Mele Kalikimaka Mr Walker (15 page)

‘And right in the middle of all this, Andrea just goes blissfully on about her ways. She should be more careful, for crissake!'

‘She told me she carries a gun. And she's got Monroe to look after her. I couldn't see anybody getting past him.'

‘But she just roams off at times. Never tells anybody where she is. She's crazy. Especially with all this going on.' Mitzi looked directly at Norton. ‘I'm scared for her, Les.'

Les nodded sincerely. ‘I don't blame you, Mitzi. I wouldn't like to see anything happen to her either.'

They talked for a while longer about different things, with Mitzi generally switching the conversation back to Andrea. Les showed her the photocopies and Mitzi was able to identify the girls easily; the photo of Andrea in the paper she'd seen before. More golden oldies oozed out of the radio and although Mitzi didn't appear to have the greatest sense of humour in the world it was quite pleasant sipping fruit juice with her; at different moments it was almost like they'd been drinking. However, it wasn't getting any earlier and Les suggested it might be an idea if they made a move. Mitzi agreed. Les got the plastic camera case, plus anything else he thought he might need, and shoved it all in his overnight bag. Mitzi took a towel from hers and slung a small
leather handbag over her shoulder. Then they caught the lift downstairs.

It was a different driveway attendant, but Les still got the same smile, and he noticed the attendant giving Mitzi's legs and backside a good going over as he opened the car door for her. Les slung him a dollar, climbed in the other side and put the hood down, then drove out from the hotel and pulled up with the other traffic waiting for the lights on Kalakau Avenue. He looked at the radio for a moment. No. The golden oldies had to cease. Gene Pitney, The Regents, Freddy Cannon. Maybe if you were a western suburbs housewife full of valium. Norton pulled a tape from his pocket and slipped it into the cassette.

‘Do you know the way?' asked Mitzi.

‘I got a fair idea,' replied Les.

‘I can show you anyway.'

‘Righto.'

The lights changed and as Les turned left into Kalakau Avenue, Lee Kernaghan slipped nicely into ‘The Outback Club'. Yes. This sounds a lot bloody better, thought Les. A bit further on they turned left again into Kapahulu and Paul Norton zipped into ‘They're Getting Away with Murder'. Yes, Les chuckled to himself. This sounds appropriate. Mitzi directed him to go left there, get into that lane, go up some ramp, watch the truck behind him. Then with The Cockroaches boogying into ‘Kiss You Tonight', they went down some other ramp into the H1, heading for the North Shore.

Considering Honolulu wasn't all that big, the freeway was huge, with giant trucks and yank gas guzzlers going everywhere. Sitting down low in the small convertible
the noise was fairly horrendous so Les slipped the side windows up. Flogging the guts out of the Mustang and not worrying about the speed limit would have been a lot of fun, but Les noticed the convertible didn't have any roll bars and being decapitated in an accident wouldn't be much fun at all. So Les just cruised along, taking his time and not taking any risks. Besides, the more time he took, the more time he had to look at Mitzi's lovely brown accountant's legs.

Between the noise and the music they didn't talk all that much. Mitzi seemed happy enough tapping along to the cassette and being out in the sun for the day with someone different who was a friend of Andrea's. Les cracked a couple of feeble jokes and even got a couple of feeble laughs. Les got a good view of Pearl Harbor and all the outlying suburbs as they cruised past, then the H1 became the H2 going towards Wahiawa.

It was rolling hills, trees and greenery, then near Wahiawa the H2 ended at Schofield Army Barracks and became just a double road. Les noticed soldiers in uniform walking around or on pushbikes; there were houses and playgrounds for kids and now and again a HUM-VEE would rumble past with aerials poking out everywhere. They crossed a narrow bridge, came up a rise, then all Les could see for miles was rows and rows of pineapples sitting in the red soil. Millions of them, for as far as the eye could see. It was dead flat and looked like someone had dug up the Nullarbor Plain and filled it full of pineapples. He saw a sign saying ‘Dole Pineapples', then a railroad crossing and more pineapples. After a few more miles of pineapples the road narrowed
and what little traffic there was slowed for some roadwork, then Les noticed a few small sugar cane fields along the side of the road, and about three miles ahead of him the ocean. It was quite windy and the water was a blue-grey with countless white horses being pushed over the reefs by the gusty tradewind. The wind appeared to be neither offshore nor onshore but coming from the side. As they got a little closer Les could see these rugged, grey headlands looking sinister and treacherous, plumed as they were with white spray from the choppy seas. A sign said ‘Kaiaka Bay' and another pointed to Haleiwa. Mitzi pointed Les in that direction.

