Chapter 4 Adventure

Chapter 4

Adventure

So, again I was going to be paid for fulfilling a long-held dream. The name ‘Sepik’ had always held a fascination for me but my desire to explore that river had increased when I’d seen the monumental carved poles, delicately worked personal belongings, and enormous, almost monstrous images from that district in the national museum of Nuigini.

All of my clients for the trip were young female nurses except for a middle-aged couple who seemed very amiable but also excited by the prospect of visiting a place who’s very name conjured up images of mysterious primitive culture. 

Having disembarked the plane from Australia and ‘changing into something more comfortable’ I took us all down to Ela beach in a coaster bus. Everyone was enjoying their first day in 'paradise', swimming in a bit of a lagoon and relaxing in the shade of the trees that here and there overhung the beach, but to my dismay, and terrible bad luck, a spike of staghorn coral stuck into the bottom of my foot in the softest part, right up in the middle, when I was cooling off in chest-deep water.

Not only was it painful but I knew that I’d be limping and tending to the wound during the next week while overseeing the smooth operation of our small expedition to ‘mud land’.

Next morning, after once again thoroughly bathing my injured foot, I shepherded my clients onto an internal flight to the north coast of the main island where we stayed overnight in a very comfortable dive resort. The next day we went diving on some sunken transport ships loaded with tanks. The American bombers had let them reach their destination before comprehensively blowing the shit out of them so although the ship’s sterns were quite deep to dive on, the bows were in water shallow enough for the girls who could only snorkel.

One of the girls had collected a live cowries shell so I very politely explained to her that it was the policy of the company that we didn’t do anything to damage the reef, which included taking ‘souvenirs’. That seemed to annoy her but I assumed she returned the shell to the sea.

From there we departed by speedboat forty kilometres along the coast to the mouth of the river that was big and dirty and dragged itself through loops and curves before finally staining the sparkling sea with its muddy mixture for miles beyond its gaping mouth.

It’s one of the world’s largest and longest rivers, extending for more than a thousand kilometres across man-made grasslands, with villages here and there, either on the main river or connected lakes. Every village showed examples of their fabulous art that was produced for religious and ritual purposes but just travelling on the river, cruising along at a steady twenty knots, soon became tedious because of the endless borders of tall grass that obscured the banks on both sides. It did increase the excitement of arriving at a village to stay the night because to be out of the hot boat and mixing with the villagers was a great relief. The giggly village kids were always a hit, especially with the girls.

The most interesting thing we saw while travelling the second day was a floating island. A big one. About half an acre. But generally speaking it was hot and fairly boring just watching an endless line of reeds pass by. There were a few water-birds to see, and quite often small raptors hunting but when a village finally came into sight ahead on the left bank a wave of relief spread through the boat at the thought of some shade and activity.

At the village a large log functioned as a rudimentary wharf. It was embedded into the muddy bank on such an angle that it still worked as a landing no matter how much the river level changed.

We docked the boat. The current was strong and relentless so I was concerned someone was going to lose a finger or something trying to grab a handhold. I held the stern in close while my clients stepped from the aluminum boat onto the weathered log about two feet in diameter.

Everyone managed the balance test well, except for Mrs. Midelage whose thong slipped and sent one of her legs spearing down off the smooth edge of the log until it hit the gooey mud. It didn't stop there, as you can imagine, and she ended up buried to her crutch in black goo, with one arm stabbed in up to the elbow and half her face neatly splotched with black mud.

I was glad that I’d warned her about the slippery log and the wickedness of thongs (flip-flops) but the immediate need was to get her out of the greasy, gelatinous, glutinous, goo. Not only was her right leg speared directly into the mud at an acute angle but her left leg was bent at the knee with the black greasy mud almost covering the entire lower half of the limb. She’d already withdrawn the arm that had been stabbed in up to the elbow. The other one had just kind of gone in sideways so both her hands were more or less useless.

For an instant I'd worried that she'd broken her leg and it wasn't the best place to have a broken leg. I already felt vindicated for my warning about thongs but I knew I wasn't getting paid enough to put a splint on her veiny old leg.

Three local guys used guile and effort to get her firstly back into the boat, then back on to the landing, and finally dry ground. She looked somewhat embarrassed but it didn't stop her talking.

After I had settled her down and made sure she hadn't broken anything a couple of local ladies began washing off the mud with a clay pot full of river water. Everyone knew we had arrived.

Each village turned on a little feast for us, as they were paid to do, and then quite early, mostly because almost nobody spoke English everyone had retreated to their individual mosquito nets and having no lights to speak of they were soon fast asleep.

Despite repellent being applied liberally upon arrival the mosquitoes were ravenous, and huge. What an exotic treat we must have been for them, with skin like silk and blood as sweet as top shelf liqueur.

That’s when I discovered there was a net for every other person but not one for me. I couldn’t do anything about it so I tried my best to get to sleep by lying on the sleeping mat with a lap-lap pulled-up over my head and held away from my face cause the mossies could bite right through it.

Thankfully, an old man wandering by saw me being mozzie bait so he invited me to sleep in his home with his family. I climbed the ladder into his big house nearby which was absolutely dark except for the coals of a couple of small fires. There were people moving around getting ready to sleep so once my eyes had adjusted I found myself an empty net in a little alcove and lay down for a good night's rest.

Before dawn I was awakened by sounds being made by an elderly couple towards the back of the house. They had a small kerosene lantern burning and were lighting a fire. They wore only lap-laps tied around their shoulders.

Closer to me a girl of about sixteen rose from the shadows and also began to light a fire while she teased out her tightly curled hair with a bamboo comb. Maybe she knew I was there, although it’s reasonable to believe she didn’t. I lay quietly half asleep with my face turned on the pillow as she coaxed the fire into action with the help of a thin bamboo tube through which she blew air into the heart of the coals still slightly glowing from the night before.

By adding small sticks there was soon a healthy flame. The girl placed a clay dish on the fire at such an angle that it was facing her directly as she sat on her haunches spreading out little balls of sago doe into pancakes.

As the light from the dawn outside and the fire within mingled I began to see more of the interior of that Sepik home. Above the fireplace was a rack where small fish were being smoked below the bamboo rafters and the blackened sak-sak thatch.

Stored in the rafters were masks of various sizes, some with pig’s teeth and shells incorporated into the design. Next to them were a couple of sticks shoved up the necks of dried heron's heads complete with beaks and eyeballs.

In the corner was a plywood trunk with a sleek paddle leaning against the wall. On top was a crocodile’s skull with a full face of teeth. And next to my head, tucked into the low thatched wall was a Gillette razor-blade.

We ate breakfast of fish and sago with the glow of the fire casting shadows of bilas onto the dark skins of the cross-legged people busy talking and eating.

The grandfather started telling me about some magic stones that his son would take us to see. That sounded like a good diversion so after breakfast I told the girls about them, "Magic stones, wow!" They had to see the magic stones!

It was a hot and difficult walk for people wearing thongs, which they all did. My foot was healing well because I was keeping it dry and wrapped with a gauze bandage so it was no problem to bring up the rear. We followed a sandy path up and down shallow ravines through thorny scrub and dodging snakes across land that had some time been part of the riverbed, until we finally arrived at a stone about as big as a watermelon in the middle of a small clearing.

It looked like any of a million stones I’d seen before but that didn't count for anything there because stones are so rare on the Sepik Plain that every single one of them is special.

It hadn't occurred to me until that moment that it was the first stone I'd seen since arriving on the river and it was the only stone some of the local people would ever see.

