Growing Pineapples in the Outback

by Tony Kelly

  I think Tony’s right: now does feel like the right time to give something new a try. I find my diary, open it and add to my list: ‘Learn to play the ukulele.’

  I thank Tony and we turn off the light. I lie in the dark and listen to the hum of the air conditioner.

  And so year two begins. I feel very content. Like Mum, all those years ago, I think I may have found myself.

  8

  Saluting the Sun

  Tony

  I’m up early. Beck comes home today on the evening flight and I’m excited.

  Yesterday I’d woken up to discover Diana had had an accident, and there was poo on the floor of the toilet and the bathroom. I cleaned it up with toilet paper and mopped the floor with hot water and Dettol while Diana had her morning cup of tea in her chair. I discreetly checked her room and the laundry basket: all was fine. It was the first time this had happened when Beck was not around. I was unsure what to do. Until now this had been Beck’s domain. Diana said nothing about it, and she didn’t smell so I decided not to say anything either – but I remained vigilant.

  ‘I don’t think she was aware,’ I reported to Beck in an email.

  ‘It’s good I’m home tomorrow,’ Beck replied.

  She’s right. I’m ready for her return, and I think Diana is too. We miss the energy and colour that Beck brings, and I worry about the long days for Diana when I’m at work, especially on those days when I don’t come home for lunch and Diana has no outings planned. Yet I firmly believe that Beck’s trip to Japan with Lucille was vital for the sustainability of this arrangement. Not only would it help keep Beck sane, but it’d also reassure the kids that we’re still able to spend time with them. That we haven’t abandoned them. They might be young adults, but they still want and need their parents. But I want and need Beck back here too.

  ‘We’ll leave in ten,’ I tell Diana, who is ready for church; in fact, she has been ready for some time, and is patiently reading a large-print book in her chair.

  Marj swings opens the gate as we arrive at the church. ‘No climbing over for me these days,’ she says. Marj has had hip surgery and walks with difficulty.

  ‘But what if I want to?’ Diana quips.

  ‘You could pray for a miracle and do it when I pick you up,’ I say. I take my hand away and Marj holds out her arm to Diana.

  I want to go to yoga, but I have to come back here to pick up Diana in an hour so I can’t. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve been, and I’m missing it. I remember clearly the last time I went. It was close to 6 pm but still over forty degrees. It had been that way for weeks, and summer had barely begun. Janine sounded the gong, signalling that it was time to get up from the mat and move into the lotus position. Now for three Oms – the affirmation of the divine presence.

  I like the sound of the Om – the resonance of the different voices coming together – but despite nearly twenty years of practice, I’m still not completely comfortable with the chanting part of yoga. I’m too self-consciousness and, having eschewed religion years ago, I’m not inclined to affirm any divine presence.

  That evening I’d positioned myself against the wall. The air conditioner, even on high, didn’t have the grunt to push much air my way, but at least I avoided the direct blast of the setting sun as it streamed in through the high windows and crossed the floor of the studio.

  That night, in concession to the heatwave, the class focused on breath, keeping movement to a minimum. Janine instructed us to breathe into the abdomen deeply, diaphragm out. ‘Breathe out completely, diaphragm in. Still the mind. Rest, relax, release.’

  I need to be careful about relaxing too much; it’s not uncommon for me to drift off during relaxation exercises. As is the case whenever I stop and pause for a while: at the movies, at meetings, at lectures (in my uni days), in front of the TV, at the theatre (much to Beck’s chagrin – not that we’ve been to much theatre lately). So falling asleep at yoga’s not surprising. Sometimes I defy Janine’s instructions to still the mind, and instead allow my thoughts to run free so that I don’t drift off. Too often I have come to, prone on the mat, to find the others poised and ready for the next pose.

