Sydney's Song (25 page)

“Well don't get in his car again!”

“Why Pete, getting Neanderthal, are we?” I was pleased to hear the possessive note in his voice. Pete was a jealous guy. “Don't worry.I'm catching a train now.” I spotted a mum and a daughter being jostled about in the crowd.

“Honey, I want you comfortable, but that guy sounded sleazy.”

“He's not a sleaze. Well, not normally.”

“Just remember darling, a decent guy will
never
force a girl.”

How caring he was.

“I miss you Pete.” I had entered the train and run to a blessedly empty 2-seater. I threw my backpack onto the seat next to mine, and motioned to the mum and daughter to take it. Sorry guys… not all of you have disgusting after-five b.o., but… “Did you just wake up? I'll call you from home to save your phone credit.”

The little girl on her mum's knee was now drinking water from a baby bottle.

“She's four and still drinks from a bottle,” the mum sighed.

“Don't worry,” I smiled. “She'll drink her water from a glass when she goes to uni.”

“That was one whole hour,” Pete complained when I called back.“Where've you been? I was worried Mr Sleaze was stalking you.”

“No. Just Bronson needed feeding. He's still a baby, Pete.”

“But I miss you like crazy,” he whined. “It's been—,” he stopped and laughed. “Feeding Bronson. Guess this is training for one day when we'll have kids, huh? Daddy will be number two.”

“Aw Pete, kids? You're kidding. And who's saying
I'll
feed the kids? You will. You're the excellent cook.”

“Right,” he chuckled. “So
I'll
feed the kids, huh? Easy. I'll teach‘em how to make your breakfast too.”

“Hey Pete, why are you even talking about this?”

“Restless. The business here is dragging and sapping, darling. I play chess against the computer when friends are at work. Watch the Discovery channel. Pedal around town just looking at things, but there isn't much happening at the moment. I play my old violin. Join Lance's friends playing music. Read every single thing in newspapers. But they aren't enough… I need you so much. All these years I've craved for something more in life. Didn't even know what.But I've found it in you. Sydney… I'm now so lost without you. I'd be much happier doing exactly the same things if you were here. I always wonder what you do. This is only morning, but already I wanna see you so much.”

“I feel it Pete. I can't see you, but I
feel
you. Am I psychic? I
feel
you. Yours is a very strong presence.”

“That's because I'm constantly concentrating on you, reaching for you.
Focus
. Soul communication. It's telepathic.”

“How can you do that?”

“A few people are sorta… gifted. It works when we focus. But it's no big deal, people don't really need this gift. I only use mine ‘cause I'm desperate. Lonely. I need you… I dream about a future home with you. One with a well-tended rose garden…” he trailed off dreamily. “Wherever we'll live, it must have your rose garden ‘cause I'm so fascinated by it.”

“Ah-ha! You covet my garden?” I teased him. “That's the sole reason why you want to be with me, right?”

“Of course!” he played along. “What other reason is there?”

“Can't imagine what. But that's okay. I only want to be with you because I'm after your fantastic cooking. And darling, my dream home doesn't necessarily include a garden. But it must have your kitchen with the heavenly smell of your baking.”

“Right,” he chuckled. “We're gonna design it exactly the way you like it. ‘Cause you'll always be number one to me. Home number two. Work number three.”

“Nice. Um, Pete, your Mom and ex sent me emails again, using different user names.”

“Ignore them. Tag them as spam. Did you get mine? Send me your pictures in my favourite dress. A-s-a-p.”

“Dream on.”

“Oh I do.”

“Pete!”

He laughed. “Indulge me. I've practically nothing to do until the court next week.”

“Your wife will be there?”

“Sweetheart, please don't call her that. I don't like it. She's my ex.”

“But she still thinks she's your wife. She warns me away. She's always very optimistic that you'll reconcile. She paints your marriage as all rosy.”

“What a conniving—,” he expelled a disgruntled breath. “Honey, an ex is an ex for a reason. I've found friends who were witnesses to how she conducted herself during our very short marriage. The marriage itself was a mistake ‘cause she'd lived that way before. I was too simple minded to think that a wedding vow would change her ways. I was a different person then. A naïve no-brainer. I paid. I opted out. It's been over for what feels like a lifetime ago.

“I'm stronger now and honestly not interested in her. At all. In any way whatsoever. I don't wanna live with her ever again. The past is past and it's over. I'm sorry she and Mom are harassing you.Whatever mind games they play with you, just remember you're always number one to me. Sydney… there's no way I can live without you.”

One unusually foggy morning in late March, the sun refused to come out. Cold grey clouds blanketed the city for hours. As I was listening to my lecturer on campus, my chest was jerked by a sudden attack of anxiety. PETE! My first thought was of him and I nearly called his name out loud.

As if from a distance my lecturer droned on about digital programming. I strained to heed him. For no reason my heart was beating too slowly. A sudden cold engulfed me in a freezing embrace. There was a strong, inexplicable fear clawing at my heart.It zapped my brain, sapping me dry, making my vision black. Faintly I heard people shouting. Then I passed out.

A short time later I was on the floor—regaining consciousness.

PETE! My heart screamed. But concerned faces surrounded me.“Are you okay?”, “Did you have breakfast?”, “Are you pregnant?”,“Take a deep breath.”

A deep breath did not clear the strange fear clutching at my chest. I felt woozy. I was shaking with cold.

“You aren't well,” Monica stated. “Go home. I've phoned Trevor to take you.”

“Why Trevor?” I asked in astonishment.

“When he was drunk, he told me—,” she looked confused now.“Um, I just thought to call him. He's bringing his car around.”

