The Gulf

by Anna Spargo-Ryan

  His eyebrows clenched into his forehead. ‘No I haven’t.’ He took another biscuit, eyes still on me. ‘Quarter-past six,’ he guessed, then looked at the clock face and shouted, ‘Ugh, ten ten!’ He shoved all the biscuit clocks in his mouth at once. Claud smiled down at him.

  ‘You remind me of my little boys,’ she said.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, crumbs spilling everywhere, ‘I didn’t see Raf’s parrot when we were at your house.’

  My heart clicked over, started racing.

  ‘What parrot?’ Claud said, looking into her own hand. ‘Ooh, twelve o’clock! It’s good luck to get twelve o’clock.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘I do.’

  Ben looked through the packet for another twelve o’clock, found one right at the end and held it above his head. ‘Yes!’ The yellow icing cracked between his teeth. ‘Is the football over yet?’

  When the final siren went, Raf came up to the boundary, hair slick with sweat. They’d won by eight goals. Yardy had kicked six and got man of the match. Ellen had stormed the field and was rubbing herself all over him while he shook hands with the guys from the other team.

  ‘Come to Yardy’s, yeah?’ Raf said. ‘Party of the year before we leave.’

  Murderers in the park the man with his legs cut off in the tunnel Haylee having her drink spiked.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’ve got Ben.’

  Ben appeared next to me, like I’d queued him up. ‘Hi. Football sucks. And we’re in the middle of the worst adventure in all of history.’ I elbowed him.

  ‘An adventure, huh?’ Raf pulled a towel from the back of his shorts and rubbed his head with it. He looked at me. ‘I hope the adventure involves Trey getting us some beers and you coming to Yardy’s.’

  ‘Trey?’

  ‘My brother.’

  Claud clicked her tongue. ‘No drinking, Rafferty. You think that’s going to help you on the trip? Not bloody likely.’ She grabbed Ben around his middle. ‘I can watch this fella for you, though.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That would be . . .’

  ‘Great?’ Raf said.

  Claud smiled. ‘How ’bout it, Ben? I’ve got that new movie downloaded. The one with the panda?’

  Ben clapped. ‘Can we have popcorn?’

  ‘Of course, treasure.’ She took his hand.

  ‘You shouldn’t download movies, though,’ he said. ‘You can go to jail for downloading movies. You wouldn’t steal a car.’

  ‘That’s true.’ She began to lead him away from the grandstand.

  ‘You wouldn’t steal a handbag,’ he said.

  ‘No, quite right.’

  His little voice fading into the sounds of the ground: ‘You wouldn’t steal a . . .’

  *

  Yardy’s place was out behind the caravan park, towards the highway. A big house, two storeys. The music was loud and the whole street seemed to be vibrating with it, right down under the bitumen.

  A couple of guys from our class sat on the front porch and passed a cigarette between them, called out to a girl on the lawn to show them her tits but she was too busy puking. The front door was open. People spilled in and out of it. Someone dropped a beer on the tiles and it shattered on the doorstep. One of the guys spotted Raf, called out – ‘Yewwwww!’ – and went to grab him around the waist. Raf laughed.

  ‘You’re fucked,’ he said.

  ‘Yep!’ And the other guy laughed as well, coughed a bit, spat into his hand. We stepped over the broken glass, pushed our way through a couple with their hands in each other’s pants. People were everywhere, on everything, mouths open, legs open. The music pounded in my skull. I wanted to be back with Claud. Just a bit, for a second. An arsehole dropped half his beer on my shirt, licked my cheek in apology. I smelled vomit and beer and something else; a chemical smell.

  ‘I’ve never been to a party like this,’ I said, and wished I hadn’t. Raf squeezed my hand.

  ‘Just say “fucking lit” a lot and get drunk with me.’ He threw his hands in the air. Shouted at a guy across the room. Cracked the lid off his beer on the edge of the kitchen bench. He led me out through sliding doors to a patio with a spa built right into it like it was part of the house. Yardy had his arm around El and Renée, Hamish smoked across from them with his legs hanging over the edge. Al, at the barbecue, was burning sausages and throwing them at some girls on the lawn.

