Death of a Whaler (27 page)

Before returning to the pastel house, Karma wants a swim at Wategos Beach. Flinch parks Milly in the shade and they slip down onto the beach through a tangle of tree roots and rocks. The dry white sand reflects glare like a mirror in the midday heat.

The surf in this bay has no urgency, no purpose. Cupped by headland, the waves that roll in peak slowly, dissolve into foam. The tidal drag and rip of the more open beaches break and weaken. The water most days as clear as a resort pool, just the inkling of something wild in the taste of the salt spray. In the early mornings, the fins of dolphins appear close to the shore. Flinch has been in the water a few times and glimpsed a steely tip nearby, each time holding his breath, his mind snapping immediately to an image of hundreds of jagged teeth, but each time the fin has risen again and curved in the graceful arc of the dolphin, been joined by another almost in unison. In those moments, Flinch felt full gratitude for his existence.

Today the ocean rises and falls, gentle as a melody. They lie on their backs in the water, float like driftwood. Flinch looks skyward. There are no clouds. Nothing but blue. He realises that he is entirely surrounded by blue, above, below, beyond. He imagines this is what the afterlife must feel like. Still, boundless, bright, motionless, quiet, weightless. The colour of the sails of the
Westerly
.

That night, still thinking of the afterlife, Flinch reaches for his copy of
Moby-Dick
. He is about to flick it open, find some passage that he hopes will be a message from Nate, when Karma knocks on his door. He shoves the book under the covers.

‘Saw your light on,' she says as she leans her head in. ‘I'm making a cuppa. Do you want one?'

‘Um, I'll skip it. Thanks anyway.'

‘Okay,' she says. ‘See you in the morning then.'

‘Yep. Night.'

‘Night.'

Flinch reaches for his book, puts it in the drawer of his bedside table. He turns off his light. It is hard to consult the dead when the living are asking you questions. He decides to leave the drawer shut, the book unopened. At least for a while.

Karma goes back to work at the surf shop, back to feeding the goats and using all the hot water when she showers and turning up the radio in the mornings. Charred lentils burnt onto the bottom of saucepans most evenings. Flinch resumes his meaty breakfasts, burying the T-bones in the backyard so that Karma doesn't complain about the smell of cooked meat when she opens the bin.

He drives down to Macca's daily to check on the
Westerly
. He peeks under her tarp as if he's lifting a skirt. He starts to believe she is impatient for the ocean, that she's whispering it to him when he turns his back. He puts his ear to her broad wooden hull but she tells him no secrets.

‘Soon,' he tells her anyway. He imagines Nate's laughter in his head and he knows he's a bit of a crazy, sentimental bastard.

‘Macca and the missus are back tomorrow.' Flinch tries to sound casual. The week has felt like a month. Afternoon beers in the dinghy, the sunset blazing red and auburn overhead. Karma looking tired. They
haven't been saying much.

‘Are you going to take the boat out then?'

‘The yacht. Reckon he might need a day to settle in.'

‘Yeah, probably. Not long now though until you're behind the wheel, or rudder, or whatever it is.'

Flinch takes a swig of his beer. ‘I'm not sure if I'll go out, but.'

‘What? You've been obsessed with this thing.'

‘With rebuilding it, yeah.'

Karma rests her stubbie on the lawn next to the dinghy. Turns to face him. ‘Okay, what's going on?'

‘What?'

‘Why wouldn't you go out? The main reason to rebuild a yacht is so you can sail it, Flinch. Otherwise you would leave it to rot.'

‘Not necessarily.'

‘Whatever. You know I'm right.'

He takes a deep breath. He admits it in the exhalation. ‘I'm scared.'

‘What of? Drowning? Sinking?'

Flinch thinks for a moment. ‘My destiny.'

‘How can you be afraid of your destiny? How do you know what it holds? Are you a psychic now? Thought you were sceptical of all that cosmic stuff. It's not destiny, Flinch, it's just plain old cowardice. That's what is holding you back.' She won't look at him.

Flinch is surprised by the strength of her annoyance. ‘But I've proven it,' he struggles to explain. ‘In the past.'

‘The past, my arse. You only have the moment. You don't own yesterday or tomorrow, you only have today.'

They sit in silence. Around them a couple of goats bleat and bump heads before curling up near the dinghy. The afternoon slides blue towards night. Flinch can hear the waves crashing against the cliffs like some kind of repetitive taunt.

‘I have an idea,' she says later. They have moved inside. Even though they have been in separate rooms, Flinch resting feet up on the couch, listening to the weather reports, Karma pacing between her room and the kitchen, Flinch has felt her brewing and is not surprised. ‘ We did this once at the commune. It's a burning ceremony, to release us of the past. In all honesty, I need to do one too after the last trip home. We could do it right now.'

‘Now? A burning ceremony?'

‘Yep. It's a great way to shake off old demons.'

They had skipped dinner in lieu of a sixpack of beer, and Flinch is hungry. He thinks of the sausages he has tucked away in the back of the fridge and has a sudden hankering for a couple of them barbecued over an open flame.

