by Kirsty Eagar
It’s a tortured conversation, if you could call it that. And then we’re out in the line-up again, drifting in the middle ground between the arrowhead and the beach, with nothing much coming our way.
‘How long have you been here?’
I glance over at him. ‘Pardon?’
He raises his voice. ‘How long have you been surfing here?’
‘I don’t know. A couple of months?’
‘That’s why.’ Talking to himself not me.
‘Why what?’
He’s watching the approaching set. ‘Why I haven’t seen you before. I’ve been away.’
I want to know where. And I want to know why he looks so guarded and wary. But what I ask is, ‘How long have you been surfing here?’, because it’s what I’m supposed to ask, so he can stamp out his localness.
He just shrugs. ‘A while.’
We start paddling to make it over the first wave of the set.
‘I’m Ryan.’ When I say nothing, he adds, ‘Got a name?’
‘Carly,’ I say, eventually.
When I look over at him he’s paddling hard to get in position for the second peak and I feel like I’m already forgotten.
8
Saturday night
As soon as Emilio leaves, Marty goes out to buy beer. He returns carrying a six-pack of Carlton Draught.
‘You want one, Roge, mate?’ he asks.
I pause in my cleaning up, curious to see what Roger will do. He’s slamming dishes into a rack, spraying them viciously. He looks up at Marty but doesn’t answer, at least not that I can hear.
Marty walks behind him, making a face at me. We’re both thinking the same thing: Roger’s an alcoholic.
‘You want a Carlton, Carly?’
‘Okay.’
‘A Carlyton.’ He screws the top off a beer and hands it to me, closing his other hand around mine as I take the beer by the neck. I smile at him and wrest my hand free, for once not feeling embarrassed. The radio’s blaring, Emilio’s gone, there are next to no customers and it’s Saturday night. I’m relaxed.
Marty’s dirty-green eyes are really bloodshot and he sways slightly like he’s drunk already, but his voice seems perfectly clear. ‘You coming out after this, Carls?’
Fine Young Cannibals are playing on the radio. She drives me crazy.
‘Where?’
‘Dunno. The Steyne. You, me, Georgina, Roger.’
I wish Georgina wasn’t on shift with us. ‘Are you coming, Roge?’
He mumbles something, blasts the hose.
Marty pulls his pants low and twists around. He’s got half his bum hanging out, like Roger. I push him in the back and he turns around, pulling his pants back up.
Is he tired? His eyes look so heavy-lidded. Maybe he’s on drugs or something. I don’t know anything about drugs.
‘Nah, what do you say, Carly?’ Marty asks, opening a beer for himself and taking a big swig.
‘Okay. How long are you going to be though? You guys don’t finish for ages.’
‘You can sit here and wait. Have a few drinks.’
‘You don’t finish until one.’
‘Well, just hang around and take it easy, Carly Carl.’
The bell dings. Georgina’s at the window, her blue eyes anxious.
‘Hey, where’s my beer?’ she says, sounding raucous in a forced way. Her eyes flicker from Marty to me.
I get an insight into her then. She thinks we’re having fun without her and it’s killing her, making her question everything she thought about herself. Marty hands her a beer through the window.
‘Sit out front, have a couple of beers,’ he tells me again.
When I’m done closing up the kitchen, I go out the back, sign off and then lock myself in the staff toilet. I strip off my chef’s whites, let out my hair and try to fluff it up a bit. I wipe my face over with paper towel, spray myself with fresh deodorant. At least I’m wearing one of my black Bonds T-shirts, which will be fine for The Steyne. Black shirt, black pants, black boots.
I clomp out front and tell Georgina and Marty I’ll be back when they’re closing down. Then I push through the crowds on the Corso making my way to the beach, feeling pleasantly buzzed. I haven’t eaten since breakfast so the beer’s hit me like a hammer. I sit on the concrete steps at the beach front, enjoying the lights of Manly. I’d like to have a cigarette but I don’t like smoking around people, and, anyway, I think Manly council has passed some legislation about smoking on the beach.
