Cass-O-Wary
/Jack Kirne
When Dennis and I separated, he asked where I would stay.
‘Spain, maybe,’ I said, stuffing socks into a suitcase. His parents owned the brick flat where we lived, and he was right to ask: he knew I had nowhere to go. I didn’t care, I wanted to be dramatic, that he worried I might sleep in my car, or be reckless in other ways was what I wanted. He had confessed an affair with his co-host at the radio station, and I wanted to cause havoc.
‘I need to know where you’re going,’ he said. ‘I need to know you’re safe.’
I wanted to say that he was the one having an affair with Tracey, his co-host at the Station, so why should he care? I wanted to hurt him. And I did. We fought, until the last of my things were in the Camry. When I slapped the boot shut, a silence fell between us: we hugged, then parted, and it was done.
I couldn’t afford a flight to Spain, not even with the money in our joint account, so I booked flights to Cairns. The far-north was cheap that time of year, because of the wet. My mother, who was still talking to Dennis opposed the holiday (‘every man strays dear’), but could not say so directly. Instead she emailed articles about crocodile attacks and the deadly jellyfish, the hurricanes and bushfires that I deleted without reading. I would like to say that she held no sway on me at all, but in actuality, I’m not much of a traveller, and found the articles intimidating. But I also liked the idea of spending ten days in my bathers, drinking.
The drive from Cairns airport was a tremendous, miserable trek through rain, rainforest, and over barges, past sugar cane and signs which read Beware of Crocodiles; through budding tourist destinations, towns still unbelieving that Melbournians venture so far north for the sun. I had booked a room at the Bluewater Lodge. It was cheap, and looked appropriately dated online—its blue carpets frayed, and decking cracked. It would not exceed my low expectations. I parked in the muddy gravel lot as the last of the day fell behind a looming olive mountain. There was seven, maybe ten buildings in total, set in a U-shape; they were a greyish wooden colour and set on stilts. They appeared flimsy in the rain.
I did not run through the rain to reception—a squat concrete bunker by the pool. I walked coolly, as if unphased by the rain, although it really was getting quite heavy. It was a new persona, this easy-going-gal, and I thought I could try on here, where nobody knew me. I wanted to appear invincible. By the time I was inside reception I was sopping wet, and my skin glistened in the harsh florescent light. No bother. The space was pretty basic, with low desk and posters that showed happy families enjoying a day at the reef. A box tellie played The Bill to the receptionist, a voluptuous sweating presence that didn’t turn as I came through the door.
‘Hello?’ I said brightest telephone voice.
He swivelled in his chair with a grunt. A yellow badge pinned to his singlet read: Manager. He swallowed something, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘Didn’t hear you come in.’
I wanted to protest but I had come through the door quietly, as I always do.
‘Tess Ryan,’ I said.
We did the paperwork, the exchanging of keys. I made sure to smile at the man, to be fun-loving, but he didn’t look up once.
‘Now we have a bit of rat problem,’ the man said, casually. ‘Nothing too serious, and not in the rooms, but it’s best if you stay out of the pool. I’ve scooped three of the buggers out this week.’
I don’t like rats, but kept it cool. With the paperwork signed, he shook my hand.
‘Have a great stay,’ he said.
When I slapped the boot shut, a silence fell between us: we hugged, then parted, and it was done.
There were few shops in town, and fewer places to eat. Families riddled the main drag, and I found this delightful. Single, I was permitted a kind of anonymity. Nobody cared for the happy spinster, eating ice-cream alone by the sea. At a local surf shop, I bought an overpriced sarong, which I wore everywhere. With it tight around my waist, I thought I looked very much like all those “normal” women I despised throughout my twenties. The sarong possessed a power—it sustained a belief that I could be somebody else, someone fun, untroubled and free from the desperate loneliness of separation.
One night, they held Cane Toad races in the local pub. The regulars scowled as the tourists were assigned their amphibian-steads, but soon ignited into a cheer as the toads hopped toward their goal. My toad won; my reward was the pride of victory and a pint.
‘How long have these toads been racing?’ I asked the bartender as he poured.
He laughed: ‘You mean, these toads specifically?’
‘Yeah. What’ll become of my Makybe Diva?’
