The sea is my secret friend. On still nights, when the breeze through the gum leaves doesn’t hush the mighty ocean, I can hear it from my room. I’ve often snuck out, in the deepest dark, and crept over the dunes, through the banksia and scrub, until I’ve come to the broken rocks at the edge of the sand. The sea at night is magnificent, lapping the rocks, glimmering in the moonlight. It calms me and makes me feel safe. Except in winter time, when the wind whistles through the low bushes and the sea roars and crashes on the jagged rocks. Then it can be almost frightening. Almost. It’s angry then, mean and raging, but I always find the sea reassuring, if not calming. And I always feel safe up on the rocks with Ralphy.
And it’s never quiet, the sea. Even on the stillest summer nights, when it’s too warm to sleep and the mosquitoes keep whining around my tired ears, I can hear the sea. It’s like a distant roar, constant and eternal. Sometimes I’ve snuck out in the summer and sat on the rocks, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, listening to the sea roar a thousand miles away. Even when the tide is lapping so quietly on the sand that you have to strain to hear it from the dunes the distant roar is there, like one long, never ending heartbeat.
I have to be careful when I sneak out on my secret forays. The window is all rattly and the flyscreen squeals like a scalded cat if you don’t open it right. I’ve got the knack down pretty well now. Then I have to help Ralph out, as he wuffs and snuffles in excitement because he knows he mustn’t bark. His tail slaps my face, tickling my nose, as I push his bum up and over the sill. Then he lands silently on the scrubby grass and stands there expectantly as I clamber carefully over the edge and drop down beside him. Then we run to the cover of the gum trees, holding our breath so we don’t make a sound. If dad caught us running out at night he’d bash us both, shouting and hollering about our responsibilities and doing well in school and when he was a lad he’d never do this or that. Mum used to call it a good skelping, when dad hit me. Now that she’s gone it’s worse than ever. My mum was always nice when I got a good skelping.
I miss my mum. I remember when she used to drive the ute into town and me and Ralph would lie in the back, staring at the sky. I used to watch the clouds flying over us and pretend there was nothing else but the clouds and the movement and me and Ralph. I’d try to guess how close to town we were by the lefts and rights and bumps and bridges. When we got to town mum would buy me a Paddle Pop that I’d share with Ralph while she shopped or got her hair cut. Gossiping, dad called it. Then we’d ride back again, watching the clouds once more. I used to love riding in the ute, but when mum left that’s what she left in. Dad was shouting and hollering then too and he yelled, ‘She even took me bloody ute!’ and I got a good skelping for that too. I don’t know why. I didn’t take the it.
One night, when dad had drunk a whole lot of cans of beer, he was out on the deck sitting in his big old rocking chair, staring at the blackness. I thought he was laughing so I went out to hear the joke, but he was crying. Big sobbing cries that sounded like laughs from far away but sounded nothing like laughs from up close. I thought he’d skelp me for seeing him cry, but he was being all soft. He sat me on his lap and said, ‘You’re all right with your old man, aren’t ya, son?’ I just nodded, not sure what he meant. Then he said, ‘You why your mum left? When I drink too much I get a bit heavy handed, you know?’ I just shrugged. Then he gave me a big squeeze and sent me off to bed and that’s as close as I’ve ever come to really knowing why my mum left. Dad drinks too much and his hands get heavy. I don’t really understand it.
I miss my mum as much as the rides in the ute. She was always kind and she always smiled at me and whenever dad gave me a good skelping she’d always come to see me after and she’d always smell so nice. She’d stroke my hair till I stopped crying and ask me to forgive dad because ‘he doesn’t know himself when he’s like this.’ After a while she’d just come and stroke my hair and not say anything. Then she left and now no one comes to stroke my hair when I cry. And if I cry too loud dad comes in and skelps me again. It seemed vaguely fair before, when mum was here, but now it doesn’t. I wonder why mum took the ute without putting me and Ralph in the back first. I guess I’ll never know. I’ve got used to the idea that she’s probably not coming back. Probably.
