Fonseca Palisades

FONSECA PALISADES

On old maps the road into Fonseca Palisades is marked as a dotted line. Nowadays there is no line at all. There hasn't been a road into the Palisades for a good fifty years. But in its day, in the high times before the Second World War, the popularity of Fonseca Palisades outshone the nearby town of Princess Charlotte Bay. In fact the only reason that many people came to Princess Charlotte Bay was to get to the Palisades. It was a private resort, the equivalent of Hearst's San Simeon or Edison's Mackinac Island.

There were many nights of celebration as artists, entertainers, film stars, politicians and newspaper publishers came from around the globe to spend time there. Movies were made, books were written, plays were produced and portraits painted. If you were famous it was possible you'd been to Fonseca Palisades.

But it had lain mainly unattended for the best part of thirty years. I last saw it when I was seventeen, my final year at school. That year in some ways had been disaster. I had failed my final exams, been dropped by my girlfriend and missed two vital shots at goal that cost my football team Grand Final victory. It was hard to say which was the worst, they all hurt in their own particular way. But when I look back on that year it isn't those things I think about. It is my year with Wayne Orensen, Oro as I most often called him, the outsider, the mystery man and his even more mysterious sister.

Wayne was almost nondescript. Average build, average looks, he had straight brown hair that fell down across his forehead and into his eyes. In class he was hardly noticeable. No one, as much as I knew, gave him any thought. He was the sort of person who people tended to make jokes about, not that he understood the jokes. One day one of our classmates had stuck a used condom packet to Orensen's back without him noticing. We all laughed, myself included. I shouldn't have. In many ways I was only a couple of steps away from being exactly like him.

It was possibly why, in that final year, that I befriended him. Offered him some friendship among the testosterone charged world of boys that we both inhabited. He excelled at little, his hand always down when questions were asked. He wasn't a sportsman either, he wasn't a try hard like me always battling to get into one team or another.

It started on a Saturday morning in Princess Charlotte Bay. Autumn's were always warm, sometimes hot in the 'Bay and I'd gone into the Wild Iris cafe to have a milkshake. I was sitting there when Wayne Orensen walked in. He was wearing mustard coloured corduroy jeans, a paisley shirt and pointy toed shoes. All the wrong attire. I suppressed a smile and beckoned him over.

He took a seat at the small table. Laminex top, chrome legs. The thing about Oro was when he spoke to you he rarely looked you in the face. He'd be looking down, or off to the side, and finally when he stopped talking, hoping you'd answer a question or make a point, he would catch your eye. He watched me having my milkshake.

"What flavour?"

"Chocolate. I nearly always have chocolate."

"Oh" he said and I noticed he had a small bottle of unopened Coke.

"I'm going to have this with an aspirin."

It seemed a strange thing to say. I wasn't a complete and total stranger, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with this information. Did he have a headache? I shrugged my shoulders, didn't say anything, Orensen sat there, fidgeting with the lid on the bottle.

"Do you take the aspirin and then drink or what?"

"Maybe."

I had no idea what Orensen was going to do. I looked around the Wild Iris, mainly empty, a couple at the Baine Marie, a radio playing Simon and Garfunkel somewhere out in the kitchen.

"It gives you a high."

Some boys sold marijuana at school. I wondered if Orensen knew. Here he was telling me he was going to get high from a combination of aspirin and Coke. I don't know what he did on that day. After a moment or so he stood and walked out and left me alone with my thoughts.

A week later, as if by design, Wayne Orensen found me at the same table in the Wild Iris.

"Chocolate again?"

I nodded. This time he was without Coke or aspirin. I hadn't inquired as to the outcome of his last experiment. He had a big manilla folder that he slid across the table towards me.

"Have a look at these."

"What are they?"

"Photos"

I tipped them on to the table. About twenty in total, A4 size, all blurry and grainy, out of focus in black and white. But even so they clearly showed a woman, probably on a beach, totally naked.

I might have looked quizzical. I must have looked interested.

"Where did you get these?"

"I took them."

"You?"

"Yes. Do you know who it is?"

I picked through the photos, grateful that the Wild Iris was relatively quiet, there were no prying eyes. I had no idea, it was like a continuation of the Coke and aspirin game that Orensen was playing. Hinting at the illegal, stretching the boundaries. I turned to Wayne, a blank expression on my face.

"Don't know, somebody..."

"Harriet Turnbelle." Orensen whispered.

