The Other Side of Nowhere (11 page)

‘Up there … about halfway up the cliff.’

The others all squinted up at the cliff. But at that moment it was just barren rock.

‘Have you taken your pills today?’ said Matt.

‘What was it?’ asked George, still scanning the cliff.

I shook my head, genuinely unsure of what I had seen. ‘Don’t know. Like a flash of light, maybe?’

‘A flash?’ George asked. ‘What, like a camera flash?’

‘More like a reflection. Like sunlight on glass.’

I stared at the cliff a few seconds longer. Whatever it was, it wasn’t there now. I scanned along the craggy face of the cliff, but there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary.

‘There’s nothing there,’ Nick said, sounding bored. He bent down to lift the water barrel. ‘C’mon Matt. Grab the other end, mate. It’s gonna take a while to get back lugging this stuff.’

George and I walked ahead to grab the bag. As I hoisted it onto my shoulder, she gave me an encouraging little smile. ‘Maybe it was just water on a leaf or something.’

‘Yeah, probably,’ I said, unconvincingly.

We set off back along the beach, taking turns to carry the bag and barrel. Before long, the excruciating aches in my arms and shoulders were enough to drive all other thoughts from my head. By the time we finally made it back to camp I’d pretty much convinced myself that whatever I thought I saw was just a creation of my overtired mind.

‘Nice digs,’ said Nick, lying back under our re-hitched bed-sheet tent. ‘Does it have wi-fi?’

‘Perhaps Sir would like to see the room-service menu?’ said George, putting on a plummy voice.

‘Oh, man, I could totally murder a burger,’ said Matt, licking his lips. ‘And a mountain of fries.’

Nick rolled over and untied the string at the end of the duffel bag. ‘Well, I don’t know about fries. But let’s see what we have got, eh?’

The first thing out of the duffel bag was Matt’s backpack.

‘Awesome,’ said Matt, his face lighting up when he saw it. He unzipped the front pocket and produced a bottle of Gatorade and a few chocolate bars.

We scoffed the chocolate on sight. We were like animals. But we couldn’t help it. It had been hours and hours since we had last eaten. As we sat sharing the power drink between us, Matt pulled everything else out of his backpack: the rest of the junk food he bought at the kiosk, some clothes, a bloated and dog-eared sports magazine, a tennis ball and a Swiss Army pocket knife.

‘This’ll come in handy,’ he said, flicking open a shiny blade.

‘Plus we’re all set if we come across a friendly Labrador,’ I said, picking up the tennis ball and throwing it at George. She caught it and grinned.

We watched Matt as he unzipped the main compartment of his bag. He pulled out a sodden beach towel, which he laid on the ground so he could up-end the rest of the bag’s contents onto it. In the pile lay an assortment of kitchen utensils, camping plates and cups, a hand-fishing line, a length of rope and a bright yellow waterproof sack containing some not-so-dry clothes. As for food, there was a bag of waterlogged bread rolls, a couple of bruised bananas and a soggy chunk of cheese wrapped in plastic. More appetising was a half-f jar of peanut butter, a can of peaches and two tins of spaghetti and meatballs.

Nick leant over and plucked the hand-fishing reel out of the pile. He waved it at Matt. ‘Want to try our luck, buddy?’

‘Sure,’ said Matt, jumping up.

‘I’ll stay and get a fire going,’ said George.

Nick headed off without acknowledging me at all. Matt ran after him, but stopped and turned back to me. ‘You coming?’

I hesitated. It seemed obvious to me at least that Nick had only invited Matt, and I didn’t really want to be the spare wheel.

‘Nah, that’s all right. I’ll stay here … keep George company.’

‘’Kay, whatevs.’ Matt shrugged. ‘Better get that fire started, though. I’m catching us some dinner.’

When Matt was gone, I noticed George eyeing me suspiciously. ‘I don’t need to be kept company, you know. Why don’t you just go?’

‘Bet they don’t catch anything anyway,’ I replied. I was trying to sound like I didn’t care, but was pretty sure it came across as churlish.

‘Well, maybe there’ll be oysters or mussels on the rocks,’ she said.

‘I hate oysters. They’re like salty snot.’

‘No, they’re not. Anyway, all I’m saying is it might be fun.’

‘Doubt it.’

‘All right,’ George said, sighing. ‘I was just saying. Don’t get in a mood.’

I was feeling embarrassed. I felt her watching me as I picked aimlessly at a knot in the rope. I knew I was acting weird and that she was desperate to know why. But I was thankful when she seemed to drop it.

‘Well, if you’re staying, we will need wood,’ George said, hauling herself up.

Together we wandered among the trees, sifting through the undergrowth for logs and twigs for a fire. When we had enough for a decent mound we stacked them in the shelter of the boulders around our tent. In about half an hour, with the aid of the firelighter, we had a decent blaze roaring away.

George opened the tins of spaghetti and meatballs. She placed them close enough to the flame for them to warm slowly. She sliced up some banana and laid the pieces out on a leaf, while I skewered a couple of the soggy rolls. As I began toasting them, I couldn’t help thinking that this was a modest meal for four people as hungry as us.
If dopey Matt can actually catch a fish it will be a welcome addition
.

George and I sat quietly for a time, mesmerised by the flames. But then I noticed George watching me again.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she said at last.

‘What?’ I said vaguely, looking up and noticing the light was fading in the sky. Then I shot a glance at George.

‘Whatever it is you don’t want to talk about,’ she said, looking me straight in the eyes.

