Under the Southern Cross

by Claire McNab

  When he strode to the front of the group I was irresistibly reminded of a prefect about to start a school excursion. We set off, obediently following his lead, the clipped words of his English accent floating back as he enthused to a particularly important Japanese tour organizer.

  "Our Fred's wooing the yen," said Steve as he caught up to me. Today he was wearing a jungle green version of his Aussie outfit, and I glanced at his belt, almost expecting to see a machete, or at the very least, a large knife. "Where's Lee?" he said.

  "Ahead of us. She's talking to the Russian delegate."

  "See, she never misses a trick. It's going to be open slather now that what was the communist world is opening wide up to tourism — and she's getting in early."

  He broke off as we came up to Lee, who was waiting by the side of the path. Steve gave her his special, little-boy smile. "G'day," he said expansively. "Alex looking after you well, I hope?"

  "Of course." I was amused at her raised eyebrow, her air of polite astonishment that he should ask such a question.

  He said uncertainly, "Oh, good." Then, adding a cheerful, "See you later," he dropped back in the group to join Hilary Ferguson.

  Lee said, "He's a little condescending, perhaps?"

  "Just a little," I said drily, and her mouth quirked.

  The air was permeated with the moist heavy smell of decay and the ceaseless hum of insects. The path to the craft center led over a swinging rope-and-plank bridge spanning a gully so choked with growth that it was impossible to see how deep it actually was. After crossing the bridge the trail twisted and turned to avoid huge exposed roots and massive tree trunks. Overhead the crowding trees effectively shut out most of the sun, so that ferns and palms — pampered potted plants in cooler climates — grew wild, springing with enormous vigor from the layers of rotting leaves and bark. Looking almost theatrical, fat vines hung in huge loops from the trees they were strangling.

  "I'd hardly be surprised to see Tarzan go swinging by," said Lee. Looking sideways at me, she added, "Or preferably, Jane."

  I smiled briefly, wondering what, if anything, she thought of me. Did she assume I was heterosexual? Or perhaps she sensed the truth, that sex wasn't really very important to me. That I was essentially uninterested.

  Her American cadences broke into my thoughts. "I've discussed with Sir Frederick the concept of eco-tours to unspoiled areas American tourists wouldn't ordinarily see."

  "Soft adventures?" This industry term delighted me, summing up, as it did, the idea of daring combined with comfort.

  "Not necessarily so soft. Some of us are willing to do without a hot shower every day. Sir Frederick said you'd have some suggestions. What I'd like is detailed itineraries of possible mini-tours that could be options together with assessments of ground operators active in the areas. Okay?"

  "When would you like this?"

  "As soon as possible."

  I smiled assent, but my thoughts were sour. Of course she wanted everything as soon as possible. What Lee Paynter demanded, Lee Paynter got. I allowed myself the luxury of feeling put-upon, then I had to admit the unpalatable truth — I was just looking for something to dislike about her. It wasn't the perfectly reasonable request to supply tour information that had made me defensive, it was her openness about her sexuality that grated.

  My mother's voice, soft yet biting, echoed from the past: "People are talking, Alex. They're saying dirty, disgusting things about you and Zoe. Unthinkable things..."

  My absorption in my thoughts had carried me, unheeding to the craft center. I surveyed the theatrical scene, thinking derisively that it was just too artistic. The rainforest had been cleared so that a splash of sunlight poured in to spotlight the various sculptures surrounding the focus of attention, a huge and brilliantly colored birdbath. The main building, constructed of stained wooden planks wrapped in a shawl of flowering creepers, had a steeply sloping roof inset with a series of stained-glass skylights. Along the ridge were several fantastic windvanes, many a combination of driftwood and enameled metals.

  A heavily bearded man appeared, his pink smock at war with his ginger hair. This was Malcolm, the principal artisan of the colony. I'd heard his presentation before and admired the way his carefully rehearsed patter sounded spontaneous.

  He led us inside to the crafts. There was a wide range of them — leatherwork, pottery, hand-woven and embroidered clothing, paintings, carved wooden artifacts, jewelry and enamelware. Some of it was particularly beautiful, especially a display of silver jewelry that incorporated semi-precious stones, small pieces of coral and tiny shells.

