The Dutch family

I travelled. And as Australians who travel can do, I wound up with a partner not from here. In my case he is European (politically, culturally, socially); and Dutch, more specifically. With elderly, unwell parents (in law) we now travel annually to the Netherlands to check they’re still alive. Though this puts me in an environmentally uncomfortable position it does give me the opportunity to maintain far flung friendships and experience Europe’s many delights (small dogs, pastry, passive smoking) and my favourite of all European cities––London–– which may or may not technically be in Europe (I’ve lost track), but which definitely remains European.

Something of a favourite spot in that city, a regular haunt––if you could call once a year a regularity––is J&A café in Clerkenwell. A lovely little Irish place, transplanted into central London, for cakes and savouries and decent sized pots of tea, and where today, after arriving from Melbourne late last night, B and I, jetlagged and on the edge of nausea, order three-cheese toasties on thickly sliced soda bread. Dense and savoury we dig in, revived by the home comfort quality.

Ireland. My ignorance flares up when I think of it. That country that isn’t in the UK but is in Europe, despite the UK being bang in between. And that has on its northern border another country that is in the UK but now not in Europe, and which is called Northern Ireland so seemingly has something to do with Ireland (the island) and not much by the sound of things to do with England, but, which sees itself (in ways, in parts) as more English than Irish. No one will like my suggestion that it would surely make more sense were it part of Ireland (the Republic) or renamed the West Islet of England. Just like no one much likes or liked or understood or understands the Brexit facility (or functionality) of the ‘backstop’. It’s more than a little demeaning to have your purpose as a place distilled to this. Rear end. Last resort.  

B and I wash our very late lunch down with an enormous pot of Earl Grey, because of course what makes London great is not only how European it is, but how British. We already feel far from last night’s arrival at Heathrow, when dead tired, unclean, I wanted to take the express and get it over with, but B wanted to take the tube, which of course can be a novelty, but which drags and drags, and thrift and convenience aside is hot and gross and dirty and smells of burnt rubber. I wish I’d insisted on the express. We changed from the Piccadilly to the Victoria Line at Green Park, and finally emerged from the underground at Highbury & Islington. Already intimate with the area I anticipated the warm giddy flush of the return, but instead had the same reaction I’d had 18 years earlier, on my very first arrival.

What strange and unusual hell is this?

Dingy buildings in a state of disrepair, crippling traffic, homelessness, drunks, all cold, dark, wet and sad looking. All the poor people looking like they existed in a nightmare from which they couldn’t wake. The chic dining spots etched into the streetscape, glassed frontage, soft lighting––I couldn’t bear it. The rubbing up against each other, not exactly unique to London, but so starkly pronounced, I couldn’t see past it. You can understand the sentiment in mainland Europe ‘go ahead, go’, like it was ever them that couldn’t suffer the loss of this member state. Feeling hopeless for the sorry lot of fellow humans can make one think dark, ungenerous thoughts. So by the time we wheeled our way to a friend’s place to seek solace, I was cured of my obsession with London. Just like that.

Of course when I said so out loud, B correctly suggested I wait until morning when, of course, walking through Canonbury’s more pleasant streets in the light of day (warm, dry) and arriving at The Place (another favourite café) I decided I was suitably happy to be back. Mellowed, maybe. New artwork adorned the walls. Mixed media abstraction with crescent moons and geometric blocks. Shapes and colours borrowed from Kandinsky that told of a trajectory of influence from Russia, threading west through Germany and France. Oasis on the stereo, of course. Oh, and the barista was Italian. Of course.

B and I made a series of emphatic observations about being back in London, but excited as I was, when I suggested it might be my last time, he thought it unlikely. But I don’t know, things are complicated, this global thing isn’t working out so well...

I’m thinking, when will this encroaching unease––unpleasantness––escalate into complete chaos? That’s what I’m thinking. And, where do I want to be when that occurs? London doesn’t feel like a city that’s going to weather the next century well. So Brexit? Boohoo. I’ve more often thought ‘the Continent’––for its train connectivity, and because I have the luxury of making that choice, but increasingly it’s Australia that feels like a safer bet.

