The surf was flat the following day, and Mick checked Swellnet on his phone.
“There’s a low-pressure system forming in the Coral Sea. With any luck, it should generate some swell. Luckily, we’re driving toward it and not away. When we get to Queensland, the surf should be at least six feet.”
They swam on the beach, and Phil cooked eggs and bacon and brewed a pot of tea. Drew played the most melancholic of Matt Finish’s songs, Younger Days.
Out on the blue they haul away
Taking things the Sea gives up, it haunts you
You see the darkness find the day
It hurts you and you won’t grow up
Don’t blind yourself with younger days
You mean it when you say
you’re all through.
Some teenage girls arrived and set up their tent opposite them. Phil saw Mick ogling them.
“Mick, you’re drooling.”
“Can you hand me a paper towel to wipe my mouth?”
“I’m afraid someone’s going to call an ambulance.”
“Mate, if they could see what I’m thinking, they’d call the cops.”
“Charming.”
“Don’t tell me you’re too old to check out a bit of passing skirt, Phil.”
“I’ve got daughters.”
“Oh, I get it. So, you don’t need to check out other men’s daughters because you’ve got your own. That’s so inappropriate,” Mick laughed.
“Mate, you’re disgusting.”
“I’m joking!” Mick exaggerated his defence, hands held up in surrender.
“The problem is you’re not joking.”
“I’m a nihilist, Phil. Do you know what that means?”
“Yeah, but I think it’s pronounced narcissist.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“To tell you the truth, Mick, I’m actually a feminist.”
“Really? Good for you, Phil. But I think it’s pronounced faggot.”
Phil impatiently packed up the tent site, while the others watched, and they drove west, back along Scotts Head Road, and swung right, back onto the M1. Mick could feel Phil’s anger. He knew he’d struck a nerve, and Phil was reliving their altercation. He probably shouldn’t have mentioned Phil’s daughters. The whole left side of Phil’s body, the side closest to Mick, was tense. His teeth were clenched, and his mouth was clamped shut as he bit his tongue. Mick knew he had triggered Phil, but rather than apologise, he went in for the kill.
“Are you giving yourself cancer over there, Phil?” Mick taunted him.
“Don’t you have a conscience, Mick?”
“Mate, whatever’s going on for you is happening inside your head.”
“What, a taxpayer being forced to sit next to a dole bludger? In my mind? It’s bloody torture.”
“The way I see it Phil, a small percentage of all the tax you’ve paid in your life has gone straight into my bank account. It’s quite poetic.”
“Fucking scammer.”
“You supported me living the kind of life you wish you had. You gotta love the irony.”
“It should be illegal.”
“I can’t tell you how much joy it brings me to see you churning away like this. With any luck you’ll have a stomach ulcer by the time we get back.”
“You’re a fucking sadist.”
“Well, we make a great couple then, because you’re a fucking masochist. You do this shit to yourself.”
“Fuck off.”
“Don’t be like that Phil, you should thank me. I’ve dedicated my whole life to teaching you an important lesson.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that, Mick?”
“That you’re a coward. You’re too fearful to live how I live.”
“Fearful? You’re the one who’s afraid of facing his responsibilities.”
“That’s the thing, Phil. I don’t have any responsibilities to face.”
“Ha! So that’s your brilliant philosophy of life? Avoidance?” Phil made eye contact with Drew, who looked sad, in the rear vision mirror.
“Drink up the freeway, Phil, while we’re on it, it will get you to your destination in the quickest and most boring way.”
Drew interrupted their argument.
“Are we going to Penny’s?” Drew managed.
“He is risen!” Mick quoted the Bible.
“Yeah, we should get there around lunch time,” Phil told Drew.
“Does she still live in the commune?” Mick asked.
“What’s left of it.” Phil left their altercation behind.
“Can we go through Macksville? It will only set us back 15 minutes,” Mick begged, thankful that men could move on so quickly after arguing.
Not wanting to fight anymore, Phil gave in, and they returned to the time-travelling highway they had been intermittently visiting. The houses, pubs, petrol stations and timber mill were all unchanged, like a throwback to the last century. The smell of freshly sawed and dressed wood triggered a memory for Drew; it was them as teens, wandering around the mill collecting short offcuts for their BBQ in 1984. As they approached the bridge on the Nambucca River, Mick pointed to the big pub on the right.
“Look, the Star Hotel. I got so pissed there one time that I stayed the night with the barmaid, Allisa – ended up staying for two nights. I dead set thought we’d be together forever.”
“I had no idea you were so romantic?” Phil stirred him.
“Then I woke up early and somehow knew that the swell had picked up. I scribbled an apology, telling her I’d gone surfing but’d be back later that day. I raced down to Scotts Head and had the best surf I’ve ever had there with Scotty Scott.”
