Way Out West

"I don't mean to rain on your parade, dear. I know you Scandinavian types are big on equality and all that and God knows I think they're people just the same as you and I, but you really need to keep them off your land. They'll rob you blind before you can say I've been robbed."

I froze as I looked into her eyes, I suppose I was waiting for the punchline, maybe this was more of the Aussie humour I was struggling to understand but this woman was serious and I swallowed as I tried to think of a comeback line.

"They're my friends," I finally managed.

"If you say so, dear but don't say I didn't warn you. People have been talking in town and I'd hate you to find you'd been shut out of our social circles."

If it's one thing I can't stand it's paternalism, it's bad enough coming from a man but when it comes from a woman I just see red.

"Maybe I don't want those kinds of friends," I took one step to the right, effectively blocking her path, "these are my friends and if you or these other people don't like it then I suggest you take your picnic hamper and go back home."

Jean blinked then took a step forward and stopped. I wasn't budging and she tried one last time to get around me but it was to no avail as I took a step to the left.

"Racism is such an ugly word," I continued, "but if you're talking about theft let's talk about good old fashioned land theft. This land actually belonged to them and so I see no problem letting them live on my land because this land actually belongs to all of us, black or white," I took a step forward and stared into her eyes.

"You have three seconds to apologise or I'll have my friends escort you to your car and follow you back to the road."

Jean blushed and she took a step back over the threshold, nearly tripping over it.

"I've never been spoken to like that before."

"A shame," I replied, "perhaps you might have turned out differently."

I fixed my eyes on Dolores who had stopped rubbing liniment and was leaning on the fence post.

"Dolores," I called out, "would you be so kind as to see Jean off our land?"

Dolores didn't budge for a few seconds.

"Is everything all right?"

"She seems to have forgotten her manners," I replied and then closed the door behind me.

"No worries," Dolores bent down and lifting the wire, eased herself through the gap, "always ready to lend a hand."

"This isn't over, not by a long shot," Jean raised her voice, "you wait till I tell the other women."

"I don't care what you tell them," I followed her down the stairs, "but don't forget to tell them all about my military training and my tour of duty in Afghanistan."

As they say in English, it was a cheap shot and probably a veiled threat but I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't about to be bullied by some woman in an overpriced dress. I think Stan summed it up perfectly when he came out of the toilet in time to see her getting back into her car.

"You can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear but she still lives in hope."

I had to smile at that statement because it's what they say in the UK as well. Stan however was a little more cautious about my stance on letting First Australians live on the land.

"They've lived here off and on for years, Gunnar was always open minded but he was fighting a losing battle with the townies. Some of those people live in a bubble and they're quite happy living that way."

"So, what are you saying, that I should change my mind?"

"Not at all," he ran a hand through his hair, "I'm kinda enjoying the show but don't expect to be the next local hero, just keep things in perspective."

Dolores was also in agreement although she looked quite pleased at being asked to escort Jean off the property.

"What you need to do is get quotes from some of the tradies in town."

A tradie is the Australian way of saying tradesman or workman, usually a carpenter, plumber or one of the other trades and her reasoning was perfectly sound. Some of them might be in agreement with Jean but if there was a chance of earning money then idealogical objections tend to be put on the back burner and that's the advice I took on board.

My way of defying convention however was somewhat unconventional when I invited Dolores to inspect one of the spare bedrooms. The main house has six bedrooms that are almost as big as the main sitting room in my parents' house. Stan used one and I had the other, but that left four more rooms just lying empty. I couldn't even use one as a study because Gunnar had an actual study next door to his bedroom.

"What do you think?" I leaned against the door jamb.

"Of what?" Dolores looked around, "this was mum's old room."

"Is she likely to come back and claim it?"

"She's gone to the other world," Dolores replied, "it was cancer but after she was gone I stayed here for a few weeks before I moved to the dorm," she plucked at the duvet.

"She even picked this out."

"Do you want to sleep here instead."

"In here?" Dolores eyed me, "after what Jean said?"

