Looking for Dolphins
t was by coincidence that I happened down the Frankston Highway this
day of spring sun. Age was not the only change that had sepia toned my life as I
headed into the past.
In other times we had a holiday house in Tootgarook and, as an afterthought, a family. Both seem to have been sold off in times too tough for adults. In these times I was a child but as I drive my expensive car too fast I reminisce as an adult.
My future sits beside me and she enjoys the fresh spring air with a window wide. It is too cold for me but I have acquired acquiescence and put up with a lot more than I used too, a lot more than my parents would or could.
She is keen to visit the beach but is oblivious to the meaning of this journey. I am taking her to my beach, something more than sand and water. The place I take her has heart.
In the middle of the afternoon I pass a general store I know. It is the same and different, like my woman, familiar and strange. I know the beach house approaches.
I swoop past it, knowing that it is not changed, and turn quickly into a side street beyond.
"What are we doing?" she asks in sweet ignorance.
"Beaching" I reply with a pathetic attempt at witticism when I would rather not talk.
She reads my mood with practiced aplomb and bristles out of the car. One step ahead of me she walks in the wrong direction. She always seems to be that step ahead of me. I chase, again, and take her hand. Without a word I gently squeeze her genteel flesh and try to wash away a darkening mood. I need her now.
Approaching the old house we don't talk. Without question I lead my love to a familiar fence. It is cheap industrial concrete shaped into bricks. As a child I had thought they were real bricks but now I see them for what they are, an illusion.
Beyond is the tiny yard I have mowed large times. It has not changed though I had forgotten the old bench that sits under a mongrel tree.
The master bedroom is visible through open blinds but I am unfamiliar with that room. The rest of the house is closed to me. In the bedroom the bed is ruffled. Is this where recidivism breeds? The scene is familiar to me as an adult though I ward against danger signs of discontent. This much my parents taught me.
In a moment of reckless passion I leave my lover and walk down the drive. I have to look at the garage, the place where my father had backed the boat into the roof, where my mother hosed the dog after a sandy run on a hot afternoon. Where I used to clean the fish, the place my sister avoided.
The red gravel has washed away, the ceiling beam hastily repainted and a shiny new hose hangs from pipes in disrepair.
The kitchen window to the side of the garage is open. People move about inside. There is laughter and I remember a young boy’s voice. Leaving quickly I cannot look in, happy people do not belong in my house.
Perhaps the see me. Perhaps they laugh at me. But she waits at the end of the drive and is not angry. She looks worried for me, and those eyes of concern reaffirm a certain future. A future without family decay.
She reaches out and strokes my face but asks nothing. This time she waits to be led and I turn my back on my childhood.
I lead the way over the busy highway, a veteran at this crossing. The foreshore shrubbery is changed. Gone is the labyrinth of passages through the dense bush. Lover's cleverly concealed hideaways are now little more than wind breaks.
Moving onto the sand my love leaves my side and scatters some seagulls minding their own business. She reminds me of the beach, vital and fresh, as though she belongs here. When I take her home perhaps a bit of my beach will stay with her.
Instinctively I skip a shell over the water and watch the sun racing to drown on the horizon. My love calls out to me as she skips along the shell- encrusted pier. I do not hear her but I wave enthusiastically hoping that she will leave me for a moment as I look out over the bay.
The vastness that stretches out before me reminds me of my dreams. The gentle water reflected possibilities of beauty and of calm days. In the mystery of the deep blue I was convinced that dolphins played in waters just beyond my reach. I used to sit alone and wait for them to break the water. They never did.
Shaking off lonelier days I am drawn to the pier. A refundable bottle offers itself to me, my trained eye spots the contour and shape of a 20 cent refund half buried in the sand. Years ago this would have been gold to me, now it is little more than unsightly rubbish which I am too lazy to clear from the violated sand.
I collect my best friend as I pass the pier. She has her shoes in her hands and feels the sand through her toes. I keep my shoes on, fearing to be that close to the beach again. Her eyes are alive and her stories and vision make me smile.
We pause by the empty boat ramp and I fight a thousand memories. The years have not changed the plain slippery concrete where my father launched the boat. Lucky crabs play in the seaweed; another time and they would have been my bait.
We sit to the side of the ramp alone, but together, and watch the setting sun. A cool spring breeze gives me an excuse to hold her close and share in her warmth. In that safe embrace I think of my family's mutually exclusive lives. I fight off the emotion because I want to shelter her from any pain, especially mine.
As we sit, the water turns crimson and the wind doesn't touch us.
I watch for the dolphins.
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