Dark Wave Read online

  Lana Guineay is a writer who lives by the sea in Adelaide. Her non-fiction has been published widely, and her award-winning fiction has appeared in Going Down Swinging, Anthology of Australasian Stories, and the 2019 Swinburne Microfiction award. Lana graduated from the University of South Australia with an honours degree in Creative Writing, and followed a career as a content and fashion editor for global brands before returning to her hometown, where she works as a freelancer. Dark Wave is her first book.

  First published in Seizure by Brio Books in 2020

  Brio Books

  PO Box Q324, QVB Post Office,

  NSW 1230, Australia

  www.seizureonline.com

  www.briobooks.com.au

  Text copyright © Lana Guineay 2020

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Cataloguing-in-publication data is available from the National Library of Australia

  978-1-922267-25-2 (print)

  978-1-922267-26-9 (digital)

  Internal design and typesetting © Brio Books 2020

  Cover illustration and design by Sam Paine,

  www.sampaine.com

  Edited by Alice Grundy

  my heart breaks

  like surf.

  The Monkey’s Mask

  Dorothy Porter

  1.

  The legendary George Green glistened, calling ‘Ayyyy looking goooood!’ with joyous bite to all present — surfers, God — in the sea that contained everyone and everything that mattered, the sea that grabbed the coarse-sanded beach of Bronte in its dark opulence: how beautiful is Sydney at six ay-em on the first day of summer? The only business that mattered to him was the business of surfboards, slapped with feet, tanned bodies in neoprene, business of the inspired kind, the mystic business of the weird sisters of grace, charm and beauty, whose influence was everywhere over humans and waves on this glinting morning, the sun still clothed in night’s clouds.

  Looking up. Usually single-minded, thinking waves and only waves, George thought how weird that there’s a cemetery up there above us right now, bordered by multimillion-dollar beachfront properties. Prime real estate, occupied by bodies long dead and buried. Just now licked with tongues of light, there it was, in all of its eerie improbability: Waverley Cemetery. Flowers and weeds parked their way up the cliff face, peering at the graves above, roots fed by vegetal and animal decay. The names of the dead worn out on the gravestones, carved white angels tuning their faces cloudward, guards and guides above those who had been, been, yes, but not for years, decades, generations, old bones, dust-to-dust bones. Not enough angels, too many graves.

  He was evidently doomed, or at least felt that way, those stone angels with their upturned eyes above him and dark bubbles below. Made his choice. Down. His muscles stayed working, warming, water still cold. That rioting buzz as he turned to see the swell — Jesus, that’s nice — and he had his revenge on death and dying. He caught a wave which meant there was nothing else except this, this searing life and him in it.

  Fizzled, caught one again, Decent, yeah okay, not bad today, not bad. His mori hardly needed another memento. From a young age George had known that the sea would be his way out, one day. Maybe this one. Maybe not.

  The blue light was climbing quickly into blonde, and he felt expansive as a warm front. Best stay here, best stay quiet. Shrouded with water. Hermetic seal. His focus was interrupted by a wiry kid he knew from around, calling out ‘Good karma, holy man!’

  Legendary George: a still glowing if deteriorated surfer, even the haters secretly loved him.

  The light had a sudden growth spurt. He could hear the forlorn murmurs of cars on the road above. A pointillist rendition of real life emerging as his head bobbed out of the water.

  He got out, felt his shape returning to him, the poor dimensions of a man. George felt lucky this particular man’s dimensions were healthy, able, still fit. He scrolled his wetsuit down over his torso, perched on a rock, smelled burnt rubber. Or hair? Spotted a cluster of people down along the beach, wanted to see what they were all looking at.

  As he got closer it looked all wrong. Unclear what was happening from afar, it was not much clearer close up. A ring of people stood around an object, another object, another again, washed up from the Pacific onto the beach. Big hunks of . . . meat? The fleshy mounds were four feet long or so and not human. They looked like giant tongues, the outer edge a sick grey, insides still pink with life, blood vessels and arteries. An onlooker held a border collie away, pulling tight on its red leash.

