by Claire Zorn
He took a deep breath. ‘Supposed to be going into year twelve next year. I mean this year.’
‘You always were a bright one.’ She almost sounded sad about it.
‘I’ve seen Minty in the paper,’ he said.
‘He won the Pro Junior.’
‘Yeah. That was it.’
‘First big comp. Five thousand dollars prize money. If he puts his head down and works on it he’ll be on the WQS – World Qualifying Series. He’s gonna make the Pro tour, you watch ’im … Youse were peas in a pod when you were little.’
‘I remember.’
‘He’ll be home soon. Needs his sleep for training. Not in school anymore. He’s that bloody talented he doesn’t have to be.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I haven’t seen your mum for seven years, you know.’
‘I know.’
Lorraine took a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and shucked one out. She put it between her lips and flicked a pink lighter. On her foot was a tattoo in swirling, cursive script: ‘Glen’. It ran along the top of her foot, diagonally an inch above the toes. So you could see it when she wore thongs. Sam remembered it from childhood. His mum had a tattoo, too. She was embarrassed about it, said she was too young to know the definition of tacky. It was a little star on the inside of her wrist, with the letters S-H-I-N-E. Sometimes she would laugh and say she felt like changing the ‘n’ to a ‘t’. Sam didn’t think she meant she was shite, just the tattoo. But he could never be exactly sure.
Sitting beside her for hours in the hospital, he had held her hand and stared at the little star on her wrist. Any time he had to leave her side he had tucked her hand under the blanket, the same way she had done for him as a child. In case she got cold.
Headlights swept through the front window. A car door slammed and there was the slap of feet up the front steps. The screen door whined and in walked a guy with white-blond dreadlocks past his shoulders and tattoos curled up the bronzed skin of his forearms. He was shorter than Sam, but strong looking, broad-shouldered. He stopped dead and stared at Sam.
‘Look who’s here, Mint,’ Lorraine sighed. ‘Your cousin, Sammy.’
To watch Minty smile was to watch a whole person transform in an instant. His mobile eyebrows shot up and his whole face widened into a grin. His eager expression seemed written into every part of his body; he couldn’t be still, couldn’t contain himself. Sam remembered Minty so clearly and despite the tatts, despite the hair, he was the same as he’d always been. He was tightly wound energy, labrador enthusiasm – a glint in his eye like he’d let you in on some genius plot to hitchhike to the Amazon or build a nuclear bomb in the garage. Shane wasn’t with him though and Sam was relieved.
‘No way! Sam! How’s it goin’?’
Sam stood and offered his hand. Minty took it and pulled him in, slapping him on the back, hugging him tightly. The gesture caused a lump in Sam’s throat. He squeezed his eyes shut to try and flush it away.
‘What you doin’ here?’
Lorraine pursed her lips. ‘Aunty Rachel died.’
‘Whoa. What?’
‘Brain stroke,’ said Lorraine looking away. ‘Sam’s gonna stay here.’
‘Oh brah. Sorry about that.’
‘You’ll have to let Ruby know,’ said Lorraine. ‘That he’s here. She’ll just have to make do at home.’
‘No worries. Sam, it’s good to see you, brah. I mean, it’s heavy about Aunty Rachel. But it’s been a long time.’
‘Yeah, it has.’
Lorraine picked up the empty cans and took them into the kitchen. ‘Youse should get to bed.’
Sam didn’t sleep. He hadn’t for more than an hour at a time since his mum went into hospital. When he closed his eyes he heard the hiss of the ventilator and the beeping of the machine, as if he was still in the hospital room. The smell of antiseptic was trapped in his nostrils.
Sam lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling. The only thing he wanted to do was phone his mum, tell her what had happened. She was always his first port of call for anything big. Almost anything. The camp bed squeaked sharply every time he moved, as if reminding him over and over that he was in a space that wasn’t his own. He was watching a daddy- long-legs busy itself with a bug in the corner of the ceiling when a loud whisper came from the doorway.
‘Sam! You awake?’
He looked over and saw Minty beaming at him. ‘What time is it?’
‘Dunno. Sun’s comin’ up. Goin’ for a surf. Come with me. Got a board you can use.’
