Short story: Bokarina, by Breton Dukes

2026-02-13 - 17:09

That choked menacing gargle the crows made. The heat. Early in the morning the hot sun already high. Nights, they came on fast, plunging down around them. Dead grass everywhere. That or homeowners just went over where their lawns would be with astro-turf. Freeways in every direction. Strips, endless commercial strips, of huge shopping malls, of petrol stations, funeral homes, surf shops, fast food outlets – Red Rooster, Happy Jacks – shops that dealt in swimming pools, in fitness equipment, pet stores, sex stores, health hubs with great lists of all the services offered, car yards. Two lanes of traffic, then four, then two again. Crows wheeling. Cockatoos. Lines of traffic. Heat off the roads, off the buildings, off the vehicles. Dust. Tanned men in big cars with tight haircuts. Hairy shouldered men in singlets. Women with white teeth. Beautiful women in crop tops, in snug exercise gear. September school holidays. The lucky country’s Sunshine Coast. Buderim was where their Airbnb was, Mooloolaba beach just up the coast, in the opposite direction from where they were headed for dinner. “Bokarina,” said Lachlan, giving it the drawl. Beside him, Kelly bounced back with “Gidday mate,” glancing at her phone. “Fair dinkum,” went Lachlan, looking in the rear vision mirror at Cole, their eleven-year-old. Cole looked, but stayed quiet. His face as usual totally closed off. “How far Mum?’ “Nine minutes buddy,” said Kelly. Their third night of five, over from Dunedin. Kelly had booked the restaurant – Boca, modern Southern Italian, family oriented, a seafood heavy menu – in Bokarina. Instead of a 50th in Dunedin, they’d all agreed a holiday somewhere warm would be the ticket and tonight, as Kelly had said more than a few times today, was party time. Lachlan braked lightly, allowing a larger car into his lane. At home he drove an SUV, but the car he kept secret from Kelly was similar to this one. Compact. White. Very few features. Fuel efficient. Roads across Australasia – probably the world – were thick with them. His, right now, was parked in a favourite spot on the town belt. Spare clothes in the boot. Sportswear – an All Blacks hoodie with matching baseball cap. His theory on disguise was wearing clothes totally different to what you normally wore. And your walk, the way you held yourself – make that stuff different too. “How are we doing?” he now asked Kelly. She shifted in her seat and he got a hit of her perfume. Floral, nuanced. Her bare knees down by the little mechanical handbrake. Like her he wore shorts, the pair she’d bought him for his birthday last year. For our favourite golfer, she’d written in the card. She could draw well and alongside the birthday wishes, she’d done a little picture of him leaning on his driver, bent over, teeing up a ball. They had a zip fly, buttons for the top flap and room for a belt. Navy blue cotton, cut to sit just above the knee. For ten years, she thought he golfed every Saturday morning at St Clair. “Five more kilometres, then a left, then a bit more. Not long,” she said. “Great, great,” said Lachlan, looking again in the rear vision mirror at where Cole watched, stone-faced. What they’d decided was that for the holiday’s duration the trouble they were having with Cole would be left in Dunedin. Kelly turned back towards the windscreen, but then pointed at her window, talking back at Cole. “Coles,” she said, “look Cole,” gesturing at a large sign for the supermarket chain on a pole, high against the blue Queensland sky. Cole looked, but stayed quiet. Lachlan drove on, his hands light on the wheel. Ahead were traffic lights that went orange to red and he brought them up smoothly at the intersection, shifting his hand to his wife’s thigh. “Alright?” he asked. Something different was on her phone – not the map – and now she looked over at him. “Work emails,” she said. “Argh,” he went, keeping it light and cartoonish. Day one they’d flown into Brisbane, got the car, and then driven to Australia Zoo. They all got one choice and salt water crocodiles had been Cole’s. Reptilian killing machines. Middle of the day in the stadium-like Crocoseum. Brawny zoo keepers luring beasts out of a swimming pool with dead chickens. The show began with whirling parrots, a man