Riptides Read online

  The mood changed on the way home. The combination of heat and dope and the beer we’d drunk to recover from lifting the fridge onto the truck left us wasted. A couple of miles into the return trip we stopped talking. We listened to a whirr of cicadas, the wind, breaking waves, our tyres on loose dirt. We rocked from side to side as the truck hit every bump in the road. Ryan put his hand on Sal’s leg, high up where the frayed edges of her cut-off jeans dipped into the V between her legs. He ran his hand up and down her brown thigh. Sal in turn put her hand on my leg. She kissed my neck. It felt good, but Ryan was right there, feeling her up, staring straight ahead. I pushed Sal off.

  ‘Pull over,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘I need to take a leak.’

  He stopped in the middle of the track.

  ‘Take your time, man,’ he said. When I was about ten feet away he leaned out the window. ‘Charlie, give us a few, yeah. Go for a swim.’

  For the rest of the trip home I sat in the back of the truck with the fridge. My suggestion. Nobody objected.

  When we got to KD we hauled our fridge inside, washed the chicken muck off, and gave it the only power point in the kitchen. None of us said anything about the ride home, but I felt bad about it.

  A few mornings after the trip to Kerobokan, Sal and I were in the kitchen together, peeling and chopping bowlfuls of fruit for the juices we’d make throughout the day. We were listening to a Joni Mitchell tape, and Sal sang as she worked, playing vamp. I wasn’t rude to her but I wasn’t chummy either.

  ‘You’re getting strong.’ She ran a finger wet with watermelon juice down my upper arm. I said nothing. She went outside to get more fruit.

  ‘Help a girl out, will you?’ she said when she passed by on her way back to the bench. She had her arms around a full basket, and tilted her head in the direction of a sleeve that had fallen off her shoulder. I lifted the sleeve back into place and she winked at me. ‘Thanks, babe.’

  I recognised her moves because I’d used them, or their equivalents, for years. But never with Sal. She seemed to enjoy our newly charged cat-and-mouse game. I found my days becoming increasingly tense.

  The girl on the plane rocks my shoulder. ‘Hey, Bali boy.’ I open my eyes. In my dream, Sal had her arms around my naked waist as I drove our bike along the track to Uluwatu. It takes me a second to realise it’s not her speaking. The hostie lifts a bag out from overhead. I stretch my arms and yawn. The man in the seat in front of me tells no one in particular that it’ll be a scorcher.

  ‘We’re here,’ the girl says, smiling. ‘God save us.’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon God gave up on Queensland a long time ago.’ I stand up. ‘We’re on our own.’

  We’re only past hugs and ‘how was the flight?’ before Abby announces we’re driving straight to Dad’s.

  ‘It’s five hours, give or take, and by the time your luggage is unloaded . . .’ She looks at her watch.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding. I need a shower and a bed.’

  She frowns. ‘We won’t make it if we go home. The car’s packed.’

  ‘Oh, c’mon.’ I feel sure Dad could wait one more day to see me. ‘We can go tomorrow. What’s the rush?’

  ‘We’re going today and coming back Sunday. Wash up. I’ll meet you at the baggage carousel.’

  I splash water on my face in the airport bathroom then go find Abby.

  ‘Every one of these hippy backpacks is the same,’ she says.

  I see my pack (not the same, no Thailand or India scarves or ties decorating it), haul it off and put it on the floor next to me. ‘Let’s stop for beer before we leave the city. Need to flush the Bintang out of my system.’

  ‘We don’t have time.’

  ‘At a drive-through.’ I nudge her. ‘C’mon, you know you want to. Kids are at home, free woman on the road.’

  She smiles. ‘Yes, okay. But we’re not going inside.’

  We leave the airport through sliding glass doors. The air outside is humid and dense.

  ‘Hey, give me the keys. Haven’t driven a decent car in a year.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Wednesday 4 December 1974

  Abby

  Lou and I sit next to one another on the wet tiled edge of the pool and dangle our legs in water so warm it’s as though nothing is touching our skin at all. Water circles my calves, like a cuff where the surface, rising and falling, meets the air. The sun sparkles on the small waves.

