Growing Pineapples in the Outback

by Tony Kelly

  I take a longing look at the smooth surface of the pool through the chain-wire fence before slouching back to the car. Before going home I decide to detour to Brumbies, the only non-supermarket bakery in town, and pick up a vienna loaf. I text my poet friend Terry to lament the lack of sourdough.

  ‘All loaf, no vienna,’ he replies.

  I manage a smile but my mood plummets when I walk back into the house. Diana’s sitting in her chair and I can instantly tell her mood is flat.

  ‘The pool’s closed,’ I tell her.

  ‘Is that right?’

  There are lolly wrappers on the kitchen bench, along with empty plastic eye-dropper vials, and a tea cup with a used teabag stuck to the bottom next to the sink. Beck’s out of town for work and it’s just Diana and me for the week. I feel my irritation rising.

  ‘I’m going to give the lake a go,’ I tell Diana, picking up my keys and swimming gear again.

  The ‘lake’ is actually a dam around fifteen kilometres out of town. Beck says they used to swim out there all the time as kids, but now it’s mainly the domain of jet skis and people fishing. I’ve asked a few locals but haven’t been able to get a read on whether you can swim there now or not. Some screw up their noses and talk of duck lice. Others mutter about crocodiles, though it’s widely accepted that freshwater crocs – the kind that are harmless to humans – are the only ones that inhabit the lake. While driving out there, I recall something Beck’s brother David told me on the phone a few weeks ago: ‘You’d be crazy to swim there. I know plenty of dickheads who bring back salties from the gulf and release them into the lake.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ I asked.

  ‘For a laugh.’

  I don’t find the idea at all funny.

  The place is almost deserted when I arrive, and I park next to the picnic area. Then I spot one man in his early sixties drying himself on the cement slab in front of the canoe shed.

  ‘So it’s okay to swim here?’ I ask.

  ‘Absolutely. I swim every week.’

  He points to an island in the middle. ‘Sometimes I swim out there, and then on to the one behind it, and I’m gone for hours.’

  I don’t doubt it. He looks in good shape – the term ‘fit as a trout’ suddenly makes sense. I eye the distant islands, and then a line of yellow buoys closer in. A couple of laps around the buoys will be more my style, I decide.

  The man tells me the canoeists have cleared a path through the duckweed directly in front of the canoe shed. ‘That’s the best place to enter,’ he says. ‘And don’t leave your towel or clothes next to the lake’s edge, if you don’t want to get infested with lice.’

  I thank him and strip down to my bathers and walk to the water. It’s brown and murky, and surprisingly cold. Leaving my thongs at the edge, I tentatively step out onto the rocks and mud, and steel myself as I ease into the water. The channel is narrow and the weed is just below the surface. I force myself to glide quickly over the top, holding myself as high as I can, barely breathing, until I’m in the clear. Then, relieved that I’m not already itching from lice, I swim towards the middle yellow buoy, a couple of hundred metres directly out from the shore.

  Once there, I strike out to the left and pick up my pace. But I have an overwhelming sense of wanting to close my eyes and go to sleep. It’s as if I’m not getting enough oxygen to the brain. I immediately think of Diana in her chair or at the kitchen table, when she vagues out and becomes listless, sometimes falling in and out of sleep without seeming to realise it. When I watch her I imagine that this is how she’ll die. Slowly running out of oxygen and drifting off to a final sleep in her chair. It doesn’t seem like such a bad way to go.

  As I round the yellow buoy at the western end, my oxygen intake and expenditure reach equilibrium and I feel a boost of energy. Not unlike Diana on the days following her admission to hospital after her heart attack, perky after spending twenty-four hours on oxygen.

  I sprint along the line of buoys to the other end. When I get there I remove my goggles and look around. There are a couple of fishing boats out near the island, and one person walking a dog along the shore, but apart from that the place is empty. Not that I would know anybody. Other than Beck’s mum, nieces and their families, I hardly know anyone in town. I share an office with one other person over twenty years younger than me, and have very little cause to engage with other professionals in town. We don’t have kids in school and so haven’t buddied up with their friends’ parents.

  Nevertheless, I have made a few tentative forays into the community. Not long after moving here I was driving down East Street, past the tennis courts, when I noticed a sign advertising Monday-night social tennis. I love tennis. I grew up with a tennis court and have played all my life. Despite the fact that I’m a completely mediocre player, I decided to try it out. I was greeted by Brendan, the club president, and his twelve-year-old son, Matthew. No one else turned up. After waiting awkwardly for a while, Brendan suggested Matthew and I have a hit. I felt slightly embarrassed but Matthew seemed completely at ease. We played a set and I won. His heart wasn’t in it, I suspect. It wasn’t surprising that neither he nor I suggested a second set. The following week I fronted up again. Brendan was dutifully there but no one else showed – not even Matthew. That was the end of social tennis.