on a didgeridoo, and two attractive Aussies in wide-brimmed Akubra hats talking about looking after the environment, about Steve Irwin. Then they played a Bee Gees track and tried to get tourists from the different countries up and dancing. “Now the Kiwis!” “Now anyone from Asia!” After it was over, after they’d stayed on, watching the reptile disappear down its watery shoot, Kelly, without any discussion with Lachlan, had gone to the gift store and brought Cole his own zoo-keeper’s outfit. The lights went green. Lachlan pressed down on the accelerator. It was 4.20pm – their dinner reservation was for 4.45pm. Early due to ongoing jet lag. Cole had been asleep by 7pm every night – reason enough to cross the Tasman! Not that Kelly and Lachlan had been doing much better. The house Kelly had arranged was on a suburban street three streets in from the long strip of shops and stuff. There was a decked outdoor area with mouldy outdoor furniture. There was a deep cool pool both Cole and Lachlan had been using that afternoon. Up a noisy metal internal staircase there was a large master bedroom which had matching sinks, a large shower, dual shower heads, and a standalone bath raised up off the floor. “The Aquaduck tomorrow,” said Kelly, turning, putting her head between the seats. Lachlan watched his son in the rear vision mirror. He looked at his mother, but didn’t speak. “Sealife and then the Aquaduck,” added Lachlan. Cole stared, his lovely mouth set terribly straight. “Eh, cobber?” went Lachlan. “How long now?” went Cole. Kelly turned back, settling herself in her seat. Then, as she sighed in a contented way that Lachlan understood meant she was upset by Cole’s lifeless mode, around the car suddenly was awful noise and then bikies. Leather vests. Swastika tattoos. German-style helmets, wraparound sunglasses. Cars braked, cars swerved. The bikes though, they went on, knifing through. “Hell,” went Kelly. “Strewth,” went Lachlan, checking his son in the mirror who’d gone back to looking out at the different shops, the lanes of traffic. Lachlan’s other son lived in Auckland with Cat, his ex. Edgar. He’d be fifteen. Cole’s half-brother who Cole and Kelly didn’t even know about. Fifteen years ago, heavily pregnant, without any sort of warning, Cat got up in the middle of the night, quietly loaded their station wagon with kitchen equipment, with bedding, with Lachlan’s coffee table, and disappeared, giving Lachlan up to the cold Antarctic winds that battered Dunedin that whole winter. “How long Mum?” “Turn left in three hundred metres,” went Kelly, and then, an echo, the robot on her phone made the same announcement. “Jinx,” went Cole. “Double jinx,” went Kelly. “Personal jinx,” went Cole. Lachlan looked in the mirror and Cole was smiling. On the first day at the zoo, he’d smiled a few times too! Lachlan subdued the urge to make a fuss of it, instead tapping lightly on the steering wheel, humming the happy birthday song. Surveillance. If you had one word to describe what Lachlan did. Used that extra car to follow Kelly around on Saturdays when it was just her and Cole and she thought he was at golf – he’d brought home three different golf sets over the years, then returned them to the Golf Factory the next day, telling Kelly he kept them in a locker with his golf shoes at the club he’d never set foot in. Got up every night, on the dot at 3am, and went through her purse, the pockets of her clothes, her phone, her computer. Where possible staked out her office at lunchtime. Sunday afternoons – when she thought he was meeting Eric, Eric who’d died twelve years ago – he went down to her office and used the key he’d copied from the original, making a thorough check there. Kept at least one eye always on her bank account. No surprises. You could also describe what Lachlan did that way. He loved Kelly, he loved Cole. It was a marriage. They talked, they shared themselves. Once a month Kelly’s mum babysat and they went to different restaurants where they made plans for trips like this one, where they held hands and had a glass of wine and worried about Cole, trying to keep it practical, trying to remain positive. “Here, left up here,” Kelly now said and she must have muted the navigation bot, because no instructions came out of her phone. “Not far now,” she said, turning