The Naked Drinking Club

by Rhona Cameron

  After a while we wandered around the actual site itself. Jim told us it was sacred and belonged to the Aborigines, and that the film Picnic At Hanging Rock was based on a novel. I berated myself for not keeping up the notebook entries that I had been writing quite frequently when I first arrived in Sydney. I had only written a couple of pages in the last month, and it was unreadable because I’d been drunk at the time.

  I looked at my watch; it was only a couple of hours before I would speak to Hank. I was tired and my eyes were stinging from not enough sleep. I was keen to get back to the Kingswood and get my head down until five.

  Soon after Hanging Rock, we stopped for gas. Jim spoke to the owner about routes and laid out the map on the car roof. The rest of us used the toilets and bought some gum. In the shop, I got talking to the lady behind the counter. She asked us where we were heading.

  ‘The Gold Coast. Brisbane,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll be passing Glenairdane Creek, then?’ She smiled, her sunbeaten face all lined and scrunched up. I shrugged. ‘You have to be – you heading back to the coast road?’

  ‘Yeah, think so, think we’re going to Port Macquarie.’ I thought about trying to sell to her, which would have been so impressive in the circumstances, but I was so hot and without a beer I didn’t feel geared up enough. It was an after-dark thing with me, definitely. I had sold in the afternoons but in the evenings the art had really shifted.

  ‘Listen, when you head off to the coast road, at the end there, there’s a sign for Glenairdane Creek. You have to tell your friends to go there, everybody does that passes through, it’s beautiful.’

  ‘What, like a place to swim?’

  ‘It’s a natural waterhole. All the kids go there in the holidays, it’s a part of growing up here. Some people jump in from high up, the stupid ones, but you’ll be all right there.’

  ‘There’s no crocodiles?’ I asked.

  She laughed and wheezed and went into a splutter. ‘Oh dear, excuse me. No, there’s no bloody crocs. There’s a waterfall nearby, the water’s fresh, don’t worry. Oh dear, you pommies make me laugh with your croc thing. Is that what they warn you about here, is it?’

  I politely laughed, though saw nothing odd about my concern. Back in the car, I told the others about the conversation. Scotty laughed as much as she did. After he stopped laughing he said, ‘Yeah, fuck it, got me togs with me. What about you guys?’

  ‘How about you?’ I asked the Danish, expecting them not to want to get their hair messed up or something.

  ‘Sounds cool,’ said Karin.

  ‘Oh yeah, I’m in,’ followed Andrea, who pretty much always did anything Karin did.

  Only a couple of kilometres up the road we reached a small wooden sign with a hand-painted ‘Glenairdane – 1km’ on it. We went off the road, the old Kingswood creaking under the strain of five people, a bootful of luggage and a roof rack with piles of paintings bound together by orange polyethylene and bungee ropes.

  ‘Fuckin’ tank, this old beauty,’ Jim said, as he hit the accelerator and the car skidded off, shifting clouds of dust behind us. The Danish shut the windows coughing, while Scotty and I squeezed up together through the sunroof, cheering and urging Jim to put his foot down even more.

  When we reached the end of the track there were some bikes piled against a tree, but no other vehicles. We opened up the boot and got out our bags, pulling out various items of swimwear, except for Scotty who said he was always prepared. There was no obvious place of water nearby. Jim told us all to be quiet and still in order to listen for it. A sound of gushing came from behind the trees, slightly downhill from the bikes. We each went behind the car and changed and set off in the direction of the sound.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  * * *

  THE WATERHOLE WAS like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was like a film set. It didn’t look real. It lay in a clearing, through a thicket of trees; the soil was dry and crumbly. Massive rocks surrounded the water, which lay perfectly circle-shaped but not as big as I had imagined. At the other side was a small waterfall, the water running down from the hill and trees. A dark rough-looking man sat on a rock, watching a kid I took to be his son standing high up in the trees above some rocks, on a jagged ledge that jutted out, holding onto a Tarzan rope and looking down into the pool.

  ‘G’day,’ said the man.

  We all said g’day back except the Danish, who said hi there.

  ‘Is he going to jump off, do you think?’ asked Jim.

