Fearless Read online

  ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘I’ll try it.’

  ‘Good.’ Pak Ketut nodded. ‘I will come back at nine.’ Henry watched him turn and pad noiselessly down the stairs.

  The Bali starling could wait.

  PUBLIC SPEAKING

  Annie watched the awkward-looking young Englishman swaying on his feet. She’d had trouble catching his name when he’d introduced himself; he’d barely muttered it. Harry, wasn’t it? She glanced at the others, seated on a circle of oversized cushions on the floor, dwarfed by the majestic bamboo pavilion overhead. There were only half a dozen in the group, and Annie was the oldest by a country mile.

  After a distinguished teaching career in the San Joaquin Valley in California, Annie couldn’t help but feel weary watching the Harrys of the world. Lord knows, she’d taught enough of them. All that wasted human potential: rational, coherent people—undiscovered geniuses, even—who were powerless to express themselves orally. There was usually someone to blame for it, if you dug deep enough: the individuals themselves (unmotivated, unskilful, unruly), their parents (neglectful, nasty, neurotic), or some half-witted teacher or half-baked school that had failed them early in life.

  But her sixty-one years on earth had taught Annie that however severe or trivial the obstacles you faced, it was always possible to conquer them by deploying the ‘Two Fs’: focus and faith. She’d taped the words to her bathroom mirror some thirty-five years earlier, when she and Kevin were trying for a baby. After six barren years, the words had finally worked—and there they’d stayed ever since.

  She’d met Kevin at church, just after he’d inherited his father’s ranch; Annie had been twenty-five, Kevin twenty-nine. She’d been aware of his family beforehand, but it was only when he joined her Bible study group that she noticed him properly. His soulful brown eyes, in particular. Not to mention his wry smile and his gentle, affable nature that put everyone at ease. What he’d noticed about her, Kevin had told her much later, was the tinkling sound of her laughter—like a lovely little cowbell—and her hourglass figure. After a whirlwind romance, she’d gratefully swapped suburban Coalinga for the arid sweep of Oaktree Ranch.

  Kevin’s family had been farming Angus cattle in Fresno County for three generations; he’d learned everything he knew about ranching from his father and grandfather. He even insisted on using their ancient equipment—including a rough-running tractor, decrepit cattle yards, and a rickety feed wagon that always needed welding. Like his father before him, Kevin wasn’t enamoured of modern farming technology, faddish science degrees, or the modern obsession with occupational health and safety. I’m a graduate of the School of Hard Work, he would say with a smile, and that’s good enough for me.

  His work ethic was unquestionable, but during some difficult cattle seasons in the first few years of their marriage, it was Annie’s regular income as a secondary school teacher that had put food on the table. Then, after almost six years of trying and praying and hoping for a baby, they’d been blessed with a son. Baby Dennis seemed to take after his father temperamentally, liking nothing more than to lie on his bunny rug in the garden and gaze up at the cloudless sky.

  Nine months after having Dennis, just when Annie was considering returning to teaching, she fell pregnant with Charlie. He was feistier than his brother, and refused to settle of a night unless he was comfortably nestled between his parents. Despite Charlie’s intrusion into the marital bed, they’d somehow managed to conceive a third time. This final, sweet surprise for Annie, at the age of thirty-five, delivered a dreamy, golden-haired cherub named Natalie.

  Of the three children, Annie had enjoyed her daughter the most—perhaps because she knew there would be no more babies—and she’d waited until Natalie was in her first year of elementary school before returning to work. Those eight years of stay-at-home child-rearing had been financially challenging, of course. But they’d been content, Annie often reflected now, with their shiny-coated cattle and their whippy working dogs and their three healthy children with sun-kissed noses and hearty appetites.

  Kevin may have been rather too set in his farming ways, but there’d been a comfortable rhythm to their lives, a simplicity born of the turning of the seasons and the sweaty grind of physical labour. Kevin worked every day except the Sabbath, on which they’d all climb into their dual-cabin pick-up and drive to Coalinga for church. Always counting their blessings, tithing their income, helping out at Sunday school.

