On the day of the memorial service, the people of the town gathered in the carpark, overlooking the water, the beach, the endless limestone coast. Politicians came in suits and reporters came with back-up reporters.
Under the ultramarine sky that spring morning, a halo of kids, dads, daughters, sons, brothers, mates, floated out on the water, surfboards keeping them up. Cray went out too, swung his arms over and over into the water, pulling himself further out, through the green, the green-blue, the blue. The water breathed like a lung, moving them with it, and their circle widened a little, came in a little with every breath. A school of small silver fish darted in unison across the circle, slipping sideways from the shadows of the boards. The sharpness of the water caught between wetsuits and skin like cold comfort. They held hands, that human wreath, just beyond where the waves tumbled and crashed onto the shore.
3
A special church service was held after the beach ceremony. As people hugged each other and leaned against cars, friends, Ferg knew he just couldn’t go home.
The parents of the children who had died stood together. Locals, old friends. He couldn’t bear to go over there, to say their children’s names, to hear Sam’s, to be consoled. To utter a word, a sound. He didn’t have it in him.
Home. On his own with Liza, and Pip and Mike, and the trees, and the marri, and the terrible silence. Liza, who stood next to him now, barely there.
Liza hung at the edge of the carpark next to Ferg with her back to the beach. Mike walked over slowly with Pip, his hand close to her elbow.
‘I’ll bring the car over. You guys stay here,’ Mike said, and made towards the Sunbird.
‘Home?’ Liza spoke to no one in particular.
No, Ferg thought, anywhere but there.
‘Aren’t we going to the church service?’ Pip said.
‘Church service?’ Liza turned to Ferg. ‘We’re not going to that …’ She looked confused. ‘Are we?’
‘Well, yes, I thought so,’ Ferg mumbled.
‘A church service, Ferg.’
He was quiet. Pip took a few steps away and pretended to rummage about in her bag for a tissue. Other people moved away from them. ‘It might help,’ he said.
‘Help what?’
‘I don’t want to go home.’
‘Help Sam? Will it help Sam?’
‘Don’t, Liza. Please.’
‘Church isn’t going to help us, Ferg! Nothing’s going to help us.’ She stared at him. She wasn’t even close to crying. She hadn’t made it to believing yet. ‘We’re fucked, Fergus! I don’t know about you, but that’s it as far as I’m concerned. I’m not trying anymore. No more!’
Mike’s car crawled up. He crunched up the handbrake, stayed sitting in the car.
Ferg stood in the middle of the carpark, his hands swinging by empty pockets, the saltbush brushing next to him like steel wool.
‘Don’t, Liza, not here …’
‘Off you go to church, Ferg. Go and listen to some guy trying to explain it all away, as if Sam’s not really —’ She swung around, to the white rubble and orange flags, her voice stolen by the wind.
4
No one in Margaret River or Greys Bay rang in sick at work; no one was at work. Businesses were closed, some for weeks. Workmates didn’t need an explanation.
After a few days, Cray went to the shaping shed, but couldn’t imagine he’d actually work. Each time you saw someone you hadn’t seen since the cliff collapse you’d have to go through it all again. Cray looked at the blank he’d been shaping on the day of the collapse. It was as if time had stopped since then, and all of a sudden he felt renewed energy to get back to it, to fire up the planer, pull his goggles on, and get back to normal.
Rosie wasn’t going back to journalism ever, she had told him. The Southern Way editor had rung her to see if she’d do another Coffee Time column, but she thought it was just a ploy to get her in the office to report on the cliff collapse. She wasn’t taking any risks. She loathed the whole business. Anyway, who would want to have a friendly chat for Coffee Time now? Who could muster the energy to look back over their lives and see how they’d become who they were, when one of their grandchildren might have just had the last breath pushed out of them? Rosie couldn’t see herself writing feel-good features for the local rag when there were obituaries on the previous page.
Cray said it might help, hope was a motivator, it gave people a meaning, a reason. ‘That’s why I’m gunna make boards till they come out of my ears,’ he told her, ‘boards for every bloody man, woman and grommie out there, so they can get in the water, immerse themselves in it.’
