Ten minutes tramping through tree filled gullies, lantana clad ridges and scratchy re-growth, brought us to my boundary with the State Forest. The rusty barbed wire fence was unnecessary, but had come with the block. We'd seen no one and heard nothing. The going was now easier because thick undergrowth had been cleared and replaced by struggling grass. The widely spaced trees looked impressive, being thirty to forty years old and ready for milling, but there were only two or three different species and no visible animal life.
After about half an hour we stopped for a breather. The air was cool and still, no birds, frogs or crickets - just the occasional rustle of a lizard. I eased myself to the ground, leaned back against a tree and counted my aches. Jon dropped onto his stomach, head propped on hands.
"It's a damned sight more peaceful here than your place. Where are the birds?"
"In the last hundred and fifty years this block's been cut-over at least three times and each time more tree species lose out to the vigorous growers. Only a few dominant species are left and they don't provide continuous food for financially unrewarding things like birds and honey gliders. It's either a famine or a glut. When they flower, the air shimmers with screeching flocks of lorikeets and other nectar-eaters; in between it's a zoological dessert. It's called sustainable logging."
A stifled giggle stopped me. Jon was gazing up innocently.
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing."
"You're laughing at me."
"Never."
"I feel silly."
"I feel randy."
"It's lying on your belly."
"It's listening to you."
"Am I raving?"
"Probably. I get a hard-on when you shift into lecturing mode."
"Since when?"
"Since the first day."
"But… you always denied…"
"Of course I did! I knew I wasn't queer. I was simply over-sexed from eating so well for a change."
"Clever thinking. So… I've got a sexy voice?"
"Mmm. Not really - more a sexy intensity."
"Not what you'd call a marketable talent."
"There are… other things."
"Go on."
"Are you sure you can handle it?"
"I've been insulted by experts."
"Well… I'm no expert, but even my inexperienced eyes can see you've got a sexy butt, chest, legs, head, belly, balls, cock, feet, hands, and nose."
"Nothing else?"
"I'll probably discover more when I get to know you better."
"I bloody well hope so. And when did you first realise the extent of my attractions?"
"The first night, after your shower. Instant hard on. Why do you think I was so sullen?"
"No idea."
"You made me nervous."
"About what?"
"I was worried you might think I was queer! That I was one of those horrible degenerates everyone's always warned me about. I knew I wasn't! I knew perfectly well it was simply the unusual combination of a near-death experience and being rescued, playing silly-buggers with my libido."
"A student of psychobabble no less. This is fascinating. How could you be so sure you weren't a faggot?"
"That's easy. I'm not effeminate. I hate Kylie Minogue. I'm not even slightly interested in drag shows. Mardigras embarrasses me – except for the muscle-boys. I like playing football and other sports, heavy farm work, repairing engines, keeping fit… I like women."
"Sexually?"
"Not yet. But I've always assumed that one magical day I'd meet the woman who would turn me on. I reckoned I was being selective – a connoisseur. Not that there's much selection in the bush. I've only met about fifty women socially in my entire life. I usually like talking to them though, buttering them up – you know - I've watched you."
"That's called salesmanship."
"It's called greasing."
"Cheeky bugger. Find me a man who enjoys chatting with women, and I'll show you a poof. Heterosexual men only like yarning with other men.
"So, I'm queer.
"Perfectly."
"Perfectly stupid."
"Perfect same-sex-oriented male."
"Wow!"
"Also beau, fort, intelligent et grand."
"Handsome, strong, intelligent and tall?"
"Perfectly."
"Yeah… well of course I knew that, but…"
"Arrogant prick."
"But perfectly arrogant."
"True. However, we still have a problem."
"And that is?"
"Your dead rooster. It might interfere with our escape."
"But, Sir… I'm a virgin."
"Your agony is about to end. Disrobe."
The tracksuit and trainers were off in seconds and I gave my full attention to his relief, to be rewarded very quickly with all the usual shudders, gasps and sighs.
"Aahh! That's the best orgasm I have ever endured. Teach me the trick."
"Cost you."
"No price is too high."
"You've already paid something, your ribs are black and blue and I think at least one is cracked."
"Yeah, feels like it."
"Why didn't you mention it?"
"Waiting for an opportune moment."
"Perfectly tough as well."
