‘I see.’ Mr Willoughby fumbled around inside his shirt pocket for a lighter, withdrew a hot-pink one, then lit his intricately rolled cigarette. Soon the smell reached me and I was struck with a sudden urge to smoke. I wanted something to do: I felt like a charlatan before this man.
Tilly left the room with a tall stack of dishes.
‘Do you mind if I try and roll one?’ I asked.
‘Not at all.’
Mr Willoughby passed me the pouch of tobacco and packet of papers with curiosity.
‘You smoke?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Me either. I’m just taking it up, actually.’ As if to prove this he blinked smoke from smarting, wrinkled eyes. I shuffled tobacco on the paper. When I licked it, most of the contents fell onto the table. A few strands stuck to my wet lips and fingertips like rusted wire shards to a magnet.
‘How long have you been a farmer?’ I asked.
‘A while now.’
‘What were you before that?’
‘I was an academic—a biologist. That was before meeting Tilly’s mother.’
‘Where was she from?’
‘Here. This was her family’s place. It was a beef operation but her parents were too old to run it. I came in and planted lavandula intermedia grosso everywhere, then intermedia super. A little angustifolia vera.’
‘Why lavender?’
‘I thought I could do it all better. I had an abundance of theories and the sort of crude confidence that comes with never having farmed. Tilly’s grandparents were horrified. They watched the place turn purple, shaking their heads.’ At this recollection, Mr Willoughby smiled.
‘So you moved here straight after getting married?’
‘I slowly bought the place out, but we never married. Tilly’s mother didn’t believe in marriage.’
Tilly re-entered the room carrying three saucers.
‘Marriage?’ she asked, without waiting for an explanation. ‘I’m afraid these aren’t much better than the main course.’ She set down the plates. On each was a soggy Anzac biscuit. She then returned to the kitchen for freshly brewed coffee while her father ate his biscuit, rolled another cigarette and slowly smoked it. I finished rolling my own, suppressing pride, and lit up. But, clamped shut at one end with saliva, it quickly went out.
As soon as the meal was finished Mr Willoughby excused himself from the dining table. Even at this early hour he seemed ready for bed.
That night, lying in the dark guest room on my wood-plank bed, still fully dressed, arms up behind my head, I thought about Tilly—tried to recreate her. Outside there was no traffic, only bugs and a lone, bellowing cow. I tried to recall the moles coating her body, their pattern.
Would she visit?
This question was answered by a soft knock and the sound of the metal knob turning in its wood socket. A shaft of light photocopied the carpet: Tilly opening and closing the door. Prior to her entering I had been able to make out a huntsman spider. Now it was gone. I could see nothing.
Tilly was quickly on top of the bed. I found myself aroused as she paused above, hands and knees either side of my body, soapy-smelling nightgown covering my face.
‘Hello,’ she whispered, breath warm.
Clumsily I tried to pull off my shirt, but it tangled around my head. She laughed.
‘Shhh,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘Your dad.’
‘His room’s at the other end of the house.’ She helped me pull off my tangled shirt, then lifted her nightgown over her body and threw it to one side.
‘I’m not sure about this,’ I said.
‘About what?’
‘This. What if your dad hears?’
‘He won’t.’
I could make out the shape of her freckled breasts in the dark. How many times had I seen and felt these breasts? I sometimes wondered that. How many times had I slept with Tilly? It was impossible to say but I tried to conjure a total. I guessed, in the preceding year, factoring in time spent apart, I had slept with her on average once every couple of days. This might have been a generous estimate but it provided me with a rough total—150 times.
‘I’m going to go down on you,’ she said, speaking like a doctor explaining an intrusive procedure. I said nothing and soon felt her tongue. But instead of thinking of Tilly I thought of Mami—the first night in her hotel room, her neck and hands. I pictured her kneeling before me, the pattern of her hair, the width and shine of each strand and the back of her neck. I felt her face with my fingers, could put it together as if there.
