Chapter 7 Demon's Teeth

Chapter 7

Demon’s Teeth

The drive to Sydney took us seventeen hours. I drove while the girls dozed. And then another ten hours back north after I’d had a sound night’s sleep at my sister’s place.

The next afternoon we arrived at the property but it was raining heavily, and had been for days, so it was impossible to get our things to the house without borrowing the neighbors four-wheel-drive and when we did get to the house it was such a filthy mess that Sarina muttered, "No-one could live in that!"

As usual a squatter had taken up residence while I’d been away so the place was a mess. I felt terrible that Sarina was seeing my house in such a bad light but after a few hours we’d cleaned up enough space to sleep and then went to town to a restaurant where we ate a pleasant meal before returning.

When we arrived back at the house the rodent-like person who had moved in uninvited was incredibly abusive and insulting despite having lived in my house uninvited and without rent for I don’t know how long. It was the last thing I wanted Sarina to be confronted with.

Finally we sorted it out and shifted her up to the garage, which was plenty big enough for her to stay in until she found something else. I was being as helpful as possible but she wasn’t my responsibility.

Sarina and I worked methodically to get the place cleaned up so within a few days it was looking really good. The polished hardwood floor with rich timber tones gleamed and everything was in its place. It was terrific to have such a lovely lady to help me, and she was finally looking house-proud.

Naturally by then I’d caught up with the local gossip concerning Helen. Apparently there had been more dramas until Helen had managed to ‘disappear’. That sounded ominous but I was quietly assured by one of her oldest female friends that she was okay and living quietly in a fairly distant location. The details of which I didn’t need to know. That news was a relief. That she’d finally made a clean break and he had no idea where she was. And maybe he’d given up looking.

Despite growing up in a wealthy family in Cologne Sarina fitted in remarkably well to the basic rural setting. She quickly adjusted to the lack of electricity and unusual bathing facilities. We had a big, deep, enamel bathtub with clawed feet out on the verandah in the sun connected to the solar hot water panel on the roof but one end was shaded by papaya leaves. It was rather luxurious to lie back in the warm water within reach of a papaya, or guava, or passion-fruit; just as I’d planned when planting the trees and vines a few years before. The solar hot water system had a large, insulated, storage tank so there was plenty of hot water to keep the tub filled to the brim so moonlight on the verandah was a special time; the moon so bright it was almost possible to read a book.

It really was a beautiful place to live, especially after I’d mowed all around the house and trimmed back some over-enthusiastic plants. Working naked in the garden with Sarina was heavenly because she was keen to learn everything to do with growing vegetables, was so lovely to look at, and ready to play whenever I was.

After about six weeks Sarina got the message from her Mum that she was coming out from Switzerland to see her. Apparently she’d been told by Sarina's father that she’d been hauled away to a Hari Krishna cult prison. I looked forward to meeting Sarina's mother, some sort of money manager Sarina told me, but I knew she wouldn't be impressed by the ‘country mansion’ so I rented a smallholiday apartment at the beach for the duration of her stay.

The mother had a lovely holiday but by the time she’d gone back to Europe we’d decided we wanted to stay on the coast. I’d started surfing again and the local school didn't have any of the hippie bullshit, or more importantly, it hadn't been taken over by feminist fuckwits.

The last time I'd taken Miss T to our ‘hippie school’ there was a new ‘teacher’ there who I immediately disliked. She had a moustache, the bitch attitude, and seemed to have already taken over the place.

We rented a nice house within walking distance of the beach. Sarina did a hospitality course while I worked as a brickie’s labourer. We were making some money, making love, having fun, and my daughter was very happy with her school.

And then I saw a small article in the local paper telling of an unnamed person being arrested for firing a gun in a public place. And guess who it was?

As a matter of fact I found out later that he’d been arrested on two consecutive days for firing rifles in the street yet he was still on the loose! It didn’t make me feel too good I can tell you that.

The first mistake I made was ringing the police to ask if they could assure me that the fellow mentioned in the newspaper didn’t have any more firearms. I hadn't realized how much animosity I’d cause by asking that question. Obviously they didn't want to have to go out to his place looking for weapons. It could be dangerous; for them.

A few days later, working on a building site, I was buying my lunch in a local shop when I saw a row of knives displayed along the back wall and one of them for some reason had a tag with my first name on it. I asked the guy if he would remove the tag and he asked me why. "Well, there’s a crazy guy who lives nearby who might see that and interpret it as some kind of message that the knife is intended for me.” I replied.

"I think I know the person you’re worried about." he replied as he tucked the tag in behind the handle. And he was right. But he also told me that there were some old buddies of Dogface coming up from Sydney to take him off to the nuthouse for his own good, so I felt much relieved, especially in comparison with the news that I’d received the previous day from a guy who’d been to look at his house, which was up for sale. He said that when he went inside, Dogface was there but almost oblivious, sitting in amongst dirty dishes used as ashtrays that looked as though they’d been there for months. But most importantly he said there was a poster on the wall. A picture of a shotgun, looking from the trigger end, and on it was a list of names written in text a, with mine on the top. Beneath the weapon was written, "These people must die, from the front or from the back!" So I was suitably nervous. The assurances that he was being put away only half assuaged my fear.

