Country Jaunt

We were on a country jaunt, he and I. Despite our mantra that we were not dictated by work, an early meeting in three days meant that we were now traveling in separate cars. But that was a lifetime away as we set off together, a cavalcade that took us from a stagnating home life that had grown soupy with routines. As we drove away, our blinkers synchronised like beacons guiding us towards the open seas.

Two days by the ocean, Port Fairy, whose bustle of commerce in the past, of bygone industries such as whaling had given way to a sleepiness, a haven for weekenders who ventured further along the Great Ocean Road, passed the beach houses grown out of cliff faces and the surf shops with bikinis dangling outside to entice us with wishful thoughts. Passed the various landscapes that the seas had carved so long ago that reminded us of ourselves and our creations, these Apostles and Bridges.

As usual, to make good time, we sped inland along a road not as picturesque nor as Great as its coastal counterpart. It suited our plans well, we were on a tight schedule that did not need the added risk of momentary distraction by the deep blue and plunges into the ocean. Our goal was the destination, of checking in and catching an afternoon stroll by the inlet before meal time. We could savour the journey another time.

As we drove further away from the start-stop of give way signs, traffic lights and roundabouts, we were sometimes caught between transitions, from red to green, the area between his zealous driving and my cautious manoeuvres. The interruption of our convoy would have us waiting on either side of an intersection like a force field that we, as city dwellers had gotten used to, but still tried to circumvent at any opportunity. We feigned road rage for having been left behind by the other, silent shaking of angry looking fists, held out to be seen through back windows, while our profiles silhouetted our laughter. During the first hour of our drive across dried and crunchy fields dotted with cows or sheep, we were connected by the little waves of our steering hands and our rear view smiles. Sometimes I would see him ahead, tapping the steering wheel in time to an unknown song that I would try to find on my own radio.

Later on, when we turned off the highway for a break, he said he wasn't listening to music but to an animated talk back caller who thought it was romantic to give his wife what she wanted for her birthday, namely a Miele dishwasher. Did he echo agreement with his tapping? Why not, he had given me a portable printer for my laptop last year. I was delighted by it, a new toy that stretched the boundaries of our life together. On business trips I used to print out his long emails to me and read them in bed each night, silent dialogues of intimacies, duly foot noted with news of plumbing problems and pets.

At the rest stops, we walked with our hands scrunched full of Minties wrappers to the nearby rubbish bin. He grabbed another handful of the sweets from his car and I tilted my hip out as if willing a tummy scratch and he would empty the lollies into my coat pocket, reaching in to tickle my side. When we were new friends in university, he was afraid for any sort of contact between us, cautious in case a yet undiscovered boyfriend should suddenly appear. Later, after consecutive invitations and just as many acceptances, I backhanded his arm, laughing at some atrocious joke he had told and he pulled back, startled by the invisible membrane that had suddenly been pierced and left open, the start of connections built over the past fifteen years.

Now as we stood by the deserted stop, lonely with a dingy old toilet block we dare not use and a gloomy glimpse of the highway, we eagerly got back into our cars and glanced at our laptops, the sole passenger sitting obediently beside us that reminded us suddenly of the things we had tied ourselves to, despite this country jaunt.

As we stretched in our seats and pulled back into the highway, we saw a cow giving birth close to the boundary fence of her master’s property. She sat on her side, her eyes glancing between her impending new arrival and a bunch of tourists who had stopped their rental van by the side of the road to watch. One man was watching through the flat screen of his video camera, moving in for different close ups of the cow’s hind quarters as if he was directing the progression of nature. Buoyed by such as scene as proof that we were closer to There than any place else, the car in front sped passed the side show while I slowed just enough to see a raised tail and the first appearance her calf, mimicked on the screen of the video.I sped up to catch the diminishing car when my phone rang. You OK? Why’d you slow down? he asked as if we were in the middle of chatting. A cow was giving birth, I answered. Oh, he replied and cleared his throat, his infuriating way of saying he wanted no more of the conversation and so I got off the phone quickly.

We said early on that we did not want children, said so steadfastly as to convince us that such a decision could be made so many years in advance. We had grappled with selfishness on both sides of the argument, were we too self centred or would we just be having children to temper some push, slowly nurtured by the steady appearance of nieces and nephews in recent years? Could we give up the freedom of our twenties for a lifetime growing someone that we had brewed together? Nonsense, so superficial, we don’t deserve to be parents, brewing children as if it was beer. In the end, our own self involvement moved ahead naturally as the runaway contender to how our lives would be.

But now things were catching up with us, even as we sped down the highway, the occasional country jaunts born from desire and intimacy, coming so close to fulfilling my change of heart in terms of having children, but stopped at the last minute by a daily pill.

