Past the Shallows Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t want to talk about it.
    Joe drove fast on the raw dusty gravel and plumes of it billowed up behind them. Scrub and shacks passed the window. Kit homes,
     most tiny, bare fibro, unpainted. Miles knew them all. Their gardens full of rusty car shells, dead tractors, decaying boats
     marooned on land. And if you didn’t know better,you’d think that no one lived here anymore. That all these places were abandoned. But people were in there somewhere, hidden
     and burrowed in. They were there.
    The road began to climb. Less shacks, more scrub, and on the other side was Roaring. Joe stopped the car right on the headland,
     parked close to the cliff, and Miles looked down at the bluff, down at the reefs. He turned to Joe and smiled.
    There was swell coming in. It was clean. No wind.
    They were going in.
    Miles could get into his wetsuit so fast, even when it was damp and stuck to your skin like glue. You couldn’t wait around
     when the surf was good. You couldn’t wait around and say, I’ll surf it later, because the wind changed and the tide changed
     and just like that, it could go onshore. Just like that, it could get fat with the high tide and you could miss it.
    He grabbed his board and ran down the steep track to the beach. He left Joe behind. And all the way down his eyes were out
     on that break. The right-hander that wrapped tight around the bluff. It was his. He’d get there first, get the first wave.
    The cold water bit at his hands and feet as he began the paddle. Winter brought massive swells,awesome to watch and not much fun to be in, but today the bluff was still like liquid mercury. Near perfect three-foot lines.
     The paddle was easy. The waves were easy. The ocean was at peace.
    He sat behind the break, looked back towards the beach. Joe was only just coming down the track, but he was strong. He paddled
     quick and he’d be out in no time. Miles turned his head to the horizon and grinned. A good-sized line, maybe a four-footer,
     hit the reef and began to peel. Sometimes you didn’t have to move an inch. The shoulder of the wave lifted his board; he looked
     down the clean face and took the drop. Miles felt his bones. He carved along the wave nice and loose, flicked up with sharp
     cutbacks every so often to bring him back up onto the shoulder. He heard Joe hooting from the beach and he knew he was charging.
    Joe and Miles sat together waiting for one last line.
    And then Joe said he was leaving.
    Miles sat still. He looked down at the water. It was one solid dark mass, impossible to see past the surface now that the
     light had gone.
    ‘The boat’s done. Just gotta get a few things sorted. Pack up the house. Maybe you could come over and help on the weekend.’
    Joe’s boat was finished, the one he had been building all these years. It was ready to sail, ready to take Joe away.
    ‘She’s a fucking bitch,’ Miles said. And it was true, Aunty Jean was a bitch. Granddad had left the house to Joe. He had lived
     with Granddad since he was thirteen. Aunty Jean stole it from him, contested the will.
    ‘You know she’s going to put money aside for you. For you and Harry. Anyway, it’s not even about the house really. It’s –’
    ‘It’s what?’
    Joe splashed some water on his face. He didn’t answer.
    ‘It’s what?’
    ‘Time,’ Joe said. ‘It’s just time.’
    Everything was dark blue now. The cliffs and the beach and even Joe’s face were all blurred and hazy. Miles wanted to tell
     Joe that things were bad at home. He wanted to tell him that working on the boat was bad and that he didn’t know what to do.
     But he didn’t say any of that. He just said he would come and help on the weekend. Come and pack up the shed and house. Because
     he wanted to stay at Granddad’s. He wanted to stay with Joe.
    ‘We’d better go in,’ Joe said. ‘It’s freezing.’
    Miles had started to shiver, but he couldn’t really feel it.

I t was still dark outside, but light was coming in from