Tim Winton

Tim Winton Read Online Free PDF

Book: Tim Winton Read Online Free PDF
Author: Breath
The billion shards of light. I remember the solitary watching figure on the beach and the flash of Loonie's smile as I flew by; I was intoxicated. And though I've lived to be an old man with my own share of happiness for all the mess I made, I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and revelation against those few seconds of living.
    On a still morning in late September, in a lull between cold fronts, Loonie and I pedalled with our boards to the Point where the waves were small and clean and the cold water was as clear as the sky. We sat inside at the mellow edge of the rip and paddled into waist-high rollers that carried us hooting and howling in to the beach. We had the place to ourselves. The sandbanks rippled underfoot, schools of herring swerved and morphed as one in the channel, and across in the bay the breaths of breaching dolphins hung in the air.
    I will always remember my first wave that morning. The smells of paraffin wax and brine and peppy scrub. The way the swell rose beneath me like a body drawing in air. How the wave drew me forward and I sprang to my feet, skating with the wind of We surfed until we were limp and when we floundered ashore the bloke I'd noticed before was waiting. He sat on the back of a cut-down Kombi with a red dog that sprang down to meet us.
    Life on the ocean wave, eh boys? said the bloke with his board bump knees drawn up to his beard.
    My teeth were chattering and I couldn't speak but I nodded.
    I recognized him as the one who paddled out when the surf was huge, the man with the old-timey board.
    You wouldn't be dead for quids, wouldja?
    We just shook our heads in agreement and laughed and shuddered while the red dog danced circles around us. The bloke smiled as though we were the funniest sight he'd seen all year. He whistled the dog up and we bolted to where our clothes lay warmed from a day in the sun.
    The Volkswagen hawked and sputtered to life. The bloke wheeled it around on the sand and looked at us a moment before offering us a lift. He waited, laughing, while we fumbled numbly with buttons and buckles.
    We bounced up the track with the dog lapping at our salty ears.
    At the top of the hill where our bikes lay in the weeds, he pulled up and we climbed out, burning with pins and needles where the circulation had kicked back in.
    You're a pair of hellmen, you two, he said through the cab window.
    Why's that? said Loon ie.
    Surfin bareback in all weather. You're either stupid or broke.
    Both, I said.
    How old are you?
    Thirteen, said Loon ie.
    Almost thirteen, I said, stretching things a bit.
    The bloke had a mass of curly bleached hair and his beard was of the same stuff. He was a big man and muscular, with grey eyes.
    It was hard to tell his age but he had to be thirty or more and that made him a genuinely old guy. His dog panted and whined beside him but the moment he glared at it the mutt lay silent.
    You get tired of haulin your boards out from town, you can leave em at our place.
    Neither Loonie nor I said anything to this; we didn't know how to respond.
    I'm away a bit, said the bloke. But you can shove em under the house. The missus won't mind.
    Geez, I said. Thanks.
    No worries.
    First driveway. Just up here.
    Okay.
    He drove off and we looked at one another with a dumb shrug.
    I wasn't ready to leave my precious board at anyone's place but my own, yet I was flushed warm from the attention. On our way back, weaving up the bitumen one-handed, with our boards yawing and straining under our arms, we pedalled by the turnoff we'd never paid any mind to before. It was marked with an old green-painted fridge and the dirt track in was rutted and steep. From the road there was no sign of a house, only a wall of karri trees on the ridge.
    The land was fenced but this wasn't any sort of farm.
    Hippies, said Loon ie.
    We coasted down to the swampy flats and caught our breaths for the hard uphill plug into town.

I
    never suspected I'd be sent to school thirty miles away in
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