Still Waving

By Laurene Kelly

Slowly but surely, protagonist Julie is putting her life back together after the tragedy that destroyed her family. Her passion for surfing has become a key part in her recovery, as have the friends she’s made in her new town. But with the advent of the summer holidays, Julie is torn between enjoying a summer unburdened by family drama and returning to the family farm with her brother, Toby, where she will inevitably reopen her emotional wounds. Memories of her father’s court case the previous year are still fresh in Julie’s mind, as is the letter he gave her that until this summer she has not had the courage to open.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spinifex Press
• Release date: Sep 28, 2005
• ISBN: 9781742194714

Book preview

Bessie

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’d like to thank Belinda Morris for her careful editing, along with Maralann Damiano and Susan Hawthorne at Spinifex for believing in me. Thanks also to Wendy Dreadlocks for the title, Eliza for reading, and Saji, Michele and Rob for their ongoing support.

CHAPTER 1

Monday Afternoon

Small waves lap my surfboard. Lying back, I occasionally paddle so I don’t end up floating to New Zealand. I shield my eyes from the glaring sun and lick salty sea drops from my lips. Squinting up, I stare at the cloudless blue sky. Life, what a joy you are. Where’d that come from? Was it a line from some poem I’d learnt in school? How weird for me to use the word joy. I scratched my head. I mean, who uses that word these days?

Sitting up, I paddled around to face south. The afternoon sun shone golden on the sandstone cliffs. The contrast of colour against a stark blue sky took my breath away. I made my hands into a camera, put them to my eye and pretended to snap away. New images were created by constant variations of shadows on the cliff face. I snapped silhouettes of people walking and playing along the cliff track. I must have taken a million photos because my arms began to ache. I sat back, with my face to the sun.

The onshore breeze continued to chop up the waves. I turned my board around to face the promenade. Legs astride, I framed scenes of the street and buildings that made up Bondi. It didn’t have the stark contrasts of light and colour of the cliff, so I only snapped a couple of shots. The beach wasn’t very crowded. Scatterings of people stretched along its length and breadth. A few stood or swam in the water.

I wondered if stinging bluebottles were milling about in the sea, waiting to attack. They are also known as Portuguese man-of-war, because their formation of attack and protection reminded people of the Portuguese Armada at the height of its power, more than five hundred years ago. The first time I was stung, I got a massive shock. I was mucking about in the sea with my brother Toby, when I felt intense pain in my legs. It was so bad. I didn’t have a clue what’d happened. Toby was stung at the same time. We screamed in agony, raced out of the water and jumped up and down on the sand, swearing and crying. There were long blue tentacles stuck to our legs. Some St John’s ambulance people who guard the beach came and rubbed vinegar on our legs. I’m not impressed with those feral little beasties. I keep my legs on the board, just in case there are any lurking.

I gaze into the water and splash around. No blue feral that I can detect. I lay down, dangle my hands and stared into the motionless sky. The slight roll of the waves made my eyes close. I felt so good. My life’s my own out here on my surfboard, I feel like the true me, strong, confident, ambitious and happy. I spend most of the time, that is when I’m not at school or asleep, on the ocean. Even when there are no waves, I like just laying on my board, bobbing about.

I thought about the biggest year from hell in my life, which came from my last year of hell, which came after the previous year from hell. My father murdered my mum, my youngest brother Jonathon, my only sister Jennifer and my dog Jesse. I was fourteen, my brother Toby was twelve. I still can’t believe it. Every day, I think about it. I wonder if that’s going to happen for the rest of my life.

The court case was late last year. I can’t say I forget about my life with my Mum and Dad, but I hate remembering any of it. I was also taught very strongly, not to tell anybody anything about our family. It was hard to break the loyalty to Mum about keeping silent. In the courtroom, when the truth was too horrible to listen to, I tuned out and imagined myself surfing.

It’s so hard for me to talk about. I’m trying to figure it all out, but so much doesn’t make sense. I get headaches trying to answer unanswerable questions. Dad was found guilty by the jury, but in a psycho kind of way. I stared into the water, searching the ripples and spirals, hoping they would reveal some obscure truth.

I thought about my dog, Jesse. I loved her nearly the best in my family. Jesse was so smart. My father never liked her and treated her badly. Jesse was terrified of him. It makes me cry to think about how the poor dog tried to obey his irrational and often drunken commands. I wonder if Jesse had tried to alert Mum that Dad was going to murder her. Did she bark a warning? I’m sure she did.

