Peta is a little young, seventeen actually. She is wearing a modest red bikini revealing luscious tasty curves, all bosoms and bum. She didn’t look seventeen at all, more like a lady in the mid twenties, exquisite, full and well supported. Marvellous, yes, breasts full of grandeur, big enough to have their own gravitational pull.
The foot ball drops beside the group of inconspicuously alert girls, landing with a light splash. For a moment they make no movement, stalling and huddling like a surprised school of bait fish, it was a well practiced defensive exercise. A move we, the salmon hunters had expected. In an instant our general chatter, which up to this point has been voluminous and playful, dimmed to a noticeably new level which would have scared any parent within earshot. I looked at Twon, he was standing in the shallows with a greedy smile, his eyes transfixed on the play.
In the car park, some two hundred meter’s amongst the sand dune which hugged the bay, Daisy laughes beside his car. From where I was sitting in the water, I could just make out his body jerking with his laugh and he lifts his hand over his eye’s blocking out the warm midday glare, he gazes down amongst the scene like an elite, watching the game from a corporal box.
Like most weekends in the salmon shack, we, the degenerates, wake late with hands supporting our frail minds. Today by all accounts was Sunday, and like all Sunday mornings, it is not a time to engage in political debate, not that I think we were actually capable of a political debate. Anyway today being the morning of a Sunday was no exception. I’m not sure what started our tradition, maybe it was out of boredom, out of habit, out of pure curiosity, but as usual we had slipped into our cleanest unclean shorts, grabbed the football beside the tatted door and marched off towards the beach.
It was beautiful, actually alarmingly beautiful and if I think back now it is the sort of moment which makes you miss a place, or miss a time. It was a warm and languid afternoon. The sea was looking like a glassy flat field of tranquil blue. People all over the beach moved about, adjusting the occasional hungry bum or rearranging the loose bikini strap. We watched on with undignified fascination. While the bay had become our local hang out, local pick up pocket, it had never been this calm, never this festive, and never with this much pure fleshy pink skin. We jittered about with excitement.
She broke from the pack with a sudden movement, premeditated as if she had always intended to fetch the ball, moving like she had always been part of the game. Although, I think she would have liked us to have thought she had never seen, never heard, or ever known who had thrown the well calculated throw.
The foot ball drops beside the group of inconspicuously alert girls, landing with a light splash. For a moment they make no movement, stalling and huddling like a surprised school of bait fish, it was a well practiced defensive exercise. A move we, the salmon hunters had expected. In an instant our general chatter, which up to this point has been voluminous and playful, dimmed to a noticeably new level which would have scared any parent within earshot. I looked at Twon, he was standing in the shallows with a greedy smile, his eyes transfixed on the play.
In the car park, some two hundred meter’s amongst the sand dune which hugged the bay, Daisy laughes beside his car. From where I was sitting in the water, I could just make out his body jerking with his laugh and he lifts his hand over his eye’s blocking out the warm midday glare, he gazes down amongst the scene like an elite, watching the game from a corporal box.
Like most weekends in the salmon shack, we, the degenerates, wake late with hands supporting our frail minds. Today by all accounts was Sunday, and like all Sunday mornings, it is not a time to engage in political debate, not that I think we were actually capable of a political debate. Anyway today being the morning of a Sunday was no exception. I’m not sure what started our tradition, maybe it was out of boredom, out of habit, out of pure curiosity, but as usual we had slipped into our cleanest unclean shorts, grabbed the football beside the tatted door and marched off towards the beach.
It was beautiful, actually alarmingly beautiful and if I think back now it is the sort of moment which makes you miss a place, or miss a time. It was a warm and languid afternoon. The sea was looking like a glassy flat field of tranquil blue. People all over the beach moved about, adjusting the occasional hungry bum or rearranging the loose bikini strap. We watched on with undignified fascination. While the bay had become our local hang out, local pick up pocket, it had never been this calm, never this festive, and never with this much pure fleshy pink skin. We jittered about with excitement.
She broke from the pack with a sudden movement, premeditated as if she had always intended to fetch the ball, moving like she had always been part of the game. Although, I think she would have liked us to have thought she had never seen, never heard, or ever known who had thrown the well calculated throw.
She grabbed at the ball while treading the deeper water. As she turned to face the shore I stared at her, engrossed by her soft delicate face. Innocent, pretty, symmetrical with wide brown eyes and curly dark hair. She drew a smile and looked about not dropping the unknowing façade and then met my eyes with affirmation. Weak and unconfident I returned the smile. ‘Hi,’ I sputtered and shyly wiped the back of my head almost forcing a wave.
