Beach Music

by Annie Seaton

  A strong gust of wind roared in from Antarctica, and the windows rattled. Sally hung onto the door so it wouldn’t slam shut. She didn’t want to injure his foot.

  Not very much.

  ‘I really need to talk to you about the ad. It’s perfect for me.’

  For probably the fifteenth time since Sally had arrived home, wet, cold and thoroughly out of sorts, she repeated. ‘There is no ad. It is not my ad. You have the wrong house. I am not selling anything.’

  Fourteen times, she’d answered the door to an ‘I’ve come about the ad.’

  Fourteen times in the past hour and a half, she’d replied, ‘you have the wrong house,’ and the person had apologised, looked slightly embarrassed and left. None of the other callers had been as persistent as this one.

  ‘Does someone else live here? Someone called Sally?’

  She peered around the door and lifted her eyes from the boots to the face.

  ‘What?’ Shaggy brown hair stuck to his cheeks like wet rat’s tails. It was one of the worst haircuts she’d ever seen. He actually had a fringe. ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘That’s the name in the ad.’ His voice was patient now as though he was talking to a child. ‘There is an ad. With this address. And the name of the person to see is Sally. After five o’clock today.’ He dug into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of newspaper. ‘I’ve driven all the way from Peats Ridge.’

  Sally huffed a sigh and let the door open a little bit more. ‘That’s the ad?’

  He nodded but held onto it.

  ‘So can I see it? And then I can tell you for sure you’ve wasted your time.’

  He handed over the small square of paper and she squinted. It was too dark to read the words, and she’d left her specs up in the bathroom, next to the book she’d been waiting to read.

  She reached up and flicked on the light switch and the front porch was bathed in bright light. Her visitor put his hand over his eyes and took a deep shaky breath. She stared at him as she held the piece of paper, wondering what he was going to do. He shoved his hand into his coat pocket and for the first time, nerves shimmied up her spine and she backed away.

  A knife? A gun? She’d been watching too many movies at night since Sonia had gone away.

  But the only thing that came out was a polka-dotted handkerchief that he quickly put over his face to catch a sneeze that almost rattled the roof tiles.

  ‘Bless you,’ she said with not an ounce of sympathy. ‘I hope you’re not getting a cold. Good night.’

  He’d pulled his foot back when he’d passed her the piece of paper and she took the opportunity to push the door.

  ‘Wait.’ The voice was deep but uncertain and she hesitated for a moment.

  ‘You can’t just take the ad and shut the door in my face.’

  For the first time a smile tugged at her lips. ‘This is my house’—well technically it wasn’t but he didn’t have to know that—‘so I can do what I want.’

  Determined to have some peace and quiet Sally leaned on the door but Mother Nature had different plans for her. A huge gust of wind rocketed in from the sea and the door slammed back against the wall taking her with it. The ad fluttered from her fingers and landed on the garishly patterned rug that Aunty Aggie had bought back in the 1950s. Sally stumbled and gasped as a torrent of water poured in through the open door.

  ‘Quick, come inside.’ Common courtesy won out. ‘You can’t stay out in that.’

  The man stepped beside her and as he pushed the door shut a huge crack of thunder shook the house, and the lights went out.

  ‘Bloody heck, ‘Sally muttered. ‘Can it get any worse?’

  Chapter 3

  Sol reached into his pocket and pulled out the small LED flashlight that was attached to his key ring. He flicked it on and a dim light lit the small foyer with ghostly shadows in the corners. He lifted the beam slightly and his lips twitched as the feisty—or was she simply cranky?—woman stared back at him. Large brown eyes were framed by a delicate face with high cheekbones. She was slightly built although the navy blue work shirt and trousers did hug some curves.

  From the way the ad had been worded, he’d imagined an alternate—and definitely approachable—woman. Not the one who was now tapping her foot and glaring at him.

  ‘Should I be worried?’ she said.

  ‘Worried?’ He frowned and lowered the flashlight.

  ‘You were checking me out? Am I about to be accosted?’

