‘Whereabouts?’
He laughs and puts a finger to his lips.
I roll my eyes – surfers are always so precious about their secret spots! ‘Do you want a beer?’
‘Sure.’ He slews into the seat next to me and stretches out his legs.
A twisting, salty breeze jostles my bras and undies. They hang above us on a makeshift clothesline. I hope nothing falls on Matt’s head.
His next question makes me forget the undies.
‘So I’ve been meanin’ to ask ya.’
‘Mmm?’
‘You got a bloke back home?’
I take a panicked sip of my beer and keep my gaze fixed straight ahead. On the lamp. On the zeppelin-blur of burning insects. Mumble, ‘Sort of. We’re having a break.’ Then quickly, ‘And you? You got a missus at home? Wait – you’re married, right?’
‘Yeah …’ he draws it out, perhaps to give himself more time to think.
‘I’ve got a missus at home,’ he says at last. ‘We’re not married. When she was over here I told everyone we were, just makes it a bit easier, bit more culturally acceptable.’
‘Oh yeah. So how long’s it been since you’ve seen her?’
‘Nearly eight months. She reckons if I don’t come home by the end of the month it’s off.’
‘She doesn’t want to live here?’
He rolls the bottle between his palms. ‘Nah, not really, eh. When she was here we were living at my place in the village. It’s pretty rustic. Sporadic electricity, water from the well. I’m away heaps with work and then when I’m back, I’m usually away surfing. So Gemma had a lot of time by herself, which she doesn’t handle very well. She didn’t really try to learn any Bahasa, so she couldn’t communicate with our neighbours, and she reckoned she had nothing in common with any of the expats – hated Marika, the Kiwi chick you met the other night.’
The corners of my mouth twitch into a smile. I can understand that. Marika certainly did her best to rub me up the wrong way and clearly has a thing for Matt.
‘Then I think it was just a lot of hassle, you know, being a chick. With the local blokes. One time I was out surfing and I left Gem on the beach. I paddled out and once I was out there, checked to make sure everything was cool. There was a bunch of guys circling her. One minute – empty beach at the edge of the jungle. Next minute, eleven guys.’
I pick at the edge of my beer label. ‘That’s hectic. What happened?’
‘I was shitting myself. I got a wave straight in and threw out some chat, greased some palms and it was all cool. But if I hadn’t been there, there would have been some serious trouble.’
The breeze tongues wet and hot through the palms.
‘So, to cut a long story short, she got crook with malaria. I was away, surfing this island off Sumba with three mad cunts, the Scar Reef Boys: an American, a Kiwi and an Aussie. Scored some epic, heart-stopping waves. Fuck!’ His eyes glaze a moment with the memory. ‘Anyway, by the time I got back Gemma had pissed off.’
If I hadn’t been a surfer, I would’ve thought he was an arsehole. Wouldn’t have understood the obsession, that hunt for the perfect moment, for those few brief seconds crouched under the curl of the wave, heart in mouth.
It rips countless relationships apart.
‘You don’t want to be based in Bali instead and just fly back here for work?’
Matt frowns, crosses his legs the other way. ‘Nah. I don’t surf in Bali anymore. It’s an absolute circus. On my weeks off, this is where I want to be.’ He looks warily over at the Frenchman’s bungalow and lowers his voice. ‘An hour and a half from Shane’s, toward Padang, there’s this series of reefs. You gotta walk off the road and through the rice paddies to get to it. It’s set up like a reverse Ulus, only no crowds. That’s where I was today. It’s unbelievable. This place is unbelievable.’
Dusk has moved in fast and the night air has a depth it doesn’t have at home: the smell of timber, river, rain and roosters, of salt and smoke.
If only Matt would reach over, rest his fingers, lightly, on the inside of my thigh. Is that part of the deal? Can you do that when you’re having a break from someone? I hadn’t talked to Josh about parameters. We hadn’t really talked about it at all.
It’s as if Matt’s read my mind. ‘So what about your bloke? A break eh? That doesn’t sound good.’
He leans toward me. ‘If you guys are having a break, am I allowed to do this?’ He brushes a strand of hair from my face, then lets his fingers linger for a moment on my cheek.