to Cole. Lachlan indicated and turned them off the main road. This new road was wide, neatly maintained. A hundred or so metres ahead there was a roundabout. Against the skyline three construction cranes were wading birds. Massive unfinished apartment buildings. At ground level parkland, eucalyptus trees, a bird like a pukeko. A sign here too: Bokarina Beach. “How are you feeling birthday boy?” went Kelly. “Fantastic,” said Lachlan. “Dad?” went Cole. Coming up on the roundabout Lachlan went, “Where to here?” “Straight on.” “Roger that.” “Dad?” Cole said. Lachlan dropped his speed, sitting forward slightly, coasting through, and then slowing as they came up on a speed bump. A sign beside the road for the local high school, fundraising for a trip to Kyoto. “Dad?” “Yeah?” went Lachlan, holding the wheel more tightly now. Cole’s head broke the gap between the two front seats, his long hair smelling faintly of chlorine. “If you had to kill both me and mum, who would you choose to do first?” Sweat broke across Lachlan’s back. “Cole,” went Kelly. “Dad?” went Cole. Lachlan’s gut rolled. “Left here I’m guessing.” “Left,” went Kelly. Bottom line, as long as what happened with Cat never happened again, Lachlan would get through. “Further,” said Cole, entering what Lachlan and Kelly tried to lighten by calling ‘professor mode’, “How would you do it, and what tool would you use?” Today, in terms of mouth ulcers, Lachlan had three on the tip of his tongue, one large one inside his lower lip, a constellation of four on his lower gum. One almost the length of sinew that joined his tongue to his mouth. Another thing no one knew about. Talking hurt, same with eating and breathing. Vigilance, they served as a good reminder. Also, how he needed to appear nothing more or less than normal. Feather light then, he remarked, “I would never hurt either of you.” “Daddy wouldn’t do anything like that,” said Kelly, and then, trying to wriggle them all out from underneath it, “Wow, look at this place!?” They’d rounded a corner and suddenly, a mountain range, the new apartment buildings had appeared. The new ones and beyond them the taller bitten into, unfinished ones. Their cranes. Lachlan slowed the car, looking up the face of the finished buildings. Huge, curved, glittering in the late afternoon sun. He imagined lap pools on the rooves, well equipped gyms. Breakfast bars with leather bar stools. He imagined a pearl-white pill prescribed for Cole by a leading Queensland psychiatrist. Something newly developed to straighten all this out. And from there he thought of the Viagra he’d needed since Cat left, then of course his mind wheeled into fucking Kelly in a place like this! Salt and sun on their bodies from the beach. The rhythmic shimmering of their bodies in brand spanking new chrome fittings. Noise up from the retail area – tables of beautiful Aussies giggling over Champagne. “Boca, there, on the corner,” went Kelly, leaning across Lachlan, pointing. Tables on the pavement shaded by umbrellas emblazoned with, yes, a Champagne brand Lachlan knew. Two tables of diners. A waitress working through with a pitcher of water. The restaurant itself opened confidently onto the pavement. High ceilinged. Smart casual. A bar in the middle. A till near the pavement. With the way his own childhood had played out, Lachlan liked nothing more than a little luxury. He brought the car around the restaurant, slotting into a park directly opposite. They all got out. Between them and the restaurant an inflated medical glove bobbled by on the warm breeze. And though he noticed Kelly noticing, neither of them said anything about it. * “Okay, well, lovely,” said Kelly. They’d ordered drinks. Champagne for the adults, Sprite for Cole, and then when the waitress came with the drinks, Kelly had said, “You know what? I think we’re ready to order.” And now with the menus no longer between them, with Cole gone off to the bathroom, it was just the two of them, their chilled flutes, the bubbles within. Kelly wearing the tight expression she used when she was being careful not to get emotional. Lachlan took her hand. She smiled sadly, then set her face, concentrating on her drink. “Happy Birthday,” she said, holding up her glass. He raised his and tipping on a slight angle, they brought the glasses