Beach Walker – Chapter 5

Fragile

I felt compelled to find out what was going on, even though I really, really didn’t want to know. So I headed up the beach, closer to the commotion, as if I were just walking in that general direction anyway. They were all engrossed in their argument and paid me no attention.

Half a dozen youngsters. Probably late teens: four girls and two boys. Most had bundles of driftwood in their arms. For a campfire up in the dunes, I assumed, well hidden from the beach.

‘Fuck off you old prick,’ yelled one boy, tall and blond.

‘Fucken loser,’ chipped in the other, shorter and darker.

‘Filthy old creep,’ called one of the girls.

‘Smile for TikTok, perv!’ The speaker held up her phone.

Leonard was yelling so hard, he was almost bent double, fists balled by his sides. He was incoherent.

I had no inclination to get involved, but who knew how the situation might develop? To walk on by was impossible, so I decided to intervene from a safe distance. Maybe I could calm things down.

‘Is there a problem?’ I called.

‘Yeah – this nutjob.’ The blond boy was speaking. He had the rangy, muscled build of a basketball player. Leonard was a runt in comparison.

The girls stood around, looked at each other and the ground. I know a teenager with a guilty conscience when I see one. The one with the phone put it away.

I trudged through deep, soft sand. Leonard was bent over, panting. He didn’t look at me.

‘What’s it all about, Leonard?’

‘Dunes … ecosystem … damage … blowout …’ That was all I could make out.

Seeing that the fun was over, that the crazy old man had an ally – who might be crazy too – the young people started to traipse off up into the dunes. Soon they were lost from sight.

‘Don’t you think you were overreacting a bit? They’re just kids.’ I began, gently. ‘You won’t get anywhere, yelling at them like that.’

I wanted to say, ‘You’ll get yourself into trouble with the police,’ but this can of worms should remain firmly sealed.

To my horror, he began to cry. Great sobs which shook him; fat tears ran down his face, fell on the stained fabric of his singlet.

Rarely have I wanted so badly to hug someone. My children in the tiny traumas of childhood, the anguish of first love; my husband in the terror of imminent death. And now Leonard.

I couldn’t, of course. All I could do was stand by, helpless, useless, and witness this reserved man’s distress, his utter loss of dignity.

When he’d calmed down sufficiently, I picked up his bag, handed it to him.

‘Walk with me? Come on.’ I wanted to get him away from the scene of the confrontation. I steered him back towards Ocean Grove.

We walked in silence for a while. Eventually he spoke.

‘Treating the dunes like a playground. Don’t realise how fragile they are … Damage the grass and shrubs – all hell breaks lose. Big blowouts. Worst you can do is walk or ride through the dunes, camp, light fires …’

‘I see.’ I didn’t really see. Surely the dunes were too big to be damaged by a few pairs of teenage feet? They were great hills of sand, for goodness’ sake. And what was a blowout?

‘Then there’s the driftwood. It’s not just rubbish, you know …’

‘Absolutely not, no.’ It seemed darn fine firewood to me. Just right for a nice campfire. Like the branches shed from the old paddock gums, on my grandparents’ Gippsland farm. It would burn nicely …

‘Cover for shore-nesting birds like the hooded plovers and oystercatchers. Protection on the exposed berm at the foot of the primary dune …’

‘Oh, right.’ I wouldn’t know a ‘berm’ from a bar of soap. And what was a ‘primary’ dune? Were there secondary and tertiary dunes? No idea. Keep Leonard talking, that was the main thing.

I was vaguely aware of seeing information signs about those funny little birds, though. An exposed beach seemed a silly place for a tiny bird to nest. If they can fly, why don’t they nest in a tree, like any sensible bird would? No wonder they were endangered …

I kept these thoughts to myself. At least my companion was calm now and talking like a rational human being.

‘You know a lot about the local environment. Is that an interest of yours?’

‘An interest? Could say that … Life’s work. Since I … had to give up the racing.’

‘You were a racing driver?’

He laughed. ‘Nah. Jockey.’

It made sense. I could see him up high on a racehorse, with his small, wiry build.

‘But you had to give it up? An injury?’

‘No.’ That flat word of denial again. Okay, so this topic was clearly off limits.

‘So when I see you poking around in – examining the seaweed on the shore … is that part of your hobby – uh, interest – um, work?’

But he wasn’t listening. I could see his face in profile, struggling.

‘Did time, you know. Prison …’

‘I know.’ I could have slapped myself round the face for saying that. Fortunately it didn’t seem to register. He was already wrestling with the next piece of information that he needed to spit out.

‘Twenty-one years.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ It was a ridiculous thing to say, but how do you respond to that?

He looked at me, surprised. ‘Don’t be. Deserved it. Killed a man.’

‘Oh.’

‘My best friend.’

‘How awful.’ What I really wanted to ask: And are you still in the habit of killing your friends?

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Next week in Beach Walker:

Chapter 6: An Odd Pair

Grace delves into Leonard’s life story. An unlikely routine develops.