by Lindy Dale
“Millie? Are you there?”
“Yes. I’m thinking.”
“God, you’re always thinking and planning. Will you just get on the plane? I’ll meet you at the airport.”
I groaned into the phone. I knew he was right. I did like to plan and organise. Plans and goals were how I ran my life and this was out of character for me. “Alright,” I said. “But this had better be good.”
Across the crackly line I heard him chuckle. He was such a bastard.
*****
‘It seemed like a great idea at the time’ was the phrase that sprang to mind as I got off the plane at Lombok Airport a few hours later. Suddenly, I was in the midst of the biggest heatwave the island had seen for forty years. The humidity rose from the tarmac around me in transparent waves. It was worse than the Bikram Yoga sessions I’d done with Adele on the family’s last trip to Singapore and had the instant effect of making me flushed and clammy. I exhaled heavily and pulled a wipe from my bag to dab the sweat from my face. This ‘surprise’ had better be worth it.
Entering the gate lounge, I walked to a bank of vinyl seats and sat down. I pulled out my water bottle and held it to my skin, the last warm drops doing little to cool me. I fished around for my compact and held it up, surveying the heat damage. I was definitely not the delightful picture of femininity I’d been when I left Denpasar forty minutes ago. My mascara was smudged and my fringe was plastered to my forehead. Even if I could have found my deodorant in my hold-all it would be a complete waste of time applying it. I already smelled like an Indian restaurant from the man beside me on the plane who had finished my serving of curry lunch as well as his own.
All around me, fellow travellers seemed oblivious to the heat. They were busy meeting and greeting, saying goodbyes and hellos, for everything took place in this one overcrowded spot. Lombok Airport had to be the smallest and most antiquated travel facility I’d ever been in. I stood up and moved to stand next to a window hiding behind the protection of the tinted glass. Sam couldn’t be too far away. He’d promised to be there when I arrived. Peering into the tint, I gave my hair a fluff and pulled the sticky strands away from my forehead. I straightened my singlet and rearranged my shorts. I even put on some lipgloss. Satisfied that I looked mediocre to okay, I waited.
Five minutes passed and my sandalled foot began to get anxious.
Tap, tap-tap, tap.
I checked my watch three or four times. I flipped my phone and scanned the list of messages. Maybe Sam was running late. Well, clearly he was but maybe he’d sent an explanation or ETA. Uneasy, I looked up and down the rapidly emptying lounge.
Five more minutes. Well, this was fabulous. There I was, in the middle of a foreign country with hardly any money to catch a cab—even if I did know where to go—and everyone had somebody to meet them but me. Typical.
Tap, tap, tap.
My foot was becoming increasingly agitated. Normally calm and unflappable, even when Tori had almost choked on one of my Pandora beads and Michael had tried to see how many Lego men he could insert into his nose, now I was panicked. I knew nobody. I could not speak Indonesian and it was hot. Too hot. I felt nauseous. My lip began to do that pesky quivering thing it does when I’m stressed and my eyes started to well up. What if he didn’t come? I thought, all rationality deserting me. Where would I go? How would I pay? I only had enough cash to cover necessities. Sam had told me not to bother. Worse still, what if he’d had an accident on the way and was laying dead in a gutter? I would be a widow before I was married. Oh God, the thought was too much to bear. Sucking in a breath, I tried to calm the tension that was gripping my face. There was nothing to worry about. He was probably stuck in traffic. I could pass the time conjuring plausible scenarios as to why he was late. Then, when he arrived, I’d kill him.
Unhappily, I slumped down onto my backpack as reality hit me harder than the humidity. This was not a great idea at all. In fact, the whole Bed and Breakfast thing was a completely stupid idea. Somehow, I’d convinced myself that it was utterly romantic to hop on a plane, to travel to a place I’ve only ever been on holiday, a place where English may not even be a second language and you couldn’t drink water from the tap. Why had I thought I would want to live here?
