Can You Keep a Secret?

by Caroline Overington

  ‘Mum’s not feeling well.’

  That was in fact true. Ruby was often not feeling well. She smoked too much dope and could spend days in bed, leaving Caitlin to fend for herself, which was how Caitlin learned to cook. Towards the end of her time on Magnetic, she was regularly feeding her mother, but none of that – she was sure of it – was what the three men from New York would want to hear, so she said, ‘I learned to fish on Magnetic. I’m still pretty good.’

  ‘Fish for eating?’ said Robert. ‘How cool.’

  ‘I’m doing fish tonight,’ said Caitlin, ‘but I didn’t catch these ones. We can go fishing, though. Ask Trevor. We can go somewhere tomorrow to catch some. I’ll clean them. I’ll cook them. It’s not that hard.’

  ‘Prove that to me,’ said Robert. ‘I’m starving. Cook us a fish, Daisy.’

  So, Caitlin cooked for them: she baked fish in tinfoil, and chopped cherry tomatoes for a fresh salad, and made damper in the oven, and arranged it all to look delicious in large white bowls and on flat wooden platters.

  ‘Daisy Duke, you’re amazing,’ said Robert, wiping his plate with the heel of the round loaf. ‘It’s the best thing I’ve eaten all day.’

  ‘It’s all we’ve eaten all day,’ said Colby, and once again Caitlin was left to wonder, ‘Have I offended this bloke? Is he always like this, or did I do something wrong?’

  Chapter 5

  Morning came, brighter and more beautiful than the three men from Manhattan could believe. Caitlin made breakfast: mangoes, paw-paw, watermelon, grapefruit, pancakes and instant coffee.

  ‘Black or white?’ she asked.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Robert looked shocked.

  ‘The coffee – black or white?’

  ‘She means with milk or without,’ said Colby. ‘Mine’s fine without.’ He sipped from the cup Caitlin gave him. Her hand was shaking. Every time he opened his mouth, he made her feel like she couldn’t get things right.

  ‘What is this?’ asked Colby.

  ‘It’s Nescafé. We got the gold one.’

  ‘You don’t have a percolator?’ he asked, but Caitlin didn’t know what he meant. ‘It’s some kind of drip-coffee machine,’ she told Trevor, later, ‘and they’re amazed that we don’t have one.’

  ‘We’ll ask on Hamilton Island,’ said Trevor. ‘We don’t want to give them a reason to complain.’

  After breakfast, the jet skis came out. Grant and Robert whooped and hollered and bounced off the waves. Colby went as fast but he rode silently. They swam, sunbaked and read books in their deckchairs. They stopped for lunch on a little island, and slept for a while afterwards and, by 4 pm, with the sun still high, they were ready for some diving.

  ‘It’s good visibility,’ Trevor said. ‘Clear water, clear skies. You’ll see a lot of coral, maybe some turtles, maybe some rays.’

  Caitlin led the way to the lower deck. Robert joked around, saying, ‘And what happens if the oxygen runs out here, Daisy Duke? Who’s going to give me mouth-to-mouth?’

  Colby shook his head. ‘Give it up, will you, Robert? Caitlin’s got a job to do here.’ He was cleaning his mask with two of his broad fingers and his spit.

  ‘She doesn’t mind, do you, Daisy Duke?’ said Robert.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Caitlin.

  Colby said no more. He adjusted his mouthpiece, and fell backwards off the back of the boat into the azure sea. Caitlin watched him go. He was a cold fish, no doubt about it. Yet she found herself wanting to go with him, to take his hand under water, if he’d let her, and point out the best of the coral and the rays and see if she could get him to break out of his shell. But she knew it wasn’t possible. Colby was a guest. Caitlin was working. Not only that, he hadn’t yet shown any sign of being interested.

  She checked her watch. She was young, and had been diving only three times – in Queensland, you really have to be sixteen before anyone will take you out – and the diving had been the part of the trip that she’d been most nervous about. What if something went wrong? Was she supposed to go down and get somebody who was panicking? She wasn’t sure that she could do it. But it was fine. The guests, all of them experienced divers, surfaced.

  ‘How was it?’ she asked them.

