The New Potters Inlet

15

The New Potters Inlet

    Blue Gums Ecolodge was now up and running in all its environmentally-friendly, hugely overpriced glory; but funnily enough not all those who heard about it evinced a burning desire to stay there. Not even with all the other amenities Potters Inlet could offer.

    Pete Outhwaite looked down his ugly nose. “I get it: after the lavender wraps and the mud baths up at this Blue Gums Ecolodge of yours, I’ll be able to nip down the road to enjoy classical music at the other dump—oh, and five-course gourmet meals, was forgetting them for a moment—and then a bit of gentlemanly pony trekking at the next dump!”

    To which George MacMurray replied with some feeling: “It’s not my ecolodge, mate!”

    “You built it, didn’t you?” returned his old mate sweetly.

    “Supervised. Yeah. All care and no responsibility. Belongs to this English hospitality outfit, YDI, that are owned by a huge Tokyo-based multinational, and no-one’s suggesting you stay there. Unless you happen to have a spare two thou’ or so on you? Per night,” he added evilly before Pete could utter.

    “Ee, by gum,” replied Pete in broadest Yorkshire. “She’ll be a reet sight for sore eyes, then!”

    Well though he knew him, George had to swallow. Pete was from Yorkshire—way back, that was. Been out in Australia for over thirty years, and he didn’t have an accent at all, apart from a few front A’s where you might not have expected them except that they were also a feature of the Sydney dialect, so no-one had noticed them except him, George, in fact his cloth-eared sister had asked him what he was talking about when he’d tried to point them out, plus the pronunciation “bee-coss” instead of “b’coz” or “b’cawz.”

    “Yeah,” he managed stolidly. “Sight for sore eyes is about it. But like I say, no-one’s asking you to stay there.”

    “Oh, bother, just when I had all this spare cash in my pockets, too!” Ignoring George’s glare, Pete turned out the pockets of his old but very clean grey cotton daks. A bunch of keys, one used bus ticket, one ten-dollar note, one five-cent piece and five—no, six—no, eight—was the man mad?—ten, eleven—eleven flaming fifty-cent pieces! It was a wonder he could walk under the weight of ’em, let alone that the pants had stayed up.

    “What are you hoarding fifty-cent pieces for?” croaked George.

    “My neighbours’ kid,” replied Pete literally. “He collects them: making up a set. I can never remember which ones he’s currently looking for, so I just—”

    “Save them all, yeah, yeah,” he groaned. “Thought your neighbours were Ole Man Sourpuss, on the one side, and Ole Man Sourpuss Mark Two and Mrs Mark on the other?”

    “Yeah. These ones live over the road. Equally choice, equally cream-rendered, but detached, with two-car garage, two storeys, and a giant cream-rendered portico out front that they never use beecoss of the connecting door to the house from the—”

    “Two-car garage; we know,” groaned George. “Half the country’s the same these days, can ya just drop it for two seconds, Pete?”

    “The affluent half,” Pete returned drily. “Okay, I’ve dropped it. Nevil, the kid’s name is. Nevil Phan. They’re Vietnamese Chinese: the parents came out as small kids with their parents, think it would’ve been the last wave of emigration after the Yanks pulled out. It’s interesting: they’ve both been out here longer than I have but although their English is fluent it’s almost incomprehensible, especially hers: it’s practically a pidgin. They still speak their Chinese language at home. When the kids let them get away with it, that is!” he added with a smothered laugh. “Nevil’s twelve and the girl’s fifteen. The dad’s in IT and the mum’s a librarian and the kids both go to nice private schools.”

    Crossly George replied to the sub-text: “You chose to live there, mate!”

    Pete shrugged. “Have to live somewhere, and everywhere else the land agent showed me was just as bad if not worse. Shouldn’t have made the mistake of admitting to my income bracket, should I?”

    “Look, stop changing the subject! Do you want to come up and stay at Dad’s place, or NOT?” shouted the driven George.

    “Not, if it entails genteel pony trekking or classical music concerts with the blue-rinsed set, thanks all the same.”

    “It doesn’t! It won’t! No-one’ll make you do anything, you nana!” he shouted.

    “Then I’ll come, thanks,” replied Pete cheerfully.

    George sagged. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Why couldn’t you have said so in the first place?”

    “Just checking. Thought you might have gone as up-market as Potters Road since you started working for these YDI types.”

    “The road hasn’t gone up-market, only what’s been plonked on it up the end. And I’m merely managing building projects,” said George heavily. “On site. Once the dumps are up I don’t set foot in them, geddit?”

    “Up and fully interior decorated?” he asked with friendly interest.

    George eyed him ironically. “You mean environmentally-friendily interior decorated, old mate, and the job does include checking out the interiors, but not the furnishings, thank God. Though Max, the architect, did show me round once all the garbage was in there. He doesn’t choose it all, mind, YDI’s got an Interior Design section, but he’s responsible for the overall conce—” He stopped to let Pete have hysterics. “—concept,” he finished feebly. “Yeah. Well, it’s mad, but it’s a niche market they’ve spotted and they’re doing bloody well out of it, and if eco-punters with more money than sense want to chuck their dough away on so-called ecolodges in the wilds of New South Wales, why not?”

    Pete blew his nose hard. “One could mention world poverty, the amount of good that Oxfam could do with two thou’ a night per head, or if we must be environmental, even the amount of good the World Wildlife Fund or whatever they’re calling themselves these days could do.”

    “Yeah. But at least the dumps mean a few jobs. Took us a year to put it up, ya know, and then there are the blokes making the furniture from recycled timber, and restoring the recycled furniture, and the lady that does glass tiles from recycled bottles—”

    “Commerce 101, eco-style,” said Pete faintly.

    “Yeah, all right, it’s the twenty-first century syndrome, but at least they’re not putting people out of work!”

    “Uh-huh. How close will they let us get to it?”

    George cleared his throat. “Nominally there’s nothing to stop you just wandering up their eco-friendly drive, old mate, only see, once you get up there, a bloke in environmental, organically grown, natural denim daks—”

    “Natural denim?” he croaked.

    “Uh-huh. Susan’s seen the same thing in an American Vogue. Once ya get up there he’ll ask you very nicely if he can help you, and remind you that it is all private property.”

    Pete had recovered his wind. “The manager, is he?”

