by Alison Booth
The sun beat down on her head in spite of the hat, and beads of moisture formed between her shoulderblades and trickled down her back. Above the line of detritus marking the last high tide, she put down her bag and unbuttoned her dress. Almost blinded by the glare, she skipped across the burning sand to the edge of the surf. Straight into the line of breakers she went, until she was wet to halfway up her thighs. Knees bent, she immersed herself to waist-level. The shock of the cold water took her breath away, but after a few seconds the water seemed warmer, and her body began to tingle. For a moment she relaxed, feeling her body shift with the movement of the water that was like a living thing; the dragging of the receding waves, and then the tugging back to shore of the incoming waves; this incessant pushing and pulling. It was as if each outgoing wave were pushing away old cares and each incoming wave ushering in new joys, and she laughed out loud.
Then a harsh noise intruded on her reverie, a loud bellowing from the beach. A man was sprinting towards her, arms flapping as if he were controlling traffic, and he was shouting again. And now she could make out the words, ‘Don’t go in! Don’t go in!’ He peeled off his shirt as he ran and then his shorts, revealing black swimming trunks, and all the time he continued bawling at her, while discarding clothes onto the sand.
Perhaps she had been mistaken in thinking this was public beach; this must be private land and that explained the shouting. Reluctantly she came out of the water, conscious of her wet swimming costume, the fabric of which seemed to be stretching with the weight of the water and slipping down her legs. Arms hugging her chest, she was reassured that the top of this most unfortunate garment was not wet and that the safety pins were bearing up.
At the edge of the waves, she stood waiting, her heels slowly sinking into the sand as the water eddied around them, shifting the grains.
‘You mustn’t go in there,’ the man gasped, coming to a standstill several yards away. Hands on hips, he had to stop speaking to regain breath.
‘I must apologise if this is your beach,’ Ilona said, avoiding looking at the dark tufts of hair under his arms and focusing instead on his face. ‘I had not intended to cause anyone offence.’
The man puffed ridiculously in front of her, face red with exertion and eyes a cold deep blue, like the almost endless ocean she had crossed to reach here.
‘I might have been thinking,’ she continued, struggling a little with her English, ‘that there is so much empty space here and that one swimmer would not you trouble.’
‘You’ve completely misunderstood,’ the man said rather crossly when at last he had regained his voice. Such an unfit – if undeniably good-looking – man should really not be running up and down beaches driving away harmless swimmers but instead should be resting or perhaps engaging in some gentle swimming exercise himself. This was precisely the moment to tell him to take things calmly, and she was about to do so when he interrupted. ‘It’s much too dangerous here. Surely you can’t have failed to notice the strong rip out there?’ He pointed towards the ocean.
Following the direction of his finger she saw that the surf was indeed frothing about rather furiously just beyond where she had been standing. It would not have been at all pleasant to be caught up in that. This stranger had perhaps saved her life and she was about to thank him, but now he was glancing at the drooping bottom of her swimming costume; glancing obliquely, it was true, and then averting his eyes. Surely that twist of his lips was a quickly suppressed grin. So the words that came out of her mouth were not those she intended. ‘Of course I had no intention of going out that far,’ she said, clasping her arms more closely over her chest. ‘Only a nincompool would do that.’
At this he laughed outright. ‘Nincompoop,’ he said when he’d sobered up a bit. ‘That’s the correct word. You wouldn’t have had any choice. You would’ve been dragged out there by the rip. You’re jolly lucky I came along. If I hadn’t, you’d have been halfway to New Zealand by now.’
He was one of those men who always had to be right, she decided. Now staring at the sand, she traced out a wide arc with her right foot, aimlessly pushing grains into a small pile. Inadvertently she flicked some of it over his feet. Several wet particles stuck to his ankles, while the rest trickled gently back onto the beach. She felt slightly shocked at this, as if she had made direct physical contact. Looking up again, she saw that he was watching her intently. Gazing as keenly back would help reduce this odious feeling of being caught at a disadvantage.