  Until one unexceptional Saturday morning in an unusually windy August, not long after Kevin’s forty-fifth birthday. He’d gone out to fix their tallest windmill at the furthest fence line on their property—a faulty vane he’d been meaning to repair for months—and not come back in for lunch. Ignoring the nervous pit in her stomach, Annie had insisted to herself that he’s just gotten busy. She’d wrapped up Kevin’s sandwiches and prepared a thermos of hot coffee and sent them off with Ralph, their part-time farmhand.

  Ralph had returned half an hour later with a stricken expression on his face, holding the lunch bag in one hand and his Stetson in the other. Annie had watched his head shaking and his lips moving, but heard only one thing: snake bite. She’d crumpled onto the kitchen floor and the children had crowded around her in wonder, having never before seen their mother cry. When amazement turned to fear and they began to sob too, Ralph gently helped Annie to her feet and led her to the sofa.

  He called the police, the pastor and her sister, in that order. Then he poured her a strong whisky from Kevin’s liquor cabinet and read books to the children, while half of Coalinga wandered through their homestead. At sundown Ralph left, squeezing her hand and promising to return in the morning. Which he did, just after the sun had risen, and every day thereafter.

  Somehow she’d managed to survive the funeral and those first wretched weeks after Kevin’s death. But soon enough, when her bereavement leave ended and the well-meaning visitors carrying comfort food dwindled, Annie began to realise that she was, in all truth, alone. She had the children for company, but she had to be their rock, while also attempting to maintain the ranch. Agriculture was not her area of expertise and she’d learned precious little by osmosis from Kevin. As the ranch became more rundown and she began taking days off school to do something about it, Annie realised that she needed to choose: her teaching career or the ranch.

  By the grace of God, her dilemma was solved six months after Kevin’s death, when Ralph arrived for work one Monday morning with an offer for Annie. He’d just completed his bachelor’s degree in general agriculture and, having recently proposed to his college sweetheart, was looking for full-time work. He was only twenty-two years old and most of those years had been spent working on his father’s walnut farm some eighteen miles west of Oaktree. But with the patriarch still reigning, and two older brothers jostling for succession, Ralph wanted to make his own mark on the world.

  Ralph’s aspiration aligned perfectly with Annie’s need: he’d proposed a share-farming arrangement of twenty percent of net profits in return for full-time management of the property. Annie had agreed to this, then offered an additional incentive: an increase to thirty percent if he turned a six-figure profit. Ralph had contemplated her words for only a few seconds before smiling broadly and shaking her hand.

  Over the next three years, Ralph had risen to the challenge. Reviewing ranch operations first, identifying areas of overspending (cattle feed) and underspending (infrastructure). He’d been scrupulous about day-to-day budgets, appraising all of Kevin’s suppliers and, in most cases, replacing them with a more economical alternative. Finally, he’d spearheaded a joint venture with the University of California, Davis, enabling Oaktree to participate in genetic trials for Angus cattle and establishing a graduate internship program. Kevin would never have countenanced such innovation—exposing his farm to highbrow academics and the scrutiny of strangers—but fortunately, Ralph’s strategy paid off.

  Within five years, Oaktree Ranch was one of the largest private selective breeding s
ites of Angus cattle in California. Ralph was its operations manager, with equity in the business, and Annie’s teaching career had become a source of disposable income for the family, not the mainstay. Within ten years, she’d achieved an enviable financial position that allowed her three children to attend colleges of their choice—quite a feat for a single mother. And when the farm started turning a profit of six figures, Annie finally stopped imagining she’d just heard Kevin’s footsteps on the porch.

  Nowadays, Oaktree homestead was plastered with optimistic proverbs:

  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

  God helps those who help themselves.

  Live the Two Fs: focus and faith.

  The Englishman clearly lacked both of the latter right now, Annie mused. He was muttering about his career in software testing, rocking on his heels like a nervous primary-schooler. Annie felt torn between the desire to stand up, seize him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, or simply to pretend she wasn’t witnessing any of it.