Last night I went to bed early because dad started drinking cans of beer again. He always drinks beer in the evenings. He says it’s because the world is so crappy. I always keep an eye on how many he has because a few is normally all right. Once he gets past the fifth can I try to keep out of his way as I always seem to get in trouble after he’s had five or six cans. Sometimes there’s a lot more than that laying on the floor by his armchair in the morning. One day I got up for school and counted fifteen cans beside the chair. He was still in the chair, making a horrible noise, and he smelled really bad. I just snuck out without any breakfast and went to school so that I didn’t have to wake him up.
Last night he got to five cans so I said I had a test in the morning and wanted to get to bed early. He looked at me like he was about to start shouting and I started to tremble a bit. Even Ralph got a bit growly. Then he just said, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ So I went to bed.
I laid there for a while, not really tired enough to sleep. It was pretty still outside, so I was trying to hear the sea. Then I heard dad on the phone. He was ringing the family from the next property, asking if their daughter was in. Their daughter’s called Jilly and she would come over to babysit me when mum and dad went out. Except sometimes now dad calls her over to babysit and he doesn’t go out. Instead he sends me to bed and he and Jilly laugh and joke and drink beer. Then I hear them go into the bedroom and dad’s bed will start to creak and squeak and it sounds like he’s hurting Jilly. I told my best friend at school, John Bryant, about it and he laughed and hit me on the arm and said, ‘He ain’t hurting her! They’re shagging!’ I didn’t know what shagging was, but I was too embarrassed to ask John what he meant because he was laughing at me so much already. It’s not a word I’ve ever heard before. Maybe it’s a foreign word. John’s English after all. Still, whatever it is, I don’t like it much. Jilly’s always still there in the morning though, and she usually makes breakfast for me and dad. That’s good because dad’s usually in a good mood and it’s the only time I get a proper breakfast. Otherwise I just have cereal or toast, depending on what dad remembered to buy. Sometimes I have to go without altogether.
So last night I snuck out when the bed started creaking because I couldn’t hear the sea over the noises they were making while they were shagging. I sat on the rocks with Ralphy and watched my secret friend, watching the waves lap gently in, and I thought about mum. Then an idea started to form in my head.
I looked down at Ralph as I gently scruffed him behind his soft brown ears. He loves it when I rub behind his ears, it makes him go all goofy. It’s the same when I scratch his back all the way down to the base of his tail and back again, dragging my fingers backwards through his soft fur, giving him four little Ridgeback mohicans. If I scratch him enough on his back he starts to kick one leg and make a whiny noise like when he’s trying not to bark.
He’s always been with me, has Ralphy, no matter what else has happened. I got him for my fourth birthday, when he was just a bouncy little puppy that was never still and peed everywhere. I trained him up like this book I got told me to and he’s been my best friend ever since. If I had to choose between him and John Bryant I’d definitely choose Ralph. He’s the best dog in the whole world. And he knows when I’m upset and he comes and sticks his cold nose in my ear, snuffling and sniffing until I giggle. And when I do giggle he sits back with that doggy grin on his face and lifts up his paw for me to shake as if to say, ‘We’re buddies, aren’t we? Don’t be upset when I’m here.’ So I shake his paw and scratch him and we wrestle around on the floor a bit and it does make me feel better.
So as I sat on the rocks with him last night I said, ‘Ralphy, I reckon if mum went away because she didn’t like dad’s heavy hands, well that would be pretty unfair, huh?’ Ralph just looked at me, with his tongue hanging half out of one side of his mouth, but he was listening. I mean, he can’t speak properly, so he can’t answer, but he does listen. And sometimes he nods or shakes his head if what I say is easy enough for him to understand. Nobody will believe me about that, but it’s true. So, I went on, ‘Well, I reckon that it’s more than just his hands that made her leave. She wouldn’t leave me and you and just run away like that because dad’s hands are heavy. So I think that maybe she didn’t like him very much and she had to get away because of that. I can kind of understand, because I don’t like him much now either. I used to think he was okay, but now I’m not so sure. But you have to keep that a secret too, like our night time walks, because I reckon dad would get mad if he knew I’d said that. Maybe even madder than if he caught us out at night.’