  My thoughts turned to Daylesford, where we lived for a decade. One year I signed up for a midwinter early-morning intensive program: two weeks of daily yoga. Leaving the snug bed, I’d swaddle myself in layers, including beanie and gloves, and head out into the cold, dark pre-dawn. Some mornings I’d have to pour water on the windscreen to remove the ice; other days the fog would be so thick I’d have to perch on the edge of the seat and peer through the window as the narrow beams of light guided me slowly down the hill. At the old weatherboard guesthouse I’d abandon the relative warmth of the car for the yoga room, which I knew would be cold, the little blow heater being no match for the cold seeping in through the cracks in the floorboards and the ill-fitting windows.

  As Janine’s soft lilt drew me back to the muggy present, I yearned for some of that cold. The long Mount Isa summer stretched before me like a heat mirage on a country road.

  Finished with the breathing exercises, we were now saluting the sun. Sweat dripped from my forehead as I bent towards the mat. The sun, as if in acknowledgement, emerged from behind a cloud and poured in through the windows. Those who had opted to be under the air-conditioner vent in the centre of the room were now paying the price.

  I gently stretched my hamstring as I brought my left leg forwards into a lunge. I was still feeling the effects of the tennis grand final two days before. Although Monday-night drop-in tennis had not continued, enough players were found for a Wednesday-night social competition. The game hadn’t commenced until the last of the sun had disappeared behind the mine, but the heat had lingered like a (not so divine) presence, pulsating off the concrete courts. After two tie-breaks the match was evenly poised at one set all. Early in the third, my partner, who had given it his all, succumbed to heat exhaustion. I played on solo, eventually losing 6–3. I tried to dismiss the what-ifs – the just-out serves and the missed volleys – as I stretched my arms above my head and arched my back.

  ‘Empty the mind,’ Janine had exhorted. ‘Rest, relax, release.’

  The sun had moved on now, and those at the back of the room were bathed in a golden glow. Earlier that day Beck had come home to find Diana disoriented and bleeding from the head. As Beck unravelled the chain of events, it became apparent that Diana, after returning from her weekly visit to the nursing home, had passed out and hit her head again as she collapsed to the floor. The ambulance came and took her to the hospital; apparently she was dehydrated again. Of course, it wasn’t uncommon for the elderly to die in this sort of heat; the obsession with hydration belongs to the young.

  We moved on to our final chants. Again three Oms. After an hour and a half of yoga our voices were imbued with a languid richness. The Oms were followed by a prayer in Sanskrit recited by Janine. At the end of each line, most of the other students chanted a response. Clammy from sweat, I remained silent, but I could make out the faint sound of thunder in the distance. Bending forwards in thanks, with my hands against my heart, palms together, I offered a prayer for rain.

  Sadly there is no time for yoga today, and I drive to Coles instead. I need to shop for Beck’s homecoming dinner. She has requested ‘a selection of salads’. Diana and I are not exactly thrilled at her choice, but we don’t push back. After the shops I swing by the church. I’m earlier than usual and the service has only just finished. Not wanting Diana to feel hurried, I stay for a cup of tea and some cake. ‘How are you enjoying Mount Isa?’ the priest, Merlin, asks.

  ‘The official or unofficial version?’ I reply, glancing across at Diana with a smile.

  ‘Whatever you like,’ Merlin replies earnestly. I don’t think he got the joke.

  ‘Actually it’s been good. We’re looking forward to Beck getting home today. Aren’t we, Diana?’

  �
��Oh, I suppose,’ says Diana, taking a cupcake from the plate proffered by a child.

  ‘You don’t mind the heat?’ Merlin’s assistant asks.

  ‘Not really,’ I say, trying hard not to stare at his impressive walrus moustache. ‘It doesn’t worry me, but I love it when we get the thunderstorms and rain.’

  ‘Good for the garden,’ Merlin replies. He and his wife also run the plant nursery in town – our go-to destination most weekends.

