Moonless night. Orange light beyond the trees, beyond the farms and the tangle of the wild sunflower. Broken free.

  Better head home now. Time to turn back. Too late. Too light. Too much to handle in the morning. Believe me.

  Just a little longer, a little further. Can’t we just keep driving? Where the trees are dark and we could be anywhere. Time has layers like an onion. The deeper you delve the more you must peel away. Layer upon layer…

  I remember going worming on the mudflats with Adam Cooper. We’d dig trenches and draw up mud with pumps of PVC piping. Once, when we went trekking through the mangroves at low tide we found the skeleton of a dead turtle. Its shell like armor, its body all but washed away.

  I used to cycle along the Esplanade with my dad. I remember “bring a bike” parties at Lota Park. We’d all drink Fanta and ride down to the wading pool for a swim.

  And here’s us at twelve, one Friday night at church youth group: me in the corner, contemplating my shoelaces; you in the middle, broad shouldered and bronzed, volleyball in hand.

  Here we are crossing paths and you not looking. Here I am taking the Jesus-talk far too seriously. Here you are getting your first kiss behind the prickly hedges, and pretending like you’d done it all before.

  Here’s me seeing through it years later. Here’s you not quite sure how to take me, but determined, discovering.

  Did you know I thought you were a bully when I first met you? Did you know you and she together made me jealous?

  Remember sitting there in my room? I remember telling you that I couldn’t: “I’ve spent too much time with you now,” I said, “you’re too much of a friend to me.” And you told me you felt the same.

  You came and sat by me on the bed and our fingers touched and warmed. There was relief there and disappointment and something else—a film playing in an empty cinema, passions lost to a sea of seats.

  I leaned in and kissed you.

  Friday night. Escaping the olds and cruising the burbs. You and me in your rusty white hatchback, in the backstreets, in the half-light, holding off the dawn.

  Full throttle through the night. D’you know what this baby can do? Push her to the limits. I’ll go all the way with you…

  And down by the sea and the spiky Pandanus tree, we drive. Watching the water and that orange glow to the north, beyond the mangroves.

  You take me past the park where they hold the Spring Parade, and the Sea Scouts’ den, and the house with the crazy cockleshell garden and gnomes through all the flower beds. You drive me out to the yacht club and down a secret road. It takes us right out along the harbor wall to the ships’ entrance.

  You pull up and hop out and the wind is strong here, beating the water into a black chop.

  “How do you know about this place?”

  “This is where all the guys from school take their girlfriends.” A smile crosses your face.

  “Oh, speaking from experience…”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” you say, laughing, “Hey, you know my track record on that one.”

  “So you’ve taken me to some make-out point. Should we be expecting the drive-in crew to turn up in their sloppy jalopies?”

  “Their what? No, I don’t think so. I’d say we have this place to ourselves tonight.”

  A light dances in the distance. It lights up the side of the car and holds in your eyes. Seconds later there’s a crunching of tires on gravel. Lights flicker, horns blast, and a procession of panel-beaten family vans and backfiring Falcons comes by. Engines are cut and headlights fade. Passengers tumble out like carnival clowns. A bottle makes the rounds.

  “Hey, look who it is,” someone calls, “We saw your car from the Esplanade.”

  “Hey, Toby. What’s going on, mate?” you say, crossing to an open car door.

  And all the girlfriends have dazzling eyes that dance when you aren’t looking; and the boys tussle and tap you, jostling and joking. You are one of them, and yet you aren’t, and for a moment I see how trapped you are.

  “I have to be home soon,” you tell me, when you break away for a moment. “Let me say good-bye and I’ll drop you back.”

  But the boys have stopped laughing. They look grim and gray-faced in the moonlight, and they begin talking.

  Exam block. Two weeks without school and no excuses for not seeing you. Two weeks of daytime movies, trips to the city and drives to the beach. When your mother leaves for work on Monday morning you call me and we plan a week of activities, with only minor breaks—for exams.

  “Get ready,” you say, “I’m coming to pick you up. We’ll go swimming at my place, then down to Wynnum for a fish and chip lunch. What do you say?”

  “So what does your mum do?” I say, as we’re driving down Tingal Road.

  “She’s a supply teacher. Used to be a math teacher, but now she just goes and fills in for other teachers when they’re sick.”

  “A math teacher? Yuck! I couldn’t do that. I’m failing math as it is.”

  “Oh, she hasn’t taught math since I was born. She only ever does supply. She used to come to our school all the time.”

  “Are you serious? Have you ever had her?”

  “No, but my brother has once.”

  “Oh, really? How was she?”

  “I think the words psycho bitch were used,” you say, grinning.

  Your house turns out to be on the other side of Wynnum completely. It’s a one-story brick affair in a cul-de-sac off Manly Road, near the strawberry farm.

  “Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour,” you say the moment we’re inside, and you drag me through each of the rooms, starting at the pristine “TV room” and ending at yours.

  I look through your CDs, your trophies, your books. You lie down on the bed and shut your eyes, but they’re open the moment I sit down next to you. You’re just watching me full in the face as I run my fingers down your side and across your waist.

