by Kirsty Eagar
I park in the back car park, lock the Laser, tuck the key into my leg rope and jog over the dune. At the water’s edge I put my leg rope on and rub some sand through my hands – sunscreen on your palms can make you slip while you’re getting up. It’s really summery today, the wind hot and blowy out of the northeast. It’s mid tide, pushing up to high, and the swell is getting lazy. The beach is a shifting tapestry of bodies and the line-up seems equally congested, a traffic jam of surfboards, bodyboards and kneeboards. Too crowded. I decide to stay on the inside, Alley Rights, which turns out to be better than it looks and I get three hollow rights in quick succession.
Back in the spot, I slide off my board and duck dive under the water, going deep, wanting some sand to rough up my wax. When I surface, I notice that two boys have moved in on me. One of them is staring across at me, skinny-chested in his black-and-red spring suit. I shoot him a look because I’m pissed, even though that’s not really fair because I wouldn’t do it if he were older, and it’s not like you can own ocean space.
I rub the bit of sand I’ve collected over the wax on the deck of my board. Most of it just swishes off. When I look up again the kid has paddled across and is right there near me. He’s lying down on his board, ankles crossed, leaning on his elbows so his hands can talk to each other. He’s considering me with a preoccupied look on his face, like I’m an equation he’s got to solve before he can go to lunch.
I stare at the incoming swell, paddle for a wave and miss it. When I turn around he’s still watching me. This is ridiculous.
I sit up on my board. ‘Nice today, isn’t it? Water’s getting warmer.’
He comes to slowly – I can see the split second when awareness slides across his face. ‘Yeah.’
He’s Eurasian, with hazel eyes and beautifully clear skin, not a pimple on his face. He’s younger than me, I’d guess early teens but I’m not good with ages. His neatly cut black hair is drying off, so he’s been sitting around on his board for a while.
He frowns. ‘Do you surf here a lot?’
‘Well, only since I moved here. Which was …’ I pause as though I’m calculating, which I’m not. I know full well it’s been two months, ‘… mid-September, I think.’
‘Do you know me?’
I’m not really sure where he’s coming from. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
He sighs and rubs one eye. ‘I mean, have you talked to me before or anything?’
‘No. Why? When do you surf?’
‘Pardon?’
For some reason that hooks me. I like him. It’s because he’s used the word ‘pardon’ with the most serious look on his face in the world. However old he is, he acts like someone a lot older.
‘What time of day do you normally surf?’ I ask.
‘After school.’
‘Mornings as well?’
‘No. I sleep.’
‘I surf mornings. Usually after nine. And sometimes I come back after lunch, but before school’s out. So by the time you get here I’m probably getting ready for work. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen you before.’
‘Getting ready for work … You work at night time?’ he asks, momentarily distracted.
‘Yep.’
‘There’s a prostitute who surfs here. She works at night time.’
I blink. ‘Oh … I’m not a prostitute. I, uh, work in a kitchen. You know, chef stuff.’
Strictly speaking, it’s not chef stuff, it’s cook stuff. But the word ‘chef’ gives people a quicker visual.
A wave’s coming, a good one, chest-high at least, and where we’re sitting we’ll get the shoulder. I turn and paddle for it, hungry in my belly. I’m on my feet when I hear a whistle and see the guy charging across towards me. I kick out, pissed off, and land in the water beside my board with a plop. It would have been a nice wave. I drag myself back on my board and paddle over to the kid. He’s still in my spot, lying down, looking back over his shoulder. I raise my eyebrows at him when I get closer, but he doesn’t smile. He’s got a distrustful look on his face.
I sit up on my board, clearing my throat. ‘Your friend is getting some good waves.’ I mean the other boy. He keeps trying to do aerials.
‘He’s not my friend, I’ve just known him for a long time. We went to primary school together and he used to tell people I was retarded.’
‘Why did he say you were retarded?’ There’s no point being polite, I want to know.
‘Because I see colours and stuff.’
