Cannily, Cannily

by Simon French

  Trevor shook his head. “I’d rather play for fun.”

  “I reckon you’re mad. Still leaving tomorrow?”

  Trevor nodded.

  In the clockwork precision of the classroom, the kids wrote out maths exercises, grammar exercises, completed reading work. Mr Fuller hovered ominously between his desk and the blackboard, ever watchful for those not working attentively enough.

  At his desk beside Martin, Trevor worked quietly, but with no particular neatness or care. Concerned only with the day’s gradually approaching conclusion, he found himself somehow escaping the attention of the teacher. In fact, he suddenly realised Mr Fuller had said virtually nothing to him since Monday, the morning he had read the story. When Trevor looked up once or twice from his schoolwork, he found the teacher looking critically back at him, and knew instinctively that the note from Kath had been read.

  Nothing more was said about the story, either. When Mr Fuller paced the aisles of desks handing everyone else back their written expression books, Trevor remembered that his hadn’t been given to the teacher. Instead, he had taken it home and put it away in a cupboard in the kombi. He supposed that Mr Fuller didn’t want to know anything more about it.

  Beside him, Martin flicked his book open.

  “C,” he whispered indignantly. “The ratbag only gave me a C for my story. Just because he doesn’t like science fiction …”

  At lunchtime, Trevor walked slowly outside with the soccer ball, despite Martin’s disconcerted remarks of, “You’re not going to play with that, are you?”

  “Course I am. Think I was going to eat it, or something?”

  “No, but …”

  Trevor walked off, bouncing the soccer ball. A short distance away in the other direction stood the rest of the kids, and it was towards this group that Martin reluctantly gravitated.

  “Hey, Huon!” shouted Bradley Clark. “Show us how you play wogball.”

  “Let’s see how good you are.”

  Trevor looked at them vacantly. He felt like a bit of an idiot for having brought the soccer ball at all. Then suddenly, Stuff them! he thought. He dropped the ball to the ground and gave it an idle kick. It skated across the playground and he followed after it and kicked it again. Behind him, the kids cheered sarcastically. Trevor kicked the ball again, harder.

  The cheering behind him became a confusion of shouts and he heard the pounding of running feet approaching him.

  “The ball–”

  “Get the ball–”

  “Grab it–”

  They ran past him in a jostling, shouting herd, and the soccer ball disappeared from his sight.

  “Here, Jason.”

  “Pass it here.”

  “Out to me–”

  “No, me.”

  “Oh no!” Trev said aloud, picturing the soccer ball either being stolen or pitched on to a classroom roof. “They’re going to wreck it.”

  Suddenly Martin was next to him. “No, they won’t.”

  “Why won’t they?” Trevor demanded angrily.

  “Because,” answered Martin, “I’ll punch their heads in if they do.” He laughed, then grabbed Trevor’s shoulder and forced him into a run. “C’mon, Huon, what’re you waiting for?”

  They caught up with the running huddle of kids. Somewhere in their midst was the thud of the soccer ball being caught between kicking feet.

  “Teams!”

  “Teams?”

  “We need teams.”

  “I’m one captain.”

  “Up yours, Clark. I’m captain.”

  “Rack off!”

  “I’m on Huon’s side!” Martin yelled helpfully.

  “So ’m I.”

  “Me too.”

  “Who’s on my side then?” demanded Bradley Clark.

  “Me!”

  “Me!”

  “I’m on Huon’s side!”

  “Rack off, we’ve got enough. Get on Clark’s side and hurry up.”

  That was about as far as the organisation extended. In two rough teams, they carried out the game across the expanse of the playground, competing with younger kids’ games of football and skipping. The sense of fun about the whole thing was infectious, unbelievable. They broke every possible rule, picking the soccer ball up, passing it around, dropping it to the ground once more and kicking it furiously about. Everyone forgot who was on whose team, but after a while it didn’t seem to matter anyway. They were still playing a loud, abusive game when the end-of-lunchtime bell rang.

