ernest ragman chapter 3 (2004)
Mid Queensland. The cool of dawn. A hundred degrees in the shade. Cane Toads slowly grill on the roads. The frozen food aisle in Mackay Aldis spontaneously combusts. Outside Gladstone, a farm worker drops to his knees in awe of the shimmering face of God sipping a bottle of Bundie in the brightness overhead. The world gets ready to make like candle wax.
I tried to roll out of the tent before realising I'd pitched it up against the park wall. It had become a matter of urgency to escape that narrow blue space. I undid the zip and squeezed myself out, looking like one of the terrible creatures that roam the long grass round here. Standing and rubbing my hair, which was rigid with dry sweat and highway dust, I realised there were a few houses on the far side of the bushes. Outside one, a man in a baseball cap with hair exploding out of his open shirt washed his car, the water glistening as the hose doused the well-maintained Hyundai. He blinked at me through the bushes like a man peering into the monkey cage at the zoo.
In the absence of the offer of a cuppa and some possum on toast from the kindly Queenslander, I staggered into the park to see what facilities the local kids hadn't torched.
Toilet, shower, barbecue. None of them smashed or smeared. Even itinerants lived like kings in this blessed land, where a smile was never far away, the sharks stayed off the reef and folk's eyes were empty of secrets and care.
Half an hour later I was chewing on a banana in the shaded picnic area and looking less like a sleep-deprived murderer; or at least looking like one who could be reasoned with. I can't have had more than four hours kip but my eyes no longer felt like marbles in nutshells.
I heaved my sack of eternally dirty laundry on to my back. It was hard to tell what distinguished the dirty clothes from the nominally clean shorts and T-shirt that now covered my scrubbed white flesh like an old towel on a fresh slab of Perch. Maybe I should have burnt the lot of them and streaked through the fields with the sun on my back. Didn't give much to my chances of hitching a lift that way though. It might also have given the pig hunters the wrong idea.
I bought a drink in the petrol station from a woman in a denim shirt who asked too many questions.
"Just travelling," I said in answer to her last inquiry as I ducked back out to the silent forecourt. If she wanted entertainment she could call into that discussion on the radio about how to de-lice lambs.
I crossed the Bruce Highway and trudged along the dry grass edging the asphalt to the turning for Airlie Beach. There was nothing but sunlight. It reduced everything to one dimension, just white heat and deep brown shadow. I took up position in the shade of a Eucalyptus tree just beyond a sign saying Airlie was 26km away.
A few cars crawled by but none were biting. And after I'd put on my best rags.
After a while a guy in a dented combie stopped. He had the lively manner and the glistening eyes of a drunk.
"First 'itcher I've seen on this road this year. Been 'ere long?"
"Nah, half an hour uh something."
"I ain't goin' far. Turnin' off 'bout five clicks down."
"I'll leave it."
Fumes from the exhaust and dry mud clinging to tyres as he pulled away.
I rubbed my left eye and yawned until I thought my mouth was going to split. Maybe I should have been thankful for this peace and quiet given I was headed into civilisation, or what passed for it north of Rockie.
A green coach swung off the Bruce just as I was lathering on some factor 30. On the side, chunky lettering saying "Oz Express" scrolled across a bright yellow picture of Australia with thumbs-up symbols marking the coach's route around the country. At the windows, lines of eyes stared down at me. Backpackers. Human cargo. Barely formed identities being transported between resorts where they could spend their parents' money on watered-down Daiquiris.
My thumb wavered. I hadn't fought my way out of Byron to get sucked into that themepark on wheels, but I was curious as to whether these designer hippies would have any charity for a fellow rucksack-wearer.
The thumb came proudly and confidently out.
The bus swooshed remorselessly on.
It disappeared over the brow, leaving me with a pool of sun cream between my feet and the first rage of the day surging inside me. I imagined all the letters the local constabulary would have to write if someone tampered with Oz Express' brakes.
I finished with the lathering, confronting the traffic from my shadowy spot like a ghost sent to ignite their car-driving, middle class guilt. Time wore on, a surprisingly painful process even in the shade.
Eventually I got lucky with a bottom-of-the-range BMW, the kind my father drove.
"Goin' to Airlie?" inquired the driver, somewhat redundantly, while a girl in her late teens looked on from the passenger seat.
My bag in the boot, me in back, the road under the wheels.
The guy eyed me in his mirror, occasionally turning to yell at me. He seemed to have come to the conclusion that I was mentally deficient in some way. Perhaps it was the layers of sun block.
"Haven't picked up any 'itchers for years. Used to the whole time but 'aven't for a while, dunno why. Must be all the trouble they 'ad in the outback." His accent was one dropped H away from drinking in the same saloon as the stockman. "S'pose you like this method of transport for meeting the locals eh?"
I was beholden to this man for the lift, but other than that, it was hard to find a reason to like him. It was more than his choice of motor that reminded me of my father.
Fortunately the girl piped up.
"So you're from England?"
I turned from the man's thick neck and fat collars to her enthusiast's eyes. She wasn't an attractive girl but had the confidence born of privilege. Probably wore a brace during puberty.
Unsurprisingly the name of my hometown left a blank expression on her face.
"If it's not near Edinbrah or London I won't've heard of it," she laughed. "The tour I did stopped off there before we wen' across to France. Oh, think we did Wales as well."
"You were on one of those… those tours?"
