‘That’ll be all of twenty minutes. I’m not going to spend my weekend with your dad. I see you had time to pack your surfboard.’
‘That used to be my hobby, Brook,’ he countered. ‘Like your hobby is writing.’
She scowled at him. It probably wasn’t a wise thing to say when she was behind the wheel.
‘I’m just going to ignore that; you and I both know that I didn’t choose to be a writer. No-one would choose it. It is a burden we have to live with, like your obsession with nudity.’
Sometimes he wished she’d just slug him in the shoulder and get it over with. She turned up the radio. It was a song he liked. Catchy and upbeat. He rubbed her arm and she shrugged him off.
‘There’s a cafe I thought I’d take you to.’ Brook responded well to cafes.
‘We could leave Ethan with your dad,’ she said.
Harrison leaned back against the headrest and tried to blot out his thoughts. He closed his eyes again and sang. ‘All the other kids with the pumped-up kids, you’d better run, better run, faster than my brother.’
‘It’s pumped-up kicks.’
‘Is it?’
‘Faster than my bullet. It’s about a psycho kid planning a killing spree. I read about it in the paper.’
‘Right. Course it is. I knew I was getting too much joy from it.’
Brook glanced in the rear-view mirror. Ethan was asleep. ‘Your hearing, Harrison,’ she said, and whistled the chorus.
• • •
Brook and Harrison arrived to a cafe packed with couples and families. Despite the chill in the air, they agreed to an outdoor table, though it felt a bit like they were onlookers at a party they hadn’t been invited to. A gas heater kept one side of them warm. Brook’s left cheek glowed, making her look half-radiant. The sky was slate, burdened with clouds.
Earlier, they’d had the mandatory grilling and ribbing from Harrison’s dad. He’d offered port and Scotch Fingers. Brook had watched on, repulsed, as father and son dunked their biscuits into their drinks.
Harrison had squeezed in a surf while Brook and Ethan showered and dressed. The long drive was worth it. The beach had been all but deserted. He’d paddled out, straddling the board once he got past the breakers, content to be rocked by the swell. As a boy, surfing had been a reckless pursuit, but he’d come to appreciate the science of it. It was no more defiant than physics.
Drying himself up in the dunes he’d caught the eye of a bloke about his age. He had a huge bruise on his chest. As the man walked closer, Harrison noticed it was a tattoo of a hand. It was about the size of a child’s, clutching at the man’s heart. Harrison nodded and the man dipped his head in return, but his gaze looked right through him and Harrison shuddered. He crouched down in the sand and dug around in his bag for his T-shirt. His hand brushed over Brook’s camera and he busied himself with it, turning away and lining up a photo of the clouds pressing against the jagged ridge of the ocean.
• • •
As planned, Ethan had stayed behind to look after his pa. Harrison’s dad had shuffled them out the door and turned to settle down to some music with his grandson. Harrison thought Ethan was the only thing that kept his dad alive. Ethan and Ella Fitzgerald.
At the cafe, a candle flickered between Harrison and his wife. The waiter looked in his mid-teens, complete with scruffy hair, a black ear plug and a serpent tattoo on his forearm. He placed menus on the table and talked them through the fish of the day (Atlantic salmon), the soup (asparagus with tarragon cream) and the wine list. He said he’d be back shortly to take their order. Despite his appearance, he was self-assured and professional. The carafe of water arrived without them asking. He flung cloth napkins onto their laps like a bull-fighter.
Harrison shook his head. ‘I just don’t understand it. Tattoos. Heaps of the guys at the reunion had them. Girls too. Are they that moronic?’
‘Yes, they are,’ Brook said. ‘Unless you believe in self-expression.’
‘But they’re all getting them. Like bloody branded cattle.’
‘Soon we’ll be the minority. Cleanskins. Doctor Seuss wrote about it years ago. Because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches would brag, We’re the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.’
‘I saw a kid the other day with the Southern Cross plastered down his neck. Not his back. Not his waist. His neck, for Christ’s sake. Why not just go all out and get a swastika?’ Harrison recalled the man at the beach with the tattooed hand on his chest. ‘If Ethan comes home sporting a tongue stud or some bloody African things in his ear, I’ll rip them out,’ he said.
Brook scanned the menu, turning it over and over as though she’d missed something. She wasn’t good with too many choices. Harrison took in the council-planted trees down the centre of the road. The old cycle shop was now a homewares store full of distressed-timber tables and imported shells. Coastal-chic was huge. You could buy a bit of soul-searching and prop it up on your mantelpiece. He thought about the milk bar, how right where they were sitting was where he’d sprawled out on the step, waiting for the school bus. Inside, the slap of pinball machines and looping eighties music would cut through the sizzle of the hotplate. You could get a bag of potato scallops for two bucks back then. Mimi’s dad would scoot him off the step and tell him to get a haircut.
