Since We Last Met, page 20
After he dropped Lena at Airlie Beach, he was booked to head to Prossy airport to pick up the winners from Nan’s breakfast show contest. ‘A couple of blokes,’ Nan had said. ‘I’ve been trying to find out more about them but the lady from the telly said she doesn’t know. I’m hoping Lena will get lucky, or even Rosa or Tam. They’re well overdue a bit of action. I don’t know why they’re not taking advantage of this boon, but I’ve booked in the works package for both the winners, so fingers crossed. Picnics on Stingray Island, chopper rides to Whitehaven, sunset cruises, overnight glamping on Whitsunday Island—the lot. And loads of free booze. These buggers are going to fall in love whether they want to or not.’
As long as the winners didn’t nominate Cody as their intended date, all good. The Captain Australia thing was getting a little old. Tam had managed to charm the US talk show into a sympathetic editing of their sting and his disastrous interview, making it into something of a practical joke rather than a #MeToo takedown, but in return she’d had to cough up a trip for two to the island to give away—a week in the honeymoon suite with all the extras, sightseeing flights, and business class airfares from the US. She’d shrugged it off, talking about the ‘fabulous exposure’, but he knew she was worried about blowing her budget. They finally had money coming in, but they’d been deep in the red to begin with. It was like pouring a bucket of water on ground that hadn’t seen rain in a month.
His next interview, with Nan’s ‘lady from the telly’ from Sydney, had gone well. So well that she’d asked him to dinner afterwards at her Hamilton Island hotel, and he’d been about to politely decline when Nan had stepped in and accepted for him. So he’d gone, and the woman had been smart and funny and sexy and keen, and he’d been trying to talk himself into going with it because actually she was just the kind of woman he could see himself having a relationship with—a real relationship, to his shock, because he was starting to wonder if he was over all the screwing around—when her producer texted her to say that the video of him kissing Kemala had gone viral, and she’d got up and walked out of the restaurant muttering something like, ‘Why does this kind of shit always happen to me?’ Which he could totally identify with.
The happier result was that the viral video had prompted the Brisbane radio station to can him from the speed-dating segment—but unfortunately Nan had talked them into using Luka instead. And Luka was good at many things to do with boats, water, and sport, but snappy conversations in high-stress situations? Not so much. The woman who won later quietly backed out of the free date, citing a sudden case of glandular fever, and somehow Luka was holding Cody responsible for the whole disaster. It hadn’t helped that The Bachelor people had been listening in to the speed-dating contest and had told Nan they were no longer interested in Luka for the show, but could they talk to Captain Australia? Cody had said a swift no to Nan, but Nan said a swifter yes to the producers, so Cody was currently trying to talk his way out of that while still trying to talk Luka out of hating him. Cody knew it was in lieu of Luka hating himself, so he was going easy. Why Luka had agreed to the radio show, Cody did not know. No, actually, Cody did know. Luka was an optimist when it came to love, the dumb, doomed schmuck.
‘I would be shit on radio,’ Luka had said before the show, displaying a level of self-awareness Cody hadn’t previously given him credit for.
‘Relax,’ Cody had advised. ‘Don’t try so hard. Be yourself.’
‘You’ve been telling me all my life that my personality is defective.’
‘It’s a joke. A running gag, like the thousands of other running gags in the family.’
‘Yeah, well, thirty years of the same running gag? At some point it becomes the truth.’
Ouch. It wasn’t far off what Carmen had said about Cody’s comment that she was so uptight she’d twang.
‘Am I a jerk, Lena?’ he said over the comms.
She turned to study him. ‘Is this a trick question?’
‘No.’
‘Why are you asking this now?’
‘You probably know me better than anyone.’
‘That’s pathetic. You should get out more.’
‘So, am I? A jerk?’
‘On a scale of?’
‘Cool,’ he said. ‘I guess that’s a yes.’
‘Are you being serious? I’m not recognising whatever this emotion is that you may or may not be displaying. What’s the punchline?’
