Sheerwater

by Leah Swann

  ‘Mailed from central Melbourne,’ Ballard said, watching her. ‘You don’t look surprised.’

  ‘I received something similar, years ago. Before Max could walk. That postcard showed a woman in a bra and apron and stilettoes standing on a man’s bowler hat, holding a gun. Same style, same colours.’

  ‘Did that one have blood on it?’

  ‘No. It was just a creepy note from someone calling himself Jase whom I’d never met. Before we moved to Wallace Street we lived by St Kilda Beach, and in summer I’d take Max there every day and he’d dig with his bucket and spade and I’d sunbake. And then I got this note from someone saying that he’d been watching me in my bikini and wanted to meet at the ice-cream stall, at a particular date and time.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘No! We never went back there again.’

  ‘What did Lawrence think of it?’

  ‘He was suspicious, of me, which amazed me. He talked openly about my affair.’ Ava was hot now, blood suffusing her face and scalp.

  ‘Did you have an affair?’

  ‘What? No! Never.’

  ‘Do you still have that postcard?’

  ‘I threw it out.’

  ‘Could it have come from Kirsty Collins? Maybe she was stalking you.’

  ‘God, I don’t know.’

  ‘Tell me again. Why did you pull over when the plane crashed?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why didn’t you just dial triple zero and keep going? You were under pressure, perhaps in danger – or so you believed – your little boys were in the car, why would you stop?’

  ‘I had to.’

  ‘You didn’t have to,’ said Ballard, moving across the room to open the door. She wasn’t looking at Ava. ‘Do you think it was your need to save the world? Your ego? Because your mother wouldn’t stop to help, would she? Nor would Lawrence.’

  Ava was speechless. Ballard met her eyes. Her hand was still on the door handle.

  ‘It’s just – it was the right thing to do,’ said Ava. ‘I didn’t want to stop. I was – compelled to stop.’

  ‘Ever thought you might be running a story about yourself as a rescuer? It’s literally your job, right?’

  ‘I’m not with emergency services anymore. I’m just a swimming coach.’

  Ava felt the detective ruminating upon her as a question, a riddle. Ballard moved back to her desk, serious and absorbed, typed something on the laptop keyboard, spat her gum into the waste basket and unwrapped a second piece. She walked back with Ava towards reception, where Simon was waiting. There was no sign of Caleb and Grace. When Simon saw her a smile replaced his habitual preoccupied expression and she was grateful he’d waited.

  ‘Could you stay close by, Ava?’ said Ballard. ‘In case I need to ask you more?’

  ‘Why don’t we go to Capelli’s for a coffee – it’s just across the road,’ said Simon.

  ‘Yep, righto, great,’ said Ballard. ‘I’ll come over when we get some info about this Kirsty woman.’

  ‘She won’t be in Parkville,’ said Simon.

  Ava again caught the tiny snap and charge in the detective’s eyes.

  ‘We’re just following up your lead, mate. Where would you look?’ the detective asked.

  ‘I just don’t think she’ll be at home.’ Simon shrugged and Ava thought she saw the detective give in to an eye-roll, the barest flutter.

  ‘Any other insights, Dr Simon Manrose, just let me know.’

  ‘There she is, there she is!’ cried a voice.

  ‘Time to go, Mary, you’ve had enough!’

  ‘I just wanted to see the poor mother.’

  A constable had a hold of Mary’s arm and was restraining her. Mary shook him off and rushed towards Ava.

  ‘Did you find them? Did you find your little ones?’

  Ava shook her head. She wanted to run from Mary’s sympathy, which seemed to plunge solidly into her like a bird plunging into the sea.

  She turned away. Simon was holding open the door. She stepped outside and saw where Caleb and Grace had left Winks tied to a telegraph pole. Ava untied the dog and they crossed and entered Capelli’s, which reeked of batter frying in old oil and rattled with a noisy cappuccino maker and had an eclectic menu: lasagna, meatballs, dim sims, fish burgers, moussaka and crabsticks. The atmosphere was as brownish as an unwashed teacup.

  Ava sat at a tiny table opposite Simon. ‘You don’t have to wait.’ She rubbed at her gritty eyelids.

