Rouge Road
The night passed by; and still there I sat. Curled.
I dangled a leg over the balustrade, draping my other on loveseat. I grew
complacent over how much time was passing me. The other partygoers had got up
and left in the early hours. I’d not stirred once.
Hong Kong was far gone from this scintillating adventure. Some years ago my mother assured me I’d have to make the right choices to get where I wanted to go. She’d been patiently awaiting me to fall asleep, and she’d been singing sweet purrs, like this one.
I wanted to hear more, even after her repose started to wane. She gave in and breathlessly gave me some sugar. I was six, and very charming -sweet even- and had a glint in the eye drawing in the centre spotlight to wash over me, and I became Rosy-Rouge-Delight-Fine-Feline.
Dreamtime came and went with a whisper from an angelic, crystalline, waterlily mama wispily wearied but flourishing into formless creatures of beauty – entrancing my heart with her soulful creation of shadowy shapes on the wall, glistening in the tinged hues of the paper lamps.
‘’Gone will you be,’’ cried she as she crouched into a final moment.
I smiled.
Hong Kong drifted me around a lot. I sort of thought life would open up for me. I came from one high rise city and found myself in another, without a standing notion of what I would do differently or who I’d be, but this was the mission.
I’d had great home-sickness upon boarding the plane, but it vanished when I set foot on the spicy-hot Australian tarmac. Goodbyes had been short and sweet with my one-and-only loved one, Gigi the cat. I’d left her at the vets. I moved myself. And now, I’ve made it though, right?
Kids and teachers were eager to have someone so exotic give them Chinese words and wear chopsticks in her hair for show. The pristine daffodil from Hazy Hong Kong came to bloom under the full biting Australian sun, rather than wilt in Hong Kong’s entombed haze.
Hong Kong was far gone from this scintillating adventure. Some years ago my mother assured me I’d have to make the right choices to get where I wanted to go. She’d been patiently awaiting me to fall asleep, and she’d been singing sweet purrs, like this one.
I wanted to hear more, even after her repose started to wane. She gave in and breathlessly gave me some sugar. I was six, and very charming -sweet even- and had a glint in the eye drawing in the centre spotlight to wash over me, and I became Rosy-Rouge-Delight-Fine-Feline.
Dreamtime came and went with a whisper from an angelic, crystalline, waterlily mama wispily wearied but flourishing into formless creatures of beauty – entrancing my heart with her soulful creation of shadowy shapes on the wall, glistening in the tinged hues of the paper lamps.
‘’Gone will you be,’’ cried she as she crouched into a final moment.
I smiled.
Hong Kong drifted me around a lot. I sort of thought life would open up for me. I came from one high rise city and found myself in another, without a standing notion of what I would do differently or who I’d be, but this was the mission.
I’d had great home-sickness upon boarding the plane, but it vanished when I set foot on the spicy-hot Australian tarmac. Goodbyes had been short and sweet with my one-and-only loved one, Gigi the cat. I’d left her at the vets. I moved myself. And now, I’ve made it though, right?
Kids and teachers were eager to have someone so exotic give them Chinese words and wear chopsticks in her hair for show. The pristine daffodil from Hazy Hong Kong came to bloom under the full biting Australian sun, rather than wilt in Hong Kong’s entombed haze.
My mother shone in the morning light, twirling around so that her dress showed her garters, tripped on one of her heels. We both laughed.
Lauren Hill was playing in the background that morning when I reached for the phone.
I tempered my tone to sound believable.
“I’m sp-hhhh-uuuhghh…”
“Hello, who is this?”
“I can’t come in today. I-I felt bad last week or so. My apologies,” and then ran on and on with the bullshit.
The headmaster muffled his own voice to sound empathetic to my state, and coughed himself, acknowledging that I should “feel better soon” before I got his simple instruction to take rest and give my body a chance to get over the jet lag.
I pursed my lips, letting a little sigh out here and there, as if romancing him the notion that he was my great rescuer.