    George’s shrewd brown eyes twinkled. “No, mate, he’s the security guard cum porter. With a bit of help in the garden in the off-season. You can tell ’e is, ’cos of ’is badge of office.” As Pete didn’t pick up this gauntlet he was forced to explain: “Huge broad-brimmed hat in natural straw, straight from Jamaica.”

    “Balls,” said Pete faintly.

    “No: Jamaica seemed to be the nearest place that was churning out these environmentally-friendly organic hats, Pete.”

    “The Philippines?”

    “Slave labour,” replied George simply.

    “Well, you do have a point. But what makes them imagine the Jamaican ones aren’t produced by slave labour?”

    “They get ’em through—” George broke down. “Ow! Help!” he gasped. “Oxfam!” he gasped finally, wiping his eyes.

    “Glad to hear it,” said Pete with a very feeble grin. “Can I get the launch up the inlet?”

    “Not as far as the settlement,” George admitted.

    “Why’d they call it Potters Inlet, then?”

    “Don’t ask me. Probably a better name than Drag-Everything-Overland-to-Nearest-Flat-Area-with-Water?” At this Pete choked, so George added generously: “You can get ’er up as far as the ecolodge, they’ve stuck a landing-stage down at the bottom of their bit of the promontory and between you and me, done a bit of quiet dredging while the council was looking the other way. The manager’s okay, he’ll let you moor ’er there if I ask him.”

    Pete took a deep breath.

    “’Cept ’tisn’t him what’s on guard out the front looking for trespassers,” said George quickly.

    “In his Jamaican hat,” agreed Pete evilly.

    “Right.”

    Pete took another deep breath. “I’ll get them in again, shall I?”

    “Thought you’d never ask,” agreed George happily.

    Pete stood up, gathering up their empty beer glasses. “Anybody ever tell you you’d drive a saint to drink, George?”

    “Me bloody ex, me sister Susan, and me sister Janice. Mum never seemed to notice, bless her, easiest-going woman in the world,” he said with a little sigh. “And Dad just used to threaten to clip me round the lughole if I got above meself. Well, still does!”

    “I’ll look forward to that, then,” said Pete smoothly, going off to the bar.

    George watched him rather glumly. They were in the so-called Senior Common Room of the uni where’d he’d once taught and where Pete, for his sins, still did. He was a really decent joker but since his wife and baby daughter had been killed in a frightful traffic accident getting on for twenty years back, hadn’t managed to take much interest in anything except his work. Well, there was the launch, but he hardly ever got out in her. Spent most of his holidays polishing his lecture notes and devising new tutorials. He was an industrial chemist with a higher degree in food technology and though he was terrifically up with all the latest freezing, freeze-drying, preserving and long-life food storage techniques, ironically never ate processed food himself. –No, well, possibly it was cause and effect.

    “The food at Springer House Restaurant’s okay,” George ventured, apropos, once the levels in the beer glasses had sunk appropriately.

    “Eh? Oh, the B&B place up Potters Road. Okay in whose terms, George?”

    “Look, can’t you accept a bloke’s say-so about anything?”

    “Not about food, no. Little piles of lukewarm, half-raw tuna mixed up with anything unlikely that’ll swear at it, diced mango’d do, make that diced mango and finely sliced baby fennel, dotted with capers and sprinkled with virgin olive oil and chopped chilli, and sitting on half-cooked radicchio lettuce—that the story?”

    George’s face had started out looking lofty and scornful but devolved into sheer repulsion. “Ugh! No! Half-cooked radicchio? No! David cooks real food! How does spit-roast lamb sound?”

    “Almost as good as spit-roast kid,” allowed Pete with his glass suspended halfway to his gob. “Really?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Has he got a wood oven?” he demanded tensely.

    “Yeah: big brick oven out the back—yeah.”

    “By God,” said Pete numbly.

    George smirked. “See?”

    “Why the Hell did you wait until now to tell me about it, George?” he demanded heatedly.

    “Eh? Aw. Well, we were doing up Dad’s place for ages: nowhere to stay up there except the poncy B&B with the wrinklies. I did ask you if you fancied a drive up there for a decent dinner last winter, and you turned me down flat,” he reminded him.

    “As I remember it, you said a nice dinner at the B&B’s restaurant: what the Hell was I supposed to think?”

    “Uh—oh. Sorry. You’ll just have to make up for lost time these summer holidays, eh?” said George comfortably.

    Pete sighed, but didn’t blast the idiot. “Yeah. Okay, I will.”

    “Finished your marking?” asked George kindly.

    “Ages ago.”

    Right, well, in his shoes George would have only just been starting the bloody stuff, but Pete wasn’t a procrastinator. Plus and he had nothing in his life, poor bugger. Not that George had been all that much better off before he’d taken the job as site manager for YDI’s ecolodge projects. But his version of living alone had entailed drinking too much beer, drinking too much wine—a drop of red washed down the frozen chips and sausages okay—and watching TV instead of getting on with his marking, while the dirty dishes piled up around him and the vacuum-cleaner drowsed at the back of a cupboard until Susan came round, discovered the mess, and found him a cleaning lady. Pete had the opposite temperament: the more miserable he got the more he plunged himself into pointless activity. That hideous two-bedroom cream-rendered townhouse of his was spotless from top to toe. Even washed the bloody windows regularly.

    George was really enjoying the job with YDI. However, the next project was down in Tazzie. YDI was gonna put him up in a motel and give him a meal allowance: not bad. The only problem was he didn’t really like to leave Dad on his ownsome. Jack was still boarding with him but although Gil was keen on him working for him and Phil, George couldn’t see that they’d be able to afford to pay him a living wage.

    “Remember the old Jardine place?” he said to Pete.

    “Uh—next one along from your father’s?”

    “Yeah. Even more run-down than Dad’s dump, last time you were up there: old Dave Jardine was in a nursing-home for yonks. Anyway, left it jointly to his niece and her boy and they’re turning it into a riding school and horse trek holiday place. Think they just thought of horse treks to start off with, only then it dawned that they’d have to teach the punters to sit on anyway, so they might as well make it official and make them pay for lessons.”

    “So the horse treks weren’t apocryphal?” said Pete on a weak note.

    “Uh—no. What I was gonna say, they’re looking for a cook. It’ll be pretty seasonal, of course. But they’re nice people. You wouldn’t know of anyone, would you? Just plain cooking: breakfasts, and something to vary the barbies they’re planning for tea.”

