Angel Rock

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‘What did it look like?’ Grace whispered.

Darcy screwed up her face and grinned. ‘Remember that time we helped the nurse with all the kindie boys?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, it was like that. Like a grub. A pink grub. But …’

‘But what?’

‘Bigger … and hairy!’

Darcy laughed along with Grace. When they stopped they were racked with giggles until Darcy shouted Come on! and took off up the road. Grace followed. She seemed to be doing a lot of following lately, but even though she was older than Darcy by a few months it didn’t really bother her. Every Saturday Darcy always wanted to be doing things, never wanted to just sit and talk like they’d used to, but there was less and less to do in Angel Rock that they hadn’t already done and Darcy was becoming more and more restless. Lately Grace had been reading books and telling Darcy things that might interest her to try and keep her happy. Saturday last she’d told her all about Huck Finn and his raft and now Darcy wanted to build her own and float away down the river just like him.

They walked along to the sawmill as they’d planned and ducked through the hole in the fence. No one worked there on Saturdays any more. Tom Ferry collected sawdust for the butcher there some weekends but there was no sign of him. They wandered around through the stacks of timber looking for material, toiling in the hot morning sun for an hour until they had a pallet, various other odds and ends of wood, four empty oil drums, bits and pieces of rope and a torn scrap of red cloth that the timbermen nailed to the end of logs when they were carried on the roads.

They tramped across the open paddock between the back of the sawmill and the riverbank carrying their finds, but when they came to the pallet they found that it was far too big for the hole in the fence no matter which way they tried it.

‘Goddamn it,’ said Darcy.

They sat and looked at the pallet and wiped the sweat off their foreheads with their sleeves.

‘It’s the best bit. We can’t leave it.’

‘I could get Pop to help us,’ said Grace.

‘You can’t ask him! He’d probably arrest us!’ Darcy laughed but Grace could barely raise a grin.

‘We’ll just have to try with what we’ve got,’ said Darcy.

They walked over to the river and gazed at the pile. It didn’t look like much of a raft. Darcy tried to tie one of the drums to a plank of wood but the rope was much too short.

‘Goddamn it!’ she said again, and pushed a drum down the bank. It splashed into the dark water and then floated away. The girls looked at one another for a moment and then, piece by piece, threw all the wood and the remaining drums into the river. When everything was gone they sat down and watched the line of flotsam drift away downstream.

‘Boats might hit them,’ said Darcy, a little wistfully, after a few minutes had passed.

Grace nodded. ‘Yeah. Boats might sink. We better go before someone sees.’

‘They might go all the way out to sea.’

‘Yeah. All the way to Sydney. Come on,’ said Grace, her heart beginning to pound.

‘What do you think it’s like there?’ asked Darcy, making no move.

‘Where?’

‘Sydney.’

‘I don’t know. Lots of buildings, lots of houses, lots of people.’

Darcy nodded. ‘I’m going there one day.’

‘That’s good. Now come on!’

Darcy shrugged, but then got to her feet and slapped the grass off her dress. They walked back up to the road but still saw no one. Along from the mill they stopped by the rail platform and drank from the tap down the side of the old stationmaster’s office, wetting their brows and washing the dust off their hands and arms. In the distance a train’s horn sounded. They climbed up onto the platform and sat down on an old luggage trolley and peered southwards. Before long they caught a glimpse of the train away down the valley, ploughing through the heat haze like a ship. Darcy stood up. Grace’s stomach rumbled and she looked at her watch.

‘Think I can beat it?’ said Darcy, shading her eyes with her hand.

‘What? The train?’

‘Yeah. To the tree.’

Grace looked up the tracks to the tree – maybe a hundred yards away – then back in the direction the train was coming, then up at Darcy. Standing there in the dust, barefoot, with her fingers splayed in the curve of her waist and her hip out, with the red log flag bunched in her other hand and the sun right behind her golden head, her best friend looked like she could do anything she put her mind to, and beat any train under the sun.

‘Ah … m-maybe,’ she answered, stammering. ‘If it slows around the bend.’

‘Pah!’

