Free Tim Winton by Breath Page A

giant-killers like yourselves. Boys who say they surf Outside Point at eight feet.
    We bloody did, said Loon ie. And there's witnesses.
    So you say. And maybe you did. But, gosh, Loon. Weren't you scared?.
    Piss off.
    Hell, I was, I muttered.
    Least you're honest, Pikelet. But scared of what? Water over sand? A bit of a sinus-flush? What's to be scared of out there at the Point?
    It was bloody eight foot, said Loon ie. Ten!
    Sando just snorted. He turned and jogged down to the water's edge and launched himself into the deep, moiling gutter of the rip.
    We watched him pick his way to the deep channel that ran out to the break, paddling casually, duckdiving spills of whitewater and shaking spray from his hair.
    It's all bullshit, said Loon ie. He's shittin us.
    I shrugged.
    He's callin us fuckin sooks.
    Maybe, I said.
    Thinks we're just gunna sit here like a coupla girls.
    Girls or no girls, I was quite prepared to do exactly that, to sit there safe and warm on the beach and watch Sando dice it out with Barney. I was already thinking about what to do if he was eaten, whether I could remember how to start the outboard. Driving the Kombi home presented a few problems, but I figured I'd tackle these lesser obstacles one at a time. But before I could get anything straight in my mind Loonie took up his board with a strangled, angry cry and ran down to the water. A few moments later, hapless and terrified, I followed him.
    That's how we surfed Barney's the first time, with Loonie taking on every wave enraged, and me just trailing along, dry-mouthed and shaky, until the exhilaration of the rides themselves inoculated us both against the worst of our fear.
    The wave at Barney's wasn't huge but it was long and perfect: blue, pure, and empty. It was like something from a magazine and we were in it. Loonie and I strove to outdo each other, to take off as late as possible, to drop in with the kind of studied nonchalance we copied from Sando, and then steer up into the shimmering cave each wave made of itself. Inside those waves our voices bounced back at us, deeper and larger for all the noise, like the voices of men. We felt strong, older. We came howling from the gullet of wave upon wave and stopped believing in the shark altogether. It was a landmark day.
    We surfed Barney's for months with Sando before the secret got out. Some nosy crew from Angelus followed us in, saw the tyre tracks and found the parked VW and trailer. But even when they showed up, more surfers watched from the beach than actually paddled out.
    Especially after the spring morning when Barney surfaced like a sub in the channel, rolled over beside Loonie and fixed him with one terrible, black eye before sliding away again.
    That eye, said Loonie, was like a fuckin hole in the universe.
    It was as close as he got to poetry. I envied him the moment and the story that went with it.
    Heading home from that first day at Barney's, bone-sore and lit up, we relived the morning wave by wave, shoring it up against our own disbelief. By common assent, Loonie had caught the wave of the day. It was a smoker. I was paddling back out through the channel when he got to his feet. The wave reared up, pitched itself forward and simply swallowed him. I heard him scream for joy or terror and could only see him intermittently as he navigated a path beneath the warping fold of water. He was a blur in there, ghostly. When finally he shot out and passed me, he looked back at the weird, dilating eye of the wave and gave it the finger.
    Geez, I wish we had a camera, he said afterwards, as we chugged back through the forest. It was too good. Shoulda got a photo.
    Nah, said Sando. You don't need any photo.
    But just to show, to prove it, sorta thing.
    You don't have to prove it, said Sando. You were there.
    Well, least you blokes saw it.
    My oath, I said.
    But it's not even about us, said Sando. It's about you. You and the sea, you and the planet.
    Loonie groaned. Hippy-shit, mate.
    Is that right?