A Girl in Three Parts

by Suzanne Daniel

  Lub dub—lub dub—lub dub—lub dub

  And now that I’m starting to understand this poly-elliptical force squeezing my chest—with what my dad has shared through his tears in the hospital tonight—I know that my heart needs to pump with a rhythm of its own.

  Lub dub—lub dub—lub dub—lub dub

  And work hard to get rid of the waste.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Three days on and everything smells like life resuscitated outside of that hospital: the sprinkler-wet grass at the side of the road, the sun-faded salty hot seats inside Rick’s van, even the petrol being pumped into our tank at the Amoco station by a big-bellied man. We’re on our way up the coast, just my dad and me, his board and a tent in the back and a lineup of surf tapes to play as we go.

  I was in hospital for twenty-three days: one million, nine hundred and eighty-seven thousand, two hundred apple pie. And now that I’m out, with my heart settled down, Rick’s looking slightly older to me: older around the eyes, the shoulders and jaw. It’s older in a good way, in an I’m taking charge way…in a Maybe he should be called Father every now and again way.

  When the doctor came by my bed to say that the medication finally seemed to have stabilized things so there was no need for surgery, and that he was happy for me to be discharged to go home, Joy was completely tickled pink. Matilde simply straightened her skirt and assumed the pose of a nurse ready to continue the routine and care at Number 23. But then Rick announced—just like he was the decision maker and Joy and Matilde had no say in it at all—that I wouldn’t be going home yet because he was taking me up the coast for a bit of a break; a medicinal dose of sun, sand and sea.

  After a few moments of table-tennis glances between the adults, they stepped into the corridor for a word, out of earshot—my earshot—and that part of my heart that shoots invisible arrows at targets on the backs of their heads fired a few as they walked out the door, hoping to stun Matilde into being less sharp, Joy less emotional, and Rick into sticking to his Father plan.

  “What did you tell them, Rick—you know, what did you tell Joy and Matilde—when you spoke with them in the corridor outside my room in the hospital?” I ask now, rolling up the stiff window as Rick gets his driving eye in on the highway.

  “It wasn’t a long conversation, Al. I just told them straight out that I won’t be bringing you home until they’ve made their peace with each other. Simple as that.”

  “Do you think they can actually do that, Rick?” I say, looking across at him. I’m pretty sure that they can’t, and I’m feeling uneasy at the thought of never seeing my grandmothers again. Rick shifts in the seat and changes his grip on the steering wheel as though he’s not so sure now either.

  “I think it’d take a complete miracle for Joy and Matilde to be at peace with each other,” I say, but Rick says nothing, just keeps driving until he pushes in the Morning of the Earth soundtrack and hits play. A few songs along he turns up the volume of “Open Up Your Heart” to full bore.

  There’s no formula for happiness that’s guaranteed to work

  It all depends on how you treat your friends and how much you’ve been hurt

  But it’s a start, when you open up your heart

  And try not to hide, what you feel inside

  Just open up your heart

  There’s no dreamer who’s ever dreamed, and seen it all come true

  Takes a lot of time and breaks a lot of hearts, to see an idea through

  And love’s just a simple word, its truth is easily lost

  And sorry’s said so easily, nobody counts the cost

  But it’s a start, when you open up your heart

  Give your love to others, they become your brothers

  You open up your heart, come on, make a start

  Try not to hide, what you feel inside

  Just open up your heart

  “Hang on, Al Pal, I’m pulling a U-ey!” Rick spins the van around at the traffic lights so that rather than heading north we’re suddenly driving south.

  “Where are we going now?” I ask.

  “Just want to let Sister Josepha know we’re going away for a while,” says Rick.

  “Sister Josepha? But she’s not even my teacher anymore—she hasn’t been all year.”

  “I know, Al,” says Rick. “But if we’re going to need a miracle for Joy and Matilde to make their peace, then Sister Josepha’s probably our best shot.”

  Rick tells me to wait in the van while he ducks into the convent. “I won’t be a tick,” he says. He’s there for about as long as a Monday-morning assembly and afterward walks out with Sister Josepha by his side, looking all signed up to pull off a miracle.

