After they had showered and changed at their hotel, he waited for her on their balcony as he read his book. To his surprise, there she was…dressed in a white Mexican blouse and colourful skirt.
‘You must be ex-army; you move fast and look good.’
She laughed,
‘Brownies had too many rules for me…but life’s too short to do anything but…’
They went for a morning on the town.
He found a lovely quiet place for tea and cake. She announced that she didn’t want tea, but she enjoyed the atmosphere of the teahouse. She went off and returned with an iced coffee and asked the shocked staff if she could drink it at their table. They politely said she could.
‘You look embarrassed’, she smiled.
‘Teatime is as sacred as church.’
‘I don’t go to church.’
‘I can tell.’
Her preferred morning activity was shopping, where she would try on a variety of dresses, though apparently she didn’t buy anything.
‘You’re very patient,’
‘When my mother took me shopping with her, she bribed me with ice cream.’
‘Your mother was a wise woman.’
At the ice cream parlour, she refreshed herself by trying at least six free samples. She sat with him as he enjoyed a dish of ice cream.
‘I suppose you must be full after all those free samples.’
‘If you do it deliberately, it’s not embarrassing.’
‘Not for you, no…’
‘Would you feel better if I bought something?’
‘They would; you can afford it, can’t you?’
She bought herself an ice-cream soda.
‘Why do you Australians call it a spider?’
‘Because like a bottle of tequila there’s one at the bottom of the glass.’
She quickly looked, then broke out laughing.
‘Supposedly because the reaction of the carbonated drink with the ice cream looks like a spider’s web.’
To his surprise she had bought a dress. The shopgirl entered the ice cream parlour and handed it to her in a gift-wrapped box.
‘Take me somewhere nice tonight so I can show it off.’
‘I’ll take you somewhere nice so I can show you off…Please don’t sing that Lesley Gore song about Don’t put me on display. I’m proud of you, Random.’
Recharging
They returned to their hotel in the afternoon. She asked,
‘You’re not ty…yerd are you?’
‘You sound exactly like my Physical Training Instructor before he gave us more exercises…I was hoping for a siesta…’
‘I always feel torpid in the Tropics…but I feel energetic in the Sub-Tropics…’
‘Our Lady of Perpetual Motion…’
‘Time enough to sleep when you’re dead.’
‘Now you sound like my Drill Instructor…’
She broke out laughing and repeated the catch phrase of an old television show,
‘This is Your Life!’, she laughed, but determinedly said, ‘Now you can begin your new life…’
‘What are we going to start with, Random?’
‘Liz gave me a map for a country drive.’
Regeneration
They felt cool in the green hills of the surrounding countryside. They would stop and admire the views of the green forests, hills and farmlands towards the West and the blue Pacific towards the East. The cows in their paddocks enjoyed the views as well. They stopped again to pat some horses,
‘When are you going to start living and stop merely existing?’
‘Are you asking the horse or me?’
‘A horse is a horse of course, of course, and no one can talk to a horse of course, but I’ve got hopes for you. You’re good mannered and patient; but you enjoy life as much as I do.’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’
‘No, some people enjoy being miserable, others enjoy making others miserable, and then there’s those that just can’t understand. They’d ask me if I don’t get tired of enjoying myself and said that they would. They even said they were bored with fireworks; I never am.’
‘Neither am I. But you’re the type who makes them, not watches them.’
She kissed him and smiled, then asked,
‘Do you know Maslow's hierarchy of needs?’
‘Let me see now’, his mind drifted back, ‘physiological, safety and security, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation.’
‘You’ve got the bottom things, when are you going for the top?’
‘When I was adventuring around the world, whenever I had the esteem of my peers and self-actualisation, I didn’t have the basic needs. I didn’t know where I’d be sleeping that night or if I’d be alive the next day. When I now have the basic needs, I don’t have the higher ones. It seems one or the other, rather than starting at one and working your way up.’
She thought the matter over,
‘Yes…serious artists are the same way…You’re right!
‘That’s the first time any woman ever told me that…’
‘Are you worried what your employer thinks about you?’
‘They give me the basic needs...’
Realisation
It must have been 3 o’clock…the winds suddenly picked up and the high grasses on the hills moved with the breeze like a green sea. Was it her he was listening to or was it the wind? Maybe the songs on the coach were some supernatural force speaking to him, or maybe he was having a mental breakdown?
‘Eeny meanie chilli beanie…the spirits are about to speak…’
‘Are they friendly spirits?’, he responded.
He smiled at her quoting favourite television shows of his childhood, as if they had been together then as they were now.
‘Friendly? Just listen…Have you ever seen a moth going to a flame? It looks stupid or embarrassing as you’d say, to everyone else, but the moth believes he’s living life to the fullest.’
