Exit Stage Left

It’s one of those stinkers, where the sky’s all wobbly and your nose peels just thinking about going outside. Me and Emma lie on the beach shack’s apple green lino with wet flannels on our chests, flicking at blowflies. Dad’s back at the farm for a few hours, dribbling a trail of lupins from the back of the ute so the sheep don’t starve. I’ve told him we’re fine here. He gets why I wouldn’t go with him on a day like this, when you can hear the grass bleaching in the paddock and the only relief is the brown water burbling from a sprinkler on the yellow lawn. Mum couldn’t stand it.

‘Pinch Pots or Mosaic birdbaths?’ I’m reading from the summer school brochure because it’s the only thing within reach that resembles a fan. Emma’s thin silver bangles clack down her arm as she grabs it off me.

‘Do they have Hypnotherapy?’ She flicks the pages. ‘You could turn Sophie Illingworth into a chicken.’

‘Sophie’s more of a cow,’ I say. ‘Anyway, it’s holidays. Who’d want to do more school?’

‘Mothers,’ she says. ‘And not for the pinch pots. They just want to get away from their kids for a while.’

She looks sheepish, makes a sorry grimace. ‘Come on. Let’s go for a swim.’

We sling towels around our necks and walk barefoot along the gravel laneways. Emma plucks a marigold from a planter at someone’s back gate.

‘Dare you,’ she says, twirling it under my nose.

‘To what?’

‘Be someone else.’ She shoves the egg-yellow bloom under the elastic that’s holding her messy bun in place. We walk on.

‘Like who?’

She gives me that smile shrug, like I should know. She looks amazing. The summer has turned her hair the colour of a wheat stubble, and her skin glistens with coconut oil. I live in hope that my freckles will join up one day so I’ll be as brown as her, and smell as good. I never feel pretty next to Emma, but I’m glad she’s my friend. She’s not like the other girls in fifth grade. She’d never push me over on the bitumen during jump rope or freeze me out of a game of charades, or chug at imaginary bottles and yell Shark Bait so it echoed down the corridors.

When we get to the beach, the powdery sand is still baking, and we sprint to the glossy bit at the water’s edge to cool our feet. Little kids paddle foam surfboards across non-existent waves. The sun bounces off the shallows and makes Emma look like she’s half water. It’s glittery on the horizon. I look out there for Mum, as usual. I like to think she’s close by, fooling around in the seagrass. I know it’s stupid but I imagine her popping up near a buoy, shoulders slick with sea water and strands of honeyed hair, waving me in.

‘Too many people,’ says Emma. She knows when to save me. ‘Let’s head to The Curtain.’

As if we wouldn’t. Most people don’t venture beyond the curl of white sand that hugs the bay, but we like to clamber around the headland. There’s a sheltered nook we think of as ours. It’s mostly boulders worn smooth by the surf, but there’s a little half-moon beach just big enough for us to lie side by side on our towels. A slab of rust-coloured granite looms out of the water about a town pool’s length from the shore. It’s got a crack running longways down the middle, like a stage curtain about to open. The sea behind it is the show that never goes on. Fine by me.

‘So Mez, is today the day you swim behind The Curtain?’ Emma’s poking at crabs in a rock pool. A hint of apricot creeps over the headland behind us.

‘I’m happy staying on this side,’ I say.

‘Are you, though?’ It’s like a slap. She never argues.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Carn, let’s go in.’ She’s shrug-smiling again like she knows something I don’t. ‘Skinny?’

I’d rather keep my bathers on, but this feels like a test. ‘Okay,’ I say.

We toss our clothes in a messy pile on the rock. Emma’s bangles clash together as she twists the flower in her hair to one side. She looks like something out of a magazine. I want to be her.

Waist deep in the water, she throws her arms wide, tumbles in and starts dolphining. My dive makes a smaller splash than hers; I smile to myself. The Southern Ocean cold is like a power charge. I feel airborne. Under the water, my freckles disappear. I wiggle and kick along the sandy bottom until my nose starts to creak.

When I come up for air, I can’t see Emma. I look out at The Curtain, expecting her to appear from behind it. I tread water in the safe little arena it makes. I listen for splashing, but there’s no sounds. I picture her lying on her back out there, floating like a starfish, not a care in the world. Like Mum, just before she got taken. One last moment of serenity.

