Balls Head

Balls Head Reserve, as always, made me think rude thoughts. Not because of the name ? it's a headland, named after a Lieutenant Ball, who captained one of the ships in the First Fleet. And not even rude thoughts about whoever had decided some place names shouldn't get an apostrophe. Rude thoughts based on memories. This had been our place ? Skye's and mine ? over twenty years earlier. We were young, both still at university. I was living at home with my strict, religious parents; she was sharing a flat with an endless stream of others. So, to get some privacy, we would sneak into dark corners of the bushland which covers the park. Places where we could check off most of the sins that would appal my parents. Places where we thought we wouldn't be seen. Well, at least we told ourselves that that was what we were after.I paused on my Saturday afternoon stroll, and looked down to the rocky shore of Sydney Harbour, where the lights of the city had spilt out on the first night that we'd come here. I smiled at the memory of her lime green summer dress riding up her thighs as she'd jumped from rock to rock. The colour had been fashionable for a time ? at least a few weeks ? despite looking terrible on almost everyone. On Skye, though, I'd loved it. Her smile, her personality outshone even the bright dress; her dark hair and pale skin set off against it. Although I probably mostly liked how short it was, and how it clung to her backside, leaving me to wonder if she was wearing anything underneath it.My recollections were interrupted by an older couple, walking hand in hand down the path in silence, looking in opposite directions. I wondered if that was what might have become of Skye and me if I'd made different decisions ? a quiet, relaxed familiarity with each other. Loving, but seemingly lacking the passion that Skye and I had had, taking every opportunity to grope each other whenever we were here.We'd never fallen into the calm, relaxed companionship that my later marriage had had almost from the start. istanbul travesti Perhaps because Skye and I were only together for a couple of years, or maybe we'd had something extraordinary, which I just hadn't appreciated at the time."Morning," said the man, with a slight nod.His wife just glanced at my crotch and then looked up and smiled.I shuffled a little; embarrassed at the effect that Skye could have on me even ten years after we'd last met.I mumbled something in reply and carried on my way.***When I got home, there was a parcel on my front doorstep. No courier bag or postage, just a handwritten note, and a plastic shopping bag.The handwriting was vaguely familiar. I unfolded the note and looked straight to the signature. Skye.I briefly wondered if I should call the bomb squad. She'd been so angry the last time we spoke, but even that had been years earlier. I'd figured at the time that it was maybe for the best. We struggled to be just friends, even with us both married by that stage.I plunged a hand into the bag and pulled out a brand new hardcover book. The title read, "A Foreign Country". But my eyes were drawn to the bottom of the front cover. There, in bold text, was her name. Skye O'Donnell.When we were together, she'd dreamt of being a writer. I guess we both had, although my own skills didn't stretch much beyond the occasional dirty story. When I was overseas, I'd check sometimes to see if her name had broken onto the bestsellers list. But, of course, there are a lot of good writers and not many even get published.Except that now, Skye had.I'd spent so long with e-readers, I'd almost forgotten the excitement of holding a brand new hardcover in my hands. The smell, the weight, the colours on the dustcover and the sound when I cracked it open. I ran my fingers over the curve of the 'S' on the front cover, remembering running younger fingers across her body.I went back to the note:Hi Tom.I did it! Published author! Well, a few hundred copies, anyway.I istanbul travesti wanted you to have a copy, since you helped inspire some of it. I hope you don't mind; I think it's disguised pretty well. You might not remember the inspiration for page eighty-six anyway. It was a long time ago, even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes.Love and blessings,Skye.I smiled to see the old, familiar, hippy sign-off. I used to tease her about it, but I'd missed it in the years where we hadn't even exchanged emails. In a postscript she'd attached a new email address.Flicking through the book, it fell open easily to page eighty-six.I skimmed the page. The two main characters, Bill and Jo were in a seemingly deserted park late at night, partly scared, but mostly turned on by the risk of being seen. I'm sure that every reader would have their own images of the characters, the location, and exactly what they were doing, but I wondered if the images in my mind matched those that had been in the author's when she wrote the piece.Keen to try to get some more insight into the author's mind, I turned back to the start of the book and began to read. Obviously, it was fiction, but sometimes fiction can reveal the truth more than supposedly honest conversation. The type of conversations we have every day, where everyone is hiding something. Often from themselves.***In the book, after a passionate affair with Bill, Jo moved to England to do her doctorate in history, leaving him behind, unwilling to leave his own studies and burgeoning career.The novel explored the foreignness of other lands to Jo as she moved around the world, but also touched on the foreignness of Australia to some of our ancestors who had tried to impose an English lifestyle onto such a different landscape. And the foreignness to Jo of her own desires as she explored her sexuality with a variety of men. I always liked a book with rich ideas and themes, but a book with ideas, themes and hot sex scenes was better still.But istanbul travesti it also explored one more foreign country, as L. P. Hartley had identified ? the past. And whether we can ever really recapture the past. While I don't usually like twee, happily-ever-after endings, I was really hoping that Bill and Jo would get one.***In real life, I'd been the one to leave, and Skye had stayed at home, unwilling to move too far from her critically ill mother.I guess that, like so many other Australians, I'd gone overseas looking for something more exciting than home. London seemed a mythical place, home to a few of my friends who were always off exploring "the continent". What I'd found there was mostly familiar. Just a bunch of people trying to get by and find meaning in their lives. Sometimes it seemed that at least half of them were Australian. The thrill waned quickly ? it was a lot like home, except with shitty weather. And no one like Skye. Or at least, if there was, then she didn't want to talk to me, let alone get naked in a park together. Not least because we'd probably freeze to death.I got used to the money I was earning, though, and, well, I guess I enjoyed the effect a well-placed "g'day" could sometimes have with women around Europe. When I eventually found my way home again, Skye was engaged to be married. Her son was born six months later.Her mouth had said, "Welcome home," but her eyes had said, "Fuck you for running off in the first place."***It was two in the morning when I finished the book. Bill and Jo had been brought back together by tragedy. It wasn't exactly a happily ever after ending, but while they had each other, they had hope. They hadn't recaptured the past, but were trying to build something new together. Other minor characters who had hoped to recapture their past, though, had failed disastrously, perhaps because they were using it as a way to escape the present, or to avoid facing the future.I still didn't know exactly what the author's opinion on recapturing the past was, but I knew what my opinion was. So I composed an email.***Hi Skye,Wow! I've just read the whole book in one go. Great stuff! I always knew you could write, but just wow.I can see where you got the inspiration for some bits, but I don't think anyone else would see too much of me in Bill.