The mixtape stays under my pillow that night. The next day I bring it with me to swim class. I shove it right down deep in my bag in my locker in the change room. I wouldn't dare to leave it at home when Mum's alone in the house. I know she probably wouldn't go through my things but I don't want her to take the mixtape away before I've found out its secrets.
I stand on the side of the indoor pool after teaching my regular swim safety class for the kids from my surf life-saving club. The echoes are all laughter, inaudible voices and muffled splashes. The huge windows down the sides looking over the car park are framed with condensation, and the smell of chlorine stings my nose. A few people are in the water along with my group. The class has been fun. I've been teaching the kids Tumble Turns and they're getting good at them. I always stick around after the lesson because my kids like to hang out and I want to keep my eye on them.
It's a good atmosphere but it's not the same as being at the beach. I'm training to be a lifeguard because while I love the water I also know it's dangerous. I love that feeling of being part of something bigger than me. It's the huge sound of the ocean and the pull of the waves and the whole 'power of nature' thing that's terrifying but makes me feel alive at the same time. But I want to understand the waves and the rips and the drag and know I can fight against them if I need to.
I'm about ready to leave when Jake, one of my kids, waves at me from where he's bobbing about in the water. He yells and points to the far end of the pool.
A lane rope separates the lap swimmers from the rest of us. Right near the middle where there's a pretty steep drop off to the deep end, flapping arms flail around.
I tell my kids to get out of the pool and holler at Jake to find the lifeguard while I unzip my hoodie to my bathers. There's no time to take off my shorts. I dive cleanly into the water, slicing fast towards the deep end.
Under the depths I make out a kid stuck under the lane rope, taking in big gulps of water, spluttering, struggling. Wrapping my hands under his armpits I heave him up so he's lying on top of me with his head out of the water. He grabs at the air with tiny fingers, chokes in big breaths – a chunky little kid with fair hair flying around his face. His eyes bulge up at me. He coughs hard as I swim to the side with him.
The lifeguard drops the rescue float to reach over and help drag the kid onto the tiles and my crew are there to help too.
"Why weren't you watching?" I burst out at the lifeguard from the water.
He ignores me and pats the kid's shoulder then asks him where his parents are.
The kid sniffs. Snot and water drip down his chin. He's only little. He gathers big, shaking, gasps of air into his lungs causing his ribs to bulge under his skin. His small fingers clutch the edge of the pool. We won't get any sense out of him.
All that matters is he's alive.
I'm about to heave myself out of the water when a man dressed in grey business pants and a shirt with his tie loosened around his neck batters in between my crew.
"My boy," he whimpers as he gathers the kid up in his arms, pools of water darkening the cotton of his shirt from the kid's wet skin. "My baby boy."
The kid wraps his legs and arms around his dad's body, clutching at his shirt with clawing fingers.
The man's tearful gaze floats down to where I'm still in the pool, shaking slightly.
"Thank you." I can tell he's embarrassed. "Thank you."
I heave myself out of the pool with my shorts weighed down with water. My blood pumps hard through me – adrenalin and all that.
I shouldn't say anything but can't help it.
"Where were you?" I push my damp hair from my face, my loud voice reverberating around the echoey room. "Why weren't you here?"
He creases his brows and holds his son tighter. "I was here. I was ... something came up — I was —"
"You should have been here"—I fix my eyes on him—"looking after your kid!"
The lifeguard tells me to calm down but I turn to him and grit my teeth so I don't yell.
"He should have been here!" I grate hoarsely and burn my glare into his eyes.
Jake and my crew gape at me like goldfish. I turn my back on them all and head to the change rooms, my feet unsteady on the slippery tiles, my reflection blurry in the full-length windows.
Before I get in the shower, I have to sit down; calm down.
I tug the mixtape out of my bag.
I don't know why but it soothes me to run my fingers across the biro mark indents of the song list on the paper insert.
Then I look at myself in the mirror. I'm the same as always but there's something else in my eyes – they look hard and distant and afraid like my mum's sometimes are.
I retreat right back inside myself, right into the back of my head, and feel like I'm staring out at a stranger.
***
I don't go home afterwards. Mum doesn't care where I am. I could fly to Mars for all she cares. I go to Minda's house.
When Minda opens the door, the TV blasts down the hall from the lounge and her three younger brothers scream at each other over the noise. The smell of onions and fragrant roasted spices fills the air making my mouth water. Minda's house is crammed with people and things. Different to our house which is dark and pokey with the bare minimum of mismatched second-hand furniture.
"Something's happened," I say as Minda hurries me inside.
"Tell me about it," she grumbles over her shoulder as I follow her down the hall avoiding all the toys and shoes and piles of books and clothes. "Shit's going down here too."
When we pass the kitchen, her mum calls to ask if I'm okay. I duck my head in and see her standing by the stove in a cloud of steam, cooking up a storm.
"Don't go home hungry, Jenna," she says, beaming her cheery smile at me.
I adore Minda's mum. She worries about me. I know she does. I can't count how many times I've found refuge at Minda's when I can't stand the silence at my place. The silence when Mum's not there. The silence when she is.
In Minda's room, I drop my backpack on the floor and flop onto her messy bed as she shuts the door on the chaos. Pushing my Vans off with my toes I stretch my legs out. Minda cosies up next to me. She's jabbing at her phone and letting out little annoyed grunts.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Yes. I've just gotta send this to my dad, hang on. He went to some stupid travel agent—"
"Who uses a travel agent in 2011?"
Minda lets out one of her snorts that's supposed to be a laugh and puts her phone down. She curls her thick, dark hair behind her ears and focuses on me. "So, what's up with you?"
