The River House

by Janita Cunnington

  His words brought to Laurie’s mind a single row of small wooden houses on stilts, a scurf of kitchen scraps edging the water and collecting around the boats, a backdrop of uninhabited sky.

  Refusing the offer of a cup of tea, Renée summoned them with a glance. The cadastral map was unrolled and spread out on the kitchen table, the corners weighted down with the salt, pepper, car keys and a piece of brain coral. Chairs were drawn up.

  ‘Come over this side,’ Renée ordered Laurie, ‘so that you’ve got the right orientation. You can stay where you are, Malcolm.’

  ‘Okay,’ she continued, smoothing the map with both hands. ‘The property is basically long and narrow.’

  ‘Well, longer than it is wide,’ Tony corrected her.

  ‘Hmm.’ Her finger went out and tapped the map. There was something of the schoolmarm in the gesture, and Laurie, sitting on her hands for want of any better place to put them, was annoyed to find herself abashed, as if she’d been caught with her homework undone. ‘So this swamp extends way up here to the north, way beyond your property?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s an extensive littoral wetland, running behind the dunes –’

  ‘And most of the dry land is a narrow strip along the river.’

  ‘Well, yes, except that there’s the big area in the northwestern corner, where the old stockyards are, and in the eastern portion the swamp peters out entirely. That’s old dune country there. Banksia and casuarina forest.’

  ‘This is the eastern boundary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s this scale say?’ She peered at the legend over the top of her glasses. ‘Okay. A good kilometre or more from the ocean beach.’ Malcolm craned his neck to get a look.

  ‘Yes,’ Tony agreed. ‘That’s mostly shifting sand dunes there.’

  ‘The swamp would occupy, what would you say? About a quarter – a third – of the total area?’

  ‘Probably, yes, between a quarter and a third.’

  Renée considered, looking out towards the verandah windows and the river beyond. She composed her face.

  ‘Mr Morgan,’ she said. She tapped her fingertips together without speaking. Then, pushing back her chair so that she could face them, she resumed.

  ‘This property of yours amounts to – forty hectares? Thereabouts? Much of it river frontage. You have spent many happy holidays here. It belonged to your great-grandfather. To you, it is a very special place. No doubt you feel confident of receiving a high price for it.

  ‘But let me put a few points to you. The access is far from ideal. The river is wide at this point and for some distance upstream, and there is no large population centre on the northern shore that would justify the building of a bridge. Other than the ferry, the only other access – of course, you can come by boat, but that’s not an option for most people – the only other access is from way to the north-west, via Irwin’s Creek. Which is … Nothing to speak of? Blink and you’d miss it?

  ‘The erosion along this bank. This is … a worry.’

  A shadow crossed Tony’s brow. ‘That’s no longer occurring. The river mouth has been stabilised, so the channels don’t shift about any more.’

  ‘Nevertheless …’ She spread her hands and looked with raised eyebrows from Tony’s face to Laurie’s, and back to Tony’s, inviting them to fault the logic. Laurie found herself wagging her head noncommittally.

  Renée sighed. ‘The wildlife. This could in fact cause us difficulties,’ she continued. ‘There is far more interest in nature conservation than there was in the past. Green groups have considerable clout. If they were to discover that this was the habitat of an endangered frog, for example, we’d have a protracted battle on our hands. We could be caught up in a very long, very expensive court case.’

  Laurie stole a glance at Tony, wondering how he was reacting to being lectured on environmental matters.

  ‘I’m sure it’s very good that you’ve cleared the area of noxious weeds, but there may be a question of herbicide contamination as a result.’

  Tony looked puzzled. ‘You mean the 2,4-D? You’re worried about dioxin? I don’t think – anyway the half-life of –’

  ‘And DDT. Cattle dips. Have you investigated that? As for the bora ring – You’re familiar with the land rights movement?’ She challenged Tony with a stare, eyebrows raised. ‘Of course. The merest whisper of the possibility of canoe trees or anything of the kind in the vicinity would be enough to close down commercial development indefinitely.’

