by David Miller
“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” said Jimmy.
Maureen nodded. “Why’s she by herself?”
“Because her lover has just gone to the crapper.”
“And there was me building a romantic story …”
“Do you want the rest of your wine?”
Maureen shook her head. He poured what was left of her glass into his.
“Get the bill, Jimmy.” He put his arm in the air and attracted the attention of the waiter. Left alone again he said,
“A woman by herself is the most erotic thought a man can have.”
“What d’you mean?”
“By herself she is the complete item. The brain, the body, the emotions. In the shower, in bed. Uninterfered with. Herself.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Sexy. Absorbed. Unreachable. Aloof. Detached.”
“I thought sexy was the opposite of detached.”
“A woman in a shop”, said Jimmy, “by herself is absorbed – choosing something to wear – looking through a rack of dresses.”
“Or even studying a book – or even writing a book.”
“You’re really fucking bolshie this evening.”
The partner of the woman in white returned to the table.
“He’s back,” said Jimmy. Maureen twisted in her seat to see.
“They can’t be married,” she said. “She smiled at him. That’s very early days. Second or third date.”
“Remember that?”
She smiled and put her hand on his.
“I do,” said Maureen. “Vividly.”
“That was a time of finding out … of knowing everything there is to know … There must be no privacy between people in love.”
“Crap Jimmy. You’re talking the impossible. Anyway, there can never be a situation where you know everything about another person. It’s harder to know one thing for sure.”
“Maybe.”
“When there’s nothing left to know there’s no mystery. We would all be so utterly predictable.”
The waiter brought the bill and they paid and left. Maureen checked her watch and saw there were only a couple of minutes before the fireworks were due to start. They walked quickly towards the main square.
It was a large open area overlooking the harbour. At the back of the square were the dark shapes of civic buildings. Gardens and pavements and steps descended to the sea. There were trees of different varieties symmetrically spaced. Looped between the trees were what looked like fairy lights but they were not working. Jimmy pointed them out to Maureen and laughed.
“They’re about as organised as the Irish,” he said. “If they had a microphone it’d whine.”
The square was filled with local people waiting for the fireworks. Amongst them, holidaymakers like Jimmy and Maureen were obvious.
Suddenly there was a whoosh of a rocket followed by an ear-shattering bang. Both Maureen and Jimmy jumped visibly. There was a sound of drums and the raucous piping noise of a shawm and ten or so figures pranced into the middle of the square.
“It’s the fucking Ku-Klax-Klan,” said Jimmy.
They were dressed in white overalls, some like sheets, some like rough suits. Their heads were hidden in triangular hoods with eye-slits. Two or three of them were whacking drums, all of them were dancing – leaping and cart-wheeling.
“I don’t like the look of these guys.”
“They’re really spooky.”
“Like drunk ghosts.”
“They’re more like your man – Miro,” said Maureen. The figures danced and dervished around, whirling hand-held fireworks and scattering fire crackers amongst the crowd who screamed and jostled out of their way.
“Jumpin jinnies, we used to call those,” shouted Maureen. The troupe of dancers pushed sculptures on wheels with fireworks attached – shapes of crescent moons, of angular trees, of whirling globes – from which rockets and Roman candles burst red and green and yellow over the heads of the public. Between the feet of the bystanders crackers exploded. The air was filled with screams of both adults and children as they leapt away from them.
“Jesus – this is so dangerous,” said Jimmy. “They’re breaking every regulation in the book.” The drums pounded and the pipe screeched on. As the sculptures were swung round they gushed sparks – sometimes it looked as if the sculptures moved because of the sparks – jet-propelled.
“Those robes must be fire-proofed. This wouldn’t be allowed at home. It scares the shit outa me – All-Bran or no All-Bran.”
“It’s so utterly primitive – prehistoric,” said Maureen.
“How could it be prehistoric. Gunpowder was invented in the middle ages.”
“There would have been an equivalent – fire, torches, sparks.”
“Come on let’s get outa here before somebody gets hurt.”
The troupe had split up and before Jimmy and Maureen could move three dancers had run up the steps and appeared behind them. Close up their robes were embroidered with Miro-like symbols. One of them held aloft a thing that looked like the spokes of an umbrella. Suddenly it burst into roaring fire – five Catherine wheels with whistles on them spraying sparks in every direction. They rained down on the crowd – white magnesium sparks – drenching them in light and danger and everyone screamed and covered their heads with their hands.
“Fucking hell,” shouted Jimmy. Maureen saw the white hot sparks bouncing off the cobblestones like dashing rain – white, intense, like welder’s sparks. She tried to cover her head – she knew the skin of her shoulders was bare. But she felt nothing. Neither did Jimmy. They ran, Jimmy elbowing his way through the crowd away from the dancers, pulling Maureen after him by the hand. On the edge of the crowd they looked at each other and laughed.
“They’re like kids’ hand-held fireworks,” said Jimmy. “They’re harmless. Fuckin sparklers.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not going back to check, I’ll tell you that.”
Again there was a series of enormous explosions just above their heads so that Maureen screamed out. What Jimmy had thought were broken fairy lights were fire crackers going off a few feet above their heads. They both ran holding hands.
