The memory of the beach, p.1
The Memory of the Beach, page 1
TITLE
The Memory of the Beach © 2024 G R Armstrong
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Printed in Australia
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Images in this book are copyright approved for New Found Books Australia Pty Ltd
Illustrations within this book are copyright approved for New Found Books Australia Pty Ltd
First printing: SEPTEMBER 2024
New Found Books Australia Pty Ltd
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Paperback ISBN 978 1 9231 7240 1
eBook ISBN 978 1 9231 7252 4
Hardback ISBN 9781923172647
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We acknowledges the traditional owners of the land
and pays respects to the Elders, past, present and future.
To the lost ones
Prologue
No Light Amongst the Darkness
Australian Summer 1967
Eric ran as if his life depended on it. If they caught him, they might do anything. At the last corner, his friend Ian had disappeared into a side alley. He hoped he had gotten away. He risked a glance back down the street; they were still behind him. He dug deeper.
Obstacles, people walking slowly, cars waiting in line, he dodged them all. A woman glared at him as he ran past. She yelled something at him but he’d gone by in a flash and missed it. Now he was out on the main street and the obstacles became moving metal monsters. A few of them honked at him as he ran between them, trying to put distance between him and his chasers.
It hadn’t been his fault. He hadn’t started this. It had been of Caruso’s making, his third friend. Eric had no idea what had happened to Caruso. Maybe he ran the opposite way. Or maybe he stayed to fight. That would be something Caruso would do. Even if the odds were against him, and they were.
He was getting tired. His heart thumped with every step. He knew he couldn’t last much longer. He would have to stop soon and take in some air. If he could just make it to the tram station he might reach some semblance of safety. He would need luck though. He looked up; a tram was just coming to a stop at the terminal. That luck might have just arrived.
‘Stop, you little turd. Stop right there. Spike wants to talk to you, you little shit,’ one of the chasers yelled as Eric leapt over the tram guard rail. He looked back at the three youths. He knew with absolute surety that if he stopped, the three hoons would beat the crap out of him. He’d seen them in action; Spike’s henchmen, thugs, all of them.
No, he couldn’t stop.
The tram had come to a halt and its doors were wide open. His white sandshoes pounded against the footpath. His heart threatened to pop out of his chest. Just a few more paces. The last of the passengers climbed aboard. With sweat smearing his vision, he saw the doors close. He stumbled over the tram tracks as it began to slowly take off. He reached the side of the tram and touched it lightly.
He was shattered. He looked up and saw someone staring back at him through the window. He must have looked desperate because at the very moment he gave up his chase, the door of the moving tram opened and an arm reached out and pulled him inside.
He looked back at his three chasers and watched as they scrambled down the tracks after him, yelling and cursing as the tram moved away. Eric smiled and gave them the two-fingered salute.
‘Why were they chasing you?’ asked his rescuer. A girl stood, holding a leather strap that hung down from the rail above her head. Eric gripped the back of a seat as the tram rocked from side to side.
‘It’s no big deal. One of my mates said something about the guy who runs everything at the carny. I guess they didn’t like what he said. Er, thanks for, you know. Thanks for opening the door.’
She smiled.
‘Jody,’ she said, sticking out her dainty hand. He looked at it. It hung there a moment before it struck him that he was supposed to shake it.
‘Er… it’s Eric, but you can call me Rick. Everybody does.’
Of course, this was a lie. No one called him Rick. He didn’t even know why he told her that. He just thought it sounded cooler than Eric.
His face went red. He wasn’t used to talking to girls. He wouldn’t have said he was shy but he went to an all-boys college and the only girls he knew were sisters of his fellow students.
The tram’s wheels ground against the metal tracks as it slowed. A conductor was headed their way. He had no ticket. He began to panic, his hands went clammy and then realised that he still had her hand in his. He pulled back and went for the door.
‘We come to the beach every day during the holidays, my brother and sister.’
Eric looked over her shoulder and saw a young girl and an even younger boy sitting on the bench seat, staring at him.
‘We always go to the reserve to meet friends,’ Jody said, reaching into her colourful handbag, and taking out three tram tickets. ‘You should come. That is if you can manage to avoid those hoods.’ She laughed.
Eric went red and mumbled a tongue-tied thanks.
He stood on the platform and watched the tram pull away from the station. He could see Jody looking back at him. She waved. He waved. Then the tram was gone.
He felt an ache in his stomach. What was that all about? He was twelve and he had only really spoken with one girl before. He was just glad he was in one piece. He hoped his friends Ian and Caruso had also escaped.
