Red, p.3
Red, page 3
I flung my shoes off my school bag was long gone the water slapped gently at the piers I scanned the surface nothing bobbed nothing floated whatever it had been was submarining now I started to think I’d dreamed it and then a splash something pale jerked was that an arm whatever it never even broke the glass.
I’m coming I shouted hang on I’m coming I didn’t seriously think the poor bastard could hear me but you don’t think do you – you just run and you run and you jump and then you fly and in that instant I was winged yeah transcendent I was avian then I plummeted and the cold was a punch in the guts. But oh I hauled myself to the surface and I backstroked breathed backstroked breathed head thumping mouth sucking in breath. I scanned the cloak of the water and the weird part was it was so beautiful I mean it was dazzlingly dizzyingly beautiful out there with the bay and the hills and the yachts past the point I remember thinking death shouldn’t look as good as all this.
Then something walloped all the air out of me and another thing shoved my head under the next few seconds were jumbled and strange like trying to make sense of a spool of negatives where each photo’s no cousin of the last. An arm then a foot then nothing but whitewash the thing thrashed and it clawed it was going five rounds with me and each time it did the blow forced me back also the tide gently ushered me away. I swam forward and swam forward I tried to get a grip on this kid tried to shove my arm under and wrap myself around his torso yeah to drag him onto his back and hold his mouth to the sky just like Sid’d taught me to do but the more I reached for him the more he pumped his arms kid was climbing an underwater ladder he flung his head back wildly almost cracked me in the jaw it was ridiculous he was going to drown on a tide that was flat as a tack.
And across the bay those yachts were the colour of whipped cream and all with those stupid names like Don’t Tell the Missus and She Got the House yeah really hilarious stuff. Those boats sat slack in the sun like they might just dissolve one puff of wind and they’d evaporate.
In the end I drew myself up into a ball and I kicked him with the full force of my legs and in the instant that I winded him I was able to grab him round the waist I rolled him over and I yanked him to the surface. Stop it I ordered I had one arm across his chest I wedged it under his armpit and when I felt him go limp I knew he was taking in air I began the slow kick drag rest kick drag rest back to the wharf.
After a spew and a cry and some general carrying on I asked Stevie Madigan what the hell he was thinking why jump off the wharf when there’s no one around to haul him out and when he swam like he wore concrete shoes.
I’ve got my bronze medallion he was indignant.
Your bronze medallion in what I said.
In swimming what else do you get a bronze medallion in.
I don’t know sinking I suggested.
There were three Madigan brothers and Stevie was the youngest I’d see them sometimes walking to school and stuff his brothers were bigger than him but that wasn’t saying much everyone was bigger than Stevie he was a runt.
Also there was a dog he said.
A dog.
Yeah a big dog right here on the wharf and he was having a go at me Stevie said. He was tied up to the post there but then he broke free and came after me he sure was ugly and mean even you would’ve jumped if you’d been here.
But I can swim.
He ignored me.
It was pretty quick thinking of me to jump into the water he said I would’ve been okay too if the current wasn’t so strong.
We both turned and looked out over the bay where there wasn’t a single white cap between here and the horizon below us pissy little waves lapped half-hearted against the piers honestly I’d seen bigger swells in a bath.
So where’s the dog now? I said.
You didn’t see it back there by the roadside anywhere? he asked. Must’ve wandered off to chew on someone else.
Oh so it bit you too.
Not hard he said nonchalantly. Not enough to break the skin.
While he stood there talking his hair was starting to dry in the sun it poked up in a little quiff like Tin Tin’s and the more he spoke the more it seemed to stick up. Kid’s fringe was Pinocchio’s nose.
Fine don’t tell me what really happened I said. In the distance a boat engine rumbled.
You’re in my year at school he said.
You’re in mine I corrected.
You shouldn’t call yourself Red not with hair like that he said.
(Like people might not notice the colour if I had a different name.)
Yeah well you shouldn’t go swimming without floaties there Duncan Armstrong but we don’t always know what’s good for us I said.
