‘Couldn’t hack it? What can you hack, Cronk? Can you hack me paying for your fucken drug problems and building you a fucken house? Yes! Can you hack walking up on stage at my wedding and saying a few words? No!’ Gordon spat on the sand and walked off a few paces to give his head room to shake in disbelief. ‘Unbelievable, why do I bother –’
I stood up and screamed at his back, ‘Well if you didn’t fucking ridicule me in front of the whole audience maybe I wouldn’t have!’
‘Ex-fucken-scuse me?’
‘You’re up there with the microphone to introduce me, and you’re saying shit like “Oh, I wouldn’t quite call him the best man in the room, let you be the judge – hahaha” and “the genuine fuck-up himself ” and all the other sly remarks you went on with!’
‘They were jokes! What, you’re the only one who can tell a joke, are you? You’re the only one who can entertain people?’
‘You entertained people! you sung a fucking Elvis song!’
‘You…’ Gordon walked towards me, placed the palm of his right hand on my forehead and pushed, but I did not fall; my head bent sharply over my neck but I remained upright, and with enough gravity to evade his follow-up shove. ‘You sabotaged my Elvis impersonation and you know it too, you little faggot! I do all this shit for you – I build you back up again but you’ve still gotta be the high and mighty Cronk, don’t you? Always star of the show…’
‘It’s not the case anymore, Gordon. Maybe it was once, but tonight, all I wanted to do was my duty, and –’
‘This is what it is!’ Gordon was clapping now, laughing and clapping madly. ‘I fucked her first,’ he said. ‘I fucked her tight little pussy that you never got to fuck!’ He clapped more, licking his lips. He ran right up close to me and whispered, so gently, so baleful, ‘That’s what really hurts, isn’t it, Cronk? That I fucked her the first time and I’ll fuck her the last time. That’s what you can’t quite handle?’
I shook my head and beamed it all back, smiling wider than Miranda Westfield – I will let you know it all now, on this beach beneath this busted moon, you will know it all tonight and then it will be yours to wrestle with for the rest of your life. I never wanted to disclose this secret, but if this is what it’s always been about then I will meet you there, I will more than meet you there, my friend.
‘Stuart took it, mate. Stuart Stone got there first. Long before you ever did.’
Gordon’s face twisted and imploded, then his cheeks blew out and his eyes flared. ‘Watch what you say, Cronk, I’ll fucken do you – no hesitation – if you toy with me on this.’
‘That night after the results party, after the gang brawl at Cronulla, you and I on top of your car on Captain Cook Bridge talking about monsters and moving away and shit, well that same night –’ I placed my hands on my hips and spoke this right at him, so there was no mistake, no agenda, just the ultimate, unadulterated truth ‘– Stuart, our best and oldest mate, the loyal Stuart Stone, well that same night, at that exact same moment we were on the car, he was fucking Courtney in his bed.’
‘No… no…’
‘Oh yes… yes…’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Ask your wife! She told me all about it!’
‘She didn’t!’ He was boiling now. ‘Stone did not fuck her first!’
‘Fucked her first he did; opened her up like a peach and did her in his bed and she loved it – she fucking loved every second of it and so did he. I mean, of course that’s how it went, you dumb cunt – look at us, and look at him!’
Gordon was shaking on his feet, mute, and I’d never seen him capitulate like this before. Was he weeping? I circled him, and proffered more, goading him, enjoying the sight of this man crumbling.
‘You thought it was yours, didn’t you, G-Love? you thought it was in your hands, the big V, you got it, claimed it, won it fair and square! But no, you dumb fuck, you imbecile, you didn’t think! Stuart Stone has her virginity, and he took it with him to the grave. Yes, that’s right, Gordon Braithwaite Constructions, now it’s up there in the heavens! And neither you nor I will ever know how it feels! And he is laughing at us right now, Stone is, he’s lookin’ down at us and laughing all rubbing his belly like the roaring lion that he is!’
