The Banksia Bay Beach Shack

by Sandie Docker

  Still, it was a pleasant enough accompaniment as she walked – well, skipped was more like it – to go and see her best friend.

  The Woodhouses’ car wasn’t in the driveway when Gigi reached the holiday house and her heart sank. The sun was low enough in the sky now. Lily should be here already.

  There was a small stump along the path that lead to the house – an old gum tree Dad had cut down years ago – and Gigi sat herself down on it and waited.

  And waited.

  It was well and truly dark before the headlights of the blue EK Holden lit up the hydrangeas that lined the driveway. Gigi jumped off the stump and smoothed her overalls down. Pointless, she knew. But she also knew Mrs Woodhouse wasn’t exactly enamoured of her, and she always made Gigi nervous.

  Lily flung open the door of the car as her father slowed it to a stop, and she ran over and threw her arms around Gigi.

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t believe the traffic heading out of Sydney. The whole city must have decided on an exodus. I thought we’d never get here.’

  ‘Lillian, please.’ Mrs Woodhouse frowned at the girls. ‘Show some decorum.’

  ‘Sorry, Mother.’ Lily pulled herself away from Gigi and straightened her monogrammed shirtwaist dress. ‘Would it be all right, Mother, if Gigi and I take a short walk, just to catch up? I really could do with stretching my legs after such a long drive.’

  Mrs Woodhouse started shaking her head, but Senator Woodhouse interjected. ‘Just a short one, Lily-pilly.’ He stroked her hair and looked at her fondly.

  ‘Thank you, Daddy.’ She kissed him on the cheek.

  Gigi grabbed Lily’s hand and yanked her down the path, Mrs Woodhouse’s words floating on the air behind them. ‘Really, Michael. You’d let that girl get away with murder . . .’

  Once on the beach, the girls sat in the sand, just out of reach of the receding tide.

  ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you again.’ Gigi linked her arm with Lily’s and told her all about the last few weeks since she’d written. Not that there was much to tell.

  ‘He sounds lonely,’ Lily said, when Gigi told her about Arthur and the washing machine.

  ‘What about you?’ Gigi turned to her. ‘What’s been happening in your life?’

  Lily was no longer at school, at least not regular school. Her mother had enrolled her in something called June Dally Whatsit.

  ‘Dally-Watkins,’ Lily corrected Gigi when she repeated the name with a sharp intake of breath.

  It sounded positively awful: walking straight, speaking well, sitting just the right way, and a whole lot of other really stuffy-sounding things. ‘Deportment’ was the word Lily used. Deportment didn’t sound anything like fun to Gigi. Thank goodness they had the summer to knock some of that polished dullness out of Lily and remind her what it was like to be free and enjoy life. She started making a list of activities in her head – antidotes to the Miss June Dally-What-a-pain poison – that would unleash the Lily she knew was inside.

  ‘Stop screwing up your face, Gigi. You’re acting like I’m describing military school.’

  Wasn’t she? Only this one was wrapped in a perfect pink bow.

  ‘Okay. Sorry. There must be something else going on in your life?’

  Gigi regretted prompting her friend the moment Lily mentioned Richard’s name, because once she started, she simply didn’t stop. Richard this, Richard that. Blah, blah, blah. Calling on her for dinner. Taking her to university social events. Apparently, he was the brightest medical student ever to walk the halls of Sydney University.

  Blah, blah, blah.

  ‘It’s been such a wonderful few months. Mother thinks he’s a real catch, and now that I’m eighteen he’s allowed to court me properly. Daddy’s already talking about him joining the party. They always need intelligent young men in politics, you know. He’s holidaying here this summer too. I think they arrived last night. I can’t wait to see him again.’

  Gigi could hear the giddiness in Lily’s voice. She didn’t need to look over to see the dreamy expression that was plastered across her face. And she knew what Lily’s parents were thinking too, especially with sending Lily to finishing school – ‘Dr and Mrs Richard Prescott’, their daughter married off appropriately. Well, not yet. Adulthood be damned. At least for one more summer.

  ‘Lily, will you promise me something?’

  Lily rose up on her elbows. ‘Anything.’

