by Steve Hawke
He looks at her defiantly. ‘I’m not about to do anything … rash.’
Her closing words are terse. ‘We have some talking to do, should you choose to come back. I will be completely frank with you, but it has to be a two-way street. I do not take kindly to game playing.’
I made a friend there.
Joe pushes himself gingerly to his feet. His arse is numb, and wet. A bad combination. He almost falls over twice before he gets his limbs back into some sort of rhythm. He turns back down the beach.
It is a hard slog back. The moon is low now.
He tries to tell himself that today is a step forward. It’s something. He’s acted. But what good has it done? Nothing’s any clearer, and what does he do now?
At the crest of the dune he turns back to the sea, puts his fingers to his lips and blows a kiss to Betty and George.
Back at the shack he pours himself a triple, presses send on the email to Eric, then settles into the hammock.
August 2005
THE GAME IS UP
It is a balmy night with a soft Broome breeze. Anne is waiting at their table. The ‘staircase’—the famed golden ripples made by the full moon rising over Roebuck Bay—was a couple of nights ago, and there is only a smattering of people on the hotel’s expansive lawn and the decking overlooking the bay.
He’s always wanted to see the staircase. But hey, he thinks, happily ignoring the jostle of the fellow in a straw hat pushing past him to the bar. That same full moon was glinting on us at Bullfrog Hole. Can’t ask for more than that.
It has been a magical trip. The first week in Karratha could hardly have gone better. Perhaps by design, Geoffrey was away for a few days at head office, and even when he returned the two men accommodated each other in almost friendly fashion. Joe had enough time with baby James to reprise his full repertoire of nursery rhymes and lullabies, and got to change his first nappy in twenty-five years when Anne talked Claire into a coffee at the beach. Then they packed up the four-wheel drive that Geoffrey had organised, and headed further north.
When Eric heard they were definitely doing the Kimberley trip, he’d got busy on email and even made a couple of phone calls from Sri Lanka to his mate Rosa Rider. He’d met her a couple of times, decades ago, when Lil had taken the Kimberley girl under her wing at the nursing college. Then they were reacquainted when he found himself supervising a housing project at Jimbala Wali, the community where she runs the clinic.
Rosa invited Eric one weekend to go camping instead of trekking into Derby and back. He’d caught his first barramundi there at Bullfrog Hole, down at the bottom end of Highlands Station that the Jimbala Wali mob owned; it is private community land, and remote as it gets. Rosa was happy to give the ok for Eric’s friends to visit.
Anne and Joe both liked the idea of settling in at the one spot rather than setting up and breaking camp and driving each day, and Eric had assured them they would not find a better waterhole anywhere in the Kimberley. It did not disappoint.
Following Rosa’s directions, they’d driven southward. A spectacular standalone mesa rose and then receded on their left, and the contorted sandstone formations of the King Leopold Ranges loomed ahead in ochrous shades. But before they could reach the range, the track came to an end at a belt of trees—bauhinias, a miscellany of eucalypts, and glimpses of taller river figs where the ground began to dip.
There was a shared sense of awe as they’d made their way down to the bank of the waterhole. A ribbon of deep-green water stretching into the distance, as still as a painting, drooping river figs draping its fringes.
Serenity. The word, and then the feeling, had seeped into him as he beheld the scene.
Anne slipped an arm around his waist, watching a pair of cavorting bee-eaters skimming the water’s surface. ‘I reckon this’ll do us for a few days,’ she murmured.
They both just missed their big prize. For Anne, a faded purple tuft of chest feather by an abandoned nest, and a maybe-glimpse of colour through the scrub that she wasn’t prepared to claim in her field book. For him, the most powerful strike he has ever felt at the end of a line. Five adrenaline charged minutes of surge, thrust and parry; two mighty sprays as the barra leapt and arced back down, then the head toss, the flick, the slackness of the line.
Just missed, but happy as Larry, both of them.