Gordon’s face was floppy so I slapped it with the back of my hand, and strangely enough it felt good. I got it now – the hitting of other men. I made a fist with my right hand, thumb poking out the end, and cracked Gordon’s skull with it. My knuckles rang out in pain. Gordon’s nose was bleeding but he still seemed unaware of the hits, of the world, of anything. He was in shock and if the wind changed he would stay that way forever. I squeezed his lips hard until he looked like a groper.
‘I love you, Gordon,’ I said, ‘but you’re an idiot.’ I released his face and he fell onto the beach, motionless. I wondered if and when he would break out of this catatonia. ‘You made me say it, you dumb fuck. I didn’t want to say it!’
And then he looked up at me with a face I will never forget, the face of the boy I met in Year 8, fresh off the boat and seemingly mislaid, except the pimples were gone, replaced by scars covered in stubble – but I could see him and I’m sure he saw me. We had not made an inch of ground in all this time away, we were those small boys still, those brothers of the lost property, together forever.
‘Do you think I should have married her then?’ he asked me with profound uncertainty, and I saw, for the first time, that she herself never mattered to him, she never mattered at all, she was mere sport, a trophy, a ribbon to pin on his fat chest. And the rage arrived in me, and I would do what’s required if I had to, I didn’t fucking care for lives no more.
‘If you don’t know that,’ I said, hovering over him, ‘if you truly do not know the answer to that question, then take the ring off your finger and hand it to me.’
He didn’t respond, he just held my gaze from beneath – half his face smashed with darkness.
‘I said hand over that ring, you cunt, and I will take your place at that table beside her.’
He did not move. He did not drop my gaze.
‘Hand it fucking over, Gordon!’ I screamed and still he was inert, his shivering the only sign of life plus the muffled sound of chattering teeth inside his frothing mouth. I had had enough of him and his null and void, so I reached across and grabbed his ring finger, but with the momentum of my lunge he pulled me down beside him, my head thumping into the sand.
He flipped on top of me now. He was behind me and on top of me, pressing his thighs against my thighs. All I could hear from my place within the sand was a low, guttural groan, like that of a bear. With his knees trapping my knees and his elbows in my armpits he slid his thumbs alongside my skull and pressed into my temples. My skull was soft; it folded in like petals on a wilting rose. My brain was in danger as its encasement collapsed.
‘I am the only one,’ I heard him mutter through the particles of sand. And it had come to this. All the moments of beauty and friendship and shared struggle to now: your wedding to my first love. Your big greed, your strategy, your never telling me Stuart was gone until you arrived in Bathurst and he’d been dead three days. you are afraid of monsters. you were always afraid of the monsters; they never went away for a minute – did they, Gordon Braithwaite?
With his fingers in my scalp, bracing his attack, Gordon’s thumbs pressed deeper into my temples. I could feel my brain about to burst out my skull and when I tried to scream I had no amplifier. I lifted my thighs to kick him but he had the back of my legs locked to the shore with his corking knees. He went deeper and deeper now, digging into the centre of my head as he wheezed and moaned in ugly pleasure. Gordon wanted to squeeze the very mind out of my head and onto the sand for the seagulls to devour, that was if the waves didn’t drag it back down first. My crazy threat of a brain, he wanted it gone from here once and for all.
‘You don’t belong here,’ he said to me, and then it all started pulsing and strobing then stopped.
In the blackness Stuart’s face gradually formed in red sparkling lights, then his body, fully formed, in that same white suit – and it wasn’t a lie! I hadn’t conjured him! He was curling his finger and mouthing, ‘Come with me.’ Swanna! Courtney! It was not a projection, it was never fiction, this is death for real! I reached out to touch him but as soon as I did I was sucked out of the afterlife and my mouth was full of sand again.
Everything was sideways: the beach, the clubhouse, the shiny street. Gordon was barely visible in the passing mist, washing his hands under the tap that pushed out of the wall beside the roller door to the garage full of surf skis and life rafts, swimming caps and rope, a red rubber speedboat. Whether there was blood on his Elvis cape I’ll never know, all I did know was that they were married, and that they would go on to have children – one boy, one girl, no, surely more? And they will live across the road from where I lay my throbbing, broken head. And Gordon will smile in the knowledge.
