Take Cover from Tracy

Still, at least Jessie was in the Navy, realizing her childhood dream. The youngest of three girls, she had always looked up to her father, who had served in the Navy during the Pacific campaign of World War 2 and had received awards for bravery. And things were improving – albeit slowly – for women in the armed services. Several years ago, the ban on married women serving in the forces had been lifted. Not that Jessie was married, or even close to married. She didn't even currently have a boyfriend so this was of no issue to her at the moment, but it was a significant advance for her female colleagues, and perhaps even a full integrated Navy of the future, where women could serve aboard ships.

The way Harry, Beryl and Abbott were behaving served to remind Jessie that among her male colleagues there were three distinct ways she was viewed by male personnel at the base. First were the men, mainly older men, who thought there was no place in the armed services for women in any capacity. And while Jessie was not the only WRAN at the base, the other female staff members had more administrative type roles. Jessie was there to work on new communications systems and the technology some of the older men found most threatening – computers, more accurate radar and satellite communications. One of the oldest guys Tom was especially bad, and Jessie had overheard him talking to his captive audience that the arrival of the 22-year-old Third Officer Cameron with her new technology that was of no use to anybody could only spell trouble. Tom had also stated that things would only get worse when Jessie had 'the curse', another reason why women and the armed services were a bad combination. Disaster and misfortune were sure to follow.

Jessie thought that the only one to suffer any misfortune when she had her period was herself when she had cramps, bloating or felt irritable in the days before she was due to start menstruating, but obviously Tom knew more about the subject than her. Perhaps Jessie had been away sick from school that day or not been paying attention when the girls were told that periods brought bad luck? On one occasion, Jessie had passed by Tom in the corridor at the base carrying a bag that contained her feminine hygiene products that she would need to manage that part of her life for the next week. Jessie had repositioned her grip on the bag and it had come open momentarily, but long enough for Tom to see the packets of sanitary pads and tampons within and Jessie could see he was horrified. It was like Jessie had brought along an Ouija Board, an Egyptian Mummy or slain an albatross and hanged it from the roof of the base.

The second group of men were mainly – although not all – younger men, who were very happy to have Jessie at the base, but for all the wrong reasons. Jessie had overheard them talking about her good looks and physical attributes – her breasts, her bottom and her more private feminine areas between her legs. They discussed in great detail what they would like to do with her, with jokes about how they would like to take a pair of Third Officer Cameron's knickers and raise them up the flagpole.

The third group were the men who had no issue with her, treating her like a colleague and respecting her role and the base and her rank. Her superior officer was among this group which Jessie was most thankful for, but even this led to tensions. That Jessie had been granted leave over Christmas – not that she had pushed for it – led to mumbling and gossip that she was her commanding officer's pet, that she only got leave because she was nice looking or even worse that she had granted special favors to get what she wanted.

Abbott looked at Jessie again, uncertainty on his face. "But if you're in the Navy, why aren't you wearing your sailor costume?"

Beryl rolled her eyes. "Jesus Christ Abbott, what kind of a stupid bloody question is that? First, she doesn't wear a 'sailor costume', she wears a uniform. And second, she's on leave. Why would she wear a bloody uniform when she's on leave?" Beryl lit up another cigarette and turned to look at Jessie. "Sorry about my son, Abbott hasn't got a grain of common sense in his bloody head sometimes."

Once more, Abbott looked Jessie up and down, grinning a leering smile and making the young woman feel decidedly uncomfortable. "So, are you going to wear your Navy Uniform while you're staying here?" His motivation for wanting Jessie to wear her Navy uniform was clear.

"Abbott, shut up and go and watch the bloody TV!" yelled Beryl.

"Sorry once again," said Beryl, handing Jessie her room keys. "We've put you in Room 12, it overlooks the pool and I hope you like it. If you need anything just come across and see us."

"Thank you," said Jessie, taking her key and her bags and making her way to the room that would be her accommodation for the next week. There were a few cars parked at the motel and she could see a few other guests around, but it wasn't busy in any way. The motel was a U-shaped two story building with Rooms 1-20 on the ground floor, 21-40 on the upper floor. The exception was the part where reception and the office were located; this was only single story, with the section where Harry, Beryl and their family lived behind this.