  Slowly they ground to a halt, swearing amongst themselves about the shortness of lunchbreaks, before heading back towards Mr Fuller’s classroom. Trevor picked up the soccer ball and followed the group across the playground. He could hardly believe what had just happened, and he certainly couldn’t understand it. His head pounded and his ankles hurt from where other people’s kicks had missed the ball, but somehow it seemed oddly worth it.

  He sat through the endlessness of the afternoon, looking blankly at the social studies work he was supposed to be doing and trying not to look at the clock on the wall.

  “Great game, huh?” Martin whispered.

  “Yeah,” Trevor replied, and grinned politely, mystified by these kids, by this school, by the enveloping town. Absently, he filled the back of his social studies stencil with biro drawings of motorcycles and racing cars. The clock on the wall ticked on, and Trevor daydreamed for an eternity.

  “Hey!” Martin’s voice suddenly registered. “Wake up, dummy. Packing up time.”

  Around him, the classroom shuffled into life as desks were tidied, papers picked up and books collected.

  From the doorway, Mr Fuller issued commands. “No papers to be left on the floor. Don’t forget tonight’s homework. Those who do will find themselves with extra work to do.”

  Groans.

  “It’s also,” the teacher added, “our turn to present an item at next week’s school assembly. I want you to think about a song we could sing …”

  More groans.

  “… and not some moronic pop song, thank you. Something intelligent.”

  Trevor sat emptying the contents of his desk. The collection of stencils he folded and put into the shoulder bag, before methodically going through all the miscellaneous scraps of paper he seemed to have accumulated.

  “How long have you been here?” Martin asked.

  “Um, about five weeks,” answered Trevor, coming to a carefully folded piece of paper that had his name written on it in multicoloured texta, surrounded by a mass of pink hearts. Puzzled at its mysterious appearance, he opened it long enough to realise that it was from Angela Simmons.

  “Five weeks?” Martin replied slowly. “It seems longer than that.” He suddenly spied the note Trevor was holding. “Oooh, aaah!” he said jubilantly, and snatched it from Trevor’s grasp. “A girlfriend, eh? Who is she?”

  “Give it here!” Trevor protested, and proceeded to wrestle it from Martin. After some moments he succeeded, and managed to stuff it safely into the shoulder bag.

  Martin giggled, but was suddenly silenced by the intent gaze of Mr Fuller.

  “We’re waiting for you,” the teacher rebuked, as the remainder of the class assumed orderly positions beside their desks.

  Martin stood up as Trevor quickly sorted through the remaining contents of his desk.

  “Good afternoon, class,” said Mr Fuller.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” they answered in unison, before filing out of the room. Trevor followed on, dumping the scrap papers in the rubbish bin beside the door as he left. He glanced at the teacher, hoping perhaps to see something human about the stern face that briefly met his own. Nothing of course was forthcoming, and Trevor ran a few paces outside to catch up with Martin.

  “Bet I know who your girlfriend is,” said Martin. “Angela.”

  Trevor grinned.

  Oddly enough, Martin changed the subject. “You’ll be glad to see the last of Fuller, huh?” he said.

  “I reckon,” Trevor
agreed.

  “He didn’t even talk to you today. Or yesterday. Wasn’t really fair to you; ever since you first came, he gave you a hard time.”

  Trevor shrugged. “I guess he did.”

  Martin, not really understanding Trevor’s apparently blasé response, made a face. “You’re an idiot. I wouldn’t have put up with it.”

  They came to the school gate and stopped before heading in their different directions.

  “Well, see you, I guess.”

  “Yeah. See you.”

  “Will you write?” Martin asked then.

  “Write? What d’you mean?”

  “You know … write me a letter. When you get to wherever you’re going to. So I know where you are and all that.”

  “Oh,” Trevor said, puzzling briefly over the complexities of people who abused you one minute and made requests of you the next. “Sure,” he replied, seeing the expectant look on Martin’s face, “I’ll write.”

  “Okay. See you.”

  “Yeah. See you.”

