Sydney's Song (14 page)

The next day I started taking feedback.

“Welcome to Your Say, this is Sydney.”

“Yes Sydney, I want to complain about your bloody bus!” A guy with Holger's Swiss accent. He went on to detail his suggestion. “My name's Bru. Tell your boss to call me back. I want to give him a piece of my mind on how to run a bus!”

“Somebody graffitied my phone number at the back of your bus,”seethed a young man in a low, gritty voice of restrained violence. “It says to call me for some obscene sexual services. Please remove it at once. I've been harassed by people asking for those services.” He was very angry, yet his speech was unfailingly polite. So courteous.

The caller after him hollered and swore viciously in offensive language. I terminated the call. He called again and got me again.

“I wasn't abusing you,” he pleaded in profuse apology. “This is just the way I talk. The way I was brought up.” And for the rest of the call he cautiously struggled to speak with respect. “I have a few choice words for Sydney trains,” he confided. “But you couldn't close your ears, could you?” I felt sorry for this bogan because he was actually nice.

“The staff's treatment towards my elderly parents was absolutely horrendous!” A furious gentleman described what his beloved parents had to suffer on their recent Country train trip. It sure was a genuine issue to turn any decent man livid.

At my next performance review, I found out he later lodged a compliment about me for being very helpful in handling his feedback. Wow… That very, very, very angry gentleman? The magnificent defender of elderly parents? I felt honoured. Hopefully one day I would have a son to look after elderly me half as well.Wait, wait. Did I just envision a child in my future?

The Your Say team occupied pods along the western glass wall from where the entire floor was visible. While documenting the cases, my eyes swept around the room. Flo sat far away at the pod where I used to sit taking Infoline calls, no doubt waiting for Pete, who just had his days off and was scheduled to start later. As casual temps, my backpacker friends did not do feedback. Paid higher casual rates, they didn't get bonus either.

I knew the precise moment Pete arrived for work. I could sense him in the room. My heart thrummed, and did a flip when I turned towards the door. He was walking towards me in his graceful gait, so gorgeous with a new haircut.

A surge of gladness swept through me as he smiled his potent smile right into my eyes.

I felt joy!

I had a smile on my face because Pete was happy to see me.

“Where on earth is your three-late-nine?” screamed my customer, asking for the 389 bus. Pete took an Infoline seat nearest to Your Say next to a bunch of merry old ladies. “Oh, now, now here they come…Three buses turning up at the same time!”

Lynn teased Pete about his stylish haircut. “What a handsome, respectable young man you are. So, which girl are you trying to impress?”

With the hot seating, you never knew who had coughed his life away at the workstation. Pete wiped his computer with disinfectant and joked in calm tones with the oldies. Come to think of it, he was friendlier with them than with Flo, whom he had not spared a glance.Seemed I had nothing to fear there.

But I was fearful that he would soon leave Sydney. Both Sydneys.

Instantly I knew I did not want to waste any remaining time. I must get to know Pete. I needed to. I refused to look back with regret someday, wondering about the “what ifs”.

After some deliberation I daringly sent him a note through Val, the Floor Walker: “
Library. When you finish work
.”

“I'm in the taxi, waking up the driver each time he dozes off to sleep at red lights!” a brave Queenslander reported.

My hands shook when Pete sent me a reply, “
OK. Can't wait
.”

Val, a very lovely girl I liked very much, smiled down at me, “Any more post?”

I shook my head, smiling back.

“Postage?” she prompted.

I gave her a lolly, “Postage.”

She ambled away with a happy smile.

“You ask if I'd like to leave my details?” shrieked a hysterical grandma, her ancient voice cracking. “What details do you need, love? That I was born ninety years ago? That your hourly bus didn't show up so I had to wait two full hours at your rotten bus stop? That I'm suffering a medical condition and this wait has caused me a set back? That I've been in extreme pain since?” Her shrill shouting escalated in crescendo. “Are those enough details for you?”

My next caller spoke with serious stutter. Raging against a rude female station attendant, he expressed his fury with great difficulty.It was as challenging for him as for me. Gently I probed for details.After some time, he calmed down and hardly stuttered at all. I verified the details. By now his speech was slow, the words clear. He was very delighted with my assistance, he said, and it would be marvellous if the station staff were half as patient. No worries, Sir, glad to help.

He was okay. But sad to say, some people with disabilities liked to flash their limitations like a badge:
“No Sydney. Not fair to compare us to radiant, peaceful Christopher Reeves. He's rich. He has a lovely wife, paid attendants, adoring fans. We suffer like he does—minus all the pampering. So we have every right to be bitter! It's our privilege to snap off everyone's head! We have disabilities. We're entitled to be mean!”

Later, due to the abuse we received, our centre offered a confidential psychological counselling service. And what did I think when callers hurled insults at me, all high and mighty? Nina told me it wasn't worth getting upset.

“No one will think badly of you, except the low people. No one will honour you, except the honourable.”

I had a quick chat with Sinead after work. I would step out with Pete. But not to join her group binge drinking.

“As long as you keep Pete with you,” she agreed. “Happy dating!”