‘I don’t have any boardies.’ He didn’t even own any, let alone pack them.
‘No worries.’ Minty tossed the black skin of a wetsuit onto the bed. ‘Should be a goer.’
Sam got up and stretched. Putting on the wetsuit, he felt like a monkey trying to get into a leotard. He left it rolled down at the waist like Minty. Sam’s skin was fluoro white in comparison to Minty’s tan.
They walked barefoot along the bitumen. The air was humid and sticky with salt, tempered by the occasional cool breath of sea breeze. Seagulls and plovers congregated in the middle of the road, their squawks piercing the silence. Sam’s pale feet were sensitive and prickly to the gravel, soft like a child’s. The street was flat and wide: no guttering or lines marked. The houses were mostly little fibro places like Lorraine’s and there was the odd cluster of housing commission flats – the same ones they built in the city.
He couldn’t remember the last time he walked outside barefoot. It was probably a holiday. Port Macquarie with his mum. They never went to the city beaches; none of his friends did either. Weekends were usually spent skating with Luke, his best mate – the crappy half-pipe near the train yards during the day or in a shopping centre car park at night.
His mum was fine with him being out late on weekends as long as she knew exactly what he was doing and where he was. Her only rules were: don’t hurt yourself and don’t hurt anyone else. Her definition of ‘hurt’ included damage or theft of other people’s property. As far as trespassing was concerned, property laws were flexible; she would get pissed off if security guards turfed them out of a car park, saying they were using the space in a ‘creative’ way that wasn’t hurting or disturbing anyone. You could justify almost anything to her if the word creative was used.
He would have to call Luke and tell him where he was.
Minty had given Sam a longboard the size of a boat. It wasn’t the easiest thing to carry. Minty carried his own board like it was part of his body.
‘You still skate?’ Sam asked.
‘Not as much since I got the car. Used to skate when the swell was flat, but now I can always drive to find a wave,’ he shrugged, looked over at Sam, caught his eye. ‘You alright? Must be cut up about your mum. Unbelievable.’
Sam felt his throat tighten. He shook his head. Minty nodded. It was still easy between them, after all this time. Sam had thought it would be awkward and stunted, but it wasn’t.
They weren’t even at the end of the street before the wide metallic strip of ocean rose on the horizon. The van ripped past them, horn squealing. Sam jumped. Minty raised his arm in a wave and the van skidded to a halt a few metres up. Minty jogged over.
Sam caught up. The driver was a big guy: shaved head, long goatee. Sam caught a flicker of recognition in his eyes. His memory of Shane was more a feeling of hostility and mild fear. Shane looked him up and down and Sam remembered clearly his talent for opportunistic cruelty. The dread that would come over him as a kid whenever Shane would show up. He’d smashed up Sam’s skateboard one year just to prove that he was bigger and he could. Now, thinking back, it seemed odd more than anything else: a fifteen-year-old kid smashing up a ten-year-old’s skateboard. Sam hadn’t said a word about it to his mum, but there had been a row between Lorraine and Rachel afterwards. It was one of the last times he’d seen them.
Sam wondered if he could take Shane on now, or if he’d still be as intimidated and useless as he was when he was little.
‘Shane,
you remember Sammy?’
Shane assessed Sam and must have decided he still didn’t think much of him because he didn’t smile. Instead, he shifted his gaze to the road in front of him. ‘Piss weak swell this mornin’. Gotta job on anyway. You surf, Sam?’
‘No. First time.’
‘Shiiiiiit, Sam!’ Minty laughed. ‘You didn’t say. You’ll be good, brah. It’s little this mornin’.’
Shane eyed the longboard. Sam lifted his chin, kept his gaze steady.
‘Alright. See ya,’ said Shane.
Minty waved and the Booner Electrical van sped off, gravel spitting behind him.
‘Why didn’t you say you don’t surf?’
‘Didn’t ask.’
‘Can you swim?’
‘I can swim.’
‘Like dog paddle?’
‘Shut up, Mint. I can swim. Just don’t ask me to save anyone.’
‘I’ll bring ya some floaties next time … It’s cool if you don’t wanna, ay. Like, I can teach you a bit, but whatever. Do what you want.’
It was a reassurance, not a challenge.