I wait for a couple of beats but that’s it, that’s all he says.
‘I don’t get what you mean.’
He flops off his board and pulls it sideways across him, hooking his arms over its deck, his toes poking out of the water. He glances at me. I see his teeth are very white and even. All of his features are like that. More delicate, more pure and refined than either white or Asian.
‘At primary school, right? We had this teacher who sometimes used to write stuff on the board in coloured chalk. One day she was teaching us how to spell “Wednesday” and she wrote it up on the board in purple. And I put up my hand and said, “But Miss, Wednesday’s green.” And all the others laughed because they thought I was being funny, but I wasn’t, because to me Wednesday is green.’
I frown at him.
‘Okay. When I hear “Wednesday”, or see it, or think it, I get green in my head.’
‘Like the word in green?’
He breathes out as if it’s a real effort or this is something he’s gone into too many times to mention. ‘No, just green. This yuck green. Not horrible or anything, just … blah, boring. Same as … like for me, Friday is yellow and cloudy, soft. It’s pretty good. Seven’s sort of like that too. A is reddy red, tomato-sauce red. Four is red too, but swirly with pink bits. C is whitey-grey …,’ he waves a hand from side to side, ‘… sort of stripey.’
I chew this over for a bit, really wanting to say the right thing. ‘So you get … extra.’
‘Yeah.’
There’s a wave coming. I let it pass. ‘How long have you been like that?’
‘Since forever.’ He pulls himself back up on his board. ‘It’s not just me – although at school I’m the only one. Other people have it too. It’s called synaesthesia. It means you get your senses mixed up. Some people don’t believe it’s real. They think you’re just bunging it on. But that teacher, she’d heard of it before – some artist had it or something. Then the principal got all interested and started asking questions. I never thought I was different before then. I thought everybody was like that.’
‘Wow. I’ve never heard of it.’
He shrugs. ‘There’s heaps of stuff on the net. There are different types too. Lots of people get colours from letters and numbers, but some people get colours from music. And it doesn’t just have to be colours. Some people taste stuff or smell things.’
‘God, that’s really interesting. Is it just colours for you?’
He nods.
‘Do they get in the way?’
‘Not really. Most of the time they’re just there. Like when that teacher wrote Wednesday on the board in purple, I could see it was purple, just, in my head there was green.’ He splashes the water with his hands. ‘Sometimes it gets in the way, but that’s with people.’
‘You get colours from people too?’
He nods. ‘Usually only people I know. Like, I wouldn’t normally pick up something from someone I don’t know.’
There’s something deliberate about the way he says this and suddenly I realise that’s why he was staring at me. I want to ask him which colour he’s getting from me, but the way he’s acting suggests it isn’t great.
There’s an awkward silence, him staring steadfastly at the horizon. Then his face lightens and he smiles.
‘I’ll tell you a good one. There’s this girl I like. Lara. I really like her, hey. I don’t know if it’s because she’s hot or whatever, or because of what I get from her. She gives me all this honey … warm … light stuff.
It just makes me feel really good. You know how sun comes through leaves? That’s how the light’s like, but wavy. Sort of. The light’s like … like …’
‘Is it like the light patterns in water?’ I ask, trying to be helpful because I’ve got a feeling he’ll keep going all day to describe it just right.
He blinks, looks down at the sunlight’s netting stretched over the sand at the bottom of the water. ‘That’s it. That’s exactly it. Honey water with light through it. Except – no. It’s more like warm air, not water.’
‘Okay, so honey-warm air with light patterns through it.’
‘Yeah.’ He nods, deadly serious.
I smile. ‘That’s great. I think you’re lucky.’
‘But I haven’t finished.’
‘Sorry.’
‘What I found out was, I don’t even have to be around her. I cut her picture out of our class photo and when I look at it I get the same feelings. And if someone says her name I get them too. So if I want to feel good, I take out the picture and say her name a few times.’
‘Who needs drugs?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s cool.’