This is when I noticed the Parasite. I hadn’t been watching him up until now. He was just a few meters to the left of her. All I could see was half of his head, from just below his eyes, drifting through the water like a vicious crocodile ready for an attack.
A good centre fielder will always read the play before the balls left his boot. In most cases, he will read three plays ahead from when the tough leathery exterior connects with his highly strung laces. The centre so meticulous in his ways, so sure of his foot work, swings across the goal square, he is open and he is ready for the mark.
Meanwhile the wing man dodges an opponent, fake right, lung left. As he has practiced many times before, just as the coach has drawn it on the chalk board, he snaps a heavy right foot towards centre, not knowing, yet sure his kick is well placed.
The centre throws his arms into the air, the camera pans in, the crowd cheers and the score sheet is marked beside his name. The wing man, uncelebrated, taps his team mate on the shoulder then jogs towards his position on the outer field. This is when I felt the frown break the smile.
‘We’re on schoolies,’ they blathered amongst the table of countless empty Cruiser bottles. Schoolies if I remember correctly is in November. Let’s not drew on all this too much, her friend was equally proportioned.
…………………………………….
It is now February and I’ve just finished adding the Algae solution to the bigger outside tanks. Ensuring they are getting well ventilated, I drop in a weighted hose which is plumbed to the roof. It is part of a bigger, much more intricate and complex system which feeds the entire Oyster farm with oxygen. Checking the covers are over the spat tanks, I clear the room of loose hoses, pumps and filters. As I’m about to turn off the light I notice my phone is flashing, it’s a message.
Mum said I can come up. Peta
I stop, almost forgetting to switch off the light and fall into another incorrigible day dream. Day dreaming, as I have quickly learnt, is a great way to waste the long dry Carnarvon days. It reminds me of Cashback, it isn’t hard to stop time. Usually all it takes is to leave the nest of grotty sheds and stare out over the desolate plains. Nothing moves apart from the silent breeze which stirs within your ears, for a moment, a timeless moment, I would believe that time had actually stopped. Then, maybe I would catch the flick of a fish tail down beside the creek or the call of a bird in the distance. I would be thrown back into reality with a regrettable forcefulness. It’s not hard to know what I’m thinking about this time, a man can only spend so many days out here in this sort of heat.I can’t be bothered thumbing a reply so I dial her number.
‘Hello.’
‘Hey, how you doing.’ I reply, it’s an easy opener.
‘Good.’
‘Cool, so she said yes?’
‘Yeah, I told her your dad would be there.’
‘Really, why?’
‘I don’t know she wanted a parent to be there, you know so someone was there.’ She didn’t need to explain anymore than this. I was actually surprised her mum had said yes in the first place.
‘Yeah I guess, you are only seventeen!’
She laughed. Peta was always shy about her age, saying things like, ‘I know,’ as a way to ignore that she didn’t know and would go on to say things like, ‘I was thinking’. I didn’t mind so much, I felt like she enjoyed being around an older person, someone she could bounce idea’s off. Ultimately though, I couldn’t make the mistakes for her.
‘Yeah, so she is going to give you a call to confirm a few things.’
‘Like what sort of things,’ I questioned.
‘Well she wants to get to know you a little and just check that your dad will be there.’
‘Oh, okay well that’s cool by me.’
‘Really!’ Peta replied almost surprised.
‘Yeah, for sure, I can’t wait for you to come up.’
‘Cool.’
‘Zac said something about coming up also?’ I questioned.
‘Really,’ she replied, this time acting surprised, but I had already spoken to the Parasite and I knew she knew.
‘I thought you already knew.’
‘Umm, kind of.’ She didn’t need to elaborate on this and I cut her off.
‘I hope that’s not why you’re coming up,’
‘No, I’m over him, don’t worry,’ She stressed.
‘Cool, Well I’ll give you another call when I finish work.’
‘Later Juice.’
I hung up and proceeded down the corridor checking the hydrogen levels on the laboratory as I past. It was midday and it was getting hot outside, some droplets of sweat had formed on my forehead and I passed out into the opening beyond the sheds. The creek was low, must have been low tide I assumed, I watched it for moment thinking about the conversation, only coming to again when the boss emerged from the Lab….
To be continued….
Note: All photo's by: Colby Elliot
1 comment:
ahh, Peta... now there's a girl who sticks in one's memory.
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