Clancy of the Undertow

by Christopher Currie

  Reeve nods at Angus behind Mum’s back, using his hands to indicate the extent to which Dan Cryer had wet himself.

  Carla gets up and the rest of us realise we’re about to be left alone together. ‘Did you want to…see my room, Nancy?’ I say, deeply embarrassed by the question but pushing through regardless.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Um, Reeve?’ I say. I feel like I should include him, but don’t know what to say.

  ‘You like dirtbikes?’ says Angus, cutting across me.

  ‘Uh, sure,’ says Reeve.

  ‘You gotta check this shit out. I’ve got this DVD with insane tricks.’

  ‘Yeah, definitely.’

  Something irks me about Angus hijacking my friend, but I’m so eager to escape I don’t really care.

  35

  There’s a moment, as we’re walking up the hallway, where I try to mentally catalogue all the potentially shameful details contained in my room. I remember the unmade bed, the numerous items of scattered underwear and the half-finished mug of tea that has been on the windowsill so long it’s close to developing a basic system of communication, but when I open the bedroom door, the reality is far worse.

  It’s only when you look at your bedroom through the eyes of a stranger that you realise it exhibits characteristics you would most closely associate with the lair of a fairytale ogre. It’s not that my room is dirty, or particularly messy, it’s just all me. Too much me, too much at once.

  Nancy doesn’t seem to care, or at least is too nice to say anything. She rolls the chair—mercifully free of rubbish—out from my desk and sits down.

  ‘That was…a little awkward,’ she says.

  ‘I reckon.’ I sit down on my bed, trying to casually search for any incriminating food scraps or celebrity biographies. ‘I think Mum’s been up since 5 am preparing.’

  ‘Tell me about it. Mum made lasagne and ravioli. Enough for about twenty people. We don’t even have a kitchen in the room so she went to Danny’s house to make it.’

  ‘The hotel guy?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, he’s nice, but…’ she makes a face.

  ‘Do you think your mum like, likes him?’

  ‘I don’t even want to think about it. I’d like to see Dad’s face, though.’

  ‘Do they still talk? Your mum and dad?’

  ‘Of course they talk. Why wouldn’t they?’

  ‘I just thought, since they were separated or whatever.’

  Nancy laughs. ‘They’re not divorced!’

  ‘Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean—’

  ‘It’s fine. It’s funny. Dad just gets these contracts overseas. He’s an engineer. He’s in Dubai helping to build some insane skyscraper. It’s only like six months.’

  It feels like a disruption, already, in our friendship. ‘That must be hard.’

  ‘They’re used to it.’

  ‘I mean hard for you. Six months is a pretty long time.’

  Nancy doesn’t respond, just leans forward and picks the driving manual off the floor. ‘Cool,’ she says. ‘You taking your test?’

  ‘Soon. My birthday’s December 29, so I have to take it next year.’

  ‘Cool.’ Nancy takes off her jumper. It’s the first time I’ve seen her without layers. She’s as thin as me, but in a different way. Delicate, maybe. Her head and her hands look bigger in just a tank top. I note with some jealousy the thin strap of a proper bra, and an actual reason for its existence. Everything is proportional, everything is what I am not.

  ‘Awesome,’ she says. ‘We can cruise the streets together.’ She mimes hanging her elbow out a car window. ‘The girls at my old school, they were obsessed with boys that had cars. As if owning one meant, like, instant maturity. I can’t think of anything worse, though.’

  ‘Yeah. Complete turn-off.’

  Nancy gives a smirk. ‘What turns you on, then?’

  ‘What? I don’t know.’ My mouth goes dry. ‘Not guys with cars, anyway.’

  ‘So how about Reeve? How does he…fit in?’

  My neck flushes red, I can feel it. ‘He’s a friend. He works at the shopping centre. He’s a security guard… but you know that. Um, I work at this makeup place, or I used to work—but I guess I still do—anyway, he works there.’

  ‘Gotcha,’ says Nancy, nodding. ‘He seems nice. Funny.’

  ‘Really. I’m not, um. We’re just mates.’ There’s no way I can seem believable, especially as uncomfortable and flustered is my default setting.

  Nancy’s laughing. ‘Ooh, a man in uniform, hey?’ She jumps across onto the bed. ‘Tell me everything!’

