Watermark

by Joanna Atherfold Finn

  • • •

  Thirteen-year-old Audrey clipped her weight belt around her waist and staggered backwards in her fins like her dad had taught her. On the shoreline, a toddler giggled and buried his feet in the sand. Audrey swivelled around and pushed out into the ocean. Fingers of water worked their way through her wetsuit. Around her, the light played like balls of mercury swirling and bumping against each other. Clumps of weed hung in dull blooms from craggy drop-offs. Her dad held his spear gun beside him and reached out a gloved hand. She clenched it and he dragged her through the water. It chinked and rumbled around her like an out-of-tune orchestra. Reeds flowed in speckled ribbons from puckered crevices. Her dad pointed out a flathead. It looked like a fossil camouflaged against the sand. He pulled her up to the surface. They spat out their snorkels.

  ‘You okay?’

  The water smacked against them. ‘Yep. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Let’s keep going, then.’

  They glided with slow flicks of their fins past boulders flecked gaudily with pink algae and purple turf weed. A school of bonito startled and skittered. Her dad let go of her hand and tipped himself into the drop-off. She hovered over him while he loaded the gun. A samson fish swam around his fins, as inquisitive as a dog. Her dad fired his spear through the water and the rubber buckled and curled like a tentacle. The fish twisted and arched. It started to swim down, then turned and flicked towards the surface. She watched its body shake in silvery spasms. She could hear her dad whoop through his snorkel. He slid the spear back through the fish and toggled it onto the line. They kicked back to the surface again. The water gurgled in the curve of her snorkel and she blew it out.

  ‘Want to have a shot?’ he asked, holding the fish in his hand. It was still twitching. The water was dark and rippled and it tugged at her as she kicked her legs to stay afloat. She felt cold. They’d travelled a long way from the shore.

  ‘Dad, I think I want to go back in.’

  ‘We’re safe here. We’re just swimming to that bommie. I’ll put you up on the rock and you can sit there like a shag. This one’s mine. I’ve still got to get your dinner.’ He put his snorkel back in his mouth and held out his hand. She reached across and followed him. A long strip of green weed curled around her arm. She pulled it free and let it float away.

  • • •

  By mid-morning Audrey had finished most of her data entry. She stood and turned to her grey filing cabinet. On it sat a potted plant with waxy emerald leaves. Audrey had always thought it would look more at home in the ocean; it reminded her of seaweed. Steven had bought it for her the week after they’d moved in to Oasis Estate. The label sticking out of the soil said, Thrives on neglect. ‘It’s just a little something,’ he’d said. ‘The lady at the shop told me that you don’t really have to do anything with it at all. Just a drop of water now and then.’ The lady in the shop was right. Then the plant had been just two shoots with the leaves curled in on each other like clasped fingers. Now it cascaded over her cabinet, falling in all directions, looping into the drawer as she pulled it out on its warped hinge. She poked her finger into the soil. It was a little dry. She lifted the leaves and tipped some water around its base. A new shoot was just starting to form, pointing towards the shaft of light from the window. Audrey closed her eyes for a moment. She felt the house closing in on her. Tomorrow would be winter.

  She went to the kitchen and washed the toast crumbs down the sink. She wiped the grease from last night’s grilled chops from the stovetop. The place was grimy. She knew she would feel better if she got out for a while. Steven had said the new subdivision tours would take all day. He wouldn’t be home until six, which would allow just enough time for him to shower and change before they went to church.

  Audrey pulled her hair into a ponytail and yanked open the front door, which had swollen from the salty air. Outside, Harold had his car jacked up. He was lying underneath it with his knees sticking out. She walked past him and he slid out on a trolley.

  ‘Getting too old for this nonsense,’ he said. He dipped a paintbrush into an ice-cream bucket and smoothed off a slick of oil against the edge of the container. He was always pottering, filling in time. A bit like her, really.

  ‘Bit of fish oil,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve lost me, Harold.’

  ‘Ever seen a rusty fish, Audrey?’