"Yeah. It kind of sucked really. Twenty-five European cities and we had to run across every one of them. Barely had time to buy postcards. They kept telling us we had to get to Bratislava by Tuesday."
She brightened.
"But Prague was beautiful as! I spent a month there on an exchange organised by Dad's business club. Praha!"
The man had descended into a surly silence as his daughter rabbited on about her five-figure sojourn. Years of toil, his silence seemed to say. For this.
"Can you speak any Czech then?" I asked.
"Trochu," she said uncertainly.
"And that means?"
"A little."
We drifted into silence as the landscape flashed by, growing greener as we neared the coast. The girl darted a glance at her father, who continued to slouch into his own thoughts. I was making her nervous: it had been her idea to give me the lift and now she didn't know how to follow the idea through to its conclusion. Maybe I could help her there. All I needed were the tools in my bag.
"So what takes you to Airlie Beach?" I said.
"Getting a job and a flat there for the summer," she beamed.
"What's it like?"
"Sweet as!"
She assumed the air of a raconteur recalling the golden days of Berlin between the wars.
"It's… it's the most beautiful place I've ever been. We used to come here on holidays when I was a kid and it still blows me away. Europe might have heaps of cathedrals but it's got nothing like this!"
She gestured at the vista before us. As the car came over the crest of a hill, we were met by a sweeping view of turquoise sea dotted with islands covered in lush rainforest. Yachts flecked inlets and bays, clouds stuck to the horizon like cotton wool to the cuffs of a Santa Claus costume. The world seemed static, hanging in this moment of tropical tranquillity.
"Not bad eh mate?!" hollered the guy.
I wound down my window and breathed in the sea air, bringing memories of Byron breezing into my mind. I wound the window back up. The car swung round corners and the view slowly disappeared as we dropped to sea level. Soon we were passing a sign saying, "Welcome to Airlie Beach! Tourism is our business!" This promised to be a taste of the real Australia then.
Hotels and motels began to rear out of the sides of the road, fronted by packed car parks and banners singing out messages like "Bed and barbie" and "No vacancies but welcome anyway". The buildings were all freshly painted, the pavements clean. I'd once dreamed of a place like this, but then I'd dreamed many things that had seemed absurd in the morning.
We parked outside a dive shop in the centre of town. The girl and I said we'd probably bump into each other again, neither of us believing it.
"Don't party too hard," called the man as I shut the door behind me. No danger of that: comments like his generally made me want to find a bunker somewhere windblown and not speak, sleep or eat for a long time. I retrieved my bag and headed along the pavement.
Whereas Byron felt like it was built yesterday, this place gave the impression of having received a final dust five minutes ago. Everything was in order, from the benches that would probably stay free of rust for dry decades to come, to the tidy window displays sparkling in the morning sun.
The window of a beachwear shop drew me inside. I looked around as the attendant, a guy with a Mohican and a T-shirt that appeared to have been on the receiving end of a paint ball, busied himself staring at the ceiling fan. So this was where these characters came to buy their uniform. I looked at some of the price tags. I couldn't afford a sweatband, let alone one of those hoodies that would help me fit in with the surfing swarm.
Then I spied a discount basket. "Everything $10," proclaimed a sign written in red marker pen by someone with a penchant for exclamation marks. Inside lay a crumpled pair of shorts that looked like they might be part of a surfer's straight jacket, an iPod case with a broken zip and no holes for the leads, and a floppy hat in a gaudy Hawaiian design. I picked up the hat and twirled it on a finger. A mauve and lime tangle of petals and stalks covered the cotton. Disgusting, yes, but a wise investment given that I spent most of my time nowadays baking at the side of the road, and that I was about to go undercover.
"Looks heaps good on yah buddy!" the guy offered.
This almost persuaded me to ditch the hat and torch the place, but I smiled and pulled out my wallet. The tumbleweeds had taken over in there, I noticed with some alarm but no surprise.
"This yer first time in Airlie?" asked the guy as I handed over a note.
"Yeah."
"Doin' some sailing?"
"Ooh… just sinking into the place," I smiled as I put the hat on.
"Well you'll love it… you'll never wanna leave."
Would this town really be Byron Bay mark two? Consoling myself that at least that would help me carry out my plan, I pulled the hat further towards my eyes and left the shop.
Further down the street I stopped in front of an Aboriginal craft outlet. Looking at the intriguing items in the window as I lit a cigarette, I remembered my wistful thoughts in Byron of escaping to the outback. So much had changed since then. Now Airlie was the best place for me to be, and it wasn't for the Great Barrier Reef. I hadn't been joking with the Mohican in the clothes shop: I was here to blend in; to lie low among the rest of the travellers until it was safe.
A pair of eyes glinted at me from inside the shop. They were attached to a man with a beard. Not wanting to repeat the conversation I'd had in the Aboriginal emporium in Byron, I flicked my fag butt and carried on.
Finding a place to stay evidently wasn't going to be the greatest challenge ever faced by a backpacker: not like that bungee jump in New Zealand, no siree. Hostels of various descriptions interspersed the postcard racks and internet cafes. Across the road was a relatively low-key establishment, consisting of a couple of dorms above an Irish pub. Down the street, a rather different proposition was heralded by a fat sign featuring a waltzing camel and crocodile. The camel raised a comedy thumb and the crocodile winked; surfboards and beer jugs flew out the sides of their merry whirl. I reached for my crack pipe.
And stepped beneath the creatures' shadow.
