Argonauta Argo
Mrs Leonard, of Storm Bay Road, Flinders Bay. Beehived widow of a long deceased naval officer & clearance diver, reliable purveyor of weak tea and slightly stale Sao crackers.
Mrs Leonard, so small that when she drove past our shack, her Valiant would appear a drifting ghost ship until you caught sight of her beehive. Who one morning, right in the middle of summer swimming lessons, ran aground on a low hummock of grass in front of the boat ramp. When an unexpected frenzy of boat launching fisherman, shoaling children & uncharted shouting parents appeared out of thick glaucomal fog, Mrs Leonard hauled hard to port and she beached the low slung Valiant in thick kikuyu as if it were a whale. For a short while she continued to drive on in a stately manner, peering intently over the vast bonnet through the familiar porthole formed by the steering wheel, once or twice waving royally to the gathering crowd, who had heard the Valiant's rising engine note and stopped to gawk at the rear wheels uselessly spinning ever faster up in the air. It was not until someone finally gently tapped on her driver's side window and informed her over the din, that yes, she was indeed, stuck fast, that she consented to be relieved of command and let herself be towed unceremoniously off the hummock, and out of the way of the now backed up boat ramp, by tractor.
Mrs Leonard's formal sitting room, which spoke of mothballs and rose petals, overlooked Storm Bay to the SW. A telescope extended her view all the way to St Alourn's, and the myriad of breakers beyond. Her tall honey hued glass cabinets contained not only Captain Leonard; who steadily stared out of several hand coloured photographic portraits, eyes coolly fixed on a point just off the starboard bow, as if a ship had just appeared unannounced on the horizon, but also his collection of conchs, cowries, sponges, corals, & sea snakes in jars of formaldehyde.
... & on the highest shelf, of the tallest cabinet, there were paper nautilus shells that I was not to touch, ever, all in a row.
They were exactly like the one I found in the gloaming the other day after the last big storm.