Now it was all old, dusty, wooden houses and shops, nothing like the concrete and chrome bustle of Waikiki. There were art galleries, restaurants and surf shops and Les wasn't quite sure whether the place had an untouched, rustic ambience about it or whether it was just decrepit and rundown and would be better off being bulldozed. A sign outside a stall on the right caught his eye. ‘Conch Shells For Blowing.'

‘I don't need one of those to make me blow,' he said to Mitzi, knowing it would go straight over her head.

‘Neither do I,' she answered, without taking her eyes off the road.

Norton was a little admonished. Hello, he thought. Hasn't the conversation suddenly taken a lower tone. The dirty little tart.

They drove past more shops and old wooden houses, a park with a war memorial and different little bays and beaches. Les saw a sign saying ‘Chuns Reef', then the road curved down and another sign said ‘Waimea
Bay'. I got to have a look at this, thought Les. There was a break in the traffic so he drove straight in.

The carpark was about a third full. Les got his overnight bag and they walked across to the beach. There was an open shower next to a stone change shed and a clump of palm trees, cliffs behind, jagged reefs sticking out of the water on the left and a headland with more palm trees and about a six foot wave half a kilometre or so out to the right, and the whole place reminded Les of Bronte. Same size, same shape, the only things missing were the stormwater tunnel and a couple of thousand Greeks barbecuing sides of lamb. Just past the lifeguard's tower on the right was a pretty lagoon surrounded by lush green hills, where about a dozen kids with shovels were digging a long ditch to empty it out. Les didn't bother to ask why, although it seemed like a pretty dumb idea because the lagoon looked quite beautiful. He looked at Mitzi, who shrugged her shoulders and shook her head also. Oh well, thought Les. Knowing the mentality of your average young wax-head, if they weren't wrecking the lagoon they'd only be burning down the nearest building or kicking over all the Otto-bins. The wave on the point was mushy and a bit slow, but the beach had a six foot shore break slamming down into the coarse sand. The water, however, looked blue and inviting; Les dropped his overnight bag and stripped down to his Speedos.

‘Wait here, Mitzi,' he winked. ‘I'm going to show these local yokels how it's done.'

Without waiting for a reply, Norton charged down the beach and dived under the next wave, not quite managing to avoid getting sucked back and dumped
heavily on his arse in an explosion of swirling white foam and gritty brown sand. With water and sand pouring out of his nose and ears, Les managed to clamber to his feet, only to get bowled over on his arse again. With more sand and salt water pouring out of him Les got to his feet as another shore break loomed up. This time he managed to dive deep and hard, breast-stroking underwater till he surfaced well out the other side. It was only a matter of seconds before another shore break loomed up. One kick and Les was on it. It was kind of like getting burst out of a water tank, then having a dump truck full of wet sand tipped all over you. Les got smashed into about a foot of water, but was able to duck his chin in, roll and breakfall so he didn't get spread over the beach like a squashed cane toad.

‘Hey! How good's this!' he yelled, to no one in particular, then turned around and dived another one.

Up on the beach Mitzi watched him and shook her head, while a few metres to Norton's left a bunch of young grommets were doing pretty much the same thing. And if they could do it, so could the big, would-be grommet from Australia. Les got chundered into the sand by another six waves, then dripping water and sand walked up and stood in front of Mitzi.

‘There you go, Mitzi,' he grinned. ‘At least when I get home I can say I surfed Waimea Bay.'

‘I was watching you out there, Les,' she said, ‘and you were just like a little boy.'

‘Oh yeah.' Les shrugged a little self-consciously. ‘But I wasn't doing any harm. And it was fun.'

‘No, I didn't mean it like that, Les,' Mitzi smiled.
‘It's good to see you still have some of the little boy in you. That's a good sign in a man. I like it.'

‘Oh. Well, one thing I can tell you, Mitzi, this little boy's got that much sand up his khyber, it's coming out through his ribs. How about walking up to the shower with me?'