  Whales ya think? What else could be that big? . . .

  . . . But how did they get here?

  Humpbacks in November . . .

  Look like they’ve been torn right off . . .

  What kind of augury was this? The smell turned on the wind and George left, flicking his hair, ridding it of water, God.

  For all that was unclear about life, including his own, there were certainties in which George could take refuge, they included every crack and bump of the footpath that took him up to his semi-detached cottage, the letters crawling across the cement: CAMILLA + TRENT ’01: these things were intimately known, like a beloved back-of-hand. His house, the shittiest place in Bronte with the best views in the world. The slap of his gate. The sign above the back door:

  IN DOOM WE TRUST

  Hiss of the sea beyond. The front yard, green-gold overgrown, the compost of broken chicken bones, oyster shells out back.

  He pulled off his wetsuit and showered quickly outside, went in (door unlocked) and did the dishes. Yellow-gloved, deep breathing, trying to become one with a teacup.

  His phone buzzed: Paloma. Like a gut punch.

  He quickly pulled off the gloves, picked up the phone thinking a thousand things; of Paloma’s hair falling over her face; Paloma, brighter than life; pale pink lips; black, black hair; Paloma, a no-longer familiar thrill. Don’t blow it. Way too late for that.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hey,’ her voice was green, alive, and he fell in love with her again. ‘How are you? How have you been? It’s been . . . what . . .’

  ‘I’m alright,’ he said slowly, sighed.

  ‘I know this is a bit awkward, me getting in touch out of nowhere. I need your help. I wouldn’t have called but I’ve got no one else to ask.’

  Wouldn’t have called but . . .

  ‘Two years,’ George said, flicking on his kettle, which boiled companionably.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s been two years since we’ve seen each other.’

  ‘Feels like a lifetime.’

  ‘You still angry at me?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I never was.’

  ‘You should’ve been. Why are you calling?’

  ‘There’s . . . I think there’s something wrong and I need help, in your professional capacity. There’s this letter and it’s really wigging me out. I can pay you of course.’

  ‘Where are you these days?’

  ‘I’m back up on Songbird Island for a bit. I don’t want to say too much on the phone, I think it’d be better if you came up here so we could talk about it and I could show you the letter.’

  George tapped his bare foot on the table. Watched the sunny garden blink with light. The kettle bubbled and shut itself off.

  ‘Yeah, okay.’ There were people he’d do anything for, anytime, and Paloma was one. Even now. Especially now.

  ‘I want this to be professional, any other job, you know. I’ll organise flights. How much does something like this cost?’ she asked.

  ‘Money isn’t everything.’

  But money talked and walked and bought an apartment in Double Bay and a clean new identity. Credit was personality. Cash ran through marrow. In his line of work. In his line of life.

  ‘How about we talk about that when I get there.’

  Songbird Island. He wondered if tourist season was in full swing yet. December? December. So yeah. He wondered if she was married. A kid? Two years was plenty of time. That’d be some fun to walk into.

  After they goodbye-d, he slowly placed his phone on the table between a paper bag of plums, a faded copy of The Way of the Bodhisattva and candles forlorn in the daylight, wicks frozen like accusing fingers.

  —

  GREEN INVESTIGATONS

  He’d noticed the typo the moment the door painter had finished but he was too lazy, and more decisively, too broke, to fix it. When he started the business he felt certain that he needed a door with his name on it, and his logo, an open eye, underneath it, the frosted glass pixelating visitors into 8-bit. No one gets these doors any more, the painter had said. No refund for customer error, said his bill.

  Nested above a vacant, oyster-coloured Darlinghurst shop — which had been in turn an empty-looking accountancy franchise, an empty-looking convenience store, and then just empty. Up two flights of narrow stairs, the office didn’t inspire admiration; but it inspired a steady, nondescript assurance, which in his business was even better.

