Sydney, 1997
Andrea waves at Isla from the beach. She looks radiant, even from this distance, striding through the shallows in gum boots and cutoff jeans, her hair tied up. Her son runs alongside her in the wet sand. Isla waves back, shouts hello, although in honesty she’d been hoping to have the beach to herself. It’s too early for small talk, for the questions about Isla’s parents, the answers to which will be relayed back to Andrea’s parents. The details of Andrea’s perfect life. She wants to walk and think and enjoy the winter morning while the sun is low in the sky.
“Didn’t know you were sticking around,” Andrea says, shouting over the wind.
“I didn’t plan to.” Isla stands beside her and looks out to sea. “I’m leaving next week. Back to the grindstone. My boss has filled my diary already.”
“You good with that?”
“Don’t know.” She digs her heels into the sand. “Can’t put my life on hold forever, can I?”
Andrea lets foam wash over her boots. “I was glad to hear Mrs. Mallory’s alive and well.”
“I know. Such a relief.” Isla smiles. It calms her to breathe the salty air and to think maybe it is as simple as that. She’s alive and well. The questions in her head quiet.
“I went straight down the station, once I heard the things people were saying,” Andrea says. “I said to Ray, I know I was only a kid, but I was out on my bike all the time, up and down the street. I noticed things, you know?”
Isla turns to her. “Who’s Ray?”
“Sorry, the cop. Ray Perry. Inspector Perry, these days.” She leans down and wipes her son’s nose with a balled-up tissue. “My parents know him from way back. He was the local cop when they first moved here.”
“This is the same cop who’s dealing with Mandy’s case?”
Andrea nods. “I know he was as shocked as the rest of us, to think something might have happened to her. That’s why he took the case. He wouldn’t normally do the legwork himself.”
Isla stares back at Andrea. A gull calls out overhead. “Did he know the Mallorys back then?”
“Ray was Steve’s boss,” Andrea says. “Steve’s been a mess since he left the force apparently. Had a nervous breakdown, spent a bit of time in a mental health unit in the seventies.” She pulls a long face. “Never got over the marriage breakup, Ray reckons.” She crouches down to take a chipped piece of abalone from her son. “That’s nice,” she tells him, turning it over to look at the colors on the inside. “That’s a beautiful shell, my love.”
“What was it you noticed?” Isla says. She watches the boy run off down the beach, stiff-legged in his red gum boots. “You said you noticed things, when you were out on your bike. What did you notice? I can’t shift this feeling Mandy might be dead.”
Andrea straightens up. “I saw Mandy leaving,” she says. “She left and started her life over. I saw her go.”
“When was this?”
“A few days before my birthday, in March. I remember it was early in the morning and I was out the front of the house by myself. I saw Mandy on the footpath. She waved at me.”
“This was in ’67?”
“That’s right. Not long after Steve Mallory buggered off in his big green truck and left his wife standing in the street. That was the talk of Agnes Bay for a while.”
“But Mandy was leaving that day? You’re sure?”
“Yep. She stood beside me on the footpath and we chatted while she waited for her taxi. She said she was going to Marlo.”
“Marlo? Where’s that?”
“No idea.” Andrea shrugs, pushing strands of hair out of her face. “She didn’t look so good, I remember that. And she was kind of sad, you know? But she said it would all be right when she got to Marlo.”
“Marlo sounds familiar.” Isla looks out to sea. “Why does Marlo sound familiar?”
“Probably because I named my cat Marlo. You remember, the ginger tom? We had him for years.”
“Of course. That’s right.”
“I got him for my birthday that year, when I turned ten. That’s why it always stayed with me, I guess.”
“You’re sure the cops know about this?”
“I went down the station to speak to Ray after your dad’s birthday party,” Andrea says. “There was a bit of gossip that day, once everyone was on the grog. I said to Ray, I was the last one to see Mrs. Mallory, not Joe Green.”
Isla hunches her shoulders against the wind. “The cops treated my dad as a suspect for weeks after that.”
“Did they?”
“They didn’t say you’d seen Mandy leave.”
“Maybe it’s because I was a kid back then, they think I got it wrong.”
“Maybe.” A wave wets Isla’s feet and she steps back onto the dry sand. “Do you remember much about Steve Mallory?”
“I was scared of him.”
“Were you?”
“All the kids were. Don’t you remember?” She looks away, distracted by her son and a wet springer spaniel.
“Yes, I do,” Isla says. “Why d’you think we were scared?”
“We all thought he was going to bundle us into his truck.” The spaniel runs to the far end of the bay, where its owner is walking toward them, waving a stick. “My mum used to say, he doesn’t take kids from nice families.”
“Did she?” Isla thinks this might be funny if it were not so unspeakably sad.
Andrea swoops and picks her child up from the sand, seconds before the spaniel returns, faster and wetter than before. “You can’t take your eyes off them, can you? Not for a minute.” The boy wails in Andrea’s arms.
Isla smiles and kicks at the sand.
“We should get back. Good luck in London if I don’t see you.” Andrea turns away, her son crying on her hip.
Isla walks the full length of the bay, stands a while on the flat boulders at the base of the headland. Then she walks back against the wind, head down, hands deep in her pockets. She lets water soak into her boots. She feels sand and salt in her skin, in her hair. The sun rises in the sky.