Age of Consent

by Victoria Gordon

  What’s so important about Christmas, Helen wondered, but didn’t ask. If he wanted her input into the plans, he could have it. Anything, so long as it reduced the tension and pressure of her current existence.

  ‘I’m just about finished now,’ she said. ‘And certainly I can get it all together by the time you’re done in Melbourne. I’d have done so sooner, but you never told me there was actually a starting date or anything.’

  ‘There wasn’t ... until now. But I’ve just decided it would be nice to have the extension done and finished for Christmas, so why not aim at that?’

  ‘Why not indeed? If that’s what you really want, that is. I suppose 1 could even get my plan drawn up within a day or two; I had it pretty well thought out at one point.’

  ‘You can finish that up while I’m in Melbourne,’ was the reply. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll take a holiday, maybe drive down to the Tasman Peninsula and play at being tourists for the day. I really feel I could use a day like that, and certainly you could, judging from how much you enjoyed your excursion with young Jones.’

  ‘Well then I suggest an early night, or what’s left of one,’ Helen replied, half relieved and half sorry that their conversation had strayed on to much safer ground. Certainly this wasn’t the finale she’d imagined for their evening out, but then she hadn’t imagined the gate-crashing of Marina Cole would be possible, much less as effective as it had been in destroying the mood of the evening. On the other hand, she hadn’t missed Dane’s baiting comment about Geoff Jones, but she was damned and double-damned if she’d let herself be drawn into a discussion on that subject,

  ‘An early night? You didn’t need an early night before you went driving with young Jones,’ Dane grinned, deliberately not letting her off the hook, determined to provoke some reaction from her.

  ‘At our age, you can get by on very little sleep,’ she replied, the taunt coming out even as she thought of it, even as she realised she was being drawn into his trap. Then, backpedalling quickly, she tried to talk herself out of the situation. ‘But I think I’d have enjoyed that outing a great deal more if I’d had a decent night’s sleep before it,’ she continued, speaking quickly, ignoring the contradictions. ‘I was half asleep most of the time, so I think I missed some of the best scenery.’

  Dane shook his head as if in understanding sorrow at her feeble attempt. ‘You mean you had too much grog with lunch at Oyster Cove,’ he said. ‘I could have warned you about that, and Jones damned well should have, although I suppose having you sleepy rather more suited his purpose.’

  ‘I fail to see what that has to do with tomorrow,’ Helen replied, knowing only too well what he was implying, but hoping she could talk her way out of it now, firmly and decisively,

  ‘Considering I’m so much older than both Geoff Jones, and you, 1 suppose not very much,’ was the response, and she could see now that he was deliberately baiting her, and worse — enjoying himself immensely while he did so. Helen was tempted, but refrained.

  ‘Just so long as you’re as good a tour guide; that’s what’s most important,’ she replied. ‘In fact, maybe I should do the driving ...’

  ‘The way you drive,’ Dane interrupted, ‘I’d need more than a good night’s sleep to prepare me for such an ordeal.’

  Then he laughed to show he wasn’t totally serious, and turned away from her, stepping back to pick up his own glass from the kitchen table and hand Helen’s over from the counter. ‘But you’re right, perhaps.’ he said then, surprising her with his easy agreement. ‘It’s a fair drive if you want to see everything in just one day, so we’ll need a fairly early start.’

  He finished his drink in one gulp, then stepped forward to drop a light kiss on Helen’s cheek before she could think to resist, muttering ‘Good night, young Helen,’ and exiting the room before she could do more than mutter a good night of her own.

  She stood there for what seemed a very long time, conscious of the brief touch of his lips against her cheek, but even more conscious of the strange, up-and- down trend of their conversation. Was it deliberate, she wondered? A specific attempt to put her off balance and keep her there? And yet ... why? It just didn’t make any sense.

  She thought about it again later as she waited for sleep to claim her, but even when Dane knocked on her bedroom door at sunrise, she felt none the wiser. Only just as confused as ever.