‘I’ll come out.’
They continued up the street to the gravel car park that fronted the point: a narrow finger of grass with a steep drop on either side down to the rocks. Looking at it, there didn’t seem to be any way down.
‘We surf the point most of the time. It’s a good spot. People come down from Sydney and that. When it’s crankin’ it goes off, you can get a three-, four-metre swell. No shit.’
Sam nodded as if it meant something to him.
‘Could take you in off the sand bar, ease you in, like. But’s tiny today, anyway. Piece of piss. Just don’t smash your head on a rock, yeah? Low tide soon. Watch out for that.’
Minty walked to the edge of the point as if he was about to step off into thin air. Sam followed him and realised there was a thin track worn into the grass down the side of the drop. Minty tackled the track at a jog, with the precision of someone who could find the way with eyes closed. Sam struggled down with the longboard, losing his footing several times, grabbing handfuls of saltbush to stop his slide. At the bottom, glassy, ankle-deep water rolled across the flat rocks riven with urchin-lined channels. Sam picked his way across the rocks. Minty called back to him over his shoulder.
‘Few metres, then you wanna push off. Wait till a wave comes in, jump on it and paddle like crazy, sucks you back out. Or you’ll get pushed up on the rock, ay.’
‘Yeah … Right.’
‘Easy as.’
‘Sure.’
Minty held his board to his chest and vaulted out, meeting the water in one swift, natural movement. He moved his arms in high arcs, kicked and nosed his board over the waves.
Sam was less elegant. The water rushed over his feet, bubbling up his ankles. He jumped out, slapping the board into the water and landing askew. He was pushed sideways by whitewater. He paddled his arms like a madman trying to straighten up before the water had a chance to dump him back onto the rock. A head of whitewater roared toward him and he tried to dive under it like he had seen Minty do. There was no time for a deep breath. Salt up his nose, in his eyes, in his ears, but he was still on the board. His heart pounded in his ears and he felt the hot shot of adrenaline at the base of his skull. In that moment he forgot everything. Minty sat on his board a few metres away and laughed. Sam struggled and spat salt water, then he paddled and kicked until he was out behind the breakers, next to Minty.
‘You can bodysurf, yeah?’ asked Minty.
Sam shook his head. ‘Don’t go to the beach.’
Minty laughed and slapped the water. ‘For real?’
‘Never been out like this.’ Sam stopped talking when what looked like a large wave, glittering in the early sunlight, began to build in front of them. Minty glanced across to him. ‘Over!’ he yelled, and Sam paddled and kicked the board over the crest, scooting down the other side.
‘If it looks like it’s gonna break, go under it. You have to push the board under. Most of these you just paddle over. Or you could, you know, catch one.’
Sam flicked him the finger. Other surfers came in and eyed him but, when they saw he was with Minty, they left him alone.
‘When you sit out here, out the back, waitin’ for a wave, this is the line-up. You don’t take a wave from a local, you don’t drop in on someone already on a wave. There’s a priority order, ay. You’ll get it eventually.’
‘Where are you in the order?’
Minty grinned. ‘I’m at the top, brah. ’Cept for a few older dudes, grey bellies. They been here longer so they get first pick if they’re in.’
Sam bobbed on his stomach. The light shimmered in prisms through the water and Minty paddled out a little further into the line-up. Sam rolled over the waves. He watched as Minty turned and paddled to catch one. He sprang up and coasted along. Watching from the back, Sam could only see Minty’s head and torso. Minty leaned casually into the wave, shoulders loose; he turned back and forth, seeming to generate his own speed. The wave collapsed and Sam expected Minty to go under. But he was still upright, riding out the whitewater like it was a crappy amusement park ride. All the other waves were the same. Minty bailed gracefully off the side when he got bored. You didn’t need to know anything about surfing to know Minty was good. After a while, he paddled over to Sam.
‘Wanna go back and get pissed?’
Sam laughed, then saw that Minty wasn’t joking.
‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’
Minty paddled north, around toward the beach. They moved further and further out beyond the breakers, practically out in the open ocean. The water rolled gently: glossy and sapphire blue. The sky was luminous. It was like being on another planet, a peaceful shimmering world of water and colour. Minty turned back to Sam with a grin.
