by Claire Zorn
‘I don’t want to go in there,’ he forced the words from behind his teeth.
‘Okay.’ She let go of his arm. Looked around. ‘Okay.’
Sam held his board and breathed, looking at the sky.
‘You haven’t changed, Samuel Hudson. You always wanted to run away when you were upset.’
Fight or flight. At some point it had switched, but Lorraine didn’t know that.
8
They didn’t go with Bob Crapp in the end. Lorraine found another company in the Yellow Pages and three days later the funeral was held in the middle of an industrial estate, next to a plumbing supplies place in an anonymous outer Sydney suburb. A venue chosen not for any sentimental value, but rather because it wasn’t too far a drive for anyone who might want to come. No one got an unfair advantage. The official funeral stuff was to be done by a guy in a grey suit who had never met Sam’s mum. His tie was too short and he used the words ‘Okay now’ as a prefix to everything he said. He showed Sam and Lorraine the ‘ceremony room’ where the funerals, or as he called it, ‘the action’, took place. It was a large generic room with industrial carpet, bright lights and a little podium with a velvet curtain around it for the casket.
At the funeral Sam sat next to Minty, sweating in his hired polyester suit, and felt himself teetering on the line between numb detachment and complete emotional breakdown. There was nothing in-between. He wouldn’t be able to grieve in a polite, composed way so he chose not to allow the grief in at all. While all the talking happened around him, he sat and breathed, focusing all his attention on one of the white flowers on the coffin. A cabbage rose; Pop would have been proud of him for knowing. He honed in on the very edge of a petal curling and discolouring ever so slightly.
Sam and the petal got through until the velvet curtains scrolled across the coffin and it whirred away to the silent unspoken place where coffins go after the ceremony. They had opted for cremation although Sam wasn’t sure exactly when the cremating took place. Was it while the trays of party pies were being passed around?
He stood up and the first face he saw was Luke’s. He looked like he was wearing school pants and his dad’s shirt and tie. Luke said words to him about Sydney and asked when Sam was coming back. He kept laughing nervously. Minty said words to Luke and then some of his mum’s friends came over with their words, hugging him and sniffling. He bore it for as long as possible before he excused himself and ducked through the clusters of people. He pushed through the door and walked out into the glaring heat of the sun. There was no green to soak it up, just asphalt, concrete, glass and metal. The horizon seemed to warp in the heat. Across the road was a pool supply place and a shop selling dirt bike parts. Sam watched people going about their mundane business – buying chlorine, dropping off a wheel for repair – with envy. He longed to be doing something boring and unremarkable. He didn’t want to have to affix any significance to this date. He heard the door squeak behind him and turned, thinking it would be Lorraine coming out for a smoke. It wasn’t. It was an old woman in a hot-pink suit, an odd choice for such an occasion, Sam thought. Her hair was dyed an unnatural shade of red and it gleamed in the sunlight as she rummaged around in her little handbag for something; a hanky. She blew her nose loudly and looked over at Sam in that awkward moment when she was folding the last of her snot into the fabric. As soon as he saw her eyes he recognised her, despite the fact she was about twenty kilos lighter than she had been the last time he saw her. The weight loss only accentuated her resemblance to his mother.
‘Samuel.’
‘Nana?’
She regarded him for a moment with watery eyes and fiddled with the stacks of rings on her fingers.
‘How are …’ it came out in a croak and she had to clear her throat and start again. ‘How are you, love?’
‘I’m okay.’
‘What are you doing out here?’
It didn’t seem to be the most pressing question after seven years of unexplained absence.
‘Just …’ Sam shrugged. ‘Don’t wanna be inside. I didn’t know you were going to be here. I mean, Aunty Lorraine didn’t say.’
‘It’s been a long time. You’re all grown up.’ There was a tired sadness to her voice. ‘Didn’t expect it would be your mum’s funeral I’d be going to. She always looked after herself.’ She said it as if a lapse in judgement had killed his mum, rather than a blood clot. ‘No, I thought there was a chance I could be going to Lorraine’s funeral, Glen’d eventually kill her.’
Sam wondered if she was drunk.
‘Or worse, one of the boys. But no. Goes to show you never can tell.’
