Walkabout
A series of interconnected short stories from my 2018 collection "Degrees of Separation"
Walkabout
(November 2013)
“Hello Edward.
“It’s funny. I’ve always found your name so formal, ever since we were young - and now here I am wondering why we never managed to shorten it. Perhaps neither of us are the type. Or maybe we left it too late, so inculcated by our parents into the formality of ‘Ralph’ and ‘Edward’ that by the time we were old enough - and free enough - to do as we pleased the opportunity was gone. Old habits and all that.
“I can’t say it’s ever bothered me to be honest. It’s only now, writing this that I think of it again. Unlike you, I’ve spent my whole life trying to live up to my name; to see if I could suit it, fill its boots, be worthy somehow. Not that I ever liked it. I always preferred your name, but it’s not the sort of thing you can swap is it - not that you would have wanted to.
“I’m carrying on writing in the hope - which may be forlorn, of course - that you’re actually still reading this. That, after all this time, I still ‘count’ one way or another. How long has it been? Sorry, rhetorical question given we both know exactly how long it’s been. 21st June 1993. Just over twenty years. Twenty years since you married Catherine. Twenty years of not forgiving you for stealing her away from me. That’s a long time to bear a grudge, isn’t it? A long time to remain silent. At least you’ll have some idea by now how pissed I was with you.
“I can’t remember how I heard, but I did hear about Catherine. I’m sorry. You must miss her terribly; I know I did. Don’t worry, the first fifteen years are the hardest, not that you’ll probably live that long, eh?
“Sorry, a little cheap and below the belt. But perhaps that’s how you’ll remember me? I doubt you’d recognise the Ralph who’s writing this now, lying between these stiff starched sheets, black Mont Blanc in hand. Tool of the trade in one sense only, I’m afraid.
“Anyway, I won’t have to worry about remembering things much longer, having been told that I ‘need to get my affairs in order’. I think that’s the time-honoured phrase isn’t it? And there you are, one of my ‘affairs’; and this little missive is the attempt to ‘get you in order’. Makes it sound as if I’m trying to tidy you away, put you back in your box - when in actual fact it’s probably more likely to be the other way around. Am I a loose end for you, Edward? Perhaps you don’t think of me at all, I don’t know. Perhaps this letter will result in the opening rather than the closing of a box. A little trinket box. Or Pandora’s box.
“In many respects this letter isn’t about you at all. How can it be? What can I say about someone I haven’t spoken to for so long? I’ve had snippets from others as to what you’ve been up to, but not so much since Renee died. For a short while Catherine used to send me a Christmas card each year with a little letter inside it; did you know that? So for a time I’d get an annual update on your rise to corporate stardom - something I desperately tried to emulate and spectacularly failed at. But more on that later! I don’t know if Catherine expected me to write back. When I moved here in ninety-nine I gave very few people a forwarding address, so for all I know there could be a sad little pile of unopened Christmas cards sitting in a Post Office depot somewhere… Having said that, other than the usual stuff about kids growing up, I doubt there’d be much in there that would surprise me - after all, you aren’t an exciting individual are you? If you’d changed your ways and become a bullion thief I think I might have heard of it!
“So let’s pretend, shall we? Let’s pretend that you do care a little bit about your long-lost brother, the black sheep of the family. Let’s pretend that, in order to make some kind of peace - on both sides, who knows? - you need to be ‘filled in’ on the last few years of my life. Affairs in order, and all that. And, hey, it might prove therapeutic for me too - though considering the state I’m in, I can’t say I really give a stuff any more. Which might be par for the recent course if you were to ask my friends - if I had any friends to ask that is.
“Shall I scene set? I’m lying in a hospital bed, private room, pretty nurses, (all that money leaking into insurance policies finally paying off) waiting to die. All things considered, I’m feeling surprisingly okay. They say I have a few weeks to live at most, though you wouldn’t know it from the way I can still carry on sometimes! I reckon it’ll be less than a month. As soon as they can’t respond to my demands, can’t keep stepping up the drugs to keep me lucid then I reckon I’ll slide quickly. I think I want to. In spite of all circumstantial evidence to the contrary I was never much of a fighter. I won’t tell you exactly where I am because I don’t want any ill advised flights on your part seeking a ‘last minute reconciliation’. Not interested. Which is why I’m having someone post this from Dubai during a stop-over on their way back to the UK. Could be almost anywhere east of there, see?