  ‘That you’ll keep coming back here for summer. Every year. Even as we get older and start our grown-up lives.’

  ‘Of course.’ Lily took her hand. ‘You’re like a sister to me, Gigi. My summer sister. Nothing can change that.’

  Gigi swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Even if you go off and marry Richard and have ten babies. You’ll still come back, right?’

  Lily giggled.

  ‘Lily?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Gigi. You know I will.’ She hugged her friend. ‘I’d better get back before Mother sends out a search party.’ She jumped up and ran down the beach.

  Gigi watched her friend go, holding on to hope.

  The first few weeks of summer holidays rolled by in a haze of heat, saltwater swims and ice-cream from the parlour that opened at the beginning of the season. Every day Gigi did her chores around the caravan park in the morning, spent the afternoon with Lily, and sat with Arthur after supper, helping sort out Elaine’s coin collection.

  ‘Never understood it, myself,’ Arthur said as they sifted through another box of coins, these ones from Europe. ‘But she loved friends and family sending her coins from their travels around the world. There’s this great little coin dealer in the middle of Sydney, and every week she’d walk past the window and pick out the rare coins she wanted. Never could afford them though.’

  Gigi and Arthur were sorting this box according to year. As far as Gigi knew, there were no rare coins in the collection. Still, it was fun going through them – the different designs and sizes and shapes. And she loved spending time with Arthur.

  ‘Ha,’ he said, pulling out a small coin with a hole in it. He passed it to Gigi, his eyesight not the best for reading the tiny words.

  Gigi took a look. ‘Norway.’ She’d learned the native word ‘Norge’ from Arthur. ‘1927. That’s very neat.’

  Every day she went past Costas’ house and he wasn’t there.

  The New Year was rung in and 1963 began as every other year before it, with fireworks on the beach. Bright and joyful, yet they filled Gigi with melancholy. The beginning of the New Year meant the beginning of the end of summer.

  The last week of the holidays loomed and Gigi was, she had to admit, getting bored with her routine. She knew just the cure. It was Sunday, and that meant she had the day off from the caravan park.

  Lily didn’t seem too keen on the idea of heading up the north bluff and exploring the old cheese factory, but Gigi insisted. Yes, people said it was haunted. No, she’d never seen a ghost and they would be perfectly safe.

  She didn’t tell Lily she secretly hoped they would run into a spectre or spirit or ghoul. How exciting would that be?

  Shards of morning sunlight shone through the bare wooden beams of what remained of the roof of the factory. Wind whistled through holes in the walls where stones had been dislodged. Fog surrounded the abandoned building and Lily clung to Gigi’s hand as they stepped over a broken table and wove past a large copper kettle that had fallen into the fire pit below it. The kettle moved ever so slightly, releasing a metal groan into the air, and Lily jumped.

  Gigi had always loved it here. She’d never seen an actual ghost, but didn’t doubt for a second they haunted this space. Banksia Bay was surrounded by dairy farms, so it made sense to have a cheese factory here, too, but it had been deserted ever since she could remember. She’d asked Dad about it once. He said he couldn’t remember what had happened, something about the family who owned it moving away, and then made himself busy helping Mum with the washing-up. He never helped with the washing-up. Gigi didn’t
believe him. No one else in town seemed to remember what had happened to it either, or why it hadn’t been started up again.

  So she made up her own story about a cheese maiden falling in love with the son of a rich dairy farmer. It was a forbidden love, of course, and one day, when the dairy son came to steal away the maiden, the cheese factory owner pushed the dairy son into the very kettle they’d just crawled past and cooked him alive. It was gruesome, yes, but weren’t ghost stories supposed to be gruesome? And, of course, now the dairy son haunted the factory, preventing anyone from working it ever again as he wandered the forlorn ruins still looking for his maiden.

  ‘That is not true!’ Lily screeched, as Gigi finished telling her this theory.

  ‘It could be.’ Gigi giggled as she pulled her friend up onto the cart in the corner of the factory, which sloped to one side as it was missing a wheel. ‘You should try coming up with a story. That would be fun.’ She looked at Lily with pleading eyes.