  He winked at her and skated back under the car on his back. He reminded her a bit of her dad.

  ‘Bye, Harold,’ she said to his legs, and he wagged one of his feet at her.

  Audrey headed along the road through the second stage of the estate. She could then follow the path that curved around the tract of bushland. She meandered past reticulation systems and solar garden lights that were bent and pitted. The grass was strangled with clover. She turned into Dolphin Way. A pair of terriers raced along the perimeter of their yard, hurling themselves against the fence and yelping.

  Mirage Close veered off to the right. It was a cul-de-sac lined with a series of blocks that were vacant apart from a few surveyor pegs and signs listing the site dimensions. The ground on the lots was sandy and pliable, full of give, and her feet sank into it. It would soon be compacted and pierced with pilings, slabbed and trussed and put on display. She looked towards the curve of the turning circle and saw a silver car parked, facing the bush. It looked a bit like Steven’s. A bright blue sporty-looking hatch was parked next to it. She’d seen it before too, but they were a dime a dozen; it could have belonged to anyone. She walked a bit closer. It was definitely a Statesman. If it was Steven, he was going to be late for his subdivision tours. She took tiny steps, though she wasn’t sure why. There were two people in the Statesman. She could see the backs of their heads. Steven would be mortified if he was trying to close a deal and she wandered past. She would pretend she hadn’t seen him. The way she looked – her messily pulled-back hair, her joggers – would be bad for business. Bedraggled women didn’t feature in real-estate brochures.

  She stared at the heads. They had turned towards each other. She could see now that the other person had long blonde hair. Audrey watched as they moved towards each other into the space between the car seats. Their faces pressed together and Audrey stood, transfixed, as the man’s hands reached up and clutched either side of the woman’s face. They nuzzled into each other. Audrey was inching closer now, just like Harold’s cat did when it skulked along the fence with its eyes fixed on the birdbath. Slinking along the path, her heart rose in her throat so quickly and sweetly that she thought she might be sick. It was his numberplate. They were still locked together.

  Audrey did know the other car. It was the car that Kylie sometimes reversed down the Trotts’ driveway after she picked up Phoebe. The car Kylie had reversed just that morning, her head turned to make sure she didn’t collect a flowering agapanthus. Audrey was guiltily mesmerised as she watched, waiting for them to take a breath. She felt repulsed and seduced at the same time. The blood in her ears thudded and her skin tingled. She could not remember the last time Steven had seemed so absorbed in something other than real estate. She backed away slowly in small, shuffling steps and then turned and ran down the street.

  • • •

  Twenty-nine-year-old Audrey sat on the edge of the hospital bed. Lying against stiff white pillows, her dad smiled at her, and then motioned towards the bedside table. On it sat an envelope.

  ‘It’s something for a rainy day, Audrey.’

  ‘I don’t want anything.’

  He turned onto his side; the plastic of the mattress protector crinkled against his skin. His breath came in short, sharp bursts. His skin was the colour of a trapped fish.

  ‘That was a great fish you caught that time, Audrey,’ he said.

  ‘Guess I couldn’t go wrong with a flathead. It wasn’t even moving before I hit it.’

  ‘Gave you a bit of a fight, though.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, Dad. It nearly killed me. I mean … God, I hate this.’

  ‘I’m ok
ay with it, Audrey. Really.’ He smiled and took a deep gasp. She rubbed his cold skin but it made him wince. She put both their hands under the cover. She thought of her mother’s hands. A tiny sliver of memory.

  ‘How long since you’ve been for a dive?’

  ‘I can’t get Steven into a wetsuit. He’s petrified of sharks. Of the water, really. He doesn’t trust it. He thinks it’s too unpredictable.’

  ‘Have a look, Audrey.’

  ‘You never give in?’ She reached across and opened the envelope. In it was a photo of him in front of her childhood home, holding up a mulloway. She still had the bones out of its skull.

  ‘It’s yours, Audrey. When you’re ready.’

  ‘We already ate it, Dad.’

