He put one hand on my shoulder and with his other hand, turned my face in the direction he was pointing.
‘Out there, look. A yacht. Coming down the coast. Way out. Just a speck coming around the headland. See it?’
‘No. I don’t see it.’ I squinted, trying to spot the illusive vessel, but the hand and the man’s closeness was seriously distracting me from acknowledging distant sailing boats.
‘No?’ He twisted me by my shoulders in the direction of the yacht and standing behind me, his cheek close to mine, took my arm and held it straight out, using my hand to point out the yacht. ‘See, look straight along your arm,’ he said. ‘Way out there.’
Resisting the intimacy took an effort. He smelt good, smelt musky, and the man had his guiding hand on my shoulder. When I turned my head, our lips were within kissing distance of each other. Cue Hollywood violins. Doctor Zhivago bought a second of it then let go of my arm and turned back to look for his yacht out at sea. Be still, my beating heart!
‘Oh, wait!’ I called out. ‘Wait! Okay, yes, now I do see it!’ I turned back to him. ‘Just,’ I said. ‘A beautiful, lonely kind of thing isn’t it; a tiny sailing boat, all the way out there?’
‘Sure is. She’ll have a strong nor’easter behind her, that one,’ he said, as much to himself as anyone else. ‘There’s nothing in the world like it. Nothing like the freedom of being out there, driving through the waves.’
‘Away from all formulas.’ I smiled across at him. ‘A poem. I quote poetry. Endlessly. It’s my shtick, my weakness. I drive people mad doing it,’ I laughed.
‘The rest of it? How does it go?’
‘It’s a long one. Your very own Walt Whitman. Guess they taught you Whitman in school. You might know it. Just a few lines are all I can quote, though.’
‘Go on.’
‘We will sail pathless and wild seas. We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.’ I hesitated then went on. ‘Away from all formulas!’
‘Away from all formulas.’ He repeated it, sotto voce, seeming to commit the phrase to memory. ‘Sounds good. I like it. I’ll remember that one. Walt Whitman, hey? Oh, Captain. My Captain.... Yeah, I used to like his stuff.’ He turned and trudged up the sand hill. ‘Anyway, forget the bitou,’ he said when I caught up. ‘You’re real lucky you’ve got all those tuckeroos back in there as well as the palms.’
‘Tuckeroos?’
‘I’ll show you.’
Ducking through the undergrowth and holding pandanus branches out of the way for me, he led me back inside the property and pointed.
‘Tuckeroos. See? Those over there. And here. They’re natives. Lovely things.’
He walked across to a stand of spindly trees growing in a hollow part of the sandy ground near the veranda. I noticed other similar trees were spread around the place, growing in clusters among the rest of the coastal shrubbery. The foliage was a dusty grey green, the leaves elongated and spike-edged, dark on the top side and a paler silvery grey underneath. The trunks were mostly rough textured but some were smooth with a mottled effect.
‘A bit like birch trees, with those variegated trunks,’ I said. ‘Only thinner. And the leaves are different.’ I pulled a leaf from a tree and held it to my nose.
He smiled and shook his head. ‘Uh-uh. It’s not fragrant. But it’s a great tree.’ He pointed across to another stand of tuckeroos near the ti-tree fence running down the north side of the property. ‘This many in one place is rare nowadays. They’re a feature of this area. Or were. Once upon a time.’ He patted the trunk as though it were an old friend. ‘I love ‘em,’ he said, looking around. ‘The suburban sprawl’s gonna kill them off, though.’ He walked over to the edge of the veranda and plonked his frame down then patted the spot beside him, signaling me to join him.
Once I was seated––a safe way along the veranda from him––he turned to me. ‘This location warrants something special, y’know that?’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘If you’re serious, I will,’ he said. ‘Tell you about it, that is. I’ll tell you what I reckon you could do with it. An undeveloped piece of beach front’s sure something.’
‘Except for that ugly big garage up front. You saw that when we drove in, right?’
‘The guy built the garage. He did some music recordings in there at one time. Among other things.’
‘The cannabis? Yes, I’ve been told about that already.’
A perky little brush turkey––black feathers, red head and a yellow necklace––strutted out of the dunes, scratched about for a bit then, when I tried to move towards it for a closer look––not yet appreciating what pest they are––the creature darted back in among the undergrowth and disappeared.
I came back to the veranda, sat down, wondering if the man had checked out my backside while I was leaning over and tussling with the turkey. I broke the silence.
‘What I’ve got here is nothing more or less than a very run-down property, isn’t it? Really?’ I was looking at the mess of embers from my morning’s labours, at the rusting corrugated iron wall down at the veranda’s edge, at the ugly fibro, at the aluminium window and door frames. With a sigh, I pictured the monumental task ahead of me if I were to make the ugly little hut even half presentable. ‘Just a dilapidated hippy hang-out, I guess.’
Before he answered, and as if to confirm my assumptions, he reached down and picked a syringe out of the grey sand at his feet and held it out to show me. I was horrified.
‘You should get someone to do a sweep of this place. Under the house, too. It’s not just a rumour. Surf documentaries weren’t the guys only trick.’
‘God, don’t you hate them? Some dirty junkie,’ I said, putting my hand out to take the needle from him.
‘Uh-uh.’
He pulled his hand away and went across and retrieved a plastic water bottle from his canvas shoulder bag. After tipping out the remaining water, he pushed the needle against the step, bending it back on itself then dropped the syringe into the bottle and screwed the lid back on.
‘I saw a skip out the front of that house they’re renovating down the road. I’ll drop it in there as I go by.’
He collected his canvas bag and slung it over his shoulder.
‘You’re going? So soon? But what about––’
‘Yeah. I’m going,’ he said, flatly.
His mood had changed, as if I the yellow brick road we had started down together moments ago had vanished. I watched as he walked towards the side of the house, trailing the bottle in his hand. When he stopped and looked around, I was standing, stunned, where he had left me. He looked down at the bottle for a moment then walked back and indicated the scope of the property with a wave of the bottle. ‘Look, you’ve got a nice place lady, okay?’
He might as well have slapped my face. I recoiled from his words.
‘A really nice place.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘It could be.’
He had just checked me out of la-la land. A thick, empty silence reigned in which I had time to regret my harsh outburst. Coming down like a tonne of bricks on heroin addicts didn’t play well in Byron Bay, apparently.
Uncool.
No brownie points awarded for a new arrival so conservative she was repelled by Byron’s famous junkies. My comment had reflected poorly on a place this local man loved. I had been insensitive. He was holding his gaze on me, unblinking.
‘You’ll