by E. M. Reapy
‘Well, I’m going to report them. Bloody morons. You were in a vulnerable situation. They took advantage. That’s exploitation, love.’
‘No, no, wait. I did it, it was my decision.’
‘Love, it’s bloody trafficking and it needs to be reported.’
‘Dorothy, please. I don’t want anyone to know.’
‘Who do they think they are? Giving us good farmers a bad rep, and you listen to this carefully, you didn’t deserve it. No one deserves it.’
‘My family are devout and they’d be crushed if they knew. I think it sounds worse than what it was. I’m fine. Please don’t report me.’
She stands and puts her palms up. ‘I really think you should talk to the cops. You don’t have to press charges, but let them put it on file. It could help them in the future if these ratbags are running something.’
‘I’ll think about it, I swear,’ you say and exhale a deep breath.
She gives your shoulder a squeeze and says she’ll be back. You massage your temples with your knuckles. How could you report them without acknowledging you consented to it? You brought it on yourself. Dorothy didn’t realise that you knew what you’d agreed to.
You look at all the bookshelves they have around the room to distract yourself. Encyclopaedias. Collections. A whole shelf of books by Patrick White. Loads of biographies, history and geography books. You pull down one on nature. Flick through the pages to see if you recognise the plants or trees or fish.
Dorothy returns with a bundle under her arm. She lays it on the couch and unfolds a big red t-shirt and red and white board shorts, holding them outwards for you to see.
‘These were my Brett’s, but he won’t notice them gone. He hasn’t lived here for years now,’ she says. ‘And these sandals are mine. I think they’ll be too big for you but you can strap yourself into them. Oh,’ she says and taps her forehead. ‘I’m a flaming wally, back in a moment.’
She returns with a white bath towel that smells of fabric softener.
You bury your nose in it.
‘You’ll take Brett’s bed for the night?’ she asks and leans over the stove.
You accept and look at her, puzzled as she lights it.
‘It gets chilly this high in the mountains,’ she says.
You go into the bathroom to wash. When you see yourself in the mirror you cover your mouth and have a closer look. You’re brown and thinner than you were in that hostel. You guess you’re around seven stone. Maybe less. The snake bite tracks in a small circle on your cheek. Your teeth are glowing white against your skin. Your hair has bleached in the sun. There’s dirt on cracks in your neck and your skin is peeling in patches.
You touch the toilet paper, pump some liquid soap, open the medicine cabinet and close it again. You brush your teeth with your finger, using their menthol toothpaste. It makes your mouth tingle and your tongue numb.
You shower, lathering with Dorothy’s shower gel, the foam is delicious to rub over your body. You wash your hair with her lemon shampoo.
When you get out, you put on some neroli oil moisturiser let it dry on your body. Brett’s clothes are soft. You brush your hair, forcing through all the knots. You look in the mirror again, from different angles. You smile at the sensation of being clean but ruin it for yourself by thinking of the Fletchers’ house.
★
Meryl is an elderly doctor with an old style medicine bag and stethoscope. She inspects your foot, pressing and massaging it.
‘How’d you do that to yourself, love?’ she asks as she bends over it.
You look to Dorothy. Her face is stern but she doesn’t offer an answer for you.
‘I tripped in the bush,’ you say.
Meryl bandages it properly and recommends rest. It’s not broken but it’s had a ‘bashing.’
When Meryl leaves, Dorothy asks, ‘Do you want to phone your parents?’ and shows you into the PC room. You dial but the call diverts to voicemail.
‘Hi, Mam, Dad.’ Your voice is much more formal speaking to the machine. ‘I’m just dropping ye a line to say I’m okay. I’ll send an email instead with the craic because I don’t want to be using too much time on the bill payer’s phone. Lost my mobile, sorry, but will get a new one soon. Okay. Bye.’
You return to the living room and the dinner is on plates, steaming.
‘Tuck in,’ Geoff says.
For the mains, a mushroom and lemon risotto with garlic bread. Geoff and Dorothy talk as they munch, giggling at each other’s stories and adding to them. The food is great but it’s hard to eat. Your stomach feels small.
