As The Sea Is Now Deep - 3. Chapter 3

We played video games and watched cartoons for most of the morning, then got onto our bikes and rode to Milford’s on the main street. It was the first place to offer cappuccinos and Americanos when the country finally discovered that coffee was not necessarily a stale powder of chicory and pencil shavings.

Liam was already sitting at one of the booths, sipping a vanilla milkshake that looked oddly dainty in his big hands.

“Hey, Brody. Solomon.”

I imagined Graeme’s bones snapping as Liam gave him one of those awkward half-handshake half-hugs that constitute the closest contact most men will allow themselves to experience with each other.

The conversation was a bit of an effort. I lived in a world of video games and bad horror movies and comic books, a world that really only intersected with Graeme’s. Liam’s life was scrums and high fives and expensive tailored shirts.

Then, halfway into our double cheeseburgers, Liam started talking about the Voyager probe.

“I was reading that when it left the Solar System it took a picture of like all the planets together.”

My ears pricked up like a wolf’s. “The Pale Blue Dot?”

“Yeah. How did you know that?”

Graeme raised his eyebrows. “My boy here is president of the Astronomy club... how would he not know?”

“So you’ve seen the picture?” Liam said, wide-eyed.

I nodded. “Carl Sagan insisted on them making the probe take the photo.”

“Space is so big, man,” Liam said. “Makes you kind of humble. Like why should we have wars and shit when all we have is the Earth.”

“You should come to the Astronomy club meetings, if you like,” I ventured.

“Bad idea,” Graeme piped up. “He’d scare off all the nerds.”

“Don't be a dick,” said Liam. The veins on his forearms trailed up onto his biceps that bulged underneath his polo shirt. In that moment he wasn’t this blond demigod any more. He was just a boy confessing he was actually small, stuck on a tiny piece of dust in a sea of stars. Across the table, littered with chips and half-eaten burgers and milkshakes full of chemicals, something cosmic was playing out, even as cars rushed outside and waitresses chewed the cud of their bubble-gum.

After lunch we set off and cycled deep into the woods much to Graeme’s irritation. I didn’t even know Liam had a bicycle; his dad usually dropped him in front of the school in his big silver BMW.

“How do you know these woods so well?” Liam asked, making up the rear.

“I kind of grew up here.”

“That’s pretty rad,” he said. “Where are we going? This isn't quite the way to your gramps' place is it?”

“To the lake,” I said. “I want to go swim.”

“I’ve heard it’s beautiful there.”

“Yeah, and deadly,” said Graeme. “That place is haunted.”

“Shut up, Graeme.”

We were only a few hundred metres from the top of the cliff when I heard a twig snap.

I froze.

“Who’s there?” I managed.

A hunched form materialised out of the scrub. He was an old man, wrinkled beyond any understanding of his age, his hair shaggy and yellowing from years of nicotine. What was once a powder-blue suit was ragged and dishevelled, like he was some supervillain who had gone to seed.

“It’s Crazy Abe Cooper!” Graeme blurted out.

“Sh,” I hissed.

Crazy Abe stared at me, sussing me out like a leopard stalking an antelope.

“Jacob." The old man’s voice was rusty and raspy.

“You know him?” asked Liam, who had shifted in front of us, arms spread back as if he were a cat protecting its kittens.

“Hello, Mr Cooper,” I said. “I haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Been travelling,” he said. “You’ve gotten big. These your friends?”

I nodded.

“You know, I got something for you. Been carrying it around forever to give to someone who’d like it.” He took a filthy satchel off his shoulder.

We gazed at him as if he were a museum exhibit.

He handed me a plastic packet. I took it cautiously.

“Go on,” he said.

Inside were a couple of comic books. Batman, Spider-Man, Hulk. They were crumpled, but vintage, at least from the late 70s.

“You still read ‘em, I hope?”

“Yes — these are... wow, they’re great.”

“Wish I could read. I know my ABCs, but, you know...”

His voice trailed off and he frowned, now handing me a small manila envelope. “This is for your grandma. Tell her I say hello.”

Then he was gone.

“That was fucking weird,” said Graeme. “How the hell does he know you?”

“He used to come around to my grandparents’ house from time to time. He's even done some odd jobs for them. But I haven't seen him for years.”

“They thought he was the Butcher, didn’t they?” Liam said as we started back up the trail.

I nodded. “That was wrong. They arrested him with no evidence. Beat him up... they say that’s why he walks with a limp. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they caught the Butcher the next week I think he’d still be in prison.”

