Love in the Outback

by Deb Hunt

  I’d grown to love my job, and there was a slight chance they might ask me to stay in some capacity when Rachel came back from maternity leave. A failed relationship with the CEO wouldn’t help my chances.

  I got no pleasure from hiding the relationship and no illicit thrill in sleeping with CC because I didn’t consider him superior. He wasn’t my boss; he was my equal (and if I’m being really honest, I thought I was a teensy bit superior to him). But no matter how well we might have been getting on, and no matter how ‘equal’ I considered us to be, I was under no illusions about the power gradient between a CEO and a lowly communications co-ordinator. I would never have contemplated embarking on such a radically inappropriate relationship under normal circumstances, but . . . but what? These weren’t normal circumstances? That sounded like a pretty lame excuse and I doubted if anyone would welcome me into the workplace if things went wrong.

  With CC living in Broken Hill we hadn’t seen much of each other since Bali. His dedication to work was fearsome, and on the odd occasion he was in Sydney he started early, finished late and often had dinners to attend, which relegated me to the role of warm body at the end of the night. The bitter disappointment of A3 had been a wake-up call and I knew, finally (yes, I know, it took a while but I got there in the end), that secret love affairs and lonely nights spent waiting for someone to climb into bed with me only to slink off the next morning held zero appeal. I wanted a straightforward, simple relationship. But could I have that with CC?

  *

  ‘You OK in there?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘No problem.’

  CC was standing on the other side of the locked bathroom door. He’d noticed I had been in there a long time, which can’t have been difficult since the log cabin we were renting only had one bedroom, a combined living/kitchen area and a small bathroom. I wasn’t in the bedroom and I wasn’t in the kitchen so I had to be in the bathroom.

  We’d hired a car and driven towards Windsor, an hour north of Sydney, heading for a simple log cabin for a long weekend, another attempt on my part to find out how compatible we might be, away from a five-star luxury hotel. The cabin was tucked out of sight on thirty acres of native bush, midway between Windsor and Dural. Other cabins dotted about the property were far enough away to be out of sight, so it was just us and the kookaburras, the alpacas and the kangaroos. Beyond our cabin was a cleared paddock, where hammocks were strung between the trees, and a small creek with a couple of old kayaks pulled up on the bank. ‘Help yourselves,’ the owner had said when he showed us around. It was a far cry from Bali.

  I wasn’t helping myself to anything. I’d woken up with a raging headache and sore throat the morning we left Sydney, and by the time we arrived I felt so miserable I went straight to bed, which may have been precisely where CC wanted me, but not like that. He mixed me hot drinks, fed me aspirin and placed cold flannels on my sweaty forehead. He prepared inhalations and put up with my sneezing, coughing and moaning. When the fever went down I was left with a stinking cold and a hacking cough. CC took it all in his stride.

  ‘Thank you,’ I mumbled, lying back on the sweat-soaked pillows, my nose red and streaming. ‘You’re a very kind, considerate man.’

  ‘It’s in my interest to get you better,’ he said bluntly.

  By day three of our long weekend I felt much better, but I had a problem that wasn’t going away, no matter how hard I tried. Let me take this opportunity, if I may, to point out one of the essential differences between vegetarians and meat eaters. Meat can take up to five days to pass through your body. Vegetables are speedier, decomposing as fast as you can eat them; the more you eat, the faster they decompose and the sooner they leave your body. There’s no hanging around with fruit and fibre; vegetarians are in and out of the bathroom up to three times a day, as regular as clockwork, quick as a flash, no messing. Maybe it was the cough lollies or the vast doses of vitamin C or maybe it was the aspirin, I don’t know, but something interfered with my normal rhythm.

  CC knocked on the bathroom door.

  ‘Let me know if I can do anything.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Like what, I thought? I was so fed up wasting time I made a monumental effort and experienced a pain so intense it terrified me. I had no option but to retreat from the brink and I emerged from the bathroom feeling weak and shivery.

