THE JOURNEY
“No frills, that’s me. What you see is what you get.” Toby Reeves laughed.
No one seemed to take much notice. Toby was talking aloud to himself again, something he
started doing recently. The shoppers in the supermarket around him went on with their
shopping. It was cold in the deli department. Toby was waiting to be served. He checked
himself and looked furtively around. A mother struggled with some young, complaining
children. An old lady surveyed the deli counter, trying to decide what to get. The others just
waited in line to be served. It was an ordinary scene of daily life in Townsville where Toby
lived. But he liked it that way, it was home.
Toby Reeves was a 19-year-old young man with much potential. He had a job working for
his Dad in the family business. At the moment he was on annual leave. He had plans to travel
down to Braidwood outside Canberra to attend a friend’s wedding in a few weeks’ time, but
was enjoying some time off before he hit the road south. He was going to drive down, and
was looking forward to the journey. It was a long way, but he planned on taking his time
getting down there and back, to make it a decent holiday.
The warm tropical sun shone down him as he sat in a lazy chair in his parents’ back yard,
smoking and drinking beer. Life was good, he saw no reason to change his circumstances just
yet.
The phone rang. Toby’s mother Monica called out through the window: “Toby, it’s Lisa.”
Toby sauntered indoors and picked up the phone. Lisa was an old friend, some called her his
girlfriend, but they had a special relationship, almost Platonic. Yes, once they had been
lovers, but both of them had grown beyond that initial physical attraction. They were now the
best of buddies, inseparable.
“Hey dude, what’s up?” he said.
“Nothing. I’m bored. Let’s do something. Come and get me, now!” She laughed a natural and
unaffected laugh which made Toby smile.
Lisa Wilkes was the same age as Toby. They had grown up together, going to the same
schools, graduating together and now both of them in the prime of their young lives, eager to
discover what the world had in store for them.
“I’m going to band practice soon, I’ll pick you up on the way,” Toby said.
“Great, I want to hear that new song you’ve been working on. Have you written the lyrics yet?”
“Not yet, still working on it.”
“OK, I’ll see you soon. Ciao baby.” Lisa hung up.
Toby was the lead singer in a band that he got together with some old school friends. The
name of the the band was The Mutes, and they had regular gigs around the city’s pubs at
weekends. It kept him occupied. He was never an idle person, always looking for something
to do.
He grabbed the car keys. His brother had left his car, an old 1984 red Toyota Corolla sedan,
at his parents’ place, and Toby was allowed to use it as much as he wanted. He loved that car,
always so reliable and never missing a beat. He looked after it, regularly checking the oil,
water and tyres and tried to keep it in good condition.
“Mum, I’m going to band practice,” he called out. “I’ll be back later this evening. Don’t
worry about dinner, I will grab something to eat on the way home. See ya.”
He set off for Lisa’s place. She lived in a rented flat near The Strand beach. The hot, tropical,
North Queensland sun beat down as he negotiated the light traffic on the road. He loved this
town – not too big to be a congested city, but not too small to lack the amenities he enjoyed.
It was the middle of winter and the city’s world famous Festival of Chamber Music was in
full swing. He and Lisa had bought tickets to listen to some Bach by candlelight. Toby loved
the arts – litertature, music, theatre and cinema. Townsville boasted top notch events in its
arts calendar and he and Lisa tried to cram in as much of it as they could.
His band gave him the most pleasure, however. The boys wrote their own songs and had a
small but loyal following among the city’s rock audience. By all definitions, they were a pub
band, but they had carved a niche in the local music industry with their rock/pop songs,
which they had branded Muscle Music. Their mascot was a cigarette-toting kookaburra with
shorts, T-shirt and thongs which they had nicknamed Errol. The band’s mixer Sandy had
painted a large mural of this which they hung up behind them at gigs.
Pulling up outside Lisa’s place, Toby jumped out of the car and knocked on the door. Lisa
opened the door and threw her arms around him.
“Where have you been all my life, hangin’ man,” she exclaimed.
“Get your act together woman, we are out of here,” Toby said, frowning.
Lisa Wilkes was one helluva woman, Toby thought. He smiled.
Lisa had been involved in a sex scandal when she was younger. Something involving a
local football team, which had turned ugly and left her with a tarnished reputation. She didn’t
care. Neither did Toby. The incident had estranged her from her family. They didn’t want to
know her after that. Toby filled the emotional gap for her. They loved each other dearly and
were devoted to each other.
“I didn’t tell you, but I’ve booked us both into a weekend retreat up at Paluma. A Tibetan
monk from Canberra is visiting, and there will be vegetarian food and lots of meditation. I
think we should go. What do you think?” she said.
“What? All that chanting and Buddha stuff – you’ve got to be kidding,” Toby said warily.
“No, you’ll love it. Come on, it’ll be fun. Besides, you might even get something out it.
Come on, please,” she said, putting on her best little girl attitude.
Toby laughed out loud. “I can’t say no to you, can I! OK, let’s give it a shot. When?”
“Next weekend. It will be good for us both. Remember when we went down to
the Chenrezig Institute at Eudlo to see the Dalai Lama? We both loved that. I will never
forget it. It changed my life,” Lisa said.
