by Tim Winton
Keely clawed back, roused himself. Got up. Dragged on some shorts. Blundered through to the dim living room, jacked open the slider and stepped outside.
All along the building the balconies were deserted. A few railings were still illuminated by blue flickers of television, but nobody was out there.
The invisible sea revealed itself in throbbing boundaries – red lights, green lights, the distant pulses of the island lighthouses. The port thrummed, the town itself reduced to echoes and murmurs as the street-sweeper trundled out towards the marina.
He went back in. But was too afraid to sleep. Which should have been funny given how much he craved it, what he’d swallowed to get there, how muzzy and ready he felt. He’d just lie here a while, ignore the leg tremors, wait it out.
Dawn. Morning. Day.
Didn’t take the bike out. Didn’t swim. Eyes like hot pea gravel. The flat was roasting but he holed up there all day. The building trembled with the comings and goings of others. All that purposeful Friday traffic. He tooled about on the laptop, googling aimlessly, squinting, holding his scone like it was an IED.
His inbox was stacked with unread emails, most from bewildered or exasperated friends and comrades, though the most recent were many weeks old. By the boldface subject titles he could see solicitude taper away to hurt silence and worse. Two of the last, from people he’d promised vital briefings on the wetlands strategy, were simply headed, WTF? Piled in their aging strata, these unanswered messages were a miserable sort of archaeology, a register of failure. It was absurd and lowering to keep them like this. Sick to pull them up and survey them, scrolling down the list, pausing over one now and then as if daring yourself to open it. It was time to end it.
He got up, strode to the sliding door, looked out at the sea a moment, then returned to the table and closed down the email address, fried everything while he had the will.
Afterwards he felt a glimmer of achievement. But in terms of satisfaction it was hardly more substantial or sustaining than the afterglow of a good shit.
The phone rang twice that day – in the morning, in the afternoon – but he didn’t answer. He scrounged leftovers, ate fruit no longer in the first flush of its youth. Market day, but he wasn’t going down there. Tourists. Earnest local faces. All that friendly stallholder shouting. The heat. The confined cattle smell of his countrymen. Fuck that.
Still ruined from his dream-stalked night, he napped fitfully in the chair. In the afternoon the woman next door cranked up, fighting off powers and principalities with chants and admonitions. He had to admire it, the way she held herself together with language. The longer she went, the stronger she sounded. He envied her. Which was stupid. And frightening.
Late in the day, bored rather than needy, he dug the last cleanskin from the carton under the bed – a flabby grenache he usually resorted to only as a stopgap sedative – and the first glass he poured was hot and calming. He worked through it unhurriedly, savouring the late arrival of the sea breeze, and at sunset he used the dregs to wash down a few Mersyndols and a hayfever tab for good measure, closing out the day with a certain resolve.
Maybe one last moment on the balcony before bed. To make sure of it, confirm it’d all been in his weary mind. He’d get up in a moment, go out. If only he could swim up against the weight of all that tepid water pressing him into the chair.
But hang on. Wasn’t that him? Not even bothering to wait for Keely to doze off. There already. There before him. Just past the pulsing insect mesh of the slider. The kid. Perched atop the rail, braced against a battering sea wind. The boy was motionless. Held there like a kite in the updraught. While the building swayed and rustled like a tuart tree. The sky purple, violent, the child without expression, staring off in profile, hair shining. Keely called out, tried to wave him back to safety, but the kid seemed startled by the sudden movement. Flexed. Pitched forward. And was gone in an instant.
* * *
He woke and it was dark. Woke. Actually, fully awake. But trusting nothing. He stood outside in his briefs. Gemma’s balcony was empty but he was too rattled to let things go at that. He went back in, unlatched the front door and weaved his way up the walkway to where the dome light burnt above the grille at 1010. The door behind the screen was the same dirty beige as his, the warped security mesh furred with corrosion from the salt wind. At the kitchen window the curtain was drawn, but there was a light on inside. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to make sure all was well, but at 11.08 p.m. in his cock-jocks there seemed no easy means of doing so. He lingered, dithering, pressed against the hot bricks.
