Just Visiting

by Graham Wilson

  Chapter 7 – Alice, Here I Come – Days 17-18

  Susan sometimes thought she did her best thinking on aeroplanes. They were crowded places in an empty sky. While you were jammed in with other people, you were almost entirely disconnected from all else in the world. This gave her free hours to sit and contemplate.

  On other flights Susan gorged on movies, magazines, drinks and junk food. Today she just sat, thought and wondered what might be.

  She didn’t regret her decision to come to Alice Springs to meet Mark. She felt no fear about travelling with him, she knew he was so thoroughly competent and in his element.

  She also felt that she had moved on from Sydney and left all thought of David behind, pushed into a remote corner, somewhere in the back of her mind. Perhaps she would hear from or see him again, perhaps not; it did not seem important now.

  As for whether she should feel ashamed at what happened, lover to two men in less than a week, with neither knowing that the other existed, well that was left aside too.

  But now it was Mark that recaptured her mind. There was something in what made him up that she couldn’t quite fathom and it added an edge, making her uneasy and nervous in a way she could not define. Perhaps this would be a great journey of discovery of the real Mark, him more able to show himself in a place where he felt at home, without the need to conform to the rest of humanity. All she knew was that he was a huge and powerful force over her and the thought of seeing him soon gave her butterflies of anticipation. The time she had spent with him was the most exhilarating thing so far in her life.

  She had phoned him the day after the text exchange but the conversation was brief. Just a confirmation of time of arrival and flight details and an agreement that he would pick her up at the furthest end of the terminal pick up zone.

  Then, last night, a text had come saying he would be delayed getting into town and asking if she could catch the shuttle bus to the Alice Springs Mall. He would text her there when he arrived and arrange to collect her. She had no idea where they would go or what they would do from there.

  So now she followed his instructions and brought herself, with backpack, in on the shuttle bus from the airport to the mall in the centre of Alice Springs. In anticipation of seeing him she had bought for him a beautiful little calendar notebook from Melbourne Zoo, each month separated by a beautiful animal picture. She had written in the flyleaf.

  Dear Mark,

  Really looking forward being Out Back with you

  From Suz, with love!!

  Now she was sitting in a café in the mall, enjoying lunch, waiting for the phone to ring; still a little bit in her own contemplative world.

  She became aware that someone had stopped in front of the table.

  She looked up.

  It was him.

  Today he was wearing a bright checked shirt and moleskins, an Akubra hat pulled down over his eyes to shade the glare. He looked just great, so seriously together, she felt breathless with delight. She sprang to her feet, spilling coffee, and hugged him tight, she didn’t care. She felt his hard arms encircle her, it felt good.

  He looked at her with a quizzical eye. “I wondered whether you would show. When people get a taste for bright lights and big city they often don’t want to come out here.”

  She said, “I wouldn’t have missed it for quids, plus it was you I most came to see.”

  She fumbled and found her present. She passed it to him, feeling a bit shy. He took it and flicked through it, pleasure evident. Then he came back to the front page, and re-read her writing, with a half-smile on his face.

  “Well, I hope not to disappoint. Out here is a lot of space and not much in between.”

  Then he looked at her half eaten lunch, saying. “Do you want to finish up? We have a way to go this afternoon.”

  Arching eyebrows she said “Oh, so secret, where to, pray tell?”

  “My surprise.” he replied.

  He led her to a car park around the back of the mall, flanked by a dry riverbed. Parked amongst other vehicles, was large white four-wheel-drive. He said, “That’s mine, a tray back Toyota Land Cruiser. I think of it as my little truck, it is like a home of wheels. It takes me and my gear anyplace I want to go. On the back was a cage, and a built in white structure, like a cooler box but much larger, with a locking door like a big fridge with a padlock. There was also a big swag, an overnight bag, some other locked metal boxes, a water tank in one front corner, along with two spare tyres attached to metal brackets in each back corner.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the cooler box.

  “Sometimes I catch a lot of fish, sometimes I shoot a camel or buffalo and take the meat to the local aborigines. It all goes in there, with a great pile of ice. That keeps it cool for a few days. Today only a carton of beer and a couple of juicy steaks,”

  “What about the cage?” she asked.

