The Sea Bed

by Marele Day

  The main part of the station echoed with announcements of imminent departures. It was the hub from which tracks spoked out in all directions. The station complex housed a theatre with a shiny black granite foyer and red sashes, a hotel with seven hundred rooms, an underground shopping mall, office space and an art gallery. It was more than fifteen storeys high with a total f loor area of 218 000 square metres. This had been Lilli’s first taste of the city. When she disembarked from the train that had brought her here, she stepped into the promise of a bright and gleaming future.

  She never tired of coming in through the grand main entrance, looking up at the city sky through the steel-ribbed plate-glass ceiling. Lilli could gaze for hours into the loftiness echoing with pigeons, listen to the shuff le of the display board rearranging itself, destinations disappearing when their trains had departed, new ones joining the queue.

  Beside the station was a staircase as wide as Lilli’s laneway which allowed access from the north, where the grand entrance was, to the more modest south side without having to go through the labyrinth of the station itself. Office girls ate their lunch on these steps, couples met and sat quietly, joggers included this terraced hill on their fitness route. In the early mornings, before even the delivery vans arrived, Lilli ran up and down the steps. When she first started, she would pause at the top, catch her breath at the sight of the city stretching into the mountains, wait for the arrival of the dove-grey dawn when the streetlights finished their night shift.

  The train was already waiting, its doors still closed. Through the carriage windows Lilli could see pairs of cleaners searching for scraps of rubbish, adjusting the seats to face the right direction, putting away tray tables.

  A man in driver’s uniform, black with gold trim, stood chatting to two other men, the three of them breaking into laughter every so often. From time to time he looked at the large digital clock above the turnstiles, at his own watch, then resumed the conversation.

  In this room provided specially for the purpose, waiting became a focused activity. Some ticket holders were superficially engaged in looking at maps, sending text messages, reading the newspaper, studying their fingernails, but the main activity was waiting. Everyone was alert to the presence of the train, to changes on the platform, listening for the announcement, ready to gather belongings and move at a moment’s notice. Lilli sat upright, her body in the shape of the chair. She felt as if she might be called upon to make a speech or undergo an operation. She could easily leave, right now—go back up the escalator, past the travel posters—no-one would notice.

  The man opposite was looking at Lilli’s feet. The strappy shoes, painted toenails? Was she overdressed? Lilli shifted her feet into the darkness under her chair. The man looked away, f licked an invisible speck of something off his trousers.

  Lilli guessed he’d been visiting the city and was now returning home. Though neat and clean, his garments did not have the style or cut of city dwellers. The trousers were a particular shade of brown, the shirt lemon yellow with short sleeves. She pictured the tiny island shop that sold such clothes and a few household goods. Outside, on a piece of string under the striped awning, hung the blue jackets and trousers with elastic waistbands that the grandmothers wore. Inside the shop, which smelled of old paper, men’s shirts wrapped in cellophane were laid out on shelves according to size. There were hats, too, more formal ones of a material that felt like suede, stacked one on top of the other. The wide-brimmed hats for outdoor work were arranged on a stand with many branches. All year round the hat tree was in f lower. Rubber boots stood to attention under the shelves on one side like a row of soldiers. These were the items of clothing with the biggest turnover.

  The driver entered his compartment and pressed the button that slid open the carriage doors. Departure was announced. Passengers started boarding. Lilli could see them looking for their seats. A couple of backpackers were in the carriage directly in front. The girl held the tickets in her hand like a pair of playing cards, while the boy checked the numbers above the seats. He pointed, turned his head back to his companion. They took their backpacks off and the boy, the taller of the two, squashed them into the overhead rack. The girl said something to him. He reached up and retrieved a bottle of water from a side pocket, then they settled into their seats and all that was visible were their heads.

  Lilli continued to sit in the emptied waiting room. The brightness of the light no longer seemed cheerful but stark. It cast no shadows. The seats seemed to carry the imprint of those who had so recently sat here. A folded newspaper had been left on one of them.

