The Bay Page 4

  The conservative locals tried to ignore the invasion but wondered at the stories of wild music and crazy behaviour that filtered back to town. But it wasn’t long before they were looking in awe at the massive cash flow the young people generated, and complaints faded, as did demands that the authorities do something to stop such an event happening again. They assumed that after the long weekend of excesses, the worn-out revellers would disappear back to the cities. But the hard-core hippies had found the area as intoxicating as the pot and grog they consumed, and decided to stay.

  There were periodic skirmishes with the local police, the council, the town fathers, and a war of words hurled in public forums and in the pages of the press. Generally, though, the local populace retreated in the face of these odd-looking, articulate, educated, self-supporting free thinkers. Some of the locals began to realise that these tribes that were now living among them wanted to coexist, to raise and educate their children under new rules, and to create a better world.

  For many of the new arrivals, cash and credit ratings weren’t a big problem. They were well educated, had good career skills, healthy bank accounts, and they happily pooled their resources to buy up practically every failing dairy farm in the hinterland and establish what they called communes.

  ‘Communes, bloody hell, this is a communist invasion,’ growled a retired dairy farmer, who was drinking in the pub.

  The manager of the new RSL club agreed. ‘Doubt they’ll be darkening our doors. They know they’re not welcome in town.’

  ‘Maybe, but their money is,’ said Reg, the local real estate agent. ‘They’ve got money to spend and so have their friends. If they make a go of this it’s going to change the whole district. We won’t know ourselves in ten years. There’ll be people moving here and coming to see what it’s all about. That means new money in town. Because let’s face it, there ain’t much else happening.’

  As if to back up his words, two of the long-haired, colourfully dressed intruders wandered into the bar and ordered beers. The locals ignored them but the two men were unfazed. They settled themselves at a corner table and one of them pulled the guitar off his shoulder and began idly to strum. It was low key and the bartender glanced at the RSL manager, who waited to see what would develop to give him fair grounds to challenge the interlopers. But strangely the mood in the bar calmed, voices normally raucous with booze quietened and despite themselves the drinkers all had one ear tuned to the popular folk song.

  When the man put the guitar to one side and ordered a second beer, the bartender gave a cheerful grin and asked, ‘You blokes know “The Pub With No Beer”?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve run out?’ answered the hippy, and the rest of the bar laughed as the bartender pushed the beers across the counter and the tension in the room melted. It was like that in The Bay for years to come – humour and music generally defused an argument.

  But in the late 1970s and early eighties, violence crept into the idyll. The pushing of hard drugs, the operation of large marijuana plantations by international ‘businessmen’ and the rising use of guns changed the peaceful paradise. And while this was not unique to the area, the drug culture became associated with The Bay.

  This was the sketchy backdrop Andrew had absorbed. He’d even studied ‘hippy hinterland housing’ in first year architecture; the early freeform, experimental and environmental homes in the hills had become icons.

  Richmond House, though, had no such claims. It was solid, conventional, but built to suit the climate and lifestyle. It was raised on sandstone foundations to allow airflow beneath the floors and to keep water out during the severe tropical rains and the occasional cyclone. The steeply sloped roof acted as a sail, funnelling the wind over and away, rather than presenting a barrier to be beaten down. The rooms were large and airy, opening onto the verandah in the traditional style, but particular to this house was an attic bedroom that opened onto a widow’s walk – a small railed platform on the roof – where the mistress of the home could watch the horizon for the return of her menfolk. Or it was a place of peace and privacy to watch the sunrise over the sea or the sunset behind the peak of Chinamans Hat, or to gaze at the dolphins leaping in the line of crystal breakers.

