Hamish felt sick again.
‘Frank, I think I’m going to . . .’
They turned into the driveway of a tired-looking motel.
Before Frank had even parked the bus, Hamish plunged out the door and fell onto his hands and knees. He vomited, heaving three or four times on the asphalt.
Frank crouched down next to him, proffering a bottle of water.
‘That’s some hangover you got y’self, fella. Lasted all day.’
Hamish took a sip of water, swilled it around his mouth and spat it out. He peered down the driveway at the shadowy figures beyond. The invisible people of Fitzroy Crossing.
Frank followed his gaze. ‘It’s not all bad, mate,’ he said. ‘Some punters reckon this place is Australia’s best-kept secret. In a good way.’
‘You’re kidding.’
Frank shook his head. ‘I’ll take you to the river in the morning, it’s the lifeblood of this place. You’ll see a different side of Fitzroy Crossing down there. Community programs for families, improving things a bit. Nothing’s ever all bad, fella. Or all good, for that matter. Sometimes people just need a bit of confidence to forgive ’emselves and start over.’
Frank’s words felt personal, somehow. Hamish placed a hand over his chest, physically struck by the fragility of it all. Suddenly aware that life was too precious, children too vulnerable and relationships too important, to screw it up so badly, almost deliberately.
His life, his children.
His relationship.
In Fitzroy Crossing, many people didn’t stand a chance from the beginning, Hamish thought. Little boys clutching at the hands of their disengaged mothers. Little girls who didn’t make it to adolescence before some arsehole molested them. If they ever had a decent crack at life, it was in spite of their circumstances.
But Hamish hadn’t ever had to struggle like that, he now realised. Sure, he’d worked hard in life, bloody hard. But almost everything he’d ever wanted had been delivered to him on a platter. Including a decent childhood, a good education and the nurturing given to him by his conservative and committed parents. All of it had set him up for his future life: the life which he was now slowly annihilating, for reasons he couldn’t understand.
Hamish wiped his mouth with the edge of his t-shirt. ‘I’m swearing off the alcohol, Frank,’ he said quietly.
‘Did that myself seven years ago. Drunk Diet Coke ever since,’ Frank said.
Hamish sat back on his heels. ‘Why’d you do it?’
Frank removed his cap. ‘Used to drink, since I was eleven. Everyone thinks it’s okay, right? Then one night, I almost killed the missus. Hurt her real bad.’ He lifted his shirt and pointed to three long white scars under his ribcage. ‘Some of the old fellas took me to country and taught me a lesson. Never touched the grog again.’
‘Fuck, mate.’ Hamish had heard of payback in some tribal cultures, spearings and the like. Would Sid happily take a spear to him for what he’d done to Paula? He guessed so.
And I’d deserve it. After Lisel and Toni, the fights with the Brazilian, a whole collection of cock-ups.
He craved the simplicity of settling scores like that; confessing his errors, submitting to retribution, earning a clean slate again.
But as it was, he wasn’t sure that Paula would ever forgive his misdemeanours; and if she did, she almost certainly wouldn’t forget them. It was a hell of a lot more complex the whitefella way.
Looking at Frank for a few strange seconds, Hamish felt as if he was standing before a mirror. Staring into the eyes of a flawed man, trying to make sense of his life, striving to do better.
Maybe that was good enough.
Hamish lifted his face to the night sky. A single desert star hovered above them, its pale light poking through the rain clouds gathering above.
I’m going to remember this moment forever. This is how change begins.
16
The further north of Perth they travelled, the more warped Paula’s sense of time became; a day in the northern reaches of Western Australia felt like a week.
Travelling anywhere took much longer, its population centres were smaller, its landscape starker. Shops closed early, and only stocked the barest of essentials—bread was white, milk was full cream, fresh produce scarce and exorbitantly priced. But the flora and fauna were dazzling in their diversity. There were animals, or evidence of them, everywhere: Jurassic-looking lizards, emus and camels by day, dingos and even brumbies nosing around the caravan at night. And the people were different, too. Always friendly and courteous, but with an iron edge; like frontier pilgrims, shaped by the austerity of their surroundings.
