Raw Blue (6 page)

‘But no –’

‘No, I think they do. Really. Maybe we’re just as scary to them as they are to us.’

Hannah looks truly puzzled. ‘But are you scared of men, Cookie?’

I shake my head quickly, but my throat feels tight. ‘No, I was just … It’s just something I think sometimes, that’s all.’

9

Surf porn

Coastalwatch

Swell size 0.5 metre – Swell direction NE

Pristine conditions today. No wind, the sand banks are good and it’s a peaky 1–2ft. If there was some decent swell around it’d be on. Small but highly surfable at exposed swell locations …

The back car park is empty and the lagoon’s settled into a syrupy torpor. While I’m getting changed I can hear fish jumping, slapping the tea-stained water. God, it’s hot. I run over the dune, sand burning the soles of my feet, looking down at my knees. My skin’s the colour of a roasted nut. I’ve changed so much since I’ve been here. Now, when I catch sight of myself in the mirrored doors of my bedroom wardrobe, I’m startled by the stranger looking back at me. Hair dried out by the sun, skin stained brown by it. Triceps that are hard knobs of muscle. If I hold out my arms, my lat muscles make my chest widen like a fan. I’m becoming someone else, and I like it.

The beach is empty save for a man and a woman walking towards the headland and the clump of surfers at the Alley. A lifesaver is setting up for the day, driving a four-wheeler down to mark out the flags.

There are patches of lighter blue pooled on the ocean’s surface like oil slicks. And there’s swell. Easy, two-foot waves peel left and right with clean precision. The swell is a bonus, really, because I thought the high pressure system would settle on the ocean like a blanket. What’s more, there aren’t too many bodies out there. Maybe everybody else slept in.

Conditions are so clean that duck diving is like slicing butter with a hot knife. The crows are all out and they’re exclaiming about it:
Aw, W.D., mate, good to see ya! It’s a faarken’ reunion, eh?

There’s a new guy too, a fresh-faced twenty-something on a purple malibu. He’s hassling people like mad and I’m thinking he should be careful doing that. Doesn’t he know about this place? Didn’t he notice the broken board that’s been jammed onto the pole near the lifesavers’ building as a warning? Someone’s spray-painted ‘No Mal Zone’ on one of the signs in the top car park. When I first saw that I thought it was good. Usually mals are ridden by beginners who bob around getting in your way and dropping in because they don’t know better. Or worse, by people who can surf and should know better but are using them to hog a break. A couple of the crows ride mals, but they surf here regularly and don’t hog waves, and they ride them old-school style, trying for some art in what they’re doing. Also, they look like they’d punch the crap out of anyone who had a go at them.

This guy can surf, but he’s really pushy. He snakes me almost immediately, which pisses me off. One of the crows, a shortboarder with long sideburns and a penchant for lurid board shorts, turns around and hollers at him: ‘
Faark off, mate! Show her a bit of faarkin’ respect
.’

Surprised, I look at him, and he gives me a nod.

The newbie must be stupid though, because he paddles straight back to the inside, which is just plain rude. This time the crow drops in on him and does a cutback so he’s heading straight towards him, screaming, ‘
Faark off!
Git gone, mate.’

I get my first wave. Oh God, it’s great today. The waves have got a real thrumming beat to them, a speed about the way they peel that gets your blood pumping. I zing along, smacking out a hat-trick of top turns and finishing with something I hope resembles a foam floater. Guys paddling back out give me an
Eeeeeurgh
! Sometimes with surfing it’s just on and you lift up a level.

More men arrive, none of them regulars. Although small, it’s good here today, and the south facing breaks will be flat. The crows take umbrage. All I can hear is a cacophony of
Faark off
s.

Someone paddles up beside me and I turn around to find it’s that Danny kid, the one who sees colours. He stares at me for a second, as if checking something, then seems to relax.

‘Hey, Danny,’ I say with a big smile which surprises even me.

‘Have you seen that
Blue Horizon
movie?’

‘Ah … no.’ I wait for an explanation but there is none. ‘I’m good, thanks. How’ve you been?’

‘Yeah, good. My mum gave it to me. For my birthday. It’s about Andy Irons and Dave Rastovich – Rasta – you know that free surfer?’

‘Happy birthday. When was it?’

‘Today.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Guess.’

‘Forty-two.’

A smile twists his mouth sideways. ‘No, I’m fifteen.’

‘You’re just a baby.’

‘No, I’m not.’ He flips himself over and lies on his back. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twelve.’

He grins, showing his even white teeth. I’m struck by how clean he looks: thick black hair, smooth skin, slanted eyes. Today his eyes look hazel.