  Andrew had seen a lot of good ideas in the old home, and there was no doubt it had some potential, even though it was very rundown and little had been done to it since it was built. He didn’t believe it was significant enough architecturally to be saved, but it had an old-fashioned charm – if you liked that sort of thing. He imagined that it had been built by nouveau-riche settlers with memories of grand homes in the old country. As he studied the building, his architect’s eye began to discern other influences: England via empire outposts, touches of Penang, perhaps. The traveller’s palms in the garden were the same as those outside the entrance to Raffles Hotel in Singapore. The fans along the verandah, the use of marble tiles and a courtyard with a well that had been made into a fountain smacked of the Raj. Initially he hadn’t looked at the house other than as a bricks and mortar investment. Now he could see that thought had been given to the place. And best of all, its gardens hadn’t been altered in a century. He assumed there must have been vegetable gardens, some fruit trees, and Holly had mentioned stables or a barn.

  He had raised a concern over the wooden structure of the house but it was declared termite free. It had been built of cedar and ironbark, which had been treated well and would no doubt last. When Andrew had pointed out the cost of restoration and maintenance to Holly, she had brushed it aside. She’d had more immediate concerns on this, their first morning of official occupation.

  They had picked up the keys from the real estate agent’s office as arranged, and driven to the house for morning tea – another Holly picnic. Within minutes of going into the house, as Andrew stood gazing at the shambles of the garden, Holly had rushed out screeching.

  ‘Andrew, we’ve been robbed! Everything’s gone!’

  ‘What do you mean? We haven’t moved in yet, what’s gone?’

  ‘I had an agreement with Trudy from the real estate place that they’d leave the old furniture, the knick-knacks, the china, all the old stuff. Andrew, some of that stuff was valuable. The antique cedar furniture –’

  ‘Maybe the agent or the estate of the previous owners found out it was valuable and sold it.’

  Holly shook her head. ‘No. There aren’t relatives. The house has been empty for years. Some old lady had been renting it with all the original stuff in it. She went into a home. When the council decided it should be preserved, that included the fittings and fixtures.’ She was close to tears.

  ‘Ring up the agent, for God’s sake, and sort it out. Here’s your first problem,’ Andrew said unhelpfully.

  Holly glared at him and returned to the house, only to discover that the phone had not yet been connected as she had been promised. She searched for her mobile.

  Her anger turned to disbelief and then outrage as Trudy casually told her, ‘Ah, some people came round and wanted to take a few pieces, and we figured you wouldn’t want so much old stuff. It’s not a big deal, is it?’ The sale was complete, Trudy’s friendly warmth had evaporated.

  Holly struggled to hold her temper. ‘The fact is, we had an agreement, I paid for the contents. You knew I wanted to keep the original pieces together in the house. I think it’s outrageous you didn’t ask me. Who are these people? They have taken virtually everything. Only the furniture that’s too heavy to carry away is left.’

  ‘Look, it’s not really my concern. The couple are Lynn and Stolle, they buy and sell a lot of stuff from deceased estates. If you want any of it, you can probably pick it up in the Sunday markets for a song –’

  ‘The markets! You mean buy back stuff that belongs to me? I should get the police. They’re selling stolen property.’ Holly’s voice was rising and Andrew decided to take a walk around the grounds. He didn’t want to know about bloody china and old chairs.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, it’
s a small community. You’re a newcomer and if you want to start a business you’ll need the locals on side,’ said Trudy.

  Holly was getting the picture. ‘Okay, where are the markets?’

  ‘Let’s see, the first Sunday of the month, that’d be Brigalow markets. They rotate around the district every Sunday. Briggy is a big one. In the footy field as you go into the village. Yep, sure to find some of the gear on their stall.’ Trudy felt she was being more than helpful.

  ‘We’re talking large household items and lots of them,’ said Holly through gritted teeth. ‘Markets tend to be fruit and vegies, knick-knacks. I mean, what sort of a market is this?’

  ‘You have a lot to learn about the area. Do yourself a favour and check it out. Stolle and Lynn are reasonable people. Listen, I have to go now.’

  Trudy had initially been so helpful, especially when Andrew had stepped in and handled all the paperwork for the purchase. He probably hadn’t insisted on keeping the contents. Holly wished she’d followed the contractual dealings more carefully. But she wasn’t going to make a scene over it.

