The Stranding (17 page)

‘
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
,’ Lex murmured.

‘What’s that?’

‘A book I read years ago, about massacres of American Indians.’

‘There must be massacres in every white family history somewhere.’

Lex stared at her. It seemed a strange thing to say. ‘We never hear about them.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Boring or buried, as I said. Mostly buried, I’d say. Nobody wants that sort of thing linked to their past. That’s why white men write history. So they can write things out of it.’

Lex was silent, feeling uncomfortable.

‘Was your family involved in killings?’ he asked eventually.

‘God, no! Not of people.’

‘Of animals then? That’s not so bad. Everybody has to eat.’

‘I guess so,’ she said quietly.

He turned to look at her, and noticed her face had become pinched and pale.

‘You don’t look well,’ he said. ‘Should we head back?’

‘In a minute,’ she said. ‘I want to look at the view a bit longer.’

They sat in silence together, letting their thoughts drift away. The clouds were thickening over the mountains and a cooler wind had sprung up. Lex felt somehow cleansed. But now he was physically aware of Callista, and he felt the air between them condensing as the sky greyed over.

She leaned back and looked at him, and Lex’s heart battered in his chest. They were both thinking of being naked on her bed together. He swept his eyes away, nervous and unsure after last time. The silence hung for a moment then she swung over onto her knees, clasped his chin with a firm hand and kissed him. Her mouth tasted salty and enticing.

They made love on the rock slab, with the clouds riding above them and the wind whipping in the trees.

‘How did this happen again?’ he said afterwards, reaching a hand up to shift her hair back from her cheek.

Callista’s laugh rang across the cooling mountain air as the wind-change gushed in.

‘We didn’t even take off our boots.’

At the Point, Callista sat uncertainly in the Kombi, not wanting Lex to shift his hand from where it sat on her thigh. If he disconnected it might be all over. And she didn’t want to imagine driving home alone.

‘Is it okay if I come in?’ she asked. It was hard to sound casual. She found it difficult to read him.

His hand tightened on her leg. ‘I was hoping you might stay the night.’

‘That’d be great.’

Despite her show of confidence this afternoon, she really wasn’t sure how to handle him. She’d have to take each opening he offered her. Find a way to inch under his skin. As she stepped up onto the deck, she noticed neat rows of shells and other sea-litter lined up along the wooden planks.

‘Some shell collection,’ she said.

‘It’s just bits and pieces.’

She knew he was fobbing her off. ‘Do they mean anything to you, all lined up like that?’

Lex looked at the shells for a moment, like they were foreign objects. ‘The passing of time,’ he said. ‘Days passing. Hours. Minutes sometimes.’

‘You want time to pass?’ Most people wanted to slow life down.

He was still staring at the shells. ‘It helps me.’

His eyes shuttered and he opened the door.

‘It’s a great house, isn’t it?’ Callista said, stepping inside.

‘You’re not going to give me a hard time about it too, are you?’ Lex dumped his boots near the door.

‘About what?’

‘About this house. And how it should have gone to the Wallaces, and all that.’

Callista watched his face carefully. ‘Have people been hassling you about it?’

‘Not exactly. But they never fail to mention it and make me feel like some sort of traitor for buying it. Do you know the Wallaces?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, tell them I didn’t mean to buy their house, and I’m sorry. I just want to live here in peace for a while. That shouldn’t be a sin.’

‘It is a nice house,’ Callista said. ‘No wonder the Wallaces were upset about losing it.’

‘It is, except for its history.’

He came up to her and pressed her against the wall. He kissed her, his hands travelling over her body.

‘Old man Wallace was a whaler,’ he said. ‘But you probably know all that, so let’s not talk about it now.’

She held him off gently. ‘You have something against whaling?’ she asked.

Lex paused and stroked her cheek with a finger. ‘Don’t you?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘But the humpbacks are recovering . . .’

He picked up both her hands and held them against his cheeks.

‘It’d be nice if we humans could leave something alone,’ he said.

‘You’re an idealist,’ she said.

He kissed the words out of her mouth.

‘Aren’t you an idealist?’ he asked, trying to unbutton her top. ‘Being an artist?’

