CHAPTER 56
I stared at her back, just for a couple of seconds, wondering what she had meant, or if she had meant anything at all. It was a word used freely by both Geeta and Kul, as well as some of our customers, and she might not have meant anything at all by it, caught up as she was in her excitement at the birds and the dolphins.

Leave it for now, Rhodes. I called Vern over, and showed him the cracks in the exposed rock.

“That gear will work well in this stuff, mate, and it looks like there’s scope for jamming as well. My sort of climbing!”

Maz turned to us with a happy grin.

“You’re just talking about cracks in the hope I’ll say something rude, aren’t you? Anyway, got my life tick there, as well as some sooty oystercatchers, three gulls, two terns and a couple of cormorants”

Vern waved at the sea, vaguely.

“Loads more than a couple of gulls, Maz!”

She cocked an eyebrow, trying to look down her nose as she looked up at him, which didn’t work that well. She tried, though, but her sneering “Species, child, not individuals!” rather failed in its effectiveness when she broke into giggles, coming over to me for an embrace.

“Mike, this place is everything I hoped for! It’s amazing!”

Her hair was whipping my face as it flew on the breeze, so I turned her slightly to let it blow out to one side, and the dolphin pod raced through the channel once again.

“Good call, Ms Rahman. Doubt we’d have spotted it without your input”

“Plenty of time to see the rest. Kul?”

“Yes, Memsahib?”

“Don’t start that game. We got a time to be in the cottages?”

“Owner said he’d meet us at three”

“Right. Shall we go into town and have a late lunch, then pick up some simple grazing bits for the rest of the day? Buffet stuff tonight, finger food?”

Ronnie called out that she wanted some liquid supplies as well, and Chad groaned, before Ronnie pounced.

“Ooh! Didja go walkabout in King’s Cross then, you two?”

Vern nodded, mouth twisted.

“His bloody cousin, Ron, ey?”

His voice took on a nasal whine, which I gathered was his impression of a Sydney accent.

“Mate runs this bar, ey ey ey? ‘Nother mate runs this bar, ey ey ey? Got a good mate runs this club, ey ey ey?”

He shook his head in remembered pain.

“Don’t know how the hell we got up some mornings. Don’t think any of that lot actually DO mornings at all. Anyway, buffet food? That’ll be right for tonight, for me. Info says they’ve got ovens, so we could top it up with pizzas or samosas or whatever. And yeah, wine. Got to be done in Maggie River”

We had a plan, then, and once Jul had found somewhere to park our little bus, we browsed the little shops of what I quickly realised was a town that saw itself as an ‘arty’ community. Well, with wine and surfing, of course. Lunch was taken in a pub, as my eye had been caught by an offering of ‘roo steaks’ on a menu board outside the screened entrance. I thought: it had to be done, even if only the once.

We took up quite a bit of the inside, but it was a Thursday rather than a weekend, so no real problem. We stayed off the alcohol by tacit agreement that it wouldn’t have been fair to Kul, as well as the fact that none of us wanted to lose the afternoon. The arrival of our meals was announced by a raucous shout of “Which of you bastards wanted Skippy murdered?”

St Ives it clearly wasn’t, despite the arts and surfing links. And the sea was a lot warmer.

The supermarket had a decent selection of finger food, as well as breakfast necessities, and in typical WA style the cashier wanted a full conversation, along with chapter and verse of our respective origins. She stared at Chad’s hands for a while, before deadpanning perfectly.

“He’s from Tassie, so I just needed to count his fingers”

Chad blushed, and Vern took over.

“We’re staying near Cowaramup, love. Planning on avoiding cooking, so is there anywhere we can get a list of places that deliver?”

She waved at the magazines and papers racked near her till.

“Times has a weekend listing in it. That should do you?”

I must have looked too obviously puzzled, because she burst into more laughter.

“No, not the New York Times, nor the one from London: the Augusta-Margaret River Times. Local free-sheet”

There were a couple of other publications that looked like they might be suitable, so I gathered a copy of each for later reading, and then asked my own questions, which were simply about recommended beaches, and her eyes lit up.

