Riverboat Point

by Tricia Stringer

  She’d been about to strip off and jump in the shower. Instead, she shut and locked all the doors and windows and lowered the blinds. Only when she felt everything was totally secure did she take the shower she longed for. She didn’t linger. She was in and out quickly and dressed in fresh clothes. She looked around the gloomy interior. Now the shack felt claustrophobic. She shook her head. She’d been living alone most of the time since she’d left school. What was so different about this?

  She pulled up two of the front blinds and slid the door open a little. If she did that at her house in the city, the sounds of traffic and human movement and voices would flood in. She looked out at the river and the trees beyond. How did Jaxon stand the isolation?

  She turned back to the living area. Now that she’d cleaned everything she had nothing to do. It was late afternoon already and her grumbling stomach reminded her she’d eaten little today. She went outside to retrieve the last of her things from the car – her tea-making gear and her exercise equipment. At least Jaxon’s living area was a good space for her to work out and she could either watch his large TV or the river view while she did it.

  She made herself a pot of tea and cut up some of the fruit she’d bought at the shop. Once again she sat out on the verandah. What was she going to do? There was no word from Jaxon and it appeared he’d been gone for at least a week already. She tried to recall the phone conversation they’d had just a few days ago. He’d begged her to come. Said he had some urgent business and needed someone to look after the place for a few days.

  She had run out of excuses to stay away. He knew she was between jobs. She gave a snort. Between jobs was a polite way of saying she couldn’t keep a job. After her accident the recovery had been long. It had taken her a while to find someone who would employ a partly crippled woman who tired easily. Her brother knew she liked to keep busy. He’d been so convincing, as Jaxon could be. It was only for a little while, he’d said, just to keep an eye on things.

  “Well, here I am,” she said aloud. “Now what?”

  As if in answer to her question, Jaxon’s phone began to ring.

  Savannah struggled to her feet and swept a searching look around the living area. Where was the phone? The ringing was slightly muffled. She looked towards the closed door alongside her bedroom – the office.

  She reached the phone just as the answering machine cut in.

  “Hello,” she said over the top of Jaxon’s recorded message.

  “Hello,” a woman’s voice responded. “Have I reached J&S Houseboats?”

  It was hard to concentrate with the distraction of Jaxon’s voice saying something similar.

  “I’m sorry,” Savannah said. “I don’t know how to stop the answering machine.” She glared at the flashing buttons. This phone was totally different from any she’d used before. She jabbed at one of them but nothing happened. A high-pitched squeal sounded and finally the line was clear.

  “Hello?” the voice queried.

  “Yes, I’m here. I’m sorry about that.” Savannah tried to sound calm.

  “I’m ringing to confirm a houseboat booking. I transferred the money this week but I haven’t had a receipt or a reply.”

  “I’m sorry,” Savannah said, although the only one who was going to be sorry was Jaxon. “My brother’s not here right now. Can I get your name and number and I’ll call you back?”

  “Today?”

  Savannah hesitated. It was already late and she had no idea how she was going to track Jaxon down.

  “He’s away for a couple of days. I’ll try to contact him but it may take me a while. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “My money …”

  “I’m sure it’s gone through fine.” Savannah hurried to reassure the woman though she hardly felt confident to do so. “What’s your name and contact number?”

  She took the information, reassured the woman again and hung up.

  “Damn it, Jaxon,” she growled. “What are you up to?”

  She tapped her fingers on the desk and looked around. The calendar drew her attention. It was already turned to September. She pulled out her phone. Today was the first of September. There was nothing written in any of the boxes; nothing to suggest appointments, work or any kind of commitment. There were tufts of paper around the staples where the previous months had been ripped off. October, November and December were blank. He must have some way of managing bookings.

  Then she noticed two large black books jammed between the phone book and a fat plastic folder. She tugged out the one that had Diary written on its spine. An envelope slipped from its pages.

  Her name was written across the front in Jaxon’s untidy scrawl. A sudden surge of dread welled inside her. She wanted answers and hopefully they’d be inside this letter, but would they be what she wanted to know?

  She went back to the kitchen. She didn’t drink often but she’d noticed Jaxon had left a few beers in the fridge. With one in hand, she sat at the dining table and ripped open the envelope. There were several pages inside. The top one was a letter and the rest appeared to be instructions, account numbers and diagrams.

  It didn’t take her long to run her eyes down the page.

  “Damn it, Jaxon! You bloody idiot.”

  Stunned, Savannah flung the letter down and pushed back from the table. Her beer bottle teetered. She reached out to grab it but was too late. Beer frothed and spluttered onto the table.

  She cursed as she righted the bottle and struggled to her feet to get a cloth. Her anger was temporarily diverted to cleaning up the spill. When she was done she snatched up the bottle and took a swig of the frothy liquid.

  The letter lay on the table, its edges damp with a brown stain. The brink of the beer puddle had reached it before she’d got back with the cloth. She glared at the paper. Surely she must have misread it.

