Ro met Gerry at a wimmin’s camp in the hills. Bodies everywhere, mud and tents from one end of the farm to the other, a marquee and an improvised stage with music system. Sex was in the air, along with smoke from the cooking fires, smoke from the joints, and incense from the healing tent.
Gerry and Ro were both thirty, but had little else in common.
Gerry was tall and wide, with bony capable hands. Her flannelette shirt was new, but looked as though she’d slept in it. She wore men’s work pants and her boots were scuffed round-toed Blundstones. The elastic sides sagged outwards.
Ro also wore a flannelette shirt, but hers was soft and faded, chosen from the op-shop for its particular shade of blue. Her jeans fitted snugly and her brand new RM Williams riding boots were gleaming. She was trying to keep them out of the mud without seeming fem. Every short hair on her head stood straight up, and her neat energetic body strained at the leash.
Gerry was shambling, bovine. She had a thatch of soft sandy hair, untended except when she ran her large hands through it in puzzlement or embarrassment. She spoke little, and her habitual expression was out of focus. She was not Ro’s type at all.
And yet Ro noticed her.
They met first in the queue for the pit toilets, though Gerry did not later remember this and Ro did not remind her. The canvas sides of one of the cubicles had collapsed and Gerry and another woman stepped forward and without apparent effort reinforced the uprights and retied the ropes.
A voice called from further down the queue. ‘Shipshape now?’
‘Thanks to Captain Gerry,’ another responded.
Gerry blushed and Ro was charmed.
‘Who’s Gerry?’ she said casually to a friend at the fire pit that night.
‘Gerry?’
‘One of those Victorian country dykes. She was at the environment workshop.’
‘Oh yeah. Gerry Oaktree or Mountainside or Mighty Ocean. One of those names.’
Ro giggled. ‘Strong, you mean.’
The friend narrowed her eyes. ‘Why do you want to know about her?’
‘Just wondering,’ Ro said and smiled.
‘Last time you were sleeping on our couch you said to stop you if you ever jumped blindfolded off another diving board. Didn’t you say that?’
‘I may have,’ Ro said airily. ‘It’s a while ago. I’ve worked out a few things since then.’
‘It was two months ago. And what about Sascha?’
‘It’s not going all that well, to tell you the truth. She’s on with Di anyway. I’m not her primary relationship.’
‘Why do I feel as though you’re selling me something?’
‘Well, anyhow, what about Gerry?’
The friend sighed. ‘She lives with two other women near Apollo Bay. In the Otways. She built a boat. That’s all I know.’
‘Wow, a boat. That’s why they called her captain. She’s gorgeous.’
‘Goodnight Ro Head-in-the-Clouds Firewomyn. I’m going to bed. I’ll call an ambulance if the swimming pool is empty when you dive in.’
As the weekend went on, Ro became more and more intrigued. She watched Gerry at every opportunity, studied the way her face worked, the muscles in her arms, saw that her softness was deceptive, that she was as strong as any woman there. She rarely spoke in workshops or around the fire at night, but when she smiled Ro was stirred to her roots. By Saturday night she was smitten.
It was hard going. She went to the workshop on compost, sure of seeing Gerry. But Gerry did not appear. After an hour, bored and sleepy but much better informed about worms, Ro came out to see Gerry and a group of laughing shivering women trooping up from the dam.
Undaunted, Ro watched from the edge of the kitchen tent until she saw Gerry come in, and slipped into the queue behind her.
‘Were you down at the dam today?’ she asked. ‘Wasn’t it cold?’
‘Yeah,’ Gerry said. ‘Freezing.’ And turned back to the woman beside her.
Later Ro was in time to see Gerry joining the circle of women for ‘Honouring the Goddess Within’. Ro had been particularly witty that very morning on the subject of goddess worship, so she didn’t feel she could join the circle without losing face. Another evening was wasted.
After some manoeuvring she managed to be on the breakfast washing-up roster alongside Gerry. Gerry worked silently and efficiently and Ro, for once in her life, was tongue-tied.
‘Are you swimming again today?’ she managed to blurt as Gerry was spreading out the tea towels.