‘God, sorry,’ I said. ‘That shouldn’t have—that was—’ ‘I don’t mind,’ said Tilly, kissing my belly.
She licked and bit a nipple on her way back towards my mouth. And within a few minutes I was exhausted. My muscles ached from the day’s work, a pleasant, full ache. The bed was trying to drag me down into thick, warm mud, trying to bury me in the bottom of a timeless swamp. It was certainly Tilly above me. I could smell her skin, her sweat like a fingerprint.
‘Excited,’ I said, not sure how it tied into our conversation. Tilly laughed. ‘You’re sleepy?’
I nodded, teetering on the brink of sleep. I wondered why Mami had joined in. I had often thought about other women while having sex with Tilly but never about a specific woman. Never a woman I knew. The women were all featureless. They had a shape, maybe even a nationality, but never a face. They could have been store mannequins.
I woke up. It was suddenly as though I had never been drowsy. I was wide awake and aware that, somehow, I had almost said ‘Mami’ aloud. Or had I said it? Feeling anxious and unable to make out Tilly’s face, the curve of her mouth, I listened to her breathing. She sounded relaxed. She put her cold hands over my ears playfully.
‘Can you hear me now?’ she asked.
‘Did I just say something?’
‘ “Excited” ’
‘Oh …’
‘Are you?’ Tilly asked. ‘Do you want to touch me?’
I did as requested. She felt thinner than I recalled— frailer. Placing her hand on mine she led me through a reciprocation of that which I had received, allowing for little autonomy. Despite being religious, Tilly had no qualms about breaking sex down into its essential components; deconstructing it so that, as an act, it facilitated maximum pleasure. Sexually, Tilly was a mystery. She would elect to have sex at odd times, then decline to make love when we were lying naked in bed, wrapped in one another’s arms. Or she would ask me to assume a position only to change her mind and place me in another, like a photographer preparing a nude model. So long as Tilly was in control she was happy to try just about anything.
She came—or pretended to. Then I set about trying to make love to her, set about proving to myself I could without reverting to fantasy. I kissed her face intently, her mouth and neck, and said whatever sweet things popped into my head. Tilly played along, but soon the sex was difficult—painful. Our bodies betrayed our lie. And with a frustrated sigh I gave up and rolled onto my back. My stomach churned and I went limp.
‘Fuck this,’ I said.
‘Don’t get angry.’
‘Well it matters—before you say it doesn’t.’
‘I wasn’t going to say that.’
‘So it does matter?’
‘Shut up.’ Tilly stood and started to dress. The moment she let go of my hand, she was swallowed by darkness. Only her voice remained. ‘It was me.’
‘It’s because of your dad being in the house.’
‘I know.’
At this my anger turned to affection, then fear. Again I wanted to confess my secret to Tilly, but I was reluctant to confess until I could see her face. I thought about asking her to turn on the light, but she said goodnight and let herself out of the room before I could speak. I lay, stretched out on the bed, just as I had been before she visited. Only now I felt uncomfortable with everything that had taken place, the fact that I was naked, that I had entered her. I felt repulsed in fac
t. All lust had exited me in a single orgasm, leaving the sort of unease I usually only woke to after dreams. I got up to pee and, flushing, thought about Celeste, about love and lust. And nothing.
I climbed out of bed before sun-up, just in time to hear the back door bang shut. There was a gusting wind outside punching the house with hard-knuckled fists. The clocks rattled on the walls and the windows shuddered. Somewhere the cow was still bellowing. Pulling back the lace curtains I watched Mr Willoughby set out for the lavender fields. Around his neck he wore a camera, the sort a professional photographer might use. I saw the daybreak was going to be beautiful. The darkness was already receding. Posts and trees rose from an inky purple. I smiled. I rarely woke to such mornings and wanted to charge out into it like a child, leaving behind me forever the night that made it. But like all irrational surges of elation this one passed just as quickly as it had arrived and I began to get dressed. Finding my clothes in the dark room was difficult, mostly because of the way in which I had taken them off. Twice I stubbed my toe on the bed, hopping about like a fool before finally, blindly, groping my way through the gloomy house.