There was a roll of elasticised bandage in the first-aid kit, so I strapped the empurpling chest as tightly as I dared. We were heading, I hoped, for Hank and Celia's. I figured that after talking to Jon, Hank had confronted his son with my suspicions and, after mulling it over all night, Patrick had driven over to pay me back for blabbing. Poetic justice. He'd be furious if he knew he had blown his chance to get rid of me forever.
"What're you smiling at?"
I told him, and outlined my plan.
"I like Hank."
"You'll like Celia too. I know Patrick's an arsehole of the first order, but I guess someone has to tell his parents. Christ I was stupid not to contact the cops. Why didn't I get Mad to ring them after I left? Why didn't we go straight to Rory and Lida and telephone from there instead of cutting out here? I'm insane! If we ever make it to the police they're going to think it's bloody suspicious, so before I do anything else I want to get Hank's advice. He's a lawyer."
"I'm glad we didn't run to Rory and Lida."
"You're having me on."
"No way! This is beaut. Thrills, problems to solve, doing it rough.' He glanced at my look of disbelief. "Yeah, I know things got a bit hairy back there – worse for you – but think of the stories you'll be able to tell your nephews."
"I'm an only child."
"You can borrow mine. Now, which way and how far?"
"About twenty k's as the crow flies, forty the way we're going. You up to it?"
"You're the weak link. But never fear, I'll carry you through the desert."
"Promises, promises. Weak link indeed."
"Which way's north?"
"Got a watch?"
We had neither watch nor compass so took a wild stab and set off.
It wasn't critical. As far as I could remember from the map I used to have hanging above my bed, if we headed roughly north we should hit an east-west logging track that we could follow west before hitting a north-south, secondary state-road. I'd always intended to tramp the forests, but not totally unprepared. It's just as well adventures are sometimes thrust upon us, we'd never choose them in the ordinary course of events and our lives would be the poorer.
A short time after I bought the property I trekked to my back boundary at night-fall and became so confused in the darkness I couldn't find my way back, even though it was no more than seven hundred metres. I blundered around, gave up and spent an itchy night with spiders, bush-rats, ants, wallabies, monitors and innumerable rustles. It got pretty cold, but I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Mind you, I've never done it again.
We meandered. The featurelessness of regrowth forest paralyses the senses and without some means of correcting one's direction there's little likelihood of travelling in a straight line. We tried to keep the sun at the same angle, but even a slight variation soon adds up to a large deviation and it was well after midday before we hit the forestry road – a rough, gravelled track. Unfortunately, what the map on my wall hadn't shown were the side tracks that kept branching off. If they'd been used recently they looked as important as the main track.
We took it in turns to decide which looked like the proper one and the sun was setting before we admitted to a prodigious fuck-up. We hadn't found water, hadn't seen any loggers, and had no idea where we were. After sharing half the packet of biscuits, finishing the water, scrabbling piles of bracken and grass together for a mattress and heaping a rough tepee with leaves, grass and anything else we vainly hoped would keep off cold and dew, we huddled down, hungry and thirsty, for a long night.
It got cold very quickly. Lying in any position was painful for both of us, but Jon reckoned his circulation was the best and I needed the most mollycoddling, so we ended up curled on our sides, me in front, he encircling my back. I had a warmish back, chest and right shoulder; freezing thighs and left shoulder. Jon, a warm chest and that's about all. He never complained, even about the trillion mosquitoes that bugged us all night. Having endured forty-eight hours with virtually no sleep, I dropped straight off, waking sometime in the middle of the night dying for piss, but hanging on so I wouldn't waste body-warmth.
Despite everything, we slept in snatches till first light, when it took a fair bit of stretching, bending and arm slapping to restore circulation. Only the promise of the remaining chocolate biscuits sustained our sunken spirits. Jon extracted the packet from its safe place in the fork of a tree and hurled it down at me in fury, shouting abuse at my stupidity for letting him put it there. The contents had been spirited away by a marauding thief of the night. Being evenly matched in the verbal stakes, our first slanging match was memorable - warming the insides and leaving us relaxed.
In the pre-dawn light I checked my battered body. Everything seemed OK except for a yellowing bulge of pus on my ankle. We sliced it open and applied some antiseptic. My ring felt a hell of a lot better, and so did my spirits. I had my life, the possibility of a future with Jon, a great place to live – everything I wanted. Hank would solve any other problems. Jon wouldn't let me look at his ribs, said it was too cold. He was going to need watching.
