‘We got one like this about six months ago. Mick Buckrell said he was keeping an eye on someone.’
‘Did he say who?’ I had a flashback to the mysterious Post-it note Mick had stuck in an unrelated file.
‘Uh, no.’
‘Did he say whether it was dope or something harder?’
‘He reckoned something harder.’
‘And which file would he have kept his suspicions in?’
‘This file.’ Lency tapped her head and smiled. ‘I gotta go to the post office.’
I asked her to check if my parcels had arrived. I needed that underwear, for tonight. Just as Lency was about to leave, she put through a call from a lawyer in Cairns whose name she didn’t catch. I was confused, but when I answered the phone it was Mark. ‘Would you think about coming down for the Anzac Day long weekend?’
‘Mark, listen very carefully. Our relationship is over, but you don’t seem to get it because you keep calling, texting and emailing me. I am becoming fearful.’ I was trying to remember the exact wording of section 359C of the Criminal Code. ‘You don’t practise in criminal law, but persistent and unwanted contact that causes fear is defined as stalking in the Queensland Criminal Code and I—’
‘Okay, okay. I get it, but you are over-reacting. You’re not in court, you know?’
‘Don’t contact me again. Do you understand? I’ve met someone.’ And I wanted to squeal like a teenage girl, He’s taking me to Friday Island! But I hung up instead.
Lency came in and asked if I was okay because I was yelling.
‘Was I? Well, I am fine.’
She shook her head and left for the post office.
While I was going through paperwork for the inquest and considering which witnesses would need to give evidence, Shay appeared at the door.
‘Lency asked me to give you these,’ she said as she placed four parcels on my desk. She tapped the top one and said with a cheeky smile, ‘Lingerie from After Dark is deadly. Yu got man, uh? You got the ginar now, that’s for sure.’
‘Ginar?’
‘The style, the outfit, to look the part, you know, ginar.’ She winked. ‘Hope you got the moves, too.’
Shay’s Broken English lessons appeared to be going well. That aside, I was faced with a pleasant dilemma: which set of knickers do I wear?
I was all packed and ready and waiting for Jonah at five. Then I remembered I’d have to cancel going to the markets with Maggie. I trudged next door with a note. As I pegged it to Maggie’s screen door, she walked up her drive.
‘You look like you’re going boating,’ she said.
‘Camping actually. I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to make the markets.’
‘If your camping trip has anything to do with the dashing Jonah, good luck.’ She gave me a big wink.
The dinghy slowed at a small arc of beach nestled into a hill. I clambered over the side and made an ungainly splash into the calf-deep water. Jonah passed me the esky and some bags, which I struggled to carry ashore. The wind had picked up and I shivered in the cool late-afternoon breeze. Such a contrast from yesterday. The dogs embraced the wide open expanse of sand and took turns chasing each other. I watched Jonah as he took the dinghy out, threw the anchor and reversed in. I had no idea what he was doing. He stood and assessed the anchorage while I assessed his physique. He took off his shirt and I had a quick opportunity to admire the way the sun reflected off the contours of his dark muscles. To my complete surprise, he dropped his jeans and dived naked into the deep water. He swam to the rear of the boat, reached into the hollow at the stern and picked up another anchor. He swam the 40 or so metres to shore and dug it into the sand so now the dinghy was facing the wind. I didn’t know where to look when he walked towards me. I picked up the bags, fixed my eyes on the sand and hurried up the beach.
‘Welcome to my cottage,’ said Jonah. ‘A friend called it that. Sounds better than shack.’
I immediately thought of one of his other women and felt a sting of envy. Stop it, I told myself. Jonah’s fibro cottage was ringed by a wooden deck and had glass windows and a sliding door. I was pleasantly surprised. I had been expecting a shack made from corrugated iron and a sand floor. The prospect of spending a weekend in a quasi-luxurious dwelling on a private beach with a gorgeous seafarer seemed the most adventurous and romantic thing I’d ever do.