A few seconds later she turned away, and watched the roiling rip. Her eyes filled with tears. An illusion had been shattered. There was danger here, even on this pristine beach, from either the ocean or from men appearing so surprisingly from the bush. She felt humiliated besides, to be seen in a too large costume performing a too stupid action in a too rough sea. How ludicrous I am, she thought. If her rescuer had been homely instead of handsome, her reaction would have been of gratitude and not humiliation. Quickly she blinked away the tears and, after a moment, turned to thank him, the words coming easily now, as if it had not been a battle to be gracious.
‘I’ll show you where it’s safe to swim,’ he told her. ‘I’m going in myself.’
Once more she thanked him. It was important to learn something from every experience and from him she would learn where it was appropriate to surf. But on no account would she go into the water with this man. Almost better to be at the mercy of the currents than to expose herself again to his scrutiny in this ludicrous swimsuit.
They exchanged names as they marched along the beach on sand firmed by the waves. Peter Vincent; the name sounded faintly familiar. At this point she remembered the man with the Armstrong Siddeley she’d seen on that first visit to Woodlands. ‘I’ve seen you before,’ she said. ‘At Woodlands.’
The man glanced at her. ‘I remember you now,’ he said, smiling. ‘You were wearing a purple hat.’
It was irrational to feel irritated that he had fastened on that unbecoming hat, and to feel even more irritated when he changed places with her, so that now he was on the ocean side, as if afraid that she might suddenly dart into the waves again. They carried on walking in silence and after a time she began to feel her annoyance ebbing away. There were a number of shells washed up on the beach and she stooped to pick up a pale violet one. Next to it lay a small flat stone. On it was an indentation that looked remarkably like the fossilised remains of something: a small creature perhaps, or a tiny fern. She picked it up.
‘Someone must have dropped it here,’ Peter said. ‘You can find fossils under the headland if you look hard enough. Not so many left now as when I was growing up, but you can still see them in the cliff face.’
‘I will give this to my daughter.’ Ilona ran a finger over the small impression in the stone. There would be no one to look after Zidra if she were not here to protect her. So in a sense Peter Vincent had saved both Zidra and herself.
When they were almost at the thin trickle of water escaping from the lagoon, Peter stopped. ‘It’s safe to swim here,’ he said, before explaining how the gradual breaking of the waves could be exploited by a body surfer. ‘This is where I swim,’ he added, giving the place an extra benediction. ‘There’s a small beach at my place but it’s too dangerous. Too exposed. I come here when I want to surf.’
Surreptiously she glanced at him. Brown body, even browner hands and neck. Clearly he engaged in outdoor work of some kind and probably not in the company of others.
‘Where are you from?’ he asked.
‘Jingera.’
‘No, I mean where are you from originally? What part of Europe? I hope you don’t mind my asking.’
‘Latvia.’
‘A lovely place, so I’ve heard. I’ve been to Europe but never to that part.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Britain, Germany, Holland. I got shot down over Holland in the war and got stuck in a POW camp for two years.’
His voice was as calm as if he’d been stuck in a traffic
jam. No sign of emotion; no twitching of lips or eyes, nothing. Never would she be able to say, straightaway to someone she’d only just met, that she had been in a concentration camp. She had to keep all that stuff tightly buttoned up or she would fall to bits. For an instant she wondered what his war had been like and then pushed that thought away. Her heart was starting to pump too fast and she had to change the subject quickly before an anxiety attack could begin. Desperately seizing upon the first thought that entered her head, she said, ‘Who owns the boathouse?’
‘George Cadwallader.’
‘Cadwallader’s Quality Meats.’
‘Indeed. The odd thing about the boathouse is that it’s on the wrong side of the water. There used to be a shack behind it once but it fell down years ago. George keeps his boat there. Goes fishing on the lagoon when he’s allowed.’
She was grateful for this long response, to which she only half-listened. Her heart rate was slowing to normal. She was going to be all right. She repeated Peter’s words, ‘When he is allowed?’
‘When he can fit it in.’
‘Perhaps I should swim in the lagoon rather than the surf. Is the lagoon safe?’
‘Yes, but it’s okay to swim in the surf if you choose the right spot. You’ve got to choose the right day too, and it’s best to go in with someone if you don’t know the conditions.’
