In The Deep Page 2
As soon as Year 12 was completed, we had one last summer together but it was never like it was when we were younger. I started seeing Julie Antonic more and more - then, without even knowing how it happened, I realised that I was in a relationship. Julie was my girlfriend and, by default, everything I did now included her. And, if she didn't want to do it, then neither did I.
I knew I wasn't alone in this arrangement as I had seen a few of my other friends suffer the same fate. We were so enamoured by the fact that a girl would let us kiss her, hold her and, ultimately, have sex with her that we would put up with a form of social isolation from our clan so that the sex could continue.
That last summer I did spend a small amount of time with Dylan, swimming between the pontoons on occasion (when Julie visited her relatives in Kalamunda for example), and diving off the jetty as the dolphins played just off shore. But Dylan withdrew more and more - he didn't even pretend to be interested in the girls anymore. In fact, that last summer was one of the better ones in as much as although we didn't spend every day together like we had in the past, the time we did have was quality time and it was just the two of us. I had Julie so I wasn't chasing girls - so Dylan and I just swum and set each other increasingly risky dares.
Once diving to the sea bed to come back with handfuls of weed had lost it's appeal - mainly because we had grown bigger and fitter and the dive was now easy - we decided that we'd see how many yachts we could swim under. Or who could retrieve the biggest sandstone rock from the bottom of Mangles Bay. In these tests, it was almost always Dylan who won but occasionally I'd come up with something. I was six inches shorter than him and nowhere near as strong, so I always suspected he let me win a few. Looking back now, I'm sure he did. And I loved him for that.
In the New Year Dylan started working in Welshpool for an Ice company and I trotted off to University to study Geology - my love of sandstone rocks must have had some subconscious effect on my eventual career path. The following years meant that our contact became more sporadic and we never swum together again after that summer.
And now, as I sat opposite the jetty on this warm late spring day, I can see two young boys playing in the sand. I am taken back thirty years instantly; the beach transformed into old Rockingham and our tanned skinny frames ran and played all day in the blistering sun. Although I am acutely aware that a man nearing middle age who is fully clothed on the foreshore, as some random kids played nearby might seem, at best, a little odd, I don't really care what anyone thinks.
On this day, my thoughts are solely with Dylan and the fact that I will never see him again.
His funeral tore me apart emotionally. I couldn't understand his decision and I was devastated that he couldn't reach out to me. What hurt more than anything else, was that it was partly my fault. I never kept in touch with him either.
The last contact I had was two years previous when he left me a voicemail asking me if I was going to his mother's (my aunt) 70th birthday. Gutlessly I texted him back saying I couldn't make it because of some work function. The fact was, I was actually going away with my new girlfriend but I knew he wouldn't understand that. I never spoke to him again.
I had picked up that Dylan was gay long before most of the family did, but I never had the courage to ask him. I was about 22 and I hadn't seen him for almost a year. Age, maturity, and an expanded group of bohemian university acquaintances meant that I had known and made friends with several gay guys. Then, when I saw Dylan that Christmas, I just knew. Everything slipped into place for me and my understanding of him. But my heart sank for Dylan because I knew that, in our retro family with their conservative values and "blokey-bloke" bravado, he could never "come out".
So here I stand on the beach - fresh tears on my cheeks as my reddened eyes struggle to function in the glare of the late spring sunshine. Heat steams up from the collar of my shirt, exacerbated by my dark suit. I sit on the sand and kick off my shoes and socks, the fine and squeaky sand envelopes my feet and sticks to the perspiration between my toes. I take off my jacket, revealing my brilliant white business shirt, small yellowing rings of perspiration have formed in my armpits. My throat is full, choked up with emotion at the loss of someone who meant more to me than I ever imagined.
Every memory of this beach has Dylan in it.
Every summer's day has Dylan leading me out through the boats on the bay
Every soft breeze off the ocean at dusk has Dylan next to me as we ate chips and Chiko Rolls as the sun went to bed.
It hurts me to think about the pain he must have been in when he did what he did, to end it all. How much hurt, how much despair he must have felt to believe that he only had one option.
It almost kills me to think that maybe there was something I could have done to prevent that from happening - to maybe give him something to help him turn things around.
I could never find out his reasons - he never left a note. Was it his sexuality - denied for years, hidden for many more? Or was it depression? Fear?
I know I'll never know and that hurt just as much.
I take off my soiled shirt and then my suit trousers and sit on the sand in my boxers. It is almost 30 degrees but, in November, the water still has the wintry chill in it. The ocean here never really heats up until a month after the first heatwave of the summer. That never stopped Dylan from getting in the water at the first sign of sunshine though. And it wasn't going to stop me now.
I wade in, the cold temperate water lapping at my legs as I slowly descend into the bay. I look next to me and there is Dylan, wading in as well, hiding the chill he felt and daring me to dive in first. He smiles that toothy grin, teeth straight, white, perfect. The westerly breeze blows his wavy blonde hair back from his brow, strong brown eyes staring out into the sea.
"Go on, dive in first ya wuss," I hear him say.
I take a deep breath and plunge into the ocean, aiming for the bottom of the sea to retrieve a bigger rock than he could find.
When I surface holding a ten-kilo lump of sandstone I realise that, this time, Dylan hasn't let me win.
I've lost.
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