Love Is Blind (6 page)

‘The fire should jump over us …’ All the bush behind them was now ablaze. The wall of heat was overwhelming. ‘Are you okay?’

Okay? Anthea thought, astonished.
Okay?
He’d rolled the truck. She’d been nearly swept downstream and dashed to death on rocks, barbecued, and now drowned again … Yes,
Jacko
had been quite heroic. But the whole hideous ordeal was his fault in the first damn place … If she
could
have spoken, it would have been to ask about how to say, in an Aboriginal language, ‘Please make sure this man is mauled very slowly to death by dingoes.’

The river was now a bubbling soup of creatures, as kangaroos, wallabies, little bush rats, lizards and snakes all writhed and struggled in the rapids. Anthea clung to the branch. Waves smacked her in the face so repeatedly, she felt as though she was being interrogated by the Nazis. She jerked with alarm as she felt Jacko’s strong body pressing her from behind, his arms stretching around her bra-less torso.

‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ she croaked in her best school teacher voice.

‘Protecting you, you idiot.’

The most dangerous thing Anthea had ever done before this was to park illegally in a loading zone. Overwhelmed by terror, she closed her eyes and prayed to a God she didn’t really believe in, to please take some time off the Middle East and get her out of here.

Half way through her prayer, a primitive sense of dread electrified her nerves. Her skin prickled
and
crawled as though invisible creatures were creeping over it. She strained to see through the pall of smoke. As her eyes adjusted, the sensation that she was being watched intensified. And then she realised that two cold sinister eyes were staring directly into her face. She dug her nails into Jacko’s arm. He yelped but then followed the direction of her gaze.

‘Shit. A King Brown,’ he said, quietly.

‘K … King B … Brown?’ Anthea stammered.

‘One of the most poisonous and aggressive snakes in the world. Keep still.’

All Anthea could think about was how much nicer the snake would look as the belt of a catwalk model. The King Brown had obviously been sheltering in the hollowed out section of the tree and had now slithered out on to the nearest branch. All three of them were marooned there, just looking at each other.

‘What … what are you going to do?’ Anthea squeaked.

‘Gee, I don’t know,’ Jacko said sarcastically. ‘Why don’t I bend it into some fancy party-balloon shapes for you?’

He suddenly lunged for its tail. The snake hissed, fangs glistening. Moving with lightning
speed
(an expression Anthea only now fully understood, having nearly been toasted by Mother Nature earlier), he grabbed the snake by the tail, lassoed it in the air above his head and sent it flying. The snake arced through the air and into the churning stream. Anthea was astounded. This Jacko had more nerve than an unfilled tooth.

Upstream, flames were now leaping over the creek and igniting the dry trees on the opposite bank. Anthea choked and spluttered in horror. The fierce, scouring wind became ravenous, eating all in its path. Trees waved drunkenly, bent at crazy angles, their lush foliage now twisted and twined by the hot wind. As they caught fire, branches scratched like witches’ fingers at the sky as if in pain.

This was it, Anthea thought. She was going to be roasted alive in the Aussie Outback. It was then that she started sobbing. The poor woman was weeping and wailing so hard, she didn’t realise at first that her face was wet with raindrops and not tears. A great gunshot of thunder shuddered through the air. Cracking open one eye, she felt bewildered to find herself still alive.

She saw sombre clouds wrestling through the
smoky
sky above them, bloated with rain. The burnt tree trunks, stripped bare of their leaves, stuck up like exclamation marks. And they had a lot to be alarmed about. Because right then the sky split open and it started to pour. It rained in torrents. The heavens seemed to be torn apart. This was obviously the storm that had caused the inland tsunami.

Anthea had never seen rain like it. It was end-of-the-world, Noah’s Ark type rain. As the deluge dampened down the smoke, the bush hissed and smouldered around them. But the river was swelling even more. The branch they were clinging to was now half submerged. The earth around the trunk of the tree had been torn away, its exposed roots gnawed by the floodwaters.

‘Okay. We need to make for the bank before this tree is swept away. Let go of the branch but keep hold of me,’ Jacko ordered.

Anthea reacted as if he’d suggested taking out her teeth with pliers. ‘No way!’ she bleated. She wanted to trust him, but couldn’t help feeling that getting back into the floodwaters would qualify her as the only living brain donor in human history.

