‘Get off. Too hot,’ she says. ‘And this is only spring. He said it would be cool. If this is cool.’
‘Yeah.’
They lie for a while, smelling bacon and listening to Larry whistling something operatic. Graham runs his finger down the bony plane between Cassie’s flattened breasts. Her skin is cloudy with sweat, almost translucent, a delta of blue veins beneath.
‘Never seen you sweat before,’ he says.
‘You must have.’
‘I’d kill for a shower.’
‘I’d kill for a cup of tea.’
‘Yeah.’
‘A bacon butty.’
‘Mmmm.’
But they lie there, sweltering, overcome with lassitude. Graham begins to drift back to sleep, back into the drone of travel noise, the aeroplanes, the long queasy bumping drive.
‘I wonder where his wife is?’ Cassie whispers.
He starts out of the beginning of a dream. ‘What?’
‘You’d think we’d have met –’
‘Breakfast.’ Larry raps at the wall.
‘OK,’ Graham calls. ‘Bloody hell,’ he mutters, ‘like living in a tin can.’
‘Don’t you think? But when I said –’
‘We were all too wrecked last night.’ Graham turns over and the bed groans. Cassie sits up, stretches. He watches the way her breasts tumble back into their birdy shapes. Least in the heat he’ll see more of her body. More of her altogether. Well, that’s the idea. He shuts his eyes and his stomach growls. And Cassie, of course, is obediently getting up, he can hear the catch of fabric on her skin.
In the end it was Jas who made him agree to come. He’d persuaded her to meet him for coffee and she’d come out of her huff long enough to agree.
‘OK, what’s up?’ she’d said, when they were sitting with their cappuccinos between them. ‘You?’ She’d pushed her baccy tin towards him and they’d both rolled and lit up a skinny fag before they said any more. She’d breathed out blue smoke, picked a fleck from her lip. ‘That’s better. Now go on, shoot.’
‘Who says something’s up?’
She’d narrowed her eyes at him and pursed her lips. He’d laughed and shrugged, enjoying the scrutiny of her bright brown eyes.
‘So you’re telling me everything’s hunky-dory?’
He’d looked down, blown a dent in the foam on his cappuccino. He told her about Cassie’s ultimatum. ‘Australia, man!’ he’d finished, gulping in smoke.
‘Think she means it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You could try calling her bluff?’
‘Nah, Cass – when she makes up her mind –’
‘Oh.’ She’d grinned, the funny squinty grin. ‘Well, she’s got balls, I’ll give her that! Fancy giving you an ultimatum.’ She spooned froth into her mouth. He was tempted to take her hand, little and grubby and lying on the table in easy reach. But it seemed that wasn’t on. ‘I’d go,’ she said, ‘if I was you.’
‘You would?’
‘What about your painting?’
Graham opened his mouth. But she was right. He was royally stuck. She blew smoke contemptuously, nodded at someone who had come through the door. Not someone he knew. Mimed talking into a phone before switching her attention back to him. ‘Maybe a different light is what you need. Yup, I’d go like a shot, me.’ She coughed, a husky smoker’s cough that seemed to rumble from a bigger chest than hers. ‘Think about it,’ she said. ‘I think –’ she paused, ‘I think that there comes a moment in your life,’ she stubbed out her fag, ‘when you have to make a leap. No safety net. You have to take a big risk. If you really love Cassie.’ She swallowed, seemed about to continue, closed her mouth. She had a few tiny black hairs at the corners of her lips. He stared at them.
‘But I said no. We’ve split up, kind of.’
‘Oh well, that’s that then,’ she said, gathering her fag box and lighter and shoving them into her bag. Her voice rose: ‘Doss around here the rest of your life then, forget painting – too much like hard work, eh? Do you remember how talented everyone said you were? How dedicated. We all thought you’d be brilliant. You’d be the one. You used to paint all night. Now what? Stay here, screw around to your heart’s content, never make a –’ her voice broke on the word, ‘commitment to art or anything. Anyone.’
She got up.
‘Don’t go,’ he’d said reaching out his hand but she’d snatched hers away.
‘What have you got to lose?’ she’d said and gone, out the door, a flash of purple coat and she was out of sight. Not even drunk all her coffee. He finished it before he left. Miserable cold wet day. Might as well be winter. Rain on windows, in gutters. What had he got to lose?
