Читать книгу Pilgrim Souls - Jan Murray - Страница 6

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach...

Robert Browning

We left the car parked beside the garage at the front of the yard and made our way through the rainforest patch, around the side path to the veranda. ‘Da, dum!’ I said, throwing my arms out to announce my humble abode.

‘I know this property,’ he said, looking around.

‘Of course. Byron’s a small town.’

‘Nearly bought it ... about fifteen years ago.’

‘The place needs work. I need all these doors and window frames replaced for a start. Can’t bear aluminium.’

‘Yeah, timber’s the go. Nothing classy about al-oo-min-um.’

His mellifluous accent was ear candy, tubs of creamy caramel sentences pouring out of his mouth. His ‘al-oo-min-um’ tickled my fancy.

I stepped up onto the veranda and opened the double doors to the inside.

‘Unless you were doing a PhD on the history of the disappearing 1950’s Australian coastal holiday shack you’d write this place off,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty ugly.’

The building was no more than a rectangle with a small corner hived off for a dog of a bathroom, made even uglier by a broken concrete floor and exposed pipes. And then there was the sorry-arse third world kitchenette.

‘If nothing else, the locality deserves better,’ he said, sizing the place up, bending to look under the house, tapping on the fibro sheeting of the walls. ‘It’s been built well enough.’

As he walked around the building checking it out he picked leaves from the shrubs and held them to his nose.

‘This long timber veranda is sure something, hey?' he said when finally, he came back and took the veranda steps. 'And y’gotta love the position ... what you’ve got out there ... the doons and the beach. The guy who owned this went back to the States, y’know. Shot through.’

‘And it seems he’s decided to stay over there. Anyway, the agent told me the owner needed to sell in a hurry, so lucky me.’ I saw him nod in agreement. ‘You knew the previous owner. Byron really is a small place,’ I said.

‘Sometimes too small.’

With permission, he pulled a small broken, hanging piece of fibro away from the side wall to examine the timber frame beneath and noted they had used good timber for the frames. He found a piece of flattened cardboard and slid himself in under the house to check it out while I worried about his white shorts and the lovely dark blue and white Hawaiian shirt.

‘There’s some decent work been done,’ he said as he climbed out from under the house and dusted the sand from his legs. ‘It’s well-built.’ He grinned at me. ‘What there is of it.’

‘But like you say, the location’s the hero, isn’t it? The Pacific Ocean at my front door?’

‘I reckon. This part of Tallows Beach is pretty much deserted. Surf gets a bit wild, too. It’s terrific. Worth fixing up. With a little imagination, of course.’ He smiled. ‘It really is all about what you’ve got out there.’ He pointed, again to the sea. ‘And up here.’

Now he was pointing to his head. I didn’t get it. But I would before this day was out.

‘The view stretches for miles in either direction,’ I said. ‘You want to walk through the bushes and see my beach.’ Then I corrected myself. ‘The beach,’ I laughed. ‘It’s not all mine. Just feels that way. But then, you already know the place.’

‘Broken Head’s the next beach south around the point,’ he said. ‘I built a house on the peak round there. Years ago.’ He shrugged, ‘Or started to.’ He added the rejoinder in a way that suggested the memory hurt.

He left me standing on the veranda and started through the undergrowth, bending over in order to climb under the bushes and bracken overgrowing the pathway. As I hastened to catch up I could feel the grit in my sandals but it felt good.

Finally, we broke out onto the windswept beach and together, surveyed the scene. I took in a lung full of the coastal air and relished every bit of it.

‘Cape Byron lighthouse. Magnificent, isn’t it? Get up early enough and you’ll be the first on land to see the sun rise,’ he said, staring off to the left. ‘And down there, that’s Broken Head. And way out?’ Now he was pointing to the craggy outcrop jagging the horizon. ‘Julian Rocks. A favorite with divers.’

I was beginning to understand this was a man of few words. Short sentences. But I was hanging on every one of them. This was my new home he was describing with such abbreviated enthusiasm, and it was having the effect of banishing the last remnants of doubt I’d had when my hand had signed the deal this morning.

He walked off a short way and stood on another sand hill scanning the horizon, a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes. ‘One day,’ he said when I came up behind him. ‘One day I’ll be out there again.’

‘Sailing?’

‘Cruising, yeah.’ He seemed to disappear into another place for a minute or two before shaking his head and moving further down the sloping sand. ‘This southern end of Byron’s my favourite part of the Bay,’ he said. ‘This, and around at Broken Head.’