  She’s probably promised to petition the patron saint of grandmothers at each other’s throats.

  Sister comes to my window and says in a thanks-be-to-God voice, “I’m so pleased to see you up and well again, Allegra dear. Yes indeed, I can see all the color has come back into your cheeks.” She pats my arm and then walks around to Rick’s side as he climbs into the van. She closes the door for him and gives a small wave. As he starts up the engine, she follows through with a nunly nod—I fancy it’s a nod of respect, and maybe one of recognition—she’s looking at Rick like he might be related to that Jesus sitting on top of the convent telly: the one who could well be a surfie.

  Heading north up the highway again, Rick seems pretty stuck on “Open Up Your Heart.” He’s set it on repeat, so it’s coming at us through the dashboard, over and over. We listen in silence, and by the end of the fourth time the words are wearing a groove inside my head, and I’m getting a bit stuck on it too. It starts to strum the strings that bind my rib cage to my core and vibrates all the hairs on the back of my neck.

  There’s no formula for happiness that’s guaranteed to work

  It all depends on how you treat your friends and how much you’ve been hurt

  But it’s a start, when you open up your heart

  And try not to hide, what you feel inside

  Just open up your heart

  Those strings loosen and lengthen and reach toward my dad across the bench seat of the van. Then he just opens right up and says, “Words make you think, Al…but music makes you feel.” With his eyes straight ahead and his foot pressing harder to the floor, after a while he adds, “And when words fail, I reckon music speaks.”

  “Yeah…I know what you mean,” I reply. “And it kind of gets the stuff above and below your mind to speak up more clearly too.” Then something floats in from one of those places—a whispered suggestion taking hold as a question, “Do you think that self-knowledge is on the side of happiness, Rick?”

  He takes his eyes off the road for half-an-apple-pie, and looks over at me, his expression puzzled but kind of impressed, as though he might have to work on his answer for a while yet.

  We drive through the late afternoon and on past the curtain of nightfall, an appetite starting to bite at us both. “I could eat the horse and chase the jockey,” says Rick. I laugh at his joke and tell him I reckon I could do that too.

  Just after the Bulahdelah Bends we stop at a petrol station for a burger with the lot, and Rick tells me, as though I’m a driver too, “Always pull over where the truckies are lined up, Al. They know where to stop for a decent feed, and they’ll give you a hand if you need any help.” He has beetroot juice dripping down his chin as he leans over the white paper wrapping on the hood of the van, polishing off the last bites of his burger. A truckie walks past and it’s as if he’s read Rick’s script because he gives us a friendly “G’day…bloody good burgers, hey!” He looks like he’s going inside to order three.

  Back on the road I’m trying hard to stay awake and be a fit pal to ride shotgun with Rick, but I feel myself sinking, jerking gently, in and out of sleep. I stretch out across
the seat with my head nudging Rick’s thigh; gear changes, road noises and Morning of the Earth music soothe me and start to elongate time. Rick turns the music down slightly and I’m not sure how much longer we drive, but I wake up with the engine off and the seat entirely to myself.

  “We’ll catch a few z’s here, Al,” whispers Rick, covering me with a couple of towels. He climbs into the back and I sleep solidly in that van, way better than I did any night in the hospital.

  I wake in the early light to Rick revving up the engine and we’re heading off, up north again. “At this rate we’ll be able to make it to the beach break just in time for Dawn Patrol. You’re going to love Crezzo, Al. It’s pure magic out there.”

  The road becomes bushy at the sides and bumpy in the middle, and even though the beginnings of a salty sea breeze make Rick keen to speed up, he has to slow down to navigate around potholes and the odd fallen branch.

  Then a sign announces CRESCENT HEAD, and after passing through a small town that has yet to begin its day, we pull up in a car park overlooking a sweeping curve of long sandy beach. It was well worth the drive. Perfect waves are rolling in rhythmically in neat lines, golden and glassy, each one with a frothy white trim. They are cooperating, not competing, and look ripe to be ridden. My dad is right: it really is pure magic out there.