  ‘Dunno. He’s tryin’, though,’ said the man, not taking his eyes off the boy.

  I thought back to a time when I loved my father, when I was very little and he’d take me to the swimming baths and watch me swim. I loved him watching me play and show off. It felt like a very long time since my father had really watched me out of love.

  Nobody jumped in, not wanting to put the kid off.

  ‘How long has he been standing there?’ I asked, sitting on the rock next to the man.

  ‘Dunno. About half an hour, I reckon. He’ll do it.’

  Scotty made a funny face at me after the guy spoke.

  ‘GO ON, MATE!’ Scotty shouted up through cupped hands.

  ‘How did he get up there?’ I asked, seeing no way of climbing up over the rocks.

  ‘You get up round the back of these trees, there’s a path up there.’ The man pointed to no particular landmark.

  ‘JUST CLEAR THE ROCKS, MATE, YOU’LL BE RIGHT!’

  The boy swung forward and we all gasped except for the man. The drop itself was enough to scare anyone, but what made it really treacherous were the rocks beneath it; they had to be cleared before letting go of the rope and jumping in. He swung back, managing to grab hold of the tree and scramble back up to the top again.

  ‘Phew, he was lucky,’ said Jim, sitting next to the guy in an identical position to him, pulling his knees up to his chin with his arms round them.

  ‘Yeah, he’s got to clear the rocks. He’ll have to do it this time.’ The man was completely unfazed by any potential danger. The boy went back to his original push-off position and waited again.

  ‘You from round here?’ asked Jim, trying to obtain even more geographical information, no doubt.

  ‘Yeah, couple of Ks that way.’ He moved his head to the left.

  ‘How old’s the boy?’

  ‘He’s ten today.’

  ‘Ten? Whoa.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s kind of a tradition round here, the waterhole, like.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I did it when I was a kid as well. You get to an age, usually elevenish, and you come here with your mates and try and jump off and not flamin’ kill yourself.’

  ‘God, aren’t you worried for him?’

  ‘Naw, he’ll be right. Everybody does it, eh.’

  ‘Is it like a coming-of-age sort of thing?’

  I was embarrassed by Jim’s question; he had to turn everything into a lesson or an interview where he could acquire information.

  ‘Could say that, I suppose.’ The man quite rightly laughed a little.

  ‘Anyone ever been killed here?’ Andrea asked, like a dumb tourist fuck.

  ‘Yeah, long time ago. Wasn’t even a kid, just some guy did it full of grog.’ The man never took his eyes off the boy for a second.

  ‘What is grog?’ asked Karin.

  ‘Aussie for drink,’ I said, beating anyone else to it.

  ‘Kids are fearless, though,’ said Jim.

  ‘Yeah, or stupid,’ said the man.

  The boy let out a scream, pushed off the ledge, his legs dangling, and jumped clear of the rocks straight down into the water. We all applauded him, but the father remained motionless except for a slight smile when the boy surfaced.

  ‘You all right, mate?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the boy, coming out of the water with new red streaks down the front of his legs.

  ‘Stung your legs a bit?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  T
he boy dried off and put on some trainers. His father made a roll-up and bid us farewell. Jim pushed Karin in the water first, then the four of us dived in.

  We swam about, ducking under the water for long periods of time, finding each other’s legs and grabbing them, or trying to pull down each other’s swimming bottoms. Me, Scotty and Jim pulled ourselves out and dived in again a couple of times, then we all trod the water in a circle, or floated. After a while, once we calmed down, we were quiet. We looked up to the rope above the ledge. I knew we were going to have to go for it, and so did everyone else.

  ‘Come on. We gotta, eh?’ said Scotty first.

  ‘Absolutely, we’d only kick ourselves if we didn’t,’ I said, splashing the water with my fist.

  Jim said, ‘Hey, listen, I don’t feel any big need to do anything like that, all right? One of the great things about being older is not having to prove things to people.’

  I was hoping Scotty wouldn’t push Jim on this, but of course he did.

  ‘So is that your way of telling us that you’re a pussy, mate?’

  ‘Hey, less of that, you,’ said Karin, splashing him, jumping to Jim’s defence. Jim laughed it off.