  Simon didn’t answer. He was staring at his phone, brow furrowed. On a shelf above him was a model sailing ship encased in glass.

  ‘What is it?’ Ava asked, tugging at one of the feathers in her ears.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Tell me. Is it something from the police?’

  ‘No – it’s from my partner, Olivia. She says that the widow suing me wants to meet me with her lawyer.’ Simon paused. ‘It’s . . . well, she sees me as her husband’s murderer. A nicked bowel led to septicaemia. It happens sometimes . . .’

  Ava shuddered and bent her head, nauseated by batter fumes. She couldn’t think about Simon’s problems. Didn’t want to. She flipped the plastic menu back and forth with unseeing eyes.

  If Kirsty had taken the boys, was she caring for them? Was she hurting them? Or was Kirsty a red herring? A red-haired red herring. Thoughts mushed like porridge. Detective Ballard would have to do the thinking. Ava realised that she’d focused all her trust on Ballard rather than Hawkins. She seemed smart. Experienced. Steeped in decades of this stuff. Unlike Detective Hawkins – or any of the other police officers she’d met so far – Ballard had an alert, aware quality that was almost palpable. Ballard could piece together what it all meant – the postcard and Lawrence’s strange plea to the public – and find Ava’s missing boys and end this horror. She had to. It was her job.

  Simon ran his forefinger down the menu and ordered coffee and raisin toast which arrived in buttery wads. Ava sipped sour coffee that burned her tongue. Teddy would be filthy by now. His hair became dreadlocked when it wasn’t brushed. Their absence was tearing her like cellophane, and whenever she looked up Simon’s face seemed to lose detail, until he was little more than a soft patch of light in the cave-like café.

  ‘This coffee’s feral,’ he said. He dropped the cup onto the saucer and the clatter brought her round again, like a slap.

  The coffee cup was decorated with a retro pattern. All was pattern. What was the relationship between Lawrence and Kirsty? Ava needed to get far enough away from the pattern to decode the motifs. For so long Lawrence had been the axle around which her life had turned. Can’t see the wood for the trees. Images of a forest and wheel spinning conflated in her mind. Whenever she thought she’d got free he’d magically reinstate himself. She twisted a ring on her finger. With this ring, I thee wed. She no longer wore that ring. She’d sold it for almost nothing – it turned out the diamond wasn’t real.

  Ava glanced up as Ballard’s chunky form appeared at the café door. The detective’s tousled hair carried wind from outside as she edged her way between tables.

  ‘How’s this?’ she said without preamble. ‘Kirsty Collins called in sick three days ago. She hasn’t been to work since and the neighbours haven’t seen any sign of her. There’s no car in her drive.’

  ‘So we’re onto something,’ said Simon. ‘She’s involved.’

  ‘Could be.’

  Without sitting down, Ballard pasted a mangled green gob onto a serviette, took a bite of raisin toast and grimaced.

  ‘Another thing, Ava. Hawkins noticed a backpack in Lawrence’s room. He didn’t unpack it. Looked full, though, like he’d just gone on or was preparing for a trip.’

  ‘Oh – that’s just his bushwalking pack. He’s always unpacking it and repacking it with various essential items. He likes to have it ready, in case he wants to go on a bushwalk.’

  ‘How long’s he been doing that for?’

  ‘A few years now. He obsesses over surviv
ing if he gets lost.’

  Ballard tore another piece of toast, grimaced again, chewed and swallowed.

  ‘Stay close, Ava. Go for a walk on the sea path. The muttonbirds are coming in.’ She dropped the remaining toast on the plate and left the café.

  Ava watched Ballard pass by the red postbox on her way back, the postbox where the kookaburra still sat, a plump and settled and somehow startling presence as the breeze ruffled the feathers on its scalp into a crown. Max had once told her that the kookaburra’s job was to awaken with laughter all creatures at dawn. He’d learned it at school. Kookaburra laughing, kookaburra laughing, hungry kookaburra what do you see? Ava could hear the simple tune in her head: dee dee dee dee dah dah, over and over.