Then he refocuses on me and frowns. There’s wariness in his voice when he asks, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Carla. Carly, I mean. That’s what most people call me.’
He nods. ‘I’m like that. My name’s Daniel, but I’m Danny.’
There’s a lull in the swell and in our conversation. We sit in silence for maybe two minutes.
Then he says, ‘I’m going to catch one in now. See you later.’
‘Bye, Danny.’
After he paddles off, I realise that it’s the first time I’ve talked to someone at the break. Other people watching us would have thought we knew each other, just like the crows and other regulars know each other.
5
sugar
Marty crouches down so he can see through the window and dings the bell five times in succession. I’m standing at the end of the pass where I’ve got the mixer set up with the dough hook attachment on it. I’m making a batch of biscotti and I’ve just added lemon zest. The Official Franchise Recipes folder is lying open on the bench and I check the biscotti ingredients again, finding my place with a floury finger. I’m following the recipe because I haven’t made it many times. There are confidentiality clauses on every page in the folder.
When I don’t pay him any attention, Marty dings the bell twice more. ‘Pssst.’
‘What? What do you want?’
He remains hunched down, looking through the window, but doesn’t speak, just widens his dirty-green eyes into an intense stare. His lips are apart, revealing the slight overlap of his two front teeth.
I look down in the mixer bowl at the pasty white blob being pummelled by the dough hook.
He dings the bell again.
‘What?’
Without blinking, he runs his tongue over his lips. Marty is one of those guys who likes to leer. It gets to me, makes my skin prickle. There’s something both exciting and horrible about it.
As usual, he’s not wearing his Café Parisienne cap. Emilio’s at him all the time about that. He keeps it tucked in the back pocket of his black pants. He’s got light brown curly hair that would look stupid if he brushed it.
Emilio’s voice floats in from out the front somewhere. ‘Marty? How about you use the downtime to stack those beans?’
Marty ignores him and keeps staring at me. I shake my head and hope my face isn’t turning red. I feel acutely stupid.
Emilio’s voice again. ‘Marty? Marty. Come on, mate.’
Emilio has zero control over Marty. When they’re on a shift together Marty drives the coffee machine, which is usually Emilio’s territory. Emilio retreats to the register and does his worried-brown-eyes act with the customers. Marty talks dirty to the regulars while he’s pulling shots. You want me to put sugar in it for you? Stir it up? You like sugar? Everybody needs a bit of sugar sometimes. I think Emilio’s a little jealous of him. Poor Emilio takes it all day long: from Michael, the owner, from customers, from uncontrollable staff like Marty.
All of a sudden Marty drops the leer. ‘Nah,’ he says. ‘I made you a latte, eh.’
He places a tall glass with a serviette sleeve wrapped around it on the windowsill and disappears. It’s dumb but I’m flattered. I haven’t asked him for a latte. He probably just got an order wrong. I take a sip. It’s heavily sugared.
I drink way too much coffee on Marty’s shifts.
Roger walks in and dumps a tray full of dirty crockery on the bench beside the sink.
‘They got you bussing tonight, Roger?’
‘No,’ he says, without turning around. ‘Dish pigging. Kylie’s bussing but she’s on a break.’
‘Kylie?’ I stare at Roger’s broad back. The elastic waist on his black pants is stretched and they sag down, showing his bum crack crisscrossed by his apron strings. I’ve seen this so many times I don’t even feel embarrassed looking at it any more. Kylie is my equivalent during the daytime. She does the kitchen stuff. She’s twenty-two and from Wagga or Dubbo or somewhere – a small town girl. She followed her boyfriend to Manly and it’s not working out for them and she misses home, and all of these things are affecting her physically. She’s starving herself.
Kylie shouldn’t be doing a double shift. Her body doesn’t have the energy to spend.
‘Do you know when she gets off break?’ I ask Roger.