“Where you are isn’t far from Gracetown, which is nice, but there’s a special bit to Injidup, bit up from there. They call it the Natural Spa. All it is, really, is a hole in the rocks that the waves make bubble, but it’s fun. Only problem is that you need to do a bit of rock climbing to get there”

It was Dal’s turn to laugh, but he managed to strangle it almost immediately.

“Sorry, Miss: wasn’t laughing at you; it’s just that we’re all climbers. One of the reasons we’re here. Hang on…”

He pulled out his phone, did a quick search on the net and found the new introductory video for Vern’s workplace, complete with our various successes and failures on that particular overhang, and the cashier’s eyes widened.

“I will save my advice then! Strewth!”

She looked at me directly.

“Those muscles don’t show up in that rig, mate”

Maz smiled at her.

“Oh, he gets absolutely hard when he’s doing a serious move”

A pause, a few snorts, and she sighed.

“I have told you: it is not deliberate. Sod you all!”

We still had an hour before our landlord was due, so Kul took us on a short drive to Gracetown and its beach, and then up to the one recommended by our delightful young lady. They’ll do nicely was the general consensus. We found our way to our cottages, and as we parked up, another Aussie cliché of a man rose from a patio chair to greet us.

“Mr Butt?”

Our driver stepped forward, hand out.

“I’m Kul”

A happy grin from the owner.

“Already been warned about that joke. Now, what I’ll do is show you around this unit, and then show you where the second one is. We could have fitted you all into one unit, so I’m guessing you’re after a bit of [cough] serious interpersonal time. If you decide to fight for the mezzanine beds, do it outside so you don’t break anything, ey?”

He unlocked the door, and I was immediately in love with the place.

“I made the tables and chairs, all from windfall jarrah, so every piece is different. Kitchen’s in here…”

He ran through the facilities, from hot tub to well-stocked DVD library, and after a handshake with three of us led the Butts and Ronnie off to the other ‘unit’, probably as Geeta was still mindful of Dal’s massive crush on my own lover.

That word, once more.

The ‘mezzanine bed’ had its own deck, halfway up the huge triangular sweep of glass that fronted the building, and with a grin at his own partner, Chad waved us upward.

“Got to be you two. Get settled in, and then we can decide which tub we are using tonight”

Maz was still in a teasing mood.

“Got it all planned out, then?”

Chad was clearly in an excellent mood.

“We have indeed! Stick the bits that need heating in the oven, eat out on the deck while we watch the sun set, then swimmers and bottles for the hot tub. And you two want a bit of a walk, as well. See what you can see, and by that I mean the stars. And what’s that bird, Maz? On the branch there?”

“Where? Oh! Dusky woodswallow, I think”

She turned at Chad’s snigger.

“That, young man, was your mind, and not mine”

“Well, still gotcha. Anyway, this place is gorgeous. Just remember, that bloke said he uses windfall timber, so Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“Serious point, mate? Don’t poke about any old logs, nor step over them neither, ey? Hear there’s dugites down this way. Serious as, ey?”

My phone chirped, and I took a quick look.

“It’s Kul, people. Wants to know which place---- well, ‘Your place or mine, big boy’ was what he texted”

Maryam waved at the kitchen area.

“He’s driven all the way, so I say split it. Do the food here, so we’ve got the mess to clean up, and if we’re tubbing it, do it over theirs so they can get straight to bed”

She came closer for a hug.

“Means we get to be outdoors. Stars and stuff”

Vern shook his head.

“Too risky. I hear there’s drop bears in these woods. Eat you from the head downwards, those mongrels”

Chad sniggered.

“We, or rather you, spent too long in Sydney. ‘Mongrels’, indeed. But he’s right about the drop bears”

I let them carry on with their assumption that neither Maz nor I had heard of that particular Tall Tale for Gullible Tourists, and once Vern had finished setting out his description of the carnivorous koala-cousin, I simply asked about the fabled mountain drop bear, and the two boys exchanged a look. I then adopted my best expression of feigned innocence as I expanded on the question.

