A good fifteen minutes must have passed, as we stood at the edge looking down, which had become our pre-jump routine. Down at the pool, Karin had recovered and was sitting on a rock with Jim looking up at us. Nobody had spoken for a while. Jim had stopped his attempts to dissuade us from jumping; even Karin, as soon as she regained the power of speech, shouted to us that we would feel better once we jumped, but not to hesitate for a second once on the rope. Scotty stood leaning against the last tree before the slope, while Andrea and I stood together staring at the stillness of the inviting pool. We watched Karin running her hands over her legs – even from where we were, the red streaks were visible. Jim spoke to her and touched his chest; they seemed to be comparing injuries. I was still stunned by Karin’s feat of bravery in comparison with my own cowardice. Still, I hadn’t officially taken my place at the rope so wouldn’t be judged yet. So, she had shown some kind of strength or spontaneity I didn’t know she had, but surely there was no way that Andrea would be able to jump. Or had I read everybody wrongly, and was I full of shit, not as tough as I thought I was?
Andrea edged forward. ‘This is so fucking dumb but I’m gonna do it.’ She stared intently into the pool.
‘Oh fuck,’ said Scotty, running his hands through his hair.
‘You sure? I mean, I think I’m going to go.’ The truth was, I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t let Andrea go before me, so I moved towards the rope tentatively.
‘OK, sure? You go before me, then, let’s get this stupid thing over with.’ Andrea’s words just made me panic and doubt myself even more.
‘OK.’ I leant down to grab the rope, Scotty moving to the side so I could use the tree. I did the foot thing against it. I felt as though I was going to throw up.
‘Hey, Scotty, did you feel sick when you went to do this?’
‘Yeah, mate, and thought I was going to shit myself as well.’
‘Then you would have had to jump in the water.’
Andrea laughed, which meant she was so much more relaxed than me. Jim and Karin watched me, silently. I was committed now, I was holding the rope. I could stand as long as I wanted but I couldn’t go back, it would just look so bad. I wasn’t sure if they felt as strongly about it as me or if this was all in my head, but the jump seemed to be a necessity to all of us, otherwise we wouldn’t still be standing here. I didn’t understand why I was so hesitant, so shit scared. I was strong and physically very confident. Andrea and Karin wouldn’t even pull themselves up onto the roof of the car and let their feet dangle through the sunroof like Scotty and I had. I hated it that I was grouping myself together with Scotty. I had always seen myself as being more with Jim: strong, hard, wise, with a heavy, heavy past. I watched him down on the rock examining Karin’s red legs and wondered if he felt shocked at my cowardice.
I urged myself to swing forward, I visualised myself going for it, it was so near, just a push-off. I was a strong swimmer and, in addition to that, would learn from Karin’s belly flop. Yet none of these things would help me let go of the ground beneath me. It was the most out-of-character experience I had ever encountered.
I withdrew, letting go of the rope, watching it swing back empty to the middle.
‘Fuck. FUCK!’ I squatted down, holding my face in my hands. What had this turned into, what were we doing? Why did no one stop it? ‘What do you think?’ I asked Andrea. Suddenly, her opinion was of importance to me.
‘I dunno.’ She leant into the rope, hooking her foot under the root protruding from the dirt that I’d used earlier in order to anchor herself. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. ‘Maybe I’ll understand when I’ve done it.’ Then she swung off, leaving me with Scotty. Her drop was the best so far. She even whooped as she swung. Her arms tight by her side just before she entered the water. She surfaced completely unscathed to a round of applause that Scotty and I reluctantly joined in.
‘Right, that’s fucking it!’ he said, taking his hand off his balls and grabbing the rope while it was still swinging. This time he let himself move a little further down the bank than before, maybe just one foot or so, and for a second he looked a dead cert to do it, but bottled out again, losing his balance and landing backwards on the slope, his hands and feet desperately scrabbling for anything to hold onto. He lay on his back, his arms out behind him, screaming upwards.
‘FFFFFUUUUCCCK!’
‘COME ON, SCOTTY, MATE, YOU CAN DO IT!’ shouted Jim, now joined on the rock by two jubilant Danes.
‘GO ON, IT’S FUCKING FANTASTIC. YOU’LL LOVE IT! JUST CLEAR THE ROCKS, GO ON!’ Andrea had become one of them.