The only thing he’d ever seen her drink was a shandy or a sherry at Christmas. Where did she go beforehand to get herself loaded? A pub? A car park with a brown paper bag?
‘I just wish it had been in a church. Sorry, love.’ She laughed. ‘Listen to me. You’ve had enough of a shock. I wanted to see you kids, you know. But Rachel and Lorraine wouldn’t have it.’
The thought that he knew her well and at the same time barely at all surfaced. She was a stranger whose otherness to him was punctuated by lemonade in a glass in her kitchen and the occasional Golden Book story.
‘Can I give you a hug?’ she asked.
‘Um, okay.’
She stood in front of him and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Come here.’ She said it with casual affection, perhaps in an effort to mask the awkwardness of the moment. She pulled him toward her and hugged him with her tiny frame. He didn’t know what to do with his arms so he just patted her stiffly on the back. He could smell the alcohol on her breath – and something else: talcum powder that took him back to the bathroom at the house in Punchbowl, the tiny hexagonal tiles in blues and greens, a fluffy shagpile mat contoured to fit around the base of the toilet and a toilet roll dolly, the roll hidden by her skirt, as if the toilet roll was the most offensive thing that had to be hidden. Nana pulled back, looked up at him with his mother’s eyes. He couldn’t hide it from her; it was like his skin was stripped from him. There was nowhere to go.
‘Oh, sweetheart.’
He pulled away from her, shaking his head. He went to the kerb and sat down in the gutter, pulling his arms free from his jacket. She followed him, stepping down onto the asphalt of the road in her white court shoes.
‘I’d sit next to you, love. But I’d never be able to get back up … Oh bugger it.’ She slipped her knobbly feet out of the heels and, with one hand on his shoulder to steady herself, sat on the kerb next to him.
‘Everyone can probably see me knickers. Half their luck.’
They watched cars drive by, a metre from their toes, and guys going in and out of the bike shop. A storm front – plumes of gunmetal grey clouds – was looming in the south. It rolled in along the edge of the piercing blue, bubbling, brewing. They watched the sky, side by side on the gutter’s edge. A motorbike pulled in to the car park opposite.
‘Oh, I used to love riding on one of them. My brother had one before the war. Arthur, his name was. You always looked like him. Handsome devil, he was. He used to take me out on the bike on a Sunday. All of this was farmland back then, long deserted roads. We’d tear along, no helmet or nothing. God, I loved it. He taught me to ride the thing in a paddock up from our house. My parents didn’t know, of course, they would have died. My mum didn’t think women should ride bicycles, let alone motorbikes. She was worried about the wind going up yer privates.’ Nana burst out laughing. ‘She was a silly chook, that woman. Then the war started and Arthur went off, and that was that. We never saw him again. Never rode another motorbike.’
‘Pop never had one?’
‘God, no. No, he thought anyone on a motorbike was a criminal. He liked to follow the rules, did your grandfather. Never went over the speed limit, never crossed against the bloody lights. You ever gone really fast, love? My word, you go sixty miles an hour on a motorbike and you know you’re alive. That’s the old system, don’t know what it would be these da
ys. I used to wear a pair of Arthur’s overalls, and my mum’s gumboots to ride. Not the most glamorous get-up, but nobody would recognise me either. I’d tie a scarf around my hair and we’d be off. Zoooooom! Lightning.’
The guy with the motorbike came out of the shop and got on the bike.
‘Reckon he’d give me a ride?’ Nana chuckled. ‘Ooooh, what I’d give. That’d be a good way to go, I think. Ride a motorbike off a pier or some such. Never mind this wasting away with age, I don’t care for it, I tell you. No, a blaze of glory would be the way to go.’
‘Pop died in the garden, on his own.’
She twisted the rings on her fingers and didn’t say anything.
‘It wasn’t fair.’ He expected her to get up and walk away but she didn’t. She just gave a loud sniff. ‘We thought you’d been kidnapped or something.’
