Tropical Connections

by Vereker, Susie

‘Ah, my poor Lucy, you’re still concerned about my portraits. You need never have worried. It was my secret. But now Pel has forced me to destroy and delete all my nude studies. He is a very jealous boy in some ways. I am surprised he has left us alone so long.’

  ‘Jealous?’

  ‘Yes, I have abandoned my celibate state. When we were together in Bangkok, Pel persuaded me to come down off the fence. Or should I say “come out”?’ His arch expression made his meaning clear.

  Lucy smiled in sudden understanding, feeling a little foolish. ‘Oh, I see. You mean that you and Pel are together, a sort of couple.’ She was relieved that Meng’s attentions towards her had been deflected, but at the same time faintly disappointed.

  ‘As you say, a sort of couple. And we are very happy. Especially now that Jean-Louis has left. Now, let’s talk about you. I have to say, Lucy, that you’re looking especially well this evening, positively blooming. If you were not married and I were not spoken for, I’d tell you that I find your figure even more impressive than ever.’ Suddenly a familiar voice croaked in Lucy’s ear. ‘Ah, Professor, I have been looking for you.’ Helena loomed over them like a tall black crow. ‘May I join you?’ she asked. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Blackerstaff. We are talking of the impressive figures at the Ravi ruins. Mrs Williamson is most interested in art history,’ said Meng.

  Lucy suppressed a giggle.

  ‘Is she?’ asked Helena doubtfully. ‘Now, Professor, I’m organizing a little gathering of international ladies and I wonder if you would come and speak. Perhaps a talk similar to the one you gave this evening, maybe a little more populist in flavour and subject.’

  ‘I should be delighted,’ he said. ‘But I wonder if I could ask you to arrange the details through Lucy. She is familiar with my work and she could advise about what might appeal to a group of ladies. Ah, my friend is signalling. If you will excuse me, I must go now. Goodnight, Mrs Blackerstaff, Lucy. I enjoyed talking to you.’

  Helena stared after him. ‘Well, it appears that you have made some of the right contacts, Lucy. Most encouraging. Did you know that the Professor is a minor member of the royal family?’

  *

  It was after midnight when Lucy and Martin finally sank into bed.

  ‘Where were you all evening? I couldn’t find you after dinner,’ said Martin as he turned off the light.

  The darkness hid Lucy’s blush. ‘Oh, just chatting to the lecturer.’

  ‘I was surprised to see that Meng chap back in the country. What did you find to talk about for so long? I didn’t know you even knew him.’

  ‘Oh, we discussed all sorts of things. I’ll tell you in the morning. I’m very tired now.’ She yawned. ‘But I’m very happy.’

  ‘That’s nice to hear. It appears you’re beginning to enjoy diplomatic life a bit, are you?’ he asked sleepily.

  ‘Oh, yes, darling.’

  ‘Not too dull?’

  ‘It has its interesting moments, like tonight.’

  ‘Yes, it was an excellent talk. But I didn’t know you were that keen on art history.’

  ‘You don’t know absolutely everything about me, Martin.’

  ‘Oh, but I think I do, my love. You’re such a nice open creature,’ he murmured. ‘Part of your charm.’

  Lucy smiled in the dark and changed the subject. ‘I talked to Helena too.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I met her when she was in full flow. She actually said how well you had adapted to life out here. Glad you’ve been getting on better with her lately.’

  ‘Well, we coexist. Like I coexist with Somjit. She more or less does what I say now, if I’m tactful. I think she and Nee were impressed with the mince pies I made for the Christmas party – “Look more pretty than Missus Belinda make,” she said, believe it or not.’

  He laughed. ‘What an accolade!’

  ‘In fact, all my Christmas preparations seemed to impress them, for some reason.’

  ‘They admire people who take trouble about things, like you do, darling,’ he murmured. ‘Even heard Somjit boasting about you to one of the other maids. She said, “My madame speak Maising language good. Say words better than Madame Helena.”’

