The flush deepened as she became aware of a small crowd gathering under a frangipani tree outside the communal laundry.
"Let's skip the camel ride...” she heard one grating wit hoot, “...this is more entertaining."
The cruiser roared to life again. Eric ran it forwards, almost nudging the edge of the group of onlookers, then tortured the gears into reverse.
Vi's mouth felt suddenly dry. The hard little lump in her throat was back. It felt like a twenty-millimeter sphere of nacre.
She tried to speak.
"Down HARD on the left, then back..."
But no sound came out.
She swallowed, and began again.
"Down HARD on the left..."
Too late.
Vi winced as Eric's foot slipped off the brake. Onto the accelerator.
There was a sickening squeal as tires spun on slick, manicured grass. Then bit in. Hard!
The crowd gasped.
A split-second later Vi watched in horror as Eric rammed their executive dream home into the rear of a low-profile pop-top.
"Jeee-sus,” she heard someone say in a voice strangely like her own.
Her legs seemed separate from her body as she ran to check that no one was injured.
Eric, struggling his short bulk free of the steering wheel, was gawping like a stranded koi as she shot past with the coconut tucked under one arm.
"You remember to pay that insurance renewal?” His tone was querulous. Like a small, corpulent child, anxious to defer blame.
Vi ignored him.
"Belongs to the Smythe-Fitzwillies.” She recognised the grating chirrup of the hoot owl. “Or rather, did." She could have done without that qualification. “They're down the beach. Waiting for sunset."
"Thanks,” she managed, digging her nails into her palms.
Then, on impulse, she raised the coconut. And hurled it at Eric.
It was spiralling through the air towards the back of his head when she heard the hoot owl snap at his wife, “I told you to bring the video camera!"
* * * *
Howard and Marcia ("Call me Marce, I insist.") Smythe-Fitzwillie were remarkably gracious, under the circumstances.
The circumstances being that the rear third of their tiny pop-top had been destroyed by Vi and Eric's reinforced back end.
"By Jove, you did a jolly good job!” Howard flashed a dazzling white smile and spun on equally dazzling canvas deck shoes to face Eric.
Vi watched as her husband shifted uneasily from one steel-capped boot to the other. His porcine neck appeared to be trying to swallow his head.
"But no harm! No harm! We were planning to rid ourselves of the little devil anyway.” Silver-haired Howard was clapping Eric on the back now. He spun to face Marcia and smiled ruefully. “So, what says you, Marce? Fancy a few nights in a suite?"
The word whooshed out of him. At which point Marcia snorted and wriggled on the spot as though trying to shed her clothes then and there. At the same time, her dark-rimmed eyes widened, and her tongue began flicking in and out between her barely parted, pearl-white teeth.
Howard appeared bemused. “Shall I take that as a ‘yes'?"
Vi, fortified by a double-strength gin and tonic, watched the couple's performance with detached amazement.
For a start, the Smythe-Fitzwillies’ choice of clothing astounded her. Howard's tall, broad-shouldered physique was clothed in a loose-fitting T-shirt and Bermuda shorts. Tall, tanned, fashionably thin Marcia with her frizz of dark hair was suited identically, but in a figure-hugging style. Both in a colour Vi could only describe as electric white.
"They're dressed like a pair of yachties," she remarked to Eric over a Cup-a-Soup after the luminous Smythe-Fitzwillies had left them their mobile telephone number and headed into town to find a suite. “How in heaven do they manage to look so pristine?" She was still coming to grips with the spectacular red pindan dirt that had given her one decent frock a burnt-sienna tinge.
Eric was barely listening. He was grappling with a dilemma of his own.
"They're obviously monied." He sucked long and noisily on his soup. “What the blazes are they doing in a fourteen-foot pop-top?"
He belched and shoved his dirty mug at Vi.
She grimaced, then found her lips twitching as Eric turned away from her.
A lump the size of a small coconut had risen on the back of his head.
* * * *
Eric was anxious to visit the new reptile attraction. To see the crocs. It stood to reason, Vi told herself, given his obsession with Steve “The Crocodile Hunter” Irwin. Before that, it'd been Crocodile Dundee. And before him, the Leyland Brothers.