  There seemed nothing more to say.

  TOMORROW

  They were in a different place now.

  He took a long time to wake up that morning, his closed eyes fighting the glare of the sunlight that shone in through the windows of the kombi. He squirmed restlessly, trying to fall asleep again.

  It seemed such an eternity later, but it was only the following day. Where were they yesterday? In a caravan park in a town far away. In a foreign country, in a time past. Thinking about it like that kept him awake.

  All around seemed silent and still. The kombi was stopped and parked beneath trees. With a start, Trevor sat up, wriggling free of the sleeping-bag.

  They were parked in bushland, scrub, isolation. At first, there seemed to be no other sound, no clue of civilisation. Twisted gum trees, bushy wattles and sandy grey soil were all he could see through the window next to him. He rolled over, peered out the back window, and was greeted by the same sight of motionless bushland. When he looked a bit harder, he could see early morning dew clinging to strands of grass and to lofty spiderwebs spun between trees.

  Where are we? he thought suddenly, and tossed aside blankets and sleeping-bag. His curiosity forced him outside, hastily dressed and wondering. Everywhere the sun seemed to be shining, refreshing and unexpectedly warm. Of Buckley and Kath there was no sign and for a moment he stood puzzled beside the kombi.

  It was only then that he became aware of a noise somewhere nearby – a hissing, roaring background to the silence of the surrounding bushland. The noise grew louder, faded, grew louder once more.

  His sleepy mind struggled to awaken and reason.

  The sea? We’re near the sea?

  Kath was standing beside the caravan, buttoning up a calico dress. Her hair was wet, her legs and feet sandy. “Hello,” she smiled. “Thought you were never going to wake up.”

  “Where are we?” he asked, perplexed.

  She shrugged. “Just an overnight stopover.”

  That doesn’t tell me much, Trevor thought and then added, “Where’s Dad?”

  “Down at the beach.”

  “The beach?”

  Kath smiled again, faintly, and shook the wet hair free of her face. “Go on down, Trev. The water’s really nice, not cold at all.”

  He thought about that for a moment and then jumped back into the kombi to change into a pair of swimmers.

  “There’s a path just over here,” Kath called after him.

  He found it at the fringe of bush, a track of sandy soil, punctuated by patches of rocky ground and tree roots that arched above the soil. The rocks and tree roots made it an obstacle course of sorts, and he alternated between sprinting, hopping and treading carefully around things he could have stubbed his toe on or tripped over. Behind him in the distance, Kath was singing one of her songs.

  The evenness of the sandy soil was marked with footprints – Buckley’s and Kath’s, he guessed. It seemed to take a long time walking over ground still cold from the night, but eventually he came within sight of the ocean’s horizon, the sea blindingly reflecting the sunlight. There was the sound too, the roar of the ocean that grew increasingly louder as he walked on through the bush. And when he stopped to listen, it seemed to be all he could hear.

  The trees gave way to windblown shrubs, the black ground to the white sand of the coast’s edge. The pathway sloped downwards then, and slowly bushland became open beach.

  Here, he stopped.

  For a moment, lots of thoughts ran through his mind. Images became reality and a vague set of memories were suddenly mirrored in what now confronted him. It can’t be the same place, he reasoned then. But the beach commanded his attention by its vastness and raw beauty, and he gave up thinking.

  The sand was warm under his feet, and squeaked when he ran across it. His toes sank deep with each step into the grainy softness, until he stopped once more to look around.

  To either side of him the beach stretched, a white barrier between the ocean and the green of the mainland. Peninsulas rose distantly to end this picture, headlands of faraway places. Along this length, the waves rose and foamed on to the beach. Barely within earshot, seagulls hovered and screeched. There seemed to be no one in sight.

  But there was someone in the water. Someone sitting on a surfboard, motionless on a stretch of flat, still water a long way from the shore.

  Trevor wandered down to the water’s edge, watching.

  Further out to sea a wave formed, grew, came closer and closer. The surfer was on his knees now, paddling the board along and the wave advanced, lifted him up and swept him along.