  ‘Raffertyyy.’ Yardy stretched it right out at the end in a weird American drawl. His knees stuck out of the water and he balanced a shiny pipe on one of them. Hamish passed over a bamboo bowl, the kind everyone’s mother had inherited from her mother (except mine, who bought all of hers from the plasticware aisle at the supermarket and then fried them in the microwave). Yardy tipped out the stuff inside, packed it tight into the end of the pipe. Renée took a lighter from the edge of the built-in spa and set it alight, and it breathed out its pungent animal smell.

  ‘You getting in?’ Yardy said.

  Raf laughed. ‘I’m not going anywhere near this orgy.’

  ‘Your loss.’

  They clinked their beer bottles. El grabbed the pipe, took a long drag on it. She passed it across to Raf, who passed it to Hamish.

  Raf pulled me over to a spot by the fence, sat down on the wall around the garden. So much of it was the same as that party at Casey’s house – people passed out on the grass, girls with their hands over their drinks. But then there was Raf. I finished my beer, swished the warm liquid around before swallowing, took another from his sixpack. He edged closer to me. Put his hand on my hand, skolled his beer with the other. A girl slapped some dickhead in the face and the guys around him cheered.

  Yardy came over, yellow towel around his waist. His body was big, arms bursting with tight muscles. Like he was twenty instead of sixteen, like he’d been working out at the gym every day of his life. It was hard not to look, the trail of dark hair running from his bellybutton to his – ‘Raf, my man,’ he said. Burped. Laughed into his hand. ‘Nah, but seriously.’

  Raf sighed. He turned to me. ‘You wanna come upstairs? This idiot is about to try to fight me.’ And then he smiled, lopsided. ‘Or we can have a go in the spa.’

  ‘It’s winter. And I don’t have any bathers.’

  ‘Upstairs, then?’

  My head was full of music and beer, the two things banging together, spinning around. ‘Okay. If it’s quiet there.’

  We went up to a little landing with a balcony around it. ‘Yardy’s sister might be here. That’s her bedroom.’ My heart pounded. ‘That’s his parents’ room. You definitely don’t want to go in there.’ He stopped in front of the last door. ‘Yardy’s.’ He grabbed my hand, and his was shaking. ‘You sure?’

  ‘About what?’

  He laughed, a bit more nervous energy exposed. ‘Yardy’s room is pretty much nuclear waste.’

  I opened the door, ignored the smell that shot out. Tried to tell myself we were just getting away from the noise downstairs. Tried not think about Daryl and his fingers in my hair. Raf closed the door, pushed a pile of clothes to the floor, and we sat together.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘We don’t have to do anything.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘We can just sit for a bit.’

  ‘Okay.’

  His arm slid around my hips. ‘Is this okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  It moved up my back, to my shoulderblades, to the bare skin near my neck. ‘And this?’ He was whispering.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  He shifted his other hand to my collarbone, down to the neck of my t-shirt. ‘Tell me if you want me to stop,’ he said, and I wondered if he could feel my heart beating out of my chest, if he could feel the sweat between my boobs, the beer in my throat.

  The door burst open. I snapped upright, suddenly sober. Yardy stood in the doorway, laughing.

  ‘Get some, Rafferty.’ He reached out to shake Raf’s hand.

  ‘Fuck off.
’

  ‘Very sorry to interrupt.’ He walked in and sat on Raf’s other side. The others came in after him, hair still wet from the spa. ‘Got some business to attend to.’

  Yardy opened the drawer next to his bed and picked up a glass pipe with a bulb at the end, and I gasped. Couldn’t help it, saw Jason again with his fistful of glass.

  ‘Okay, Skye?’ El said. ‘You look freaked out.’

  ‘Me?’ She looked at me sideways. They all did, all their faces aimed right at me. ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘Nah, I’m good.’

  Yardy unwrapped a foil packet, took out a couple of crystals and dropped them in the chamber. Raf was uneasy next to me, leaning from one side to the other, pushing his fingertips together. ‘We can go,’ he whispered. ‘Right now, if you want.’