Oh no, Pete would not like it. But it would sound strange to reject help when my head was swimming and my body shivering.Reluctantly I let her lead me to a bench outside where eerie thick fog still blanketed the strange morning.

I sat down and stretched my legs. A bit of my green socks were showing. Pete… lunch boxes… how I missed him! He had woken me up one hour too early this morning, speaking from a very noisy public phone. “…out with Lance's gang,” he'd tried to say. “…great news!”

“Can hardly hear you!”

“… call me back.”

But I had returned to sleep and woken up very late so that I had to dash out with no chance to call him back using my phone card.Standing in a crowded later train I could only texted him a TTYLmessage.

Now the time on my phone showed 11:05am, Tuesday, 21 March 2000 as I pressed his number.

He did not answer my call though.

Pete had vanished.

No calls. No emails. No letters. Nothing.

I called and called. There was no answer. I wrote emails. There was no reply. I even tried his family home phone number and his Mom's email addresses that I had to fish out from the spam. No answer. Just nothing.

My true love, evaporated?

No. This could not be the case. I wouldn't believe it of Pete. No one could be truer than Pete. He would not do this to me. He loved me. This whole situation was impossible.

But how the predicament shocked my whole system.

Pete did not wake me up anymore. And he didn't send me to sleep with his wonderful voice. My heart leapt each time the phone rang.Lurched because it never was him. Bereft, I suffered like a stranded whale on a beach.

I rang Craig/Bridget, pining for some news of Pete. Their little girl picked up the phone.

“Lauren, you don't go to the puppy school anymore?”

“Molly wasn't really keen the last time, was she? Neither was your Bronson. But I miss you. I miss Pete more. He's supposed to come back soon, isn't he? Why didn't he call us last weekend? First time he didn't.”

“So where
is
Pete?” I asked in gnawing worry.

Craig came to the phone. No, he had not heard of anything wrong with Pete, but he was not really in communication with his big sister.

“I'll give them a buzz and get back to you,” he promised.

Craig tried and tried. Unfortunately, just like me he did not get an answer.

Dread ate at me.

I missed Pete heaps. I steadfastly refused to doubt him because our hearts beat as one and we were part of each other. No way would he deliberately let me suffer. This was just so not him. But not knowing what was going on drove me mad.

I struggled to hold my head high and appear calm. I still had to complete my assignments and work on weekends too. Early one morning, a storm uprooted a big tree and it fell onto the railway track—and a moron yelled his lung out, “Why wasn't I informed about this when I called
last night
???”

Duh! I was dying to press RELEASE,
‘Call terminated due to customer's lack of intelligence'
—but must endure the curses he viciously hurled. My lot, to live and breathe among people who thought it was fine to swear. Why didn't they stop for a minute, close their eyes, and imagine they were the ones who were at the receiving end? Would they still be proud and endorse this freedom of speech?

With waning interest, I dealt listlessly with my callers. Some were lovely. Some belonged to agents' worst nightmares. Some were so gross—they rang while in the toilet or while
at it
with their partners.Hello? What happened to decency?

And some had exactly Pete's accent…

One Thursday after uni I bumped into Winston, the Chinese school friend I was fond of, on the train. He was now a medical student at Sydney Uni, not really enjoying it, but hoping things would smooth out in the coming years.

As his life was pretty flat, he asked me out. We took a train to North Sydney by 10pm because that was where the under 20s flocked to dance on Thursday nights. But we both knew we could never be more than friends. You could not choose whom to fall in love with. For me, it just had to be Pete.

Dreary days rolled by.

Lonely, I would scan fellow commuters and chat inside my head,

“Hello guys. I have spoken with thousands and thousands of you.And you've pushed me, and jostled me about. I'm with you at the City2Surf and Mini Marathon. Among you at many concerts and sporting events. Right now, next to you on the train. Do you know that I'm sad? You know, I have Sinead O'Connor's ‘Nothing Compares 2U' stuck in my head. So talk to me, train buddies. Crack a joke. Let's discuss what caused that macho guy over there to ink his arm with X-rated designs. Do you suppose he really can't get by without them? Or did he gag when he discovered these tattoos after a night in booze-land?

See the nice middle-aged couple by the back row? Every morning they chat quietly while eating a fruit breakfast. Baffles me how they cut the pieces in perfect cubes of exactly the same size—2.54mm?And why would that girl with a pierced lip hog the seat next to her with her bags while the lot of you have to stand? You, charcoal suit glaring from the aisle, breathing fire. Dare to yank her headset? Ask whether she's bought a valid train ticket for her bags.”

I had no mental strength to listen to classical music. At home I shoved Pete's violin up high in the cupboard, too distraught to see it.

But his thoughtful gifts were all around. The perfect laughing-banksia man. The shells. The dried leaves, the pretty ones he had picked up from my home streets as we walked Bronson. I had framed them too. His violin CDs. The tape of him whistling beautifully. And the cool jade ring around my finger—
safety, peace of mind, kindness, and eternity…

Deep inside I knew, I just knew, Pete would do nothing to hurt me.Something was terribly wrong.

Every night I worried about this as I brushed Bronson's fur. This was a way of bonding with Bronson. It showed him who was the boss, too. A few times he had knots and matting which had to be cut out because they couldn't be brushed out.

“Rah-rah-rah-rah-raaah rah-rah”

“Woof-woof!”

“What do you think, Bronson?” I asked miserably. “You know Pete's the loveliest guy alive. So what's wrong? Should I just sit home and let things happen? Me, the little fighter?”

What could I do? Gosh, what could I do?

I could send him a person-to-person registered express letter. That was what I did.