Nina
Barry Aitchison
It was springtime when she left me, face awash with bygone dreams. I let
her
go, watched her go, striding down the Ocean Road like a ragdoll. I knew I
was losing more than I could bear. I knew I would suffer for such folly. I
knew I would never see her again. And yet, I let her go.
Every afternoon, when the bus comes to Boonderra, I go on the balcony,
watching, watching for that ragdoll, but she never comes. No, she never
came
back to Boonderra— or to me.
******
Nina was seventeen when first I laid on her. The Pig and Whistle was a
faux
American hamburger joint with im****ted jukebox that destroyed the full
potential of many an innocent ear. She served hamburgers to
freshly-minted,
tourist teenagers in ivy league ****rts, stove-pipe trousers and blue suede
shoes— mock replicas of what we thought was the cool dress of the new
teenager. Whether it was or not, we didn’t know, all we had were the films
to show us.
I’d been in Queensland surfing, soaking up a winter sun. I’d driven up
with
my folks who were on a caravan trip around Australia. Four weeks of heat
and
sand and surf, punctuated by flies. I hitchhiked back in three days to a
wet
and windy Boonderra Saturday, full of myself with my winter tan, and
walked
straight into a five foot Nina, ru****ng to deliver a tray of food to a
table. Nina went down like a sack of spuds, the burgers going south while
I
landed on top of her. Even though I took the blame, Reg, the owner, gave
her a tongue-la****ng and all through it, she glared at me.
With life back to normal, I commuted, riding the bus to the city,
struggling
with accountancy when my heart craved a more creative art. Oh, it was easy
enough, challenge neutral, it was, but once rebellion set in, it was
doomed.
Nina rode the bus to town, sitting on the long back seat, a princess at
court, cigarette smoke curling in a ghost rope. Midnight hair hug over an
eye like a babe from a Phillip Marlowe story. She looked straight ahead
avoiding frequent stares of city-bound males. I nodded once and got the
coldest glare in retaliation. It was a glare well-practised and merciless.
Three months she kept a wall of ice around her, months that stoked my
embers
to a fine heat. Then it changed as spring splashed plum trees with
maternity
pink. The bus heading home overran its stop and laid the old woman from
Boonderra boat-hire low. That bus wasn’t going anywhere and the bus
company
issued tickets for a roundabout route that would take an hour more. That
bus
was still an hour away.
This time she looked to me with an embryonic smile. “Looks like we’re
getting home late,” she said. That tough girl facade crumbling for a small
girl with searchlight, honey-eyes.
We men are fools in love. We say anything, do anything, risk all, for the
slim chance of a kind word. “Why don’t we hire a car?” some idiot said,
and
everyone turned to stare at me. Once it was out of my mouth, it was no
longer mine. Everyone had reason for being part of the plan. Then, Jacko,
the voluble coach of the Boonderra Whalers said, “Well some will miss out
for sure. If we get a sedan, there’s only room for six. I’m on and that
lad’s
driving and I guess that’s his girl so there’s room for only three extra.”
It was organised before I even had the car and my plan for the two of us
and
a leisurely drive down the coast was dead. I walked to Rent-a-Wreck on the
southern side of the terminal. Nina kept pace at my side. Others jostled
for
the lead behind, squabbling with whoever seemed to have lost out.
“Make sure they all pay,” she said, “because they expect you to at the
moment.”
“I can’t affor— Oh,” I said, tacking against the wind, “I didn’t mean
you.”
She put on that wispy half smile again. “Don’t be silly. You’re at Uni
aren’t
you? Me and these others have jobs. We’ll pay and make sure you get the
cash
from them first or its no ride, OK?”
She sat next to me on the bench seat of the FX Holden. I could feel her
warmth through her dress and every time I changed gears, I deliberately
swayed into her. She smelt so damned good, too. Her ****t-wine hair smelt
of
coconut and spice.
I don’t recall much of that trip, but I still retain a warm, delicious
feeling for it. Half way into the two hour trip, she dropped her head
against my shoulder and slept. I felt so goddamned chuffed.
We arrived in Boonderra and everyone, but Nina, dispersed like they had
bladders about to explode. It was dark and the wind off the sea was cold
and
salty.
“What will you do tomorrow?” she asked. “You know it’s Saturday. No one’s
gonna want to help take the car back.”
“I guess I’ll drive up by myself,” I said, “spend a few hours in the
library.”
She found something out to sea to focus on. “I’m not doing much. Would you
like to see a movie? There’s a 3D at the Regent, The House of Wax.”
I felt my pocket without thinking.
“My shout,” she said. “Really, you’d be doing me a big favour. I’ve been
dying to see what a 3D film is like. Have you seen it?”
Seen it? I hadn’t been to a movie all year. With Mum and Dad on a road
trip,
I had to survive on a part time job at Flannery’s Garage and Flannery was
no
philanthropist.