‘How old are you really?’ he asks.

‘Nineteen.’

‘Huh.’ He considers that for a while, his mouth open. ‘That’s old. That’s four years older than me.’

‘All right, all right.’

‘That’s like half a decade older than me. A third of my life.’

I splash water at him. ‘Why aren’t you at school?’

‘Because it’s my birthday. Mum said I could have the day off because we’re not doing anything anyway. We finish up next week. Christmas holidays. What’s your last name?’

‘Lee.’

‘What was school like back in the day, Mrs Lee?’ Then he collapses into giggles, going floppy the way little kids do when they laugh too much. When he finishes, he gives a big sigh and sits up. ‘You know how it’s my birthday? You can give me a present if you want.’

‘Geez, you’re not short on confidence are you? What can I give you?’

‘You know how you said you work in a kitchen? Do you reckon you could get me a job there?’

‘What, like part-time?’

‘Yeah. I want a job for the holidays.’

‘Is this part of your condition – you know, the colours thing – you ask total strangers for jobs?’

‘It’s called synaesthesia.
Synaesthesia
. And it’s not a condition, like a disease or something, it’s a good thing. Some people call it a gift.’ He says all this with his face stuck up in the air, looking serious and snooty. ‘And you’re not a stranger, I’ve talked to you.’

‘You’ve talked to me once.’

‘You’re not a stranger because I get stuff from you. So I knew you even before I talked to you. That’s rare, by the way – to get colours from people. Really rare. Not many people have that type of synaesthesia.’

‘Oh really? And what do I give off?’

He starts to fiddle with the pocket on his board shorts.

‘Is it the good stuff, the honey stuff?’

‘No.’ He turns and paddles for the next wave.

When he comes back, he sits up on his board and his hands start pecking at each other. ‘What about the job?’

I feel bad for teasing him. ‘I don’t know, Danny. It’s not very nice work. I’ll talk to my boss, see what I can do. He might want to talk to your mum.’

‘I’m not a baby.’

‘I know.’ I gasp, widening my eyes. ‘You’re fifteen.’

He grins. ‘Shut up. What’s the place called, where you work?’

‘Café Parisienne. It’s in Manly, but I s’pose you could get a bus there if you had to.’

‘Can’t I get a lift with you?’

‘Well, yeah … but it depends if we’re on the same shift.’ I’m feeling slightly panicked by just how quickly Danny has attached himself to my life.

‘What time do shifts end at night?’

I shrug. ‘Twelve, usually.’

‘Well, then I’ll have to get a lift with you. I can’t get the bus.’

‘Is that right, Princess?’

‘No, it’s not like that. Mum doesn’t like me coming home by myself late at night. And I don’t want her picking me up. That’d be distressing.’

‘Distressing? That’s a big word for a fifteen year old.’

‘You know,
majorly
embarrassing.’

I nod. ‘All right then, because it’s so distressing, when I talk to my boss I’ll say you need the same shifts as me. Happy?’

‘Yeah, good.’

There’s a right breaking further over and I paddle for it. It shuts down quicker than my last wave but I still get two turns in. When I rejoin Danny he appears to be deep in thought, hands worrying away at each other.

‘This movie,
Blue Horizon
,’ he says.

‘What about it?’

‘It’s like Rasta porn.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Every time they show Rasta, they’ve got him in slow-mo. Like, him swimming underwater with mermaids and shit. Making a lot out of the fact he’s a free surfer. It’s stupid. And then when they show Andy Irons they make him out to be a money-hungry pig. But Rasta’s sponsored, too.’

I nod, surprised by his astuteness. ‘Fair enough.’

‘What’s your favourite surf movie?’ he asks.

I give it some thought. ‘I don’t know. Probably old stuff, videos I used to watch when I first started.
Endless Summer Two
–’

‘Seen it. Sucks. Too much story and not enough surfing.’

‘– and Kelly Slater in
Black and White
.’

He looks more interested. ‘Can I borrow it?’

‘Oh. The tape’s wrecked, sorry. I kept rewinding and watching the same part over and over and it broke.’

Danny laughs. ‘That is like porn.’

‘You’re fifteen, how much do you know about porn?’

He shrugs. ‘Not much. Hey, what’s the time?’

I glance at my watch. ‘Ten thirty.’

‘I’ve got to go. I’ll drop some Rasta porn off for you.’

‘What?’

He’s flattened out, paddling hard to catch the next line of swell coming through. ‘
Blue Horizon
. I’ll drop it off at your place. See ya.’

Drop it off at my place? How the hell does he know where my place is?