  Sol’s lips twitched again, and he fought back the chuckle that was threatening to rumble out of his chest. ‘I think you’re safe. And I wasn’t checking you out. I was checking you were okay. You hit that wall pretty hard. For a minute there I thought there’s been a lighting strike. I’ve never seen the wind gust like that.’

  ‘No,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Neither have I. The porch is protected by the high wall. And I thought the storm had passed.’

  As she spoke there was a loud bang upstairs, and Sally frowned.

  Aggie.

  ‘Look, let’s start again.’ He took a step towards her.

  ‘Whoa. Stop right there. I still haven’t decided if I can trust you.’

  ‘You can,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that. And Aunt Aggie will too.’

  ‘Aunt Aggie?’ He peered around her into the living room. ‘Do you want to get some lights going?

  ‘Aunty Aggie doesn’t need lights.’ She folded her arms. ‘She’s a ghost, but you try any funny business and you’ll be sorry. She looks after us.’

  Sol tipped his head to the side and wondered what he’d encountered here. Excitement curled in his stomach. Her stories were exactly what he’d imagined to find in this house. He didn’t usually read the community paper, but the fish and chips he’d sat on the beach and eaten at lunchtime yesterday—before the weather had closed in— had been wrapped in this week’s local newspaper. The ad had jumped out at him; if it hadn’t said call after five, he would have run up the hill and pounded on the door straight away.

  Okay, despite her appearance, a little alternate, and the face had a fairy-like quality with those huge eyes and the pretty red lips, maybe she was what he’d imagined from the ad. ‘Us?’

  She waved a hand. ‘Don’t worry.’

  He bent over and shone the light on the scrap of newspaper that was on the patterned rug. Reaching down he picked it up and handed it to her.

  ‘In the ad it says to call in here at this address, after five pm today and ask for Sally. I’m just pleased that I found it today. It was meant to be.’

  ‘I wonder why none of the others asked for me by name.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘You’d better let me read it. I’m getting a bad feeling about this.’ Reaching up, she pulled the tie from her hair and massaged her scalp. Long, silky, dark hair tumbled to her waist and it was tempting to reach out and run the long tresses through his fingers.

  He held out his hand instead and tried to inject professionalism in his voice. ‘I’m Sol Brown. I’ll probably here for a different reason to your other callers.’

  She took it and it was as though an electric current ran up his arm. ‘Sally Smith.’

  ‘Perhaps we could have a chat, Sally? Or make an appointment.’ Not that he wanted to wait. The ad was exactly what he needed, and he wanted to talk to her now.

  ‘Look, it’s storming too much to send you back out there’—her voice was brisk—‘come into the kitchen and I’ll make a cup of tea while we sort his out.’

  ‘Thanks. That’d be great. I really didn’t want to wait too long. I’m on a pretty tight deadline.’

  ‘Follow me. I can turn the gas on and put the kettle on. That’ll warm us up, and the stove will dry you out a bit.’ She looked at him curiously as she held her hand out. ‘Pass me your light please.’

  Sally—she’d said that was her name—turned and walked into a large room off the entrance foyer. It was too dark to see much, but the dark shadows and bulky shapes hi
nted at old furniture filling the space. He followed her through another three smaller rooms and then into a long hall that led to what appeared to be a separate wing at the back of the house. As they walked along the corridor, there was a series of bangs from the floor above.

  He raised one eyebrow at her at the last particularly loud one as she pushed open a door.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s only Aggie or Muggins.’

  ‘Muggins? You have two ghosts?’ He looked up but it was so dark he couldn’t even see the ceiling.

  ‘No. Muggins is a cat.’ She shone the light onto an ancient stove. ‘Taj was going to replace this but we insisted on keeping it.’

  Sol looked around as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light.

  ‘Sit down. I’ll get the stove going.’ She crouched in front of it and there were a couple of clicks before the smell of gas surrounded them as he sat at the large wooden table.