‘Bollocks,’ Rosie said. ‘How could it, Cray? How could that make things better?’
Cray imagined swimming through the aqua, watching the rolling water pass above him while he waited on the seabed, seeing the midday light piercing the moving skin of the ocean. At different times of the day, the light designed a different ocean. Somehow the water — just being in it — made you new again.
‘Come out then,’ Cray said. ‘For a surf. See for yourself.’
Rosie rolled her eyes at him. ‘But the reef … the dumpings! And I don’t have a board —’
‘You can use mine.’
‘I’m not a strong enough swimmer.’
‘Bollocks to that,’ he said. ‘You know, Rosie, you don’t want to let this place get to you, now, do you?’
5
Liza hung out the washing, though she really couldn’t care less whether their shirts and towels got dry or went mouldy. Hanging them out was something to do. Like a robot needs something to do, because that’s what a robot does. She could do that, Liza felt. Sit there all day, have no thoughts, no needs, just be the shell of her body sitting in a chair. She couldn’t even think about her boy without feeling like she was going to black out. It wasn’t real, was it, this? That was what she kept thinking. But if it was, it was her fault. Everything was her fault. She hadn’t loved him enough, hadn’t talked to him or listened to him enough, hadn’t made his favourite sandwiches enough. (What was that? Why on earth hadn’t she made him cheese and gherkin sandwiches every day? What had she gained by denying him those? It was just so stupid.) She gave in to these thoughts; someone to blame — herself — something to feel angry about — her mistakes — anything but the actual sadness. Pure sadness, sadness that filled her and reached right out of her; for her little man, for the world, for the life she had to continue making her way through, for life.
Sam.
There was nothing else she could add, to his life or hers. To this.
Mike walked around the house. Through the house. It was empty, though they were there. They were in their rooms, in the garden, among the gums, hiding from thoughts of Sam, expected sounds of Sam, his feet up and down the corridor, his computer, his mutterings to himself. How could absence feel like something? Mike had had to force himself to come into the house, after. It was crossing a threshold into terrible territory, and he’d realised that there was no changing this, that there was absolutely nothing that could be done.
Mike knew what they had to do. It was the one thing he’d learned from getting off the smack. Go for tiny changes, over lots of time. Time. He knew it would dull, eventually, with time, this pain. It wouldn’t end, he knew that, too. But he didn’t want it to, wanted to keep the pain, it was a way of showing respect for Sam. Mike felt he should feel like this every day, because Sam couldn’t feel it, because Mike had wasted most of his chances over three times as long as Sam had had, and because this, this was life.
Pip remembered, though she did not want to, Jack’s death. The shock of it, even though they’d known it was coming. The sudden arrival of Pip’s remaining life alone, without him.
Pip felt familiar pain now; couldn’t fathom how she was here again so soon. She looked about her room, at the life she’d made after life with Jack. A tiny life, really, cocooned in someone else’s world like a child. And Sam. The family’s child. The one they a
ll moved around, turned around as he grew, oblivious to their focus. The centre of this old place. This place, Pip thought, that seemed to age alongside her, year by year, new cracks revealed with each passing spell.
And Fergus craved his son. His body yearned for him, a physical beckoning. The sound of his computer starting up behind his bedroom door — that steady industriousness of his. The statistics and definitions he’d proffer at the dinner table. The way he shadowed Ferg around the farm, just when Ferg needed him, somehow, offering to help. The smell of his hair, how smooth his skin was, the way his body was developing with each year, growing, hardening up. His hand, reaching out for Ferg’s.
In his mind, Ferg’s life was a murky pool, stirred up by mistakes and pain and history. Sam was a white-bellied fish slipping through it, turning in the sunlight to share a glint of silvery skin just when you thought he was gone, just when you thought the murky swirls had sucked him away for good.