*
The storm came upon him unexpectedly. From a drop here and there to a light drizzle then to driving rain. Then it got as dark as night. He skirted around the areas he thought the thugs might come from. This meant a long meandering walk through the back streets of Southway. He looked for familiar road signs but in the wet, they were not easily seen. A car raced past, sending a torrent of slush and dirty water all over him. He braced himself as another car threatened more of the same. But this one slowed as it approached. He shielded his eyes as the sedan’s headlights hit him.
He stood at the kerb and waited for the car to pass. It stopped alongside him and the passenger’s window lowered. The driver of the car reached across his seat to open the door invitingly.
Eric looked into the opened door.
‘Looks like you could do with a ride home, my boy.’
The rain got heavier. Then hail. That’s all he needed.
He could see the dark outline of a man behind the steering wheel.
‘Get in, that rain ain’t gunna get any lighter.’ The man laughed. ‘Come on, I haven’t got all night. Things to do, people to see.’
The inside did look inviting.
‘I’ve got a heater, you’ll be dry before the end of the road,’ the man said. His voice took on a low soothing whine. ‘Don’t you wanna be safe and warm?’
Eric put his hand on the door and lowered his head to look inside. Warm air wafted from the vent inside the door.
Tiredness overwhelmed him. Hell, he had just run a marathon getting away from those thugs. He looked at the warm soft seat and almost gave in. Then he smelt something. Something was not quite right. He looked at the driver. A man with a shock of blond hair that flopped down over his face.
Then the voice in his head told him to run.
Eric took hold of the door, slammed it shut, spun around and took off.
‘Hey kid, wait.’ The voice had a twinge of desperation.
As he reached the corner, he slipped sideways and nearly collected a giant elm tree. He heard the roar of an engine as a car took off at speed. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the headlights bouncing up and down. The car was coming right for him.
He ran as fast as he could. The car was gaining on him. He needed to get off the road but all he could see were high fences. Maybe he could scale a fence? Not enough time. The car was almost on him. The roar of the engine was getting louder with every step he took. He looked ahead. To the right was a dissecting street with not much cover. To the left was a dark opening. He went to his left. An alleyway. Maybe he would get lucky and the car would give up on him. No such luck. The car swerved and headed towards the alley. He kept running.
The alley was a dead end.
‘Shit,’ he said out loud.
In the distance, he heard the screaming of a police car siren. The headlights stopped in the middle of the road, then reversed and disappeared around the corner.
The rain kept coming down.
*
Two days later the sun was out. The reserve was packed as usual. Every inch of the grass was covered with towels, rugs and baskets. It seemed that half of Southway was here. Eric put his arm up to block out the sun and slowly scanned the reserve. He saw them by the rotunda.
Jody smiled at him as he approached. She held out her hand and he took it and pulled her to her feet. ‘You came.’
‘One of my mates, Caruso, is working the carny with his brothers. I came with him.’
‘I think I know him. Is he Italian?’
‘He likes to pretend he is. He was born right here in Southway, his folks are I-ties though so I guess that makes him half and half.’
Jody turned her head and nodded. ‘This is my sister Hilda, and that…’ she said, pointing to a blond-haired boy of about six who was squirming on a towel trying to put on a mask and snorkel. He wasn’t succeeding. ‘Is my brother, Peter.’
‘Hey, come on, Sis, you promised this time we’ll go off the jetty,’ Peter yelled as he finally got his mask over his head and onto his forehead.
‘Hilda is going to take you.’
‘Do I have to?’ Hilda chipped. ‘He’s a pain. He can’t swim and I have to hold his hand.’
‘I can swim. I learned it last year,’ Peter whined.
‘You nearly drowned last year,’ Hilda said.
Eric got the impression that Jody was thinking of something else. She gazed at the road.
‘I have to wait, you two go ahead.’
Hilda picked up a towel and took Peter’s hand. ‘She don’t wanna go, she wants to meet her special friend, her special male friend,’ Hilda whispered loudly as if it was a big secret.
Eric looked at Jody. She went crimson. ‘I don’t have a special friend. He’s just someone that we met down here. I just told him that we might come today. He was going to bring his new car, that’s all.’
‘He’s old,’ Peter said, ‘but I like cars. Can I stay and see it?’
‘No,’ Jody said. ‘Besides, he might not come.’
‘He’ll come. He comes here every day,’ Hilda said.
‘He’s kinda like a friend of the family,’ Jody said in a low voice so her brother and sister couldn’t hear.
Eric squirmed quite a lot talking to girls. He knew one thing about them. They always liked someone else. Someone cooler.
‘They didn’t catch you then,’ Jody said, bringing her attention back to the boy in front of her. Eric shook his head.
‘Got away, thanks to you. My mate Ian wasn’t so lucky. He spent the night in the hospital. They stretched his arm up behind his back so hard they broke it. He wears a cast now. He thinks it’s cool though.’
He gazed back towards the carny. His fingers twitched. They always did when he was nervous. ‘I’ll probably just head back to the dodgems. Caruso will be finishing soon and then we can walk home together.’
