by Poppy Gee
“You’ve just solved part of the puzzle.”
“What?”
“The only way that piece of clothing could have landed there was if it was tossed off a boat. Maybe Anja was killed on a boat.”
“Hall said the same thing when Sammy gave him the bikini top,” Simone said.
“You gave it to Hall?”
“He was about to speak to the police, so he said he’d pass it on.”
Of course he was. Hall would say anything to score an exclusive story. Conversation became less stilted as they discussed the murder case. One thing Simone and Flip agreed on was the campers: they thought it was inappropriate that they discussed the murder in front of their children.
“How did you know it was Anja Traugott’s bikini top?” John said with a grin.
“I talked to her a couple of times.” Sam glanced at his mother. “There’s no one else around here to talk to.”
Simone smiled at Sam. “All the pretty girls like Sammy. Why wouldn’t they? I tell him, when you are fishing, you are allowed to throw a few back. Same goes for girls.”
John laughed with Simone. “Good advice,” he said.
At the other end of the table Sarah tried to keep a poker face while blood rushed to her cheeks. Common sense said Simone was not having a go at her. But Simone’s comment was strange and her accompanying giggle sly. If she knew what Sarah had done, of course she would be furious.
Sarah excused herself to get another beer. The outdoor Esky was full of melting ice and Steve’s Cascade Lights. She thought she had left some full strength in the fridge and went back inside to have another look. Everyone was laughing at a story Sam was telling about Hall cross-examining him. Rummaging through the plastic bags of veggies, soft cheeses, and half-eaten dips, she realized Erica had been right to insist the Shelleys stay for a drink. There was no point pissing anyone off. She tugged at an egg carton to see if there was any beer behind it, and a block of butter banged to the floor. She rammed it back in, not caring what it squashed. This fridge was overpacked. And there was no beer in it.
On the top of the fridge was her bottle of rum. It was what she had drunk on Christmas Day, and she hesitated before twisting off the lid. She swayed the open bottle neck under her nose, enjoying the smell, sweet like burnt sugar. One wouldn’t hurt.
She returned to the patio and took a bottle of Coke from the outdoor Esky. Clutching the Coke, cold water dripping from her hand, Sarah turned to see Sam standing in the doorway.
“You got a license for that hot dog stand?”
“What?”
He pointed at her groin. Her fly was undone, his finger wavering in front of it. She grabbed his outstretched finger and twisted it hard enough to make him yelp.
“Mommy, don’t hurt me.” Sam mocked her in a high-pitched voice.
She could smell dried sweat on his skin. Unwashed and unscented; the smell of teenage boys. Sarah released his finger. Compose yourself, she repeated silently.
Inside the shack’s lit cocoon, Simone and her family did not appear to be listening to their conversation. Sam’s arms braced either side of the doorway, blocking her entrance. He had the swagger of a man who was owed money and was about to collect it. She wanted to tell him to piss off. Instead she said, “How are you doing, Sam?”
“All right. If you’re going fishing tonight, I’ll come.”
“Not tonight I’m not.”
“Where do you figure there might be some action tomorrow?”
The question veiled a plea. He had asked the same question as she left the New Year’s Eve party to go fishing. She knew the hollow yearning, the desperate drive to avoid aloneness. His need was not unlike her own. Still, she couldn’t help him. It was hard enough right now to look after herself.
From a dirty sky the moon printed a silvery path across the sea. Beneath the formless coastal scrub, the ocean pitched on and on. Sarah tried to breathe evenly. Something broke in the Esky as she returned the unopened Coke bottle.
Sarah followed Sam back inside the shack. Erica was admiring Simone’s scarf.
“Sam chose it for me.” Simone smiled, pleased with Erica’s compliment. “He’s helped me buy quite a few of my clothes.”
“Hidden talent,” Erica said.
Sam was expressionless. It was hard to know whether he was uncomfortable with his mother’s attention or indifferent. In any case, it would give Flip an example to share with Pamela of Simone’s smothering parenting technique. Sarah had heard Pamela and Flip comment on it in the past—when they weren’t complaining of the times Simone had dumped her son with them so she could go diving.