That afternoon I went shopping with my daughter, in a state of false security, because instead of him being taken to the nuthouse by “old mates” he’d escaped from them and taken off looking for me with his brain spun out from the high frequency sounds of the two-way radio and power tools of the builders who’d suddenly appeared next door to him a few days before. I was told he’d been running a cement mixer with bricks inside to keep himself awake all night for some reason. The end product of countless hours of a paranoid hell.

Tina and I were walking along the footpath towards the supermarket in the main street when the fuse reached the powder. I looked up and saw him running straight at us with kaleidoscopic murder in his eyes. Not slowing down.

I had only enough time to push Tina inside the doorway of a café, out of the direct line of fire, before he struck with a vengeance, unexpectedly latching onto my face with his teeth. Straight under my right eye where the cheek is the thickest his jaw was clenched, with my face firmly held between his upper and lower incisors.

The shock and pain were terrible, but the realization that he had no intention of letting go brought about a profound increase in focus.

Although I’d known that person to be overwhelmed by pain and anger built up during a life of personal disaster caused by alcoholism and the violence it engendered, which had caused him to be estranged from his own children, in those few seconds while he bit into my face I realized I was also dealing with an extra-human phenomena. As his forehead almost pressed on my face I saw with my high eye that on his scalp down in amongst the thousands of hairs was a pair of insectoid creatures standing with their forelegs interlocked looking out at me, grinning and rubbing their tiny claws together. I was experiencing a vicious manifestation of evil on a mundane plane. He was the curse of the mother-in-law slipped between the elements, squeezing through like a cosmic hernia.

I managed to land a few punches with my left arm straight into the side of his head, aiming at his ear, and then a final wallop. The instant he flinched I tore my face away from his jaws and started swinging, flailing really, he was holding my shirt, so my arms were poorly proportioned for such close contact.

A few punches landed on the side of his head and one right in his eye socket but he next latched onto my forearm with his teeth and once again hung on like a mad dog. I was sure I’d already lost a chunk out of my face, then it was my arm, what would I lose next? My nose, an ear, a finger?

I cried out for help to draw attention as a wave of panic flushed through my body and my mind spun and reeled at the almost instantaneous and horrendous distortion and outgrowth of reality. I was in a bubble with a demon. I could see blurred images of the other world beyond but we were in the magic bag together, although, except for flashes, I couldn’t comprehend the majority of blurred strobe-like sensations.

Finally, one powerful punch straight to his face fuelled by desperate desperation broke the grip of his teeth on my arm. For an instant, after the quickest glimpse at the wound, I paused in relief and situation adjustment but then spun around just in time to see him swinging a cast iron chair over his head, already coming down, and aimed at the back of mine. I leapt aside as the chair swung down to hit the sidewalk and bounce away.

Cars were passing on the road beside us so I thought, as much as I had time to think, that he would pursue me into the path of a passing car, but no, a new dimension of terror gripped me as he bolted in the opposite direction, into the cafe to grab my child; with me chasing hard.

One woman, the only bystander to offer any assistance had thrown her arms around Tina when she saw him rushing in towards her and for her courage was grasped by the hair. She lost her footing and with her screaming he gripped Tina by the arm with one hand and with the other held the woman from falling to the floor by pulling on her ponytail. People were already getting up from their tables and stumbling back away from the violence.

Everything was happening so fast and so desperately that for a second I wasn't functioning properly or comprehending clearly. I shouted the plea, "Let her go, please let her go!" but he hung on to both of them in his insane frenzy.

I picked up a spoon from the table at my side and almost stuck the sharp handle into his ribs but stopped myself from doing it. I’d never been able to rouse the heartless beast within me so I threw the spoon aside. I should have stabbed him with it. I should have stuck it straight into his eye.

It occurred to me to cut her hair off to release his grip, although the confusion of arms had caused me to mistake the hair of the heroine with my daughter’s completely different colour hair. Hard to imagine being that confused but it is indicative of the overwhelming and ongoing shock.

"Throw me that knife" I yelled to a woman at the nearest table people were backing away from.

"You can't do that!" she screamed.

Both she and Dogface had misinterpreted my intention, which was enough to make him release his grip and look my way – the fear of having a knife stuck into him.

My greatest fear, after being bitten twice myself, was that he was going to bite off Tina’s nose or ear or something, so as soon as he looked up to see ‘the knife’ I landed my knee into his face and then my foot straight after and pulled my daughter away as he toppled backwards.

“You guys!” Iyelle data couple of young men, “Quick! Grab him!” I told them.

Two men jumped onto him and gave me enough room for us to escape through the cafe toward the back door of the kitchen, but in my panic I couldn’t find the rear exit in the few seconds I had so I hid Tina beneath a bench in precarious safety and spun back to face the door.

I knew it would only be moments before Dogface would break away from their attempts to restrain him. There were knives all over the place and I felt as though our lives could very soon be over if I didn’t completely commit to bringing him down.

There was no room for expectations of mercy or compassion from a person possessed by an indescribably primitive demon. The evil force I’d glimpsed through slight misalignments of simultaneous realities wasn’t subject to earthly restraint. It was here, hidden within him, but we were there, together. Fighting for our lives in full view of the earthly spectators oblivious to the gross subtleties..

I leapt back across to the kitchen doorway to prevent him broaching the entrance but as I arrived at the opening he had the cash register held above his head and he hurled it at me with all his madman's strength. Café customers could be seen in the background, pushed back against the wall in horror. I ducked aside instantly knowing that I was on my own in defence of my child and self as the register flew by, spinning as it did, just over my right shoulder, smashing against the wall before skidding across the floor.

