The Crocodile Hotel

by Julie Janson

  ‘Mate, you didn’t. You’re making it up!’ said Daniel.

  ‘All night long, smooth as silk.’

  Jane banged the door open.

  ‘What is?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing’, said Orlando.

  ‘Or should I say, who is?’ she said.

  ‘Just bloke talk, Janey. Janey, forget it’, said Daniel.

  The weekend filled with a claustrophobic atmosphere, where each person tried to score a witty bite off the other.

  ‘My family are from Bourke in New South Wales. We had a small property but we went broke in a drought, shot all the sheep and buried them in a mass grave. But I actually went to a good school – Shore, believe it or not’, said Daniel.

  ‘That’s a shame about going broke. Is that why you’re so pissed off with the world?’ she asked.

  ‘Could be; what’s your excuse?

  ‘You don’t need to know.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Okay, working class western suburbs, fighting tattooed older brothers and sister. They chain-smoked from fourteen years old, lived on instant coffee and lay on the lounge watching TV all day. I have a memory of one brother grovelling and crawling across the carpet to beg for a smoke. He licked his brother’s foot for it. Yep, lazy good-for-nothings on the dole.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ he said.

  ‘I dreamt of a better life. I hung on the front gate, looked down the street of Housing Commission red brick houses, and knew I had to get out. I left home at sixteen, and I worked as a cleaner in the mental hospital. I got a break. A teacher’s scholarship and I went to university. I learnt to copy how white students acted, found a plum in my mouth and lied about my background. I wanted to fit in but I never fooled their eastern suburbs snob mothers. They picked me in a second. My family are … they couldn’t help me and I certainly couldn’t help them.’

  ‘That’s shit’, he said.

  ‘Maybe, but I did find out that there’s a huge world of people a million times worse off than me. People who live under a bit of tin in a dust storm with babies and eyes full of pus. Women who are beaten up because they chase the wrong-side man, old men and women who remember horrific things, and none of it is their fault.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Heard it all before. They’ll die out, drink themselves to death.’

  ‘That so? Well, don’t give me any crap about why am I wasting my life on Aboriginal people. I am one of them’, she said. He went very quiet and looked hard at her.

  ‘Narr … Look, I’m not a racist but … look at them pissing their welfare cheques against the wall – what hope is there?’ His voice trailed off as she walked away and slammed her bedroom door.

  She heard him ride away towards the Lanniwah camp on his motorbike. He stopped. Jane listened, but nothing. She prayed that he wasn’t sniffing around the young women; it could be dangerous.

  The next morning, Daniel’s swag was empty; he hadn’t slept in it. She looked around; maybe he was having a wash in the billabong. Jane saw him walking out of the bush. She heard a girlish whispering. Jane darted inside. Daniel walked into the caravan kitchen and asked for a cup of tea. He looked exhausted but elated. He was about to leave.

  ‘Thanks for the dinner and hospitality. I appreciate it. You forgive me for being an idiot, I hope’, he said. Jane shook his hand and helped him carry his swag to his bike. He waved and rode out of the station, did a ‘wheelie’ in the dirt and disappeared into the trees. Orlando swept the ground near the fire.

  ‘You did a line for him. You wanted him’, he said.

  ‘No, he’s a dickhead. It’s not like that. I love you.’

  ‘Not what I saw’, he said.

  ‘Don’t be jealous.’

  ‘What I don’t get is you thinking that it’s alright to flirt with any bloke you like, while I’m not allowed to have female friends.’

  ‘I didn’t flirt’, she said.

  ‘That’s good; I’ll remember that line for when I need it.’

  A few hours later, Jane stood in the caravan kitchen staring at the Olivetti typewriter on the Laminex table. He had written another poem. It beckoned from the roller, floating, flapping. Jane ripped it out and sat, tired, on the plastic chair. Heat hung, so hot, the hum of the fridge, the sound of a dingo strolling by with a ‘who gives a shit’ attitude. She read with a furtive dirty haste. Her breath quickened. Yes, this was it – a poem about making love to a Lanniwah woman in the river.