“Thank you, Mister James. I’ll talk soon,” I said, and hung up on him.
Oh so easy here.
~
Boos and shouts from boys at the gate. Girls inside cried. I stood between them both. There, between both of the groups I stood; my head half turned over one of my shoulders. They screamed.
I was ready --- were they?
~
The
day was young. The heart inside me beat on in a frenzied desire to breathe
invisible and effervescent possibilities; my compulsion to explore drew me out
there.
I’m alive. Let’s go.
My sheer dress unhemmed and vanished under unkempt hair, I was reliant on dry shampoo and blind faith holding me together. My hair often swung around to the front to cover a forgotten button or torn sleeve at just the right moment.
Elderly people ventured on outside a line of tour buses. I followed just a few steps behind and waited with a puzzled woman in curlers who tapped her umbrella and cleared her throat.
I think she was lost herself, half-dressed and smelling like Hotel soap, and needed to validate her own presence among other unrested and dishevelled tourists. I gave her a small wave and waited for a greeting, but it wasn’t returned. I read on her blouse, Denise, and then she turned to walk on board the bus.
She poked her head out and waved out at no one in particular, in seconds garnished with a little daisy in her ear and a fresh pop of peach lipstick. It appeared no one was lining up next to me and had already been forwarded onto a neighbouring bus.
“Oh, my,” she said, eyes tensely scanning her opposition. “They don’t even have air-con - what, but h-how can they get shafted onto that hellhole? I cannot bel-ee-ve it. No, I just can’t believe it! YOU’LL BE ROBBED!” Yards away elderly tourists lined up, hardly heeding her warning, for they could hardly hear it. She ripped each curler out, exasperated.
I looked at her for a second before pulling pink lipstick from my pocket. Dresses with pockets are key, the best advice for free from me to you. I swiped two dots on each cheek, puckered up like a puffer fish, and let out a theatrical exhale when I smudged the pink on my dimples. Quite a charade.
“Rouge?” she asked, hand to heart.
“Rosy-Rouge.”
I darted behind a newsagency stand, swiped a Sunday Telegraph, and sidled behind the oldies to fan my face. I let out a giant cough, in a far-too-frail condition holding myself up with one hand on the tree for emphasis and grasped the attention of the near-deaf bus punters. The driver of the bus ran up to me to grip my hand in support.
I fell suddenly before he could act as a Knight in Shining and heard the fellow coughs and gasps of breathless witnesses three metres further. I glanced back at Denise with one eye as she was watched on with an animated glare.
The fainting spell drew the crowd around me, craning their necks on shaking frames and wobbly bones. Given over to my immaculate performance, the driver asked, “Miss, what’s happening here?” I stared at his bulbous yellowy eyes through my weary creased lids. I took a deep breath as he sat me up against the stoic trunks.
“Get her some water!” one gentleman ordered his wife.
“Sure, some vitamin C will help,” the wife confirmed.
“Get her back on the bus.” And this was when I violently shook my head at the couple.
“I-I can’t travel on this hot heap anymore,” I spluttered, doing my best impression of dry mouth. “You can’t breathe, I-I can’t---”
“Oh, she’s crying, poor thing!”
“Miss!” Denise cried, sprinting over, her daisy falling out for emphasised urgency. “Your cheeks are cooking, dear! Come inside on the air-conditioned bus.” She held her hand out and touched my flushed cheek once, and shook her head. “You’ve been burnt to a crisp.”
The driver’s mouth opened to protest, eyes widening at Denise, and was cut off by a very concerned man declaring, “I do have TravelCalm, here, here, here!!”
I held my hand out to Denise and was lifted up slowly by the two drivers, one each side, and both gripping with a slightly territorial force. I lifted the back of my hand to my forehead, my eyes closed, while I sipped at some water, and popped a TravelCalm tablet. The show must go on, after all. I opened my eyes and nodded once in a sedated slow head-droop, and passed out again.