Our lives were on the line. In one step I was through the door and fending off a tray of coffee cups thrown at me. Another item missed my head as I ducked behind the espresso machine and he lunged forward to push it onto me; I was looking straight into his eyes, those mad eyes that contained three worlds and changed a million shades when the machine didn't budge; because it was bolted down.

In that instant I pounced onto the counter and hit him straight in the head with my right fist and followed through with my entire body as I launched myself onto him.

We fell across a table, which collapsed under our weight and made an uncomfortable landing place for Dogface face down on the hard floor with me on top pinning his arms with my knees, his face turned away from the expected blow.

A broken-off table leg was beside his head but I restrained myself from picking it up and smashing his skull. I was extremely frightened, shocked to the core to be accurate, but my only intention was to escape with my child in one piece. Having experienced the dilemma of trying to protect her and defend myself simultaneously I was satisfied to simply run with Tina, scared but unhurt. Why I didn’t whack him, hard, once, I’ve asked myself a million times, but escape was the absolute priority.

"Help me!!” I yelled at the perimeter of astounded people. Some females screaming. My confidence in continuing to restrain him was minimal; the biting had added a new dimension to the concept of attack. My confidence in the willingness of others to apply themselves properly to helping us was diluted by the realization that they were understandably afraid and unsure of what was happening.

The same two men did help though, and pinned him down while I ran into the kitchen, scooped my brave but tearful little girl into my arms and we ran for our lives out the backdoor, down the arcade and into a dress shop to hide and recover my breath. It had been horrible and I was unsure that it was over until heard a siren, and a few seconds later we got right out of there.

Fortunately he was held until the police arrived minutes later. We were already on our way to the hospital for treatment. That night I made a statement to the unfortunate policeman who’d done the undesirable deed of carting Dogface kicking and screaming to the psychiatric clinic where he was locked up.

Once there, and for the next few days, so I was told later, he continued to curse and threaten everyone, to say that he would kill them and cut their children’s throats.

Six days later, a magistrate convened a special sitting at the clinic and it was decided that he must stay confined to the clinic for at least three months before being re-assessed and if found to be rational, he would then be liable to face criminal charges of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm, two more counts of assault, damages to the cafe of almost three thousand dollars, discharging firearms in a public place, and the cultivation of opium poppies. That gave me some confidence.

Unfortunately, after spending the afternoon revelling in the good news that I had at least three months breathing space, about ten o'clock I received a ‘confidential call’ from a nurse at the facility summarising the sadistic slaughter he had planned for me and the warning that he’d escaped from the clinic at about eight that night and the police were searching for him.

By two I was the only person awake in the house. All windows and doors were locked and I satin a dark corner holding a solid hardwood staff as a weapon, though doubted that he’d be able to travel the forty kilometres to carry out his many threats to kill me.

Nevertheless I was nervous and wished that none of the misfortune had complicated my life or my daughter’s. Or Sarina’s. She was a very strong child and seemed to be bearing up to it all fantastically well, but the unknowns were awesome.

Would he find a weapon? Catch a ride? Contact some crazy crony? The night was long. Turn-world-turn was my mantra as I waited for the sun to rise again.

The police hadn't informed me that he'd escaped from the clinic, and just as importantly they hadn't told me he’d been picked up just before sunrise, only eight kilometres away from my place. He’d travelled about thirty kilometres during the night, in the clinic's pyjamas.

During the previous few weeks I’d learned where Helen was and spoken to her on the phone a couple of times. As predicted she was close to Cairns, but living on a fruit farm about twenty kilometres to the south, and keeping very much to herself, so after that long tense night I decided the only fair thing to do was get Tina out of the problem so I put her on a plane that flew her up to her mother while I waited for the court case. After all of the custody drama it may seem strange that I sent Tina up to stay with her Mum but it had always, primarily, been about keeping Tina safe from Dogface.

I then began to put together evidence so when Dogface came to court in a fortnight I would be ready. I wanted to see him put away where he belonged. He was already in a real jail on remand but I wanted him to stay there. You may think I was being harsh but you’ve probably never been bitten on the face or seen your child so terrified.

Unfortunately I didn't take the advice I was given, to begin civil action against him because I thought the legal system already functioned to bring about just resolutions. I didn't understand the law very well at that stage and I still underestimated the ability of the local police to be complete arseholes. They hadn't forgiven me for asking the boss at Country Town to make sure that Dogface didn’t have any more guns. I’d found out that one of the cops in particular was an old buddy of his from way back, but he did live to regret that. He spent two years out at Wagga-Wagga, a town on the dry western plains so boring that they named it twice. Not a good posting for a cop who likes to surf.

So court day came and I was ready to show my evidence to the judge but to my dismay I wasn't even allowed into the courtroom and at the last minute his counsel pleaded guilty, assuring the court that the firearms had been discharged in his own yard and at no stage was anyone at risk. I couldn't believe it. Just a week before one of the guys who’d been DF’s "friend" had told me that he was the target and there was no doubt that Dogface was trying to shoot him, so in fact he should’ve been tried for attempted murder. If that cast-iron chair had connected with my head I’d be dead for sure.

So, one more example of "justice", as Dogface walked out of court with a five hundred and fifty dollar fine and a bond which stated that he could not make any direct or indirect attempt at contacting me or any member of my family. As if that was going to work. Slowly I was realising just how useless the legal system really was.