‘Take you in the easy way so you won’t stack on the rocks.’
‘Thanks.’
Sam followed Minty in, paddling behind him. His arms ached and he felt the muscles pulled taut across his shoulders. Minty coached him onto a wave and Sam rode it in like a ten-year-old on a boogie board. He couldn’t help but smile, although, in an instant, the joy of the ride threw a sharp glaring light on the ache in his chest.
The beach was edged with a long concrete concourse: an ocean pool, surf club, kiosk and a line of showers. Minty pulled his wetsuit to his waist and rinsed under the shower, so Sam did the same. Already, there was a group of girls sprawled by the pool, openly staring at Minty and giggling. In the water, a handful of dedicated swimmers slapped up and down the lanes: three men and a girl in black Speedos. Her skin was pale and milky; a dark swash of hair rippled along her spine as her body rocked side to side with each elegant stroke of freestyle. Sam stood under the shower and watched her while Minty talked about the surf.
Back at the house, Minty hosed off the boards and leaned them against the back wall. He tossed Sam a towel off the line and they dried off. Inside, the house was chaos like there had been some freak disaster and everyone had fled, mid-activity. The rubbish bin in the kitchen overflowed onto the peeling lino; on the bench were open packets of food, newspapers, catalogues, crumbs, a chopping board and knife with half a block of cheese and some slices of tomato. A sock. Minty didn’t comment on it, instead making a beeline through the detritus to his bedroom.
Everything in Minty’s room was organised, a military tidiness that you wouldn’t expect from a guy who mustn’t have shampooed his hair in years. The floor was clear, the bed neatly made. It had a temple-like quality, a functional shrine to all things surfing. Minty kept his boards in a custom-made rack against the wall; his various wetsuits – a dozen or so – hung on a wheeled clothes rack. They were grouped, long legs and sleeves up one end, short up the other. A collection of rashies hung between them. The west wall was carefully papered with posters from surf magazines. In the centre, an A2-sized poster of a Surfer magazine cover showed a wave the size of a building with a tiny figure on a board on the lip; he looked like he
was just about to fall down the face and be crushed by the mountain of water.
‘Jay Moriarity,’ Minty said. ‘Youngest dude to ever surf Mavericks. You know Mavericks?’
Sam shook his head.
‘Big break in California. Like real big, Waimea big. Moriarity was sixteen there. Brah, I’m gonna get there one day. There or Hawaii.’
‘You wanna do that?’
‘That’s where it’s at. I mean, it’s cool to muck around and do tricks and stuff.’ He shrugged, pointing at the poster. ‘But that there, that’s the real deal, brah. That’s the ocean. That’s as heavy as it gets. That’s what I’m gonna do. You know, the guy who first discovered the break there, he was surfing it for years on his own, no crowds, no one watching, just him and the water. That’s what it’s about. Gotta win this comp in June – Cronulla Open, twenty-five grand prize money. If I win … anything could happen. I could take off if I wanted. Hit Mavericks, hit Waimea.’
He crouched down and reached under the bed, rummaged around and pulled out a bottle of whisky. He handed it to Sam and came up with another.
Sam stared at the picture of the boy about to be tipped off the edge of the world: the crushing weight of water about to pummel him. He knew that moment exactly, the disbelief that what was about to happen could even be possible. The intake of breath before the flood.
3
Sam sat on a fold-out chair next to Minty on the front lawn. Minty leaned back, hands clasped behind his head. A breeze had picked up, a south-easterly. A mottled front of heavy cloud gathered around the top of the escarpment in the east. Sam watched it, wondering what it would do.
‘So you been up in Sydney?’
‘Yeah. Were you living down here when I last saw you?’
Minty scrunched his eyes closed, thinking. ‘When was that? We musta been ten or somethin’, ay? Nah, we came down here after Dad went to prison.’
‘He’s in prison?’
‘Yeah. He went down for assault and then they got ’im for armed robbery.’
‘Whoa. What?’
‘Yeah, him and a few other guys were doin’ all the petrol stations round Yagoona and Bankstown. Mum had no farkin’ idea, ay. She knew he was up to somethin’, but she was scared of him.’
