Love in the Outback

by Deb Hunt

  For a wily old goat like CC, our relationship was about compromise, which roughly translated into negotiating, manoeuvring and positioning to get his own way. I was doing the same of course, so maybe we weren’t so incompatible after all.

  By the time the bus reached Newtown I knew I didn’t want the anguish of a passionate relationship (I’ve never been able to handle them anyway). I wanted, and it seemed I might have found, companionship, laughter, pleasure and joy. I had met someone who was good company, someone who could laugh at himself and at me. CC, my unexpected mate.

  I hesitated to say I loved him because what I felt was so comfortable, like a favourite cardigan I was glad to reach for and slip on again. In the past, sexual arousal had come from an element of danger; it was forbidden fruit that was troubling, passionate and ultimately destructive. I was having to re-learn what I thought I knew about sex and find passion within the security I felt with CC.

  Perhaps it was that sense of security that confounded me?

  Of course, I probably wasn’t all that CC wanted either. At my age I wasn’t that bothered about sex, so it was ironic that after all those early years of communicating largely through sex, a lot of the time without any real pleasure, I had finally found someone I felt comfortable with, someone I could talk to, quietly and calmly, and he was the one who wanted all the sex.

  It served me right for asking the universe to send me someone sexy. I clearly remember putting that at the top of the list I wrote out late one night when I was living under the flight path in Leichhardt. Please, I wrote, (it always pays to be polite) bring me someone sexy, kind, funny, intelligent, solvent and compassionate. And make it someone who wants to be with me and me alone, I added.

  It looked like I got my wish.

  *

  ‘What did he say about us?’

  ‘That we were good together.’

  ‘There you go, Frosty, approval from a higher source.’

  I told CC about the reading when we spoke on the phone that night and he gently mocked my reliance on spiritual guidance and psychic advice. His next sentence took me by surprise.

  ‘Maybe I should go and see him.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Why not? No harm in giving it a go.’

  This was a man who existed on work, meat, sex and sport, and he was agreeing to see a psychic. I had seriously underestimated CC.

  The appointment was for the following Saturday morning, when CC was in Sydney, so I hung around the crystal shop in Marrickville while Metro Mike did his stuff. I went for a coffee, went shopping, had another coffee and by the time CC emerged almost two hours later I was burning with curiosity.

  ‘Well? What did he say? Were you impressed? Did he make any sense?’

  ‘It was largely work related; he picked the fact that I was in management, but that wouldn’t have been difficult.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘And he said I don’t suffer fools gladly.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been hard to work that out either.’

  CC laughed. ‘I apologised for being late, then I said, “But you would have known I was going to be late anyway, wouldn’t you?”’

  ‘Good start.’

  ‘He said I might travel to India one day.’

  ‘India?’

  ‘It’s feasible. Caroline spends half the year there.’

  ‘Who’s Caroline?’

  ‘My foster sister. I should call her Nagasuri really. She’s a Buddhist monk.’

  He said it in a way that suggested having a sister who was a Buddhist monk was nothing unusual. ‘You never said. And I didn’t know you had a foster sister.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve got two.’ We drifted away from the topic of Metro Mike and chatted about family.

  Later that night I discovered there was a nugget he’d kept to himself. He’d been holding it in his pocket, polishing it, smoothing it and examining it when I wasn’t looking. He held onto it through Saturday evening while we watched The Lives of Others on DVD, through Sunday brunch, an easy breezy affair with friends, through cleaning the patio and sweeping up the leaves, through a trip to the cinema to see Samson and Delilah – a heart-breaking film of brutal beauty – and through snuggling on the sofa on Sunday night until, finally, we went to bed.

  ‘Metro Mike said there were other men around you.’ His voice was hard and flat and I was shocked at the sudden revelation.

  ‘I’m not seeing anyone else if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  I may not have had a great track record when it came to men, and I admit I’ve been guilty of trying to pinch someone else’s boyfriend on more than one occasion – a betrayal of sisterhood that now shames me – but I’d never been unfaithful, not since I was a teenager. At seventeen two boys got wind of the fact that I was seeing them both and they turned up on my parents’ doorstep simultaneously. The shock was enough to put paid to any more of that nonsense for the rest of my life.

  ‘Metro Mike said you wouldn’t be unfaithful.’

  ‘There! See?’

  ‘But you’ve never really had a successful relationship, have you?’

  Not for the first time I wished I hadn’t had so much to drink on our first date. CC had the memory of an elephant. It was selective memory too, recalling the fact that I’d never had a successful long-term relationship and ignoring the equally relevant fact that the only time I’d ever been unfaithful was when I was seventeen.

  ‘Hang on. Metro Mike said there were three women around you and he said they would all make suitable partners. I didn’t get my knickers in a twist about that, did I?’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’ The look of disappointment on his face told me he rather wished I had. The implication of his words settled like dust in an empty room.

  I attempted a bungled explanation about how jumping in wasn’t my thing but the more I spoke, the more defensive and elusive I sounded. ‘I’m taking my time, that’s all, standing on the bank, you know, waiting, I don’t want to dive into deep water . . . until . . .’