You thank them when dinner is done. Dorothy dials up internet on her PC. You apply for a new passport and pretend you’d got information and procedure on how to report the farmers and Antonio which Dorothy congratulates you for. You write your parents the quick email you promised, sending apologies because you’ve been living and working in a nature reserve with no technology. It doesn’t seem like a full lie.
★
A few nights later, you’re watching an old movie on TV. Geoff snoozes on the one-seater. The dog is asleep on his lap. Dorothy picks up a notebook when ads are on.
‘What do you write?’ you ask.
‘I don’t know. Ideas. Maybe draw some pictures or do puzzles. Sometimes lines of poems. Advertisers won’t violate my brain and steal my attention.’
You smile at her. You try to imagine her when she was younger, in a hippie sixties dress and headband, being a poet or an aromatherapist and fighting for women’s rights.
She checks if Geoff is still asleep and whispers, ‘Fiona, when I was your age, I travelled too.’
‘Did you? To where?’ you ask and perk up in your seat.
Dorothy goes to the stove fire and adds wood. ‘Around Indonesia and the Philippines. Wonderful. You should visit them if you can. In Ubud, I met a man. An American. Handsome. Different. I was bloody sick of Aussie blokes.’
She looks at Geoff, his face soft in sleep.
‘This American brought me for dinner, to events, on excursions. I started falling for him. He talked about his hometown in Missouri and I thought it was so exotic. I could see us together forever. I was jumping way ahead of myself but,’ she says and pauses, ‘us women often do. So he was courting me and I thought he was Mr Perfect but his moods went erratic. He might bite my bloody head off out of nowhere. I ignored it though. Didn’t want to see it. One night, he brought two bottles of wine to my guesthouse and we sat inside drinking. We’d never made love. I thought that night, that’d be the night. I was a virgin. I didn’t tell him that. He thought I was so rebellious and far out for travelling on my own, I didn’t want him to know. We got drunk and he said we were going to a party. I didn’t want to go out, I wanted romance in the guesthouse, under the Balinese moon. Monkeys and mopeds noising in the background. He ordered me to put on a dress and make-up. I did it. He drove out of the town to a big villa, built in the jungle. A real impressive place with gigantic glass windows the size of walls. Lots of white people. Expatriates. Some young local girls too. He was holding me by the wrist. Gripping me. I should have known. I did know. I was ignoring it still. He pulled me over to an old bloke, introduced us. The old bloke was nice enough except he kept looking down my dress. ‘So you want to be famous,’ he said to me, I said, ‘No, no I don’t,’ and my American holds my arm so tight I gasp. I said, ‘Actually, yes. Yes I do,’ and the old bloke brought us upstairs to a giant bedroom.’
Dorothy looks into the stove fire as she talks.
‘Did they…?’ you ask.
‘No, no they didn’t. The old bloke got a camera out and asked me to sit on the bed, pull a strap down from my dress. Pose. I did that one. It didn’t seem too hard. Didn’t seem like anything bad. They kept telling me I was beautiful. He wanted me to lean back, spread my legs and have the American kneel in front of me.’
She returns to her chair. ‘I was tempted, Fiona, it was exciting. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened t
o me. This old bloke wanting to take raunchy pictures of me and a man I thought I loved. But it was seedy too and I got scared. I said no and fled. When I got back to my guesthouse, I told the owner that I didn’t feel safe, could he keep an eye on my room. But the silliest thing was—’
She holds her notebook again. ‘I waited for the American to come back. To tell me he’d been coerced into bringing me. To tell me he cared for me and he was sorry. Of course he never did.’
You watch her scribble. You know what that feels like, to wait on something that you’ll never get, the masochism of hope.
★
Your foot is healing. You’re healthier and stronger after the week in the cottage. Dorothy and Geoff say you can stay as long as you want and be a WWOOFer, volunteering on their organic farm. It won’t count for your second year though.
You break it to them at breakfast.
‘I should get the last of my days and get signed off. I’ve done so much of the visa work, it’d be a shame not to do the last bit.’