  Robert removed his regulator and stuck both thumbs up. ‘Brilliant!’ he said. His nose was mashed behind his mask and his lips were blue. ‘You should come down. There’s turtles, stingrays. I’m pretty sure I saw a shark. You should see it.’

  ‘I have seen it,’ Caitlin said, smiling.

  ‘Of course you have.’ Robert dragged himself up to the back deck, and dumped his oxygen tank to the side. ‘I keep forgetting. This isn’t a holiday for you. This is where you live. I’m green. I’m jealous.’ He was doing that funny dance that people do when they’re trying to get a wetsuit off after swimming. Caitlin went to help.

  ‘This is our holiday of a lifetime, but it’s your everyday,’ Robert said. Stripped of his wetsuit, Caitlin noticed he was covered in black curls. They marched from the small of his back, up over his rounded shoulders, and because they were wet, they’d stretched out and were clinging upwards, like a million little brushstrokes. ‘What do you say, Colby? Want to swap Wall Street for the Whitsundays? Give up the rat race and come live Down Under with the world’s most beautiful women?’

  He winked at Caitlin, but Colby, only just free of his oxygen tank, did not respond.

  And so it went on. Trevor steered and Caitlin served, and the three guests lazed about in the sun, rode jet skis, snorkelled and scuba-dived; and then, except for that first night when they’d stayed in, they’d have showers and disembark at whatever island Trevor had chosen for them. They’d go ashore to eat and drink and – Caitlin guessed – to flirt and dance and make out with whatever girls they found there, and then, sometime after midnight they’d stagger lazily and happily back to the Blue Moon. Caitlin, who never managed to fall asleep before they were all back on deck, would hear them walking into walls as they made their way to their cabins.

  ‘They’re having a good time,’ Trevor would say in a voice that sounded both relieved and satisfied, each and every morning.

  Caitlin said, ‘Well, two of them are – Robert and Grant. But that Colby, he’s a bit up himself, isn’t he? He never even cracks a smile.’

  ‘He’s alright,’ said Trevor, ‘maybe just uptight. They’ve got big jobs, these blokes. The stress, it gets to them. Just keep doing what you’re doing. He seems happy enough to me.’

  Which was fair enough. Colby did seem happy enough. He went on the jet skis. He dived on the wrecks. He went ashore in the evenings. He came in late, smelling of beer, and in the morning he talked to Robert – and laughed loudly – about the fun they’d had in the pub the night before. He ate everything that Caitlin cooked, and he was helpful – he’d take her hand, and help her back onto the diving ramp if they’d all been in the water; he’d hold the door open if he saw her coming up from the galley with sliced watermelon for breakfast; but not once – not until the very last night – did he show any sign that he might actually be interested in getting cosy with her.

  Colby hadn’t had sex for seven days, not since he’d left Manhattan. That, for him, was a long time, and Caitlin was cute and, he sensed, keen. Plus, she was single. He’d never been to bed with an Australian girl, so that would be a good thing to get under his belt. But he’d have to handle it carefully. He would only be sowing his wild oats. He would need to keep things casual. And yet, in his experience, people still got hurt, and he hated that.

  Trevor pulled up at Townsville Pier. Robert and Grant were heading ashore and Trevor was planning to take advantage of their location to disembark to see Carol.

  ‘I’ll pop home to see the handbrake,’ he said. ‘She’ll be happy to see me. Provided that’s alright. That nobody needs me here?’

  ‘No, no, you go ahead. And good for you, Captain,’ Robert had said. ‘Doing your duty. I’m planning to do my duty, too, to cuddle as many women as I can. If
you think about it, these are the last women we’ll see this century, and we won’t see any more until the next millennium, and that makes me feel like I should take advantage. What do you say, Colby?’

  ‘I think I’ll give it a miss tonight,’ he replied. He did not look at Caitlin, and Caitlin did not look at him, but Robert wasn’t fooled. He looked from one to the other and back again, and grinned.

  ‘Alright,’ he said, winking. ‘No worries!’

  Robert and Grant were the first to disembark. Caitlin set about clearing the table, and stacking crockery back into the cupboards, her every thought about Colby. She could hear him in his cabin, showering. Trevor called out, ‘I’m off then,’ and Caitlin said, ‘See you later.’ And then things went quiet.