The streetscape offered nothing to sustain his memories. For a while at least, Harrison allowed himself to pretend that his seventeen-year-old self had never existed. He settled into the rhythm of wine and, for the first time in a long time, mellow conversation. The waiter offered cracked pepper and called Harrison sir. He filled up their glasses and announced the arrival of complimentary lime sorbet between the entrees and mains.
The service was impeccable. Harrison thought that perhaps the thing in the waiter’s ear was forgivable. Maybe the skin would grow over. Usually they dined with Ethan at the Jade Palace, a Chinese joint renowned for spotting a kid and giving lightning-speed service. You’d be through your prawn crackers and on to your fortune cookies without even knowing it.
Brook was on to her third glass of wine. It was the most relaxed Harrison had seen her in ages. Invariably she said as little as possible when they were out, so she could eavesdrop. She’d pull out her Italian suede journal and scribble things down, muttering about pace and nuance.
Harrison offered her his jacket and she draped it around her shoulders. It made her seem fragile. They ended up sharing dessert. She gave him some of her crème brûlée and he carved her up a generous portion of citron tart.
He ordered coffee, not wanting the meal to end, and Brook helped the waiter by stacking the plates on the table. She told him it was one of the loveliest meals she’d ever eaten. As he walked away, she leaned back in the chair and rubbed her stomach. ‘Oh, I’m stuffed,’ she groaned. ‘I’ve had to unbutton my pants. I’ve got this big flabby bit.’
Harrison threw back the last drop of wine. ‘And so the moment passes. Very poetic, Brook.’
‘It’s times like these I can fathom bulimia. I’m going to wander over to that shop. They’ve got hurricane lanterns.’
He fished his wallet out of his jeans. ‘I’ll meet you there,’ he said.
Harrison checked the account. A force of habit. He gave a tip more generous than usual, turned to go, and then asked the waiter, with a dry mouth, if the owner was in. The young man nodded and led him through swinging doors and motioned to the back of the kitchen. There was a man in the corner tapping on a computer, surrounded by receipts.
‘Just there. Nothing wrong with the meal, was there?’ the waiter asked.
‘No. Everything was perfect,’ Harrison said.
‘I need to get back out there, then. I’ll leave you to it.’
Harrison took in the man’s grey-brown hair and the deep furrows in his cheeks. He looked under the table and, despite himself, grinned. One foot was curved inward; the other, on its side, was resting against it. Harrison cleared his throat and walked up to the table. He said hello
and the man looked up at him.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think you’d remember me,’ Harrison said.
‘Do you owe me money?’
‘No. Well, maybe a few Winnie Blues and some PK.’ Harrison laughed. Then he coughed. The man seemed annoyed at the intrusion. ‘I’m down for the weekend. Home for the weekend, I guess. Look, Maurice … Mr Anderson, I went to school with Mimi.’ Harrison kept trying to grin, as though that would make the situation more bearable. He was sure the man would be able to hear his heart. He could feel it pounding in his chest and in his temples.
Maurice studied him then. Took in his blue-grey eyes and his lopsided grin. He had cropped hair, not the wild surfer locks he’d sported as a kid. He’d grown into his features. Maurice had some scotch in a squat glass. He took a swig and it slid down his throat, burning a path right through him. ‘See you’ve had a haircut then, Harry.’
No-one called him that anymore. Harry. Harry the surfer-kid with the peeling nose and the swayed back. ‘Does she ever come back?’
Maurice glanced at the doors that led through to the dining area. ‘Not really, Harry. Not often.’
‘Is she doing okay?’
He slowly exhaled. ‘She’s a stubborn thing. I’ll tell you that. That part of her hasn’t changed a bit. But, yes. She’s come good, as I tell her. Despite everything, Mimi’s come good. A teacher now. We’re proud of her.’
Harrison wanted more, wanted as much as the man would give him. He thought his next question might get him turfed out, but he asked anyway. ‘Does she have any children? Any kids?’
• • •
Maurice paused. The past was like a shadow. Sometimes it was hidden from view. Faded, distorted even. But always attached. Every so often it loomed up on you, but if you tried to turn to take it in, it morphed into something else. Something larger than life itself. The call from Grace’s house, a week after Mimi had left home, could have been yesterday. Mimi had sobbed and then yelled and finally told them it wasn’t their problem. She’d deal with it. Maurice had cried with his wife that night, curled up in her arms, the pillow so wet they’d turned it over. ‘She does, Harry. She has a son.’
Maurice watched Harry swallow hard and pull back his shoulders the way he used to as a kid. There was no defiance in it though, no bravado. None that he could detect, anyway. He felt something shift.
