Free How I Became the Mr. Big of People Smuggling by Martin Chambers

tower. It was all innocent enough, I wanted her to spend the night in my room, I missed waking next to her, I said, feeling her warmth and softness during the night, I wanted to lie all night curled together with her. She said soon, not tonight, and then when she saw Palmenter watching us from the verandah she hurried away.
    Stupid. I shouldn’t have cared. I should have gone after her but Palmenter was watching and in my head I was thinking what Spanner had said and also that if Palmenter found out he would be furious and although Lucy and I might walk together as if we didn’t care, in truth I was scared. I busied myself about the base of the tower, pretending to do something with the valves and water outlets. I could say that I was trying to protect her by not being too obviously with her, but that would be a lie.
    When I looked up he was gone and so was Lucy.
    For the first time since I got to Palmenter Station I drove out that afternoon by myself and it was a freedom I had dreamed and yearned for but now it was all sour because I had gone without saying goodbye to Lucy. I worried she might think it was because Iwanted to sleep with her that night and she said no, that she would think I had known I was driving the bore run before I talked to her, that I wanted a tumble with her before I took off. What would we say to each other when I returned in two weeks? I thought about her a lot, but did we love each other? Was this love? Or just sex? Or something to hide our loneliness? After all, what did we really know about each other? We made love and talked of the stars and other worlds, of the sky and planets and we laughed at imaginings and fantasy and we never talked of our own world or family or of our own dreams or what had come before or was to come or of how it was that we both came to be here at the end of the world.
    As I drove off I was disappointed I had not said farewell to her but knew I’d be back soon. It didn’t occur to me that the girls never stayed beyond a single muster or, if I had noticed, it was one of those things I didn’t think about too much. Margaret and the girls were just one of the things that happened at the station and only later did it seem odd, only later when I knew more.
    And now here I was alone in the office with Spanner while he went on about cruise liners and romance and I was thinking again about Lucy who I had tried not to think of, and with the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight suddenly saw some things I should have seen before. Like, how the pine smell I found so comforting and vaguely familiar in Palmenter’s car was the same as the perfume of Lucy and it was the same clean smell of the homestead. Like how Spanner all along had been my friend. Did he know that Lucy had been arrested and sent to a detention centre? Or did Palmenter drive out with Margaret and all the girls and then deposit Lucy at a police station? I never found out if he did know but if Spanner had not told me to back off I might be with Arif right now.
    I had got back from that bore run and Lucy was gone and I knew immediately it was a deliberate plan of Palmenter’s. I was furious, but I knew not to confront him. Instead I went to him with a carefully worded speech. I had decided, I said, that station life was not for me. I reminded him that I was promised a ticket home after six months. At first he seemed obliging.
    â€˜Sure, have to be after the wet. Roads are all closed, but soon asthen, if you still want. We’ll see if you want to leave then, Son.’
    I asked him if I could use the phone to call home as I hadn’t heard from my family for six months. I knew he had a phone in his office and he also had a satellite phone.
    â€˜Phone calls are expensive out here. Company doesn’t allow private calls, Son.’
    â€˜Just a short call,’ I pleaded.
    He refused, but said I should write them a letter.
    â€˜I’ll make sure it gets out with the next chopper. Take