by Allie Little
“And you come to these?” I ask, incredulous, because he certainly doesn’t fit the mold.
“Love ‘em. Ab-so-lute-ly love ‘em. Because I love to dance. The last one was at Mangrove Mountain, and it was an awe-some night.”
I study him. A thirty year-old drug-fucked, techno-loving lawyer. He jiggles his body in front of me, doing a tribal shakey-shakey thing. My phone buzzes in my skirt. “Hang on, my phone...” And it’s perfect timing.
I answer for the diversion. Thankfully it’s Ben and gets me off the hook with lawyer-guy. “Hey Ben.”
“So where are you, Sam? I get up here, and the olds have got no clue.”
“Shoal Bay. I thought you were coming tomorrow.”
“Jeez it’s loud. Are you in a pub?”
I laugh. “No. Even worse. A dance party in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I’d like to leave but unfortunately there’s no escape.”
“I can barely hear you over the music.”
“It’s much worse this end, believe me,” I yell into the phone.
“So why can’t you leave? Just get a cab to the wharf.”
“Ben, there are no cabs in Deep Forest 9. We have to walk out.”
“Seriously? Want me to come get you?”
“Nah, it’s too far. I’m hoping one of them will want to leave at some stage before sunrise.”
“Anyway, Mum’s worried. Apparently you never tell her where you are anymore.”
I sigh. “I’m eighteen now, remember Ben?”
Ben says nothing, waiting for me to continue. Mum must’ve put him up to this. Ben would never call asking where I am. Ever. Normally he just wouldn’t care. “Yeah, yeah. So I’ll see you in the morning, I guess. I’ll let Mum know you’re fine.”
“Thanks. See you.”
“Hey, will I wake you for an early? You’ll love it. Lots of intense sunshine and glare?”
I laugh down the phone. “Oh ha ha, Ben. Yeah, wake me.” I hang up.
Lawyer-guy’s watching from a distance. And I can’t work out if he’s creepy or cool. The lights flash over his face in eerie purple and green. He blinks wildly in the blinding strobe, swilling beer from a plastic cup. Lurching suddenly over damp leaf-fall, he props himself next to me, grinning stupidly.
“So why do you come?” I ask, genuinely interested.
He gestures with an arm at the crowd, sweeping it across the front of him. “To be part of something. This. I work, and then I dance. It feels like family, Sam. Community. My home away from home.”
“So how long have you been doing this for? Working and then dancing?”
He looks into my eyes with large dilated pupils. “Since I was eighteen.” Pausing, he flicks his head to the side as if he’s only just noticed me. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
A deep chuckle rises from his throat. “Well, there you go. Since I was your age. Now I really feel old.”
He pushes off the tree and starts moving his body rhythmically in front of mine, his cigarette glowing red in one hand and a beer in the other. He thrusts his hips forward and tilts his face toward the trees, and actually looks content. In another zone. Stubbing out the cigarette in the mulch he grabs me by the hand, towing me into the thronging crowd.
“Come on. You really need to lighten up. For a young-un, you’re way too uptight.”
So I let him. Drag me in. And the interior is hot. Sweaty bodies pound the air, thrashing against each other. Vibrations bewilder the earth, pulsing below my feet.
He dances next to me, close, and he’s not bad. Nearly everyone seems to have the same air-beating style. Tim and Gemma dance nearby, grinding their hips together. Emily’s doing her own thing, vacantly perusing the thronging scene with an arm in the air.
Steve leans forward and yells in my ear. “You’ll feel much better, you know.”
I swivel to see his face. “What?”
“After a dance you’ll feel better. It’s a release. From whatever it is that’s bugging you. That’s how it is for me, anyhow.” Dancing while he speaks, he stares at the sky. Serenity envelops him, like he’s gift-wrapped in music. Or maybe it’s the drugs.
Finally relaxation takes hold and I dance. My body empties insecurities and embarrassment just bleeds away. I realise nobody’s watching, not even Steve. And the realisation is liberating.
“It’s like pumpkin,” he yells, looking over my shoulder with a hand gripping onto my hip.
