The Stranding

by Karen Viggers

  Tracey stopped and smiled behind her hand. ‘The funniest thing is that up till then Dad had been having a war with the blackberries. He sprayed them every year. But since they saved his tractor, he’s left them alone. And now we make jam from that blackberry bush and enter it in the Show each year.’

  Laughter and applause rippled through the crowd and someone called out, ‘Has the jam ever won?’

  Tracey blushed. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘Mum’s not the best at making jam . . . it’s always too runny.’

  And that was the way it went with all ten girls in the contest. Lex guided them through their nervousness and managed to tease a good story out of each of them. And he did it quietly and unobtrusively, so none of the girls realised how he had manipulated them into bringing forth their best. At the end he handed over to the judges and stood aside. He glanced at Callista, met her eyes and looked quickly away. He knew he was caught out.

  The winner’s sash was awarded to Frannie Baker. Not that it mattered. All the girls were jubilant.

  Afterwards, Callista tried to find Lex behind the stage, but he had already gone. Only John Watson was there.

  ‘Where’s Lex?’ she asked.

  ‘Gone to get ready for the Grand Parade.’

  ‘What was that performance?’

  ‘He’s a surprise, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. It looks like he’s handled a microphone before.’

  ‘Who is he?’ John Watson asked.

  Callista stared out across the arena, looking for Lex’s familiar figure. ‘I honestly don’t know,’ she said.

  The Grand Parade was at two thirty and it was Callista’s favourite event. It was usually a sedate but stately affair, with cattle plodding around the arena in long snaking lines flicking their tails, goats being tugged along with sashes draped over their sway backs, and kids trotting by on pretty plaited-up ponies. She waved to Frannie Baker passing by in the back of a ute wearing the Show Girl sash over her shoulder. It was the same every year—just a different face in the ute. The Grand Parade was a nice way for everybody to show off their stock and their successes.

  She poured herself a coffee and sat back to watch. She was also checking the crowd to see if she could spot Lex. She wanted to talk to him, ask him some questions about the Show Girl contest. Surely he’d open up to her now that all this time had passed since the storm and there was nothing else to hide.

  Callista always wondered how they managed to organise the Grand Parade so it ran so smoothly. There were so many animals and exhibitors out there. Her father and the other marshals did a great job bringing all the different groups onto the grounds and keeping all the potential clashes separate. She was amazed there weren’t horses bolting everywhere, given how pumped on oats some of them were, and how little control some of the riders seemed to have. And all those cows that spent most of the year grazing in a paddock—it was incredible they could walk so calmly around the arena as if they did so every day of their lives.

  But this year all wasn’t going so well. At the far end of the arena, Callista noticed a ruckus developing. Among an alarmed scatter of animals, a bull was pulling a man around. It was a large Friesian bull and the man was obviously struggling for control even though he was tugging and jerking at the nose ring. She watched the bull cavorting on feet that seemed to have grown springs and wondered what was going to happen.

  The bull let out an eerie bellow and ran backwards, tugging his handler along with him. Cows and horses swayed out of line and broke away, dodging the bull’s leaps and twists. For a moment the bull stopped, and there was a tense and anxious lull. Then it lowered its clunky head, turned and took off around the outside track. A child screamed as her pony bolted. Goats skittered. One of the harness horses reared in its traces, then spun crazily away while the driver cursed and tugged at the reins. Bedlam descended.

  The man tried to run with the bull, but tripped and skidded along in the gravel, still clinging to the lead rope. When he gave up and let go, the bull took off even faster, running dangerously through a line of shying horses. The man, wearing brown trousers and a filthy white shirt, stood in the centre of the track and watched. The Grand Parade was in disarray.

  The bull ran headlong into Frannie Baker’s ute and knocked her flying over the edge. Then it paused, shook its head and staggered sideways before raising a trot and then a slow canter with its head carefully held to one side to avoid stepping on the rope. A farmer pulling a trailer load of prize-winning hay behind his tractor finally manoeuvred his rig across the main track and blocked the bull’s run. It propped to a flesh-juddering halt and buried its nose in the hay—eyes still white and wild. Another farmer vaulted the fence and grabbed the lead rope.

  The Grand Parade was over.

  As the crowd dispersed, the man in the brown trousers dusted himself off and headed for the side fence with his head lowered. He vaulted shakily, landed badly and slipped onto his right hip, adding a grass stain to the elbow of his filthy shirt. He lay sprawled on the ground just along from Callista’s stall. Now that the bull was captured, the whole event actually seemed quite funny and she laughed until the man stood and looked her way.

  It was Lex.

  His face paled, but he hobbled towards her anyway, rubbing his hip and then glancing at the scrapes on his palms.

  ‘Did we kill anyone out there?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But it was scary for a while. Do you have any skin left?’

  She pushed him into her director’s chair. ‘Like a beer? I’ve got some on ice.’ She leaned into the back of the Kombi, twisted the lid off a stubbie and placed it in his grazed and rope-burned right hand.

  ‘Sore?’

  ‘Just a bit.’

  ‘Whose bull?’