  ‘Bugger,’ she cursed. ‘That would just top off the day. Blowing off my eyebrows is not what I want. Aunt Aggie did it so often, in the end they didn’t grow back.’

  Sol swallowed. A ghost with no eyebrows, no less.

  Finally with a whoosh, blue flames danced in the ring on the top of the stove. Sally handed the torch back and he slipped it into his pocket.

  ‘Yay.’ After she filled the kettle and put it on the hob, she crouched down and lit the oven. Sol held his breath waiting for a bang, but her eyebrows remained intact.

  ‘So...’ He searched around for something to fill the awkward silence after she sat across from him. ‘Divine Soul Sisters? There’s more than one of you?’

  Sally frowned and he couldn’t help thinking how pretty she was. Her posture was straight and her movements were graceful. Maybe it was the soft light from the flame and his small flashlight, but her face looked ethereal. He wandered off into a daydream, thinking about some of the fairytale heroines he’d studied as part of his first Master’s degree. His supervisor had wrinkled her brow, unable to see what he was trying to convey in his thesis when he’d first presented the idea but he—

  ‘There were three but now we are two.’

  His head flew up and he frowned. As usual he’d lost the thread of the conversation; it drove his family crazy but they were used to him by now. He saw it as being blessed with an intellect that was prompted by free thinking; his family called it being off with the pixies.

  ‘Sorry. What was that?’

  ‘I said there were three to start with.’ She was staring at him.

  ‘Three what?’

  ‘Three divine soul sisters.’ She leaned forward and folded her hands on the table. ‘Now it’s just my twin sister and I. Rosie’s on the circuit.’

  ‘The circuit?’ The last thing he’d imaged was a circuit for his research topic.

  ‘And does your sister do the same thing as you?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ From the tone of his voice, he sensed that she wasn’t happy with that.

  ‘And um, how do you run your business?’ Sol leaned forward and put his hands on the table too. ‘I need to know if I’m going to be able to use you.’

  ‘Use me? You just make an appointment.’ She shook her head and confusion crossed her face. ‘The paper must have run an old ad. I haven’t advertised my business for years. But maybe it’s not such a bad idea, if that’s the sort of response I get on a stormy afternoon.’ She bit her lip. ‘Since the football club folded, my clients have dropped right off.

  ‘The football club?’ He knew his eyes were wide. ‘The whole football club?’

  ‘Yes, they used to keep me busy. They’d fill a whole class so I’d run an extra one on a Friday night. The coach used to say he could guarantee a win on the Saturday after the class.

  Sol swallowed. This was not what he’d imagined at all. ‘Um, you run classes?’

  ‘Yes. It’s not very effective one-on-one. And I’d never make a living if I took clients individually.’

  ‘Maybe I could come to a class and watch?’

  ‘I’m not sure that watching would be beneficial. But if you want to see what a class entails, sure. But you’d still have to pay the class fee.’ Sally looked at him as though he had two heads. ‘But isn’t that why you came knocking on my door?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I thought that I could get more information from an individual interview. But maybe watching a class...’ Heat ran up his neck. Reading research articles and interviewing practitioners in the field, he was comfortable with, but he didn’t know how he’d feel like being an observer in the room. He’d felt uncomfortable sitting by himself watching some of the DVDs that he’d sourced from the German Association.

  The kettle whistled and Sally stood. ‘People usually just turn up.’

  ‘But how do you know that they’re right for what you do?’

  ‘You can generally tell by first look whether they will be able to cope in one of my classes. I even have some clients in their eighties.’ She held up something and he squinted.

  ‘In their eighties?’Sol knew his eyes were wide.

  She nodded at the tea bag in her hand. ‘Tea or coffee.’

  ‘Ah yes, tea would be good, thank you.’ He was fascinated by her responses. ‘White, no sugar.’ He nodded his thanks and waited while she poured water into a mug. As she passed it to him, he tried to get his head around what she was saying. ‘You’re giving me a whole new perspective for my area of study. But it’s too late to change now. In their eighties, you say? Wow.’