Jacko untied the belt which tethered them to the branch and slid confidently into the current. He held on to the tree trunk and signalled for Anthea to also get back into the water. When she wouldn’t let go, Jacko simply told her there was another snake making its way towards her. Needless to say, Anthea’s entry into the water was a little less elegant than his had been. It was more like a walrus giving birth. After she’d spluttered and flailed on the surface and drunk a gallon or two of water, Jacko surfed to her side in a spritz of spray, then simply put her on his back and swam strongly for the bank.

The rain had turned the earth into the consistency of chocolate cake mix. It clung to her arms, legs, hair. This time it took a good ten minutes for her to clamber up the slippery slope beside the roaring torrent.

When she finally reached the top of the bank, a jolt of misery shot through her. Her sides ached. Her head hurt. Her ankles throbbed. Her teeth were chattering like Spanish castanets.

Jacko stood firmly before her, his muscular legs planted in a ‘V’. ‘I think we should take shelter under that ledge,’ Jacko bellowed above the pounding rain.

‘Really? I was actually just thinking about staggering off into the wilderness to die,’ Anthea replied. But a crack of thunder changed her mind for her. She spun on her heel and bolted for the rock face as fast as her jarred ankle would take her – which was about half a step. She cried out in pain.

Jacko picked her up with ease and carried her to the red sandstone outcrop. He lowered her down gently on to the soft sand beneath the ledge. But she wasn’t sheltered from the water pouring down the sides of the rock unless she crouched on a small patch of sand at the back. Anthea drew her knees up to her chest and tried to control her shivering.

‘Are you having fun yet?’ Jacko drawled, in an attempt to raise her flagging spirits. ‘About as much fun as watching a couple of pensioners doing a pole dance, am I right?’

When she didn’t respond, he charged off through the driving rain. A few moments later he returned, rolling a large boulder. He wedged it across the entrance to their small cave to protect her from the rain. Then he sat down beside her, legs akimbo.

‘Jeez, Anthea. What a welcome to Australia,
eh?
This kind of hospitality could hospitalise you!’

For the first time, she allowed herself to marvel openly at Jacko’s practicality. She thought of Rupert then. He was not what you’d call practical. Her beloved didn’t even know how to operate the TV remote. His only DIY procedure was the highly technical art of whacking the crap out of any electrical device that failed to start, to make it work again. He had once told her how relieved he was when wine bottles started to have twist tops, as even corkscrews were beyond him.

‘The dying process begins the moment you come into the world – but it sure speeds up on a trip to Australia, doesn’t it?’ Jacko chuckled, still attempting to calm her frayed nerves.

Whether she was hysterical with shock or crazed with pain, she didn’t know. But Anthea found herself snorting with laughter too. ‘Packing for a visit to the Outback, I somehow overlooked the survival suit, inflatable raft and hot air balloon that are obviously essential in these parts.’

‘Yep! Coming to the Outback leads to more early deaths than working as a stunt double,
bullfighting
and space travel all put together,’ he chortled.

‘Yes! Do come and stay Down Under. Give funeral directors more employment!’ she giggled in reply.

They were both bent double with laughter now. Big heaving belly laughs rocked their frames. When they finally stopped to draw breath, Andrea realised that the rain was easing. The air was still leaden with humidity, though. Jacko kicked the boulder away with both feet to allow more oxygen into their cave. Anthea breathed in deeply. She could now see clouds scudding across the sky, like drying, grey laundry. Birds skimmed and wheeled over the swollen river. She started to speak. ‘Mr Jackman, William … Bill …’ she began, intending to thank him for rescuing her.

‘Shhhh,’ Jacko cut her off. Unexpectedly, he asked, ‘Have you still got that lipstick on you?’

Anthea unzipped the pocket in her dress and dug down deep into the folds of soggy material. Unbelievably, the hard metallic tube was still there. Jacko snatched it from her. He rotated the shaft and a small mirror was revealed. He wriggled out of the cave and ran up the ridge
of
burnt land. At the top he angled the mirror at the sun. She watched, bemused, as he flashed out some secret semaphore.

‘What are you doing?’ she called out.

‘Plane.’

Anthea peered at the heavens. And there it was – a small silver dart flying straight towards them.

‘Dip your wing, you bastard. Dip!’ Jacko pleaded.

