‘I can survive long enough.’ She paused. ‘And if we get him to the shore? What will you do then?’
‘I’ll walk back to Jack’s. Call the police, get a doctor. You could come with us, Helena. Back to the mainland. You could slip away…’
She shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t come with me?’
‘I … I don’t know. I need to know that Richard will be all right. The rest can wait.’
For a long moment, they held each other’s gaze.
‘Here,’ Helena said. ‘I’ll help you with him.’
They struggled to get the door open and keep it open as they heaved Richard’s unconscious body into the water. Melanie fell, fearing she would join Paul, but then the weight was gone and she found air. Helena held Richard by the armpits. Blood ran from her eyes and nose; pain etched deep lines in her forehead and around her eyes.
‘Hurry, Melanie. We must hurry.’
With Richard between them, they floundered through the swell, fighting the pull as they neared the shore, the sand running from under their feet, waves breaking over them as though trying to pry Richard from their grasp. Finally, dripping and exhausted, they stumbled out of the water and collapsed on the shore.
Melanie rolled Richard on to his back and leaned her ear by his mouth. He was still breathing, shallow but regular. Pale, his lips, so very pale. ‘I have to get help.’
‘Do you love him?’ Helena asked.
Melanie held her gaze, then looked away. ‘He’s my husband.’
‘Then this is my gift to you. Lift his head.’
Melanie cradled Richard’s head in her lap.
Helena bit her wrist and dribbled blood into his mouth, stroking his throat to make him swallow. He coughed, mumbled, fell back into unconsciousness.
‘What will that do?’ Melanie asked.
‘It won’t heal him completely, but it will keep him alive.’
‘And what about you? Can I—?’
‘You’ve given all you can.’ Helena shivered, her skin drawn, her dress stuck to her bony frame. Lesions had erupted on her flesh, the veins standing out darkly.
She stared out to sea where the Jeep sat half-submerged. Sunlight danced on the water. Seagulls circled.
‘We have to get to the mainland,’ Melanie said. ‘We can take Jack’s Rover. Fuck, Jack—I hadn’t even thought… Do you think he’s—?’
‘Almost certainly, I’m sorry. Usually, we take only those who are unlikely to be missed, but we never—almost never—leave anyone behind.’
‘God, how can you live like that?’
‘We all want to live, don’t we?’ Helena stood shakily, her body blocking the sun. Her shadow fell over Melanie. ‘So what will you do?’
‘The barge? God, I don’t even know when the next one is due. It’s too slow, anyway. We need a chopper.’ Where could one land? Not here with the tide still crawling up the beach. The village was the only place she could think of—they had a pad there. ‘I’ll take him to the village.’
‘He will be all right, now,’ Helena said.
‘What about you?’
‘I can’t go with you. Not like this.’
‘So what—?’
‘I need to get out of the sun. Let’s get him into the car.’
The cabin of Jack’s early model Rover seemed to be more rust than metal. A square of worn, filthy carpet, its colour indistinguishable, was all that separated the passenger’s feet from the ground. An odour of cigarette and petrol clung to the cab. Heat radiated from the bare metal roof.
They propped Richard on the passenger side of the bench seat and Helena sat next to him, her legs straddling the gear stick. It took Melanie ages to remember she had to not only twist the key but hit a starter button.
The Rover chugged forwards. Melanie’s confidence sagged as she eyed the ledge of eroded sand collapsed by her and Paul’s arrival. She crunched the gears into second and prayed.
They ploughed into the sand and for a heart-freezing moment she thought they’d be stuck. The tyres churned, the transmission whined. And then they lurched free, the wheel swinging wildly as the vehicle found its way up and over.
She pushed the Rover into third, lifting their speed just enough to force a waft of breeze through the front vents. By the time they reached Jack’s cabin, she was clammy with sweat, her forearms aching from fighting the wheel and the weight of the non-powered steering.
Jack still lay outside.
‘I need to check him,’ Melanie said. ‘And to call ahead.’
‘I’ll get out here,’ Helena said. ‘Richard can lie on the seat.’
