by Ann Charlton
'Had a few things to tidy up in town,' he said and filled his battered kettle with water.
'In Tweed or Coolangatta?'
His peppery brows were drawn down. The tiles of skin over his cheekbones were clearly marked. 'Nope. Brisbane.'
'Why didn't you say? I could have driven you.'
'Got the bus from the Heads.'
'Sam, I don't want to pry but what on earth was important enough to get you into a suit?'
He lit the tiny gas stove, bending down to adjust the blue flame. 'Had to meet my brother,' he said at last.
'I didn't know you had one.'
'Neither did he,' he gave a dry chuckle. 'Thought I'd kicked the bucket years ago.' He glanced at her, put the kettle on to boil. 'Never got on with him you know. Didn't get on with him today. Didn't think I would, but I wanted to see him one—one of these days, so—I did.'
Sam made the tea in a dented, scratched silver teapot. He'd found it on the beach years ago. Dru remembered him showing it to her and Barry and they'd spend an hour or so inventing stories to account for anyone leaving a silver teapot on the beach.
'I know who he is, Silla.'
'Who?'
'This fellow Smith. Saw a poster in town. Locke Matthews.' He shook his head. 'Found a lot of things on this beach. Never a film star.'
She laughed. 'Does he rank with the teapot?'
'Don't know yet. Everything all right?' He looked at her with the eyes of a father. Anxious, protective.
Caring. 'Of course, but—' She explained about Shelley. The old man fixed her with thoughtful eyes. 'He was upset that I'd sent his girlfriend packing but to compensate I'm filling in for her—helping him learn his script.'
'Is that what he said she was coming here for?' he grunted. Her laughter rang out. 'No. She was going to be his bedmate as well. I'm only filling in for her in the daytime.'
'Hmm. Sounds like you're putting that Michael out of your mind.'
Sam didn't like Michael. Whereas he had decided on one meeting that he liked Locke, he had come to the opposite conclusion with Michael. It was true that Michael's first comment about Sam's place had been about the value of the real estate and he had been a few seconds too late in wiping away his disdain at the tiny cottage. Sam had not been appeased by his tactful cover up. He had been pleased when they broke up.
'Silla,' he said after one of his long silences, 'Do you see much of Barry and Gilly?'
She told him, shrugging that they were engrossed in their own lives. Gillian away much of the time and sleeping off jet-lag or dating when she was in town. Barry, building up his construction business and fighting to find the time to spend with his wife and kids, let alone anyone else.
'You need someone. Someone who needs you,' Sam said, almost to himself. Trust Sam to say it in the least number of words. Dru picked up the driftwood dragon from its shelf and admired it.
'Haven't finished it,' Sam said.
'No. It's not quite a dragon yet.' She set it down. A beautiful shape in the blink of an eye, a hint of the creature in the next. 'It could be almost anything you wanted it to be,' she murmured.
Sam's tough skinned fingers took it from her and he looked piercingly at her. 'What would you like it to be?'
'I don't know.'
'Let me know if you find out,' he said. 'I'll do what I can.'
Dru watched hopefully for a natty white hatchback, but Shelley had given up it seemed. At nine the next morning she knocked at her tenant's door. He answered it wearing only the low slung pyjama pants and stubble.
'Don't you ever dress?'
He looked sleepily surprised. 'I'm on holiday.'
'Well, why didn't you go to a nudist camp—then you could leave everything off.' She walked past him with a disapproving look at the near indecent pyjamas. 'You might as well.'
'In that case—' he grinned and untied the cord of his pants.
Dru's mouth dropped open. She spun around and went with all speed to the kitchen. He disappeared while she did the chores. His clean sheets went on, depleting her spares to one pair. She bundled up the used ones to take home to wash.
'Will you have enough bed linen for a daily change?' he asked when he saw her with them.
'No, of course not. We don't keep fourteen pairs of sheets, Mr Matthews. I don't know anyone who does.'
'Have you got a washing machine?'
She widened her eyes at him. 'Good lord, I'm not going to WASH them! Sheets that have swaddled the body beautiful! I thought I'd tear them up into little squares and auction them off. Then I could afford to buy fourteen pairs of sheets.'
