‘This long timber veranda is sure something, hey?' he said when finally, he came back and took the veranda steps. 'And y’gotta love the position ... what you’ve got out there ... the doons and the beach. The guy who owned this went back to the States, y’know. Shot through.’
‘And it seems he’s decided to stay over there. Anyway, the agent told me the owner needed to sell in a hurry, so lucky me.’ I saw him nod in agreement. ‘You knew the previous owner. Byron really is a small place,’ I said.
‘Sometimes too small.’
With permission, he pulled a small broken, hanging piece of fibro away from the side wall to examine the timber frame beneath and noted they had used good timber for the frames. He found a piece of flattened cardboard and slid himself in under the house to check it out while I worried about his white shorts and the lovely dark blue and white Hawaiian shirt.
‘There’s some decent work been done,’ he said as he climbed out from under the house and dusted the sand from his legs. ‘It’s well-built.’ He grinned at me. ‘What there is of it.’
‘But like you say, the location’s the hero, isn’t it? The Pacific Ocean at my front door?’
‘I reckon. This part of Tallows Beach is pretty much deserted. Surf gets a bit wild, too. It’s terrific. Worth fixing up. With a little imagination, of course.’ He smiled. ‘It really is all about what you’ve got out there.’ He pointed, again to the sea. ‘And up here.’
Now he was pointing to his head. I didn’t get it. But I would before this day was out.
‘The view stretches for miles in either direction,’ I said. ‘You want to walk through the bushes and see my beach.’ Then I corrected myself. ‘The beach,’ I laughed. ‘It’s not all mine. Just feels that way. But then, you already know the place.’
‘Broken Head’s the next beach south around the point,’ he said. ‘I built a house on the peak round there. Years ago.’ He shrugged, ‘Or started to.’ He added the rejoinder in a way that suggested the memory hurt.
He left me standing on the veranda and started through the undergrowth, bending over in order to climb under the bushes and bracken overgrowing the pathway. As I hastened to catch up I could feel the grit in my sandals but it felt good.
Finally, we broke out onto the windswept beach and together, surveyed the scene. I took in a lung full of the coastal air and relished every bit of it.
‘Cape Byron lighthouse. Magnificent, isn’t it? Get up early enough and you’ll be the first on land to see the sun rise,’ he said, staring off to the left. ‘And down there, that’s Broken Head. And way out?’ Now he was pointing to the craggy outcrop jagging the horizon. ‘Julian Rocks. A favorite with divers.’
I was beginning to understand this was a man of few words. Short sentences. But I was hanging on every one of them. This was my new home he was describing with such abbreviated enthusiasm, and it was having the effect of banishing the last remnants of doubt I’d had when my hand had signed the deal this morning.
He walked off a short way and stood on another sand hill scanning the horizon, a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes. ‘One day,’ he said when I came up behind him. ‘One day I’ll be out there again.’
‘Sailing?’
‘Cruising, yeah.’ He seemed to disappear into another place for a minute or two before shaking his head and moving further down the sloping sand. ‘This southern end of Byron’s my favourite part of the Bay,’ he said. ‘This, and around at Broken Head.’
He went on then to tell me that years ago he had bought ponies for his small son and daughter. He and his wife, and the children, would gallop flat out along this stretch of beach at low tide.
‘Seven miles of flat, hard sand. Bare-chested,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Crazy! The wind in our faces, the four of us eating up the sea air all the way up and down this long stretch of beach.’
Deep in his own thoughts, I think he almost forgot I was standing alongside him. ‘A good life,’ he said to himself.
‘By the way, what do you reckon about my trees back inside, there. Are they’re worth saving?’
‘They’re fine. Burrawong palms. Or Bangalow palms. Whichever. They’re native to these parts. They’re in good shape, actually. A bit of work clearing away the rubbish trying to strangle them. And this coastal banksia, too, it’s worth saving.’ He broke off a twig from the tree and handed it to me.
‘Is that what they’re called? Bangalow palms?’
‘Banksia Integrefolia if you want the botanical name.’
‘You know your onions.’
He squatted down and tugged at a different type of bright green foliage growing in the sand around him, pulling out a large clump and holding it out for my inspection. ‘South African weed. It flourishes all along the beachfront. Bitou bush,’ he said, showing his disgust for the sticky leaves in the way he crushed them and tossed them away. ‘Chrysanthemoides monilifera. There’s a bit more botany for you to remember.’
‘I’m a fast learner. Keep going.’
‘The mining companies started planting the stuff way back. Their answer to the erosion problems their mining caused. Digging the sand for their rutile.’ He shook his head. ‘The way those mining companies savaged this beach ... and around at Belongil ... man, it was ugly stuff! Massive equipment down there, ripping up the beach. Huge dredging machines up and down the length of this place. And their sheds. Would have been something to see, I reckon. Horrendous. Then they went and planted this South African weed to cover their tracks. It grew wild. Kills everything in its path. See.’
He pointed to some stunted native saplings being strangled by the bitou. ‘The native dune stuff can’t survive. It didn’t stand a chance. Some good people got the mining stopped back in ‘68 but a bit too late by then. It’d got away from them, the bitou.’
‘And here’s me telling the agent this morning how lush I thought it was,’ I said. ‘Waxing lyrical over it. Said I liked the way all that lovely bright limey green creeper protected the dunes!’
‘You weren’t to know.’
‘Feel pretty dammed stupid now, though.’
‘Don’t sweat it. Bet your life the guy didn’t have a clue, either. Was he wearing a suit?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shiny shoes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there you go.’
‘I’ve got a lot to learn about Byron Bay, haven’t I? Local lore, the kind of inside info that gets you those brownie points?’
‘Y’know something?’ he said, turning to me and grinning, an echo of the cheeky grin I’d got from him back at the roundabout an hour ago. ‘The penny has just dropped. What do y’know, you’re the politician’s wife. The desk story, John Brown’s wife.’
‘John Brown’s body.’
‘... lies a moulding in the grave.’ He laughed. I was pleased it was a gentle laugh and not the kind of smirk I sometimes attracted.
‘No. The body’s alive and well, thank you.’ And then came a total non-sequitur.’ I’m divorced.’
He gave a shrug. ‘Hey, who isn’t?’ Turning from me, he again scanned the horizon. ‘See it?’ He pointed to the north horizon.
‘See what? Whales?’ I was too busy worrying about my silly remarks to care about whales. Promiscuity, it had been explained to me by the various psychiatrists who’d had a go at trying to fix my head in the past couple of years, is a hallmark