The Windy Season (18 page)

We ride hard out through the sand country. Just the President and me. Ride all day until the sun is low enough. In the dark we hear a plane. Maybe more than one. Later a helicopter. All night I listen to the sky and to the President whimpering in his sleep and try to get my head around all this business. The gunfire and the dead generals and the President standing over that woman.

The windy season

BY NINE O'CLOCK ON NEW YEAR'S EVE
the tavern was full and hot and loud and there was mayhem at the bar. Roo Dog had tried to piss in someone's handbag. Through the crowd, from the tavern restaurant, Paul witnessed the entire ghoulish event. There was Roo Dog, perched on his toes. Skeletal arms crooked into his jeans. And the other deckies, like statues behind him, frozen in anticipation. Faces green under the lights of the bar. When the girl shrieked, the pack imploded, howling and screeching, breathless in their delight. Roo Dog had fired short, managing only to urinate on the girl's white dress and down the back of her legs. The girl spun around and saw the large tumbling bodies and purple necks, the frenzied laughter. Her pretty face creased in horror and confusion. She began to cry. Paul watched her push through the crowd, away from the bar. Roo Dog was buckled in amusement, overwhelmed, his spidery hands on his knees.

Fucking crazies, Michael yelled to Paul above the noise. Shivani lay curled up on his lap, eyes closed. Despite the heat, she was wearing one of those furry hoods that made her look like a sleeping Eskimo. An Eskimo in a miniskirt.

Nut jobs, all of them, the German said again, tugging a pack of cigarettes from his shorts pocket.

Paul nodded in reply, quietened by what he had just seen. The helpless look on the girl's face. Roo Dog's demented joy. The strange theatre of it all. He sculled the last of his beer.

All these city girls, Michael declared, shaking his head, the boys cannot handle it. They lose their minds.

From the slight terracing of the tavern's restaurant they had a good view of the crowded front bar. Even in the slam of bodies everyone was aware of the deckhands; the menace in their movement and the violence in their laughter. People skirted warily around them, fashioning any available distance in the same way baitfish do around larger predators, the crowd contracting as one away from each hazard.

Shivani stirred, lifting her head from Michael's shoulder for just a moment before closing her eyes again.

She alright? Paul asked.

She is fine, said the German, raising one of her limp hands with his. She is the dreamer. Always sleeps when she is stoned. Probably a good thing, though. Going to get fucking wild in here soon.

Through the windows Paul could see more bodies out on the square of grass at the crest of the dunes that they called the beer garden, t-shirts and summer dresses rippling in the sea breeze. There must have been several hundred people at the tavern. He couldn't believe the numbers he had seen that day in town. At lunchtime there were queues at the bakery that went
out the door. The caravan park was full. The rivermouth might as well have been a beach in the city for all the people down there; big cackling groups, lolling about on beach towels, getting drunk and sunburnt.

Is it always like this? Paul asked.

Shivani says every New Year's it is big. People just come. I do not understand. Always lots of people, she says. And always some shit happens.

Like what?

Oh God, Michael said, covering his eyes with his hands. Like, last year, he said, his smile gone. Shivani said that last year there was this one girl. She came up from the city. Prettiest thing in the whole place. All those boys losing the plot, watching her dancing and stuff. She goes off in the dunes with some backpacker. American, I think. Surfer. Anyway, of course the boys followed them up there. Fucking lunatics. They scared the surfer dude off. Roo Dog was swinging a star picket around.

What about the girl?

Jesus, Michael muttered. Those boys were walking up and down that dune like ants, so I've heard.

You're not serious? Why aren't they in prison?

I do not think the girl reported it. And the American just got the hell out, apparently. Went east.

That is so fucked, Paul muttered, almost to himself.

Yeah, the German nodded. It is.

Paul watched Anvil, all red eyes and leering smile, careening through the crowd like a white shark.

Michael gently squeezed Shivani's nose. The sleeping girl didn't move.

I'd better get her home, Michael said with a sigh. One more drink, maybe. You?

Paul shrugged. They had been at the table since five o'clock. He was as drunk as he had ever been.

I shall get us another jug. Mind sleeping beauty, would you?

Michael levered her from the arm of his chair onto Paul and lurched off towards the bar. Shivani collapsed against him, out of it. She smelt of marijuana and perfume. Paul could feel the heat of her small body, her bare legs resting heavy on his lap. A sleepy finger clawed at his chest. Her breath was cool on his neck. He was instantly hard. Paul looked out across the tavern and saw Michael in the roll of the crowd. Under the green glow of the lights the place could have been underwater. The room shimmered. Everything seemed slowed down, almost graceful, as though being pulled by a tide. Shivani moaned, shifting a little, turning her head so her mouth was now on the skin of his collarbone. He had never had anyone on him like this, never taken a girl's weight on his body before.

You like the look of her, yeah? Michael said, suddenly beside the table, the jug in one hand.

What? Paul stammered, trying to sit up in the chair. Shivani roused, looking up for a moment.

That girl, the bar chick, he said, sitting down.

Paul eased back into his seat. Kasia, he said.

Kasia, Michael replied, clicking his fingers like an old man. What do you think?

She's pretty, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, Michael mused, raising his eyebrows. Could certainly do worse in Stark. That is for sure.

Shivani woke. She sat up on the arm of Paul's chair and glanced at him; a dazed, puzzled look. She pulled the hood back from her head and yawned.

Michael, take me home, she whimpered. Why is it so loud?

Come on, dreamer, Michael said. He stood and pulled Shivani up from the chair. Get in my bed.

Michael finished the rest of his schooner and put it down on the table. You coming back now? he asked.

Paul shook his head.