  ‘Ben Hackett’s.’

  ‘That bull played up last year. You’ve been had.’

  Lex sat quietly for a while. Callista watched him scanning her beach paintings and then he looked at her, lengthily.

  ‘So, how are you?’ he asked.

  Her heart contracted. ‘I’m good,’ she said.

  She opened a beer for herself and sat down on the grass beside him, just behind the stall.

  ‘So what was that?’ she asked.

  ‘What was what?’

  ‘The Show Girl thing. All that confidence with the microphone.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I thought you might ask about that.’ He sipped his beer slowly, stalling.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’ve done a bit of radio journalism in my time. A few interviews.’

  ‘Just a few?’

  ‘Probably more than a few.’ He glanced at her and looked quickly away. ‘I’ve done a bit of print media too. In my time. Nothing to rave about.’

  ‘They certainly asked the right person to MC the Show Girl then, didn’t they?’

  ‘Maybe not. I’ve given the game away.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be a game, Lex. People aren’t going to crucify you just because they know what you do.’

  He set his empty beer can on the grass and glanced at her.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get it. It’s in the Kombi.’

  She pushed herself up and went round to the front door. On the seat was an envelope Alexander had given her yesterday. It contained the invitations to her exhibition launch. She hesitated, then slipped her hand into the envelope and pulled one out. She went back and handed it to Lex.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘Read it.’

  She watched him as he scanned the invitation.

  ‘This is great,’ he said. ‘Fantastic. I’ll be there.’

  He was plainly delighted for her. Callista smiled and looked shyly away.

  ‘This is important, isn’t it? It means a lot to you.’ His eyes were bright.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The storm gave it to me. And you—in a bizarre, abstract sort of a way. I suppose I should thank you for that.’

  He was e
mbarrassed. ‘Well, whatever,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait to see your paintings.’

  ‘I’m nervous,’ she said. ‘It’s like putting my life on the line.’

  Lex reached out to take her hand and squeezed it.

  ‘You’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘I know it.’

  At home after the Show, Lex took a couple of beers down to the beach and sat watching the surf roll in. There was a gannet fishing far out over the waves. He watched the bird cruising over the surface of the sea, then climbing high in the air before folding its wings and plunging like a spear into the water. It was cool on the beach. The late afternoon sun had little warmth. But Lex lingered, and with each breath the sourness at Ben and his bull eased and washed out with the surf.

  It had been good to see Callista again. Could you call it good luck to land at her feet? Or was it just another of life’s ridiculous coincidences. Thank God it hadn’t been Helen. He had seen her walking around in the crowd too, with Darren. And Sally, wandering around with Sash and Evan while they dipped into their show bags. Country events were just a bit too parochial. And he was never going to live down the Show Girl event. People had been all over him after that, telling him how talented he was, asking where he’d learned to use a microphone. Shame he couldn’t stop himself once he got up on the stage. But at least the girls had a good time.

  The gannet had moved on. Lex watched the waves curling and the spume whizzing off their tips as they peaked before crashing. His body felt like it had been mangled beneath a roller. Slowly, the late light of evening fell, and some sort of resigned calm. Today the beer was a hollow companion, but it brought a kind of mellow warmth in the chill of the afternoon.

  He had enjoyed meeting Callista’s mother, Cynthia. He liked her. She was warm and earthy, direct, yet humble. You’d always know where you stood with her. If her daughter could overcome a few complexities, she would have similar qualities.

  Lex tilted his bottle and took another mouthful of beer, thinking. What was it that he wanted from Callista, he wondered.

  It was the smell of her hair that he wanted, that sweet apple shampoo. The warmth of her back, turned against him in sleep. Her concentrated look as she lay buried in a book on the couch. And the less specifics too. Plates for more than one to wash up. Two wine glasses on the bench. Loose long hairs on the bathroom floor. Coming home to the smell of dinner cooking. Arms around him. Sitting quietly on the beach, like this. Sex. Lazy conversation. Another body in the house. Female complexity.

  Yep, all of it.

  Twenty-four

  Opening night was a Saturday and Callista buzzed with a ticklish excitement. She had argued with Alexander for an early afternoon opening, after the local shops closed. But he had insisted on evening. He said he knew best about these things and she ought to leave it to him.

  Looking in the mirror, Callista felt like a stranger. She had never thought of herself as plump, but in these clothes she felt like too much woman. Breasts and hips and curves. The woman in the boutique that Alexander had recommended up the coast had decked her out in a snug white shirt fitted around the waist, dark stockings and a short, close-fitting brown skirt with scant excess fabric. The mascara she had carefully applied made her eyes look large and round, and the red lipstick emphasised her full lips. With her freshly washed curly hair dancing in ringlets around her face, she was sure it was all too much.

  Then there were the shoes. It was with regret that she looked at them now before putting them on. They were fine, strappy and high-heeled—like nothing she had ever owned before. She doubted she could even walk in them. What stupidity had made her buy them? At the shoe store she’d been sent to, the young girl had looked at the outfit and pulled these shoes off the shelf. Callista had tried them on quickly for size. She was acutely aware of her incompetence in such high heels. It felt like she was on stilts.