We walk to what was the senseless Highbury & Islington squareabout, but which has had a very nice makeover, a rethink from a traffic management and pedestrian perspective. We boarded a bus, sat upstairs and soaked up scenes of a bustling London. Then we walked. Covent Garden, Embankment, across the Thames to Southbank, The National Theatre to The Tate, then back across the Thames to St Pauls, from where we dragged our feet to Clerkenwell––and here to J&A, for a very late, jetlagged lunch. 

That was a few days back now, but time expands and contracts, conflates and forks off in strange ways when travelling, and while journaling––with narrative licence! I now sit in bed in the attic room of B’s family home in Zutphen––which is where we sleep when we visit the Dutch family––where its warm and cosy and where B will have me try and wrap my mouth around the Dutch gezellig, and laugh at me lying under the small glowing stars and alongside an old school map of the Netherlands, where each time I try to locate Zutphen, never find it where I expect it to be.

As usual, UK customs were happy to see me leave the country, but I had been surprised on arriving that Australians were suddenly eligible to enter through smart gates. No sweating. No grilling. Just a camera flash and a green tick digital display. A pre-emptive (re)turn to the ‘colonies’ and away from Europe? In comparison, it was our usually smooth Amsterdam arrival that had uncanny hold ups, what with long queues waiting for a human to wave you through. And after waiting an unusually long time for our baggage, we eventually found it winding its way around a carousel for a flight arrived from Istanbul.

B’s brother was waiting among the cute fluffy dogs at Schiphol to speed us off to Zutphen. On the highway, as directed intermittently, he’d hit the break to bring his speed down from 130 to 100km/h. He explained that the limits were implemented to help meet new nitrogen oxide emissions targets. The approach in the Netherlands toward setting a goal, and a stretch goal, and to even still aim beyond it makes me feel sad about Australia, how defeatist we are. In the drive to reach EU targets, the Dutch are innovating and educating and shoring up their prospects in a new intelligent economy. The Dutch appear to have a plan for everything.

Last night the family sat down at the table to stamppot and Dutch sausage which is about the most disgusting of all Dutch meals. I washed it down ever so politely with a puritanical amount of red wine. Today, B is in the backyard levelling the brick path, but he’ll no doubt break soon for tea and apple tart. Tomorrow we’ve been tasked with clearing out the Dutch family attic. And eating more apple tart.

The sizeable attic space was bursting with three generations of junk, among which were the more curious boxes filled with wooden crosses, and more disturbing still, box upon box of toy guns belonging (he tells me) to his brother. So many guns. Thank god this is not America. We drove to his brother’s place uninvited to deliver 10 boxes of stuff (toy guns, lego, model planes, cars, beer bottles) and watched the blood drain from his face. When his wife got home she completely freaked out, and neither appreciated the fact that another 10 boxes might turn up tomorrow. We left them to discuss being adults with ageing parents and responsibilities. We picked up their daughter from day care, did the grocery shopping, cooked a stir fry and sat down to salvage their relationship.

Also found in the Dutch family attic, one deflated dolls head and one inflated muscle-suit. How could we not?!

I’d done my bit, so I bid the Dutch family farewell to commence my onward travel through Europe. B and I spent a night together in Amsterdam before he went back to do more time with lesser family members. Surprisingly, our train broke down outside Arnhem, and out-of-order station escalators reminded us of past trips to Italy where most everything useful is currently rotto, awaiting repair. Even the brand new metro we’d hoped to take north to our bridge house was on the blink. So we emerged from Centraal into driving rain to take the free ferry across the IJ. Already wet from the river crossing and facing a half hour walk in the rain, we ducked into a bar to dry off, drink beer and wait for the storm to pass. We settled in at De Pont, me with my Vedett blonde and B with his La Chouffe. We soon got to that point in the night when you decide to eat cheese for dinner and have one more beer, just a small one––a flautje––then in a break in the weather, made a run for it. The bridge house was definitely gezellig, but tired and bloated, B and I made the unanimous decision to wait until the morning and promptly fell asleep to the sound of the occasional duck making a water landing.

Wide awake and ready to go, walking the Jordaan, we admired the architecture of the canal houses while also fearing for the sinking slumping city it is. Farewelling each other in front of Centraal, B took off south to visit extended family in Uden and me, to Schiphol for a flight to Milan. What a long day of two halves it would be, as it tends to, when you wake up in one country and go to bed in another. Ah Europe.

