Scumbuster

by Tim Winton

  hen they beat their way back to the road through John East’s Kakadu of a front yard Egg was furious with Lockie. His face glowed so red it looked like he might go up in flames.

  ‘What the hell is it with you?’ he hissed. ‘You were a moron in there, a complete dickhead! We’re talking about really important stuff with people who can really tell us things, help us out, and you come on like it’s got nothing to do with you, like the harbour’s not something on your mind. Mate, I was totally, totally embarrassed. I was ashamed to the max. You even made me look like a bumscrape, and I don’t deserve it.’

  Lockie shrugged. ‘I’m going down the beach. Wanna come?’

  Egg looked at him in disbelief. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Orright. See ya.’

  ‘What, is it Ken and Barbie now? Surfer girl and surfer boy, a beautiful meeting of hormones. I thought we were mates.’

  ‘We are,’ said Lockie. ‘I’m only going to the beach, Egg.’

  ‘Well, you let me know when you land back on planet earth!’ said Egg, who turned and walked away down the hill, kicking a can all the way down the street with his beetle crushers.

  Man, what’s wrong with him? thought Lockie, heading off toward the beach.

  Lockie sat on the top of a dune and watched the figure alone out there on the flat sea. Not a wave in sight. The ocean looked washed and ironed; it was a pretty depressing sight. It was warm there without any wind and Lockie took off his shirt. He got comfortable and bunched his shirt up behind his head and lay there still watching. There she was, just sitting in the flat sea, just sitting.

  He woke with a start. Water. Water was dripping on him. He looked up and saw Dot Cookson in her wetsuit, her board under her arm, looking down at him.

  ‘I see you’re working flat out for your country,’ she said without a smile.

  ‘Uh? Oh, yeah,’ he stammered, sitting up. ‘I was just – ’

  ‘Spying on me?’

  ‘No, just watching.’

  ‘What’s the diff?’

  ‘I dunno,’ admitted Lockie.

  Dot turned aside and cleared her nose – a classic bushman’s blow – as he looked on in horror. Geez, that was hardly poetry in motion. He did it himself after a surf – had to – but he was a bloke, wasn’t he?

  ‘Charming,’ he said, feeling for his wandering pimple.

  ‘Where’s your mate?’

  ‘Egg? He went home.’

  ‘Egg? What kind of a name is that?’ she said, squeezing water from her hair.

  ‘Like Dot, I s’pose. Economical, huh?’

  She smiled and Lockie’s heart started doing the bloodbank tango. His teeth chattered, his toenails started to curl up. Yikes! It was safer when she frowned.

  ‘H – h – how long are you down for?’

  ‘I dunno. Till after Christmas. It’s a boring little town, eh?’

  ‘I used to think that,’ said Lockie. ‘I only moved here at the beginning of this year. But I really like it now.’

  ‘Surf’s mostly rotten.’

  ‘You shoulda been here last week.’

  ‘Everyone says that.’

  Lockie laughed. ‘But this time it’s true. What school do you go to?’

  ‘North Beach.’

  ‘I didn’t know they had a high school.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not a high school.’

  Lockie grabbed two handfuls of sand in shock. Wait a second. Hang on here.

  ‘Not a high school?’ he squeaked feebly.

  ‘North Beach Primary,’ she said with a killing grin.

  Lockie felt the dune turning to quicksand. He was history. He was in love with a girl in primary school and his life wasn’t worth living!

  ‘How . . . how . . . um . . . how old are you, then?’ It was all a mistake! This kid was fourteen if she was a day. Lockie Leonard knew what humans looked like at fourteen, didn’t he?

  ‘Eleven,’ said Dot. ‘I’m twelve later this month.’

  Lockie couldn’t even say the word, so he mouthed: E-L-E-V-E-N-?

  Aaarghhh!

  They looked at each other a few moments.

  ‘Well,’ said Lockie. ‘Paint me green and call me Gumby.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought you were fourteen.’

  Dot laughed. She seemed positively delighted and that made him even more depressed.

  ‘I go to high school next year.’

  ‘Great,’ said Lockie glumly.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirteen,’ he answered.

  ‘Unlucky number.’