  ‘How did you go?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Liar. Frosty, if you’ve got a problem, we’ve got to sort it out,’ he said, opening drawers in the small kitchen.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘A pipe.’

  ‘What do you want a pipe for?’ I had a horrible feeling I knew the answer.

  ‘You might need to flush your system out with soapy water.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ I said decisively. ‘I don’t want any William Creek outback remedies, thank you all the same.’ I retreated to the bathroom.

  Half an hour later CC knocked on the door again.

  ‘Frosty, what about olive oil?’

  That sounded better than a pipe. ‘Won’t it make me sick?’ I shouted.

  ‘Why would it do that?’

  ‘If I drink too much of it.’ I swear I could hear him smile on the other side of the door.

  ‘Frosty, you don’t drink it,’ he said.

  I stayed in there another twenty minutes. When I eventually emerged, feeling weaker than ever, CC was peering at a bottle of brown sauce, one of those squeezable types, with a nozzle on top.

  ‘We could empty it and –’

  ‘NO!’

  ‘Calm down, Frosty, I’m only trying to help.’

  What surprises me most is that neither of us thought of the obvious solution, which was to get in the car and drive to the nearest chemist, buy an over-the-counter cure and wait for it to take effect. It must have been something to do with the isolation of our remote log cabin that persuaded us to attempt a Bear Grylls-type remedy with olive oil, but at least it worked.

  The few hours we had left were spent sitting on the balcony, reading books and hand-feeding kookaburras perched on the railings waiting for scraps. All too soon it was time to pack up and leave so we emptied the cabin (sorry about all the olive oil), filled the car and paused on the balcony before the drive back to Sydney.

  Bright sunlight was filtering through the trees and then, without warning, it started to rain. There were no clouds that we could see and it only lasted a few seconds, but that was long enough for a rainbow to appear. The appearance of that small but perfectly formed arc, clearly visible from one end to the other shimmering in between the eucalyptus trees, seemed a good omen. I silently thanked the universe for showing me that a practical man can sometimes be far more desirable than a romantic one.

  *

  ‘I like you, Frosty, in fact I more than like you,’ CC said, crushing me in an embrace that made it hard to breathe. We were standing in the skinny corridor of the house in Birchgrove at six o’clock the following morning, waiting for a taxi to arrive to take him to the airport for the journey back to Broken Hill.

  ‘I like you too,’ I mumbled, keeping my face pressed against his jacket.

  The blast of a horn signalled the arrival of the taxi.

  He picked up his briefcase. ‘Look after yourself, Frosty.’

  ‘You too.’

  *

  I made a cup of tea after he’d gone and sat in the sunroom looking out over the water. Captain Considerate had fallen for me, that much seemed clear, and I should have thanked my lucky, sparkling, vigilant stars and my guardian angel, that someone so sexy, attractive, good, decent, kind, intelligent, thoughtful, fit, healthy, happy and solvent had fallen for me. So what was the problem? Why did it matter that he wasn’t my soul mate?

  I have a friend, Nicole, whose first husband was her soul mate
; anyone who saw them together thought the same, two people meant for each other. They used to go out to the airport and watch planes together, take a picnic and make a day of it. One day he rang and said, ‘I’m at the airport.’ She said, ‘Great, I’ll pack a picnic, meet you there.’ He said, ‘No, you don’t understand, I’m at the airport because I’m leaving you.’ And that was it. Eight-year marriage. Gone.

  CC and I may not have been soul mates but we were good together. Sure, we didn’t agree on politics or on matters to do with finance – or food, sport, theatre, books or films, come to that – but I liked him. I trusted him. He was the most stable, reliable, dependable man I had ever met and he made me laugh. We made each other laugh.

  Which was all well and good, but CC had jumped into the raging river and he was being swept along. I was standing on the bank, watching him.

