One Would Think the Deep Page 13

Soon he was among them, slotted in with his shirt untucked, sleeves rolled up. He copped the ribbing for leaving the waves to go to a job interview. He laughed in the right places. Someone had liquor in a drink bottle, who knows what. Sam took it when it was offered. He took the joint too, when it came around. He sat back and waited for the fuzz to dull and the feeling that he might spew to go away.

  Ruby was in the shop and came out occasionally, but it was near evening and people were coming in for orders. The manager came out and told them to move on if they weren’t buying more food, so they migrated down the road to the big square of dead grass that passed as a park. Someone went to the bottle-o and came back with bourbon. The guys talked about every girl that walked past. Whether they’d do her with the lights on or off, that kind of thing. It was sickening and Sam didn’t join in. That made him better than them, didn’t it? Minty didn’t contribute, but he didn’t challenge them either. Was it enough to just not participate? The right thing, the strong thing, would be to tell them to shut up and that they were sick low-life. Sam didn’t need his mum to tell him that. They wouldn’t keep him around if they knew he thought he was better than them. If Sam was better than them, he wasn’t one of them. And if he wasn’t one of them he really was alone, not one of the pack. The first to get taken down.

  And then.

  Gretchen started walking up the hill toward the park. Her seeing him like this was not part of the sketchy fantasy that he pretended was a plan.

  Sam couldn’t breathe. He felt sick. He was going to stand up and walk away, but it was too late. If he moved now she would see him. She’d have proof that he was a loser with bong-rat mates who ditched school and got high in the park. It would confirm that he was not the kind of guy she should go anywhere near. Sam tried to sink into the ground, praying for invisibility. It started. Gretchen got a seven. Shane said she looked like a princess and the sniggers passed through the group. It was decided she would be an eight with her clothes off. Heat pooled in Sam’s chest. He tried to breathe. He felt the tension of the fury climbing up his spine, through his shoulders. His revulsion at Shane’s words was volcanic. In his mind it drew the picture of the corridor at his old school in Sydney, the words said about his mother. He heard his mum’s words as well, afterwards in the police station, her lip trembling. You cannot lash out whenever someone says something you don’t like!

  Gretchen came within earshot and Shane gave her a loud wolf whistle. Sam turned away, hiding behind his hair like a cowering dog. Maybe she wouldn’t see him.

  Shane whistled again and Sam could see the grimace on her face, the quickening of her step as she walked along the footpath next to the park.

  ‘Hey baby, come here!’ Shane yelled. Gretchen stopped walking and Sam could see her shoulders and back move as she took a deep breath. She turned and faced the group, he could see the fear hidden in her scowl.

  ‘Piss off,’ she said firmly.

  There were hoots and jeers. ‘I think she likes you, Shane!’ someone laughed.

  She raised her middle finger at them and as she did her eyes found Sam.

  He felt his whole face colour and burn, his pulse thudding in his temples. The seconds that he had to establish himself as the person he wanted her to see were over. Gretchen put her head down and kept walking. She was out of sight by the time he got to his feet. He was a scrappy mess because of the drink but he was cleaner than Shane and tackled him to the dirt. Thumping him around the sides of his big, stupid fat head. Shane was all bulk and muscle, but he didn’t have the fury powering him like Sam. Someone grabbed Sam by the collar. Minty. He pulled Sam up, spun him around and hissed to him through clenched teeth.

  ‘Farkin’ let go, Sam. That’s my brother. He’s family. He’s your family.’

  ‘He’s an arsehole.’

  ‘Chill.’

  He shook from Minty’s grip and pulled away. Minty wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. ‘Go home, Sam. You get into a fight and Mum’ll kick you out. Don’t doubt it.’

  19

  Two weeks passed and Sam didn’t see Gretchen. He spent a lot of time in the water with Minty, just the two of them now Ruby was at school. He didn’t go back to Jono’s for Movie Monday and he never went near the concourse or the pool – the only places he knew he was likely to run into her. When he thought of what Gretchen had seen that afternoon, the humiliation and shame burned through him. Most days Shane was working and only surfed early mornings or late afternoon. He rarely even looked at Sam, in the water or at home, and when he did acknowlege his existence it was with a narrow-eyed glare.

