The Life

by Malcolm Knox

  Oh, hi, Mrs Keith.

  Hello, Glenn, she said, all sweet. How’s your mum and dad?

  His mum and dad had divorced about a year before.

  Tink still only twenty-two.

  •

  The swell dropped before the semis on December 30. You were about to paddle out but it wasn’t the right board so you hopped on your chopper and cycled back home to the rat cellar and pulled out your sander and worked in a frenzy a fricken frenzy your rails were too thick and rounded and your board wasn’t loose enough for these waves. You planed and sanded and glassed and hopped back on the chopper.

  Again, late for your heat.

  Again, the other competitors spinning when you hadn’t shown up.

  Again, you tore it up. You’d won. Into the final.

  That night Lisa played The Patch again but said you’d psyche everyone out if you didn’t show. Standing in the corner chilling on dope’s one thing, she said, but not being there at all will really have them worried.

  Fair enough so you stayed home watched TV with Mo went to bed.

  Lay there bugs under your skin. Night before the final and you couldn’t sleep.

  No Lisa.

  You lay awake. Bugs under skin.

  Nearly dawn and no Lisa.

  Then: Lisa. Bumbling her way through the door, drunk, stoned, whatever. Gone out with a few of the Hawaiians.

  So drunk she told you she screwed one of them. One of the big names.

  Yeah yeah, but my darling, it was cool . . .

  You heard your heart fall on the floor.

  She snuggled in your side, bare toes rubbing the tops of your cold feet.

  This was 1974. Everything cool . . .

  Yeah . . .

  And you lay there and lay there and it was cool, you were cool.

  Cool and groovy.

  Wanting to tell her.

  Wanting to tell her, Sure, you’ve heard them stories about DK and all the birds, DK the chick magnet, DK who snakes his mates’ birds, DK who jumps in bedroom windows, DK who all the chickies are lining up for, DK who just has to push his aviators up his nose and that’s his chat-up line, DK who doesn’t have to try . . . But all lies see, all bull. DK sits with birds and listens to them talk for a couple of hours then sends them home. DK asks them to tell all what a stud he is. DK has to keep up the legend. But DK doesn’t touch them. DK wouldn’t know what to do with them. DK hasn’t touched a bird since you, Lisa. None since you.

  Only you.

  and but

  yeah

  and you’re the same eh. Telling me these yarns about Hawaiians for Lisa Exmire’s image.

  Right.

  Wanting to say

  lying frozen beside her her toes trying to thaw yours out.

  Wanting to say

  but didn’t say nothing

  never said a word.

  You be letting her down. You couldn’t tell her. You got a legend to maintain.

  So: not a word.

  But you couldn’t touch her neither. Frozen.

  She said you must be nervous about the final, couple of hours away.

  Did it have to be a Hawaiian?

  Did she have to tell you?

  Burnt.

  You couldn’t lie beside her. You wanted her to do some whiz and get you to thump her on all the places where she hurt. You’d do it this time no fear. A Hawaiian. In Coolangatta. Your bird, your backyard, with a Hawaiian.

  Right there and then she killed you.

  Stone dead.

  You weren’t saying or doing nothing, so she did try to wrestle you a bit and hit you, she clouted your ear and chomped your arm and snarled at you—get a reaction. She went hard, like this time she was gunna make you really go ape on her, and yeah you really wanted to but—

  But you wasn’t doing it. It was all too messed up eh you

  you just wasn’t going down that road

  nah but

  you weren’t gunna do it

  and she was the first one to fall asleep.

  That did it

  far as DK was concerned.

  You get up early and cycled down the conness area. Sat in the tent among the in-crowd while you waited for the final. Filled in the forms and done an interview and behaved exactly how the organisers asked. Weirded everyone out: they thought it was another DK mind game.

  But you was frozen solid.

  Which of the Hawaiians?

  Which one had it been? Ha-why-he?

  Why? Why? Whywhywhywhywhy?

  She done you stone dead.

  You paddled out with everyone in the final round. Six surfers. Tink was there, and Kanga Cairns, three of them Hawaiians.

  You paddled into waves, then haired out of them.

  You give waves to the others, give up your priority.

  You got nothing in your arms, nothing in your legs.

  You copped a penalty for baulking a drop-in.

  You were acting like you was on gear when it was the first surf in memory when you hadn’t been on gear.

  You come sixth in the final.

  Everyone talking about it, on the beach. Their theories. You were sick, you were mentally unbalanced, you were having some kind of bug-out. Nobody ever seen you hair out of a wave. Something was off with you, but then again something always seemed off with you. So what would they know?

  Tink won. Nobody remembered who came second but everyone would talk about who came sixth.

  You walked home. Forgot you left the chopper down the comp area. Went in your room and smoked a doob. It didn’t do nothing. Put on some music. Didn’t do nothing.

  Lay on your back with your hands behind your head.

  For hours, till night-time.

  And no Lisa. Her stuff gone.

  Late at night you went out.

  You come back, back to bed.

  Some time, a shape at the door.

  Big pale green house dress. Grey hair. Spider veins. Teary blue eyes.

  Every time you opened your eyes Mo was there.

  For hours.

