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Chapter Two
The Prof
Guy lunged at the scattered books on the floor of his invaded compartment.
Two titles faced upwards, a book entitled “Australia Dreaming”, and another named “The Archeology of the Dreamtime”. Among the jumble of books was Guy’s notepad. He stretched for it and said, “Listen to this, Prof – it’s the kind of stuff we came to find out about Australia :
During the Ice Age, when the sea was lowest and the continental shelf in the north-west - the Sahul shelf - became dry land covered in bush, it might have been possible to walk as far as Papua New Guinea, or to see the natural bush-fires of Sahul from Timor and Bali. People would have known about this land, and they would have come to it, attracted and guided by the bush-smoke perhaps, across 50 or a 100 kilometres of sea. They would have come on their bamboo rafts, or on mangrove logs.”
“How exciting!” said his companion, pressing against him. “Bush-smoke eh?”
“No wait,” said Guy, half irritated, half desperate. “This is important. It’s about the Aussie Dreamtime – and it fits in with the visit – the dream – I had just now. Listen.”
He read aloud rapidly:
‘It is now acknowledged that their voyages and their adaption to a strange continent 40,000 or more years ago must be chronicled as one of the major achievements in the history of mankind.’ They were the first colonists known to have crossed any sea – perhaps 80,000 or 100,000 years ago, when mankind was still dividing into Africans, Caucasians, Orientals - and Australians.’
“Mankind’s first sailors! Fancy that. Would you fancy that, Guy?”
Guy pressed on. ‘Archeologists have found fossils of kangaroos three metres tall. Evidence of a marsupial the size of a rhino. Of a giant wombat. . .’
“Wow, does size matter old lad? Shall we have a look?”
Guy brushed a hand aside and tried to think about Yelangbarra as he scrabbled through his notes.
His first queer visitor had recounted myths of the giant eagle - carrying on its back a wombat as big as a donkey. And he had spoken of the fabled ‘tiger’. Guy read allowed, assuming his second visitor – his supposed fellow researcher - was the least interested:
The Tasmanian tiger, Thylacinus.. . . Bones found in cave on Nullarbor Plain.. . . Assumed extinct in mainland Australia. The thylacine was alive in Tasmania in historic times, but one has not been captured or photographed for last 50 years. . World Wildlife Fund has mounted a campaign to find and save them from extinction. . .’
“And look at this: Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor coast was occupied until 15,000 years ago . . . It means men were mining in the caves 70 metres below the Nullarbor thousands of years before the “white tribes” could trace their ancestry to Europe. . .’
“. . .Dammit Sam! Stop that. The conductor will be here in a minute.”
The hand paused at Guy’s belt, then hovering just above it, slipped inside his shirt. Frozen, Guy stared out the window. The stroking continued, pushing up his shirt and setting it free.
He could not look at Sam, who laughing - giggling almost - said, “We’ll complain to him about it being too hot in here. Needing to strip - like this. . . No? Well, you silly old son, I’ll simply retreat into your shower when he arrives. He won’t see me there.”
Sam took Guy’s hand and placed it at the top of a trouser-leg thrust in his direction. Guy’s finger involuntarily touched the zip of the fly. As he pulled away, a hand slipped under his belt, searching and caressing.
For once the Prof wasn’t talking. Guy could hear the breath of lust beside him on the leather bunk. He could almost hear his own jangled thoughts tumbling in free-fall. This isn’t for me. I haven’t had sex - in any form - in all the months leading to this journey. It’s essential, in my condition, to guard my emotions now. Should I hit out? Push this panting idiot into the corridor?
The unwanted hand - the two hands - inside his trousers were inflaming passions he could no longer control. In horror - was it horror? - he looked down at the Prof’s red hair in his lap. To his astonishment he found himself pushing at - not the intrusive head - but at the belt on the body now stretched out on the bench beside him. He was groping for the zip which had stung his hand only moment’s before.
Suddenly both travellers were standing, frantically undressing each other. Please God, what am I doing? Guy said, almost aloud.
Darkness seeped through the window, wrapping the two of them in its soft black sheets. The heat was rising. This would be a no-dingo night.