I asked the cops if they could guarantee my safety if I stayed in town, "Well, we can't have a twenty four hour guard on your house." they answered.

Just as we were about to leave some guys from police Internal Affairs arrived at the house to ask a few questions. I told them I was leaving town because I feared for my safety, and mentioned the special relationship between ‘the cop’ and Dogface, and they seem interested.

It was great being on the open road again, just the two of us. The ute was fully loaded but we were just cruising, and camping at isolated beaches. It was so Australian.

It felt good to be away from the dramas. I was a lucky guy to have such a beautiful, devoted young lady beside me on those long boring stretches of highway.

Helen had invited us to stay at their house until we got ourselves organized so that is where we were headed. She was living on a really nice farm with acres of orchard surrounded by tropical forest-covered hills in the distance. Tina was excited to see us. She’d been having a fun time staying on the farm. The house was a bit grubby because of the red earth and the focus of the work day being outdoors, but overall it was a pleasant place to live and the guy Helen was with was a hard-working down-to-earth kind of dude whose parents owned all the land.

Tina was running around the orchard enjoying the open spaces. There was a tractor and a few motorbikes.

Back in Cairns I starting driving the backpacker bus up to Cape tribulation. Every day one, two or three busloads of backpackers went to a fairly remote backpacker place and many of them were in my hands. 

I enjoyed working with backpackers because they were young people from all over the world just wanting to enjoy themselves. I’d first been to the cape in nineteen-seventy when it was still only a dirt track but I still enjoyed every trip up there because it is such a beautiful place and the dirt road winds through the rainforest over a couple of small mountain ranges and the conditions are so variable. 

One of the casual drivers was an interesting young guy who was doing a university degree through James Cook uni in Townsville and while we were playing chess he suggested I study something so I enrolled in an Asian Studies degree specialising in all things Indonesian. Originally gone there for surfing but had gradually become interested in the history and culture that was all around me, all the time. James Cook had a ’sub-campus’ in Cairns so I went along and signed up to begin a BA Asian Studies. It was exciting.

Although Tina stayed living with her mother she came to us every weekend. We had an apartment right on the beach. Close by a guy rented jet-skis which were a lot of fun. I bought a four-cylinder Kawasaki which I used to drop Tina off each early Monday morning. It was an enjoyable ride of about forty kilometres.

It wasn’t until I was at a party that Helen was also attending that I realised how much alcohol was effecting her. Early in the night she was laughing and enjoying herself but she became increasingly aggressive the more she drank until later she was in tears and being restrained by her boyfriend. I felt quite concerned about her. The boyfriend seemed protective of her but on the two occasions when he came to visit with Helen he stayed in the car. The first time I went down to invite him in. I thought he must just be shy, but he mumbled something about not using Helen, that he wasn’t just using Helen, whatever that meant, so I took it in my stride.

One night Sarina and I had been to a party, and had a great time, but when we arrived home in a taxi about midnight we heard what was obviously a very loud party just across the road from our place so we decided to drop in and visit our ‘neighbours, being still in the party mood and dressed in party-style clothes.

The house was a typical Queenslander, set high off the ground, but as we began climbing the front steps some people emerged from around the side of the house and instructed us to go that way. Which we did.

We got a huge surprise when we reached the back corner of the house pushed aside a few fronds and caught our first glimpse of the party.

Both backyards of the two houses were joined and there was a stage at each end, one supporting a band and the other hosting ‘go-go’ dancers. The entire area was filled with full-on patched-up bikeys, either Comancheros or Bandidos. Whoa! Scary!

We must have looked so out of place being dressed in tropical party clothes but we’d broached the portal so there was no easy way of turning back. I was trying to work out the best thing to do when, “Sarina!” a bold surprised voice exclaimed.It was a woman she’d worked with behind the bar at the Hides hotel.

“Hi Crystal, wow, you’ve lost a lot of weight.” replied Sarina as we walked over to the cluster of people she was with. I felt slightly more at ease actually knowing someone there but it certainly wasn‘t my natural habitat and we must have looked completely out of place.

To escape the limelight we went under the house to look at the most beautiful motorcycle I’d ever seen. A gold Harley done ina very tasteful style. The owner was proudly showing it off to us when Sarina asked about the long scar down the side of his face. “No need to talk about that.” he said gruffly, “Except to say both of ‘em are dead.”

After a couple more scary introductions we eased our way out and went home but I couldn’t sleep and came up with the craziest idea, even crazier than usual; to see if I could find a bikie willing to kill DF.

It was a completely mad idea borne of desperation but I dressed more appropriately and returned at three a.m. to a completely different scene. AC/DC was still blaring out of some huge speakers but the stages were empty, most of the people were gone, and there were some angry exchanges coming from the far corner.

Somehow, after being handed a beer I was talking to a tall guy who seemed to be the type of bikie I could relate to. Not the gross, obnoxious, cretinous type but I still shouldn’t have asked him about how it might be possible to have someone disappear. “Man, you got balls asking a question like that.” he said, genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. I’m just so desperate. Please, forget everything I said to you. It’s late. I’m crazy. Time for bed.” I replied, some percentage of the enormity of what I’d just done quickly sinking in. “Best I go home to bed”, I continued as I turned to leave but a really chunky bull terrier was standing on the path quietly growling at me. My nerves were completely jangled but I finally got out in one piece and returned to my peaceful bed with Sarina sleeping silently beside me. If it ever came to that I’d have to do it myself. Like winning custody, nobody cared more about being successful than I did.