He went on then to tell me that years ago he had bought ponies for his small son and daughter. He and his wife, and the children, would gallop flat out along this stretch of beach at low tide.

‘Seven miles of flat, hard sand. Bare-chested,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Crazy! The wind in our faces, the four of us eating up the sea air all the way up and down this long stretch of beach.’

Deep in his own thoughts, I think he almost forgot I was standing alongside him. ‘A good life,’ he said to himself.

‘By the way, what do you reckon about my trees back inside, there. Are they’re worth saving?’

‘They’re fine. Burrawong palms. Or Bangalow palms. Whichever. They’re native to these parts. They’re in good shape, actually. A bit of work clearing away the rubbish trying to strangle them. And this coastal banksia, too, it’s worth saving.’ He broke off a twig from the tree and handed it to me.

‘Is that what they’re called? Bangalow palms?’

‘Banksia Integrefolia if you want the botanical name.’

‘You know your onions.’

He squatted down and tugged at a different type of bright green foliage growing in the sand around him, pulling out a large clump and holding it out for my inspection. ‘South African weed. It flourishes all along the beachfront. Bitou bush,’ he said, showing his disgust for the sticky leaves in the way he crushed them and tossed them away. ‘Chrysanthemoides monilifera. There’s a bit more botany for you to remember.’

‘I’m a fast learner. Keep going.’

‘The mining companies started planting the stuff way back. Their answer to the erosion problems their mining caused. Digging the sand for their rutile.’ He shook his head. ‘The way those mining companies savaged this beach ... and around at Belongil ... man, it was ugly stuff! Massive equipment down there, ripping up the beach. Huge dredging machines up and down the length of this place. And their sheds. Would have been something to see, I reckon. Horrendous. Then they went and planted this South African weed to cover their tracks. It grew wild. Kills everything in its path. See.’

He pointed to some stunted native saplings being strangled by the bitou. ‘The native dune stuff can’t survive. It didn’t stand a chance. Some good people got the mining stopped back in ‘68 but a bit too late by then. It’d got away from them, the bitou.’

‘And here’s me telling the agent this morning how lush I thought it was,’ I said. ‘Waxing lyrical over it. Said I liked the way all that lovely bright limey green creeper protected the dunes!’

‘You weren’t to know.’

‘Feel pretty dammed stupid now, though.’

‘Don’t sweat it. Bet your life the guy didn’t have a clue, either. Was he wearing a suit?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shiny shoes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, there you go.’

‘I’ve got a lot to learn about Byron Bay, haven’t I? Local lore, the kind of inside info that gets you those brownie points?’

‘Y’know something?’ he said, turning to me and grinning, an echo of the cheeky grin I’d got from him back at the roundabout an hour ago. ‘The penny has just dropped. What do y’know, you’re the politician’s wife. The desk story, John Brown’s wife.’

‘John Brown’s body.’

‘... lies a moulding in the grave.’ He laughed. I was pleased it was a gentle laugh and not the kind of smirk I sometimes attracted.

‘No. The body’s alive and well, thank you.’ And then came a total non-sequitur.’ I’m divorced.’

He gave a shrug. ‘Hey, who isn’t?’ Turning from me, he again scanned the horizon. ‘See it?’ He pointed to the north horizon.

‘See what? Whales?’ I was too busy worrying about my silly remarks to care about whales. Promiscuity, it had been explained to me by the various psychiatrists who’d had a go at trying to fix my head in the past couple of years, is a hallmark of the bi-polar condition, financial and sexual promiscuity when in the manic phase. And here I was, having already purchased a property on a whim this morning, about to go all haywire around the gypsy. The man was a good decade younger than me, and a stranger, albeit a handsome and interesting stranger, but a stranger.

He put one hand on my shoulder and with his other hand, turned my face in the direction he was pointing.

‘Out there, look. A yacht. Coming down the coast. Way out. Just a speck coming around the headland. See it?’

‘No. I don’t see it.’ I squinted, trying to spot the illusive vessel, but the hand and the man’s closeness was seriously distracting me from acknowledging distant sailing boats.

‘No?’ He twisted me by my shoulders in the direction of the yacht and standing behind me, his cheek close to mine, took my arm and held it straight out, using my hand to point out the yacht. ‘See, look straight along your arm,’ he said. ‘Way out there.’

