The Stranding (5 page)

‘More than a bit,’ she said. ‘It was his career. He took his family west to Albany to go whaling. Didn’t return until the industry was closing down.’ She moved off slowly towards the kitchen. ‘I’ll just get your order.’

Lex stared blankly into the newspaper. He was glad he hadn’t known about Vic Wallace when he bought the house. Whaling was something he’d covered on radio each year when the Japanese fleets were sailing south for their annual ‘research’ catch. It was a controversial issue. And it made for good talkback. The phone always ran hot when they ran a whaling story. Whaling upset people. And the pictures in the newspapers weren’t pretty either. Photos designed to arouse anti-whaling sentiment. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to bother the Japanese.

He drank his coffee quietly then munched his toasted sandwich. He should have expected white bread in a country town. It was something he’d have to get used to.

When he paid his bill, he left a city-style tip on the counter.

‘No need for that next time,’ Sue said. ‘I hope to see you a bit regular around here. A place like this can always do with some new blood.’

She pocketed the money and her eyes chased him to the door.

‘You should get yourself down to the markets sometime,’ she suggested. ‘They’re on every second Saturday. Lots of people to watch. A bit of local colour. It’ll get you away from the Point too. Only birds for company out there.’

Back out in the street Lex peered through the front window of the butchery next door where meat glowed red in tidy arrays beneath the purple flush of fluorescent light. He should buy something for dinner. As he walked in through the plastic doors, a tall man with a shock of blond hair jolted out of the back room holding a bloodied knife in his hand.

‘Can I help you with anything?’ the man asked.

Lex could hear a dull thwacking sound out the back. There must be another person out there chopping meat.

‘I’d like to buy some steaks.’ He indicated towards the front window. ‘Scotch fillets, please.’

The butcher looked down at the blood on his hands. ‘Just a minute. I’ll be right with you.’

He ducked back through the rear fly curtain and Lex heard the swish of a running tap and the rollick of a paper towel dispenser being roughly jerked. The butcher came out again and lifted a tray of meat out of the window display.

‘How many would you like?’ he asked, peeling back the plastic cover from the neat stack of fillets.

‘Half a dozen. I’ll freeze what I don’t use tonight.’

‘Meat’s better fresh than frozen. No one ever taught you that?’

‘Make it two then.’

Lex watched him jiggle out two fillets with big red hands and lay them on a piece of square plastic. He weighed them, then wrapped the meat in paper.

‘You passing through?’ the butcher asked, as he set the package on the counter.

‘No, I’ve just moved in down at Wallaces Point.’

‘Ah.’ The man nodded as if he understood everything. ‘I’m Beck. Henry Beck’.

A strong hand was offered over the counter. It engulfed Lex’s hand, small and slender and city soft. The shake was too fast and jerky.

‘Lex Henderson,’ he said, dodging the butcher’s piercing regard.

He opened his wallet and pulled out a fifty-dollar note. As he handed it over, he noticed a gaunt pale woman behind him. He hadn’t heard her come in. She stood meekly with her eyes downcast, and her hands were fidgeting anxiously as if she were afraid of something. When Lex stood aside to allow her to move forward to the counter, her eyes darted nervously to the butcher’s face then flickered away.

‘I was hoping you might bring home some chops for dinner,’ she said, her voice thin and quiet. ‘The minister says he might drop around.’

The woman must be the butcher’s wife. Lex wondered why she’d stood in line like a customer. He took his change and edged towards the door, but Beck raised an arresting hand in the air.

‘One moment, sir,’ the butcher said, ‘I should introduce you to my wife, Helen. This is Mr Henderson. He’s just moved in at Wallaces Point.’

Lex looked into Helen Beck’s sharp angular face. She was as tall as him and had an intense gaze. Her eyes were wide with too much white. She offered her hand to him, which he accepted briefly, noticing it was very cold.

‘Will we be seeing you at church on Sunday?’ she asked.

‘Ah, I doubt it,’ Lex said. ‘I’m expecting visitors.’

It was amazing how easily the lie came. He slipped out the door.

