The Life

by Malcolm Knox

  Satisfaction of getting the better of one wave only lasted long as you didn’t think about the next one. You pat yourself on the back. Then paddle off for what the older blokes was catching.

  New Year’s Eve, went out for a late night wave. Dead of night. On his own. Thirteen, must of been.

  Sat out while the firecrackers went off on Greenmount and all the dumb surfers drink themselves stupid.

  Him on his own.

  Silent.

  Caught the last wave of the old year then the first wave of the new, then went back in and got dry and went to bed.

  That’s what he did every New Year from now:

  Last wave of the old, first of the new.

  Genius.

  Mo come and watched. Sit herself on the wooden bench on Greenmount Hill. Me and Rod caught waves for her. First time she seen us. We were like performers in a surf comp and she’s the crowd.

  •

  Between waves me and Rod are chatting out the back, happy as clams, trying not to talk about Mo or look at her. But we was so happy. Swelling like sea monkeys.

  Then we come back in, acting like we don’t care was she watching or not. We get set to go home and she stops and she’s shaking her head.

  Watching you ride, she said, was like watching a beam of light shine across the wave.

  Me and Rod, our necks both snapped. Scope who she was talking to. Him? Me? Us both?

  Like a beam of light, she said again and I thought she’d cry.

  To Roddy she didn’t say nothing.

  Breakfast, the melamine table. Wash hands at the kitchen sink, nice big bowl of muesli and milk, sit down.

  Mo.

  Her big veiny hands flat on the red melamine.

  No rings.

  I sit and munch on my muesli. Make me big and strong.

  ‘Might go out for a Splice and a Tarax today.’

  Making conversation.

  She has no rings on her fingers.

  Her hands older than the rest of her.

  Her eyes damper than the rest of her.

  I push up the aviators. She still knows.

  I finish my muesli.

  ‘Think it’s time to tell, Den?’

  Get up, wash out bowl, hands in the kitchen sink. Dry them on the kitchen towel. Push up the aviators. They’re still there.

  ‘Dennis?’

  Hate it when she calls me Dennis.

  I’m in for it now.

  Deep, deep in it.

  Me chopper. Me poor poor chopper.

  In the sandy scrub on The Other Side.

  Deep, deep in it boys.

  ‘Don’t tell me then. Where ya been. Sneaky little bugger. Ya been with yer little chickie? Out at night with her? Betcha have.’

  Her wobbly old voice close at my shoulder now. Time to swallow my pride, my poor poor chopper, the radio turned off, the kook of the lagoon, my pride, my dry dry pride a hunk of seaweed stuck in my throat . . .

  ‘Ar Den, don’t cry, doesn’t matter love I don’t care just tell me the . . . Here love . . .’

  Me dry dry pride. Swallowing it.

  Me poor poor chopper.

  Wash me hands.

  Wipe me eyes. Bow me head in the sink. The kitchen sink.

  Mo’s old arms flaking off skin and bone, round me round shoulders.

  ‘Here love . . . Here love.’

  Mo starts singing. Baby Face.

  . . . yeah . . .

  A long time at the kitchen sink, this and that—

  And then:

  ‘I tell you, only you promise me one thing.’

  ‘. . . You’ve got the cutest little . . . What’s that, Den love?’

  Push the aviators up the nose. They slip in the wetness. Nose wetter than the rest of me. Redder than the rest of me.

  I have conquered the lagoon.

  ‘Take a deep breath love. Deep breath . . .’

  I have conquered the lagoon. I will move to the ocean. I will start again. I need to be far away.

  Me poor poor chopper.

  I need to be far away, where Mo can turn the day into a night.

  Me poor poor chopper.

  Deep in it now.

  ‘Haven’t been with her. If I tell ya have to promise ya won’t tell her.’

  ‘Den love? When did I ever tell?’

  Far away where Mo can turn the day into a night.

  Pure natural genius, ripped everything at school: mainly maths. Top dog in maths. Okay at spelling when it was like maths. Okay at writing when it was like maths. If it was all maths, he’d’ve been the top doggie hot dog.

