Love in the Outback

by Deb Hunt

  Captain Considerate was a good-looking man with a great physique hidden behind heavy gold cufflinks and thick-striped shirts in navy and white that made him look like Del Boy in an episode of Only Fools and Horses. All he needed was a silk hankie poking out of his top pocket to match his tie and he’d be all set to sell you a Ford Cortina or a case of Player’s No. 6 cigarettes.

  Did I mention that he ate a lot of meat? Lunch never wavered – a regular beef and shredded lettuce sandwich, with no butter, salt, pepper or mayonnaise – and dinner was steak, peas and beans or lamb, peas and beans. He would happily have eaten the same thing, day after day, until the end of time. The only variation was fish and chips on a Friday.

  ‘What about slow-roasted beetroot, served with braised asparagus tips and sprinkled with shaved parmesan?’ I asked him one night.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Would you like some?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  *

  In spite of my reservations there was something so fundamentally decent about CC that I couldn’t help but like him. I agreed to see him whenever he was in Sydney, and each time I found out more about him.

  ‘I was born in Persia . . . Iran.’

  I wasn’t expecting anything quite so exotic.

  ‘Dad was working for the Anglo–Iranian Oil Company.’

  ‘Was he Iranian?’

  ‘No, Scottish.’

  ‘How did you end up in Australia?’

  CC snapped off a piece of popadum and dipped it in his creamy beef korma. The All India at the top of Rowntree Street had become a local. It never had more than a handful of customers mid-week and the staff were friendly, the music unobtrusive and curry was a meal we both enjoyed. I dabbed a corner of naan bread into a plateful of lentil dhal.

  ‘My father was running the Abadan Oil Refinery in Iran when it was nationalised by the Iranians; this was in the early 1950s.’

  I had dim memories of reading about some kind of coup at school. I wasn’t born until several years later.

  ‘My father was detained in Iran in order to keep the refinery operating. When the Shah was installed following the revolution, my father was released and allowed to leave. He went from a life of luxury, with a polo pony, a Daimler and a yacht, to a life of unemployment in the UK.’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘My mother, my sister and I stayed with relatives until my father was released. We lived on a converted lifeboat for a while, sailing round the Scottish islands, then Dad decided we should emigrate, start over again. He used what money he had left to buy a pub in William Creek.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘A small town in South Australia.’

  Small is an understatement. You’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere smaller, or more remote, than William Creek. It’s way out on the Oodnadatta Track, not far from Lake Eyre, with a population that fluctuates between three and six people (which presumably depends on how many are living at the one and only pub).

  ‘Why did he pick William Creek?’

  ‘I don’t think my father really knew where it was. He saw the pub advertised for sale, decided to buy it and we emigrated. Mum was shocked when we arrived. ‘Where are the servants?’ she said. Dad had to tell her there weren’t any. ‘You’re looking at them,’ he said.

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘I loved it. It was like living in a Boy’s Own Adventure story. I was ten years old, riding bareback across the outback, setting traps for dingoes and selling the pelts for pocket money. I used to gallop alongside the train that came through every week and the guard would throw me a bundle of newspapers. I never dropped a single paper,’ CC said with pride, mopping up the last of his korma sauce with another piece of naan bread.

  ‘My father gave me a poddy calf one day –’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘An orphan calf.’

  I got a warm fuzzy feeling picturing CC as a ten-year-old hand-rearing a doe-eyed calf until I remembered he was a committed carnivore.

  ‘Dad said I could raise it, sell it and keep the profit, so I lavished attention on that calf. I fed it and fattened it and eventually I sold it for fifty dollars. I thought I was rich. Then Dad presented me with a bill for the feed, the vet’s bills and the slaughterhouse and it wiped out all the profit. He was teaching me a lesson about profit and loss.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  CC looked up from his plate and smiled. ‘A group of stockmen were working nearby and they came into the pub one night. I heard them talking about how they were planning to head off and muster brumbies, so I decided to join them. I packed a bag, took my horse and left a note for Dad on the kitchen table.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘I’ve gone mustering. I reckon it will be easier to make money that way.’

  CC laughed at the look on my face. He was an accomplished storyteller and he enjoyed seeing the effect the story had on me. It was incongruous, listening to him talk about brumby mustering when he was sitting in a restaurant in Balmain wearing a suit and tie. I tried to imagine him as a ten-year-old boy, hooking up with an outfit of men, sleeping in swags, eating damper and dried meat, sitting around the campfire at night and galloping across the open country by day. It conjured up an image of the Man from Snowy River.

  ‘The stockmen knew my father and, with hindsight, they probably had his blessing. Anyway, they tolerated me and let me tag along. They probably thought I’d give up and go home after a few days. One afternoon, not long after, a group of brumbies they’d been herding broke free. The ranchers shrugged; they thought it wasn’t worth trying to catch them.

  ‘I leapt onto my horse, bareback, and I chased them. Looking back, it was idiotic. I was galloping at full stretch and my horse could have stumbled and thrown me at any point. No one would have known where I was but I was determined to get those brumbies. I rode hard for half an hour or so, caught up with them, rounded them up and brought them back. When I went home I had money in my pocket.’

