Death of a Whaler (10 page)

‘Y'know.'

‘Yeah.'

‘What's brought you to town?'

‘Aw, the usual.'

‘Yeah.'

Macca sniffs, hawks and spits. ‘So, you seen any of those commies around here? Bloody joke, I reckon.'

‘Commies?'

‘Y'know. Based up round Nimbin. Bunch of bloody pinko lefty bastards. Wouldn't know a real day's work if it bit them on the arse.'

‘You mean the hippies?' says Flinch.

‘Yeah, whatever.'

Flinch coughs. ‘I think they're just students,' he says eventually.

‘Exactly,'says Macca. ‘Too much time to think, too little time actually earnin' their bread. What would they know?' He laughs. ‘World's become a funny place, hasn't it?'

‘Yeah,' says Flinch, not sure what prompted the observation.

‘Well, better get on me way. The missus is expectin' me to fix the gutter this arvo. Nice catchin' up with you, mate.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Take care, son.'

‘See ya later,' says Flinch, and hopes he doesn't.

When he arrives back at the pastel house, it is drizzling. The point is concealed behind a sheet of mist made up of rain and sea spray, the beam of the lighthouse flashing its warning through the grey. The goats are clustered together nose to tail against the wall of the house, looking damp and miserable.

He has left the front door unlocked but closed, and is curious to see it ajar as he nears the house. Expects a wily, slit-eyed goat has eaten the toilet roll off its holder and shat hard green pebbles in the kitchen. His hands full with the sack of groceries, he pushes the door open with his hip. In the kitchen a newspaper is laid out on the table, next to a cup of steaming tea. He recognises the grassy scent.

‘Oh!' she says, coming out of the bathroom, plaiting her hair. ‘There you are! I was hoping you might be home soon.'

Flinch stalls in the doorway, too surprised to move.

‘Well, come in!' she says. ‘Don't get a cold!'

He shakes the wet from his hair, wipes his feet and enters the kitchen.

She's cleaned it. The dishes are drying in the drainer. There are fresh tea towels folded over the oven door. The benches have been wiped, revealing the speckled grey laminex.

‘How did you know where I lived?'

‘Oh, easy,' she says. ‘People in town seem to know you. Well, when I described you anyway.'

‘How did you get here?'

‘Walked.'

Flinch puts his groceries on the kitchen table.

‘You left without saying goodbye,' she says. ‘We were worried.'

‘We?'

‘Yeah.' Karma takes a sip of her tea.

Flinch, awkward and unsure, looks for something to do, starts putting away the tins. Takes extra care to turn the labels out.

‘Anyway. We're having a healing ceremony tomorrow night. We're, you know, channelling the positive energy of each other. It's going to be really cool. It's a full moon as well, which means really amazing things might happen. I thought you might like to come.'

‘Oh. Right,' says Flinch. ‘I might be too busy.'

‘Too busy doing what?'

‘Um. Stuff. And fishing. I'm thinking of getting another job. Bit low on cash at the moment.'

‘You could still come! You seemed to enjoy yourself last time.'

‘Oh yeah, I did. It was good.'

‘Good? Is that all? I thought you were getting into it. Letting go.'

Flinch stiffens. Was he? Over the years, he has fixed himself to so many things, nailed himself to one place with Audrey's criticisms, Nate's death, a life of getting by in the pastel house. He knows the way around his thoughts and memories, around his guilt, because he knows where those fixtures lie; they are the landmarks by which he maps himself. Letting go of them feels as reckless as setting himself adrift in his leaky dinghy without a rudder.

‘It will be fun,' she says, after a moment.

‘Why are you here?' he asks.

‘I wanted to see you.'

‘But why?'

‘Because you're my friend.'

‘I hardly know you.'

‘But you were friendly to me. And you looked like you could do with some company.'

‘I have company.'

Karma looks around the room, raises an eyebrow. ‘Goats in the garden don't count,' she says.

He sighs. ‘I don't know what you want.'

‘Do I have to want something?'

Flinch doesn't say anything.

‘It's part of my belief, Flinch. You could almost call it my duty. I sense that you're tending a wound somewhere inside you, and I want to help. It's part of a lifestyle I chose a long time ago. To heal the world in the ways I could.'

‘You sensed that about me?' Flinch is sceptical.

‘Well, I guess recognised is closer to the truth.'

‘So I'm your cause of the week?'

‘Don't be like that.'

Karma sighs and sips her tea. She flicks over the page of the newspaper. Flinch notices bruises around her wrist.

‘Is Jed going?' he asks.

‘Probably,' she says. ‘I don't know. I don't have much to do with him anymore. He kinda drops in and out of the commune these days but he doesn't stay around. Busy saving the world, is Jed.'

‘Oh,' says Flinch.

Karma folds up her newspaper, brushes her hair out of her eyes and, with a gulp, downs the rest of her tea.

‘Well, have it your way. I'd better be getting back.'

‘No,' Flinch says. ‘Um, I mean, I'll come. Why don't you stay around here, go to the beach in the morning or something, and then I'll drive both of us out there tomorrow.'

She smiles. ‘Cool,' she says.

