Stillness and Storm Read online

unconcerned, the rider sat in the familiar stillness. The world flowed around her, just like the breeze which tugged gently at her hair. She became aware of the park manager looking for her. Slowly she disengaged from the stillness and turned back to the world. She waved and got up to go over and talk to the park manager. The sky in the west began to turn red, the seagulls were quiet and the curlews made their first tentative calls from the rushes. It was evening.

  "She came into the office about nine the next morning. She was dressed in her riding leathers and I expected her to just hand in the keys to the shower block and be on her way. Instead she asked if I knew where she could find one John Neilson.

  One good thing about living in a small town is that you know pretty well everyone else in the town. One bad thing is that pretty well everyone else in the town knows you. John Neilson had moved into Angle River about five years ago. He was a loud and obnoxious drunkard whose views on women, police, and the country in general were forced on anyone who would stand still long enough. These views invariably contained an impressive range of expletives. His general attitude of coarse bonhomie was rather sad, given the intense dislike of him felt by most of the townspeople.

  He ran a small fishing tackle shop near the bridge and he seemed to live well enough. He had a large house on the cliff tops overlooking the sea and plenty of money to spend in the bar, even though his shop never had many customers. Most of the people in town had concluded years ago that it was drug money. Personally, I had never trusted him. The loud, brash manner seemed false, like a mask or an act. It made you think that maybe he was hiding some dark, terrible secret. He was a man you could easily believe was involved in infamy. He was also Irish.

  “Sure, I know him well.” I said. “He has a shop down by the bridge. Sells fishing tackle.” I decided to do a bit of fishing of my own. “You know him from Ireland?”

  She shook her head. “He’s an acquaintance of a friend of mine back home. He asked me to look him up if I was out this way.” She turned to look briefly at a map of the town on the wall. “Down by the bridge?” she asked. I nodded and she waved her thanks as she turned to go. A little while later I heard the Ducati roar into life and head off down the track into town.”

  The autumn beach was nearly deserted. Near the rocky point at one end, a group of surfers continued their wave quest. At the other end, near the river, a single figure sat still on the sand. Cirrus cloud, like wisps of angle hair, was strung across the cold blue sky. The freshening breeze was cold against her face and carried hints of sand and salt spray. She was aware of the waves moving towards her, as they travelled through the curve of space and time. She was aware of their retreat. Their slow rhythm matched the rhythm of her breathing. Alongside her, a large gathering of seagulls rested from the wind, oblivious to her presence. A small drift of sand had piled up against her leg on the windward side. Still she sat unmoving. A still point, breathing in time with the living Earth. She heard footsteps approach her over the sand. The seagulls took to loud and indignant flight. Slowly she opened her eyes and withdrew herself from the silence.

  “I came across her again later that afternoon. I was going down to the beach with my rod and tackle. I’m not much of a fisherman, for me fishing is a good excuse to stand on the beach and do nothing. I mostly fish in a deep gutter that runs along the beach near where the river enters the sea. Sometimes I embarrass myself by catching mullet, or even salmon. I keep the salmon – even though they taste like dirt if you don’t cook ‘em just right.

  When I saw her sitting there, her hair blowing gently in the wind, I was once again struck by her stillness and the way she seemed to merge into her environment. I also wondered how long she’d been like that. Sand had plied up against one of her legs, just like it would against a rock. She looked up as I walked past her.

  “G’day.” I said. “Did you find your friend?” She nodded and looked around as if she had only just arrived at the beach.

  “It’s a very pleasant day,” she said, as I set my gear down and started to rig my rod. I nodded, even though the wind was chilly and over to the south west where a large bank of thunder heads was building rapidly.

  “Not for long though,” I said. “When that lot hits the weather’s going to go down hill real fast.” She was silent for a while then, sitting and watching me bait my tackle.

  “You’re lucky that those are the only storms in your country. Others are not so fortunate.” she said as she turned her gaze to watch the surfers curve through the waves at the other end of the beach. “This is a beautiful part of the world.”

