‘I turn on the torch and there it is — a hand.’
‘Oooh!’ Laura guided the straw-end proboscis over the bottom of the glass, and it sniffed around the ice blocks for any last morsel of alcohol.
‘A big, hairy man’s hand, reaching through the tent door. Within a second I grab it, throw my knees on the fingers and start stabbing at it! He’s shouting something in German, and I hear footsteps! He had a mate, you see, and the mate ran off.’
‘Oh, my God,’ said Laura. ‘I can’t believe you held onto him.’
‘And then what?’ Eddy interjected, sounding as bored as he could. Let’s just get the bloody story over with and fast-forward to the ending, which would paint Alf as the hero.
‘Then I beat the shit out of him.’ Alf casually sculled his beer and grinned. Laura recoiled, revolted, and Eddy seized his chance.
‘You punched him in the head or you stabbed him in the belly?’ he inquired.
Alf shrugged. ‘Oh mate, details. Let’s just say that, while I can’t speak German, I reckon all that jibberish could pretty easily be translated into Let me go, please — you win this round, big fella.’
‘Are you hungry?’ Eddy spoke in a low voice to Laura, so she had to turn towards him. ‘We could scoot off to the bistro and get a bite to eat.’
‘Bistro’s closed,’ reported Tank loudly.
‘I wasn’t talking to you.’
‘Oh, I’m starving,’ wailed Laura.
‘Have another cocktail, that’ll fill you up.’ Alf tossed her a packet of potato chips. ‘Shit, what is our budding Donald Trump doing now?’
Tom had climbed on a table and was reaching his hands to the roof. ‘People! People!’ There were guffaws from the bikers who sat nearby in a thick knot of bellies, leather and hair.
Tom pressed on portentously. ‘I am about. To Become. A Rich. Man.’
Eddy groaned, and dragged his feet towards Tom. ‘Mate.’ He stood beside him, as far from the bikers as he could, and reached up to tug at his friend’s sleeve. ‘Get down. Please. I’m begging you.’
Tom shouted on. ‘Because I have discovered a universal truth, that the universe will provide everything you need. I want to make that truth . . . I want to pass that on . . . I want to provide something to you, you good people, you people here to share my joy. I want to buy every single person in this bar a free drink.’
Luckily the bar was so crowded and noisy that only those immediately nearby heard, most of them bikers. They trotted to line up along the bar as obediently as school children and ordered triple shots of spirits, followed by spirit chasers. Eddy helped Tom down from the table.
‘Mate, that’s going to be expensive.’
‘I don’t care. Because they’re going to take the offer, aren’t they? Eddy? What do you think?’
‘I really don’t know.’ A set of antlers adorned the wall beside them, emerging right at the level of Tom’s head.
‘Would you have taken the risk? Would you have gone for the jackpot or would you have taken their offer?’
Eddy shrugged. ‘Well, personally three million sounds like a helluva lot of money to me.’
Tom’s face fell into a mask of horror. ‘Oh. My. God. You’re right. What have I done?’
‘I don’t— Hey, watch out!’
Tom clutched his head, bumping the antlers and making them swing. ‘You’re right. You’re right. What have I done? Have I really walked away from an offer of three million dollars?’ He was wild-eyed, and Eddy felt Laura near his elbow, her silent offer of help. Alf meanwhile had, thankfully, moved on and was chatting up another woman.
‘You’d better get your wallet out, you’re buying these guys drinks.’ He looked down at Tom’s jeans and was grateful to see a wallet-sized bulge in the pocket.
‘Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. Three million dollars! I said no to three million dollars.’
‘You’re apparently paying for these drinks, mate?’ the bar man asked him.
‘No! Oh, God, I’ll pay for what’s done, but no more! Stop ordering! Happy hour’s over!’
‘Happy fucking minute more like it,’ said one bikie.
Eddy said: ‘There’s still time, Tom. You’ve got the guy’s number.’
Tom was crying, as he pawed at his groin, trying to dig his wallet out of his pocket. ‘What have I done? I see it now, Eddy, I’ve fucked up totally. After all these years, after losing my marriage, I was there, I was there on the doorstep of greatness, of wealth, and what happens? I fuck it up. I get greedy and fuck it up.’