I parked the Holden prominently in our driveway that night. Back in 1953,
not many had their own cars. The three car family was still a leap of
bewilderment away. I wanted everyone to see it next morning, to burn in
the
acid of their own jealous juices. The term ‘arsehole’ hadn’t caught on yet
either.
I was waiting next day for Nina by the general store. Why she wanted to
meet
there was a mystery. She seemed wary of saying where she lived. I guess it
wouldn’t have taken much to find out— Boonderra wasn’t that big a town,
but,
I felt this youthful loyalty to her,
She came out of nowhere, breathless, jumping in to sit facing the front
without a word. I started the car and began to drive off when a thump hit
the roof. It was Jacko.
“Can I catch a lift? I want to see the big game at the ‘G. We’ve got a lay
day today.”
He slid in next to Nina before I could protest. His arm slithered across
the
back of the seat, his head just short of Nina’s. A ghostly knife severed
my
gut. Gears crunched as I took off, showering gravel over the front of the
store.
It was all Jacko for the next hour, he hardly shut up. He gave up on me
right quick. I simply didn’t answer. Then he turned his attentions to Nina
and put us all at risk.
The Great Ocean Road is one of Earth’s great magnificences. On the other
hand, to a young man with his blood up, it’s an impediment, and every turn
of that road that clings to the cliff, is a challenge, a chance to show
your
adversary that here is a hero who fears not the risk of death.
“Steady on, Josh,” said Jacko, his hand against the dash, “no need to
break
the speed record.”
There was a moment’s silence before Nina spoke, then she made my heart
sing.
“Don’t slow on my account,” she said, “I like it fast.”
Jacko was quiet after that and remained so until the Rent-a-Wreck car
space.
“I’ll never get into the footy on Grand Final day. I might come along to
see
a flick with you,” he said.
“No,” said Nina. “We don’t want company.”
I could have fell to my knees and wor****pped her at that moment. Jacko
went
off mumbling. I could not have cared less. This dark-haired, pint-size
beauty had more balls than I back then.
A dull roar came from the east. She looked up as she cocked her head.
“It’s the footy,” I said. “The Magpies are playing the Cats.”
She dragged me along, checking her watch every half block or so, until we
came to the Regent. The town has some glorious old movie theatres, but the
Regent was a Roman forum, marble statues gazing down aloofly from
prominent
vantage points. We got to our seats just as the news ended, some re****t of
Britain exploding an atomic bomb in South Australia. The curtains closed
then scraped open again to reveal the white screen.
Nina ****vered and took possession of my arm. We donned our gl*****,
coloured
Cellophane in cardboard, and waited for the promised “fright of your
lives”.
She gasped as the owner of the wax museum set fire to the place for the
insurance. She tightened as Vincent Price rose horribly burned. She
screamed
as a hand came out of the screen to hover ghost-like before our eyes.
“Feel my heart,” she whispered and took my hand and placed it firmly on
her
breast.
Blood took refuge in my face and I felt I was a beacon illuminating my
hand
and any minute some sharp-tongued clown would shout, “Turn that light off,
mate, and leave her lovely tit alone.” But my burn was brief. Her hand
s****d up and over to bring my face to hers and a slivery tongue took
possession of my mouth. I don’t remember much more of The House of Wax.
It was a night of magic. Even ordinary, mundane things took on a glow,
stayed in memory in every detail like it had been pained there. Nothing in
my experience had prepared me for Nina, for that feminine warmth that made
a
man feel a man.
We caught the last bus, along with a few drunken revellers still
celebrating
Collingwood’s win. It was cold in the back and we made good use of each
other’s warmth. We were asleep before the bus left the suburbs.
It was almost midnight when the driver woke us. “End of the road,” he
said,
and yawned. It was just shy of midnight. For the first time, she let me
walk
her home, a rundown shack on the outskirts. The town was quiet apart from
a
far off dog breaking the silence every few minutes. A full moon sat over
the
eastern ranges, giving the world a fairy tale quality.
I knew it was her house. It was flanked by blocks of vacant land on each
side. As we came closer, she gasped and let a low moan escape. Everything
seemed in order to me. The end of a pickup could be seen parked by the
side
of the house, what is known locally as a ‘ute’.
“Go home, Josh,” she said, flatly, “no questions, just go now.”
I had a hundred questions, but she left no room to manoeuvre. I turned and
walked away.
*******
Something woke me. The luminous clock said 2:20AM. The next knock was more
impatient. I found a weeping Nina on the doorstep, ****vering in a flimsy
night dress. In the soft light of the hallway the bruise on her face,
across
one eye to her cheek, looked nasty.
