by Kylie Ladd
‘We’ve started our descent,’ Caro said. ‘Did you hear the pilot? You were asleep. I thought I’d fix my make-up before we arrive.’
‘Won’t it just melt as soon as we’re out of the plane?’ Morag asked, then added, ‘That’s a pretty lipstick,’ so she didn’t sound like a bitch, and because the soft coral colour really did look good against Caro’s creamy skin.
‘Thanks,’ said Caro. ‘Janey picked it out actually, a few weeks ago, when we were shopping. I think she only wanted me to get it so she could borrow it, but at least we’ve got the same colouring.’ Fiona stirred slightly in her seat against the window. ‘Do you ever do that with Macy? Go shopping, I mean.’
Morag snorted. ‘Not a chance. As far as Macy’s concerned, I’m just there to provide meals and drive her to rehearsals. Besides, the only lipstick she ever wears is black.’ Her stepdaughter was going through a goth phase. That was how she’d reassured Andrew when Macy had started dyeing her hair and had her nose pierced, though in reality it was well over a year now. Was that still a phase, or had she turned professional?
‘God, how depressing,’ said Caro. ‘I don’t know how Janice puts up with it. And you too,’ she amended, ‘but that’s different, isn’t it? At least you can always tell people she isn’t yours.’
The sentiment was a bit harsh, but Caro was right, Morag thought. It was different. She liked Macy, and would never disown her. Loved her, in fact, on those occasions when she let Finn play her guitar, or helped Torran organise his rock collection—but no, she wasn’t hers. Years ago, Morag had longed for a daughter. Pregnant with the twins, she was sure one of them must be a girl. When she discovered she was wrong she’d talked Andrew into trying again. He didn’t care—he already had a daughter, of course—but he’d gone along with it because he could see what it meant to her. When Torran was born fat and pink and with an undeniable scrotum, the disappointment had lodged in her throat like something she hadn’t ordered and couldn’t quite choke down. Yet within a week he had captivated her, just like his brothers before him, and she put away her longing. Callum, Finn and Torran were healthy and gorgeous and their blue eyes shone when they saw her. This was her lot, and it was a damn fine one.
Anyway, she no longer felt as though she was missing out. She wouldn’t have been any good at those shopping trips, with her track pants and her hair always pulled back, not blow-dried artfully around her face like Caro’s. Besides, from what she could see, girls were much harder: Janey with her mind games and her obsession with her phone; Macy with her black boots, her ridiculous dreams of being a rock star, and the packet of the pill Morag had once found in her schoolbag but hadn’t told Andrew about. She was better off with her boys. At the airport, Caro had said something to the woman behind the check-in desk about them travelling with their daughters, but even that hadn’t stung. Not too much, anyway. Fiona had Bronte, Caro had Janey, and Amira had Tess, but she, Morag, had a whole week off, free from any parental responsibilities whatsoever. If nothing else, it was worth it for that.
The fasten seatbelts sign came on. Morag did so almost gleefully. It had been ages since she had been alone, with no one to please but herself. Amira had said she could have her own room at Kalangalla, if she liked. If she liked?! Morag hadn’t had her own room since she was twelve, when she left Fort William, where she’d grown up, for boarding school in Edinburgh. After that it was university, and a tiny bedsit with a roommate who smelled of wet dog and sausages. She’d later moved to a share house, but even there it felt as though she was always surrounded. There were parties that lasted all weekend and on into Tuesday, people asleep in the bath or the boxroom or, once, flaked out in her wardrobe; there was always a friend of a friend camped out on the couch or helping themselves to her muesli when they thought she was in the shower. And there was Andrew. For a few sweet months there was Andrew: sharing a cigarette with her on the front steps on a summer’s evening, the sky still light at eleven o’clock, or in the kitchen with a tea towel over his shoulder, coaxing the ancient Aga into staying alight long enough to cook spaghetti . . . but mostly, mostly in her bed. Morag shifted in her seat. She hadn’t wanted to be alone then, had she?