  ‘Oh Raf,’ Yardy said. ‘My hero.’ He kissed Raf hard on the cheek. ‘She said she was good.’ Someone screamed downstairs, then laughed. Raf squeezed my hand.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said.

  ‘Where’d that lighter go, Renée?’ Yardy took it from her, held the flame close to the glass and rolled the pipe between his fingers until it filled solid with smoke. One breath in, another out in one creamy snake, and the plume curled into the skylight. He handed the pipe across to Raf, who shook his head and passed it along. Hamish grabbed at it like a hungry child. It went around a couple more times before Yardy clinked it on his bedside table and left it there, still hot.

  ‘So, Skye,’ he said, and all five of them pointed upwards in unison and laughed. ‘How you liking your first Port Flinders party, huh? Not bad at all, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Fucking lit,’ said Hamish, and Raf elbowed me.

  ‘Yeah, fucking lit,’ I said. The glass bottom of the pipe had been burned black. Yardy picked it up and put it in his drawer.

  ‘You guys coming downstairs? Jez got fireworks from somewhere. Thought we’d aim them at rabbits.’

  ‘No thanks,’ Raf said.

  ‘Whatever.’ They all left. El closed the door behind them.

  ‘Sorry you had to see that,’ Raf said. ‘And sorry about before. Like, if you weren’t into it. Don’t want to pressure you.’

  ‘Nah, you didn’t.’

  ‘You want another beer?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  He pushed his hands under his thighs. Something moved under the pile of clothes. Through the window, a white flash streaked across the backyard.

  ‘You wanna go?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Raf walked me out to the jetty. The wind was strong and it snapped at our faces. Waves crested over the old wood, went crashing down on the other side.

  ‘Is it safe?’ I said.

  ‘Nah,’ Raf said, and grabbed my hand. ‘But what is?’

  ‘Being home in bed?’

  He coughed out a laugh. ‘In your bed? Doubt it.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  ‘Nah, yeah, I know.’ He pulled my hand towards him, so it was almost in his pocket. ‘What did you think of the party? Good, right? Those dickheads were off their heads.’

  I didn’t want to tell him about the only other party I’d been to. Me and Kirrily hiding in the playground so murderers wouldn’t find us because we’d had two beers. The kids from school who didn’t want me there in case I started reciting Lady Macbeth or telling them something Ben had taught me about lizards. How I didn’t know if the party was good. How would I know? And then the man with his legs cut off in the tunnel again. The train. It shot past in the distance, rolled its quiet rhythm across the wheat fields.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, not knowing what else to say. ‘It was cool.’

  ‘They’re usually better,’ he said. ‘Yardy can be such a dick, though.’ We reached the end of the jetty and he swung his legs over the railing, pulled himself up so he was sitting right on the end, staring out at the dark water.

  ‘I’m not into that stuff, you know.’ His voice was quiet.

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘The stuff the other guys are doing. Yardy and them.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I know.’ I thought of Mum bent over the bed, Jason’s face right up next to hers. Wanted to ask Raf for more, things I needed to know about what was happening at Jason’s. I saw Yardy’s face afterwards, eyes like the backs of spoons. Did Mum have eyes like that? I should’ve helped her, not just hidden in the toilet like a little kid.

  ‘Seriously though.’

  ‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ I said.

  ‘Nothing, I guess. I just wanted to make sure you knew.’ He tapped the railing next to him. ‘Get up here.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You saw those waves. What if one of them knocks you off?’

  His smile was wide and bright under the jetty lamp. ‘Then I’ll swim back to shore. Come on.’

  I pulled myself up next to him. On the water, the fishing boats slammed into the waves, and vice versa. Far out to sea, someone shouted and a flare went up.

  ‘Those people at the party . . . what do they do?’

  ‘What do you mean? Go to school, play footy. Couple of them have cars so we go to Port Pirie sometimes, see a movie, go to the mall.’

  ‘But what will they do after? You know, in life? Like Yardy. What will he do?’

