Blain - Darkwater

First published by Random House Australia in 2010

Copyright Georgia Blain 2010

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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Im not sure who found Amanda Clarkes body. I think it was her mother, but I may be wrong.

I imagine it was dinnertime, and she called them both Amanda, Daniel, come to the table now used to receiving no answer. Putting her glass down, the ice clinking, she wiped her damp hands on the edge of a tea towel, and wandered through to the family room where Daniel lay on his stomach, the seagrass matting pressing a pattern into the pale skin on his arms, chin resting in his hands as he watched the last of Get Smart.

Off, she told him, flicking the switch despite his protests, the image collapsing into a tiny pinprick of light before black covered the screen; although, she was not an assertive woman, so perhaps she simply left the television on, hoping, foolishly, that he would do as she asked.

In the hall she called Amandas name again, shouting up the stairs to her daughters empty bedroom and, when there was no response, she returned to the kitchen, its back door open onto the smooth green lawn that sloped down to the rivers edge.

Slipping on her sandals, she stepped out into the still-warm evening, the sky a deepening mauve through the high branches of the white gums. In the distance a sail clinked against a mast, a rhythmic sound that repeated itself over and over again as she walked across the garden to look down to the reserve four houses away.

She saw her from there, a strange, dark shape floating facedown, one foot wedged in an outcrop of rock, the sandstone pocked with oyster shells. Or maybe she had to keep walking, crossing the lawns of the neighbours houses, calling her daughters name a little louder each time, almost running now, before she saw the shape, there in the water, although she still may not have been sure what it was. Perhaps she cut through the scrub that bordered the Parsons garden and the reserve, pushing back the scratchy branches of the bottlebrush to reach the white wooden railing running along the uneven stairs. It must have been almost dark by then, only a single streetlight illuminating the path, although most of the time the globe was broken because we kids liked the darkness (or at least we did until Amandas death), and would throw rocks up at it, jumping back when we made a hit, the glass showering down on our heads as the brightness gave way to sudden black.

I hope it wasnt Amandas mother who found her. When I imagine that, its like the ground giving way, collapsing with a rush, a landslide into emptiness.

Fact: I wrote in my diary at the time, the page headed with the date, February 16, 1973. Amanda Clarke is dead. They found her at the waterfront. Drowned, they reckon.

It was an exercise book, covered in cut-out pictures from magazines, my favourite pop stars, women in tight Amco jeans and halter-neck tops, and perhaps the odd logo from an advertisement, a word or two, there only to break up the images.

I kept it hidden at the back of my wardrobe, occasionally taking it out to write about what had been happening in my life. Most of it was dull Sonia irritating me, or Cassie having a crush on my older brother Joe but lately there had been more space given to Nicky Blackwell, his name appearing with greater regularity since the time he had stepped back to let me in the school gate before him, winking at me as he did so.

In the past I had only ever written on the evenings when I was bored. But in the weeks following Amanda Clarkes death, that changed. I took that book out most nights and it seemed she occupied nearly all of the pages I filled.

Dead and drowned. I underlined both those words and then scribbled out the line that lay beneath the second. She was dead, that was a fact, but whether she had drowned was not so certain. Sitting at my desk, I chewed the plastic end of my biro and looked out the window to the darkness of the night sky.

The first I heard of her death was that morning at school. The sun was glaringly hot as we stood in our assembly lines. We shuffled our feet, the bitumen burning through the thin soles of our sandals as we waited for the principal to come to the microphone. Behind me, the boys started their run of remarks about the girls in our year; I was used to them sniggering about Sonias tanned legs and Cassies long blonde hair, or if they turned their attention to me, it was the word tits that I heard muttered, and I would glance behind me, fixing them with a stare designed to chill, before turning back to the podium where Mr Castle reiterated rules into the microphone. But this morning there was no sniggering, because within moments of flicking on the PA, the amp crackling for an instant, he told us that some of us may have already heard the news, but for those who hadnt, he was very sorry to let us know that one of our fellow students had been found dead down by the waterfront, yesterday evening.

Who was it? we all asked each other, our whispers flickering along the lines like the blowflies that buzzed between us, settling for a moment only to be brushed on to the next person. Amanda, someone said, and then the word was running fast like fire down each row, burning hot, until someone cried out and Mr Castle was shouting into the microphone: Order. Order this instant.

It was Kate Bradshaw, Amandas best friend, two lines back with the senior years. She fainted, her body hitting the concrete with a thud, the row broken as the others in her year clustered round her, while a teacher, Miss Tilley, told everyone to let her through.

It didnt take long before Mr Mulley, the PE teacher, and Mrs Acton, the assistant principal, carried the stretcher out to where Kate was now sitting up, head between her knees. They told her to lie down and two of the boys in her year took one end of the stretcher, while Mr Mulley, with smooth tanned muscles from years of surfing, hoisted the other end, and they carried her towards the sick bay.