The front desk was manned by a team of Australian women. They made a refreshing change from the usual smug Irishmen with a deep knowledge of the local restaurants and the Swedish girls staying in dorm 18 - until one of the women shot me a critical look.
She wagged her finger at my fresh cigarette.
"You can't smoke in here dear," she said.
"There are designated areas for it, y'see," she carried on once I'd groaningly disposed of the offending Marlboro Light. "This is a red area, so you can't smoke or drink. In the orange areas drinking's okay but smoking's not allowed… and in the green areas you can do what yah like! There's a sign explainin' it all over there."
This place was perfect.
I looked at the price list above the poster-plastered counter, where the women bustled around serving the other guests. It was busy in there, packed with demanding teenagers pouting like they were talking to their parents. The pushy punters reminded me of the commuters on the tube in London who I'd bounced between on occasion, their features drawn by city life. Maybe these people were worse. At least the people on the tube had the honesty to look through you, whereas the backpackers were all so interested in everything and "Are you looking at my travel wallet? Are you trying to steal my plane tickets? I'm not scared of using the Mace gun Mum gave me!"
I gulped at the price of a dorm bed. As I reeled with the shock of what they were asking for a bunk above a snoring German, my rucksack slipped off my shoulders and I fell backwards over it. A guy with tan lines left by his sunglasses momentarily trained his pale eyes on me, before returning to smoothly counting out $50 notes. A few others checked out what the disturbance was, but not a smile was raised by my dyslexic display. Suck at the marrow, kids.
I wasn't going to get off that easily though. Leaning her arms and sizeable breasts on the counter, the woman chuckled at the heap I had become.
"Bit shorta funds are yah love?"
I jumped back up.
"I'm fine, I just can't believe you have the nerve to charge those prices for a spot in a colony of bed bugs."
The expression on her corn-fed face flickered. One of her cohorts looked over from a pile of paperwork. I'd obviously struck a nerve.
"Nah, actually, we gas the rooms for bugs every mornin'… so we ask you to stay outta there between tin and iliven."
There was no point in hearing any more of the club's rules if I couldn't afford a membership. I picked up my bag.
"I see you have a tent," the woman astutely observed. "You can pitch it 'ere if you want. We don't normally let people… and you were a bit rude to me weren't yah? But if yer 'ard up you can camp for 'alf price. If it'll cheer yer up!"
I wasn't going to crack but I did want in. I managed a smile.
"That's more like it eh."
We went through the formalities. I had to show my passport, which meant she found out my name.
"There y'go Ernest," she smiled when she'd finished copying my details into about five different ledgers. "Go and see Seamus - 'e'll show you where to camp. It's in front of the manager's office so you better behave!"
In the door leading to the rest of the site leant a tall guy in his mid twenties with sandy hair and a T-shirt bearing the camel and crocodile logo.
He had Seamus written all over him. Figuring I could find the spot by myself, I fixed my eyes on the floor and made to walk through the door.
Two bulging shoulders appeared in front of me.
"Saareeh mate," he exclaimed in a broad Southern Irish accent, and slapped me on the back. "Yuh need tuh show yur parsport tuh gut un: buckpuckers only un hir - nooh loocals."
My passport was still in my hand. He examined it with a frown wrinkling his brow. I stood and lolled, dazed by his spiel.
"That's Errr-nest!" the woman called over, with the air of someone who'd known me for years. "He's alright Seamus - show 'im the camping spot."
Seamus solemnly nodded at her and ushered me through the door.
It led into a veritable backpacker's Disneyland. Buffet restaurant, bar, pool tables, phone booths, internet terminals, nightclub, they were all there. Everything to make the backpacker feel comfortable.
But this civilisation would crumble, for they had let a leper into the castle.
The guy saw me grinning. "Uhmprussuve usn't uht mate? So whur yuh cum frum tuhdaay?"
"Well…"
Suddenly a cacophonous crackle emitted from a walkie-talkie hanging at his hip. He held his hand in my face and pulled the machine from its holster.
"Has twenny three been gassed yet?" the machine exploded. "Repeat: 'ave you gassed twenny three? Party of tin expected shortly off the Oz Express. Over."
Czzzccchhhh
Seamus held down the button, looking at me distractedly as he did so. "Yuur, did twanny three hours ago. Only guest in there was ahsliyp so I got it out tha waay furst thung. Ohhver."
Czzzzccchhh
"Good on yah Seamus, over-n-out."
Seamus returned the device to his hip.
"Is that thing really necessary?" I asked.
"Yur mate uht uhs. We got fuhfty cuhbuhns here sleeping four hundruhd huhppy cumpers. And if we wanna make sure they stay huhppy we gottah have good communuhcaations."
"How long have you been working at the front line of the tourist industry then?"
"I only been here a few weeks, but Uhm a bit olduur than yer uuvruge truveller, so Ah took ohan a loat oaf responsahbahlahty quickly."
Young Seamus, out in the world, making it. Then he'd return to Galway a well-rounded young gentleman with an armoury of practical skills. Put a shine in his old Ma's eye and catch the eyes of all the local lassies. Until one night he is discovered. "Uh can't hulp myself," he'd plead. "It started in Uuhhstralia. It's abowt the pohwer."
We carried on across the communal area, under a tithe roof giving protection from the sun as much as the infrequent tropical downpours. People sat at tables chatting or catching up on their travel journals. A music video with synths on a beach played on screens above the bar. At the pool tables on the edge of the area, a couple of lads in red Manchester City tops methodically took shots and sipped from plastic pint glasses.
