He strolled away as he dialled, reading the number off the back of his hand. ‘Hey it’s me. Wassup? We’re almost there.’
Fifteen minutes later, the road dropped to sea level and crossed the Erskine River where it tumbled out of the hills and turned into the lagoon beside the Lorne caravan park. We continued past the fruit shop called Lorne Greens, the joke lost on post-Ponderosa generations, and cruised along the main drag, an esplanade of shops that faced across the road to the foreshore carpark and the teeming beach. The old bait-and-tackle shops and milk bars were long gone, replaced by seaside-theme knick-knackeries and surfwear boutiques with swimsuit racks out the front. Holiday-makers ambled along the footpath, clinging to the shade, window-shopping. Some sat at tables outside coffee shops and juiceries, their hair still wet from swimming.
After a couple of passes, I found a parking spot between a Porsche and a Jeep Cherokee, then set off to pick up the house key while the boys found some lunch. As I headed along the footpath, I passed several nodding acquaintances. We smiled, delighted to see each other, even if we couldn’t quite remember who we were.
I went into the real estate office and collected the key and directions to the house. As I came out, tucking the receipt into my wallet, a short man was rocking on his toes as he peered through the front window at the For Sale listings. He had less hair and more waist than the last time I’d seen him.
‘G’day, Ken,’ I said. ‘Win the lottery, did you?’
Back when I was a ministerial adviser, Ken Sproule was factotum to a party heavyweight, the Minister for Police. Both Ken and his boss saw the chill weather ahead and jumped ship before the hull impacted the iceberg. Ken found himself a snug new berth as a consultant to the poker-machine business, a booming sector of the state’s new growth industry.
‘Hello, Murray,’ he drawled. He did me the honour of tearing himself away from the array of ideal getaways with water views and in-ground pools. ‘Checking the prices, mate. We’ve just built a place at Aireys Inlet, thought we might have over-capitalised. Look who’s here, Sandra.’
Sandra was Ken’s new cookie. Mid-thirties. Petite, well-toned, worked in PR. She was waiting her turn at the ice-cream counter next door. A small child was slung on her hip. Sandra was the chirpy type, foil to the blunt Ken.
‘Hello, Murray,’ she said, handing a cone to the kid. ‘You in the market?’
‘For an ice-cream?’
‘A house, stupid.’
I showed her the key. ‘We’re renting for a few weeks,’ I said. ‘Sight unseen.’
‘We?’ She dropped her chin and looked over the top of her sunglasses. Wondering, I understood, if I had paired off since Lyndal.
‘Me,’ I said. ‘My son. Some old friends.’
‘Ah,’ she said.
‘Careful.’ Ken lunged for the child’s hand, narrowly averting a spilt vanilla crisis.
Sandra pulled a scrap of paper and a pen from the beach-bag slung over her shoulder. ‘If you’re free tomorrow evening,’ she said, firming the paper against the estate agent’s window as she scribbled. ‘We’re having a few friends around for drinks and a barbecue. A sort of housewarming for our new place.’ She thrust the address at me. ‘You will come, won’t you?’
I made tentatively affirmative noises, then headed back to the car. The boys had connected. They were lounging in the shade of a big cypress, pizza slices in hand, communing with a mixed gaggle of teens. I recognised Max Kline from Red’s rowing eight and some other kids from school. I waved the house key and Red and Tark came to the car, trailing a slim girl in a crocheted bikini-top and hipster board shorts with tousled, beach-wet hair.
‘This is Jodie Prentice,’ Red said. ‘This is my father.’
The girl smiled shyly, displaying her retainer, and held out her hand, all very well-brought-up. Narrow hips, bare midriff, very little in the shirt-potato department. ‘Pleased to meet you, Red’s father.’
We shook, as though confirming a deal. She wore a butterfly ring, a puzzle ring and a black plastic spider ring. ‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘Jodie Prentice.’
She was cute in a whippish, salt-flecked, young girl way. A bit cheeky. But no ditz, that much was evident. Heartbreak on the hoof.
Red shuffled in the gravel. ‘I’ve got to go and, um…’ ‘He’ll be back,’ I told Jodie. ‘After he’s milked the cows, chopped the firewood and nailed Tark into his coffin.’
The gang began to gravitate beachward, trailing goodbyes. ‘We’ll be in front of Beach Bites,’ Jodie told Red, hesitating for a second before dashing away.
