CABLE BEACH - WAS IT LOVE?

I wrote this at a time when I was trying to produce, with the help of my son Matt, something a bit better than the journal entries he categorised as 'dull'. I wrote the normal entries whenever we travelled, but thought I might try another approach. This bit was written back in 1993.

Cable Beach has to be one of the most remote holiday resorts in the world. Twenty kilometres outside Broome, it is about equidistant from Singapore and Perth and is 10 hours travelling time from Melbourne. That makes it only just over half way between Zurich and Sydney and perhaps that is why Emanuel Fischer chose it.

We first saw the old man at breakfast, with a swarthy, younger woman. She was in a swimming costume over which fluorescent pink shorts were meant to provide a modicum of modesty. Dripping in jewellery, smoking heavily, she ministered to his every need. Mindful of Rose Hancock and Lang, we assumed she was a Filipina trophy bride. And nothing we saw during the rest of the day changed that view.

On the same tour as them to the pearl farm at Willie Creek, we could observe her fairly closely. They kept the bus waiting at the hotel, but eventually the old man tottered into view, followed by his consort, still dressed in the same outfit. She had some lunch for him - in a plastic box - because, like everything else in Broome, the timing of the tour was not really convenient. "Slip into Broome time" is the local civic motto  - "Slip a cog in your timing" might be more realistic.

As we barrelled along the ochre dirt road heading north for the farm, the woman complained about the coldness of the airconditioning. With an outside temperature in the mid 30's, the rest of us were happy to be cool in the bus for an hour or two. She was voted down - "If she wore more clothes, she wouldn't be so cold" someone muttered. The old man dozed off and she sat there, annoyance in every line of her body, staring at the no smoking sign.

At the farm, we all ambled down to the jetty and stood at the waters edge while the manager gave us the spiel about the history of pearling and pearl farming. These are dangerous waters. There is a nine meter tide in Broome, which is one of the reasons for the success of pearl farming in the area, but it also gives rise to some very dangerous currents in the mouths of the creeks. Added to which is the ever present spectre of salt water crocodiles, two of which had been seen in the area recently. So, as the Willie Creek swirled by below us, the tide having turned some hours previously, I kept a weather eye on the old boy, who seemed to be standing awfully close to the edge of the pier. He shuffled forward out of the danger zone to look at one of the oysters, and I felt happier.

At the homestead, the woman sat her charge in the shade and barged her way through the patient queue, waiting to be fed and watered, to collect a cold glass of water for herself and one for the old man. When the action moved across to the rotunda where we were given a demonstration of half shell seeding, she found him a seat to watch the action. This did not suit him though and, to her obvious annoyance, he stood beside the guide as he operated on the unfortunate mollusc.

Later, in the room of the homestead where the pearls were kept for sale to the tourists, at tourist prices, we watched as she chose a pair of expensive earrings for which he paid without a murmur.

The journey back on the bus was much the same as the one out to the farm, with the woman again demanding a higher temperature on the bus and the rest of the passengers, resisting this rather more firmly. We stopped to have a look at a bower bird's nest. In keeping with the awful drabness of the bush in the Kimberley, the local bower bird decorates his nest with shells and rusted beer pulls, rather than the shiny, glittery items fancied by his southern counterpart. We reckoned the woman came from the south.

Later that evening, as we sat on the lawn in front of our bungalow, enjoying the incredible sight of the southern stars spread like an enormously beautiful neon sign over our heads, a tape started in our neighbouring apartment and voices started to sing. We could not make it out at first. It sounded Russian - or was it Yiddish? Again and again it was sung, becoming clearer as the voices became more confident. Slowly we could make out some of the words of the chant. "German refugee" .. "butcher from Berlin".. " Australian musicman"... "Emanuel, Emanuel". The song stopped. Puzzled, we finished our sundowners and went in for a shower before dinner.

As we left for the restaurant, the song burst out again, louder and clearer than before. The storm shutters were open in the adjacent bungalow and we could see the old man, dressed in his white tropical tuxedo, as his family serenaded him with a parody of one of his most famous songs for his eightieth birthday. By his side was his favourite child, his youngest, his dark haired daughter, wearing her new pearl earrings.