They stopped at a small pavement area outside a bistro still in sight of the fireworks and they were both given a free sherry. The three supposed priests sat at a table near the door. They nodded recognition to each other. Jimmy ordered Menorcan gin and because he was going home the next evening allowed the barman to fill the glass with ice. They sat at the same side of the table, shoulder to shoulder, at a safe distance from the fireworks.
“It’s pure street theatre,” said Maureen. “The audience are involved because of their fear. The adrenalin flows. The costumes, the music, the fire –”
“It could never happen at home.”
“Yeah, we kill people outright.”
“The danger brings pleasure. It involves the audience totally.”
“Look,” said Jimmy. The young German couple were walking away from the fireworks. They had an arm around each other. They stopped to kiss and the boy slid both his hands down onto Heidrun’s backside to hold her closer.
“They make a fine couple – even though we don’t know their language.” When the kiss was finished the lovers walked passed the bistro. The boy’s hand was worming its way down the back of her shorts and Heidrun was leaning her blonde head against his shoulder.
Jimmy mimicked the gesture and laid his head on Maureen’s bare shoulder.
“I’d still be interested to know how far you went with previous – the men before me? You knew some pretty good tricks.”
She looked at him tight-lipped then moved away from his head.
“I wouldn’t like to see you with another man now – but I’d like to have seen you with one then.”
“This got us nowhere before,” she said quietly. “Jimmy, give it a rest.”
“No, why should I? Tell me about the first time you came, then.”
“I would if I could – if it’s SO important to you. But I can’t so I won’t. Would you like to ask your daughters this question the next time you see them?”
“Don’t be stupid. That’s a totally different thing.”
“I don’t see why.”
“Why can’t you tell me?” said Jimmy. “You’re repressed. Why can’t we talk openly about this?”
“It’s you that’s repressed,” she almost shouted, “wanting to know stuff like that. It’s becoming a fixation.”
“It was a question I’d always wanted to ask. I thought – what better time. Holiday. Alone. No kids.”
“No time is a good time for questions like that.”
When she lifted her sherry her hand was shaking.
“Don’t make such a big thing of it.”
“When you do those kind of things with people there’s a pact – a kind of unspoken thing – that it’s private – that it’s just between the two of you. Secrecy is a matter of honour.”
“So you have done it.”
“No – don’t be so stupid – it could be just kissing or affection or kidding on or flirting. Whatever it was it’s none of your fucking business.”
She did not finish her sherry but got to her feet.
“I’m going home. You can stay here with your priests, if you like.”
At about three o’clock Jimmy crawled into bed beside her and wakened her from a deep sleep. He was drunk and crying and apologising and patting her shoulder and telling her how good she was and how much she meant to him and that he would never ever ever ever leave her. He was a pest but that’s the way he was and she could like it or lump it. But she was a wonderful woman.
“Jimmy, shut up – will you?” Now that he had disturbed her she got up and went to the bathroom. When she came back he was snoring loudly. She closed the latch of the bedroom door so that he wouldn’t waken and tried to get some sleep on the sofa. She felt alone on the narrow rectangle of foam – lonely even – a very different feeling to the wonderful solitariness she had experienced in the cloisters. She couldn’t sleep. The thought of leaving Jimmy came into her head but it seemed so impossibly difficult, not part of any reality. Nothing bad enough had happened – or good enough – to force her to examine the possibility seriously. Where would she live? How could she tell the girls? What would she tell her parents? Jimmy was right about getting a job. It seemed so much simpler to stay as they were. The status quo. People stayed together because it was the best arrangement. She slept eventually and in the morning she could not distinguish when her deliberations had tailed off and turned to dreaming.
“Jimmy, I think we should try and salvage something from the last day.’ She spoke to wake him. Startled, he turned in the bed to face the room. Maureen had the large suitcase open on the floor. She was holding one of his jackets beneath her chin then folding the arms across the chest. She packed it into the case, then reached for another. Jimmy tried not to groan. He sat on the side of the bed and slowly realised he was still in his clothes. She must have taken his shoes off him. He put his bald head in his hands.
“Is the kettle boiled?”
“It was – a couple of hours ago.”
He got up and finished the packet of All-Bran – bran dust at this stage. He made tea and a piece of toast in the skeletal toaster. Maureen continued to pack.
“What time’s the flight?” he asked.
“Eighteen hundred hours.”
“I hate those fucking times. What time is that?”
“Minus twelve. Six o’clock.”
Jimmy had a shower and changed his clothes. After he cleaned his teeth he packed everything in sight into his wash-bag. He came out of the bathroom with a towel round his middle. He was grinning. Maureen was kneeling on the floor packing dirty washing into a Spar plastic bag.
“I’ve got the hang-over horn.”
“Well, that’s just too bad. There’s things to be done.”
“Indeed there are.”
Maureen got a brush and a plastic dust-pan. The living room floor was scritchy with sand spilled from their shoes. Earlier in the week Jimmy had knocked over a tumbler and it had exploded on the tiled floor into a million tiny fragments. She thought she had swept them all up at the time but still she was finding dangerous shards in the dust.
