AGNETHA

I wrote this in 1984, long before I thought of writing. I remember listing to Cold Chisel’s Flame Trees and writing it down.

His car hadn’t moved in the tunnel for twenty minutes. He assumed there was an accident or roadworks up ahead, so he sat patiently, listening to the radio and tapping his steering wheel in time with the music.

Gridlock had become a normal part of Matt Maclean’s everyday existence. It hadn’t always been that way, but for the past year the city traffic had ground at his soul like an old watermill. Nothing urgent or stifling—just the slow wearing away of the stone of resistance.

As he waited, he longed for an earlier time. A time when his spirit was lifted by an ethereal vitality that coursed through his being and made him feel whole. Now he was merely a shell, passing through the drudge of his day like water through a sieve.

He longed to be in the country again—alive and assured. In the city he was alone, drifting through time and space. Never waking beside someone who understood him. Never feeling the whisper of the first breath of morning. Never sharing intimate moments of languid solitude.

He emerged from the road tunnel, already late for his first appointment.

Suddenly a fleeting memory crossed his mind. Something about a Friday in the middle of September. He had to do something—he knew it. From deep in his subconscious a message was being sent to the surface. Some long-forgotten memory was being activated by his body clock.

He grabbed the knot of his tie and loosened it until it no longer served its purpose but sat like a loose scarf. He racked his brain for a second glimpse, but the thought remained malformed.

Then it appeared again, like the sudden flash of a film negative across the back of his eyes. The intensity of the image made him swerve the car before he steadied the wheel.

A vision formed that brought a wide smile to his lips.

A brilliant clarity removed the fog as the image solidified from a ghostly hue into something so real that it felt as though he were looking directly into his own mind.

An image of a year past.

A fleeting glimpse of a promise he had made a year ago but had not recalled until that very moment.

The middle weekend of September.

A date in a distant country town.

A date with a woman he had met only once.

He hadn’t even caressed her properly—just a stolen kiss before he retreated into his world and left hers to those who belonged.

He cursed the futility of his memory. He would have been better off not remembering.

If his recollection was correct, he was supposed to meet her for dinner at the Burranga pub at eight o’clock.

He’d have to move if he were to make it on time. It was an eight-hour drive.

He laughed at the prospect and turned up the radio as sanity returned.

He decided he should ring ahead and tell his client that he’d be late. He tapped the numbers into his phone and heard the rasp as it dialled out.

“Mason Jackson. Louise speaking,” a reedy voice mumbled.

“Matt Maclean, Lou. I’m running late for my appointment with Jack. Can you let him know?”

“I’d love to, Matt, but he hasn’t arrived either. When will you get here?”

“Twenty minutes or so.”

“I’ll let him know.” She paused. “Peter wants a word. He’ll take the call at his desk. I’ll place you on hold for a second.”

Despite the car’s air conditioning, a cold sweat beaded as a song began to play through his stereo speakers.

He recognised it instantly.

Can’t Wait for September.

He hadn’t heard the track in years, yet there it was—Pyramid’s old seventies anthem drifting out of the speakers as though it had been waiting for him.

This had to be an omen. Too coincidental to ignore the timing of events. It was as if fate had decided to call the heathen to heel.

Why today?

He listened as the song ground out its story of anticipation and lost love.

Then the music cut abruptly as Peter Corda came on the line.

“Sorry for being so long, Matt, but Jack just called in to say he’s broken down. He doesn’t know how long it’ll be. Can you reschedule?”

“Sure. I’ll call when I get back to the office.”

Matt ended the call and turned up the radio.

Not his station.

He hit the auto-search button and listened as it leapt from static to static. The scan paused for a moment, moved on, paused again.

Then the song burst back across the airwaves.

Matt listened to the rest of it, tapping the steering wheel and singing along with the chorus.

Too much, he thought. Too many coincidences for one day.

He pressed another number.

“Maclean Holdings, Janet speaking.”

“Matt, Janet. I won’t be in today.”

“Something wrong?” she asked, genuine concern in her voice.

“’Fraid so. Don Quixote kidnapped me. He’s forcing me to drive off into the sunset.”

“What are you talking about, Matt?”

“Stupidity,” he said. “I’ll see you Monday.”

*

It was past midday when Matt stopped for fuel in Orange. In his mind a battle raged between absurdity and common sense.

Common sense currently had the upper hand, and he contemplated turning around and heading home.

But absurdity forced him onward—past the mundane and into the unknown.

He thought of it as living.

Living.

This wasn’t living. This was trying to keep the air conditioning cool enough to overwhelm the sun beating through the windscreen. This was sweltering despite the spring air. This was an inane search for something he hadn’t even lost.