In the court I had to answer lots of questions. All these strangers stared at me, listening to every gruesome detail of my family’s disintegration. The judge gave the impression that she’d heard it all before. When the jury gasped or gave each other fleeting glances, the judge would give them a very stern look over the top of her glasses.

When I had to answer a question, sometimes just a pip squeak would whisper out. The judge was kind and would give me breaks and drinks of water. It replaced the lost tears in time for my next outburst, I thought.

The judge told the lawyers to minimise the questions to me and my brother, and to respect our ages, whatever that meant. Dad shouted a few times and the judge threatened to remove him if it happened again. I felt ashamed and hated him. The trial went on for a fortnight and it was the longest fortnight of my life. I thought it would never end. I saw myself going to court every day, getting older and older. When the jury finally retired to consider their verdict, I was stunned. There was going to be an end to all this, after all.

I’d thought the court case would answer why my father had done what he did. It didn’t. I don’t know if justice was served because I don’t know what justice is.

One thing I clearly remember was when the judge said, very loudly, that Toby and I weren’t to blame. The judge said young people often think it’s their fault their parents fight, when it is absolutely not their responsibility. Our father’s actions were his own. The judge considered that Dad’s category of murder was one of the worst in all of the variations in the crime of homicide. The killing of one’s own family, and the burden they leave for the surviving members. How did Dad feel now, given that we were the ones left to live with the consequences of his utter selfishness?

The judge said due consideration was taken of Dad’s alcoholism and addiction to prescription drugs, but nonetheless he would have to carry the burden of his unspeakable actions for the rest of his life. She said the post-traumatic stress my father suffered from not having received proper counselling when he returned to Australia after active duty in Vietnam was a reprehensible indictment on the society that sent these young men to fight this war. The judge said my family’s case was one of a number of cases, where early intervention from proper services may have prevented this tragic outcome. The judge sentenced Dad to thirty-two years in prison, with a non-parole period of twenty-seven years. Unlike the rest of the court, Dad didn’t flinch when the sentence was read out. I thought, he’ll be over seventy when they let him out. A cold splash hit me as someone kicked by on their board and interrupted my train of thought, which was a good thing. It stopped me getting down about my past.

The lapping of the sea was hypnotic. I felt myself drifting and wondered for the millionth time, if there was anything I could have done to prevent the deaths? Maybe I could have made Mum leave when things were becoming worse and worse? I ought to have told someone Dad was getting crazier and crazier. I’d failed my little brother and sister. Why wasn’t I there to save them? I knew I could have hit Dad with a stick or something and called the police or a neighbour. I would have saved them all, including Jesse. I felt the sting of tears welling in my eyes. I willed them to stop and wiped away the few that escaped from the corners of my eyes.

Mum’s image appeared in my mind, smiling. ‘Mum,’ I smiled back. Her face faded, but one of her sayings stuck in my head, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’. I still can’t understand how Mum kept saying it when things became darker and darker behind our four walls. Why did Mum stay with Dad? Did she really believe he would get better and the violence would stop? Did Mum give up hope, and Dad sensed this time Mum really was leaving and taking all us kids? Is that why he killed her? Another tear dripped slowly down my face.

I used to live way out West in red dirt country, surrounded by a near treeless landscape. Sheep were the only shapes dotted around drying dams, or huddling together, throwing patches of shade underneath lonely single trees. The only memories I cherish are my friend Ruby and Mrs Thompson from the library.

I was sick of hearing, ‘Time heals all wounds, move on, let go, you’re strong, get over it, worse things happen in Africa.’ Actually the only people who’ve said that are my doctor and counsellor. I made up the bit about Africa, but that’s the patronising kind of things they say. I’m over it! They can’t tell me how long grief lasts. Sometimes I’m so angry at everything, like a volcano about to erupt. I can’t find words to describe how I’m feeling, which makes me even angrier. I punch my pillows often, well, actually heaps. I’ll need new ones soon. Telltale feathers are starting to appear in strange places in my room, and on my clothes.

I paddled around to face east. A swirling band of smoke drifted across the sky. It crept along the horizon, darkening the sea. The hot northerly blew a burning eucalypt scent. I imagined tree tops exploding as the oil combusted, turning branches skeletal. I’d seen bushfires before, a lot closer than now. I hated the thought of the animals and birds being killed or maimed, their homes destroyed. I knew how they felt. I remembered a story in primary school called Death of a Wombat. Tears welled in my eyes. I splashed seawater on my face. Tears and salt-water mingled, tasting the same.

