8
J UST before half past eight, right at the moment between dusk and night when the lingering light from sunset has dissipated, Paul knocks on the sliding door.
Of course I’m ready. I’d been dressed for hours, and thanks to the miracle that is modern cosmetics, I’d been able to camouflage the red demon on my chin.
With a ‘see you later’ over my shoulder, I shut the door behind me, pushing Paul back onto the balcony.
‘What, I can’t say hello to your parents?’
‘Nope, let’s go,’ I say. Tommy’s up against the glass making a kissing face. ‘That is Exhibit A of why we’re out of here.’
Paul’s Hilux ute is immaculate – not a takeaway wrapper in sight and no empty drink bottles rolling around my feet, smacking into my ankle on every corner.
I’m wearing my favourite skirt, ombre moving from green to blue with a white singlet knotted against my midriff.
I sit gingerly in the front seat, expecting the grit of sand against my thighs, but there’s only the smooth softness of nylon cloth.
‘Is this the car you’re so desperate to replace that you’re willing to give up your entire summer?’ I say. ‘There’s nothing wrong with it!’
‘I need a bit more grunt.’ He keeps his eyes focused on the road.
‘I thought you’re a tradie?’
‘I am.’
‘Have you told your car? It’s nothing like my dad’s. His is a cesspit.’
‘So was this one a couple of hours ago.’ He flashes me a grin.
Paul parks at the Surf Life Saving Club.
When he pulls the handbrake up, I spring from the car, tugging my skirt down.
As we pass the clubhouse, the dunes take turns concealing its light.
The beach is dark, but I can tell that the tide has come back in as the waves fill my ears, the only indication of their presence in the blackness of the night.
As my vision adjusts, the foam cuts the beach in half with a white smudge.
I stop as the path reaches the beach line to take off my sandals, balancing on one foot at a time. Paul holds out a hand.
‘I’ve got it.’ The words are abrupt and loud, cutting through the darkness. He drops his hand and shrugs.
It’s much cooler down on the beach, the air moist with sea mist, the night’s warm, humid air high above the sand dunes. I shiver and wrap my arms around myself, my sandals digging into the soft skin of my waist.
We reach the Pee-Pit, the tannin-stained channel carved into the sand where the storm water runs from the cliff into the sea, dotted with ancient rocks that form perfectly placed steppingstones through the effluence.
Although, as Dad says, it’s not really effluence, just rainwater and whatever chemicals people have used to wash their cars.
I don’t care what Dad says: it looks like urine to me.
Paul steps ahead, leaping onto the first rock, hand outstretched.
‘I’ve been jumping these rocks my whole life.
’ I smirk as I leap, losing my balance momentarily as we share the same narrow footing.
He grabs me by the waist to steady me, and together we leap off the final rock onto the sand.
Stable and surefooted on the other side of the Pee-Pit, his hand rests on my waist and as we start walking it slips down and across my bum.
‘I think we need to get something clear.’ I stop, shifting away so his hand falls to his side.
‘You don’t need to pretend to have this sudden interest in me just because you’re working for my dad.
You’ve got the job. It’s a done deal, without my involvement, and so nothing is going to happen. Nothing.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ says Paul. There’s a hint of offence in his tone, as if he’s biting down on the words. He’s standing with the sea behind him, his features hidden in the shadow of the cliff face.
‘I know what you’re like. You’d sleep with a stop sign if it looked at you the right way.’
‘You don’t know anything about me,’ says Paul. ‘Up until yesterday we’d never even spoken.’
‘That’s exactly my point,’ I say. ‘I’ve seen you around for years.
You’re part of Batter’s Cove furniture. Up until yesterday, you have never acknowledged my existence.
’ I can hear myself, and worse, I can see myself, hands on hips, face thrust out.
I sound exactly like Nonna. Maybe she’s put one of her crazy Italian Nonna curses on me and is inhabiting my body, making me as untrustful as she is when it comes to the male species.
‘You know what, let’s just sit here for a bit,’ Paul says. He sits on the sand, then leans forward to take off his hoodie. I glance at the golden tan of his abs that peak beneath his t-shirt as it lifts slightly with his arms. He holds it out.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I say, sitting beside him.
‘Actually...’ The sand is cold under my bare legs.
I pull on his jumper before my stubbornness takes hold again and can smell.
.. what? Shampoo, laundry powder, aftershave, a hint of salt.
If clean and fresh had a smell, this is it.
