Secrets of the Sea

by Nicholas Shakespeare

  The onions were almost caramelised. She smashed some garlic under the flat of a knife and chopped it up and added a pinch of coarse salt and a tin of Italian tomatoes. She pureed the tomatoes and the onions with the potato masher so that Kish would not be able to see them. She was making the kind of sauce she used to make for Tildy’s children. Simple, with no evidence of onions. She was an expert in hiding onions.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KISH SPOKE HARDLY AT all on the journey to Woolnorth, content to stare out the window. The further north they travelled, the more extreme the impact of the previous week’s storm on the landscape. The trees on the east coast were hardened to strong winds from the south-east, had grown to face them. But north beyond Longford, the vegetation faced in the opposite direction, towards Bass Strait. Unaccustomed to fast-bowling gales from the south, the gums and wattles had been spun out of the ground like cricket stumps.

  They stopped in Stanley and ate fish and chips on a triangle of grass surrounded by seagulls. Kish soon finished his meal. He watched Alex chewing.

  At last, he spoke. “Harry says you can get wonderful pork pies in the north, just like he ate in his youth in England.”

  “When did you talk to Harry?”

  “He came up yesterday to see you.”

  “Where was I?”

  Kish shrugged. “He says Tasmania is a place where you can get things that have vanished from England.”

  “You shouldn’t listen to Harry. What did he want?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  Trailed by seagulls, Alex took his paper plate and dropped it into the bin with the remains of the battered trevalla. Across the road, a she-oak had collapsed onto a house.

  Alex looked at his watch. “I said we’d be there by two.”

  The windmill expert lived near Cape Grim, a small cove of black sand. Below, a treacherous sea receded from the cliff in white rags.

  “Does it ever get calm?” Alex asked the man, who was called Scantlebury.

  “Oh, flat as.”

  Mr Scantlebury had a well-trimmed beard and a serious face protected by rimless glasses, and was employed at the wind farm. He was in his workshop when they arrived, a converted hangar next to a whitewashed stone cottage. He walked out to the ute and lifted the tarp and nodded.

  “Probably the bearings.” He was familiar with the model. He had serviced an identical machine in Gladstone. “The bearings go and no one does anything with them.”

  Only one thing about Alex’s windmill puzzled him.

  “You live by a highway or something?”

  “No, why?”

  He reached out a leathery hand and shifted the vane to reveal the bright, fresh orange letters.

  “Reckon someone’s been hooning around with a spray can.”

  It was almost four o’clock when Alex called from Smithton.

  He was in a buoyant mood. Mr Scantlebury had inspected the windmill and was confident that he could repair it; furthermore, was prepared to work late to do so. But it would not be ready to collect until the following morning. Rather than waste a journey, Alex planned to stay overnight with Kish in the north. “We should be back by lunch.”

  “Where will you sleep?”

  “Scantlebury’s recommending a B & B in Alexandria.”

  He had not sounded so happy in months.

  “So you’ll be back by lunch,” she said slowly.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I was making you dinner.”

  “Then we’ll have it tomorrow. We can eat it tomorrow, can’t we, love?”

  “Oh, I should think so,” without force.

  “Did you finish all you had to do?”

  “Yes, I got everything sorted.”

  But she felt dowdy. She took the sauce off the stove and the cake out of the oven–it looked cooked through–and went into her bedroom. Nauseated suddenly by the kitchen smells on her clothes, she stripped. Anything you’ve got to make you look good.

  As Merridy had not done since a teenager, she found herself appealing to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She combed back her hair, squirted some three-year-old scent beneath her jaw-line, polished her nails and put on a bit of make-up. Then rolled on a pair of new stockings and unhooked from the wardrobe the cornflower dress that she had picked out in the Myer winter sale for her trip to Melbourne. And as the clock chimed four on the radio shut Rusty in the living room and climbed into her car to drive to Wellington Point.

  She was strapping herself in when she heard the telephone ring in the kitchen. She was on the verge of taking off her seat belt when it crossed her mind that the caller would be Mrs Wellard. So she drove away.

  RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS

  From Sgt Pete Finter: “The recent tragic events in Oyster Bay have highlighted the necessity of having a suitable local rescue boat in our area, as in Swansea. It’s frightening to think that without Alex and Merridy Dove there would have been another death. Merridy’s handling of the Zemmery Fidd (which the young lady designed with her very own hand) was an amazing feat of seawomanship. No less exceptional was Alex Dove’s dramatic rescue of a drowning Sydneysider. I know that the whole community takes pride in this brave act. Well done, both of you!”

  In Talbot’s, Merridy took a Newsletter from the stand next to the till, and then a Mercury. On the front page, the same bland-looking man stared out at her with the same unwavering expression: “Is your memory a sieve?” Next to him, the photograph of a five-metre boat uncovered in Marion Bay.

  Watch out for ghost ships! The wild weather and giant swell which battered Tasmania’s coast earlier in the week have already bared the wreck of this long rowing boat in Marion Bay. Anyone who sees a wreck should get in touch with the Parks and Wildlife Service.

  Merridy folded the newspaper into her trolley–and turned to Rose-Maree. “Where do I find bleach?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Bleach, Rose-Maree. Where is the bleach?”

  “Oh, it’s you, Mrs Dove,” said Rose-Maree, thawing. “You look amazing.” She pointed out the aisle.

  And, searching for bleach, bumped into Tildy.

  For a fraction of a second, they failed to recognise each other.

  “Merridy!” laughed the oversized figure in a grey coat. The freckles were hard dots in her cheeks and around the thick neck was twisted an orange scarf.

  “Tildy!”

  “How are you? You look well.”

  “And you.”

  “Off somewhere special?”

  “Oh, no, not really.”

  “I like the dress!” rubbing her fingers over the lapel. Her hand was puffy and her face had a peaky look. “Why don’t I ever see you?”

  “I know, it’s ridiculous.”

  “My God, how long has it been?”

  “Your father’s funeral, was it?”

  Tildy touched Merridy’s arm. “But that’s three months ago! I reckon we saw each other more when you were in Melbourne.”

  “There’s a lot to catch up on,” agreed Merridy and felt a warmth returning. There was so much, suddenly, that she did want to say. “How are the kids?”

  “How long have you got?” Tildy groaned.

  Now it was her hand on Tildy’s arm. “Hey, what are you doing now?”

  “You mean right this moment? I’ve got an X-ray at five, but after that—”

  “An X-ray? Is something wrong?”

  “No, no. It’s the Breast Bus.” Ever since Tuesday, a converted coach offering free scans had been parked outside the Louisa Meredith Home. “Ray thought I should go–seeing it doesn’t cost a cent. Plus it gets me out of the house.”

  “Then let’s meet afterwards.”

  “Where would you like? I’d ask you home, except Ray’s got Albert Talbot coming round for a chat that’s apparently so bloody important we’ve all had to skedaddle. The girls are having a sleep-over. I’ll be free as soon as I’ve dropped them off.”

  “What about the hotel?”

  Tildy hes
itated, as Merridy remembered once hesitating. “I suppose we could.”

  “Say six o’clock?”

  Merridy had parked outside Talbot’s. She looked across the street, but no one moved in Ray Grogan’s office. With an hour to kill, she put her shopping in the trunk and walked towards the Bethel Teahouse. She longed for a strong coffee.

  It was that time of afternoon when the wind had paused and the bay was a plate of blue. Out beyond the jetty a gannet mortared the water for black-backed salmon.

  But the tearoom was locked.

  Disappointed, Merridy peered through a Gothic window at the sombre interior and recalled the afternoon when she had pressed her face to this very pane probably, and searching inside for her mother spotted Alex.

  She did not want to think of her mother, but now that she was reminded she was comforted by the maternal presence. Whatever her warm feelings towards Wellington Point, Merridy had never forgotten her mother’s opinion of country people. “There’s a jealous streak running through this town, Merridy. There are plenty here who hate success. The slightest cut and they’re in there–feeding. Mrs Grogan will tell you no different.” (This after Mrs Bowman overheard Rose-Maree caution a woman in Talbot’s: “You don’t want to have coffee in that place, you might get contaminated.”) And now the Bethel Teahouse had chairs stacked high on the tables and a black-and-yellow board outside.