  ‘Really?’ said Lucy delightedly. She snuggled up to him. ‘Hope Helena doesn’t hear that. Don’t want to spoil a beautiful friendship. But you’re right – Helena’s quite civil to me now she thinks I know some of the right people, silly old bag.’

  ‘Mmm. But you know lots of nice people too.’ He was almost asleep.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Except I miss Claire and Deborah. I wish Deb was going to be here when the baby is born.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Martin suddenly sat up. ‘What baby?’

  She put her mouth to his ear and whispered, ‘Mine, ours, the tadpole in my tum.’

  ‘You’re pregnant?’ he stuttered happily.

  ‘Mm, yes.’

  He turned and hugged her tight. ‘You are so, so clever.’

  ‘I was thrilled to pieces when Dr Nim said the test was positive. I was going to keep it secret for a bit longer, but I just couldn’t resist telling you. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Darling, I’m absolutely delighted.’

  After another hug, Lucy said, ‘What’s more, I think we should introduce the baby to your sons when it’s old enough to travel. They’ll want to meet their new brother or sister, I’m sure.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘Yes, they will.’

  ‘If you say so, darling. You’re such a wonder, anything is possible.’

  Lucy could tell he meant it. She smiled in the dark and put her arms around him. She was lucky, she knew. At any moment she had expected retribution to strike, but retribution had held off.

  She would now have to be sure to keep her marriage safe. Nothing would ever be allowed to destroy her family.

  At the foot of the bed Grace the cat began to purr. She was happy in her new superior home.

  Twenty-Nine

  Far away in Australia, Claire was talking to a different cat and gently lifting it down from the kitchen table because she was cutting up slices of chicken and arranging a small portion on each plate. After adding some cooked frozen peas and rather soggy oven chips, she called her charge. She and the child ate their lunch in companionable silence under the sunshade by the back door, while Thomas the cat regarded them sulkily from the window.

  It was very hot that day in Canberra. Claire sat in an absent-minded daze, wondering what Drew was doing, wondering when she was going to contact him.

  ‘I want ketchup, Claire,’ said Ned, patting her arm with his sticky little fingers.

  ‘Ketchup doesn’t go with chicken.’

  ‘I like some.’

  ‘Oh, all right, but don’t forget the magic word.’

  ‘Please, Claire, I want ketchup.’

  Though her days were full of conversations of this type, she enjoyed looking after the child. Besides, it was the only job she could find when she arrived in Canberra without any legal permission to work. Not exactly a career move but never mind.

  Sydney had been humid and beautiful: the dramatic bow of the bridge, the magical white opera house on the edge of the harbour, the Paddington streets with iron railings, the leafy suburbs and the long, long beaches, but she couldn’t stay there. She wanted to be with Drew.

  Then, when her plane landed in Canberra, she lost courage. She checked into a quiet hotel near the lake, intending to wait a few days and then telephone him. But she kept postponing her call, reminding herself he needed a proper amount of time to sort out his affairs with his wife. And besides she couldn’t just fling herself on him like a lovesick dependent bimbo. She must find somewhere to live and some way of supporting herself temporarily.

  While she looked for work, she explored the city. Canberra, too, was beautiful, like a vast park, but she found sightseeing too hot. She visited the air-conditioned museums and galleries, the parliament building, the war memori
als, the interesting modern architecture. A natural tourist, she read all the guide books and studied the circular patterns created by the American architect who designed the new capital city in the thirties, and she sat by the man-made lake, watching the boats. She would like to have visited the blue Brindabella mountains, but she had no way to reach them.

  Her days in the hotel seemed long and expensive. When one of the male guests started to follow her about, she decided to take the first residential job that was offered, however unsuitable.

  Diane, Ned’s vastly pregnant mother, had been ecstatic when Claire answered her advertisement for an emergency housekeeper. ‘Lucky to find you, Claire. Everyone goes away for Chrissy and after. It’s our summer holiday time.’ She explained that her husband was working in Indonesia. Grandma had originally promised to look after the household during the confinement, but had now been taken ill. So Claire was desperately needed, for a month at least, to look after Ned while Diane was in hospital for a planned Caesarean and then afterwards.