Dorothy takes a gentle sip of her ginger tea. ‘You leaving us, doll?’
You nod. You know it’s a good idea. You’d get back on your feet with three weeks of working and go to Sydney, get a job in property. Or anything.
Geoff strokes his hair. ‘Fiona, love, do you eat garlic?’
‘Em, yeah,’ you say and think about it for a minute. ‘Yeah, I do. Why?’
‘Well, my brother’s wife’s cousin has a garlic plant, down in a big town three hours from here. I could make a few calls and see can if we get you in. He’d probably know where the backpackers stay. But Fiona, you’d absolutely, undeniably, totally stink of garlic all the time. You hear me?’
You smile. ‘Yes.’
‘I’ll make the call so,’ Geoff says and rises.
Dorothy finishes her tea and gathers the breakfast plates. ‘I’m going to miss you. You make me clucky. I never had a girl around.’
‘I’m sorry,’ you say and get a cloth to wipe the table.
‘No apologies. Now, before you leave us, let’s go to the village. I’m not sending you off in those,’ she says and points.
You look down at yourself in the XL surfer clothes. ‘No, no, Dorothy, if you’ll let me keep what I’ve on me, I’ll be grand.’
‘Fiona, you don’t know what we’ve got in the village for clothes. This ain’t no Brunswick Street or Bourke Street Mall.’
Geoff is chuckling and chatting on the phone in the room with the PC. He hangs up, comes out, claps his hands and says, ‘That’s sorted, love. You’ll get inducted tomorrow. They’ll put you in a section where you’ll have a stool so you can rest your foot. And you’re provisionally booked into a small female-only backpackers in the town. I hope you don’t mind, it was the one that the factory recommended.’
You hug him.
Dorothy asks Geoff to drop you to the village for retail therapy.
★
You drive down the hillside past miles of small cottages, farms, trees. You ask what the different ones are. Dorothy shows you the River Oak, Red Gum, Blackbox, Coobilah, Silver Wattle.
The village has Victorian style buildings and would have been like a postcard if it wasn’t crumbling down so much. On the main street is a small IGA grocery shop, a butchers, a post office and across the road, two op shops and a hotel. It’s called a hotel but it looks like a country pub.
‘Now we’ve got Vinnies or Red Cross to pick up some outfits.’
You choose Vinnies first. Charity shops smell the same everywhere. A kind of perfume over old, stale clothes; ancient dusty books. You enjoy flicking through the rails. You find two t-shirts from the ‘Dollar Bin’ and a pair of black shorts.
Dorothy tells you to get a frock so you try on a dark purple dress that has loose long sleeves and a belt. It makes you less skeletal looking and the colour contrasts nicely with your hair. It seems like vintage couture but only costs three dollars.
In the Red Cross, you find some newish runners for the factory, another three plain t-shirts and a red sports jacket. The Red Cross has undies too, but they’re brand new and Dorothy gets you a five pack of white granny knickers. The whole cost of everything from both places is twenty-one dollars. You’re speechless.
Dorothy kisses you on the forehead when she passes the bag over.
‘I’ll pay you this back,’ you say.
‘You bloody better not.’
★
When you gather your new things into one of Brett’s old schoolbags, Dorothy comes into the room and gives you a book.
‘A small prezzy. It’s only for nippers, love, sorry about that but you might learn something from it.’
You take the copy of ‘Australian Plants and Animals for Children’ and give Dorothy a smile.
‘Take these with you too, I’ve got lots of them. Just to keep you going till your first pay day.’
Dorothy hands you a small bag with cosmetics, a travel toothbrush, moisturiser, shower gel and an unused disposable razor. You notice the green notes. Two one-hundred dollar bills.
‘No way,’ you begin but Dorothy shushes you.
‘Don’t start. We’re not all ferals out bush. Get on your feet. Get strong. I know what it’s like to be bashed by the world. But it’s not all bad. I promise.’
★
They drive you to the bus station in the village and hand you a ticket, pre-booked. The bus is due in thirty minutes.
You take the view from the village in again, try to imprint it on your memory. But when you turn you notice it. Black thick smoke clouding the distance.
