The Banksia Bay Beach Shack Read online

  ‘I don’t want to be that guy, Gilbert. I want to be a good man. Protect my friends. But you backed me into a corner.’

  ‘If you want to be a good man, Todd, be one.’

  She saw tears in his eyes.

  ‘Everything is so simple with you, isn’t it? But life isn’t simple.’ He closed his eyes and Gigi ducked under his arm and ran away.

  A day later, Yvonne came running into the caravan park after supper. Gigi was outside the cabin, airing some blankets in the evening breeze, when her friend skidded in front of her and put her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

  ‘Slow down, Yvonne. What is it?’

  ‘Costas. He’s out. He’s up at the cheese factory . . .’

  Before Yvonne could finish her message, Gigi was already running out of the caravan park.

  ‘Gigi. Wait!’ Yvonne called out and caught up to her.

  Gigi turned around.

  ‘You have to be . . . something happened. In gaol. It isn’t pretty.’

  Gigi ran. As fast as she could.

  With moonlight shining through the holes in the stone walls of the cheese factory, Gigi picked her way over the debris strewn across the floor.

  ‘Costas?’ she whispered.

  Out from a shadow he stepped and held up his hand. ‘Don’t come closer.’

  ‘Like hell.’ Gigi hurried to him.

  His face was swollen and blue, his arm in a makeshift sling.

  ‘What did he do to you?’ She held back tears.

  Costas didn’t meet her gaze. ‘It wasn’t Todd. Though I imagine he was behind it. There were two other men locked up with me. Apparently they don’t like dirty foreigners either.’

  ‘Oh, Costas.’ She reached her hand out to his face, but was too afraid to touch him. ‘Didn’t anyone intervene?’

  Costas simply looked at her.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He pulled her into a tight hug as she sobbed into his chest and they stayed like that, stopped in time, until Gigi’s tears subsided.

  When they parted, Costas held her hand, his thumb caressing her palm.

  ‘What do we do now?’ she asked, afraid of the answer.

  ‘Where there’s breath, there’s hope, right?’ He brushed her hair behind her ears.

  ‘But we have to be smart about this,’ she said.

  Yes. They would have to be very careful. Together they laid out a plan. Gigi would finish school. They wouldn’t see each other unless they could do it safely. Costas would accept his parents’ decision and marry the girl they’d chosen for him, but he’d delay the wedding until the end of summer. Until he could save up enough money, like a good husband should. Then he and Gigi would run away, taking the money he’d saved, and start a new life somewhere else.

  There was no other way.

  ‘Virginia.’ He cupped her chin in his hand. ‘Are you sure?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I love you.’ He pressed a carved seed pod heart into her hands and took off into the night.

  ‘I love you too,’ she whispered into the dark.

  The next day after Gigi finished her chores, she strolled through the hills surrounding Banksia Bay. She was at peace with her decision to run away with Costas at the end of summer, even though it would destroy her parents. But it was the only way.

  As she walked to her favourite spot on the headland, she noticed a rock tucked beneath the long grass. She knew every inch of these hills and that rock was never there before.

  She knelt down and brushed the swaying blades of grass aside. In tiny letters carved into the rock were the initials V.G. and C.T. and a roughly hewn heart shape in the middle.

  Gigi gasped and looked around. Was he here?

  No. Her heart sank.

  She touched the rock, drew in a deep breath and covered it back up with grass.

  Staring at the beach below, the only place she’d ever called home, she held back tears. She had to leave and never return. Melancholy seeped into her soul.

  A small group of surfers gathered on the sand below and stood in a line, their boards behind them. Ian’s unmistakable figure stood in front of them, his arm waving about, giving instructions Gigi wasn’t sure were being followed.

  The group remained still for a few seconds as Ian pulled out his camera, before they broke off and headed into the sea. Ian stayed on shore a little longer, facing the waves.

  Maybe Gigi could take a few of his photos with her when she left. Small reminders of home.

  She would miss this place.

