-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
because he ll be away for work so much and it ll help with the mortgage &
She gives me the family run-down, and then moves on to
household maintenance.
& which was very disappointing. So your father told them we weren t prepared
to pay for it unless they fixed it up. The whole thing was disgusting. I don t know
how people like that stay in business &
And then she gets to the thing that s been scratching her,
the reason for her call, even if she doesn t know it herself. I
know it because her voice changes, discontent bittering up
her mouth.
And what else? Maddie leaves for Fiji next week. Auntie Yvonne says she s been
saving up for it all year you know how she had that part-time job at the
newsagent s? Good to see that. As your father said, she had a goal and she s
seen it through to the end. Of course Yvonne and Robert will help her out a bit,
but still, Maddie s always had her head screwed on right. She s going with a
couple of her friends. Sarah is one of them remember her from Maddie s
eighteenth? Lovely girl. They wanted to do something special to mark the end
of their high school years. Something nice.
The disapproval in her tone isn t for my cousin,
Madeleine. It s for me. Because I didn t want to do anything
special or nice to mark the end of my high school years. I
wanted to go to the Gold Coast and get drunk like
everybody else. This shouldn t have been wrong, but for
some reason my father decided it was.
I knew he would. That s why I left it until the last minute to
tell them I was going. And then he and I argued, and in the
few days before I went he wouldn t look at me when he was
speaking to me, if he d speak to me at all. I was eighteen, I
could do what I wanted, but it came at a price. My father s
eyes can be the coldest place on earth.
For him, it was all about control. It was something I
wanted too much. It would be good for me not to get it. But
when I overheard Mum discussing me on the phone,
speaking from her position on the cross, I wanted to ask
her for clarification. I didn t do drugs; I got good grades at
school; my teachers liked me; I had friends, guys and girls,
a group of mates to hang around with, even if I didn t have a
cloying, specially close best friend in the way of Maddie
and Sarah; I wasn t a bad person so why, why, did she
always proceed my name with a sharply exhaled breath?
Couldn t she see that if I always did what he wanted there
wouldn t be any of me left?
Here s the sting: if, by some strange act of God, I had
been unnaturally mature and pre-empted Maddie by
marking the end of my high school years with a sedate
Fijian holiday in a resort empty of anybody still young
enough to want to party, it wouldn t have made Mum happy.
It would have been wrong, too.
And that s because, in the restaurant of life, my mother
always wants what someone else is having. Auntie Yvonne
is proud of Maddie. She just loves her. She d be excited
whether Maddie was going to Fiji or the Gold Coast or
wherever.
Mum doesn t feel that about me. So I must be the
problem.
I delete her message without listening to the rest of it.
11
Collision
Coastalwatch
Swell size 1 1.5 metres Swell direction S
The strength of yesterday s southerly change has made for erratic climate-
change style extremes today. It s more like winter than summer. Some solid 3
4ft waves around this morning, pushing up to 4 5ft during the day. Strong SW
winds forecast to turn SE &
By the time I get down to the back car park dirty grey clouds
are scudding across the sky. It s close to low tide and the
break isn t liking the southerly swell, really sucking up on the
right bank, showing a dirty underbelly of grey water
pockmarked by sand. The water s surface looks scaly in
the wind.
I walk down to the break with one of the crows who was
in the car park getting changed when I arrived. He s a nice
old guy who likes to talk, always as excited as a kid. One
day he just started talking to me like he d known me his
whole life. I didn t mind though. In fact, I liked it.
Bloody crowded, he says when we see the break. I ve
got to get back up to Crescent Head.
Crescent Head would have to be crowded too, wouldn t
it?
The point break is, but the beach breaks aren t. You can
have some good surfs there all to yourself. Uncrowded.
I ll have to check with Hannah whether uncrowded is a
real word. In surfing it is. Crowds are a major concern. I saw
a photograph of Manly on one of the surf websites the other
day. It showed a line of surfers, maybe four or five deep,
stretching from Queenscliff down to the south end without a
break. It looked like hell. Maybe it s good that this place has
got such a bad reputation.
As though he can read my mind, the old crow says,
Been a bit of aggro lately. Few broken boards. Bit of a biff
in the car park the other day.
I wonder how it happens, the breaking of the board.
Does the aggressor wait until the person has laid it down
on the bitumen and is unlocking their car, unaware? Or do
they rip it out of the person s arms and break it across their
knee?
I start unwinding my leg rope from around my board.
That little Shane bastard has got a lot to do with it, the
old guy says, nodding his head at a surfer making his way
across on a right.
I stare out at Shane and see the flash of colour on his
forearms, which are covered in tatts. Just looking at him
gives me a bad feeling.
He s always stirring things up that one. Got a mouth on
im, that kid.
Because the swell is from the south it s breaking over at
Carparks in line with the top car park and peeling right.
Most of the guys are clumped over there, constantly trying [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- matkadziecka.xlx.pl