River of Salt

by Warner, Dave;

  ‘Sunday, then.’

  With The Orlons’ ‘Wah-Watusi’ pounding out of the jukebox, Doreen demonstrated the dance to the assembled girls. Worried the whole thing might be a disaster — the dance comp was her idea — she’d spent all yesterday cruising the beach and distributing handbills promising ‘fabulous prizes’. Ten had shown up for the rehearsal so as long as they all fronted tomorrow night, she’d have sufficient contestants. Some of the girls followed her moves, the others stared in amazement at her long legs. It had always seemed her destiny to have been a star netballer or a TV dancer but instead here she was, hostess and promotions manager for the Surf Shack. Unlike the frug, the watusi was simple and required no training because your feet barely moved, a total waste of the six years Doreen had spent on her toes imagining herself as a prima ballerina. When reality hit — she was too tall and not precise enough to be Dame Margot — she had shifted into chorus work but that was too much of a job so she quit. She shed no tears for her change in career path. On the contrary, it was dancing she loved, and it was more enjoyable when that wasn’t your profession. The advantage of the watusi was it gave all the girls a chance whether they’d had dance lessons or not. A high ponytail and trim figure helped but all you needed was energy. The track finished. She got her breath back and turned to the expectant faces.

  ‘You got it?’

  The girls looked at one another, mumbled and nodded. Doreen guessed eight of the ten were underage but so long as none of them actually consumed alcohol, Nalder would turn a blind eye, although the little one that had modelled herself on Patty Duke could be a worry.

  ‘Why don’t you girls give it a shot?’

  Three of them had come prepared and were wearing leotards, a couple in bikinis, the rest skirts. ‘Everybody in swimsuits tomorrow, okay? And no alcohol. Stick to Coke, unless you’re over twenty-one, which most of you aren’t.’ She heard herself sounding like a maiden aunt. She was twenty-five, no man, no plan. She strode to the jukebox and punched in the track, listened to the mechanical whirr give way to the click of the needle in the groove, then boom — the track exploded and the girls began to move. A blonde in a bikini was a natural, her arms pumping, her arse curved and hard as steel. The leotard girls were fair. Patty Duke was stored energy, wanting to bust out of that skirt, this club, the house in the Heights where she undoubtedly lived with her parents. Raw but with the beat of life thumping inside her ribs. Just like you were, Doreen, a decade of mistakes ago.

  Most of them were going to be fine. The men would be standing on the dance floor looking up at the catwalk, checking out those bodies. Doreen didn’t want her girls to suffer any kind of put-down from some wanker trying to show off to his mates, she wanted these women to walk out of here, tall, all winners. A noble sentiment but it was obvious the blonde had it in the bag. Walking along the line that they’d formed themselves into, Doreen offered encouragement, a little advice, some corrections. The song stopped.

  ‘That’s good. I’d like you all here by seven tomorrow.’

  All of a sudden the girls resembled the fish in the tank behind them, bulging eyes, stunned expressions. Doreen turned to see Blake had walked onto the stage carrying his guitar. Duck the drummer and Panza the bass player followed in his wake but the girls’ eyes were only on Blake. A couple whispered behind their hands to their friends. Nobody like Blake had ever lived in Coral Shoals.

  ‘Any questions?’

  Doreen gradually regathered their attention like pins spilled from a basket.

  ‘What does the winner get?’

  It was Patty Duke. She couldn’t be over sixteen.

  The blonde sniped, ‘Won’t make any difference to you, Kitty, you’re only going to embarrass yourself. Why don’t you go and … sew or something?’

  The other girls laughed. Kitty looked crestfallen.

  Doreen said, ‘The winner gets a brand new transistor radio.’

  ‘Perfect. Todd and me can listen to it while he’s sticking his tongue down my throat.’

  It was the blonde with no trace of irony.

  ‘Wish my boss looked like that,’ offered a skinny girl, her eyes still locked on Blake.

  Doreen said, ‘A boss is a boss. Okay, ladies, be here tomorrow night at seven.’

  ‘We’re all in? Even her?’ The blonde jerked her thumb at Kitty.

  Doreen wasn’t going to get into it with the little bitch. ‘Seven, don’t be late.’

