I Had Such Friends

by Meg Gatland-Veness

  “So, I guess you were friends, then,” I said after a hearty silence.

  “Yeah.” He sniffed, sounding like he had the plague. “We were friends.”

  Another silence followed and I could smell the eucalyptus from the leaves in my hands. Peter didn’t offer me any more information so I didn’t push him. If he wanted, he would tell me when he was good and ready.

  Eventually Peter stood up and we walked back to his car. I knew my parents would be furious that I had stayed out this late on a school night. They were probably freaking out about me right now. And then it hit me. They would have wanted me to come home so they would have called Martin’s house and Martin’s mother would have told them that I wasn’t there.

  “Shit, Peter. I’ve just realised my parents are filing a missing persons report on me as we speak.”

  He tried to smile, really and truly he did, but it didn’t really amount to much.

  “Sure. Sorry, Hamish, I guess I lost track of time.”

  He was still sniffing and I wished I had a handkerchief to offer him. But that would have been a pretty girly thing to do.

  We got back into his car and, unlike usual, he didn’t turn the music on. So I said to him, “I didn’t know you were friends with Charlie.”

  “His mum used to be friends with mine before my mum took to the booze.”

  “Oh,” I said. I was incredibly inarticulate that night.

  “We used to hang out as kids and that. But then he got into his stuff, being an Ironman and all that, and I got into being a dero and we stopped hanging out. But one night he found me at the bus stop. I was pretty messed up on drugs and stuff. So he cleaned me up and got me off that shit. Anyway, he was a good mate.”

  I couldn’t speak. I knew that Peter probably did drugs – it wasn’t as if it was a surprise to me – but I suddenly felt so damn immature and inexperienced. I had never even kissed anybody, I’d never smoked a cigarette, I’d never had a drink before. It seemed to me, that night more than ever, that Peter Bridges lived in a completely different universe to me.

  “I never saw you together,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, his parents were very protective and conservative and shit. They didn’t want Charlie hanging around with a tool like me.”

  “I see.”

  “Anyway, we’re at the payphone, or do you want me to take you all the way home?”

  I hesitated. And I felt like such a terrible person for it too. I was weighing in my mind the pros and cons of Peter driving up to my house.

  Pros: I would get home quicker and my parents might be less furious.

  Cons: my parents would know who I was hanging out with that night.

  “To my house if you don’t mind,” I said, and I was glad.

  My mother was standing on the front veranda with her arms crossed when Peter’s car drove up to the house.

  “Oh shit,” I said and Peter laughed and I couldn’t think of one thing I had ever done in my whole life that had made me feel as good as making Peter laugh.

  We sat in silence for a moment before I opened the door and stepped out.

  “Thanks for the ride, Peter,” I said, a little louder than was necessary.

  “No worries, mate,” he said and, as I shut the door on him, I thought I heard him say something else, but I missed it.

  I walked up to the house and my mother looked about ready to throttle me.

  “Where the heck have you been, Hamish?”

  Oh man, she used the H-word. I was in deep shit.

  “I was hanging out with Peter Bridges,” I said and her face legit turned purple.

  Everyone in town knew Peter Bridges. Everyone knew he was a dropkick, smoking, good-for-nothing thief. I might as well have told my mother I was hanging out with Hitler; she might have been less crazy.

  “Do you have any idea what you put us through tonight? We didn’t know where you were, we didn’t know what had happened to you. You could have been squashed on the highway for all we knew!”

  I nodded. It was stupid of me to lie to them; stupid and mean. But I didn’t regret it. Nothing could have made me regret it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I was.

  “Your father has been up all this time, worried sick. He won’t be able to work in the morning and that will put us behind for the harvest!”

  “I know, Mum, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stay out as late as I did.”

  My father stepped outside. He looked drained and sad.

  “Listen, let’s all just go to bed now, it’s late. We’ll decide what to do with you tomorrow.”

  He didn’t even look at me.

