The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

By Mac Dyson

A cheeky rewriting of conventional mythology within a rollicking queer romance - Life can be Hell, thank god.
"So your life sucks. Couldn't be suckier if you tried. Falling in love with the most hated figure of all time isn't going to make it any better. So he brought you back from the dead. Just say thanks. And move on. Very quickly. Please?"
The Summer of ’79. A remote southern New Zealand beach. A group of school friends spend one last Xmas holidays together before the cares of Uni' and the 'real' world intrude. Day one, our over-sensitive muso' hero, Jamie is rescued from suicide by an extremely spunky stranger. Add a shadowy air of mystery and he's the perfect object for desire. However Nick's nocturnal tendencies and ability to fly should ring warning bells. Fortunately it's soon clear that he's neither vampire, vulcan, werewolf nor indeed any other dangerous creature of the night but instead an angel - albeit a fallen one. But for our two romantic heroes it's not all moonlight surfing because after bad relationship experiences with Will Shakespeare, Robin Hood, Cain, and 'god', Nick has commitment issues. Then there's the challenge of the unique and subversive manner in which he sees history, morality, and the meanings of all their lives.
Jamie, his best mate and lover Dom, Dom’s girlfriend Jude, her baby drag-princess brother Ryan, their bandmate Sue, Louise the gorgeous country cousin, and the sexy captain of the school rugby team (gay-basher?) Russell Wells, all get to confront the question – who’s idea of Life are they living? If it’s all someone else’s grand story, how do they escape and get to be the author of their own?
In "The Devil & The Deep Blue Sea" they each get to contribute. As they warn the reader in their foreword
"Each of us is writing down our own bit of what happened. Making sense of it in our own way. Sure, producing a lot of jigsaw pieces. A bit random so they probably won’t always quite fit, eh? But get over it. We don’t mind. These are our lives, and we’re entitled to speak of them in our own particular way. Kia Kaha!"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mac Dyson
• Release date: Aug 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301437559

Mac Dyson

Mac Dyson likes playing with words and sounds. He writes books and makes music. He is a Kiwi by birth and nature, but after a sojourn in the UK as a musician, he now lives in the bustling metropolis of Sydney.His life has included stints as a TV Director, Pre-school Educator, Cleaner, University Lecturer but his favourite place to work is the theatre. He is particularly fond of Shakespeare - his favourite play being "Much Ado About Nothing". As a singer he loves John Dowland and Henry Purcell songs, and the works of Joni Mitchell, Prince, David Bowie, Bjork, and Aphex Twin.His life has been quite an adventure - perhaps why his books are on the weird side - but he has enjoyed a lot of it very much. Due mainly to a wonderful selection of 'human beans' that have journeyed with him. Thanks yous fellas.Kia kaha, Mac D x

Book preview

Chapter 1

Saturday December 1 - 1979

Jamie

Hear it in monotone. Magging away. Mumbling to itself… the story… the same old old story

On the far edge of awareness. Turning. Over and over. Circling. Round and round. The familiar bleary whine. A dreary dull drone. Insistent. Unrelenting. The persistent chain of thought

Plays to it’s own content. Rehearses the old reasons. Nurses the ancient hurts. Hones the habitual script. Plots, and replots the last scene.

Although the muttering is muted. Muffled. It’s … Me.

Oblivious. On audio autopilot. With sad lack of cool. Me-two (too) provides soundtrack. At the threshold of hearing. The Elton John Songbook.

… beyond the Yellow Brick Ro-o-oh, oh o-o-o-oh…

Shit! The handle bars jolt. The bike bucks. Rearing over the gravel verge. Towards the ditch.

Stirring. World swoops slo’-mo’ into focus. Back wheel starts to drift. Muscles wrench. Sudden sweat. A punch to my chest. Half a rib. Makes a bid for freedom.

Waking. Mind takes up the reins. Will myself to calm. This too will pass. Choose the least resistance.Zen Bike Sutra #1. Where you focus. Becomes the destination. Deliberately stare at the middle of the road.

Ten yards. Easy. Twenty yards. Easy boy. Fifty. Finally. Back on the black. Safe.