‘I’m a country girl,’ she said. ‘I’m practical.’

‘Let’s be practical now,’ he said. ‘We can argue later.’

Callista dodged him. ‘I brought champagne. It’s in an esky in the back of the Kombi.’

He laughed. ‘It won’t have survived the trip.’

‘I’ll get it and see.’

She fished the bottle out of the Kombi. She had spent the money on the champagne so they might as well drink it.

‘Bring it here,’ Lex said, from the deck.

‘No. I’ll wait for you near the cliffs.’

‘While I get the glasses.’

She smiled. ‘You’re already reading my mind.’

‘God forbid. It’s a bit early for that.’

He went inside.

Callista crossed the road and found a soft spot in the grass where the bank rolled down to the sandstone rocks and dropped off steeply into the water. She sat and watched the sea, the clouds building out over the horizon. She heard Lex come up behind her. Then his hand touched her hair and he sat down close beside her.

‘Here, let me open that.’

She handed him the bottle and watched him ease the cork out.

‘You’ve done that before,’ she observed.

‘Maybe once or twice.’

‘Have you had a lot to celebrate in your life?’

‘No,’ he said, eyes flattening. ‘I just like champagne.’

‘Let’s have some then.’ She watched the bubbles whizzing upwards in her glass and tried brightly to hook back the part of him she had just lost. ‘What do you think you’ll do when you grow up?’

Lex sipped his champagne and twirled the stem of his glass between his fingers. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, flippant. ‘Buy a yacht and sail around Australia.’

Callista felt the stirrings of frustration. He was holding her at arm’s length, letting her know he didn’t want her to get too close. But she let it go.

‘I hear you’re no good at sailing,’ she said.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Who told you that? Mrs B?’

‘Country grapevine.’

He grunted. ‘What about you?’ he said. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘Create great paintings and exhibit in big-time galleries where people will pay a fortune for my work.’

He smiled.

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘Dreams. But you have to have them. Otherwise what is there in life?’

‘There’s sex,’ Lex said.

He kissed her, and Callista kissed him back.

It was okay, she thought, playing along with this lust game. She wanted him too. For now she was happy to tangle in the romance of it all. That was part of the falling. But he’d have to give more than that eventually, because she was in this for more than the physical side of things. She wanted to know the man inside.

In the morning, Callista pulled an easel from the back of the Kombi and set it up across the road on the grass. She started to sketch the lines of the coast on a canvas, varying the curves of the beaches and the humps of the headlands to make them more interesting, raising the rock walls more dramatically. You could do that with art—change the rules, shift the skylines, embellish the colours. Pity it wasn’t so easy to change the rules of life.

She applied a wash to outline the tones and then started squeezing out paints.

Lex came across the road with a newspaper and can of lemonade and sat on the grass beside her.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

‘Trying to put some life into that headland over there.’

He looked up, shading his eyes. ‘The colours are interesting.’

‘Different from what you’d expect. But they’ll work. You have to stand back to get the effect. And it’s too soon anyway. I’m just getting started.’

He put his hand around her ankle and stroked her calf for a while.

‘I’m concentrating,’ she said. ‘Find something else to do.’

‘I like watching you.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘But you’re distracting me.’

‘What paints are you using?’

‘Cheap acrylics. Same as I use for my beach art. I’m just mucking around.’

‘When do you paint real things?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Things you want to exhibit and sell for a decent price.’

‘When the mood takes me.’

‘And what do you use then?’

‘Mostly oils. Sometimes better quality acrylics. Depends on how quickly I want it to dry.’ She gazed out at the frothing manes of the incoming waves. It had been a while since she last pulled out her good paints.

‘So you’re a versatile woman,’ he teased.

‘I’m a normal woman.’

‘There’s no such thing.’ He pulled out some grass and threw it at her.

‘What’s in the newspaper?’ she asked, trying to concentrate on working the headland. She needed to focus on creating an impression of the columnar rocks and the clutter of boulders at the base of the cliffs.

‘The Japanese again,’ he said, spreading the paper out on the grass. ‘They’re sailing south to start their annual whale research mission.’

