The Sunlit Zone
Page 3
on hard plastic. Perhaps it was to shut
the door on Jo’s curiosity or perhaps,
milk-glazed, my mother didn’t think.
but either way she said
—There’s webs between Finn’s toes.
—I knew that child was not quite right, said Jo.
What else? You’re sure that’s it?
But simulating static on the phone,
some kind of dropout in their zone,
my mother cut Jo off and settled us
as if nothing abnormal had been seen.
She began preparing vegetables for tea,
driving the knife in a bit too deep
and didn’t tell Richard
until the following week.
Part 3: Star Fish
Angler’s Bay, 2050
The first home curls around the heart
and cannot be dislodged.
Dorothy Hewett
1
Sunday, Dad turns eighty-three.
Mum and I give him a small party.
The three of us. For lunch. That’s it.
I carefully wrap his gift, a bonsai gum,
in star-flecked hollaphane and put it
on the top rack of my Pedal Flute.
—In, Bear, I say. And Bear leaps in.
I pedal stationary till the slipstream
kicks in, release the velocity switch
and vroom! we’re off in a silver streak
closely resembling a flute on wheels.
At 100k Bear’s ears blow back, jowls
salt-loosed, ecstatic as he gulps down
draughts of wind. My left arm aches.
I rub it but in vain. As I draw near
my parents’ house the ache begins
to radiate up the tendon in my neck.
My sister, haunting me again:
a ghostly tenant I can’t evict
from the heart-shaped house
inside my ribs.
2
Jo Green moved on some years ago
to a dome inside the city precinct.
The new owners have let her garden
go to seed. Her plump rose bushes
are stumps choked by tall weeds.
My parents never moved despite
the spectre of tragedy; the house
grew over this with time, and time,
in turn, muted history. The room
I shared with Finn is now junk-filled.
No one enters it unless they’ve lost
something. A cold zone’s replaced
our dinosaur fridge, mood walls
instead of plaster board and brick.
But a sister-ache still lurks inside
this house where we grew up.
Mum wants to sell but Dad
won’t hear of it.
3
The door scan confirms I’m not some
God Junk salesman trying to offload
old DVDs of Revelations.
—It’s me, I say to Mum’s silhouette.
—Hi love, she says. Hang on a sec.
She thought-codes the flexi screen,
gives me a bird peck on my cheek.
The house is a nest of melancholy
with green mood walls. Dad selects
a richer hue whenever my mother
leaves the room.
—Your dad’s out back, says Mum.
Take Bear straight through. Are his paws
clean? Robert has just vacuumed.
4
Robert leaves a few dirty spots
but Mum doesn’t seem to notice.
When her hip got bad, she gave in
to me. He’s a superseded model.
Robotic technology moves quickly.
Hip implants would fix Mum instantly
but she doesn’t like doctors or surgery.
Bear’s toenails clack on the living zone.
His nose tracks Dad, whom he adores, to the garden near the aviary he built
when we were kids, the cage bright-lit
with clumps of budgies nattering.
I watch him, grey head bent over
the plants he soaks with his own piss.
— To save on water, he insists.
—Richard! Mum calls. It’s North!
—Eh? says Dad.
—It’s North!
—What’s that?
—Nor’s here!
—Who’s here?
—It’s North, love. North!
5
Dad turns his fallow head
towards me, cardigan hanging
from old bones, stained by dirt
and food, as it always is.
—Happy birthday, I say
and hug him tight. His body light
and hollow-limbed, as if the wind
could take him easily. I hold out
my offering.
—Careful, Dad. It’s delicate.
—Well, well, he says, and wipes
a leaky eye with a large hanky
and then refolds it carefully. Now,
North, you know I don’t need
anything. He peels back hollaphane
to find the bonsai nestled there,
says, Ah! stroking the tiny ghost
gum trunk no wider than his thumb.
The small leaves shiver.
6
We’ve hardly had any rain this year
and yet Dad’s garden is thriving,
largely due to his watering habits.
Bonsais stand in pots; poised, balletic,
fed by compost with a carrion stink.
Mum refuses to go near this brew
that Dad concocts himself. Soil always
clings to him, in fissures of nail and skin.