    “The kids that take my classes can’t do plain cooking,” replied Pete drily. “Those that don’t end up in the deep-freezing industry do sometimes work for large hotels, the sort that cater for huge conferences—you may well wince—or start their own restaurants, but it’s not plain cooking. Or even cooking. Uh—well, I’ll think about it. –Fancy a steak at Kooka’s?”

    George did fancy a steak, yes, and Kooka’s could certainly provide that. It was, admittedly, a relic: only really served steak and chips, with the occasional foray into sausages for those that fancied them. True, it was along the road and round the corner from a nice downtown hotel, but its little side street was dirty, dark and dingy, featuring the sides and backs of large buildings, complete with their loading docks, and something that was probably a knocking shop: its window was currently full of sex aids or, where it was illegal to display same, ads for them. Kooka’s clientele consisted of working blokes that had been coming there for years and had originally been brought by their dads, a few from the professional classes that had originally been brought by their dads, like George, and had managed to escape the little woman for the evening, and the very occasional daring tourist from the big hotel round the corner, enjoying a gen-yew-wine Awssie experience. It was that, all right. Wasn’t even licensed. Offered a choice of tap water, cups of tea or instant coffee, or, its one concession to the twenty-first century, Coke from a vending machine. Its steaks were, however, to die for, and Joe (more properly Son of Joe), made his own chips from real potatoes. If you insisted he’d do you a salad, consisting of a few limp lettuce leaves, some sliced tomato, and a quantity of tinned, sliced beetroot. Praise mayonnaise on the side.

    Over the steaks—juicy and tender as ever, while being dark brown and crisp on the outside, there was no use at all in wondering how Joe did it because George already knew he, George, couldn’t—Pete asked him about the Jardine place. So he told him. True, the bloke did stop him in his flow to ask suspiciously, why, if this Honey Jardine was so nice, he hadn’t staked a claim, and he needn’t think he was gonna push her off onto him, but on George’s replying heatedly: “She is a nice woman, but she’s not my type! And I wouldn’t wish you and your fucking manic window-washing on anyone half as decent, if ya wanna know! So just leave it out! Do you wanna hear the rest of it, or not?” agreed pacifically he did, and he would leave it out. Adding kindly it sounded as if she’d had more than her share of bad luck. Mollified, George agreed she had, poor bloody cow.

    “You’re not telling me,” croaked Pete Outhwaite at the conclusion of the narrative, “that this pair of babes in the wood are setting up a horse trekking enterprise by themselves?”

    “Eh? No! Young Phil came out—um, shit, three years back? Think so. Before me or Jack ever got the jobs with YDI—yonks before the ecolodge idea came up, actually. No, Phil’s uncle’s managing the horse treks, it’s all being done on a proper basis.”

    “Right. Who’s Jack, again?” he groped.

    “I said! Kiwi bloke that’s staying at Dad’s place. Been doing site foreman on the project. Come on, let’s go back to your dump and knock back a few and I’ll give ya the dinkum oil. If you’ve got any in.”

    Pete admitting that he did have, they did that.

    The hilarious saga of Jack Jackson’s introduction to Australia had outlasted the beer and it had been pretty late when George and Pete got to bed. George had sort of expected the bugger might be up at crack of dawn, but surprisingly enough he wasn’t. He did, of course, strip his bed, replace the cover neatly, and pack a holdall with manic precision, but George MacMurray, sitting limply on a bedside chair, had to admit that if he hadn’t it would have shortened his, George’s, life by ten years. The chair, incidentally, seemed to be purely decorative—unless perhaps the girlfriends had been allowed to dump their things on it over the years? There had been girlfriends, Pete wasn’t unnatural, but once it dawned he was more capable round the house than they were and a far, far better cook, the relationships all died the death.

    They were assured of a berth at the landing stage, because Pete had made George ring Blue Gums Ecolodge’s manager even before he’d made him eat the homemade muesli with sunflower seeds, cashew nuts, tiny pieces of dried pawpaw—George had seen it in the dried goods sections of supermarkets, usually next to the burghul that ruddy Susan bought with monotonous regularity, but he hadn’t known until the first time he’d been favoured with Pete’s idea of breakfast why anybody would buy it—and the remains of a punnet of strawberries from the fridge, which, as the muesli also used up the last of the milk, Pete was then able to turn off and wipe out. Jesus!

    “If we take the boat, how’ll you get your car up there?” worried Pete.

    “I won’t need the car, we’ll use Dad’s heap,” said George heavily. “Not that there’s anywhere to go, except the pub, and that’s within walking distance. And if we need to come back to the city we’ll use the launch, geddit? Can we go? Or do you need to rush out and manicure that poisonous lawn of yours first?”

    “No… I’ll just let Julie Phan know I’ll be away,” he decided.

    “Won’t they be away?” said George heavily.

    “No, they’re not going away this year, because her mum and the brother and his family—”

    George stopped listening.

    The maniac then had a confab with Mrs Phan. It entailed showing her how to use his letterbox, apparently, and a short lecture, judging by the gestures, on his alarm system—there was nothing much in the dump to steal, unless you imagined that thieves would want his horrible soulless furniture and his null oatmeal rugs and his antique TV that he hardly ever bothered to watch. He did have a laptop but that was apparently coming with them. Well, perhaps the thieves would penetrate to the basement area behind the garage and discover his exercise machines and the CD player that lived down there with them. Though George would take a hefty bet they wouldn’t be interested in his jazz CDs. And if they opened those null oatmeal cupboards his lounge-room was full of they’d be disappointed, because they merely held his books. –Bookcases gathered dust and therefore it was more sensible to put in a giant set of custom-designed cupboards that would be a real deterrent to his ever being able to sell the dump. However, building them had kept him happy and busy for a whole winter, there had been a silver lining. Though it was true that two-metre-high featureless cupboards on three out of four sitting-room walls had helped put the girlfriends off.

    As Pete had sussed out all the marinas and their charges within a hundred-K radius of Sydney before choosing the one farthest away from his place, it took a while to get there. Fortunately it was on the same side of the city as the network of inlets that eventually wound its way inland to the insignificant finger of the sea that was Potters Inlet proper. This coincidence meant they wouldn’t have to cross the vast expanse of Sydney Harbour. Not that George would really have minded, it was a lovely day. And gee, after everything on a boat that could be checked had been checked, they actually went. George didn’t ask to take the wheel, he just sat limply on the maniac’s sparkling white vinyl upholstery and sagged. He was fond of good old Pete, but maybe it was a mistake asking him up to Dad’s dump for Christmas.