  ‘We’ve never seen any canoe trees,’ Tony interposed uncomfortably. ‘We just … we thought … It was all Kabi Kabi land once, but they were “dispersed”, as they say.’ He leant ironically on the word, disowning it even as he relied on its import. ‘All we know about the history of the place is that it was a cattle yard.’

  Renée continued as though he hadn’t spoken. ‘Now. The swamp. This. Is. A. Problem. It hugely reduces the area of land available for building. We’re down to twenty-seven, twenty-eight hectares. Thirty at the outside.’

  Tony frowned. ‘I was under the impression that the swamp would be an asset,’ he said, ‘as it has been in the case of other coastal developments, even here, just south of the river. Wetlands lend themselves to canal developments –’

  Renée interrupted. ‘Times have changed,’ she said. ‘There is the question of acid-sulphate soils. The authorities are now very particular. We ourselves have been badly burnt. What occurs is that when acid-sulphate soils are exposed to the air, as of course happens when canals are dug and swamps are drained, the, ah, the constituents are converted to sulphuric acid and other toxic –’

  ‘I was trained as an architect,’ Tony cut in. ‘I learnt about acid-sulphate soils in first year.’

  ‘Then you will be aware that there are very stringent regulations surrounding any construction in places where the problem of acid-sulphate soils could arise and we are obliged to consider all the implications before entering into any contractual agreement.’ She paused.

  ‘Nevertheless. We have had this strip of coast within our purview for a number of years – over a decade, in fact – and we have had time to consider the purchase of certain properties from every angle, strategic as well as …’ (As well as what? Laurie wondered.) ‘We look to the future and see that these remote places will someday be developed. We are interested in the property as an investment in the future.

  ‘We would therefore be prepared to offer you one point two million for your land. The house is neither here nor there.’

  There was absolute silence.

  ‘You are very unlikely to find another buyer and we will not go higher.’ She rose, moved aside the salt, pepper, car keys and brain coral, and began to roll up the map.

  Tony had remained seated.

  ‘You’re offering me one point two million.’

  ‘Consider it, Mr Morgan. Take your time.’

  ‘That’s derisory.’

  ‘It’s realistic, Mr Morgan.’

  Tony looked around at Laurie and let out a huff of silent laughter. ‘What do you think of that, Lol?’ he said. ‘Huh?’

  Laurie could not reply. She was too busy noticing the fluttery freedom of her breath, as if a band constricting her chest had broken and her lungs had spread like the wings of a bird.

  Tony was suddenly on his feet and striding from one corner of the room to the other, running a hand up the back of his head. Then he abruptly leant over Renée, snatched the map from her grasp, laid it out flat on the table again and studied it frowningly, as if careful scrutiny would make it yield up evidence in support of his case. He straightened slowly and began to roll the map up again, taking care that it was neatly done. Then he relinquished it to Renée, and as he did so spoke in calm, measured tones.

  ‘Pack up your things, Renée,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t recall your surname. Pack up your map and your realism and your offsider, and your environmental pretensions, and I’ll return you to your air-conditioned office i
n time for you to catch a flight back to – Melbourne, is it?’

  He’d been composing this, Laurie realised.

  ‘Think the offer over, Mr Morgan. Take your time.’

  ‘You misread me, Renée. Time is immaterial.’

  Laurie’s mouth opened attentively. This was a set piece. The knowledge did not diminish her rapture.

  ‘I am not interested, now or in the future, in advancing the speculative ambitions of –. Hospitality prevents me from completing that sentence.’

  No one spoke as they drove back. Not even the usual comradeship of the river crossing – the slosh slosh as they drove on board, the cable rising up out of the river, beaded with water as it quivered and strained, the wash fanning out behind them – could restore speech to their tongues.

  It was a miscalculation of Renée’s, Laurie thought, to break the news at the River House, before she and Malcolm had been returned to Teebah and the fortifications of pane glass and frigid air.

  ‘We’ll be in touch, Mr Morgan,’ said Renée through the car window.

  Tony raised his hand in silent negation.