  “Sometimes when I go hunting I bring a dog. That stops it running away or biting someone, when I don’t want it to. Also has a great calming effect on anyone who might want to help themselves to something on the back of the truck.”

  He popped her pack in the cage and unlocked the front doors, hers first then his. “OK, time to go,” he said.

  Susan climbed in. With a clattering roar the diesel engine fired and they were away. They drove through a gap in the red broken hills, heading south out of town, coming along the edge of a wide sandy riverbed and went on past more low hills along the road, red rocky hillsides with olive-green trees and bleached grass, vibrant against the clear blue sky.

  This looked like the way Susan had come in to town from the airport. She recognised landmarks, the train line, the Ghan Museum, a Road Transport Hall of Fame; lots of big trucks there. Just when the airport came into view and this seemed like their destination, they tuned right. A big sign said “Stuart Highway” and pointed to Adelaide.

  “I thought we were going to Darwin,” said Susan, “I’m not real strong on my Australian geography but I thought Adelaide was in the opposite direction.”

  Mark cracked a grin, “Really can’t pull one over you eh? Well spotted. We are doing a slight detour, thought you might like to see that big Rock, the one that the bloody tourists rave over, before we head north.”

  Susan smiled widely, “That is a big surprise, thought we were going out into the ‘Never Never’ and here we are heading for Tourist Central. You know I could have flown straight there if that was the idea. Is that the big surprise?”

  “Well part,” admitted Mark, “but there is a something else to see along the way.”

  They rumbled along at a steady pace, passing around the edges of more low red rocky ranges and sand hills, featureless but pretty country, mixed low trees and bushes, occasional roadside patches of desert flowers. It was vast and empty, different from anything Susan knew. She sat there, letting the country roll by, feeling content and enjoying Mark’s profile as he gave his attention to driving, with odd descriptors of the country and places they passed for commentary.

  After an hour, just as they were coming to some larger hills, their car slowed and turned left off the bitumen, following a small sign reading, “Rainbow Valley.” The road was sandy wheel tracks, crossing orange-red low sand dune hills. Occasional patches of heavy sand caused Mark to drop a gear. They passed a tourist four-wheel drive, going the opposite way. About fifteen minutes further on they pulled off the road, at the side of a low sandy ridge. Mark indicated to get out and they walked towards the top. It was three or four times higher than the car, and didn’t look like anything special, just loose orange coloured sand covered by wiry grasses with scattered stunted trees and bushes.

  As they crested the ridge, there, opening before her, was the most spectacular sight she had seen. Below the sand dune lay a clay-pan, part covered in water. At it’s far side was a most incredible low range of hills. Eroded, broken, jagged peaks pointed skywards. The colours were what hit her, some parts were brick red, o
thers faded into a rainbow range of soft pastels; orange, salmon, yellow and white. The hills formed a perfect silhouette in the lake, so it seemed a second mountain range sat there, just below the first. It was not in large scale, but perfection of weather-sculpted nature was here. The beauty took her breath away.

  “I wanted you to see it from here; this is the best view of the whole,” said Mark.

  Susan stood alongside him, resting her hand lightly on his arm and her head against his shoulder. “Worth coming just for this,” she said.

  They drove to the car park and spent an hour walking and viewing it from all angles in the afternoon sun. As the sun fell towards the horizon, its light reflected back from the hills, lighting them in ever more iridescent hues of glowing colour.

  Mark said, “I love the sunsets here. For five minutes, right on dusk, it is like the ghosts of people past, those who have lived in this place for over 50,000 years, come out and walk in the twilight, living in the magic of the colours. Then, as the light fades, they sadly leave behind this beauty and return to other lands which we, mere mortals, cannot see.

  “In that soft shining light I feel as if I leave my body and walk with them, hearing their whispers and songs, telling me of times long gone. Perhaps one day, when I die, someone will scatter my ashes here, to mix with the spirits of these wise and ancient beings. I would like that.”

  Susan felt goose bumps rise on her skin. She had never grasped a spiritual dimension in this bush-hardened cynic. This was a window into his soul she was privileged to see.

  Then Mark pulled back from the moment, “We can’t stay for this evening’s dusk. It’s a long way to the Rock and we should push on.”

  They walked back to the car and drove on, sharing silence for a couple hours, back onto the bitumen and south, winding through more hills, crossing two large and spectacular rivers, the Finke and the Palmer, more and more surreal in their colours as the sun sunk westwards. Then over vast short grass plains, grass glowing golden in the fading sunlight.