Resisting the intimacy took an effort. He smelt good, smelt musky, and the man had his guiding hand on my shoulder. When I turned my head, our lips were within kissing distance of each other. Cue Hollywood violins. Doctor Zhivago bought a second of it then let go of my arm and turned back to look for his yacht out at sea. Be still, my beating heart!

‘Oh, wait!’ I called out. ‘Wait! Okay, yes, now I do see it!’ I turned back to him. ‘Just,’ I said. ‘A beautiful, lonely kind of thing isn’t it; a tiny sailing boat, all the way out there?’

‘Sure is. She’ll have a strong nor’easter behind her, that one,’ he said, as much to himself as anyone else. ‘There’s nothing in the world like it. Nothing like the freedom of being out there, driving through the waves.’

‘Away from all formulas.’ I smiled across at him. ‘A poem. I quote poetry. Endlessly. It’s my shtick, my weakness. I drive people mad doing it,’ I laughed.

‘The rest of it? How does it go?’

‘It’s a long one. Your very own Walt Whitman. Guess they taught you Whitman in school. You might know it. Just a few lines are all I can quote, though.’

‘Go on.’

‘We will sail pathless and wild seas. We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.’ I hesitated then went on. ‘Away from all formulas!’

‘Away from all formulas.’ He repeated it, sotto voce, seeming to commit the phrase to memory. ‘Sounds good. I like it. I’ll remember that one. Walt Whitman, hey? Oh, Captain. My Captain.... Yeah, I used to like his stuff.’ He turned and trudged up the sand hill. ‘Anyway, forget the bitou,’ he said when I caught up. ‘You’re real lucky you’ve got all those tuckeroos back in there as well as the palms.’

‘Tuckeroos?’

‘I’ll show you.’

Ducking through the undergrowth and holding pandanus branches out of the way for me, he led me back inside the property and pointed.

‘Tuckeroos. See? Those over there. And here. They’re natives. Lovely things.’

He walked across to a stand of spindly trees growing in a hollow part of the sandy ground near the veranda. I noticed other similar trees were spread around the place, growing in clusters among the rest of the coastal shrubbery. The foliage was a dusty grey green, the leaves elongated and spike-edged, dark on the top side and a paler silvery grey underneath. The trunks were mostly rough textured but some were smooth with a mottled effect.

‘A bit like birch trees, with those variegated trunks,’ I said. ‘Only thinner. And the leaves are different.’ I pulled a leaf from a tree and held it to my nose.

He smiled and shook his head. ‘Uh-uh. It’s not fragrant. But it’s a great tree.’ He pointed across to another stand of tuckeroos near the ti-tree fence running down the north side of the property. ‘This many in one place is rare nowadays. They’re a feature of this area. Or were. Once upon a time.’ He patted the trunk as though it were an old friend. ‘I love ‘em,’ he said, looking around. ‘The suburban sprawl’s gonna kill them off, though.’ He walked over to the edge of the veranda and plonked his frame down then patted the spot beside him, signaling me to join him.

Once I was seated––a safe way along the veranda from him––he turned to me. ‘This location warrants something special, y’know that?’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘If you’re serious, I will,’ he said. ‘Tell you about it, that is. I’ll tell you what I reckon you could do with it. An undeveloped piece of beach front’s sure something.’

‘Except for that ugly big garage up front. You saw that when we drove in, right?’

‘The guy built the garage. He did some music recordings in there at one time. Among other things.’

‘The cannabis? Yes, I’ve been told about that already.’

A perky little brush turkey––black feathers, red head and a yellow necklace––strutted out of the dunes, scratched about for a bit then, when I tried to move towards it for a closer look––not yet appreciating what pest they are––the creature darted back in among the undergrowth and disappeared.

I came back to the veranda, sat down, wondering if the man had checked out my backside while I was leaning over and tussling with the turkey. I broke the silence.

‘What I’ve got here is nothing more or less than a very run-down property, isn’t it? Really?’ I was looking at the mess of embers from my morning’s labours, at the rusting corrugated iron wall down at the veranda’s edge, at the ugly fibro, at the aluminium window and door frames. With a sigh, I pictured the monumental task ahead of me if I were to make the ugly little hut even half presentable. ‘Just a dilapidated hippy hang-out, I guess.’

Before he answered, and as if to confirm my assumptions, he reached down and picked a syringe out of the grey sand at his feet and held it out to show me. I was horrified.

