MARCH 1987
PIGFACE
CHAPTER ONE
NoosaMain Beach is the same yet not. Eternal but changed. There is still the view that takes in Fraser Island on a clear day; the shoreline still curls around towards the national park on one end and is truncated by the breakwater at the other. Over that breakwater there are rougher waves and braver surfers. Here, hugging into the lee side, there tend to be more gentle, rolling waves that can turn vigorous on certain tides but usually welcome timid swimmers.
The beach has been fortified by rocks and sand has been pumped in from the river that empties beyond the breakwater. If this hadn’t been done erosion would have caused this beautiful, bright stretch of sand to disappear. Noosa Heads, locals say, is being loved to death. Everyone wants it to look perfect so they can have their perfect holiday. Time and tides – and some people’s opinions on the form the shoreline should take – have other ideas. So every now and again the beach washes away, the rocks are exposed, and the tourists ignore that because sand will be brought in to cover up those rocks and everything will look perfect again. But the locals know what it used to look like. Cynthia knows. Or, more truthfully, she remembers. Because she hasn’t been home – not properly – for fourteen years. Even though she was twenty-five then she thought she may never return. Not because she doesn’tlove the place but because she wanted to leave it behind. She had a new life and it wasn’t in Noosa. Or Australia, for that matter.
A child squeals close by and seagulls bustle around the sand. One of the lifesavers folds his arms and squints as he regards two swimmers between the flags who look like they’re about to be outside the flags. His mouth opens; there’s a warning coming. The swimmers, as if intuiting that they’re about to be told off, change course and move back between those flags that promise safety, protection. Lifesavers.Life savers. What a concept. It would be nice, Cynthia thinks, if someone could come along and save her life. Or, rather, rescue her from it because it feels like her feet have been pulled from under her.
She digs her toes into the sand and waits for the wave that’s coming towards her. When it arrives the water is warmer than she expected. It’s reassuring. These are the waves she grew up with. This is the sand she knows.
She hadn’t expected to feel reassured when she came back. She’d thought she may feel disappointed in herself for scurrying home from Los Angeles instead of staying to deal with the end of her marriage. She suspected she’d feel superior to the Noosa locals who’d stayed put while she went off to have the sort of life – and lifestyle – she’d always believed more suited to her than anything on offer in the fishing-shack town she’d left behind. Noosa isn’t that town any more, though. It’s busier and has the patina of a place that is well loved: lots of smiling visitors, rotating frequently, and the wear and tear that comes from so many different humans passing through, along with the new coats of paint on buildings that signal that the town is being tended.
As a child and teenager and young mother here Cynthia never quite understood what Pat, her first husband, called ‘Noosa magic’, and she still didn’t understand it all those years she was away. Now, though, with this sea foam on her feet and these gulls and this breeze, with those rocks leading the way around the coast to the bush beyond, and the sky that is the most gentle shade ofblue she’s ever seen, she wonders. Perhaps there is magic here. And if there is, she needs to find it. Along with some fortitude and forbearance.
Cynthia jumps as a hand is placed on her shoulder.
‘Missed it?’ her father says, his voice croakier than it sounded on the phone during their long-distance calls.
‘No,’ she says, and it’s both a lie and the truth, because she has and she hasn’t at differing times.
Her father peers at her and nods slowly, like he’s figured her out. Then again, he always has.
‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Well, the house missed you.’
‘You mean the house misses Mum’s housekeeping,’ she says wryly.
The state of the three-bedroom, one-storey dwelling at Little Cove, almost within sight of where they’re standing now, suggests her father hasn’t lifted a finger since her mother died five months ago. Not that Cynthia knows what he’s been doing or not doing, because she couldn’t come back for the funeral.
She had visited, once, after her mother was diagnosed and before they knew how serious her illness was. No one told Cynthia it was terminal; if they had, she would have come home and stayed until her mother died, then dealt with the mess of her life in Los Angeles later. For as much as she and her mother weren’t close, they were connected, and while Diane always seemed to live at one remove from everyone around her, Cynthia loved her. Loves her still. Yes, everything else could have waited because, as Cynthia knows now, we have so few chances to stand witness to the biggest changes in the lives of those we love.
‘Could be,’ her father admits. ‘I’m not that good at keeping things tidy. Doing washing.’
‘How would you know?’ she says playfully. ‘You’ve never tried.’
‘I don’t expect you to do it,’ he says gruffly.
‘Course you do.’ She pats his hand. ‘I don’t mind, Papa. I came back to spend time with you.’
He peers at her again. ‘Uh-huh. And Odette, of course.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Cynthia smiles tightly.
Odette, her daughter, had been the ever-present witness to the unpleasantness – to put it mildly – of Cynthia’s second marriage and, as soon as she turned sixteen, she told Cynthia she wanted to move back to Australia to live with her father. It wasn’t as if Cynthia could claim that life in Los Angeles wasn’t worth leaving. She’d wanted to leave it too, but sometimes marriages aren’t that straightforward.
They had been so close. But Cynthia failed Odette, or she felt she had, by not protecting her from what was going on, so she didn’t call her that often. Didn’t write. She wanted Odette to be happier than she had been all those years away from her father. Except those years of living apart made Cynthia unhappier than she has ever been, and now she feels so disconnected from her daughter it’s as if they’re former colleagues who shared a terrible boss and all they have in common are war stories they don’t wish to repeat. She doesn’t know how to talk to Odette any more, let alone how to be her mother.
Cynthia has to reacquaint herself with that role, however, because what has really brought her back to the place of her youth is that Odette, still in her own youth, has announced that she’s two months pregnant and planning to keep the baby. Cynthia plans to disabuse her of that notion. Odette has so much life ahead of her – and Cynthia is more aware of that than most. She was nineteen when she became pregnant with Odette.
Her father probably knows Odette better than Cynthia herself does these days. He also probably knows that while his daughter is pleased to see him, the real motive for her return is to try to talk his granddaughter out of becoming a mother. He won’t say anything about that, however. Minding his own business has been Wilfred’s life credo.
‘I suppose I should call her,’ Cynthia says.
Her father nods slowly. ‘Yep.’ He glances out to sea then back to her. ‘But first I have some fresh prawns and some bread from the junction.’
‘Don’t tell me Sid’s bakery is still there?’
