How it feels (18 page)

Courtney swam over to the edge and climbed up the rocky steps. She took one of the two towels and started with her hair. Shaking it out then wrapping it up. Once her hair was safely within the twist of the towel, she took the second towel and dried her body from neck to toe. Then she began walking up the stairs away from me.

‘Hey, where's my towel?!' I asked, swimming over to the steps.

‘You can go fuck yourself!'

I climbed up and out of the ocean and held one arm out to her.

‘Don't go. I want to talk to you. Please, Court.' My chest was vibrating.

She unwound one towel from her hair and handed it to me, still damp and pungent with her scalp fragrance. I followed her across the lumpy deck to the point of the cove where the waves bashed and splashed against the rocks and then died, flattening out in a giant, foamy sigh.

‘Nature's Panadol,' I said.

‘Huh?'

‘A dip in the ocean. It's nature's Panadol.'

Two guys with very broad physiques roared past on matching jetskis as ten kids (soon to be adults) swam out to a big blue buoy and back, all in matching Speedos.

‘When did you and Gordon…?' I asked, leaping the chasm.

Courtney breathed in all the air, then huffed frustration out one nostril and looked up into the sun, her jaw a perfect straight line. I waited. I would not utter another word until she told me what I deserved to know.

‘He is very good to us,' she said, and I wondered why, of all the possible answers, she chose that.

‘Really?'

‘Yeah, he really is.'

‘Does she make him fruit whips?' I asked, and she turned to face me. She looked angry, but still so completely divine.

‘No, Neil, she doesn't. She doesn't make anything anymore.'

I realised what a vain and stupid question that was.

‘You like him?' I asked.

‘Maybe I do, Gordon, yes. Maybe I like him because he's a good person,' she said, flicking a shell out to sea.

‘I'm a good person,' I said.

‘
Are
you, Neil?' she asked, holding my gaze once more.

‘I think so,' I said.

‘Then why do you abandon your friends?'

‘Abandon? I went to university for fuck's sake. Was I meant –'

‘I'm not talking about that,' she said, stern and direct.

‘Well what are you talking about then?'

‘Last year. Gordon was not coping, he was not well, he really needed you, and we all tried to contact you, but you never returned our calls.'

‘Wasn't Stuart around?'

‘Yeah, sure,' she said. ‘As around as Stuart gets.'

‘Stuart's always around if you need him. Gordon
knows
that.'

‘Stuart's a party boy!' she retorted, with so much disdain.

‘He would do
anything
for Gordon.'

‘Gordon didn't want Stuart's help.'

‘I didn't realise it was so important, I just thought…'

‘You didn't
realise
how important it was because you were too busy putting tickets on yourself!'

‘Get fucked, Courtney,' I said, under my breath, but louder towards the end.

‘What did you say?'

I stood up. ‘I said get fucked. You can all get fucked. At least I
have
tickets! And d'you know why I do? Because I got the fuck out of the Shire and bought some. That's why, Courtney.'

‘Oh. My. God.' She was laughing in my face. ‘You think because you took the M4 three and a half hours west to some hippie clubhouse that you are
better
than us? More worldly? More evolved? Clearly the drugs haven't worn off yet, Neil, because back here in this sad little corner of the world that you despise so much, we have been involved in what is commonly known as
real life
, life with
real
things in it, like pain and love and –'

‘What happened?' I interjected softly, returning to my seat on the towel by the sea, beside her. ‘What happened to Gordon that was so bad?'

Courtney shook her head with hard repeats. She was covered in goose pimples, shivering inside her towel. Then she spoke ever so quietly, her voice lilting and floating in the crisp, clean breeze.

‘Gordon's dad had been gone a while, we all thought he was dead. The last we knew was that he was living in the bush somewhere in Victoria, with some other men. Then he just appeared out of nowhere and in quite a volatile state. Especially when he saw that Albert was in the house now, and that Carmen had moved on. So Peter began stalking the house and leaving psychotic messages and like these really weird gifts at the door. This went on for months, and Gordon got so angry, and so quiet, he refused to talk to anyone, he just went around punching the fridge and the car. He only wanted to talk to you, Neil, but you never called back. He even came up to see you, but he said you were so caught up you didn't even see him there, and so he took the sword and came home. Before that visit, Albert had made him a proposal: the police had failed to find Peter and enforce the AVO, so Albert thought it was time they took matters into their own hands.'

