A Midsummer Tale ~ Second Place
Robin Kirby

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“I think Toby Gardiner lives in that house.” Miranda pointed at a low-set fibro beach shack, set in an overgrown garden. “Do you want to see if he’s home?” The house itself was unimposing, but the places along this stretch of dirt road backed on to the open sea. My parents’ beach house was a luxurious high-set with views forever, but it didn’t have that mesmerising sound of waves breaking on the shore night and day.

It struck me that Miranda may have contrived staying with me for the sole purpose of putting herself in the path of Toby Gardiner. She had mentioned this latest crush when we were discussing our plans for the summer holidays.

“He’s such a doll.”

Toby Gardiner was a year older than us and had attended a different school. He would be going to university down south soon. Miranda had met him through a friend one weekend and had watched out for him when we attended the end of year inter-school swimming carnival. Neither Miranda nor I were very sporty, but we’d been in the cheer squad, dressed to kill in short skirts and tight T-shirts. During their animated conversation, she’d found out that he was an only child and that his father had recently died of a heart attack. She had also found out that his family beach house was walking distance from mine.

“OK,” I replied, “but if he’s there I don’t want to stay very long.”

Miranda sauntered to the screen door. “Anyone home?”

“Hey, Miranda, isn’t it?”

I had to admit that Toby was pretty cute. He had a bit of a surfie look about him: bleached blonde hair, bronzed skin. A shame all his attention was on Miranda. Boys always seemed to go for Miranda. She was my best friend and all, but really, she wasn’t what you’d call beautiful. A little on the chubby side, baby blue eyes, blonde curls. I guess buxom was the word that fitted best, maybe even voluptuous.

It turned out that his mother was due home in a few minutes, but would be at work the next day. While she was away, some of his mates would be coming over for a game of cards and a few drinks. Toby said it would be fun to have a couple of girls there as well. How about it?

“Bingo,” said Miranda as we meandered back home. The sun beat down relentlessly on our bare heads, but we hardly noticed as we giggled together and concocted a plausible story to tell my parents about what we’d be doing the next day. I wondered what the other boys would be like.

*

“That’s it for me,” said Shane, throwing his cards into the middle of the table.

I had been checking him out for a while. He was the one who owned the dust-streaked car outside Toby’s place. He had been intent on the poker game and his restless eyes rarely left his cards. The boys had started with piles of coins in front of them, but his had now dwindled away to almost nothing. They were drinking beer from cans and laughing about the fun they’d had last night when Shane had hit 100 miles per hour down the straight stretch of Harbour Road.

It felt like Miranda and I were privileged to be on the sidelines. I didn’t know what to make of the third boy. They called him ‘Cliffo’ and when we sat down, he announced with a perfectly straight face, that he had a certificate proving he was sane. He didn’t sound like he was joking, so I repressed my desire to giggle. I had no experience with mental illness. He might be for real.

Shane and Cliffo had been hurling the empty cans through an open window in some kind of ‘who can get his can the furthest’ competition.

“Hope you’re going to pick those up,” said Toby.

“Ya going to make us?” said Cliffo.

“Thought my mum scared you shitless.”

Shane shrugged and wandered outside and collected the cans, put them in the rubbish bin, then grabbed his car keys. It turned out he was off to meet his girlfriend in town. Drat. The three boys had a muttered conversation near the door, there was some skylarking and laughter and I heard the car spin its wheels in the dirt as it took off.

Toby came back to the main room with Cliffo. By now, Miranda had gone to sit on the lounge and Toby sat down close beside her. There was some desultory conversation about holidays and school and how hot it was. I could see that Toby had an arm around Miranda and I tried not to watch as his hand surreptitiously slipped inside her blouse. She blushed and moved side on so we couldn’t see.

Cliffo watched unblinking for a minute and then went and got himself another beer from the fridge. He came and stood right in front of me and I noticed for the first time that he was tall and that his eyes were an intense blue.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

Suited me. I just wanted to get away from the embarrassing situation of sitting around watching my friend being seduced.

“Alright.”

Cliffo walked through a doorway and I automatically followed. He closed the door. We were in a starkly furnished bedroom. I panicked, but then realised that there was probably nowhere else to sit down in the small beach shack. At least we couldn’t see the others.

We both stood in silence. He took a few sips of beer then handed me the can.

“You finish it. I’m not supposed to drink ‘cause of my medication.”

I walked to the window but couldn’t see the sea, just bushes. There was no breeze. The room was stinking hot. No fans. No air-con. I’d never actually drunk a full can of beer before. It was bitter on my tongue, but at least it was cold. Perhaps I’d relax a bit more and be able to string more than two words together if I got a little tipsy. I gulped it down and put the can on the sill. Cliffo was still standing, just watching me.

