by Kirsty Eagar
I cut the line and dial his number. There is silence, then a clicking noise, and finally the line connects. As his mobile starts to ring and I wait for him to answer, I lean back against the wall, looking up at the black night sky.
It’d be a perfect night for smoking. The air is cold and still and the smoke clouds from a cigarette would hang around for a while like ghosts, before going straight up.
But just breathing is enough.
acknowledgements
Thank you, Jason, for everything the whole way. I am hugely grateful to my agent Selwa Anthony (and Brian, Linda and Selena), my publisher Laura Harris and my editor Amy Thomas, and my wholehearted thanks go to Tony Palmer and the team at Penguin. Advice and encouragement from Kennedy Estephan and Peter Lancett helped me immensely while writing this book. I would also like to thank the Children’s Book Council of Australia (New South Wales) for their generous support. Rohan Nott filled me in on the details of mining life, and Dr Anina Rich of the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, generously provided me with background information on synaesthesia – any errors, in interpretation or otherwise, are mine alone. For years of listening, thank you Dixie Creaghe and Jeanette Eagar. And for seeing the wave, thanks to Geoff and Pam Nott. My thanks also go to Sue Booker, Julie Chevalier, Heather Christie, Derek Smith and George Mallory, who were there at the beginning.
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
RAW BLUE
1: him
2: 88888888
3: Outside
4: honey-warm light
5: sugar
6: Six purple fish
7: a Wafer moon.
8: Saturday night
9: Surf porn
10: bitter stings
11: Collision
12: Closer
13: die and lay down
14: not yet
15: Salsa
16: it’s not easy sometimes
17: blue people
18: the brazilians
19: friday’s bubble
20: Sex
21: the tasman sea swell
22: turtlebacks at dee why
23: toxic shock
24: the lagoon
25: going for an early
26: deeper
27: her
28: trust
29: Shadows
30: after
31: the trouble with you
32: laying down
33: flammable
34: easter
35: every right
36: the glitter skin,
acknowledgements