Monkey Business (14 page)

The restaurant at the Hotel Sebastian was quite nice – linen tablecloths, candles, serene waiters in white jackets – and I was very underdressed in my creased hiking pants and black singlet top. But no one seemed to notice or care, including Dwayne.

We'd left the airfield in a white SUV, stopping to tell Bruce Willis that he could go (after I paid him). At first I was worried that Dwayne might have other plans – like, dinner in his room – but he walked me straight into the restaurant and we were seated at what appeared to be the best table. A romantic one by the window with a view of the pool.

There weren't many people in the restaurant, and our table was far away from the few others there. I remembered what Jack had told me once about candlelit dinners. That they were foreplay, always, he'd said and thinking about that made my stomach go all squidgy.

Dwayne picked up my hand, kissed it, kept it in his. He gazed dreamily into my eyes. Should I tell him about Jack? What about Jack? We're not in a relationship. No, I won't tell him about Jack. Should I mention the candlelight/foreplay thing? In case he had ideas? Maybe not. He might get ideas.

‘You've got the most amazing green eyes,' said Dwayne.

‘Apparently I got them from my grandfather.'

‘Tell me about your grandfather.'

‘Well, it's kind of interesting, actually. And a bit embarrassing.' Should I tell him? Okay, I'll tell him. ‘I didn't know my grandfather. He was a passing ship in my grandmother's, er, port, so to speak.'

Dwayne gazed. His eyes still sparkled, even in the dark room.

I continued, ‘But only once, apparently. He was Italian, very handsome, and she was swept off her feet. Anyway, that fling produced my mother, much to her distress.'

At the mention of my mother, Dwayne's face lit up. ‘Tell me all about your mom.'

Must I? I sighed. Dwayne was so handsome. What was he doing here in Saint Sebastian? He kept skirting around the subject. Was he a Tupperware thief? The one in charge of the stealing and, if so, what was Rupert Berringer's role? And Phil Collins? Well, he obviously brings it on his barge.

‘Why are you in Saint Sebastian, Dwayne?'

He kissed the inside of my wrist. Softly. I felt I should take my hand back, but the attention felt kind of nice. He said, his voice suggestive and creamy, ‘Why are
you
in Saint Sebastian, Erica Jewell?'

I sat back, gently removed my hand. The waiter hovered; we ordered drinks.

‘So,' I said. ‘My mother.'

Dwayne listened with great interest as I told him about my mother. I also told him that she was very attached to her Tupperware, just in case he was getting ideas about sending his thieves to Chadstone. There seemed to be a lot of ideas to be got by Dwayne, and I worried that I might be putting them in his head.

We ate our lobster and drank our pinot gris. It was delicious wine from the Mornington Peninsula, near Melbourne. I thought I should go visit there some time. Maybe Dwayne would like to go with me. I felt homesick.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?' said Dwayne.

‘Boyfriend? Me?' Do I? ‘Yes. Sort of. No.' Maybe Dwayne would be a nice boyfriend. But he lives in America. And he's a thief. But Jack's no angel either, is he? I mean, he kills people. Yeah, they're all bad, but still. There can't be good karma in his life. Do I want to be mixed up with someone who has bad karma?

‘I've got a cat,' I said.

‘I love cats.'

‘Yeah?' That was kind of disappointing. I think men should be dog people. Although Jack loves Axle, I know he does. He pretends to be annoyed with Axle's attention seeking, but he does let Axle climb all over him.

Dwayne paid for dinner and that won him at least a million brownie points. We strolled out of the restaurant, holding hands, and I let him walk me to the hotel lifts. He pushed the button and while we were waiting, I let him kiss me. It was a nice kiss. Warm and soft, not too sloppy. But it wasn't Jack.

‘I'm not coming to your room, Dwayne.'

‘Oh?' He kissed me again, this time with an arm tight around my waist. There was urgency to this kiss. And tongue. He moaned. ‘You're sure about that?'

I stepped back. ‘Yes.'

‘Shame.' He walked into the lift, gave me a little wave and a wink as the doors closed between us, and I realised I now had to find my own way back to the Koala Bear Hotel.

