by Rodney Hall
The stability of bed comes as a surprise. Adam awake feels defenceless. Somehow released from the Contraption. Painkillers easy to reach. Bridget must have been in again. Or maybe, with the alterations going on outside, it was Yao. Anyhow, this is not Iraq. Nothing else matters. Engulfed by the most amazing tranquillity, he rests. At home in a Melbourne suburb. Neither Abraham nor Noah was born here. Alexander never cursed these antipodean flies. Nor is there a spiral staircase leading from the ground to heaven. Just his father’s chair. And enough clouds to fill the open doorway.
A cool sponge dabs his hot face and neck. Yes, it’s her.
‘Thanks sweet. Heart.’
‘That better?’
He seizes his chance. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘We. Have to accept. I’m stuck in. This mess. So you need to. Ar. Find a way out. Make plans and. Go.’ He pauses to collect his strength because it’s obvious now that he is the only one who can set her free. He must do the right thing. ‘What to take and. What to leave.’ Water tinkles into the bowl. He rests his injured throat while summoning the fiery remnants of such energy as he has left. When his voice comes back it sounds like a distant dog barking. ‘The government. Ar. Arr. Will take care of me. There must be. Nursing homes for. Hopeless cases.’ He riffs, ‘High standards of spit and. Polish. Staff to be terrorized. Rules to. Break.’
‘Adam, please don’t.’
But the hidden fear riding him digs its spurs in.
‘Religion can’t be. Relied on. Since they gave up. Human sacrifice,’ he jokes to lighten the effect. His eyes shine kindly. ‘Much misunderstood, human. Sacrifice. Provided the job’s. Done by professionals.’
She stares at him in bafflement.
‘Or drowning at sea. Might be an option,’ he suggests helpfully. ‘Except. You’ll have to. Get me there and. Ar. I reckon I’d. Bob around like a. Bloody cork.’
The shock being too much for Bridget—her face shiny with tears—she hides her shame in the crook of her arm.
‘Though all things. Considered, I reckon. Nembutal’s best.’ And now he becomes calm and practical. ‘Quick and clean. Seriously.’ There it is. His joking at an end. He has taken the plunge. This is the first time he has actually mentioned suicide.
She can’t bear any more.
‘Sweetheart!’ she protests in horror. And she kisses the top of his head where the scars are mostly covered by hair. It is her own falseness she hates, now that she cannot possibly tell him what she came to say. Death is too close for the truth to be taken lightly. ‘I’m here for you.’
No sooner has Bridget arrived back upstairs and settled to work at the computer than she reminds herself that, when it comes to being trapped by the unfairness of life, Adam is far worse off than she is. Just how much worse off defies comprehension. His proposed suicide being proof. Though framed as cynicism it wasn’t. He was begging her to talk to him. And she does have things to tell. She needs to reach him, at last, and show him her life. She could have begun by explaining about Ryan. Next time she will. Because Ryan is not important. The sex is nice though. The sex helps. Suddenly determined to have it out—right now!—she pushes the printed version of her drawing to one side among the highlighter pens she has been working with. She shoots a last glance at the screen and clicks on save. In some way comforted by the fatalism of casting the dice. She has no idea how he will take it, but long gone are the days when they fought like overgrown children. She brushes her hair and fluffs it lightly. She slips her feet into sandals and straightens up, smoothing her tight jeans. Okay. Down she goes.
But certainty leaves her. How can she rub his nose in the life that he cannot be part of? She veers aside. The closest she gets is to perch on the window seat. At least she will keep him company. With a folded newspaper for an alibi she smiles his way. Soon lost in thought, she discards the paper and hugs her bare knees. Now and then her eyes stray—away beyond the garden—to a line of shadows patterning the road. The house-shaped and tree-shaped shadows fill her world with saw-toothed silhouettes, suffocating in their stillness, their intense fixity . . . until she realizes that even they are on the move, contracting her way with monumental gravity, from west to east, reversing the progress of the morning. Sensing the old plush-foot predator stalking her, she twists her neck to check the room’s recesses of shadow. Nobody. Only Adam, who glances up to return her look with an enquiry of his own.
‘What was. That?’
‘What?’
‘That look.’
‘I didn’t know I gave a look.’
‘Well anyhow. You’re welcome.’
Reminded of something Ryan said Bridget laughs it off. The laughter, though superficial, does her good. She is herself again. Out of reach. No one really needs to be told about Ryan. And where Yao’s concerned there’s little to tell.
‘It was like. Like you saw me. The way I. I see me.’
The chance to confess has somehow lapsed. She missed her opportunity. The problem remains unresolved.
‘I have to call in at the office,’ she announces off-handedly. ‘So it may as well be now.’
‘Drive care. Fully.’
‘Can I bring you something?’
He shakes his head.
‘Back soon then.’
‘Don’t hurry. I won’t be. Ar. Going anywhere.’
