Chapter 25

Wednesday morning I asked Shirl and Des about inviting their fathers and Shirl said she thought it would 'be a hoot.' They said they'd each call in the evening.

I called Chaz to ask about his girls and ascertain whether he knew any bigwigs. He started to laugh. It turned out that he knew 'new' The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor slightly, but that the Council's resource officer had been at University with Michiko. He'd phone. He loved the notion of packing the house. I told him that we'd be away with Weena's dad over the weekend, but that I wanted to lunch with him on Monday or Tuesday.

I spent the rest of the morning thinking about my talk. Then I took the kids out to lunch.

Wednesday evening I asked Weena exactly what she thought we should do on the weekend.

"Well, we pick up daddy in your Rover, as early on Friday as he wants. I thought we'd drive down the Coast Road, stopping whenever he wants to, stay somewhere Friday night, drive more on Saturday, stay somewhere else, and return on Sunday, coming back on Highway One. That way the first place he might want to stop would be Coogee."

"Coogee?"

"It's a suburb about 30 kilometers south. Chintzy."

"So why take your father there?"

"So he realizes what the prices are like."

"OK."

On Thursday, Shirl was excited. Her father thought it would be fun to come to the talk and her parents were going to make a weekend of it, staying in a hotel they liked in Fremantle — actually a b&b, not a hotel. When Des dragged in, looking much the worse for wear, his tale was not as merry. His mother had fallen and broken a leg. He was taking off to look after her and the house. I told him to let me know if there was anything I could do and told him that I'd personally contact both faculty members whose courses he was attending. He thanked me and was off.

"Shirl, do you know which courses he's in?"

"Sure."

"Could you get me the instructors' names and phone numbers?"

"No problemo, patron."

"Very funny."

I did some thinking and made some notes for my talk. Shirl came in with a slip of paper with the info I'd asked for.

"I guess it isn't too bad a break," I remarked.

"Hunh?"

"They'd have shot her right away otherwise." Shirl gaped at me. "Gotcha!"

"You win."

The rest of the day was unexciting. I spoke with both of Des' instructors. They seemed gratified to know what was going on, but unconcerned. Before I left for the (long) weekend, I told Shirl that she could take Friday off, as long as the answerphone was turned on. I stopped for fuel on the way home. Weena told me that she'd arranged for an "early" departure.

We picked Rob up at about 8:30 Friday morning. He was waiting with a small travelling bag on the ground next to him. We got out of the car, greeted, I stowed the bag in the back, Weena directed her father into the front, and she got into the rear.

"Well, where to?" I asked.

"Weena suggested the coastal road as a start," Rob responded.

So I drove along Stirling Highway over the bridge to Fremantle to the "T" at High Street and then south on Hampton Road/Route 12. Only a few minutes later we were in Coogee. Rob had been looking about silently, but now he remarked, "No, not this close to Perth. Too built up. Too much like a purpose-built place."

"Right. I'm with you. What you want is conveniences, but not high fashion. Henderson, just south of here is nice, but it serves as a bedroom for the naval base. A few miles further, after we merge with Route 1, is Kwinana Beach, about which I've heard nothing, and after that is East Rockingham and then Rockingham."

"Ah, yes. I've been in Rockingham. Lovely, but still within Perth, in some way. It was settled very early on, wasn't it?"

"Yes. I think of it as a 'Captain Stirling' site. It was a big timber port for a while."

"How come you know local history and I don't? And I went to school in Perth while you're both foreigners!" burst Weena.

"Because, dear," said Rob, "We're interested in the land and have read about it. No one at Perth College ever cared about the history or exploration of Western Australia."

Weena subsided.

"Do you golf, sir?" I asked.

"I have, but I'm not avid. Why?"

"Because I know there's a golf club in Warnbro, beyond Rockingham."

"No. Not enough of an attraction. But it's getting on ten, let's look for a place to have coffee."

We stopped in San Remo, had coffee and walked to the beachfront. We the sun behind us, it seemed as though we could see all the way to Africa. Of course, local surfers were out, even though the waves weren't much. Continuing south, we passed through Mandurah into Erskine and down to Binningup.

"Really lovely here," Rob remarked.

"Yes. Reserve to the north, water to the east and west. Look at all the construction. I'll bet it's priceyer than Mandurah."

"Probably true. But I don't want to go all the way inland to Pilbarra. Let's go down and lunch in Bunbury. We can even stop in at that agency Weena got the literature from."

So we did. We had (another) lovely seafood lunch at the foot of the pier and found our way to the property agents. We let Rob go inside while we browsed in the souvenir shops, buying nothing. But it gave me an opportunity to talk to Weena.

"What's the matter?"

"Why?"

"You're not conversing; you're not making comments on things; your dad is going to think there's something wrong. Is there?"