Raw Blue (15 page)

24

the lagoon

My mobile rings while I’m lying on the deck. I don’t move. It rings out, then after a short silence starts up again. I answer knowing it’s him before I check the screen.

‘Hello?’

‘Carly?’ Ryan sounds uncertain. ‘I’ve, uh, got your board. Thought I might as well pick it up while I got mine. Went by Hard Cut on the way back today.’

I can hear music and people talking in the background, but muted, like he’s in a room with the door closed.

‘Carly?’

‘Thank you. I’ll take the other one back tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, or you can give it to me. I’ll drop it off next time I’m going past that way.’

‘I go past there on the way to work. But you know him – the shaper guy – so it’s up to you really.’

‘Right. It’s up to me.’ His voice is sour; he sounds like Shane.

He lets the silence run long this time, trying to draw me out.

‘Okay, Carly, I might as well cut to the chase because listening to you saying nothing is costing me money. I’ll take your board back to Hard Cut tomorrow and you can pick it up when you drop the spare off. That way you don’t have to see me. How’s that sound? Happy?’

‘
God
.’ I whisper the word, rubbing my head.

‘So I’ll see you later.’

But he doesn’t hang up, he waits again. ‘Carly?’

‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t what? You’re giving me bad dreams, Carly. I want to see you – and I dunno why that is, because every time I do we’re either crashing into each other or you get the shits or you’re upset or you just piss off without a word –’ He stops abruptly and I hear him draw breath.

When he speaks again his voice is calm. ‘Look, I noticed you the first time I saw you down there. I dunno why. I rated the fact you had a go, went for anything, even if you got hammered. And I thought, yeah, wouldn’t mind knowing her better. But it wasn’t a big deal. Just like having a drink together sometime, or like watching the surf today, taking it easy. But I’ve got to tell you, mate …’ He gives a flat laugh. ‘It’s just all too fucking hard.’

I feel gutted. I’m pressing the phone hard against my ear.

‘
Carly?
Are you there, Carly?’

‘Yes.’

‘You got anything for me? Anything at all?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t want you to be sorry. I told you that today. I don’t care if you cry or what you do. All I want from you is a clear indication as to whether I should just bugger off.’

I drag in a shaky breath. ‘Don’t bugger off.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m just not … I told you, it’s …’

‘It’s what? Something’s chewing you up, mate. What is it?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Can’t what? Have children? We’ll cross that bridge if we ever manage to have a beer together.’ He blows out a stream of air then mutters, ‘I’m going grey over this, I tell ya.’ Another sigh. ‘Have you got someone already?’

‘No.’

‘Is it because I’ve done time?’

‘No.’

‘Okay, so … What do you want to do, Carly? You want to have a drink together sometime?’

‘Okay.’

‘How about tonight?’

‘Tonight?’

‘Yeah, tonight. Let’s hit this while it’s hot. Things can only improve from here. Do you want to go for a drink with me tonight?’

Oddly enough I feel calm. Like the decision’s been taken out of my hands and I’ve just got to go along for the ride.

‘Okay.’

‘How about The Sands? I’ll meet you there, bring your board.’

‘Okay. But can you come and get me? I’m sorry to be a pain but I don’t think I should drive tonight.’

There’s a surprised silence, then, ‘Yeah, for sure, mate. No worries.’

I give him my address and he says he’ll be ten minutes. Then, keeping his voice carefully casual, he tells me to wait for him out the front if I want, like he’s letting me know there’s a back exit.

When we get to The Sands, the guy in the beer-garden bar tells us they’re closing up in five minutes.

Ryan glances at his watch. ‘But it’s only ten o’clock.’

‘Sunday night, mate.’

Ryan turns to me. ‘Well, that’s blown that then. You want to try Mona Vale Hotel?’

‘Wouldn’t they be closing up too?’

‘Okay, well, what about we go back to my joint, pick up some beers and head down to the lagoon? Just talk.’

‘Will that Shane be there?’

‘
Or
, we can get beers from the bottle shop here.’

‘The bottle shop’s closed, mate,’ the bar guy says.

His place turns out to be an old fibro house in one of the flat streets near the caravan park and the lagoon. There’s a collection of cars parked in front of it, some of them up on the lawn. Ryan parks in the actual driveway. I notice that the street number, twenty-four, has been spray painted onto the house. The front door is wide open, spilling music and laughter out into the street.

