The Crocodile Hotel

by Julie Janson

  ‘Don’t stop’, she said.

  She panted and leant against him in a trembling orgasm. Jane looked into his smiling eyes. She drew breath and she could feel his muscled chest and pushed her hands up under his shirt. She was about to make a huge mistake, she would fall for him, it was madness, it would end in misery. She would throw away her feminist creed and high principles with her overalls and books by Simone de Beauvoir, she would shape change overnight into a licking, panting, sex-starved animal. An unmarried mother, available, fuckable, wet and luscious on all fours, wanting his body. To him, she would be just another slice off a cut loaf of bread, an easy lay, a town spinster, a town bike. But she sank into his warmth, his easy laugh and searching eyes, and he pushed urgently against her. She put her hand down his jeans and softly stroked him. He sighed and his breathing began to race. It was too late to walk away and be sensible. She peered back at the teaching crowd where tongues would already be wagging and her reputation shot to pieces. She might as well give a plenary session, ‘Naked sex show from Kings Cross and the non-Feminist position’, on the Outback Education Conference table.

  ‘Damn, someone’s coming over’, he said.

  ‘I don’t care.’

  Jane’s mind raced ahead. She could see the lustful bed, the Desdemona begging for his gripping hands round her throat. There was a possibility that she could turn into a limp soft thing, and he would grin at how easy it had been to seduce her. No, she would say no, not this again, not another man to muck up her life. Together they would walk in the grevillea-studded land, perfumed and hot, a sweet hell with temptation and devils, but Jane didn’t care anymore, she wanted him badly.

  It was all over, her cover as a wife waiting for her returning husband was blown. People were glancing over at them, at this very public seduction. She had no discretion, she would most probably be sacked, certainly lose her position as head teacher, lose her precious job with a traditional Aboriginal mob. She would lose the community respect given to a married woman and become an object of scorn and lust. She would have to put up with drunken white men banging on her motel door begging for ‘Just one root, darlin’. Jane had stepped into oblivion. Orlando smoothed down her dress and took her hand.

  ‘Come on, back to the party, I’ll get you a nice lemonade.’ He looked with a smile, his eyes linked with hers. She was his, and in half an hour, he would be inside her.

  The next morning outside the motel, she leant against her lover. He helped carry her bag to the street to find her truck. He kissed her openly and waved good-bye. She was devastated and stared out the rear window at his figure against the pink gum trees. The conference had gone by in a daze and Harrison beckoned.

  She drove with a fixed gaze past grey trees, an unconscious view of the straight monotonous road. Feeling elated, on fire, a glowing realisation that love was happening. She sang aloud to the blue sky, she would find a way to have this man in her life. Her mind was full of the memory of his body, lithe and strong. The endless night of lovemaking, no sleep, the crying out in ecstasy. He was wonderful; she was alive again. The miracle of finding a true lover like this, the excitement, and the purity of joy

  At last, a second teacher would arrive. Fifty-two children were too many for one person so Jane had written and complained. He was handsome, he was single, he was twenty-eight, he was a songwriter, and he was a gift. He was the substitute teacher, Mr Orlando Kerekov, and she already loved him. He arrived one afternoon from a light plane dressed in RM Williams clothes, tight white moleskin pants, elastic-sided boots, a white lapelled shirt – Territory costume, but with long black hair. His head was straight out of a Russian fairy tale. She watched him throw his swag outside her teacher’s caravan, and then he reached into the back of his bag and brought out a guitar and a didgeridoo. Jane melted.

  ‘Hello, head teacher Mrs Reynolds. You surprised to see me again?’ He grinned.

  ‘How on earth did you arrange this posting?’ she said.

  ‘I was owed a few favours by my boss in the Katherine office. So where do I sleep?’ He winked at her.

  ‘The letter said the Department would transport a new caravan home out here in a month’, she said.

  ‘Right, that means six months. I‘ll make a camp with my swag, no worries.’

  ‘Maybe you should stay with the Boss? ’

  ‘You don’t mean that?’

  ‘Stay where you like.’

