Frog Whistle Mine (2 page)

Tony sat on the bed and surveyed his new home. Most of the stale air had been removed by the breeze coming off the sea. The bed was made and he had new curtains—ones that covered the windows if needed. His clothes were packed in the drawers under the bed, and his possessions were arranged on the shelves: some books, a photo and a few things he’d picked up in a dump. There was also a torch that Betty had given him, along with a gas lantern and some matches.

He was pleased with the place, except for one thing: there was no security. The door couldn’t be locked, either from inside or out. He wasn’t too bothered about somebody stealing his things, but he knew he would sleep better if he could keep out intruders at night. Betty had said he might find something in Fred’s shed, so that’s where he headed.

The track had once been wide enough to take a vehicle. Now, the overgrown branches leaned into the space, leaving only enough room to walk. At a couple of places large boards had been put over deep watercourses. Betty
was right: if you didn’t watch yourself around here, you could soon end up dead.

The shed was built in the same style as the other buildings, and like all the others it sat in its own clearing in the scrub. The front was closed by a big metal door, with a smaller wooden door alongside. The smaller door was open and showing the glow of lights within.

‘Excuse me,’ called Tony, stepping inside. ‘Is there anybody there?’

‘Yeah, come on in,’ replied an ancient voice from the back of the building.

Tony weaved his way through the mowers and other implements to the source of light at the back. There he found two people sitting at a table, staring at him: an old man—easily in his eighties—and a girl about the same age as Tony. She looked annoyed about something.

‘Hello,’ said the old man, ‘I’m Fred. Who are you?’

‘Tony. My mother has just started working here.’

‘That would be Christine, I suppose. But nobody mentioned a son.’

No, thought Tony, they never do. ‘Well, there is one,’ he said with a smile, ‘and I’m it. I’ll be living in the caravan. Betty said I could use your shower and toilet.’

‘No problem,’ said Fred. ‘The shower probably needs a clean, because I never use it.’

‘Don’t you wash, Fred?’ asked the girl.

Fred looked at her: ‘I shower at home.’ He turned to Tony. ‘My house is just down the road a bit.’

‘It’s the one with all the junk out the front,’ said the girl.

‘That so-called junk is going to be valuable one day,’ said Fred, indignantly. ‘Just you wait and see.’ Then to Tony: ‘This is Rose. She’s Lofty and Betty’s granddaughter. She’s here for the summer as well.’

‘Hi,’ said Rose. Tony nodded a response, giving her the once-over. He thought she could be quite attractive if she ever lost the scowl from her face. She, too, looked Tony up and down, before sniffing and turning away—plainly he had failed whatever test she had just given him.

‘Rose is not in the best of moods,’ said Fred. ‘We’re trying to fix her mobile phone. She dropped it in the shower.’

‘You were using a phone in the shower?’ blurted Tony.

‘Yes!’ she said, crossly. ‘What’s wrong with that? Me and my friends do it all the time.’

‘So you can talk about the bare facts, I suppose,’ sniggered Tony.

Rose rolled her eyes.

Tony looked at the table where the pieces of the telephone lay exposed beneath a heat lamp. ‘How long’s that going to take?’

‘All night,’ replied Fred.

‘All night!’ shouted Rose. ‘I can’t wait that long.’

‘You’re going to have to. Even then I can’t guarantee it will work.’

‘What will my friends think if I don’t answer their messages?’

‘They’ll probably think you’re busy.’

‘No they won’t. They’ll think I don’t like them anymore. They’ll stop being my friends.’

Tony looked at her to see if she was joking. She wasn’t: she looked both angry and distressed. He was puzzled. What sort of friends would leave you if you didn’t reply for just a few hours? He only had a couple of friends, and they were lucky if they communicated once a year.

She turned to Tony. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a phone I can borrow?’

He shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

She stood up. ‘Oh, this place is such a dump. Everybody is
so
boring. There’s absolutely
nothing
to do. And now, I’m going to lose
all
my friends.’ She burst out crying and ran off, towards the door.

‘Rose,’ called Fred. ‘Don’t get upset about it.’ But the only reply was the door being slammed.

‘Why does she come here if she doesn’t like it?’ asked Tony.

‘She has no choice. Her parents are university professors, or something, in Christchurch. They’re overseas for a couple of months, so Rose has been sent here for the summer.’ He laughed. ‘She hates it. She thinks any place that doesn’t have shopping malls and picture theatres has to be the end of the universe.’ He laughed again. ‘Anyway, what do you think of the place?’

Tony shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen much of it yet. But it looks like it would be an OK place to explore.’

‘Yeah, it is. But you need to know what you’re doing or you’ll soon get into trouble.’

‘Betty showed me the watercourses.’

