One day Cathy and three others, two girls and a bloke around her age, were sitting in the bar around the corner from the backpacker hostel. It was a typical afternoon, the type where one person said to anyone else in the lobby, “I am going for a drink, any other takers.” She and another girl, Julie, that she knew slightly, joined the proposing couple.
After half an hour a man a few years older, looking in his early thirties, walked into the bar and greeted Julie. It was not a highly familiar greeting, just the sort that passing acquaintances make. He bought a drink and came over, asking Julie if he could join them.
As he sat down he looked at Cathy with a searching intensity. She wondered why and moved her eyes away. He seemed to realise and apologised. “Sorry to stare, it is just you have a look that reminds me of someone else I used to know. For a second I felt as if I was looking at her. But it is gone now, sorry if it made you uncomfortable.”
She shrugged and smiled, “I am sure it is just one of those deja vue moments we all sometimes get. But I am sure it was not me you knew.”
He nodded, “No, similar but different.”
At this point the other couple got up and left, excusing themselves with other things to do. So now it was just three. First name introductions were made, Julie, Cathy, Mark.
They fell into the easy conversation of strangers. Cathy liked Julie, she was easy going. They had chatted briefly three of four times and shared a couple drinks before today. Julie was Canadian and had worked in Sydney before coming here. She was heading for Perth next week to meet her boyfriend. She had met Mark, in passing over a cup of coffee, at the hostel the day before. After half an hour Julie left saying she too had things to do.
Now it was just Cathy and Mark. They each bought another drink. Mark offered to buy one for Cathy but she declined, saying she was averse to buying rounds as then one had to keep score.
He nodded, not any way put out, as if he understood this need for personal independence. He asked Cathy where she was from and she used her standard story of the girl from Scotland who had taken the big city job in London and now wanted to see the wider world. She asked him about himself in return.
He said, “I am from everywhere and nowhere. My home is out there somewhere,” indicating to the north with a broad sweep of his hand.
She was intrigued, “Out there is a lot of places. Is there nowhere in particular that you call home?”
He did not reply immediately but a flash of something passed over his face that she thought was pain. He covered it with a grin. “Well, you are right; out there is a lot of places. In the course of an average year I live and work in many of them, scattered across the inland of Australia, what some folks call, “The Outback”. Really it is the next place past where others live.
“Sometimes I work on cattle stations, sometimes mines, sometimes I fix houses for my black friends, sometimes I go overseas to work for a bit.
I think of that big place out there as my home. But I cannot point to just one place and say that is where I really belong. Tomorrow I am heading up towards Alice Springs, a short drive of round 1500 kilometres. Sometimes I stay there for a bit but this time I am heading on through and going further north to do some work on a cattle station.
Cathy found herself being unexpectedly frank with this man, not giving any details of why but saying that she had found she really liked Adelaide and had started to think about settling here. She also told of her long standing interest to visit Alice Springs and the outback, and how it was funny that he knew and was going to that place.
Mark said, “Well, if you want to head off there tomorrow and make a one way trip to the Alice, then come back here by yourself, I am happy to offer you a ride.
Cathy shook her head. “Thanks but no thanks. I think I may go there, but not quite yet. When I do I will take the train. I like travelling that way and I like the independence of making my own arrangements, not asking for help from others or fitting in around them.”
Mark nodded again, “I am impressed, one of the very few completely independent people of the world. Don’t you like the company of others?”
Cathy shrugged. “I wish I could say I do. But my experience is most people want to give me something, whether I want it or not. Then in return they want something back. I don’t want to be that something. So I find it easier to live a life without obligations.”
The talk drifted into safer topics, another hour of talking about the world at large and things and places of interest.
Cathy had an unformed sense that this man understood what she meant about being one’s own person. It seemed to fit him as well as her. But there was also something more, as if they both had parts broken inside from their past and trust was the missing commodity, neither would trust the world to give them good things, nor expect them of others.
As more than a week had passed now since Cathy had sent the letter to her parents she checked at the hostel reception for any return letter as she came back into the lobby.
Sure enough there was an envelope in the familiar hand of her mother, dated only three days before with an express sticker on the outside. She went and sat in a chair in the lounge to read it.
The first page was just the general chit chat of Scottish village life. The second page began with, “Your uncle called last weekend and asked how you were going on your travels. I told him you liked Adelaide and would be there for a bit. Amazingly he is also on a trip to Australia himself, flying out the day after this letter, two days in Sydney before flying on to Adelaide. He asked for your address so he could call to see you and say hello. I gave it to him. I will post this by express mail so hopefully you will have got it before he arrives and be expecting him.”
Cathy did her sums. The letter postmark date was three days ago. Her uncle could even arrive in Adelaide this afternoon, probably tomorrow or the day after that was most likely. But it could be today.
Of all the people in the world that she never wanted to meet again he was number one. She hated the way this nightmare followed her here. It would be hard to avoid him if he came to this place. But she could not bear to see him. So she must go somewhere else. She could not tell this to her parents or he would know and may follow again. She must vanish.
She was sitting lost in her own world, oblivious to the other. She became aware of a person sitting in the next seat.
She looked up. It was Mark.
He said, “Sorry to intrude, I saw you sitting here reading a letter with a shocked look on your face, like someone had died. Is there anything I can do to help?”
She looked at him, surprised by her own directness, saying. “You said you were leaving tomorrow, going to Alice Springs, you offered me a lift.
“Could you leave tonight, that is right now? If you do I will come with you, if that is OK?”
Mark shrugged, “Sure; today, tomorrow, it is all the same to me. My business in Adelaide is done; my car is in a car park around the corner. I can pack my things and be ready to go in five minutes if that suits you.”
Cathy went upstairs and was packed in a minute. On returning to the lobby she saw there was no one at reception. She scribbled a quick note telling of her early departure. “Something has come up and I need to leave unexpectedly. Don’t worry about the extra days I have paid, I don’t need the money back.”
As she finished writing Mark came alongside. She folded the note, left it on the counter and they walked out to his car. There were two other people she recognised waiting in the lobby bar so she waved to them and called out goodbye.
That night they stayed in side by side rooms in a little motel in a town called Burra, an old copper mining town.
In the late evening they walked around parts of this historic town, chatting and enjoying the dusk stillness. They did not intrude any further on the other, both taking room service and going to bed early. Mark said he would call her to wake up at six am, as he wanted to get away early.