The Upside of Down by Susan Biggar Read Free Book Online Page A

office I will recognise someone. It’s that kind of place. I never realised the enormous value in having points of contact with people, a common background and shared memory base. My parents’ friends knew me when I was climbing trees, later with pimples wishing for boyfriends, and now as a woman. A history exists there. In New Zealand, there was none. I was unknown.
    We hadn’t been in Wellington long when we were invited to a party by one of Darryl’s new work colleagues. It was a warm summer night and there were at least fifty people congregating outside on the spacious deck with plenty of laughter and a generally friendly atmosphere. To our surprise, we were both given a sheet of paper with boxes, each box containing a statement like Been trekking in Nepal , Eaten guava ice cream , and Never owned a passport . The goal was to find people who could sign-off on each box. I have friends who would rather scrub the toilet than play a game like this, but as an extroverted American I was finally in my element.
    After fifteen minutes working the crowd I approached a middle-aged man who was standing alone. Thrusting my sheet towards him with a smile I said, ‘Hi, I’m Susan, can you help me?’
    He smiled in a rather sweet, surprised way and took my sheet, handing me his. ‘I’m Geoffrey. Uh, I guess it depends on how you can help me.’
    We spent the next few minutes joking back and forth with each other about what crazy things we had or hadn’t ever done: Have you ridden on a camel? Do you sleep with your socks on?
    About then I noticed Darryl hovering nearby with an agitated, I-need-to-talk-to-you look on his face. I ignored him and continued the banter with my new friend until he was drawn away by our host. Darryl immediately hustled me into the corner, like corralling a wild animal.
    â€˜Do you know who that is you’ve been speaking to?’ he barked, both exasperation and embarrassment in his voice.
    â€˜Of course I don’t know who he is. I don’t know who anybody is, remember? But he’s nice and he signed-off on two of my boxes.’
    â€˜Sue, forget about the boxes. You just asked the former Prime Minister of New Zealand if he wears socks to bed!’
    ***
    Now, just a year after arriving in New Zealand, here I am facing a towering wall of adjustment, far bigger than any cross-cultural clash I have ever experienced. How do I live well—and teach my young son to do the same—alongside an illness that has the potential to overshadow everything?
    My priority now that Aidan is better is to restore joy to my own life. Knowing I have found tremendous pleasure in exercise and being outdoors, I decide that’s a good place to start. By this time we have bought a house in the sleepy community of Island Bay. A semi-restored 1921 cottage, it’s not terribly practical for a young family: deposited on the side of a hill with no steps, we reach the house via a footpath past two other houses. Our view peers out over the village and on towards the South Island. The suburb is bracketed by steep hills with a narrow valley leading out to a bay where an island rests in the sea, almost as an afterthought. When the southerly wind sweeps up from Antarctica our beach can be its first landfall and it is often bitterly cold, even in summer. Despite the exposure, Island Bay must have been an early settlement because 100-year-old houses dot the streets and rest uncomfortably halfway up the steep inclines. The town is quaint and quiet and from the day Aidan is born I’m determined to get out with him and explore the neighbourhood.
    I soon realise that slowly pushing a pram around town is not going to work for me. Luckily I have roller-skates. Not just any skates, these are the old beige four-wheelers with the big brake tucked beneath the toe, identical to those worn by waitresses on wheels at American drive-in diners. After a couple of nerve-wracking incidents trying