Lisa sips at her zero-alcohol beer and stares at splashes of red and white as they wrestle over the sponsor-encrusted grass like bizarre racing cockroaches after the last crumb on Earth. “He’s crumbed it,” she hears one of the blokes cheer, followed by a clinking of glasses. She rolls her eyes – maybe she did understand AFL after all.
Work social day in the corporate box at the SCG – a reward for diligence – food and drink supplied. Behind her she can hear a woman click-clacking unevenly across the floor towards her. Should she quickly get up, head to the loo, and then disappear? Oh God, she has procrastinated too long. Time to paste on the smile.
“Hey Lisa. You got a moment?”
“Sure. Sally, isn’t it?”
“Um yes. I work downstairs. Jackie says I should talk to you about something. Says you’re the expert.”
“Well. I’ll try my best. Fire away.”
“It’s sort of personal.”
“Maybe I’m not the right person then. Maybe someone who …”
“Oh no. Jacks says you’ve been through it. You know how to deal with … stuff.”
“Good grief! I’m not a …”
“Yes, that’s it. Grief. I just don’t seem to be able to move on.”
Lisa sips at her glass, eager to ensure no words make their way past her clenched teeth. What was it with people? Oversharing – wasn’t that what they called it? The woman seems to have taken her raised glass as assent and starts unloading. “I just can’t believe it. I can’t let it go. It’s like a dog with a bone. Just gnaws at me. My psych tells me it’s all stages – you know like denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – only I can’t do acceptance. I just thought it would happen and now it’s past and it’s too late, and it’s not fair. I want to be a mother; I want a baby. Invested my best years into him and he dumped me.”
Sally is now sobbing, prosecco slopping in unison with her hiccups. What was she supposed to say? “Life sucks and then you get over it. It’s just time.” And is that how everyone sees her; poor childless Lisa? All that time off work – the rounds of IVF, the miscarriages, the divorce. Was there anything worth saying?
Sally lowers her head and places the glass on the table beside Lisa’s now empty beer. “I’m sorry. I must be drunk. I should go.” Lisa watches as her hand reaches over and places itself over the woman’s forearm.
“It’s OK.” She hears herself speak. Where was this coming from? This was like an out-of-body experience of the next level. In her head she is making excuses, anything not to be poor Lisa, but instead, she is Lisa the … Lisa the: what? The stoic, the strong, the wise, the receptacle for sad stories? “Sit, here have some water.”
Oh, this was getting better. Menopause has created some personality disorder, a brain fog that she would wake up from tomorrow. She pours Sally a glass of water and flicks a grin over her shoulder to the cluster-fuck of colleagues now glancing into their corner. Nothing to look at over here. It’s all under control.
She pours herself water and sips. Perhaps the icy liquid will shock her dissonance back into line. Her hand continues patting the woman’s forearm, and her mouth starts moving. Inane, ridiculous words about AFL (which she knows nothing about), movies (a passing interest), and music (stop talking Lisa, or someone is going to think you are mad).
She hears herself talking about Mahler’s Fifth or was it: Holst’s Planets? What did she know? The colours of the music as the conductor raises her baton to command the orchestra. Sally’s shoulders have stopped shaking as she sips. “You know that piece … the one that goes… da da da and then boom… it’s like a stormy night and then it’s blue and grey swirling … and … then it’s slow violas. You feel the storm end like a flash of indigo followed by the soft blue of a baby blanket and …”
“Have you always liked music?” Sally is no longer crying but watching her as she waves her air baton.
“Oh no. Only after…” Lisa stops. “I had a date, and we went to the symphony. Oh God, the man was a bore, but the music!”
“Do you play?” Sally asks.
“No, I can’t even clap!”
“Is that how you got over it? Listening to classical music?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Everything doesn’t have to be about the breakup,” Lisa snaps.
“Don’t you care?” Sally asks her eyebrows aloft. Oh great, now she was Lisa the heartless.
“Of course, I care!” So now her alter ego was offended. This was going well.
“Sorry, you just seem like it’s OK for everything to go to shit. I could never be like you.”
“What do you think I should be like?” OK, this was getting weird. She was now asking a drunk woman what her new identity should be. Perhaps she had absorbed all that self-help mumbo-jumbo she had fallen asleep to for months – was there five stages or four – wasn’t there one called reorganisation?
“I wish I was like you.”
“What?”
“You’re happy. You don’t seem phased about being on your own. Like you’re not worried that everyone is talking about you, ” Sally wipes at something dangling from her nose – tears, mucus, prosecco? Lisa looks away, careful to allow time for Sally to restore her facade.
The work lads are now huddled around a smeared cheeseboard. Pate wobbles as Pete from Accounts stabs at it with a nacho. He takes a bite, screws his nose up, checks to see who is watching, and drops his leftovers onto the board.
Lisa shakes her head and turns back to Sally, waiting as she carefully outlines her botoxed lips and dabs under her eyelashes at imaginary mascara spillage. “I’m old news Sally. They all move on. No one cares after a while.”
“Oh no, Lisa. They said I should talk to you. They reckon you’re the expert. It’s like you said – GOOD grief.”
“Sally, good grief is just an expression. I’ve never really thought about what it means or where it comes from. Jesus let’s google it and find out. “
An exclamation expressing surprise, alarm, dismay, or some other, usually negative emotion.
“Well, I reckon that about sums it up. Negative. Nothing good in grief. What a stupid expression – don’t think I’ll be saying that again. Thank you!”
“So, wait. Are you saying you’re not better?”
“What’s better?”
“Not sad and angry and … and … scared.”
“Everyone is sad and angry sometimes or at least they should be – it would be weird if everything were the same all the time – like music with only one note. Could you imagine – like Darth Vadar walking into dum-de-dum. I don’t think Luke would be quite so scared.”
Sally chuckles, lifts her water, and takes a long sip. “So how do you fill your time – on your own?”
“Time, time? Oh my God, the time. What time is it?”
“Seven. Why?”
“The symphony starts at eight and you must be seated by 7.45. I gotta get into town.”
“Can I come?”
*
Stay tuned for Part II coming next month to The Moving Pen.
