I passed the mike to Angelina, walked to the piano and played the first verse of ‘I’m Henry VIII, I Am’, in C. The instrument was in woeful shape, not just out of tune but worn out. I tried an F sharp chord—all black keys—and it was better.
My dad told me—only about a hundred times—about a Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch where Dud is the piano teacher and Pete insists that the black keys play louder. Eventually Dud agrees, forced into it by Pete thrusting money at him. But there was a kernel of truth in the story, which my dad also pointed out. The black keys on old pianos are often in better condition as a result of being used less.
In the absence of a microphone, which Angelina was now holding, I shouted: ‘This is a song written by Henry the Eighth for Anne Boleyn after she told him to keep his hands to himself.’
I played ‘Greensleeves’, and Angelina sang beautifully in B flat minor. We did ‘I Am Woman’—her choice—as an encore and left them wanting more.
In the taxi, Angelina took the middle seatbelt, up against me. I put my arm around her and she leaned in.
‘I’m amazed you knew how to play “I Am Woman”,’ she said.
‘Not the first time I’ve been asked. There aren’t too many feminist anthems.’
‘There should be. So we don’t have to destroy our credibility by singing songs from the seventies.’
‘Golden era of popular music. Right up to about 1971.’
‘You must be older than you look.’
‘And you? “Both Sides Now”? “Daydream Believer”?’
‘I’m not that into music. I mean, I like singing, but I don’t spend my life listening to the radio. My dad was into music, so I grew up listening to his stuff.’
‘We have that in common.’ One small step in the direction of soulmates.
‘I was a prima donna about the martini, wasn’t I?’ she said.
‘Only a bit.’
‘Don’t let me do it. It’s an acting thing. We ask for Perrier water and stuff that doesn’t cost anything but makes us feel respected. Because most of us get paid basically nothing. I’m incredibly lucky to have a regular role. Do you know why I slapped him?’
‘Because you could?’
I hadn’t intended any sort of psychological insight. I was simply observing that she had the audience on side.
‘How did you know that? When you’re an actress, you have to put up with so much and you can’t do anything. Part of me wishes I could have come up with some cutting remark, but he did something physical to me so I gave him a physical response.’
‘You were brilliant.’
She kissed me, and, given her example, I responded in kind.
I had no problem with it being a long drive back to civilisation, and apparently nor did Angelina, telling me she’d had the best time in ages, even without the singing. Which was good, as I was beginning to feel that our relationship might not be sustainable without a piano. Her determination to make the date a success had been real, and the awkwardness had been largely in my own head. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘you were funnier than the professional comedian.’
I dropped her at her parents’ house in the leafy suburb of Kew, after asking the taxi driver to take us around the block a couple of times while I kissed her goodnight.
For the record, there is no historical evidence to support the popular attribution of ‘Greensleeves’ to Henry VIII. The earliest reference to the tune appeared thirty-three years after he died.
And two months after I’d come to Australia for some space to sort myself out, I was having an affair with a married woman.
6
It was a bit dramatic to call it an affair. Angelina and Richard may still have been legally married, but—despite her occasional use of the present tense in talking about their relationship—there were no signs of them reuniting. That said, we still had to deal with the basic problem of an affair, albeit with her parents taking the place of the spouse. She did not want them to know that she was dating so soon after the break-up.
‘They’ll think that’s why I left him.’
‘So? You’re an adult. Let them think what they want to think.’
‘It’s not that easy. They’re really straight, and I’m living in their house.’
On top of that, Angelina had a busy schedule of acting and singing classes, as well as shoots in the evening and a growing involvement in Actors’ Equity. I had my day job.
When we did find time, there was the question of how to spend it. For me, it was simple. I wanted Angelina all to myself, across a table in a restaurant or in my bed.
If I could relive one moment of my life, it would be an evening in the courtyard of Jim’s Greek Tavern, a ten-minute walk from my apartment, drinking BYO cabernet sauvignon out of glasses that might once have been Vegemite jars, and eating barbecued octopus and lamb kebabs and the best whiting I have ever had. With the big moustachioed guy who welcomed us as a couple and, of course, Angelina, dressed down in jeans, relaxed and laughing with me as I believed she did with no one else, under the blue Australian sky. And a walk back to my apartment in lieu of dessert.
Angelina loved those evenings, too, but she also wanted to do things: see and discuss a film or play, go to a wine-tasting, hear a public lecture. Time with Angelina was precious and I did not want to spend too much of it listening to the Socialist Alliance debating the role of women in the Marxist utopia.
One day in late October, when we had been seeing each other for about six weeks, she arrived at my flat unexpectedly, carrying an oversized handbag that she proceeded to unload on the kitchen bench. Pasta, vegetables, bread, cheese and a bottle of red.
‘Singing teacher cancelled. I’m going to cook dinner for us.’ As I uncorked the wine, she added, ‘I hope you realise how special this is.’
I had cooked meals a couple of times after we were famished from spending all day in bed but not in the mood to go out. It was not as if this was the first occasion that we had dined in.