  ‘Funny. I mean the lot, everything in the photo. Well, not the lounge. I think it went. Come to think, it could be in the shed. It mightn’t be what you’re after. It needs a bit of work.’

  ‘I couldn’t, Dad. It would feel too strange.’

  ‘Your mum and I will always be in that house, Audrey. And if I’m not home I’m just down the road at the beach. Swimming out to that bloody bommie.’

  • • •

  Audrey turned towards the bushland at the end of the estate. The wind had picked up and storm clouds loomed in the distance. She pushed her hands out in front of her and peeled her way through the scrub. The ground was littered with leaves and twigs. Overhead, the gums twisted in on each other. Audrey thought of Steven clutching Kylie’s face, holding her like he would never let her go. Branches grabbed at her, catching her clothes; tiny embraces that she shrugged herself out of. She could hear the distant rumble of the ocean. The salty air burned the back of her throat. Harold had said there was about a kilometre of bush and then the sand dunes. He’d said no-one in their right mind would bother.

  Audrey imagined Steven tonight, sitting next to her at church. He loved it. Loved the social aspect. Increasingly, it had become his main source of business. ‘The louder they clap the more that’s wrong with them, Audrey,’ he’d said last week. ‘Heaps of them are on the rocks, and divorce means at least one listing.’ She thought that Steven had recently started to embrace the church in the same way that he embraced real estate. It all came down to good marketing. ‘Product Eternity or Product House, Price Negotiable, Place Morality, Promotion, Promotion, Promotion.’ That’s what he’d said last Sunday as they drove out of Oasis Estate and down the road to the neat brick church that had a different catchy slogan out the front each week. ‘Jesus is Coming, Ready or Not’ was Steven’s personal favourite. The mottos were getting edgier. Audrey had wondered more than once if they’d employed him to come up with the sayings. ‘That’s how they get you in, Audrey,’ he’d said. ‘Clapping and bickies and selling the dream.’

  Audrey reached the blinding white of the sand dunes and ran towards them. She felt as though she could run forever, like she did in her dreams, more powerful with every step, her legs so strong that no-one could catch her.

  Her heart was pounding. She stripped off her tracksuit top and plunged into the sand. It was in her eyes and her ears and her mouth. She scrambled up the slope, digging her fists into the ground. She reached the crest of the dune and rolled down the other side, tumbling like a child. Her hair slapped against her face. She forced herself up again and climbed over the next one. She could hear the ocean heaving and she clawed towards the sound.

  Then she saw it. Steven’s bloody Tasman.

  Huge waves were crashing right on the shoreline, thumping into the sand and eroding it. There was no sign of life. No footsteps, no voices, just the wild, deep howl of a treacherous sea.

  Audrey peeled off the rest of her clothes and ran down to the edge. Her skin was so cold it was burning. Blasts of sand whipped her legs as she stumbled into the water and fell to her knees. The grey wash surged around her and dragged her in, tossing her onto her back. She gulped in a shock of salt water and coughed it out again. Her hair was in her mouth. How ridiculous she would look right now to Steven; Steven stroking Kylie’s smooth blonde hair while his wife was being flung about like clothes in a washing machine. She would let the sea engulf her.

  She pushed under a wave and gasped in more water. Her head thudded with an instinct that forced her up to the surface. She looked back at the sand dunes, shifting along grain by grain, travelling unnoticed. The next wave smacked her hard across the face. Turn on your side, Audrey, her dad said. The current grabbed her and dragged her out deeper. She thrashed against it, feeling a giddy stab of panic. She was caught in a rip. The water curled around her arms and legs like rope and pulled her into it.

  Audrey cried out but her voice was swept away by the wind. A wave pushed her back into the sea. She opened her eyes. There was nothing but a vast, lonely emptiness. The water rushed past in a white blur, like a desert storm. Kick as hard as you can, she heard her dad say.