Down the walkway, a door slammed. A woman in a sari – a deep green sari it was – gathered her keys and handbag. Lustrous dark hair. A bindi red as a camera light on her brow. On that dark brow, that raised face. Which was looking directly his way. Seeing him, recording his semi-nude presence. She stiffened, let out a sudden chirp of alarm, and sent him tilting homeward.
He was late getting up, and bleary along with it, but for the remainder of the morning he kept an eye out for Gemma, even broke his own rule and left the door ajar, but she didn’t come by. With the nightshifts he was loath to knock on her door. He paced. He made his grimy bed. Paced a little more.
Flipped open the Mac. Just to pass the time. And then he cracked. Couldn’t help himself. He trolled through the newsfeeds, taking in the headlines. Instantly bewildered. Same-same but worse.
Faith was right. The world was indeed choking on a bone. Obama trying for a bail-out. Everyone covering the bankers’ arses. Which was heartwarming. But here at home hardly a ripple. Endless reserves of mining loot. Safe as houses. Although when it came to bricks and mortar it seemed the good folks of Perth were stunned to learn that their property prices might flatten out, which would be for them, he imagined, confirmation the world really had slipped its moorings. Still, some bloke in Queensland, clearly refusing to surrender to the lure of introspection, had set a new record by busting forty-seven watermelons over his own head. Go, Australia.
After years of professional habit, or maybe just masochistic impulse, he sieved up the environment story of the day. But it was hardly news. In Hobart, evidently fretting about trade relations, the Feds had raided the Sea Shepherd ship, the Steve Martin, or whatever it was this year, Steve Jobs, Steve Buscemi – what did it matter? Anyway, they were back, those wild-eyed buggers, returned from another season of irritating the Japs. Glamour-hounds and donor-hogs they may be but he loved them. All bluster aside, they were doing what government lacked the balls to do. Had it been a gas field down there in the Southern Ocean the Feds would be sending gunboats. But they left it to these cowboys. And then pursed their lips in disapproval. Didn’t seem so long ago those vegan pirates were tied up here at the end of the street. Another petty imbroglio into which he’d been dragooned. Down on the quay in front of the cameras, facing off against the network girlies with their pancake make-up and Darth Vader hair. Calling in a bunch of favours to broker a deal and shame some dingleberry member of Cabinet into letting the vessel refuel and take on fresh celebs. Thankless Sunday morning’s work that’d been.
Anyway, enough. He slapped the laptop shut. Pulling back while he still could. For a clear head, pure mind.
He sat there. Pointlessly alert. And no one came by. Forty-eight hours ago he’d have counted this a blessing, a major domestic success. But now he was unsettled. Fidgeting in gormless anticipation.
It was bloody unnerving.
* * *
At noon, hungry and twitchy as a numbat, he gave up and went down into the streets for breakfast. Bub’s was only four blocks from home, on a side street off the Strip, but it was a trek getting there, hacking his way through a thicket of sticky tourists and weekend wood ducks. The joint was heaving. Saturday. What was he thinking? The moment he arrived Bub sent him out a sly double-shot and a muffin. Local privileges, that at least was something. And he appreciated it. But the crowd made him leery so he didn’t hang about. It was back to the bat cave
for him. Sent off with a knowing hitch of the eyebrows by good old Bub who knew what was what.
A block from the Mirador he came upon Gemma and the boy as they emerged from a sports store. The street was hot and snarled with cars idling for a park. Gemma looked frazzled. The kid clicked along on a pair of football boots fresh from the box. The expression on his moony face managed to combine triumph and solemnity. He glanced back at his own heels and watched himself, slightly startled but pleased, in the shop windows.
G’day, said Keely.
Oh, said Gemma. Hi.
Someone got lucky.
His birthday, said Gemma.
Well then, happy birthday.
I know who you are, said the kid.