  “Shit!” you say, jumping to your feet suddenly. “Mum’s back.”

  And you’re out in the living room in under a second. I wander out to find you, confused and a little amused by all your carrying on. But as I walk past the garage, I hear the ticking of a cooling car and I know that this means trouble. Big trouble.

  You’re standing near the door, just bracing yourself. You look over at me sheepishly and point out the couch.

  “What happened to your class?” you ask, the moment she enters.

  “Oh, you’re never gonna believe this. I got there and they didn’t need me. This is after they woke me up at—Oh! Hello…” she says, stopping in her tracks.

  You introduce me offhandedly and for a moment your mother just looks at me as if she’s trying to work out where I fit in. Then she returns to her story. “I don’t understand why they couldn’t have called and canceled. I mean, why they had to wait till I got there—don’t you have a BCT test to study for today?”

  “No, I had my last test on Tuesday, remember? I’m on holidays.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “We were just going for a swim.”

  She looks back at me. Her face is sun warmed, freckled, but the skin around her eyes is light. It makes her gaze seem more concentrated. I fidget on the couch.

  You open the screen door and I follow you out over the warm cement to the edge of the pool. You kick off your thongs and strip down to your board shorts. Your body is still a surprise to me. I try not to look. Not with your mother so close.

  You bend to the pool, test the water. I pull off my shirt and you’re looking up at me, smiling.

  “Hurry up then,” you say, splashing water up at me. You rock forward, tighten and dip, elegantly breaking the water, disappearing.

  I run and dive. The shock of cold water! Then bubbles….splashing. Splashes everywhere. Hands, water, and smiles everywhere. Then calm, panting…laughter… You, more beautiful than ever: half-covered, half-drowned, still smiling. Always smiling.

  And then that sudden frown that makes me turn.

  I can see her there too, watching us from the kitchen…making calculations….adding…deducting…

  When I turn to face you again, the pool is empty.

  I remember bobbing in the water alone and the sound of the pool gate shutting behind me as you left to look for your towel.

  Aisle 7. Canned goods, soups, sauces, and condiments.

  Woolies on a Wednesday. I’m hiding out by the tinned spaghetti. From here, there’s a perfect view of your register. I’m a discerning shopper, who always reads the labels—always with one eye on the laser lad in 12 ITEMS OR LESS.

  And here you are suddenly, swaggering up to me with that grin that I could take in for hours.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Why, yes, actually. I was having a spot of trouble finding…”

  And there we go flirting over tinned fruit…or candied popcorn…two-in-one shampoo…Shake ‘n’ Bake pancakes…two-minute noodles…

  “My parents are going away this weekend,” you say, “you should come and stay over.”

  “You serious?”

  “Yeah, come over Friday night, have a swim, spend the night. What do you say? I’ll pick you up from yours. Bring your togs— or don’t. No one’ll be home.”

  But when Friday came around there was someone home. Your brother.

  “Sorry,” you said, over the murmur of the running engine, “I forgot he’d be there. We could still go. He’ll probably go to a party anyway.”

  “Or host one.”

  “True.”

  You turned off the engine and looked over to where I should have been sitting, then you turned back to me and smiled:

  “I know where we can go.”

  How cold it was that night, by that windblown sea! We sat shoulder to shoulder on the hood of your car and tried to pick out the islands we knew.

  There Moreton, there Mud, and Fisherman’s, floodlit and green. Here Saint Helena, here Straddy, and tiny King.

  “Can you see those northern lights?” I said. “What can they be? Some flame-nosed dragon? The orange glow of some unfinished dream?”

  You scrambled down the rocks, to take a closer look. The waves thrashed and surged. Salt spray clung to the air. I could taste it on your lips when you came back to me.

  Eventually the wind forced us to retreat to the warmth of your car.

  That night was tidal, and you washed over me like a rising sea, filling my straits and sea creases, wearing away barriers like yielded sandcastles.

  You took me in you, washed and weathered me. There were depths and shallows. Unfathomed places.

  And when the waters had subsided, and we’d surfaced a little different but unharmed, you turned to watch that all-night sunset, that midnight glowing beyond the borders of all we knew.

  You let your head settle on mine. You let the wind blow with force enough to shake the moon from the sky. And you let me hold you as only I’d dreamt to, while we watched the black sea gray to blue…

  The sun made no concessions for the sleep-deprived. It scowled through the windshield, searched us out in the backseat, until you squinted and sat up.

  The tide was out. Around us, the sounds of popping mud and the measured tiptoeing of waders.

  “I’m not ready to go home yet,” I said.

  “Let’s just sit here awhile.”

  You pushed up, worked some sleep from your eyes, then wandered barefoot to the rocks to look out over the bay. No northern lights. No southern dark, no more. Just the coming of a bright day.

  “Come on,” you said, slipping back into the driver’s seat, “I’ll take you the long way home.”

  We drove past the harbor and the hill to the park with the big Bay Fig—children already deep in its dusty arms. You pulled into the little servo off the Esplanade, and while you filled the car I searched your glove box for clues. Evidence from a time before I knew you. Really knew you.