When I said that Ralph nodded. I reckon he nodded because the day before dad had lost it at me because I knocked over some milk and he skelped me and made me cry. Well, Ralph went running in, barking at dad and trying to get between dad and me because Ralph’s a smart dog and he knew dad was hurting me. But dad kicked Ralph really hard and made him yelp and then he hit me again. Then he sent us both off to my room. So I don’t think that Ralph likes dad much either and that’s why he nodded. Besides, that sure wasn’t the first time that Ralphy’s got a good skelping. So I carried on explaining my idea to Ralph. ‘Well, here’s my plan. I was thinking about staying out here all night because it’s so cool with the sea breeze and all and I thought it would be good to stay out until breakfast. Then I started thinking that maybe it would be good to stay out longer than that because the idea of not going back home for a while seems pretty enticing, huh?’ I reckon Ralph nodded again at that point.
I sat and thought about it some more. I realised that I’d miss going to school. Especially English because I like that subject. I like words and I like learning new words that sound grown up but really mean something very simple. And I like writing stories and poems, but my poems aren’t very good. I like some of the other subjects too, but not maths. I’ve never really understood the point of maths.
Then I started to think about what I’d miss at home and I realised that there wasn’t really anything at home that meant much to me. I thought about some of my toys but they’re all old now and most of them are broken. I haven’t had a new toy since mum left. It was my birthday last month and dad said that he was waiting for a cheque to come from someone and was really sorry but I would have to wait until he got his cheque before I could get a birthday present. He took me to town in a car he borrowed from Jilly’s parents and he bought me a Paddle Pop because I asked for one and we had a sandwich at the café there. Then I had to wait in the car for a couple of hours while he went into the pub to talk about some business. When we came home again he didn’t seem very happy, so I went straight to bed even though it was pretty early. I guess he’s still waiting for that cheque.
So I realised that I really wouldn’t miss much at all about home and that mum must have felt the same way because all she took was dad’s ute. I had Ralph and that was all that mattered. I couldn’t go anywhere without Ralph, but so long as he was with me I didn’t care where I was.
I think I had a revelation there on that rock last night. The word revelation came up in a spelling quiz at school last week and Mrs Baker told me I was clever because I got it right. I didn’t know it, but I just kind of worked it out. I can do that quite often. When I got home I had a look in mum’s big dictionary at what revelation meant and I think that’s what happened when I realised that I wouldn’t miss anything at home so long as Ralph was with me. That was my revelation on the rocks as the sea lapped the sand and the silent breeze cooled my face and ruffled the tiny hairs on the top of Ralphy’s ears. So there and then I decided that I was going to go away. I had no idea how long for and I had no idea where to go, but I’d had my revelation and I was going. So I said, ‘Come on, Ralph, let’s see what’s that way,’ and I pointed off down the beach. Ralph barked and jumped about, grinning his doggy grin and off we went.
I watched the moon as we walked and it climbed higher and higher and then started to go down again. We followed the beach for as long as we could then climbed up over some rocks and headed across the dunes for a while. The dunes were thick with brush and banksia and I got scared about snakes and spiders, but Ralph was jumping along ahead of me and I knew he’d warn me if anything dangerous was around. He caught a snake once and dad went ballistic because he brought it into the house. The snake was pretty much dead and I reckon that Ralph was pleased that he’d protected us and wanted to show us that we were safe now. But dad lost it and started hollering and he was kicking Ralph around the lounge room, making him yelp and cringe, until I ran in and dragged Ralph off to my room. I even caught one of dad’s kicks as I dragged Ralphy away and I had a bruise for about a week. When I got us safely to my room I was crying a bit because the kick had hurt and Ralph was whimpering because he’d got kicked lots of times and we sat on the floor together for ages. I stroked Ralph’s head and gently rubbed his sides where he’d been kicked and I think I made him feel better. I guess I was a lot like my mum then, when she came to me when I was crying and stroked my hair. It kind of works both ways, because it made me feel better too. I wonder if mum felt better when she came and stroked me when I was crying.