I’m Tom, he said. What’s your name?
You had rats, said the boy.
Rats?
Get out of the sun, said Gemma, hauling them into the lee of an awning.
How old are you? asked Keely.
Six, said the kid. We’re having fish and chips. Gonna feed the sea-goals.
Gulls, said Gemma. It’s gulls.
Must be the boots, said Keely.
Both of them looked at him blankly.
Goals, he said. Football boots.
Right, she said with a look of cringe-making forbearance.
Hapless, Keely looked to the kid, not really knowing what he expected – fraternal understanding? Weren’t pissweak jokes milk and honey to a six-year-old? The boy studied him. Shade or no, Keely felt hotter than he had with the sun beating on his skull.
Can Tom come? For chips?
Well, he said, sensing Gemma’s irritation.
Tom’s busy, said Gemma.
But it’s my birthday.
You mind? she asked, embarrassed or maybe just annoyed.
No, he said, of course not.
But it’s your weekend.
Not a problem, he said, startled by the look come over her face. Like she was glad, even grateful.
Not a problem, said Gemma. Your dad used to say that.
Really? I don’t remember, he admitted.
Not a problem. Jesus. That’s Nev orright. God bless him.
Anyway, he said, fish and chips it is.
The kid kicked the air. He glanced at himself again in the glass, brandished a gleaming boot.
Carn then, you two, said Gemma. Come if you’re comin, I’m roastin out here.
No cracks, said the boy, indicating the slabs of the footpath.
Right, said Keely. No cracks.
Crossing town in the direction of the marina, he found it was quite some effort avoiding joins or cracks in the pavement, what with everything else in his head. He was relieved to reach the green swathe of the esplanade, which teemed with picnickers and shirtless youths playing cricket. On the grass beneath the Norfolk pines the boy concentrated on avoiding dog poo, a sport closer to Keely’s heart and of which he was already a grizzled veteran. It was fun. Though he began to wonder if the kid wasn’t a bit compulsive about it. But who wasn’t finicky about dog shit?
Tell about the rats, said the kid as they came to the rail line that formed the last boundary between the town and the water.
Don’t start that again, said Gemma.
But Nan, you said.
Nan, thought Keely. Nan?
Quit bugging him, she said. Tom doesn’t want to talk about rats.
You told him about my rats?
John, George, Paul and Ringo, she said with a grin that was almost shy.
I’ll be damned.
I wanted them rats, she said, shaking out a fag with a laugh. I used to take em outta the cage when you weren’t there.
What sorta name is Ringo anyway? asked the boy.
Dunno, said Keely, straight-faced. It just came to me, I spose.
Gemma snorted.
They were good pets, he said. Good rodents all.
As they stepped over the rails at the crossing, the boy took Gemma’s hand and moved with a peculiar precision, as if the track were electrified. Left and right, people jounced strollers and wheeled bikes across, but the kid concentrated on avoiding all contact. And when they made the path on the far side he returned his attention to paving cracks. Soon they were on the boardwalk whose flashing green slats between planks reduced him to a geisha gait that was comical.
Where are those rats? asked the kid. What happened to them?
Kai, love, yer not gettin a rat, said Gemma. So don’t even ask.
I don’t really remember what happened to them, said Keely.
Maybe another time, Gemma said darkly. Enough about rats.
They’re hard work, said Keely. And they stink a bit. Anyway, they’re no good in a flat, sport.
I could keep em on the outside bit.
The balcony?
Kai, said Gemma, I told you. No rats.
Anyway, said Keely. You couldn’t just leave them out in the weather. Besides, he said, reaching now, but heeding Gemma’s desire to snuff the entire notion, birds might get them.
That’s right, said Gemma, busking it.
You know, like owls, kites, hawks. They all eat mice and rats.
And sea-goals? Gulls? asked the kid.
Nah, but maybe a heron’d have a go.
Heron.
That’s a waterbird. They mostly hunt fish.
