The Best Australian Stories 2015 Read online

  Masculin/Féminin

  Your diaries are stacked on my bed. No-one else is here. The person who shares the house is working on a film in town during the week. I pick up diary after diary, open the volumes, your handwriting neat. Your voice, your soul on the page for no other eyes. Alone in the soft sub-tropic night I commit a traceless wrong, a crime unknown to any but myself. But as I flip through the black books I wonder. The truth is that they’re not that interesting. You’re not really here. Oh, now here is something: your pregnant wife and the pride you feel seeing her heavy and rounded, weighted with your child. At last. A man exulting in his power to change a woman’s body, a woman’s life, forever. You’d admit it to no-one, not even her. That page the only one that springs to life. That lives in my memory.

  A Story of Water

  Three days to decide. I could secrete the diaries, the most astonishing keepsake. No other way to own a piece of your soul. But if I return them my sin washes away.

  Passion

  For a day or two I agonise. Though I’ll never be found out, never punished, I will know I’ve harmed you. Not the power I’m looking for. But I’m afraid to sneak around your garden at night again. I could be caught doing the right thing. Finally, on the last night before you arrive for the weekend I steal back, replace the diaries. You will never know how you’ve been violated.

  I watch one of your films again. And see, finally, you are here. The diaries are no more than the discarded feathers of a bird that flies thousands of miles across the sea. It’s the patterns of your flight that show me your soul, looping forever, flashing past at twenty-four frames a second.

  Puppet Show

  Cate Kennedy

  Honeymoon, says the guy inspecting their visas, with a secret little smile. Honeymoon, exclaims the limo driver, holding up a sign from the hotel with their names on it – Andrew’s the same as ever but hers, with the new surname, confronting her with a small thrilling jolt of realisation. Mr and Mrs Andrew Dwyer. Her, now. Her.

  Honeymoon, croons the woman at the hotel reception, happy for them, palms clasped together, as if it isn’t nearly midnight, as if she’s been waiting here just to greet them. She gives a small courteous bow so that Karen finds herself looking at the sharp, perfect part in the woman’s jet-black hair and imagining her this morning, in a room far less palatial than this resort reception lounge, raising a graceful hand and running a wooden comb through. Affixing the carved clip, the perfect outfit smoothed ready for a day of upright, straight-backed politeness. Smiling at the happiness and good fortune of others.

  ‘A welcome drink,’ says the woman, gesturing to the bamboo lounge suite nearby. They sink gratefully into its cushions as their passports are processed and their bags taken away by two young guys in sarongs.

  ‘We don’t tip them,’ says Andrew, ‘I’m pretty sure we don’t tip them, or if we do, it’s at the end of our stay, not now.’ He has a tone in his voice she heard at the wedding: a stiff, edgy desire to do the right thing, a hint of strained anxiety, a man way out of his comfort zone.

  ‘Don’t worry about it now,’ she says, smiling, ‘it’s 11.30, we just need a good night’s sleep and we’ll get ourselves oriented tomorrow.’

  She browses through the bank of brochures on the wall – massages, day tours, handicraft factories, spa treatments. She accepts her drink, marvelling at the carved, twisted decoration of watermelon and pineapple; something laboured over by other graceful hands behind closed doors somewhere, still up fashioning fruit cocktails at 11.30 p.m. for late arrivals. People like us, she thinks, off the plane from Australia. In they trudge out of taxis, with wheeled luggage and red, sweating faces in the sudden humidity. White people with rubber thongs and sports shoes on, and long cargo shorts and brand-name singlets, people with tattoos on their legs and arms, people not wealthy in their own countries but suddenly high-status, demanding, querulous, suspicious, faces as puffy and pale as dough.

  Not her and Andrew, though. They are golden. They are on a honeymoon, beaming like royalty. ‘Thank you!’ they say warmly as they accept their drinks and wait for their room keys. ‘Thank you very much!’

  I’m going to buy myself one of those dresses, Karen thinks as the beautiful drinks waitress moves away with the empty tray. Dieting for the wedding has made her as slim as she’s been since college. With an emotion between relief and disdain, she studies the other passengers arriving from their night flights: overweight, frumpy women with their bra straps visible under their cheap gauzy tops, slumping by the check-in desk. Posture, thinks Karen, a bit hazy with jetlag, it’s all about posture, I can see that now.