A surge. Sheer exhilaration. Thoughts kick up their heels. Lurch into overdrive. Head to the white line. Throttle open. Channelling Steppenwolf.

Born To Be Wi-i-i-ild!

Easy Rider. Kiwi style. Hooning down the highway. Tearing up the centre of the tarmac. Playing join the dots.

A hunchback 50s Austin saloon. Rises over the hill. Phantom in the late afternoon gloom. Bumbling straight at me. Habit steers me back into lane. Takes a moment for the irony to catch. Can’t help but laugh. Gingerly.

With it now. The final chapter. It gets told my way. So. Behold. Take heed. Verily, verily, I tell unto you. The last adventure of James David Geddes. Known as Jamie to sundry and all. Full name only used in anger. By mum. Mother.

Lets start with my trusty steed. A 1959 touring scooter. Not a Vespa or its ilk. They’re for posers. Sit up and beg. They fall over too easily. This one is low. Lean. Burgundy flashed with cream. Aluminium fins. Stripe the rear wheel cowling. Crest the front guard. Effect? Kinda nana toaster. Still – cool at its chilliest. Moving – comedy at its loudest.

Ah. The delights of a two stroke Puch. Smoking and spluttering down country tarmac. To the coast. Taking me to …

December 1. The first day of summer. Officially. Someone forgot to tell the sun. Drizzle blurs the visor. Drips down my neck. In defence. Trousers and shoes are dry. Don’t get that on a motorbike. And it can handle. Horizontal torsion bars out back. Genius.

Full throttle. 63 mph. Yee hah! Feels like the ton, plus. Steer the curves between ragged gold gorse hedges. With a swing of the arse. Never get tired of this. Got an erection.

Hell. At 17 – always got an erection. We all do. Picture Toady. John Hilton High’s neck-less headmaster. Must have sniggered into his jowls. Every morning. Before a quick tug in his office. 23 boys waddling. Down the school bus steps. Bags clutched awkwardly up front.

Road straightens. Heads for the horizon. Across quilted plain. To either side. Pasture rises. Falls. Broken by Macrocarpa hedges. Some three stories high. The unbounded sky looms. Low cloud banks. Smothering. It starts to teem. No need to slow. Have the road to myself.

Sheep carpet the green. Ignore the rain. Lambs are big now. Few late tiny specks totter across the vast paddocks. Tufted with tussock. A country with more sheep than people. To my mind a good thing. Very good thing.

String of giant power pylons stride above. Menacing. Hum to themselves. Making plans. They head for the hills. To the north. High hills. Bunched soft against the edge of the sky. Folded in maroon and khaki. Cloud trickling into the creases. Blanketing the tops. Lifts for a moment. To reveal the heights. Crowned black green. Flecked with white. Some late snow.

The end of the plain. Past the Race Course. Smooth drop left. Then. Grit my teeth. Judder over the rusting railway lines. Into the town.

Riverton. One wide street. Single ribbon of buildings left and right. Wood Fronts. Tin tops and sides. Need a good scrub. Lick of paint. Cross the estuary bridge. Tides out. Fishing boats lean drunkenly on silt bars. For a moment silver puddles gleam. A rip in the clouds. Shafts of light spear down. Fodder for Victorian painters.

Sweep the far curve. Then haul back speed. Tight turn. Almost back on myself. Lose momentum. Low gear. High revs. Wheel spin. Struggle up the last short steep rise. And over.

To The Rocks.

Nick

It hath alwaies and ever been thus: as the Ballade has its refrayn, and the Seasons their return, so we are condemn’d to revisit the themes of our lives till they be resolv’d.

So shoulde I know. So shoulde I have learn’d by now in this longest of all longe existençes. But yet, like a hunted animal, I run and I duck, I weave and I dive, and at every pause for rest I find I have circled round to return to the selfsame wretched tree in the forest.

Or at least one that looks verie like it.

Hence, I find myself at the bottom of the Earth, as distant from the Old Worlde and its temptaçions as I can achieve on this tiny globe, trying to move on. And of course here I am back agayn at something too much like the start, dragging my feet on the road to repeat every incomplete chapter of my tatter’d and over-familiar storie.

