by David Thorne
I really did feel bad. I’d grown quite attached to Douglas and let her inside to wander about a bit when no one else was home. She liked pizza crusts and Froot-Loops.
My friend Geoffrey was over one night. We were both antisocial so tended to be antisocial together often. We were playing Quake that evening. For those unfamiliar with Quake, it’s a game where you run around making grunting noises while being shot at. That’s all there is to it. The game kept dropping the host and it was determined that the fault lay with an unterminated Ethernet cable. This was before the days of wi-fi, when everything had to be connected, and I had a box full of tangled cables in the garage somewhere.
“What does it look like?”
“It’s cardboard, beige, and has four sides and a bottom. Kind of box shaped.”
“There are hundreds of boxes in here, what is all this stuff?”
“Junk.”
“Ooh! An Amiga 500. With a twenty-meg hard drive.”
“It’s yours if you want it.”
“What would I do with an Amiga 500?”
“I don’t know. You said ‘ooh’.”
“That’s just an exclamation of surprise. Or more of a ‘oh, what’s this?’ kind of thing. What’s in this big canvas bag?”
“A tent.”
“Ooh! What kind of tent?”
“Just a tent. My family used to go camping a lot. We owned a spot on the river. It was pretty nice.”
“Do you still own it?”
“No... I don’t know actually. Maybe. I haven’t been there in over ten years.”
“We should go camping.”
“What for?”
“Because it’s adventurous.”
“Not really. Besides, there’s more to camping than having a tent, you need sleeping bags and cooking utensils and stuff.”
“My nephews have sleeping bags, they’re in the cub scouts. I could borrow theirs. Come on, let’s go this weekend. I’ve never been camping.”
“What, ever?”
“I had a sleepover in a tent at a friend’s house when I was a kid but that was just in his backyard. He was older than me and convinced me to play with his penis.”
“Why do you tell me these things, Geoffrey?”
“It was his idea, not mine.”
“Yes but why share personal information that’s not relative?”
“You asked if I’d ever been camping.”
“How much older was he?”
“I don’t know, I was about ten so I guess he’d have been in his early thirties.”
“What? That’s not harmless exploration, that’s molestation of a minor.”
“No it’s not, he didn’t touch my penis. He just played with my hair while I touched his.”
“Again, that’s not really something that needs to be shared, except maybe with a counselor or the police. Why were you having a sleepover with an adult man?”
“Technically he was an adult but mentally, he was probably only eleven or twelve. He was in my under-twelve’s gymnastics team so probably eleven.”
“Right, so what you’re telling me is that you want to go camping because your only experience with the great outdoors is tossing off a mentally disabled thirty-year-old gymnast while he played with your hair in a tent.”
“No, I want to go camping because I think it will be fun. And I didn’t toss him off, I just squeezed and shook it a little bit.”
“For how long?”
“Less than ten minutes.”
“Oh, well that’s fine then. As long as it was less than ten minutes of squeezing, shaking, and hair playing it really doesn’t count. Did you cuddle afterwards?”
“No, we played Uno. Can we go camping?”
“There’d be no penis shaking or hair playing involved.
I wouldn’t want you to be bored. Besides, I was planning to work on my dissertation for Design History this weekend.”
“When’s it due?”
“Three weeks.”
“That’s plenty of time.”
“It is meant to be nice weather this weekend...”
“Awesome. I’m going to take my mediaeval society armour and roleplay that we’re weary knights on a quest, stopping to rest around a fire for the night to exchange stories and eat meat on a stick. I’ll bring an extra chainmail vest and a chapeau à bec for you to wear. And a weapon.”
“Right, I’m definitely not going now.”
“Oh come on. You enjoyed the last mediaeval society event.”
“I sat in the car while you all ran around whacking each other with swords.”
“Fine, I won’t take it.”
Geoffrey did take his armour. It was in a 70s brown vinyl suitcase onto which Geoffrey had hand-painted a crest. The crest featured a knight’s helmet above crossed swords dividing a shield into four sections. Each of these sections contained a different animal.
“You said you weren’t going to bring your mediaeval stuff.”
“It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.”
“In what situation would you ever need chainmail while camping?”
“Bear attack.”
“Yes, koalas can be pretty vicious.”
“Koalas aren’t bears. They’re marsupials.”
“They’re the closest thing we have to bears in Australia.”
“Fine, dingo attack then.”
“Dingoes won’t come anywhere near people.”
“One stole a baby.”
“That didn’t happen. The mother killed and buried the baby and just said that a dingo took it.”
“You’re just saying that because she was a Seventh-day Adventist.”
“She was tried and found guilty. Her religion has nothing to with it. I’m not even sure what a Seventh-day Adventist is.”