  Pure genius.

  Pretty sweet at art too: cept the only thing he could draw was waves. He drew left-handers, right-handers, A-frames, close-outs, low-tide suckers, fat onshore foamballs, reef breaks, beach breaks, even invented a few upside-down inside-out breaks. Was all he could draw. Nothing else.

  But what good was all that schooling anyway. What good could it do ya. Mo been to school and what good had it done. Made her educated at peeling prawns at the fisho and handing out change at Funland. Seven days a week. What good could it do ya? For your week of school work experience, you went to help Mo peel prawns and ate so many you got sick and had to go home. That was work for ya.

  Mo left him and Rod down at the beach to look after themself. It wasn’t she was neglectful. It was she had nowhere else for them, and if they were at the beach she knew where they were, better than off Lord knows where doing Lord knows what. They might of been wasting their time but at least they were wasting it where she knew where they were.

  Like at night times, ever since the night DK had his nightmare, he wakes up he gets to go in with his Mo. Better she knows where he is than

  off yeah

  They ran in a pack. Sometimes a pack of two. Sometimes other kids with them. Waggers, urchins, wolf cubs. Always running. Making their own rules.

  •

  Then when they got hungry Mo was there at the end of her day, or between her shifts, on the hill in front of Shangrila. Cept it was called Shagrila now, someone picked off the n probly Rod no doubt.

  They come running when they saw their Mo. She didn’t need to call, didn’t need to drag them off. People said they grovelled to her. Street urchins and mummy’s boys. Odd mix.

  But she put the meat on their plates.

  Other kids pinched food from shops: fruit, lollies, ice creams. Never the Keith boys. Mo drummed it into them:

  I feed yous, yous won’t need to steal. Yous steal or swear, I’ll stop feeding yous.

  They knew she meant it and knew she’d find out.

  So Dennis never stole nothing cept maybe boards, and never swore.

  And Rod never stole nothing cept maybe boards and he also had a name for going through wallets rolled up in towels left on the beach, but they was only kooks’ wallets, not anyone anybody knew. He never swore. Sometime he swiped food but only when he was hungry.

  Teachers arranged the classroom so the best got to sit in the back row. Worst in the front.

  From the back you could see through a broken section of the school fence down, down, all down the headland to Greenmount and Rainbow, and if it was going off down there if it was offshore and peeling you can see it from the back row. Only the back row.

  He got top marks.

  He looked into the Pacific and the Pacific looked back into him.

  Then it all got too much. He was sitting in the back row, earnt his position where he could see the waves, and dying the death of a thousand cutbacks. Hell on earth, watching Greenmount going off from the classroom.

  He stopped trying, made his marks drop. So he could sit up front else and not see.

 
But he knew. He shut his eyes and saw easterly lines. Staircase outside the room was a six-foot drop. Grass bank in the lunch area was a fat shoulder ripe for a roundhouse cutback. His eyes shut, he could see corduroy to the horizon. All-time. Offshore, south swell, breaking mechanical off the rocks. Legs twitching, back tight, pelvis pivoting, making turns, new turns, hook the board to his right, up the lip, reo down off the lip again, cut back, pull in the tube yeah but

  but still in his hard wooden school seat.

  Hadn’t done any them moves yet.

  Hell on earth.

  Got too much. If it was on, cyclone swell or tradewind, didn’t matter, they look round the classroom and Dennis Keith wasn’t there no more.

  Dennis was that stick figure tracing lines on them corduroy beauties, dancing on water.

  Kids in the back row could see him. Top dogs.

  Nobody dobbed.

  But soon the teachers twigged: when the swell was up and the points were working, Dennis Keith wasn’t at school. Cause and effect. Logic. Scientific method.

  And Rodney Keith, also gone.

  They had boards stashed under Gary Trounson’s stall. They hid from the school bus and run out to the waves when it was gone.

  Gone, gone.

