A Home She Made

Part 2

“In my heart a home she made, and it’s there I hoped that she would stay”

By this stage my mind was pretty much all made up about SG. She had me hook, line and sinker but there was still one final hurdle left for her to jump: the highly-anticipated and notoriously awkward “meet the family” moment; a litmus test that many a potential suitor has failed in the past. 

Munching on another batch of lemon and sugar pancakes, I heard the unmistakable bass-heavy hum of Mum’s boxy bronze Ford Fairlane roll up beside The Van; disturbing the sunny morning’s serenity. It was show time. I held my breath. I knew these encounters could go one of several ways but from the greeting with an old-friend-style hug, to the guard-down chats over tea and Tim Tams, even a civil game of Scrabble, SG got along with my Mum and brother like a house (or van) on fire. Game, set, match. 

After sneaking in one last dose of fish ’n chips for lunch, it was time for us to leave. SG and I slid into the backseat of Mum’s car as she’d so kindly offered to taxi us from to Newcastle where so we could catch the train back to Sydney. All I recall from that journey is us sitting unnecessarily close and being extremely tired. So much so that pretty much as soon as we’d waved goodbye Mum on the platform and found a spare seat in the double-decker cabin, we fell asleep. But not fully asleep, we inhabited that state where you’re sort of half-in and half-out; awake enough to notice the sun flickering on my closed eyelids as if it were a strobe light peaking through the eucalypts of the surrounding Aussie bush, but asleep enough to enjoy dreamy thoughts and visions conjured up by my subconsciousness. All while my arms and legs were entangled with SG’s like some sort of Celtic symbol. Pure bliss. 

Since it was so long ago and my memory isn’t great to begin with, the chain of events following our return to Sydney is even more hazy than my recollection of our trip to Fingal, but a few key things still come to mind. We planned to spend one day exploring the Blue Mountains (hyperlink) but woke up and, seeing that it was overcast, instead opted for what SG termed a “Duvet Day”:¹² the 2010 more innocent equivalent of “Netflix 'n chill” which mainly involved us watching a non-stop stream of movies while splurging on a multi-course dégustation featuring popcorn, chocolate, pizza, ice cream and several other equally delicious delicacies. 

Even though SG & I virtually lived in each other’s pocket for several days, shared a bed and our deepest secrets, it dawned on us that we had not been on a conventional date. This was a wrong we wanted to right before she left. So for our penultimate night I booked a table for two at an Italian restaurant in Surry Hills called Essenza.¹³ It was there — sat just centimetres across the candle-lit table from the girl who I was convinced would one day be my wife — that the finite reality of our situation finally dawned on me. The countdown clock that had been ticking incessantly in the background, getting louder and louder with each passing second ever since the moment we met was swiftly running out of time. I’d been aware of it all along but all too willingly swept it under the rug because what we had was so electric; and the truth was too tough to face. What started as a harmless bit of summer lovin’ evolved into something much more. Never in a million years did I expect the spark to become a raging bush fire, but that’s exactly what had happened. Even if it could have been extinguished, I didn’t want to. As I tried to grapple with the thought that I was about to watch SG walk away — potentially forever — a sadness began to grow within me. It expanded until it filled my whole body, then escaped and hung over us like a dark cloud; an unwanted third wheel; an elephant in the room that could be ignored no longer. Merely writing these words now makes me cringe but, in a desperate effort to obtain some form certainty, when we arrived home from dinner I initiated “The Talk”. 

At first she implemented all sorts of conversational acrobatics to deflect and dodge the question: “What are we going to do?”. We danced around the subject for what seemed like hours but after several long pauses, circular arguments and quite a few tears as well, we resolved to give long distance a go. A bandaid solution that I think we both knew was unrealistic in the long term but would at least fight off the feelings until we parted ways.¹⁴ Or so we thought. Turns out we were wrong and, as a result spent the next day (i.e. her last in Australia) running around Sydney ticking off a a bucket list of those silly little in-jokes that nobody except the couple finds funny; a feeble string of attempts to distract ourselves from our fast-approaching deadline. I don’t remember this but apparently we had a running race (which she reportedly won), I taught her how to throw and catch a boomerang on Sydney Uni’s number 1 oval,¹⁵ we walked to a nearby street that had her last name on it so she could take some silly photos and then, according to SG’s journal, that night I played her ‘Fallen’ (hyperlink) for the first time before we shared a bed for the last.¹⁶

* * *

Friday April 16th 2010

“She didn’t stay”

The irreverent buzz of my alarm clock woke us before dawn. I dozed while SG had a quick shower, jammed her things into the last inches of spare space in her back pack, zipped it up and then just stood there like a statue; frozen in silence. This is was it. The moment we’d both been dreading. Who knew when or even if we’d ever see each other again. That black cloud of sadness was back but there was no ignoring him this time. He was heavier, darker and gurgling like a brewing storm. I gently closed the door of my room. Neither of us said a word. We couldn’t, but also didn’t need to. You could feel it in the air, you could see it my body and it was written all over her face; especially her eyes. They were blue when she was happy, green when she was sad,¹⁷ and that morning they were a watery pair of emeralds. They told me everything I needed to know. 

Down the fire escape and out the back door, we walked slowly towards City Road holding each other as closely as possible, trying to savour every last step and avoid eye contact at all costs until we reached our terminal destination. I would have stood there forever if I could have but she hated goodbyes and was determined to make this one brief. I hailed a cab, it pulled over and I threw her bag in the boot. After one last kiss and a hug that threatened to squeeze the life out of her, SG hopped inside, shut the door with a solid thud and sped off. 

I watched the taxi until it drove out of view then turned and wandered aimlessly back to my room — think Hugh Grant in Notting Hill but heaps more sorry for myself. 

As sleepy students bustled past me, scurrying off to early morning lectures, I fort back tears until I returned to my room, shut the blackout curtains and cried in darkness for the rest of the week.¹⁸

12. Which I allude to in my song 'Do You Want Me' in the lyric “fun undercover on the duvet day”

13. Which apparently burnt down in a very suspicious fire last year - worth a read at a later date https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/it-s-black-inside-police-investigating-suspicious-fire-at-surry-hills-restaurant-20190704-p5244g.html

14. Actually, maybe she knew it was unrealistic but as far as I, a naive little love sick 20yo was concerned that was an iron clad agreement.

15. Which I actually believe because this was a skill I’d taught myself a couple years earlier when I had time to kill on my lunch break in the park behind work and a severe lack of friend to kick a football with 😢

16. Oh, come on. Get your mind outta the gutter!

17. Lyric in AHSM - “moods reflected in her eyes… happy blue and green goodbyes”)

18. Jokes, I'm pretty sure I had day full of class which was just about the last thing I wanted to do but it probably helped me take my mind off the gaping hole in my heart as much as anything could.