They walked the distance because Eric had insisted on putting the cruiser in for a service, “to check the brakes."
They'd judged their arrival to coincide with feeding time. Eric, resplendent in a khaki jacket, safari vest, and matching trousers, could barely contain his excitement.
"Weather warming up like this, they'll be lively,” he grinned as he bounced along the footpath beside her. He threw a few air punches, rubbed his frozen shoulder, and snarled. “Eat ya heart out, Stevie boy."
Vi frowned. She felt the pearl seed form again at the back of her throat, but fought it.
Then she glanced across to a palm-sheltered grove on the opposite side of the street. What she saw made her irritation evaporate.
Pearl Emporium, the sign read. It stood above a glass-fronted showroom surrounded by golden hibiscus and frangipani.
"Look, Eric.” She indicated across the street. Her hushed tone was reverent. “Pearl showroom. There."
But shadowboxing Eric barely heard. He was still wrestling the imaginary crocs swimming in his head.
"Wassat?” he eventually acknowledged.
"Nothing,” Vi replied, lengthening her stride to increase the distance between them.
* * * *
The guide at the reptile park had a dead chicken on the end of a rope. The big crowd jostled for position outside the enclosure around the still, green water as he stood on an elevated platform and swung the carcass out.
"Ooo-aaagh,” the cry went up from the crowd as a thirty-foot male croc appeared from nowhere and launched itself out of the mire. Its big jaws snapped shut on the dead bird and yanked it back into the water.
"How'd he do that?” an American tourist demanded.
"It's all in the timing,” the guide replied. “Timing is everything."
Eric turned to Vi. His beady eyes were glittering yellow with delight. “Grab a picture next time he comes up."
Vi fidgeted in her holdall, eventually extracting an aged SLR camera.
"Move to the left, Eric, now back, back..."
Eric, for once willing to oblige, had his back hard-pressed against the mesh enclosure.
"Oi!” It was the guide. His tanned face creased in a good-natured but warning smile. “Would you move back from the fence there, please?” He was gesturing at Eric, waving him away. “These boys can get mighty stroppy if you get too near their territory."
"Thanks,” Vi mouthed at the guide. She flashed him a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Then, as nonchalantly as she could muster, “Many crocs still in the wild hereabouts?"
"Shot a six-metre male up the beach just a few months back,” the guide supplied. “It's the mangrove swamps further north you've gotta watch. Used to be full of crocs, even around here, until they were hunted out. But now they're protected they're moving back, reclaiming their territory."
Vi managed to bite back the suggestion that she and Eric head north as soon as the cruiser was back in action.
She knew she mustn't rush.
Mustn't panic.
Like the good-looking young man said, timing is everything.
Any further thoughts were interrupted by a throaty greeting across the convalescent crocodile pens.
"Well, hello-o!"
Eric was first to spot the Smythe-Fitzwillies.
"It's Marce. And Howard.
Cooooo-eeee!” he shouted in reply.
Marce wriggled her way through the crowd towards them. She was wearing a tight-fitting white strapless dress with a shirred bodice and looked, to Vi, like a brown snake struggling to shed its skin.
"What utter luck!" Marce enthused. She air-kissed Vi, then stooped to peck a beaming Eric on his bald pate.
But then Howard was gripping Vi's hands tight in his big, warm, brown clamps.
"We were only talking about you this morning.” His treacle-brown eyes flitted from Vi to Eric. “We're joining a fishing charter up Dampier Creek day after tomorrow. There're some seats spare, if you two'd like to join us."
Vi giggled. “This old bird's strictly terrestrial,” she lied. She'd been a keen sailor before her marriage. A day on the water held a lot of appeal.
But an Eric-free day held more. “Eric would adore to go, wouldn't you, pet?
Eric needed no second bidding. His eyes were already trawling Marcia's cleavage.
"Super! Utterly super!” Marcia clapped her hands together and flashed a dazzling smile.
It was then that Vi noticed.
Her pearl-white teeth were false.