  Another road sign pointed “Adelaide” straight on and “Uluru” right. They went right, driving towards a red sun disk, just above the horizon. Half an hour later came a roadhouse sign, “Mt Ebenezer Roadhouse”. Daylight was gone by now, diminished to a dull red glow in the sky.

  “Still 200 kilometres to go; I thought we’d stop for a cold beer and a burger,” said Mark. They perched at the bar; the beer icy, the burgers good. They ate with simple enjoyment.

  On they went, into the dark as the stars came out. After another hour a silvery light seemed to glow. Susan looked behind. A near full moon was rising, bathing grass plains and sand hills glimpses in silvered light. Far to the south was a large flat-topped mountain, a moonlit reflection. It was how she imagined that Table Mountain over Cape Town would look.

  “Mount Connor, similar in scale and spectacle, but not in fame, to its Uluru cousin,” Mark said

  Another roadhouse passed to the right, its sign proclaiming “Curtin Springs”. White-faced cattle stood near the road as they passed it by. Then spinifex covered sand hills rolled on by for an hour or more. Finally distant lights twinkled on the horizon. As they came over a sand-ridge Susan saw a massive bulk ahead.

  It was another most incredible sight; a dark mound, shadow stripes running up and down its massive half-circle form. It glowed in moonlight, an almost deep purple with silver hues. It grew ever larger and more dominant, this huge elephant shaped lump, fallen asleep out in the middle of the sand, under a near full moon. This was Uluru.

  Then they swung away and it faded from view behind dunes. A few minutes saw them rolling into a well-lit town. Views of hotels, caravan parks and wandering tourists reflected in headlights. They entered the car park of a modern hotel complex. The sign proclaimed, “Desert Sails.”

  Mark said, “I thought we would treat ourselves to a night of the good life before we seriously leave civilisation behind.”

  They walked into the hotel side by side, holding hands. Susan separated as he went up to reception, standing well behind as he signed the check in forms, squinting in the bright light. He already had a booking slip so it was a minor formality. He was given access keys, a map and a brief introduction to their hotel and location.

  Now it was just the two of them. They followed the directions and walked along a passage to their room, in a back corner looking over a pool and sand dunes to the west.

  She felt a strange trepidation to be alone with Mark like this. Their lovemaking had been out amongst nature or in hidden moments in public. She had never been alone with him in a totally private space. She had never spent an uninterrupted night with him in a full-sized bed. She hoped he would not find this intimate experience with her a disappointment, after the frisson of their almost public past lovemaking.

  But Mark was totally calm and reassuring. They walked out the verandah and savoured the rapidly cooling night air for a moment. It was as if he was slowing the re-connection process down, giving her time to get comfortable and occupy her own space. She moved in next to him, her arm around him, enjoying his solidity.

  He pointed to the bathroom and said, “You probably want to freshen up after a long day, or maybe, you’d prefer a drink from the bar fridge. I’ll get the bags from the car.”

  “A hot bath sounds just fantastic,” Susan replied, smiling brightly. Mark left and she turned on the tap.

  Taking off her clothes, while the bath ran and bubbles frothed, Susan looked at her silhouette in the mirror. She ran her hands over her breasts and she had an overwhelming desire to have Mark touch her like this. The prospect of a night together gave her a thrill.

  She climbed into the bath, leaving the door open six inches, so he could not help but see in when he returned. She lay stretched out for a minute, letting the warmth penetrate all her pores. Then she pushed herself deep into the water, submerging herself completely. She lay there for a few seconds, an upside down underwater dive.

  When she lifted herself and opened her eyes Mark was standing there, silent as a cat, looking down at her, holding a large bottle of bubbles, “Compliments of Management, thought you might like one,” he said.

  She yawned sleepily, like a contented kitten, and said, “Lovely. But really, all I want is you. God I have missed you over the last week.”

  He looked at her, eyes at the edge of a wicked smile, and said. “It has taken all my effort to keep my hands off you until we got here. Now I intend to spend all night catching up on lost time. I want to make you beg for rest. But first, let us drink a glass of this to celebrate.”

