the live-music scene had been an important part of her life. And after their move to Brisbane, she and Andrew had been regulars at small dark clubs in the Valley. Then the children had been born and practicalities had prevailed. Too late, too smoky, too loud ⦠Sheâd never consciously decided to stop going, it had just happened. And her music collection had stayed fixed firmly somewhere in the late 1990s. Sheâd heard everything she owned too many times to be bothered to even turn the CD player on these days.
This however, was something she couldnât let pass. A four-night concert with a hundred different songs from Paul Kelly. Sheâd loved the singer ever since the first day sheâd arrived in Australia. The taxi driver at the airport, a lanky young man who looked barely old enough to drive, had taken one look at Aliceâs enormous pile of luggage and figured she wasnât your everyday backpacker.
âIf youâre planning on staying here,â heâd said, âyouâll need to know about this guy.â With a flourish, he had pushed a tape into the old cassette deck and the strains of âFrom St Kilda to Kings Crossâ came floating out.
Alice had booked tickets as soon as sheâd heard about the four-night concert and had scored front-row seats for every night. The last two hours were a glorious melange of songs she loved and some sheâd never heard but delighted in.
Alice watched the singer strum the chords which he must have strummed a thousand times and watched his face form the expressions it must have formed a thousand times. And then she saw the sheer joy on his face as his fingers danced around the guitar and the sweet sound wrapped itself around the auditorium.
Alice realised suddenly that there was nothing in her life which gave her that intense personal joy. The children were different. She loved them fiercely, but taking pleasure in them was different from what the man on the stage was experiencing. Something for him alone â a skipping of fingers across guitar strings which clearly made his heart dance.
Surely thatâs what made everything else worthwhile. The hours wheeling a recalcitrant trolley around a supermarket, the mind-numbing routine of school drop-offs and pick-ups. They all made sense if there were moments of joy dotted through the hours.
So what were her moments? What made her happy? And what about those women she overheard in the bookshop cafe, what was it that kept them going between the tedious episodes of everyday life?
Alice had always believed that immersing oneself in children was a cop-out. Surely that defeated the purpose if every life cancelled out the next by folding in on itself. So apart from the children, what did she have? A job in a bookshop which, if she was brutally honest, was no better than something to fill empty days. The faded love of her husband who either no longer knew her well enough to realise how much these concerts meant to her or, even worse, knew and didnât care.
She looked at the empty seat beside her and back up at the stage.
The surge of modern life didnât have room for those little pockets of joy. Aliceâs last twelve years had been spent swamped in the minutiae of family life. All of the things sheâd loved, like music, had fallen away.
Something her grandmother had said not long before she died came into Aliceâs mind. âYou know what I donât understand about your world? Itâs why things are always so complicated.People focus on doing everything quicker and more efficiently and then run around just finding more to do.â
At the time Alice had been young and full of energy and had figured there wasnât much to be done about it anyway â it was just the way things were. And surely being able to do more could only be a good thing.
Now she was pretty sure it wasnât.
She pictured the lean-to outside her grandmotherâs tiny house that
This however, was something she couldnât let pass. A four-night concert with a hundred different songs from Paul Kelly. Sheâd loved the singer ever since the first day sheâd arrived in Australia. The taxi driver at the airport, a lanky young man who looked barely old enough to drive, had taken one look at Aliceâs enormous pile of luggage and figured she wasnât your everyday backpacker.
âIf youâre planning on staying here,â heâd said, âyouâll need to know about this guy.â With a flourish, he had pushed a tape into the old cassette deck and the strains of âFrom St Kilda to Kings Crossâ came floating out.
Alice had booked tickets as soon as sheâd heard about the four-night concert and had scored front-row seats for every night. The last two hours were a glorious melange of songs she loved and some sheâd never heard but delighted in.
Alice watched the singer strum the chords which he must have strummed a thousand times and watched his face form the expressions it must have formed a thousand times. And then she saw the sheer joy on his face as his fingers danced around the guitar and the sweet sound wrapped itself around the auditorium.
Alice realised suddenly that there was nothing in her life which gave her that intense personal joy. The children were different. She loved them fiercely, but taking pleasure in them was different from what the man on the stage was experiencing. Something for him alone â a skipping of fingers across guitar strings which clearly made his heart dance.
Surely thatâs what made everything else worthwhile. The hours wheeling a recalcitrant trolley around a supermarket, the mind-numbing routine of school drop-offs and pick-ups. They all made sense if there were moments of joy dotted through the hours.
So what were her moments? What made her happy? And what about those women she overheard in the bookshop cafe, what was it that kept them going between the tedious episodes of everyday life?
Alice had always believed that immersing oneself in children was a cop-out. Surely that defeated the purpose if every life cancelled out the next by folding in on itself. So apart from the children, what did she have? A job in a bookshop which, if she was brutally honest, was no better than something to fill empty days. The faded love of her husband who either no longer knew her well enough to realise how much these concerts meant to her or, even worse, knew and didnât care.
She looked at the empty seat beside her and back up at the stage.
The surge of modern life didnât have room for those little pockets of joy. Aliceâs last twelve years had been spent swamped in the minutiae of family life. All of the things sheâd loved, like music, had fallen away.
Something her grandmother had said not long before she died came into Aliceâs mind. âYou know what I donât understand about your world? Itâs why things are always so complicated.People focus on doing everything quicker and more efficiently and then run around just finding more to do.â
At the time Alice had been young and full of energy and had figured there wasnât much to be done about it anyway â it was just the way things were. And surely being able to do more could only be a good thing.
Now she was pretty sure it wasnât.
She pictured the lean-to outside her grandmotherâs tiny house that
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