The moon is weird tonight. A yellow devil with a knowing face and hard triumphant eyes. The top of his head is cropped off diagonally, as though he’s wearing an invisible hat on a jaunty angle. Usually when I see the moon I feel like I’ve been blessed, but not tonight. This moon is telling me to watch my feet.
On my way back to the café I buy a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald. There’s still half an hour to go before Georgina and Marty finish up. Taking a seat out the front, I glance in at Marty, who’s filling the coffee grinder with beans, spilling half of them on the floor and not seeming to notice. He’s got to be on something. There’s only one other couple in the café besides me. It’s one of those nights where Manly is pumping with life but nobody can settle. The crowd walks up and down the Corso, worried they might be missing out on something.
I start reading Bernard’s reviews. Bernard’s my ritual. Sometimes he writes articles for the news section on weekdays but only when something big has happened in the world of rock and roll, like someone important has died. They’re okay, but his reviews are better. That’s when you get the feeling that – to borrow Bernard’s parlance – Bernard is riffing, tap-tap-tapping on his computer keyboard in a darkened room, his concentration momentarily distracted by the flickering of a neon sign outside his window (I’m thinking Kings Cross, probably). In between bursts of typing he pauses to suck back on a beer, and while he works he listens to old LPs because their sound is pure and deep, not like the digitised sine curve of a CD.
Well, that’s what I like to think anyhow. My idea of Bernard has got a fair dash of romanticism. The rock critic, a dying breed, sort of like the last cowboy.
This week Bernard is being cheeky. His review of Korn’s Live and Rare is downright flippant: Hey, Korn, live and rare? Hey, Korn, we don’t care. And that’s it. That’s it! But he gives me the good stuff in a review of Sodastream’s Reservations. He says, This is delicate low-key pop, sad and slightly fluttery, but laments, Sodastream don’t break your heart in the way you want them too. The best Bernard reviews are full of tragedy.
‘You’re so brown.’ Georgina’s voice. I look up to see her wiping down one of the tables near me. She peers at my arms. ‘Is it fake tan?’
I clear my throat, uncomfortable with her scrutiny. ‘It’s from surfing. I put sunscreen on but I guess it’s not enough. I’m going to be a prune when I get old.’
Georgina straightens up. ‘Do you surf?’
I nod.
‘Like really surf? Or are you just learning?’
I shrug. ‘I surf.’
‘Can you take me sometime? I’ve been wanting to learn to surf.’
She says it as though it’s not the hardest sport in the world, just something you pop out and do, like taking a driving test.
‘Yeah, okay.’
I don’t know why I’m saying yes. I’ve taken people surfing before and it’s been a waste of time. Not one of them has passed the paddling test. That’s the way you know you’re going to stick with surfing, if you never give up when you’re trying to get out, even if it’s really big and the lines of white water are relentless and you’ve got spaghetti arms and you haven’t moved more than ten metres away from the shoreline in the twenty minutes you’ve been paddling.
‘Really? You’ll take me?’ Georgina squeals.
I nod. ‘I’ve only got a shortboard though, so you might have to get a board. You know, something bigger to learn on.’
‘I’ve got a board. I bought a really cute one with
frangipanis on it so I’d be inspired. When can we go?’
Well, I hate frangipanis, but what I say is, ‘Whenever you want. I surf every day. Just ring me when you want to come.’
See, there it is. I want Georgina to like me. I hate that about myself.
The Steyne is crowded. We sit on stools around a table downstairs. I can’t hear what Georgina is shouting at me but I nod anyway. She goes over to Marty and pushes her way in between his knees to shout in his face. He’s nodding in time to the music and she must take that as a yes, because she rushes off.
When I look over at Marty again he’s watching me. He stands up, grabs my hands and pulls me to my feet, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
‘Come on,’ he says in my ear, lurching suddenly to the right. ‘Let’s go.’
I steady him. ‘What about Georgina?’
Heavy-lidded, he tries to compute what I’ve just said. Then Georgina is back, looking sulky, making a big deal about the three bottles of beer she’s placing on the table.
Later, outside, my ears are still ringing from the music.
‘Well, thanks guys, that was fun,’ Georgina shrills.