  The Tumbleweed gig was a small glint of hope on his horizon. He told himself he would have a good time. The bouncer didn’t give Sam, Jono or Ruby a second look. He saw Minty and ushered them to the front of the queue, grasped Minty’s hand in the usual greeting and waived the cover charge. Despite the sign next to him stating that shoes must be worn, he didn’t care that Minty was barefoot. He opened the door for them and they ventured into the darkness. The bass was up and the room thrummed with heat and sound and cigarette smoke. Minty was greeted with the usual howls and backslaps. The place was male-dominated, everyone in boardies and thongs. Sam noticed how Ruby seemed to steel herself against the tide of testosterone, shoulders back, chin up, a confident walk and a piss-off look directed at any guy who looked her over. The chaotic buzz of the support band drowned out any comfortable conversation and people shouted to each other over the top of it. Everyone stood around straight-backed, arms folded across their chest – the same stance reserved for watching the water – only now they bobbed their chins ever so slightly in time with the music. Beer appeared from somewhere; Minty didn’t pay for it, Sam was certain of that much. He rarely ever even had cash on him. Sam waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness and scanned the faces in the crowd.

  Gretchen was there.

  He wasn’t expecting to see her at all, but there she was with another girl Sam didn’t recognise, leaning her back against the wall up the back of the room. Her hair was tied in little knots all over her head, like Björk. She was wearing baggy cargo pants and a tight black T-shirt over some kind of black fishnet sleeves. Her fingernails were painted black and she had make-up on. She looked way older than she was and stuck out against all the beach blondes. Jono was talking to him about the band. Sam wasn’t listening. Gretchen held a tall glass and rolled the straw between her thumb and forefinger as she watched the stage.

  The support band finished and left the stage. Jono was verbally analysing the influence of San Francisco Bay thrash metal when Gretchen clocked Sam. He wasn’t expecting it. He wasn’t expecting her. He wasn’t sure he had remembered to put on deodorant. He regretted his choice of old shorts, old T-shirt and sneakers. At least it was a Jeff Buckley T-shirt. Although there was a hole in the underarm and he couldn’t remember whether it was the left or the right. He would have to remember to keep his arms down, not that he was the kind to do any overt gesticulating. His chest lurched and he looked away. He glanced back in time to see her making a face at him – a pissed-off, ‘stuff-you’ face.

  Jono was still talking.

  ‘I gotta go for a second,’ Sam said. He put his beer down on the sticky bar table and squared his shoulders. He walked straight up to her.

  ‘What do you want?’ she scoffed at him, but he could tell she was nervous. At that moment, he would have chosen Jeff Buckley to play over the sound system. ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’. Instead, it seemed the DJ was in a more humorous mood and it was the Spice Girls. As if whoever programmed the music was completely ignorant of the type of crowd who would be there. He couldn’t breathe. He looked right at her. ‘Can I talk to you?’

  ‘I’m good thanks. How are you? This is my cousin, Sarah. Sarah, this is Sam. He hangs out with stupid misogynistic dickheads who think it’s cool to harass women.’

  He didn’t know Gretchen well enough to guess, but if he did he would guess she wasn’t drinking lemonade.

  ‘Ca
n I talk to you?’

  ‘What? No. I’m here with my cousin, we’re going to perve on Jon Toogood from Shihad, even though he’s actually quite short.’

  ‘I don’t mind a short man,’ said the cousin.

  Gretchen made a point of looking up at Sam. He could see her steeling herself. ‘Neither do I.’

  It wasn’t going well.

  ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

  ‘Why? I have one. Why are you glaring at me while you ask me that?’

  The song changed. Beck, ‘Loser’. The most powerful endorsement for being a loser ever. Sam let out a huff of exasperation.

  She widened her eyes. ‘Don’t get shitty with me, punk.’ The cousin cracked up. ‘You invite me to a party where you ignore me, you do this tricky arm-touching thing at Jono’s Movie Monday, then whenever I see you, you barely say anything.’

  ‘But I said stuff.’