  Lou is wearing white-framed sunglasses, her strawberry-blonde hair is pulled into a ponytail and a crescent of deodorant marks the armpit of her lime-green bikini top. She has freckles on her chest and shoulders – three half-circles of darker skin, like a theatre curtain ready to rise. She lifts one leg out of the water and admires it, droplets sliding off her oiled skin.

  ‘Gorgeous day,’ she says, then adds, ‘You seem edgy. Everything okay?’

  My life is about to change and I should be preparing for that rather than hanging about at the pool, toggling between annoyance and boredom. ‘Sorry. Weird mood.’

  ‘Tell me,’ she says, peering over the top of her sunglasses.

  ‘Just feeling anxious.’

  She nods. ‘Bound to, but you’ll be great. Anyway, it’s months away. Don’t let worry wreck your whole summer. Go swim. I’ll watch the kids.’

  I squint at the sky. Maybe I should swim. I like to start slowly, tighten my goggles after a lap or two, then get my pace up. By the third lap I’m timing myself. My heart beats fast, my breath is rapid, all pistons firing. For a few minutes, I’m at the Olympics and hear the roar of the crowd. Stopping is the problem. Once I stand in the shallow end, goggles off, I’m back in Jindalee: a little boy yells at his brother, a hairy man in red Speedos waddles by. And there’s a bandaid floating on the water in front of me.

  The pool occupies the centre of this fenced-off rectangular block of land. Close-cut green grass rings it on three sides. On the fourth side are bleachers that stay empty except during school swimming carnivals. The one building – low, red brick, tin roof – has a metal turnstile through which to enter, and another through which to exit, as well as a canteen and change rooms. The canteen has its roller door up for the day. Here, on the other side of an orange countertop, children line up in their bathers to buy Redskin lollies, cans of lemonade, and iceblocks that stain their tongues orange. The change room stinks of urine and chlorine.

  A boy wearing a headband and tie-dyed singlet is watering the grass so that within the boundary of the wire fence everything is wet, while everything outside it is bone dry. The deep end of the pool is empty of people; serious swimmers come early. Later in the day, teenagers will commandeer the back corner to sunbake and flirt. But right now, the water belongs to mothers, children and retirees. Toddlers leap from the edge, launching themselves at one another’s heads. Inflatable balls go up and down in the air as if the pool itself is juggling them. A yellow frisbee spins across the lawn.

  Petey paddles close and grabs my ankle. He spits water at me in an arc, makes a gappy smile and wriggles away like a tadpole. The family clown, from the moment he was born. Joanne plays with Daniel, both of them in blow-up rings, bumping off one another. She’ll drift away soon, having forgotten what the game was. Sarah, always on duty, is showing Joe how to hold his breath underwater, pinching her nose between her forefinger and thumb, blowing her cheeks out like a pufferfish and dropping to the bottom of the pool while he stands on the step and looks down at her, making no move to follow. Meanwhile Jemima sleeps peacefully in her pram behind us, next to the half-dozen towels we’ve thrown on the grass like a bad hand of cards and the esky packed with honey sandwiches, celery sticks, cubes of rockmelon and lamingtons layered between sheets of greaseproof paper.

  ‘Go,’ Lou says. She reaches forward and splashes water at my legs. ‘Swim it off.’

  ‘A walk maybe?’

  ‘Walk where?’ She frowns. ‘But sure, go ahead.’

  I walk across the puddled concr
ete and sit on a wooden bench outside the entrance to the toilets for lack of idea about what else I could do. Lou is right: the day is gorgeous. And there is nowhere to go. Wisps of fairy-floss cloud decorate the sky. A breeze cools my feet.

  I’m an inch away from a new beginning, counting the days, ignoring news stories that warn the prime minister is on shaky ground, making changes too quickly, unnerving the business community and ordinary Australians. He isn’t unnerving me. I’m glad he brought the rest of the troops home from Vietnam. Ten years was ten years too long. And who has a problem with using tax money to keep Australians healthy? Maybe changing the national anthem was too much for some people. Not me. He’s giving me exactly what I need: free uni will change my life.

  I watch as a straw-haired woman and a stick-thin boy head towards the toilets. The woman, his mother I suppose, seems annoyed. The boy is hurrying as if to get away from her. I can see from her face that there’s more she wants to say to him before he flees. She reaches forward and gives the boy a smack, making a sound like a pop gun. He jumps, shoots me a look of surprise mixed with fear and embarrassment, and runs away on his toes.