    There was a bit of a choppy swell—well, it was the Tasman, and the further north you got at this time of year the more likely you were to run into the tail end of cyclone weather, but that wasn’t gonna happen, because some time before George had woken up Pete had checked the weather report and there were no gale warnings. However, the swell was enough to keep Pete occupied. So it wasn't until they were in the calm of the inlets that he said: “This ecolodge of yours is in the bushfire belt; these Pommy bosses of yours did do a proper risk management assessment, did they?”

    “Yeah,” replied George on a dry note. “Then they wrote up a giant risk management plan, about a hundred and sixty pages of it, what by the time you’d read it you’d be burnt to a crisp, and all the guests along with you, but yeah.”

    “Right,” replied Pete stolidly, unmoved. “And these horse trekkers—what did you say they’re calling themselves?”

    “Jardine Holiday Horse Treks. What about them?’

    “If they’re planning to have a bunkhouse full of guests, what about their risk management plan?”

    He was, of course, perfectly serious. George swallowed a sigh. “No idea. Push them all into their cars and tell them to get the Hell out of it, probably. There will be warnings if there’s any danger.”

    Unmoved, Pete replied stolidly: “How long are the bush treks?”

    “As long as it takes to get a dozen very green greenhorns out for a picnic lunch, and back!”

    “Oh, so they’re only one-day things?”

    “YES!”

    “Dunno that I’d call them treks, then,” he replied, unmoved.

    “It isn’t the Outback,” said George with a sigh. “They’re not aiming to offer them the great adventure holiday of a lifetime, just a bit of gentle riding. Hoping to get family groups.”

    “I see. Do they take outsiders?” he asked thoughtfully.

    “Eh? I dare say if you want to jog along for a picnic and they’ve got a spare horse, they’ll let ya come, Pete,” he said feebly.

    “Good. I’ve never ridden a horse,” he said thoughtfully.

    George quailed. Was the exercise machine mania about to give way to a horse riding mania? “In that case I’m sure Phil or his uncle would be very happy to teach you at their usual rate.”

    “Good.” He plunged into a description of some bloody faked-up Outback roundup thing for dudes he’d read about, but George just stared placidly at the Inlet and didn’t listen.

    … “You ought to come; do you good!”

    George jumped. “No, I didn’t ought; I don’t need to be done good with saddle sores and a wrecked back, thanks. And I hate horses: they huff at you.”

    “Just as ya like. –That the ecolodge?”

    George winced as a large modern palace hove into sight high on the dark blue-green bush-clad bank now towering above them. “No. We’re still in the holiday home belt. Keep going. Oh, and don’t turn left at the fork.”

    “Okay.” He headed on in silence for some time and then said simply: “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

    It was that, all right. The water was blue and placid as a mill pond, the shore was steep, virtually inaccessible, and heavily bushed, and the sky was pure azure. “Yep,” agreed George contentedly.

    They pottered on. “Could get in some fishing,” said Pete in a dreamy voice.

    “Uh-huh. No barra’ hereabouts, but there’d be a few salt water species. It’s salt all the way up to the creek, but it gets pretty shallow. The creek’s nothing much. Few yabbies, if you’re very lucky.”

    “How do you catch them?”

    George’s jaw sagged for a moment, and then he remembered that good old Pete hadn’t spent his tenderest years out here. “There are various techniques, old mate. Long piece of string and a bit of steak nicked from your mum’s fridge is a favourite with the under-ten set. Cut it up small with your Swiss Army knife and let it get really stinky in the heat. The more sophisticated attack is with a net, not infrequently made from your mum’s good tights. Or ya could just wade in with a bucket, might get lucky.”

    “I see!” he said with a laugh. “But aren’t they a delicacy?”

    George sighed. “In the poncy nosh houses of Sydney, yes. Not once you get away from the metropolitan areas.’

    “Right. Have you ever caught any in your creek?”

    “Not since I was eleven, and me and Ginge Patterson had the brilliant idea of damming the creek, waiting until they swam into the ponding area, then blocking off the other end so as they couldn’t escape. We’d had a very wet spring and the creek was well up. We caught fifteen yabbies and flooded the main road, a feat unequalled in the annals of Potters Inlet until just a couple of years back, when Steve Macdonald’s bloody boys did the exact same thing. Well, the dam and the flood,” he said above Pete’s choking fit. “Don’t think they caught any yabbies, and this wouldn't be surprising, ’cos fifteen yabbies, ten of which were females laden with eggs, would tend to represent a rather large proportion of the breeding population of a very small creek.”

    Pete stopped choking. “Shit.”

    “Yeah, that was what Dad said, but by that time Mum had bunged the things in the pot.”

    “How did she do them?” the Pommy nong asked with interest.

    George sighed heavily. “Boiled. Then we ate them with white bread and yer actual butter; goddit?”

    “Right! Sounds like Paradise on earth!” admitted Pete with a laugh.

    “It was, pretty much… Shared between four of us, what’s more: Janice can't eat seafood, got an allergy, so even though they’re freshwater Mum decided better safe than sorry, so she had strawberry jam with white bread and butter,” he recalled. “Homemade. Gran’s.”

    “Look, stop it! I made the mistake of buying a pot of strawberry jam the other day. An expensive brand, too.” He made a face.

    “Food acid by the bucketload, far too much sugar that still doesn’t manage to counteract the acid, and something horrible to make it set,” returned George promptly.

    “Yes. Well, probably only pectin: it was a good brand. But Jesus! I don’t remember bought jam being that bad when I was growing up: I’m sure the British brands didn’t have that much food acid!”

    “Dare say they didn’t,” agreed George calmly. “But if ya want real jam you could speak nicely to David, the chef at Springer House.”

    “He makes his own jam?” whispered Pete.

    “Yeah. –Look out!” he shouted as the boat veered in towards the bank under Pete’s slackened grasp on the wheel.

    Hurriedly Pete steered them back into the channel. “Sorry. It’s getting pretty shallow, isn’t it?”

    “Yeah. Mind ya keep to the channel. We’re nearly there.”