Life went on but on the Monday morning when I was getting ready to take Tina back to her mother Tina asked if she could stay with me, permanently. She said her Mum and the boyfriend watched horror movies all the time and she got scared. She also told me they had lots of fights. I’d learnt that her boyfriend was on parole for something and Helen had told me that when they were driving home from the local pub the police had pulled them over but the boyfriend had got Helen to quickly changed seats with him so she was the one that was charged with DUI. It sounded really unfair and she lost her license as a result.

I told Helen what she’d said, and she didn’t deny it, but we all agreed that Tina would stay where she was until the end of the school year, which was only a matter of weeks away. And it was the end of first year uni.

So soon enough Tina was back with me, by her choice, so I didn’t see so much of Helen although I did hear that she’d smashed the headlights on her boyfriend’s ute to prevent him from leaving and the parents’, who owned the farm, had kicked her out. A few days later I heard that she’d been involved in a scuffle outside a hotel in Cairns. She obviously shouldn’t have been drinking. It brought out the worst in her. Soon enough she’d disappeared off the scene and I didn’t go looking for her. She’d become so exasperating and we were keen to just live quietly.

Soon after Sarina accepted an invitation from her mother to spend Christmas with her in Switzerland so I dropped her at the airport and got used to being alone with Tina, which gave me more time to wonder what our enemy was up to. I’d heard he’d been putting up wanted posters around the place and Helen’s mother had received a letter from a solicitor adviser her to get Helen to contact them if she wished to inherit some money due to her.

DF had had a taste of jail and he was on a good-behaviour bond but during the previous months I’d become very reactive to seeing blue Ford Falcons so when I caught a glimpse of the yellow number plates on one which had turned right at an intersection a couple of blocks away. I rode around town a few times with the intention of getting a better look. I was feeling suitably anonymous wearing the full-face helmet but when I did see the car again, pulled up outside the city markets, there was no doubt that it was him. Ass-hole!

I was about eighty metres away, my heart beating faster and a sour taste of exasperation in my mouth, but as I focused on his profile he swung his head to look right at me, as though he knew it was me inside the helmet, behind the shades, looking at him.

I knew he couldn’t recognise me from that distance although body language can be an effective form of recognition, even when sitting still, but he knew I liked riding motorbikes, so it was time to get out of there.

Time to get out of Cairns. Maybe time to leave the country if my repeated efforts at ‘disappearing’ still weren’t working out.

Mr Ambush wasn’t going to get us again.

Touching the electric start and engaging a gear zipped me through the Saturday traffic until cruising along the main road out of town at a steady sixty, then eighty until one hundred for several kilometres before turning off down a connecting road that dissected a couple of thousand acres of full-grown sugar cane before reaching the little ‘suburb’ at the base of the mountains where we lived. I was obviously thinking about what had just happened in town. That was definitely DF, his car, his head, so I was going to have to do something serious, but whether to lay low, stay at home out of sight in the hope he’d get tired of looking for Helen, or us, and go away, or should we leave town altogether, again, and find another place, and see how long that would last.

I didn’t know where Helen had gone so I didn’t know how visible she was being; or even if that’s why he was here. Word-of-mouth was the worst element of having ‘belonged’ to a semi-nomadic subculture, to the ‘tribe’, because wherever I went I recognised people and they recognised me; or Helen. It only had to happen once and our secret location was on the grapevine and DF used that to his advantage by putting up crude wanted posters, offering rewards, and engaging a private detective who knew who to bribe to get ‘confidential’ information.

A lot of friends knew some of what was going on with DF but to a casual acquaintance who I’d maybe met at a festival or picked up hitch-hiking, a simple, “I heard he’s up in Cairns” would be, and it seems have been, enough to send him looking in that direction.

It was a watershed moment. My patience had been stretched as far as it would stretch. I’d really tried hard to disappear, within reason. I wasn’t going to live in a cave in the desert, and here he was again. From what I’d been told by a reliable source he was too paranoid to go in a plane so I decided it was definitely time to escape from Australia altogether. My attempts as eluding him had repeatedly failed because we were always places he could drive to. And the police had shown themselves, repeatedly, to be worse than useless. If it wasn’t for the police and contradictory laws I could have turned the tables on him long ago. To hunt HIM, and kill HIM, had become something quite often on my mind. The situation had become deplorable. My only avenue was escape O/S.

One high point from that time was a letter from Elsie saying how glad she was that I had won custody of Tina. It felt good to read that. Being a single-parent of a girl caused a lot of people to ask me where her mother was, as though she had to be a bad person if the father had custody. It was a really sexist attitude but not unusual. I realised then how much guilt I’d felt not having her mother with me to share in all the fun things.

I had replied, to Elsie, by calling her to tell her how much I appreciated her letter, and finished off the conversation by reminding her that she hadn’t lifted the curse she’d put on me. It was as though she’d forgotten all about it, she apologised, and we signed off on good terms.

As I was thinking that, cruising along the gravel road, I heard an unusual sound that sent my eyes straight to the right-hand rear-view mirror. Squealing tyres and a bit of a bouncy sound alerted me to a vehicle which had just turned off the highway onto the gravel road behind me; and it was Dogface! Or someone in Dogface’s car, driving like Dogface, and catching up to me too quickly as I changed down a gear and wound up the throttle. The bike was quite fast but so was the car eating up the space between him and me. As though he’d had some work done on the motor or something.

