Angelo from next-door had arrived first, letting himself in through the gate in the side fence, grinning and rubbing his hands. ‘Mate,’ he said. ‘She’s a beauty.’ He stood with feet apart, hands in pockets. He and Phil regarded the pile of logs and autumn prunings, the flames curling. 

‘Yep, she’s taken nice, real nice,’ said Phil. He tore the card on a six-pack, handed a bottle to Angelo and took one for himself, popped the lid. ‘Cheers.’ 

‘Cheers, mate.’ 

Next came Stan from across the road, walking down the driveway and planting himself at the fire. ‘Burnin’ good, then.’ 

‘Yep, she’s a good one.’ Phil handed Stan a beer. 

Phil was surprised but pleased when Colin appeared. He wasn’t a local as such—he and his wife had moved down from Batemans Bay about a decade previously. Colin had driven milk tankers for the cheese factory for a few years, so he and Phil had crossed paths at the depot, lifted a couple of fingers from the steering wheel when passing on the highway. Colin wasn’t one to lean against the bar at the Bayleston Arms on a Friday evening or drop round to borrow an angle grinder. But Phil had enjoyed his wry manner in the factory tearoom and found him always willing to lend a hand hosing out the receiving bay after the milk was pumped in. There was more: Phil had often wondered … No, too close to home. 

‘Gentlemen,’ said Colin. He accepted a bottle from Phil, nodded, took his position and settled silently. 

They stood on the windward side to avoid the smoke. The evening was dimming, lurid pink and orange streaks fading above the western horizon. The kookaburras had started up—a tentative enquiry from across the paddock, from somewhere in the gum on the back fence, a sudden raucous response. Startled, they all looked up then caught each other’s eyes, smiling sheepishly. 

Cheese factory ex-workers, all of them, Phil thought as he looked around. Hardly surprising—the factory was the biggest employer around here. Angelo and Stan had been upstairs in admin; Stan was an accountant and Angelo in HR. But both had preferred the downstairs tearoom. 

Phil shifted his weight and nudged a log into the heart of the fire. A host of sparks crackled into the air, faded and died. He gave his stubby a suck. Yeah, nobody owned a fire, and you never knew who would turn up, drawn by some primeval force—warmth and light, sure, but something more, something timeworn and holy. He caught himself getting all philosophical again. He scuffed the toe of his boot in the charcoal-flecked dirt. 

Colin’s attention was on the flames. Phil noticed that he’d put on a bit of weight since his back went. But he was tall, so he could carry it to some degree. There was some jowliness around his face and more belly. Quite a bit, Phil thought, lowering his eyes—Colin’s belly spilled over his belt now. He looked up; Colin had fixed his gaze on him, smiling faintly. Phil looked down again, unsettled, quelling a remnant but still familiar urge. 

The kitchen tube lights stuttered on at the house. ‘I’ve defrosted some chops, love,’ Anne had told him. He could see her through the lace curtain at the window, and he knew from her movements—her vague form appearing at the sink, disappearing, reappearing—that dinner was well under way. 

Stan belched, wiped his sleeve across his mouth and put his empty down on the upended milk crate. ‘Well, I’d better be off then, get some tea together. Thanks, mate’—looking at Phil—‘be seeing ya.’ He turned away into the darkness and was gone. 

Stan’s wife, Eva, had died a few years ago. Phil tried to imagine a life now lived solo like that. He glanced back up at his own house, settled darkly against the indigo sky. In his mind’s eye: his plate on his lap tray, chops potatoes carrots peas gravy, Anne on the other La-Z-Boy, Neighbours on the TV. He sighed, cleared his throat. He was only, what, fifty-nine? Could this be it? 

‘Yeah, Tracey’ll be bailin’ me up soon. See youse,’ said Angelo and let himself back through the side gate. 

It was just the two of them now. 