‘No,’ Gerry said. ‘We have to leave today.’
And that was that.
Ro went back to Sascha.
It was months before Ro saw Gerry again. She thought about trips to Melbourne, but there was no guarantee that Gerry would be there. And she could hardly go and hang around in Apollo Bay on the off-chance.
She moved around the Shelter doing her allotted tasks, pushing sheets into the washing machine, pulling them out again, looking after children, making cups of tea, answering questions, all on automatic pilot.
She and another worker took the Shelter van and trailer and went with a woman to retrieve her belongings while her husband was out. The wife had a black eye, but was full of grim courage. She piled the children’s clothes and toys into rubbish bags while the Shelter women ferried them out to the van, and tied kitchen table and chairs onto the trailer. For a while adrenaline kept Ro’s mind on the job but by the time the three of them were back on the main road she was drifting again. The other two talked quietly together, laughing a little with the relief of getting away unchallenged. Ro sat behind the wheel waiting for the lights to change, mind miles away, until recalled abruptly by the insistent honking of a car behind. She jerked to attention as a man rapped on the driver’s window, gesticulating. The husband? She rolled the window down an inch while sliding the car into gear. They might need a quick get-away.
But it was not the husband. It was a helpful man pointing out that four kitchen chairs, tied together like a string of sausages, had fallen off the trailer and been bouncing along behind.
Ro, red-faced, piled out with the other two. They restacked the trailer and Ro drove soberly back to the Shelter, mind strictly on the job. With many apologies to the owner she straightened out the bent metal legs.
She resolved to be more careful at work. But at home her thoughts were her own and she devoted them mostly to Gerry. She dreamed about living in the bush. She re-read Patience and Sarah and pictured Gerry striding in with an axe. Perhaps not an axe. That had unfortunate connotations. Dead trees, dead chooks, dead murder victims. Perhaps a saddle and bridle. In fact perhaps more Calamity Jane. Ro would hear hoof beats and run outside in time to see Gerry swing down from the saddle in one easy action. She would pull Ro to her, smelling of sweat and horse hair, and they would kiss. And Ro would take off her apron and lead Gerry to a comfy chair in front of the stove while with her other hand she whipped up a … what? An apple pie? Could she learn to make pastry, or would they buy it from a shop in Apollo Bay? Ro was vague when it came to the details. Her knowledge of cooking was rudimentary. But she was not vague about what she and Gerry would do once they’d eaten the apple pie.
These fantasies about Gerry did not stop Ro from fucking noisily with Sascha whenever she had the chance. Sascha and Di had run into difficulties and Sascha was more available than she had been. Too available perhaps. Ro began to feel a little bored with Sascha and impatient with the off-again-on-again saga of Sascha and Di.
So when her household planned a group visit to Melbourne for the Lesbian Alliance weekend, Ro was prime organiser. They would drive over together on the Friday, sleep on the floor of a household in Fitzroy, picnic with the Alliance on Saturday, go to the Grand Lesbian Ball on Saturday night, recover on Sunday morning and drive back to Adelaide on Sunday night.
What to wear to the ball did not exercise Ro’s mind for too long. She might dream of making apple pies for Gerry and sweeping the hearth while Gerry rounded up the sheep, if they had sheep in the Otways. But when it came to a ball she was strictly a tux and Brylcream woman. Her sole concession to softness was a blue velvet bow tie she found at the op-shop when helping a housemate choose a dress.
Sascha expressed interest in coming to Melbourne too, but Ro discouraged her. It would be best for their relationship, she explained, if they had time apart. She went to meet Di for coffee-and-discuss-any-difficulties-in-the-multiple-relationship. She suggested to Di that it might be a perfect weekend for Di and Sascha to spend quality time.
And so the way was clear. Surely a picnic and ball would be enough to lure the most unsociable dyke from the country to the bright lights of Melbourne.
Meanwhile Gerry ambled about in what Ro imagined to be her mountain fastness, actually a small run-down farm in the Otways.
