Dash and Dingo (14 page)

Henry could barely meet his eyes. “No, I’m fine, thank you.” He couldn’t look at Dingo, especially in this state of undress, which just made Henry want to revisit what had happened during the night. Except this time, he wanted to see Dingo naked, to see him erect and wanting him….

“Did you sleep well?” Dingo asked.

Henry nodded. “You?”

“Best night’s sleep in a long time,” Dingo said innocently. “You’re not that bad a bedmate, Dash.”

Henry had absolutely no idea how to react. “I’m going to make tea,” he said finally.

Dingo nodded. “I’m going to get scrubbed up.”

Henry watched him walk inside, even more confused than he had been moments before. He had no idea what Dingo was up to, but he had no choice but to play along.

Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger | 83

That afternoon, Helen and Hank drove Dingo and Henry to the docks of Port Melbourne that were to be their departure ground for Tasmania. They were booked on a ship that had only just recently started taking paying passengers along with cargo. “Friend of a friend helped set it up,” Dingo said airily, only further proving Henry’s belief that the man knew everybody who happened to breathe in the city.

Contrary to the stately and regal names given to ships of the Empire, this ship had the strange and alien name so suited to the country it serviced: the
Taroona
. It was a smaller ship compared to those Henry had seen in his time, but it still towered above them, and its two funnels stretched proudly into the sky. It had only been launched that year; the green paint on the hull still seemed fresh.

“It can carry four hundred and fifty passengers and thirty vehicles,”

Helen mused aloud while leafing through the brochure she had picked up on the dock.

“I know it’s no
Titanic
,” Dingo said to Henry almost apologetically, his white teeth flashing in the sun with his smile.

“Let’s hope not, for both our sakes,” Henry replied, and he was gratified by the loud laugh that emanated from his colleague. It appeared that the tension between them, even though it seemed to come all from Henry’s side, had evaporated.

“If you’re brave enough to get on that tin can that flew you across the world, I wouldn’t think you’d have a problem with the
Taroona
,” Hank observed, with a shiver that Henry couldn’t fail to notice.

“No problem,” Henry said more blithely than he felt. “No problem at all.” Truth be told, he was more afraid of being alone with Dingo again. He hoped it would be single beds in their cabin; he did not want a repeat of last night’s somnambulistic performance.

84 | Catt Ford and Sean Kennedy

It was very easy to get caught up in the romance of boat travel as they said their goodbyes to friends. Henry was surprised by how quickly he had formed an attachment to the Chambers family, especially Helen and Hank. He was genuinely sad to depart from them and heartened by the fact that he would get to see them again before he had to return to England. He also hoped that wouldn’t be the last time.

Especially because that could quite possibly mean it would be the last time he would see Dingo again.

But he didn’t want to think about that just now.

“Dash,” Hank said suddenly. “Walk with me.”

Henry could see Dingo’s eyes widen and then narrow with suspicion as he tried to figure out why his father might be pulling Henry aside. But he couldn’t do anything about that; he just allowed himself to be led farther down the jetty and edged away from the water by Hank until they were well out of range of Dingo’s hearing.

Henry gave a last quick desperate look to Dingo’s direction, but he was talking with Helen. Perhaps trying to glean from her what Hank’s motives could be for this tête-à-tête.

“Sir, I—” Henry began, but Hank cut him off.

“What have I told you, Dash? No formalities here.”

Henry thought that over. “All right. But what is it that you want to talk to me about?”

Hank laughed. “You’re no fool, Henry, so stop acting like one.”

Those words made Henry’s blood run cold. “I’m not sure what you’re saying….” He drifted off as Hank raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. He drew himself up further. “Perhaps you should just say what it is you want to say, Hank.”

Hank nodded respectfully. “Okay, then.” He took a deep breath. “Dingo is different to his brothers. Different in a way that, no offense, you’re also different.”

Henry didn’t feel his blood could get any colder. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he said, his tone brittle.

“Don’t try and lead me on a merry dance, Dash. I know the steps, because I love my son, and I have seen them in him. Now, it doesn’t make a lick of difference to me, his mum, or his brothers. The only people it seems to

Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger | 85

bother are those whose business it doesn’t concern anyway. We just want him to have the happiness we have found.”

Henry cleared his throat and was able to croak out, “And what does that have to do with me?”

“Just that we’ve all taken a shine to you, Dash. But Dingo means everything to us, and we don’t want to see him hurt. We just want you to do the right thing by him.”

Henry opened his mouth to speak but was forestalled by a loud screech from one of the funnels of the
Taroona
.

“Time to board.” Hank said. “Are you ready?” He turned to rejoin his family before Henry could even answer.

Henry wanted to yell after Hank that no, he wasn’t ready. In fact, he was even more confused than he had been before. Was Hank saying that Dingo was…
like
Henry? A queer? It seemed unfathomable that a man like Dingo could be one, at least going by the other people with similar sensibilities that Henry had met. Of course, it could also be said that Henry’s own experiences had been rather limited. The more he was beginning to see of the world, the more Henry was beginning to understand that there were a lot of things he knew very little about.

But he knew now, as he thought of his cloistered existence in the basement of Ealing College, that he was glad he had come on this adventure.

And right now he didn’t even want to think of it ending.

He just wished he could be more clear on the most troublesome aspects of this new adventurous life. Dingo, of course, was the most troublesome.

And also the most pleasurable.

For all of Hank’s sincerity about wanting to put everything on the line, Henry was now even more confused by the coded statements that he’d made.

After all, it was only the other day that Hank had been telling him that Dingo had many acquaintances, but very few true friends. Most probably, he was just alluding back to that, Henry thought with regret. There was no way that
Dingo—

But there was no time to dwell upon that now.

