River of Salt

by Warner, Dave;

  Mindful of the big surfboard propped in the back, Blake drove slowly along the coast road past the collection of strip shops that comprised the town, before turning left up Reynolds and right up Wattle. Halfway along Wattle the houses thinned, each dwelling followed by two vacant blocks. Just before Wattle dead-ended, Blake swung left up a steep gravel driveway and came to rest underneath the house he rented. The whole area was prone to huge thunderstorms and heavy flooding so most of the older houses were made of wood or fibro and built high on stilts to prevent flood damage. Up this way they called them Queenslanders. The newer brick houses with their stone feature walls, sunken lounge rooms and rolling lawns were mostly clustered a couple of miles south and west on a wide, long ridge which everybody just referred to as ‘the Heights’. The golf club was located in the Heights.

  Blake pulled out his board and hosed it down. Then he took the concrete interior steps from the garage up into his living area. Blake’s house was unusual in that it was built like a Queenslander but made of brick, the living area sitting on top of high concrete pillars with a wide wooden deck that had once gleamed in new varnish but was now weathered. Given the house was on top of the small hill and had brick pillars for extra height, he guessed it was immune to flood damage but so far he’d not experienced that kind of disaster. It was much bigger than he needed but the houses here were bigger than anybody needed. He had two bedrooms and a big lounge room with ocean views, because across from him was a double vacant block and then sandhills and water. One of the reasons he had wanted two bedrooms was to make it feel like Jimmy was still living with him. As it turned out though, none of the houses he looked at had less than two bedrooms. This place had the view, and he could go to bed at night with his windows open and listen to the soft hiss of breaking waves. It was about as far away from Philly as he could imagine. The owner was a builder who had lived here with his family before child number three came along. He’d subsequently shifted to the Heights.

  Blake stripped off and took a quick cold shower. He stood naked on his deck and dried himself. There were no neighbours close enough to worry about and traffic rarely came to the end of the cul-de-sac. Even though it was hot, there was a smell of moisture in the air that Blake had come to associate with summer in Coral Shoals. Like Florida, he guessed. It conjured images of sugar cane and lightning and tall grass growing out of irrigation ditches on the side of roads of crumbling bitumen. It might thunder later, it might not. You couldn’t tell and there was no point worrying about it.

  Being a Tuesday meant he was off the hook from anything major. He could while away the day practising guitar. Tuesdays, his band The Twang usually practised at the Surf Shack but the drummer, Duck, who was a plumber, had a job on in the hinterland. The Surf Shack opened Thursday to Saturday and that was enough for Blake. He wasn’t complaining. It had been six long months of hard work fitting the place out so the bar had precisely the look he wanted: the booths shaped like waves, the tables surfboards cut in half — which was exactly what they were — the bar itself like it was set into a reef, and of course the giant aquarium that bisected the room and made it feel like you really might be underwater. He’d had to get a loan for all that but within a month of opening the doors it was clear he had a smash-hit on his hands. Friday and Saturday the place was jam-packed, people flocking from miles around, driving hours to check it out. Thursday was strong too.

  He broke away from the deck, went back inside and dressed in jeans and a striped top. Most people said he was the spitting image of James Dean. Those that didn’t said he was Troy Donahue — yes, Jimmy, ha ha. It was the quiff, that was all. He checked the time: a little after eleven. Andy, the yardy, would be at the Shack feeding the aquarium fish, cleaning the toilets; Doreen probably not. She generally liked to do all the accounts Monday and take Tuesday off.

  Thank God for Doreen. And no, Jimmy, I ain’t going there, she’s too valuable.

  While he squeezed oranges, he put a Ray Charles LP on the turntable. That guy was the man. Blake wouldn’t even attempt to play that stuff, he was strictly surf twang but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate it. He scrambled some eggs and ate barefoot on his balcony, staring out at the low sandhills in the distance and the ocean twinkling behind. Not for the first time he imagined a group of half-a-dozen men in dark suits appearing over the rise of the hills and traipsing towards him: killers who had crossed the ocean to get him. He could sit up here with a rifle and pick them off. Except he didn’t have a rifle and they weren’t coming. They didn’t care that much about him and even if they did, they wouldn’t find him.