  Jane felt rising panic, this could be a terrible mistake. He would take over her school, he was a male, and he wouldn’t be able to help himself. However, he was beautiful.

  He rolled out his sleeping gear and set out a fold-down chair next to it. He was home. She made him some tea and sat outside with him. They ate beef stew for dinner, Orlando eating with a ravenous appetite. He licked the plate like a Russian peasant. He put on a cassette of classical music – a Shostakovich quartet. Then he played Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention on the cassette player, the discordant sounds set the dogs off. He took Jane by the hand and danced; she felt his warm body and the tension of electric frisson.

  Aaron placed himself on the stranger’s lap, put on his hat and asked a hundred questions.

  ‘Why is your name funny?’

  ‘My Mama and Papa were born in St Petersburg in Russia; they came to Australia after the war. Stalin wanted to send them to Siberia’, said Orlando.

  ‘Where’s Russia?’

  ‘As far away as you can imagine, it’s really cold and there are great onion shaped domes on churches, covered in icing sugar’, said Orlando.

  ‘Like Hansel and Gretel?’

  ‘Mmm, the witches are called Baba Yaga. They eat children’, said Orlando. He snatched at Aaron’s leg, he squealed. Jane studied him and watched Aaron bond instantly. She had longed for something better for her child.

  ‘How come your first name is not Russian?’ she asked.

  ‘Mama arrived as a refugee. She wanted me to have an Italian name so I would fit in out west. She chose a girly name and the boys at Narragingy High beat the shit out of me for it.’ He laughed. Jane smiled and he stared into her eyes.

  ‘You look so Territory now’, she said.

  ‘Been here five years. I’m even learning to play didgeridoo.’

  ‘So you think you’re an Aborigine.’

  ‘No, just learning to play. You right with that?’

  ‘I grew up near where you did, in Richmond, just down the line.’

  ‘You’re not from a refugee family though? Are you? You’re kind of exotic and dark. You’d be what?’ Jane looked at him and said nothing for a while.

  ‘Aboriginal family from way back, Darug mob. You won’t have heard of us. Everyone says we died out’. She didn’t want him to know everything yet, about the poverty, the ragged clothes and poor food. He smiled and put out his hand to shake hers.

  ‘It’s an honour to meet a First Australian’, he said.

  Jane wondered if he was being sarcastic. Would he at any moment tell her she couldn’t be Aboriginal? He leant forward; it was a slow inclination of his head. The black curls framed his face, red lips. He tilted her chin and lightly kissed her mouth. He tasted her tongue. Warmth came over Jane, she was accepted for who she was, and she didn’t have to explain that they hadn’t died out, or be told that she didn’t look very dark. So many people in her life had told her that she couldn’t be Aboriginal, that she was too white, that all the Hawkesbury mob were dead, no survivors. She loved him already for his acceptance: he was no racist and he had the most important trait of all, compassion.

  Jane served a dessert of bread and butter pudding, Orlando continued to eat like a famished man, running his fingers around the dish. He licked it and smacked his lips. Aaron never stopped asking questions, but Jane put him to bed with a made-up story. She tucked him in and slipped outside to the fire.

  Orlando’s voice seduced her. She wanted to distrust him but he made a startling impression. His eyes moved over her hungry body. Soft and alive, she tingl
ed with anticipation; her eyes were unwavering in his, her will draining away.

  ‘I had better go to sleep, I’ve got to meet the kids on Monday’, he said. Jane was disappointed, which was an understatement – her thighs were aching – but to cover her embarrassment she stood up and threw the tea from the billy into the fire, she didn’t look at him.

  ‘Okay, good night.’ She moved towards her door and stopped.

  ‘Yep, you want to say something?’

  ‘Just that I am so glad you are here; thank you for taking this job.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else on the whole planet. We’ll have a great time.’ He grinned at her, got into his swag, and turned his back.

  She went to her room and crawled into bed, she was restless, frustrated and unable to sleep, and she peeked out the window at him asleep with his arms tucked in like a baby.

  Next morning, Orlando swept his new camp of dust and strolled over to Jane’s caravan. Aaron was first at his side.

  ‘You want to have swim with me in the billabong?’

