Tim Winton - The Turning

You really think?

She grabbed him by the ear, pinched his lobe so hard he saw spots, and the more he tried to squirm free the tighter she gripped him. It felt like his whole ear would be uprooted from his head. She was a psycho; he was stuck out here with a psycho and he had tears in his eyes now and she had her mouth on his, kissing him soft and slow until his mouth slackened, and all the time, even while her tongue slid across his teeth and he snorted like a frightened horse through his nose, she squeezed his ear without relenting until the long hot kiss was over.

She let go. He gasped.

See?

See what ? he said, grabbing his ear.

You won’t forget your first real kiss.

You’re nuts!

Wrong choice of words, sport, she said, looking down at the stiffy in his shorts.

Vic hunched away from her.

Just trying to make a point, she said with a grin.

Fuck you, he said.

My mother’s worried about my wedding day. Says it’ll be awkward when my husband goes to put the ring on in front of all the dearly beloved.

Does it worry you? he asked, despite himself.

Nah. Weddings are bourgeois. Marriage is over. Who the hell wants to get married?

Your mum did.

She’s a farmer’s wife. She doesn’t know any better.

Vic looked at her hands. He was appalled and fascinated by her.

I call it my abbreviation, she said, lying back on her jeans, holding out her damaged hand like a starlet admiring the ring Rock Hudson or somebody had just bought her.

Sorry?

The finger. My abbreviation. Drives the old man spare. He can’t even look at it.

Vic couldn’t take his eyes off it.

Guilty, I spose. I was six years old. Thinks he should have been more careful.

Maybe he should have.

Nah. Wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t even an accident. I just stuck my hand in because I was curious.

Curious?

To see how it all worked.

Far out, he murmured.

And the lesson is that it all works too quickly to see, she said with a laugh. But I remember everything about that day. What everyone was wearing, all the daggy things people said in the car on the way into town. The smell of stubble, upholstery. The taste of tomato in my throat from lunch.

What’s your school like? he said.

A battery farm. A thousand girls trying to lay an egg.

How old are you? he asked, emboldened.

Sixteen. And bloody bored.

Can I see your finger? Close up, I mean?

I don’t care, she said, holding out her hand from where she lay.

The whole time they’d been speaking it wasn’t the girl’s shaved legs he was watching, not even the wedge of cloth over the mound between them, but her hand raking the sand at her side. Her knuckles were frosted with tiny white grains; he hadn’t been able to look away and now, as he shuffled over on his knees to get a closer look, he felt a flutter in his throat. She turned the hand one way and then the other for his benefit. He leaned down and blew sand from her finger and the quartzy grains settled on her belly.

She tilted her hand down the way posh ladies did on the movies when they wanted their hand kissed. Without thinking, he kissed it.

Kiss my aura, Dora.

What?

Frank Zappa. It’s a quote.

Oh.

This sun’s a bugger. I need some blockout. And I’m hungry.

She grabbed his face the way an auntie would, then let him go.

They walked back up the beach in no great hurry, talking a bit as they went. Her name was Melanie and her family had the big blitz truck and the circus tent. They were here for a few days’ break before harvesting. There was a big low in the north and they were keeping an ear on the weather reports on radio. Neighbours and cousins were with them but she was the only one her age.

We’re in the same boat, he said.

She laughed sceptically.

We’re having a bonfire, he said. For New Year’s.

Uh-huh.

He sensed that she’d grown bored with him now.

He caught sight of himself in Melanie’s mirror shades. His lips were white with sand where he’d kissed her hand. He looked like a nine-year-old.

I’m hot, he said, flushing.

Okay.

I’m gunna swim a bit.

Right.

See ya, then.

Vic’s skin all but sizzled when he hit the water. He lay there watching Melanie walk back into camp. The excitement of being with her had lapsed into a sudden sense of failure. The sea sucked at him. He tingled all over.

That afternoon Vic sat out in the dinghy catching flathead and whiting with the men. Uncle Ernie bitched about traffic fines and summonses and the tax man and Vic’s old man let it go. One of Ernie’s balls kept peeking out of his tiny shorts like a dangling gingernut and both Vic and his father struggled to keep a straight face. Now and then, in lulls in the bite, Vic rubbed the tender lobe of his ear.

When they came in at dusk the women and the wobbegong girls were in the water, splashing and screaming. Nanna had the baby on her hip, searching the water for unseen perils.

Later they lit the bonfire and while it got going they ate fish and potato salad and green beans. A big tangerine moon rose from the dunes and the breeze died out altogether. The girls rooted through the icebox for bottles of Passiona. Vic drank Cottee’s cola with his mother and felt his skin tight with sunburn. Nanna had her icewater and the other adults had beer. Soon there were empty king browns all over the trestle.

When the fire was really crackling Vic walked down to the water in search of more driftwood. Up the beach a little way, out in front of the big old army truck and the striped circus tent, there was a fire burning twenty feet high. It was a real monster. He walked up into the dunes so he could come up behind Melanie’s camp and look on without being seen.

He crouched in a bit of saltbush and gazed down on the fire and the pile of mallee roots beside the truck. There were people laughing down there, big men’s voices and squeaking kids and the titter of women. He smelled meat grilling and onions frying.

Like a peasant feast, said a familiar voice beside him.

Vic nearly cried out in fright. Melanie was tucked into another clump of saltbush, a bottle glinting in her hand.

Scared you again.

No, he lied.

Bored, too, eh?

A bit.

Want some?

What is it?

New Year’s Eve.

Very funny.

Feel like a swim?

No, said Vic. A walk maybe.

Okay, a walk.

As the moon dragged itself back into shape, they walked out into the rolling, white sandhills until they came to a valley whose wind-ribbed contours reminded Vic of the ocean floor; the fluted ripples went on forever.

Cheer me up, sport, said Melanie.

Vic told her about Ernie’s dangling gingernut and the jugs on his Auntie Cleo. He told her about his cousins, their needle teeth and wobbegong skin.

Woebegone, said Melanie.

Wobbegong. It’s a carpet shark.

I know this. Sport, I’m with you.

They sat down in a hollow to rest a moment. Melanie pulled the lid off her bottle and drank.

Happy New Year, she said, passing it to him.

Ginger, he murmured, sniffing.

Stone’s Green Ginger Wine. Made from the little ginger balls of strange uncles.

Vic laughed. He took a sip but didn’t like it. The stuff tasted like ginger beer mixed with diesel.

How’s your ear? Melanie said, reaching over and giggling as he drew away warily.

Orright, he said.

Let me see, then.

Vic didn’t trust her but he couldn’t resist the idea of her touching him. She took his earlobe tenderly and rubbed it between two fingertips.

You’ll remember that, I reckon.

Yes.

Mean old trick, she said, grabbing his chin like an auntie again.

How come you’re sad? he said with her still holding his face.