This didn’t metamorphose into an invitation and she was almost disappointed not to be given the opportunity to refuse. Peter simply said, ‘Better get on with it then.’ Nodding briefly, he strolled towards the surf.
For just an instant she looked wistfully after him, for the waves did indeed appear inviting. Then she turned back up the beach. Before long she found a secluded stretch of sand by the lagoon. Like a cautious middle-aged matron, she would swim somewhere shallow and safe.
Once in the still water, her spirits calmed. The water caressed her skin as she glided through it in a leisurely breast-stroke. Eventually tiring of this, she turned over and floated, head tilting back so far that her toes broke the water’s surface. Far above was the empty dome of the harsh blue sky that was almost too bright to contemplate.
Afterwards she sat in the shade on the bank and, when she was dry, slipped off the swimsuit under cover of her dress. The day was getting even hotter and the bush throbbed with the drumming of cicadas. On the walk back to her cottage, she saw no sign of Peter. He must have passed over the footbridge without her observing him.
Back at the cottage, she placed the fossil on the chest of drawers next to Zidra’s bed. A gift for the daughter whose happiness she had threatened by swimming in dangerous surf. After this act of homage, she drew all the blinds and curtains in the cottage, something she should have done earlier, for already the rooms felt baking.
Perhaps it was the heat that was making her feel agitated again, arousing in her a sense of disembodiment. She had a quick shower to rinse off the salty water from the lagoon and hung her costume over the verandah railing to dry. If anything, she was hotter after the shower than before, and more detached too. Lying flat on the sofa and shutting her eyes, she felt as if she were floating outside of herself, floating above herself, an alien woman in a foreign land.
A woman with a six-digit blue tattoo on her forearm. Peter Vincent couldn’t have failed to notice that when she’d been standing next to the waves with arms crossed over her chest. It upset her – far more than it should have, she thought – to have been recognised as a survivor of a concentration camp by a survivor of a POW camp. Not that the camps were in any way comparable, she knew that. Yet she felt almost as if it forged a bond between them, a link that she didn’t want, a link that she would have to fracture consciously. Those old dormant memories, those old suppressed memories, should remain just that and not be reawakened by some chance encounter on a beach. She sighed. Meeting Peter had unsettled her but surely this reaction was far more than was warranted. This overreaction must simply be delayed shock after being rescued from possible drowning. That and the terrible heat and the thrumming of the cicadas.
She rolled onto her side. Curled up like the fossilised creature in the stone she’d found on the beach, she fell into a deep but disturbed sleep almost at once. No details of those dreams remained when she awoke an hour later. Only a general sense of disquiet.
Peter Vincent couldn’t wait to get home. This was always the way. A few hours’ absence from Ferndale was about all he could stand and he’d felt that way ever since being demobilised. Apart from the odd week or two in Sydney each year on business, he spent all his time on the land. While running the property in a makeshift sort of way, he was making a decent enough job of it if you ignored the state of the house and outbuildings and some of the fences, although sometimes he had the feeling that his grandparents might not agree.
Now, as he steered his beloved Armstrong Siddeley up the winding coastal road north of Jingera, he thought back over the events of the day. The morning swim at Jingera Beach when he’d rescued the Latvian woman, who didn’t seem to recognise how lucky she’d been not to get swept out to sea. Then the entire afternoon in Burford running errands, followed by a brief stop at Jingera pub on the way back, and bit of a yarn with George Cadwallader, who’d dropped in for a middy – that was an unusual event, even Bill Bates had commented on it.
Peter couldn’t seem to get Ilona out of his mind. Perhaps he’d been too abrupt that morning. Women had accused him of that before. She’d so obviously wanted to swim in the surf, and if he hadn’t wished to conceal from her the state of her swimming suit he might have asked her to go in with him. But no, he hadn’t felt like doing that; bodysurfing was a solitary matter requiring his complete concentration. Anyway he’d needed time to put the meeting in perspective. After half an hour in the water, he’d dried himself in the sun before heading back to the car. On the footbridge over the lagoon he’d paused. He’d always loved the view to the west, from the time his grandfather first brought him to Jingera over thirty years ago: tall eucalyptus trees rising to lush farming land and, beyond that, the distant escarpment of the Great Dividing Range. To the east, a flock of pelicans cruised the lagoon near Cadwallader’s boathouse. While watching them, his eye was caught by a vivid splash of emerald green, against the dull olive of the melaleuca trees. Ilona was sitting on the shore of the lagoon not far from the boathouse. Quickly he’d moved on, not wanting to be seen watching her.