  It wasn’t the conservative upbringing I’d been expecting.

  We walked back from the restaurant after dinner, me clutching the remains of a bottle of red (I’d restrained myself – there was still half left), then later in bed, just as I was drifting off to sleep with my head resting on his shoulder, he said something that woke me up.

  ‘I shot a man once.’

  I sat bolt upright. Miss Prissy Knickers stared at him.

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘Don’t get excited, I only shot the top of his boot off.’

  The thought of CC pointing a gun at someone, then firing it, had Miss Prissy Knickers reaching for the reins. She leapt onto her high horse and galloped towards him.

  ‘How could you? How could you do such a thing? What if you’d missed? What if you’d shot him? What if he’d had a gun as well? What if you’d got into a shooting match?’ A passing thought made PK pause. ‘Was it live ammunition?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was!’ Miss Prissy Knickers got out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown. ‘So instead of lying here telling me this story you could be in prison right now, serving a life sentence for killing a man! How would you feel then? Hmm?’

  CC waited for Miss Prissy Knickers to blow herself out, she and her high horse snorting with righteous indignation.

  ‘It was a long time ago and I was a very good shot.’

  ‘Oh, and that makes it OK, I suppose?’

  ‘Do you want to know what happened, Frosty?’

  ‘Frosty?’

  ‘Well, I don’t detect much warmth coming off you right now.’

  True, I was ready to call the police and hand him over, but curiosity finally got the better of me. ‘Go ahead then, tell me what happened.’

  ‘I was working for an oil and gas exploration company on a ca
mp in South Australia and most of the guys were out surveying. I was only nineteen and pretty junior so they left me behind at the camp with a couple of girls who did the cooking. I heard some guys from a nearby town were driving around in a ute; they were drunk and looking for trouble. They wanted girl action and they knew where they could get it.’

  It sounded like he was reading from a script in a Clint Eastwood movie.

  ‘So this beaten-up ute arrived with five drunken blokes in it and I loaded my .22 revolver and walked across to meet them. I said, “If you set one foot out of that ute, I’ll blow it off. There’s nothing for you guys here, so why don’t you just get back in your vehicle and drive off.” The guys were so drunk they didn’t believe me. They laughed. The driver climbed out and he stood there facing me, daring me to do something.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I shot him.’

  Miss PK’s high horse reared out of control. ‘What if you’d killed him? What if the others had had guns too?’

  ‘Calm down, Frosty, I was an expert shot. I just nicked his boot, that’s all. Besides, those guys were drunk, I had to do something. If I hadn’t, they might have grabbed the girls and raped them.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘They got back in the ute and drove off.’

  Miss Prissy Knickers was forced to admit that maybe Captain Considerate had a point.

  She slid off her horse and CC opened his arms. Much to her surprise, she found herself admiring his courage, his ability to take decisive action and protect the defenceless young girls (who in all probability could have whacked the drunks around the head with a frying pan and decked them, but never mind). She even – God forbid – admired his skill at using a firearm. Miss Prissy Knickers was confused. Captain Considerate, he of the pressed slacks, striped tie and double-breasted blazer, was not as conservative as he looked.

  I drifted off to sleep and dreamt of Clint Eastwood.

  But what about romance? What about chocolates and flowers and whispered words of tender sweetness? Romance mattered to me; in fact it mattered so much that once, while I was pining for A2 and mourning the fact that he’d fallen in love with someone else, I ran a service called ‘Say it with a Sonnet’. I set it up in time for Valentine’s Day and, for a small fee and a stupendously large dose of self-flagellation, I offered to read love sonnets over the phone.

  ‘Hello,’ I would say, in low, dulcet tones. ‘I have a message for you; it comes with love from Mike.’ (Or Betty, or James or Julie.)

  ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely . . .’

  ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways . . .’

  By the end of the day I was weeping with self-pity that no one had sent me flowers or offered to read me a poem, neatly overlooking the fact that some of the romantic souls I’d spoken to had a rather shrewd approach to love.

  A woman called Sally rang and asked me to read Sonnet 57 to her husband.

  Being your slave what should I do but tend

  Upon the hours and times of your desire . . .

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘Do you have a message you’d like to add?’

  ‘Tell him I love him more than life itself.’

  ‘What a lovely message.’

  ‘And then I want you to ring Michael, on this number.’ I noted down the number she gave me. ‘And I want you to read the same sonnet,’ she said.

  ‘Um, any message at the end?’

  ‘Same message, thanks.’

  Then there was Brenda, who wanted me to jump out from behind a tree in the Domain near Parliament House while she and her loved one were having a surprise picnic. It sounded like an ideal publicity stunt so I contacted a local news station and suggested they might like to get some footage of it. I then thought (belatedly, I did tell you I was rubbish at PR) that maybe I should let Brenda know what I was planning.

  ‘That won’t work,’ she said, flatly.

  ‘Oh but it will!’ I gushed. ‘They love the idea!’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You won’t have to do anything, you can just carry on having your picnic.’