  In my room, I lay on top of the covers. The warm air was more than enough of a blanket. I thought about Peter’s tears. I thought about all the words of comfort I wished I’d said. And then I thought about Annie Bower’s white dress.

  My parents hardly spoke to me the next morning, they just shoved me off to school with a warning that if I was even a second late, they would make me re-plough the back field.

  At school, I saw Peter on the oval playing football with his mates. I thought about waving to him, but felt stupid and childish so I met Martin in our spot outside the Science staffroom.

  “Hamish, why did your mum call my house last night thinking you were there?” he asked as I sat down.

  “It’s a long story,” I replied, not wanting to tell him about Peter. For some reason, I liked that Martin didn’t know Peter was my friend. Although it wasn’t as if I ever shared anything important with him, we never spoke about my sister or about anything serious. It wasn’t that kind of friendship.

  “Did you run away from home?” he said, nudging me.

  “No, I just went out is all.”

  “So why did you tell your parents you were at my house?”

  “So they would let me go!”

  “But where were you really?”

  “Just nowhere, all right!” I yelled at him.

  “Were you with a girl?” He laughed as he said it, like it was the most unbelievable thing in the world. I really hated him that day.

  “Yeah, your mother,” I said.

  He punched my arm and it hurt like a bitch. I had to try really hard to stop my eyes from watering.

  Sometimes I wondered if things would be better for me if I had no friends at all. But I think that would have just made my life even more depressing. Also, who would have played zombies with Martin if I wasn’t there?

  8.

  Peter didn’t meet me at the bus stop for over a week. And although I started to fear he didn’t want to see me anymore, it was actually kind of convenient because I used the time to help out extra around the house and on the farm to get back in my parents’ good books. I even washed the tractor. And that was not fun at all. If you think washing a car is tough, you’ve got no clue. Take your car and chuck it in a swimming pool full of shit and mud, let it dry, then repeat, and you might have a better idea. Also, none of this hose business – you have to pump all the water you use to clean it from the well. And don’t even think about using soap. Soap was reserved for things like clothes and armpits, not tractors.

  When I did see Peter again, it was a Tuesday. He was sitting in his car at the school gate when I got off the bus. This was even worse than last time. He wasn’t sitting on the bonnet and he didn’t give me a get-in-the-car nod. Was he waiting for me? Or was he waiting for someone else? Someone who could actually catch a football. What could I do? Not to mention the fact that my parents would kill me if they found out I had been skipping school to hang out with Peter Bridges. They were already treating me like I was a frickin’ druggo, and they didn’t even know the half of it.

  But I did get in the car that day. I didn’t know where my confidence was coming from, but I didn’t even tap on the window or anything, I just got straight in, threw my bag on the back seat and put my seatbelt on. I didn’t give him a chance to tell me he was waiting for someone else.

  When I think about it now, it w
as weird how long it took for me to look at his face that day. I guess I didn’t want to see his reaction in case he hadn’t wanted me to get in the car.

  When I did finally look at Peter, I saw that he was bruised and bloody. It honestly looked like someone had hit him in the face with a baseball bat. And, as it turned out, that wasn’t far from the truth. I’d never seen anyone look like that before, except in movies. His face was all swollen and purple.

  “Shit, man, what happened to your face?” I said, trying to sound less concerned than I actually was. Because I was extremely concerned.

  “It’s nothing. You should see the other guy,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, but the action made him wince.

  “Seriously dude, that looks bad, you should put some ice on it.” I hated sounding like his mother, but I had to admit it; I was worried about him. I guessed though, that Peter was the kind of guy who got into fights – it was probably some footballer from another school. Peter probably told him he threw like a girl or something.

  He didn’t answer me, just turned the music up. By then I had realised that when Peter turned up the music, it meant ‘I don’t want to talk anymore’ and I respected that. And when I say respected, I mean that I didn’t want to piss him off so I trod on eggshells that day. The left-side speaker in the car was broken and it kept cutting in and out and making an irritating scratchy noise that set my teeth on edge. Peter had tried to fix it with a clothes peg but the result was short-lived and the clothes peg was now in two halves on the floor by my feet.

