Just Visiting

by Graham Wilson

  Chapter 13 – Borroloola – Day 25

  Susan was sitting in the Borroloola Hotel. Mark had left her to do some more business. He said it would take an hour. He seemed to have connections everywhere; there was always a little deal on the side.

  For now she enjoyed the solitude.

  The morning had continued to be wonderful. Her image of the crazy abductor just did not line up with the man she knew.

  But now she had to decide. Should she try and find the truth or just let it go? If she didn’t care about him the choice would have be easy, she would have just continued to enjoy the trip and maybe followed it up back in England, in safety, far away. But Susan did care, and she thought Mark cared about her too, she was almost certain of it. Commitment, in whatever form, meant honesty and truth. That meant finding where these threads led. With only five days until her plane departed, she needed to have an answer before she left.

  Susan was now starting to understand NT geography and get a sense of where they were heading. Today, they were in the Gulf, at the bottom of what he called the Top End, to the east; tomorrow they would head up further, but cross over the western side, something about a big crocodile river, yet more crocodiles, almost a part of what made him. Then they would spend a day in Kakadu, right at the top, back east, before they would spend their final night in Darwin.

  There were not many towns until Darwin and the end of their trip, where it looked like she could communicate with the world. There was one called Timber Creek, in a day or two, and perhaps Katherine, which they would pass through on the way to Kakadu. So, if she wanted to find out more, Susan needed to do something now.

  She was enjoying sitting in the cool soft light after the harsh sun and growing heat of the day. It was getting warmer and warmer each day as they headed north. She would happily have sat there and sipped her lemon, lime and bitters, while she daydreamed about a future with Mark. Could she return and try living in the Aussie outback? Was she prepared to forgo her career in medical technology? But perhaps she could get a job in a hospital lab. Alice, Katherine, and Darwin were the main towns and they all seemed to want skilled staff. Then Mark and Susan could just see how it went without the pressure of forcing themselves together all the time.

  Shaking her head to rid the daydreams, Susan reluctantly pulled her phone out of her backpack. She turned it on, only a quarter of its charge remained. She plugged it in to charge and found Anne’s number.

  She would keep this simple and just follow up on the Scottish and American girls. They would be easier to track down. Had they been reported as missing—was there anything suspicious, when did it happen? If she gave each name, current age and town or city from the passport address, it should be enough for Mr Google or other search engines to see if there was anything of note—a newspaper article, missing persons notice or other similar. Once she knew that she could decide on whether to go any further.

  The text was to the point:

  Anne,

  Can you check out two names below?

  Saw notice saying missing in a place I stayed.

  ? Whether home now and OK. Text back soonest.

  Will check next town, where phone works.

  Having a great time in Oz.

  Love and see you soon

  Suz

  Then she listed the names Fiona Rodgers and Amanda Sullivan, along with age and origin locality for both girls. She pushed send and then checked the sent box. The message had gone. It was too late to pull back.

  Feeling she had done her duty she turned the phone off and put it away. She had thought about ringing her Mum to say hello, but the time difference (3 am in London) meant it wasn’t a good time. Susan would try to remember one night, when it was morning in England, if she was in a place with reception.

  Letting her thoughts drift, Susan thought of Mark and the morning she had spent with him. It was, it was—well not something she would tell her grandmother. But it blew her mind the way they connected with each other, and all the intimate things they had done.

  That huge crocodile, so silent and so very freaky; one minute, nothing, then the next a ton of saurian scales surging from the water; such power and seemingly weightless explosive movement. Then the delicate way it had picked up and swallowed its pig treat, with an almost quaint relish. Then it just faded away to nothing again, a silent place. She had barely breathed as she watched it unfold. She shivered now at the thought.

  Then there was their funny morning tea at the place called Seven Emus. Not the grand cattle station she had imagined, not much there at all really; skinny cattle, broken yards, a range of pets and chickens wandering here and there, in and out of houses. It was an extension of the Shadforth clan who had lived in this country for more than 100 years.

  But there was something incredibly dynamic about them, their mixed ancestry, multi-coloured kids running free. It was a place with a mixture of old and new; parts of the house and yard looked like they had come out of the Ark. Alongside the piles of junk and broken down cars scattered around were much newer objects: a TV, microwave, satellite phone, books, and electronic games. There were also modern cars and boats, even a helicopter that sat to one side—bought to take the tourists on scenic flights.

  They had passed a flash resort, the Seven Emu’s Fishing Camp, and turned down a little sidetrack to come to this place by the creek; it was unclear which part of the clan lived here. Mark said there were too many details to explain.

  The people who lived here were lovely. Susan felt they really belonged to this place and had successfully managed to straddle the race and class divide, a son who was studying law at the university in Queensland, a daughter training to be a nurse in Darwin, another who was a police trainee in Borroloola. The parents were so obviously proud of their children and their achievements; the way they spoke reminded her of the way her Mum talked about her and Tim.

  Then there was the cousin with a brood of small children, running everywhere, almost naked, snotty nosed, one carrying a pet chook. Their mother screaming at them and waving a stick, but rushing to hug one who had fallen and hurt his knee, while at the same time she scolded another for eating a piece of bread with filthy hands.

  There was a grizzled old man, perhaps a grandfather, who still had his aboriginal heritage running strong. He told Susan a story of the early spirits of this land, the Emu spirits of his totem. He had walked with her to the creek, carrying a fish spear, and showed her where he could spear fish. He had told her of going in a small boat into the rough Gulf waters to catch dugong and turtle with a harpoon; he told her of being a little boy when a white man beat his father. The man accused his father of stealing a cow with no brand on their own land, said he knew this cow by sight and it was his own. He said his father had made it run away, so he hit him with a stick, over and over again until he lay still in the dirt.

  The old Chinese cook, relationship unknown, was like a second grandfather; he made Chinese dumplings for their morning tea. He had received the pig offered, on behalf of the whole family, with gratitude. He had immediately hung it from a beam under the verandah. Later he would “smoke-im, real good,” but for now, dumplings.

  Almost as an afterthought, he had sliced off a portion of cheek meat, to add to his menu. When it was ready, the dumplings and steamed pork were served steaming in a spicy sauce. The food was delicious, and Susan had eaten with uninhibited gusto.

  It was such a hotchpotch, and yet it was so real and alive. Susan had always had an image of aboriginal culture, which she realised now was a stereotype—the noble savage with the spear, living out and alone, totally at one with the land. Instead, here was a culture that was a living and dynamic fusion, the old and the new all living and drawing off each other; a chaotic harmony, as if blessed by the spirit of this land.

  Susan sensed this was a new aboriginal and Australian culture and, in maybe fifty years, the culture would evolve again, its people changing beyond recognition. Only the landscape would remain
the same.

  She was roused from her reverie by Mark’s hand on her shoulder, “You look like you were having such a lovely dream.” He said, “Let’s walk round the town, and down to the river, I’ll show you the sights for a bit, before we come back for lunch and travel on.”

  She slipped her arm around his waist and they walked into the bright sunshine of a Borroloola dry season day. Susan soaked up the sun’s rays as a warm and gentle breeze caressed her skin. She felt good. Today was a day to be enjoyed while she waited for the chips to fall. She would not think about her message to Anne until there was something to know.