Beyond the pool players a palm-lined path wound away between wooden cabins. People sat in their porches smoking or dozed in hammocks. A girl bearing an armful of laundry stumbled through the door of one of the shacks and the muffled beats of a hip hop track emerged from within.
We stopped on a patch of grass in front of the first grotto and a portacabin office with a Mercedes parked alongside.
"Here y'go," chirped Seamus, clapping me on the back again. "Ernie wuhsn't it?"
"Ernes," I began, but his walkie-talkie crackled again.
He held a hand up and readied the other above the holster, but the radio made no further sound. He graced me with his attention once more.
"Couple of uhmportant things yuh need to know abowt how things wuhrk here. Restaurant's open from suhvuhn till suhvun, servuhng daily speciials. Today's offuhr uhs Lasuuhgna and green salad fuh fiiyve buhcks if you buuy a druhnk worth three or over. Bar's open until the manager's duhscruhtion, which can mean uhnything from eleven o'claack tuhll three in the mornin…"
He droned on, bombarding me with information I'd never need unless I became the kind of person who watched videos, called home, surfed the web, went snorkelling, entered competitions, looked for romance and did my laundry. Suddenly I realised he had stopped and was looking at me expectantly.
"Thank," I began.
The radio grunted and he was off.
"Rahhger that," he said as he strode away, scanning his surroundings with alert eyes that could spot a bed bug or a smoker in an orange zone a hundred metres off.
Unsure what zone I was in, I lit a Marlboro and lay on the grass with my hat pulled across my face. The heat had sucked me dry of energy again.
The fuzzy hip hop from the stereo and the pop from the bar mingled in the air above me, at about the level of the clothes line heaving with underwear fresh off the Oz Express. So this was what you got for fifteen dollars. Still, the place's labyrinthine depths suited my furtive needs. A man could lose himself for days among those cabins, cabbage palms, laundry rooms and unobservant fellow guests. Osama bin Laden was probably holed up in there, leafing through The Muslim Fundamentalist's Guide to the Great Barrier Reef.
I was halfway down the cigarette when someone called over. "Looks like we're both busted smoking in an orange zone."
It definitely wasn't Seamus. I lifted my flowery mask and peered at the owner of the slur, which was more Gladdie than Galway.
Looking over his shoulder as he locked the office door, the stocky man in his late thirties had the beginnings of a mullet spilling on to a maroon shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His jeans were tight fitting and his shoes were smart but could have used a polish. A cigar protruded from his grinning mouth.
"Salright son, you finish yer fag. I won't tell if you don't."
I stared at him with my hat looking like it was itching to slide back over my eyes.
"Spect you'll be getting on the piss tonight," he carried on.
"Maybe, dunno."
"Well we got plenny ah drinks deals on - ten bucks for a jug o' Daquiri!"
He bent towards me and opened a tin of Café Crèmes. "Ere, 'ave one of these to smoke in the bar."
I reluctantly took one and he winked at me.
"Well, party 'ard!" He hit a button on his key ring, sending the Mercedes into a fit of bleeping and flashing.
By the time the man reached the car his mobile had sparked up, sending more electronic signals ringing through the air. He roared away discussing his marketing budget, leaving a smouldering cigar on the gravel and much of the gravel scattered around my camping spot.
I hastily pitched the tent and dived inside. Peering out through the slit down the side of the door, I could see life continuing as normal in the bar. They sat listlessly at the tables, self-conscious young couples and boisterous young men learning the guilty pleasure of drinking through the afternoon. There was nothing for me there. I lay back and stared at the blue walls of the tent.
I tore a banana from the bunch poking out of the dirty socks in my bag, and dug out my notebook. It was time for me to catch up on my diary. I contemplatively mashed the fruit between my teeth and stared at my last entry.
Byron Bay: everybody's surfing... on the waves crashing into their bank accounts from the latest New Age trend they've dreamt up. Nothing further to report.
Reading these entries would give me great pleasure one day.
My eyes turned to the blank facing page and my pen hovered.
Arrived in Airlie. Bought a hat. Hostel extortionate. Nothing further to report.
I crossed it out and tried again.
Running low on funds. May have to sell my stuff/self.
I crossed it out and chewed my biro with my banana-smeared teeth. Time for a new approach. I decisively scribbled on a fresh page.
A tent,
Australia.
Weeks/months after the tearful scene at Heathrow.
Dear Dad,
I am having a fruitful time out here in the wilds, as you said you did as a lad. I am sure I will return to England a new man, well-rounded and able to look life in the eye. The family's problems will be behind us and you will once again be the envy of the neighbourhood.
Alternatively I will starve to death, unless you wire money by return.
Yours etc,
Ernest Ragman.
It struck just the right balance, easing my father in gently by speaking his language. The frank tone was also nicely offset by a few irreverent touches, which would probably fly as far over his head as a weather balloon.
Pleased with my handiwork, I lay back and closed my eyes. It was all black now. I opened them: blue. Black. Blue. How quickly I had become one with the people on the porches.
Black again.
The soundtrack in the bar had moved on to R&B, which collided with the hip hop outside my door. Somewhere Seamus greeted a new group of porch-lubbers.
"… So whur 'uv yuh cum frahm tudaaay?"
"Oh, just Glad…"
Czzzccchhhh
"…. Guest gassed twenny three… wants lift casualty…"
Czzzzcccchhhhhhh
"Raahger…. Ohhver and…"
Out.