For a few moments Colin looked into the fire. ‘Yeah,’ he said, rocking on his feet. Phil waited for him to signal his departure, but Colin just set his bottle down and put his hands in his pockets. The wind changed, and he shuffled around to Phil’s side, out of the smoke. Rocked a bit, widened his stance. He’d only had the one beer, thought Phil. Or maybe he’d had a few at home before he came over. 

Phil felt the closeness. Say something. Yeah, the campervan. It had appeared in Colin’s driveway, across the road and up a few houses, a couple of weeks before: a curvy, shiny beast with its hatches and decals and aerials. ‘Got y’self a campervan.’ He leaned over for the remaining stubbies, gave Colin one—what the hell, he wasn’t driving—and twisted the other open. 

Colin gave him a wry grin. ‘Brenda wants to do a bit of travelling, now we’ve retired.’ He dropped his head, looked up again, his brow wrinkled. ‘Round the country. Take a year, maybe; do some birdwatching …’ 

Phil laughed softly. Anne’d had similar ideas when he’d taken his redundancy. ‘Not my idea of a good time, gotta say. Not enough to do. You drive past those caravan parks, the women all inside cookin’ or gasbaggin’ with each other, the blokes all standin’ round their cars or their campers, bonnets up, lookin’ for somethin’ to tinker with.’ 

Colin nodded. ‘And what would you talk about? I mean, driving, just you and the wife, all those hours …’ He fumbled with the hem of his jacket then pulled the zip to his chin and hugged himself. ‘I mean, it’s one thing being at home. You do your own thing to some extent. But, away like that, you’d be together all the time. And there’s only so much birdwatching to do.’ He looked up at the darkening sky, gave a low laugh. ‘Geez!’ 

Phil could see Anne’s head again at the window, bent over the sink. Draining the peas, probably. Chops potatoes carrots peas gravy. Tinned peaches and custard for sweets. Neighbours, then Blue Heelers. The fire popped, and he shivered, looked down and balled his hands into fists in his pockets. ‘Sometimes I wonder …’ He faltered, recovered. ‘Mate, do you ever wonder if, you know, if you did the right thing?’ 

‘What d’ya mean?’ 

Yeah, Colin was slurring his words a bit. Phil stared into the fire. What did he mean? He meant that you’re young, and everyone’s getting married, and there’s a girl you’ve been friendly with since school, and it just seems to be the way things go. You just get carried along. You get married; then there’s kids and driving tankers till your back gives in. Then—he glanced up at Colin—you’re buying a campervan with your compo and setting out for a trip around bloody Australia. ‘Oh, I dunno. Forget it.’ 

There’d always been the other option. But it didn’t feel like an option, not a live one. Phil remembered Simon Halliday, that boy at Bayleston High. A soft, quiet kid, he’d appeared halfway through high school; his family had moved here from Sydney for Simon’s dad to manage the cheese factory. Simon was a city kid, so he was different, but there was more. The girls liked him; the boys looked sideways at him, avoided him. Some of them took it further. One day they’d ambushed him coming out of the toilets, dragged him round the back and laid into him. ‘Fucken poofta!’ they’d yelled. 

Phil had waited for the boys to leave. Simon was on the ground, propped against the bricks of the toilet block wall, his nose bleeding and one eye already closing to a slit. He cringed as Phil approached, but then looked up. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. ‘How do you get away with it?’ 

Phil remembers freezing, then backing away. How had the boy known? 

‘I’ll just pop down the back,’ said Colin, turning and gesturing at the long-drop dunny on Phil’s fence. ‘Can’t hold it as long as I could.’ 

‘Sure, mate. I know what you mean.’ Phil picked up the metal rake and circled the fire, scraping the coals in. It would smoulder all night. He would come out and check it before he went to bed, but the patch of ground here was hard dirt; there was no danger of it spreading. 

