Questions of Travel (45 page)

Laura, 2004

ON HER FIRST DAY
in Sri Lanka, she was to have breakfasted on the terrace of a famous hotel in Colombo, gazing at the Indian Ocean. But her connecting flight from Bangkok had set off only to turn back after an hour. The engine trouble wasn’t serious, the pilot announced, while the passengers looked at each other. How strange—they had never expected to die in the company of a bald man in tracksuit pants and a child vomiting on his mother’s shoes. Regulations required the flight to return to its port of origin. The next hour was one of those that contains—oh, more minutes than anyone can count, certainly not sixty. Time stretched, sagged, snapped, sang. Afterwards, an endless day passed to the tinkle of electronic carols in gate lounges, and then Laura was boarding her connection again. By the time she had reclaimed her case and cleared Customs, “Merry Christmas, madam,” said the Sri Lankan official who exchanged her dollars for rupees. A whole day of her holiday had vanished. Laura thought, Why not go straight to the southern beaches? In Bangkok there had been an email from Ravi Mendis inviting her to spend New Year’s Day with his family. She would be able to tell him that she’d skipped Colombo altogether; that was even better than
get out as soon as possible.
She looked for the rental car sign.

When Laura woke the next day, it was to the thought that she would have to rearrange her itinerary to take in the visit to Ravi’s family on the west coast. There would be fresh bookings to make, more deposits sacrificed, new hassles. The previous evening, the rental car had carried her from one southern hotel to another until, at last, in a decrepit establishment facing away from the sea, a vacancy was found. Here there was no pool, no air-conditioning, no complimentary cocktail on arrival: only the whisk of a rat along a beam. But what did it matter? She had a booking at a flash place up the coast the following day; meanwhile there were coconut palms at her window. Surrounded by concrete, Laura pointed her toes at the ceiling fan that had expired some hours before dawn. It was the unforeseen that returned tourism to travel. Ramsay was dedicated to the reverse. That was the real message of the letters and emails that arrived by the thousand there. Prices had rocketed, beggars had menaced, sunsets had disappointed, but it was the soul that bled and composed accusations. It had learned that it was a tourist—not an explorer, vagabond, nomad or adventurer. And if it sent compliments because the advice had been awesome and the trip really amazing, what did that mean?
Exactly the same thing.
The true guidebook would advise: “Pay attention, be kind, think twice, shut up.” Laura informed the fan, I’m hitting Jobsearch as soon as I get back. But what was she fitted for? And what would change? What could she do that wouldn’t stun with busyness, lull with routine, infect with compromise like a slow, fatal blight?

But tourism existed to postpone such questions. It was the first day of Laura’s holiday, the country unknown, the morning pure potential. Rising to meet it, she was conscious of joy. The magic land existed. It had to—hadn’t Laura always known it? She would find it yet: in the depths of a wardrobe, at the top of a faraway tree.

Her lightness of being persisted as she made her way along the beach; she was heading towards the Internet cafe run by Ravi’s friend. Lightness had kept her company throughout her dip in the warm, glassy bay, throughout breakfast, where she had considered pineapple jam, then spread hard, cold toast with a fiery sambol. Doing things differently was the point of leaving home. It wasn’t until she was under the shower that Paul Hinkel showed up—at home, he was waiting as soon as she woke.
Getting away was starting over.
The old dream of renewal gathered Laura up; Alan Ramsay had founded a fortune on it. A holiday was as good as a change, it was green growth on the twig.

At that, Carlo was with her. On Laura’s last day in Sydney, Rosalba had answered the phone by his hospital bed. The operation had gone well, Laura heard. The voice was mascarpone: triple cream, with never a hint of denaturing acid. It thanked Laura for her concern, and informed her that talking tired the patient; it was sure Laura would understand. What Laura understood was that Rosalba had been sitting by Carlo’s bed for half a century, waiting for him to come round. The voice claimed to be grateful “for everything you have done for my cousin.” The very faint emphasis on “everything” notified the fat one upstairs that
Rosalba knew
—knew or guessed about rose-red Sundays. But you don’t know what I didn’t do, thought Laura, after she had broken the connection. She picked up a sealed envelope and placed it with the rest of Carlo’s mail. It contained the greater part of her savings: enough, she hoped, for new plants for the roof. It had seemed the least she could do. But thinking of that envelope now, Laura remembered the checks that had arrived over the years bearing her father’s signature and was ashamed. What Fraserish reflex had persuaded her that damage could be wiped out with dollars? Carlo knew better, he left without a backward glance. Rosalba wept in the Spanish Quarters; in her strawberry-pink villa, a
principessa
raged. The betrayer had moved on:
that was the meaning of betrayal.
Tracy Lacey’s flash went off in Drummond’s face. That was another discovery in store for Carlo: among the envelopes waiting for him had been one printed with the gallery’s name. A breathy whisper assured Laura, Everyone says you’re ugly. She vowed to write to Carlo, neither requesting nor expecting forgiveness, as soon as she got back. She would change her life, she would start over.