On their last night there, they watched the full moon rising through the speckle of drooping branches and network of leaves of a river fig that is the closest thing Joe’s seen to his Winthrop giant. They were stretched out on their double swag rolled out on soft sand, under a mosquito net suspended from an outer branch of the fig. It was the most perfect camp spot he’s ever found or hopes to find. What a night.
I should be feeling happier than this, Anne thinks, as she swivels to watch the flight of a plover until it disappears amongst the mangroves. The classroom has not crossed her mind in two weeks. She’s just come from four days at a place that meets almost every criteria she can think of for perfection. She feels the small envelope in her breast pocket holding the purple feather.
But there is a shadow. There have been flickers for a while now. Then something must have happened when he went up to Dongara to scatter the ashes. It is still indefinable, but since then it has been palpable. She almost asked Claire when they were having a coffee last week if she’d noticed anything different about her father, but bit her tongue. If Claire were to ask her the same thing, she would not know how to answer. There is nothing she can put her finger on, but he is somehow more hesitant these days, and preoccupied by something. And whatever it is, he is keeping to himself. Perversely, that makes her reluctant to force the issue.
She feels the feather at her breast again, and conjures up a mental picture of Bullfrog Hole.
‘Thanks mate,’ Joe murmurs, thinking of Eric, making way for the straw-hat man departing with a clutch of pint glasses.
‘What was that?’ asks the barman.
‘Nothing mate. Pint of pale ale and a glass of the house shiraz, thanks.’
He heads back towards Anne thinking it will be a big day tomorrow. At least ten hours on the road for the eight hundred kays from Broome to Karratha, then a plane back to reality after two more days with baby James.
But hey, it’s been good. Tonight’s for kicking back.
‘But hey?’ Am I repeating myself ?
‘But hey what?’ asks Anne, taking her glass.
‘Did I say that out loud?’
She nods as he settles into his seat and they clink glasses. ‘Not bad?’ The wave of his glass encompasses the bay, the breeze, the starry night, and the adventure of the last two weeks.
‘Not bad,’ she agrees. She puts a hand on his, across the table. ‘You’ve been doing it a bit, you know.’
‘What?’
‘Muttering aloud. Without realising it. You never used to.’
He tries to make light of it. ‘Said anything I shouldn’t?’
But her eyes aren’t smiling.
‘What’s going on Joe?’
And he knows the game is up.
He looks down at his beer. ‘Time to talk hey.’
‘Past time, I’d say.’
‘You’ve figured out that something’s going on?’
‘I’ve been wondering for a while.’
Still he seeks to stall. He promises to tell all when they get home, but pleads to first finish the holiday that has been so perfect, to have two more days with Claire and James.
‘Why is talking to me now going to ruin that?’
He gets up to lean on the railing and gaze out over the bay.
‘You’re scaring me Joe.’
‘When we get home. I promise.’
POP!
‘Pop!’
James burbles laughter as Joe lifts him high, and the pair behold each other, eyes alight.
‘Pop. Pop. Pop.’
While they were at Bullfrog Hole Claire has been coaching and coaxing the new word and its pigeon pair
‘Nan’ from her young son.
‘James.’ Joe cradles him close, inhaling his smell, but the babe is too excited, squirming in his grip.
‘Pop!’
‘James!’
‘Pop.’
‘James.’
He has to hand the child over to Anne before his heart bursts.
That sweet moment aside, an uneasiness hovers around the days between Broome and Perth. Claire senses it. She wants to know why they are acting so moody if the Bullfrog Hole expedition has been as wonderful as they described. ‘Ask him,’ Anne mutters, and changes the subject, leaving Claire to worry, and Joe to reassure her unconvincingly that everything is fine.
TWENTY-EIGHT
‘No talkies tonight,’ Anne says as they push through the front door and dump their bags. ‘I’ve got too much to do before school tomorrow. Besides I’m not sure I’m in the mood.’
Her preparations include checking for any work emails, and she discovers the flurry of emails from Eric in their inboxes that have gone unchecked for almost three weeks. He is going to be in town for a week, arriving tomorrow. All very last minute, he says. He’ll be en route to IV’s headquarters in Melbourne for meetings. He’s booked a hotel, but is madly hoping they’ll be back from their trip and they can catch up. At Anne’s urging, Joe manages to get through before he flies out of Colombo and insist that he cancels the hotel and stays with them.