Sunrise was about six-thirty. We jammed a stick in the ground, checked the shadow and set off west. Well, north-west, because that's where the track went, winding up and down, hither and yon as it followed ridges, dropped into valley heads where puddles let us quench our thirst, and cut swathes up to yet other ridges. After several kilometres it branched - north and west. Yielding not to temptation we continued west, making good progress for several kilometres before the track zigzagged down into a deep valley.
There was plenty of water now in culverts as the sclerophyll forest gave way to rainforest remnant. Ferns, palms and broadleaf trees hugged the wet depths of gullies. Birds sang and we joined in. We were obviously descending to the river valley, so the main road that followed it was only a short distance away. All was well.
The track ended at a pile of logs, a scattering of cans and a rusty tow-bar in the centre of a muddy turn-around. My septic foot burst into flame, my stomach wrenched and I hurled curses to the heavens. It was at least two hours since the last turn-off back up on the ridge. We couldn't go back. Jon stood in the middle, hands on hips, gazing around. It was a dispiriting spot. Weeds choked all hope of native plant regeneration, puddles of stagnant water glistened with oil slick, and the air was still, sunless and cold.
"Sit down and put your feet up. I'll scout around."
"I'm not going back."
"Neither am I, so shut up and do as you're told."
I did, and would have fallen asleep if a swarm of mosquitoes hadn't arrived for a meal. Slapping and jiggling kept me warm until a faint "coo-ee' guided me through a couple of hundred metres of rank weeds and regrowth to Jon, standing at the edge of about ten hectares of moonscape.
"We're out of the forest, but what on earth's this?"
"Looks like an old pineapple plantation. The government encourages landowners to clear trees and plant cash crops. Most go for pineapples but they're gross feeders and attractive to pests, so without massive poison-spraying regimes and fertilisers the crops fail and this is what's left. It's called developing the land. These places stay toxic for years. To stop their tractors rolling over they plough the furrows up and down the slope, so the erosion's horrendous. Just try not to drink the water down-stream. The poor bastards who buy these blocks and build houses, fall prey to all sorts of chronic ailments."
Jon stared in disbelief. "Every day I'm confronted by greater insanities. Back home we always assumed you guys on the coast knew a thing or two. We were the fuckwits degrading the land, causing salination, destroying the ecosystems. Boy, were we misinformed. It's worse here than the bush."
"You won't find many who'll agree with that assessment, but where there's cultivation there's settlement, a cosy fire, food and comfort. Find the homestead."
It was simple enough. A trail of broken fences, drunken gates, overgrown tracks and eroded earth led to what must once have been the busy hub of the farm. A rusting panel-van listed gracelessly on its patch of oily ground, spare parts for long forgotten implements and vehicles lay abandoned in rusting heaps of rejection, a sheet of iron flapped, a chicken cackled, three black crows clung to a sagging fence rail, their baleful eyes accusing as they offered up the occasional disgusted caw, and an indefinable stench lay like a rotten blanket over the land.
On the far side of the clearing a rusting corrugated iron shed leaned against a drunkenly askew verandah. Maggot infested sheepskins adorned the sagging railing. The steps had rotted out.
"The place is abandoned."
Jon headed for the shed, then stopped and beckoned me over. On one of a pair of ancient easy chairs spewing greasy stuffing onto the filthy deck, sprawled an impressive beer gut. It was asleep. Bubbles of saliva burst over slack lips each time a wheezy breath was exhaled. Fat red legs splayed from once green shorts. Limp fat hands hung from short, red-veined arms jutting over the armrests. We stared, enthralled.
"Look at his navel,' Jon whispered reverentially. "It's as large as a saucer.' And indeed it was. Massive breasts, capped by distended nipples, hung diagonally to each side of the belly under a shimmer of coarse reddish hair. Above, the tiny half-circle of gristle that marked an unshaven chin, dissolved in concentric rings of fat into neck and ruddy chest. Colossal flabs of fat at each side forced his arms out from his body. He snorted, dribbled, grunted and shuddered rhythmically.
Neither of us dared disturb him.
"Wananotherbeer Arn?' The voice was nasal, tired and flat. Getting no reply, its owner poked her head out the door. "About bloody time youse got here. We've been waitin' days. It's in there.' She nodded vaguely towards the evil-smelling interior.
"What is?' I asked.
