The brink, p.28
The Brink, page 28
And if I were in her shoes, I’d want someone to be there for me, too. I’d want someone to hug me at my lowest ebb, the way I hugged Val on the beach. I’d want someone to have my back, even if I made mistakes, even if I did something bad, even if I was disgraced beyond redemption. I’d want warm arms to hold me, and a soothing voice to say, ‘You matter, despite anything you’ve done, and I still believe you are good, and I love you.’
Like I should’ve said to Naoko.
My own sister. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me most.
I’ve already promised myself that the second I get back to Perth, I’m going to visit Naoko. I’m going to take her flowers—Madonna lilies—and give her a hug and tell her I love her and just watch MTV or Grease or something trashy with her. Our parents may still be punishing her, but I won’t anymore.
She is good enough as she is, dirty hair and all.
So am I.
Nick Kontos
One of these things is not like the others.
The thing is me. The others are a bunch of people I knew in a former life.
We’ve arrived at the Lancelin cop shop in the middle of the night. The constable takes our details down and starts arranging for us to give our statements. But it takes ages and we’re all just left slumped in the plastic chairs, tired and hungry and shattered.
While we’re stuck there, the doors of the police station slide open and two people in their forties walk in. It takes a second before I recognise them as Jared’s parents.
It takes another second before they recognise us, and Jared’s mother collapses, wailing and clutching at her husband. It’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard.
Mason and I both stand up instinctively, seeing the parents of our mate like this, but Jared’s father raises his hand, authoritative and stoic.
‘Don’t,’ he says. ‘Don’t talk to me. I can’t do it right now.’
The constable on the desk ushers him and Mrs O’Shea through to the back, and we can hear her wailing again. I can’t look anyone in the eye right now. I know the pain of losing a parent, but I have no idea how this feels for Jared’s mum and dad.
Aisha starts crying and I pat her back gently. She rests her hand on my leg but it doesn’t go any higher than my knee. We never really talked about the night we kissed, and I don’t think we ever will. It was what it was, I guess.
A while later, a sergeant comes to the desk. She says she’s waiting on detectives to come up from Perth, so nothing is going to happen for us until the morning. She has arranged an Airbnb for us for the night. We have to report back at nine o’clock in the morning.
‘No parties,’ she says, handing the keys to Kaiya.
‘Trust me,’ Kaiya assures her. ‘We’re partied out.’
Our Airbnb is a rustic beach house on the same street as the police station and opposite the huge, sprawling tavern that faces directly onto the beach. Even though it’s late, the pub’s going off: there’s a massive party inside, doof doof pumping out into the streets and flashing dance lights lighting up the whole place. It’s packed.
A huge banner over the front entrance says, ‘WELCOME, LEAVERS’.
Some of the partygoers have spilled out onto the lawn out the front of the tavern. As we walk past and head for our accommodation, one of them suddenly cries, ‘Hey, you guys! You finally made it!’
‘Get out of town,’ Kaiya mutters. ‘Phoebe!’
The whole group of leavers turns to face us. Some of them are randoms, but three are familiar faces: Jack, Jessie and Phoebe. They have glowsticks around their necks and entry wristbands. They reek of alcohol and smoke and they’re all dripping with salt water from a recent swim.
They look so teenaged. So completely foreign.
They stand up as we approach.
‘Oh my God, are you kidding me?’ Aisha says, dropping her backpack and running across the grass, throwing her arms around Phoebe. ‘Where have you guys been? We thought something happened to you.’
Jack blinks at us all. ‘Wait, you guys didn’t get our messages? We left you, like, a ton of voicemails and texts. Heaps of the Leavers who got knocked back from Jurien shifted the party down here instead. It’s awesome. We thought you were ghosting us.’ He looks around. ‘Hey, where’s Jared and Val and everyone?’
I immediately turn and walk away, towards the front yard of our house. I can’t handle the fissure of emotion that’s about to erupt from them when I’m barely containing my own.
I don’t know how I’ll say goodbye to Jared. Maybe when the shock subsides I’ll be able to make sense of this week and see it more clearly. No matter what happens for the rest of my life, I’m the guy who punched his ex-best-friend and loved it, right before he died, and I’m the one who found his body. That will never leave me: I’m finally free of Jared, but bonded to him at the same time. I keep thinking what would’ve happened if he hadn’t knocked me out cold: if I’d been awake, heard his fight with Val…I could have helped him after he fell. Stopped the bleeding. Something.
I keep telling myself that I can’t undo what was. I can’t undo what happened to Jared, or all the pain he inflicted on me. I can’t undo any of it. All that shit, and escaping it, made me who I am now.
Once, we played Call of Duty and kicked the footy and ate chocolates together. Once, we were best friends.
Behind me, Phoebe and Jessie burst into tears, and Jack starts swearing. Aisha’s told them.
Kaiya hands me the key to the house.
‘Could you guys let yourselves in and maybe dump Aisha’s bag and mine in the house, too?’ She slings her backpack off her shoulder and onto my good arm. ‘We’re gonna look after these guys.’
