by Susan Duncan
'The team's looking pretty good,' I announce happily. 'Might just have to have a small bet on them both.'
And for a moment, I am overwhelmed with memories of my gorgeous gambling brother and I miss him so badly I want to cry or break something.
In her corner, where she sits under a mass of white gladioli spilling from a grey pottery vase, my mother is suddenly still and silent, her face turning as grey as the vase.
'John would have loved a day like today,' I say, to let her know I understand what she's feeling.
And she nods, because she cannot speak.
For the next hour or so, we four women of varying generations dangle our legs over the edge of the deck, cooling our feet in the water. We are all without partners. My mother is a widow, Pia is divorced and her ex-husband is remarried. Lulu has mended from her split with her boyfriend but is unwilling to expose herself to new risk. I am a widow with a married lover, which is the same, really, as being single. He is away with his family, holed up in five star accommodation somewhere exotic. I cannot expect even a hurried phone call to say 'Merry Christmas'. Of us all, I think to myself, my mother has handled her emotional circumstances the most effectively. Perhaps she is right. Stiff upper lip and get on with it. That's the most useful way to behave. The least risky way to survive. But is hers a life with richness and colour? Or merely an existence?
At 5 pm Stewart swings past in his boat and picks us up, dogs and all. He drops us at Church Point and goes back to collect the team from his house.
There's already a crowd at The Point. Women in sarongs and bikini tops or T-shirts. Kids either naked or wearing swimsuits, men in shorts and shirts that sometimes look as though they've just left off cleaning the barbecue. And dogs. Dogs everywhere. Sniffing, piddling, farting, sitting, running, rutting, swimming, shaking and generally as happy as . . . well, dogs who live in a doggies' paradise.
Everyone's holding a beer or glass of wine. Sweet and gentle. Big Dave from Scotland Island has set up a table and chairs at the finishing line so his mother and a couple of other grannies have a comfy top spot. He offers everyone who passes cheese and bikkies. But there's no sign of a race headquarters, a place to drop your beer and dog food and sign up.
'What's the drill?' I ask over and over again.
People shrug and smile. 'Relax. Have a beer. It'll happen.'
The crowd and all the other dogs overwhelm Wally. He keeps dodging feet and kids. But he's not under any stress. He finally sinks to the ground at my feet like a camel bedding down for the night and closes his eyes.
Bella, who is a tad neurotic, plunges into the water. Returns with a twig the size of a toothpick and a look on her face that says throw it or I'll have a tantrum.
Lulu gives in to the pressure. 'But don't wear yourself out, Bella,' she scolds, as though the dog is her child.
'That dog won't wear out until she drops dead,' Pia says out of the corner of her mouth. Bella's plonked one too many twigs in her lap in the last few hours.
As the race time gets closer, a fleet of tinnies and one or two posher commuter boats (which means they're fibreglass instead of aluminium) gather offshore like a ragtag navy. Excitement fills the air. Someone starts a book on the race, odds are chalked up. Diesel, a lanky black, ferociously loyal dog, is favourite. In the pre-race doggy frolicking, Diesel tries to steal a ball. Which starts a fight. Mothers grab toddlers, blokes momentarily abandon iceboxes. The grannies don't move from their table, though. Perhaps they think age gives them divine protection.
'Get out of it, ya bloody mutt!'
The scrapping dogs are pulled apart. Diesel sulks. People return to their positions, curse loudly when they see a pongy yellow stain on the corner of their icebox: 'Bastards!' But no-one really cares. It's a sunny, mellow late afternoon and tomorrow's Christmas Day.
The story of how the race originated is murky. The most reliable source says that when there were two ferry services competing hotly for local business (a co-op formed by residents tired of feeling hostage to a single service, and a privately owned service), both drivers had a dog. In a heated argument one evening, one driver threw down the gauntlet:'My dog could wear lead boots and still beat your bloody mutt.' Or words to that effect.
The ferry captains agreed to a dog race from Scotland Island to Church Point. When locals heard about it, everyone with a dog that could swim naturally wanted to be in the race, which has now been going for about thirty years. But that's open to debate, too. Memories are hazy and everyone has a different version of events.