I leaned into the wind and rode as fast as I could considering the loose gravel surface but he was catching me and I didn’t want to be leading him toward our home so I pulled what could only be described as a stunt by suddenly taking a last-moment left turn onto a secondary ‘track’ used by cane trucks and other machinery. Surviving the corner without falling down was encouraging, especially as DF locked up and slid past, but as I caught a glimpse over my shoulder I saw he was rapidly backing-up and very soon was onto me again; only about two hundred and fifty metres behind.

I wasn’t sure where the track was going to lead me and there were many bumps and depressions made by tractor tyres still full of rainwater so I’d had to dodge the holes and slow down on the slippery uneven surface, but not DF, he was coming at me oblivious to the conditions, the car bouncing and sliding and sending up sprays of muddy water which splashed across the windscreen as the wipers pumped back and forth making his ugly face appear to be rocking back and forth like a crazy clown recognisable through the smeared blue-pole glass.

That face I’d never wanted to see again was coming at me like a whirl-wind of evil intentions and I had only moments to find a way to avoid it without falling, because obviously that’s what he wanted; to drive right over me. To mash me to mush beneath his car.

I rode as ridiculously fast as I could but not too far ahead there was a T-junction. I was trying to decide whether to turn left or right but DF’s Falcon was getting horribly close, much too close for me to slow down even half enough to attempt a ninety degree turn either way so I just kept the power on and went straight ahead with my backside lifted off the seat, taking my body-weight on the foot-pegs, getting a lift from the berm along the edge of the perpendicular dirt track and flying high across a decent size irrigation ditch and landing in the tops of the sugar cane, separating from the bike and tumbling through the air and bouncing through the cane stalks until I finally came to a halt on the ground amongst the clumps, scratched, bashed and a bit stunned but also still scared so I jumped up and went running along the narrow space between the rows of flowering cane, unsure of what had happened to DF.

Being able to hear a revving engine I roughly knew where he was, the car at least, but fortunately unable to see anything but metre after metre of tall cane stalks and the millions of broad grass-like leaves that provided me with cover as I sprinted along with the one intention of getting away from Dogface and getting us out of Australia as soon as possible.

Fortunately Tina was at home so after a quick shower, dressing in suitable clothes, and packing a couple of small bags we took a taxi to the airport and caught the first plane out; not looking back, except to make sure we weren’t being followed. I hadn’t even considered calling the police because by then I fully knew they were more trouble than assistance.

The first plane only took us to Brisbane but there we waited overnight and got on the early-bird to Bali. We endured the usual tedium of travel but Bali was a blast from the moment we walked out of the air-conditioned airport. Free-dom!

We taxied to our usual budget hotel, dropped our bags and changed into shorts and tank-tops to hit the beach where we spent the afternoon in the water getting used to the heat and humidity, and soothing my bruised body. The place was, as usual, so friendly and familiar; eating in our favourite restaurants and playing chess with the car rental dudes the days soon began falling one into another.

I was going to continue to have Austudy cheques go to my old address, for the present, and I had someone to bank them for me, but, I obviously had to come up with a way to make enough money to live on because we were there indefinitely.

As a gamble I photocopied three copies of a small collection of stories I’d been writing and added a cover created by blowing up a detail from a Cambodian bank note I just happened to have with me and adding some funky text.

With three copies of the ‘book’, titled ‘Transience’, I went to the beach and it only took me an hour to sell all three; with a money-back guarantee. Before I’d spent the money I went back to the photocopy shop to use some of the capital for another edition to be picked up the following morning. As long as we kept our expenses low and I sold at least ten ‘books’ a day we could survive.

Day to day life was focused on the beach. We’d hired a couple of boards and Tina was getting pretty good already. Being primarily a parent obviously meant that I couldn’t go drinking in nightclubs but I had no interest in that anyway. After eating in one of the numerous cheap restaurants, or from the cholera-carts that lined the street after dark, we returned to the hotel and hit the sack ready for the early morning surf. And we always had books to read.

Pretty much first light we’d head to the beach with our boards.

I wanted to keep studying, and I wanted to remain eligible for Austudy to keep the cheques coming. I’d contacted the university to ask if I could continue studying externally  and they were very friendly and bent over backwards to accommodate a single parent, especially a single father because I was still a bit of a novelty. As for Tina’s schooling, I just had to put it on hold temporarily but taught her whatever she wanted to know, and she was always full of questions.

“I remember you!" a beach hawker had said first day as she smiled at Tina, and it got me thinking. Unsurprisingly, we were familiar faces to quite a few people. It was good because the locals always gave us the right price but that recognition gave me the idea it was better to move away from the tourist area. Call me paranoid but I had no idea of what to expect from DF.

Better to find somewhere really quiet, away from the tourist areas. Dogface had used his money to pay private investigators and a series of solicitors, and of course there’d been the rumours about ‘contracts’ to have me killed so I had to expect almost anything. I knew he was too afraid to fly to Bali himself, but it wasn’t beyond him to pay someone to come looking for us.

Next day I rented a bike to go looking for a safer place. Several kilometres out of 'town' I turned off onto a far less manic road and zoomed unperturbed through a landscape of rice fields, banana patches, and little lunch-nap huts, ostensibly looking for a friendly wave another aussie guy had told me about but at the same time hoping to discover what we did discover, one of the nicest places, a village named Pererenan, about ten kilometres to the west of the Kuta area, with a small left and right-hand reef break right out the front, and in the middle of where nobody goes.