  Then I heard your voice at the pump. Bright and cleansed. It was the voice of another you. The voice I’d heard you use with customers, that school captain voice.

  “Man, I can’t go anywhere without being seen,” you said, dumping change into the ashtray.

  “Who was it?”

  “One of Mum’s netball friends.”

  I glanced up to the rearview mirror, but we’d already pulled out of the drive.

  “Did she see me?”

  “I dunno,” you said, and you smiled at me as though it didn’t matter either way.

  We drove in silence through the backstreets, passed the community center and the hospital. Then, when we reached the top of Manly Road, you leaned over and shut the glove box.

  When we made it back to my street you took the corner a bit fast, pulled the handbrake on a bit hard, but the car still creaked and complained when I hopped out.

  You opened your door and stepped onto the road. Your hair was messed and your eyes small and craving sleep.

  “All right,” you said, “good nigh—” and your voice slid into a hollow yawn.

  You slumped over the roof of the car and the door rocked back, pulling you in close.

  “Good night. Good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow…” I called.

  You mumbled something dark, softened against the warm metal of the roof. Your fingers danced on without you, pulled back, pincers raised, like a menaced mud crab.

  “By and by I go…” I called again.

  “Mmm…buh-bye…” you murmured. A smile twinkled on your lips.

  I left you standing there, cradled in the rusty arms of your car, on the border of sleep and waking. I was worried you might stay there all morning, biscuit-baking on the metal roof. You were still there when I reached the top of the hill.

  “Where were you?” my mother asked as I made it through the front door. “We were worried. We nearly called the police.”

  I told her we’d gone to your place and I’d fallen asleep watching TV on your couch. She didn’t buy it, but I didn’t care, ’cause I’d felt the warmth of you against me in the first chill of day.

  It seemed normal to want this. To want you—fully and freely, without hindrance or heartache. Mine forever and always, uncompromising…uncompromised.

  For weeks after, my parents caged me with their questions. There was never a good enough lie to escape at nights.

  During the school day, I thought only of you, and in the afternoons I rode the two extra stops on the train just so I could wander past your work. I became one of those teenagers that loiter in supermarket car parks, but I didn’t sit smoking on any upturned milk crates. My over-the-counter addiction was far greater than any store-bought drug.

  “When can I see you?” I said as I passed through your register one afternoon.

  “I dunno… My parents are being really hard on me at the moment, say I need to knuckle down for my final exams.”

  “Yeah, I know. Same.”

  “Four ninety,” you said, holding out your hand.

  “I want to talk longer. I miss you.”

  “You need to buy more then,” you said, grinning.

  Our hands touched as I passed over the money.

  “Call me,” you said. “When I can escape, I’ll come. You know I will.”

  But I couldn’t escape now. Not even to make that call. I was distracted and it showed. Like any good addiction, the lack of you triggered symptoms of withdrawal. Or was that simply the burden of the secret?

  One night when my parents pestered me about homework and assignments and the importance of not slackening off so close to the end, I exploded, yelling, “You wouldn’t know what I did anyway!”

  Mum looked at her plate. Dad threw up his hands as if to say, I don’t know what to do with you anymore.

  I bit my lip, excused myself from the table, went and did whatever I’d just said I’d done. Lied about.

  I realized what I’d done and it scared me. I was laying down a challenge to them, urging them on, saying: Go on, find out. See if I care.

  Not long after, my mother trapped me over a cup of coffee and asked me that question I didn’t know how to answer.

  “What did she say?” you asked me, when you called me later that night.

  “She was okay… Said she’d suspected for a while.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He went away by himself for a while… Just sat outside and watched the water.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Your voice was earnest. You wanted reassurance. I wasn’t sure I could give it to you. I pressed the phone so hard to my ear that for a moment I thought I heard the ocean.

  “I love you.”

  It was the most comforting thing I could say. My ear pressed to that shell, those captured waves breaking at the other end of the line.

  “I love you too.”

  By the Bowls Club, where the wind rustles the palm leaves like so many birds taking flight, I found you waiting.

  The moon so full there and the coast so clear—stretching before us like the night itself, so wide and so long.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” I said.

  You walked straight into my arms and fell against my chest. And then, when you pulled free, I saw the expression on your face.

  “My parents know,” you said. “Mum went through my drawers. She found your books and your letters. My diary. They found everything. They know everything.”

  “What do we do?”

  “I dunno. I didn’t know what to do. She caught me at the door on my way in from work. She just started saying all these things. About you. About us, together. She wouldn’t stop. Just kept going and going with all this stuff, till I thought I was gonna hit her.”

  I leaned in against you, put my arm around you for comfort, but you stayed tense, alert. I could feel you checking over my shoulder, scanning the horizon. And that’s when you slipped— we both slipped. Fell into the deep end of some great dark pool. No life vests. Just oceans of guilt. Wave upon wave, crashing in all around us. And questions, so many questions… Questions enough to drown in.

  What have we entered into? Almost without knowing. What risks are we running now? Were we better as we were? Just you and just me. No explanations. No declarations. We’ve made this love dangerous, by sharing it, haven’t we?

 

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