  ‘Then I see you with your stupid chauvinist, half-wit loser buddies and you sit there while they objectify me and you act like you don’t even know me. Now you frown at me and get pissed off when I don’t want you to buy me a drink. Gee, am I being a naggy girl? Sorry for my high standards.’

  They stood staring at each other. The band walked onstage and the crowd cheered. He inhaled. He took a step toward her and she looked up at him with a scowl.

  ‘Fine. Sorry.’ He turned and walked away.

  ‘He is sexy, but,’ said the cousin.

  *

  ‘How’d it go, Romeo?’ Ruby ribbed him with her mocking smile. Sam ignored her and skolled the rest of his beer. He didn’t hear any of the music. He stood with the others, looking in the direction of the stage, but he didn’t listen to a single sound. All his senses were attuned to her standing across the room as he dissected every single interaction he had ever had with her, every word. He never realised how closely you could watch someone without looking directly at them. He glanced over at her a few times to see if she was looking back at him but she never was.

  When the gig was done the lights came up and the crowd surged toward the exits. Sam, Jono, Ruby and Minty joined the tide of bodies and Sam lost sight of Gretchen. Outside, misty, salty rain was falling, sweet and fresh after the crammed heat of the bar. People gathered in loose clumps in the pools of streetlight, full of the buzzy residue of the music. Shane had turned up at some point. He was going on about someone who had said something about Minty and was therefore a whiny bitch. Sam rolled his eyes.

  ‘You got a problem, kook?’

  ‘Nah, man. Please, carry on.’

  Minty looked back and forth between the two of them and groaned. ‘Brah. We’re havin’ a good time ’ere. Good music. Good time. Chill.’

  ‘I’ll chill out when this kook pisses off to where he came from.’

  ‘Yeah!’ Ruby widened her eyes in mock glee. ‘Let’s have a pissing contest!’

  ‘Go hang with some girls then, Ruby.’ Shane hissed at her.

  ‘Brah, come on. Leave her. And Sam’s family. He’s alright.’

  ‘You think everyone’s alright, Mint. I see him and I see a kook. Look at him. Who are you, man? You wearing make-up like Marilyn Manson? You are, you little kook.’

  ‘I’m not. But thanks for the compliment.’

  ‘What the eff is this?’ Shane shoved a finger at Sam’s T-shirt. ‘Look at you and your homo music.’

  A few others turned to look.

  Jono opened his mouth but the only sound that came out was a weak, ‘Hey!’

  The tension in Sam built and built until he could feel every muscle and sinew in his body pulled taut. Sam pulled his right arm back and punched Shane across the jaw, picturing the exact moment Shane had said the things about Gretchen on that afternoon in the park. Shane stumbled back, missing a beat, taking a moment to catch up to what was happening. Sam hit him again in the stomach and everything fizzing in his head dissipated. Shane lunged back at him but Sam was quicker. He was stronger thanks to his weight sessions with Minty. He pounded him again, collecting blood on his knuckles. It was a mess of sweat and grit, blood and beer breath, grabbing and shoving, messy punching. He was moving but inside something had stopped, the endless cascade of snapshots, the horrible rotting grey feeling that leached the colour out of everything. While he was fighting with Shane he was seeing in colour. He was quick. He was good at this and he knew everyone was surprised, including Ruby, and he loved that. The pain from each blow he took was washed away by adrenaline. It was like dancing – fighting; it was intimate, you were in tune with another human. It was sort of beautiful, like that; everything finely focused on the movement and the breath.

  Whirring, Sam’s peripheral vision caught a familiar figure, Gretchen. He lost focus long enough for Shane to grab him in a headlock and pound his cheek and jaw. Sam’s vision went blurry and then he was on the cold, wet asphalt. Minty pulled Shane away and Sam rolled onto his back, feeling the water soak through his clothes. It was like he could feel the ground reverberating beneath him, the scuff and crunch of gravel. He wished Shane was still there to kick him in the head and put him out of his misery. He found the reserves to lift his head and look around for Gretchen, but she was already gone. Jono crouched down next to Sam, his expression aghast.

  ‘Sam? Are you alright? Holy shit!’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He got to his feet and shrugged Jono away.

