Easter Monday:
the day after the Easter Bunny comes. No
alarm needed setting. The sun rolls
over the tent and the plastic wall lightens, bit by bit.
* * *
Easter
Tuesday: the day after Easter Monday.
The alarm fires up at 6am, and then subsides into silence after a well
aimed poke. Daylight savings may have
gone but it is still dark outside. The
bed is soft and warm, enticing me to stay, not unlike the call of a narcotic.
The bathroom
floor is dry, towels neatly lined up, moistureless, ready for an embrace post
my hot shower. First, shaving cream, and
the scrape of a razor over a four day growth.
* * *
Easter
Monday: The tent wall rises above me on an angle, passing close to my nose,
claustrophobic. I’m at the edge of the double
bed mattress and my wife is pressed against me: I can’t escape. The air is chill on my face; it’s going to be
cold outside. Still, it’s light enough,
so I scrabble my way out of the sleeping bag and cast around for clean
clothes. No such luck with the towels;
they haven’t dried since last night’s shower.
I pick the least wet.
The showers
are a hundred metres away, between snoring tents and a smouldering campfire
surrounded by empty bottles. We heard them
being emptied at two in the morning.
Caravan park showers are the same everywhere. Slimy tiles, puddles of water, fluctuating
water temperature. There’s a razor in my
toilet bag – it can stay there.
* * *
Easter
Tuesday: The towel rail is above the heater, warm. Socks slide onto dry feet, snug into
shoes. Long pants encase legs; a
business shirt collar and tie noose my neck.
The kitchen
is quiet, last night’s dishes clean and dry inside the dishwasher. The day’s stress is yet to come. The kids are asleep – I’ll cajole them out of
bed soon. School beckons for them – they
like it – but they’d rather not spend the next hour eating, dressing and
packing. It will be the first point of
contention.
* * *
Easter
Monday: Last night’s dishes are dewy.
They’ll need to be dried with the last of our clean tea towels. Empty stubbies are on the table next to our
tent – explaining why the party sounded like it was in our tent.
Somebody
has stoked the fire. Our girls are
already dressed and clustered around it, tossing in small branches, watching
them burn. They didn’t need
encouragement.
Breakfast
comes together quickly - we’ve got an early start. Fried eggs on toast, feet warming by the
fire, under a blueing sky. Time is
running out.
The tennis
courts are reached by a short walk on the river levee. The water is still, occasionally disturbed by
some creature rippling the surface. The
levee winds around gently and then we are at the courts. Grass stretches out, marked by white lines,
divided by nets. People straggle in
slowly, quieter than yesterday. It’s
finals day.
* * *
Easter
Tuesday: The traffic slows up. My
appearance at the 9am meeting looks iffy.
The more people in a rush to get to work, the slower we go. The light changes from red to green, but no
one moves. The traffic is already backed
to the next set of lights. It’s an
unimportant meeting, but being late will knock the whole day off kilter.
* * *
Is it too
late to become a professional tennis player?
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