There was a tiny café with a couple of empty bungalows near the beach but everywhere else was still rice fields. So clean and green and the low caste farmers very ‘down to earth’ you might say. The farmer's name was Nyoman and his little boy Ketut. I hadn't realised then that I’d stopped for a rest there in 1974 while walking back from Tanah Lot.

We ate a hearty breakfast at the café and after checking out the bungalow we decided to stay. Being close to a break meant we could surf without having to travel and we could keep out of sight. The bungalow was half the price of the hotel we’d been staying in and the sweet ladies in the kitchen produced affordable, delicious, healthy food so it was the best place to be.

Hiding out at our private beach with what soon amounted to our extended family was blissful. Relaxation and enjoyment I’d forgotten was possible, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t go to town occasionally to sniff the wind.

Every second Aussie went to Bali some time or another so it was no surprise that I eventually spotted an old ‘communard’ who knew Helen. Mandy was one of the more sensible and reliable ‘hippies’. She’d never had the ‘far-out’ look and now looked just like any other Aussie tourist except not quite so feral. Like quite a few other people from the area she had decided to do some ‘higher education once their house and garden were established and Armidale was the nearest university town.

Somehow, after bailing out of Cairns, or being kicked out of Cairns, Helen had turned up there on the central highlands. I guess she too was still trying to shake off Dogface. He was painfully persistent. An attribute of his paranoid schizophrenia the psychiatrist from Dickmond Clinic had told me with a smile on his face.

The good doctor, the one who’d sedated him to stop him strangling his father in the hospital, had been DF’s fixation before I’d taken his place.

The previous year Helen had turned up at Mandy’s place with a beaten up face. She’d had a fight with the boyfriend apparently. Mandy had offered her a safe place for as long as she liked but after two days she’d gone back to the guy.

It was difficult to understand why she would but it became a pattern. The next time Mandy saw her she had a broken leg. Helen told her that it had been broken somehow in the car door while they were having an argument. The guy was put away for a stretch in Grafton gaol but Helen had hobbled her way down there on crutches to rent a place close to the gaol to wait for him to finish his sentence. It’s a common occurrence. What can you do? I didn’t understand.

Over the next few months I made some half-hearted attempts to find where she was. I knew that she’d headed north again but she’d gone so far underground I couldn’t find out anything specific. Later I heard, whether it was true or not, her boyfriend, same one or not, had been found face down in Townsville harbour, so god knows what kind of sleazy guy came after him.

The next time I heard she’d somehow ended up with a knife wound to her thigh. Like so many drinkers she was on a downward spiral. She’d taken a walk on the wild side and never come back. So how much of it was my fault?

On New Year’s Eve we went out of town to a beach-side nightclub for a big party with a lady who had bought one of my books and later left a message at the losmen that she would like to meet the author. I’d followed up of course. Met up with her at a very well-appointed hotel, and there we were at the venue, in her hire car. It was very crowded so soon after midnight we all agreed our quiet surfside bungalow seemed like a better option.

As we were leaving the venue Tina cut her foot on a small piece of broken glass in the sand. She was crying and bleeding a fair bit until I bandaged it with a torn strip of sarong. We decided to call it a night.

I drove the little Suzuki two-door while Sylvia comforted Tina in the back.

The road that we were driving along was one of the typically narrow connecting roads that link the small towns that were until recently only villages. Trees lined each side and there was the occasional buffalo-cart, pile of building materials, or old truck parked along the edge, to make it even narrower in places.

Suddenly a single bright light appeared from around the bend ahead of us. The dazzling beam reflected off all kinds of things but basically kept coming toward us very fast. My first thought was, “high-powered motorcycle” so I backed off the throttle and kept as far to the left as possible to avoid being dazzled by the light as it sped past but at the very last instant I saw the reflection of a chrome grille and one dead headlight right in front of us.

In an instantaneous reflective action, not able to even think about clipping trees, I yanked the wheel left to avoid a head-on collision. The oncoming vehicle was a large Toyota with only the passenger-side headlight working. The went so close to colliding that the wing mirrors had smashed each other as the vehicles passed.

It couldn’t have been any closer! Especially at a closing speed of probably a hundred and twenty kilometres per hour. Only about forty for us but at least eighty for him.

A wave of fear and relief swept over us simultaneously. It was hard to absorb just how close we’d come to being killed or very badly injured. Suddenly the whole world seemed just a little bit more beautiful and the sense of relief lingered as we continued on through the semi-rural area lined with houses, warehouses and shops until we were back amongst the rice-fields. I was still occasionally shaking my head in disbelief.

As we arrived at the edge of the next village I noticed a ten-wheeled truck pulled up on the side of the road about a hundred and fifty metres ahead. It had a rear wheel missing. Maybe a broken axle, as I’d seen so often before, but just moments after I’d first seen the truck, and rationalised its position, a vehicle without headlights appeared beside us, overtaking us, and then ahead of us, before the brakes where savagely applied and the Toyota began to slide sideways across the road in front of us.

My first thought was that the driver of the vehicle sliding sideways in front of us had only seen the truck half-blocking the road at the very last moment and then panicked, but as the vehicle slid to a halt blocking the road ahead I realised it was a very skilful manoeuvre by a driver intent on stopping us.

