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Dangerous Places
Chapter 1.
It’s a house from a dream, I think. I stop the car, which shudders as if shrugging off the rain. The children are asleep, strapped up snugly, so I sit for a moment in the quiet, falling rain and look down fully at the house. It seems to crouch on the very edge of a cliff; in front of it are only steel-silver sea and a ribbon of surf, breaking on a sandbank. It’s at the bottom of a hill, embedded in and overhung by a pool of sluggish, rain-sodden foliage. I can’t even see what colour the walls are painted - only a rain-sheened tin roof with choked gutters. No wonder, with all those gums, I think. Trust Peri to live in such an impractical place. The rain keeps running down the car window, obscuring my view.
There is no driveway: Peri’s blue Laser is parked in front of me. I wake Ross, who stammers from dreams to excitement. “Are we here? We’re here! Sharlie, wake up! Come on little darling! We’re at the beach! Where’s your pony?” He often mixes my phrases with his own as he wakes. He loves waking up - or being awake, to be more precise. Sharlie loves sleeping, and cuddling sleepily, and thoughtful, imaginative games involving names of her toys or of friends Ross makes.
We pull on raincoats, and Ross drags out his fishing rod and tackle box, and I take only their beach-bags and carry Sharlie, who clutches her pony and nestles her yellow-hooded head into my shoulder. We climb down broad, slippery stone steps which wind like a ski trail through the thicket. Ross forges ahead, thrashing a path with a broken stick and his rod, and chattering excitedly. It seems to go on and on - and then suddenly the house is before us.
Even Ross is quiet then. It is dark - we are well under the canopy - and the house, olive green weatherboard, emerges only dimly. Palms, sugar gums, bottle brush and jacarandas drip and trail their leaves possessively over the path to it. It rests on short timber stumps; there are three or four new, freshly-painted steps up to a roofed verandah. The front door, inset with a pane of bumpy, lead-light glass, is flanked by eight-paned windows. Leaves are reflected in the lead-crazed glass of the door and on the smooth, glazed window glass, and the leaves flicker on the glass so it winks like teary eyes. Rain beads and drips from the gutters of the roof. Honeysuckle twists its green filigree around the house stumps and up to the verandah floor.
There is a knocker on the door. I bang it, heartily, because Ross’s hand has crept into the crook of the arm in which I still cradle Sharlie. The paint on the house itself, I notice, is flaking, showing smudges of a previous paler green.
After a moment we hear footsteps and then the door opens. “Ven! Venny! God, what a terrible weekend for - oh it’s good to see you!” She draws the door fully open and throws open her arms. We clash noses kissing.
“You too - how long has it been? Six months?” I breathe in her scent of cigarettes and a perfume I’d forgotten. Dressed in an oversized pullover and long hippie skirt her body feels small and fragile, but graceful, as a cat’s can when it jumps into your lap.
“More - or it feels like it. Escaped - I have escaped! But - Rossy - little Ross - you haven’t forgotten me?” She bends to him, but he ducks his face behind Sharlie, pulling heavily on my arm. She laughs. “Okay, I won’t kiss you. And Charlotte - this is Charlotte? This little face, all shy too? Oh God, Venny, they’ve grown - and you look so well -”
I stand smiling, taking her hand with my free one. “And you’re much too thin!” I say. Because she has lost weight - lost a roundness she used to have. But it’s not just that: she looks changed, somehow. It’s not her hair, even though that’s longer than I remember and gathered in a black fountain cascading from the top of her head; nor the black eyeliner she has around her eyes or the pieces of shell which swing and clatter from her neck to between her breasts: all of these reflect a style she has had since she was a teenager. It’s something less concrete - a sort of electricity, nervous, contagious - a pent-up excitement, or anticipation. She’s my cousin, two years younger than me, and I’ve known her all my life, so I know it’s not just my imagination. “Living on the island must be agreeing with you. Or is it all these steps you have to climb to get out of the place? It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.” I turn from her to look back up, but the foliage is so thick I can barely see the sodden sky.
She laughs a piping, gurgling laugh - the notes dipping and peaking like birdsong. “Beggars can’t be choosers. Not too many places here you can care-take for nothing with views like this one has. Come on - come in and see. We’ll get the rest of your stuff when it stops raining.”