6
Water seeped in at the neckline of Rosie’s wetsuit — because it was Cray’s, and therefore completely the wrong shape. She pushed herself from the board and held it by the rails as a little peeler came through from Hut’s. Small, easy waves, said Cray. It’s where everyone learns.
The membrane of water against her skin warmed gently with the sun. Still, she could imagine why surfers wee’d in their suits, particularly in winter seas. Rosie looked over at Cray, in his turquoise and yellow steamer.
‘Beautiful wettie,’ she called over the whitewater, grinning.
Cray nodded back, saying ‘Watch out!’ just as a wave broke on her, forcing her back about fifteen metres. Rosie paddled forward again, thanked him for the early warning. Her shoulders ached badly, and she had to fight the desire to hang her arms down into the cool water. She was sure there’d be white pointers circling below.
The waves did look pretty small, as far as Rosie could tell. She sat precariously on her board, parallel with Cray, looking out at water, sun, sky, waiting for whatever sign you waited for out here in the middle of the ocean. Now that she was in the water, she had no idea how Cray had picked this very spot — it looked all the same to her. (Rosie reminded herself, grinning as she thought it: a lot of research had been done, a lot of fieldwork.) Cray relaxed on his board, gazing at the horizon. Rosie looked down, wondering if there were any fish (or sharks), and the slight movement tipped her sideways into the blue. Coming up for air and composure, she looked at how Cray was sitting on his board and climbed back on. This time she tipped forward, the board shooting out behind her. When she came back up, Cray had turned to face the houses of Greys Bay.
He was paddling smoothly and, with a final kick of his feet, hoisted himself up. One smooth action. He faced the sky again and, knees soft, slid across the face of the wave, another world beneath and ahead of him. Rosie saw him disappear as the force of the water moved him south, towards the protective arm of the bay.
Rosie looked back and saw a hump of water moving towards her. She did what she’d seen hundreds of others do, but much more awkwardly: she spun her board around to face the land, and windmilled her arms through the cold. Rosie felt something pushing behind her, and hung on tight. Cray was laughing, and called out, ‘Push up on your arms!’, but Rosie just let the wave propel her closer to shore, and she was surprised by the force of it, she was really moving! Adrenalin prickled through her system and she grinned stupidly, even though she hadn’t even got up on her knees.
In the white foam (very much like the creamy head of a good beer), Rosie pushed herself off the board and let the fizzy water buzz over her. She gathered the legrope and pointed the board back to the horizon, where Cray’s shape bobbed, and paddled out again.
Rosie made a mental note not to let herself come in too close to shore next time, because the paddle back out was so far and so tiring.
After enthusing to Cray (it was like a natural rollercoaster, a rush, and free!) Rosie paddled into the next wave. As the water lifted itself behind her, Rosie’s board nosedived and sent her into the impact zone, where she was drilled into the sand headfirst.
She came up, eventually. She had water up her nose and her eyes were stinging. She looked out and knew she’d lost her courage. For the day, anyway. Waving to Cray to stay out, Rosie turned to shore and guided the board, fingertips on lumps of wax, over the fizzing water.
Afterwards, Cray got Rosie to admit that it could be addictive. Certainly she knew she felt different for having been in the cold water that long. Hypothermic, she suggested. She took back the bollocks thing.
‘Very generous.’
‘Let’s have something to eat.’ She was feeling a little blue around the lips.
Cray sliced bread thick for toast. He filled the kettle and put a smoky brew of leaves into their small pot. Perfect.
Rosie wished she could surf. She hated to say it, but she wanted that almost spiritual bond with the water. It was something you could always fall back on, even when things made no sense or had no reason, you could always swim out towards the sky, and turn again to the land, that layered mound of sand and rocks and soil and time, the water between them, the sky and the land, keeping you up, keeping you moving.
7
Liza wanted Ferg out of the room. Seeing him reminded her of everything. She didn’t know what to say to him. He looked like an old man. Liza was punishing him, she knew that. He knew that. That made her feel sick with anger. Stop it, she told herself. Reach out to him, look at him. He’s broken, he needs you. He needs you to need him. Liza cried at that. That she could cry at; that was about her. Oh, she was weary. Look what she had become.