‘What’s that over there?’ you ask. Dorothy and Geoff turn to look where you’re pointing.
‘Ah shit, a bushfire. It could spread quickly with that wind. Crikey. Any word of this?’ Geoff asks.
Dorothy shakes her head. Her face goes white and she doesn’t speak for a long time.
You wonder if it was near the forest where you followed the water.
‘It’s awful,’ you say.
You stand there, until the bus comes, listening to Dorothy and Geoff’s stories of bushfires. They look worn and heartbroken as they talk about old blazes that raged, the damage caused and their hopes this one will get contained quickly.
They say goodbye, ask you to write to them. You want to pay them back for their hospitality.
Dorothy says quietly, ‘Don’t pay us back, love. Pay it forward to someone else. That’s the traveller’s way. Value yourself. Respect yourself. Look after yourself. Promise?’
‘Promise.’
They wave you onto the bus and return their gaze to the horror and trance of the bushfire destroying the land. They stand there powerless to do anything to stop it.
★
The hostel is a large, three-storey yellow building. It’s clean and sterile inside with white walls and a chlorine smell. When you check in, the hostel worker gives you a faded lilac single bed sheet, a plain pillow cover, a ‘doona’ cover that has red and black stripes, a plastic basket with a cup, chipped plate, bowl, knife, fork and spoon.
‘This is great,’ you say.
‘You kidding me?’ she says.
‘No. It’s great.’
She turns her head and looks at you sideways.
Your room is on the third floor. There’s no lift. You carry everything up. People going downstairs past you take a good look. They’re youngish, in bright holiday clothes.
The hostel worker shows you how to use the key and says rent is every Wednesday or you’re out.
‘What about this week’s?’ you ask, your voice shaky at the threat of eviction.
‘That was already paid by card,’ she says.
‘You sure?’
She nods and you think of Dorothy and Geoff and feel protected for the first time in a long, long time.
‘Do you know if that fire is still going north of here?’
She looks solemn. ‘Yeah. Heaps of bushland gone. They say it started somewhere round this place. It’s not even begi
nning of the season yet. Arson, maybe.’
She opens the door, hands you the key and leaves. You tiptoe over the threshold. An overpowering smell of floral perfume greets you and you are careful not to step on the pile of clothes beside the door. Three girls live in the room.
One is at the mirror, squeezing her spots. One is rifling through a pile of laundry and the other is tapping on a laptop. They pause what they’re doing and watch you enter.
The top bunk on the right is free. You wave hi and go towards it. You put the basket down and throw Brett’s bag on the bed. You climb onto the bunk without talking or introducing yourself properly. It’s not taking much to make you panicky about being back in a hostel dorm, even if it’s a different one, miles away from Antonio’s place. The less anyone knows about you, the better.
‘Is that all you packed?’ the girl at the laundry says. Her accent is quite posh but distinctly Irish.
Your shoulders loosen. ‘Where you from? I haven’t heard an Irish voice in ages.’
‘I’m from Kerry. Gráinne.’
Gráinne has a long neck and pinched nose. Her hair is dark red. She’s a briskness when she speaks, like it’s wasting her time to think and respond to what is being said.
The laptop girl slams her computer shut. ‘Here, what about my accent?’ She has a Northern Irish softness to her voice. She wears a grey pyjama top with red love hearts and grey short shorts showing off long, slim legs. Her face is clean of make-up but she is the prettiest of them, even though she looks a lot older than the others.
‘Shut up, Louise,’ Gráinne says. Louise doesn’t flinch.
‘I’m afraid, babes, I’m not quite a full breed,’ the one at the mirror says in a Cockney accent. ‘Mel.’
Mel is dressed in black ‘for Amy.’
‘I don’t get it?’ you turn to the others.
‘Big fan,’ Gráinne says half-whispering. ‘Still in shock.’
‘Why?’
The three of them stare at you. Louise tells you about Amy Winehouse’s death and about some crazed gunman in Norway.
‘How did you not hear about these things? Where were you before this?’ Gráinne quizzes.