Joe emerges Monday morning frowsy just a few minutes before Anne has to take off for her first day back at work. She regards him sourly. ‘It’s all right for some.’
‘Chins up for Eric tonight my darling.’ He strokes a cheek, then draws her in for a hug, and gets a reluctant smile as reward.
He dawdles through the day. A flick through the daily project reports indicates no major dramas, and he decides it can wait until later in the week before he makes contact with Tony at JKH. He walks down to the shops for the makings, and then gets the spag bol sauce happening. By the time Eric makes it through customs and they get home Anne is back from school. Whilst Anne and Eric are hugging and halloing he cracks a couple of beers, only to have Eric hold up a declining hand when he rejoins them.
‘Haven’t had a drink for near on a year mate. It’s just not part of the culture there. If I have one now on top of the jet lag I’ll be a goner.’
‘Well fuck you too. Suppose I can knock off an extra one, just as a sacrifice for you. Maybe tomorrow?’
‘Maybe.’
The cooking of the spaghetti and the consumption of the bol pass in a back-and-forth flurry of year-gapped catch-up and conversation. The joy of a grandchild, the wonder of Rosa and of Bullfrog Hole. The confronting nature of life in the backblocks of Asia, and Eric’s pride in the work he’s doing.
‘You’d hardly call it architecture. Same as what I’ve been doing for the last fifteen years at Housing and Works really—project management. Only a heap more satisfying. A roof over their heads, clean water, and disposing of their shit hygienically. All pretty basic, but that’s the point.’
‘Makes it a bit hard to boast about my civic centre you prick.’
‘Or another year at Forrest High School.’
The project in Sri Lanka is winding down, and Eric is due to debrief the bigwigs at IV, and see what else they might have for him. There’s a project in Pakistan, one in Mozambique, and a maybe here in Australia, in the Northern Territory.
Joe and Anne find themselves exchanging glances. They both sense a tightness in Eric, something beneath his gushings about his new-found career, and his enthusiasm for Sri Lanka. When Anne ducks out to the loo the two men are suddenly silent, almost wary. Joe goes for the easy option, a jesting tone as he asks, ‘Cottoned onto any of those Sri Lankan beauties? Or do you go for the Swedish aid workers?’
Eric answers in kind, ‘I haven’t exactly been living the life of a monk.’ But the facade quickly crumbles as he closes his eyes and shakes his head. ‘Damn it. Give me that beer will you.’
Eric waits for Anne to return before he spills the beans.
‘Her name’s Ruvini. She’s number two in the logistics office for the project. Runs it, truth be told. Her boss is a fuckwit. She’s local. Overqualified for the job if anything, and damn good at it. That’s what I loved about her before anything else. You know them hey Joe, the ones that make the whole shebang actually bloody work.’
‘Worth their weight in gold.’
‘She’d be worth less than most. Ruvini’s tiny … and she’s drop-dead gorgeous.’
‘Did I hear the love word?’ Joe asks.
Eric glares at him, as if to say please stop the jokes. ‘She’s twenty-eight!’
Jaws drop. Anne and Joe can’t help the look they exchange. Both are astounded, but their responses are polar opposites.
‘You dog!’ Joe grins.
Eric glares again.
Anne exclaims, ‘That’s only a year older than Claire!’
‘I know.’ There is pain in Eric’s voice and in the look he gives her.
‘What?’
‘I’ve asked her to marry me.’
‘Oh my god.’ They say it in unison.
‘And she’s said yes.’
‘Twenty-eight? That’s crad–’ Anne bites off the ‘snatching’, but it is out there, and her instinctive disapproval is clear.
Eric clams up, and within minutes has finished his beer and excused himself, blaming the jet lag.
EGGSHELLS
Eggshells.
Anne mortified that she’s offended Eric, but unwilling to take back her words.