Bayleston High again. He’d gone back to class that day, sat down and opened his books, but his world was rocking. He was fifteen. The thoughts he’d had in the change rooms after footy, his classmates stripping down and showering. They’d prance around, flicking towels at each other. Those broadening shoulders, taut buttocks, flaccid cocks flopping around. He’d tried to join in, tried to keep his eyes above their slender waists. Yes, how did he get away with it? 

Well, he’d got away with it by marrying Anne, fathering two kids, burying those urges under the demands of work, of family. Except when they resurfaced. When he’d swapped the milk tankers for interstate routes for months at a time—Anne had to agree that the better pay more than compensated for the nights away—and discovered the freedom, the thrill, the satisfaction to be found in frenzied couplings in foetid truck-stop toilet cubicles miles from home. Until the guilt, the shame—and yes, the fear of exposure—had driven him back, each time, to the cheese factory, the local runs. To Anne and the kids. He loved them, for god’s sake! Oh, he loved them. 

But it was ten years since he’d retired, and the acrid perfume of urinal cakes still gave him a charge, a stirring in his groin. 

He picked up the four empties and took them to the recycling bin in the shed. Came back, picked up his bottle, poked at the fire again, looked up at the sky. The moon had yet to rise, and the cobalt vastness was studded with early stars. 

The long-drop door clicked open then closed, and he heard the soft trudge of Colin’s steps coming up behind him. He half turned and smiled, turned back to the fire, then gasped to feel Colin’s arms slide around him, one hand over his belly. 

For a moment Phil held his breath, feeling a warmth seep across whatever layers were between them. And the surge in his groin. He’d been right. The fire glowed and shimmered. He exhaled slowly, lifted one hand and laid it on Colin’s. 

Up at the house, the kitchen window slid open. ‘Phil? Dinner’s ready!’ And slid closed again, clicked. 

Anne, chops, peas, Neighbours. Phil shuddered. ‘Jesus, mate!’ he spat. He turned and spread his elbows, felt one connect with Colin’s ribcage. 

Colin grunted, flung his arms apart and staggered back. ‘Oh, god,’ he muttered. ‘Sorry, mate.’ 

‘What the fuck?’ Phil was whispering now, hoarsely. But Colin was already lurching up the drive, head low. 

Phil took a few steps towards the house, stopped and returned to the fire. He lowered himself onto the milk crate, staring at Colin’s back as he turned at the gatepost and moved up the road. And still feeling the softness of the tall man’s warm body against him, he dropped his face into his hands and groaned. 

* 

Phil was paying for his coffee when Colin turned into the Garnet servo the next day, swung past the bowsers and drove straight out again. Through the window, Ramesh and Phil watched him pull onto the highway towards Bayleston. 

Phil felt the flush spread up his throat, across his cheeks. Colin had recognised his Commodore, for sure. 

‘Okay, Phil?’ Ramesh looked concerned as he handed Phil his change.

‘Yeah, mate; thanks.’ He pushed the coins into his pocket. ‘Have a good one.’ 

Back home he went out to the fire pit. He’d sat there for a while the night before, after Colin left, feeling the heat that remained—until Anne had slid the kitchen window open again. ‘Phil!’ 

‘Okay, coming.’ He’d raked the coals over and plodded up the yard, through the back door. Anne, chops, potatoes, peas, Neighbours, canned peaches and custard, Blue Heelers. Shower, pyjamas, bed. Up again to check the fire; back into bed. He’d picked up a book and tried to read for a while, still too worked up to sleep. Anne had drifted off almost immediately and now lay facing away from him, a familiar, fond mound under the blankets, snuffling softly with each in-breath. He watched her for a while, her shoulder rising a little, falling. Rising, falling. 

He tried to remember the attraction. It was their final year of school, and he’d needed someone to take to the dance. Anne was pretty and nice—not catty and stuck-up like some of the other girls. It had started that night, and from there it felt like a predestined path. All the kids from Bayleston High were pairing up and getting married. The service at St Cecilia’s for the Catholics or St John’s for the C of E’s, the reception at the golf club. Same faces every time. The bouquet would be chucked, a likely girl would catch it—usually a bridesmaid—and that meant the next wedding. 