"The fuckin' phone youse're gunna fix.' The words may have been aggressive, but the delivery was dead, falling from slack lips like a liturgical response. Her eyes strayed slightly, unfocussed and loose. A hand-rolled cigarette, unlit, was stuck to her lower lip.
"Sorry, it's not us, we…"
"Who the hell are youse then?' she sighed with not the slightest interest in our response, before landing a weak kick on Arn's leg and placing a can on the stool beside him. "Want one?' she inquired in the same dispirited tones, dropping into the other chair. She was almost as fat as her husband, but whereas he seemed tight, almost ready to burst, she was a soft elastic bag of fat that bounced, sagged, flowed and squeezed into all the available space. Her only garment, a flowered housecoat, was dragged across massive bosoms and fastened in place with safety pins. The lower one wasn't low enough and, as she sank back, the full glory of her thighs was exposed like multi- headed ice creams atop the insufficient cones of lower legs. Pinkly fat knees, a bulge of bluish cream and a larger bulge of vanilla.
"No thanks. Wouldn't mind a slice of bread."
"Bread?' she repeated as though she'd never heard of the stuff. "What day's it?"
"Wednesday."
"No bread till tomorrer."
We tried to explain our predicament, but she didn't appear to be listening.
"Mightn't even get anything tomorrer. Can't phone the order, see? Jilly might do it from school, but she's not too bright."
"How did Jilly get to school?"
"Bus."
"Will it take passengers?"
"Nuh. Not insured or some fuckin' thing.' She roused herself enough to look almost interested and asked, "Where's ya car? Take us into town?"
Before we could respond she thrust a dimpled hand into her cleavage, scrabbled around, flicked out a large cockroach, sagged back into her seat, yelled, "Arn!' then pointed inside. "Get yerselves somethin'ter eat if ya like. Arn! Ya beer's gettin' warm!"
Arn snorted, felt around for his beer and took a sip before nodding at us and muttering, "Gidday. Fuckin' phone's always on the blink. Gunna rain?"
We nodded, went inside, checked out the dirty planks that served for a bench, the bucket of slops, the greasy crates standing in for cupboards, the grime-streaked fridge and the shaky, plastic-covered table littered with meals past. Nothing I could bear to touch. Jon picked up an opened packet of shortbread and shook one into his hand. A cockroach scuttled out with it but the rest of the biscuits looked clean enough so we shared them, returned to the relatively clean air on the verandah, thanked our hosts, avoided a handshake, promised to give the phone-boys a buzz, and followed vague waves in the direction of a distant gate. It took several minutes of deep breathing and total expulsion of air before I could rid myself of the foul air.
The rest was easy. Two kilometres of clay road led past several farm gates and over a stream before becoming sealed. Another two kilometres and we were at the junction with the road we were looking for. We'd seen no one till then except farmers on tractors in the distance.
"What now?"
There was no money in the pack so we had no choice. Making ourselves as presentable as possible and gluing radiant smiles to our washed but unshaven faces, we walked north. Half an hour later, an elderly bloke picked us up in his decadently comfortable new Citroen. We admired, praised and congratulated him on his taste as we drifted along at about twenty kilometres an hour. This road couldn't be seen from Hank's place because of the low hills in between, but by looking up to the ridge I should be able to recognise a distinguishing feature or building.
Jon kept up the chatter while I checked out the land to the east. After several kilometres another state forest appeared on our right, jumped the road and surrounded us. This was probably the one visible from the lounge. As soon as it stopped, open grassland gave views up an incline to the lightly wooded hills above. There, standing out like dog's balls, was a two-storeyed monstrosity I recognised. It was about a kilometre from Hank's, on the same road.
Our driver floated his vehicle to a halt. We thanked him, clambered out, raced across the road, waved goodbye and set off up the hill between recently sprayed and evil-smelling groundsel, patches of swamp around a leaking dam and through an unthrifty grove of macadamias.
Half an hour later we helped each other through the last fence and staggered up the remaining few hundred metres, aches forgotten in the overwhelming relief of arriving. As we passed the pump- house by the dam, Jon grabbed my arm. The house was a hundred metres away, slightly above us on high stumps and we could see underneath to the parking area on the other side.
"That's a cop car up there. What'll we do?"
Every remembered tale of police corruption and involvement in crime set fear, doubt and insecurity slamming into my guts. I sagged onto the grass. "Let's wait till they've gone."
Two hours later, almost mad with hunger, we hauled ourselves to the door and knocked.