  He had talent, this twenty-eight-year-old man. The description in the poetry was clear. Her heart beat and thumped as heat rose in her chest, face hot, sweating. He had the girl on the Toyota bonnet and again waist deep in the cool fresh water. Palm fronds tickled. It was near where they had picnicked with Aaron, cooked sausages on the fire. White sand, a pretty place. He described the girl’s dark hips when she had gyrated in front of the pub’s jukebox. She had slithered and pulsed. Singing him to her with her luscious sexy black eyes darting into his. His urgent longings and having her later in the river. He said that her wet vagina was like a secret cave.

  Jane ripped the poetry in two pieces and gently placed this proof of infidelity back on the typewriter. She waited for his return from the school, for him to know that she knew. Her excitement mounted at the prospect of a fight, a real fight with vicious plate throwing – it would be good to hear a crashing plate, see him duck and quiver. And he walked into her trap; she asked him, ‘Why?’ His answer the exquisite male logic:

  ‘I had to have a girl when you were busy – what other chance would I have?’ Jane laughed and was struck dumb by the purity of the lust. She had developed an addiction to the fights. Lusting for them. Horrific angry word throwing. Then the sex, sublime, hot, vicious and terrible.

  She realised that she would never know much about this whitefella, a secret men’s business suited his character well, and all his business was pretty well secret. Jane hoped that Daniel would not come back. He was big trouble.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lovers

  The nights were long, but there was a feeling of growing love, and Orlando and Jane told each other stories. The lack of radio, television and phone made them reliant on a few library books or each other and they were both great storytellers. They absorbed each other’s histories. They outdid each other with snake stories: black snakes, brown snakes, and death adders – all part of western Sydney childhood.

  There were dinners with Edie and her family in the caravan. Jane was still wearing Tibetan dresses and she had Buddhas around the caravan. They had removed the kitchen table and Hubert and Edie were required to sit on the floor and eat Indian curry and chapattis with their fingers. Incense burned ominously and Jane saw Hubert being downright uncomfortable in his tight RM Williams jeans, his scrotum pressed against the low makeshift dinner table. Edie seemed horrified.

  ‘He doesn’t like curry, only white sauce on his steak’, said Edie.

  ‘She’s right. I can eat anything. I even ate a black snake once. Real bony’

  ‘Well, I’d better get back home, I’ll have time to slit my wrists before bed’, Edie laughed.

  It hadn’t gone well, the mutual suspicion snaked around the room. Still both couples were lonely. Orlando stretched in the chair. A brilliant funny storyteller, it was his turn and his eyes were bright. He acted out bits by stepping into character. He did great impersonations of Hubert and Edie. ‘I’ll whip you good, boy.’ He mimed the whipping and cringing.

  ‘Let’s hear about your life in Burma as a monk. I’ve been longing to hear the next episode.’

  Orlando sat astride the table to demonstrate how he had gone to the pit toilet each morning and had to fight off the pigs in Goa who wanted to eat his shit fresh from his bum.

  ‘My turn, do you want to hear about how I danced in a see-through bodysuit at the Cell Block Theatre. It was an unrehearsed performance to beat poetry. Or how I was member of a free theatre troupe and I emerged naked from a box of offal while transvestite queens rushed past on roller
skates?’ He fell asleep before she got to the good part. She carefully laid the pink sheet over him.

  Jane began to find out about her new lover. He was musical and vain, loved pictures of himself and asked Jane to draw his portrait. With Orlando sex could be moments away, so she learnt to not bend over in front of him when sweeping, her swaying backside drove him crazy. He had lust-making black hair on the back of his hands just like a monkey. Jane was entranced. She had not had a lover who was so excited about her body. His eyes blazed as they held each other. He licked her thighs and caressed her skin. He lay his head on her mound of Venus and sighed.

  Jane sensed that he had old guilt following him around; he was secretive about his emotions while she was naked and loud. He had sudden outbursts of repressed jealousy and anger that surprised her, frightened her.

  ‘Go on, burn the love letters! If you love me you will’, he said. She cried.

  ‘You’re frozen inside: you have cold hands.’

  They were affectionate and cuddled openly in front of Aaron, so he reacted and hugged Jane with fierce possession.

  Aaron glared at Orlando. ‘She’s my mummy – you can’t have her.’