  A premonition of this same sign planted outside Oblong Oysters hastened Merridy across the road. She walked up the hill, away from the Tearoom. If she could not have a coffee, she would spend the next hour exploring her town.

  It was not so often that Merridy found reason to stray from the waterfront. Her traditional goat path was the main street. On this still afternoon, striking out up Malvern Road, it struck her forcibly the degree to which Wellington Point had altered.

  Early on in their courtship, Alex had walked her around, sketching in the history of the settlement. As if repeating fragments told him by his father.

  “That”–the golf course–“is where Captain Greer cut down the trees that reminded him of his dead soldiers at Waterloo.”

  “No, that’s where Tildy lost her virginity.”

  “What, to a golfer?”

  “If you must know–Pete Finter.”

  “Swansea,” pointing seven miles across the bay.

  “That’s where Ray Grogan really would like to live.”

  His hand cut the air, encompassing the horizon. “Over there, Maria Island…The Hazards…Oyster Bay.”

  “Which those who have never been there bravely liken to the Bay of Naples!”

  “Ssshhh.”

  So had she surrendered herself to his silence. She had been on death-watch ever since driving her father and mother down from Zeehan, and had failed to take in her surroundings. But then she stood beside Alex and made an effort to look at the view through his eyes–and saw that it was indeed spectacularly lovely.

  In the intervening years, the weatherboard houses had transformed themselves into spic, modern brick homes: “Wivenhoe” and “Cherwell”, and “Bliss House” and “Gay Bowers”, with gleaming 4x4s behind their security gates. Some of their owners were unknown to Merridy as were the owners of two or three small businesses that had mushroomed on the fringe of town, employing handfuls of people, filling the school, electing Ray to the council. In the first years of her marriage she had known by name nearly everyone in the community. This afternoon almost the only name that she recognised was the one proliferating on the wasp-striped boards visible up and down the street.

  She walked on fast and turned into Worcester Crescent, but neither here could she escape the signs. Wherever she looked the same name rose to challenge her.

  Ray Grogan. Why not settle for more? Everything I touch turns to SOLD.

  On the dot of six Merridy stepped into the old cocktail bar. She frowned at the room. Seen from the entrance, the place was a chaos of fume and noise. There was a large television screen bracketed to a wall. There was the bray of relaxed males and women squealing, with low lights to bathe the faces. She imagined everyone’s breath a different colour, the spewing tangle.

  Merridy ordered a tomato juice from a woman with lavender-tinted hair whom she recognised but could not place. Behind the bar, where in her first week working for Tildy’s father Merridy had had to pin a postcard of Mount Vesuvius, was a photograph of a log-truck, captioned: Doze a Greenie. But it pleased her to see the convict brick on the counter. Still filled with matches.

  She paid for her tomato juice and made her way to an empty table under the television.

  In the artificial light, a stud on a dog’s collar winked. Largely unnoticed on screen, the Pope got on with dying. A spectre in a wheelchair appeared at the Vatican balcony. The twin of a Francis Bacon portrait, a poster of which she had had Blu-Tacked to her wall at uni.

  “The world is standing by,” a commentator gravely intoned.

  “No, we are not, pisspot,” snarled a tall, emaciated figure in an old cricket jersey–the only other person watching. And to his dog: “We’re not standing by anyone, are we, Paddy?”

  He caught Merridy looking at the animal.

  “Hi, Harry.”

  “Do I know you?” in an English accent. He stared at her uncertain. Long years had pushed back his eyes. In the pulsing light they were the colour of the oysters that she once grew in the river. “Ah, Mrs Dove, if I’m not mistaken?” and abruptly grinned.

  “That’s right. How are you?”