  A guard standing near the driver’s compartment looked down the length of the platform. He was about to signal all-clear when he noticed Lilli. She glanced unnecessarily at her watch, stood up and pulled her suitcase towards the train. She stepped on board, the last passenger, and the train began its slow slide out of the station.

  It passed through suburban stations without stopping, the people on platforms framed in the window like snapshots—a man with a briefcase on the ground in front of him, feet either side. A woman rubbing her elbow. They stared straight ahead, appearing not even to see the train.

  Lilli sat back and studied the timetable. There were four departures a day for Boat Harbour, the first at 7.15, the last at 18.15, the schedule altered slightly on weekends and public holidays. Lilli collected timetables—trains, buses, planes, ferries.

  She also collected place names, spending hours leafing through the ponderous atlas that Cedar had given her. The spine of the book was worn, and many of the countries had changed names, rearranged their borders. Some of the natural features had disappeared but most were still there. Lilli made lists, arranging the names alphabetically, or according to how many syllables they had; whether they were jungles, deserts, oceans, valleys, mountains. Deserts: Tanami, Mojave, Gobi, Kalahari. Mountains: Annapurna, Rakaposhi, Ojos del Salado, Mercedario, Fuji, Everest. Rivers: Nile, Amazon, Hwang Ho, Murray-Darling, Mekong, Volga, Yukon, Euphrates. Principal Oceans and Seas: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, Mediterranean, South China, North, Red, Black, Yellow.

  The atlas included a map which showed the great migrations of birds (subtitled a mystery of endurance and navigation). Sandwich tern, lesser cuckoo, Arctic warbler, sooty shearwater, wandering albatross, bobolink, golden plover, snow goose. Lilli knew the names of the great oceanic currents, warm and cold. Cold: West Wind Drift, Labrador, Canaries, Benguela. Warm: North Equatorial, South Equatorial, Kuro Shio, Gulf Stream. The deepest part of the ocean was the Marianas trench. Continental shelves were the submerged edges of continents. Continental slopes dropped 4000 metres to the true ocean bed. Kilometres below the surface were mountains higher than Everest.

  Lilli took one name out at a time and savoured it, let it rest in her mouth like chocolate. Everest was crisp and minty, the Kalahari dry, full of air, a sunset the colour of bronze. The Gobi was made of rocks.

  When Lilli took out the name Boat Harbour she saw a pretty curve, an arc of deep blue water speckled with white yachts. The boats rocked gently from time to time, ropes clinking against masts, lazy slow-paced wind chimes. There were a few whitewashed houses, a little restaurant that served fish straight from the sea, abalone, sea urchin, oysters shucked while you waited. A friendly haven with unpolluted waters. The tourist brochures described it as a ‘thriving port’ from which could be seen ‘numerous fantastically shaped islands’.

  The train gathered speed, the landscape widening into f lat fields. Passengers were settled in, reading, doing puzzles, some chatting. Children had colouring-in books and pencils, computer games. The quiet murmurings of everyday life in this tube snaking its way across the countryside. The sky was big and bore down on the earth. It was mostly grey, verging on blue where it touched the green fields.

  It was winter when Lilli had left. There were patches of snow on the ground, the landscape blurred. Gaunt leaf less trees scratched into the sky. Somewhere she had seen squat orange persimmons hanging
onto branches long after their leaves had gone, a tree decorated with Christmas baubles. Now it was full summer. She did not remember where the persimmon tree was, whether they had already passed it or not yet gone that far. Nothing looked familiar. Occasionally Lilli saw farm workers bending to their tasks. Sometimes one of them waved.

  A service station, an asphalted yard selling farm machinery, a scatter of dwellings, then the road running alongside the railway track became thick with houses, every so often a side street. Billboards advertising cars, health insurance. The train entered a tunnel then emerged at a station. A few people got off and more got on.

  Lilli saw the two backpackers on the platform. She was surprised that they were getting off so soon. They were standing in front of the name of the station having their photo taken by a girl with hair dyed russet-brown. She handed the camera back to them and walked up the exit stairs. Then the couple got back on the train, the image safely in the camera. Proof.