“Mill’?” A firm hand grasped my shoulder. Two long legs blocked the view in front of me. I was face to knees with that deep familiar voice. I looked up, up, up across the lengthy expanse of leg and chest into the vivid green eyes that crinkled at the corners, greener than wet moss on rock. I saw the amused bastard smile at my sad appearance. I noted the broad shoulders, the abs that looked like carved rock; the biceps that rippled on movement. He looked good. Arsehole. I opened my mouth to return the greeting—and vomited all over his sandalled feet. I’m sure they were stylish leather sandals. Once. But decorated with tiny chunks of spew, they looked far from it. “Sorry, it’s the humidity. I feel really sick.”
Sam smiled thinly and stepped out of the puddle. “It’s fine,” he said, looking as if he’d like to strangle me with his shoe.
“I was getting worried.” I hauled myself to my feet and avoided the spew to stand in front of him. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Clearly. Can’t say I’ve ever been welcomed like that, though. Anyway, despite the, uh, decoration, you look adorable.”
“It’s only been three days. It’s not like I’ve changed.”
“I know,” he said, grabbing my stuff. “But you always look adorable, Now, let’s go.”
I wandered out into the heat, my feet dragging behind Sam’s brisk stride.
“Come on, its not that bad,” he laughed over his shoulder.
“Easy for you to say. You aren’t the one who just puked everywhere.”
“No, but I’m the one wearing it, so get a move on.” He took a step back and gave me a patronising slap on the bum. He was like a kid at Christmas. “Hurry it up, slow coach.”
“So how far to this surprise?” I asked. I was dying. Dying to get out of the heat. Dying to see what the excitement was about. Simply dying.
“Twenty five minutes or so.”
Sam led the way across the busy road and into the car park. Much like any other airport I’d been to it was dotted with an assortment of cars, from the crappy rust ridden bombs without windows to a couple of newish looking BMW’s. Sam stopped next to a shiny, red scooter. The heat had to be playing tricks with my sight. This had to be an optical illusion.
“Um, where’s the car?” This was too much. My stomach gurgled in protest.
“We’re going on this,” Sam replied.
“Are you serious?” I asked, slightly appalled. “What am I supposed to do with my overnight bag? Balance it on my head and hope for the best?”
“It’s pointless having a car, Mill’. We’d never get down some of the narrow streets and the locals drive like lunatics. It’s worse than in Kuta. Lucky I got this trailer. It hooks right onto the back of the scooter. You can put your stuff in there. No need to panic.” He pointed to the back of the scooter where, indeed, there was a little caboose affair, complete with sunshade and all ready for my stuff. I wondered if maybe I could climb in too. It looked a hell of a lot cooler than sitting in the stinking heat.
“Ready?” Sam asked after he’d dumped my bags into the trailer.
“I s’pose so.”
Helmetless, we pulled out into traffic in what could only be described as a suicide manoeuvre on two wheels. Horns honked around us. Other road users swore in Indonesian. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to comfort myself with thoughts that scooters could only reach top speeds of 70 kph but it was no use. Sam was ducking and swerving through the jam, marginally missing the oncoming traffic. With effortless ease, he avoided trucks, cars and other scooters all while whistling a tune to himself. I fastened myself to his body like a sad limpet clinging to a rock. Was it too late to turn back to God? Because, knowing my clumsy luck, we’d blow a tyre and land in a goat truck or something. Even the fact that his back felt
tantalisingly muscled against my cheek didn’t help override the fear that we were one step away from death.
Ten minutes later, we reached the coast road. A stretch of the most glorious ocean, the colour of pale blue sapphires lay before me. Sand like the finest sugar crystals decorated the shore. The traffic had thinned and was mostly keeping to its own side of the road. The sky was clear and blue. I settled contentedly against Sam’s reassuring frame and relaxed. At last.
“That’s Sengiggi Beach.” Sam pointed to a spot in the distance where palm trees were spread like soldiers along the sand and tree covered hills rose in the backdrop. “Most of the hotels and villas are hidden amongst the trees. Some people pay two thousand bucks a night for the privilege of isolation and complete luxury,” he explained. “Nicole, Keith and Sunday were here the other day. I sat next to them on the beach.”
