I walked composedly down to the postcard stand and waited there on my feet, for truth to tell it was more comfortable than sitting. Most of the postcards seemed to be endless views of the huge crouching orange monolith out in the desert: Ayers Rock at dawn, at sunset, and every five minutes in between.
Alternatively with inspecting the merchandise I took stock of the room. About fifty prospective passengers, highly assorted. Some airline groundstaff, calm and unhurried. A couple of aborigines with shadowed eyes and patient black faces, waiting for the airport bus back to dreamtime. Air-conditioning doing fine, but everyone inside still moving with the slow walk of life out in the sun.
No one remotely threatening.
The flight was called. The assorted passengers, including Jik and Sarah, stood up, picked up their hand luggage and straggled out to the tarmac.
It was then, and then only, that I saw him.
The man who had come towards me on the balcony to throw me over.
I was almost sure at once, and then certain. He had been sitting among the waiting passengers, reading a newspaper which he was now folding up. He stood still, watching Jik and Sarah present their boarding passes at the door and go through to the tarmac. His eyes followed them right across to the aircraft. When they’d filed up the steps and vanished, he peeled off and made a bee-line in my direction.
My heart lurched painfully. I absolutely could not run.
He looked just the same. Exactly the same. Young, strong, purposeful, as well-co-ordinated as a cat. Coming towards me.
As Jik would have said, Jesus.
He didn’t even give me a glance. Three yards before he reached me he came to a stop beside a wall telephone, and fished in his pocket for coins.
My feet didn’t want to move. I was still sure he would see me, look at me carefully, recognise me... and do something I would regret. I could feel the sweat prickling under the bandages.
‘Last call for flight to Adelaide and Melbourne.’
I would have to, I thought. Have to walk past him to get to the door.
I unstuck my feet. Walked. Waiting with every awful step to hear his voice shouting after me. Or even worse, his heavy hand.
I got to the door, presented the boarding pass, made it out on to the tarmac.
Couldn’t resist glancing back. I could see him through the glass, earnestly telephoning, and not even looking my way.
The walk to the aircraft was all the same quite far enough. God help us all, I thought, if the slightest fright is going to leave me so weak.
11
I had a window seat near the rear of the aircraft, and spent the first part of the journey in the same sort of fascination as on the way up, watching the empty red miles of the ancient land roll away underneath. A desert with water underneath it in most places; with huge lakes and many rock pools. A desert which could carry dormant seeds for years in its burning dust, and bloom like a garden when it rained. A place of pulverising heat, harsh and unforgiving, and in scattered places, beautiful.
GABA, I thought. I found it awesome, but it didn’t move me in terms of paint.
After a while I took off the exaggerated hat, laid it on the empty seat beside me, and tried to find a comfortable way to sit, my main frustration being that if I leaned back in the ordinary way my broken shoulder blade didn’t care for it. You wouldn’t think, I thought, that one could break a shoulder blade. Mine, it appeared, had suffered from the full thud of my five-eleven frame hitting terra extremely firma.
Oh well... I shut my eyes for a bit and wished I didn’t still feel so shaky.
My exit from hospital had been the gift of one of the doctors, who had said he couldn’t stop me if I chose to go, but another day’s rest would be better.
‘I’d miss the Cup,’ I said, protesting.
‘You’re crazy.’
‘Yeah... Would it be possible for you to arrange that the hospital said I was ‘satisfactory’, and ‘progressing’ if anyone telephones to ask, and not on any account to say that I’d left?’
‘Whatever for?’
‘I’d just like those muggers who put me here to think I’m still flat out. For several days, if you don’t mind. Until I’m long gone.’
‘But they won’t try again.’
‘You never know.’
He shrugged. ‘You mean you’re nervous?’
‘You could say so.’
‘All right. For a couple of days, anyway. I don’t see any harm in it, if it will set your mind at rest.’
‘It would indeed,’ I said gratefully.
‘Whatever are these?’ He gestured to Jik’s shopping, still lying on the bed.
‘My friend’s idea of suitable travelling gear.’
‘You’re having me on?’
‘He’s an artist,’ I said, as if that explained any excesses.
He returned an hour later with a paper for me to sign before I left, Jik’s credit card having again come up trumps, and at the sight of me, nearly choked. I had struggled slowly into the clothes and was trying on the hat.
‘Are you going to the airport dressed like that?’ he said incredulously.
‘I sure am.’
‘How?’
‘Taxi, I suppose.’
‘You’d better let me drive you,’ he said, sighing. ‘Then if you feel too rotten I can bring you back.’
He drove carefully, his lips twitching. ‘Anyone who has the courage to go around like that shouldn’t worry about a couple of thugs.’ He dropped me solicitously at the airport door, and departed laughing.
Sarah’s voice interrupted the memory.
‘Todd?’
I opened my eyes. She had walked towards the back of the aeroplane and was standing in the aisle beside my seat.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Mm.’
She gave me a worried look and went on into the toilet compartment. By the time she came out, I’d assembled a few more wits, and stopped her with the flap of the hand. ‘Sarah... You were followed to the airport. I think you’ll very likely be followed from Melbourne. Tell Jik... tell Jik to take a taxi, spot the tail, lose him, and take a taxi back to the airport, to collect the hired car. O.K.?’
‘Is this... this tail... on the aeroplane?’ She looked alarmed at the thought.
‘No. He telephoned... from Alice.’
‘All right.’
She went away up front to her seat. The aeroplane landed at Adelaide, people got off, people got on, and we took off again for the hour’s flight to Melbourne. Halfway there, Jik himself came back to make use of the facilities.
He too paused briefly beside me on the way back.
‘Here are the car keys,’ he said. ‘Sit in it, and wait for us. You can’t go into the Hilton like that, and you’re not fit enough to change on your own.’
‘Of course I am.’
‘Don’t argue. I’ll lose any tail, and come back. You wait.’
He went without looking back. I picked up the keys and put them in my jeans pocket, and thought grateful thoughts to pass the time.
I dawdled a long way behind Jik and Sarah at disembarkation. My gear attracted more scandalised attention in this solemn financial city, but I didn’t care in the least. Nothing like fatigue and anxiety for killing off embarrassment.
Jik and Sarah, with only hand-baggage, walked without ado past the suitcase-unloading areas and straight out towards the waiting queue of taxis. The whole airport was bustling with Cup eve arrivals, but only one person, that I could see, was bustling exclusively after my fast-departing friends.
I smiled briefly. Young and eel-like, he slithered through the throng, pushing a young woman with a baby out of the way to grab the next taxi behind Jik’s. They’d sent him, I supposed, because he knew Jik by sight. He’d flung turps in his eyes at the Arts Centre.
Not too bad, I thought. The boy wasn’t over-intelligent, and Jik should have little trouble in losing him. I wandered around for a bit looking gormless, but as there was no one else who seemed the remotest threat, I eventually eased out to the car park.