The Byron Journals Read online

  the

  Byron

  journals

  Daniel Ducrou is working on the Aboriginal History of Fitzroy project and the Smith Street Community Plan. The Byron Journals was shortlisted for the 2007 Australian/Vogel Literary Prize and the 2008 Premier’s Literary Awards for an Unpublished Manuscript. Daniel lives in Melbourne.

  www.danielducrou.com

  the

  Byron

  journals

  Daniel Ducrou

  The paper in this book is manufactured only from wood grown in sustainable regrowth forests.

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  www.textpublishing.com.au

  www.danielducrou.com

  Copyright © Daniel Ducrou 2010

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  First published by The Text Publishing Company, 2010

  Cover design by WH Chong

  Page design by Susan Miller

  Typeset by J & M Typesetting

  Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

  For Oliver, with love.

  Contents

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  twenty-eight

  twenty-nine

  thirty

  thirty-one

  thirty-two

  thirty-three

  thirty-four

  thirty-five

  thirty-six

  acknowledgments

  one

  ‘I think I was born into the wrong city.’ Andrew buckled up for take-off. ‘Definitely the wrong family.’ He watched a plane accelerate down the runway, its fuselage shimmering in the heat, behind it the Adelaide hills lining the horizon. ‘Maybe I’ll join a cult when we get there and disappear for twenty years.’

  Benny reached up and adjusted the air conditioner to blow on his face. ‘I’ll get back and everyone will ask: What happened? And I’ll just shrug and say: “Andrew has a new family now, a new home in the rainforest.”’ Andrew nodded. ‘Probably a new name, too.’

  ‘Perhaps something big and powerful,’ Benny said, spreading his hands and laughing. ‘Like…Himalaya.’

  ‘Nah,’ Andrew replied. ‘Maybe…Breeze…Or Zephyr. Something that disappears without being noticed.’ He pushed in his earphones and scrolled through his playlists. As the plane taxied towards the runway, Henryk Górecki’s ‘Third Symphony’ heaved to life, slow, dark and beautiful. He felt like he could survive anything with this rich, potent stuff pouring through him.

  He lost his stomach when the plane lifted, then again when they bumped through turbulence. Górecki’s first movement soared upwards with him. Wisps of cloud streaked across the window and he slouched in his seat, glad to see the city fading behind him. He watched as the suburbs broke apart, releasing their grip on him, and gave way to patchworked farmland. Exhausted, he closed his eyes and drifted towards sleep.

  When he woke two hours later, they were sliding over the rich green farmland and sub-tropical rainforest of northern New South Wales. Small towns joined by gleaming belts of river passed below them, until they neared the edge of the land, and the Pacific Ocean emerged from the horizon: immense, blue and wonderful.

  Ballina airport seemed more like a converted warehouse than any kind of permanent operation. Through the window he could see cattle grazing in the paddocks beyond the fence line. While Benny waited to collect his surfboard, Andrew turned on his phone.

  Think, Andrew…Don’t make things worse. Dad.

  He deleted the new message and shouldered his backpack. When he turned, Benny was walking towards

  him, talking to a surfie who must have been in his midforties. He had broad shoulders, dark skin and a glazed indifferent look in his eyes.

  ‘Andrew—this is Shadow,’ Benny said. ‘He’s offered to drive us to Byron for thirty bucks.’

  ‘My van’s out front,’ Shadow said.

  Andrew turned to Benny and shrugged; they grinned at each other and followed.

  They piled their luggage onto a mattress in the back of Shadow’s rusted white Hiace van and squashed into the front seats. The floor was littered with take-away food wrappers and the air stunk of damp towels and weed. Neither of the seatbelts worked. Andrew and Benny left them hanging loose at their sides.

  ‘So, Shadow…’ Benny said as they drove the arcing road towards the exit. ‘Where’s the best place for me to surf?’

  Shadow glanced at him and smiled. ‘For you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Shadow didn’t take his eyes off the road. ‘Tourists usually stick to Main Beach or The Pass.’

