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Lonesome kept his eyes on the road as they drove on through the empty Nullarbor Plain. Ben rolled himself another cigarette and Jo fidgeted awkwardly, squashed in tightly between the two men. Ben glanced at their Camper van in the rear-view mirror, its impacted front raised and suspended by a large winch. He was no mechanic, but it looked bad. A distorted aria crackled from Lonesome's thin, tinny radio speakers, making the sound almost unbearable. Ben placed his cigarette in his mouth and prepared to light it, when he noticed Lonesome staring at him.
“There’s no smoking in my truck,” said the mechanic.
“Sorry,” said Ben. “I thought you were a smoker.”
“I am,” he said.
“So,” said Jo. “How long will it take to fix Lonesome?”
“I reckon you’ll be bunking in town for a couple of days at least,” said the mechanic. “I won’t know the worst of it until I get her into the workshop.”
Ben and Jo glanced at each other but said nothing. They then both fixed their eyes on the road ahead.
Lonesome’s truck peeled off the main bitumen road under heavy grey skies and took a gravel track that forked off and gradually wound its way out towards the coast. Ben saw a rickety hand-painted sign at the edge of the track:
Sweetwater - 33 km.
The music on Lonesome’s radio began to break down into a series of long crackles, before finally dissolving altogether into a rising and falling wave of whining static as the signal ebbed. Lonesome finally turned the volume down, but the faint and eerie sound was still there, lingering in the background.
“Ain’t nothing works out here,” said Lonesome. “Not anymore.”
*
Ben stared out through the truck's window as they passed a rundown trailer park just off the coastal road. It looked more like a graveyard for caravans, than a working holiday site. Beyond the park, jagged cliff edges stretched out towards the sea, trying, but failing to obscure the bleak and tumultuous Bight.
Lonesome looked at the trailer park and revealed a callous grin.
“Irma’s place, he said. “Cheap enough, if you can stand all the chit-chat.”
Lonesome’s truck reached his dilapidated petrol station and garage just as dusk began to devour day. They passed the petrol pumps and pulled up in front of a large junkyard and workshop. Semi-cannibalized vehicles and rusting, discarded parts littered the area. Lonesome eased himself out of the cab and released the clamps on the back of the truck.
“She’ll be at least a few days,” he said. “There’s a hotel on the other side of town, or you can use Irma’s, depending on your budget.”
Ben and Jo looked at each other, and then at the few twinkling lights of Sweetwater’s main street in the distance.
“Any chance of a lift?” said Ben.
“Nah,” said Lonesome. “I’ve got to get this squared away and then close up.”
Lonesome took the Camper van out of park and thumbed a large remote to operate the winch suspending it. The Camper van slowly rolled off the back of the truck as it lowered. Ben and Jo reluctantly grabbed their backpacks from the truck's cab and circled around to watch their Camper van being unhooked.
Lonesome eyed Ben’s limp.
“If you banged your leg, we’ve got a doctor in town.”
Ben tapped on the false leg with his knuckles. Lonesome looked down at the ground and then magically pulled another cigarette from behind his ear. He wet it with his lips.
“Surfer, eh?” he said. “That’s a bad business. We get a lot of that around here.”
Without another word, Lonesome pulled up the workshop's metal shutter and disappeared inside.
Ben and Jo exchanged looks of disbelief and then began walking towards town.
*
Ben and Jo emerged from the darkness as they approached the edge of Sweetwater’s main street. The rundown thoroughfare was reminiscent of ghost towns in old western movies. Many of the streetlamps were out, leaving only a few scant pools of light defying the night. Most of the dilapidated, wooden properties inhabiting the street were boarded up, seemingly abandoned. Ben eyed a tired looking store that still had a glass frontage:
Olanders
There was no sign of life within though, and a thick coating of dust covered the shop’s windows. Ben and Jo trudged on with their packs through the shadows.
A few moments later they reached a bar, or rather a menacing looking lit doorway wedged between two abandoned buildings. There was a circular sign above the door with the words:
The Black Cat
There was a silhouette of a black cat leaping across a white background; chasing something, or being chased. The wind began to pick up. It lifted a fine cloud of dust into the night air, blowing it across the high street.
They both eyed the creaking sign with suspicion.
“C’mon,” whispered Jo. “I’m not that thirsty.”
Ben and Jo left the glare of the last working streetlight and found themselves swallowed by the darkness again.