  This kookaburra wasn’t laughing and seemed almost aware of itself as a visitor to her world, bearing sounds and aromas and lights from their family history: the time Max presented her with the red earrings in a velvet-lined box, his whole being full of tender anticipation; the thwack of a tennis ball meeting Teddy’s palm, time and time again, he never missed; the hunt for gumnuts which Teddy would paint gold and use as money for shops or bury in a pirate’s chest; the fragrance of late spring lilacs drifting over the sandpit.

  Ava listened to the light clicks made by Simon texting into his future and looked into her coffee which was black and reflected nothing. A thought comforted her: Teddy would be okay as long as he and Max were together. Max would look after him. He’d taken it on as a personal duty, had adored his little brother from the very first minute. The midwife had warned Ava that older siblings could be jealous, and so when she came home from the hospital she put the baby in his crib before going to see Max, who was playing on the couch with Lawrence’s mother. Ava had stretched out her arms for him but he stayed seated, searching her all over with curious eyes.

  ‘But where is he?’

  ‘In his cradle. I wanted to give my big boy a hug.’

  ‘Okay,’ Max had said. He slipped off the couch and hugged her and said, ‘Can I see?’

  So Ava swaddled the newborn in a bunny rug to make an easy-to-hold package: tiny, warm, solid. She brought him to Max, who touched his cheek to the sleeping face. ‘He smells sweet. Like a marshmallow.’

  Ava slid a pillow under Max’s right elbow so he wouldn’t drop the baby’s head. She needn’t have worried. Max held Teddy as though entrusted with a great treasure, and gazed at his brother with an astonishment close to reverence.

  At Simon’s suggestion they left the café to walk the sea path. The sky was full of an unnatural number of birds. Thousands. Ava checked her phone and saw it was already one pm. Each minute dragged but hours fell as fast as petals. They walked the narrow sea path flanked by pussy willows, their pale and furry tips soft to the palms and rippling to the same endless rhythm as the Southern Ocean below, its blue darkness broken by dazzling chips of white. The path was rocky and once or twice Simon caught her elbow to steady her. Winks raced ahead, a furry mass diving into the barbed grasses. What could Ava do? Where could she look? Should she just leave the police to do their job or should she do something? What? She wished she still knew Wes. She’d ask his advice. I have no father, I have only the sea. Ocean sounds filled her ears, rhythmic yet unpredictable, life-giving and dangerous, the water filled with hidden corals, colours and creatures.

  When they were almost at Smoky Point she looked again at the flocks darkening the sky. ‘What are these birds, anyway?’ she said.

  ‘Shearwaters. All today, tonight and tomorrow they’ll be coming in.’

  ‘Their wings must be a metre across.’

  ‘They have to be strong. They have one of the longest migrations in the world.’ Simon held up his left palm and pointed to it with his right index finger. ‘See here, imagine this area under my thumb is this coast. The birds fly out northeast and then swoop northwest towards Japan and then all the way up to Alaska, where they spend the northern summer, and then come down along the Californian coast and cross back again.’

  The shape that Simon described on his hand was a figure eight. Ava looked blankly at his palm. She couldn’t talk to him anymore. ‘I’m going back to the police station, to check in. I need to be alone.’

  Simon seemed about to say something to stop her so she turned sharply and hurried away, her feet crunching on the gravel path back towards the township with Winks at her feet. Far out on the horizon lightning flared soundlessly. The birds, thinning now, kept coming. It’s Lawrence, it’s Lawrence, it’s Lawrence. A looping figure eight. Everything looped. It was the pattern.

  Was she paranoid, as Ballard had suggested? What would Ballard know? Ava was so sick of what people thought they knew! Everyone was so full of their own self-righteous and uninformed opinions. They don’t know. No-one knows as much as they think about other people. Stuff them all. She wished she was as free as the birds overhead, now fewer in number, growing quieter. Yet in truth, these emblems of freedom were not free. Birds were driven by nature like all creatures, and nature is ceaseless motion, always birthing or blossoming or shrivelling or dying, compelled by hunger and cycles and instinct.