  As yet another staff member escorts them down a manicured path to their villa, unlocking a gate which leads into their own private patio, she lets thoughts of those graceless others fall from her mind. She sees the plunge pool and day bed, the interior visible through glass sliding doors – a huge canopied, carved bed, an artfully draped bednet.

  I’m married, thinks Karen. This is it.

  ‘Livin’ the dream!’ exclaims Andrew with relish, tossing his gnawed bit of pineapple garnish into the garden.

  *

  Everything delights her: the multi-coloured wheels of fruit sliced on the breakfast buffet, the bathroom with its frangipani flowers arranged on the towels and its resident translucent gecko, the sunny hellos of the girls carrying armfuls of snowy towels up to the day spa. Andrew is relaxed and expansive, his sunglasses pushed up on his head. They have a ‘couples massage’ on their first morning, lying in a room with a view of impossibly green rice paddies, being scrubbed with ginger and turmeric paste, Andrew rising on an elbow to snap selfie after selfie. Photos for their Facebook wedding page.

  Bliss, thinks Karen. Absolute bliss. Sneaking covert glances at Andrew (married!), supine there on the adjacent massage table. He seems much too big for the compact deferential masseuse moving around him, like a gladiator sunning himself, muscles formed by working out and playing football, three mornings a week at the gym. He is a giant here. Hair still barbered from the wedding, tattoos on his biceps. Karen turns her head from him and watches peaceful ducks paddling through the rice paddies. And a human figure, stooped, in the distance. Planting rice, maybe. Such a beautiful photo opportunity, but there is no way she’s going to rouse herself from the table to break the hypnotic spell of the moment. There’ll be plenty of time for other photos, she thinks.

  ‘We should go out to one of those cultural shows tonight,’ she says lazily into the crook of her arms. ‘After dinner.’

  ‘Which one do you want to see? There’s a few on.’

  ‘The traditional one,’ replies Karen. ‘The puppet show.’

  ‘Not the Monkey Dance? That’s meant to be great.’

  ‘Let’s go to the shadow puppets.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ says Andrew, closing his eyes again.

  *

  She means to enquire at the reception desk, but later, as they wander up a street festooned with sarongs, a man draws breath to speak to them, his face bright and polite. Andrew holds up his hand.

  ‘No,’ said Andrew shortly, ‘whatever it is, no thanks.’

  ‘Not a tour,’ says the man. ‘Tickets to cultural event. Wayang Kulit.’

  Karen squeezes Andrew’s arm. ‘That’s what I want to see!’ she says excitedly. ‘That’s the one, the shadow puppet …’ – she hesitates at the word ‘show’, it doesn’t seem quite right – ‘the performance!’

  ‘Why don’t we just book it through the hotel?’

  Karen sees the man’s head incline courteously – so polite, these people, listening always with such graciousness – ‘Yes, cultural performance of traditional puppets. In village.’ He holds out a page illustrated with two spiky elongated figures, poised in theatrical combat.

  ‘In the village,’ says Karen to Andrew. ‘That will be the one. Not the tourist trap one.’

  ‘Yes,’ says the man, looking at her. ‘Traditional.’

  ‘Come on,’ says Karen
. ‘It looks a lot in rupiah, but seriously, that’s only a couple of dollars. We can get a taxi – there’s hundreds going up and down the road.’

  ‘Take a taxi, and show them this, yes,’ repeats the man. He is wearing quite a natty little hat, Karen notices, made of a folded, tucked piece of batik. Standing on a busy street corner, trying to interest passers-by in a traditional performance in his village.

  ‘OK,’ she hears herself saying eagerly. ‘We’ll have two tickets. For tonight.’

  ‘I was going to say yes,’ mutters Andrew. ‘You don’t have to jump in like that.’

  The man nodding, beaming, noting something on a card he hands them, folding their money carefully. Deference, Karen thinks. That’s the word she’s looking for.