I take the key, and Mason, Brayden and I, the packhorses, shuffle across the street and into the dark Airbnb house. We dump the bags on the floor and Brayden shuts the door behind us. The roar of music from the tavern becomes a more muted throb through the walls.
Mason opens the fridge. ‘Score!’ he says. ‘They got froffies. VBs, but beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘Hey, Mase, wanna scope out the bedrooms?’ Brayden says, glancing at the wooden staircase that leads upstairs.
‘Nah, not tired yet ay. Let’s crack some froffies with Nicko,’ Mason says, grabbing a brown stubby.
‘I’m not talking about going to sleep, you meathead,’ Brayden says flatly.
Mason goes bright red and glances sideways at me. ‘We’ll all do froffies in a bit then?’
I try not to smirk. ‘No rush, I’m gonna head outside for some air,’ I tell them. ‘You do you, fellas.’
Mason hesitates, then twists the top off the stubby of VB, sculls the whole fucking thing, wipes his mouth and then charges upstairs, dragging Brayden behind him by the hand.
What a lad.
I wasn’t kidding about heading outside for air.
Fresh air, specifically.
I grab a stubby of VB from the fridge, take the pack of Benson & Hedges Gold out of my duffel bag, and go out into the front yard, closing my eyes for a moment against the cool sea breeze. I’m still in Derek’s oil-stained footy shorts. I wonder if he’ll want them back.
I walk down the metal-dust driveway, towards the pulsing lights and noise of the tavern across the road. I shake a cigarette from the pack and flick the spark wheel of Fezza’s lighter.
I enjoy the fresh drag of nicotine and breathe a stream of smoke into the night before cracking the top of the stubby and taking a cold swig.
It was funny how everyone was stressing about having their parents come pick them up tomorrow. I think for once, I wouldn’t mind having a worried parent come and throw their arms around me. I guess I’ll call Dad tomorrow and let him know what’s gone down before he sees it on the news. Maybe he’ll fly down here tomorrow to see if I’m okay, or maybe he’ll just call.
He’ll probably call.
Before I can take a second drag, a voice calls out, ‘Hey, Nick.’
Kaiya’s left Aisha with Phoebe, Jessie and Jack and has crossed the road, looking concerned.
‘What’s up?’ I ask, taking another swig of beer.
‘Well, you’re out here, not in the house. Didn’t the key work?’
‘Oh. No, we’re in. The boys are inside. I just need a minute alone, I guess.’
Kaiya furrows her brow. ‘You okay?’
‘Ha.’ I take a drag on my smoke. ‘Not even kind of okay. You?’
‘So not okay it’s funny,’ she says, recognition flaring in her eyes. ‘And yet, somehow me and Aisha are consoling those guys. It’s so weird.’
‘Mason’s talking about all of us having beers in a bit. You in?’
Kaiya smiles. ‘Um, yes.’ She glances back at the others. ‘I’m gonna go help them. I’ll see you soon.’
She asked if I was okay. My chest glows warmer than my cigarette’s ember. ‘Sure thing,’ I say.
And then a bubble of beer repeats on me, and I let out a tiny, short, pathetic, completely unmasculine sounding burp.
I think I’m blushing.
Kaiya screws up her face. ‘Ew.’
‘That was truly the weakest burp in the history of beer, Kaiya,’ I say. ‘I’m actually embarrassed by it. I can do a better one—give me a minute.’
Kaiya frowns, genuinely appalled. ‘You know that’s not tough. It’s just straight-up disgusting, right?’
‘So?’ I blow a defiant stream of smoke at her. ‘You don’t own me.’
Kaiya rolls her eyes and crosses the road to join the others.
I lean against the letterbox and stare past the neon throb of leavers dancing in the pub, to the Indian Ocean and the starry night sky above it, both vast and unknown, seemingly limitless.
I take another drag and ash my cigarette. I see the world as it is, now: a game of Russian Roulette. Neither Baz nor Jared were afraid of death, but it still got them. I could spend the rest of my life terrified of death, but I’ll still die in the end, and those wasted years of panic would be a much more prolonged suffering than the actual death itself. I don’t want a fear of death to rob me of all the good stuff in life. Seeing the ocean spread out before me now, I can imagine how boundless the rest of my life could be. I want to be brave enough to live it.
A cool breeze eddies around me. I breathe in fine sea spray with the rough tobacco smoke, and the plume I exhale reminds me of a volcanic column of ash. I’m glad I erupted on Brink Island, but lava cools into hard igneous rock, moulded and fixed in shape.
I don’t want to be igneous for the world.
I want to stay molten, for me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have many people to thank for helping me bring this book into the world.
Firstly, thank you to the crew at Varuna, the National Writers’ House, where I spent a week in January 2018 plotting this book, then titled Leavers, and writing the first chapter.
Thank you to Garry Disher, who mentored me in 2018, reading some chapters and providing me with feedback and encouragement.
Thank you to the Australian Society of Authors who made both of these opportunities possible for a then-unpublished novelist like me.