‘Ready to rock?’ said Tark, drumming impatiently on the car roof.
I turned the Magna uphill and we climbed through the sunbaked town. Hemmed by inviolable forest, Lorne did not have room for lateral expansion. So, year by year, the old houses with their wide verandas, vegetable patches and couch-grass yards were giving way to low-rise cluster housing and sandstone mansions with garage access and touch-pad security.
But not our place, thank Christ. We found it at the end of the last street in town, nothing but bush beyond the back fence. We gave it a good going over, threw open the windows, checked the water pressure, tested the sofa, sniffed the empty fridge.
‘Bit basic, isn’t it?’ concluded Red.
At six-fifty a week, it was no bargain. On the other hand, it was something of a classic, the last of its kind. Abalone-shell ashtrays, seventies stereo, flyscreen doors and a perforated surf-ski on the back porch.
‘Nothing to maintain, nothing to keep clean,’ I said. ‘Perfect.’
Except for the noise. Every time Tarquin clumped across the bare floorboards in his Docs, it sounded like we were being raided by the Gestapo.
‘No boots in the house,’ I ordered. ‘I’m here to relax, not have an Anne Frank experience.’
He clicked his heels. ‘Jawohl, mein Fuhrer.’
Opting for private quarters, the boys claimed a grove of tea-trees in the backyard and pitched an igloo tent. Until Faye and Leo arrived, the indoor accommodation was exclusively mine. I was stocking the refrigerator with Coopers Pale Ale and Pepsi Max when the boys ambled into the kitchen.
‘New Year’s Eve,’ said Red, backside on the benchtop, bare feet dangling, Mr Casual. ‘There’s this music festival up in the hills.’
‘Rock the Falls,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen the poster.’ Not just on the ferals’ kombi. They were taped to every light pole on the main drag. ‘I’m getting a bit old for that sort of thing, but I’ll keep it in mind.’
‘Not you,’ said Red. ‘Us.’
‘We were thinking we could maybe take the tent,’ said Tark. ‘Camp overnight.’
‘Everybody’s going,’ said Red. ‘We’ll be social outcasts if we don’t.’
‘Pariahs,’ said Tark.
I busied myself in the fridge, taking my time with the product placement. The boys were trustworthy, mature, capable. But they were only fifteen. And the music would not be the only experience they were seeking.
‘Everybody?’ I asked. ‘That includes this Jodie Prentice?’
‘Probably,’ said Red. ‘Her brother Matt is definitely going.’ He rattled off some other names.
I shut the fridge and gave him the stop sign. ‘I’ll need to talk to Faye or Leo, see what Tark’s parents think. And I’m not making any promises.’
The boys nodded, suppressing smirks of self-congratulation.
‘In the meantime,’ I said, hooking my thumb in the direction of the sea. ‘Ready to rock?’
An hour later, I was sitting under a market umbrella at a table in front of Beach Bites, the snack bar on the foreshore. I was fresh from the water, togs still damp, legs bare. My Hawaiian shirt hung open, my panama hat was tilted low over my eyes and I was stirring the ice in my fresh-squeezed orange juice with a straw. A summery mix of ozone, hot chips, vinegar and sun-block hung in the shimmering air. Tarquin, dressed for a punk funeral, lounged beside me, sipping decaf macchiato and munching a vegan muffin. Spre
ad before us was a tableau of the nation at play.
Innumerable near-naked bodies reclined on the baking sand, soaking up the full glare of the afternoon sun or sheltering beneath nylon hooches. Out from the shore, a row of surfers lay prostrate on the glistening water, staring seaward for the next break. Closer, where frilled curls dumped against the shore, swimmers bobbed in the water and little kids skittered though the shallows, dragging boogie boards behind them. Young men were playing cricket on the wet, hard-packed sand, defending plastic stumps against dog-gnawed tennis balls. A rainbow-tailed kite fluttered overhead. In front of the surf club, lifeguards with logo-emblazoned backsides stood sentinel in reflector sunglasses. Above the swish of the waves came the screeching of children and gulls.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Tark. ‘Big brother.’