    It took about another half hour and then they were able to tie up at a small, very spick-and-span jetty below a lowish promontory. Pete concluded that the something rich and strange glimpsed amidst the bush as they approached was Blue Gums Ecolodge.

    “Right, now, this here’s Vince, that manages the place,” said George in a lowered voice as a figure in carefully casual pale trousers topped by a carefully casual cream short-sleeved, open-necked shirt and a cream Panama hat was seen to be descending the spick-and-span steps down the cliff. “Gay, but he’s all right. Not taken in by any of the nonsense he dishes out to the punters. –Gidday, Vince!” he added loudly as the man came towards them, smiling. “Thanks for letting us tie up here!”

    “That’s okay, George, just don’t let it get back to Sir Maurice!” returned Vince with a laugh. –This evidently made sense to George: he gave a snigger.

    The exchange had given Pete the time to verify the fact that the well-cut daks were, in fact, jeans. Natural denim, yep. God knew what the shirt was: possibly silk, but presumably it wasn’t churned out from a Chinese factory full of child labourers. Likewise the Panama wouldn't have been made by slave labour in Panama. The sandals were good, too. The Indian sort, with an extra loop for the big toe. They’d be hand-made, possibly by Untouchables, Pete rather thought, because Hindus weren’t allowed to touch cowhide, were they? Uh—not “Untouchables”, these days, but he’d forgotten what you were supposed to call them. As it meant the same thing the whole exercise was pointless, but then, the renaming of almost anything you cared to think of over the last thirty years in the cause of equality, non-discrimination, non-racism and non-sexism and just plain non-ism, was pointless, wasn’t it? A rose by any other name—quite.

    “Gidday, Vince,” he said as George introduced them. “Those’d be environmentally friendly sandals straight from Mother Theresa’s workshop, would they?’

    “No, from an orphanage in Sri Lanka,” the bloke replied, poker-face. “The older kids make them after school, it helps to buy books.”

    Pete gave in and grinned. “Glad to hear it.”

    “Don’t blame Vince, he’s just an employee, same as me,” noted George.

    “Wouldn’t dream of blaming him! Actually, I was wondering about the ecolodge’s beds, Vince.”

    “Look, drop it, Pete!” cried George.

    “That’s okay. Ya couldn’t give me as much stick as that lot down the road have,” replied Vince cheerfully. “Well, the bedsteads are all recycled or made from fully recycled materials—we’ve got several made from old doors, the wood’s come up a treat. But the mattresses are inner-spring extra-large ones. The argument is that the ecolodge’ll get four-star status—it’s four green leaves, actually—if we use renewable resources and local materials and limit our usage of disposable items as much as possible. Head Office have decided in their wisdom that expensive factory-made mattresses have gotta count either as very limited use of non-disposables, or as recyclable.”

    “Right,” agreed George with a certain satisfaction. “Ever tried to get rid of a bed, mate?”

    “No,” said Pete groggily: he was still knocked out by the green leaves bit.

    “It’s impossible to recycle them. Susan tried, not long since. Perfectly good bed, hardly used, it had been in her spare room that she was turning into a studio for her craft shit. None of the charities’ll take mattresses these days, ’cos they could be sued if somebody caught something from them. And ditto for padded bases. Insurance costs for organisations likely to incur personal injury suits have gone up astronomically in the last few years, ya see. In the end Susan hadda pay a bloke to take the thing to an authorised tip.”

    “In other words recycling’s the bloody piece of hypocrisy I always thought it was!” replied Pete viciously. “The buggers have discovered they can make money out of waste paper and glass and plastic, not to mention scrap metal. Poor little Julie Phan over the road recycles all her fucking bottle tops religiously, and if the kids have a can of Coke she makes them rinse it out and then put the tab inside it!”

    “I’d say recycling’s better than using up more irreplaceable raw materials,” said George mildly.

    “Yeah,” agreed Vince.

    “If one’s aware that the recyclers’ motives have nothing to do with saving the planet—possibly,” returned Pete evilly.

    “Drop, it Pete. You’re on holiday,” said George with a sigh. “And before we get up there, just be warned that there’s nothing you can say about the ecolodge that the locals haven’t already thought of—eh, Vince?”

    “Yeah. It is silly, but the rich overseas tourists like it, Pete,” he explained kindly. “Never mind: like George says, it’s keeping a few of us in work.”

    “Mm,” agreed Pete, smiling at him. “Have you been in hospitality management long, Vince?”

    Happily Vince, leading the way up the steps—not environmental anything but solid concrete, though the stout railings were heavy wood, possibly recycled, though Pete Outhwaite wouldn’t have taken a bet on it—explained that he had, yes, but in big hotels, and what he was really aiming at was owning his own ecolodge in the future, so when the job with YDI was advertised he’d jumped at it. They had six suites in the main building, Pete, he explained, and one exclusive cabana, which was proving very popular, so Max, the architect, was going to design another, along the same lines but slightly different, big enough for four, as they’d already had several groups asking about that.

    “Are these rich overseas eco-tourists into wife-swapping, then?” said Pete groggily as they reached the top of the cliff.

    “No, it was well-off Aussies that asked,” he replied tranquilly. “There it is. You get a reasonable view from here, but of course part of the brief was to preserve as much of the native vegetation as possible.”

    “Yeah. –Ignore that dandelion, it’s not a native,” added George drily.

    Pete hadn’t even noticed the dandelion: he was gaping at the view of Blue Gums Ecolodge beyond its sheltering scraggy gums, wispy acacias and even wispier melaleucas. “Are those arches adobe?” he croaked.

    “Nah, rammed earth,” drawled George. “Raw inside, too, of course, they’re a feature. The lower section of the walls and those pillars are sandstone, from an old warehouse, and the wood’s all recycled. Allowed to weather naturally, see?”

    “In the searing Australian heat?” he croaked. “How much of it’ll be left in ten years’ time?”

    “Very little, realistically,” George conceded, “but see, YDI will’ve made its pile out of the dump by then. If it’s still a goer, dare say they’ll replace the timber with a bit more recycled stuff.”

    “Right,” he said groggily, peering upwards. There were several gables, at different levels, but he couldn’t see from this angle what they were roofed with. “What’s the roof made of?”

    “Shingles, in between the solar panels.”

    “Wooden shingles,” said Pete limply.