Phil didn’t understand the rush. But one day Anne caught the bouquet. Everyone cheered. Anne turned round, found his face and beamed. The other guys all grinned and slapped him on the back, and that was that. 

Anne had been working on the process line at the cheese factory, and he was driving tankers, so after a year they’d put a deposit down on a weatherboard cottage in Boreham Street. Soon came the babies—James, then Cheryl. Then some unspoken agreement that they’d done their job, and Phil was relieved to find that Anne no longer reached for him in bed. She was always tired anyway. Or he was. Anyway, at some stage, she’d given up. 

He’d never wondered before, but found himself wondering now—did Anne love him? Did it matter? 

But last night, that look across the fire. The feel of Colin behind him. Then he’d wrecked everything. He, Phil. Everything. 

Back at Bayleston High, Simon Halliday had been a revelation. He had magazines; you could get them in Sydney, he said. Phil had taken one home, stowed it carefully under his spring mattress. Taken it out after his parents were in bed. The building tension, the teetering on the precipice, the flood of pleasure. He finally understood what his school friends had hinted at, their shy laughing, their self-consciously ribald banter. 

Then one night he and Simon had gone for a walk through Bayleston, crossed the sportsground and entered the bushland on its edge. Phil remembers beginning to pant before they’d even stopped in the small clearing. 

Later, that farmer out at Googol: his 6.45am milk pick-up when he’d started driving tankers, when he was the new boy on the run. He’d often felt the bloke’s eyes on him and in himself that surge again, that thrill, but quickly also the trepidation, the confusion. 

Then, one winter’s day, in the pre-dawn dark, the farmer had made a move on him while he was disconnecting the hoses. A hand on his arse. He froze, felt himself harden. A second, maybe two. Then he took a ragged breath, spun around and clocked the guy. Geez, he was a married man! He had a kid on the way! He was lucky not to roll the tanker on some of those bends back to Bayleston. He asked to be changed to a different run. The supervisor had just smiled thinly, raised an eyebrow and nodded. 

He gave up on the book, put it on the bedside table. 

Colin, up close like that. Old Spice, fresh sweat. He leaned over and took a breath of Anne. Talcum powder and Oil of Ulan. He turned the lamp off, lay back and closed his eyes. 

*

A few days later, Phil walked up Colin’s drive and onto the porch, rang the doorbell. Brenda opened the door. 

‘Phil, hello! Col’s down the back. Wanna come through?’

‘No, thanks, Brenda, I’ll go round.’ 

Back down the steps and around the house. Colin was forking over a compost heap at the bottom of the yard. He turned and stopped still as Phil approached. Phil felt something come alive in him. He damped it down. For now. 

‘Col, mate.’ 

‘Phil.’ 

‘Good-lookin’ heap.’ 

Colin leaned on his fork. ‘Yeah. Just about got the balance right this year, I reckon. They say you’ve gotta add enough carbon—shredded paper or something, so it’s not just nitrogen. Otherwise, you put it on the garden and get all foliage, no flowers or fruit. So, I’m putting all the leaves in this year.’ He nodded at a pile of crisp leaves beside the compost heap. ‘And comfrey. Apparently, comfrey leaves make it rot down faster—’ 

Phil jammed his hands in his pockets. ‘Mate, the other night.’ 

Colin flicked a glance at the house. ‘Yeah, sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Not sure what got into me. I’d had a few too many.’ He turned and plunged the fork back into the compost pile. ‘Won’t happen again.’ 

Phil stepped closer. ‘No, I’m sorry.’ Colin stopped still. 

‘I could’ve handled it better.’ I could have just said yes. 

Colin turned to face him. ‘No, you’re good.’ He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. ‘Can we just, I dunno, forget it ever happened?’ 