“What happened to him? I mean, how did he get like that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Some say he went off to some war and it fucked him up. But my grandmother says he’s harmless. And I believe her.”

We didn’t say anything else until we came to the brow of the hill and the arc of the gorge exposed itself to us.

Liam walked right up to the edge and whistled as he looked around. “Brody, you didn’t tell me this place was so awesome!”

I still remember him saying that word, “awesome”, when it was still fresh, summarising our world in two limpid syllables. It was the age where CDs and microwaves were the bleeding edge of technology, where we still had stiffy disk drives, where VGA monitors groaned under the weight of the 256 colour-palette they shone gaudily into insomniac teenage eyes.

“I’m going down," I said.

“Is no-one paying any attention to the Suicide Prevention sign here?”

I ignored Graeme.

We settled on a large flat rock where a creek rushed into the main body of the lake. The water was a strange brandy colour from the minerals it had leeched out of the earth over hundreds of years. Tiny crabs scuttled about on the pebbles. The bough of a great oak spread a green mottled light over us. I produced a bag of chips and passed it around.

Liam got up and started stripping.

“What are you doing?” asked Graeme.

“Getting in. You said we were going to swim.”

“Good idea,” I shucked off my shirt and shorts, but stopped short of taking off my jocks. But Liam had lost everything and turned around shaking his head.

“Come on, Brody. Are you shy?”

He ran into the water splashing.

“Fine,” I said, and pulled off my underwear, if only on the pretext that I wouldn’t have to lug any wet clothes back to the house.

The water was perfect. “What are you waiting for?” I asked. Graeme gave a weary sigh and pulled off his clothes as if he were being made to do it at gunpoint.

“Look away,” he said when he got to his underwear. Graeme was never shy in front of me. I guessed he was overwhelmed by Liam looking like a cover model on one of those men’s fitness magazines.

“Jeez, Solomon, I’m not going to rape you or anything. Get in.”

Graeme huffed and ran in quickly.

We swam until the water came up to our shoulders. Underneath our feet the bottom was velvety and cool. Long ago, my father said, all this had been covered by the ocean. I wondered about the little creatures that lived out their little lives below me, their billions of corpses floating down, layer upon layer, squeezed into the very prisons of carbon my grandfather had explained to us not even a week ago.

Liam grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed my head under the water.

“Hey!” I said, trying to wrestle myself free. I’d snorted up some water and started sneezing. Snot streamed out of my nose. I managed to free one hand and jabbed him in the armpit. He started giggling and let go.

I had the demigod at my mercy.

“Stop!” he said between gasps of chuckles. “Hey, where’s Solom–”

Graeme’s torso surged out of the water like the shark in Jaws. He bore a cake of mud in each hands. Liam and I each received a face full of slimy earth. My eyes stung and the taste of mud was bitter and metallic and something else I couldn’t quite describe.

“You fuck!” I cried. I lunged forward and tackled him. Liam grabbed his legs. I started tickling Graeme and he screamed for mercy. We dragged him back to the shore but he managed to get free, and soon there was an all-out battle of mud and writhing bodies and screaming.

I’d gotten stronger over the past year but was still surprised when I managed to pin Liam down: my loyalties switched after he put a new cake of mud in my face.

We heard squeals and giggling.

I turned around.

Three girls were walking on the opposite bank. I didn’t know how long they’d been treated to the sight of three naked teenage boys having a mud-fight.

“Oh fuck!” I dived back in the water. The others saw the girls and followed suit. The girls waved. Peals of their laughter swept in a carillon across the water.

I waved back gingerly as one of the girls, a leggy brunette, lifted up her blouse and flashed her boobs at us.

Liam’s jaw dropped. A series of guffaws overtook me. The girls continued looking at us. One whispered in the other’s ear. To our astonishment, they were flinging off their clothes until they were in their bras and panties. They rushed into the water, one after the other, three sniggering sirens.

They were now swimming towards us.

“Jesus,” said Graeme.

“Calm down,” said Liam.

“Easy for you to say. I bet you’ve been around a lot of girls before.”

Liam frowned. “It’s not like that.”

“Guys," I whimpered, gesturing. "Maybe we should sprint back and get dressed?"

But the brunette had reached us. “Hi there,” she said with a smile, as if greeting a bunch of startled naked teenage boys was a daily thing for her.

“Hi,” I squeaked. “What are you boys doing?” she said.