  Irrelevantly, I wondered which piece I'd choose for Lee, and had picked out a silver and coral necklace before I realized it was ridiculous for me to be selecting jewelry for a stranger.

  I'll be knitting her a jumper, next!

  I smiled. Lee, of course, would call it a sweater.

  Then I was angry with myself. The woman was obviously getting to me — and this in less than two days. And, disconcertingly, I found I was aware of exactly where she was — I didn't have to look — I knew she was behind me and to my left, deep in conversation with the bearded Malcolm.

  Unobtrusively I moved closer. She was discussing craft items she thought would be of particular interest to American visitors and the arrangements that could be made for the dispatch of larger articles to the States.

  I made an effort to view her objectively. She looked and sounded smart and confident. There was an alert, no-nonsense air about her, but also a real charm. When she listened it was with close attention, her body language indicating her concentration on the other person, as though no one else at that moment could possibly say anything of greater interest. And when she spoke her voice was warm, full of vitality and sincerity.

  From his enthusiastic response it was clear that Malcolm was completely disarmed by Lee, but as a detached observer, I could say to myself: I'm not disarmed. I'm not susceptible to this woman's charisma.

  Tony Englert settled his ample form into an office chair with a sigh. "Alex, my darling, I'm fed up to here with the beauties of our wondrous land." He leveled his hand at nose height.

  Grinning at his doleful tone, I said, "You've got a touch of conventionitis. It'll pass. Trust me. I know."

  He closed his eyes with exaggerated weariness. "It's okay for you to say that — at least you get to do something. I just trail round after Sir Frederick, being indispensable. It's not a laugh a minute." He opened his eyes. "Incidentally, he is showing a keen interest in your career..."

  "Sir Frederick?"

  "The very one."

  "What is this?" I said, feeling a mixture of resistance and impatience. "A conspiracy? I suppose you've been listening to Steve Monahan's version of events."

  Tony's expression changed. He said viciously, "That bastard? I'd just love to have him come a gutser over something."

  I was astonished. I'd never heard Tony speak with such venom before. "What's Steve done to you?"

  He sat up straight, his face resuming his usual pleasant expression. "Nothing worth worrying about."

  His tone made it obvious the subject was to be dropped, so I said, "Lee Paynter's asked for outlines of possible eco-tours. I get the idea she wants sort of hard-soft adventures."

  "What about our Adventurer Package?"

  Tony was referring to an additional package A.P.P. had devised as suggested add-ons for fit and venturesome under thirty-fives — strenuous and sometimes dangerous activities like white water rafting in Tasmania, roughing it in Arnhem Land, going caving in sinkholes near Margaret River in Western Australia. "Too tough," I said. "These are going to be ordinary tourists who want to see something different and challenging, but they don't want to be too uncomfortable. Any suggestions?"

  "Sure. Broome and the Kimberley region for one. Yes? And how about Shark Bay? It's World Heritage listed, stunningly beautiful, and in the middle of nowhere. How am I doing?"

  Suddenly swept with a wave of affection, I resi
sted the impulse to lean over and touch him. "An adequate effort," I said mockingly, wondering what the hell was wrong with me. Good old self-contained Alex was on the verge of being — horror of horrors — demonstrative.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Before the next day's briefing, as Sharon took the chair next to me she said, "Had my golf game with Lee early this morning. She asked about you — a sort of subtle cross-examination."

  "Oh?"

  Sharon grinned. "You can sound as offhand as you like — I know you're just dying to find out just what I said about you."

  I sat forward, intrigued. "I'm more interested in what Lee Paynter wanted to know, and why."

  "I think it's normal for her... she likes to get the good oil on everybody she deals with. That's part of why she's successful."

  Quite aware that Sharon was teasing me, I still couldn't resist asking, "So what did you say about me?"

  She said with irony, "Only the truth, Alex, although I must say most people don't act as though the truth is necessarily in their best interests."

  The truth? That was too close to home. I couldn't prevent the edge in my voice. "What's your version of the truth?"

  She looked at me sharply. "Are you angry? I thought you'd be pleased she's taking an interest in you as a person, and not just as an A.P.P. employee."

