The Banksia Bay Beach Shack Page 19

  ‘Thank you. I knew you’d be happy for me. And this afternoon, when all this is over, we’ll catch up and I’ll tell you all about it.’ She air-kissed Gigi’s cheeks and spun around at her mother’s call.

  Gigi walked through the main street of town, hands in her overall pockets, kicking pebbles along in front of her. She really was pleased for Lily. Still, that little green-eyed monster was pricking at her. She didn’t want it to get the better of her, though, she wouldn’t be that type of friend. No. She would distract herself until she could shake the jealousy building inside her.

  She turned off the main street and headed up over the green hills, thick with banksias and undergrowth, to find the hidden track she liked to tread when she needed to be alone.

  Married people had friends, didn’t they? Of course they did. It was ridiculous to assume that just because Lily was going to get married, they couldn’t be friends anymore. They would continue on as normal, writing to each other through the year, and every summer Lily and Richard would holiday here and nothing would change.

  Nothing.

  On Monday morning Laura rose bright and early and waited for the Bodhi Bus at the post office on the main street. She gave a small wave to the people walking past, most of whom were now used to seeing her around town. Some of them even knew her name and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  Yvonne pulled the van up and Laura got in. She was the only one heading to Ocean Heights today, it seemed.

  ‘Good morning, Laura. How are you?’ Yvonne’s voice was rather high-pitched.

  ‘Morning. I’m a bit sore, actually.’ She rubbed her shoulders.

  ‘Well, learning to surf can be hard. You’re probably using muscles you haven’t used before.’

  That was true. Laura ached in places she didn’t even know she had. ‘Is no one else coming today?’

  ‘There were a couple of people who were supposed to come, but they . . . um . . . cancelled . . . at the last minute.’ She fidgeted with the collar of her tie-dyed T-shirt.

  ‘Oh. Well, you don’t want to make the trip just for me.’ Laura started to back out of the van, upset she’d have to wait to get back to the library.

  ‘Nonsense!’ Yvonne shouted. ‘Really.’ Her voice returned to normal. ‘I make the trip regardless of whether I have passengers. I always have errands to run myself.’

  Laura was relieved. She had so much more digging to do.

  ‘What are your plans today, then, while you’re in the big smoke?’ Yvonne looked in the rear-vision mirror as they pulled onto the road, and smiled. Not her usual easy grin, though. This one was forced.

  The big smoke. Laura held back a giggle. ‘I’m going to the library. More research for my travel piece. Then I might take a look around the town.’

  ‘Oh. Great. You know, if you’re looking for information, or funny anecdotes, or, well, anything really, speaking to the locals is probably a better way to do it.’

  Laura didn’t doubt that if she interviewed the people of Banksia Bay, the stories she’d hear would be entertaining, but she did doubt that they would share what she was looking for.

  ‘That’s true. And when I’m looking to fill in the colour of the piece, that’s exactly what I’ll do.’ It was frightening how easily lying was coming to her now. ‘This is just the boring background stuff. Population over time, the history of local industries, that sort of thing.’ Oh so easy.

  Yvonne’s forehead crinkled in the middle. ‘And how’s the story coming along?’

  ‘Slowly.’ Truth.

  ‘Any particular angle you’re taking? Articles are all about angles, aren’t they?’

  They were indeed. ‘I haven’t found the right angle, yet. But I think I’m getting closer.’ Also the truth.

  ‘Have you unearthed anything . . . surprising?’ Yvonne’s voice went high again.

  ‘Not yet.’ Lie.

  Maybe it was because Laura was the only passenger and Yvonne was simply passing the time with idle chatter, but there were a lot of questions today. All about Laura’s article. Time to turn this around.

  ‘You looked like a real pro out on the water last night, Yvonne.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ve been surfing since I was kid. It always feels like home when I’m out there.’

  ‘Not a late learner like me, then.’

  ‘Nope. Ian taught me in my teens.’

  ‘And you were hooked straight away?’