‘Mr Anderson, I’ve got to go. My wife’s window-shopping. She’ll be putting together an inventory. Look. I wonder. Just when you speak to her next, I wonder if you can tell Mimi that I’m sorry. I mean, we were just kids. I didn’t brag about it. I didn’t. I was cut up. If I could go back …’
‘I won’t do that. No, I can’t do that for you, Harry.’ Maurice looked into Harrison’s eyes and saw loss etched into the pigment. He knew that feeling. He’d felt it for years with Mimi. He looked at the door again as though searching for an answer. And then he did it. Did what he’d promised himself, promised Mimi, he’d never do. He blurted it out like one of those gossipy women he despised serving in his cafe. ‘She’ll be here in the last weekend of June. You should try to talk to her.’
He felt numb as Harrison shook his hand and thanked him. Disoriented. As though the world had just turned on its head. He’d tried to re-right it, but it had spun too far and now it was out of control again.
• • •
Harrison pushed out into the night. He spotted Brook, hands on hips with her face pressed against the shop window. He felt an inexplicable well of affection for her in that moment. She drove him insane, but he did love her, even though he doubted whether he would ever truly understand her. She probably felt the same about him. Maybe that was a good thing. Tomorrow he’d take her and Ethan down to the rock pools. He wanted to take some more photos. He’d get them printed up. Show his masseur.
June. He’d come back in June. Come back on his own. Just for the weekend. He wondered what Mimi looked like now. How old her son was. Whether she was married.
• • •
The waiter cleared up the rest of the dishes. With the last customer gone, he could start to do the till. He didn’t mind the work, really. Liked helping out his grandfather, visiting in the school holidays. He loved his mum, but it was good to get away from her. She hardly ever came with him. Said she didn’t know who the girl was who grew up in that place, but it wasn’t her.
He divided his time between the beach and the cafe. The surf was better on the east coast and he had the hoity-toity banter down pat. Give them a bit of cracked pepper and they felt obliged to give you a good tip. He pushed his weight against the doors leading out to the kitchen. His grandfather had his face in his hands. Sometimes he had a few too many wines. He walked over and patted his shoulder.
‘What’s up, Grandad?’
Maurice sighed and looked up into his grandson’s blue-grey eyes. ‘Nothing, Toby. Tired, I guess. Losing my go-Johnny-go. I tell you, kid, I’m keen for the day you take this place off my hands. Wouldn’t mind a bit of golf before the pins give out.’
• • •
It had started to drizzle. Harrison half-ran across the road and moved up behind Brook. He put his arms around her.
‘You’re dragging on my neck,’ she complained, pulling herself free. ‘Did they make you do the dishes?’
He took her hand and they walked along the path. She kept patting down her hair, saying it was going frizzy. Frizzly, his son Ethan called it. He’d ask for a frizzly drink.
As they turned the corner, Brook rested her head on his shoulder. The wind was strong, coming straight off the ocean. Cold weather always made her more affectionate.
June. He’d buy Mimi lunch. Explain about Simmo, how things just got out of control. They’d go down to the beach and sit on the sand the way they used to. She’d forgive him. They’d forgive each other.
For once, he thought he had some grasp of what Brook was searching for. Her words in the car came to him then. The cusp. The moment. He pushed his mouth against her neck. His voice was gentle. She wasn’t listening anyway. ‘There’s your ending,’ he said.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the wonderful staff at Simon & Schuster, particularly Roberta Ivers, Fiona Henderson, Claire de Medici and Michelle Swainson for your astute observations and absolute dedication to this collection, and cover designer Jon MacDonald. Publication would not have been possible without the support of my agent, Fiona Inglis. Thank you for your professionalism and belief in me. Robert Drewe, your sage advice, encouragement and humour is appreciated beyond words.
Thanks, also, to the staff at the University of Newcastle, especially Kim Cheng Boey; your reassurance and commitment means so much. To the friends I have met on this writing journey, and the ones who were there from the start – you know who you are – thanks for being there.
Greg, Troy, Chloe and Sam, thank you for putting up with my distracted writing haze and ceaseless search for the right words. Gemma, my constant companion, thanks for being by my side.
My love of the written word is genetic, inspired by my parents, David and Vicki, my sister, Kristy, grandparents, Athole and Marie, and my nanna, Joan. Nanna, I’m so sorry I didn’t finish this in time for you.
About the author
Joanna Atherfold Finn was runner-up in the Carmel Bird Short Fiction Award 2012 and two of her short stories were published in the ‘Amanda Lohrey Selects’ series. Joanna recently completed her PhD in creative writing and is working on her first novel. She has taught creative writing at the University of Newcastle and tutors primary and high school students. After receiving the Herald University of Newcastle Journalism award in 2006 on completing her communications degree, Joanna changed her focus to creative writing, completed English honours and was awarded the University Medal. She lives in Port Stephens.
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