“Well, I was wondering if they’re like the wild haggis. Mountain haggis have legs shorter on the right, so they can run faster across slopes. Trick is to get in front of them, so when they turn round to run away, they fall over. Local shops sell special nets on long handles to scoop them up”

Another look between the two boys, Maz with her hands clasped over her mouth trying not to guffaw, and Chad simply sighed.

“You’ve heard it before, haven’t you?”

I just smiled and nodded, to a very disappointed but hushed “Shit and bollocks” from Vern. He rose and headed for their room, with a “Just sorting out kit for later”, and I dialled Kul.

“Hiya Mike. Got a plan?”

“Boys suggested we eat here, and soak at yours. That means we get the mess to clear up, and you don’t have to walk after your soak. Also, Maz and I will probably take some time to star gaze, as we planned”

“Well, just be careful of the drop bears and---”

“Kul?”

“Yes?”

“Boys already tried that one, so they got wild mountain haggis”

“Free range?”

“Is there any other kind?”

“Okay, then. We’ll see you in an hour or so for liveners or sundowners or whatevers. And our host says there’s usually quite a magpie choir at evening. You’ll like that, or perhaps not. Later!”

There were citronella candles in the kitchen supplies, and while I don’t actually believe the things work, they would give us a subdued light that would be preferable to leaving the cottage lights burning. As we finished laying out the food, Vern slicing the pizzas as Maz and I sat back on a double seat, the other four arrived, and I reached down into the ‘eskie’ I had beside us.

“Cold ones? Beer? Wine?”

Beers it was all round, and as I handed up the bottles, a strange yodelling started from some distance away. There were multiple voices in the mix, and half a memory came back to me, of a science fiction/horror film where a similar noise was used for that made by the unpleasantly carnivorous monsters. I could almost find myself believing in drop bears as what was clearly the magpie choir continued to coo and warble. I looked at Kul, and he nodded.

“Same murderous bastard bird, Mike. Hard to put the singing together with the vicious temper, to my mind”

Maz settled against, saying something about butcher birds and currawongs, and the sun gradually settled along with us. The buffet was all we needed, after my slice of medium rare Skippy earlier, and after we had simply poled our mess in and next to the kitchen sink, we set out as a group for the other unit and their tub.

The tubs were indoors, presumably for weather protection, built in an extension behind the cottage, with large sliding windows inside insect-proof mesh screens. Eight of us fitted in with a little space to spare, and chilled white wine was in yet another ‘eskie’ bag on a shelf next to the tub, along with glasses. We had all opted to walk across in our ‘swimmers’ with a T-shirt or similar for a little modesty. It was now completely dark, but Vern and I each had head torches, so we arrived without incident, whether dugite- or drop bear-related. I looked at the tub for a seconds, as Ronnie flicked a switch to start if bubbling, and felt a little stupid.

“Um, bit late to say this, but I’ve never used one of these before. Is there any, you know, etiquette code involved?”

Kul clambered in and sprawled against the edge as he sighed in happiness, then looked straight at me.

“I suspect it is much the same as Steph’s Tent Pledge”

“Eh?”

“No snoring or farting. Then again, we might not notice a fart, with all these bubbles. Well, not at first. You know what I say, anyway”

Dal and Geeta, in chorus, “He who smelt it dealt it”

How much had we all drunk by then?

I pulled off my T-shirt and settled onto the circular bench, and it was a delight. Warm fizzing water, cold non-fizzing wine. As I settled, I heard Ronnie draw in a sharp breath. Ah.

“Strewth, Mike, what the hell happened to you?”

I looked around the tub, and so many thoughts fought for prominence and control, but the one that won was the memory of Kul’s word ‘family’. Time to put a downer on the evening.

“Road accident, Ronnie. Motorcycle. I was filtering through stationary traffic on the motorway. And I was next to an artic--- er, I was lane-splitting a stationary traffic queue on a multilane highway. You’ve all seen those bits of tyre left when artics, what the Yanks call semis? When their tyres go, explosively?”