I translated what John told me about the stone, that it had made all of the village women dream about it one night, and in the dream it told them that it must never be moved from its present location. So it hadn't been.

The girls weren't as impressed as they were thirsty. One of them said, "You mean we’ve walked for two hours to see that!"

John told us that the other stone was about half an hour’s walk further on, and that one was engraved. I wanted to go because I was enjoying our conversation about culture but the girls obviously didn't share my enthusiasm so we returned to the lake and ate fish and sago again for lunch before climbing back into the boat and returning to the main river.

After a few more days sitting in a hot boat, which had become more like work than usual, we ventured into the mouth of a tributary that drained higher ground to the south-east.

The banks were tall because we were getting into the mountains and I could see the source of some of the floating islands we’d passed on the main river. Large chunks of earth, complete with trees, were being torn off the undercut banks by the constant friction of fast flowing water.

The river soon began to narrow although it was still fifty meters wide.

A flock of white herons flew overhead, their black legs dangled behind them and their long yellow beaks stuck out on curved necks.

We finally arrived at the jungle lodge and trudged half a mile uphill to the office. From there we’d fly out next morning in the two light planes parked on the grass airstrip.

The surroundings were luxurious compared to the previous week on the river but I was told by the manager there was no contact with the outside world. I didn’t believe her. I thought she was only saying that because a call required a transfer to an operator in the highlands and she couldn’t be bothered. I really wanted to call Helen but the woman insisted the radio-phone wasn’t operational.

A week on the muddy river had been more than enough for me. I’m a coastal person and always have been so when we flew over a small mountain range next morning and the clear blue ocean appeared before us I wanted nothing better than to dive straight into it.

A minibus was waiting to take us to a ‘motel’ where a delicious dinner had been prepared for us. The next day I took them sailing on a catamaran and then finally waved them bye-bye.

I would have liked to be on that plane as well but a message from head office requested that I explore further upriver for future ‘expeditions’. I had mixed feelings but couldn’t really so no.

The term ‘expedition’ seemed ludicrous at times, when browsing a brochure in Sydney, but while in primitive conditions far from civilisation, such as then, it was definitely appropriate.

The next day I tried to find transport to the most-upriver town with a road connection. I went to the market and asked around but no luck so I returned to the motel feeling disappointed. I just wanted to get the job done and go home so early the next morning I hired a three tonne truck and then began selling seats for the ride upriver from outside the market until I’d recouped my outlay.

A man named Joseph offered his services as my guide; I would later refer to him as ‘the rascal of the river’. He insisted on me paying him in advance, so I did, but with the money he purchased six cartons of beer which were loaded onto the truck.

It was soon filled with people so we got on the road. A bumpy, sometimes dusty road that went through the mountains before flattening out for the rest of the ride.

A couple of hours later we were at the river where one line of stilted houses had upturned canoes out in front used for walk-ways when it was muddy. The passengers dispersed. Joseph hired a canoe for us. It was an impressive craft at least ten metres in length but only a metre wide, beautifully patterned and the ubiquitous crocodile head carved into the prow. There was room for a dozen passengers. Some of the people who’d come in the truck also came in the canoe.

Soon we were speeding upriver for hour after hour through that same monotonous landscape of tall reeds.

A canoe’s motor had broken down so we came alongside and each passenger grabbed the other canoe’s gunwale and away we went, almost back to normal speed until we released them at the next village.

On the first night at the first village I got to see Joseph’s game. After sleeping for a while I went looking for him and found him in a hut with some old men who had obviously consumed some of Joseph’s warm beers. They wanted more warm beers but they had to pay for them with artefacts. Preferably, for Joseph, old precious items that had been hidden away.

Two Sepik guys had paid something to come along for the ride to their village. They’d been away working somewhere and each had a metal trunk full of stuff. Mixed with their excitement about returning they also showed a high level of trepidation. When one of them started asking me some questions in pidgin it became obvious they both had either gonorrhoea or syphilis and wanted to know what to do about it. I told them about penicillin. That they should find a ‘clinic’ for ‘marasan’. What more could I do? They were bringing home more than the bacon.

Early morning I woke to the sounds of somebody screaming abuse at the top of their lungs. I quickly slipped out from beneath the mozzie net and peered through the tattered walls at a young man ranting and raving and waving a machete around. He was moving toward the base of the big ladder-like front steps of the building so I quickly moved to the door-less only doorway to retard his progress by my presence, if possible.

We looked at each other. He was about the same height and weight as me but he was brandishing that very large blade, usually used more as a tool than a weapon. Sweat stood out on his forehead and there were white flecks of spit on his chin. The scars on his chest, created by gravel being rubbed into initiation wounds extended right across to his shoulders, and stood out like crocodile skin. He was a fierce looking dude.

I couldn't understand his state of agitation although there was no doubt that he was very angry about something. It was really scary.

Four words were clear amongst his jabbering, "tokplas", "fuckin bastard", "white man" and "Joseph". I still couldn't understand why he was so angry but when he moved toward the steps I adopted my best defensive posture and continued to speak consolingly, as though I was being confronted by a vicious dog or something.

At that point Joseph appeared on the scene and drew the man’s attention away from me. The guy brandished the machete at Joseph while hurling an uninterrupted stream of abuse, and then lunged at him purposefully.

There was no doubt about his intention.

I was getting good at reading body language!

For a few minutes machete-man chased Joseph around the village trying to cut his head off until he was overpowered and disarmed by three men who then  shoved him into an empty hut.

"Glad that's over." I thought, but within seconds the guy reappeared with an even bigger bush-knife and began the chase again, with an upgraded sense of determination.

I thought for sure there was going to be blood spilled so I ran down the steps with my bag of clothes and as soon as the guy was immobilised again hustled Joseph down the bank and into the canoe so we could get out of there before the guy could come after him again.

Once on the river Joseph lay down on his back in the bottom of the canoe and fell asleep in the intense glare of the full-blown sun and proceeded to sleep there for the next four hours. It was at least forty degrees in the shade!

A huge bamboo raft with a small hut and a smoky cooking fire passed by in the opposite direction.

I was curious about the knife incident so while he was asleep I asked one of the boat crew what the fight had been about. He told me that Joseph had broken both of his wife’s arms using the back of a bush-knife and the young guy was the women’s brother trying to wreak revenge. That made sense. It’s a really brutal society.

All that day we motored upstream and the only time Joseph surfaced was to buy betel nut from a canoe passing us in the opposite direction. He was a rogue and a thick skinned one at that.

I continued upstream the next day in a vague state of anxiety which wouldn't leave me. There were very few canoes on the river. Joseph asked me to buy him shotgun shells and with them he shot some ducks which he put into the canoe to eat that night.

We left the main river to visit a stone-age village on a narrow tributary. We arrived in the afternoon at a miserable collection of rundown huts populated by people who looked half-witted and half-starved. The children were skinny, blank-eyed and covered with the parasite that burrows around under their skins leaving trails like snails in patterns like those of the outside of a brain.

All of their artwork that usually adorned the buildings had gone, stolen by missionaries, art dealers, and movie stars or swapped for cigarettes or beers. Their vacant looks added to my feeling of frustration and isolation.

We all became more animated once one of the guys had painted my face like them and they gave me some beads so I wasn't naked. What a scabby part of the world though. Mud and mossies!

