One Would Think the Deep

by Claire Zorn

  ‘This is gonna be different. I need you, Rube. You gotta come. You come and I’ll take you to Hawaii.’

  They leaned their boards against the window of the chicken shop. All the tables were taken, so Ruby stood in front of a group of younger guys and told them to move. They did. The queue to order was out the door, but Ruby went behind the counter with a nod to the owner and served herself, opening the till and putting her money in. She bought five dollars’ worth of hot chips and scallops, dumped the fat package down on the table in front of Minty and popped open a Coke.

  ‘Any burgers?’ Minty asked.

  Ruby ignored him and unwrapped the chips. Sam could feel the salt in his ears and on his eyelids; his skin was sticky with it. His whole body ached. The skin on his face felt slapped raw and he realised it was from hitting the water.

  ‘So did you and Shane kiss and make up?’ Ruby asked Sam. ‘I don’t see him here, so I’m guessing not. Why you guys hate each other so much, anyway? I mean, I hate Shane. But still.’

  Sam shrugged. ‘Dunno. He’s never liked me.’

  ‘Nah, Shane’s alright,’ said Minty. ‘He’s just all about family. The unit.’

  ‘Sam’s family!’

  ‘Yeah, but … I dunno.’ Minty struggled to find the words. ‘It’s deep, ay. He’s seen a lot, old Shane. He’s like an RSPCA dog or something. Misunderstood.’

  Ruby watched Minty with a look of amusement. ‘An RSPCA dog, Mint?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s tough, but you just gotta scratch his belly right.’

  ‘Ew, Mint!’ Ruby pegged a chip at him. ‘I’m not scratchin’ his belly.’

  Minty took a bite from a potato scallop and wiggled his eyebrows at her.

  ‘Argh. Piss off.’ She turned back to Sam. ‘Why did you go at him that night anyway? He hurt your feelings?’

  Sam didn’t answer her. He peeled the edge of his drink label, keeping his eyes down.

  ‘Are you like Captain America or somethin’? Fighting injustice. Getting the bad guys.’

  ‘That’s it exactly.’ He hoped his sarcasm would warn her off but it didn’t.

  ‘You get in fights up in Sydney?’

  ‘I just … You want another drink, Mint?’

  ‘Yeah. Fanta.’

  Ruby scrunched up her nose at him. ‘Fanta?’

  Sam left them and went into the heat of the chicken shop. He opened the fridge door and stood there, letting the cool air bathe his face, trying to control his breath. The shopkeeper yelled at him to choose before he opened the door. Muttering an apology, Sam pulled two bottles at random from the shelf and paid the shopkeeper. By the time he came back out the conversation had moved on and it was Minty asking the questions.

  ‘So, just over a month until Cronulla, Ruby Jean. Still time to enter.’ Minty put a chip in his mouth and pointed at Ruby.

  ‘Don’t call me that.’

  ‘Twenty-five thousand prize money.’

  ‘For the men. Girls get fifteen. It’s crap.’

  ‘It’s better than nothing.’

  ‘I’m not entering.’

  ‘You snooze, you lose.’

  She squinted at Minty. ‘That’s not even the right saying. Are you that dense?’

  ‘Not where it counts, baby.’ Minty shoved chips into his mouth and reached for the drink Sam had put on the table. ‘Apple juice? What the fark, Sam?’

  ‘Sorry man … no Fanta left.’

  ‘So choose a Coke, brah. Apple juice?’ He frowned and skolled the bottle anyway. ‘I’m goin’ back out. Comin’?’

  ‘Soon.’

  Ruby and Minty picked up their boards and Sam watched them walk off down the street together. The wind turned cold but Sam sat on the plastic seat unable to move.

  The police hadn’t charged him. He told himself that if he was a really bad person, they would have pressed charges. Instead they had sat him down in a small room with his mother and spoken to him with grave seriousness, calling him ‘son’. They told him that if they had decided to charge him he would most likely go to juvenile detention. Game over, they’d said. Maybe they were lying. Maybe they weren’t.

  If it hadn’t have happened, if he’d never got in the fight in the first place, he wouldn’t have been home on New Year’s Eve. He would have been out, there would have been no one there with her when she’d collapsed.

