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Ben worked with the wires. ‘Yes, I suppose I’m a success in that I’m doing what most people fail to do, namely savour the world. Or I’m trying to. And I’m learning, the while.’
‘Becoming wise,’ she said with glowing solemnity. ‘That’s what I’d love to do – become wise. … And I’ve got all the time in the world to try to achieve it, by reading. And I do read. But there’s a hell of a lot more to wisdom than book-learning.’
‘Indeed.’
She waved an expansive hand. ‘It’s out there. Beyond the blue horizon. Where you’re going back to. Or forward to. Always forward, that’s the trick!’ She sighed, staring across the room. ‘That’s why I thought I might be a lawyer. The daily human drama of the courtroom, seeing human nature at work. Arguing a case.’ She frowned tipsily. ‘The beauty of words. Of persuasion. Of logic. By the time a lawyer’s my age he must have seen it all.’ She sighed again. ‘I used to spend hours in the gallery of the Brisbane courts.’
‘And why did you consider being a teacher?’
‘Again, the words. The beauty of the English language, and the satisfaction of using it to guide the young.’
He began work on the switch. He said: ‘Have you tried writing? With all this time on your hands?’
‘Have you ever tried?’
He said: ‘No, but I’ll write a book one day. Even if it’s never published, I’ll have done it.’ He smiled. ‘But I wrote a poem once.’ He sat back on his haunches, put one hand on his heart and pointed his screwdriver at the ceiling.
‘The moon shines up there like a cuspidor,
Doris, oh Doris, what are we waiting for …?’
There was a pause, then Helen threw back her head and burst into laughter. ‘That’s hilarious!’
Ben grinned, and resumed work. ‘That’s what Doris thought. She couldn’t get over the cuspidor, didn’t think it romantic at all. She was a dancer – the longest legs you ever saw, and I was bursting to get her into bed. That’s pretty optimistic when you’re five-foot-five. Still, I gave her a good laugh.’
Helen giggled. ‘If I’d been Doris I’d have fallen for that one!’
Ben felt a flicker of hope. ‘Better be careful, I might think my luck’s changed and re-write it.’
Helen tried to stop giggling. ‘But have you seriously tried to write, Ben?’
The flicker faltered. Nothing like a hasty change of a subject like this to falter flickers.
‘I’ve made lots of notes every day. One day I’ll get my arse to an anchor for a few months and start it.’
‘And what will it be about?’
He was screwing the override switch into the wall. ‘Hemingway said you should only write about what you know. So my book will be about this little New York Jewish jeweller, oversexed and underloved, who chucks it all up in disgust and goes off to savour life as best he can.’
She grinned. ‘Oh, Ben …’ She was about to query the underloved playfully, but thought better of it. ‘Will it include this visit to the Outback?’
‘Oh yes.’ He paused and took a sip of wine. ‘You’ll be in it.’
She fluttered her eyelids tizzily. ‘Really? Dull old me?’ Then she narrowed her eyes theatrically. ‘What will it say about me, Smart-ass?’
Ben twisted his screwdriver, considering.
‘I assure you, Helen, that you’re not dull. You’re a very interesting woman.’
‘“Interesting”? You make me sound like a “case”! What kind of case of most interesting woman am I? A case of rather interesting bushwhacked mindlessness?’
He grinned at the wall. ‘You’re highly intelligent, Helen. And … appealing.’ He was going to say desirable, but changed it in his mouth.
‘Intelligent? I ain’t said anything intelligent yet. But I’m a humdinger when I get going. Ask Oscar, bless his soul …’ She sighed, then added glumly: ‘I haven’t done anything intelligent for twenty years.’
He had wasted the opening. ‘You’ve raised a lovely family.’
‘Any dumb blonde can do that. I mean intelligent.’ She banged her brow. ‘Something that requires the ability to grasp new concepts and apply them. Develop them. Create with them …’
He tightened the last screw, and stood up.
‘There. We’ll test it later.’ He turned to her. And this was the moment to make his pass at her: they were in the bedroom, and about to leave it. He felt just bold enough, with all the booze inside him. He was about to sit down on the bed beside her – and he lost his nerve. He said instead:
‘You’re right, of course, we could all do so much more with our brains. Have you ever thought of writing?’