“Pumpkin?”
“Yeah. Life is like pumpkin. We are like pumpkin. We grow up and become hard, all the way through. Just to cope with the shit that life dishes out.” He faces me, pausing before continuing his insightful spiel. He raises one index finger in my face and stares me in the eyes to emphasize his next point. “Unless of course we’re baked. Because then we’re just semi-hard on the outside to cope with all the shit that life dishes out, but all soft and squashy in the centre.”
I pull away and crease my brow, indicating confusion. There must be doubt in my eyes because unfazed, he just continues.
“Well, it’s like this. Once you find what you’re looking for - your interest, passion, love, whatever it might be - you’ve got to nurture it, Sam. Cook it. And once it’s fully baked, the rawness goes. You’ve got that hard glossy skin to get you through the tough times, like an exoskeleton, but you stay all gooey and sweet inside. Right where your heart is.” He points toward my chest. “You know, like yummy, squashy pumpkin.”
The guy is extremely odd, but I can see where he’s coming from. “So this is what turns you into sweet, squashy pumpkin?” I holler in his ear, shaking my head because I can’t believe I just asked him that.
He pulls back nodding vigorously, his eyes lighting up excitedly because I get it. “Yeah. Exactly. This turns me into pumpkin. For me, this is it. There is nothing else.” He regards me then, smiling through the darkness. “You’ve got to find your thing, Sam. That thing that turns you into pumpkin. Maybe it’s love, or some other consuming passion. And then ... no detours. Straight to the roasting pan.”
He laughs crazily and shimmies into the crowd with an arm raised, pumping it to the beat. Swivelling one eighty degrees, he signals me with a curling index finger.
I giggle, wishing I wasn’t so uptight. But he’s right, and maybe there is hope. Because after all, tonight I am techno-dancing with a pumpkin.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bennett’s beach, Saturday morning. Ghastly glare requires the darkest of glasses. My head rejects light like a nose full of wasabi. Ben laughs at me, pasty in a primitive sun. Today I am undoubtedly delicate. Dad drags big old Grey Gidget from the roof of his 4WD ute. It’s ridiculously long, suspended over the bonnet and tray like a painter’s plank. I wonder why he called it Gidget and not Layne. I suppose Layne didn’t have quite the same dazzle. For a long board, anyhow.
It’s freezing. I pull on my steamer, dragging it up and zipping it tight across my back like a second skin; the only one that actually fits. I wade out, duck diving below each churning wave until I find the calm place out beyond the breakers. Out where it’s deep, and a sleek shiny blue.
I sit up and balance, rising and falling with the rolling swell. Dad and Ben are as tiny as ants from a distance. They meet the water and there’s no hesitation. None at all, because they’re twitching to get in. Distinct channels of water sluice to the right, ripping south to the headland where swaying grass-weed catches at the point. The place where shark eggs scatter like spiralled black ribbons in the wind.
Dad paddles out beside Ben and they reach me on a rise. The sea’s a shiny blue-velvet without wind feathering the surface.
“Mine! Geroff!” Dad yells, paddling hard for a 3ft breaker building from the back. He makes it and glides across the face, cutting right along the base and riding it to the channel. He drops off the back and sinks into the water, graceful and slow. He laughs with a whoop, pulls himself back up and paddles out belly-down to the break.
The next one’s bigger and we fig
ht for it. Ben’s on, riding it before it closes out and sinks him in whitewash. He pulls his board back toward him by the leg-rope and grabs it on the rail.
“Come on, Sam! You getting any?” chides Dad, full of jumpy enthusiasm. He looks so much younger when he surfs. Years younger.
“Nah, not yet. I’m too slow.” And my arms feel like lead.
“Next one’s yours, Sammy. You have to work for ‘em, you know.”
Sluggish, yes, and not even the thrill of a 3ft swell infuses me with vigour. Three a.m. is just way too late. I complete a half-hearted paddle on the rising surge, only to drop off the back exhausted. I give up, admit defeat and surrender, belly-riding back to shore. Passion’s left me completely stranded. Perhaps I’ll never be a pumpkin.
