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| summer plenty |
Adelaide
is famous for its summer heatwaves, days on end of temperatures over 35 degrees
Celsius (95o Fahrenheit). Just yesterday the mercury hit 44oC
(111F), a real scorcher. Our forecast was looking seriously hot for the next
week, and I’m not sorry it’s been downgraded a little.
One
of the delights of living in the Adelaide Hills is the gully breezes most hot
summer nights, giving us overnight temperatures more comfortable than on the
plains. But although our nights are mostly cool enough at the moment, I am
puzzled by the winds – changing direction frequently, and very gusty all day and night,
as if we were spinning around a gyrating compass. Unpredictability in
unpredictable ways; all out of kilter. No matter how good we are at forecasting
and explaining, the elements play with us and we just have to take it as it
comes!
This post’s creative piece is a drama written to
an ending quoted from DH Lawrence’s Sons
and Lovers. Not having read the novel, I have no idea if my story has
anything in common with the original! Sometimes it’s freeing not to know (but
maybe now I’ll take a peek at Wikipedia!)
City Lights
'Come on, Sven,' Lana called impatiently.
Sven concentrated
on following the clattering of Lana's ridiculous heels down the rough steps. He
hadn't yet worked out how she managed to wander up and down the back streets
and outskirts of the city without ever turning an ankle.
She
entered the poorly lit bar without waiting for him. Sven stood in the doorway,
adjusting his eyes to the darkness and trying to assess the situation. He felt
a familiar twinge of resentment at the role of bodyguard that seemed to define
his relationship with her these days.
Lana lit
the darkness, her white blonde hair and long white satin evening dress drawing
what little light the flickering lamps emitted, giving her an aura. As he drew
closer to her, weaving his way between the patrons who deferred to his height
and Western visage, he was reminded of a moth. No matter what crazy places she
insisted on taking them, Sven found her achingly irresistable. He took up his
place at her side, where she put a hand of ownership on his arm. Her slender
white fingers showed no sign of the tension he could sense in her, the thrill
of anticipation, the drive to extract every ounce of juice out of her
unorthodox adventures, to ride the wave of risk that threatened to carry her
too far only to be brought short at the last moment, leaving her satisfied and
him weary. So weary.
'Ah,
Miss Raffen, you honour us with visit.' An old Chinese man bowed obsequiously to
her. He turned to a young man – a boy, really – behind the bar, and snapped,
'Give her a drink.'
Sven
coughed slightly and addressed the boy. 'And I'll have a brandy on the rocks.'
Another evening spent as a spectator to Lana's escapades
left Sven wondering what had happened to the beautiful and talented woman he'd
fallen in love with. Now she stretched the boundaries in all directions as if
the wealth and status of her life as a senior diplomat's daughter was a cage
she sought to escape. Sven's ambitious dreams for his promising education
consultancy firm were dwindling as rapidly as Lana's reputation.
Lana was sure she knew the way to a friend's
house nearby. After all, she'd lived in Hong Kong
most of her life. After several dead ends, Sven was starting to feel nervous. He was sure
he'd heard footsteps behind them.
Lana was complaining. 'You're no fun any more,
Sven.You used to join in but now you just watch me with disapproval. You're
getting as dull and boring as the rest of the pack. But Sandy will know how to live it up tonight.
She's a fun girl, that one.'
Oh my
god, thought Sven. Sandy,
of all people. Yes, of course she'd want to stay with that freak. It was
probably Sandy who'd put Lana onto the old man. He'd plyed her with drink, set
up the poker game that used every last dollar Sven had had on him, and given
her a stamp-sized piece of paper. Lana's ticket to fun for the rest of the
night.
At that
moment Sven's fears were realised. Three men, the old man's muscle men, pushed
Sven to one side, and surrounded Lana,.
'Sven,
do something, for god's sake,' Lana said, laughing nervously. She looked like a
queen whose courtiers had suddenly turned hostile and even now she couldn't
quite believe it. A smile, a look of camaraderie, but the muscle men paid no
attention. They were deliberately steering her, without touching her, to a
darker corner.