  “Yep,” I said. “I reckon it’s a pretty good place to live and I’ve been around a bit: America, parts of Asia. They all seem a bit crowded and intense for me.” I cast into the gutter. The current immediately started to pull at my line. “There are advantages to being a small country at the bottom end of the South Pacific. Sure, some of the blokes up in the city complain that we’re a bit off the main pulse of things - but trouble passes us by too. You know, they talk about ‘the tyranny of distance’ but I reckon it’s a blessing. Here, passion seems to get diluted by that distance.” I watched my rod carefully as its tip bent with the current and nodded with the waves. “Distance and time.” I said. My rod wasn’t doing anything special so I just stood and watched it. That is the best part of fishing: standing with the wind blowing scattered spray in your face, not thinking of anything in particular.

  Eventually she stood up. “Well, I’ll be seeing you.” she said as she walked back up the beach. I watched her go, wondering how long she would stay.

  That night I stood at the mouth of the river and watched the oncoming storm. Already the waves were becoming violent. The sound of them a loud, almost continuous roar. There would be no surfing tomorrow as a storm violent sea would throw mountains of white water at the beach. Storm clouds now covered more than half the sky, building up like the dark towers of some daemonic castle. Lightning echoed across the sky and thunder sounded over the ocean like a thousand mad kettle drums. I like the winter storms. All the sound and fury of nature’s best show and it costs me nothing at all to watch. Alternately the beach and the river estuary were brilliantly lit by the lightning and plunged into darkness. A dramatic world of electric highlights, deep shadow and after images. Here was raw creation.

  I didn’t see her come up but only sensed her when she was already standing beside me. A silent, black shadow.

  “You walk quietly.” I said. “Almost like a kadaicha man.”

  “What’s a kadaicha man?” she asked with her soft Irish voice.

  “A kadaicha man was the old executioner of my grandfather’s people,” I explained. “He was a Gunditjamara man – an aboriginal. The kadaicha were part of the old tribal structure. They avenged serious breaches of tribal law and they were supposed to have been given mystical powers. Actually, they were just very good at their job. They wore shoes made of feathers and hair so that they couldn’t be tracked and made no noise at all as they walked. Still, the tribal people believed they were magic and feared them like death itself”

  She stood quietly for a long time after that, starring at the oncoming storm. Eventually she asked: “And what did these kadaicha men do in between executions?”

  “I don’t know.” I answered with a shrug. “I guess the cost of all that mystical power was living off by yourself in the bush. It’d be a bit hard to live with someone and then have to spear them. It’d be even harder to live with someone who had mystical powers of life and death.”

  She nodded. “It would be. Hard to live knowing you could be killed and hard to live knowing it’s your duty to kill – both,” she said. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning early. I’ll drop the keys off by your door.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, gesturing towards the storm. “It’s not going to be good riding weather tomorrow.” I liked her and I was kinda hoping she would stay longer.

  “I’m sure.” She said as she turned to go. “I’ve ridden throug
h worse storms than that.” As she left the first rain drops began to fall. Large, heavy drops falling like tears from the cloud sodden sky. In the morning she was gone.

  Well, the storm died down in a few days and in the wrack on the beach they found the body. John Neilson had died with massive injuries. No one had seen him since the night before the storm when he had been drinking steadily in a dark and violent mood. Eventually, drunk and abusive, he had been asked to leave the bar. He didn’t leave with good grace but, after some physical assistance down the steps, he’d walked off in the direction of his home. That was the last time that anyone had seen him alive. The body was shipped off to the coroner for a post mortem and the town settled in for a good session of speculative gossip. No one mourned his passing.

  It was the next day that the whole circus of police and media crews descended on the town. It turned out that this was no ordinary death. As everyone had thought, John Neilson was a fraud, although not the kind they had imagined. His real name was Sean O’Neil, an exIRA gunman who had turned informer. He was living out here on a pension from the British government as part of some sort of witness protection program. You didn’t need to be a