  She lowered herself to the chair, picked up the letter and read it through again, slowly this time. Nothing changed with the second reading. Jaxon was an irresponsible little prick. He was going to be away a while, possibly for as long as two months. His electrical business was fine, all bills paid but without that income it was only the houseboat business that paid his mortgage. If it didn’t make money he would default on his loan – and Savannah was his guarantor. Her little house was all hers but she currently had no job.

  Their parents’ death had left them both with a nest egg. Hers had been augmented by the compensation from the accident. She’d used it wisely. She had a home and money put away. Now that was all at risk.

  She felt sick and angry all at once. Back on her feet, she paced the room. She had her own life to live. He was the one who’d wanted to make the change to living in the country. Now he was saying he needed to get away and stretch his wings, and for two months.

  “How can you put this on me, Jaxon?” she raged.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Somewhere there was a pulsing thud. Savannah stirred. The sound wasn’t in her head but coming from beyond her body. She opened her eyes. A surge of panic coursed through her. Everything was black. She rolled onto her back. Then she remembered. This wasn’t her bed. She was in Jaxon’s shack. Her anger at her brother returned.

  She lay still, waiting for her eyes to adjust. With no streetlights and no moon, the room around her remained firmly black. The distant pounding noise continued. She groped for her phone. It was only eleven o’clock. She felt like she’d been asleep for hours. After her early meal and short session in front of the television, the last of the sun’s rays had still glowed behind the curtain when she’d put her head on the pillow. Exhausted, she’d fallen straight to sleep.

  She pushed the torch function on her phone and made her way to the kitchen. At least the clock on the microwave gave a faint light to guide her. In the bathroom the pounding was louder and she could hear music. She unlocked the back door and stuck her head out. Definitely music playing somewhere close by. The cold night air made her shiver. She stepped outside.
The concrete was damp under her bare feet. She wrapped her arms around herself, poked her head around the corner and looked up. There was a glow from a light somewhere at the back of Ethan’s place. The music had to be coming from there.

  She went back inside, shivering from the cold and wide awake. Damn! She hadn’t had a disturbed night for a long time. Going to bed so early meant she’d had just enough sleep to get by. She flicked on the lamp in the living area and dragged the blanket from the end of her bed. Jaxon’s couch was large and comfortable. She wrapped herself in the blanket and flicked on the television but she could still hear the pulsing thump emanating from next door. She surfed the channels then stabbed the off button. There was nothing of interest to watch.

  The thumping was louder. She bunched the blanket around her shoulders and switched on the kettle. A nice cup of chamomile tea was what she needed. While she waited for it to brew, she dug her old beanie out of her bag. Immediately an image of her mother’s solemn but gentle look came to mind. The beanie had been hand-knitted from assorted wool, leftovers from childhood jumpers, and handed over with insistence it be worn against the early morning cold of Savannah’s winter runs. She had shoved the multi-coloured monstrosity into a bottom drawer. One of her friends must have discovered it after the car accident. It was amongst her personal items in rehab. A funny-looking thing, but it was a connection with her dead mother and warmth for her shaved head during that first long cold winter alone. She wouldn’t describe herself as sentimental and yet she hung onto it still and wore it when she could.

  She tugged it down over her ears. Her head felt instantly warmer but it did little to muffle the thudding of Ethan’s music. She took her cup of tea to the table and sat huddled under the blanket. She glared at the model motorbike in the centre of the table. It was an ugly red and black thing made of resin or clay. Jaxon’s letter was across the table where she’d dropped it. Anger surged again. She’d tried to ignore it before she went to bed but it was still there and Jaxon was not. She closed her eyes, willed herself to be calm and took a sip of her tea.

  By the time she’d finished the tea she knew its relaxing effect wasn’t enough to settle her. Thoughts of Jaxon’s absence and his letter kept going around and around in her head. She’d only given the extra pages a cursory look. She hooked one arm out from under the blanket and reached across the table.

  This time she ignored the letter and took a closer look at the pages underneath it. The first was a list of what he’d headed “Important Information” – the bank account for the houseboat bookings, user-name and password, the log on for his laptop. She didn’t remember seeing a laptop. It must be in the office somewhere.

  The next page was all about managing the houseboat bookings. By the time she’d read through it her head was spinning. However was she to manage all that? She didn’t know the first thing about boats of any description let alone a houseboat. On the next page were diagrams and instructions. She read it but nothing made much sense to her. The last page was partly stuck to the one above. It had come off worse for wear after the beer spill. She eased it away but some of the page stuck and ripped. On it was listed names and phone numbers, and towards the bottom Jaxon had scribbled a final note. She peered closer to read his scrawl.

  You should find the contacts above helpful for various things. The community here is very friendly. Ethan knows lots about boat engines and Faye at the general store will see you are looked after.

  Savannah paused her reading. Faye hadn’t given her the impression she was all that friendly.

  Have fun and relax. This is a special place.

  Savannah gave a snort. “If it’s that special how come you’ve left?” she said.