  The blonde sashayed out right past the stage, three of the others following. Blake was too busy with his guitar to notice but Duck beamed.

  ‘Sayonara, ladies.’

  Duck’s lines always sounded like they came from a sidekick in an Elvis film. Doreen figured they probably had. Kitty was still fumbling with her things. She looked stressed. The blonde had got to her.

  Doreen said, ‘You sure you want to do this?’

  The girl looked up at Doreen with resolve. ‘Yes. I am.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The guy you’re hoping to impress.’

  Duck was playing drum fills now. Doreen knew she was right, knew this was all about some boy. She could imagine Kitty with a dreamy faraway look in her eyes, lying on her stomach on the carpet of her affluent parents’ sunken lounge room. A romantic Rodgers and Hart song would be playing on the phonograph as Kitty slowly drew her finger around the photo of the high-school sports star in the school annual.

  ‘Todd.’ The name came out with the hesitation of a dog that knows it has done the wrong thing.

  ‘Eva Braun’s boyfriend?’

  ‘Brenda talks through her bum. I’m not sure Todd even likes her.’

  ‘I know something about men, and I’m guessing he probably does.’

  Doreen pulled out a cigarette, leaned back and lit up. Normally she avoided smoking around Blake.

  ‘You think I’ll embarrass myself, right? Don’t worry. I’m working off a low threshold here. If I fall, it won’t hurt much.’

  Doreen sized her up. ‘Maybe we should raise that threshold.’

  Kitty was breathless. ‘You could help me?’

  Blake had started playing. It was the new song, a sweet ballad, really different to the normal instrumental surf stuff. He began to croon:

  She holds my heart in her fingertips.

  Traces my soul with the sweetest lips.

  ‘I’d love to see you wipe the floor with that bitch.’

  It’s bliss each we time kiss but we know.

  No good can come … of this.

  ‘You’re still at school, right?’

  ‘Brenda’s only just finished.’

  She holds my soul. In those eyes divine.

  Heavenly body, lips the sweetest wine

  It’s bliss each we time kiss but we know …

  No good can come … of this.

  Part of Doreen wanted to imagine Blake had written the song for her. The rest of her was indifferent. He was her boss, never the twain and all that.

  ‘Alright, Kitty. You’re still on holidays, right? Meet you back here at two and we’ll put in a couple of hours.’

  ‘I’ve done ballet.’

  ‘I can see. The steps aren’t what you have to work on.’

  ‘What do I have to work on?’

  ‘Sex.’

  He loved this middle part, didn’t know from where within him it had come. First to the F, Though her love is a waterfall … then to the G and C …This man’s heart is but sand … He wondered what Doreen was talking about with the girl. Maybe explaining she was too young for the competition … And here it was, the part that really kicked, where it goes to the E minor … She still thinks she can have it all and right on up to the D … But she’ll rue the day …and back to G … Love came to stay …

  His focus drifted back out. The side door had opened and a shaft of light speared in ahead of two men in wide trousers and sports jackets that had seen better days, not cops … more like the types Jimmy hung out with, low-li
fes that would sell their sisters for a packet of smokes. They draped themselves on the bar stools. After Doreen had farewelled the girls she approached them, must have asked what they wanted. Then she turned and pointed at him. Their eyes followed her ass as she exited in that stylish way of hers, like a graceful cat. Blake kept the interlopers waiting, finished the song, then ran through the surf numbers that would back the watusi dancers. Duck sped up on the toms, slowed down on the snare. His eyes were redder than a Santa suit.

  ‘You’ve been smoking that funny stuff again.’ Rehearsal was done. Blake carefully laid his guitar in its case.

  ‘It relaxes me.’ Duck was short, and his grin always reminded Blake of those mechanical toy monkeys that banged cymbals.

  ‘Relaxes you too much, man, you were behind the beat.’ Panza was the opposite of the drummer, over six foot, skinny. Blake had found him in a trad-jazz band up the coast playing double bass.

  ‘No man, you were ahead of the beat. It’s the German in you, you got that blitzkrieg thing going on.’

  Panza’s great-grandfather had been German — Dieterling — and Duck gave him hell about it. Around here, rhythm sections were scarcer than hen’s teeth and Blake smelled potential for disharmony. He stepped in.

