It's done. It's over.
The Shop Is Closed.
I have a new life.
This is the first Saturday morning I've had in six years, without a deadline or a destination. It's taken me ten days to remove every trace of my incarceration in my personal Guantanamo Bay of the past 6 years. But my keepers - bless them - kept on coming for the last gram of silver and chunk of gem, even when everything was packed up, ready for storage. So I don't know whether to be flattered or annoyed at those, who, at five pm last Saturday, when I was up a 7 foot ladder with a pie plate of paint stripper goop in my one hand, and a blade in the other, sweat dripping down my chin as I removed the decals and paint D had promised to, who looked up at me to my lofty ceiling height and asked - "Can we just have a quick look at your beads?" And another, who peered into the barren space, now totally devoid of any goods, chattels or personality, and asked, "Oh, are you closing?" To which I replied - Seems That Way! But would have loved to have retorted - No, Tirrahh!! It's Stock Taking Time!
A while ago, during one of my attempts to leave D absolutely and forever, he said: "It's Not Over Till I Say It's Over!" Well, la di da! I thought it quite cute and proprietorial at the time and it made me hang around emotionally a few weeks longer, until Zoo Day. Which I just MUST share with you. I've been trying to keep it to myself, but it's really so hilarious and ridiculous and ultimately TRAGIC that I can't keep it to myself any more.
There's a scene in 9.5 weeks where Kim Basinger's friend is waving the wristwatch Micky Rourke (before his facial renovation) had given her. She says something like - "you never know what it will be that will end the relationship ... it's usually something very small ..."
D, who had fled with great speed back to the giddy metropolis of his Perth country town to be "with his boys" (aged over 28 and six foot two) seven months ago, with the misguided vision that I would return to some dusty abode in the wasteland when I'd concluded the business we'd built up together, had come back over New Year to help with the dismantling of this stage of our lives because I was bordering on the hysterical about how I was to do it all alone. Get me to book a complicated itinerary, learn new software, write in iambic pentameter, decode some Latin or take instructions from the Navman, I'm okay. But trade a shop to closing over Christmas and finalise everything? I was a knot of trauma. My hair was falling out in clumps. I resorted to Valium to help me sleep through the night. So he came to "help". Because we still had this Thing that kept us tight and together, whatever the delusions and duplicities that damaged us.
This Thing We Had always glued us back, and I always told myself somehow we could make us work. At the same time I was completely panic stricken that I would not be emotionally free enough to do this Amazing Incredible Ridiculously Brave journey if I woke up in his arms even once more.
For those who believe that chemistry is the most important part of a relationship; go back to school. D was my instant, addictive, destructive DRUG. I was struck breathless the first time I saw him. My hands sweated, my knees jellied, and in seven years this heart hammering EVERY time I saw him never changed. I couldn't get enough of him. I felt sick away from him. I felt complete with him, even though on every level imaginable my known and trusted life was disintegrating. But when he touched me, when he kissed me, it's as if we became each other's skin. We both felt half of anything apart; we were made whole when together. We finished each other's sentences, we touched, or clutched, or held on, whenever we were together. And like a drug, being apart from each other was the most acute, painful, protracted withdrawal. He once told me that sometimes he missed me so badly that he felt as if he wanted to bite his skin to suck me out of his bones, and I understood. You wouldn't believe this if you hadn't had it: but it's as debilitating as an illness, and takes a long, long, time to recuperate from.
So ... back to the Zoo Day - our last day in Sydney together before he hot footed it once more to the dust and dessicated bushes of Perth, his home town. I wanted it to be sweet, and warm, and close, because we'd been through a Lot Together. In the morning I told him that I had loved him from Hello, and I would love him forever, no matter what, and he benevolently reciprocated by telling me I was Fat. (I'm still a size 10).
When D fled to the wild west, he left me with our business and mortgage to manage on my own. He found a new job and didn't contribute to the chaos he'd left behind. But we still had This Thing. I still loved him to distraction. We went to the zoo, for a sweet conclusion, before I was to dispatch him to the Departure lounge.
D, white faced and angry, paid for our entry tickets to the Zoo. This apparently left "us" without enough money for drinks, water, food, or peanuts. Never mind, I said, I don't like bottled water anyway. I'd rather have swallowed razor blades at this stage than buy him a hot dog and I was more concerned about how I was to repay the staggering debt I'd discovered.
The day was hot, sunny and humid. I had a drink while in the loo, and later, at the otters enclosure, I drank from a water fountain. Shortly after, sitting under some trees and looking across to dazzling Sydney and the boats skipping across the sea, D asked if I was thirsty. No, I'm okay, thanks, I replied, I had a drink at the water fountain near the otters.