Gerry had noticed Ro at the wimmin’s camp. Indeed she ran into Ro again and again during the weekend. But it wasn’t a huge gathering. It had crossed Gerry’s mind briefly that Ro might be flirting with her. But Gerry was modest to the point of self-effacement and had assumed that she was mistaken. Probably Ro was being friendly. Gerry wished, not for the first time, that she had the gift of chatting the way she saw other people do.
She was not looking for a lover. Her last relationship had ended painfully a year or so before with Zoe declaring that she couldn’t stand the isolation and that she might as well be completely alone in this bloody hole, since Gerry was so silent that Zoe wondered if she was actually physically mute. Any words that Gerry might have mustered were lost in the face of this tirade. She said nothing, stood and watched Zoe drive off. They had not seen each other since.
It was Maria and Dot, the other farmwomen, who had dragged Gerry off to the wimmin’s camp, and who were now trying to badger her into going to the ball in Melbourne.
‘It’ll be fun,’ they said. ‘You can’t stay here all the time. You’ll turn into an old wombat.’
The idea of being an old wombat was appealing to Gerry, the curve of her back against the snug earth burrow. But something about the way they said it stung. She agreed cautiously that it wouldn’t be impossible to park Hester with a neighbour and have a night in Melbourne. Perhaps. In principle.
Ro and her housemates set off from Adelaide in high spirits, but their trip to Melbourne was complicated by the fact that each of them thought, if they thought at all, that one of the others would have checked the car, in particular the oil. That might not have mattered if they hadn’t been singing too loudly and happily to take any notice of the temperature gauge.
Petra prided herself on mechanical savvy, but she was sitting in the back and had a cold. She was scathing.
‘What a bunch of morons. Couldn’t you smell burning metal?’
Mikki, who was driving, was defensive. ‘It’s only a machine,’ she said dismissively. ‘It’s not like anyone’s died.’
Sue, who actually owned the car, was philosophical. ‘Oh, what the hell. Let’s work out what to do.’
By great good luck they were in the garage at Dimboola when the problem was discovered, having stopped to buy petrol. The owner was enjoying the whole scene and agreed amicably that he could check the damage, though not until tomorrow. They could ring him from Melbourne and he would keep the car until they decided what to do. Furthermore, Jim, a strapping youth who hovered in the background, could run them to the station. They could wait for the Overland.
So they hauled their belongings out of the boot, pushed the overflow dress-ups into rubbish bags and loaded the whole lot into Jim’s ute. Mikki and Sue sat in the back to stop Jim’s dog eating the luggage and they set off cheerfully enough for the station. There they congregated in the ticket office, where Ro discovered that the Overland wasn’t due until the early hours of the morning.
The others knew this already. In fact Petra was a regular commuter. She had an interstate relationship of several years’ standing with a woman in Melbourne. But Ro was beside herself, and the fact that the others were facing eight hours in Dimboola with equanimity made it worse. At this very moment, as they moved their bags behind the counter and made their way back toward the pub, Gerry might be arriving in Melbourne ready to party. And meeting someone else.
Catastrophe. Ro shuffled along behind the others, kicking miserably at weeds beside the road.
Sue dropped back beside her. ‘Are you okay? What’s the matter?’
‘I wanted to be there tonight,’ Ro muttered, close to tears. ‘We were going to have dinner out.’
Sue laughed. ‘Oh well. I expect there’ll be counter teas at the pub.’
Heartless, Ro thought.
She cheered up when she found there were two well-kept pool tables. She and Petra spent the rest of the evening fending off challenges from the young men of Dimboola. Jim’s presence was an ice-breaker. He said nothing at all, but must have conveyed wordlessly to his mates that these women, though exotic, were no immediate threat.
But there was a gradual thickening of the pub atmosphere as the night wore on, and it wasn’t just cigarette smoke. One of Jim’s mates, a giant with a bush of red hair, didn’t appreciate losing to two women. Once was a joke and twice was bad luck. But three times in a row was too much for him. He flung off to the bar, rumbling under his breath. Meanwhile Jim’s girlfriend noticed that Jim was neglecting her for the pool table, and though Ro and Petra looked more like young brothers than rivals, nevertheless she began to make high pitched angry noises.