Stevie Madigan grinned.
He was a weird kid. He was wearing his school shorts and his knees stuck out from paddle-pop-stick legs his ribs were raised like railway sleepers. And yet you could tell Stevie Madigan came from a good home and that his mum must’ve loved him half to death you could see it in his school shirt which was lying on the jetty and which somehow still had crisp folds in it that thing had been ironed so many times I’d seen less permanent tattoos than those pleats his shoes were polished to military standard and standing there in the early-morning sunshine half drowned and flecked with bits of his own vomit Stevie Madigan still managed to look like he’d been scrubbed with an entire canful of Mr Sheen.
I knew Mrs Madigan everyone did she ran the bookshop on Mann Street in town not a surf shop or a cake shop not even a newsagency you didn’t get that many bookshops on the coast.
Your mum sells books I said.
Your dad thinks he’s John Wayne.
What no he doesn’t what are you talking about my dad doesn’t think he’s John Wayne.
Nothing wrong with that Stevie said. My grandpa used to think he was Captain Esteban Pasquale you know from Zorro Mum made him a cape and everything it was black on the outside and red underneath she even stitched bobbles round the edges.
I’m happy for your grandpa but my dad doesn’t think he’s John Wayne.
Then how come he was sitting on the steps outside the TAB after closing on Tuesday singing how he was.
Was what.
John Wayne.
Jesus Christ I said.
Nah definitely John Wayne he said helpfully.
That’s just a song it doesn’t mean anything I said hotly (when really what it meant was that Race 22 hadn’t come in and Sid had blown his last cent until payday and he’d come home in a filthy mood and kicked a hole in the laundry wall but Stevie Madigan didn’t need to know all that).
Sure Stevie said.
He rubbed the back of his skinny neck thoughtfully and then he said: Anyway it’d be worse if your dad did think he was Jesus – you don’t even get a bobble cape with that.
I never expected any reward for fishing Stevie out of the bay it never occurred to me to ask for one although Sid wasn’t averse to the idea was pretty partial to it in fact never look a gift horse in any orifice Sid liked to say.
But when Mrs Madigan showed up on our doorstep two days later and presented me with a book from her bookshop on Mann Street I wasn’t disappointed a book and not just any book but a book like I’d never seen before its cover was the most beguiling dark-green hardback but soft to touch and the smell was intoxicating the smell of damp wool of library stacks I could of held it to my nostrils for a week. The cover was embossed with gilt lettering that curled each toe in ecstasy it was the most incredible thing that I’d ever seen honest to God the best thing I’d ever held.
She looks like you like a mini Medusa said Mrs Madigan as I turned a page.
That watercolour picture was of a fierce-eyed woman she had a tangled mess of snakes writhing round her head instead of hair. But then Mrs Madigan had three boys at home so I was guessing her whole house was a tangled mess of things and that she didn’t mean anything by it and anyway I could tell it was intended as a compliment because of the way she fingered one of my red curls unfurled it and admired its colour in the sunshine.
Thanks Mrs Madigan I said.
Call me Lorraine she replied.
And that curl rebelled from her fingers then bounced back into its messy nest.
A book? Sid tried to drum up some enthusiasm. A book’s better than a hole in the head you want to hang onto that Ruby Tuesday you never know could be worth something one day.
But there was no way I was selling The Golden Treasury of Greek Mythology.
No Sid admitted later when it was just me and him. No market for that around here.
Just about the only lottery Sid couldn’t hack was the National Service Lottery yeah compulsory military service i.e. conscription. Three hundred and sixty-six wooden marbles each one numbered and checked and chucked in a Tattersall’s barrel every ball was some mug’s birthday. And if your number came up then you’d blow out the candles and unwrap your uniform happy birthday you’re off to Vietnam that’s right if your number came up you got two years’ compulsory military service happy birthday the death lottery they called it.
