Brandon has just graduated from university as a primary school teacher. As he travels to his first teaching post, he wonders what he’s got himself into. From the airplane, the tiny town of Gunnanilla looks no bigger than a cattle station. And when he lands, he steps into heat such as he has never encountered before. Sweating and feeling faint from the extreme temperature, he meets his new boss Mark Petersen, the racist principal of the only school for miles around. Then he meets the school’s other teacher, Mark’s wife Trina, and the students, most of whom are Australian Aborigines. Life in the small town is no picnic. In the summer, the heat is unrelenting. In the wet season, the town is cut off from the outside world and all deliveries are brought to a halt. There is only one television channel. To top it all off, there are any number of poisonous creatures around, such as snakes, scorpions, and spiders. How’s a poor city boy like Brandon, who’s interested in fashion, music, and clubbing and none too confident with his sexuality, going to cope? Enter the handsome, rough-around-the-edges miner, Frank. When Mark warns Brandon that Frank is gay, it seems this town might finally have something to keep him entertained. But how can he meet Frank without drawing attention to his own sexuality? How can anything possibly happen between them in such rough, tough, and macho surroundings?

Desert Country

“Here let me take one,” said Brandon as they entered the dimly lit pub.


“Nah, I’ve got them now,” Mark replied.


Bruno was Austrian. He was tall, broad-shouldered and sported a sizeable beer gut. He had a thick five-o’clock shadow and drooping eyelids that made him look half-asleep.


“A city boy,” he said after Mark had introduced them. “Get your bags. I will show you to your room.”


He spoke very carefully, as though he were making sure every word was pronounced as correctly as possible, and if Brandon hadn’t been so tired, he would have found it amusing.


He was led down a short hallway, past the kitchen and out onto a grassed area. To his right there were three rows of five portable tin rooms called dongers.To his left was a pair of larger, portable rooms and directly in front of him, across the lawn and bordered by a row of daisy bushes, were three units on concrete bases.


Chapter 4