  *

  The taxi bumps across potholes on the outskirts of the town, pulling up outside a darkened building.

  ‘Isn’t this great?’ enthuses Karen. ‘See, all those guys there in their traditional clothes? And this building must be the village kampong.’

  Andrew casts a troubled look at the darkness outside them and leans into the front to address the driver. ‘It’s safe, right? This is where the, what is it, the puppet show is on?’

  ‘Yes, right inside there. Wayang Kulit. Special building for traditional show.’

  Karen feels a pulse of excitement. This is so much better than going with the other guests queuing for the standard show on the hotel’s mini-bus; this is the real deal.

  ‘And will you wait here to take us back to the hotel again? When it finishes?’

  The driver nods calmly. ‘Of course – I wait if you want.’

  ‘That’s how poor they are,’ whispers Andrew as they approach the dark building, where light seeps through double carved doors. ‘They’re happy to wait for two hours just to get that return fare. They must spend their whole lives waiting around.’

  Karen feels safe next to him, shouldering through the shadows. She sees light hit the high cheekbones of a man waiting there, opening the door for them, ushering them inside, taking their tickets without a word. Stepping through into flickering lamplight, Karen can make out the shapes of expectant people, waiting quietly on folding chairs at the back of the kampong and sitting on mats on the floor. A troupe of gamelan players kneel patiently at their instruments beside a simple raised platform on which a bamboo frame sits, a large white sheet stretched within it.

  Karen reaches for her iPhone as they find two chairs tucked down the back, hoping she’ll be able to capture some of this atmospheric flickering lantern light in a photo. No flash, obviously, just a discreet photo or bit of footage. But how would a mere photo capture it – the respectful hush, the croaking of frogs outside, the sudden blaring jangle of gamelan? The music seems so exotic and discordant, the gongs lulling her into a kind of trance. And the smells! Smoky scents of teak wood and coconut oil, mosquito coils and the kerosene of the lamps around the stage. An older man solemnly disappears behind the screen and takes his leisurely time settling there and arranging lanterns as the music increases in tempo and volume. Suddenly there are two long-limbed shapes in black silhouette against the screen, the sticks used to manoeuvre their supple limbs and spines just visible. They gesture mysteriously at each other. Karen is lost in it. The gamelan players sit straight-backed and elegant, and every now and then, when one intricately detailed character appears against the screen, its elaborate headdress like a pharaoh’s, the audience makes some small collective sound – a murmur or hiss of recognition, or a shared ripple of appreciative laughter. She’ll make a photobook of this, she thinks dreamily, taking picture after picture. Or just one of those images printed onto canvas, like a painting, that you could do online.

  *

  With one final blaring thrum of gamelans, the performance ends and the elderly puppeteer rises slowly to his feet. Karen can see the silhouettes of other audience members start to stretch and rise, and she whispers to Andrew, ‘That was fabulous, but I’m dying for a pee. Will you go and make sure our taxi driver is back where we agreed and I’ll meet you there in a sec?’

  He gives her a wry grin. ‘You think you’re going to find a toilet here? I bet it’s an outhouse down some track, and it’ll be pitch black. Can’t you hold on until you get back to the resort?’

  ‘No, I really have to go. Look, it’s through there.’ She points to a side door, gives him a quick kiss on the cheek, and slips out. Her mind is still full of flickering light, acrid scents and jangling gongs, the puppets’ elongated, jointed arms, gesturing through some elaborate traditional story, the mechanics of which – to be honest – were lost on her. She follows a winding path of concrete slabs, lit by lamps, following a trail of small arrows hammered into the ground. Down here, she is sure, she will encounter a rudimentary latrine of some sort: whatever the village has managed to build for its visitors. She rounds a corner and feels a quick slip of astonishment at the sight of a tiled, fluorescently lit block of women’s toilet stalls. Set there in the darkness, it’s as incongruous as a landed UFO. Flushing toilets too! With handbasins!

  Afterwards she hurries back, still blinking in amazement, to search for Andrew in the compound’s courtyard. Other paths curve before her, and behind the buildings she is aware of floodlights and noise, the revving of big engines. Through the flung-open doors of the building, a group of men are clearing away the rows of folding chairs, lit now by a single electrical globe suspended in the centre of the room.