    “That’s the definition of shingles, old mate. Come on, we’ll show you the recycled bottles.”

    By this time Pete was prepared for anything, but actually the “recycled bottles” turned out to be heavy glass tiles, mainly green with a few blue ones, used variously as small, square windows or slim panels slotted in between heavy chunks of the recycled timber. There were also some small windows of uncoloured glass with tiny bubbles through it. However, the suites’ main features for views and ventilation were louvered sliding wooden doors opening onto their balconies.

    “In theory,” said George, “you open those planters’ shutters on either side of your suite and get the natural ventilation.”

    “And the natural flies and mozzies,” added Vince before Pete could.

    “Well, yeah!” he agreed with feeling.

    “See, the architect’s a Pom, and that hadn’t dawned,” said George with a certain relish. “So we’ve compromised. Sliding fly-screens outside all the planters’ shutters, level with the outside of the frames, while the shutters are level with the inside. Did entail a certain redrawing of spessies, before you ask.”

    “Recycled fly-screens?” he croaked.

    “Nah, couldn’t manage that—well, ever seen really old fly-screen mesh? –Yeah. But the frames are. Mostly old mouldings. Shoved them in a bath of environmentally unfriendly stripper and they come up a treat!”

    Oddly, it was Vince who collapsed in sniggers at this point, not Pete.

    “I can’t even laugh, George,” he confessed feebly.

    “Hypocrisy is the hallmark of the twenty-first century,” replied George calmly. “Can Pete have a dekko at the inside, Vince?”

    Since Pete was in very old but very, very clean and, alas, ironed jeans, and a spanking-clean white tee-shirt that looked as if it was straight out of the shop, and George himself was relatively respectable, since he’d had people to see in town, Vince replied nicely: “Yes, of course,” and led them into the main block.

    Yes, well. The most striking feature—though all were rich and strange—was the natural dry clay of the giant rammed-earth archways, a couple of which, on the outer integument of the structure, might be helping to hold the roof up, but a couple more of which, inside, definitely weren’t. “Defining the space,” said George neutrally.

    “Yeah,” agreed Pete feebly.

    The sandstone flooring of the spacious main lobby cum lounge cum bar cum dining-room—it was all open-plan—was nice but possibly superfluous. And as for the furniture that was scattered around…

    “See, Sir Maurice, he likes the driftwood look,” explained Vince clearly.

    “Yuh—um, yeah, Vince. Does he?” said Pete numbly, looking at a coffee table that was definitely made of a hunk of misshapen driftwood, with a hunk of presumably recycled bubble glass sitting on it. Two inches thick, well, if that was how the eco-punters fancied their coffee tables— “I have seen coffee tables done in it before,” he managed, “but the armchairs?”

    George went into a muffled sniggering fit, emerging from it to reveal: “Bloke up in Byron Bay’s made a fortune from stuff like that. Started off with sculptures, realised the error of ’is ways when ’e made a coffee table as a one-off and three lots of punters just about came to blows over it, and now ’e can’t make enough of the stuff.”

    “Clever, aren’t they?” said Vince cheerfully. “Weird as well, of course,” he added sotto voce as two eco-clients hove into sight. Pale fawn safari shorts, pale fawn safari jackets, giant pale fawn desert boots with the khaki socks rolled down above ’em, and gigantic Akubras that might shade the face and neck from the Australian sun but that Pete Outhwaite would take his dying oath would make the head hot as Hell. Absolutely hadda be Americans.

    “Americans,” said George very, very quietly as Vince hurried over to them and they greeted him by name with cries of joy and began to ask him about the local tourist facilities.

    “Uh-huh. Are there any?”

    “Eh? Oh! Um, well, like he’s telling ’em, Bob Springer’s bush ramble track, the horse trekking, and Springer House Art & Crafts Centre.”

    Vince was also mentioning the signposted bush walking tracks on the property and the launch trips: Pete just nodded numbly. After a moment he muttered, since Vince seemed to be occupied with the Americans and their map: “Blue Mountains?”

    “Ya can get there quite easy from here, yeah, only if ya want to actually see anything, ya need to stay the night. They do run two-day tours, get back about four in the morning of what’s technically day three, or three-day tours, get back—”

    “Yeah, yeah.”

    “No, have half a day over there and get back that evening.”

    “Mm.” Pete looked thoughtfully at a gigantic puffy sofa, the cushions all covered in spotless cream canvas, the wooden frame putatively recycled wreck timbers—there were certainly aged bolts in it at unexpected places, complete with their genuine rust stains. “I’d love to see a suite.”

    “We can ask. Dunno if there’ll be an empty one, though, it’s the busy season. But it’s all more of the same.”

    “Cream canvas bedspreads?”

    “No; ya got a choice of genuine handmade quilts produced by the local artisans—that’s a green leaf all on its own—or handwoven organic cotton whatsits from Wherever.”

    The colour scheme was, apart from the touches of blue and green provided by the recycled glass windows and panels—very pretty from inside—cream, sandstone and bleached wood, with the addition of ochre in the giant arches, so Pete was able to reply: “I’ll grant you the cotton whatsits, but wouldn’t quilts, even handmade, be much too colourful?”

    “Nope, these are all very tasteful ones, Pete.”

    Pete went into a muffled sniggering fit, clapping his hand over his mouth. Though emerging from it able to ask, albeit weakly: “Don’t they realise that grass trees hate being in pots, inside?”

    “Sir Maurice ordained grass trees, so grass trees it is. Don’t think anyone worked up the guts to tell him they’re not native to NSW. We’re all just waiting for the things to croak,” replied George cheerfully.

    “Yeah. Who is he?”

    “Head honcho of YDI in London, and chief sucker-up to the Jap group that owns the lot.”

    “Right,” said Pete faintly as a pair of Japanese tourists in impeccable ironed, in fact knife-edged safari suits, appeared in the lobby looking lost.

    “I never said that, by the way.”

    “No. –Oh! The abbreviation? No, too right: you don’t want to lose the job when you’ve only just got the permanent appointment, George.”

    “No,” he agreed. They watched silently. The Americans exited, apparently satisfied, and Vince greeted the Japanese couple with a bow and began looking at their map and explaining things…

    “Are all the guests middle-aged, George?”