They’d given up the cigarettes, of course, but without realising it she’d given up time alone too. Barely a day now went by when she had more than ten minutes to herself—usually while driving to see a client or using the toilet, though even that could be interrupted at any moment if Torran had a problem that he needed her to solve. But she loved it, she told herself, the mess and scramble of family life—Macy on the phone, Finn with his head in the fridge, Callum’s RipStik in the hallway, Andrew and Torran wrestling on the rug. She loved her job too, particularly since discovering that while the homes of the elderly were no less cluttered in Australia, they were at least warmer and drier. She’d chosen this; it was what she wanted—but oh, how liberating it was to flee it for a while.
‘Hey,’ called Janey from behind her, uncharacteristically animated. ‘Look! Out the window.’
The cabin had begun to tilt. Morag leaned across Caro, felt the landing gear drop. Fiona woke up, blinked at them both in surprise, then turned to see what they were staring at.
Below them was the coast, a cerulean ocean stretching out to the horizon from a golden half-moon of sand, the land before it red and green and glinting like an opal. For a second it reminded Morag of the Highlands, though she hadn’t been there in a decade: all that space, all that sky. A lump rose in her throat and she forced it down. As the plane dropped lower she could see that the place wasn’t completely uninhabited. There were some people sunning themselves on the beach; further along, where russet cliffs jutted into the sea, there was a lone swimmer just off the point, head down and arms slicing neatly through the water as if to quickly put some distance between himself and the land. She knew how he felt.
Amira stood by the gate, one foot jiggling impatiently. The sun was prickling her scalp—amazing how rapidly it could penetrate the thick bush of her hair, even matted together with salt as it was from the swim that she’d had to break up the long drive into town. She should go inside, wait in the tiny shed that Broome airport liked to call a terminal, but she didn’t want to miss seeing them coming off the plane. Despite the heat, she hugged herself, excited. She and Tess had left Melbourne in January, just after New Year, so they could be settled and organised before term one began. It was October now, the second week of the school holidays, and term four was almost upon them. Ten months, they’d been away, ten amazing months when so often she’d wanted to turn to one of her girlfriends and tell them everything she was seeing and experiencing. Soon she could.
The white jet she’d been watching came to the end of the runway and slowly wheeled towards her, rolling to a stop. Amira had been anticipating this moment for days: as she lay in bed last night, watching the gecko that lived in one corner of the ceiling; when she woke this morning, the sun already strong and hot at six am; across every bump and corrugation of the Cape Leveque road. She fought down a giggle. Caro wasn’t going to like the Cape Leveque road. None of them would, but the road was a fact of life, the only cleared stretch of earth between the community and Broome. And at least it was open—in a month or so, when the first rains of the wet washed across the Dampier Peninsula, it might be closed for weeks, waterlogged and impassable. If that happened, she and Tess would be cut off from the world, marooned in the community. The thought sent a frisson of fear and excitement through her.
The plane was stopped now, only a couple of hundred metres away. Amira watched as two sweating men in fluoro vests pushed a set of stairs under its tail, grunting as they locked them into place. At how many airports in the world did that still happen, Amira wondered, passengers forced to confront their new environment immediately, rather than gliding into the shelter of an air-conditioned terminal? She liked that about the north: there was no pretence, no artifice. What you saw was what you got.
The door of the plane was pushed open and passenger
s emerged, squinting and reaching for their sunglasses. Amira held her breath. A dozen disembarked, fifteen, twenty . . . and then there they were, coming down the stairs. Morag was first, her strawberry-blonde hair catching the light. The first time they’d been introduced, Amira had had to fight the urge to reach out and touch it, it was so fine and delicately coloured, so unlike her own. A few weeks later she’d mentioned the moment to Morag, who had laughed. ‘Really? Everyone has hair like this in Scotland. It’s common as muck.’ But Amira had never stopped noticing it, somehow both auburn and gold, the first thing her eyes were drawn to every time they met.
Next came Caro, looking cool and unruffled, a stylish leather tote over one shoulder. Did Caro sweat? Amira didn’t think so, but she’d soon find out. Caro was blonde too, though a different sort of blonde, the kind that came from a salon and needed regular maintenance. Then Janey, trailing her mother down the stairs, head lowered, checking her phone, and . . . was that Bronte? It had to be, but how she’d grown! She swayed like a giraffe next to Janey, and Janey wasn’t short. Tess would barely be up to Bronte’s shoulders.