  As if it made any difference.

  When Gretchen found out what he’d done, who he was, it would be over, he knew that much.

  Sam didn’t go back in. Instead, he sat on the headland and watched Minty and Ruby. The wind began to change and the tide was retreating. The water was sucking back off the rocks and rearing up ferocious and hungry, like a tantruming kid, chucking surfers into the air, breaking perilously close to the rocks. By late afternoon, most people had left the water and now stood on the bluff watching those brave or stupid enough to stay in: a handful of older, more experienced guys, Minty and Ruby. The pack on the headland whooped and whistled with every wave that was caught, and laughed and cawed at each wipeout. Sam listened but didn’t join in. Any guy that got a wave was ‘heavy’ and ‘charging’. Anytime it was Ruby there was bemused silence or murmured scepticism. Sam knew that as long as Minty and Shane were there Ruby would stay in. Someone drove a car across the grass and turned the stereo up, boot open. Grinspoon boomed across the headland and drowned out the sound of the waves. Sam kept his eyes on Ruby and Minty, holding his breath every time they were wiped out. It wasn’t until dusk had fallen that Minty, Ruby and Shane eventually straggled up from the rocks, dripping and elated, ready to relive every moment with beer and an audience.

  The music was turned up, a bonfire lit and people were dancing and jumping on each other, whooping, screaming. A car did laps on the grass while guys took turns surfing on the roof. Minty handed Sam a drink, clinked his bottle and sat on the grass. ‘Sammy! You were charging this morning!’

  ‘Wouldn’t use the word charging. Drowning maybe.’

  ‘Brah! You’re getting it, ay. Lot of these guys, they don’t respect the water, but you’ve come here and it’s like you’re open and that. Everyone gets wiped out, s’part of the game. Brah, that’s the heaviest I ever seen it here. Faaaark.’ Minty laughed and shook his head. ‘But it’s like that, ay. You just know you gotta put it all on the line, sometimes. Otherwise? You’re just pissin’ around.’

  ‘I’m cool with just pissing around from now on.’

  ‘Yeah, ’cause you got …’ Minty paused, searching for the word. ‘Scope. You got other shit goin’ on and that. For me, this is my life. It’s all about the next wave. I don’t do drugs no more, but I’m a junkie, ay. It’s always about the next hit. That’s the way it is for all us guys out here. And I think that’s real beautiful. Sounds soft, but that’s it for me: it’s beautiful to live like this.’

  ‘I don’t think Ruby sees it that way.’

  Minty took a swig of his drink, a mellow sadness seemed to come over him.

  ‘It’s a farkin’ waste, that is. She’s got it, brah. So much potential. She’s got a gift. She’s got the guts, she’s got the attitude, she’s got everything. She could make it all the farkin’ way, but she’s just gonna waste it.’

  ‘I think she’s got a lot going on with her family.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe. But it’s a shame is all. She could have it. Ay, where’s your chick, man? You should get her over here.’

  ‘Don’t know if this is her scene.’

  Minty looked confused, like he didn’t understand how sitting around in a park drinking and endlessly talking about waves wasn’t everyone’s idea of a good time. ‘Nah, go get her.’ He nudged Sam. ‘You done it yet?’

  Sam didn’t answer.

  Minty gaped at him. ‘No way! Come on! It’s been weeks, brah? What is she doin’ to you? She’s playin’ you, Sammy.’

  ‘You’re a relationship expert?’

  ‘I get laid, man, and it makes me very happy.’

  ‘You screw Maddie Clark while y
ou shut your eyes and pretend she’s Ruby.’

  Minty leaned back from the impact. ‘Whoa! What the hell, brah?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Sam muttered. ‘I just … you know, if you like Ruby you should just …’

  ‘Should what? Tell her so she can tell me to piss off? As if. And as if I’d ever meet her crazy standards.’

  ‘I don’t know if not screwing around all the time is a crazy standard.’

  ‘So I should just be alone ’cause that would impress Ruby?’

  ‘It might show her you’re serious.’

