Even the spiders’ webs have disintegrated in the heat, burnt away, poof, in the air.
We’re on the track down to the beach when he points at the Carters’ property and says, ‘You know, that’s Flora’s place.’ Like it would be something I wasn’t aware of. I know where we are, know this stretch of bushland like the back of my hand, he doesn’t have to tell me where we are. Just round the back of the Carter property there is a sand track that gets you down to the rocks and in the rocks there are things to look at and to talk about. Octopus, nudibranchs, sand sifters, crabs and urchins. Oysters you can prize off with a knife that taste of seawater and cream. I think about the boat I found a month ago in the dunes, and us lying in the bottom feeling the swimmers underneath us. I’ve got a stolen joint and matches from Iris’s hiding place which I know all about. She’s going to skin me when she finds out but it’ll be worth it. I’d thought that we could smoke it once we were past the main street and into the trees on the way to my house, but the boat is so much better. I wonder at how impressed he will be when I present it to him.
‘Listen,’ says Denver, ‘you talk with Flora, don’tcha?’
‘I do. Sometimes.’ I pick up the pace a little because it is very hot and a cool breeze would be nice.
‘She’s nice isn’t she?’
‘I like her just fine.’ Although truth be told right now I do not like her fine at all.
‘What about me? You like me?’ he asks. I go red-hot in the face, but it makes me smile the way he says it, like he’s nervous I might say no, as if it were a possible thing to not like Denver Cobby with his hairy legs and his black eyes.
‘Yer orright. S’pose.’ I turn and give him a smile that says, Yeah — I think you’re good.
‘Well look — can you keep a secret?’ My heart is blood-thumping in my throat. We can see the back of the Carter house now, through the pigface and jarrah. A shadow passes in front of the window, but we are too far off to see who it is. Denver lets out a sigh that is long and deep.
‘Look. Me ’n’ Flo—’
Flo?
Flo away and into the sea.
‘Me ’n’ Flo have been going together the past few months. Only her old man’s not all right with that sort of carry-on.’
Carrion.
‘He won’t let blokes near his house, especially not a black bloke. But she’s really something, y’know, Jake?’ He says my name and I turn to look at him. I think nothing. It doesn’t get the chance to get in one ear hole and out the other, I don’t let it in. ‘I’m just about going fucking crazy out here — the two of us are. We’re gonna take the bike and head to Cairns. Get a little place there — I’ve got a mate who reckons he knows a guy with some labouring work I can get into. I dunno, mate, sounds crazy, I know. My fuck!’ And he goes on and on, but it is like the tops of my ears fold over and stuff up the holes. Something buzzes past my face, close enough that I can feel the air of its wings vibrate against my eyes. Then my ears open up in time to hear him going on, ‘But listen, we need someone on our side, try and help us get ourselves together — could you maybe store a bit of stuff at your house for us? Flo’s dad runs checks of her room, in case she’s hiding smokes or condoms or uh, I dunno, fuckin’ comic books, the way he goes on. I sleep on the sofa at Mum’s so there’s nowhere to put stuff. Thought maybe you had a bed we can stash shit under till we go? Maybe you might be able to lend us a bit of cash if you’ve got any saved? We need all we can get.’
‘Do you want to smoke this joint?’ I am holding it out in my fist like a lolly. A small frown goes over Denver’s lovely face.
‘Nah — not a real good idea I wouldn’t say.’
I hold the thing to my lips. Denver watches me, looking unsure all of a sudden. Good, I think. You should feel unsure.
‘So what do you say?’ he asks, leaning back a bit with his thumbs in the waistband of his pants. I light the joint. It smoulders red at the tip, and the smoke goes straight into my eye, but I don’t let myself blink it out. I watch him standing there, looking like all the world rested on me stashing a sleeping bag under my bed.
‘Jake?’
‘Go away,’ I say quietly, and inhale. I’ve done it before, so if he is expecting me to choke like the kids on TV do, then he is sorely disappointed. I pretend I am Nerrida at the side of the boat sheds, jutting one hip out and crossing one arm over my chest so that I can rest my other elbow on it, keeping the joint near my lips and pretending to pull a hair of tobacco from my mouth. I see for the first time that I am taller than Denver, and I look down my beak nose at him. Jake the Flake the Dyke. The smoke comes out of me, white. Denver runs his hands through his hair.
‘Well? Whad’ya say? Say something.’
Perhaps he is impressed by how I smoke, I don’t know. It looks like it just pisses him off.
‘Fuck. What’s your problem? Thought we were mates?’
He is shaking his head. I’ve made him angry.
‘Fine then,’ he says, to my silence. ‘If you’re gonna be shitful about it, fine. I was only walking you home because Flo felt sorry for you. I find you’ve told anyone, you’ll get the beating of your life.’
He holds up a finger, and I believe that he means it, but I keep still. I smoke.
‘And for Christ’s sake, put that out.’
When he says that I take the joint from my lips and hold it between the tips of my index finger and thumb. Then I let it drop, foaming red-hot at the tip and it lands with a pat in among the dry crackled leaves on the ground. Denver moves like a snake, stamps the red out and then turns and pushes me so that I fall on the floor. ‘What in the name of fuck are you doing, stupid bitch? You’re as fucking nuts as your whole fucking family.’
His face is curled in the wrong places. Ha, I think — not so pretty after all. He holds up his finger at me like the way you would at a kid or a dog.
‘I mean it — you breathe a word of this to anyone…’ His finger is trembling. ‘Fuck off home. You can forget we were ever mates, stupid fucking kid.’ And he glances at the back of the Carter house, looking for some sign of who it is that is at home. There is blonde hair on the veranda, I see it as I crane my neck, she is on the rope-swing her father had made her when she was a little kid. Flo into the sea, and away.
Denver is off at a trot, disappearing around the bend where the track leads down to the rocks. No doubt they have a meeting time, no doubt he has known all along that this is where we would come and he can see Flo right after he’s sorted out where they’ll stash all their stinking rubbish for the journey ahead. They’ll be down on those rocks eating the oysters. They’ll push the boat down to the sea and they’ll float there, lying in the bottom of the hull. It is their boat, I realise, it is there for them, not for me. I can’t imagine Flora Carter letting Denver feel up her tits in the bottom of the boat, but what do I know. Not very much.
I am looking at my tree-trunk legs splaying out on the ground where Denver has pushed me. The birds are loud and all singing at once, Cuk… cuk… cuk… cuk… cuk… cuk, Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo hoooo-hoooo, Wup wup wup wup, Quit-quit-quit. Near my foot is the stamped-out joint and I reach for it. It is a little ripped and flat, but it still lights, and I smoke while I look up at the white sky with those fingers of blue gum, dark against the space. The birds sound faster and sharper, Cheerily, cheeriup, cheerio, cheeriup, Chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee, Fee-beee, Cheer, cheer, cheerful, charmer, Tur-a-lee, Purdy purdy purdy… Whoit, whoit, whoit, whoit.