Lost Girls (18 page)

They got on
really well over the next three days. While Martha went to work
during the days she told Isabelle the places and sights to see.
Each night they met up for a drink and dinner, somewhere
inexpensive, often with other friends of Martha’s.

Isabelle found
herself liking this town and thinking that perhaps, in a month’s
time, she would look for a job here for a couple months. It was
nice to make a group of friends rather than continually meet
strangers.

When Martha
came down to the Rock on her days off Isabelle juggled her shifts
to get a full day off. By the end of this she felt she had made a
real friend, they exchanged home addresses to keep in touch in the
future and Martha promised to visit her if she came to France.

With Martha
gone Isabelle found herself strangely restless. She like the desert
but she had more or less seen what was to be seen around Uluru and
the Olgas. While she could return to Alice and look for a job there
she felt something beckoning her on, drawing her to go further.

One evening she
was chatting to a guest at the bar when it was quiet. He told her
he lived in the town of Broome, on the opposite side of the country
from Cairns but up north too. He had a hotel in Broome and was
always looking for barmaids and restaurant waiters. So, if she came
there, he would be happy to give her a job.

Isabelle
thought he could be a bit sleazy to work for but it put the idea in
her mind as he told her about this town with its tourist resorts
and sandy beaches. She decided she would like to visit Broome.

She had heard
of guests at the Desert Sails flying on to Broome direct. So there
was must be a flight from here to there. The next day she looked up
fares to Broome and booked a flight at the end of her batch of
shifts.

Isabelle had
the habit of sending a post card to her parents each week to keep
them abreast of her travels; it was easier than ringing at the
wrong time of day. So after she made the booking she put a postcard
in the mail to tell them of her plans. She was starting to feel
homesick to see her family again and said that, after Broome she
may fly to Bali for a week, but after that was planning to head
home. She was looking forward to seeing them and knew they would be
looking forward to seeing her.

Her last week
in Yulara flew by and then she was at the airport. Here she did a
quick post card to Martha telling her of her changed plans. Then
she was on the plane flying across endless barren red sands before
they came in to land near a little town which poked out on a
peninsula into a sparkling blue ocean.

Stepping out of
the plane the air was balmy and warm. She felt she had returned to
the tropics though this was a much dryer place than Papeete. Its
climate felt closer to the warm dry air of her home in the hills of
Languedoc in the summer months, when the wiry hill grass was brown
and dry and only in the river valleys was any green grass to be
seen.

As she walked
around the town, luxuriating in the dry air blowing from the
inland, she felt more at home than in any place since she had left
her home a long time ago.

She soon found
a job in hotel in the main street of Broome town and it supplied a
tiny room out the back for her to stay. It only had a fan in the
ceiling, no air conditioning, but the nights were cool. She did not
care for the fancier resorts that were scattered along the beaches
out from the town. There was something more honest about the locals
who drank in her pub than the other tourist visitors of the
upmarket resorts. She found their jokes and coarse humour, which
she was beginning to understand as her English got more fluent,
reminded her of the worker humour in her home village.

It felt
comfortable. They all called her Frenchy and mocked her foreign
accent but it was good humoured banter. A week went by and then
another and then a month had passed. It was now September and the
weather was warming up and the drinkers were getting thirstier,
telling tales of the ferocious heat of the inland and also tales of
the huge storms that swept the coast when the wet season came.

She found this
foreign climate and its weather patterns to be fascinating and it
continued to remind her of parts of her hillside home. Each week
she sent another post card home though, as she was enjoying this
place, she was now much vaguer about her return dates or plans.

She often did
the late shifts as she was more a night than morning person. So it
suited her to work into the late nights, there was a peaceful
solitude when it was just her and a couple last drinkers remaining
and making polite banter.

It was a
Tuesday night, over a month after she came, and there were only
three drinkers left in the bar talking together around a table in
the corner. The time was somewhere between ten and eleven in the
evening. Eleven was official closing time and, with such a small
number of patrons, she said she was happy to finish the shift and
lock up. So her co-worker went off to bed. She worked her way
around the room; wiping down all the benches, stacking the bottles
neatly and putting the glasses in the dishwasher to wash
overnight.

She was bent
down stacking glasses when she heard new footsteps come into the
bar
Another
patron for a drink,
she thought. She
stood up and found herself looking into Mark’s face, opposite her
at the counter.

She blushed
then smiled a big smile, delighted to see him yet again.

He returned a
huge grin. “Belle, I can’t believe my luck running into you again.
Wherever I go to across Australia I seem destined to meet you.”

She felt a
breathless with the delight at seeing his face again. Three times
over as many months felt like real friendship. It was like a
strange destiny linked their travels.

After about ten
minutes the other drinkers finished their drinks and left. Then it
was only them alone. He was perched on a bar stool, directly
opposite her. They fell into easy conversation.

She asked him
where he had come from and where he was going.

He told her
that, after working for a fortnight in the Granites, he had been
offered work on a station south of Broome, fixing windmills. It had
kept him busy for three weeks but today he had finished the last
mill. He had pulled up the pump, stripped it down, fitted new seals
and made other adjustments. Now it was working as good as new. He
had called to the station homestead for a beer and a meal before
deciding to push on to town. He had figured he could make it for a
drink at his regular Broome pub before it closed for the night.

He was now glad
he had because, a couple times, feeling tired, he had almost
stopped for the night and rolled out his swag, but the thought of a
cold beer at the bar had kept him going.

She refilled
his beer and said it was good he had come tonight because tomorrow
was her day off and, if he had come then, he probably would have
missed her.