  What was it about falling in love that I always resisted? Was it that sense of letting go and having nothing stable to hold onto? I fought it all the way, like a salmon struggling upriver, swimming against the tide. Love had led me to some dark places and I no longer trusted it.

  Instinct told me that if I let go and trusted the rushing tide, I wouldn’t drown. In quiet moments I pictured a sheltered bay with deep water and a calm, stilled peace but when had I ever trusted the current to carry me that far? And what if there was no shallow, secluded inlet at the end of the river? What if there were rocks instead? What if the ocean flung me against those rocks and smashed me to pieces?

  On the odd occasion that I had ever been persuaded to plunge in, I’ve grabbed the nearest rock, clamped my eyes shut and waited for the swirling to calm down, spluttering against the force of rushing water and struggling to breathe. That’s what love has always felt like to me.

  The feelings I had for CC were calmer, quieter and altogether different. But were they strong enough?

  Of course, part of my reluctance to jump in the river with CC was the dwindling hope that A3 might resurface, which was a ridiculous notion. In spite of all the affection and encouragement I’d showered on him he’d chosen someone else. I was never even a contender.

  Why wouldn’t that fact sink in? Why couldn’t I get it through my stupid, thick head that A3 was in no way suddenly going to announce he’d made a monumental mistake? He wasn’t about to call and say, ‘What was I thinking of, getting married, I’m aching to be with you, could you ever forgive me because you and I were meant for each other, let’s run away to a cottage in the country and live happily ever after on fresh air and cheap red wine, you’re all I need.’ It wasn’t going to happen, end of story. So why couldn’t I stop hoping that it would?

  Because I still loved him, and it takes a long time to get over lost love.

  chapter seventeen

  Dream catchers spun from the ceiling, rainbow-coloured scarves covered the counter and the shelves were full of crystals and self-help books. It had to be the right place.

  Metro Mike operated from a converted semi-detached house sandwiched between a butcher’s and an op shop on a busy main road near the Metro Shopping Centre in Marrickville, hence the name. I hadn’t entirely weaned myself off Tarot cards (in my defence, Metro Mike came highly recommended) and I was curious to know if the universe had any advice about CC.

  I followed Metro Mike down the narrow side passage that once would have been an empty space between two houses. The hazy corridor was covered with corrugated plastic to keep out the rain and the walls were draped in multi-coloured fabric. It was barely wide enough to drag a bin down yet Metro Mike had somehow managed to squeeze a table and two chairs into the narrow space. This was his consulting room.

  The box of tissues on the table was a bad sign – I’m like Pavlov’s dog when I spot a box of Kleenex – and sure enough Metro Mike had barely started speaking before a pile of soggy tissues started accumulating in front of us. He said some pretty hard-hitting stuff.

  ‘You’re good at failure, but you’re afraid of success,’ he declared. ‘Why aren’t you writing more?’

  I blew my nose. Had I told him I was a part-time writer? I couldn’t remember.

  I’d written stories, poems and scripts that I’d shown no one because I was convinced they weren’t good enough. It was that search for perfection again. Writing was the one thing I loved doing more than anything else, but it was easier to give up and call myself a failure at it than try to succeed and have someone else tell me I was no good. The truth of what he’d said had me reaching for another tissue. ‘You’re doing a job that helps people but you shouldn’t be doing it. You’ve been putting off what you really want to do and now it’s time to get on with it. Do you sometimes write things that seem really intelligent and profound?’

  I nodded, sobbing into my tissue, feeling a little glow of self-satisfaction as I wondered how he could possibly know about the hidden talent I sometimes thought might be worth sharing with the world.

  ‘Fifty per cent of what you write isn’t yours,’ he said bluntly. ‘It comes from your guides.’

  Oh that’s all very well, I thought sourly, thanks for the vote of confidence, but what about what I really came here for? What about relationships? What about the future? What can you tell me about those, Mr Smarty Pants?