  I climb out of the van and am taking it all in with my eyes, nose and skin when Rick calls out, “Come here a sec, Al—I’ve got something for you. Over here, in the back of the van.” Walking around, I join my dad as he gets out his board…and then another one, smaller in size. “I wanted to get you something special for your birthday next month, Al Pal, you know, because you’re going to be a teenager and all,” he says, kind of shy. “But I’m not good at choosing jewelry or girl stuff like that, so I was at a bit of a loss, then…well, I thought…your own board might be the ticket.”

  It’s a McGrigor—apparently—and it sure is the ticket, a really good ticket. Way better than jewelry, and even better than those tickets to the ballet Matilde organized, though I certainly won’t be telling her that.

  We inspect the board together, and Rick points out its features: six foot ten, single fin, and believe it or not, although secondhand, only two small dings! I love the idea of my very own board, and I let my dad know, without any doubt, with a whopping tight hug. Then it hits me like a dumper wave: this ticket means riding the waves out there, in the surf, without Rick…on my own.

  We each polish off a can of baked beans and share a Coke before pulling on our togs to start the climb down the large rocky cobblestones toward the water. Rick carries his board as well as mine and tells me to watch where I put my feet. We cut a left and walk across a footbridge to the sand. I’m pretty puffed. It’s taken a lot out of me just to get here. My legs are shaky, and my chest feels kind of hollowed out and empty inside.

  “You okay, Al?” says Rick.

  “Yeah, I just feel a bit weak.” I don’t tell him, And a lot nervous too.

  “That’s not surprising; you were laid up in that hospital for more than three weeks. It’s going to take us some time to get you strong again.” He looks over at me and adds, “There’s no rush. The waves have been working here forever; they’re not going to stop anytime soon. Let’s sit down here for a bit so you can get your breath.”

  And so we sit, for more than a bit, above the line that divides the wet and dry sand, and together we watch the waves. They’re rolling in consistently and their rhythm is relaxing. From here they look gentle, but I know that within, they are strong. And I’m thinking that they are kind of like Rick: you can rely on them doing what they do, again and again.

  I’m almost hypnotized staring at the sea. Everything seems static yet calmly changing. I dig my toes into the sand and massage the balls of my feet against the ancient grains. The sun is getting higher and warmer and I’m warming up with it.

  “Starting to pick up, Al?”

  “Yeah, beginning to.”

  “Can you smell that air coming in off the salt water?” says Rick, inhaling slowly. I follow his lead and breathe in the air. “You know what I reckon, Al?…The cure for everything is salt water. Yep, think about it: sweat, tears and the sea. They’re all made up of salt water. The first two can pump out your pain and the last one—the sea—well, it washes it away.”

  My dad Rick seems to be turning into a Father and a philosopher.

  “You know what, Al Pal, we don’t need to jump in and ride these waves just yet. There’s no hurry. If you look over to your right, that’s the estuary where the river meets the ocean, and in behind there is Killick Creek. C’mon, follow me. We’ll make our way over there and you can lie on the board till you get used to it…there’s no swell to deal with there in the creek.”

  A few minutes later I’m lying facedown on my McGrigor in the calm channel of the clear creek. Rick is ahead of me, paddling slowly on his own board, and he tells me to hold on to his leg rope. He tows me along gently just out from the sandy shore, and in tandem we follow its line. I move slightly forward on my board so that my eyes are just above the water’s surface, my chin dipping in and out and creating ripples from the board’s tip. Tiny fish are darting back and forth below, just missing each other in a search for whatever tiny fish search for in their tiny-fish world. All sandy colored, they blend in perfectly with the shallow corrugated floor of the creek, and when I move my arm through the water to the bottom, scooping up and letting go of handfuls of sand, they are camouflaged completely. I wonder if those fish have feelings. Friends? A heart? I wonder if they know they are fish.

  Rick points to little crabs just ahead, running sideways for refuge by the water’s edge. They have different-colored shell houses that they bury along with themselves in response to our floating past. “Hermit crabs,” says Rick, moving my attention away from the fish. Even little crabs need their safe houses.