We trail after her graceful, loose figure, past closed doors, along an unlit corridor, dark even after the grey light outside. The rain is very quiet on the roof, like a quietly burning fire. There is a smell of dust and old carpet, and the air is so cold it might have been refrigerated. “That’s my room there.” Her arm gestures vaguely to the left, to an open doorway. As I pass it I glimpse partially-drawn, thick curtains, a heavy oak bed and a white swathe of mosquito net. Then the corridor right-angles and I can make out stair banisters ahead. We follow her down, in just enough light to make out our path.
“What is this? The bowels of the earth?” My voice echoes hollowly; I have no idea how far ahead of us she is. Ross’s grip and Sharlie’s weight are burning my arm.
“Keep coming!”
Then suddenly there is a flush of light: a grey rectangle of daylight in which dust motes drift; Peri has opened a door at the bottom of the stairs. We pass through it and emerge in a room on the edge of the cliff.
“Wow.” Ross loosens his grip on my arm, and stares, too. For the room we’ve entered seems to float above a view from a glass wall overlooking the sea. “Wow.” I move slowly, still carrying Sharlie, with Ross over to the glass - a series of floor-deep, timber framed windows with French doors at their end, leading out to a small deck and steps.
“Yes.” Peri’s voice is excited, a little triumphant. “Pretty spectacular, isn’t it?” For it is: grey waves heaving laced violence at the cliff-foot and crashing, broken, on a sand-bar far out; rain pelting mist in moving swathes above the waves so that sea and air become one.
“You’re not kidding.”
“I just couldn’t believe my luck. Haden, the guy who owns it - got that glass put in as soon as he bought the place apparently - it’s just the best thing - you never get tired of that view, of looking at the sea - it’s always changing, always different. So, so different from Proserpine!” She’s shaking her head and smiling. “Hasn’t done much else since then, mind you - too busy I guess. He’s some VIP in the mines over here, and has houses all over the place. Buys, renovates, sells. Must have heaps of dough.”
I drag my eyes from the view to look back at the rest of the room. It’s large and open, running the full width of the house - a dining-room, lounge room and kitchen in one. At the far end the kitchen is divided from the other areas by a laminated bar. The picture-glass wall clashes startlingly with the other walls, which are painted a dingy brown, and it sits oddly against the floor which is carpeted in a thin nylon whose pile has worn through in places. But Peri’s things, the things I recognize as hers, complement the room’s simplicity and quality beautifully: her long, comfortable sofas; her pottery displayed around the shelves and some of her paintings on the walls; her crystals suspended from the ceiling to catch the light; her ornamental lamps. “Well, you’ve made it look great anyhow. How long’s he had it?”
Peri shrugs. “Not sure. But he doesn’t want to let it apparently - just wants someone here to keep an eye on it. Till he can finish fixing it up, probably. I was just so, so lucky. Met him the first day I came over here – he nearly collected me with his car. Then he was really apologetic – took me to a doctor cause I landed on the road and bumped my head. Think he must have had the guilts about the whole thing and that’s why he offered this place to me when the other one fell through.”
Sharlie suddenly wriggles, and I move over to one of the couches and drop her onto it, then help her out of her raincoat. I straighten, and rub my forearm. “Ugh - she’s getting heavy!” I take off my own coat and flip my hair from its heavy chignon and comb it with my fingers so it falls warmly around my shoulders to my waist like a sort of cape.
Peri’s moved over behind the laminated bar, lighting a cigarette. “Now, what do you feel like? Something to eat? Or a drink?” She opens a cupboard and pulls out a bottle of whisky: she tips it at me, one eyebrow raised.
I hesitate. It’s a bit early…but I’m on my own, I don’t have to drive anywhere, and she’s already unscrewing the cap. “Lovely.” I move over to a kitchen bar stool, and Sharlie follows, clinging to my jeans. I lift her onto my lap. Ross stays at the window, looking out.
“What would you like, Sharl? Juice? And are you hungry?” Peri has her head on one side, smiling. Sharlie nods, wordlessly.
“God, she’s so blonde. Where do you guys get that from, I wonder? I mean, all the rest of us are so dark - so bloody Greek-looking. Hadn’t really thought about it till I saw you in a group at that big family Christmas party last year - the three of you stood out like candles. ” She’s emptying potato straws and salted cashews into shell-shaped bowls.