Guy’s last weird, still coherent thought was: The train manager won’t be able to see much of this when he comes.
“I’m coming,” gasped the Prof.
Returning from some unfamiliar netherworld where uninvited passion and unwanted lust seemed to choke and almost strangle him, Guy fought to regain his composure in the gently swaying compartment. A night-light came on, and he rose to switch on others.
Sam, naked, eyes shielded against the sudden glare, surveyed the scene and said. “We’ve made a bit of a mess. You should be better prepared, dear boy. What will you tell the train manager, when he comes?”
“Sam, don’t joke. Please, not at this moment.”
“Well, don’t look so stunned, dear boy. Nothing shakes the Nullarbor. The heavens haven’t fallen.”
“They have for me, Sam. This whole journey was planned to extricate me from a terrible emotional tangle. And now, instead of helping me escape in this remote, this beautiful, place, you have damaged everything. You’ve jeopardised us. My self-controls, my emotional guards, my self-respect - I can feel them all collapsing. I could hate you, Prof.”
The naked figure moved langorously on the carriage seat. “You don’t have to take me too seriously, you know.”
“That’s what I fear. I’m illogically emotional. Vulnerable the moment I let feelings loose. I could easily take you far too seriously. . . Look at you!”
The head of red hair bowed to study the problem. Together they examined her two breasts, now resting in calm repose. Guy studied her face, her whiter-than-white torso, held in brackets by two smoothly sensuous thighs. He gazed, despite himself, as the long athletic legs parted for him to see her valley lying below a shadow of russet. “Fear no evil’, he heard himself thinking.
“Why are you staring?” Sam smiled.
“You are one of the strangest women I have ever been with. You are compulsively attractive - yet you are the most irritating, didactic, self-opinionated person I have ever met. You are rude, crude and selfish. Your laughter haunts me. I’ve known you almost all my life - and I don’t know who you are. You’re dangerous, bad for me, Samantha, and I’m frightened. Truly scared. I can’t take this. . .”
“Sorry I seduced you my son. It must the rhythm of the train that brought it on. I’ll try and make it up to you. Meanwhile, you clean up here, and I’ll go and change for dinner.”
After Sam had dawdled over her Bloody Mary in the lounge car, and swopped remarks with half its occupants, she and Guy swayed their way into the saloon. Chief Steward Bob took the Prof by the arm and escorted her to a table in the centre of the carriage. Bob explained: “I like to move passengers around for different meals. You meet more people that way. Let’s see what we can find for you two.”
“You see,” Sam mocked, “he knows we are lovers - and ‘fellow travellers’.”
The chief steward found a middle-aged Japanese couple who beamed and nodded and exuded goodwill and politeness.
“English?” the husband inquired. The Prof nodded.
“In a way,” Guy added. His qualification caused translation problems and some deep thought.
“Austlalian?”
Both Guy and Sam, for no reason either could think of, vigorously denied it. Perhaps they were prompted by the vanity of being classified as exotics, Guy supposed. He knew Sam’s vanity had no bounds.The silence during their four-course meal was punctuated with nods and beams and smiles - and further disturbing evidence of the Prof’s profound rudeness.
“Do you like lice?” she asked brightly.
The damask-skinned lady nodded enthusiastically.
“Lettuce?” Another nod of agreement.
“Do you relish radish?”
A negative shake.
Guy kicked the Prof under the table, but to no avail.
“Which would you prefer: rat poison or radish?” she persisted.
The lady smiled and shrugged her shoulders. But the damage had been done.(An explanation necessary, from Sam, on the identification of diplthongs, perhaps?)
After dinner, and some singing with innocents around the piano in the bar, the couple set off down the train for bed. Sam entered Guy’s coupe first. He followed her in, kissed her on the forehead, then levered her back into the corridor.
“Listen, dear boy,” she whispered in his ear as she threw her arms around his neck, “ I didn’t mean what I said about the rocking of the training making me randy. You’re special, Guy. We’re special. We should have been fucking each other ages ago.”
Guy hurriedly pushed her away.
“Chicken,” she laughed.
“Chicken harikiri,” Guy replied inanely.
His thoughts were concentrating on the alien danger signals sounding in his head.
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