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A volunteer from the Historic Homes Trust has agreed to meet us for a ‘cosy chat’. On our stroll to the bar in Fort Street Mall, Derek’s eyes are alight with the thrill of a spooky puzzle. But what we’ve learned about the house has dampened my excitement. Something shadowy and undefined is lurking over this adventure. I push the feeling away with expectations of a little umbrella in my drink.
The Lava Flow does cocktails and finger food. Its interior is a classy interpretation of the more traditional Hawaiian style. Glossy rough-edged timber tables nestle in private nooks amidst potted palms, while the bar itself is lit by lurid neon tubes.
Derek chooses a table and waves when a single woman enters and looks around. Marisa Torres is a surprise. Not that I know what Historic Homes Trust volunteers look like, but a librarian-look came to mind. She’s about sixty and rake thin, obviously enjoying the hot-pink retro-style frock that shows off her tan.
“Hey,” she says as she sits down.
Derek does the introductions and orders three Tropical Itches and a bowl of calamari rings. The food arrives quickly and I dive in.
“As I explained on the phone,” Marisa begins, “we don’t put any personal information on the online property profiles. For obvious reasons. But after your call, I did some digging in the ... secret files.”
Derek forgets his drink and leans forward.
“The files are hit or miss. Our volunteers collect everything they can about the houses the Trust wants to preserve – and their owners. Sometimes the extra info gives us a little leverage. Don’t quote me.” She takes a sip of her drink but ignores the calamari. “We’ve been a little lucky with this one.”
“As I explained on the phone,” Derek says, “we’re particularly interested in the Turner family. Why they upped and left.”
“According to our website, Waipunalani was owned by the Turner family. The bare details of the sale are in the file and it was bought by a Mr Everett Turner in 1960. Whether he had a family or not isn’t stated.”
I suspect back then properties were often bought in the husband’s name only. Andrew would have done that if my father hadn’t watched out for my interests. When we divorce, I’ll get half of the settlement.
“You said we’ve been lucky,” Derek prompts.
“There’s a newspaper clipping in the file dated 1961, so it’s concurrent with Mr Turner leaving Waipunalani. The story has nothing to do with the property so I’d suspect it was misfiled, except for the date. I’ve made a copy for you, but you didn’t get it from me.”
After removing an envelope from her tote bag, she slides it across the table and Derek slips it into his satchel without dropping his eyes from his drink. The actions are furtive enough to create more suspicion than anything more natural would have done. I’ll remind him later not to take up espionage.
He must be impatient to open it, but we have cocktails to sip over chitchat. Marisa asks me about my name.
“A Celtic folktale?” she says. “That’s different. Mine’s Portuguese. With some Hawaiian thrown in along the way. My ancestors came over from Madeira to work on the plantations, so there are a lot of us here. You’ll hear jokes about us. Like Irish jokes.”
Around us, the Lava Flow is filling up with the after-work crowd for Friday pau hana. In spite of his curiosity, Derek does the polite thing and offers Marisa another drink, but she’s going out for dinner.
As she leaves, Derek is already opening the envelope. Looking over his shoulder, I read the headline:
Local Tennis Star to Turn Pro
Dated January 1961, it’s about a Kailua-born twenty-year-old amateur tennis champion, Ralph Akina.
“Kailua is a bay on the windward side of Oahu,” Derek explains. “Even though Maunawili is in the mountains, it’s part of Kailua.”
The short piece suggests Akina had plans to turn professional with his sights on the Australian Pro tournament in 1962. The grainy photo shows a young sportsman with Hawaiian good looks caught mid serve.
“Why would this clipping be in the Waipunalani file?” I ask, as I munch through Marisa’s share of the calamari.
Derek turns the paper over to see if there’s anything on the back, but it’s a photocopy. “We have to assume that Marisa has given us the relevant article.” He pulls out his phone but puts it away again. “It’s getting too noisy here. Let’s go back to my office.”