"I’m assuming that you’re probably au fait with the following couple of years after I failed to show for your wedding - though I also suspect you’d stopped caring about me before the end of that fateful day. And you had other fish to fry, didn’t you? Would you believe that I was actually dressed and ready to go to the wedding? Then I stood in front of the mirror and just couldn’t go through with it. Thank God you hadn’t asked me to be Best Man! It had been hard enough swallowing my pride the previous two years, but the thought of turning up and playing the role of the loving brother, blessing your marriage with Catherine… That would have been a step too far.
"It’s funny, I went back to work the next week somehow inspired. I’d never been that bothered about what I did for a living, to be honest; nor how I did it. We were like chalk and cheese there. You were so professional, successful, ruthless even. Stealing Catherine must have felt like taking candy from a baby brother, eh? And it worked for you, Edward, didn’t it? And because you were intelligent and had that detachment about you, it was easy. I didn’t have the gumption to act the way you did, but I did decide it was my turn to be successful. Whatever it took. Perhaps there was part of me that imagined I might even win Catherine back from you.
“I was a street-fighter compared to your smooth elegance; you would jab and move while I just slugged it out. But sometimes it works out for sluggers. Just then our company needed people like me. They didn’t care how we got results, just as long as we did. I found I had a talent for it, you might say. I was promoted a couple of years later, made MD of my own part of the firm. Brisbane of all places. Told to go and turn the business around. Which is what I did. ‘Take no prisoners’ they said, so I didn’t. Was it pleasant? Not especially. Did I enjoy it? I guess part of me did. Eighteen months later we were the fastest growing part of the company. I wasn’t popular, made a number of enemies I guess, built up a reputation; but all means to an end.
“A year later, they offered me the whole of Australia and New Zealand. They said it had potential but was under-performing. Would I sort it out? I wasn’t going to say ‘no’ was I? And you know what I found? It was easier. My reputation touched down before I did. People started pulling their socks up before I even walked through the door; because they knew what a bastard I could be, most of the time that was enough. It was as if I had a small thermonuclear device in my pocket that I could set off any time I wanted to. After three years we were pulling double digit growth, doing stupid margins. Even you, my clever brother, would have been proud of me. Maybe.
“I remember taking a long holiday then. Must have been 2001 or so. I hired one of those big RVs and just headed out of Sydney; decided I’d drive for a couple of weeks and then find an airport and fly back. It was like one of those ‘finding yourself’ trips you’d banged on to me about just after you’d stolen Catherine. Having taking my reason for being away from me, you had the nerve to suggest I needed to go and find it. But I had already found it, you stupid twat!
“Sorry. Uncalled for… Maybe I should cross that out?
“There hadn’t been anyone since Catherine; no-one important, anyway. Having been successful - after a fashion, at least - I wondered what was missing from my life. I was at least self-aware enough to know that there was a hole I’d never been able to fill since Catherine left me. I even wondered if there was a hole there because I’d left you - if you see what I mean. I remember sitting in the outback one evening, a day or so out from Ayers’, drinking beer, watching the sun go down, and wondering if it wasn’t time to bury the hatchet. I actually thought about calling you. I was looking in that bloody mirror again - though this time not quite so dressed up! And you know what? Same answer… Fuck him.
“Had I answered any ‘big’ questions on my road trip then? Did I return to Sydney an enlightened/changed/better man? (delete as appropriate). I doubt it. I sort of drifted for a short while, a little bored. Goal achieved in Australia, I was beginning to get itchy feet. Then out of nowhere an offer to take over the Asia-Pac region for one of our main rivals. They wanted me based out of either Singapore or Hong Kong - my choice - and to be responsible for everything between the Suez canal and the west coast of America. That was like half a planet! Of course I said yes. But you know what else I said? Before I signed on the dotted line, I asked them what kind of a leader they wanted me to be. I think they were a bit confused by that. I had to spell it out for them. I told them about the ‘win-at-all-costs’ version of me, and the ‘only-be-nasty-when-you-really-needed-to-be’ version. ‘Culture fit’ they said. Whatever. I assume they’d done their homework, so they shouldn’t have been surprised by my asking.