Sven
looked around for a weapon. He picked up a rust-ragged steel pipe in one hand
and a broken brick in the other. He launched the brick at one head, and swung
the pipe at another. The posse broke into fast motion. The brick missed, flying
between the aimed-for head and Lana's shoulder, dropping into the third man
just as he made a grab for her. It stopped him for a moment. The pipe struck,
and one man was down. The others became more frenzied. The man hit by the brick
was intent on dragging Lana around the corner, while the one the brick had
missed was lunging at Sven.
He
called out Lana's name, and having activated his voice, strings of oaths
followed as he dodged and punched his attacker. He received more than he gave
and, with the wind knocked out of him, he stopped cursing. Finding himself on
the ground, his head feeling split by the fall and a karate fiend launching
itself at him, Sven was puzzled to find the world suddenly flooded with light.
His attacker twisted away and disappeared into the dark.
Sven
pushed himself up on an elbow, shading his eyes to see where Lana was before
making the monumental effort to stand up. He was sure his head weighed three
times what it had, pounding like war drums. He staggered, but still he couldn't
see Lana. He couldn't see anything, and pondered the irony that more light was
less helpful.
'I'm all
right, Sven. Sandy
saved the day.' Incredibly, Lana laughed, as if the events of the previous
minutes were simply the highlight of an entertaining evening. 'See, I was
right. She does live round here. You'd better come in and get cleaned up.'
Sandy took up the
invitation with a brusque, 'You look like someone chewed you good and proper.'
Nevertheless she took Sven inside her two-roomed shanty and found some water
and a cloth to clean him up with. She pushed him into a chair and gave him a
cracked glass. 'Drink it. It will help the headache.' He did as he was told. It
tasted foul.
But it
worked. Within half an hour he was ready to go home.
'You can
stay here,' Sandy
offered, but Lana answered for him.
'No,
he'll go home, sleep it off and turn up bright and early tomorrow at work with
a neat cover story. He's good for that, at any rate. You should have heard some
of the whoppers he's told to keep me in the good books.'
It was
her nonchalance that made the penny drop. No recognition that she'd just about
got him killed, that she'd given away over one thousand dollars to have her fun
without even asking, risking their lives in her search for the perfect high. In
privacy she had been honey and passion, but in public she had shamed and
belittled him. He'd told himself for the past few weeks that it was just a
phase, that she was testing his love, that she was covering up the depths of
her feeling for him because she didn't want the gossip that inevitably
accompanied romances in this hothouse expatriate community. But he'd been
telling whoppers to himself, he now saw. He was possibly the only one he'd fooled.
'I'm off
then, Lana. Thanks, Nurse Sandy.'
'See you
tomorrow, Sven,' Lana called as he walked into the lane that would lead him to
the main road and a late night bus.
'No,
Lana. Not tomorrow. Not any day. It's over.' He couldn't believe he was saying
it. The words sounded feeble, like a bad movie. Humphrey Bogart might have
pulled it off, made it sound manly.
'Sure,
Sven. Bye.'
The door
closed. He heard the giggles behind it. She didn't believe him. She knew he was
in her thrall. The very risk-taking that disturbed him about her excited him.
She was vivacity, charm and challenge, a siren. His siren.
He stood in the dim glow of a flickering
street light, torn between the desire to escape and the anger that wanted to
make her believe him.
He stood. Remembered. Ached with desire, with
shame. Her image burned bright within, and once again he was blinded. And then
the street light stopped flickering, and the darkness was complete. Beyond the
shanties he could see now the glow of the city lights. Here was darkness. There
was a light by which one might see.
He could stay, remain in the darkness of her
light. But no, he would not give in. Turning sharply, he walked towards the
city's gold phosphorescence. His fists were shut,
his mouth set fast. He would not take that direction again, to the darkness, to
follow her. He walked towards the faintly humming, glowing town, quickly.
Until next week…
Claire Belberg