There were more of them than us now. We were a duo, a duo of no-jumpers. No-takers. No-can-doers. I helped Scotty back up, holding onto the tree and pulling him with my left hand.
‘Oh mate, we’re fucked,’ he said, exhausted at his own hopelessness. I hated it that he automatically put me with him now, even though I had too as soon as Andrea let go. I worried that my inability to jump would lose me some of the respect I had gained as the best seller. I wanted to ask Scotty what he thought but was afraid he’d say more ‘we’ things. I decided to zone Scotty out and concentrate on my own jump. I stood at the edge again. Scotty spoke to me, but I wasn’t listening. Instead I looked down. Down at the three of them, and longed to get it over with so I could join them, and feel free from this ridiculous burden of our own making.
I was so cold. We had no way of telling how long we’d been up there, or how long I stood at the edge poised, inches away from the rope. My teeth were chattering too now. It was a hot afternoon, and although the trees offered some shade from a vicious sun, it was by no means cool. I think maybe forty-five minutes had passed since Andrea jumped, but since then Jim had gone back in the water a few times, as had Karin. Andrea lay flat out on a rock sunbathing, looking up at us, and using her hand as a peak on her forehead to shield from the sun. Scotty had had another two goes of trying to go for the rope, but didn’t even progress to holding onto it. I had held the rope once, and felt another wave upon me, a surge of adrenalin. I clenched down on my jaw, desperate for any part of my being that was a fighter, a survivor, to kick in and say fuck it, I’m afraid of nothing. I felt it rise up, I moved onto the balls of my feet and started breathing rapidly and loudly. Scotty said nothing, Jim shouted once more.
‘GO ON, YOU CAN DO IT, COME ON, KERRY!’
‘GO FOR IT!’ shouted Karin.
I could feel me doing it, feel that jumping onto the rope was the hardest part; the landing would be easy for me, I loved water. I got diving and swimming badges when I was a kid, I had no fear with water. It was clearing the rocks. I started to get burning cramps in my lower stomach. Then a bubbling, gurgling feeling in my arse. That’s when I shat myself. I could feel it filling my swimming costume. I wanted to cry. May as well go the whole hog, I thought, and cry my eyes out like a fucking baby. I knew it was over.
‘GUYS!’ Jim shouted. We didn’t react. Scotty was staring at me, like he knew about the shitting.
‘GUYS!’ Jim waved his arms around. ‘THERE’S GOT TO BE A POINT WHERE YOU CALL IT A DAY.’
He was right, and I think we had reached it. ‘IT DOESN’T MATTER. COME ON.’
‘Scotty?’ I squatted down on the ground, not wanting to sit, wishing I was alone so I could empty out completely.
‘Come on, mate, let’s fuckin’ forget this pile of shite.’ He helped me up, but I shrugged him off, not wanting him to get too near in case he could smell me.
‘You’ve lost all your colour, mate, pure white,’ he said. I felt exasperated and could only manage a nod.
We walked away, dumbfounded at our failing.
When we got down, we joined the others in the pool. I was keen to dive in straight away and wash off without anyone finding out. Jim and the Danes splashed around. They seemed to me to be unburdened, unlike me, who felt extreme self-loathing and deep regret. I was shocked at my failure, but even more shocked at Karin and Andrea’s success. I wondered how long these point
less feelings would last, and wondered if Scotty felt the same. I watched him lying on his back floating around, using his hands to change direction while he stared up at the jump. It looked so easy from where we were now, and the rocks looked entirely manageable.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
* * *
‘MR WHITE LEFT you a message. Hang on a second, I’ll get it for you.’ The line played country music.
I had to wait half an hour after leaving the waterhole to find a pay phone, as we didn’t drive past the garage on the main road.
‘Hi there.’
‘Hello.’
‘Yes, he said he waited as long as he could but had to leave earlier to go to do something at a radio station, and that he would catch up with you in Brisbane, and not to worry.’
‘That’s all. He didn’t say anything else?’
‘No, that’s all, that’s it. Would you like to leave him a message?’
‘Yes, I would, thanks.’
‘Go ahead, please.’
‘Tell him that Madeline Thomson is my mother, and that’s who I’m looking for.’
