Summer loving!
Hi - I am trying to get this published in the Australian's Summer Loving section...in the hope of flogging more books!!!
In the unlikely event I actually get it published, you can say you read it first....
Is it just me or will it forever be the summer of 1985 in your heart too?
I suspect I was a 3am girl. You know us, we’re the friend. Smiley and obliging, a shoulder to cry on, fun, fat and unfailingly available at 3am.
Late in 1984 I turned 16. It was the last summer my family all lived together at home, in the house behind the shop at our Mum and Dad’s caravan park in Margaret River.
A caravan park in a coastal town is the greatest gift two parents can give their teenage daughter. Friday nights were my favourite. Weekend warriors arriving en masse, Escort vans with boards stacked on top, Sandman’s that smelled of musty blankets and boardwax. All those boys smiling at the girl whose Dad owned the park. Exactly what it would take to score a site close to the barbeques?
My best friends were Marnie and Susan. Marnie was our bait, Susan and I kept each other company ‘til 3am.
Every morning, as soon as the rubbish run was over and Mum was back from cleaning the dunnies, Dad would cut us loose from the shop. It was 3 k’s to the beach, but bare foot it felt like 300. We’d stagger through the salt bush, stomping and whooping to ward off dugites, praying that someone we knew would drive past and pick us up.
Then, hours later, sunburnt, sweating salt, sharing a pair of thongs, or walking bandy legged on our towels, we’d drag ourselves to the phone box with no money and call home, clunk, hoping like mad Mum would get the hint and drive to the beach to pick us up.
For the record, she rarely did. And thank God for that, because if she did, the blonde haired apprentice plumber Perth boy who was in to ska music and surfing might never have stopped his car.
‘Hey girls’ he said, but he was looking at me. “Are you going back to the caravan park?’ ‘Yep!’ said Marn and ripped open the door of the Combi with the confidence of a girl who was used to invitations.
‘You might have to sit in the front’ he said to me. And I felt sick. Sick enough to die happy.
That night, every time Perfect Match was interrupted by the ring of the bell over the shop door, I was out like a shot, with Marn and Susie right behind and pretty soon Dad too, “OOOh come on girls! How does my hair look? What do you think he’ll buy if he comes in?” Shut up Dad.
After dinner we took our goon of fruity lexia and headed for the bee bee queues, politely chatting to the oldies, helping them fold up their card tables and lug eskies back to their annexes. Such lovely girls. Off you toddle Vera, my ska boy might be here soon. And he was.
Hi. I said. “You’re warm.” He said. And I could feel him through the sleeve of my Dad’s big jumper.
He liked The Toasters and The Uptones, I pretended I knew who they were, made jokes about his Hitler youth hair and completely denied my inner hippy. Marnie and Sue disappeared with the goon.
From the moment he moved his towel so I could sit on the front seat, to quietly leaning against each other as the barbeque fire burned to black, I reckon it was a kiss about eight hours in the making and the sweetest I can remember.
To this day, I think he might be the only boy who ever liked me first.
And you know what? The very next weekend he broke my heart. Apparently my kisses just weren’t worth the trip from Perth. And just when my whole family was starting to like The Toasters too.
So I lay on the lounge room floor for three days ‘til Monday night, when just as Tiffany Lamb was introducing the latest happy couple, my brother ordered everyone, broken hearted or not, into the front seat of his hilux.
He prescribed a twilight swim and Neil Young, “You can forget that skin head shit, right now.”
And when it was dark, when there were no other cars of the road, Marnie, Susan and I rode home in the back and I forgot about the ska boy altogether. Standing up, holding the rail and screaming into the wind. ‘Comes a time, when you’re drifting. Comes a time, when you settle down’…but not yet.
In the unlikely event I actually get it published, you can say you read it first....
Is it just me or will it forever be the summer of 1985 in your heart too?
I suspect I was a 3am girl. You know us, we’re the friend. Smiley and obliging, a shoulder to cry on, fun, fat and unfailingly available at 3am.
Late in 1984 I turned 16. It was the last summer my family all lived together at home, in the house behind the shop at our Mum and Dad’s caravan park in Margaret River.
A caravan park in a coastal town is the greatest gift two parents can give their teenage daughter. Friday nights were my favourite. Weekend warriors arriving en masse, Escort vans with boards stacked on top, Sandman’s that smelled of musty blankets and boardwax. All those boys smiling at the girl whose Dad owned the park. Exactly what it would take to score a site close to the barbeques?
My best friends were Marnie and Susan. Marnie was our bait, Susan and I kept each other company ‘til 3am.
Every morning, as soon as the rubbish run was over and Mum was back from cleaning the dunnies, Dad would cut us loose from the shop. It was 3 k’s to the beach, but bare foot it felt like 300. We’d stagger through the salt bush, stomping and whooping to ward off dugites, praying that someone we knew would drive past and pick us up.
Then, hours later, sunburnt, sweating salt, sharing a pair of thongs, or walking bandy legged on our towels, we’d drag ourselves to the phone box with no money and call home, clunk, hoping like mad Mum would get the hint and drive to the beach to pick us up.
For the record, she rarely did. And thank God for that, because if she did, the blonde haired apprentice plumber Perth boy who was in to ska music and surfing might never have stopped his car.
‘Hey girls’ he said, but he was looking at me. “Are you going back to the caravan park?’ ‘Yep!’ said Marn and ripped open the door of the Combi with the confidence of a girl who was used to invitations.
‘You might have to sit in the front’ he said to me. And I felt sick. Sick enough to die happy.
That night, every time Perfect Match was interrupted by the ring of the bell over the shop door, I was out like a shot, with Marn and Susie right behind and pretty soon Dad too, “OOOh come on girls! How does my hair look? What do you think he’ll buy if he comes in?” Shut up Dad.
After dinner we took our goon of fruity lexia and headed for the bee bee queues, politely chatting to the oldies, helping them fold up their card tables and lug eskies back to their annexes. Such lovely girls. Off you toddle Vera, my ska boy might be here soon. And he was.
Hi. I said. “You’re warm.” He said. And I could feel him through the sleeve of my Dad’s big jumper.
He liked The Toasters and The Uptones, I pretended I knew who they were, made jokes about his Hitler youth hair and completely denied my inner hippy. Marnie and Sue disappeared with the goon.
From the moment he moved his towel so I could sit on the front seat, to quietly leaning against each other as the barbeque fire burned to black, I reckon it was a kiss about eight hours in the making and the sweetest I can remember.
To this day, I think he might be the only boy who ever liked me first.
And you know what? The very next weekend he broke my heart. Apparently my kisses just weren’t worth the trip from Perth. And just when my whole family was starting to like The Toasters too.
So I lay on the lounge room floor for three days ‘til Monday night, when just as Tiffany Lamb was introducing the latest happy couple, my brother ordered everyone, broken hearted or not, into the front seat of his hilux.
He prescribed a twilight swim and Neil Young, “You can forget that skin head shit, right now.”
And when it was dark, when there were no other cars of the road, Marnie, Susan and I rode home in the back and I forgot about the ska boy altogether. Standing up, holding the rail and screaming into the wind. ‘Comes a time, when you’re drifting. Comes a time, when you settle down’…but not yet.
1 Comments:
Aww that was lovely, Caroline. You really do write beautifully.
Good luck with it, matey!
LOVE jUBBLY XOX
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