*
As I sit on a folding chair beside Derek at his desk, he begins his search with Everett Turner. Aged in his thirties at the time, Turner was a well-known tennis coach in the Kailua area. Ralph Akina was his star pupil. Records of school tournaments list Ralph winning all the matches. But soon after the early sixties the leads dwindle.
“Let’s try this.” Derek types: What happened to Everett Turner?
An obituary for an Everett Turner comes up. The ages are similar but the details don’t match.
“If he retired from coaching, he wouldn’t show up on Google,” Derek says.
“Retired in 1961 and drifted into obscurity.”
“Why? He was only mid-thirties.”
“Something happened,” I say.
“It could be as simple as an injury or a health scare.”
Next he tries to find more references to Ralph Akina, but he’s gone underground too.
“If he died, that would show up,” Derek says. “Few Akinas are coming up so the name’s not common.”
“What if he changed it? I’ve changed mine. Selkie Moon’s my birth name but if you Google it you won’t find me. Not until my website’s up. For twenty years, I’ve been pretending to be Elkie Tabrett.”
“Women often change their names but why would Ralph Akina change his?”
“To hide his identity? Or he dropped from view because of an injury or a health scare.”
We give it up and walk to the Pearl on my recommendation.
“I’ll have to search the newspaper archives,” Derek says. “It’s not easy to go back that far, and it’s a time suck, but at least we have the possible time period. Early 1961.”
“Would any of the local tennis coaches know what happened? There might have been a scandal involving tennis. Someone who went to school with Ralph Akina might still be associated with a tennis club.”
“It’s worth a try. Tomorrow’s Saturday so the coaching schools will be open. We can ring around and see if anyone remembers anything.” He stops. “But I can’t ask you to give up your Saturday, Selkie.”
At the thought of taking action, my excitement is back. “I can’t work all the time, DD. And you’re not asking me to. It’s my choice. Truth is, I’m hooked so ... you’re stuck with me.”
“I’ll get you a limited edition Surreal Deal T-shirt.” He grins. “As soon as I design it.”
*
When I return to Wanda’s flat – my new home I remind myself – she’s in residence. As I step into our shared space, she has her back to the door and her arms around Doris. Standing between the plastic legs that are poking through the fibres of a grass skirt, Wanda is balancing the dummy’s buttocks on the stool at the end of her bed. I’ve arrived mid-makeover.
“Doris is showing off her new adornments,” Wanda says over her shoulder.
When she’s happy with the position, she stands back so I can admire the nails protruding from the mannequin’s chest.
“I don’t know what to say. They look ... painful.”
“Functional is a better word.” She pulls a box from the bookshelf and starts untangling strands of beads and shell necklaces, before hanging each one from a nail. Then she goes to the hooks on the back of the front door and gets a net bag and a sunhat. The bag goes onto another nail and Wanda plonks the hat on Doris’ headless neck.
“Our third house-mate,” I say.
“Yeah, she’s good to stay. Three’s a magic number. We’ll never be lonely with Doris to hear our woes. And she won’t drink the wine-rack dry.”
I don’t think it’s a jibe at me, so it might be a previous roommate.
Wanda grabs her things. “I’m going out. Do you want to know where I keep the Mamaki tea?”
“Thanks, but I’ll pop downstairs for one of those bottles of red anti-oxidant.” It’s been a long time since the cocktail.
“Walk down with me,” she says. “Tell me what’s new. How’s the business set-up going?”
I bring her up to date on the seminar planning. She thinks Goals for Gold is a clever name and accepts a free place when enrolments begin.
When I move on to Derek’s investigation and Hudson’s visitor, she says, “Lots of reports around here of spirits sitting on people’s chests – so they can’t breathe. I haven’t heard of the feet or ankles before. If the new owners are malihini from California they could be making all kinds of gaffes, stirring up the sleeping dogs.”
“Such as?”
“There’s a long list of dos and don’ts. Don’t whistle at night – it brings the Night Marchers.”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“Don’t kill a black moth – it’s a dead relative paying a visit. If you carry pork with you, keep a Ti leaf too – to protect you from angry spirits that like pork.”