‘Who’d kidnap an old woman? Haha. No one’s got any use for me. You were too young, love, to understand what was going on. Those boys,’ she flicked her head back toward the funeral home, ‘they knew too well. There’s only so much you can do. It was going to kill me, the worry. I had a heart attack, you know? Didn’t make any difference to her. She wouldn’t leave him. He was gonna kill someone in that house. You know, Shane, he’d fight back, Lorraine too. But little Michael.’ He heard her swallow. ‘I had him one night and there were bruises all over his back. “That’s The Belt, Nana,” he said to me. Sweet little thing, both of you were. I said to him, “Why’d you get the belt, love?” He said he’d wet the bed. My God. I just …’
There were tears in her eyes. ‘I said to her, “We’ll take you and the boys away. We’ll go. We’ll do anything.” But she wouldn’t do it. Said he’d follow her and kill them all. I talked to the police, that was the end of that, she wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t let me see the boys. The stress of it. I was going to die of it and I didn’t want to. I wasn’t ready.’
‘Uncle Glen? He’s in prison.’
‘I know. Thank heavens.’
Footsteps sounded behind them and Sam turned to see Minty. He looked down at them, scratching his scalp, his dreadlocks fastened behind his head with an elastic band.
‘Nana?’
‘Hello, love, gimme your hand.’ She held up her hand daintily and Minty helped her to her feet. ‘Look at you! My word. You’ve been riding that surfboard, haven’t you? Saw you in the papers. You don’t know how proud you’ve made me.’
Minty watched her with a sceptical frown, the most serious expression Sam had seen on him. A worry line bunched the centre of his eyebrows. ‘Mum see you?’
‘I don’t think so. I was up the back.’
‘You been talking to Sammy?’
‘Yes, love.’
Minty looked at Sam. ‘You know she was gonna be here?’
‘No.’
‘You want something to eat, Nana? There’s food in there.’
‘No, love. Think it’s best for me to lie low.’ She took out the hanky and blew her nose again. Sam felt the cavity in his chest expanding, pushing him out and sucking him in all at once. ‘Is Shane here?’
‘He’s inside,’ Minty said. ‘Didn’t wanna come, but Mum said he had to.’
Nana nodded and didn’t ask any more about him, but Sam sensed her measuring things.
‘I want to go home,’ Sam said. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets to stop the trembling. ‘Can we go?’ he asked Minty.
Minty shrugged. ‘I got the car so …’
Nana opened her handbag and fished around for something, pulling out a small piece of tightly folded paper. ‘That’s my address and phone number. I’m in Port Macquarie. I’m always happy to have you. Will you give me a call?’
‘Alright.’
‘God love yer.’ She pulled his head down to her height and kissed him on the forehead – the way she’d always done when she’d tucked him into bed. Sam was taken back to all the nights he’d spent at her house when his mum was working night shift. Minty was often there. He and Sam, side by side, in the big mahogany bed, Nana reading them stories from her illustrated bible. The ocean always played a part: tales of storms, floods and waters parting or people being swallowed by giant fish. ‘Are there any stories about monsters, Nana?’ Sam asked her once. She had thought for a moment and then found the passages about the Leviathan. The Leviathan was usually left out of children’s bible stories. She explained to the wide-eyed boys that it was a fearsome underwater creature that showed how God could create things that were vicious as well as things that were beautiful.
‘Like a shark?’ Minty had asked.
‘No, no. Big. Huge.’
‘Like a whale?’
‘I’ll read it to you,’ she said. ‘Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears?
If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again.
Any hope of subduing him is false; the mere sight of him is overpowering.
No one is fierce enough to rouse him.
Who then is able to stand against me?’
‘Is it the Loch Ness Monster?’ asked Minty.
‘I don’t think so. There’s more, earlier.’ She licked the tip of her index finger and turned the delicate pages back. ‘Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair.’
The sky began to splutter fat drops of rain as they pulled out of the car park. Minty was the most relaxed driver Sam had ever seen. He drove leaning forward, forearms draped over the steering wheel like he was captaining a yacht on a Sunday afternoon. When he turned the wheel he moved his whole torso with it, swaying gently around the corners, his movements slow. He turned his head to look at Sam, that same worry line between his eyebrows.
‘Alright, Sammy?’
Sam shrugged and looked out the window, watched the clouds swallow up the sun. ‘Weird to see Nana.’
‘Yeah. How ’bout that, ay? Shit. You never heard from her, all this time?’
‘No. I mean, Mum stopped talking about it after Pop … She said she used to ride motorbikes.’
Minty laughed. ‘Na! No shit? Good on ’er.’