The next day we travelled even further upstream past various nondescript villages until we were seeing rock walls and whirlpools. The forty-four gallon drum in the front of the canoe was still more than half full and I knew that I was committed to travelling as far as possible, but unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, during the third night someone siphoned off most of it. I hadn’t been careful enough; too trusting. With hindsight I suspect that Joseph sold it while I was asleep nearby.

Fuel is a much-valued commodity that far upstream, and so with disappointment mixed with relief I knew that we had to turn back. I’d told Helen I’d only be away for two weeks and it was already three.

The return journey was much faster because of the flow of the river which made a difference in land speed of about six knots and we only had to spend two nights in villages on the way. At one village I was invited to go out on the river at night with a light to catch young crocs using only a spear.

When the red eyes of a crocodile showed up in the torch-light the guys paddled straight toward it and the person in the bow, which soon became me, had to drive a multi-pronged spear into the end of the croc’s tail before jumping over the side and grabbing hold of the squirming reptile by the shoulders.

Fortunately the crocs were as young as we could find them so they weren’t impossible to subdue, but still I kept in mind that even those babies had sharp teeth and more importantly, mothers!

The captured crocs were well secured in the stern until we returned to the village where they were released into pens to be raised to a suitable size for their meat and skins.

On our final night we arrived at a village straddling the entrance to a lake that abutted the river so we pulled in to make camp there.

I’d been fascinated by Minja yam cult masks since the first time I’d set eyes on a photo of one. They are very stylized faces with big, phallic noses and protruding eyes never in any other organic colours than red, yellow and black.

After dinner, when I’d finished being introduced to the village bigmen I quietly asked about the Minja cult and the guys responded with whispers amongst themselves, "Minja, Minja, Minja," and then led me away into the shadows down a path between the ragged huts to one which had a padlock and chain on the timber door.

After looking around they unlocked it and took me inside to show me all the paraphernalia of positive power. The masks and other ritualistic artwork surrounded me in the dim light. Stylised faces of ancestor spirits looked down their prominent noses at me, waiting to participate in the harvest rituals. It was eerie and fascinating so I felt grateful and privileged.

Late into the night the villagers danced a stilted dance and played their weird music on flute and drums until I was falling asleep.

An old man showed me to a hut where I lay down on the floor, exhausted from days on the river beneath the burning sun, and fell instantly asleep.

But while the jungle pulsed monotonous sounds I dreamed an awful dream.

One true love comes in each existence and for me she’d been mine for many years. Our daughter was the love we shared, our wonder, our perfect little angel of whom we thought most dear and who conditioned all our actions for her better life to be. But while I slept I dreamt that awful dream, I saw my love so intimately known. She lay seductively upon a velvet suite, more vivid for the fortnight parted. I missed her touch and voice and laughter, and I had that very day cursed loud the mud, the swamp and the stupidity.

All I wished for was to be at home with my two girls I loved much more than life itself but in that dream as I moved toward my lover she watched across her shoulder my advance, but neither did she warmly call me on, nor quiver, oh no; she turned a darkening shade of darkness and bared her teeth and was the very picture of repulsion and grew sharp spines protruding from her back beneath her skin until they stretched to almost bursting and it was more horrifying than words can adequately convey.

I awoke in shock and sat upright with eyes stretched wide to see upon the moon‑stained wall the image still. Turning to the shadows, like static it hovered in the air before me, a glaring form more like an awful lizard. A pulsing, brooding, tortured image that stayed before my eyes till mornings light brought on distractions of the day. An ominous feeling was jammed into me like a spear‑head, "what meant that message in a nightmare?"

The image in the nightmare stayed with me so I wanted to know what was going on back home. Next afternoon we arrived at the first village to have a road connection to the coast so I began walking until hitching a ride into town where I bought the first plane ticket back to the capital, the next morning, where I managed to get on a connecting flight and arrived back in Australia that afternoon.

Helen was at the airport with a couple of people to meet me but there was a noticeable change in the way she was. Nothing obvious but she was definitely not identifying as my wife and lover, and nothing else. She’d left Tina asleep in the back of the panel van, which was unusual for her, and not to my liking.

Helen had obviously developed a certain bond with her new female friends.

A lot had been going on that I wasn’t aware of. I knew the forest protest had flared again. This time on the mountain behind our house. The same people had set up a big protest camp and did everything to prevent the loggers getting into that forest. Helen had been spending quite a bit of time up there in the protest camp, and they’d finally won after blocking the road with burning cars.

The camaraderie at events like that is astounding and Helen had been home alone so it wasn’t a surprise that she’d had a bit of a ‘life-changing experience of being an active member of the Nightcap Action Group.

One event I found particularly incredible when I heard about it had occurred in Brisbane when Helen had gone to a concert and farewell party for one of the crew she’d been hanging out with at the forest protest.

I’m told the concert was terrific and the drinks went down well but outside the inner-city pub when the guy was making his last farewells a passing truck caught the flap on the side of his jacket and dragged him to his death right there in front of their eyes. It must have been a profound shock for all concerned.

The number one new friend I remember, was a stocky women dressed in bib and brace overalls. She drove us home from the airport in her panel van but I was amazed when we pulled up in town and there was a decision to be made whether Helen would come home or stay in town. I couldn't believe it, but just stayed quiet.

When we arrived at our place I bundled up Miss T and grabbed my bag, trying to be friendly as we waved good-bye, but I had my doubts.

Helen and I returned to the house, put Tina to bed and lit a fire. We relaxed on the lounge and talked superficially about what had happened since I’d been gone, but most of all I just wanted to get into bed and cuddle up with my sweet darling.

Our lovemaking was sweet, anyway I thought so, but before we went to sleep is when she told me “No more Jim and Helen” and even declared ‘a new identity’. She had to do her own thing. It was a combination of PND, the accident, feminist pressure, being left alone, and me working.

The next morning Helen told me she was going up to the original farm house on the far hill to see her friends. Okay, I arranged to see her in the afternoon and that is what I did after going for a walk and visiting some buddies.

Trouble was, when I got back to that house in the afternoon Helen showed no sign of leaving so I was forced to hang around and make small talk with people I didn't really like. They were the kind of people who sit around smoking and talking but never actually do anything.

After staring into the fire for a couple of hours as the sun was going down I told Helen it was time to go. She said okay but then when I looked around she’d gone into the other room. I sat and stared into space, almost paralyzed,feeling as though everything I cared about was hanging by a fraying thread.

When I went in there to see her she was sitting on the bed with a guy I knew to be a real dag. Finally, I’d had enough. "Are you coming?" I asked her, completely confused about what was going on because I knew nothing about heroin.

She told me that she was staying there for the night. I couldn't believe it. She’d become the plaything of vampires.

I went home and sat on the verandah looking out across the valley at the house and stewed in every kind of emotion until I finally fell into sleep.

As soon as I woke up the next morning I headed straight for the house with a more forthright attitude than the previous day. I couldn't believe that Helen would do such a thing to me! And I’d let it happen!

When I arrived Helen, Tina, and the scumbag were already gone. I insulted everyone there and told them I thought they were a bunch of maggots and then stomped off back to our house. I’d been feeling really good being the tour guide on an expense account but all of a sudden what mattered to me most was in jeopardy. It is difficult to describe because my memory is made imperfect by stress I was experiencing.

All morning I fumed and then decided that I just wanted to get out of the place. I didn't understand what Helen was trying to prove and I was having trouble coping with the sudden change in her attitude toward me so I decided that I would leave them for a few weeks and go back to Sydney because my father had been urging me to stay with him for awhile. He wanted me to inherit the yacht. It was a seventy-four foot schooner so it may indicate just how caught up in the hippie idealism that I’d rather be living in a hand-built house without electricity than mixing it with the nouveau riche on a beautiful big yacht.

