Raw Blue (3 page)

It scares me. I don’t want to do it. But sometimes I think it’s the only way I’ll be able to turn off what’s in my head.

3

Outside

‘Do you mind me doing this?’ Hannah calls from the kitchen.

‘What?’ I frown down at my newspaper. If I stare hard enough and long enough maybe she’ll be quiet and disappear back upstairs.

‘Washing my face in your kitchen sink. I could use your bathroom sink if you did mind.’

‘No. Feet, well … but your face, that’s okay.’

‘Are you sure, Cookie?’

‘Go for your life.’

She appears in the doorway in her baggy white sleeping T-shirt and undies – at least I think she’s wearing undies and I hope to neither confirm or deny that as a fact. She’s not wearing a bra; I can see clearly the outline of her heavy, sagging breasts under the T-shirt. Her long, slim legs make her appear oddly high waisted. When she is dressed, it’s either in the suits, stockings and short heels she wears to work, or in the red hotpants and black ankle boots she wears when she goes out dancing at her salsa club. Her wardrobe is schizophrenic.

Rubbing at her face with a towel, she asks, ‘Go for your life?’

‘It means do whatever you want.’

She stares at me intently, trying the phrase out again. ‘Go – for – your – life.’

Hannah is Dutch and speaks English really well, but she’s always working on it. She knows more about grammar and punctuation than I do, and English is my first language,
and
I started a degree in communications. I have not told her that last fact though. I haven’t told her much about me at all. As far as she knows I’ve always worked in kitchens, which is why she calls me ‘Cookie’.

I look down at my paper again. I’ve got segments of Saturday’s
Sydney Morning Herald
spread out on the floor around me and
Spectrum
open between my legs. I’m trying to read Bernard Zuel’s review. Bernard says the band in question aren’t the most advanced songwriters I’m likely to meet:
their melodies can be haphazard and when it comes to song structures, simplicity usually rules
. But he’s cool with that in this case because he says this band
has a good ear for the pleasure of noise
. I like that. The pleasure of noise. And he talks about
jagged strips of guitar
, which is another thing I like.

When I read Bernard I feel like I can make sense of the world. I never buy the CDs he’s talking about, I just like the reviews. I wish I could get Bernard to come and review my life for me, point out the obvious, tell me where the structure isn’t as simple as it should be. Then again, I probably wouldn’t like it at all. It would be a bad review.

‘Joost hated me doing it.’

I blink up at Hannah. ‘Hated you doing what?’

‘Washing my face in the kitchen sink.’

‘Oh.’

‘So, now I’m away from him, I’m gonna do it all I want.’

She shoots me an angry stare, as if I’ve somehow turned into her husband. She’s always doing stuff he wouldn’t like – two weeks ago she had her buttercup-blonde hair cropped short because Joost liked her to wear it long. But it’s not like he’d know. He’s back in the Netherlands, hoping she’ll sort herself out here in Sydney and eventually go back to him. She’s some sort of engineer, working at a firm in Frenchs Forest, being loaned out for a while from head office back in Amsterdam. I know all about it. More than I’d like to, in fact, because for some reason Hannah’s attached herself to me since I moved in. We share a two-storey duplex on Powderworks Road, five minutes drive from the break. She’s got the upper storey and I’ve got the lower storey.

When I answered the ad in the
Manly Daily
, Jean, our landlady, said,
You’re very young
… And I knew she was worried about me meeting the rent payments. So I told her my parents had gone overseas and rented out their house, and I was to use their rent payments to pay my rent while they were gone because I didn’t want to live in a house in the suburbs by myself when I could live near the beach. The easy way this lie just rolled out of my mouth surprised me. I never used to lie.

Anyway, the lie worked because Jean then took me to meet Hannah. I thought Hannah would be the perfect neighbour: she works days, I work nights, and she’s twenty-nine, ten years older than me, so we wouldn’t have much in common. But since Hannah’s plumbing has blocked up she’s been in my space constantly: using my shower, using my toilet, washing her face in my kitchen sink …

At that moment my mobile rings and I answer it without checking the screen, which is a mistake because it’s my mother and I’ll have to be careful what I say – I’m not about to explain my home situation to Hannah.

‘Your Brother has put a deposit down on a unit,’ Mum tells me.