But Emma hasn’t swallowed any pills. She hasn’t left an empty bottle of vodka on the beach, or sketched a crazy cartoon fish into the sand with her big toe. Surely she hasn’t given up on herself. On me.

‘Remember you’re naked,’ I call out. ‘And Danny Hastie’s Dad is a surf lifesaver. Eeew.’

No quip comes back. I look at the beach; empty. I start a slow breaststroke towards The Curtain. The granite looms over me, shadowy and creepy, so I strike out for the open water. The afternoon light has turned it liquid silver. I brace for the playful tug on my foot, the sound of Emma spluttering up beside me, throwing her head back in a cackle. It doesn’t come.

I don’t notice I’ve swum behind The Curtain until I’m almost all the way around it. She must be ahead of me, hiding in the lee of the rock, leading me in a stupid game, making me do stuff.

She’s not. I breathe hard and I’m mad at her now. Mad that when I get back to the sand she’ll be sitting there with her wet hair scraped back behind her ears, bangles jangling, grinning at me. Mad that she won’t.

In the tangle of stuff we left on the rock, only mine is there. Hers is gone; her yellow cotton shift dress, her white halter neck bikini, her blue Turkish towel. I scour the rocks and headland. The water makes slurping sounds on the shore. Two mournful gulls do a fly by. The sky blazes peach and the flat sea turns the colour of nothing.

~

I smell charred sausages and citronella as I run down the side of the shack to the backyard. Dad’s got his shirt off and the barbecue smoking. The cicadas have started their crazy out-of-time symphony.

‘Hey, I figured you’d show up for snags.’

‘Dad, she disappeared.’ My voice goes high and thin. Hot tears burn salty tracks in yesterday’s sunburn.

‘Oh Mez, honey.’ The barbecue spits as he hugs me to him.

‘She was in the water, and then she was gone.’

‘I know,’ he says, calm as anything.

‘You know?’

He studies my face. ‘It’s been four years.’

‘It was just now, Dad! I’m talking about Emma.’

He turns down the heat, and guides me to our regular perch on the back steps.

‘You’re so your mother’s daughter,’ he says. He’s smiling, but he looks sad. ‘Always deep in some drama nobody else can touch. I’d love to see you be a goofball sometimes, you know. Mess things up, laugh it off. Just be a kid.’

A sob stutters up my throat. ‘Laugh it off? Dad! Emma’s missing!’

He breathes in deep. ‘I know the two of you have been tight these last few years since Mum died,’ he says. He looks uncomfortable, like when he gave me that book with all the uterus pictures in it. ‘But you’ll be in high school before you know it. Do you think maybe it’s time you found a new friend?’

I stare at him. He bites his bottom lip. ‘You know what I mean. A friend with actual clothes you can borrow, and actual homework you can copy. Maybe a living, breathing boyfriend you can steal?’ He lifts my chin and messes up my hair. ‘Don’t you reckon?’

~

I hardly sleep that night. Snot cakes around my nostrils, and I watch the ceiling fan make lazy cuts in the soupy air. At dawn, I pull on pink shorts and an Elsa t-shirt that suddenly feels too small. The screen door yawns shut behind me as I head for the bay.

The early swimmers slap at the platinum water. I squint out at the horizon; no commotion. No weird mounds on the shoreline. Around the headland, nothing stirs. I head for the rocks. When I reach The Curtain, it’s silent except for the plinking rock pools. I scan the rock face, then the water. The rising sun throws pink on silver. I think: I’ve never seen it so beautiful. And also: I feel older.

Something flashes white in the shallows. I stare hard. Dozens of herring leap out of the sea in a shimmering arc, rising and falling like a Mexican wave.

Hiiiiyaaaa!

Seeeyaaaa!

They do it again – more joyful this time, I think. More certain. Sunlight glints off them in a dazzling flare. They’re luminous. Then they’re gone.

I lower myself onto the flat rock, and let my breath out. The air’s warm, but goose bumps prickle up my arms. On the tiny beach, there’s a splash of yellow. I look closer. The shape of a fish, with sleek curves and a crescent tail, is marked out in marigold petals on the sand. There are no footprints, no finger marks. Just thin silver hoops the size of my wrist scattered across it like scales, and a hair elastic winking.