  She was not natural in the way the birds were natural. How long could she live down there on the beach? What would she need? A swag and a cook stove? She’d have to brave the icy water in all seasons. Six months in this tearing wind and her face would be as craggy as the cliffs. She thought of Lawrence’s survival manuals stacked on his desk under the Magritte floating rock poster that she loathed, with titles like Back to Basics and Off-grid: Free living beyond Big Brother; books for people who had visions of black panthers bounding through the wild. Why did Lawrence read them? To impress strangers with his desire to shower in rainwater and kill his own dinner, strangers who would never know he’d baulked at paying for solar panels? Lawrence dig a latrine? What a joke. He’d be bored after a day in a tent. He was a fantasist. So why was he interested in those books?

  ‘People are too afraid of pain,’ he’d once said to her. ‘I crave pain.’

  This had shocked her. ‘But – why?’

  ‘It’s about feeling something. Pain brings the strongest sensation.’

  And yet when he’d hit his thumb with a hammer fixing the deck he’d bellowed like a wounded bull.

  None of this meant that he hadn’t somehow taken the boys and embarked on some weird adventure. But what about this Kirsty person? If she had taken the boys, that meant she and Lawrence were connected. She was part of it. She was in the loop. An old movie tune played in Ava’s mind: I’m a redhead, yes a flaming redhead, and I don’t care! Had the redhead locked up Max and Teddy? Were they in the dark, or was there light? Were they hungry, were they scared?

  She’d kill her. She’d kill that flaming redhead – just give her the chance, she’d knock her out cold with hands like clubs, hands of chaos that could kill Lawrence too, knock that smooth and smiling prick stone dead.

  A scissoring breeze drove grit through her hair and over her skin and she scraped at the sand stuck between her fingers. She left the sea path and walked through an alleyway between a drycleaner and the two-dollar shop with its plastic urns, boxes, plants, ersatz versions of classic objects. Again she saw the red postbox. The name of the English novelist who’d introduced pillar boxes returned: Anthony Trollope. Was that right? The name pieced itself back into the scroll of her mind.

  Just what was it that Lawrence craved – physical pain or emotional pain? Why had she not asked him at the time? Was she afraid of the answer?

  She decided to get her car and drive back to the place where the plane had crashed. She might remember something. Why hadn’t Ballard told her to do that? Don’t police take people back to the scene to jog their memories? Maybe Ballard didn’t know what she was doing after all.

  Then she froze.

  Through the glass window at Capelli’s she saw three familiar figures. A man with two little boys. A spurt of light hit her between the eyes. Yes, she was seeing it! Lawrence wiping sauce off Teddy’s chin, and
Max swiping curls from his forehead. Lawrence and Max and Teddy seated at the round table and feasting on fish and chips and milkshakes. They were here! Of course, that could make sense – no, it didn’t make sense at all. Blood rushed from her head, dizziness spread through her. She reeled. She stumbled towards the doorway and fell and was surrounded by people, picking her up, dragging her.

  ‘Lawrence!’ she screamed. Heart valves drubbing with blood. Elbowing people. ‘Get off, get off, get off me, I can’t see.’ Pushing people away. Struggling to her feet. A blinding headache coming into her, a migraine complete with a sparking blankness of vision on her left side. Visual interference, visual wrongness, like that plane falling, spinning out of control, dropping out of the sky. She pushed her way through the door, heading for a table where two old ladies and a child were eating cake with three tall glasses of milkshake shining between them.

  ‘Where are they?’

  The ladies looked up, surprised. ‘Who?’

  ‘The man that was here. With his kids. A second ago.’

  ‘We’ve been here half an hour,’ said one. ‘There are no other children here.’

  Ava looked wildly around the café. Four other people at the tables: all strangers. And no children. ‘Oh my God.’

  She ran to the counter and asked the man she guessed was Capelli himself, ceaselessly turning crabsticks in the old dark oil. ‘Was there a man in here, a handsome man with blond hair, and two little boys?’

  Capelli spoke over his shoulder, wiping his free hand on a striped apron. ‘No, no-one like that.’

  Ava ran out onto the street. A gang of teenagers stood smoking outside the milk bar. Near the roundabout was a plum tree with its first frail blossoms, and on the corner across from it a spindly paperbark housing a riot of kookaburras. Where was he, her kookaburra messenger? Could he tell her what this meant, this sighting of her lost family? She hurried down the street looking into the shop windows and staring through the windscreens of parked cars, each reflecting brightness and shadow, unintelligible patterns, squiggles of light and dark, first sharp, then smudging.