by Susan Duncan
Sam hesitates, eyeballs the buffoons one by one, his reflection bouncing back from the blank screens of their mirror sunglasses. Under his work shirt he’s shaking with rage. ‘Yeah,’ he says, dredging up a careless grin from god knows where. ‘Sure.’
The suits shake their heads like Sam’s a tragically lost cause and break away. One holds his hand in an L-shape against his nose. ‘Loser,’ he whispers, like a kid in a schoolyard brawl, making it sound like a deadly disease. Sam watches their backs. Pinheads. No necks. Wide shoulders. Narrow hips, legs descending into steel-capped Cuban heels. Satiny carapaces. A plague of freaking cockroaches. He stares. Remembering details. Still as the air before a terrifying storm breaks loose. It’s on, he thinks. It’s bloody on.
The sun is low in the sky. Kate feels drained and defeated. She scoops Emily’s leaky cosmetics from the bedside table into a bin and strips the bed, shoving the linen into a garbage bag and knotting it tightly. Twenty bags in all and a few of Emily’s picnic baskets filled with crockery and glassware. Picnic baskets? She racks her brains trying to remember going on even one family picnic. Draws a blank. The Secret Life of Emily Jackson.
She’s decided to keep her father’s old writing desk, where he sat and instructed her on important financial matters: Red means debt, Kate, black means credit – aim for the black and you’ll always have choices. The law according to Gerald Jackson. Emily never caught on. Aside from the designer hats that she supposed were couture back in the day, and one crocodile skin handbag circa 1970, judging from a race book she’d found inside (was Emily a punter? Is that where her windfalls came from?), she can’t help thinking it’s a lacklustre tally after a lifetime of avid consumption. Did it make her mother happy? Not as far as Kate could tell. For a moment she seriously considers simply taking the money and forgetting the possible existence of a half-brother. But the truth, no matter how awful, can never be as bad as your imagination. Law according to Kate Jackson.
On a hunch and feeling vaguely absurd, she goes back into the bedroom she’s stripped bare and runs her hand under the mattress. Why not? After all, Emily was a woman who thrived on melodrama. Spun it out until long after her audience lost interest or, in the case of Gerald and Kate, admitted defeat. And there it is. Cold metal. A box, perhaps. Certainly not part of the inner workings of the bed. She pushes aside the mattress. A dented old container sits dead centre on the bony metal springs. A cash box of the kind country shopkeepers once kept hidden under the counter with the key hung on a string around their necks for safekeeping. It might have belonged to her father. Kate stares at it for a long, long time, as though she’s waiting for it to either speak or explode. Eventually, she pulls Emily’s house keys out of her pocket and checks each one. Nothing is small enough to fit the tiny lock.
Chapter Three
Inside The Briny Café after a shockingly frantic day of fielding orders, cooking, serving and washing dishes, Ettie Brookbank is too tired to move from the swivel chair. Too tired to check the day’s takings. Too bloody exhausted to make it up the stairs to her all-white penthouse apartment for a glass of restorative white wine. Under normal circumstances, with the Square chockers with potential customers, she and Kate would’ve stayed open and boosted the day’s takings, ears tuned to the breaking news about a bridge and a resort. But she’d hung out the CLOSED sign on the dot of six-thirty pm and then hidden herself at Kate’s desk under the stairs so no hopeful with an empty stomach would think his pleas might find favour. With the lights off and the café in darkness except for the ghostly glow from the fridges, she hoped everyone would think she’d shut up shop to attend the briefing.
Truthfully, she is not just tired. She’s furious. Kate was due back around lunchtime. She should’ve called or at least responded to her text message. They are partners. They are meant to care about each other’s wellbeing. In Ettie’s world, you communicate and you never let anyone down. By nature a giver, nevertheless she doesn’t like to feel used. And right now, she’s feeling used and bruised. And, let’s face it, worried sick. It’s out of character for Kate to vanish without explanation, but with her mobile phone going straight to message bank, short of calling the police she’s stymied. She gives a start when a fist bangs on the locked door. ‘What?’ she yells angrily from her dark hole. ‘Are you bloody blind? Read the sign. We’re closed.’
‘Ettie, you OK?’ Sam rattles the door. Dashes around the side of the café and vaults the railing to charge in the back entrance. ‘Ettie, love, what’s up? You sick?’
