The volunteers cleared the room; as soon as the last person rose from it each table was stripped of its cloth, turned on its side and had its legs kicked in. Ruth and The Professor were speaking quietly to the well-dressed man at the door. He left, and Beth’s table emptied. She’d had too much to drink. She skolled her glass and gave it back. Thank you, she said, to the volunteer. She put a hand on the table. She could feel Ruth and The Professor watching. Thank you all, she said, with a vague gesture outward, I wasn’t expecting this, but in other ways I guess I was, and either way, thank you all. Two volunteers had taken the cover off the piano in the corner; they stopped while Beth was speaking, then rolled it out from the wall. Beth stood, and, carefully, deliberately, cut as straight a line as she could to the door.
Unsettled by the wine and the evening’s strangeness, she stood a moment in the hall. Those not leaving had gone back to their demountables or were out enjoying the evening air. Beth wasn’t sure which way was out, it all looked puzzling and new, and she was already halfway down a dimly lit corridor before she realised she was going the wrong way. She tried a door; it was locked. Damn, she thought. She tried another. I must have missed the turn back near the kitchen. She saw someone in a white coat scurry past at the end of the corridor and, nearer, light spilling from an open door. She went down there to look.
It was a staffroom, once a bedroom probably, but now with tables and chairs, a mostly empty bookshelf, a noticeboard, a TV and a fridge. Along one wall a makeshift bench and sink had been installed (you could see the pipes underneath); there were cups drying in the dish rack and beside that a microwave oven. The man she’d seen talking to Ruth and The Professor was sitting at one of the tables with an open laptop, beside him a blue mug with the word Jerry on it. He looked up, recognised Beth, and smiled. A handsome man with short grey hair and sparkling blue eyes. You’re Beth Own, he said. Beth staggered and stammered—Here I am, she thought, disoriented again—then put a casual hand on the doorframe. Yes, I am, she said. The man smiled. I’m Jerry, he said. Come in, sit down; you’ve had a big day. Beth let a little bubble of air escape from her lips. Puh, she said, you’re not wrong there. Jerry pulled out a chair, sat back down, joined his flat hands together and pointed at it. Beth sat. Jerry rested his hands on his thighs and leaned forward. So tell me, Beth, he said, what’s been happening in your world?
Beth tried to avoid his stare, conscious in that moment—overly conscious—of the grey skirt and white top she’d been wearing all day, the grime around the collar, the sweat stains under the arms, the cardigan around her waist to cover up the pumpkin stain from dinner. (Yes, she should have changed into something else before giving the suitcase away.) She smoothed down the skirt and touched her hair. Ahem, she said. (Had he misinterpreted her visit as intentional? Did he think she’d come down here for a chat?)
Well, Jerry, she said—it was the drink talking, she could feel it—while some things have become clearer, others are still confused. But that might just be me. Some things I understand. For example, I seem to have developed a special relationship with the moon that is somehow related to my dead mother. I also seem to be seeing more spectacular sunsets than usual, too. But on the other hand, in a medical sense, I still don’t know what’s wrong. I understand that diagnosis isn’t easy, said Beth, but it’s frustrating being this close to the end and still feeling like you’re in the dark. It’s human nature, isn’t it, to want to know why you’re going? Certainly it is, said Jerry. And then, said Beth, continuing, there’s the issue of David. She put quotes around him with her fingers. When you’ve been married eleven years with a family to raise and a mortgage to pay, you can’t expect the love to always be what it was—but, all the same, it’s astonishing how easily I’ve pushed him from my mind, let him go. Our two girls too. We get selfish, don’t we? Jerry nodded. Finding the right way to leave our loved ones, he said, is the most difficult lesson we’ll learn.
It was good to talk, and Jerry seemed to know how to listen. That’s something you don’t find often, she thought. From the moment she’d stumbled into the room there was no sense of him trying to hurry her on. Are you one of the volunteers? she asked. I run the show, said Jerry, smiling. Beth was half-surprised, half-confused. I set all this up, he said. I wanted a process that would give us some dignity and meaning. We rush through life into death, Beth, like we’ve been fired from a cannon, so to corral this final stage, slow it down and allow us to experience it among like-minded others, this has been my mission.