When young I thought my dad knew
everything: what shells were made of,
how ants slept, why frogs became extinct.
He’s a land creature like me, though both
of us hover at the threshold between sand
and sea. I rub my arm but the ache persists.
—Look at your beans! I say to Dad.
—Oh, I don’t know, he says. I think whitefly
might get this lot.
7
He reaches for a bean pod and opens it
to reveal half-eaten seeds. Dad’s hands
are always reaching out to things:
bugs, worms, moths, fruit, seeds,
running fingers along the pods lightly
as if to gauge, Braille-like, the extent
of their disease. The garden bristles
nevertheless with carrots, cauliflower,
and cabbage. Dad scoffs at hybrids.
They leach the flavour, he insists.
His brussel sprouts are really sweet.
Finn and I loved them even as kids.
8
We go inside the house. Bear whines.
—Settle, I say, but Dad can’t help it.
He scratches the dog’s leviathan head.
Bear’s solid as a table, and exuberant.
He knocks my father sideways again.
I catch his small weight effortlessly.
—Richard, says Mum. Don’t let him in.
Robert’s just cleaned everything.
Bear groans a doggy groan and gazes
at Dad unblinkingly. My father’s grace
extends towards all lumbering, furry
,
wag-tailed things.
—Poor Bear, he says. He’s shivering.
—Okay, sighs Mum. But wipe his paws.
Dad winks at me theatrically
and lets Bear in.
9
I slap real butter on white bread.
Mum’s eyes flick to my waist
but she doesn’t dare say anything.
Her latest painting leans against the wall.
Dad fishing in overalls from the pier,
its pylons shiny and pristine; the old pier
now no more than a row of wooden teeth
beneath the new one they built over it.
—Nice one, I say. Like it.
—Thanks North, says Mum. You see, Richard?
—I like it, love, says Dad. I do. It’s just…
His hands helix and serpentine the air,
trying to conjure what’s unseen or just
not there.
—Vegetables ready, the Chef intones.
Mum turns to attend to this, her back
stiff and inscrutable.
—Table please, Robert, she says.
10
My parents eat small meals that digest
easily. My dad’s heart troubles him
as it’s done for years. There’s a lot
of white space on my plate. I strip
fish from bones, fill up on bread.
—How’s work, love? Mum says.
—Good. My stock response, alert
to any rocks that might ensnare
or trip us up. Talking shop can set
my father and me off. We graze
in very different paddocks.
—Any research trips? he asks.
—Not yet, I say (step carefully).
Maybe Cape York, if we get funding.
—Cape York? says Dad. Oh, North,
love, no, I wouldn’t go. The water’s
full of transgenics. They found a trout
there late last year with human ears.
—Oh Richard! Mum expels a long
breath forcibly.
—Rosebud’s nice, says Dad to me.
11
I take a stale and crumbling biscuit
from the jar and dunk it in the tea
Robert has made, too weak.
The winter evening creaks along,
the skies pooled and cloud-heavy
beyond the small lit kitchen cube.
Mum and I wash plates at the sink.
I’d use the Dish Wizard but she
insists on hand-washing. And after
this my mother sits with an open
sketchpad on her knee. She selects
a pencil and sharpens it.
12
Dad is absorbed by paperwork
he sorts out on the coffee table.
In an hour, he’ll have forgotten it.
—Don’t disturb him, Mum says.
It takes his mind off things.
The house smells sickly, like a shop
with clothes from last century.
Something sticky clings to my feet.
I’m battling a familiar, hollow feeling
that only disperses when I leave.
I duck out back and breathe in
earth’s secretions, the salted wind.
Insects fluoresce, and nano bees.
But Dad soon shuffles out, calling
—Are you there, North?
Moths flap blindly, are almost silent.
—North, love, are you out there?
—Yeah, Dad, I say. I’m here.
—Oh, North, he says. I thought you’d gone.
I extend one arm to steady him.
His hand is age-spotted, leathery.
13
Monday’s sky is fat with clouds
that hang above a corrugated ocean.
I walk to work along the tensile wall.