Back at the Point, Lex went onto the beach, trying to lose the tension that had been wriggling under his skin since the visit to town. He’d just settled on a rock ledge to watch the waves when he saw a child skitter onto the sand and walk to the water’s edge, scuffing her feet in the waves. She was thin and lanky, maybe five or six years old, and her hair was red and blowing across her face. Behind her dashed a boy. He flung a ball into the shallows, which was fetched immediately by a chunky blue heeler, yapping shrilly. The mother came slowly—a large-framed woman labouring through the sand on flattish feet. She dumped a bag above the high tide mark and followed the children down to the shallow waves. Even from a distance the air was filled with dog-yap and kids’ voices and Lex was annoyed at the invasion.

The intruders played for a while, jumping waves and throwing the ball for the dog, then wandered away along the beach towards the lagoon. Their noise flushed the sea eagle from its roosting tree. It took off with heavy wing beats, gradually gaining height above Lex’s head. He watched as the bird cruised above the cliffs, circling for several minutes, then drifted out of sight.

Time to go back.

As he stood to hop down off the rock ledge, Lex saw the girl had turned back and was purposefully walking towards him across the beach. He sat down. Two sooty oystercatchers that had been working through the rocks shrilled and flapped into the air, beating off low over the water as the girl began to clamber up towards him. Her face was sharp with concentration and her hair had been stuffed under a soft broad-brimmed hat. Over her blue bathers she wore a loose white shirt that flapped about in the breeze. She had the sort of pale skin that burned, peeled and freckled.

About five metres away from him, she settled on a rock, hands on knees, and stared out to sea. Lex could hear her breathing and see her shoulders hiking slightly from the effort of climbing. She sat still and straight and quiet, watching the waves roll in. Lex wondered when she would move. It seemed unusual for a child to sit still for so long. He looked down to where the sooty oystercatchers had returned to their fossicking.

After a while, the girl stood up without looking at him, climbed back down the rocks and ran along the beach to catch up with her family. Lex watched her go, then stepped down the rocks to the sand and headed home, strangely warmed by those quiet moments of unexpected company.

Four

Market day, Callista parked the Kombi along the edge of the grounds where her designated stall number was sprayed on the grass in white paint. Setting up was the bit she hated most—all that bending and lifting and all the other stallholders trying to get a glimpse of her cleavage. Of course they never offered to help, so each week she came early and organised herself before they appeared with their market clutter and their probing eyes.

She was already composedly perched behind her layout of paintings when they arrived, keeping herself preoccupied with a book. Out of the corner of her eye she watched them huff-puffing around and unpacking their wares. As they talked and smoked and bent and lifted, they cast glances her way when they thought she wasn’t looking.

She watched the Greeks gesticulating over their secondhand tools. They did all the markets up and down the coast, travelling ridiculous distances to make a dollar. Callista was either too lazy or never that desperate. Sometimes she went to another market half an hour south of Merrigan, but usually she managed to earn enough locally. Merrigan might not be a tourist town, but plenty of passers-by stopped for a look when they saw the market crowd bustling over the oval.

Beside the Greeks, the electrical knick-knack guy was laying out rolls of insulated wire with his sleazy mate, the guitar goof, who strummed endlessly on his guitar as if he’d forgotten how to put it down. It had become his habit to ogle Callista and smile at her flirtatiously. She hated it.

As usual, the church ladies set up their stall at a wary distance from Callista. Mrs Jensen might talk to Callista in her own yard, but she was careful not to associate with her in public. The church crowd knew Callista was an atheist and they disdained her parents’ alternative lifestyle. At least they were polite enough to keep their distance rather than talking about her within earshot. As Callista watched them fussing over the ordering of tablecloths and home-baked goods, she saw Helen Beck wave at her over their heads. Of all of them, Helen was the only one who ever took the time to acknowledge her. She was a strange, nervous woman, not particularly adept at making friends but never considered anyone a lost cause when it came to the church. That was why she was always shyly friendly with Callista, ever hopeful that she might save her suffering soul.