  ‘Are you okay to drive?’ Laurie asked.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘It’ll be all right, you know,’ she said, looking across at Tony’s face blooming in the oncoming headlights, receding again into darkness. Feeling a touch motion-sick, but – ah! – lightly, pleasantly adrift. ‘We’ll work something out.’

  For a long time he was silent. Then, ‘I have an idea,’ he said quietly.

  She gazed at the coming and going of his face, waiting for more.

  He shot a glance at her. ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve thought it through properly.’

  ‘You’re not still thinking of selling it?’

  ‘Not selling it, no. This is … yes. This is better. This is better. This accords far better with … I’ll tell you more when I’ve thought it through. And you and Miranda buying equity in the place, that makes good sense …’

  Laurie gave herself over to the rush of darkness beyond the car window. It was an energetic darkness, combining the here-present darkness of forest with the great remembered darkness of the sea. Carol was near. Laurie could feel her silken breath. I was very young, Laurie, she was thinking. Clearly enough for Laurie to hear.

  She opened her eyes. Where was the Southern Cross? Obscured by the moon. For a while she followed its headlong dash through trees, its sudden retreat to the calms of distance. And she thought how the earth, too, must glow in the night of space.

  iii

  December

  Shortly after the small convoy left the ferry, they arrived at a newly erected sign, a sturdy, low-slung construction of dark-green-painted wood, into which was cut pale-yellow lettering.

  BROODY RIVER RIPARIAN WETLAND

  CONSERVANCY

  it read.

  Inigo and Purcell sloped out of the foremost car and took up their positions in front of the sign, frowning into the sun, their hands on their hips.

  ‘Move aside, move aside,’ said Carol, half out of the door and flapping her arm at them. ‘One of you on the right and one on the left.’

  Camera to her eye, she spaced her feet and adjusted her knees until she was satisfied.

  ‘Okay, big grins – Great. Now everyone.’

  On all three cars, doors opened.

  ‘Someone’s swimming the river.’

  Jerry was standing at the verandah windows, looking out. The scent of the Christmas tree hung in the warm air and a pheasant-coucal whooped its languid warning from the bush.

  ‘Swimming in the river?’ Laurie asked vaguely, wondering why Jerry had remarked on it, feeling as languid as the pheasant-coucal. People swam in the river all the time. Baroodibah even had a netted swimming enclosure off the camping ground, which was full of small, splashing bodies from dawn to dusk. The shouts and shrieks carried across to them, clearly or distantly, depending on the wind.

  Unless it was over here he meant, on this side.

  ‘Not in the river. Across the river. Swimming across the river.’

  ‘They’re braver than me, then,’ said Laurie, yawning, washing lettuce at the sink. ‘Don’t worry about grating the carrots, Mum. We’ll just have it in sticks – julienned. Jez, Mum’s idea is to take the table down tomorrow and set it up in the shade the way we did at Tony’s wedding. That was lovely.’

  Rosie was peering at Jerry, her mouth slightly open, waiting for a wafer of understanding. Her head shook a little, as if to check for emptiness. ‘But Doug hooked up a bull shark in that channel only yesterday!’ she said.

  ‘That way,’ Laurie continued, thinking aloud, ‘excess bodies can sit on the grass or perch on logs. We’ll have to move the boys’ tent, but that shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll get them onto it.’

  Jerry was still watching through the window. ‘They must’ve gone in just off Driscoll’s shop,’ he said. ‘If they don’t change course they’ll end up here. On the beach out the front. Allowing for the current, though, they’ll probably fetch up a bit downstream.’

  Rosie had joined him at the window, a couple of carrots in one hand and a peeler in the other. ‘At the spit,’ she whispered.

  Curious, now, Laurie went to look too. ‘Where?’ she asked. ‘Oh, I see …’

  Immediately below, Doug was tinkering with the Cockle’s engine, cleaning it out, going over it lovingly with a rag. The engine would be almost a curiosity now, when he got it going. A treasured vintage. Its chesty throb would set the Cockle apart from the plague of tinnies that these days whirred all over the water like summer insects. Cora, stretched out in a bikini on a patch of sand, was working on a tan and Maris was backed up against a nearby tree, reading. There was no sign of the boys.

