His Mrs suggested they check out the movie The Substance on the weekend. A rarity, for the woman to suggest going to the movies. An aberration, to be honest. The old man stopped practising his violin, planted his bow on his lap and closed his tired eyes. He allowed his mind to drift to the time when they were young and attentive to each other and when their children were still toddlers. Although caring and sweet, or was it because she was caring and nurturing, she was already reaching her wits end, often using her frayed nerves as a reason to voice her unhappiness about life. Looking after her aged parents and bringing up a young ravenous family without any outside support was a heavy burden on her young shoulders. The kids were forever hungry and no amount of cooking would satiate their appetite. Her hands were turning podgy and scaly, and under her nails were stubborn remnants of soil that no amount of cleaning and scrubbing would remove. Once upon a time, her slender and pointy fingers lent her an image of youthfulness with unbounded sophistication and advertised her as a budding career woman whose coveted office was located in Martin Place, the banking and financial precinct in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. When they first met in uni of NSW, her ambition was more corporeal and less spiritual – enjoy good food, own a nice house, visit great places in the world and oh, have lots of kids.
They were fighting in the car, a metallic maroon-coloured Mitsubishi Magna Elite, a lemon, it turned out to be, with a low resale value that he flinched when he finally sold it a couple of years later.
“Why must we fight every time we go to the movies?” the young version of the old man asked his wife.
The rear view mirror showed him their three sons looking glum in the back seat; the eldest, sandwiched between his brothers, was idly kicking their legs. Left, right, left, right. They didn’t protest, so he continued until he got bored. He glanced at the digital LED clock in the car and whispered to his brothers.
“We are gonna be late,” he said, placing his index finger on his lips to warn them not to add to the tension in the air.
“Tick, tock, guess what has no hands yet tells the time?” the youngest asked proudly.
The young father found a place to park, just off Rundle Mall, and without fuss, gathered his sons to make a dash to the movie theatre in a city arcade. His Mrs, still disgruntled and not yet quite settled, persevered with her protest in being dragged to watch a movie that she had decided she wasn’t going to enjoy. You spoilt our dinner! The young husband reached for her hand, not out of loving attention but to hurry her along. She didn’t like to be rushed, so she freed herself from his grip.
“You guys go first. I’ll join you later,” she said, quite breathlessly by then.
” It makes no sense for us to wait for you there,” he retorted and added brusquely, “so, hurry up.”
The man was a fool, of course. That was not the way to get a woman to comply or cooperate.
“You know I, uh, hate going to the movies,” she said as she sucked in more air. Especially when they had to rush. He understood that. Her anxiety for her mother’s wretched emphysema and the deep hurt from sacrificing a glittering career in corporate finance, a long-held ambition, to have children instead meant she was incapable of being hurried to meet a deadline.
“I know you’d rather not go, but the kids want you to,” he said, unaware that she would interpret that to mean the kids wanted her to go, but not him.
They had already missed the opening scene where James Bond had fallen from the sky off a burning truck and landed on a yacht in the middle of a blue sea when they stepped into the dark cinema. The impressive Dolby surround-sound speaker system that blared out the noisy explosions did not impress his Mrs who had her fingers firmly pressed into her ears. Before James Bond made his move to kiss the lady in the yacht, his Mrs had already raised herself from her seat.
“Come find me when you’re finished, it stinks in here,” she said.
“Thankfully, such episodes were few when our kids were growing up,” he said to me. By that, he explained that it wasn’t because she had changed her stance about going to the movies. They just rarely did and when the kids had left home, he went to the movies by himself. He had already accepted it wasn’t something he and his Mrs would enjoy together; she mostly loved love stories by Ali McGraw, Meg Ryan and Renee Zellweger whereas he liked CIA-laden, action-packed movies. The last time they went to a movie together was forgettable, because she chose it and it was a long time ago, well before Covid. So, for her to suggest going to a movie this time, was well, quite unexpected.
Still, the old man acted like an idiot. He opened his eyes from his stupor and realised that his Mrs was still raving on about the movie’s positive reviews.
“She will win the Oscar, and she’s still so beautiful, you’ll see!” she promised.
“Oh, but there are no cheap tickets for seniors on Saturdays.”
“Ok, let’s do Sunday then,” she replied, without expecting an answer .
“Uh, you know we have to look after my mother on Sundays,” he bargained.
She muttered to herself and turned away, shaking her head either in disapproval or disappointment.
“We will go early next week, ok?” he said loudly to her and watched her disappear from view, presumably still muttering to herself.
Come Monday, he wised up and did not tell her the first working day of the week was the busiest day of the week for him. Besides, between the two of them, it was he who loved going to the movies and he wasn’t about to miss such an opportunity. He didn’t care what The Substance was about. She had already told him his favourite actress was in it. Demi Moore, more of her please!
On the way there, she was chirpy and bright, even telling him to change lanes to avoid a wayward cyclist. He focused on driving their Rav4 slowly as old men do and remained stolid as she rattled on her synopsis of the movie. He even surprised her with a smile. Born a gifted story-teller, she did not care that he disliked knowing the end of a story before the story had even begun. But on this occasion, no spoiler alert was necessary, since there was really no substance about The Substance. Simply, it was a story not from rags to riches but from fame and beauty to just beauty. Demi Moore, in all her naked glory, was just stunning. The movie’s plot, if one could call it that, cleverly depicted the fall from grace of a beautiful TV personality by showing her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame being eventually trampled on and by the time it was faded, cracked and stained, she had lost her job, her youthful and stunning looks and shattered her faith in Hollywood and corporate American ageism and sexism.
The old man yawned as the movie began. He had assumed the story would be without much substance, revolving around an ageing woman’s quest for beauty, a desire so intense she would do anything to maintain her youth; a shallow person whose main occupation was her preoccupation with her own beauty, causing her to seek constant validation for her looks and obsess over every detail of her face and body shape. Unfailingly studying her reflections on shop windows and restaurant mirrors, she would typically forget where she was or what she was eating. Naturally, her main expenses would be on yoga lessons, skincare products, treatments, facials and plastic surgeries. While she may pretend to be confident outwardly, her private concerns about her beauty masked deep insecurities and her self-doubt, self-esteem and self-worth ebbed with her moods about her looks. But no, it wasn’t like that at all. There was no mention of the ten units of botox for Demi Moore’s glabella or twenty units of botox for her crow’s feet. Neither was there any proof of her cheek descent and neck skin laxity nor were there any signs of skin pulling around her tragal region.
The substance of The Substance was just the substance itself.
As they were leaving the cinema, the old man’s tummy growled loudly in protest. Feeling hungry, he looked over to the restaurant at the end of the hall.
“Can’t you see the lights are not on?” she asked.
“Let’s go home. I’ll cook you your favourite noodles,” she said with a smile, a smile that expressed warmth and welcome.
When two people living together are happy, one of them is making up for the other.
-Unknown
Urghhlings 