He tapped a key on his laptop and turned the screen towards her. The desktop photo was of a woman about Beth’s age with three smiling boys. My wife and children, said Jerry. Beautiful, aren’t they? Beth nodded. All killed together on a stretch of road not far from here. Belinda was picking Flynn up from basketball—that’s him, there—and the other two wanted to go for the ride. That’s Harley there, that’s Dexter. I was home watching telly. It was a sheep truck, going the other way. The people from a nearby farmhouse reported a bright, flooding light. But there was no leave-taking, you understand; no final, meaningful goodbye. It was all over in seconds. And there I was, with an empty house and all our things, bewildered at how this had happened. Where do we go? What is the hereafter? What place in this vast cosmos has been reserved for us? Beth half-shrugged. Are you afraid? he asked. She stumbled—no-one had asked her that before. Well, no, not really, she said, it’s just that it’s all happened so quick. In the history of the world we are the blink of an eye, said Jerry. He pulled the laptop back towards him, gazed a moment at the picture, then closed it. His face opened into a grin.
But here I am showing you my family snaps, he said, and getting all mawkish, when the ceremony is almost upon us! It only comes around once a month, so god help us if we missed it. He stood up; Beth did likewise. Don’t worry, he said, there’ll be plenty more time for working out your goodbyes: tonight’s ship is fully booked. And now, if you’ll excuse me. He offered Beth his hand and she shook it. Do you know where you’re going? (Do I know where I’m going?!) I mean now, said Jerry, in the house. Oh, yes, said Beth, thank you, and she made her way to the door.
There was music coming from the direction of the dining room and Beth set off down the corridor towards it; one by one she counted off the locked rooms until she found herself back near the kitchen. It was all quiet in there now, but she could see the double doors to the dining room open and a crowd looking in, their faces lit from the bright light inside. The music was louder here too: piano, snare drum and cymbal. A waltz. She joined the back of the group. The woman in front, a head taller, turned and whispered back—It’s the dance, can you see?—then she tapped the shoulder of the man in front.
All the tables and chairs were gone and the dining room had been converted back to the elegant ballroom it once was. Beth could just see the front edge of the piano—but not the pianist—and past that a young drummer in a dinner suit keeping time. In the open area of polished floor between the double doors and the floor-to-ceiling windows (Beth could see people out there too, on the verandah, looking in) were—it was hard to count because they were moving so fast—about twenty dancing couples. In each, one partner was a leaver, while the other was dressed head to toe in a stretchy black body costume with a skeleton painted front and back. Chins raised, spines straight, these Deaths led their clumsy partners in elegant patterns across the floor. It took a while among this whirling to pick out the individuals, but the tradesman stood out straight away. Still drunk, elephant-footed, his partner was a young female Death with breasts too big for her costume—if the tradesman wasn’t putting a hand on one of them he was clamping it on her ample behind. The young woman took all this with good humour—she was Death, after all, he was dying—and without breaking stride managed each time professionally to move it elsewhere.
It took Beth a while to pick out Kellie, despite the bright-red dress; she and her partner had confined themselves to one corner of the room, stepping in a tight pattern back and forth and sid
e to side. Beth pushed a little closer to the front. Kellie had her head resting on her partner’s shoulder and as they turned she saw Beth and gave her a sleepy smile before Death turned her away again. She looks blissful, thought Beth, as if—yes, that’s it—she’d already started to give herself away. But happily, peacefully, she thought, content in her partner’s arms. She watched the dance a little longer—it was strange, mesmerising, distressing but also somehow calming—then threaded a path back through the crowd.
Outside, all the chairs along the front verandah had been moved to the eastern side where a big crowd had gathered. Some were standing at the ballroom window, looking in, others had lined themselves up in the seats along the east verandah looking out at Bald Hill, while many more had already gathered down on the grass with their chairs and blankets, torches, candles and lanterns. It was dark out there, and chilly. Beth put the cardigan on. The stars were out; Bald Hill was little more than a dark hump in the distance, coated silver by the moon. Beth glanced at it but didn’t let the look linger and turned instead to the windows from which a bright light spilled.