‘No punchline. On a scale of am I a jerk or am I not a jerk.’
She narrowed her eyes for a few seconds, then shrugged. ‘It’s your personal brand. Your fallback. I do the same thing. Sometimes it’s a reflex, the automated response. Mum says it’s the defence I use to shut out anyone who might get too close, but whatever. Why are you suddenly so worried about it?’
‘It’s nothing. This last week or so has been getting to me, that’s all.’
‘It’s been getting to all of us.’ Even she sounded tired, but then a week of a full resort humming with a party atmosphere was draining everyone but Nan, who seemed to be feeding on it. The Sisters Three kept reassuring each other that things were settling down, but there was no evidence of that. And Cody still had the auction date to go. ‘Yeah, so you’re a jerk,’ Lena added, softening. ‘But you’re my jerk. And you’re also my best mate.’
‘That’s pathetic. You should get out more.’
She playfully boxed his shoulder, though seeing as she did MMA training every morning, it kinda hurt. ‘See? You trick me into saying something nice and then boom, you take me down. And this is why I don’t do this deep-thinking-feelings shit, especially with you. Luka is a way better brother.’
He shook his head, smiling. Lena had spent her entire thirty years playing her brothers off against each other. But it was a reality check that the people who knew him best agreed he was a jerk.
He was still mulling it over while he stood near the baggage carousel in Proserpine airport, holding a sign with the names of the unsuspecting contest winners on it.
A guy who had to be at least seventy picked his way out of the disembarking passengers. ‘That’ll be me,’ he said, pointing to the top name. ‘Not used to this kind of treatment!’
Cody introduced himself and shook the man’s hand. The guy was way too old for the Sisters Three, but he could probably keep up with Nan if he was as fit as he looked. Was she currently in an ‘on’ or ‘off’ phase with Reg from Maintenance?
As the man turned to watch for his luggage, another guy approached Cody, also comfortably upwards of seventy. ‘Sorry, mate, me glasses are at the bottom of me bag. Are you the guy from Desperation Island? I think you’re supposed to be giving me a lift in ya chopper? I won some competition on the telly, apparently. My granddaughter entered for me.’
Cody smiled broadly. Day made. ‘Very pleased to meet you, sir.’
‘Haven’t had a chopper ride since Nam, so we’ll see how we go. Bit out of practice with a lot of things, if you get my meaning.’
‘You’ll do fine, my friend. Let me take you boys to meet my nan.’
23
Bruno
‘How long have you got?’ Carmen said as Bruno dropped into the passenger seat of the four-wheel drive, which she’d pulled up on the gravel turning bay outside the barracks.
‘Should be good for an hour.’ He checked that there were no observers and leaned in to kiss her. Not that the base’s staff were unaware of his extracurricular activities, and the visiting training group was off on a survival course on a deserted island. But he liked that this world they’d created had only two occupants.
‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘I have almost exactly that before dinner.’ She indicated and pulled out.
He smiled. Every time.
Somehow he’d been on the island for nearly two weeks. It turned out that it was pretty relaxing to do what regular people did and have a tropical island vacation. And it was amazing how quickly you could fall off the face of the earth.
He dropped his nearest hand onto Carmen’s thigh, and she glanced at him and smiled. That smile never failed to do things to him. This was his kind of vacation, seeing as he was working reasonably hard. True, his skills as per his resume were, as the lieutenant constantly reminded him, ‘only slightly more useful than testicles on a monk’, but he’d discovered he had other things to offer. And, sure, this whole thing with Carmen and the island inevitably had to end before his drive and motivation drifted away on the trade winds, but for now he was floating with the current. It helped that his team was still waiting on deployment, so if he was back on base he’d be killing time anyway. This was a much more pleasant way to backpedal, even if the lieutenant-colonel back home was giving him hell about his ‘junket’.