  Lilli found images of famous landmarks—the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Mount Fuji, Sydney Harbour Bridge—and photoshopped herself into them. She also pasted herself into groups. She was the one holding the little yellow f lag, the tour guide. For more adventurous ‘travels’ she went to theme parks, kayaked down the Amazon (a bright blue and yellow macaw perched on an overhanging branch), rode on a camel, an elephant, stood beside a cowboy. She printed these out on photographic paper and included them in the letters back to Chicken.

  As well as timetables and names, Lilli also collected travel posters. One, from the art deco period, depicted a great ocean liner, a steamship with an imposing black funnel. The ship was so big that only half of it could be accommodated in the poster. Nevertheless, there was enough to see rows of round portholes in decks of pale green, cream, black. The ship towered above a street of houses with small balconies and window boxes full of geraniums. The glimpse of grey-green sea in one corner was barely noticeable. There were passengers in the foreground, a couple, leaning into each other. The man had glossy black hair combed straight back from his forehead, and a thin moustache that resembled a pair of pencilled eyebrows. He wore a black bowtie around a starched white collar which stood up and was folded down into triangles at each end. The woman wore a tight-fitting cloche fringed in beads. Her head was tilted back and she was laughing. They were having the time of their lives. Between two elegant fingers was a long slim cigarette holder. There were no other people in the poster, not even passengers on the ship, as if it were for their pleasure alone, to take them wherever they wanted.

  Such a large ship appeared to be indestructible but the sea could wreck it, rear up, submerge it. Or put something in its path. Even on calm innocuous days the sea claimed lives.

  Lilli thought she might have dozed, she couldn’t be sure. The regular rhythm of the train was mesmerising. Now, instead of f lat fields, the ground was wavy, with more trees, generous broad-leafed foliage. Occasionally far away on a hillside was an old-style timber dwelling. Just before the train entered the dark mouth of a tunnel, Lilli saw a car parked right near the railway track, for no apparent reason. They came out of the tunnel into rain. It tapped silently on the windowpane, lines of it angling off as the train sped through it.

  The aroma of other people’s lunches made Lilli feel hungry. She took out her egg sandwich and box of potato straws. The bread of the sandwich was white and f luffy, crusts cut off. She’d bought it at the station just before departure. It was like biting into a freshly laundered towel. Then came the smooth creaminess of the egg mayonnaise enlivened with a sprinkling of black pepper.

  When she had eaten the first half of the sandwich, Lilli opened the box of potato straws and pulled one of them out of the crowd. It was crisp and crunchy, tangy with salt, a delicious complement to the egg sandwich. She continued her lunch, alternating one taste with the other till the sandwich was finished.

  Some herd instinct had overtaken the carriage, because now everyone was eating lunch, having a picnic on the train. By coincidence, or perhaps by design, a young woman wearing a waitress cap, blue shirt and white apron entered through the automatic doors wheeling a trolley, with snacks underneath and cans of drinks on top.

  Lilli purchased a can of carbonated drink. When she removed the ring-pull the drink fizzed like beer but was the colour of black coffee and far too sweet. Having opened the can and taken a mouthful, Lilli felt committed. She could not put the top back on as she had with the potato straws and save it for later. Nor did she feel she could deposit an almost full can, all that liquid, in the recycle bin on the other side of the automatic doors. If she rested it in the net pocket on the back of the seat in front, it would spill. So she sat there drinking it, her hand wet with condensation.

  Lilli would have been content to continue like this forever, never arriving, never having to encounter anyone who knew her, living her life entirely in transit, always passing through, never attached. She had the company of strangers, and thoughts as big as the sky. The train moved at just the right speed to take in images—a car turning a corner, a crow on a fence, a persimmon tree—yet not long enough to have to dwell on them. Lilli was calm and protected in the train, anonymous. There were no artefacts of her life on view, no reminders. In her room, sparsely furnished though it was, her life stared back at her. Here everything was neatly packed away, zipped shut.

