Page 80 of Summer, in Between
‘She wasn’t keen either.’
‘Why not?’I’m incredulous.I can’t even imagine turning my back on a ticket out of here.
‘She wanted me here.’We reach the top of the dunes where the Neanderthals have gathered.The beach lays out below us, the sun starting its slow drop into night.
‘Hello, lovers.’Tom passes Paul a couple of beers.He flips the lids off both, handing me one, pocketing the caps.
Clouds hover, the horizon a luminous thread between the sky and the sea.There are some people surfing the last waves of the day and a trio of teenage girls swim in the shore break, fighting the rip.Their laughter hits me almost physically; I hug my arms.I mean, some of these guys are all right, funny even, but they’re not Sal, Em or JB.They’re still the Neanderthals, maybe notcompleteNeanderthals, but except for Ant, they’re Paul’s friends, not mine.Cavey pretty much confirmed that at the pub with the bouncers.I’m just a Yoko to them, and that’s fine.I’ll have my real friends back as soon as summer’s over, but in the meantime I’ll have to make an effort.If Paul didn’t get on with my friends I don’t know what I’d do, how I’d feel.Devastated comes to mind, but it’s not even remotely possible to compare my friends to his.
The Neanderthals’ aura of confidence that borders on belligerence, their weird combination of aggressiveness and simplicity in the way they live their lives does my head in.It’s so perplexing.They’re either picking fights with anyone and everyone or they embody a hippy, woo-woo platitude that you’d see on a sticker or a
t-shirt.They are completely different to any other group of people I know.All the times I’ve listened to their nonsensical conversations I’ve never heard one of them say, ‘Man, if I don’t get into industrial pharmacology, I don’t know what I’ll do.Maybe engineering will have to do?’
It’s like the future means nothing to them, but sometimes it’s kind of refreshing to hang around people not completely preoccupied with what’s coming next.This morning, after weeks of getting the timing wrong and missing each other, the stars aligned and I managed to talk to Em in London, and even on the other side of the world she’s ahead of me in the Year Twelve prep stakes.
I take a swig of beer and grimace.‘You want?’I say to Paul.I twist it to stand upright in the sand between us.
‘Want something else?Tommo, what else you got?’
‘No, thanks, I’m all good.’I stretch his hoodie out over my knees, my arms crossed over my shins, my stomach cramping.Great.Not that it’s a surprise; Em told me she had the angry pixies visiting her in London.Seems that even with all this distance between us we’re still in cycle.Sal must be suffering too.I wonder if Charlotte is, given she and Sal have been together night and day.It was Sal that came up with angry pixies to describe our shared time of the month, saying cramps are like nasty little angry pixies using a blunt, rusty machete to hack their way out of her uterus.The way I’m feeling right now I can almost hear the angry pixies’ high-pitched evil giggling.
Ant drops to the sand beside me, groaning.
‘What’s up with you, Scampo?’one of the guys asks him.
‘Man, I am so sore.10K run for preseason footy.I’m too old for this crap.’
‘Mate, you’re only as old as the girl you feel,’ says Cavey.‘That makes me around about sixteen, fingers crossed.’
I flinch, the lingering taste of the beer sour in my mouth.
‘Mate,’ admonishes Paul, his hand stroking the back of my neck.I shift and pull my legs out from the hoodie, crossing them at my ankles, and turn towards Ant.
‘Did you see JB?How is he?’
‘He smashed it,’ says Ant.‘Man, he’s fit.He’s training every day.I couldn’t catch him.None of us could.’
‘No way?That’s so good.’I don’t add that he’s training hard just to get away from his father; it’s not my story to tell.Anyway, if JB’s town is anything like Batter’s Cove, it’d be no secret what his dad is like.I’ll never forget the mortification of that time on camp when we were talking about our parents fighting, and I realised that my definition of fighting and JB’s were on two different planets.‘He said he was running, but ten kilometres?Amazing.’
‘Yeah, he said he spoke to you.Cat, he made it look easy.’
‘Great, just one more way for him to show me up this year,’ I shake my head.‘He’s such an overachiever.’
‘Funny, he said the same thing about you.’
‘Bull.’
‘Dici sul serio!’
‘Non riesco proprio a crederci.’
‘Would I lie?He’s your number one fan.’
‘Actually, that would be me,’ says Paul, his hand on my knee.
Music fills the dune, pumping through a speaker, the bass line deep.The girls who were swimming walk up the dunes, wrapped in beach towels, holding their clothes.
‘Mind if we hang?’