She left him laughing.
The play reading was more fun this time. She was less self conscious. It was the glamorous divorcee Rhonda, that defeated her.
'Look, I know you're not an actress, Dru, but do you have to sound so wooden?' Locke asked when he'd repeatedly got Guy Latimer's cues wrong. 'In those few passages her lines are rather similar and I'm relying on her change of mood to bring me in with the right response.'
'Your friend Shelley could no doubt say all those things about being a beautiful woman with sincerity, but I feel a fraud.'
'If you hadn't stuck your nose in Shelley would be saying them, wouldn't she?' He studied her face. 'Anyway, beautiful is as much a state of mind as anything.'
'Huh!' she snorted. 'Easy for you to say.'
'Dru—do you think only beautiful women ever get the beautiful parts?'
'Don't they?'
'Not always. Actresses get them. And they act beautiful. Who is the best looking woman you know?'
'Gillian,' she said without hesitation. 'My sister.'
His eyes narrowed a bit at that as he came over to her. 'How does she walk—as if she knows she's good to look at. I'll bet she doesn't hunch her shoulders—' he put a hand to her back and pushed her erect, '—or hold her head like a turtle afraid to leave its shell unless it comes out snapping.' He adjusted her head, tipped her chin up. 'How does she talk? As if she knows people want to be with her. In short, she acts beautiful. Actresses don't wait to get the perfect face and figure, Dru—they adopt all the other things that go with them. And anyone can do that.'
'Even me?' she squeaked, holding with some exaggeration the posture he'd forced on her.
'Okay—you want to be plain. Go right ahead. But you've got a choice.' He went back to perch on an armchair. 'Just try putting a little oomph into those lines will you, so that I can tell one from the other.'
Want to be plain? He was probably right. With Gillian around it had always been useless to compete in the beauty stakes. Barry had the brains, Gillian had the beauty and Dru—well, Dru was such a character. People had always said so. She had found her identity in a kind of anti-beauty flippancy. All wisecracks and wild hair. Such a character, Dru. Glamorous divorcee Rhonda came out, if anything, rather less vibrant and Locke closed his script with a sigh.
'Sorry, Mr Matthews,' she said. 'Is there any way we can get in touch with Shelley?'
He stared at her as if he'd forgotten the girl again.
'What? Oh, I shouldn't think so. And call me Locke.'
'Is it real—the name?' Rather ironic, she thought—a man called Locke with the wrong key.
'First my chest, now this,' he grumbled. 'Yes, it's real. Derived from my given name Lachlan. My mother would be very happy to confirm that.'
'I'll take your word for it. I won't be speaking to your mother will I?'
'I wish you could—she'd like you.' He smiled, gave it some surprised thought, 'In fact with your dislike for schmaltz she'd like you very much—'
She began to move to the door, reluctant to dwell on the idea of being liked by Locke's mother.
'All right. "Locke" it is. We're painting the side windows near the shed today.'
He saluted. 'Yes ma'am.'
'First we have to sand them down and do the patching.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'Start at two?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
She la
ughed. 'You're shaping up nicely as an assistant painter.'
Later she ruefully admitted that he was more useful to her than she was to him as Shelley's stand in. He was already applying undercoat to his window and she hadn't finished sanding hers.
'It's only natural,' he agreed goadingly. 'I've been around, tried most things. Experience.'
'That must account for your overweening confidence.' she muttered.
'Confidence! I'm glad you think so.'
Curiously she studied him. 'You are confident, aren't you?'
'How would you ever be certain,' he mocked. 'I'm supposed to be an actor remember.'
Supposed to be.
'You never did tell me what work you did before you became—made those razor ads.'
He acknowledged her tact with a smile. 'You don't want to hear all about the bad old days—my starving days—' he pulled his mouth down, 'when I did all the audition rounds, worked as a drinks waiter, came up north to do some theatre and ended up painting houses instead, sold spray painters door to door…' He sighed, let his shoulders droop.
'My heart bleeds for you. I'll bet you had a great time.'