  ‘You better believe it,’ said Lockie with conviction. ‘There’s a big difference between twelve and fourteen.’

  ‘You walking back?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Lockie. ‘Me car’s in for a tune up. Bit of a hassle.’

  She laughed sweetly and Lockie’s heart went from tango to funeral march. Dot Cookson. Eleven and three quarters and beautiful as Elle MacPherson and here he was, horribly, drastically, hideously in love. He felt guilty about Vicki, embarrassed about Dot’s age, angry at himself for being such a pushover for romance. He was desperately mixed up.

  Lockie turned his head politely as Dot pulled off her wetsuit and dried off her speedos with a towel. Well, he peeked. Perved, really. She had a body like an Olympic swimmer, like a triathlete; she made him look like a sausage skin full of lumpy custard. Man, she had arms like a truckdriver.

  Dot pulled on a pair of shorts and ripped off another bushman’s blow that sent snot and seawater all over the dune.

  ‘You’re . . . you are good at that,’ he said, as they set off.

  ‘Practice makes perfect.’

  ‘I went into a newsagent’s once after a surf. Me nose all plugged up with water, you know. Anyway, I’m leaning over having a perv at a Tracks mag when – whoosh – out comes fifty litres of snot and ocean all over the magazine rack. I had to buy the surf mag and two Women’s Weeklys. The guy chucked a mental.’

  ‘Well, blow before you go.’

  She’s really romantic, thought Lockie. Here we are talking about sinuses!

  They walked up toward John East’s place talking about dumb stuff or not talking at all. As they went Dot smiled more and more, and curious kids rode by trying to suss out who Lockie Leonard was with, some girl carrying his surfboard. Man, did he have them eating out of his hand, they thought.

  ‘Well,’ he murmured at the top of the hill, ‘I go down there.’

  ‘The swamp?’

  ‘Yeah, the swamp.’

  ‘Well, I’m going back to the jungle,’ she said with a laugh that put his heart back into fast forward. ‘John’s lawn hasn’t been cut for a hundred years.’

  ‘How come you guys know him?’ Lockie asked.

  ‘Oh, ancient history. Whales, I guess. He reckons you’re a smart kid.’

  Lockie’s jaw dropped. ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah, he reckons you’re okay.’

  Lockie was dumbfounded. And flattered. Well, sort of. If an old person liked you, it could mean there was something daggy about you; it wasn’t always a good sign.

  ‘Might see you down the beach tomorrow,’ said Lockie.

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘Well.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Seeya, then,’ said Lockie.

  ‘Yeah, seeya,’ said Dot, not moving. A big gorgeous smile came to her face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe he’s right,’ she murmured. ‘Maybe you are okay.’

  Lockie’s knees did a drum solo. Bushman’s blow or no bushman’s blow, this girl was fabulous. ‘Oh, he’s right, alright. There’s nothing wrong with me that a few brains and million bucks wouldn’t fix.’

  He turned and bolted down the hill. He just couldn’t hang around any longer – it was killing him. He was a cradle snatcher. He had the hots for a kid in primary school! Hell, he should be locked up. He was a living disgrace. It wasn’t fair.

  ockie waited all morning for Egg to come ov
er but he never came. It was Christmas Eve and they were supposed to go shopping together today. Everyone at home was pretty chilly on him, now that he noticed. His mum kept her distance, and Phillip who’d had a relapse of bedwetting wouldn’t come near him either. Lockie’s pimple went a real Christmassy red and moved toward his chin.

  He broke open the biscuit tin that contained all his savings. Nineteen bucks. He hunted down the back of the lounge chairs and in the linty cleavage of the old Falcon’s upholstery to scrounge up another eighty-six cents. $19.86, that was it. Grand total.

  ‘That’s not your money,’ Phillip said darkly. ‘The change in the seats is everyone’s.’

  ‘Finders keepers,’ said Lockie. ‘Anyway, what’s wrong with you lot?’

  ‘Ask yourself,’ said Phillip going inside.

  ‘Mum?’ Lockie called. ‘I’m going to Egg’s and we’re going Christmas shopping!’

  Mrs Leonard at the clothesline just shrugged. He went off shaking his head.

