*
“You believe someone is spying on you?” Milo sounds sceptical.
“I think so. Over there in the trees.”
“Well, let’s go over and take a look.”
An inch of rain earlier in the week has softened the ground. Milo gets down onto his haunches. He snaps off a twig and uses it as a pointer. “See the longer tracks? They’re skids, but you can make out the deep toe claws. Grey kangaroos.” Brandt feels relief, but now Milo gets on his feet, strides into a clearing and finds something else. “What’s this? These are people – eight or nine of them. Come and have a look, Otto.”
His heart pounding, Brandt hurries up to Milo who is pointing at more tracks. Brandt stares at each pair in amazement. “They’re all in bare feet,” he says.
“They must be the Aboriginals you thought you saw before,” says Milo. “Look how small some of them are, just kids – the bigger tracks might be youths. They’re just curious about you, that’s all. They’ll be good people; they won’t touch anything of yours.”
“Do they ever come to Tumbledown?”
“Not any more, probably not since the reign of Victoria. And they’re never likely to come back. I blame my grandfather, and his father and grandfather too. They kicked them off the land. I don’t know the details and I prefer not to know, though I suppose one day I’ll have to face up to it; my father couldn’t.
“Dad was as hard a man as ever you’d get. I remember a time in the Great Depression. Dozens of Victorian blokes – we called them ‘the hungry Vics’ – had come up to New South Wales trying to find work. One was a young bloke, Bob somebody-or-other. Anyway, Bob had a wife and two little children. My father took him on, and, I tell you, he was worth his pay twice over for Bob was a natural stockman and could ride like the Valkyries. He’d make a stock-whip sing like Dame Nellie Melba and he’d crack it louder than the voice of God. Yes, Bob was the best we had.
“Then, one night after we’d worked our guts out, we were camped in Beck’s Gully, making damper around the fire. Bob took out a pack of tobacco, rolled a Tally-Ho, got out his box of matches and lit up.
“That very instant, my father sacked him. ‘If you waste your money, you’ll be wasting mine,’ he said then he pulled out his cheque book and paid him off.
“I blamed myself. Why the hell didn’t I warn the poor cobber to light his cigarette from the embers?”
19
The Kirribilli Lodge Hotel is so close to the Sydney Harbour Bridge that, from the balcony, Brandt and Alan can hear the rattle of trains overhead, and the whine and swish of the North Shore trams.
The following morning they take a tram to the Gothic revivalist Vaucluse House with its galleries of works by Titian, McGubbin and Leycester Fisher hanging above the cavernous marble fireplaces, and a gigantic fountain in the garden. Afterwards, they go on to Hyde Park and the Art Gallery of New South Wales where Alan is drawn to Tom Robert’s The Golden Fleece. He tells Brandt he wants to have a go at farming sheep, but his suggestion that they introduce five hundred to Garigo falls on deaf ears.
Brandt stops to closely examine Charles Conder’s Departure of the Orient from Circular Quay. The painting takes him back to their own arrival on the Syrenia, except that the passengers in Conder’s painting, by contrast, are preparing to leave Australia. It occurs to him that the only way he himself can ever depart this continent would be if he is deported as a war criminal. But, enough of such thoughts, this is Alan’s holiday. They leave the gallery to see a matinee of the Beggar’s Opera in the Sydney Town Hall.
The next day, they stroll over the Harbour Bridge to the Observatory, have their lunch in the Botanical Gardens, spend the afternoon in the Sydney Museum and return to Milson’s Point by ferry. While they were in the museum, Alan saw an immense saltwater crocodile and now all he wants to talk about is crocodiles: how big they can grow, what they eat and, like a typical schoolboy, he wants to know about people being attacked by them.
Brandt plans to make the rest of their time recreational, so on Wednesday they go to Luna Park because Milo told him it is Sydney’s version of Coney Island. They ride on the big dipper and the anti-gravity machine, but Brandt doesn’t like Luna Park. He has an uneasy feeling that, amid the noise and the cheery crowds, he is being watched.