Waves slap up against concrete
and wash the dead whale’s carcass
listlessly. I watch the knot of men
thigh-deep in sea water, who work
the massive corpse, dissecting flukes
the size of garage doors. Lasers slice
through bone dully; the amputated tail,
black and swaying, is hoisted up by crane
and then released. A Hydro glides off
with the butchered bits. My left arm
begins to ache again. I turn away
towards Main Street but not before
I catch a final glimpse of the whale’s
torso being sliced from stump to teeth.
14
Main Street hibernates. A winter pall
hangs over Angler’s Bay till spring
when the salty heat will awaken it.
Tom’s Fish’n’Chips is firmly shut.
Boutique displays sit hushed
as unlit jewels in darkened caves.
But Pixie’s Café is open as always.
Fathers juggle toddlers and lattés.
I push through a snarl of strollers
and turn left into Rose Avenue,
walk past the Apocalyptic Church
and a row of office cubes. I walk
until I reach the lab that sits above
a pharmacy. Insert the thought-code,
climb the stairs, chuck my satchel
on the window sill. Think, caffeine,
but no, not yet. Just let the hum
of bubbles drifting through water
soothe me, as they always do.
15
Glass tanks line the lab’s back wall,
busy as cities with sea traffic: angels,
dragons, jellyfish, baby mantas, octopus.
All God’s creatures once, I think,
now cloned, spliced, split
and salvaged from extinction’s pit.
Once a week I let Dad in to clean.
I acquiesce for his frail heart’s sake.
Retirement demands he do something
and the lab instils in him a homecoming,
of sorts, so long as we don’t talk about it.
I utter the usual incantation,
—Let there be light!
The ceiling beams magnanimously
and offers me omnipotence, if short-lived.
I check picmail, podcasts, netnews.
Not much of interest except, perhaps,
that the last apostle on the Ocean Road
has just carked it.
16
On i-cam, I watch the limestone tower
implode into a sodden heap. Waves wash
over the stump of it. Blog gossip buzzes
with conspiracy theories, blaming L-Kida
or terrorist artists who like to work on big
canvases. Ah well. I dim the screen.
More urgent problems intervene,
like the Coronation Star in tank thirteen
released to control the Crown
of Thorns that plagues the reefs.
No one reckoned on crossbreeding,
a stuff-up caused by some scientist
who was clinically deranged, they said.
From every severed star fish leg another
baby monster buds. The coral’s dead
and choking with the buggers.
17
I do the stats, feed the fish, draft up
a paper on triton shrimps that munch
; on Coronation Stars like kids on chips.
Some twit from Queensland wants
to breed the tritons bigger, but I smell
money behind all this. Cane toads,
rabbits, nano bees, fluorescent foxes,
GM leaks, and we still haven’t learnt
from history. It’s eleven when Waverley,
flush-faced, clatters in, singing the refrain
from Dancing Queen.
—Hello! she says, discarding heat skins.
—Evening, I say. Where’ve you been?
—Bed, she yawns, star-shaped, scrawny,
her stick legs clad in black gel jeans.
She prances about distractedly,
less efficient in love than when lonely.
18
After a long and aching crush
on a librarian called Jill, it looks
like Waverley’s finally got the girl,
although an ex-girlfriend forms
the third point of this love triangle.
Waverley’s life invades her work
just like her hair, which catches
in my sinks. She takes too many
Gallopers despite the side effects:
tongue cancer, hair loss, psychosis.
Sometimes she doesn’t sleep for weeks.
She’s crooning now, off key.
The sea slug in her hand looks
as bewildered as a sea slug can.
I give her a look that’s meant to say:
stop piss farting around and help.
She stops mid-sashay.
—What?
19
Waverley settles in, but not before
she’s had a dose of wake-up krill.
She sighs beneath a haloed frizz,
one eye screwed in the hydroscope,
observing mutant stonefish cells.
Our work proceeds, punctuated
by the groans of whales mating:
Waverley’s latest skinfone tone.
Calls come in for her at intervals.
My brain scrawl starts to dissipate.
—Put it on silent, mate? I say.
She takes her call out on the stairs,