The Rip

by Robert Drewe

  At the aquarium, point-of-view had definitely applied. From the observation deck up above, all the shivering kids oohing and aahing and pretending to throw one another’s caps and bags into the tank, the water below was dark and ominous, seething with invisible denizens, the swirling surface occasionally broken by a stingray’s wing tip or dramatic dorsal fin. Peering into the tank at eye level, however, your breath clouding the glass, pressing close to the well-lit fish on the other side, even the circling sharks weren’t particularly frightening. The sharks were as lethargic and fat as swimming-pool toys. One of them appeared to have difficulty breathing, the tuna had bite scars, and one stingray’s barb was snapped off.

  Every afternoon one of the aquarium keepers would don scuba gear and descend into the tank to feed the captive fish. The high point for visitors was him handfeeding the grey nurse sharks. They were surprisingly neat eaters, allowing him to pat them, their teeth daintily missing his fingers by mere centimetres, and at no time did he appear in any danger. Once, when the keeper had climbed out again, young Pablo-to-be had asked him, ‘What would happen if you didn’t feed them all for a week?’

  The man gave him a look. ‘What do you reckon, sonny? Use your imagination.’

  ‘Why do the sharks eat the dead fish you feed them and not the live ones swimming past them all day?’

  ‘Habit,’ the keeper answered. ‘Laziness.’

  ‘How come some of the fish have bite marks on them?’

  ‘Sometimes the sharks forget.’

  It seemed difficult to keep ocean fish alive and contented outside of the sea. They didn’t look healthy or normal, just existing to be gawked at by people who feared the ocean. Meanwhile, steam misted the glass walls, generators throbbed, pipes sucked up sea water and spat out used water into the harbour, the fish circled incessantly, and gaudy tumours of mould and rust seemed to grow before your eyes.

  One Thursday afternoon Oswald Mosilyo was there no longer, apparently transferred to a medium-security prison in Sussex, and shortly afterwards two new students, both white boys, turned up in Angeline Shehabe’s creative writing class. The word was they were gang members, either Western Brotherhood or Pastry Crew. As gang members rarely joined either the workforce or the education classes – the gang ethos insisting they shouldn’t work for the people who’d locked them up, or become suckhole schoolkid snitches – their presence was unexpected. Angeline looked unsettled by the turn of events. But for now, Dyson couldn’t see beyond Oswald’s departure being a stroke of luck. It meant he could claim Oswald’s seat near Angeline.

  Of the four schools of sharks in this particular aquarium – The Muslim Boys, The Asian Peril, The Western Brotherhood and The Pastry Crew – the first three gangs had tacked on some religious, political or racially superior association to enhance their dangerous-outsider status. The Muslim Boys weren’t Middle Easterners but black youths whose knowledge of the Koran, say, or even Islam generally, was sketchy to say the least, and whose Caribbean grandmothers probably prayed for them weekly at the Pentecostal Church. The Asian Peril was Pakistani, Indian and Afghan. The two white gangs looked like discarded skinheads or football louts from the ’90s, some Western Brotherhood members so heavily tattooed that few white patches remained on their bodies or scalps, and from a distance their skin looked made of blue denim.

  With their moist pink hands, floury faces and soulless eyes, the Pastries seemed to Dyson the bleakest and most sinister gang, and the hardest one to fathom. At some stage of their imprisonment they had all worked in the kitchens and they still resembled sly, furtive spit-in-the-soup cooks. Ambiguous in disposition, their gang initiation was said to require both extreme sexual predation and passivity, and because of their rumoured kitchen armoury – more sophisticated than ordinary prison shanks, those run-of-the-mill razor blades set into toothbrush handles – they were otherwise known as the Knives.

  One of the new students, his attenuated body and snaggly teeth supporting Dyson’s shark comparison, leant over Angeline and presented her with a manila folder. ‘Here’s my work so far,’ he said.

  His hands rested on the table just in front of her breasts. Her eyes flicked over the tattooed obscenities on his fingers. She browsed through the folder, frowned and handed it back. ‘This is your criminal record, Jason.’

  ‘Twenty-six convictions,’ he said proudly. His sharky appearance came from the double row of top teeth that were revealed when he smiled.

  ‘And how old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-three.’