Joe on tenterhooks. No bites from Eric when he tries the subject of Ruvini, and he can sense something is amiss. In the few moments alone with Anne she does not once refer to the conversation he’d promised in Broome.
Eric stewing. His errands and Australian loose ends take up barely a day, and he realises how little there is binding him to his hometown now, after less than a year away.
Days of tiptoeing around each other; the small talk too obviously just that.
Games of cribbage punctuated by naught but the call of cards and points, as each of the men guards his inner thoughts.
On Saturday night Anne serves the lamb roast, then announces as she takes her seat, ‘Come on lads, this is beyond silly. Eric, I’m sorry. I take it back. Talk to us.’
Eric pauses, fork halfway to mouth, looks at her. And she feels awful.
‘Please Eric. Don’t fly out on this note.’
He takes his time chewing and swallowing before looking at Anne once more. ‘I love her, Anne.’ She holds his gaze and nods her acknowledgement. ‘Sitting here in Perth, I feel silly saying it. I must sound silly saying it. At my age. It felt so right though. When I asked her. To … to marry me. But …’
‘But what mate?’ Joe’s tone as gentle as he can make it.
Eric extracts a photo from his wallet and slides it across to Anne.
‘Wow! That’s a smile to die for. And she’s a …’ she asks, passing the photo to Joe.
‘A logistics engineer. And a damn good one, like I said.’
Joe’s eyebrows lift, and he can’t supress a slow headshake.
‘I’ll make the joke for you, prick,’ Eric says. ‘She’s out of my league. And don’t I know it. But …’
They wait.
He takes the photo back. Has another mouthful of lamb. Playing for time, searching for words.
‘I’m in heaven, right. Bliss and contentment await, and fuck you Lil. When I got the call from IV about this trip, we started trying to compute the details about what I should be sussing out while I’m here. Visa forms for Ruvini. Does Oz recognise a Sri Lankan marriage? Does she get automatic entry? All that sort of stuff that I haven’t got a clue about. We were getting so excited.
‘Then at the airport. The last thing she said to me. “You take care of yourself, Mr Eric”—that’s what we call each other, Mr Eric and Ms Ruvini, not too imaginative as pet names go I know, but it makes us laugh—“You take ca
re of yourself, Mr Eric, you’re my ticket out of this place.”
‘It was a joke! I know it. The way she said it. She was smiling—just like in that photo. And a goodbye kiss that’s still giving me goosebumps.
‘But on the plane, all the way here, it just got stuck in my head, like an earworm. “My ticket out”.’
He shudders. Down to his core.
‘She hates the government there. She’s a Tamil see. And it just messes up her life. It’s why she’s working about three levels below her competency, and in aid not construction. What if she is just after the ticket out? What if I’m just the gullible patsy?
‘She’s not like that. I swear. But the damn earworm won’t go away.’
Anne reaches across to place a hand on his forearm. ‘Me and my big mouth hey. I’m truly sorry.’
He summons a smile for her. Spears a golden spud, but drops his fork back to his plate without eating it. ‘It’s doing my head in. Big-time.
‘I’m terrified of saying the wrong thing. You guys know how hopeless I am at this sort of stuff. But I don’t feel like I can just ignore it. That’s what I want to do, because I know it’s rubbish. But this is the rest of my life. It’s too big to leave any loose ends or nagging doubts. I’m going to have to find a way to talk to her without fucking the whole thing up.’
He throws a quick glance at them, then stares at his plate for a few moments, before closing the subject by declaring, ‘This tucker’s too good to let it get cold.’
Eric’s Ruvini dilemma is left hanging, but all three of them are intensely relieved to have got through the field of eggshells, and to finish off the night with three-handed cribbage and their familiar bonhomie and repartee, even if Eric finds it an effort.
FINAL EXIT
The relief does not last for Joe. As soon as he lies down he is fretting about the weekend to come. It has been coming for what seems like forever, but he is still at a complete loss as to how to handle ‘the conversation’ with Anne. Two trips down to the drinks cupboard, padding as quietly as he can past Eric’s bedroom door, and hours of tossing and turning, bring him no closer. Again and again he finds himself returning to the book.
