Wednesday, August 5th

The weather forecaster last week predicted that we would have Arctic winds in Tasmania with snow down to sea level. We laughed, never having heard of snow on the beaches here.  One day in West Hobart we had snow in our garden and Jamie and I skied down to the city but that was a rarity and quite a bit above sea level.

Last night's report said 0 degrees in Dilston with sleet and I don't think I've seen that before.  This morning, we are in a snowfield and roads all around us are closed. We just above sea level here so I'll never sneer at weather forecasters again.

The writing exercise last week was The Presence and again I delved into my memory for details.

Walter, somehow, had never got around to having girlfriends.  Now in his forties, he had resigned himself to life as a sad bachelor so, when Anita from his office started to seek him out to sit with him during coffee breaks he was a bit nonplussed. Did she really bat her eyelids at him?  He’d read about that but didn’t believe it was a real thing.  After a while, Anita seemed to think he had proposed to her, and maybe he had, but there was a sense that he was being rail-roaded.  If he were honest, though, Walter would have admitted he was flattered by the attention and all of a sudden it was too late to think again. But he quite liked the idea of another presence in his life.

Even Walter had to admit it was a great wedding.  The bride wore white, which Walter thought was a bit over the top, and had her heart set on a honeymoon at Katoomba where the last three generations of her family had enjoyed the first days of their nuptial bliss.  They had probably stayed at the wonderful and fashionable Hydro Majestic Hotel but Walter had to draw a line somewhere and, instead, booked a few nights at the Three Sisters Motel.

There’s a lot of fuss made about Katoomba but, when all is said and done, it’s now just an outlying suburb of Sydney.  Once you’ve seen the Three Sisters and travelled on the Scenic Railway, the only other worthwhile experience is the social life at the RSL Club.  After a couple of days of walking up and down the main street and drinking coffee in the Paragon Café, Walter was looking for a way to escape.  Luckily, a poster in the window of the café caught his eye.  It was an advertisement for an Air Show in Temora which, in Walter’s view of the world, was just up the road.

“You’ll love it,” he enthused to Anita. “I heard somebody talking about it recently and she raved about it.  So, it’s not just for men.  If we leave now, we can stop overnight somewhere and be in Temora before you know it.”

By nightfall, they had reached Bathurst and booked in to an old Victorian house with a sign saying ‘The Lost Chinaman Guest House’.  “What’s the story about the Lost Chinaman,” Walter asked the young man behind the desk.  “Dunno,” was the reply “But there were lots of Chinese miners here during the Gold Rush and some of them might have got lost, not being locals.”

The room was quite comfortable, if a bit old-fashioned.  Anita was all for having an early night; she was on her honeymoon, after all.  They slept soundly but Anita woke with a start, saying, “There seems to be draught.  I’m cold.”  Walter felt the chill too but found a cardigan for Anita and they tried to get back to sleep.  Walter couldn’t understand why Anita hadn’t brought nightwear more suitable for the weather.  He imagined he could hear his mother’s disapproving voice:  “That nightie is a disgrace; it doesn’t even cover her bum.”  Following his Dad’s advice, Walter always wore flannelette after Easter and didn’t take out his cotton pyjamas until September 1^st.

It seemed to be just a few minutes later that Anita woke again.  “Did you hear a noise?  It sounded like a moan.”  “I didn’t hear anything,” answered Walter, wishing that Anita would stop making such a fuss.  They had a long drive in the morning and he knew he was no good if he hadn’t had his regular eight hours.

His wish was to no avail.  The ghostly presence, or whatever it was, seemed to run through its whole repertoire: apart from the cold chills and disembodied moans, Walter and Anita were treated to the clanking of chains, distant shrieking, clammy breath on their necks and the sound of children sobbing.  The most interesting noise, though, was what sounded like Chinese bells.

By the morning, Anita was a nervous wreck and she insisted that Walter pay the bill quickly so they could get away.  Walter mentioned to the surly receptionist that they’d had a disturbed night but the young man didn’t seem at all perturbed, not even offering a discount.

Anita and Walter never got to Temora.  Walter would have driven on but Anita said she was too upset and insisted they head for home.  In any case, she had some renovation ideas she wanted to explore for the apartment where Walter had lived, contentedly alone, for twenty years: she’d start by replacing some of Walter’s old-fashioned furniture and brighten the place up a bit with some modern touches.  She idly wondered how she could incorporate Chinese bells into the decor.

When I read it to the group, one woman admitted that her honeymoon had been at the Three Sisters Motel in Katoomba and she remembered that the beds would vibrate if you put 20c in a slot.  I wish I had that information before I wrote the story.