  Angeline sighed. She seemed about to double over, as if in pain, but rubbed her stomach and straightened up in her seat. ‘Looks like you’re going to have a lot to write about,’ she said.

  While this by-play was going on, the beginners’ drum class had started its repetitive thump-thump-thumpety-crash next door and the other newcomer, paler and slightly older, with a white-blond buzz-cut and chin fuzz, had seated himself at the end of the table, produced a copy of The Koran and Science, opened it at the beginning and begun reading aloud. His delivery was flat and passionless but as he read on, declaring the many deficiencies of Christianity and Western civilisation, his voice rose over the drums until it dominated the room.

  Angeline let him read for five or six minutes. Dyson could sense her tension. She was swallowing air and belching quietly, rubbing her stomach and breathing deeply as if to calm herself. ‘Thank you,’ she finally interrupted the reader. Her voice cracked as she spoke. ‘Klaus, is it? Klaus, this is what we do in creative writing class. We do some writing exercises here to get us going. Then at night we try to put them into practice and do our own writing. We draw on our imaginations and experiences and write something ourselves. Then, back in class, we read out what we’ve written. Our own work. Not something from a book, no matter how marvellous the book is.’ Klaus continued reading. The other students were slumped in their seats and their eyes looked wary. ‘This isn’t a religion class,’ Angeline said. ‘I respect your views but I think you’re in the wrong class.’

  Klaus droned on. It was as if she had never spoken, never existed. His accent sounded faintly European and his greenish eyes had the over-bright flair of algal blooms. When Angeline finally stood up from the table he glanced up from his book with a pained expression, as if his scholarship had been interrupted by a menial. ‘This is more important than people’s immoral teachings. You cannot avoid the truth or prevent the truth. It’s all in here,’ he said, patting the book. Then he began chanting, staring defiantly into her eyes, his sing-song phrases in jarring counterpoint to the renewed drumbeat next door.

  Pablo Dyson was the only prisoner to speak. ‘Jesus!’ he said. His instinct was to pat her arm or shoulder but of course this was forbidden. ‘Give her a break.’

  Klaus was still chanting against the drums when everyone else, apart from shark-toothed Jason and his folder of convictions, began leaving the room. Jason was grinning like a bronze whaler. Dyson stood back to let Angeline through the door ahead of him. For a second he thought he heard Klaus’s phrasing change to a hiss as she left.

  The prison officers had staged a sudden dawn raid, turning over all the cells in search of a missing spoon and a vegetable peeler, and by mid-afternoon B-wing was still strewn with odd socks, girlie pin-ups, toothbrushes, magazines, squashed ping-pong balls, torn family photographs, smashed keepsakes and ripped-apart pillows. In retaliation for their trashed belongings (the kitchen utensils had not been found), three prisoners had broken a warder’s nose and glasses, flooded the bathroom and smashed the table-tennis table, and were now being dealt with.

  The tense atmosphere lingered into the afternoon, as if all the early-morning shouting and swearing, the thudding feet and banging of clubs, the lockdown and destruction, had upped the prison’s blood-pressure levels. When the cells were eventually opened for ‘free time’, the Thursday writing students were still edgy, rolling their shoulders and flexing their muscles as they entered the education room.

  The drummer
s were also back in action. Their skills had made little progress and Angeline winced at the noise as she sat down and faced the class. Sitting beside her in Oswald’s old seat, Dyson surreptitiously admired her as always, tried to secretly inhale her aroma as usual, and appreciate the buoyant femininity of her presence. Today, however, her arms were crossed around her rigid body, her complexion looked grey, her eyes were bloodshot. At the other end of the table sat Klaus and Jason, leaning back in their chairs, their arms folded.

  ‘Today I want to talk about ignoring the negative voice in your head,’ she said. ‘This is important for beginning writers. And not only for writers.’

  Klaus ostentatiously opened The Koran and Science, extracted a leather bookmark and began to read aloud. Jason was smiling and tapping his blue fingers on the table. The other students turned their gaze on Angeline, their body language still reflecting umbrage at the morning’s cell raids, at authority in any guise, even the minimal clout represented by a member of the education staff.

  ‘You’re not reading that today, Klaus,’ Angeline said.

