by Tim Winton
Ah, he thought. That’s what I am. The new boyfriend. Still, it’s something. Hell, it’s everything!
•
‘I’ve got an idea for you,’ John East said, scratching his whiskers.
The guidance office smelt of coffee and gingernuts. Lockie looked nervously at his own hands, just for something to look at.
‘You surf, right?’
Lockie nodded.
‘This town is full of bored kids, right?’
Lockie looked up. ‘You can say that again. This town is so boring you could — ’
‘You could start up a boardriders club, that’s what.’
‘A what?’
‘A surfing club for young grommets like yourself.’
‘What for? I hate clubs.’
John East squinted. ‘You’re that enthusiastic, I can hardly believe it.’
‘Here I am talking to someone who drops in fragrantly on another surfer and now he tells me I need to start a surfing club.’
‘Flagrantly.’
‘Sir?’
‘The word is flagrantly not fragrantly. If I dropped in on you fragrantly it must have been the aftershave.’
Lockie blinked, confounded.
‘So what about it?’
‘What do we need a club for?’
John East sighed. ‘Well, you could run training sessions, movie nights, competitions.’
‘Who against? Half the schools down here are inland. Those kids wouldn’t know a beach if it crawled up their shorts and bit them on the — ’
‘Ever heard of Ocean Beach? Margaret River? You’d find more competition than you think. Who knows, some of you could compete in the State Schoolboys comps. Maybe even the Nationals. Bells Beach. Noosa. Think of it: the Angelus Hotrats.’
Lockie tried to look doubtful.
‘It’d draw more kids into the sport,’ John East continued. ‘Who knows, there might be a Tom Carroll or Mark Richards waiting to be discovered.’
‘Living on a farm?’
‘Don’t be a snob.’
Lockie thought about it. ‘Could I get out of football and cricket and stuff?’
‘Well, we’d have to see.’
‘I’ll think about it, sir.’
‘Alright.’
Lockie got up to go.
‘Oh, Lockie?’
‘Sir?’
‘I hear you’re in love.’ He winked. ‘Watch out.’
Aaargh!
hey sat on the wall above the muddy hockey field as all the other homebound kids streamed past in a swerving rush of bikes, skateboards and feet. Ah, you should have seen them there, holding hands like there was no tomorrow. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in love or not, but I tell you, when you are in love, you might as well have your brain sealed up in a jam jar until it’s all over.
‘What do you reckon about the Greenhouse Effect?’ Vicki asked, trying to bite an apple without busting her braces.
‘I dunno,’ Lockie murmured. ‘I reckon it’s lousy.’
Vicki rolled her eyes. ‘No idea.’
Lockie smiled, looking even dumber.
‘Don’t you have any ideas and opinions?’
‘Probably not,’ he said.
‘Did you know that Australia is being stuffed up the most by the hole in the ozone layer? We put out less CFCs and we get the hole. How do you like that!’
Lockie just stared at her, smiling. She looked great.
‘Did you know that?’
Lockie shook his head. ‘We haven’t done it in Science yet, have we?’
‘Science! Lockie, don’t you even read the papers?’
He shrugged. She looked fabulous, all hot in the face and bursting with brains.
‘Boy you’re useless.’
Yeah, he thought, I’m useless. You’re not supposed to stare at girls like this. You’re supposed to be impressive. You’re useless, Lockie Leonard.
Vicki squeezed his hand deliciously and they sat there in silence awhile until a question came into Lockie’s head.
‘Will you ever have kids?’
Vicki let go his hand. ‘Wow! Keep back, Rover.’
Lockie laughed, all embarrassed. ‘I wasn’t suggesting anything.’
‘Whew, I hope not.’
‘I was just making a hypodermical question.’
‘Hypodermical! Geez, yer a dag!’
‘Well?’
‘Well what?’ she asked.
‘Are you gonna have kids? When you get married?’
‘Married? Who said I was ever gonna get married?’
‘No one,’ Lockie mumbled. ‘I was just — ’
‘Marriage is a decayed and rotten institution, boy.’