‘I dunno. Maybe,’ I murmur.
‘Six months at Shane’s is a tough gig, even for an extra five grand.’ He lets his hand drop.
‘I just don’t feel like I can go back. It’d seem like I’d failed. And I’m bored at home. I mean Josh is telling me all the time that I should be using my head, aiming a bit higher than working at the backpackers, or the pub, says maybe I should enrol at uni.’ I roll my head back. ‘But I’ve just been feeling so trapped … I had to get out. And maybe,’ I hesitate. ‘Well, maybe I’m not in love with him anymore.’
There. I said it.
‘Then you’ve gotta tell him.’
‘Tell him?’ I repeat dumbly.
‘You can’t leave him hanging. That’s not cool. That’s not fair.’
‘You’re hardly one to talk!’
He shrugs with a half smile. ‘Crack us another beer there?’
I do, fix one for myself, then tuck my knees under my chin.
It’s between us now, this electric sense of possibility. Yes. No. Maybe. Maybe with more beer. I swerve, change subject. ‘Anyway. I’ve been meaning to ask you. Abd al Hakim. You know him?’
‘Abd al Hakim?’ His accent is immaculate. He leans back. ‘White beard, hooked nose, real tall? He’s the head of Batu Batur’s main mosque. Not the kind of bloke you want to piss off.’
‘Shit.’
Matt arches a salt-stiff eyebrow and grins. ‘Yeah?’
I tell him about the soccer game Abd al Hakim thought I started among the girls. ‘I mean, I wish I’d stuck up for them. I totally think the girls here, whether they’re in a jilbab or not, should have the opportunity to play sport if they want.’
Matt scrunches his brow in challenge. ‘Yeah, but it’s not really our place to change it. We don’t live here. It’s not our culture.’
Matt would feel this, profoundly, having grown up where he did, always on the outside.
‘I agree with you, I guess, but I also think you can empower the women to start making the changes themselves. You can give them the tools, the ideas!’
‘But that’s just the point. The local crew here don’t want Westerners coming in and telling them how to do things. Telling their women to tear off their jilbabs. Telling their men they can’t fish from certain spots, ’cause now they’re the private property of bules!’
His thumbnail snicks an agitated rhythm on the bottle. It’s a long thumbnail, in the style of the ancient hero Bima, in the style of some of the men here.
‘You talk about the empowerment of women. Have you heard of the women’s sharia patrol up in Aceh?’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Right. So there’s this patrol unit up in Aceh. All chicks. They cruise around every Friday in the work ute and pick up blokes who’ve skipped the afternoon prayers. Fishermen havin’ a quiet durry with their mates, fucken shop owners, you name it. The blokes get dragged back to the station and whipped.’ He laughs cynically. ‘Empowerment of women? I’d say the chicks have got all the empowerment they want.’
Matt slides down in his chair and places the bottle near his feet. ‘Pen, just between you and me, I reckon Abd al Hakim is keen to get rid of all the expats here. It’s partly due to Shane but there are also bigger issues at play. Think about the bombings.’ He stabs his finger toward the earth, heavy with the smell of rain. ‘This is your terrorist training ground right here. After East Java, the madrasah around Batu Batur are some of the most radical in the countr
y.’
Madrasah. At home the word implies something rigid, dark, synonymous with terrorist training schools, evocative of bearded, backward men drilling the Qur’an into the heads of children, creating an army of Islamic automatons, of terrorists.
Matt lowers his voice. ‘Listen, mate, I’m tellin’ you this ’cause you’re a pretty cool chick and I think you should be careful.’
I’m about to mention how it was probably Abd al Hakim here this morning, talking to Joni about something, when he stops the movement of my lips with a finger. Then he takes my hand. In a single, slow movement he pulls me from my chair and straddles me on his lap.
Slips my dress off my shoulders.
Brushes his nose, lightly, along my collarbone.
‘Do you know what I’ve noticed about you, Penny?’
He bites the words into my throat with the white edges of his teeth.
‘You ask a lot of questions, and you’re a really good listener …’
His cock strains toward me, against his boardies. I want him to nail me with it.