The music out here was muffled and now competed with the night sounds of crickets, frogs and somewhere the repeated hoot of an owl, and all this gave an even greater strangeness to the vision in the window of twenty dancing Deaths and their willing, well-dressed partners. Beth caught another glimpse of Kellie—but this time something caught in her throat. She put a hand to her mouth, as if to stop it getting out. She stepped back. One of the people in the chairs on the verandah looked at her; Beth forced a smile and hurried away. She went down the steps to the back with the dark shapes of shipping containers and charity bins and the worn paths between them; she stepped away to the edge of the yard and tried to get her breathing to settle.
Out here, behind the house, the sky was blacker, the stars brighter; Beth stood halfway between Kellie’s garden and the kitchen door and let her eyes adjust. Above, white clusters like cloudburst, fixed constellations, streaks of spilt milk, bright stars pulsing, distant ones winking, a meteor falling and now, there, high up, a moving light—a satellite?—edging itself from the zenith to the east. In the history of the world, Jerry had said, we are the blink of an eye. And against this mighty night sky, thought Beth, even history is a blink.
She was so transfixed that she hadn’t noticed the music had stopped. A floodlight came on behind her, the kitchen door opened and the hired dancers filed out. They were student actors, presumably, perhaps from a nearby college, and had now unzipped and rolled down their costumes; on the top they wore singlets or T-shirts, and below, skeleton hips and legs. Their faces were flushed from the dancing and their hair was wet with sweat. The big-bosomed girl took the clips out of hers and shook it down. Never again, Beth heard her say: never again—and all the others laughed.
They gathered milk crates from the pile near the door and arranged them in a circle, put four in the centre for a table and set down some casks of wine and platters of food from the kitchen. From her place at the edge of the light between the dome of the sky and the circle of student actors eating and drinking, Beth watched. A picture so simple, so pure, she thought: youth, on the edge of adulthood, sharing, talking, laughing. Without realising it, she was crying. She let the tears fall. She wiped her cheeks and eyes. The actors had gone quiet. Are you okay? asked one. Yes, said Beth, stepping back: thank you, thank you, what a lovely dance. She turned away; they watched her go.
More people had gathered outside now, up on the verandah, down on the grass, standing in small groups at the fence. Beth found a spot on the grass. She could see the farmer with his mower on the trailer, leaning against his car, watching. The moon—still east of the zenith—was lighting the near side of Bald Hill and the road the farmer had mowed. There was a great sense of anticipation in the crowd. Beth caught sight of Jerry moving from the front steps down onto the grass, greeting people as he went. He too found a spot and sat.
There was muttering from those up on the verandah; Beth turned to look. Now the leavers were moving down the front steps, and, as a group, down the grassy slope to the gate. A hush fell over the crowd. Some of the student actors had also come around to watch; they stood in the shadows, holding their wines. Someone undid the latch on the gate; the leavers went through and positioned themselves at the start of the mowed road. Beth could see Kellie off to one side at the back. She was holding a bunch of flowers. She looked calm and ready.
Everything was silent and still. The moon cast an eerie glow. Beth heard—or thought she heard—a whirring sound. It was hard to tell out here in the open what it was or where it was from—it might, she thought, be the motor on the refrigerated container behind the house. But then, more strangely, another light—another moon?—started glowing over the back of the hill. The whirring grew louder, the light brighter; there was now real excitement in the crowd. The group of leavers at the start of the mowed road all stood looking up. Beth saw Kellie edge closer to the front. The whirring sound grew louder again and the light behind the hill brightened. Beth’s head was spinning: on the one hand, above them, a full moon newly risen and over there, behind the hill, what looked to be another full moon rising. Just as she was processing this, a great white light appeared. It rose as a half-dome above the hill, hurling its rays down across the paddock all the way to the group at the gate. The road between shone silver. The whirring sound wound down. The ship, pouring light from its portals, rose fully above the crest of the hill and delicately lowered itself onto it.
