The Break

by Deb Fitzpatrick

  Rosie working meant it was about time he found work too. Bummer really, he was more than happy to just potter around after an early surf, read, snooze, then enjoy a beer or two on the verandah after a lago — the extra surf you snaffled when the wind swung back around in the late afternoon and the ocean took on the look of a pane of molten glass. In the evening he’d cook up a storm — Thai curries, vegie stirfries, or lamb chops with garlic and rosemary and baked spuds — and relax with Rosie and an ABC doco. And Rosie’d just been telling him last night, when they lay in bed with moonlight on the doona and the sound of surf down the road, how good it was not to have a routine to their day — they could cook dinner as late as they wanted and it didn’t matter because they didn’t have to get up at seven in the morning (unless Rosie was on the early shift). They could watch crappy late-night TV, they could have breakfast at eleven o’clock, they could sleep in the afternoons. Bliss.

  But he couldn’t let her slave away on her own out there in the big bad world. The question was: did he go for the devil he knew or meet the one he didn’t?

  Cray looked through the slender volume of the local yellow pages. There were a few consultancies, mostly specialising in land development, subdivisions, that sort of thing. Going around to newly clear-felled blocks, and then compaction tests, septics, drainage, retaining walls; checking out houses for cracks and faults and below-standard design. Thrill-a-minute.

  Cray flopped the book down. Jesus bloody Christ, he thought. I’m only gunna live eighty years. And forty are meant to be spent working; forty trying to make money. People seemed to do anything to get the stuff, and expected him to do the same. And yet they all had those mugs with Countdown to the weekend and Thank God it’s Friday on their desks. The least you could do, he reckoned, was have a job that fulfilled the basic human need of pleasure.

  The flywire filled momentarily with ocean wind. Cray tried to suck some into his lungs. It was Tuesday. And Thank God For That.

  He flicked through the pages to the surf shops, board shapers and suppliers of all things to do with the hallowed activity. Shaping. He’d shaped a few boards in his time. The rhino chaser was beautiful in the water, smooth and fast; he’d made that. He had design skills, drafting, the mathematics of the thing. Could he?

  Triple J was on in the background. They could just receive it, after a hell of a lot of fiddling; it was their only link to home, a common denominator. Cray wasn’t really listening, could just hear the buzz of music and a guy’s voice. He was dreaming boards, Greys Bay, forever.

  20

  Mike left before dusk, passing paddocks and cows and skies of orange-mauve-blue-violet, and houses out in the middle of acres and acres of flat, exposed land. His old bomb, the Sunbird, was ready to blow by the time he rolled into Brenn Head.

  He pulled up in the carpark of the Paradise Motel. He’d always wanted to stay there, pink neon sign with flashing palm tree outside the row of sordid illicit-sex and drug-deal motel units, each with a buzzing fluoro strip above the door. He reckoned the palm tree was the anti-Christ in the hospitality industry: it reeked of desperation.

  At the motel reception, which was not so much about being received as it was about being sussed out by the guy who ran the joint, Mike paid in full, as per The Policy. The guy took his cash and said quietly, ‘Need anything else?’

  Mike took a couple of moments to realise what he meant. The manager was smirking; he knew what Mike was. Sweat erupted at his hairline. It was so easy. Would be so easy.

  The sudden cool air outside that reception building had the effect of an icebath on him, thank god. He shook his head like a dog shaking off water after a swim, shook the shithead’s smirk out of him.

  Tomorrow at the hospital in Margaret River, Mike had an appointment to meet his new nurse. Some specialist in relapse prevention, his GP reckoned. She’d wanna be a specialist for this hard case, Mike thought darkly. Would she be nice, he thought, would she be like Annemarie? He couldn’t handle some tutting matronly woman frowning at him every time he had to down his sickly dose. Wait and see, he said to himself. No point jumping to conclusions, just wait and see.

  The bed sagged in the middle. Mike sat on the orange candlewick cover. Tiny TV, humming bar fridge. He pressed on the telly — Channel Two was showing one of the Carry On movies. Unbelievable that they continued to repeat them, unbelievable that he found himself laughing. No: chuckling — dirtily. Boobs and bums and scotch and nurses and stethoscopes. All very Benny Hill.