  ‘I told you not to,’ she barks at him, as he escapes her reach. ‘I warned you.’

  She makes eye contact with me. Shock must show on my face.

  ‘Like you’d never,’ she mutters.

  But I have. I know her expression because I’ve made it, and I understand her anger because I’ve felt it. And yet . . . What if I end up with people like her as my clients? Years of study, followed by a fancy wardrobe and a city office, only to defend the woman who hit a kid at the pool? I’ve invested in work before, and it hasn’t gone the way I wanted. The times I counted to one hundred when I brushed my hair, the assignments on American pre-war poetry reworked late into the night, forever in terror I might get a B, the nappies folded perfectly, for what? I was vice-captain at high school, head of the swim team. On my last day, Principal Thomas presented me with a hardback dictionary and said that whether I decided to pursue teaching or nursing, he was certain a good vocabulary would come in useful.

  ‘Oh Mum, don’t be a goose. I’ll pay.’ I look towards the entrance as Lou’s cousin Eliza removes a folded one-dollar note from a coin purse and gives it to the pool attendant. Eliza and her mother are similarly dressed in sorbet-coloured cotton frocks and white sandals, both women pale and scrubbed. Eliza wears coral lipstick and a hat that would suit a fifty-year-old librarian. She strikes me as someone who’s spent her entire life preparing to be middle-aged.

  Eliza’s mother rests one hand on the enormous pram by her side, its kittens-and-balls-patterned fabric unbleached by the sun.

  There’s no one lined up behind them so the man takes his time unhooking the waist-high door that separates him from the public and walking the few steps needed to open the gate next to the turnstile. Eliza’s mother wheels the pram through and Eliza follows in her wake, leaning to one side then the other as she peers past her mother to ensure there’s room. Eliza dips her head in the direction of the attendant, as though his act of chivalry warrants notice, but not much since it is the least a woman with a baby – one who paid for her mother’s entry – deserves.

  Eliza stares at me for a moment before recognition shows on her face. Which is fair enough: we’ve met once. She smiles, says something to her mother, then takes the pram.

  ‘How nice to see you. This is my mother, Barbara. And, oh, I can’t remember a thing right now.’

  ‘Abby.’ I am being eyed off by two generations of prim.

  ‘Abby, yes. I was pregnant last time we met, wasn’t I?’

  As I stand up, I feel the squelch of my wet bather bottoms ungluing from the bench. I fold one arm across my body as I look into the pram. It’s lined in pink satin, and the baby is lying on a pink sheet and wearing a pink dress. The little girl’s skin is flushed from the heat. The cavern smells of sour milk and laundry detergent. I pull my head out as fast as politeness allows.

  ‘She’s lovely,’ I say. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Ellen. Ellen Barbara Wilson,’ Eliza replies. ‘The middle name is to honour her grandmother.’

  ‘You’re friends with Lou, dear? I’m her aunt.’

  I smile at Barbara, wishing I had a towel to cover all this flesh I’m baring. ‘We came here together. She’s over there.’ I gesture with the hand that’s not draped across my stomach.

  ‘Ah, and your children?’ Eliza asks.

  ‘They’re swimming.’

  ‘Abby has three,’ Eliza says to her mother.

  ‘In good time,’ Barbara replies, patting Eliza’s arm. And then, to even the score, ‘Eliza and Ted had good news this morning. He’s been made state divisional manager. Isn’t that wonderful? It’s an early Christmas present for us all.’

  I can’t put a face to the name Ted, but Eliza and her mother are staring at me, beaming, waiting for me to respond.

  ‘That’s great. Congratulations.’

  ‘He’s been working so hard,’ Eliza says. ‘He’s earned this. And more.’

  ‘More, yes,’ her mother says. ‘We’re making a roast for dinner, to celebrate. All the trimmings.’

  I feel a pain in my gut. I never think to do that when Mark’s stories go to air, even though he works on them for months. I could do it tonight – say in front of the kids how important his work is.

  ‘So,’ says Eliza. ‘We best say a quick hello to Lou.’ They offer synchronised smiles of farewell and walk away. Eliza pushes the pram while her mother carries a large canvas bag. From behind they could be the elephants from Fantasia, bulbous bottoms perched on comely legs.