"She doesn't live here, I do and if I want to give you a room then I will. Stan has one room but the other rooms are all empty."

Dolores sat on the bed somewhat gingerly.

"It has springs."

"And electric light," I glanced up at the light globe dangling from the ceiling.

"My mum spent her last day in this bed," she looked around the room, "the traditions of my people forbid us from moving into a place once inhabited by our ancestors."

"So, take another bedroom then," I glanced over my shoulder, "there are other rooms."

"I am not a traditional," she replied, "perhaps I should but I never saw the value of the old ways, the spirits of the Dreamtime never protected us against the coming of the white man. All we were left with was the Dreaming."

"If it bothers you then take another room," I repeated myself, "I am trying to send out a message to people out there that all are welcome here, not just people with white skins. Jean thinks she can cow me into submission but I had to fight the Taliban, I am not so easily scared off."

"What was it like?" Dolores patted the duvet, "in Afghanistan?"

"It was," I paused as I approached the bed, "not what I expected," I sat down.

"I was like many people, thinking that it was a black and white issue, they were evil and we were on the side of good but war doesn't trade in such subtleties, everything is shades of grey. I came home with PTSD and took an early discharge from the army," I leaned back on my palms and stared at a picture on the wall that showed Nyhavn in glorious colour.

"I was within sight of that place there," I stared at the picture, "when a car backfired and I threw myself to the ground. The most embarrassing part about it all was the fact that the Queen's guard were marching past on their way to relieve the guards at the palace. They do it every day at the same time and there are always lots of tourists lining the street taking pictures. I'm sure at least one or two of them have pictures of me throwing myself to the ground."

"So, you embarrassed yourself," Dolores rose and walked to the picture, "my most embarrassing moment was realising I'd left my fly unzipped one morning," she stopped in front of the picture, "and I was wearing a white shirt so part of it was poking out. No wonder the boys were all staring at my crotch, where is this?"

"Newhaven," I used the English translation, "it's in Copenhagen."

"It says something different down here," Dolores leaned over slightly, "fuck me, I can't even say that bloody word. Don't the Danes like vowels?"

I chuckled at that and she straightened up.

"People think we have potatoes in our mouths when we talk because apparently that's how we sound to them."

"How do you say it in Danish?"

"Det er Nyhavn," I replied.

Dolores blinked and then grinned.

"Fuck me drunk, it sounds like you have something in your mouth."

"Told you so. I just said, that is Newhaven."

"I'd like to go there someday," she took a step back, "I used to stare at the picture for hours while I was nursing mum and wish we were there instead of this shithole country."

"I'll take you there one day," I flopped onto my back, "even though it takes a day to fly there."

"I can't afford the airfare."

"I said I'd take you," I replied, "that means I'd pay the fare."

"You're gay, right?"

"I am gay," I stared at the light fixture, "I did try it with a guy in the army but that was to try and make my ex girlfriend jealous enough to leave her new girlfriend and come back to me."

"And it didn't work," she knelt on the bed.

"No, it didn't work," I shielded my eyes against the light, "she thought I'd been faking it all along and we never spoke to each other for eighteen months," I fixed my eyes on her breasts.

"When I got back from Afghanistan, she was a kind of trainee army chaplain who was counselling veterans coming back from the war. She was in a relationship with another woman by then so it wasn't going to happen all over again."

"You have gay chaplains over there?" Dolores stared at me.

"Yes, it's not the same as here or America. Being gay is just not an issue, we have gay ministers, gay politicians, gay business people and the straight people mostly just ignore our sexuality. It's only the minority with neo Nazi beliefs that persecute gays and other minorities."

Dolores said nothing to that, she was staring at the curtained windows.

"What are the beliefs of your people when it comes to homosexuality?"

"It's generally frowned upon but nobody seems to say anything about it. A lot of things are taboo but we still do these things. I can't even speak my native tongue," she smiled slyly.

"I'm a shitty Abo, I grew up on You Tube and Facebook," she eyed the bed.

"I'll take the room but it has conditions."