Those lotteries were held twice a year from 1965 to 1972 and if you were twenty and male then your number was in the barrel they were drawn in the boardroom of the Department of Labour and National Service in Melbourne where those little wooden marbles barely bigger than your thumb were pulled out by some big dick.
Sid’s birthday was drawn out on the first of March 1966 yeah lucky old fourteenth of June. Sid’s number was up or so it seemed for a while there hard to imagine my old man with a gun no you’ve never seen anyone less likely to join the army never seen anyone less suited to the job. Sid’d use his bayonet to lift baby birds back to their nests yeah he’d be rescuing flipped beetles in the trenches either that or he’d be running betting rings like his life depended on it wanna put money on whether D Company will be the first to return from patrol wanna have a flutter on the first bloke sent home in a body bag.
Only Sid never had to try his luck at Long Tan no he never saw service in Nui Dat instead he saw a doctor who said Sid’s gout meant he couldn’t serve on account of the danger it posed to Sid’s kidneys. What. Would he be drinking with the Viet Cong.
Still that’s how Sid avoided the Vietnam War by having gout in his left big toe and when the doctor thanked Sid for the envelope full of cash he said it wasn’t necessary but he put it in his pocket all the same.
Sergeant Healy found himself a good doctor too no surprise that his doctor was a friend of the family and that friend of the family deemed Sergeant Healy unfit for duty. (Back then Sergeant Healy hadn’t qualified as a constable yet but that didn’t matter it didn’t matter if he was Krusty the Clown no one got out of conscription on account of their job not unless they were a minister you know like a priest and let me tell you something for nothing Sergeant Healy was no man of the cloth.) Instead it took a phone call from his dad to get the sarge off the hook and even then I bet he resented the inconvenience yeah even though he didn’t have to hustle like Sid did I’m sure it killed the sergeant that he and Sid got the exact same treatment in the end oh the injustice of that would of stung.
Funny enough the thing that makes me ache for Sid’s ugly mug is when I hear someone talk about their plans for the future who’d of guessed I might miss Sid’s mad schemes.
Sid had plenty of ideas alright like the time he was going to hire a metal detector and spend the tourist season fossicking along the beachfronts for dropped coins or lost wedding rings or temporarily misplaced ingots of gold or whatever else he really believed was out there. Or the time he was going to undercut the ferry operator and carry tourists to Woy Woy in his two-man tinny for a quarter of the price of a ferry ticket plus Sid’s gondola singing thrown in free. Or the time he was going to get rich buying up all those priceless collectors’ items he imagined were handed in at the pawn shop in East Gosford each week or like that time he was going to make his fortune manufacturing industrial levels of home brew that even the White Hart refused to serve to customers or the time he thought the future was Betamax or the time he bought a share in a racehorse that turned out to be legally blind or the time he was going to run a white goods delivery service without a truck or a trolley and no goods.
Up here for thinking and down there for dancing Sid used to say and he’d tap his head and do a passable soft-shoe shuffle but then dancing wasn’t Sid’s downfall and neither was dreaming no Sid wasn’t lacking in the ideas department.
Execution was what let Sid down.
Sid’s best business venture was the one that was just around the corner glittering elusive unreal that was the one that would make us a motza yeah the one that was coming up next. And it wasn’t just that Sid didn’t like hard work – though there was that – it was more like work with all its boring ordinariness its routines its drudgery its everyday smallnesses was somehow an insult to Sid’s big dreams and big dreams were everything to Sid.
The best times were when I’d lie in the backyard and look up at the clouds and listen to Sid’s harebrained schemes yeah those were the best times. Not that our backyard was anything to boast about there were empty petrol cans in a pile by the carport and a metal bed frame half buried by the fence and fish scales like snowflakes below the concrete feeding trough and a fridge carcass open-mouthed in the chickweeds. But the bluegrass was long and the shade was deep and sometimes pelicans would careen overhead pale-pink-and-white specks so far above the earth their span was as small as your fingernail if you held your thumb up to the sky.
