The Ghost of Howlers Beach

by Jackie French

  ‘Dad used to play on this beach when he was a kid. So after the army tossed him out because he was too broken to fight, Dad brought Mum here and they built our house.’

  ‘How?’ asked Butter. ‘You can’t bring anything much through the tunnel. Did they have a boat?’ The driftwood and the shells could have been found on the beach, but he doubted enough wood would have washed up there to build their hut.

  ‘They didn’t have a boat. We don’t either. See that crack in the cliff?’ Olive pointed to the opposite side of the cove from where Butter had entered. ‘That’s another cave right down the end that goes to the susso side. It’s tall and wide enough to carry in planks, old kerosene tins, whatever we needed.’

  Butter peered down the beach. If the cave he’d entered had looked like a grin, this one looked like someone saying oh. But waves crashed and lashed its edges, the water surging up inside. ‘You’d drown in there,’ he objected.

  ‘Not at low tide. The cave is above the waterline for about half an hour at low tide. Not every day, not if there’s a storm or the water’s rough, and you have to be quick or you can get caught as the waves sweep in. But there’s a low tide twice a day. You can go out through the cave quickly at one low tide and come back twelve hours later. Mum and Dad carried a lot of stuff in that way. Most of it,’ Olive gestured at the bleached driftwood walls, the flattened tin roof, ‘was stuff they found washed up on the beaches. The rocks came from the cliff . . .’

  Her voice trailed away as she gazed at the slice of ocean beyond their beach, more green than blue from the foam as the waves crashed about the rocks. ‘I can just remember them building it. We lived in a tent where the susso camp is when I was very small, me and Gil and Mum and Dad. And it was fun. There were scary bits sometimes, like the time we were hunting for crabs.

  ‘Some people were picnicking at the other end of the beach and a kid saw Dad’s face. The kid screamed, “Monster! Look at the monster!” The grown-ups all stared too. But there was nowhere we could hide till the tide went out. Mum and Gil and me just huddled round Dad, and finally the kid stopped yelling and pointing and they all went away.’

  ‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ said Butter. It was inadequate, but all he could think of to say.

  ‘Dad and Mum moved our tent into the cove after that. Dad almost never left the cove again. But our home was nearly finished by then. So mostly we all just stayed here. Every time the tide went out we’d hunt for driftwood or shells or washed-up bottles. We never knew what the next tide might bring us. Mum trapped fish for our dinner and picked wild spinach or dandelion leaves and Dad’d catch crabs or gather oysters or climb up the cliffs for gulls’ eggs in spring.’

  ‘What did you live on? Your dad’s army pension?’

  ‘He didn’t get one,’ said Olive bitterly. ‘The army said his nightmares and scars didn’t stop him working. But he was a painter, a good one—’

  ‘You called the man who died Harry Painter,’ interrupted Butter. ‘You said he was your uncle.’

  Olive nodded. ‘He wasn’t really our uncle, though we called him that. Uncle Harry had served with Dad in the War, but he didn’t come here till much later, when people started building huts at the susso camp. I really don’t know his last name. Dad might have, but Uncle Harry didn’t talk to people much. He had nightmares too. But he was a painter too, like Dad, so when we had to say a name I just used that.’

  ‘Why not just say you didn’t know?’

  ‘Because I thought the police would keep trying to find out who he was. I didn’t have time to think. I shouldn’t have lied. The police don’t care about a dead ex-serviceman from a susso camp.’ Her tone was bitter again.

  ‘Anyway, every month Mum would hitch a ride up to town with Dad’s paintings. It was mostly horse-drawn carts back then. She took his paintings to galleries and they gave her money if they’d sold one. They usually had. She’d buy more canvas and paint, and flour and sugar and other things we needed, then stay the night sitting up at the railway station to be safe till she could get a ride back along the highway the next morning, then she could walk back here.’

  ‘But didn’t she have family or friends to stay with?’

  Olive looked uncomfortable. She stared out to sea, not meeting Butter’s eyes. ‘Mum grew up in an orphanage. The family she’d worked for before she married Dad didn’t give her time off to make friends either.’

