Rose by Any Other Name

by Maureen McCarthy

  Hey, Rose . . . don’t even think about it!

  But I’ve already quickened my pace and now I’m running. I figure it will take me ten minutes to get to my van and into my wetsuit, and maybe another five to get back down to the water with my board. By then there won’t be much light left, maybe none. So I have to hurry. Suddenly it seems the most important thing in the world to join those guys on the water. To catch just one wave before night finally falls . . .

  It is not quite dark as I feel the sea slapping around my knees. The waves crash against my belly and that is my cue to sink forward into the inky black chill and start paddling. I’m laughing like a maniac now, as scared as hell. No rip, I try to placate my jumping nerves. It’s my mantra to quell the rising fear. See those guys, Rose. They’re doing it. No rip. You’ll be okay.

  And I am. I get out to where the swell is rising like silver froth in the dim light and I wait for my chance.

  I miss the first one entirely. The next dumps me like a sack of potatoes.

  ‘Hey!’ a friendly voice shouts. One of the guys is right nearby and he’s suffered the same fate. But I don’t have a chance to return his greeting. Both of us are paddling frantically towards a beautiful new white crest. Then I’m up, I’m riding my board in the semi-dark at Childers Cove. Afraid, yes, but totally alive. My feet lock that board, my arms stretch out like wings and my eyes sting with salt and breeze. It feels for those short few moments – maybe half a minute – exactly like I’m flying.

  I am skimming over this water like a bird.

  I only get that one wave. The next few just dump me, and when I see the guys hauling themselves out onto the sand I do the same. The courage I found to go in doesn’t extend to staying out there on my own at night. The light has totally gone now. Even so, I paddle in reluctantly, gasping with the cold, my legs trembling with exertion, wishing it could have lasted longer.

  Before getting out, when it’s waist deep, I let myself fall under the surface of the waves. Face down at first, legs tucked up. Then I flip onto my back and spread my arms and legs out as far as I can. My mind cuts loose in the drifting silence. So many stars out now! I feel the dark currents ebb with secret life around my head and limbs. I can imagine the shadowy, gliding shapes of fish and weed and a million other living things beneath the surface of this water.

  ‘Wow,’ I whisper, and then again, louder, ‘Thank you. Thank you, thank you.’ I have no idea who I’m talking to but . . . I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

  ‘Cool or what?’ one of them calls over as I approach, clutching my board. The three guys, huddled together on the shoreline, have turned to watch me curiously as I come out of the water.

  ‘Yeah!’ I smile and wave as I pass on my way towards the steps. ‘Very!’ I’m feeling too shy to stop and talk, even though I feel strongly that I’d be welcome.

  In spite of climbing all those stairs I’m still shivering when I reach the van. I get out of my wetsuit and rummage around for some dry clothes in my bag. I pull on jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt. Not anywhere near warm enough but it seems to be all I’ve brought. Damn. Then I open the door and slide onto the torn plastic seat behind the wheel, feeling high as a kite. That was . . . special! And I’m alive to tell the tale . . . Hey, Rose!

  I turn on the ignition and try to get the heater working, but the noisy vents only blow out intermittent rushes of freezing cold air. Damn it. Just my luck. I mess around with it for ages in the semi-dark, trying to remember the trick that the service guy told me, wishing I had a torch. I’m shivering uncontrollably by this stage and swearing furiously through my chattering teeth. Why didn’t I listen properly? And why the hell didn’t I pack a really warm jumper? Truth is, I’d forgotten how cool summer nights sometimes get on the coast. I groan when I remember that I’d only packed Cynthia’s crummy light sleeping-bag, too. Couldn’t find mine and thought hers would do. Not smart, Rose!

  I give up on the heater and turn on the radio, flicking through the stations furiously. Nothing but crap! All the easy-listening shit. In desperation, I switch over to AM and Bruce Springsteen’s old hit ‘Dancing in the Dark’ suddenly fills the cabin. Well, okay . . . it will have to do. But it only takes one line of the song and a sliver of memory lobs in from left field and sets up camp right under my rib cage.