He shrugs. ‘Guess it couldn't hurt.'

They set up a fire in a ring of stones. Flinch burns his sausages. Eats them ash-black on white bread with butter and sauce. The smell of smoke and burnt meat reminds him a little of Audrey, but he dismisses the thought of her quickly.

‘How are they?' asks Karma, standing upwind of the smell of the burnt fat in the flames.

‘Delicious,' says Flinch. ‘Perfect.'

Under Karma's instruction, Flinch has gathered a small pile of belongings for burning.

‘Not everything from your past,' she had told him, ‘but tokens representing incidents or memories or feelings from which you'd like to free yourself. It's a symbolic ritual.' She had shown him her collection. A string of beads that had been a gift from Jed, which she'd worn only once. The stub of a bus ticket from Canberra to Sydney, a trip to see him. A school exercise book filled with coloured writing. A black and white photograph of a bullish-looking man with a scar over his eye. Flinch hadn't asked.

Flinch had rattled stiff drawers, looked under his bed, raided his tackle cupboard and had come up with a few things. An old cigarette packet of Audrey's that he'd kept after she died, one bent cigarette still in it. A fishing rod he'd snapped in two when he couldn't find the words to voice his feeling of entrapment. Audrey's pale pink scarf. His dark red painting.

‘When did you do that?' She is surprised when he produces it.

‘While you were away.'

‘Explains why my red tube is almost empty. What is it?'

‘The colour of my guilt.'

‘Wow, Flinch. That's deep. Excellent work.'

Flinch collects a few more large chunks of dry wood from around the edges of the yard. They stoke the fire until it's blazing, sparks shattering against the black night.

‘You first,' she says.

‘But you know how to do this. Why don't you go first?'

‘I'll guide you through it. Go on.'

Flinch takes the cigarette packet and throws it into the flames. It crumples with a hiss.

‘Hang on,' says Karma. ‘What are you freeing yourself of ? You have to think about it, then speak it out loud as you throw the object towards the fire.'

‘This is why you should go first.'

‘No, it's cool, you can do it properly for the next thing.'

Flinch inhales, raises eyebrows. The smell of the lone cigarette is lost in the smoke.

He picks up Audrey's pink scarf. ‘This,' he says, ‘is my mother's disappointment in me.'

The scarf catches alight while still in his hand and he releases it quickly towards the flames. It flutters ablaze for a second before shrivelling into ash.

‘Oh, cool, I want a go,' says Karma. She holds the beads over the flames. ‘This is
Brother
Jed's hypocrisy.' She drops the beads into the fire where they crackle and pop like corn. ‘And this,' she takes the ticket stub, ‘is his disrespect.' The paper burns quickly and disappears. ‘I hereby declare that those things are gone from my life and I will never be subject to them again.'

She stands back, hands on hips, smiling, her cheeks flushed from being so close to the flames. ‘Okay, you go again.'

Flinch picks up his broken rod. ‘Here's goodbye to the anger I inherited.' The rod smells toxic as it burns.

Karma holds the school exercise book over the fire. ‘Here's goodbye to my childhood plans of running and hiding.'

The fire emits a brief roar as it consumes the pages. Flinch imagines it hungry for the offerings. He unrolls his red painting in front of him, in the light of the flames. Feels the colour still surging through him. As he holds it over the fire, the paper curls upwards towards his hand, as if recoiling from the heat of its fate.

‘It was an accident.' He almost whispers it. Drops the painting into the flames.

The fire leaps high into the night. Flinch can see the paper coil in on itself, holes appear through its centre, the edges disappear, and it is gone. He doesn't know why he feels like crying all of a sudden.

‘Good, Flinch.' Karma has her hand on his shoulder. ‘Let it go. You can't carry it around anymore.'

Flinch steps back from the heat. He realises he is sweating and wipes his brow with the back of his hand.

‘Almost done.' Karma looks for a long time at the black and white photo. ‘Goodbye, you old bastard. May there be a type of heaven for you and your kind.' She kisses the photo. As she throws it towards the fire, the flames seem to leap to consume it.

They sit in the dirt and watch the fire as it dies down to small flickers and coals. The night around them cools.

‘Feel any better?' she asks.

‘A bit. Yeah.' For once, it's the truth.

‘Me too.' She puts her arm around him and kisses him on the forehead. Leans back on her hands and sighs. ‘My father is dead. He died while I was at home. The doctors knew his time was just about up.'

Flinch is quiet. He never knows what to say in these circumstances. He thinks he should touch her hand, or shoulder, or hug her, even. The moment passes and he cannot bring himself to move.

‘He was a useless drunk. He used to bash me. Us. The family. I had all these things I was going to say to him,' she says. ‘But I didn't. By the time I got there, he was as weak as a child. He didn't recognise me. But he hugged me and sobbed and looked so … so grateful. It was pathetic. I couldn't say the things I'd rehearsed.'