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That was hard to imagine.
“So, I thought we could swing past the store and grab some last-minute supplies. We won’t be back this way for a while.”
“Sure.”
I didn’t know whatsupplieswe could get that wouldn’t spoil in these hot and humid conditions, especially whilst camping. I was certainly too scared to ask. But he did this all the time apparently, so I’d need to trust him.
The store itself was more of a convenience outlet, with very few selections and exorbitant prices. “Wow,” I mumbled, looking at the price of butter.
He smirked, slow and easy. “The prices? These aren’t Melbourne prices. These are two-hours-from-a-supermarket prices out here.”
He grabbed things like bottled water, flour and sugar, canned goods, beef jerky, and dried fruits and nuts. And a jumbo roll of toilet paper. “The most important essential.” He chuckled at my embarrassment. “Would you rather I didn’t get it?”
“Uh, no, it’s fine. Thank you.”
He snorted. “Now, when were you wormed last? If we’re gonna eat wild pig...”
I stared at him. Horrified. “Uhhh, I’ll eat beans. And grass, if I have to, before I eat worm-infested feral pig.”
He burst out laughing. “I’m just messin’ with ya.” He pushed the trolley, then stopped and looked back at me, very serious. “There was one time I did eat goanna. And brolga is tough eating.” He made a face. “Like eating a rubber pigeon.”
He laughed at my expression. “Just kiddin’. About the brolga. I totally ate goanna once.”
I added a few more cans of beans to the cart and ignored the way he laughed all the way to the checkout.
“Afternoon, Tully,” the man behind the counter said. He was about fifty with greying hair, sun-weathered skin, and a tired smile. “You headin’ out again?”
“Yeah, mate. Got company this time,” he said, nodding to me. “But I’ll be sure to keep an eye on this one and make sure he comes back. Not like the last one...” I stared at him again, wondering what on earth I’d got myself into, and he laughed again. “I’m kidding!”
I looked at the man behind the counter. “You don’t happen to sell a sense of humour, do you? I think I’m going to need an upgrade.”
He rumbled a laugh. “Don’t let him fool ya,” he said to me. “Tully here knows what he’s doing, so you be sure to listen to him, ya hear? Unless you don’t wanna come back, that is.”
Tully grinned at me and handed over his credit card, then we loaded the gear into the back of his Jeep. He looked up at the darkening sky and pulled the canvas cover over the food and my gear, but the front seats were still without protection.
I almost branded myself with the seat buckle again, earning another smirk from Tully. I was already beginning to rethink my first impression of his smile. At first, I’d thought it made him likeable. Now I thought it made him insufferable.
Cute, but incredibly annoying.
Or was it annoying me because I thought it made him cute?
I sighed and pretended not to care.
With his annoying smile firmly in place, he reversed out of his parking spot without so much as a glance behind us, then sped out of the small town of Jabiru along the Arnhem Highway.
The wind whipped around us, and he was right. The air movement with the roof off did make it more bearable. The humidity was thick with the threat of rain, even though the sun still beat down on us. The passing scenery was spectacular—sub-tropical greenery sprouting new life with the start of the wet season.
“I was just joking back there,” Tully said, yelling over the engine and the wind. “When I said I wouldn’t lose ya out here. I ain’t ever lost no one yet. I also haven’t brought anyone out here. Which is a technicality, I know. But I didn’t wantcha to worry.”
“I take it the morbid sense of humour is a Northern Territory thing?” Yelling for conversation wasn’t really my favourite way to communicate.
“Can’t speak for everyone,” he yelled back, that annoyingly cute smirk now a grin. “But it kinda helps to joke about life out here. Go crazy otherwise.”
I wanted to ask him if he lived out here but thought I could save that conversation for when we weren’t yelling across the car at each other.
An hour out of town, thoroughly windswept and probably sunburned, we turned off the highway onto a road that soon became a track. “Might wanna hold on to the oh-shit bar,” he said.
Yes. The permanent smile was nowofficiallyannoying.