  Her eyes are green as hell up close, and just like that, we’ve moved from casual acquaintances to besties.

  ‘No,’ I say, slightly too forcefully, ‘everyone assumes that because I’m a girl and he’s a boy and that we hang out sometimes and actually talk to each other that we’re suddenly into each other.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Nancy bumps up and down on the bed.

  ‘No, really. It’s the worst. I feel like we can’t hang out outside of work because people will assume we’re together or something.’

  ‘You can tell me!’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘Go on!’ She’s shaking her body around like a toddler who’s not getting its way. It’s pretty annoying. ‘Tell me, tell me!’

  I go, ‘I’m not into guys is the thing,’ and it’s a few seconds before I realise what I’ve just said. I want to jump straight back in time three seconds and put a pillow over my face until my stupid mouth stops moving. ‘I mean… you know, I’m not…’ My useless brain cannot provide me with one more fucking thing to say.

  The smile falls from Nancy’s face. ‘Oh, God,’ she says. ‘Shit. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I say. It’s all a joke, I think. A funny joke.

  Nancy pulls her legs up under her. ‘I get carried away sometimes. I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just trying to be, like, what friends are like. You know. I’m so lame.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I’m not offended. I mean, I don’t know what friends do either. I’m not exactly super practised in that area.’

  Nancy buries her head in her hands. ‘I’m the worst.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  Nancy looks up at me, her fingers dragging her cheeks down. ‘The worst.’ She picks up the driving manual. ‘It’s like, they should give you one of these, for how to be friends.’

  ‘And then a written test,’ I say. ‘One I could study for.’

  ‘Exactly. And they wouldn’t let you out in the world until you were ready, you know? Until you knew how to do it. And then what to do once you’d made them.’

  I lie back on the bed. The familiar smell. The familiar feeling. ‘I need a manual for everything, actually.’

  ‘You know,’ says Nancy, ‘how some people seem to just have it all together? Like, they’re just born with all the answers?’

  ‘I hate those people.’

  ‘They’re the worst. The rest of us, like, we’re just born with the questions.’

  Ripping off a band-aid, I think. Diving into the freezing sea. ‘I’ve never told anyone about it,’ I say, almost physically forcing out the words. ‘About not liking boys. It’s just not…and you might not even want to hear about it.’

  Nancy turns to me. ‘No, I do,’ she says. ‘I do.’

  I grind my wrists into my eyes. ‘I don’t even know what it is, or what it means. If it means anything. I don’t know what it is. I’ve just always been, you know, the opposite. Of what I’m…supposed to be.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be anything. I don’t reckon.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I haven’t been old enough to understand it. But it’s like, part of me that I can’t even talk about because I don’t know what it is.’

  Nancy nods.

  ‘And there’s a girl I really like. I’ve liked her ever since I met her. I just…I didn’t even know what it meant at fir
st, but I just needed to be around her. And it’s love or lust or just another feeling that no one’s ever had before. I don’t know. I don’t even feel like myself when I’m around her. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You feel what you feel,’ Nancy says. ‘You can’t really stop to wonder about it.’

  It’s a cliché for a reason: the weight rising off me. Not from my shoulders, but from my chest and my heart. I don’t need answers, I just need someone to listen. ‘I’ve always known, I guess. Not known, though. Not when I was younger. Just…’

  Then my natural panic descends on me, like a lifted sheet settling back to a bed. ‘It doesn’t matter though. I don’t even know why I said anything.’

  Nancy lies back so we’re side by side on the bed, like we were on her bed, in the motel room. She takes my hand. ‘I think this is what friends do, though,’ she says. ‘I think they listen to each other’s problems.’

  A problem shared is a problem halved. The unfamiliar sensation of one of Mum’s sayings finally making sense. ‘I thought you said you hadn’t read the manual.’

  ‘Maybe we should write it.’

  Nancy’s here, and listening. Just that is the best thing ever in the world. And not even Titch bursting in, without knocking, to say lunch is ready can ruin it.

  36

  The table is fuller than I’ve ever seen it. The napkins and placemats from this morning were, of course, set out for lunch. Carla’s lasagne and ravioli look amazing. Mum’s made a pile of sandwiches, and there’s cheese and crackers, even Cheezels for Titch, whose strict personal diet precludes all foods that can’t stain your skin.