‘Hey, you live right near the break,’ I say.

‘Yeah, it’s all right, eh?’

‘And you drive there?’

Ryan actually looks sheepish. ‘Lazy, I guess.’

He switches the motor off and neither of us move.

‘Shane’s got a few people over. You want to come in and meet ’em?’

‘Not really.’

‘Yeah, fair enough. Okay, won’t be long.’

He gets out of the car, shutting his door, and crosses the lawn, bounding up the house’s four front steps. There’s a jumbled collection of boots, sneakers and thongs on the landing. It gives every impression of being an all-male household.

‘
Rhino, mate! We thought you’d pissed off on us!
’ There’s a burst of laughter then the voices resume their talking.

I can’t help myself. I open up Ryan’s glove box and poke through the contents. There are a lot of cassettes, both bought and taped, mainly old school rock – Cold Chisel, AC/DC, Hunters and Collectors, Bruce Springsteen – as well as some stuff I didn’t expect, like Ryan Adams, Living Colour and Jeff Buckley. I wonder what Bernard Zuel would make of all that. I’m pretty sure he’d approve, especially of Ryan Adams, Bernard
lurves
Ryan Adams. There are road maps, a crushed Coke can, a tide table from 2005 –

‘
Pssst!
’

I give an almighty jolt. Shane is leaning in through the driver’s side window, watching me with glittering eyes.

‘
How’re you doin’?
’ he whispers.

‘Good?’

‘That’s the way.’ He sucks his bottom lip, regarding me thoughtfully, not blinking once. ‘What are you up to?’

‘I was just looking for something to play.’

‘Someone to play with?’

‘No. Music.’

‘Hanging out with Rhino, eh? The Rhino.’

I don’t answer.

He hangs his arms through the window and for a second the pictures on his skin seem to move. I can sense the hate coiled up inside him. Danny is right – you don’t know what he’ll do next.

‘I got a new tattoo.’

‘Did you? That’s good.’

‘You want to see it?’

‘No, I’m okay.’

‘You sure? It’s a butterfly.’

‘Um, no thanks.’

‘You don’t want to see my butterfly?’

‘No, mate, she does not want to see your friggin’ butterfly.’ Ryan pushes Shane out of the road and I shut the glove box quickly. ‘Go on, bugger off.’

He leans down to the window. ‘You coming, Carly? We’ll walk there.’

I get out of the car. Shane’s standing on the steps watching us as we walk off.

‘
Ha-ha-hah!
You have fun now, kids.’

Down by the lagoon there are a couple of guys out fishing. We sit side by side on one of the picnic tables near them, our feet on the bench seat. Ryan screws the top off a beer and hands it to me.

‘So is it just you and Shane living there?’ I ask.

‘Yeah. Now. Not always. People come and go. We’ve had it for years. Landlord is too tired to kick us out, but every now and then he puts the rent up. He’s all right though.’

I’m so conscious of him right next to me. We drink in silence for a while.

‘You like this place, Carly?’

‘What, the lagoon?’

He shrugs. ‘All of it.’

‘I like this place a lot. The lagoon, the break, everything. The people – some of them.’

‘Yeah, about Shane –’

‘I didn’t mean –’

‘Nah, it’s all right. I could tell you that he’s okay but we both know he’s not. I’ve been mates with him for years. We went to school together. Always surfed together. He didn’t have it great growing up, but he was good value back then. Who knows, eh? His mum … Anyway. The drugs haven’t done him any favours.’

‘Is he – It’s obvious, I guess.’

‘Yeah. I’d rather be surfing myself. I dunno why that wasn’t enough for him. He started mucking around with stuff at school, nothing serious but. And then he just, you know, kept going.’ He sniffs. ‘That’s why I was in jail, by the way. Dealing.’

‘You don’t have to tell me …’

He holds up a hand. ‘Nah, I wanted to tell you about it, just so you’d know. I wasn’t using, but I thought dealing was easy money – surfing finance. A better option than surfing for Centrelink.’

‘Pardon?’

‘The dole. But yeah … didn’t work out.’

‘Was Shane …?’