No such fears bother Alan, whose excitement knows no bounds. “Let’s go on the ghost train, Otto.”
Brandt blunders around for excuses. “It’s a long queue for tickets, and we’ll need to be getting back soon.” Then, seeing Alan’s disappointment, he relents. “Righto, then.”
Ghosts and trains make a nightmare combination, and Brandt’s tension worsens as they buy their tickets and pass through the black portal to take the two front seats in an outdated contrivance, which clanks and squeaks forwards into the darkness. The tunnel is dead cold and smells of mouldy papier mâché. Somewhere above, they hear grim theatrical laughter, and then a skeleton coated with luminous paint drops from the ceiling and dances about the train like a puppet. A girl screams, then there’s hysteria among the passengers as Frankenstein’s monster rises up directly in front of the train, but just in time the train spins off in another direction, and Alan shouts and grasps his seat as they accelerate towards a brick wall, then abruptly change course. The other riders, mostly teenagers, are shrieking their heads off as the train rattles towards monster spider webs, witches, horned demons and a disturbing gang of four harpies who raise their talons towards the passengers.
Brandt swallows and his heart pounds in protest when he sees that one of these ghouls is a chalk-faced, one-eyed woman with blood-red hair. He has no time for a second look before he is jerked sideways as the train makes an abrupt turn and they are thrust out of the tunnel, both squinting in the bright sunlight. Brandt feels an icy knot in his stomach, his knees won’t stop shaking and he fumbles to lift the safety bar.
“Are you OK, Otto?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” Brandt hears the unintentional curtness in his reply, so he adds, “I get a bit claustrophobic in places like that.”
“You look very white, just like the ghosts. Did you get scared?”
“Of course not. Did you?”
“Had a few shocks, but wasn’t really scared.”
They leave Luna Park to stroll along by the jetty and Alan throws popcorn to some gulls, who come squawking down like the furies. As soon as the bag is empty, they fold their wings and settle down on the wharf. The water slops against the piles, making yellow clots of foam, and its depths are a glassy, deepening green with just a tint of purple. The faint creak of rowlocks alerts Brandt to an old man in a wooden boat trailing a light spinner. Alan waves to him and the man dips his head beneath his broad hat, like a cricket umpire refusing an appeal.
*
Back in the hotel, Brandt lies on top of his bed and watches the play of street lights on the flickering curtains. The window is half open to catch the harbour breeze. He is tired, more tired than he feels he should be. Taking a twelve-year-old around Sydney is exacting in itself, but the horror of the one-eyed harpy in the tunnel has drained him like a blown egg. Given half a chance, he would go back there tomorrow and prove it was just a hideous puppet, but he’s promised Alan a day at the beach because on the following morning they start for home.
Thursday is warm, almost hot, and, after breakfast, Brandt and Alan spread out the map. “Shall we go for that swim, Alan?”
“Yes, please, Otto – but can it be in the proper surf, like Bondi Beach?”
Brandt finds Bondi on the map. He uses his penknife as a pointer. “From here it means driving across to the city and probably getting stuck in traffic.”
“What about going by tram like Milo suggested?”
“I looked into that yesterday. The concierge told me that will take even longer because we have to change trams at Wynyard Station, which is right in the city. Anyway, he says that the nor
thern beaches are much better than Bondi and we can drive there in half an hour. Look.”
Alan’s eyes follow the blade as it navigates the road through North Sydney and then over a narrow bridge across Middle Harbour until it meets an unclasped necklace of beaches extending northward. “One of those will do, Otto.”
It feels so long ago now, when Brandt taught the boys to swim, at a time when all of them had firmly believed that in Australia they would spend their holidays on ocean beaches and plunge into rolling surf. How they were deceived, but, for one of them at least, it will happen; he’ll see to it and, every year from now on, he will make a point of taking Alan to the coast. He taps the map.