  A couple of weeks later I decided to join a writing group that met monthly at the library. I had a faint hope I’d meet some like-minded people, and that one thing would lead to another and we’d all be having post-group drinks at the pub across the road. But country towns are full of shy people, and when the convenor dismissed us at six on the dot everyone scurried out the door.

  Despite this, I like the writing group. One of the things I knew Mount Isa would offer me was the time and solitude to write. I’m by nature a gregarious person, and have to force upon myself the discipline required to write. I sometimes wonder if being the youngest of a large family has something to do with this. I have a fear of missing out. As a child I was unable to lie in bed if I heard someone else up and about. I would drag myself out of bed so as not to miss out on any of the action, even if the action was merely someone eating toast.

  My older siblings have strong memories of me always hanging around. As teenagers, they’d be engrossed in lurid conversation with friends around the kitchen table or in the lounge room. After a while they’d look up and see me quietly perched on the kitchen bench or on the back of the couch, eavesdropping. The conversation would stop, and either they’d wander off, leaving me stranded, or I’d take the hint and slink away. Later, like a moth drawn to a flame, I’d find another possie from which to listen and observe.

  But in Mount Isa, without the distractions and the FOMO, I’m carving out time to write. Mainly it’s weekdays in the mornings between six and seven, before work. On the weekends I scrounge time in among the garage sales, the gardening and the house rearrangements that Beck insists upon.

  ‘I thought the plan was to get rid of junk, not buy more,’ I say in vain, trying to resist another circuit of the garage sales.

  ‘Think of it as a social outing – a date even,’ she says. ‘And while we’re out we’ll stop by the nursery. Isn’t that exciting?’

  I groan. ‘Why’re we buying more plants? Once your mum dies we’re out of here.’

  ‘For the resale value. And who knows how long we’ll be here for? Mum’s looking sprightly, don’t you reckon?’

  I know this will lead to an afternoon of hole digging and planting. My day of writing lost. I tell Beck half the plants will die and it’ll be a waste of time and money.

  ‘We’ve no shortage of time,’ she says. ‘And stop being a tight-arse – we’re not paying rent.’

  On top of all of this, I have Beck and Diana. We are becoming a tight little unit. Even with her intermittent flatness and untidiness, Diana is very easy to live with, and I feel very welcome and
comfortable in her house. On our first weekend, as Diana was getting ready to go to church, Beck flippantly asked her to pray for us. ‘Why would I do that?’ she replied, quick as a flash. ‘I’ll sing a prayer of thanks that you’re here.’

  Diana is also very interested in my work. She’s particularly fascinated by the large native title meetings that I run. Who comes to them? What are they hoping for? Sometimes our conversations focus on the high drama associated with these meetings – the fights between families; the inter-generational resentments played out in a new arena; the deals struck to keep the claim afloat; the invective thrown at me, the white lawyer, who for a time at these meetings becomes the embodiment of the dispossession and oppression by the colonists.

  To my surprise, I don’t encounter in Diana the pervasive antagonism towards my work and Aboriginal people that overlays many of my interactions in western Queensland. The conversations that go dead when I’m asked what I do. The scepticism towards native title. The belief that Aboriginal people get special treatment, and it’s only a matter of time before they take the pastoralists’ property.

  Diana displays none of this. At times she displays ignorance, sometimes referring to an Aboriginal person as ‘dark-skinned’ or even ‘coloured’. But this is said as a point of reference, not as denigration. She’s interested in the individual, and she offers no judgement.

  And Beck and I are becoming closer. We’ve always been good mates – we like each other’s company and make each other laugh. We have that ease that comes when you know that neither of you is going to be a dick or embarrass you in front of your friends or colleagues. Beck lights up a room when she enters it, and being back in her childhood home in Mount Isa, with its limitless sun and sky, has brought her even more sparkle and joyfulness, which she has transported into Madang Street and into our lives.

  ‘Aren’t you pleased I brought you here to paradise, and now I’m abandoning you?’ she teased as we drove to the airport yesterday morning, past the mine workshops and rail shunting yards.

  ‘Are you telling me you’re not coming back?’

  Beck smiled and shrugged.

  ‘Ah, I get it,’ I continued. ‘I stay and look after your mum on my own.’

  I stop my daydreaming, pull my goggles back on and do two more laps of the buoys before getting out. I feel cleansed and less irritable, and relieved that I’ve found a place to swim. No lice and no crocodiles – at least, none that I’m aware of.

  I dry myself and sit in the sun for a while. It’s mid-morning now and the temperature is rising, but I can feel my body temperature falling and I start to shiver. This is known as ‘the drop’. When you swim in cold water, the body protects itself by shutting down the circulation of blood from the extremities – the arms and legs – and attempts to keep the warmest blood close to your internal organs. When you get out of the cold water and are exposed to warmth, the circulatory system kicks back in and the colder blood in your arms and legs cycles back into your core, bringing your body temperature down. I get in the car and, despite the trapped heat of the sun through the windows, shiver all the way back into town.

