Almanac Fiction: Swifty Taylor and the Errant Husband (Episode 6)

 

Episode 6 – A Saucerful of Secrets

 

The window of my hotel room was east-facing. When I awoke, bleary-eyed and a little worse for wear and tear, I peered out through the curtains, expecting to be welcomed by a vivid North Queensland sunrise. But it was goodbye blue sky: instead of the sun, I was greeted by a grey and mournful morning. I fell back on my bed, rubbed my eyes, and continued to wrestle with my conscience over whether my decision to run like hell the night before was the correct one. I was craving breakfast, but I thought it might be an idea to first make some phone calls. Housekeeping, both of the literal and metaphoric kind, had never been a forte of mine.

 

 

“Good morning, Swifty. You’ve finally decided to call me.” Even when she was thousands of miles away, my mother could not resist giving me a clip across the ears. “I have a number of things around the house that need fixing. How much longer will you be away? Really, I wish you were here.” I almost reverted to my six-year-old self and blabbed to her that I wished I were home also. The next call was to my client Emma. I kept it brief and to the point. “Your husband is a dirty rotten cheat whose chief concern is money. But you already knew that. I have a couple of photos of him with his lady friend, but they aren’t great.” Rather than being taken aback by my forthrightness, she seemed buoyed that I was making progress. I was more than disappointed in my limited capacities as a photographer. It meant that I would need to take yet more candid snapshots. And that meant again traversing the thin ice of surveillance.

 

The palm trees on the main street were receiving a buffeting from the strengthening winds. I tried to avoid the mirrors which were as unforgiving as always, but Café Diva was empty of customers and staff, until an older woman approached from the kitchen out back. I tried to sound nonchalant, but my voice could not quite strike the right pitch: “Is Jess in?” The woman, who wore a name-tag labelled ‘Vera’, was unnecessarily gruff. “Jess isn’t feeling well. She won’t be at work today. It meant I had to come in early. I need the sleep more than the money.” She was obviously not a morning person, so I decided against ordering a coffee, not wanting to put her to too much trouble.

 

The footpaths were devoid of tourists; they had obviously been deterred by the brewing tempest. Rather than brightening, the morning sky was becoming more sullen by the minute. Not quite the dark side of the moon, but it was getting close. I parked the rental car in a small alleyway named Arnold Lane, just near the ‘Club Tropical Resort’ and I was delighted to discover that my old friend Eduardo was fussing about behind the desk. “Hello, Mr Swifty,” he said by way of greeting. “If you are looking for Mr Max, you have just missed him. He is on his way to Mossman Gorge.” I processed this information for a moment before asking “Was he alone, or with his friend?” I raised an eyebrow in the hope that Eduardo was not slow on the uptake. “Oh, he sure is with his friend. She was with him, in the flesh.” I thanked him and hurriedly returned to my car.

 

 

Within the half hour, I was parking the car outside the sparsely populated Mossman Gorge visitors’ centre. Walking tracks had never been high been high on my list of priorities – too much gravel, too many hills, too many opportunities for me to take a tumble. But I suspected that this might just be my best chance to get the photos that my client’s heart desired. A shuttle bus dumped me at the entrance to the gorge, and I was on my own. The tree canopy high above me was obscured by clouds, while the heavens were a foreboding mix of black and grey. The devil himself may well have been preparing for a great gig in the sky. There were few tourists about, all of whom were busily rubbernecking and taking selfies. Was this needle in a haystack stuff? Or were Max and his friend around here somewhere?

 

 

No sooner had I posed these questions to myself than they were answered. As I rounded a dog-leg bend, I was confronted by Max and his lover engaged in an amorous embrace. They had not noticed me. Hell, at this point in time, they were too preoccupied to notice anything but each other’s tongues. Down each other’s throats. These guys were going at it like teenagers. I took cover behind a tree, and then took out my phone. If these photos didn’t suffice, well, then there was nothing more that I could do. I was certainly drawing the line at bursting into their hotel room and catching them ‘in flagrante delicto’. But they continued to go at it, Max with his back to a rail, not caring a fig for who might be watching. I recalled a line my mother once used when describing a couple whom she witnessed publicly displaying some particularly heavy petting: “I thought he was going to roger her there and then!”  For good measure, I gathered some video evidence.

 

 

I turned on my heel, not yet daring to check the photographic evidence. Tonight I would reward myself with a Jameson or two, until I reached the point where I was feeling comfortably numb.

 

 

You can read more from Smokie (and also Swifty Taylor) HERE

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