Lockie thought about it. ‘Are your mum and dad happy?’
‘With each other? No, they fight like animals, like politicians. They hate each other. Only the money keeps them together. See? They really are like pollies.’
‘That figures.’
‘What figures?’
Lockie grabbed her apple and took a bite. ‘You and getting married. People whose oldies fight always say that marriage sucks. People whose oldies are happy, well, they don’t worry so much.’
‘Where’d you read that?’
Lockie shrugged. ‘Nowhere. I just thought it. I bet you’re the kind of person who’s not going to have kids ‘cause they don’t wanna bring children into a world like this.’
‘That’s right. You got it.’
‘Sometimes I reckon people think too much.’
‘Don’t be stupid. And give me back my apple. Thank you. And you’re gonna fill the world with kids, eh?’
‘Nah, but I’d like a few.’
‘Yer mad as a cut snake.’
Lockie smiled. ‘Me mum once said that us kids made her and the old man real happy. I always remember that. I had a good time when I was a little kid. I don’t see the problem. I’m glad I wasn’t an abortion, I tell you.’
‘Don’t be so sure you aren’t.’ Vicki bit carefully on her apple. The school was quiet now except for a couple of kids trying to upend the hockey goal.
‘You got brothers and sisters, then?’
‘Yeah,’ he murmured. ‘Brother’s ten. Sister’s a baby.’
‘You talk like there’s a lot more of you.’
‘Well, it always feels like a crowd. What about you?’
‘I got a sister who’s married. She married a dipstick, he’s a complete dipstick.’
‘What do your oldies do?’
‘Business. They sell cars. You’ve seen the ads.’
Vicki took a breath and said it like it made her sick to even say it. ‘Streetons’ For Ford. Streets Ahead.’
Lockie smiled. ‘I think advertising people are the lowest form of life.’
‘No. Car salesmen.’
‘You don’t sound like the happiest person in the world,’ Lockie said.
‘No, but I’m the nicest.’
Lockie got all embarrassed again and looked at his hands. ‘You’re alright.’
‘Don’t overdo it, Leonard.’
‘I like you,’ he said.
She hit him on the cheek with a quickspeed kiss and took off with her bag flying behind her. ‘I’m late for ballet!’
Ballet, he thought; Lockie, yer outta ya depth.
ockie lay in bed with all that talk still hanging over him like a warm cloud in the dark. There she was, this pretty, clever girl with all these ideas. Not just some dumb schoolgirl. It was like . . . like she was a woman, almost.
On the other side of the room, Phillip was talking to him.
‘There’s this nun, Lockie. One of them Cathlick ladies. And she reckons she’ll get me fixed. If I only have banana juice after school and no water or milk or anythink, nothink except bananas, then I won’t wet. Mum reckons it’s worth a go, but, geez, I dunno. Nothin’ works, Lockie. I’m gunna be a wetter all me life. I’m not ever gunna be proper. Lockie? Lockie. Ah. Yer asleep.’
Lockie heard the voic
e trail off, but he hadn’t been hearing the words. There’s this awesome woman, he was thinking. And she likes me.
He had this picture in his head. In it, Lockie was a man and Vicki was a woman. They were in a dark place but light came off their skin. Light. And skin. Smooth light and skin. He dozed to the sight of their bodies. He . . . they . . . He slept.
•
The frogs stopped. Lockie woke and felt his PJs in horror. Aaargh! Double-aaargh! They were wet again! Wet. Mega-aargh-to-the-max! It was all hot and clammy on him, a whole slushpile of wet, and another one on the sheet.
He sat up sweating. I’m addicted to wet dreams, he thought. My life’s over.
He looked at his watch. 6.30a.m. The Sarge would be up soon, and then they’d all be up because he could never do anything quietly, not even read. Think, Lockie, use your incredibly sophisticated and nearly adult brain. Aaaaaarrgh!
Lockie sprang up in the semi-dark, ripped off his sheet, down with his dacks, and off to the bathroom. Destroy the evidence, that’s it. They’ll notice it this time.