  The bar fridge didn’t have anything in it, but that’s what you got for thirty-five bucks. He dug around in his bag and pulled out a bottle of vodka. Surprise, surprise. From one addiction to another. At least this one you could do with family and friends.

  21

  By the time Rosie was pelting along Calgan Road in the Woody it was nearly midnight. Apparently, staff drinks after the nightshift were a condition of employment, particularly when the boss had gone home early. It was a good twenty-five minute drive back to Greys Bay, and she pushed it up to 110. The black shapes of trees kept the curve of the road ahead. Moonlight eked through the break at the sky, where the canopy, separated by the snaking bitumen below, did not quite meet.

  Rosie looked out for roos and other cars, pressed the radio button to the sound of Ted Bull — silly old coot, but she liked him — and tried to wind down from her evening. She hoped Cray would still be up, but she wasn’t counting on it. He liked his sleep, did Cray. Didn’t appreciate late-night disturbances or early-morning phone calls, even from well-meaning relatives (especially from well-meaning relatives). Hopefully he’ll have left the light on for me, she thought.

  God, that sounded depressing, like a line out of some old song on the Ted Bull show.

  Rosie stood in the garden overlooking the ocean’s midnight blue, its creamy hem reaching across the bay. She breathed in the moist, bush-seasoned air. It was so quiet after the radio. Thick quietness. No urban sounds in the distance, no traffic near or far. No voices, even. Just the ticking engine cooling.

  Hearing the silence, listening to the lack of sound, almost made her panicky. Greys Bay was remote. No, she corrected: peaceful. Both, she compromised.

  The kitchen light was on and Cray had left her a plate of food with foil tucked around it, and an ‘instruction’ about going outside before she went to bed. I already have, she murmured, looking towards the blackness of their bedroom. Cray had this thing about outside: he went out and breathed deeply a few times every night before he went to bed, even when they’d lived in Freo. In through the nose, out through the mouth. This place must be fresh air heaven to him, Rosie thought, imagining him out there on the balcony, breathing, listening to the surf, gauging the wind for tomorrow’s conditions.

  She didn’t really want to eat now, at the kitchen table, this late, with none of the homely atmosphere that normally goes with eating — but she knew she’d wake up starving in the night if she didn’t. Cray would have gone out and eaten on the balcony. She flicked on the late-night news, settled down with her microwave-warmed bowl, tucked her feet under her knees. After five minutes the test pattern came up. She hadn’t seen the test pattern for years, didn’t know it still existed. Maybe the station had a few different ones, she thought, just for variety. She tried the ABC. Accounting class. Shit. That was worse.

  ‘Cray,’ she whispered loudly. ‘Are you awake?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Cray. CRAY.’

  ‘Mmmnnnhhhh … what …’

  She crawled onto the bed. ‘Hello, I’m home.’

  ‘Rosie, I need to sleep,’ he said thickly, covering his eyes with the crook of his elbow.

  ‘I’ve just got home from work … I’m all awake. It was my first day, remember?’

  ‘I left a note,’ he croaked.

  She leaned back. ‘Oh, thanks, very kind of you.’

  ‘And some dinner!’ He was waking now, propping himself up. ‘Jesus Christ, Rosie! I was completely asleep. What’s the story?’


  ‘I’m not tired, Cray! My mind’s going a million miles an hour and I just thought you might have stayed awake. There’s only crap on telly. Unless you want me to watch the test pattern.’

  ‘God …’ He fell back into the sheets. ‘I just want to sleep, Rosie. I left that note …’

  Rosie closed the door behind her. Fine. He didn’t want to hear about her day. He wanted to sleep. She wanted to know: how could he be tired when he hadn’t done anything all day?

  Rosie washed her bowl and put the kettle on. She looked sideways at the bowl, dripping in the rack, and imagined Cray putting dinner aside for her after he’d cooked and eaten (on his own).