"What are your conditions?"

"You need to teach me Danish."

"You want to learn Danish?" I raised an eyebrow, "why?"

"Because it's a challenge," she replied, "I could choose another language like Chinese or Japanese or some other language but if I'm living here in the house then I can practice Danish."

"Okay," I propped on my elbows, "I'll teach you Danish. What are the other conditions?"

"Just one more," she patted the duvet, "we need to swap this bed with one from another room, just in case grandfather comes back."

"Where is he?"

"Up the bush somewhere. He left three years ago, but he could be back tomorrow or in three years, we never know when he'll turn up or when he'll disappear again."

"Must be great to live that way."

"Only if you're his age," she slid off the bed, "mum used to say the sun baked his brain after he was left out in the sun too long as a child."

"It certainly gets hot enough," I sat up, "okay, we will swap the beds and I'll teach you Danish but I'll warn you, it's a hard language to learn. Even the Swedes and Norwegians find it hard and we used to rule Norway."

And that's how it started with Dolores and I, a simple agreement to let her have a bedroom and to teach her Danish. At the time, despite the fact I was attracted to her I never thought it would lead to anything else but in my next excerpt I'll tell you more.

***

It's been a week since I last had a chance to sit down and write more. Running this place is a full time occupation and we've certainly been kept busy. We had yet another film crew out here to shoot some footage and interview me. I haven't seen the finished product yet as it's not going to be shown for another six weeks or so but I'm looking forward to seeing it. The woman doing the interview is Rita, she works for a national broadcaster here but she was born in Virginia and we got to talking about sexual attraction and what draws you to one person might drive another person off.

It certainly got me thinking about what drew Dolores to me because while I've mentioned the fact that I was sexually attracted to her I haven't told her side of the story. I remember the conversation we had one night after she'd just come out of the shower and I'd just had one. She'd been using my one, we have an upstairs and a downstairs bathroom. I handed her some perfume after she said that she liked the smell.

"You know what I like about you?"

"My perfume?"

"Apart from that," she replied.

"You don't treat me like an Abo."

I winced at that word because it's considered offensive but because she'd used the word I let it ride and propped on the arm of the couch.

"What do you mean by that?"

"There are two kinds of people I hate," she put the perfume down.

"The kind like Jean who think I'm a dirty native or only good for menial tasks, and then there's the do gooder who wants to save me from myself or crawl on broken glass because of something his ancestors did to my ancestors. I dislike both kinds because they dehumanise me. My mother was a quarter blood and my dad was a whitefella, so my racial makeup is even more blurred."

I felt the colour in my cheeks because we Danes are very conscious of our own treatment of the Inuit of Greenland. They might be an autonomous nation but they're beholden to Denmark when it comes to bigger decisions, which flies in the face of our insistence that we are an egalitarian nation no matter if you were born in Denmark or immigrated there. Perhaps it was that inner tension that had contributed to my refusal to treat Dolores' people as anything other than equals.

"I just try to treat people the way I want to be treated," I finally managed, "it's not like we Danes are perfect, we don't treat Greenlanders so good."

"I know that," Dolores sat down next to me, "our people weren't living in a paradise before the white men came, it was a harsh country, it still is to be honest but the people have been talking about you and they like the way you treat them."

I shifted my position slightly to face her.

"I like the way they treat me too, before I came out here I felt like I was on the edge. No one here has asked me to tell them war stories."

"I did, well, kind of."

"You asked me about my time in the army but that's normal. I told you a little bit about it but you don't seem to treat me with kid gloves or put me on a pedestal. I always cringe at those people who want to bow down to veterans and thank us for saving their democracy. The Taliban were never a threat to our democracy or yours, they certainly don't like democracy in their own country but I wonder how it would have turned out for the Afghanis if we hadn't gone in to fight for them. Maybe I'm being naïve," I frowned, "I probably am naïve but I came out of that place confused and angry, and when I came home people were just going about their daily business as if nothing else mattered more than their Facebook likes."

I fiddled with my watch.