  When Ray and I got together we’d usually end up dancing. We’d put on some music, have a couple of drinks, talk, make some food. Then we’d turn up the stereo, turn off the lights and . . . start dancing, just the two of us, dancing in the dark.

  I shake off the memory as I watch the three surfers making their way to their vehicle around the other side of the car park. Their loud voices are muffled in the night air. Doors slam, an engine fires up and the tail lights shine like small red eyes in the darkness. They reverse and beep the horn as they pass me before heading out towards the exit. I feel strangely bereft when the sound of their motor finally dies away.

  I’m sitting there staring out into the night at nothing, shivering, feeling myself slide downwards like a kid on one of those high water slides, wanting to stop but unable to. So I went for a surf under the stars? Well . . . great. But it doesn’t exactly solve everything, does it? Like, what to do now? And how to deal with the sisters tomorrow and . . . This small secluded parking lot suddenly seems creepy.

  I turn around, look at the jumbled mess in the back of the van and try to get enthusiastic about bedding myself down in there for the night. But why should I crawl into that miserable, inadequate sleeping-bag and toss and turn all night, chewing over the same old boring stuff of last summer, just because I decided I would twelve hours ago? I don’t really want to stay here. No way. Everyone is allowed to change their mind occasionally. I straighten up, insert the key and start the engine.

  Once up on the main road, I turn right at the intersection, rev up hard and gun the old van towards Port Campbell. I pass no one else on the road. Halfway there I slip on a Kyuss CD. A bit of desert rock will do the trick. Gotta keep the devils onside.

  The downfall of me and Ray didn’t hinge on Zoe and her mother finding out. That is just the official line, the one I tell myself, because all through this past year I’ve wanted like crazy to believe that we were meant for each other, and that we were stymied by brutal outside forces. But it wasn’t like that at all.

  Last Summer, Apollo Bay

  I wake early to the chortling of the magpies outside. I slip out of bed and pull on my jeans and the thick plaid shirt of Ray’s I sometimes wear. Then I go out onto the verandah.

  The branches and leaves of the native oak near the gate stand out against the soft pink light of the rising sun in the most breathtakingly lovely way. Not a hint of wind. I slide my feet into a pair of old rubber thongs and take myself off down the track, away from the house. I walk quite a way, past the first curve in the road, and the second. I turn around . . . wham! It is as though someone has turned on the celestial glory just for me. The sea, bright green with flashes of shimmering pearl, pushes up against an endless sky. It is like a magical backdrop to an important religious event, almost surreal! A figure wreathed in glowing white is going to descend from the stratosphere any minute now, accompanied by a host of winged angels!

  I stand awhile, lift my face to the sky and laugh. My heart is full to bursting. You can send the hurricanes in now, if you like, I whisper to whoever might be listening. An avalanche of snow or ice. An army of barbarians to pillage and burn. I don’t care what happens. This is it. I’ve seen all I need to see.

  Of course, that’s all bullshit. I don’t want anyone to come in and change one thing. Ray and I have been alone together for three days and I’m due back home tomorrow and I desperately don’t want to go. Why would I? I don’t want to see my family. I don’t want to see friends or take phone calls or go to work. I don’t want to go to university either. Future plans have faded into the murky haze of boring background. The very idea of career ambitions seems ludicrous and beside the point. We’ve been sitting around
for three days: reading, watching the sky, talking, having the occasional swim, eating and sleeping, dancing, and making love over and over again. I’m only eighteen but I’ve already found what everyone else spends their lives searching for.

  I run back to the house, eager to share my revelation. But he isn’t in the kitchen or the bedroom and not on the back verandah either. Eventually I find him out in his office storeroom, marking up orders, frowning over sheets of paper covered in numbers, a pen stuck behind one ear and the fax machine purring.

  ‘Rosie girl?’ he says, looking up with a preoccupied frown. I’m leaning up against the big open doorway, my arms folded, watching him work. I smile but don’t move. He returns my smile and picks up a fresh pile of papers and positions them in the photocopier. Suddenly I’m overwhelmed. All of it seems like a kind of miracle. Him. Me. Us. Tears come to my eyes. I stand in the doorway, laughing a bit at how ridiculous I am being, at the same time letting them trickle down my cheeks, aware of their dramatic effect. No one could possibly love anyone more than I love him right at this very moment, and that’s what he needs to know.