  With a flourish Mark removed the cork and poured two glasses. He sat on the edge of the bath, in shorts and T-shirt, while they sipped together. Then, with his free hand, he scooped up some bubbles and placed them on her nose. Susan took his fingers and slowly kissed them, one by one, then moved them to her aching nipple. She arched herself towards him, bubbles sliding off her naked form.

  Soon he was bent over her, mouth on breast, hand stroking thighs and her mound. Then they were both naked and trying to join together in the bath.

  Susan giggled and stood up, pushing him back, “This is crazy, we have a superb king bed; let’s go there to really enjoy this.”

  Mark stood and reached for towels to dry them. Then he picked her up, and carried her to the bed, where he lay her down, gently, but with eyes full of intent.

  It was a night that was burned in her mind for all of her life, she like a sex starved kitten, her ravisher as a rampaging lion.

  They began on top of the covers, but were soon under them as they explored each other’s bodies with their mouths, reaching a joint orgasmic climax. They watched a raunchy movie while he came from behind. Then another slow languorous bath after which gentle lovemaking saw them drift to sleep until early light reflected back off the hills behind brought them awake. They found each other again in early morning light, loving the sight of each other’s naked bodies.

  “That’s it, you
win, I can’t take any more, I am totally worn out,” said Susan.

  She jumped up and pulled on a top. “I am starving! Let’s go have breakfast. Then let’s go see this famous lump of rock.”

  They ate a leisurely breakfast: great lashings of bacon and eggs, tomatoes, sausages, and mushrooms, followed by pastries and multiple cups of coffee.

  “I’m so full,” Susan said, looking at him with a slow smile, “A breakfast to remember after the best night of sex in my life. What can you do to top that?”

  Mark, smug faced, said, “I can’t think of anything, except to do it again tonight, and the night after, under the desert sky.”

  They climbed the Uluru, and marvelled at the view across to the Olgas and Mt Connor, amidst end-to-end sky sitting over endless spinifex sand-plains. They walked around the rock base. Mark showed her where the “Azaria” clothes were found; she knew the story of the dingo. They drove on to the Olgas and walked up the Valley of the Winds.

  Finally, touristed out, they headed back in the direction of Curtin Springs, stopping in the mid-afternoon for a beer and a local steak sandwich—juicy, tender, well-flavoured beef, which the owner told them was station grown.

  Mark and Susan drove on into the late afternoon, following a different route, which brought them towards Kings Canyon. It was a bitumen road so the driving was easy. They saw camels and brumbies walking through scrubby bush, silhouettes in late afternoon light.

  An hour before dusk, they turned east onto a dirt road and drove a few kilometres before taking a side track north. They came to the edge of a broad sandy river that Mark called “The Palmer River.” He turned along a set of wheel tracks, following the river edge, and drove for few more minutes. They came to a waterhole nestled in the riverbed, viewed from a high rocky bank on their side, where he stopped. In the stillness of the evening it glowed in reflected light, rocky bank, clear water, sand and dry grass behind.

  “I think this might be our campsite for tonight, what do you think?” he asked.

  “Love it,” said Susan.

  He pulled his swag off the car and placed it on the top of the ridge, looking down and out, across the river. “Why don’t you sit here and enjoy the view while I get a fire going.”

  So Susan sat, alone and quiet, while Mark foraged for branches.

  In the gathering dusk, an endless succession of brightly coloured birds were coming to the water to drink, small finches with a zebra tail stripes, others with red and diamond patterns on their plumage, beautiful blue wrens, and turquoise coloured parrots.

  Susan heard a twittering noise and looked up. Perhaps a thousand, maybe more, iridescent green-yellow birds, silhouetted in the last sunlight came swooping in to drink. She realised these were the real wild budgerigars, ancestors of those seen in a cage. Thump, thump; a blue-furred mother kangaroo and her joey came cautiously across the sand.

  Mark returned and soon a roaring fire of mulga wood was burning. He left again, but was quick to come back with a medium sized log—incredibly heavy and twisted. He put one end in the fire. “Best wood for cooking coals, gidgee. It will keep our fire going all night”

  He opened a metal tucker box. Inside was a cast-iron pan and pot, a selection of food tins and jars and, tucked in a corner, wrapped in a tea towel, was a square glass bottle. Mark pulled out two tin cups, pannikins he called them, dusted off the bottle and handed it to Susan. “Would you like to try some Bundaberg Overproof Rum—OP for short? There’s ice and Coke in the Esky if you prefer it that way.” He poured half an inch into a pannikin and handed it to her. The fire almost took her breath away.