It was not quite nine o’clock, but the beach was crowded. Tourists and locals were sunbathing, breakfasting on hotel terraces, breaststroking in the calm bay. The perfect, cloudless morning had summoned vendors of batik and greeting cards and a depressing lace tablecloth. Laura no thank you-ed, no thank you-ed. She came to a cluster of fishing shacks thatched with coconut. A wave of children poured from them and into the sea—only the boys, noted Laura; the girls stood in the shallows with their skirts bunched.

There were more boys further along, playing beach cricket with a tennis ball. While Laura was still some way off, one of them lunged for a catch, missed, went running after the ball. A fielder at the far edge of the group, hands on hips, had a shock of black hair. In four seconds, Laura thought, First: It’s that boy. Next: But taller. Then: Well, he would have grown over the years. Finally: But it can’t be the same boy! He had turned to watch the fate of the ball. Then, as Laura looked on, he strolled away. She realized that he had nothing to do with the game, after all—he was only a bystander. A horn startled, and, glancing around, Laura saw a blue Mercedes pull off the road and park. The driver got out. Behind his wraparound sunglasses, he appeared to be scanning the beach. But it was a sign nailed to a tree that caught Laura’s eye: an arrow pointed along a sandy path on the far side of the road to
Network Cafe.
When she looked back along the beach, a quartet of English teenagers was approaching, and the boy was splashing into the bay.

Robyn had emailed from her parents’ place in Townsville:…
told us that gina’ll be taking over from cliff. quentin and i didn’t even know gina was going for ceo. she’s got experience running an office and we don’t—that’s the party line anyway. i’ve already talked to the headhunters and we’ve lined up a meeting in january. i’m also thinking i should maybe talk to alan about taking over from gina in london. a few years there could be pretty cool…

Turning a dull red stone on his finger, Nimal Corea was studying the back of Laura Fraser’s head. She had agreed, readily, to have a cup of tea with him when she had checked her email. “No breakfast for madam?” She had already breakfasted, she said. But then she smiled. “I can have a second breakfast, can’t I? I’m on holiday!” Nimal suggested an omelette made with green chlli, and she agreed to that, too. She said, “Call me Laura—please.” A vista opened as if activated by remote control, and Nimal strolled hand in hand with Laura over the Harbor Bridge in a deep mauve dusk.

A cry drifted from the beach: “Run! Run!” Absorbed in Robyn’s news, Laura didn’t hear it. In any case, she wouldn’t have understood. Nimal, who did, assumed that the shouts sprang from the game of cricket. Laura closed Robyn’s message, and her inbox reappeared. It now contained a second email. There was no subject line and, when she opened it, no message. But the sender was Paul Hinkel. Was it a truce, carte blanche, a summary of what she had meant to him? Laura could read his blank letter any way she chose. As she pondered its intent, there came a great shuddering sigh, as if the whole planet were sorrowing. It was about 9:20 on the twenty-sixth of December, and a tsunami had just struck. On the veranda that served as a kitchen, an omelette stiffened in its pan, the cook’s attention claimed by a blue car surfing a black wave. Nimal had only to glance that way to witness the marvel but he was slow to emerge from the vision in which he lay entwined with Laura Fraser on a buttery leather couch. The power cut out, but not before Nimal had seen every detail of their harborside mansion. It was white and storied with a view of water from every room.

Thank you to the Literature Fund of the Australia Council.

Thank you to Devika and Michael Anthonisz, Penelope Asselineau, Sophie Cunningham, Robert Dessaix, Robert Dixon, Clara Finlay, Goolbai Gunasekera, Philip Hoare, Ayalew Hundessa, Gail Jones, Sharmalie Joseph, Chris Mander, Michael Meyler, Sue Mitra, Peter Morris, Christa Munns, Virginia Murdoch, Jane Nethercote, Maria Psihogios-Billington, Varunika Ruwanpura, Sanjaya Senaweera, Glenda Sluga, Lachlan Strahan, Maithree Wickramasinghe, Charlotte Wood, and Jayne Yaffe Kemp.

Thank you to Victor Melder and the Victor Melder Library in Melbourne. Thank you to Maureen Seneviratne, in whose
Dark Nights of the Moon
I read of a children’s game about bombs. Thank you to Michael Taussig for
Walter Benjamin’s Grave,
where I learned about the flower vase cut.

A special thank-you to Sarah Lutyens, Clare Drysdale, Ali Lavau, Jane Palfreyman and Pat Strachan. Also to Vita Giordano, Kerry Murphy, Joseph Pearson, Nicholas Poynder, Sally Webster and particularly Walter Perera.

Last and first, I thank Chris Andrews.

Michelle de Kretser is a Sri Lankan who has lived in Australia for several years. De Kretser’s previous book,
The Lost Dog,
was long-listed for both the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize and received Australia’s “Book of the Year” Award, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, and the Gold Medal from the Australian Literary Society. She is also the author of the novels
The Rose Grower
and
The Hamilton Case,
and she is currently an associate of the English Department at the University of Sydney
.

The Lost Dog

The Hamilton Case

The Rose Grower

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