I did some work on the boat with my father but then I received a telegram from Helen telling me she’d gone up to PNG to visit her mother and that she loved me and missed me and when was I coming up and could I send her some money.

It seemed she had come to her senses, so naturally I was pleased and went straight uptown to send the money. With plenty of hindsight I realise the money was the most important part of the message but without even considering that I bought an air ticket.

Before I flew the next day I decided to make up for past mistakes by buying a very beautiful engagement ring to show Helen how much I loved her and as a tangible symbol of commitment, while at the same time holding on to the idea that being‘ possessive’ was really bad. I wasn't ever keen on rings, and I wasn’t just appeasing Elsie. The ring I’d chosen was exquisite with three golden waves and a diamond between each one.

The first problem, caused by a lack of planning, was that I had to stay overnight in the capital because there wasn’t a connecting flight. I had to pay out a small fortune to sleep in a hotel within hearing distance of an animalistic disco where alcohol really is firewater. I probably didn’t or couldn’t contact Helen to tell her I was delayed. It’s difficult to appreciate just how basic communication was in those days. Whichever, it caused a lot of other problems.

Next morning I arrived but Helen wasn’t there to meet me. When I went to her uncle's house I was told that she’d hired a car the previous day to drive out to meet me so I had the impression all was well despite the delay so I bought a ride out to where she was and quietly walked into the house where I could see her sitting with her back to me at a table with four other people.

I moved quietly up behind her and kissed her lightly on the neck. She turned to look at me as though she’d seen a ghost. We went for a walk on the beach and to my dismay she told me she’d changed her mind. I just couldn't believe my ears, but stayed calm, because I didn't believe she could have really changed her mind about loving me. It seemed too absurd.

That night we all went to an engagement party and I thought it was a good time to give her the beautiful ring that I’d bought for her but when I opened the little velvet case she looked at it and said, "Well, I suppose I could hock it."

She brushed me off completely and I was so devastated that I sat down in the middle of the party totally oblivious to the people around me. It was the wrong place to be but I was more or less stuck there for the next ten days.

At last I left to meet the group I was to take on a mountain trek and straight away I had my doubts. The women hadn’t shown up and the two Australia guys seemed completely unprepared. Even when I hired two young men to carry their packs they still only lasted a few hours before turning back so I continued on with the last survivor, a young guy from New Zealand “who had been dreaming about the trek for years”.

Because the others had dropped out I made a deal with him that we’d send the camping gear back with them to lighten our loads. Without camping gear we’d need to do a couple of very long days to avoiding having to stay overnight in the forest. He agreed to the plan but the boot she’d been polishing for months didn’t make it even half way before they started coming apart and he finished the trek in socks and size ten plastic sandals he’d bought from a villager.

For ten hours the next day we’d pushed on through some of the roughest country in the world so arriving at the village just before dark had been sweet because the sky was filled with cloud and thunder echoed up the valley through air pulled tight.

We smoked some bush tobacco with some older men after eating our fill of sweet potato mixed with freeze-dried lamb and peas that had plumped-up after starting off looking like pebbles and woodchips. The fire burned brightly within a circle of stones. It looked like we were in for a comfortable night at last after a long day spent beneath the canopy of rainforest.

My charge was a really nice young fellow who kept telling me about his girlfriend back home. He’d never been away from her before and how much she would be missing him.

It was easy to form a mental image them together at the pub or driving in the Holden he’d told me all about. It brought back strong memories of the years I’d spent with Helen. I envied his youth and the simplicity of the things he spoke about. She would be there to meet his home-bound flight.

Just as the light was being lost from the sky large drops of rain began falling as if to make up for lost time. Streams formed through the middle of the village and water poured off the thatched roof in a continuous curtain of water. It reminded me that I’d stayed in that same hut four years before and how amazed I’d been when the rain had poured down just as it was again, and not one drop had penetrated the thatch.

Things change in four years, as if I needed reminding, so by then the roof was old and ragged. The rain spilled through a range of bad leaks while the wind that accompanied it sprayed the verandah with enough water to douse the fire. At first we lay down to sleep at opposite ends but soon enough we were huddled in the only dry corner. Sometime later I woke up because of a strange feeling. I flicked on the torch I always kept close in the bush and there on the walls, in the corner, the only remaining dry space in the hut, were hundreds of cockroaches. They’d been nibbling the dead skin on my elbow!

Obviously it was a repulsive sight but there was nothing I could do about them. Killing a few would only make it worse so I pulled the hood of the sleeping bag close around my head and tucked my arms in, and tried my best to get back to sleep. I was certainly tired enough.

As I lay there doing my best to erase the ugly image from my mind I began to hear Peter mumbling a bit in his sleep and then I felt a bit embarrassed for him as it became more obvious the direction of his dream. She was in his arms on the lounge at home or perhaps in a frilly suburban bed. Somewhere in heaven he was, and I envied the effortless power of his mind.

Heaven and hell are just one brain cell apart.

The next morning the rain had gone so we pushed on for two more very long days until the final climb up from the Goldie River where I had to entice him with promises of Coca Cola. He kept saying he couldn’t go on so I had to keep reminding him that the only way he’d ever drink another coke was to get to the end of the track, to the road, to the world of coke and all the other crap.

The trip had been a complete success but I wasn't really looking forward to Christmas. It would be the usual great party but there wasn't much pleasure in it for me because Helen was spending a lot of time with a guy named Duncan and I was still hopelessly in love with her and didn't know what I could do about it except go diving, sail boarding or trail-riding on the old Honda trying to distract myself while I watched and waited for the day when I was to leave for the highlands to take the next group to the summit of the country’s tallest peak and then on to a group of islands for a wind-surfing safari.

It felt very strange being ‘estranged’ from Helen. One of the ‘girlfriends’ came over one night and told me not to be concerned because I could have any girl I wanted. Like a dope I just pretended I didn’t get her meaning until she finally went home.

While staying at the plantation where the keen amateur divers lived I took plenty of photos, above ground and below the water, to send them to the adventure travel company I worked for. Back in Sydney they were really impressed and began promoting it. Today it is one of the best dive resorts in the world and photographs taken there win many prestigious awards.

Hanging around waiting for the Mt Wilhelm trip was tedious despite being in such a beautiful location with sail boards and dirt bikes always available but finally the day came to fly and I quietly left.

Right on time my guests arrived to do the trip to the summit of Mt Wilhelm and it went really well. I led a group of a dozen interesting and well-educated people who all got along fabulously. The climb to the peak was even colder than what I’d remembered from the previous trip, probably because of the full moon in a relatively clear sky, but the view was just as exquisite. 

We'd left the hut by the lake at midnight so we had some extra time to check out the wreckage of the B29 bomber spread across the mountain. After clambering up the steep slope near the waterfall that joins the two lakes we were soon clouded out. Nothing but whiteness everywhere except for the black granite shapes in the torchlight. The need to stay focused and keep to the track was brought home to my guests when we reached the brass plaque dedicated to the adventurer who’d lost his way. The words “Closer to God” stay with me.

By the very first inklings of dawn we arrived at the first point where you can see the summit. Light headed, we were still immersed in cloud but as the sky began to lighten the clouds cleared and we had the most amazing view right along the northern coast and directly down the spine of the country, right along the jagged edge of the main cordillera all the way to Alatou. My head wasn’t spinning only because of the altitude sickness, I was feeling like one of the luckiest people on Earth to be seeing what I was seeing because so many people report making the climb and being completely clouded in.

