by Tim Winton
Soft?
Like, no battery.
Ah. Like a game?
The boy champed his lip. Like I die, he said.
Wow, said Keely, leaving no time for this thought to hang there. Then what?
Kai shrugged. I’m laying there and I die.
Then you woke up, right?
He nodded.
And you were here at home, right as rain.
Kai nodded again.
Well, it’s just a dream. You don’t have to worry about something like that.
Sometimes it’s not me.
You mean you’ve had this dream before?
The boy nodded, yawned.
How many times?
Kai looked at the backs of his hands as if calculating. Seven? he said uncertainly.
The boy appeared to have wilted a little. Keely wondered if it was prudent to keep asking him questions. He was way out of his depth already.
But you’re okay now, he said. You’re safe. Everything’s good, eh?
The boy blinked. He was clearly exhausted.
Maybe you should hop back into bed. You want me to sit with you for a bit?
Kai nodded. Then took himself to the bedroom and climbed onto the mattress. A fan oscillated on the side table, pushing the hot, clothy air about. Keely sat at the foot of the bed. Kai fixed on him.
I’m right here, Keely whispered.
The fan droned. Somewhere in the thin-skinned building, a pipe flushed. A can rolled down the side street in the freshening easterly.
We’re okay, Keely whispered, willing it to be the truth.
* * *
He woke in sunlight with Gemma standing over him. Before he could properly focus on her face and what she was saying, he saw the Bali poster over her shoulder, the waves of coconut palms, the wrongness of where he was. He hauled himself upright on the couch. Dawn light spilled onto the kitchen bench.
Shit. What time is it?
What’re you doin here? she hissed.
I don’t know, he said thickly before catching himself. Kai. I didn’t —
He’s got school, said Gemma. Jesus, he knows not to let anyone in.
As she leant over him, whispering fiercely, he smelt sweat and coffee and cigarettes. He struggled to his feet. His back hurt.
Sorry, he croaked. He had a nightmare.
He went to your place?
Yeah. Well, no. He called.
Christ, he shoulda called me. What sort of nightmare?
Calm down, Gemma, it’s alright.
You don’t stand in someone else’s place when you’re not sposed to be there and then tell em to calm the fuck down.
Okay, yeah, I’m sorry.
Jesus. Just go, will you.
I think it’s something he’s seen on the telly. The war maybe, or some science fiction thing. He’s alright. He was careful.
Careful be buggered. He knows the rules.
I meant to slip away, he said, busking it now. I just sat here a minute to make sure he was really asleep. I was worried about leaving him here alone.
He registered her flash of anger but before she could speak Kai was in the doorway, looking circumspect, wary of both of them.
Tom’s just headin off, said Gemma.
Keely gave a little wave, but from the kid there was not a flicker.
Still woozy, and with a beach towel around his neck, Keely limped to the shed behind the laundromat. As a pair of welfare mums watched from the second-floor gallery, sharing a fag and a few laughs at his expense, he extricated his bike from the snarl of greasy wrecks and wheeled the old Malvern Star across the car park at the rear of the building. He wobbled out onto the side street, rounded the corner and noted, as he rolled by the front of the building, his neighbours wan and silent heading for the bus, the train, the boss. The forecourt was baking already, and he was glad to leave the whole place behind a while.
On soft tyres he pedalled through the morning streets as they stirred, past discount stores, supermarkets, cafés, keeping where he could to the footpaths to save being mown down, and within a few minutes he was in the residential arc between the marina and the beaches, where he felt safe enough to tool along taking in the weatherboard cottages, limestone semis, peppermint street trees and vine-strangled verandahs. The old neighbourhood was a comfy mix of prosperity and bohemia, where the Kombi lay down beside the Beemer, and the little garden patches in front were either wistful references to Provence or a homely riot of hippified vegies and bougainvillea. The further south you rode, the more prayer flags there were strung from porches, the more bikes and dreads you saw, and the thicker the reek of patchouli became.