Aotearoa - The Land of The Longe White Cloud. Fleeing the maddening crowd of Europe and Thee Americas, I was first tempted to choose the northern, younger of its two principal isles. There the Earth only just anchors and survives the titanic pow’r that occupies its core: be it the smoking threat of volcano, the angry blub’ring of boyling mudde, or the sulphurous plumes of steaming geiser this Land lives, and vividlie. It rekes of primeaval fecunditie. It gushes. It heaves. It oozes. It thrusts. It spurts. In the ages of the planet it remains a joyfullie delinquent youth rejoycing in the first discoverie of Desire and Passion.

Alas as such, it remindes me much too much of what I have foresworn.

For the moment I have chosen to dwell on the southernmost coast of the lower island. For as well as physical isolation few deign to live here. There is little attraction for wishful-thinking colonials looking for an easie Life. While the soils are rich, ‘tis countrie that rewardes only the most tenaçious. Regarde the almost horizontal trees that straggel the boundes of its coast. Locally, the weather is refer’d to, with a chuckle and a roll of thee eyes heavenward, as Bloodie awefull, maite.

Much of its center is occupy’d by a sinuous spine of soaring alpes. Mile upon mile of stone adze ribs tip’d in crystalyne snow. To the south and west lies an ancient rain forest, ringing unfathomable chill’d lakes. Its coastal edge fring’d with finger fiordes, yardes deep in fresh-water runoff. Through it all, from the vertiginous peaks down to sea level, still ponderouslie trundel two lumbering glaciers.

Here, ‘tis still much of Paradise. Still something of Eden’s first ease as I straye ‘mongst cloud scraper tree-ferns, the nocturnal walking birdes for company. Or soar the vast night skye vaulted with blazing fire-white stars.

‘Tis these untam’d, untrammell’d expanses that hold my heart in thrall. ‘Tis they that call to me, and remind me, thrill me and … greve me.

Jamie

The Rocks.

From the top. The coast opens out before me. Fringed by a sprawl of haphazard wood and fibro’ boxes. In patchwork pastel paint. Each piggy backing a circular corrugated iron tank. Rain water. Soft. Sweet. Bliss to bathe in. Great for the hair.

Hit 76 on the downhill stretch. Brakes just cope. Sharp right hander into the main bay. Taramea Beach. Where the river meets the sea. Vast. Flat. Featureless. Low tide. Not much better at high. Though always safe for the kiddies.

Road starts to wander. Cliffs. Cuddling tiny bays. Cream sand. Yellow and green shingle. Been a storm lately. Huge fronds of kelp. Gold. Stranded on the beach. Fallen sci-fi trees. Used to carve the stems into balls. Waxy. Hard and fast for beach cricket.

Mitchell’s Bay. Past the Tiki Tea Rooms. Still boarded for winter. Jude comes to mind. Will the thought away. She’ll be better off.

Dropping to sea level for a moment. Road and beach cheek to cheek. Around a corner. A sea lion rears at me from a rock outcrop. Bit of a shock.

At the last Bay. The very last section. Turn up the gravel drive. Livingston Daisies colouring its edge. Past the spiked Cabbage tree. Lightning strike. 1973. 12th birthday.

The house looms. Bit grand for a crib. Over the top for the seaside. Holidayed here since way back when. Always needed paint. Inside bathroom. Wet-back coal range replaced. Phone on. Mother’s constant litany. Nothing gets done. Nothing ever will. Reminds her of her childhood.

Nick

In verie littel time I have become somewhat fonde of this dwelling. Somethinge in its whimsie, its unconsçious ironie, diverts me. Perhaps it is the idea of menacing stone Gothic render’d in wood, so splendidly fail’d under peeling coats of cheerie paint; thee artifiss so obvious, the lean-to addiçions so incongruous. Someone’s social ambiçions reduced to a ramshackel holyday home, or crib as these ex-Celts would say. Well, crub as it sounds in their desiccayted flatte vowels.