Close the door. On with the light. Plug in the bath. Hmm. A bit of Lux beauty soap as used by film stars. Bit of a rub round the stain, the rest in the wash. Onto the knees. Scrub-scrub under the stinging cold water, rinse, spin cycle. Come on, Hoover-arms, don’t panic. Aaghphhf.
Wringing out a bedsheet is harder than strangling a friendly dog. It’s definitely a job for two. He tied one end around the tap and twisted. Oops. Out of the wall comes the tap. Poke it back in. Oops. Off the wall comes a ceramic tile. I’m not hysterical, he thought. I AM NOT HYSTERICAL!
Heading out of the bathroom with his sheets and PJs dripping and wrinkled like the underneath of Joan Collins’s neck, Lockie ran into the Sarge.
‘I’m sleepwalking! I’m sleepwalking! Don’t wake me or something terrible might happen!’
Out he bolted to the backyard and across to the clothes line.
Coo, he thought, that was close.
Hmm, that funny beansprout smell was still there in his PJs. Tough luck.
‘You awake yet?’ the Sarge asked, frightening him half out of his skin.
His skin! That’s all he had on except for a few goosebumps.
‘No,’ Lockie said. ‘I’m out to it.’
He headed back inside doing his best to look like a sleepwalker. Arms out front. Zzzzzz.
‘Mind the step,’ called the Sarge.
Too late. Lockie stubbed his toe and went crashing through the screen door. Out in the yard the Sarge was cracking up.
I used to like this world, thought Lockie, wondering if he should OD on Listerine.
y the end of the week, Vicki and Lockie were solid news. You could see them swapping chewies at the canteen verandah. Any dill could see their legs tangled together under the desk in English. They started doing their Science projects together, and at lunch you’d see them sprawled on the grass in the sun, not pashing madly, but arguing. Not lovey arguing, but brainy arguing. They believed things, those two, and other kids hung around them, listening in. They drew a crowd.
Suddenly Lockie had other blokes tagging around him. They said, ‘G’day, Lockie, what’s up?’ Or they begged a few cents off him or asked his advice. He cracked jokes and they laughed. There was Handle, the skinny kid who walked like a Darlek and tried to sound tough. And a short kid called Flea who could never decide to be nice or nasty. Sometimes a huge kid called Boof hung around. He looked like an old fridge with the paint peeling off.
‘Hey, Lockie, there’s this chick, ya see . . . ’
‘Oi, Lockie, what you want with loose change . . . ’
‘Lockie, Vicki’s a real chick. All the others are dogs, believe me. Wivout class, them. You got ten cents?’
•
On Saturday morning Lockie headed up the hill past the silent school to the pine plantation. Vicki was standing out on the shady edge near the road, but he didn’t recognize her for a moment. The school uniform; he’d got used to seeing her in it. Her hair was back in a clasp, sort of fishtailed out the back, and she had big, silver earrings. Tight jeans, boots, and a black sweater that made his skin tingle.
‘You lookin’ for someone else?’
He shook his head. ‘You look pretty.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No sweat,’ he said. ‘I’m a natural suck.’
She kicked at him half-heartedly.
They walked through the cage of light and dark inside the forest, not saying much. Lockie sniffed the resin and the damp and the occasional, light scent of her as she crossed his path.
‘It’s been a good week,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’
‘Are we serious?’
Lockie laughed. ‘What’s serious?’
‘I dunno.’
They climbed the slope till the forest ended and there were boulders and scrub and native trees.
‘Let’s go to the top,’ he said.
‘Okay.’
At the top there was a war memorial – a couple of bronze soldiers looking brave and worried – and from it you could see for kilometres in every direction. The town and the harbour, the beaches stretching eastward, the islands in the sound.
‘Amazing how all this turned out so pretty,’ Vicki murmured. ‘Look, it’s almost like someone organized it.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Maybe someone did.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I reckon.’
‘You believe in that stuff?’
‘What?’
‘Religion.’
Lockie looked at her face. She didn’t seem ready to ridicule him. He trusted her. ‘Yeah.’