In fact, does this guy smell like sunshine?
I roll away from him to pull his jumper down over my hips.
The waves smash into the rocks, as relentless as a heartbeat.
Fires glow up and down the beach and the thrum of a bass line pulses in the distance.
‘You were saying?’ Paul shifts beside me, stretching out a leg, leaning back on an elbow.
‘What was I saying?’
‘That I’d have a crack at a light pole, or something like that.’
‘Actually, it was a stop sign, but my point stands. Listen carefully – I know you think that something’s gonna happen between us, but anything you think is going to happen is never going to happen.’ And to mortify myself more, I spell it out. ‘N-E-V-E-R.’
‘What exactly is it that you think I think is going to happen that’s never going to happen, Cat?’
‘You know.’
‘I really don’t. Enlighten me.’
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. It all goes back to the stop sign.’
‘Yes, the stop sign,’ he says. ‘That’s it.
That’s beautiful. Touching. Can’t wait to tell my mum that’s what I’m known for, she’ll be so proud.
And of course, I know who you are, Cat. It’s a small town, and a girl like you?
I’d be dead if I hadn’t noticed you. It does go both ways, though.
You’ve never even looked me in the eye. Would it have killed you to say hello to me?
Even at Sadie’s yesterday, I’m trying to talk to you, and you ignored me. ’
‘Number one: I didn’t ignore you. Number two: you weren’t trying to talk to me, you were... who knows what you were doing?’
‘Number three: I was just saying hello. It’s not that deep,’ he says.
‘I’ll be at your house all summer, so it’s weird that we don’t talk, don’t you think?
I wanted you to come out tonight so we could talk, have some fun.
Not that kind of fun, obviously. Which you already know, don’t you, private school girl, so much smarter than an ignorant, dumbarse tradie like me. ’
‘Wow, that didn’t take long,’ I say. ‘What’s next? You going to call me a Stuck-Up Bitch too?’
‘I’d never call you that,’ he says. ‘N-E-V-E-R. See, I can spell too.’
‘Impressive.’
‘Thank you. I’ve been reading the dictionary all arvo, hoping I’d get the chance to spell something out to you.’
The low boom of a firework echoes from a bonfire down the far end of the beach.
‘Merv will be in all kinds of pain tomorrow,’ I say.
Like a horrible case of chicken pox, the Batter’s Cove foreshore is dotted with signs prohibiting open fires.
Apparently, the local authorities issue severe penalties to people caught building fires, which is patently unfair given the huge number of constituents that have barely evolved beyond the wheel.
Every day of summer it’s almost impossible to walk on any local beach without coming across the scattered remains of the previous nights’ bonfires.
I’ve never heard of anyone being fined for it.
No one seems to police the no-fire decree.
No one except Merv, a man employed to manage the camping grounds.
He wears his quasi-officialdom well, like he’s wearing an invisible sheriff badge.
He flies around the back streets and camping ground trails in a tiny little car.
He’s always harried and busy, fuelled by self-importance, like one of those people who talk with their hands, waving them around to make it harder to see that if they stopped the incessant moving, you’d realise they weren’t actually saying anything at all.
‘Oh man, I can’t stand that a-hole,’ says Paul. ‘Although, he gave me the best laugh of my life a couple of years ago, I’ll give him that.’
‘When he had the fight with the fire brigade?’
‘Yes! Were you there?’
‘The whole town was.’
And it was: Batter’s Cove had come alive the night some brainiac set fire to a rubbish bin.
We’d seen the lights of the fire engines from home, and we jumped in the car with Dad to bolt down to the foreshore to see two massive fire trucks, monoliths of red lit against the black of the night sky.
Twelve big burly men in full firefighting get up were arguing to the point of a brawl with Merv, who had dialled it in as a major outbreak threatening people and property.
‘How did I not see you?’ says Paul.
‘There were a lot of signs fighting for your attention.’
‘Funny. Shall we go to the party now? Or would you like to talk more about me and my attraction to road signs?’ He stands and holds out his hand. This time, I take it, and he pulls me to stand before him.
‘Thanks,’ I say and go to wipe the sand from my legs. ‘Um, can I have my hand back now?’
‘If you must,’ he says but pulls it against his chest. I can feel the heat of him against the back of my hand. ‘Cat, everything you think you know about me is crap, I just need you to know that.’
‘Okay, whatever,’ I say, keeping my eyes firmly on my hand still pressed against his firm chest.