We drove down the wide, suburban
roads from the airport past Adelaide's centre in Nat's truck. Every single car
I could see was enormous. It seemed that no-one had heard of Smart cars, Mini
Coopers or Twingos. Every single car had a monstrosity too it that said "I
was made from the fiercest iron, born for the roadless deserts". The more
I gazed out of the window, the more fascinated I became with all these
four-wheel drives.
Eva wasn't so happy about being awake
past her bedtime. She'd had a dazed and sleepy look on her face the whole time
in the airport lobby but only now did she begin to whimper, crease up her face
and then howl.
Although I'd experienced many a car
tantrum with multiple toddlers in my days of being a French nanny and had never
particularly enjoyed them, I sympathised with my niece who had been woken up
and forced to sit still with an uncomfortable seat belt around her for forty
minutes. Not to mention she was surrounded by new strangers who resembled her
mother but weren't.
We finally approached South Pacific
Drive, the destination. On entering Kate and Nat's garage, Eva perked up. I was
so tired I could hardly process anything. We passed the patio on the way to the
house and then we were finally there, in Kate and Nat's house.
It was a surreal experience,
finally being in the very room I'd been
Skyped into for months. On top of that oddity, it was such a different type of
house than the houses of the U.K; built for summer rather than horrible damp
winters. There were sliding doors, mosquito screens and air conditioning fans
outside. It reminded me a little of our houses in Thailand.
It was almost 11pm and Anna and I
were exhausted but we collapsed in the living room with our suitcases, taking
it all in. Eva had perked up now that she was not chained down to her carseat.
She began interestedly peeking into our suitcases and she let out a delighted
shriek from mine.
She'd unearthed my pink, slightly
battered stuffed rabbit that I have had since my own toddler days. I take him
with me whenever I travel, out of habit. A little piece of familiarity in
changing landscapes can be comforting.
"Teddy," Eva said
proudly, cuddling him in her arms. Admittedly, he was exactly the kind of thing
she would notice in my suitcase; a fluffy and pink thing with a face. Not to
mention he is extra-specially charming. But I made a mental note to keep a tab
on him in case he mysteriously "went missing" into her toybox of
other teddies.
Not long after that, my eyes were
closing by themselves. We went to bed and finally...finally I fell asleep,
dreaming of absolutely nothing.
The next day and the weeks that
followed all somehow blurred together. It felt natural to all be together again
and there were even times when it felt as if we'd known Eva forever. Boxing Day
was a little overcast but we went to the beach anyway and took some body boards
with us. Because of the wind, the waves were high and powerful, capable of
pulling you under and pushing you back to shore in one fell swoop. Nat told me
that the basic rule of bodyboarding (and I suppose surfing) was to get behind
the wave before it was fully formed. When it started emerging, rolling up but
not quite rippling, you were to paddle in the opposite direction towards the
shore. As the wave gathered speed, so did you, until you were actually carried
onto the rolling current before it rippled and broke into a full wave. By that
point, if you have successfully been carried onto the wave, as it breaks, you
are actually on top of it and stay afloat...and the rest, is surfer's paradise.
It all sounded very
straightforward. I soon found that it was not.
For the best part of an hour, I was
out in the waves, paddling madly, forwards and backwards trying to get the
timing just right. Either I saw the wave just as it was breaking and had to
duck under, which carried me backwards, or I almost got on top of it for a
split second only to realise that I wasn't quite on the current but under it.
Which made me go under as well.
My nose, ears and throat filled
with water and the constant ducking and being pulled backwards made my head
spin. But it was addictive. There was something about the fresh cold water, the
strength of the waves and the adrenaline I felt every time I saw a roll in the
ocean ahead that made me stay for just another try...then just another...
I finally got on a wave. I started
paddling towards the shore, rather half-heartedly, as I saw another forming. I
didn't really think I'd get on it, just another one which threw me off
mid-course, I assumed. But before I knew it, my board had risen above the water
and I could see the beach ahead. As the wave broke, I did not go under. Rather,
I glided over it, gathering speed as it crashed tumultuously onto the shore. My
board slid neatly onto the sand without so much as a drop of water touching me.
I leapt up excitedly and ran up the
shore.
"Did you see me?" I
shrieked at the others who quickly shushed me. Eva was fast asleep on the sand
so I silently motioned to the sea.
I don't think anyone quite
understood it like I did. Nat, who had just swam in, gave me a high five but
really, how could explain what it had felt like? After an hour of struggling
against the sea, I had wanted to give up. But even as I had felt that defeat,
the rush of excitement at seeing another wave approaching, another potential,
had kept me there in the sea. Even though my feet couldn't touch the ocean
floor, my eyes watered with the salt and my shoulders ached from paddling,
seeing one more wave approach was addictive.
Now that I had finally done it, I
couldn't get over how amazing the feeling had been. I looked on at the surfers
passing by with a newfound respect and understanding. I knew what they were
looking for, what they spent hours out in the freezing cold, sometimes
shark-infested oceans. It didn't matter. I finally knew what it meant to
"catch the perfect wave".