  ‘I didn’t realise,’ he said quietly. After a pause he added, ‘I jumped in, as soon as we met. I thought you had too.’

  CC was hurt to discover that he’d jumped in alone. More worryingly, he was concerned I might be standing on the bank waiting to see if someone better came along.

  ‘Are you seeing someone else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about that Aboriginal guy. Did you sleep with him?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Have you seen him again?’

  ‘No, I haven’t heard from him in ages.’

  ‘What about that photographer?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not seeing anyone else.’

  ‘He fancies you.’

  ‘That’s hardly my fault.’

  ‘He’s into all that creativity you think is so important, he’s more your type.’

  ‘Stop it! I’m not seeing anyone else! I’m taking my time, that’s all, because I want to be sure I’m with the right person.’

  ‘And are you?’

  I took a deep breath. And avoided answering the question.

  ‘The right person is someone who won’t let me drown . . . who will always wait for me to catch up if I fall behind.’

  CC wasn’t in the mood for creative answers.

  ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know what’s going on?’

  His eyes darkened and he quizzed me on every man I knew, trying to find out if there was anything going on. I’d never seen this side of CC before. His lack of trust infuriated me.

  ‘Stop asking questions! I haven’t cheated on you, I’m not cheating on you and I won’t cheat on you! We agreed at the start we wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘How do I kno
w I can trust you?’

  ‘You don’t know, that’s the whole point of trust!’

  ‘I need confirmation.’

  ‘Oh that’s ridiculous. You can’t confirm trust. It’s like faith; you either have it or you don’t. And if I was the kind of person who was willing to cheat on you, I’d also be the kind of person who would be willing to lie about it, so your endless questions are pointless.’

  The argument petered out with nothing resolved and CC looked as drained as I felt. I mentally vowed to stand my ground. I may not have come clean about A3 but I’d done nothing to be ashamed of. I certainly hadn’t cheated on CC. Before I fell asleep I briefly wondered if he was the one doing the cheating.

  *

  There was a time when I would have cowered in the face of rage like CC’s. In the late 1980s I was working as a medical librarian at a military hospital in Saudi Arabia. Jason was an administrator with the Canadian embassy and this was the first proper, long-term relationship I’d ever had. It was just me and him (or so I thought).

  As a single woman I was meant to live in a walled compound with other single women and I wasn’t allowed to drive or get into a car with a man unless he was my husband, my brother or my uncle. I also had an eleven o’clock curfew every night.

  I got around the travel restrictions by lying in the back of Jason’s car on the floor, covered in a blanket, and I avoided the curfew by living in his flat. He would drive me to the single woman’s compound early each morning and stop around the corner. I would hop out of the car, join the queue for the bus to the hospital and arrive at work like every other single woman.

  We were soul mates, inseparable, inventive and compatible. We performed in plays at the American air base (another illegal activity), played darts, read books, brewed wine and threw dinner parties.

  Jason went on leave for a week and I stayed behind – in the initial six-month phase of any contract you weren’t allowed leave in case you never went back – and one afternoon a male friend called over for tea. It was a completely innocent visit.

  When Jason got back he heard about the visit and flew into a rage. I didn’t recognise him. That night he stood over me, a vein in his neck pumping blood, his face a contortion of crimson muscle as he pressed a clenched fist against his thighs. ‘You are so lucky I don’t hit women!’ he screamed.

  I cowered in a corner of the room, shocked into a stammering explanation that nothing had happened. Jason stalked into the bedroom, grabbed a blanket and threw it at me. ‘You can sleep on the sofa!’ he shouted, and slammed the bedroom door.

  When my heart stopped hammering against my ribs I burst into tears. Jason was an affable, kind, considerate man and in front of my eyes he’d turned into a monster. I had nothing to help me understand or cope with such behaviour. My parents had never argued (or if they did it was quietly, behind closed doors) and I’d never seen anyone fly into a rage like that before. The unfair accusations hurt but the sudden withdrawal of love was far more upsetting.

  So I did something that I regret to this day. In the middle of the night I crept back into our bedroom and curled up on the floor at the bottom of the bed. When Jason woke up I whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I forgive you,’ he said.

  He forgave me and I’d done nothing wrong! The force of his anger had made me feel culpable and led to my nervous apology, which no doubt confirmed my guilt.

  A week or so later I found a flirtatious postcard –

  After an extensive search of his drawer.

  Yes, thank you, PK.

  – from a woman he’d visited in England while he’d been on leave. With it was a letter he’d been composing to send to her. ‘When we make love I tread the line between death and exhilaration . . .’

  The jealous rage I’d witnessed had been prompted by his infidelity, not mine.

  And here’s the worst part (quite apart from the fact that he had never said anything like that to me after we’d made love), I replaced the postcard, and the half-finished letter and, as on so many occasions in the past, I said nothing. I swallowed the hurt and disappointment and I carried on as normal. I dreaded the thought that any confrontation might lead to a repeat of that earlier ugly scene. I still loved Jason, and he still loved me; we were still soul mates, but the seed of our eventual break-up had been sown. That hidden letter and its contents festered like rotten fruit. I should have confronted him but I was too scared. The resulting lack of trust ultimately destroyed our relationship and we split up several months later.