“Come on, Dash!” Dingo yelled. “We don’t want to miss the boat!”

After receiving another crushing last-minute handshake from Hank and a hug from Helen, Henry started up the gangplank. He looked back to see Dingo exuberantly hugging his parents goodbye and giving his mother a resounding kiss on the cheek. He was touched by the other man’s open

86 | Catt Ford and Sean Kennedy

affections and his lack of embarrassment about it. The last time he had seen his parents before he left for Australia, Henry had stiffly shaken his father’s hand and gave his mother a quick peck. They would have been astounded and ashamed of him if he had been any more demonstrative.

The confusing emotions welling up within him told Henry that he was much more upset about leaving the Chamberses than he was his own family.

How quickly their attachments to each other had formed!

Dingo bounded up the gangplank to join Henry. “Come on, you’re holding up the line.”

“Me?” Henry spluttered, but Dingo merely tossed him a grin and dragged him to the railing on the passenger deck, where they waved to Hank and Helen below them.

“So,” Dingo said casually, although it was apparent to both of them that his interest was anything but. “What did my old man want with you?”

Truthfully, even Henry didn’t really even know. And he wasn’t sure if he could tell Dingo what he suspected his father had shared with him. “Oh, just to make sure I didn’t let you get into any mischief.”

Dingo frowned as if he didn’t fully believe him. “Dad knows this whole business is based on mischief.”

“He’s your father,” Henry said simply. “He worries about you.”

The boat lurched beneath their feet as the gangplanks were lowered and the
Taroona
started to pull away from its moorings. They stood in silence once more as they waved to the Chamberses along with the other passengers who were waving goodbye to their own loved ones.

As the ship headed for the wide blue expanse of the sea, Helen and Hank became mere specks among a mass of indiscriminate shapes. Dingo sighed sadly, like he was heading to another country rather than merely another state.

“Do you get seasick, Dash?” he asked, as if distracting himself.

Henry frowned. He had never been on a boat before. “I’m… I’m not really sure, to tell you the truth.”

Dingo whistled. “This is going to be a trial by fire, then.”

Henry didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”

“This is one of the roughest seas in the world, mate. Notorious amongst even seasoned sailors.”

Dash and Dingo: In Search of the Tasmanian Tiger | 87

Henry’s grip tightened on the railing, and he stared out at the ocean.

The shoreline of Victoria was getting further and further away, and he was now beginning to realize just how empty and limitless the water beneath him truly was. “You mean to say you
knowingly
put us on a dangerous ocean in this
tiny
little piece of tin?”

“Shush, Dash,” Dingo said earnestly. “You’ll make the womenfolk nervous.”

Henry looked around him. All of the other passengers on deck seemed oblivious to his newfound terror as they chatted amongst each other without a care in the world. It was all an adventure to them, it seemed. Or maybe they just didn’t know the danger they were in.

They probably also didn’t have a tour guide like Dingo to blithely point out just how many ways they could die in this God-forsaken country.

“Are all Australians barking mad?” Henry asked.

Dingo pushed his hat back on his head and sniffed deeply at the salt air with relish. “When your time’s up, it’s up, Dash. No need to worry about until it happens.”

“It doesn’t follow that I want to be complacent and invite death to come looking for me either,” Henry countered.

Dingo laughed. “The way you’re going, Dash, you’ll probably have a heart attack before you’re forty.”

“Thanks very much! If I live that long!”

“Just telling it as I see it,” Dingo said, his voice now taking on a distracted tone. He suddenly became alert, like a rabbit sensing a predator.

Except this bunny grinned, because it knew it would outwit the fox. “And I see our old friend Hodges is aboard.”

Henry peered over Dingo’s shoulder to see their supposed nemesis at the other end of the deck. Hodges grinned rakishly and tipped his hat to them.

Dingo moved as if he were going to reply with a totally different gesture that would have been out of place in polite society, but all it took was Henry saying his name gently to make him sigh and lean back against the railing.

“I wonder how he got on board without us seeing him,” Dingo growled.

“It wouldn’t have been that hard.” Henry shrugged. “The passenger list is quite extensive.”

“I should have seen him.”

88 | Catt Ford and Sean Kennedy

Henry stared at the other man, who was glowering with badly disguised anger. “You can’t see
everything
, Dingo.”

“It’s your fault,” Dingo fumed.

“
My
fault?” Henry asked in amazement.

“Yes! If you hadn’t distracted me—”

“
Distracted
you?” They were playing the echo game again, apparently.

“Yes!”

“So I’m a distraction?”

His guard down, Dingo seemed furious with himself for not being aware of Hodges before the man let his presence be known. Henry wasn’t sure what the history was between the two men, but he could only assume Dingo didn’t often let Hodges get the upper hand. “I’ve always managed to dance a step or two ahead of him. Yes, you’re always a distraction—” Dingo broke off quickly.

Henry was bewildered, unsure of his meaning. And he hated the way his heart began to race, eagerly hoping that Dingo was talking about something else entirely unrelated to this situation with Hodges. It brought to mind his conversation with Hank and gave him false hope that it could be an indication of the way Dingo really felt about him.

“Anyway,” Dingo said, trying to cover up just as quickly. “I’m going to make sure our luggage reached our room.”

Henry didn’t know whether he should stay or follow him. He stood there, feeling rather stupid, but Dingo turned back to him.

“You coming?”

Henry followed him wordlessly, his heart still beating dangerously. If he could turn back time, he would go right back to the instant the boat whistle blew for boarding and demand that Hank be less obtuse.