Clancy of the Undertow Read online

  Christopher Currie is a Brisbane writer. His first book, a novel for adults called The Ottoman Motel, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize and the Queensland Literary Awards in 2012. Clancy of the Undertow is his first YA novel.

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  The Text Publishing Company

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  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  Copyright © 2016 by Christopher Currie

  The moral right of Christopher Currie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  First published in 2016 by The Text Publishing Company

  Cover and page design by Imogen Stubbs

  Cover photograph by Miquel Llonch / Stocksy

  Typeset in Sabon 11/16 by J & M Typesetting

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Creator: Currie, Christopher, author.

  Title: Clancy of the undertow / by Christopher Currie.

  ISBN: 9781925240405 (paperback)

  9781922253194 (ebook)

  Target Audience: For young adults.

  Subjects: Love stories.

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  For Roy Fox, who taught me the power of curiosity, the benefit of patience and the importance of empathy.

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  Acknowledgments

  1

  She’s got this nearly chinless face, which isn’t as bad as it sounds because she’s European and her nose bends over in a poetic way. And she’s small, birdy, gorgeous. She dresses in silk blouses the colour and texture of cream. Pencil skirts that have an actually pencil shape: that sort of perfect thing.

  Eloise and me. She’s thirty-two, voluptuous, perfect. I am sixteen, with the physique of a tree frog.

  This is the two of us, our top halves poking out above the makeup counter. Our island in a shopping-centre sea. Usually, we’re both here only on a Saturday; the other six days we split. During the holidays I’m Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and on these days, pretty much nothing gets sold. For some reason this is okay. I spend my time giving people directions to other shops, and the rest of it perfecting doodles and playlists in the notebook which is supposed to be for the takings and customer orders.

  It’s better than school, but only because of the air-conditioning. Eloise is the only reason I stay here, that I put up with the days of boredom and humiliation in this retail prison.

  Eloise is the only reason anyone comes to the booth—or rather, the Beauty Station. She purrs and preens over the country women who waddle up from the International Carvery to have their gravy-stained faces primped and poked by this mysterious European queen. And they all leave with the Full Beauty Package (not that you need it darling, but the men, eh? They want a little colour to your cheeks…) which will require replenishment in just under a month’s time. Every Saturday we make the week’s takings in the three hours everyone in town turns up to buy the family groceries.

  It’s late afternoon now, Thursday. Eloise has come in to check inventory when she knows it will be quiet. The shoppers are all but gone and it’s back to the head-crushing tedium. The only thing keeping me going is my afternoon visit from Reeve. Today he ambles up in his dark blue uniform about three-thirty. He has in his hand something that purports to be a juice, but whose colour would seem to place it outside the plant kingdom.

  ‘What’s the two-oh-three?’ I say to him.

  ‘It’s all on the down,’ he says. ‘Nuthin’ but goddam happers, whackin’ out and fliptoppin’.’

  I nod knowledgeably. ‘Streets be a jungle, yo.’

  Reeve takes a sip of his drink, closing his eyes as he takes in the sugar. His face can only devote itself to one activity at a time. After he swallows, he laughs. ‘How’s business, ladies?’

  Eloise folds a handtowel and nods. ‘Security Guard Lewis,’ she says. ‘How are you?’

  Reeve nods back. ‘Very well, thank you.’ We’re never sure when Eloise is joking.

  ‘Anything we can help you with today?’ I say. ‘I could offer you a lovely foundation to set your complexion off against your uniform. What colour would you call your shirt?’

  ‘Ocean of despair.’

  I snort. Eloise clears her throat beside me. She has banter tolerance of exactly one minute.

  ‘Better get back to it,’ I say. ‘Time waits for no tan.’

  Reeve groans. ‘Awful, Clancy. Just awful. What time you closing up today?’

  ‘Darling,’ says Eloise, ‘I feel there will be more sales before the day is out.’ She flutters a hand up against her face.

  ‘Five-thirty then,’ I say, trying to hide my tone of resignation.

  ‘All right,’ says Reeve, ‘well I might see you once more, crime waves permitting.’ He gives us a lazy salute and strolls off.

  When Reeve is out of earshot, Eloise leans over to me. ‘He is quite something, that boy.’

  I cluck my tongue. ‘He’s something.’

  ‘Ah, to be young again, Clancy!’ Eloise claps her hands together, swooning.

  ‘Jeez,’ I say, feeling my neck flush red because it clearly hates me. ‘He’s just a friend.’

  ‘Ah, well, it is better to have lost in love than ever more.’

  ‘Right. Yep.’ I duck behind the counter to look in a drawer that has suddenly caught my attention. I still can’t decide whether Eloise actually doesn’t know the real words to proverbs, or whether this is an aspect of the character she plays.

  ‘You just have to believe in yourself,’ she says. I feel something in my hair before I realise she’s stroking it. I jump, which is not easy when you’re crouching, and then try to move myself away from her. My duck-waddle fails and I topple to the floor. I observe the complex ecosystem of dust and used cotton balls under the counter.