‘Are you sure? The police—’
‘They won’t find me.’
Melanie held the door as Helena slid across the seat, her grace failing as she stumbled out. She seemed so light as she steadied herself against Melanie.
‘Ring,’ Helena said. ‘I will check Mr Robinson.’
Melanie paused at the top of the stairs, catching Helena’s gaze as she looked up from where she crouched over the body. She shook her head.
Melanie ran into the cabin, fighting sobs, wondering if she would ever get that image from her mind: Jack’s broken body on the ground, and Helena, like the survivor of a bomb blast, beside him.
She rang triple-0 and after much infuriating explaining, was assured by the calm voice on the other end of the line that an emergency helicopter would be sent.
When she went back outside, Helena had pulled Jack into the shade of the garage. She sat with her back to the wall and knees up like an abandoned child.
‘They’re on their way,’ Melanie shouted.
‘Then go.’
‘What about … all this?’ She tried to ignore Jack’s body, focusing on Helena and her green-glinting eyes.
‘I’ll take care of him.’
Melanie nodded and headed for the Rover, only to be pulled up by Helena’s cry.
‘Are you coming back?’
Richard’s face was a pale shape on the other side of the window, Helena’s a forlorn visage peering out from the shadows.
‘As soon as I can.’
‘Then I’ll be here.’
‘Here?’
‘On the island. I’ll find you. We are linked, you and I.’
‘Yes, I think we are.’ She ran to the Rover and drove as hard and fast as she dared for the village, trying not to think what would come after that.
Fifteen
Melanie steered the SUV along the island track. The air conditioning was cranked up against the heat, her sunglasses barely diminishing the mid-morning glare. She had the iPod blaring to cover the motor’s revving as she tried to banish the disjointed déjà vu of being here once again, the hire car so much more comfortable than Jack’s Rover and yet somehow less real. Was this the dream, or was it her panicked flight from the island?
Was Helena still here? She felt that she was, though why, she couldn’t say.
Leanne had visited Richard in the hospital, dropping off flowers and an IOU for champagne to celebrate the closure of the Mackenzie deal. She’d brought chocolates for Melanie—‘a horrible way for your holiday to end’—and a stare that Melanie took to be half blame and half sympathy, but a tone of voice that suggested Melanie had been given the benefit of the doubt. She hadn’t asked for it and didn’t want it.
Richard’s mother had been seemingly caught in a loop of repeating the doctors’ diagnosis, that if the shovel hadn’t hit his shoulder first the blow would’ve most likely been fatal. No benefit of the doubt in her glare, not even after Richard came around and gave Melanie absolution and they’d cried and cried and managed a laugh and held hands and fallen asleep together. Somewhere in there, when Richard couldn’t hear, she’d snapped at his mother to fuck off, and been pleasantly surprised when she had. And when she’d told Richard she wanted to come back and collect their things, he seemed happy for her to do so, and didn’t mention Helena at all, just said he hoped he’d be able to come home by the time she got back.
When she drove past the turnoff to Eden, she shivered at the thought of having to go back there to collect their belongings. The police had returned their valuables, grudgingly she’d thought, amidst the barrage of questions. Who and what and when, over and over, and where was Helena now and was Melanie sure, absolutely sure, she didn’t know her last name? Was she even sure that ‘Helena’ was the woman’s name?
There’d been some insurance person too, citing police and the need for thoroughness. Whatever, she’d told him; the Jeep could become an artificial reef for all she cared.
Jack’s cabin came into view and she slowed. A single line of yellow police tape circled the building and half the yard. She didn’t know if Helena would be here, but it seemed like the place to start.
Melanie pulled up and, after a moment to screw up her courage, got out and ducked under the tape and walked up to the verandah. The sound of the surf broke over her awareness, pierced by the scream of gulls and the hoarse cry of a crow. A mound of freshly dug earth was piled beside a narrow, shallow trench over near the dog graveyard. The cop’s question came back to her: ‘You’re sure he was dead when you drove off?’