  In your door.

  You fell asleep.

  And woke up some time in the middle of the night, another ghost touching your hair. You nearly screamed:

  Rod.

  Den.

  Been a while.

  Yeah . . .

  You sweet?

  I’m sweet.

  Rod sitting on the side of your bed. In the moonlight you can see the lines across his forehead, down the sides of his mouth. Bas at his feet, panting. Bas looked like an old dog. Rod looked like an old man. He looked like you. Never looked more like you than in the silver light with lines carved in his stone face.

  Sorry about the boards, bro.

  Cool, Rod.

  Sorry about the shop.

  Cool Rod. Eh you got any gear?

  Some mull hangin on the tree.

  Nah, you went. You couldn’t see the look on Rod’s face. The other shit.

  Rod didn’t say nothing.

  Cmon Roddy, how bout a taste?

  Roddy didn’t say nothing but you could hear him breathing faster and swearing, fuckety fuck fuckedy, wheeze under his breath.

  Eh Rod?

  He rammed his fist in your bed beside you, got up and walked out, slammed your door behind him.

  You fell asleep.

  You saw Mo in the doorway. Crying. End of ’74. All a dream.

  Eh sorry I didn’t win. Christ Mo, sorry.

  She tore off like that was the worst thing you could of said. Her sobs shaking the kitchen.

  You fell asleep again.

  You were sorry.

/>   You woke up.

  Rod, again, side of your bed. Daylight now. You didn’t know which day.

  You all right?

  I’m all right.

  Den?

  I’m sweet Rod.

  I saw her down The Patch. With one of them Hawaiian cunts. I saw her, Den. I was there.

  I’m sweet, Rod.

  I saw her go off with a bunch of them. Your bird.

  I’m sweet, Rod.

  I saw her, Den.

  I’m sweet, Rodney.

  Sitting on the side of your bed. Bas panting by his feet. Mo still sobbing in the kitchen. House swimming on sobs.

  She cruelled you.

  I’m sweet, Rod.

  She won’t let you down again.

  I’m sweet, Rod.

  She made you lose the final.

  I’m sweet, ya cunt.

  And Den.

  Yeah?

  Ya don’t want any of that shit. Believe me ya don’t.

  Whatever you say Rod.

  And Den.

  Yeah?

  Don’t let me or Mo hear you take the Lord’s name again, right?

  There was ghosts in that house. Shangrila. Sanga. You felt their hands on your hair while you slept.

  It was a week later you got up. Bottles of pills by your bedside. Greens, whites, blues. You didn’t remember nothing of that.

  Nobody was there. No Mo, no Rod. Nobody. It was daytime outside, quiet. You couldn’t hear nothing breaking down on the shore. Flat.

  You must of dreamt it. No way could you have finished sixth in your own backyard.

  She smiles no thanks to the Splice stick. Everything so out in the open, not her style. Not mine neither. Guess she sees it more as a matter of trust, of souls. She wants to find some spiritual proof. Not chemical. She wants to find herself in you. Not in a DNA test.

  Wants you to find yourself in her.

  ‘So why all the put-on?’ you ask. ‘Why the pretending to write my bi fricken ography?’

  Shakes her head.

  ‘Who says I’m not?’

  ‘Not gunna bite you, am I?’

  ‘Spose not. But your mother—’

  ‘Your grandmother ya reckon?’

  She grimaces. ‘Yeah, nah, guess she could be eh.’

  You watch the waves a bit. There’s always the waves. No matter what. Here at Greenmount. They can spoil it a million different ways but they can’t stop the ocean.

  ‘I never knew she’d had a kid.’

  She gives a sniff. You don’t look at her to see what kind of sniff it is. The image of her mother. Face, shoulders, all the mannerisms. You knew it from the start. You knew it. She was never no BFO. She’s the ghost. She’s Lisa back. Jesus what must Mo be making of it. Hallucinating eh. Lisa had a nipper eh. Wild.

  ‘Did you ever ask, Dennis?’

  ‘None of my business.’

  ‘That was the basis of your . . . relationship?’

  ‘That was the basis of the 1970s.’

  ‘So. You never knew. She’d had me in America. She’d went away and . . . had me.’

  Makes it sound like it was an operation. Childbirth, abortion—what birds went away to get done. All the same. Long as she kept it from you. Long as you never found out. What Lisa wanted.

  ‘She didn’t tell me nothing.’

  ‘You never knew anything about her cos you never asked her.’

  ‘You don’t look that old. I thought you was about twenty-five.’

  She winces, like I’m trying to flatter her to throw her off the scent.

  ‘And you never asked what she’d been up to, what was in her life, what were her dreams, what she was made of. You were so far up your own . . .’

  ‘Didn’t need to ask her. We understood each other.’

  ‘Dennis.’ She puts a hand on my thigh, gives it a squeeze. ‘You only needed to open your mouth.’

  And I don’t look at her and she’s getting up and pulling her arms into her wetsuit arms and pulling her tag up her back and stretching and picking up her board, and she wants me to sit here and watch her snag some of them right-handers, and this is it, this is my chance, this is my only chance, only chance, only chance . . .