‘You should get someone to do a sweep of this place. Under the house, too. It’s not just a rumour. Surf documentaries weren’t the guys only trick.’

‘God, don’t you hate them? Some dirty junkie,’ I said, putting my hand out to take the needle from him.

‘Uh-uh.’

He pulled his hand away and went across and retrieved a plastic water bottle from his canvas shoulder bag. After tipping out the remaining water, he pushed the needle against the step, bending it back on itself then dropped the syringe into the bottle and screwed the lid back on.

‘I saw a skip out the front of that house they’re renovating down the road. I’ll drop it in there as I go by.’

He collected his canvas bag and slung it over his shoulder.

‘You’re going? So soon? But what about––’

‘Yeah. I’m going,’ he said, flatly.

His mood had changed, as if I the yellow brick road we had started down together moments ago had vanished. I watched as he walked towards the side of the house, trailing the bottle in his hand. When he stopped and looked around, I was standing, stunned, where he had left me. He looked down at the bottle for a moment then walked back and indicated the scope of the property with a wave of the bottle. ‘Look, you’ve got a nice place lady, okay?’

He might as well have slapped my face. I recoiled from his words.

‘A really nice place.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘It could be.’

He had just checked me out of la-la land. A thick, empty silence reigned in which I had time to regret my harsh outburst. Coming down like a tonne of bricks on heroin addicts didn’t play well in Byron Bay, apparently.

Uncool.

No brownie points awarded for a new arrival so conservative she was repelled by Byron’s famous junkies. My comment had reflected poorly on a place this local man loved. I had been insensitive. He was holding his gaze on me, unblinking.

‘You’ll find someone,’ he said more gently as he turned from me and headed off.

‘I thought I had,’ I called out as he beat through the rainforest to the front yard.

He stopped walking, cast his eyes down at the bottle in his hand then around at the property. He looked back at me and seemed about to say something.

‘Well?’ I asked.

He looked down at the bottle again, rolling the syringe around in the plastic barrel, watching the way it tumbled. Finally he turned and walked up the yard to the street and without turning to look back, waved the bottle in the air above his head to bid me a final goodbye.

‘Russian-Irish? Is that right?’ I called out.

‘You got it.’ He didn’t stop or look back but waved again with the loaded bottle.

‘I hear they like a drink, those guys? Right?’

He turned and eyeballed me as I came closer, holding the stare for several seconds, challenging me to be the first to look away. But neither of us blinked. Not till he broke out in a smile and shrugged. ‘Yeah. They’ll take a sherry or two at Christmas.’

‘If you’re up for it, then how about a glass of Christmas cheer?’ I was offering to buy him a drink. A hitchhiker I had just picked up. So, what? I was invincible. Still trawling Mt Olympus.

He looked puzzled. ‘It’s only September. A little early for Christmas, don’t you reckon?’

‘It’s one of the ‘er’ months,’ I said. ‘It’s Christmas once you hit the ‘er’ months. That’s the rule.’

‘Er months?’

‘September. October. November. December. The ‘er’ months.’ I was challenging him to question my logic. ‘September? It’s a down-hill run from here.’

‘Life’s a downhill run.’ He said it and it seemed that straight away, he regretted the bitter tone.

‘C’mon. Hear those sleigh bells?’

‘You’re crazy, y’know that?’

‘And I like you, too. Mr Builder of Fine Timber Boats. A Christmas drink around the corner at my local? Please?’

I retrieved my bag from the Golf and slung it over my shoulder. ‘I’ve been here a whole day,’ I said as I came back to him. ‘It’s time I got acquainted with my local watering hole. Don’t want to walk in there on my own if I can help it. It’s a lovely day so what say we walk around?’

‘Okay by me.’

I fell in beside him. We reached the front of the yard and turned left.

When I began walking ahead of him to pick frangipani off the ground I imagined I could feel his eyes on me.

But they weren’t.

He was back at the skip bin in front of the renovation site, moving aside cardboard boxes and pieces of broken plasterboard. I watched him bury the plastic bottle deep down beneath the refuse.

Good man, I thought as I started walking backwards, dodging the branches of an overhanging hibiscus.

He plucked a red blossom from the tree and handed it to me. A romantic gesture? It landed on me as such.

We were soon strolling through the back door of the Suffolk Park Hotel and it wasn’t until I let him guide me to the bar, where he ordered a gin and tonic for me and a White Russian for himself, that I stuck the hibiscus flower behind my ear. Left or right?