  Getting a passport had been easy. He even told his contact to find one with the first name Blake so he wouldn’t have to think twice about somebody calling his name. Of course he had to give up his surname but that was no problem. That was like giving up a bad flu that had been with you forever. Blake Saunders sounded respectable. He liked being respectable. Originally he’d been thinking only of Hawaii. Shit, you were going to play surf music, you better get your ass there, right? It was in a bar in Long Beach things turned out the way they did. Blake got talking to this interesting guy who had flown in the war, survived Midway. Turned out he was flying a Catalina to Hawaii so Blake naturally asked if he could hitch a ride. The pilot, Jim — an omen, surely — was glad for the company.

  ‘Son, you want to you can fly all the way to Australia with me.’

  And that was it, like it was meant to be. No more looking over his shoulder, they would never find him in Australia. So Blake had island-hopped all the way to Brisbane, the experience of a lifetime. Jim was delivering the plane to an outfit that operated to the Great Barrier Reef. Blake could have stayed on, taken the job he was offered by Jim’s contacts but he wanted to keep moving. He hitchhiked down the east coast, improved his surfing, practised guitar. Three months in he had passed through Coral Shoals and spied the Steak Cave, a restaurant that was struggling even though it was in the most glorious location. Right off he knew this was the place he could make his dreams happen. And that’s how it was. The Surf Shack was making money and, more important, he was having fun doing everything he’d always wanted. Except it wasn’t with Jimmy.

  Blake finished his eggs and washed and dried his dishes. Doreen had told him that one of the doors in the women’s toilets had a broken lock. He’d check whether Andy had fixed it, do it himself if he needed, practise his licks later. One thing he’d retained from his previous occupation was attention to detail. The Surf Shack had to be perfect, no blemishes. People might say, one little lock, it’s no big deal. But it says everything about an establishment. Besides, little things could cause big problems. He remembered the story of a triggerman in the Kansas City Mob whose chipped fingernail snagged on his suit coat pocket when he went to pull his piece. That fraction of a second was all it took. The bodyguards shot him dead. Maybe he was too slow anyway, maybe he didn’t do his homework on the bodyguards but that really just proved the point. You wanted to survive in this world — no blemishes.

  Andy had done a good job on the lock. Blake checked all the stall doors in the women’s and men’s toilets to make sure there were no other problems. More than most, Blake understood a desire for privacy. Andy was out the back now, carefully stacking crates of empties. They’d first met when Andy was helping the guys who put up the billboard. He was only twenty then, so Blake couldn’t employ him during hours the place operated as a liquor outlet but he’d given him odd jobs to do during the day. Andy told Blake he had left school at fourteen and had no trade. He put his heart and soul into his job as yardman-janitor. Two months ago he had turned twenty-one and Blake had thrown a party for him in the main room. Andy’s smile had lit up like neon.

  ‘Nice job on the lock.’

  Andy shrugged, bashful, like a pretty girl had complimented him on his shirt.

  ‘It was nothing.’ Then his smile faded and he stammered, ‘I’m worried about Audrey.’

  He was right. Something was amiss. Audrey was
n’t gliding with her usual imperious style.

  ‘You think her top fin is okay?’ Blake had no qualms seeking Andy’s advice. Andy spent hours studying the fish. Blake had watched him when he’d been in doing the books or rehearsing. Andy peered in at the tank, which was fifteen feet long and nearly five feet high, though only ten inches across. The main room lights were off, so the fish were particularly luminescent.

  ‘Could be. Yeah, at the top there.’