“Did they tell you why I was in the funny farm?”

“No. No one said anything.”

“Tried to commit suicide.”

For some reason, that made me feel better. I could relate to depression and suicide. Not like madness, which to me was a scary kind of unknown.

“Oh. Sorry.”

The room was starting to spin a bit and I felt a little woozy. I sat on the edge of the bed. Cliffo lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.

“It’s OK,” he said. “I’m not going to jump you or nothin’. You can lie down.”

It was tempting. I was decidedly dizzy by now, so I carefully stretched out, keeping to the edge of the bed.

After a few more minutes of silence, Cliffo propped himself on his elbow.

“You’ve got a nice belly.”

I was wearing black footie shorts and a midriff top. Yeah, my stomach was toned and tanned. Looked pretty damn good really, despite the sheen of perspiration.

“Can I touch it? Just gently?”

What could be the harm? It wasn’t like a sexual thing. And anyway, he was suicidal. If I said no, I might hurt his feelings.

“OK, but nothing more. Alright?”

Up ‘til now, I had only experienced some sweaty handholding and a couple of sloppy kisses from pimply youths at school. I was starting to worry a bit about being left on the shelf or that maybe I came across as an ice princess or something. I was nearly sixteen, after all.

He lay a hand on my stomach. It was warm and not unpleasant. After a few more minutes, he gently began to draw small lazy circles around my navel. I closed my eyes. I felt less nauseous that way. And I could almost imagine he was someone else. Some romantic hero from that shadowy world of my imagination.

The lazy circles slowly, slowly expanded and a distant part of me was aware that disembodied fingers had ever so gradually pulled down the elastic waistband of my shorts. Those sensitive fingers were now trailing across my lower belly, creating pulsating tingles lower down. The beer had certainly relaxed me and I experienced these new sensations with a dazed sort of detachment.

Something in the back of my mind was tugging at me, bothering me. It was that irritating goody two-shoes part of me demanding to be heard, to remind me that this was wrong, and nothing like the romance of my imagination.

He wasn’t the one. This person beside me had discoloured teeth and I was becoming increasingly aware that he smelled of stale beer, cigarettes and rancid sweat. While I tried to summon up the wherewithal to somehow extricate myself from this situation, I lay inert like a rabbit in a spotlight. The problem was that a wilder, more untamed part of my nature that I barely recognised was willing me to continue, to keep exploring the sensuous mysteries that Miranda was no doubt experiencing in the other room.

I felt a clumsy, inexpert fumbling between my legs. OK, enough was enough. This was downright tacky now and most definitely not what I wanted. I started to pull away but he was big and heavy and kind of pinning me down. There was a rough probing into the area my mother euphemistically described as my ‘private part’ and I finally galvanized into action and yanked frantically at his hand while desperately trying to pull my shorts up. God, surely that wasn’t the end of my virginity.

Without warning, he leapt off the bed and headed out the door, gleefully shouting to the others. I sat up, stone-cold sober.

“I win. I win. Fingered her. Come on, Toby, pay up.”

I felt my face flushing. I ran from the room, not caring what state of undress Miranda was in. Slamming the screen door, I pushed blindly through the bushes to the road, hoping against hope that Miranda would follow.

She did. “Are you for real? You let Cliffo do that?”

I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t bear the thought of her judgement or her pity. “He was lying. He just touched my stomach. That’s all.”

“Didn’t sound like it,” she said.

“I didn’t want to say anything back there, because I felt sort of sorry for him. You know, because of the depression and suicide and stuff.”

“What? He told you he was suicidal?”

“Yeah.”

“The lying toad,” said Miranda. “Toby reckons he’s a bit of a psychopath. Really weird if he’s off his meds.”

“So, it’s because he’s insane that he made that bet with the others?”

“Nah. Boys will be boys. That’s what a lot of them are like.”

That was the initial turning point of my summer. It hurt me right to my very core that the other boys had gone along with the bet, that they’d laughed about it and thought it was a great joke. I was deeply ashamed about the way my own body had betrayed me. Deep inside, I knew that never again would I put myself in a position where I could be humiliated by anyone. I didn’t care anymore if boys thought I was a prude or if I became an old spinster. No male would ever make a fool of me again.

“So Miranda, what about you? Was Toby trying to win a bet too?”

“God no. Toby and I are in love.”

Later, Miranda and I sat on the warm sand watching the dancing, foaming waves as the shadows lengthened. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I told her the truth about what had happened.

“You should report him,” she said.

“Who to? It’s not like I kicked and screamed.”

“But you didn’t say yes and you certainly didn’t know he was just doing it for a bet. That would have to be deception or false pretences or something.”

“You know how embarrassing it would be to tell a cop? Or my parents? Anyway, he’d probably say I led him on.”