‘What’s there for me to write about?’
The moment was definitely past, and he felt a kind of relief that he hadn’t made a premature blunder.
‘Write about you. Like Hemingway said. You’re what you know best. Write about being a woman. Your kind of woman, in your situation. It’s something that most women will understand and empathize with.’
‘Empathize with? How many women live in the Outback?’
It would have been absolutely natural to sit down on the bed beside her. But again he lacked the nerve. He said:
‘The Outback is only an extreme example of the condition in which many women – if not most women – find themselves in suburbia. All over the western world.’ He waved a finger. ‘They start a career. Then they get married and raise a family and the career is sacrificed to the drudgery of housework. The struggle to make ends meet. Meanwhile, the husband’s career goes on. He has the stimulus, the companionship, the promotions, the job-satisfaction. Finally the kids grow up and leave home. What’s Mum got left? Even her housewife’s job is virtually taken away. What does she do?’
Helen was staring up at him. ‘Right!’ she said emphatically, and took an aggressive swig of wine.
Her emphasis surprised even the optimist in him. Surely this was the moment to sit down beside her? He did so, three feet away, and marshalled his thoughts rapidly.
‘But you must write it as a story, Helen. Not as a poor-me autobiography. You must create verbal pictures the reader can see and feel. With a plot which makes the reader want to know what happens next, how the heroine handles this problem. Then …’ He raised his thick eyebrows. ‘Then you’ve created a worthwhile work of art, baby.’
Helen was hanging on wisdom. That familiar baby didn’t offend her this time. ‘And?’ she demanded. ‘What does our heroine do?’
Oh, indeed, what does she do? He said, cautiously: ‘Depends on who she is. You know yourself properly – I don’t.’ He decided to say it: ‘Maybe she has an affair? Many women do.’
‘But,’ she protested, ‘I could never do that, that wouldn’t be me! I’m supposed to write about me …’
Ben Sunninghill gave an inward sigh. Had he blown it? Hope winced and subsided into its shell. He tried to make himself sound academic:
‘But maybe your heroine does. Half the ladies bored out of their minds in suburbia would, and the other half would understand, even applaud.’
‘But an affair doesn’t solve her basic problem!’
Oh well … ‘That’s your task, as the story-teller – to show us what it does or doesn’t solve.’ He sighed and abandoned the subject of adultery. ‘Or maybe she takes a job – any job, because she’s too old now to resume her career. Or’ – he shrugged – ‘maybe she leaves. To go off and do her own thing, whatever that is.’
She said emphatically: ‘But she loves her husband! And her family!’
Oh dear. Hope curled up in its shell. ‘Ah, that’s the tricky part. One of the most difficult parts. Remember what I said about the price? The heartache? The loneliness? The financial hardship?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s your job as story-teller to make all this real for the reader.’
Helen looked at him unsteadily. ‘But what makes her leave her family? Her loved ones?’
Ben said: ‘But they’ve already left her, haven’t they?’
‘Yes, but only … physically. Geographically. They’re still a family.’
