Mary Moody - The Accidental Tour Guide

THE ACCIDENTAL TOUR GUIDE

First published in Australia in 2019 by

Simon & Schuster (Australia) Pty Limited

Suite 19A, Level 1, Building C, 450 Miller Street, Cammeray, NSW 2062

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Mary Moody 2019

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Cover design: Lisa White

Cover artwork: In the Greenhouse by Angela Mckay; www.ohkiistudio.com

Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

To David Hannay, Isabella Hannay and

Margaret Travis

You know that place between sleep and awake, that place where you still remember dreaming? Thats where Ill always love you... Thats where Ill be waiting.

J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

1 APRIL 2014

In those first few seconds between the soft nothingness of sleep and the inevitability of waking, I have completely forgotten. Lying on my right side, I open my eyes and see Davids fine profile, as ever. His smooth olive skin; his silvery hair on the pillow.

Then I remember. He died last night, just after eight oclock. Hes still here with me, in our bed of more than four decades. I slide my left hand across the space between us and onto his belly. Still warm; just a little bit warm. Its late March and very cold at our farm in rural Yetholme, but our beds well covered with woollen blankets and eiderdown. I reach up and touch his icy cheek. Its true then. It really did happen.

I feel disoriented. Its only natural: these are the first moments of a very different life. I cant begin to imagine what that life looks like from here. I know that I must get up and start the day. Theres so much to do, to organise, to settle. There are thirteen people staying at the farmhouse our four children, some of their partners and most of their children. We need to call the doctor (the death certificate), the palliative care team (to notify), the undertaker (the body), the Anglican minister (a plot in the local cemetery), close family members (Davids brother and sister), and dozens of friends and neighbours. We have a funeral to plan.

I kiss his forehead; it feels so strange. I need tea, proper leaves in a teapot. Our bedroom opens onto a wide hallway heading down to the kitchen. Davids huge portrait is on the wall opposite our doorway; he looks melancholy, eyes downcast. Thats how the artist saw him; thats how he saw himself.

Theres a small child wearing pyjamas in the hallway, skipping and singing to himself. My grandson Owynn. Oblivious to my presence, Granddads dead, Granddads dead is Owynns repeated chant. He was here in our room last night; everyone was crying. This surely must be his three-year-old way of processing that collective deluge of grief. Poor little chap, I hope hes not permanently traumatised. Yet his song has made me smile, almost laugh, reassuring me that life will somehow go on.

Hes hungry so I make toast while the kettle boils. I throw some small logs into the wood stove, tickle the embers alive.

One by one, family members emerge from the bedrooms that also open to the wide hallway. There are children and teenagers sleeping on various sofas and blow-up beds. Nobody is feeling chatty; they look at me, wondering how I am today. We all go through the motions of breakfast, trying to ease into this very strange new day.

Im fine really; numb but functioning. Cuddling kids, letting cats and dogs in and out the back door. Wondering if anyone remembered to shut the latch of the chicken shed last night. Probably not.

I take my second cup of tea back to bed, to where David still lies. He brought me tea in bed every morning we were together for, perhaps, the last thirty years. During our first decade together I was usually up before him, wrangling babies and small children. But after that phase he cheerfully took over, coming back to bed himself with a coffee and the newspaper. It occurs to me that this will be our last morning in bed together, ever. I drink my tea slowly, deliberately. I must never forget these last few hours.

A decision is made to keep David here until later today, when our daughter Miriams husband and her four sons will arrive from Adelaide. I want the boys to see their grandfather one last time, at the farm, in his own bed. They have spent all their summer holidays here with us for fifteen years. Running wild. Its their place of happy memories and cousin time.

I dont need to make any of the difficult calls; our adult children swing into action organising everything. I am allowed to float, to ask questions, to make suggestions, to add a name to the list. I cant believe we didnt discuss any of this until now. In spite of the last two years of certainty, knowing it would end this way, we have never discussed one single aspect of what will happen in the hours, the days, the weeks and the months that will follow the death. I never brought it up with David; he never brought it up with me.

I am so appreciative and overwhelmed by this love and support. Our children working together to make all this easier for me, just as they have worked as a team these last four days to support their dying father. I am grateful.

It will take me four years to feel like myself again. The old me needs to stand aside and allow the remade version of myself to emerge. However, in those few days between the death of my husband and his funeral, I have no foreboding of the difficult path that lies ahead.

SYDNEY, 1971

I was twenty-one and full of ambitious enthusiasm when I first met David Hannay. It was 1971 and I had just graduated as a graded journalist following a three-year cadetship at the Australian Womens Weekly . I had a boyfriend my own age, but hed recently headed off to London and I was saving up to join him. In order to accumulate the money I needed for this journey, I left my reliable magazine job for a pay rise in the publicity department of the television station Channel 9; this day job also allowed me to have a night gig as a barmaid at my local, the Mosman Hotel.

When I first started at Channel 9, my plan was to quickly escape the publicity role for that of news reporter, even though at that time there were only two women television journalists in Sydney, both at the ABC. I wanted to take my news reporter training a little further into uncharted territory. I was not beautiful but I had an open face and a ready smile. I had long red hair which I wore hanging straight in the fashion of the day, belying the fact that my hair was naturally even curlier than Nicole Kidmans locks in the film BMX Bandits . It took hours of laborious winding of wet hair around my head to achieve this smooth style. I also wore thick make up to cover my freckles, and black false eyelashes another must-have fashion of the sixties.

Not long into my new job, an unusual looking chap walked into the small publicity office. He was balding with long blond-streaked hair and a bright red beard that reached halfway down his front. I noticed his intense brown-black eyes as he politely introduced himself, telling me he was a part of an independent production company making a weekly family show called The Godfathers .

Where did you spring from? he asked. I laughed and told him about my journalism background and because Id never seen the program he offered to take me onto the set in Studio 2 to watch an episode being taped. I was immediately fascinated by the process of television production and him.