  It was a perfect day for such an excursion. The sky was clear and the brilliant blue that had come to symbolise Tasmania to Helen. In the distance, the hills picked up the blue tones, seemingly mist-covered, or bathed in swaddlings of pale smoke.

  Dane, dressed comfortably in jeans and a light checked shirt, already had a light breakfast on the table when Helen emerged, and together they made short work of the meal and the farm chores that were required.

  Once through Hobart and on to the Arthur Highway, heading almost due east through Midway Point, across the causeway to Sorell, Dane drove quickly but with his usual care, slowing only to point out what scenery he thought significant. The highway soon took them into fairly heavily timbered country, then abruptly dropped down through the Forestier Peninsula and to the narrow isthmus called Eaglehawk Neck,

  This, according to the guidebook Dane had given Helen to help follow their travels, was where a military guard and savage dogs had been stationed to prevent the escape of convicts from the historic penal settlement at Port Arthur, further to the south.

  Looking at the scene in brilliant daylight, with children playing on the sandy beaches that fronted both sides of the isthmus and their parents watching quietly from a variety of roadside parking areas, it was a feat of imagination to visualise what it must have been like during the mid-1800s, when more than twelve thousand convicts were imprisoned on the Tasman Peninsula under conditions shockingly harsh by any standard.

  It was easier to relate to the scenic wonders, like the water-worn Tessellated Pavement, a unique geological feature just north of the narrow isthmus where nature had created a pavement in tidal rock formations as evenly and prettily as any human intervention could have managed.

  Even easier was the frivolous ‘Doo Town’, where dozens of holiday shacks had followed a tradition of selecting names that incorporated the word ‘Doo’ in one fashion or another. Some of the names were fanciful, others painfully cliché-ridden, but all good for a giggle and somehow appropriate to Helen’s mood.

  The magnificent natural phenomena of the Blowhole, Tasman’s Arch and the Devil’s Kitchen, all strikingly beautiful if rather fearsome examples of the power of the sea that on this day slid quietly against cliffs it had once carved with an angry hand, were all worth the drive from Hobart all by themselves, in Helen’s view. She found the natural sculptures both entrancing and delightful, and would have been happy to spend the day just exploring that one small area.

  ‘Perhaps another time, because I have to share your feelings about it,’ Dane said, ‘but today is for having a more general look round.’

  Which they did, driving back to Eaglehawk Neck, then turning west to drive along the top of the peninsula through scenic orchard and forest country, then on to a series of decreasing roads to the peninsula’s remote northwest tip, where the ruins of a penal settlement and convict coal mines revealed little of their sordid past except to the imagination. Neither Helen nor Dane found the ruins especially impressive, except for the haunting, lonely, remoteness of the place, the feeling that so much and yet so little had really changed here since the days when Australian and British convicts of the worst type were punished by enforced labour in the mines.

  Turning back, Dane seemed determined to turn Helen’s interest to her surroundings, to the scenic aspects of the drive as they returned to Premaydena and then turned south to Nubeena and the tavern where he’d promised her the finest of seafood lunches.

  The licensed Nubeena Restaurant specialised in using locally-caught fish and seafood, and Helen found herself facing difficult choices from the extensive menu. In the end, however
, she took Dane’s suggestion and opted for the local crayfish, and had to laugh when he produced a pair of nutcrackers from one pocket to help her crack the claws and legs.

  By the time the meal ended, she felt as if she must be covered in bits of crayfish, which was never designed, she said, for dainty appetites. Dane only laughed, saying that he’d never noticed her appetite to be dainty at the best of times.

  The best consolation was that several other diners seemed to envy her the facility of the nutcrackers, and certainly nobody else was bothering to be overly dainty either. It was, she thought, one of the best meals she’d ever enjoyed, even to the point of having no room left over for dessert.

  ‘You can walk it off when we get to Port Arthur,’ Dane told her as they left the restaurant for the thirteen-kilometre drive to Port Arthur, the most significant and historic of the peninsula’s tourist attractions.

