12. Impromptu meeting

beginning with the joys of burlesque and the sad occasion of missing them, thence to actions in the village, both legitimate and il-

(Note for those who haven’t read earlier tales: ‘AF’ is an Imaginary Friend’ who lives in my brain. ‘Richard’ is a cat. ‘Samson’ is a friend and a liar.)

Dick and I are standing in the doorway this late afternoon, just beyond the rain that's been falling for the last week, not heavily, but persistently. We're communing quietly together as we appreciate the glittering bluegreensilver showmanship of the gumtrees' upper branches moving in the wind, and the choppy waves crocheting the beach in a wavy line of lacy little rips that will have soon reformed the sandbank near the creek. There’s a strong westerly—or is it a southerly?

You’re bad at compass points, Person.

I am, Dick. But see how swirly the treetops are? Looks like an aerial whirlpool up there… 

The sea is full of random shivers, adds the cat.

Yes. So it’s actually quite hard to tell what the main wind direction is.

I see your point, Person.

Richard and I watch the wind-tracks among leaves and clouds and water a while longer, considering the threats and pleasures of invisible things at work in the world.

Although, offers my companion, I suspect that human and feline perspectives on ratios of power and the influence of invisible forces would vary quite a bit. I find minor air-disturbing menaces abound, Person. And these could portend catastrophe.

Catastrophe, snickers AF—his breath creating a ticklish sensation in my left ear canal. I’ve seen you jumping at shadows, Puss.

Not shadows! Unseen menaces are not shadows. I feel danger in my skin. And, by the way, I have a name. 

I reach down to stroke Richard’s head consolingly, and say to AF: Dick feels danger like you feel irritation, AF. Pretty constantly. 

Then Dickson jumps at the sound of George’s ringtone and slinks away into the wardrobe. 

George is just off the ferry and suggests I come downstairs with a brolly so we can walk up the road and have a drink and dinner out at the Rissole club. So, leaving the cat to his shy felinity, I don another layer, a jumper in fine wool of an unusual shade, something like ginger, or perhaps cider vinegar? With a thin line of dark red at the neck and cuffs. George is waiting under the awning of the closed café and still-open Actuary. I wave hello to Pellmell through her window, where she sits hunched over her electronic roulette (at this rate she’ll have to be assessing risks and managing assets until she drops).

George and I move on. There's quite a gathering outside the little bar that opened a year or so ago, communing under their brollies. I love this place, the Briny Mollusc, eclectically furnished, lively mix of clientele, familiar faces in pools of warm light inside or squinting through the raindrops into the lowering western sun outside. We nod at some of the lavishly made-up faces and glittery costumes twinkling through unbuttoned raincoats. I realise that tonight was to be burlesque! I’d forgotten to book! Bugger! Still, we say hello to a few people in the queue, including Samson, who is with Leonora (and I hear AF murmuring behind my eyeballs,ah ha…). She’s dressed in layered fabrics that look like riverwater, all pleated and shimmery, especially in this lively rainlight. (Samson does not play dress-ups.)

Not joining us? asks Leonora, noting our everyday wear. I confess to forgetting to book. 

There’ll be a repeat, for sure, soothes Samson, looking relieved, which gives me a twinge of jealousy as I’d thought we were particular friends so he really shouldn’t be relieved at the promise of my absence at the Briny Mollusc’s burlesque night. We continue on our way to the Rissole. 

I mention my observation about Samson to George. 

Jealous, why? He looks down at me over his long nose. He has to look down because he is very tall. Am I a kind of anchor to the instability that tall, thin people such as George must surely suffer? Or maybe I’m more of a tugboat? Through my static I notice that George’s expression is quizzical. Ah, he’s expecting an answer to his question. 

I’m pretty sure I’ve recently become sort of peripheral to Samson, when I used to be closer to central, I tell him.

He’s a wayward one, says George. Now he’s got a love interest, your friendship takes second place.

I could hear the smile in his voice and felt ridiculous. I don’t agree, though, so I say, I don’t think I demoted anyone when you came along.

So gallantly … 

Eh?

Joke, says George. A wry one, for a woman with a sense of irony.

Oh.

So there I was, George continues. Gallant and handsome—or almost. Aboard a charger—or a donkey? A unicycle? Penny-farthing? Any case, there I was, with my own vehicle.

We arrive at the Rissole, shake out our umbrellas, and go to the bar to order drinks and a paella to share. The sun’s set now and we sit quietly admiring the lights of The Other Side when Samson and Leonora enter and make their way towards us. The performers haven’t arrived, explains Leonora. The weir’s flooded.

Might get here in time for the late session if they detour via Cascade, surmises Samson. Meantime, mind if we join?

Our paella arrives and shortly afterwards so does Leonora’s chop and Samson’s something with tomato sauce. Possibly polenta. 

We’re chatting and eating when Samson nods over the top of my head and says through a mouthful of possible polenta: the lopper and the lopper’s mate.

The what’s who? I ask as JJ arrives with another friend, Ailany. JJ hangs her glistening raincoat over the back of a chair and bows appreciatively as Leonora congratulates her on her ingenious burlesque outfit that seems to be made entirely of scarves. Ailany has painted her wetsuit a brilliant aquamarine with a sheeny silver trim. I'm a grouper! she says into my puzzled face. Of course!