AB, an old friend from Sydney, living long-term in London, had flown in from Gatwick half an hour earlier and was enjoying a beer in terminal two. ‘Rudderrrrrrr’ she called across arrivals. We embraced. I took a healthy swig of her beer, and we were Australians on the road once again. Finding the Malpensa express was easy enough, but ‘express’ was an oversell. Well over an hour later, we pulled into Centrale, Mussolini’s behemoth construction. An impressive feat, like many impressive feats––at what cost a fascist? Sadly the taxi queue was long and despite the many efficiencies of Milanese taxi drivers, we waited so long we had to go directly to Ratanà for our 9pm booking. Classic travellers, we arrived with our wheelies and under-dressed for the occasion. The room was nice, the service ‘proper’ but the Milanese risotto with osso bucco that is the house speciality was frankly gross. They’d also run out of cheese which seemed a critical misjudgement, so while I ordered a tart, AB looked morose until we paid the bill and got back in a taxi to our hotel. Hotels aren’t my thing, and this was no exception. I was bothered by a mosquito and my sheet loosened from its moorings, making for a frustrating night, exceptional only for being expensive.

The next morning, a very pleasant train ride in heavy fog, chit chat with an elegant Italian lady and as we reached the coast a little rain clearing to blue skies. When we disembarked at Santa Margherita Ligure, the sun was shining with some brilliance. Our hotel was a short walk from the station and being the off-season, we were upgraded to a room with sea views. We dumped our stuff and went straight to the pool, but after that initial dip, swam strictly in the sea, the Italian Riviera offering a divine, lazy, jade-green buoyancy.

A spectrum of terracotta and green­––window shutters and elaborately detailed balconies. Begonias, freesias, all sorts of lantana and other weedy flowers that never looked so good. Stairways winding up hills through accidental gardens. We ate fried octopus and bruschetta, we drank beer, we swam again. We sunned ourselves never worried we’d burn in the soft Italian sun. I ate pasta three nights in a row without digestive issue. Pesto Genovese the first, tomato, anchovy, capers and olives the second, swordfish and pine nuts the third. Could I be as pretentious to say that from now on, ‘I only eat pasta in Italy’. How do they do it so well? Perhaps the question is, how do we get it so wrong? 

We walked to Portofino along the coast on a path elevated in the forest. We stopped at a small swim spot called Paraggi, which was how swimming would be in heaven. We continued to Portofino and joined well-heeled Italians for Saturday lunch, ordered grilled fish, drank white wine. Thank goodness we would return by ferry.

Is this how we as Australians come at Europe? As travellers, as a destination? For some certainly. For others it’s nonna, abuelo, yiayia and opa. It’s food, it’s a sensibility. And for some, it’s little more than high school history––time now to look to Asia. Politically, it’s something we’ve come at primarily through past (and present) attachments to the UK, but perhaps we now need to discover a more intimate exchange, a diaphanous exchange, diffracted, embracing its plurality as something we’re well positioned (as an immigrant nation) to tap into alongside the lesson of its project––a necessity––to be something whole, one, coherent.

A slightly overcast day the next, we decided to train to Vernazza––the second of the five famed towns of the Cinque Terre. Finding the town horribly touristy we took to the walking trail immediately to get up above it all, look out over the coast line. The steep stone path, not for the faint hearted, weeded out the majority. I was sweating as we ascended 800 stone stairs––a woman from New Zealand keeping count. AB and I, who look these days like something between American, lesbian and middle-aged, women who’ve ‘let themselves go’, had her for a fellow traveller, and independently of one another thought we’d shared some kind of lesbians abroad moment when we stopped to catch our breath and have a natter. But when around the next corner we passed a handsome older Italian man, shirt off, hairy chest glistening with sweat, she stopped having sped ahead and called back to us, ‘now that was a good view’.

After AB flew back to London from Genova, I took a train north to Lugano, a town just inside the Swiss border. A thoroughly grey, wet day I was very pleased my Italian friend Patrick was there at the station to pick me up. I met Patrick studying philosophy in London, and thought he was being polite (taking me for a philistine) when he introduced himself as Patrick.

But surely you’re Patrizio? I asked.
No, it’s Patrick, he said.