  ‘Oh, most definitely. I fell in love with it. Ian was a great instructor. He had me surfing in no time at all, and that really helped me when . . . um, well, anyway, you know what they say about the healing power of nature. I should stop talking your ear off.’ Yvonne leaned over and turned the radio up.

  Laura sat back in her seat, her mind ticking over with new questions. Yvonne was hiding something. Was there anyone in Banksia Bay without a skeleton in their closet?

  She couldn’t wait to get to the library.

  The librarian showed her to the same room as last time and Laura dug straight in to The Bugle. There was a lot of random gossip in those pages, but Laura was looking for specific names. Gigi, Virginia, Lily, Costas, Prescott, Woodhouse, Gilbert, Tinellis. She added Yvonne to her names to look out for. Hmm. She didn’t know Yvonne’s last name. She scribbled a note on her paper.

  Mrs Andrews certainly had her nose in everybody’s business. She even knew when someone called Henry hung his washing out and, in June 1963, reported that he had, for the first time in thirty years, changed his washing day from Wednesday to Friday, could anyone believe it. It must have been a slow winter that year.

  In November of 1963, the entire Bay was looking forward to the return of the newly wed Mr and Mrs Prescott to their shores – Laura scribbled in her notebook that her grandparents returned to Banksia Bay after they were married – and Mrs Andrews was extremely put out by the planned renovations to the pub. Apparently the owners, Mr and Mrs Beaumont, were taking far too many modern liberties with the work and perhaps, rather than commit the terrible sin of ripping out some of the hundred-year-old period pieces, they really should concentrate on trying to get their painfully shy daughter, Yvonne, to socialise like a normal girl.

  Yvonne? Laura did the maths. She would be about the right age. But she wasn’t shy. Far from it. Yvonne Beaumont. Laura wrote down the name and put a question mark next to it.

  She looked at the next Bugle. March 1964. Hmm. Where were the summer editions? Laura flicked back through the past Bugles. Not a single month was missing, as far as she could tell. She read the March issue. Nothing terribly interesting. Until she got to one line, the print so small she almost missed it, running along the bottom of the second page, hidden underneath an ad. I retract my statements from the previous editions of The Bugle. We all know what happened, and I shall not speak of the incident again.

  Laura pushed her chair back and put her hands on her head. That was the summer before her father was born. What happened? She knew she was on to something now.

  She trawled through the next few months and there was only the usual gossip about this person’s dog defecating in front of the post office again and surely there was a need for Sergeant Broadbent to intervene; about the dance held at Ocean Heights and which local girl looked loveliest; about someone putting up posters around town protesting Vietnam without permission and what was their town coming to.

  No mention of whatever had happened that summer.

  Laura stood up and stretched her arms, rolled her neck. To be this close! Not that there was any guarantee that whatever happened that summer had anything to do with Lily or Gigi, but in all her years of journalism, rule number six, there is no such thing as a coincidence, had been the one that proved true time and again.

  Her eyes were getting tired, and she knew she had to take a break. There was a café just near the library. She asked the librarian if she could leave her things where they were; she’d be right back. Apparently that was no problem.

  The main street of Ocean Heig
hts was significantly more populated than Banksia Bay’s. And there were shops. Actual shops – clothes stores, more than one grocer, three proper restaurants as well as the pub, two gift shops, a book store and four cafés, which seemed a little excessive for the size of the place, but she wasn’t about to complain as she ordered her skinny cap.

  Laura entered the bookstore with her takeaway coffee, which was too hot to drink just yet. Browsing the shelves, she was impressed by the extent of their titles. All the latest fiction, the healthy food-fad diet books you’d expect to see, and children’s books too.

  As she looked through the nonfiction section she saw a book called The Art of the Artisan: The Rise of Artisan Popularity. She pulled it off the shelf. Inside were the most beautiful photos of crafts and food and art and produce, and studios and converted barns that sold these artisanal wares. She purchased the book and headed back to her research.

  ‘Oh, hi.’ She nearly bumped into Yvonne as the old surfer left the library.

  ‘Laura? Hello. Hi. I was just returning some books. Back to it.’ She waved and hurried down the street.