‘We’ll put him in the freezer.’
My face must have done something because he said: ‘They’re pests love.’
Men. Dennis was clever man who spent most of his time meticulously building his brand as a “Cultural Commentator”. He regularly contributed to left-leaning media and hosted a semi-successful podcast, Progressive People. We never fought. We discussed. He would explain a problematic—say a sexist comment, or an act of classed violence—with the calm authority of a teacher, not aware that I wasn’t really listening. He would hate this holiday, with its men who called me darling or love, abundance of appropriative wooden décor from southern Asia and the signs that read REMEMBER: BE CASS-O-WARY. The misogyny and racism did trouble me, part of what drew me to Dennis in the first place was our shared politics. But also, it felt liberating to behold the problems without his snide voice pressing into my ear. Away from his judgement, and anyone else who knew me, I found a freedom; not to become a more-true me, but something different.
And then one afternoon, when window shopping because I didn’t feel like swimming, I saw Jarrod. Or at least, I thought it was Jarrod—I struggled to see through the clutter of shirts and straw hats that crowded the shopfront’s window. He bent over the counter to chat to the cashier, a tanned boy who looked rather young. Jarrod and I dated in those experimental years between eighteen and twenty-two, and from the way he held himself now (hand curled between his chin, a stray index finger pressing the side of his lip) I could tell he was flirting. His present line of advance did not surprise me; Jarrod left me for a Labour Activist called Tom. In Jarrod’s presence anonymity crumbled, and again, I was myself, only dressed in a ridiculous sarong and bright pink from sunburn. We hadn’t seen or spoken in years, and I pressed myself to the window, praying it wasn’t him. Too late, he retreated for a change room. Perhaps I could sneak inside, and wait. But then, the boy followed Jarrod, so I moved on.
I settled on the beach and wondered what that change-room fuck would look like. Were they having fun? Would Jarrod be tilting the cashier into position like a doll, watching himself in the mirror, thinking; fuck I’m hot; here I am, fucking a beautiful man. Would he lean in and whisper, I love the way you’re arse jiggles? It was very Jarrod to make love before a mirror; when he and I dated, he couldn’t finish unless we filmed the ordeal. In time, I came to understand that his sexuality fixed inwards; on the image of him bright and beautiful, making love to a woman, and not the physical act itself. I know this sounds awful, and in both a political and romantic sense it was. But at least I could ask him for what I needed, and he would comply. My pleasure was critical to his need.
Days passed, and I tried not to let the possible presence of my ex-lover bother me. There was no cause to be anxious, I reasoned. If he was in town, if he saw me, who the hell cares? I do. I dreamt that Dennis and Jarrod clinked beers and bitched about me. When I woke it took some time to remember that they didn’t know each other and never would, Jarrod worked in finance. Not wanting him to think I had become one of those women, I stopped wearing my sarong into town, and ate in corners at restaurants. I kept mistaking other men for Jarrod. I thought I saw him jogging up the beach, but when he passed my hiding place in the palm trees, it wasn’t him. The same thing went for the out-and-proud men holding hands in Coles, at whom I made a sly double take. They looked directly at me, so I pretended I wanted the Tim-Tams behind them. Hot with embarrassment, I wandered back to the lodge, where I found the manger fishing a rat from the pool with a net. I offered a biscuit and asked why there was so many out-and-proud men in town. I hoped he would not take the question as homophobic.
‘There’s a clothing optional resort not far from here,’ he said, dumping the rat in a bag. ‘They’re nice blokes, mostly.’
The night before I was due to fly home, the rain adopted a new rhythm. I knew the syncopated patter of the usual drizzle by now, and so I instantly recognised a difference in the sustained roar as threatening. The lodge tremored under the force of the rain for an hour or so, and then the rain intensified. I lay on the bed and listened. The wind battered the shutters, and loose pieces of foliage collided with the building with the same dull splat insects make impacting a windshield. The storm settled me, and I lay on my bed to listen to its roar.
Single, I was permitted a kind of anonymity. Nobody cared for the happy spinster, eating ice-cream alone by the sea.