The wind picked up, sending leaves and twigs swirling in the sky. Sam looked up to where he could see the nose of Minty’s board in its bag, strapped to the roof.
‘You got plans, Mint?’
Minty laughed. ‘You just wait, Sammy.’
‘What?’
Minty took the turn-off to the highway, but he didn’t head south, he turned north.
‘What’re you doing? I wanna go home.’
‘Na-ah. You get a storm come up from down south, north-easterly wind and it’s perfect. You never seen anything like it.’
It felt like they were in the middle of nowhere: flat paddocks filled with shipping containers and roads with numbers instead of names. Then the shipping containers gave way to saltbush and scrub, the tar turned to dirt. A faded wooden sign with white writing told them they were entering national park.
‘Where are we?’
‘Big break, man. You wait. I been biding my time, today is the day.’
The scrub gave way to juts of granite, like platters stacked on the cliff. The road ran to an end. Minty stopped the car just as a mighty clap of thunder sent a jolt through them and sheet lightning illuminated the sky, the whole world it felt like. A photographer’s flash in a dark room, like the world had never been properly lit before then.
‘Come on.’ Minty opened the door.
‘You’re kidding.’
But he wasn’t kidding, he was out of the car, pulling his suit off. He reached through to the back and pulled out a wetsuit, rapping on the roof of the car. ‘It’s on, Sammy! You gotta come be my witness, brah!’ He pulled the board off the roof, tucked it under his arm and skipped off across the rock.
Sam got out of the car. The rain spat icy bullets over his shoulders. He tilted his head back and looked up at the wide expanse of sky. Droplets of rain kissed his cheeks and forehead, rolling into his eyes.
The clouds were like a watercolour painting, textured with billowing light and shadow. A flash of lightning tipped white light over the grey and a clap of thunder sounded, so loud he felt it quake through the rock beneath his feet. He ran in the direction Minty had gone and found a track through the scrub. The saltbush and spinifex swayed and warped in the wind and Sam felt like he was chasing a white rabbit down a hole. His squeaky vinyl shoes gnawed his heels. When he felt he’d been running for an age, the track ended at a lookout. Minty was nowhere to be found. The ocean opened up in front of Sam. Waves bigger than he had ever seen, like cliff faces, sucking water off the rocks and rearing up before rolling back in again. The sound was like a hurricane or a bushfire, a merciless roar, the water devouring everything in its path. The sky seemed to become water, the horizon line gone altogether. Blinking the rain out of his eyes, Sam scanned the dark rolling water. He could just make out two figures. He peered over the edge to see Minty jumping off the rocks and into the churning black water.
‘Minty!’ he screamed. Sam’s voice was lost in the bellowing, shattering noise of the ocean. Minty was going to die. The Leviathan was going to take him. He was going to die out there and Sam was going to have to watch it. Again. A colossal wall of water rose up in front of Minty and Sam felt his stomach drop. But Minty dived under, disappearing beneath the wave. He was lost. Sam searched the water and finally spotted Minty’s white head. He paddled and dived with his board, clawing his way further and further out to where the sets were building. The rain sliced through the humid air, prickling icy droplets against Sam’s cheeks and neck. His tie fluttered like a banner over his shoulder.
‘Who the hell is that?’
Sam turned and saw two guys standing behind him. They were older, twenties maybe. Big guys with tatts and thick necks. ‘You know who that is?’
‘Minty Booner.’
‘That’s little Booner? He’s gonna die.’
‘Should have a jet ski in with him,’ said the other one. ‘He’s gonna get hammered.’
The three of them watched as Minty manoeuvred the board onto the crest of a wave. Sam held his breath and watched in disbelief as Minty got to his feet. One of the guys gave a low whistle. Minty, a tiny speck compared to the colossus of water, drifted down the face of the wave with his trademark casual stance, crouched low, shoulder into the water, the fingertips of his right hand trailing along behind him, skimming the wall, like a kid playing with a fountain. Sam watched as the wave changed, forming a step midway down the face. Minty jumped the board off like he was skating. He landed crouched low, gripping the side of the board and rode into the barrel. The other guys whooped. The wave collapsed and Sam saw Minty’s feet in the air as he bailed into the whitewater. Long moments passed and when Sam was sure he had drowned, Minty’s head popped up.