She laughs for the first time all day. ‘God, how ironic,’ she says, hauling herself to her feet so wearily Sam reaches to give her a hand. ‘A little fit of exhausted pique and people think I must be sick.’
‘No offence, love, but you’re not looking crash hot, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘Just tired, Sam. It’s been a long day on my own.’ It’s on the tip of her tongue to point out that a solo fourteen-hour shift without a break is too much to ask of a fifty-five-year-old woman, but she swallows the words, unwilling to concede a single round to age. You’re as old as you feel, she reminds herself firmly, which, right now is about a hundred and ten.
‘Yeah,’ he says, relieved. ‘It’s the drama of the bloody bridge and resort. Wearing us all out already.’
She shuffles painfully towards the stairs. Her feet feel broken. Her legs are two dead weights. Her knee joints hurt like a bad toothache. ‘You want to come upstairs to my lavish penthouse for a beer? Tell me what happened out there?’
‘You’re the answer to every man’s dreams,’ he says, worrying again when Ettie fails to pull him up for a corny line he’s worn to death over more than twenty years. With the force of a fist landing hard on his solar plexus, he realises she isn’t getting any younger and neither is he. He’s overwhelmed by a sudden sense of undirected urgency and leaps the last three steps to get it out of his system.
Upstairs, the old storeroom – converted to a live-in apartment by ever-practical Kate to save Ettie paying rent on a tiny cottage at the peak of two hundred steps on Cutter Island – is hung with her whimsical paintings of seagulls and ferries, cormorants and tinnies; the floor is awash with the jewel colours of a Turkish carpet.
‘Marcus on his own tonight?’ Sam asks.
‘It’s a new moon and a high tide. Perfect for prawning. He’s out with a torch and a net. God, what was I about to do? Oh yeah.’ Stoic and normally unflappable, Ettie wrings her hands. Fusses with her hair, her apron. Fusses in the fridge. Fusses in cupboards searching for a wine glass. Fusses with a cheese board. Fusses for the first time in Sam’s living memory. Her behaviour does nothing to ease his concern. He feels an unspecified alarm building once more.
‘You hear from Kate today?’ Ettie asks, when they’re sitting out on the deck nursing their drinks. The open waterway is a stretch of black glass. A few stars begin to twinkle. The Square is nearly deserted; everyone’s gone home to mull the contents of the developers’ screed.
Sam picks up a knife and cuts himself a large piece of crumbling cheddar, his face deliberately blank. ‘Nah.’ He shrugs, throws the cheese into his mouth, reaches into his back pocket. Spreads the future plans for Garrawi on the table. Not quite believing the gist, but unable to disbelieve it, he sees plans for eighty holiday units in a building twelve metres tall, as well as a design for a massive swimming pool, gymnasium and tennis court. A reception area measures twenty-five by fifteen metres. Bigger than the local kindergarten with the playground thrown in. ‘They’re calling it a health and beauty spa for the body and spirit,’ he tells Ettie, spitting out the words. He looks up, his face twisted. ‘They’ve aced the great cheese tree, love. The cheese tree is bloody gone.’
Ettie reaches across and pats his wrist. ‘God. It’s a desecration of a holy site.’
‘They’re going to build it four storeys high, Ettie. That’s enough to knock out the views of every house behind. It’s mor
e than bloody desecration, love. It’s rape. Rape of the bush, the wild life, the sea and the whole Island itself. Why would you want a pool when you’re surrounded by a rising and falling sea that lives and breathes? It’s – ’
‘You know what? I just can’t handle this tonight. Do you mind? I’m totally knackered. Can we just sit here like the two old friends we are and finish our drinks in silence?’
‘You’re worried about Kate, aren’t you?’ Sam says, unable to avoid the matter of her disappearance any longer but driven to defend her even though he’s fully aware he may be on shaky ground. ‘She’s different from us, Ettie, that’s all. Never put down real roots in a community before. She also spent years in the media world where values seem to shift faster than chocolate at Easter. She needs time. Six months isn’t long in a place like Cook’s Basin. Not long enough anyway, for new ways to set rock solid once and for all . . . And it must’ve been a shocker day. Even if they didn’t get along, a mum’s a mum. She’d feel a whole . . .’