Well, stone the crows. Never mind the catastrophe he'd left me with, I had to be responsible for his THIRST? I looked at this man who had buried himself in my body as if there was no tomorrow. Who knew the shape and form of me better than I knew it myself. I looked at this man whose voice and touch had made me tremble for as many years as it took for every cell in my body and hair on my head to replace itself. I looked at this man with whom I had shared wild taxis in Bangkok, and wooden huts in the Himal, who had thrown rupees to a little kid to fetch buckets of water while I was projectile vomiting over the back of a cow in Udaipur. I looked at this man who had unwrapped me from 6 metres of silk as if I was an exotic bon bon, who'd waltzed me across his parents lounge room to a crooning Frank Sinatra, who dried my tears with his humour, who was now a mean, tight lipped stranger who expected me to take responsibility for his Thirst.
The day was hot, sunny and humid. I had a drink while in the loo, and later, at the otters enclosure, I drank from a water fountain. Shortly after, sitting under some trees and looking across to dazzling Sydney and the boats skipping across the sea, D asked if I was thirsty. No, I'm okay, thanks, I replied, I had a drink at the water fountain near the otters.
D's stony silence was like a sonic boom. His face was ashen. Finally he snarled, "That's the problem with you. You always look after your own back. You never think about anyone else. I can't believe you didn't tell me about the bowser! You can't even take responsibility for my thirst..."
Well, stone the crows. Never mind the catastrophe he'd left me with, I had to be responsible for his THIRST? I looked at this man who had buried himself in my body as if there was no tomorrow. Who knew the shape and form of me better than I knew it myself. I looked at this man whose voice and touch had made me tremble for as many years as it took for every cell in my body and hair on my head to replace itself. I looked at this man with whom I had shared wild taxis in Bangkok, and wooden huts in the Himal, who had thrown rupees to a little kid to fetch buckets of water while I was projectile vomiting over the back of a cow in Udaipur. I looked at this man who had unwrapped me from 6 metres of silk as if I was an exotic bon bon, who'd waltzed me across his parents lounge room to a crooning Frank Sinatra, who dried my tears with his humour, who was now a mean, tight lipped stranger who expected me to take responsibility for his Thirst.
I collapsed in a place so deep inside, that I could barely speak. On the way out, I pointed to every available water source known to man, otter, elephant and gorilla. He wasn't appeased. With not a drop to drink, he had become the ancient mariner and in one astonishing utterance lifted the albatross of desire from my shoulders.
I bought us fish and chips on Balmoral Beach where I sat, stunned, listless and shocked. I had no more words to give him. My love had run dry. I couldn't touch him. I couldn't look at him. I tolerated a tepid farewell peck, at the airport, knowing at that second that the Rift Had Happened. When his stupid Frank Sinatra hat and David Bowie T-shirt disappeared into Departures, that word took on a weighty significance. I gave him a paltry pat on the back that I once knew every rib of, and put him on the plane. My heart had frozen, my grief evaporated. I swore I wouldn't speak to him, ever again. I won't see him again.
I mopped up the remains of our lives. I cleaned and cleared and concluded. With the help of my flocks of angels and goddesses who arrived uninvited and unannounced into my days of dismantling, rubber gloves and buckets in hand, the Job was Done. We sat in a circle surrounded by beads; we listened to African drums, we air guitared taking turns with a black wig I'd once dressed up in, we drank champagne with chicken and chips and when I closed the doors for that last time, I felt released from everything I've been involved in these past seven years.
I bought us fish and chips on Balmoral Beach where I sat, stunned, listless and shocked. I had no more words to give him. My love had run dry. I couldn't touch him. I couldn't look at him. I tolerated a tepid farewell peck, at the airport, knowing at that second that the Rift Had Happened. When his stupid Frank Sinatra hat and David Bowie T-shirt disappeared into Departures, that word took on a weighty significance. I gave him a paltry pat on the back that I once knew every rib of, and put him on the plane. My heart had frozen, my grief evaporated. I swore I wouldn't speak to him, ever again. I won't see him again.
I mopped up the remains of our lives. I cleaned and cleared and concluded. With the help of my flocks of angels and goddesses who arrived uninvited and unannounced into my days of dismantling, rubber gloves and buckets in hand, the Job was Done. We sat in a circle surrounded by beads; we listened to African drums, we air guitared taking turns with a black wig I'd once dressed up in, we drank champagne with chicken and chips and when I closed the doors for that last time, I felt released from everything I've been involved in these past seven years.
I stopped trading on 20.1.2011. I returned the keys at 11.01 yesterday. What's left of my stock is in storage, locker number 11. I am a bar code!
I found an old photo of him this morning, while I was sorting stuff. I'd taken it during our first month together. He looked handsome, and loved up, and happy and full of optimism and dreams. Not a man for whose thirst I'd later have to become responsible for. I burst into tears. Just a small, self pitying, flurry. Then I tore up the D who was. So I can be the Me who was.
I found an old photo of him this morning, while I was sorting stuff. I'd taken it during our first month together. He looked handsome, and loved up, and happy and full of optimism and dreams. Not a man for whose thirst I'd later have to become responsible for. I burst into tears. Just a small, self pitying, flurry. Then I tore up the D who was. So I can be the Me who was.
It's only over when the fat lady sings.
And you should hear her now!
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