  ‘What about your dad? Didn’t he have relatives who could help?’

  ‘Dad had lots of relatives,’ said Olive bitterly. ‘He had friends too. Probably even some of them survived the War, but I don’t know their names. Dad would never say. I think some of his family are rich too, but I’ve never met them. They wouldn’t have anything to do with Dad when he married Mum because he’d . . . married someone from an orphanage. They didn’t even meet Dad when he came back on the hospital ship. Dad wrote and asked his parents for help from the hospital. He tried to explain he couldn’t get a job because of his scar and his nightmares. But Dad’s father, our grandfather, just wrote back that Dad was a coward and that he had shamed the family by marrying Mum and was shaming it again now by saying he couldn’t get a proper job, like a man should. He didn’t understand about Dad’s nightmares, how people saw Dad’s scars and the funny way he walked then looked away.’

  Tish suddenly snuggled close to Olive. Olive put her arm around her, and her other arm around Woofer.

  ‘I think Daddy looked nice,’ said Tish. ‘I don’t think any man looks as nice as Daddy did.’

  ‘I think he must have looked nice too,’ said Butter. ‘He sounds brave, building this house, looking after his family. It’s a beautiful house.’ He gazed around the cove, at the small waterfalls of greenery dangling from ledges on the cliff. ‘It’s a lovely place to live too.’

  ‘It was wonderful back then,’ Olive said softly. ‘We’d play cricket on the beach — me and Gil and Dad and Mum, though the cove is too small for a proper match. Dad had been a really good cricketer. He played for New South Wales and everything, but Mum could run even faster than him. We used to have races and look for pipis and see what treasures the tide had brought in. There was always something, even if it was just pretty shells. We had a vegetable garden too, up here where there’s proper soil. It’s too salty for much to grow, but we had potatoes and cabbages and tomatoes and even watermelons — some picnickers left a slice of melon and Mum planted the seeds and they grew! We saved the seeds from everything.

  ‘Dad used to say the sea gave us almost all we needed — all kinds of things wash up after a storm, even cups and plates one time. Mum said they must have come from a ship . . . and the money from the paintings was enough for flour to make soda bread and pancakes, and we had chickens too.

  ‘Then the Depression came, and people began to build shacks where the susso camp is now. Dad didn’t mix with the camp people, but Mum did. She explained about how Dad got scared by lots of people or loud noises. And the camp people understood. Most of the men there were in the War too. A lot of them were badly injured — that’s why they don’t have jobs now.

  ‘But Dad took Mum and Gil and me out through the cave the night Tish was born, so that Mrs Masters could help Mum. It had just been Dad when me and Gil were born, but he knew Mum had been scared. I think he’d been scared he’d lose Mum too. Mr and Mrs Masters were one of the first families to move to the camp, and Mrs Masters had been a midwife.

  ‘Tish was born just as the sun rose up from the sea. Dad had covered his face with a scarf, but he took it off then to kiss Mum and Tish and me and Gil, and then Mrs Masters kissed him too. He put his scarf back on when we went outside, but people guessed who he was and smiled and nodded to him and some people gave Mum baby clothes. Everything was even better after Tish was born.’

  Olive hugged Tish hard and gave her a kiss on her tangled brown hair. ‘Mum wasn’t able to sell the paintings for a while after Tish’s birth because it was too far to walk carrying Tish as well as the paintings, and
Tish had to be fed, so Mr Masters sold them for her for a few months, even though he’s got bad arthritis from living where it’s so damp. Dad even stopped having nightmares. Then there was another storm and the next morning lace curtains had washed up. A whole pile of curtains, just like the sea was giving us a gift too! They hardly even needed mending!’

  Olive gave a hiccupy giggle. ‘There was a bottle too, with a message that said, Help, I am a giant trapped in this bottle. Let me out! We all just sat on the sand and laughed. We’ve still got the bottle too.