And while I thought it would be fabulous to have a friend called Patrizio, it would have been terribly uncouth to go ahead and call him Patrizio just because I thought it sounded more Italian. Patrick picked me up in a black Audi TT. We bought a couple of bottles of red wine and sat by his window watching the rain pour out of the sky as we chatted through to the early hours.

I woke to a blinding brightness, the same window exposing rings of mountains under clear, crisp far reaching blue skies. We got in the TT and at the press of a button, the roof folded in on itself. We giggled a lot. Of course the car wasn’t his. At the summit of Mount Brè we sat out on a large terrace and ordered beer and bratwurst. On a couple of mountains in the middle distance there was the lightest dusting of snow. Not enough. We walked a trail and found a partly shaded spot to rest and chat more, admire the trees with their yellow turning leaves. There was nothing we didn’t cover––films, books, popular culture, science, death, politics, philosophy, space, the future, the past, love, life, engineering, health, identity, vanity, work, labour, vocation, the left, the right, the system, fuck the system, blowing up the lot.

Next, Geneva, on the Western edge of Switzerland. The train broke down on the first leg between Lugano and Zurich, which goes against the national character. Disembarking at a small regional station to board a local, all-stops service, everyone waited patiently on the platform. One woman started speaking to me in a foreign language. In response I asked, ‘what language are you speaking’, like if she answered German it would have been any different to her answering French. Just as the languages change as you travel across Switzerland, this cross-country train trip mapped a shift in architectural and gardening styles, from the bucolic ornamental Italianate in the South, to the clipped, pruned and ordered German north, and to the rambling vineyards and rustic French in the west.

I was in Geneva to collect my friend AC for a girls weekend in Antwerp. A seasoned Australian expat, she scooped the kids out of the bucket bike and when husband S got home, we bid him bon chance and wheeled off to the bus, train then plane to Brussels International. Another short train trip and we were in Antwerp, checking into our hotel in Sint-Andries. Hungry, we eagerly took our table at Le John, but when the waiter came to take our order, I was stunned into silence by an unexpected Australian accent. With him looking at me quizzically, I finally found my tongue, and asked what he was doing here. He told us all about his Belgian boyfriend and throughout the night, stopped by the table and we would reminisce about home. Australians. We’re everywhere. Yet we rarely speak of diaspora as other ethnic nationals might. For better or worse, identity can align around ethnic nationalism, and we could––there is some potential––to borrow and evolve the best bits, and create solidarity in an Australian identity. But without any agreement on republic and treaty, I won’t hold my breath that our motley crew might build some sense of self any time soon.

Antwerp was all about fashion and AC and I enjoyed discussing clothes and craftsmanship and spent considerable time unpacking my now long-running issues with and conflicted interest in fashion and style––my fear of frivolity and vanity––my fear that my interest could indicate poor character, or a poverty of character. Fashion has always felt at odds with my anti-everything attitude; Spartan tendencies winning out to the detriment of my image (plain, austere, holey). We came up with some novel, practical solutions to the problem, like having a minimum spend I must make on clothes each year, a minimum number of items I must wear each day and a maximum number of times each week a particular item can be worn.

After a lunch of croque monsieur we were back on the street, this time looking at interiors and objet d’art, making the most of the Saturday. Sunday, shops would be shut. Remember religion? We finally made our way to the epic Antwerpen canal and circled back into the old town for churches, very old buildings and gilded statues. The next morning we had breakfast at the food store at Hotel Pilar where I wanted to be all the people brunching there all at once. We walked more cute neighbourhood streets and looked at ornamental roundabouts and photographed ordinary people’s houses. It was finally time for goodbye, time to return home to Australia, enriched by my small European exchange as always.

Back at home in Melbourne with my Dutch partner I continue to exist with the subtle effects, the difference, the knowingness of a diversity of experience that comes after some time in two worlds and the small uncertainty I have every time I step out into the street that I might have looked the wrong way to check for oncoming traffic. Where if a road is deserted I sometimes get a sense of vertigo as I try to recall which side I should drive down, or from which direction I should expect to see cars approach. When I step into an airport, that nether zone where I don’t know where I am, where I could be anywhere and nowhere, untethered. When I’m both places at once.