“Well, I can’t believe she’s so dehydrated!” An elderly lady with coke-bottle glasses crowed. “Where’s the water on this thing --- do you have any ice-packs? What if I fall on these chaotic roads with all these wiz-bang contraptions zipping past? I don’t like the city; I don’t like it at all – no!”
The throng seemed to cluster around the drivers as if to push into my space and take care of me themselves. The deep set frown lines and soft-hanging necks reminded me of a group of angry turtles, but then I realised turtles are never angry, turtles just care.
“I-I might feel better after I sit down,” I managed to mutter.
“She speaks English well,” one of them said.
“Maybe she’s still exhausted from her trip – she needs some air on her and some rest,” one of the ladies spoke up. “Let’s start this tour up so we can all get our money’s worth, and she can get some shut-eye. And cool the bus down a bit.” The leading lady turned and arched her brow at the driver who changed colour to match my own decorated flushed-face.
All stopped looking at me, looked at him, and Denise narrowed her eyes at the other bus. I coughed and hunched over, moaning and groaning with my hands lifted up defensively at the sun.
“Please, just condition me with air… That’s all I ask,” I said, with my hair doing its distracting dance. They all pulled me from the drivers’ hands and started forwarding me back to their bus, “we’ll turn it on for you, darling. They don’t know what they’re doing.” I shook my head, waiting for one of the Paul Hogan Heroes to turn back grim-faced.
“Would you believe it? He’s got no air-con,” he said, fist clenched. “It’s summer.”
“How negligent,” Denise chastised.
“I’ll melt,” one lady shrieked.
The rest of the elderly slowly encroached on their walkers and came for the driver in an attack mode formation line. They shook their concession cards and dollar coins into a complete demonstration threatening to call the fire brigade for the fire hazard of faulty equipment.
“Come along everyone,” Denise announced, “I have enough air to condition you all.”
Denise had me sitting up front and centre, microphone in hand, and we all sung together the Australian anthem. I was guided to listen to one round before beginning the second on my own with “Let’s we rejoice for we’re so here,” which elicited strange clucking noises and then uproarious laughter from the seniors.
They spoke to me about the weather being the best in the world. They spoke to me about the cricket teams, best in the world. They spoke to me about their grandchildren, who apparently were my age and definitely the best in the world. They started to crack tins of beer and cheers each other with Denise turning a blind eye, offering me these compliments as they thought it best I be seasoned to the quintessentially true Australian lager by them, and not the useless unsavoury ratbags like their grandchildren. I loved having one, then two, then a third beer by the third set of roundabouts that made the elderly folk creak and crack into another bout of ballooning laughter. By this point Denise was over the tour points and moved to listening to a Rat Pack playlist.
They danced with one another - taking turns to switch wives and twist hips around into travelling salesman theatrical toe-taps. I’d entered into another time. I sat there while they finished up, but then was whirled up into the aisle and shimmied over to a conga line chorus.
As the time ticked on and the beers went to my head, I knew the party was only just starting with this group of happy-go-lucky ancient protectors. Denise put me in charge of the route as a thank you to me for the outlay of bus tickets. I put on ‘Good Vibrations’ and let the good times roll, nodding off in the back due to their excessive gyrating and gusto, but that didn’t stop me getting us going onwards in style. The bus swerved around corners and I finally slumped into a small doze myself, allowing my head to roll around with the bends in the co-pilots seat.
The day was balmy; sultry enough to draw thousands to Bondi, and even Denise was sweating in her cotton playsuit. I could tell we’d have a little wander over some gravel to the fence-line on the water’s edge to watch some Dolphins or some pelicans.
“Good choice,” she said, as we made our way outside of the bus first. We wandered to the ticket booth and bought a one-hour car park for four dollars, stuck it back on the dashboard, and then left the brood to bake themselves awake in the window sunshine.
“I do love it here,” I said, smirking at a seagull eating a dog collar.
There were men in small shorts, could they even be called that, I wasn’t sure how-short-was-considered-too-short for middle aged office workers? I supposed it reminded them of their faded youth and what they urged themselves to retrieve on their hourly office breaks. Or could it be that they’d had one too many G and T’s at a meeting at the Infamous Icebergs and decided to strip it all off and bunch it all up?