  Before Benny could reply, Shadow turned up the volume on his stereo and the van filled with pounding bass and a kaleidoscopic flood of synthesizer.

  They hit one hundred along the coast road and Andrew lowered his window, letting the air gush over him. It was different from the air in Adelaide, thicker and heavier. He drew a deep breath and started to relax. Beaches flashed by, surfers sitting on their boards out past the breakers. The road wound through cane fields, then old growth eucalypt forest.

  Byron. Andrew felt the buzz of the place straight away. The main street was jammed with traffic and the footpaths were packed with Schoolies. Shadow stopped at a zebra crossing near the supermarket and waited for a group of girls, laughing as they struggled to control a shopping trolley stacked full of beer and cask wine. One girl, wearing a bikini top and a sarong, and streaked with sunburn, caught Benny checking her out. She winked and continued with her girlfriends.

  ‘Did you see that?’ Benny shouted over the music. ‘Did you see the way she looked at me? I think we had a moment!’

  Andrew laughed. ‘You definitely had a moment.’

  Shadow gave them a pitying look.

  ‘Do you think she was a lesbian?’ Benny said. ‘Do you think she would at least kiss another girl?’

  ‘Yeah, probably,’ Andrew replied. ‘I don’t know… Why not?’

  Benny’s laughter turned into snorting and Andrew grinned, shaking his head. There were young people everywhere, many with their shirts off and barefoot, moving between the surf shops, cafés and travel stores; it couldn’t have been more different from Adelaide. They turned right at a roundabout and a faint drum rhythm spilt through the window. Andrew twisted in his seat to catch a glimpse, but his view was blocked by a wall of bodies. The van gathered speed along the esplanade and the ocean flashed blue between the casuarinas.

  Shadow hooked a right opposite Clarkes Beach Caravan Park, lowered the volume on his stereo and drew to a stop. ‘So lads,’ he said. ‘Are you lads after any weed?’

  Benny turned to Andrew and waited for him to take charge.

  ‘Maybe,’ Andrew replied. ‘How much is it?’

  ‘Three
fifty for an ounce, or two hundred for half.’

  It was a rip-off but Andrew didn’t care. ‘Outdoor or hydro?’

  ‘Pure organic outdoor, my friend. I Reiked the plant every day throughout the budding cycle.’ He looked at his hands and smiled. ‘It’s brimming with the universe’s infinite love and energy.’

  Benny mouthed What? to Andrew and tried not to laugh.

  ‘Wait till you smoke it,’ Shadow said, catching Andrew’s eye. ‘Then you’ll understand what I’m talking about.’

  Andrew took out his wallet. ‘We’ll take half an ounce.’ He counted the money while Benny extracted thirty from his wallet for the ride from the airport.

  Shadow unlocked a red toolbox by his feet, pulled out a zip-locked sandwich bag and tossed it to Andrew. It looked a bit light—but he didn’t say anything. He opened the bag and the air swelled with the passionfruit and foot odour stink of the weed. Benny bit his lip and looked around nervously as Andrew rolled a thick bud between his fingers, smelled it, then dropped the bud back in the bag, sealed it and stuffed it into the top of his backpack.

  ‘He might have been a cop, you know,’ Benny said, as Shadow’s van took off up the street.

  Andrew shook his head. ‘Cops can’t set you up like that. Otherwise it’s entrapment.’

  Benny nodded, his brow furrowed. ‘And where’d you get the cash?’

  ‘Dad gave it to me.’ Andrew hesitated. ‘As a bribe.’

  ‘What?’

  Andrew looked away. ‘I walked in on him…with someone.’

  ‘Shit, Andrew.’ Benny lowered his surfboard to the grass. ‘Who?’

  ‘An Asian girl—about half his age. One of his students.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  He closed his eyes and exhaled through his teeth. ‘Fucking, Benny…What do you think?’