Ettie puts a finger to her lips. ‘Shhh. Do you hear the water? A fresh wind? The casuarinas singing? I swear I can hear oysters breathing. Fish playing. Simple things, Sam. They keep us grounded. If Kate needs time off, I’ll ask one of the Three Js to help out. Pushing a person where she doesn’t want to go is pointless.’ She smiles, the weariness wiped from her face. ‘I just heard that wisdom on the wind.’
‘You’re not gunna go all poetic on me, are you, Ettie? Not when right now we need fighters . . .’
‘Listen to the wind, Sam. And bend with it.’ She takes his empty beer bottle from his hand. ‘Now I’m going to bed. See yourself out.’
Ettie takes a long hot shower, slips into one of her faded cotton nighties and lies back in the narrow converted cupboard that’s her bedroom, on a single bed, feeling stifled by the confined space, the lack of a window. Her aches and pains are duller now but her head is a mess. Kate’s disappearance, Marcus off fishing alone, café business, tomorrow’s work list, the dodgy roof, the rickety tables and chairs on the deck, the whole damn drama of surviving each and every day. It’s all too bloody much. She holds back tears. Her toes begin to tingle. Breathless, fighting off panic, she throws aside the sheet and heads for fresh air. On the deck, she scans the night sea for the beam of a single torch. Sees the red, green and white lights of Fast Freddy’s water taxi, the flashing green shallow-water marker at Stony Point. No torch.
Riddled with mounting anxiety, she pours another glass of wine even though she knows it’s a very bad idea. Takes a sip. Her face flushes, her head spins. The old black dog of despair begins plodding lugubriously over to take up residence at her feet. She makes a serious effort to pull herself together: it’s still early days but the business is going well. Marcus is a consummate fisherman and would never take unnecessary risks. Barring a shocker storm, the roof will hold. The tables and chairs may not be new but they’re loaded with what she likes to think of as character. And Kate? She sighs, pours the wine down the sink and goes back to bed. Only time will tell.
As she does every night, she mentally calls up a list of her chores for the following day. Finds she can’t remember a single one. Wonders if she’s going mad or showing signs of early dementia. Teary again, feeling childish and abandoned, she wants Marcus – the feel of skin on skin, her head resting on his broad, comforting chest, the sound of his breathing like a meditation. And god forgive her, she yearns for a spacious, luxurious bedroom with windows that let in the golden light of the moon. Next time, she’ll go fishing with him. Far better than lying, sleepless, worrying the sky is about to fall on her head.
Alone in the wheelhouse of the Mary Kay, Sam spins the helm, turning the barge towards Oyster Bay. If he sees a light he promises himself he’ll turn around. He wants to know she’s safe, that’s all. That the boat that’s missing from the café pontoon is tied fast at the bottom of her garden and not floating out to sea after coming adrift. He tells himself it’s time he checked on Artie anyway. He’s been a bit slack since Kate started delivering café leftovers to the old fella at the end of every day; since Jimmy and his mum decided to take responsibility for cleaning the yacht, washing the bed linen and making sure Artie changed his underwear at least every second morning.
The bosomy Mary Kay, her golden timbers curving from bow to stern, surfs the rising chop, barely acknowledging it, steady under his feet. The reliability of a good vessel, he thinks. Ah, get over it, he tells himself out loud, seeing Kate’s house ablaze with lights. He swings the barge around all at once, too fast and tight so he bounces over his own wake with a ball in his gut that feels like lead.
He tries not to think of the number of times he’s followed her home, his eyes on the slim dark shape of her, unable to believe she’s chosen him to share her bed. The first time, when he looked at the grease embedded in the cracks of his hands, even though it was Christmas Day and he’d scrubbed until his skin started to flake, he thought she could so easily change her mind once the festive spirit from a long lunch on Ettie’s deck wore off. He’d hung back, waiting for a signal, not sure he could laugh off disappointment if that’s how it ended up.
