CHAPTER 37
It hissed at a couple of walkers on the path, no teeth visible, and then ambled back into the long grass. Kul waved at the nodding stems. Kul waved at it from our perch on some railings.

“You’ve probably guessed I am actually serious about the snakes, mate. Always, always check grass and that before you walk into it. Avoid the long stuff if you can. Don’t step over dead logs, walk round them. Don’t peer into holes. Whatever you do, even indoors, don’t poke your hands into somewhere you can’t see”

“Snakes indoors?”

“No. Spiders, redbacks mainly. Nasty little bastards. Fond of places like pantries and that. Snakes here are mainly two types, dugites and tigers. They can look similar, depending on age, but the first makes you sick rather than dead, and if you make enough noise it sods off”

“I am going to regret asking this, but the other one?”

“Potentially lethal, curious and aggressive. Neighbour lost a dog near my place the other day. Sorry, but you needed the heads-up. Now, back home?”

He twisted to face me, brow furrowed.

“What is the gen on your mate’s kid, Mike? At that age, how can anyone know stuff like that?”

I tossed a bit of sandwich crust towards a black and white bird, which snatched it up, only to be mobbed by about six others, who were not holding back as they attacked. What a country.

“Kul, I spoke to her in hospital, okay? Her words were that she’d told her parents, but they never listened. Spoke but was never heard sort of thing. Not about adult knowledge, starting with your point about age. I did some reading up afterwards. Kul, are you left or right-handed?”

“Right”

“How do you know?”

“I just---- Oh. I just know. That’s your point, isn’t it?”

“Yup. We have one little girl in the wrong box, who’s just arriving at the time when the difference becomes important, and she was bloody desperate”

He was shaking his head, so I squeezed his shoulder.

“Kul, once she was listened to, once she was heard, then, well, she was bloody well seen. It’s right for her, and calling her exactly that is so obvious we’re all kicking ourselves for being idiots”

“How is Enfys taking it?”

“Not a worry at all, Kul. Her friend’s happier, and that’s fine by her. Vic and Nansi are a lot happier as well. Getting a name for their kid’s problem, does a lot to ease things. Thing is, Bets and Shaun, they all saw it before the rest of us. The way of things, I suppose, being too close to a puzzle. Needs a fresh eye, or a bit of perspective. Anyway, that’s supposed to be our job, isn’t it? Shall we get on?”

He just nodded, then waved at the murderous pied birds.

“Local magpies, Mike. Fucking vicious bastards, will have your eyes out”

“Best I avoid them?”

“Especially if cycling. Land on your crash hat, reach around for your eyeballs. Hell of a song, though. No, not while eating your eyeballs!”

We made it back to the car without being bitten or blinded, and carried on up the hill until it levelled out and we followed a wider road.

“Canning Road, Mike. Main drag here and---yup! Remember those?”

“Bloody jell—Woolworth’s?”

“Not quite the same. No quarter pound of pick’n’mix sweets there”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. Aussies are metric”

“Sod!”

“Pom bastard. Right.. Coming up to Mead Street; there in a couple”

We drove past a lot of low-rise shops before Kul turned into what was obviously our van hire customer. Out of the car into the heat, and then once again the joys of an air-conditioned reception area. A wiry little man waved at us, a grin splitting the sunburn-cum-tan of his face.

“Hiya Kul! Who’s this bastard?”

“Mike Rhodes mate. New chum, fresh out of the tin can”

“Want a cold one, Mike? Not a beer. Got some softer stuff in the fridge. LLB do you?”

Kul put on a stage whisper.

“Just say ‘yes please’, Mike”

The drink came from a plastic bottle, and ad an odd pinky-peach colour, tasting of lime with an undertone of something sharper. I didn’t care: it was cold.

“Chat here, Kul? And hi, Mike: I’m Rod. Kul filled you in on what we do?”

In at the deep end, thank you very much Kul.

“Up to a point. He mentioned three facets of your business, and if I get this wrong, blame him”

“Fine by me, mate. What’s he said?”

“Well, three things, really. Long drive up North to see reefs and cliffs and things, long drives from one coast to another, and driving like an idiot in the sandy bit in the middle”

‘Rod’ laughed happily.

“He’s right on the button there! I try to avoid the hoons, and it’s not sand in there, mostly, but bloody dry dust or salt pan. Most of our trade is either to the East or up the top end of the state. Only had two circular ones so far, right round Oz and back here, though I do regular work repairing rigs for grey nomads. Sometimes sell them a new one”

“Could you rewind a bit, Rod? Hoons? Nomads?”

“Hoons, mate, are yobboes. Usually drive a ute with roo bars and a lamping rack. You’d probably call it a pick-up. Grey nomads are retired people. Buy a camper, sell up everything else, then spend their last years following the weather round Oz”

I grinned at the image that brought up.

“Wouldn’t work back home, Rod. Not got the weather for that, unless you like cold and rain, especially in Scotland. Though I will say I do love the Scottish Summer”

I paused, for effect.

“It’s my favourite day of the year”

I got the obligatory laugh, and then cut to the chase, as I saw it.

“Let me see if I have it right, then. No idiots out in the desert to bend your stock in trade. I assume the ones heading up to Broome come back the same way. That leaves the other side of the country, so, in short, how do you get those vehicles back?”

Rod’s mouth twisted.

