The Stranding (8 page)

Twentieth-century whaling had developed the grenade-tipped harpoon, which was designed to explode once it was fired into a whale’s back. The whale was supposed to bleed out internally and die quickly, but the time to death depended on where the harpoon had embedded, and it could still take up to forty-five minutes for a whale to die. This was what Lex disliked about whaling. The killing wasn’t humane. And for some reason, this seemed worse in whales than any other animal. Lex wasn’t sure why he felt this way.

In the newspapers, there was endless outrage about the Japanese proposal to end the moratorium on commercial whaling. Lex knew, from covering this story on radio in previous years, that the Japanese and other pro-whaling nations would need a two-thirds majority to overturn the moratorium. Over the past few years the Japanese had been buying the votes of other nations, even those that had never attended the meetings before. And each year the vote had been getting closer. As usual, the Japanese were asking to increase their annual research quota of minke whales, and this year they also wanted to add humpbacks.

Once a week on his radio program, Lex used to chat with a zoologist from the University of Sydney. Not your usual kind of academic, this guy had been quite eloquent and had a knack of picking up on issues that concerned the public. Each year, when whaling was in the papers again, they’d talk about whales and the talkback lines would be full of callers. People wanted to vent their anger at the Japanese, and many of them passionately described their encounters with humpbacks migrating along the coast. It seemed everybody who had seen a humpback had been moved by the experience. Everybody, that is, except the Japanese, who still wanted to exercise their right to eat whale meat. Lex discovered, over time, that he was as vehemently anti-whaling as the rest of the Australian public. And so buying the home of an old whaler did not sit well with him and daily he found himself trying to come to terms with it.

‘What do you think about whaling?’ he asked, when Sue set his coffee on the table. He pointed to the headline in the paper: Japanese to Take Humpbacks.

‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘Whale-watching’s an important industry around here.’

‘Apparently humpbacks make good steaks.’ Lex snorted.

‘No, thanks,’ Sue said. ‘That’d be enough to make me turn vegetarian.’

She turned away to wipe the table beside him.

‘Tell me about the whale-watching,’ Lex said. ‘Who runs the tours around here?’

‘Jimmy Wallace.’

‘Wallace, did you say? The son of?’

Sue nodded.

Lex shook his head. ‘Another Wallace into whales.’

‘It’s a bit different,’ Sue said. ‘Jimmy doesn’t kill them.’

‘Do you think I should go on a trip?’

‘That’s up to you.’ Sue finished wiping the table and was heading back to the kitchen.

‘What about my neighbour?’ Lex asked. ‘Do you think she’d be into it?’

‘Mrs Brocklehurst?’ Sue shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.’

‘I hardly ever see her.’

‘No, she keeps pretty much to herself. But you might see her son Frank around. He comes up every week or so to mow the lawns for her.’

‘I hope I didn’t scare her off,’ Lex said, half to himself.

Sue raised her eyebrows. ‘Trying to kill the peacock?’

Her eyes twinkled and she disappeared into the kitchen. So the locals were talking about him. He ought to have known.

When Sue came back to set the table she’d just cleaned, he resumed the conversation.

‘Why is Mrs Brocklehurst so antisocial?’

‘Did I say she was antisocial?’

‘Not exactly. But Beryl said she was a bit prickly too.’

‘Ah, but that’s a different issue.’ Sue laid out knives, forks and napkins. ‘Mrs B and Beryl don’t see eye to eye.’

‘Why’s that?’

Sue hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any harm telling you . . . I guess you’ll find out sooner or later anyway . . .’

Lex nodded to encourage her.

‘Mrs B wasn’t very happy about it when Beryl got together with the old man. It wasn’t Beryl’s place elbowing in on Vic like that. It disturbed the natural order of things.’

Lex wondered about the natural order. Was Sue saying that Mrs B had some right over Vic Wallace? He decided to change the subject. Sue was obviously uncomfortable.

‘Do you go to church?’ he asked.

‘No. Not me.’

‘That’s a relief. I was thinking everyone was into the church around here.’

Sue gave a small smile.

‘Helen Beck’s been on to me at every opportunity. I can’t seem to convince her that my soul’s past saving.’

Sue’s face widened into a real smile. ‘Either you’re with them or you’re not,’ she said. ‘Town’s pretty much divided down the middle into those who go to church and those who don’t.’