You are so wasted, man. The German grinned. See you in the morning, yeah?

Out in the beer garden the wind blew strong. Paul couldn't hear the sea but he could feel it, its warm salty breath already in his clothes and stiffening his hair. A covers band sweated under the stage lights. The huge crowd was packed hard, occupying a rectangle of lawn no bigger than half a tennis court. Paul stood as close to the stage as he could get, each step nearer like going deeper underwater, the pressure around him greater. A lead guitar cried out, filling the air like an alarm. A soaring distressed melody. Paul closed his eyes and felt the weight of the crowd pressing in on his body, a big, hot current, drawing him back and forth, threatening to consume him. He laughed, giddy from the force at his back and on his limbs, the danger of it. He listened to the fevered singing of the crowd around him.

Then he noticed the singing quieten. The band up front continued but Paul felt the change in the bodies around him, a ripple of unease spilling from somewhere metres behind. The crowd tightened, stepping awkwardly into each other like spooked cattle. He heard the intensifying sounds of anger and desperate voices. The people at his back scattered and suddenly there were shouts and wide eyes, faces wild as though possessed. Paul heard the slapping thud of flesh into flesh and saw someone on the ground. It was one of the bartenders, his long blond hair sprayed over the lawn like a halo, young face
grimacing in fear. There was a large cut above one eye. Anvil circled over him, hysterical, ordering the boy to stand up. Then, right in front of Paul, no more than two metres away, there was a girl, screaming, trying to pull her arm free from the long bony fingers around her wrist. Another gangly hand crawled at the front of her skirt and cupped between her legs. Paul saw Roo Dog's vacant eyes and joyless smile, like a zombie in the gloom away from the lights of the stage. The girl threw her head back, her eyes pleading, her wrist still in the man's grip. Kasia.

Paul felt himself lunge forward, a stumbling run, falling into Roo Dog's ribs. He heard the hollow knock of a chin against the back of his head and when they hit the ground the deckhand gave a muted grunt and went slack underneath him. Paul rolled off and scrambled to his feet. It was then that he felt the sudden heaviness on his jaw. Everything went noiseless and dark and indistinct, as though someone had just knocked him from the beer garden out deep into the night ocean. All he could hear was Anvil, the screams faint in his ears. Paul turned away from the voice, still on his feet, and saw the blank glow of faces. There was the taste of blood in his mouth. He waited for the next hit. He closed his eyes, resigned to it. Then someone grabbed his forearm. He was being pulled away from the stage, away from Anvil, back through the writhing wall of people. He could only just make her out. The black singlet. Her light brown hair bouncing in front of him. The girl weaved and pushed and ducked through the boil of bodies, all sweat and skin and open mouths. She held his arm firm, leading him. They stepped over discarded cans and plastic beer cups. The grass was slippery under his thongs, his toes sticky. Kasia began to run and he staggered with her. It felt as though he was being drawn through a portal, the beer garden a blur. They ran to where the crowd thinned and where
the tavern yard turned to bush. There were two others with them now, another girl and the long-haired guy he had seen on the ground. Blood was streaming from his brow. The four of them sped through the dark, down a thin sandy path. Dune scrub danced at Paul's feet. He heard the girls' shallow breaths and nervous laughter. The sea breeze in his ears. Music far behind him.

Paul woke to the tray of the utility shuddering against his back and the drone of bitumen passing below. Above him the sky was so bright with stars it was almost unreal, and with the warm wind tearing over the tray and through his hair he imagined for a moment he was strapped to the belly of a spaceship, looking down on the universe. The brief vertigo made his heart beat a little harder and he smiled at this. He turned and saw Kasia sitting next to him, leaning back on her hands and looking up, her hair whipping forward over her face in the breeze. She was older than him. He could tell by the way she sat there, limbs relaxed, composed. Her face calm. Serene.

The ute slowed and Paul felt the suspension lurch as the vehicle clambered onto a rougher, looser surface. The tyres scratched for grip. The tray rumbled. He could smell dust in his nostrils. He propped himself up on his elbows and watched the dark clouds trailing behind. Low walls of bush lined the wide gravel track. The vehicle slowed again and this time it stopped, the engine cut. The ute ticked and whirred as life left it. Paul could hear the crash of surf. Kasia turned to him and saw he was awake. She smiled.

He followed them down the short sandy path that led to the bluff, listening as the others talked. The blond guy was now
shirtless, holding his scrunched-up t-shirt to the cut above his eye. His name was Matthew. He had a British accent. Paul couldn't tell where the other girl was from but they called her Fran. She carried a plastic bag full of bottles that clinked and chimed on the walk down to the shore. From the path they could see over the long sweep of the point. Paul watched the white trains of water, thundering down the cape. The moon cast a pale slick over the sea. The tolling of breaking waves was loud in the dark around them. He couldn't tell if the breeze had backed off or whether the bluff sheltered them from it, but the air was still and warm. They walked to where the headland gave way to the bay and where the water subdued, protected by a furrow in the reef like a shielding arm. Matthew continued up the rocky point, the t-shirt still to his forehead, while the girls put down their things. Paul sat near them and watched as they both pulled their work singlets off over their heads and dropped them to the ground. And then, breathless, as they unclipped their bras. The girls joked nervously about the black water that waited for them. Their skin glowed, luminous against the dark rock. Paul couldn't believe what he was seeing. He almost said something about the danger, about him being a good swimmer but being too drunk to help if they got into trouble. But the words didn't come out. Fran shucked off her jeans and Kasia unbuttoned her khaki skirt and the two of them stepped down towards the water, two small figures in the shadow of the bluff. Soon they had dipped down from the rocks, out of view.