  Audrey sported magnificent black and white stripes. Doreen had named her for Audrey Hepburn. She loved Audrey Hepburn. She kept urging Blake to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s if it ever came to Coral Shoals but that was unlikely. Films usually only made it here when they were at least five years old. Doreen had caught the film when she’d visited her sister in Sydney. Blake never wanted her to visit her sister again. If he hadn’t realised before, he came to understand how much work she did. Besides, Doreen was the only one you could—

  ‘I bet it’s him.’ Andy pointed angrily like a jealous lover.

  ‘It might not be him.’ Blake felt obliged to come to the defence of the Siamese fighting fish. Just because its family had a bad reputation didn’t make it a villain.

  ‘I bet it is.’

  By now Blake wasn’t so sure there was anything wrong with Audrey’s fin. Maybe it just looked odd because she wasn’t moving quite so well. Maybe she was just sick.

  ‘I don’t know there’s anything wrong with her fin.’

  ‘No. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t look right. Mr Clarke called. Sorry, I meant to mention it. He wants to hire two eighteens for his son’s birthday. He asked could you go see him.’

  Andy sometimes forgot that he knew the locals a lot better than Blake.

  ‘Who is Mr Clarke?’

  Andy pointed vaguely to the centre of town. ‘Clarke’s Cars.’

  There was only one car yard in Coral Shoals, a lot of acreage light on stock, as you might expect from this size town. The models reflected the inhabitants — station wagons and sedans. To his knowledge, Blake hadn’t met Clarke. His own car he’d purchased at the Heads.

  ‘Doreen been in?’

  ‘Haven’t seen her.’

  ‘Keep your eye on Audrey for me.’

  Andy had his eyeball almost to the glass. ‘It’s that bastard, I know it is.’

  Remnants of blond hair clung around the rim of Winston Clarke’s head like civilisation around an extinct volcano. At least, Blake presumed it was Clarke slapping the bonnet of an eight-cylinder Holden as he laid it on. The customer, sixty or so, was weathered and wiry-tough. A farmer, Blake reckoned. As the older man followed Clarke around the car hearing its virtues extolled, it was clear he had a permanent limp. Farm accident or Great War? His vintage, it could be either. The man Blake presumed was Clarke was somewhere in his forties. Used-car salesmen, like Jimmy’s Mob connections, were always a couple of beats behind fashion, still with wide lapels and short, wide handpainted ties. Blake leaned against the counter, scoping the brick back wall of the office, the other three sides nearly all glass. Pride of place was a black and white photo of Clarke, some other guy and Bob Hope standing on a golf course, smiling at the camera.

  ‘What have you got in mind? Something with a lotta toe. Am I right?’

  The voice came from behind him and spun him around. The salesman standing in the doorway looked younger than him. His first thought was this was Clarke’s son, the party-boy, but his suit was not only dated, it was cheap and it jarred that a father would throw his son a big party yet let him dress like a hick.

  ‘Barry Leftwich.’

  He threw out a skinny hand. Blake didn’t extend his own.

  ‘I’m not a customer, Barry. Here to see Mr Clarke.’

  Clarke must have gazed in through the window and sensed his salesman was in trouble because he left the farmer to ogle the Holden engine and came inside.

  ‘Gentleman says he is here to see you.’ Leftwich was clearly sceptical of Blake’s claim that he wasn’t here to buy, like he might have been holding out for the main man who could authorise a better deal.

  ‘Blake Saunders, Surf Shack.’

  The penny dropped for Clarke. ‘Oh, right.’

  Leftwich was straining at the leash, throwing glances at the farmer. ‘Shall I attend to the other gentleman?’

  ‘No, Barry, you attend to the incinerator. We need to burn those boxes while the breeze is blowing from the west.’

  In that heartbeat, Blake understood Leftwich, his frustration and humiliation. Clarke didn’t trust him enough to close the farmer sale. Blake didn’t blame him. Leftwich slunk off. Clarke was darting looks through the window, keeping a close eye on his prospective sale.

  ‘I’m looking at two eighteens. The party is Thursday night.’