  The next morning, less choked by emotion, CC and I talked through what had happened.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ CC said. ‘I don’t know why I said those things. It was wrong of me.’ Then he struggled. ‘It’s just that I love you. I love you so much,’ he said, his voice wavering. ‘I couldn’t bear to think you might cheat on me.’

  I pulled my chair closer, surprised at how calm I felt. I couldn’t tell CC I loved him because I didn’t, not then. I liked him. I liked him a lot, enough to make a solemn vow.

  ‘Even if we don’t spend the rest of our lives together, even if it turns out we’re not right for each other, I will never cheat on you,’ I said. ‘Never. You have my word. We all have a choice when it comes to cheating.’

  There was a faint melancholy in his expression; he hadn’t missed the fact that I hadn’t said I loved him. He reached across and patted my hand, his smile slow and tentative, and there was a mixture of sadness and hope lurking behind it. I saw what was happening. He was swimming back towards me, fighting the current that had initially swept him downstream, so he could clamber out of the river and join me on the bank.

  CC was willing to wait for me to take the plunge.

  chapter eighteen

  ‘You have to pay if you want a pavement.’

  ‘What do you mean, you have to pay for a pavement? What kind of nonsense is that? I’ve never heard anything like it.’

  ‘Calm down, Frosty, that’s normal practice out here.’

  It was a Saturday morning in mid-October and we were sitting outside The Silly Goat on Argent Street. Back in April I’d thought Broken Hill was a fascinating place with an intriguing history and friendly locals. That’s when I knew I was only staying for the weekend. As a place to live, a place to call home, I wasn’t so sure.

  I had flown up for a four-day work trip and extended it over the weekend to stay with CC, openly. Our relationship was no longer a secret. With some trepidation I had agreed we should take the step of going public, and several weeks earlier, CC had advised the RFDS Board, in writing, that he and I were conducting a personal relationship. Apart from a reminder to respect professional confidentiality there was no adverse reaction (even Queen Bee did little more than raise her eyebrows) and my colleagues in the marketing department seemed overwhelmingly positive. CC was well liked and well respected and people seemed happy for him. It was a major step to have taken but a necessary one if we were to spend more time together – in a small town like Broken Hill, if you fell off your bar stool at one end of town they’d know about it before you hit the deck at the other end. Although neither of us was saying it, not explicitly, we were both wondering if I could live in Broken Hill. My contract had been extended for another six months but I would still, in theory, be going back to England the following year.

  Could an English vegetarian with vestiges of a hippie past survive in a place like Broken Hill? I grew up in a Gloucestershire village surrounded by acres of green fields, I’d lived in glamorous cities like Madrid, London, Seville and Sydney; worked on events in Paris, Rome, Brussels, Amsterdam, Vienna, Sardinia, Vancouver and Marrakesh, staying in five-star resorts and swanning around like a PR princess. Could I embrace life in a dusty Australian mining town, surrounded by scrubby desert?

  From our vantage point I could see two of the town’s three sets of traffic lights, although according to CC there were hu
ndreds more underground, controlling a complex network of tunnels formed by decades of mining activity.

  ‘The town will probably cave in one day,’ he said placidly, forking bacon and eggs into his mouth.

  ‘What kind of council runs this place?’

  He took a mouthful of (excellent) coffee. ‘A local would tell you the village idiot used to be mayor of Broken Hill. He was ousted by the town drunk, then the whole council was sacked and they appointed an administrator. Things have improved since.’

  ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Thirty-six years.’

  ‘And you’re not considered local?’

  CC smiled and shook his head. ‘No. You’re only local if you were born here. I’m from Away.’

  Me too, I thought. A long way away. Mind you, it could have been worse. He could have lived in White Cliffs. I’d visited that remote opal-mining community the day before, tagging along with the RFDS on a weekly clinic run.

  It had been well into the mid-thirties by nine thirty in the morning and I’d lowered my sweaty body onto a plastic chair in the clinic waiting room in White Cliffs, relieved to find the single-storey building had air conditioning. I’d taken a seat next to a middle-aged woman and struck up a conversation.

  ‘Hello. Is your husband an opal miner?’ I’d asked.

  She’d lifted her weathered face and looked at me with disinterest, deep lines radiating from her narrowed eyes.

  ‘I’m the miner,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a jackhammer and a shovel and I’m mining for opals.’

  I’d hastily apologised for my naïve blunder and tried another approach. ‘I understand most people in White Cliffs live underground.’

  ‘That’s right. Constant twenty-two degrees underground, summer or winter.’

  ‘It must be a relief to escape the heat.’

  ‘If you can afford a dugout, it would be. I can’t. I live in a caravan, out on the opal fields.’

  ‘It must be hot out there,’ I’d said lamely.