Ben shook his head. ‘Yes and no. That’s the whole point. The family goes on, sure, but it ain’t what it used to be. The story is how the heroine who’s left behind handles that problem. Look at your friends and ask yourself what you think their problem is. The details of it. And look at yourself.’ (It was on the tip of her tongue to protest that she didn’t have a problem.) Ben pointed at the photograph of Clyde, and for the moment he was entirely altruistic: ‘Ask yourself how your life with Clyde has changed – for better or worse – and why. Is there the same excitement of facing the future together? Obviously not, now is the future. What’s the difference between that excitement of yesteryear, those hopes, and the reality of now? How much disappointment is there?’ He looked at her earnestly. ‘What do you talk about these days? The same things you talked about twenty years ago when you were fresh from university and he was a horny young sheep-shearer desperate to carry you off to his mortgaged station?’ He shook his head. ‘No, of course not you’ve said all that: but have you … supplemented your conversations – together – so that you’ve still got things to talk about, to interest each other in? If not, why not? For example, do you both read good books, or only one of you? Do you even share the same interests now – or is it really only the common interest of survival?’ Helen was hanging on his words. ‘Yes, you love him, but not in the way you did when you first married him, when you were so crazy about him that you quit university. What does he mean to you now, Helen, twenty years on? And why? And is it enough, in all the circumstances, that you – or your heroine – must pay for it with the precious remnants of her youthfulness?’ He looked at her, and his altruism faltered. ‘What’s her sex-life like? Ask yourself what yours is like.’ Helen blinked. ‘Is it what it used to be twenty years ago, when you couldn’t get enough of each other? Of course not, nobody can keep up that enthusiasm. No, it’s changed, but to what?’ Helen blinked again. ‘Once a week, when he’s home – once a fortnight? Once a month? Why so seldom? Is it because you’re ageing? No. Is it because he’s ageing? No, he’d do three times a night with a new chick. So?’ He tapped his head. ‘So it’s up here.’ He leant out and tapped her head. ‘But what’s up here? Or in your heroine’s head? And what does she want to do about it, and how? That’s what the story-teller’s got to fascinate the reader with.’
Helen was following this intently.
‘But what makes her leave?’ she demanded. ‘What’s the catalyst? The final thing?’
Ben ached to lean forward and tilt her mouth to his. Instead he took the bottle from her and poured more wine into their glasses. He said quietly:
‘That’s the question, isn’t it? That’s what the story’s about. What makes her, after all these years, finally find the courage to quit. To act, upon her convictions? That …’ he nodded at her, ‘is what women will sit on the edge of their chairs to find out. And if you succeed in making them understand that – empathize with that – you’ve been successful.’ He looked at her earnestly; and oh, he was within a whisker of leaning out to touch her; then his nerve failed him and he just gave his wide impish smile: ‘Make it this little New York Jewish jeweller who rocks up on his Harley-Davidson.’ He grinned, then stood up and jerked his head. ‘Come on – let’s crank up the generator to test this switch, then go’n have that swim.’
CHAPTER 9 (#)
The switch worked like a charm. Helen was delighted; now she could go to bed without running through the dark house pursued by spooks.
‘Now you can start the washing-machine,’ Ben said. She hit the button with a flourish. The machine burst into shuddering life. ‘Eureka!’ she cried. Dundee began to make another puddle. ‘You and I are going to have a little talk tomorrow, Dundee!’
Ben smiled. ‘Well, I’ll ride back to the cottage and put on my swimming trunks. Meet you at the reservoir?’
‘Haveanotherdrinkfirst! Did you get all that? I’m having a lovely day! First a washing-machine again, then Dundee, then a thousand bucks’ worth of diamond, now no more goddam spooks hard on my heels!’ She leant boozily towards him. ‘Do you think I’m childish, believing in spooks?’
It would have been so natural to lean forward too, and put his mouth on hers. ‘No.’ Ben grinned.
‘I don’t believe in spooks. I just suspect there are some!’
‘I believe in ghosts.’
‘Do you? A big brave man like you? Maybe I’m not such a bimbo!’
Ben smiled. ‘I also don’t like the dark in big empty houses. That’s natural. Man has been afraid of the dark ever since the cave. And if you believe in God, and a spiritual life after death, what’s so improbable about there being a few maladjusted spirits knocking around?’
‘Right!’ Helen cried. She stuck out her hand. ‘Shake on that! You’re not Christian if you don’t believe in spooks!’
It was another moment when he could have enfolded her. ‘Or Jewish.’
‘Or Jewish,’ she assented reasonably. ‘So are we two reasonable people going to have another drink?’
‘Sure – but up at the reservoir while we’re having our swim. To freshen up.’
‘Brilliant! To sober up! I’m almost as bad as Billy.’ She leaned breathily towards him again. ‘Ben, will you do one more small thing for me tomorrow?’
Oh, he would do all kinds of things for her tomorrow. Including crawl on his hands and knees over broken glass. ‘If I can.’
