Back of Beyond and Back

Braking hard, Harold Johnstone brought the car to a slithering, sliding halt on the rough gravel road. As the dust settled he climbed from behind the wheel to find the gate that barred his way was secured by a heavy chain and a large padlock; a small notice read 'Private Property - Keep Out.' He could travel no further along this road and he had no idea where he was.

He was a tall, undistinguished looking man with a middle-age pot belly and greying hair. His white shirt and dark grey trousers showed the dust of travel and he was angry. Not as irate now as he had been when he stalked out of the house early in the morning, climbed into the car and began mindlessly driving as though the car would carry him away from his problems. Nor was he as ill-tempered as when he was booked for speeding at a police radar trap west of Sydney but he still seethed with a dull anger.

Leaning on the gate he looked out over the wide, treeless plain at a mob of
cattle grazing in the middle distance and a line of low, blue hills on the horizon. The silence was only broken by the occasional call of a bird. - he wasn't very familiar with birds, perhaps it was a crow. He began to relax and as the gloom of evening descended he turned the car and headed back the way he had come in search of civilisation and somewhere to spend the night.

Harold's problems began with Shirley. For the past three years she had been his assistant in the small section which he ran in the Department. A bright, young graduate who had been with the Department for only a year, she was promoted to the job when Charlie Wilson, his assistant for many years, retired.

Harold had never related well to women, even admitting to himself that he was a bit afraid of them, but he and Shirley hit it off admirably from the very beginning. She was intelligent, quick, always suggesting more efficient ways of doing things and keen to take on additional responsibilities. He began to find work a joy and looked forward to going to the office each day. Looking back now, he realised she was also ambitious.

One of the few perks of his position was an annual, week long, all expenses paid conference at a plush resort on the Queensland Gold Coast hosted by a firm of consultants which the Section used. It was very much a soft sell affair with plenty of time to swim and lay on the beach, but rather than expose himself to the sun, Harold preferred to sit fully clothed under a beach umbrella and sip champagne. It had been an all-male affair but, the year that Shirley joined the Section, he came back complaining that they had begun inviting women who strutted around the beach and the pool almost naked.

Much to his surprise, Shirley was also invited to the conference the following year. With her ready smile, long, blond hair and the trim figure revealed by a very brief bikini, she quickly had a group of male conference delegates buzzing around. However, she still contrived to spend most of her time with Harold. By the second day she had coaxed him into the pool and by the third night, without any effort on his part, she was sharing his bed. With this beautiful young woman rhythmically astride him and his hesitant hands caressing her naked body, a whole new world opened for Harold.

"I don't think we should let sex interfere with our relationship in the office," she told him during the flight back to Sydney. "Anyhow, I don't want half the Department knowing we are sleeping together."

Harold told her he understood, attributing her diffidence to revealing the change in their relationship to the almost 30-year difference in their ages. After all, he told himself, he was old enough to be her father. Throughout the next year their sexual encounters occurred during occasional weekends at Harold's neat little suburban cottage. She would arrive in time for lunch on Saturday after which they would retire to his new double bed where they would remain until it was time for Sunday brunch at a nearby bistro. Sometimes they would go to a movie before he drove her home to her tiny flat. She rarely invited him in, submitting, instead, to a peck on the cheek.

At the Gold Coast conference the following year, George Truelly, their jovial host, announced that, as he was retiring, it would be his last conference. This prompted much dinner table discussion of retirement plans amongst the delegates. Most seemed to have their minds fixed on a long overseas trip with little idea of what they wanted to do afterwards.

"I wouldn't want to go overseas," Harold contributed. "What I would really like to do would be to buy a camper van and go and see Australia. If I wanted to, I could take early retirement and do it now."

Later that evening in Harold's bed, Shirley snuggled up to him and asked, "Why don't we do it now?"

"Do what?"

"Buy that camper van and travel round Australia."

"Would you come with me? Resign from the Department and come round Australia with me?

"I'd love to ... If you'll take me."

"But... But wouldn't we have to get married first?"

She laughed. "Harold, you can be so old fashioned sometimes."

The rest of their time at the conference was spent discussing the type of camper van they wanted and planning the first stages of the trip. By the middle of the following week he had set a date for his retirement and completed and lodged the surprising amount of paper work that such a decision set in train. He was duly farewelled at a gathering of the staff at which the Permanent Head spoke the usual platitudes and presented him with a thick and detailed road atlas of Australia. No mention was made of Shirley, who had not, at that stage, resigned, as it was going to take a month to have the camper van fitted out to their specifications.

Two weeks after he retired he rang her before she left for the office. "The van will be available next week. When does your resignation take effect?"

"Harold, I... I won't be resigning. They've offered me your old job and it's too good an opportunity to miss. Sorry... I'm really sorry." While he clutched the phone, open-mouthed and speechless, she hung up. She did not answer when he rang back.

Half way through washing his few breakfast dishes, he was overcome by a furious rage. He threw down the tea towel, backed the car out into the street, and set off on his headlong drive.

Retracing his route from that locked gate, it took Harold about 45 minutes of leisurely driving to reach the small bush town he vaguely remembered passing through that afternoon. There was one hotel and, yes, they had a room available and if he hurried, he would be in time to order a meal from the bistro in the saloon bar.

He began to relax as two long, cold beers washed down the dust, while the large steak with a heap of chips and the few shreds of lettuce, onion, tomato and beetroot with its dollop of mayonnaise that passed for a salad dealt with his hunger. There was a mutter of conversation and the occasional clink of a glass from the public bar, but the only other occupant of the saloon was a well-dressed woman who, to Harold's inexperienced eye, appeared to be in her late thirties. She seemed to be desperately trying to make a gin and tonic last as long as possible. As he rose to order another beer, he was surprised to hear himself say,

"Good evening. May I buy you another drink?"

He was even more astonished when, with a welcoming smile, she answered, "Thank you. A gin and tonic please."

Handing the drink to her, he took the seat opposite and raising his glass, proposed a toast. "To absent friends."

"To absent friends," she responded.

Sipping his beer and in a more relaxed frame of mind, he realised he should be grateful to Shirley rather than angry with her. She had made his last three years in the office a joy and, although she was so much younger than he was, she had taught him some very valuable lessons. Perhaps he should spend a day or two in this little bush town while he came to terms with his changed circumstances, then return home, pick up the camper van, and set out on his trip. Who could tell how many other lonely women he might meet on his way around Australia.

"And what brings you to the back of beyond?" he asked.