  ‘Come on, we can all do it, we have to, come on.’ I tried to avoid any arguments starting.

  ‘What do you say, Andrea?’ asked Scotty, continuing his now rather obvious pursuit of her.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not liking the rocks, they look dangerous.’

  The rocks didn’t look too bad from where we were standing; besides, I was indestructible so far. I never got hurt despite the state I would get myself into. I’d never been attacked or in a bad accident. These things only happened to people least expecting it. I’d wandered through dangerous areas at night alone, got into cars with strangers for a ride home, then ended up drinking with them, or let people I’d only just met come back to wherever I was staying and had sex with them. I drank a full bottle of rum once and took lots of pills from the junkie that used to live across the landing from me, and slept it off in my bed for two days, without a front door, because the fire brigade had knocked it down when a neighbour found me sitting on the window ledge shouting down that I was going to jump off. Nothing ever happened; someone was watching over me. I felt it was safe to take risks. It’s people who love their lives who are most at risk.

  I felt all this as we climbed the hill to the rope.

  When we first got up there, without even pausing, without edging forward to check out the drop, Jim walked straight to the rope and swung off, plunging into the water. He made an enormous splash, much bigger than the boy. When he came up, which seemed like ages, he made lots of noise, cheering and laughing.

  ‘HURTS YOUR BLOODY CHEST! BETTER WATCH OUT, GIRLS! FFFUUCKK!’ He swept his hair back off his face, blew out his nose into his hand and generally made a big song and dance. You had to admire the big fellow though, he was harder than the rest of us. Then I looked at the Danes and Scotty, and thought that they didn’t take much beating.

  After Jim’s jump, the rest of us edged forward to look at the rocks. They looked treacherous now that we were on top of them. The drop appeared much further than from down in the pool, maybe some fifty feet or even more, and the pool looked tiny and narrow. The rocks formed a craggy ledge that seemed as long as a diving board, and could only be cleared when in full mid-swing, otherwise you would fall back and bang into them, doing some serious damage. Once out on the rope, if you missed the opportunity to drop at the right time, you couldn’t expect to let go later because the rocky ledge would be jutting out beneath you.

  ‘HA HA! YOU’VE BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELVES, YOU LOT!’ Jim basked in his own glory.

  He was right, we had brought it on ourselves and we’d look foolish not to complete it. I was still fairly confident, if a little less gung-ho than on the way up. I noticed that Scotty had gone quiet since Jim had jumped, and we began examining the surrounding area. I could feel my heart pumping with adrenalin and my mouth getting dry and thirsty.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked Karin, as the three of us edged forward as far as we could before we started sliding down. We held onto each other slightly. Scotty stood behind, leaning against a tree, his hands down the front of his shorts, shivering slightly, looking like a little boy at the side of a swimming bath.

  ‘I don’t fucking like it, are we crazy?’ Karin muttered.

  I loved it when the Danes let loose a little.

  ‘Why the fuck are we doing it?’ said Andrea.

  We were all charged up now and exhilarated by the danger and anticipation, though I knew there was no way the Danes could do it, not unless Jim held their hands. Even then, it was so unlikely.

  ‘Seriously, be careful, guys!’ called Jim, changing tone and moving to the side of the rocks.

  ‘Scotty, you go next,’ I said.

  But Scotty wasn’t budging.

  ‘Don’t like it, mate, don’t f-u-c-k-i-n-g like it one bit.’

  ‘Hey, you started this, you idiot, you go next,’ commanded Karin, which I quite liked her for.

  I was trying to ignore the nauseous feeling I had growing in the pit of my stomach. Scotty leant forward towards the rope. I could see his feet and toes gripping the earth like claws, turning white as they scraped around for grip. He had also lost all signs of humour as soon as we got a real view of the drop. He was leaning forward, his hands raised about to swing on the rope, and stopping himself from moving any further by pushing his right foot against the bottom of a tree. It hadn’t been possible to notice the additional danger of the rope pulling you forward as soon as you got hold of it, when Jim was standing in the way. But with Scotty, I could get a sense of where the real danger lay. Once you were holding the rope, you were unable to linger on the top of the hill and the safety of flat ground it provided, for it was too much of a stretch to reach, as it was placed far out in order to help with clearing the rocks. That meant you had to jump onto the rope and commit once there. The moment Scotty tried to do this, the Danes and I upped our fear level. He shouted as he leapt off. He swung out to the middle to the point of letting go, and swung back again towards the rocks.