“There was actually a third option; the one I didn’t give them. The ‘be-like-Edward’ option. Funny that. And it turned out that’s the me they wanted; a me I hadn’t even invented yet. They’d seen the results - my results - and that’s what they wanted, but they wanted the results their way. I could have turned it down. Maybe I should have turned it down… If I’d asked you - if we’d still been on terms, as it were - I’m pretty sure you’d have just laughed in my face. ‘No chance’, you’d have said. And guess what? Bingo! Right again, big brother.
“But I thought ‘what’s the big deal?’. I mean, how hard can it be, right? But it was; it was tough. I saw quickly enough what needed to be done, and if I’d been my old ‘slugger’ self I would have been able to cut through the crap pretty quickly. But I couldn’t. I was forced to be nice, dance round the handbags, not upset anyone. Things improved, but only very slowly. It was agony. It took all my willpower to avoid flying off the handle - with everyone. Instead of coming out of my shell in order to be Mr. Nice-Guy, I retreated into it. I couldn’t be what they wanted me to be. I couldn’t be you. I confess I got pretty low for a while; my social life - what little there was of it - went to Hell in the proverbial hand-cart.
“I was beginning to feel like a failure. And what was worse, I think I was beginning to look like a failure. And then I had my brilliant idea. I knew what needed to be done - especially on the commercial side - and I knew how to do it. As I was struggling to get my guys to understand, I thought I should do one or two deals myself, in the background, just to nudge things along. Seemed to make perfect sense. So I created a ‘profile’ for myself and started to be a little more ‘operational’.
“Small scale to begin with; the odd punt here and there. Some of them were a little risky, but paid off. When people asked me about this new guy who was making these nuggets of contribution, I said he was someone I’d known from way back who I’d contracted to help us out. It was a little irregular, but not illegal so they didn’t stop me. Funny, isn’t it, that people will pretty much let you do whatever you want as long as they get what they want out of it? Anyhow, the numbers began to edge up. ‘Jack’ - my nom-de-plume - had one or two reverses, but on average over a rolling month he was maybe averaging somewhere between 50%-100% gain on investments. The rest of the team were struggling to get into double digits!
“I knew all the regular guys wouldn’t touch the sorts of deals I was prepared to do; they all had careers and families to think about. I had none of that. No family, and I didn’t see myself as a ‘career’ kind of guy. I started getting a little bolder, taking a few more risks. The swings were wilder, but the returns were still good. It seemed to Head Office as if Asia-Pac was on the rise. Zero to hero. Bingo!”
“Have you ever had that little voice that starts chipping away at you sometimes, telling what you should and shouldn’t be doing? You probably have. In the mid-nineties yours would have probably have been saying ‘Steal Catherine! Steal Catherine!’ Whatever. And I bet you always listen to yours don’t you? Gut instinct maybe. Well my little voice started about then. It was telling me to stop. Telling me that I should ‘retire’ Jack; to get out while I was ahead. But I didn’t listen, did I? There was one huge deal - bigger than I should ever attempted - that didn’t quite work out. We took a hit; cost us two months’ profits. I was called to HQ. They wanted to meet ‘Jack’.
“I had two options. I could come clean and probably get the sack, be disgraced. Maybe even jailed. Or I could fall on my sword and hope for the best. I chose the second. I wrote a long apologetic resignation letter, admitting that I had let them down, let the region down; that I had allowed Jack too much free rein. I said that I’d terminated my arrangement with him. I said that, under the circumstances, I felt the only honourable thing to do was to resign with immediate effect. They liked honour. I threw in a line about leaving the region in a better shape than when I’d started. I knew that was true; I knew they had to cut me some slack for that. There was a little to-ing and fro-ing, but in the end they agreed to let me go. I’m pretty sure there were one or two of them who had an idea that if they dug too deep it wouldn’t reflect well, so they cut their loses - which was a good deal considering they were ahead! I was on edge for the last few months, expecting at any time to be found out, hauled in, arrested. After the year-end figures were published, I was confident I was in the clear.
