A HAPPY STORY

I TURN FORTY-ONE. I buy the car. I drive it to the river-bank and park it under a tree. The sun is high and the grass on the river-bank is brown. It is the middle of the morning. I turn my back on the river and walk along the side of the Entertainment Centre until I find a door. I am the only person at the counter. The air inside is cool. The attendant has his feet up on a desk in the back room. He sees me, and comes out to serve me.

‘Two tickets to Talking Heads,’ I say.

He spins the seating plan round to face me. I look at it. I can’t understand where the band will stand to play. I can’t believe that the Entertainment Centre is not still full of water, is not still the Olympic Pool where, in 1956, Hungary played water polo against the USSR and people said there was blood in the water. What have they done with all the water? Pumped it out into the river that flows past two hundred yards away: let it run down to the sea.

I buy the tickets. They cost nearly twenty dollars each. I drive home the long way, in my car which is almost new.

I give the tickets to my kid. She crouches by the phone in her pointed shoes. Her friends are already going, are going to Simple Minds, are not allowed, have not got twenty dollars. It will have to be me.

‘I can’t wait,’ says my kid every morning in her school uniform. The duty of going: I feel its weight. ‘What will you wear?’ she says.

I’m too old. I won’t have the right clothes. It will start too late. The warm-up bands will be terrible. It’ll hurt my ears. I’ll get bored and spoil it for her. I’ll get bored. I’ll get bored. I’ll get bored.

I sell my ticket to my sister. My daughter tries to be seemly about her exhilaration. My sister is a saxophone player. Her hair is fluffy, her arms are brown, she will bring honour upon my daughter in a public place. She owns a tube of waxed cotton ear-plugs. She arrives, perfumed, slow-moving, with gracious smiles.

We stop for petrol. My daughter gets out too, as thin as a clothes peg in narrow black garments, and I show her how to use the dip-stick. My sister sits in the car laughing. ‘You look so like each other,’ she says, ‘specially when you’re doing something together and aren’t aware of being watched.’

On Punt Road the car in front of us dawdles.

‘Come on, fuckhead,’ says my sister.

I accelerate with a smooth surge and change lanes.

‘Helen!’ says my sister beside me. ‘I didn’t know you were such a reckless driver!’

‘She’s not,’ says my daughter from the back seat. ‘She’s only faking.’

My regret at having sold the ticket does not begin until I turn right off Punt Road into Swan Street and see the people walking along in groups towards the Entertainment Centre. They are happy. They are going to shout, to push past the bouncers and run down the front to dance. They are dressed up wonderfully, they almost skip as they walk. Shafts of light fire out from the old Olympic Pool into the darkening air. Men in white coats are waving the cars into the parking area.

‘We’ll get out here,’ says my sister.

They kiss me goodbye, grinning, and scamper across the road. I do a U-turn and drive back to Punt Road. I shove in the first cassette my hand falls on. It is Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: she is singing a joyful song by Strauss. I do not understand the words but the chorus goes ‘Habe Dank!’ The light is weird, there is a storminess, it is not yet dark enough for headlights. I try to sing like a soprano. My voice cracks, she sings too high for me, but as I fly up the little rise beside the Richmond football ground I say out loud, ‘This is it. I am finally on the far side of the line.’ Habe Dank!