“You better fuck off right now, this place is private.”
It was him alright, I saw that now. I saw the same sarcastic look too. He thought this was funny. “Calm down son. There’s plenty of waves here for everyone.” And he looked at me and gave me a nod, like he’d seen an old friend.
“I said this place is private,” John said again. “Now turn around, fuck off, and don’t ever come back. Do you understand?”
It was only then I noticed that John still had the knife. I don’t know if he just forgot to put it down when he started running or what. It was his big hunting knife. We were all into knives then, you know for making things out of wood or cleaning fish. But John’s was the nicest. The biggest too.
“And I said there’s plenty of waves to go around.” The guy must have seen it as well. I was close enough to see how his eyes changed, the pupils got smaller.
“Listen I’m gonna have one quick surf, then I’m away. No harm done.” The man began to turn like he was going to keep walking out to the point, but he kept his head half turned, not looking away from John.
“I don’t think so. It’s locals only,” said John.
The guy laughed at this, he actually laughed. “Look kid, I don’t know what you think this is. I know this place is private but I’m pretty sure you’re not the lord of the fucking manor.” He looked at me again, he was smiling.
“I get it, I do. This is your spot. But there’s only one of me, no one knows I’m here and I live fucking miles away. I swear I won’t tell a soul about this place. Now I’m gonna have one surf and you’ll never see me again. So how about you relax?”
I knew this day was going to come, there was just no way we could keep Hanging Rock secret for ever. Really it was amazing that no one had come earlier, amazing that none of the crab fisherman had seen it, when they were working their pots. Hanging Rock was only secret because it was in that estate, but, a wave that good? People were still going to find it, in the end. We all knew that. But John just shook his head.
“I said it’s locals only.” And he shifted the grip on his knife so that the blade was concealed up the inside of his wrist, like you saw people doing on films when they knew how to handle themselves. “Now get the fuck outta here.”
For a little while we were all just standing there, then the guy spoke again. He wasn’t laughing anymore.
“You pull a knife on someone son, you want to be sure you know how to use it.”
Without taking his eyes off the blade he slowly bent down and placed his board on the ground, it didn’t rest down easily because we were all standing on all these uneven rocks. He stood up again and faced John.
“Cos you might accidentally pull a knife on someone who knows something about fighting with knives and who will break your fucking arm right off.” He’d started to move very slowly towards where John was standing, getting himself on a flatter base.
“You know that even threatening someone with a knife is a very serious thing to do? There’s a witness here. That kid behind you. I know him, he works in the campsite shop over in the village.” All this time he didn’t take his eyes off John.
“Now I don’t know what bullshit you kids have been reading in your little magazines but I promise you this, you’re gonna be in a shitload of trouble if that knife doesn’t go away pretty soon.”
John said nothing, but he held his arm out bent in front of him so the blade was pointed right at the guy.
“I’m serious kiddo. You put that away and we’ll have a little chat about all this, straighten it out.” A lot of the cockiness had gone out of the guy’s voice by now, he sounded nervous.
“How’d you know that?” John asked. His voice sounded weird too, like for the first time since this began he was back in control of himself.
“Know what?” The guy asked.
“How’d you know he works at the campsite shop?”
“I talked to him this morning. He told me about this place.”
“That’s bullshit,” I blurted out. “He’s lying John. I didn’t tell him shit.”
“He said the headland blocks all the swell, he said I should go for a walk.” The man took his eyes off the knife for the first time and looked into John’s face. “He even sold me a map.” The guy smiled again.
And that’s when John made his mistake. He turned around to look at me, tried to focus on my face like he wanted to work out if it was true.
I was looking at him too, trying to say the guy was making it up, so I didn’t really see what happened, not properly. But the guy made a move. There was this blur and suddenly it was like they were hugging, and it looked like they were going to fall. You didn’t want to fall on rocks like that. Never mind John’s fuck-off hunting knife, you could really get hurt just falling down on rocks like that.
Then they went down together. There was this sound, like a thud and then a real nasty crack and then these grunting, whistling noises. Then John started yelling and sort of rolled off him all the while holding onto his arm. You could see right away it was all at the wrong angle, his arm I mean. It was snapped at the wrist. His face had gone totally white, and I saw it and felt instantly sick and like I needed to crouch down and just not look in that direction.
“Oh shit, your arm. Man, your fucking arm.”
He didn’t say anything, he was just panting, trying to find a way to hold his arm so that his hand didn’t dangle horribly down. That’s when I realised he wasn’t holding the knife any more. And for some reason I needed to find it. It was like I feared the worst. Probably from watching so many movies or something, I kind of knew where I would see it and I was right. When the guy had rushed John he’d put out his hands to keep him away, it meant the knife’s blade went out too. So maybe it was an accident where it ended up, buried right up to the hilt in the guy’s stomach. Maybe it was an accident.
thirty-three
“MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD BROKE my fucking arm.” John was sitting down now, his back against a rock and he’d managed to find a way to hold himself that let him speak.