  ‘Ahmed. My correct name is now Ahmed,’ said Klaus. ‘Everyone here can witness that this woman is discriminating against my choice of literature, God’s only literature. Her presence is not suitable here. An official complaint will be lodged.’

  There was silence. Angeline looked dumbstruck, then she blinked several times as if struggling to remember correct protocol and to remind herself that in the economic system of this vast, tight-fisted metropolis she was a black female poet. Klaus/Ahmed began reading again. Jason clapped his tattooed hands. Expressions varying from frowns to smirks played across the faces of the class. Next door a novice drummer began attacking the cymbals.

  Pablo Dyson stood then, wearily but determinedly, as if several difficult personal decisions had been resolved even as a single anxiety – more cohesive but also much weightier – had simultaneously been created. ‘One warning only, mate,’ he said. ‘Get out or I’ll shove the book up your arse.’

  There was a moment of stunned indecision, then Klaus/ Ahmed and Jason scraped back their chairs and left. Five other students exchanged glances around the table and, without speaking, followed them outside, leaving their work and writing materials behind. A discarded pencil rolled off the table on to the floor. Even within the room, Dyson could sense the abrupt change in atmosphere and, beyond that, his own altered status. The muttering and whispering outside was an indication of what lay ahead.

  While there was still an hour of ‘free time’ left, he excused himself from the remainder of Angeline Shehabe’s writing class and queued up for the telephone. The call to his lawyer would change his plea to guilty of smuggling. Undoubtedly they’d drop the lesser possession charge. He’d already served six months – an admission of guilt surely couldn’t mean more than another few months. And at least he’d know where he stood. There’d be clarity. There would also be Thursday afternoons sitting beside her.

  They’d never touch but there would be satisfaction in the watching role, and perhaps there was more to life than physical contact anyway. He would have to be on the alert, impossibly vigilant, but strangely – was this naive of him? – he felt able now to write freely about the sea.

  Masculine Shoes

  BEFORE LEAVING LOS Angeles to hunt locations for Universal’s new tropical island adventure–romance, Tyler Foss searched ‘Queensland coast’ online and came up with coral reefs, cyclones, crocodiles, ultraviolet radiation, partying high-schoolers, marine stingers and lost skindivers. He also found constant references to paradise on earth. Uncertain terrain, thought Tyler Foss.

  As the advance guard, the person at the sharp end of any film project, the veteran Hollywood location scout paid close attention to his image: outlaw-rocker, with a lone-wolf air. He absorbed all the Internet information about white Coral Sea sands, harsh sunlight, rainforest lagoons and salt-lashed boardwalks, gave his clothing the usual careful consideration, and decided, as always, on denim, leather and T-shirts. The only problematical item this time was footwear. Tyler Foss was fifty-five and five-seven, and at all times he wore custom-made cowboy boots.

  After his thirty-five years in the business, the cowboy boots, along with the silver ponytail and chin stubble, the chunky Navajo bracelets and the unfiltered Camels, were part of the Foss persona – the Foss legend, he liked to think – set forever in the 1970s. They shouted wise-old-dog-knowingness and keeper-of-celebrity-secrets. And, incidentally, the heels added two inches to his height. He owned two dozen pairs, including boots in ostrich skin (smooth and full-quill varieties), alligator (belly and back), snake (Burmese python and king cobra), lizard, caiman, conga eel, crocodile (Nile and Australian), stingray and kangaroo. But on this assignment much sea-shore reconnoitring over wet sand, cliffs and rocks would be required. Foss’s bespoke boots averaged $4500 a pair. On the Massachusetts coast he’d lost his favourite king cobras while scouting The Perfect Storm for Warners. The cobra skin had quickly flaked and succumbed to the salty Atlantic fogs. Now for coastal work, regrettably, cowboy boots were out.

  An actual cowboy could not have felt more angst at giving them up. Eschewing the boots was a considerable blow to Foss’s sense of self. He hadn’t worn lace-up shoes, the footwear of the Suits, the Average-Joe citizenry, the office-going nine-to-fivers, since high school. But he was a professional, and intensive research into the best footwear for coastal tramping eventually turned up an alternative: something called the Nature-Grit Sneaker. To Foss the word ‘sneaker’ had a childish, suburban ring to it, not to mention the off-putting eco-hippie sound of ‘Nature-Grit’. But it was made of yak leather, which sounded fairly exotic and hard-hitting, and came in suitably masculine shades: sand-yak, rust-yak, mineral-yak and – presumably for evening wear when traction was needed – black-yak.