Liza felt dry, all the time, despite the tears she managed to shed, which was only when she was alone. Dry, like a constant hangover, her body harsh inside, not smooth or fluid. Dry. Like a fucking desert.
Ferg was trying to get her attention, was lingering.
‘Want some lunch?’
Don’t talk. Don’t make anything normal. Lunch? Lunch? Liza didn’t look at him, but managed, ‘No thanks.’
‘Lize, you’ve gotta eat.’
‘No I don’t.’
He looked at her for a few moments before leaving the room.
Liza wanted to smash something.
Ferg knew what she was doing, knew she couldn’t stop herself. She’d done this before, years before, when she’d wanted to get pregnant again, and he’d felt it wasn’t the right time between them, him and Liza. Ferg had wanted to wait until things were better, easier for them. She’d gone silent for weeks then, went into herself, pretended he didn’t exist. Pushed him away, so far away he thought there was no way back in, back to her. This reminded him of then. This would go on and on until he broke it, until he broke through to her.
He didn’t need this. He was grieving too. Jesus, he was.
8
Pip stuck the fork into the soil. The crusty top came away in plates, and she jammed the fork in again and twisted. Bend your knees, old girl, you can’t afford any problems now.
A holiday, that’s what she’d suggested to Ferg and Liza. Somewhere warm, tropical. Somewhere completely different from Margaret River. She and Mike would look after the trees. But Liza said no straight away, looked at Pip with those eyes, which meant, Don’t speak of it again. Later, Ferg came in to explain, but Pip stopped him. She didn’t take it personally. This thing had purged her of that.
Pip had rediscovered gardening since … Since. All those afternoons, she thought disgustedly, lying on the bed watching Days of Our Lives. If she’d known she could still get down and delve around in the garden, if she’d remembered what it felt like to scrub black earth from her fingernails and feel the effort in her arms the next day! In the early days it had been one of her favourite pastimes, particularly after the orchard had been planted; something outside the house to get stuck into. Something outside herself.
She cooked regularly now, too. She tied the apron on and relearned her favourite recipes, ones she’d not used since Jack died. Though
it was all she could do to get Ferg and Liza to sit at the table. Liza could hardly bring herself to go into the kitchen. Pip filled the silence with the beating of eggs, the slam of the oven door. Some days she only got up for the instinct to cook for them.
She moved over to a cluster of nightshade, pulled it up by the roots, a tiny eruption in the earth’s crust. Pip stood, soil falling from her gloves. Sam should have seen his grandmother like this, she thought, not plonked in front of the set. Sam.
Further over, at the northern end of the orchard, the fig tree’s bright green leaves scuffled newly, noisily announcing their season. Maybe it was too soon for a holiday, anyway. Maybe Liza imagined the two of them in a starchy hotel room on the other side of the country and the thought only magnified the strangeness of everything, the loss, their suddenly shapeless lives. Perhaps Margaret River was the best place for them to be, thought Pip. The place made sense to them. There wasn’t much sense left in anything else.
9
Rosie had wanted to go to see Liza and Ferg, but had been avoiding it. She wanted to offer something, some strength, some small measure of companionship through this, though she knew those things would change nothing, that they were only words and feelings passing between people; a few moments in one day.
She didn’t want to ring beforehand — what would she say? Everything sounded either too intense or glib. Instead, Rosie put a few things in a bag and slung it into the Woody.
She took the smooth snaking road down the hill, craning out at the surf. She knew she’d never know the ocean like Cray did, like the others knew it, but she longed to learn what she could. If you lived here, she’d decided, and you weren’t interested in the water — if you didn’t try to involve yourself in it somehow, even in some small way, like checking out the swell as you drove past, or trying to recognise the figures looking out at the horizon, their backs to the land — if you didn’t do that, you were only keeping it at a distance from you. You were using the ocean as some kind of buffer between you and what you didn’t understand, what you didn’t want to understand.
The Break Page 15