‘Madeline. Thomson.’
It felt so odd telling the receptionist this, and I almost detected some pity in his voice.
‘Is that everything?’
I laughed ironically through my nose. ‘Yes, that’s all, thanks.’
We arrived in Port Macquarie around eight. Jim and the Danish complained that they were starving.
‘Steak and chips and an ice-cold beer,’ said Jim, stretching. ‘What about you two?’
He turned around; Scotty and I were now sharing the back seat, where we’d slept most of the way, while the Danes rode up front in the big old-fashioned one seat.
‘Are we staying here?’ asked Karin.
Jim shook his head, mid-yawn. ‘Think we should go further up, nearer the coast. There’s a campsite and a hostel right on the beach, in a little place called Macksville.’
‘Macksville?’ I said. ‘This gets weirder.’
‘How come?’ asked Jim.
‘Just the names, people I know.’
‘So do you know anyone called Port or Macquarie?’
‘Yeah, very funny.’
‘We’re near Kempsey, aren’t we?’ asked Scotty, who hadn’t tried to be funny for a record three hours.
‘Yes, hang on.’ Jim reached for the map, which he kept folded behind the driver’s seat visor, and put the light on.
‘Kempsey’s just a few Ks up the way. Why? Do you think we should stay there?’
‘No, it’s the longboard capital, mate, that’s all, just sayin’.’ Scotty couldn’t muster a smile.
‘Hey, look at this.’
We all leant in.
‘Scotty’s Head, look at this!’ Jim pointed and passed the map around.
A little further up the coast from Kempsey, just before Macksville, was a stretch of beach called Scotty’s Head. We all started laughing.
‘Told you there’s a names thing going on,’ I said.
‘Scotty’s Head! Tell you what, that’s surely a place to avoid.’ Jim roared with laughter.
‘Yeah, you don’t want to go there, mate, trust me, I have to live there, and it’s not fucking easy.’ Scotty was easing back on form, I was glad to see.
‘I’ve heard there’s not much going on there at all,’ said Jim, all smug.
‘Too much goin’ on, mate, too much.’
‘Oh my God!’ screamed Andrea, like her lotto number just came up.
‘What?’ Karin grabbed the map from her because she was laughing so hard and talking Danish. Karin examined the part she’d been pointing to, and became infected herself.
‘You’re not gonna believe this, but right next to Scotty’s Head is another place, guess what – GRASSY HEAD!’ They both said the last bit together.
The whole car burst out laughing, even Scotty.
‘Looks like they named the whole flaming place after you and your hobbies, mate,’ said Jim, drying his eyes.
‘Grassy fuckin’ Head, that’ll be fuckin’ right.’ Scotty shook his head, and lapped up the attention.
Scotty and I felt increasingly bitter about the waterhole. As the evening progressed, the whole incident was starting to have some kind of negative effect on our personalities. I felt resentment towards the others for their ability to jump, and I knew Scotty did too. It was none of their fault, of course, and although the laugh in the car was good fun, I could sense that we were both beginning to separate ourselves from them. The three of them had initially attempted to console us, but it didn’t take away any of my darkness. Plus they didn’t really understand how badly it was affecting us. Why should they? They were normal, and this was our losers’ shit. The rot was well and truly setting in for us both now, and bringing out our demons. So we stuck together after that afternoon, and it started to become very much an us-and-them situation.
Jim and the Danes ordered schooners and steak and chips from a small restaurant down by the boats in Port Macquarie. Scotty and I found a pool table in a bar next door and made do with a packet of chips. We started slamming tequilas and drinking Coronas, a bland, thin beer I had only sampled since being in Australia, and although the bottle was attractively designed, it didn’t exactly hit the spot, unlike the cheap European beers I had always enjoyed since I started drinking. We talked about beer brands as we shot some balls, and agreed Foster’s was the best Australian beer, but I still stood my ground with Carlsberg, which was in my opinion the best lager in the world. I enjoyed the lightness of our conversation, and felt a little more brought out of myself than in the car.