“They’re the ones that have sex through a hole in a sheet.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know. So they can’t see each other I suppose.”
“Fair enough. I can see where that would be useful. You wouldn’t have to bother doing your hair and the one under the sheet could have a quick nap if they’re bored. I’m assuming the woman lies under the sheet?”
“They probably mix it up a bit, take it in turns. Actually, now that I think about it, it might be Jews that have sex through a hole in a sheet.”
“That makes more sense. Mark Shapiro is a Jew and nobody would want to look at his fat head bobbing up and down above you while he’s going to town. What’s a Seventh-day Adventist then?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe they’re the ones that believe an alien civilization lives on Haley’s Comet and is going to pick them up the next time it passes.”
“No, that’s the Scientologists.”
“Who knows then. They’re all stupid. I’d give the sheet thing a go though.”
“As your only interaction with the opposite sex is at your mediaeval society events, the sheet would be a necessity.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Who’s that huge heifer with the moustache?”
“Louise? She’s one of our best fighters.”
“Only because she has so much momentum behind her. You’d need a fitted Californian king. What are the animals on your crest for?”
“What? Oh, they symbolise different things.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not going to tell you because you’ll only criticise.”
“No I won’t, I promise. What’s the seagull for?”
“It’s a swallow, it means ‘bringer of good news.’”
“What kind of good news? Mediaeval society event cancellations?”
“News of the battle or a royal wedding. That kind of thing, normal mediaeval news. Maybe an occasional sonnet.”
“Right, and the elephant?”
“It represents great strength.”
“Ha, okay.”
“See, I knew you’d criticise.”
“I’m not criticising.
What about the pig?”
“It’s a boar. It symbolises standing your ground and fighting to the death.”
“Unless Louise is running at you from behind a tree, screaming and waving about her wooden stick.”
“It’s a lance. A formidable weapon in the right hands.”
“What about the turtle?”
“The tortoise symbolises invulnerability to attack.”
“You cried when Douglas the chicken chased you through the kitchen.”
“I didn’t cry, dickhead. They were tears of rage. If I’d been wearing chainmail I wouldn’t have even flinched.”
We stopped in Morgan to get supplies. I bought ice for the cooler and enough food for two nights, Geoffrey bought an ice-cream and inflatable raft from the ice-cream and inflatable raft shop. The drive from Adelaide had taken over two hours. On the way, Geoffrey had wanted to stop in a small town named Truro to have lunch and take photos. It was the site of several murders in the late seventies and apparently he was related to one of the murderers.
“It’s hardly a claim to fame, Geoffrey.”
“Wow, jealous much? Sorry you’re not related to anyone famous.”
“Rolf Harris is my uncle.”
“The wobbleboard guy? What a joke.”
“He’s more famous than your murdering second cousin.
Rolf Harris was in the British Paint’s commercial. He tapped on the can and said, ‘Trust British Paints? Sure can.’ Everyone knows the slogan.”
“It’s weak. It’s not even a slogan. It’s just a question with a ‘yes’. Trust pants? Sure, why not? Trust that cat over there? Probably.”
“It’s better than ‘Let’s bury the bodies at the Wingfield Dump.’”
“Not by much.”
Interestingly, Geoffrey was a lot more impressed that I was related to Rolf Harris when Rolf was later charged with touching kids and went to jail for a few years than he ever was by Rolf’s wobbleboard or paint can performances.
It had been a long time since I’d been to the spot and my father had always driven. I knew the way, mostly, but only by landmarks. We exited Morgan and turned left at the post office, drove for almost thirty miles. Occasionally the river was visible and Geoffrey excitedly pointed it out each time.
“River!”
“Yes, I know Geoffrey. This road follows the river down so you’re bound to catch glimpses.”
“How long before... river!.. we get to the spot?”
“Another few miles before the turnoff, I’m meant to pull over at a big red rock somewhere up here and make you wear a blindfold before we go any further.”
“What for?”
“So you don’t know where the turnoff is. It was a thing my father made my friends do when I was young. So they wouldn’t be able to disclose the location later.”
“That’s kind of creepy.”
“Yes, one of my friends jumped out of the car while it was moving and ran.”
“Did he get away?”
“To where? There’s nothing out here. My father was pretty quick in those days, he played a lot of tennis. Even though he had to stop the car and get out, he still managed to tackle the kid in under fifty metres.”
“We should totally do the blindfold thing though. River!”
“Why? Who are you going to tell?”
“That’s not the point. If it’s something you used to do, we should do it now.”
“I don’t have a blindfold.”
“I can empty out of this Burger King bag and put that over my head.”
“Go on then. At least it will stop you yelling out ‘river’ every thirty seconds.”