  My back is warm in the sun, my arms and shins are cool in the water, and right now I couldn’t be more comfortable. I’m freshening and feeling a growing list of B words…Buoyant, Bolstered and Blissful.

  “Let’s have a quick dip in the surf before we set up camp,” Rick suggests.

  We leave our boards on the sand and wade out to dive under waist-high waves before Rick scoops my arms around his neck so I’m hanging on to his shoulders. He swims me out beyond the foaming break to the green-glazed surface with deep water below, and we float on our backs, spread out like starfish. The water inside me expands and I can’t make out where the edges of my body end and where the sea begins. I feel like I go on forever.

  “We’ll catch a wave in,” says Rick, noticing that my fingers have gone kind of pruney.

  “How can we do that?” I ask. “We don’t have our boards.”

  “We’ll bodysurf in…I’ll show you how. C’mon, up on my back.” Rick swims us both to just behind the breaking waves and talks me through his bodysurfing technique.

  “It’s all about timing, Al. You’ve got to have patience to wait for the right wave. And position—you’ve got to be in the right spot when that right wave comes along. Righto, let’s move to where we can stand up, and I’ll give you a demo.”

  We swim in until our feet hit the bottom, and Rick says, “So once I pick my wave, I’m going to dive forward and make myself as rigid and streamlined as possible. I’ll put all my weight on the hand of my outstretched arm and kick hard. I want to feel like I’m within the wave.”

  Rick lets a few waves go through, says they’re a bit messy, but then he lines up a perky one with a promising blue face.

  “Here comes a good ’un, Al…hang on tight…watch me now, right arm out front…here we goooo!”

  We take off. It looks like half the wave is above us and half is below, and my father, Rick—the philosopher—becomes a flying fish with me on his back, and we are heading for shore.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


  Rick sets up our tent on the headland between two gum trees for shade and ties some rope from one trunk to the other to use as a line to hang out our wet things. He unpacks a blow-up mattress for me but says he’s happy with his sleeping bag just down on the grass.

  By now I’m really tired and go for a rest inside the tent. I wake sometime later to find Rick having a yarn and a beer with three men who had also set up camp. Two brothers, apparently, Glen and Matt and their dad, Darce. They’re all busy waxing their boards.

  “Here she is,” says Rick, as though he might just have been talking about me. “This is my girl, Ally.”

  “G’day there, young lady,” says Darce. “I hear from your dad that you’ve got your own board. A McGrigor to boot.” He has a wide grin and lifts a big crocodile-skin hand to his mouth to take a swig of his beer. “Good on ya, Ally, we don’t see many girls out there in the surf.”

  “Another coldie, Rick?” asks Matt.

  “Nah, better not—thanks, mate,” says Rick. “Al and I need to get on and get some supplies in town before the shops shut.”

  “Tell you what, if you pick up some spuds, we’ve got buckets of fish here for tucker,” says Darce. “The flathead’ve been biting a bloody beauty and we’re gonna cook ’em up on the fire tonight. We certainly can’t eat ’em all, even with Fat Matt here to help, so you and little Alligator there are welcome to join us.”

  Glen, all brown and blonded up, flashes a white smile and a chipped front tooth while Fat Matt looks more puffed-up proud than embarrassed.

  Rick and I take them up on their offer and get back from the shops with a big bag of spuds. We’re greeted with a roaring fire ringed by beach chairs in the middle of the camp. Darce is gutting the fish, Matt and Glen are scaling them and I’m given the job of wrapping the potatoes in foil and pitching them carefully into the hot coals at the spots that Darce thinks will cook the perfect spud. Once the fire has settled, Darce carefully places parcels of foiled fish on the died-down flames and pokes them a few times. Then we wait for what will take, according to Glen, “no more than two beers” before it’s done. “Possibly three,” ups Darce. Rick only has one beer and I have a Coke—that’s two in a day, Matilde would be livid—but I don’t think her livid reaches out here under the stars in Crezzo.