For the first time in her life, Paula allowed her daily rhythms to be dictated exclusively by her body’s needs. She stopped checking her watch to determine when to eat or sleep. Instead, she exercised until she was spent, rested when she was tired, ate only when her stomach grumbled. By the time they reached Broome, loose fabric flapped where her flesh had previously been. She’d lost at least eight kilos, she guessed; not quite all of the excess weight, but enough to make her feel much healthier.
Her father, too, looked the fittest he’d ever been, like a competitor in the Masters Games. The children were tanned and surprisingly compliant; Caitlin was always a willing participant, while Lachie, who sometimes complained of aches and pains, usually finished with a satisfied smile. The lure of technology had waned entirely; the iPods and telephones stayed in the glove box—and not only because of the patchy network coverage in remote Western Australia.
While the physical fatigue from their training was pleasant enough, it soon affected their non-fitness activities. Paula found it hard to stay awake at night, even for their rousing family campfires. Sid began dozing in the car, sometimes before midday. And they both started forgetting things: Paula left her only pair of swimmers strung over a gum tree near the Roebuck roadhouse, while Sid left Marcelo’s guitar case propped up against the Derby jetty one evening. Thankfully the guitar itself wasn’t inside; Lachie had carried it back to the caravan, strumming as he walked.
The last time Paula could remember being so physically fatigued, she’d been a child herself. Swinging off trees and monkey bars, playing chasings and Red Rover and Bulldog in the playground, whooping and plunging into deep pools from diving boards, holding her breath until she felt her lungs might burst. Relishing the physicality of childhood; unconscious of how her body looked, just using it for its purpose.
It was decades since she’d enjoyed that kind of relationship with her physical self, and she resolved never to slip back into old habits. This was one relationship worth preserving forever.
Her telephone beeped after midnight; she always kept it by her side after dark.
Judging by the nocturnal sounds all around, it was still long before dawn. She groped for the phone, brought it close to her face. There were three new messages.
The first was from ID withheld, sent some six hours earlier.
Mrs McInnes, I have tried calling but can’t get through. Please contact me for an update on the Facebook incident. Regards, Derrick Nelson.
For Paula, Burwood Secondary College, the Facebook scandal, all of it now seemed utterly peripheral. The offending post had been offline for weeks, the student body had been counselled about cyber-bullying and demeaning content. Since leaving Perth, Catie and Lachie had stopped talking about it altogether, and this seemed a reasonable litmus test of any ongoing impact. Hamish’s initial response had been spot-on, Paula decided; they were barrelling towards Christmas, and almost everyone had lost interest in it.
Everyone except Mr Nelson, it seemed.
Sorry, we’ve been out of range, she typed back. I’ll call from Darwin in a few days.
The second message was from Jamie.
Are you okay? Pls confirm when you get this? A bit worried about you.
Paula had been meaning to call Jamie for weeks, ever since their arrival in Perth. But something had always stopped her; mostly t
he shame she felt for articulating to Jamie her feelings for Marcelo. She dreaded telling her sister about the vanishing Brazilian; one day he’d been there and trying to kiss her, the next day he was gone.
Hi J, she typed. We’re all okay, in remote WA. Network patchy. Will call you from Darwin soon.
She pressed ‘send’ and, less than a minute later, received a reply: Thank God! Missing you xx.
Paula turned her attention to the third message, from another ID withheld.
Paula, sorry no contact 4 so long. Can I meet you for dinner in Darwin?
Her heart skipped a beat.
Marcelo, finally.
Are you okay? she typed.
Yes, came the response. Jetty Restaurant Darwin wharf next Thursday night @ 8? Great oysters there . . .
Paula flushed with pleasure, remembering their afternoon on the jetty at Denial Bay, the unspoken sexual tension between them as they’d devoured a dozen oysters together.
So Marcelo was in Darwin; the timing was perfect. They were camped at Timber Creek, just over the Northern Territory border, and were due to arrive in Darwin by Wednesday.