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I say. ‘Completely in my element.’

  2

  The afternoon passes‚ with no more customers, and I leave just after five. I change into my boots and hurry out of the shopping centre before Reeve can find me and we have to have a real conversation, without the social safety barrier of a large white counter between us.

  Coming down the escalators the knife guy is there at his display table and he winks at me, his hand resting on the hilt of a dagger shaped like a dragon’s head. For the umptee
nth time, I realise I could just reach down off the escalator and pick up a blade and make the news. Not that I ever would, but sometimes I think it, just for the stupid thrill.

  I leave through the big sliding doors and the afternoon humidity drapes itself across my face. I’ve just rubbed off the worst of the makeup in the shopping centre bathroom, leaving on what I hope is the right amount. Eloise has taught me how to apply makeup, but only in a way that suits her strong features. On my nondescript face, the dark eye shadow and dramatic slash of lipstick just makes me look like something from a straight-to-DVD horror franchise.

  My bike is there on the rack, still somehow not stolen even though I leave the lock conspicuously undone. Dad refuses to buy me a new bike until this one ‘wears out’ and so as usual I hop on my too-small red BMX, Lightning Lady written in huge pearlescent letters on the frame, and pedal out of the carpark. I often consider riding it out of town and abandoning it, but I’m a terrible liar and Dad would be able to tell and then I’d have no bike.

  My stupid backpack keeps hitching up my shirt so I spend most of the ride holding it down until eventually I sling the backpack over the handlebars, and then it’s hard to steer and so I have to go really slow and I can feel the drivers of the cars buzzing past judging me but that’s just the way my life is. I turn off the main road and shudder over the unsealed path that runs beside the river. I pull up next to the play equipment and fling my bike into the dirt, hoping to encourage an irreparable crack in the chassis. No such luck.

  Soon I’m sitting behind the skate park, with its stench of dust and petrol, pretending to read a book. All the guys are pretty much just silhouettes against the sky. One by one, they teeter on the lip of the ramp and drop away, their shape replaced by sound. The hum of wheels on concrete. The rest of them are huddled on the other side, making fume-tents with their shirts or smoking or both. It stinks here. There is, however, no better place to watch the vacant lot across the fence where the cars are gathering.

  They’re parked at mad angles, a protest to symmetry. More join every minute, appearing first as dirty clouds from behind the hill, then swinging into focus with carefully choreographed fishtails that send up even more dust. The crowd cheers each time a new car arrives. Everyone coming in from work. Or not-work.

  Thursday is Student Night in Barwen. Named after the chalkboard claim the Criterion never takes down from outside its entrance. It’s sort of a Barwen in-joke, because no one here really studies, not in the sense Student Night usually means. A few adult learners at the TAFE, probably, but that’s it. Still, tradition is tradition, and Thursday night means party night.

  Finally, the car I’m waiting for arrives, and it gets the biggest cheer. A mustard-brown Monaro, flashing its lights. Buggs gets out, unfolding his body from his modified drivers seat that’s positioned impossibly low to the floor. This always struck me as stupid, because the sun visor wouldn’t keep the sun out of his eyes, but Buggs isn’t known as someone who things through. He takes off his cap, smooths his hair, puts the cap back on. Predictable as hell. He kneads his lips, fishing in his pocket for cigarettes, striding over to a group of guys by the half-pipe. I keep my eyes on the car.

  The tiny car light flicks on and my heart jags because she’s there, painting Cleopatra edges to her eyes, peering at the rearview mirror. Sasha Strickland, leaning back to shuffle on a jeans leg, kicking one foot out at the evening air. All the guys have gone with Buggs to the edge of the skate ramp. Nobody looking at Sasha except for me. Nobody sees the three holes in her stockings that look like a ghost’s face. I think of being a ghost, of being invisible. Being in the back seat as Sasha prepares for a night out. Leaning my ghost head close to her cheek and feeling its heat.

  I realise I’ve got my hands down the sides of my boots where the elastic has wafered. I need new shoes. I’ll never impress anyone with old boots and old clothes and an old bike. I glance at my watch but already know I have to leave. Sasha gets out of the car and stretches sort of the way a cat stretches, every muscle shivering out. She’s cut her hair since last week, framing her face with straight edges. Someone said she goes to Brisbane to get it done. Most local girls go to Classic Cuts or Real Beauty, which are basically the same place because any girl who goes in there comes out with identical skanky highlights and claw-nails and eyelashes like a giraffe. They’re all fake tanned, too, but not Sasha. She’s pale. Whenever you see that crowd together, smoking outside the Cri or by the council building or outside Macca’s on the weekend, Sasha always stands out, like a vampire in a wheatfield. Black hair, black jeans. She’s with Buggs, but only because it makes them a crazy famous couple.