  She forced her face back out of the water. She could still see the shoreline. Another wave broke over her head. She thought of the lounge slumped on the verandah with her dad curled into it. Audrey kicked and breathed. She kicked until she felt her dad’s arms wrap around her. He pushed her forward with strong strokes. They swam together until the ocean stopped pulling, swam until she was safe and the waves could pummel her back towards the shore.

  Around her, the land and the sea and the sky stretched out forever. She staggered out of the water, gasping for air, and fell onto the sand. She took deep breaths and pressed against it, forcing herself in deeper. Drops of water flicked across her skin. She rolled over and opened her mouth to taste them.

  It had started to rain.

  Initiation

  I’d wanted us to be friends. Juliette and I were both thirteen, united by chance when our families pegged out tents on adjoining sites at The Gateway. At that stage of life it generally doesn’t take much more than that. My parents had picked the location on a whim. The holiday was an opportunity to get away from it all, and they kept going on about getting back to the way things were. The logic was lost on me. Mutual introductions happened quite suddenly on the third day. Cradling a plate of pikelets, Juliette ducked under the towels and undies strung between our Dodge Crusader and a tent pole, and stood in the centre of the camp chairs that were arranged in a conversational ring around the campfire. Our campsite, inspired by my mum’s homemaking finesse, was bright, breezy and colour-coordinated, right down to the red gingham tea towels and matching tablecloth. Mum had constructed a washing-up bay from stacked milk crates and a plastic bucket, and Dad had tied small pebbles into the corners of the tablecloth so it didn’t take off in the wind. It was a bit like Mum and Dad were playing, well, playing Mums and Dads.

  I’d had glimpses of Juliette walking past our tent in her nightie, clutching a toothbrush and a mug, but we hadn’t spoken. I’d compared her living quarters to ours too and we certainly came out on top aesthetically. Juliette’s tent was army green. The thick canvas structure looked like it would withstand not only inclement weather but an onslaught from enemy lines. Indeed her campsite was more like a bivouac, practical and inconspicuous; it blended into the landscape with camp stretchers, cast-iron pans and a blackened billy dangling from a makeshift rotisserie. They looked like real campers.

  ‘My mum told me to welcome you,’ Juliette said, as though we’d moved in permanently. ‘This is where my best friend and her family camp. This year they’ve gone somewhere else.’ She lingered, holding the pikelets out towards us like a sacred offering. ‘Inland,’ she added.

  My mum smiled at Juliette and graciously accepted the pikelets that were variously shaped, like amoebas, and charred on the edges. She asked her if she wanted a cordial; Juliette declined saying, ‘I’m okay.’ If I’d responded like that, I’d have been corrected. ‘No, but thank you for asking,’ Mum would have said, but she was in holiday mode and her usual standards were slipping. She was getting up later, and wrapping her hair in a floral bandana instead of styling it. Dad was more laid-back too. When Juliet
te arrived he was snoozing in a banana lounge with a newspaper over his face. He seemed to be suffering from some sort of deep fatigue and yet he was doing far less than normal. At home, his usual state was one of agitated action, dashing out the front door with his briefcase or bashing away on his typewriter in the evenings. Now, taking an extended break from work, he was either resting or hunkered down in front of the embers whittling sticks. He’d pare down their ends until they resembled sharpened pencils and then rotate the finished product in front of his face with one eye closed, deeply contemplative.

  Juliette turned in a neat circle, taking in our camp kitchen, the chess set on the foldout card table, and Dad’s as yet untouched fishing gear.

  ‘We’ve been coming here for years,’ Juliette said. ‘Would you like me to show your daughter around?’

  My mum didn’t look at me but instead gazed longingly at the chair next to my reclining dad. ‘Deidre would love that. Just stay away from oddballs,’ she said.

  • • •

  Juliette took me on a guided tour around the perimeter of the campground, past the backs of tents and the occasional dome-shaped caravan. The caravans impressed me, though Dad thought they were an inauthentic way to experience the great outdoors. I sprouted those same words to Juliette since it was clear to me that her family valued the real deal when it came to open-air living, but she merely shrugged off my comment.