An Endless Summer

by C. J. Duggan

  My troubled thoughts were jolted by a mobile phone ringing. My heart leapt at the unexpectedness of the sound blaring from Matt’s phone.

  He fetched the mobile out of his shirt pocket. “Yello? Maaaaaaaaate,” he drawled as he disappeared inside the hotel.

  I stepped out from my hiding place in the bushes, feeling suddenly stupid for spying on him, a stranger. Surely there must be a misunderstanding, maybe a family medical emergency, or maybe Dad had negotiated some hour change or something. Not likely, but it’s not like it was something he would have necessarily told me.

  As a thousand thoughts ran through my mind, my gaze lowered onto a smouldering ciggie on the ground near the garden bed. Matt must have flicked it before he answered the phone. The smoking cylinder was in good company with what seemed like a hundred other half-smoked ones. Not a single one of them had actually hit the designated smoke trays provided for smokers. I stomped on the lit smoke and anger pulsed through my veins.

  Oh, hell no!

  I twisted my foot into the earth, trying to contain my fury. Once the ciggie was well and truly obliterated I decided that the time for lurking in the shadows was over and headed towards the open bar door, towards home.

  I was well accustomed to the smell of faint cigarette smoke and stale beer. After all, I had spent the majority of my childhood living here, but the interior was dank, dark, and smelly for other reasons. The small amount of sunlight that filtered through a broken Venetian blind highlighted a stream of unsettled dust particles. They danced before my eyes that strained to adjust to my grim surroundings. I heard a one-sided, muffled conversation from the restaurant bar out back. Matt was rummaging around, still on his phone.

  “Yeah, mate, nah, nah, nah, I told you! It’s sweet.”

  I worked on twisting the lever of the Venetian to let in some sunlight.

  “Can I help you?”

  I turned to smile sweetly and met the wary face of Matt, who pocketed his phone. His beady eyes swept briefly over my face and then slowly lingered on my body with sleazy approval.

  Ew.

  I wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. Instead, I forced my smile even broader.

  He relaxed his stance, leaned his hip against the bar, and crossed his arms.

  “Well, I must say, this is an unexpected start to the day.”

  “A rather late start to the day, isn’t it?” I quipped.

  He looked like he had slept in his clothes, so it probably was his start.

  “Well, whatever it is, it’s a welcome start to the day.” He smiled.

  Ugh! Gross.

  “The name’s Matt.” He held out his hand. “Matt King, but the locals call me Kingy.” He added a wink.

  It took every ounce of my strength to reach out and take his hand. I grasped it as firmly as I could, just like my dad had taught me. Dad always said you could tell a person’s worth by their handshake, and, sure enough, Matt’s shake was clammy and limp. Seemed about right.

  “Amy. Amy Henderson.”

  I watched with great delight as the colour drained from Matt’s face. His smile fell as his handshake turned to dead weight.

  That’s right, dip shit, that Henderson.

  I sighed and looked around with my hands on my hips. “Well, I can’t say I like what you’ve done with the place, but I guess it can be expected to be a bit stuffy. It’s not like it’s used to being closed up for such long hours,” I said, giving Matt an extremely pointed look. “And opened so late in the day. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a bit of TLC, isn’t that right, Kingy?”

  Matt’s mouth gaped, seemingly struggling to string together a coherent sentence.

  I shouldered my bag. “I’m beat. I best drag myself upstairs and unpack.” I flashed another winning smile.

  Matt just nodded, it was like he had seen a ghost, and I guess he kind of had – a ghost of Hendersons past.

  I made a point of pulling open each blind I passed in one violent yank that in return made Matt wince from the bright sunlight. Each tug was like marking my territory; stamping a claim on what was mine. Dusty, dirty, dank, and depressing as it was, there was no taking the Onslow away from me. I headed towards the partition to peel myself through the restaurant to the back staircase.

  “Oh, Matt?” I stilled and turned towards him.

  His troubled, dazed eyes met mine.

