Page 166 - Exile-ebook

166 AN EXILE OF THE MIND BROMIDE IN MY TEA 167

Bromide in my tea

Hitch-hiking across the outback. In search of
Yamamoto’s aircraft. Free rides at Disneyland.
Kentucky fried maggots. Life is a beach.

he Nullarbor Plains unfolded flat and treeless over a khaki-
Tcoloured landscape for almost 1700 kilometres. We hitch-
hiked from Fremantle under a desert sun, through the stamping
ground of thousands of camels let loose after the completion of the
railroad during the First World War.
We reached Sydney 4350 kilometres later where my brother
lived. My sister-in-law had hastily prepared separate bedrooms
for us. Nicole and I had travelled together for the last six months,
living in a Greek farmhouse, a cosy campervan and a very small
tent. On hearing this, my sister-in-law then set about visiting the
local vicar to arrange instant matrimony.
Newly married, I departed for the island of Bougainville in
New Guinea to accept a job which no one else wanted. It was well-
paid and Nicole planned to follow me there a few weeks later for a
belated honeymoon.
The town of Kieta is perched on a narrow ribbon of land skirting a
picturesque harbour. A warm breeze wafted in a musky sweet smell
of copra pushing up from brown hemp sacks stacked along the shore.
My first introduction to this wild island was to see several bodies
sprawled over the road from a truck recently crashed. It was ear-
lier seen weaving from side to side on the dirt road. Its occupants
roaring drunk on South Pacific lager warmed up in the hot sun to
make it more potent. Crows were strung out like abacus beads on

The island of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.