His mind drifted back to watching other people’s children running around in circles screaming that made him think the parents couldn’t control their ankle-biters, but when he was a child, running around in circles and screaming with his friends seemed the most fun ever.
‘Never mind how you look, if it feels good to you, do it.’
‘Providing you won’t go to gaol; all the things on my bucket list would get me thrown in prison for quite some time, Random.’
They returned to their hotel to prepare for the evening.
Rapture
He wore his blue suit without his tie. Her purchase was the most incredible dress that he had ever seen, it was a lovely blue with half a dozen different patterns randomly ranging from sea creatures to leopard-skin spots. She demonstrated she could wear it with straps or hanging off her shoulder like a Mexican blouse. It was either very versatile or for people who couldn’t make up their minds; or those who were Random...
‘All that’s missing is a fan…’
She whipped one out of her purse and showed that she knew how to use it…
‘I’ve got everything, and I’ll try anything…’
They dined at one of the outside tables of a Mexican restaurant that faced the harbour.
After they ordered and began with their carafe of red sangria, they discovered that the RESERVED area was for their entertainment. Three Latin-Americans, a woman on a harp and two men with guitars took turns singing, further adding to the atmosphere.
They were enjoyed by the crowd in a reserved fashion. Their songs were well known to the point of being a cliché, for that’s what makes people happy.
He told them their songs were beautiful,
‘Muy Hermosa’, Random translated.
The female harpist smiled,
‘¿Desea solicitar una canción?’
‘She asked you if you have any requests for them to play.’
His memory took him back to John Ford’s The Fugitive. A rough band of federales entered a cantina, searching for the title character. Bull terrier lookalike policeman Robert Armstrong decided to have his wicked way in a back room with Dolores Del Rio, the cantina’s owner and mother of an infant. A peon played a record that made Dolores burst out of her room and dance on top of the bar for the other police that put everyone in a mood of pure joy. He loved that song as well as the cinematography and dancing…
‘Do you know El Balaju?’
They smiled and her harp began. One of them sang, the others joined in chorus.
Random became thrilled, rose and began dancing, whirling about, using her fan and giving wild looks. She increased her show by holding her skirt up to display her legs. She shouted,
‘Mi huapango favorito de Vera Cruz!’
The audience and the musicians began to shout in delight.
She acknowledged the expression on his face,
‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’
On the floor was a disused folded up wooden table, when they came to the instrumental portion of the song, Random jumped on the flattened table with her dancing feet loudly stamping that made everyone cheer. The harp and guitars sped up to keep up with her…it was a duel! She was sounding like a machine gun…Everyone was cheering, screaming and whistling!
A man grabbed his shoulder,
‘If you don’t start dancing with her, someone’s going to!’
He found himself getting up and circling around her as the man in the cantina did in the movie. Euphoria increased; it was as if they were rising to heaven in a vortex of joy going to the stars...
They put their arms around each other as they danced side by side, one, two, three four! One two three four! One two three four! with the audience wildly cheering them on. They had slowed down, but he was in step with her in their dancing together.
Everyone wildly applauded, even the flocks of white corellas perched in the Norfolk pines by the harbour seemed fascinated.
‘Guantanamera! Lenta y sensualmente‘, Random requested.
Dancing slowly and sensually, they fell into each other’s arms…
Several couples joined in the dancing. Everyone applauded at the end of the song, and Random and the trio conversed in Spanish. They asked her where she was from, then began a slow and sensual rendition of California Dreamin’ cantado en español.
As he held her in his arms, he noticed Random was crying…
R&R
After dinner they walked back to their hotel in the moonless night that featured the light of what seemed to be a thousand stars.
Number 1001 was a shooting star that blazed across the dark sky in a moment of glory,
‘I wish I could put this day in a bottle and drink from it every day for the rest of my life!’
‘You can’, Random answered, ‘But never stop looking for another day just as good or better...and the night’s not over yet…’
They returned to the hotel and its empty foyer; he looked in her eyes.
‘No, you can’t go inside my room!’
‘Curses, foiled again…’
‘We’ll go to your room…’
She woke him early in the darkness.
‘Tomorrow has finally come; let’s walk barefoot in the morning dew and watch the sunrise together…’
The clouds were a brilliant red that set the day on fire…
‘Red sky at morning…’
‘Never be in mourning’, she yearnfully replied, ‘Life is too wonderful.’
They had breakfast on their balcony together.
‘Have we time for a morning swim?’
‘No…I have to complete my packing…I’m leaving this morning…’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To another place, and you can’t come along…please don’t ask me why…you’ve got your day in a bottle to open and savour…no, nothing you’ve done, I’m just flying away.’
He believed she must’ve had a reason to be a woman of mystery, or this was how she got her kicks.
------ To BE CONTINUED ------