NEVER IN A BLUE MOON

NEVER IN A BLUE MOON

As each wave approached and receded, I sunk deeper, twisting my feet back and forth. A pippy lodged between my toes, the smooth bifold shell extracted then thrown back into the ocean as seagulls ran, taking flight on the salt laden air. 

Behind me, spinifex dunes extended as far as the eye could see. Humped mounds, popping with pink flowers, a refuge for pigface, terns and crabs and the ghosts of make believe games created by salt skinned children running carefree on the wind. 

Twenty years later, I’m no longer that young naïve girl with a story they refused to believe. My return wasn’t something they had anticipated. They thought I was gone for good. The words I’d spoken back then still hung over the community, heavy like the stench of fish guts. 

“You should leave it be,” they said. “Bury it and don’t think about digging it up ever again.” 

They hadn’t anticipated global warming, rising sea levels or uncharacteristic weather patterns causing geomorphological changes to the ancient stretch of coastline. In short, the dunes were migrating inland, encroaching on the coastal community, I once called family. 

Baskins Beach, a shacked fishing village back in the early 70’s was discovered by developers in the 90’s when the dirt road became tar. The same story up and down the coast where old locals bound by blood, salty sweat and silence, initially welcomed the improvements and conveniences. Now they complained about the ‘blow ins’ clogging the boat ramp and taking over their car park. Itinerants that would only last a few seasons until the stink eyes, cold shoulders and name calling became uncomfortable.

Shading my eyes with one hand I stared toward the grey horizon as waves crashed and gulls squawked. Behind me a dog’s bark could be heard on the wind. No doubt the reason for the gulls hasty flight off the sand. Inhaling the briny salt air once again was a reminder for my purpose for being here.

A shaggy blonde dog and stooped figure stood to one side in the walkway. The coated man leaned on the round post bordering the designated the beach access over the dunes. A nod to the Dune Preservation Society funded by progressive volunteers. He raised his hand in recognition. A mind reader perhaps or sage but I came to know him as the ‘keeper of secrets’. I waved back, news travels fast here, like sharks chasing a school of mullet. I expected to see him sooner rather than later. 

“Uncle Simon.”

“Ruth.”  He nodded his response without any further familiarity.

“Seen Angus around?” I asked.

He lifted his head in an upward nod over his shoulder and said, “You’ll find him in the same place he was when you left.”

His eyes averted, a feeble attempt at transferring his guilt onto me. Below the layer of attempted social niceties was a history of alcoholism and pilfering from crab pots. My father’s brother was not the only bad apple in the family. 

Enforcing laws or solving ownership was usually dealt by the inhabitants of Baskins. The nearest police station, Emu Flats, was nearly two hours’ drive on a straight road, bright and cheery in spring when the wildflowers bloomed but in summer, the road melted into the desolate landscape of salt bush and mirages.

I am the only daughter of Alistair and Jacqueline Sinclair, and I have a brother. I didn’t know my mother, only bonding to the stories I’d heard told by my father who I’d long ago, stopped calling ‘Dad’.

Trudging atop the berm lead me to a familiar place. Plastic crates stacked three high, drums, floats and circular crab pots in disarray beside the shack. The minimalistic construction made with leftover timbers and green tarpaulins held together with nylon rope and rusty nails. A grownup’s cubby house that didn’t care about time or the age of its occupant.

I’d once been immune to the rotting fish carcasses of the stink bait hanging off his rusty towbar, attracting flies. The smell infiltrating the fresh air just like any fishing village on the coast, oddly comforting. Missed, when I first moved to the city, saturated in industrial pollution and one thousand fragrances, which I happily contributed. In the hardened eyes of my family, I was a defector lost to the ‘big smoke’. My survival required the move, unlike others who could only manage to shift sideways.

“Angus! Are you in?” I yelled.

A gust of wind caused the roof to billow upwards like a mushroom. The predictable onshore had whipped white horses into a frenzy across the sapphire ocean. Good for kite surfing and fishing. 

I called for him, louder this time, competing with the wind’s screech. "Angus! It’s Ruth!"

No answer.

“Damn you, Angus! Your car’s here, so don’t pretend you can’t hear me!"

We were once thick as thieves. He was older by two years and five months, a big brother I idolised. I was the tomboy, wild and fearless, he was cautious and protective. The roles should have been reversed. If they had, then maybe, life would have stayed predictable and unchallenged.

I shook the thought away and remembered the phone call just three weeks ago. The voice without regret, a dying man’s confession. After all these years there was no room for sympathy, just restrained anger as I wrote the details on a sheet of paper to eventually type into a formal document. 

“Never in a blue moon.” His last words playful as though he was telling a joke. 

But it wasn’t an astronomical salute to those who lived their lives under the influence of the moon or its gravitational pull on the ocean. No, it was his last dig at the daughter he viewed as a traitor.  

The shack creaked with another gust of wind carrying promises for a new beginning. 

“Angus! It’s over.”

I stepped across the timber planks, weathered grey and smooth under bare feet. The recycled door obliged even though it’s hinges were crusted in salt. Peering into the dim, eyes adjusted and involuntarily filled with salty fluid.

“Oh, Angus.”