Bangalore. Roger Crook

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СКАЧАТЬ on I don’t know, isn’t there? That’s a statement not a question, Pat. I have never thought about change out here. You and I face up to change every day. Career changes. Moving house. Changing men, all that sort of crap. But Bangalore? Change? I’d never thought of that. I just think of Bangalore as the only thing that doesn’t change. That’s selfish really. Dad’s always here. Ali’s always here. Alice is always here. Nothing changes.

      “I can come home after six or twelve months away and everything, even my room, is just the same as I left it. This place is just like my riding boots, I can just slip into them and I’m back. Then I leave knowing I can come back and do it all over again…anytime I like. Now that is selfish.”

      Pat stubbed her cigarette out and stood up. “I’ll go and make another pot of tea.”

      Rachael looked at her, smiling. “My God, Pat, look at you. No shoes and no bra is that becoming an officer and a lady?”

      “Not really and what’s more, Rachael, I don’t care, so there!” Laughing, she tossed her head in mock disdain.

      “Good. I’ve got just the dress for you this evening, bought it in India. It will suit you down to the ground if you’re game to wear it.”

      “Try me. I told Angus that I feel a freedom out here that I’ve never felt before. I have never walked around barefoot since I was a child. I have never, ever, not worn a bra, goodness me!

      By the time Ali got to the pool Rachael had already had a swim and was sitting at the barbecue table under the pergola. She refused his offer to have another swim and watched as he walked into the water and did a few duck dives and splashed around. Never a great stylist Ali swam powerfully but the perfectionist would say that he spent too much energy with little result. But then Rachael mused ‘he’s never been taught; it’s all pure raw talent and willpower’.

      It was four-thirty in the afternoon and still hot and, if anything, the humidity was more oppressive. Rachael had swum in just her bikini bottoms and now she had pulled an old tee-shirt on to cover her body. From the way Ali had behaved that morning it was obvious he wanted to talk after she had asked him whether he was lonely, like her father.

      As he walked out of the water again she noticed the limp. Like many men who work outdoors his head and forearms were a darker tan than the rest of his body, except for the tell-tale line around his forehead showing the line of his hat.

      Like Rachael there was Indian blood in his family so his coffee-coloured skin that was shaded from the sun during the day was a natural colour not a suntan. She thought he hasn’t changed since they were teenagers – still slim to thin, big arms from all the manual work, the hair receding at the temples and a hint of grey, but he was still the same Ali.

      He went to the cab of his Land Cruiser and came back with a small six-pack Esky, a towel and his tobacco tin. “Beer?”

      “Love one.”

      He unscrewed the tops off two stubbies and gave one to her. “Cheers, Princess. Here’s to Ew and a quick recovery.”

      Still seated she looked into his blue eyes and he held her stare. Then he picked up his towel and vigorously dried his hair and forearms and sat down on the bench opposite. They faced each other across the table. Rachael’s forefinger traced a heart that had been carved into the wood many years ago and saw that the sun, wind and rain had almost worn it away.

      Ali asked, “How old were we when we carved that?”

      Without looking up she replied, “Sixteen—and I was crying because I was so happy.”

      Before he could ask another question she went on. “It was the day that we became lovers for the first time.”

      “Over there under that old tree on a li-lo that you had been floating around on, on a day much the same as today. You put a tartan rug over it.” As he was speaking he pointed to a spot under a tree not ten metres from where they sat.

      “Ali...please…” There was pain and apprehension in her voice.

      “You asked me today, Rach, if I was lonely and I told you that you knew the answer to the question. My answer is sometimes I am, but mostly I’m not. I sometimes wonder if I’ve spent too long out here. You know what they say about old bushies and not being happy unless they are alone. It’s not like that for me—I’m not lonely because…because there is always part of you around this place…especially around this pool. I can come down here and find a strange kind of peace.”

      Rachael wanted to reach over and hold his hand but, before she could, he continued, “You and I grew up together, Rach, like brother and sister. Then when we started to move out of childhood into being adults we changed – we knew that we were in love and we knew that one day we would make love. When it happened – for me it was the most natural thing in the world. There was no shame. No regrets. I just got deeper in love, I suppose.”

      “Then I went away.”

      “Then you went away, and then you came back. Then you went away again and you came back again. When you were away you were still here for me. Over the years I've been living with you even though you’re not here. I don’t mean that in a sexual sense. I didn’t appreciate what it really is until the last few years. I think the blackfellas would call it the spirit. Old Walter the gardener knows what’s going on. He often ask me how you are and when I reply he just chuckles and walks off shaking his head.”

      Rachael was crying. Big tears rolled down her cheeks. Her nose started to run down over her top lip. He gave her a handkerchief and she wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

      “You’ve never really asked me why I keep on going away. Why is that, Ali?”

      “That’s the way we’ve always been, Princess. You went off to boarding school at about twelve and left me behind. Then I went off to High School in Geraldton and you went back to Perth. Then we all came back to Bangalore for holidays. Then we went away again. Then when I left school and went to Ag College, down to Northam, you went to university. Even though you were only a few hours away I didn’t drive down to see you because that was the way we were. Then I came back here and you stayed away for longer and longer periods…that’s the way it is. Then you went to Sydney and you stayed away. Then Alice told me the other day you were going to India to work; didn’t know what to think then.”

      He unscrewed the tops off another two stubbies and pushed one over the table to her. Rachael was crying again.

      “Ali…why have we been so stupid?”

      “Don’t know.”

      “Why have we never talked like this before?”

      “Don’t know. I have thought about it. As the years have passed it’s always seemed to me that you were holding something back. I put it down to your ambition to succeed. You’re a driven person; I didn’t want to interfere with that. I didn’t want to come between you and your work.”

      “I think I’m some kind of weird masochist.”

      “Masochist – why?”

      “That day that we lay on the li-lo, what was I sixteen, and you just seventeen? And afterwards when you carved this heart in the table, that day is seared, branded into my brain, I can re-live it at any time I want.”

      “Do you?”

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