by Toni Jordan
I feel light, energised, focused. Julius and Greta work in unison as if they had laboured together for months, as though they were in the Olympic synchronised evidence-collecting team. They show Daniel how to gauge the weight of an animal by how far the tracks sink into wet sand, how to make a plaster cast of a small paw print, how to place a ruler near a burrow so a photo shows its size. They are professionals and I am grateful as I watch them work. I also say a silent prayer for libraries and librarians. Perhaps I will make a small donation to the library nearest our home if I ever get my hands on the cheque.
And it is working. He is buying it. I am pleased, and something more. The thrill of this contest is making my skin feel alive and every sense is alert. I sometimes stand at the back and watch Daniel watching Greta and Julius and he frowns in concentration and asks sensible questions, and I wonder over every one. This is like playing chess with my father. I cannot help but smile. Julius jumps into the silences to insert little-known biology facts he has cribbed from textbooks.
‘Did you know, Mr Daniel, that biologists do not call their field work sites digs? This is a common misconception caused by the seepage of archaeological terms into popular culture. Neither living animals nor fossils are found in a single, manageable site like a small buried village that can be roped off and excavated. Either they roamed free over a considerable distance, or they belong in a single geological stratum and can be found over miles of terrain,’ he says.
‘Is that so, Joshua?’ says Daniel. He is endlessly polite, annoyingly courteous, only slightly sarcastic. Is that so, Joshua? could mean he is genuinely interested, or he disagrees, or he realises that Julius is talking half-digested rubbish. Or he could be thinking of something else entirely. I try to match each possibility to the expression on his face, without being caught observing him. Which turns out, even with my years of practice at reading faces, to be an impossible task.
At noon we stop for a light lunch and as we sit under the shade of a stand of trees, he asks me how we would spend the money. His money. I smile and it crosses my mind to tell him the truth: some new furniture, fix the gutters, a small fund to cushion the old age of my father and Ruby and Ava and Syd.
Instead I smile ethereally like I am glimpsing heaven through a shining portal, and say all the things I have rehearsed. I tell him about the army of researchers, and the command tent with a map and coloured pins: pink to show the location of sightings, and blue to show the traps I would spread through the park. I tell him about the pheromones, the special blend I intend to develop from marsupial species genetically closest to the tiger, and how I’d spray them on a dead chicken. This would be the perfect temptation for a carnivore like the tiger but repugnant to herbivores like wombats or wallabies.
I kneel down, pick up a stick and draw patterns in the dirt that represent a long tube attached to a square. I keep talking as I wave the stick across the ground. This is the camouflaged wire trap I’d build. It has a trick hatch leading to a long tunnel here then finally a holding cage here. This hatch wouldn’t catch smaller animals like rodents or possums. I’d place the bait carefully in the kind of habitat that tigers were known to prefer when they were observed in Tasmania. I’d choose spots far away from tracks and campsites. The whole area would be surrounded by a network of movement-sensitive night vision video cameras. By the end even I am enthusiastic. Daniel looks positively transported.
‘Sounds irresistible.’
‘But this is where researchers have gone wrong in the past: I’d spray everything with a fine mist of diluted tea tree oil to cover any human scent. The tiger was famous for its sense of smell.’
‘You’ve got it all worked out.’ Daniel kneels to get a better look at my trap drawing.
I sigh and shake my head; part hopelessness, part yearning. ‘I’ve had years to think about it.’
I tell him more, on a roll in both fiction and reality. ‘I’d also have a couple of researchers set up a stand in the main street of town, asking locals if they had ever seen an animal they couldn’t identify and recording each interview for posterity.’
‘And I would like to see some money put aside for DNA testing,’ says Julius. He is just off the track, peering to look at small white fragments scattered at the base of a tree. ‘DNA technology is the key to the identity of all animals and will prove the future of our work, I’m sure. Some things are in our genes.’