Even before it had come to rest, all the doors were swinging open and men were jumping out, and running towards our vehicle which hadn’t at that stage completely stopped.

“Lock the doors”, I yelled as I slammed on the brakes, selected reverse, revved-out the little engine and dropped the clutch. The small Suzuki began roaring backwards but, being only 1000cc’s, and very low geared, it was not moving fast enough to escape our pursuers.

Three very angry looking men were doing their best to catch us. In the glare of the headlights they were only a couple of metres from the front of the vehicle. The little engine was red-lining. They were so close but without making any ground on us. The road was slightly downhill which favoured the pursuers. A motorcycle was coming up behind us so I had to swing left to avoid it but even that minimal change of direction almost put us into the deep drain which ran along the side of the road to handle the tropical rains.

I momentarily backed off enough to straighten us out again but one quick glance to the front showed that the men were almost upon us, one of them actually gripping the bull-bar, so I absolutely planted the accelerator again to try to gain some ground. Sylvia and Tina were being thrown about in the back but not screaming, or making things worse.

Looking out through the back window I saw a driveway to the left which I swung into with the brakes jammed on so the front end slid around as I selected second gear, revved fully and dropped the clutch simultaneously to set the skinny wheels spinning and sliding in the direction from which we’d come, running straight over the back wheel of a motorcycle that got in the way.

I drove as fast as I could all the way back toward the nightclub, always looking in the mirror for our pursuers, reassuring the girls that we had had enough head start, and hoping it was true, until we sped into the driveway of the first expensive hotel I found.

Jumping out and carrying Tina I followed Sylvia into the reception where we quickly booked a room after giving the car keys to one of the staff to park it out of sight around the back.

We didn’t see them again but it had been a very frightening experience. For sure we would’ve been killed and robbed and raped by those angry men who probably didn’t realize that they’d only had one headlight and the lack of a light had been a major contributing factor in the accident.

Anyway, we were safe in luxurious surroundings so the frightening experience was soon put behind us. I bathed Miss T’s cut foot. Not too bad. A clean cut in an awkward spot. She was soon asleep in one of the double beds so Sylvia and I toasted ‘being alive’ with a few icy glasses of Grand Marnier. Another reminder of the unpredictability of life. Security is an illusion but you can improve the odds by staying alert and taking care. We spent the last ten days in that hotel with Sylvia and then waved her goodbye. Back to her serious job in Sydney.

Being the beginning of third year uni and having completed second year off-campus I was allowed to apply to do a special research project in conjunction with an Indonesian university so of course I elected to study the Majapahit Empire, partly because I was surrounded by its cultural and religious remnants, and partly because I’d become fascinated by the ancient Indonesian empires.

The university in Java that was sponsoring me gave me absolute freedom and access to their libraries where I could have any book photocopied completely in ten minutes. The few academics who were specialists in the history of the Majapahit Empire advised me on the best books to read but I did copies of everything I could find on the subject.

Originally I thought I’d have to stay in Jogjakarta, close to the university, but I soon discovered there was no such restriction. We’d become pretty-well established at Pererenan and Tina had plenty of friends in Bali, but I also liked the idea of doing as much surfing as I could, so it made sense to be based in Bali where the remnants of the Hindu/Buddhist Majapahit culture were still alive and thriving. I just had to appear in Yogya once every ten weeks to have my visa renewed.

As part of my research project I intended to travel around to all of the temples, bathing places and significant religious sites but I didn’t plan on doing that until I had completed all the reading first.

The next few months were very enriching. Being in Bali allowed me to wind down and see things with much more clarity and then, visiting all of the historical sites in the mountains of East Java gave me a new appreciation for the richness of the Hindu Buddhist culture that had thrived for a thousand years.

When I’d left Australia I’d had half a plan but we were mostly running away from the stupid stuff. Being hunted and living in fear had been going on for too long. Far too long.  Maybe he’d given up or maybe he hadn’t. It was going to hang over my head forever if I didn’t act more decisively. During the hippie/environmentalist years I’d trained myself to be more passive because I thought there was something virtuous about being ‘soft’. Soft-willed and soft-brained. Compromised and co-operative. But the face-biting episode had changed my mind, permanently.

No more, not ever, would I hesitate to protect myself and others by any means possible. I’d been given a second chance and I had no more confusion about the necessity of violence, when violence was absolutely necessary.

Life was good in Indonesia but we couldn’t stay there forever so if I wanted to return to Australia anytime I’d have to solve the Dogface problem once and for all, otherwise it would be difficult to fully relax for the rest of our lives. Tina’s school was okay, her Indonesian language was twice as good as mine. They were nice polite children. And she’d grown to be a polite and well-behaved teenager but she was an Australian and she wanted to go to university in Australia.

Dogface was both impulsive and a planner. He’d shown a couple of times that he liked setting up ambushes yet if he ever by accident bumped into one of us, either Tina or myself, he could do anything on the spur of the moment.

If something happened to me Tina would be on her own. And if he hurt Tina; well, that just was never going to happen.

He’d shown he had no fear of authority or retribution and probably even less so as time progressed. He was getting older but that in some ways made him even more dangerous. It was time for definitive action. I’d finished my studies, submitted my completed project to the faculty in Yogya, and sat my final exam in Jakarta but there was still plenty of time left on my student visa so we flew back to Bali to catch up on some missed surfing and to finalise my plans.