  Raf frowned. ‘He’ll go down to the smelter, like his dad. At the end of this year, probably.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Guess El and Renée might marry farmers. Or move to the city. El’s brother moved to the city this year, got a job in an office. Maybe she’ll get a leg up that way.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Al and Seb and Hamish’ll be deros like their old men, sit at the bar at Heysen and spend their dole money on greyhounds.’

  ‘Is that what they want to do?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they want to? Beats doing real work.’

  ‘What about you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Play footy, of course. I’d even play for Port, if they had a spot for me.’

  ‘You’re so good. They’d be mental not to take you.’

  ‘It’s expensive to get in, you know. Not enough to just be a good player anymore. You’ve gotta do programs and media training and learn how to be good in interviews. Especially if you want a career off the field. In front of the camera, on the boundary. Would’ve been good to get work experience doing that and not this bullshit mechanic stuff.’

  Work experience. ‘When does that start again?’

  ‘Monday. You figured yours out? Too late if you haven’t, I guess.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, of course.’ EARN MORE MONEY.

  ‘What’re you doing?’

  Marking down meat in the freezer. ‘The Foodplace.’

  ‘But you already work there.’

  ‘Yeah, but like . . .’ Watching Jeannie blow smoke through her nose in a car park. ‘In the office. Ordering . . . stock.’

  ‘Sounds shithouse.’

  ‘Really does.’

  He swung his legs. ‘No more shithouse than changing car tyres though.’

  ‘Never tried it.’ We were quiet. I thought about how I could convince Daryl to give me more work. How I could disguise it as work experience. I’d done the maths, figured out how many hours I’d need to work. Watched the clouds come shooting across to hide the stars. ‘Hey,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Do you ever feel so small you want to explode?’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘Nah. I feel so much bigger than this place I want to explode.’

  ‘You’d make a huge mess.’

  He was silent for a while, then, ‘No one ever stays on purpose,’ and we sat wet and lost at the end of the jetty, waiting for the boats to tip over.

  11

  THE SECOND TIME I saw Nonno after Dad left, I went by myself in a taxi. Mum was working at the school, then, and she seemed to have money all the time. Nonno had a woman living with him. Not a girlfriend, but someone who could take care of things around
the house so he could do the outdoor work.

  He had a new goat. Gerry, the goat. Gerry lived in a fenced-off area by the house, and he was pressed right up against the fence, bleating loudly into the orange grove. Nonno watched him from the kitchen, turning over handfuls of feed in a glass bowl.

  ‘Why’s he shouting?’ I said.

  ‘He hasn’t had any breakfast,’ Nonno said.

  ‘Don’t goats need breakfast?’

  ‘He must pay his way,’ he said, and tipped the feed into the tray.

  In the morning I walked into town, watching for other kids or teachers who might see me, and went into the Foodplace. Jeannie was at the checkout already, not even nine am and she was there with her big smile on and her hair in front of her face. I grabbed a chocolate bar from the shelves, went over to her counter.

  ‘Daryl around?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, he’s out the back. What do you want with him? On your day off? Would’ve thought you’d want to keep as far away from the likes of him as possible.’

  I passed her a gold coin. ‘I need to ask him a favour.’

  She folded the coin into her hand. ‘Chocolate bars are three bucks, my sweet.’ I reached into my pocket, found nothing. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll cover you this time. Your shout next, yeah?’

  ‘Thanks, Jeannie.’

  She smiled, the same way she did for every other person in her line. ‘Next customer?’ she called, right over my head.

  Daryl was in the freezer room, crossing out the best-before date on pre-packaged meat. Everyone knew he did it. He was totally open about it, slapping a huge SALE sticker over the top of two days ago, keeping the meat half-frozen so the edges didn’t go grey. There was that smell of him. I was barely in the door and I could smell it. His stale BO.

  At the sound of my footsteps, he spun around. ‘You’re not supposed to be back here!’ He squinted at me. ‘Skye? You’re not rostered on today, are you? Penalty rates?’

  ‘No, I have a favour to ask.’

  He put down his scanner. ‘I’m not big on handing out favours to kids who’ve already had an official warning.’ His jowls wobbled as he walked towards me.

  ‘We’ve had a family emergency. I need more hours.’