  They ran to the water and jumped in. Orlando came back to the caravan home. Jane saw how he let his eyes move over her breasts; she couldn’t believe her luck.

  ‘I have to tell you that I probably won’t be here long, just until the Department finds a permanent teacher to work with you.’

  ‘We can make the most of it’, she said.

  She saw him naked in the river, naked in her arms and she clutched her dress between her knees.

  That night, after Aaron was asleep, Orlando made a fire and boiled a billy; he called her over to the fire.

  ‘Come and have a cuppa?’ he said.

  Jane saw him watching her in the fire light. She leant on the door with a moment of doubt; saw her past outrageous love life thick with pulsing memories. Somehow, her parents’ fighting was tied up in it all – a sticky spider cocoon of betrayals, a surge of furious emotion.

  Her father had never been at home, was always working, his dark back bent to a concrete mixer in the sun or on the railways. There was the spectre of Aaron’s feckless father, a painful love. It rushed past as Jane stepped out of the caravan. It seemed like a portentous moment. The future opened up like a chasm. The hair on her neck prickled. Orlando’s smile drew her to him; it was inevitable that they would be lovers – she had known it from the first moment. The night stretched out before her; it was delicious. Orlando played his guitar and half sang a song, he sounded slightly ridiculous but he had a wonderful melodic voice. Jane pulled a sarong around her and sat on his swag, the fire warming her legs. Orlando held the mug and smiled into her eyes as she held out her hand for the tea.

  ‘You’re so pretty.’

  He poured some forbidden vodka into her tea.

  ‘I shouldn’t’, she murmured.

  ‘Yes, you should.’

  She shook her head then grabbed the bottle out of his hands. She threw out the tea and half-filled her mug with vodka. Thank heavens! A drink! Jane sipped delicately.

  ‘Oh, this is so good.’

  She was exhilarated by her first taste of alcohol in a few months. The dry community with an alcohol ban – it was best for the Lanniwah but she missed the occasional drink. She kept her eyes on his, gently ran her fingers down his face and dipped them into his mouth. He watched and allowed them to touch his tongue. She shook a little.

  ‘This is a bad idea.’

  ‘Nope.’ His hand travelled down her Indian cotton blouse and rested on her nipple. He rubbed it delicately between his fingers. Jane moaned softly. She watched the tanned face, his dark eyebrows, the inside of his lips glistening pink, his teeth so white. When she kissed his face, it was damp and salty. His black curls flowed down the back of his neck. He held her in broad arms. She sighed.

  ‘I can’t help myself.’

  Orlando opened up the swag and she crawled in under the canvas. It smelt of eucalyptus and maleness. He pressed his body against her, gentle and strong, his mouth electric excitement. He tried to compose his face and smile.

  ‘Don’t worry, trust me. I’ve got condoms.’

  He lifted her skirt and pulled her pants down. He buried his face in her thighs. He ran his hands down her legs and gently kissed her breasts, teased the brown nipples. In a second, he was inside her body, thrusting with passion. She moved over on top of him, they stared into each other’s eyes; they were in a wild tempestuous lust. Her hunger for him was desperate and uninhibited. Jane arched her back; she shimmered in the fire light. He murmured loving words; he loved her body, her delicious sweet fanny. She guessed it would all end badly, but for the moment, it was exactly what she wanted. She cried out in love, tears trickled from her eyes and they lay back panting and began all over again.

  Over in the big house, Hubert and Edie were arguing again. Hubert’s loud voice penetrated the darkness, then a crash of bottles.

  Aaron woke up and called out for his mother. Jane jumped up from Orlando’s bed. She wrapped a sarong around her and ran into the caravan.

  ‘Okay, Aaron, Mummy’s coming. It’s alright, sweetie.’

  She put him back in his bed and sang a song. Outside, Orlando lay back in the swag grinning. She watched through the louvres as he rubbed his hands across his face and breathed in. She guessed they smelt of her fanny. She saw him pour vodka and roll a joint.

  ‘I regard teaching as a necessary evil. I love the children but I couldn’t be bothered with the paper work. Life is for living and not boring me to death. I like to write poems.’ He lay on his back with no shirt on, strumming.