  A month of concentrated domesticity would probably be enough, in Claire’s view, but she promised to stay as long as she was needed and she was touched to find that even her clumsy amateur help was welcome. The newborn baby was fretful in the summer heat and Ned was jealous of the attention his brother demanded. Claire was astonished by the sheer hard work generated by this tiny helpless creature.

  To allow Diane to rest, Claire would bundle the children into the stroller and go for long walks around the streets. She liked to observe the single-storey houses with their tidy shrubs and neat unfenced front gardens, dry and parched in the heat. Flocks of large, brightly coloured cockatoos and crimson-headed parrots added a touch of exotic glamour to the suburban scene. She avoided the sinister giant magpies, because they were reputed to attack unwary passers-by. With their round watchful eyes, they reminded her of Jean-Louis.

  Sometimes it was too hot for walking. She filled the paddling pool in the garden and sat watching Ned splash naked in the water while the baby slept in his wicker basket in the shade of the wattle. All the time she walked and watched the children, all the time she cooked, shopped and cleaned, she thought about Drew. And whether he loved her and, if he did, would it ever work out between them? Whether a modern woman should chase a man halfway round the world, and, though she loved him, were they suited, was he more important than her so-called career? Of course it would be wrong, anti-feminist, to admit that he might be.

  Eventually, after three weeks of exhausting and unaccustomed domesticity, and three weeks of inner debate, Claire asked for the afternoon off. She drove Diane’s Holden south out of the city. The suburbs stretch on and on, with houses growing smaller and newer, built more closely together, gardens becoming brown and bare. Finally she reached the open countryside, the bush.

  Then, after driving several more miles, she took a sign marked Barwah. She drove along a red, unsurfaced road. The midsummer countryside was all the same, red and parched. She stopped to drink some water from a bottle stored in the cool box and studied the map. Then she drove on for a while, more and more slowly until she found a small faded sign reading ‘Raidwood’: Drew’s place.

  She looked down across the valley but could see nothing but unwelcoming dry beige land dotted with a few gum trees. With the inevitable swarm of repellent blowflies buzzing persistently around her, she thought of turning back. What if Meredith were there? Time and time again Drew had said they were legally separated and would never again get together, but people could change their minds.

  Come on, you’ve got this far, she said to herself. She opened the rickety gate, drove in and shut it behind her. The drive was steep and rutted. Afraid of damaging the suspension of her borrowed car, she drove slowly, negotiating bends and cattle grids.

  Then, at the bottom of the valley, she saw the pretty little white clapboard house with a wide verandah all around it. There was a small brown-green lawn and a dusty flower bed, with several large gum trees providing a few patches of shade. She parked the car outside the house. When she turned off the engine, she noticed the quiet. There was no sound apart from the hum of the insects.

  Heart pounding, she rang the doorbell. No answer. Wandering around the back of the house, she couldn’t see a car.

  Oh, hell, he’s out, she thought. So idiotic not to have phoned. Driving all this way for nothing – absolutely crazy thing to do.

  She sat down on the hot steps. After a while she stood up and, pulling back the fly screen, tried the door handle. It opened. He could be there asleep inside. She called his name.

  Nothing happened.

  She tiptoed in and crept around. The single-storey house was neat and tidy, plainly furnished with cane sofas and chairs, symmetrically arranged. Two of the bedrooms looked unoccupied. In the third stood a double bed, covered with a patchwork quilt. Some of Drew’s clothes, familiar to her, were lying on the chair. She picked them up and held them close to her, inhaling the smell of him.

  Then she heard a car. She looked out of the window – an old utility truck was coming down the drive, throwing up a cloud of dust. She ran to the sitting room and sat demurely on the sofa. Then in a panic she rummaged around in her handbag for some scent. When the door opened, she was pretending to read a magazine about cattle.

  ‘Strewth! Claire! What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I just dropped by,’ she began, trying to sound casual, but she was unable to stop herself from running towards him and falling into his arms.

  ‘Thought I’d lost you, thought I’d lost you,’ he murmured. He held her tightly, kissing her hair, her eyes, her mouth.