The whirring fell to a purr, but the light was still intense. Tentatively at first, then decisively, the group at the gate began their walk up the mowed road towards the light. The crowd applauded, the student actors too. (Kellie, thought Beth, where’s Kellie?)
The light from the ship was so intense now that it was hard to see but Kellie’s red dress was a beacon. She was near the back again, holding the hand of the old wigged woman beside her and leading her lovingly forward. Others were holding hands too, some had linked arms in twos and threes. One couple hurried ahead, and were now only metres from the hill. The others caught up; they began to ascend. The ship seemed to find more light then, more energy; it pulsed and glowed and everyone in the crowd had to shield their eyes. (This was the bit Ruth had warned them about.) The whirring sound increased and, opening her fingers a crack, Beth saw Kellie and the old woman—the last ones up—become engulfed, swallowed, then obliterated by the light. The whirring grew deafening, the white light pulsed; the ship hovered, rose, held a moment, then turned and streaked off, blazing eastward behind Bald Hill. The afterglow held, faded, until the only light left was from the moon above, the torches, lamps and candles. Everyone stood and cheered.
NEXT SHIP OUT
There was a whimper, a wail: David put his head in his hands. Jerry kept rubbing the small of his back. The Professor went on. So what is wrong? he said—that is the question. Something’s wrong, but what is it, goddamn it, what is it? I have no idea, we say, something’s just not quite right. But not quite right with what? we say. Is it the rightness? Is something wrong with the rightness? Is it all perhaps too right, too neat, too easy? Is it all so right that it’s finally all wrong?
It was May, and outside the Crying Room windows the sky was a misty grey. David sat slumped forward in his beanbag with Jerry alongside while the Professor paced the floor. There was a low table beside them, and on that a box of tissues. Trent had left an hour ago with his mother. In the far corner Beth’s young volunteer, Imogen, was helping the girls with their puzzle. They’d had their faces painted too: Letitia was a fox, Gemma a lion. On the chair beside them was Beth.
Imogen thinks I’m the best counter in the world! said Lettie. And I’m the best reader! said Gem. Beth gave them both a weary smile. It was mid-afternoon, and they were the only ones in the room. She’d already cried it all out. She watched David pluck another tissue from the box and hold it to his face.
So all right then, The Professor continued, don’t be afra
id, and in a fleeting moment of calmness we ask ourselves again: What is wrong? Well, not a lot, we answer, and surely that’s the problem? If there was something grossly wrong, David, we’d be able to pin it down straight away. So perhaps what is wrong, we say, speculatively, is that there’s nothing really terribly wrong and this is precisely what is giving us so much trouble? We expect a dreadful catastrophe, it doesn’t come, we feel uneasy and quite legitimately say: Something’s not quite right. A fine escape route, that!
The Professor stopped and pointed a finger at the ceiling—the girls looked over, as did Beth. But David kept his head bowed. He’s doing the calculations, thought Beth, and the numbers don’t add up.
So there’s nothing wrong, The Professor continued, pacing again, but we think there is, although we have no reason to, and we go on down this blind alley in the vain hope of having the scales fall from our eyes. What is wrong? I don’t know. Who does? Do you? (David looked up from his tissue—Is he talking to me?) This is the Essential Paradox, said The Professor, I’ve been working on it for years. We cannot fight it, David, we must learn to live with it. Maybe there should be something a little bit wrong? Maybe something would be really wrong if there wasn’t? If everything was all right, maybe it wouldn’t be?
He paused. Seven years in remission, he said, and I’ve learnt a thing or two. We cannot discover what is wrong, David, because what is wrong is that we cannot discover what is wrong.
Later, outside, Jerry helped David down the steps. Beth watched from the front verandah, the girls hugging her either side. Run over now, she said, and let Imogen help you in. Imogen was carrying the finished puzzle on a tray—grass, trees, rabbits, sky—and waiting with it over by the car. Beth kissed her girls goodbye. And what will you be? she asked. A piano player, said Lettie. A woodcutter, said Gem. Good girls, said Beth; off you go. She ruffled their hair, bent down and kissed them each on the head. She held the smell in her nostrils while they ran down the steps.
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