  Buggs is from a family that’s been here since the town was settled and his uncle used to be the mayor and half the town is run by his other uncles and cousins. His last name is Pfister, which is hilarious, but no one’s allowed to make fun of him because of who his family is even though his first name is actually Barnaby, a fact that made me laugh for five straight minutes when I found out. Buggs is a massive douche. He works in his dad’s auto shop, but he’s never really there. He spends most of his time tinkering with his own car, or sitting at the front bar of the Cri. He’s super thin and stooped over, and his nose is almost flat to his face, but he’s somehow the coolest guy in town, which is why Sasha is with him. Must be.

  All the guys are laughing by the half-pipe and I hear cans opening and bottle caps flipping off and I get up and leave before anyone sees me. I take one look back and Sasha’s leaning against Buggs like he’s a useful tree, smoking and staring off into her own middle distance, her transformation complete. Daytime travel agent to nighttime smalltown royalty. I dig my nails into my palm and stifle a huge, self-pitying sigh. She’ll never notice me. I’ll never even be a small part of her world.

  3

  I cycle back up the dirt path, not bothering to get up off my seat as I judder across the tiny stones. What’s the point? I pedal furiously up the hill and cut in behind CityView Motel’s carpark. Throw my bike over the fence and drag it up the cow paddock. As always, I can’t tell what’s a divot and what’s a cowpat but I plough on regardless. There’s a crowd of cockatoos dotting the grass white and they flap madly as I walk through them, flying up as a big swarm, circling one of the two huge eucalypts on each side of our house. Late summer is brimful with birdscreech until even after dark. Titch is there by the front steps standing in a puddle of water he’s made by letting the hose run.

  ‘Turn that off,’ I say.

  ‘Mum said I could.’ He has on one of his stupid skater caps, decorated with skulls.

  ‘You’re wasting water.’

  ‘There’s no restrictions,’ he says. ‘La Niña is in full effect.’

  Titch is turning into such a smart-arse. Where once stood my fun little brother now stands the chrysalis of a bogan butterfly. ‘Dad home?’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s steaming.’

  Great. Steaming means Dad’s had a bad day and he isn’t happy about it.

  A little while ago, middle of winter, just after Dad’d come off compo and was doing traffic work, he came home and we were out front chopping wood and when he got out of the car we started laughing because his sweat turned into steam and it looked like his head had been on fire. He swore at us something chronic. Since then, a steaming Dad is not a good thing.

  ‘That’s perfect,’ I say. Dad in a bad mood means Mum in a bad mood, meaning I can’t be in the least bit fed up with my stupid boring life without getting a long lecture on the inherent value of something.

  Titch sinks further into the mud and I hope to God he keeps sinking.

  Inside the house I can already feel the tension. Dad’s fluoro workshirt is hanging on the chair, a smear of jam on the breast pocket. I can picture him flinging it off before disappearing for a long shower—more steam from under the bathroom door.

  ‘Clancy.’ Mum’s standing by the sink, new rubber gloves nearly glowing green.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘What’s going on?’<
br />
  Mum makes that face where her cheeks pinch up towards her eyes: to a stranger, a smile. ‘I need you to go and get your brother.’

  ‘Titch is out the front. I’m not cleaning him up though.’

  ‘Angus. I need you to get Angus.’

  ‘Why?’ My older brother is living at home temporarily, which means—knowing Angus—probably forever. The rule is he has to make his own dinner unless he tells Mum otherwise. He hardly ever does. Stays out late just about every night.

  ‘Can you just go and get him?’ Mum’s cheeks have flushed, twin comets against her skin.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I say it more serious this time, in the voice I use when I’m trying to make sense of people. My feet are already aching in my boots. The last thing I want is to cycle across town looking for my dropkick brother.

  Mum turns back to the sink. ‘Just do it, Clancy. It’s important.’

  ‘Jesus. Can you just make him buy a phone?’

  Mum throws up her hands, as if this means something.

  ‘How’m I supposed to know where he is?’ I say. ‘I have to go out on my bike in the dark?’

  ‘You know where he’ll be. He can drive you back.’ The tone in Mum’s voice is heavy and weird.

  I perform an offended pirouette and tramp back out of the house. I’ve tried words with my parents. Now I just use silence.

  4

  I clip on my front light and coast back down the hill. I’m always the one who has to do the responsible stuff. Titch is too young and Angus is too unreliable. Still a year before I can drive and I’m the only person in our family responsible for getting things done. Dad works weird hours now he’s on the road crew and Mum hardly leaves the house if she doesn’t get any teaching work. Still, Mum’s right—there’s no doubt where Angus is at this time of night. Up the top of the observatory, drinking, smoking pot and planning the next stage of his severely unambitious life.

  I pedal hard down through town and out past Red Rooster and KFC. When the streetlights stop I switch on the weak front light and close my eyes down the hills. Angus’ll pay for me having to do this. On top of whatever ragging Dad’s going to give him. He probably parked Dad in last night or used up the shampoo or ate the last of the salt and vinegar chips—any number of things Dad would want to haul him into line for. Dad’s job means he gets to stand still for hours at a time in the middle of nowhere, stewing over the smallest things us kids have done wrong. Especially Angus, who in Dad’s eyes is constantly wasting his time. Which is, basically, entirely accurate.