together. “This is really nice,” went Lachlan. But Kelly didn’t seem to hear. “Hmm,” went Lachlan, sipping the wine. Normal, act normal. Also distract her from Cole. “Kel? Love?” “Hmm?” she said. “I’ve settled on my choice.” She looked at him, and then glanced past into the restaurant. The toilet was separate, out and further around the buildings, towards the unfinished apartments. Cole had been given a key by a man wearing a pastel head band who had materialised at the till area, and they’d watched Cole pass the window – out near where they’d seen the medical glove made into a teat – with the key which had been attached to what looked like an oversized wooden spoon. “Your choice?” said Kelly. “Yeah, you know. You wanted to come here, Cole experienced crocodiles.” “Crocodile Cole,” she said, not as any sort of joke. “The bath,” said Lachlan. “Oh,” she said, sipping, “you want to have a bath?” He did a thing with his eyes. “Ah,” she said, drinking more wine, “I see,” doing a gesture between them with her hands, “Us?” “Mmm.” “Oh ... yeah,” went Kelly, “sure.” And then after she’d taken a longer drink, “That sounds nice.” “I can bathe you, you know, um ...” “Foreplay,” she said, quickly, tipping forward, so that he could smell the wine on her breath. A big part of her job was being direct and Lachlan didn’t know if she’d learned it there or if she’d always had it, but, times like this, against his angst, this part of her personality was delicious. “So, if I’m the Queen of Egypt,” she said, looking right into him, “you’re my slave?” His mouth, he realised, hung open a little, like he was about to drink. He closed it, watching the space between her upper lip and her nose, the fine hairs of her moustache ... him crouched between her legs, sucking on her, looking up the landscape of her body, her belly and heavy breasts, the way her nostrils filled when she came, writhing under the motions his mouth made. He coughed a little, swallowed, then took on most of the rest of his wine. She smiled, savouring the power. Sex with Cat had been hot enough, but Kelly, especially before all the worries about Cole, was electric. A strong moral compass, good self-esteem, if she got even a hint of the shit he’d been doing these last years, she’d end it in a second. End him. No confusion there. And now, like she knew what he was thinking – SHE NEVER KNEW – she smiled her meanest, sexiest smile, but then, in an instant, it was gone, and her eyes shifted past him. “Here comes the son,” she said. Lachlan turned and, blood flowing, wanting to come across as loose and happy, he raised his glass high and said, “Coca Cola,” which caused Cole to wrap in on himself, tucking his chin, bringing his hands in front of his waist, sliding silently into to the seat beside his mother. Kelly smiled a different smile into the dead air over the table and right then a bell dinged, and like it had some control over the weather, the sea breeze came, rippling through the restaurant, before dying away, leaving just the faint smell of the Pacific, mingling with a faintly sour smell off all the as yet cooked pizza bases, the sweet charred scent off grilled flesh all of it undercut by something floral the restaurant’s dining area had been imbued with. “The Lucky Country,” went Kelly, like, in fact, she could read minds, and then, “All okay, Cole?” “There’s an ice cream shop,” went Cole, “and a playground, can we go there after?” Which was when two waiting staff arrived with all their food. * Wagyu bresaola, burrata with aged balsamic, marinated peppers, pickled mushrooms, chargrilled eggplant, tuna tartare, two chardonnays, plus a bold Barossan red, another ice cold Sprite, two servings of the house-made bread, and one fish of the day (yellow snapper with prawns and seafood bisque) that the adults halved, Kelly taking her time to divide it, using a teaspoon on the ochre coloured sauce, while, crusts aside, Cole ate most of a medium sized, cheese pizza. Out on the footpath, the warm day folding towards night, Lachlan examined the bill, one hand in the pocket of his golf-shorts, on his money card there. He’d stayed a touch longer at their table, finishing his red while Kelly took Cole through the restaurant, stopping here at the till briefly, for a short, but animated chat with the man in the headband who was