  ‘Do people in town fall about laughing when you tell them that?’

  ‘Yep, some do. I don’t mind. I grew up mostly with my mother. She was mad as a cut snake. I couldn’t face her. The war nearly destroyed my parents and after building a fibro house out west, my father ran off with a Ukrainian truck driver with enormous tits. Like balloons. He just sent money and cards to Mama and she sort of clung to me. Arrgh, the Ruskie strangle hold.’

  ‘So you ran away to the Territory.’

  ‘Yes, you could say that, but hey, I give her half my pay. And I love the mysterious Aboriginal world, the heart-breakingly beautiful sunsets. I want to know what all the Dreaming stuff means. I want to find out if I believe it. A double reality.’

  ‘You didn’t come for the money?’ she said. He smiled and she knew that her whole existence was transforming and that she could be happy with him as the second teacher and together they would be able to teach fifty-two children to read and she would have a lot of great sex.

  CHAPTER 2

  Meeting The New Teacher

  School began with the ringing of the bell. Children had bathed in the billabong and lined up outside the school. They looked at Orlando, who stood grinning and waving. Jane saw the girls giggling. David stood back and watched the children’s reactions to a new teacher; he hung his head: he could read Jane’s admiration of the new teacher. She felt torn by this experience, confused in her attraction to both these men.

  ‘We are very lucky. We have Mr Orlando to teach the senior class. He has come from Katherine and he has some fruit and lollies for you at recess time’, Jane said. The children whooped and laughed.

  ‘I am so happy to be able to teach you for a while. I might not be here for all the rest of the year, but I will try my best to teach you well’, said Orlando.

  ‘Where you got well? We got Lanniwah well, not far’, said Ricky. Orlando shook his head.

  ‘No well, just … Hey, let’s go inside and make a start on reading. I hear you have made some big books. You can show me. Then we can have a music lesson, some of you can learn to play guitar. We’ll start a rock band. If your head teacher agrees.’ The older children crowded around him stroking his brown arms. They loved him already.

  Over the next few weeks, Jane found her job easier with a second teacher. She could work with David teaching the alphabet to the little ones or take her twenty-six children out to play with water measuring. David p
ut out the coloured buckets to fill. He looked over at Orlando who was under a tree playing his guitar and teaching the children to sing a Rolling Stones song. David avoided talking to Jane except for schoolwork. She felt his growing distance.

  It was sport time after lunch. The red lilies were out and the whole school plunged into the cool billabong. They grabbed Jane by the shoulders and played diving games. One five-year-old child called out to her,

  ‘You swim wid me?’

  ‘I swim wid you!’ Jane said, as he jumped into her arms. Such love in these children. They showed no fear of the outsiders; they loved Orlando straight away, so unlike their suspicious parents. The girls swam like fish around Jane and peeled the lily stems. They chomped down on stalks, like celery, and their eyes shone. Mayda and Lizzy swam under the water and emerged next to Orlando, they ate lily stalks with their teeth, and they laughed at him while the peel slid off their pink lips. He swam away. Aaron paddled by with his little mates – everyone wanted to be his best friend.

  Orlando swam out a long way to keep a distance from the young girls. He practiced diving for fresh water mussels with Ricky and Robert. He averted his eyes from all the females when they climbed out of the water with their thin dresses clinging to their bodies.

  Never had Jane felt so free and happy; it was a most romantic and blissful life. She looked at Orlando and he blew her a kiss. Mayda and Lizzy giggled and shrieked. They knew everything about Jane and Orlando.

  As the flood subsided, Orlando settled into the school. He was amusing and brilliant, and required hardly any work or discipline from the children. They learnt to sing dozens of songs. He taught Ricky and the oldest boys to play guitar and they jammed while the other children picked nits from eachother’s hair.

  Jane was not amused, but the children thought Orlando was hilarious. He acted out funny stories and led them in wild, free-expression dances where they ran around outside the demountable classroom in the dirt. Jane had great ideas for art and drama and they wore crepe paper costumes and performed outlandish Dreamtime dance drama that ended with everyone running into the billabong.