We hadn’t spoken much about the waterhole since first leaving it, except for begging Jim to drive us back, because we were both sure that given the chance to face it again, we would have been able to jump. Jim had refused to turn round, instead appeasing us with a ‘perhaps on the way back’. What we hadn’t really talked about was how bad and disappointed with ourselves it had made us feel, and I certainly hadn’t told Scotty, or anyone, that I’d actually physically shat myself while up there.
Scotty was the first to mention the jump.
‘Fuckin’ bummer, eh?’ he said, then gulped some beer and burped.
‘Stupid, isn’t it, Scotty? That we’re so fucked up about it. I hate that about myself, you know? I get so fucked up over things. Fuuck.’ I felt a bit man-to-man with Scotty, half expressing what we wanted to say, with our beers.
‘Nah, mate. Natural to be pissed off.’
We began talking about our lives, now that we were temporarily inseparable. I wanted to know more about my new best friend.
‘What are your folks like?’ I asked, knowing nothing about him, other than the fact he lived with his mother.
‘My old dear, she’s cool. Love her to bits,’ he said, putting another fifty in the slot in the pool table.
‘What about your dad, do you get on with him?’ I leant over the table watching him set up.
‘My old man. Nuh, don’t wanna go there, mate, fuckin’ prick,’ he said, slamming into the break. I didn’t push him on it. I let him have a couple of gulps and just play the game with me, and then he opened up some more.
‘My old man is a fuckin’ turnkey.’ Scotty spoke in hard street-life talk, without ever having lived it, I knew that. However, it was his way of disowning his parents, and I couldn’t blame him for that.
‘Yep, prison officer all his life, tough as fuck, I’m telling you.’
There were no big surprises, really, as I learnt more details of his life and childhood. He was the eldest of four and his parents were strict Catholics. Scotty had been an altar boy for a while, which we both had a good laugh at and a toast to. His dad was a massive drinker and had beat his mother all the time Scotty was growing up; his mum was a total victim. The story went on, down the usual depressing path, leading to how Scotty came to be Scotty. Except he didn’t refer to anything as being depressing, and did all that ‘You make what you can in this life’
and ‘You gotta laugh’ bullshit, and drank onwards and upwards, but I could see him for what he was. He was sad already at a young age for what had happened, and fearful of what lay ahead, with no conception of how to run things. Exactly like me.
I thought again about my reliance on fate as a life plan, which wasn’t really a plan, but something desperate to hold onto, and felt that in moments of truth, it was wearing rather thin.
After a while, the others joined us for doubles, but we were way too pissed to be on the same level as them. Jim told some funny stories but I couldn’t stay with the plot. I could see the Danes laughing but didn’t understand why. Jim said it was a beautiful sunset and that we should go drink some wine or beers on the beach. Scotty and I were reluctant at first, seeing no draw in the outdoors at that particular time, and we both agreed about the need to be around music. Andrea persuaded Scotty otherwise, and I just went along with it, so we ended up on the beach, making a fire and drinking a couple of cheap boxes of red wine with the plastic tap at the bottom, until way after midnight. I went back from the shore towards the trees to have a pee and decided not to come back for ages. Something had clicked the wrong way inside my head with the drink, and I became convinced that I was separate from all of them and had to get away. I became highly suspicious of them, and thought they thought I was an idiot. I lay on the sand, flat out on my stomach in the dark, watching them at the fire. I lay still like a soldier on a night mission. I waited until they started talking about me, and enjoyed viewing their concern and frantic search along the beach for me, when I failed to return. I lay in the sand, and laughed and muttered to myself that they would never understand things, no matter how much they tried.
Later they found me when Jim combed my area, and I was too slow to slither away back into the trees. He gave me a talk about self-pity, which I took for the time being. Then my shrunken goldfish brain forgot everything and Scotty and I started taking the piss out of modern dance, and began entertaining everyone by throwing each other around. We all went back to the campsite, where I unfortunately phoned the nursing home and told the nurse to fuck off. Then I called my mother and hung up when she answered. Scotty and I shared a van, as the others wanted some peace and quiet from our hysteria. We listened to the best music we could find on the radio, which was a Doors’ retrospective. Then Scotty did a crazy thing by getting out a bottle of whiskey from his bag, which he said he was keeping for the last night. It was Bushmills, and we drank it and went to bed well after the sun was up, and normal people were beginning their happy campers’ day.
The Naked Drinking Club Page 22