After all, he hadn’t contacted her in a year.

He didn’t even know her phone number.

He had met her during a fragile moment and tried his luck.

What was he doing now, driving toward the western plains?

He remembered she was an agrobiologist. She might not even be in town. She could be anywhere in the world, let alone Australia.

And if she were in town—what then?

Would she remember him?

Probably not.

At best, a faint recollection of someone who hadn’t taken advantage when he might have. Perhaps a fleeting scintilla of remembrance about an honourable moment.

He doubted it.

*

By the time he reached Dubbo the thoughts that encircled him like a shroud had turned to razor wire. He was six hours from home and still heading west.

He stopped at a small shopping centre to stretch his legs.

He was hungry, thirsty and tired. His deodorant had long since given up. His shirt was stained with perspiration and his feet ached.

He shook his head in disbelief at the sheer folly of what he was doing.

Common sense surged again.

He would stop. Book into a motel. Return home in the morning.

He cruised the highway looking for a vacancy sign when another wave of nostalgia struck.

What if she was in town?

What if she remembered him?

What would she think?

He switched on the radio and found a local FM station running a string of one-hit wonders.

He paid no attention until his subconscious caught the melody.

He hadn’t heard the verse—only the chorus—but that was enough.

Flame Trees…

Her face appeared in his mind as clearly as if she stood before him.

Those pale blue eyes, looking at him quizzically, just as they had when he recited the lyrics to her like a poem.

He remembered her smile.

And that transient look one feels more than sees. The look that signifies unmistakable chemistry. The look that cannot be forced or corrupted. The one true emotion.

He saw her again, standing in the doorway. Her black dress clinging sensuously like a second skin. Her pale skin and long blonde hair intensifying the quiet electricity she carried.

He had been enthralled simply by seeing her.

When she spoke, the velvet softness of her Nordic accent had sounded like a lullaby.

He had wanted to take her into the night and hold her forever.

But reality had intervened.

Now it was intervening again.

He passed the sign for Narromine.

The sun was sliding slowly toward the western horizon when Matt squinted at the sign on the edge of town.

The main highway now bypassed the small community, and Maclean could see the results as he drove along the main street.

Where he remembered a pristine environment sustained by civic pride, weeds cracked the pavement. The stream feeding the weir was choked with debris. Both bank buildings were closed, their once-clean windows caked red with months of blown dust.

The railway station was a rusted hulk.

He reversed into a parking space outside the Burranga Hotel Motel—Considine’s Pub, as the locals called it.

The pub, the only two-storey building in town, bowed beneath the ravages of time. Its lacework balustrades were rusted and torn like shattered dreams. Corrugated iron flapped like sails in the wind, emitting an eerie shriek as nails strained in the timber. The veranda boards were grey and rotten.

Matt stepped inside.

Four faces looked up.

Five o’clock on a Friday afternoon—and four faces.

He shook his head in disbelief.

The final shards of sunlight reflected on the ghost gums beside the weir. Matt had always liked this place, where a trickle of water slipped over the moss-covered concrete of the retaining wall.

Now it felt melancholy.

The weir, like the town, seemed to be dying.

Matt picked up a small stone and let it slide from his fingers. It bounced twice before disappearing into the water, sending widening circles across the mirrored reflections of the streetlights.

I could do four once, he thought.

“Maca, you old bastard. What are you doing here?”

Maclean turned.

“Jonesy? You are still alive?”

David Jones laughed and wrapped him in a bear hug.

“What a sight for sore eyes! Let me look at you.”

They stood back, grinning.

“You look great, mate. What’re you doing here?”

Maclean remembered rule three. Never say her name. And lied.

“Just passing through. Thought I’d look the old place over.”

*

Hours later, the pub roared with life.

Every woman wore black. Every man wore a suit.

The entire town seemed to have squeezed inside the dying building.

Matt drifted through the crowd, smiling politely, feeling strangely detached.

These people were alive. They lived in a town that was dying—but tonight their spirits soared.

It was a balmy night, and the small town was serene in its stillness.  Nothing moved along the main street at all.  It appeared as though the entire town was packed into the hotel.  Women in black dresses, men in suits, everybody pissed.  A fitting end, he thought.

            Eventually he slipped away from the noise and pushed through the door into the quiet street.

The night air wrapped around him.

He figured that Dubbo was just over two hours’ drive.  He’d make it after ten, but some motel would have its reception open on a Friday night.  Tomorrow the drive home would be shorter.  He slid his key into the car’s door lock and had one final look at the hotel.

Agnetha stood in the doorway.

Her black dress clung to her like a second skin.

When she spoke, her voice was as soft as a lullaby.

“Does this mean you aren’t taking me to dinner?”