‘… but you don’t give much away about yourself.’
He takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger. I swoon, dizzy on his smell, dizzy with the feeling that I’m with a man who’s strange, who’s surging and fierce, who’s looking at me like I’m earthy, a woman, not a doll, not a child, not a dream.
Suddenly a motorbike horn sounds over the fence and we both startle.
There’s a man on the other side. Idling. Lighting up a kretek. He raises his hand. ‘Hello Mister!’ he calls.
27
In the morning I awake to find a single red hibiscus on the pillow next to me. My skin is singing. Last night was the first night in ages that I made love without thinking; without thoughts of the past, the future, without doubt. Matt was the circuit-breaker. I’m going to call Josh today. Break it. Tell him I’m staying for six months, maybe longer. Tell him it’s over. If I can spend a night trembling under another man’s touch, another man’s tongue, and not feel even the slightest pang of remorse, then it should be over. Not that I expect anything more from Matt, because I don’t, I don’t dare.
I spend a little while moving around my room, sarong on hips, adjusting the sheets, smelling the pillows, rearranging my books of poetry. Then I grab my toiletries bag and a towel and bounce down the stairs toward the bathroom for a shower. There’re only two: they’re positioned side by side and separated by a wall – almost to the ceiling. I bang shut and lock the door, then unwind my sarong and hang it up on a hook.
In Indonesian bathrooms and toilets, there’s usually a bak mandi: a big basin or a tub full of water. You scoop water from the bak mandi to flush the toilet or to wash. As I soap up, I find teeth-marks on the inside of my thighs. Feel a quick thrill. Mmm. I work shampoo through my hair then pour a saucepan-full of water over my head. With head tipped back, I notice something on the roof, a shard of something, a mirror. What the hell is a mirror doing on the roof? I squeeze the soap from my hair, rinse my body, and move around, still looking up at the mirror but now from a different angle.
Reflected in that little bit of glass is a tiny, purple cock. It’s being beaten back and forth, back and forth.
I want to scream. But I steel myself, tie my sarong above my boobs, race out and kick open the door of the bathroom next to me. The guy has his eyes closed. He doesn’t notice me at first. I force a laugh. Point at his little dick and laugh. His eyes flutter open. And he flushes the same crimson-purple as his dick. Then he runs. Shoulders past me and runs. Down to the end of the garden and through the blue door and out onto the beach.
I feel like vomiting.
Ibu Ayu is nowhere to be seen and neither is Pak Joni. I rush up to my room, dress, then rush out; to town, to safety, where there’re other people around.
My first stop is a shop on the main road selling mobile phones. I sort myself out with an Indonesian number and a SIM. No excuse now. Then I continue along the road to the supermarket, feeling a sluggish supply chain of sweat working its way from the roots of my hair to the inside of my thighs. Sometimes I bandage my thighs with cheap sarongs to stop them rubbing raw but I was too frantic this morning – hopefully the trousers will soak up most of the sweat and won’t chafe. Every so often someone calls, ‘Hello Mister!’ and I force myself to look up and wave. Near the supermarket, something splits the skin above my ankle.
‘What the …?!’
A group of kids in clag-coloured shorts are skittling rocks across the road at me.
I pick up the rock and throw it back. ‘Little shits!’
They scatter with evil and lively grins.
The supermarket is artificially lit and polar-cooled. I move down the aisles, enjoying the air-conditioning, heart finally slowing. I’m craving chocolate. A little bottle of lemonade. I need some more soap. And I’m almost out of shampoo and conditioner. A man opens the door, letting in a thick oblong of smoky air. I linger in the air-conditioning until the shop assistant gives me a sideways look. As he scans my items, the slightest twitch of his nose divulges distaste. Three blocks of expensive chocolate? The most expensive shampoo and conditioner? I feel that guilt again, knowing I’ve just spent the equivalent of a week’s wage on indulgences.
Back outside I’m greeted by an unmistakable squawk. The Kiwi. Marika leans sideways on her motorbike in a pair of tiny denim shorts. Her legs are gorgeous, crossed like elegant brown exclamation marks. Behind her yawns the dusky opening of a local grocery store with its begrimed aqua gallons and tails of laundry powder. I veer toward her. After my unsettling morning, I’m anxious for some company.