  The space wasn’t big. Wasn’t qui
et. It contained a hefty, scarred wooden desk, a filing cabinet, a complaining swivel chair, a better leather chair for the paying clients, walls the colour of blu-tac, a noisy and incompetent AC, a plastic drip-filter coffee machine, two windows dressed in muslin, a few hardcore potted palms, stacks of organised papers and George, who at this moment felt like a copy of a copy of his past self.

  He wondered where his good shoes were. He hadn’t done much that required shoes at all lately. It was easy not giving a damn. That wasn’t it, was it? Something always mattered. The sun always shone through his chick blinds in the morning. Darlinghurst yelped and demanded from his office window. The world walked through his misspelt door, wanting something or other. Usually other. And there it was again. Joy in being alive, or whatever you wanted to call it. Even during the worst bits, as during the most beautiful. He felt alive and grateful to be that way, temporary as it all was.

  It wasn’t the INVESTIGATONS. Well, not usually. The clients were generally messed up enough to think revenge would help them. Did he help them? Sometimes. They came to him at their most vulnerable, and sometimes there was what they would call a result. The occasional missing person found. Damages paid. It was a fragile happiness, one bought with too much pain. Skip tracing only when he was short on funds. No eye for an eye. Did a bit of a pro bono for a local law firm.

  George shuffled through his active cases. A tired husband in Woollahra, Leichardt retiree scammed for savings, a basic background check, a discrimination case. All except the last were paid work, albeit not well. He sipped cold coffee and wondered, again, why he did any of it. He cared, and that’s what it came down to, he supposed. He believed in karma; he was just helping it along. More importantly, the gig suited his temperament now that surfing was just for the thrills.

  He googled Songbird Island, clicked ‘News’ scanned the headlines:

  Legendary Songbird Island Developer Tom Knightley Dies, Age 85

  Two Injured in Shark Attack Off Songbird Island

  Paradise Lost? Knightley’s Songbird and the End of an Era

  He knew that Paloma’s dad had died. He’d sent her a card and flowers, didn’t feel she’d appreciate him sending himself. She’d replied with a short text, and George had responded politely, left dangling on read.

  He googled: Paloma Knightley.

  He found her Instagram. Godhelpme. Only verified her face was still beautiful. Beautiful sunsets. Beautiful European holidays. Beautiful men he didn’t want to think about. Bitter as cloves. Focus, George. Focus.

  Background check on the principles: Paloma Knightley, Celine Knightley, Celine’s husband whatshisname. Paloma clean. Her sister Celine was irresponsible with her driving habits, inconsistent with her employment as a designer, not much else. One kid. One ex-husband. Current husband, Walter Eveleigh, a finance type, ex-UK, now an Australian permanent resident. Google images showed a broad-shouldered strawberry blond, if Van Gogh were a rugby player, polished next to Celine’s sloe-eyed sophistication and organised hair.

  Outside, Darlinghurst felt still and vacant, the buildings ghosting into the sky. What could the letter be? The Knightleys were a high-profile family. Cashed-up. Important. Blackmail? He leaned back in his chair which answered with a complaining creak. He felt unsettled. The electric night would roll on soon, the windows would turn smoky purple with dipping sun, and he listened, thinking, easing into the murmur of traffic and street.

  2.

  The bodies of tourists lay motionless on pure white sand.

  It was a full-throated summer day, the sky stretching denim blue above a crystalline sea. The main beach on Songbird Island — protected by a crescent cove like a hand over a match — was made for pleasure. The kind of summer pleasure that dulled as it sharpened, heat making your marrow lazy as it sparked your senses.

  Tourists in the shimmering heat wore bright streaks of bathing suits, exposing their lovely city-skin, their heads bobbing in the ocean, bodies splayed out motionless on the sand.