Daniel walks over to look at Julius’s pieces of bone. I walk behind him, he does not look back. As Julius points out the bone fragments and speculates about the kind of animals they might have come from, Daniel idly picks up some small stones from the edge of the path and begins arranging them in groups and piles. I watch his long fingers, the nails clipped short. His hands are larger than I would have expected, the knuckles angular and defined and dusted with fine hairs. As he turns his hand I see the scar on his palm, fine and even as though an artist had drawn it in white enamel. His wrists pivot by the most ingenious mechanism every time he turns his hand to the side. It takes me a moment to look down at my own hand and realise it moves the same way. I had never noticed before.
I look at Daniel again. It is tiredness and stress, I know, but for a moment I cannot look away: the way he casually sorts the stones by some means unknowable to me—perhaps by size or shape, or is it colour?—suddenly seems the most interesting thing I have ever seen.
Before long it’s almost evening and time to head back to camp. Julius goes ahead with Daniel. Greta holds me back by my arm until they are out of sight.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ She lifts her sunglasses and squints at me, although her tight hair makes it difficult for her to close her eyes.
‘Nothing. I’m not doing anything.’ This is true, but it’s what we planned. My role is mainly to supervise my students. Daniel has been trying to assist, fetching things from the camp sometimes: different lenses for the camera Greta hadn’t realised she would need, the right size of envelope to hold the samples. I walk with him to different sites, show him the correct forceps, which horsehair brush is best, or at least those that feel the best to me. We breathe the air, we walk on the beach. Everything is going according to plan. I cannot think what she means.
‘Exactly,’ she says. ‘You’re doing nothing. You’re just standing back and watching him with this strange smile on your face.’
I shake my arm free of hers. ‘Greta. Don’t.’
‘“Don’t”? Is that all you can say, “Don’t”? We’ve all put a lot of work into this, Della. Hours and hours. I am dressed like an Amish man and this hairstyle hurts my brain. I am not pretty. I hate not being pretty. I’m looking like this, as directed, so as to not take the focus off you.’
‘Yes,’ I say, and I try to walk around her. ‘Thanks for that.’
She holds me by the shoulders and moves us behind a tree. ‘Della. I have dirt under my fingernails. If you don’t close this deal I will undo these buttons and cut these trousers into short shorts and let my hair down and I will close it for you. I swear to you Della I will.’
I look down at my clothes. They are fine. Adequate. If I dressed as Gypsy Rose Lee, Greta would think I was in a burka. ‘What do you suggest I do?’ I say. ‘Club him over the head and drag him back to my cave? That’ll make me look like a serious researcher.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she says. ‘You know exactly what to do. First, listen to him. Uncle Laurence taught us that. Rule number fourteen B or whatever. It’s the listening, not the speaking, that draws them in. Then lead him down the path until he takes over, until he thinks it was all his idea. Then scurry away like a delicate little flower who doesn’t want to unfairly influence his decision because of your so-called ethics.’
She is right about the listening. That is what wins someone over, although it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Agreeing with every lame political opinion or implausible religious view. And never appearing bored, no matter what idiocy comes out of their mouths.
‘We’
re doing well enough with the science,’ I tell her. ‘I won’t need to do anything else.’
She grunts and pulls at her ponytail. ‘Closing something this size is half logic and half emotion, you know that. OK, the logic half is going well. But you have to look after the emotion. You have to make sure he’s gagging to give it to you. And the money as well. Stop him thinking with his brain. Get him thinking with something else.’
‘It’s not that easy.’ I sound pathetic. Whiney.
I don’t feel the physical reluctance to touch him that I felt earlier. Now I still want to keep my distance until I work out what’s going on. But my intuition about Daniel makes it all the more important that I engage his feelings, throw him off balance. In a closer contest he might make a mistake. I know Greta is right. This cannot be avoided any longer.
‘Of course it’s that easy.’ Greta snorts. ‘It always has been before. But I’ll admit it doesn’t help that you’re dressed like that.’
She stands in front of me and closes one eye like she’s judging Best in Show. Then she pulls my T-shirt down at the front and tucks it in tighter, and she pushes up my breasts so more cleavage is exposed. Then she stares, and freezes.