    George jumped, he’d been immersed in the drama. Apparently Vince only spoke a couple of words of Japanese and the male Japanese thought he could speak English. Mrs so far hadn’t uttered but she was starting to look, popular myths to the contrary, very narked with the bloke.

    “Uh—well, they’ve only just opened, but so far, yeah.”

    “Right. That socio-economic group,” he said weakly. “I’d say they really need a Japanese-speaker on the staff.”

    “Yeah. They advertised, but they didn’t get any receptionists cum interpreters that wanted to spend their lives working in Outer Woop-Woop, Pete, there’s nothing here for young people, ya know.”

    “No, right. What about their chef?”

    “He doesn’t speak Japanese, either.”

    “Not that! Is he gonna stick it in Outer Woop-Woop? Most of them are used to the metropolitan scene, with all the chi-chi nosh-houses at one another’s throats, opening and closing like swing doors and nicking one another’s chefs, and all the socialising and back-knifing over the short blacks under the café umbrellas that go with it.”

    “Graphic,” said George drily.

    “A lot of them are my former students, you nit, or the bosses of the current students.”

    “Yeah. Well, remains to be seen if he’ll stick it. So far he seems happy enough devising dainty little fully organic plates of this, that and the other, sprinkled with tiny dots of virgin olive oil. Dunno if the guests realise he doesn’t do the fully organic brekkies; that’s Di Patterson from Barrabarra—my old mate Ginge’s wife. They mainly want tropical fruit, apparently. Well, mangos, pineapples and pawpaws. YDI costed getting yer genuine mangosteens and custard apples and South American unpronounceables down from North Queensland and Sir Maurice blew a gasket at the sight of the figures.”

    “Babacos?”

    “Babacos to you too, mate!”

    “No, I mean they’re easy to grow and they don’t require a tropical climate like pawpaws—they’re a related species.”

    “Pete,” said George heavily, “all you grow in that nightmare of a suburban dump of yours is two-millimetre high Sir Walter, so shut it.”

    Ignoring this, Pete began to tell him about some article he’d read in the flaming Organic Gardener, but George just shut his ears and stared thoughtfully at a very nice specimen of lemon myrtle, about two metres tall, that it was his bet was gonna croak in that pot within three months.

    They did eventually get a look at a suite. Pete admired the high gabled ceilings with their recycled timber beams but couldn’t refrain from asking whether giant ceiling fans driven by electricity were supposed to be more environmental than air conditioning driven by ditto. George didn’t bother to counter this with a summary of the relative greenhouse gas emissions, he just told him soothingly that the eco-punters expected fans, but the air-con was there if they fancied it, and the notice about it being driven by the ecolodge’s solar panels wasn’t intended to imply that the fans weren’t and, thanking Vince nicely, led him firmly away.

    “Those Jacuzzis…” said Pete slowly as they strolled down the environmental unpaved drive.

    “The whole of Potters Inlet, in fact Potters Inlet and Barrabarra together have spotted that one, mate, so can it!”

    “Okay, but just tell me how much of this native vegetation was bought in.”

    George cleared his throat. “Well, a few of the prettier acacias—they’ll give the guests hay fever, but no-one consulted me—um, the odd clump of tea-tree—well, Hell, the nurseries are full of the bloody things these days—and quite a few lemon myrtles. Otherwise it might be a bit difficult to take the guests on a guided bush walk and casually pick a bit of bush tucker, because—”

    Pete had broken down in helpless splutters.

    “—because the bush hereabouts doesn’t grow anything edible,” finished George with relish.

    “Yeah,” he said, removing his sunnies and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Added to which, if you buy a certified lemon myrtle from a specialist nursery you don’t risk poisoning the clients.”

    “Yep.”

    “I’d like to see their insurance premiums,” he said thoughtfully.

    George shuddered. “With a load of Yank clients? I wouldn’t!”

    “Mm. How much did you say they charge per night?’

    “Two thou’.”

    “Per room?”

    “No, per person, mate. The cabana’s more, only I dunno how much.”

    “We missed that,” he said sadly.

    “It’s more of the same. Vince doesn’t encourage gawpers when it’s occupied, one of its selling-points is its privacy. Well, privacy with hot and cold running butlers.”

    “Right. Well, say fourteen clients a night if they’re full… Okay, they’d be clearing at least a hundred and fifty-six thou’ a week, but with the salaries and overheads, and if they’re feeding them on all-organic produce… I’d say they’ll have to do fairly well in the off-season as well if they want to make a profit.”

    George shrugged. “Dare say. Not my worry, once the place is commissioned.”

    They had now reached the bottom of the drive and Pete was looking about him in a puzzled way.

    “What?” sighed George.

    “Well, um, that’s a peppermint gum, Eucalyptus piperata, I think, and those are stringybarks, and the big one up near the ecolodge is an ironbark, but I haven’t seen any blue gums. Um, the Tasmanian blue gum, Eucalyptus globulus.”

    “Sir Maurice chose the name, and the little people don’t argue, geddit?”

    “Yeah,” said Pete feebly.

    “The punters won’t know the diff’, mate!”

    “No,” said Pete feebly. “Is this environmentally friendly sign that says ‘Blue Gums Ecolodge, Private Property’ yer actual pokerwork?”

    “Yeah, they commissioned it off Deanna Springer, she’s a whizz with the pokerwork machine, and before you ask, them gum leaves on it are genuine generic gum leaves!”

    “All right, I’ll shut up,” said Pete meekly to the sub-text.

    “Do that,” agreed George.

    They strolled slowly on down the road. After a bit Pete remarked with relief that at least the ecolodge types hadn’t got the council to upgrade it, and George replied that no, bumping up the road in the four-wheel-drive that had fetched them from the airport was part of the genuine eco-experience.

    Potters Road had always featured a lot of clay banks, with a few scattered letterboxes as to its higher side, on their right at the moment, and merely the typical sparse vegetation of the Australian bush, eucalypts and scattered scraggy undergrowth, as to its lower. After a bit they reached the entrance to Springer House. The old clay drive had been gravelled and there was a nicely painted wooden sign advertising the B&B and restaurant, and the letterbox was new, but nothing else had been changed. Pete sagged visibly. George smiled, just a little, but said nothing. Further on down the road they reached the entrance to Springer House Art & Crafts Centre: another attractive sign, more gravel, and two neat letterboxes. The vegetation, what there was of it, appeared untouched.