  And but it’s gone. She’s walked off into the bay. It’s gone.

  Didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  What I know.

  By the time you come to, you had a first, a first and a sixth and you DK was still leading the world championship by a thousand points. A zombie now, but zombie world leader, Mo and Rod didn’t give a rats. Nor you. Just wanted to kill them all.

  January the somethingth, ’75.

  This time you went on your own. You didn’t care for the hoopla you just wanted to sneak out for a quiet surf, rip a few waves then go back to your hotel room and watch TV.

  Only yours didn’t have no TV. Since the Travelodge in ’73, no Huntington Beach hotel would leave their TVs in the room while a surfing championship was on. Drove you spare not having TV.

  As it turned out a big Thorn set was the first prize for the HB conness and you talked them into letting you have it on loan. Americans dig that kind of thing: cheek, gall, confidence, whatever. You said to one of the head honchos, I’m gunna win it anyway and I’m goin spare with no TV in my room so what say I borrow it?

  They let you borrow it. They told everyone about it.

  In America they wanted to interview you, the magazine journos and whatnot. You invited them to your room and sat watching Lost in Space and they laughed and high-fived every time you come out with some half-arsed grunt. They thought you was a comedian. They smoked weed with you to relax you but really were relaxing themself.

  Stuff that. What was in it for you? They wouldn’t pay. You give them words by the dollar. They stump up the dollars, you tell them whatever they wanted to hear.

  Commerce.

  America.

  No Lisa.

  She had to be in LA. Based there now you heard. She hadn’t made a peep since the day you lost the event at Kirra. Some kind of a barney between her and Rod at home while you were passed out for them lost days, but the details were sketchy and you weren’t one for asking questions.

  She’d show up. Always did like a bad penny.

  You kept looking for her at Huntington. Kept clocking lookalikes.

  Amazing how many American birds were looking like Lisa now.

  The swagger had caught on. All them strolling along the promenade like blokes.

  You found some Mexican takeaway you liked, little shack in a car park near the airport. You kept taking taxis to this place to pig out on the chocolate chicken. You couldn’t believe there was food like this. Chicken in chocolate sauce. You went there three meals a day.

  Soon they started following you.

  Surfers, journos, whoever.

  They weren’t seeing you in the hotel or round the comp, so they decided to tail you.

  Everywhere.

  Caught up with you at that Mexican joint. You told them the truth: this was the best fuel there was. But you made them swear to keep it a secret or you’d have to kill them.

  They laughed.

  Americans always thought you were joking.

  Someone wrote you were that competitive, you’d turn nose-picking into a sport if you could.

  Well yeah. You had to win. And once you won you had to win again.

  Kill them all.

  Kill.

  Still no Lisa.

  First event was at HB Pier in front of thirty thousand. Whole of Surf City USA close enough to hear your heavy breathing. Just like last time you freaked sitting in the line-up. It was five foot and lumpy. Breaking both ways, away from the pier
and in under it. The right-hander, going away, would of been your choice, but you couldn’t jag one. In your heat there was locals who got wildcards. You couldn’t believe it: they hassled and paddled as hard as you at Coolie. They were the biggest hasslers on the planet these blokes. You couldn’t buy a wave. The crowd, so close, was giving you the heebie-jeebies. It was a hot smoggy day and they all had their shirts off and went bananas whenever one of their locals got a decent ride. Locals cutting you off. Locals paddling round in front and behind you. Locals snaking you.

  Only one thing to do.

  You hassled harder. You dropped in and lost penalty points for interference, but it showed you were prepared to smash your board to get a wave.

  It would be called the roughest heat in surfing history. These guys ganged up and shook their fists at you in front of thirty thousand cheering and all hated you, thirty thousand of them.

  Then a big set come and you paddled like hell. You were going for the right, but two locals paddled in a screen to stop you. You angled left. Jeez. They pushed you into a six-foot back-hander going into the concrete pylons. But you had no option. Stop paddling and you go over the falls and get smashed. Your only way through was on your feet.

  . . . yeah . . .

  So you charged, got up, pulled a big back-side turn, stalled halfway up the face and you were in the green cathedral . . .

  . . . ooh yeah . . .

  You disappeared behind the solid curtain of seawater and the crowd went, the pier went, America went away.

  They lost sight of you.

  The barrel went in under the pier.

  You closed your eyes and tucked in your arms. Fate. The wave was gunna decide if you got took out by a twenty-foot pylon or not. You were in the barrel.

  What a way to go.

  And then it spat you out into the light on the north side of the pier. Crowds rushed over to see how many pieces you come out in. Like Apollo 13 you’d went to the dark side. Under HB Pier in a six-foot barrel.

  And lived.

  You pulled a last cutback on the shoulder and hang-tenned it all the way in. Scored a few extra points by hanging your toes in the whitewater. Yeah why not eh.

  You run round and paddled out again under the pier, into the line-up for the last minutes of the heat.

  Locals wouldn’t surf no more. They just wanted to paddle over and give you high-fives. They were dry in the mouth, shaking their heads. These were the scabbiest locals on the globe and you done what none of them had the hair for. Outrageous. They stopped surfing to honour that wave of DK’s.