NO IT WASN’T: SOMEWHERE in among the prickle patch was a red beanie.
I hadn’t recognised him: windswept and wild-haired, scraggily bearded, nearly as black as me; he’d been in the bush so long he’d started to decompose.
‘Fuck!’ he exclaimed, his jaw dropping.
‘If you insist.’
I swung down through the rear window, feet first, popped up behind him and buried my face in the foliage that had enveloped his head; found something cartilaginous, hopefully an ear.
‘Hello Jojo,’ I said into it.
‘Emily!’ He laughed hard, pushed himself away, shaking his head. His hair rustled, it was so thickly encrusted with sweat and dirt. ‘Scared the shit out of me. What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I think it’s called foreplay, but it’s been so long they may have another name for it now.’
‘But how’d you find me?’
I lifted my head up from where it had been busily trying to untangle a lobe from its encompassing curls. ‘Everybody seems to know where you are except me.’ I paused, gave him the hard stare. ‘You gotta problem?’
‘Course not—been planning on coming in.’
I reached over, laid a hand on his shorts. ‘Well you can come in right now.’
He grinned and groaned. ‘Dunno if I’m up to that.’
‘I’ll get you up to it,’ I said, fossicking around.
‘Don’t you at least want to say hello?’
‘I am saying hello.’
‘Been perched up a tree all day. I’m all stiff and sore…’
‘Well, we’re half way there.’
‘Yeah but…’
‘No buts. Other than mine.’
‘Just give me a minute to…’
‘Deliver a lecture on the mating habits of the rufous wallaby? No thanks, honey—got mating habits of my own to accommodate.’
I ran my tongue round his throat, breathed deep, savoured the desert aromas: the oils and the burns, the bush tobacco, indigo and mint, red iron dirt.
‘Come here you,’ I whispered, slipping a hand down onto the lever and easing the seat back. I climbed over his shoulders and worked my way down through buttons and belts, shedding the odd article of clothing myself. Tackled his trousers head first.
‘Why hello there.’ I grinned up at him. ‘Thought you said you weren’t up to it?’
‘Seems to have a life of his own.’
I licked my lips. So did he. I took him into my mouth.
‘Ouch!’ he yelped.
‘Ouch?’
‘No teeth, please.’
‘Sorry—they must have grown.’
‘Take it easy,’ he groaned. ‘Been a while for me too…’
‘Well whose fault is that?’
‘Don’t speak with your mouth full. Might get more than you bargained for.’
‘Good-oh.’
‘Yeah, but Krakatoa…?’
‘Let er rip.’
‘You won’t eat for a week. Ouch! Hey, how long since you cut your toenails?’
‘Mind your own business.’
‘It is my business. Think you just cut my ear off. Feel like Peter in the Garden.’
‘It was him did the chopping, idiot. Where’s the Lord, then?’
‘Jesus!’
‘Oh, there He is…’
‘Thought I said no teeth!’
‘…but it isn’t over till the cock’s crowed. Three times, if I recall.’
A minute or two flew by, then he emitted an ominously wobbly groan.
‘Oi, hang on,’ I said.
‘What do you mean, hang on?’ he gulped. ‘We’re talking irresistible forces and immovable objects here.’
‘I wouldn’t call your object immovable, but I’d like to…’ I swivelled around, threw a leg over and thrust down onto him, arched my back and gripped the wheel, ‘…be there when it happens.’
‘Hey, watch me mirror!’
‘Oh shut the fuck up.’
‘I love it when you…aaaaggh!’
He shuddered and grunted, threw his hips forward and his arms out, wrapped me in a frantic embrace—then flopped back into the seat. He stared at the roof, gave me an idiot grin, then closed his eyes, the hopeless bastard.
‘That’s it?’
He was drifting off into Sleepy Hollow.
‘Er—hello?’
No response.
‘Oi! Jojo!’
He stirred himself for long enough to mumble, ‘Aw come on, Em, I’m fucked.’
‘Well I’m not—not properly, anyway.’
‘Okay, okay. Just gimme five.’
A drawn-out silence ensued. Pleasant enough, if you like that sort of thing—a hawk moth waved at us from the other side of the windscreen, a nightjar drifted in to say hello—but my mind was on lower things. Crickets called, katydids didn’t. Something rustled in the back of the car: not a snake, I hoped. Though if it was it was showing more life than certain other snakes in the vicinity.
I tapped Jojo on the forehead.
‘Five what?’ I enquired politely. ‘Days? Weeks?’
Was something stirring down there?
‘Minutes,’ he mumbled.
Yes, it was.
‘Starting when?’
A smile in his eyes. ‘Oh—bout four and a half minutes ago.’