He nodded at a pile of bodies a few metres down the beach, the boys in peeled-down wetsuits, the girls in very little indeed. Young, free and girt by sea, they were chatting and joking and flicking each other with wet towels. Red lay sprawled in their midst, head turned towards Jodie Prentice. She was sitting, knees tucked up under her chin, squinting up at her brother Matt. He loomed above her, legs akimbo, proprietary.
‘Protective type?’ I said.
Tark shrugged and fluttered his hand. ‘A bit,’ he said. ‘Not always friendly. Nothing weird or anything. They’re pretty close, that’s all. Real thick. Red’s gunna hafta tread careful.’
Matt Prentice picked up his surfboard and padded towards the reef break at the far end of the beach. Jodie tapped Red on the shoulder, unscrewing the cap from a tube of zinc cream. He moved closer, offering his face and she began to paint his nose an iridescent pink.
Tark groaned in disgust. I, too, averted my gaze. It roamed along the shoreline, a frieze of nubile flesh. There were near-naked, magazine-strength babes everywhere. Face-down on towels, bikini straps undone. Jogging from the water, flanks glistening. Strolling in pairs, boobs straining at tiny scraps of lycra.
‘Anybody looking,’ said Tark. ‘I’ll be in the video arcade.’
My attention drifted to a woman dawdling barefoot along the edge of the water, sandals dangling from her hand, her straw hat pushed back on her short fair hair. She was long-legged, slender, a sarong knotted at her bosom, a billowy white shirt draped over her shoulders. Something about her bearing caught my eye, the poised way she held herself, her absorption in the play of the light on the water.
She drew nearer and I recognised her as the Prentice kids’ mother, the woman who’d picked them up after the concert at Festival Hall. Jodie spotted her and waved. Their resemblance was obvious. The woman came up the beach, heading for the group of kids.
I should meet her, I decided. Make myself known, what with our children being friends. Say hello, in a purely social way. I stood, sucked in my stomach, ran my fingers through my hair, set my hat at a rakish angle and steered a converging course across the beach.
Rubber thongs sinking into the soft sand, I wove my way through the maze of prostrate bodies. Flip, flop, flip. Red spotted me coming, rose from his towel and shouted.
‘Hey, Dad!’
He twisted, pirouetting on the ball of one foot, and whipped a Frisbee at me. It came low and fast. I took a couple of paces forward and firmed my stance to catch it. But the hurtling disc suddenly veered upwards. My arm shot into the air and I stepped backwards to intercept.
This was not a smart move. I immediately toppled over a pile of towels, ricocheted off a beach shelter and tripped over a child’s bucket-and-spade set. My hat went west and my feet went east.
My fall was broken by a supine sunbather. A young woman. She was blonde, remarkably attractive, possibly Swedish, almost completely naked and glistening with oil. Her bikini top was unlaced. I registered these facts in the half second before my out-thrust hands closed around her busty substances. They were more than adequate to cushion my fall.
Blurting apologies, I leaped backwards, scrabbling in the scalding sand.
Bountiful Ingrid jack-knifed upright and lunged at me, emitting an outraged yelp. At that point, I realised I was clutching something. A wisp of floral fabric with a length of string attached. The string was taut. It was caught on something. A ring. A ring inserted through a nipple.
‘Ikea,’ yapped the Valkyrie, her face contorted with pain. Her right boob was coming at me like the nose-cone of an ICBM. ‘Bang & Olufsen!’
She sounded like Marlene Dietrich gargling ball-bearings. Her companion, Sven Smorgasbord, loomed up and smacked the bikini top from my grasp.
‘Häagen-Dazs,’ he accused menacingly. ‘Gustavus Adolphus? Björn Borg.’
No translation was required. His expression was sufficient. That, and the aggressive thrust of his posing pouch.
‘Absolut!’ I assured him, backing away. ‘Hans Christian Andersen.’ I realised my mistake immediately. Sven glowered.
‘Ingmar Bergman,’ I grovelled, displaying the Frisbee as token of my innocence. ‘Liv Ullmann.’
‘Orrefors,’ snorted the woman dismissively, and they sank back onto their towels.
Red was watching, writhing with embarrassment at his father’s antics. I looked past him and saw that Jodie and her mother were occupied in conversation, apparently oblivious, beginning to walk away. Red glanced over his shoulder, following my gaze, then turned back, a relieved smirk on his face.
I unleashed the Frisbee, warp factor nine, and zapped the smarmy little smartarse.