  ‘That’s not fun. That’s scary.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be scary.’ Gigi nudged her.

  Lily tried her hardest – a story about love and babies and simply moving away – but clearly this wasn’t her forte. And it didn’t explain why the place was still abandoned today. Gigi was going to have to teach her how to better use her imagination.

  Silence fell between them.

  There was no point continuing to make up tales. Gigi had to find something else to talk about.

  ‘Costas has gone away for the summer. I think.’

  That did the trick. Tiny concerned wrinkles that Miss June Dally-What-a-bore wouldn’t have approved of formed between Lily’s eyes.

  ‘We’re just friends.’ Gigi didn’t know why she had to defend herself. ‘Really. Around here, there aren’t a lot of people my age to choose from.’

  ‘What about Todd?’ Lily’s face again became a picture of serenity.

  ‘Todd?’ Gigi asked.

  ‘Yes. You mentioned him a couple of times in your letters. Didn’t you say he seemed to be getting better as he got older?’

  ‘Maybe. I suppose.’ He had been unusually nice to her lately.

  ‘He’s terribly good-looking. And comes from a good family. I saw the way he was looking at you at the bonfire last year.’

  Gigi knew she wasn’t going to win this debate. Good-looking, which he certainly was, wasn’t enough for her. And despite his gentler disposition of late, he didn’t make her spine tingle. She might not know a lot about that sort of thing, but she figured that was important.

  ‘If you took a bit more care with your hair, the two of you would make a beautiful couple.’

  Gigi pushed her wayward strands of blonde spiral straw behind her ears. There was only one way out of this. Lie.

  ‘He has a girlfriend. From Ocean Heights.’

  ‘Oh. Pity. Well, maybe once I’ve met more of Richard’s friends, I might find someone suitable there who can court you.’

  Court her? She wasn’t interested in being courted. And she was fairly certain none of Richard’s high-society mates would be interested in her. Time to change the subject again.

  ‘I was thinking tomorrow we could go for a swim.’

  Lily didn’t answer, her mind clearly on other, courting-related matters. They sat back in the cart and listened to the breeze whistle through the building as the sun moved across the sky.

  A crash and a guttural shout from behind made both girls jump, Lily throwing herself into Gigi’s arms.

  Gigi grabbed a rusted metal hook that was lying beside her. It was long. Long enough to keep a distance between them and the ghost that was about to attack them.

  ‘Hoooo, hooooo.’ An eerie sound echoed through the factory.

  Wouldn’t metal go straight through a ghost? Oh dear. Gigi’s dream of coming face-to-face with an apparition might not be as romantic as she had imagined.

  Behind her Lily started weeping.

  ‘Come out!’ Gigi shouted. ‘I’m armed.’ For what good it will do me.

  A deep snicker came from the shadows of the upturned table in the opposite corner of the room.

  It was a sound Gigi recognised.

  She dropped the metal hook.

  ‘Come out, Todd. You’re not funny.’

  ‘Well, I’d say it was pretty funny seeing the looks on your faces.’ He stepped out from behind the table and doubled over onto his knees as he laughed.

  ‘Grow up.’ She scowled, gathering a shaking Lily in her arms.

  He stepped into the light. ‘Is she crying?’ He inched closer. ‘Oh, gee, it was just supposed to be a bit of fun. I didn’t mean to make anyone cry.’

  Panic spread across his face. Todd may well have been top dog around these parts, thanks to his dad’s position as the local sergeant, but he knew just who Lily was, or rather, who her father was, and just what he was capable of doing to Todd’s dad.

  ‘Gee, Lillian, I’m really sorry.’ He came over and knelt in front of the cart. ‘What can I do to make it up to you?’

  Lily took a few deep breaths and composed herself. She shot Todd a steely glare. ‘Well, I’m going to have to think about that.’

  ‘Anything.’ He turned to Gigi and mouthed, I’m sorry.

  Lily didn’t answer. Not right away. Gigi was impressed with how quickly she went from blubbering mess to ice queen. Was that part of her finishing school training?

  Lily raised a long, elegant finger to her chin. ‘Hmm. Meet us tomorrow after lunch at the fishing shack and I’ll let you know.’