They’re an oddly jovial bunch with a strong streak of pragmatism. The dour pessimism of the Scots Presbyterian rubs shoulders with the devil-may-care whimsie of the Irish Catholic. They profess loudlie and longe to loathe each other but at heart they march to the same drum. Driven alike by optimism, spark’d by their zeal for a better Worlde, they have travell’d to thee endes of the Earth to make a hopeful fresh start in a promising new countrie.

They just fail’d to notice that they had brought their old selves alonge for the ride. So I keep awaie, though it amuses me to watch from a distance. They certainly know how to partie - and how to drinke. In truth it is hard to separaite the two.

Chapter 2

Jude

Plunged into sudden darkness all I can see is … the Bluebird of Happiness.

Well, not actually THE Bluebird of Happiness his- (or her-) self, but a small stuffed replica, perching on the ring finger of my best - actually female - girl-friend Sue.

(Look, I’m trying to give up the use of excessive punctuation - brackets/exclamations/dashes et al - so, please, ignore them. I just want to make the point that you shouldn’t graft gender - or sexuality - assumptions onto my words. I am prepared to smack miscreants; just enough to hurt - not enough to excite!).

After a moment my eyes have adjusted enough to make out Sue herself, silhouetted against the screen, waving to me over the heads of the audience. Scrambling along her row in the flickering light I find myself trying to avoid unnecessary intimacy with three half hearted Frankenfurters resplendent in their mother’s bras (what is it about blokes and women’s underwear? - they get in to it just as we set it alight!).

(Okay parenthesis again - following an exclamation mark, after a dash. Sorry, where was I? Hmmm …)

Oh yeah. I’m in the Regent Theatre for a special Saturday screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And I’m currently jostling past three Frankenfurters, one very weedy Rocky, and an assortment of vaguely gothic, slightly sexualised supporting characters to sit beside … Snow White?

Sue grins at me - even in the darkness her almond eyes sparkle with mischief. I don’t know quite what to say. She looks gorgeous, the perfect princess, but this is the Sue who in public is usually to be found observing life from the edges, and avoiding direct conversation. A Sue, usually disguised in clothing devoid of cut or colour, who is on this very public occasion vividly arrayed in lurid Disney Technicolor. A Sue who seems to have entirely missed the point of the dress-up showing of New Zealand’s number-one screw-you-all cinematic creation - thank you Richard O’Brien!

At my gawp, the grin widens and she shrugs,

I had to tell Mother and Father that I was going to a fancy dress party.

Of course. Her professionally Christian olds would never let her out of the house dressed like Magenta, though maybe she could’ve got away with Janet. But then, to be fair, I had made it clear that I had dibs on that look.

My revere is disrupted by the audience crying out as one, Kick the tyre, Brad. On screen, Brad dutifully co-operates. It’s all a kind of hi-tech pantomime. I fetch out the necessary accessories – toast, lighter, etc, and settle in to call out instructions to the ever-obedient actors.

I was late in because I had to go back for a prop umbrella, and when I got here Jamie wasn’t waiting. He always turns up way too early for everything and then has to circle the block a few times to fill in time. I thought that this time I’d just arrived at the wrong moment in the cycle or that he’d been brave this once and gone on in without me.

But he doesn’t seem to have showed at all, which is getting to be a bit of a worrisome habit. Anybody would think he has some kind of perennial male premenstrual tension he’s got so moody lately. On Friday night he shot off with out saying goodbye from the 7th Form Leaver’s Ball, leaving me to carry (well drag) a very drunken and almost unconscious Dom home all by myself.

(Dom is my boyfriend, at least in the public sense, but there-in lies another deviation, as they say. But one that I’m not about to explain here.)

Friday November 30

Dom

I’m a penguin. And not a little blue penguin. I’m a bloody huge black and white stuffed penguin and I’m not happy, eh. I’m gonna stick out like dogs balls at this dance.

