“It isn’t so bad,” Luke said heroically.
Nadia, the only tropically raised amongst us, laughed at him. “You’re sweet, Luke, but none of us will be staying in this room. The mattresses will have to be thrown out, and probably the furniture too, and the whole place scrubbed with bleach several times probably to get the mould under control. And there will be cockroaches, too, nice fat juicy ones. We’ll do our best to restore the room, but we’re all sleeping upstairs.”
We three girls looked at each other, and I jumped in with “Let’s worry about that after dinner. Shall we go through the fridge and work out what we need to get now?”
“Sure,” said Lucy. “Now, I know we agreed that you and Nadia would lead the meal logistics, but I’d like to shout us fish and chips tonight while we watch the sunset at the beach. And don’t forget that we’ve only got two nights here before we go bush for a few nights, so don’t plan too far ahead.”
For the rest of the afternoon, we worked on the house stuff. Luke and Tim were delegated to getting the disgusting mattresses out into the trailer to be thrown out later, and to do the first round of cleaning and bleaching of the den. Lucy started working on the pool, announcing later that it would be ready for swimming tomorrow. Adam, a farmer boy through and through, got the lawn mower working and started the yard clean-up. Nadia and I agreed a basic meals strategy and wrote our lists. Nadia also went down to check out the garden for edible plants, and was excitedly calling me down a minute later. She held up a flat, green broad stalk to me, and said “Sniff this, botanist!”
“Botany student. Mmm, that’s nice. Lemon grass? What do you use it for?”
“Lots of things, Ciara, and even a rich kid from Malaysia like me knows how to cook her birthright dish. I’ll do a beef rendang tomorrow. We should be able to get fresh tamarind here, and some galangal. Lucy said there’s a food market near here on Sunday mornings.”
“Yum. Looks like there’s lots of plants here that I don’t know. I’ll take some photos and see what we can use that won’t kill us.”
By late afternoon, we were exhausted, but the house was looking tidy. We piled into the old Toyota Landcruiser that Lucy’s parents were allowing us to use, and she drove us the short distance to a park on the foreshore, where we ate fish and chips and drank crisp white Australian wine while watching the sun set in a ball of fire over the Timor Sea. In the distance to the south, a thunderstorm was arcing high into the atmosphere, with thousands of lightning flashes and a constant dull rumble. It was still humid, but it was a magical scene. I was feeling better about this place already.
We popped into a supermarket to do a quick shop, then headed home to discuss the elephant in the room.
“Right,” said Lucy. “Six people, three bedrooms, three double beds, and a couch in the lounge that one person could use. None of us are in intimate relationships. I love you guys to bits, but I think we need to be careful how we do this.”
Luke, bless him, said something that I’d been trying to work out how to say. “First thing is, Lucy, it’s your house. You get the master bedroom, and you get to choose whether to share it.” We all murmured assent.
“Okay…” Lucy said. “Well, that’s got the biggest bed, so I think I should share it with one of the other girls for the next couple of nights, and the other girl gets the smallest room to herself. That leaves two guys to share the bed in the middle room, and one for the couch. After we get back from our little bush trip, we’ll discuss this again.”
Nobody could think of anything better. With a mixture of awkward conversation and flipped coins, we ended up with me to share with Lucy, Nadia to get a room to herself, Tim and Luke the middle room, and Adam the couch. We organised ourselves and each had a quick shower before bed to cool down and get the sweat off. Pretty soon I was tucked up next to Lucy in knickers and a sleep shirt, sleeping Darwin style under a whirring ceiling fan with just a sheet over us.
“Do you reckon Adam will make a play for Nadia in her bed?” whispered Lucy.
I giggled. “He’s a big, strong lad, but I haven’t seen him flexing his muscles in her direction,” I whispered back. “I think he’s a bit into you though.”
“Mmm. Let’s see what happens”, she said non-committedly. Pretty soon, she was snoring, and I eventually got to sleep, although not without trying to speculate where things might end up after a couple of weeks in the Top End.
I got woken by a bright shaft of sunlight coming through the louvres. It was still very warm and humid. I looked over at Lucy, who was still sleeping, but had clearly had a disturbed night, as she had taken off her own sleep shirt and was lying on top of the sheet. Lucy had really shapely boobs, and they were the same olive colour as the rest of her skin. She looked magnificent. I’m more-or-less straight, but I had a brief vision of just leaning down to kiss another girl’s breasts, and caught myself starting to make the movement.
‘I’m not sure that would end well,” I thought, and instead struggled out of bed to go and grab a glass of water and say hello to the world. The living room was quiet, and I could see that Adam was sleeping still. I didn’t disturb him, and crept outside and down to the garden instead.
The pool had responded to whatever magic Lucy had performed and was crystal clear, with the filter running almost silently. It looked so inviting. “Why not?” I thought to myself, and quietly went back upstairs to grab a towel. This was, after all, the only time of the day when I could see a bit of sun without much risk of burning. I had a good look around – it didn’t seem like there were any other houses with a view of the pool — and then, greatly daring, I took my own sleep shirt off and slipped into the pool in just my knickers. The water was so warm and welcoming — it had to be at least 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit for US readers), which was almost getting towards the too-warm category. I found a pool toy to help me float, closed my eyes, and luxuriated in the moment.
It must have been about 20 minutes later when a sound triggered my dozy brain to open my eyes, and I looked straight into the face of Luke, who was standing next to the pool fence in t-shirt and togs, towel dangling from his hand. He had obviously been watching me closely enough to be counting the freckles on my breasts.
(I am not going to tell you the number of freckles on my breasts — go and find Luke and ask him.)
“Shit… sorry Ciara,” he stammered, caught red handed.
I was a bit pissed off, but I decided to play it cool since he was a nice guy and hadn’t tried to make up some bullshit excuse. I adopted an imperial tone, as though I was perfectly used to being caught half-naked while reclining on my throne. “You may look within reason, but not touch, Luke. And by all means join me, as long as you keep that… tool of yours out of the way,” I said, waving vaguely towards his tented togs.