They passed through to the other side of town and made their way up a winding, decaying road that hugged the cliff edges, as it rose up over the town. They paused and looked back down at the remaining lights of Sweetwater. They could hear the waves of the Bight crashing against the foot of the cliffs far below. They gazed out at a fat, silvery moon reflected on the dark, open waters that surrounded the town. They then turned and continued up towards the outline of a large, lone house that sat on the highest cliff edge, overlooking both the town and the sea that bordered it. Jo and Ben stared up at the opulent, but faded Victorian hotel. Jo snuggled into Ben against the high winds that toyed with the hotel's sign.
It read:
Ho’s Palace
“Classy,” said Jo.
A light flicked on behind the raised porch and a large figure appeared in the closed doorway there. The silhouette inside looked misshapen through the dimpled glass that revealed it. The door opened and a tall, very sturdy looking woman stepped out on to the porch to greet them. The late middle-aged woman looked more like a builder in drag in a plain and shapeless dress that hung from her square shoulders. The woman spoke in a thick, Australian accent.
“How’s it going?” she said.
“Good, thanks,” said Jo. “Have you got any rooms free?”
“Only all of ‘em. Come on in. I'm Angie.”
“Jo and Ben.”
Angie Ho easily lifted both backpacks off the pair and about turned to carry them inside. Ben and Jo followed her into Ho's Palace, both surprised by the woman's strength.
“This is a nice surprise, we don’t normally get visitors this time of year,” said Angie. “C’mon, it’s turning nasty out there.”
Angie Ho pushed through the front door and into a large, garishly decorated reception hall. The house may have been Victorian, but the furnishings inside were pure seventies. The walls hummed with fiercely patterned wallpaper and chintzy furniture seemed to be crammed into every available space. Ben instinctively lingered by a studded, leather fronted reception counter and tried to look at the entries in the open guest book on top.
“Hello there, welcome.”
Ben and Jo turned to face a small white-haired Polynesian man advancing on them from the other end of the hall. The aging hotelier quickly offered them his hand, the glare of his wide, white grin competing with his equally bright Hawaiian shirt. He shook hands with Jo, then with Ben, and his smile grew even wider.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” he said. “My name is Henry Ho and this, is Ho’s Palace.”
Ben gritted his teeth to keep any sarcastic remarks at bay.
“Hi Henry, I’m Jo Bridgewater and this is Ben Barker.”
“You're together?” said Ho.
“Err...yes, yes we're together.”
“Ahhh excellent. One less bed to make, eh?
Jo nodded with embarrassment, but found herself smiling with bewilderment at the same time. Ben watched Ho carefully. The grinning little man didn't seem quite so funny anymore. Angie Ho let out an exaggerated sigh from halfway up the staircase.
“Let go of ‘em Henry,” she said. “They just got here for Christ sakes.”
Ho shot his wife a quick, icy look, and then the stick-on-grin was back with a vengeance. He turned back to face his guests again.
“Please, would you join my wife and I for dinner tonight? No extra charge, of course.”
Ben and Jo were caught out. They stared at each other for a moment, trying to read each other’s thoughts.
“Thanks Mr. Ho,” said Jo eventually. “That would be lovely.”
“Excellent,” said Ho. “We’ll see you down here in an hour.”
Ho watched them carefully as they ascended the stairs, maintaining his grin until they were out of sight. Then he let it slide from his face, as his shoulders slumped with resignation. He trudged back the way he came towards the end of the hall, methodically filling a pipe with tobacco as he went.
Angie Ho barged up two more steep flights of stairs with the full packs, and then along another chintzy hallway landing, all without missing a breath. Ben and Jo followed her past a half a dozen closed doors.
“You two married?” asked Angie.
“No,” said Jo, frowning with confusion.
“Shame. I was going to put you in the honeymoon suite. Ah what the heck, I’ll tell Henry you’re practicing.”
The large woman winked at Jo and kicked open the door to the honeymoon suite. She dumped the packs on a pink, heart shaped bed that appeared to have been around since the sixties. Ben and Jo stood in the doorway and took a moment to drink in the cupid peppered red wallpaper, lace doilies and half-melted, scented candles. Angie Ho marched over to the window and drew back a floor to ceiling set of velvet curtains. She opened up the windows behind them to let in the sound of huge waves pounding into the rocks below.
“Better let it air out for a bit, it's been a while,” she said, then pointed to another doorway.
“Bathroom’s through there. So, I guess we’ll see you downstairs in a bit, OK?”
Jo smiled and nodded and received two door keys for her trouble. Then Angie Ho was out of the room and away, hauling her heavy carcass down the stairs with great, thumping footsteps. Ben and Jo flopped down on to the heart-shaped bed and searched each other’s straight faces for any hint of humor. Jo cracked first, and then Ben joined in, as they both collapsed into fits of hysterical giggles.