waiting for Lachlan to pay while also welcoming a group of seven fifty-somethings in plunging, figure hugging dresses, in pant suits, in elaborately printed frocks. Salon-styled hair, painted nails, purses, gold, cell phones, heeled sandals. A shampoo advertisement come to life. Though, down the back, one of them was smoking – a sleek, snow-white extra-long cigarette. Wasn’t something you saw much these days. Cat, she’d smoked. Before sex. “Okay then?” went the maître d. He’d made a stack of menus and drinks lists for the group while chatting with one of the younger women about a man – Cliff, was that what she’d said? – they seemed to have in common, but now, though still smiling, it was clear he was waiting on Lachlan. Normal. “Certainly am,” went Lachlan, withdrawing his card and holding it across the bow of the banking machine, that flickered briefly, taking payment. Was it possible the man had slipped Kelly a note? That she’d somehow coordinated being here to see him? At the airport a few days ago, Lachlan had lost track of her while he and Cole spent up large, taking a good sample of Australian bubble gum. Shouldn’t have had the third drink. It was about always being alert. In the morning he’d cry off the Aquaduck tour. Would he then have time to drive back here, check things out, and then get back to collect them from the amphibious craft? The maître d’s name would help – a name and a place of work equated to half the work done. The man who, menus to his chest, was now coming around from behind the till, calling, ‘I’ve got you by the windows,’ gesturing in the direction of the table Lachlan had been sitting at. Lachlan who watched benignly, nodding at some of the women, checking over their heads towards the gelato shop where Cole and Kelly were choosing desserts. There was a gap between the last woman and the smoking woman who’d gone to the edge of the footpath, putting her cigarette down there, crushing it out as a huge SUV went past, and watching her, Lachlan started to take the gap, but seeing the woman notice him, he got muddled, stopping, and then right away went forward again, as she started forward, so that where they ended up was really close, arms brushing. Warm skin. A faint tension in the muscles of her forearms. “Sorry,” she said, tilting back, covering her mouth with her hand, like the smell of her breath would be a problem. Going right back, he made a grand gesture, giving her all the room in the world. And she went through, turning and smiling as he said, ‘Enjoy your meal’ and then she sped up, ducking her head, like rather than a high-ceilinged food cathedral, it was the mouth of a burrow, of some low creature’s lair. * “Okay?” “Yep,” went Kelly, shutting her door. “What about you buddy?” said Lachlan, adjusting the rear-vision mirror so he could see his son, who already had his seat belt on and was tucked right behind Lachlan, pressed into the window there. “Who’s tired?” went Kelly, putting on her seat belt. “Who’s not tired,” said Lachlan, yawning extravagantly. A man aiming to devour his own face. Stifling a yawn of her own, Kelly turned, putting her head between the seats, “You tired Cole?” Lachlan watched his son who didn’t answer, but did nod, even giving a little smile, before going back to staring at the black SUV that hadn’t been there when they parked. Unlike his surveillance vehicle, the rental had a reversing camera, so Lachlan sat straight in his seat, eyes on the little screen, hands light on the wheel, as he took them back, out, and around, flicking on the headlights as he did, braking, putting the car into drive, easing them forward, rounding the restaurant that, against the surrounding night, sparkled like a chest of treasure. “Bye Boca,” went Kelly. Lachlan saluted, “Thanks Boca!” “Can we come back? Dad?” “Uh, maybe mate,” went Lachlan, closely watching the man with the headband who glanced up as they passed, but his eyes weren’t the least bit focused and if he’d signalled Kelly, it was beyond subtle. Anyway, she was busy adjusting her hair, sitting back with a content sound, and then holding up her phone, “Need help navigating?” Lachlan took one hand off the wheel and felt up from her knee. “Don’t think so,” he said. After settling the bill, after his interaction with the smoker, Lachlan had met Cole and