“Yeah. I get what you mean. Guess you’re just going to have to live with it.”

*

A few weeks later and the humidity was almost unbearable as the torrential rains of the wet season threatened. Miranda and I were back at school, and it wouldn’t be long until Toby left for university. I didn’t care what Cliffo or Shane were planning to do with their lives. I hoped I would never see any of those boys again as long as I lived. I received sporadic reports from Miranda about Toby’s phone calls and the frenzied trysts in the back of Shane’s car, on the occasions when Toby could borrow it.

On my way out of the house one oppressive morning, I glanced at the daily newspaper on the dining room table. The macabre picture of a smashed-up car caught my eye. The impact had been so forceful that the car had split into two and the roof had peeled back, as if a giant had opened a can of sardines.

Toby Gardiner and Shane Walker had been killed in the single vehicle rollover.

For a moment, I could scarcely breathe. Miranda would be devastated. Then it was almost as if a switch had been flicked, and I turned and walked into the mind and spirit of my more mature self. I breathed deeply and was calm and in control. I would be Miranda’s support. I had been a part of her idyllic summer and we would weather this together. I understood. I was the only person who had known the unfolding of her first real love. I knew I could do this.

*

The small church was filled to overflowing for the double funeral, despite the teeming rain. Miranda and I stood at the back and vainly scanned for spare seats.

“We should be up at the front with Toby’s mother,” whispered Miranda.

“But you’ve never met her, have you?”

“Yeah, but I was his girlfriend. Do you think I should introduce myself before the service starts?”

I instinctively knew that would be a disaster. I had noticed a woman come and sit in the front row by herself and guessed it would have to be Toby’s mother. She moved like an automaton, face drawn, eyes dead. And so alone.

For a few moments she sat staring at the two coffins. I felt that she was trying to work out how she would ever bear the dreadful weight of the deaths of first her husband and now her only child. Then people came and surrounded her, hugged her, kissed her cheek. Cliffo was among them. I shuddered.

Miranda and I remained squashed among those standing at the back. We sang the hymns and said Amen at the right times in the prayers and then the eulogies started. A petite slip of a girl came to the front. She looked Eurasian to me. Thick black plait, liquid eyes. She took a deep breath and began:

“For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Raya. I’ve been Toby’s girlfriend for two years and we were the world to each other.”

There was an audible gasp from Miranda, thankfully drowned out by people fanning themselves with their service sheets.

“Of course, there was another woman in his life…”

I felt Miranda stiffen.

“…his beautiful mother, Leila, who is heartbroken.”

Raya went on to explain about Toby’s mother sending a telegram to her in Malaysia, where Raya had been caring for her sick grandmother. She talked on about the plans she and Toby had made for opening a mental health clinic for disturbed youth once she and Toby had qualified, plans to volunteer overseas, to marry, to have a family.

I whispered in Miranda’s ear. “Do you want to go?”

She tearfully nodded and we quietly sidled out into the damp churchyard and found a sheltered seat on a low brick wall.

“I think I need to set the story straight,” said Miranda. “I think Toby’s mother and Raya need to meet me, to know that Toby had fallen in love with me.”

I was silent for a minute. It was clear to me that Toby Gardiner wasn’t the Mr Nice Guy everyone painted. He had been quite content to keep his exotic princess as his long-term plan but to have fun with my friend Miranda while Raya was off the scene. This was a powder keg just waiting to be ignited.

“No, Miranda. What good will it do?”

“It would make me feel better. Less like a bloody stupid idiot.”

“I know you’re hurting. But if you tell them, then three people will be hurting. It’s not like Toby’s mother or Raya did anything wrong. They knew Toby for a long time and shared heaps of experiences with him. You’ll make their memories of those times ugly and distorted. Would that be fair?”

Miranda dabbed at her eyes with a damp, twisted tissue. “Guess we’ve both learned a lot about boys this summer,” she said, with a weak smile.

More than that, I thought. We’d learnt a whole lot about life.

Robin Kirby followed her heart and studied English Literature at University in Townsville. It taught her to appreciate great writing. A Creative Writing course gave her the practical tools to try herself out as a freelance writer. As a result, she was fortunate to have a few short stories published but that was many years ago and it didn’t seem she could make a career of it. She turned to other professions and also saw a bit of Australia, moving from Townsville to Darwin, then on to Perth and finally back to the Tropics again. Working as a psychologist in a psychiatric unit gave her insight into personality and behaviour; university administrative positions encouraged her to be meticulous and to respect high standards; teaching piano lessons opened her eyes to the rhythms and cadences of expression. Family? Well, family is her reason for being. Full circle. Now she’s back following her heart, but with a lifetime of experiences to add colour and authenticity. Writing. Email: robknibb56[at]hotmail.com