  Egg wouldn’t come to the window. Lockie knew he was there; he banged away on the glass until putty started to fall out of the panes, but the curtain didn’t move.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ he called at his own reflection in the glass. ‘I thought we were going Christmas shopping!’

  Suddenly, the tapedeck blasted into life – AC/DC at full volume – and Lockie reeled back into the picket fence. Geez, it was like a brick in the face, that music. Well, let him be like that. He’d go on his own.

  The little town was full of shoppers and people trying to park Fairlanes and Landcruisers up and down the main street. The stink from the harbour was humungous – truly unpleasant, but Lockie had his mind on other things.

  The first major Christmas present he saw was a tee-shirt hanging in the window of Bert’s House of High Fashion. Bert’s was the kind of shop that sold clothes and novelties. You know, things like rubber sick and onion-flavoured chewing gum. It made K-Mart look severely up-market. The tee-shirt had printed on the front:

  FASHION CAPITALS OF THE WORLD

  NEW YORK

  PARIS

  ROME

  ANGELUS

  Lockie coughed up fifteen bucks and had it gift-wrapped for Dot. That left him $4.86 to spend on his family. Which was a bit of a problem. $4.86 between four people.

  That morning, Lockie ducked in and out of every shop in Angelus. He tried the secondhand store, the St Vincent de Paul; he looked for freebies at the Tourist Bureau and scoured the racks of every newsagent for a comic the whole family might enjoy, but in the end he went to Woolworths and bought $4.86 worth of chocolate caramels.

  He was walking home when the police car pulled over by the kerb in front of him. The Sarge wound down the window.

  ‘Doin’ the old Chrissie shopping, eh?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Lockie, looking around to see if anyone he knew was watching.

  ‘Just let me know if you need the trailer to bring it all home in.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Jump in, I’ll drive you home.’

  Lockie got in and sank down in the seat.

  ‘You okay?’ asked the Sarge.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’ve been a bit funny lately.’

  ‘Funny?’

  ‘Odd. Peculiar. Out of sorts. Strange. You want more?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you having growing pains?’

  ‘Sarge – ’

  ‘You know about the onset of puberty, I imagine – ’

  ‘Dad – ’

  ‘Pubic hair . . . your voice begins to change . . . ’

  ‘Sarge!’

  ‘You know about drugs?’

  ‘Oh, please!’

  ‘Is it your goolies still? Testicles are very delicate . . . well, things.’

  ‘Sarge, I’ll jump out of the car.’

  The Sarge shrugged and drove home the rest of the way in silence, looking sideways every now and then at the presents in Lockie’s lap. Lockie just thought about Dot Cookson.

  That night the Leonards went up the hill to the Baptist Church for Carols By Candlelight. Everyone sang their hearts out and burnt the hair off their arms and got hot wax all over themselves, but it sounded like angels all over the neighbourhood.

  Egg’s dad led the singing with a big toothy smile, but he looked sick to Lockie. Mrs Eggleston sang grimly through her teeth. Egg sat way over to the side in a thick cloud of midges and didn’t sing at all. Lockie tried to catch his eye but got nowhere. His parents sang so loud he expected birds to fall from the sky.

  Hark the herald angels sing!

  Lockie thought of Dot.

  Silent night, hoooooly night!

  Dot Cookson.

  We three Kings of Orient Arrre!

  Dot.

  While sheperds watched their flocks by night all seated on the . . .

  Dot.

  Dot.

  Dot.

  Dot.

  He left without seeing Egg. He went home and looked at the Christmas tree in the loungeroom and heard the Sarge’s Perry Como Christmas record and let everyone kiss him goodnight, but he was thinking of her all the time.

  In his bed with Phillip chatting to him in the warm dark, it was like a woodpecker in his brain:

  Dot – dot – dot – dot – dot . . .

  n Christmas Day the town stank. We’re talking putrid, here. Through every open window came the smell of a lifetime. People blamed their dog or the bean tacos of the night before. They called the plumber who was off for Christmas; they emptied fridges and looked under the shrubbery for dead cats. Christmas trees wilted, even the plastic ones, and people’s appetites took a bit of a hiding. There were roasts and puddings half eaten all over Angelus, that day.