‘Just stick that stuff in the kitchen,’ said Jonah, sliding the door open. He grabbed a towel hanging on a line strung between wooden posts and said he was going to swim, meaning wash. I glanced at him entering the shower, a corrugated-iron enclosure beneath two 44-gallon drums suspended on metal frames, and wondered if I should follow him in. Then I chickened out.
The cottage was a square design with the kitchen opposite the front sliding door. There was a regular gas stove, a fridge, a good-sized bench beneath suspended cupboards, and a wardrobe. A double bed covered in a patchwork quilt of floral material, like a giant island dress, was in the corner. I noted with smug victory it was the only bed. The coffee table was made of a large wooden cabling spool and surrounded by three unmatched lounge chairs. I thought of designer recycling.
Jonah came in wearing a towel, his ringlets glistening with droplets of water. ‘What do you think?’
‘It’s paradise.’
‘That’s what I think. I built it from scraps I’d collected over the years working on building sites. That’s why nothing matches.’ He went to the wardrobe, dropped the towel and pulled on some shorts. Like his forearms, there were swirls of dark hair on the base of his spine. I had that urge, again, to reach across and trail my fingers along his spine and keep trailing my fingers . . . I thought of long division and gutting a fish.
I offered to help him put the food away, start dinner, anything, but we needed to collect firewood while it was still light.
‘Are you out of gas?’ I asked, wondering why we’d need firewood.
‘I’m roasting our crayfish and sweet potato on a beach fire of casuarina wood.’
‘Sounds like something out of a travel magazine.’
I had thought the dogs were still outside racing around but as we walked out, they were lying on their sides on the deck. Jonah whistled and both dogs opened and then closed their eyes.
We walked along the sand, talking. He pointed out a massive container ship moving past Goods Island and told me about the shipping channel through the Torres Strait. He wished, one day, to get his Coxswains Certificate so he could drive the pilot boats taking the captains to and from these freighters.
‘I want to drive boats for a living. I love the sea.’
At times I felt the warm pressure of his arm against mine as we negotiated the sloping sand, collecting bits of driftwood. We turned around at a small estuary and walked along the top of the sand where tufts of grass and a vine with purple flowers grew, dragging back fallen casuarina branches, their leaves hanging in clumps like green paintbrushes.
While Jonah made a fire, erecting a semi-circular sheet of corrugated iron to protect it from the wind, I explored the property. Behind the cottage was a vegetable garden packed with basil plants and cherry tomatoes, the bushes straining under the weight of the fruit, and eggplants, their purple skins shining even in the dull light. I scrunched a spiky razor-like leaf in my fingers and recognised it as the pungent herb Jonah brought on Tuesday night. There was a separate bed of sweet potato and pumpkin, the vines embracing like lovers’ limbs. There was a forest of banana and pawpaw trees and other plants I didn’t recognise. The bases of all the plants were covered in paper shredding and seaweed.
I was reminded of a garden Aunty Emma put down while she was visiting. I was about ten. For a short time, we had sweet potato, cassava, and banana and pawpaw trees. Only the banana and pawpaw fruited, the root vegetables withered and died. Later I remember Mum buying frozen cassava imported from some Pacific island. I ask
ed her why she didn’t maintain the garden Aunty planted.
‘Too easy to buy stuff,’ she said, reaching for the plastic bag of boutique-type red-skinned potato.
Jonah appeared beside me, crouched down and dug into the ground. ‘Wanna have a shower? Bambai, later it will be more colder.’ He pulled out some gnarled root vegetables. ‘Kumala. Sweet potato.’
The wind had stiffened. At Back Beach, we were in the lee of the south-easterly, sager, wind, but here we were unprotected. I shivered as I headed back to the cottage. I dug around in my backpack for my clothes and new underwear – soft, shiny and the colour of precious jewels.
I made my way to the shower enclosure and stripped off, suddenly self-conscious about being naked when there was no door or ceiling. The water, heated by the sun, was a salve to the cold wind that blew through the large gap under the iron wall. As I dried myself, my skin became pitted with goosebumps, and I couldn’t get my clothes on fast enough. A decent set of undies made a huge and instant difference to my self-consciousness. My Cairns Tropical Bank polo shirt didn’t complement the lingerie, but I could deal with that because I hoped it wasn’t going to be on for long.
