Calypso Summer (9 page)

‘Where do you live?' Shae asked.

‘Not far from Henley Beach.'

‘Your own house?'

‘No, a flat, I live with my cousin Run.'

‘Is he our cousin too?' Brea asked.

‘Yeah, he's my mum's sister's son.'

‘How old are you?'

‘I'm twenty.'

‘Do you have a girlfriend?' Shae asked.

‘Alright, that's enough,' Bruce said before I could answer the question. ‘If you're going to ask Calypso so many questions he can do the same. Would you like being asked questions about your boyfriends?' Shae and Brea both sat back into their seats smirking at each other.

‘Gee you girls are nosey,' Shanti said. And then there was silence.

Bruce talked with me about Australian Rules Football which bored me to death because I hadn't been interested in footy since I was a kid. Mum had taken me out to play footy but more often than not I found myself sitting on the bench. She reckons it was because Dad wasn't around to flex some muscle and make sure I
was included in the team. When I went out to play soccer though, the club administrators and coaches, Italian and Greek men, really tried to help me and Run fit in.

Bruce told me about his work at the Aboriginal Health Centre in the city which was interesting enough but my ears really pricked up when he asked me if I like fishing.

‘Yeah mahn, love it!' I told him.

‘Where you go fishin'?'

‘Mangroves around Torrens Island … mostly just down Henley Beach or Semaphore jetty.'

‘You catch much or what bruz?'

‘Whiting, gar, sometimes sharks.'

‘Sharks?' Shae asked in surprise.

‘Yeah but only 'bout this long,' I explained, holding my hands about a metre apart. I turned back to Bruce to finish answering his question. ‘The best thing is catching a feed of crabs when they're running.'

‘They're just starting to run in Adelaide now, hey?'

‘Yeah I know. That's what I was going to do this weekend, go crabbing. So much for a Rasta-looking fella not liking a feed of crabs.'

‘Well what you reckon,' Bruce said turning back to face his girls, ‘should Calypso come crabbing with us next weekend or what?'

‘Next weekend?'

‘Yeah, just around home there, biggest mobs of 'em. So what you reckon … you want to come or what?'

‘Yeah, course man … of course,' I said with a smile spreading across my face.

When we were close to my suburb Bruce asked, ‘Does Aunty Audrey live nearby?'

‘Yeah mahn. You know my mum?'

‘I remember her from when I was a little kid, and your sister too. It's a pity we haven't seen them in so long.'

‘Mum would visit your mum tomorrow if she had a car but she hasn't had a car since Dad died,' I told Bruce, in case he thought, like Uncle Ray, that Mum hadn't visited because of some bad blood.

‘Well why don't she come back home with us next week cuz?'

‘True, you'd take her too?'

‘Course bruz.'

‘But there's not enough room,' I said turning to look at Shanti, Shae and Brea sitting in the back of the car.

‘No, no that's okay, I'll stay home. I like cooking but not the fishing,' Shanti told me.

‘Deadly, I'll ask her and let you know. What's your phone number?'

Shanti reached for a scrap of paper from her handbag, wrote down their number and passed it to me just as we arrived at my cream-coloured block of flats. After I thanked Bruce and the mob for the ride, I shot upstairs to call Mum and see if she wanted to come to Aunty Janet's with me.

12

I remember one day when we were playing soccer, Run was being slack and our coach tried to rev him up a bit. ‘Run,' he yelled, spitting through his teeth, ‘what do you think you're doing son, playing netball or what? What's wrong with you boy, were you out on the piss last night or what?'

Run wasn't drinking the night before the game, not because he was only fourteen but just because he wasn't. So he just answered, ‘Nah.'

‘Well Run,' said the coach, ‘we're two goals down and we need you at your best. Whatever gets you going mate, think of it now because we need to bloody win.'

In the second half Run scored two goals and assisted another two. He made it look easy, cruising around everywhere like he was possessed. After the game the coach came up to Run in the change rooms, patted him on the back and asked, ‘Run, what got you going?' Run shrugged his shoulders and then the coach said, ‘Come on son, don't be shy, tell me what it was.'