Bulk gratitude to my agent, the brilliant Gaby Naher of Left Bank Literary, for believing in this book. Thank you for the advice and guidance, and for vetoing the terrible alternative titles I brainstormed for this novel (and for landing on the perfect one).
Massive thanks to my publisher, Text Publishing, for seeing this book’s potential. I am grateful to the whole team, especially Kate Lloyd, Madeleine Rebbechi, Julia Kathro, Jamila Khodja and Sophie Mannix: thank you for your support and enthusiasm. Thank you to Imogen Stubbs for the striking cover: it’s as bold as Mason after a few Bush Chooks.
Special thanks to my awesome editor at Text, Jane Pearson: not only are you a total legend, but your sharp and perceptive edits made this book immeasurably better. Thank you for tolerating (and even liking) the boganisms in my writing, and for putting up with my unexpected neuroses around em dashes.
Thank you to the booksellers, librarians, teachers and everyone in the world of books who has supported me. I truly appreciate your championing of voices like mine.
Fellow writers celebrate with you when things are ace, kick you up the arse when things are tough, and rally by your side when the shit really hits the fan. A special shout-out to the local WA authors who have been my tribe for a few years now: Michael Trant, Jess Gately, Louise Allan, Alicia Tuckerman, Raihanaty A Jalil, Melinda Tognini and Emily Paull. Thank you for all your friendship, support and encouragement.
Thank you to my writer mates in the far north of Perth—Josephine Taylor, David Allan-Petale and Sara Foster—for our write-ins and chats. We can be really productive when we aren’t scoffing cake, or ice cream, or sushi, or meringues.
Thank you to all the writers and people I shitpost with on Twitter: you know who you are, and I’m sending a creepy Jack Nicholson GIF at you by way of gratitude.
Thank you to my teammates at Perth Hornets Football Club, for supporting my books, for the camaraderie, and for giving me a space where I can play footy and be myself. Carn the Hornets!
Thank you to Gerrard Wilson for making me tougher and stronger—cheers bro.
Thank you to Ajay Hawkes for making me softer and stronger—you are an exceptional guide.
Thank you to Ric Chaney for, I suspect, saving my life.
Thank you to my cousin Jeremy Orlando for being a mentor, a mate and the first writer I ever met.
Thank you to the family, friends, workmates, gym buddies and everyone who has cheered me on. Heartfelt thanks to Gel Miller, Harley Miller and Michelle Rizza. Kwaa!
The greatest thanks to my beautiful husband, fellow author Raphael Farmer. You are always my biggest champion, my sounding board and my most honest critic. There’s nothing better than lying on the couch next to you after footy and watching WWE together. You hold my hand through the best and the worst life throws at us, and I will always hold yours, even when you’re a brogle. Je t’aime plus que tout, mon chou.
There are a few other acknowledgments I’d like to make here.
First, Brink Island is a fictional place. There are similar settlements along the West Australian coast, but I didn’t want to single one out as the setting for this book.
Second, this book looks at masculinity and the experience of being a man in a way I would have loved to read as a teenage boy. In my work I seek to empower boys and men to be their whole selves, in a positive and healthy way: I will never demonise them, implicitly or explicitly, for being themselves. I hope this book might present an opportunity to re-examine the way we talk about masculinity, especially to teenagers.
Third, writing this book was really fucken hard. I wrote the earliest words in 2014 and the first partial draft in 2016, so it’s been a long trek. But on top of that, writing a second novel, especially with the weight of a successful debut, was truly terrifying. I am grateful for the wisdom of editor Julia Stiles, who once told me about an earlier manuscript to ‘feel the fear, and do it anyway’. Taking that advice to heart, I wrote this book despite the voice in my head that said I couldn’t, and I reckon that’s why so much of The Brink is about facing, and overcoming, our fears. Like Leonardo, Kaiya and Mason, I am a lifelong misfit; and like these characters, I had to wrestle myself back from being who the world wanted me to be. For a long time, I feared that if I showed up honestly, instead of performing a persona, people wouldn’t like me. I was right: being myself did make some people like me less, but it made me like myself a lot more, and no trade-off in my life has ever been more worthwhile.
Finally, thanks to you, for picking this book up and reading it. You’re a good egg, aren’t ya!
Holden Sheppard
2022
HOLDEN SHEPPARD is an award-winning author born in Geraldton, Western Australia. His debut novel, Invisible Boys, won the WA Premier’s Prize for an Emerging Writer, was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and was named a Notable Book by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Holden lives in Perth with his husband. The Brink is his second novel.
holdensheppard.com
The Text Publishing Company acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the country on which we work, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pays respect to their Elders past and present.
textpublishing.com.au
The Text Publishing Company
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Copyright © Holden Sheppard, 2022
The moral right of Holden Sheppard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Published by The Text Publishing Company, 2022
Book design by Imogen Stubbs
Cover images by Shutterstock and Creative Market
Typeset in Sabon MT Pro by J&M Typesetting
ISBN: 9781922458643 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781922459930 (ebook)
Holden Sheppard, The Brink