I want to tell her about the kid in the pool but I'm worried about my own reaction to it. I'm not ready to talk about it yet.
It takes me a few seconds to say what I say next because it'll be the first time I've talked about the tape with anyone. "I ... found a box of Mum's old stuff and ... a mixtape. I reckon it might be from my ... dad."
Minda's green eyes go wide, and she grips my forearm, her eyes alight. I can always count on her to get excited.
"Oh my God!" she squeals. "Did you bring it? Where is it?"
I retrieve the tape from my bag and settle back on the bed as she turns it over in her hands. When she folds back the cover and sees the note inside, she lets out a gasp and glances up at me before running her fingers over the indents. "Holy shitballs."
"That's one way of putting it," I laugh, relieved to finally have shared the tape with her.
But then she closes the cover and passes the tape back to me, her eyes turning firm. "But Jensy ... we've talked about this."
I'm not sure where she's headed with this parental voice thing that she's got going on.
"Jenna." Minda straightens her shoulders. "Remember we agreed that maybe the reason your mum hasn't told you anything about your dad is because knowing ... might be worse than not knowing."
I run my thumb over the sharp edge of the cassette cover. Minda's heard all this before, I know. "I'm sick of secrets, Minds. I'm scared I'm gonna leave here next year and go to uni and not know anything about him. You know how she acts like that part of her life doesn't even exist? Like I'm a miracle baby who magically appeared on her doorstep. What if she throws the boxes out? Once I leave, I reckon she'll —"
"She's not that bad."
"She didn't even come to university Open Day, remember?"
It was true. I had to tag along with Minda and her parents to find out about the uni I want to go to next year. Which was fine. Mum wasn't usually there for these major events anyway.
"She loves you," Minda says, squeezing my arm. "In her own weirdly distant way."
I'm not sure I believe her. I give her a small shrug. When I know my voice isn't going to shake, I ask if she's got anything to play the tape on.
"Finn's dad's got one of those old CD player things with a cassette deck. You know, the ones you can carry around?" Minda says. "I remember seeing it at his place once. I'll text him. Get him to bring it round."
"Can we listen to the tape together?" I don't want to be alone when I hear what's on it.
Minda smiles and squeezes my hand. "For sure."
Glad we have a plan I settle back on the bed and read through the list of bands in the insert of the mixtape while Minda messages Finn.
Silent Moth is on there. They're one of the old bands I really like, along with Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, but Mum refuses to let me listen to them at all. Even when I've got my headphones on, she whinges about how she can still hear the music. With Silent Moth she'll even go so far as to turn off the radio when they come on if we're in the car. Or walk out of a shop if they're playing.
Minda lifts her eyes from her phone and shows me a text message with a lot of exclamation marks at the end of it.
"It's my dad," she grumbles. "He's trying to get us all on a flight to Pune because my dada—my grandad—in India is really sick—"
I sit up straight. "Oh. Minds. I'm so sorry—"
"It's fine." She waves my worry away with a flick of her hand then grins at herself. "I mean, my dada's not fine. But it's weird. I hardly know him. Every time we go to India, I discover thousands of rellies I didn't know I had, and I don't know any of them."
Minda's family is spread right across the world. Every now and then, Minda goes to India with her mum and dad and brothers to hang out with her family in Pune, where her dad's from. When she comes back, she always brings me something. Last time she gave me a little pottery elephant with tiny, coloured-glass diamonds encrusted in it. I've got it on my windowsill where it catches the sunshine, spreading speckles of rainbow lights across my bedroom walls.
Minda consults her phone again. "I mean, it's kinda annoying. Right before exams too. I don't know why we all have to go. No one will even know I'm there our family is so big..." I can tell she's realised what she said as her voice fades out before she says, "Uh, I didn't mean to—"
"It's okay." I try to laugh but it comes out half-arsed. We both know it's not okay and it's not that funny. I'd give anything to have even one or two more rellies on top of the zero I already have.
Minda's phone lights up with a barrage of texts.
"Finn's got the tape player," she recounts right as a message comes through on my phone.
It's Finn.
Coming to East Beach for a swim? My sis will drive us.
I hold up my phone so Minda can read the message.
She raises her eyebrows; gives me a sideways grin. "Going?"
It still isn't summer, and the water will be freezing. But that's why I want to go - it'll be invigorating. It'll clear my head. Plus, Finn, Alex and Zee will make me laugh. When they're around, especially Finn, everything's light-hearted; easy. They'll be able to take my mind off everything.
"I guess," I say with a shrug, ignoring her mischievous look while I reiterate that Alex and Zee will also be there.
"Maybe." Minda grins and darts her finger across her phone screen. "I'm telling Finn to meet you at your place. That way you can get the tape player ... and your sexy bathers."
I scrunch my nose at her, trying not to encourage any ideas she has about Finn and me.
Luckily she gets another text message.
"Oh. My dad's called it. We're flying out tomorrow morning." She looks over at me and curls her lips down. "I'm sorry Jensy, I'm gonna have help Mum sort out the brat pack. And he wants me to send our passport deets."
My heart drops.
Not only because Minda's grandad is ill, but because it means she won't be here to listen to the mixtape with me. And I haven't told her about the kid in the swimming pool. Maybe she won't be here for my eighteenth birthday in a couple of weeks.
"Will ... will you be back for my birthday?"
Minda looks me straight in the eye and says she'll try really hard to get back. We both know how much it means that she's there. She's been there — and her mum too — for all my birthdays because they both know how much my mum isn't.
All I can do is nod and put on a brave smile while my heart sinks to my feet with the thought that she's not going to be here - just when I've found the mixtape.
A message pops up on my screen.
C U soon J.
It's from Finn.
At the end he's added a cute smiley face with love hearts around it.