‘Oh my god! Were you just shopping in the Circle K? You were, weren’t you!’ She smirks. ‘You know, this is where all the locals shop.’ She gestures behind her. ‘It’s half the price. And Ibu Nuri has the most adorable baby. A laki-laki. Oh – you do speak Bahasa don’t you?’
‘Cool, thanks for the heads-up,’ I say, ignoring her question. She’s a tough one to like, but after this morning, I’m not too keen on spending any more time alone. And given the outfit she’s wearing, she must have some strategy to keep the stalkers at bay. ‘Are you busy at the moment? Do you wanna go for a coffee or something?’
She wraps a set of manicured fingers around the motorbike handle. ‘Actually, I’m off to work.’
‘Oh yeah. Where do you work?’
‘I’ve got a business here.’
‘What’s your business?’
‘IT.’
‘IT?’
‘Yeah. I’ve started an internet cafe. First one in Batu Batur.’
‘An internet cafe? I didn’t think there was any internet! Where is it? Do you reckon I could grab a lift?’
She seems stumped by my enthusiasm.
‘Well, if you like. I haven’t managed to get a place right in the centre of town. It’s just on the outskirts. Near Dennis and Meri’s.’
‘No worries, I can walk back into town.’
‘Fine.’
She keeps the bike steady with those killer legs and guns it to life.
We head through town, skewing wildly around puddles and oxen and men pedalling becaks. Marika’s bare legs don’t go unnoticed. Some of the older men gape and grin. Others are less impressed; their faces contract in indignation and spite. The younger people are the most shocked. One young woman sends a pellet of spit after us. A young man throws a stick.
By the time we get to the internet cafe, I wish I hadn’t been seen with her. You have to be respectful with what you wear. Especially here. It’s not Kuta or the Gilis. But who am I to be on a soapbox about dress codes?
I expected quirkiness in the Kiwi’s cafe, or a Balinese élan – incense and air-con. Instead, there are the typical plastic booths with at least three people crowded around each computer and a stale grey smell of kretek smoke. The floor is textured with ash and plastic wrappers.
She swans in and an employee at the master computer straightens his back, mouse moving frantically. Th
en his features relax. Marika doesn’t appear to notice.
‘Joko.’ Her tone is professional, even disdainful. ‘Dua kopi hitam, ya. Cepat!’
Joko jumps up.
‘You drink Indo coffee?’
‘Of course.’
She leads me to her office out the back.
The office is immaculate, individualised only by a potted aloe plant and a few photos. Marika cheek-to-cheek with a handsome bloke; Marika pulling into a stormy, serious barrel, wetsuited and game-faced; Marika with her arm around a woman who shares her sharp nose.
‘Is that your mum?’
She looks at the photo. ‘Yeah. She lives on the North Island, in Mahia.’
‘Do you miss her?’
‘A bit.’
Marika wouldn’t be older than twenty-four. Probably a year or two older than me. What a gutsy venture, heading out to a remote town in Sumatra, setting up a business, learning Indo, surfing solo. Working for someone else in a bule-only surf camp seems tame in comparison.
‘Have you been here for long?’
‘Not really. Not as long as Matt. He’s been coming for about five years. Has a lot of really close local friends. I’ve only been here nine months but I started this place two months ago.’
‘Do you like Batu Batur?’
She slides her thong back and forth across the ground. I’ve never seen a high-heeled thong before.
‘When I first got here, I loved it. Now, it’s okay.’
There it is again, that challenge, but softer now, as if she’s trying to convince herself as much as me.
‘I felt welcome when I first moved here. The people seemed mellow, nearly everyone was friendly. My neighbours,’ she gestures to either side, ‘were always dropping in with leftover rice, tempe, chicken. They still do, they’re legends. I let ’em use the internet for free.’
She stops sliding her foot and starts seesawing a pen between her fingers. ‘In the last two months though, the vibe has changed. I mean maybe there was always some hostility. Because of Shane. But I dunno. I feel as if it’s more than that now.’
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