  ‘Lay off that stuff before the show, Duck. And no peddling it to the chicks. Nalder doesn’t like that shit.’

  Only then did he climb down off stage to see what the two guys wanted.

  ‘How may I help you gentlemen?’ Now that he was close, he saw his initial suspicion was on the money. Grubby trousers, sweated-up shirts. They exuded ex-con.

  ‘Actually mate, we were thinking we could help you.’

  If one could be described as the better looking or more civilised, it was this one. He was six foot, around there. The other was shorter than Blake with a five o’clock shadow, low forehead and broad shoulders. Blake snuck a look at his fists, like sledgehammers. The spokesman gestured Blake should join them at one of his own tables. He thought about remaining standing but decided he would play it cool. The last thing he wanted was trouble.

  He said, ‘I’m very happy with my current suppliers.’

  His mind was moving fast. He expected they were going to offer him cheap — obviously stolen — cigarettes. He’d probably take some to get rid of them.

  The apish one said, ‘We’re more in the insurance game.’

  Most Australian accents sounded the same to Blake. Not this guy. He was coarse as a bum’s blanket. So, this was a good old-fashioned shakedown.

  ‘I have insurance.’

  ‘Harry and Steve.’ The taller one with a crooked smile introducing himself first.

  ‘Blake Saunders.’

  Harry didn’t offer surnames. He said, ‘Blake, there’s insurance and then there’s … insurance.’

  ‘Protection against accidents that could see your staff, or even you yourself, meet with a nasty accident.’ Steve gave the pitch he’d clearly learned by rote.

  Blake was pretty sure he wasn’t their first customer. He leaned back in his chair. ‘I’m not accident-prone.’

  Harry pointed a nicotine-stained finger at him. ‘See, that’s the thing about accidents. You can’t tell when they’re going to happen. That’s why they are called accidents.’

  Blake was considering how to play this, trying to suss them out at the same time. They’d been doing this for a little while. Maybe they couldn’t cut it in the city and had been forced out to find clients. Or maybe there was some other organisation behind them, something like the Mob.

  ‘I’m not interested. But I thank you, gentlemen, for your time.’

  The squat Steve lunged at him like an attack dog. ‘Listen, wanker …’

  Harry placed a restraining hand on him. ‘That’s okay, Steve. Let the bloke be.’ Again he offered that crooked smile and nice as pie said, ‘Fifty quid per month, that’s all. It’s really a drop in the ocean. Think it over.’

  Steve leaned in. Blake could smell his bad breath. ‘Yeah, have a good, hard, think.’

  They stood. Harry said, ‘I’m sure Mr Saunders is going to. Everybody’s luck runs out sooner or later. Right, Blake?’ He stared right into Blake’s eyes and Blake felt that old familiar chill he’d first experienced hanging with Jimmy in low-grade bars where guys could break your jaw for glancing the wrong way. But he’d been around tougher guys than these bozos. He said nothing and watched them head out.

  Doreen must have returned and been watching from the shadows. ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Insurance.’

  She looked at him like that didn’t fit. He changed the subject.

  ‘The dance comp is looking okay?’

  ‘We’ll be fine. There are some good movers.’

  ‘I wanted to try the new song.’

  She scooped up her clipboard. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it.’

  He let her get halfway towards the door before calling after her. ‘What did you think of it, the song?’

  It was like she was running it again in her head. ‘I liked it.’

  The ocean was an inkblot. The sun had fallen like a body sliding down a wall after a hit, life ebbing, darkness in the wings. Sometimes he thought of what had happened to Jimmy after they’d shot him. His soul, not his body. Even if there was a heaven, odds on he and Jimmy wouldn’t be heading there. He imagined the worst things: Jimmy adrift out there in a black, cold sea, forever, calling for help, calling his name. Blake pulled back from the open door, the sea breeze following him into the lounge room. He walked to the stereogram, picked up an LP, Dakota Staton, weighed it on his fingertips, extracted the platter and placed it on the spindle, clicked the switch and let the mechanism do its thing. Slow bass like a heartbeat, a piano that trilled and then her voice dragged him back to clubs with small round tables and cold streets outside. He could almost smell the cigar smoke and whisky under his nose. It was those guys, the shakedown mutts, that was what was bugging him, bringing back this space in his head. Everything was going so good. But them turning up, it was like you had bought a brand new car and walked out to find it had been sideswiped. The image of the car led him to the farmer in the car lot earlier. If life was a wick, his must be burned down a long way but the guy figured he had enough of a future to buy a new car. Maybe that’s what came of a life of dirt and hard work. A farmer’s life was honest. Not like his. He had taken the easy option: pulling a trigger a lot easier than working a machine ten hours a day. Bottom line, he didn’t deserve this … the Surf Shack, Doreen … paradise.

