Shrine

  ADAM: The ugly duckling of Australian wine, June. You can’t give them away.

  JUNE: But that’s what’s special. It’s beautiful and no one sees it. Jack saw it. He knew.

  ADAM: But he never showed the slightest interest. I didn’t know.

  JUNE: Hell, you should have seen him with the Lindeman’s.

  ADAM: The bloody Lindeman’s! They were stashed, buried. How’d he even find ’em? He must’ve been reading my notes.

  JUNE: (carefully) Maybe.

  ADAM: The cunning little . . . God, does he even know what those museum releases are worth?

  JUNE: Well, you might want to think about the ’74. It’s kind of tanking. I’d drink it now or sell ’em.

  ADAM: Jesus, why not rip the scab off the ’71 while you’re at it?

  JUNE: (wincing guiltily) Oops.

  ADAM: Why didn’t he tell me? Why couldn’t he do that with me?

  JUNE: I don’t know.

  ADAM: What was it like, the ’71?

  JUNE: Like him. Like Jack. Had a kind of . . . I don’t know . . . afterglow? Is that the right word?

  ADAM is consumed by this news, the image. He almost forgets she’s there and takes a few moments to catch himself.

  ADAM: Geez. You’ve got a real nose, June.

  JUNE: Yeah. That’s what they said at school.

  ADAM: I meant in the olfactory sense.

  JUNE: Me mum couldn’t smell a thing.

  ADAM: Some people aren’t gifted.

  JUNE: It wasn’t that. Dad bashed her.

  ADAM: Ah. Well, here, make yourself at home. Obviously you know your way round. I did notice a few gaps in the cellar. Thought it was me. I seem to have developed quite a thirst.

  JUNE: Well. No one could blame you. The time you’ve had.

  ADAM: Ah, I was hitting it pretty hard, even before.

  JUNE: I know the feelin.

  ADAM looks at her, puzzling over some detail in her story, not completely convinced but wanting so badly to believe her.

  ADAM: You really knew him, then.

  JUNE: Yeah.

  ADAM: Things I didn’t even know.

  JUNE: You’re surprised.

  ADAM: Well, yes.

  JUNE: That someone like me could know him.

  ADAM: Well, no, not in those terms. Obviously he’d come down all those years for his holidays and to pick, and then, later with his mates when they’d come surfing. Of course you’d know of  him. It’s a small place. But I just didn’t think you’d know him well enough to —

  JUNE: To be here. In your house, your cellar.

  ADAM: What can I get you to drink?

  JUNE: Just water.

  ADAM: Just water? Just water.

  JUNE sees the binoculars. Emboldened, she takes them up to scan the paddock and the sea. Before he brings her glass, ADAM observes her. He can’t help but survey her with a man’s practised and habitual eye.

  ADAM: Course I’m surprised. Who wouldn’t be? This sad, lumpy girl in her tufty jumper and Blundstones. I mean, if she really had something you’d understand. Every little town’s got its flawed jewel, the girl who’s close enough to beautiful. But June Fenton?

  He takes the glass of water to her.

  ADAM: So, you like the surf. The surfers.

  JUNE lowers the binoculars and stares at him reproachfully. ADAM does his best to recover.

  ADAM: I mean, I’m the same. I could watch them all day. Always regret I never did it as a young man.

  JUNE: Because the girls liked it?

  ADAM: No, no. Just . . . the freedom. Don’t spose you surf yourself?

  JUNE: Hardly. Fell in one day when I was a kid, when they were openin the rivermouth. Remember gettin sucked along and all these snapper bumpin into me on their way to the sea. Someone pulled me out with a gaff. Catch of the day. Bag of rubbish. Nah, I just watch.

  ADAM: Me too. I envy them. Some days it’s all I do.

  JUNE: And you read, I see. Stories?

  ADAM: Stories? No, what’s the point?

  JUNE: So you read, what, fact books?

  ADAM: I’ve got no patience for make-believe.

  JUNE: So what’s this then?

  ADAM: (amused) Well, here you’ve caught me out. This bloke’s a biologist. Thinks nature has feelings. He’s all about, and I quote: ‘mentality existing in some form all the way down to quarks’.

  JUNE: I don’t know what that means.

  ADAM: Well, June, that’s two of us. I mean, what’s his story, eh?

  JUNE: (blankly) I spose it passes the time.

  ADAM: No. (he drinks off his wine) Time passes anyway. It doesn’t require any help from us.