He pulled up a moment outside the old house. Its lovely window sashes were freshly painted. The jarrah boards of the verandah had been oiled. And there was a silver Prius gleaming in the drive. Alerted by the familiar creak of the front door opening, he stood on the pedals and teetered away.
Along Marine Terrace, tradies in idling utes sucked choc-milks and wolfed meat pie breakfasts as brokers pulled into the boatyards and dealerships in Mercs and Range Rovers. A few seedy live-aboards weaved in from the marina on their rusty jetty bikes, all deckshoes and earrings, abroad in search of coffee, sex and cheap labour.
Keely pushed on past the stockaded perimeter of the yacht club and on to the grassy apron behind the dunes. At the open-air showers a woman hefted a woolly mutt beneath the spray; holding the dripping pooch to her breast she looked blissful in a way that didn’t bear examining. He leant the old crate against a casuarina and picked his way through the eternal dog shit to the water.
Stripped down to his Speedos, he plunged in by the rock groyne. The sand bottom was a creamy blur and the water delicious. But his limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated and it took a little time to find a rhythm. Eventually he settled into a long, reaching stroke and for several minutes thought of nothing at all except the feel of the sea. But by the time he reached the southern breakwater he was back to wondering what it meant for a child to dream of falling – not just flying, but crashing to his own death surrounded by faceless aliens. And what did having such a dream repeatedly say about Kai’s mental health?
Keely couldn’t get it out of his head, the plausibility of the kid’s description – or was it more an intimation? – of the actual sensation of dying. Like a failing current: no battery. You couldn’t ignore that; it was alarming. Though what could he do? He’d already overstepped as it was. And now the shutters had gone down. He’d pissed Gemma off. There was no mistaking her fury. He’d be back to keeping his sorry self to himself. And he should be glad.
He swam until the acid built up in his shoulders and his lower back began to tighten. Inshore, locals gathered in gossiping knots – long-shanked men, women with high, late-life bellies. They all hurled sticks for galumphing mutts, their sun-fucked faces shining with adoration. It was a village of cults, Fremantle, but of all the twisted sects it harboured, surely the dog folks were the hardest to take.
He waded ashore, breathless, mindful of where he trod, and as he retrieved his gear and towelled off, he felt restored, even modestly cheerful.
But of course when he got to the grass beside the casuarina, his bike was gone. No sign of it in the saltbush thickets nor the maze of trails behind the ti-trees. He scouted south towards the kiosk and the car park where weed-dazed backpackers were only now beginning to spill from vans in the heat, but it wasn’t there.
He trudged homeward alongside the rail line. The low fence was festooned with purulent yellow bags of dog shit. These daily offerings were part of the liturgical practice of dog folks. Who bagged their pooches’ turds, tied them into gilt baubles and either left them on the sand or hung them here on the fence. As evidence of their good intentions. To be collected later. Which of course they never were. And after an hour or so the contents began to fester in the heat until they became objects of penitential contemplation for wayfaring pedestrians. Haste-making incense. The collect of the day. And Keely was, in the spirit of t
hings, both hastened and incensed. He was impressed to the very limits of derangement. How could they be matched for devotion, these dog folks? What a spiritual service they did! Doubtless, good people and true. And yet smug and dozy fuckwits all the same. What else could these golden offerings, these buzzing prayer flags be except emblems of right-thinking, evidence that actions were but paltry moments of attachment? This wall of ordure said it all. It was so Freo.
Of course, he might be a little bitter. A tad jaundiced. And his day wasn’t shaping up as he’d hoped.
He held his nose. Pressed on. Mocked by the wet slap of his thongs.
Fucked-fucked.
Fucked-fucked.
Fucked-fucked.
Yeah, very funny.
Googling aimlessly, sniffing the panic abroad, Keely wondered how Faith’s rescue mission was faring. He hoped that whatever she was saving was worth the sweat. It was two degrees in London. Maybe not so much sweat.