  She looked to the facilitator, who’d just introduced himself as ‘Pak Tony’, wondering if he would intervene. A striking mane of salt-and-pepper hair cascaded over his tanned, sinewy shoulders. His face was curiously wrinkle-free and the hollow in his throat glistened with droplets of sweat. He wore a powder-blue singlet that highlighted his eyes and white linen pants that tied around a slim, almost feminine waist. His toenails, Annie noticed, were smooth white discs without a trace of debris beneath.

  ‘Alright, Henry,’ Pak Tony said finally. His European accent was almost as hard to detect as his age. ‘Can you tell us a little about what you are afraid of?’

  ‘Well …’ The Englishman dithered. ‘My best friend calls me Beets because I go red when I …’ Annie could see his throat muscles constricting at the collarbone. ‘I … can’t do this, sorry.’

  Pak Tony nodded kindly, as if to a child. ‘Many people don’t like public speaking. It’s one of the top three human fears, alongside death and flying.’ He lifted both hands to the ceiling, as if stretching, and Annie caught sight of his toned, flat stomach.

  ‘No, you see …’ Henry tugged at the collar of his shirt now. ‘Sometimes when I speak in front of people, I feel like I’m going to …’ He looked stricken, then dropped to the floor.

  Pak Tony sprang forward and cradled Henry’s head in his hands, then rolled him onto his side. Several others in the group rushed forward to help. ‘Give me that.’ He pointed to a wooden stool near Annie.

  She stood up quickly and moved to slide the stool beneath Henry’s feet, while Pak Tony nudged Henry onto his back again and lifted up his legs. Within seconds of raising Henry’s feet above his heart, his eyelids began to flicker.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Annie observed, watching Henry’s face. ‘I’ve seen a few faints in the classroom. Do you get many on these retreats?’

  ‘Not usually in the first session,’ Pak Tony said dryly. ‘It’s more common when we go on our fear safaris.’ He gestured to a water cooler in the corner. ‘Could you please … ?’

  Annie nodded and fetched a cup of water, then held it to Henry’s lips.

  The Englishman opened his eyes and blinked. ‘Oh God, I didn’t faint, did I?’

  ‘Yes.’ Pak Tony patted his arm. ‘I’ll call the resort doctor. It’s just a formality, but best to have you checked.’ He walked to a wall-mounted intercom and spoke into it in Indonesian, then turned to Henry. ‘You have a history of fainting?’

  Henry grimaced. ‘Not for many years. It used to happen at school sometimes, if I was very nervous. It stopped me doing debating and musicals, those sorts of things. That’s part of the reason I ended up in software testing—there isn’t much of a need to talk in groups, you know? But even speaking in front of my own business unit is a problem.’

  Pak Tony took a small towel from a wall cabinet, wet it under the water cooler, and then pressed it against Henry’s brow. ‘Avoidance only goes so far, and often brings its own problems.’ He smiled down at Henry, as if they were the only two people in the room.

  ‘But I’m not avoiding it. I’ve agreed to speak at a conference next month. I wish I hadn’t.’ The Englishman looked downcast.

  ‘You’ll be fine, after Fearless,’ said Pak Tony confidently. ‘Apart from public speaking, is there anything else in your life that might be holding you back, Henry?’

  The Englishman’s eyes roved across the curved bamboo struts in the ceiling. ‘Well, my last girlfriend asked me if I loved birds more than her,’ he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘That’s been a bit of a theme in my relationships.’

  Pak Tony arched an eyebrow. ‘Birds?’

  Henry nodded. ‘I watch and record them. Just for a hobby, not professionally or anything. But two of my girlfriends have given me ultimatums: Is it the birds, or me?’ He shrugged. ‘I tend to choose the birds.’

  ‘I see.’ Pak Tony smiled. ‘We can explore that further when we have our private pow-wow. Henry, no—’ He shook his head at the Englishman, who was attempting to sit up. ‘Stay lying down until the doctor comes.’