  JUNE: You’re angry.

  He stares at her appraisingly.

  JUNE: It’s none of my business.

  ADAM: But you said it anyway.

  JUNE: It’s normal. Being angry. When someone dies.

  ADAM: Jesus, June. Spare me the self-help section, will you?

  JUNE: Sorry.

  ADAM: No, I’m the one who should be saying sorry.

  He pours himself another drink.

  ADAM: Yes, I am angry. But it’s nothing to be afraid of. It’ll pass in a minute.

  JUNE: But it doesn’t, does it. I’ve seen you. Out on the bend at the shrine.

  ADAM: I told you. That’s different. That’s not how I want him remembered.

  JUNE: With alcohol, you mean?

  ADAM: What?

  JUNE: Or is it just beer and bourbon you don’t approve of ?

  ADAM: It’s ugly, shallow, coarse.

  JUNE: But his mates put it up.

  ADAM: Well, he wasn’t their son and they weren’t his mates.

  JUNE: I know.

  ADAM: You wouldn’t have a clue.

  JUNE: Orright.

  ADAM: No, June, I won’t have it.

  JUNE: It’s better than nothin. Better than not rememberin him at all.

  ADAM: It’s not where he lived, it’s not how he lived, it’s just where he died.

  JUNE: And you come down anyway. More and more. With no real reason, coz you’re out of the wine business. You drive by all the time. You slow down, you get out. You stand there for hours.

  ADAM: I stop and get out because of that travesty. Because of what those cowards, those suckholes put up to make ’emselves look good, feel better. That’s why I’m angry.

  JUNE: Nah. You’re angry at him.

  ADAM: Oh June. Very clever.

  JUNE: For a local yokel, you mean.

  ADAM: For a person of your tender age.

  JUNE: (bitterly) Tender age.

  ADAM: You’re young, that’s all.

  JUNE: In court once. In front of everyone. The lawyer said I was, and I quote: ‘wise beyond my years as a result of things witnessed at a tender age’. All my life I wanted to forget those words. But you see I learnt them by heart.

  ADAM: Well, you’ve made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

  JUNE: You make it sound disgustin.

  ADAM: Well, I am disgusted. But not at you.

  JUNE: Whatever.

  ADAM: It’s just that he had so much more. He had everything, love. A safe, happy home, all the advantages, every privilege. And he’s wasted himself.

  JUNE: It wasn’t really his fault.

  ADAM: It’s killed us, me and his mother. I mean, what’s his legacy, what’s he left us? Pain that’ll never go away. We’re nearly finished. As a couple, as functioning people, because he didn’t have the guts to stand up to the Hooray Henries he ran with.

  JUNE: No. That’s not right.

  ADAM: No consolation, nothing noble to cling to. What do we have, June, but a wasteful death, another indulged, meaningless schoolboy road death? The usual empty phrases, the awkward posturing. ‘Cut down in the prime of his life. Happy-go-lucky. Would’ve done anything for ya. Top bloke.’ It’s pitiful, shameful. It’s actually embarrassing.

  JUNE: You’re embarrassed?

  ADAM: Yes, and ashamed for feel
ing it.

  JUNE: It’s the country. People die in cars. They die on the toilet. You can’t judge someone by his death.

  ADAM: Well, you do. If you’re honest you do.

  JUNE: He had an accident. He was barely nineteen. He didn’t get time for a Nobel Prize. What do you want?

  ADAM: I want him back, you hear me? I want him back!

  Blackout. Sound of the thundering ocean.

  SCENE 10

  Sound of the roaring sea. Enter BEN and WILL in wetsuits, carrying their boards up the beach after a surf.

  WILL: Fuckin tide. Gone all fat’n mushy.

  BEN: God, it’s hell cold.

  They toss down their boards and gaze back out to sea as they unzip their wetsuits and begin peeling them off. As they speak, BEN dresses beneath the screen of his towel. WILL is far less shy.

  WILL: Look at him, willya. First in, last out.

  But BEN has noticed something else, someone else approaching along the beach.

  WILL: What?

  BEN: That chick again.

  WILL: The bushpig.

  BEN: Fuck, man, she’s like a stalker.

  WILL: Ugly bitch.

  BEN: (laughs) Shut up, she’ll hear ya.

  WILL: Like I care.

  Enter JUNE who gazes out to sea.

  WILL: (to BEN) Well, mate, you were shit out there today.

  BEN: Fuck off. Head’s still spinnin from last night.