Of course, Carmen helped fill in the days. Well, she provided the highlights. Not that they spent long periods together, but they’d seen each other every day without fail, though he hadn’t visited the resort since that night they’d sneaked into a room. Carmen had made him promise to keep his distance from her nan and mom, and the thought of the marriage licence forms in Nan’s desk made him only too happy to comply. Staying away from the resort also meant he was uncontactable by the outside world, except for the occasional text message that snuck through like a determined Pony Express rider.
He and Carmen had become excellent at time management, seeing as Carmen was working more jobs than he could keep up with. As they had no reliable method of communication, Carmen would turn up at the base unannounced—he loved that he never knew when that would be—and the lieutenant would roll her eyes and say, ‘Bugger off then.’ They’d explored the island cove by cave, by sunlight and starlight, not that he spent much of their time together looking at scenery. At midnight last night, after she hadn’t shown all day, he’d been lying sleepless in his bunk when he’d heard the whirr of an electric vehicle and the rolling crunch of tyres on stones, and he’d grinned so wide the corners of his mouth were in danger of splitting.
Yep, they had a good thing going, though he was still puzzled about the contradictions in her. The weird conversation they’d had in her office played over in his mind, as did the captain’s wild misinterpretation of what they’d had in Chicago. And as much as Bruno didn’t want to lead Carmen on about their future prospects, sometimes he caught himself on the verge of making plans to return. But, like she’d said, she wasn’t in love with him. She obviously felt hugely awkward about the whole misunderstanding that had brought him here, because every time the conversation veered obliquely in that direction, she tensed and garbled something incoherent about ‘that which mustn’t be named’. Maybe she just wasn’t comfortable discussing her feelings. Maybe he was off the hook about her weird request that day for him to reserve judgement on their future. He was quite happy to reserve judgement, though the logistics that made a relationship with Carmen impossible would never change. Neither would the fact he didn’t want a relationship, even with her.
At any rate, they’d made a pact not to talk about her obsession or whatever it was—well, she had, and he’d agreed—and he would honour that, even if he was curious about what was really going on in her head. For a pragmatic guy like the captain to import Bruno all the way from Florida, he must have been convinced it’d been more than a random hook-up. But the captain had also made clear that the subject wasn’t up for discussion, so that mystery endured. In the meantime, Bruno was enjoying this escape from normal life as much as Carmen was, especially since she was so stressed with work. Often, when she picked him up, her face was tight and her posture rigid, but by the time she dropped him back at the base, she was a little more dishevelled and a lot more relaxed.
He leaned back in the seat as she rocketed the car around the swamp. The air here smelt earthy and rich with life, a contrast with the crisp, clean scent of the island’s various beaches. It was low tide, and beyond the mangroves the water gleamed in several shades. A glossy warm brown across the mudflats, pale blue in the braided canals, deeper blue further out. Shifting sands, just like Carmen. Every day he caught glimpses of new depths to her, particularly when they stretched out under big skies or the stars, or huddled in caves or in the car listening to the rain. Mostly, their conversation remained on neutral ground—seeing as there was no intersection in their regular lives, it was almost all neutral. The resort, his work, her family, the world beyond the island, which seemed to matter less and less as the days ticked over and he remained mostly offline. Other times, like this, they just hung out in a comfortable silence.
Come to think of it, they’d spent a lot of time discussing him. Way more than he usually would. Way deeper than he’d normally go with anyone but an air force counsellor. Maybe it was those big skies. Maybe it was the fact Carmen was a neutral party and he might never see her again.
He grimaced, sneaking a look at her as she drove. He didn’t want to think about that.
But when it came to discussing herself beyond her work, Carmen became guarded. In fact, those tended to be the moments before she jumped him, which he was all good with. What guy wouldn’t be?
At Juno Beach, a bird bobbed gently in the water, looking satisfied with life. And why not? After they passed the backpackers, Carmen turned inland, pushing hard up the track, which was near vertical in places. She pulled into the driveway of the rundown homestead that sat on a plateau of overgrown lawn, its views of wilderness, ocean and the national park on the mainland wasted on the shuttered windows. As they got out of the car, she pulled a bottle of wine and two glasses from the back seat. A Queensland verdelho, he noted, remembering it from his shift at the bar. From somewhere, a goat bleated.