  ‘We don’t want to be filmed.’

  ‘But the TV crew is really keen.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand. We can’t be filmed.’

  ‘Oh.’

  In the end I had to find a fictitious couple, arrange a fictitious picnic and jump out from behind a (thankfully real) tree for the TV cameras, while Brenda and her secret lover were discreetly picnicking elsewhere in the park. When the TV crew left I had to do it all over again for the blushing Brenda and her publicity-shy lover.

  The experience didn’t put me off; if anything it heightened my desire to find the romantic lover of my dreams. Having spent most of my adult life longing for romance I could swoon at the mere hint of anything approaching a romantic gesture.

  A1 had arranged a surprise picnic on a summer afternoon in England. He drove us to a deserted field of poppies and we lay on a blanket drinking elderflower champagne, watching the poppies sway above us, bobbing red against a cloudless blue sky. Gorgeous.

  A2 had taken me sailing at dusk. He produced a chilled bottle of vintage Bollinger as we drifted through Sydney Harbour, electric green phosphorescence glowing in the wake of the boat. Beautiful.

  A3 had wooed me with a selection of chocolate bars, spread out on a clean white handkerchief like something out of an Enid Blyton storybook. Exquisite.

  None of those relationships worked.

  So what? There were flowers, chocolates and whispered words of poetry. There was romance! Isn’t that what love is all about?

  When it came to romance, CC was baffled. He couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.

  ‘Quite frankly, I think it’s a load of nonsense,’ he said. ‘Don’t expect me to send you flowers, roses, chocolates or any of it. Valentine’s Day is a commercial rip-off.’

  So while he may have been an expert shot and a courageous hero (when I asked him if he would go back into a burning plane to rescue someone again, he said yes without hesitation), CC was no romantic.

  ‘What’s the point, Frosty?’ he said, searching in his briefcase for a pair of glasses so he could read the paper in bed. The nickname ‘Frosty’ had stuck, indicating he knew me better than I thought, especially when he put the paper down and peered at me in a way that suggested I was about to get a dose of reality.

  ‘I’ve met several versions of you now,’ he said. ‘First there was the ice maiden – cold, intellectual, unapproachable and unassailable.’

  ‘Which didn’t stop you,’ I said, pressing my lips together. I wasn’t at all sure I was going to like this.

  ‘On holiday I met a different version, the up-for-it, wanting-to-please Frosty who suspected it might all be over by the end of the week so there was no harm in being nice. Along the way she found she could enjoy herself too.’

  I didn’t respond. There was more coming.

  ‘Then there’s the post-Bali Frosty, who is analytical, don’t you dare tell me you love me, what’s love got to do with anything, we like each other and that’s all there is to it, so don’t get carried away. Just because I slept with you in Bali doesn’t mean I’ll want to do it again and I could run away any time, so don’t look for some kind of commitment from me.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘So what’s the point in sending you flowers? Am I right?’ he added, with a triumphant look on his face.

  ‘You tell me, since you seem to know me so well,’ I snapped, annoyed at being so quickly (and accurately) summed up.

  There was a lot to like about CC but I hadn’t fallen for him. I was nursing a broken heart, secretly pining for someone I could never be with. The hurt of knowing that the man I loved had married someone else was still raw. I still loved him.

&nb
sp; PK did her best.

  The man you thought you loved is married! He was never interested in you!

  Stupid, isn’t it?

  You’re not giving Captain Considerate a chance.

  I know.

  He’s a lovely man.

  I know.

  And life’s too short to stuff a mushroom.

  What’s that got to do with anything?

  Don’t be such a bloody vegetarian all the time!

  chapter sixteen

  ‘What were you two laughing about?’

  Bonnie walked into my office just as CC walked out. Until she spoke I didn’t even realise we were laughing. For the life of me I couldn’t have explained why, so I shrugged and tried to concentrate on the email I should have been composing. Bonnie was a shrewd, perceptive New Yorker with a big heart. She was around my age and there wasn’t much she missed.

  ‘It’s good you get on so well,’ she said, glancing at CC’s retreating back as she passed me a set of proofs she’d corrected. ‘Some people find him intimidating.’

  ‘Really?’ I backspaced to delete the rubbish I’d just typed.

  ‘I think he’s lovely,’ she added. ‘Really decent.’ She gave me a look that suggested she knew there might be something going on and I gave her a look back that said you might be right but please can we be discreet about this? Bonnie had met her husband at work many years earlier and I knew I could trust her not to blab.

  But how long could this relationship continue? In spite of the occasional laugh, my frosty insistence that there would be no snatched moments in the office had introduced a level of tension between us that was hard to counteract. I insisted on stern professionalism at work (or so I thought) and found it hard to switch it off outside the office.

  CC was keener than ever to advise the Board but I dreaded going public with the relationship because, with my track record, there was every likelihood the relationship wouldn’t last. Even when I’d been madly in love with someone I’d never been able to make a relationship work so what were the chances with CC? Slim. This was no great romance and the messy fallout of a failed affair would, at the very least, be highly embarrassing for CC. It could have been catastrophic for me.