I’d been oblivious till now, to the size of the fire, sixty kilometres from the city. The smoke seemed incongruous as I watched from the cool sea. I inhaled deeply and tasted burning gum smoke mingled with the sea’s salty odour. I pitched up and down on my surfboard, wishing the promised wind change would arrive. The sea had flattened and become glassy.

I turned my board and faced North Head. The smoke was darker, more foreboding with an ominous orange tinge. It was an enormous fire. Burning ash was visible and fell like black rain around me. I hated fires burning things, destroying lives. I dived into the water under my surfboard to chill. I shook seawater out of my hair as I clambered back on to my board.

I scanned the beach, shading my eyes. The people were like blobs of shapes and silhouettes. I was on my own, away from everybody. It was a different world. I was part of the ocean, a sea creature watching life on land. The wind whispered, I ruled the waves, the sea rolled in support.

I remembered the first time Aunt Jean hired surfboards for my friend Ruby and me, in the last summer holidays. I’d come to the beach practically every day since. I dream of being a world champion surfer, one day. At first I got a hard time from the regular surfers. I wasn’t allowed to get any waves. There are rules and you’ve got to know them to avoid getting hassled. The worst thing is to ‘drop in’, taking off on someone else’s wave. This is the downside of surfing and can turn very nasty. I moved away from the aggro to practise away from grommets and other jerks who thought they owned every single good wave.

It was scary standing up for the first time. I fell straight off because my legs were shaking so much. I suffered bruises and hits from my board many times in the beginning. I once ended up with my legs sticking up in the air with my head embedded on the ocean bottom. Sometimes I felt like my right leg was going to be ripped off by my legrope. The waves would pick me up and take me so fast, the noise of the water roaring, there was no time to do anything but swear you’d be good for the rest of your life, praying wherever the sea took you wouldn’t be too cruel and punishing.

I cried heaps in the first few months. I thought I’d always wipe out and be battered and bruised. I tried harder to stand for longer and ride the wave more than six inches. I willed myself to keep going, while my leg muscles screamed in pain. Surfing is the second hardest thing I’ve done in my life. The court stuff was ten million times worse.

I’m sick of how Toby and Aunt Jean go on about my surfing. They reckon I’m obsessed. I tell them there could be stuff heaps worse I could be on about, like food or clothes or something. That shuts Aunt Jean up. I don’t tell them that I feel closer to Mum when I’m surfing. I sometimes talk with my Mum out there, especially when I’ve done a really cool manoeuvre, or finally got the hang of a new technique.

The first time I rode a wave all the way in, and jumped off like a professional, I was so stoked. I wanted to tell the world and be on TV. I imagined myself receiving the World Cup, and thanking my fans for their support. I kissed the cup and huge cheque and signed numerous autographs. Self doubt had made me wonder if it’d been a fluke. I paddled straight back out and did it again and again. At last I knew I could ride a complete wave, and was a real surfer like Layne Beachley!

I saved up for months for my own board. Aunt Jean and Toby paid the rest for my sixteenth birthday and also gave me a wetsuit. I was blown away. My surfboard is magic with rainbow colours going from the purple nose down to the red fin. I’m sure sharks see bright colours and would never mistake me for a seal.

It was awesome the first day I rode it. It was so much better on my own board and I closed my eyes now, to capture the feeling again. Look out world! Look out Hawaii, I whispered. I’m ready to be the world champion. Well not exactly, but I’ve entered a competition over at North Steyne in a couple of weeks.

I thought back to when I found a photo and article about Isobel Letham. She was Australia’s first professional surfer. It was nearly a hundred years ago. This Hawaiian Duke guy came out to show Australia how to surf. He chose fifteen-year-old Isobel to learn. Isobel had said her first ride was like going over a cliff. She’d been terrified, but was hooked. I feel a bond with Isobel because I felt exactly the same on my first big wave. Like Isobel, I was seriously addicted.

I stared up at the blue sky, and watched the clouds of smoke spreading towards Maroubra.

‘Hey.’

I sat up. A blonde girl paddled towards me. I looked around to see if she was talking to someone else.

‘Me?’ I said pointing at myself.

‘Yeah, you. Are you on drugs or something? You look like you’re in a trance.’

‘N … no! I was thinking about,’ I searched for something to say, ‘um, you know, the smoke and the fire and all that.’

‘It’s bad, that’s why I’m laying here chilling out. It’s too hard to take it all in. This stuff going on, you know what I mean.’

‘Yeah.’ I had no idea what this stranger was talking about.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Jules.’

‘I’m Kate. This your home