A Night at the Opera

This time I sent him a facebook message.  It’s Brisbane Festival.  We should catch up and do something different.  So we did.  The plan was to go see a band.  It’s what we seem to do most times we hang out and a plan I was comfortable with.  He’s one of those friends you have that work independently to any circle you move in.  We’ve never really introduced each other to our circle of friends and I can’t lie, I quite like having a secret friend and one that will see random bands with me.  I’ve only really got one other friend who will do that with me and she has since moved to Roma so I was keen.  A mid week adventure to the Spiegeltent to see a band I knew very little about with someone I quite like spending time with even if I don’t see them very often.  

Then came the text message.  Saturday lunch time and I am out in the city spending money I don’t have on clothes, shoes and jewellery I don’t really need.  No tickets to the band for Tuesday, what about the opera tonight?  The opera?  At night?  What the?  Immediately my mind fills with images of fat women wearing horns singing things I know nothing about.  You see old people at the opera.  You need heels, a dress and binoculars to go to the opera not the jeans, t-shirt and flats combo that I was ferreting  out for a normal Saturday night adventure.  He sends me the link.  It’s opera in the park.  The riverstage in fact and even better news, it’s free.  I breathe a sigh of relief.  First about the fact that my jeans are still suitable attire and that it was a less of a big deal that I’d bought a pair of pants, a dress, a pair of sandals and new pandora bangle that day.

I get home from the city and do the obligatory undie change, throw on a pair of jeans and some lipgloss and get in my flatmate’s car.  She drops me at the Ashgrove bus stop and I wait patiently for the next bus to arrive.  A little old man and his wife squint at the timetable and glance nervously at Waterworks road.  I smile sweetly and glance at the digital sign that says the bus is not arriving for another fourteen minutes.  We stand in that awkward silence that says you really should say something and check they’re ok.  He stumbles against the seat and his even smaller wife grabs his arm.  I blurt an ‘are you ok?’ and the ice is broken.  We chat mindlessly about buses, about living on this side of the city and of where we come from.  They’ve been married for over fifty years and they were at a family friend’s 21st.  Hiding in the Junk Bar with a few wines under their belts, the old people chat freely.  

Talk eventually turns to me and they want to know if I have kids, am I married where did I come from and the list goes on.  I tell them I am a teacher, I come from Lowood and Des has a sincere look of surprise.  He was in the RAAF for most of his life and based in Amberley.  Turns out he knows my hometown and asks my last name.  Again I see him churn through his memory and his dentures peek mildly from between his gums.  ‘Does your family originally come from Bundaberg?’ he says.  Again I am shocked and I wonder how my world can collide with this 85 year old man whose had a few too many wines and comes from Aspley.  Turns out his childhood neighbour from Bundaberg has married a woman with my last name.  They are lovely and friendly and on disembarking the bus wish me well on my night time adventure.

I turn to walk away.  I am running late and should have met my friend five minutes ago.  I turn and notice them standing on the footpath gazing at the city skyline.  I ask them are they ok and she waves her hand dismissively. ‘It’s alright love, we’ll work it out.’  She smiles at me and grabs her husbands elbow as they start to toter down the footpath.  The busy city people walk round them, they don’t notice the two slightly pissed old people shuffle their way down Adelaide street.  I stop and ask them which bus they need and spend another three minutes giving them directions to their bus stop.  With an arm pat and a thankyou dear I head off to meet my friend.  I smile as my pace picks up and feel my insides warm at the way they were with each other.  I secretly hope that by the time I’m 85 I’m still catching the bus because I like a wine or two and that there’s someone there to hold my elbow while I have the pissed stumbles getting off the bus.

I meet him at Coles and I knew he was bringing a friend.  I was slightly concerned pre opera that she was going to be weird, she was going to be too nice, she was going to be awful.  All of those things that you dread when you a meet a friend of a friend for the first time.  Particularly a friend that you don’t normally mix circles with.  What if their friends are weird?  Does that mean you’ve misjudged them the whole time you’ve know them and they are actually weird?  It shouldn’t be complicated and the law of averages says that if you like them then you should like the people that also like them but we all know that I am complicated.  That I do draw strange conclusions from situations which should be simple.  That I just think too much.  