“Please, even I’d get bored of saying it if it was every thirty seconds. I’ll wait until we get to the big red rock. Otherwise people driving past will see me.”
“Nobody has driven past the entire time we’ve been on this road.”
“We’re probably due then. I have to wait until we get to the big red rock anyway, it’s tradition. Is that it?””
“No.”
“Is that it?”
No.”
“River!”
We pulled over at the big red rock, it wasn’t as big as I remembered, but it was still pretty big. Geoffrey stood on it and made me take a photo because it had been a theme since a previous trip away together. I then posed for a photo and did an action ‘jumping off the rock’ shot. It was easier to do it than argue. Geoffrey emptied out the Burger King bag and put it over his head as we pulled out and headed for the turnoff. It was the very next turnoff after the big red rock but the trick was to drive slowly to make it seem like it was further. I turned down the dirt road, which eventually split into two smaller paths, and I took the right. The path was poorly maintained, there were ruts and washed out areas and lots of overgrowth. I drove slowly but it was very bumpy and Geoffrey’s bagged head bobbed and wobbled as if he was on a rollercoaster.”
“Can I take this off now? It’s very disorientating.”
“That’s the point. You’re meant to leave it on until we reach the first cattle gate but you can take it off anytime you want.”
“No, I’ll wait. How far away is the first cattle gate?”
“About five miles.”
“Fuck that then,” Geoffrey took off the bag and looked around, “River!”
We passed through the first cattle gate. There wasn’t much left of it. A wooden fence post that once held the gate up had collapsed and the gate was somewhere in the overgrowth, pushed out of the way years before. The barbed-wire fence was completely down and nowhere to be seen. The second gate had always been down and the third was chained and padlocked.
“I forgot all about the padlock.”
“Do you have the key?”
“Why would I have the key?”
“Oh no, what are we going to do? Can we walk to the spot from here?”
“No, it’s a few miles from the fence and I’m not carrying everything that far. The tent weighs a ton.”
“We could try crashing through with the car.”
“Sure, and then we can go over a big jump and freeze mid-air while a voice-over asks, ‘What have those Duke boys gotten themselves into now?’”
“The posts don’t look very solid, maybe just try pushing one with the car to see if it’ll break.”
“That’s not actually a terrible idea.”
It was a terrible idea. I nudged the car slowly forwards until the pole was touching, and then revved the engine. The pole held, I revved harder. My wheels slid in the dirt for a moment and then the pole suddenly gave out. Still revving hard, the car jumped forward, over the pole. The barbed wire fence, attached to the pole, wrapped itself around the front left tire, puncturing it with a fairly loud pop. I reversed the car several feet and we got out to survey the damage.
“This isn’t a good start to the holiday.”
“It’s not a holiday, Geoffrey. It’s a camping trip. Help me change the tire, there’s a spare in the back.”
“Do you want me to hold the lug nuts in the hubcap?”
“No, I want you to look for a flat rock or piece of wood to put under the jack, it won’t be steady on loose dirt.”
“Clever. You’re like a professional tire changer.”
“It’s pretty standard procedure. It’s written on the jack. You’ve never had a flat tire before?”
“Yes, but I called my dad and he came and changed it.”
“Well we don’t have that luxury out here. How’s that flat rock or piece of wood search coming along?”
“I’m looking... Ooh, the fence is completely down over here behind this tree, we could have just driven around the gate.”
The tree had been utilised as a fence post and, as it grew over the years, the fence wire stretched and eventually gave way. We cleared the area of any remaining barbed wire, changed the tire, and detoured through the gap. After a few miles of bumps, ruts and a quick photo-op at a dead cow, the river came into view. I pulled up in a clearing
beside the edge of the water and we both got out of the car.
The dock that my father had built was gone, washed away in a flood I suppose, and a fallen branch had demolished the shed he’d built, but apart from years of neglect, the spot was exactly the same as I remembered. Tall gum trees shaded two flat spots - one that we always pitched our tent on and another that I’d spent a morning with a pickaxe leveling - and a ring of rocks by the river’s edge still showed evidence of years of camp fires. There were even a few beer cans among the grey ashes, faded well beyond determining if they were the same brand my father had preferred though. The afternoon sun was already lighting up the cliffs red on the far side of the river and a couple of pelicans swam slowly past, heading towards a giant weeping willow on the bank. The willow’s roots twisted from the water and up onto the bank, creating a natural bench. Geoffrey stood on it with his hands on his hips, surveying the land like an English property baron.
“I thought it would be a lot bigger.”
“It’s ten acres.”
“Yes, but that includes all the bits not on the river. Nobody cares about those bits. I mean the campsite bit. And the river. Should we put up the tent?”
“Not yet. It’s customary to sit by the river and have a beer before we do any work.”