* * * *
Eric was hell-bent on visiting the bird observatory. At dawn.
Vi sat resignedly in the passenger seat, clutching the thermos, as they sped out along the bitumen road through the hobby-farm belt on the outskirts of town.
"Siberian waders should be in if we're lucky.” Eric had his best binoculars around his neck and Gould's Pocket Guide to Passerines and Non-Passerines swelling his pocket. “We should see stilts, cormorants, pelicans, maybe a sea eagle..."
Vi found herself tuning out.
"You've missed the bloody turnoff, woman!” Eric turned to face her as he slung the cruiser into the gravel and did a swift U-turn. His eyes glittered in the half-light, his face twisted in sarcasm. “Keep your mind on the road, can't you; you're supposed to be navigating!"
They carried on in chilly silence, eventually finding the turnoff and heading out along red dirt towards the observatory.
Vi felt her buttocks contract as they hit the corrugations.
And Eric's dentures began to rattle.
In time with her own.
* * * *
Vi woke with an unfamiliar sense of calm the day of the fishing charter. Eric—and his extensive collection of tackle—had been gone since daylight. One whole day of freedom stretched ahead of her.
She was at the Pearl Emporium as it opened. But she paused to savor the creamy sweet scent of frangipani before pushing open the door.
Row upon row of glass cabinets stretched before her, each bearing artfully displayed examples of lustrous pearls.
Their brilliance made Vi catch her breath. She turned, uncertain where to start.
"Like some help?” A young female assistant looked up from a tray of earrings at the business end of the showroom.
"I'm fine, for now. Thanks.” Vi smiled. The girl had a halo of soft, golden curls, like a Botticelli angel.
"If you do need any help, just ask.” The girl returned the smile and bent her head again to her tray.
Vi spent a blissful hour admiring the displays. There were white and silver South Sea pearls along with rare and exotic colours such as champagne, rose, cognac, and peach.
It was on her third lap that she paused in front of a piece of jewellery that stood out from the rest. She beckoned to the assistant. “Perhaps you can tell me a little more about this...."
For all her youth, the girl proved a knowledgeable guide.
"It's the luster that's important,” she told Vi, bringing out the champagne-coloured teardrop set on a shining gold band. “If a pearl has good luster, any number of tiny flaws and marks will go unnoticed."
"A bit like people, I expect,” Vi laughed, fingering the exquisite gem. “Or a marriage,” she added, somewhat ruefully.
The girl summoned a sympathetic smile, then continued.
"See.” She turned the tear-shaped gem in her hand and held it to the light.
Vi had to put on her reading glasses to see the tiny flaw the girl indicated. It seemed insignificant weighed against the pale gold beauty of the pearl.
The Botticelli angel smiled knowingly as she held out the piece of jewellery. “Perhaps you'd like to try it on?"
Vi had to undo the top three buttons of her sensible shirt with its high collar to try on the pendant. It sat against the creped folds of her neck, glowing as though it possessed a secret inner life.
She reached one hand up and fingered the cool, smooth surface. The jewel seemed to pulse and glow, like a living thing, potent and beautiful.
Vi caught her reflection in the mirror and suddenly coloured.
"You must think me ridiculous.” She fumbled with the pendant. “A silly old woman my age.” The catch refused to budge.
"Not at all,” the girl wisely replied. “You obviously have a keen eye for beauty. And as I said, if a pearl's luster is good..."
"How much?” Vi countered.
The girl told her.
It was five hundred dollars more than she'd budgeted.
On a piece of jewellery, when it came down to it.
A frippery.
A silly indulgence.
What on earth would Eric say?
An image of Eric on his four-hundred-dollar fishing charter with his expensive collection of hooks, lines, and sinkers suddenly flashed before her.
"My husband will kill me. But I'll take it,” she said, whipping her Visa card from her holdall and slapping it on the counter in front of the startled assistant. “I'll take it. And I'll wear it!"
The girl smiled as she completed the transaction.
"You've made an excellent choice,” she said sagely, then added a little more wistfully, “I've had my eye on that one myself."