  He drove us to the beach. I knew that was where we were going. That was where we always went. He tried to make it seem like he didn’t have a plan, like we were just flying by the seat of our pants, but there was always a plan.

  We always listened to the same cassette tape in the car; a mixtape with bands like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Nirvana and Pink Floyd. It was getting to the point where I had heard that tape so many times I knew which song was coming next. We never sung along or danced in the car or anything. I thought the music was just there to stop me from asking too many questions.

  When we reached the beach, Peter didn’t take the football out of the boot. Thank Christ. Instead he said, “Why don’t we swim out to the buoy?”

  I squinted, looking out at the water. That buoy looked really far away.

  Shit.

  “Don’t you want to kick the footy around?” I asked, hopefully.

  Yep, that’s how far it was. So far that I actually suggested we play football instead. I’m going to be honest here and tell you that I did not think I could make it out to that buoy without dying. I mean, I could swim, obviously, but I never went in any races at the swimming carnival because, like with most things needing strength, I wasn’t great at it. I couldn’t swim fast and I certainly didn’t have any stamina. I was also pretty scared of sharks.

  But Peter was already changing into a pair of board shorts he found under the driver’s seat. He wrapped a beach towel around his waist while he changed. With his shirt off, I could see the bruises weren’t just on his face. There was a very nasty-looking welt on his left side.

  “Come on, don’t worry about it. If you drown, I’ll save you,” he said, chucking the towel back into the car.

  So I took everything off except my school shorts and followed Peter’s mop of hair to the water. Peter dove right in without even testing the water temperature. I did the same thing. I really did. Normally I would have done that sissy, arm-waving walk for a while, but I didn’t want Peter to think I couldn’t take the cold like he could.

  We walked a fair chunk of the way towards the buoy, but before long I couldn’t stand up and I had to swim to keep up with him. He pushed through the water like an ocean liner.

  “I used to swim out here every day,” he explained as I swallowed a gut load of water. “Me and Charlie used to race.”

  I didn’t know how he was managing to both talk and swim; I hardly had enough breath for the latter. When I lifted my head up to see where we had to go, the buoy still looked really far away. In fact, it almost looked further away.

  “He beat me the last time we raced,” Peter was saying. “I guess I’ll never have the chance to even the score out again.”

  Though my eyes were stinging, I tried to look at his face, worried he might be upset. But he seemed happy enough. I really should have been worried about myself. My tiny legs couldn’t bear the thought of kicking anymore.

  Of course Charlie could swim to the buoy, Charlie did nippers. Charlie was one of those kids who got up on a Saturday morning and went to the beach in his green cozzies and raced to grab little offcuts of garden hose. Charlie was a surf lifesaver and wore that bright yellow and red get-up with zinc on his face. I was the kid who got to watch cartoons on a Saturday, in my pyjamas, eating cereal and hoping nobody would ask me to turn it down.

  When we finally reached the buoy, I clung to it with both hands. It was yellow, but it didn’t make me very happy. I was really having trouble breathing. Peter was just treading water next to me. He looked slightly concerned, but only slightly.

  “You right there, buddy?”

  Damn, a question. That meant I had to say something.

  “Oh, yeah I’m fine,” I spluttered, still gasping for breath.

  “Well that’s good,” he said. “I’m not dragging your sorry arse back to shore.”

  I risked a look at the shore. I think it was safe to say that we were, deadset, in the middle of the ocean.

  “Want to swim to the next one?” he asked.

  I choked again. The next buoy was red and it was twice as far away as the shore was.

  “Um, I…”

  Peter laughed so hard. My face must have looked terrified.

  “Don’t have a panic attack, I’m only kidding.”

  He was such a dick. If I wasn’t drowning and he wasn’t already covered in bruises, I would have punched him.