  The train emerged from another tunnel into more familiar-looking territory, although there was nothing Lilli could identify specifically. She looked at her watch. A half-hour to go. Saliva filled her mouth, some creature inside her was waking up, lifting her stomach.

  It was a child who saw it first. ‘Mama, the sea!’

  Lilli did not look up.

  The track curved and the train entered a tunnel of trees obliterating the view. Twenty minutes to go. The track curved again, bringing the train out of the trees and closer to the edge. For several hundred metres the train ran parallel to the sea, separated from it only by the highway. There were no houses here, just a high seawall keeping all that water at bay. Five minutes. Another curve, another tunnel.

  Boat Harbour. The train was travelling so slowly now that Lilli could not help but take everything in. Grey and white buildings covered the hillside like a f lock of seagulls. She saw the walkway leading over to the pearl museum, the esplanade that hemmed the port, the grand squareness of the aquarium, the tall office block with welcome to boat harbour painted in bright blue and pink.

  They passed over a small railway bridge, over a finger of sea that had snuck into the town, lethargic, hardly moving. The train inched its way steadily forward, along a crisscross of tracks, before coming to a halt.

  Arrival.

  Lilli had to stand up; the lady beside her was waiting to get out. Someone handed down Lilli’s suitcase. The doors whooshed open and passengers started moving. Lilli was caught in their current, carried along the platform, up the escalator. Only when they had passed through the turnstiles, dispersed and left the station could she stop to breathe.

  The old snack bar was still there. Lilli sat down at one of the tables. The same aroma of soy sauce, fried food, pickled ginger. The old newsstand had disappeared and there was now a brightly lit shop with not only racks of magazines and newspapers but souvenirs and gifts—everything from vacuum-packed shellfish to jewellery and toys. One entire section was devoted to the boxed lunches Lilli could not eat—chicken and rice, fish and rice, curry rice.

  Such lunches were for sale in stations all over the country. They came from factories of women working on an assembly line. The rice was extruded from a dispenser into the lunch box, a worker packing it down so that it was f lat and evenly spread. The box moved along to receive its piece of crumbed chicken, fish or vegetables. Further along a container of sauce was added, a small cup of pickles. When the meal was fully assembled, a lid was fitted, spoon taped on, then the lunch pack sealed. A quality controller made sure that each was exactly the same in weight, ingredients and appearance.

  The w
omen wore paper hats and clear plastic aprons. Before commencing they had to scrub and disinfect their hands, then have them examined by the health inspector. It was always cold in the factory. The chill rose from the concrete f loor, even through the work boots, and made your legs ache. It was this temperature for the food. You had to stand there for the entire shift. If you wanted to go to the toilet, you were required to tell the foreman and wait for a replacement before leaving the line. Although it was a break from the work it was not worth the publicity. Lilli lasted six weeks in this job.

  Through the expanse of glass Lilli watched the silent world outside. Across the bay was her island. From here it had the shape of a beached whale. The little harbour, the school and houses weren’t visible. From here you couldn’t see the people. You couldn’t see what had happened. It was just a bump on the horizon.

  Immediately outside the station traffic f lowed smoothly by, like schools of fish shaped by the currents, rivers in the sea. The sea roads were invisible but you knew they were there. You could tell by the way the fish moved, the colour of the water, by the transparent wavy squiggles coming from it, like waves of heat rising from a fire.

  On the day she had left Lilli sat here looking at the rain pattering on the large picture windows, dissolving everything— the road, the offices and hotels. The sea.

  She had arrived in Boat Harbour a long time before the train was due to depart, had caught the first ferry over, to avoid peak hour and the questions about where she was going, why she was carrying the suitcase. Everyone at the house would know by now that she had left. Lilli hoped Chicken was all right, that Violet wasn’t quizzing her. It would have been better if she’d stayed asleep. Cleaner.

  Lilli sat and waited, watched the turnover of passengers, saw them come and go from the snack-bar area. They had a beer, an ice-cream, a sandwich, noodle soup, tempura vegetables, some of them sitting on stools at the counter, others, like herself, at the chairs and tables, luggage held close.