Chapter 2: Relocate

“Hey, Max, many thanks to your Mr Powell for the loan of the Bluey, she’s as beaut as a ribeye wrapped round a roastie,” I shouted through the locked door, having opened the window just a crack, enough for our chinwag. “Look, the sheila’s getting herself wet’n’ready in the sleeper for me right now, but as soon as she’s done with making this nasty swelling I’ve got go down and I can comfortably reach the steering wheel again, say three minutes tops the first time? I’ll move to the other side of the park as agreed, fair dinkum, mate?”

“Look man, Mr Powell don’t agree with this idea o’ yoos usin’ his girlfriend, we’s come to fetch her back, an’ we’s don’t expect no trouble.”

“Really? I assumed she was sent over by your Guv’nor and we therefore had an agreement between us? She certainly gave me the impression that she’s willing to stay with me without any coercion on my part, so I’ve already accepted her as my guest ... all done in good faith on my part, of course, Max, and I naturally assumed yours.”

“Does this mean yoos refusin’ to open this door and yoos ain’t agivin’ her back?” Max growled through the door, “‘cause Mr Powell now, he ain’t gonna like that.”

“Well, Max, contrary to public opinion, us knights of the Straya road trains ain’t that accustomed to picking up young sheilas, especially one bonza sheila like this Bluey that I’ve gratefully accepted solely for my arvo entertainment. And, this being Christmas, well, a prezzie’s a prezzie, right? It would be ill-mannered of me to turn this lovely gift in the mouth down, even though you didn’t properly gift wrap her. So, my first thought when she came in was that maybe I ought to woo her a bit, you know, dine her and wine her before I properly unwrap and enrapt her. So, how about you explain to your Guv, Mr Powell, that I will fulfil my end of the bargain by shifting my arse from these 26 metres of prime shaded space under the gums, and out of your way in a few moes and, later, when I have tired of the charming young sheila’s company, she’ll be free to leave my sleeper. I’m certain she’ll be as full of er, bounce, as she was when she first arrived. Tell you what, I’ll even gift wrap her again and tie on a big bow before she leaves.”

Max laughed, “Yoo’s got some steel cahones, Bro, I’ll say that. I’ll check if that’s OK wid the Boss.”

“Remember, Max, you are being watched, streamed and recorded by more than one camera, all going to my company’s cloud, with my oppo watching us with some interest, especially as the cams are moveable on remote. The sheila’s here as my honoured guest and I warn you, mate, that if you do any damage to my vehicle, threaten either one of us in any manner or attempt to remove my guest against her will, those images will be sent instantly to the South Australian Police at Port Augusta. Don’t even think about damaging my external antennae, because my satellite phone is also networked to my internal server and, if my monitor tells me that the external signal is lost, I can reroute the images through my satellite phone and then I’ll ‘triple zero’ in an instant.”

In fact I knew that Mike had already called the nearest police station and sent them the feed from all the cameras. He had informed me that a patrol would be on its way as soon as they could spare one, but they covered a wide area and already had their hands full of mostly student Christmas Eve parties.

“Triple zero?” asked Max with his low forehead furrowed.

“That’s our police emergency number, like your 911.” I watch some Yank tv shows, especially the crime series.

“Right. Make sure yoos keep them images away from the cops.”

“You keep your part, I’ll keep mine.”

“I’ll check back with Mr Powell. If he’s happy to leave Bonnie with yoos until, say 9 in the morning, we’ll leave yoos alone. If’n he don’t like it, we’ll be back.”

“I’ll be gone by 8. I’ll leave her by the roadside.”

Max and his goons turned away and trudged back to the first Winno. I looked beyond them and saw what looked like a bloke using a rolled Pam Shriver to sniff coke off a sheila’s bare tit. Yeah, I thought to myself, the police turning up sometime soon could be very interesting.

Bonnie emerged from the bed box while I unwrapped her ham and wholemeal sandie. Her face was fresh, clear of whatever make up she might have worn, I hadn’t really noticed before. She looked stunning, even in my ratty old robe, which looked like it could wrap around her body twice over.

This sleeper’s fitted with an elevated single bed, a light-proof privacy curtain between the accommodation and the driver’s compartment. It is fully air conditioned and, where available at better truck stops, it can be hooked up to power; failing that I have a small kerosene generator to keep the fans going keeping us cool in the day and warm at night in the desert. Not many trucks have that level of comfort, but I was the owner and I looked after my truckies. All our vehicles are leased and fairly new and efficient, with smart paint jobs, this one in the livery colours of the paper mill, one of three in the fleet dedicated to this company. When I took over the business, we owned all twelve trucks, bought through expensive bank loans, that were getting to the end of their working lives. My uncle and aunt who ran the business worked them harder than they had allowed through the books in depreciation and I found I couldn’t afford to replace them from what reserves they’d made available. Leasing had worked out well while our finances were stretched, now it was easier to find enough to replace a few each year, but with the business now sold and all assets and liabilities transferred, that was none of my concern any more.