Kelly on the footpath outside the gelateria. The warm, perfectly still air of dusk on the Sunshine Coast. Watched over by those majestic apartments, they’d crossed the hard flat grass of the park. The playground done in black rope, tan timber and shiny metal. Succulents grew amongst shining white pebbles. The public toilets as clean as surgical suites. Free gas barbecues that actually looked like they’d get a good sear. In-built weather-proof cushions on the picnic tables. Young families from the apartments congregating, following their own early dinners, to air out their children who swung and slid and climbed. Well-built young fathers with moustaches, wind-swept mums languid from yoga. Somewhere amongst that a warm feeling landed in Lachlan’s stomach. The good food. And wine. From the woman with the cigarette. From the close way he and Kelly stood, watching Cole roam the playground, watching him eventually concentrate on the tall climbing frame – made to resemble the mast of some great sailing ship – climbing into the crow’s nest, settling there with a view, no doubt, to the monstrous Pacific, high up there as the fast fading light rendered him down to no more than the shape of a boy, boundless, beautiful. Amongst all that order and beauty, Lachlan relaxed. It was going to be okay. He wasn’t returning tomorrow. How often would the whole family get the chance to go on an amphibious vehicle? His nightly check would be enough. He indicated, taking them right, past the playground that was now deserted. Lit softly by lights on tall poles. The good families all safely home, enjoying the luxuries of modern apartment living. The pirate swing, the long curving slide, the huge, moulded plastic saltwater croc patterned by the shadow off the climbing sail Cole had scaled. He drove on, intent on the bath. First thing, take Viagra. Took thirty minutes before full effect. Kelly didn’t know he used them, so he’d go right upstairs, to the zipped pocket in his bath bag, then get his pyjamas on and help Cole get organized. Teeth, PJ’s, toilet, a warm milk, and then one of the books they’d brought from Australia Zoo, before Kelly took over, lying with their child for fifteen minutes. During that time Lachlan would get the lighting right in the bedroom/bathroom. He’d run the bath, position dry towels and bath gel, then brush his teeth – get a good gargle on with his Listerine. Here, now, they’d gone back through the roundabout and were waiting at the set of lights that controlled entry onto the main road they’d follow all the way back to the house with the metal staircase, the pool. Lachlan looked in the rear vision mirror. His son in there against the window. “What could you see from up in that Crow’s nest buddy?” Cole looked, but stayed quiet. “The ocean? The sea, I bet,” said Kelly. “Dad?” went Cole. Lachlan shifted his hand from Kelly’s thigh back to the wheel. The light turned green, he followed a car just like the one they were in into the intersection. “Dad?” “Yeah?” “Dad?“ Steering with just his left hand, Lachlan – he’d always wanted to be Lachie, but it never sat right with anyone – depressed the button that took his window down. Warm dirty air gushed into the car. “Hmm?” went Lachlan. “Dad?“ Now Kelly was alert, looking first at Lachlan and then turning, putting her head into the gap in the seats. “Cole?” she went. In both directions, traffic moved. On one side of the freeway a sports field bright under strong lights. Then shops, endless shops. “Dad?” “Yes?” “In Australia, where we are now –” “The Sunshine Coast,” said Kelly. Ahead, in the far distance, rippled the blue and red of a checkpoint. Lachlan glanced in the rear vision mirror. A van right there. The driver so close – something wrapped in paper in his fist, a sandwich maybe, a kebab, that he now bit into, paper and all. Lachlan cast his eyes back to the road and then over to Kelly who, like someone at a funeral, stared straight ahead, her hands in her lap. “The Sunshine Coast, Dad, who follows us when we’re on the Sunshine Coast?” ReadingRoom devoted all week to the author and his tough, challenging novel, Party Boy by Breton Dukes (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38), available in bookstores nationwide. Monday: a revealing interview with the author, conducted by Justin Agluba.