I relaxed some more. If it was safe enough for Nicole to bare her pale white body then I supposed it was okay for me. She looked like a very particular sort.
As we reached the bend, Sam made a right turn away from the beach. The track was unsealed and as we wound our way through the trees and back again, the sand transformed from the pristine white I’d seen in the bay to a type of grey dirt that clings to your toes and makes you feel most unclean. I began to feel a teensy bit nervous about this unexpected turn. We drove along the track and Sam threw a casual wave out to an old woman so brown and wrinkled she could be mistaken for an apple carving.
“Hello Mr Sam,” she called back. “I see you bring your lovely girl.” She pointed at me and her family of twenty raised their hands in greeting.
“Yeah,” Sam smiled back and we drove on.
At the next house an old man and his wife were sitting on the balcony railing of a hut that looked like it would collapse at any moment. They were throwing food scraps to two noisy goats, some chooks and a mange-ridden dog.
“The neighbours,” Sam told me, acknowledging them with a wave and a nod. “They built most of the houses along here.”
I cast my eye along the rest of the road. That had certainly been a ramshackled achievement. I bet Nicole and Keith never saw this side of the street.
Finally, Sam stopped the bike in front of an imposing set of double timber doors built into a three metre high wall. “Here we are. You’ll have to excuse the mess, there was a bit of a problem with the roof leaking. It’s fixed now and the workmen were supposed to take the used stuff away but they’re a bit slack on the clean up.” He pointed across the road to an empty field where a pile of damaged thatching was stacked. Next to it a mountain of discarded thongs made a colourful display. “The local boys,” Sam explained. “They collect thongs washed up on the beach.”
“What in God’s name for?” Once, Paige had collected tiny scraps of paper and pebbles for a month. She hid them in her dresser drawer. That I could understand. She knew she wasn’t allowed small things because the twins could choke on them, so anything the size of a pea was like gold to her. But thongs?
“Your guess is as good as mine, but you can bet they probably sell it at the markets.” He seemed unconcerned, or rather accepting, of everything around him. I, however, was slightly perturbed. There was rubbish strewn around the neighbours’ front garden. There was no grass or kerbing. The people, while looking happy, seemed unkempt and grubby to me. This was not a five star villa. This was a third world country. What were we doing here?
Sam turned back to me. “The hacienda,” he beamed proudly, and slipped a large key into the chunky wooden door. I stepped through it and into a courtyard filled with lush green foliage. Then he led me up the stairs, through the front door and into the cool darkness of a foyer. Simple plastered ceilings soared above my head, soft gauzy curtains floated against the windows and the timber… oh, the dark, carved, richness of the timber. I looked at Sam in amazement.
“It’s beautiful…” I said, causing his smile to widen further. “It’s amazing. But why are we here?”
“I knew you’d like it,” he replied, ignoring my question. “It’s a bit of any eye opener coming down that road but the house is magic.”
My thoughts exactly. In fact, it was almost like my dream come true.
The tour of the house with five bedrooms, pool, cabana and surrounding grounds took half an hour, give or take. I was in awe of the cavernous bathrooms, vaguely reminiscent of ancient Roman bath houses and the double timber doors that led off every bedroom onto a long deep veranda were the stuff of my dreams. I saw the views to another bay a short walk away and fell into a swoon as Sam explained that all the land from the house to the ocean was part of the property. Every now and again as we wandered, a Balinese woman or man, dressed in a crisp uniform, would glide in and ask Sam a question. He would politely smile, answer and turn back to me, his attention all mine.
“This is a fabulous place, Sam,” I gushed again. “But I still don’t know what’s going on. We could have got a place on the mainland the same. Is this part of the surprise?”
Sam leant towards me. He took my hand in his, turning it to kiss my palm. He looked into my eyes, his own overflowing with sincerity and love. “This is the surprise.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You know how we said we’d come clean? No more deception?”
I was beginning to worry again. “Yes.”