  I held my hand out … “Keys?”

  Chapter Four

  Unlocking the door, I kicked it open and dropped my bag inside.

  Urgh. What was that smell? I winced and covered my nose, my eyes threatening to water with the pong that emanated from Dad’s two-bedroom apartment above the pub. The place looked eerie and deserted, as if Dad had literally upped and left for the day and simply not come back. His reading glasses were lying on an open book and the cushions were all skew-whiff on his favourite chair. It had his unmistakable butt indentation in the brushed suede fabric, created from many years of sitting there, kicking back. A stack of newspapers made for a stained side table; cigarette burn marks had singed the carpet; an overflowing ashtray sat at the foot of Dad’s chair; and there was a stack of pizza boxes on the coffee table that could barely be seen under all the paperwork and junk. It was the epitome of a bachelor pad set in the pits of hell; it was as disgusting as a teenage boy’s bedroom … I imagined.

  It would have deeply saddened me that my father had been living like this, if I had allowed the emotion to override my anger.

  Which I didn’t.

  I kicked an empty, crushed soda can across the room and stormed towards the window to open it. I needed fresh air; bile threatened to burn the back of my throat if I took in one more putrid breath. I unclipped the latch on the window and groaned in frustration as the old-style latch window wouldn’t budge.

  “Come on!” I bent my knees and pushed upwards with all my might, but it was no use. I felt all hot and flustered and I had to get out of this space. I stepped to my left and flung aside the heavy red velvet curtains that smelled of cigarettes and second-hand smoke. As I pushed aside the drapes, I revealed a set of grotty French doors that led onto the balcony.

  Oh, please open.

  I turned the lock on the handle and twisted with a silent prayer. A magical click of freedom and the door opened, rewarding me with a burst of fresh, crisp air that rolled in directly off the lake.

  I stepped out and embraced the sun on my face and inhaled a much-needed breath. The balcony creaked and groaned under my feet and I smiled at the familiarity; it was as if the old girl was speaking to me. I clasped the railing and looked out over the lake and the town of Onslow that nestled directly at the bottom of the hill. The hotel was perfectly positioned up here, overlooking Lake Onslow. I was so immersed in nostalgia looking out at the sweeping views that I had almost forgotten the ashtrays, empty beer bottles, and pizza boxes, the smell! Oh, the smell …

  Yeah. I had almost forgotten.

  I was snapped out of my trance by the slamming of a car door and the annoyance of someone whistling. The tune floated up to the balcony, crystal clear and pitch perfect.

  I leaned over the railing and tried to make out who was approaching the hotel from the car park, but I was too late as the footsteps made their way underneath the balcony.

  Curiosity got the better of me. I pushed off the railing to head downstairs to catch a glimpse of who exactly was coming in, but I’d only made it halfway across the landing when I froze. That quaint, familiar creak of the balcony now roared with an unnerving groan, and there was a violent tremor underfoot. My eyes widened and fear spiked through me as I felt the wood underneath give way.

  It all happened so fast: one minute I was up on the balcony admiring the breathtaking views of Onslow; the next thing the floor gave way and, with an almighty scream, I grabbed at everything – anything – and was hanging on for dear life. My fingers hooked with white-knuckled intensity onto the base lip of the French doors, the only thing that kept me from completely falling through the cave op
ening below me that half my body had already fallen through.

  I didn’t want to die. I screamed again in shock, legs flailing, clawing at the lip to keep myself from falling farther.

  “Matt!” I screamed, “Maaaatttt!”

  But it wasn’t Matt’s voice that answered.

  “JESUS CHRIST! KEEP STILL!”

  I couldn’t look down, I couldn’t bring myself to. I could only guess that the mysterious whistler received a nasty surprise when he’d walked under the balcony. He was probably getting an even bigger surprise, considering my T-shirt was caught on a piece of debris and bunched up to my armpits.