He watches himself as a boy, his face as it used to be all that time ago, his own head of wet hair turning towards the beach. Seagulls swoop above the headland to scream into the stormy spume, waves restlessly heave, ribs of water overcurl as the ocean explodes against a snout of rock, fountaining and cascading through clefts, to rush among crannies studded with limpets, water tumbling thunderously up the sand and dirty scum scudding on the backdrawn tug. He and his friends crouch on their boards or paddle behind them, frustrated by a crosscurrent spoiling the break. He remembers yelling, ‘Fuck it!’ And striking out for the open sea. A mad risk.
Wholeness is axiomatically unaware of being whole. That’s the mystery of it. All parts functioning as expected. Nothing calls attention to itself. In Adam’s condition—the opposite of whole—he is always aware. Stark staring vigilant. He guards each moment. He must persevere with flexing exercises that require bending the unbendable, working joints crammed with fractured crystal and resurrecting fossilized spine and perished tendons. Each arm (down to the fingers) and each leg (down to the toes) might resemble an arm and leg with most of the usual components—as with his approximate face and torso—but they register every articulated delay as degrees of excruciating pain. The increments of success are measured by suffering. Repetition imprints his map of nerves with the horror of patched flesh.
He has been warned by Josh to expect prickly sensations to spread everywhere and to grow more intense, plus the complication of phantom pains. Right now he can’t tell which is which. Both are unbearable. Layers of clinging brightness truss him in a weightless net. How many hours have elapsed he cannot guess but Bridget is back. Evidently she wishes to be alone. He hears the door to her study shut. The afternoon responds by slowing right down. A long-drawn throb crawls from his lungs around his ribs as the flayed meat protests against resurrection. An ebb tide creeping down his thighs causes his calves to tingle, calves forever at the brink of cramp. Yet his forested island of sex remains safe. Its own denizen rising and subsiding without permission—as the attendant sleepers roll slightly with millennial power—some nights spontaneously spilling a stored never-to-be generation. He has learned to submit without attempting to assist himself, the helplessness of the rest of his body somehow, by weird inversion, proper to this rush of virility. He is both conqueror and conquered. Just as he used to come in his sleep—but that was acceptable—sometimes now he comes while fully awake. He cannot help what cannot be helped.
He returns to the task in hand. His search has delivered a poem about a condemn
ed man awaiting execution who counts the chimes of the town hall bell as the fatal hour of eight o’clock approaches:
Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour,
He stood and counted them and cursed his luck.
And then the clock collected in the tower
Its strength, and struck.
He reaches for some gift pills, gifts brought by Yao, tiny grey ovals each with a miniature battleship stamped into it. He shakes them out on the table. The remaining fingers of his left hand isolate one for bulldozing into his receptive palm. Success. With the aid of the Contraption he steers salvation to his lips. He has it. Now for the water. A bottle and straw always set ready. Steady on. With everything in place he swallows. Done.
Haunted by the awkward order of those words ‘the clock collected in the tower its strength’—which seems to have the clock’s mechanism built into it—he contrasts this with his own experience, because his ‘execution’ happened without warning. Only now, more or less back from the dead, does he find himself condemned to count the infinite hours. The grey battleship kicks in. Ecstasy.
Thanks to the nationwide fame of his good looks Ryan knows women. He loves their company . . . provided they don’t cling. Well, Bridget could never be accused of clinging. Often she seems all too casual. And when his antennae begin to pick up subtle signals of a discouraging kind, he gives the matter serious attention. Casual is one thing. This is another. Suspicion piques his vanity.
So now here he is, parking the red Ferrari in a blaze of growls and glitter. There is an empty space where she usually keeps her little car. Confirmation of a kind. Though it’s too late to pretend he hasn’t come. The only person in sight is a workman in shorts and singlet standing on a new ramp. So new the form-work has not yet been taken down. Ryan steps out of the car and leans against his duco reflection.
‘Come up,’ the workman calls cheerfully, taking hold of a stiff broom and beginning to sweep the cement dust. ‘It’s quite dry.’
‘Thanks.’
‘What do you think?’
‘A ramp?’
‘For Adam. So he can leave the house.’
‘Adam?’
‘You’re the television guy, I know. My daughter is in love with you. She’s six.’
Already they face an impasse. Neither man can think to say anything that might be understood. They nod at one another. Tentatively Ryan sets foot on the fresh concrete. Finding it firm, he climbs, witnessed by the stranger with the broom. He steps in from the verandah to the porch.
‘Enter,’ Adam’s voice calls from inside as if he expected this. ‘Come. Ar. Straight through. Ryan.’
‘Is that okay?’
Now he and he are face to face. With no Bridget between. No neutralizer. Just the scratching suspirations of a remote broom.
‘She isn’t here?’ the visitor asks with a history of guilt packed into the question.
