How does one make an opening to get to know a woman and having got to know her how does one convince her that she should take the giant step of becoming one’s wife? A foolish question it must seem since in this case it comes from someone who was happily married for thirty five years. You may guess right away that I have a particular woman in mind and would very much like to marry again. June has been dead for three years now. So, why should that be a problem you might think and in truth I don’t know. I can talk to women who come into the shop, my son and I are rare coin dealers or at least my son is, I have no difficulty there. Talking coins is one thing but courting a woman is another matter and flirting with a woman is something that is entirely beyond me. It’s just not in my nature. And you’re probably asking, ‘Well how did this idiot get married before then? That was different! It was just good luck! I never ever had a girlfriend and in effect, I married my sister. Mum had this long-time friend from way back in primary school. They were in a small town, under four thousand, and they were two girls in the same class both surnamed Karlson and yet in no discernible way related. From such things bonds are made. Mum’s family moved away to the city here but time and distance made no difference to the friendship. Fay Tees ( nee Karlson ) became my Aunty Fay. Her husband became Uncle Bob. Which made June my cousin. When we were young, I didn’t realize that she wasn’t really a cousin in the normal sense. We went to their farm for most of our holidays, they came up to us in town for most of theirs. We had plenty of other family but they were somehow our closest relatives. When June was high-school age, she came and lived with us during school terms. The nearby Girls Grammar had a national reputation and parents were desperate to get their daughters GETTING BEYOND A SMILE Page 2 in there. Aunty Fay and Uncle Bob as well. Their small-town High School was far from earning their confidence. The Girls Grammar had been forced to impose a restricted catchment area in which we just happened to live so that June became June Corliss while she lived with us. I am sure that plenty of other families tried this same trick and I am just as sure that the school was well aware of the possibility. I have no idea how we got away with it. But we did. I was a little over two years the older and into my apprenticeship while June was still at school. Working and out in the world, having my own money, a pittance admittedly, was a step up that may have helped my confidence a little. It put June in the role of little sister. Not that I lorded it over her in any way. It was just that there came to be one girl in this world that I wasn’t scared of. That had been a problem for me all through High School. The girls seemed to go for the boys who thought themselves marvelous. Be in love with yourself and girls would mob you. Or so it seemed. They were quick to sense my own lack of self confidence and play on it. I began to escort June to concerts and other musical events…..Perhaps I should qualify ’escort’…….My role was more that of chaperone and the events were mostly free. Even then, a great deal of my paltry income was being gobbled by my coin collection. Girls Grammar had a strong music department and June was learning the clarinet and playing in the school orchestra. The head of the department was a Miss Baldwin who was cellist in a number of the ad hoc chamber groups that gathered in private homes and she encouraged June to turn up and even to take part at times. My expense was seldom more than our tram or bus fares. We attended many of the concerts at the university and other small venues and were introduced to many of the performers and people prominent in the city’s musical scene. Miss Baldwin knew everyone in local music. I owe a great deal to Miss Baldwin. She gave me the whole world of classical music GETTING BEYOND A SMILE Page 3 and in particular chamber music. Even a non-player like me can learn a great deal just by listening to the discussion of a group that is striving for that elusive perfection. At the end of her schooling, June found herself a job back nearer home but our closeness remained. She now had money and, further into my apprenticeship, I had a little more. Her holidays were arranged to coincide with city’s Art’s Festival when she would come up to stay with us. By letter or phone we would decide well ahead of time what we wanted to see and hear so that I could be sure of getting the tickets. There was no on-line booking back then. It meant a trip to town. One had to get in early before the more popular events were sold out. She was always insistent that she reimburse me fully. Fortunately, our tastes more or less coincided although usually each of us had to make a some concession to the other’s tastes but life demands concessions anyhow. We never thought of each other as boyfriend and girlfriend but simply as the only other family member who appreciated the muses as we did. And a shared joy is greatly multiplied. One has only to take a grandchild to the circus to be made aware of that. The tired, old clown routines take on a first-time sparkle when reflected in young eyes. But I’m talking about June and I. We were completely at ease and open with each other, more than brother and sister now that I think of it, but we never for a moment recognized it as affection. I imagine that we’d have been embarrassed if anyone had said it was affection. And yet we eventually married and I suspect that in a way it was an arranged marriage. I am sure that our mothers had made up their minds that we would marry when we were both very young. I don’t think that dad or Uncle Bob had anything to do with it or even knew about it. This is the sort of thing that women hatch up among themselves and are particularly good at. If I am correct in my suspicions, it was cleverly done. Maybe Girls Grammar was all part of a long- GETTING BEYOND A SMILE Page 4 range plan. Had I suspected anything, my