  WILL: Shiraz poisoning, you gay prick.

  BEN: Can you believe how much piss there is in that house?

  WILL: Didn’t even make a dent in it. Like three dark walls of tannins and histamines and . . . I dunno what the fuck I’m talkin about.

  BEN: Reckon I like Bundy better anyway. Dja bring it?

  WILL: Mate, you’re on a mission this week.

  BEN: Why not? Only young’n beautiful once.

  WILL: Look at these locals. Fuckin kooks.

  JUNE: Whenever the swell’s up, half the tradies in town are in the water. Wetsuits shiny as seals. Locals, mostly. And some blow-ins like Jack. Wood-ducks, we call ’em. Fly in, shit all over the joint and flap away again. But Jack always stood out; I remember him all the way back when I was still in school. I watched him for years. But that makes it sound kind of weird. It wasn’t. There was nothin wrong about it.

  Enter JACK, beachcombing below.

  JUNE: Seemed lonely to me. Different. I mean, apart from that creamy­-smooth look those private-school city boys have. Used to walk the beach, pick stuff up – coloured glass, sand dollars. He had a thong collection.

  JACK: (stooping) Yeah!

  He brandishes a sunbleached thong, examines it like a connoisseur.

  JUNE: Must’ve had hundreds of ’em. Specially after I noticed. Coz I used to go down at night, or sometimes early in the mornin and plant ’em. Thongs. Yeah. When I started at the IGA it’s what I spent half me money on. Used to bleach ’em and bake ’em, drop battery acid on ’em. Make ’em look all weathered and beaten up, like they’d floated from Brazil or Africa. God, he loved my thongs. And I never told him. He saved me. But I never got to tell him. That all those years he thought the sea was bringin in those odd thongs, it was really just me. Just the local girl. The bushpig. Stickin ’em out there for him to find.

  JACK wanders off, beaming, with his find. JUNE follows a little way as the light fades towards dusk.

  JUNE: He had no idea who I was. Years. Not even on the beach that last day.

  WILL: Inbred deviants.

  JUNE: Okay, maybe I was a bit obsessive.

  BEN: Show us ya harelip, mate!

  JUNE: But isn’t that just, like . . . love? Doesn’t it need somethin unreasonable, somethin wild to break free and fly?

  BEN and WILL indulge in a bit of horseplay upstage. They turn and watch as a surfer takes off out in the break and then they wince and roar as he takes a nasty wipeout.

  WILL: Here we go, local genius.

  BEN: Come on, son, use your arms.

  WILL: Like ya mean it, ya gumby.

  BEN: Uh-oh.

  WILL: Ugly.

  BEN: Sinus-flush.

  WILL: Suck it up, son!

  JUNE: I was a ghost out there at the Point. Like I was invisible. Until that Friday.

  BEN: End of first semester.

  WILL: And raining.

  BEN: Well, it’s south, right? It’s winter.

  JUNE: It was cold, drizzly. The rivermouth was open. The sea was the colour of stewed tea.

  JACK enters in his wetsuit with a surfboard. He sets the board down and struggles to get hold of the zip over his shoulder, ends up turning like a dog patiently following its tail. JUNE laughs and JACK sees that he’s being watched. As he finally gets hold of the tag, he waves in sheepish acknowledgement.

  JUNE: You look blue.

  JACK: Nah, I’m quite cheerful, actually. Can’t feel me fingers, but.

  JUNE: Your lips.

  JACK: Lips?

  JUNE: Your lips’re blue.

  JACK: Ah. That’s kind of . . . embarrassing.

  They maintain an awkward silence and JUNE pulls her hood up and shoves her hands into her pockets, hunching against the weather. ADAM emerges behind her, observing.

  JACK: Hey, you wanna get warm?

  JACK squats and lights a driftwood fire. JUNE shrugs, hesitates, and then before she joins him she addresses ADAM who stands by the window, still listening to her story. WILL and BEN join JACK at the fire.

  JUNE: And I guess that’s how I got to spend a day with Jack. And those two.

  She sits by the fire close to JACK.

  JUNE: It rained all afternoon. Waves piling into the bay. All the peppy scrub drippin. The granite headland grey and streaked with runoff. And the light started to bleed away, like . . . like the minutes leakin from the day, and the weaker it got, the more wired I felt. Like . . . mad. Too excited.

  BEN and JACK pour rum into a litre bottle of cola while WILL packs a juice-bottle bong with dope. Bottle and bong are passed around.