  ‘Twenty-first? I got coloured lights, a jukebox.’

  ‘I’ve got my own lights and shit. Just the grog and glassware. We’re on Belvedere up past the general store, yellow wood letterbox.’

  Blake pictured the area up in the hills about six miles out of town. Clarke pulled a business card from his wallet and a fountain pen from his pocket and scrawled across the back.

  ‘My home phone number.’

  ‘It’ll cost thirty pounds including delivery and pick up.’

  ‘That’s alright. If I’m not there, my kid Tom will be. What part of the States are you from?’

  It wasn’t a question he got a lot.

  ‘Pittsburgh.’

  The salesman nodded. ‘I lived there after the war, Los Angeles, three years. My sister married a Yank sailor she met here. He went into the movies.’ His glance strayed towards the Hope photo and Blake readied for the tale but then Clarke saw the farmer looking around and finance got the better of an entertaining story. He took a step towards the door but stopped, and turned back to Blake.

  ‘What are you driving? I got an imported Chevy Bel Air would be perfect.’

  Blake nodded at his ute which was parked a way over. ‘That’ll do me for now.’

  ‘Keep it in mind. You’re in a business. You need to spread the right image.’

  Blake was ready to suggest Clarke heed his own advice but the salesman was already outside striding back to the farmer, dangling keys for a test drive.

  Blake checked his watch. Near midday, Carol should be awake.

  After they came, they lay on their backs getting their breath back. It was cool in here with a sense of damp. The cottage was small, dwarfed by palms and other thick vegetation that thrived in the semi-tropical climate, so the bedroom was always in shade. Carol reached for a Rothmans King Size and lit it with a chunky nickel-plated cigarette lighter. Nothing about smoking appealed to Blake. He found himself thinking back to his former occupation, things not to do if you wanted to survive, kicked the idea to the kerb. He was glad the stream of smoke could sneak out through the louvres Carol never shut. He couldn’t get over how people here never locked doors or windows. It had been like going against a law of nature but eventually he’d got into the practice of leaving open the upstairs windows of his own house. Carol was maybe twenty-four — he’d never asked — small breasts, firm, tanned. When she wasn’t sleeping or tending bar at the golf club, she was sunbathing. Blake enjoyed the convenience of daytime sex. Once it was over he could leave, no strings attached. He didn’t want anyone else in his house, especially not at night. He shared his bed with enough demons.

  ‘You’ve got a dance competition on,’ she said, flicking ash into a thin metal ashtray showing the crest of the golf club.

  ‘Yeah. Thursday, hoping it will be busy. You?’

  ‘Sleepy Hollow as usual.’

  The golf club was a staid crowd but the tips were good. They’d met when she’d turned up at the Surf Shack looking for a job. If he hadn’t wanted to have sex there and then, he might have hired her, but you didn’t screw the staff, that was a line he was not going to cross. He told her to try the golf club, advised her that the tips would be far better than his place and the
work easier, both of which were true. Then he took her to lunch and after, they fucked furiously on the beach. That was around six weeks ago. He saw her most days.

  She sat up, as if determined to make the day begin. ‘You want breakfast?’

  ‘You mean lunch?’

  Her eyes drifted to the clock, registered the hour. ‘I could fix us something.’

  ‘I’m alright.’

  He was thinking he might get in another surf before rehearsal. He got up and searched for his underpants. She sucked the cigarette real long, then said, ‘You want to meet up later, after work?’

  ‘No. I’ll be tired.’ He sensed her disappointment, tried to soften it as he dressed. ‘Tomorrow I have a rehearsal and have to get things ready for the dance comp. What about Sunday? We could take a run down the coast?’ Friday she worked afternoons, Saturday was her big day at the club so he knew she’d be out of action.

  ‘Sure.’

  Like a kid who was pleased to get a Christmas gift under the tree even if it wasn’t the one they really wanted. He leaned in and kissed her, tasting the smoke.