  ‘It’s okay, mate. I love her in a different way. She loves you best. I want to protect her.’

  ‘He won’t hurt me, Aaron. You don’t have to save me. I love you: you’re my little boy’, she said.

  She walked down a path alone. There were snake tracks in the sand, thick nasty tracks. Jane flicked a long stick in the tussocks to drive away King Browns. There was stillness in the air, some strange feeling, hair on her neck prickled. The grass moved, a hissing, then a huge brown snake leapt up in front of her, six feet high and flexed to strike, its beady black eyes staring, and tongue flickering, hideous, the devil of all fear. She nearly wet her pants in terror. Its eyes gripped hers and she couldn’t move. Jane moved very slowly backwards, her stare still fixed. She looked sideways and the snake still didn’t move. She saw a heavy stick on the ground, and while still staring into the snake’s eyes she picked it up. The image of the snake’s head as it lunged forward, the purplish forked tongue and the bite of poison. Jane imagined it flooding her nervous system and slowly paralysing her heart. Her hand came up slowly holding the stick and she hit out at the ground near the snake with all her strength. The snake swung back its head to hiss and fell to the ground and she watched it slither away. Yes, it was fleeing, more scared of her than she was of it. Of course. No worries. Poor thing. Lovely creature really.

  Her steps were full of shivering fear; she tiptoed along the path with her weapon, but again the sound of a hiss. The snake was following her! A rush of terror. ‘Help, help, please someone!’ A scream, but her voice made the reptile even angrier but then she watched it … the shimmering scales and stillness, it was beautiful. It spoke to her of ancient stories, a creature imbued with magical qualities, a creator of the landscape. Like the great Anangu pythons called Kuniya who were also women who fought the poisonous Liru snake. These animals were a protected and feared species and Jane stayed still as the land spoke to her. The King Brown swept away into the grey grass and was gone.

  Jane walked through desert daisies and pink starflowers. She stood on a rock above the grass and breathed deeply. She thought about David and how things might have been different for her. The sun was warm on her back, and she watched red and blue dragon flies dart in the rushes.

  Orlando joined her by the billabong, he arrived like a floating ghost, and she jumped in fear. Then reached out for him, for his reassurance and love.

  ‘I’m sorry, I was angry. Let’s not be like that, the jealous thing, it’s poison’, he said.

  She held him tight and they hugged and sobbed on the sand bank. There was too much isolation to hurt each other, and too many snakes.

  CHAPTER 6

  Katherine Town

  As the Wet subsided, the road became passable with a winch on the Toyota. The town of Katherine was the holy grail of good times in school holidays for Jane and Orlando. They went off to the Regional Education meeting. They drove in and went to the evening folk club. Peter, Paul and Mary still sang at this club, pale imitators drawling away. Some talented musicians and singers appeared, wine and beer flowed, it was a release and they could get drunk. ‘ I love Katherine, the best place in the world, so sophisticated, so cultured, so alcohol sodden, yippee!’ She turned up the music and sang aloud,’ Y.M.C.A.!.’

  At the club, one hip-looking young man played the viola de gamba (of all things), sometimes accompanied by Orlando on guitar or didgeridoo. He said he was a historian; his wife was with him; she was also beautiful and magnetic. Jane felt a strong need to know them. Jane looked around the party – it was rocking and people were drinking large amounts of beer. She had a familiar burst of insecurity; it took her by the throat. Yes, that’d be right: Orlando was now stalking the most attractive woman in the room. She was dark-haired with pale skin, and busty. Some of the Katherine teachers looked at Jane with a sort of pity – they knew Orlando well. One female teacher took her by the arm.

  ‘Be careful; he has a reputation. A ladies man.’

  Jane clutched her beer stubby holder. The headman from the office of Road Planning and Construction was leering. He wore a short-sleeved shirt over a beer belly, shorts that barely concealed his manliness, and thongs. Arr, yes, the answer to single women’s prayers.

  ‘You new in town, eh? My spies tell me yer single.’

  ‘Hmm’, she said.

  ‘You teach the dark people long?’

  She could feel the heat rising in her throat, not another conversation where she had to explain her work. ‘On a cattle station, its challenging work’, she said.