When he stands at the entrance to Audrey's room, sheets under his arm to make up the bed, he notices Karma has already unpacked a few of her things onto the dresser. The room has been cleaned but otherwise left untouched since his mother died. He sleeps in the room of his childhood, on the lumpy single bed under a quilt of faded cartoon characters, despite the more comfortable double bed of Audrey's, unused in the next room. He has never been able to claim that space, it's still as much hers as if she had been standing in the doorway, scowling, a lit cigarette in one hand.

But Karma breezes past him and Audrey dissipates like smoke in the wind. ‘This room has an amazing view. How could you ever be unhappy, waking up to this every morning?'

Flinch doesn't even try to explain.

Karma cooks dinner for them. She soaks beans, rinses rice until the water runs clear, chops up more types of vegetables than Flinch has ever eaten at once and throws them all into a pot with a tin of tomatoes. She adds one fresh red chilli, a clove of garlic and some sweet-smelling powdery spice that Flinch doesn't recognise. He is engrossed by the care she is taking to prepare the meal, her involvement with it. Audrey used to bang a frypan on the stove, throw whatever meat she could find in the fridge into it and remove it only when she smelt it burning.

‘It smells good,' he says.

‘It's nothing really,' she says, but he can tell she is pleased.

After dinner, they play backgammon under the exposed fluorescent kitchen light, on a dusty board that Karma has found under the bed in Audrey's room. Flinch had discovered it only when Audrey died, along with an old photo album, from which he'd retrieved the photo of her that he uses as a bookmark, and a stack of empty wine bottles that rolled and clinked when he shoved the broom under. He had forgotten it was there. A few of the white pieces are missing, so they use dried broad beans as replacements. She beats him. Twice. But he's a good-natured loser. He's always taken pride in that fact. Had a lot of practice.

During the night, he has underwater dreams of being tangled — in fishing nets, in the tentacles of octopuses and jellyfish — and he hears whale song, like a dirge, growing steadily louder. He wakes near dawn and gets out of bed, heads to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of milk. He hears her snoring lightly from the other room, and leans around the corner of the doorway to look in on her. She is sleeping face-up, her hair matted around her neck, one arm flopped over the side of the bed. He wonders if she sleeps so soundly in her orange tepee, on the hard floor of the earth, being bitten by angry bull ants.

He doubts it.

When he wakes again later in the morning, she is gone. There's a note stuck to the fridge with a magnet advertising the local bait and tackle. Scrawled on the back of a used envelope in what looks like ruby-red lip liner. Maybe one of Audrey's, Flinch thinks, because he's never seen Karma wear makeup.
Gone to beach for swim. If not back by dark, get worried.
But still go to healing ceremony! Doctor's orders. Ha ha. See
you soon. K.

Flinch cooks himself a massive breakfast — three fried eggs, a T-bone steak, a piece of bacon, a tomato, a tin of baked beans and two pieces of toast. He eats quickly, making sure to wash the frying pan and air out the kitchen before she returns. Covers the evidence of his carnivorous feast by burying the T-bone in the backyard, like some dodgy cop-show killer. When he comes out later, it has been scratched up but neither it nor the goats are anywhere to be seen.

Karma is gone for almost the whole day. Flinch makes her a lunch of tomato sandwiches on white bread that grows soggy over the course of the afternoon. He eventually throws them out the window for the goats. She comes back at dusk. Flinch, bored with waiting, is napping on the couch when she returns.

‘Hey,' she says softly, grabs his foot and shakes it. It's his short leg. He always sleeps curled up on his good side. Flinch awakes with a start at the shock of being touched on his malformed leg, and recoils to the edge of the couch.

‘Not there,' he says.

‘What?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Oh, okay,' she says. ‘Sorry.'

‘It's alright,' Flinch says. ‘I just got a fright.'

They sit quietly. Flinch rubs his eyes.

‘I was dreaming,' he says. ‘Must have been kind of a nightmare.'

‘It's okay,' she says.

‘Did you have a good day?' Flinch asks after a moment, still blinking.

‘Yeah, I did! I went for a swim, then some of the others were in town so I grabbed lunch with them, then I walked all the way up to the lighthouse by myself and just sat there, you know, taking in the vibe. And then, just as I was feeling really, like, peaceful, these whales appeared right out in front of me. They rose up way out of the water. It was awesome!' Her eyes are shining. She is flushed.

‘That's nice,' says Flinch. ‘The whales are everywhere at the moment.'

She brushes her hair back from her face and sniffs. ‘Well, they might be, but this was different. It was, like, cosmic. Like a message for the moment. You know.'

Flinch nods and thinks he might understand what she is talking about, but isn't sure.

‘So, anyway. This ceremony. I checked with the others and it's definitely on. It's in a field near the commune. It will go all night. But we should probably get there soon.'

‘Alright,' says Flinch. ‘I think I'll shower here first, though.'

Only one of Milly's headlights is working. The climb up the dimly lit road to the hinterland slow and tedious. Possums that would have become roadkill in front of any other vehicle have plenty of time to cross the road in front of them and scurry up trees on the other side. Karma, in the front seat, alternates between impatient sighing and humming. Flinch can't decide which is more irritating. He turns on the radio, but the signal is lost in a sea of static as they descend into the valley.

They pull up under the fig tree near the commune. A procession of people carrying lanterns and candles streams from the tents into the paddocks beyond. In the darkness, the lights look like they are floating and to Flinch the whole scene looks religious, somehow otherworldly.

‘Oh, it's beautiful,' says Karma, breathless.