The sign for Gusto stood at the corner of a narrow, bush-bordered road leading sharply uphill from the Great Ocean Road. The name was spelled in glazed turquoise tiles.
The moment I saw it, set in a curved adobe wall, I thought of Gusto’s owner, Jake Martyn. And then of Tony Melina, in whose company I had met him.
I noticed the sign as I was driving out of town, taking Red to baptise his new surfboard. The surf scene at Lorne was tight and the local nazis took a dim view of blow-in grommets. I offered to drive Red to Fairhaven, just the two of us, so he could get some practice before strutting his stuff in full view of the gang. It was late morning, overcast and humid. The sky was the colour of dead grass, the swell even and glassy. According to the radio surf report the water temperature was eighteen degrees, the swell running at just over a metre.
It was two days after our arrival in Lorne and a week since Rita Melina had ambushed me at the electorate office, wanting my help to nail her husband’s cheating arse to the wall. Since then, I hadn’t given her or Tony a moment’s thought.
In certain respects, a member of parliament is like a doctor, only less useful. An endless parade of people knocks on your door, each with their own problems. If you can, you help. If you can’t, you refer them elsewhere. Either way, there’s no mileage in busting your chops. And if the marital barricades are up, try not to get caught in the crossfire. Christ knows, you’re never thanked, whatever the outcome. So when I shut the office door on Rita, I put the matter behind me.
But the Gusto sign set me thinking of Tony and, as I followed the twists and turns of the Great Ocean Road, I wondered if Rita had run him to ground yet. It revived my curiosity, too, about Tony’s connection with Jake Martyn. According to Rita, Tony Melina was bent, at least a little. And the last time I’d seen him, he and Martyn appeared to be involved in some kind of deal. This offered scope for idle conjecture.
Idle being the key word. The restaurant game is a cash business. To those inclined, it provides ample opportunity to skim the till or dud the tax collector. If Tony was running some sort of scam, that didn’t make Jake Martyn a crook just because I saw them together. After all, if it came to that, I myself had done business with Tony Melina over the years. Did that make the Melbourne Upper trivia nights a money-laundering operation?
‘Forty dollars,’ said Red. ‘For that you get ten bands plus a camp site. Pretty good deal, I reckon.’
‘Hmm,’ I said, hugging the cliff-face as we edged around a hairpin bend, a squadron of bikes roaring past, a sheer drop to
the sea.
Value for money was Red’s latest argument in support of the boys’ plea to be allowed to stay overnight at The Falls festival on New Year’s Eve. Tarquin had already phoned his parents and got the provisional nod, subject to my final endorsement, but the lads knew I wasn’t going to announce my decision until I’d extracted maximum tease value from the situation. And that meant making them pitch their case.
‘And this forty dollars?’ I said. ‘Where’s it coming from?’
‘Consolidated revenue,’ said Red. ‘I’ve got $63 in my bank account. And Tark’s got even more, if he doesn’t spend it all at the video arcade. He’s met this girl there, Ronnie, one of the undead.’
‘So you’re both set for the night, then?’ I said. ‘Chicks-wise.’
‘Guess so,’ he said, not displeased with the idea.
‘You’ll be up there in the woods, no adult supervision, free to have your wicked ways.’
He gave a scornful snort, but he knew he’d fallen into a trap. ‘Check it out,’ he said suddenly, pointing to the view as we turned down the hill towards the long stretch of beach at Fairhaven. The waves were as advertised, a perfect beginner’s break. Perfect, too, for an old guy who was long out of practice.
‘Jodie’s mother,’ I said. ‘What’s she think about this overnight stay business?’
‘Her name’s Barbara,’ he said. ‘And I was wrong about her. She’s not divorced.’
Fairhaven was a popular spot, a sandy bottom with even, regular sets. Vans and station wagons lined the tussocky dunes beside the road and it was hard to find a place to park.
‘Let me know if you spot an opening,’ I said.
‘Actually, her husband’s dead,’ continued Red, eyeing me sideways. Checking my reaction, not getting one. ‘Car crash. It happened when Matt and Jodie were little. They were trapped in the wreckage, all four of them. Jodie’s still got this scar.’
He began to raise his right arm, his left hand reaching across his chest to show me where. The hand got half-way, then he changed his mind, wary, before I asked how he’d come to be so familiar with young Jodie’s anatomy.
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