A collection of nods, and silence apart from the sound of the tub’s pump, and a distant dog, ‘Bark-bark! Bark-bark!’

“Well, it happened when we, when I was just passing one. Big chunk of lorry tyre hit me there, fractured my breastbone. Had to spend a while in hospital. That’s the story”

And that was all of the story, except for the minor detail of Caro’s death, but not then, not there. Keep the mood as light as you can, Rhodes.

“Now, I am getting tanned more than a bit, so I will show you something else. Where we went climbing near Sheffield, the technique locals use is called jamming. What it involves is putting a body part---stop that thought now, Kul---into a crack---and the same goes for Maryam’s subconscious--- and making it bigger by--- Oh, sod you all!”

I waited for the sniggers to die away before demonstrating a hand jam, pulling my right thumb across the palm of that hand.

“Rock’s really rough, so it works well. However, if you look across my knuckles… See the pink skin? That’s called gritrash, cause the local rock is millstone grit, gritstone, and that’s scar tissue, which is why it doesn’t tan. Lecture over!”

Vern was muttering about trad climbing, and Ronnie was doing her own commentary about not being of sound mind. I simply said I would show them all when we went to the cliffs, and settled down further in the water, so that the bubbles washed over my scar, and the evening carried us further into relaxation, even though the double-woofer was still going. Maz caught my look up each time the two canine shouts rang out, and shook her head.

“I know what you’re thinking, Mike. It’s not a dog, it’s a type of owl”

“What sort?”

“Would you believe a barking owl?”

She wriggled deeper into the water with a happy grin.

“This is, indeed, the proverbial life, but if I stay here much longer, I shall fall asleep, and most probably snore, if not fart. You lot can have a little more room, because I am taking my man home”

Her grin vanished.

“Oh! Sorry, Mike: should have asked”

I shook my head.

“No, you’re right. Anyway, star gazing before bed?”

She nodded, and Dal offered us his room for changing out of our wet kit. I gave that space to Maz, using the bathroom for my own swap, and wondered if Dal was having rude thoughts about her being naked in his room, before damning myself as being too pissed to be sensible.

We put our heads round the door to the tub to say goodnight, and then set out for our own cottage, arms comfortably around waists as we walked in lockstep. There was a clearing some way ahead, and in silent agreement we headed there, stopping to look up.

So many stars! There were patches of light pollution off in the distance, but here the stars were shouting in their brightness, and I couldn’t recognise any of them… Ah!

“Maz? Over there, that’s Orion. So… South is that way… Got it! Got it?”

I stretched out an arm, and she sighed as she too found the Southern Cross. We stood in starlit silence for a few minutes before she spoke.

“Mike, this isn’t that night out in the bush Chad suggested, but it will do”

Another, shorter silence.

“That scar, Mike. That’s part of you, and so is she, and that’s not a problem for me. Just as I hope Alan isn’t for you”

“You said he’d have taken me for a pint, Maz”

“Yes, I did. I said something earlier. By the Sugarloaf. Used a word”

“I heard”

“I am a mess, Mike, in so many ways. Sometimes, I feel it isn’t fair to load it all onto you, and then you smile, and I have a suspicion, or maybe a hope, that I am taking some of your own load in return, because we are both so overladen, and this metaphor is getting out of hand, so… I used that word. It wasn’t deliberate, and I wanted to slap myself when it emerged, but I spent the afternoon thinking about it. Sort of trying it on, to see if it fitted”

“And?”

“I don’t know, Mike. It’s… When I buy a new pair of shoes, I used to be captivated by the look of them. Fit was secondary, and I spent far too many hours with sore feet. Meeting Alan was like finding that perfect pair of shoes. I thought… well, I feel I’ve found another pair. Don’t even think about making jokes about fitting together”

She cuddled even tighter to me.

“I am trying that word on for fit, love, but I am not saying you have to. Just let me know if it fits you, if and when it does. Now, could we please head back in and try out that other fit?”