STID: Whose Cross?

I storm away from the bungalow and head towards the beach. As I pass the reception building, which is really more like a prefab fibreglass shed with a fancy facade, the girl I’d glimpsed earlier at the reception desk steps outside and shouts at me, “Darryl, Nick wants you up at the 30s.” I stop and look at her in bewilderment. I’m about to ask what she’s on about when a voice behind me yells, “Yeah, no worries.” Darryl is bent down securing something in the back tray of a beat up navy-blue Hilux and he hasn’t looked up the girl who is now retreating to the air conditioned comfort of her office. As she pulls the door open, and is visible in silhouette against the setting sun reflecting off the glass, I have a flash of recognition. I know her from somewhere. I’m sure of it. I muse on this as I push past the last of the straggly ocean grass and walk out onto the beach.

.

The beach is a flat arc of white framed between a black shock of seaweed and the vermilion ocean, the sun having just set on the other side of the point. I head to the right, away from the flurry of activity down near the slab of concrete that functions as the boat ramp. People cluster and shout to each other as they try and get their boats onto trailers before the light gives out. I have no idea where they’re trying to get to. Kalbarri maybe, but even that seems too far at this time of night.

“Dan, hey, wait.” T has followed me out. Runs to catch up with me. When she is stressed her voice takes on a particular quality that makes it instantly recognisable. The “lahs” and vestigial Malay that slip into her everyday conversation are more chaotic now; violently repressed or heavily emphasised. At the moment she seems to be pushing it under. I stop and wait for her to catch up. Watch as another boat is hauled out of the water and the requisite amount of mutual congratulation and back slapping goes on. I think about the bungalow. About Katy. About us. I don’t want to talk about this now and, surprisingly, it appears that she doesn’t either. We walk along the beach until it’s completely dark and neither of us speak.

..

The next day their whole family goes on a tour to watch whale sharks. I cannot afford this, so I opt to stay and hold the fort. T’s dad says he’ll pay for me and whips out his wallet. I thank him for his offer but insist that, really, I’d be fine. He goes and checks anyway, but the boat is full. He sounds apologetic when he tells me this and this makes me feel a little guilty for being pleased. Half an hour later and I’m alone in the bungalow. I think the fridge has stopped. It’s quiet in here.

I see Darryl cruise past in the Hilux and decide it’s time to get the fuck out.

I walk for an hour until I’m away from jetties, boats and German tourists. Pull off my shirt and dive into the ocean. Coral Bay is the only place I’ve been where the reef is directly off the beach. As soon as you’re in the water you’re floating above coral, rays and myriad species of brightly coloured fish. I lazily stroke away from the shore until my fingers aren’t scraping the bottom with every pull, then really lean into it. Close my eyes and concentrate on form. There’s nothing to run into out here. I don’t stop until I’m exhausted and the beach is a tiny line of white far behind me. It’s still warm out here, and very calm, but I stopped being able to see the floor about twenty minutes ago.

It occurs to me that the girl that works in reception here is called Pippa. She and I shared a tute together at Uni and although we were never close, we were social enough. I’m convinced she and I once bunked out of a lecture early and went straight to the tav to hit up a before noon eight dollar jug. The smell of morning cigarettes and taste of cheap beer. Paper cup lattes on the side. I can’t remember what we talked about.

What is she doing working reception in a tiny tourist town two thousand kilometres from Perth?

...

This is my last night. Later I’ll walk out to the scrappy T junction outside of town and wait for the bus that will drive me for seventeen hours back to Perth but for now Katy hovers. Ad makes the same jokes he’s made four times before. T fidgets. The fridge has stopped working again. We bust out of the bungalow and run along the deserted beach in the moonlight. It feels like we are the only people for thousands of kilometres.

We have sex in the dunes overlooking the ocean and it’s unreasonably good. Much better than it should be. Sand and surf are romanticised. Talked up. They’ve become an idea. A concept of something you do to rebel. Something you do to pretend you’re being spontaneous. I wonder if we’re rebelling. It doesn’t feel like it.

Sometimes, given the fragmented, fractured, transcontinental nature of this relationship it surprises me how quickly we slip straight back into the groove. How easy it is when it’s just us, without the expectations or the pressure that travelling with others brings. I think about how we act completely different in public. I wonder if this should bother me. I think too much.

Afterwards, we lie and watch the moon make patterns in the water of the bay. It’s cool, but not uncomfortably so. Later, as the bus waits and the driver leans against the door and lights a ciggie, we’ll hug and say goodbye but it won’t matter because this, now, is when we’re really doing it.

....

The bus takes forever. I sit in a daze as the bogans beside me discuss the best way to get plastered for twenty bucks. I forget what the consensus was, too busy tracing the horizon and trying not to think. In Geraldton I stand in a toilet for 10 minutes just so I don’t have to interact with anyone. Sick of the smell of sweat and stale cigarette smoke. Sick of the laboured jokes I’m sure the bus driver tells every time he drives this route. Sick of people.

We pull into East Perth and it’s drizzling. The train station is squat, utilitarian and horrible. From the city, the Bankwest logo shines through the clouds, a hazy blue nimbus in a sea of grey, wet concrete. Perth feels like a big city again.

It’s only two days later, when I glace from the window of my plane as we bank slowly to the right and the flat brown emptiness is clearly visible past the scarp, that I realise that we are still very much an isolated country town.

When I wearily push open the door to my apartment in Japan there is a postcard lying in the genkan waiting for me. It simply says, “the dunes were beautiful.”

.....

To be continued in Part 6: The Wall
Previously: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Posted in Mwah on Tuesday February 28, 2006.