Harriet Turnbelle was our English teacher. She'd only just started, she'd come from another school. She was married. She was not an old woman. I thought her somewhere between thirty and forty, but the woman in the photos didn't look like Harriet Turnbelle. I didn't tell Wayne though.

"Took them last weekend out at Streeter's Beach, out past the lighthouse, down past the cliffs and the old Fonseca Palisades."

As I listened Wayne Orensen told me how he'd stumbled on her by accident. He'd been doing a biology assignment with field glasses and a camera and found her sunbathing. Perhaps it was her but the photos were taken from a long way away and apart from black hair the person in the photo didn't look at all like our English teacher. He'd processed the film in the school camera club dark room. A risky prospect he assured me, someone could come in at anytime and look at his prints. So far I had been the only person besides Wayne who'd been privileged to see them.

"I bet she goes there every Sunday. Do you want to come tomorrow?"

It would have been easy to make up an excuse and tell Wayne Orensen I was busy, had other things to do, relatives to visit, lawns to mow, assignments to finish even, but I heard myself say OK. The prospect of seeing Harriet Turnbelle au naturel occupied my mind for the next twenty four hours.

The Fonseca Palisades had originally been built in the late eighteen hundreds but as much as I knew it was totally abandoned. For whatever reason the owners had locked it up. All sorts of rumours circulated about why it had closed and what had happened there. No one knew the truth, no one really cared, over the years it was said that the place was haunted.

I sat in the back seat of Wayne's sister's car. It was old, something from the fifties. She drove in bare feet and silence. Unlike Wayne she appeared old fashioned, someone from another time. She had dark hair that came to her shoulders unlike Wayne's which was mousy brown. She was skinny. When we passed the turnoff to Fonseca Palisades, she looked in the rear vision mirror and caught my eye.

"Ever been there?"

"No" The first words I ever said to her. She looked at me again, something in her eyes telling me that she could see through my lie.

I had been there a couple of years ago with a boy called Frank Donaldson. He was my best friend at the time. It was just before he discovered that the company of girls was infinitely superior to mine and anything I could offer. We had ridden our bikes there. Gone down the narrow and twisting driveway and passed through the stone and iron entrance gates and ridden up to the house. There was no one there. An untended orange orchard was immediately in front of what we imagined was a mansion. We picked a couple of pieces of fruit and then like two monkeys shimmied up a verandah post to the first floor and slid over the balcony railing. We could see into the house, it looked empty, and after trying to open some of the doors we came down again. We had turned then and cycled home without telling anyone what we had done or where we had been.

But I told Elaine Orensen none of that. And I wondered if she knew the real reason she was driving us out to Streeter's Beach. A naked school teacher, what would she say to that? While Wayne and I went off climbing dunes after telling Elaine a story about completing another biology assignment, she went swimming. Sometime later we came back empty handed. There had been no Mrs Turnbelle, only two fishermen with a net trying to catch herring. Elaine was asleep in the car. We drove back to Princess Charlotte Bay. Hardly a word passed between us.

All through the next week at Wayne's urging I studied Mrs Turnbelle in our English class, watched her as she passed between our desks, looked at her when she wrote on the blackboard, even sauntered slowly behind when she walked down the school verandah. Oro had me thinking about her. I could smell her perfume.

But that one afternoon at Streeters was as much searching as we ever did together for Mrs Turnbelle. However in the space of a couple of weeks Orensen and I went from having little to do with each other to having a most peculiar but substantial friendship. In reality it all revolved around Harriet Turnbelle, where she lived, what she did, what she wore, what she said. It was an endless list. Orensen already knew where her house was and what sort of car she drove. Volkswagen black. He was obsessed by her and took me along for the ride. I lost count of how many times we walked around the school hoping for a glimpse of her. In class Oro was busy secretly creating a sketch of her. He wanted to give it to her as a Christmas present. I don't know if he ever did.

After our failed attempt at finding Mrs Turnbelle at the beach I didn't think I'd see Wayne's sister Elaine again. I wanted to but I would never confess this to Wayne besides which I was caught up in his latest cause which was the school's production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Mrs Turnbelle was directing the play, which was being staged in the Town Hall. I hadn't auditioned, acting was not my strong suite. Orensen had declared himself the official photographer. Eventually I would end up with the grandiose title of theatre manager, I had to collect tickets at the beginning of the night and hand out passes during interval. Someone had to do it and when I volunteered Mrs Turnbelle looked grateful. Most of the photos that Orensen took turned out OK this time, even a few that showed a most attractive looking Harriet Turnbelle, movie star quality.