  Some distance from the far bank, a shapeless blob was bobbing in the river, seemingly moving across the current, trailing a wake, leaving the crowded camping ground, the yelling kids, the fishermen, the pelicans and seagulls behind. Laurie poked her glasses higher on her nose. Screwed up her eyes.

  ‘What’ve they got on their head?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Jerry. ‘It’s too big for a hat.’

  Lots of boats were skittering about over there, and Laurie wondered if one of them would cut its engine, drift close, and haul the swimmer aboard.

  But none of them did.

  As they were watching, the blob rose from the water, and under it a torso, legs, a full human figure, wading up onto a sandbank.

  ‘It’s a woman,’ said Laurie. ‘She’s got her clothes on her head. Is she naked?’

  Moments later the swimmer was across the sandbank and sinking down into a channel. Now only the burdened head was showing again. It moved in small pulses. The sheen on the water, smooth as polish where the water was deep, was broken up by its movement. She was past the middle of the river now, and away from all the boats. She looked very much alone.

  Now they could distinguish the arms, sweeping rhythmically out to each side, drawing in.

  ‘She doesn’t know what she’s doing,’ said Rosie, her hand to her throat.

  Carol and Tony, coming in, scuffing sandy feet across the lino, were drawn to the window too.

  ‘What’s up?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Someone swimming –’

  Tony uttered an odd little bleat. Carol shot him a glance. ‘Are you okay?’

  He gave a sharp nod, and frowned.

  Another sandbank. This time they could see her plainly as she waded up onto it, her feet sinking into the soft, wet sand. She was a tall woman, with broad shoulders enamelled by the sun. Her big breasts, barely covered by a bra, swayed with each floundering step. Then she was up on the firm, ribbed sand and striding out, one hand steadying the bundle on her head, the other holding up wet underpants, which clung limp and transparent to her hips, and to the dark, triangular patch of pubic hair beneath. Water coursed off her. The bundle was not so much on her head as around it, secured under her chin. The hand steadying it let go and waved. She
’d seen them.

  The boys had appeared from nowhere, the girls had risen from their reading and sunbaking and now all were arrayed on the beach, squinting at the spectacle. Doug had stopped tinkering and straightened up.

  ‘It’s Miranda,’ said Laurie.

  They fell away from the verandah windows and were down the stairs and across the yard and onto the sand just in time to see her descending into the last channel. Here the river ran deep and green, and by the time they’d got their bearings she was breasting the water strongly, being carried by the current on a diagonal course downriver towards the spit. Her teeth were showing, whether in a grin or a grimace they couldn’t tell, her chin raised, the clothes knotted beneath it trailing in the water.

  The boys were hanging back, abashed, but the girls ran down the diminished beach and into the water to meet her, and had her by the arms and were hauling her ashore almost before her feet found the bottom. Close behind them were the adults – Laurie, Carol and Jerry first, then Doug, hurrying, and Rosie, running, then pulling up short, calling out, ‘I’ll go and get a towel,’ then saying to herself, ‘No, that can wait,’ and running again. Words were bumped out of Doug by his haste. ‘Oh for chrissake,’ he muttered.

  Miranda released the knot under her chin, dumped the clothes in a soggy heap on the sand and shook out her hair. She might have been entirely naked, standing there gleaming wet, her flesh so ample, so palpable, the curls of her pubic hair so plain to see. Her eyebrows were slightly raised, as if she was surprised to find them all here. She hitched up her underpants.

  ‘Merry Christmas, yous lot,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 13

  Cumulonimbus

  1994

  Here, for a moment, was Rosie, staring into a hospital mirror at her ghastly, melted face. Then the wipers cleared the memory away and there was nothing but squalls lashing the windscreen.

  ‘It’s being alone,’ Laurie explained to no one. ‘You start having visions.’ And the wipers, with infantile logic, returned to their point: why her? Why should she be here, beating against the current? Squirming on pangs of conscience as if they were lumps in the seat? Why not Tony, for instance? Why not him?