  Eventually, she pushed him away a little. ‘Drew, I . . .’

  ‘Don’t talk,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk later. Let’s go to bed.’

  She smiled. ‘Straight away?’

  ‘Yes – unless you’d prefer afternoon tea?’ As he spoke, he propelled her towards the door.

  ‘Is there any cake?’ Her voice was light, breathless.

  ‘No cake.’ They had reached the corridor.

  ‘What, no lovely chocolatey coconut Lamingtons – no great Australian delicacies?’ she asked.

  ‘Not even Lamingtons,’ he said as they stood outside his bedroom door.

  ‘No biscuits either?’

  His hands held her. ‘No, sorry, no bickies. If I’d known, I would have bought some.’

  ‘Well, then, I suppose I won’t bother with tea. Drew, what are you doing? It’s all a bit soon.’

  ‘D’you want to wait?’ he murmured.

  ‘Mmm . . . no . . . I don’t . . .’

  *

  After they had made love, Drew held her tight in his arms.

  ‘So are you pleased to see me?’ she asked, stupefied with gratification and happiness.

  He grinned. ‘Think I’ve just shown you that I am.’

  They were silent for a while, then, taking a deep breath, she asked, ‘What about your wife?’

  ‘Meredith? Oh, she’s calling in on her way back from work to discuss the divorce – should be here any moment,’ said Drew casually.

  ‘What?’ Panic-stricken, Claire leapt out of bed and began to hunt frantically for her clothes.

  ‘Stop, only joking. She’s not coming here. Never does.’

  ‘Bastard!’ she said, sitting down suddenly. She shook her fist under his nose. ‘Don’t do that to me. My nerves are in shreds as it is.’

  Laughing, he held on to her hands. ‘Sorry – but you looked so pretty and sexy jumping about in the nude like a demented grasshopper.’

  ‘Shut up or I really will punch you,’ she said with a grin. ‘So, it’s over, you and Meredith?’

  ‘Yes, she wants a quickie divorce. Which suits me down to the ground. Easier to get through all the legal stuff if you’re both in the same country. She’s marrying a parliamentarian and good luck to the bugger, I say.’

  With a huge inward surge of relief and joy, Claire put her arms around him. ‘So how do you feel about it?
’

  ‘Bloody good. Like I’ve just got rid of the biggest pain in the arse in the southern hemisphere.’

  He sounded as if she meant it, she thought.

  ‘Only trouble was,’ he continued, ‘that I thought I’d lost you in the process. I rang Lucy to speak to you and she said she didn’t know where you were, that you’d gone walkabout again. Scared the hell out of me. So what have you been up to?’

  She told him.

  You’ve been in Canberra all this time without calling me?’

  ‘I didn’t know what you - I didn’t know what the situation was. I couldn’t just fling myself on you, could I?’

  ‘Claire, you can fling yourself on me any time you like.’

  ‘I’m not talking about sex.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ he said.

  *

  Later they walked down to the creek and stood side by side, skimming stones into the calm water in smiling silence. It was marginally cooler as the sun set behind the hills and the evening was still and quiet.

  Drew’s tall figure was dark against the silver-grey bark of the gum trees. He turned to her and took her hand. ‘Claire?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘What are we going to do next?’

  Her heart beat faster, but she said casually, ‘I’d better be getting back to Canberra soon. Told Diane I might be late, but . . .’

  ‘No, I mean, in the future.’

  ‘Haven’t really thought.’ What a lie, she said to herself.

  He grinned mischievously. ‘Well, I think you need some country air. How about a job as a jackaroo? Or a shearer? Just right for a nice big tough girl like you. Could do with some help on the property – shearers usually camp out, but you could live in the sheep-shed and even come into the house now and then.’

  She laughed. ‘Don’t know if I have the right qualifications.’

  ‘You’re the only candidate I have in mind – so I think you might get the job, if you apply.’

  She picked up another stone and threw it into the water. Then she whispered into his ear, ‘So if I accept the job as a shearer, when do I start my training?’

  They kissed with gentle passionate little bites.