Ben and Dad whoop and carry-on in the waves. Somehow amid the roar and slap of the sea and the buzzing in my head I hear my phone. I grab for it, assuming it’s Mum. Wanting to know where we all are and when we’re returning home. Ben’s here, after all.
But it’s Jack. I hesitate, wondering if I should let it ring a bit before answering. I breathe in and answer. “Jack?”
“Hey Sam, how're you going?”
I exhale. “Yeah, pretty good.”
“Matt just rang to say your car’s ready. He tried to call you yesterday, but apparently there was no answer.”
“That’s funny. I don’t think I noticed any missed calls.”
There’s a pause that’s long enough to be awkward. “Well, if you still need a lift to pick up your car, the offer’s there...”
“Oh, thanks Jack. That’d be great.”
Thankfully he fills the space between us. “I picked mine up yesterday, actually. And it’s good as new. Yours was ready too.”
I devote a thought to my old bomb. “Hopefully it looks better than it did before. Although that wouldn’t be hard.”
He laughs. “I can drive you over today if you want? I’m not working.”
I clear my throat. “Sure, thanks.”
“So will I come to yours about two? Matt closes at four on a Saturday.”
“Two would be great.” Anytime would be great, really. To spend time with Jack.
“Cool, I’ll see you later then,” he says, cutting the call.
Dad runs out, shaking the water from his hair like a dog. Grabbing for his towel, he throws himself down onto the sand.
He looks at me quizzically. “Is everything okay? You weren’t in long.”
I look across at him. “Everything’s good, Dad. I just heard I can pick up my car today,” I say, a grin creeping effortlessly across my face.
“Good news. How are you getting there? Do you need a lift?” he asks, firmly replacing his sunglasses and hat in the glare.
“Thanks for the offer, Dad. But Jack’s driving me.”
“Ooh,” he says, drawing the word out. Raising an eyebrow he angles his head as if to say, so what’s going on? But thankfully there are no words.
I laugh. “Nothing’s going on, Dad. He’s a friend. Well, kind of.”
“Well, it’s very considerate of your friend – kind of to give you a lift.” He leans into the grassy dune and closes his eyes. Pink pig-face spots the sandy slope as a smirk curls softly across his face.
Ben’s joined by surf mates from the Boy’s Club. The wind’s picked up and so has the surf. If I wasn’t so tired I’d kill to be out there.
“Hey, Benno!” one calls from the sand.
“Mate,” calls another. “Thought you went back to Sydney.”
Ben throws them a wave from the break.
They zip up their wetties and bound through knee-deep water. Past the channel they toss boards onto the surface and then themselves, gliding over the first line of foam. Reaching Ben easily, they float together in the undulating blue.
“So you had another late one last night?” Dad shades his face with a hat and from beneath it his voice is muffled.
“Yes. Very late.”
“Your mother worries, you know.” Hesitancy overcomes him, as if filled with ambivalence over the lecture he’s about to give.
“She doesn’t need to worry, Dad. I can take care of myself.”
“She stays awake until you’re home though, Sam. Every single time.”
I glare at him through the hat, still obscuring his face. “I don’t go out that much, Dad. It’s pretty rare actually.”
“Look, go out and have fun, but just let us know where you’re going, and what time you’ll be home. She does care, you know.”
I sigh audibly. “Do you think? You know what, Dad? She doesn’t give a shit. That’s the whole thing. She acts like she does, but her criticisms get in the way. Every time. Her negativity. The way she holes up in the dark for days at a time. Sometimes weeks. She’s done it forever. For as long as I can remember, that’s how she’s been.”
“You’re being too hard on her, Sam. And you can’t blame her for that. She can’t help it. You know that. We’ve all had to deal with her illness over the years. But if you met her half-way, you’d be pleasantly surprised.”
“I very much doubt it. Because when it comes to her, nothing surprises me, Dad. Nothing. Her need for control. Her manipulation. I’m sick of it, Dad. Really bloody sick of it.”
He pulls the hat from his face and his eyes are out on stalks. “Steady on. She might be difficult, but she does care.”