‘Research mission? I thought they were harvesting for restaurants.’

‘Yes, but they call it research.’

Callista looked down at the thin fair hair on his crown while he frowned into the paper.

‘There’s a Greenpeace ship heading down too,’ he said. ‘To disrupt things.’

She watched him lift his head to look out towards the horizon.

‘That’s something I wouldn’t have minded doing when I was younger,’ he said. ‘It’s good to feel strongly about something. To have passion.’

‘Don’t you think it’s all a bit irrational?’ Callista asked. She wasn’t sure she understood his way of seeing things. ‘It must cost Green peace a fortune to chase them down there.’

‘That’s what donations are for,’ Lex said. ‘That’s why they have members. So people can believe in things from home, knowing someone else will risk their lives to take action on their behalf.’

‘But what does it all mean in the end? The Japanese still get their quota of whales.’

‘Having Greenpeace down there keeps the issue on the front pages of the paper. That’s what it’s all about.’

‘Not about stopping the catch.’

Lex smiled up at her. ‘It’s nice if they can do that too.’

Callista dipped her brush in some paint and mixed a grey-brown.

‘Why does it have to be an issue?’ she asked, to be provocative. ‘Why can’t they have a limited catch?’

‘The Japanese don’t need to eat whales.’

‘Isn’t it supposed to be cultural?’

‘Only since the Second World War. I’d hardly call that entrenched culture.’

‘They probably think it’s inhumane to eat kangaroos.’

Lex snorted. ‘Whales aren’t doing quite as well as kangaroos.’

‘Humpbacks are recovering.’

‘That’s what the Japanese say here.’ He flicked the newspaper with the back of his hand. ‘They say humpbacks can sustain a controlled harvest. But who’s ever been able to control the Japanese?’

‘Better to work with them on this, than have them go off and do what they want anyhow.’

‘They shouldn’t eat whales at all.’

‘That’s a value judgment if I ever heard one.’

Lex looked at her as if he didn’t quite believe what she was saying. ‘Whose side are you on?’ he asked.

‘Nobody’s,’ she said.

‘You ought to have an opinion one way or the other.’

Callista set down her palette. ‘I don’t like whaling either,’ she said. ‘But where’s the argument in it if the populations are recovering? We harvest everything else.’

‘They’ll kill too many.’

‘That’s why you have to work with them. So you can police them.’

‘We can’t even police them now, when they’re only supposed to be whaling for research. Research, my arse.’

He stood up with the paper and then tossed it to the ground. The pages fluttered in the breeze. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said.

Callista watched him stride down the grassy bank and along the sands towards the lagoon. She’d paint him in later. A black daub on the sand. It’d give the painting scale, and create a sense of solitude and loneliness—a single figure far down the beach. She wished she felt confident enough to paint herself in too, by his side.

Fourteen

Callista drove up to Jordi’s shack. It was a clear cool summer evening and Jordi was outside as usual, sitting by the campfire bent over his guitar. The gas lamp he’d rigged up was hissing quietly and the fire was a muted glow. As she dragged up a stump, Callista saw him lift the lid of the billy to check there was enough water for two. He set his guitar aside.

‘Hey, Jordi.’

‘Yeah, how’s it going?’

He shook some tea-leaves out of a jar, tossed them into the billy and hooked it off the fire.

‘I love the way you do that.’ Callista wasn’t sure how to say that it felt familiar and comfortable, that it was part of the ritual of seeing him.

‘There’s nothing to it.’ He examined a couple of old tin cups and screwed up his nose. ‘Bit dirty,’ he said.

She watched him dash some water into the cups from a plastic jerry can, then swirl his fingers around inside to loosen the dregs. He chucked the water onto the dirt at his feet.

‘What you been up to?’ he asked, filling the cups with tea.

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Bit of painting. The markets. This and that.’

‘It’s that fella, isn’t it?’

Callista grimaced. ‘The news isn’t out yet, is it?’

‘Nah. But it can’t be far away. I just know you.’ He spat into the fire. ‘You’re gone. I can see it.’

‘Is that such a bad thing? You encouraged me to go up there. And I think he’ll be good for me.’