Mark Abernethy - Golden Serpent

He was back with Diane, as if Sydney hadn’t happened. He was giddy, intoxicated with it all, in love.

They ate up large: curried crab, salty fi sh, prawns in the banana skins, buckets of goreng. The whole Javanese bit. Being back in Jakkers seemed to have a calming infl uence on both of them. In Sydney, Diane’s personality had brought out a chip on Mac’s shoulder, a nagging sense that he may not be good enough for a diplomat’s daughter. The morning that had started with the interview at the University of Sydney, and included being tailed, and ended with that awkward lunch, was really just the climax of a lot of worries that Mac had been feeling in Sydney. The fear of not being able – or allowed – to make the shift to civvie life. Or the deep-seated suspicion that perhaps some people just weren’t equipped to have wives, mortgages and fi nancial planners. There was also the loss of control, the ebbing away of his carefully crafted internal walls and walls within walls. He knew it was happening and he blamed Diane for how weak it made him feel.

Maybe it was just the age-old worry, that he’d ask the girl to marry him, and she’d laugh, say something like, You? Why would I marry you?!

All of it had come together that morning, and he’d taken it out on Diane, right at a point where she wanted to talk about where she fi tted in his future – which, now he was relaxing over a meal in Jakarta, seemed to be the most acceptable thing a woman might want to do when she’d been going out with a bloke for six months.

One of the things Mac had always liked about Diane was that – chips on shoulders aside – she didn’t make him feel like a pig.

She ate as much as he did, also spoke with food in her mouth and laughed about how gross that was. She was one of those women who jam their fork into a piece of food and feed it to their bloke.

The inferiority bit was all in his head.

They were actually a right pair: sinking cold Singhas, taking the piss out of uptight Germans at exhibitions and laughing about their short-lived break-up.

‘I’m sorry about the whole voicemail thing, darling,’ she said, grabbing his forearm. ‘What a cliche! I can hardly believe I did that!’

Mac apologised for avoiding a chat about what they might do in the future. And for doing the Harold Holt.

‘The what?’ she asked, laughing.

‘You know – the Aussie prime minister, the Chinese sub, the MSS?’

‘Tell me more.’ She widened her eyes.

‘Then I’d have to kill ya.’

Mac didn’t know why he’d said that. It was an intel in-joke; you only really said it to someone in the community, someone who already knew. He was exhausted. Maybe he just wanted to come clean with her? Maybe that was part of his anxiety the last time they’d met?

Mac changed the subject. ‘Remember that wine we got here last time? Time for a comeback?’

Diane made a face that said, Bad idea.

Mac remembered how they’d sunk a couple of bottles of the Balinese white muscat a few months ago. They’d got so drunk that Diane had tried to go for a swim in the harbour and had got down to her bra and undies before Mac and her driver could bundle her back into the car. The muscat gave Mac a hangover that would kill a wild brown dog, and Diane had an IT trade show to attend the next morning which she could only endure through a pair of very dark sunnies.

So they ordered the wine.

Carl, the driver, who had been standing against the wharf railing since they arrived, approached the table as Mac gave back the wine list. Carl looked at the owner, pointed at the table. The owner nodded, came back with the bottle, showed Carl the seal. Carl nodded, stepped back to his railing and let the owner cork the bottle and pour.

Mac gave Carl the wink. ‘Thanks, champ. Anything we can get ya?

You eaten?’

Carl shook his head, his hands hovering over a black pouch-bag slung around his waist that was actually a disguised holster. ‘No thanks, Mr Davis. I’m right.’

The British used ex-soldiers and ex-cops for their diplomatic protection details. The main risk in Jakarta, for people like Diane, wasn’t terrorism. It was snatches. And Carl had the body, the presence and the handgun that made Asian kidnappers pause. He was about fi ve-eleven, one hundred kilos and fi lled out his jeans and polo shirt like he was made of arms and legs and nothing else. His presence said, I don’t hesitate and I don’t miss.

Mac relaxed with it, and drank.

They fell into Diane’s cottage a little after midnight. Carl had already entered and done his recce, gun drawn. Diane held Mac against the vestibule wall in a deep kiss. She tasted of Balinese muscat. Smelled of shampoo and sea air.

Carl walked past them, stood at the door, cleared his throat and looked at Diane. She rolled her eyes. Mac came forward instead, shut the door and turned the key to deadlock. Asked through the door,

‘Only one, mate?’

Carl said, ‘Corner bolts, if you would, sir.’

Mac slid the big stainless steel bolt at the bottom of the door into its hole in the fl oor, pushed the top one up into its steel slot above the doorjamb.

‘Thanks, sir,’ said Carl.

‘Goodnight, mate. Thanks for everything.’

Mac pulled Diane onto his chest, so their faces almost touched. They were both naked, sated. Looking at her, he wrestled with the idea of coming clean. But it felt wrong. Like going into a forbidden zone. He hadn’t even had that discussion with his parents or sister.

He wasn’t sure how he was ever going to unhitch himself from the lies, starting with his name. Diane had been forthcoming about her past: the dropping out from Cambridge, the attempt at being a kept woman in London in her early twenties, the Kuwaiti fi ance and her unanticipated drift into the world of IT and high-level sales

– something she was good at and well rewarded for.

Mac couldn’t tell her that kind of story about himself. Where would he start? With ASIS? The Royal Marines, Desert Storm, East Timor, the Bali bombing? Abu Sabaya? There were whole chunks of his life that not even Garvs knew the full story about.

He decided to try a smaller bit of candour.

‘You know, that day at the restaurant in Chinatown? In Sydney?’

Diane nodded.

‘I had a ring in my pocket. I was going to… umm… you know…’

Diane smiled at him. ‘Do I?’

‘I was going to ask you to… aaah, be my fi ancee.’

‘Marry you?’

‘Aaah, yep.’

She raised her head, smiled. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah, but I couldn’t. It’s why I did a runner.’

‘Why?’ Diane pushed his hair back, looked from one of his eyes to the other.

Mac almost said, ‘Cos I’ve been bullshitting. Lying to you.

But he didn’t, pulled himself back.

‘I was too scared.’

‘You silly thing,’ said Diane, her eyes refl ecting disappointment.

Mac lay awake while Diane snored softly. She’d taken it well. Said she was still in love with him. Said she wanted to think about the marriage bit.

He was in love but confused. He found himself wondering about privilege and pecking orders and the level of personal security you got when you were born into the right world.

He lay there thinking that it would work out just perfect if Jenny was assigned a Carl. Someone to guard the perimeter and let her relax at a restaurant: no more asking for the table furthest from the front window, no more demanding the seat that faced the door. Whenever he’d gone to a restaurant or movie with Jenny, she’d worn a holster-bag just like Carl’s. It sat on her lap like a security blanket.

He’d never mentioned it to Jen. Never told her that if she got rid of the disguised holster, she might get herself a bloke.