Run looked at the coach and said, ‘Stealing car radios.' Then he looked at me and cracked up. Our coach didn't ever ask Run any more questions but I needed to ask about the pile of cash on my kitchen table.

A couple of days after visiting Aunty Janet I got home from work and there was Run and Robbie sitting at my kitchen table with a pile of cash in front of them. I wondered what type of trouble Run had been up to, to get all of that. Run gained his nickname by getting into sticky situations and running away from them, like jumping people's fences to steal ganja. His real name
is Reginald, but no one calls him that. They don't even call him Reg or Reggie, just Run. And I reckon he was so fast on the soccer pitch because he was always running away from shit.

‘What've you two been up too?'

‘What, it's alright for you to have all the bunda but not for us to have bunda too,' Run replied full of cheek.

‘I go to work to earn my money, what did you do? Break into the Chinese shop or someone's home?'

‘We wouldn't rob the Chinese takeaway shop,' said Robbie. ‘They always give us free spring rolls whenever we order something. We stole booze from a footy club down south and sold it. You know I wouldn't steal from honest people, only arseholes.'

‘Why the footy club mob?' I couldn't help ask.

‘They got no blackfellas playing for them.'

Robbie said, ‘They must be racists if they haven't got any blackfellas playing for them. Everyone knows blackfellas are the deadliest footballers.'

‘We went there last night and stole all their booze,' Run said.

‘Used my cousin's wheels to get away, it was a real rush,' Robbie bragged before putting his feet up on one of the kitchen chairs and smiling at Run.

‘Calypso, we're doing this the smart way you know. We're not ripping off banks or places with security cameras or anything like that,' Run said like he'd done these things before and as if it would make me feel better or something. ‘We're just going to take a little from here and there, mostly from the golf clubs, and the bowling clubs and the cricket clubs.'

I just wanted to yell at Run but I had to ask, ‘Why bowling clubs and that?'

‘Well how many blackfellas you know that play lawn bowls?' Robbie asked.

‘Don't worry about it Calypso. We'll just take a bit of their booze, maybe some cartons of cigarettes and sell it to the old drinkers at the park, like we did today,' Run told me.

I thought about Run and Robbie walking up to Aboriginal drinkers, flashing their stolen bottles of booze and packets of cigarettes around the place and then I started losing it.

‘Why the fuck are you selling this shit to our own mob?'

‘They're going to keep charging up anyway. Better they drink the top-shelf stuff than cheap shit that rots their guts,' Robbie reckoned, as he crossed his legs and folded his hands behind his head.

‘I don't care who you robbed, it's bullshit. What would Mum think if she knew what you were up to?'

I could feel my face all hot and my pulse beating on my forehead and then Run picked up the cash and said, ‘Come on cuz, here's my rent money, some of it anyway. I thought you'd be happy.'

I was shaking, hey. ‘Look,' I said, ‘Gary wants me to help out with this Aboriginal plant medicine thing. This is the last time I say it, you can all come out bush with me if you want and I'll give you most of the cash we make.'

Run didn't even think about what I said for a second. He just looked at me with this stupid look on his scarred face. ‘Nah Calypso, I'll do my thing and you do yours.'

‘All right then,' I said, reaching to the middle of the table and grabbing a lighter in one hand and some cash in the other. I
quickly struck the lighter beneath the ten, twenty and fifty dollar notes.

‘Nah Calypso, don't be a fuckhead,' Run said slinking back into his seat.

‘Whaaa, he fuckin' lost it bruz,' said Robbie taking his feet down off the chair.

‘Run, we used to talk about burning down Babylon and all that shit, we was stealing from the caravan park, smoking up and whatever but that was all kid shit. What you gunna do, keep breaking into places? You get caught … you're fucked. I don't want this bunda here,' I said moving the flame closer to the cash. ‘You make money, you make it without ripping people off, without fucking people over, without getting into trouble,' I said, letting the notes start to singe before I threw them on the table. Robbie was all over the notes like a seagull on a chip, slapping the flames.

Run's freaky green eyes were locked on mine when I walked to my room. For once I thought he was listening to me. I heard the front door slam a few seconds later and then silence apart from the sound of my own heartbeat.