Chapter 23
It was almost dark when I sat next to Jonah in the sand while he stoked the coals with a pair of steel tongs. His arm brushed against mine, sending a current of electricity through me.
‘The rice is cooking inside and that’ll take another 15 minutes. I’ve put on the crayfish, kaiar, say it.’ I did and was corrected only twice. ‘The kaiar is on the coals with sweet potato, kumala.’ I told him I knew that one. ‘You’ve got to be careful or the wind takes over and makes the flame come more bigger and burn the food.’
‘It’s so peaceful, so quiet,’ I said.
‘Listen. It’s not as quiet as you think.’
I closed my eyes. ‘Let me think.’
‘No, no. No more thinking. You need to listen here. Let your mind go.’
He was right. I closed my eyes and waited. What I thought was silence was not silent at all. The wind, stronger than before, gusted through the casuarina trees like a giant’s breath. The coals hissed each time the wind blew. The branches of a tree scraped against another in an erotic rhythm. A piece of corrugated iron flapped, a hard metallic thud, thud, thud. A distant bird called, a haunting cry, searching for a lost mate, perhaps. The waves splashed against the sand, back and forth. ‘You’re right. It’s actually quite noisy.’
‘That’s what happens when you stop thinking so hard.’
‘Do you ever get lonely without people around?’
‘Sometimes. I had a place on TI through work but I felt more lonelier, is that right?’
‘Just lonelier.’
‘Yeah, lonelier over there.’ He smothered the flames. ‘It’s better to feel lonely cos you’re alone than to feel lonely when you’re in a crowd. That’s what TI was like for me.’
‘I hadn’t thought about it like that.’
‘No thinking, remember.’ He waved the tongs at me. ‘I like having my own place over here. There are a few of us who’ve put up shacks on Friday Island and P.O.W. to get away from TI. The council don’t mind.’
‘It sounds like squatting.’
‘It is, really, but it’s home. There’s lots to do here with the garden and there’s always something to fix. The generator is giving me a bit of grief. I think it’s on the way out. And the cottage, it always needs fixing up.’
‘What about company? Surely you need company?’
‘What sort of company?’
Oh, shit. I found myself in a trap of my own making. ‘Company like . . . like . . . well, it’s a beautiful place . . . to have company, people, I guess, to share the place with. Yes, people.’
‘Like you?’
‘Of course. And mates, friends.’
‘Mates? My mates don’t come over.’
‘Well, not mates. Others. I know, tourists, yes, have you thought about tourists?’
‘You mean other women, don’t you?’ He grinned. ‘All those other women. Matha gama. And not just one at a time, either.’ The firelight reflected off the stainless steel tongs like lightning as he shook with laughter.
‘Well, I didn’t mean it like that. Just . . . that . . . do you want, you know . . .?’
‘Know what? Do I want sex, is that what you mean?’ He was thrown into another fit of laughter. ‘Is that how you ask questions in court?’ I started giggling and I begged him to show some compassion. ‘So you want to know if I ever get lonely and want sex?’
‘Well, that sounds a bit crude. I was thinking, let’s say, female company. That sounds better.’
‘No, Ebithea.’ He shook his head. ‘I never want female company. I just want sex. It’s a bloke thing.’
‘I see.’
He told me about his relationships, a teacher here, a nurse there, another teacher, a public servant (he couldn’t remember where she worked). ‘And a policeman, no, I mean policewoman. It was a game, just fun, nothing serious. But I’m too old to be chasing women anymore.’
‘I see.’
‘You said that before.’
‘It means I’m thinking.’
