The Waves Washing Over

Category C: First Place (2025) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Andrew Drummond

Jeremy’s safe now, sitting in the sand next to his friend, Tyler. I’m watching them closely—playing with a bucket and spade, digging deep to make a sand-fort while they dry off.

Elyse lets the boys go out further than I’d like, beyond the shore-break. Not as far out as some parents allow their children to swim, but far enough that I lose sight of them between waves—each disappearance unleashing a chain of feeling that’s become visceral over time, my heart jumping hard in the cavern of my chest until I pick them up again.

Jeremy dumps a spade-load of sand onto the central battlement. He has his back to me, saltwater draining from his hair. Small globes of it run down his neck and gather at the top of his spine, drawing in sunlight. I study these globes because they’re interesting, but also as a way of avoiding the little girl beside the boys. Six or seven years old—not much younger than Jeremy—she lies motionless on the sand, stretched out, the warm sun willing her to stir.

For a brief moment, I think of her resting there, achingly serene. I want to speak to her. Or more than that, have her listen to me.

The boys have been talking, the rhythm of their conversation drawing me back. Tyler has the floor. I catch him mid-sentence, an air of curiosity in his voice. He says, “…and he’s always reading. Why doesn’t he swim?”

Jeremy says, “My Dad doesn’t swim at the beach.”

 Although I bristle, it’s not for the obvious reasons—the shame of being stuck, the salted sting of a wound that refuses to heal. It’s a lot less complicated than that. As simple as: I’m not used to Jeremy calling me Dad yet.

Tyler continues, asking, “Why not?”

Jeremy shrugs, more water pooling in the hollow he’s made at the top of his spine. “He likes to read.”

“Doesn’t he get hot?”

 “Probably,” Jeremy says, “but he doesn’t care.”

Elyse has always lived by the beach. She grew up on the Claremont side of the Stirling Highway, walking distance to Cottesloe. Moved further north—up around Trigg—with her first husband, who was a surfer.

“I was a water-baby,” she said to me once. “And so is Jeremy.”

The beach, the ocean, is where they belong. Everything about the seaside—saltwater, swimming, sand—is as natural to them as breathing.

There’s something in that: the idea of the ocean as a safe place, a place of comfort. A complete lack of awareness that it can also take breath.

Sometimes when I’m watching Jeremy at the beach, I can’t help thinking of Katie—lying on the sand, 4,000 k’s and too many years away. The look on the face of the youngest lifesaver, the one who brought her out, standing in the tower with the others after it was all said and done and we went back to thank them. The collective moment of silence when Sassy’s voice finally broke and she had to stop for a second to gather herself.

The move was no accident. Perth is the most isolated capital city in the world, and I wanted to be as far as possible from that place in Sydney, as far from the rest of the world, as I could get.

When I first moved, I lived in an apartment block at the edge of the CBD. Nowhere near the beach. I’d fly out with the FIFO’s—Karratha, Newman, Kalgoorlie—as often as possible. So much so that I got to know the rosters, and the miners and flight crews got to know me. They found it strange that I wasn’t working the mines, that I was choosing to do something they were only doing for money.

“What the hell do you get up to?” they’d often ask, and I’d just smile benignly.

After we landed, I’d say my goodbyes and head out of town, sling the second-hand swag I’d bought when I first got to Perth over my shoulder and hit the highway, drifting into the back-country any way I could. I wanted to uncover the void spaces, the lands of nothingness, and listen to the silence, hoping I’d find something in the emptiness I’d been unable to find elsewhere.

It was a disappearing.

I’d lie motionless in my swag and look up at the stars, so dense that the centre of the Milky Way was a thick stripe of glittering white, and think that maybe one of those stars was more than a great ball of gas, glowing hard, waiting its turn to burn out. That maybe there was something eternal about it, something spiritual. Lying there beyond the earth and my understanding.

Sometimes I’d hear dingoes howling in the night, or in the daytime, the churning sound of scattering crocodiles, swishing their tails as they plunged heavily into deep, invisible pools. I’d sit by their waterholes and almost convince myself they’d ceased to exist—that they were no longer there, lurking beneath the surface, compelling me to give in and dive.

I stopped flying out after I met Elyse. When our divorces were finalised and I’d sold my apartment near the CBD and signed over the house in Sydney, I moved in with her and Jeremy.

“Why don’t you fight for it?” Elyse always said. “It’s your house, too.”

“Sassy can have it,” I said. “I want a fresh start.”

“You should at least get half the money, shouldn’t you?”

It was a good question, but I knew a better one: how can you keep the biggest things a secret?

I’d never told Elyse the full story. Never lied, just been selective with the facts. She knew our marriage had broken down. That things were amicable. That we just couldn’t be together any more—it was too painful. She had no idea about our daughter.