‘That’s what she said. At least, that’s what I thought she said.’
‘What did she say exactly?’
‘She said … actually, she didn’t say, she just shook her head, you know, instead of saying. I was on the stairs and she was with him, and then later, she said, she said she’d take care of him, and I thought that meant, you know, the body. That she’d take care of the body. She knew you’d be coming. That’s what I thought. That he was dead.’
They’d found Jack’s body in a shallow grave in his dog cemetery, and it reminded her of Friday, buried and dug up again, with knickers in his mouth. The cops didn’t mention anything like that, just that they’d found Jack buried, and it was all very unusual. Was she sure she didn’t know where the woman calling herself Helena was?
Melanie turned towards the shack, uncomfortably aware of that fresh wound in the earth behind her. Where was Helena? Helena was her name, of that she was certain. And yes, it was all unusual. The cops had no idea.
The door opened. Police tape fluttered.
‘I was starting to wonder—’ Helena said, an arm up to shade her eyes.
‘I said I would.’
Melanie stepped out of the burning sun, embraced by the humid dusk of the curtained cabin, and pushed the door shut, sealing out the light.
Helena hugged her so fiercely she fell back against the door. Melanie found herself clinging to the woman, breathing in her earthy scent.
‘I thought…’ Helena murmured, breath tickling the hair hanging at her throat. ‘I’m glad you came.’
‘They didn’t find you, then.’
‘They aren’t that clever, although I imagine people from my home will not be far away. They are bound to know.’ She stepped back. Her eyes glinted. She still wore her stained white dress, skin showing through the ripped cloth. Melanie couldn’t tell if any of the darker stains were fresh. ‘What do they know about me—the doctors, the police?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary, if that’s what you mean.’
‘He is well, your husband?’
‘Very well. You look … better.’
Helena rubbed her smooth cheeks. Now that Melanie’s eyes had adjusted to the low light, she thought Helena’s complexion appeared little different to when she’d first met her—convalescent rather than a casualty.
‘So do you.’
The details of the room appeared from the murk, familiar but now somehow alien with the knowledge Jack wouldn’t be walking through that door, putting that kettle on, sitting in that chair. The cracked lino and uneven walls, a stuffed fish and a shark’s jaws and some floats for decoration. Sagging chairs facing the windows to make the most of the beach view. The small timber breakfast table at one end, the open doorway to the main bedroom at the other. Helena had hung blankets to thicken the threadbare burnt-orange curtains. Poor Jack, Melanie thought. What would happen to the shack now?
‘I have a car,’ she told Helena. ‘I can get you away. There’s another barge at lunchtime; the last one’s late this afternoon.’
‘You want me to leave.’
‘I thought you wanted to get away.’
‘It’s what Paul wanted.’
‘They’re blaming him, you know. Worse than Milat, they say.’
‘Milat?’
‘A killer. A mass-murderer.’
‘Like Jaws, but human,’ Helena said, glancing at the shark’s teeth on the wall.
‘Worse. He had a choice.’
‘Ah.’ Helena leaned against a chair, her arms crossed. ‘You blame me.’
‘No. Yes. Maybe.’ And then, ‘Was Jack dead? They asked me, the police, but they didn’t say why.’
‘I scare you now, don’t I?’
‘A little, yes.’
‘But you know I’d never hurt you. I’d never leave you. The rest, all of them, they’ll all go eventually, nothing left but a hole in the ground and a handful of hair.’
Melanie reached for her locket and faltered, the habit stronger than her knowledge that the necklace was gone, probably pulled off by Paul when they’d struggled in the water. When she’d discovered it missing in the helicopter, its loss had hit her like a physical blow, and she’d clung to Richard, suddenly so terrified of losing him, too.
‘I’ll take my chances, like everyone does.’
Melanie twisted her wedding ring. Richard was safe now. Helena had saved him. Why? To make Melanie choose? What if she picked option C, neither of the above?
‘You’re going to stay with him, aren’t you?’ Helena asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘But you are going to stay. To grow old. To die.’
