Chapter 6
The Kuranda Triangle
As creepy as it sounds, the policeman assured us that they had checked the shop hundreds of times and they had found nothing there. He also said that he would make another round there during the day after his colleague had returned to the station. The station was so small that it could not accommodate more than two police officers and there was not much for them to do except looking for lost items or missing people. He also assured me that they always find what’s been lost, people too, not just items. For some reason I was doubtful about this promise, but it certainly gave us the confidence we needed for not having to continue endless trips to Kuranda in the future in search for them.
There’s no doubt that this was part of the purpose of him saying this. But everything felt different than that, they were still there. For some reason I decided to visit the store once more before our return to Cairns, where we could only wait for the results of the police search.
We left the station, stepping into the bright sunlight. The place was buzzing with tourists walking back and forth and looking at the merchandise on display. We went to the restaurant on the corner to eat. It was already noon. The place was full and we did not see a single free table. We stood aside. And while we waited for a table to become available, for some reason we were less worried. The policeman’s words did their job, calming us down: he was sure that he’ll find them. We didn’t feel the doubt that we had felt the day before. “I want to go to the shop again before we go back to Cairns,” I said as we noticed a table that had become available and walked towards it. “That’s okay,” he said without adding a word. It was suddenly very important not to change the feeling of silence within us.
We no longer thought we would find them there, it was just to be sure that we had really done everything we could to find them before we went back to Cairns, leaving the whole matter in the hands of the police. The restaurant was very crowded, as if the owners were trying to get as many tables as possible in a limited number of square metres. Not only were we sitting back to back with other diners, but various conversations from all sides interrupted us. The food was very basic, nothing fancy, but they didn’t skimp on the salad. The lettuce chopped with a knife was dominant, it slid from the plate to all sides. We ate pretty quickly, for not only were we really hungry, we also didn’t feel comfortable listening to what Thomas had bought and seen or what Janet had received from Thomas, accompanied by warnings to unruly children who didn’t want to finish what was on their plate. As soon as we finished eating the hamburger, leaving the lettuce for the waitress to pick up and a piece of bread that we had thrown to the birds to finish, we were out of there.
We arrived at the shop, which, as always, felt like a kind of abandoned cocoon. The memorabilia of the various falcons and butterflies didn’t speak to us. Even the banksia flowers didn’t seem to be alive enough to admire. We found the door half-open again and went inside. Several people were walking between the small section that made up the entrance and the second room. We also heard a conversation going on at the counter between the saleswoman and a buyer. She was busy packing a small painting he had chosen and he apologised for not buying the large one that was also more largely priced. “That’s the size I can put in my suitcase,” he said with a little laugh, showing how uncomfortable he was with his choice. From the entire selection of paintings that fit suitcases of different sizes, he hadn’t even chosen the smallest painting.
We started to walk around and move away from the counter, into the third room, which was the largest, and from there it was possible to continue to two more rooms that were adjacent to it. There were several relatively large canvases that showed the row of houses at the entrance to Kuranda. There were also details that showed everyday life, such as a car next to the house, someone with a lawn mower, one with a leaf blower, and it was clear that all the small details showed the truth and the whole truth of life in a place that seemed very ideal for someone who likes to walk around with such devices, in front of his house.
I entered the room from the right side entrance and my husband entered the room from the left side entrance as a kind of game between us. The room was well lit, compared to others, where generally the lighting of the spots remained at the border of the door. All the paintings on all the walls hung in the same style of covering every centimetre. Paintings hung above and below each other with slightly less density. The canvases were larger than the size of the suitcase, some were even more than a meter, and between them hung a relatively smaller one with two accurately painted figures: we were standing in front of my husband’s parents.