JJ pours Ailany herself glasses of mineral water and tells us, Your ‘loppers mate’ is Gog Crowley, real estate agent from The Other Side. As she slugs back her water and recharges the glass with wine Ailany fills in some details: He specialises in old fibro or weatherboard shacks on generous allocations of land upon which you can build a big fuck-off house featuring much plate glass then send invitations out online for Airbnb-ing the original little house at exorbitant rates thereby driving the property prices up and making it impossible for people who actually want to live here in this little burg to actually live in it.

I’ve turned around to examine the lopper and the lopper's mate. Two men, one thin and one fat, like Jack Sprat and his wife. Respectively they’re eating a lentil salad and a delicious looking calzone bubbling with mozzarella. I wish them ill.

I saw them both there on the day your tree was chopped, Ailany mentions quietly. 

People in the village always refer to that Port Jackson fig as George’s and my tree, even though we were renting the property. It’s because we loved that tree and lived under it and filled it with fairy lights. My heart always sinks when I think of it, that marvellous and most creaturely of trees, the handsome ficus rubiginosa, its striving external roots, its leaves dark green on the outside and rosy underneath, and all those bats and birds who thrived in it, now refugees. 

Gentle Serif now approaches in one of the caftans he wears to everything social, with another bottle of wine. Moments later Bobby, dressed in a tight black garment that’s an impossible cross between a leotard and a business suit, sits opposite me between JJ and Samson, then reaches over to help himself to Serif’s wine. Serif looks at his shoes, pointedly ignoring Bobby, who takes a sip of wine and smiles brightly around at the rest of us saying, Hail, fave peeps, young, youngish, and Boomers! 

AF is rolling his eyes and muttering behind my eyeballs and I tell him not do that in public.

Serif says, Such a pity about the burlesque—and no news on the progress of the dancers. Mudslide near Lone Bollard bridge, I heard. Doleful sighs all round till Bobby perks up to tell everybody about his new project: Seems I’m like really influencing people’s product choices, he exults. And you know what? 

Nobody knows what. 

He crosses one slender black-clad leg over the other and effuses on: I do like a quick sketchy thingy and enhance it with my AI formulation optimisation tool! The pics look awesome, sort of real, but not, you know? It’s like, wow, what’s the story? Punters go for it and they’re loving my new line in matching cocktails, cats, shoes and hats! Panache! That’s what I call it. Panache!

I’m nonplussed. Exchanging a glance with George I see he’s discombobulated. Across the table Samson looks like he’s suppressing either a yawn or a snicker. Serif, to my right, is scrolling emphatically through his phone. JJ, pushing her nifty cap of black hair out of her eyes, curious about this aesthetic grouping of drinks with clothes and cats, ventures, How do you match a cat with a hat? 

Goes beyond pairing, girl, it’s squaring! he exults. I mean, say you’ve got like a Sphinx or an Ocicat, maybe best with like retro headwear and a classic drink, maybe a martini?

As for shoes, I’ll show you my menu … 

Shoe menu? queries Leonora.

Yeah, got it here… what’s your number? She gives it. He clicks. 

Yum, leather canapes, murmurs JJ softly.

But now, JJ’s son Bruno, on a break from bar duty, comes over to say hello just as Imelda and her daughter Miranda arrive, both gorgeous in pink gauze and sparkles. George and Bruno pull another table over just as Pellmell shows up, dressed in a pair of pyjamas, fetching enough in a flanny sort of way. Leonora and I bring over three more chairs from a neighbouring table. Bobby hasn’t budged and is joyously clicking and showing a now blank-faced JJ more images from his website. Miranda sits down looking crosser than usual in her costume made of very little with lots of sequins on it. She is obviously sadly disappointed.

At the table behind us Jack Sprat laughs loudly at something the other man just said. 

Huh, grunts Miranda. Laugh, why don’t you. Killers. 

Apparently the local council thought it was a good idea, mentions Bruno. 

George says, The council’s quite keen on chopping down trees, then Imelda sarks, Move to a national park and do your best to convert it into a barren. And, adds Serif, a new by-law now prevents people from planting trees on their nature strip— Also, Samson interrupts, Adding insult to injury, we are permitted little shrubs no higher than, I don’t know… Something short, says Leonora, and Ailany's about to speak when Pell scans us all over her tiny tortoiseshell glasses and states quietly but decisively: That tree posed only a slight risk to the house’s plumbing (I looked into it) but its root system did a lot towards keeping the dune in place. Imelda adjusts a delinquent piece of tulle trying to escape into her cleavage and mutters darkly, Some people see beauty, others only see real estate.

I look over at JJ and Ailany. Their collusive glints refer to a plot we hatched some time ago, and which has been ongoing: a kind of guerrilla treefare. It’s part of a broader program of sabotage. Like this: we have, over the last few months, been planting trees on some of the sadder-looking verges, and also, when swimming, we’ve taken to liberating the fish traps that appear from time to time, anchored to buoys all across the bay. Such nautical operations are simple enough: 1. untie, 2. drag ashore, 3. bin the shark-attracting stink-baits, 4. leave the traps prominently placed on the headland, like kings of yore used to display the decapitated heads of insurgents.

But regarding the trees, we’ve planned another visit to Bunnings for wire to make little protective cages for the saplings, and the native nursery for, not sure yet—maybe bottlebrush this time? Bell-fruited mallee?

Miranda’s phone pings, and her face lights up. The burlesque dancers have arrived! Dinners are scoffed, glasses drained, and George and I are left alone to consider the spaces they left behind.