By nine, Sue, who had grown up in the country, decided it was time they left. She took Petra by one arm and Ro by the other and pulled them out of the pub. Mikki took up the rear, forcing her face into what she hoped was a placatory smile and raising a hand in farewell.
Ro and Petra were indignant.
‘We could have cleaned up the whole town,’ Ro said.
‘That’s exactly what I was afraid of.’ Sue steered them firmly toward the station. ‘You can be pool heroes in Melbourne where there’s a bit more leeway. Don’t you know anything about country towns?’
They retrieved their luggage and set up quarters in the empty waiting room. The station master went home to have his supper and they had the whole place to themselves. Ro and Mikki sat on the edge of the platform smoking a joint. Petra dug out a pack of cards and she and Sue played rummy on the waiting room floor.
By eleven they decided to try and sleep, taking it in turns to stay awake and watch the time. The darkness was unbroken except for Petra’s torch and the dappled glow from the high windows. Somewhere outside a street light shone through the branches of a tree.
Ro didn’t imagine she could sleep, stretched in her sleeping bag on a hard narrow bench. But she must have because she woke with a start, unsure if it was Petra’s sibilant whisper or the sound of engines that made her heart race. A car door slammed, followed by male voices and laughter. In the dim light she could see the other three as shapes, sitting up, pale ovals of faces strained toward the windows.
‘Shit,’ said one of the shapes.
‘The door,’ Sue whispered. ‘Get the door shut.’
Ro had never wished more strongly for a clear head. How stupid could she be, lounging round smoking a joint? She dragged herself muzzily out of her sleeping bag and crawled across the floor, banging into Petra half way. Between them they pulled the wedge out from under the door and pushed it shut. But it had no lock.
From outside came the squeal of tyres. A hoon was doing wheelies in the station car park. Or more than one hoon. Digging Petra in the ribs Ro pointed to the nearest bench. Petra nodded and they crawled over to it. By a miracle it wasn’t fastened to the floor and they could drag it across and barricade the door.
They ducked back and huddled with the other two under the windows.
It could be harmless. Perhaps this was where the boys always came after the pub shut. But there was the sound of a bottle smashing and a slurred voice called.
‘Hey girls. Come on out.’
‘Shit, shit shit,’ Mikki whispered. ‘Now what?’
Ro discovered that she was shaking.
‘Keep quiet,’ Sue said. ‘Pretend we aren’t here.’
‘We know you’re in there.’ This taunt was taken up by several voices and blurred into raucous shouts and laughter.
‘Fucking lezzos.’ It was the red-haired giant, Ro realised. ‘Come out and I’ll give you the cock you need.’
Petra made an angry noise and began to get up. Sue held her down.
Sounds of a struggle and swearing.
‘Hey Rob, cool it man …’
There was an odd pattering at the windows.
‘They’re throwing stuff,’ whispered Mikki. ‘Gravel or something.’
‘Come away from the glass. Quick.’
They bundled themselves to the other side of the room.
‘Fucking bitches, fuck you. Think you’re smart, don’t you?’
‘Come on mate. Calm down. Let’s go to Doug’s.’
A confused babble of voices and another bottle smashed.
After an agonising interval of muffled talk, car doors slammed and engines revved. With a great screeching of wheels two or three cars left the car park.
As the sound drained away the women slumped on the floor where they sat.
Ro let out her breath. ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’
‘Did I tell you about country towns?’ Sue was trying for lightness, but her voice cracked in the middle.
For the next two hours they sat together on a bench, willing each other to stay awake.
‘Let’s sing,’ said Mikki, and started out, a little quavery.
Stop ’em all, stop ’em all …
Petra grinned and joined her.
… the long and the short and the tall,
stop all the rapists who want to insist …
Gradually all four threw themselves into it.
… a coward and a sadist lie hid in each rapist …
By the end they were belting it out at the top of their lungs
… so sisters unite stop ’em all,
SISTERS UNITE, STOP ’EM ALL!