He swallowed. “Those other houses you went to see, they weren’t sold. I paid the agents to take you around and then tell you they had offers on them at the last minute.”
“But why?” This was my dream. Sam had been deliberately sabotaging my dream.
“’Cause, I’d already bought this house for you and the remodelling wasn’t finished. I was trying to stall for time. I figured if I asked to you marry me and you told me to go jump, I could use this as a way to convince you. If you still said ‘no’ I was going to give it to you anyway. The deeds are in your name.”
I was tingling. Pins and needles were cascading down my body. Sam had bought me a house.
“But why?” I had no clue as to why he would do this when fulfilling my dream could mean the end of his. Surely, he saw that. If I stayed in this house, what would become of us? I bit my lip and took the bull by the horns. “If I stay here and you stay in Perth running pubs and playing rugby we won’t be getting married.”
“That’s all part of my cunning plan,” he replied, looking more excited than he had after the Wallabies had beaten the All Blacks earlier in the year. “I thought we could compromise. Become sort of dual citizens. From February to October we’ll live in Perth, do the rugby scene, run the pub. Then we can come back here for the rest of the year and do your thing. I’ve handpicked you a great management team. They’re very capable and waiting to start. Of course, if you don’t like them we can hire new people. This is your baby, Mill’ I want you to run it as if I weren’t even here.”
I was flabbergasted. Sam was compromising. He’d built a dream for us that he thought was perfect. He’d changed his life to make me happy. Looking around me, I realised, it was not how I had planned it. I had wanted to do all this myself. I had wanted to make my dream come true, not to have it handed to me on a platter. The house, the pool, everything was what I wanted but it wasn’t mine. Not really. Could I compromise too?
“I don’t know.”
“Just think about it,” he said.
*****
The next morning, we got up early. The sun was still low in the sky and as I stood on the veranda looking out at the ocean, Sam appeared from the bathroom. “Get your bathers on,” he said. “I’ve got another surprise for you.” The twinkle in his eye gave me every right to be worried.
Down in the industrially fitted kitchen, the cook was packing an Esky as Sam put a blindfold over my eyes. We were to have a picnic lunch at a secret location.
“Everything ready. Have nice time, Mr Sam,” he smiled.
“We will.”
He led me out the door and along the track to what I could only surmise was the
beach. The lapping of waves set my heart to pounding and sweat began to pool in my pits. Then I felt myself being lifted, ever so gently and deposited again. Please tell me the surprise isn’t a boat, I prayed. Please tell me. Boats meant water and I didn’t think I’d ever made the extent of my fear clear to him. When I’d tried to explain it once before, he’d made some wise arse crack and I hadn’t continued.
Sam removed the blindfold. My heart dropped into my glitter sandals. We were in some sort of canoe thingy. Surrounded by water. Oh God, what if he asked me to go swimming? After the embarrassment of lessons with the twins, I was unsure if I’d even be able to put my toe into water.
“Where are we going?” I asked, too scared to breathe in case I tipped the boat over.
“To the reef.” He took my hand and gave it a friendly squeeze. His smile was as bright as the sun.
“You mean like a reef, as in coral and fish and stuff?” I hoped he was going to say he was talking about some idyllic remote restaurant called The Reef or something but I knew the chances were slim.
“Yeah, I haven’t had a snorkel in months.”
There. He’d said it. Snorkel.
“Ah, I... er... can we just go swimming? I’m not that good with a snorkel.” I bit my lip, nodded my head and flapped my arms stupidly by way of explanation. A bit like a pelican choking on a fish.
“But I brought the underwater camera,” Sam’s voice trailed off and I felt like a bit of a cow but what could I do. After the Challenge Stadium incident I was never putting my head under water again.
“How about I take photos of you?” That’d be easy. I could poke the camera through the surface of the water and point. I wouldn’t even have to get in unless it was absolutely necessary.
Sam looked as if I’d turned into a jellyfish before his eyes. Then, I remembered our promise to tell the truth and the whole story came out. In all its gory detail.