‘We came from monkeys, Lockie.’
‘Suppose God made the monkeys?’
She smiled. ‘You’re a nut.’
He shrugged.
She turned and set off down a dirt path and he followed. It wound between boulders across the spine of the hill until it came to a series of holes in the ground.
‘What’s this?’
‘The old forts,’ Vicki said. ‘I used to play here as a kid. They built them in the war.’
Lockie stood there as she climbed down, half out of sight.
‘C’mon, you coming?’
‘Is it safe?’
She rolled her eyes and went down. Lockie scrambled over the concrete lip and went down after her.
Inside it was dark and smelly. Shafts of light drifted in from holes and cracks. There were passages blocked up with steel mesh. The floor was littered with wood from old campfires, bits of clothing, bottles. Now and then they came upon a terrible pong where some nice person had dropped his dacks.
‘It goes for ever,’ she said in the echoey dimness. ‘Fabulous, eh.’
‘I s’pose.’ Lockie wished he’d sounded more enthusiastic.
‘You’d never find this stuff in the city.’
‘You’d never need to,’ said Lockie.
‘City people always think they’re better!’
‘Let’s get out of here before we slip on a turd and break our necks.’
‘Sure, fine, whatever his Lordship wants.’
He followed her up a ladder.
Up in the fresh air again, Lockie tried to talk, but Vicki wasn’t having any.
‘What’s wrong, Vick?’ She looked fit to kill. ‘Hey, what’s up?’
‘Nothing.’
They stumbled back downhill.
‘Tell me, Vick. Don’t be a pain.’
She stopped so suddenly in the dirt track that Lockie walked straight into her and they both went reeling into the open fronds of a blackboy.
‘You clumsy berk!’
‘Sorry!’
‘Get off me.’
‘Not till you tell me why you’re in such a stink.’
‘It was my favourite place as a kid, orright? I was showing you, orright? I thought you might like it, orright? Now get the hell off me, orright?’
‘Orright, orright.’
He rolled off into the damp,prickly
grass and lay on his back looking up at the sky. It was crowded with clouds up there.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Maybe I should go.’
‘Oh, great.’
‘Well, what do you want me to do?’
Lockie wasn’t ready for her. He was looking up at the sky when she rolled off the blackboy right on top of him. He didn’t feel her tongue in his mouth until his lungs finally peeled themselves off his backbone and tried to suck some air in, and when he got air, he drew it in so hard, he nearly tore her tongue off.
‘Oowch! Take it easy, boy.’
Lockie gasped and writhed, getting the winded feeling out of him, and Vicki cuddled close.
‘Geez, Lockie, you really get worked up.’
Worked over, you mean, he thought.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Let’s walk for a while,’ he said.
•
They trudged through the bush as the clouds darkened over them. Lockie felt awkward and shaky. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He was making a balls-up of this whole thing.
In the end they came to the edge of the pine plantation and the track that led to the high houses above town.
‘Where to?’ Lockie asked. That’s it. She’s gonna drop me like a hot spud.
‘Come to my place, if you want.’
‘Okay,’ he murmured.
They got halfway down the track before Vicki stopped again. ‘D’you like me, Lockie?’
‘Yeah. Course.’
‘Why?’
That got him sweating. ‘Because you’re smart and pretty. Because you smell like icecream.’
‘You in love with me?’ She stood there, feet apart. She was flexing her leg muscles as she looked him over. He’d never seen anything like this before in his life. She was great.
‘Yes. But I dunno why.’
‘You were watching me in those classes, weren’t you? I could feel your eyes on me, boy. Every time I felt you looking it was like my blood went hot and cold. It’s like you were hungry or something, I knew it was you.’
With that, she turned and led the way again. Heart racing, Lockie followed.
•
The Streeton house was a big, big joint. Pool, triple garage, landscaped gardens and two storeys full of shagpile carpet. Lockie nearly passed out with fright walking around in that place. Big stereo, CD, videos, a piano the size of a truck, big fat recliner-rockers and a giant TV overlooking it all.