The wind whipped me up to standing and I wondered if Courtney was curious as to my whereabouts, or if she was merely getting on with her night. She was dancing probably, with her hands out in front of herself, fingers clicking to the every-second beat.
My suit was ripped and there was blood in my saliva. Every breath in my brain punished me with an agonising jolt of pain, as if Gordon had set a tripwire in there, and enclosed it forever. I watched him as he took the wooden steps up to the surf club and he was a hero. The hero returning to his wife – back from the jungle. Gordon, my brother, my best friend, you are my hero and I love you more than you will ever know. Congratulations Elvis.
Slowly, I turned away and the ocean was black and simple before me, like a giant door I could so easily step inside. Yes, I will go through now, please. I took my jacket off and laid it down on the beach, sleeves folded in like it was in the shop. I moved down the bank and back into the short water. It wasn’t so cold on my feet anymore; the wind had dropped off, it was almost warm now. I continued walking, wading further into the water. Eventually the wetness gripped the under-skin of my balls but it was ok, not how it usually felt, not so alarming.
The ocean floor gave way and I was up to my chest in it now. I did not bother raising my arms, I just impelled myself further into it, swallowing the occasional section of splash and tide. I could not go any further with my head above the line so I stopped and took my final look around. I was not hesitating, merely savouring the last moments of life, and it felt weirdly euphoric, gazing across the endless skin of the ocean, but in the end it was just dull.
There’s something so appalling about living, something so greedy and grotesque. The space we take up, all the noise we make, the air we demand; who are we to think we are entitled to it, who are we to think our sound is pleasant, that we are worthy of breath.
This was bravery, this was clarity, this was sense made. It didn’t feel like a lot but it didn’t feel like nothing either, it just felt smooth.
I closed my eyes forever. I closed my eyes and counted to three. I counted one. I counted two, and then I counted three.
Ok then. I’ll come to you now.
I breathed in and pushed up off the ocean floor, launching way above the surface into the night air like a shuttle, and as I fell my scalp became remarkably cold. I was just about to plunge down into the trapping wetness when a horn tooted out from the distance. I quickly shut my mouth, kicked out my legs and began treading water.
And it is just how I dreamt it.
Way out on the far edge of the horizon I spot an oil tanker. It is sitting there against the wall of the world and it is flashing with red and white light. Is that you Stuart? I ask it to honk its horn again for me but it doesn’t. I ask it once more to toot that thing, toot and I might stay a while, but it won’t. It’s just a long steel boat, nothing else. I hang my head back, kick my legs out in front of me and float a little. Soon I will give way to the currents and rips, let gravity win and slide down into the next place, but for now I am resting in purgatory. The last time I lay on water was all the way back then. At White Rock, in the first days of Swanna. Where are you now? I hope you’re full of love and home. Please know that this is not you. Please know that this was always me.
The water is even warmer now as it spills across my torso, my chin and up my nose. I turn my head towards Cronulla and the lights twinkle as if winking at me; there must be people inside those houses and apartments. Courtney, do you agree? There are people about and they’re living and thinking and listening to music. Is my mother beneath one of those lights? In the sitting room reading the Herald or simply eating salted peanuts and worrying. Mum? I don’t even know how I got here. And then I think of Oscar. That buzzing ray of light and openness. What will he say when my body arrives all purple and exploded – what will he do when he gets here himself, and there is no one to tell him that it is ok not to know the way.
I never was a swimmer but I know how to fight. And the sound of water, well I can hear it now. I take a deeper breath, move my arms and feel a little older.
Acknowledgements
To my sisters and my father, for the ongoing support. To my agent and mate Jean Mostyn, for pushing me on when I was calling the bank for a loan so I could pay back the advance. To everyone at Pan Macmillan, especially Emma Rafferty, my editor, thank you for the sharp notes and positive vibes. To the wonderful Alex Craig, my publisher, whose fault this is, I thank you dearly. To Christos Tsiolkas, for your generosity and wisdom. To my mum, who read all the drafts, thanks for your honesty and love, and finally to Jonnie, for sleeping outside churches with me.
How it feels Page 31