She never uses Keith’s name when she’s talking to me. I asked him once if she refers to me like that, as Your Sister. He said, yes, she does, and what she says is usually bad:
Your Sister is working in a restaurant … washing dishes – think of it! – all that money we spent sending her to university. She’d never wash the dishes at home
.

If I was a sheep, I’d be black.

‘You’re kidding, where?’ I say.

‘Terrigal.’

‘That close?’ Our family home is at Forresters Beach on the Central Coast. The fact that Keith has bought near there is to me both insane and oddly fascinating, as is the fact that Keith is buying property at twenty-four. It shouldn’t be. He’s been saving since he was born.

Mum speaks of my older brother with awe; as if he’s not her son but someone she knew once who’s now moved on to better things. Every day she scans the
Central Coast Express Advocate
for his by-line.

‘It’s a good investment. You know what it’s like there in the holidays – you can’t get a car park. That’s what you could have, Carly.’

‘I don’t even like Terrigal, Mum.’

My name is Carla Lee and I’m a nineteen-year-old disappointment.

My father kicked me out of home, which was when I moved down here. Maybe I deserved it – our fight that night was a screamer, both of us yelling at the tops of our voices. It was over me dropping out of uni. At least on the surface that’s what it was about. But for me that fight was over old things. Age eight, someone is stealing from school bags and it’s mentioned in the school newsletter. My father’s voice:
Have you checked her room?
Age fifteen, busted sneaking in from a leagues club disco, drunk, too much make-up. A virgin.
I don’t care how many men you sleep with, but while you’re under my roof you’ll abide by my rules
.

My father is a man who takes five beers to a barbecue. Five. Not a six-pack. Because that’s what he’s calculated he’ll drink while he’s there. I hate that about him.

‘Be reasonable, love,’ Mum says in a wistful voice. ‘Your father just doesn’t want to see you throw away your future.’

That burns, the fact that she’s toeing the official line. Always with her, it’s him first, as though God died, making him God. If I was just angry it’d be easy, but it hurts too, it hurts so bad, because I love my mum and I’m scared being out of my family. But when I’m in it, I feel like I’m being pressed into the wrong shape. Things with Dad will never be the way I want them because I’m not what he wants. I’m trying to accept this, but it’s funny how you forget all the time.

I think what scared me about the night of our fight, was how close I came to letting it all out. Everything. All the things I don’t tell anybody. I wanted to scream it into his face, like it was his fault somehow. That frightened me. Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I’d done this, and I can see the look of disgust on his face.

When I don’t answer, Mum is quiet for a moment, then proceeds to Lee family business as though nothing’s wrong at all: what my aunts and uncles are doing, what my cousins are doing. She spends a lot of time worrying about what other people are getting up to. Only what they’re doing, though, not what they are, or how they’re feeling. I’m not even sure if she’s ever really looked at me, seen
me
.

I wonder what she’s said about me leaving. Maybe the PR is that I’m still at uni. Either way I’m gone, so the outcome is conveniently the same. The women in my family, they talk about carpets and couches and feature walls and pergolas; how they went to take a look at the new shopping mall/recreation club/homemaker centre; the holiday they went on; the musical they saw; what so and so’s eighteenth, or christening, or wedding, or some other event was like. It’s not bad, but it can make you feel lonely if you’re not into that stuff yourself.

While Mum’s talking Hannah reappears in the doorway, brushing her teeth. She’s staring at me but I can tell she’s thinking about something else. She keeps glancing at her watch and eventually goes back into the kitchen, her two minutes up. A second later I hear her rinsing her mouth out at the sink. She always brushes her teeth for exactly two minutes. She times it – I’m not kidding. Two minutes is a long time to brush your teeth. I tried it and my wrist got sore.

Mum cuts the call just before her ten minutes is up – she’s got some deal with Telstra. For a paranoid moment I wonder whether my location will show up on her phone statement – they know I’m in Sydney, and they know I’m working, but that’s all they know. Then I realise that even if they knew where I was they wouldn’t come after me. I’m outside the family now.

4

honey-warm light

COASTALWATCH

Swell size 0.5–1 metre – Swell direction E

There will be some leftover swell in the 2–3ft range early, easing to a less consistent 2ft during the afternoon. Protected northern corners are best …

Sunday. I’m down there by ten, later than I would have liked. That sort of time is fine for weekdays, but on weekends it’s late enough for the crowds. Weekends are a free-for-all. You’ve got to be there by six-thirty at the latest.