I had plans. I was gonna do the whole who’s-so-cool John Travolta, Saturday Night Fever thing, in white but Jude threw a wobbly. Thankfully when no one else was about, eh. Coz she went into a great deal of detail about what would happen to my unmentionables from wearing tight fitting bri-nylon trousers. Hell, I wasn’t planning on having kids any time soon anyway, eh?

So anyway I let her drag me down to the Rep’ Theatre wardrobe so she could wave her lets-make-Dom-look-a-dick wand. She spent a whole afternoon cramming me and Jamie into tails and white waistcoats and wimpy wing bloody bow-ties. Yeh! Thanks! So here I am about to enter the school hall and …

Shit-oh-dear, just what I needed, eh. Full-bloody-length mirrors on both sides of the front door. I’m looking for a dark corner – a very dark corner when someone spots me and calls my name. Bugger!

I turn round and … Bloody Hell! Jamie saunters towards me with Jude on one arm and Sue on the other. The girls are in slinky long evening frocks, and the three of them together look like stars from some old black and white movie. Jude takes my arm and we all turn to look at ourselves in the mirror. And I have to be honest, eh. I look fantastic, an absolute major spunk.

I’m even feeling a bit excited as we stroll arm in arm through an arch of ferns and on to a small bridge (over a toilet-blue stream - yuerg) into the gymnasium. I’m particularly chuffed to notice the looks of puzzlement, as several of my classmates try to work out who we are, as we swan into the middle of the floor. Hell, I’m feeling so mellow, I can even cope with Jude playing the grand dame and waving to everyone like the Queen Mum.

I want to get the party started straight away but Jude refuses to dance with me. I reckon you can waltz to Abba. She very unkindly points out that I have the co-ordination of a spastic seagull and a tendency to forget who’s leading – her of course!

Jude

The great thing about holding a dance in a school gymnasium is (going to have to take a moment here …) aha, the floor is great for all those splendid ballroom manoeuvrers that well… we no longer do. (Or at least I don’t with Dom!) And then there is of course the romantic fluorescent strip lighting and the evocative aroma of unwashed arm-pit and rancid tennis shoe that pervades the atmosphere.

Actually, for all our professed modernity and up-to-the-minute air of sophistication, an event like this has probably not changed for Millennia. 12th century Ceilidh or late 20th century school dance, it all begins with self-conscious couples, awkwardly mimicking societies latest interpretation of heterotopia, tottering arm and arm along a welcoming (judging!) corridor of adults. However the moment that required torture is over they sigh in relief, smile vaguely at each other and split – boys to one side of the room, girls to the other. Its only the true deviants, like our quartet, who saunter on to mix and mingle across the gender divide with the very few real couples tentatively gathering in the centre.

Of course just as the Headmaster is about to declare the festivities open, the entire first fifteen - under the leadership of their pommie captain (the insufferably handsome Russell Wells) - make a late and grand team entrance, their partners at their sides, smirking triumphantly (probably because they’ve just managed a Synchronised Purge). Jamie stage whispers, loud enough for the entire room to hear

Behold! The total I.Q. of the room has just risen by 29!

This passes most people by, though Russell frowns before sailing head high to introduce his current Barbie to the Headmaster. From that moment on it follows typical party format, everyone becomes increasingly inebriated, while the sensible among us get on with taking control of the DJ and having a damn fine boogie.

All ‘n all I had a remarkably pleasant time, though sadly there was no real trouble to revel in. However there was that very heated moment where Russell lost his balance when he bumped into Jamie in the corridor outside the art room. The way they grabbed each other for balance, Frankly my deah, I couldn’t work out whether they were going to punch or pash!

Though it mightened have been totally politic to have said as much out loud in front of Russell’s team mates, especially his sycophantic sulphurous vice-captain (how well named) Bruce Campbell. Perhaps I deflowered a budding romance (or not). Coz it wasn’t long after that Jamie went AWOL and if I look back, so did Russell. Mind you, I shouldn’t read too much into that because a fair few of his cronies went missing in action at much the same time. Probably out to the bike sheds for a fag (cigarette, alright) and for the more weak stomached, a bit of a barf.

With perfect timing we’ve reached the moment in the film where Brad finds Frankenfurter in his bed. I don’t think