An elderly couple appeared at the top of the stairs, followed by Fiona. Though furthest away and wearing dark glasses, she was the first to spot Amira and waved wildly with both arms. Amira returned the gesture, her face breaking into a grin. The woman in front of Fiona hesitated, made nervous by the descent, and Fiona mimed pushing the pair down the steps, then smiled sweetly when the man turned around to apologise for how long they were taking. As soon as he returned his attention to his wife, Fiona was at it again, this time throwing in some stabbing motions for good measure. Amira giggled. Oh, she was wicked, Fiona. She did and said things the rest of them would scarcely dare think. She was their collective id.
‘Helloooooo!’ cried Caro, striding towards her across the tarmac. Her bag slipped and she dumped it unceremoniously, running the last few metres to throw her arms around Amira.
‘Careful,’ Amira laughed, returning the embrace. ‘I’ve been driving for hours. I’m probably a bit smelly.’ Caro’s grasp only tightened in response, warm, almost frantic.
Amira kissed her friend’s cheek and gently disentangled herself.
‘It’s fabulous to see you,’ she said, holding Caro’s hands.
To her surprise, her friend’s eyes were damp. Caro blinked self-consciously, her mascara smudging.
‘I’ve gone all emotional,’ she said, pulling one hand away to wave it in front of her face. ‘Or maybe it’s menopause.’
‘You wish,’ said Fiona, barging between them. ‘My period’s due this week. It’s a fucking pain in the arse. I can’t wait to be done with all that. The sooner it’s over the better.’ She leaned in for her own kiss, then stepped back to look at Amira appraisingly. ‘You look good,’ she said. ‘You’re so bloody brown! God, you could get land rights.’
‘She’s always brown, Fiona,’ Morag said. She took in Amira with a smile and added, ‘Though now you look black next to me.’ She raised one pale arm to Amira’s in comparison, then touched her lightly. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘We made it. I’ve been looking forward to this for ages.’
No kiss, thought Amira, squeezing her wrist. That was OK. Morag needed her space. She turned to Bronte and Janey, who were loitering a few steps behind their mothers. ‘Look at you two! You’ve grown up so much.’ Amira grimaced. ‘That makes me sound so old, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Janey, raising a hand in greeting. Bronte smiled and shuffled forward to hug her.
The girl stooped down, but even so Amira had to strain to reach up around her neck. ‘Where’s Tess?’ Bronte asked.
‘I left her up at Kalangalla. I didn’t think I’d get you all in the car otherwise, particularly with your bags.’
‘Particularly with Caro’s bags,’ Fiona said. ‘She’s got about six. I’m guessing there’s one just for her night cream.’
‘I only brought three!’ Caro protested. ‘One’s full of towels. And my pillow,’ she added, looking across at Amira for support. ‘I hate using someone else’s pillow, you know that. It never feels right.’
‘I know,’ Amira soothed, then started ushering them towards the building before Fiona could make another remark. ‘Let’s go get them anyway. The bags, then a drink.’
She’d been right to leave Tess at home, Amira thought as they pulled out of the airport. Even with the community’s troop carrier it was a tight squeeze—tighter still tomorrow, once she’d done the shopping.
‘I thought we’d spend the night in Broome,’ she said. ‘I’ve booked us rooms at one of the resorts. The Mangrove. It’s right on Roebuck Bay. You’ll like it.’
Caro was fiddling with the air-conditioning vent, trying to direct the cold air onto her face. ‘Fine. How come?’ she asked without looking up.
‘I need to go to Coles and get some groceries,’ Amira said. ‘There’s a tiny supermarket at One Arm Point, fifteen minutes from where we live, but everything’s much cheaper down here. As soon as people find out you’re going to town they all want to give you a list.’ She turned onto the main road, waving at a dark-skinned man raking seedpods in the courthouse gardens. Ned. He’d moved from Kalangalla a month or so ago now. It was good to see him in work. ‘By the time I finish that it’ll be getting a bit late to leave. I thought it would be better to stay here and hit the road first thing in the morning.’