‘Involved? No, mate. He just uses. He had nothing to do with all that. They didn’t even care about me that much. I was only small time – I don’t think they ever watched the house or anything. They wanted the guy I was getting it off. I was just picking up at the wrong time. That’s the way it goes but. Anyway, doesn’t matter. It’s probably good the way it worked out. It was all getting to be a big hassle.’

‘How come?’

‘Aw, you mess people up, there’s no getting around that. Like Shane – it wasn’t doing him any good, but I never worried about it. I fixed him up, just like anybody else. That’s why … I don’t know. Shane’s a pain in the arse but sometimes he’s all right.’ He takes a swig of his beer. ‘And then, yeah, the logistics were a nightmare.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, you’re like a courier. You’re hanging around all the time, waiting for people to call, then you got to go meet them. It’s boring. And it’s all cash, so you’ve got all this money around the place. And you can’t bank it and you don’t want it stolen so you’ve got to spend it. You get used to burning through it, but nothing’s really good any more because it’s all so easy to get. I bought a new car, just to get rid of some of it. Paid cash. Next week I totalled it, so I was back to the old Commodore.’

He takes another swig of his beer. ‘It’s not like you can buy investment properties and shares and that, because then they’ll trace it, so you’re stuck. You can’t set yourself up for retirement, if you know what I mean.’

‘That makes sense.’

His face changes, becoming hard, his eyes metallic. ‘Then, in jail, everybody knows you’re a dealer, that you’ve probably got money on the outside. You get hassled all the time. It’s not pretty. But Shane took care of my things and they never got nothin’ out of me.’

He shakes his head and exhales. After a moment, he’s back to normal. ‘So yeah. When I got out, I thought, that’s it, not going back in there. Time for something else.’

I say the stupidest thing. ‘I’m glad you’re not going back.’

He looks sideways at me and grins. ‘Yeah? Well that’s good news.’

He puts an arm around my shoulders and there’s this awkward moment because something like that is never casual, especially the first time. My stomach’s shot through with air.

‘How old are you, anyway?’ he asks.

‘Nineteen.’

‘Just a baby.’

‘No, I’m not.’ I sound like Danny. ‘What about you?’

‘Twenty-six. So you like this place then? Don’t ever want to go back to Forresters?’

‘Not really. There are a few issues.’ I take a deep breath and then tell him about dropping out of uni and the fight with my dad. ‘He’s one of those people who are so certain they know what other people should do with their lives. I guess everybody does that a bit, but with him, he takes it further. He can’t just let you be, respect your decision. He has to grind you down until he wins. That’s where he’s really sick. Like, he doesn’t care about me or my life. He cares about me doing what he wants. If he cared about me, he wouldn’t have told me to get out.’ I finish all this in a rush. Then I take a breath. ‘Sorry.’

Ryan squeezes my shoulder. ‘What for? It sounds like shit, mate.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Why’d you drop out of uni?’

I think for a second then shrug. ‘I guess because I didn’t even know what I was doing there. It was like I got out of school and then I was signed up for the next three years and I really, really just wanted a break. Some time to think. I don’t know. It was like if I didn’t step out of it then, before I knew it I’d be stuck in some office job for the rest of my life. I just sort of panicked.’ I take a sip of beer. ‘Mostly, I wanted to surf. Surfing on weekends sucks. Do you know what I mean?’

‘
Mate
, I know what you mean. Least you were smart enough not to sell drugs.’

I laugh, looking at him. Then I’m caught because his face goes all intense. He stares at me, drawing me in.

‘So did he fix your board okay?’ My voice is squeaky. He’s so close.

He doesn’t tell me. He places his beer on the table beside him, reaches across for mine and puts it down too. ‘Come here.’

It’s late when we drive back to my place. We don’t pass any other cars on Powderworks Road. Hannah’s Barina is in the carport, but her place is in darkness. He parks up on the footpath behind my Laser and switches the motor off. The silence is so loud that I panic for a second and violently wish I was drunk.

I hear the slap of his thongs as he follows me down the steps at the side of the house, and I’m so aware of him, and so aware of the pressure growing inside me.

I unlock the glass sliding door, telling him, ‘It’s just in here,’ sounding like an idiot.

Then, inside, the fluorescent light is too bright. He stands inside the doorway, seeming to fill up the whole room, and I’m looking around, pretending that I can’t see all the mess.

‘Um … Do you want a glass of water?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, okay. Close this …?’ He means the door.