by Kirsty Eagar
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah, no worries. All right then, catch you later.’
I put the mobile down and rub my face. I feel like my stomach’s dropping away. And that’s that, then, I think, walking towards the deck. Before I get there my mobile rings again.
‘So, it’s me again – Ryan.’ His voice is different this time, not as brisk.
‘Hi.’
‘So, ah, there’s supposed to be a big swell building for the weekend, from the south. They reckon it’s going to hit Sydney on Sunday. Biggest swell in twenty years or something. Hear about it?’
‘Um, yeah.’ Coastalwatch has been going on about nothing else all week, sounding like the voice of doom: If you want to live, do not venture out on Sunday.
‘So I’ll be down at the break, ’bout eight or so. They’ll be towing in for sure. And probably off the Long Reef Bombie, too. Be worth a look if you’re interested.’
He stops talking as though he’s waiting for something. I’m quiet because I’m not sure if he means I should go with him. I’m not sure what he means at all.
‘That’s if you wanted to – ah shit, this is hard.’ He blows out some air. ‘I’ve been thinking about you, Carly. If you want to come down, come down. And if you don’t want to come down, don’t come down. It’s up to you.’
‘Okay.’ I would like to ask for some clarification, but I don’t have the guts.
‘So – yeah. I’ll leave it there. All right?’
‘Okay.’
‘Might see you Sunday.’
He hangs up before I can say okay again.
Hannah doesn’t look up when I come back outside, and she doesn’t ask me who called either. But when I’m sitting down, flexing my feet and pointing them, eyes shut and face raised up to the sun, she says, ‘But you’re happy, eh?’
I blink at her, surprised. She’s right.
My happiness is crunchy. Snapping, crackling and popping in the sun.
That afternoon, I join the traffic streaming over the bridge into Narrabeen and look up at the pelicans hunkered down on top of the street lights there. There are three of them. I wonder why they like to sit there in particular, on top of a thing made of metal with the angry buzz of traffic rising up around them. The lagoon looks still and glossy today, the colour of liquorice. I flick my indicator and get over in the right lane, then turn off into Mactier Street. I drive down towards the lagoon and pull into a courtyard surrounded by a grey three-storey unit block. A series of garage doors lines the bottom level, grinning at me like teeth.
When I buzz number seven, Danny’s tinny voice asks me if I can come up.
‘Why? Aren’t you ready?’
‘Yeah, I just – just come up.’
There is an electronic whirring noise and the door unlocks. On the third floor, the top level, I come out on the landing and see Danny waiting, holding his front door open. I hang back for a second, worried he’s going to start wincing and carrying on, telling me that I’m evil.
He looks worried, but not by me. ‘I don’t have a white shirt. I thought I did but when I looked I couldn’t find one.’
‘How come you’re telling me this now?’
‘Shh, Mum’s in the kitchen, she’ll go nuts. I didn’t look until ten minutes ago.’
I frown at him. He’s got the black trousers and he’s wearing what I presume are his black school shoes, so he’s fine in both those departments, but the blue Billabong T-shirt won’t meet franchise dress regulations.
‘Mum’s going to go psycho. I told her I’d checked.’
A woman’s voice floats up the hallway, drawing closer. ‘Is that you, Carly, love?’
‘What’s your mum’s name again?’ I hiss at Danny. I’ve drawn a complete blank, which is bad because I spent a good forty minutes talking to her on the phone last weekend after I saw Danny in the surf. She asked me a few questions about the café, which took maybe three minutes, and then she just talked at me about Danny, her job as a regional trainer for the Education Department and petrol prices. Not that it was bad, but she’s one of those women who download everything in their head when they’ve got someone to talk to.
‘Liz,’ Danny mouths.
She’s not what I expected: a petite Chinese woman who’d whisk me in the door and feed me dumplings and spring rolls. Liz is tall, on the plump side of fat and a redhead. So it’s Danny’s dad who must be Asian. She told me about him. He lives in Melbourne and Danny only sees him three times a year.
‘Hi Liz. How are you?’