I laughed to myself when Denise got the object of my fascination and looked back at the bus and said, “Don’t give them any ideas,” with a deadpan expression.
“Let them have the wind in their hair!” I said.
“You’re a riot,” she said, breaking out into a full blown grin. “I guess we have time for a drink while they’re dazed and confused. Let’s us just go to that bar over there---” and she’d started to walk off in the direction of the tiki bar on the grassy hill without a hitch.
It was a Luau themed cafĂ© that looked to house the likes of all the Home and Away stars I’d had posters of in my room as a girl. The place was called Gimme Shimmy and the music was tropical house. Denise walked right behind the bar and gave the bar manager a huge kiss on the lips. The bar manager’s attire was outrageously wild – she had a spandex pink wetsuit on with a coconut bra over the top and a white hat over her seaweed wig.
“Rouge Rabbit,” she called me over, I walked across to the stools and lent over the bar with my hand extended. “This is my wife, Margie.”
Margie cried out a giant noise that was between a Californian surfer and one of the elderly folks in the bus cabin yawning in their slumber. I was pulled up and over the bar in a giant bear grip with Margie shaking me up over her own toes, “You’re a tiny thing, you pretty scally-wag! Jungle Jane with all that hair, look at it – look at cha.” She set me down to look me up and down. “She’s perfect.”
Denise squinted and bit her lips in a cheeky knowing. The two of them poured me a big glass of beer and said “here’s a schooner to skull” watching rapt while I downed it quickly in front of the packed front bar. “Quite the lady, Rouge,” Denise guffawed.
“Wow, Rouge, have some chips before you faint!” Margie said.
“Been there, done that,” I said, shrugging at Denise.
“She’s worldly wise this little fire cracker,” Denise told her, holding onto both of us as if a missing link of the chain was found and connected back into its proper place. She looked back at me.
“How long you here for now, love?” Denise said, sipping at her beer.
“For as long as it happens. Then, gone I’ll be.”
“As it happens, we’ve got a job for you.”
We grew closer.
I’m alive. Let’s go.
My sheer dress unhemmed and vanished under unkempt hair, I was reliant on dry shampoo and blind faith holding me together. My hair often swung around to the front to cover a forgotten button or torn sleeve at just the right moment.
Elderly people ventured on outside a line of tour buses. I followed just a few steps behind and waited with a puzzled woman in curlers who tapped her umbrella and cleared her throat.
I think she was lost herself, half-dressed and smelling like Hotel soap, and needed to validate her own presence among other unrested and dishevelled tourists. I gave her a small wave and waited for a greeting, but it wasn’t returned. I read on her blouse, Denise, and then she turned to walk on board the bus.
She poked her head out and waved out at no one in particular, in seconds garnished with a little daisy in her ear and a fresh pop of peach lipstick. It appeared no one was lining up next to me and had already been forwarded onto a neighbouring bus.
“Oh, my,” she said, eyes tensely scanning her opposition. “They don’t even have air-con - what, but h-how can they get shafted onto that hellhole? I cannot bel-ee-ve it. No, I just can’t believe it! YOU’LL BE ROBBED!” Yards away elderly tourists lined up, hardly heeding her warning, for they could hardly hear it. She ripped each curler out, exasperated.
I looked at her for a second before pulling pink lipstick from my pocket. Dresses with pockets are key, the best advice for free from me to you. I swiped two dots on each cheek, puckered up like a puffer fish, and let out a theatrical exhale when I smudged the pink on my dimples. Quite a charade.
“Rouge?” she asked, hand to heart.
“Rosy-Rouge.”
I darted behind a newsagency stand, swiped a Sunday Telegraph, and sidled behind the oldies to fan my face. I let out a giant cough, in a far-too-frail condition holding myself up with one hand on the tree for emphasis and grasped the attention of the near-deaf bus punters. The driver of the bus ran up to me to grip my hand in support.