  Historically, it was a fascinating place to spend an afternoon. But Helen found herself almost psychically aware of the looming, brooding air of despair that still hung over the ruins. It was only too easy to imagine the savage labours of the men who’d slaved to build their own prison surroundings and maintain themselves under conditions of stark severity.

  ‘It seems so tragic that such a beautiful setting could have been wasted on such a purpose as a penitentiary,’ she said at one point during their tour. ‘Even now, the misery and harshness seem to overshadow the scenic attractiveness.’

  Dane, not surprisingly, agreed, ‘It’s little consolation to know with hindsight that the guards didn’t have it much easier than the prisoners,’ he said.

  Historically, this was true. Literature available was quite specific in detailing the hardships — such as floggings — that soldiers stationed at the penal settlement faced long after such punishments had been replaced with other methods of discipline for recalcitrant prisoners.

  Dane, too, seemed affected by the dour atmosphere of the whole place, an atmosphere that even bus-loads of tourists and hordes of chattering, lively children couldn’t quite dispel. When Helen flatly refused to take the ferry trip to the Isle of the Dead, where the attraction was little more than convict graves and convict-built headstones, he nodded understandingly.

  ‘I’ve been here about three times, in weather ranging from a day as lovely as today to a blowing, howling winter southerly, and I still find the place amazingly depressing,’ he said. ‘I don’t know whether it’s some hereditary guilt feeling or what, but I find I can only take the place in small doses, which is why I left it ‘til this afternoon; it does absolutely nothing for the kind of appetite I prefer when dining at Nubeena.’

  Helen could only agree. The tourist literature described how Port Arthur had been struck by two major bush-fires after its abandonment as a penal settlement in 1877, and she found herself thinking it might have been better had the fires totally destroyed the settlement, rather than leaving reclaimable reminders of a history so fraught with pain and suffering.

  And yet, historians would have totally disagreed, and maybe it was better for future generations to have some reminder of their history, however tragic.

  Either way, Helen personally wasn’t sorry when they drove north again on the way home, Dane driving slowly to ensure they would see whatever scenic attractions they might have missed on the outward journey, and as if by tacit agreement, discussing only the scenery, and not the historic monument behind them.

  ‘It’s good to get out and about again,’ he said at one point. ‘I think the thing I like best about Tasmania is the inevitable variety; almost every time you turn a corner there’s something new to see, some aspect that’s quite totally different than where you’ve just been.’

  Coming as she had from a childhood on the wide, empty plains of western New South Wales, Helen couldn’t help but agree with his feelings. The wide emptiness she remembered from her childhood also had a particular unique beauty, but variety of the type offered by Tasmania certainly hadn’t been a part of it. In the western districts, the variety had been of a far more subtle type, the tracings of colour, the difference in textures of the rock and the light. Here, the very landscape provided a variety that changed with every passing kilometre; two sides of the same hill could appear to be in different climates, with quite distinctive forest growth and outlook.

  ‘Yes, I’m not surprised it’s such a popular tourist attraction,’ she said, leaning back into the car’s comfortable seat and feeling the relaxed atmosphere of the day sink into her like a sedative. ‘You almost feel that you could spend years here and still never see everything there is to see.’

  ‘And yet you’re bound and determined to get away from it,’ Dane replied, keeping his voice flat, almost totally without emphasis, and yet somehow the comment seemed to Helen to be an accusation of sorts.

  ‘If I could get the right job here, I’d stay without a qualm,’ she replied, knowing it was half a lie, knowing that it would be Dane himself, not just a job that could hold her in Tasmania without any questions at all. ‘But I can’t, so there’s no logic in thinking about it. I’ll just have to try and see what I can while I have the opportunity.’

  Dane shrugged. ‘If that’s the case, maybe I should put off this Melbourne trip for a bit,’ he said. ‘I’ve been rather looking forward to showing you some of the best parts myself, but if you’re so determined to move on, there mightn’t be the time.’

