Lorraine's journey down under (After He Left Me Book 1) by Murray Bert & Fahrie Phyllis

Author:Murray, Bert & Fahrie, Phyllis [Murray, Bert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-12-27T08:00:00+00:00

8

The Night at The Terrace Cafe

That night at the terrace cafe, stars were everywhere. Each one clear and distinct and so close and so many at once. The Milky Way, all-aglow, seemed to be on its way down to her.

The music was completely new and refreshing, didgeridoo and clap sticks and the long drum with the lizard skin stretched across the top, and the pod filled with seeds that made a great rattle.

Luigi was feeling sorry for himself because he could not go to Cairns with Lorraine. It was her next stop. “How I’d like to join you. But it would be a disaster. The Dean who doles out the travel money expects me back,” he said. “It will be back to correcting student papers very soon for me, I’m afraid.”

Lorraine considered whether she should tell Luigi how much she would miss him on the rest of her trip. She thought it might send the wrong message.

There was a little demonstration beginning at the bandstand. An Aboriginal musician, a long, thin man with coarse, red curly hair, dressed in bright glittery pants and shirt, surely not a native costume, was using clap sticks. First single claps of equal lengths, then doubles with time between them. Then he sang, the wooden claps accompanying him.

Luigi whispered into her ear, “Terrible to lose Cairns. Ah, if we could go around Cape Tribulation.” He was caught up in a melancholy rhapsody of places neither one of them was going to see. “Once I start traveling, I want to keep going. My spirit wants to continue to soar. Do you understand? I love to travel. But you must know that about me by now.”

Lorraine smiled. “Yes, it is such a beautiful country, Australia. What you told me on the plane is so true. I understand now.”

Luigi’s arm held her in a little tight circle and somehow that seemed fine tonight as the musician sang in a language she could not understand. Lorraine felt she could not keep fending off Luigi’s small moves indefinitely. She decided she would give him this little bit on such a night. He seemed to have a naturally affectionate nature. That made it harder for her to completely hold back.

The beat of the sticks matched the syllables the musicians sang, sometimes repeating them, sometimes synchronizing. Then the singer sounded calls and trills, and the music stopped altogether.

The quiet now told her how completely the singing and sticks had permeated the space around them. She had not felt this peaceful in a long time. The breeze was cool and sweet and fresh. Luigi’s beard was brushing up and down her cheek. Another musician came in with his didgeridoo.

“Oh, Cairns!” Luigi’s face looked as if the loss were more than he could take. “The Queensland sun as good as a gold rush. You’ll be playing on twelve hundred and fifty miles of reef, while my boots trudge the brown slush of New York, my fingers almost frozen because of the holes in my gloves.

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