  They only wagged school on days when swell was up and the points were working.

  Only them days.

  The swell was up and the points were working a lot of days. This was the Goldie. This was the sixties.

  Units popping up like shrooms. Him and Rod got to know the developers—not personally just knew their cars. Big yank tanks. Cadillacs, Buicks. Him and Rod watched their cars and the men get out in their suits, fan themselves with their brochures and their folders.

  Rod: If they have to fan themselves so much, why’d they wear suits?

  Didn’t teach you the answer to that in school.

  What Rod did to the developers once:

  Three of them got out of a yank tank, Left Hand Drive and that, to scope out a block on Rainbow Bay.

  Rod: Alien attack!

  Rod worked out that yank tanks had air-conditioning ducts open to the outside.

  Rod followed Sam the beagle and scooped up his Sam-poo. In a Glad sandwich bag.

  When the aliens walk off round the point trying not to look like aliens Rod snuck up with the bags of Sam-poo and pour them in the air-con ducts.

  You watched when the aliens come back to their car and drive off.

  Then stopped a few blocks down the road. Stumbling out in their suits, one of them spewing, another one shouting at no-one.

  Never would of happened if they hadn’t of been wearing suits, Rod said sadly shaking his head.

  Eh?

  They been wearing T-shirts and boardies like normal ones, Rod said, they wouldn’t of needed air-con. Makes you sick it does.

  Headmaster, Mr Paterson, cut you both a deal.

  Yers come to school, I’ll take yers surfing. Teach yers proper.

  You looked at each other. You looked at him.

  He looked at you.

  Seen yers trying to cut back on yer front side, he said. Yer too tight, too stiff.

  Headmaster was a goofy-footer. Out there with the plumbers, the butchers, the newsagents, the police, the house painters. Once, they said, Mr Paterson had skipped a school day when it was all-time at Kirra. He come in afterwards, still the middle of the day, and as he’s putting his board in his car he come face to face with his school area inspector. It didn’t look good Mr Paterson wagging his own school, not good at all, cept that his inspector, his boss, is walking down the street with a lady who was not his wife. Story went, they took one look at each other, their eyes met, it all went down between them, all understood, and the inspector kept walking and Mr Paterson kept packing his board in the car and not a single nother word was ever said.

  Dennis and Rod come to school with their boards and put them on the roof racks of Mr Paterson’s station wagon.

  Waited till three o’clock and knocked at the headmaster’s office.

  Time for surf lesson Mr P.

  Mr Paterson taught Dennis the basics: how to position his feet, how to press up, never to snatch the rails, taught him front-foot surfing, back-foot surfing.

  Taught him etiquette. When not to snake, when not to drop in, when to duck dive, when to get out of the way, when you were in the wrong, when you were in the right.

  Dennis didn’t know any of that stuff.

  Mr Paterson taught him.

  Rod sort of hung round the back and pretended not to try to listen. Mr Paterson didn’t pay much attention to Rod. Clearly didn’t rate Rod’s surfing. Figured letting Rod tag along was enough kindness. These lessons was all about you, DK, the beam of light, not the wise-guy brother. Even though Rod been surfing before you. Just the way things were.

  But a problem:

  Three o’clock, sea breezes perking up, turning onshore, waves crumbling, afternoon mush. Better in the morning. In school hours.

  Rod come to you and had a quiet word.

  Den, we can’t let these ones go to waste.

  They stop turning up to school again.

  When it was on.

  Then when the swell dropped you’d get called to the headmaster’s office.

  Waves are better in the morning Mr P.

  As he was caning yous.

  End of lesson.

  Mo made them go to church but Sunday was a bad deal. Bad, bad deal:

  Mass during the morning glass-off.

  Mass during the evening glass-off.

  Not negotiable.

  The death of God.

  Mo shook her head: Not negotiable, yous lot. No church, no baked dinners, no meat on the table. Yous lot.

  That was that. The resurrection. Jesus lives.

  No point having a face-off with Mo: only be one winner: Gawd, the Good Lawd.