  No one checked the fridge or looked for dead cats at the Leonards’ place, though. They knew what it was: the harbour.

  ‘I think you and Egg better get to work on this,’ said Mrs Leonard over her half-eaten meal. ‘Lockie? You listening?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The harbour. What’re you going to do?’

  ‘The adults made the mess,’ he murmured, ‘let them figure it out.’

  Lockie’s mum just looked at him in disbelief.

  ‘Hey, Lockie,’ said Phillip, ‘Thanks for the caramels. You left the price on. $4.86. You really went crazy over us.’

  ‘Phillip,’ said Mrs Leonard.

  ‘Gratitude,’ said Lockie.

  ‘Well, there’s one present still under the tree,’ said Phillip.

  ‘That’s private,’ said Lockie. ‘I’ll deliver it later.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘Whom? What are you Phillip?’

  ‘Lockie!’ snapped Mrs Leonard.

  ‘Merry Christmas, everybody!’ said Lockie, kicking back his chair and heading for his room.

  Just then, the Sarge came in from the split shift and threw his cap and handcuffs on the table.

  ‘Whew! It’s nasty out there. Happy Christmas everybody!’

  Everybody stood glumly where they were before he came in.

  ‘What’s this? I work all Christmas morning in a town that stinks like the end of the world, and I get home to a house full of statues. Is this the twilight zone, or what?’

  Lockie mumbled season’s greetings and went to his room. He put on his new Mambo shirt and his Billabong boardshorts, scrubbed his teeth with a finger and looked at himself in the mirror. Hmm. Not bad.

  Lockie beat his way up the hill toward John East’s place. All over Angelus, kids were hacking around on new bikes, fighting over cricket sets and computer games and snagging their shiny kites in power lines. He clutched Dot’s Christmas gift under his arm and rehearsed a few slick lines. He had to be careful; he’d never been the older man before.

  Now and then a gust of wind would get up and bombard the town with that harbour stench and the grass would lie flat and birds stagger in mid-flight. Lockie paid no attention. He worked on his opening sentence and broke into a nervous sweat.

/>   By the time he hacked his way through the national park of John East’s front yard, the gift wrap around Dot’s tee-shirt was starting to come away in little bits like spitballs. Every time Lockie tried to push it all back together, bits stuck to his fingers and made it worse. It looked like it had been savaged by a dingo.

  He banged on the door and waited. And waited. It was the middle of the afternoon and there wasn’t a sound.

  ‘Anyone home?’ he shouted through the keyhole.’Ho! Ho! Ho! It’s Santa here!’

  But not a peep.

  Miserably, Lockie left the pulpy parcel on the step and slunk off.

  But there was no eerie silence at Egg’s place. All hell was breaking loose when Lockie walked down the driveway.

  ‘Alright then, let them do it, the mental pygmies!’ screeched Mrs Eggleston.

  ‘Don’t start, woman! Just don’t start!’ bellowed Mr Eggleston.

  There were pots and walls crashing; you could hear it from the street. They were shouting and ranting and crying in there and it was truly awful to hear.

  ‘I hate this stinking town anyway! Can’t you smell it? It’s corruption, greed, stupidity – ’

  ‘Shut up, for pity’s sake!’

  ‘And you’re too weak to stand up against it!’

  Lockie stood hesitantly in the drive a few moments. Poor Egg. Christmas Day and your oldies chucking a mental. Maybe I better see if he’s alright.

  He found Egg out in the big shed full of steel sculptures and welding gear. He was hunched up by the oxy cylinders bawling and sniffing and kicking the concrete floor.

  ‘Egg?’

  Egg looked up and wiped his face.

  ‘Piss off, Lockie.’

  ‘Mate, I just – ’

  ‘You deaf? I said piss off!’

  Lockie stood there, completely miserable. ‘Come over to my place for a while, eh?’

  ‘What, isn’t your girlfriend home?’

  Aargh! That stung. Because it was true. Here he was, at his best mate’s place because Dot wasn’t in. Guilty. Man, what a creep he was.

  ‘Cam, let’s go for a walk, Egg.’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Egg, mate – ’

  Suddenly Egg grabbed a lump of iron pipe from the floor and held it like a baseball bat.