A loud banging I snapped me from sleep. The windows opened onto complete darkness: the radio-alarm displayed 10:04. The knocks came in bursts of three. Thwap, Thwap, Thwap. A pause. Thwap, Thwap, Thwap. I froze. Thwap, Thwap, Thwap. Then, the sound of a key, sliding into the lock, turning, weirdly audible in the storm.
‘Hello?’ I screamed at the door.
The door opened. The drenched, voluptuous manager stood at the threshold with a big yellow torch in his right hand.
‘You’re still here,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you answer?’
‘I was sleeping.’
Lightning back-lit the manager.
‘Storm’s blowing in,’ he said. ‘It’s best you stay in the bunker tonight. These guys might fall over.’ He slapped the doorframe and chuckled. ‘There are stairs behind the counter in reception. Head down, I’ve got to gather the rest of you lot.’
I was first in the bunker. It was all polished concrete, and sparsely decorated; a few plastic chairs, a fridge, and the same tellie I saw upon arrival. A pile of boxes, overflowing with pool noodles and clothing, was pushed up to one wall. I watched the tellie: a journalist shouted at the camera, her blonde hair and coat slapping about in the wind. Only the occasional word registered: Fast-Forming. Unprecedented. Category Three. Doris. Hurricane. Perhaps it was the firmness of the bunker, how ready it appeared for any breed of apocalypse that assuaged my anxieties. Perhaps, I felt there was nothing for me too loose. Whatever the reason, in that moment I felt a delightful excitement—the force of the storm was terrific, and some perverse part of me desired for complete and utter annihilation.
A middle-aged couple from Adelaide soon joined me in the basement. They had prematurely white hair, and they introduced themselves as Harvey and Irma.
‘This is some storm that we’re having,’ Harvey said, and we all agreed.
Irma said they had been to the Daintree during the day, ridden the sky-rail up the mountain and taken a tour through the rainforest.
‘It was just remarkable,’ she said. ‘Some of those trees are over five-thousand years old.’
‘Supposedly,’ Harvey mused. ‘But I don’t think so. God wouldn’t allow it.’
I might have said something, if the final guest had not descended the stairs. He was older, and thinner and had developed a habit of lifting weights, muscles peeked through his linen shirt. But still, up close, it knew it was Jarrod. Fuck. I was wearing my sarong.
‘Tess?’ he said, alight with recognition. He rushed across the room to hug me. When I didn’t return the embrace, he stood back and studied me like a parent inspecting their child for dirt.
‘I love your sarong,’ he said.
‘It’s holiday-wear,’ I said, feigning laughter.
‘It suits you.’
What the fuck did that mean?
The manager waited at the bottom of the stairs. ‘There’s beers in the fridge if anyone’s thirsty,’ he said.
‘Thanks, Rodge,’ Jarrod said. He turned and asked, ‘You want one?’
Jarrod ruffled through the fridge, and I wondered how, or why he discovered the manager’s name. Jarrod has always been a real charmer when it came to strangers in hospitality and retail. Strangers would remember his name, and all our local café’s remembered his name and order. He eclipsed me in these places, staff introduced themselves to me on multiple occasions. They must have thought Jarrod brought a real ladies man, presenting a new girl to the staff bi-weekly. I employed many techniques to combat their amnesia. I greeted staff by name, and wore the similar outfit, but these efforts seemed only to confound them further.
Rodge delivered a speech designed to reassure. He fumbled as he spoke and it soon became clear he was unprepared—he didn’t own a satellite phone, or a radio. When Jarrod asked how long the storm would last, Rodge shrugged and said we should probably watch the TV. The screen showed montages of palm trees flapping in the wind. The Police Commissioner implored that we not be complacent, because that was how people died.
To nearly everybody’s horror, Irma suggested we play Scrabble.
‘I don’t have a board,’ Rodge said, with detectable relief.
But Irma had planned for this, and produced a set of travel scrabble from her handbag.
‘We’re scrabble nuts!’ said Harvey, and Irma nodded with furious agreement.
Irma unfolded the board and dispensed the letters. Rodge excused himself (‘Better make sure I’ve got the light stuff nailed down, he said). Harvey inanely chortled that this was fortunate, because only four people could play.
Jarrod opened with BANAL; Harvey went with CARROT; Irma spelt out GLOB.