For an unbearable stretch of time, the plane just soared on. The whole of the bush beneath seemed to hold its breath. Then, just when she thought she’d expire from anxiety, the plane miraculously tilted in their direction. Anthea’s eyes widened and a sob of relief escaped her.

‘You little beauty!’ Jacko exclaimed. ‘Eureka! You ripper! Fantastic! The pilot will wire our coordinates in to the cop shop. Big Bluey … he’s our local policeman … will be here in no time. Bloody hell … more good luck! My backpack!’ Jacko pointed to a battered tree at the river’s edge. Wedged into the weed-strewn branches was a bedraggled Gore-Tex sack.

Jacko whooped with delight as he ran towards the tree. He shinned up into the branches
and
retrieved his bag. Back on the ground, he rummaged through its contents and extracted a small plastic bottle which he shook excitedly.

‘Painkillers. I bet you’re starting to feel those bruises taking hold … Here.’ He flicked open the bottle with a thumbnail and popped two pills into his palm. ‘Take these for the pain.’

Now that the immediate danger had subsided, Anthea realised she needed them. She could indeed feel an ache deep in her bones and a stiffness in her muscles. She examined her arms. Bruises were erupting all over her biceps. She imagined her legs and torso were in a similar condition.

Jacko gestured for her to lie back down on the dry sand of the cave. He sat beside her. Cupping her head, he helped her gulp down the pills.

‘Are you okay?’ He bent over her as though she was a lost puppy.

Anthea patted her body to make sure she had everything she’d started out with that morning. Then she nodded. ‘Apart from my ankle. And my ribs.’

‘Just rest now,’ he ordered. Despite his cheeriness, the man’s tired face looked as rumpled as an unmade bed.

Jacko gently examined her ankle. ‘Sprained’ was his verdict. He took off his shirt and bound it tightly about the swollen area. As the drugs kicked in, a pleasurable sensation spread over Anthea like melting butter. She became as docile as a child, allowing the half-naked miner to pull open her dress and tend to the gash on the side of her chest.

The sun and shade cast a mosaic of light and shadow on his face. She found herself drawn to this capable man, with his snake-handling skills and Harley-Davidson. Rupert would need trainer wheels on such a powerful motor bike. She remembered then once asking him to perform some maintenance task on her car. He’d reacted as though she’d given him instructions on how to fuel a nuclear reactor. Jacko was right. In a situation like this, Rupert would be as handy as a chocolate teapot.

Jacko, on the other hand, was the type of bloke who could take a cold remedy and still operate heavy machinery. With all her senses enhanced, she inhaled his warm spicy scent – a musky tang of petrol, sweat and cigarettes. Looking up at him, hazy with painkillers, it suddenly didn’t seem strange to find him loveable. The
nose
she’d found coarse now appeared nobly Roman, the rough-hewn features chiselled. He wasn’t gym toned, like Rupert, but corded by the kind of bulging muscles and sinews which only came from hard physical labour. And yet the strength of his body was at odds with his velvety fingertips.

‘Your hands are so soft,’ she marvelled, as he tended her wounds.

‘I help out my mates with the shearing. It’s the lanolin in the wool. You’re lucky, Anthea. These cuts and scrapes are only superficial. Like me, eh?’ He winked at her.

She realised now how warm his smile was. Jacko smiled with his whole face, especially his eyes.

Bandaging a cut on her upper arm, his hand grazed the pillowy softness of her breast. She was astonished to feel a fierce onrush of tenderness. The stillness of the Outback was like a theatre audience hushed in anticipation. But her mind was electric, filled with the present and the hot and resin-filled perfume of the bush. A dreamy sensuality took hold of her. The air felt solid, the weight of it pressing down on her. Her thoughts shimmered. She tilted her face up to him, like
a
sunflower turning towards the warmth. She found herself drifting in a trancelike state towards his mouth. She was all heat and need. In that instant, there was only one sensation – yes, now, yes.

‘Yes, now, yes,’ she heard a voice say, realising through her daze that the words were being uttered by her own mouth. Then she pressed his hand firmly against her naked breast.

Chapter Seven

Love Is Blind

THE TENSE SILENCE
that followed was loud enough to make Anthea open her eyes. The look on Jacko’s face registered more surprise than the congregation at Michael Jackson’s wedding. He leapt back as though from the strike of a cobra. When he spoke he looked wary and disapproving.