  After a moment she made a weak cup of tea, turned off the kitchen light and made herself as comfortable as possible on the seventies sofa. She’d not been able to hear it before, but the heavy rumble of the surf as it struck the sand and sucked itself away again came in through the sliding doors, came right into the house. And between the water and the houses, even closer, she could hear the bush, almost loud with noises still unfamiliar. Maybe there were a few accounting skills she could brush up on, she thought, concentrating on keeping her breathing steady. Nothing to be scared of, Rosie. She took a positive mouthful of tea and scorched her tongue. White-hotness travelled from her throat to her belly.

  Rosie stood up and moved away from the sliding doors and the strangeness of the night. She flung open the front door, turning on the houses that leaned at the silvery night water. Shouting pounded in her. Blackness pressed itself close.

  Not a light was on. Fifty or so houses on the face of the hill, and not one window glowed.

  22

  Sam loved the night. Everyone was asleep; the world belonged to him. Him and the stars.

  Stars. Weird things. He reckoned they were unreachable, mysterious, something he’d never be able to understand. Not really, not properly. What was weirdest was that they were part of things, part of the world, part of this solar system. Earth was a star. Well, a planet. Sam knew from his charts that Earth was just another speckle in the sky, one of the millions of speckles he could see most nights out his window. He wondered if maybe there was someone looking out from one of those stars at this one, this bright one, like he could see Venus and Mars sometimes. Maybe. It was funny, the way people thought of this planet as separate, as on its own, like it was special or something.

  23

  The next morning, Mike flipped the bonnet to check the Sunbird’s vitals. Oil slid down the rocker cover. It didn’t seem to matter which angle he came from, he just couldn’t get the stuff directly into the engine opening. He mopped up as best he could with a grotty rag he found in the boot — an old pair of jocks — and then eased off the radiator cap.

  Forty minutes to Margs. Should he go straight to the farm, or drop in at a real estate agent’s first? He was going to have to get work pretty quick if he was paying rent. No more DSS. Social security. Dole. He could apply down there if he really needed to, but he wanted to work, keep busy, make a real break, show everyone. Show Ferg. How could he ever get back his brother’s trust? Ferg still ground that axe, oh yeah, he couldn’t put it down. And why the fuck should he? And Sam — he didn’t want Sam thinking he had a no-hoper for an uncle. Mike wanted to be able to take him pressies. Stuff for the computer. Things from Mike.

  It was now or never, Mike reckoned.

  The old tree-lined avenue leading in and out of Brenn Head brought to mind the marri he used to sit in as a kid to throw honky nuts at Ferg. He grinned at the memory. But beyond that, Mike struggled to remember how it felt to live there before — twenty years ago. Twenty years! Before he grew up, before he was who he was now. Before Dad died. Before Mum had white hair and watched the afternoon soapies, before Sam was born. Before he was a user, before Jen left him. The world was different now.

  He tried to clear his head. He was bloody starving. And he needed a piss. Why hadn’t he gone before he’d handed his key in? Mike didn’t want to have to ask that dicknose manager for any favours. There was a bit of bush he could pull into a few minutes from here where he could relieve himself. His hunger would have to wait.

  The earthworm pushes through dark, wet soil, searching for decay, something to work on and ingest. It slides against other worms, their bodies half hidden, protected against predators: the New Holland honeyeaters, the magpies and kookaburras. Ants, sometimes. Earwigs.

  A coming: feet crunching over sticks. The pink fleshy earthworm elongates, retracts, elongates, burrows. Then: golden spray hard against the tree, a sprinkling of warm moisture over the leaves above.

  The earthworm threads deeper down, comes across something soft, decomposing, as the steps retreat.

  24

  Liza straightened up from the paper. A car. And somehow, she knew.

  But he was meant to ring first!

  She wanted to go out to Mike with smiles, put on the kettle for a pot of tea, welcome him as he stood awkwardly at the door, feet making sounds on the verandah, and she wanted to send him away again, tell him to do it properly, for Ferg’s sake, for their sake, for god’s sake!, because he said he would, because this was the start, the beginning, the end of all that.