  I couldn’t have cared less if I was dangling butt naked at that moment. All I was aware of was the heaviness of my body, the ache in my arms, and the black hole below me that the hotel balcony had crumbled into.

  But what I feared the most was the clamminess of my hands as they slowly slipped from the ledge.

  “I’M SLIPPING!” I cried out.

  “HOLD ON! I’M COMING UP!”

  However irrational and ridiculous I could be sometimes, even though I was most likely about to fall to my death, a new panic flashed in my mind. I didn’t want anyone to see the state of my dad’s putrid apartment.

  “NO! NO! DON’T COME UP!”

  I finally made out Matt’s panicked voice. “Aw, man, I am so getting fired for this.”

  Yeah, don’t worry about me, arsehole!

  “Probably, mate, but I think that is the least of our problems,” the whistler’s voice snapped.

  “YOU’RE GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT! I’VE GOT YOU, LET GO!”

  “WHAT?!” Was he for real?

  “LET GO! I’VE GOT YOU!”

  “… NO!”

  “TRUST ME, LET GO!”

  I wanted to debate this all day; where the hell was he? He clearly didn’t have me, I wanted to defy the voice that tried to encourage me that I would be okay, but the choice was taken out of my hands as I felt my fingers lose their grip on the French door in a final slip.

  I fell. I screamed; my arms grazed along the broken opening, my stomach plummeted; this was it. I would be pulverised by the cement landing; I would break my bones and crack my skull. But as I screamed in absolute terror at my impending fate, my fall was broken by strong, steely arms. I collided with a torso. I fell into him so fast, so violently, I literally heard the air being knocked out of his lungs as we both flew backwards, hitting the ground in a unified “Oomph!”

  I clenched my eyes firmly shut, afraid to move as my heart threatened to pound out of my chest. My throat felt raw from screaming, but I didn’t seem to be dead.

  I felt a light tap on my shoulder blade and I opened my eyes.

  “Are you all right?”

  My head was resting on a muscled chest – I could feel the thunderous frantic beat within him that matched my own. I was clenched in a vice-like embrace in the stranger’s arms, who cradled me still, and more alarmingly I was spread-eagled, lying on top of him. I lifted my head and pushed upwards. My panicked eyes met with vivid, baby blue ones that stared at me, narrowed in concern.

  They widened in sudden realisation.

  “Amy?”

  I paused mid-movement, my hands splayed across his chest as I stared down at his face. Once the world had stopped spinning, recognition must have dawned on my own face, too.

  “Sean Murphy?” I said, mainly to myself.

  I felt his laughter vibrate against my palms splayed out on his chest.

  His once rigid body collapsed on the ground. He cupped his face in an exhausted groan. “You just took ten years off my life!”

  I glared down at him. “Trust me, it didn’t do much for me either.”

  He moved his hands away from his face to reveal a boyish grin.

  He shook his head. “One minute I’m walking along, minding my own business, and the next thing I know the bloody pub falls down and I’m nearly pancaked by a screaming girl; I thought all my Christmases had come at once.” He continued to laugh. “Not the pub falling down part, but the damsel in distress thing wasn’t bad.”

  I sat straight up and crossed my arms in distaste. “I see you haven’t changed.”

  He lifted himself onto his elbows. “Honestly, Amy, you say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  Matt’s cough interrupted my seething reply. Once I’d looked up at Matt, then back at Sean, I realised in a stroke of horror that not only was I still on top of Sean but I was straddling him rather inappropriately. I locked eyes with Sean, his brows raised in amusement. I stumbled to my feet like I had been struck by lightning and accidently stepped on him.

  “Ah, Jesus, Amy!”

  My cheeks were on fire as I manoeuvred myself to my feet. Matt offered Sean a helping hand off the ground and, as he dusted himself off, both sets of eyes froze on me. My eyes narrowed in confusion and I followed their gazes. I looked down to see my shirt had been torn clean in two. My black lace bra was exposed to the world, totally and utterly out there saying, Hello, boys!