It was a shame about her husband, Callista thought. Henry Beck might be a stalwart of the church, but there wasn’t much to respect in the way he treated his wife. Nobody commented on it, of course. It wasn’t something you could do in a small town. Those who didn’t like Henry Beck’s condescending way of treating his wife simply kept away from him. Being vegetarian made this easy for Callista, but she figured the church crowd didn’t have much choice. Henry Beck was generous with his fundraising barbeques, and even though the locals might be uncomfortable about the way Helen fluttered anxiously around her husband, they accepted him. After all, Callista told herself, smiling, wasn’t that the way of the Lord? To love and accept all people?

Callista savoured the right to keep her own company, and at times like this, watching the subtle underlying friction among the church ladies as they shifted and rearranged plates and knitwear on their tables, she was glad she could retreat to her gully to listen to the birds or to distract herself painting. Coming to town was something she saved for necessity.

Painting had long been Callista’s main focus in life. She used it as a way of expressing herself, a way of releasing her passion. But over the past year or so she had veered away from serious work, letting the vast landscapes that used to inflame her slip sideways into the sky. Instead, she had kept her hands busy with beach art. Cheap, quick works that she dashed off without engaging her mind. She found it easy to do, using bright colour to please people rather than to challenge them.

She used to produce paintings that stopped people; that made them pause and step back. That made them linger, feeling the play of colour and light. She’d make more money if she worked like that now, but she just couldn’t. There was a space inside her that was too dark, and if she went there looking she knew there was no guarantee of coming back. For now, it was best to keep churning out the beach art. It paid the rent and kept her in touch with paints, even if her talent was dormant. And, in truth, it was good for her to spend every second Saturday here, dodging the probing eyes of the guitar goof. The markets were as much about people-watching and socialising as they were about selling goods. And later she might stroll over to the church stall and buy a cake, just to stir things up a bit. At least she still had a sense of humour, even if Mrs Jensen didn’t.

Lex woke in the morning to a knock at the door. He must have fallen asleep on the couch, drunk again. Pushing himself up blearily, he saw two small people peering in through the door—the children he had seen on the beach—a boy and a girl, their faces serious and slightly afraid. He swung himself off the couch and pushed open the flywire door.

‘Hello,’ he said, looking down at them. They were two peas in a pod. The boy was older, maybe about ten. The girl looked thin and frail. They were each clutching a box.

‘Would you like to buy some chocolate?’ the girl asked.

‘It’s for our school,’ the boy said. ‘They’re going to use the money to buy more books for the library.’

‘Sounds like a good cause. I’ll just get some money.’

Lex fetched his wallet and came back to the door.

‘Are you a hermit?’ the girl asked.

The boy elbowed her. ‘Shhh. You’re not supposed to ask things like that.’

They stood a moment in awkward silence.

‘How much is the chocolate?’ Lex asked.

‘Three dollars a block,’ the boy said. ‘You can buy as many as you like.’

‘What would I do with all that chocolate?’

The kids looked at him as if he were crazy.

‘Eat it,’ said the boy.

Lex looked inside his wallet.

‘What about the lady next door?’ the girl asked.

‘What about her? I’ve never seen her.’

‘She’s a hermit, for sure.’

‘You’re a bit hooked on hermits, aren’t you?’ Lex said.

‘We’re scared of her,’ the girl said. ‘We can’t go there.’

‘How about I buy some chocolate for her as well? Then you won’t need to.’

The children looked relieved.

Lex bought four blocks of chocolate. He gave one to each of the children and kept two for himself.

‘How did you get here?’ he asked. ‘I don’t see your car.’

‘We live up the road,’ the girl said. ‘We’ve been watching you on the beach and standing on the cliffs. Mum’s worried you’re going to jump.’

The boy looked horrified. ‘We’d better go,’ he said. ‘Thanks, mister.’

‘My name’s Lex.’

‘I’m Evan and her name’s Sash. She’s my sister.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Lex said.

After they’d gone, running barefoot along the grass verge, Lex went into the bathroom and examined himself in the mirror. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed and a little overweight, although he carried it well for his thirty-eight years. Most men his age were in worse condition. He scuffed his hands over the whiskers on his cheeks. It had been days since he’d shaved and this would definitely be a two-razor job.