He said that
really was a cause to celebrate. He would have hated to have missed
her. He suggested she have a drink too, his buy.

She agreed, she
said it was so nice to talk to someone she had known for a while.
Then they had a second drink together as their conversation flowed
along.

She asked him
where he was going, he said he was heading north, he had been
offered a month of work at the Argyle Diamond mine south of
Kununurra, up near the Northern Territory, but had two weeks until
he started. In the meantime wanted to explore a remote place
further north in the Kimberley that he barely knew.

Isabelle
realised, as he paused in his story, that she had enjoyed the
talking so much that she had forgot to finish locking up and
shutting down.

She looked up.
The time was now a quarter to twelve.

She stood up
apologetic. “I am sorry, I must close up now. I have enjoyed
talking to you so much that I forgot the time. If the police come
now I will be in trouble.”

Mark got up,
walked over and locked the door to the outside, then turned off the
outside light. “That should fix it,” he said. “Now they won’t ever
know there is someone still inside.”

Isabelle felt a
bit giddy and giggled.

Mark laughed
too. “Reckon, seeing as I have kept you talking long past your
bedtime, I should help you finish the tidying and lock up. That way
you will be finished sooner.”

She said, “No,
you are the guest. I get paid to do this work.

“It is an
excuse to keep talking to you and I like helping you,” he said.

They worked
side by side, with her explaining the tasks required and him doing
them. After fifteen minutes it was done.

She said, “I
suppose I should let you out and then lock the door behind you
before I go home to bed.” Then she added, almost as an
afterthought. “I wish you were not leaving again and travelling on
so soon. It has been so nice seeing you and talking to you. Every
time it happens I feel like you are gone before I have barely met
you.”

Mark was
looking at her quizzically. “I must admit I have enjoyed talking to
you tonight more than anything else I have done since I met you in
Cairns three months ago. Why don’t you come along with me for the
trip? That way we get to keep talking and telling the stories to
each other that we both want to hear.”

Isabelle
blushed; then she looked awkward. “I like talking to you and
listening to your stories but I am not very good with men. I don’t
want to give you the wrong idea. I like being with you and talking
to you. But I am not like the other women you know that go with
men, you know, that way.” Then she blushed again.

Mark looked at
her, even more curious. “Oh are you one of those women who like
other women, the gay ones.”

Now Isabelle
went really bright red. She shook her head furiously. “No it is not
that. I like men just fine, but I don’t go with them the way you
mean, it is hard to say why, perhaps I am just shy about that,
being with men alone scares me.”

She realised
she was burbling and not making sense and should stop. She put her
hand on her mouth, forcing herself to stop talking, and just shook
her head as she collected her thoughts.

“I would love
to travel to the places you talk about and to see them. But I don’t
want you to think that means.” She paused, again stuck for words;
she just could not say it. She felt light headed and started
giggling. “You must think I am such a prude,” she said.

Mark laughed,
shook his head, and patted her arm. “Don’t be embarrassed. I
understand what you are trying to say. That part doesn’t have to be
part of the deal. I just like you, I won’t pretend I don’t find you
attractive that way, I do. But I am happy for you just to come
along as a friend, see the country and let me enjoy your
company.

“That is the
most important thing and that is more than enough. I don’t want you
to think that the other is a part of it. It should only happen when
both the people really want it too.”

She found
herself hugely relieved and excited. It filled her with a huge
sense of adventure, the idea of travelling out away from
civilisation to see all these other places.

She said,
“Thank you Mark. I will come. When will we go?”

He winked and
looked at her. “How about right now?”

She said, “But
what about my job, I must give notice.”

Mark answered,
“Don’t worry about that, he will find someone else tomorrow. That
is how it is in these towns. Leave a note to say you had to leave
unexpectedly and ask him to post on your pay-check to your home. Oh
and tell him you have left the keys in the till. He will have a
spare set to let himself in tomorrow in the morning.”

So Isabelle
wrote out a brief note and showed it to Mark.

He said, “That
should do just fine.” It did not say where she was going or with
who. It did not seem important and Mark did not suggest it.

So they walked
out into the street, pulling the door locked behind them. They got
into Mark’s Toyota. He drove around to her room.

In five minutes
she had packed all her things and they were on their way. Mark
carried her bag and she carried her guitar as they left her room
and locked the door.

It was a dark
night with no moon as they drove away. After a few minutes they had
left the town lights behind and the only sight was a huge mass of
stars stretching from horizon. Isabelle found herself spellbound
watching them all. They were much the same at Uluru but there the
nights were cold and she had spent little time outdoors after the
sun had set. Here the night air was balmy, just a tiny edge of
coolness.

She found
herself thinking,
The universe is such a vast and empty place. I
wonder if the God who I have believed in all my life lives out
there some place? Or does he live in another place again, another
huge but separate place?

At first they
drove along in silence but as the signs of the town fell away and
there was just a black emptiness, she became aware of Mark’s
occasional glance her way. She did not feel threatened by it; it
was a friendly and inquiring look. After a few more minutes of
silence he asked her, “Penny for your thoughts?”

At first she
did not understand this English idiom. Then it came to her, he is
asking what I am thinking about. She replied, “As I look out this
huge and empty sky, I wonder where is the God; the one who made it
all? Does he live out there, somewhere beyond all those many stars?
Or does he live someplace else?

“What do you
think? Perhaps you don’t believe he is there at all.”

Mark thought
for a minute, used to making polite conversation with girls to try
and charm them. But this was not like that; she was not making
conversation for conversation’s sake. It was the sort of question
he often wondered about when he was on his own, looking at the vast
immensity of the earth and sky.