  I gasped and clenched the fabric together, mortified. Could this day get any worse?

  Before I disgraced myself any further, I gingerly excused myself and turned towards the hotel door. I paused mid-step and spun around to face Sean.

  “Is there something you wanted?”

  Matt brushed past me, not even managing to look me in the eye.

  Sean stepped forward, plunged his hands into his pockets, and shrugged. “I was just stopping by for a cold one. Say g’day to your dad.”

  “Well, he’s not here,” I said, perhaps a bit too quickly.

  Sean nodded. A wry smile formed on his lips. “Well, a cold one then?”

  “Sorry, we’re closed.” And before he could ask another question, I stepped into the hotel, kicked the door closed, and leaned against it with a deep sigh.

  Mortified!

  I shifted to my left a little, leaning slowly to peer out through the dirty windowpane. Sean stood staring at the closed door, perplexed. He rubbed his stubbled chin and looked upwards to the newly formed skylight in the balcony. He smirked.

  “Just go, just go,” I whispered under my breath.

  “Are we really closed?”

  I flinched at the unexpected voice right next to my ear, as Matt’s narrowed eyes followed what I was looking at outside.

  We were closed all right; I just hoped we weren’t condemned.

  Chapter Five

  I studied my reflection in the bathroom mirror and surveyed the damage.

  One grazed elbow, a few scratches, a torn shirt, amazingly no bloodshed, but just like my top, my dignity had been well and truly trashed. Groaning, I cupped my face and leaned against the sink; at least I hadn’t been in a skirt, wearing a G-banger …

  Small miracles, I guess.

  My fringe parted as I blew out a laboured breath, my hands falling at my sides, exhausted. I straightened, a new thought running through my mind.

  “I could have died,” I said aloud to myself. “I could have totally died.”

  I reached into my pocket for my phone, punching in the numbers with fierce intent.

  The phone rang, one, two, three times … “Hello?” my mum’s upbeat voice answered.

  “Mum!”

  “Oh hi, honey, did you make it all right?”

  “Yeah, well …”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful. Guess where your dad’s taking me?”

  The last of Mum’s voice was drowned out by the loud ear-bleeding burst of an engine; I winced away from the phone.

  “What is that?”

  Vroom… Vroom…

  “Oh, that’s your dad’s new bike.” Mum’s voice held an excited thrill.

  “Whaaaaat?” I said. “You have got to be kidding me, a motorbike?”

  “A trike.”

  Oh, this was getting worse.

  Mum could barely contain her excitement. “He’s taking me for a ride!”

  “Dear God …” The midlife crisis had reached a new level and no
w he was dragging Mum into it, down the Western Ring Road like a bat out of hell, no doubt. God they were so embarrassing.

  “Mum, I don’t think …”

  “Honey, I better go! Your dad’s got the motor running. Ooh, wish me luck!”

  Before I could so much as think, the line went dead.

  I looked at the phone, confused. There had been a pretty important point to my phone call, but I had been completely sidetracked by Mum’s erratic excitement. I envisioned them screaming up the highway, two middle-aged misfits getting their kicks, pulling over for a pit stop somewhere, pulling off their helmets and pashing madly …

  Shudder.

  What had happened to Claire Henderson? The Claire Henderson I knew would never get on a motorbike, purely because it meant she’d get helmet hair and that just wouldn’t do.

  I wandered dazed into the apartment and banged my knee on the coffee table.

  “Ahhhh, sonofa … Ahhhh!”

  How much more could my body take? I plonked onto the coffee table that was covered in papers and remotes. It could have been my near-death experience, fatigue from travel, or the overwhelming mess that lay before me that made my shoulders sag. What had seemed like a brilliant idea, to escape to the country for the summer, was literally falling apart. While Mum and Dad lived up the summer in the city, I was trapped in this smelly, grotty tomb. I wanted to run screaming, and maybe if I rang up now I could book a ticket on the first bus for tomorrow morning. I didn’t want to stay in the Onslow; not like this.