  This season’s rain came just before we went to the Gold Coast for a holiday with Georgina and her boyfriend. Beck’s brother David and his three kids tag-teamed us and came up to Mount Isa to look after Diana over Christmas while we had some time away. After almost a year, we needed to take stock, and there’s nothing like a week at the beach to make one feel completely at peace with the world. Poking around the rockpools at the base of the headland at sunset, we had no trouble recommitting to the Mount Isa project. We missed our girls in Melbourne but knew they were okay. We weren’t unhappy, so why not stay? As twilight descended, we returned to our apartment buoyed by our newfound resolve – and by the prospect of a gin and tonic on the balcony overlooking the twinkling Gold Coast.

  It was still raining when we got back to Mount Isa a week later. David and the kids had to delay their return as all the roads out were cut off. We didn’t mind as it meant we got to spend a few days together, although with four extra bodies in it, the house was bursting at the seams.

  I first got to know David in late 1990, when he, Beck and I went camping at the Gregory River and Lawn Hill Gorge. I was a university-educated city boy in my late twenties, wearing my black Akubra with a woven Murri band around the crown. David was very different from me – he left school early, worked in the mines and had lived in the north all his life – but he was very funny and a good conversationalist.

  We hit it off instantly, though for some reason I had decided to call him ‘Sunshine’. I’m not sure why. I must have heard the expression somewhere and thought it a good, blokey way to refer to someone. After a couple of days, he pulled me up and said, ‘If you called someone in prison “Sunshine”, it’d be a sure-fire way to get your head kicked in.’ I took the hint.

  After lunch on Boxing Day, we loaded up David’s Toyota with camping gear and an esky full of beer and meat, and with the three us perched on the bench seat in the front we took off for the Gregory, about four hours north. We drank beer, smoked joints and sang as we drove. It was insanely hot, and the yellow-tinted sunglasses I was wearing infused the terrain with a soft, golden glow.

  I was mindful of the fact that although I was a reasonably seasoned drinker, I was likely no match for David; I needed to pace myself. David had brought a bottle of Rebel Yell bourbon, which was tucked away in the back, and I suspected that once we set up camp it would appear. I was anxious that with bourbon on top of beers and joints, I would be a goner. I had my male pride and ego to manage: I didn’t want David to think I was the soft city boy I really was.

  Eventually, we pulled up at the Gregory Downs pub to get some ice for the esky. We had what I felt was half a cow in there, and the ice was running low. ‘Out of ice,’ the publican announced. We looked at each other in dismay.

  We continued on to our camp site along the rough dirt road. Once there, I took off my sunglasses and instantly realised that evening was still a couple of hours away, and the creeping headache I felt told me I hadn’t paced myself as well as I’d planned.

  Bouncing along the rough track had jumbled all our gear in the back, and as David opened the back door the Rebel Yell came tumbling out. I was standing off to the side, and I watched the bottle fall. It spun end over end in what seemed like slow motion, and then clipped the tow bar. The bottle cracked open, and as it hit the sandy ground the amber liquid drained instantly away. David put his hands to his head and cried, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Under my breath I muttered, ‘You beauty!’ I looked across at Beck and could see relief flood across her face too.

  ‘We’d better eat all this meat,’ David announced. ‘It’ll be fucked by the morning.’ Beck had been vegetarian when I met her, and although she ate meat now our diet was still predominantly vego. But with no other option, we cooked up all the meat in the stinking heat and munched our way through it, chased down with joints and rapidly warming beers.

  Later, David pulled a sawn-off .22 from under the seat of the car. We were horrified. ‘Ya never know who might be out in these parts,’ he warned. ‘If someone in what looks like a broken-down car waves you over, don’t ever drive right up to ’em. Stop fifty yards away, and one of youse get out and walk up real slow, while the other stays in the car, gets the rifle out and has it at the ready.’

  Appalled and thrilled in equal measure, we spent the rest of the night shooting cane toads as they encroached on our camp site. Eventually we went to bed. The heat didn’t relent throughout the night, and at around 2 am all three of us crept, groaning from the semi-digested meat, out of our swags and into the river, where we lay in its shallow, tepid waters, vainly seeking relief.