There were times in those two weeks
when Anna and I lost track of where we were and what day it was. Eva came to
see us first thing when she woke up, knowing where to find us. We went to the
beach again many times; we sat out on the patio in the soft light of evening,
drinking wine and cooling ourselves down after in the air-conditioned living
room. I went running down the esplanade a few evenings in the time I was there.
The esplanade was about seven miles long and ran along the coast. The cliffs
overlooked the wide, blue ocean and even at eight thirty in the evening, when
the clouds were forming and the sun was setting in for the night, you could see
the surfers still out there, little dots and specks on the surface of the
water. They were still determined to catch one, the wave that would carry them
straight back to shore.
As much as we tried to escape and
lose track of it, the time finally came for us to leave. It was a Sunday and
the day had been fairly quiet. Now we all sat together in the living room,
Nat's family and Kate, whilst Anna and I packed our suitcases.
Outside it was still humid and
summery, even at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Eva walked barefoot around the
patio, humming to herself and trailing my pink teddy bear absent-mindedly
around with her. I didn't have the heart to take him from her just yet.
Driving down the highway to the
city, Anna and I took in the surroundings a final time; trees, kangaroo signs,
the huge SUVs. Eva had finally fallen asleep in her car seat, one fist
clenching around a teddy of hers. In the background, a song called Daydream
Believer played softly. Kate turned up the volume because it was our song,
hers, Anna's and I's. But a couple of minutes into the song, she changed the
track. We didn't say anything to each other, but we all had tears creeping up
into our eyes.
We arrived at the airport two hours
or so before our flight. Adelaide airport was smaller than I remembered,
although I had been very tired when we'd stepped off the plane two weeks ago. Eva
was in good spirits after her nap. Her curiosity got the better of her as we
checked our suitcases in. She hopped onto the giant, industrial scales and
giggled to herself.
"Eight kilos," I read
aloud. "That's the best it's ever going to be Eva."
After we had been through security,
we went to get some dinner. During dinner, Eva could not sit still, began to
fidget and whine. I reached into my bag and produced the magical pink teddy
which quietened her. After dinner, there was still some time and Eva was still
fidgety so we decided to all walk to the end of the airport and back. Outside
the giant glass windows that overlooked the runway, the sun was setting in
magnificent pink and orange streaks. The runway was oddly empty; there didn't
seem to be that many planes coming in or leaving at this time of day.
We stopped by the window so that
Eva could watch a jumbo jet take off. We tried to guess where it was flying to;
Perth? Sydney? Auckland? We didn't know.
Not long after it seemed, the
inevitable was upon us. It was getting late and Eva was beginning to grow tired.
It was past her bedtime again; we had a flight to catch and they had a forty minute
drive home. But goodbyes are usually easier than this, at least for us. We
always avoid those goodbyes, the three of us, we're not very good at them.
We've always tried to make them as brief as possible because otherwise it's too
difficult. We got into the line to go through the second security, Duty Free.
Then that was it, Anna and I took our turns. We hugged Nat, kissed sleepy Eva
goodbye and then Kate. It was a quick hug from both of us each to our dear
sister, the missing third of the pie. I kept myself together. They turned and
walked away and I couldn't look back, not at Eva's tiny blond head or Kate and
Nat's disappearing silhouettes. But because Anna was there, I allowed myself
this once to burst into tears, even though I knew she didn't want me to.
Once we were in Duty Free, we
distracted ourselves with the souvenirs and interesting things you can get from
Australia which are considered "Australian". Wanting to cheer us both
up, Anna bought some souvenirs; matching Australia t-shirts.
Once we'd boarded the plane, it was
eleven o'clock at night and I felt quite sleepy. Anna and I watched X-men: the
Apocalypse together and then I found myself falling asleep quite naturally,
unlike the last plane trip.
I wish that there were a way to
write more, to say in detail about everything that we did in Australia. I wish
that I had been quite disciplined and written a daily journal entry, which
would have given facts, not a waffling beginning and end, the story of an
airport once more. But this travel was different. It wasn't about seeing
Australia, holding a koala bear, swimming with a dolphin or photographing a
wild kangaroo in the garden. It wasn't about having a barbeque or meeting a
group of surfer dudes or going snorkelling with some jellyfish and coral. It
was where my sister is. Where she is now, this is it. The reality of the trip
hit me like a ton of bricks: Australia is far. The world is huge and we are at
opposite ends, north and south, east and west. But what made Australia special
was that it was ours now. It wasn't just somewhere we had travelled to and kept
a few photos and passport stamps for the scrapbook. It was a place we would
always return to, in one way or another. Our family was there and that meant we
were there too.
When I woke up from my sleep, four
or five hours had passed and I had no idea what time zone we were in. I thought
about the next part, when would we return?
One day we would. "Anna,"
I whispered, because everyone around us was sleeping. She opened an eye
groggily "Maybe next time we can visit Perth."