  ‘CUNT!’ he shouted, his leg scraping against the side of them.

  ‘Grab him! Don’t let him swing back!’ I shouted, realising that if he had any chance of being pulled back in with minimal injury, it would have to be on the first swing, before it got smaller. It all happened so quickly. I crouched down holding onto a root in the earth, leant out as far as I could and grabbed his legs, while Andrea grabbed me to secure me to the spot, allowing me to stretch forward as far down the drop as I could. Meanwhile Karin grabbed his shorts, then waist, and he held onto some of the tree and pulled himself up until he was able to let go of the rope. He landed on top of Karin, and we all piled up on the edge, scrambling with our hands for something to grip.

  ‘Are you all right?’ shouted Jim, from below.

  Scotty mustered an ‘OK’, but his leg was bleeding down the shin and his ankle was cut. We all lay panting.

  ‘Right, this is crazy,’ said Karin.

  ‘Yeah, she’s right,’ I said. ‘Go down and wait with Jim.’

  ‘Fuck off, it’s just a little cut.’ He composed himself and started play-acting again, like he’d enjoyed the thrill, but we all knew he was shitting himself.

  ‘Let me look at your cuts,’ said Andrea. She hissed in through her teeth. ‘Looks sore. Is it?’

  ‘It’s a scrape, don’t worry. I’ll fix it up when we go back to the car.’

  ‘Leave him, it’s up to him if he wants to hurt himself,’ said Karin, standing up and picking the twigs and leaves off her arms and legs.

  Scotty was freezing by now, though he denied it, and although it was hot, his teeth were chattering.

  ‘What’s happening? Shall I come up?’ yelled Jim, getting worried; he lifted himself out of the water and began drying himself.

  ‘No, fine, mate, we’ll be down in a minute.’ Scotty made an appearance
over the edge, waving at Jim to let him know he was OK.

  I was starting to feel uncomfortable and, if I was really honest, wanted someone else to suggest we call it a day and go down the way we came up, but nobody did. Not in the next five or even ten minutes. We stood there, each taking turns to peer over as near as we could get to the edge without having to use the tree.

  ‘This is fucking crazy,’ Karin said again, for about the tenth time in the last five minutes.

  ‘I know, so why don’t we go back? Because Jim did it, and we are a group, I suppose. It’s weird, isn’t it?’ I was hoping someone would instigate our descent after my comment.

  ‘Just forget about it, you lot! Come on!’ shouted Jim, waving us down.

  ‘Come on, we’re freaking him out, maybe we should go down,’ I said, expecting the others to agree instantly. They stood silent, looking down, Scotty breathing out short rapid breaths into his cupped hands.

  ‘Nope,’ said Karin after a minute.

  ‘What? You going to do it, then?’ I was startled.

  ‘You’re right about us having to do things that each other does, it’s like being kids,’ said Andrea.

  ‘Karin? You going to jump?’ I asked.

  She ignored me, rubbed her hands and let out a big puffedout cheeks breath, and jumped onto the rope shouting, ‘SSHHHIIIIT!’

  She started to come back a little after passing optimum jumping point and so leant forward slightly almost like she was going to dive off the rope, and let go, falling almost flat onto her front.

  ‘Fuck me!’ said Scotty, as we all rushed to the edge in line to see she was OK. Her splash was much bigger than Jim’s, causing a rippling effect for a while afterwards. Jim dived in immediately. She came to the surface, gasping for breath and wheezing, clearly winded. Jim swam to her and pulled her back to the edge like a lifeguard. We could hear him telling her that she was OK and her breathing would be normal in a bit, and to try to take it slowly.

  ‘YOU OK, KARIN?’ I shouted.

  Andrea shouted something in Danish. Then it hit me. Karin had jumped before me and was much braver than I had thought her to be, which meant I was wrong about her, which meant I would have to jump next, or look and feel like a complete failure.