Czzzccchhhhh
Czzzccchhhhhhh
Czzzccccccchhhhh
I tried to roll out of the tent before realising I'd pitched it up against the park wall. It had become a matter of urgency to escape that narrow blue space. I undid the zip and squeezed myself out, looking like one of the terrible creatures that roam the long grass round here. Standing and rubbing my hair, which was rigid with dry sweat and highway dust, I realised there were a few houses on the far side of the bushes. Outside one, a man in a baseball cap with hair exploding out of his open shirt washed his car, the water glistening as the hose doused the well-maintained Hyundai. He blinked at me through the bushes like a man peering into the monkey cage at the zoo.
In the absence of the offer of a cuppa and some possum on toast from the kindly Queenslander, I staggered into the park to see what facilities the local kids hadn't torched.
Toilet, shower, barbecue. None of them smashed or smeared. Even itinerants lived like kings in this blessed land, where a smile was never far away, the sharks stayed off the reef and folk's eyes were empty of secrets and care.
Half an hour later I was chewing on a banana in the shaded picnic area and looking less like a sleep-deprived murderer; or at least looking like one who could be reasoned with. I can't have had more than four hours kip but my eyes no longer felt like marbles in nutshells.
I heaved my sack of eternally dirty laundry on to my back. It was hard to tell what distinguished the dirty clothes from the nominally clean shorts and T-shirt that now covered my scrubbed white flesh like an old towel on a fresh slab of Perch. Maybe I should have burnt the lot of them and streaked through the fields with the sun on my back. Didn't give much to my chances of hitching a lift that way though. It might also have given the pig hunters the wrong idea.
I bought a drink in the petrol station from a woman in a denim shirt who asked too many questions.
"Just travelling," I said in answer to her last inquiry as I ducked back out to the silent forecourt. If she wanted entertainment she could call into that discussion on the radio about how to de-lice lambs.
I crossed the Bruce Highway and trudged along the dry grass edging the asphalt to the turning for Airlie Beach. There was nothing but sunlight. It reduced everything to one dimension, just white heat and deep brown shadow. I took up position in the shade of a Eucalyptus tree just beyond a sign saying Airlie was 26km away.
A few cars crawled by but none were biting. And after I'd put on my best rags.
After a while a guy in a dented combie stopped. He had the lively manner and the glistening eyes of a drunk.
"First 'itcher I've seen on this road this year. Been 'ere long?"
"Nah, half an hour uh something."
"I ain't goin' far. Turnin' off 'bout five clicks down."
"I'll leave it."
Fumes from the exhaust and dry mud clinging to tyres as he pulled away.
I rubbed my left eye and yawned until I thought my mouth was going to split. Maybe I should have been thankful for this peace and quiet given I was headed into civilisation, or what passed for it north of Rockie.
A green coach swung off the Bruce just as I was lathering on some factor 30. On the side, chunky lettering saying "Oz Express" scrolled across a bright yellow picture of Australia with thumbs-up symbols marking the coach's route around the country. At the windows, lines of eyes stared down at me. Backpackers. Human cargo. Barely formed identities being transported between resorts where they could spend their parents' money on watered-down Daiquiris.
My thumb wavered. I hadn't fought my way out of Byron to get sucked into that themepark on wheels, but I was curious as to whether these designer hippies would have any charity for a fellow rucksack-wearer.
The thumb came proudly and confidently out.
The bus swooshed remorselessly on.
It disappeared over the brow, leaving me with a pool of sun cream between my feet and the first rage of the day surging inside me. I imagined all the letters the local constabulary would have to write if someone tampered with Oz Express' brakes.
I finished with the lathering, confronting the traffic from my shadowy spot like a ghost sent to ignite their car-driving, middle class guilt. Time wore on, a surprisingly painful process even in the shade.
Eventually I got lucky with a bottom-of-the-range BMW, the kind my father drove.
"Goin' to Airlie?" inquired the driver, somewhat redundantly, while a girl in her late teens looked on from the passenger seat.
My bag in the boot, me in back, the road under the wheels.
The guy eyed me in his mirror, occasionally turning to yell at me. He seemed to have come to the conclusion that I was mentally deficient in some way. Perhaps it was the layers of sun block.
"Haven't picked up any 'itchers for years. Used to the whole time but 'aven't for a while, dunno why. Must be all the trouble they 'ad in the outback." His accent was one dropped H away from drinking in the same saloon as the stockman. "S'pose you like this method of transport for meeting the locals eh?"
I was beholden to this man for the lift, but other than that, it was hard to find a reason to like him. It was more than his choice of motor that reminded me of my father.
Fortunately the girl piped up.
"So you're from England?"
I turned from the man's thick neck and fat collars to her enthusiast's eyes. She wasn't an attractive girl but had the confidence born of privilege. Probably wore a brace during puberty.
Unsurprisingly the name of my hometown left a blank expression on her face.
"If it's not near Edinbrah or London I won't've heard of it," she laughed. "The tour I did stopped off there before we wen' across to France. Oh, think we did Wales as well."
"You were on one of those… those tours?"
"Yeah. It kind of sucked really. Twenty-five European cities and we had to run across every one of them. Barely had time to buy postcards. They kept telling us we had to get to Bratislava by Tuesday."
She brightened.
"But Prague was beautiful as! I spent a month there on an exchange organised by Dad's business club. Praha!"