Adam hears the hope, the apprehensiveness, the feeler.
‘She goes. Out quite a lot. She works.’
To Ryan, so attentive to nuance, this curtness discourages anything further in that line. Delicate issue. It’s one step away from an accusation that her absences include the times she visits him. He smiles confidently.
‘We’re looking forward to this show. I know my producer has been on the blower. So I thought I may as well drop in in person. Cut through the formalities. Just to assure you. Even the army has agreed to come to the party. We’re all set to go. But look, I’m sorry I didn’t check with you before coming over. I can see this is costing you.’
‘No worries. I. Get bored with. My own company.’
Adam busies himself adjusting the Contraption. He activates the power pack. Jointed insect-limbs click and lock in position to lift him on his feet. He rises. He is taller than Ryan.
‘That’s an amazing piece of equipment.’
‘How I got around. Before getting hit. With a missile. Was better.’
‘The question mark, I suppose, is . . .’
‘Showing a. Close-up?’
‘I mean to say, having some idea of the extent of—’ Ryan explains.
Adam cuts him off. ‘You want to. Ar. Check the damage?’
‘Well, just as much as you’re willing to show.’
‘Not a problem. Ar. I have my. Reasons.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘Take it from me. Mate. This is gross.’
‘We’ll be treading a fine line, I admit. The team’s on side already—it’s a question of reassuring the sponsors.’
‘That I’m going to. Look hideous enough?’
Bad luck that today of all days he persuaded Bridget to dress him. The easy-to-open underpants and baggy tracksuit seemed like progress and he felt for a moment normal. But now, if he’s to undress, the clothes give rise to some difficulty.
‘No. In case you’ll be too much. Too much for the viewers. An advertising agency checks everything out. I need a few photos. That should do the trick. Better than a thousand words. Right?’
‘I’m ready.’
‘Good, thank you.’
Adam leads the way, shuffling and bracketing into the bathroom where he painstakingly fumbles with loose fastenings.
‘Help me undo. Ar. These.’
The wrap is not difficult. He mostly manages himself. But sparkles of pain shoot around his ribs when it comes to easing his tracksuit pants off. This involves giving his arms freer access by cradling his weight in the orthopaedic frame. He pauses for a blank moment.
‘Today of all. Days I dressed. Wouldn’t you know.’
As if already practised in what needs to be done Ryan kneels down—a princely figure—like a supplicant. He watches himself in the big mirror as his hands reach round to assist. The strangeness of the tableau unforgettable.
‘Can you send. Pics for my. Blog?’
‘Sure.’
So they begin.
The photographs, once taken, show a drowned man dredged from the deep sea with weed-embedded flesh, lifeless thighs webbed in a net of grey and red entanglements. Chunks missing from the torso remain as hollows cupped by lumps and mounds under discoloured skin. The problems faced when cobbling together giant knuckles and unneeded knees are apparent. The joints themselves, locked permanently in bent projections at hip and ankle, are fixed as non-manoeuvrable parts.
The reconstruction, made up of rearranged bits—barring a few mismatched strips of throat-skin and belly-skin—approximates a mockery of Leonardo’s famous drawing of a man enclosed within a circle overlaid on a square. And perhaps with this in mind Adam balances, helped by the Contraption, arms outstretched. Ruefully, he looks himself up and down. The explosion is gouged in flesh as scar tissue.
‘I was uglier. Before.’
At the untouched centre the prominent genitals in their firm pouch seem to belong to someone else.
‘Forgive me,’ says Ryan. ‘This is intrusive, I know.’
‘No worries.’
Their eyes meet in the mirror. Despite his best efforts Ryan shudders.
Silence. A bright bathroom-lit silence. From outside the harsh sound of sweeping can be heard.
Time to cover his nakedness.
‘Are you ready for. Me to ask. My own questions?’
‘You can say whatever you like. It’s you that’s injured. I don’t imagine this is what the army had in mind when they contacted us, but what the hell?’
‘The army can just. Suck it up. Ay?’
‘Best not to tell me anything right now. Keep your questions for the show. But you can depend on me to ask why you guys were sent to fight for a lie in the first place.’
‘Thanks mate. Thanks for. Saying that.’
‘Well, the public needs to know how you feel: you and others like you.’
Ryan’s seriousness is new. New
to himself as well. He feels it. And when saying goodbye, having helped with the tracksuit pants, he even offers to shake hands, despite the attempt being complicated by the angles of the Contraption. Adam, by contrast, seems unaccountably cheerful.
‘Get fucked. Ryan.’
This is the first friendly note struck between them.
No doubt the bathroom mirror is empty of interest now there’s no one there. Time restores an element of peace. Half an hour has passed. The attentive mechanism awaits instruction. Ryan has left. And yet Adam is not alone. Yao stands in the doorway, hand in hand with his little girl.
‘The Ferrari’s gone,’ Yao confirms.