‘It’s not that bad.’
‘It’s not?’
‘Well, I don’t know that you were ever on the doorstep of greatness.’
Tom wept on. ‘It’s Grace. She would never have let me do that. She would have made me take that first offer, and she would have been right. She’s my compass, she’s my business sense. I am nothing without her, nothing.’
‘She’s—’
‘I wanted to teach her a lesson mate. I wanted to punish her, so I left. I owe her everything. I owed it to her not to fuck it up at the last minute, but I did. I did.’
‘Well, I don’t—’ Eddy exchanged glances with Laura.
‘You’re right! You’re absolutely right! It was that arsehole . . .’ Tom pointed bitterly across the room at Tank. ‘It’s his fault. I’m going to have him.’ He lunged across the table, tripped on a chair and fell.
Eddy pulled him into an upright position. ‘Calm down.’
Tom was searching his pockets. ‘I’m going to ring them now. I’m going to accept their offer. Maybe it’s not too late.’
‘Tom, it’s nearly midnight, man. Might be a bit late to call. And you’re not exactly at your best.’
‘I must! I have to do it for Grace.’ He turned his pockets inside out and looked around wildly. ‘That fucker! He took my phone, didn’t he! I remember now. Who the fuck is he, coming out of nowhere and fucking up my whole life? Why did you bring him, Eddy? Why?’
Eddy glanced nervously at Laura, who winced sympathetically. ‘He just sort of came, Tom. I couldn’t stop him.’
Tom shook his head. ‘Never leave a good woman. Never leave a good woman, mate.’ He beckoned Eddy forward and made an exaggerated attempt to speak behind his hand, although the words came out loud and clear. ‘I heard Romy’s come back to you. Heard she’s living back at your place.’
Eddy froze, his eyes swiveling towards Laura. She paled, her mouth slack and open. She stared back at him. He turned to her and spoke hastily.
‘It’s my ex-girlfriend, she had nowhere to go. She means nothing to me.’
Tom leaned forward again. ‘And I heard she’s pregnant. Due any minute. God, is that a moment.’ He slumped back in the chair and stared unseeingly up at the ceiling of the pub. ‘Watching your baby born. Watching her slither into the world, better than the best fortune you’ll ever have. That, that is better than three million dollars, better than . . .’
Eddy didn’t hear any more, because he was chasing Laura as she marched, white-faced, out of the hotel. ‘Laura, stop! Let me explain.’
Outside, the air was sweet and fresh after the fug of the bar. Lights streamed through the door, making a golden rectangle on the bitumen under his feet. He stepped out into the dark, towards her back, thankful she had stopped walking. Stars twinkled above the car park. God, he was drunk. Please don’t let him throw up.
She turned to face him, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes filled with tears.
‘I thought you were different. Why do I always meet the arseholes?’
He was shocked by her grief, touched by it. He took her shoulders gently and hunched his tall frame to stare into her eyes.
‘Romy is my old girlfriend. She dumped me almost a year ago and she turned up the other day, pregnant to another guy and about to give birth, with nowhere to stay. She asked if she could come back, just until she found somewhere else to live, and I said yes.’
Laura turned on him a silent look. Sure, that
look said. Like I’d believe that. Then she looked down at her feet.
‘It’s true. What else could I have said?’
There was a long silence, while they stood inches apart. A car reversed out and drove away. A couple swung past them, entered the bar and silence resumed.
‘I could have said no,’ Eddy answered himself thoughtfully. ‘It’s not my baby.’
Laura met his eyes.
Eddy shrugged, suddenly exhausted and dispirited and tired of his failures with women. Tired of the inevitable ruin. ‘You can ask Grace if you want to. Call her now and ask her, she knows the story.’
Laura spoke, her voice thin and tremulous. ‘Why would you take her back, if she dumped you and came back pregnant to another guy? No one would do that.’
He stared at her, grim and resigned. Okay, now it would all turn to shit. Just like Romy, Laura had seen him for the spineless wimp he was. Too soft. His father was right. And yet, that was who he was. He couldn’t have done things any differently.