  ‘And things got even better. More families moved into the camp and Gil could have proper cricket games with the other boys. Mr McTavish had been a Maths teacher and he gave me and Gil lessons. Mum and Dad had taught us to read, and Dad drew maps in the sand to teach us Geography, but now people lent us other books to practise our reading.

  ‘When the government brought the dole in, Dad put his scarf around his face again and went and got the rations with the other men from the camp. The men stood in a group around him so people couldn’t really see Dad clearly except the policeman who handed him the food, and no one dared yell out that he looked funny. We had bread two or three days a week back then, real bread, not just the soda bread Mum made, and meat once a week instead of fish. Irish stew and sausages and rissoles with gravy! And Mum and Dad could have proper cups of tea, not just the sarsaparilla or mint tea that Mum picked. There was still the money from the paintings, and Dad was just getting better and better. Even his scars were fading, and he was so strong from the building and the life here that he even walked better . . .’ Her voice stopped.

  The wind was rising, gusting an icy breath of salt and sand from the south between the lips of the cove.

  ‘Come inside,’ said Olive abruptly. ‘It’s too cold for Tish once the southerly starts blowing.’

  She bent and carefully put the baked fish on a chipped blue and white plate, then covered it with another plate to keep the flies off and carried it into the shack.

  She doesn’t want to keep telling the story for a while, Butter realised. It must be a hard story to tell. It was hard too, to hear. But he followed Olive and Tish into the shack anyway. Woofer limped behind, his crooked tail wagging in the hope of more cheese sandwiches.

  The door looked like it had been a shed door once. The hinges were rusty and creaked. But it was warmer inside, though dim from the single window, one edge cracked, carefully cemented into the walls.

  The floor was slightly uneven, made of sea-bleached planks dotted with plaited-rag rugs. A stove made of a four-gallon drum with a hinged lid backed into the fireplace at one end of the shack and two old chipped sinks sat side by side, one empty, one filled with water, with a slowly dripping pipe leading into it.

  Chairs and benches with oddly shaped driftwood legs were topped with patchwork cushions. The four beds were made of driftwood too, with what looked like homemade thin mattresses and pillows with patchwork covers on top of them. A ragdoll with a painted smiling face sat on the smallest of the beds. A collection of faded clothes hung from a rack in a corner, mostly ragged adults’ garments. Lace curtains — the ones that must have washed up from the sea — were pushed back from rods across the ceiling. Butter suspected the curtains could be pulled across to divide the shack into rooms, to give privacy.

  Three of the beds looked rumpled, as if the covers had just been pulled up. The fourth bed was neat, its patchwork cover straight, a dried bunch of everlastings placed where pillows might have been.

  But despite the rags and patches the hut was even more lovely than it had looked from the outside. The walls had all been painted a pale sea and sky blue, with lines of laughing seahorses and mermaids and spouting whales at the top of each wall, and a limping dog in a variety of tiny poses next to the floor. A long piece of driftwood rose from the floor like a lamp, but instead of a lampshade and bulb, someone had carved a sea eagle, with spread wings, as if it were about to swoop out of the door. Other carved objects hung from the ceiling: wooden seagulls and beach birds, some painted white, others in the colours the sea had given to the wood.

  But the most beautiful object was the giant unframed canvas painting on one wall. A tanned woman with dark curling hair looked up laughing, a fat baby smiling in her lap. Behind her a much younger Gil held a cricket bat, while Olive held the ball, ready to bowl to him. And behind them was a calm blue sea meeting clear blue sky and white wave tops and ripples of cloud that seemed to dance for joy. You could almost hear the music of the wind, the laughter of the family on the beach.

  ‘Did your dad paint that?’ asked Butter, awed. He’d seen some of Aunt Peculiar’s friends’ paintings and she’d taken him to the art gallery too. But he had never seen a work of so much joy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Olive quietly. ‘That’s when we were happy.’ She sat on one of the beds and hugged Tish hard.

  The silence grew. Butter tried to think of something to say to start her talking again. ‘Where does the water come from?’ he asked quickly, gesturing at the pipe and the sink.