mind would have immediately constructed an unbridgable gulf of shyness between us. It would have been that ‘she would never have me’, ‘I was not good enough for her’, ’the very idea was presumptuous’, the ease that I had with her would have been entirely destroyed. Had June suspected any such scheme, I am sure that she would have backed off decisively. However, suspecting nothing, we became bonded long before we had any inkling of where it might lead. If it really was a put-up job, I have good reason to be grateful to mum and Aunty Fay. I doubt if I’d have ever climbed that hill on my own. I needed subtle pushes. June was a wonderful wife and we seemed to suit each other so perfectly that it continues to amaze me. Our only sadness was that we had only the one child our son Mark. But June is dead and I do not think it is any disrespect to her memory to be thinking of marrying again. Perhaps after a marriage like that it is only natural to feel a serious lack in ones life. I have my son and his wife. I have my grandchildren and I meet quite a few people every week day. But I am lonely, incomplete. My fascination with coin collecting rubbed off early on Mark but, unlike me, he has turned it into a business with a shop in the city’s main bus depot. I am, or rather was, a silent partner. The depot is older than I am, late twenties I believe, built in the days when suburban runs were handled by at least a dozen private bus companies with their headquarters out in the suburbs. All of them relatively small. Six buses was a big fleet then. Years ago, the city took over all the runs and more recently has decided that the bus services would be better run by a specialist national company. You might imagine the depot as being a tadpole shape with its tail a long double-sided covered platform and with a two-storied body. The body’s street level formerly the booking offices of long-defunct service-car companies is now shops and what was upstairs office space GETTING BEYOND A SMILE Page 5 now converted into flats. It is a place of high foot traffic close to the main streets, with reasonable rentals, and it is surprising how many people come in to see us with the odd coins or small collections to sell. I live in the flat above the shop. It remains in Mark’s name. He moved here when he started the business and continued to live here with Jenny after they married but the coming of the children made it a less than desirable place for them to live. There are no parks here near the waterfront. No open spaces at all. No schools. No kindergartens. And I was rattling around in a large and sadly empty house. So it made sense swap places. They now have my house in the suburbs. Plenty of room for the kids to play and everything that a young family needs within easy walking distance. It remains in my name even though it will be theirs one day anyway. The bills still arrive in my name but Mark and Jenny pay them. My car continues to live in the double garage there. I am now the not-quite silent partner. We open early to catch the early traffic and I am the one who opens the door, cleans the window, gets out that part of the stock that we lock away at night, and serves the first customers. Mark arrives later—by bus—parking is nonexistent in the area except for buses, and from that time on I am free to wander off unless he has some business elsewhere. I mentioned a woman. She passes every morning and she stands out from every passerby or perhaps I should say from everyone you might meet in this grim city. I am used to the suburbs. There, if you are out for a stroll, even complete strangers will acknowledge and return your greeting. Here, people walk with stony faces and firmly refuse to see you. Of the hundreds who pass me regularly, she is the only one who has come to recognize my existence and favour me
GETTING BEYOND A SMILE. Page 6 with a familial smile. We have even got to the stage of saying, “Hi!” to each other. I suppose that represents at least some sort of progress. But she is here and gone, walking briskly, and I would guess that her start time follows close on her bus arrival time. And what does she look like? She is petite and close to sixty although it’s rather hard to tell. She’s one of those fortunate women who will look handsome into extreme old age. And she has some Asian blood in her. Japanese I would think. What she does here in the city I naturally do not know but she dresses in what I would call a woman’s business suit. At the same time, she can’t be a top executive. She has no company car. You may be aware that the Melos Quartette is in the country at the moment. And since they are among the very best, I wasn’t going to miss hearing them while they were here and last night I did. They were wonderful but, as I said before, it’s just not the same going on one’s own. And she was there! She was seated some distance across from me and a little in front. She turned in her seat and we saw each other at the same instant and smiled in recognition. I noticed that she was also alone. Although the seats on both sides of her were taken it was obvious that it was by people that she didn’t know. I was watching. Not that one can read anything into that. She may very well have a partner tucked away at home. Chamber music is not everybody’s favourite fare. In fact, to most people it is anathema. Poor them! I hardly slept for the rest of the night knowing that we have something in common. It gives me the excuse to stop her, to speak to her, gives me a conversational opener. “What did you think of their interpretation of the Debussy G Minor?” or simply, “That was a real feast, wasn’t it?” Anything that would punch a hole in the dam. Easy enough you might think and maybe it is for others but not for me. I spent most of the night rehearsing what I would say and steeling myself GETTING BEYOND A SMILE. Page 7 to make the effort. But would you believe it. I had a customer come in right at the critical moment. There’s always tomorrow, of course, but tomorrow it’s going to be INFINITELY harder.