No Money Back Guarantee
“I’ve lost the money I picked up from the table this morning!”
My husband’s distraught voice in my ear cut short my polite greeting on the office PABX switchboard at Fisher-Vogue Lighting.
“It’s all gone—all eight dollars! It must have fallen out of my pocket when I walked to the bus stop this morning!”
In 1970, eight dollars was a fifth of my husband’s weekly wage, the amount budgeted for his bus fares and tobacco for the ensuing week. We had only recently married and finances were tight.
“How did you get to work?”
“A bloke I see on the bus every morning lent me the fare until tomorrow. Can you walk the road and see if you can find any of the notes?”
“Sure,” said my boss when apprised of our financial disaster. He was lovingly lighting his first cigar of the day and waved his hand casually. “Off you go (puff) and make sure you find that money.”
My thorough search of the footpath and surrounds from the bus stop to our rented home—a tiny, one-bedroom converted garage on Oceanbeach Road— was unproductive. I was puzzled. It was a calm, cloudy morning and any air disturbance from the occasional passing car should not have moved the notes significantly. Perhaps someone else had found them and they were already lying peacefully in a shopkeeper’s till.
“Have you lost something?”
Next-door-neighbour Mrs Lowe added her eyes to the search as we scoured the sand and grass that constituted my garden.
“Perhaps the money fell out of his pocket when he took the dog for her walk along the beach,” suggested Mrs Brown sensibly, stepping over the low fence between her place and ours. We examined the vegetation and sand, peering into tangled mounds of pohuehue and clumps of spinifex as we made our way towards the dunes. Our section was triangular in shape, its wide base bordering the road with the far end tapering as it neared the ocean beach.
“Yoo hoo!” called Mrs Trigger from her house perched on the dunes above the sandy track leading down to the beach. “Wait a moment—I’ll come and help!”
Four pairs of eyes should quadruple the chance of success, I thought. We followed the long sliding marks in the sand showing where man and dog had plunged down the slope towards the sea, turning right to follow the water’s edge.
“Tide’s coming in,” I announced, noting the froth-edged ripples whispering closer to the footprints on the sand with each incoming breaker.
“I saw your husband coming back from his walk,” remarked Mrs Trigger. “Your cat ambushed the dog from the bushes on top of the dunes where she’d been hiding. Harry and I enjoy watching their little game each morning.”
Ahead of us a seagull rose into the air from a line of shells and sea-wrack left by the previous high-tide. Behind a bunch of black seaweed, the type we loved ‘popping’ as children, lay the seagull’s breakfast, the remains of a dead fish. And beyond that again, caught in some jingle shells, was a two dollar note.
I pounced on the money with a triumphant cry and waved it in the faces of the astonished women. Laughing together we continued our search with sudden hope.
By the time we came to the scuffles in the sand where man and dog had enjoyed a game of catch-me-if-you-can as they turned to head for home, we hadn’t found any more money. We turned back also, our expectations dwindling. The incoming tide had already obliterated most of our footprints. The clouds began to dissipate and emerging sunshine gave the effect of stage lighting as different parts of the beach were illuminated. How much healthier to breathe in this fresh sea air rather than the foul cigar smoke in the office, I mused happily.
Ahead of me, Mrs Brown darted to one side, scooping up a wet one dollar note from the bare damp sand. Her face was all smiles as she handed me her booty. “It must have come in behind us as we walked the other way,” she declared.
I couldn’t believe my good fortune in recovering almost half the lost money. It was a small miracle. Exclaiming and chuckling, the four of us wandered back along the beach. We had almost reached the point where we needed to turn towards our track over the dunes when a big breaker crashed down to our right, sending a large volume of water hissing towards us over the sand. Cries of excitement accompanied our sudden haste as we skipped out of the way. I wasn’t quite fast enough. The sea washed over my feet and pulled back, sucking the sand out from under my soles.
And there, flat and wet on the sand in front of me, was a five dollar note.