After the exhausting walk back down to the hut, because of the lingering effects of altitude sickness, we all had a good rest beside the lake in the pale sunlight before packing up our gear. The schedule was tight and I still had to confirm our flights to Rabaul so as soon as the guests were ready and the carriers knew what to do on the way back down I went ahead carrying my own pack and came upon a tribal wedding with a bride who had the most impressive pair of breasts and decorations that I’d ever seen. I would have liked to hang around to watch the ceremony but it was necessary for me to have transport

ready by the time my gang arrived out of the scrub.

To their delight they had to travel through the highlands in the back of a dump truck and they went right through the middle of a tribal fight but they were even more delighted to be showered and fed and sitting at the bar of a five star hotel. The only thing that marred the good times was when one of the women managed to slam her finger in a car door the next morning.

We flew directly from mountains to islands on a serious jet and transferred by minibus to the harbour where a fourteen metre steel workboat crewed by three really nice young Polynesian guys was there to take us out to the Duke of York islands. 

One of my clients was a beautiful young lady named Vibeke. She was a wonderful girl who was a practising Christian who nonetheless had an amazing religious experience on the picturesque little island.

I’d arranged for the villagers to prepare a big mumu; a meal of chicken and sweet potato cooked amongst hot rocks buried in the ground beneath a thick layer of banana leaves but before dinner was ready to be unearthed a group of young girls came to perform a traditional dance of welcome for us.

The cooking pit was opened and the food shared around but the guests must have been really hungry because before long all of the chicken was gone and the only food left over was a large proportion of the sweet potato and taro. Cooked to perfection in coconut cream.

The only option, once I was being confronted by hungry, less than satisfied guests, who should have eaten more taro and less chicken was to get the waterproof torch and go for a swim in the lagoon with the spear gun. Weird and scary as it seems when I look back on it but I felt compelled to keep diving in the dark until I’d speared a decent sized fish to satisfy them.

Anyway, after dinner and some chatting they were all tired and soon went off to bed. Somehow I’d become involved in a conversation with Vibeke about her faith. Being as cute as she was I would’ve talked to her about anything. She seemed to be in a quandary about the nature of faith, which I found interesting because it was a window into her religious thinking. "Is it sufficient to open you heart to Jesus or is it necessary to be reborn?” was her quandary.

Questions like that were really out of my league. I didn’t have any answers on subjects I’d never taken seriously but she was very sweet and sincere so it was interesting to see her struggle so I suggested a little walk in the moonlight might help. She agreed to my suggestion so we began strolling along the beach which curved away around the calm lagoon where large garlip trees threw shadows from the moon.

To my surprise we soon came upon a little hut with a kerosene lantern burning within and it just happened to be the home of the local pastor. 

Within the boundaries of language Vibeke shared her question with the lay-clergyman and before I knew it she was up to her waist in the warm water of the lagoon, and as a young man stood next to her holding the lantern, Vibeke was leant back in the water. Baptised with the steady hand of the ‘priest’.

It was all so kooky and retro but it seemed to be a really significant moment for all concerned and seeing the scene played out, with the dull kerosene lamp reflected on the glassy black water beneath the moon-shadowed coconut palms her face tilted back and cotton shirt stuck to her modest bosom was a pretty image I will never forget.

The sailboard safari went over really well but I was glad to be back home and busy finishing off a stone extension that I’d started a few months before. It was a large wall, four metres at its tallest point, extending the full width of the western side of the house so we had all been involved in gathering the field stones, hand-mixing batches of cement, and painstakingly adding them one by one to the wall.

But it was by then terribly lonely work and I worried about Helen constantly; she’d changed so much and become very irresponsible. Despite the “No more Jim and Helen” I needed to keep in touch but it was almost impossible to get through to her on the phone.

While she’d been away I’d almost accidently started going out with a woman who was absolutely lovely. Her name was Kareena and I’d admired her from a distance for years. She was a dancer, very slim and flat-chested, but something about her attracted me strongly and had done so for quite a long time although it was simply an appreciation of her beauty and grace from a distance.  Not just her beautiful face, which was delicately beautiful, but I’d also seen her drive a three-inch nail into a hardwood beam, and that was impressive.

I didn’t know that she'd very recently split up with the father of her two young sons but one day I noticed her at the community kindergarten when I was dropping my daughter off and made a hasty retreat to the far end of the veranda to avoid her. I had spoken to her once. Just said hello, but I’d felt embarrassed straightaway.

To my amazement and delight she arrived behind me and said my name in her soft voice. When I turned she gave me her phone number written on a piece of paper. “In case you ever need to call me” she said.

Naturally I called her and we went to the coast for the day. We’d been invited to join with some other hippies but I’d decided it was time to begin the separation process. I knew if I hung out with the hippies it would be compulsory for us all to be naked and I was getting tired of being uncomfortable so I took the boys for some windsurfing lessons on a lake where the citizens hang out, wearing board-shorts.

 Miss T got on really well with the boys, of course, she got on well with everybody. They enjoyed learning to ride a sailboard and I had some good clean fun helping Kareena to sail, using the wrap-around teaching method I’d developed. It was a fun and wholesome day.

When we got back to her place the kids played around outside. They owned a couple of hundred acres. It was the first opportunity for a little smooch.

She prepared a delicious dinner and I was feeling very much at home but before she put the boys to bed I elected to leave. I figured there was no hurry, she was definitely enjoying my company so I wanted to savour the waiting. 

Soon after I received a telegram from Helen telling me she’d be flying into Brisbane in a few days so I hired a car to pick her up. During the ride home she was still just as aloof and cool toward me and  when we got ‘home’ insisted on doing whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, for whatever reason she wanted. I was prepared to put up with that although I didn’t like it at all.

She was impetuous, stubborn and willful so to try to inhibit her ‘freedom’ would be like trying to harness the wind. I wasn’t dealing with Helen as an individual. There were unseen forces.  It was more like a ‘movement’ that was bigger than both of us that was influencing her.

It wasn't as though she was making the big break from some stifling relationship where I’d been a dominating or controlling force but there were other ideological driven people involved who had all sorts of misconceptions and stereotyped thinking and personal animosity toward me, as well as jealousy. Helen and I co-operated as a family team to make a home. We had the same objectives and motivations. Or we had had.

One of the main trouble-makers, the chubby one in bib & brace overalls, thought Helen was a Filipino bride, and all that that included. Plenty of dumb-ass, group-think, thinking. We weren’t the only family affected. Throughout the area there was chaos. Perfect couples being rent asunder. Sweet families were ripped to shreds by the feminist plague. Previously sensible women were behaving like lemmings with no regard for the happiness of their children. It was fashionable madness.

We had a beautiful house with thriving fruit trees all around. We’d all put in so much work; what in Buddhism would be described as ‘right effort’.

When my mother had come all the way from Sydney to see her grand-daughter for the first time I was dismayed and disappointed to discover that Helen had gone off to a black power march in Brisbane. Helen black? When did that happen? And for her to disrespect my mother was not like her at all. She was under all kinds of pressures but her defining characteristics were beauty and humour; never politics.

One night I saw her in town loaded with make-up and wearing a leather cap that looked like it had fallen off the back of Marlin Brando. Basically the local feminist mafia were making trouble, and enjoying it. Jealousy is an evil force and like the fool was I over-reacted to the provocation. I’m ashamed to say I walked out of pub, went me and turned the place upside down.

