Spotted Lily (23 page)

I was dodging the sun's glare before dusk as I drove along the dirt road, when I saw something that made me laugh.

'See that farmer there?' I said, without taking my eyes off the road.

'A farmer?'

I drove around the bend and parked where the farmer couldn't see us.

'Did you see him leaning over that hole in the bank in his paddock, and jerking away?'

'You saw all that?'

'Do you know what he was doing? You wouldn't, but you, travelling with the A-Grade Tour, will have sights explained that only locals know the mysteries of. Aren't you lucky?'

I felt pretty good, enjoying driving and the scene. That old bloke should have had a heart attack, the way he jumped away from that hole as we drove past.

'It's getting close to dark.' I explained, as if it weren't obvious. 'The wombat ... wombat. Furry tank-shaped thing, as heavy as a pig.'

'I know wombats.'

'Oh. Oh, those books.'

'Well, yes, and also "O uommibatto. agil, giocondo, che ti sei fatto liscio e rotondo!'

'Brett, I'm an English masters, not a polyglot.'

'Sorry. Well, then you must know her brother's poem, "O how the family affections combat within this heart, and each hour flings a bomb—"'

'Do you want to tell, or learn?'

'Sorry. Learn. What was that man doing?'

He'd ruined the moment. I told him anyway. 'He's trying to kill the wombat down the hole.'

I drove on a ways.

And then, feeling as bad as I did, I couldn't leave it there. 'He's probably using phosphene. It goes off sort of like a bomb. Poison gas.'

~

When we were almost to town he asked, 'Why does he want to kill wombats?'

'Because they dig holes.'

'Aren't they native?'

'Yes, Brett.'

'Aren't they a protected species?'

'What have you been reading?'

'Other than these,' Brett said, 'Wildlife in the—'

'Okay,' I said. He was clearly going to list a library's worth of stuff. 'I once pulled a calf out of a wombat hole,' I said. 'Tractors turn over all the time in holes that open up over wombat tunnels. Wombats are killers, Brett.'

'Why don't people eat wombats, and not cows? Cows aren't natives, are they?'

'No, Brett.

He pointed. 'Those are kangaroos?'

'Yes, goddamit.'

'Why don't you eat those?'

'Because the animal liberationists don't want us to.'

'Why—'

'Brett. Just think about little flowers. I've gotta watch the road.'

~

I found a pub that had steak. So when Brett said he wasn't ready to order, I said, 'Stuff it,' and ordered for me.

The meat was tough, but it was meat.

Brett watched me cut, chew, and swallow as if he were a Martian and me, his first earthling.

'That's beef, isn't it?'

'Give that man a coconut!' I announced with my mouth full.

'From cows.'

'Yeah, Brett.'

'My tartare au jus was that, too, wasn't it?'

'Well, it wasn't whale meat,' I laughed, wanting to poke my fork into his face.

'It never occurred to me.'

'Well, what the fu—'

'All these centuries, I've lived on the damned. You.'

It might boggle your mind, but I lost my appetite right then.

'You eat all those creatures, don't you?' he asked, wagging his head toward the great outdoors.

'Us civilised folk eat only the ones we domesticate, like cows and sheep and pigs, and chickens. That's white meat.'

'All those creatures with the big eyes.'

'Most of us don't go in for the eyes.'

'Do you domesticate octopus? Wasn't that your favourite?'

'Yes it was. And no, octopuses don't tame very easily, and they're buggers getting through barbed wire. Just don't agonize, eh? Or you'll starve.'

'Do vegetables feel?'

'For gawd's sake!'

'I think I'll eat fruit that's fallen from trees, and plant the seeds. And also, I could eat vegetables that have withered on the vine.'

'And seeds that have fallen from the grasses. That's wheat.'

'Oh, really?'

'And nuts and berries, and Greenpeace banners, once they have fallen from their ramparts.'

'Does grass have leaves?'

Oh, shut up, Brett!

We bought him a bag of apples at the supermarket, and walked back to the motel.

I turned on the TV and switched channels until I found Game of the Century, something with a wheel that turned, money being held out as prizes, and people who were chosen for their competitive levels of stupidity and ugliness.

Brett sat on the bed that would have been his, had he wanted to use it. He wanted to talk, so I turned the TV up.