He’d looked into the faces of the people in a bus queue. Black or white, it didn’t matter, they were grey. The expressions: tense, cold, the shoulder hunch, the leaning forward; the wet ground reflected up into their faces. Slate-coloured, concrete-coloured. He’d strode along, sniffed the grim comforting leak of hot fat frying, a beery gust from the swinging door of a pub, thinking of tea-slops and matted wool, dampness drying on a radiator: England in winter.
‘Come on.’ The sun stings his eyes as Cassie shakes him from his memory. He sighs and pulls himself upright. She hands him his jeans, sits on the bed and watches as he balances on one leg then the other to put them on. He looks down at her. ‘What?’
‘You OK?’
He pulls on a vest, gets a whiff of his own armpits.
‘Not regretting it?’ she says.
‘Give me a chance!’
She giggles. He reaches for her but she slips out of reach. ‘Come on, let’s get fed.’
‘It’s beautiful, man.’ Graham stands on the kitchen threshold, bacon sandwich in one hand, mug of tea in the other, gazing out at a distant skin of colour. Flowers everywhere, a fizz of yellow bushes. ‘Wattle,’ Larry had told them on the journey. ‘It’s ubiquitous.’ In the station wagon Graham had crossed his eyes and mouthed this word at Cassie. She’d looked out of the window, refusing to laugh. As far as you could see, the scattered patches of yellow, pink, white and harebell blue soften the red ground. A stand of gum trees a little way off glitter green and white.
‘Heaven, but hot as hell.’ Cassie hunkers down beside him, the cup by her feet. ‘Honestly, Gray, I don’t think I’ll be able to stick summer.’ She looks up at him, bacon fat gleaming on her chin.
‘You will acclimatise,’ Larry says, startling them both. He looks clean and dry, miraculously cool. Smells of aftershave. ‘Our first few months – they were a trial – but I assure you your constitutions will accommodate. Once you are back in England, you’ll see, you’ll miss this sun.’
‘Hmmm,’ Cassie says.
It had been raining the day they left. The taxi calling, just as the sun struggled up, grey rain sliding down the windows, motorway sluices of wet thrown up by lorries, the edges of the road just visible, long green smears. Already it seems hard to believe in such wetness.
‘It’s like a million springs all happening at once,’ Cassie says. She stands up.
‘What did I tell you?’ He smiles. ‘Excuse me a moment.’ He goes off round the side of the building.
‘When he was showing me the slides,’ Cassie explains. Graham looks down at the daisy tattooed on her foot, half obscured by the strap of her new brown sandal.
‘Still no mention of Mara,’ she says.
He shrugs, stretches his arms above his head.
‘This is not the place,’ she says, suddenly.
‘What?’
‘This is not the place on the photo, is it?’
Graham considers. There’s no way he can make it be that place. ‘No,’ he admits. He tosses the last scrap of his sandwich, crust and fatty bacon rind on to the ground and squats down beside Cassie. ‘Don’t fret,’ he says.
His arm across her shoulders is too hot and heavy. There’s a headachy edge to the sun. He rubs his face on hers. He needs a shave. Smells of stale smoke and sweat. B
ut so, probably, does she.
‘Fancy you,’ he says in her ear.
‘What, now?’
‘Why not?’
‘The bed – too creaky. The walls too – He’d hear.’
‘So?’
Cassie shrugs Graham’s arm off her and stands up. Maybe it’s just jet lag making her feel so cranky, that, the glare of the sun and not knowing, quite, what’s going on. Feeling out of control. Her plan: them here. But it all feels too – tiring.
She wanders away towards the trees. She’d thought no trees anywhere in the world could come close in beauty to English trees, the oaks and beeches in the woods at home, but these gums are exquisite, the skin of them so white, the deep pools of scented shade beneath them. A bird shrieks above her – a parrot! A scarlet parrot! To see a parrot loose in a tree! She nearly calls out to Larry who’s going back towards the house but sees in the dazzle of green above her that there are more, a flock of them, sitting in pairs on the branches like feathered fruits. And, of course, parrots must be commonplace, here.