  Sam didn’t go back to the house. If Lorraine saw him in the morning he was pretty sure she would make good on her promise to kick him out. She seemed like the kind of person who meant what she said. It was something he liked about her, but now was a bit inconvenient. He wandered along the side of the road toward the beach feeling like he was trying to get his footing on a ship’s deck. It was a pleasant sort of unsteady, like you get after a roller-coaster ride. Sam tilted his head back and let the rain fall on his face, let it wash the blood and salt and sweat. He looked up at the sky and watched the clouds swirling toward the sea, catching glimpses of the stars between them. Could she see him? It was easy to understand why for thousands of years, people thought the dead were up there somewhere. There was certainly enough space for them all.

  She wouldn’t like what she saw.

  Sam followed the clouds and headed to the water. Down at the beach the sand looked like the powdery surface of the moon, lit stark by white spotlights. The waves were a haze of sound folding and enveloping him. He walked past the pool, its unbroken surface glittery and shimmering, and padded down the ramp to the sand. The rain had stopped. He let his body fall onto the soft cold sand. He lay on his back, looked for her up in the stars and waited for sleep to claim him.

  When he opened his eyes the sky was soaked in pale morning light, floss-pink clouds with gilded edges. His left arm tingled with pins and needles and he was cold all over. Sitting up he saw the clock above the surf club: 6 am. Sand was in his ears and on his neck, the creases of his eyelids. Behind him, on the concourse, joggers in fluoro singlets ran along with poodles and labradors attached. Visors and water bottles. They gave him the occasional dismissive, disapproving glance. Another binge-drinking teen with no self-respect, probably on the dole.

  Soon enough.

  He got to his feet and trudged up the ramp. The rhythmic slosh slosh sound of freestyle came from the pool. There were three swimmers: two guys and one girl. Gretchen. Sam sat on the concrete steps next to the pool and watched her. She swam for another half an hour, back and forth, back and forth. And then she stopped at the end of the lane and pulled her goggles off. She closed her eyes and sank under the water, bobbing up again and sweeping water from her hair. Her skin was like milk, hair swirling and inky in the water. She saw him and didn’t smile. Then she stretched and vaulted out of the water onto the pool deck. She tilted her head side to side, working the water out of her ears, and picked up a towel. She wrapped it around her waist and approached, stopping a couple of feet in front of him. No words. Water trickled down her legs, curling around her ankles and pooling on the ground beneath her. She stoo
d perfectly still and looked at him and it took every ounce of courage he had in him to look back. He had no idea what she saw, but it wasn’t so horrifying or monstrous that she walked off. Instead, she sat down on the step next to him.

  ‘Are you a tool? ’Cause you seem like one sometimes.’

  Sam sniffed. ‘I try not to be. Sometimes it doesn’t work.’

  She pulled her hair over her shoulder and twisted it, wringing out the water. ‘I know Minty’s a really old friend of Jono’s, but I don’t get why he still hangs out with him. And I know he’s your cousin and you … Jono likes you and you seem like a good guy, but Minty and them.’ She shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Did you get beat up last night?’

  ‘What? No. I didn’t get beat up. I was in a fight.’

  ‘You do that much?’

  ‘Not anymore,’ Sam said.

  ‘Take up boxing or something. They have refs. It’s safer.’

  ‘Not really interested in safety.’

  ‘Whoa. Tough guy, huh? So impressive.’

  ‘I didn’t say I was a tough guy. I said I wasn’t interested in safety.’

  ‘Same thing.’

  ‘I disagree.’

  ‘My friend, Stassi, says I should stay away from you.’

  It was crushing to hear it. ‘Whatever,’ he muttered.

  ‘Okay.’ She stood up. ‘I’m done. I tried having a conversation like a normal person, but you don’t seem interested. So I’m out.’ She turned to walk away.

  ‘Gretchen.’ It felt good just saying her name. She stopped and looked back at him. Sam stood up and walked over to her. ‘Shane’s a tool. I … I’m really sorry about the thing in the park. I had a job interview beforehand and it was a disaster and I felt like crap and they were there and it was somewhere I could be … I don’t think it’s okay to do that to girls. So we’re clear.’

  She stood looking up at him, not moving. He stepped closer to her so that there were centimetres between them. She didn’t move away.