  ‘When Aunt Aggie was alive’—she glanced at him as she passed over the mug—‘she was in the nursing home across from the beach and I’d run a couple of classes there most weeks.’

  Sol spluttered as he sipped his tea and the hot liquid sprayed from his mouth. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief to dab at his shirt. Sally stared at him as he wiped his mouth and Sol felt more gauche than he usually did. The newspaper in his pocket crackled as he pushed his damp handkerchief back in. He pulled the ad out and put it on the table as Sally tipped her head to the side.

  ‘And what do you mean by area of study? I thought you wanted to enroll in a class,’ she said reaching for the newspaper clipping. ‘From memory my ads just advertised class times. And the times have changed since I ran the last ad.’

  She held the ad up to her face and shook her head. ‘It’s too small to read in this light. Can I have your torch again please?’

  Sol passed over the small LED light and flicked it on for her.

  Chapter 4

  The lights came back on and the kitchen was bathed in bright light from the old fashioned fluorescent circle above the table. Sally’s mouth dropped open and she carefully put her mug down. She placed the advertisement beside it on top of the old scarred table.

  Oh. My. God.

  She leaned back and closed her eyes and put her hand over her mouth to stop the tirade of curses that were threatening to explode.

  ‘Um, are you okay, Sally?’ The concerned voice broke though the red mist of rage that was burning her eyes. It’s a wonder they weren’t bleeding.

  Her fingers caressed some of the marks on the timber table and she focused on them to try and calm down. The burn beside her mug was where Aunty Aggie had put a hot saucepan one night when she was trying to tell them something exciting that had happened to her that day. Of course she’d needed her hands to talk with the expansive gestures she’d always used, and she’d put the pot straight onto the timber table top. The knife mark was where Rosie had pushed the top of the paring knife into the table one night when they were playing cards, and she’d got excited and missed the cheese platter.

  Rosie had never won at cards, and that night had been a standout one when she’d won every hand.

  Memories. The table held beautiful moments. Her eyes filled with moisture, but they weren’t bleeding. Those times had gone now.

  Aunt Agatha had passed on—although at times they all wondered how far she’d actually gone.

&
nbsp; Rosie and Taj were married and had gorgeous four-year-old twins.

  And Sonia—cut to the reentry of the red mist—her sister, Sonia, was in deep trouble.

  Deep shit was a better term.

  ‘I will fu— freaking kill her.’

  I wonder if I can disown a twin sister. Sonia had done some stupid things in their lifetime, but this was going too far.

  Sally opened her eyes and stared at Sol. As her temper took hold she’d forgotten he was there. He was leaning forward and his expression was full of concern as his brow wrinkled. Sally stared at him and his eyes locked with hers. Now that the light had come back on, she took a good look at him. His eyes were the deepest blue, she’d ever see. They were surrounded by sooty black lashes and full of sympathy. And he didn’t even know why she was so upset.

  She pointed to his cup of tea. ‘Drink your tea. I need to make a call.’

  ‘Do you want me to leave?’ His voice was as warm as his eyes and she wondered why the warm flutters started low in her tummy.

  It had been a long time since she’d been so aware of a man. And despite his strange clothes and dorky short haircut, he was a very good looking man. His shoulders were broad and a sprinkling of dark hair peeped out of the V of his polo-neck shirt.

  Not now. No time for that now.

  And not later either, the little voice whispered in her head. She was over men for life, since Blake the bastard had left. She’d become a spinster like Aunt Aggie. She’d had fun; her life hadn’t been boring or dull.

  ‘No, no.’ She shook her head. ‘Just wait there and then I’ll explain.’ She pulled her phone from her pocket and hit speed dial for Sonia doing the quick time calculation in her head, hoping it was the middle of the night. Her sister deserved to be woken up.

  She shook her head.

  Damn. It would be just after ten at night in Waikiki.

  Sonia picked up almost immediately and she chuckled before Sally could speak. ‘Hi Sal, you should have come with me. I’m sitting by the pool in the sun drinking a Pina Colada.’