  ‘Hello?’ he said through the flyscreen door.

  The verandah creaked in the easterly, little tocks of falling seeds and skitters of leaves across the wood.

  Liza leaned out, peered through the dark of the flyscreen.

  ‘Mike!’

  She nearly said something stupid about door-to-door salesmen, but thought better of it. ‘What a surprise!’ Oh, beautifully done, Liza.

  ‘Well, yeah, sorry, Lize, hope you don’t mind, I just …’

  ‘No, no, of course we don’t mind.’

  He was holding a paper bag gingerly. She eyeballed it. ‘What’s in there? I’d better put the kettle on.’

  Mike put the bag on the table in the kitchen, and then stood at the door that opened out to the farm.

  ‘Pip’s in the orchard, checking to see if there’s anything to pick.’ Liza sighed. ‘We haven’t really been looking after it, it all needs a good pruning and tidy-up. There’s never enough time.’ She laughed, but felt guilty about it. The orchard was her job, really. It was too much for Pip these days, though Liza still saw her out there on sunny mornings. Ferg was all day in the plantation, and when Sam was at school Liza should have been out there with the folding handsaw, but there were always sheets and clothes to be washed, shopping to pick up. She wasn’t even working, really, and she’d let the orchard go wild. Maybe that was something Mike could do, look after the orchard. Pip’d like that; Ferg too. He used to talk a lot about wanting Mike to be part of it. Talked less about that now. He’d wanted his brother to be part of this rambling house — their family home — with its cool stone walls and original weatherboard (which went from fifty degrees in summer to minus five in winter); its four-sided verandah and noisy old trees; its huge kitchen, and bathroom with knobbly taps; the grassy walk to the river. Mike used to be part of it, until he’d gone and stuffed things up so categorically.

  ‘Well, maybe I’ll walk out there and find her. She’ll be surprised.’

  Liza watched him take his Capstan and walk out onto the side verandah, and towards the farm. You’re not wrong, she thought. Pip’ll be surprised alright. She’s been waiting for this for years.

  25

  Mike knew he wasn’t going to have a problem with this nurse: it was a bloke. A local guy, probably about the same age as him. Surfed in his spare time, he told Mike. So did everyone in this town, Mike thought. All the cars he’d passed on the way to the Margaret River hospital were rusty old stationwagons stacked to the gunwales with boards and wetsuits, driven by guys going home after a day in the surf, with zinc lips and noses, wide black sunnies.

  The hospital building was like an old homestead; hardly the imposing whiteness of the high-rise city hospitals.

  Despite the warmth of it all, Mike felt like a loser, standing there swallowing methadone in
front of this guy who’d made something of his life, who’d probably gone about his thing without too much fuss or bother; without getting on the wrong side of everyone he passed, the wrong side of his own family. If only he could have his time again. People said things like This is the first day of the rest of your life, but Jesus Christ, if only!

  Outside, kookaburras broke into their regular evening guffaw, throats pointed to the sky.

  After tea Sam had looked hopefully at the bag of doughnuts Mike had brought. But Mum shushed him off to his room while the adults talked.

  Something about the old men’s quarters, the old cottage where Mum shoved all their junk — that’s all Sam could pick up from his listening post in the corridor. Mike wasn’t saying much, just letting his dad speak, and they were all quiet for long periods, just the sounds of mugs being put down on the table. Even Nanna Pip was in there, she was still up! Something was definitely going on. Normally she’d be padding off around eight or nine, even though they all knew she’d just read or watch telly in bed — the sport usually; Sam heard it when he walked past her room, she’d stay up late with it, with the quiet blare of TV filling her room.

  Behind him, through his parents’ bedroom window, Sam could see the two stars of Centaurus, the pointers, showing the way through the sky to the Southern Cross. He loved the Cross, the way some of its stars were brighter than others, loved the way someone had looked up at the sky one night and linked them all together, those five stars and their two pointers, like join-the-dots, even though they were light-years apart from one another, from Earth.