Knew he shouldn’t be looking. Letting himself be persecuted by the news cycle like this. Given what it did to him.
A noise outside. Someone scraping against the security grille on the way past. The door was closed. He was in full lockdown. Back to business as usual. Whatever happened out there did not interest him. He had to learn from the dog people. Rise above mere shit.
But there it was again. That sound. Like somebody sawing against the insect screen with a fingernail. Irritating. Hard to detach from. Given it made the hairs rise on the back of his sunburnt neck.
The screen door opening. Bloody cheek of it. The Mormons were in the building. Or worse, someone from the body corporate.
Then knocking. One-two-three. Tiny knocks, too timid to be official. Perhaps the lonely demoniac next door. Seeking garlic.
Keely yanked the door open. And there was Kai. In clammy school kit. Clutching a book to his chest. So small. So fair. Making his heart jump. It must be after three – God, where had the day gone? He struggled to reassemble his expression for the kid’s sake. He had the face of a monster; he could feel it.
Kai, he said.
The kid blinked. The wind ran through his hair. His uptilted eyes were dark, his gaze was cautious, even apprehensive. Then averted entirely.
Where’s your nan?
Kai tilted his head towards home.
She know you’re here?
The boy pursed his lips eloquently.
Kai, I don’t think she’s very happy about last night.
Kai did not disagree.
She won’t like you coming over without her knowing.
The boy held the raptor book face out, presenting it at arm’s length.
What’s up?
The kid peered past him to the roasting interior of his flat where the westering sun was having its way.
I don’t think you better come in, mate.
I was here before, said Kai.
Yeah, you said.
The boy took the book in one hand and raised his arms from his sides. Keely’s first thought was of a bird, that he was stretching his imaginary wings, but then he thought, Underpits. The kid was letting the breeze cool his sweaty underarms.
Maybe you should run along. Your nan won’t be happy. This morning was my fault. I fell asleep.
It wasn’t a osprey.
Sorry?
Kai opened the weathered book and pointed to a photograph.
It wasn’t a osprey, said the boy, what we saw at the river.
Kai pulled the book to himself a moment and rifled through pages. He presented a double-page spread of two similar birds side by side. Pressed it against Keely’s chest until he accepted the book, surrendered his attention to it. Over the page were diagrams and silhouettes. Tipped into the gutter fold was an old envelope with Kai’s markings in felt pen. They were dihedral representations of a soaring bird, the first with upswept wings and the other with wingtips tilted earthward.
White-bellied sea eagle, Keely read from the text. Hunts on the water. Doesn’t dive under. Did our bird dive?
The boy shook his head solemnly. Keely thought back. The thing had swept down off the bluff, smacked the surface of the river and hauled itself away.
Well, he said with a grin. Inconclusive. But you might be right.
Am right.
Okay, I stand corrected. Even so, this bird’ll still take a rat, so I consider myself in the clear. But let’s just say it, for the record. I was wrong and you, my friend, are right.
The kid didn’t smile. Either he’d forgotten the rodent that set all this off or he didn’t understand. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care.
You’ve been looking closely at this.
Kai said nothing.
Hmm. Preys on reptiles, other birds, mammals, fish.
And carry-on.
Carry-on? he said with a grin. What’s that, like, luggage?
The boy looked at him blankly.
What is it?
Carrion? Well, anything really. Creatures that’re already dead. You know, lying there.
Carrion.
He’ll sweep down, cart it off. There we go: immature individuals often confused with the osprey. Well, Kai, he said, handing the book back. You’re a smart kid.
The boy chewed his lips.
What? asked Keely.
Kai averted his gaze.
Kai, what is it?
The boy drew the book to him carefully.
Is there something you want to say? You look worried.
You mad?
Mad? Keely asked with a dropping sensation.
At me.
Oh, he said with a sick grin. Of course not. Why would I be angry? How could I be angry with you?