When we're all primed with enough drinks, and before the sun gets too low, an anonymous voice yells for everyone to get their dogs on Bomber's barge, the Trump, or into their own boats to be shipped to the starting point. Which is Matty's barge. Unnamed. It floats a little offshore from Bells Wharf.
'Wally! Bella! We're off,' I call.
Both dogs happily jump onto the Trump. Wally loves boats. Bella's a bit more wary, probably from the time she tried to catch the wake from Stewart's boat one day and, to her enormous surprise, went flying overboard. We dragged her out of the water by her collar and she lay soggy and subdued for the rest of the trip.
The dogs jump from the Trump to Matty's barge, ready for the race start. All of them a bit bemused but caught up in the excitement.
There are three fights before the gun is fired.To break them up, owners shove their dogs overboard and then haul them out of the water again. When the starting shot rings out, every dog jumps and starts swimming – except Wally. He stands and looks around.
'Swim, Wally, swim!' I shout, standing behind him and urging him on.
He wags his stumpy tail and doesn't move.
In the end, I push him off the barge and he sinks, his brown eyes wide open under the water, blinking in bewilderment, and for a moment I think I've killed him. Then he rises, paddling happily. I jump back on the Trump. Then turn to watch Wally's progress. He's still paddling happily. In a circle. Round and round. Going nowhere.
'Think that dog needs rescuing,' Bomber says after a while.
I strip down to my underwear. Why is it you're always wearing cottontails when you'd rather be seen in lace?
'No, love,' Bomber says. 'No need for that. We'll get him in the rowboat.'
Meanwhile, Bella is swimming magnificently with Stewart's daughters kayaking behind her. So once Wally's been pulled into a rowboat and delivered back to the Trump, we head to Church Point to see the end.
Bella is brilliant. Coming third. We're all there to cheer her madly. She reaches the beach. Shakes herself. Wags her tail. We're hysterical with success.
'That's not Bella,' Lulu says flatly. She points out to sea. 'That's Bella.'
Bella, the girls tell us later, followed a floating stick. She came in second last. With the stick, though. Which was a triumph of sorts.
After the race, Lulu grabs Bella and returns to Sydney for Christmas with her father's side of the family. Pia, Wally and I hitch a lift on a boat and return to Scotland Island, where my mother waits for news of Wally's epic swim. She's at the end of the jetty as we arrive.
'Well?'
'We-e-ll . . .'
'Well, how did my Wally do? Did he win?'
Pia and I look at each other and crack up.
'Not exactly,' Pia says, hiccuping in an effort to control herself.
'Had to be rescued,' I add.
'Rescued!'
'No, no, he was fine. He just kept swimming around in the same circle. Lost his bearings, I think. We had to pull him onto the Trump or he'd still be swimming in the same spot. But he made history.'
My mother smiles, waiting for the good news.
'He's the only dog who's ever had to be rescued since the race began!'
Wally, who senses we're talking about him, looks at us in turn. His stubby tail wagging madly, making his rump vibrate.
'C'mon, Wally,'my mother says, dismissing Pia and me. 'Let's go and get you a good dinner.'
At the magic word, Wally's e
yes light up and he licks his lips. He prances after her along the jetty to the house.
Pia and I sit on the steps and look across the water. We'd both like another glass of wine but neither of us feels like going to get it.
'Oi!'
My mother appears around the corner from the doorway of the house. 'What?'
'Don't feel like pouring a couple of tired old tarts a vino, do you?'
She turns back into the house and emerges a few minutes later with a bottle, a corkscrew, two wineglasses and a whisky. The whisky is for her.
'Mind if I join you?'
She sits on the top step in her cream cotton dress with navy blue diamonds that my brother bought her for Christmas about ten years earlier, and sips her whisky. I know she will never throw that dress out. I wonder if every time she wears it, she feels closer to her son. A physical link when there can never be the touch of his hand or the sound of his voice.
