘Yes.’ I nod. ‘It’s a sandstone sculpture.’

‘Oh, the…’ The guy makes a sweeping gesture over his stomach.

I nod again.

He gets up now, and asks me to follow him. We walk down several rooms, past more paintings than I can count. I don’t look at any of them. I’m focused now—focused on getting there. As we keep walking I realise my breathing is getting more and more shallow. That my hands and forehead are clammy and hot. I take a deep breath as we turn a corner…

And then I exhale.

Because suddenly there it is. The guy leaves me with a murmur and I stand and stare from way across the room at the spotlit piece. It’s a woman. A pregnant woman—sitting on the floor, her legs outstretched and one hand behind
her, holding her up. Her other hand rests on her smooth, round belly. I walk over slowly, slowly, step by step, closer and closer, until I’m standing right in front of her, only the small white wooden ridge the piece is mounted on separating us.

My hands itch to reach out and stroke the ball of her stomach in front of me, but as I stretch my arm out I become aware that I’m in an art gallery and I can’t. I shouldn’t. The itching, however, doesn’t stop, and I decide soon enough that I don’t care if they throw me out. I reach forward a second time and run a hand over and around the mound. It’s so smooth. I extend my other hand and run it over at the same time. I keep my hands on the piece until I feel I’m done. Then I step back a pace or two and sit down on the floor.

And I must sit there for ages, because when someone’s hand is placed on my shoulder from behind I startle as if I’ve just been woken up.

‘Sorry. You OK?’ Jas asks, sitting down beside me.

I nod.

‘Want me to go? You want some more time?’

‘Stay.’

Jas’s eyes move to the sculpture and I hear him exhale. Just as I did before. ‘It’s really beautiful, Charlie.’

I nod again. But then, with Jas’s interruption, everything I’ve been feeling since the moment I first walked into this room weighs down upon me and the words spill out, falling over each other as I speak too quickly. ‘Why didn’t she
tell
me anything?’

As I tear my eyes from the woman and stare at the floor I fully expect that I’ll have to explain my words to Jas.

But I don’t. Jas gets what I mean immediately. ‘She probably thought she had all the time in the world, Charlie.’

Well, she didn’t, I think, the ridges gathering on my forehead. It takes me a few minutes of silence to shake some of the anger away so I can speak again. ‘It’s just so unfair.’

‘It is unfair,’ Jas agrees.

I can’t stay angry for long, and now I sigh. ‘It’s just that I’ve spent the last few years floundering and she never prepared me for that. She never showed me things could be hard. Everything was so…easy for her.’

Jas turns away from the sculpture. ‘You know that’s not true.’

‘Isn’t it?’ I snort.

‘No. You know how hard she worked to get the recognition she did. You know better than anybody how tough the tough times really were.’

I think back to before the house in Byron Bay, to some of the tiny one-bedroom apartments we lived in. Then there was the dilapidated old wooden house we shared with another family—Mum having to work on her art at the community centre, relying on grants to get by. I know Jas is right, but somehow, through my teenager’s eyes, the past is blurred and stained. ‘But why didn’t she show
me
how to do that?’ I hit the floor with one hand. ‘And why wasn’t she one of those proper mothers?’

‘Proper mothers?’ When I meet Jas’s eyes he doesn’t look impressed.

‘We never…you know—clicked like that. Like mother and daughter. I used to see other girls my age with their mothers. Shopping, their arms around each other. Going to the movies. Having cake and coffee. We weren’t like that. We argued. Constantly. About anything! We always got on each other’s nerves and…’

Jas laughs.

‘What?’

‘Charlie, take it from me. Your mother loved you like nothing I’ve ever seen. And you felt the same way about her. You still do. Don’t you know what the problem was?’

I stare at him in silence.

‘You’re made from exactly the same mould.’

‘Me?’ I say, shocked. ‘And Mum? Us?’

He laughs again. ‘Yes, you and your mum. Your sculpture. Your mannerisms. You even look more and more like her each day.’

I glance down at myself, unconvinced. Do I? I frown. ‘Then why don’t I feel like that? Why don’t I feel like I know how to do what she did? How to make everything work out in the end?’ My voice sounds shrill and bounces off the too-white walls until there’s silence again.

Jas looks at me hard. ‘You know how.’

Our eyes lock; I go to shake my head. But at the last moment something holds me back from doing it—the thought that maybe, just maybe, he’s right. Maybe underneath all my worry and fretting I
do
know how. Maybe I do know how to push myself through to the end of these last two years and close the door behind me. Maybe I do know how to move on with my life.

And maybe I even have the strength to do both. Starting now.

I stand up quickly, decisively, and go over to my mother’s work. This time I stroke the piece’s head. ‘Right—um. OK, then. I think…I think I’m going to do this,’ I say, running my hand over her hair. ‘I think I can…no, I
know
I can do it.’