  ‘Baby?’ he looks up, concerned, puts the papers down and moves towards me. ‘Has anything happened?’

  ‘No!’ I fall into his embrace and continue to cry and laugh at the same time. He rubs my back and keeps murmuring that everything is absolutely fine, and that I’m not to get upset or worried. Between gulps I tell him that I already know that, and he isn’t to think I’m upset or worried about a thing . . .

  At last, I am able to blow my nose and find my voice, although I can’t find the exact words I need. I start rambling on in this gushy, vague way that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I can’t seem to stop. I try to describe what I’ve just seen, all the stunning subtlety of colour, and the grand, magisterial wonder of the sea and sky. I rave on and on about the magic of everything when we’re together. He listens, says nothing, only smiles occasionally. When at last I stop, I am a little fearful. What if me putting it into words is against the rules in some way? What if doing that makes it all . . . disappear?

  You see, my head is full of all the possibilities for our future together. That’s what I really want to talk about.

  ‘Do you believe in heaven?’ is how I broach it. He doesn’t laugh at me or tell me I’m silly. In fact he doesn’t say anything at all for some time. ‘I sort of feel I’m there,’ I say shyly, ‘when I’m with you.’

  ‘Do you?’ he whispers into my hair.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, then pull away a bit and look up into his face. ‘Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you believe we’re in heaven too?’

  ‘No, baby,’ he interrupts me softly, shaking his head. ‘No I don’t.’

  ‘What do you . . .’ I can feel myself starting to crash inside, because his face is telling me things I don’t want to know, but I try like crazy to hide it. ‘What do you believe in?’ I whisper.

  He smiles in weary way and shrugs. ‘I don’t believe in anything,’ he says, his eyes drifting away from my face, ‘except that every good thing will end and that everything holds the seeds of its own destruction.’

  My skin starts contracting, and the goose bumps rise, and it is like being dunked into ice-cold water against your will.

  ‘You’re reading too much into all this, baby,’ he goes on gently, still stroking my hair. ‘You need to know none of it is all that important. You’re young. You’ll meet other people.’

  ‘But Ray!’ I recoil from him. ‘You’re . . . I love you!’

  An ache rises up from my belly to my chest and throat whenever I think of his words. I don’t believe in anything. It makes me feel so sad. For him and for myself and for what happened . . .

  I didn’t accept it, of course. Instead, I took on the role of his personal saviour. My love was going to single-handedly lead him back to a full and happy life. I was going to make him see.

  I rang, emailed, and wrote notes to him constantly, with small snippets of good news about the world.

  Oh, Ray, you should have seen the baby ducks on the pond this morning! They were so pretty . . . blah blah!

  So much love from your Rosie girl.

  Ray, you wouldn’t believe the funny thing I dreamed last night . . . you and me in Washington as special guests of President Bush. We were discussing the state of the world. Bono was there. Bush was really impressed with your suggestion to . . . etc etc . . . Your Rosie girl.

  (I made up the bit about Bush being impressed with him!)

  Hi, sweet man. Just a note to let you know that although I’m serving ice-creams today, I’m actually down on the coast watching the sunset with you! Love you forever . . . Rosie girl.

  I also constantly brought him gifts and offerings: books to read and other little things I’d found, like flowers and the super-fine black ink pens that he loved. Dad had left a very special pen behind, given to him by a childhood mentor. I stole it and gave it to Ray. Once I spied a tiny bird’s nest perched up in the fork of a tree. I actually climbed the tree and prised it away from the branch. Inside were four speckled eggs. Two traumatised parents screeched and fluttered around me as I committed this crime, but do you think I cared? I didn’t give a shit! As long as I could give this perfect thing to Ray. It was my job to light up his life. I was desperate to make him love me in the way that I loved him.