How do you keep the biggest things a secret?

Truth is, I don’t know. You just do.

On the mornings Elyse left early and Jeremy was at his Dad’s, I’d open the French doors and go back to bed and let the sea breeze ruffle the curtains and bring the smell of salt and decaying seaweed into the room, and with it the bitter thoughts that lit my pain.

That’s when I knew I had to do something.

I woke a little earlier one morning and kept the French doors closed, stuffed a few things into my backpack and walked to the bus stop. The shopping centre was heaving—a lot of elderly people and young mothers pushing prams, soaking up the AC. I went straight to Kmart, spent as little as possible, then walked back through the crowds and got on the next bus.

The driver was wearing a turban. I imagined his long black hair underneath, how hot it must be, and I admired him in a hard, bittersweet kind of way—it made me realise how faithless I’d become.

I swiped on and the driver told me he’d let me know when we got there. I wanted somewhere unfamiliar, a place where there was little chance of bumping into someone I knew. Or worse than that, someone Elyse and Jeremy knew.

The driver pulled in and gave me a nod. I picked up my backpack and got off the bus. The sunlight was dazzling. I took a moment to gather myself, the sound of hydraulics whirring behind me as the doors closed, the hum of the bus’s engine gearing up as it drove away.

I crossed the highway and walked to the edge. Despite the heat, the place was almost deserted—a few kids ahead of me with their parents, a pair of lovers strolling hand-in-hand.

I emptied the things I’d bought at Kmart from my backpack. The towel was mostly black with a few pictures of coral on it in bright pinks and yellow. I wrapped it around my waist and took my shorts and undies off, then clenched my teeth around the plastic that held the price tag to the boardies, snapping it off clean and leaving it on the sand.

The water was warmer than I expected. It dragged against my feet and I felt the gritty beach silt washing between my toes. Ahead of me, the swell was heavy. Big dumpers rolling in, roaring as they crested and crashed onto the still water below.

I waded through the shore-break, duck-dived under a wave. I’d forgotten the thrill of it—the exhilaration of the churn, the calm sense of rightness that comes with it. The feeling of peace. Got so lost in it, I swam out further than I should have.

The waves were big and crashing hard, but I knew that’s what I wanted. I wanted to get dumped. I wanted to taste the saltwater in my mouth, feel it rushing down my throat, the heaviness of it in my lungs, the swirl of it. I needed to know what it felt like for Katie.

When I was done, I stood in the shore-break heaving, purging the saltwater from my lungs.

“She can’t gag,” the Ambo said. “There’s no reflex.”

That’s how far and how quickly she was gone.

I sat down in the water, breathing. There were no more sobs—they’d all been had—just lines of saltwater running from my hair and down my cheeks, mixing with the salt from my eyes.

I got changed and stuffed what I was taking with me into my backpack. There was a bin at the bus stop. I threw the boardies and towel into it. By the time Elyse came home, I’d long since showered and unpacked.

Jeremy’s ears prick up as soon as he hears the first tinkling refrains of Greensleeves. He and Elyse are dripping water onto the sand. I’m sitting under our umbrella, book in hand. I couldn’t bring myself to go in with them the first time. Had chickened out.

“Can we?” Jeremy asks, looking at me.

I put my book—my distraction, my crutch—down on a towel. I know it’s going to stay there a while.

“Come on.”

 The three of us walk across the hot sand to the ice cream van. I get my usual soft serve coated in nuts. Elyse has a choc dip. Jeremy gets a double-cone gelati, a rainbow of sugary colour leaking across both sides of his palm and onto his wrist by the time we get back to the towels.

“Look at you,” I say, laughing and pointing it out.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “It’ll wash off.”

The idea has no effect. I stay calm, feel ok about it all.

 Jeremy munches the last of his cone and stands up. The look of surprise on his face when I strip my shirt off and say, “Now you come on,” is priceless. He can’t believe it. Neither can Elyse.

We don’t go out too far, sticking close to shore. In the secondary break, I show Jeremy the right way to bodysurf. He tells me it’s hard. I tell him it’s a lot easier out the back where the waves have a bit of power.

“Out the back,” he says, astonished. “You’ve been there?”

“When I was younger.”

We come from the water and walk back to our towels. Jeremy and Elyse look happy. I feel a lot of things, struggling to make sense, but I’m willing to concede that happiness is one of them. It’s difficult to admit, after all these years. That the beach could be something more than a place to endure, that it could be a place of joy.

I’m watching Jeremy and Elyse closely, working hard to absorb their happiness. Doing the best I can to latch onto my own. The sky above is clear and the sun beats warm against my shoulders. I try to focus on that, rather than the little girl next to us, lying on the sand