  Karen rounds a corner and stops, taken aback. A long row of enormous air-conditioned buses stand idling, their interior lights revealing rows of plush upholstered seats.

  The place is thronged. Tourists move in small groups from bus to bus, looking for the one they have come in, clutching tickets and climbing aboard. Karen sees families with dawdling tired children, the thin fair hair of the girls twisted into rows of braids. Older tourists, too, with large cameras slung around their necks. Many of the buses are long-distance luxury coaches, she notices now, come all the way from the beach resorts. A trip into the mountains to see a cultural show. Maybe two in one evening. Probably all off, now, to the Monkey Dance. And manoeuvring their way around the giant idling coaches, trying to edge their way out of the parking bays, are the tour company minibuses. Karen, searching the crowd for Andrew, recognises one from their own resort, and she’s certain the young man driving it is the one who greets them at the front desk each morning – yes, he’s waving now, beckoning.

  Karen smiles weakly back – what an idiot she was, kidding herself about this – and continues to thread her way through the crowd, dazzled by high-beam lights, dodging vehicles. It’s impossible to imagine these monstrous shining vehicles bumping up that potholed dirt track and through the same narrow gates they arrived through, and yet here they are somehow, and the family compound, she sees, is actually a parking lot, and each massive sleek coach is filled with white faces looking out dully through the tinted windows or scrolling through images on their own phones and cameras, talking but not smiling, busy with the next thing on their agenda.

  How strange these people look, Karen thinks with a jolt of disorientation, their eyes passing over her so uniformly flat and incurious. And the reason her scanning eyes can’t yet spot her husband, she realises, is because everyone here is dressed very much the same, the men in their long shorts and singlets, the women in their rayon batik print dresses, bought that day, on the same street she and Andrew had walked. Where is he?

  The coaches thrum and jerk, hydraulic doors shuddering as they wheeze open to admit more people who stand still, querulous and suspicious, repeating their resort names again and again to the nodding drivers. Karen fights down panic – they’re leaving, she’s left behind, ridiculous! – and finally catches sight of Andrew, waiting for her next to the same small, grimy orange taxi they’d come in.

  ‘Where did you get to?’ he says, slipping his arm around her waist. ‘I was just starting to worry about you. Thinking maybe you’d lost your way back.’ She feels the ho
t weight of his arm, its thick ropes of flexing muscle.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ she answers. ‘How could I have got lost? The place is packed. We could have even got a direct shuttle back to the resort – there’s one here, I just saw it.’

  ‘Well, I’m still glad we organised our own taxi,’ says Andrew stolidly. ‘Supporting the local economy.’

  ‘You like the show?’ says the driver to Karen. She gives him her honeymoon smile.

  ‘Oh, yes. I loved it. Thank you.’

  ‘It was great to see something traditional,’ adds Andrew loyally, although Karen knows he’s found the thing way too long and incomprehensible. ‘With the music and everything.’

  ‘Yes,’ says the driver. ‘Wayang Kulit, traditional.’

  As he speaks she glances over at the departing motorbikes, roaring nimbly out of the lot with two or three people on each one. The pillion passengers are in traditional dress, the girls still stunningly straight-backed, holding their beautifully coiffed black hair in place as the bikes accelerate. The gamelan players. They’re not solemn now, they’re laughing, each one stunning as a fashion model, perched on the back of the motorbikes, holding on casually with one hand, tilting their faces into the fresh night air.

  ‘They go back now,’ says the driver, following her eyes. ‘Back to their village.’

  She watches them as they roar off into the darkness, her heart unaccountably aching.

  *

  ‘Hard to believe we have to go back to reality tomorrow, isn’t it?’ Andrew says on their final morning over breakfast. He yawns. ‘Back to work for me on Tuesday.’

  Karen sees the living room of their house suddenly: the wedding presents set on every surface, flagged with post-it notes, waiting for her thankyou cards. ‘We should go to the market today,’ she says, ‘and buy gifts for people. Have you got the energy?’