‘What did they do?' I asked her.

She took a long breath. ‘Peter broke in one more night, he had a gas mask on and was rotten drunk, trying to reef Rocky out of the house – to take him away. Peter said he deserved Rocky, that Carmen could keep everything else. But Albert… well he and Gordon had a plan, and they executed it.'

‘What did they do to him?' I asked her, but she was crying now, tears running down her cheeks in perfect straight lines.

‘He won't tell me. He just said “it's done”.'

I lifted my hand and placed it in her thick wet hair. She turned her face to me and said ‘Neil,' and then we were kissing. I could taste the ocean in her mouth. Her lips were warm and tender; her tongue was curious and cold – like it'd been outside all night. In the kissing we were older now; never had we been this close, this real, or this united by the sea. Her long legs beneath her waist, beneath the towel, and her small, firm breasts behind the Lycra, and I was home again and the noises she made had meaning and desire in them but mostly they were reckless with regret.

‘You can keep Tommy's board shorts,' she said and scampered off across the shelf and up into the mossy stairwell.

Dick Hindmarsh's beard was longer and bushier and more glorious than ever. He could hide a bike and three small pets in there. And
Ulysses
. Dick had a permanent grin affixed to his face. A rugged survival grin that spoke of good luck but mostly of bad.

He wore brown workers' pants and Asics joggers, a white fashion shirt with a jazz vest spilling curly grey hairs from his big-hearted chest. Every time I saw the man I wanted to cry. I wanted to hold him. I wanted him to know how I was feeling. Because, for the first time in my life, there was a grown man who genuinely invited this exact thing.

Dick was leaning on his motorbike as I approached him from the car, Julien already off inside to check on ‘the boy'.

‘Who's that bloke?' Dick chuckled.

‘Nervous wreck is who this bloke is!' I blurted out as I walked into his man hug. Everyone hugged Dick; this was not reserved for me. Well, that's not entirely true. Julien didn't hug Dick. He'd thought Dick was homophobic ever since Dick had failed him in second-year performance studies. Of course, the reason why Julien failed second-year performance was because he was never there; he was smoking Jamie's pole in Sydney, and no matter how flamboyant he was on the pole, it didn't count as ‘performance'.

‘All set?' Dick asked, breathing a disturbing blend of International Roast Coffee and Drum tobacco in my face.

‘As I'll ever be!' My heart now racing. Standing outside the old steel mill, the enormous
ME
sign bearing down on me and the stagehands and technicians milling about playing hacky sack and rolling up metres of cord; the reality of what I was about to do was setting in. I had bitten off more than I could ever chew. Again!

‘Looks great, fella. Had a gander. Swanna's done a bloody great job with the design. And your previews went smooth?'

‘Yeah, the performances are stronger than when you last saw it in the rehearsal space; we just have a few concerns about audience mobility for tonight, as apparently there's quite a few people coming.'

‘There's buzz! They all want a piece of this one – never seen anything like it, not in my seventeen years of “tending the vine”.'

‘Dick, I um…' That was the thing about endings; they always required some kind of earnest conjuration where the human felt he had to summarise everything lost and found in the past however many months and years in one perfectly constructed, cool yet adequately sentimental speech. ‘I'm going to miss ya.'

‘Hey!' Dick chortled, blocking me off at the bridge. ‘Make some waves. That's how to thank me.'

‘Ok, Dicky. But really, mate, you've been amazing.'

‘Alright. No need for the big speech. Just knock 'em dead tonight, son. There's top agency people from Sydney coming, a buying lady from England, there's film people, circus people… the calls we've had this week – it's all for you, my son. So don't leave anything behind out there. Give it one hundred percent truth. Just stay in your truth, Neilo.'

I nodded nodded nodded. And nodded again. My heart was beating like techno in a gay nightclub.