  One last thing. I don’t want you to worry but there have been a few … things late …

  Savannah twisted the page. This was where some of it had stuck to the previous page and bits of it were unreadable.

  Just keep an eye out. Not sure about the neighbour … ight. Could be nothing. Ethan can be … mo … but it sh …

  The closer she got to the end of the note, the fewer words she could read. The rest made little sense other than it seemed Jaxon was warning her about the neighbours.

  “Ethan can be what?” She moved the paper from side to side. Then she put on the main light and stared at it closely but the writing remained unreadable.

  “Damn it, Jaxon, what are you telling me?”

  On the previous page he’d outlined the process for the houseboats, what needed to be done before and after hire. Ethan was the one she was meant to ask for help there, especially anything to do with engines. Then in his next notes Jaxon was saying something about watch out for the neighbour. What did it all mean and what did she know about houseboats? Nothing! Once more she vented her annoyance. Swearing at the empty house made her feel better.

  She scratched at her forehead under her beanie. The pages were laid out across the table. She glanced at each one. Her eyes stopped on the page with the usernames and passwords. She picked it up and went into Jaxon’s office. The laptop was there on the desk under a pile of brochures. With its lid shut she hadn’t noticed it. She read the instructions again. The black box had to be on and plugged into the shared cable with the phone. She read further then checked the correct lights glowed blue: internet and wireless. The laptop came to life quickly. Much faster than the computer she had at home.

  She clicked on the link to his bank account. Perhaps something there might give her a clue about what he was up to. A few minutes later she sat back in the chair, disappointed. This account was with a different bank from the one that held Jaxon’s mortgage. All the transactions appeared to be for the houseboat business. She could see where people had transferred money into it for deposits; the latest being the name of the woman who’d rung that afternoon. The black diary had her booking recorded in it.

  Savannah opened the other book that was a kind of ledger. In it were the names of the houseboats, the dates, the name of the person booking and their personal details. She could see where she was supposed to record the $600 deposit paid. It was for the houseboat Tawarri.

  Savannah paused, pen in hand. Tawarri had been the name of their family home. The engraved brass sign from her mother’s family farm was fitted to the front wall of their home in Adelaide. She assumed the sign had still been on the house when it was sold. The other three boats were named Our Destiny, Riverboat and River Magic. It had never entered her mind that Jaxon might be sentimental about the name. He’d been a baby when the property was sold.

  She entered the amount in the ledger then turned back to the instruction page and followed his steps to create an electronic receipt. She clicked on the desktop link to his email account. She hoped she might find a clue to his whereabouts there but once again when she logged in she could see the emails were all about hiring houseboats. Her enthusiasm ebbed away. The address was obviously just for the houseboat business, there was nothing personal she could see at a quick glance. She emailed the receipt to the address he’d recorded and ticked it off in the receipt column. Jaxon’s processes were clear and easy to follow. She was surprised and just a little impressed. They had good bookkeeping skills in common.

  She logged off the computer and closed the books. At least she was used to office work. She frowned as she thought about her last job working in a small real estate office. In hindsight it hadn’t been a good idea to call the boss a dickhead to his face – even if it was accurate. Her frown turned to a smile. The look on his face had been worth it.

  The result was there was no longer any job requiring her presence in Adelaide. That had become a bit of a pattern. It was six years since the car accident and she’d spent most of it in survival and recovery mode. She’d turned away from the fitness instructing she’d loved before the accident and taken whatever she could get that had nothing to do with gyms.

  Her first job had been doing the books for a guy with a mowing round. She wasn’t up to long hours at that stage. Turned out n
either was he. He wasn’t a hard worker. He went bust. But by then she was a lot stronger. Her next job was working the counter in a bakery. The other employees were silly young things with nothing to talk about but boys and what colour they were going to dye their hair on the weekend. She’d eventually become fed up with them and given them a mouthful – they’d called her a bitch. The boss had said they were overstaffed and as the last one in she was the first one out. There’d been a couple more short-term jobs and then office help in the real estate agency. Once again her inability to tolerate fools and her sharp tongue had got her into trouble.

  She had no pets and what garden she did have could survive at this time of the year without water. No close friends would be wondering where she was. The block of flats on one side of her house meant she never knew her neighbours. Only old Mr Thomas on the other side might wonder if she didn’t appear. She’d better ring him and let him know she’d be gone for a while. He would take the junk mail out of her letterbox.

  She sat back and pulled the blanket close around her. Gradually she became aware of the silence. Ethan’s music had stopped at last. She jumped at a loud clack from the pantry – a mouse trap.

  CHAPTER

  7

  The sound of an approaching vehicle and yapping dogs drew Ethan out from under the truck. He was on his feet and wiping his greasy hands on a rag by the time the ute pulled up next to him. He dropped the rag. The two dogs tied to the ute’s tray strained towards him, barking excitedly. He patted them both and ruffled their heads before turning his attention to their master.

  “Mal.” Ethan nodded at his father as he came around the back of the ute.

  “How’s it going here?”

  “Not too bad.”