‘How long’s the trip?’ asked Morag from the middle seat.
‘About three hours. We could do it, just, if we left now, but no one takes that road around dusk. It gets too dangerous.’
‘No streetlights?’
Amira laughed. ‘Well, yeah, but actually it’s the animals. Roos, donkeys—they wander out, and you don’t see them until the last minute. One of the older men almost hit a camel last week.’
‘So you’re just going to leave Tess up there with the savages, then?’ said Fiona.
‘Fiona!’ Caro exclaimed.
‘What?’ said Fiona, feigning innocence. ‘The savage camels, I meant. They could do some damage. All those humps.’
‘Tess will be fine,’ said Amira calmly, swinging the troop carrier through another roundabout—Broome was full of them, but not yet, thank God, any traffic lights. ‘She’s having a sleepover at a friend’s, but I’d also have been happy to leave her at our place. It’s safer there than Melbourne.’
They came over a slight rise in the road, and Roebuck Bay appeared before them, its turquoise water fringed with green mangroves. Without thinking, she slowed, feasting her eyes. She could never grow tired of that view.
‘Oh, stop, stop!’ said Caro. ‘It’s incredible. I want to get a photo.’
‘We’re almost there,’ said Amira. ‘You’ll see it from the hotel. From your room, if you’re lucky, but definitely the bar.’
A small silver dinghy chugged out across the bay, its lone occupant sitting back in the boat, one hand on the motor. Probably going fishing, Amira thought. Lucky sod. Solitude actually meant something up here, she had found; it was deeper, richer, more textured. The silence opened up and let you in in a way that never happened in the city. She pulled up outside The Mangrove as Janey shrieked from the back seat that her reception had dropped out.
An hour later, Amira was seated at a table on the lawn overlooking the water, waiting for the others to shower and then join her. Check-in had been a trial. The stay was her treat, she’d told them—the owner of the resort had once worked at Kalangalla and always gave them reduced rates—but Caro had insisted they’d all pay for themselves. Then Fiona had got annoyed and asked why should they if Amira was happy to foot the bill, while Morag stood between them, looking from one to the other, conspicuously quiet. Somehow they’d ended up with Fiona, Caro and the two girls sharing a family suite, while she and Morag had a twin room. Amira was grateful for that, at least. Fiona snored, but she wouldn’t want to be the one to tell her.
Predictably, Morag was the first to arrive, her hair still wet and scraped into a po
nytail.
‘That feels better,’ she said. ‘I was dying in those tracksuit pants. Do you even wear them up here?’
Amira laughed. ‘Not so far. The locals pull out jumpers and act all affronted if it gets below twenty-two degrees . . . Tess and I just shake our heads. I guess it’s all relative. Wine?’ She lifted the bottle, dripping, from its ice bucket.
Morag shook her head.
‘Not yet. Just some water to start. I’m a bit light-headed.’
‘Too long on the plane with Fiona?’
Morag smiled. ‘No, it’s the heat, and the light. It’s incredible, isn’t it? It’s clearer, somehow . . . sharper.’ She began to rummage through her bag on the table in front of her. ‘Before I forget, I’ve got something for Tess. I’ll give it to you and you can pass it on. It’s a letter. From Callum.’
‘Callum?’ Amira asked, raising her eyebrows. ‘For Tess?’ I didn’t think they’d spoken since primary school. Were they even in any classes together last year?’
‘Who knows?’ said Morag. ‘I was surprised too. French, maybe—if Tess even did French?’
‘Amira had to think. ‘Yes, she did, though I don’t think she got past croissant and merde, and she hasn’t opened her textbook since we’ve been here.’
Morag passed across a long yellow envelope. ‘How’s that going? She’s doing School of the Air, isn’t she? Does she like it?’
‘Yeah, she does. Where I teach only goes to year seven, so it was that or nothing. And it’s “school of the net” these days—it all comes by email. She’s at work on it every morning when I leave, but she always seems to be finished and off at the beach by the time I get back.’ Amira shrugged. ‘I’m not sure if the material’s too easy or if she’s just much quicker because she’s not being distracted by classmates.’ She held up the envelope. ‘Or boys.’