Odyssey in a Teacup by Paula Houseman
Encounters with a pair of supersized Y-fronts; a humourless schoolmarm with an unfortunate name and monstrous yellow incisors; and a tut-tutting, big-breasted, modern-day gorgon are the norm for Ruth Roth. She’s used to crazy.
Her mum squawks like a harpy and her dad has a dodgy moral compass. Add in daily face-offs with a relentlessly bitchy mirror, and Ruth’s home life feels like a Greek tragicomedy.
She hankers for the ordinary. But blah is not a good fit for someone who doesn’t fit in. And isn’t meant to.
Ruth’s vanilla existence is an issue for her besties—her hot-looking, obsessive-compulsive cousin and soul mate (who needs to do everything twice-twice), and her two closest girlfriends.
With their encouragement and a good homoeopathic dose of ancient mythology, Ruth embarks on an odyssey to retrieve her spirit. She’s confronted with her biggest challenge ever, though, when one of these friends sends her spiralling back into a dark place.
The decision she must make can either bring her out or launch the mother of all wars in her world.
Devachandra Mukherjee’s waiting room was a small one, but a little over-adorned. There was a brightly coloured appliqué wall hanging of an elephant behind the reception desk, a large brass statue of a five-headed Ganesha on the floor in one corner of the room, a statue of the Goddess Gayatri in another corner—also a brass one with five heads, this one had ten arms—and a tall, narrow, lacquered timber drum in yet another corner. A Dhurrie rug with a geometric pattern in shades of blues and browns covered the wooden floor. The receptionist, a young Indian woman wearing a sari and a bright red dot in the centre of her forehead, gave me a form to fill in. Sitting on one of the three canvas folding chairs, I could barely contain my excitement. This was the real deal.
I’d been waiting fifteen minutes when a young woman came out of one of the two doors adjoining the waiting room. She looked a picture of contentment. She paid the receptionist, who then took my filled-in form into the room. A few minutes later, she ushered me in and indicated a chair for me to sit on. Apart from the obvious massage table in the centre, the room twas decorated exactly the same as the waiting room: identical appliqué wall hanging, drum, Ganesha, Gayatri and Dhurrie (they must have picked up two for the price of one when they shopped for the practice). I heard some shuffling behind a red and gold curtained area. The curtain then parted and a man in a white sarong and short-sleeved, white shirt emerged.
‘Hello, Ruth, and welcome. I’m Devachandra Mukherjee.’
I nearly, nearly said bullshit! Even I looked more Indian than Devachandra Mukherjee. He was a short, pale-skinned, beefy redhead (I expected his name to be Flanagan). After an interminable silence, he asked, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Uh, uh, I thought you were Indian.’
‘I’ve spent a lot of time in Ashrams in India dressed in a dhoti and kurta, so I consider myself an honorary Indian,’ he said defensively.
Really? Leonard Nimoy spent a lot of time on the Starship Enterprise wearing prosthetic pointy ears, but it didn’t make him an honorary half-Vulcan. I didn’t reply, but I felt that there was already a tension between Mukherjee and me that did not bode well for the upcoming massage.
‘I’ll leave you to get ready. Please strip down to your underpants, lie face down and cover yourself with the towel,’ he said pleasantly. It was as if our exchange hadn’t even occurred.
The massage started okay. He had quite some power in those stumpy little arms, and really worked them. About ten minutes into it, though, I felt something dripping on my back. It couldn’t have been oil because he hadn’t removed his hands to pour any on, unless ... all that time in Indian Ashrams made him an honorary Goddess Gayatri, and he’d sprouted an extra eight arms.
Mukherjee was breathing quite heavily, and the dripping continued for a while before I realised what it was. The man was sweating profusely, and I was copping the overflow. Eww! How was I going to get out of this one? I needed to think on my feet, which was really difficult when you were lying down. I was also worried about offending this person even though what he was doing was offensive! It was another ten minutes before an idea took shape. It was just a matter of being honest.
‘This massage is really bringing up some uncomfortable feelings,’ I said, hoping he would stop.
‘Nobody else has ever said that!’ Spoken like a petulant child.
It made me feel even more naked than I already was. And I didn’t like one bit what his words implied—that I was being contrary. I was getting heartily sick of being made to feel like the difficult child just because I disagreed with someone, or because I didn’t conform to a particular standard.
‘Other people’s experiences are not relevant to mine!’ I said.
Mukherjee backed down. He cleared his throat.
‘Would you like me to do some drumming to help balance things out?’
Huh? And what am I supposed to do while you sit in the fucking corner and beat your lacquered timber drum? And probably get an erection in the process! I prayed to Gayatri, Ganesha and the Dhurrie rug that he didn’t already have one.
‘Drumming?’
‘On your back, you know, with the side of my hands.’
Oops. Just as well I hadn’t expressed my thoughts. I considered his offer, but drumming would require exertion, and more exertion meant more sweat. ‘No thank you. I’d like you to finish up, please.’
‘Very well then,’ said Mukherjee in a cold, clipped tone.
If he was offended by my choice, too bad. He shouldn’t have asked a closed yes-or-no question.
I paid for the session and walked out of there, head held high. I felt overjoyed at my assertiveness. It was a genuine overjoyedness, unlike Raine Bow’s.
Things were changing and I was starting to become a pain in the arse again. And as much as a big part of me wanted to slot into Reuben’s world, my spirit had other ideas. Playing small didn’t do it for me anymore. I also started to get that not everything was my fault.
Paula Houseman was once a graphic designer. But when the temptation to include ‘the finger’ as part of a logo for a forward-moving women’s company proved too much, she knew it was time to give away design. Instead, she took up writing.
She found she was a natural with the double entendres (God knows she’d been in enough trouble as a child for dirty wordplay).
As a published writer of earthy chick lit and romantic comedy, Paula gets to bend, twist, stretch and juice up universal experiences to shape reality the way she wants it, even if it is only in books. But at the same time, she can make it more real, so that her readers feel part of the sisterhood. Or brotherhood (realness has nothing to do with gender).
Through her books, Paula also wants to help the reader escape into life and love’s comic relief. And who doesn’t need to sometimes?
Her style is a tad Monty Pythonesque because she adores satire. It helps defuse all those gaffes and thoughts that no one is too proud of.
Paula lives in Sydney, Australia with her husband. No other creatures. The kids have flown the nest and the dogs are long gone.