I stood naked under a pretty waterfall, the water in the pond only waist-high, my hair tumbling around my shoulders, glossy and bouncy and dry, the cascade unable to penetrate it. The surrounding jungle was glorious – hibiscus and frangipani the colour of sunset, emerald foliage, giant sapphire macaws gliding overhead. Jack was there, wading towards me, also naked. He was magnificent, as always. Smiling, he held his hand out for me to take. I moved towards him, but as I did, the water started churning wildly. There was fierce splashing all around us and then, a crocodile emerged, as big as a Hummer, leaping like a dolphin into the air, hesitating at the top of its climb and, following an elegant pike, diving back into the water, straight as an arrow, its jaws wide, swallowing Jack whole.

Not my idea of a sexy dream. Definitely not. Although the first part was all right. It took me a while to recover from it, but then I was happy I'd survived another night. And I was happy I hadn't gone to Dwayne's room. I checked myself over, making sure there were no wounds I'd acquired. No more mozzie bites. I loved my new repellent. Maybe it repelled murderers and room-trashers too.

While I was responding to Lucy's latest round of panicky messages, my phone rang. It was my mother, but this time just a call, not Facetime. I hesitated before answering, which is my standard response when Mum calls.

‘Erica!' she screamed into the phone, hysterical.

‘Mum? What's wrong?'

She sobbed, ‘Your father —'

‘What's wrong with Dad?'

And then she sounded irritated. ‘Nothing's wrong with your father. Why do you think something's wrong with your father?'

‘Well, you're crying and you said —'

‘If you'd let me finish, dear, you'd have heard the rest of that sentence, which was . . . now, what was it? Oh, yes, I was about to say that your father and I have been burgled! Can you believe it? Burgled!'

‘Oh my God! Are you all right? Were you home? What was taken?'

‘Well, as luck would have it, I was having lunch with Janice. Mary was supposed to come too but she didn't show up. She's become so unreliable and Judy thinks she's having early dementia —'

‘Mum.'

‘Anyway, your father and pussy were sound asleep and didn't even hear them come in!'

‘Dad was there? Oh my God!'

‘I do wish you wouldn't blaspheme, Erica.'

‘What was taken?'

‘Well, I'm furious. They took my beetroot container from the fridge, and I'd just put a full tin of beetroot in it. But as luck would have it, I'd hidden my limited-edition lettuce crisper and padlocked the Tupperware cupboard. No other Tupperware was in the fridge, thank goodness. They left before searching the house, which is just as well because I hadn't dusted in over a week —'

I tuned out. I no longer found the whole Tupperware theft business laughable, especially after what I'd seen last night at the airfield
and
what I'd paid for that bloody beetroot container. At least now I had a valid reason for giving it to Mum. Hmm. Did Dwayne send his thieves to my mother's house? Of course he did. Probably had my room trashed too, looking for Mum's address.

‘Are you there?' said Mum.

‘Is that all they took? The beetroot container?'

‘Well, yes.'

‘Did you call the police?'

‘Of course!'

‘What did they say?'

‘They weren't very helpful. Not at all. I told them there was a Tupperware thief, but they already knew that. They said they'd let me know but I can't imagine the police will find those thieves. They're so shifty and shady.'

I bet those cops were rolling around on the floor back at the station, telling their mates about the Tupperware thief. If only they knew the bigger picture. Well, on the positive side, I now had my Mother's Day gift for Mum, although I wasn't sure it'd impress her after the iPad from my brother. Also, it wasn't tropical, and I'd promised a gift from Bali. I'd have to think of something else.

I showered, got dressed and made my way back to the cafe I'd gone to with Kitty. I ordered breakfast and stared out the window. Now what? If Jack were still alive, where was he and was he okay? Bloody Tupperware thieves! Tears came and I wiped them. It didn't take long before I saw the Hummer, and I felt tempted to run out and flag Samson down, ask him if he knew where Jack was. But would Samson recognise me as the person who saw him with the gun? He probably wouldn't care. The Hummer moved slowly on, and I saw it again ten minutes later. Cruising. Reminding folks who's in charge. Talk about controlling. Big car; probably had a big house and a big monkey and a big wife too. Compensating.

So, what to do next? Maybe Kitty would find out something. I felt very alone and wished Lucy was with me. Actually, I wished Jack was with me, and the thought of his sitting opposite me right now, reading the menu, made my heart skip. He would say, ‘What are you having, my darling Erica?' and I'd smile and say, ‘Choose something for me.' Who am I kidding? I'm not his darling and never will be. Quite aside from the fact that Jack would never bring any darling of his to such a horrible place. He'd take her to a posh hotel in Fiji, or the Maldives or somewhere like that.