There was only so much of this program that I could take. But even the commercials didn't budge him.

Finally I punched the OFF button and turned to him.  'Isn't it time for you to take off?'

He sighed as Thoreau might have, or Simone and Gordon when they clicked, as the euphemism goes.

'Thank you, my dear,' Brett sighed, 'for this glorious day.'

Bedsprings creaked as he disappeared in a whiff of iron heat.

~

Even the electric jug waiting for me beside the little sachets of tea and instant coffee, and the four little shortbread biscuits in their cellopak, and the little jug of milk in the cheerily humming fridge, didn't lighten my mood.

I curled up in bed without taking anything off, even my boots.

Great waves of aching loneliness rose from my stomach.

Brett had bettered my education so much that I didn't dare ask where he got these words he spouted. I didn't know what was original from him. He was a sponge that soaked up everything it touched. And the problem was, it was touching everything.

The waterfall, something I had found on the map and thought would be cute and no sweat, had turned out to be a disaster.

It was beautiful, but his Victorian ravings made it impossible for me to take my mental snapshot, and drive on to the next sight. He eclipsed the small amount that I did know about the bush, by knowing so much more, immediately. And the worst part is that he fell in love with the bush in the way only possible to people who haven't grown up in it.

When I lived in Bettawong, it never bothered me when people spouted idiocies about it. We weren't in the bush together. Now, what was there for me to say, when he took only a few hours to become as obnoxious as a Jehovah's Witness?

There was no escaping the fact that the person this 'Brett' wanted to be, and had to a large degree become, was a crass enthusiast.

There was nothing left to say to him.

I got out of bed and picked up my bag and the ute keys. There was no reason  to pick up the room keys or lock the door.

~

The engine purred on idle, but What was the use?  There were only ten dollars in my bag, and where could I go? He would find me, wherever. And where would I want to go, anyway? I had nothing left to go to, and everything behind was ruination.

Sleep was my only refuge, my only escape, so I went back to the room, kicked his black bag and trunk for a bit of enjoyment—and crawled back, boots and all, into bed.

—38—

'Wakey Wakey!'

His hand smoothed the hair from my face, and his warm mouth kissed my forehead in the apex of my widow's peak.

I opened my eyes, and he gazed into them. He was lying on his side, but rose to a sitting position. He used both arms to turn me from my side, to my front. He positioned a pillow under my head, and then turned my face sideways, towards him.

His hot lips brushed the tip of my nose, and I smelt the rich meatiness of his breath.

His hands worked at the buttons on the back of my thin, damp chemise. As he released each seed pearl from its little fabric loop, he kissed the naked skin exposed. When he got to the deep, curved base of my back, he peeled the cloth from my back like a lychee skin from its fruit. Every cell in the powder-fine pores of my back—every cell felt the air that was stirred by him as he rose above me.

With one of his rock-hard arms, he reached underneath the fabric still clinging to me, and grasped me below, his forearm crushing one of my breasts as his hand cupped what it could of my other. My chemise came away in his other hand, and dropped somewhere soundlessly.

My long skirt was fastened in a complicated lacing, at my front. He turned me over onto my back.

'Grrrrr,' he said, as his teeth tore at the weak ribbons. His hands did the rest.

My bloomers, as translucent as bruised rose petals, trembled at the sudden movements of him, as he sat upon my calves. And in a moment, the waist-front to waist-back slit in the  bloomers was open to his gaze, and his fingers.

Did I tell you he was naked? That his tail had snaked around and now ran its heart-shaped parson's nose against the curve of my swollen mouth?

That my hands rose to take hold of it, and that his stronger hands grabbed mine, and pinioned them to the bed?

That he held my hands while he lowered his body till the top of his head was lower than the centre of my beauty, and that he turned his head sideways just enough so that his left horn, slowly and gently and smoothly

'Wakey Wakey!'

A hand shook my shoulder.
Irritating.

'We have to leave, Angela.
A voice against my ear, urgent.
'We have to leave!'

The room was dark. Only the green glow of the TV light and the little white numbers of the clock alarm glowed.

That irritating hand, shaking me again.

'Angela—'

I yanked myself away and turned over. 'It's bloody three o'clock in the morning, Brett. Get lost again.'

'Angela—'

'What the fuck!'