  BEN: Bundyburger with the lot!

  WILL: Rumdiddlyumptious!

  JUNE: Other people just drifted away, and there was no one about in the end except us. Four of us. The fire. Rum. A bong. And him right there. It got dark.

  BEN: (to JUNE) Get that into ya.

  WILL: Yeah, suck on that.

  BEN: Jack’s friend.

  WILL: Jack’s shadow.

  JUNE: June.

  JUNE drags on the bong as the boys laugh, and then she takes a long chug from the bottle.

  BEN: June.

  WILL: June, June, loves her goon.

  ADAM: And what’d you talk about? You and Jack.

  JUNE: (a little vague and giggly) Nothin. Talked shit, really. With them there, it was . . . well, we were just gettin bombed.

  ADAM: What did he say? My son. What was he saying?

  JUNE: He was shy. It was kind of agonizin – they did all the talkin. I was just happy. Sittin next to him. Jack. By the fire. Up close. Breeze pourin in off the sea. His knee against mine. Mine. Don’t you remember what that was like?

  ADAM: Yes.

  JUNE: He smelt of coconut. And that clean sea smell. And all smoky from the fire. And we’re chuggin and smokin mull and the sea’s roarin in me ears and . . . I was so happy I thought I’d die. And then the fire’s spinnin, the sand’s kind of pulsin. Everythin rushin up inside me like —

  ADAM: Love? Hope?

  JUNE: No, I puked.

  The boys roar and recoil.

  WILL: She’s chirped!

  BEN: Chick. Chirp.

  JACK: Yeah, I get it.

  JUNE: I staggered out onto the beach. So . . . just . . . totally wasted. And I’ve yacked all down me jumper.

  JUNE hauls off her pullover and moves to stage front to stoop to wash the garment at the shore.

  BEN: Look out, you inebriate!

  WILL: Invertebrate!

  A roar from the boys as a wave knocks JUNE aside. She staggers, falls, spluttering. O
n all fours, she tries to get to her feet. JACK gets up from his spot at the fire, snatches up a towel and goes unhurriedly to help.

  JACK: Fuck, man, she’s a mess. Gimme a hand.

  WILL: Piss off, I’m all dry and warm now.

  BEN: You go, mate, we’ll shepherd.

  JACK: Wankers.

  WILL: Well, she’s your shadow, mate.

  BEN: Secret admirer.

  WILL: Better when they’re house-trained.

  JACK goes down to JUNE. Hesitates. Tries to get hold of her without touching anything important. JUNE crawls, writhes, rolls.

  WILL: Aw, look what he’s found washed up.

  BEN: Flotsam, mate.

  WILL: Jetsam, actually.

  BEN: Same diff.

  JACK gets JUNE to her feet. Their gaze meets for a moment. He looks back towards the others. JUNE looks back as well. They are transfixed. The sea rumbles around them. Wild laughter from BEN and WILL. Pounding surf.

  JACK: I should take her home.

  JUNE: It was hardly anythin.

  BEN: Nothing!

  WILL: It’s just bullshit.

  JACK: Should walk her up the track to the house.

  JUNE: Nothin really happened.

  JACK: I’m too pissed to drive.

  ADAM: What did he do? Jack!

  BEN: Nothing!

  JUNE: Nothin I could’ve said.

  WILL: No one there to see.

  JUNE: Nothin that felt clear enough, you know, straightforward enough to say in front of strangers. Like, officially.

  JACK: She’s cold.

  JUNE: Soaked. Everythin. It was freezin, the wind, the shirt.

  JACK: Just a girl. Cold, staggering. On her own.

  JUNE: Freezin.

  JACK: The fire.

  JUNE: Fire.

  JACK: Here by the fire.

  Still leaning on JACK’S arm, JUNE unbuttons her sopping shirt. He turns away politely, pushes the towel her way. She shrugs out of her shirt and wraps herself in the towel, still wearing her bra. JACK leads her back to the flickering light of the fire.

  JUNE: Just. I think I pulled it off. The wet stuff, the jumper, the shirt. And the fire was warm.

  At the fireside JACK gives JUNE a beanie and as she reaches to pull it on the towel falls open.

  BEN: Fuck! Look out!

  WILL: Man, that’s full-on.

  ADAM peers down. BEN and WILL begin to poke and paw at her belly.

  JACK: What is it?

  ADAM: June, what is that?

  For a moment JUNE submits woozily to their examination.