‘Oh, can’t complain. Thanks for taking him, Carly, it’s appreciated. What time will you be home do you think?’ Liz sounds slightly out of breath. She sounded like that on the phone, too.
‘Ah, we’ll finish at twelve. So I should be back here at about twelve-thirty at the latest.’
‘I’ll wait up for you. See how my cootchin went.’ She pokes Danny in the ribs and he squirms. ‘Your first job, hey? Who would have thunk it? Now, have you got everything? What about a shirt? You can’t wear that. Danny, I told you to be prepared. How many times do I have to say it? Be prepared.’
I remember Kylie usually keeps a spare shirt in the office. It flaps around on her like she’s a scarecrow, but it’ll fit me fine. Danny can wear my whites.
‘Danny can borrow mine for tonight. I’ve got another one at work I can wear.’
Liz tuts at Danny and shoots me a pained look. ‘Are you sure, Carly? I told him to get organised, and does he?’ She pokes him in the ribs again. ‘Naughty cootchin.’
‘Mum.’
Danny suffers a kiss on the cheek and we head downstairs. Liz holds the door open and yells encouragement until we’re outside.
‘I like your mum.’
‘Easy for you to say.’
‘Is it, cootchin?’
‘Shut up.’
‘How long have you had your car?’ Danny asks on our way there.
‘Almost two years. I got it when I started uni.’
He’s got his seat pushed right back with his feet up on the dashboard, he’s reorganised my radio to suit his tastes, and every now and then he does a rollercoaster arm out his open window. I’ve never seen anybody get such value out of a car trip.
He wrinkles his nose up at me, looking fresh-faced and young. ‘Uni? Do you have to go to uni to be a chef?’
‘I’m not a real chef. I just work in a kitchen. To be qualified as a chef you’ve got to do a four-year apprenticeship. I did communications at uni. That was before I started working in kitchens.’
‘Communications? What’s that?’
‘Like writing annual reports. Press releases. Stock market reports.’
Danny giggles.
‘What’s so funny?’
His eyes are all squinted up. ‘You. Doing that.’
I grin. ‘Why not?’
He flops weakly back in his seat. ‘Did you like it?’
‘No, not much. I dropped out.’
‘So you could surf?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Do you like what you’re doing now?’
‘Sometimes. I like being able to surf every day, that makes it all right.’
‘Huh. I’m gonna get a job where I can surf every day.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. Just something.’
We’re passing Long Reef now, and as we near the car-park turn-off we both crane our necks to check the surf. There’s only that small window of opportunity to see it because the scrubby vegetation blocks the view for the rest of the strip. It looks all right, a little chopped up from the wind, but there’s swell about.
‘Eeeeurgh!’ screeches Danny.
‘I can’t make that noise.’
‘Go on.’
‘No, seriously, I can’t. Ooooooh!’
‘That doesn’t sound very good. Eeeeeurgh! What’ll I have to do tonight?’
‘Emilio will probably put you on bussing.’
‘Bussing?’
‘You’ve got to go around cleaning up the tables and bringing the stuff into Roger.’
‘Roger?’
‘He’s the dish pig. He’s an alcoholic and he doesn’t talk much.’
‘Alcoholic?’
‘You repeat just about everything, do you know that?’
‘Everything?’
I laugh, feeling light. ‘Hey, want to go the back way into Manly and check the surf? What do you reckon?’
‘Eeeeurgh!’
We’re halfway down Kangaroo Lane when Danny remembers he didn’t lock his door, so I send him back to do it. The sun’s dropped behind the top of the rock face and even though there’s still plenty of light around, and the air’s warm, it feels like summer’s on the way out. I watch Danny jogging back to me, slightly pigeon-toed and scuffing his feet. He’s wearing my chef’s whites, but he hasn’t done the buttons up and the two sides are flapping out behind him like wings. I start walking backwards as he draws near and as I do I notice the cream Kingswood parked on my left. Marty’s car. I feel my heart lurch. Marty’s in the passenger seat, his head tilted back.
‘Where are you going?’ Danny says too loudly, and I tell him to shush.