“Where shall we swim, Alan? You choose our beach.”
“Whale Beach.”
“Why?”
“I like the name.”
“I do too.”
*
Despite the warm sun, Whale Beach is hardly crowded, there are only sixty or so families on the sand with less than a dozen stalwarts braving the water.
The sunburnt face of the man in the kiosk is in direct contrast to the whiteness of his floppy hat. He takes Brandt’s two-shilling coin and hands him their chosen ice creams, vanilla for Brandt and chocolate for Alan. “I s’pose you must be up from Melbourne,” the man says. “Only Victorians swim here at this time of the year.”
“We’re from the Snowy Mountains,” says Alan.
“Well, that explains it. Mind you, they say we’re due for a bit of a heatwave. Here’s your change.” As they leave, he calls after Brandt. “Oh, by the way, mate, there’s no lifeguard on today. Hope your son can swim.”
“Taught him myself,” says Brandt.
They stand in their swimming trunks and let the ocean water swirl around their toes.
“It’s cold,” says Alan.
“That’s because your body’s hot, you’ll get used to it when you’re in.”
But, cold or not, their gaze is on the thundering breakers crashing onto the sand shelf hundreds of yards out and shooting the sparse bathers back to the beach.
“Come on,” says Brandt rushing towards the waves.
They both find body surfing exhilarating. They imitate the other swimmers and dive under the medium waves, then surface and go out further to ride the bigger swells. When they make their choice, they stay with it until its breaking crest carries them to shore. In this abandoned to-ing and fro-ing, Brandt is in his element and the wild surf is a galaxy away from the paper horrors at Luna Park.
It’s getting hot and he looks back to the beach, where more families are arriving by the minute, laying down their towels, and spreading white cream all over their noses and shoulders.
“I’ve had enough for a bit,” says Alan.
“Yes, I think I’ll do a bit of sunbathing too.”
“Just like on the Syrenia.”
“Yes, like that.”
They find their towels and stretch out. Alan opens his satchel for his library book.
“What are you reading?” asks Brandt.
“Biggles Defies the Swastika.”
“It sounds like a good story.”
The glare of the sun is making Alan squint through his glasses. Finally, he stands up and looks about him.
“Alan, could you get us something at the kiosk?” Brandt takes a sock out of his shoe, retrieves his wallet and hands the boy a ten-shilling note. “Get me a packet of State Express 333s. And would you like a pie or a salad roll for lunch?”
“A pie, please.”
“Fine, I’ll have one as well – and buy us a couple of bottles of cold drink. I’d like ginger beer if they’ve got it or else just lemonade. You choose what you like. Got it?”
“Yes Otto, back in a minute.”
He watches Alan negotiate his way through the sunbathers to join the group at the kiosk. Brandt feels sleepy; either it’s the sun making him tired or, as he suspected yesterday, it’s the unrelenting responsibilities of being a father. He is dozing on the towel when he feels sand grains raining on his face as a laden Alan attempts to squat down beside him.
“I got us some meat pies. They didn’t have ginger ale, so I got you lemonade like you said.”
“That’s fine, you did well. What are you drinking?”
“Coke.”
Brandt sits up and looks about him. “Thanks,” he says as Alan hands him the change, which he slips back in his shoe.
“Hey Otto, when I was at the kiosk I saw some foreign people there with little numbers on them. Tattoos, round about here.” Alan points to a place on his right arm. “Why would they have those?”
Brandt stops eating and looks Alan directly in the eyes. “They would have been ex-prisoners from a German concentration camp, my country’s shame.” His eyes shut like a trap to let the new honesty subside, then he opens them again and shakes his head.
“I’m sorry, I mentioned it, Otto,” says Alan. “I’ll be more careful in future.”
“No, Alan, definitely not. You are perfectly right to mention it, some things are too serious for a man to ignore. You must always speak your mind to me, one man to another; do you understand?”