In spite of her polite words of gratitude on Jingera Beach, it was unlikely that he’d ever be forgiven for seeing her in that ill-fitting swimming costume. It had taken him some time to place her as the woman he’d glimpsed at Woodlands. Colours always stuck in his memory: that’s why he’d remembered the purple hat she’d worn that day rather than her face.
Now he pulled into the Ferndale driveway and unfastened the first of the gates. A grumbling in his stomach reminded him of how hungry he was, and after parking the car he went straight to the kitchen at the back of the rambling brick house. At one time the kitchen had been a separate building, but Peter’s grandparents had constructed a glassed-in walkway to connect it to the dining room. This walkway never failed to delight him, even when he was at his most morose; its pink and green stained glass panels cast lozenges of light on to the scuffed pine floorboards and the central pane of plain glass framed a view of the sea. When he was not out in the paddocks, he spent most of his time in the kitchen, a large room with whitewashed brick walls and an enormous fuel stove occupying half of one wall. The linoleum floor had seen better days. There were two dressers that extended right up to the boarded ceiling, and on their shelves lay a motley collection of crockery. Running down the middle of the room was a long refectory table that could easily have seated a dozen people. One end of the table formed his desk; it was littered with bills and receipts and other miscellaneous pieces of paper.
He placed a leg of lamb in the baking pan. Accumulated in the bottom was a thin layer of congealed dripping but he wouldn’t worry about that. At this moment the phone rang
. Cursing, he wiped his hands on a grubby tea towel and picked up the receiver.
‘Good news, Peter.’ It was Jack Chapman, his old friend from Woodlands, who never bothered with the preliminaries. ‘That kelpie pup I promised you is just about ready now. Care to visit us to collect him?’
Peter had seen the tan and black puppies just after they’d been born, and again each time he’d visited Woodlands since. Jack liked to keep his puppies well beyond weaning so he could train them to be good working dogs. Part of the joy of breeding them, Peter knew. Any one of Jack’s dogs would suit him but the black puppy was the one he liked best. His own two dogs were getting old now, not that he’d ever get rid of them, but he needed a younger one for work. He suggested collecting the dog the following Tuesday.
‘Well, Jude’s got a better idea than that. Come for dinner on Saturday week. You could stay overnight and then we could have a game of tennis on Sunday.’
‘Sounds good.’ But Peter was always cautious about Judy Chapman’s weekend invitations; she had a habit of trying to pair him off with unattached women. ‘Will there be many other guests?’
‘The Sutherlands.’
Peter liked the Sutherlands, local farmers, but he waited in case there were more names on the guest list. Then Jack added, ‘And you can have your pick of the three pups I’ve got for sale.’
‘Thanks, Jack.’ He would pick the black puppy of course. ‘Saturday week it is.’
‘Good. Jude’ll be pleased.’ After a second’s hesitation Jack added, rather too casually, ‘Grace Smythe will be here as well, by the way. Forgot to mention that. She was at school with Jude. Bring your best togs.’
Only then did Peter realise how neatly the trap had closed around him.
After putting the phone down, he placed the lamb in the ramped-up Aga. It was past six but he felt restless and the thought of the Chapmans’ dinner party cast a gloom over the evening. He jammed an old felt hat on his head and went outside, whistling for the two ancient brown kelpies. The grass in the home paddock was bleached almost silver by the summer sun. Under the old trees that encircled the house – the Monterey cypresses and the radiata pines – lay a thick blanket of needles that one day he’d get around to raking up. There was little sign now of the formal gardens that his grandmother had designed. Just a few broken bricks remained where the borders had been; the plants had long since died, choked out by grasses and weeds.