  “Think I will try the ice and coke with it,” she said, taking the cup.

  Mark nodded, and fetched a Coke and a handful of ice from the car, which he then added to her drink. He splashed a liberal half-inch of the rum into his own cup and took a deep sip.

  “Just the thing for a cold night! When I started in the country, I had a week out northwest of Alice, out towards the Georgina River with an old-timer. I asked him what to bring, and he said a carton. So I went to the pub and bought a carton of beer. Next morning, when he picked me up, he pointed to my carton and said, ‘What’s that rubbish? That won’t last us a night, I meant a carton of OP Rum.’ So we stopped at a pub on the way out of town and I bought a carton of OP Bundy Rum. We almost finished it in that one week. My liver never recovered, but I got a taste for it,” Mark recounted laughing.

  Susan laughed too, “Sounds like I‘ll need a lot of practice to catch up”

  Dinner was steak and jacket potatoes, cooked in the coals and washed down with some more rum.

  As they sat staring into the fire an eerie howl reverberated through the stillness. A few seconds later another howl came from a different location, then another.

  “The dingoes are hunting,” explained Mark.

  They retold the Azaria story to each other, each contributing parts and emotions, she from reading, he from seeing. Neither doubted the role of the dingo, but it had a chilling poignancy, spoken to the sounds of hunting dingos calling into the night.

  And then the talking was over. For a moment they just looked at the fire in silence. But quickly they rolled out the swag and lay in it together, not moving for a long time. Susan felt incredibly dreamy and content, and drifted to sleep. She woke just as the fire was dying down.

  Mark was looking down at her with an electric smile. “You didn’t think I was going to let you sleep the whole night through without something more, after my promise of this morning did you?”

  In her half-asleep state, Susan simply replied, “Sleepy.”

  But Mark was insistent, “All the more fun to wake you.” He turned her face towards him and kissed it with a ferocity that Susan was almost unprepared for. Then he was on top of her, forcing her legs apart and her body open, as he sought to push himself inside her. Susan’s first inclination was to clamp her legs shut and push him away, but he was way too strong. She was pinioned and powerless, with just a pimple of fear at how unrelenting he was.

  But she really wanted this just as much as he did. Her body opened and responded to his thrusts. Soon she was as insatiable as he, a tigress, uninhibited, crying out with pleasure and pain as she climaxed. They took each other three times more before the dawn lit the sky. There was not a single inch of her body or soul that had not been touched, entered and pleasured. She felt like a hussy but loved this newly discovered wild sexual being within her.

  In the early dawn Susan fell into a deep sleep. She woke a couple hours later with the sun well up. Of Mark there was no trace, but the fire had been stoked and a billy sat at the edge with hot water, and a basin of cold water, soap, and a towel sat nearby.

  She realised this was for her and added hot water to the cold, until it was pleasantly warm. She washed her face and sponged off her body. She dressed in a tracksuit to push back the morning chill. She saw a pan with rashers and eggs sitting in it. She placed the pan with rashers on the fire. When it was sizzling she cracked the eggs and dropped them in.

  As the eggs were finishing, Mark emerged from the trees fifty yards away, carrying a rifle, on webbing, over his shoulder. He waved to her and she waved back. “Breakfast’s ready, what did you get?”

  “Nothing today, just scouting. You were sleeping so peacefully that I didn’t want to wake you. I often go for an early morning walk. Sometimes I bag breakfast, like a rabbit or wood-duck, but not today,” said Mark, but then added, “That smells real good.”

  He dropped two pieces of bread on the dull coals and, after a few seconds, flipped them over. After another ten seconds there were two perfectly cooked pieces of toast. He passed her one and put a handful of tea in the simmering, half-full billy. He found two camp chairs tucked away on the truck, set them up and poured two cups of tea. They ate side by side.

  “How would you like to see the real desert?” Mark asked Susan, “We could cut across to the east, around the edge of the Simpson Desert today and tomor
row, before heading up to the Gulf. You said you need to be in Darwin on Sunday week to catch your plane didn’t you?”

  Susan nodded, more than a week seemed an eternity away.