  But . . .

  But . . .

  . . . Father Aplin, the priest, was this top-ranked oldster surfer.

  He been in the Pacific War, Father A, not as a chaplain, back before he found Gawd and that, when he was just a kid aircraft engineer, a whatsit, a machinist. Accident-prone, Father A. Always stubbing his toes like you, yous had that in common. No good on land, he said. He caught his arm in a propeller once and been told to take up paddling as therapy. Then he got into noseriding big redwood Malibu logs, shipped them from California to the Gold Coast so he could hang ten and do the cheater five, the full fricken repertoire of the old-time log rider. He was one of the pioneers. Then he had a bad wipe-out and speared his redwood board through his thigh. A big football of meat ballooned up out of his leg as he drove himself to the hospital. Turned out he was one fluke away from dying: he punctured his femoral artery and it was bleeding under the muscle, blowing it up, and only the pressure of the blown-up muscle was stopping all his blood gushing out of him. He still had the scar, loved telling the story even more than the one about Jesus walking on water or raising Lazarus.

  Story of how he become a priest was, in the forties he used to quit his machinist jobs whenever the surf was up, then go back to work when it was flat. But that was when jobs were everywhere. After the war when all the servicemen come home and there was more competition, he couldn’t just duck in and out of work willy-nilly so he had to knuckle down at something. It was either stick at his machinism or quit surfing. So he used his imagination. His initiative. Find a job that didn’t matter whether he’s in the office or in the waves: and so he become the priest of St Barnabas Cattle-Tick Church at Rainbow Bay. If he missed a service due to a swell, and that happened a fair bit, he tell his bishop he was ‘doing some outreach, where it really counts’.

  Big-time into shaping, Father A. From his time with the air force he got ide
as in his head about ‘hydrodynamic planing’ and whatnot, started making boards out of sandwiches of plywood, foam and fibreglass in the early sixties. He get you in his vestry behind the church which he converted into a shaping bay, all full of fibreglass dust and holy water, and gibber all this gobbledygook about hydrodynamics and foils and flexible fins and sometimes you wish he shut up and talk about something easier to understand, like the Old Testy say.

  •

  And the holy wine always had this like film of sawdust floating on the top.

  And the communion wafers always tasted a bit like resin.

  Father A was always out at Snapper with Mr Paterson, with the butchers, with the plumbers, with the newsagents, with the house painters. There was this deaf one, a deaf chippie, you never knew his name and he never talked much obviously, but Father A told you a story about him, how this deaf chippie been out at ten-foot Kirra one day and come through a massive barrel and when it smashed down behind him, he heard it, first time he ever heard a wave break, and as the tube spat him out the exit ramp he had his arms in the air and he was screaming in his mushy deaf-bloke voice, I heard the tube, I heard the tube!

  Father Aplin got off on repeating that, putting on the mushy voice and all. I heard the tube! I heard the tube! It was bigger news than Moses hearing God in the burning bush, Father A said.

  Thing was, the waves mattered. That’s what you took from them old guys. They couldn’t say why or how but there was no doubt about it: waves mattered more than anything. So when you grew up down there on that beach, living in the sand and the water days stacking up, before the units, before the developers, before the surfwear companies and the billboards and the like Gold Coast, when you grew up in this place same as a barnacle grew on the lava rocks, you knew you were more a part of this coast than any other people were part of any place anywhere, cos you were doing the thing that mattered.

  Father A spent his life in the sun but never got burnt. Some weird Jesus-protection in his skin, Factor 15 from God, made it like he been dipped in grey-pink paint head to toe, and he never burnt, never got freckles, never flaked. And he had this comb-over to make himself look less bald only it made him look more. When he was in the surf his comb-over all fell down one side of his head so he was half a hippie. Between waves he tried to paste it back over the top, but no point. You knew he’d got a real good wave if he paddled back out, all his comb-over down one side of his head, and he’s forgot to paste it back. On land he took better care of it. Ladies in church probably thought he had a full head.