  “Let me know when you’re ready to swim back,” he said, still treading water and beginning to look slightly bored. Sometimes I wished I was more fun to be with. My sister had always been fun to be with. She had never been bored her whole life.

  I didn’t think I would ever be ready to swim back.

  The water was really calm out there at the buoy. That was nice, it meant I didn’t have to swallow any more water as long as I held on. But Peter was getting fed up. He probably wanted to catch waves or do something else I was incapable of doing. I really wanted to be back where I could touch the bottom.

  “Come on, Hamish,” he said. “You can make it back.”

  He started to swim away from me, back towards the shore. Though every part of my body wanted me to stay holding onto that buoy until a lifeguard arrived, I followed him. The thought of being alone out there was a hundred times scarier than being there with Peter. But the swim back wasn’t as bad as I thought, and I was able to float a lot of the way. But as soon as we reached the waves again, Peter caught one into shore like he was on a boogie board. I guess he figured I could do the same thing. Being an Australian, it should have been built into my DNA, right? The ability to catch waves and swim fast and surf and all that. But catching waves had never been my strong point. So, I kept up my doggy-paddle-breaststroke combo and hoped he wouldn’t judge me too harshly.

  Peter was already on shore when I managed to flop my way onto dry land. He was sitting on the sand and shaking the water out of his hair. We hadn’t brought any towels with us from the car so I stood awkwardly beside him, wondering if I should sit down too and get schnitzeled.

  I decided to get schnitzeled.

  “Well that was fun,” I said. I meant it to be a joke.

  “Yeah, sorry about that.” He laughed. “Once again I seem to have picked an activity that could have killed you.”

  “Well, it’s nice that you keep me on my toes,” I said, pansy as ever.

  We spent the rest of the day in the sun. I ran back to the car for the towels and ended up putting mine over my head so I wouldn�
�t get burnt any more. I had a terrible fear of skin cancer. Little white boys like me were never meant to live in a country like Australia.

  By the time Peter dropped me at school again, I felt dry and hot. It was that awful feeling you got when you let the salt and the sand dry on your skin. I wanted nothing more than to get in a shower. But somehow I didn’t want to leave Peter alone. It was weird. I was suddenly worried that as soon as I left him alone, whoever the fuckwit was who messed him up would find him again.

  I still got out of the car though. Even if the punk did come after him again, there wasn’t much I could’ve done except squealed like a girl. Besides, Peter was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. The other guy was probably in a coma. Or dead.

  I managed to make it to the bathroom without traipsing too much sand through the house. The shower was cold. It always was at the end of the day because we’d use up the hot water in the mornings with our three showers. Mum had to boil sheets and things when she washed them. And we used the kettle to fill up the kitchen sink when doing the dishes. No, we didn’t have a dishwasher. We also didn’t have a tumble dryer, but then again, no one in Australia has a tumble dryer, you can just put the clothes outside and they’re dry in two seconds. Dry to a crisp – the towels come back like wooden boards. I think some people used fabric softener for their towels. Whenever I used towels at Martin’s house, it was like drying your hands on a pillow of fluffy ducklings. I bet his mum used fabric softener on her towels.

  My mum was in the house when I got out of the shower. She gave me a strange look. I didn’t normally have showers after school. I never understood showering before going to bed. Showering in the morning made sense. That way you were clean and you smelt nice for the day. Shower in the evening and you were only clean and smelling nice to go to sleep. Then you woke up in the morning sweaty and gross again.

  Anyway, she didn’t question me about it, just gave me one of those must-be-a-boy-thing looks and went back downstairs to cook the dinner. I followed her and sat at the dining table with my homework. None of our chairs matched. I think Dad made most of them out of old hunks of wood or he found them on the side of the road and scraped the paint off with a piece of broken glass. My dad hated painted wood. He didn’t think wood should be covered up with cheap, tacky paint. He liked the natural colours and the knots and the rings. I think my mum would have liked it if all the furniture in our house were pink and white with little daisies painted on it.