I put a blanket over her shoulders and made tea. She kept her peace until
she’d drunk half the cup. “I need money,” she said. “I can’t go back to
the
house and I have to get away.”
“Who did this?”
“I don’t want you involved. He’s dangerous. If he thought you and I… Don’t
interfere.”
“Who is he, Nina?”
She bit on her lower lip. “My husband. Somehow he found me. I don’t know
how
he does it.”
“Your husband?”
“Don’t get hysterical on me. I would have told you— eventually.”
“I can let you have around £100. Sorry, that’s all I have. It’s for Uni.”
She ****vered. I stoked the fire under the wood stove and slipped some
kindling in.
“I’ll have it after the bank opens,” I said.
“But the bus leaves at 7:00. I have to be on it.”
“How can you go without clothes? Look, won’t he be watching the bus? What
if
you hide here until he goes away?”
“I can’t take the risk,” she said, “he’d probably kill you. I don’t want
you
getting hurt over me. How do I get out of here? You’re right, he might
watch
the bus.”
I propped myself on a chair in front of her. “Look, hide out here for a
day
or two and I’ll borrow a car from Flannery and take you where you need to
go.”
She choked a bitter laugh. “I thought that was here. How could he have
found
me, this far from town?”
“Who is he?”
She stared at me for such a long, uncomfortable time before speaking
again.
“Whatever you do, you must keep away from Eric. Understand? He’s an
organiser for the Painters and Dockers and that lot are a nasty bunch.”
I’d never heard of them, but years later, the union would be declared
illegal and a harbour for criminals.
*******
“If I’m going to stay, you need to ease up on the questions, Josh. Now,
it’s
Sunday. Shall we go back to bed?”
I was twenty years old that day in Boonderra yet I was still a child in so
many ways. Now, as I look back on life, with the benefit of age and
experience, I realise nothing could have prepared me for the gift she
gave.
There are things that need to be experienced to be understood. That day,
Nina introduced me to the volatile engine of human existence and did it
with
a deliberate slowness that had me in rut heaven.
Inevitably, Sunday ticked down followed by Monday. I skipped cl***** and
stayed with her. Then, sometime early Tuesday, she slipped out. I woke
feeling immediately tense. It wasn’t yet 6:00. She was back before I made
coffee, dressed in my clothes rolled up at the cuffs and sleeves with a
beanie over her hair. She looked like a teenage boy.
“He’s gone,” she said in a monotone. “The bastard’s burnt all my things.
I’ve
nothing left.”
It was a disaster for her, but a ladder of hope for me.
“That means you needn’t go,” I said, a little too cheerful.
She glared. “Your plan is what? Keep me ****d for whenever you feel like a
quickie? I’m in a spot. I need my things to work and need to work to buy
my
things. He even burnt photos I can never ever replace.”
“I don’t understand. Why not go to the police? Look at your face, that
bruise would convince anyone this bloke is violent.”
She laughed a short, sharp laugh then sipped her coffee. “You’d think
coppers would protect a wife against a violent husband? They don’t
interfere
in domestics, as they call them. He can basically do anything, short of
killing me.”
“How could you go with a bloke like that.” I said, “Surely there were
warning signs?”
She turned to me with a venomous scowl. “You’re as bad as the coppers. It
must be the woman’s fault so she deserves everything she gets. Is that
what
you think?”
“You’re twisting everything against me, Nina. I’m not the bad guy here.”
“All men are,” she said, and the waterworks started.
I can’t handle tears, never could, still can’t. Chalk it up to a mother
who
used them as a rod, a punishment. This never goes down well with women,
they
see it as a male excuse— and it is. Still, when those teardrops start and
the shoulders quiver and shake, paralysis sets in.
******
I went to the general store and post office when it opened and I took out
all my savings, all £110. Flush with cash, I strolled over to the Pig and
Whistle and bought their first burger of the day. Reg was in a wistful
mood
and wanted to talk while I ate. He was reminiscing on his early years when
he was a bit of as tearaway. He stunned me when he admitted to a jail term
for GBH.
“You don’t look the sort, Reg,” I noted.
“Yeah,” he said, “I’ve come a long way since me Painter and Docker days.”
Nina was lying on the bed when I got back, examining the spots on the
ceiling.
“I think I know how your husband kept tabs on you,” I said, easing myself
down beside her.
She sat bolt upright. “How?”
“I suspect he’s a mate of Reg. Did you know Reg was a Painter and Docker?”
“Bugger! All the time I was working part time there, Reg was sending Eric
re****ts on me?”
“Could be. Anyway, we’re out of here,” I said, taking the roll of notes
from
my pocket. “I have a plan.”
“There’s no way out,” she said, flat as a mill pond. “Not unless I cut my
wrists. If we take the bus, Reg will know. If we hitch a ride, someone
will
see us. We’re trapped. No, I’m trapped.”