Phil paused. ‘What if I don’t want to? I mean, forget it ever happened.’

For a moment the two looked each other in the eye. 

Up at the house, a screen door wheezed open. ‘Col! Phone call!’ Brenda yelled.

Colin paused, holding Phil’s eye. ‘I’ll catch up with you.’ 

Phil nodded. Colin put the fork down and made his way up the yard. Phil stood for a while, watching wisps of steam rising from the pile in the chill morning air. 

*

Colin backed the campervan into a space just behind the dunes, in a far corner of the camping ground. There were other campers dotted here and there—it was off-season, midweek, and the place was quiet. 

They’d left after lunch, a bit touchy and nervous with each other. A birdwatching trip to Towalla was a good ruse, Phil had thought. There were two bunks in the van, so no questions raised, no explanations required. Still, he’d brought his swag. You never knew. 

Beyond the dune the surf was pounding. Colin pulled two stubbies from the small fridge and handed one to Phil. ‘Check out the beach?’ They climbed the scrubby rise. Cresting the dune, they felt the force of the wind gusting off the water. For a while they stood and watched the waves build and crash. 

‘How’s the serenity?’ said Phil, and they both laughed. That was better. They sat down on the dune and popped the bottles. 

He took a swig, gulped it down. Colin peered at the waterline. Below them, a wave chased a small crowd of black and white birds up the wet sand and across the tideline, their legs a pink blur; then it retreated, and they turned and raced back down to sift their bills through the exposed sand. Phil turned to Colin. 

‘Oystercatchers,’ said Colin. ‘Pied oystercatchers.’ He turned to Phil and smiled. ‘Lesson one.’ 

Phil had a new interest—birdwatching. At least, that’s what he’d told Anne, and she hadn’t questioned it. Colin had suggested a couple of days on the coast. It turned out he was a seasoned ‘birder’—Phil was learning the lingo—with a special interest in shorebirds. ‘Lovely, darl; you need a hobby,’ Anne had said. She had her patchwork, which took her off to patchwork festivals or whatever they were, but he’d been at a bit of a loss lately. Anne was probably happy to get him out of the house. And you never know, he might really enjoy it. He liked birds. 

After that day, that conversation down the back of Colin’s place, they’d started dropping by each other’s yards, each other’s sheds. The visits always started with blokey enquiries about whatever projects were in progress. The clutch cable on Phil’s lawn-mower needed replacing; Colin’s nesting box was almost ready for sealing, and there was much discussion to be had about the perfect tree, the best altitude for its installation. Then, when the project in question had been milked for all opportunity for advice or help or even interest, there’d be a silence, a softening of one face or the other and a more tender enquiry. ‘And have you had any thoughts about …’ or ‘Mate, I’ve been wondering …’ 

And as well, the occasional, fleeting, almost casual, contact. Colin’s hand on Phil’s lower back as he guided him down the yard to the silky oak he was considering for the nesting box. Colin ruffling Phil’s hair before letting his hand briefly rest on his neck, pressing gently. Brief moments that Phil would relive later, feeling again the warmth, the thrill of potential. One day in his shed, Phil himself had found the nerve to reach up and squeeze Colin’s shoulder, a squeeze that turned into a gentle massage before he heard Anne open the back door, and he drew back. 

Then, one day Colin was drilling drainage holes in the base of his nesting box. It had been three weeks since the bonfire. Phil was holding the box still, and Colin’s hand brushed his as he wiped sawdust away then returned to rest gently. Phil felt the now-familiar frisson, shuddered. 

Colin must have felt it. He looked up. ‘Um, how about a short trip down Towalla way? An introduction to birdwatching kind of thing.’ 

Phil’s heart skipped. ‘Well …’ His face was turning red; he could feel the heat. ‘Sure, mate, sounds good. When were you thinking?’ 

Colin smiled. ‘Soon as possible, I reckon. Wednesday?’

And now here they were. 