Jessie let herself into the basic room and sat on the bed. It was very humid in the room and the young woman turned on the air conditioner to try and correct this. She opened the curtains to let some light into her room. The grey monsoonal clouds over Darwin greeted her, and Jessie could see the Perth-bound plane she should have been on take to the skies. Jessie felt pangs of regret at giving up Christmas with her family and friends back in Western Australia. But then if she was on the flight she would have felt badly about not giving up her seat to Helen who desperately needed to get to Perth. And Jessie could hardly have gone up to the cockpit when the plane was somewhere over Broome and ask the pilot to turn back to Darwin as she had changed her mind and wanted to give up her seat to the lady in in the airport.

One thing Jessie felt some relief about was that her family and friends were not expecting her – the trip to Perth for Christmas was meant to be a big surprise. Jessie had doubted that she would get leave approved and had told her parents and eldest sister Margaret that she doubted she would make it back to Perth. Then when it was approved, she decided to keep it a secret and surprise everyone. But as they weren't expecting her, at least they wouldn't be disappointed.

But Jessie could not help feeling bad at what she was missing out on. Spending time with her family and enjoying Christmas with them. Taking her nieces and nephew out for a drive somewhere nice, perhaps an outing to the zoo? Spending time at her favorite places in Perth – Fremantle, Cottesloe Beach, Kings Park and the Swan River Foreshore. Catching up with some of her old friends. Jessie reminded herself what was done was done and she had made her decision to stay in Darwin, and ethically it was the right one. In any case, Jessie had something else to think about now – answering the call of nature. Making her way to the bathroom, Jessie pondered if anyone else was in a similar position to her – at a loose end in Darwin for Christmas.

*

Jessie did not have the ability to see through walls nor read minds, so she could not see the tall, fit, tanned figure of Jake Bradshaw walking along the street and stopping near the crocodile sign, before turning into the motel entrance, adjusting the backpack he was carrying as he did so. Nor did she know that Jake was like her – unexpectedly stuck in Darwin for Christmas and at a loose end. However, there was one main difference in the pair's circumstances. Jessie would return to her job in the New Year. For Jake, he had no job to return to.

Jake, his fine masculine figure dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt, possessed rugged, handsome good looks that made him look something like a Matinee idol of the 1950s. He paused for a second, pushing his dark brown hair, now damp from the tropical summer rain back from his face and walked forward to the reception area.

The young man had had a bit of a walk from the bus station, where he had had a long trip up from Katherine. Jake had fallen asleep during the journey, only waking up when the bus driver roused him. The driver had also recommended this motel if Jake had wanted a place to stay. Jake had seen the vacancy sign at the front so they obviously had accommodation now. Jake hoped that they had a room free over the entire Christmas break, while he figured out what he was going to do.

Growing up on a dairy farm located in Victoria's Gippsland region to the south-east of Melbourne as the youngest of three boys, Jake had long dreamed of escaping the boring farm where nothing interesting ever happened to work as a stockman on one of the vast outback cattle stations in the Northern Territory. Jake's father, who saw Jake not as his youngest son but his lesser son, had been disparaging at best about Jake's ambitions, saying that Jake's future lay on the family farm and no cattle station would ever want him, and in the unlikely event that they did employ him, it would all end badly.

Hearing his father's negative assessments of him so often meant that Jake ended up believing them and continued to toil his life away on the family farm, but one day soon after turning 22 early in the year something inside him snapped and he packed his bags and left the cold environs of Gippsland for the Northern Territory and life as a stockman on a cattle station. Jake's authoritarian father, never a man with anything positive to say to his youngest son had sternly warned him that he would fail as he failed at everything in life.

Jake was determined to prove his father wrong and worked his guts out to succeed on the Northern Territory Cattle station where he had been for most of 1974 as an efficient and effective employee, but hard work, competency and determination ultimately proved of precious little value to Jake. In fact, 1974 had proven as good a year for Jake as it had been for the former American President Richard Nixon. Most of the other guys who worked on the station were unfriendly men, who formed a clique and saw Jake as an outsider from the Eastern States. They made it clear that they did not want Jake there, and gave him a hard time to try and hasten his departure. Nothing Jake did or said made things any better in fact they only got worse.