  “My days are numbered. I saw my specialist in Hobart,” and caught his breath. “It’s likely to be soon–and sudden.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Harry Ford had come to Wellington Point in 1957 to die, but…

  He nodded at the screen. “Pope and I, we’re in the same boat,” and scowled out of his lined, grey cheeks. “But answer me this, Mrs Dove, if he’s going to Heaven, why are they weeping?”

  “For themselves, I imagine.”

  “Hypocrites!” he rasped. “Hypocrites!” and held the dog lead tighter. “And Alex? How’s that fine husband of yours?”

  “He’s good,” she said, withdrawing. She had never enjoyed moments spent alone with Harry.

  But he was not letting go. “I heard…I heard that you have a lodger.” And his breathlessness reminded her of the chandler in Hobart and a rocking boat.

  “That’s right. His name is Kish.”

  He leaned over her. His teeth were slimy and the pupils in his eyes were black. “You do know that’s not his name.”

  “I do.”

  “As hot a yo-yo as the world produces. So I’m told. As hot as a pistol.”

  “Is that right, Harry?” angrily smoothing her dress. And remembered Alex: “If a martian landed on Dolphin Sands, Harry would do his best to interview it for the Daily Express.”

  “And you, my dear, how do you find Mr Kish?”

  “He’s been a great help to me on my boat.”

  “So I understand. So I understand.” At his feet, eyes bulging at the tightened lead, the dog alone watched the pontiff dying. “But take care. My grandmother used to say: ‘Save a thief from the gallows and he will cut your throat.’”

  “I don’t think Sergeant Finter would have allowed him to stay at Moulting Lagoon Farm if he was worried.”

  “My dear girl, Pete Finter never solved a crime in his life. You might tell Alex—” But the effort of speaking was too much and his face collapsed in a coughing fit.

  “Are you all right, Harry?” Overcoming her distaste, she stood to clap between his shoulder-blades.

  But he waved her away. He covered his mouth, and jerking his dog after him beat a retreat through the drinkers in the direction of a door with the outline of a beaming man in a top hat with a cane.

  Merridy was left looking at the crowd that seemed to expand even as it swallowed up Harry; at the row of men and women at the bar who sat or stood over their stubbies, talking. She recognised barely any of them: the vet, a tapering m
an with a wife who tore off bottle caps with her teeth; and the lugubrious, bearded face of Sammy the Serb who was said to eat roadkill–Alex had once discovered him plucking a crow. These were all that she knew.

  “The insurance salesman came out in me. I rang the Kempton pub and asked: ‘Who in Kempton is having a baby?’”

  “Harry says the coppers sat on it and the driver kept mum. They’re doing sixteen hours a day, those drivers.”

  “One of the great pontiffs in Vatican history.”

  “She’s so fat now, you could slap her in the dough to make gorilla biscuits.”

  Merridy stood and listened. She could not quite believe it. This room where she had worked all those years ago, and which she remembered as habitually deserted, was now a thriving bar where the whole of Wellington Point seemed to have convened. Paying no attention to a dying Pope.

  Merridy caught the sweet, thick smell of a home-grown joint–not unpleasant–and coughed.

  She sat down again. Tildy was late. She sipped the tomato juice and watched out for her cousin. But her image of Tildy was impaired by the suspicious, monitoring faces that stared back at her. Until she was no longer looking for the woman whom she had bumped into earlier in Talbot’s, the one with pendulous breasts and chicken’s feet scratching at her eyes, but a girl with varnished cedar curls and a Cupid’s bow mouth who leans over a garden gate in west Ulverstone and holds out a brown paper bag.

  “Hey, want one?”

  The bag, Merridy cannot help noticing, is spotted with wet purple bruises. She walks up and reaches in her hand and casts about for a cherry that will not stain her gingham dress.

  “Going to the dance tonight?” says the mouth made for love.

  “That’s right.”

  “There you are!”

  She was waved out of her thoughts by Tildy. Her puffy hand above the sea of drinkers’ heads. Her wool scarf like a shred of orange peel.

  “Hi.”

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  Thirty-six again, she watched her cousin push her large body through the throng. A face on which the eyes of men no longer clung.