I peer in through the window. I’ve got this horrible feeling that Marty’s dead, overdosed or something. But he’s asleep, mouth open, snoring. He’s in his work clothes, his white shirt unbuttoned and crumpled. Underneath it is the same T-shirt he was wearing the night he took me down to Harbord. When he wakes up he’ll be bleary-eyed, and he will have been like that before he went to sleep, too.
Danny pushes past me and peers in through the window. ‘Do you reckon he lives in his car?’
‘He might now. I don’t know.’ I overheard Marty telling Emilio the other night that he’d had a fight with his brother. Got kicked out, eh? Uptight bastard. He was on day shift today, so he won’t be working tonight.
Since that night at Harbord, Marty has avoided me and I’ve avoided him. The couple of times we’ve passed at work, he’s said, How’s it goin’, Carly? and his eyes have looked right through me, in the same way he looks through Kylie. At first I was worried he might tell. The thought of Georgina and Golden-Staph Adam knowing that Marty nearly had me on a beach made me panic.
But I didn’t have to worry. Marty’s just blanked it out and he’s blanked me out. It’s this game I don’t know how to play: the how-not-to-feel-anything game. It’s not as though I still like him or anything, that’s all gone. There’s no mystery left, and the thought of him touching me again makes me cringe. I think he feels the same way. I’m sure he does. I didn’t help him and he didn’t help me. All that failure.
‘Who is he?’ Danny asks, staring through the back window at the pile of clothes and boots on the back seat.
‘Never mind. Let’s go.’
I’m silent the rest of the way to work. Marty’s crashing. He’s not crashing the way I want to – he’s just closed his eyes and let go. Not seeing, not feeling, not caring. And seeing him like that hurts; puts little paper cuts in my heart. Because what I feel for him is not the same as I feel for the others: a sudden surge of hatred that washes over me like a red wave.
My throat gets tight and I take an enormous breath, stealing a glance at Danny. His hands are talking to each other and he’s looking at people on the Corso with open-faced interest. How can he just trust me like he does? He doesn’t even know me. Doesn’t he know that you’ve got to be careful with people?
I think of Ryan, his pale, freckled skin and rain-coloured eyes, but I’m only tracing the perimeters of him. I’m not sure what’s inside. It’s dangerous. Thrilling, but dangerous.
Danny wanders into the kitchen and stands behind Roger, holding a load of dirty crockery.
‘Where do you want this?’ he asks.
Roger grunts. Danny hesitates for a second then deciphers it to mean on the floor. Then he comes over and collapses onto the bench beside me.
‘Hey, Danny? When you’re behind people, you say “Behind” so that they know you’re there. So they don’t step back into you and make you drop what you’re carrying.’
‘Behind?’
‘Yeah.’
His face scrunches up in a giggle and he points to Roger’s bum crack, visible between the sag of his trousers and his apron ties. ‘Behind?’
Emilio dings the bell and looks through the window at us. ‘Danny, you can take a break now.’
Danny pulls his cap off and his thick black hair reasserts itself.
‘You get fifteen minutes,’ I tell him. ‘Go outside, take a walk around.’
‘Nah.’ He pauses. ‘Can I take my break when you take yours?’
‘No, sorry. I don’t usually take one.’
‘How come?’
‘Too much to do.’
‘Huh.’ He pokes one of the eggs poaching in the pan on the back hob.
‘You right there, bacteria fingers?’ I don’t really mind though. There are major differences between Golden-Staph Adam and Danny.
He pokes it again. ‘How come so many people eat breakfast at night-time?’
‘They’re all back to front. Do you want something to eat? I’ll make it for you.’
‘No.’
‘Just stand back for a sec.’ I pull a pan of mushrooms off the heat.
Danny sways backwards and slumps against the pass, holding onto it as though he’s too weak to support his own body weight.
I plate up: toast, eggs, mushrooms and a handful of snow pea sprouts over the top to get stuck in people’s teeth.
‘I’ll take it,’ he says.
‘But you’re on break.’
He shrugs. ‘So.’