Later, when John drove the unwanted guests home and Flip and Erica busied themselves closing the curtains, Sarah repacked her fishing bag with the squid jig. Her sister and mother were laughing; the sound ebbed with the low tones of cruelty. They were titillated by the novelty of turning away Simone Shelley and the anticipation of telling the story to Pamela tomorrow. Even the act of closing the curtains was exciting. They never closed them except when they shut the shack at the end of summer. Tonight, they pinned the gaping sections together with clothes pegs, admiring each other’s handiwork. Sarah’s fingers curled in so tightly she could feel the bluntness of her nails on her palms.
Sarah switched her torch on to check if the batteries were working. There was no point trying to go out right now; Mum and Erica would have a fit. She poured herself a glass of wine and waited for them to say good night.
By torchlight she knotted the line and attached bait. She cast out, then switched the torch off. No one needed to know exactly where she was standing. Her finger tingled and she realized she had cut herself. She pressed the wound to her mouth and sucked. Blood’s warm saltiness triggered memories that made her shudder: Jake standing over her and spitting on the ground; the peppery smell of wet asphalt; the taste of beer and blood and his foul-smelling, slobbering breath; his lazy drawl hurling cruel insults as he stomped away into the night.
She searched her mind for the happier memories, but they were slow to surface. Humid evenings eating dinner on the back veranda while November thunderstorms shook the roof. Drinking cups of tea while strolling through the bamboo and palms in her overgrown garden. In that house they had talked about everything they hadn’t talked about during the day. At work they didn’t speak; at home he wanted to know everything: who was calling her, where she went to buy groceries after work, what she thought of the other guys on the fish farm. She was flattered by his close attention; the intensity of his feelings was something she was not used to. He was insistent, that’s what he was. Like the vines pushing through the cracks in her floorboards and gaps in the window frames; you could snap them off, but they’d be back in a few days.
The radio reckoned it was thirty-four degrees, and Sarah reckoned they were right. You could see the heat spiraling out of the sand, which was too hot to walk on with bare feet. She was planning to take the canoe for a paddle through the Chain of Lagoons, across the small one where everyone swam, under the bridge and into the broad deep water, past the campsite and the burnt bridge to a silent place shaded by the mountains.
As she dragged the double canoe out of the grass, she saw Erica. She was moping around in the shallows, her camera hanging from her neck. Yesterday Steve had had to go back to Launceston for work, and Erica was feeling sorry for herself. Sarah whistled to attract her attention.
“Come for a canoe,” she called.
Erica rolled her camera in a towel and left it in the dune. She carried the paddles while Sarah dragged the old wooden canoe into the water. Dirty rainwater containing dead insects had pooled on the seats, and Sarah scooped it away with her hand, hoping Erica wouldn’t notice; she could be funny about things like that.
Erica sat in the front seat, Sarah behind, and they paddled in unison across the lagoon. Under the bridge the air smelled off, like old flower water left in a vase. Swallows had built nests from sticks and sea grass, and mounds of bird droppings covered th
e beams. Sarah could tell it was the first time since they launched the canoe from the beach that Erica was actually putting some grunt into each stroke. She was scared of the shadowy quiet space, the way the dark lagoon water made hollow sounds as it lapped the mildewy pylons. They were about to pop out the other side when Sarah jammed her oar in.
“Easy oar,” Sarah said as the canoe swung sideways. “Stop. Look over there.”
Don’s black four-wheel drive was parked in the rushes, not on the wide beach nor on the edge of the gravel road behind. Only the top of the vehicle and the long antenna of Don’s two-way radio was visible.
“What is he up to?” Sarah held on to the underside of the bridge so the canoe wouldn’t float away.
“Probably nothing. Can we go before a bird poops on us?”
“Just wait.”