  Caitlin climbed barefoot up to the top deck and sat with her legs stretched out. She was wearing bikini bottoms and a knotted string anklet. She had her Trevor’s Reef Tours shirt on, too. Carol had given her only the one, and Caitlin had been rinsing it in sea water and drying it in the sun. It had faded and softened, and was prettier for it.

  She looked out over the pier. It was lit, and under each light a thousand little insects swarmed. Some of the fish were bioluminescent. After a moment or two, she heard Colby coming quietly up the ladder.

  ‘Nice evening,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Caitlin.

  ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  ‘No, of course not. That would be nice.’

  Colby took a beer from the Esky under one of the leather banquettes and sat down, closer than Caitlin had expected. Perhaps he understood how little time they had before Trevor was due back, because he wasted none of it.

  ‘You know, you have a beautiful accent,’ he said.

  Caitlin smiled. ‘I don’t have an accent,’ she said. ‘You have an accent.’

  Colby laughed.

  ‘You know, you’re nothing like a New York girl.’

  ‘Well, you’re not like a Japanese man,’ said Caitlin, and then she blushed because it sounded stupid.

  Colby looked amused. ‘But why would I be?’ he asked. ‘I’m not from Japan. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m from New York City.’

  ‘Well, why would I look like I’m from New York?’ countered Caitlin. ‘I’m from Magnetic Island.’

  ‘Fair enough. But now I’m intrigued … What are the Japanese like? Compared to me, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Caitlin. ‘I don’t know what I’m talking about.’

  Colby’s lean legs, tanned from the trip, were now as close as he could get to Caitlin’s bare legs without them actually touching. His feet, like hers, were also bare, but they were twice as big with prominent veins.

  ‘All I know is that Japan must be a strange place,’ Caitlin said, ‘because the tourists we get up here, when they get off the bus, they walk straight down to the sand. They don’t take off their shoes. I don’t mean their runners. They go down in their suits with their work shoes on.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Colby, nodding, ‘you’re right. I wouldn’t do that. But that can’t be the only thing. What else do Japanese tourists do?’

  ‘Well, they go crazy for mangoes. I mean it. They walk down the street, they see mangoes rotting on the ground and they take photographs. Because one mango in Japan is eighty dollars. They sell them in department stores. They give them as gifts to people. Instead of flowers, they take a mango.’

  Colby laughed. He’d finished the beer and was studying the bottle.

  ‘Can I get you another?’ asked Caitlin, moving to get up.

  ‘My turn.’ Colby gently pulled her back down. ‘Let me get one for you.’

  Caitlin thought of Trevor seeing Carol. He’d probably have a beer or even a glass of wine. But he was the boss. And she was still on the clock. So she shook her head – no – and said, ‘I better not.’

  ‘Because you’re working?’

  ‘Because I’m working.’

  ‘Then tell me another story. What else do the Japanese do?’

  ‘Well … they don’t take baths. A friend of mine who works in one of the big hotels in Brisbane, she told me they think it’s disgusting to sit there in dirty water, so they stand outside the bath and turn the shower on themselves. It soaks the carpet.’

  ‘Let me see …’ said Colby. ‘Would you let me have a bath at your place, if I promised not to wet your carpet?’

  Caitlin was a smart girl. She knew a pick-up line when she heard one.

  ‘I don’t have a bath,’ she said, ‘I’ve only got a shower … You’ll have to find somewhere else to have a bath.’

  ‘Alright, but what about if I don’t want a bath? What if I just need a bed?’

  It was as direct a proposition as Caitlin had ever received. Her insides swam. She was enjoying this. ‘But that’s another thing the Japanese don’t do – they don’t sleep in proper beds,’ she said.

  ‘Are we back on the Japanese now?’

  ‘My friend from the hotel told me: they spent all this money on new mattresses but they’re too soft. They’d rather sleep on the floor.’

  ‘Do you like a soft bed, Caitlin?’

  ‘I suppose I do.’

  ‘I do, too,’ said Colby, and he leaned over, and she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he brushed his lips against her ear and said, ‘We’re staying at the Sunshine Shack on Main Street tomorrow night. Just for the one night, then I’m supposed to head down to Sydney for the fireworks.’

  ‘I know where it is,’ said Caitlin.