  "I'm ecstatic."

  "Now, Alex, don't be like that. I'll tell you exactly what I told her." She chuckled. "More or less — I don't want you getting a swelled head."

  I waited patiently, knowing it was useless to hurry Sharon when she was in a jocular mood. When it became obvious I wasn't going to respond, she went on, "Lee said you had impressed her, particularly, I might say, on the tennis court. She asked about your background and how you happened to join A.P.P. I gave a sketchy outline of your career as I knew it, said you were on the way up, mentioned that I valued your friendship... all that sort of laudatory stuff."

  I didn't mean to put the question into words, but curiosity got the better of me. "Did she ask if I was married?"

  "As a matter of fact, she did. I mentioned you were divorced. Is that okay?"

  Our conversation stopped as Sir Frederick tapped the lectern for silence. His assistant, Jackie, glared around the room on his behalf, directing a particularly virulent glance in our direction. She didn't like me, that I knew, but why and when this antipathy towards me had started was a puzzle.

  Sir Frederick began speaking, but I hardly heard what he said, my thoughts dwelling with irritation, even resentment, on the fact that Lee Paynter had asked personal questions — and that Sharon had answered them.

  I sighed to myself, admitting that I'd done exactly the same when asking for information about Lee Paynter, so self-righteousness was hardly in order. Of course, I could always rationalize my interest — knowing what made people tick was an important part of good management.

  So on both sides it was a professional interest. No more than that.

  Steve and I were to accompany eighteen guests on the brief flight to Cairns, then half of the party would go with me on a catamaran ferry out to the Barrier Reef while Steve and the other nine boarded a game-fishing launch to hunt black marlin. The special flight for Cairns left immediately after the meeting, so I'd arranged for a mini-bus to collect the guests and then to pick us up from the briefing.

  The bus arrived, Steve boarding with much good cheer and "G'days," and I followed more soberly. There was a vacant seat next to Lee so I took it. "Enjoy your golf this morning?"

  "Sure. Sharon's quite a competitor." Then, seeming to sense there might be something more to my question, she added with a slight smile, "And perhaps she's mentioned that I asked about you."

  I kept my face blank. Why is she so bloody direct? Is it to put me at a disadvantage? "She did say something..."

  Lee answered the implied question. "I'm interested."

  I felt an unexpected, unwanted twinge of excitement — and relief that we'd arrived at the airport and I didn't have to respond.

  The pilot, cheerfully calling everyone of either sex "Mate," loaded hand-luggage while Steve and I shuffled everyone into the cramped cabin. I was amused to see he was careful to make sure Hilary Ferguson boarded after the front seats were full, so that he could sit near her. Within a few minutes we were ready, the little plane gave a few preparatory shudders, then roared importantly down the airstrip and bounced into the pale blue sky.

  I'd made sure not to sit too close to Lee... I wanted to examine the surprising pleasure her interest had caused me.

  The loud monotone of the engine made conversation difficult, and the German delegate beside me spoke with a heavy accent that matched his Teutonic bulk, so it was easy to give up any pretense of conversation. He had a window seat, and having pointed out a few items of interest, I felt my duty had been done for the moment, and I could relax.

  I hated being labeled like a parcel, so I took the opportunity of removing my green and gold name tag. Sir Frederick had the irritating habit of doing lightning checks of tag-wearing and to miscreants he would always say the same thing: "Your name is important! No one must ever doubt who you are and the purpose for which you're there. It's a reminder to you, as well as to our guests."

  I stretched my legs as far as possible in the cramped seating and tried to release the tension in my shoulders. Lee was in my favorite seat directly behind the pilot and peered over his shoulder at the island-dotted water below. I looked at her reflectively. She was not someone who could be ignored. Perhaps it was her aura of energy, of purpose...

  As in the dining room, she seemed to sense that she was being watched. She turned her head, catching me before I could look away. For a moment our eyes met with curious intensity, then Otto, my large German companion, plucked at my arm with a question, and I broke the link to answer him.

  Cairns, sprawling along the shore of Trinity Bay, is surrounded by plantations of sugar cane, pineapple and macadamia, each adding its own distinctive green to the patchwork of the land. In the bay itself countless vessels nestle against the shore, or, like toys in a pond, make their way in or out of the inlet.