Between the bathroom and the living room the dead ants still blackened the margins of the honey-poison. There was no mop and she had not wanted to sweep them up and make the floor sticky underfoot. Now it didn’t seem to matter and she swept the whole mess onto the dust pan. Individual ants had lost their form and were now just black specks. She turned on the tap and washed them down the plug hole.
Jimmy was sent down the street to the waste-bins while she put any usable food in the fridge as a gift for whoever cleaned up. When he came back everything was done and the cases were sitting in the middle of the floor. Maureen was drinking a last coffee and there was one on the table for him.
He stood behind her chair and put his arms round her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “About last night. Going on and on about those …” He kissed the top of her hair.
“Jimmy – promise me. You mustn’t annoy me about that again.”
“Okay – scout’s honour.” He began massaging the muscles which joined her neck and shoulders.
“Oh – easy – that hurts.”
“What time do we have to vacate this place?”
“Mid-day.”
He bent over and whispered, “That gives us twenty minutes.”
They left their luggage at the Tour company headquarters for the remaining hours and went down to the beach. They walked along to the rocky promontory at the far side.
“I’ve really enjoyed this,” said Jimmy. “The whole thing.”
“Who did you meet up with last night?”
“They said they were social workers. Which means they admitted to being priests in mufti. They were okay.”
“What did you talk about?”
“I’m afraid eh … Large chunks of it are missing. We seemed to laugh a lot. I think they were every bit as pissed as I was.”
“I don’t like the look of them. They’re the kind of people who’d go out of their way to take a short cut.”
They sat on the rocks watching the sea swell in and out at their feet.
“It’s very clear,” said Jimmy. The water was blue-green, transparent.
“You can be a real pest when you come in like that. You look so stupid.”
“Sorry.”
They became aware of an old couple in bathing suits paddling into the sea close by the rocks, They looked like they were in their eighties. The woman wore a pink bathing cap which was shaped like a conical shell. Her wrinkled back was covered in moles or age spots as if someone had thrown a handful of wet sand at her back. The old man had the stub of an unlit cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth. Their skin was sallow. Mediterranean but paler than those around them for not having been exposed to the sun – although their faces and arms were the nut-brown colour of people who had worked in the open. The old man was taking the woman by the elbow and speaking loudly to her in Spanish, scolding her almost. But maybe she was deaf or could not hear, her ears being covered by the puce conical cap. She was shaking her head, her features cross. They were thigh-deep and wading. When the water rose to her waist she began to make small stirring motions with her hands as if she were performing the breast stroke. She made the sign of the cross. The old man shouted at her again. She dismissed him with a wave of her hand, then submerged herself by crouching down. She kept her face out of the water. The old man reached out from where he stood and cupped his hand under her chin. She began to make the breast-stroke motions with her arms, this time in the water. The old man shouted encouragement to her. She swam about ten or twelve strokes unaided until she swallowed sea water, coughed and threshed to her feet. The old man yelled and flung his damp cigar stub out to sea.
“Jesus –
he’s teaching her to swim.” Jimmy turned and looked up at his wife. Maureen was somewhere between laughing and crying.
“That’s magic,” she said. “What a bloody magic thing to do.”
REPORT ON THE
SHADOW INDUSTRY
Peter Carey
Peter Carey (b.1943) is one of Australia’s finest novelists. Born in Bacchus Marsh, his novels include the Man Booker Prize winning Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang. He has also won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize twice and the Miles Franklin Literary Award three times. His most recent work includes The Chemistry of Tears and Amnesia. He lives in New York. He once said of his work, “If you ever read one of my books I hope you’ll think it looks so easy. In fact, I wrote those chapters twenty times over, and over, and over, and if you want to write at a good level, you’ll have to do that too.”
1.
My friend S. went to live in America ten years ago and I still have the letter he wrote me when he first arrived, wherein he describes the shadow factories that were springing up on the west coast and the effects they were having on that society. “You see people in dark glasses wandering around the supermarkets at 2 a.m. There are great boxes all along the aisles, some as expensive as fifty dollars but most of them only five. There’s always Muzak. It gives me the shits more than the shadows. The people don’t look at one another. They come to browse through the boxes of shadows although the packets give no indication of what’s inside. It really depresses me to think of people going out at two in the morning because they need to try their luck with a shadow. Last week I was in a supermarket near Topanga and I saw an old negro tear the end off a shadow box. He was arrested almost immediately.”
A strange letter ten years ago but it accurately describes scenes that have since become common in this country. Yesterday I drove in from the airport past shadow factory after shadow factory, large faceless buildings gleaming in the sun, their secrets guarded by ex-policemen with Alsatian dogs.
The shadow factories have huge chimneys that reach far into the sky, chimneys which billow forth smoke of different, brilliant colours. It is said by some of my more cynical friends that the smoke has nothing to do with any manufacturing process and is merely a trick, fake evidence that technological miracles are being performed within the factories. The popular belief is that the smoke sometimes contains the most powerful shadows of all, those that are too large and powerful to be packaged. It is a common sight to see old women standing for hours outside the factories, staring into the smoke.