  Andrew was reluctant to leave the waves at Tiny Bay. It was a glorious sparkling morning, the water was refreshing, dolphins were cruising past the breakers and the waves were great for bodysurfing. He was just starting to feel alive. It had been a dreadful night, sleeping on a futon on the floor of the main bedroom, being eaten alive by mosquitoes, kept awake by the croaking of cane toads and the sound of possums or rats in the roof. What a disaster the place was. Give him the sculptured clean lines of modern architecture and minimalist decor any day. Holly loved clutter, bits of this and bits of that, flowers in jugs on every surface vying with photographs and old books. She said she was sentimental. Andrew thought she was a pack rat. Well, she could fill this old joint with all the junk she wanted, he wasn’t going to live in it. Nor was anyone for some time to come; it needed a complete overhaul. Or better still, pull it down and put something contemporary on the site. It was a great location, but heritage laws and council regulations were a major irritant.

  He rolled onto his back, bobbing in the water, and gazed up at the rambling house almost hidden among the palms and wattle trees on the headland above the beach. Holly would be doing it piecemeal, she didn’t have the funds to rip the guts out of the place and rebuild, and she had this idea in her head of reclaiming its past glory. He wasn’t going to be involved in its future. It was bad enough that he had to get out of the surf and drive her to some damned market out in the hills to look for the house contents. And it was not even eight in the morning.

  ‘We have to be there early. This kind of stuff gets snapped up quickly by the professionals,’ Holly said as she tried to follow their route on the basic map she’d picked up at the garage.

  ‘You don’t even know if it’s going to be there. Sounds a long shot to me. God, these roads are shocking.’

  ‘That’s why I have a four-wheel drive,’ said Holly in some delight. She’d always laughed at her friends who drove around Sydney in immaculate tank-like four-wheel drives to collect the kids from school and fight for slots in the supermarket carpark. Now she had a legitimate reason to own a practical and reliable vehicle and had bought herself a Forester. Andrew thought it a great car and was impressed that she’d made the decision on her own. As they hit another pothole he was glad they hadn’t driven the BMW.

  ‘How much further? We’re in the middle of nowhere, for God’s sake, and we’ve been driving for forty-five minutes,’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m not sure, this is only a tourist guide not a proper map.’ She turned the brochure upside down.

  Andrew sighed. He should have known better than to ask. Holly was hopeless at directions. ‘How the heck are you going to find your way around when I’m not here?’

  ‘Get lost a few times, I suppose. I feel happier on these back roads than on the freeways and traffic in the city,’ she said cheerfully.

  Again she surprised him. She hated driving, her biggest dream had been to have a chauffeur. Or unlimited taxi dockets. ‘Then why aren’t you driving and leaving me to surf?’

  ‘Because this sounds fun. And I might need help bargaining over our stuff.’

  ‘My famed negotiating skills to the rescue, eh?’ Holly was right, he wouldn’t take any nonsense from a couple of down and outs scrounging for other people’s possessions to flog in a market. Druggies probably.

  ‘There’s the turn-off. See the sign, “Market Today”. Oh, Andrew, look, they must be going there too.’ Holly craned forward as they caught up with a string of vehicles meandering down the twisting road. They followed gaily painted Kombi vans, trucks piled high with all manner of things tied under billowing rugs, and immediately in front of them was a lorry overflowing with pot plants and tubs of trees. From the cabin flew a large green flag but Holly couldn’t make out the writing on it.

  The convoy wound along the gravel road and below them they could see the broad expanse of the football field. Cars ringed the white fence while in the centre the grass was smothered with circles of small camps. Stalls and tents and open-air displays all sat cheek by jowl. At one end was a row of mini caravans with umbrellas and tables and chairs set up outside each one and big illustrated boards advertising food and drinks for sale.

  ‘It looks like a massive gypsy camp,’ Andrew exclaimed. ‘There must be several hundred sellers there.’

  ‘Judging by the cars and stream of people going in we’re not too early, either.’

  ‘How are we going to find your people in all that?’

  ‘We’ll just have to look at everything. We’ll do it in a sequence.’

