Chapter 10

I was at the lab by 9:30 on Monday. We’d showered, gone out for breakfast, and I’d dropped Laura at her place. Actually, I’d enough of her for a while – four consecutive days! Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Oh, wait Friday was just on the phone. Or was it? I went over the days. No. Thursday was phone. We’d gone to Mitchell on Friday, been there all day on Saturday, and returned to Brisbane on Sunday night.

I wondered whether I’d ever spend more than three consecutive nights with a woman.

But that wasn’t today’s topic. It was Monday, 4 November. Melbourne Cup tomorrow! One of the blokes had tips for the day’s races on the radio. Two blokes I’d never seen before were taking bets. I didn’t even know who was running. The first race was around ten, but The Cup wasn’t till three. That’s 1500 tomorrow. Tuesday.

In the afternoon and the next morning, the pattern became clear: Most of the scientists appeared to betting on Count Chivas, the technicians had pooled their resources on Skybeau across the board. The department secretary told me that she had put a brick [$20] on a horse named Saintly after church yesterday. It made as much sense as any other method.

Monday afternoon, I saw that the Twelfth Night Theatre was giving a play by Eric Chappell [Only when I laugh] and invited Laura. “I’ll be in Osaka,” she said. “My dad phoned an hour ago. He is going on a trade mission and my mother doesn’t want to go to Japan. So I have to be his ‘companion’. But I never understand English comedy, anyway,” she added.

“When will you be back?”

“Today week. I fly to Sydney very early on Thursday, meet my father there, fly to Osaka, recuperate most of Friday, go to a diplomats’ dinner that night, to a conference on Saturday, leave early on Sunday, and spend Sunday night in a hotel at Sydney airport.”

“Probably the Pullman.”

“I don’t know. Anyway, I’m going to go into town and shop on Monday and fly back here in the evening.”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“It always is, that’s why my mother doesn’t ‘do’ trips of under a week.”

“Well, I hope we can get together next week.”

“Me, too.”

Well, I suppose that’s life. We’ve only three weeks or so and she’ll be away for a fifth or it. Tuesday around eleven everyone was yelling. One of the lab guys and one of the secretarial staff had “won big” in the prelim for two-year-olds. I went off to lunch with two others. I learned that there were three favourites in the Cup and that about two thirds of the lab – over 100 in all – had bet on some combination. Others had also wagered on various preliminary events. Not my thing.

But by 15:30 I knew that Saintly had won, with Count Chivas second and Skybeau third. The techs were happy, as they’d won the ‘place’ stakes. Several of my colleagues had won on Count Chivas, but most of them had bet on him to ‘win.’ The sole secretary who’d put her money on Saintly was delirious and told all of us that nearly all of her winnings would go back to the church.

On Friday I went to see the Chappell play. It takes place in a ward of a hospital. The title Only when I laugh is in response to the question, “Does it hurt?” It was funny, silly and quite enjoyable – even alone. He apparently wrote the scripts for a TV show based on the play. Or maybe the play was based by him on his own scripts. A pair of middle-aged ladies were extremely helpful and yet more verbose. But I did enjoy myself. I wondered whether Laura would have.

It was before noon on Tuesday that Laura called. We made a date for dinner. I had a note saying that my draft final report was “OK” and that I should “submit the final form.” I spent the afternoon rereading and trying to be interested in my own already-completed work.

Laura and I met, had dinner, and went to my place, where we spent several rather sweaty hours getting actively reacquainted. Had it been only a week? I think I used all of her orifices; I know she probed mine. We showered before sleep and again in the morning. We went out for breakfast where we heard about the terrible air accident in India with 350 dead. [On 12 November 1996, Saudi Arabian Flight 763 and Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 collided in midair over Charkhi Dadri in India (the Kazakh flight was several hundred meters too low). It is still India’s worst air tragedy.]

“How terrible!” Laura said.

“Yes. But think how many international flights you’ve made. It’s just that so many get killed at once in a passenger airplane.”

“That’s callous!”

“Possibly. But it’s true. More people die of various diseases or in everyday accidents. And they just signed that agreement in Ireland. How many thousands died in ‘the Troubles’? Or in the Balkans? We’re affected by individual tragedies or all-at-once.”

“I suppose so. But it makes me emotional.”

“And that’s why you study literature and I study arthropods.”

She laughed. “I suppose so. I had trouble cutting up a frog when I was in secondary school.”

“But you can cut up beef or lamb or pork or chicken to cook and eat.”

“True. I’m not a vegetarian. It’s just that I don’t really think about that new-born calf in Mitchell when I order vitello saltimbocca or vitello limone.”

“Nor that the chops we had in Dalby came from a local lamb, I’d bet.”

“No ... Speaking of betting, how did you do on the Cup?”

I laughed. “Just fine. Didn’t lose a cent.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Didn’t bet a cent, either.” Laura punched me in the shoulder. I looked at the clock. “I’ve got to get to the lab. I’ve only two more weeks here.”

“Can you give me a lift?”

“Of course.”

“And this weekend?”

“Let’s go somewhere. I’ll think about it.”

At the lab, I asked two of the unmarried blokes for an idea. They were both disgustingly obscene, but one named Kelly’s Beach Resort in Bundaberg. The other suggested Mon Repos, both the walking track and the turtle centre. So I called Kelly’s and booked a room for the 15^th and 16^th. The man on the phone told me I’d need a ticket for us to get to see the turtles – “if they arrive” – apparently they were “a bit late” this year. Driving south on Sunday might not be fun, but we’d cope. I’d phone Laura and warn her about Saturday night. We’d not sleep much.

I hoped we’d see some turtles. They wouldn’t hatch til next year, but seeing the females lay eggs in the sand would be exciting. When I spoke to her, Laura wasn’t overwhelmed, but I decided I’d nudge her natural history curiosity level during our four hour drive north. I called the conservation centre and learned that as CSIRO staff I would be eligible for reduced fees as would Laura, as she had a Melbourne student’s ID.

Thursday I worked all day and Friday morning I pre-packed the ute. In the lab, I just slacked off, pretending to be working while (finally) finishing Wilson. I picked Laura up around 1300 as planned. Weaving through Brisbane and Gympie Road to the Bruce Highway was the usual Friday mess, but once we were across the South Pine and North Pine Rivers and on the Bruce, it was decent going. We slowed a bit an hour later, around Sunshine Coast, but then the traffic disappeared and we sped along.

“Tell me about this turtle place,” Laura requested.

“Sure. The big sea turtles, the leatherback and the loggerhead and the other types, all migrate in various ways. They all appear to return to specific sites to mate and lay eggs. Several decades ago, the area we’re heading for was recognized as one of the most important locations. November through February is the breeding time for loggerheads, though as of two days ago they were ‘late.’ I’m hope we get to see one or two. The eggs hatch about three months later and the hatchlings make their way into the sea.”

“So we may see a female laying eggs?”

“Possibly. I read that the females first reproduce at around 17 and lay several clutches of eggs each breeding season – which isn’t every year.”

“What about the males?”

“We might see one or two. They’re quite large: over a metre long and around 100 kilos. They can live over 60 years in the wild.”

We chatted about related reptiles. “Charles Darwin took three giant tortoises from the Galápagos onto the Beagle in 1836. He called them ‘inhabitants of some other planet.’ Galápagos tortoises are the longest-lived of all vertebrates. The oldest Galápagos tortoise on record lived to be 152.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Tortoises live on land, they’re terrestrial; turtles are at least partly aquatic.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, there are a few other things, but the habitats have shaped those. They’re closely related Chelonians. And that’s today’s lecture!”

“Where are we?”