RAW BLUE

by Kirsty Eagar

  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.

  ‘Oh yeah. Thank you.’

  In the kitchen, I look in the cupboard first, but of course there aren’t any clean glasses left. I grab one off the bench and rinse it out, then pour him a glass of water. When I hand it to him my hand is shaking. I clean another glass for myself and fill it carefully, just so I can face the wall. Then he steps forward and places his glass upside down in the sink, putting his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Um … it’s just in here,’ I tell him, moving away. In my bedroom, I switch the light on, then turn it off again, stepping quickly across the clothes strewn over the floor to turn on the reading lamp by the bed instead. He turns off the living room light and a moment later he’s there in the room with me.

  I turn to face him. I want to apologise for being so awkward, for handling this so badly, but I can’t even speak. He must be regretting this already.

  I realise I’m still holding my water, like it’s a cocktail and this is some sort of party. Some party.

  ‘You’re right.’ He means the water. I should take my time. Drink it.

  So I do. And I sit down on the bed because I don’t know what else to do. And he might be looking at me, or he might be wondering how one person could be so messy – I don’t know because I’m staring at the floor.

  ‘Finished with that?’ He takes my empty glass and puts it down on the bedside table. Then he kneels on the floor in front of me, considering me with his grey eyes. ‘So.’

  It’s unbearable, like being X-rayed. My face flushes. ‘Don’t look at me.’

  ‘Shh, okay.’

  He pushes me backwards so I’m lying flat, my legs hanging off the edge of the bed. I feel his fingers undoing my jeans, tugging them down, and I raise my hips like an obedient child, heart thudding, eyes squeezed shut. There’s a rustle of denim as he casts my jeans aside.

  Now I’m just in my underpants, my bra and T-shirt, arms crossed over my chest. He rubs his palms over my thighs and I stare at the ceiling. Surely he must think I’m a freak? Lying here frozen, unable to move.

  His hands slide up my thighs and take hold of my underpants, tugging them down. I raise my hips again, shut my eyes tight. It’s agony, this. I want to sob because I’m so scared.

  I feel his breath and a wave of goose bumps ripples over me. Then he starts kissing the insides of my thighs, imprinting his mouth on my skin, burning me like a brand. He passes over my pubic mound, blowing on it gently, then I feel his mouth coming to rest on me and I’m thinking that I’m glad I’ve showered tonight, so there can be little smell down there. I’m so uptight it’s not funny.

  It takes an eternity, but finally I’ve got the courage to touch his fine sandy hair. For a moment he stops what he’s doing and looks up at me and I’ve never felt more exposed.

  I fake it. I make the noises women are supposed to make – not loud enough for anybody else to hear, but I do them. I think it’ll be okay; it’ll be enough. But he doesn’t stop, he just keeps going as though he knows it’s bullshit.

  And finally I let go, letting my legs stiffen and relax in a rhythm I never thought I’d share with anyone else. The feelings peak and I crest for so long, legs straining, hands clutching the doona, holding my breath, tensing to reach it, my whole body aching like a bubble that wants to burst. And then it breaks and I feel the falling away.

  When it’s finished, I open my eyes and crane my neck to see him. He’s kissing me again, all along my thighs, and I touch the top of his head gently. His fingers are still inside me and he wiggles them, flashing me a glance. I’m embarrassed but I don’t look away.

  He gets to his feet, swaying a little, and I sit up, not sure what to do, feeling a bit self-conscious in my half dressed state.
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br />   ‘Take your shirt off,’ he tells me. So I pull my shirt over my head, then I unclasp my bra, shrugging it off too. He reaches for my hands, guiding them to his waist and I unbutton his jeans, tugging them down his legs. He steps out of them, pulling his shirt over his head and throwing it on the floor with his hair all mussed up. I move back on the bed and lie down, waiting, watching him.

  Everything happens fast, a runaway train I don’t want to stop. He’s laying down on me, biting my shoulder as he does it, and the weight of him is a relief. He starts kissing me and I can faintly taste the salt of myself, but it doesn’t taste ugly or awful. I pull at his underpants and he helps me get them off. Then he’s leaning across, heavy on my chest, reaching down to his jeans on the floor. He gets out his wallet and he takes out a condom, chucking the wallet back onto the floor, ripping the foil packet open with his teeth. He lies on his side and starts to put it on, but I reach down wanting to do it and his penis throbs.

  I pull him on top of me, then arch up, wanting the push, and when it happens it’s so sharp the world goes somewhere else. When he comes, he groans like he’s hurt.

  Later, after he’s peeled the condom off, wrapped it in tissues from the box beside my bed and put it in the bathroom bin, he climbs back into bed naked and pulls me over to him so my head’s resting on his shoulder.

  Before he turns off the light, he says, ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ I clear my throat. ‘Are you?’

  He kisses me on the forehead.

  When I wake up, the grey light of dawn is in the room and we’re overheating and sweaty. Our skin peels apart like we’ve been melted together.

  25

  going for an early

  I doze for a while. When I wake up again I lift my head up to see his face. His eyes open and I freeze, feeling caught out, but then his eyelids flutter closed and I hear his steady breathing. Is he awake or asleep? What time is it?

  I need to pee. The bed’s pushed up against the corner of the room and I’m on the wall side, so I wiggle down to the end, trying to be as quiet as possible. I’m still naked. He’s still naked. My toes find the carpet and I tiptoe quietly across the room, stopping to pull on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, barely breathing. While I’m doing this, his eyes peel open, blink, focus on me.