‘Just like I said,’ I interjected. I’d never thought of myself as a military genius, but I was pleased to find I’d got this right.
Robyn went on. ‘Anyway there we were, chatting away like old mates. She even told me how she used to work as a cleaner at the chemist, part-time, and how many grandchildren she had, and their names. She seemed to have forgotten what she’d said about having a short conversation. Another couple of minutes and I think she would have taken me into the kitchen and made a cup of tea, but I suddenly realised there were these soft little footsteps coming along the hall I pulled my head back in like a turtle, but I tell you, I moved quicker than any turtle. And the next thing, there were these boots right next to the bed. Black boots, but very dirty and scuffed. It was a soldier, and he’d come sneaking along the corridor to try to catch her out. I thought “What am I going to do?” I tried to remember all the martial arts stuff that I’d ever heard of, but all I could think of was to go for the groin.’
‘That’s all she thinks of with any guy,’ Kevin said.
Robyn ignored him. ‘I was so scared, because I didn’t want to cause any trouble for this nice old lady. I didn’t even know her name. Still don’t. And I didn’t want to get myself killed either. I’m funny like that. But I was so paralysed I couldn’t move. I heard the guy say, very suspiciously, something like “You talking”. I knew I was in trouble then. I rolled across the floor to the other side of the bed and crawled out from under the bedspread. I was in this little gap between the bed and the wall, about a metre wide I guess. I heard the old lady laugh nervously and say “To myself. In the mirror.” It sounded weak to me and I guess it did to him too. All I had going for me was my hearing, and my guesses. I knew he was going to search the room and I guessed he’d start by lifting the bedspread and looking under the bed. Then he’d come round the base of the bed and either go to the built-in, or look in the little gap where I was lying. There were no other places in the room where anyone could hide. It was a bare room, not very nice at all. So I listened for the little swish of his lifting the bedspread, and sure enough the room was so quiet I heard it. In fact the room was so quiet I thought I could hear the old lady’s heart beating. I knew I could hear my own heart beating. I could hardly believe that the soldier couldn’t hear it. Anyway, the trouble was I couldn’t hear the second little swish that he should have made when he dropped the bedspread back down. I was in agony, wondering if he was still staring under the bed or if he was coming around to where I was lying. God, I was listening so hard I could feel my ears grow. I felt like I had two satellite dishes on the sides of my head.’
‘You look like you do,’ said Kevin, who never missed an opportunity.
‘And I did hear something – the tiniest creak of what I thought was his boot, and it seemed to be coming round the base of the bed. I couldn’t hear my heart any more – it had stopped. So I thought “Well, I can’t lie here and wait to be shot. I’ve got to take the risk.” And so I rolled back under the bed. And sure enough, about a second later I saw his boots in the gap that I’d just left. The fronds on the edge of the bedspread were just moving slightly from where I’d hit them, and I had this terrible time, lying there wondering if he’d notice them, thinking that he must notice them. They seemed so obvious to me, so conspicuous. He seemed to stand there forever. I don’t know what he was looking at – there wasn’t much to see, just a picture of a long bridge across a ravine, in Switzerland or somewhere I think. Then the boots turned and I could hear him more distinctly, going over to the cupboards and opening them and searching through them. Then he said to the lady “Come on, next house”, and out they went. I lay there for so long – I thought it might have been a trap – but at last Kevin came and got me and told me they’d gone. I’d had a pretty bad time though – well, I don’t need to tell you guys what it was like.
‘Corrie talked to someone too, in the kitchen, didn’t you?’ she said, looking at Corrie, who gave a little nod. ‘That’s when you were told about the casualties from our two fights with them?’
‘Yes,’ Corrie said. ‘I think they caused a bit of a sensation. I talked to a funny little man who looked about fifty. I don’t know his name either. He didn’t want to talk to me much. He was just so scared that we’d be caught. But he told me there was a bit of guerilla activity going on. He was the one who had this theory of the “clean” invasion, too.’
‘So,’ said Robyn, ‘that was the end of our secret chats with the work parties. We made our way back to our hideout and stayed there till dark.’ She looked at Homer while she said the next bit. It was like they felt a bit guilty, but they were defiant too about the way they’d done things. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I know we had all these carefully worked out plans about Kev and Corrie spying on the Showground and so on, but it’s different when you get there. The whole time we were in Wirrawee we didn’t want to lose sight of each other.’
‘Young love,’ I said. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Robyn continued without missing a beat. ‘So that night we stayed together again. For a start we walked out to the highway, to see what was going on. And it is being heavily used. We stayed an hour and there were two convoys just in that time. One had forty vehicles and the other had twenty-nine. So it’s doing big business, for a little old rural road. It hasn’t seen that much excitement since the surf carnival. After that we came back into town and went over to the Showground. That was bloody scary too, I suppose because of what happened to you guys on your visit there. In fact I thought it was pretty gutsy of Corrie and Kev to go there again. And believe me, it is a dangerous place. See, they’ve got their headquarters and their barracks there, as well as our folks, so I guess that’s why they guard it so heavily. They’ve cut down most of the trees in the carpark, so we couldn’t find any approach to it that would provide any cover – I suppose that’s why they cut them down. And they’ve put rolls of wire all the way around it, about fifty metres from the main fence. I didn’t know there was that much wire in Wirrawee. And they’ve rigged up new lights, floodlights, which have got the entire surrounding area lit up like it’s daytime. There’s a lot of very confused birds flying round there. All we could do was peek from Racecourse Road, which we did for an hour or so. I guess we were too scared to go any closer, but honestly, I don’t think there’s much to see, just a lot of sentries and patrols wandering round. If anyone has any ideas of rolling up there in combat uniform and shooting their way in and rescuing everybody, I think they can go back to sleep. Fantasyland is for TV. This is real life.’
To be honest, which I swore I’d be, we’d all had those delusions at times. They were only daydreams, but they were powerful daydreams, to liberate our families, to fix everything, to be heroes. But in a secret, guilty way, of which I was ashamed, I felt relieved to have the daydream so firmly squashed. In reality the prospect of doing something like that was so horrifying and frightening that it made me ill to think of it. We would surely die if we tried it, die with our guts blown out and spread across the dirt of the Showground carpark, to have flies feed on us as we turned rotten in the sunlight. It was an image I couldn’t get out of my head, probably born from all the dead sheep I’d seen over the years.