She reached out and touched him on the arm.
‘You could come back later?’ she said with a shy smile.
He looked at her and slowly nodded.
*
He waited for Caruso by the carousel on the foreshore. The day was getting older and hotter by the minute. He stepped back into the shade as the sun crept across the sky, burning everything in its path. ‘A real stinker’ his dad called them days. He reached in his pocket for sunscreen but only found the empty bottle. He threw it into a nearby bin.
He shielded his eyes and looked back at where he’d left Jody waiting for her ‘friend’. A twinge of jealousy coursed through him.
A car pulled up on the far side of the reserve. His heart did a little skip. It was the car that chased him the other night. A man slid out of the front seat and strode over the carefully cut grass towards him. A tall blond man, the very same man who had attempted to pick him up. For a second, Eric hesitated. Had the man seen him? Should he run? He was sure the man was up to no good. He’d heard of men like him before. Men who picked up children. Hell, his father had warned him about such men. And now he was coming towards him.
Eric was just about to run when the man suddenly swerved to his left, then honed into a girl sitting on her towel.
Jody turned towards him and smiled. The blond man laughed then flopped himself down beside her. He took her by the hand and lifted it to his lips.
He kissed it.
Eric’s heart lurched. He wanted to yell out a warning but his voice wouldn’t work.
He backed away a few steps. As he did, the man looked up and saw him staring. The man’s grin turned to a sneer as if he was saying, ‘She’s mine, kid.’
Two weeks later Jody, her sister Hilda and her little brother Peter went missing.
They were never seen again.
1
The Memory of the Beach
Forty Years Later
It was as if the beach had memory. Memory of children playing on its white sands. Memory of life and loss. And then there was the memory of the soul. The memory of the missing was also not far from its thoughts. It was what brought him back. As Rick watched the surf, he zipped up his black raincoat and brought his focus from the jetty to the beach. He wondered whether it was at this spot his father died. Maybe a little further down. An old lady with a wooden stick drew symmetrical circles on the beach. They were perfect. Each circle was drawn with dexterity and accuracy. Three small children, an older man and two fishermen watched from the jetty.
The sun was shining but still, it was cold. Not bitterly cold like he had remembered it but cold enough to wear his ski jumper and beanie. He appeared unaware that people were watching him. They were talking about him. The sea breeze blew against his face, gently freezing the end of his nose. He shook his head and stretched his fingers out. He had picked the middle bench to sit, away from others. It wasn’t because he was unsociable; he could talk when needed and given the right situation. It was just he was usually a solitary man, a man comfortable with his own company.
The beach was the same as he remembered. The jetty not so much – the old one had blown away. The Arch of Remembrance was still there. He recalled the old jetty and the days when he would dash down its length barefoot on its tarred wood. The heat underfoot was not just uncomfortable but damn near unbearable. He would sprint down the length of the jetty and throw himself off the end before swimming back to shore. He couldn’t imagine doing that now.
He stared out to sea. A surfer made the bold decision to stand against a broken wave. For a moment, it looked like he would make it until the three-footer wave began to break up under him. This was not a beach for surfers. This was the beach for swimmers. The ones who put in the big strokes, like his father. As a boy, he would watch him wade out into the deep and then make his slight frame swim against the tide. He would make the biggest and slowest strokes imaginable. Many times, the boy thought his dad would go under due to the lack of speed. But in the end, he would get to where he was going turn around and come back at a snail’s pace.
He looked back down at where his dad had died and was struck by a deep sorrow that his mother had to witness his death. And although he missed his father, there was something in the adage that he had died doing something he loved. Not for him to go through the pains of old age or dementia or cancer. A good old-fashioned heart attack would do it on the beach he loved so much.
Nowadays, there were more dogs than he remembered before. Big, small, trendy and the occasional plain mutt. He watched as they overran the beach, dipping into the surf when their masters, brandishing some sort of ball tosser, would fling it casually into the water. He wondered when the beach had become trendy. Probably after the new jetty had been built, he mused, and when had the dry cleaner and bait shop become a place to get coffee and tiny pastries?
The walk down the length of the jetty was a ritual. He had made this walk several times on his return. He used it to think. He would clear his mind and walk with hands in his pocket to the end where he would pause, lean over the edge and look at the water for a while then turn and walk back. It was calming.
He had been back in Southway for only a few days. This was his beach. This was the beach where he had met his first love. This was the beach where he discovered rock and roll. And of course, the beach where his father died.
The circle woman finished her work and looked up at him. She shrugged her shoulders and ambled away. He stared at the concentric circles and wondered if they had any meaning. No, they were just drawings. But they were so compelling. The longer he looked, the more he thought that she had drawn it for him.