  Laura returned to her table and looked at her notes. Had they been moved? She looked around the library. There were a couple of teenagers, a mother with a toddler, an elderly couple sitting on the sofas reading. No. She must have been imagining things.

  The next December, The Bugle was thrilled to welcome back the Bay’s favourite son, Todd Broadbent, now a junior officer in the police force, following in his proud father’s footsteps. The beach was overrun with tourists again, worse than any other year, surprisingly, some people might say, given, well, you all know what – What had happened? Laura took in a deep breath – and the surfers were flocking to Ian’s surf school, though it baffled Mrs Andrews as to why.

  The following January’s edition was missing. So was February’s. March 1965 continued on in its usual gossipy fashion.

  Missing pages of a newspaper or gossip column, especially one that was so regular, usually added up to something significant. There was no further mention of the Woodhouses or the Prescotts. Laura flicked back through the past Bugles. Yes, the Woodhouses had been mentioned every summer since 1956 and the Prescotts since 1961. She rummaged through the next few summers as well. No further mention.

  Question mark, question mark, question mark.

  Laura filled her notebook pages with question marks.

  She was close. She knew it. She just wasn’t sure what she was close to.

  The alarm on her phone trilled. If she was going to catch a ride back to the Bay on the Bodhi Bus, she’d better pack up.

  She met Yvonne outside the bank.

  ‘All aboard.’ The old lady chuckled to herself, and Laura climbed into the back of the van. ‘Did you have a good day, love?’

  ‘I did. You?’

  ‘Just a lot of running around. Not very fruitful, actually. Did you find what you were looking for?’

  Laura noticed the way that last sentence went up in pitch. Yes, Yvonne Beaumont, who is clearly no longer shy, you know something, don’t you?

  ‘I was reading today about how surfing was a big thing here in the sixties. They must have been fascinating days. My grandmother used to tell me stories of that era all the time.’ Complete and utter lie. Lillian never spoke about that time in her life. Ever. Laura always thought it was just too hard for her to talk about life with Richard after she lost him in the war. That’s what people did when they lost someone they loved – they split their lives into two distinct parts. Life before, and life after.

  ‘What was it like here, Yvonne, in the sixties? I bet summers were a riot.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Oh look, there’s Trish.’ Yvonne opened her window and called out. ‘Hurry up there, Trish, we’re waiting on you.’

  Laura recognised a lie when she heard one. There were still ten minutes before the Bodhi Bus was due to depart.

  Trish climbed aboard and started telling Yvonne all about the lovely lunch she’d had with her cousin. Then Charlotte’s friend Ryan got on, obviously just finished work, briefcase in hand.

  Laura’s plan to subtly drop innocent-seeming questions on Yvonne all the way back to the Bay, just the two of them in the van like this morning, was now thwarted. Where had all these people come from, anyway? None of them were on the outbound journey this morning. Was Yvonne up to something?

  This story was obviously getting to her more than she’d realised. When you started seeing things that weren’t there, started questioning what didn’t need questioning, you’d lost perspective. Or become completely paranoid. Neither of which was ideal.

  It was time to regroup. Rule number seven – know when to take a step back and return with fresh eyes. She put her headphones in and selected some music on her phone.

  They stayed stationary for another fifteen minutes, and Laura wondered why they weren’t leaving. Then she saw him striding towards the van. Heath, in his hospital uniform.

  ‘Thanks for waiting, Yvonne.’ He leaned in to the driver’s seat as he climbed aboard and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I had some urgent bloods to get off.’

  ‘No worries, love. We wouldn’t leave you stranded, now, would we?’ She patted his hand, which was resting on her shoulder.

  Heath smiled at Laura as he took the seat next to her. ‘Good day at the office?’ He looked at the files in her hand.

  ‘It was, actually. You?’

  ‘A hard one today. We have a patient at the hospital. A kid. She’s, well, she’s not doing too well. It’s always harder when it’s a kid.’ He rubbed his forehead.