I fell suddenly before he could act as a Knight in Shining and heard the fellow coughs and gasps of breathless witnesses three metres further. I glanced back at Denise with one eye as she was watched on with an animated glare.
The fainting spell drew the crowd around me, craning their necks on shaking frames and wobbly bones. Given over to my immaculate performance, the driver asked, “Miss, what’s happening here?” I stared at his bulbous yellowy eyes through my weary creased lids. I took a deep breath as he sat me up against the stoic trunks.
“Get her some water!” one gentleman ordered his wife.
“Sure, some vitamin C will help,” the wife confirmed.
“Get her back on the bus.” And this was when I violently shook my head at the couple.
“I-I can’t travel on this hot heap anymore,” I spluttered, doing my best impression of dry mouth. “You can’t breathe, I-I can’t---”
“Oh, she’s crying, poor thing!”
“Miss!” Denise cried, sprinting over, her daisy falling out for emphasised urgency. “Your cheeks are cooking, dear! Come inside on the air-conditioned bus.” She held her hand out and touched my flushed cheek once, and shook her head. “You’ve been burnt to a crisp.”
The driver’s mouth opened to protest, eyes widening at Denise, and was cut off by a very concerned man declaring, “I do have TravelCalm, here, here, here!!”
I held my hand out to Denise and was lifted up slowly by the two drivers, one each side, and both gripping with a slightly territorial force. I lifted the back of my hand to my forehead, my eyes closed, while I sipped at some water, and popped a TravelCalm tablet. The show must go on, after all. I opened my eyes and nodded once in a sedated slow head-droop, and passed out again.
“Well, I can’t believe she’s so dehydrated!” An elderly lady with coke-bottle glasses crowed. “Where’s the water on this thing --- do you have any ice-packs? What if I fall on these chaotic roads with all these wiz-bang contraptions zipping past? I don’t like the city; I don’t like it at all – no!”
The throng seemed to cluster around the drivers as if to push into my space and take care of me themselves. The deep set frown lines and soft-hanging necks reminded me of a group of angry turtles, but then I realised turtles are never angry, turtles just care.
“I-I might feel better after I sit down,” I managed to mutter.
“She speaks English well,” one of them said.
“Maybe she’s still exhausted from her trip – she needs some air on her and some rest,” one of the ladies spoke up. “Let’s start this tour up so we can all get our money’s worth, and she can get some shut-eye. And cool the bus down a bit.” The leading lady turned and arched her brow at the driver who changed colour to match my own decorated flushed-face.
All stopped looking at me, looked at him, and Denise narrowed her eyes at the other bus. I coughed and hunched over, moaning and groaning with my hands lifted up defensively at the sun.
“Please, just condition me with air… That’s all I ask,” I said, with my hair doing its distracting dance. They all pulled me from the drivers’ hands and started forwarding me back to their bus, “we’ll turn it on for you, darling. They don’t know what they’re doing.” I shook my head, waiting for one of the Paul Hogan Heroes to turn back grim-faced.
“Would you believe it? He’s got no air-con,” he said, fist clenched. “It’s summer.”
“How negligent,” Denise chastised.
“I’ll melt,” one lady shrieked.
The rest of the elderly slowly encroached on their walkers and came for the driver in an attack mode formation line. They shook their concession cards and dollar coins into a complete demonstration threatening to call the fire brigade for the fire hazard of faulty equipment.
“Come along everyone,” Denise announced, “I have enough air to condition you all.”
Denise had me sitting up front and centre, microphone in hand, and we all sung together the Australian anthem. I was guided to listen to one round before beginning the second on my own with “Let’s we rejoice for we’re so here,” which elicited strange clucking noises and then uproarious laughter from the seniors.