  Foss got a couple of pairs in sand- and mineral-yak. He was pleased to find they were surprisingly cool and comfortable on the job; moreover that yak skin – perhaps it was the Himalayan high-altitude factor of the beast – really ‘breathed’ down here at sea level. After a long day’s tramping through rainforest humidity or sand-dune heat, even without socks, they smelled less than regular sneakers. And, as he’d discovered on the Gold Coast, if you wished to undress quickly, especially after an evening’s drinking, they required far less time and effort than boots. Cowboy-boot removal, Foss had to admit, could cost a man valuable impetus and energy these days, with sometimes depressing results. As well, the Nature-Grits were about $4000 cheaper than, say, his alligator bellies or conga eels. He could almost forgive them for the missing two inches.

  For the whole late-autumn month of May – according to his research a dry, benign, season-turning month in Australia, when anything cyclonic, venomous or man-eating should be absent or dormant – Foss roamed the north-eastern seaboard in his yak-leather sneakers, scouting the required adventurous-cum-romantic ‘look’ for the film, which was set on an unnamed tropical island in an unnamed ocean. And neither daytime saturation by sudden tidal surges nor night-time bar spillages and nightclub and casino scuffing could mar his Nature-Grits. Surf, salt, rocks and reefs, beer and bourbon drips, Camel ash: the yak leather resisted them all. Despite the effortless professionalism of his new shoes, however, even after three weeks’ extensive searching, no coastal location seemed quite adventurously romantic enough in an original Tyler Foss way to recommend to the producers. He was becoming worried.

  At an anxious ebb, Foss lugged his cameras and battered leather duffle bag (the sort that brought pirates or World War II air aces to mind) aboard a tourist ferry to an offshore island famous for its translucent sands. And as the boat slowly chugged along the scenic eastern shore, allowing the passengers their holiday snaps of migrating humpback whales, his anxiety began to fall away. How was it possible for a lagoon to be so clear, for a beach to be even whiter than the coral shores he’d just left? This sand was like crushed pearls. What excited him as the boat drew closer, however, was the dramatic potential o
f the ornately rooted pandanus palms, lawyer vines and shadowy eucalypts poised on the edge of those pale sand-hills. The stark vegetation provided a sinister backdrop to the serenity of the shore. Winter storm tides had eaten into the dunes, and undermined trees lay toppled on the beach all along the high-water mark. Their exposed roots and claw-like branches now gestured at the sea and grabbed at the sky.

  Lustrous sands, accessible jungle, crystal seas and menacing trees; Foss couldn’t snap shots quick enough. He had a good feeling about this place: it should more than satisfy the director’s and production designer’s creative visions. The producer, too: the island was conveniently situated only thirty minutes from the mainland. Curiously, it did seem to be inhabited by many lean and tawny stray dogs, but as Foss and the other ferry passengers disembarked, the dogs skulked into the shadows of the wharf pylons and vanished into the rainforest. Easy enough for the animal wrangler to keep them out of frame, mused Foss absently, checking into his hotel.

  His immediate task that first afternoon was to take some offshore photographs of the island. Leaving the sand-yak sneakers on the beach, he rolled up his jeans and waded out into the shallows. For perhaps an hour, until the tide began to turn, he snapped away determinedly, capturing the main beach from many vantage points before wading back to shore. Strangely, he couldn’t find his sneakers anywhere. They were gone. Stolen.

  For a few minutes, Tyler Foss stamped the sand in fury and frustration. There was no one else around now. What sneaky son of a bitch would steal a man’s shoes from the beach? Because he prided himself on travelling light, he’d packed only one other pair of shoes, the mineral-yaks. But eventually, taking deep breaths, he told himself life would go on. He’d suffered worse tribulations than bare feet and stolen footwear – pneumonia, for example, while scouting sites for Cold Mountain in Romania (Romania had to pass for Virginia and North Carolina). Not to mention the king-cobra boot disintegration in Massachusetts. As dusk began to fall, his temper finally settling, he padded back to the hotel with his first island location shots.