  He shoved aside the niggle for now. He would grill up some lamb chops. He could even drive out to the golf club, pick up Carol after work. Wednesday was a slow night, that’s why he never even bothered to open the Shack.

  Dakota could sure sell a song.

  She was worried he’d identify her car engine if she drove to the end of the street so instead she parked on the ocean road and cut through vacant blocks of scrubby sand on foot until she was on the sand dune closest to his house. It was dark, the moon was thin and there was no way he’d spy her. Doreen didn’t know why she put herself through this, didn’t know what she wanted, what she didn’t want, only that she felt this need to be here. Sometimes she sensed it in him, the same yearning to connect. But how could they? Why ruin what worked. He had his women. Like the one at the golf club with the sloppy nail polish. Doreen had her own admirers. Every night at the Shack at least half-a-dozen men asked her out. Occasionally she accepted and, sometimes, even enjoyed herself. Yet never so much as here, sand over her feet, the cold breeze across her face, a heart quietly beating in darkness, the hush of the ocean in her ear. In a way she was alone but not alone. She felt connected, like some long strand of cotton ran all the way from his lounge room to here and she could feel the vibrations from whatever song he was playing. She sensed in Blake the same depth as the ocean at her back, a cold darkness deep down. But when you jumped into the sea you felt exhilarated, you weren’t worried that on the ocean floor some weird fish wi
th eyes on stalks was patrolling a marine graveyard. She’d been engaged once, but not with a ring or anything, the kind of fake engagement where a boyfriend says ‘when we get married …’ and you play along. You believed for a little while, in romance, knights in shining armour, happy endings. But it always turned out the same. Her lovers were still at heart schoolboys looking for a mum to make their lunch, or worse, wankers always wondering if the blind auction bid they’d put in was too high, if there was somebody better for them than you. And when you caught them out, they promised to change but never did. Blake was neither of these. He was his own man, unique. Women wanted to change men, mould them. She didn’t want to do that. She wanted to stay like this always, her feet in the sand, the ocean breeze kissing her back, and him over yonder, a mystery, playing music she couldn’t hear but didn’t need to, with nothing between them but space, both part of the same pulse of sweet night.

  3. Watusi Stomp

  It was a big house built facing east on a large property, high up on the escarpment, further north and deeper inland than the Heights. You drove up a long dirt driveway from the west, arriving at the rear of the house. Orange and lemon trees, untended, formed a natural border to the north before giving on to a bushland of tall gums. On the house’s south flank was a disused tennis court. Its surrounding fence was still up and, though the grass court was overgrown with weeds, the net poles, while rusted, looked intact. The wide back lawn also needed a trim but compared to the rest of the property seemed manicured. Blake had slept well. In the end he’d not gone out to the golf club. He had no plans to end things with Carol but one day that would happen — maybe her choice, maybe his — and it was always easier to cut a line than a net. He pulled his ute up on stubbly lawn occupied only by an old wooden clothesline and an aqua EK Holden. He guessed it was Thomas Clarke’s. Winston Clarke had said his son would be there. Blake climbed out and enjoyed the isolated mechanical sound of his car door closing in what was otherwise a noise-scape of pure bush — unseen birds, a slight rustle of dried, brown gum leaves. He stood, hands in his jean pockets, taking in the rear of the house. Unlike the Queenslanders in town, its stone foundations sat directly on the ground. Cement steps led to a high but small back porch. About ten years old, estimated Blake. He tackled the steps, waited at the back flywire door and called out, ‘Hello? Anybody here?’