She looked around the cab, while she munched the sanger that I had passed to her. “I see there is a hair dryer hanging up on the wall in the sleeping compartment, yet your hair is close cropped. Do you normally have another young lady to share your bed with you?”

“Nah. This was my Uncle Pete’s cab, he, well, although he was married and company rules strictly forbid it, he entertained sheilas while on the road a lot, which is why five years ago he ended up as my ex-Uncle.”

“Yet you still call him ‘Uncle’?”

“He wronged my long-suffering Aunt Milly, so sure, he weren’t no saint, and she divorced him just before she died. But Pete never wronged me, I still liked him, he was friendly and full of fun, a toppo good worker, the best driver on the team and I respected him for that. And I had only ever called him ‘Uncle’ all my life, so it was difficult to drop that, especially as my aunt was no longer around to stop me.”

“You say ‘was’ in regard to your uncle, he is also no longer around?”

“He’s still as nasty a rogue as he ever was, but he’s no longer around because he’s retired. Actually he doesn’t start drawing his pension until the 31st, but with holiday accrued, he finished driving for a living over a week ago, and is presently roasting during the day on a North Queensland beach.”

She nodded.

“So, I heard what you said to Max just now,” she regarded me, coldly with a scowl, “when you’ve finished whatever you want to do with me, you’re kicking me out to go back to those animals?”

“Don’t you know it’s rude to eavesdrop on other people’s chinwags? However, if you think back to exactly what I said, I told Max that when I was tired of you, you’d be free to leave. I don’t make binding agreements with rapists and possibly worse. So, I might not become tired of you until we get to the Danish Consulate in Darwin and I drop you off in the roadside outside. But really, you are free to go whenever you want, whatever place you feel you are safest, so long as it is on my route. I’m on a schedule over the holidays and can’t afford to deviate. I could drop you off at the next police station if you like. Port Augusta is the next big town I have to drive through, maybe twenty minutes’ away.”

“So what do you intend doing with me?”

“Nothing you don’t want to do, except maybe feed you, give you somewhere safe to sleep and drop you off somewhere civilised as soon as I can. You can keep the daks and tee, but, when you’re sorted somewhere safe, I’d like the robe back, it’s the only one I packed. While you’re my guest, I wouldn’t dream of restraining you here or consider holding anyone against their free choice. Right now, do you need anything more to eat?”

She smiled, not as brilliantly as before but it was preferable to the scowl which had just evaporated. “Thanks. I am still hungry, yes. What do you have?”

“A bread roll with Vegemite?” I had poured her a glass of South Aussie Pinot from a fresh screw top bottle chilling in the fridge and handed it to her. I had been saving it to go with my Chrissie Day tucker, but I thought she’d appreciate it a lot more than me. “Now, you might have to hold on tight, while I move this truck away from the party as agreed, seeing as how Max hasn’t returned with a negative answer.”

“Couldn’t you carry on going, straight out the exit and on towards Darwin or the Port you mentioned?”

“No, I’ve driven over ten hours already today and I’m buggered, sorry, tired. I’m usually office based so, if I do any driving, it’s usually short haul, filling in for holidays, sickness or emergencies, so driving for a day and a half solid, plus all the hanging around waiting to be loaded, has taken its toll.”

She nodded.

“Besides, these goons may well follow me immediately if we go now and catch me up easily before we safely get to a built up area. The next stop is Port Augusta, which must be about twenty minutes away. Better for me to get a few hours’ shuteye and let them get high on drugs and booze, and perhaps even heads down sleeping it off. We’d have a better chance of sneaking out and getting away clean if we hit the frog and toad in the small hours.”

“You’re right.” She nodded between mouthfuls. “They do have plenty of booze and drugs, particularly cocaine, and they love to party. It’s been like that for the whole of the shoot.”

“How long have you been out on this ... shooting party?” She didn’t look the sort to enjoy Roo hunting and she was certainly not dressed for it.

“This is the fifth day of the photo shoot, we’ve been all over at different locations, mostly wide open spaces, grassland and desert, and have just come from the Flinders range of mountains? They party every night and some guys met us in the mountains earlier today and brought more champagne and probably more drugs. So far they’ve been using them like a top of the show rock band act at the very last rock festival before Armageddon.”