“Did you see that? Did you fucking see that?”
I didn’t answer. I was just staring at the knife.
“I said did you see that?”
I must have shook my head because John started talking real loud. “He jumped at me. He fucking jumped at me! Why did he do that?” There was spit coming out of John’s mouth, he was talking so fast.
“Jesse, you saw that didn’t you? I know you saw. He just fucking jumped right at me.”
I stepped a couple of rocks forward to get a better look at the guy. His mouth was opening and closing like a fish did when we pulled them up onto the pier. As he breathed he blew bubbles. At first they were white but then they started coming out red.
“Oh Christ,” I said. Then John started to make this retching noise and when I looked at him he was puking up, his good arm cradling the broken one.
Everything started spinning and I think I was moaning out loud. I knew I was going to fall if I didn’t get on the deck so I lowered myself onto the rocks and held my head in my hands. I stayed like that for a while listening to John throwing up. And then I heard something else.
“Kid. Kid, you hear me? Get some help.” I lifted my head from my hands and looked at him. He was staring right at me, croaking the words, a little bubbly puddle of blood formed on the rock by his face as he spoke.
“John, it’s alright, he’s alive. It’s gonna be alright he’s alive.” I looked over at John, I felt so relieved I was nearly laughing, but John wasn’t smiling. It was like he wasn’t there at all.
“John?”
Then Darren turned up. That bit was just surreal.
“What’s going on?” he shouted before he got to us. “Is that a dolphin?” Darren came closer and said it again. “Have you guys found a dead dolphin?”
John didn’t answer so I had to. “No mate, we haven’t found a dead dolphin.”
“What’s that then?”
“It’s a
guy that John’s stabbed.” I said and Darren laughed.
“Shut up, what is it?”
“I just fucking told you, alright?”
Darren came closer again and stared for a moment. Then he looked at me, at John with his fucked up arm and puke down his chest.
“Who’s that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did he come from?”
“I don’t know.”
“But John stabbed him?”
“Yeah.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“I told you Darren I don’t know, alright?”
It was a beautiful day all around us, the sky hardly had a cloud in it, the air was crisp since it’d been raining the night before, and the autumn colours on the bushes were beautiful, dark greens and yellows and browns. All around I guess there was the sound of waves peeling down the point, seagulls hawking overhead. But it was like we’d torn a huge hole in the middle of it. The only thing I could hear was this rasping noise coming from the stabbed guy as he tried to breathe. And for a long while that’s all that happened.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I’d had the courage to take over then. Before John pulled himself back together. If I’d said then that it wasn’t too late to save the man, if I’d ordered Darren to go and get help, told John we were gonna stop the bleeding or something. But that’s not what happened. I guess it was always John in charge, never me. And I was paralysed by the thought of where we were, it was a half hour hike to get back to John’s house, and we certainly couldn’t carry him all that way. And what would people think? The guy had John’s hunting knife stuck into him.
“He was cutting out the ham, up by the Rock,” I said. “I think he just forgot to put it down.”
Darren didn’t say anything for a moment but then nodded his head hard.
“Mate, it’s alright,” Darren said to John. “If he dies, it’s alright. Your dad’s got lawyers and stuff who work for him. He’ll get you off, you won’t have to go to prison or anything.”
John didn’t even seem to hear Darren so he turned to me and said. “Jesse? His dad will get him off won’t he? It’s going to be alright?”
It had all just happened so quick I couldn’t keep up. I certainly couldn’t work out the consequences yet. I didn’t know if it was all going to be alright. It didn’t feel like it would.
“What do we do?” Darren asked, it was like he had to fill every silence.
“What do we do Jesse? We should do something.”
I tried to pull myself together, but every time I thought of something that people did in times like this it didn’t seem to make sense.
“We could go to the road. Try to flag down a car.” I said after a while.
“Yeah. Yeah. Good idea. It might be a doctor. They could come and fix up that guy and sort John’s arm.”
“It’s a long way to the road though,” I went on. “And the tide’s coming in now.” The guy was laying among the rocks at the very edge of the low water mark, that was why it was so slippery down there, all the seaweed and stuff.
“Yeah, but maybe we can drag him up a bit,” said Darren. “Enough so the water doesn’t get him. Before we go to the road. We can both go to the road can’t we Jesse? You and me I mean?”
“But he’s got a knife sticking out of his stomach,” I said, it was like I just couldn’t figure this out. “What are we gonna say?”
“We tell them it was an accident. You said it was an accident didn’t you? You saw it all Jesse.”
“Will you two shut up?” John suddenly cut in with this weary voice. “Will you two just shut the fuck up?”
We did so.
Then John began to shake his head, wincing as he did so. “I just need you two to shut up. I gotta think about what we’re gonna do.”
We waited while John shuffled his back against the rock he was leaning against to bring himself more upright.
“No one goes to the road,” he said when he’d finished.