"I felt strange moving here because I didn't know a soul but it's been the best thing I've ever done but there is still a part of me that waits for the roof to fall in," I looked up at the ceiling.

"And with this fucking weather it just might."

Dolores said nothing for a few minutes and then just as I was about to say something she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

"Good night and thank you for the deodorant."

I went to bed that night with the memory of that kiss because it had taken me by surprise and it hadn't been an overt sexual kiss. In that way she'd left herself an easy exit because it could easily be explained as simple affection. Women kiss each other all the time and men misread those signals frequently and imagine we're up to something else. However, Dolores knew which way I swung and so that kiss could also be taken another way altogether.

It certainly seemed as if it had just been a casual kiss that next morning as we let the horses out of the stable. She almost seemed embarrassed by it as she started raking out the shit, which is one of those jobs they don't tell you about. Horses shit all the time, whenever they feel like it. I watched her for a few minutes and then grabbed a rake to help her, she chanced a look at me and then let out a low chuckle.

"What's so funny?"

"At the end of the day we're all just shit shovellers."

A shit shoveller in Australia is someone who does manual labour and she had to explain that one to me as I shovelled yet another pile of shit into the big 44 gallon drum in the stable.

"Well, there's nothing wrong with shovelling shit, I had to dig foxholes in Afghanistan. If it's one thing the army teaches you, it's how to dig holes. You get told to dig a hole and then they order you to fill it in and dig another one. They never showed that in the television adverts."

"Were you okay with what I did last night?"

"As in?" I kept shovelling.

"The kiss," she leaned on her shovel, "I wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do."

"That depends," I picked up a pile of shit, "on what your motives were."

"I don't know," she watched me walk to the drum, "it was just a spur of the moment thing, one moment I was sitting next to you and the next I kissed you on the cheek."

"What if I'd kissed you back?"

"I don't know," she confessed, "it's not like I've rooted women before, just guys."

"Well there's nothing wrong with trying it on for size," I stepped back from the drum, "back home we tend to sleep with someone first and then decide if we want to take things further."

"Yeah, it's pretty much the same here too, especially out here. You never know when some hot guy might drive into town and give you the eye. I'm not into this romantic bullshit and the happy ever after ending. Real life isn't like that."

"So, how do you think it would work between us?" I looked at her.

Dolores looked past me as her eyes narrowed.

"That's what I'm trying to work out."

"You do that," I moved to the next stall, "let me know what you decide."

It was one of the longest days I could recall since my time in Afghanistan and although I kept busy, I was still a little nervous because taking things further might have unforeseen blow-back. Dolores was, after all, my chief horse wrangler and I wasn't about to risk losing her for a night between the sheets. What I hadn't counted on though was the effect my words had had on her already and I'm not talking about the conversation in the stables but the dozens we shared every day.

The first sign I had that she was considering taking things further was after dinner when she calmly announced that she was going to apply for a passport. When I asked where she was thinking of going she said Denmark although she also wanted to see London.

"I want to see your people."

"My family?"

"Maybe," she started clearing the table, "but that's not what I mean by your people, I meant it in a general sense, Danes."

"I can certainly write you out an itinerary and if you like we can go together, it'd save money on a tour guide."

"I'd like that," she moved away from the table.

I felt the colour rising in my cheeks, sensing that she was about to elaborate but instead she kept clearing the table.

"So, you want to go on holiday, with me?"

"Ja," she replied, "is that how you say it?"

"Kind of, it's more a yi."

"I've been thinking about what we talked about this morning."

"And?" I looked at her.

"The offer is nice but I'm afraid I'm more likely to decline it."

"Why?" I asked her.

"I suppose it's just being practical," she replied, "I like living here, I like working here and I like you too but if we fuck and it doesn't work out then it could get difficult for us."

"Possibly," I leaned back in my seat and studied her, "tell me something, were my father and your mother committed to each other?"

"They weren't married if that's what you're asking."

"How long were they together?"

"Twenty years or more, I was five when I came here and they got together not long afterwards."