‘You can! Oh, you can. Because you’re a man.’ She held up a finger. ‘Tomorrow, when Billy’s sobered up – and me, hopefully – tomorrow will you accompany me to his hut to kick his Aboriginal arse? Figuratively, I mean. But help me to give him a bollocking. I mean, I’ll do the bollocking, but I’d appreciate your moral support. So he doesn’t think I’m a helpless female on my own with whom he can be cavalier over his putative duties.’
He grinned. ‘You’re not a helpless female.’
‘Oh, I know that! Boy, do I know that! Dumb, maybe, stultified maybe, believe in ghosts definitely, but helpless I am not!’ She looked at him cheerfully. ‘But will you come with me tomorrow to Billy’s?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Thank you. So let’s have a drink to that! To our united front against Billy the Blackamoor. He of the sooty breast. That’s Shakespeare.’
‘Othello.’ Ben grinned. ‘But let’s have that swim first.’ He could hardly wait. ‘Go’n put on a swimsuit, I’ll meet you at the reservoir in five minutes.’
‘You’re quite right! Sober up – that’s me every time!’ She frowned happily, then pronounced: ‘Ben, if I appear a bit pissed, it’s not an optical illusion, it’s just because I’m having such a good time! All that heady stuff you gave me about that crash-hot number-one sheer-genius bestseller I’m going to start writing tomorrow – it’s been very stimulating! Gone to my head like wine. Yes, I shall meet you at the reservoir! In my itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikini! Pronto!’
Ben rode back to the cottage, not knowing what to think. He had lived long enough to know that he certainly couldn’t be confident about his chances with the gorgeous Helen McKenzie, even though drunk and all by herself in the middle of the Outback, but he was tipsy enough and certainly horny enough to be optimistic as hell all over again. He unpacked, pulled on his swimming trunks, then got out another bottle of Shiraz, a corkscrew, two glasses from the kitchen, and set off jauntily, barefoot and tingling with anticipation.
He arrived at the big circular reservoir beside the windmill behind the eucalyptus grove. Helen was not there yet. He climbed the steps to the rim. The interior had been painted blue. There was hardly any sediment on the bottom. It was a perfectly good spot for seduction! He opened the wine and sat down on the concrete steps to wait for her, looking impatiently towards the house. It was just visible through the trees.
He wondered what she looked like in her itsy-bitsy bikini, and he wanted her so much he didn’t care what she looked like. She had lovely big tits, that much he had seen – a real Earthmother type. Her stomach was probably a bit fat, and doubtless stretch-marked, but so what? Her thighs? Oh, he longed to see her thighs again …
The flies spoilt his anticipation. He stood up, waving them aside, looked back towards the house, then turned and plunged into the pool, to get away from them.
The surface was lukewarm, but deeper the water was cool, a delightful, sensuous balm. He swam underwater to the opposite side, then back again. He did the diameter four times underwater, to contain his impatience, then burst the surface. He gripped the rim, tossed back his hair, and looked over the top.
Helen was still not in sight. He looked at his watch, sighed and subsided back into the water, wallowing impatiently.
It was over twenty minutes since he’d left her. He muttered aloud: ‘Remember the story of your life, Sunninghill, my boy, my life …’
He wallowed some more, trying not to feel unduly expectant. And he really did feel sorry for her, all alone in the Outback. It was a hell of a life for a woman …
It would do her the world of good to be laid …?
He snorted at himself: there you go again, Sunninghill! He submerged his head in an attempt to dampen his expectations.
But, by God, if ever you’ve had a chance it’s this one …
He plunged his head underwater again and swam hard to the steps. He reached for his wine glass and looked again towards the house. Not yet … He subsided back into the water, sipping.
After another five agonized minutes he just knew she wasn’t coming – she had thought better of it. So much for thinking your luck had changed, you fool. You asshole …
He banged his glass on the rim, heaved himself up. He descended the concrete steps, grabbed his towel, picked up the glasses, corkscrew and wine bottle, and set off down the path to the main house.
The kitchen was empty, and the whole place had an abandoned air.
‘Helen?’ he called.
No response was the stern reply. He put the wine on the table, walked to the open door and peered down the passage. He listened. Not a sound. Then Dundee came waddling through from her bedroom.
‘Helen? You all right?’