  ‘Serious? About what? Stuff that, brah. I’m just livin’ life.’

  ‘You’re a good guy, Mint. Stop pretending you’re a dickhead.’

  Minty didn’t say anything for a few moments. He folded his arms over his knees and looked away. ‘It makes you weak, you know. Start gettin’ attached to someone, lose your nerve in the water. It’s not good, brah. Think you know what I’m talkin’ about.’

  ‘I’m just saying that time runs out,’ Sam said. ‘It does. I’ve seen it. If you don’t do something about Ruby, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.’

  ‘Yeah, time runs out. If you don’t root that girl soon, your dick’s gonna fall off. I know that much,’ he laughed. ‘You always been deep, brah. I get it. But the only thing I’m ever gonna regret is not gettin’ the biggest wave out there.’

  ‘Sure.’

  They sat in silence, watching as a bunch of guys tried to set the slippery dip on fire.

  ‘They know plastic doesn’t burn?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Probably not.’

  Sam was well and truly smashed by midnight but not so much that he didn’t know it was time to go home if they were going to make Lorraine’s curfew. He staggered across the road with Minty, pausing out the front of Gretchen’s house where he gazed up at the windows and wondered if he could figure out which was hers and if he would have the balls to climb through it.

  27

  Sam spent the following morning in the water with Minty. When the wind blew out the swell in the afternoon he went back to the house to read Rolling Stone and listen to music. He put Jeff Buckley on and, when he closed his eyes, he could see Gretchen’s face. He was waiting in the flames, just like Jeff said. He was going to be burned up and destroyed if he remained there. But he had no choice, it was more powerful than him. ‘So Real’ came on and it wasn’t about a nightmare anymore. He’d never understood why Jeff sang that he loved a girl but he was afraid to. Now he got it. Every time Sam had ever liked a girl up until that point felt like a simulation. This was real.

  It was just a matter of time before she discovered he was nobody, a weak idiot. The track changed and Jeff sang that love was like being defenceless, stripped bare.

  At four-thirty the house phone rang and Lorraine stuck her head through the curtain into Sam’s room.

  ‘Oi, there’s a girl on the phone for you.’

  ‘A girl?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She stretched the cord over to the camp bed and handed it to him.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi. It’s Gretchen.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘What you doing?’

  ‘Not much. Listening to Jeff Buckley, again.’

  ‘You know, this is probably going to come as a rude shock, prepare yourself – but I think you are actually a nerd.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. It’s masked because you are nerdy about cool things, and you’ve got the whole surfer thing and the cool hair and everything, but your level of nerd-dom about Jeff Buckley is, like, off the scale.’

  ‘I’m ruined if this comes out. It’s over for me around here.’

  ‘Yep, it is. Say he toured here again, how long would you sleep out for tickets?’

  ‘Like at the ticket place?’

  ‘Yep. With your sleeping bag, how many nights would you sleep out in line for tickets: one night? Two?’

  ‘As long as it took. A week, I don’t care.’

  ‘What if it was raining?’

  ‘Yeah, it would be worth it.’

  ‘Someone would see you though, they would recognise you and say, “Hang on, I thought Sam was cool, yet here he is sleeping out for a week for concert tickets, that makes him a nerd!“’

  ‘I could just wear a disguise.’

  ‘You could get a blond wig and some temporary tattoos and pretend to be Minty.’

  ‘That’s pretty much my life strategy at the moment anyway.’

  She laughed at his joke, but Sam didn’t join her.

  ‘Well, that’s confirmed. You are a nerd.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Um, so …’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Do you want to come over tomorrow afternoon? Mum has to take Roan to an appointment in Sydney.’

  ‘Are you saying your house will be empty?’

  ‘Yes. We could hang out and stuff.’

  ‘And stuff?’

  ‘And stuff.’

  On Monday Sam was out of the water in time to have a shower and change before meeting Gretchen outside the school. He held her hand as they walked back to hers. He didn’t talk much. She chatted a lot and he could tell that she was nervous too. She opened the front gate and led him inside, through the front door and up the stairs into the silent house. She put her bag down at the top of the steps.

  ‘Do you want a drink or something? Water? Tea? Juice? Whisky?’