  For Paloma the beach spoke of more particular pleasures. Of peach tans hot against cool linen sheets. Of ripe mango and chilled sparkling water, grasped with fingers gritted with sand. Of hair like a wet rope down her back. Of plunging, floating, losing all weight in the sea. It spoke of the cool opulence of the trade winds, dusting your eyelashes with sand. Of a young moon and stars collected in velvety black. Of being thrown by milky-crested waves when the wind picks up, laughing into the sky. Of short-lived rivalries in kayaks. Of the permissive world of holidays, where anything felt possible.

  Paloma had known this beach her entire life, newborn to now. It didn’t matter how old she was. She felt as ancient, and as inert, as a seam of opal. She was born on this spot, or more accurately, the house just beyond it. She’d heard the story plenty of times from her dad: how her mum had been night swimming, trying to ease her sore, swollen body, her pregnant heaviness lifting in the water; how Paloma was born warm and quick into sandy sheets, no time to get to the hospital on the mainland. Always too keen to get where you’re goin’, her dad had said with a smile.

  It felt good to be in the place she was born. Home. Where everything was touched with familiarity, a palimpsest of past under the present. Songbird Island was ghosted with past Palomas: the impatient newborn, the self-possessed child, the dreamy teenager, the ambitious twenty-something, the . . . whatever she was now. It felt good to sleep on her same bed, to hear the slow beat of the ceiling fan comforting in the night, the heartbeat of the house. Her room was the same as it always was. The dressing table was now populated with the bottles of a complicated skincare routine, but she could see it just as it was when she was a kid, crammed with books and toys and seashells; or as a teenager, loaded with photos and perfumes and fake red carnations.

  Paloma welcomed the swinging light and summer breath of the island, found that her bones had longed for it. Home. She’d been away too long. She felt warm and private as an egg. What chuckling joy it was being beaten by the turquoise waves, their voice a soft whisper in the night. To feel, to smell that tropical rain, hard and then soft again. To watch the lightning flickering into the night from her window. To wake to a freshly made, orderly world. She was greedy for all of it.

  She had come home and waited for her bravura to return, the embers of her to heat up again.

  She walked the beach, espadrilles and a piece of paper hanging from her hand. She read over the letter for the maybe-sixtieth time, wind whipping it with sand. Glossy black words crawling over copy paper.

  That man is guilty of serious wrongdoings against the Knightley family and its financial interests. He’s been stealing from the company for years! Not to mention having affairs right under his wife’s pretty nose. I have evidence that Mr Eveleigh has been embezzling millions to date, and who knows what he’ll do now Old Mate is out of the way . . .

  Who had written them? Why had they sent them to her? Other questions swam: When was the last time she’d seen George? Was she right to call him? Was any of it true, anyway? Would Walt really do any of it? Could he?

  Home was home, golden, protected. This letter felt alien, a question in a place that had only ever given her answers.

  —

  Light-footed up the path, she found Celine waiting for her with coffee.

  ‘C’mon Paloma,’ Celine said impatiently.

  ‘Oh thank God, coffee,’ Paloma replied.

  ‘Good morning to you too.’

  Celine was always cool and alert at this hour — because she was a mother, Paloma supposed. She liked to see Celine cool and alert. Liked their daily morning walks.

  As Paloma and Celine reached the promenade above the main beach, the sisters’ voices were warm and close, the sun gathering courage.

  Paloma said, ‘George is coming up for a bit,’ and watched as Celine sharpened all over.

  ‘Do I need to remind you,’ said Celine, ‘that exes are exes for a very good reason.’

  ‘No. You don’t need to remind me.’

  Paloma wasn’t a natural liar, and this went doubly so when it came to her sister Celine, she always felt simpatico, the sisterly kind that didn’t need words. Things were unchanged between them, even after the world had shifted since their father’s death. They’d leaned into one another, relaxed into knowing, sure of one another always.