“Scotty Scott from Scotts Head?” Phil pretended to recognise the name.
“That’d be him. Do you know him?”
“Your old Spidey senses were working then?”
“I don’t know about that, Phil, but I’ll tell you what: I had trouble getting to my feet on my surfboard after the stump grinding Allisa gave me.”
“Noice. Did you go back?”
“Nope. Never.”
“Too scared?”
“Too right.”
As they drove east, through the lush, green countryside, under the new highway overpass, and along the river back to the coast on the Giinagay Way, they passed a few dilapidated cream-coloured farmhouses from the 1800s. They were surrounded by a variety of large old trees and had wide verandas right around them and dunnies out the back. Drew had another appropriate Matt Finish song for the moment, Short Note.
Just a short note
You’ll find the key inside
There’s no one home tonight
But come in anyway
The shallow Sea
Calm, but not asleep
You’re gonna wade into the deep
Tomorrow’s years away
And now I know
Why darkness makes me smile
The night will have its child
And the wind will wind away
The wind will wind away
Until you’re telling your friends we died
Laughing still
But the vessel that you fill
Will be your own.
They drove through the coastal township of Nambucca Heads. As they reached the top of the hill Mick spun around to see if any waves were breaking on the sandbank off the river mouth but was disappointed to witness little movement. There had to be no swell at all for there to be no whitewater on Nambucca Bar. It was a quiet and reflective drive through Valla and Raleigh. Phil turned left onto The Waterfall Way and continued west, through the luminous green meadows along the Bellinger River, through Fernmount, and on to Bellingen. It felt like they were climbing the stairway to heaven.
The old ‘Serenity’ sign that marked the entrance to the commune that Drew’s sister Penny had lived on for over forty years was tattered and obscured by tree branches. There was a line of wooden letterboxes in various states of disrepair by the side of the road and a collapsed honesty box with an “eggs and honey” sign hanging diagonally. These artifacts looked to Mick like broken dreams. Only Drew had returned to visit Penny in the intervening decades. But Phil and Mick had fond memories of the collective of young Sydneysiders who had moved from the city together in the late ‘70s with high hopes and idealistic fantasies.
Phil didn’t recognise the muddy road which now split apart into many tributaries. There were lots of separate signposts with residents’ names on them, pointing in different directions. He remembered he had been told by Jenny to take the one on the right. As they continued, he noticed something else that had changed, all the new fences.
Penny appeared like a vision, standing in the mid-morning sun in a long white lace dress and brown Blundstone boots. She was smiling, with her arms held out wide, waiting for her little brother. Phil parked the car, the men got out, and Drew, holding his box of memorabilia, walked into the loving embrace of his big sister.
Inside the house, Penny served slices of homemade banana and walnut cake on Blue Willow plates. She poured Earl Grey tea from a teapot in a hand knitted tea-cosy. The house was very neat and tidy but overcrowded with antique furniture. The white painted weatherboard walls were adorned with new-age artwork, music festival posters, and unusual rusty farming objects that looked like sculptures. Phil guessed they were relics from when it was originally a dairy farm. An old-world chandelier was hanging from the decorative ceiling rose and the small windows reminded Phil of cottages in England.
“So, do you remember me coming and visiting you in Sydney, Drew?” Drew shook his head.
“Well, that doesn’t matter. We’re together now, that’s the main thing.”
“What happened to the commune?” Mick probed.
“We divided the last of the land about six years ago.”
“So, the same people still live here but in separate houses?” Phil inquired.
“Yeah.”
“What happened? Did the dream become a nightmare?” Mick asked, unselfconsciously.
“Kind of. It did end up in tears. It was good at first, but over time, we ended up having too many disagreements and arguments about everything.”
“Is that all? I mean, everyone has disagreements.” Phil looked at Mick, accusingly.
“It was more than that. Turns out people don’t want to work hard to build something and leave it to anyone other than their own children.”
“Human nature,” Mick observed.
“Put simply, blood is thicker than water,” Penny added.
“Can I have a walk around out back?” Mick ventured.
“Sure, make yourself at home.”
Phil followed Mick out into the fruit tree forested backyard and saw that the fences of the six separate properties were divided like a cake, with a different house on each wedge-shaped battleaxe plot of land. There were still structures standing that the men recognised from their one and only visit; a communal kitchen, outdoor hall, and theatre stage – all of which were now in the back yards of different properties.
“God, it’s a bit of a wake-up, isn’t it, Phil?”
“I don’t know what to make of it. I thought they’d go on to live long and happy lives together. I never would have imagined it would end in acrimony.”
“And a fair bit of alimony, I’d be willing to bet.”
Drew and Penny were looking at the kitchen wall of old family photographs inside the house. Drew had put on a song that even the boys outside could hear – Slipping Away by Max Merritt. “It’s like a fucking wake,” Mick whispered to Phil, who frowned at him disapprovingly. But even Mick teared up when they saw Drew slow-dancing to the music with his big sister.