  ‘A seep from the rock. Dad dug it out and made a tin pipe so the water runs down into the sink,’ said Olive proudly. ‘There used to be enough water to keep the vegetables growing — we’d throw the water on the garden after we’d washed in it. But it’s been so dry there’s only enough to drink now. We have to bathe in sea water.’ She shrugged. ‘The salt makes you feel itchy and it doesn’t really get things clean. Especially Woofer.’

  ‘Snerp,’ said Woofer, scratching his ear with his front paw so he wouldn’t fall over.

  ‘Would you like a glass of water?’ offered Olive.

  Butter wasn’t thirsty. But water was all they had to offer. He nodded. The tin mug Olive handed him was chipped on one side and dented at the bottom. He sipped. The water was surprisingly cool.

  ‘Dad said it’s safe to drink because the camp dunnies are downhill from us and so is ours, and your dunny is on the slope away from the headland.’

  Butter hadn’t even thought of germs. He sat carefully on one of the chairs. Despite its knotted legs it felt stable and comfortable.

  ‘Your parents were clever,’ he said, wondering how to ask what had happened to them. How could they both die? Had a giant wave taken the parents, but left the children? Illness usually took children as well as parents, and Tish was so small.

  Olive sat back on the bed; Tish snuggled against her again. ‘It was the fireworks,’ she said softly. ‘Eighteen months ago now. Tish was only small.’

  ‘But I remember them,’ said Tish. ‘The fireworks were green and red and yellow stars shooting up from the headland and they went boom and they were beautiful.’

  ‘Dad also said they were beautiful at first. But they went on and on, just like the noise of the guns and the bright flares in the war. Just like his nightmares. He came inside and put his hands over his ears at first, and then he tried to blot out the sounds with cushions. And then . . .’ Olive glanced down at Tish. But the little girl obviously knew the story.

  ‘Daddy ran into the sea,’ said Tish simply. ‘And the sea took him. In the morning, it put him back but he was dead.’

  Butter said nothing. He remembered the fireworks too.

  They had been for the king’s birthday — and he was so happy that his birthday was around the same time.

  ‘Let’s celebrate properly!’ Mum had said, because Dad had his new practice in Macquarie Street where all the top doctors were, and because it finally felt as if the War was over. Mum and Dad asked if maybe he’d like a baby brother or sister, and the Aunts had started knitting tiny jackets and booties, except for Aunt Peculiar who was knitting something big and spotted with tiny birds’ feet; she called it ‘a sleeping sack’.

  The local council had bought fireworks to make it a real celebration of the king. So his parents had invited all the boys from his class to come, with their parents, so the headland was lined with cars. The dining room was filled with food, the kind grown-ups liked: cold chicken and lobster an
d Russian salad, a whole giant salmon in aspic and smoked salmon. And, for the boys: big trays of lamb chops for a chop roast on the bonfire, and potatoes wrapped in seaweed that he and Dad had collected to bake in the ashes. And there’d been fairy cakes with cream, lamingtons, giant pavlovas with strawberries and passionfruit and cream, six kinds of jelly and a vast rainbow birthday cake, six layers high.

  And he’d blown out the candles and everyone had sung happy birthday and he’d opened his presents. Then they went to town to watch the fireworks — Roman candles spouting spitting flames and Catherine wheels whirling a million bright sparks and skyrockets that rushed up into the air and exploded in hundreds of stars and double bungers that just went bang and jumping jacks that made tiny explosions but leaped all over the place and everyone had laughed and oohed . . .

  And a man had died. Olive and Tish and Gil’s father had died, all because a town had fireworks for the king’s birthday.

  He felt sick with guilt. And he couldn’t tell them. He couldn’t possibly tell them how much he had loved the fireworks. The fireworks that had killed their father.

  ‘It was like it had been in the War,’ said Olive quietly. ‘That’s what Mum said. The explosions and the lights in the sky. Both sides sent up flares each night so they could see if the enemy was advancing. And Dad thought he was back there. We tried to tell him he was here, that he was safe, but the noise and lights wouldn’t stop.’