He’d been overwhelmed by the cleanness of her clothes, her skin, her hair, her spotlessness. The sweet soapy scent of her. Then the two of them tangled in white cotton sheets that crackled and snapped. He wonders now if she changes the linen every morning because the house nestles into the folds of a rainforest gully backed by a sky-high red rock escarpment that blocks the sun for most of the day. Damp creeps in with the stealth of rumour and takes hold like a vice. But then they were still in drought four weeks ago, the land dusty and raw with the singed, spicy smell of parched eucalypts. The air so dry it caught in your throat. He stares into the darkness, amazed at how little it takes to rattle something he thought was new and beautiful. Time to get real. He’s forty years old. Love is a two-way deal or a one-way ticket to misery.
There’s a park to save. A bridge to oppose. If this relationship is meant to be, it will find its own way. Did his mum say that? Or someone famous? Buggered if he can remember. Maybe he’ll find a reference in The Concise History of the World. Not as silly as it sounds, he thinks. Didn’t he read somewhere that love’d changed history over and over? Cleopatra and Anthony, Napoleon and Josephine, Edward and Mrs Simpson, Lola Montez and some king whose name he can’t remember. He fingers the solid form of the book in his pocket. Might get his money’s worth out of it yet. King of Bulgaria. No Belgium. That was it. Lola and the king of Belgium, who was mad as a hatter, apparently. Even putting a sympathetic spin on it, Emily was a piece of work, and she’d read Kate like a first-grade primer. Ruling from the grave. No, much more than that. Setting the seeds in motion for her daughter’s destruction. What kind of a mother desired failure for her child? He gives himself a mental shake. Starts to feel a little manic. He suddenly needs company. Real bad.
He slides alongside Artie’s yacht, which even in the dark of a new moon he can see needs a good bum scrape. Knocks lightly, not wanting to disturb the old bugger – he’s famous for waking up crankier than a bear with a sore head. Not that Sam’s ever seen a grizzly, but, like he said to Kate the other day when she pulled him up during a cliché-ridden (he’s happy to admit it) conversation, sayings turn into clichés because they’re true. And that’s the truth.
A voice like gravel floats up from the pit of the yacht. ‘You have permission to come on board, Sam. And don’t forget to hang your bloomin’ fenders out so me paintwork doesn’t get scratched.’
‘Give me a break, Artie. When have I ever failed? And there’s more scratches than solid paint on your hull anyway.’ He lightly slaps his forehead with the palm of his hand. Bad move opening the door on that subject.
‘Doesn’t hurt to keep you on your toes, son. We all need reminding now and then. As for the paint-job, I’m still looking for a volunteer. Got any ideas?’ Sam grabs hold of the lifelines and pulls himself on board, pretending not
to hear.
Inside a tidy cabin with portholes open to admit a quickening wind, Artie waits on the portside banquette. In front of him, there’s a bottle of rum and two glasses lined up on a spotless table. ‘Medicinal?’ Sam queries, eyebrows raised, figuring the lingering smell of detergent and the shine on the glassware means Artie’s had the company of Jimmy’s hard-working mum, Amelia, for most of the day.
‘Not tonight, mate. Never felt better in me life.’
‘Well, if you’re just being sociable,’ Sam says, pointing at a glass, thinking a rum might ease the terrible cramp gripping his gut.
‘Amelia sparkles me up till I almost feel these useless old legs of mine could come good in a minute or two.’ Artie slaps his withered thighs, grinning. They both know the part of his brain that passed on instructions to stand, walk and run died when a tiny blood vessel decided to explode as he was reaching into the fridge. He was found lying on the floor, his head swimming in spilt milk and nobody home when they checked his muddy brown eyes for signs of life. A miracle he lived, the doctors said. Artie returned from hospital, moved on board his pretty timber pleasure yacht and immediately tossed his wheelchair overboard in a gesture he confessed was irresponsible and driven by anger and frustration. But he couldn’t stop himself and he figured the minute or two of pure power he felt was well worth virtually ripping up the hard-earned dollars he’d spent to buy the bloody thing. For months, he roared at any nosy social worker who managed to get close enough in a water taxi to suggest he’d be better off in a nursing home. ‘Locking him up would kill him,’ Ettie told the nurse one day when she nobbled her at The Point. ‘The community will take care of him.’
‘So,’ says Artie, slumping on plumped orange floral cushions, his yellow T-shirt riding up his back to reveal a roll of pasty white skin, ‘no hot date with Kate tonight?’