‘Good! But there’re other things as well.’ He paused for
a moment, thinking. ‘Tell you what. After dinner tonight I’ll take you into an old mine. How would you like that?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Good. Now, did you come in here for something or was it just to say hello?’

‘I was hoping you might have a bolt that I could put on the caravan door so I can lock it at nights.’

Fred chuckled. ‘I don’t think anybody’s going to worry you out there, Tony. But if it’ll make you feel safer, I’m sure we can find something. I’ve got pretty well everything around here.’

A few minutes later Tony was on his way back to the caravan armed with a bolt, screws and a battery-powered drill. The sky was now clear, and the afternoon sun made steam rise from the sodden ground in the clearing. It gave the place a magical look. Tony felt he was going to enjoy living here. He might even do the caravan up: paint it some bright colours, make some decent paths…

He stopped in his tracks. The door to the caravan was open, and scattered on the ground outside was some of his junk. Somebody had thrown it out. He picked up the pieces and stepped inside. The place had been trashed. His books had been pulled off the shelf and then torn apart. The case to the torch was dented as if a sharp object had been hammered into it. The lamp had been toppled and the glass cracked.

The bed hadn’t escaped either. The stuffing from the pillow covered everything. The pillow itself was now an empty sack. But the worst was the duvet. Animal droppings
had been smeared all over it, filling the the caravan with their stench.

Tony stood and stared in shock. Who would have done such a thing? And why would they do it? Who would hate him that much? He’d hardly met anybody except for Rose. Maybe she’d been so angry…No, she wouldn’t.

As he tidied the mess, he thought it over, again and again. His only conclusion was that someone wanted to scare him away from living in the caravan. For some reason, he wasn’t wanted here. Then it occurred to him that whoever it was might have stayed around to see his reaction. Perhaps someone was in the bushes watching him at this moment. Carefully he pulled one of the curtains apart, just enough to see out. He watched for some time, but there was nothing.

He moved to another window. This time there was something—a movement. It was difficult to make out any details, but there was definitely something sneaking through the dark scrub. He watched until he was certain it had gone. Then he started work on fixing the bolt to the door. There was now some urgency to the task. Somebody was after him, and what better time to get him than when he was asleep? Yet fixing the bolt did little to reassure him. The caravan was so flimsy that the door could easily be pulled off, with or without a bolt. He was so far away from the lodge that nobody would hear even if the caravan was demolished. He could scream his head off and no-one would know.

The first person Tony met when he got back to the lodge was Lofty, who was raking leaves off the path.

‘Hi. Tony. How’re you settling in? That caravan OK?’

‘No!’ replied Tony, with feeling. ‘It’s not OK.’

Lofty raised his eyebrows. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Somebody got in and wrecked the place.’ He held out the rolled-up duvet cover. ‘And they put muck all over this.’

‘What! Give me a look.’ Lofty took the cover and unrolled it on the ground. He looked at the mess for a while, sniffed at it, and then burst out laughing.

‘Did you leave the door of the caravan open?’

Tony thought for a bit. ‘No! I definitely shut it.’

‘Well, it must have blown open then.’

‘Doubt it. It’s not easy to open.’

‘Well, somehow it got open. That’s the only way the vandals could have got in.’ Lofty picked up the cover and headed towards the main block. ‘Follow me.’

There were now ten or so people in the lounge area, talking in a range of different languages. Lofty nodded
to them as he moved towards a large notice board on the wall opposite the windows. He pointed to a sign headed
Warning!

‘Read that to me,’ he said, chuckling.

Do not leave your chalet door open when you are not there
, read Tony out aloud.
Thieves and vandals live in this area. They look like this.

Below was a photo of a brown bird. It was about the size of a hen, with a longer beak and a tail that pointed to the ground. It had a mean, don’t-mess-with-me look about it. A view that was supported by a very sharp beak and thick, powerful legs armed with a set of knife-like claws.

This is a weka
, Tony continued to read.
It is a flightless bird that once lived all over New Zealand. Now it is found only in a few places and is listed as threatened. They are very inquisitive and will hunt through your belongings, looking for things of interest. Sometimes they will carry small objects away which they usually drop nearby. Please do NOT feed them. They will be healthier if they find their own food. Help us protect these friendly, playful birds.

‘That’s what wrecked your caravan,’ said Lofty. ‘You should feel privileged. It happens to very few people nowadays. We have weka around here, but you won’t find them in too many other places. Unfortunately, if we don’t do something about it, they’ll probably disappear from here too.’

‘What kills them?’

‘Humans mainly, and the things that we do. We run over them in cars, kill them with poisons, destroy the
places where they live, and some people even kill them intentionally because they think they’re pests. Just thirty years ago there were probably millions of them. Now there are only a few thousand. So you’d better not think of getting revenge against them, or you’ll have me and Betty to deal with.’