  ‘Oh, I think there’s no great rush,’ Helen replied without really thinking about what she was saying. ‘On my track record, I don’t expect anybody to rush in with hordes of job offers or anything like that.’ Then she realised what she’d said, how she’d completely denied the urgency of her departure even while knowing that she must leave soon, that she couldn’t possibly stay on with growing tension between herself and Dane, with Marina Cole always and increasingly present as an element of dissension between them.

  And while she wished she hadn’t been quite so casual in her comment, it was too late now. To retract would only make things worse. Thankfully, Dane hadn’t appeared to notice her casual denial of the staunch principles she’d been advocating the evening before.

  Most of the way home, he drove in silence, and Helen nearly fell asleep at one point, so relaxing had she found their day together. Once home, both declared that the luncheon was fully sufficient to last until morning, so they rushed through the chores and by the time Dane had returned from a long walk with Molly, Helen was sound asleep.

  Dane spent the next two days editing his manuscript and preparing for his Melbourne visit, and Helen did her best to stay out of his way. Most of her time she spent with either dog or donkeys, revelling in the fine spring weather, the fresh air and the relative solitude of the farm.

  By the time he returned from Melbourne, she reasoned, there would surely be word of some kind from the jobs she’d applied for, and he’d also promised to check around some of his contacts in the Victorian capital to see what opportunities he could find for her.

  And, if nothing else, there had been two more possibles in that weekend’s paper, neither of them jobs she would normally have considered, but now almost any journalist’s job must be looked at seriously. The longer she stayed with Dane, the less she truly wanted to leave and the more she became positive that she must ... and soon.

  He, himself, would be leaving later today, and as he emerged from his office, tidily dressed for the journey, he paused to pick up the latest two application letters and tuck them into his suit coat pocket.

  ‘I’ll drop them in the mail when I get to Melbourne,’ he said. ‘And now we’d best be off or I’ll miss my plane.’

  They said little on the way to the airport, apart from the expected domestic conversation, but when he’d parked the car, Dane turned to Helen with an unusually serious expression on his face.

  ‘Are you going to miss me?’ he asked. ‘I mean, really miss me?’

  ‘I ... well ... of course,’ Helen replied, even as his lips moved to forestall anythin
g else she might have said. Their touch was so gentle, so ... right, that she could only meet them with all the feeling inside her, without trying to hide any of the love she felt. Instinct governed reason for the minute it took him to trap her with that unexpected kiss.

  ‘That’s good, because I’m going to miss you. More than I think you realise,’ he said softly. ‘But now isn’t the time to talk about it. Don’t come to see me off, love. Just be here to pick me up when I return, because there’s a lot I want to say to you.’

  And he was out of the car, striding away without looking back, before Helen could find the words in her suddenly numbed mind to even think of a reply.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Helen watched, as if in a dream, as Dane’s powerful figure weaved through the parking lot, across the street and into the domestic terminal building.

  Had this really happened? Had he truly kissed her in just that way? ... called her love’ in just that way? ... promised ...?

  She shook her head, blonde hair flying across her suddenly misty eyes. No, she thought. It had meant nothing. Couldn’t mean anything. He hadn’t even looked back.

  Still, the imagery haunted her mind throughout the long drive back to the farm, and throughout the day’s endless evening and longer, sleepless night, she found her mind constantly returning to re-run the scene ... over and over and over. It was almost a form of torture; she was torn between the logic that said his actions and words had to mean something, and the logic that said they didn’t have to at all.

  He didn’t telephone. Helen really hadn’t expected him to, and if he had, it would only have added to her confusion. As, indeed, it did when he ‘phoned the next night, waking her from the first decent sleep she’d had since his departure.

  ‘I woke you up, didn’t I?’ The familiar chuckle in the voice, the knowing, familiar tones for some reason got her back up just enough to reply, ‘No, I was out on the veranda, watching the stars.’