  Laura reached out her hand and squeezed his leg, pulling it straight back when she realised what she was doing. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He folded his arms across his chest. ‘Unfortunately, life and death are indiscriminate. One thing I’ve learned is that there’s no rhyme or reason as to who or how or when or why.’ A look of sorrow crossed his face and hung there like a shadow.

  ‘I guess working at the hospital brings all that into perspective,’ Laura said softly.

  ‘Mmm.’ Heath stared ahead and then he looked back to her, the shadow lifting. ‘Tell me, Laura, what was the best part of your day?’

  ‘Actually –’ she reached down into the bag beside her – ‘finding this.’ She handed him the book she’d found in the bookshop. She’d had it gift-wrapped with yellow bumble bee wrapping paper and black ribbon. ‘I thought of you and just had to get it.’

  He carefully took the wrapping paper off and as he looked at the gift inside, his mouth dropped open. He ran his hands over the glossy picture adorning the hard cover.

  ‘This is beautiful.’ He looked at Laura, the blue of his eyes so pale, so captivating. ‘Thank you.’

  Laura couldn’t answer, held silent by his intense gaze.

  He looked back at the book and opened the pages, studying each picture and paragraph of text. ‘This is so brilliant, Laura.’ He reached across and held her hand.

  She stayed silent and still. Afraid to say anything in case the catch in her throat betrayed her feelings; afraid to move in case he withdrew his touch. His gentle touch.

  ‘Are you doing anything tomorrow afternoon?’ Heath’s voice was low.

  ‘No.’ The word barely came forth.

  ‘Would you like to come for a surf? It has a different feel to the mornings.’

  ‘Isn’t that when the sharks are out? I read that somewhere, I think.’

  Heath chuckled. ‘I’ve been surfing this stretch of coast since I was a boy, and I’ve never had an encounter. And we’ll be early enough to avoid feeding time.’

  ‘I’d like that. A lot.’ Most definitely not a lie, except for the casual mention of feeding time.

  Heath took his hand back, hesitating as he did so. Laura looked straight ahead and caught Yvonne watching her – them – in the rear-view mirror. And she was most definitely not smiling.

  Back in the Bay, Laura decided to take a punt that Ian would be h
ome. Asking to see his photos would constitute looking at things with fresh eyes, wouldn’t it? As she wound her way through town she came across him standing in his garage, the roller door open.

  ‘Hey there, Laura.’

  She waved. Behind him the walls were covered with photographs and she craned her neck slightly to get a better view.

  ‘Do you want to take a peek?’ he asked.

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Not at all. Though you’ve already seen some of my work in the holiday house. Yvonne, God bless, likes to show off my pictures.’

  All those pictures on the sideboard. But she was only half listening because the collection of Ian Holland photos was spellbinding. There were black-and-white and colour shots, big and small, close-up portraits and sweeping landscapes. There were pictures of the ocean, of surfers, of the town, of sunsets.

  Laura worked her way along the walls. Some of them really should have been in a museum. Actually, many of them should have been in a museum – a beautiful pictorial record of Banksia Bay’s history.

  ‘These ones here –’ Ian pointed towards to a series of shots taken at a bonfire – ‘are some of my favourites.’

  They were just like the one in the holiday house. Laura slipped her hands into her jeans pockets to stop them from shaking. Everywhere she looked, she saw Lillian. So many pictures of her and Gigi together.

  ‘What do you think?’ Ian asked

  Unable to talk, she focused on one picture in particular. It was a close-up shot of Lillian, eyes averted down, next to Richard. Yes. It was him. She hadn’t seen too many pictures of her grandfather, but she had no doubt.

  She drew in a sharp breath.

  ‘Are you okay, love?’ Ian asked. ‘Someone you know?’ He stepped up next to her.

  Laura pulled her gaze away and looked at him. ‘Oh, what? Sorry?’ She fumbled her words. She had to get out of there.

  Laura thanked Ian for his time and ran out into the street.

  When she got back to the holiday house, she splashed her face with water. That was close. What had she seen in his eyes? Was he keeping secrets too? Okay. This was getting worse, suspecting everyone, being paranoid about every little look or comment.