I jumped out of bed, ready to clobber him. But when I looked for his face, I saw that, even in the weird light, he already looked clobbered.

'What's wrong?' I asked, sitting on the bed and wishing I smoked.

'We have to leave, my dear.'

'Where? Why?'

I wanted to crawl back into my dream. Even now, the centre of my beauty, which Brett had so praised, was pulsing, hot and angry. If it could have cried out, the town would have woken. As it was, the only sounds accompanying our discussion were the hum of the fridge and my own erratic breath.

Brett took my hands in his. 'Angela. It's time. We must go.'

'Where, goddamit!'

'Wooronga.'

'Home? I mean—' I was so mixed up that I called it home when I didn't mean home, but then again, I didn't have a home anymore.

He looked terrible, which was oddly calming. I got up and sat in the only chair, so I could evaluate.

'Tell me,' I instructed.

'He's coming. Tomorrow.'

I didn't have to ask who
he
was. 'To check up on you?'

'And he wants to meet you.'

'Why the? Why me?'

'Why did I want to take that aeroplane flight?'

'And you told him Wooronga?'

'I thought you would be your strongest there.'

'You told him to go to Mum's place?!'

'Wasn't that—'

'No! That was not bloody right.'

A fierceness I hadn't felt before, came over me. Mum was Mum. She couldn't help who she was. She would die some day still yearning to be me, still yearning to get away from there, but she would never escape. At least she would live as she probably did now, in hope of living vicariously through me. That in itself is a kind of life.

Whatever this 'meeting' of Brett's was, I could not let it happen on her turf, where I was born.

'You can't meet at Wooronga.'

'I told him—'

'Well, you puff right back and tell him—'

'It must be near your place of origin.'

'No!'

'I have a plan—'

'Plans!'

I got up and flicked on the overhead light. His colour did not improve. He was puce.

'Angela. It's where I'll, as you say, jump.'

He began to shake like someone with the DTs. 'Please, Angela. I promise you—'

And bloody hell—he keeled over onto the floor, totally ragdoll.

I boiled the jug and made myself a cup of tea. It was the same brand I grew up with, and it all came back to me now how useful strong, milky tea is (with two sugars, of course) when you need to collect your thoughts. When the tea was finished and I was ready, I pulled and lightly pummelled the crumpled ragdoll into a sitting, though still groggy position.

'Brett, can you go back tonight, and change the plans?'

He lifted his cap to rub the side of his head. 'Why?'

'Please tell him the Bunwup Cafe, Friday, at noon.'

'Noon?'

'Noon this time, two days from now this time. And Friday noon has provenance. It makes me feel more confident.'

I smiled and punched him gently on the shoulder. 'A deal?'

'I'll try.' He sounded uncertain.

'Don't try. Do!' I yelled, but he'd already disappeared.

When the last shortbread biscuit was a distant memory, he returned, baggy-eyed but smiling victoriously.

Outside, the sky was the pink of a galah. Four thirty in the morning.

I was glad to see him. There was no point hanging around here, especially since I had made up my mind what to do. Go to Wooronga, get a good night's sleep, and—this part gave me a few laughs while I waited—achieve my full potential, and love.

Mum would be embarrassing, but then again, I wondered why I should be embarrassed about her on account of Brett.

'I'll drive,' I said, after I told him what I'd decided.

That, conveniently, agreed with his wishes. He picked up his bag and trunk, tossed them on the back tray, and we left.

~

Brett's head hung out the window so far he should have
woof
ed as he tried to see everything we passed.  The sky blued gradually, and his cries of amazement gained in distracting power. When he made a particularly sharp sound at a cloud of white cockatoos, I reached over and turned on the radio.

Wouldn't you know it? Like I should have known, like I never shoulda left, Slim Dusty's hangdog voice intoned,
'It's lonesome away from your kindred...'

Brett pulled his head in from lapping up the sights, but he didn't say a word, even if he did notice the way my tears gushed to the maudlin music. I cried for my life, for the lack of anything ever coming true like in the fairy tales. I cried for myself, for the death of my dreams.

Oh, sure, I drove on with him beside me, to meet something I could only define as another one of my adventures-to-be. It was better to think of them all as adventures. The adventure in the cathedral with the terrifying staircase, the adventure of the great writer, the adventure of my life being stolen ...