There’s peace around the trees. She presses her hot brow against the bark of one, soaking in the peace, the eucalyptus smell, until something sets one of the parrots off and, as if the tree is flying apart, the flock of them clatter and screech, flashing red/green, cacophonous and piercing.
It’s a true headache now, a tight tin hat squeezing her skull. She looks back at the hut, long and silver in the sun. Too bright to look at. Stupid to be out without sunglasses. She goes back to get aspirin, find Graham and Larry. By the door a thin line wavers, she thinks it a hair blowing in the dust but it’s a column of ants summoned by Graham’s sandwich scrap. She steps over them and up into the kitchen.
Graham’s resting his bum against the table, back to her, watching Larry hang their mugs back on their rusty hooks. ‘When do we get to meet your wife?’ he says.
‘We’ll go this afternoon.’ Larry turns and smiles at Cassie. ‘Have a morning off. Relax. Why not go for a swim in the gorge? Last chance you’ll get for a dip in a while.’
‘Go?’
‘You didn’t think this was Woolagong?’ Larry says.
‘See,’ Cassie says. ‘Told you.’ She flops down on to a stool. ‘God, I need a drink.’
Larry smiles at them. ‘You’ve misunderstood me, the two of you. Possibly I wasn’t clear enough. We’ll fly to Woolagong this afternoon. I’m taking the car to Kip’s – only 50 k – and he’ll fly me back, then we’ll pick you up. In the meantime the gorge is just half a kilometre away. An easy stroll.’
‘Oh.’ Cassie sits down. ‘Maybe. My head is splitting.’
‘Probably just a touch of the sun.’ Larry opens his briefcase and takes out a pill-bottle.
‘What are they?’
‘A good analgesic. You’ll feel better in twenty minutes. Right, I’ll see you later the two of you. About three. Be ready. Have fun.’ He picks up his panama and goes outside. They listen to the station wagon start up and drive away.
Cassie’s headache lifts as they trail along the dirt track that-winds through the bush, stopping to look at the weirdness: bushes with spines long as darning needles; thick spider webs stretching metres between bushes; blossoms emerging incongruously from the grit. There’s the track and even a sign to show them the way – otherwise the bush stretches out for ever, it seems, on all sides, brilliant with the temporary flowers – exhilarating. The idea that you could wander free. With nothing. No people, nothing. But still, good that there’s a track.
The gorge appears, at last. A crack in the red earth, zigzag-patterned cliffs rearing up to one side, white gums against the blue and red and startling green of the rushy grasses.
Soon as he reaches the water’s edge, Graham strips, hopping about as he takes off his sandals. Cassie watches. His skin is white beside the gum bark, dull tender English white. He picks his way along the rocks, looking for a suitable place to enter the water, each step taken a little more awkwardly than the last – must be sharp on his bare foot-soles. On a smooth edge of rock, he pauses, looks back at her.
‘Come on. Chicken!’
She lifts her chin, ‘I’m not chicken,’ she says, but quietly to herself. A lump rises in her throat. He looks so small and naked. Poor forked beast floats into her head from somewhere. And it’s her fault that he’s here. So out of his element. He raises his arms to do a flamboyant dive.
‘No!’ she yells.
He stops, lowers his arms. ‘What’s up?’
But there’s nothing up, nothing she can say. It’s cold water, that’s all. They are hot sweaty humans. It is quiet. No one about to see. The echo of her shout is an edge of metal ringing in the air.
He waits. ‘What?’
She shakes her head and walks towards him, careful on the glittering rock, sharp and slippy under her sandals. He turns away, raises his arms again, dives and disappears, the splash a gulp, the water darkly opening and closing its lips around him. Circles like a laugh skim out towards the edges. She holds her breath, stands in the shimmer and the cliff leans into its reflection and the sight of a human swallowed up.
Her heart beats three desolate times. She closes her eyes and as she opens them he pops up a few metres from where she’s been looking. He snorts the water from his nose, head sleek, seal-wet, and waves. ‘Come on!’ He ducks under again and she breathes out. Her heart resumes its normal beat. There’s nothing wrong, she tells herself, just a man jumping into water for a dip on a hot day. What could be more normal or pleasant than that? Her man, perhaps, jumping into clean fresh water, which is what she should do.