On Christmas Day, nursing hangovers, we set up an icebox at the end of the jetty and fill it with champagne. We pull red and green reindeer antlers made from sponge onto our heads. They wilt at about the same rate we do. The table is set in front of the French doors from the bedroom and when the wind whips around from the nor' east, we jump into the water to retrieve table napkins.
Pia lays out smoked salmon and smoked trout. She readies a metal bucket for the prawns Marty and Witch are bringing, and sets the sauce alongside. There's another bucket filled with fresh water and slices of lemon for washing hands but if the tide's right, we'll lean over the edge of the deck and wash our hands in sea water.
The turkey is in the oven, the potatoes are almost done, and the ham was glazed and baked first thing in the morning. It does, indeed, look like a feast. Saluté, my brother John!
Pia's dad arrives in a water taxi with his brother and sister-in-law visiting from Belgium. We hand them champagne as they get off the boat and their faces suddenly fill with excitement. The atmosphere and casual physical beauty lull even Pia's dad, with whom she has a lightly combative relationship.
Friends roll in. By the time we've had a few glasses of champagne and finished the seafood, a high, fine layer of cloud has filtered the sun and the wind has dropped to a tickle. It's a perfect day for sitting on the deck wearing reindeer hats, in full view of a passing world that waves and shouts 'Merry Christmas' and 'You all look ridiculous', or drops in for a quick drink before heading to their own celebrations.
After the pudding, Pia's uncle sings 'The First Nöel' in French and we join in the chorus in English. He has a beautiful tenor voice that drifts across the silken water and we beg him to keep singing, which he does until long after the moon comes up and he goes hoarse.
'C'est magnifique,' he says, waving his arm at the surroundings. It is about 10 pm and the water taxi is waiting to take them back to shore.
He slips his arm around his wife's waist and then says formally to me:'Thank you.This is a Christmas to be memorable.'
10
AS SUMMER ROLLS INTO autumn and the days become shorter, the evenings crisp, I am lying in my room, doors open to the water. It is about 3 am and I am awake. I still don't have a home to call my own and often on sleepless nights, I roll over and silently ask the boys to help.To tell me where to go, what to do. I want a sign from them, I suspect, that will give me the confidence to believe whatever I do next will be for the best.
It is the weekend and Pia is asleep upstairs in the captain's cabin. We've got a team coming for Sunday lunch and I'm fretting because I can't sleep. Exhaustion is becoming a constant condition and I wonder if it is age or lifestyle. Probably both.
Music filters through to me, the tinny electronic kind of music you hear from musical Christmas cards or mobile phones. I ignore it for a while, but then I realise it is coming from the kitchen. I get up and walk along the back porch, the music getting louder all the time. When I go into the kitchen, it seems to be coming from the cupboards under the sink. I lean down and search for the source. But my heart is racing.
When my husband died and I went back to our Nepean home to sell it, the microwave, at various and very odd times, would suddenly erupt into the same kind of music. When I mentioned this rather strange phenomenon to Pat, who looked after the house while Paul and I travelled, she kindly refrained from saying I'd gone nuts. But one night when Pat and I were sitting at dinner with the handyman who'd come to fix up the house before I sold it, the microwave burst forth with a loud rendition of 'Danny Boy', Paul's favourite song. Pat and the handyman jumped up and ransacked the kitchen trying to figure out where it was coming from. None of us could really believe the microwave was singing! They never did find any other source. But that microwave played on and off until I sold the house and moved to Melbourne.
As weird as this sounds, I will not apologise for believing then (and now) that it was a message from Paul. Trouble is, you never know what this kind of message means. Did playing 'Danny Boy' mean Paul approved of selling the house? Did playing 'Jingle Bells' (another constant tune) mean he wanted me to stay put? That's the bugger about spooky events. How do you ever know how to decipher them?
Now weird stuff is happening again. Pia, as pragmatic a woman as ever lived, hears me banging around in the kitchen and comes downstairs. 'What in God's name is that awful music?' she asks. 'Turn it off, it's the middle of the bloody night.'
'I can't find where it's coming from.'