Their words were dull, so they applauded as I lay APOTHECARY over Harvey’s CARROT.
‘Looks like we have a challenger,’ said Harvey.
‘We sure do,’ said Irma.
Jarrod gave me a knowing look.
I felt a delightful excitement—the force of the storm was terrific, and some perverse part of me desired for complete and utter annihilation.
I shouldn’t play Scrabble. I like the game, but I posess an unusual knack for anagrams. And like all talents, freakish or otherwise, my ability has the capacity to make lesser players feel inadequate. To be short, I upset people.
Harvey and Irma’s enthusiasm curdled as I spelt out INCHOATE, and later, OTIOSE, nabbing double word scores in the process. Irma laughed when I played simple words like ZU, building impressive scores in the process. A storm brewed in Harvey, further clouding his ability. His words grew shorter, and less valuable. When I placed all seven of my letters onto the end of Jarrod’s SPA, he snapped.
‘That’s not a real word, is it?’ he said, standing up.
‘It’s Guatemala’s national bird,’ I said, tallying the score.
He attempted to say the word, mispronounced it. ‘Quest-als,’ he said again.
‘It’s ketz-als’ I said, ‘that’s three-hundred and fourteen points, if you’re counting.’
Harvey walked to the tellie, and begun to flick. Irma shrugged. Although I had not technically won, the game was over.
Jarrod and I sat on the boxes and talked while the remaining guests and Rodge watched Love Actually on Channel Seven. Regular bulletins interrupted: A commander stated the army was prepared to evacuate people in trouble. So far however, no serious damage had been reported. Jarrod filled me in the last decade. He trained as an economist, and had gone on to write several tombs on South American debt (books, he confessed, that nobody read). He gave up academia a year or so back, and now worked the odd consulting job. His last lover left him for an older man—a semi-famous poet, who I had never heard of, but who other than other poets knows semi-famous poets? I told him of the odd-jobs I held following of my journalism degree, my return to law school, and my now-rising position in an environmental justice firm. He listened to me recount the collapse of my marriage with stern attention, and hugged me for too long when I was finished.
By the time the credits of the movie rolled, the couple and Rodge were asleep. We kept drinking.
‘Are you here to forget your partner?’ I asked.
He deflated with an exaggerated sigh.
‘No, I wouldn’t say that. That would be a very lonely thing to do, I think.’
‘I guess so.’
‘He was too young for me,’ he said. ‘It’s time I date men my own age.’
I didn’t mention the cashier, even though I was sure now it was Jarrod in the store. It would be impolite. Jarrod fetched another drink, and I found myself watching his tight-bum shuffle around his shorts. Returning, he ran his finger along the fold of my sarong.
‘You really are a freak at Scrabble,’ he said.
‘Dennis called my gift a party trick.’
‘It’s more than that, surely.’
Jarrod put his arm around me. I felt small and heady in the humid gravity of his odour.
‘When we played Scrabble online, I used anagram app,’ he said. ‘And still, you managed to beat me.’
‘I can’t believe you cheated.’
‘I cheat all-the-fucking-time.’
I felt flattered by his moronic vulnerability; Dennis was rarely so open. A sadness bubbled in the corner of my eyes, and I realised that I was terribly drunk.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he said. ‘We had such fun together. We had a ritual about us. You wrote that poem about it? Remember?’
‘No,’ I said, although I remembered the poem vividly. I discovered a copy of it floating around a box of my old things the year before. I was never a good poet, but this poem was especially awful; a sentimental musing on Sunday breakfasts that concluded with the line, refrigerate to retard spoilage.
‘You must,’ Jarrod insisted. ‘You read it, at that event.’
Hot, I skulled the remainder of my beer. ‘People change.’
‘You’ve got to change,’ said Jarrod, ‘keep moving. Stop, and you’ll drown. Like a shark.’
Like a shark? I thought. I had once broke Dennis from a depressive stint with a similar platitude, and here it was, like bad karma, re-gifted as sound advice.
Jarrod drew himself closer, and I didn’t push him away.
‘I’ve got to wee.’ he said.
Alone, I rose to flick through channels on the television. I felt hot, and uncomfortable with the sudden onrush of unwanted desire. I searched for a weather report, without success. No need to panic, I figured, the storm couldn’t be so bad if late-night programming waffled on. And then, a crash, and the lights went out.