*

Back at the van, Colin peeled some potatoes and put a pot of water on the cooktop to boil. ‘Bangers and mash? I’m not much of a cook, but I think I can manage bangers and mash.’ 

‘Sounds good.’ Phil had taken another stubbie and sat down on a camp chair at the table outdoors. Now they were here, he was wondering about the protocol. He got up and stood on the camper step. Took another swig. 

Afterwards, he truly couldn’t remember how it had happened, but Colin was slamming the van door closed, and the two of them had crashed through the van and dropped onto a bunk bed. Phil’s heart beat in his ears. Then Colin’s dry lips were on his. The rasp of stubble on his chin, strangely right. His hands fumbled with the buckle of Colin’s belt. Hard cock straining against denim on the back of his hand. Then the palm of his hand. Then Colin was standing up, panting. 

‘Sorry.’ He was rebuckling his belt. ‘Maybe we need to, um, I dunno, go slower?’

Phil didn’t know where to look. 

*

They ate dinner as the light faded, the crash of breakers behind the dune. Had another beer, then another. 

‘You know, mate, those years on the tankers … sometimes I was about to make a move, but then you’d do something, or say something, and I’d … well …’ Phil exhaled then laughed softly. ‘I’d be relieved I hadn’t,’ he said. 

‘Well, I was good at hiding it, wasn’t I. I had to. Hell, we all did.’ Colin took a swig of his beer. ‘I had a feeling about you too.’ 

‘Really? How?’ 

‘I dunno. Just picked up on something. Don’t you get that sometimes? But I thought, no. Too close to home.’ 

Phil laughed softly. Yeah, too close to home. But now, here they were. No rush. ‘I’ll wash up,’ he said. He picked up the plates and stepped up into the van, his body humming. 

In the kitchenette, he was alone with his thoughts. This was new territory; absent were the crazed clutchings of the truck stops. He was savouring the slow burn. And over the weeks they’d become friends. Wasn’t he friends with Anne too? He picked up the frying pan coated in congealed grease and plunged it into the sink, scrubbed at it with the scourer. He felt briefly sad for Anne, for them both. 

The floor tilted slightly, and Phil heard the door slide closed behind him. Then the tall man’s arms were around him, like that night at the fire, that warmth at his back, warm breath on his neck. He picked up the towel, dried his hands and placed them on Colin’s. 

This time he left them there. 

 *

On a grey day, Phil stood at his gate and watched Colin and Brenda move from front door to campervan and back, adding last-minute items for their trip. It looked like rain. Brenda brought out a big basket—knitting, perhaps. Colin appeared with his camera bag, glanced in Phil’s direction and paused, waved. Phil couldn’t make out his expression. He lifted his hand then busied himself with a wire tensioner at the gatepost. 

Those days at the beach. It had been weeks ago, but he felt a stirring at the thought. And more. Walking on the sand, Colin and his binoculars and camera, sitting on the dunes, getting meals together in the little kitchen, hours just talking, laughing. An understanding Phil had never felt with any friend, not with Anne. Always the surge of desire. Waking at dawn, bodies entangled. 

He felt the first spattering drops of rain. 

Packing it all up again on the third day, the quiet drive back to Garnet. Hovering between them, this intangible thing: fragile, weightless, like the bones of a bird. A wave seething over the tideline, retreating, washing back again. 

Brenda disappeared around the other side of the van, and the passenger door slammed shut. Phil held his breath as Colin paused and turned in his direction … then stepped up onto the foot-tread, swung himself into the driver’s seat and closed the door. The rain was getting harder. 

Eventually the campervan started up. The motor chugged for a minute then dropped a tone, and the van backed down the drive. Swung onto the road, lurched forward a bit and lumbered up the street. Phil lifted his hand again then dropped it. Two gear changes up then back down as the van approached the turn-off, the right indicator blinking. Stopped, paused. Then it turned onto the highway, approached the bend and was gone. 

2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlist: Issue 2