‘I guess that’s the sort of dickhead I am.’ And he turned and walked back to the front door of the pub. He was sick of apologising for himself. Sick of feeling guilty for caring about people. Stupid, selfish people, who didn’t deserve it.
She ran after him and grabbed him by the arm, pulled him back and made him turn around.
‘I believe you,’ she whispered. ‘It is just the sort of dickhead you are.’
Eddy sighed. ‘She is nothing to me anymore.’
‘Good.’
And they kissed, out there under the stars, the door opening and closing behind them, a motorbike revving away, oblivious to it all.
Skipper spoke from the back of the car. ‘Nemen, when the lights are green, you go.’
‘Okay.’ Melody agreed. She settled into the passenger seat of Grace’s car and directed her eyes away from the dashboard clock. Had they really had to leave at six? Was she ever going to get into the spirit of the dreaming camp with Grace on board? She breathed deep, and felt oxygen enter her lower lungs. At least they could have a couple of days away to celebrate all the work of the past few weeks.
‘An’, nemen, when they’re red, you have to stop.’
‘Sure, Skip. So! Here we are!’
Grace frowned and clung to the steering wheel. ‘Do you know the way? I need to stop and get the oil checked.’
Melody breathed deeply and exhaled slowly. Grace had been able to borrow a car, and while Melody had planned to catch the train and hitchhike to the dreaming camp, a close look at the map had revealed that there would be little traffic going to such an out-of-the-way place. The universe might provide, but, then again, she could find herself on the side of the road with a four-year-old and a backpack, in the middle of a rainy night. The universe might provide little more than a stern lesson, which Melody wasn’t really in the mood for receiving. And maybe Grace’s presence was the universe’s way of providing. She tucked a feather back into the nest of her dreadlocks. ‘Shall we play I-spy, kids?’
‘Yeah!’ shouted Lotte. ‘I spy wi mi-liddli . . .’
‘Can you tune in the radio, so we get the weather forecast?’
Melody ignored Grace and felt her spirits lift. With feathers threaded through her hair, she wore flared purple leggings with a short striped dress over the top. She had Indian chains on her ankles, a new gold ring in her nose, and she liked the sensation of being Melody, herself, again. She was shaking off all that TV energy. Melody tried not to think of it as negative energy, because it had brought her positive things. It had brought them money, and they had met some good people. But it was a weird space to be in.
She tuned in to a good song.
‘No, no, we need the weather,’ said Grace.
‘I’ll give you the forecast, oh spacey Gracey. A weekend of vegetarian food around a forest fire, with the retelling of Aboriginal dreaming stories by a wise elder of the tribe. Kindred spirits, the gentle crunch of leaf litter underfoot, our children running wild and feral, eating from the communal pot and playing in the communal teepee—’
Grace groaned. ‘Followed by chanting and group sex, after which we smear ourselves with the semen of the guru and await the end of the world—’
‘What’s semen, Mummy?’
‘It’s a man of the sea, darling. Like a sailor.’
‘Is he going to be there?’
‘Who?’
‘The semen?’
‘No. I mean, yes . . . I hope the studio can cope without us.’
‘I don’t need to be back in the studio until Sunday.’
‘Are you sure we’re all going to fit in your tent? It didn’t look very big.’
‘What tent?’ Melody sat back and watched the paddocks turn green. She wondered if Van might turn up to the camp. Probably not with that reward out on his head.
‘The one in the back. That big bag, thing.’
‘That’s not a tent. It’s a swag. You don’t need a tent with a swag.’
Grace stared at her furiously. ‘You said you’d organise a tent!’
‘And I will! Don’t stress!’ Melody reached out and patted the shoulder of this woman who had become her unlikely friend. For whatever reason, they had been brought together, and Grace was being taken to a corner of the world that she would never have visited before. Melody was overcome with a feeling of warmth towards her, and shame for scaring her. ‘There’s teepees there, Grace. You and Lotte will be able to find a place inside them, no problem.’
‘I’m not sharing with strangers.
Melody sighed and watched a strip of shops flash past. This wasn’t the way. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I just want to drop by Eddy’s, and . . . borrow some camping gear.’
‘It’s seven o’clock! And I just told you . . .’
