I’d just about had enough. We were both working on a remote island north of Darwin, but Tracey had taken a few weeks’ leave; “to get her head straight!” She was now home, things were tense, but there were moments of rekindled joy, intimacies, hopeful signs that we could get on top of ‘things’. Then during lunch, she suggested a trial separation, maybe after the holidays. The wind fairly flew from my sails.
Christmas was here. We had a friend’s house in Darwin to use over the holidays and traditionally we gather with mates.
We forced civility, and while we skirted around each other, we continued to plan late-night Christmas shopping, in town. I felt that the cracks were merely papered over, winds were continuing to find their way under the veneer.
Work demands provided a safety valve for some of the tension. The daily routine saw final pays made up and distributed, Social Security pension cheques cashed, and a special pre-Christmas barge arrived with all hands helping to unload the provisions. The school’s Christmas concert went ahead and, as always, was a huge hit.
Mid-afternoon saw a dog taken off the beach by a large croc. A witness said the croc chased the dog right through the middle of the dozen kids playing at the water’s edge. Rangers from town were due shortly – they asked me to reconstruct the portable trap that I had in storage from last year’s crocodile episode. We positioned it in the saltwater estuary behind the community. As the rangers arrived, I had it loaded with a goat carcass.
There was nothing left to do but board the small plane for Darwin. For forty minutes, we bucked and side-slipped our way across the Arafura Sea, huge banks of dark blue/black cumulous clouds in the east confirmed the Bureau’s suggestion that another big blow was heading our way.
Our gear was quickly dropped off at the house and we hit the shops. Food, booze, presents and the intoxicating delights of being back within the mayhem of the Christmas Eve shopping crowds.
There was no alcohol allowed in the community, so festive booze attracted a lot of our attention. We gave scant attention to the Bureau’s advice of an approaching full-blown cyclone: that was a mistake.
We were drunk when the house’s roof disappeared into the night. The roar of a million jet engines saw off the walls.
The bathroom, with its deep bath, remained. Huddled inside, we clung tightly to each other for five hours as countless sheets of ripped, twisted roofing iron, furniture, trees, cats and probably even dogs screeched past. Darkness, a drenching deluge, ear-splitting noise and terror enveloped us.
Tracy bought Tracey and I back together. Those strengths that first attracted us were reforged in that bathroom.
As the fiftieth-anniversary approaches, our kids and grandchildren are now a testament to the power of that night.
But that noise is never, ever forgotten, replaying on some stormy, southern nights!