The man had descended into a surly silence as his daughter rabbited on about her five-figure sojourn. Years of toil, his silence seemed to say. For this.
"Can you speak any Czech then?" I asked.
"Trochu," she said uncertainly.
"And that means?"
"A little."
We drifted into silence as the landscape flashed by, growing greener as we neared the coast. The girl darted a glance at her father, who continued to slouch into his own thoughts. I was making her nervous: it had been her idea to give me the lift and now she didn't know how to follow the idea through to its conclusion. Maybe I could help her there. All I needed were the tools in my bag.
"So what takes you to Airlie Beach?" I said.
"Getting a job and a flat there for the summer," she beamed.
"What's it like?"
"Sweet as!"
She assumed the air of a raconteur recalling the golden days of Berlin between the wars.
"It's… it's the most beautiful place I've ever been. We used to come here on holidays when I was a kid and it still blows me away. Europe might have heaps of cathedrals but it's got nothing like this!"
She gestured at the vista before us. As the car came over the crest of a hill, we were met by a sweeping view of turquoise sea dotted with islands covered in lush rainforest. Yachts flecked inlets and bays, clouds stuck to the horizon like cotton wool to the cuffs of a Santa Claus costume. The world seemed static, hanging in this moment of tropical tranquillity.
"Not bad eh mate?!" hollered the guy.
I wound down my window and breathed in the sea air, bringing memories of Byron breezing into my mind. I wound the window back up. The car swung round corners and the view slowly disappeared as we dropped to sea level. Soon we were passing a sign saying, "Welcome to Airlie Beach! Tourism is our business!" This promised to be a taste of the real Australia then.
Hotels and motels began to rear out of the sides of the road, fronted by packed car parks and banners singing out messages like "Bed and barbie" and "No vacancies but welcome anyway". The buildings were all freshly painted, the pavements clean. I'd once dreamed of a place like this, but then I'd dreamed many things that had seemed absurd in the morning.
We parked outside a dive shop in the centre of town. The girl and I said we'd probably bump into each other again, neither of us believing it.
"Don't party too hard," called the man as I shut the door behind me. No danger of that: comments like his generally made me want to find a bunker somewhere windblown and not speak, sleep or eat for a long time. I retrieved my bag and headed along the pavement.
Whereas Byron felt like it was built yesterday, this place gave the impression of having received a final dust five minutes ago. Everything was in order, from the benches that would probably stay free of rust for dry decades to come, to the tidy window displays sparkling in the morning sun.
The window of a beachwear shop drew me inside. I looked around as the attendant, a guy with a Mohican and a T-shirt that appeared to have been on the receiving end of a paint ball, busied himself staring at the ceiling fan. So this was where these characters came to buy their uniform. I looked at some of the price tags. I couldn't afford a sweatband, let alone one of those hoodies that would help me fit in with the surfing swarm.
Then I spied a discount basket. "Everything $10," proclaimed a sign written in red marker pen by someone with a penchant for exclamation marks. Inside lay a crumpled pair of shorts that looked like they might be part of a surfer's straight jacket, an iPod case with a broken zip and no holes for the leads, and a floppy hat in a gaudy Hawaiian design. I picked up the hat and twirled it on a finger. A mauve and lime tangle of petals and stalks covered the cotton. Disgusting, yes, but a wise investment given that I spent most of my time nowadays baking at the side of the road, and that I was about to go undercover.
"Looks heaps good on yah buddy!" the guy offered.
This almost persuaded me to ditch the hat and torch the place, but I smiled and pulled out my wallet. The tumbleweeds had taken over in there, I noticed with some alarm but no surprise.
"This yer first time in Airlie?" asked the guy as I handed over a note.
"Yeah."
"Doin' some sailing?"
"Ooh… just sinking into the place," I smiled as I put the hat on.
"Well you'll love it… you'll never wanna leave."
Would this town really be Byron Bay mark two? Consoling myself that at least that would help me carry out my plan, I pulled the hat further towards my eyes and left the shop.
Further down the street I stopped in front of an Aboriginal craft outlet. Looking at the intriguing items in the window as I lit a cigarette, I remembered my wistful thoughts in Byron of escaping to the outback. So much had changed since then. Now Airlie was the best place for me to be, and it wasn't for the Great Barrier Reef. I hadn't been joking with the Mohican in the clothes shop: I was here to blend in; to lie low among the rest of the travellers until it was safe.
A pair of eyes glinted at me from inside the shop. They were attached to a man with a beard. Not wanting to repeat the conversation I'd had in the Aboriginal emporium in Byron, I flicked my fag butt and carried on.
Finding a place to stay evidently wasn't going to be the greatest challenge ever faced by a backpacker: not like that bungee jump in New Zealand, no siree. Hostels of various descriptions interspersed the postcard racks and internet cafes. Across the road was a relatively low-key establishment, consisting of a couple of dorms above an Irish pub. Down the street, a rather different proposition was heralded by a fat sign featuring a waltzing camel and crocodile. The camel raised a comedy thumb and the crocodile winked; surfboards and beer jugs flew out the sides of their merry whirl. I reached for my crack pipe.
And stepped beneath the creatures' shadow.
The front desk was manned by a team of Australian women. They made a refreshing change from the usual smug Irishmen with a deep knowledge of the local restaurants and the Swedish girls staying in dorm 18 - until one of the women shot me a critical look.
She wagged her finger at my fresh cigarette.