‘What?’ I say.
She looks like she’s about to faint and peeks down my top. ‘Thick straps, mesh. No shape. Beige. Don’t tell me you’re wearing a sports bra. What in God’s name were you thinking?’
‘It’s hiking, Greta. Camping. I’m like a method actor. It’s about characterisation.’
‘It’s about stupidity, that what it’s about. Wait here,’ and she stomps back to the camp, returning with a bundle clasped tight in her hand. ‘Here,’ she says, handing it to me. ‘It’s clean.’
I can feel the lace. I look down—it’s fire-engine red. I’m not moving.
‘It’s French. Push-up. Come on, Nanna. Put it on.’
‘We’re camping, not pole dancing,’ I say.
‘Put. It. On.’
There’s nothing for it. I duck behind a tree, strip off and change bras. I hand Greta the sports bra. She hesitates before touching it.
‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘I’ll treasure it always.’ She rolls it into a ball and shoves it in her pocket, then she tightens the belt of my shorts and kneels so she can fold up each leg higher. I hold on to her shoulder to steady myself.
She stands again, and frowns. ‘Hold still,’ she says, and takes a tube of lip gloss from her pocket. She holds my chin and applies it. It wouldn’t be my choice, I can see from the tube. Too shiny. Then she stands back and admires her handiwork.
‘That’s better. I’m beginning to think Sam was right. You’re not yourself on this job. There’s some reason you’re not playing this right. You’re chilling.’
‘All right, all right. But how do you expect me to do anything with you two around? In dirty hiking clothes? In tents? I do better work with champagne and soft music.’
‘You have stars. You have wine. You have everything you need. After dinner Julius and I will wander down to our German hiking friends for a few quiet drinks. You’ll have the whole camp to yourselves for at least a couple of hours. Long enough to lead him on, not long enough to get yourself into trouble. We’ll be back to rescue you if things go too far. Just do it, Della. We’re all counting on you.’
We walk back up the track and stop when the camp is just in sight, then Greta holds me still by the arm again.
‘Are you going to ask him about the tiger? About the time that he saw it, when he was a kid?’ she says.
I shake my head. ‘There’s no way I can know about that. It’d give the game away. I’ll try and encourage him to tell me. That’s all I can do.’
In the camp, Julius is kneeling by the camp stove, cooking sausages and instant pasta. He and Daniel are talking, laughing, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Then Daniel walks back to his pack, lying beside the tent. His back is to us. He feels around for a moment and brings out a clean T-shirt, then he whips his shirt off in one smooth movement. We can see the flat plain of his back, the brown muscles as they slide over his shoulder blades, the shadow in the channel of his spine.
‘Oh, and Della, remember,’ Greta says. ‘If you really don’t want to do this, that’s fine. I’ll be more than happy to step in for you.’
It is done, just as Greta said it would be. We have eaten a simple camping dinner and the cleaning up, such as it is, is finished. Greta and Julius have retired to the backpackers’ camp on the beach. No doubt Julius will make new friends and tell them all about the pitfalls of carrying water from a well. Greta will have shed her Amish exterior and be surrounded by a legion of tipsy German admirers.
It is dark and Daniel and I are alone. Aside from the occasional cheering in the distance that may be part of a drinking game or a welcome for a late-comer, we might be the only people alive on earth. Daniel lies on his side on a rug in front of the lamp, a plastic tumbler of red wine in his hand. I also have a tumbler of wine, but no possessions: no keys or handbag, purse or mobile or lipstick. It has taken me some time to realise that the incredible lightness I feel is in part due to this lack; the absence of things that couldn’t weigh more than a few hundred grams but that no modern woman would consider being without.
There is no wind. I can smell the sea and a lemon-scented gum not far down the hill above the creek. I have drunk more wine than is sensible and even as I register this I take another swig. The horizon tilts slightly when I turn my head. I can delay no longer. It is time to begin.
‘The scar,’ I say. ‘On your hand.’