“That was ten years ago. I was nearly sixty. Sixty! I’d just torched my career pretty much; I had no family, no roots. I was an old single guy who’d ‘done’ Singapore for the last few years. Most men in my position would have a professional parachute: back to a role in Europe, a promotion into a desk job States-side. I didn’t. My future looked like the Outback. Still, I’d done one shrewd thing at least. For every ten bucks Jack invested, I added ten cents of my own. Over the year or so he was operating, I’d built up quite a decent nest-egg. I’d avoided the too big or too risky deals - like that last one! - so never made any major loses. Maybe that’s how I should have operated for the company. So I was lucky. As long as I didn’t go crazy I had enough cash to keep me going for a while - a long while if I was super careful.
“Have you ever not known what you were going to do, Edward? I doubt it somehow. It’s a strange feeling; both frightening and liberating. Having decided that it was time for Singapore and I to part company, where next? If we were talking like-for-like, then I didn’t fancy Hong Kong; I liked Asia, but not Hong Kong. I could have just gone back to the UK and played the role of the retired ex-pat. I thought about Dublin, or Italy. Loads of places. But every option seemed to involve putting down roots, and though I was clearly old enough - too old, some might say! - that didn’t appeal. So I went back to Oz. Stayed in Perth for a while and then did the old RV thing again, though this time from the other side. I had this vague idea about doing it coast-to-coast, but very slowly. Taking years even.
“Sound daft? Probably was. In spite of all I’d done, the experiences I’d had, I felt empty. I had this vague notion that I needed to fill myself up somehow, though I had no idea what with. This time the RV trip really was a voyage of discovery, an attempt to try and ‘find myself’. Nearly thirty years or so before that I’d had a plan, of course. A conventional plan which involved getting married - did I mention Catherine recently? - settling down, having kids, a decent job. I’d live in a decent place, be a decent bloke; an average, normal, contented bloke. Maybe it had been more than a plan; maybe it had been a dream. But it wasn’t a dream any more. I didn’t have - hadn’t had - a ‘dream’ for quite a while.
“You must have retired by now Edward. Maybe eight or nine years ago? Retired to your conventional retirement - though Catherine’s dying would have probably screwed that up well and truly. Still, I daresay you’ve managed. Kids rallying round; grand-kids too, probably. Pillar of the community? On the parish council, maybe. Or the local council. Running as an MP even, who knows. You will have coped, Edward. You always did. When were you ever unable to cope? I never saw it.
“Anyhow, I bought this nice RV - comfortable enough to live in for a while - and headed out of Perth. I’d kicked my heels around there for a while and then one day knew it was time to move on. I headed north. You’d be surprised, but there are lots of national parks in Australia. I’d had enough of city life for a while, so decided to navigate via these. That’s where I’d park up and stay, to be on my own, to see if I could like myself again. Because I realised I didn’t. I don’t know when I’d lost that self-respect. I think I confused it with self-esteem, and when I was the bully-boy I lived off that, off my results. Tangible stuff feeds self-esteem. But I’d discovered that self-respect was a whole different ball-game.
“I took my time. I went north - slowly. I experimented. I’d taken along a camera, books, pens, paints, paper, all sorts. I tried carving bits of driftwood I’d found on the shore and ended up making a fire with the results. I’d download my photos onto the laptop I’d taken with me (I’d actually taken two!), but they were just useless tourist shots no matter how hard I tried to be creative or ‘arty’. Briefly I tried to draw and paint, but ended up with crap that not even a five-year-old would be proud of! See how hard I tried, Edward, on this voyage of discovery?