“What?” Darren looked about to cry.
“You go to the road. We’re all going to prison for murder.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “What did we do?”
“I’m telling you. We gotta think properly about this. We gotta do the right thing here.”
“The guy’s not even dead,” I said. “Look at him.”
John did. He turned back to the man and watched him for a while. There was a lot of blood now, leaking from where the knife cut into him, it was bright red and so thick it clung to the smooth black rubber of his wetsuit.
“Yeah but he’s gonna die. You can tell, wounds like that, in the stomach, it always takes a while to die. They can’t do anything about those wounds, even in hospitals. I’ve seen it in films,” said John.
We all watched the man some more. He was staring right back at us, and his mouth was moving like he was trying to speak but he couldn’t, he didn’t have the breath to get any words out and every time he opened his mouth, it was just blood that came out.
“If we try and get help, he’s still gonna die, the only difference is we’d go to prison,” said John.
“What’s with the ‘we’?” I asked. I don’t know how I dared say it to John but the thought of going to prison scared the shit out of me.
“Well I am aren’t I?” For a moment his eyes were pleading with me. “You ain’t gonna help him if you go to the road, but you’re gonna send me to prison. My knife’s stuck in his stomach. Who’s gonna believe it’s an accident?”
“I saw it, sort of. I can tell them.”
“They won’t believe you. They’ll have you for assisting, or lying to them. They’ll get you too Jesse.”
I felt panic rising up in me. I could see he was right.
“What about me?” Darren said. “I could go, I didn’t see anything.”
“Then you’d put us both away,” John said. He sounded suddenly tired. “And the guy still dies.”
“Face it. We’re in this together.”
We were all quiet for a long while. I was dizzy with it all.
It seemed like a long time until John spoke again, but when he did it was like he was back. Our friend, the problem-solving, calm and dependable John, the guy who always knew what to do. Always told us the right thing.
“I’ve got to make a sling. Jesse, give me your jumper.” I must have hesitated since he said it again. “Jesse, give me your fucking jumper.” I struggled out of it and was about to throw it at him but I saw he wouldn’t be able to catch it. His good hand was holding the broken arm.
“Tie the arms together. Right at the ends of the sleeves. That’s it, now put it over my neck. Carefully.”
I did what I was told and he gently slid one of the jumper’s arms underneath his own. He winced then swore out loud as he let its weight fall into the sling, then he puffed out a few deep breaths and held out his good arm.
“OK. Now help me get up.”
When he was standing he checked out the rest of his body and seemed relieved there were no other problems. Then he slowly made his way over to where the man was laying. He crouched down and inspected where the knife went in. I couldn’t even look at it.
“Jesse,” he called out to me without turning away. “He said he talked to you at the campsite, is he staying there?”
I nodded. “Yeah but I didn’t tell him any…”
“That doesn’t matter,” he cut me off. “Was he with anyone?”
“I don’t know, how would I know…” I suddenly remembered the car. “No. He had his board in his car. The passenger seat was wound down and the back seats aren’t split on those cars, so there were no other seats.” I felt pleased to have worked this out.
“Good. He said he was on his own here too, before the accident, he said no one knows he’s here.” John nodded to himself.
“Good,” he said again. “So no one knows he’s here. No one knows we’re here either. We know that. So how did he get here?
&nbs
p; I thought back to what happened as I walked down. “I saw him drive past me, just before I turned off from the road.”
“Do you remember what car it was?”
“Yeah, red Nissan.”
“OK, very good. So we know he parked somewhere south of here in a red Nissan. We can find it so we can sort that. So we’ve just got to do something with the body.”
I must have been looking cos I saw the man’s eyes when he heard that. He could definitely still hear what we were saying and his face moved at those words. He tried again to mouth something, I think it was to me but I looked away again.
“He’s not really a body though is he?” I said. Part of me didn’t want to interrupt John in his flow, but this seemed kinda important. “Look at him. He’s still moving.”
This time John spoke really quietly. “Jesse I’ve told you, people don’t survive things like this.” As he spoke he reached out with his good hand and touched the handle of the knife, then pushed it slightly so the blade moved in the wound. The man gave out a low moan, then you could see him gritting his teeth. John held the knife delicately between the fingers of his good hand.
“Not so cocky now are you? You fucker.” He shook his head. “You should have listened to me. I told you to fuck off. Now we’ve all got a problem. We’ve got to work out what to do with you.” He gave the knife a little push, playfully, then stood up awkwardly.
Then the man made a big effort to speak to me. I could barely hear him but it was something like “kid, your friend’s crazy. You gotta get…”
“Shut up or I’ll put a fucking rock down through your head,” John interrupted him, and we were all quiet, waiting for what John was going to do next. Finally he bent down again and settled his fingers around the handle of the knife. When he was happy he looked the man in the eyes and spoke again.
The Wave at Hanging Rock: A Psychological Mystery and Suspense Thriller Page 20