It was around this time that Elaine reappeared. Was Wayne responsible? I'll never know. Another morning at the Wild Iris. Another chance meeting? I've often thought there was more to it than chance.

"Do you mind?" A woman's voice.

Milkshake in hand I turned from the book I was reading to a pale girl in a light blue dress.

"No, no, there's no one sitting there." I said pointing to the seat opposite. It was only then that I realised it was Elaine. She didn't say anything and I must have studied her for a moment too long. Unlike her brother she had no trouble in looking me in the eye.

"You think that Palisade place is haunted?"

"Don't know, could be." I didn't really have an answer.

"You've been there haven't you?"

I nodded. Telling the truth was a simpler option.

"Go out there with me?"

As I recalled it was after Frank Donaldson and I had been out to Fonseca Palisades that he had started to go out with a small migrant girl with a flashing smile. And after he had left her he had gone out with Karin Mason. I liked Karin, most of us did. She was bright, outspoken, a young woman's libber. Too much for Frank though and he had moved on to Kristine Kalinowska. With his move to Kristine complete there would be no more days for Frank and me to ride out to the Palisades. At best our friendship was reduced to our respective places on the football field. Frank dominating, starring all over the ground, while I came on as a replacement if someone was hurt.

I thought about all of those things while I sat on the front seat of Elaine's car, an old pink and white Chevy. The fact that Wayne wasn't there was disconcerting. I thought he might have put her up to it. She said it was her idea. She knew by one glance in the rear vision mirror that day we had driven to Streeter's beach that I had been to Fonseca Palisades.

The Orensen's, in my opinion, were other worldly. Oro was given to talking all the time, certainly not at school, but when he realised that I was a safe bet, a person he could trust, he came to me with the most outlandish ideas and thoughts. He and Elaine lived together but separate to their parents who had moved back up to the city. Essentially she was looking after him until he finished school and was free to do as he pleased. It seemed to me that apart from school he already enjoyed this freedom. I wondered about Elaine Orensen. Did she work? What did she do? Wayne rarely mentioned her. And I was afraid to ask him.

On our drive to the Palisades she remained immaculately silent. Apart from a brief greeting when we met outside the Globe Hotel, an easy and low key meeting place, we travelled in total quiet. The only sound the tread of tyres on the old bitumen road. The moon wouldn't be up for another couple of hours. As far as my parents were concerned I was at the library studying. One of a series of lies I would make to them over the months to come. I was curious to know where Wayne was, what he was doing. But I couldn't ask Elaine, I didn't want it to appear that it would have been better if he'd come along. Besides she was older and obviously wiser than me. She smoked cigarettes, drank wine, had a car and her driver's license. She had finished school.

Elaine parked the car on the side of the entrance road to the Palisades. It was a rarely used road, only wide enough for one car it was hemmed in by trees, bushes and scrub. After we left the car we could hear the surf crashing on the cliff face at the coast which was about a kilometre away. It wasn't until then that I questioned the reason for our visit, why I'd easily said yes to Elaine. Why I had no apparent ability to say no. It was dark and still, the road littered in leaves and small branches. We picked our way slowly until our eyes became accustomed to the light and even when they did, there seemed no cause to hurry. I fell to thinking if we did run into trouble what she would be like in a fight. I couldn't fight I would have to run. A shiver ran up my back and made my neck hair bristle.

When we came to the stone and iron gates, they were chained shut. A sign hung there. In the half light it suggested we shouldn't trespass. But someone must have found a way in prior to us because there was a small gap in the mesh fence at the side of the gates. Elaine wriggled through and I followed her. We had no torch, nothing to light our way. I had forgotten when Frank and I had come out that the road after the gates climbed a small but steep rise before the house came into view. It suddenly seemed darker as if the light of the stars above had been switched off. I looked up at a large cloud bank. It was quieter too, the sound of the surf had become a soft thud. If I could have turned and gone back to town then I would have.

As we stared up at the two storey magnificence of the Palisades, my shivers started. It was like something was ticking. Out here we were alone and I wished I was at home watching television. And then I saw the old orange orchard away to our right. It appeared wild and tangled. I supposed there might still be fruit there.

"Would you like an orange?"

"Yes."

We stood there peeling and discarding the skin. Sweet juices sticking between our fingers, trickling down our chins.