Baby, I’ve been watching you
Watching everything you do
And I just can’t help feeling
Someone else is stealing
You away from me
I see it written in your eyes
And you confirm it with your lies
Though the whip you weave can hold me
I would rather that you told me
Where you want to be
Ooh! slipping away from me
Ooh! slipping away from me
And it’s breaking me in two
Watching you, slipping away.
It wasn’t until the three men had left, and as Penny cleaned up, that she found what Drew had left for her, balancing precariously on the arm of the seat he’d been sitting in. It was a small stick that they had played with as very young children. They had pretended it was a Crucifix; the holder of the wood chasing the other, who would dive away to safety, as if allergic to the power of the Cross. Penny hung it on the wall, in between two rusty plough-discs.
It was another quiet drive from Bellingen to Yamba. As they drove through Coffs Harbour, Mick asked Phil to turn left at the Big Banana Cafe. Phil drove slowly through the banana plantation on the steep hill behind the ten metre long yellow edifice. Mick told Phil to pull over, and he jumped out of the car, opened the boot, and took a carving knife from the box of kitchen utensils.
Mick outdid himself, playing the money, by climbing up banana trees, cutting clumps of bananas off, and throwing them in the back seat with Drew. Phil guffawed as he slowly followed Mick, who was leaping about like a wild animal. This was the playful side to Mick that Phil appreciated, even though he was stealing. As Drew watched him from the back seat, he recalled him doing the same thing in 1984. Drew selected a song for the moment and played it extra loudly so Mick could hear it. One Step Ahead by Split Enz.
One step ahead of you
Stay in motion, keep an open mind
Love is a race won by two
Your emotion, my solitude
If I stop, I could lose my head
So I’m losing you instead
Either way I’m confused
You slow me down, what can I do?
There’s one particular way I have to choose
One step ahead of you.
Mick stuffed himself with bananas like a glutinous teenager as they drove the new highway, carving their way through virgin territory. It was an unusual experience, to witness new tracts of land that would become as familiar to the younger generation as the old road was to them. They spotted occasional big hills, like Clarence Peak, from different angels for the first time. It was strangely refreshing to see something old from a new aspect.
They turned off the freeway right before the spectacular new Harwood Bridge. It felt to Mick like they were choosing to make a sojourn to Angourie, rather than follow the new highway north, up into the cloudless sky. As they turned onto Yamba Road, under the new bridge, they saw it was a perfectly built arch of smooth light-grey concrete, three times the size of its dark-grey steel predecessor, just west of it. There were suitably geometric Aboriginal murals painted on the land-locked supports. It was a clash of cultures, but they were doing their best to get along.
Phil slowed down as he drove along the single carriageway bitumen road that followed the contours of the wide and muddy Clarence River. This was ‘Big River Country’. Prawn trawlers chugged alongside them to the left, while a wall of sugarcane towered to the right. They crossed a small bridge at Shark Creek, passed Wynyabbie House, and on to Palmers Island. A felt hatted cane farmer on a red tractor ploughed a recently harvested field as an empty sugar cane truck pulled out in front of them and slowed their journey even more. Time slowed down on this section of the coast and one had to be patient. The sweet burnt smell of the blackened sugarcane stalks in a field that had been burned off the previous night triggered a memory for Drew. It was of him and his friends buying honey from an elderly woman called Daisy Green on this stretch of road four decades ago. Drew saw the house she had lived, with the ‘Honey’ sign still hanging by her front door.
The view out of the car broadened as they crossed the sparkling waterways of Palmers and Mikalo Islands. But Yamba was no longer a little fishing village of fibro shacks, it was a busy tourist town, with a new ‘Coles’ shopping centre, lots of caravan parks, and closely packed two story white brick trophy homes.
They arrived at Yamba’s Calypso Caravan Park at 4 pm. Despite having a stomach-ache, Mick helped Drew and Phil set up. When Phil took Drew down to check the surf at Turners Beach, Mick walked up the hill to the Pacific Hotel. When he staggered back to the campsite five hours later, he was blind drunk. Watching him lurch about, tripping over the guy ropes of their tent in the darkness, Drew played another song, strangely befitting the moment. Long Time Man by Nick Cave.
Yeah, they came to take me away
Said I’d be sitting here for the rest of my life
But I don’t really care – I shot my wife
And brother, I can’t even remember the reason why
Oh, it makes a long time man feel bad
Yeah, it makes a long time man feel bad
Well I ain’t had no love since I don’t know when
It sure makes a long time man feel bad.
Chapter Five of Highway One – The Mix Tape Reunion, will be available next week:
For $25, including postage. Just DM me on Facebook or email me at [email protected]