  There was no ice in the esky by the next morning and we had another carton of beer in the back of the car that we needed to chill. David had concluded that ‘the prick’ at the pub had had plenty of ice, but because we hadn’t bought our beer from him he’d pretended otherwise. So we hatched a plan to go back and test David’s theory. At midday, after spending the morning bemoaning the heat – and still feeling toxic from the beer, joints and astounding amount of meat we’d consumed the day before – we took ourselves off to the pub. From under the midday sun in the car park we could see into the dark reaches of the verandah, and beyond into the bar, which we imagined was significantly cooler than outside. We made a solemn pact before we got out of the car that it would be one lemon squash only. Enough for us to suss out the ice situation and get the hell out of there without giving the ‘money-hungry grub’ any more of our dough than we had to.

  We settled into our stools at the bar and ordered our squashes. Icy cold, they slid down our throats quickly. We asked the publican what the temperature was. ‘Forty-seven in here,’ he said. ‘Add a couple of degrees out there.’ I was dumbfounded. Without hesitating, we ordered another round.

  Once they were drained, we looked at each other and David said, ‘One beer won’t hurt.’

  ‘Only one!’ Beck and I chorused.

  As we were drinking our beers, Shane Howard (of Goanna fame), his partner and children came into the bar. We struck up a conversation, and to be sociable we ordered another round of drinks. Then another, and another. The hot afternoon passed. Eventually, we determined that it must be time to head back to camp. ‘We’ll need some ice, thanks, mate,’ David announced to the publican.

  ‘Sure,’ came his quick reply. ‘How many bags?’

  ‘Ready to go, Diana?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes,’ she replies, and gets up from her chair. We thank everyone at the church and say our goodbyes.

  At home, Diana settles into her chair while I unpack the shopping. I’m halfway through painting the spare room, and want to put on another coat of paint before lunch. ‘Are you in any hurry for lunch, Diana?’ I call.

  ‘None at all,’ she says. ‘I had quite a substantial morning tea.’

  I place the bluetooth speaker in the hall so that we can both hear it, and put on a podcast. The morning rolls into the afternoon as the heat slowly builds and Diana dozes in her chair. I go outside to wash the paintbrush at the corner tap in the front yard.

  ‘Hello, Tony,’ someone calls out.

  I look up and it’s Shawn. With him are Cheyenne and Jaydon and another person. It takes me a few moments to realise it’s Smiley from Dajarra, who was part of the rescue mission when I was stuck out bush.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m Cheyenne’s aunty,’ Smiley replies.

  I look to Cheyenne. ‘You should come to the meet
ing next week, then?’ Members of Smiley’s, and by extension Cheyenne’s, family have been in discussions with me about a new native title claim to the south.

  ‘Nah. Gotta look after bub,’ Cheyenne replies. ‘Best leave it to the aunties.’

  ‘Is this where you live?’ Smiley asks.

  ‘Yes. With Beck’s mum,’ I reply. ‘Beck’s away but she flies back tonight. You around tomorrow?’

  ‘Head back to Dajarra this afternoon.’

  ‘Call in next time,’ I tell her. I can see that Jaydon’s getting grisly and pulling at his dad’s hand. ‘You better keep moving.’

  We say goodbye, and I go back into the house and start rustling up some lunch. I tell Diana about seeing Smiley.

  ‘It’s so different to Melbourne. I never bump into anybody I work with there, unless it’s at a meeting. It’s always about work business. Here it feels more normal. I like it.’

  ‘I’m pleased for you,’ says Diana.

  I serve up lunch.

  ‘That’s an unusual name,’ Diana says a few moments later.

  ‘What is?’ I ask.

  ‘Smiley.’

  I laugh. ‘That’s not her real name. That’s just what everyone calls her.’ I tell Diana her full name.

  ‘I taught someone with that name in Cloncurry. An Aboriginal boy. I remember he was a very good student. He knew the names of all the plants and animals.’

  Diana’s memory impresses me – that must have been seventy years ago, before she met Ted. ‘I’ll ask if they’re related next time I see her. Perhaps we can get her over. I’m sure she’d like to see Beck again. She’s really friendly.’

  ‘Hence the name!’ says Diana.