‘Her husband’s a strange man.’

‘Yes.’ Sue was short. ‘But he’s a good butcher.’

Lex finished his coffee and pushed out his chair, scooping up his newspapers as he stood.

‘I should get out of your way,’ he said. ‘Let you clean up. I’ll see you next time.’

Lex hadn’t been home long when he heard voices outside. It was Sash and Evan, and their mum, and the dog. He didn’t really feel like company, but they were all smiles, with a cake on a plate, and there was no choice other than to invite them in.

Sash and Evan bounded in and sat on the couch while their mother placed the cake on the coffee table.

‘I’m Sally,’ she said, shy and uncertain. She was sweating from the effort of walking.

‘Lex.’

‘It’s nice to meet you. Sash said you wouldn’t mind visitors. She’s been at me to bake a cake for days. And thank you so much for donating to their library fundraiser. That was so kind of you.’

Lex arranged a polite smile on his face. His space felt severely invaded with all three of them sitting there looking at him so expectantly. He retreated to the kitchen to fill the kettle.

‘We don’t get many invitations to afternoon tea,’ Sally was saying. ‘In fact, we don’t get out that much, what with me being a single mother and all, with two kids.’

There, the cards were on the table. She looked at him, appallingly hopeful.

‘Tea or coffee?’ Lex mumbled, dodging her eyes.

‘Do you have any juice?’ Sash asked, standing up on the couch then diving down again out of sight as her mother frowned at her.

‘There’s plenty of milk,’ Lex said. ‘Would you mind giving me a hand, Sash?’

Sash skipped into the kitchen and Lex thought of Isabel. He felt his heart twist.

Together, they poured milk into two plastic cups, which Sash carried carefully to the coffee table. She cantered back to fetch the plates. While Evan studied the whale-boat photos on the wall, Sally rocked herself out of her chair to bend over the cake and slice it with the knife Lex had laid on the table. She passed a plate to Lex, then to Sash and Evan, and sat down breathlessly. With her in it, the room felt small and awkward.

The children devoured their cake and then bounced out of their chairs to explore the room and the rest of the house.

‘Lex,’ called Evan, ‘you’ve got a double bed in your room.’

As if he didn’t know it.

‘Lex.’ This time it was Sash. ‘There’s a peacock in your backyard.’

‘Run outside and chase it away,’ he yelled back. ‘It belongs next door.’

Better the child chase the bird than him, after last time.

‘There’s a map of the world in your toilet, Lex.’ Evan again.

‘And ten toilet rolls. I counted them. That’s a lot of toilet rolls.’ Sash, sounding very excited.

Sally smiled apologetically between sips of tea. ‘They’re very young and enthusiastic. I can’t remember when I had that much energy. Can you?’

Time had never moved so slowly. Sally smiled brightly at him, saying little, while the kids dashed around the house on a discovery mission. Eventually Sash came back and seated herself on his lap, as if she had always sat there. She didn’t seem to notice Lex stiffen with discomfort.

‘I like it here,’ she said. ‘It feels nice, and you have good things. Can we come again?’

‘It is a nice house,’ Sally said, hitching a ride on Sash’s conversation. ‘How do you feel about living here?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ Lex said.

‘Oh, don’t you know about all the trouble this house caused?’ Sally looked uneasy. ‘There was quite an uproar over this place when the old man died. He left it to Beryl, but it should have gone to his family. Split the town, it did, Beryl getting the house.’

Lex was quiet a moment. The real estate agent had told him nothing, and perhaps that was just as well. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling, knowing he was sitting on a disputed estate. The atmosphere in the room was awkward: Lex contemplating Sally’s revelation and Sally wishing she hadn’t told him.

‘Let’s go for a run on the beach,’ Lex suggested. Anything to get them out of the house.

The kids rushed out the door.

‘Can Rusty come too?’ Sash looked up at him.

‘I assume that’s the dog,’ Lex said.

As they walked down through the heath, Lex noticed Sally smiling with relief, as if some invisible hurdle of acceptance had been passed.

He wished she had also noticed that he was cornered.

•

Lex wasn’t sure whether she forgot the platter on purpose, but the next day Sally was on his doorstep to collect it. She surprised him in his board shorts, bare-chested with a towel slung across his shoulders, about to head to the beach. There was interest and approval in her eyes, and here he was again, trying to find a way to escape.