  ‘Yes, these will be fine,’ she’d said, feeling the girl’s knowing gaze.

  ‘Special occasion?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wedding?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that.’

  ‘Surprise party?’

  Callista looked at her, alarmed. ‘Maybe. I guess. Kind of.’ She would be surprised if anybody bought any of her paintings.

  ‘Come on. What is it? I need to make sure I’m matching the shoes to the occasion.’

  ‘It’s an exhibition opening.’

  ‘What sort?’

  ‘Art. Paintings.’

  ‘Oh, you’re making a trip to the city.’

  ‘No. Apparently the city is coming to the country. And I can’t go dressed like this.’ Callista had waved a hand over her usual garb of cheesecloth skirt and loose blouse.

  ‘Maybe not. Whose paintings are they? Anyone I’d have heard of?’

  ‘Definitely not. They’re mine.’

  The girl had struggled not to look surprised.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ Callista had said. ‘I don’t look particularly talented.’

  ‘That’s not what I was thinking.’

  ‘And I’m not sophisticated either. It all comes from up here.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘And through here.’ She waved her left hand. ‘It’s a bit of a joke really. Thinking I can dress up in this lot and fool a city crowd. Once they see me trying to walk in these things, it’ll be game over.’

  The girl had smiled kindly. ‘I’m sure you’ll pull it off.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’

  ‘City types aren’t as swanky as they make out. It’s all show.’

  Yes, Callista had thought. They need to cover the emptiness.

  Now she looked at the shoes and quickly stuffed them in a string bag. She slipped into her old boots and a worn grey coat and dashed for the Kombi.

  She pulled up at the far end of Alexander’s car park and strapped on the shoes before getting out. There was no doubt she was an embarrassment. It was obvious she had no idea how to walk in these things. She shuffled across the gravel, feeling knock-kneed and mincing.

  Stepping out along the walkway past the gallery windows, she caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the glass. It was a shock. Despite the unpolished walk, she looked like some smart leggy chick from out of town. She had never felt long-legged, sexy or busty before, but the girl striding along in the reflection, with gently bent knees and a red pouty mouth, was bordering on sophisticated. Quickly she glanced away. Best she didn’t look. The image scared her. If she thought too long, she might flick the shoes off into the thicket of grevilleas and run flat-footed out of here.

  Alexander caught her hesitating at the door. He appraised her with a quick professional eye then gave her a friendly hug. ‘You look gorgeous.’ He hooked his arm through hers and led her across the room to his office to pour her a glass of champagne. ‘Thank God you didn’t go to Beryl’s. I would have had to call in someone to second for you this evening.’ He gave her a fond, coquettish smile. ‘They looked after you in that little boutique, didn’t they?’

  Callista remembered the sales girl’s nod when she’d said Alexander had sent her. She guessed now that he had called ahead with a few hints and ideas.

  ‘I feel like a freak.’

  Alexander clinked his champagne flute against hers. ‘But my colleagues from Sydney will love you. And that’s what counts. When your shoes start hurting about eight o’clock, just remember you’re doing it for show, to manipulate their money out of their hip pockets.’

  ‘I would have thought paintings had to sell themselves.’

  ‘Ah yes. But image helps.’

  ‘I hate it.’

  ‘I know. But you really do look gorgeous.’

  Callista stood with her back to the gallery. She was afraid to look, and it was too dark anyway, with the shadows of early evening falling over the unlit space. Alexander watched her twisting the stem of her glass nervously between her fingers. He topped up their glasses.

  ‘You’ll need more of this. We need to have you relaxed before they all come.’

/>   ‘Are you expecting many?’

  ‘Hordes,’ he said, rolling the word deliciously. ‘There’s at least a dozen waiting in my house already.’

  Callista glanced nervously over her shoulder towards the door. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Scouts’ honour. They’re in there drinking wine and discussing the Sydney art scene.’

  ‘Why not have them over here?’

  Alexander’s smile spread across his face. ‘Waiting for the right light, darling. I’ve placed all the spotlights for nighttime. And you never get a second chance to make a first impression.’

  ‘Just the dozen from the big smoke?’

  ‘God, no. They’re coming in cars and aeroplanes as we speak. Merrigan airfield is going to make Sydney International Airport look like a country strip.’

  ‘You’re teasing, but I’d better drink more champagne anyway. I’m not used to being a showpiece.’

  He laughed. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, darling. You’re a showpiece every day of your life with that gorgeous face and smile. Just as well you don’t realise it.’

  He set down his champagne glass and walked past Callista into the gallery.

  ‘Are you going to come and take a look?’ he said. ‘It’s time to light up. Only fifteen minutes to opening.’

  She followed him nervously into the darkened space. He stopped her in the middle of the room while he went for the light switches. In rapid succession the gallery lit up with soft light that was sufficiently bright on the paintings but created surprising warmth in the rest of the room. Sudden excitement set her heart fluttering as she glanced around. The paintings leapt at her, alive and arresting. They were good. And Alexander was a master.