‘Hello?’ I whispered into the darkness. A total darkness lasted.. The wind whistled outside, but without the TV’s hum, I could hear that it had softened; the rain returned to its regular dull patter. Then, the power ticked on, and programing resumed. Nobody else had woken; perhaps only I heard the crash.
I made my way up the stairs nervously, taking two steps at a time. A humid gale blew into reception through a shattered window. Rodge had obviously forgotten to put away the sun-lounges—one lay twisted among the broken and glass and stray leaves. There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Jarrod.
‘Nothing to worry about here,’ I said.
In the quiet of reception, Jarrod held his face close to mine. He pressed one hand to my waist while the other brushed my cheek, and then his tongue slid in my mouth, searching. He tasted mature; like must and beer. He pulled on the knot of my sarong. How long had it been? A year at least. My body pulsed with need; a rush of blood that would soon overtake me. He was undoing the buttons of his shirt. They let out a tick as they popped apart. Tick. Tick. Tick. He dropped his shirt and doubled in on the kissing. Shy of practice, his hands slid up my back and fumbled with the bra-strap. Still, he moved with a kind of gentle confidence that eased me into the promise of a good time.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered thickly, his voice full of booze. The strap popped open. He undid his fly and let his pants fall to the floor. His sausage fingers teased up my shirt. He pashed my neck like a teenager, and I felt nineteen again, clammy in the backseat of his Renault Scenic. His kisses slipped down my chest, settling with pecks on my nipples that were almost ticklish in their gentleness. He descended toward my navel, then below. Looking about the room, I caught a reflection of us in the window. I swallowed the gasp, but couldn’t shake the image—Jarrod’s eyes wide, watching himself in the glass as his cock surged in his jocks. He pulled his underwear from his body, and I thought; well, I’m here—here I go! But I shook my head, and pulled back.
‘I don’t want this,’ I said.
A detestable look fell about him; a familiar expression that says, come on.
Jarrod didn’t try to stop me as I redressed myself, knotting myself up with a triumphant tug of my sarong. While he solemnly refixed his shirt’s buttons, I slipped back into the bunker. I wanted a shower. The presence of Jarrod’s sweaty body hung about me, a stench that reeked of opportunism, and embarrassment. Jarrod must have returned to his lodge because I didn’t see him again.
Hours later, a news anchor delivered the news in a tone of calm disappointment. The hurricane blew before landfall. There were reports of mild flooding and a few road closures, but no deaths or significant damage to infrastructure. All in all, it was quite a banal near-death experience. Phone reception, which failed mid-storm returned, and my phone rumbled with life. Most of the messages were from my mother. But among her panic of missed calls, a calmer message waited. Dennis: Call me, when you can. Another text came the following morning as I climbed into the hire-car.
I’m sorry, he said. I love you.
Then, the power ticked on, and programing resumed. Nobody else had woken; perhaps only I heard the crash.
If I returned to Dennis, I would survive. We might have kids, settle the mortgage, bicker, grow old, die in the same week. At the funeral they’ll say, they were lovers, a forceful couple. He an activist, she always at his side. Our tombstone might be maintained by our daughter until she moves to Mumbai to follow my legacy as an environmental lawyer. The stone might crumble in time, return to the dirt. The earth will spin, and spin until it is done with spinning and the sun will implode, and none of this will matter. I imagine this, and I think: no fucking way.
Author’s Note: When I sat down to write “Cass-O-Wary,” I intend on writing a love story. I had been reading and writing a great deal about trauma, and ecological catastrophes and wanted to do something different. I failed miserably. In the end, I think this story is about how our desirability—intellectually, and erotically—is always being constructed by institutions and our peers, for better or worse.
Jack Kirne is a writer based in Melbourne, Australia. His work has appeared in various publications including the Meanjin blog, Exposition Review, Subbed In and the forthcoming anthologies Growing up Queer in Australia and New Australian Fiction (KYD). He has published Discount Fabric: The Campaign, a graphic narrative with his partner, Aaron Billings. He is currently undertaking a PhD at Deakin University. Find him on Twitter @JackKirne