  Road Trip

  ‘Mum, can I come in?’ I knock on the door again, this time more sharply. ‘Mum, you there?’ I wait a few seconds and then close my eyes with frustration. I haven’t got my watch so I have no idea of the time, but when I drove back through the town, the pub lights were out so it has to be after ten.

  ‘Mum!’

  Nothing. Then it dawns on me that she might not even be there. Maybe she went out to eat in some local restaurant; met up with someone she knows. (Mum is forever running across people she knows.) They will have invited her back to their place for coffee. Right at this moment she’ll be chatting on in some warm, dry, comfortable living room and has probably agreed to stay there the night instead of heading back through the storm to this ratty joint! That means no way in for me, unless I dare to wake the manager. Damn! I’m not up to that so I’ll have to sleep in the van after all. I’m chilled through, my teeth are chattering and I have blisters on my feet from sloshing around through the rocks in these light shoes.

  Hang on. Was that some kind of rustling inside? I lean up against the door and knock again.

  ‘Who is it?’ comes this suspicious, low voice through the keyhole. Oh God. I almost collapse with relief.

  ‘Mum, it’s me, Rose!’

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’ she grumbles.

  She sounds really cross.

  ‘Just let me in! Please.’

  She begins fiddling with the lock and then swears when it won’t open. A yellow light suddenly spills out through the cracks above and under the door. It is all I can do to stop myself from yelling, Hurry up!

  At last, the door opens and I fall inside. For one confused moment I hardly know where I am, or who exactly. Rose, yes, but at what age and who have I come to see? I might be a kid of five knocking on my parents’ door in the middle of the night. Mum, I’ve had a bad dream! Can I get into bed with you?

  Or come to find Ray after I hadn’t heard from him for a week. I will never forget the look on his face as he opened the door, as though I was some silly little girl he only vaguely remembered.

  Sorry I didn’t call, baby. Had so much work on . . .

  As though he’d already begun the next phase of his life and I wasn’t part of it. At that point I became terrified because I realised my life wasn’t my own any more . . . I’d given it away to someone who didn’t want it.

  ‘Rose!’ Mum stands aside. ‘You’re freezing and . . .’ She tries to put her arm around my shoulders but I push past into the warmth of the room. ‘What happened? I was worried. You were going to ring me!’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, gulping. ‘I forgot. Sorry.’
Her hair is loose and she is in a cotton nightgown with a panel of lace around the neck. She looks warm and soft and a bit bleary-eyed. I obviously woke her. ‘You mind if I have a shower?’

  ‘Now?’ She seems baffled more than anything.

  ‘Well, look at me!’ I say.

  ‘It’s two a.m., Rose!’

  ‘Is it?’ What the fuck do I care what time it is!

  ‘Well,’ she smiles, ‘of course you can have a shower.’ She yawns, walks past me to the little bathroom and opens the door. ‘So what happened? You went out to the beach and . . .?’ She takes a couple of steps towards me but I back away. I’ve come onto her territory so it’s important to keep my distance.

  ‘I’m okay, thanks for letting me in,’ I mumble in this surly keep–your-hands-off way. Much to my annoyance it makes her laugh.

  ‘Oh! Like I was going to let you stand wet and dripping outside?’

  ‘Well, thanks anyway,’ I say, reaching to the side table for tissues and blowing my nose. She dives over to the spare bed, plucks a towel off the end and pushes it into my hands.

  ‘Go on!’ she orders. ‘Have a warm shower. You’ll feel better.’

  When I come out of the shower, Mum is sitting up in bed with the bedside lamp on, her knees up, reading a book. She has pulled the single bed down for me, found a couple of extra pillows, and there is a glass of water on my table. I stand there, wrapped only in a towel, trying to work out how to hop into bed without taking the towel off and letting her see me naked. I know it’s ridiculous but I’m in a completely unplanned, up-close situation with my mother. We haven’t slept in the same room since I was about eight.

  ‘I’ve got a spare nightdress,’ she says.

  ‘Thanks.’ I watch as she gets up and pulls it from the little case at the bottom of her bed and throws it to me. I slip it over my head while her back is turned. ‘Is there anything to eat? I’m starving!’