  ‘Ha. Juice.’

  She took a heavy glass from a high cupboard and he saw the pale skin of her stomach where her shirt rode up as she reached. He saw the smooth curve of her hipbone above her waistband. She filled the glass with orange juice from a carton in the fridge. It was the expensive stuff, fresh and pithy. She didn’t seem to even think about watering it down.

  ‘Ice?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She pressed a button on the front of the stainless steel fridge and ice cubes clinked into the glass. He took the glass from her and his fingertips brushed hers. She made one for herself. They stood in the kitchen, looking out at the water in silence. It was as if they’d never met before.

  ‘Want to see my room?’ she said eventually.

  ‘Yeah.’

  He followed her up the hallway watching the gentle sashay of her hips and the curve of her bum. She reached to flick a light on and he noticed how beautiful her wrists were. Something in him slipped and he couldn’t take it anymore. He could smell her hair, the whole house smelled of her. He reached forward – bolder and more self-assured than he’d ever done anything in his life – and placed a hand on her waist, turning her so she was facing him. He pushed her back against the open door and kissed her. He told himself that he knew how to do this. Her skin was smooth and warm under his hands. She tilted her head back and he kissed her neck. She pulled his shirt up and over his head, pulling away to look at him. He thought she was going to stop it, but she didn’t, instead pulling him back toward her. He was grateful for every weight session he’d done with Minty. He caressed her stomach under her shirt and let his hand go up to the lace of her bra. She pulled her shirt off and her hands went to his belt buckle; he helped her undo it and kicked off his shorts. She giggled and shimmied out of her skirt. Her undies were bright green with polka dots and she unhooked her bra from behind while she was kissing him. There was nothing like the warm feeling of her bare skin against his, the closest he’d ever felt to another human being. He thought of asking her if she was sure about this but he didn’t want to in case she said she wasn’t. He half walked her, half lifted her backwards onto the bed. Taking her weight in his arms and lowering her down, pulling back to look at her face, her neck. He saw it then, flashing before his eyes: the clearest snapshot of his mother’s eyes rolling back in her head, the whites of her eyes and her body dropping in front of him. Him catching her. It was so real he let go of Gretchen. She was confused. Of course. Her mouth was still open from his kiss and it took her a moment to open her eyes and register the fact that she was alm
ost naked in front of him and he had stopped kissing her. She sat up, looking around as if waking up from a dream. She pulled the sheets up over her torso, under her armpits.

  ‘What?’ she laughed, nervous and unsure.

  He turned away from her and picked up his shirt and shorts from the floor. He couldn’t speak, his hands trembled and he dropped the shirt, picked it up again as he left the room. He pulled it over his head. She didn’t call after him; there was nothing but dead, stunned silence from the bedroom. Sam lurched down the hallway and stumbled down the stairs to the front door.

  *

  He came home to a mercifully empty house. There was no space he could be, nothing of his own. He wanted to run and run until he threw up, smash something, put a fist through the wall, anything. He could feel his mother’s judgement. I did not raise you to undress a girl and leave her alone in her room without a goodbye or an explanation. His breath thudded in and out of him violently, heart thundering. He paced the three-metre width of his room and wondered what a coward did in his position and if it was the same thing he was doing now. His thoughts swung around in his skull. Would this happen every time he held a girl? Was he doomed to forever see his mother’s dead face when he was getting it on with someone?

  A knock on the door. Sharp. Now was not a good time to be having a cup of tea or a milkshake with Nana. He went to the door and tried to think of a plausible excuse to get rid of her: he was sick, vomiting. It wasn’t far off the truth. He turned the handle and found Gretchen. She had pulled on a pair of jeans and her old ‘Zero’ T-shirt; her hair was a crazy frizzy cloud. He expected she might yell or hit him or lash out in some way. But she was quiet, questioning him with her pale eyes. It was worse than if she was angry.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Her voice was so soft he hardly heard her.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Give me a reason.’

  ‘I’m sorry … I’m not a good guy.’

  ‘I think you’re a good guy.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘What is this? Are you breaking up with me?’

  ‘No … I don’t know.’