A mournful rendition of A Place in the Sun (where there’s hope for everyone), cheered them. There was no sign of returning cars so they relaxed into everything they could remember. Pennies from Heaven, The Sound of Music, South Pacific. By degrees they arrived at Louie the Fly and another favourite, an anthem to the padded bra. I’m Joy, they warbled with appropriate actions, got a figure like a boy. Add a size, add a size … I’m Gay, in most dresses I’m okay, but in this I miss. Add a size …
Eventually the lights on the platform flickered into life and the door rattled.
‘Hello? You in there? Train’s due.’
It was the station master. They dragged the bench away and opened the door.
‘You girls all right? Nervous, were you?’
Sue smiled politely. ‘A bit.’
‘Nothing to worry about out here,’ he said. ‘Not like in the city.’
Sue nodded while the others shuffled their things together. By now they could hear the rails humming and before long the train drew into the station exuding power, brakes wheezing.
Ro sank into her allotted seat, closed her eyes and let the regular clanking of the train wheels carry her away. She imagined Dimboola being obliterated from the face of the earth. She saw a great bolt of lightning descending from the hand of an avenging goddess.
There were two things in the way of this cosmic destruction. One was her avowed pacifism. The other was that they’d left the car there.
In Fitzroy Gardens the elms were covered in soft new leaves.
As soon as they saw the banners and the shifting crowd of women under the Moreton Bay figs, Ro and the others forgot their stiffness, their sticky eyes and rumpled clothes. A party, a picnic and a protest all rolled into one, thought Ro. What could be better? She had almost forgotten Gerry as she moved forward to embrace the crowd, her sisters.
Flags and banners hung between the trees, Lesbian Alliance and Sisterhood Is Powerful and linked women’s symbols. Below them swarmed dozens and dozens of dykes, in leather and in flannelette shirts. With one earring and with many earrings. Others who despised earrings and whose bodies were pure and intact. Young dykes, old dykes, punk dykes, and drab dykes with minds above fashions. Dykes with cigarette in one hand and beer bottle in the other, or with macrobiotic salad, or with thermoses and plates of cake.
There were women for peace and women against nuclear energy, women for the environment and women against rape. There were union women and communist women and women in saffron robes.
Three women sat in a semicircle on a tartan rug. Their heads were covered by paper bags with slits for eyes and nose. Instead of a face each bag was painted with a slogan. I would lose my job if they knew. Teachers, thought Ro.
Petra found her interstate girlfriend and lay with her in the hollow between two tree roots, whispering and laughing and stroking, lost to the picnic around them. Sue met three old housemates from her time in Sydney and swung straight into news and reminiscence and who’s-on-with-who. Mikki, who hadn’t been to Melbourne before, stuck close to Ro.
‘No need to build an alliance,’ she said, staring around. ‘It’s already happened.’
Ro laughed. ‘Till you scratch the surface. What about those vegetarians eyeing off the chicken-eaters?’
‘True. And I suppose the twelve-steppers object to the drinking.’
‘And what about them?’ Ro indicated a brave group of four with a placard that read Lesbian Mothers of Sons.
‘Shit,’ said Mikki. ‘That’s braver than Out and Proud Sex Workers.’
‘But most deadly of all are the socialists versus the separatists.’
A fitful Melbourne sun was shining. Summer was in the air. The Radclyffe Runners, lacking a softball pitch, were chucking a ball around. The atmosphere was benign. There was tolerance for a sad-looking man in brown polyester trousers who was trying to take photos. A woman knelt in front of him and pointed her camera at him. The dykes around her laughed, but there was no edge to it. Two of the organisers talked the man into leaving.
By now Ro had scanned the entire crowd and was pretty sure that Gerry wasn’t there. She felt flat disappointment, a cold feeling inside that took the edge off her pleasure in the day. Silly, she knew. She hadn’t had any reason to think Gerry would be in Melbourne for the weekend. She had wanted it to be so, and persuaded herself that it must be so.
She became animated, laughing with old friends, introducing Mikki. When people assumed they were together she winked at Mikki, who she knew to be deeply in love with a woman in Adelaide. Mikki winked gravely back and went to play frisbee, leaving Ro to chat up a roly-poly baby dyke with a wicked giggle and beer to share.