°°°

No surprise I was still pretty pissed off the next morning. As I walked toward Mystic Dolphin, I could see Gary had opened the shop doors, put the pot plants out front and swept the footpath, the jobs that I usually did. When I entered the store Gary was whistling his guts out and getting boxes from the storeroom to stock the shelves.

‘Good morning,' Gary said enthusiastically, ‘you have a good night, mate?'

‘Yeah thanks Gary,' I said as I took a box from him and set it down. ‘What's got you in such a good mood?' I asked.

Gary didn't answer, he just shrugged his shoulders. Whatever it was I was glad because he was taking care of business that day. It had been pretty quiet in the morning but by midmorning a steady stream of women started coming into the store. They buzzed around the shop like flies, grabbing a whole lot of things like balms, insect repellent, grains and then they went flat out to collect the packets of corn concentrate in the middle of the store. I cracked up and shook my head at Gary when I realised what was going on. Gary winked back at me, as if to say, ‘I told you so.'

All them women were acting like teenagers buying condoms for the first time, all shame. I stood at the counter serving customers as Gary helped them out. ‘Ask 'em where they heard about the store,' Gary whispered when he had a free second. And so I did and all them said, ‘Steph at Cleopatra's Mirror.' Wasn't too hard to tell with their trendy new haircuts.

When things went a little bit quiet Gary pulled a fifty dollar note from the register and said, ‘Mate, can you do me a favour?'

‘Yes mahn.'

‘Can you go down the road to the deli … no, no, go next door to the café, Estia's, and order a takeaway coffee … and a little slice of cake, banana cake or something nice. Make the coffee a um … a flat white … yeah, a flat white … Take the coffee to Steph at the hairdresser's, I think it's just down past the laundrette, near the library … and let her know it is compliments of me. Oh, and get yourself something too mate.'

I was pleased to get out of the shop and take a bit of a break from things.

I ordered a flat white and a slice of carrot cake with icing. I didn't know if Steph took sugar so I grabbed two sugar sachets and got myself a strawberry Cornetto ice-cream. I took my time getting to Cleopatra's Mirror but didn't open my ice-cream in case Steph wanted a yarn.

When I pushed open the door of the hairdresser's Steph was taking money from a customer but as soon as she was finished she said a big hello to me.

‘Hello,' I said, ‘I've just come to bring you this … compliments of Gary.'

‘Oh thank you so much. Oh, coffee … beautiful, and what's this? Carrot cake?'

I didn't answer Steph, I just stood there watching this babe cutting a girl's hair. I couldn't help but notice her with scissors in her hand as she circled around the girl, checking the lengths of hair that she had just trimmed. I knew that she had noticed me too. I was mesmerised, mahn. She was fit with short dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, olive skin and gem-like green eyes. I couldn't concentrate on what Steph was saying but I remembered to ask, ‘So how are dem products working?' just so that I could hang out in her shop for a bit longer without looking like a fool.

‘Oh dear,' she giggled, ‘please tell Gary that my husband and I owe him a huge favour.'

‘That's good Steph, that's good Steph.'

‘What's your name again love?' she asked.

‘Calypso,' I replied loud and clear, hoping that the girl would catch it too but she didn't look up at me or anything. So I said, ‘I almost forgot, this is for the young woman,' nodding in the direction of Steph's beautiful employee.

‘Clare,' Steph said, ‘this is Calypso, he brought you an ice-cream.'

Clare, with scissors in hand, stood straight and gave me a big smile. ‘Thank you,' she said, before returning to her work.

Bob Marley used to give women he liked some fruit, usually a mango but sometimes an apple, or a pear or an orange. I hoped that the ice-cream would leave a good impression on Clare.

‘How's business?' Steph asked.

‘Couldn't be better,' I said with a huge smile.

‘Good, because I've been telling everyone about your shop.'

With Clare sending me crazy, I was starting to feel nervous. I guessed that a woman who cut people's hair for a living would find my natty dreads disgusting. Lots of people did, especially Mum when I first started letting them clump. So I quickly said goodbye to Steph and walked out of the shop.