‘I’m going for a swim,’ he said, handing over the platter and trying to encourage her back out the door.

She was uncomfortably close and he was uncomfortably exposed. Her eyes were licking at his shoulders and the sprinkle of hairs on his chest.

‘I think I’ll come down with you. The kids are at school and I have a bit of spare time on my hands.’

On the way out the door, Lex grabbed the camouflage pants and a T-shirt from off the floor and slung them over his arm. He would put them on when he got out of the surf to keep those prying eyes away from his skin. He almost expected her to reach for his hand while they were walking down through the heath where New Holland honeyeaters were darting low and skittish among the banksia cones. He opened the towel out and hugged it defensively around his shoulders like a robe.

‘Sorry if the kids took over a bit yesterday,’ Sally said. ‘They’re so excited about having someone new living in the street. And you’ve been so kind to them.’

And now I want to run, Lex thought, but he nodded quietly and upped the pace. He couldn’t wait to escape into the waves. ‘I like kids,’ he said.

Before Isabel, he hadn’t had time or tolerance for children. But after Isabel was born and then lost, he learned how precious children were. He learned how fragile the thread is that binds them to the earth. How they can stop breathing and disappear like vapour.

‘They really miss their father,’ Sally said. ‘It’s hard for them not having a man in their lives.’

‘Yes, it must be.’

Sally looked at him. She opened her mouth to say something, but Lex cut her short, before she led them into trouble.

‘I’ve gotta run. Getting cold. Better plunge in quick or I’ll change my mind—about the swim.’

He sprinted off barefoot over the grass.

Down on the beach, he spiked straight into the water and dived beneath the peaking waves. Luckily it was a calm day and just beyond the breakers he bobbed up and down in the chill water for as long as he could, periodically checking the shore, hoping Sally would leave. But she stayed there, sitting on his towel on the sand, hunched over and hugging her wide knees. She was in for the long haul and soon he’d have to go back. He swam until the cold started to seep into his bones and dull his muscles then went slowly ashore.

She watched him come up the beach, and there was nothing for him to cover himself with until she shifted her bulk off his towel and tossed it up to him. He quickly whisked the towel across his shoulders and wrapped it snugly around him. She never shifted her eyes from him. He figured it was a long time since she had seen a man’s body so revealed and she was unembarrassed about studying him. He was glad he wasn’t wearing Speedos.

‘You’re a good-looking man,’ she said, unabashed. ‘They’re a rarity around here. You must be from the city.’

Lex wiped the dripping salt water from his nose and frisked a hand over his head, flicking more water to the sand.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘City born and bred.’

‘Making a sea change, eh? It never lasts for long. There’s not enough to keep city folk entertained here in the country. People come here and rot, it’s so quiet.’

Lex frowned.

‘The only way you’ll stay is if you marry a local. And then you’ll be trapped. You can’t take country folk into the city either, you see. They can’t stand the fakeness—it’s a pretender’s way of life. So you’ll have to stay here . . . if you marry a local.’

‘I wasn’t planning on getting married.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Men never do.’

He glanced away and she pushed herself awkwardly to her feet.

‘I’d best be getting back,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and wash that plate.’

She looked at him sadly for a long moment then lumbered away across the sand.

Seven

As Lex came up from the beach he saw a small white car angled on the grass outside his house. He also saw the shape of a woman, hands on hips, legs firmly astride, standing on the deck. He kept walking along the grass track to the road, curious and surprised, until he recognised the woman and saw the defiance in her stance. His stride strangled and his heart knocked and emotion swamped him so suddenly he was bruised by it.

Jilly. What was she doing here? He didn’t need this. But his heart rolled with hope.

As he walked across the heath to meet her he noticed she had about her the sharpness and rush of a city person. There was an efficiency and tautness in her stance that he had forgotten. By the primping of her left hand, he could tell she was annoyed by the energetic lick of the wind at her tightly constrained hair. There was a wild moment when his feet tingled to spin and flee through the grass back to the beach. If he did, he knew he would rabbit into the waves and swim out as far as he could go. Straight into the blue and the beginning whitecaps ticked up by the afternoon breeze. But he went on.