For a moment I thought she was the spirit of the lake come to lure us to our deaths.

“We were just swimming,” I said stupidly.

“I’m Laura,” she said, and smoothed her tresses back. “And that’s Elaine and Candice. Looked like you were having fun until we came."

Her friends had caught up with her. Their breasts hovered just above the surface of the lake. The three of us crouched back in reflex, glad that the water was murky enough to cover us below our belly buttons.

"We... were..." I managed.

“Stop teasing them, Lainey,” said Laura. “They’re embarrassed enough.”

It transpired they were first years at the local college and had already finished their exams.

“How were your finals?” I ventured. I was shivering, despite the tepid water and the humidity blanketing the valley.

“The usual crap,” said Candice. “Yours?”

“Oh,” I said, “we’ve still got two years to go before varsity. Our exams start next week.”

Laura brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh sweet. You're just babies!”

A collective muteness had descended on Graeme and Liam. I felt deserted.

“Okay,” said Laura. “You want us to turn around so you boys can get dressed? Though there’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”

They did turn around, mercifully. We scurried out of the water like rats. I don’t think I’ve ever dressed so quickly before. None of us had thought of bringing towels so our T-shirts had to suffice. We sat with our arms folded as the girls walked out of the water and settled next to us.

We had nowhere to run. I tried to focus on the sunbeams beating down on my chest, hoping the hammering of my heartbeat would calm down. Laura was only a few inches from me and her wet bra was completely see-through. The visions in front of me eclipsed so many fantasies I’d ever had: that, save for the terror snaking around in my belly.

“Okay if we sit here?” said Candice, the blonde. All three of us shook our heads in unison.

But as we sat drying on the rocks our fear started evaporating too.

Soon a gentle conversation was under way: we spoke about music, about movies, about their plans after college. I don’t think I’d ever heard pretty girls swear before that: they cursed even more than we did.

“Guys,” said Elaine. “I think we should invite these three to the party next weekend.”

“What party?” asked Graeme.

“Oh, just a little get-together we’re having before we all go away for the summer. I mean, that’s if you boys don’t have a curfew or anything, and exams and all...”

“Cool with me,” I said, not realising I was puffing out my chest.

"It’s the big house at the end of Dunbar Road," she continued, "Next Saturday at seven. I think you could just pass for first years."

Candice complained that they had better get back so that they could meet up with some other friends at the mall. We were still puzzling over how fate had brought us three half-naked girls when they waved, got up and swam back to the other side of the lake.

We sat for a long time on the rock, watching the girls dress in the distance and walk back the way they came, until their figures were as small as ants.

Liam was the first to break the silence. “How about that, hey?”

“Did that really happen?” asked Graeme. “Were we just like chatting with three hot girls in their underwear?”

“And we were fucking starkers when they saw us at first,” I said. “I’m so embarrassed right now.”

“I’m not,” said Liam. “And it’s not like they were making fun of us. I’d also laugh if I saw three dudes having a mud-fight. But yeah, all that cake and we didn’t get to eat any of it.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Graeme huffed.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re built like Superman. I’m a runt.”

“What are you going on about?” I said. Graeme reached for his still-damp shirt and pulled it on.

“I was just thinking,” he said, “when is that ever going to happen again? I mean, to a guy me? Girls like that don’t...”

“Well Candice sure seemed to like you,” I said.

“Yeah,” Liam added. “Lots of girls find nerds hot. You may have something going there, pal. Did you get a hard-on?”

Graeme didn’t reply, but sat scowling at his feet.

“We better get going,” I said. “Time to start studying. And eat. I know my grandma will have made tons of food.”

o0o0o

When we arrived at the house there was a high tea stacked up worthy of anything that might have happened in Buckingham Palace.

My stomach stretched with scones this time, I shared my summaries of Gatsby with the other two as dusk settled on the garden.

Liam called his father. There was a long hushed conversation in the corridor. The big boy was quiet when he walked back in.

“What’s it, dear?” Grandma asked.

“My father asked if I could stay over tonight, ma'am. If that’s all right, or I could—”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

A din of crashing piano chords flooded into the room.

“William! Turn it down!”

“I can’t hear you, woman!” Grandpa yelled from the other end of the house. He was listening to the Rach 3, which meant he was pissed off about something. He always turned up the volume when it came to the cadenza twelve minutes into the first movement. He used to call it the scariest moment in all of music.

Grandma stomped down the corridor. After a few moments the sound died down.