I called Mike on the satty phone and told him that our neighbours were using drugs, “Only five minutes ago I saw one of the crew casually sniffing a line of coke off a sheila’s tits, like it was a natural thing to do.”

“Righto, Mark, I’ve already seen that clip and blown it up and I gotta say, there’s nothing natural about them tits, they just didn’t jiggle right, if you know what I mean. I’ve got a dialogue going with the Port Augusta Blues, so I will let ‘em know about the drug use and possession.”

“Thanks Mike, it’s having you online that’s restraining this Powell arsehole and his heavies taking the girl back by force and probably giving me a beating I’ll remember for the rest of my life, if they leave me a brain still capable of remembering.”

“Top-ho, Guv’nor. I get the impression from Shona at PA that the Blues would prefer to get a swat team together for a dawn raid, when the party goers are at their least alert and less likely to chuck or flush. But, being Chrissie Eve, it might be too difficult to put a team together at such short notice, they’ve already got their hands full of teenage parties tonight. Still, when the rego search turned out to be Paddy Powell, who owns Online Betcash Bookies & Casino, well, we’ve all lost money to that bloody con site, so it’s hard to ignore a chance to put that bodgy bugger away for a while and at least let the State claw some of our dough back in fines. Will be in touch, Guv.”

Bonnie was well into the bread roll and had already wolfed down half of it. I didn’t know where all that tucker would tuck away into her spare frame, I was reminded of an Indian python I once saw on YouTube that had swallowed a small bullock.

“If you’re still hungry, there’s a couple of cold snags — sausages — in the fridge, only took them off the barbie half an hour ago. They went stone cold while your crew arrived and Max and I had our convo.”

“Mmm barbecued sausages, yes, that’d be so nice,” she said as she popped the last of the Vegemite roll in her smiling mouth.

I put the cold snags in front of her, lifted the upturned dish covering them, and placed a cheese salad next to it in a Tupperware container. “The salad was made by me and chilled yesterday morning before I left home, but it may not be as fresh as you’re used to. I was also a bit heavy handed with the chopped up spring onion as I wasn’t really expecting to be sociable over the next couple of days. There’s extra virgin olive oil and thousand island dressing in the fridge if you want any dressing.”

“Thank you, I am fond of spring onions. And I’m used to living on salad without any dressing. Looks like my modelling career’s probably over now, after word gets out that I waltzed off this assignment. Hell, I’m sick and tired of the business anyway, so I might even experiment with some dressings.” She laughed, “You could say I’m buggered, too!”

“Here’s the thousand island, if you’re not used to it, I’d go easy on it. I’m going to move my truck as agreed with your mate Powell.”

“He’s no mate of mine.”

I moved into the driving seat, but she followed me, carrying her Tupperware container of salad and munching one of the cold snags she’d speared with a fork.

“Mind if I sit up here while you move the truck? Never sat this high up in a front seat before.”

“Sure. Put your seat belt on though, otherwise the dash flashes warning lights and the loudspeaker beeps to distraction while a recording of a bossy Southern Belle, with a hint of threat in her voice, entreats me to buckle up.”

“Well, we can’t have you distracted by some sweet talking Jezebel while you’re driving now, can we?” She plonked herself into the left hand seat. As she twisted to locate the seat belt with one hand while holding onto the dish and the fork with the half-eaten snag in the other, my ratty old robe fell away from her legs. That robe had never looked better on anyone before, but the slip revealed the smooth contours of her thigh and the prettiest pair of knees, gently pressed together demurely, that I had ever seen in my life.

Now, my knees are nobbly, and most of the knees I’ve ever noticed are also nobbly, but Bonnie’s leg just transitioned from thigh to sheer shin and shapely calf in a smooth bend which flowed without any visible joint, to interrupt what looked to me like one of nature’s wonderful works of art. I must’ve stared, really embarrassingly stared, I have no idea how long, time stood still, I thought. I came to eventually, but only when she cleared her throat to break my trance. I looked up quickly to see her smile sweetly at the drooling idiot in front of her.

“I’ve finished the cheese salad, so I guess we can move off now?” she enquired as if honey oozed from her lips, while appearing to ignore the fetid drool on my chin, “maybe you could let me drive, I promise not to drive over and crush any of those nice men out there.”

“Are there any nice men in that crew out there?” I grinned with embarrassment, sure that my face was as red as Ayers Rock at sunset.