Yes, she replied, blocking the mental image of Jamie’s disbelieving face. Will look forward to it!
She resisted the urge to ask more questions: there would be time enough for that on Thursday.
And maybe, just maybe, they’d finish that kiss.
It took all of her courage to walk into the beauty salon on Daly Street in Darwin’s central business district.
They’d pitched camp in a caravan park in Malak on Tuesday morning, a full day earlier than predicted. Not long after, with the children and her father engaged in a lengthy game of Monopoly, she’d caught a bus into the CBD and wandered around. She needed a new outfit for her dinner with Marcelo, as all of her existing clothes were shapeless and unflattering. When she glimpsed the words Bare Beauty imprinted across a shop window, she’d crossed the road and pushed open the glass door before she could reconsider.
‘Can I help you?’ asked a pretty young woman with heavy blue eyeliner and a warm smile.
‘I, uh . . .’ Paula looked around, to see if there was any one else within earshot. ‘I’d like to have a Brazilian wax, please.’
It was entirely out of character. She’d practically bludgeoned Hamish with her objections when he’d suggested she try one, years ago. But here in the sultry tropical north of Australia, poised to meet a Latin American heartthrob for dinner, the idea felt far less confronting. In fact, it was downright intriguing.
The woman checked her appointments. ‘Sure, I have forty minutes before my next client. Come on through.’
Paula followed her down a short hallway painted in pastel pink. At the first door on the left, the woman stopped.
‘I’m Sienna,’ she said, opening the door for Paula. ‘Just take your bottom half off and pop this on.’ She brandished a small plastic square and placed it on the bed. ‘It’s a disposable G-string, I’ll be back in a moment.’ Sienna glided out of the room.
Paula looked around the windowless cubicle, plastered with glossy advertisements spruiking the benefits of Resalyne, a wrinkle reducer, and Kelpamax, a line of seaweed-based skincare. A pot of wax, thick and sticky like honeycomb, stood on a bench nearby. Paula wondered if there was enough in the pot; she hadn’t had a wax of any description for almost two months. Her bikini line was now positively Biblical.
Paula took off her shorts, then her sensible beige underpants. She concealed the latter in a neat pile beneath the bed, sensing that a girl like Sienna wouldn’t be caught dead in grandma undies like those.
She picked up the small sachet on the bed and attempted to open it. It was so well-sealed, she struggled to break the plastic.
‘Ready?’ asked Sienna, sailing into the room again.
‘Oh.’ Paula blushed a deep red, standing bare-bottomed in front of a woman she’d just met. ‘I’m having a bit of trouble.’
Sienna relieved her of the sachet and expertly tore it open.
‘There,’ she said, shaking out a voluminous G-string made of synthetic white netting. She passed it to Paula, who couldn’t tell where her legs were supposed to go.
Once she’d worked that out, she attempted to step into it without bending over too much.
She couldn’t scramble onto the beautician’s table quickly enough.
‘Okay,’ said Sienna, prising Paula’s knees apart and splaying them sideways. ‘Have you had a Brazilian before? Oooh.’
‘What?’ Paula had never felt so self-conscious in her life.
‘It’s been a while since you’ve had a wax?’
Paula died a thousand deaths. ‘Yes, well, I’ve been . . . travelling.’
Seven weeks on the road will do that to you.
‘It might be a bit painful removing all that,’ said Sienna. ‘Just so you know, we recommend waxing every three to four weeks, so it doesn’t get too dense.’
It’s a bikini line, not the Bois du Boulogne.
Sienna moved the G-string to the right. Paula didn’t have to look down to confirm that her vulva was exposed; she could just tell.
‘So,’ said Sienna brightly, dipping an oversized paddle-pop stick into the pot of wax. ‘What are you doing for Christmas?’
Paula blinked: she’d almost forgotten about it. Usually she arranged everything months in advance, but this year she’d been too preoccupied. Besides, it didn’t really feel like Christmas. Away from their home in Melbourne, travelling through the outback in wet season. No Christmas tree, no stockings, no department-store windows with snowy displays. No Hamish.
