STORY - The Rip

I saw a caravan on the beach, a young woman was hanging up washing and a child played in the sand. Neither seemed to notice me and then I spoke.

“Hello” I called, “Kylie isn’t it?” The young woman looked startled. Didn’t she hear my car pull up?

“I’m Judith O’Brien from Aboriginal Services”

Kylie looked in her early twenties, blonde hair and slim, no not slim, skinny. She seemed not in the least bit aboriginal in appearance. She could have just stepped off the boat from England. She is what we call a white person. Somewhere in her ancestry was an aboriginal, probably a woman, probably a victim.

I looked for signs of her heritage and could not see it and then she frowned, ‘Ah, there you are’. Our people frowned a lot these days.

Finally she spoke, “yeah?”  defensive, uncertain “you’re here about the court case?”

“Sort of, I’m here to try and work out why you keep going to court. This is your fifth case involving the growing and selling of cannabis and I want to help you avoid becoming a recidivist”

“A what?” We talked for a while and I explained about programmes, support groups, funding but I could see we were not really getting anywhere.

“The problem is that I am a single parent on welfare”, she said, looking over at Amber as if to qualify her status as a victim, “I have no employment opportunities and I live in a caravan. If I throw a few seeds on the ground then in six months I have a few grand worth of plants and it doesn’t hurt anyone. People aren’t dying from smoking grass. People tell me it is wrong but I can see that it isn’t, and I get a load of cash. How else could I afford a car, a washer, a telly”.

I had to admit that she had a point, I even smoked the odd joint myself sometimes, but the dope wasn’t the issue, it’s the lifestyle.

I know that councillors are supposed to be impartial but a vague feeling of contempt tweaked at the corner of my thoughts. ‘she is weak, she should take control, she has a child to support, I wouldn’t let myself become so powerless’.

“But it is illegal. I’m not saying it should or shouldn’t be, I’m just saying that it is. You are spending your life sneaking around or stoned and that’s no way to live. You have been caught five times now and your daughter is the only reason you haven’t gone to jail, so far”

“Yeah, but how can I pay the fines on welfare. Now two or pounds of sinsemilla…”

Finally I ran out of steam “let’s go for a walk on the sand.”

Kylie called for her daughter and we walked over the low dunes to the beach, a spinifex fringe along the ridge gave way to the yellow sand typical of the West coast. The current was rushing southward to a rocky point and a bay about 500 metres across had been gouged from the sand beyond. We turned left towards it and walked on the beach for a while. The current was really moving and the inlet a boiling cauldron of confused waves and chop.

“This is a beautiful spot” she said at last, “I love the sea, but it terrifies me. The current is so strong here”.

“It’s only a rip-tide, once you understand the forces at work you can see how to avoid the dangers”. I tried to sound wise while drawing an allegory but I think I just sounded patronising. Kylie looked at me quizzically, like she was trying to decide whether I really was a wise elder or just another condescending bureaucrat.

In fact it was neither. As a child, my foster family lived in Brisbane and we went to Surfers Paradise on the weekends. People would comment on what a lovely suntan their daughter had and the pale skinned O’Briens were too embarrassed to tell them that I was a stolen ‘boong’. I still don’t know if they were being kind or cruel to me, but these were my issues and right then I had Kylie and Amber to worry about.

We were less than thirty metres from the sandy point when all at once I saw the danger. It unfolded like a slow drama.

There was a shell, a beautiful conch lying at the water’s edge and we all saw it at the same time. Amber broke into a sprint just as a huge wave engulfed the rocky outcrop. It was not a breaker, more like a surge of tidal mass and instantly Amber was being swept into the cauldron. I lunged and at full stretch managed to grab her arm but was in up to my waist. I don’t even remember running but I was in the water with her and the soft sand beneath my feet slipping away. We were both in the wash and Kylie was on the shore screaming.

Choppy waves pummelled us from every angle and all I had ever learned about rips counted for nothing. How could we swim diagonally across the current when it was running in every direction? I tried to keep Amber’s head above the slop, but I needed air too. I caught glimpses of the receding shore and Kylie hopping from side to side, looking for all the world like a goal keeper in a soccer game.

I tried to comfort Amber, but I know there was fear in my voice. “Imokay” is all she said between slaps of water, but right then I was anything but OK. I am a poor swimmer and had been terrified of the water since I saw ‘Jaws’ at the drive-in.

The chop gave way to swirling eddies as we were swept further out to sea. I could feel it twisting around my legs as I tried to tread water and hold up this child. Until five minutes ago the only thing I knew of her existence was one line in my case brief. ‘Children:- (1) female, 5yrs, AMBER.’, now I thought, she may very well die in my arms, we may die together. For a while I lost sight of the shore and had to fight the panic, I turned around and it was behind me. There seemed to be no pattern in the water, we were totally helpless.

I guess sometimes knowing how the forces work isn’t enough. Sometimes everything is so confused that you just can’t see what’s coming. My smart ass allegory came back to bite me.

We had been in the water for about five minutes now, but it seemed like an hour. I was so tired, my kicking had grown weaker and we were much lower in the water. I am an overweight and unfit fifty year old and don’t think I could have lasted much longer. I didn’t need to think though, my options were just one. Struggle for as long as I could and hope that the current would show me some mercy.

A splash near me snapped me into alertness. A big grey shape sliced white across the surface. SHARK. ‘I am going to die’ I thought, ‘Something big and powerful and totally pitiless has me in it’s power and it is going to rip me into pieces and eat me alive’.

My greatest fear was cruising lazily, easily in this water which was itself nearly killing me. I was powerless, a victim. I was at the bottom of the food chain.

Another splash, and then … and then I heard Kylie calling Amber’s name. I looked up and the grey shape was not a shark, it was a rock. The waves were about to throw me onto the shore and Kylie was standing there up to her waist with her arms outstreched calling to her daughter, her face red and wet with tears.

It was all I could do to turn around so my feet were angled to take the impact and then the waters simply lifted me up and deposited my gently between the rocks on some soft sand.