‘Okay, okay, I want to see if he’s back yet, from wherever they all were last night. My God, they sounded drunk. It won’t take a minute.’
‘Grace! What do you really want from Eddy’s?’
Grace sighed. ‘I want to find out whether Miss Laura was out on a date with Tom last night.’
‘Oh, who cares? Let’s just go to the camp. Please?’
‘Okay.’ Grace subsided sulkily.
Chapter 20
Eddy had had four very different orgasms throughout the night. One, he would have described as a sort of purple colour, as if the long evening of his arousal by Miss Laura had inflamed the world. The next orgasm had been a light grassy green, a sweet, spiritual floating through space, under golden tree arbors and through fern. Looking back, he thought he might have smiled at the moment of climax. The third had come after a short sleep, when he had woken with a mad itch in his genitals, driven crazy by the woman beside him, her sloping breasts, her dark nipples, the territory which he jealously wanted to claim all over again. He had fucked then like a teenager, selfishly and wildly wanting to scratch that itch. Then she had woken him at dawn, her naked body crouched over his, kissing his mouth, down his chest, down his stomach . . . He was a lost man, drowning in pleasure, and his fourth orgasm was a gently blissful one, pale pink and deliciously sleepy, her breasts wobbling above as she sat astride him and fucked, grimacing with pleasure.
He held her as if she might fly away, the force of her orgasm sending her into another land, her eyes closing, her neck stretching. He saw her face twist and thought, I did that. She fell down across him and he stroked her shoulder, shrinking comfortably inside her. Come back, he called to her silently. Come back.
At last she breathed deeply and lifted herself. Dragged her wrist out of the tangle of limbs and bedclothes and blinked at her watch.
‘Shit.’ She lay back beside him, in the hotel room bed. Her breathing was long and deep, the skin of her arm touching his the whole way along. He smiled at the ceiling, feeling the tendrils of her life entwining with his already. She was going to be late for work, he would help if he could. From such small foundations, big things grew. He lay on his side so he could see her face.
<
br /> ‘Hello.’
‘Mmm. Hello.’ She smiled sleepily, wrinkling her nose. Her cheeks were pink.
‘Can we do room service breakfast? Or should I call you a taxi to get to work?’ He felt washed clean of his frantic lust, enough to self-consciously wonder whether he had revealed too much of himself, been too much of an animal. He wanted, now, to be a gentleman. With Romy, he had nurtured and cared for her like a child, and if he had performed well enough in this regard, and a suitable period of time had passed since the last encounter, she might consent to have sex. There was always a sort of rolled-eye tolerance of his male urges, and he always felt slightly guilty afterwards. Four fucks in one night, as just committed, would have incurred a frighteningly large nurturing liability. Thus, he attempted to quickly start repayments.
She leaned over and kissed him. ‘Don’t you have to get to work?’
‘No one will care if I’m late.’ This wasn’t strictly true, but he could easily text Alf and ask him to cover for him. Although who knew where Alf might be, and whether he had made it back to the city in time for work. ‘I want to take you to kindy, Miss Laura.’ He kissed her on the shoulder, butterfly kisses.
His penis was hardening again. It was a national miracle. He was probably going to do himself some sort of damage. And she had a job to get to. He sat up, and pulled her to a sitting position. ‘Okay, I’m going to stop this now. There are a whole bunch of four-year-olds waiting for you.’
Laura rolled her eyes and swung her feet to the floor. She pulled on her panties slowly, sensible white Bonds-style numbers, and then settled her breasts into a serviceable, flesh-coloured bra, all the while eyeing his erection. ‘I don’t think you really want me to go to work, Eddy.’
He looked at her sternly and pulled on his pants. ‘I most certainly do.’
Melody stirred the lentils and sighed. The canvas shelter covering the camp kitchen sagged with the weight of the morning’s rain, and water dripped perilously close to the sacks of basmati rice. Somehow the kitchen, stocked with food and apparently no one to cook it, had become the domain of herself and Grace. Not that Grace was present at that moment; she was immersed in a session on kundalini energy in the tent next door, which Melody could hear over the gentle drizzle of rain falling from soaked eucalyptus trees.
The Near Miss Page 22