  Reeve is deep in conversation with Angus. They’re huddled over Reeve’s phone sniggering at something. I always forget they were in the same grade. They’ve always been so separate in my mind, but here they are, laughing and joking around like pals. This is the male version of friendship, maybe. One boy shows the other a video of a motorbike ramming someone’s testicles and thus a lifelong bond is formed.

  Mum comes from the kitchen with potato salad, Carla close behind. ‘Everybody here?’ she says.

  ‘Think so,’ says Dad.

  We all take our seats around the table, and it’s surreal to be so surrounded by people in my house.

  ‘This is lovely.’ Mum’s inevitable line. ‘Eat,’ she says. ‘Eat!’

  And it’s all going well until—mid mouthful—I hear the crunch of gravel in our driveway. Dad’s sitting opposite me and he looks up, a strange shocked look in his eyes. A ripple of panic shudders through me at Dad’s expression.

  Titch runs to the window. ‘It’s an orange car,’ he says. He whistles like Angus does and goes, ‘Sweet ride.’

  There’s the sound of a car horn, and suddenly it all clicks. Shitting hell. Please, no.

  ‘Whose car’s that?’ says Dad, but I’m already up from the table, paper napkin hanging from my pants. I rush to the window and of course it’s the Monaro. I see Sasha’s hand waving from the drivers side window. She was supposed to call. Our date was supposed to be next week. She beeps the horn again, holding it down way too long.

  Mum goes, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘No one,’ I say. ‘Just a friend.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Someone else? You should have told me.’

  ‘No, they’re not coming in.’ Oh God. The lunch. Sasha. Why the hell does this stuff always happen? ‘I think I might have to go,’ I say.

  ‘You’ve hardly started your lunch.’

  ‘I’ll just, um….’ Bloody shitting hell. There is no way anyone can know who it is.

  Mum goes, ‘We’ve got guests.’

  ‘This is a family meal, Clancy,’ I hear Dad say. ‘I’ll come out with you.’

  ‘No! No, it’s fine.’ I don’t want to turn around. I can’t. I squish my feet into my boots that I’ve left by the door, steal Angus’s aviators from the pocket of his jacket. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘This is important.’

  The Monaro’s horn goes again. For crapping crap’s sake. I peer through the flyscreen to make sure Sasha isn’t reversing away.

  Mum unleashes her most serious teacher voice. ‘Clancy, that’s enough. Your friend will have to wait.’

  Now or never. I open the flyscreen and run out, tripping down the stairs in my half-on shoes.

  ‘Clancy!’ Dad’s voice roars behind me.

  I trot up the driveway to the Monaro, acting as casual as I can and open the passenger door, as if this is what we’ve planned all along, as if I haven’t just broken my parents’ hearts and stood up my only two friends. I’ll tell her we can’t meet today. I’ll explain that she should have called, that she shouldn’t just turn up unannounced and expect me to drop everything.

  She smiles at me with her tiny, pretty teeth. ‘Hey,’ she says. ‘You gotta tell me where you got those boots. They’re totally sick.’

  And so I giggle like a weirdo. And so I get into the car. And so I fall immediately and hopelessly in love.

  Sasha reverses back up the driveway, and I see Dad’s stooping frame in the doorway and he’s shielding his eyes, trying to recognise the car. I slink back in the seat and close my eyes.

  The best way to approach this, I tell myself, is just to keep looking forward. I try to conjure up my own affirming slogan. If You Look Back You’ll Never Win the Steps You Never Take. I tell myself there’s nothing I can do about what’s happened. I’ve done it. I’ve disappointed my parents, wrecked my friendships with Nancy and Reeve, all to spend an unspecified amount of time doing an unspecified thing with a girl whose boyfriend most likely sprayed MURDRER across our house. That old story. We’ll all look back on this one day and laugh. Though whether with me or at me, I’m not entirely sure.

  We’re driving away, fast, from the scene of my betrayal, and I’m trying to stop my hands from shaking. My shoes are totally sick. Maybe I don’t look as shit as I think I do. Maybe I’ve just spent my life perfecting the messy, just-woken-up look. Maybe I’m fashion-forward, maybe worn out work pants and a jumper that used to belong to your dad that says Superstars of Sailing is what everyone will be wearing next season. I pat down my pockets and find Reeve’s business card and Mum’s fifty-dollar note.