“When I reached Shark Bay - maybe after a week or two - I tried to write to you. I thought it was worth a shot. But I couldn’t get started, not really. The letter was nothing like this; it was how I imagined a letter should be, not how it needed to be. I threw the beginnings of three attempts away, in the fire along with my driftwood sculptures! But I’d enjoyed the process. So I tried writing a letter to Catherine. Of course, there was no way she was going to read it, but I thought I’d try to exorcise my ghosts. Why not? It wasn’t great, and never quite what I wanted to say either, but at least I finished it. And I didn’t burn that one until much later.
“The thing that amazed me the most was that I actually enjoyed the process of writing. One day I sat by the shore, notebook in hand, and just wrote about what I could see. I had no idea what I was doing really, but I’d found something that absorbed me, and maybe that’s what I needed above all else; a process. I’d been semi-successful at work when I was playing a role, in the part, the process of being the boss. I wondered if it wasn’t the work, the results or how I went about it that was the big hook, but the fact that I was operating a machine, my machine. I didn’t have enough talent for whittling or painting to take me out of myself; my lack of ability always got in the way. But with writing, well, it was something I could manage adequately - which meant I could absorb myself in it. Does that make sense? (And now I’m practiced, it means I can actually write and finish a letter to you.)
“I stayed at Shark Bay a couple of months, maybe twelve weeks. There was a supermarket, a gas station, a camp where I could park up in safety. I could live cheaply. I swam a little, took a boat out occasionally. I even talked to people! But mostly I would write. I got into a little routine. Was I happy? Probably not, but it was as close as I’d come for a long while. I could sense my self-respect rousing from its slumbers. I actually started to like this new guy a little bit! I’m sure lots of people I’d worked with over the years wouldn’t have been able to recognise him, but hey ho.
“During my second month there I wrote something about Shark Bay, what it was like from an outsider’s perspective. Not a day tripper, but someone who was more immersed in the place. I told someone at the gas station about it and they persuaded me to send it in to the letters page of the ‘Geraldton Guardian’. I couldn’t see the point to be honest. But then they published it, and not as a letter either. Called me a ‘Guest Correspondent’; got a few column inches. I was stunned. And the most remarkable thing was that something I’d done for myself had value for others. I was used to things working the other way round.
“Anyway it established a pattern. I eventually moved on and tried the same formulae, staying for a while in a place to get to know it, then write about it. Most times I didn’t bother sharing what I’d written, sometimes I did. I’d usually get published in the local press if so; they were so desperate for material I suppose. Coral Bay, Exmouth, Dampier. I’d mainly stick to the coast, though I’d go inland for time-to-time; the Kennedy Range, for example. Near Dampier there are some islands, West Mid Intercourse Island, East Mid Intercourse Island. How wild is that?! There’s a bridge to the East Mid one; I just had to see what went on there…! Nothing, as it turns out. I spent a month or more at Port Hedland. You get the picture. One way or another, it took me half a year to get to Darwin.
“By the time I’d arrived there I’d managed to build up a little portfolio of all these occasional bits and pieces I’d written. A guy I’d met in Dampier told me to look up a friend of his, Bart, someone who worked at the Northern Territory News. I showed him what I’d written. Bart liked it; he also liked the fact that I was a Brit, said it gave a different insight into Australia. He wanted me to write something similar for his paper; wanted to know if I would be prepared to do a series. He even offered to pay me, so I knew he was serious! The money didn’t matter as much as the offer. This was about me and what I could do, by myself, for myself. What I could deliver without the machinations of big business.
“I stayed in Darwin for three years. Travelled all over the territory, including three months in Alice Springs, often out and back to Uluru. And you know what, Edward? It was brilliant. I felt as if I’d found something at last. A niche; my niche. The News ran my monthly column for two years. I became something of a minor local celebrity I guess. I wrote under a pen name; don’t ask my why, I just did. Maybe I was still afraid that my past would catch up with me one day. So for a while - ever since Shark Bay actually - when I wrote I became Jack Watson. It wasn’t that Jack was an alter ego; he wasn’t. He was still me. Was then, is now. Jack and I have been inseparable!