She sounds so sparky and I wonder at her energy. I couldn’t force a voice like that if I tried. Marty staggers sideways, bumping into me.
‘What do you want to do now?’ Georgina asks, looking at me because Marty’s staring down at the pavement.
‘Get Marty’s stomach pumped, I think. No, I’m going home. I am so tired.’
The night seems like an empty promise. I feel older than I am, old enough to not enjoy sitting around silently in a place where we couldn’t have talked to each other even if we did have something to say. I wish that Marty was home in his own head but he’s missing in action tonight.
‘Do you want a life?’ I ask Georgina, then blink when I realise what I’ve said. ‘I mean a lift?’
‘No. I only live down …’ She points in the direction of the wharf.
‘Okay, well, I’ll see you guys later.’ I smile, holding up my hand in a wave, and leave Marty to Georgina, who wants him for sure, even if she’s not completely certain what she’ll do with him.
I don’t even care. My head is full, my back is aching from an eight-hour shift, and I just want to be home. I’ve drunk so much and I feel so sober. I walk down to Pittwater Road and then cross at the lights. On Kangaroo Lane, sound stops. Things become quiet like all other life has been sucked away. I hear footsteps behind me, off in the distance. I look back over my shoulder and see Marty, hands in his pockets, swaying slightly as he walks. He gives no sign of having seen me. But even so, I walk faster.
I see his car parked there at the end of the lane, a cream Holden Kingswood, and I realise that he wasn’t following me anyway.
‘Cookie? But what are you doing, Cookie, lying out here?’
I come to, realising a shadow is standing over me, and I jolt like I’m being electrocuted and try to scream. All that comes out is a strangled noise.
‘But Cookie, it’s me.’
I look around, confused. I must have fallen asleep. The last thing I remember is lying back on the deck with my hands under my head, looking up at the moon, listening to the noise of the surf pounding away in the distance like a construction site.
‘What are you doing here? What time is it?’ I ask in a hoarse voice, craning my neck to look at Hannah. She’s wearing hotpants and boots. ‘Have you been out?’
She nods. Her hair looks nice, feathered around her face like she’s had it blow-dried or something. She’s not wearing her glasses and her green eyes are sparkling.
‘I met a man tonight, Cookie.’
‘Another one? Where? At your club?’
Hannah nods and sits down, her legs stretched out in front of her.
I sit up, stretch, then shimmy backwards so I’ve got my back up against the brick wall of the house. As I’m doing this, I collect the glass jar with three butts in it and the packet of matches that were on the deck beside me. I push them in behind me. I don’t think Hannah notices.
‘What time is it?’
Hannah looks at her thin gold watch, holding her wrist up high to catch the light shining out from my lounge room. ‘It is three fifty-three.’ She squints. ‘No, three fifty-four. His name is Victor. He’s from England, but his ancestry is Jamaican so he has a dark skin colour. He can dance very well.’ She says ‘ancestry’ like ‘ansheshtry’. In the same way that she can be ‘enshooshiashtic’ about things.
‘He salsas?’
‘Yes. He is one of the best dancers at the club. Tonight he danced with me.’ She gives me a smile. ‘I’ll tell you something, Cookie, you should come dancing with me.’
‘I’m not really into that stuff.’
‘Ah come on, Cookie. It is something different. Otherwise all you do is surf. Come next weekend, after you finish work.’
‘We’ll see. I’ll think about it.’
She thrusts out her chin, looking pugnacious. ‘Yes or no. I would like you to be specific. It’ll be fun. I want you to come with me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I like you, Cookie.’
I sigh. God she’s relentless. ‘Okay.’
And straight away I’m resentful. I’ll have to get out of it somehow.
‘Then you can meet Victor. He is so graceful, you know? And he was so attentive to me. He asked me to go home with him, but I said, “If you want to see me again, I’ll be here next Friday.” ’
‘You didn’t want to go home with him?’
Hannah purses her lips. ‘Well …’ And then she smiles. ‘Maybe next time.’
I swear, sometimes Hannah makes me feel like an absolute virgin.