    “You can’t see it from the road,” said George kindly. “We could go round later, but let’s get home: I’m starving.”

    “We should have packed a picnic lunch,” replied Pete.

    “Balls. Real men don’t pack picnic lunches. What we should have brought was a few stubbies, instead of that ruddy spring water of yours!”

    “That would have given us real headaches, out on the water with no solid food.”

    “Yeah, yeah. Dad’ll have something, even if it’s only tinned spaghetti with them horrible little squashy sausages, so come on!”

    “I was just wondering why there were two letterboxes,”  he replied, coming on.

    “Eh? Oh; one for Bernie and Ann at the crafts centre, and one for David and Dot: the chef at Springer House Restaurant,” George reminded him.

    “I see. Is it a private road, then?”

    “Eh? Don’t think so. Um, well, it’s all on Bob Springer’s property, but, um, well, I’d class it as a drive,” said George feebly.

    Pete immediately plunged into a dissection of what they might or might not have had to get permission from the council for in order to erect two buildings up a drive that might possibly have to be reclassified as a private road, but George just closed his ears. Not pointing out that if you counted Ann’s hen house and garden shed, and David’s garden shed, and the sort of large, um, roofed pergola from Mitre 10, or, um, outsize carport from Mitre 10, where they held their open-air concerts—mainly colour-steel with a few steel posts—and the two garages, there were actually six more structures up there. Plus the cubby that good old Jack had built for David’s and Dot’s little Rose, using the same pattern as what he’d used for the one he’d done for RightSmart.

    Some distance further on, another gravelled drive heading up the slope between two banks of rocky clay was discovered, and another notice: “Jardine Holiday Horse Treks Pty Ltd.” Together with a very new letterbox, in fact it had a piece of broken board beside it bearing the legend “wet Paint”.

    “Jack will’ve made that for them,” discerned George.

    “Aren’t they handy, then?”

    “Ya could say that, mate! –Oops, look out,” he warned, standing well back as an ancient pick-up truck came rattling up the road, turned in at the driveway, and pulled up.

    “Hullo, George! So you’re back!” said a cheerful young voice in the sort of very posh accent which Pete Outhwaite had been under the impression he’d left behind for good, together with the class prejudice that went with it, thirty-odd years ago. Oh, shit! Why hadn’t that idiot, George, warned him that these Poms were your huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ sort? Um, maybe he had, in amongst the general garbage, but actually Pete had been concentrating more on the bits about Honey Jardine. Um, well, he had said the boy’s family was well off, yeah.

    “Yep, come up in Pete’s launch. This is Pete,” explained George.

    The blond boy grinned at Pete. “Phil Sotherland.”

    “Hullo, Phil. Pete Outhwaite,” replied Pete glumly.

    At this the older man in the passenger’s seat leaned over and said with a laugh: “We know, Pete! We’ve heard all about you! Glad you could make it. I’m this object’s uncle: Gil Sotherland.”

    “Good to met you, Gil,” lied Pete glumly. His was the sort of voice that made you feel you oughta salute. Ugh.

    “On your way to Andy’s, are you? Er, maybe I should warn you, George, your sister Susan’s turned up,” said Gil neutrally.

    “What? Shit!” shouted George, turning very red. “She swore she wasn’t gonna— Well, where’s Jack staying?”

    “Kipping in our bunkhouse.”

    “Is it finished, then?”

    “No, but he’s kipping in it. We tried to make him come in the house but he wouldn’t,” put in the boy.

    “Well, you are a bit full up, aren’t you, Phil?” replied George lamely. “Ted still with you? –Right. And is Honey up here?”

    “Not yet, Barry and Kyle won’t let her off till the Christmas rush is over.”

    “Christmas rush! –They run a flaming junk shop,” said George sourly to Pete.

    “You said,” he agreed.

    “It’s a rush in their terms!” said Phil with a laugh. “Anyway, I said to Jack that he could use Mummy’s room, she wouldn’t mind, but he wouldn’t. So me and Jen thought we could go in there, and he could use the sitting-room, just until she comes, and hopefully we’ll have finished the interior of the bunkhouse by then, but he just told us not to be mad.”

    “It appears to be a commonplace of the Kiwi vernacular,” said Gil in a very prim voice. “’Don’t be mad,’” he quoted.

    “Ya don’t say,” replied Pete grimly. “I think it’s pretty much a commonplace of the Australian vernacular, too, or maybe my ear’s just become accustomed beecoss I’ve been out here for thirty years, but anyway, I understood it without any difficulty whatsoever, funnily enough.”

    To this the bugger merely replied calmly: “Yorkshire, Pete?”

    “Once, yeah. Not the bits of it you’d know.”

    Gil rubbed his chin. “Done a few twenty-mile slogs in freezing weather up on the moors, with fifty pounds of kit on my back, in my time. Apart from that, I’ve visited York—beautiful, isn’t it? And, um, stayed with a friend near a small town called Great Driffield, once. Pretty country round there. Wolds, are they?”

    “The locals might call them that but the rest of the country calls them moors. This stay with a friend, it woulda been at the big house, would it? –Great Greenwold,” said Pete sourly. “Went round it with a coachload of trippers when I went back to see the relations a few years back, oohing and aahing at the cabinets full of old Worcester and the Regency furniture.”

    “Well, the bits the family live in are full of ancient basket chairs lined with sagging floral cushions, but yes, Great Greenwold is Colin’s family’s home,” replied Gil smoothly.

    “Right: that takes you off with a hiss and a boo,” said George heavily, grabbing the idiot’s arm. “Come on, let’s get some solid nosh down you before you actually bite someone’s leg. –See ya!” he said firmly to the Sotherlands, dragging Pete forcibly away. “Honestly, Pete!” he said heatedly once they were well down the road. “What was all that about?”

    “Dunno,” replied Pete morosely. “All the old class prejudice came back to me in a rush. It’s the way he talks, I think. Who the fuck is he? And why in God’s name is he out here?”

    “Gil? He’s a very decent joker, so you can drop the class prejudice shit entirely. Had a lot of rotten luck, got shot up in Iraq. I’ll tell you the rest, if ya like, but not before you’ve got some solid nosh down you! And if it is Dad’s spaghetti and squashy sausages, you’ll eat it and like it!”

Next chapter:

https://theroadtobluegums.blogspot.com/2022/11/up-road.html