  ‘Jesus…Are you okay? What happened?’

  ‘The girl started crying, grabbed her clothes and rushed out the back door…Dad pulled on his shirt and pants and—get this—started yelling at me.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Well…he was pissed off that I wasn’t at my music exam. I yelled back and told him what an arsehole he was and tried to push past him but…’ ‘What?’ Benny paused. ‘Did he hit you?’

  For a moment, Andrew considered telling him they’d had a brawl—it would have been a good way to explain the bruises on his back and ribs. ‘No. He grabbed me and said that he was proud of me for studying so hard. He said I’d make a great musician one day. Then he opened his wallet and palmed me a wad of cash.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. A stupid amount. He said: “For your holiday in Byron, but don’t tell your mother.”’

  ‘About the money or the girl?’

  Andrew shrugged. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What an arsehole.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You’re going to need to smoke as much of this weed as possible to erase those memory cells.’ Benny laughed uneasily. ‘So that’s why you were so wasted when I got to your house?’

  That was only part of the reason. Andrew picked up his backpack. ‘Just don’t tell anyone, all right? I’ll fucking kill you if you tell Richie.’

  Benny avoided his gaze, nodded and picked up his bag and surfboard.

  The apartment sat a block back from the esplanade, halfway between town and the lighthouse. The living room had white tiles, a low ceiling and cane furniture. Not exactly luxurious, but it was theirs for the week. The screen door wheezed and clicked shut behind them. Richie, Benny’s next-door neighbour from Adelaide, pushed up off the couch with a stubby of beer in his hand. He was a stocky guy with cropped orange hair, freckled skin and a gap between his front teeth.

  ‘About time!’

  ‘We’ve been busy.’ Benny pulled the bag of weed from Andrew’s backpack and dangled it in the air before tossing it to Richie.

  ‘Where’d you get this?’ Richie asked, incredulous.

  ‘Some local guy…Shadow.’ Benny’s mouth was twisted in scorn.

  Richie laughed, shook Benny’s hand and turned to Andrew. ‘Benny told me you missed your final exam… Your audition for the Con, wasn’t it?’

  Andrew nodded.

  ‘So, you’re not going to be a concert penis anymore?’ ‘Nah,’ Andrew replied. ‘I’m working towards being a Toolie dick like you.’

  ‘Ah, Andrew!’ Richie slapped his shoulder. ‘Glad to see you’re starting to relax.’

  Andrew dragged his backpack into the smaller of the two rooms and dumped it onto one of the single beds. He caught his reflection in the wardrobe mirror and frowned. He was pale from too much time indoors and, with his thick, dark hair and crooked teeth, plainerlooking than he’d liked to have been.

  He stood listening to the other two talking and laughing, then unzipped his backpack. He frowned seeing the discoloured bruises on his ribs in the mirror. It was going to be hard to hide them from the others. He slipped on a T-shirt over his boardshorts.

  Back in the living room, Richie was pouring Chivas Regal scotch into tumblers. ‘Why are you going swimming now?’ he said. ‘It’s almost dark.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time,’ Andrew said as he crossed the room.

  Richie looked set to make another quip, but he held it in. ‘C’mon, at least have a drink before you go.’

  ‘Nah,’ he replied from the door, the memory of vodka and bile still too fresh. ‘I’m not drinking.’

  There was a pause before Richie exclaimed, ‘What do you mean, you’re not drinking?’

  ‘Let him go,’ Benny said quietly.

  The bitumen was warm and smooth beneath his feet as he ran past the dense scrub of paperbarks on either side. He slowed to a walk when he reached the car park at Tallow Beach. Surfers milled about, mostly guys, but some girls too, getting changed and waxing surfboards. At the beach track, he started running again, his feet sinking into the powdery sand. Waves heaved and collapsed on the sandbar out the back, and packs of surfers congregated behind each peak. But the water close to the shore was calm. He ran down the low dunes, then away from the headland, until his thighs burned. A long way up, two girls, probably Schoolies like him, ran naked across the wet sand, shrieking with laughter as they half-tripped, half-dived into the water.