It was only in the alcove, warm, lavender-laden morning air on my skin, that I forgot the pain in my toe. I stared through the flyscreen windows searching for Mr Willoughby. The sun had taken its first tentative footing on the horizon and the fields, as if in greeting, were turning a lighter purple. A human shadow slid between the rows of flowers, moving at a fast but easily sustained pace, and without questioning the idea I set off after it. At the outer edges of the undulating lavender, it pressed on, down towards a gully.
This gully was easily the size of a football field and filled with fernery, a bed of green from which shot countless beautiful trees, mostly gums with their trunks pale and contorted. I looked them up and down, tan bark curled by the sun. From the soft green tops—thirty to forty metres up—came the echo of birds squawking as if in argument. I noticed the area was fenced off, presumably to protect it from cattle. One cow, down on its front knees, its wet nose on an angle beneath the live wire, trimmed the gully grass. Others—fat-bellied, older animals—stood squarely in the paddock and munched methodically on what little pick was left. Mr Willoughby reached the fence, paused and turned to face me.
‘Morning,’ he called. ‘Be careful not to twist your ankle. When it’s wet the cattle sink their feet in pacing the fenceline. Then it dries up and you’re left with this crud.’ I nodded, noticing yabbie homes amidst the potholes like nuclear chimneys.
‘Sorry to follow. When I saw you leave, I felt like a walk. What’s the camera for?’
‘Growling Grass Frogs. In the swamp.’
We climbed through the fence and started on in. The foliage was thick and within a couple of metres we lost sight of both the fence and paddock behind. After a minute or two I stopped. Twigs had scratched my face and my sneakers were soaked. I peered up through fern leaves and vine to the tops of gums, bright and swaying in a gentle breeze unknown to me below. But Mr Willoughby did not dawdle.
He bashed his way around trunks and stopped at last in front of a wall of roots encased in thick black dirt. Vaguely circular, this wall—the fallen tree behind it invisible—stood guard like a parent over the swamp it had birthed.
‘Listen carefully,’ he said.
I did and soon heard it—a soft growling. Mr Willoughby pointed and I spotted a bright green frog lazily floating in the water, barely causing a ripple. It had a number of brown, wart-like spots on its back and alert hazelnut eyes with two black strips for pupils. The camera clicked and Mr Willoughby wound the film on. The frog dipped beneath the surface.
‘That was the growling one?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. Litoria raniformis.’
‘Why are you taking photos of it?’
‘It’s dying out. I’ve relocated a few to this swamp. The photos are for records.’
By turning over fallen branches sunken into dry mud we found a few more frogs of varying breeds, some large and pot-bellied, others small and fit-looking. I picked up each in turn. They struggled between my dirty fingers and kicked free. Mr Willoughby, if pressed, would tell me where they lived, what they ate and when they bred.
Only one was of real interest to me. ‘What does that growling one eat?’
‘Mice. Other frogs.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘No.’
As we returned for breakfast the weatherboard house looked like a cardboard box set on a lavender bedsheet. The sun was well up in the sky. Mr Willoughby and I walked side by side in silence and, oddly, I almost expected him to ask my intentions regarding his daughter. At one point he stopped and tore up a flower, as if deciding how to posit such a question.
‘Forty-five per cent open,’ he said softly. ‘That’s good enough for me.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
He spun. ‘These flowers have been a little slow to open,’ he said. ‘Now we can cut them along with the rest.’
We walked on in silence. When we stepped inside, having left our muddy boots at the front door, we could smell bacon and eggs. I crossed to the stove.
‘Wash your hands,’ said Tilly, trying to scrape a charred egg from the pan and not looking up.
She served a blackened breakfast and afterwards went to collect eggs from the chook yard. I found Mr Willoughby watching her through a living room window. Unaware he was being watched himself he looked miserable. He ran an index finger up and down one thigh. When he heard me he turned and cleared his throat. ‘There’s coffee in the kitchen, Noah.’