  On the edge of town I call into the First n’ Last store. Without a doubt this is the saddest shop I have ever been into. It’s a takeaway shop that doubles vaguely as a grocery store. The oil from the fryer always smells stale, half the shelves are empty, and what stock it does have is ridiculously overpriced. Usually my sole purchase is the local paper that comes out on Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturdays. It’s good only for the crossword (and the garage sale listings).

  Diana has had a shower by the time I get home and seems chipper. I put on a pot of coffee, open up the house and tidy up the detritus while waiting for it to brew. I plonk the paper onto the table. ‘Let’s do the crossword.’

  Diana immediately climbs out of her chair and shuffles towards the table.

  ‘One down, loosen, seven letters,’ I say.

  Without missing a beat, Diana answers: ‘Release.’

  5

  Down in the Dumps

  Rebecca

  My phone pings. I can see that it’s a text from Tony:

  How about the new Japanese place after work for sushi and sake?

  I grin and pause to think about what to text back. I look through the louvres of my study to the front lawn. Half of it is bathed in afternoon sun, and a canopy of frangipani trees shades the other half.

  I’ve been at my desk all day so it would be good to go out, but I had planned on doing some gardening. I have a number of seedlings in pots that need to be transplanted. I’ve been meaning to do it for a few weeks, and I suspect some of them have already died due to heat and neglect.

  Along the side of the lawn is a row of pots with frangipani cuttings. I’ve been trying to propagate some new trees. Frangipanis are family favourites, and my plan is to establish enough new trees to be able to give everyone a thriving one as a gift. These cuttings don’t appear to be doing very well either. There is no new growth and I recently noticed some slimy black fungus around the bottom of one of the stems. When I touched it I could feel the softness of rotten innards, a mush close to liquid.

  I told Mum about it.

  ‘That’s never happened to my cuttings,’ she said.

  ‘How do you propagate them?’ I asked.

  ‘I just snap a branch off and stick it in the soil,’ she said. ‘I’m not a gardener like you, but mine never die.’

  ‘I wonder if I’m overwatering them?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Mum. ‘They’re tropical plants and in most climates go for periods of time without water.’

  I think she’s probably right but it’s so hard not to overwater. It’s only October and the midday temperature is already in the high thirties. I’m still adjusting to the climate, and to the amount of water that both people and plants need.

  One of the few luxuries that Mum has acquired over the last few years is a filtered water dispenser. Initially I scoffed and said I would only drink water out of the tap, but as it comes out at boiling point I have acquiesced to the cooler.

  I do wonder how filtered the water really is. When I go to the shop to buy our fifteen-litre bottles I can’t help but think about one of my favourite scenes in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. A young waiter in an Indian restaurant fills up an old plastic bottle with water from the tap, whacks a filter label on the bottle and then reglues the lid on.

  I turn and look through the door of my study. I can see Mum slumped in her big green chair. The radio is on low but her eyes are shut. The glass of water I gave her an hour or so ago sits untouched on the side table.

  Getting Mum to drink water is still a battle. I can’t understand why she’s not thirsty. I gulp down numerous glasses of water throughout the day, wake up in the middle of the night to drink more, and always wake up thirsty.

  I often think about how little I drank as a kid. I’d have a big slurp from the water taps at school at lunchtime, and then another drink when I got home. If I was playing outside I might have a drink from the hose but that was about it. Sometimes we had water on the table at dinnertime but not all the time. I didn’t ever drink water in the evenings or before bed. I don’t remember feeling thirsty, but I did have a recurring dream about thirst as a kid.

  I can still see and feel the dream: I am so thirsty and in front of me hovers a frosty glass of cold water. I stretch out and try to grasp the glass but it remains out of my reach. I stretch a bit more, and just as I almost grab it I wake up.

  I told Tony about the dream.

  ‘Sounds like you spent your childhood dehydrated,’ he said.

  I suspect he’s right. I suspect we were all dehydrated. I don’t remember anyone drinking nearly the amount of water that we drink now. No wonder there were so many fidgety and cranky kids at school.

  I know that Mum’s kidneys aren’t working properly. She rarely goes to the toilet du
ring the day, and most nights I massage her swollen legs and ankles. Her skin is dry, itchy and red. She scratches her legs and arms throughout the night until they bleed, so I’m constantly changing her sheets. I’ve been trying to get her to drink herbal tea rather than caffeinated tea but it’s not going well.

  We have the same conversation every day.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mum?’ I ask.

  ‘What sort?’ she asks.

  ‘Herbal.’

  I watch her do her disapproving nose twitch. ‘Oh, all right.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ I say.

  ‘Can I have normal tea?’ she asks.

  ‘How much water have you drunk today?’ I ask.

  ‘A few glasses.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Are you the water monitor?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I am, actually!’

  Mum gives a wry smile and I hand her a glass of water.

  ‘Drink this,’ I say, ‘and then you can have a cup of normal tea.’ I stand beside her and wait.

  ‘Who are you now?’ Mum asks. ‘Nurse Ratched?’

  I roll my eyes.

  Mum drinks half of the glass of water and then I make her a cup of normal tea.