Sarah’s eyes followed the run of the beach as it wrapped around the water before disappearing into the mountain’s shadow. Nothing looked unusual, except for Don’s car, almost hidden beside the lagoon.
“Maybe he’s sitting inside it, masturbating,” Erica said.
“No. There’s so many better, more private places to do that around here.”
“I was joking.”
The screaming started then, a woman’s frantic high-pitched scream. Sarah started paddling. In front of her, Erica fumbled with her paddle.
“Hard strokes, Erica, hard,” Sarah said.
The scream came from the west, which was the direction of the campsite. The woman sounded terrified and incoherent; her words swallowed by fear. Sarah concentrated on making each stroke deep and strong, matching Erica’s pace. The canoe picked up speed. They were about to discover something truly awful. Sarah regretted that Erica was with her. Erica would not be able to cope with it.
They rounded the sand peninsula and could see the campsite tents and fire smoke. The screaming woman was waist-deep in the lagoon, fully dressed, beating the water with her arms. Thirty-odd meters offshore a toddler drifted in a blow-up dinghy. Two swimmers were swimming toward him, the imprecise, hardworking strokes of people who had never been properly taught to swim. The woman, presumably the mother, gestured to Sarah and Erica.
“I can’t swim. Cooper can’t swim,” she cried. “Help him, please.”
Sarah and Erica steered the canoe toward the child. The swimmers reached him first.
“Easy oar,” Sarah told Erica and they stopped paddling.
The child was distressed, crying, as the swimmers towed him back to the beach. The mother waded through the water to meet them, yelling, “You little shit, Cooper!”
As his mother lifted him out of the boat, she cuddled him. She swung the little boy onto her hip and carried him up to the campsite, calling her thanks over her shoulder. The rescuers, two teenage girls, carried on playing with the blow-up dinghy.
“Oh my God, I thought Don Gunn was murdering someone,” Erica panted, still breathless from the physical exertion.
“That’s what it looked like.” Sarah whacked the water with her paddle. “Frickin’ hell. And I thought I was coming here for a relaxing holiday.”
The sisters had almost reached the bridge when they saw Don. He raised a cylindrical tube toward them in a salute. It was a yabby pump, used to extract the crablike creatures from the sand. Its stainless steel glinted in the sunlight. He was standing on the bank, dressed in navy shorts and a white polo shirt. Don’s attire was usually appropriate for attending lunch in a nice restaurant or going sailing on a yacht, even when he was carrying out an ordinary task like collecting sandworms for bait. They waved back at him.
“Pamela sells Dynabait for ten bucks and he pumps his own yabbies to save money,” Sarah said.
“That’s nothing. I busted him reusing a teabag when he made me a cup of tea the other day,” Erica said. “My favorite is when he brings his cheap no-name wine and drinks Dad’s good stuff.”
Their laughter rang across the lagoon, causing Don to look over, which made them laugh more. Sarah was glad to share a joke with Erica. It felt good. She had contemplated apologizing for her awkward behavior on the night of Steve’s proposal but felt as if it wouldn’t sound sincere. As they paddled toward the shore, Sarah cleared her throat.
“Hey, Eric,” she said. “I’m happy you’re marrying Steve.”
“I know you are.”
Sarah poked a finger into her mother’s skin. The pressure made a white indentation that reddened immediately. Flip was extremely sunburned. She had been with Pamela, floating on air mattresses on the lagoon all morning. Now her shoulders and chest were dark pink, like an overripe peach.
“Curse Pamela.” Flip fanned herself with a Country Style magazine. “She wouldn’t let me leave. She’s scared to be on the beach alone.”
Flip had overheard some kids plan to dig a channel between the lagoon and the ocean. The lagoon was swollen from the unseasonal heavy rain, and the children planned to surf on the torrent of water that would explode across the beach and into the sea.
“I said to Pamela, someone will drown,” Flip said. “It’s very dangerous.”
“No it’s not. Lying in the sun until your skin peels is dangerous,” Sarah said.