Tony thought of the shadow he had seen moving in the scrub. Could it have been a weka? Perhaps, although at the time his impression had been of something bigger. However, that door had definitely been closed. There was no way a weka could have opened that, so maybe there was someone in the scrub.

Lofty held out the duvet cover. ‘I’ll put this in the laundry for you.’

When he had left, Tony turned to the rest of the board. Alongside the weka warning was a large map showing the region stretching from Westport in the north to Pancake Rocks in the south. Charleston was in the middle. All the left side of the map was sea and most of the right was Paparoa National Park. The most prominent feature was a bit jutting out into the sea near Westport called Cape Foulwind. Tony chuckled when he thought of how it could have got that name: maybe some explorer had farted while sailing past, and had then felt that the event should be recorded for all people to enjoy.

Next came a map of the local area. The lodge was easy to find—the big arrow labelled
YOU ARE HERE
helped. It was from there that Tony found the gold-mining days were not forgotten. There were lots of walks that took you to
important places from the past: cemeteries, watercourses, dams and mines—heaps of mines. All these places were linked by a network of tracks that either started or finished at a small keyhole-shaped bay called Constant Bay. Tony noted that several of the tracks joined up with the lodge. There was plenty for him to explore.

He moved to the windows, thinking that he should be able to see some of these features. The view caught him by surprise. The lodge was perched on a small hill that overlooked the rest of Charleston. In the centre foreground were two small bays with narrow entrances to the sea.

‘Boring, isn’t it?’

He turned to find Rose beside him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I think it looks interesting. I’m going to explore all of that.’

Rose turned up her nose. ‘But there’s nothing there, except old stuff, prickly plants and mud. I know. I walked to that bay once. It was horrible. I got lost and ended up on top of a cliff. I never want to go there again. I could easily have fallen and been smashed to death.’

Tony smiled. ‘Sounds great.’

Rose continued to stare out the window. Tony took the chance to study her. She was slightly bigger than he was—taller and broader, but not fat. He found her quite attractive with her dark hair and brown complexion. However, it was the eyes that he studied most. They really would have been beautiful if they were not tinged with red and still wet with tears. He could see she was still upset and he began to feel sorry for her.

‘You know,’ he began gently, ‘you can send TXT
messages to your friends using that computer over there. You could let them know your mobile phone is broken.’

She turned to him. ‘Can I?’

‘Yep. You can say you were testing to see if it was mobile enough to swim.’

Rose didn’t bother to roll her eyes this time, she just sniffed.

‘Come on, I’ll show you what to do.’

If there was one thing Tony did know about, it was computers. The places where Christine worked usually had computers for the guests. He would use them in the morning or late at night when others weren’t around. Mostly he would explore the Internet or play online games. He had reached a stage where people often asked for his help.

The lodge’s computer was new and fast. He soon had access to the telephone company’s site and into its TXT service. Next, he had to wait while Rose went and got her notebook of numbers. When she returned, he let her take the computer seat as he guided her through the process. He found that she learned quickly, without the need for repetition; her notebook was neat and organised, and she typed quickly and accurately. By the time they’d finished, he had changed his mind about her. She was not the scatterbrain he had originally thought. She just had a different outlook on life to his.

‘Thank you, Tony,’ she said standing. ‘You have saved my life. I’m going to give you a hug.’

‘No!’ Tony replied quickly. ‘I don’t do hugs.’

She gave a little shrug. ‘Then can I buy you a drink?’

‘Yes, please. I’ll have a gin and tonic.’

They moved to the bar in the corner of the lounge area, where Lofty was now serving drinks. When it came to their turn, Rose said, ‘I’ll have a Bloody Mary and my friend will have a gin and tonic, please barman.’

‘Certainly, madam.’ He then poured them both lemonade and pushed the glasses towards them. ‘One BM and one G and T. Enjoy!’ They all laughed.

Rose and Tony took a table by the windows where they could survey the room. Rose gave the run-down on all the couples. ‘Those two are from Germany. They’ve been here a week now. But he’s losing interest, I can tell. That couple is from Sweden. She sunbathes topless in front of their chalet. That’s number six, if you want to have a look. Those two are Dutch and they are
so
much in love. Look, he can’t keep his hands off her.’ And so it went on. Rose plainly enjoyed talking about other people.

When he got a chance to butt in, Tony said, ‘You should be on the radio.’

Rose glared at him. ‘Oh yeah, I know,’ she snarled. ‘So then you could turn me off. I’ve heard that one before.’

Tony chuckled. ‘No, I meant as a reporter. You could have your own gossip show.’