She elaborated. ‘I never, I mean never, did this for Richard.’
‘He did the cooking?’
‘The first time I made dinner, the very first time, right after we got back from our honeymoon, I screwed it up totally. My mum did all the cooking at home and I had a big sister. I’d never lived by myself. I know—spoiled brat.’
‘Your mother didn’t work?’
‘Not after she had children. I rang her up and asked her how to get the peel out of the mashed potatoes. The pureed potatoes.’
‘You’re kidding me.’ We were both laughing.
‘Richard didn’t think it was funny. He thought I was unbelievably stupid. Which I was. I really can’t believe I did that. But I was trying to cook three different vegetables at once and not overcook the meat, which happened anyway while I rang Mum. So, I said to Richard, “Your turn tomorrow, then,” and he said, “No, I’ve got to study for my bar exams; I earn more than you; you do the cooking.” And I said, basically, “No. I’m working and studying too, and I earn just about as much as you do. Which is only true as long as I’ve got a job on Mornington Police, which I won’t have if I’m trying to work a second job as your servant.”’
‘So who ended up cooking?’
‘Neither of us. We got takeaway or frozen dinners, or ate out. I didn’t clean, either. We ate off paper plates. Plastic cutlery. Until Richard caved in and we got a cleaning lady. That’s what it’s like being married to me.’
As she put a full packet of spaghetti into cold water, she added, ‘Funny—back when I first got together with Richard, I was really looking forward to doing this.’
It may have been the worst pasta I had ever eaten, but it was followed by some of the best sex I could have imagined.
I was in a fortunate position in that arena, thanks to Richard being Angelina’s reference point. I had the experience of being in a long-term relationship and a couple of girlfriends before that. I was no sexual athlete, but I did know that the idea was for the other party to enj
oy it, too.
It still took a while to get sorted. I was not surprised: Angelina had had more than a year of being told she was no good. The effort I put into making it better probably did more for our relationship—the relationship we weren’t supposed to be having—than instant success would have.
In the end, it was Angelina who found the metaphorical key. I had the literal key. It was after midnight. We had seen a play in Carlton and were walking back through the Exhibition Gardens. Angelina was analysing the performance, as she always did.
‘We call it the fourth wall, and when the playwright chooses to break it, and acknowledge the presence of the audience, as voyeurs…’
She broke off to watch a possum scaling a tree, then spoke into the darkness.
‘Remember the night you asked me out? When Shanksy had gone home and it was just us in the bar?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘Do you ever think about what almost happened? Before you went all noble on me?’
I didn’t. There was no need to fantasise about what I already had in the real world. ‘Do you?’ I asked.
‘Well, you asked me to tell you what got me…twitchy… and…’
I had a key to the bar in my pocket. Shanksy had given it to me for morning practice in case the cleaners hadn’t opened up. Fifteen minutes later, we were on one of the leather sofas, lights still off, clothes on the floor, making up for what we had missed a few weeks earlier. Angelina had definitely tapped into something, but just when it seemed we might be getting there, I had the familiar feeling of it slipping away.
Angelina broke the kiss. ‘What if someone comes in?’ she said.
So that was the problem. Then I realised it wasn’t. It was the opposite.
‘And catches you?’ I said. It could have been ‘catches us’, but instinct told me it was about her.
That did it. I picked her up and carried her to the door to block anyone who might have forced an entrance from a main street, climbed two flights of stairs and knocked down a second locked door, and took us both back to the night in the North Balwyn bedroom that started it all.
Happily for both of our spines, it took only a few sessions to get past the need for a door as a prop, but the fantasy of being caught was a constant. Over the life of our relationship, I must have delivered a dozen variants of the landlord-comes-to-collect-the-rent / producer-barges-into-your-dressing-room / astronaut-returns-early-from-his-spacewalk fantasy—all in the ‘Daydream Believer’ accent.
Of course we talked about it. Did she subconsciously want Richard to catch her? I guess it was possible, but it was hard to see how that would translate into a sexual fantasy. Had she been caught masturbating? Not that she could recall, though it led to a stimulating discussion. Was it tied to the actress’s need for dramatic tension?
‘Stick to your day job, Dooglas.’
As for me, I got no direct excitement from the threat of being caught. But I was happy to enjoy its effect on Angelina, not only in the moment, but as a growing confidence in her own sexuality—and a recognition that she was not solely responsible for the breakdown of her marriage.
We managed a few day trips on weekends when Angelina was not filming. She had a little red Ford Laser and we went sightseeing around country Victoria, wine-tasting in the Yarra Valley, strawberry-picking somewhere, browsing in country antique shops: all the things that new lovers do.
People recognised Angelina quite often, but they seldom did more than smile and wave, adding to the general feeling that all was wonderful with the world. There were no photos in gossip columns. Australia at that time seemed to be more civilised than the UK about those things, or maybe she was not famous enough.