A month or so ago Jake had had enough of the terrible way a group of the guys treated an Italian worker employed as a cook on the station – the young Italian guy one of the few people who Jake got along with – and had called them out on their bullshit. The guys had said to Jake in response that if Jake wanted to stand up for a wog they would now treat him like a wog too. Things got really bad for him after that.

With the situation on the station now untenable culminating in a physical fight between Jake and the alpha bully, the owner reluctantly had terminated Jake's employment. The station owner, while a gruff and stern man, was reasonable and paid Jake a bonus on top of his last wages and wrote him a glowing reference. His advice upon driving Jake to the nearest stop to catch the bus first to Katherine and then on to Darwin was that while Jake would make an excellent stockman, it was never going to happen at this station.

So Jake had money – at least for now – and a good reference, but no idea of what his next step would be as he walked up to the motel reception door and pushed it open.

Like Jessie before him, Jake was met by the blaring television set, noisy air-conditioners and the foul smell of Harry, Abbott and Dwayne's cigarette smoking. One thing Jessie and Jake had in common was that they did not smoke, so Jake found the smell fairly obnoxious. And again like with Jessie, Harry failed to look up from his newspaper and Abbott and Dwayne from the television.

"Hello?" Jake called, struggling to make himself heard over the noise, none of the three men seeming to hear or notice him.

Jake rang the bell, and then Harry looked up from the paper. "I'll get my wife for you," he said, before turning and calling out, "Beryl, there's a guy at reception."

"Oh for God's sake Harry, can't you serve him your bloody self, I'm busy," Beryl complained as she emerged from the office clearly in a bad mood, her face like thunder but she stopped short when she saw how handsome the young man at reception was with his dark brown hair, brown eyes, rugged features and fine physique. Her facial expression changed within seconds from frowning to a brilliant smile.

"Hi, how can I help you today?" Beryl gushed, twirling her red hair in one of her fingers.

Jake, who was wondering if instead of a motel this was a madhouse, said, "I was hoping to rent a room for a few nights, that's if you have any."

"Yes, of course we have rooms, we have lots of rooms," said Beryl. "I'll put you in Room 13, I hope you're not superstitious or anything. Don't worry, the ceiling won't collapse on you or anything."

"No, I'm not superstitious," said Jake.

Beryl handed Jake a form and a pen to complete his details, but as he filled out the paperwork he could feel the older woman's eyes upon him, checking him out with a complete lack of discretion. He was concerned that Harry might become jealous of his wife openly flirting with a guest while he was sitting right there, but Harry seemed totally indifferent, simply reading his newspaper.

"Visiting family or friends in Darwin for Christmas?" Beryl asked.

"No, just passing through," said Jake, the young man pausing as he reached the address part of the form. With no other options, Jake wrote the address of his parents' farm in Gippsland, although he sure as hell didn't want to live there again.

"Oh, you're from Victoria, how interesting," gushed Beryl, the woman lighting up a cigarette and taking a big puff, exhaling a smoke ring. "We've got people staying from all over Australia at the moment. Just a little a while ago I checked in a girl from Perth. She's staying in the room next to you, as it happens."

Jake wasn't particularly interested in some girl from Perth he'd never met and feigned a polite smile, then Beryl said, "Speak of the devil, here comes the Perth girl now."

Casting a casual glance behind himself, Jake suddenly became a lot more interested in the girl from Perth as Jessie entered the reception area. The beautiful blonde dressed in her pink tee-shirt and tight blue jeans was a sight to behold, and something about her made Jake's heart race. "Wow!" was all the young man could think. Maybe staying here over Christmas had one advantage at least?

"Oh Jessie, this is Jake, he'll be staying in the room next to you," said Beryl.

"Hi Jake, nice to meet you," said Jessie politely, extending her hand to Jake. The young woman could not help but admire the young man's sultry good looks and great body, and felt her unmistakable excitement in the most private feminine area of her body.