Jas stands up as well. ‘Do what?’ he asks as he comes over.

I bite my lip for a second before I turn my head to meet his gaze. ‘I’ve got half a piece at home. Part of a pair Mum
was working on before she died.
Sisters
, it’s called. I want to finish it. For Annie and Daisy. And me. And Mum. I’ve sort of been thinking about it for a while now.’

‘But…’ Jas starts.

‘I know.’ I nod. ‘I know it’s not what I do. But maybe…maybe it could be. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. It’d take time, I know. So, um, what do you think?’

His mouth hangs open.

‘I can, you know. Really I can.’ I try with all my heart to convince him, realising I’ve already more than convinced myself.

Finally Jas’s mouth closes. But he doesn’t say anything. Instead he takes a step over, so he’s standing right in front of me. He cups my face in his hands and bends down to kiss me on the forehead before he gives me a hug. ‘I know you can, too,’ he says. ‘I’ve known all along. I’m just surprised it took you so long to work it out.’

And then, standing there in the middle of the art gallery, he lets me cry all over that old suede jacket.

Jas and I walk back to the hotel in silence. I think I’m in shock. I simply can’t believe that after all the years I’ve spent trying not to be compared to my mother, making sure that my work was so abstract and at the opposite end of the spectrum to hers, I’m now going to turn around and start where she started. Right at the beginning.

I just wish she was here to see it all.

I know it’s the right thing to do. I’ve learnt a lot over the last few years, but the main thing I’ve been shown is that I don’t need to care what other people think any more. From now on if I want to do something, I’m damn well going to do it and not let anyone or anything stand in my way.

‘You OK?’ Jas must see the workings of my brain written all over my blotchy, tear-stained face.

‘Yep. Great.’

He swipes his card and opens the door to our room, letting me in first.

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome. Now, take a seat.’

I pause. ‘Take a seat?’

‘On the bed. Got something for you.’

I look up in surprise. ‘For me?’ I say, sitting down.

Jas hands me a plastic bag. One of the bags from his souvenir shopping this morning. ‘Here you go—knock yourself out.’

‘How’d you know I’d need cheering up?’ I take the bag from him.

‘I know everything, remember?’

‘Sorry, I forgot for a second there…’ I empty out the bag’s tissue-paper-wrapped contents. After only a few rips, I recognise what’s inside. I laugh as I hold it up. ‘Oh, it’s too cute!’ I stand up, holding it out in front of me.

It’s a dirndl. One of the Bavarian dresses. Complete with the little white shirt that goes underneath. ‘Jas!’ I scold, but he just laughs. Then, ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I love it.’

Jas sits down on his bed. ‘Know what the guy at the shop said?’

‘What?’ I’m holding the dress up to myself now, in front of the full-length mirror that’s on the back of the bathroom door.

‘You’ll love this. That I should tell you to wear the shirt low. So everyone can have a good look at the wood in front of the cottage.’

‘“The wood in front of the cottage…”’ I repeat the phrase slowly, then whip around as realisation hits. ‘Charming!’

‘Don’t think the wood’s supposed to be spilling out of the top, like some of the waitresses seem to think is the go this year, but a bit wouldn’t hurt, I guess.’

I glance down for a second. ‘I don’t think the landslide effect’s going to be much of a problem for me.’

‘Ah, come on. You must be a 10C. That’s not so bad.’

Oh, my God. I
am
a 10C. I cross my arms over my chest.

Jas laughs. ‘Sorry.’

I eye him. ‘Pretty good guess. Are you sure you haven’t been partaking of the Spawn smorgasbord?’

‘Funny. Go on—try it on.’

I hesitate, but then head for the bathroom, emerging dirndled a few minutes later. I do a twirl in the doorway. ‘So, what do you think?’

Jas gives me a once-over, taking in the Heidi look. ‘Definitely. Party must-have. Frock of the season.’

‘But what about you?’ I say then. ‘You should’ve got yourself some of those dinky leather pants.’

This makes Jas laugh. ‘Leather pants? You’ve got to be joking. I’ve got enough leather pants to last me a lifetime. Two lifetimes, in fact.’

‘Mmmm, but you’re living for two, remember?’

There’s silence for a moment, which makes me look up from inspecting the embroidered hem of my dress.

Jas’s eyes are focused on his mobile phone on the bedside table. It’s still switched off.

‘Jas?’ I say.

‘Huh? Yeah. Right. Living for two.’ He laughs. But it doesn’t sound quite right.

I shouldn’t have made him think about work again, I chastise myself. I do another twirl. ‘Hey, how about the wood in front of the cottage?’ I only realise what I’m actually asking as the words come out of my mouth. I stop twirling to watch
Jas’s eyes travel up my dirndl and finally come to rest on my chest.

Finally, he grins. ‘Man, I love it when you dress up for me.’