“I will, Otto.”
“Good.”
But, of course, it is not good at all. The subject will come up again and again in a hundred disguises until the questions become lethally personal, and Brandt knows a time will come when he will look this boy straight in the eye once more and lie through his teeth, like he did on the Syrenia when he’d said he had served with Rommel. He is disgusted with himself and urgently needs to feel clean.
Some of the bobbing swimmers are well out beyond the last line of breakers. “I’m going out for a long dip, Alan,” he says. “You stay here until I get back and we’ll try the surf again together. Just stay and guard all our kit. Do you mind doing that?”
“No, that’s OK, Otto.”
Brandt sprints down the beach, but his eyes are wet. Self-pity? Christ, no, nothing is worse than self-pity. He weeps because he knows only too well what hell those people at the kiosk had suffered through men like himself. He weeps that now, when the horror is supposed to be over, they still have to display their tattooed arms on a sunny Australian beach – a beach as curved and golden as a slice of ripe melon, a place where humans come to be happy. He splashes through the shallows and wades out until he reaches green water, then he dives, and, as the water closes over his head, he fervently wills it to be a cleansing baptism washing away thoughts, moods, desires – the past, yes, most vitally the past – and he will re-emerge from the sea like a shaggy dog, shaking off a deluge of self-reproach.
It won’t happen.
He swims out further, his muscular strokes propelling him through one oncoming breaker onto the next. In manic thrusts, he slices through the pitching water until he is past the breakers altogether and forging ahead well beyond all the other swimmers. At last, he pauses and treads water as the sea rises and falls in smooth emerald mounds, with the sandy bottom three fathoms or more below him. He swings himself over and floats on his back, the water slapping his ears and the sky making him dizzy. He lies in a balmy weightlessness and watches a white bird directly above him gliding towards the now distant beach. There are supposed to be sharks off this coast, but the thought doesn’t alarm him; if his mood were lighter, he might even smile at the thought.
“Otto! Otto, I can’t see you properly.”
Christ in heaven!
Brandt rockets into alertness and his body rises with the swell. He fixes his attention on a wild splashing and a blond head. Alan, out in this heaving swell, calling out to him from twenty yards away, and the boy can’t see him properly because he hasn’t got his glasses on.
“Alan, I’m coming, just stay there. Stay there and tread water.” Brandt swims through undulating mounds of shimmering green, desperate to set a c
ourse towards Alan’s voice. In the dips, the boy is out of sight. When he is visible again, he is tossing his head from side to side, vainly looking about him.
“Alan! I’m over here.” With difficulty while keeping himself afloat, Brandt manages to raise one hand and wave it frantically above his head. “Keep shouting to me, Alan.”
“I can see you; I’m getting tired.”
“No, you’re not. Float on your back; I’m almost there.”
But Brandt himself is tired. His arms ache, and, as he struggles to keep himself on course, it is Brigitte’s voice which comes to taunt him.
‘Everything you touch, Ernst Frick, turns to ashes.’
Yes, yes, of course, Brigitte, but, please God, not in this case. He hurls one arm after another, thrusting the water behind him with concave palms and powerful legs. Brigitte’s voice comes again – he can do without this.
‘Why did you choose to be so wrong? You knew it was wrong from the start, didn’t you? Go on, admit it again.’
Yes, I admit it, a million times over – yes, Brigitte – but just leave me to do this, I beg you.
A wave lifts him six feet and now he can clearly make out Alan frantically dog-paddling, his son’s face pale, as he splutters up seawater from his lungs. When Brandt finally closes the gap to five feet, he dives and comes up with Alan holding onto his neck.
“Not so tight, Alan.”
“OK, sorry.”
“That’s better, now don’t let go. Come on.”
When they reach the cusp of the first breaker, Brandt seizes the belt of Alan’s trunks.
“We’re catching this one. Here we go.”
Orphaned Leaves Page 20