But it’s high up, said the boy. Floor ten.
No problem for a bird.
Like … like a eagle?
Exactly, said Keely, beginning to enjoy himself. Or an osprey.
The boy tested the word, seemed to like it. Said it again.
That’s a sort of eagle, said Keely. Swoops down, snatches up something good to eat, flies off to his nest right up high. He’s like, king of the mountain, prince of all he surveys.
The boy glanced up at Gemma for verification. She shrugged, blew smoke sideways as they negotiated the dawdling, ice cream–dripping hordes.
Reckon Tom knows his birds, she told the boy. He’s a nature nut. Isn’t that right?
Keely returned the shrug. Keen on birds, are you, Kai?
The kid said nothing.
Keen on givin his nan the runaround.
Osprey, said the kid.
Keely did the arithmetic. Gemma was barely into her mid-forties. So that was how it’d gone.
Around the northern rim of the marina the chippers were packed, their jetties and terraces aswarm with lunching day-trippers, sunstruck Brits, giggling teens. Enormous white cruisers pulled in to moor alongside, bristling with portly folks in deckshoes and sun visors anxious to parade their grand success. It was a kind of western-suburbs ritual, casting off from their enclaves upriver in Perth to steam downstream in their ocean-going craft, and the moment they met the open sea they hurled the wheel hard aport to tuck in here and tie up two metres from dry land alongside the plebs who could gawk and chew, rendered dumbstruck, presumably, by the angelic logic of the trickledown economy.
Doesn’t that pep you up? he said.
What? What’s that?
These floating gin palaces. Give you the can-do feeling, that aspirational awe.
Gemma ignored him, or perhaps she didn’t hear, preoccupied as she was with muscling them into a table by the water’s edge. She lunged, weaved, saw a party get to its feet and pounced.
Stay here, she told him. Kai’n me’ll go inside to order.
Keely obeyed, sat a few minutes in the shade of the umbrella, and breathed in the vapours of fat and diesel and algae. Which were rather homely, now he thought of it. But he felt self-conscious down here with the weekenders, wary of faces too familiar for comfort. Few locals came down anymore, certainly not at the weekend, but there were always the pollies and bureaucrats in their short sleeves and Country Road shorts, the epicene journos relieved of an afternoon’s weeding, and he didn’t want any sudden encounters.
Gemma and the boy returned with hefty paper parcels of fried goods. And he stuffed himself, soaking chips in harsh white vinegar, slathering his wedge of snapper in t
he sort of ketchup that probably glowed in the dark. He watched the kid. How he gorged on chips and left his fish so long the batter went soggy. Eventually he peeled it back with meticulous care, as if it were a scab on his knee. Then he ate it, grease leaking from the corners of his mouth, and left the fishmeat naked on the paper. Not completely odd. Just a kid doing more or less what Keely would have done at six.
A few metres away a pelican alighted on a jetty pile, sending Chinese tourists into a frenzy of videography.
What about a pelican? said the boy. Would a pelican eat a rat?
I doubt it, he said.
They catch fish, said Gemma. Like that other thing. What was that other bird, Tom?
Heron, he said, wiping fat from his chin.
The kid’s fingers twitched. He blinked. Keely saw him silently count the syllables, then the letters, absorbing the word.
There used to be one round here, said Keely, a heron that pinched my koi, my goldfish. Swooped down, reefed them right out of the pond.
You got a pond? said the kid. At your flat?
No, said Keely with a chuckle. This was when I had a house. Back over there, see? Past the boatsheds, behind the trees.
Gemma turned with the child, looked across the marina to where he was pointing. She chewed, said nothing.
Did ospreys come too? asked the child.
No. But they’re around. Sometimes you can hear them. They have a weird sound, like a whingeing noise they make.
The boy looked doubtful, glanced at Gemma.
What? said Keely.
He thinks you’re winding him up.
But it’s true.
And there’s really ospreys? asked the boy. Here?
He nodded. Maybe one day I’ll show you. And your nan.