I check the docket. ‘Number twenty-two. Thank you.’
There’s a lull in orders then so I mix up a batch of pancakes. We pre-cook them and microwave them on demand.
Danny comes back in and spies the jars of cinnamon and ginger on the prep shelf. ‘Hey! These are the colour of Lara.’
‘Who? Oh, that girl you like.’
‘Yeah, these browns are good. They’re spot on.’ He says it with the intensity of a mad scientist.
I start making walnut butter – it goes with the pancakes.
‘Can I do stuff?’ he asks.
So I let him chop the walnuts, showing him how to use the knife so he doesn’t cut his fingers off. If it was anyone else, I’d be impatient and get rid of them. Emilio passes through and sees Danny helping me, but doesn’t comment. Roger doesn’t seem to care either, because he goes out and does the bussing run himself.
Danny finishes chopping, leaving the knife with its handle hanging off the bench. I pick it up and place it so that its blade is wedged under the top right-hand corner of the chopping board.
He looks at me.
‘Just to be safe,’ I say. ‘If it’s put up there, it can’t go anywhere.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Um, if the handle’s sticking out you might knock it off the bench by accident and go to catch it without thinking. It’s just a habit to get into.’
‘Yowser.’ He stares at the knife with wide eyes, obviously imagining this scenario, which makes me grin. When he looks back at me I can see this tip on knife safety has somehow earned his respect.
‘What next? No, I know.’ He runs his finger down the prep list up above the bench. ‘Muffins.’
‘Okay, get one of those bowls out.’
I show him how to use the scales, setting Tare to reflect the weight of the bowl. He measures out the dry ingredients, standing on his tiptoes. I mix the wet ingredients together in a plastic jug. When he’s done, I tip them in and hand him a spoon.
‘Danny, do you know a guy in the surf called Ryan?’
‘Rhino?’ He’s focused on mixing, eyes squinted in concentration.
‘Yeah. What’s he like?’
‘Why? You got the hots for him?’
‘No. Hey, that’s enough, don’t mix it too much.’
He lines a tray with muffin cake pap
ers. ‘He’s mates with that psycho, Shane. Rhino’s hardcore.’
‘Because he’s friends with Shane?’
‘No, because he’s been to jail. He just got out.’
I feel winded. It’s a while before I can ask, ‘Do you know why?’
‘Nuh.’
‘So he’s dodgy?’
‘No, Rhino’s okay. He’s talked to me a couple of times and he’s always been all right. Shane’s the dickhead.’
‘I think he’s asked me out.’
‘Shane?’
‘No, Ryan.’
‘He’s a good surfer. Old school, but good.’ He’s engrossed in spooning out the muffin mix.
‘I just wondered if you get anything from him.’
‘Like colours?’
‘Yeah.’
A slow smile breaks across his face and he looks up at me. ‘Oooh, wouldn’t you like to know?’
I go red. ‘Tell me.’
‘Carly wants to know about Ryan. Lurr-vers.’
‘Thanks, Danny. You’ve been really helpful.’
‘You’re welcome.’
I take a load of stuff over to Roger. When I come back, Danny’s started on the second tray. I stand there for a bit, but then I can’t help myself.
‘So what do you think about it?’ I ask.
‘About what?’
‘About him asking me out.’
He shrugs. ‘I think it’s good.’
Driving home, Danny’s got his feet up on the dashboard again and he’s singing along with the radio – Beyoncé, ‘Crazy in Love’. He falls silent when we get to Long Reef and by the time we reach Collaroy his head’s lolling sideways, heavy with sleep.
I drive ten kilometres under the speed limit the whole way. I drive like that because Danny’s in the car and he’s unbelievably precious and I’m terrified I’ll have an accident or something, which is different to thinking I’m going to crash. I’m on the lookout for careless drivers, drunken pedestrians. By the time we get to his place and I wake him up I’m tired from the stress of it.
I’m almost home when I realise that I feel clean. I feel good.
I don’t know about the Ryan stuff. I just don’t know. If I think back to the car park, I remember how concerned he looked when I was going to be sick.