“Girls, one of you run down to the guesthouse and fetch some aloe vera from Jane,” John said without taking his eyes off his book. “I’m sure she has some with all those herbs and things she grows.”
Sarah eyed her mother’s damaged skin. Aloe vera would not prevent it from peeling, but it would help take the sting out of it.
“I’ll get it,” she said.
Flip’s comment about the lagoon rankled Sarah as she walked down the hill to Jane’s guesthouse. The lagoon was ready to explode. As a kid, Sarah had always dug the lagoon out. Everyone came and watched as the brown tea tree–stained water charged into the azure. People brought surfboards and rubber donuts to ride the frothing current. Someone could drown; Mum was right. But someone could drown on any given day in the unpredictable surf here. There was never anyone on the beach to hear cries for help. Anyway, she and Erica had dug out that lagoon almost every second summer. Damned if she was going to let someone else do it for her.
As she passed the gum tree glade beside the wharf, she saw the writing. It was in red paint on the timber palings of the largest boatshed. Either last night or first thing this morning, someone had scrawled in capital letters: COKER IS A KILLER.
The Nissen hut’s curving roof cupped the day’s warmth. There was no answer when she knocked on Hall’s bedroom door. She waited for a moment, feeling like an intruder in the empty guesthouse living room. From the garden came the sound of wood being chopped.
Jane acknowledged Sarah and continued chopping. Sinewy muscles pumped under the folds of loose skin on her arms as she swung the axe. Her hair had slipped from its topknot and stuck out from her head like tangled fishing line.
“Jobs like these make me think a man around here wouldn’t be completely useless.” Jane wiped sweat from her forehead with her sleeve.
Erica had speculated about Jane’s sex life as they canoed across the lagoon that morning. She claimed Jane had never had a boyfriend after her husband left. Erica wondered whether celibacy was a conscious decision for Jane, or whether it had happened slowly, the thought of taking a lover much like a chore you planned to get around to doing but never did and ended up forgetting about. It was a saddening thought. There were different levels of aloneness, Sarah knew, some more lonely than others. Sarah had been glad Erica was sitting in the front of the canoe and could not see her expression.
Watching the older woman swing the axe, Sarah noted that Jane still shaved her armpits. Erica would interpret that as a sign of hopefulness. Depressed, Sarah tried to remember why she had come.
“Dad says you’ve got a heap of aloe? Mum’s sunburned.”
“He did, huh?”
Jane leaned the axe against the wood block. Sarah followed her across the patio. Under a veil of white netting, basil, rosemary, parsley, and mint flared in p
ots beside brick plant baths of tomatoes and fat red strawberries. Jane found a plastic bag that had been shoved in the wood stack under the barbecue. She broke several fronds of aloe vera and dumped them in the bag. Sarah moved aside as Jane pushed a pot under the netting with her foot. It made a sharp scraping sound on the brickwork, which woke a black dog in his kennel. He lifted his head and barked.
“Shut up, you.” Jane stooped to drag her fingers across the loose dirt in each pot, pulling out a clump of stray grass and tossing it in a pile.
Sarah offered the dog her fingers, and he rubbed his nose across them. His fur was matted from saltwater. Jane walked her dogs on the beach twice a day. Sarah had seen her throwing a stick into the waves, the dogs racing each other to bring it back. Even during the recent storm, when the rain was coming sideways and the ocean plastered anyone who ventured near it with freezing water, Jane exercised the dogs.
“Simone Shelley came up last night.”
“What did she want?” Jane continued weeding.
“You know.”
Jane didn’t answer.
“I guess you were fully booked.”
Jane tossed a handful of weeds into the pile. “No.”
“I thought you didn’t mind her.”
“I used to clean for her. She rents her place out when she’s not here. One lot of her friends left the place so filthy it took me seven hours. She only paid me for four.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Why would you? Anyway, she didn’t need a bed. She just wanted company.” Jane shrugged with the indifference of someone for whom loneliness was as much a part of her life as chopping firewood and washing floors.