  As they got closer Andrew began to study the people walking along the roadside to the main entrance. They all looked like they were going to a fancy dress party. Men wore multi-coloured leggings, tie-dyed shirts, painted T-shirts, Indian-style pants and long flowing shirts. Both men and women wore feathers or decorations, many had dreadlocks and beads or shaved heads like runaway monks. Children skipped along in strange outfits, but it seemed that more than the kids it was the adults who were wearing such magical accessories as crowns and fairy wings.

  ‘This is a bloody circus. I’m not getting into this. They all look filthy.’

  ‘They all look happy, like they’re having a good time,’ Holly said. ‘It’s a party.’

  ‘A hippy dippy madhouse,’ muttered Andrew as he slowed the car to walking pace while people meandered among the cars queuing to get in. ‘Are those people charging money for parking? What the hell, this is outrageous.’

  A girl in a sparkly Indian outfit and a man in bright pink pants tucked into gumboots, a pink shirt with lots of bead necklaces and a battered Akubra hat over shoulder-length hair, waved a plastic bucket. Andrew pressed the button and his window glided down. Before he could speak Holly leaned across him. ‘How much?’

  ‘Two dollars. Dollar for parking, dollar for the charity of the day.’

  ‘And what might that be?’ asked Andrew with an edge to his voice. He was thinking Protecta-Plantation, or bail for some dealer, maybe save the tree huggers.

  ‘Helicopter Rescue Service. We need a chopper for this part of the coast. Good men can’t fly without machines, right?’

  ‘Don’t they have helicopters to patrol the coast?’ Holly asked, somewhat alarmed.

  ‘The men in blue have something of a flying wreck. We need to be able to pull people out of the sea, that kind of thing. You look like a surfer, you know what it’s like, eh?’ He gave Andrew a wonderful smile and Holly realised the pink man had a hint of shrewdness behind the grin.

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Andrew fumbled and pulled five dollars from his wallet and dropped it in the bucket.

  ‘Good one, man. Round to the right. Have a cool day.’

  Holly glanced at Andrew in his board shorts, T-shirt and tanned face. ‘There, isn’t it nice to be recognised as a surfie and not a city slicker?’

  They parked on the grass at the edge of an adjoining paddock, locked
the car and followed others across to the centre of the field. There was a definite order to the snail coils of stalls. Holly stood beneath some bamboo poles strung with long, coloured triangular silk flags and huge painted three-dimensional stars. ‘Left or right? Food that way, crafty things that way. What do you think?’

  ‘Clockwise. Just get on with it. We don’t want food, walking this way could take ages, everyone is wandering like Brown’s cows and it’s going to get damn hot.’

  ‘Told you to bring a hat.’ Holly jammed down her own hat. It was a chic lady’s panama from Sydney and she felt it looked very out of place.

  They began walking past the rows of stalls that lined the path. Andrew kept striding ahead paying little attention as Holly hung back, fascinated by all there was for sale. He was feeling uncomfortable. These people unnerved him, and someone was always bumping into him. Why didn’t they walk on the same side? Everyone was smiling, stopping to hug and chat. Even men hugged each other. He supposed they only came out of the hills every so often. Kids were scampering everywhere and it was mostly fathers who were carrying babies in backpacks and cloth slings as women congregated in clusters like chattering birds. Andrew was hot and while he could see the appeal of the market, they had come for a reason. He hoped the old furniture and junk – if they found it – was worth all this.

  Holly’s fury at the loss of the house contents seemed to have dissipated with her enthralment at the markets. She was hovering at another stall. It sold hand-made cosmetics and Holly was opening jars and rubbing lotion on her hands and exclaiming in delight. The stallholder, an attractive young woman with auburn hair and flawless skin, explained to her, ‘These products are all made with natural ingredients – you can even eat them. I have done a lot of research with a pharmacist friend into retail cosmetics and you’d be horrified if you knew what they were made of.’

  Holly had looked at similar products when shopping in the city, tried a couple of them once but didn’t persist and eventually threw them out on the grounds that they were beyond their use-by date. Up here, though, the products seemed to demand more serious consideration. Why was this? Holly wondered.