Rose nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I’d be good at that sort of thing. I could have a spot each night.’

‘You’d have to have a name for it. Something like Rose’s Rumour Report.’

She thought for a while. ‘I know, I would call it Charleston Chitchat.’

‘That sounds interesting.’ said another voice. ‘What is it?’ It was Tony’s mum.

Tony introduced Rose and explained about the gossip column.

‘And what would you put in tonight’s edition?’ asked Christine.

This was the opportunity for Rose to start all over again. Christine leaned forward in her chair to get every word. Tony smiled to himself. She was a sucker for gossip, especially if it had anything to do with love and stuff like that. She would certainly be a listener to Charleston Chitchat.

Eventually Rose ran out of things to say, giving way to a welcome quiet moment, until a man entered the room and walked up to the bar. As he waited for Lofty to pour a drink, he scanned the room, showing little interest until he reached their table. And there, his eyes paused on Christine. It was only for a moment, but long enough for Tony’s stomach to sink: he had seen that look many times before.

‘Who’s he?’ whispered Christine.

‘Jamie Duggan,’ replied Rose. ‘He lives up the road. He grows lots of strange plants and sells herbal medicines. I think he’s creepy.’

Tony agreed. There
was
something creepy about him. But what? The man looked normal enough with his white curly hair, pink complexion and pale, blue eyes. Nor was it because he was old: he would have been older than Christine but younger than Lofty, which probably meant
somewhere in his forties. The creepiness wasn’t down to one single thing, it was just there in the whole person. Tony decided Jamie Duggan was not someone to be trusted.

Before Duggan had even got his drink, Tony knew the man would sit with them.

‘Good evening. You got a wee bit of room fer another in there?’ Tony rolled his eyes as he recognised the Scottish accent. This was chat-up technique number thirty-one. If Duggan was true to form, the accent would probably disappear after a few minutes.

‘Yes,’ replied Christine, making enough room for an extra chair.

‘Now then, Rosie, would you care to introduce me to yer new friends?’

Rose’s mouth curled with the start of a sneer before she remembered her manners and did as asked.

‘Good, good,’ said Duggan. ‘So you’ll both be here fer Hogmanay. Tha’ll be great.’

‘What’s Hogmanay?’ asked Tony.

‘Hogmanay! Have you nay heard of Hogmanay? It’s only the greatest celebration in the whole of the year.’

‘New Year’s Eve,’ put in Christine. ‘It’s a big Scottish celebration.’

‘Aye, tha’ it is. And it’s nay bigger anywhere in New Zealand than around here, I can tell you. It’s my big night, is Hogmanay.’

Since sitting, Duggan had not taken his eyes off Christine. It was as if the others weren’t there. Tony was pleased to see that Christine was finding it annoying.
She finished her drink and made as if to rise.

‘Och, Christine. There’s nay need to rush. Dinner’s another half-hour away. Wha’re you drinking?’

Reluctantly, Christine agreed to another drink and, yes, the two kids would have another lemonade each as well.

As Duggan waited at the bar, another man entered the room. This man was younger, hairier, taller, and to Tony’s eyes an altogether much better prospect. By the small smile on Christine’s face, she plainly thought so too.

‘Nick Dawnay,’ said Rose. ‘He’s one of my dad’s geology students. He measures rocks all day. His chalet is next to mine. He’s real nice, but very shy.’

Nick was looking around the room as if checking whether he should stay or not. His eyes met Christine’s, and for a moment Tony saw the transmission of all sorts of messages. Then Nick’s face flushed bright red and he turned away.

‘See what I mean?’ said Rose. ‘He likes you, Christine, but he’ll never do anything about it.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ murmured Christine. Tony was surprised to see that she too was blushing: that was something he hadn’t seen before.

Meanwhile, Nick was continuing his search of the room. Finally, his eyes reached the bar where Duggan stood smiling around at the drinkers. Instantly, Nick’s face tightened and his eyes narrowed. At the same time Duggan saw Dawnay. For a moment, his smile changed to a look of pure hatred, before switching back to the smile again. It was then that Tony recognised why Duggan was so creepy:
that goodwill-to-all-people appearance was only a mask. Beneath it lay something much different, something that could be dangerous, something to be scared of.

When Tony looked back at Nick, the man had turned and was striding out the door. ‘What’s the problem between those two?’ he asked.

‘They hate each other,’ replied Rose.

Tony nodded. That much was plain.

‘They used to be best friends,’ continued Rose. ‘Then one day they had a big bust up. Now Nick won’t come in when Jamie’s here.’

‘What was it over?’ asked Christine.

‘I don’t know. Neither of them will tell me. But they will sometime. I’m working on it and I’ve never been beaten yet.’