Kai hugged the book, his shoulders tipped inwards, his gaze lowered. A screen door clanged up the way. The boy took a glance to his right and though he couldn’t see her Keely knew it was Gemma. Man and boy stood silent, even apprehensive, in the seconds it took her to arrive, clacking down the gallery in hard shoes. She pulled up in something black and short and sleeveless. Her hair was raked back in a barrette and she wore truly high heels, shoes of a sort that could not be ignored, not even by a man like Keely who knew nothing about clothes and for whom women’s shoes were an abiding mystery.
What’re you lookin at? Gemma asked.
Nothing.
They’re just shoes.
They were ridiculous shoes, porn shoes. They showed off her legs. Everything, now he let himself look. Felt a little nutbuzz despite himself.
Just shoes, he said, grinning.
Ignoring him, Gemma addressed the boy.
Told you to ask first.
That’s a good idea, said Keely as much to her as Kai.
She was staring at him now, weighing something up.
What? What is it?
I gotta be somewhere.
Keely said nothing.
I can’t take him, she said.
So lock him in. I’ll keep an ear on him.
Well, he’s here now.
And?
Can you look after him for me?
You really can’t take him?
Forget it, she said, reaching for the kid who sidestepped her effortlessly.
Don’t be daft, he said. Of course he can wait here.
I’ll be twenty minutes.
Take your time.
Just keep him inside, orright? Keep him safe.
We’ll be fine, he said. Won’t we, Kai?
The kid didn’t even shrug.
And then she was gone, clopping down towards the lifts, bum bouncing sweetly, dressed to impress someone else entirely. For twenty minutes. They stood in his doorway a while, Keely and the boy. He could still smell Gemma’s cloying perfume. The boy gave off no sense of having triumphed. He just moved past Keely and went inside. Keely followed, pleased and slightly nervous.
When he looked around for something to feed Kai he saw that all he had in the place was a bowl of oranges. The kid didn’t seem keen until he offered to peel one for him. Perhaps it was a juice thi
ng, or not knowing how to get the skin off. But once the fruit was on a plate, bare and slightly furred with pith, Kai was all action. He was fastidious, almost obsessive, about breaking the orb into segments. He fanned them around the plate, anxious to avoid any juice-letting, and when everything was laid out to his satisfaction he took a piece and began to suck at its point with great care.
Keely did little more than sit back and watch. That round face, the silky hair, the paleness and self-possession. He seemed slightly damaged, and yet he was so bright. Keely knew nothing about kids but this boy was too sharp for his age.
I know all this, said the boy, pausing a moment to look around. I’ve been here.
Keely opened his mouth to speak just as a pair of doves fluttered onto the balcony. Kai flinched. After a moment, as if embarrassed, he recovered his affectless poise.
Doves, said Keely, getting up to wave them away.
Doves aren’t smart.
They’re supposed to be peaceful, said Keely. But they’re always crapping everything up.
Birds are first, said the boy, the orange segment flaccid in his hand.
First at what?
First to die.
Keely was flummoxed. This fixation. How did he get straight to death from a pair of doves? What was happening in his head? A six-year-old. He was scary-smart, but he couldn’t have read Rachel Carson. Perhaps he’d seen something on telly, a show about canaries and coalmines. Keely hoped to God he hadn’t set this off himself with all his faffing on about seabirds.
Kai got up, looked at his bare feet a moment, as if arrested by a thought or a sensation, then stepped up to the sliding door to gaze out. He suckled at the crescent of orange and with his free hand he touched the tips of his sticky fingers to his thumb in steady alternations, like somebody recalling music or the lines of a poem.
I’d never lived up so high before moving here, Keely said. Strange, isn’t it, being able to see so far – out and down.
Kai made no sign of having heard.
Isn’t it weird, the way you look out there and you feel yourself going out at the same moment?
Kai turned and surveyed him and immediately he regretted saying it; this was not the sort of thing you said to a kid ten storeys up, especially not a kid with falling dreams – and, fucksake, not a kid who leapt off the balcony in your nightmares. What was he thinking?