“No, not many, but I draw a line at taking even bad men from their everloving mothers, even if these bastards don’t know who their fathers are and have been behaving to us girls like nasty little shits all week.” Her eyes were narrowed, the blue irises turned as cold as a glacier. “None more so than that Paddy Powell, who is one big fat shit that I’d crush in a wink. No, I wouldn’t run over them, I’d rather torture them first, and then roast them slowly over one of your barbies. You know that fat bastard bet the rest of the crew, at odds of 10 to one, that he would fuck all six models in six days? Max boasted that $5,000 was staked among the crew, so not bedding me by the end of tomorrow means Powell loses $50,000. But it is not the amount of money, that means nothing to him, he has millions to play with and plenty more coming in daily from his websites, he just doesn’t like to lose.”

“Well, moving the truck from the shelter of the trees to the other side of the park gives him a small victory for losing your arse, although I don’t know what he’ll say when he sees that you’re the one driving, and realises he hasn’t forced me do anything other than give you a driving lesson.”

“So, you letting me drive?”

“Well, why not have a lash at it?” I stood up, although I had to bend more than a little to prevent banging my head on the roof and she had to do likewise. We shimmied around each other, trying not to touch, as we swapped places and I relieved her of the finished fork and empty Tupperware.

Damn, I thought, I must’ve been staring at her knees for a long couple of minutes while she finished her supper. Where the hell did my manners go? I mean, only half an hour or so ago, she was looking at being raped by some middle-aged rich old bastard who thought he’d already paid her for his entitlement, followed by being gang banged by all these sweaty fucktards out there. Max had called her “Mr Powell’s girlfriend”, but apparently Mr Powell was willingly letting his girlfriend stay with a stranger, given tacit approval to do whatever that stranger wanted with her for the next eleven and a half hours, while he still had most of tomorrow to win his bet, which included bedding five other sheilas. I resolved to be as detached as I usually was around women, or at least ordinary women, and protect her from this Yank plank. She was my guest and should at least expect to be treated with respect by her host.

She sat in the driver’s seat while I quickly went and dropped the salad bowl and fork on the end of the bed to deal with later. I returned to the shotgun seat, from where I carefully guided her through the sequence of priming and starting the engine, switching on the lights, managing the gears and steering the monster across mostly deserted bitumen surface to the other side of the park, leaving us pointing to the exit and the highway. With her long limbs, she had no need to adjust the seat.

She told me she’d mostly worked stick shifts before in Europe and even drove on the left side of the road in London when she based herself there for a couple of years or so some dozen years earlier. I let her start the engine, turn on the lights, as it was already getting fairly dark, find the first gear and smoothly glided into second after she moved off slowly and carefully across the carpark, turning the truck and trailer in a majestic curve and stopped us exactly where I wanted her to park up, pointing at the exit, ready for our getaway in the morning. She switched off everything safely, turned her head and smiled broadly at me, looking very pleased with herself and a whole lot happier than when she arrived.

“Oh boy, that was fun!”

“Well, done,” I praised, genuinely surprised she hadn’t stalled, over-revved or crunched the gears, “for the first time manoeuvring a truck like this, you were brilliant. You’re a natural truckie. If I still had driving jobs to offer, I would snap you up.”

“Thank you, well, my work permit is for up to a year, if you’re offering, I seem to be between jobs right now. But that was great fun, can I?—”

“No, you can’t drive on the roads, you are not licensed, but you can park it off road any time we stop if you like. Now, I’m, er, really sorry about earlier when I rudely stared at your pins—”

“Even though you’ve already seen me virtually naked.”

“Yeah. Even so. Although a peep at a shapely leg when an article of clothing slips like that, well, let’s just say that less is more, a bloody whole sight more. So I apologise for forgetting my manners and embarrassing us both.”

“Apology accepted. Look, we haven’t even introduced ourselves. We know our first names, by casual reference by others, but that is all.”

“Well, I’ll kick off, shall I? I’m Mark Cornwall, 38, possibly still married but been separated from my ex-wife for the last five years exactly to the day, no children, no girlfriend, no living rellies even, that’s relatives. I was born in Melbourne and have lived in the suburbs there for the last five years, but that place’s all closed up to me now and I’m looking forward to exploring the big wide world. This is my last delivery job, at least for the next few months.”

“Wow, what are you doing, where are you going?”

“I honestly don’t know. I have my passport with me and have applied for the usual visas, but I want to see the world before I’m 40. I’ve booked an open-ended return flight from Darwin to Lima on the 31st, so I will go there for my first adventure, walking the mountains, taking in the scenery and the ancient ruins, taking as long as it takes. After all I deserve it, I’ve hardly had a week off working since I left school twenty years ago.”