  The movement was hypnotic. The surfer rose to the top of the wave. With a single deft movement he swung the board at right angles down into the wave’s arc, and cut across the water amid a shower of salt spray. He repeated the movement again and again, swinging the surfboard to the left and then to the right, keeping swift pace with the wave as it crashed and hurled itself towards the shore. Every movement seemed graceful and precise and eventually ended when the wave hit the shallow water and flattened out. The surfer slid off his board and waded into the shore.

  For a second, the sun had shone into Trevor’s eyes and he couldn’t focus or see properly, but he knew it had to be Buckley. But it was an oddly different Buckley who was carrying the old surfboard and grinning from ear to ear.

  Trevor at first couldn’t identify the difference exactly, but when his dad walked up to him, he could see at once what had changed.

  The beard had gone. The curled ginger beard had been shaved off, and there was Buckley’s face, all of it. Not the face Trevor might have imagined but an oddly young face, thin and serious.

  “You look strange, Dad.”

  Buckley laid the dripping board on the sand. His wet hair was streaming seawater down his face and he swept his hands across his forehead to divert the salt water from his eyes.

  “Why did you shave your beard off?”

  Buckley just smiled. “A change is as good as a holiday, eh?”

  “You were surfing really well.”

  There was no reply.

  “When I was little, I remember you surfing.”

  The two of them stood there then, watching the waves form, rise and fall crashing into the shallows. Some waves became nothing, merely lumps in the water that refused to break and ended up as feeble washes of water and froth at Trevor’s feet.

  “You remember that?” Buckley said at last. “When I used to surf? Years ago?”

  “Mmm.”

  “You seem to remember lots of things, Trev. At least that’s the impression I get.”

  “I guess so.” It was hard getting used to talking to that face. It was an awkward nakedness, those cheeks and chin without the security and familiarity of the beard. Trevor decided he didn’t like it. “Grow your beard back,” he said.

  “I will be,” Buckley replied. “This was only an experiment.” And he added with deliberation, “I wanted to remember
what I looked like once.”

  He looked away then, and seemed to be deep in thought about something. When he spoke again, it was to say, “Would you like to have a go on the board, Trev?”

  Trevor’s mouth dropped open. “I can’t swim too well, you know.”

  “I’ll be out there with you,” Buckley replied. “Do you want to?”

  Trevor waited a moment before nodding a reply. “Okay.”

  The water at first was a numbing coldness around his body and he hesitated before getting himself completely wet.

  “Come on!” Buckley was in the water beside him. “If you don’t get your head wet, I’ll give you a ducking.”

  Trevor sighed and pulled a face, then clamped his nose with his fingers and sank into the water. A wave washed over him and he rose up once more, sleek and wet.

  “That’s better,” said Buckley. “Now. Get on to the board and I’ll take you out a bit further.”

  Together, they moved out into the deeper water, rising and falling with each shore-bound wave. Trevor lay stomach down on the board, the rough, waxed surface rubbing against his skin. He felt raw excitement and apprehension all at once as each wave that washed against the board threatened to throw him into the awesome depths beneath.

  At last, Buckley stopped, turning Trevor and the surfboard around so that they faced the beach.

  “Now what?” Trevor asked.

  “We wait for a wave.”

  For a while then there was a stillness around them, as the surf flattened out and rippled uselessly about. Small waves rose and fell beneath the board, lacking the power that Trevor was poised for.

  The beach seemed far away at first too, but when a familiar figure in a calico dress appeared on the sand at the water’s edge, Trevor realised that it wasn’t that distant.

  “You’ve got an audience,” said Buckley, waving to Kath. She waved back and folded her arms, waiting.

  “Don’t forget,” Buckley was saying, “once you’re with the wave, get on to your knees. Keep to the centre, and don’t try standing up, not this time anyway. Just keep your balance and steer the thing much like you would a skateboard.”

  Again, they waited. Trevor lay on the surfboard; beside him, Buckley trod water.