“Grandpa was blond, remember? Before he was grey? The Northern Italian Gran met during the war. Remember her telling us that story when we were little? And Mark was quite fair when he was younger.”
“I know, but neither your mum nor your dad is blond. Don’t you need more than just one person’s floating blond genes to produce a blond? We did a fair bit on that stuff in my course. Sharlie, okay: you’re blond, Mark was blond, but you…?”
I shrug. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m a throwback to some family skeleton. But it never seemed to worry Mum and Dad.” I sip the whisky. “Mmm - that’s nice. Settle my stomach. The trip over was a bit rough, wasn’t it Rossy?”
“Mmm.” He’s come over behind me, eyeing the food sideways around me. “Can we go to the beach soon, Mum?”
“Well, it’s raining a bit at the moment. We saw lots of jelly-fish from the ferry, didn’t we, guys?”
“Huge ones.” Sharlie suddenly becomes animated, her eyes as big as her imagination. “As big as this.” She holds her arms wide, her little, heart-shaped face framed angelically by her fair fall of hair - then drops her arms quickly. She hides her head in my shoulder.
“Not that big.” Ross’s voice is reproving - echoing his father’s - but his concentration is on the potato straws.
“What’ll you have Ross? Juice? Or what about hot chocolate?”
I see both my children light up. “Okay,” I sigh, “this once. Thanks Peri. I’ve brought over a few things, but they’re still in the car.”
“No problem.” She microwaves milk in the oven I recognize as hers too, and, with a wink at Ross, spoons in far more chocolate than I ever would. Ross climbs onto a stool, temporarily pacified.
“So,” I say when she’s finally settled with her own drink, “the big escape, hey?”
She rolls her eyes and silver bangles on her wrist clash as she draws on her cigarette. “Well, it’s a start. Wasn’t really planned, you know. Came over for a holiday after first term of that Ag. Science course I was doing at Gatton, and just - stayed. Met some people - stayed in spare rooms for a while - and then this place came up three weeks ago. And there’s this guy.” She exhales smoke above our heads and grins, looking as me sideways.
I grin back. “Thought there might be.”
“Ven, he is just…uuhh! Nothing’s happened yet, but…”
“It won’t be long before it does?”
“That’s what I’m hoping!” Her brown eyes glitter.
I sip my drink, looking at her. Then I say, “I’m glad, Peri. Really glad. Glad you got away, more than anything. Much as I like Aunt Demi. But she’s got to let you go, eventually. You are twenty-eight, after all. And she’s got plenty of people to help her with the farm these days. Even Mum’s on your side.”
“Ah! So you’ve been discussing me.”
“Well, your mum rang - she was worried cause you hadn’t contacted her - thought you might be in trouble, etc, etc. So when you invited me over of course they all jumped on me…”
“To come and spy?” She’s suddenly frowning, looking cross.
“No!”
“Ven, I can’t contact her. Not yet. She’ll talk me into going back - give me the guilts. The trip about everything being left to me and how I have responsibilities - how hard she’s worked since Dad died, how if I finished my Ag. Science degree I’d be such a help, how she’d trusted me to finish it down here instead of externally…”
I rub the wet strands of hair on my forehead: I can feel I’m frowning too. “Yes, yes, I know, Peri. I didn’t come over to spy on you for them - really! Certainly not to talk you into going back. I came because you invited me and I wanted to see you and I needed a break too -”
“From Mark?” Her eyes are suddenly interested.
I grimace, glancing at the children. She gets the hint. “Just from home. Need a holiday. Don’t we, guys?”
Ross and Sharlie have been quietly eating, waging a silent competition for proximity to Peri’s bowls. Sharlie has wriggled gradually to the edge of my knee. Now Ross looks up, his eyes the vivid blue that first attracted me to their father. He glances at the glass wall. “Hey,” he says, “it’s stopped raining. Can we go to the beach now?”
Peri seems as relieved as I am to drop the subject of her mother. “Don’t see why not! Did you bring your buckets and spades?”
“Sure!” Sharlie doesn’t speak, but the expression in her eyes exactly mimics Ross’s. “We’ve got all sorts of shapes - circles and stars, hearts - and I brought my fishing line. Can I go fishing Mum? Please? Please?”
“What, after you’ve dug up all those poor worms this morning, you think I won’t let you use them?” I say, rubbing his head.