  Colby’s voice was hoarse. ‘I want you to come and knock on my door. I want to spend one more night with you.’

  Caitlin nodded, and then they swiftly separated. Trevor was coming up the stairs.

  Chapter 6

  The Sunshine Shack. It sounds quaint, maybe even a bit romantic, but of course it wasn’t.

  Colby had left his boat shoes on the mat outside his door so Caitlin would be able to find him without having to ask at reception, and she knocked – very quietly.

  ‘I’m so sorry about this place,’ he said, letting her in.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ Caitlin asked, concerned. But of course she was seeing the Sunshine Shack as a girl from far north Queensland would see it, and not as a fund manager from Manhattan would. Colby’s room was typical of a 1970s Australian hotel-motel, with a pine double bed and a quilted, patterned bedspread; a plastic toilet lid with a paper strip over it to prove that it had been cleaned since the last time somebody rented the room; a shower cubicle with three-panel sliding door and a piece of soap in a sealed packet; a small TV atop a pine dresser; stiff towels; and a white plastic kettle with a very short cord.

  ‘What’s right about it? They told us it was three-star, and that was as good as we could get in Townsville.’ Colby kicked the door shut behind Caitlin. ‘Maybe the booking company made a mistake.’

  ‘It looks okay to me,’ said Caitlin, and that was all she got to say. Colby took her in his arms and forced her back towards the bed.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for days to get you alone,’ he said, between kisses on her neck.

  ‘You didn’t make it very obvious.’

  ‘Am I making it obvious now?’

  He was. And then morning came, and with it a knock on the door.

  ‘Who could that be?’ asked Colby. He put an apricot-coloured towel around his waist and went to look. The Sunshine Shack was a family-run motel. The managers – Liz and Brian Forsyth – had taken on the business after Brian got retrenched from the old State Bank in Melbourne.

  It was Liz who came to the door, carrying a breakfast tray.

  ‘Good morning! Where would you like this?’

  ‘Ah, anywhere is fine,’ said Colby.

  Liz looked past him into the room, and what she saw made her roll her eyes. Caitlin had gone into the bathroom to hide, but the mattress was half off the base and, when Liz went to walk across the room to put the tray down, she stepped straight onto an empty champagne bottle, hidden unde
r a pile of discarded clothes.

  ‘Check-out is at ten,’ she said primly.

  ‘Gotcha,’ said Colby as she left. He was already lifting the shiny cloche off a plate. There were strips of bacon underneath and fried eggs; there was a paper bag with cold toast and four squares of hard butter; a milk jug with Glad Wrap stretched over the top; and knives and forks, rolled up in a paper serviette.

  ‘Does this just come with the room? How do they know what I even want?’ he muttered to himself.

  ‘I ordered it,’ said Caitlin. She’d dragged a top sheet into the bathroom when Liz knocked on the door, and now she was wearing it like a toga, loose around her young bronze body.

  Colby looked up. ‘Jesus, look at you. But when?’

  ‘While you were sleeping.’

  Colby shook his head, bewildered.

  ‘You’re full of tricks,’ he said. ‘I could have sworn I didn’t let you up all night.’

  ‘I’m clever like that,’ said Caitlin, snapping her fingers. ‘Now you see me, now you don’t.’

  They sat on the bed together, Colby in his towel and Caitlin in her sheet, feeding bacon to each other with their fingers, and fighting over the last of the coffee. Then the phone rang and it was Liz’s husband, Brian, wondering when Mr Colbert would be checking out.

  ‘Not today,’ he said, ‘I need to stay another night. Can you organise that for me? That’s great. Thank you. No, just me. The other two will be leaving today. Unless you hear different from them.’

  Caitlin looked surprised. ‘But aren’t you supposed to catch the plane to Sydney today? To see the fireworks? What will you tell Robert?’

  ‘That I’ve fallen in love,’ said Colby flippantly.

  ‘Oh right, sure. Of course you have. Me too.’ Caitlin was trying to laugh it off but, quizzed, she’d have had to admit that she was falling for Colby. He was very handsome. He was also smart, and when they were alone together, funny. The sex had been great. His accent was cute. But she had to be realistic. He was ten years older, on holiday, and he lived in New York City. He’d made it pretty clear – not bluntly, and certainly not unkindly – that he was heading home.