Toby remembered the event well. They had driven down the coast for it. Toby’s brother
Allen lived in Coolum Beach on the Sunshine Coast and they both stayed there and made
the pilgrimage to Eudlo for the day to see someone they both admired deeply.
He recalled how the Dalai Lama had passed by them both at a close distance after talking to
the crowd of assembled local school students and many other devotees. Lisa had a copy of his
latest book and stood close to the rail as he passed by, holding up the book and a pen in the
hope that he would autograph it for her.
It was not to be. Lisa wasn’t too disappointed. The man was not a rock star, he didn’t do
autographs. She remembered fondly his gentle smile as he looked her, passing on to a waiting
helicopter that would take him on his next engagement.
Toby pulled up outside the old railway hall near the city centre where the band practiced.
Going inside, the pair were greeted by the other band members.
“Hey Leese, gorgeous, come here and make me happy,” the drummer Brent yelled out.
Dan the lead guitarist and Steve the bass player were chatting while Toby set up his
keyboard, a small Roland outfit, which he played not all that well, but well enough to fill in
the gaps of the songs they played.
“Hey Lisa, did I ever tell the story of when we first auditioned Toby for the band?” Brent
smirked.
Toby cringed.
“Steve had told him before the session that I was a mean mother, and not to look me in the
eye, otherwise I might beat him up. Steve didn’t tell me anything about this, but when we
were rehearsing a few songs, I couldn’t understand why Toby kept avoiding my delightful,
smiling face. I was trying so hard to be nice. Ha, Toby was terrified!”. Brent laughed.
“That was mean Steve,” Lisa said with a grin.
“We laughed about that for ages,” Steve said.
“OK fellas, let’s start. We’ll take it from the chorus, 1, 2, 3,” Dan said as he lead the other
band members started into the new song they had just written, Point of View.
“Point of view, woh oh,” they chorused.
Lisa found a chair and pulled it up to the side of the band. She loved their original material
and loved coming along to their rehearsals. Toby had first met the other fellas at boarding
school in Charters Towers, south-west of Townsville, when they were younger. Toby and his
brothers had been sent to school in Australia as youngsters when the family lived in Papua
New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Toby’s dad had worked for an insurance broking
firm in the South Sea Islands. Coming to high school age, there were no proper facilities in
those countries for education, so the boys had been bundled off to do their schooling.
Toby hated boarding school in the first couple of years he was there, but managed to pull
himself up by his bootstraps and actually missed the place when school was over. The school
was Columba College, a co-educational Roman Catholic institution situated in the historic
gold mining town of Charters Towers, about 110km inland from the coast. Lisa too went to
the school, but only for a couple of years. She didn’t get on well with the school authorities,
her rebellious nature coming through at an early age.
Toby loved living in the islands, and had many fond memories of his family’s time there.
They were away there for the best part of a decade in the 1990s. Toby had four brothers,
Allen, James, Martin and Justin. He got on well with all of them. He was the second
oldest among the boys. His older brother Allen was married to Rachel, and they had a little
boy named Charlie. It was a close-knit family, for all intents and purposes.
The lads took a break from rehearsal. Lisa, with a wicked smile on her face, pulled out a
rolled joint and waved it around Toby’s nose.
“This should inspire you, boys,” she said laughing.
“You naughty girl, where did you get that from,” Toby said.
“Mmmm. Contacts,” she replied.
The rest of the band didn’t smoke, so the two of them shared the joint. Toby went quiet and
stared at the floor, while Lisa finished it off.
“The first time I tried this stuff was at a drive-in. Remember drive-ins? None of them left
anymore. Anyway I was with a girlfriend from work and her boyfriend. We went to see a
Cheech and Chong movie from the 70s, Up In Smoke I think it was called. We shared this
joint in the car. I don’t remember feeling much, but it must have had an affect on me because
my friend said I couldn’t stop scratching myself. Ha ha ha! What a memory,” Lisa chimed.
As the band packed up their gear at the finish of rehearsal, Toby remained quiet. He frowned.
“You OK baby,” Lisa enquired.
“No, I mean yes. That is strong stuff. I feel a bit weird,” Toby said.
“Come on, take me home. I’ve got the munchies. Let’s stop off and get a burger or
something. Have you eaten?.”
“No, I told mum I would pick up something on the way home. Come on.”
The fellas finished packing up the band gear. Dan had a Toyota van and they stashed
everything in.
“Later,” Toby said to the others, as he and Lisa headed for the car.
“Don’t forget the weekend after next, same time. We might as well make good use of this
hall, I don’t know how much longer we can use it. That’s OK though, Dad has said it is all
right, we can use his workshop as a rehearsal space. It is in a commercial zone, so we don’t
have to worry about the neighbours and the noise,” Dan informed the others.
The group went their separate ways.
Dropping off Lisa at home, Toby headed home. He felt uncomfortable and distracted. I
should never have had that joint, he thought to himself. He had been having problems with
psychological noise in his head recently that he wasn’t able to clear. It was now getting worse
and he felt himself being drawn inwards. He started worrying about other drivers on the road
and kept peering around for any sign of police. I’m clean, he thought, I don’t have any weed
on me. Stay calm, concentrate.
The ride home seemed to take forever.
*****************************