The ball was another matter. Ro had been there five minutes when she spotted Gerry standing with a group of women on the other side of the hall. Gerry was silent and unsmiling in contrast to the laughter and movement around her. And she was not dressed up. She was wearing what might have been the same shirt, workpants and boots in which Ro had last seen her.
Ro was shocked and turned aside, surprised by the strength of her own reaction. Gerry did not fit in this world, and Ro didn’t want to be identified with a misfit. The feeling was pure schoolyard, the gut necessity not to be identified with a freak.
She sneaked another look. Gerry was talking to the woman next to her, apparently relaxed. Ashamed of her first reaction, Ro moved purposefully across the hall. She arrived in front of the group with eyes only for Gerry.
‘Hi Gerry,’ she said. ‘I’m Ro. We met at the wimmin’s camp in Adelaide.’
‘Yeah. I remember.’
Since Gerry was clearly not going to introduce her, Ro turned to the others.
‘Hi. I’m Ro. From Adelaide.’
‘Hi,’ the others chorused. None of them were dressed for a ball, but none were dressed as casually as Gerry either. Ro felt a little self-conscious in her tux and blue velvet bow tie. But, what the hell, it was a ball. And there were far more who were dressed up than not.
Ro turned back to Gerry. ‘I was hoping to see you again,’ she said.
‘Oh yes?’
Ro cast around for a reason why she might have hoped to see Gerry again, other than the obvious one. It was a little premature for a declaration.
‘I heard you have a boat,’ she said.
The others turned away with smiles, knowing Gerry and seeing Ro’s determination.
‘Do you sail?’ Gerry asked.
‘No,’ said Ro. ‘But I’ve always wanted to.’ She could only hope that if it came to the point she wouldn’t be seasick. ‘Where do you go?’
Once Gerry was convinced that Ro’s interest was genuine, she opened up, though Ro had to work at it. The boat was moored in Geelong, she gathered. A friend had it now. These days Gerry used her kayak more often, exploring the lakes around Colac, or taking it as far as the Glenelg River.
Ro’s knowledge of where these places might be was hazy, but she was sure she could find out. She was warming to the idea of a rugged outdoors woman, a real country butch. But her mind was also wandering, busy with how to get Gerry onto the dance floor. So much easier to touch on a dance floor.
Gerry was not to be persuaded. She didn’t argue, or defend herself. She simply said no. Ro was intrigued now. Why come to a ball if you didn’t want to dress up and didn’t dance?
What Gerry would do, she discovered, was drink brandy. Ro was happy to supply her with drink after drink and Gerry gradually unwound.
They retreated to a small backyard. Ro ignored the rubbish bins and Gerry seemed not to notice them at all. She leant her back against the wall and pulled Ro into her arms, sliding slowly down until she was sitting with Ro in her lap. They kissed long and seriously, pausing now and then to drink and smoke and exchange phone numbers.
Ro’s feelings reached tipping point and she was trying to decide how laid-back the Fitzroy household would be about visitors having sex on the living room floor, when she noticed that Gerry’s responses were becoming perfunctory. Ro pulled away to look at her. Gerry’s eyes were gradually closing and before Ro could do anything she slid slowly sideways till her head was resting against a rubbish bin.
‘Nigh,’ she muttered, and within a few seconds was snoring.
Ro shook her experimentally. ‘Hey. Gerry.’
No response.
Indignant, Ro gave her a good prod.
No response.
Blearily Ro stood up and considered what was to be done. Possibly Gerry would sleep it off, but Ro could hardly take a comatose extra to Fitzroy. She went in search of Gerry’s friends.
‘Um, Gerry’s … asleep out the back. Drunk,’ she added, seeing their faces. She wasn’t too sober herself, she realised.
‘Oh hell,’ said the most capable looking of the women. ‘Show me where.’
She and Ro splashed water on Gerry’s face, stood her more or less upright and bundled her into a car.
Ro considered the ethics of the situation. Should she offer to go too, to help at the other end? But she didn’t want to leave the dance.