Darcy crouched and waited for the train, a sly grin not shifting from her mouth. The driver sounded the horn as the train approached. It came on, huge and metallic, belching diesel smoke, glinting in the sun. Grace took two steps back from the tracks and nearly called to her friend to take care. When the train reached her Darcy sprang away, racing away alongside the tracks, laughing and lifting the flag up over her head and waving it to and fro like a banner. The passengers in the train stared at her as they passed and then some boys opened a door to yell and whoop. As they did Darcy reached the tree and collapsed, laughing, in a heap on the grass, ruby-cheeked and with her hair clinging to her damp face and neck. Grace, catching her up, flopped down on her back beside her, breathing hard, the solid blue sky overhead brimming with little points of light that spun before her eyes. They lay there, giggling, until Darcy slapped Grace on the thigh.

‘Did I beat it?’

‘Yeah, you did!’

Darcy lifted up her arms and made fists of her hands.

‘Champion!’ she yelled, but a moment later she was on her feet again, pulling Grace up by the arm.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’m too hot now. Let’s go for a swim!’

They walked down to the ferry, running the last stretch, jumping on just as the ramp was lifting. The ferrymaster growled at them. Darcy poked her tongue out at him. Grace thought she saw him grin but it was hard to tell through his beard. When the ferry reached the town side of the river they ducked the rail and ran up the street, up past the convent and the school, through the weedy paddock behind, past the old house with its huge ramparts of overgrown hedge and saplings growing up through the verandah, then through a fenced yard dotted with tobacco bushes and tall thistles, the scruffy pony in it taking only a few steps out from under the shade of a tree before they’d slipped through the fence on the other side and disappeared down through the bushes to the creek.

There was no one at the waterhole. Most kids swam in the river off the jetty or up at the dam. Grace didn’t like any place much, but the day was too hot to be fussy. Darcy pulled her dress over her head and kicked off her underpants. Grace looked around.

‘Don’t worry, nobody’s here.’

Grace nodded nervously and began to undress.

‘You’re getting boobs now,’ Darcy said, nodding her head towards Grace’s chest and making her blush. ‘It’s about time.’

‘Mum says I’m a late bloomer.’

‘Blooming late, that’s all!’

Grace blushed.

‘You’ll have to wear a bra then.’

‘I don’t like them.’

‘Me neither. Who needs ’em.’

Darcy turned and climbed down the bank and slipped into the water. Grace left her underpants on and followed. In under the trees the water was cool and her skin rippled into goosebumps and her teeth chattered for a few moments as she lowered herself into the water. She soon forgot about her half-naked state and began to paddle around the pool and enjoy the sensation of the water against her skin, how good it felt compared to the hot and sticky air.

After swimming around the pool a few times Darcy clambered up the far bank and jumped off an overhanging rock into the water, the sound of the splash loud under the leafy canopy.

‘Come on! You try!’ she called to Grace after she’d surfaced.

Grace resisted, but after a campaign of pleading from Darcy she relented and climbed the bank. She stood on the rock for a minute, her arms crossed over her chest, and gathered her nerve. When she jumped she felt the much cooler water in the depths of the hole with her toes and she shivered again when she broke the surface. They took turns jumping until Darcy pointed to the branch of a tree hanging out over the water.

‘I’m going to climb up there and jump off,’ she said.

‘Don’t be dumb! It’s too high!’

‘No, it’s not. I’ve seen it done.’

Grace watched as Darcy climbed the tree and then wriggled forward along the overhanging limb, her muddy legs hanging down on either side.

‘Be careful!’ Grace called. ‘Maybe the water isn’t deep enough!’

‘Bulldust!’

Darcy manoeuvred herself around the branch and lowered herself down. She swung for a moment or two by her arms and then let go. Grace put her hand over her mouth and held her breath as Darcy’s body seemed to just hang in the air for a moment before scything down into the water and making a great splash, the wave from it nearly swamping Grace where she knelt in the shallows.

‘See?’ spluttered Darcy, when her head broke the surface.

‘You can be a real dill sometimes, Darcy Steele,’ said Grace, shaking her head.

Darcy pulled herself up out onto the bank and sat and shook the water from her hair. Grace followed and sat down beside her.

‘Want a smoke?’ said Darcy, after a while.