  The last few months of the school year dragged by in a haze of lessons and self-imposed seclusion. Gigi worked harder than she ever had, and when her parents asked why there had been such a turnaround in her attitude to school, she brushed it aside, saying she wanted to make sure she had options at the end. After all, wasn’t it a very modern thing for women to have options nowadays?

  Dad accepted the explanation. Mum raised an eyebrow. Ian shook his head as he laughed. ‘Good one, squirt.’

  She didn’t dare say a word about her true motive. Once she and Costas ran away, they’d both need to get jobs. And if she was to have any hope of getting something that paid more than cleaning, she needed to get a half-decent leaving certificate.

  Twice she’d met Costas in the forlorn months that ensued, which wasn’t nearly enough, but Todd was watching her closely. All the time.

  Yvonne, God bless her, had delivered a note one day from Costas to meet him at the cheese factory and had played decoy that afternoon, pretending to injure herself as they were all leaving school, falling down in front of Todd and hanging on to his leg, crying. She’d winked at Gigi between tears and Gigi had slipped past the commotion, running into the hills.

  The second time they’d met was in the dead of night, quite unplanned. So many evenings Gigi had stared up at her shelf of precious memories, willing sleep to come. So often slumber had evaded her. One night she’d given up altogether and wandered the beach barefoot under the stars. And Costas had come.

  They’d held each other without words, waves lapping their ankles, until the chill blowing off the water forced them to move further up the sand. They’d sat on the highest dune looking out to sea, their words barely above a whisper.

  ‘Are you okay? Really?’ Costas had asked. ‘I hate not seeing you every day.’

  It killed Gigi that he was forced to maintain the charade of his impending wedding. ‘Will she be crushed?’ His future non-bride an innocent victim in all this.

  He closed his eyes. Gigi knew the guilt was eating at him.

  That night he’d left Gigi with a carved rose. She’d placed it in the box she kept hidden in the drawer under her clothes.

  Gigi desperately wanted to write to Lily about her plans to elope. But she knew Lily wouldn’t understand. She’d never warmed to Costas to begin with, and now that she was the pregnant wife of the well-to-do Dr Prescott, she would not approve of Gigi’s lack of propriety.

  The days ticked by.

  Summer approached.

  School finally ended.

  And that brought welcome distraction – tourists and loads of chores around the caravan park.

  Lily was due to arrive just before New Year’s.

  Gigi didn’t know how she was going to maintain a façade of contentment, hiding her true feelings from her best friend. But she knew she had to.

  At least now it was only weeks till it was all over.

  After finishing her chores Gigi took a walk along the beach. Ian, back from his last fishing trip with Dad, was teaching a group of tourists how to surf. Every year more and more beachgoers flocked to their tiny town. Every year Ian took on more surfing students between trips out to sea, his camera always at hand to document his students’ disasters and triumphs.

  Finding a quiet spot to sit and think was quite impossible during summer now. Though maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Alone with one’s thoughts, one’s mind could wander to all sorts of places it shouldn’t.
/>   With her fishing rod in one hand and a bucket of bait in another, Gigi headed to the northern rock pools. The place she and Lily had first become friends. She knew she wouldn’t catch anything. It was the wrong time of day and, with so many people about, most of the sea creatures would be taking cover. But standing on the edge of the rocks, casting her line into the ocean, over and over again, was calm and relaxing. She could switch off from everything else around her and just fish.

  A familiar figure walked up the beach towards her and she nearly dropped her rod.

  He waved, and she waved back, packing up her gear.

  ‘Hi, Gigi. So good to see you.’ Richard clasped her hand and squeezed it firmly.

  ‘I didn’t think you were arriving till tonight. Where’s Lily?’ Gigi looked around.

  ‘It’s okay. She’s here. Travelling in her delicate condition takes a bit out of her is all. She sent me on a mission to find you and invite you over for dinner tonight.’

  Gigi clapped her hands. ‘Of course, I’d love to come. Thank you.’

  Richard leaned in. ‘She’ll be thrilled.’ He kissed her on the cheek, lingering a fraction too long. ‘You’ve grown up this year, Gigi. Real nice.’ He bowed his head and strode off down the beach.