"You can't smoke in here dear," she said.
"There are designated areas for it, y'see," she carried on once I'd groaningly disposed of the offending Marlboro Light. "This is a red area, so you can't smoke or drink. In the orange areas drinking's okay but smoking's not allowed… and in the green areas you can do what yah like! There's a sign explainin' it all over there."
This place was perfect.
I looked at the price list above the poster-plastered counter, where the women bustled around serving the other guests. It was busy in there, packed with demanding teenagers pouting like they were talking to their parents. The pushy punters reminded me of the commuters on the tube in London who I'd bounced between on occasion, their features drawn by city life. Maybe these people were worse. At least the people on the tube had the honesty to look through you, whereas the backpackers were all so interested in everything and "Are you looking at my travel wallet? Are you trying to steal my plane tickets? I'm not scared of using the Mace gun Mum gave me!"
I gulped at the price of a dorm bed. As I reeled with the shock of what they were asking for a bunk above a snoring German, my rucksack slipped off my shoulders and I fell backwards over it. A guy with tan lines left by his sunglasses momentarily trained his pale eyes on me, before returning to smoothly counting out $50 notes. A few others checked out what the disturbance was, but not a smile was raised by my dyslexic display. Suck at the marrow, kids.
I wasn't going to get off that easily though. Leaning her arms and sizeable breasts on the counter, the woman chuckled at the heap I had become.
"Bit shorta funds are yah love?"
I jumped back up.
"I'm fine, I just can't believe you have the nerve to charge those prices for a spot in a colony of bed bugs."
The expression on her corn-fed face flickered. One of her cohorts looked over from a pile of paperwork. I'd obviously struck a nerve.
"Nah, actually, we gas the rooms for bugs every mornin'… so we ask you to stay outta there between tin and iliven."
There was no point in hearing any more of the club's rules if I couldn't afford a membership. I picked up my bag.
"I see you have a tent," the woman astutely observed. "You can pitch it 'ere if you want. We don't normally let people… and you were a bit rude to me weren't yah? But if yer 'ard up you can camp for 'alf price. If it'll cheer yer up!"
I wasn't going to crack but I did want in. I managed a smile.
"That's more like it eh."
We went through the formalities. I had to show my passport, which meant she found out my name.
"There y'go Ernest," she smiled when she'd finished copying my details into about five different ledgers. "Go and see Seamus - 'e'll show you where to camp. It's in front of the manager's office so you better behave!"
In the door leading to the rest of the site leant a tall guy in his mid twenties with sandy hair and a T-shirt bearing the camel and crocodile logo.
He had Seamus written all over him. Figuring I could find the spot by myself, I fixed my eyes on the floor and made to walk through the door.
Two bulging shoulders appeared in front of me.
"Saareeh mate," he exclaimed in a broad Southern Irish accent, and slapped me on the back. "Yuh need tuh show yur parsport tuh gut un: buckpuckers only un hir - nooh loocals."
My passport was still in my hand. He examined it with a frown wrinkling his brow. I stood and lolled, dazed by his spiel.
"That's Errr-nest!" the woman called over, with the air of someone who'd known me for years. "He's alright Seamus - show 'im the camping spot."
Seamus solemnly nodded at her and ushered me through the door.
It led into a veritable backpacker's Disneyland. Buffet restaurant, bar, pool tables, phone booths, internet terminals, nightclub, they were all there. Everything to make the backpacker feel comfortable.
But this civilisation would crumble, for they had let a leper into the castle.
The guy saw me grinning. "Uhmprussuve usn't uht mate? So whur yuh cum frum tuhdaay?"
"Well…"
Suddenly a cacophonous crackle emitted from a walkie-talkie hanging at his hip. He held his hand in my face and pulled the machine from its holster.
"Has twenny three been gassed yet?" the machine exploded. "Repeat: 'ave you gassed twenny three? Party of tin expected shortly off the Oz Express. Over."
Czzzccchhhh
Seamus held down the button, looking at me distractedly as he did so. "Yuur, did twanny three hours ago. Only guest in there was ahsliyp so I got it out tha waay furst thung. Ohhver."
Czzzzccchhh
"Good on yah Seamus, over-n-out."
Seamus returned the device to his hip.
"Is that thing really necessary?" I asked.
"Yur mate uht uhs. We got fuhfty cuhbuhns here sleeping four hundruhd huhppy cumpers. And if we wanna make sure they stay huhppy we gottah have good communuhcaations."
"How long have you been working at the front line of the tourist industry then?"
"I only been here a few weeks, but Uhm a bit olduur than yer uuvruge truveller, so Ah took ohan a loat oaf responsahbahlahty quickly."
Young Seamus, out in the world, making it. Then he'd return to Galway a well-rounded young gentleman with an armoury of practical skills. Put a shine in his old Ma's eye and catch the eyes of all the local lassies. Until one night he is discovered. "Uh can't hulp myself," he'd plead. "It started in Uuhhstralia. It's abowt the pohwer."
We carried on across the communal area, under a tithe roof giving protection from the sun as much as the infrequent tropical downpours. People sat at tables chatting or catching up on their travel journals. A music video with synths on a beach played on screens above the bar. At the pool tables on the edge of the area, a couple of lads in red Manchester City tops methodically took shots and sipped from plastic pint glasses.
Beyond the pool players a palm-lined path wound away between wooden cabins. People sat in their porches smoking or dozed in hammocks. A girl bearing an armful of laundry stumbled through the door of one of the shacks and the muffled beats of a hip hop track emerged from within.