You watched me pop the packet of pills, a familiar daily sound amidst the breakfast noises of newspapers and radio.
What if I stop taking this pill, I asked.
Do you know what you are saying, you said, putting down your newspaper and toast, your hands somehow looking too free and menacing.
Would it be so bad to have children?
You’re only saying that because your sister is pregnant. It’s a phase.
Of course it’s a phase. If we let it pass it’ll be too late. Don’t you want to have kids?
No, I don’t. You cleared your throat and we stared at each other. The noise from the radio came back and I sat down with your discarded parts of the newspaper. Slowly and with purpose I swallowed the pill.
You passed me a piece of your toast, buttered and spread with jam and got up to get us more coffee. You squeezed my arm and I began to glow in our routine, layers of intimacies that were still too intoxicating to give up.

The novelty of waving at each other every few minutes waned. I slid in a CD, one that he did not like, telling me once that the vocals were too whispery, never kicking in to any felt rhythm. Of the differences that sometimes appeared to strain our relationship, this was never one of them but now I used it to fuel my anger. Small disagreements about the concerts we had attended over the years now blew up as selfishness on his part. Even this trip had been meticulously planned to his notions of a relaxing weekend.

I shifted in my seat, switching on the cruise control for a long stretch of Straight-Ahead and yawned, suddenly wishing there was someone else to drive so that I could gaze at the passing landscape that looked like a rolling backdrop from an old Western movie, replicated every few minutes, fence posts, wire fencing, large gums, dead tree. This song was a favourite of a boy I once knew and always reminded me of a time when summer reigned high in the sky and he and I dashed into the sea together, and under the cover of the rolling surf, search out the parts of our body that triggered the gasp reflex, melting towards something that we wanted but were not ready for.

It was not serious, what we did on the beach or declared to one another, one unknown teenager amongst so many others that summer. So far from home, we boasted about our dreams and inflated our lives, so far from truths that would have been revealed as lies at every familiar street corner, with every passing neighbour or relative had we lived in the same city. I was relieved when summer ended and I waved you east, across the border to your home as I moved west, stretching our promises to write so far that they snapped by the time the leaves turned amber and dropped. Why do I think of you now? Was it because the good times did not last long enough to wane?

A dead tree jutted out like a sun bleached bone of some prehistoric animal. Driftwood of the ancients, smooth to the touch and as I peered at the hollows and broken limbs, imaging the final crack of falling branches, the familiar car in front slowed. My car blinker found his and here we were, clicking and flashing by the side of the road. Along a sliver of horizon I glimpsed the ocean, peaked with choppy foam that told us we were close to our weekend away and I wondered at this sudden stop as I gazed at the sea grasses that lay flat from the wind. I gripped the steering wheel and turned everything off and waited as he lurched out of the car and ran for the dead tree, barely making it behind the large trunk before vomiting in a violent, heaving torrent. I sat still, waiting for him to emerge but I heard another wave of keeling over. My first thought, rapid and fleeting but vivid in its inappropriateness was to dash away my need to rush over immediately, that he was fine, that judging by the sounds, whatever disagreeable meal he ate was well and truly out of his system. All the excuses that made no sense, inaction that left no room for explanations or apologies later.

When he suddenly looked up towards me, I quickly grabbed some tissues and the water bottle and raced towards him. It was windy and my hair whipped up and tugged me inland, ready to tear the tissues from my fists. He was oozy and sweaty when I arrived at the tree. Have a good look? he asked as I handed him the tissues and offered the water. The acidic odour wafted, mingling with the country side smell of dry grass, highway exhaust and ocean. He looked pale and clammy, like someone looking for his sea legs and when I asked whether he was ok, he took a swig of the water and leaned against the dead tree. He inhaled, heaving in the air as if telling his body that things were alright again. His body obeyed, silent adjustments after a good vomit and plenty of fresh air as he turned his head towards the sea air, clearing his senses of recent events and returning his colour from an alarming green to a sensible shade of pink. You didn’t think I needed help? he asked. Well? his silence asked.

I wondered at this unexpected adjunct to our usual trips, watching him by the dead tree. This need to race away to a distant hotel room as a means to tell each other that we still mattered, meanwhile carrying with us pieces of our lives that we liked the least to hide the differences between us. Grumbling at the cords and adapters and papers surrounding our respective laptops as if we had no choice.

Did we ever savour the journey, opt for a leisurely drive closer to home as we always vowed for next time? This was a wish, a hope joining the two of us so that we could say we still had a future. The wind suddenly shifted, swirling momentarily towards the sea as if taking with it the two parts of our lives that had separated during our drive, setting them adrift amongst the waves to finally carry them in different directions.

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A draft of a short story that has been kicking around on various computers since 2005. Not actually based on any real life experience, the idea of the disintegration of a relationship during a road trip seemed interesting at the time.