‘I am happy to be alive,’ Melanie said. ‘I guess death’s the price I have to pay to realise that.’
Helena wiped a dark tear from her eye. It glistened, a ruby, on her finger. She licked it off and crossed to the window, as though she could see through the blankets and curtains.
‘I’m like the ocean. Constant. Never changing. The same thing, over and over again.’ She turned to Melanie. ‘Do you think the ocean gets tired?’
‘I can help you, Helena. There’s the whole world…’
‘I think it is time I learnt to swim.’
‘What?’
She jerked on the blankets covering the windows. They tore, the sound so harsh in the stillness. Dust clouded as the material crumpled to the floor. Sunlight lanced into Melanie’s vision, making her eyes water. The air glittered, sunshine on motes.
‘I think we must all learn to swim, each in our own sea,’ Helena said. ‘You have taught me that.’
‘Wait.’ Melanie reached out. ‘You don’t have to…’
Helena kissed her hand, her lips dry and cool, her exposed skin already flaking.
‘Walk with me?’
‘God, Helena, just because I won’t—’
‘No more living through others,’ Helena whispered. ‘This I can do for myself, and maybe then I, too, can know what it feels like to be truly alive.’
They walked hand in hand towards the sea, the sand scalding underfoot, the air fresh. By the time they reached the shore, Helena was leaning on Melanie for support. Her skin had taken on a waxen hue, the veins pronounced, blood leaking from cracks in her flesh like tree sap.
There were plenty of vehicle tracks on the dune but no sign of the Jeep. Melanie realised only then that no one had told her if they’d found Paul’s body.
They stood with waves lapping around their ankles. Melanie still wore her sandals; she didn’t care. ‘Please don’t,’ she said. ‘This isn’t the answer.’ She was sure of that much.
‘It’s all right,’ Helena assured her. ‘I am not afraid of Jaws.’
She
kissed Melanie on the lips, a taste of ash and copper lingering, and Melanie resisted the urge to wipe it away. It was all she had; she wanted to keep it as long as she could.
‘I think I will not wear my clothes to go swimming,’ Helena said, making Melanie smile even as she began to cry.
Helena stripped off her dress, and squared her blistering shoulders, and waded into the sea. The cloth washed around Melanie’s feet like weed and she pulled it out, unwilling to leave it like just another piece of flotsam. With the sopping material in her hands, Melanie squinted into the sparkling ocean until she could no longer see Helena’s thin, pale form. Gulls skimmed the water, as though searching, then, finding nothing, they soared higher to maintain their vigil.
Melanie hung the dress on a branch and sat in the shade to wait, just in case Helena fought her way back. She knew it was in vain but there was no rush. The last barge didn’t leave till late, and she liked the beach. It was peaceful here.
Thanks
This novella was born of the sea. It washed up on the shore of Bribie Island over three years during my writing group’s annual retreats at the now defunct but then excellent Joondoburri Conference Centre. The Edge Writing Group have become friends as well as confederates, supporting my belief that the people we meet along the way are the best part of the writer’s journey.
The three Lady Corpsers also offered solid advice, and I appreciate having been able to float this story past them during our own seaside retreats.
Jack Dann, who kept the faith when I had none, inspirational Kim Wilkins, coffee compatriot Alison Goodman and the ever-supportive Sean Williams are among the tutors whose valued advice over the years has informed this story.
Wendy Rule’s The Lotus Eaters album was on high rotation during writing sessions. Elizabeth Vandiver’s translation of Sappho’s gorgeous ‘Hymn to Aphrodite’ was a beacon for this story’s themes — my thanks to former workmate Lyndal Cairns for the introduction to this work. I’m very pleased to be able to pay tribute to Wendy and Elizabeth with this book’s epigraphs.
Twelfth Planet Press was my first choice of publisher for this story, so I was elated when Alisa Krasnostein confirmed, only a day before she won a World Fantasy Award for her press’s achievements, that she would publish the book. What a great job she and her team have done. Dion Hamill has capped it all off with his atmospheric cover art.
Salvage Page 13