I don’t think Ralph understood why dad had gone so mad, especially as Ralphy had been protecting us. I told Ralph that he must never bring a snake into the house again, whether it was alive or dead, because dad would probably go ballistic again. Ralphy nodded then. He didn’t know why he’d been kicked I don’t reckon, but he understood to never bring a snake in again. Ralph never went too near dad after that day unless dad was giving me a good skelping for some reason. Sometimes dad would call him over and he’d go, but his tail would be down and he’d be trembling a bit. Dad seemed to think that was funny, but I didn’t like it and I’m sure Ralphy didn’t. But anyway, I knew that Ralph would protect me from the snakes as we walked.
We had to walk away from the sea for a while and that kind of scared me. It made me feel a bit lost because I couldn’t see the sea any more and I didn’t recognise the land. We walked on for a little while and then I managed to find a way back down towards the sea and I found a whole new beach. I realised that I hadn’t been this far on my own before. I’d never been further than school without mum or dad and even then I didn’t go to school on my own.
I sat with Ralph on that new beach for a while and started to think again. If I didn’t recognise the places I was in already, then I certainly wasn’t going to recognise them the further I went. I didn’t even know if I was going towards the town or not, but there was certainly no beach in the town so I would have to leave the sea behind at some point. Maybe I was going towards a town, but which one?
Ralphy was looking at me with his big brown eyes and he seemed concerned. He seemed like he was a bit scared. I can tell when Ralph’s a bit scared because he sits next to me and kind of shuffles his bum close to me, pressing himself against me. After a moment he shuffles his bum again, like he’s slipping away and has to keep resetting himself. That’s what he was doing on that beach last night.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ I asked him and he nodded. ‘Maybe I should remember my revelation and plan a better runaway for another time,’ I suggested. Ralphy nodded again and licked my face. That’s how a dog kisses, with a lick like that. When Ralphy kisses me I know it means that he agrees with me completely. It’s his highest act of condonement.
So I scratched his ears for a while as we listened to the sea and then we started back towards home. I was feeling kind of relieved as we got closer and I realised that running away would be pretty scary. I had decided that I was definitely going to run away, but I just needed to make a few more plans, maybe decide on a route to take, make some sandwiches perhaps. Maybe I could ask dad which way mum had gone when she’d left in his ute, but I reckon that might not be the best thing to talk to dad about. That night when he was crying on the deck was the only time we’ve ever talked about mum and then I didn’t do any talking. Neither did dad really.
As we made our way across the back yard, heading silently for my bedroom window, the sky was going the colour of a bruise and birds were beginning to blearily cry and twitter. I picked Ralph up and pushed him through the window onto my bed. It’s really hard doing that because he’s big and heavy and hard to keep a grip of, but he knows that and keeps very still until his paws can reach the window ledge. He got big when I was still little, but I’m getting big too now. Sometimes it seems like he’s shrinking, but I know he’s not.
As I hauled myself in the window Ralph started wuffing quietly and giving me doggy kisses, making me giggle. I guess he was pleased to get back home. Maybe he was a bit scared to run away without planning too. Mrs Baker always says that nothing goes properly without planning and Mrs Baker knows just about everything. Maybe I should ask her what shagging is, but she might laugh at me too.
As I plopped down onto the bed, pulling Ralph into a wrestle match, I said, ‘Well boy, we stayed up all night if nothing else. Look.’ I pointed out the window and Ralph stood up on the bed with his front paws on the sill. His tail was thwacking against me because he was so pleased. The bruised sky had started to pale and went from darkest purple on one side to a colour like the sea in summer on the other. Suddenly I felt really tired, like I’d been up for a week instead of just one night. ‘Next time we’ll be prepared, eh, boy?’ I said, scratching Ralph’s ears. ‘But we have to keep it a secret. It’ll be our special secret and, when we’ve got a plan all worked out, we’ll run out one night and not come back.’ Ralph licked my face again.
I fell back onto my bed and took off my clothes so that it wouldn’t look like I’d been up all night if dad came in when he got up. He sometimes came in and gave me shove if I slept in and was going to be late for school. I pulled the sheet over myself and Ralph laid down beside me, curled up in the way that dogs do when they sleep. It’s nice to have Ralph by me when I sleep. He makes me feel safe.
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(Originally published in Harbinger Journal Issue 3 – http://harbinger.justfree.com/index.html)
Copyright (c) Alan Baxter