I’m sick with tiredness – should have gone to sleep when I got home from work. I woke up at nine-thirty with newspaper pages strewn over me like blankets. Now all I can think about is getting into that salt water.

I park in the back car park, lock the Laser, tuck the key into my leg rope and jog over the dune. At the water’s edge I put my leg rope on and rub some sand through my hands – sunscreen on your palms can make you slip while you’re getting up. It’s really summery today, the wind hot and blowy out of the northeast. It’s mid tide, pushing up to high, and the swell is getting lazy. The beach is a shifting tapestry of bodies and the line-up seems equally congested, a traffic jam of surfboards, bodyboards and kneeboards. Too crowded. I decide to stay on the inside, Alley Rights, which turns out to be better than it looks and I get three hollow rights in quick succession.

Back in the spot, I slide off my board and duck dive under the water, going deep, wanting some sand to rough up my wax. When I surface, I notice that two boys have moved in on me. One of them is staring across at me, skinny-chested in his black-and-red spring suit. I shoot him a look because I’m pissed, even though that’s not really fair because I wouldn’t do it if he were older, and it’s not like you can own ocean space.

I rub the bit of sand I’ve collected over the wax on the deck of my board. Most of it just swishes off. When I look up again the kid has paddled across and is right there near me. He’s lying down on his board, ankles crossed, leaning on his elbows so his hands can talk to each other. He’s considering me with a preoccupied look on his face, like I’m an equation he’s got to solve before he can go to lunch.

I stare at the incoming swell, paddle for a wave and miss it. When I turn around he’s still watching me. This is ridiculous.

I sit up on my board. ‘Nice today, isn’t it? Water’s getting warmer.’

He comes to slowly – I can see the split second when awareness slides across his face. ‘Yeah.’

He’s Eurasian, with hazel eyes and beautifully clear skin, not a pimple on his face. He’s younger than me, I’d guess early teens but I’m not good with ages. His neatly cut black hair is drying off, so he’s been sitting around on his board for a while.

He frowns. ‘Do you surf here a lot?’

‘Well, only since I moved here. Which was …’ I pause as though I’m calculating, which I’m not. I know full well it’s been two months, ‘… mid-September, I think.’

‘Do you know me?’

I’m not really sure where he’s coming from. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

He sighs and rubs one eye. ‘I mean, have you talked to me before or anything?’

‘No. Why? When do you surf?’

‘Pardon?’

For some reason that hooks me. I like him. It’s because he’s used the word ‘pardon’ with the most serious look on his face in the world. However old he is, he acts like someone a lot older.

‘What time of day do you normally surf?’ I ask.

‘After school.’

‘Mornings as well?’

‘No. I sleep.’

‘I surf mornings. Usually after nine. And sometimes I come back after lunch, but before school’s out. So by the time you get here I’m probably getting ready for work. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen you before.’

‘Getting ready for work … You work at night time?’ he asks, momentarily distracted.

‘Yep.’

‘There’s a prostitute who surfs here. She works at night time.’

I blink. ‘Oh … I’m not a prostitute. I, uh, work in a kitchen. You know, chef stuff.’

Strictly speaking, it’s not chef stuff, it’s cook stuff. But the word ‘chef’ gives people a quicker visual.

A wave’s coming, a good one, chest-high at least, and where we’re sitting we’ll get the shoulder. I turn and paddle for it, hungry in my belly. I’m on my feet when I hear a whistle and see the guy charging across towards me. I kick out, pissed off, and land in the water beside my board with a plop. It would have been a nice wave. I drag myself back on my board and paddle over to the kid. He’s still in my spot, lying down, looking back over his shoulder. I raise my eyebrows at him when I get closer, but he doesn’t smile. He’s got a distrustful look on his face.

I sit up on my board, clearing my throat. ‘Your friend is getting some good waves.’ I mean the other boy. He keeps trying to do aerials.

‘He’s not my friend, I’ve just known him for a long time. We went to primary school together and he used to tell people I was retarded.’

‘Why did he say you were retarded?’ There’s no point being polite, I want to know.

‘Because I see colours and stuff.’

I wait for a couple of beats but that’s it, that’s all he says.

‘I don’t get what you mean.’