"I'm going inside." I wasn't going to ask how. Elaine was leaning against the railing on the main steps that led up to the ground floor verandah. I hadn't noticed that she was wearing sand shoes. She unlaced them and placed them on the bottom step.

"Give me a leg up."

And in imitation of what Frank Donaldson and I had done only a few short years ago she climbed a carved post to the first floor. I shouldn't have been surprised. When I joined her on the balcony she reached out, took my hand and placed a kiss upon my lips. Lingering. I remembered the moment, locked it away unknowingly, to be brought out in the years to come when nothing else seemed to matter.

Elaine lifted a window and we found ourselves inside. My heart thumped away in my chest. What were we doing? Our descent of a broad set of steps that led to the ground floor coincided with the appearance of the moon spilling through the windows bathing an enormous room in milky light. The room empty except for what was a large piano covered by the spread of a canvas tarpaulin. I considered all these things thinking I could write a description in my English class, something to please Harriet Turnbelle.

We had stood then in front of an enormous mirror that went from the floor to the ceiling, but instead of our own reflections it was another couple who met our gaze. My older self staring at me and a grey haired woman reaching towards Elaine holding out a locket. It was if the world had flown apart. A tearing and ripping sound as the mirror cracked from top to bottom. A horrid and inhuman shriek, a fantastic apparition and the choking dust and heaviness that did its best to prevent us running back up the steps from where we'd come. My legs felt like lead, my arms barely able to move as I staggered through a yellow mist. I didn't know where Elaine was, I thought I could hear her breathing. My eyes were stinging, full of a searing whiteness that blocked my way. My throat was starting to burn. A paralysis invaded me. I felt a hand on my arm. It grabbed me and hauled me out on to the balcony. I heard a few notes played on the piano.

"Jump."

Even in the safety of Elaine's car as we motored back into Princess Charlotte Bay I felt that I was still in danger, that something or someone had followed us, but there had been no other cars on the road either coming or going. Tears pushed down my face as I saw the lights of the town. And then we were at Elaine's house. And then we were in Elaine's bedroom. And then we were in Elaine's bed. I wanted time to stop. I wanted it to hold still so I could spend more time with Elaine the locket from the Palisades hanging from her neck. Her legs like a ballerina's, slender, muscular, she was not so much skinny as designed. We lay in her bed while the world spun outside, our love making sometimes like an orchestra in full flight, at other times like a violin lesson full of error.

At school on Monday Wayne was agitated and moody. Did he know about his sister and me? Had she told him about our time at the Palisades? By now everyone knew it had been burnt to the ground, an immense fire had engulfed the property, only the concrete foundations remained. But Wayne wasn't interested in the Palisades. There was a side to him that I had never previously seen. Nothing to do with Elaine or me. He was full of venom. If he was a snake he would have bitten Frank Donaldson.

"Donaldson was around at her place."

"Donaldson?"

"Yep until around midnight. Clever boy your Mr Donaldson, walks out like he owns the world."

"Who's place?"

Mrs Turnbelle's. Orensen was insisting that somehow Donaldson had charmed his way into her house, charmed his way further possibly. It seemed improbable. Wayne had a plan to destroy Donaldson. I didn't know what he was talking about. My head was still spinning with my love for Elaine and our escape from Fonseca Palisades.

"He had the lead role in The Importance of Being Earnest." And then after a theatrical pause he added. "And now Frank Donaldson wants the lead role in her life."

I offered that Donaldson was like Wayne and me, seventeen, hardly a man of the world, hardly the sort of person to appeal to Mrs Turnbelle. But Wayne wasn't listening.

That is the way I remember it.

At the end of that year I had waited along with my classmates for the results of our final exams to be published in the newspaper. I hadn't held out any hope for success. Just as well, because I was one of many failures. If there was any consolation it was that Orensen had failed too, even more spectacularly than me. He had barely stumbled over the line in English, whereas I had a rare distinction in Harriet Turnbelle's class. However everything else had gone done the gurgler. It was a relief of sorts because there would be no more pretence of an imagined career in some far away place or more years spent studying at university. School was over.

In the years to follow I would climb the dunes at Streeter's Beach and find the men pulling in their fishing nets and help them with their catch. There was hardly anyone else ever there. And then some time later, perhaps even another twenty years, the Palisades was sold. Word had it that there was no longer a road in. Trees had reclaimed the environment. It wasn't possible to find a way to where the old house had been. To where's Elaine Orensen's kiss had been the taste of an orange.