He ignores my question, slamming the lid of the dishwasher up and sliding the steaming tray of plates inside across to the cooling bench. Roger’s an alcoholic, although you wouldn’t necessarily know that from looking at him, and he’s not a big communicator. He works hard as a dish pig. I think Emilio pays him cash in hand. Tonight he’s sporting a three-day growth and it suits him. You notice his eyes too much when he’s clean shaven – they’re a bloodshot pale blue and seem riveted by things in his head, not the things they see.
‘Hi sweetie,’ Kylie says, coming through from the front, handbag on her shoulder and her cap and apron in one hand.
‘You’re working a double shift?’
She stops at the end of the pass and I can see the angles of her. When I first started I thought she was just really slim, but after a while even baggy black pants can’t hide the sharp edges of bones.
‘Yeah.’ She tilts her head to the side and blinks her toffee-coloured eyes. She’s got freckles the same colour. But her face gets more skull-like every day. She looks like a little girl trapped in an old person’s body.
‘You gonna be okay bussing? Do you want to swap?’ I wouldn’t make this offer to anybody except Kylie. I hate bussing – cleaning tables and bringing the dirty stuff in to Roger. People like to sit with their chairs pushed right back and they never move for you, even though they can see you there, struggling with a heavy load, trying to get through. It’s the pits.
‘No, I’ll be fine.’ Kylie’s got a scratchy voice that goes up and down when she speaks. She smokes, so it could be from that. ‘What are you making?’
‘The biscotti. What do you think?’
She puts her head over the mixer bowl and has a good look. Her shaggy red-brown hair looks like a wig, too big for her pointed little face.
‘Looks good.’
‘I’m going to put extra stuff in it. I’m thinking pine nuts, toasted hazelnuts … maybe some nutmeg.’
‘That’s the way,’ she cackles, grinning.
It’s a point of honour between the two of us that we deviate from the official franchise recipe with everything we make – on the generous side.
She gives me a hug. ‘That’s what I like about you. You make everything with love, like me.’
And she really means it. She’s a hearts and flowers girl. Two weeks after I started she gave me this naff card that said You’re so very special on the front of it. It had a picture of a little cat holding a balloon. It was to thank me for doing the close properly, making things easier fo
r her in the mornings. Stu, the guy who works the kitchen on my nights off, leaves things looking like a shit fight after every shift, apparently.
The bell dings and Emilio appears at the window. His brown hair is sweaty at the front and he looks tired. I’m expecting a food order but all he says is, ‘Hello, Carly, how are you?’
I smile at him. ‘Good thanks, Emilio. How are you?’
I do have a soft spot for Emilio. Not least because he’s a walking franchise manual: Make sure you greet every staff member as soon as they arrive. A good manager makes employees feel that their contribution to the running of the hospitality operation is important.
I finish off the biscotti dough, shape it and put it in the oven. Then I lug the mixer bowl over to Roger. As I approach I see him wolf down the remains of a steak sandwich and my stomach turns over. He eats food scraps all the time and everybody pretends not to notice. Whenever I ask him if he wants me to make him something for dinner he says no. A couple of times I’ve pretended to get an order wrong and made an extra dish and then asked him if he wants it, and he’s still said no. He likes to eat other people’s leftovers. Maybe because he thinks it’s a secret. Like Kylie thinks the fact she doesn’t eat is a secret.
‘Behind, Roge,’ I say, leaving the bowl on the floor next to him.
We get hit about half an hour later. The line for coffees and food stretches out the door. The little printer sitting at the edge of the window spews out food orders faster than I can get through them so that eventually the line of dockets almost reaches the floor. I don’t understand these people. Why don’t they go to a nice place? One of the funky restaurants in the back streets away from the Corso, where they can sit down and relax while some nice waitress comes and takes their order. Why do they like queuing to order, then carrying the coffees they’ve waited for around with them while they fight to find a seat in a faux French bistro? It’s the final proof that location is everything. We’re on a corner block. We’re a big café with a cavernous wooden interior and an expensive floral arrangement. People see the queue forming and rush to join it in case they’re missing out on something.