  ‘Stop worrying about the future,’ he said, when I hadn’t said a word about the future. ‘And you’ve got a good relationship,’ he added, before I could say a word about relationships. ‘Enjoy it. It was working but then something got in the way.’

  He peered at me rather accusingly, as if it was somehow my fault. And of course, it probably was. Secretly longing for an old flame to reignite is hardly the best way to encourage a new relationship.

  ‘Accept love,’ he said firmly. ‘You’re good at giving love to other people but you’re bad at accepting it for yourself.’

  Where was he getting this stuff from? How did he know that the sum total of all my experiences had led me to believe I wasn’t worth loving? I blew my nose again and asked the question that had to be asked. ‘There was someone else once,’ I mumbled, ‘a long time ago, an old relationship, more of a friendship really, and I was just wondering, could it ever . . .?’

  I knew the answer before I’d even finished speaking. I’ve known the answer for years, yet still there was a moment when I wondered what Metro Mike might say. It was like a small, ever-reducing spark of fire sucking at oxygen, a speck of glowing embers that shines brighter the moment before they are extinguished forever.

  ‘No,’ said Metro Mike, decisively. ‘It won’t. That’s over. Let it go. Write him a letter if you have to, tell him everything you need to, then burn it.’

  I knew that wouldn’t happen. I’d written countless letters, all of them declaring undying love and none of them sent (I’m really quite an unobtrusive stalker; you’d hardly notice me at all unless you were looking). There was no need for another one.

  And suddenly, to my surprise, no need for the Kleenex either. The sense of disappointment as Metro Mike spoke was so small as to be hardly noticeable, quickly and easily overcome, a final acceptance that life had moved on, a realisation that all those times that I’d laid in bed alone, longing to be with A3, were over. All those years (although it wasn’t that long, only four) that he kept insisting all he wanted was friendship, he meant it. There was me, thinking he was battling with a desire as strong as mine and he wasn’t; he wanted friendship. He wanted precisely what he said he wanted and silly me for thinking otherwise.

  I paid Metro Mike, thanked him for the tissues and caught the bus home.

  As I sat on the half empty bus back to Balmain I knew I’d been clinging to a falsehood, nurturing a fantasy that should have died long ago.

  Had I ever really understood what love was? I used to think it was romance and passion; I thought it was all about being with the one you loved at any cost, moving heaven and earth to be with that person, and if you met someone you loved then wha
t you did once you’d fallen in love wasn’t important. That bit (which I never got to) would take care of itself! Relationships were all about falling in love or being in love, a sensation I resisted yet found overwhelmingly attractive at the same time. That was all that mattered and I couldn’t see beyond it. In other words, I hadn’t grown up.

  I’d reached middle age without ever getting beyond that breathless stage, when you feel like you’ll die if you can’t be with the person you love. The passion that made me feel like a giddy teenager was precisely that – teenage, starry-eyed desire with nothing grown-up about it.

  I set out wanting something from all of the As – marriage, stability, family – with little understanding of what I had to offer and even less regard for what any of them wanted. Getting what I wanted was what mattered. When I didn’t get it, and more importantly when I couldn’t face the disappointment of not getting it, I refused to give up. The love I’d felt mutated into something far more sinister.

  What’s the big deal about passionate love anyway? Sorry if that sounds like heresy, but really, is it so important? Sure, it’s exciting, but it’s not reliable or trustworthy. Passionate love won’t be there when the bins need to be taken out, or when the dishwasher needs to be emptied, or when you just want to sit in silence, content to have the kind of companion who is happy to do his thing while you do yours, a companion who will try hard not to hurt you or let you down. A companion like CC.

  CC and I were very different people but we shared similar core values of kindness, integrity, respect and honesty (apart from the odd spot of obsessive behaviour but that was behind me now). I was beginning to understand that a loving relationship with a partner might not be that different from a loving relationship with a friend. Other people probably worked that out years ago. I didn’t. It was like when I was sick in junior school, missing several weeks of maths, and never caught up. I don’t understand long division to this day.