I waited in Hornsby Library for Pete to finish his shift. At the start of 1300500, I had come here to dodge co-workers when I was an emotional wreck. Later, to hide from those who tried to initiate me to smoking. I used to pretend to read, but today I was actually engrossed in reading.

Pete raised an eyebrow at my book when he came. “A horror book?” he teased, eyes twinkling.

I scrunched my nose at him. “And what did you expect me to read?”

“No idea,” he took my trembling hands and pulled me up. Pete was bad for my state of health—my heart now beat in erratic thumps. He smiled disarmingly into my eyes. “But there are books I'd like you to read.”

He pulled me along and I burst out loughing when we stopped at the cookery section.

“Pete! This is rich.”

A tall librarian with short curly hair appeared at the end of the aisle, motioning us to be silent. I knew her from high school. When friends and I noisily met here before going to the movies, she would try to instil some manners in us. But I liked her. She was very lovely at Lisgar Gardens, where she sometimes assisted people with disabilities with the inclinator.

“Sorry,” I apologised, bashful.

She nodded and left us.

“I like it that you laugh so freely,” Pete smiled. “Uninhibited.”

“Not for a library,” I whispered, motioning to the direction the stern librarian had gone.

“Right. Take life seriously,” he smirked. He gestured to the cookbooks and asked me in earnest, “Will you eat? Will you look after yourself for me?”

For him? My heart thudded. All laughter left me. Was this a declaration?

“I love you.”

It was a declaration. I had
sensed
something. But why? Why had he fallen in love with me? I was dying to question him. But I was struck speechless.

“You've known it,” he stated, his gaze boring into mine. “I'm just verbalizing it so there's no doubt.”

He bent down—Pete was about four or five inches taller than me—and kissed the tip of my nose gently. “I have to go away at the end of this month. Not for long, but there's something I need to do back home. I need to make arrangements to move here. But I don't want you not eating while I'm gone. You're gonna do it for me? Will you look after yourself for me?”

He
cared
for me. He was worried about me. Well, what could I say. Except, “Yes.”

I felt an unexpected gladness. Ecstatic. “Yes,” I said with more conviction. “I'll do it.”

“For me?”

“Yes,” I promised, looking into his eyes.

He squeezed my hands. We stood there in the aisle between books grinning like lovesick idiots. Gazing at each other. Feeling elated.Bubbling hearts overflowing. Eyes shining with absolute joy. All sorrow wiped clean.

I did not remember what pain was like. All was right with the world.

“Cooking lessons,” he smiled. “We'll start with your favourite food to make sure you'll eat it. What is it?”

Pete picked up a Margaret Fulton that included continental and oriental recipes, promising to simplify them, saying, “You won't mind cooking so much when it's easy.” He liked to try mixing recipes from one country with another according to available ingredients, and if it turned out okay he would continue to use it.

We bought a few slabs of barramundi fillet for that night's dinner because I liked it and because Pete said grilled fish was one of the easiest and quickest dishes to make.

“For a dish to taste good, the ingredients must be very fresh and of very good quality. It's not hard here. In some countries you have to scour the whole market to find the freshest.” He picked up several tiny tubs of herb plants. “Here. You'll use them heaps.”

As we waited for the train on platform 3 with Pete's arms snaking around my waist, inadvertently I met Flo's eyes spitting fire from platform 4. If looks could kill, I would have been dead. Pete sensed when I flinched and he kissed my hair,

“Don't let her worry you,” he whispered. “No one can come between us. No one. There's only us. ‘Cause nobody else exists.”

“But Pete, she's interested in you.”

“Honey, she's gone through most foreigners on the floor. She only wants to add me to her statistics of conquests. She's not interested in
me
. So I wouldn't let her bother you.”

That did not explain why he was interested in
me
though. Why had he singled me out? Why had he fallen in love with me? I opened my mouth to ask. But what came out was,

“But Pete, she's so beautiful.”

“True. That means she'll easily pick up someone else and forget me.”

“Oh.” I thought about it. Of course. I knew Flo was one of the girls who went for boys just to see how many she could score. “Pete, do you know you're very practical?”

“And you smell so good,” he murmured into my hair. “Now, here comes our train.”

He showed me how to marinate the barramundi and afterwards we planted the newly bought herbs in the backyard.

“You have the most beautiful garden. I would've bought you fresh flowers except you can open your own flower shop.” He scooped a handful of fallen rose petals and inhaled. “Don't you just love this scent?”

“I'm ashamed I don't have any herbs,” I stood shuffling my feet. “I don't even know their names and what they are used for.”

“That's okay,” he looked up at me, his smile and his eyes so beautiful. “When I was your age, I didn't know their names and what they were used for, either.”

I asked him all about his travels as we took Dimity for her afternoon walk. He had visited several countries in the past few years.

“Um—Pete? When's your birthday?”

“February eleventh. Yours?”

“February the fourth.”

“You're kidding. A week before mine? Too easy.”

This was an awkward moment, exchanging birthdays. We knew so little of each other.

“So,” I asked shyly, “Are you going to be twenty two?”