  She’d been hearing that all summer from the regulars who came to the caravan park each year. She’d grown up ‘nice’. She was no longer a child. She’d come into her looks – whatever that meant. Even Ian had made a comment over dinner last week. And she’d thrown her fork at him for it.

  Why, then, when Richard made note, did it feel different? Wrong?

  As far as she was concerned, she was still the same old tomboy Gigi that no one took much notice of. And that was just as well, if she and Costas were to pull off their disappearing act. No one would notice she was gone. No one would notice wherever they ended up.

  She raced home and got ready, far too early, for her dinner with Lily and Richard. She even brushed her hair and put on a floral blouse to wear under her overalls. Then she watched the clock, waiting till she could leave.

  When five-thirty ticked by, Gigi took off from the caravan park and headed to the holiday house. This year it would be just Lily and Richard, their families heading elsewhere for the summer.

  She walked up the path. This would be the first meal she’d had in the house, in her house, since they’d moved to the caravan park, so many years ago now. Her stomach tightened as she raised her hand to knock on the door.

  Lily swung the door open, her belly pushing the fabric of her full blouse out, just below the tucks that ringed the jewelled neckline of her maternity top.

  ‘Gigi.’ She embraced her tightly. ‘It is ever so good to see you.’

  Once they hugged, Gigi didn’t want to let go. She wanted to cry onto Lily’s shoulder. She wanted to tell her everything that had happened these past few months. She wanted to spend the whole night talking to her best friend.

  ‘Okay, give the baby some room.’ Lily disentangled herself from Gigi’s embrace.

  ‘Sorry. How is it? Being pregnant?’ She reached out and touched Lily’s stomach.

  ‘Tiring. But it will be worth it once he arrives.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Well, we’re only guessing, of course. But he feels like a he. And Richard would so love to have an heir to carry on the Prescott name.’

  There was a sadness in Lily’s eyes that betrayed her happy countenance. Perhaps Gigi wasn’t the only one who could do with a good chinwag with an old friend. Gigi would make excuses after dinner, get rid of Richard somehow, and the two of them could catch up properly.

  ‘Where are my manners? Come in.’ Lily stepped back and invited Gigi in with a sweep of her arm. ‘The gentlemen are waiting for us in the dining room.’

  Gentlemen? Plural? As far as Gigi knew, neither Dr Prescott nor Senator Woodhouse had come for the summer.

  She stepped into the dining room behind Lily and stopped dead. There, drinking a glass of whisky with Richard, was Todd.

  ‘Good evening, Virginia.’ Todd stood up.

  ‘Three seemed like such an awkward number for dinner.’ Lily waltzed in and stood next to her husband, who remained seated. ‘So I invited Todd as well. It isn’t long now till he starts his training as a police officer. I thought he might like a lovely social night out with friends.’

  Gigi nearly choked when Lily said ‘friends’. Todd was the exact opposite of her friend.

  He sat back down next to Richard and the two of them ignored Lily and Gigi until dinner was served. By a maid.

  Lily hadn’t said anything in any of her letters about having a maid.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Duncan,’ Lily said, as the roast lamb with all the trimmings was laid on the table.

  The conversation wasn’t the light banter Gigi had been hoping for. Lily sat rather quietly while Richard and Todd talked about Sydney and Perth and the differences in the cities – as if Todd would even know. He’d never been further than Sydney, as far as Gigi knew.

  Every time Gigi tried to turn the talk to something more interesting, like the upcoming surfing contest Ian was entering, the drop in the price of fish, the grand reopening of the pub after the Beaumonts’ massive renovation, which they would all have to go to, the entire town was going to be there tomorrow night – Richard politely steered the conversation away from whatever she brought up. Even when she raised the topic of the escalating tension in Vietnam, she was met with a condescending smile and told that perhaps she should leave talk of such things to the men, who knew something about the situation. Todd averted his eyes. Gigi knew he wouldn’t say anything that would contradict Richard. Lily remained quiet, the perfect picture of a supportive wife.

  Gigi’s heart ached as the night wore on – so very different to what she’d been hoping for.

