Bewitched..

There she was in a back corner of my favourite bar, in a cloud of smoke and shadows, with everything outside happening at half speed. The woman with the bindi. She was beautiful, but that’s not quite the right word, because she was something else, something deeper, something like a photograph that had come to life. Every time I saw her, I was struck by her grace, by that timeless quality that would pull you in and hold you tight. She was not just a woman, she was the setting for a memory, the kernel of a story.

I can see her still, just as I saw her then: every detail as fresh in my memory as it was back in that place that time. She showed up a few minutes after me, but not early nor late; she didn’t rush, nor did she make an entrance. For a long time, she was nearly invisible, as if she hadn’t arrived at all, until she had. And then she did the thing she always did with her hair, pulling it back, hand to hand, to gather it up and twist it into a tight bun, a thing she did in an instant. And all around her, the air shifted, as if a scene-change had just been cued but before it happened you had to just hold still and wait for the next moment. As if it were something you wanted to hit slow motion on, as if you wanted to see that thing again and again.

Her tight-bound hair circled her face, highlighting the bindi: a small dot of crimson that sat above her brows like a declaration of strength. There was something about it that was enigmatic, something about it that begged to be explained as much as it was a statement of her own self-assurance. She didn’t need the world; she didn’t ask for it. But the bindi, the little red dot in a world of grey, did.

We faced each other together on many occasions, sometimes companionably quiet, other times punctuated by the ticks of speech; but even when she spoke, it was not her words that I held, no, it was her eyes: her dark, deep, storytelling eyes. There is a strange alchemy in the way in which some people can communicate everything they feel with no need for sound. She was one of those rare souls, one who could laugh and rage in the tiniest of blinks.

One night stands out in my memory more than the others. The bar was more crowded than usual, the hum of voices and laughing filling in the few quiet pockets of air. I watched as she put her fingers in the air to signal for the bartender. The way her fingers danced; it was a ballet. She took a sip, the way she always did, holding it in her mouth for a second before gulping it down. Her eyes closed for just a moment. The way she looked, with her Scotch, her hair in a bun, her bindi glowing softly in the darker corners of the bar, has always stuck with me.

She would take a sip of her drink, straighten in her chair and study the room. Her eyes would roam, measuring and appraising. She would gaze into the vortex of life, taking it all in, but never really engaging with it. She had this ability to be present without being part of the commotion. It was as if she was somewhere else, and that somewhere else was off-limits to other people’s assessments and judgments. I would always wonder what was going on in her head. What was she thinking about as she sat there, quiet and still, sipping her Scotch like there was no rush?

She laughed rarely, and when she did it was soft, a kind of secret between us. Not the kind of laugh that you might hear in a large room, it was a quieter laugh, for the ears of those who listened more closely. I lived for those sounds, for the way her laughter filled a space between us, the world outside disappearing. For the way that, in that moment, it was just us, sharing something nobody else heard.

But it was the resilience that I loved most. There was something about her, underneath that poise, behind that quiet strength, that no one ever saw. It was as if the world had exploded around her and she stood there, unscathed, still sipping her Scotch, still going on with her quiet grace. She never let you see the effects of what had been done to her, but if you looked closely, if you looked past the poise, past the quiet strength, you would see it in her eyes. She had been heartbroken, she had lost people she loved, she had been through things that would have driven anyone else to the depths of hell and back, but here she was, still standing, still drinking, still going on with that quiet grace.

I wanted to ask questions about her past, to hear the stories I knew were there, but I never did. I did not have to. It turned out that it did not make a difference anyway. Her strength was not in her past. Her strength was in the moment, in the way she lived now, and never let the demons of yesterday haunt her too much. I think that was what most impressed me about her.

The bar, its worn seats and the low mumble of old music, was our temple, and every inch of it was holy, not because of what we said to each other, but because of what didn’t need to be said. I could sit there all night, watching her drink her Scotch; watching the flare of her bindi in the dim light, like a beacon to some silenced truth I could not grasp but always felt.

And while those nights are long past, they remain in my mind as a kind of half-dream. Without her, it is muted, quieter, emptier. And if I sit alone here now, sometimes with my own glass of Scotch, I shut my eyes and try to imagine her opposite, her hair pulled back, her bindi shimmering, her eyes unblinking, telling me stories I’ll never hear.

There is something romantic about those memories, something nostalgic and yearning for those nights that are gone. She was much more than a woman who wore a bindi and sat in a bar: she was a reminder of everything that is ephemeral, of everything that’s beautiful and fleeting, impossible to hold on to.

Even now, when I remember her, I feel that same quiet sense of awe. She is a puzzle, a work of art, a memory that will live with me forever. All I know is that, if I ever drink Scotch again, I will feel her here, and hear her laugh, and see her speaking with her eyes.

The bindi gone, yet she is still with me. In every inky black night that comes and goes. In that glass of Scotch, I drink before bed. In every single look that says it all. And she will be with me, always.