~
There are stairs cut into the cliff and an iron hand-rail running beside them. They lead steeply down to a sheltered cove, sandy, protected on both sides by outcrops of black rock. Ross leads the way, jiggling his buckets and fishing line and tackle. He’s changed into his swimmers but at my insistence is still wearing a sweater. Peri carries towels and a basket with hats and drinks and glasses and cigarettes. I hold Charlotte’s hand and we move slowly in the rear of the procession.
Peri and I settle on the strip of rain-pitted sand from which the high tide has withdrawn. Ross climbs off deftly among rocks jutting into the sea, with his line and jar of bait. Charlotte begins to search around for beach treasures: she bends from the hip, with her bare legs bowed straight as a ballerina’s, and with her fair fine hair and loose, long jumper I’m reminded of the changeling child I always thought she was when she was younger. The late afternoon sun slants obliquely through a gap in clearing cloud, as strange and beautiful as an illustration from childhood mythology.
For a while Peri and I lie silently on our towels, glasses of whisky and soda wedged in the sand. I still feel a bit awkward about our conversation about her mother: her guilt was so strong I could almost feel it emanating from her skin back in the house. Her bond with her mother is so, so powerful - I know that - she’s the only child, and no child could have been more dearly loved; it must have taken a lot of courage for her to take this step. A lot of courage to virtually say to her mother, maybe other people are going to be as important to me as you are.
Well, I think, maybe this man she’s met will be the answer to her problems. Maybe he’ll be the one to change her life. Because my gut feeling is that unless she does bond strongly with some-one else, her mother will eventually get her back.
It is almost warm. A pile of Charlotte’s treasure grows between Peri and me: scraps of seaweed, sour-smelling and shredded like tobacco; chunks of nobby coral, pitted with holes like old bone; dried, russet leaves curled into tiny gondolas; palm fronds flaky and fragile but still intact; green, pumpkin-shaped seeds the size of walnuts; drift-wood hollowed and sucked by the sea to the consistency of cork; a shaggy, battered coconut.
The whisky is mellow and makes the light sharp and my heart warm, and I suddenly don’t feel like thinking about Peri’s problems any more. I have come over here for my own reasons as well, to escape my own problems. I close my eyes and sniff.
The seaweed reeks of nostalgia. On this island I met Yanni. Yanni.
Unguarded, I am suffused with a memory - then immediately guilt. No, scolds my chiding mother-heart: you came here with Mark too…
Mark. Yes. On our honeymoon. To this island. When I was twenty-four and Mark thirty-two. Not to this secluded, barren, northern side, but back to the west, where the surf is not so violent and there are sleepy townships and jetties used more for fishing than anything else. I brought him: to a house called ‘Serenity’; and in it I made him serene. The beach was fifty metres from the house and all the old cabins in front of it were empty or washed away, and only my grandmother’s ancient friend was still living next door, in her shadowed memories of the old days; and we floated in the green glass sea and he chipped oysters from the boulders placed to ward off the channel and we swallowed the oysters while we floated, his hard, lycra-clad penis warmly rocking against my belly, my haltered breasts drifting on the black hair of his wet chest, the oysters tangy as lemon and creamy as taramosalata and my excitement so urgent I had to close my eyes and guide his fingers inside my bikini -
“How are you and Mark going anyway?” Peri rolls onto her back and looks up at me as if she has read my thoughts. Her eyes are as translucent as amber, and the afternoon sun honeys her calmed face.
I grimace. The image of his face, the face he turns so often to me now, flashes unbidden in my memory: eyes stony, grey as a winter sky, untouchable, lips pressed thinly together above his grey-streaked beard. “Oh. You know what he’s like. Moody. Workaholic. And he does make beautiful things. And he’s always been like that, I know – it’s just that lately he’s…oh, I don’t want to talk about it.” Compared to that earlier memory. “Later, okay.”
She smiles. “Not in front of the children. Oh, it’s good having you here! What shall we do tonight? Let’s have fish and chips and salad and some of that wine you brought. Get the children to bed and play some old music. Solve the problems of the universe? And tomorrow the beach again and maybe lunch at the pub. You never know - you might decide not to ever leave either!” She places a cigarette between her lips and lights it, grinning cheekily.
E-mail your comments to Tracey-Anne Forbes
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A novel by Tracey-Anne Forbes