He holds his hand out straight with the palm toward me. Perhaps this gesture is meant to show me the scar, or perhaps it is a stop sign. But it is too late. I cannot stop.
‘How did it happen?’ I say.
He rubs the scar with the thumb of his other hand, as if he has been derelict and it is a stain he could scrub away with enough effort. ‘It’s painful to think of,’ he says. ‘I don’t talk about it often.’
I say nothing. I make space for his words to come.
All at once his face looks gaunt, his eyes hollow. ‘I was on a bus in the city. It was just a normal day. Then this bomb-squad cop jumps on board. One thing leads to another, and the bus driver gets shot so I take over the steering. Then it turns out that there’s a bomb planted on the bus, and we can’t slow down below fifty miles per hour or it will explode and kill us all. I have to drive and drive. Until eventually we get to the airport where we can go around in circles and if the bomb goes off no one will die but us. It was horrific.’
‘That sounds vaguely familiar.’
‘When we finally get everyone off the bus, me and the bomb squad guy get kidnapped and forced into an abandoned railway car, which explodes. That was the first time I kissed another man.’
‘That must have been very traumatic for you.’
‘It was. That’s why I always drive. Me and public transport—it’s not good.’ He shudders. ‘After all this time I still can’t bear to get on a bus or train.’
‘Just as well you have a nice new BMW.’
‘Lucky, isn’t it?’ he says, sniffing and wiping his eyes on his sleeve. ‘But emotional scars take a long time to heal. I still can’t see Sandra Bullock on the cover of Who Weekly without sobbing.’
‘And where did the scar come from exactly?’
‘Oh, this? I did it when I got home. Broken wine glass in the sink.’
I stretch out on my back for a moment, hands behind my head, looking at the stars. ‘And are you always this flippant? Or just with me?’
‘And are you always this serious? Or just with me?’
‘I’m serious because life is serious. I have responsibilities.’
He puts his hands behind his head too. He is mimicking me. ‘Not now you don’t,’ he says. ‘Now there’s just the sea and the stars.’
‘My work is serious, I mean. I do serious work.’
‘It’s just a job, Ella. It doesn’t define you.’
I h
ave no idea how to reply to such a ludicrous statement. What does he think defines us, if not our work? I’d like to tell him that he’s never had to work a day in his life. That he can joke around all he likes: he’s never had to worry about money or if all the deadlocks on the front door are bolted properly or if he can pull off one great big deal to buy a bit of pride. He can spend money where he chooses, give it to whomever he likes.
I bite my tongue because telling him all this will not help me seduce him and find out what he is hiding, and also because I remember just in time that his father is dead and so is his mother. Then I want to tell him that he has it easy because his father is dead and he doesn’t have the weight of history and expectations and tradition on him and he has no Thursday-night meetings to report to and can do what he likes because no one is watching, but I don’t say this. Perhaps, from the perspective of someone whose parents are dead, it might come across as a little insensitive.
‘Tell me something serious,’ I say. I wriggle a little, cross my legs, lean forward. Sitting on the ground is uncomfortable. It didn’t mention that in my research on camping. ‘Tell me something serious, something you have never told anyone else, and I’ll tell you something flippant.’
‘A challenge,’ he says. ‘OK. Something serious.’ He pauses for a while, then, ‘How’s this? When I was eleven I was madly in love. Andrea Garida. She was an older woman. She was thirteen.’
‘A friend from school?’
‘No, no. There were only boys at my school. She was a friend of my sister’s.’
‘Did you propose? Is this story about your elopement?’
‘A little sensitivity, please. My heart was broken. Andrea had this tiny button nose with freckles, and a little gap between her front teeth. That gap drove me crazy.’
‘Sounds like a perfect match. What happened?’
‘My mother had a pendant in her jewellery box that she never wore. She always had a lot of jewellery, rings, necklaces, earrings. This one pendant wasn’t even a pretty colour. It was clear, like glass. Like a big piece of glass. I thought Mum’d never miss it. I gave it to Andrea.’
