Tim Winton - The Turning

AFTER FIVE YEARS of high school the final November arrives and leaves as suddenly as a spring storm. Exams. Graduation. Huge beach parties. Biggie and me, were feverish with anticipation; we steel ourselves for a season of pandemonium. But after the initial celebrations, nothing really happens, not even summer itself. Week after week an endless misting drizzle wafts in from the sea. It beads in our hair and hangs from the tips of our noses while we trudge around town in the vain hope of scaring up some action. The southern sky presses down and the beaches and bays turn the colour of dirty tin. Somehow our crappy Saturday job at the meatworks becomes full-time and then Christmas comes and so do the dreaded exam results. The news is not good. A few of our classmates pack their bags for university and shoot through. Cheryl Button gets into Medicine. Vic Lang, the coppers kid, is dux of the school and doesnt even stay for graduation. And suddenly there we are, Biggie and me, heading to work every morning in a frigid wind in the January of our new lives, still in jeans and boots and flannel shirts, with beanies on our heads and the horizon around our ears.

The job mostly consists of hosing blood off the floors. Plumes of the stuff go into the harbour and old men sit in dinghies offshore to catch herring in the slick. Some days I can see me and Biggie out there as old codgers, anchored to the friggin place, stuck forever. Our time at the meatworks is supposed to be temporary. Were saving for a car, the V-8 Sandman weve been promising ourselves since we were fourteen. Mag wheels, a lurid spray job like something off a Yes album and a filthy great mattress in the back. A chick magnet, thats what we want. Until now weve had a biscuit tin full of twos and fivers but now were making real money.

Trouble is, I cant stand it. I just know I wont last long enough to get that car. Theres something Ive never told Biggie in all our years of being mates. That I dream of escaping, of pissing off north to find some blue sky. Unlike him Im not really from here. Its not hosing blood that shits me off its Angelus itself; Im going nuts here. Until now, out of loyalty, Ive kept it to myself, but by the beginning of February Im chipping away at our old fantasy, talking instead about sitting under a mango tree with a cold beer, walking in a shady banana plantation with a girl in a cheesecloth dress. On our long walks home I bang on about cutting our own pineapples and climbing for coconuts. Mate, I say, cant you see yourself rubbing baby oil into a girls strapless back on Cable Beach? Up north, mate, think north! I know Biggie loves this town and hes committed to the shared vision of the panel van, but I white-ant him day after day until it starts to pay off.

By the last weeks of February Biggies starting to come around. Hes talking wide open spaces now, trails to adventure, and Im like this little urger in his ear. Then one grey day he crosses the line. Weve been deputised to help pack skins. For eight hours we stand on the line fighting slippery chunks of cow hide into boxes so they can be sold as craybait. Our arms are slick with gore and pasted with orange and black beef-hairs. The smell isnt good but thats nothing compared with the feel of all those severed nostrils and lips and ears between your fingers. I dont make a sound, dont even stop for lunch, cant think about it. Im just glad all those chunks are fresh because at least my hands are warm. Beside me Biggies face gets darker and darker, and when the shift horn sounds he lurches away, his last carton half-empty. Fuck it, he says. Were outta here. That afternoon we ditch the Sandman idea and buy a Kombi from a hippy on the wharf. Two hundred bucks each.

We put in two last weeks at the meatworks and collect our pay. We fill the ancient VW with tinned food and all our camping junk and rack off without telling a soul. Monday morning everyone thinks were off to work as usual, but in ten minutes were out past the town limits going like hell. Well, going the way a 1967 Kombi will go. Our getaway vehicle is a garden shed on wheels.

Its a mad feeling, sitting up so high like that with the road flashing under your feet. For a couple of hours were laughing and pointing and shoving and farting and then we settle down a bit. We go quiet and just listen to the Volkswagens engine threshing away behind us. I cant believe weve done it. If either of us had let on to anybody these past couple of weeks wed never have gone through with it; wed have piked for sure. Wed be like all the other poor stranded failures who stayed in Angelus. But now were on the road, its time for second thoughts. Nothing said, but I can feel it.

The plan is to call from somewhere the other side of Perth when were out of reach. I want to be safe from the guilts the old girl will crack a sad on me but Biggie has bigger things to fear. His old man will beat the shit out of him when he finds out. We cant change our minds now.

The longer we drive the more the sky and the bush open up. Now and then Biggie looks at me and leers. Hes got a face only a mother could love. One eyes looking at you and the other eyes looking for you. Hes kind of pear-shaped, but youd be a brave bugger calling him a barge-arse. The fists on him. To be honest hes not really my sort of bloke at all, but somehow hes my best mate.

We buzz north through hours of good farm country. The big, neat paddocks get browner and drier all the while and the air feels thick and warm. Biggie drives. He has the habit of punctuating his sentences with jabs on the accelerator and although the gutless old Volksie doesnt exactly give you whiplash at every flourish, its enough to give a bloke a headache. We wind through the remnant jarrah forest, and the sickly-looking regrowth is so rain-parched it almost crackles when you look at it.

When Perth comes into view, its dun plain shimmering with heat and distant towers ablaze with midday sun, we get all nervous and giggly, like a pair of tipsy netballers. The big city. We give each other the full Groucho Marx eyebrow routine but were not stopping. Biggies a country boy through and through. Cities confound him, he cant see the point of them. He honestly wonders how people can live in each others pockets like that. Hes revolted and a little frightened at the thought. Me, I love the city, Im from there originally. I really thought Id be moving back this month. But I wont, of course. Not after blowing my exams. Im glad were not stopping. Itd be like having your nose rubbed in it. Failure, that is. I cant tell Biggie this but missing out on uni really stings. When the results came I cried my eyes out. I thought about killing myself.

To get past Perth we navigate the blowsy strips of caryards and showrooms and crappy subdivisions on the outskirts. Soon were out the other side into vineyards and horse paddocks with the sky blue as mouthwash ahead. Then finally, open road. Weve reached a world where it isnt bloody raining all the time, where nobody knows us and nobody cares. Theres just us and the Love Machine. We get the giggles. We go off; we blat the horn and hoot and chuck maps and burger wrappers around the cabin. Two mad southern boys still wearing beanies in March.

Im laughing. Im kicking the dash. That ache is still there inside me but this is the best Ive felt since the news about the exams. For once Im not faking it. I look across at Biggie. His huge, unlovely face is creased with merriment. I just know Ill never be able to tell him about the hopes I had for myself and for a little while I dont care about any of it; Im almost as happy as him. Biggies results were even worse than mine he really fried but he didnt have his heart set on doing well; he couldnt give a rats ring. For him, our bombing out is a huge joke. In his head hes always seen himself at the meatworks or the cannery until he inherits the salmon-netting licence from his old man. Hes content, he belongs. His outlook drives my mother wild with frustration but in a way I envy him. My mother calls us Lenny and George. She teaches English; she thinks thats funny. Shes trying to wean me off Biggie Botson. In fact shes got a program all mapped out to get me back on track, to take the year again and re-sit the exams. But Ive blown all that off now. Biggies not the brightest crayon in the box but hes the most loyal person I know. Hes the real deal and you cant say that about many people.