Turns out, I like her.  She’s funny.  She makes me laugh almost instantly and it’s not long before I work out she’s a little bit saucy, a little bit spicy and right along my wavelength.  We find a space in the grass and the orchestra warms up.  The horns are squawking and the strings are squeaking.  The conductor walks out and the band strikes up.  The opera singers walk out and their isn’t a fat lady in horns in sight.  There are men in suits, ladies in ball gowns and music I know I’ve heard before.  I can’t help the smile that breaks across my face as I recognise each TV ad that plays out on the stage before me.  Turns out Verdi is a favourite among TV ad makers and I know more than I thought I would.  Between the wine, the strawberries and the cheese the opera continues.  We laugh, chat and probably to the annoyance of those around us the opera takes a back seat.  Every now and then my ears are grabbed by the sounds of a beer commercial and I am glad that it’s opera under the stars and not one where I need heels and a set of flippy of binoculars. 

As with wine and me, a trip to the loo was inevitable.  I head towards the entry gate and smile at the security guard at the gate.  He’s cute and I can see him watching me as I walk down the hill.  He extends an arm into a wave and smiles again.  As cute as I can, I smile and ask if I should be going that way.  He smiles and says no and points me in the other direction.  I am feeling pretty chipper.  There’s nothing quite like a smile from a cute stranger to boost your night and I’m already pretty high on the happy stakes.  It’s been fun and better than I’d expected.  I think I am being clever by cutting through the garden in the direction he’s pointed and with confidence and what I think is poise I take a step off the beaten track.  

I’m smiling.  I’m happy.  I’m feeling pretty sorted.  I’m on the ground.  The entrance has a tent to cover the gate and running parallel in the garden is a pole running along the ground.  In my own two wine and compliment buzz I trip on the pole, land on my knee and hit the pavement with a loud thud.  A family of four rush to my aid and before they reach me I’m up.  I’m dusting my arse and I am hightailing it towards the loo.  Oh My God, are you ok?  Calls the mum and I knew it must have been bad because her kids didn’t even laugh.  I laugh, with loud calls of ‘I’m fine!’ and continue to dust off and head to the toilet.  It’s then I notice that I am bleeding.  I’ve cut my toe open on the post and I’m hiding in the Riverstage toilet clogging my bleeding toe with toilet paper while the beer commercial symphony rings in my ears.  

I head back to the others on the hill and ferret in my handbag for a  band aid.  I have one.  Without so much as a beat, I patch up my toe and carry on with the conversation at hand.  He asks ‘What the hell happened to you?’  I smile and claim I kicked my toe on the railing on the way to the loo and ask another pertinent question that steers the conversation on.  My heart is ripping through my chest and I am ignoring the throb in my little toe.  I appear to be listening attentively while all I can think about is the fact that the very young and cute security guard got not only a smile out of me but a very vivid and view of my arse as I hit the concrete.  I scold myself for being a retard and remind myself that the world seems to have a very uncanny way of bringing me down the moment I get too cocky.  

The opera continues and I am caught between moments of musical awe and laughter with a man I miss dearly and a new friend I quite like.  The pain in my toe subsides and on the way out the gate I hide myself behind the pair of them and hope to God that the boy from the gate doesn’t recognise me with a cardigan on.  We leave her at the mall and we continue to the bus stop.  We make promises not to leave it so long and head to our separate buses.  All the way home I remind myself how lucky I am to have such great people in my life.  I’m interrupted from my reverie by a text.  It’s one of my longest serving friends and she’s pissed.  She’s out without her eight month old and at 10.30pm I am meeting her at The Gap McDonald’s.  We laugh, eat a cheesburger and I tell her about my trip.  She laughs uncontrollably and reminds me again that I am a retard.  

We get home, I take off my shoes and put them in the bin.  I can do nothing but thank the heavens that the grown up man didn’t see me fall and that he thinks I am clutz who kicks posts and not one that falls over them.  I stare at my favourite sandals that are now covered with dinner scraps, an egg carton and an old newspaper and sigh.  ‘It’s alright lady,’ I tell myself.  ‘It’s not over till the fat lady sings.’  As I limp my way up the stairs that night and feel the carpet brush the band aid on my toe I begin to hum.  By the time I hit the pillow I am singing.  Loudly.  It’s definitely over, this adventure is done and this fat lady is definitely singing.