We stopped on a patch of grass in front of the first grotto and a portacabin office with a Mercedes parked alongside.
"Here y'go," chirped Seamus, clapping me on the back again. "Ernie wuhsn't it?"
"Ernes," I began, but his walkie-talkie crackled again.
He held a hand up and readied the other above the holster, but the radio made no further sound. He graced me with his attention once more.
"Couple of uhmportant things yuh need to know abowt how things wuhrk here. Restaurant's open from suhvuhn till suhvun, servuhng daily speciials. Today's offuhr uhs Lasuuhgna and green salad fuh fiiyve buhcks if you buuy a druhnk worth three or over. Bar's open until the manager's duhscruhtion, which can mean uhnything from eleven o'claack tuhll three in the mornin…"
He droned on, bombarding me with information I'd never need unless I became the kind of person who watched videos, called home, surfed the web, went snorkelling, entered competitions, looked for romance and did my laundry. Suddenly I realised he had stopped and was looking at me expectantly.
"Thank," I began.
The radio grunted and he was off.
"Rahhger that," he said as he strode away, scanning his surroundings with alert eyes that could spot a bed bug or a smoker in an orange zone a hundred metres off.
Unsure what zone I was in, I lit a Marlboro and lay on the grass with my hat pulled across my face. The heat had sucked me dry of energy again.
The fuzzy hip hop from the stereo and the pop from the bar mingled in the air above me, at about the level of the clothes line heaving with underwear fresh off the Oz Express. So this was what you got for fifteen dollars. Still, the place's labyrinthine depths suited my furtive needs. A man could lose himself for days among those cabins, cabbage palms, laundry rooms and unobservant fellow guests. Osama bin Laden was probably holed up in there, leafing through The Muslim Fundamentalist's Guide to the Great Barrier Reef.
I was halfway down the cigarette when someone called over. "Looks like we're both busted smoking in an orange zone."
It definitely wasn't Seamus. I lifted my flowery mask and peered at the owner of the slur, which was more Gladdie than Galway.
Looking over his shoulder as he locked the office door, the stocky man in his late thirties had the beginnings of a mullet spilling on to a maroon shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His jeans were tight fitting and his shoes were smart but could have used a polish. A cigar protruded from his grinning mouth.
"Salright son, you finish yer fag. I won't tell if you don't."
I stared at him with my hat looking like it was itching to slide back over my eyes.
"Spect you'll be getting on the piss tonight," he carried on.
"Maybe, dunno."
"Well we got plenny ah drinks deals on - ten bucks for a jug o' Daquiri!"
He bent towards me and opened a tin of Café Crèmes. "Ere, 'ave one of these to smoke in the bar."
I reluctantly took one and he winked at me.
"Well, party 'ard!" He hit a button on his key ring, sending the Mercedes into a fit of bleeping and flashing.
By the time the man reached the car his mobile had sparked up, sending more electronic signals ringing through the air. He roared away discussing his marketing budget, leaving a smouldering cigar on the gravel and much of the gravel scattered around my camping spot.
I hastily pitched the tent and dived inside. Peering out through the slit down the side of the door, I could see life continuing as normal in the bar. They sat listlessly at the tables, self-conscious young couples and boisterous young men learning the guilty pleasure of drinking through the afternoon. There was nothing for me there. I lay back and stared at the blue walls of the tent.
I tore a banana from the bunch poking out of the dirty socks in my bag, and dug out my notebook. It was time for me to catch up on my diary. I contemplatively mashed the fruit between my teeth and stared at my last entry.
Byron Bay: everybody's surfing... on the waves crashing into their bank accounts from the latest New Age trend they've dreamt up. Nothing further to report.
Reading these entries would give me great pleasure one day.
My eyes turned to the blank facing page and my pen hovered.
Arrived in Airlie. Bought a hat. Hostel extortionate. Nothing further to report.
I crossed it out and tried again.
Running low on funds. May have to sell my stuff/self.
I crossed it out and chewed my biro with my banana-smeared teeth. Time for a new approach. I decisively scribbled on a fresh page.
A tent,
Australia.
Weeks/months after the tearful scene at Heathrow.
Dear Dad,
I am having a fruitful time out here in the wilds, as you said you did as a lad. I am sure I will return to England a new man, well-rounded and able to look life in the eye. The family's problems will be behind us and you will once again be the envy of the neighbourhood.
Alternatively I will starve to death, unless you wire money by return.
Yours etc,
Ernest Ragman.
It struck just the right balance, easing my father in gently by speaking his language. The frank tone was also nicely offset by a few irreverent touches, which would probably fly as far over his head as a weather balloon.
Pleased with my handiwork, I lay back and closed my eyes. It was all black now. I opened them: blue. Black. Blue. How quickly I had become one with the people on the porches.
Black again.
The soundtrack in the bar had moved on to R&B, which collided with the hip hop outside my door. Somewhere Seamus greeted a new group of porch-lubbers.
"… So whur 'uv yuh cum frahm tudaaay?"
"Oh, just Glad…"
Czzzccchhhh
"…. Guest gassed twenny three… wants lift casualty…"
Czzzzcccchhhhhhh
"Raahger…. Ohhver and…"
Out.
Czzzccchhhhh
Czzzccchhhhhhh
Czzzccccccchhhhh
posted by Levitating Skull Mullet at
10:26 AM
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