  Todd ran off, even faster than Gigi had seen him run that time there was a red-bellied black snake at school when they were ten.

  ‘What are you doing? Why do we want to meet him tomorrow?’ Gigi couldn’t believe it.

  ‘You’ll see.’ Lily smiled.

  ‘Really, Lily. Maybe he hasn’t changed at all. Look what he just did.’

  ‘Boys will be boys.’ She tsked. ‘They all make mistakes. If we didn’t forgive them, where would we be?’

  Gigi didn’t have an answer to that. She didn’t seem to have any answers when it came to boys and growing up.

  Later that night, Gigi ate supper with her mum in silence. Dad and Ian had sailed on the evening tide and it was just the two of them. After Gigi cleared the table, she took some leftover salad to Arthur’s caravan and they went through the next box of coins.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Arthur asked, not looking up.

  She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything.

  ‘There’s something I have to do tomorrow. And I’m not sure I want to.’

  ‘Ah.’ Arthur slipped his hands into his pockets. ‘I always find when I’m faced with a task I don’t want to do, if I just get on and do it, it usually isn’t as bad as I figured.’

  Gigi smiled. ‘“The thought is worse than the deed”. Mum always says that. Usually about my chores around here.’

  ‘Your mum is wise.’ Arthur tilted his head. ‘I’m thinking this isn’t about chores, though?’

  Gigi looked at the silver coin in her hand.

  ‘Something scary?’ he asked.

  ‘Maybe.’ Anything to do with boys was turning out to be scary, apparently.

  ‘Then here.’

  He took her hand and slipped something into her palm. It was a small pendant made of two silver wings, each feather delicately moulded, lying against each other to form a heart. Down the inside curve of the left wing were studded six deep blue sapphires. Off the tip of the other wing hung another sapphire in the shape of a teardrop.

  ‘Arthur, no.’ She tried to give it back to him, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She’d never seen anything so beautiful. And Gigi and beautiful weren’t two things that normally went together.

  ‘It was Elaine’s.’ He pushed her hand away. ‘She always said it was her guardian angel.’

  Again Gigi tried to hand it back to him. It must be worth a fortune. Again he refused.

  ‘If it wasn’t for that little trink
et, I never would have taken my first trip. If you need to borrow some courage, this might help. Just bring it back to me when you’re done.’

  Gigi looked at the angel wings again. She certainly would need some courage tomorrow. Maybe she could borrow it just this once. But she’d return it to Arthur straight after whatever it was Lily had planned. Lily wasn’t usually one for coming up with schemes. But she was planning something that involved Todd. And that meant much courage would indeed be needed.

  Laura strolled home past the bee-themed obstacle course as it slowly deflated. Most of the festival goers had left and the clean-up had begun. Heath had followed her out of the shack – the nerve – but she’d managed to escape him. She knew from personal experience that men weren’t to be trusted. Rule number three, trust your instincts. Except in this case, her gut was telling her that Heath was a good guy. It must still be the grief, interfering with her usually accurate instincts.

  She’d turned back once after she left the shack and caught Virginia watching her. Laura was more certain than ever before that Lillian’s connection to this place was more than a random summer holiday or two. But her search was proving fruitless.

  Over the past few nights she’d googled Virginia Gilbert (the only information related to the shack), Gigi Gilbert (a passing mention in a school newsletter archived on Banksia Bay Central School’s centenary page) and Costas Tinellis (nothing at all).

  What was she missing?

  Something she hadn’t given any thought to yet was actually searching Lillian.

  She smacked herself in the head. Idiot.

  Laura flipped open her laptop and googled her grandmother. There wasn’t much there. Nothing that she didn’t already know, anyway. Daughter of a politician, raised a young family on her own, lived in Sydney.

  Okay. What else could she look up?

  Her grandfather? There was probably no point. But how many times had rule number nine served her well in her career? Too many times to count, the answers had come from some unexpected lead.

  She googled Richard Prescott. Married to the daughter of a prominent politician – she knew that already. Died young, before his son was born, in 1964 – she knew that too. No, wait. Laura’s grandpa had died in Vietnam in 1965. At least, that’s what she’d been told.