Learmonth

It’s the middle of winter and it’s ninety-three degrees. We’ve been boxed inside a MacRobertson Miller Airlines Fokker Friendship for the best part of a day, only to end up in the middle of nowhere. It’s Thursday, the 8th of June 1967, and I’m just seven years old.

Dad’s here to meet us. Dressed in boots and shorts and checkered shirt, he stands beside the small corrugated-iron shed they call a terminal. But for a half a dozen old cars and a few other men, there’s nothing else to see. Only bush. Bush, bush and more bush. Bush everywhere you look. But it’s not green bush, bush like we might find back home. It’s mostly brown, with maybe just a few flecks of red. It reminds me of the cabinet that sits at the back of Granny’s kitchen.

All the men are dressed like Dad. They, like Dad, are waiting for their families to step off the aeroplane and onto the tarmac, to step off the gangplank and into this rusty tinderbox we now call home. They’re all waving, but not at us. It’s to keep away the flies.

I’m slow to descend the steps. Wary of heights, I grip the handrail tightly and, waiting for Mum, I move gingerly from one step to the next. Not my little brother. Although Nicky’s only two himself, he takes the steps two at a time. He’s the first of us to hit the tar and, running hell for leather, he barrels towards the dad he hasn’t seen in months.

‘Da! Da! That’s my da!’ he yells. Dad dips to one knee to welcome him. But Nicky trips, tumbles, falls flat. He rises, his face now covered in blood, his joyful tears now tears of shock and pain. His cries raise the dust.

A first-aid kit appears and Dad, handy in all emergencies, patches up the grazes and wipes away the tears. Now it’s time for laughs and hugs. For Mum, it’s time for kisses of a special sort. As they cuddle away, Nicky and I tangle ourselves between their legs. Nicky pulls at Dad’s shirt.

‘Da! Da!’ he says. ‘Pick me up! Pick me up!’

His jumping seems endless.

Finally, Dad does as he’s told. He lifts Nicky to his hip then introduces Mum to Bernt and Anke. The Fischers, Dad says, have come to the airstrip just to meet her. They’re immigrants like us, Dad says, and European like us. And, just like us, they’ve come to Exmouth because this is where the work is. But they’re not exactly like us, Dad says. They’re from West Germany. And Bernt doesn’t work on the navy base with the Americans like Dad does. He works in town, as a tradie. I ask what a tradie does. The four of them laugh and Mum and Bernt and Anke shake hands. Apart from Nicky’s little accident, we’re off to a good start, I reckon.

We wait for the trolley of bags and cases to come from the plane. We’re travelling light, most of our stuff’s coming by road, and Mum and Dad let me carry the cases. We head towards the dirty white station wagon Dad has borrowed for the day.

‘Pile in!’ Dad says, and he lets me and Nicky climb in the back with the cases. Mum and Dad are up front, with the Fischers plonked in behind them. It takes us over half an hour to reach town. Dad has left the window at the back of the car down and Nicky and I can smell the heat coming off the road. We get our faces whipped by the wind all the way.