Just by being a wholesome family unit we’d been targeted, but my disregard for feminism had probably helped to make me that target. ‘Taking the Power’, as their poster proclaimed, pretty much destroyed the alternative lifestyle community. Families fell left and right. Couples that were obviously valuable family units crashed. Like mass madness it spread.

I kept to myself but took notice when the local obstetricians refused to deliver babies because the birthing group had become so militant. Feminism was spreading like a red tide.

One morning Kareena arrived unannounced at our house. I'd just dropped my daughter at the kindergarten, and so had she. She’d never been to my house before. I invited her in and started boiling water for tea just as Helen arrived back from a night out. Kareena was the picture of serenity and style while Helen looked like an unmade bed on skinny legs.

I had to decide right there and then which woman I wanted to tie my future to. Obviously Kareena was the woman I desired but like a fool I chose Helen because she was my daughter’s mother and for that reason I still hoped things could be worked out. It was quite a stand-off and yes I must have been mad for not giving up on Helen and starting a new life with Kareena and her boys, but that’s what happened.

Later that week Helen went to town and didn’t return until the early hours. In the morning I saw there was some vomit on the floor of the car and I couldn't get a straight answer out of her. The next day she did the same thing, and a couple of days later it happened again so I went to town to check it out and found her in the lounge of the pub with a well-known heroin user which really got me worried.

Later  when I quizzed her about it she was as uncooperative as I’d come to expect her to be, but shortly afterwards when I was working in the garden I found a syringe hidden between two sheets of corrugated iron outside the house so my worst fears were confirmed, unless it was someone else’s.

When I confronted her she became angry and called me a ‘fucking straight’ and told me she’d been to the edge. That ‘edge’ seemed to fascinate her. Like the movie Vanishing Point that she’d told me about a couple of times.

Shortly afterwards she announced that she was going to Melbourne for a fortnight so I insisted that Tina stay with me, which she agreed to immediately.

For the next three weeks it rained almost continuously and I was feeling pretty low. Three weeks of rain with hardly a break. I remained focused on Tina; reading to her, playing  on the floor, looking out the window.

After several days of particularly heavy rain there was no way I could get the car out of the 'driveway' so we were isolated. I had firewood and gas, and a lantern, basic foods, vegies in the garden, eggs from the chooks, plenty of rainwater or grape juice but it was still fairly bleak. Thick white clouds hung on the surrounding peaks and when there weren’t downpours the drizzle just continued. The house was warm, spacious and comfortable. A rhomboid shape with a fireplace in the centre, polished hardwood floor, plenty of glass, very dry, light, and comfortable, but no electricity, no TV, or radio, or music.

I must have just chilled out with my little girl, reading her books, building with blocks, cooking, splitting firewood, and when she was asleep I could read the books I’d borrowed from the library. With no phone or electricity it was very peaceful but gnawingly lonely, and full of concern and consternation. Tina went to bed early of course but I stayed up late worrying about her mother, unable to sleep, listening for every car that drove past praying that it would stop or turn into the driveway to deliver her safe and sound back into our home. Everything that mattered was falling apart. It was my first big test at pushing on alone while maintaining an unchanging sense of duty toward my little girl. I wrote a poem one of those nights, it is simple but catches the feeling;

The candle's finally burnt out.

Now I’m quit alone.

Sitting in the darkness

Of what was once our home.

The poor old rooster came to a sticky end about that time too. Not that he was poor or old. I’d bought him the year before from the local show after he'd won first prize so he was a large and magnificently shiny black bird with bright red wattles. We had a quality flock of black Australorps and I wanted to keep breeding good hens. 

The trouble was the rain that just kept falling; day after day and night after night. It was impossible to get the car out of the driveway. Firewood had become a real problem. If I remembered the location of an old fence post or log I’d seen while planting trees I’d have to take Miss T out with me into the rain to drag it back and cut it up.

I'd been too distracted to remember to buy chicken pellets the last time I’d managed to get to town so I’d let the chooks out to forage for themselves. Knocking ripe paw-paws off the trees for them resulted in delicious deep yellow eggs but the entire flock had elected to roost on the verandah railing right outside my bedroom window with the rooster driven by nature to repetitive crowing from four in the morning, after I’d snatched two or three hours of restless sleep virtually nullified by the feeling that some strange entity, like a fungus or something completely alien, crawled, seeped, swarmed out of my arse while I was asleep and covered my entire body. Very weird sensation trying to remember the ‘dream,’ but it only came in momentary flashes.

The first morning I tried to ignore the crowing but the rooster was large so he pumped out a very loud and raucous crow which was repeated every couple of minutes, often in competition with the other roosters in the valley. I couldn't stand it. The rooster stood about two feet tall and had a crow that could be heard from miles away.

I already knew that Tina would be awake by 6.30 so I couldn’t sleep later in the day. I was no longer letting her sleep in the afternoon.

The second morning I dragged myself out of my warm bed and grabbed the unsuspecting bird by the legs. A hessian bag was waiting for it so I stuffed it in and twisted the top before quickly darting back to bed as the frost gleamed on the grass outside.

In the morning the rooster had escaped so the next night I did the same leg-grabbing but added a length of string to tie up the legs. I was a bit gar-gar but managed a couple of half hitches before diving back into bed. When I awoke later I found that it had escaped again. The poultry equivalent of Houdini!

The last morning I didn't have a bag or string but pulled the hapless bird in through the window and used the cleaver left there specifically to remove its head with one quick chop and then I threw it gushing blood out the window into the rain. Later in the day I felt quite bad about it and gave him a decent burial. I even wrote a poem about it called 'I had a big black cock'.

I survived the next couple of weeks but decided that there had to be a better way of living as a single parent. I had some money saved and decided that what I needed was to go to a nice place where I could live cheaply, eat well, get away from the rain, and work out what to do next.

When Helen arrived back from Melbourne, or wherever she'd been, she looked about ten years older and told me about things I didn't want to know. I was just a fuckin’ straight, she reckoned. She'd been to the edge. She knew what it was all about. I was just a citizen.

With the benefit of hindsight I realize now that I was over-reacting to just about everything she said and did but I was simply too involved and too concerned about her, about us as a family, about everything we’d taken years to set up. Who knows how I should have reacted? I was confused and stressed out. We had built what we’d dreamed of, so why had it gone so wrong?

When she’d taken off with her sleazy friends I’d prayed to the night sky with tears rolling down my face. I‘d begged other dimensions and made promises to deities. But it had made no difference.

As soon as I’d really decided we were going to Thailand I told Helen. She didn't care. She signed the forms necessary for Tina to get her own passport then left again for Sydney.

One afternoon I’d gone to a friend’s house up on the mountain. He was finishing off a house build from stones. While there I was introduced to a woman. I vaguely knew the name but when I realised she had a prosthetic leg I knew who she was. The hippie network was extensive but always the same people popped up on the east coast.

Helen had worked with that woman when she was a student nurse and was from the flimsy bits I could put together her workmate had lost a leg in a motorcycle accident and at some point, somehow, Helen was conned into pinching a few vials of morphine or something for her and the hospital became suspicious. That’s when she got into her Volkswagen and ran away south, terminating her nursing career and ending up at Once Upon a Time.

The one-legged woman was a spectre from the past. The key to Helen’s divergence from the straight and narrow. I didn’t mention that I knew of her but made an excuse to go home. Ten days later Helen hadn’t reappeared so I’d decided to go and so we went. It was a bit like she was punishing me so I was punishing her, but I couldn't see that then.