'Oh sure. Front up for an audition, wait for three hours only to have the part cast before you even get to try out. And if you were lucky, you'd actually get to show what you could do—after two lines someone down in the dark in G row would shout up, "That'll do. Leave your name." Of if you were really impressive a producer might stop you and tell you how close you were to getting the part. "But you're a bit too young, son," or "Too pretty, my dear, but do leave your number anyway—" He glanced at Dru and obviously censored the rest of that one. "I almost got a part today," you could tell your friends over a hamburger and then rush off to work in the pub.'
'Did you ever study acting?'
He gave a snort of laughter. 'The lady needs to ask. Yes, I graduated from NIDA. I'm still friends with a couple of my class. A lot of us started out with ideals—but the fact is, you have to live and you can starve on ideals. From Pinter and O'Neill and Williamson you soon snatch at walk-ons in soapies and radio voice-overs and—commercials.'
'And that was your lucky break—getting the Ransome ads?'
'It was Eric's baby—that campaign. He was working for an advertising agency and dreamed up the Ransome Man idea. He suggested I audition for it and I did—fair and square. But there were those who claimed I got the job because I was family.'
'Family?'
'Eric is my brother,' he explained. 'As well as my manager and agent. Thank God. In a business like mine, it's a rarity to have someone you can trust absolutely.'
'So your brother gave up advertising to manage you?'
'That's right. He saw the potential when the Ransome thing took off and promoted me for a year before anything more happened.'
'He sounds like a good friend as well as a brother.'
'He is. He got me through a very bad patch just before the Ransome thing came up and another long before that when our father died.' He stood back, looked contemplatively at his work. 'I owe him. Without Eric I could even still be painting houses.' He held up his paintbrush and grinned. She laughed, thinking that he couldn't owe his brother that much careerwise. After all, Locke's break into the big time wouldn't have done Eric any harm. From advertising agency to management of a superstar. That was almost as good a success story as Locke's own.
'Did you do much television work before Ransome?' It was hard to imagine that he had gone unnoticed.
'A soapie bit part—and I did a play.' He laughed to himself. 'I was twenty-two and nervous as a kitten I remember. It was the first time I had to do a screen love scene.'
'You—nervous about a love scene?'
'Think it's easy do you?' He slanted her a wry look. 'I'd done a couple as a student on stage but there they last only seconds and the audience get a long view. The cameras pick up every little detail in close up and I was worried that I might look peculiar—'
'Peculiar?' She stared.
'It's a personal thing—kissing someone,' he shrugged.
'I mean while you're doing it, it seems okay, but you never see yourself doing it, so you don't know if you do it like everyone else—or if you look ridiculous—' He looked over at her. 'These things weigh heavily on your mind at twenty-two.'
Dru threw back her head and laughed. 'You can't be serious.'
'I am,' he declared. 'That play had me chewing my nails. And the lady—the kissee you might say—didn't help. She thought it was funny. Kept fouling up the rehearsal so that we had to do it over and over again.'
She probably fancied him, Dru thought.
'How did she foul up a love scene?'
'Just by turning her head—' He put down his paintbrush and wiped his hands on his shorts. Then he came over and took her shoulders, shuffling her around to face him. 'I had to sweep her into my arms—' He did so and she felt the sudden thump of her heart. She clutched her sandpaper against his bare shoulder. 'I would tilt my head like this.' Dru swallowed. His handsome face came into sharp focus, the green eyes teasing, '—and just as I got close enough to kiss her, she would tip her head in the same direction so that our noses clashed.' His hands went to her head, turned it to demonstrate. Their noses rubbed together. For maybe five seconds they stayed like that. Dru dragged her eyes from that beautiful mouth and stepped back. There was some new, crackling awareness in the air that jolted her heart beat into thunderous speed. Dru heard the sea and the gulls and the whisper dry movement of the breeze in the mango tree.
'But you discovered that you were just great at love scenes,' she said lightly.