‘You’ve got to stop thinking so much.’ He put the tongs down, turned and reached across, trailing his finger from my temple, down my neck and over my T-shirt, in the most erotic gesture I had ever experienced. I wanted to be one of those women he had occasional sex with, nothing more . . . well, maybe more if it was on offer. The flames flared and his face was illuminated in an orange glow. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine. As I lifted my face to his, he knelt before me, taking my face in his large strong hands, and he kissed me, my lips, my cheeks, my neck. He lay me down in the cool sand and kissed me in deep, rhythmic motions and I kissed him back. I inhaled him, the smell of citrus soap and fire. I drank him up. He tasted sweet and warm. He traced his finger down my neck, over my aquamarine-lace-clad breasts and my bare belly where my shirt had ridden up, and then down my thighs. I was welling up, spilling over.
He pulled off his shirt and I finally got to trail my fingers down his spine. I chartered his torso, the ripples of hard muscle across his shoulders and down his sides. I thought I could spend a lifetime exploring this body and never tire of his smooth skin like polished teak, the curves and contours of muscle, the springy softness of his ringlets and the whorls of hair on his arms and at the base of his spine.
My shirt was off and he traced his fingers over the intricate lace weave. ‘I like blue.’
‘It’s aquamarine, apparently.’
‘Well, I like aquam . . . aquamine . . . whatever it is.’
My shorts were off and he raised his torso and slipped his finger just inside the elastic of my briefs and any vestiges of self-consciousness were blown away by the next gust of wind. Gone were his shorts and the little protection my new purchases offered me. He moved above me and I didn’t dare take my eyes off him, his face clear in the flames. Our movements fell in time with the soft, slow scrape of the tree branches behind us and the roll of the waves onto the shore, back and forth, back and forth. Each time his ringlets brushed my face, I felt a high voltage firing from my head to my toes. Every so often, Jonah’s lips parted a fraction and the faintest sigh was stolen by the wind. All I could think was, Jonah can work his black magic on me, any time, any place.
We lay facing each other, our legs entwined just like the pumpkin vine in the garden. He whispered compliments I’d never had before. ‘I love your long, long legs.’ He stroked my thigh. Electricity followed his touch like the tail of a comet.
‘You are so beautiful, my own island princess.’ My heart jumped.
Buzarr stood over us.
‘I wanted you the moment I saw you.’ I shivered under his touch and his warm sweet breath.
Buzarr was now pacing around us. I tried to focus on Jo
nah.
‘Your skin is so smooth.’ I tingled from head to toe. He brushed his lips against my cheek. I wanted to cry out in ecstasy.
I did cry out when Buzarr stepped on my hair and ripped the strands from their roots.
‘Buzarr, go.’ Jonah growled. ‘Ignore him. He’s just feeling left out.’ He pulled me closer. ‘I kept imagining your arms around me.’ His lips found mine and we kissed in soft, slow waves. ‘Where have you been all this time? I’ve had riveries . . . revs . . . what’s that word for romantic thoughts?’
‘Reveries,’ I said with a lover’s kiss. I was touched by him searching for a perfect word in a foreign language. I wanted to drift off to sleep in Jonah’s arms while he whispered sweet nothings in my ear. Sweet everythings. Except Buzarr was growling and kicking sand onto us.
‘Buzarr, be quiet. This is important.’ Jonah buried his face in my hair. ‘You smell like a frangipani.’
I could not help smiling. If this romantic performance was a way for Jonah to lure women to his secret tropical hideaway, good on him. I needed to chillax and go with the flow.
Buzarr started barking, but I wasn’t worried till Sissy appeared whimpering.
‘Okay, this better be important.’ Jonah slipped on his shorts while he was still lying down.
I rolled luxuriously on my side like a Roman Empress, just as Buzarr and Sissy raced towards the cottage.
‘Ya gar, the kaiar,’ said Jonah, poking at the charred remains of crayfish and sweet potato. He bolted behind the dogs. ‘Shit, the rice.’
I found my discarded clothes and as I stood, I realised I had not thought about safe sex. What was happening to me? I was supposed to be a responsible mature woman. I wasn’t worried about falling pregnant, certain I was past it. After decades of irregular periods, I’d been a bit careless contraception-wise with Mark, but nothing came of it. I was certain my ovaries had shrivelled up and died. But I was stupid, stupid, stupid to have unprotected sex. Especially with someone like Jonah.
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