‘Not a full bottle, I’m afraid,’ she said, the breeze playing with her hair, which he noticed she’d been leaving down more often. ‘It’s an excellent wine but it’s been open too long to serve to guests.’
‘So long as it doesn’t contain live cultures, I’m all good.’ He followed her up a set of rickety wooden stairs to an equally rickety porch that made the view even more pristine. The porch might have lost its paint decades ago but the setting sun gave it a warm glow. ‘If I don’t drink another living organism in my life, it’ll be a life well lived.’ He wouldn’t usually drink alcohol when he was technically on the clock, but he wouldn’t be flying aircraft or firing weapons tonight. ‘What’s with the furniture?’ he said, indicating a pair of reclining wooden chairs freshly painted turquoise, like the ones in tourist photos of Cape Cod.
‘They’re my cousin Harry’s,’ she said, pouring the wine. ‘He has a dream of doing this place up and living here one day. So far he’s only got as far as a new roof and the chairs.’
Bruno whistled as she passed him a glass. ‘Looks like a lot of work, though the rewards would be something.’ He leaned on the railing. It would be hard to fit the view into even a panoramic photo. The sun was getting lower over the national park on the mainland, hazing the hills in shades of slate and charcoal. ‘So is this house his?’
‘Not technically.’ She settled onto one of the chairs and he took the other, sipping the wine. It was light and a little tangy, and that was about as sophisticated as his wine palate got. ‘Everything on the island is owned by a trust, though Nan’s constantly threatening to turn the place into a native frog sanctuary and turf us all off unless we produce more great-grandchildren. But Harry’s the only one who’s put any work into it. The house, I mean, not the great-grandchildren—well, not to my knowledge. Nan’s promised it to whichever of her grandchildren is the first to marry, and so far he’s got the closest.’
‘Yeah, the rest of you don’t really seem like the type—well, the ones I’ve got to know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Cody, Lena … you.’
She seemed to think about that a moment, and then her expression closed down. Her changing moods reminded him of a one-woman show he’d taken his mother to once. The actress had played half-a-dozen parts, and for each character she’d transformed her posture, expression, and voice so much that you were convinced you were watching six different people. At the end, he’d half-expected all six to march out for a curtain call. He wasn’t sure he’d got a fix on which of Carmen’s personalities was her regular one, but he liked all her faces: the thoughtful face, the caring face, the fun and sexy face, the undefinable one when she looked up at him as if he was something to marvel at. They each did different things to him. The sexy one, of course, had started out as his favourite, but now it shared equal billing. Which was probably why he was finding it so hard to leave, even if this could never be a permanent relationship.
Carmen rose slowly, stepped over to him, took his glass from his hand, and placed it on the deck of the porch. The leisurely speed but clear intent with which she moved was more intoxicating than any alcohol. She calmly sat astride him and started kissing him, and he glided his palms up her back, under the polo shirt. She’d become such familiar territory.
‘Come on,’ she said, rising to her feet just as things were getting interesting. He groaned.
She shot him a seductive grin, jogged down the steps, and crossed the gravel driveway to the car, swinging that gorgeous ass. Sometimes she seemed so confident, other times not. Sometimes he thought he was digging into her, getting to know her, and sometimes he felt shut out. Like now, when the conversation had drifted to her single status and she’d wordlessly changed the subject. Not that he was complaining. And hey, her love ’em and leave ’em attitude was exactly as they agreed. Maybe she was deliberately trying not to get too close to him because she knew he had to leave. Any day now.
She opened the trunk and drew out a folded cloth. A picnic rug? He pushed to his feet. As he followed her onto the grass in front of the house, he realised it wasn’t a rug but a hammock—a new one, to replace the remains of an ancient one strung between two palm trees.
‘You first,’ she said wickedly after they’d fixed it in place. She pulled a condom packet from her pocket.