She pushes past me and rifles through the kitchen shelves. 'Must be one of those bloody musical kitchen contraptions,' she mutters, tipping baskets out on the counter. 'Ought to be banned.'
As suddenly as it started, the music stops.
'It's coming from in there somewhere,' she says, indicating a mess of kitchen gadgets, from garlic crushers to serving spoons. 'I'll sort it out in the morning.'
We both go back to bed. The music starts once more.
'I'm not bloody getting up again,' she calls.
And before long the music stops.
I lie awake, looking out at the night sky, clear and starry. A green satellite-shaped object appears and I wait for it to move on. A plane, I think, or a reflection of some kind. But it doesn't move. It hovers there. I think about waking Pia again but decide not to. I know what it is all about. I just have to wait to see what it brings. Thank you, boys. They are looking after me. I know it. Bizarre? Delusional maybe? But not to me at this time.
Slowly, without quite understanding it, I begin searching for a house to buy.
It is late, about 10 pm. I wait at Church Point for a water taxi to take me home after a tedious, nitpicking day at the office. The nights are hardening as winter encroaches. Summer's lushness is being tossed off, like an irritating little brother. Tonight, there's no cloud around to soften the cold and it bites deep until the bones in my chest feel frigid. I pull my jacket tighter. Wipe my dripping nose.
The Point is almost deserted. Just me and a fisherman who is often here. He's harmless but he talks so quickly it's gibberish. He darts from bucket to bucket, slopping water. Moving on to the next chore before finishing the last. Always in a rush. A little mad.
I am too tired tonight to feel benign about his edginess. So I sit in the shelter at the ferry wharf, a little away from him, waiting for the water taxi. When there are no red and green water taxi lights in the distance and he starts to creep closer, seeking company, I move away.
'Just going to check the ads in the real estate window,' I tell him. He is too fragile to treat rudely.
Ads are lit up in a display window next to the ferry wharf office. There are faded pictures with price tags that make properties pipe dreams, not possibilities. I've seen them often. Unwilling, though, to return to the other end of the wharf and the feverish fisherman, I study the ads in detail for the first time.
In the top left hand corner, there's a rather bad photograph that I haven't noticed before, although it looks like it's been there a while, of a green tin house with an oddly shaped window. It is in Lovett Bay. I assume it is
on what I think of as the right side (north facing), because I know Lovett Bay quite well. The only house for sale (on the wrong side, south facing) is a rackety old fibro shack with a sinking pontoon and falling-down awnings.
The house in the photograph is all hard edges, corrugated iron, small windows and built like a fortress. Not my style at all. But the image niggles me on the trip home. It doesn't morph in with all the other buildings on display. Stands alone in my mind.
I will never be able to explain why but I call the real estate agent the next day and arrange to see it mid-week. When Wednesday rolls around the new real estate agent, in jeans and a bright white linen shirt, motors up to the Scotland Island house in a flaking tinny. The boat belongs to her assistant. This agent, all bouffant blonde and crisp creases, doesn't live offshore and sits in the boat with a frozen, tense expression. When I jump in she grips the sides fiercely, as though she expects me to sink it.
'Gidday. Great day,' says the assistant, a barefoot Scotland Islander. 'Let's go,' she adds, revving the motor.
'Couldn't get the water taxi for another twenty minutes,' explains the top agent, white-faced. 'Sorry about this.' 'Looking for a tinny just like this for myself,' I tell her.
She looks at me as though I need a lobotomy. I figure her career will soon move to solid ground where her car will be of more use.
We motor past Trincomalee, a lovely old white, weatherboard home that dominates the point between Elvina and Lovett. As usual, a big furry white dog, more suited to living in Alaska, lies on the jetty alongside the boatshed waiting for his mistress, a local doctor, to return from work. Trincomalee reeks of gentility and order, with regimented sandstone steps, scalloped stone handrails, a saltwater pool and boatshed. No tinny tied up, though. The good doctor gave up commuting long ago, except by water taxi.
When we begin to veer towards what I consider is the wrong side of Lovett Bay, I look at the agent aghast. 'We're not going to that awful old green shack, are we? I haven't got the slightest interest in that.'