‘We’ll be here in Darwin,’ said Paula. ‘But I haven’t organised anything yet.’ She winced at the sensation of warm wax being smeared perilously close to her privates.
‘Is it too hot?’ Sienna asked, concerned.
Without waiting for an answer, she bent forward and began to blow on the wax.
This is just too weird.
In her mind, Paula began reciting the elements of the periodic table.
Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium . . .
It was a technique she’d used since high school to distract herself from uncomfortable things like pap smears, blood tests, or standing naked in front of her dermatologist at her annual mole check.
She’d only just passed carbon and nitrogen, when Sienna suddenly tore off the wax.
‘Fuuuck!’ Paula’s eyes flew open at the sound of her own voice. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’
‘That’s okay.’ Sienna’s face was neutral. ‘You’ve never done this before, have you?’
Paula exhaled. ‘No.’
‘Well, it’s not very pleasant. But I’ve done thousands of them and you’ll be done in no time.’
Paula folded her hands—now damp with perspiration—in front of her chest. ‘You’ve really done thousands?’
Sienna nodded. ‘They’re very popular. My oldest client is seventy-three. Reckons it spices up her sex life.’
Paula didn’t know whether to be impressed or shocked. She knew several of her friends had Brazilians, even Jamie had tried it once. But she’d counselled Paula against it: Unless you want to look like a plucked Christmas turkey.
‘The hardest clients to wax are the blokes.’
‘Men do this?’ Paula couldn’t imagine why.
‘Yes, I get a lot of cyclists. Must feel nice under their lycra.’ Sienna giggled. ‘There are some really blokey ones too. With, like, gorilla fur.’ She reached for some talcum powder. ‘It can get pretty ugly trying to wax their taints.’
‘Their taints?’ Paula lay mortified as Sienna powdered her nether regions.
‘Yeah, you know: ’taint their bum, ’taint their penis. The bit in between, the perineum.’
‘Oh.’ Paula nodded, as if she discussed the topic regularly.
Hamish was a cyclist, but she couldn’t imagine him having his ‘taint’ waxed.
Sienna suddenly ripped out another tuft of hair.
Paula managed to
repress the shriek, but only just; her eyes began to water.
What the hell was I thinking? I’m too old for this.
‘Do Brazilian men like Brazilians?’ Paula asked, half croaking.
Sienna smeared more hot wax onto her. ‘Oh, I think all men like Brazilians, honey. People are saying that the Brazilian is dead, you know, and that the rough muff is making a comeback. But I’m not so sure.’
The rough muff?
‘I’ve been working in beauty for eleven years,’ said Sienna, ‘and it’s all about trends, you know? False eyelashes, acrylic nails, Brazilian waxes, the crack-back-and-sack wax . . .’
Paula didn’t dare ask.
‘All these trends come and go, like the seasons.’
There’s a season for everything, Paula thought, gritting her teeth. The honeymoon period. Early-childhood blues. Primary-school consolidation. The monotony of family routines. Teenage upheaval. Mid-life crisis. Running away from it all.
What next? Paula wondered.
‘Are you doing this for someone special?’ asked Sienna.
Paula frowned at the personal question. Then she looked down at Sienna’s bowed head and figured she’d earned the right to ask.
‘It’s more for me, really.’ Paula said. ‘I just wanted to see what it feels like, before I turn forty.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Sienna had heard it all before, it seemed. And probably seen it all, too.
‘I guess you’ve met a lot of people, with your job?’ Paula asked, searching for more distraction from the discomfort.
‘Uh-huh.’ Sienna ripped away two more strips of wax but, for some reason, these didn’t hurt as much.
Perhaps I’m going numb.
‘Yeah, it’s funny. Lots of women are worried about what they’re like down there, you know?’ Sienna looked up from her work. ‘I get lots of ladies asking me, “Do I look normal to you?” and it’s funny, I’m not like a doctor or anything.’
Wife on the Run Page 27