Derek didn’t tell me that. And could the Coopers be naive victims of one of these superstitions? I remember my strong impression that it’s personal.
“What have you discovered so far?” Wanda asks. After listening to the tennis connection, she gives me a different perspective. “If it wasn’t for that newspaper clipping, Selkie, you wouldn’t be going all the way back to the 1960s for your forgotten tragedy. If squatters have been coming and going ever since the house was empty, who knows who’s died in there? There could be at least one body of a missing person buried in a shallow grave. They starved, overdosed, got murdered or whatever happens to people living rough, and no-one has ever looked there. Are the new owners into gardening?”
The thought of little Sage planting seeds in the earth and finding a skeleton makes me wince. And Wanda’s right. With the house abandoned for so long, the field is wide open for the identity of a spiritual loiterer. “I’ll pass your thoughts onto Derek.”
We part company outside the health-food store. When I return upstairs with my wine, there’s another text to ignore. From Meg.
Saturday night is calling deserted husbands. I’ll let you know if he brings someone home. And a photo if I can manage it. Meg x
The x almost does me in. She’s added that since the last message. Even though we never got on, her mocking solidarity hurts more than the taunt itself. Because if Andrew finds another woman, won’t he let me go?
After drinking too much wine, it’s not surprising that I have another dream.
Doris is planting seeds. In a circle. I know it’s Doris because she’s wearing a grass skirt and she’s borrowed Shona’s head. As she plants each seed, I keep expecting to see a skeletal hand spring from the soil. Instead, a small bush pops up like a time-lapse video, producing a flower, then growing a fruit. A tiny shiny round white fruit. A pearl. And another. A lot of pearls. Doris carefully collects each one, and after using a needle to pierce them, threads them onto an invisible string. She holds them up to the moonlight and they glow like tiny lanterns. Instead of slipping the strand over Shona’s head and wearing them around her neck, Doris drapes the necklace on one of her new nails. Just like Wanda planned.
The dream is so vivid that when I wake, the sight of Doris in the flesh gives me a start and I’m surprised she’s not wearing the pearls.
*
When I get to the office with a fuzzy head, Derek is already there. Fired up by the search ahead, he doesn’t notice my morning-after condition. As I sit beside him, he rings three tennis schools and catches someone at the last one who remembers Everett Turner as a local coach. The man also says Ralph Akina’s name is still spoken to inspire each new generation of hopefuls, but he doesn’t know what became of either of them. They’re both ‘legends’ in more ways than one.
“It looks like a dead end,” Derek says. “Back to the box of trinkets.”
“You mean the mountain of newsprint.”
“Sorry, Selkie.” He stops. “Are you OK?”
“Anti-oxidant overload. The smell of old ink will fix me.”
“OK. And I think the newspapers will be quicker than searching the archives. We’ve got a whole snapshot in front of us.”
As we pull the bundle out of the box where I stashed it again last night, Derek’s phone rings. When he sees it’s Hudson, he flips it to speaker. The man is in a state.
“Oh thank God. You’d better get up here. I’ll pay you whatever you want. This thing is out of control. It’s ... killed the rabbit.”
The shock clears my head. Noodles is gone. Poor Sage.
“We’re on our way,” Derek says. “Don’t touch anything.”
“But I have to hide it from Sage! I’ve only just found it. Luckily she’s still down the road. She’ll be devastated. We only got her to sleep last night with promises of playing with Noodles today. I’ll have to buy her another one, but first I’ll have to get rid of this ...”
Derek calms him down and discovers that Noodles is still in the hutch. He tells Hudson not to touch the animal, but to hide the cage where Sage won’t find it. Then suggests he sits quietly outside until he calms down.
“What will I tell Sage? She’ll be looking for Noodles.”
Derek looks at me.
I’m almost in tears for Sage’s sake, but I think of something. “Point to some fluffy clouds. And play on her imagination. Tell her Noodles is playing up there with her friends.”