‘Are you sure you can manage?’ she asked, fingers crossed.
‘Yeah. It’s fine. I was leaving anyway. The others can help me.’
‘Well … thanks.’
Ro went back inside and danced determinedly until the very end, by which time she’d worn off the alcohol and the disappointment. I will survive, she sang, with a hundred other diehards. Oh yes I will survive.
It was a perfect Sunday morning in the cramped Fitzroy backyard. Housemates, visitors, various girlfriends, droppers-in. It was laughing and talking and lazy unwinding and the pleasures of tribal life. The Melbourne cousins, as it were. There were crosswords and Sunday papers and endless pots of tea. Nothing startling was discussed. Nobody spoke with brilliance. It was gossip and catching up, with a spice of politics. Melbourne was curious about the phenomenon of Adelaide, its feminism now enshrined in the bureaucracy. Was it a triumph or was it a compromise to have women’s advisers? Did it mean equality, and was that the goal anyway? Women who want to be equal with men lack ambition, quoted one of the Melbourne women. They were warming up for the afternoon, when more formal discussion was planned, a bigger gathering.
In the back of her mind Ro turned over the question of Gerry. Perhaps she should give up. She could try and track down the baby-faced beer drinker from the picnic instead. But time was short. Best enjoy the day and trust the knowledge inside her that she and Gerry would meet again, sometime, soon. She knew it in her bones and in the pit of her belly, home of sex. She forgot the ignominious end to their encounter and remembered the kissing. She was not surprised when one of the Melbourne women called from inside the house.
‘Ro? Phone for you.’
She stepped over several dozing bodies and stretched the phone cord out into the hall.
‘Hello?’ she said.
‘It’s me,’ said a breathy voice on the other end. ‘Gerry.’
Ro heard the nervousness, knew what it meant, and was filled with happiness and goodwill toward every living thing on earth.
‘Hi Gerry,’ she said. ‘How you going?’
‘Okay. Hey, I’m really really sorry about last night. I should never drink brandy.’
‘Were you sick?’
‘Very. But I was okay after that. What about you?’
Her gravelly voice sounded calm and capable. Ro felt a great welling of warmth inside her.
‘I’m great,’ she burbled. ‘Lovely to hear your voice.’
‘I was hoping I’d catch you. The thing is, we have to leave early. My horse tangled herself in the neighbour’s fence. We’re not sure how badly she’s hurt.’
Ro’s heart plunged and her fund of goodwill toward living things, especially horses, ran out.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Sorry. Hope she’s okay.’
‘I think so. But we can’t leave it up to Steve.’
‘No. Um, can’t you?’
‘He’s the neighbour,’ Gerry explained. ‘He called the vet, but I should be there.’
‘Oh.’
There was a pause. Fuck, thought Ro. Stood up by a horse. That’s a first.
‘Ro? You there?’
‘Yes,’ Ro said sadly.
‘You wouldn’t … I mean I don’t suppose you could come too?’
Ro’s heart soared. Could she come too? Could she just.
‘Sure. I guess so. I mean I’ll check with the others. But I’m sure … what time?’
‘Soon.’ Gerry was apologetic. ‘I’m leaving in about ten minutes. The others are packing up. You’re at Vera’s aren’t you? Is that Kerr Street? I could pick you up in twenty minutes.’
Ro’s heart was singing. This was doing it in style.
‘See you then.’
She rushed into the bedroom and started cramming clothes into her bag. She dragged it, trailing knickers and a scarf, into the backyard.
‘Sue,’ she called as she came through the door.
A surprised circle of faces turned toward her.
‘Sorry to interrupt. But I have to go. Will you be okay with the car? Here’s twenty bucks.’
She pressed the money into Sue’s hand. ‘Give my love to the others. I’ll ring you.’
‘Ro?’ Sue was half-laughing, half-protesting. ‘What about this afternoon, the separatism discussion? You said …’
But Ro was running back through the house. ‘Thanks for having me,’ she called over her shoulder.
Sue sank back into her chair.
‘That was Ro,’ she said. ‘Did you meet her?’