‘Thanks, but I’m fine.’
This reply, and my walking towards the window, seemed to irritate him. Outside Tilly was playing with a pup. A larger dog bounded around her, ecstatically yelping and snapping at her heels whenever it found a chance.
Mr Willoughby drained the last of his coffee and turned to leave.
‘She’s a real farm girl,’ I observed.
‘I suppose.’
‘Was she always like that?’
‘Not really.’
‘Why? What was she like as a kid?’
‘Sick mostly.’
He walked away without another word. I heard him put his coffee mug in the metal sink, then the click of his study door.
For a while I watched Tilly tend to chores around the house. Depending on what she decided to do I changed windows, standing at each, hands deep in my pockets. She knew I was there. Occasionally she looked up to find me at a new window, quietly watching, and she would laugh mutedly on the other side of the glass—nervously, too. To distract me she had the salivating, delirious dogs perform tricks, but they either refused or muddled her commands.
Eventually, unable to tolerate my curiosity, she hid.
The following morning, well before sun-up, I wandered the house. One room led to another until I found myself conducting a tentative investigation of Mr Willoughby’s study. It was cluttered, but not like my father’s study. Whereas my father’s belongings held no obvious purpose, everything Mr Willoughby owned appeared to be essential to his daily life. Documents of various colours were sorted into an array of cut-down cardboard wine casks. Pigeonholes were filled with stationery and unused envelopes. And there were two bulky filing cabinets, keys in the locks. Everything was perfectly still in the pre-dawn. My breathing, loud to the point of seeming rude, stirred tepid, cooped-up air.
I went to the bathroom and slowly brushed my teeth. I brushed them far more conscientiously than usual, taking care with the chore until they felt slippery beneath my tongue. Then I went back to bed and, finding I could at last sleep, dreamt of a house devoid of things. There was absolutely nothing in this house. The floor stretched out endlessly. But when I climbed out a window, only just squeezing through, I fell into a world full of things—all the contents of all the rooms in all the world piled carelessly. Everyone went about their daily routine amidst prams, dishwashers, phones, cupboards, tapes, books, beds, condoms, keys, cutlery, medicine, computers, ta
bles, bags, fridges, chopping boards, carpet, socks and dictionaries, without concern.
It was just after seven when I tripped on a desk lamp and awoke with a comical jerking of my legs.
I showered, dressed and ate another chargrilled breakfast. The toast was hard and cold, especially the crusts, and there was no margarine to have with the Vegemite. Feeling I had stayed long enough, I announced my intention to return to Melbourne that morning. Tilly, far from objecting, offered to drive me to the station. We left the farm hoping to catch the ten o’clock service.
‘I never knew you were sick growing up. What was it?’ I asked on the platform.
‘Who said that?’
‘Your dad.’
‘It was nothing serious. Chronic fatigue. It came and went.’
‘Do you still get it?’
Tilly shook her head, looking out along glimmering train tracks.‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’ll need to stay a few more months and—’
‘A few months? Why?’
She remained silent and watched as a toddler broke free from its mother and ran dangerously close to the sharp edge of the platform before being scooped up. Off in the distance the train appeared, rippling in the morning heat. It sounded its horn defiantly and we both watched it pull in, wheels squealing, the unnatural sound of weighty metal on metal. Tilly had to raise her voice to be heard over the engine.
‘Take care,’ she said.
‘Take care?’
A loud whistle blew.
‘You have to get in, Noah. Good luck in Melbourne and back in Tokyo.’ Tilly kissed me on the lips, but only quickly, pulling back.
I stepped up into the train.
‘Bye,’ she said.
‘That’s it? You didn’t answer my question. Why a few months?’
‘The train’s going.’
Angry, I shrugged, turned and without saying goodbye found a seat in the carriage. By the time I settled Tilly had gone. Up in the car park I could see the ute reversing, one tail-light flickering. The sight of the thing, small and miserable in the vast day, left me feeling desolate. A sudden burst of sun washed the scene of all colour.
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