‘Will you be at the party after? Will you please come?' I asked, pressing my hand on his vest.

‘The party, yeah… nothing like a good party!'

‘Dick, I really better get inside – see how Swanna is going with the rig.'

‘Yeah, head on inside, mate… I just um…' Dick's voice cracked in two. ‘I got a bit of cancer.'

‘Dickie!' I said, my palms on either side of my nostrils.

‘I shouldn't be telling you this now.' Dick was sweating. ‘I'm not dead yet, don't… I shouldn't have told you this now, I just… I fucken wanted to say if you ever get
down
– which you will; I truly believe that every artist should be in therapy – I guess what I'm trying to say, son, is that if you ever need help with your spirit, then Prozac is a wonderful drug. I wholeheartedly recommend it to you. I've been taking it since I got the news of the bowel situation, and I don't think I'd have been able to show my face on campus or in the studio if it wasn't for this wonderful drug. Anyway Neil, that's all I'm saying. Prozac is good. Now, 'ave a wonderful show – love ya!'

And with that the wounded grizzly bear, Dick Hindmarsh, was off and away on his big old motorbike with the inconceivably high handlebars.

As I entered the old steel mill Julien ran towards me with a stack of A4 programs and a face full of agony. ‘Neil! Massive drama! Are we charging for programs or are we just handing them out? I was thinking of making a donation box, but Swanna doesn't like the idea –
I
like the idea. But you
have
to tell me
now
because there's only four hours until the curtains-up and I'd have to go to Coles and buy some cardboard and hand-craft it. What do you think, Neil? Donation box?!'

‘Yeah, buy a letterbox from the hardware and slap a sign on top of it.'

‘You're so creative,' Julien said. ‘Luke looks so cute in his swimming trunks. Is it bad to fuck a seventeen-year-old?' Julien minced off with the programs, raising his eyebrows coquettishly at Swanna, who was halfway up a ladder with a nail gun – making real progress.

‘I'll take you through,' Swanna said, descending the metal steps.

The foyer was
meant
to be playful, reflecting the spirit of childhood, of innocence, of dream life and colour. Swanna had miles of Tibetan peace flags fluttering from wall to wall. The thick wooden pylons stretching up to the ceiling wrapped in pastel balloons, flowers were set in drop-boxes and streamers were bunched together in enormous balls rolling randomly about the polished cement floors. Lollies and rugby league football cards were scattered across the floors as we strolled silently towards the stairway leading to room 2: adolescence.

Room 2 was a barren space of rough edges and white-painted walls. The projectors were all set and ready to fire and Paul, an intense young man with Nana Mouskouri glasses, was behind the sound desk, overexcited about his locked-off, complex soundscape.

‘G'day, Pauly!' I yelled, as Swanna and I entered the space.

‘Nelly! You got to hear the jams, man. The sound in this room when I launch the bass is off the hook-up!' Paul hugged me. Swanna couldn't help smiling and neither could I; the theatre was indeed a family.

‘Will you be round for a sec?' Paul asked.

‘Yep,' I answered, winking at Swanna.

‘Cool, I'll be back in five then. Mr Moon from Bathurst High School – Luke's teacher? – he's dropping off some woofers from the school. Free of charge, dude! It's going to be a headfuck, my brother.' Paul beamed and left, wrapping coils of lead around his arm as he went.

This left Swanna and I alone in the space.

‘How is Luke feeling?' I asked, circling Swanna.

‘He says he can't wait.'

‘I'd be terrified if I was him. Performing with all these weird uni students, in front of all these people, and he's still only in Year 11.'

‘I think all those feelings make sense in this room,' Swanna said, spinning to catch my eyes behind her shoulder blades.

‘I couldn't have done this without you, you know?' I was close enough to kiss her and she knew it. The hairs on her upper lip stood up and her eyes softened, stirring all sorts of things between skull and feet.

‘Whatever you say, director.' She led the way out of room 2 and up the stairs to room 3: adulthood. She stood blocking the entrance and staring down at me with dark caution.

‘What?' I asked, stopped in my tracks.