We’re silent for a while. I yawn. I’m feeling really grainy, my mouth’s dried out from the beers and my head’s aching from the cigarettes. I want to go to bed, but if I do I should shower first because I stink, and that seems like a mountain too high to climb at the moment, so instead I sit and wait for the shower to come to me.
Hannah starts picking at the acne along her jawline, staring off into the distance. She has acne on her back and chest as well. It’s not horrible or anything, it’s just there. If I had to put money on a cause I’d say it’s some sort of reaction to the amount of dairy food she consumes. Hannah lives on cheese and yoghurt. She says all Dutch love their dairy products. Or it might be from too much caffeine: she drinks a lot of tea. Milky tea.
‘You know,’ she says, ‘Joost left a message on my answering machine tonight. It was there when I got home from work.’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Not really. He’s upset. He wanted to know if I was seeing other people over here. He said that he was very unhappy. He said a lot of things, you know, making me feel very guilty.’
‘Did you ring him back?’
‘No. I think I have to be strong.’
‘Do you know what you want to do? I mean, with Joost?’
‘No. Sometimes I think I want a divorce, I want to live my own life. And sometimes I feel very lonely. My colleagues at work, they say such horrible things. They are so threatened by me, I think. And living in another country can be hard. Although it’s good that you are downstairs from me. That I have a Cookie around.’
She smiles and I wonder what benefit I could possibly be to anybody.
‘Don’t worry about Joost.’
‘But he hates me.’
‘I think men always hate women, underneath it all.’
‘But no –’
‘No, I think they do. Really. Maybe we’re just as scary to them as they are to us.’
Hannah looks truly puzzled. ‘But are you scared of men, Cookie?’
I shake my head quickly, but my throat feels tight. ‘No, I was just … It’s just something I think sometimes, that’s all.’
9
Surf porn
Coastalwatch
Swell size 0.5 metre – Swell direction NE
Pristine conditions today.
No wind, the sand banks are good and it’s a peaky 1–2ft. If there was some decent swell around it’d be on. Small but highly surfable at exposed swell locations …
The back car park is empty and the lagoon’s settled into a syrupy torpor. While I’m getting changed I can hear fish jumping, slapping the tea-stained water. God, it’s hot. I run over the dune, sand burning the soles of my feet, looking down at my knees. My skin’s the colour of a roasted nut. I’ve changed so much since I’ve been here. Now, when I catch sight of myself in the mirrored doors of my bedroom wardrobe, I’m startled by the stranger looking back at me. Hair dried out by the sun, skin stained brown by it. Triceps that are hard knobs of muscle. If I hold out my arms, my lat muscles make my chest widen like a fan. I’m becoming someone else, and I like it.
The beach is empty save for a man and a woman walking towards the headland and the clump of surfers at the Alley. A lifesaver is setting up for the day, driving a four-wheeler down to mark out the flags.
There are patches of lighter blue pooled on the ocean’s surface like oil slicks. And there’s swell. Easy, two-foot waves peel left and right with clean precision. The swell is a bonus, really, because I thought the high pressure system would settle on the ocean like a blanket. What’s more, there aren’t too many bodies out there. Maybe everybody else slept in.
Conditions are so clean that duck diving is like slicing butter with a hot knife. The crows are all out and they’re exclaiming about it: Aw, W.D., mate, good to see ya! It’s a faarken’ reunion, eh?
There’s a new guy too, a fresh-faced twenty-something on a purple malibu. He’s hassling people like mad and I’m thinking he should be careful doing that. Doesn’t he know about this place? Didn’t he notice the broken board that’s been jammed onto the pole near the lifesavers’ building as a warning? Someone’s spray-painted ‘No Mal Zone’ on one of the signs in the top car park. When I first saw that I thought it was good. Usually mals are ridden by beginners who bob around getting in your way and dropping in because they don’t know better. Or worse, by people who can surf and should know better but are using them to hog a break. A couple of the crows ride mals, but they surf here regularly and don’t hog waves, and they ride them old-school style, trying for some art in what they’re doing. Also, they look like they’d punch the crap out of anyone who had a go at them.