Sid would sit himself there in the driver’s seat of whatever car was in the carport that week with the door flung open and the seat reclined so it was just about horizontal like he was poolside in the Bahamas and not lounging in the carport where the jack-pipe pylons were rusted into place and the corrugated PVC roof had long gone opaque so that looking up was like peering at the world through cloudy cataracted eyes.
And he’d lie there with his hands propped behind his head his feet propped up on the steering wheel his big toe fiddling mindlessly with the knobs and dials on the dash his mouth never pausing either.
Carp Sid would say. Now you’re talking.
He spoke like he was continuing some previous conversation like you’d already signed up to his dream. His face was leathery from too much time in the sun his chin was beardy but his head was bowling-ball smooth.
Plenty of people that’d pay good money for carp Ruby Tuesday.
What people?
Restaurant people tourist people. They’re a big fish carp – game fishermen could use them as bait.
Are you serious?
But that’s not the best bit.
Tell me what’s the best bit?
What would you say if I told you you’d get paid twice for selling carp once by the customer and once by the government for eradicating an introduced species!
I’d say you’re full of carp.
Ah Rubes and he’d look away rubbing his head ruefully and you knew he was trying not to laugh.
Carp are pests they’re the rabbits of the river system I’m performing a community service Sid’d say then.
And nothing in it for yourself?
Well maybe a little he’d concede his toes dancing across the dash his mouth splitting into a grin.
You’ll see Rube one day you’ll see.
Despite it you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling he really did think it could happen.
Sid’s neighbours growing up were teetotallers which is a joke when you think how much of an effect that had on young Sid yeah what an impression that left. The Christies didn’t drink but Mr Christie was the manager of the sawmill at Wyong and each Christmas that mill owner gave Mr Christie a bottle of Teacher’s Highland Cream and Mrs Christie would take that bottle and put it reverentially at the back of the laundry cupboard until every so often when she’d pull it down and get a rag and use it to clean the windows that’s right Mrs Christie used scotch whisky to polish her picture windows said it gave them a lovely shine. Only before Mrs Christie’s windows could dry (probably before Mrs Christie got that bottle safely back in the laundry cupboard) Sid McCoy from next door would appear from nowhere and give those windows a second going-over with his tongue. Bit of reverse spit and polish. Sid reckons that’s how he got a taste for the good stuff from licking those Christie windows clean. Sid could imbibe half a bottle before Mrs Christie noticed more if she did the window insides as well.
The house Sid grew up in got knocked down to make way for holiday rentals. Back when Sid was a kid that place was a single-level fibro joint just like every other house on the street but now it’s a block of flats and investment bankers and insurance wankers and God knows which other rich pricks come up from Sydney each January to stay in the units to enjoy a swim in the kidney-shaped pool. They sling their beach towels over the balcony railings when they’re in residence like raising the flag at fucking Buckingham Palace.
It was the boon docks back in Sid’s day no TV I don’t know probably no electricity not even a sewer connection no wonder Sid thought he was king of the world when Pook lifted a VCR for us that one time.
And they did lift stuff it’s true Pook and Sparra and Chook and Sid they occasionally helped themselves but then it’s not like anyone else was queuing up to give them a hand not like the government or the welfare people no none of them were offering a leg up. And nicking things like VCRs and dumped white goods the occasional used car was hardly hurting anyone not when compared to what Sergeant Healy and his mates took from us yeah Sticky Fingers Healy stealing our happiness our dignity taking away my family yeah flexing his pig muscles for kicks.
Like the time the cops showed up at our place it was early evening the last rays of sun slanting through the trees the bay was bright henna red. It was the summer of the Datsun it was the summer Sid first drove his car home from the dealership in Wyoming singing ‘Hi-Yo Silver’ all the way.
But when the cops pulled up at our place that evening they didn’t come with any noise no siren wailing they didn’t even arrive with the sound of their two-way radio drifting out their open windows no they sidled up quietly slunk in like maybe the pair of them had something to hide like maybe they weren’t there at all.