She takes off her hat and sunglasses, everything suddenly several degrees brighter and sharper. She peels off her T-shirt, bra, shorts, sandals. Her skin looks even whiter than his. Dazzling. Her breasts are startled by the sun, which they have scarcely seen before. It almost stings.
‘Get ’em off, Gorgeous!’ Graham shouts, from way out.
His voice echoes, silly, against the ancient cliff.
She looks around. No one. Of course. She peels off her knickers and goes to the place where his clothes are dumped. Turns to see him on his back, floating, eyes closed, flapping his hands beside his hips like fins. His shrunken penis bobs, wrinkled mauve and comical, breaking through the water’s skin.
A smile rises through her. Everything’s OK. But she can’t plunge straight in like he did. She lets herself down gently, feet and legs in first, goose-pimpling as the cold gradually creeps up and envelops her. The water is stunningly cold. How can it be so icy in this sun? But once she’s in and swimming it turns to silk. After the heat and dust and sweat, it is perfect, it is a joy. The clean cold of it licking over her, inside her, everywhere.
Keeping her head up she breaststrokes towards Graham, who floats out of the direct sun in the shadow of the cliff. When she reaches him, she turns on to her back too. They hang together, the cliff reflected like a half-developed photo on their wet skins; deep dark water beneath them and, above, the shock of crazy rearing geometric rock stark against the blue.
Five
The plane – no bigger than a taxi-cab – swoops violently. ‘Sit back,’ Cassie says, ‘it’s safer.’ She takes Graham’s hand and squeezes.
‘Safer how?’ he mutters. But he sits back, glassy-eyed. She lifts his hand and brushes it with her lips. Larry turns round and raises his eyebrows at her. Cassie glares at the pilot. Surely there’s no reason to drop like that and rise again? Close to her face, the nape of his neck is thick red, coarsely grained beneath the leather brim of his hat. Some kind of test, she thinks, an ordeal for the bloody whingeing poms. See how long till they squeal. Well, she, for one, will never squeal.
She keeps hold of Graham’s hand, trapping the sweat between them. All the freshness of the gorge evaporated already. His hair drying in long weedy strands. Larry doesn’t like the look of Graham – she saw the way his eyes flickered when they met – taking in the tatty jeans, the long hair, the gold ring in his ear. Not what he’d expected at a
ll. In the photo, maybe, the tied-back hair had looked short. He had looked less – himself. Well, that’s not her fault.
‘OK?’ she says, rubbing her cheek against Graham’s shoulder.
He looks at her as if she’s mad. She sighs and leans over, peers down at the bush, the patches of red between the dull greens, the violent yellow froth of wattle. Sometimes the spidering of a dry river bed. But looking forwards or sideways instead of down you get the sense of nothing, nothing but a faint endless undulation of dull greenish grey. You can see the curve of the earth against the sky. It’s like nothing so much as looking at the sea. A dry ocean, rippling as far as the eye can bear to see.
At take-off the pilot had looked over his shoulder. ‘OK?’ he’d said and they were off. No safety procedures, no mention of oxygen masks or checking of belts, just that casual OK and the jerk and grind over dirt and up, tilting till the earth rose sheer beside them.
Larry sits up front beside the pilot. He turns round.
‘How far?’ Graham asks.
‘See that ridge –?’ Larry points to a mark becoming visible on the horizon, like a smudge of crimson crayon. ‘Just beyond that is Woolagong. Look down.’
Cassie leans to look again. The plane skitters and Graham crushes her hand, eyes straight ahead. Sweat beads on his forehead. ‘Not long,’ she mouths into his ear. Please don’t be sick, she thinks, not in the plane. There are no sick bags that she can see. And she couldn’t bear to give the pilot the satisfaction. Although he’d probably have to clear it up. And serve him right.
Stupid that earlier she had been so scared. Of nothing. Of a pool of water – and now dancing above desolation she feels fine, exhilarated, sort of free. Here they are, she and Graham. High and free, in an adventure. She looks at him: he’s gone putty-coloured, eyes shut.
Below is the straight line of a road, a thin scar leading to an open mess of brown, ochre and rusty red.
‘Gold mine,’ Larry yells. ‘Used to be. See the old town?’
As Far as You Can Go Page 3