Anyway, it was a good move.

We flew to Singapore where some friends of a friend picked us up from the airport and took us downtown to a hotel. We bought two durians on the way and ate one in our room before a staff member came to confiscate the other.

The night was very hot and construction workers toiled twenty-four hours a day on a skyscraper outside the window. Tina had fallen asleep just before the plane landed so I’d had to carry her with one arm while I filled out two sets of forms and lugged our bags. She was still only two years old.

At midnight, just as I was ready to sleep she woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep until we went out for a walk and I read her some books. Finally rain fell about four-thirty and not long after Tina woke up again. She had a kind of jet lag, her system was out of sequence, but finally she pushed out a long, shiny turd which I had to catch in my hands, and then she was okay. I kept her occupied until about six and then we went out for breakfast. We ate rotis and tea and she drank soya milk. I could tell despite the language barrier that the three Chinese at the next table were making a bet whether Tina was a boy or a girl. I could tell which one of them was wrong.

I had my beard shaved and hair cut short. The barber was begging me to leave my moustache intact. It certainly was better than his, but I wanted a clean fresh look. We had new passport photos taken and applied for a three month cultural visa for Thailand and then had a good night’s sleep.

The next day I bought some new silk outfits for Tina so she looked really cute. We went to see Walt Disney’s Pinocchio with a French woman we met. It was a work of art. Bought train tickets to Thailand.

I’d been reading Han Suyins "And the Rain My Drink". A story of the 1950's Malayan "emergency" so it was great to look out of the train window at the rubber plantations which feature in the story. The first time I’d read a book about a struggle that ultimately ended in defeat.

"Arise ye who do not want to be slaves. With flesh and blood we shall build our new Great Wall". Catchy slogan, but it failed. The British had called it an emergency because use of the word ‘war’ would have nullified their insurance policies.

The overnight ride to Surat Thani was a cramped sleep in one hour snatches and finally about eight that night we got off the train. We’d met some lovely Thai people who’d spent a lot of time amusing Tina and invited us to visit them in Bangkok.

We stayed the night in a cheap hotel in Surat Thani and although the mossies were fierce and the fan only worked full bore it was a surprisingly refreshing sleep. The next morning we were up early to board a bus for Ban Don to pick up the ferry to Ko Samui.

The one hour crossing was very serene and we were soon aboard a small ute being driven around the island to the bungalows on the beach.

It was fabulous, amazingly beautiful and just what we needed. We ate coconuts, fruit salad and rice, swam in the warm ocean and relaxed on the beach.

All of a sudden the trials of travel were worthwhile. I thought about how it had been during those weeks of almost constant rain and felt sure that I’d made the right decision as we played around in the warm shallows or sat on the veranda of our bungalow listening to the sounds of the tropical night and feeling good.

During the next few days we rode around the island to have a look at the other beaches but we’d found the best place straight off. Tina really enjoyed riding on the bike, sitting in front of me on the tank.

It was nice to be relaxing by the beach but I decided to find a pre-school for Tina so I went into the town and asked at the mission there. They told us we could live in the camp of Vietnamese refugees which was clustered there. They had a school.

For some reason I didn't go along with the offer of living in the camp. We had enough money to stay independent from anyone so I decided against it because the other kids made such a fuss of Tina. She couldn't speak the language and all of the other kids had straight black hair in contrast to her blond curly hair. She would be a minority of one so we contented ourselves with staying in our bungalow.

It was big enough, built of brick, had an adequate bathroom, and it was close to the beach with gardens on three sides.

Every morning we ate breakfast in the breezy little restaurant. Porridge with soya milk or fruit salad pancakes. Milk or fruit juice for Miss T and a cup of coffee for me. Food was so cheap you didn’t even have to think about it; and it was fresh and kind of organic. The island environment seemed pristine but who knows what herbicides they used.

After breakfast we’d proceed to the beach where a refugee boat had been abandoned above the high tide mark. Its transom threw just the right amount of shade to allow me to read a book without being cooked while Tina played safely at the water’s edge, right in front of me.

Each morning a young woman would come walking along the beach. Obviously no particular destination. Just itchy feet and a bikini.

One day a German, another day an American, next day maybe French or Italian. They were all great company so life had improved dramatically.

Each time it happened the same way. The lady would see my daughter playing at the water’s edge or in the shade of a coconut palm. She’d talk to her and then make the obvious connection with me. I’d see her head turn. We’d chat for a while. Get to know each other a bit. And then I’d invite her for lunch with us. Having a child made it simple.

She and Tina chose from the menu but every day I ate fried mackerel steak with onions, pepper and garlic; followed up with a bottle of German beer. Fish straight out of the ocean and beer straight out of the bottle. Doesn’t get much better.

Of course after lunch it was time for Tina to have a siesta and for my new friend and me to sit on the verandah shooting the breeze. I enjoyed the accent and different view-points. One particularly bright Thai gal named Jao made me promise to visit her when we came to Bangkok.

Not far away was a market. I admired the skilful work of the village artisans. One young man was selling handmade knives and cleavers. As a gesture I bought his entire stock of a dozen or so knives and carried them ‘home’.

The three months I spent with my daughter on that island were fabulous and I remain eternally grateful to her for being the little girl everyone loved at first sight.

The morning we were supposed to leave Tina was pulling her singlet over her head and got off balance so that one foot shot out to the side and just happened to find the end of a galvanized nail sticking out through the bamboo about an eighth of an inch which astoundingly slit all the way across the instep of her left foot. There was plenty of blood so it was a quick bandage, onto the bike, and off to the hospital. 

I felt really sorry for my little girl as the medical staff stuck a needle into her little foot and then put in three stitches. She screamed like a wild cat so it took two of us to gently but firmly restrain her but the instant it was over she looked across at the other "bed", stopped crying and said, "That bed is exactly the same as this one." It was her third birthday.

So we stayed an extra week on the island while her foot healed enough to remove the stitches.

We took the ferry back to the mainland but instead of catching the train from there I was seduced by an almost empty bus waiting for us straight across the street from the ferry terminal and I thought there’d be a spare seat for Tina to sleep on and it was so much cheaper and we were running short of money.

But what a night’s ride that was. By the time the bus had left they'd jammed it full, and the road was bumpy! I spent all night with my knees jammed against the seat in front with my daughter asleep on my lap. A three year old doesn’t weigh much, for the first six hours anyway.

The first little hotel we found was fine. Toy was the manager. I plonked my heavy suitcase down and was just about to lie down with Tina when she woke up like a light coming on. It was about nine in the morning so we went to the nearby zoo that Toy recommended and we wandered around looking at the animals. Little-girl loved it but I was dead on my feet.

Back at the hotel we had lunch and Miss T was soon asleep again so I sat outside the room to clear my head. It was a quiet and affordable place to relax for a few days.

The garden within the courtyard was a place of peace and beauty. There were no other guests, that I’d seen.

The cool garden gave me time to re-establish my belief in the balance of right and wrong and to savor hope for the future. A place to observe the continuing evolution from chaos to reason.

At the edge of the patio was a green bush with broad leaves and intriguing violet flowers. When I looked closely at it I noticed a few tiny caterpillars munching away at the younger leaves and their tiny cylinders of green shit could be seen on the terracotta tiles below. What kind of butterflies would they turn out to be?

Day by day the caterpillars grew fatter but day-by-day the bush became more chewed until I was inclined toward concern for it. Would they eat it bare before reaching the stage of cocoon?