Before Grace could answer she went over to her clothes and rummaged through them, returning with a crumpled pair of cigarettes and a box of matches. She put one in her mouth and lit it, handed it to Grace, then lit the other. Grace put the cigarette to her lips and breathed in while Darcy watched, her face wreathed in smoke.

‘Good! You’re a natural!’

They sat and smoked until Grace began to feel a little sick. Darcy didn’t say anything for a long time. Grace was about to ask her what was wrong when they both heard a sound away through the trees.

‘What was that?’ whispered Grace. The cigarette fell from her fingers onto the ground, forgotten. Darcy stood and peered across the water at the bushes on the bank. Grace crossed her arms over her chest and began to slide over to where her dress lay. She heard the sound again but this time it was much clearer. There was a strangled laugh, and then a fierce admonition.

‘It’s my brother,’ Darcy whispered. ‘It’s Sonny.’

She bent and scooped up a handful of mud from the bank and then stepped down into the water and flung it towards the far bank. She threw more, her cigarette poised in the fingers of her left hand, until there was a squeal from the bushes. Sonny and Leonard broke from their cover and crashed through the undergrowth like pademelons. Grace saw Leonard gawping at Darcy’s bare breasts and at the dark triangle under her belly.

‘I’m telling!’ Sonny squawked.

‘Haven’t done nothin’!’ Darcy shouted back. ‘I’ll tell on you!’

She bent and dug in the bank for more ammunition then glanced over at Grace.

‘Come on! Aren’t you going to help?’

‘I can’t!’

Darcy shrugged and kept flinging mud, even after Sonny and Leonard were well out of range. After a few final sallies she came and stood near Grace and picked up her dress and pulled it over her head.

‘They’re always doing things like that,’ she said, pulling on her underpants. Grace felt even sicker.

‘Why didn’t you cover yourself up?’

Darcy looked surprised by the question. She seemed to think about it for a moment and then gave a little shrug.

‘I don’t care,’ she said.

She walked down into the water and washed the worst of the mud from her arms and legs and it dawned on Grace then that she really didn’t – didn’t care that Sonny had seen, didn’t care that Leonard had. She came back up the bank and sat down, pulling her legs up to her chin. Neither said anything for a minute or so, as if the clothes had somehow changed them.

‘I should go,’ Grace said, eventually. ‘My mum’ll have lunch ready. You can come if you want.’

‘No. I’ll stay here.’

‘I’ll come back later then.’

Darcy nodded.

‘Remember you have to come and try on your dress,’ said Grace, as she stood.

‘Yeah. I remember.’

Grace waited. She felt awkward and didn’t know quite why. Darcy was staring at the water and throwing twigs into it.

‘I’ll see you then,’ said Grace.

‘Yeah. See ya,’ Darcy whispered.

A shadow fell across her friend’s face then and her head lowered and she began to cry. Grace went to her and put an arm round her, then held her head as Darcy set it against her shoulder. She cried for ten minutes or more, and when she was nearly through and just sobbing Grace tried to find out what the problem was. Darcy would only shake her head. Grace stroked her hair and then pulled her close and hugged her.

‘What is it?’ she asked again, but Darcy wouldn’t, or couldn’t, answer her. Grace looked at her red eyes and her cheeks wet with tears. She lifted a strand of her damp hair and put it behind her ear. Darcy looked up at her with her sad, blue eyes then lifted her hands and put them on either side of Grace’s face. And then Grace felt her hot, wet mouth as she pressed her lips hard against her cheek. She pulled away and as she did she saw an odd look cross Darcy’s face, and she knew without a doubt that it was a reflection of her own dismay. She stood abruptly.

‘Gra—’

‘I have to go now. If you won’t tell me what’s wrong …’

Darcy bit her lip and said nothing. Finally, Grace had to turn and walk away, her head all confusion, her feelings in a spin. When she glanced over her shoulder her friend was sitting very still, watching her depart. Her face looked very pale in the dappled sunlight. Darcy gave a weak, hopeful smile and then waved, as if hoping with all her heart that she wouldn’t be the only one to do so. Grace hesitated, her brow furrowing, but then she lifted her hand and waved it feebly once or twice before turning for home.