  ‘I could come out and visit? Live alone, do you?’ The big man leant towards her, his thick and hairy arm pinned her against the concrete wall, and then he twisted his head as a young Chinese girl walked past in a miniskirt.

  ‘Take a squiz of that! I could eat off that black arse.’

  He grinned back at Jane. She pushed his arm away and hissed into his ear.

  ‘Why don’t you piss off, you chauvinist, racist dickhead!’, she walked away.

  ‘Lezzo!’ he spat back.

  Orlando spent the entire party glued to the dark-haired woman’s side. Jane observed that the pretty face and deep cleavage fascinated him. Jane thought he was imagining placing his penis in between those breasts. He preened and told jokes; the girl laughed; they shared cigarettes; he gazed into her eyes. This felt like hell. Jane clenched her teeth. Yes, she would run away. Why did she always choose such faithless men?

  Orlando sensed that Jane was watching; he waved her over.

  ‘Jane, this is Marcia. She‘s going to give a talk about innovative pedagogy.’

  Marcia nodded while looking over her shoulder. Orlando smiled as Marcia beckoned him with a curled red fingernail. He was positively panting. Jane had on a coat of invisibility. Yes, that was it; she did not actually exist. Perhaps she wasn’t beautiful enough, and that mouth – she spoke up; not good, not quiet, not compliant enough.

  The people at the party all asked, ‘How’s Orlando going? We miss him in town. How are his songs coming along?’ Jane mumbled. She was sure that when she got dressed at the motel there had been someone looking back from the mirror. She had applied ruby lipstick and cleaned her teeth. Yes, she seemed to exist. What’s more, she had been with a lovely man. They had hot fantastic rude sex. He had breathed in her ear and called her his little whore. Yes, it was fast-pumping wipe-it-off kind of sex before they came to the party. Hadn’t they? Maybe she smelt. Did she have bad breath? She hadn’t looked desperate; no one had whispered about her, or had they? Was she a joke? God she hated that, people laughing at her. She imagined driving down the road, but she didn’t have the car keys. He had them in his pocket, of course. Jane felt like a puppy dog, powerless and pathetic.

  The effect of being in a relationship with a charismatic clown dawned upon her: she was second fiddle. He use
d these rare social occasions to shine as a hilarious mimic, while she found herself talking all night to old women in corners. Soon she would dissolve, leaving behind a pool of greasy sweat.

  ‘Orlando, I’m going back to the motel.’ He looked alarmed.

  ‘Not yet. I haven’t had enough vodka.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  She walked onto the Katherine Street, a carload of cowboy hoons roared past.

  ‘Hey, darling, want a root? Can we all gang bang you?’

  They were all shitheads really, what exactly were men made of? As she walked away, it felt like she was leaving this short relationship forever – it felt incredibly pleasant and liberating.

  The next day, the Katherine Regional Education meeting began with a dinner. Jane managed to find herself opposite a balding man who luxuriously picked his teeth, sniffed, and examined the toothpick before the meal. He was sweating and rivulets of perspiration dropped on his plate. His wife had a strange orange fuzz perm. She leant forward conspiratorially as she sipped a glass of Porphyry Pearl.

  ‘The remote Aboriginal schools are challenging aren’t they? I am concentrating on teaching cleanliness.’

  ‘I’m teaching reading’, said Jane.

  By the end of the meal, Orlando was slurring his jokes and he seemed to have his hand up the panties of pretty Marcia. Jane looked and he sat up trying to appear sober. Jane wanted to scream in jealous rage: she wanted to tear Marcia’s eyes out, cut her tits off and feed them to the crocodiles.

  The next day presentations were endless. She thought: could I go now? God she hated meetings and talks by the dullest people in the universe. The Education Department’s expert on ‘Methodology, Pedagogy, Objectives:? Evaluation and Strategies for Educational Outcomes’ – oh groan! – spoke for two hours. Jane’s hangover pulsated. She found her head dropping onto the table, her mouth a dirty cocky cage. She snored. Dribble seemed to have collected on her conference folder. God, had she fallen asleep? Orlando nudged her; his hangover was non-existent. She hated him. He was intelligent, well read, alert, and had his hand up in the air.