* * * *
The pearl, safely hidden beneath the sensible high collar that was the trademark of all Vi's equally sensible shirts, pulsed against the folds of her throat as she left the showroom.
She felt liberated. Wild! It was the first impulsive thing she'd done in months. No, years!
Hell, she admitted to herself—decades.
She walked along the footpath, some distance behind a string of camels padding home from their morning session along the beach. Behind the string ran an attendant with a dustpan and brush, conscientiously stooping to clean up camel dung from the walkway.
Vi smiled and felt her pearl resting under her cotton shirt as she watched him. She felt like a million dollars!
She glanced at her watch. Five hours of freedom left.
* * * *
Vi caught the bus to Chinatown and wandered through shanty alleys where corrugated white buildings housed pearls and antiques—side by side with tie-dyed surf gear.
She found her way down to Streeters Jetty and walked tall out over the mud flats as mist rolled across the mangroves. She imagined sail-driven luggers riding the tide in to ply their trade.
At Town Beach she spent twenty minutes watching tiny hermit crabs slowly eat their way through a beached fish. The quick movers in the colony scuttled for safety as she scooped a handful to study their myriad colours in a dozen different types of shell.
She felt the pulse at her throat quicken as she read a sign erected on the foreshore. WARNING! it read. A CROCODILE HAS BEEN SIGHTED IN THIS AREA. PLEASE TAKE CARE.
At the shell museum she studied beautiful but deadly cone shells in glass cabinets.
"How do these things work?” she inquired of an English tourist engrossed in a thick copy of Australia's Fatal Fauna.
"They shoot out a spear, lovey.” The woman was only too happy to supply every detail. “And inject their prey with a neurotoxin. Lethal, they are.” Her eyes grew wide. “And there's no anti-venin."
"Deadly.” Vi smiled.
"But what isn't deadly in your country, lovey, that's what I want to know.” The woman was obviously an expert. “You've got your sharks, and your croc
odiles, your sea snakes and your stingers, your blue-ringed octopus, your box jellyfish...” She appeared to be enjoying her appreciative audience. “Not to mention your tides! ‘Specially round here."
Vi maintained her composure while the woman drew breath.
"Tell me more about the tides,” she prompted.
"Well, just north of here the tide comes in faster than a man can run. Be nasty to be caught in that, lovey, wouldn't it?” The woman laughed. “At our age."
A mental picture of Eric jogging in steel-capped slow motion flashed before Vi's eyes.
The woman was still laughing. A laugh sharp as broken glass.
* * * *
Vi caught the bus to a hotel overlooking Roebuck Bay and sipped a cool white wine with a lunch of chili mussels and pasta. It was a rare treat. Eric couldn't eat chili, so she didn't. It burnt his lips.
Turning to take a quick glance at her fellow patrons, she thought she saw a familiar figure.
But it couldn't be.
She craned her neck, and squinted. “That you, Howard?"
Howard Smythe-Fitzwillie blanched under his tan. But he recovered quickly, winked, and raised one finger to his lips.
"Mum's the word,” he implored, slipping into the seat beside Vi.
The move made her sit bolt upright.
"Explain?"
Howard forced a guilty grin. “Truth is, I hate all the blood and gore that goes with fishing. So I pleaded a migraine.” He leaned closer, and lowered his voice. “Besides, it's nice to have some space sometimes. Travelling with Marce can get a little intense."
After a long, late, lazy lunch, Vi made her way to the Hovercraft terminal and got the last window seat on a sunset champagne flight across the bay. She settled back as the craft slowed for a pod of leaping dolphins, then screamed with excitement as it accelerated and spun out across the flats.
* * * *
"You're late!"
Eric had neglected to take his key. He'd been back since midafternoon. He was perched forlornly on the step of the caravan, his empty fishing bucket beside him.
"Fish for dinner?” Vi looked pointedly at the empty bucket.
"Only if you're buying.” Eric looked more downcast than ever. “Had a threadfin salmon. Hooked him!” He stretched his arms wide, then slumped and shook his head. “Line snapped just as I was about to reel the bastard in."
EQMM, February 2007 Page 16