I shake my head angrily. “Well, it doesn’t feel that way. And Ben’s got it worse. Far worse. Because he succumbs to the pressure to be perfect. I honestly don’t know how he stands it.”
Dad fires across a glary, wounded look, then closes his eyes and re-positions the hat to hide his face. That way he doesn’t have to accept the truth, knowing there’s accuracy in what I say.
And all I really want to do right now is stand up and leave. Smother the anger, rising like bile in my throat. But I don’t. Because it’s Dad.
***
At home, the first thing I do is check where Mum is. I find her in the kitchen, preparing a festive lunch for the prodigal son. Shaken by the conversation with Dad, I slink off to the shower, a safe haven from her wrath. Both Ben and Dad have been at me, and no doubt it’s stemmed from her. I hide in my room for what seems an eternity. Avoidance is often the best policy. Especially when it comes to her. When Jack arrives I plan to intercept him on the driveway, before he makes it to the door.
At two o’clock his ute pulls into the street. It’s diesel and all rattly like the tray has come loose on the back. Creeping to the front door, I dash outside, taking the front steps two at a time and bolting like a wild horse across the lawn.
Jack looks curiously through the windscreen, seeming to take in my bizarre behaviour all at once. “You okay?”
I jump in beside him. “Yeah, I’m good. Quick ... let’s go,” I break off, motioning for him to reverse.
“Sam!” she calls from the front door, gesticulating for me to come back.
I wind down the window. “Going to pick up my car, Mum.”
She frowns and calls something I thankfully can’t hear.
Jack reverses onto the road, sensing the urgency and taking off fast. So fast the wheels spin on our loose gravel drive. “What’s going on?” he asks when we’re far enough away.
“I’m avoiding my mother. I got in late last night. She stayed up waiting so she’s not too happy.”
He raises a brow in disbelief. “Aren’t you old enough to do what you want?”
“You’d think.” I glance at him, feeling like an explanation is required. Especially as he was involved in the get-away. “She’s not easy, my mother.”
He nods, lowering his brow sympathetically.
“It’s like she wants me to be something I’m not. Something I’m never going to be. And if I was to become that something, she wouldn’t be happy. Even then,” I cough, wondering why I’m so emotional.
“That sounds shit, mate,” he says, frowning.
“It is,” I concur, looking out the window. “She
judges me, based on what she thinks is right, but also on what other people say or do. She has this competitive edge. And a dark side. A really dark side. It’s always been there, but I think it’s getting worse.”
“Jeez,” he says, lost for words. After a while he continues. “So what do you mean by a dark side?” he asks tentatively, looking almost a little fearful.
I wonder if I should tell him. Whether to come straight out and say it. We don’t say it much, because verbalising makes it real. Makes it something we’d have to deal with front-on. The insidious affliction eating away at us, like it eats away at her. Daily.
“My mum has depression, Jack. Sometimes she’s fine, but other times she’s so low nothing can retrieve her from the depths of despair. At least at the moment she’s upright.”
Jack glances across with compassion in his eyes. “And when she’s down she’s critical? More so, do you mean?”
“Yeah. Critical, and even a little nasty. This awful bitterness kind of snakes through her, and she goes all remote and stony. Detached, I s’pose. From all of us. Dad, me and Ben.”
Jack gives a shake of his head, lifting his eyebrows as if unsure how to respond. He changes the subject. “So, where did you go last night then?”
“To a lame dance party near Shoal Bay. From the moment I got there I wanted to leave, but I had to wait for my friends who were having the time of their lives. We had to walk out.”
I see his surprise. Most likely he doesn’t think I’m the dance party type, and he’d be right. “So your Mum doesn’t like you going out?”
I shake my head. “It’s not that. I can do what I want. She just has this need to control and manipulate. And everything she says is full of criticism. It’s been a lifetime of negativity.”
“Jeez,” he says again, ruffling a hand through his hair. “Sounds like you’ve got your hands full there.”
“Sorry to go on. It’s just hard sometimes, you know?”
“Don’t apologise, Sam. It sounds really difficult.”