'I discovered that it's mostly camera angles.' He took his paintbrush up again and told her about the only film he made as an unknown. 'Gruelling location work. Bush flies and heat and tents for all but the leads. The tent I had blew away in a duststorm and I chased it on a bike to get it back.' He laughed as if the memory wasn't entirely unpleasant for all the flies and dust. 'At the time I thought that film would be the spring-board to better things. But the commercials came along right after that, so… I sometimes wonder where I would have gone without Ransome…' He glanced at her and grimaced. 'Or if I would have gone anywhere at all.'
When he finished his window he went away and she saw him treading over the dunes to Sam's place. She laughed. Locke Matthews, uncertain that his kissing style was orthodox! Dru dipped her brush in the oatmeal-thick paint. She had wanted for those few brief seconds to be kissed by him. There was no denying it. Had he felt the need for a real live love scene she would have been willing. The brush moved rapidly along the thirsting timber. But he hadn't felt the need.
The next day fell into a similar pattern. Dru gave glamorous Rhonda a little of Gillian's style and if she felt silly doing it at first, had only to think of Locke, nervous about his first screen kiss, to recover.
In the afternoon they painted the lower front windows. Locke whistled while he worked and occasionally sang. His russet hair was spiked and tipped with white paint. No shirt, scruffy shorts, bare feet. He was relaxed and good natured. If it wasn't for his amazing looks he could be any nice, ordinary man doing a spot of painting. It didn't seem possible that he was a superstar, accustomed to luxury and the fawning attentions of men and women alike. Dru smiled as he burst into song again. He looked over and grinned.
'I know—I know—I've never played Caruso.'
'Of course not. You're too young,' she said with a sly glance, '—and too pretty, my dear—'
Locke dipped his paintbrush in the tin and wiped it off purposefully. As he came towards her Dru giggled and backed off. 'No, don't you dare—' But he caught her against the wall and dabbed paint on her nose. He leaned his arms on the wall each side of her and watched her scrub the paint across her cheek. 'Okay, I suppose I deserved that,' she admitted when he took a rag and cleaned her up. 'I should be kinder to you. It's not everyone who would help me with the painting after what I did.'
'I'm glad you appreciate that. Will you reward me
?'
'How?'
'Give me that kiss I almost took yesterday.'
Her heart bounced around in teenage fashion. 'Oh-oh, you must be getting bored again, Locke.'
The look in his eyes was hard to define. Amused, but something else too. 'No,' he said softly, 'I haven't been bored for a minute since I came here.'
Sam came over later to catch them laughing over one of Locke's film anecdotes about another 'unnamed' celebrity.
'What do you think, Sam?' Dru indicated the lower floor of the house, still as dilapidated as ever but for its gleaming windowframes.
'Flash,' Sam said with his usual economy. He chewed his lip while he inspected their work. 'You'll have the place looking so good there'll be film stars and such like clamouring to stay here.'
Locke threw a speaking look at Sea Winds. 'Clamouring you think?'
'Not what you're used too. A dump, I hear you called it.'
'I've grown to like it, Sam. Quite a lot.'
Sam narrowed his eyes then gave a funny little nod.
'Aaagh. Caught a mess of fish this morning. Want to barbecue them on the beach tonight?'
Dru was enthusiastic.
'Allow me to bring the wine,' Locke said. 'If I can borrow your car to go to the pub,' he added to Dru.
'Aren't you afraid you'll be mobbed by adoring fans?'
He looked expressively at Sam. 'Dru will bring the lemon.'
The moon was up when she walked out on to the sands. Over near the cottonwoods the fire was already lit—its flames a warm flare of colour in the indigo night. She could see two figures tending it. Sam crouched, his long, thin limbs making almost a stick figure of him in silhouette. Locke stood beside him, leaning forward in a listening attitude. She heard the faint sound of their voices, then laughter. For a moment she stopped on the dunes, took a deep breath of crisp, salty air and looked up at the star scattered sky. It seemed a night to sing or shout or dance. Dru felt happiness bubble up inside her as she ran across the cool sands to the fire.
'I've brought some plates and glasses,' she said breathlessly, putting down her basket. Both men looked up at her, seemed arrested by what they saw. She had a scarf tied around her head, holding back her mass of hair, wore jeans that frayed at the edges, and a sweater. Her feet were bare. 'What's the matter?' she directed the question at Sam.