“That’s the problem, Mike, and why I don’t hire out to those going up to Darwin, where the real nutters live. Everybody wants to drive the Nullarbor, but once is enough for anyone but a trucker. If I were, if this was a bigger hire place, then yeah, I’d have a branch in Sydney or Melbourne. Got a couple of mates, sometimes have a job over there, and they’ve driven the vans back, but I’ve also had to find space on a road train”

I looked at Kul, who I suspected was having the same idea as myself, and asked a question that was obvious to me, but not to Rod.

“How are we off for canals round our way, mate?”

“Loads of them. Loads of hire companies, as well”

“Rod, some people like to putter around canals, either in modern cruisers or the old narrowboats, and when I say ‘putter’, I mean slower than a very slow thing. Same problem for the boat hire people. Where… My wife and I lived down south, and there was a canal there cutting through a decent nature reserve. Birdwatching was her thing, so, well. I could tell you about stupid things done by canal boaters, but not now. We saw one boat, and it had a plate on it saying it was from somewhere near York, and we were just outside London, so…”

Bloody idiot that I was. Breathe, Rhodes.

“My wife asked them what the score was, and the Yorkshire yard had set up some deals with other boatyards. Hire a boat from York to London, hand it in at London. London yard fettles it---er, maintenance, check over, refuelling, that sort of thing. They then hire it back to someone who wants to go up to York. Each boatyard has an incentive to do a decent job on the other’s craft

“I get the idea, but I don’t know anyone on the other coast”

Kul held up a hand.

“I rather think that issue comes under our job description. Now, why don’t we start with a list of the places people want to drive to? They can’t all want to go to Sydney. It’s not like it’s ‘See Sydney and die’, is it?”

Rod muttered something about Coober Pedy and Kalgoorlie, then laughed.

“I hear Sydney can get a bit feral at night, but at least they don’t have as many crocs as up the Top End. Sounds like a goer, if we can find the right partners. Now, got a recovery due back shortly, someone who isn’t getting their bloody deposit back. Wannabe bloody off-roader who didn’t understand the difference between off road and unmade road. Thick as roo shit”

We said our goodbyes once we had Rod’s list of destinations, and settled back into Kul’s Toyota, but I noticed he didn’t start the engine.

“Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay? You went a bit funny in there”

Not today, tears. Piss off.

My instructions were ignored. With a whispered “Shit!”, Kul drove us away from the forecourt. Surprisingly quickly, we were on a back road shaded by trees with long blade-like leaves, where Kul pulled over, laying a long left arm over my shoulder and pulling me to him for a hug. The tears fell, the bastards, but Kul just waited them out. Once they were done, he let me sit up again.

“Talk to me, mate. Is this about your wife?”

I nodded.

“Couple of things, mate. Not your fault, but suppose I just feel this is a betrayal. She’s still back there, and I know she’s gone, but I still feel like a bloody deserter”

“She would have understood”

“I know that, mate, but it still feels wrong. Then there’s that lizard”

“What lizard?”

“Blue-tailed skink. It’s just an image… Look, something I found out. They end up as roadkill, a lot of them, but they mate for life. So the other one comes and waits by what’s left of their mate, until they end up the same way. That was what I was seeing in my life. I got out of that town and up to Sheffield, and that was me thinking about roadkill, no, not me. But that didn’t work. I found myself…”

I forced myself to take a few longer breaths.

“Kul, I was finding myself doing silly things on the rock, just like Steph was, but sober. Still waiting by the body, waiting for the car. Alys, Dafi as was, that pulled me back, gave me a job in life, but now, well, I’m here, and I’m sorry, but I wonder if I’ve done the right thing. Sorry”

I found him staring hard at me, before shaking his head.

“Nope. Not happening, no bloody squishing for you. Who’s looking after Alys?”

“Families, both of them. Enfys. Another friend”

“So when did you stop, given that there’s all sorts of video chat stuff we can use. Who did she come out to first?”

“Well, her Mum, but like I said…”

“No, you thick bastard: who did she come out to first who bloody well listened, and believed? This, you soppy idiot, is our plan, and note the ‘our’ bit. You have two little girls to keep in touch with, so that is what you will do. If Alys is being homeschooled, then seeing another face, even as pig-ugly as yours, will be vital. Now, there’s wet-wipes in the glove box. Best I can offer, before the office. Others will be back, so you need to dig out the cheerful version. Got me?”

“Got you”

He started the car once more, and drove carefully back to central Perth.

“That suggestion was one I was lining up to make, mate. The partner businesses”

“Sorry, Kul2

“Don’t be. Lets the customer see we work as a team. Now, should be at least two more in when we get back, according to their diaries. Local staff, or local-ish. One’s actually from Malaysia, the other one I’m expecting is a real foreigner, from Tassie”

“Where?”

“Tasmania. Where they all know their cousins very well”

He was off, thank god, making one particularly awful joke about his colleague using his fingers to count to eleven, and then we were back in our reserved parking bay, my newly expert senses picking up just a hint of ‘The Doctor’ starting to blow.

Ronnie waved happily.

“How’d the raw prawn do, Kul?”

“Probably got us a load of new business. Er, she’ll be right, bonzer, ripper, et cetera. And had his first LLB”

“Ooh! Anyway, Chad and Maryam are both in. Bounce it off them?”

“Will do, love”

Into the back office once more, two new faces awaiting introductions, which Kul dove straight into.

“You two, this is Mike Rhodes, my old mucker from the far North but not The Top End. Mike, this is Chad Meads from Tasmania, and Maryam Rahman from Kuala Lumpur”