“Honestly,” she said to herself as she walked back. “How can you children do any work with all that racket? He knows you’ve got examinations coming up.” Then she switched on the TV and lost herself in the one indulgence of her day, her double bill of Australian soap operas.

We lost ourselves in calculus, and I was actually seeing afterimages of integral signs behind my eyes when supper arrived. I could feel the sunburn starting to creep over my skin as we finished eating. Grandpa tried to give us wine again but my grandmother shot him a stern look. We were exhausted now, and decided our brains were full to the brim.

Sweat beaded on my forehead as I turned out the light just after ten. We were in my dad’s old room. Grandma put an extra mattress on the floor for Liam. I looked up. My father’s aeroplane mobile was still dangling from the ceiling after all these years. My body was spent but my thoughts tumbled around in a small whirlwind. Graeme was already out next to me, twitching in his sleep like a puppy, while over the edge of the bed I could just make out Liam's torso rise and fall.

The house creaked and groaned. I tossed around, unable to get comfortable in the humidity. Eventually I flung the sheet off and when it tumbled onto the ground I heard Liam grumble.

“Hey,” he said. I looked down; I’d flung the sheet over his face where he’d been dozing.

“Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“Nah,” he said, sitting up and crumpling up the sheet. “Can’t sleep in this heat.”

“Me neither.”

I saw him worrying his hands around the skin above his left hip. In the dim light I could make out the blotch of a yellowing bruise.

“What happened there?”

“It's nothing. I think you kneed me when we were wrestling in the lake. Or maybe I got it from rugby or something.”

“Right.” I knew enough about bruises to surmise that a yellowing mark would have been there for a few days.

“Man, today was totally a rollercoaster,” he said after a deep exhale.

“Weird," I said. "But cool."

“You sure you don’t feel I’m barging in on you guys? I mean, I know we haven’t really been friends, but, I’m very grateful and...”

He was fumbling with his words.

“It’s no problem,” I said, “I’ve had a good time. I’m glad you came.”

“Me too.”

“Are you going to go to the party?” I asked.

“Dude. Three sexy girls invited us. Three girls already out of school. Are you taking stupid pills or something?”

“I’ve never been...”

“You should live more, Brody,” said Liam. He got up and walked to the open window. He leaned forward to look at the moonlit garden. “You looked good, today,” he said in a distant tone. “I mean, you’re always so, all...”

“Nerdy?”

“I meant serious. I didn’t think you’d end up being such a barrel of laughs.”

“You make me sound like a librarian or something.”

“Well, you certainly could be one with all the books you read. Sorry. I don’t mean to sound like a douche.”

“Not at all,” I said, enjoying the banter.

We were both silent for a while, then Liam let out a deep sigh.

“The world is too much with us, late and soon...”

“Wordsworth?” I asked, impressed.

“Yeah. I do actually listen in class. You know, I like what the dude says.”

“About what?”

“About us forgetting about nature and how we should appreciate it more. I never had...” He stretched out an arm, indicating the garden. “..This. These woods. The lake. I feel like I’ve been in a cage my whole life.”

“But you’ve been places," I said, frowning. "You’ve travelled. You've gone skiing in actual snow and all sorts of things.”

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging. “But it’s always been hotels and taxis and stuff. And resorts are pretty boring. That’s what I remember. When we go away… it’s always like so..."

"Artificial?"

He was silent. I kind of felt sorry for him. In the background, Graeme’s snoring —softer now– was rhythmic, almost soothing.

Liam turned around and leant back on his elbows against the windowsill. “How come you guys are so like okay sleeping in the bed together like that?”

"We’ve been friends since we were six. He’s sort of my brother.”

“I wish I had a brother.”

“Dude. Why are you so gloomy?”

“I dunno. I think I’m gonna try and get back to sleep.”

“Okay.”

I lay back again and closed my eyes. This time sleep came quickly, and I would have probably slept through till mid-morning, if it hadn’t been for Pish-Tush jumping on top of me and wanting to snuggle at around sunrise.

I tried to get the cat off my chest but his purring only became more insistent. Eventually I compromised, letting him settle in the crook of my arm, hoping my allergies wouldn’t hold me to ransom later in the day.

I craned my neck around: the bed was empty, and there was no sign of Liam on the floor. But I was too sleepy to care. I started dozing off again, swearing I smelled something sweet and sickly in the air. Outside, distant thunder rumbled outside, but no storm came.