‘All right, surfer Joe.'

‘That's me,'winked Les. ‘Kahuna Norton. The bronzed wonder from down under.'

‘Down under what? The table?'

Norton looked at Mitzi for a second. ‘I think you've been hanging around with Andrea Hayden for too long.'

The water poured straight out of the shower nozzles and was quite cool. But it was very refreshing and Les felt pretty good after he got all the sand out and changed back into his shorts. Mitzi sat up on a picnic table and watched him with her arms folded over her knees.

‘I should have gone for a swim myself,' she said.

‘Well go on. I'll wait for you. But watch the shore break. You've got more places to pick sand out of than me.'

Mitzi wrinkled her nose. ‘Maybe when we get to Sunset.'

‘Okey-doke.'

Les took a few photos of the beach, a couple of Mitzi, then they climbed into the Mustang and got back onto the Kamehameha Highway.

There were a few more houses now as they drove through Pupukea and past Banzai. The road was fairly straight with plenty of long, windswept beach and reefs on the left, then there were cars parked everywhere and it was a little like the circus had hit town. Les slowed
up for the traffic as they passed a cluster of tents, marquees and scaffolding on the left from which some Californian accent came droning out over a PA system above what sounded like some scratchy old Doors music. There were police cars, other cars with official insignia plastered all over them and pick-ups clustered around the marquees, people swarming everywhere and cars parked bumper to bumper on either side of the road. Just past the contest area a small gully on the left separated the road they were on from another street full of houses that ran along the beach. About half a kilometre or so further along Les parked the car and decided this time he might put the hood back up. They got their gear, crossed the small gully and walked back past the houses to the contest area.

Sunset reminded Les a bit of Long Reef or a couple of beaches he'd seen around Coffs Harbour. The beach itself angled down to the water and wasn't very wide, with thick green hills behind and reefs at either end and running out the front. The surf was about six feet, lumpy and all over the place due to the howling cross wind and Mitzi agreed with Les that it wasn't the best of conditions for a surf contest. But with waxheads, the show must go on. There would have been five or six hundred punters walking about or lolling around on the sand, looking cool and off shore amidst the usual mass of TV cameras and telephoto lenses positioned along the water's edge like batteries of field artillery. Right in the middle was the stage and judges' tower, with a sign underneath saying ‘Coors Light Triple Crown of World Surfing'. There were other tents and seating areas and stalls selling souvenirs and drinks. Les got
two cans of Hawaiian Sun, an Orange Passionfruit, which was half cold and tasted like flat, sweet cordial, and a program. Blonde surf bunnies like in the magazines were very thin on the ground. Most of the girls looked like Sumo wrestlers or earth mothers and it wasn't long before Mitzi was getting a few once up and downs from the local waxheads hanging cool to the same scratchy Doors music Les had heard driving past. There was a sudden commotion on stage and Les suggested they get a spot on the sand and see what was going on.

The droning voice Les had heard driving past belonged to some American with a ponytail and sunglasses who was now introducing a clean-cut American in crisp and yummy T-shirt and shorts who was the announcer from some radio station. He in turn introduced the four contestants for the final: two Hawaiians, a Tahitian and an Aussie. Go the Digger, thought Norton. After introducing the contestants, the MC went for the in-depth interview. Each interview was about as deep as the lid on a tin of Ovaltine and although Les was no rocket scientist he was pretty certain the four waxheads on stage didn't do any brain surgery or discover new compounds and elements between surfing contests either. The MC almost needed a cattle prod to get their names out of them, although the lone Aussie did come out with a couple of laconic quips that unfortunately went over the heads of the gathered seppos. Next thing a helicopter hovered into view, the rescue team gathered as the four contestants walked down to the water's edge with their boards, a hooter sounded and it was on.

How they judged a surfing contest Norton for the life of him didn't know although according to his program
it went by length of ride, manoeuvres, wave selection and style. No matter what, there was no doubting the contestants' stamina and courage, paddling out a good half kilometre through a wind-blasted rip and what looked like a fairly treacherous undertow. Although he'd been doing a fair bit of swimming Les conceded he wouldn't have liked to have been dropped out there with a boogie board or whatever and no fins and told to do his best.