10

bitter stings

On Friday I wake up with a nagging feeling that I’m supposed to be somewhere. There’s a strong wind blowing something around on the side of the house and it keeps making a knocking noise. At first I think it’s someone knocking on my door, which would really freak me out, and even after I realise it’s just the wind I still feel hounded. By eight o’clock I can’t stand my hallucinations any more and I give up and stagger out of bed feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck. The muscles in my back and legs have seized up from surfing and work, and if I turn my head a blue line of pain shoots down the back of my neck.

I hate the wind. It makes everything depressing. I remember my mother going on once about a woman who took to her bed for six months. One of the mothers from school whose husband had left her.
I mean she only gets out to drop the kids off and pick them up again. Doesn’t even bother to change out of her nightie!
I can see how things could get that bad. Sometimes it’s all you can do to get up in the morning. Sometimes staying in bed isn’t as scary as getting out of it. If I didn’t have surfing to get me out of bed I don’t know what I’d do.

I sit down at my laptop, which is set up amongst the clutter covering the square breakfast table in the living area, and I pull up the surf report, but before I get around to reading it I’m up out of my seat again, looking for my mobile. Mum rang last night when I was at work. I noticed the missed call when I got back to my car but I didn’t listen to her message. I was in a good mood and I didn’t want to wreck it. Instead I drove home with the radio blaring and the windows rolled down.

But this morning has changed all that. It’s a morning without hope. The sky is bleak and grey and the wind just won’t let up. A never-ending grind of traffic passes outside, people who have somewhere to go and somewhere to return to. I find my mobile on the kitchen bench, dial up my message service and then press the phone hard to my ear as though my mother’s voice will be the last voice I hear on earth. Something hard and painful has lodged in my throat. I feel so alone. I want to go home. Anything is better than this.

Hello Carla. It’s your mother here …

And her tone is set, pressed and firm. Freshly ironed. This is a duty call. Because, after all, I am her daughter. Even if I’m not the one she would have chosen for herself.

… Your brother’s unit settles next weekend. He’s thinking of getting a flatmate because he’ll be away for work so much and it’ll help with the mortgage …

She gives me the family run-down, and then moves on to household maintenance.

… which was very disappointing. So your father told them we weren’t prepared to pay for it unless they fixed it up. The whole thing was disgusting. I don’t know how people like that stay in business …

And then she gets to the thing that’s been scratching her, the reason for her call, even if she doesn’t know it herself. I know it because her voice changes, discontent bittering up her mouth.

And what else? Maddie leaves for Fiji next week. Auntie Yvonne says she’s been saving up for it all year – you know how she had that part-time job at the newsagent’s? Good to see that. As your father said, she had a goal and she’s seen it through to the end. Of course Yvonne and Robert will help her out a bit, but still, Maddie’s always had her head screwed on right. She’s going with a couple of her friends. Sarah is one of them – remember her from Maddie’s eighteenth? Lovely girl. They wanted to do something special to mark the end of their high school years. Something nice.

The disapproval in her tone isn’t for my cousin, Madeleine. It’s for me. Because I didn’t want to do anything special or nice to mark the end of my high school years. I wanted to go to the Gold Coast and get drunk like everybody else. This shouldn’t have been wrong, but for some reason my father decided it was.

I knew he would. That’s why I left it until the last minute to tell them I was going. And then he and I argued, and in the few days before I went he wouldn’t look at me when he was speaking to me, if he’d speak to me at all. I was eighteen, I could do what I wanted, but it came at a price. My father’s eyes can be the coldest place on earth.

For him, it was all about control. It was something I wanted too much. It would be good for me not to get it. But when I overheard Mum discussing me on the phone, speaking from her position on the cross, I wanted to ask her for clarification. I didn’t do drugs; I got good grades at school; my teachers liked me; I had friends, guys and girls, a group of mates to hang around with, even if I didn’t have a cloying, specially close best friend in the way of Maddie and Sarah; I wasn’t a bad person – so why,
why
, did she always proceed my name with a sharply exhaled breath?

Couldn’t she see that if I always did what he wanted there wouldn’t be any of me left?

Here’s the sting: if, by some strange act of God, I had been unnaturally mature and pre-empted Maddie by marking the end of my high school years with a sedate Fijian holiday in a resort empty of anybody still young enough to want to party, it wouldn’t have made Mum happy. It would have been wrong, too.

And that’s because, in the restaurant of life, my mother always wants what someone else is having. Auntie Yvonne is proud of Maddie. She just loves her. She’d be excited whether Maddie was going to Fiji or the Gold Coast or wherever.

Mum doesn’t feel that about me. So I must be the problem.

I delete her message without listening to the rest of it.