My memories of that period are not linked to songs. Music had brought us together but it was not a significant part of what followed. I didn’t need to listen to songs to remind me of our relationship when I was busy living it. We were also blissfully, stupidly happy, and my musical taste runs more to the melancholy. It would have been a good time to be a Beach Boys fan. We visited the bar a few times together, and I always played, but Angelina only sang once or twice.
We caught the occasional live band, and I have fond memories of a night at a pub listening to a blues combo that she had wanted to see, more because it was an all-female line-up than because of any taste for the genre. I had a brilliant time and would have done more of it, but she preferred movies and theatre.
There was just one song that I remember because I made a deliberate effort to do so: ‘Walking on Sunshine’, playing on the radio as we drove down the Great Ocean Road, the two of us singing our heads off, and Angelina radiating happiness and youth and freedom. And I thought, bottle this moment, Adam. You will not see its like again.
It was 10.45 p.m. in Norwich, 9.45 a.m. in Melbourne. The little window popped up again.
Wassup?
7
Wassup, ‘sent from my phone’, gave me no sense of connection with the twenty-three-year-old Australian I had fallen in love with, or with the forty-five-year-old she must now be.
She had been more formal when she last wrote to me, twenty years earlier.
Dear Adam,
Charlie and I are getting married in three months. For what it’s worth, I still love you and probably always will, but it seems we are not meant to be together. You will be forever my soulmate.
Love, Angelina
Charlie. She had mentioned him once, barely, in an earlier letter. No details, beyond the predictable profession. And getting married. Not living together, not hanging out for a bit to see how it went. Out of the frying pan.
The letter was handwritten, on proper stationery. To Adam, not Dooglas. From Angelina, not Angel, which had been her signature on the notes she would slip under my door. I wondered how long it had taken her to write it. Songwriters don’t know what they put into songs, and perhaps Angelina did not know what she had put into that note. When I read it the first time, I saw the declaration of eternal love as a sop, an apology, a consolation prize.
I replied, I hoped not with any bitterness. It was a long letter, saying that I would never forget our time together, wishing them nothing but the best, telling her that I was okay in my life.
As time passed, I came to see Angelina’s words as an expression of pain, a wish that things had been otherwise. But it was years before I understood her letter for what it was, consciously or not. Please Adam, come and save me. Save us.
Now, unless we wanted to play a game of one-word emails, it was time to be a bit more expansive. What did I want to tell her?
This is what I wanted to tell her:
Since we parted, my career has gone from strength to strength and, as you would expect from someone who was an expert in his field at twenty-six, I am now at the peak of my profession and in charge of the European operations of a major software house.
Thanks to the company share scheme and a well-judged investment in a lottery syndicate, Claire and I are comfortably off, and I work primarily for the intellectual stimulation. I have taken my piano playing to the next level and am in demand as a session musician as well as having a regular gig with a local band.
We have two children at secondary school. Dylan is a talented singer-songwriter and Hillary is prominent in student politics. I keep fit and recently ran the London Marathon.
What I actually wrote, after sleeping on it, then spending most of the day thinking about it, was:
Not much. Still contracting. Living in Norwich.
Still with Claire. No kids. You?
Even that was a bit of a stretch, as I was between contracts—the one that had finished four months ago and the one that did not yet exist. At least I’d managed to suppress the sarcasm:
Not much since you last wrote. Besides the internet.
And German reunification. Sad about Princess Di.
After I hit Send, I found myself reflecting on the twelve-word summary of my current circumstances. It was not the gap between what might have been and t
he way things had turned out. Half the men of my age once imagined themselves scoring the winning goal for England or headlining Glastonbury.
My problem was that I was, in fact, living the dream. Eighteen months earlier, in the dying throes of a demanding contract, I had asked myself what I wanted from life, what sort of lifestyle. The answer was: work part-time, play pub quiz, listen to music, be supportive of my mum and spend time with Claire. With the exception of the last item, which had been circumscribed by Claire’s job, it was exactly what I was doing. Why should I want to create a different dream for Angelina?
It was the middle of the night in Melbourne, so I was not going to get a reply for a while. And I was now running late for the pub quiz.
Claire was driving up as I walked out. I waved and she waved back.
Our glory days were behind us. There were only half a dozen pubs running regular quizzes in Norwich, and several teams took it more seriously than we did.
I had started playing after work a few years earlier, when I was doing some local contracting and Claire had started coming home late. Two colleagues of about my age, Stuart and Chad, had invited me along, and my knowledge of music had helped carry us to some memorable wins. I kept it up after the contract finished. Chad had recently stopped coming, but his partner, Sheilagh, was a regular.
It was more a social thing, particularly for Stuart’s and Sheilagh’s workmates who made up the numbers when they were inclined. On this winter’s evening, only Stuart’s colleague Derek had been inclined. Derek was a sports fan, which was useful, but what we really needed was someone under forty-five with a passing knowledge of twenty-first-century popular culture. Pokémon? Grey’s Anatomy? Justin Bieber? Pass, pass, pass.