Kendra. Jane Keehn
And once in a while Melanie’s soft, secret, kisses on Emily’s skin.
The smudged lights of the funfair blinked on the Esplanade.
If she squinted her eyes to focus through the sea spray Emily could make out the twinkling lights framing an old circus caravan flashing human skulls and flowers and a girl she knew briefly last year.
- Come on Leo – we’re going out for a walk.
She grabbed Leo’s lead and bounded out the door before he could get used to the idea.
Catching up to her, they ran down the beach road into the township towards the bright lights.
Kendra - Chapter 5
Pink fairy floss on sticks hid people’s faces from Kendra as she unpacked her tackle box.
Small angular shells and sea urchins strung onto fishing wire clanking into bits of glass, that had softened from crashing waves hung from broken twigs and driftwood.
She removed other found-objects from the box that were cleverly tied into earrings and necklaces. Kendra hung them from a low hanging tree branch then untied her display of sea shells and metal objects on a shawl over the ground.
Her grey opal eyes flashed towards people walking past but hesitated at eye-contact. She hung her sea urchin wind chimes so that they made delicate music in the breeze and draped pairs of shelled hook and sinker earrings over a black fabric backdrop.
Her own ears showed off a pair with broken Heart Cockle shells. Around her neck was a heavy gold chain with a scrimshaw tooth – the one thing she hadn’t made herself; someone in her tribe had made it and her mothers had passed it down to her.
Leaning against a small limestone retaining wall she propped her crutches against the garden rocks. A clink of coins turned people's heads as she scraped the small change from her tackle box into the pocket of her jeans.
Her black t-shirt had a cartoon video game character on its front and hung loosely over her hips. Kendra shuffled her old boots against each other hoping that no one would notice they were two slightly different designs and mismatched sizes...one found on a rubbish pile under the jetty at Meg's Cove, the other on the road leading to Green Wood - forgotten, lost, not missed by their old owners.
Three teenagers sidled up to look at the trinkets on the shawl.
- How much are those earrings?
One of them, wearing black denim pointed to the smallest pair on Kendra's display.
- Usually ten dollars but you can have those for five tonight.
Her friend in a ruffled cotton tube top giggled while the trio looked through their combined spending money for the night.
- Sure. Here you are.
She handed over some gold coins.
Kendra watched them laugh as they skipped away, pleased with their unusual purchase. She clutched the coins before locking them in a compartment in the tackle box.
Her eyes scanned the pathways along the stalls and tables. She quickly sold a wind chime to a grey haired woman just before two blokes in yellow polo shirts began visiting each stall.
It was market security checking for permits, so she folded up her cloth, carrying her art works and jewellery like a sack and quickly ripped the wind chime from the branch.
Dangling from one hand, the tackle box clanked against the crutches Kendra shuffled into the holiday crowd to avoid any confrontation. Kendra dragged her feet through the sandy embankment, prodding her crutches sinking into the earth as she made her way to the esplanade’s car park. Walking by the food stalls, a deep-fried smoke from battered sausages on sticks stung her eyes and she wondered why anyone would want to eat something called a Dagwood Dog.
She followed the footpath trail away from the vendor’s generators catching her boots on some broken glass. Her orange plastic tackle box banged against her crutches’ poles, scattering a handful of seagulls as they swooped for a skerrick of discarded food. Dodging children with ice-creams Kendra found an empty faded bus seat near the corner hotel.
Singing, music, laughing, shouting came out the hotel’s windows to where she sat. Blurred faces showed through the window blinds, smiling and yelling into a microphone. Kendra tilted her head and focused through the crack in the light.
A kind of gentle wailing blew through the air like smoke, reaching her ears, in their night mode. The sound of a voice running alongside music and trying to keep up with it. It made Kendra smile. It made her skin tingle with warmth in the night air.
The woman singing had messy dark hair that brushed over her laughing blue eyes as she enjoyed the attention of the drinking crowd. There was something familiar about her determined smile and the way she narrowed her gaze when she looked at the woman singing with her. Kendra’s smile faded. She breathed in as she leaned forward for a clearer view.
It was the granddaughter. The one who’d nearly caught up with her in the kayak. Meg’s granddaughter with the brown dog and her note book always in her pocket - charting, searching, scribbling, looking for something. Kendra inched closer to the pub and found a perch on a bicycle stand outside the main entrance.
The sliding doors were open to let the cool sea breeze inside the hotel. The music was louder now.
“Across the sea...my destiny...two souls together worlds apart.”
The dark haired girl was trying her hardest to sing without laughing while a woman wearing dark purple stared at her from another microphone attempting to remember the words.
The music swelled and they groaned a final long note into the night air. Creeping closer together in time with the music the two women ended the song with an awkward embrace and a light quick kiss. Kendra felt her skin flush as the two women kissed again as they walked off the stage and the audience hooted and whistled their approval.
Kendra’s mothers knew of Emily as a child and they knew her curious nature and love for her grandmother’s legend would bring her close to their family one day. Emily and her companion with the purple dress and a streak of purple hair sat and gulped some beer. Their arms intertwined when they sat close to one another and they allowed their fingers to link and caress under the table.
Kendra once again felt her face grow hot and she smiled. She could see Emily’s finger running along the purple girl’s knee, stroking it gently and quietly and secretly. She smiled, remembering similar gestures of affection and passion that her mothers had for one another.
Her Mothers feared that Emily or someone like her would one day get too close to their cabin or their survival cave. They knew Emily would be curious about the legend surrounding her grandmother and the Mandalay wreck. They knew she would want to know more – more than she could ever imagine. And the closer Emily came, the further away Kendra knew she would have to go, but Kendra enjoyed something in the way Emily’s eyes sparkled at the girl sitting opposite her.
Something in the way her hand hovered too close to the other’s - the way her other hand ran softly over her dog’s head and ears. There was a gentleness in Emily’s strong hands.
Kendra couldn’t look away in time and Emily’s face turned towards her. Their sightlines collided into one another for an instant.
Kendra turned away, so Emily could only see the back scoop of her blue grey hair.
Emily smiled at her. She thought it was someone she knew from work. But no.
She didn’t know anyone who walked with crutches.
Kendra grabbed up the shawl and her trinkets. A lone beer bottle was propped in the hotel’s garden bed. She flung it with a light clunk into her tackle box along with her hand-made wares. Soon she was limping along the path towards the Fun Fair, through the market car park towards the beach. Bottles and glasses clinked, their sounds fading with every stride Kendra made towards the