  ‘Of course.’ Henry looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry to disrupt everything. I guess I’m more of a mess than I realised. Push me out of my comfort zone and suddenly I’m on the floor.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Pak Tony. ‘It’s given us a good insight into how physically powerful our fears can be.’ He turned to Annie and smiled. ‘Would you like to introduce yourself?’

  Annie hauled herself to her feet again, conscious of the audible clicking of her ankles, and nodded to the others in the circle. ‘They say age isn’t important unless you’re a cheese, but my feet don’t agree.’ She waved an admonishing finger at the group. ‘Just you wait, kids. I’m the eldest here by at least twenty years and I can tell you, things get tougher as you age.’

  It was harder to move her body these days. The excess weight didn’t help, nor did the worsening diabetes—back in California, her doctor had ordered her to lose thirty pounds or risk a raft of nasty complications. She’d been forced to become more vigilant about environmental risks too, things she’d never paid much attention to before: narrow staircases, uneven flooring, loose pebbled surfaces. At Puri Damai, the slippery moss covering the cobblestones forming a pathway to her room was a potential hazard too.

  These changes, Annie knew, were simply part of the landscape of growing older. But she didn’t have to like them. She could still remember when her own mother had started slowing down, developing the rounded shoulders and shuffling gait of a stooped old woman. Annie could barely believe that she was now turning into that figure herself; how could she be, when she still felt forty? When the memory of Kevin’s caresses still made her tingle with desire?

  She blinked, sidelining these thoughts with her favourite ‘F’—focus. ‘Well, what can I say?’ she began. ‘I’m Annie from California. I live on a ranch west of a place called Coalinga that I can guarantee none of you have ever visited. But you’ll smell it if you ever drive along the Interstate 5.’ She laughed. ‘It’s cattle country, pretty flat and dry. It gets a good stink up when it hasn’t rained in a while.’ She fanned her face with her hand, feeling the sweat sliding down her chest.

  ‘I was born and bred there, did my bachelor’s in education at California State University in Fresno, then moved back to take a job at Coalinga High. I was an only child, so it was important to me to stay close to my parents as they grew older. But then I went and married a rancher, Kevin, and moved out to his farm.’ She chuckled. ‘I didn’t come from a ranching family myself, so it was all very new to me. But I settled in after a while and we had three beautiful children together.’

  Annie paused, mentally skipping over the two decades since Kevin’s death; how she’d filled every empty week and month with sufficiently time-consuming activities so as to distract herself from the gap left by Kevin. Apart from her teaching career and the demands of Oaktree, Annie had embraced the roles of secretary of her local Lions Club, vice-president of the cham
ber of commerce, and lead alto in the church choir. Singing had given her enormous comfort, it turned out, when little else had.

  ‘The kids are all grown up now, of course,’ she continued. ‘One of them, my daughter, Natalie, went backpacking around Asia last year. She came to Bali and fell in love with the place, and ended up staying much longer than she thought she would.’

  She smiled. ‘At the same time, I heard about the animal welfare work of an organisation called BAF. I was looking for something to do in retirement, so I researched volunteering opportunities, and, well … it all fell into place. I’ve been in Bali for six months now as a live-in volunteer at BAF. Natalie went back to California a month ago to start her master’s in education. But I committed to doing a full year of volunteering, so I’m going to finish it.’

  Scanning their faces, Annie could see that no one in the group was familiar with BAF’s work. ‘BAF stands for Bali Animal Friends,’ she explained. ‘We rescue domestic animals, mostly dogs, but sometimes cats and caged birds. A big part of what we do is try to educate the Balinese to treat their pets better.’

  A young woman with stunning hazel eyes nodded eagerly. She was clearly an animal lover too.

  ‘But how did you find out about BAF?’ asked Pak Tony with interest. ‘It’s a long way from California.’

  Annie smiled. ‘Through my church, actually. One Sunday morning, our international outreach team showed us some shocking photos of the maltreatment of domestic animals in Bali, and truly, it was as if God spoke straight into my heart. Believe me, I’m not one of those Pentecostal types. But for the first time in my life, I felt God was calling me—to come to Bali and work against those atrocities.’