  Mrs Duncan served them silently, and each time Gigi thanked her, she simply nodded. Not once did Lily or Richard or Todd acknowledge her presence until Lily dismissed her after dessert was served. The men then retired to the living room for another glass of single malt, and Gigi helped Lily clear away the dishes.

  She didn’t even know where to begin. ‘A maid, Lily? You never said you had a maid.’

  At least she had the decency to look sheepish. ‘I wasn’t sure how you’d react.’

  ‘A bit like this.’ She pulled a face and Lily laughed, genuinely, for the first time that evening.

  ‘Oh, I’ve missed you, old friend.’ She put her arm around Gigi. ‘So much. Mrs Duncan has actually been with us since I was ten. She came here that first holiday we had in Banksia Bay, actually.’

  Gigi had never laid eyes on her before. The invisible help, she guessed.

  ‘Mother would have had her here every summer, but Daddy said she needed a holiday too. Now with this one on the way –’ she rubbed her tummy – ‘she’s going to be helping me. I think I’ll probably need her, too.’ She sighed.

  But very quickly she straightened herself up and went back to making sure the kitchen was immaculate.

  When they were done, they tiptoed out to the verandah, so as not to disturb the men, and they sat on the white wire chairs and looked up to the stars.

  Lily asked about Gigi’s plans now that she was finished school, and Gigi spoke around the question with nonsense about a part-time job to save up and hopefully go to university in another year.

  ‘An admirable plan,’ Lily said. ‘You know what else is admirable? Marriage. A family. Todd’s looking rather handsome tonight, isn’t he?’

  Gigi was glad the light from the bulb on the wall above them was not so bright that Lily could see her roll her eyes. If only Lily knew the truth about that wretch. Time to change the subject. She blurted out the first thing that came into her head.

  ‘Are you happy, Lily?’

  The pause said it all.

  ‘Of course. And once baby Prescott arrives, everything will be perfect.’

  Gigi didn’t push any further. Even if Richard wasn’t on the other side
of the wall, she doubted Lily would have confessed to being unhappy. Not yet. They needed to reconnect first.

  ‘Why don’t you come fishing with me tomorrow morning? Just like old times.’

  ‘Just like old times.’ Lily sighed. ‘I would love to, Gigi. Really. I just don’t think I could climb those rocks in my current state.’ She rubbed her stomach.

  ‘We could fish off the jetty.’

  The men came outside.

  ‘I know.’ Lily pushed her heavy frame out of the chair. ‘Why don’t you go with Richard? You’d love that, wouldn’t you, darling? An early morning fish. He looks after me so well, he deserves to have a morning where he doesn’t have to wait on me.’

  Gigi suspected Mrs Duncan did all the waiting on Lily, while Richard was oblivious to her, if tonight was any indication.

  ‘That would be fun. What time do I need to be ready?’

  With the morning engagement settled, Gigi took her leave.

  ‘I’ll walk you home, Virginia,’ Todd offered.

  ‘That’s not necessary. Thank you.’

  Lily pushed both her and Todd towards the path. ‘Nonsense. Just let him be chivalrous, Gigi.’

  As soon as they were out of sight of the holiday house, Gigi turned to Todd. ‘I think I can manage from here.’

  ‘You do look lovely tonight, Gilbert. I’m sorry things have been strained between us.’

  ‘Strained?’ She nearly shouted the word.

  ‘You don’t understand. There are expectations, pressures.’ He rocked back and forth.

  ‘I think I understand more than you realise.’ She almost felt sorry for him standing in front of her, his face full of conflict. The rumours about his father hadn’t let up. Neither had the gossip about Todd’s drinking. It couldn’t be easy trying to be who others expected you to be when you didn’t even know yourself. Especially when you were weak. A boy trapped in a man’s life.

  But he’d been cruel and she couldn’t forgive him for that.

  He’d be gone soon, though, and maybe police training would help him finally grow up.

  ‘I’m glad you’re not hanging around with that wog anymore,’ he said. ‘Maybe we can be friends.’