They spoke to me about the weather being the best in the world. They spoke to me about the cricket teams, best in the world. They spoke to me about their grandchildren, who apparently were my age and definitely the best in the world. They started to crack tins of beer and cheers each other with Denise turning a blind eye, offering me these compliments as they thought it best I be seasoned to the quintessentially true Australian lager by them, and not the useless unsavoury ratbags like their grandchildren. I loved having one, then two, then a third beer by the third set of roundabouts that made the elderly folk creak and crack into another bout of ballooning laughter. By this point Denise was over the tour points and moved to listening to a Rat Pack playlist.
They danced with one another - taking turns to switch wives and twist hips around into travelling salesman theatrical toe-taps. I’d entered into another time. I sat there while they finished up, but then was whirled up into the aisle and shimmied over to a conga line chorus.
As the time ticked on and the beers went to my head, I knew the party was only just starting with this group of happy-go-lucky ancient protectors. Denise put me in charge of the route as a thank you to me for the outlay of bus tickets. I put on ‘Good Vibrations’ and let the good times roll, nodding off in the back due to their excessive gyrating and gusto, but that didn’t stop me getting us going onwards in style. The bus swerved around corners and I finally slumped into a small doze myself, allowing my head to roll around with the bends in the co-pilots seat.
The day was balmy; sultry enough to draw thousands to Bondi, and even Denise was sweating in her cotton playsuit. I could tell we’d have a little wander over some gravel to the fence-line on the water’s edge to watch some Dolphins or some pelicans.
“Good choice,” she said, as we made our way outside of the bus first. We wandered to the ticket booth and bought a one-hour car park for four dollars, stuck it back on the dashboard, and then left the brood to bake themselves awake in the window sunshine.
“I do love it here,” I said, smirking at a seagull eating a dog collar.
There were men in small shorts, could they even be called that, I wasn’t sure how-short-was-considered-too-short for middle aged office workers? I supposed it reminded them of their faded youth and what they urged themselves to retrieve on their hourly office breaks. Or could it be that they’d had one too many G and T’s at a meeting at the Infamous Icebergs and decided to strip it all off and bunch it all up?
I laughed to myself when Denise got the object of my fascination and looked back at the bus and said, “Don’t give them any ideas,” with a deadpan expression.
“Let them have the wind in their hair!” I said.
“You’re a riot,” she said, breaking out into a full blown grin. “I guess we have time for a drink while they’re dazed and confused. Let’s us just go to that bar over there---” and she’d started to walk off in the direction of the tiki bar on the grassy hill without a hitch.
It was a Luau themed cafĂ© that looked to house the likes of all the Home and Away stars I’d had posters of in my room as a girl. The place was called Gimme Shimmy and the music was tropical house. Denise walked right behind the bar and gave the bar manager a huge kiss on the lips. The bar manager’s attire was outrageously wild – she had a spandex pink wetsuit on with a coconut bra over the top and a white hat over her seaweed wig.
“Rouge Rabbit,” she called me over, I walked across to the stools and lent over the bar with my hand extended. “This is my wife, Margie.”
Margie cried out a giant noise that was between a Californian surfer and one of the elderly folks in the bus cabin yawning in their slumber. I was pulled up and over the bar in a giant bear grip with Margie shaking me up over her own toes, “You’re a tiny thing, you pretty scally-wag! Jungle Jane with all that hair, look at it – look at cha.” She set me down to look me up and down. “She’s perfect.”
Denise squinted and bit her lips in a cheeky knowing. The two of them poured me a big glass of beer and said “here’s a schooner to skull” watching rapt while I downed it quickly in front of the packed front bar. “Quite the lady, Rouge,” Denise guffawed.
“Wow, Rouge, have some chips before you faint!” Margie said.
“Been there, done that,” I said, shrugging at Denise.
“She’s worldly wise this little fire cracker,” Denise told her, holding onto both of us as if a missing link of the chain was found and connected back into its proper place. She looked back at me.
“How long you here for now, love?” Denise said, sipping at her beer.
“For as long as it happens. Then, gone I’ll be.”
“As it happens, we’ve got a job for you.”
We grew closer.
~~~
The
kids rushed the gate. Worlds collided, and there was confetti in the air - Bull rush.
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