The roll I was toasting caught alight. I quickly blew it out and watched the smoke rise off the blackened crust. For a moment George seemed to vanish in the haze.

‘I let him go,’ I heard myself saying quietly.

‘What? Who?’ George asked, leaning in to me.

‘Nick. I let him go in the water. After we jumped.’ I stared at the flames for a minute before continuing. ‘He panicked when we were under the water. He was kicking and scratching and … I just … I pushed him away.’

When I raised my eyes to George’s face, I searched her face for disappointment and disgust. I was looking for something that mirrored how my words made me feel.

But all I could find in George’s brown eyes was a mixture of concern and relief. ‘Jeez, Johnno. It was crazy in there. You can’t blame yourself for not hanging onto him.’

‘Can’t I?’

‘Hell no. And I bet Nick doesn’t either,’ she said.

I pulled the burnt roll off the skewer and scraped the burned bit off with a knife. ‘Then why is he acting so weird?’

‘Is he? I mean, you’d know better than me, but Nick doesn’t seem weird,’ George said, stirring one of the tins on the fire with a spoon. ‘A bit prickly, maybe. Annoyingly reckless, definitely. But not weird. Maybe you’re just a bit hyper-sensitive?’

There was something in the tone of her voice that made me look up. I felt a strange fluttering in my stomach. George looked away and stared into the fire. I knew she was intrigued by Nick – I was yet to meet a girl who wasn’t. But was it more than that?

I just couldn’t think of the words I needed. I had this jumble of emotions, but couldn’t find a way to describe any of them. Just thinking of saying what I needed to say, of explaining how I really felt about any of it, made my insides freeze.

George stood up, shaking her head. ‘Boys. You’re all so hopeless. Just talk to him. Nip it in the bud and stop making up a whole catastrophe in your head.’ She leant over and gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze, then wandered off.

Alone by the fire, I sat battling a surge of confused thoughts, watching the bread roll in the fire slowly blacken.

Daylight had almost disappeared by the time Nick and Matt came strolling back into camp, boasting wide grins and holding up two decent fish.

‘You arsey bugger,’ I said in amazement, as Matt dangled a good-size whiting in my face. Its mouth was wide open, as if it was as surprised as I was that it had been caught by a muppet with nothing more than a puny hand-line.

Nick got to work scaling and filleting the fish and then cut them into bite-size pieces and skewered them on sticks to barbeque over the coals. Soon everything was ready and when we dipped the skewered fish into the spaghetti sauce, it tasted like heaven. All manners went out the window as we stuffed morsels of food into our mouths with greedy hands, scarcely bothering to chew. Only Matt seemed able to talk and hoover food at the same time, and he held court with his highly embellished fishing tales.

It grew dark as we ate and by the time the last drop of spaghetti sauce had been wiped from the tin, we could hardly see beyond the trees around our campsite. The sky was clear and sparkling with stars, and a warm breeze gently rustled the leaves around us.

We talked and joked and laughed by the fire, and for a time everything seemed normal. Even Nick seemed at ease, lying on his side with his head resting on his good arm, listening to Matt babble incessantly. One minute Matt was telling us about the best game of footy he had ever played and the next he was making up some dumb story about pirates on this island and how there might be buried treasure near our campsite. It was kind of like the ‘shuffle’ function on my iPod – you never knew what was coming next.

George was pretty quiet, as she often was. Most of the time with her, you could sit in silence for ages and never feel like you had to fill in all those quiet little gaps with small talk. But that night, I was feeling uncomfortable.

Usually I loved how honest and confident George was, but there were times when I thought she became a little too forthright. And sitting there in the firelight listening to Matt on shuffle, I sensed George was biding her time. That she was waiting for an opportunity to probe Nick. And when at last Matt paused, my suspicions about George were confirmed.

‘Nick? Can I ask a question?’ she said softly.

Nick was onto her. ‘That sounds a bit … polite.’

‘I’m a very polite person,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘I just want to know … What’s the deal with your dad?’

Suddenly it felt like the campfire was too warm, that the trees were too close. This line of questioning made me feel claustrophobic. I really didn’t want to hear this. I shifted away from the fire a little.

‘What do you mean?’ Nick asked lightly, staring into the darkness beyond the trees.

‘Well, you said you can’t rely on him.’

Nick sat up, ran his fingers through his hair and scratched at the back of his neck. ‘Is that what I said? It’s not what I meant.’

‘Well, that’s what it sounded like,’ George said, probingly.

‘Look,’ Nick said, turning his gaze from the campfire to George. ‘I don’t want to talk about my dad, all right?’

‘I know you don’t want to,’ she replied a little too sharply, clearly determined not to just let it pass. ‘But maybe you need to.’

I sighed, a little more loudly than I intended.

Nick tilted his head and looked her straight in the eyes. ‘Is that so? And just what business is it of yours,
Georgina
?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Nick,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Believe it or not, I might have a passing interest in why no-one’s coming to get us!’

Nick glared at her, the shadows from the fire distorting his features. For a time he said nothing. None of us did. The only sound was the sharp crackle and pop of the fire.

‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘You really want to know?’

‘Yes, I do. We all do,’ she replied, looking around at Matt and me.

‘He drinks, all right?’ Nick said, angrily. ‘He drinks and he forgets.’

It took a moment for this to sink in. A lifetime of memories flashed through my head, but not one of them involved his dad drinking. Well, not drunk. My dad and him sometimes used to have a few beers together. But my dad didn’t drink much either. In fact, I’d never seen either of them really drunk. Not even close.

‘Do you mean he’s … an alcoholic?’ asked George hesitantly.