My laugh made her angry. She pulled herself into the embryonic shell.
“Don’t go cold on me. There’s a way out and I bet they haven’t realised
it,
just as you haven’t.”
She sat up again. “OK, genius, how?”
I took her hand and walked to the window. We lived three streets back from
the main drag, where the ground rose steeply to overlook the ocean.
“There,” I said, pointing out to sea, “we’re escaping by sea.”
“You’re nuts!” she said, and went back to bed.
*****
The moon was lurking behind the cloud mass at 3:00AM, but there was just
enough light to see our way along the cliff face. It’s amazing, but even
back then the occasional car would come hurtling along that Great Ocean
Road
at that time of night. Nina had a blanket around her shoulders and a pair
of
the flip-flops we call thongs on her feet. She wasn’t just miserable, she
was scared. She could hear the surf rolling in, the dull boom as it broke
before it’s rush to the rocks below. It had been rolling unbroken, all the
way from the Southern Ocean down near Antarctica.
“How much further?” she asked. “I’m freezing. Why not just keep walking to
the next town?”
“You want to walk 150 miles in those?”
“We’ll hitch a ride.”
“You’re just scared of the breakers. Don’t be.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’ve done it before.”
That was a good time to light a cigarette, In ’53, everyone smoked.
“Well?” she said, her voice wavering.
“Well what?”
“I said, you’ve done it before.”
“And I heard you. I think the boatshed is down here.”
The path down to the small beach was overgrown. I doubt anyone had been
down
there in five or more years. Old Patterson had a house up on the ridge
above, but they demolished it when he died. It was built on land later
absorbed into farmland. Somehow, no one had ever worried about the
boatshed.
Probably they never knew of it.
It took nearly 20 minutes to clear the vegetation covering the doors. Then
another 10 minutes to break the lock. The doors finally creaked open to
reveal a small boat trapped like a fly in a mass of cobwebs.
“Not me,” cried Nina, “I’m not going in there.”
“Fine!”
I went in, arms raised in a sweeping motion, feeling the webs stick to my
face and arms. The dinghy seemed in good nick at first glance, in the poor
light of my torch. It was a 15 footer with a pair of oars in the bottom, a
sail furled around a boom in the bottom with the oars, and a small
outboard
90 degrees out of position. It seemed the owner was a stickler for safety.
The oars had seen better days, but would serve in an emergency. The sail
broke up as I tried unfurling it. That went over the side. The outboard
had
not been used in at least 5 years. I checked the small tank. Amazingly,
some
fuel was still in it after so long a time, but it was nowhere near enough.
I primed the fuel and pulled the cord. Clunk! Clunk!
“It’ll never work,” said Nina.
I primed it again and pulled. As if spurred by Nina’s claim, the engine
roared into life, then spluttered and stopped.
“Help me move it out where the light is better.”
We dragged the boat out of the shed along the iron tracks laid down many
years before. The tracks had all but rusted away and hindered as well as
guided the vessel. Outside the dawn was just arriving. Quickly I began
stripping the engine. I had a good idea what was wrong. After all those
years, corrosion was shedding particles.
Nina was the very definition of impatience, huffing, complaining,
fidgeting.
But when the task was done and the engine proved itself, she took on a
very
different role.
“This isn’t a good idea, Listen to that surf. Look at the breakers.”
“A piece of cake,” I said. confidently, putting a jerry can of fuel from
the
shed into the dingy.
“Bully for you. I suppose you’ve done it heaps of times.”
“Help me get her into the water.”
“How many?” she asked as she shoved the back of the vessel. It groaned,
but
stayed put.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, and heaved on the fraying rope.
“You bastard!”
“What?”
“You’ve never done it, have you.”
Just then the boat gave up resisting and bumped its way into the wash. I
grabbed the rope again and waited for her to board.
“Have you?” There was a sad desperation in the tremor of her demand.
I withheld my answer, my hand still extended. She thought a library of
thoughts before she took my hand and I pulled her into the boat. It bucked
and swirled as it took to the waters and I made for the stern in a crouch.
The engine exploded into life and dug into the foaming surf and we headed
right at the breakers.
“You haven’t,” she growled. “You’ll kill us both.”
“God, you’re a happy soul in the morning.”
The ****pwreck Coast they call it around here.—a trap for the sailing ****ps
of the last century when so many of them died along these high cliffs and
rocks. Wandering souls roam the beaches watching for the drowned dead that
populate these waters.
The breakers here are famous, not that they rival those of the Pacific
islands, but more for their consistency. Surfers love these waters. As a
kid, I spent more time in the pounding waves than I did studying. I hit
those rolling peaks full on, heard Nina scream as we rose with the wave
and
get dumped on the other side.
“Bastard,” was all she said as the dingy continued on to the next swell.
TBA
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