He flops off his board and pulls it sideways across him, hooking his arms over its deck, his toes poking out of the water. He glances at me. I see his teeth are very white and even. All of his features are like that. More delicate, more pure and refined than either white or Asian.

‘At primary school, right? We had this teacher who sometimes used to write stuff on the board in coloured chalk. One day she was teaching us how to spell “Wednesday” and she wrote it up on the board in purple. And I put up my hand and said, “But Miss, Wednesday’s green.” And all the others laughed because they thought I was being funny, but I wasn’t, because to me Wednesday is green.’

I frown at him.

‘Okay. When I hear “Wednesday”, or see it, or think it, I get green in my head.’

‘Like the word in green?’

He breathes out as if it’s a real effort or this is something he’s gone into too many times to mention. ‘No, just green. This yuck green. Not horrible or anything, just …
blah
, boring. Same as … like for me, Friday is yellow and cloudy, soft. It’s pretty good. Seven’s sort of like that too. A is reddy red, tomato-sauce red. Four is red too, but swirly with pink bits. C is whitey-grey …,’ he waves a hand from side to side, ‘… sort of stripey.’

I chew this over for a bit, really wanting to say the right thing. ‘So you get … extra.’

‘Yeah.’

There’s a wave coming. I let it pass. ‘How long have you been like that?’

‘Since forever.’ He pulls himself back up on his board. ‘It’s not
just
me – although at school I’m the only one. Other people have it too. It’s called synaesthesia. It means you get your senses mixed up. Some people don’t believe it’s real. They think you’re just bunging it on. But that teacher, she’d heard of it before – some artist had it or something. Then the principal got all interested and started asking questions. I never thought I was different before then. I thought everybody was like that.’

‘Wow. I’ve never heard of it.’

He shrugs. ‘There’s heaps of stuff on the net. There are different types too. Lots of people get colours from letters and numbers, but some people get colours from music. And it doesn’t just have to be colours. Some people taste stuff or smell things.’

‘God, that’s really interesting. Is it just colours for you?’

He nods.

‘Do they get in the way?’

‘Not really. Most of the time they’re just there. Like when that teacher wrote Wednesday on the board in purple, I could see it was purple, just, in my head there was green.’ He splashes the water with his hands. ‘Sometimes it gets in the way, but that’s with people.’

‘You get colours from people too?’

He nods. ‘Usually only people I know. Like, I wouldn’t normally pick up something from someone I don’t know.’

There’s something deliberate about the way he says this and suddenly I realise that’s why he was staring at me. I want to ask him which colour he’s getting from me, but the way he’s acting suggests it isn’t great.

There’s an awkward silence, him staring steadfastly at the horizon. Then his face lightens and he smiles.

‘I’ll tell you a good one. There’s this girl I like. Lara. I really like her, hey. I don’t know if it’s because she’s hot or whatever, or because of what I get from her. She gives me all this honey … warm … light stuff. It just makes me feel really good. You know how sun comes through leaves? That’s how the light’s like, but wavy. Sort of. The light’s like … like …’

‘Is it like the light patterns in water?’ I ask, trying to be helpful because I’ve got a feeling he’ll keep going all day to describe it just right.

He blinks, looks down at the sunlight’s netting stretched over the sand at the bottom of the water. ‘That’s it. That’s exactly it. Honey water with light through it. Except – no. It’s more like warm air, not water.’

‘Okay, so honey-warm air with light patterns through it.’

‘Yeah.’ He nods, deadly serious.

I smile. ‘That’s great. I think you’re lucky.’

‘But I haven’t finished.’

‘Sorry.’

‘What I found out was, I don’t even have to be around her. I cut her picture out of our class photo and when I look at it I get the same feelings.
And
if someone says her name I get them too. So if I want to feel good, I take out the picture and say her name a few times.’

‘Who needs drugs?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s cool.’

Then he refocuses on me and frowns. There’s wariness in his voice when he asks, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Carla. Carly, I mean. That’s what most people call me.’

He nods. ‘I’m like that. My name’s Daniel, but I’m Danny.’

There’s a lull in the swell and in our conversation. We sit in silence for maybe two minutes.

Then he says, ‘I’m going to catch one in now. See you later.’

‘Bye, Danny.’

After he paddles off, I realise that it’s the first time I’ve talked to someone at the break. Other people watching us would have thought we knew each other, just like the crows and other regulars know each other.