CHAPTER 2
Simon rested Gidgee on the open fire, where pine kindling crackled as its leaping yellow flame was highlighted against a backdrop of the soot covered black stone. The hearth was wide enough to allow long logs, and its mantelpiece high enough to avoid head contact for even tall people who tended the fire.
It wasn’t really cold enough to warrant a fire, but Simon grasped at the age-old pleasure of flickering flames and glowing coals whenever the opportunity allowed. It had been some time since he’d had a fire at his feet as he sat contentedly in an armchair.
There had been plenty of campfires after his days of work on the bulldozer, but those had been a necessity for cooking and hot water, and therefore more of a chore than a pleasure.
As well, the chairs he’d sat in at that time were not comfortable, and as with all open fires their smoke always followed beauty, to the extent that they often became a pain in the bum.
Whereas, this open fire tonight with flickering flames and shadows, complimented by the constant sound of the rain on the corrugated iron roof could only be seen as pure smokeless luxury.
The duck had gone down well, and the two glasses of wine which followed it left a contented feel in his belly.
He would sleep well tonight.
Simon filled a glass with some reasonable port and sat back into the old decrepit armchair. His feet in fresh socks presented sole first to the yawning open mouth of the stone fireplace. The chair he likened to the barber’s cat, in that it was better than it looked. Even more so on this wet and windy night.
The blue flashes, which entered through the window created their own forms of surrealism in the room. They came at longer intervals now, and with less thunder.
He picked up the three letters, and as usual he didn’t look at the front of any of them. Just held the three as a pack and opened them all with three quick movements of his pocketknife. The one on the top was junk mail, where someone tried to point out to him the benefits of their country style furniture. Simon smiled to himself as he looked about the room at the existing furniture. It had stood the test of time and proved its old world quality.
He crumpled the brochure and threw it at the fire.
The second letter was from the boat company on the east coast. Where his thirty-two-foot ocean going sail boat had just completed a three month fit out. From new sails and rigging, new diesel engine, new sonar, depth sounder and radio, new solar panels and deep cell batteries, auto pilot, right through to the thorough lacquer job on her well-built wooden hull. She was his pride and joy. Beautiful in the water, and she now had a whole lot of new toys for him to play with.
It had originally been rebuilt and equipped in Canada by a German named Hans. He’d explained to Simon, that his wife had left him because he, in his words had, “Spent all der time mit der boat.”
Hans had eventually finished the work, and left his wife behind as he sailed to Australia. From Cairns he had sailed around the top to Broome, from where with a newly acquired crew of two women he’d set out on a voyage to Bali.
Simon had met the crew, and he had to admit he was not impressed with the attitude they had of Hans when he was out of earshot. It had appeared to Simon they would go to any lengths to achieve their aim of a free yacht ride to Bali. He’d wondered, when he’d heard the story later about Hans being washed overboard somewhere between Broome and Bali. Simon had met Hans in Broome a few months before he went missing, and even though he liked him he didn’t go much on the crew who managed to return.
Simon had paid top dollar for ‘der boat’, which was small compensation for Hans’ wife who’d played second fiddle to it for all of those years.
He supposed der boat was why he was still in the ranks of the single. For boats he reckoned were like women. It was difficult to juggle two at the same time, either two women or a boat and a woman. It was okay if you found a woman who could handle the isolation of the sea, but they were few and far between. They both needed time and energy, nurturing and maintenance and of course, a woman needed those added extras, security and a nest.
Simon loved women, some like lovers, while for many he felt something akin to brotherly love. He didn’t love boats; a boat was just a possession one used to celebrate life. It was a tool with which one expressed one’s gratitude for the privilege to be alive.
When the time came for explanation, it came at the same time as the realization that the thin edge of the wedge had found a crack in the relationship, and soon after that came the inevitable ‘me or the boat’ ultimatum. Simon had heard many of them, and was fairly sure the boat was just a means used by some who needed to exercise their importance. Turn the freewheeling adventurer into the perfect example of domesticity.
What type of love has to be proved by the sale of a possession? Will the time come when the same expectation will arise over a set of golf clubs or a surfboard?
He didn’t blame women though. He understood, he thought. They were subject to the will of a dictatorial maternal instinct that used any means necessary to repress revolt. Simon admitted to himself that he was far from being an authority on the subject, but it appeared to him that it was somehow along these lines.
Suddenly, the thought flashed into his mind of one woman. As it did, he took his eye from the letters to gaze at a small blue feather of flame that fluttered like a flag over an orange glowing Gidgee coal.
Sarah. She was unique, and one who had it seemed, won the fight against the tyrant. She had shown her scorn by going off and exploring the world.
He wondered where on the planet she might be.
She was like him in a way. As she had once put it, “As soon as I could walk as a toddler, I was out the door to see what was outside the house. Mum says she spent half of her time bringing me back in again. That’s the way I’ve always been Simon, always looking to see what’s around the next bend. I don’t know if I’m searching for anything in particular, I think that I’m just making the most of my time in life.” Simon understood, for it could have been him she was talking about, and for that reason when the time came for her to go, he’d not asked her to stay, where she was going, nor if she’d be back.
They were two travellers who may one day meet again, and Simon never questioned coincidence. He’d travelled enough to know that old acquaintances could turn up in the least expected places.
He reminisced for a few moments before he returned to the letter. It pointed out to him that the fourth and final payment for the refit of the ‘Patricia Anne’ was due.
‘Patricia Anne’ was the name that Hans had given her, and Simon had seen no reason for it to change, although he always referred to it as ‘der boat’.
He looked forward to being with the ocean again. Although, when the time came he knew also, that he would miss the bush, but he would return again. Part of being free was the ability to go where you wished when you wished.
His decision to come to the outback was because of the sea. He came to work in this part of arid Australia so that he could make the money to enable him to go back to the sea. A situation which had now changed course, due to his unearthing of a treasure trove of startling coloured Australian opal.
Simon’s two skills in life were sailing and earthworks machinery. The difference between the two was that he would sail for free, whereas for driving machinery he expected, and received a high rate of pay.