"Nice to meet you too Jessie," said Jake, the young man feeling a warm fuzzy feeling running through his body as he shook hands with Jessie, a tingle going down his spine at the feel of her and intertwined with his own.

"So Jessie, everything okay with your room?" Beryl asked.

While the room was undeniably basic, Jessie was not expecting a five star hotel and everything was fine. Except for one thing that was lacking, possibly the most important thing. When Jessie had gone into the bathroom to answer the call of nature, she had been greeted by a toilet roll holder containing an empty cardboard tube with no toilet paper. A quick look around had failed to locate any spare toilet rolls, so the frustrated young woman had no choice but to head over to reception to ask for more toilet paper.

"Just one thing, could I please get some toilet paper? There's none in my bathroom," said Jessie.

"There should be," said Beryl, looking puzzled.

"There isn't," Jessie assured her, hoping Beryl would get her a roll of loo paper rather than debate the issue with her or try to solve the mystery of why Room 12 was out of toilet paper.

Beryl turned to her sons. "Abbott and Dwayne, did you clean Room 12 like your father and I told you this morning?"

"Yeah," said Abbott.

"Then why is this young lady here now saying that her room is out of toilet paper?" Beryl demanded.

"Dunno, it was Dwayne who cleaned the dunny, I cleaned the shower," said Abbott.

"Am I supposed to remember every little thing?" Dwayne asked resentfully, a sulky expression on the teenager's face.

"No, I do not expect you to remember every little thing," snapped Beryl. "Only big important things, like when you and your brother are cleaning out a room, that you check that it has toilet paper. You're a useless pair of galahs, both of you." Beryl pointed at Jessie. "This poor girl needs to go to the toilet, and she can't because there's no loo paper in her room."

"Not our fault," grumbled Dwayne.

"Yeah, how were we to know that she'd rent the room, and that she'd need to go to the loo?" agreed Abbott.

"Of course Jessie would need to go to the toilet!" screeched Beryl. "She's human, isn't she? Jesus Christ, are you mentally retarded? Get off your arse Abbott, and get Jessie a roll of toilet paper. Now Abbott, or I'll get your father to kick you up the bum! Isn't that right, Harry?"

Harry did not look up from his newspaper, but said, "Yeah, like you're Mum said I'll kick you up the bum."

Jessie simply stood there, her face flushing red as she contemplated where this ranked among the most embarrassing experiences of her life. It was certainly up there with the time Jessie was in high school and went on a school camp to Rottnest Island, becoming seasick on the voyage across from Fremantle and throwing up all over a family sitting near the door when she was unable to make it outside in time to vomit over the side of the ferry.

Sighing dramatically, Abbott got up from the sofa and vanished into an adjoining room, returning a few seconds later with a roll of toilet paper, which he tossed at Jessie. "There you go," he said.

"Oh, don't just chuck the poor girl's toilet paper at her, give it to her properly," snapped Beryl.

"She caught it, what bloody difference does it make?" grumbled Abbott.

"I'll just – um – go back to – um, my room now," said Jessie shyly, the young woman blushing bright red as she made her exit carrying the roll of toilet paper.

Jessie was not the only person present who was embarrassed. Jake had wished he could fade away into invisibility at the scene he was witness to, and he felt so sorry for the pretty blonde girl.

Beryl handed Jake his room keys. "Here you go Jake, I hope you enjoy the stay. For breakfast or other meals, the pub across the road is really good. Remember, if there's anything wrong with your room like no loo paper thanks to the two useless spastic sons of mine, just come and see me. Come and see me any time, any time at all, nothing is too much trouble."

"Yes, um thank you," said Jake, feeling most awkward as he collected his belongings and made his way to Room 13. He could feel Beryl's eyes upon him shamelessly checking out his fit physique as he walked away, and once more he hoped that Harry wasn't the jealous type. But again, Harry was completely consumed by the race meeting results in the newspaper, and could not have cared less about his wife's flirting and voyeurism of a man young enough to be their son.

Casting a glance backwards, he could see Beryl was making a telephone call but was dialing the number while still staring at him. Either Beryl would have to know the position of the numbers on the dial by touch, or she risked calling a wrong number, possibly a long distance one.