It was almost too much to bear, this not knowing, this waiting. I needed to stop thinking about Jack. Or at least start being more positive. Using ‘vigilisation', like my mother. I smiled. God, I even missed my mother. Maybe.

I ordered an iced coffee. Someone tapped on the window next to me. It was the helpful lady from the supermarket. She waved at me, smiling, and I smiled back, beckoning her to join me.

She pushed open the door.

‘Well, hello there,' she said.

‘Please let me buy you a coffee.' I indicated the chair opposite. ‘You were so nice to me yesterday.'

‘That would be lovely.' She sat.

‘Did you buy something special?' I said, glancing at her shopping bags.

She laughed briefly. ‘No chance of that in Seni, my dear. There is no such thing as something special here.'

‘Really? Why is that? Maybe someone needs to open a “special things” store.'

‘I'm afraid it wouldn't be a very successful business. Any decent goods to reach our shores would be stolen before they made it to a shop. And then sold at enormously inflated prices to foreigners.' She reached across the table with her right hand. ‘I'm Emeline. And it's very nice to meet someone new. Someone charming as well.'

‘I'm Erica.' We shook hands and she ordered tea from the waitress. There was a poshness to Emeline's manner that didn't seem to fit Saint Sebastian, even though she looked the part in a muu-muu of bright, tropical colours. Emeline was dark skinned with a round face and hot-pink lipstick.

‘Well, Erica, tell me what on earth you're doing in this dreadful place.'

‘It's kind of a long story. I'm trying to find . . . my boyfriend.' I stopped, wondering how much more I should say. Although I'd now told so many people, it'd probably be in the local newspaper any day now: ‘Crazy Aussie Woman's Futile Search For Man She Thinks Is Her Boyfriend'.

Emeline said, ‘What do you mean? Where is he?'

‘That's the problem. I don't know.'

‘Ah.' She nodded, giving me a knowing yet sympathetic look. What was she thinking? That he'd dumped me and run away?

‘Men,' she said suddenly.

‘Yep.' I nodded. ‘Men.'

‘All I want,' she continued with exasperation in her voice, ‘is a few nice things around the house. Functioning things. Things that don't break five minutes after I buy them.'

‘I know what you mean.' I didn't really, but I wanted to sound sympathetic.

‘You'd think my husband could source some decent things for me.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes. He travels. I show him what I want. Does he get it for me? No. He's too busy with his business.'

‘What's his business?'

She waved her hand and shook her head. Tired of talking about him already.

‘And,' she said, ‘do you think he'll pick up his dirty clothes? His wet towel off the floor? No. That's women's work, he says.'

‘Tell me about it.' I remembered being married to Danny, but didn't think I should confuse the issue by bringing up an ex-husband. But not wanting to be left out of the complaining, I said, ‘My boyfriend . . .' What? Expects me to clean his guns? ‘. . . refuses to vacuum.' Which was sort of true. Jack doesn't even know where the vacuum cleaner lives in his house. That's why he has Joe and a cleaning lady.

Emeline shook her head. Our drinks were delivered.

I asked Emeline where she lived and she told me that she and her husband had a house in town and one in the mountains.

‘I prefer to stay in town,' she said.

There was a minute of comfortable silence and I asked, ‘Emeline, have you heard of Rupert Berringer?'

She appeared thoughtful. ‘Does he look like Hugh Grant, the actor?'

‘Yes, he does.' I sat forward in my chair.

‘Then I've met him. Quite recently, actually. At a dinner party at the governor's house. My husband knows him.'

Emeline scowled at the window suddenly and I glanced outside, saw the Hummer go by.

I said, leaning in and staring at the Hummer, wanting to impress Emeline with my local knowledge, ‘The man in that car. He's a gangster.' Was that right? Gang leader maybe? I continued, ‘I heard he has many mistresses, even though he's married.'

‘Where on earth did you hear such nonsense?'

‘Oh, well, it seems everyone knows what everyone's doing in Seni.' I shouldn't gossip, I thought. Kitty probably told me that in confidence.

Emeline nodded, downed her tea. She looked at her watch and said, ‘I really must keep moving.' She stood.

‘Oh, right.' A quick cuppa.

She gave me a tight smile. ‘Goodbye, Erica. I wish you luck.'

I stood, held out my hand to shake hers. She took it briefly and left.

‘Nice to meet you, Emeline,' I called after her.