“While I was in Darwin I started writing something else too. I’d managed to get this crazy notion in my head that I could be a ‘Writer’. Not just some guy who trotted out the odd piece of colour for the local rag, but a proper writer; a writer with a capital ‘W’. I’d met this lonely, mixed-up lady when I was in Port Hedland. We used to drink together occasionally. I’d buy her a drink, she’d tell me her life story. It doesn’t matter who she is, that’s not the point. It was her story that was important. It was interesting, complex; it became more an idea than a story after a while. The kind of idea you can do something with. Consciously or not, I started to play with it, build it out. By the time I’d left Dampier it had started to grow arms and legs. Bart’s offer was delivered with impeccable timing; it gave me a reason to settle for a while and to work on this story. Did I know what I was doing? Definitely not, but that didn’t stop me. Again it was process; process and purpose. Before I left Darwin I asked Bart if he could recommend someone I might send it to. I didn’t think it was really any good mind, but I just wanted to know, to test myself. He gave me a contact in Brisbane; Josh Thompson. I posted the draft the day before I left Darwin along with a message to say that I’d turn up in Brisbane at some point in the next year. When I arrived there maybe six months later, Josh was waiting for me.
“Long story short, he’d liked it. Said it needed some work, rough edges and all that, but if I was able to polish it sufficiently then they’d seriously consider publishing it. No money changed hands, after all I was an unknown Brit with a modest - and short! - track record. Yes, I came recommended, but that wasn’t worth much really. It was another deal to keep me located in a place for a while; another process to go through. Six months later the book hit the shops. You won’t have heard of it - you certainly wouldn’t have been looking out for Jack Watson!
“‘Impartial Certainties’ did okay, in spite of the title. A minor ripple, you might say. Sold a few thousand, made the old book club list. I had my photo in the paper back in Darwin: ‘(Not Quite) Local Boy Come Good’. Something like that. Josh was interested in a follow-up; interested but lukewarm, I think. I could have used that as an excuse to stay in Brisbane, maybe even settle there, who knows? But I wasn’t sure it was for me; I had history in Brisbane, don’t forget. And anyway, I was running out of time on my extended visa, and my RV still needed to clock a few more miles before I sold it on.
“In any event, the major deal-breaker was that I’d got my diagnosis while I was there. An unhappy prognosis, discussions about treatments, quality of life - the usual shit. I won’t bore you with the details. On the face of it another reason to remain in Brisbane, you might think. Maybe you’d have been right. But that wasn’t where I wanted to end up. God knows, it wasn’t how I wanted to end up!
“So I just head out. Spent a few months in NSW, Tasmania, until it was time to head - well, here. Again I thought about going back to the UK. Going ‘home’. Except it wasn’t home any more. Nowhere was. My RV may have been the closest I came, sad as it may seem. When things got so that I couldn’t look after myself any more I pulled out the old insurance policy and the rest, as they say…
“Any questions? There will be a test later…
“‘Did I carry on writing?’ Nope. Figured I’d proven all I needed to prove to myself. I picked up the camera and had a second run at that. The results were a little better, but by then it didn’t really matter did it?
“‘Did you meet anyone?’ I met loads of people… Oh! you mean ‘meet’ like that; the inverted commas kind of ‘meet’. Not really. Occasionally there were connections; Renee came closest. For a while she became my link to the world that wasn’t where I was; provided a kind of filter. Once or twice I might have made more of an effort, I suppose - and especially with Renee. But that would have been a real game changer, and that wasn’t what I wanted. And remember, I’d found the person I was really looking for some years previously…
“‘Any regrets?’ How long have you got? How long have I got?! Not really. A proverbial roller-coaster, some bits I’m more proud of than others. The last few years in Australia were good; most of the years before that, pretty crappy.
“‘What about Edward?’ What about Edward? I thought he was a tosser in ninety-six; I thought he was a tosser even before then. Chances are that he’s still a tosser now. He may not be, of course. But you know what, I don’t give a toss myself. Which, I suppose, makes me the tosser at the end of the day, doesn’t it?
“Goodbye, brother dear.”
For links on where to buy Degrees of Separation, click here.
Powerful writing