  As the plane sank towards the runway, I glanced inland. Passive under fat white clouds, crumpled green hills delineated the rich coastal strip. At times like this, when I'm on the edge of our huge continent, yet disconnected from the ground, I'm always conscious of the Center — that immense and mysterious heart of Australia — the Outback.

  As usual, Cairns was imbued with an atmosphere of freedom and good times, its luxury hotels, bars, restaurants and shops there to tempt the city's lifeblood — tourists. The sun danced on the turquoise water as Steve took his mainly male group towards Marlin Jetty where sleek lethal-looking vessels waited to take the hunters of black marlin, sharks and barracudas out into the Coral Sea.

  I grimaced as I watched them go. The year before I'd had a "famil" — a familiarization trip on one of the game-fishing boats. The guest of honor was a loud-mouthed television star who had, with unobtrusive assistance from the crew, hooked a gigantic marlin. Handling the heavy tackle with great difficulty, he had sweated and bellowed as the fish fought ferociously for its life. He hadn't been able to finish the exercise, being too unfit, so one of the crew had taken over. I could still see his smug, proud huntsman-with-prey smile as he posed on the dock with the massive marlin dangling beside him, still beautiful in death.

  Green Island, our destination, was a low coral cay on the Great Barrier Reef, less than an hour from Cairns. The catamaran ferry, burnished aluminum and blue trim, scudded along, leaving a froth of white on the iridescent water. I felt joyously alive. The scent of the sea, the whoosh of the vessel through the water, the taste of salt on my lips, the warm, lazy promise of the breeze — all these filled me with elation.

  I surveyed my group: a Canadian man, thin and intense; my large German friend, Otto; two women from Britain — one the beautiful Hilary, stunning in white with a large hat protecting her peaches-and-cream complexion — the oth
er an angular Scot with a lilting Western Highlands accent and a no-nonsense air; a bubbly woman from Ireland who actually said "begorrah"; two Scandinavian men, both fitting the stereotype of blond hair and blue eyes; a very consciously macho man from Argentina who displayed elaborate courtesy to every woman and a suspicious glare to every man.

  And Lee.

  I organized drinks and snacks, answered questions and generally mother-henned until the delegates spread themselves throughout the vessel, relaxing in conversation or just enjoying the scenery. But not Lee. She prowled restlessly, checking out the catamaran from bow to stern and then spending some time in discussion with the captain. I smiled at her when she finally came down to the lower deck. "Everything satisfactory?"

  It seems she might be willing, at last, to relax. She stretched luxuriously. "Very much so." She gestured towards the low green lines of the island we were rapidly approaching. "And I guess I'm about to see a little more of paradise."

  Compared to Tern Island, tiny Green Island is insignificant. Thousands of years of eddying water have built the little cay from the accumulated sediments of its platform reef, so that it now crowns the living coral with an oval cap of lush vegetation. And I've always thought Green Island an unnecessarily pedestrian name that gives no hint of the enchanting undersea world around it.

  We were to have two hours on the island, and then travel further east to the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef. There was little for me to do, as the members of the group were quite accustomed to assessing tourist attractions without guidance, but I made sure that everyone entered the underwater observatory, which was set into the jetty where we had docked.

  As we looked through the thick plate glass at the alien beauty of the undersea world, it amused me to consider the reversal in roles: humans captive in an air-filled tank, while fish swam freely.

  Lee was captivated. When I joined her at one of the windows she touched my arm as she said, "This is wonderful."

  It was only a brush of fingers, but I was acutely conscious of the contact. I resisted the impulse to rub my skin to remove the tingle, instead concentrating on the microcosm beyond the glass. Coral, starfish, anemones — familiar from brochures and photographs but now so much more vividly real in their world of filtered green light. In colors and patterns like delicious marine confections, tropical fish darted in precision underwater ballets, or eyed us thoughtfully while gliding past. I could provide some of their names — the Imperial Angel fish with its gaudy yellow stripes, the green and blue Parrot fish, the conspicuous red bands of the Red Emperor, the yellow black and white of the tiny, but gorgeous, Moorish Idol.