  Shirtless now, near the shoreline, he pulled down his shorts to swim naked too, but immediately jerked them back up again and looked around, laughing at himself. It was ridiculous, but he was self-conscious. He ran into the water, surprised by its silky warmth, but also by how quickly the sand floor dropped away. He dived under and pulled himself towards deeper water. When his lungs could no longer bear it, he surfaced and rolled onto his back to catch his breath. Heart knocking against his chest, he lay in the ocean’s gentle rise and fall and stared at the faded blue sky. He felt baptised by the silence and the purity of the water, cleansed of his past and his future. He could have been anyone, drifting in the ocean, a single person among the world’s billions. There was a flash in the corner of his vision and he turned to the lighthouse, high above the wind-groomed trees on the headland. Something inside him seemed to have shifted—the beginnings of a realisation, a half-formed decision. The lighthouse flashed again. He lay back in the water and closed his eyes, and each flash was like the slow, steady pulse of new life.

  The warm night air filled with the drawl and thump of electro as the three of them clambered out of a taxi in front of a rundown bungalow on the other side of town.

  ‘What if people ask who we are?’ Benny asked.

  ‘The girls next door said it was open invite,’ Richie replied. ‘If anyone says anything, we’ll light one of Andrew’s joints and pass it to them.’

  The driveway was blocked by cars and the garden was overgrown with palms and ferns. They had to duck under the branches of a large flame tree and the faint scent of trampled flowers stayed with Andrew as he moved onto the crowded verandah. Richie led them down a hallway filled with people drinking, smoking and shouting
over the music. The living room throbbed with movement, and Benny and Richie, already drunk on beer and scotch, merged with the crowd while Andrew slipped out to the back verandah. It was good to be surrounded by people who knew nothing about him.

  The patter of drums came from the far corner of the yard. Near a rusted garden shed, a loose group of drummers sat immersed in a shifting tangle of rhythms. There was an open, playful feeling about the jam. Andrew sat down and joined them. He picked up a drum and slid his fingers over its thick, papery skin and the taut knots of rope.

  Tentative at first, he focused on mimicking the rhythm, letting the boom and slap of his hands grow until he was almost as loud as the others. The rhythm climbed and peaked, climbed and peaked again. It picked him up and drew him into its stride. The loudest drummer stood up, shirtless and barefoot, his eyes glaring beneath a fedora hat. He attached a strap to his drum, slung it over his shoulders and started

  Indian-hopping through the crowd. Some laughed, embarrassed, but others started moving to the beat. More people came over, the crowd thickening around them, locking them in.

  The rhythm broke into a canter and the crowd erupted with cheers and whistles. The lead drummer threw back his head and shouted. Others howled or shouted with him, and Andrew felt his heartbeat rising to meet the rhythm.

  The lead drummer called the music to a halt and pounded out a polished, tumbling solo. His hands blurred above the drum, playing a series of triplets with clever shifting accents—wild and unorthodox. Towards the end, he counted them in: Two! Three! Four! And the rhythm stomped back to life.

  The other drummers had a chance to solo—until, finally, Andrew was the only one left. His thoughts raced as the beat approached the end of the bar, and he looked up to see the lead drummer nodding at him. Andrew shook his head but the drummer just smiled and nodded again.

  Andrew stopped playing and someone spluttered with laughter. He began again but his rhythm sounded frail. Then he thought of Beethoven’s Ninth, the second movement. He mimicked the contrapuntal rhythm, letting each hit grow louder and faster, louder and faster. He heard a rising cheer and a whistle, and began adding his own hits, creating a rhythm that was half Beethoven’s and half his own, until he was playing something he’d never played before, something that was wholly his own. He felt like an engine gathering speed down a hill, racing, racing, until he could no longer bear it and he thought he was about to derail and crash— Two! Three! Four!