The next morning two new characters appeared on the scene. A pair of chameleons.

Whenever they wished, without moving any more of themselves than an eyeball and tongue, they’d pluck a fat little caterpillar away from the hole it had been chewing. They soon took care of the problem concerning the survival of the bush, but then I began to be concerned that the hungry reptiles would finish off the caterpillars and retrieve our chance of completing the life cycle.

Later I saw only one chameleon but I wasn’t concerned until later in the day when a cat appeared and grabbed the remaining chameleon by the face. It then looked quickly my way as I moved to stop it, but I was too slow of course, and the black exotic was instantly gone among the bushes.

The progression I’d been watching was then disrupted. The cat, like the voice of doom, the heartless hand of fate, caused for me an uneasiness and grief that was mildly akin to when a tragedy befalls a happy family.

That night I lay in bed and thought about my future. The morning events had faded. I’d realized the relative insignificance of the creatures and how limited my concept of ‘nature’ had been. Sure the cat was foreign in the first analysis but I consoled myself with the thought that first there is a mountain, then there isn’t, then there is; some big thinking to alleviate the anxiety of the disrupted events. The kind of chain that had made me feel secure and part of a larger someway perfect pattern; pre-ordained and planned by a benevolent power.

Two small geckoes ran across the outside of the mosquito wire.

The candlelight from my room illuminated their transparent underbellies showing how much they’d eaten. I’d seen them before. So cute. The male, or what I supposed was the male, chased the female in quick bursts out of sight and then back onto the screen. The light was helping to attract the mosquitoes and moths.

Despite being reptiles four inches long I could recognize their level, the double meanings, the aggression in desire, the drive, the event unfolding the motion of love, the laws of life, the power of personality in the progression of procreation. The common thread that ties together the organism of intimacy.

I felt happy for them, and for myself. The future was a loving place, and a small but important pattern in which I would fit. A meaning mutually understood and valued.

It was a magical balmy tropical night and I would sometime not be alone.

The female plucked a tiny white moth, removed the wings, and ate it. The male was close behind, seeming to be less interested in catching food, but instead of catching her, like black lightning the cat appeared on the screen.

.All I heard were the claws gripping the wire and its teeth crushing the little spasming thing. Then it was gone. I was shocked, I felt angry. That fucking cat again! That evil out-of-place thing! What chance is there?

The female didn’t move. She seemed to be as stunned as I was. How quickly things can change! My composure and pleasure had gone and the ramifications spread through my reality like cracks through glass. How was it possible to have faith in the basic elements of human happiness when there are such disproportionate powers to destroy; to abort our plans for peace and prosperity?

And then it returned landing out of the dark as before. With one eye a ’twinkle and a mechanical twist of its head in two sharp bites the little lizard was hanging out both sides of the cat’s mouth.

The sounds were like pointed teeth joining between my ears. I jumped up from my bed to take a swipe at the screen, but of course the cat was gone.

“Is there any hope for mankind?” I yelled at the night.

We’d had a relaxing week to chill out in the cheap hotel but the next day while wandering around looking in antique shops I noticed a sign ‘something tower’ and realised that was Jao’s place. When I’d met her on the island she’d told me to come to see her when we came to the city so I buzzed her from the lobby and she and her friends gave us a warm reception and Jao demanded that we stay with her.

Why not? It was luxurious and free, and there were many beautiful girls. And they all adored Miss Tina.

Jao was out most of the time so we stayed close, waited for a money–order and enjoyed the luxury of a hot bath and fancy TV, but after a few days I’d decided it was time to look for a job so I inquired at the Australian embassy about teaching cultural orientation to refugees.

It seemed like a good idea to let people know that Australia is a big country and there are parts that have the same warm climate that would allow them a similar agricultural lifestyle to what they were used to so they had more options than working in a shoe factory in Melbourne.

I was referred to a relief agency where a very nice gentleman advised me to go to a camp out on the Cambodian border. The next morning I found the right bus at the eastern terminus and we rode on it for most of the day toward the Kampuchean border, arriving in a dusty town late in the afternoon. It was then that I realised just how limited my Thai language was.

We eventually found a place to sleep and early the next morning, with Tina sitting happily as usual on my arm, we went to where the aid workers lived and I arranged a ride out to the refugee camp. Being amongst a group of people who were well known to the gate guards it was easy for them to smuggle us in, but I found that the contracts for jobs were not going to be renewed until the end of the year and that was months away.

I did some trading for art work; paintings and wood carvings. Crazy as I am, in a locked camp, I’d brought in and traded the whole lot of meat cleavers and knives which I’d bought on the island. It would have been hard to explain what I was doing if a guard had caught me with so many ‘weapons’.

After dead-ending in my quest to become a cultural consultant we returned to Bangkok to buy tickets to Hong Kong to see if I could work there as an English teacher.

The pulled muscle in my back was aggravated by the long bus ride back from the border. I was tired and a bit disappointed so I was glad to be back at Jao’s place. I used my key to open the door but to my surprise Jao’s Texan sugar daddy was there, back from Saudi Arabia early. He, and Jao maybe, were at that moment absorbed by the final race for the Americas Cup so I sat on the end of the bed and rooted for Australia.

When the race was over I was dreading a cross-examination from Tex about who I was but I noticed that the IBM building just down the street was on fire. It was about twelve stories tall and the fire brigade’s ladders could only go up to the fifth so the fire was getting out of control. 

It was pandemonium, which Jao and Tex went off to watch, so I took our suitcase out from the closet, repacked it, and went looking for another place to stay.

We moved into one of the many very cheap hotels nearby but shuffling along the crowded street in forty degree city heat I felt sort of beat. I had seventy dollars left, three days on my visa, no tickets out of the country, too much bloody baggage, and a sore back that was causing me a lot of pain. I stopped on the footpath and opened the suitcase to look for something to discard. It was frustration more than anything else but the first thing I saw was the manuscript which I’d refined to a third writing. It was about the size and weight of a phone book so I pulled it out and flung it on a pile of garbage at the side of the road. I was imagining the espionage theme would find its way to a CIA agent who would take it as real, and somehow create a situation where the hoax would kick-start my writing career.

Something that I’ve often regretted; throwing away the manuscript and the CIA agent not finding it. How unlucky can you get? I must have been going a bit ‘troppo’.

In the very cheap hotel our room was on the third floor. It was the pits! Every time one of us wanted to go to the toilet we had to carry passport and cash to go downstairs two flights. The room had at some stage been half of a larger room so we were party to whatever went on on the other side of the flimsy partition.

Waiting for money to be electronically transferred was just part of the travel hassle but I didn’t realise the money hadn’t come yet because of school holidays. My messages to Australia had been falling on deaf ears. The system was very primitive and expensive then. How was I to know about school holidays?

One day we took the train the short distance to Ayuthia, the original capital of Siam, to look at the ancient temples there. It was mind-blowingly picturesque and I took some lovely photos of Tina dressed in golden silk with various monumental stupas in the background and a big thunderstorm coming up behind her.

One temple in particular really impressed me because it had huge teak pillars inside, maybe a metre thick, but packed in amongst the perimeter of pillars was a magnificent Buddha. The restricted space made the statue seem even larger than it was and I tried to imagine how it must have felt for a peasant five hundred years ago to have entered the small doorway of the temple and been confronted by such an astoundingly majestic form.

Tina got a real thrill when we bought a baby turtle and let it go in the river. Overall it had been a day to remember but later when my expensive camera was stolen it became a day I’ll never forget.