  Lou rises and meets them halfway. Unlike me, she is unselfconscious about wearing what is essentially underwear. I stay in the shade and watch them talk. The little boy who’d been smacked runs past me and dive-bombs into the pool.

  ‘Mum!’ Sarah stands in the shallows. Even from this distance I hear her exasperation. Someone has behaved unacceptably. ‘Make him stop.’

  Petey’s head pops to the surface. He spits water at Sarah, and she shrieks. I can’t believe he still finds this funny. Unbeckoned, I remember myself and Charlie at Noosa when we were young: Charlie mucking about on the sand, the waves breaking far behind him, swivelling his hips and pretending to be a hula dancer while I worked – worked – at making a sandcastle, digging a perfectly square moat, matching the height of my turrets to one another.

  I wait until Eliza and her mother head to the baby pool before I make my way back. Both Lou and Sarah start talking when I’m ten feet away, my mind still at a beach nearly twenty years ago.

  ‘My lot are hungry. Should we eat now?’ Lou asks.

  ‘Petey spat. He’s spitting.’ Sarah has her hands on her hips.

  I glance across at the baby pool as I walk. Eliza and her mother, both still dressed, stand in water only deep enough to cover their ankles. Eliza is holding baby whatever-she’s-called and dipping her tiny toes into the water. The baby curls her legs up at each touch, making it look like Eliza is lifting a large egg up and down.

  I walk onto the first step of the bigger pool to cool my feet. Lou stands beside me. ‘That baby reminds me of Andrew’s retarded uncle Frank. Have you met Frank?’

  I laugh with such a burst that my lips vibrate. She guffaws at my noise and we lean into one another and laugh together. Our children – stern Sarah, grinning Petey, goggle-eyed Joanne, little Joe and Daniel – fan out at our feet and regard us as though we are an exhibition at the zoo. Lou lifts one foot and splashes the children. ‘Hey,’ shouts Sarah, but the others giggle and swim away, like a pod of happy dolphins.

  ‘Funny buggers, aren’t they?’ Lou says. I wipe tears of laughter off my cheeks.

  As Petey swims away I notice his bandaid has peeled off, showing the gaping sore beneath. Yesterday, when I’d cleaned his wound, the result of the neighbourhood bully Tom Sullivan knocking him onto the asphalt, he’d been so brave. He’d clutched my arm and bitten his lip when I’d dabb
ed disinfectant on his raw skin, stayed sombre and uncomplaining as I’d applied a cotton pad, watching my face the entire time. When I’d finished, he put his other arm around my neck and hugged me.

  This should be enough. To be loved. To stand in the sun with a friend and a gaggle of children. To feel water lap against my skin, to walk across cut grass and lie on a warm towel. To plan birthdays, cook dinners, clean the house, take care of the people around me. To know my brother will be home in two days. To know a new adventure is on the horizon, planned and prepared for. But I turn to Lou and see her smile has dropped and she’s looking at me with an expression I don’t recognise, sadness and love together. I hear my daughter shouting at her brother. I feel the skin on my back suddenly too hot, burning.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Friday 6 December 1974

  Charlie

  The rain falls harder, hitting the car like a shower of rocks. Abby turns on the engine, then the headlights, does a slow U-turn and points us towards Chinchilla. We drive away, abandoning the woman in the ditch; we leave the baby to die.

  For the next hour, we alternate between deafening argument and steely silence. Abby hits me in the arm again, smacks my ear. I kick her dashboard with my muddy sandshoes.

  ‘Do you understand what you’ve done?’ she shouts.

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you it was an accident? Do you think I wanted this to happen? There’s no point going to the police. And no matter where we took that woman she’d still be dead – and her baby would be as well, if it isn’t already.’

  Abby gasps at this and the car slows. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s too much even for the words to be in the air.

  ‘Listen.’ I lower my voice. ‘If we went to the police I’d end up in jail because I have had a few beers. Which I will regret for the rest of my life. I’d be locked up for years, never get out of this shithole country. My whole life would be wrecked and you know what – nothing I do and no amount of jail time will change anything.’ I pause. ‘I’ll make my amends some other way.’