  Sasha, for her part, doesn’t seem to notice that I’m swirling in a moral typhoon. In fact, she starts talking as if we’ve been chatting for the past hour. ‘So I get home yesterday,’ she says, ‘and there’s this message from Buggs saying that he’s going up the coast with his dad and that.’

  There’s a pause, where it’s clear I’m supposed to say something to this. Maybe we had been talking longer. I’ve just been staring at her jawline, admiring how it sweeps up like a perfect wave. How do girls like this even exist? If I had Sasha’s looks, I’d spend all day in front of a mirror.

  ‘No way,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, and he doesn’t even ask if it’s okay. His uncle’s got this sort of shack up there, right on the water, bought it in the sixties, and now it’s, like prime real estate. All these million-dollar mansions around it and it’s just this shitty old beach house. It’s so foul.’

  I’m not sure whether Sasha is talking about the state of the house, or the unclaimed profits, but either way I murmur agreement.

  ‘He’s such a dick sometimes.’ Sasha strikes the butt of her wrist on the steering wheel. ‘Don’t know why I put up with his shit. He’s probably got some sandy-vag Gold Coast bitch on speed-dial anyway.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘That’s not good.’ Any guilt about running away from the lunch table is quickly vanishing. Break up with him, I think, with all my effort. Breakupwithhimbreakupwithhim.

  ‘Anyway,’ she says. ‘Today is just about us, Clancy.’ She reaches over and touches my arm with her cool, soft fingers. ‘Hey, check it out.’

  She reaches over me and I actually jump with fright but she just opens the glovebox. A bottle of Jack Daniels. ‘It’s some special edition shit. He thinks I don’t know about it. He thinks if he puts it in a plastic bag at the back of h
is kitchen cupboard I won’t find it. Fucken idiot. Probably saving it up for the day he works out how to suck his own cock.’

  My mouth dries up. Whiskey with Sasha. This is right. This is the grown-up, black-and-white movie stuff our life should have. I’ll take up smoking and sit on some high-up apartment window ledge, looking out over a real city. We’ll drink liquor from the bottle and only ever wear oversized men’s shirts.

  We pull into Macca’s and Sasha turns into the drive-thru. She orders three apple pies and a Diet Coke and I get a cheeseburger meal. At the drive-thru window, Sasha goes, ‘Hey, bitch,’ and when I lean over to look up at the window I see it’s the girl from the carpark. She has a hoodie draped over the top of her uniform, all white save the tiny blue Adidas logo. Her name-tag says Courtney.

  ‘What’s up, Sash?’ she says. ‘I knew it was you because of your order.’

  Sash. Could I call her Sash? It sounds kind of wrong.

  ‘Make sure the pies are extra hot,’ Sasha says. ‘No ice in the Coke.’ Then, ‘You know Clancy, right?’ She leans back in her seat so Courtney can see me.

  Courtney looks at me briefly, like I’m something she’s found under her shoe. To Sasha she goes, ‘You going to Jase’s party?’

  Sasha’s like, ‘Maybe. Depends what we’re doing later. Clance is, like, super fun. We go on adventures.’ Clance, I think. Clance! Take that, bitch.

  Courtney makes a snorting noise. ‘Whatever. You wanna upsize?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Sasha. ‘That way we can share the chips.’ She turns to me and sticks her tongue out.

  I laugh stupidly and hand her Mum’s fifty. Screw new shoes, this is worth it.

  ‘Got anything smaller?’ says Courtney.

  ‘Your dad’s dick?’ says Sasha.

  Courtney gives her this look, like I can’t even.

  I really hope Courtney is screwing Buggs, although if he does actually have two girls willing to voluntarily spend time with him then the universe really is a cruel and merciless void.

  We get our food and Sasha rolls the car around to the carpark. ‘Want to go anywhere?’ she says. She revs the engine and for the first time I can see the appeal of doing this. It’s kind of thrilling. The afternoons I spent at the skate park were full of these sounds, the impossible animal volume of engines and car stereos, those mutant bumps and thrums.